Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
They passed a colorful penny tree and turned right to climb the wooden stile over the stacked stone wall that bordered Duncan’s cottage.
“This is your house here?” Laura’s voice was delighted. “I’m so jealous. I don’t have a house in California. Well, not on the other side of the gate.”
Duncan frowned. “Why not? You’re a messenger, right? Like a diplomat? You have more of a role here than I do.”
Laura shrugged. “I always sleep at Kere’s when I’m there.”
“I stay at the castle sometimes,” Duncan said. “But I like having my own space, and this is a little more… private.” He winked at Carys.
Carys’s cheeks burned at the memory of a few heated nights in Duncan’s cottage when the tension between them felt like it might set the thatch roof on fire.
“Auld Mags will have felt us coming,” Duncan said. “She always knows when I cross the gate.”
“Will I see her? Finally?” Carys turned to Laura. “Auld Mags is Duncan’s broonie.”
“Technically she belongs to the house,” he said. “Or the house belongs to her, to be more accurate. Most of the time I feel like I’m the one who’s intruding.”
Laura, Carys, and Duncan passed through a dense stand of rowan trees, and as they turned the corner, a low moo greeted them.
Carys looked up. “You got her a cow.”
There was a pretty brown cow munching on a few scattered flowers someone had thrown along the edge of the garden. She was wearing a straw hat that just covered the flop of long shaggy hair falling over her eyes.
“Ladies, meet Daisy.”
“Daisy!” Laura was in raptures. “Look at her.”
The cow trotted over and bumped Duncan’s arm with her head. “She has a little one about somewhere.” He craned his neck. “Come on now, lad.”
There was a tumbling sound from behind the woodpile, and then a shaggy-headed calf with a white star on his forehead popped his head up and bleated a bright, small moo.
“Oh my god, I could die.” Laura pressed her hands together. “I want one.”
“I know. It looks like a fairy tale.” Carys patted Daisy’s side. “This whole place is like one of my—”
“Your mom’s paintings!” Laura’s voice rose. “Oh my god! It so is.”
“Auld Mags won’t come out until night,” Duncan said. “So we should probably freshen up, grab some milk, then head to the forge.”
“Milk?”
Carys nodded. “That’s partly why Daisy comes in handy.”
Walking to the forge where they would meet Angus, Carys held a clay pitcher of fresh milk, and Laura had gathered a small bouquet of snowbells, daffodils, and a large clutch of bluebells under Carys’s direction.
Duncan was holding a hefty bag nearly tearing at the seams. “Copper,” he said bluntly. “Old copper wire. He loves messing about with it.”
“Okay.” Laura nodded slowly.
“So Angus is an ùruisg,” Duncan explained, “which I always thought was some kind of fae, but Carys and the dragon tell me I’m mistaken, and obviously they’re right, because he and I have…” Duncan cleared his throat and looked at the arched trees overhead. “I’ll tell you later.”
They had forged dragon steel, her boyfriend, her dragon, and the mysterious ùruisg who spoke in any language.
They walked through a forest and then down into a grotto-type area lined with stone where a small bridge crossed a brook of cold, tumbling water that danced over the rocks, singing along with the birds in the filtered light under the trees.
Laura noticed the difference as soon as they crossed the bridge. “No birds.”
Duncan shook his head. “Don’t know why, but sometimes Angus will throw out things like ‘birds can’t be trusted’ or the like, so it’s possible the fae watch him and he’s wary of them.”
“The fae wouldn’t watch one of their own,” Carys said. “Too nosy. Too rude.”
“So Angus isn’t fae.” Laura was whispering. “What is he?”
“That’s an excellent question.”
They walked through the forest, keeping to the stone pathway that led through the trees. They passed the forge and the small hut where Angus slept, but Carys saw no one moving, and the forge was not lit.
“Huh.” Duncan frowned. “That’s odd.”
“Should we keep walking?” There was something in Carys’s chest, some instinct drawing her deeper into the forest where no birds sang. “We should keep walking.”
She followed a narrow trail deeper into the woods where the only wild sound came from water running somewhere and an odd chorded music that sounded a bit like wind chimes.
With Duncan and Laura behind her, she reached a clearing where a waterfall tumbled over the rocks and a round pool had formed at the base.
This was no natural waterway; the pool was ringed by cut stones and cobbled rocks. The water flowed down the face of stacked slates, hitting copper bells that produced eerie, resonant notes that filled the air with their haunting song.
There was a clip-clop that sounded from behind the waterfall, and then a grey figure in a brown cloak appeared, walking through the water and tossing his hood back to reveal dark brown eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“You.” He glanced sideways at Duncan and Carys for a second before he walked to Laura and lowered his face to hers. He spoke something in her ear, and Laura’s eyes went wide.
Angus’s hooded head bobbed up and down, examining Laura from her toes to the top of her head, murmuring too low for Carys to hear.
Laura put a hand on her chest and patted it, straightening and lifting her chin as she responded in her mother tongue.
“What’s going on?” Duncan murmured.
“I don’t know.”
Angus passed a hand in front of Laura’s face, and when she turned, Carys saw her chin had been painted with the thin lines the Yurok women in the Shadowlands tattooed to mark their clan and their status.
Angus finally spoke to her. “Daughter of two worlds, you bring me another shadow-walker. Why am I not surprised by this?”
Carys knew not to answer too directly. “I don’t think you’re surprised by much, Angus.”
He kept his eyes on Laura when he spoke. “You are correct.”
Laura’s eyes were fixed on Angus. “How does he speak Yurok? Why?”
Carys had long suspected that Angus was some kind of god or demigod whose power came from the ancient messenger gods.
Mercury. Hermes. Thoth. Something even older than Thoth.
“Angus is good with languages,” Duncan said. “And he usually speaks to you in whatever language you speak.”
“For now I’ll keep to Anglian, since that is the common” —Angus spat out the word— “tongue.” He strode toward Carys with his loping gait. “Do you have a gift for me, Epona’s daughter?”
She held out the clay pitcher of milk. “A gift from Daisy.”
“And did you ask the cow for her offering?”
She’d thought it was a little odd at first, but she’d figured that it was Duncan’s superstition, not Angus’s. “I did.”
“Good.” He took the pitcher, lifted it to his lips, and drank deeply. “She’s a good cow.”
Then, without a word of warning, Angus put his hand on Carys’s chest and shoved her backward, into the pool.
She fell and she fell and she fell until her lungs were on fire and her clothes were dragging her to the depths.
She heard nothing but the chords from the copper bells, still striking over and over again by the falling water.
Carys was turned around, inside out, and had no idea which way to swim until a gleaming mirrored surface appeared in the distance.
She swam toward it, surfacing with a gasp into a dark grotto where water dripped from the rocks overhead into the pool where she had surfaced.
There was no cave, no opening, and the only light came from the surface of the water where she treaded. When she put her face under the surface, she saw the other side of the pool, and Laura’s and Duncan’s panicked faces as they searched for her.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
She pulled her head up, shook the water from her eyes, and saw Angus lurching toward her.
“What just happened?” She spat freezing water from her mouth. “Who are you? What are you, Angus?”
“You question me?” He leaned over her and shouted again. “Do you know what you have done?”
He was furious. She’d seen him cranky before, but now he was truly furious.
“I let the Morrígan into the Brightlands!” Carys was treading water, but her arms and legs were getting more and more exhausted.
She was dressed in heavy canvas pants, a short-sleeved shirt, and a canvas jacket.
“Then she used the fae battle on Saris Plain to give her enough power to raise a barrow.”
Angus glared at her but said nothing.
“I fucked up, Angus. Big-time. But can I get out of the water before I drown?”
Angus jerked his head to the side, and Carys saw steps hidden in the rocks. She swam to them and crawled up the stones and out of the water.
No light. No sound. And once she left the water, the flickering reflection of Laura and Duncan faded until all there was on the surface was an eerie silver light.
“Goddess of war and chaos in the Brightlands. Legends coming to life,” Angus muttered. “Your people have no idea what they are dealing with.”
“I know, okay?”
“There was a reason the gates were built!” Angus snarled. “There was a reason the magic was contained.”
“I know it’s bad. I know.” She held out her hands, which were shaking with both fear and freezing. “I need your help. The sea god’s daughter said that one choice will lead the way.”
Angus curled his lip. Had he always had fangs?
“One choice!” she said. “Angus. One choice. That’s you. She spoke in prophesy. I’ve read enough to recognize it when I see it. She spoke in prophesy, and she told me that you—Angus—will lead the way.”
“I could.” Angus lifted his chin. “But Wada’s daughter presumes too much.”
“I need your help.” Water dripped into her eyes, and she brushed it away again. “I fucked up and let a war goddess into the Brightlands. I know.”
“You think she’s simply a war goddess?” Angus let out a harsh laugh. “If all her power was contained in war, she could do no more harm to your world than you do to yourselves.”
“I know there is more to the Morrígan than war, but—”