"I am liking your peoples more all the times," he bellowed over the noise.

Once it had died down, Ogma leered at Granuaile and said, "Your clothes, please."

"Certainly," she replied, then disappeared.

A few confused noises filled the workshop, then laughter, as everyone realized that she had activated the enchantment on her staff. as everyone realized that she had activated the enchantment on her staff.

"Atticus, will you come hold this for me, please?" her voice called.

"Sure." I walked toward the place where she had been standing and stopped when her hand grabbed my shirt. She pulled me close and then guided my hand to Scathmhaide. Once I touched it, I could see her.

"I'm invisible to them right now, aren't I?" she whispered.

"Yes. We both should be now."

"Let me try something. Hold this against my belly." She raised her tunic, I touched her belly with the staff, and she let go with her hands. "How about now?"

I checked with Oberon. Can you see us? Can you see us?

Nope.

"Okay," Granuaile said. "Keep it there." She quickly took off her clothes, always keeping contact with the staff, and tossed her tunic and pants toward Ogma. They became visible as soon as they left her hand. There was much laughter at Ogma's disappointed face. I saw that this could not have turned out any better; though Ogma had technically won, Granuaile had lost nothing and had, in a sense, outmaneuvered him. And no one would patronize her after this.

A familiar faery in Brighid's livery appeared in the doorway to the shop and cleared his throat pompously. Recognizing the herald, everyone stopped and stared at him. His voice, like a foghorn, projected certain doom.

"All of the Tuatha De Danann are called to the Court immediately to hear a message from the Olympians."

Luchta frowned at the herald. "From the Greeks or the Romans?"

"From both. Hermes and Mercury have come together to deliver the message."

Granuaile tilted her head toward me and whispered, "How did they get here?"

"As messengers of the gods, they have the ability to walk the planes like we do," I explained. "Just not in the same way."

"Any idea what they're on about?" Goibhniu asked the herald.

The faery coughed softly into his fist and paused, as if considering his answer deeply. "While I cannot say for sure, my speculation would be that it has something to do with the Iron Druid."

Several heads started to turn in our direction, but they caught themselves and none spoke a word about our silent, invisible presence.

"We'd best go, then," Ogma said. Everyone nodded and murmured agreement and began to file out of the shop. Granuaile and I followed; we asked Oberon to wait for us in the workshop. I gave her my tunic so that she'd be covered up in case we were forced to show ourselves, but I fully intended to behave like the proverbial fly on the wall-the one that always gets away and never gets swatted.

When we got to the great wide meadow of the Fae Court, Granuaile found it interesting that there were far fewer Fae assembled to witness the audience of the Olympians. There were hardly any, in fact, aside from the assembled lords, and even they were not fully in attendance. All the Tuatha De Danann appeared, however, shifting themselves on short notice to the Court on Brighid's command.

The Olympian messenger gods floated three feet above the ground, perhaps ten yards from the small hillock on which sat Brighid's throne. She was dressed far more formally for this occasion, draped in flat silken panels of royal and powder blue. She affected boredom as she waited for the Tuatha De Danann to assemble. When all seats had been filled, she turned her head to the gods in a dilatory manner and said, "All are present. You may proceed, sirs." seats had been filled, she turned her head to the gods in a dilatory manner and said, "All are present. You may proceed, sirs."

There are teachers out there who like to tell their students that the only difference between the Greek and the Roman gods is their names. This is patently untrue. Apart from the wings on their ankles, Hermes and Mercury have very little in common-and the same is true of every Olympian pair. The Greeks and Romans were different people, after all, and imagined their gods differently.

Hermes lacked body fat to a rather indiscreet degree, and I desperately wanted to lob a cheeseburger in his general direction to see if he'd let it fall. There were ribs and veins showing, and some of the veins also appeared to have whipcord muscles of their own. His eyes were red-rimmed, haunted, and supported by baggage that wouldn't fit easily in the overhead bin, but they were fixed professionally on Brighid's defenses, unless I missed my guess. If the shit went down, Hermes would be ready. His hands were large, with square-cut, chunky fingers, like those in Frank Miller sketches, and his bare feet were also oversize. He had the skin tone of a mime and spoke like one too-that is, he let Mercury do all the talking. He held his caduceus in his right hand as if ready to brain someone with it.

Mercury looked as if he'd just been shat out of a Milanese day spa. In modern popular imagination, his was the silhouette that delivered flowers quickly to your loved ones. Bronzed skin and whitened teeth made me suspect abnormally high levels of asshattery. His feet were sandaled, and he steepled his fingers together in front of his stomach before he spoke.

"The gods Pan and Faunus and the goddesses Artemis and Diana demand the immediate return of the dryads kidnapped from the slopes of Mount Olympus."

Holy shit. I'd thought that Brighid's herald was pompous, but Mercury was schooling him on that with every word. Oil and contempt practically dripped from his lips.

"If they are harmed," Mercury continued, "the life of the Druid Siodhachan O Suileabhain is forfeit, and blood price will be required of the Tuatha De Danann for not controlling him. His life may be forfeit anyway," he added, "because the god Bacchus has sworn to slay him."

"Your gods and goddesses address their suit to the wrong party," Brighid replied, "for we are not the Druid of whom you speak. Nor do we have any control over him. He is not our subject and we cannot be held responsible for his actions." She turned to her assembled kin. "Do any of you have any knowledge whatsoever about these kidnapped dryads?"

She let the silence linger for the space of ten heartbeats, then regarded the Olympians again. "There is your answer."

"We hear you and will deliver your message even so to Olympus."

"Before you go, a question," Brighid said. "In case I am able to contact the Druid, is there any guarantee of his safe conduct if he returns the dryads?"

The Olympians exchanged a glance, and Hermes gave Mercury the barest of nods.

"He will be safe from all save Bacchus if he returns the dryads within the night," Mercury said.

Hermes finally chose to speak after all. His voice was a melodic aria struggling to break free of base speech, as if someone had shoved a wee creative genius into a gray suit and a grayer cubicle and told him to just fucking stay there stay there forever. It was odd how the impeccably groomed Mercury could say "hello" and inspire visions of a quick strike to the sack, yet when Hermes spoke- forever. It was odd how the impeccably groomed Mercury could say "hello" and inspire visions of a quick strike to the sack, yet when Hermes spoke- the much rougher-looking of the pair-it was beautiful and sad and I wanted to buy him a beer so I could help him weep into it. "All the members of my pantheon are willing to forgive the trespass if the dryads are returned immediately," he said.

Well, that was it for me. I wanted to return the dryads immediately. So did Granuaile.

"Atticus, let's go," she whispered.

"Yeah, let's."

We turned our backs on the Court as Brighid exchanged farewells with the Olympian messengers. We had a mission.

"The faster we do this, the better off we'll be," I said to Granuaile once we were out of earshot. "While all the Olympians wait around for Hermes and Mercury to talk things over and send messages back and forth, we'll get this done."

"I'm all for it," Granuaile said, "but I'd like a fresh set of clothes first."

"Oh. Right."

We returned first to the workshop to pick up Oberon, then we shifted to a safe house of sorts in the Uncompahgre Wilderness in southwestern Colorado. It was a cabin located near the old Camp Bird Mine, some ten miles west of Ouray, and I had bought it under an alias six years ago to conduct some business with Odin. Surrounded by a forest tethered to Tir na nOg, it was an ideal rendezvous point and a place to store changes of clothes for times like these. It was also out of Coyote's territory and a safe place for Oberon to spend some time by himself if necessary, since it was equipped with a large doggie door and plenty of food and water-not to mention squirrels and deer galore.

Granuaile and I changed clothes quickly and told Oberon he'd be on his own for a while.

How long?

"Hopefully only a few hours. Less than three months. You are terrible with time anyway. Now, listen, you are absolutely forbidden to go into any mine shafts around here. They're off limits, you understand? If a squirrel runs inside, you count him dead; you don't go after him. And you don't get to pretend that they are Batcaves either. You can't save Gotham from here."

Okay. I remember the rules.

"Have fun hunting, buddy." I petted him and he wagged his tail. Granuaile finished strapping on a replacement set of throwing knives and kissed his head.

"I hope we'll get to go hunting with you soon," she said.

Yeah! Maybe we'll try for caribou. There are fewer pungent aromas in the tundra.

"That's very considerate of you," she said, smiling.

Hey, will you put in disc two of The Fellowship of the Ring The Fellowship of the Ring before you go? I need a refresher on the mines of Moria. before you go? I need a refresher on the mines of Moria.

Chapter 24

We shifted to the first dryad's tree in Olympus and cautiously scanned the area. Seeing no one, I opened a portal to the island of slow time, with the admonition to Granuaile that she should watch. "I'm going to have you do the later ones."

"Okay. Why don't we just open portals wherever we want?"

"You can't open them at all if you're not in an area that's been bound to Tir na nOg. But we avoid them because it takes longer to open one and uses far more energy. We shift via trees because it requires the least amount of the earth's power. That's why Aenghus Og's huge portal to hell drained the earth and killed it."

Parts of the dead land around Tony Cabin were functioning on a basic level again, but large patches were still dead, and it had taken us years of toil to bring it back even to weak levels of life.

The first dryad we'd separated from her tree stared uncertainly back at us, suspended in midair a few feet above the ground of the Time Island. Her arms were splayed out toward us in a final, desperate bid to grab hold of this plane. I held on to Granuaile's left hand and told her to reach through and pull the dryad back with her other.

"I don't need some kind of long pole or something?"

"No, as long as half of you stays here, you won't get pulled into that timestream."

"What about pulling her out, though? Won't that cause whiplash or something?"

"No, in that timestream she's only begun to fall. Gravity just figured out she's in the air above the island, but she hasn't even had a full second to fall five yards or so. Look at her. She's hardly moved, and it's been almost two months for us. So yanking her back right now would be no worse than one of those tango moves where you extend your arm and then pull your partner back to you. Grab her gently. Remember, to her we're a blur in the sky."

"All right." Granuaile reached through the portal and took her time wrapping her fingers around the dryad's wrist. "Ready?"

"Yep. Do it."

Granuaile pulled, the dryad found her feet on solid ground again, then reeled as soon as Granuaile let her go. The dryad blinked and sat down heavily underneath the canopy of her tree.

"What happened? My head spins."

"Sorry about that," I said in Latin.

She peered at me and her eyes widened. "Your face. Wasn't half of it scarred and melted a moment ago?" She noticed that Granuaile looked different too. "And now you have strange markings on your arm. What magic is this?"

"It is the magic of the earth and of the Fae," I replied. "I apologize for the inconvenience and whatever pain you might have felt. I was forced to use you to get the attention of Faunus. He wasn't allowing me to bind my apprentice to the earth, you see. But all is well now, or will be shortly. I'm going to mend the broken bonds with your tree."

"How?"

"The same way I unbound them, except backward. Are you capable of seeing your bond with the tree?"

"No. I just feel it."

"Please tell me if you feel better, then. This shouldn't take long."

Granuaile offered to help the dryad to her feet, but she shied away. "No, thank you," the dryad said. "I'll manage by myself."

"Okay," Granuaile said, backing away with a friendly grin on her face. She continued chatting and apologizing while I turned my attention to the magical spectrum and sought to restore order to the small bit of chaos I'd brought to the tree's binding with the dryad. It took a little longer than unbinding, for creation is always more difficult than destruction, but it wasn't like visiting a modern doctor's office either, where patients must learn the true meaning of patience before they can get treated. The dryad admitted she felt whole again once I was finished.

"Excellent. Again, I'm sorry for the necessity, but I'm very relieved we could restore you completely. We have to perform this same operation on five more of your sisters and need the time and space to do it in. If you would refrain from calling to Faunus or any other god for two hours, that would give us sufficient time to rebind all dryads to their trees without interference, and then, when everyone's safe, you can call to Faunus and receive an enthusiastic welcome back, which will no doubt include several erotic terms for which the Latin language is still renowned today."

The dryad's jaw dropped. Granuaile flashed her a Spock salute and wished her long life and prosperity.

"Who are you?" the dryad asked. "I'm so confused."

"I've had many names throughout the centuries," I began, but Granuaile was reminded of one in particular and jumped in.

"In Toronto they called him Nigel," she said.

"Ugh. You never want to be Nigel in Toronto," I told her. "Trust me."

"I don't know where Toronto is," the dryad said, looking lost.

"It's a place across the ocean with a great film festival and a bad hockey team," I explained, but she still looked bewildered. "Their ticket prices are sky-high, but they haven't hefted the Stanley Cup since 1967. I know there's always next year, but, damn damn, you know?" None of this helped. The dryad looked ready to go fetal, so I thought it best to leave her alone and move on to the next one. I gestured to Granuaile, and we shifted to the next dryad's tree and repeated the procedure. We tried to keep the chitchat to a minimum but were unfailingly polite and very apologetic. I let Granuaile do the last two, portal and all. She left the portals open while she was binding the dryads back to their trees, but I'd speak to her about it later.

The last dryad was a bit more miffed at us than the others, who had been more bemused than anything else. She wasn't afraid of us, and neither was she above threatening us a little bit. After I finished mending her bond to her oak, she said, "You'll suffer as no mortal has suffered in an age."

"But I fixed everything," I protested.

"It was arrogance from beginning to end," she replied, slipping into her tree. Her voice changed once she was inside. "Suffer," she said, or rather the leaves seemed to say it, no more than a husky whisper and rustle on a windless day.

I looked at Granuaile and she shrugged. "It's done," she said in English.

"I don't know. That was weird. You'd think that she'd be nicer to us, since I've already demonstrated that I can destroy her bond to the oak."

"It's because she has friends here," a voice said from behind.

Granuaile and I turned around and saw no one at first. But then a large group of women draped in white shimmered into view, with a single smirking figure in the center of them.

"I swore I'd tear you apart with my own hands, Druid," Bacchus said. "I may be mad, but I tend to remember things like that."