The Answerer: A Modern Tale Of The Tuatha De Dannan Read online

  Chapter Eight – Reconstructing the crime

  “I think I know what happened,” he said. “There were three of them; two who I would guess were both Continuing Real IRA thugs and your Fítheal character. As they came through the door, the two terrorists raised their rifles and shot the guards. The guards didn’t even recognise the rifles as weapons so they didn’t defend themselves. They were dead before they knew they were being attacked. Their mother, on the other hand, saw what happened to her sons and I’m guessing she used her magic to create some kind of shield. That’s why there’s that pile of spent bullets: she just stopped them in mid-air.”

  Declan nodded. “Yes, it could well be possible.”

  “But I’m guessing that she couldn’t do that for long,” Sean continued. “The weapons were powerful, she was old and she was resisting Fítheal at the same time. When she realised she couldn’t resist much longer, she turned to try and secure the sword. Then,” Sean said grimly, “and they shot her in the back...many times. Is there any chance she could have sort of magiced the sword away somewhere before she was shot?”

  Declan shook his head. “No, Fítheal would be expecting that and he would have been able to stop her. Why do you ask?”

  “Because there’s something wrong...” He walked over to the two bodies near the door. “Let’s consider these two. They died facing each other. I’m guessing they had an argument and Billy McConakel here tried to shoot your Fítheal. That was a big mistake because he had no defence against magic. Bill’s partner, on the other hand, saw what happened to Billy and shot Fítheal in the back before the same could happen to him. The first question is: what were they fighting over?”

  Declan shrugged. “It’s not uncommon for thieves to fight over the spoils,” he said.

  “True,” Sean replied, “but here I don’t think there were any spoils. I think they were fighting over what had gone wrong.”

  “How so?” Declan asked.

  “Well,” Sean replied. “My curiosity was roused by the fact that there was a lot of blood but no bloody footprints. How did they get the sword?”

  “Fítheal could have levitated it across,” Declan suggested.

  Sean shook his head. “Maybe,” he said, “but I asked myself: wouldn’t the sword have been covered in blood? Why is there no trail of bloody drops on the floor? Is it likely that Fítheal was neat enough to clean it up? I don’t think so. Also, if you look at the platform you’ll see that it’s covered in the poor woman’s blood and there’s no sword shaped gap where the blood isn’t. That means that the sword was already gone before she was shot. And if our murderous little thief did get the sword, what did he do with it? Notice, both guns are missing. Assault rifles are heavy and I’ll bet that the sword was heavy too. How could he carry both guns and a great, heavy sword? Why would he want to? No, the real mystery here is not how these men died but what happened to the sword.”

  Declan scratched his head, puzzled. He raised his hand and bright light filled every dark shadow in the hall. There was no sign of the sword.

  “Then where do you think the sword is now?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure yet but I have another question for you,” Sean replied. “How did these three get in here and where did our missing man go?”

  Declan smiled ruefully. “Despite our best efforts, there are many secret, magical portals in and out of the citadel,” he said.

  “Okay,” Sean said, ”but could Billy’s very non-magical IRA mate make any of them work?”

  Declan looked thoughtful for a moment. “I doubt it,” he said, “and not even those two dolts on the gate are stupid enough to let anyone leave. He must still be hiding in the citadel.” He turned and walked swiftly out of the building. “Come Guard MacCarthy,” he called over his shoulder. “We have a murderer to hunt!” Sean followed as fast as he could.

  Chapter Nine – The capture

  When they left the building, Sean expected Declan to call some warriors together to start the search. Instead he did something quite unexpected. He whispered to the Lady Finola. She nodded, held out her arms and called down a sparrow. The small bird sat on her hand and listened as she whispered to it. It then flew off to joint its flock and soon there were sparrows flying everywhere. Declan bowed to Finola and then walked off through the citadel, watching the flight of the birds. After a few moments, however, he started to frown and his frown grew deeper as he continued to watch the birds.

  “What’s wrong?” Sean asked.

  “The birds have been instructed to roost where they find fugitive,” Declan answered. “I expected them to find him before this but they’re not settling anywhere. It’s beginning to look as if he may have escaped after all. The birds are hard to fool.”

  Sean watched the flight of the birds with renewed interest and he noticed something that Declan, focussed on where the birds would be landing, had missed.

  “Sometimes the absence is just as important as the occurrence,” he said, quoting one of his Templemore instructors. Declan looked at him quizzically and Sean pointed to a small barn of rough-hewn stone, built against the outside wall of the citadel. “Why are there no birds flying near there when they’re as thick as anything everywhere else?” he asked.

  “A good question Guard Sean MacCarthy,” Declan said grimly, “And who is it that is going to such effort to ensure that small barn isn’t noticed? You see the old woman sitting at the door, head down and wrapped in a ragged shawl and taking no interest in the world around her?” Sean nodded. ”Well, I know of no such woman in Tyr na nOg. I think it’s time this little game ended.” He strode quickly down to the barn with Sean following close behind.

  Declan pointed to the woman, who was still sitting motionless beside the door. “Reveal yourself,” he said. The bent, old lady vanished and in her place was a woman dressed in tight, black leather pants and a metal studded leather coat. A long dagger was strapped to her left thigh.

  She threw her long, red hair back over her shoulder and smiled. “Hello Declan,” she said. “It’s been a long time.”

  “Gráinne,” Declan said. “I should have known. You’ll get no leniency from the king, not now that you’re involved in murder…”

  “I am not involved in any murder,” she interrupted. “I’m just the door keeper here…”

  “You can explain that to the judges at your trial,” Declan said.

  The woman smiled sweetly at him. “No. I don’t think so,” she said. Then she was enveloped in a ball of flame and smoke and, as it cleared, one more bird joined the thousands already flying around the citadel. Many of these now came to rest on the thatched roof of the barn.

  “I’ll get her later,” Declan muttered. “For now, we’ve found our man.”

  “Be careful,” Sean cautioned, “You have seen what those guns can do.”

  “Do not worry Sean. One of the advantages of being who I am is the ability to see around corners and even through walls. I am prepared.” Declan gestured and the wall of the barn became transparent. Sean could see a frightened figure, holding an assault rifle in each hand and waiting to ambush anyone who came through the door.

  “We can see him but he can’t see us,” Declan explained. “I think we should take his weapons off him before he hurts anyone else.” Both rifles disappeared. The man cried out in terror and desperately, almost comically, searched for them around him, as if they had somehow just fallen down.

  “I think we should also stop him from running away,” Declan continued, and the figure in the barn was lifted off the ground to hang, upside down, in the air. Even as he was moved out of the barn, into the sunlight, he was still franticly struggling to find what was holding him: nothing was. He was just hanging there, upside down, about five meters from the ground.

  A rope appeared from nowhere and wrapped itself around the still frantic figure. Declan then lowered him gently to the ground and stood him on his feet. Behind him the barn had returned to its normal opaque state.

  “I
know you,” Sean said. “You’re Charlie Bruin. You’re wanted in connection to that terrorist bombing in Ballynagel.” The relief on the man’s face when he noticed the Guarda uniform was truly comical.

  “Yes! Yes! That’s me,” he cried in English. “Arrest me! Take me back to Ireland for trial. Don’t, for the love of God, leave me here. This place isn’t natural!”

  Sean shook his head. “I’m afraid I have no jurisdiction,” he said in a rather pompous voice, as if explaining the law to a child. “When in a foreign land you are subject to the laws and legal procedures of that place.” He stopped, uncertain, and looked at Declan. “There are legal procedures aren’t there? You don’t just get to kill him?”

  Declan laughed. “Oh don’t worry Sean,” he said. “We follow the old ways. This one will have his trial. There will be three judges to hear him and a lawyer to speak for him. They’ll decide the blood price to be paid. The price will be high and he may indeed pay with his life. He killed two guardians and an old lady using cowardly weapons. Still, he also killed Fítheal na Néifinn which was a public service and will count in his favour. Now there is a question I need answered.” He addressed the bound man in English, smiling and with his voice friendly and persuasive.

  “Now Charlie, you should know that if you refuse to answer my questions, that rope will get tighter: uncomfortably, even painfully, so. If you attempt to run away, it will become so tight you will not be able to breathe. Do you understand?” Charlie nodded miserably. “Good! Where is the sword?”

  “I don’t know,” Charlie replied. The rope began to tighten. “No! I really don’t know.” He cried in panic. “There was a bright flash and the sword was just gone. Felix, the bastard who brought us here, he didn’t know either. He said it wasn’t possible. Billy and him had this big argument. Then he killed Billy by magic and I had to kill him quick or he’d have done me too. I swear I don’t know what happened to the sword. It was just gone.”

  Declan looked thoughtful. “Unfortunately, I believe you,” he said. “Sean, will you please stay here a moment?” He then reached out and touched the bound man and they both disappeared. Declan reappeared a few minutes later.

  “Sorry to leave you,” he said. “I just had to take him off to the dungeon. He’ll keep the rats company until we can get the trial together. Now we have a mystery we may not be able to solve. What happened to the sword?”

  “I think I may know,” Sean said. “Can we go back to the treasure house?” Declan reached out his hand but Sean stepped back rapidly. “No, thank you but I think I’d rather walk.”

  Declan smiled. “As you wish,” he said. “This way...”

  Chapter Ten – The sword

  A few minutes later they stepped back into the torch lit hall of the treasure chamber. It was just as they had left it. Sean walked over to the platform, carefully avoiding the pools of blood.

  “The question is:” he said. “Why, if there were two guards, are there three spears?” He looked at the spears. Two were lying near the bodies of the guards and one was lying at the base of the platform. “I think that the old lady knew that she couldn’t hold out much longer so she resorted to the simplest magic she knew: magic she had known even as a child. She caused a bright flash of light which not only confused and distracted her attackers but also blinded them temporarily. We use flash bangs to do the same thing. Then she cast a glamour on the sword as she pushed it off the platform.”

  He closed his eyes as he bent down to pick up the spear at the base of the platform. It was heavy and as he moved his hands along it, his sense of touch told him that it was not a spear at all but a broad, two handed sword in a tooled leather scabbard, with a long shoulder strap. He felt a surge of power as he held it and he opened his eyes. The glamour had gone and he could see An Fragarach as what it was: ancient, beautiful and deadly. He could feel the power reaching up his arms. He could not take his eyes of the great weapon he held in his hands.

  He could hear Declan’s voice as if from a long way away, “Sean put the sword down! Put the sword back on the platform!” He looked up, dazed, as the power touched the edges of his mind. “I’m sorry Sean. I’m so sorry,” Declan said as he pointed his finger. Then all the world spun and blurred and went black.

  Sean woke to find himself lying on a bed a sweet smelling hay. Close above him was the thatched roof of one of the round houses. As he rolled out of the bed he could see that he was on a wooden platform that formed a kind of flat balcony all the way round the building. When he looked over the edge, he could see Declan sitting by the central fire pit and playing on a small harp.

  “Hey,” he called out. “What happened and why am I up here?”

  Declan looked up and smiled. “Ah, good. You’re awake,” he said. “The trial is due to start shortly and we need you as a witness.”

  “But what happened?” Sean insisted. “How did I get up here?” He looked around the platform, “And how do I get down?” There were no ladders or steps that he could see and it was certainly too high to jump. Declan gestured and Sean found himself on the floor next to the fire. He struggled quickly to his feet.

  “Our people don’t have much use for ladders or stairs,” Declan explained. “As for what happened…”He spread his hands in a gesture of sad helplessness. “I’m afraid I had to render you unconscious. I’m sorry Sean but the sword would have possessed you. I should have realised that you would be vulnerable. You see, it was the sword of the king’s avenger. Its very nature is to enforce justice and it recognised in you a guardian of the law. It would have attached itself to you. I had to stop it before it touched your mind.”

  Sean remembered the feeling of power he had felt when touching the sword. “What would have been so bad about it attaching itself to me?” he asked.

  Declan grimaced. “It would be a fearsome power. I doubt very much that you would have been able to control it and I don’t think its notion of justice would fit very well into your world’s understanding of legal process. No, An Fragarach is best left with us. Come, straighten yourself up. You need to look presentable before the judges.”

  Chapter Eleven – The trial

  About twenty minutes later, Sean was standing in the King’s hall watching the trial unfold. The prisoner was held in chains at one side of the hall, with a guard either side of him. When he had first been brought in and had spotted Sean’s Guarda uniform, he had called out desperately, “Guard! Guard! For the love of God, don’t leave me here!” The High King, who was now sitting on his rock/throne with the three dark robed judges in front of him, called to the prisoner.

  “Be silent. You will have your time to speak.” When Charlie Bruin kept calling out, the king wearily waved his hand and Charlie was silent. He was still trying to yell but now no sound came from his throat. He started to panic and struggle until a figure in a long robe of white wool came over to him, touched him on the arm and seemed to speak gently to him.

  “One of the Christian monks,” Declan whispered to Sean. “Brendan came here and we couldn’t stop him. He set up a monastery out near the mouth of the river and his monks have been here ever since.”

  “Brendan?” Sean asked in shock. “Do you mean Brendan the Navigator? St Brendan, who lived over a thousand years ago?”

  Declan nodded. “The same,” he said. “A remarkable man, utterly immune to our power. Thanks to him, there are a considerable number of the Tuatha de Dannan who are now Christian and the irony of that is exquisite.”

  For all the strangeness of the surroundings, the process of the trial was familiar. One clear difference was that none of the witnesses took an oath. It was just assumed that they would tell the truth. The two relief guards who had found the bodies were called to their account. Charlie Bruin’s representative then questioned them to establish that they had not seen Charlie anywhere near the crime scene. A physician gave evidence that the wounds seen on four of the bodies could not be caused by any weapon available to the Tuatha de Dannan nor by any known piec
e of magic. Next Finola was called to discuss the importance of An Fragarach and its implications outside Tyr na nOg. She also spoke of the decision to send Declan to Ireland. Then Declan gave his evidence and the two assault rifles were brought in a placed on a table in front of the judges. Sean was alarmed to see that they were both still loaded and that the safetys were off. The court clearly had no idea how dangerous these weapons were.

  Sean was the last witness to be called. He gave his evidence in the simple, straightforward manner he had been taught at Templemore. He then was cross examined by Charlie’s lawyer.

  “Guard Mac Carthy,”he began formally. “That is your correct title?” Sean nodded. “Do you know this man?” He pointed at Charlie.

  “Not personally,” Sean answered. “But he is sought by every guard in Ireland.”

  “So it would be fair to say that your people have a grudge against him,” the lawyer said waving broadly, “a grudge which could affect your judgement.”

  “No,” Sean said firmly. “It’s not a grudge. It’s the law. He is wanted in relation to the murder of women and children as they gathered for a market in Donegal. He exploded a bomb in the middle of a crowded market square.” The whole hall went very quiet. That someone would deliberately set out to kill women and children, and to do so in such a cowardly way, was beyond their experience.