Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
From the loft of the threshing barn Torra MacBren watched as clansmen and vassals began appearing in the gardens.
All of them appeared bewildered, as they had no memory of how they had arrived there.
They had not yet realized where the broken enchantment had brought them, but at least they had been restored to life.
When she tried to float back from the window, Torra slipped on some straw and fell, landing in a tangle of skirts that astonished her.
She hadn’t been able to wear clothing since… since…
Slowly she pushed herself up from the wooden floor with two very real hands, and smoothed down the rumpled golden velvet of her actual skirts. When she touched her face with trembling fingers, her cheeks grew wet.
“I’m alive.” Hearing her own voice echo in the threshing barn made her clap her hands over her mouth. “Harper shall live. We all of us shall live.” She flung up her arms and spun around madly. “My name, ’tis Torra MacBren, and I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.”
“Of course you’re here, my lady,” a querulous female voice called from beneath the loft. “How impatient you became, wishing to visit this wee castle.” She sniffed. “I cannae fathom why, for ’tisnae one of these McKeran fellows expected at court. Why, they’re horse breeders.”
Torra glanced over at her bad-tempered maid, Elsie. “They’re the very best of friends, I promise you.”
“Dinnae tell your lady màthair you’re befriending wild highlanders.” The maid sighed. “’Tis near noon, I fear. I must go to the village and buy that dye my lady bid me fetch for her. Shall I come back for you?”
Elsie had left her at Dun Talamh on that fateful day, Torra recalled, before Bodach had cursed the clan and killed her body. That was why she had no memory of the spell trap—and why that confirmed she had returned to her own time.
“When you fetch the dye take the carriage and return to the stronghold,” she told the maid. “I’ve someone to meet here.”
The maid uttered a sound of disapproval before she flounced out to the waiting carriage, which drove toward the gates.
Torra could recall only dimly what had happened when the enchantment had been broken by the laird.
Everything in the spell trap from the sky down began to crack as if it were made of badly-cured pottery.
Rory McKeran had at long last unleashed his dark druid power, but by using it to defeat the revenants, the faceless men and Bodach, he had not harmed a single living mortal.
He had been saved from his own grim legacy.
Now she had to know if one more man had been spared by the enchantment.
Torra hurried down the steps to the bottom floor of the barn, and lifted her skirts so she could run from there to the front gates, which still stood open. McKeran watchers and clansmen smiled at her as she rushed out and turned in a circle looking for the one she loved.
“Now, lass, why did you come here?” a gruff voice demanded.
Torra spun around to see her tall, florid-faced sire, now wearing his yellow and brown clan tartan over his most splendid garments. Turo MacBren looked every inch the king’s mormaer, but his expression suggested he might be as puzzled as the reappearing men and women in the gardens.
“I came in search of you, sire.” She forced herself to walk to him, but then he held out his arms and she rushed the rest of the way into his embrace.
Although everyone in the spell trap had hated her father, he was still her greatest love in this life.
“I hope you didnae come here to plague the McKeran about wedding me.”
“Wedding you to Tasgall McKeran?” The laird snorted. “Never should I settle for less than a prince for you, my sweetheart. No, I came to talk to him… Och, ’tis no matter. Shall we return home, and see what your lady màthair has cook making for our dinner?”
Torra tucked her arm through his, and blinked against the hot sting in her eyes. What he’d said proved that Bodach had been removed entirely from the timeline. Wherever he was, she hoped he had been brought to justice for what he had done.
“We must borrow some horses from the McKeran, sire,” she told her father, “for I fear I sent away your carriage with my maid to the village…”
Bodach woke with a pounding head and the taste of ashes in his mouth.
He had been so certain he would win the final battle in the spell trap that for a moment he expected to be filled with Torra MacBren’s magic.
Instead he ached all over and smelled of filth.
What had happened to him in that wretched place?
All he could remember was Rory McKeran wielding dark druid magic, and a wall collapsing on him. Was that the reason he’d grown so weak?
I must have prevailed over those abominations. They are but half-Fae. I am the son of two powerful Goblins.
The sound of soil being shifted made him push himself upright and swipe at the dirt covering his face.
He saw first the dark, gloomy clouds overhead and then the weed-choked field of the old prison cemetery on his left.
When he turned his head to the right he saw a group of his revenants digging what appeared to be a fresh grave.
Why had he been thrown out of the spell trap with these useless morons? They hadn’t been able to resist that halfling’s pathetic power.
Bodach managed to get to his feet and glanced down at the soil covering his garments; the dirt had even gotten into his mouth. The moment he spat it out all of the revenants stopped working and looked at him with their dead eyes.
“Continue your labors,” Bodach told them, making a shooing gesture before he took a step and fell to his knees. Two of the dead men came over to seize him by the arms. “What are you doing? Release me.”
Instead of obeying him they dragged him over to the grave, and tossed him into it.
Trying to slow his fall, Bodach clawed at the cold, crumbling dirt sides as he fell to the bottom of the deep hole.
He struck his head on something hard and darkness crowded his vision, making him lay still.
Shovels tossed dirt on top of him from above.
“I command you to lift me out of this hole,” Bodach told them firmly, and reached for his magic, going still as he realized it was gone. “No. It can’t be.”
The spell trap must have collapsed when it had ejected him back into the real world, and the backlash had wiped out his power.
Any moment now the dark Fae crystals in his blood would restore him, of course, but he could eat the ones he carried and renew himself.
He sputtered as a mound of dirt struck him in the face, and shoved his hands into his jacket pockets.
The crystals there crumbled to dust them moment he touched him. More dirt fell on him from above.
“You cannot bury me,” he shrieked at the revenants. “I am immortal, you mindless idiots.”
The dead men kept filling the grave with more soil, which quickly buried Bodach.
He fought the weight of it for as long as he could, but being unable to breathe made his head swim.
His only thought before he lost consciousness was that he would survive being buried alive, of course.
As a dark Fae he was immortal, and the power bestowed on him by his crystals would heal whatever was done to him.
So the spell of a thousand years had backlashed on him. Nothing, not even this, could kill him. He would think of a way to escape. He would return to his castle and stuff himself with crystal. He would tear apart the mortal realm just to amuse himself.
He would, as soon as he could catch his breath…
Bodach woke with a pounding head and the taste of ashes in his mouth.
The sound of soil being shifted made him push himself upright and swipe at the dirt covering his face.
For the second time he saw the dark, gloomy clouds overhead and then the weed-choked field of the old prison cemetery. He was having a nightmare, it seemed.
When he turned his head to the right he saw a group of his revenants digging the grave where they had just buried him.
He struggled to stand, but this time he didn’t spit out the dirt in his mouth.
He had to make no noise this time, and carefully staggered away from the dead men toward the locked gate of the cemetery.
He’d get to his car and drive off before they could grab him again.
When he heard shuffling footsteps behind him he tried to run, only to fall on his face when his legs buckled.
Why was he so weak? Why couldn’t he escape this ridiculous situation?
Your punishment will not be an eternity of suffering if you stop this and make amends to your victims, Chlíodhna’s voice murmured from the back of his mind.
When Bodach lifted his head to peer at where he had parked his car, he saw only the blurry illusion of the Mercedes, as if it had been painted with cheap watercolors.
Beyond it, the forested hills around the graveyard also looked indistinct.
He couldn’t see the sea anymore, or the curvature of the coastal road.
It was as if the world had shrunken down to just the old prison cemetery.
No. No, this can’t be happening to me. I wasn’t here when the spell trap collapsed. I was inside the castle’s bailey, under a pile of rubble. I should still be there. I just have to wake up.
The revenants gathered around him, looking down at him with their dead eyes.
“You cannot do this to me,” Bodach told them as two of the dead men seized him by the arms. “I am your master. I restored you to life. Release me this instant.”
The revenants dragged him back to the grave, and tossed him into it. Bodach didn’t try to slow his fall this time. The silent horror of his situation filled his thoughts like poison. As he hit his head again he shouted up at them.
“Stop it. Stop this.”
Scoops of dirt fell on top of him from above as the dead men labored on.