Bee walked into the guardhouse and shut the door gently behind her.

  Gathering her thoughts, she scanned the room. A weapons rack covered the back wall with swords, spears, and bows. The weapons appeared to be new, which didn’t surprise her. There would be little point in having an army of skeletons if their arms were as decrepit as they were. The other things she would expect to find in the guardhouse, like food and water, were absent, unless a vat of scummy liquid in a niche beside the weapons counted. But then why would guards in a dungeon need supplies if they were dead? Of course, they wouldn’t, which made Bee think about the screams of the horse on the plains and realise the ravaging of beasts was to satiate their bloodlust more than anything else.

  “How d’ye get here?” she asked, turning to the still grinning ring fighter and running a finger along the ridge of her scar.

  “I latched on to the end of the snatchers and followed you in through the gatehouse. It was easy.”

  Bee frowned at him as she asked, “And no one saw ye?”

  “Ah, Bee, you have seen how good I am at disguising myself.”

  Aye, and it does nothing to ease my fears, she thought. There is no one I can trust, not even my brother. Which might have hurt her, except they weren’t siblings in the usual sense. They shared a mother and had been raised worlds apart, Bren in the Fae Realm with Danu and Bee in the Kingdoms with her mother, Upthóg. They were both born as witches from a witch. As Dagda’s High Priestess, Bee used her skills to work with the Neit’s Maidens, protecting them from magic while they herded demons back under the Bull’s Head and into Tech Duinn, and Bren used his to cause mischief, wherever and whenever he could.

  So, why send him here on such a vital mission? And why is The Smith involved?

  Deep in thought, she bent beside the bench and took an evil-looking dagger from the scabbard of a still buckled belt. The hilt was gold, decorated with precious stones, and the blade curved up slightly. As she hefted the dagger, she wondered what use it would be against a bag of bones in mouldering armour, but decided to keep it—more as a comforter than for any other reason—threaded the scabbard to her own belt, and resheathed the dagger. Walking to the weapons rack, she took a bow and a quiver of arrows. Again, she had no idea how effective the weapon might prove, but took it more for comfort than for any practical purpose.

  “Come,” Dorn said, grabbing Bee’s wrist. “There is no time for dallying.”

  “I ain’t leaving without me brother,” she said, pulling her wrist free.

  “He’s on Donn’s threshold, I reckon.”

  No, he isn’t, Bee thought, scowling at the disrespect he was showing the dead tracker. Indeed, the tracker he’d killed. Finally, she asked, “What makes ye say that?”

  “I was in the throne room. I heard the demon tell you.”

  “I don’t care if he is half dead. I need him.”

  “I did not think you were the sentimental type,” Dorn said, breaking her train of thought.

  “I’m not. Without him, we won’t discover where Lia Fáil is.”

  “Didn’t he tell you?” the ring fighter asked. Glancing up, Bee saw something in his expression. If she had to name what it was, she’d say he was disappointed. Of all the emotions she might expect given the circumstances, disappointment was the strangest.

  “No. He trusts me only a little bit more than the demon who had him burned half to death,” she said, unable to stop from cocking an eyebrow at her inability to avoid the sarcasm as much as the ring fighter’s missing it.

  “That must be hard. Still, there is a need for haste, so come,” he said, striding through the door without a backward glance.

  When they reached the cell, Bren had returned to his foetal position facing the back wall. Unable to stop the flare of anger at his acting the maggot, Bee grabbed him roughly by the collar of his jerkin and hauled him to his feet.

  “Up,” she said. “Ye were sitting here feeling sorry for yerself only moments ago.”

  “Gentle now,” Dorn said. “Remember what he has been through.”

  “I’m not sure he’s been through anything. Far too sprightly for one on Donn’s threshold, so he is.”

  “Oh, but he has,” Dorn said, causing Bee to raise her eyebrow again. She was about to ask the fighter what he meant, but her brother didn’t give her the chance.

  “The demon healed me each morning, so I was strong enough to face more questioning,” Bren whined. Letting go of his collar, Bee brushed off his jerkin with gentle hands, but said nothing. “What happened, and who’s this?”

  “Meet Dornalai, The Smith.” The emphasis Bee used gave no room for doubt that she was speaking of the God and not someone who made horseshoes.

  “I thought The Smith’s called Goibniu.”

  “Yes, yes. The Smith is Goibniu,” Dorn said. “For now, I’m a ring fighter and am called Dornalai. You can call me Dorn, as your sister insists on doing.”

  Bren looked from one to the other of them, his face a picture of confusion.

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  “It’s a long story, Bren. Forget it for now. We’ve no time,” Bee said, before turning to the fighter. “How are we going to escape?”

  “I can rip a hole through there,” Dorn explained, pointing at the rear wall of the corridor.

  “Rip a hole through an underground wall in an ancient tower? What by all the Tuatha does that mean?” Bee asked, scratching at her scar and scowling at the stinking mists still oozing through the mortar between the wall’s stones.

  “We can leave through a tear and find a portal.”

  “I thought you needed a glyph to find a portal. Won’t we be lost in the Void?”

  “Most need a glyph. Some do not.”

  I thought the Pathmasters were all gone, she thought as she asked, “If that’s the case, why didn’t ye do it coming in?”

  “There is no portal here. I can rip an entrance into the Void but not out; it would be far too great a risk.”

  “How so?”

  “There is no way to know what is on the other side. I might tear a door into the bottom of a lake, and the flood would wash us off the path. The only indication of our passing would be an empty lake somewhere. No, to get out, we would need a portal. Besides, someone has this place shrouded in wards. Breaking in would have been impossible.”

  Bee fingered her scar and wondered whether to trust this... whatever he was. She was beginning to doubt if Dorn was The Smith. She kept returning to their first meeting, when he didn’t say he was Goibniu, he simply did not correct her assumption. And then, when they were telling Bren what was going on, he didn’t say he was The Smith. But why would he not just lie about it? Shaking her head, she realised none of it mattered. If he was offering an escape, then they needed to take it.

  “How does the Void come into it?” Bren asked. Bee thought she could see him shaking.

  “You know there are many worlds on many planes and portals connect them?” Bren nodded. Bee kept her peace, waiting to hear what he was going to say. “Well, the space between each of the planes is filled with the Void. Portals are doorways between the planes, but it is possible to rip a tear in the… well, to keep it simple… in the fabric of space, thereby getting access to the portals from another place. Distance in the Void varies considerably to each plane. So, travelling to Sliabh Culinn, say, needs a lot less time.”

  “If it’s that easy, why don’t we all do it?” Bee scoffed.

  “You need particular...” he hesitated before saying, “skills. Not many possess them.”

  And for good reason, Bee thought. As far as she knew, the Pathmasters were proscribed and those with the skill were hunted down and destroyed. It was one of those moments which belied Dagda’s epithet as the Cheerful God. That said, there was also something in the way Dorn hesitated before he said skills. It was as if he was going to say something else but changed his mind.

  “So, will ye have any control over where we exit?”

  “But of course. I have travelled there for most of my existence. I know the paths, and I will bring you to the portal at Sliabh Culinn. Come. We need to hurry, because there is not much time.”

  Dorn moved to the wall, at first leaning against it with one of his cabbage-like ears, feeling with his sausage-like fingers. It was all Bee could do not to laugh as the food analogies kept popping into her head. Bren stood in the open cell gate, staring at the ground between his feet. Several moments passed and Bee lost interest, moving into the cell and sitting against the mildewed wall. Just as she wriggled herself into semi-comfort, the stench that had been tickling her nose since they abducted her on the plains flooded into the cell.

  No, it’s not the same, only similar.

  Whether it was the same stench, it was much worse. Bee knew if she’d eaten recently, whatever had past her lips would now be in the cracks between the flagstones adding to the stink. She gagged several times as the mist became a fog, leaping to her feet to join The Smith, who was standing before a rent in the wall. A slight breeze was causing the edges to flap, giving the whole the appearance of a slash in tent fabric on a breezy day.

  He really meant ripping the fabric. As the thought came, Bee screwed up her face, feeling her eyes watering.

  “You have my sympathy,” Dorn said, patting her on the shoulder. “My nose has been bashed so many times, I can no longer smell anything. I do recall the horror of it, though. Which I suppose is an indication in itself, as most things are forgotten with time. Stay close, and do not stray from directly behind me. The paths are narrow, and you do not want to fall off one.”

  Bee covered her mouth and nose and motioned for Bren to follow immediately after Dorn.

  “Come on. The quicker in the quicker out,” Bee said.

  “Wait, I must close the tear,” Dorn said, before turning back and doing something that seemed like joining separate curtains by squeezing them together. As soon as he was done, and walked on, Bee pushed Bren into the space at his back. It was not because she feared for her brother’s safety, but rather because she feared for her own. It didn’t take much imagination to picture her brother tripping over his own feet and pushing her off the path.

  Following Bren into the greyness of the Void, she could feel the fog creeping up her calves to just below the knee. It was the same clamminess that any fog would give, except there was more to it. Something she could not describe because words failed her. It was as if all the ills of the worlds she knew had merged into a swirling gas, using the physical aspects as probes that it spiked into the flesh of those who dared trespass into its realm. She knew it was a sensation rather than anything real, but couldn’t prevent the revulsion she felt. In some ways, she thought it would be the same feeling if Plasgorta took hold of you. A feeling that your end had arrived and was shrouded by the hopelessness of fighting against a pestilence that would rot the flesh from your bones as you watched.

  Dorn, hunched over as if protecting himself from the stink, kept talking as they walked. She didn’t hear the words, but it didn’t matter. He was speaking to give them something to take their mind off the horror and she appreciated the gesture.

  Despite Dorn saying it was not far, their trek seemed to go on for so long, Bee was starting to wonder if they would ever get out of the place, and whether Dorn had lured them here to abandon them at the first opportune moment, when he said, “Here we are.”

  Looking over his shoulder, she was surprised to see that the portal was a door. Just like a door in a fortress. A wooden frame. Hinges. A handle that The Smith turned, swinging the door open with a sigh. The God wasted no time dallying on the threshold but vanished without a word. Following him, Bee stepped into a forest that was under the shadows of early evening.

  Where are we? she wondered. “I thought ye said ye’d bring us to Sliabh Culinn,” she said, her anger once again rising.

  “And so I did, Dear Girl.”

  “I’m not a girl, Smith. I’m not much younger—”

  “Think before you speak, Bee,” he hissed. “Of course you are much younger than me. I’m as old as time.” Bee had not heard anger in the God’s voice before. Even when he bashed Finn’s brains in, Dorn hadn’t been in any way angry. He’d been doing what was necessary, or so he said. Abashed, she bowed her head and said she was sorry, blaming it on her exhaustion.

  “Yes, well, as I was saying. I did bring you to Whitehead’s fastness. The portal is not in the fortress itself, but in the forest a league away. An hour or so, and we will be hailing them at the top of the hill and demanding the lift be sent.”