Normal Service Will Be Resumed As Soon As Possible
37 miles north-west of Edinburgh.
When they started building Stirling Castle over nine hundred years ago, no mortal knew what lay deep underground, far beneath the cobblestones of the courtyard.
The Grand Deciding Hall had been a wondrous place in its heyday, but now, even after an army of the mound-dwelling hogboon had scrubbed it clean, it was still only a sad reminder of its former glory.
Tiered seating carved out of volcanic rock filled both sides of the long, rectangular cavern. Statues of forgotten heroes in action poses were sculpted into alcoves at one end, with twelve-foot high double doors at the other.
The series of faded tapestries that hung from the ceiling, down the middle of the hall, had once depicted the battles with Morrigan up to her final defeat by the fairy king, Midhir (which was how the fairies had rewritten history over time) but all that remained were tattered rags fluttering in the wind every time the doors opened or closed.
It was abuzz with life on that Tuesday afternoon for the first time in centuries as hundreds of magickal beings of all kinds from baobhan sith (full sized female vampire fairies) to river spirits, filled the seats or, in some cases, became puddles on them.
The centre of the chamber was empty, except for a dais, big enough to hold a dozen people, that looked like it had grown out of the hill. Behind a lectern (made from the trunk of an ancient oak tree) an old man stood in silence.
He was nine feet nine inches tall with a barrel-chest and quite literally rock-hard muscles. His skin and robes were as grey as the rock he stood upon. His name was Am Fear Liath Mòr, and they called him a man mountain because that was exactly what he was. They also simplified his name by calling him the grey man, but never to his face.
“Heed mine words,” he said, attracting everyone’s attention without shouting, his voice was so deep that everything he said vibrated up through the feet of those who had them without need for amplification, “we gathereth in this place on this day to speak of the treaty proffered by the Supreme Celtic Goddess of War,” he continued, the boos and cursing from the assembled crowd showing they were a long way from being members of Morrigan’s fan club.
“Silence,” he said, his barely raised voice shaking the cavern, the tapestries flattened against the ceiling by the force of his breath.
“She wisheth that vilest of the mortal breed, a warlock,” he paused as the assemblage murmured and nodded their approval of his opinion of mages, “she wisheth this spell-caster by the mortal name of Callum Cooper yielded unto her thraldom, for that consideration she offereth a kingdom for our kind, outside her rule, that wouldst stretch from Alba, to Germania, and all that lies between or this land of Alba alone for the serving of his head up on a spike.”
“And why, pray tell, shouldst we trusteth one who hath tricked and slaughtered our kind for centuries untold?” one of the shape-shifting finfolk said after the grey man gestured to show that the debate could begin, the shape-shifter had the body of a man and the head of a horse, like someone who’d been told about centaurs but had misunderstood the concept.
“Let the warlock despatch her, if he canst,” a scarecrow-like tattle-bogle demon said, “if too many of the mortal die in the wars she starteth afore they spawn it shalt depriveth our tables of succulent babies.”
“Not so,” a dwarf armourer countered, “she shalt buyeth our weapons and needst I remind thee all that her return hath made mortals believe in magick again, else none of us wouldst be here to speak of such matters.”
“But as they behold our glory with their own eyes, they shalt believe and sustain us without her!” what looked like a man controlling a hawk (but was actually the other way around) yelled excitedly as he jumped to his feet.
“Silence,” even though he didn’t raise his voice much above a whisper, the grey man spoke loudly enough to crack several of the stalactites on the ceiling, sending some of them crashing to the floor, narrowly missing two fairies and a hobgoblin, he caught one easily and pointed it accusingly, “Is this the hall of deciding or of shouting?”
“I beg thine forgiveness for the hastiness of mine utterances, lord Am Fear Liath Mòr,” the man said as the hawk bowed its head in acknowledgement, “but which one of us was not shocked to findeth that, in the beat of a hummingbird’s wing, we hadst been absent for so many mortal generations? I, for one, careth not to slumbereth in oblivion’s arms once more.”
Next, the Brown Man of the Muirs stood up to speak. He was three feet tall with a four foot long beard, that despite the obvious implication, did not appear to be a trip hazard. “The soul sharer spoke true,” he said referring to the man and hawk, “now, that we appeareth unto the mortals” he spat on the floor to show his disgust of humankind, “surely Morrigan’s defeat couldst not shake their faith in us. I beseech thee all, remembereth those of thine kind slaughtered at her command and trusteth her not,” he hadn’t even taken his seat again before one of the hogboon was frantically scrubbing the spit off of the floor.
The congress went on well into the night, with every creature wanting to have their say, regardless of how well they could speak. A river spirit is a difficult thing to understand as they’re composed of water that’s solid but not frozen and they gargle every word. When one of the larger ones, a female called Caoineag, stood up at the back to speak, she sprayed so much that the front three rows demanded that someone be sent out for umbrellas before she was allowed to continue.
The last speaker was one that few could see, a tiny, invisible joint-eater. If you’re wondering what that is, then think back to a time you absent-mindedly finished a meal you thought was only half done, and that day you may have had a joint-eater for a dinner companion.
Everyone struggled to hear her faint and squeaky voice as she, predictably, complained about the current food shortages, as she was prohibited by Celtic lore from eating over fifty percent of a mortal’s meal.
After she finished speaking there was a long uncomfortable pause as they waited to make sure the tiny creature was clear of being stepped on before they took a vote by show of hands, flippers, hooves, claws and in one case a frond.
After five minutes, one of the counting elves joined the grey man on the dais, only coming up to his waist. He struggled to lift the large and ancient snail shell that he used as a megaphone, “After recounting thricely we find the vote tied,” he said, scurrying away as the hall erupted in roars of disapproval.
The grey man waited for order, tapping his foot impatiently, shaking the cavern so much that it registered as a two on the Richter scale on a nearby seismograph and spilled some of the more liquid attendees onto the floor.
“As chairman, I holdeth the casting vote,” he said once he had their full attention, “and my proclamation is…” he paused dramatically as they all held their breaths, “the warlock shalt be hunted until death or in the goddess’s service. So endeth the deciding.”
Half of the crowd were unhappy with his decision, but they weren’t going to say so to his face. As the meeting was over, they all left by the double doors, down a gentle slope for the sixty yard to exit through what used to be the old town jail but was now a museum.
As those who couldn’t fly, strode and scuttled through the streets or flowed down into the sewers, on their way to their various homes they generated enough 999 calls to stir up ample gossip to keep the local media busy for months. Or it would have done if the authorities hadn’t served them all with gagging orders the next day and shut all Internet access down, to be on the safe side. But by that time it was too late to stop the spread of belief in magick, leading people to wonder if things were going the same way as Edinburgh.