Chapter 114

Tír na nÓg was a madhouse, or rather Keldravan was. The attack by Oonagh’s forces had come as a complete surprise to an area that should have been as secure as anywhere possible. Yet the Sidhe could not detect how they did this, hence the invitation to Morgana.

“Heinrich wards,” I murmured to Morgana as we were briefed on the attack which had failed to get to Verenestra, but only just.

“You may well be right, John,” Morgana agreed. “Oonagh would have had dealings with Heinrich and may possibly have been the source of the spell involved

“Which means that Oonagh is here somewhere, hidden in plain sight,” I posited.

“A very troubling conclusion, John, but you may well be right,” she nodded.

“Do you have a plan of the palace?” I asked Talshish who was our Sidhe liaison.

“There may be one in the library, but I’ve never seen one. We simply know where everything is by group consensus,” Talshish replied, looking troubled.

“I will go and look,” Serice volunteered.

“I’ll accompany you if I may?” I asked, getting a nod off Morgana.

“Of course, John. Two sets of eyes are better than one,” she cheerfully agreed.

The library was huge and disorderly in the sense that there had been no attempt to order anything systematically, either by date or subject.

Nor were we helped by the staff of scribes running the place, who either ignored us or misdirected us maliciously.

“I think I’ll suggest to the Queen that a new regime is required down here,” I mused loudly.

“Their posts are hereditary, John,” Serice replied in as loud a voice.

“Not against a royal command,” I chuckled.

“There are some who would feel terribly aggrieved if Queen Verenestra did such a thing,” Serice said thoughtfully but still loud enough for anyone to hear.

“But they hate anything she does anyway, am I correct?” I asked.

“Yes, John. You are correct,” she agreed.

“So, getting rid of all this dead wood would not upset anyone who mattered?” I said with a grin.

“No, John. No one who mattered at all,” she replied with a grin of her own.

That apparently was enough to do the trick. The scribes became excessively helpful and produced a survey map that had been copied and recopied for millennia yet was still legible and showed all the layers of the palace area.

Morgana had created a 3D map of the palace when we returned and it was this that we compared the probable original to.

“Where were the attackers first spotted?” I asked Talshish.

“Several groups were spotted, here, here and here,” he replied, pointing them out on Morgana’s map.

“No common link on the 3D map,” Morgana added.

“No, but on the original map they are linked by this passageway,” I replied, showing the route of a passage/air duct on the original plans.

“There is no group memory of such a route, John,” Talshish said, frowning.

“Amongst the loyalists,” I replied. “Oonagh would possibly know of this though. The evidence seems to suggest so.”

“We’ll have the devil of a job locating them if they are Heinrich warded,” Morgana added. “The plans aren’t that close to scale.”

“Yet we do know that what everyone ‘knows’ isn’t the whole picture,” I added.

“No, but let’s have a look at this spot here, it’s the closest link to that passage. We may spot something untoward,” Morgana nodded as we set off through the palace to the corridor where we suspected there was an access point to the hidden areas.

Talshish had requisitioned some guards to protect our back, should we find anything, but I didn’t have my hopes up as yet. The architecture for Keldravan, including the palace, was alien to most human eyes. It didn’t follow standard architectural patterns or practices, though looked impressive.

“Somewhere around here,” Serice noted from holding up a copy of the plans.

“Yes, but up, down or to the sides,” I added “It just touches here, without giving a clue as to where.”

“Nothing on a deep scan, but then again there wouldn’t be,” Morgana said thoughtfully.

“Not even the Seers have cracked a Heinrich ward,” I added. “They’ve never even hinted that it might be possible.”

“I know, John. It’s why it’s not general knowledge on any Earth I’m aware of,” Morgana replied.

“Too much chance of a Mage using it for illicit activities,” I nodded in agreement.

“Far too much. We know some of them only behave because they believe we’re watching ... even though we don’t,” Morgana chuckled.

“What they don’t know keeps them in line?” Serice asked.

“Yes, they believe they have a Seer looking over their shoulder 24/7,” I chuckled.

“Why would the Seers even bother, assuming they could,” Serice laughed.

“It doesn’t have to make sense to work,” Morgana replied with a smile.

“That’s true,” chuckled Talshish.

“I take it we’re not allowed to break the walls down?” I asked rhetorically as I knew Keldravan was the next best thing to a holy site for the Sidhe.

“Unfortunately not, John,” Talshish confirmed.

“Oh well, we’ll go back to the old-school ways,” I chuckled and pulled out a tape measure.

It took a while, but the various measurements I took pointed to a large area of wall where the thickness was at extreme odds with my measurements.

“Wonder if there are any door handles this side?” Morgana mused.

“On one of them at least there has to be,” I replied.

“Well, until we figure it out I’ll station guards at either end of this corridor,” Talshish announced.

We moved on to the next location as a careful search of the first proved fruitless. Again, though the measurements took time and merely gave away the probable location of the hidden entrance, they did not reveal the means to get in. Guards were posted however, and we moved on to the third location.

This time though we arrived just as a doorway was opening and there were some alarmed shouts from the Daoine Sidhe waiting to come out as they saw our party and attempted to close the door. Serice though, grabbed one of the guards’ spears and launched it into the gap to impale a Daoine Sidhe, causing him to fall into the gap with the haft of the spear preventing the door from closing as the Sidhe crumbled to dust. Both Morgana and I cast air displacement spells in the doorway which blew it open further and knocked the other Daoine Sidhe backwards as Talshish’s guards leapt into the gap. The fight was short but brutal, the Daoine Sidhe adamantium armour being no match for the new style Mage armour and weaponry the guards could bring to bear.

Before exploring the hidden passage, Morgana and I examined the wards built into the door, confirming them to be Heinrich wards, if not so refined as the ones we knew how to build. We also found out that the opening mechanism could only be activated from inside the passage ... at least on this one, and the passage itself was now deserted and appeared uninhabited, though naturally we knew better. Soon we were joined by another squad of guards.

“Lead the way,” Morgana requested as we headed down into the passage.

“I’ve stationed guards at or near the entrances to the other passages,” Talshish confirmed.

“I doubt they’ll be the only ones, but it will limit them to areas they possibly don’t want us looking at,” Morgana nodded.

“I suspect that this passageway may also have Heinrich wards,” I added.

“Yes, the area has a feel of being simply for transit,” Morgana agreed. “Still, we can open any other passage doors and station guards as we look around.”

“Wonder what the Daoine Sidhe were up to?” I mused.

“Mischief. I suspect they were going to try and kill as many palace servants as possible; perhaps even get into the royal chambers,” Morgana said thoughtfully.

“They must have an end game planned though, or be working to an end,” I agreed.

“Yes. These have all the hallmarks of careful planning, not simply opportunistic attacks,” Morgana acknowledged.

The corridor followed the plan Serice and I had obtained, revealing five exits but nothing resembling any kind of link to any other network. Nor, when the exits were opened, was there any sign of being able to open them from anywhere but inside. Still, we figured we’d at least inconvenienced the Daoine Sidhe by the speed in which we’d countered their attacks.