“Fand will accept your offer if ye first agree to destroy the Iron Throne.”
Brighid takes this news mighty cool, raising a single red eyebrow. The assembled courtiers aren’t cool about it at all. They set to whispering and tittering and gabbling about what it might mean or what Brighid will do and I want to shout at them all to shut it, but I grit me teeth and try to ride out the wave of me blood pressure rising to high tide in silence.
“Thank ye, Eoghan,” Brighid says. “Coriander.”
“Yes, Brighid?” the Herald Extraordinary replies.
“Report in summary the results of your meeting, including Fand’s words regarding the agreement, so that all may hear.”
Coriander bows, turns halfway to the assembled Fae Court without turning his back on Brighid, and announces the terms of the offer and Fand’s conditional acceptance. When he’s done, the excitement among the Fae is quite nearly raucous, because it’s all news to them, and there’re some spirited wagers being laid over how Brighid will respond. Brighid hears some of that, gives a tiny smirk, and lets it proceed for a full minute. Then she stands from the Iron Throne and projects her voice in three registers at once, which she only does on rare occasions. She cannot lie in that voice, and whatever she says during such times becomes the law.
“Hear me,” she says, and the Court quiets immediately. “I hereby accept and ratify the terms of the agreement on two conditions: First, that once the Iron Throne is destroyed, the Fae will undertake to build me a new throne, reflective of their finest skill, which they will have no trouble honoring henceforward; and second, that once we have prevailed in Ragnarok, Fand and all Fae will immediately pledge their fealty to me anew as First among the Fae, here, regardless of whether the new throne is completed or not, and together we will enjoy a new age of harmony. Fand shall accept my conditions by showing up on the field of battle against the forces of Loki and Hel. However!” she says, holding up a hand to forestall applause. “I need not wait on Fand’s acceptance to behave with honor and goodwill. To demonstrate both, I shall destroy the Iron Throne now. Let us celebrate that together.”
The fecking Fae damn near destroy me ears after that. It’s one hell of a roar of approval, and I clap me hands to the sides of me head for protection. Brighid smiles and summons a huge two-handed hammer from somewhere.
“Behold!” she cries out, and she swings it down right on the seat with a mighty clang, visibly denting the throne, and the roar swells anew. She swings again and again, and I turn to behold the Fae Court in all its joy, because the noise has turned odd somehow.
I quickly see why. It’s such a momentous occasion for the Fae that they’ve decided there’s nothing they’d rather do than have sex to remember it by. They’re flinging off their fancy clothes and banging away at each other as Brighid bangs away at the Iron Throne. An entire generation of Fae babies are going to be told that they were conceived during the destruction of the Iron Throne. And, yes, they’ll be thanking Fand for it. But they’ll be loyal to Brighid too.
Those working leathers make sense now, and I realize Brighid had been ready for this. Yes, she’s made a concession she’d never made before, but her obvious preparation signals that she was waiting for it, that she wanted it, and so it’s really no concession at all.
It’s about three seconds until I start to feel intensely uncomfortable. What am I supposed to be doing, then? Stand there and watch the Fae feck themselves sideways or watch Brighid work while I do nothing? I elect to silently get the hell out, because the last thing I want to do is interrupt anyone at that point. I assume that Coriander will communicate Brighid’s words and deeds, and my part in all this is done. I shift back to the tree Brighid bound in Tasmania, hoping to catch Greta and the apprentices, but the elemental informs me that they all elected to fly back to the United States in me absence.
They’ll be in the air for most of a day, and I feel a bit lost without them. I suppose I could simply catch up on me sleep, but instead I ask the elemental to contact Siodhachan and let him know I’d like to talk. Soon enough I’m answered: Me old apprentice wants me to shift out to his place in Oregon, and he’ll meet me there. When I point out I haven’t actually visited it yet, he says he’ll meet me at the Fae Court and then lead me to the proper bound tree, which makes me chuckle. I can’t wait to see his face when he sees what’s going on there right now.
It’s priceless. Just a gaping maw of horror as he takes in the whole field of writhing bodies, some of them flying and fornicating in midair.
“What do ye think they’ll call this, later on?” I asks him. “The Great Iron Orgy? The Demolition Sex Festival? The Carnal Cornucopia?”
“Let’s just go,” he says, and he shows me which tether is his. I follow him and arrive in a blessedly quiet place, save for the soft gurgle of a river, under a canopy of evergreens. It’s nighttime, wherever we are.
“Welcome,” he tells me, and in the dim illumination from his back porch light I see his eyebrows shoot up. “Oh!”
“What is it?”
“Apparently Orlaith has had puppies. And we missed seeing Granuaile.”
“How do ye—” And before I get me question out, that hound of Siodhachan’s bursts from the house along with a smaller dog, and I realize they must have told him as much. I know we’re not going to get much talking done until they settle down, so I remind myself to be patient and follow along into the house, where we must go to admire the new litter of hounds. They’re cute and healthy looking, that’s for certain, and after Siodhachan speaks with them and distributes scratches all around, he turns to me.
“Orlaith has a question she’d like to ask you,” he says. “Go ahead and bind with her.”
I reach out in the magical spectrum and tie my consciousness to hers.
Hello?
<Hello, Archdruid!>
Ye can call me Owen. Hello, Orlaith.
<Hello! I have a question, and you can think about it before answering. I was just wondering, since I have six puppies and you have six apprentices, if you think your apprentices would like wolfhound companions like all the best Druids have?>
All the best Druids, eh?
<Well, all the modern ones, you know. Irish wolfhounds are the perfect companion for any Druid and encourage the development of extra headspaces.>
I’m not sure how safe they’d be. I mean, we’re living with werewolves, after all. Me apprentices all have werewolves for parents.
<But Druids can train wolfhounds so easily and explain the dangers clearly! I am sure the puppies would be safe with your apprentices.>
Well, let me think on it, will ye? It’s not a decision I can make on me own. There are others to consider.
<I understand! Thank you, Owen! But I think you should consider getting a wolfhound companion also. It would suit you.>
Are ye sure? I turn into a great big bear pretty often.
<Oh, I know! But Oberon and I have learned to appreciate some bears now. There’s you, of course, and we recently met one named Suluk Black, and she was very nice, told us what great hounds we are.>
“Is that so?” I turn to Siodhachan. “Who’s this bear she’s talking about named Suluk Black?”
“Oh, that’s the daughter of Kodiak Black. It’s a bit of a story, if you want to hear it.”
“Sure. I have some time to kill.”
“I don’t have a lot, but I can tell you while I whip us up something to eat.”
There’s a British man in the living room named Earnest Goggins-Smythe, who’s been looking after the hounds for them as a sort of live-in dogsitter, and after introductions, he just nods at me once before returning to work on his computer. He has a couple of dogs in there with him, a poodle and some other breed I don’t know yet. They’re lying down underneath his chair, and they watch me pass by but don’t move. Siodhachan fixes up some burgers and bacon while telling me about Suluk Black and this squirrel on a train to Portland that got the hounds all excited and involved in solving murders. We’re having a beer afterward and cooling our toes in the river behind his cabin when he gets around to discussing what comes next.