The Prince of Two Tribes (16 page)

“Never heard of it. Sounds like a Japanese cartoon.”

Charlie burst out laughing. “Oh, Brendan, you are a real treat. Japanese cartoon. Ha! That’s good.” She continued to laugh despite glares from Kim and Greenleaf. She wiped her eyes with the hem of her T-shirt. “Sorry. That’s just funny.”

“Tír na nÓg is a stronghold of Faeries who wish to follow the Old Ways,” Greenleaf explained. “Pûkh was one of the Dark Faeries who lost the battle of the Final Alliance between Humans and Faeries. He chose to lead his followers into a sanctuary outside the realm of Humans. The Faeries of Tír na nÓg rarely venture outside their kingdom, but Pûkh put his name forward as one of your judges. This is a great honour, Brendan.”

“Lucky me! He sounds like a really great guy,” Brendan said glumly. “I guess I should be flattered?”

“I don’t know.” Kim shook her head. “I’d be suspicious. Who knows what he really wants. Maybe he just wants to get a look at you. Or maybe he has something else in mind.”

“He won’t make it easy, will he?” Brendan said.

No one said anything. Finally, Charlie smiled a lopsided smile. “Don’t count on it.”

Brendan felt his heart fall into his shoes.

Outside Greenleaf’s classroom, Harold and Dmitri strained to hear the conversation on the other side of the door. For some reason, though the door wasn’t particularly thick, they couldn’t make out a single intelligible word.

“What are they saying?” Dmitri whispered.

“What, have I got better ears than you? You tell me.” Harold’s round face was red and sweaty from the effort of squatting out of sight beneath the window, although he found maintaining his awkward position easier than he might have a few weeks before. He was eating less since he’d found this new obsession with Brendan. “It’s weird. They’ve been in there for half the lunch hour. What could they be talking about?”

“Beat me,” Dmitri whispered.

“Beats me. It’s beats me, you goof.” Harold had less patience with Dmitri’s English slang vocabulary than Brendan did.

“Sorry.” Dmitri shrugged. “What do we do now?”

“I don’t know. We gotta find out what Brendan’s been up to. And this super-babe cousin of his shows up outta nowhere? Did you see the way Kim reacted when she saw Charlie? She was really angry.”

“Yes,” Dmitri agreed. “There’s more to this than greets the eye!”

“Meets the eye! MEETS! OW!” Harold cried out as what felt like a vise gripped his ear and hauled him to his feet. It wasn’t a vise but a vice-principal. Harold and Dmitri had been so occupied with their eavesdropping that they’d failed to detect Ms. Abernathy’s stealthy approach. She clamped Dmitri’s ear in her other pincer and pulled him up, too.

“A little birdie told me you were lurking around up here,” Ms. Abernathy snapped. “The upper halls are off limits during lunch hour.”

“Yeah … uh … we … ”

“No excuses. We are going to the office and you’ll be assigned punishment duties. I think a couple of hours after school scrubbing the floors in the boys’ washrooms should teach you some respect for the rules.”

“We were just trying to … ” Harold stammered. “I mean, Mr. Greenleaf asked us to … ”

“What? Polish his keyhole with your ears?” she sneered. “You’re coming with me.”

Harold and Dmitri groaned as she dragged them away. Chester was careful to stay in the shadows of an alcove as they passed. Satisfied that the eavesdroppers were taken care of, he sidled away, whistling.

Inside the classroom, Mr. Greenleaf’s head turned as he heard the commotion. “We had some eavesdroppers, but thanks to my glamour and the trusty Ms. Abernathy, they’ve been dealt with.” He turned to Brendan. “We have explained what’s coming as best we can. I don’t want to frighten you, but you need to be prepared for the tests ahead. Ki-Mata … ” He addressed the sullen Faerie who sat with arms crossed at one of the desks. “I know you are upset. But I’ve done this for Brendan’s benefit. I hope you can forgive me and learn to get along with Charlie. You are more alike than you know.” Both girls snorted at that but didn’t speak. “All right. We’ve talked enough. The bell will ring soon and I have my lesson to prepare. I’ll see you tonight at the Swan.”

Kim, Brendan, and Charlie stood up and headed for the door.

“Oh, and Charlie?”

Charlie turned.

“Try not to do anything too outrageous, please?”

“Me?” She grinned. “Never.”

⁴¹
 I once leapt over a police car. It belonged to my nephew, who is three.

THE CIRCLE

The winter solstice, the time when the sun was farthest away from Toronto’s latitude, would fall on December twenty first, a Friday. That Friday would therefore be the shortest day of the year. It might also be the last day Brendan ever saw. Everything else seemed insignificant beside the Challenges. Brendan had four days until the Proving ceremony, and he was completely terrified.

According to Greenleaf and Kim, strong Wards, Compulsions, and glamours were being woven to keep the Human residents of Toronto away from the Island of the Ward. Weather glamours would freeze the lake to discourage travel, and the ferries would cease to run. Island residents would be convinced that they should spend the weekend away or ensconced in their homes.

Brendan couldn’t imagine the power required to work such a massive glamour. But he could easily imagine the worst coming to pass in the days ahead. In the four days he had left, he had to prepare for any possible test the judges might throw at him.
And
do his social studies project, although the wrath of Mrs. Scott, his teacher, paled in comparison to a fate worse than death. Brendan couldn’t believe how much his perspective had changed over the last few weeks. Before then he’d had a healthy fear of his high school teachers. Now he was standing across the sparring circle from Saskia, part-time bartender and full-time Warp Warrior, who was getting ready to hand him yet another beating as part of his training.

“This is completely hopeless!”

“Naw, it ain’t, lad! Ye were better tha’ time,” Og urged him. “Ye almost touched her once.”

“I missed by a mile,” Brendan grumbled.

“Och, aye. But still, it was closer than last time!” Og sat at the bar of the Swan of Liir, swigging from a mug of brown ale the size of Brendan’s entire head. Despite the glass’s size, his gnarled fist hefted it with ease. “Ye can’t give up.” He burped.

“Nope!” BLT cried, waving a tiny fist. She sat on the lip of a glass of diet cola, her feet dangling down and her free hand clinging to a drinking straw. “You show her who’s boss!”

Brendan was still gasping for breath after the last round. They’d been at it for an hour now, and he didn’t feel that he’d improved at all. His T-shirt was soaked with sweat and his hair plastered down. Saskia looked as if she’d just rolled out of bed, fresh as a daisy.

“You think too much, Brendan,” the Faerie said. “Your thoughts slow you down. Clear your mind and react, only react.”

Easy for you to say.
Brendan tried to free his mind of all stray thoughts. The fact that he had an audience didn’t help. Kim and Greenleaf stood at the railing on the balcony above, witnessing his humiliation.

Kim had been very cold to him when he’d arrived at the Swan. She was still angry about yielding her authority to Charlie.

“Where’s What’s-Her-Face?” she’d sneered when he had come in the door for his training session with Saskia.

“You mean Charlie?”

“Who else would I mean? Or do you have another girl I don’t know about?” At that, Kim had spun away and left him speechless.

As for Charlie, she had declined when he’d asked her to come along to the Swan.

“I have a few errands to run before the Gathering. Besides, I don’t think Kim is all that thrilled with me at the moment. I’ll see you later tonight,
non?”

Her absence annoyed him, which was strange because he’d found her incredibly annoying when she’d first shown up. Now he was mildly shocked to find that her presence was reassuring. She always had good advice. She was right about one thing, though: Kim was not fond of her at all.

Finbar was hard at work polishing the wooden tables. He pretended not to watch, but Brendan could see the old man stealing glimpses of him as he rubbed oil into the worn, gleaming surfaces.

Finbar had become a fixture at the Swan ever since he’d led Brendan to the amulet he’d stolen from Brendan as an infant. Though the old Exile had caused him a lot of trouble, Brendan had spoken up for him, taking his part in a bid to be reinstated in the Faerie Fellowship. Brendan knew what being an outsider felt like, so he sympathized with the white-haired, haggard man with the haunted blue eyes.

Still, the way those eyes followed him whenever he came to the Swan disturbed him. He saw a hunger there, a plea for help. Brendan had done all he could to plead Finbar’s case to Ariel. He imagined what it would be like to be an Exile himself, always knowing that another world existed and never being able to see it. He felt a sharp sadness for the old man wiping the table so doggedly.

“Hey, Finbar,” Brendan said with a little wave. Finbar raised his sad blue eyes from the table he was polishing. “You okay today?”

“Right as rain, young Prince. Right as rain.” The answer didn’t match the emptiness in Finbar’s eyes. “You just keep yer mind on yerself. I’m just fine.”

Brendan smiled and looked around the room. The rest of the audience was made up of a few early-evening patrons. Monday was a slow day at the Swan. That was why Saskia had the time to spar with Brendan. Leonard, usually the doorman and bouncer, was keeping an eye on the bar for his love, Saskia. They made a formidable couple: she a Warp Warrior and he a shape-shifter. Brendan had never seen the big man transform into a lion, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to. Leonard grinned at Brendan, his golden teeth glittering against his dark skin. “Don’t let her scare you, Brendan. She ain’t such a hard one, deep down.” Saskia bared her teeth at her man in a feral grin and growled deep in her throat. Leonard’s booming laugh rolled out across the bar like thunder.

“Ready, Brendan?” Saskia asked.

“I guess … ” He barely got the words out before she blurred across the circle on the attack. Brendan dove out of the way, brushing against the invisible barrier of the fighting circle. The barrier flared with a purplish light, and his shoulder stung where he’d brushed against it.

The fighting circle itself was amazing, though Brendan was too busy getting his butt handed to him to really marvel at it. Prior to their sparring match, as she had done before every session, Saskia had cleared the floor of furniture and drawn a circle on the seamless wooden floor with what appeared to be a piece of purple chalk. Satisfied with her work, she tucked the chalk in her trouser pocket. They were confined within the circle.

Saskia closed her eyes and took a deep breath, held it, and let it out. Brendan had seen many Faeries perform similar rituals to focus their minds before employing their powers. He envied her concentration. No matter how hard he tried, he could never seem to block out the world around him and see what he wanted with his mind’s eye. Saskia then clapped loudly once at each of the four points of the compass, north, south, east, and west. Suddenly, a shimmering cylinder of energy sprang up from the chalk line, reaching from the floor to the ceiling high above. The energy shimmered and then faded.

“That’s so cool,” Brendan had said the first time she’d created a fighting circle. He’d reached out to touch where he thought the barrier was. His fingertips brushed a flexible, elastic, yet impenetrable surface. Instantly, his hand sang with pain and went numb. A flare of purple light accompanied the agony. “Ow! MAN!”

“The circle is a holy shape, sacred to our people,” Saskia had explained. “It is simple. It is perfect. It is eternal. Within this circle, I will attempt to teach you how to defend yourself. The circle will contain you. You may not leave until I permit you to leave.”

“What if I have to go to the bathroom?” Brendan had quipped on that afternoon, weeks ago.

Saskia didn’t laugh. She flexed her fingers, stretched her neck until it cracked loudly, and then began to mercilessly thrash Brendan. When she’d finally let him out of the circle by scratching away a section of the chalk, Brendan was barely able to limp to the Faerie Terminal. He’d spent two hours in a hot bath at home before going to bed.

Now he was about to take a beating again. He watched Saskia crack her knuckles and his heart sank. He’d never so much as laid a finger on her in ten sessions. She was just too fast and far too experienced for him.

“The circle is in place,” Saskia said. “The pain is a distraction. Avoid the barrier. Defend yourself!” The sparring match commenced.

Another hour of punishment followed. Though he was aching from a hundred carefully aimed blows, Brendan believed he was beginning to follow Saskia’s movements a little better. She came at him from every angle. Her movements were so fast that her limbs were mere blurs.

Brendan was having less trouble staying in warp mode. He found he could connect with something inside him, like a current of energy running under the surface of his skin. He realized that apart from being a pain in the butt last night and keeping him from getting a good night’s sleep, Charlie had perhaps helped him see what he had to do.

In the meantime, Brendan had been scorched, whacked, slapped, and tripped more times than he could count while never landing a solid blow on his opponent. Saskia looked as fresh as ever. Her skin was flushed and slick with sweat, but otherwise she seemed unaffected. Now she was stalking him around the circle in an effort to lay yet another beating on him.

Brendan was exhausted. He was bruised. He was more than a little sick of being a punching bag. He tried to imagine himself moving faster, warping more efficiently, but he couldn’t concentrate. He was in too much pain. He couldn’t turn off the part of his mind that shrilled in his ears that he wasn’t able to beat Saskia and shouldn’t try.

Then he remembered what Charlie had said as they sat on the dome under the stars, watching the Dawn Flyers.
Sing a song inside your head
. Brendan thought about that.
It sounds crazy. I’ll probably just get my head knocked off, but at least there’ll be musical accompaniment.