“Wait. You think this person is working with the Olympians?”
“Now that we’re talking through it, I think they have to be. Just remember how this all went down. I was giving you a tour of the Old Ways. We got to a specific spot in Romania and the trap was sprung. The Olympians were already there waiting for us—and so was the Morrigan. Now, the Olympians have their own methods of divination and they could have figured out where to find you in advance, and of course it’s Pan and Faunus who are spreading pandemonium and preventing us from shifting through tethered trees, but there’s no way they could have set a manticore to guarding one of the Old Ways in Germany from the Tír na nÓg side. They have to be colluding with someone on the Fae Court, but I don’t think it’s Lord Grundlebeard. I think he’s involved, don’t get me wrong, but it’s more likely that he’s getting his orders from someone higher up.”
“Okay, I won’t argue with that. But the manticore tells us something else.”
“What?”
“Whoever’s after us, they’re spread really thin. You don’t use manticores as mercenaries unless you’re desperate, am I right?”
“That’s a good point,” I said. “I think we should address that and other points with Lord Grundlebeard at our earliest opportunity. Find out who’s giving him orders.”
“Agreed. Who knows what revelations would follow?”
<Hey, Atticus? Clever Girl? I’ve just had a revelation.>
“What is it?” I asked him.
<I know why humans wear clothes! It’s because you look ridiculous when you run naked. You both have all these floppy jiggly bits and—>
“Okay, that will do.”
<Victory is mine! Hound 1, Druids 0.>
“Oberon, we can’t play that now.”
<Well, what else are we going to do? I like a good run as much as the next hound, but we have been running for a really long time. I don’t get to stop and smell anything or chase pine martens or talk about my favorite movies, because you guys are wound up tighter than a Yorkie’s back door. Can’t we lighten up a bit while we run?>
“What do you want? A story?”
<Sure! A good Irish story.>
“All right. There’s one that may be relevant to our current situation. I just thought of someone amongst the Tuatha Dé Danann who might have the means, motive, and opportunity to arrange all this.”
<Well, that doesn’t sound like a story to me. It sounds like you want to obsess some more about who’s after you.>
“Obsess? I’d call it dutiful attention to self-preservation. Come on, Oberon. It has birds behaving badly, love rectangles, and even a cameo appearance by the late, not-so-great Aenghus Óg.”
<That god you killed a few months ago?>
“That was twelve years ago, Oberon, but, yes, that god.”
<Months, years, whatever. He was in a love rectangle?>
“No, Aenghus wasn’t, but his half brother, Midhir, was. They were both sons of the Dagda. And it’s Midhir who might be behind all this.”
“I haven’t met him, have I?” Granuaile asked.
“No, he was at the Fae Court the day you were introduced, but he did not introduce himself. I remember seeing him seated with the Tuatha Dé Danann on the right side of Brighid, but he didn’t come up to say hi with the rest of them.”
<Maybe he’s a little bit sore about you sending Aenghus to hell.>
“That’s my theory.”
<Okay, lay it on me.>
“All right. I don’t think I should tell you the whole thing—it would take too long. It’s practically an epic, called Tochmarc Étaíne, or The Wooing of Étaín. These events took place before I reached my first century of life. I had already discovered the secret to Immortali-Tea, thanks to Airmid, daughter of Dian Cecht, but I had yet to acquire Fragarach. Ready for the short version—the version I heard from people living at the time, not the one written down by Christian monks centuries later?”
<Yeah! Go!>
“Okay. Midhir desired a woman who was not his wife—a beautiful woman named Étaín. With Aenghus Óg’s help, he got her, and he lived with her for a year and a day—which effectively divorced him from his first wife, Fúamnach, according to the laws of the time. Fúamnach disapproved of the match, as you might expect, and being no slouch at magic herself, she turned Étaín into a large purple butterfly that was blown about on the wind for seven years, until the poor lass landed on the shoulder of Aenghus Óg.
“Realizing it was Étaín and that Midhir was especially talented in shape-shifting others besides himself, Aenghus warded Étaín with wild magic and tried to return her to Midhir, in hopes of saving her. But Fúamnach again summoned winds and blew Étaín away. This time the butterfly fell into a flagon and was consumed by the wife of a warrior who’d been trying to start a family. Aenghus Óg’s wards preserved Étaín’s life in singular fashion: She made the leap from digestive system to womb, shifted from butterfly to egg, and was eventually reborn to this woman, still beautiful but remembering nothing of her former existence.”
<Whoa, Atticus, hold on. Étaín was a large butterfly and this woman didn’t notice that floating in her drink? The wings and the little insect legs didn’t tickle her throat on the way down?>
“Well, it was a big-ass wooden flagon, Oberon, not a glass brandy snifter. You don’t take dainty sips out of a flagon. You gulp giant draughts at a time and let rivulets of mead flow out the sides of your mouth. If she felt anything at all, she’d probably chalk it up to something going down the wrong tube.”
<All right, but come on. How do you jump from stomach to womb? And shift from an insect to a fertilized human egg?>
“That was Aenghus Óg’s wild magic ward at work. It’s supposed to protect you, but its effects are unpredictable since it improvises its responses to danger. Most of the wards I craft are simply wards of repulsion, to prevent certain kinds of beings from passing—like a ring of salt can prevent the passage of spirits but not much else. Wild magic is capable of doing most anything.”
<And this all really happened?>
“As far as I know it’s true. The details were given to me by the Morrigan and Airmid after the fact. The Morrigan heard part of it from Aenghus Óg, and Airmid heard part of it from her father, Dian Cecht, whose role in this I’m kind of skipping for brevity.”
<Okay, what happened after she was reborn?>
“Years later, the High King of Ireland, Eochaid Airem, had his pick of the most beautiful women in Ireland for his bride and naturally chose to wed Étaín. The Tuatha Dé Danann always took note when the High King took a wife, and that is how Midhir learned that his old love was walking the world again. Midhir still loved her, but she, of course, didn’t remember him at all. So he set about wooing her in epic fashion.
“The story here goes on for quite some time about the love rectangle between Étaín and three men: Midhir, King Eochaid, and Eochaid’s brother, Aillil. Aillil was basically a puppet in all of this, his behavior controlled by Midhir and Aenghus Óg, but he at least escaped from the whole mess with only a few months’ suffering. Not so the High King.
“Midhir performed four magical tasks for the High King on behalf of Ireland and also gave away vast sums of wealth, all with the goal of winning Étaín. Once he figured that she rightfully belonged to him, he showed up at court in Tara, turned both himself and Étaín into swans, and flew away in full view of the monarch.
“King Eochaid searched for her for many years, tearing up the faery mounds of the Tuatha Dé Danann until finally he hit upon the correct one: Midhir’s síd, called Brí Léith. He demanded the return of Étaín, and Midhir eventually agreed, saying he’d bring her to Tara forthwith.