lily harper 04.5 - the bladesmith (6 page)

“May Ah remind ye that Donnchadh’s strength grows with every passin’ moment?” I inquired sarcastically. My arms newly freed, I placed my palms on the cold stone ground and pushed myself forward, but only as far as the chains and the soreness of my muscles would allow me. “Nae time like the present.”

Without saying anything, she walked around me until she was facing my back. Then she knelt down and traced the top of the tree tattoo with the pointed edge of the blade. “Is there a particular method in which I should do this?” she asked.

“Donnchadh’s contaminants reside in the lines o’ the tree,” I started.

“Then I should cut only the tattoo?” she interrupted.

“Nae,” I said, shaking my head. “’Twill be easier tae coot down mah back in long strokes, an’ then, coot across. Jist make sure all o’ the tree is included.”

“Very well,” she said with a sigh. She poised the cold tip of the blade at the top middle of my back. Without another word, she pushed down on the blade. The sharp pain was immediate, searing my flesh as the blade sunk into it. When she forced it downward, I had to lurch forward, straining against the chains that still bound my wrists. I gnashed my teeth and clenched my eyes shut tightly, bracing myself against the waves of agony that rode through me.

“Dinnae forgit … tae squeeze the … impurities oot!” I managed between labored breaths.

Suddenly, Donnchadh arose up from within me, his fury so palpable, I could feel it pumping through my veins. He was rebelling, trying to enforce his supremacy over my body before I drove him out. He was surging now, his anger emboldening him and making him stronger, harder than ever to control. I had to fight him; I had to resist him. I clenched my eyes shut tightly and directed all my inner strength against him. I expected the battle with Donnchadh to be all consuming, and now I sincerely doubted whether I had enough power to resist him. I was very aware that I could not suppress him alone.

“Squeeze!” I yelled. I needed Persephone’s assistance. There was no way I could beat Donnchadh back down without her support.

Placing her hands on either side of the wound she had just inflicted, she pushed her fingers together. I immediately felt a bubble of Donnchadh’s poison bursting from inside me, its gelatinous trail dripping down my back. I was momentarily aware of Persephone’s words of disgust, but I was unable to focus on anything except the burning pain.

Her hands descended another six inches or so before she squeezed them together again. Donnchadh’s filth immediately surged forward, boiling up from deep inside me. As her ministrations progressed, my own power returned, fortifying me little by little.

Donnchadh continued to rail against me, his essence at times so threatening, I was merely a hair away from unreining myself. If that were to happen, though, it would signify the end. With Donnchadh at the helm of my body, I could not save Lily. Donnchadh would no doubt rebel against Persephone, and he was strong enough to break the meager chains that held him. After burying himself inside Persephone, he would insist upon his own rule. Lily would be completely lost. He would annihilate everything I had worked so hard for.

That thought forced me onward, and I continued to defy him with renewed vigor.

“The wound is clear now,” Persephone announced, her voice breathy.

“Go oan tae the next,” I barked my response.

She did not reply, but I felt the blade’s tip digging into my shoulder on my left side. Violently, she ripped me open all the way to my right. The pain was so excruciating, my fingernails sliced into my palms.

I clung to the hope that it was enough to keep Donnchadh at bay.

SIX

“How many more must I make?” Persephone demanded, amid bouts of panting. Apparently slicing up my back and squeezing out Donnchadh’s contaminants was exhausting. I had lost count as to how many times she had cut me, but I imagined she must have been close to number nine or ten.

“Ye moost continue oontil ye make ah coot that doesnae leak Donnchadh’s pestilence,” I responded between gritted teeth.

For my part, I was fatigued. Between fighting Donnchadh to ensure he was not able to overtake my body and my own weariness and malnutrition, I was beyond weak. The only good news was that Donnchadh’s power was ever decreasing and now his presence felt more like a speck of insubordination rather than a raging inferno.

I felt Persephone dig the blade into the bottom of the tree tattoo, where the roots met the middle of my lower waist, and I marveled over the sudden numbness that overtook me. I was not certain if the pain was decreasing as Donnchadh’s impurities fled my body or if I was simply growing accustomed to it. Or perhaps I was so weary that my body was not able to feel anything any longer.

“The laceration I just made produced nothing other than your blood,” Persephone announced, her voice a monotone.

“Then Ah believe we have our answer as tae whether Ah am cleansed,” I responded.

“Then I should drink from you now?” she asked as she sidled down the length of my body until we were facing one another again. As I looked into her eyes, it took me a second or two to remind myself that this was not Lily looking back at me.

“Aye,” I answered with a brief nod as I dropped my attention from her black eyes, suddenly missing what had once been their brilliant emerald. I was then overcome with a sense of foreboding. It seemed to wash over me from my feet up until it overtook my entire being. This was my last chance to save Lily. It was my last chance to ensure that Lily’s essence was not overridden by Persephone. If this failed, I failed, and Lily would be forever lost to me and to herself. I was in no way prepared for such an outcome. Furthermore, I would never be able to forgive myself for not having been the protector to Lily that I should have been.

“And how should I do that?” Persephone asked, grabbing my attention away from my morose thoughts.

I held my right arm up as far as the chains would allow me and then rotated it so that my wrist was facing her. “Drink from mah wrist,” I said slowly.

She did not respond other than to nod briefly before she gripped my wrist with her left hand and held the blade above my veins with her right.

“Coot deep,” I added, wanting to ensure that she imbibed as much of my blood as she could. I imagined Lily needed all the help she could get, and a mouthful or two of my blood would not be enough. “Ye moost drink plenty,” I continued. “As if ye were parched an’ Ah was ah fountain.”

“I understand,” she said but did not appear to be very pleased with my instructions. She said nothing more but pressed down on the blade until it ruptured my skin. Then she pulled the knife toward her before dropping it back on the ground. The pain was present but was nothing compared to the throbbing agony I had experienced when she released Donnchadh’s impurities from me. Almost immediately a river of red surged up from the wound and began dripping down my hand, splashing on the cold stone ground.

“Drink!” I barked as she immediately brought her face to my wrist and wrapped her lips around the wound. I could feel her gentle suction as she pulled at it with her tongue, but I knew it would not be enough. “Soock harder! Ye moost swallow in mouthfuls!”

She began to draw on me harder, pulling at my wound with an intensity that caused it to burn in such a way that promised she was doing it correctly. “Verra good,” I crooned as I closed my eyes.

Donnchadh was not the only mystical part about me. Yes, he was responsible for my immortality, but he was not responsible for the Druid magic that was my heritage and had been with me since the day I was born. My Druid magic was an inherent part of my eternal self, that part of me that worked in unison with the laws of nature and the otherworldly. It was raw, uncultured and uncivilized. My magic danced with nature, with the flora and fauna realms and understood the innate reasoning within the natural order.

And now I called on that ancient Druid understanding to help me reach Lily. Just as I was of the earth, the air and the sea, Lily was the same. I had always known she shared some intangible oneness with me from the moment I first laid eyes on her when she and the silly angel approached me in the Dark Wood to forge her a sword. There was something in the energy that surrounded her, something that brought me back, that reminded me of the past, long before I had ever polluted myself with Donnchadh. I was never certain just what that oneness with Lily was, but even so, I was convinced of its existence nonetheless.

Yes, Lily was connected to me in some way. Though the mystery persisted as to how or why, the fact remained. In the beginning of our association, I tried to deny it. I found the familiarity I felt towards her disturbing and sought only to silence it, to continue living the lonely existence I had created for myself. But there was something about her that would not allow me to release her. This uncanny feeling was only deepened when I forged her sword and handed it to her. Upon touching it, she immediately saw Fergus Castle, the castle belonging to my family since the fourteenth century. Of course, after she received the image of Fergus Castle, I knew she had come into my life for a purpose. But that purpose was still shrouded in mystery, still unknown to us both. It was enough, though, for me to assume the role of her protector and her friend.

“I cannot swallow any more,” Persephone announced as she interrupted my thoughts and I felt my eyes pop open. “I’m seconds away from vomiting.” She pulled away from my wrist and gagged before cleaning the blood from her bottom lip.

“Nae,” I responded as I fervently shook my head.

“I cannot,” she started.

“’Tis nae enough tae provide ye the immortality ye seek. Ye willnae git mooch other than an oopset stomach,” I responded, a little more harshly than I had planned, but Lily’s safety relied on Persephone swallowing more of my blood. Thus it was crucial she continue.

“How much more?” she demanded as she coughed and then craned her head upward in what appeared to be an attempt to avoid vomiting.

“Yer immortality is comin’ tae ye at ah mooch smaller price than Ah paid fer mine,” I answered with no amount of apology. “Boot at the rate ye are goin’, ye willnae git it.”

She set her jaw in a defiant hold but then muttered something unintelligible as she dropped her head and placed her lips back on the gash in my skin. Then she started drinking from me again as I clenched my eyes shut and focused on the task at hand. I needed to set the wards of my Druid magic to protect Lily as best I could.

To do so, I had to voyage into that part of me where my surface thoughts could not travel. My magic existed in the deep valley of my subconscious, where the light of day-to-day, conscious feelings could not penetrate. This was the realm of the unconscious, the dominion of dreams and the soul. It was the core of my entire being. Accessing it was not an easy feat, either. It required extreme focus and usually a healthy body, which mine certainly was not. But I was out of options so I would work with what I had.

I closed my eyes even more tightly as I allowed my pupils to roll back into my head, up and behind the cover of my eyelids. Then I imagined traveling deeper inside myself, passing through doorway after doorway until I reached the last entrance into the center of my being. Once I was ensconced within the essence of myself, I imagined Lily.

She appeared to me almost immediately, which surprised me. I thought I might have to search through my memories to find an image of her, but such was not the case. I could see her as if she were standing right in front of me. She was dressed in her tight exercise pants, pants which did nothing to hide the beauty of the curves of her bottom or her thighs. On the upper half of her body, she wore a small contraption that kept her sizable breasts from bouncing about, but her waist was bare, as were her arms.

While keeping Lily in my mind’s eye, I imagined a square surrounding her. Beginning in the left uppermost corner of the square, I commanded that corner to be black, shrouded in darkness. Honing in on the strength and power behind my intention, I imagined white energy suddenly appearing at the uppermost, right corner of the square. This white energy was overflowing with my own feelings of protection and responsibility. I colored the lowermost, right corner of the square with darkness and the lowermost, left corner with light. Thus, the two corners opposite each other were dark and the other two white. In doing so, I was calling on the balance of light and dark to work for me. As all things in nature existed between light and dark, neither was good nor bad. They simply were.

In order to completely protect Lily, I had to envision this square of protection extending down into the earth where it could pull the power of the earth, the water and the roots of the trees. Then I imagined the square extending up, into the sky, where it could pull the power of the air, the sun, the moon and the stars.

I focused on Lily again and imagined this natural energy suffusing her, surrounding her with its spirit. I called upon my Druid magic, using the ancient tongue of my ancestors, and asked the balance of light and dark to protect her, to disallow the poison of Persephone to completely overcome her. Once I finished, I allowed my pupils to resume their natural place behind my eyelids and I opened my eyes. I could feel my blood pulsing through my veins, and marveled over the fact that I had not been able to feel it earlier.

It was a sign that I had empowered myself, filled myself up with the power that had been buried so deeply within me. Now I could only hope that my magic was potent enough to survive the trip from my body to Lily’s.