Page 75 of Arise the Queen
Everything the Sea God ever offered came with a price—the Land of Promise, Enbarr’s mares, the Lake of Fire, theFéth fiada,Tír na nÓg, and every gift he’d ever lent. Manannán had even had a hand in this fate they were dealt by the Sons of Míl, conspiring with those men to conquer the Tuatha Dé Danann, and then, even the mists he’d cast to “conceal and protect” had become a prison—and why?
Because he could.
To teach them all a lesson—that they were not gods, as he.
To put them in their place.
To punish them for wanting more.
If Manannán was barred from returning to Tír na nÓg, this was the least of which he deserved, and still he’d found some way to interfere, though he’d underestimated his golden-haired daughter.
“I recognize that sword at your back,” said Baugh, intruding upon Málik’s reverie. “The Answerer.”He laughed then. “Fortunately, I realized when he offered it to me it, too, would come with a price.”
It did. And its price was this: He who held the Answerer could not onlynotlie, even as it wrested the truth from the lips of others, neither could he cast it away. Manannán had gifted Málik the sword. And now, it would be his burden for eternity unless someone took it from his lifeless body.
No matter… it had served him well enough, and any harm it could do to him had already been done and never again undone—the betrayal of his father, the divulging of his true name… the divulging of Gwendolyn’s rebellion.
When he’d told Gwendolyn he could not lie, that sword was the reason—not because Fae had any complaint against deception.
They were tricksters, every one.
Himself included.
“You say you knew my father?” Málik asked, changing the topic. He did not wish to speak of Manannán, nor the gifts he’d been too young, too stupid and greedy not to accept.
“I did,” said Baugh. “You should know… he came through Skerrabra many, many moons ago, intending to make his peace, and said he meant to go home.”
Home.
Málik blinked, surprised.
Their true home was a place Málik could scarcely even recall—a land of eternal spring, with woodlands of golden poplars, their ageless beauty rivaling even the garden of Appollon. In that place, they had been blessed with long-life, untouched by the ravages of age or disease, and still they’d been tempted to leave it.
Bordered on the north by the furious Okeanos, on the south by the impassible Rhipaion mountains, with the Lands of Eternal Winter at its feet, its peaks were guarded by Grypes and Wyrms, and its valleys by the one-eyed Arimaspoi tribe, from which the Fomorians were descended.
If his father had returned there, it was only because he had kin amongst the Wyrms, but there was no way to know this unless Málik attempted the journey himself. But if he did that, any hope of reuniting with Gwendolyn would be eternally lost.
So then, he could go seek his father…
Or he could wait upon his throne to see if the Fates might be kind.
“My wife’s kinsmen have a tale they tell… of a place called Valhalla… where the warriors will go when they are slain…carried away by Valkyries… said to be the loveliest of angels. And there, they feast eternally.”
Málik said nothing, watching Gwendolyn still. She slowed her pace, approaching still, tilting her head in question.
“Perhaps you may think of your father in such a place… in that house of the dead, where someday his kin will all gather.”
Still, Málik said nothing, his heart heavy despite the act of kindness he sensed this man was attempting to impart.
“Well, it is an excellent story,” Baugh allowed. “Even if it is not true.”
Málik nodded, still watching Gwendolyn’s approach, intending to be done with this conversation by the time she returned.
In like kind, so long as he had searched already, his father’s story must end. It was possible he had gone to Trevena to give up his ghost in that alcove above their city, bestowing upon Gwendolyn a last gift meant to atone for the sins of his son. But… maybe he had returned to Hyperborea to live out his years with the ones who’d begot him. Some things were not meant to be known.
“So tell me,” Baugh persisted. “Why did you lend your warriors to this fight if you stand to gain nothing from its resolution? As Amergin will have it, the fate of our worlds will no longer entwine?”
Málik cast him a pointed glance. “Everything isalwaysentwined,” he argued, and Baugh shrugged.
