Author's Note: I added a brief snippet to the end of the last chapter, so if you initially read that chapter right after I posted it then you might wanna check it out again. I'm kinda reorganizing the remaining events of the story from what I originally intended; now we finally get the payoff for all that not-so-subtle 'fairy' foreshadowing in previous chapters (Google this chapter title, if you're confused...)

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"Nicnevin"

Letterewe – 1651

It was more than a week after Fair Hair met his end, and Penance was still looking for that 'comfortable' sleep. He was actually a little better now, really. Much better, in fact, and if he didn't sleep comfortably at least he slept regularly.

Part of the thanks for that was in the boy's newfound favorite snack. After his daytrip with Struana and his run-in with those bittersweet red berries Penance couldn't get their strange taste out of his head. He harvested handfuls of the stuff in secret, working them into his own little concoctions. His favorite recipe was a strong and dark tea. Boiling the berries really brought out that musty, truffle-like flavor.

Of course there was still a certain 'downside' to his habit, so Penance had to be careful whenever he decided to indulge in that tasty, deadly nectar. It would be inconvenient, after all, for someone to call on the boy for chores or dinner, only to find him 'dead' at the time. He worked hard at dialing in the right amount of berries to give him all the flavor he needed, while not necessarily stopping his heart, but it was a very tricky process. To get the most out of the berries— to actually enjoy the fruits of his labor— he really needed to have enough of it to kill him.

There had to be a clever metaphor for life somewhere in that idea, Penance thought.

One day Uallas came to the boy right on the recovery end of his 'session' with the berries; Penance was asleep on his bed, barely even alive when he felt the man's boot prod him in the kidney. He opened his eyes to see Uallas looming over him, arms crossed.

"To the forge," he ordered. "Now."

The man didn't wait for Penance, and the boy had to run to catch-up with him. When he entered the forge he found chunks of iron ore laid out on the workbench alongside the usual tools used to work it into steel. Alongside these, however, were other items he didn't recognize: slivers of what looked like low-grade iron— metal chunks riddled with discoloring impurities that made them unsuitable for proper metalwork— and a massive bale of bamboo and oak leaves, all bound up in a pile reaching nearly to the ceiling. Several small stones also rested on the table: two of them were pale yellow and the third— the smallest of them— was a brilliant azure.

"What's with all the rocks and the plants?" Penance asked. "Is this some kinda custom order?"

Uallas smiled, gently flipping one of the chunks of iron about on the table. He nodded.

"That it is, my lad. Our labors over the next few days will be in service of a most demanding and selective client, indeed."

"Who?" Penance furrowed his brow.

Uallas turned to face the boy and gently tapped Penance's sternum. The boy was at first confused, but when he got the man's meaning he became more somber.

"You tasted first blood with Fair Hair," Uallas said. "And in the aftermath of your first kill the question is put to you, child: will you play the Game, as so many before you have? Will you hunt Immortal heads, and steal them with your skills?"

Penance stared down at his shoes. He shook his head back and forth slowly. Uallas put his fingers under the boy's chin and raised Penance's head to eye-level:

"Not the life for you, is it?"

"No," Penance admitted. "I don't ever want to kill again, Uallas."

The man nodded.

"And may God grant you needn't have to. But, if you were ever put in danger by an Immortal hand—"

"I'd cut it off," the boy coldly replied. "Along with its owner's head."

"Without hesitation?"

Penance nodded gravely.

"I'd do what it takes to survive," he said. "Like you taught me. Like a Highlander."

Uallas' smile widened:

"In that case, if you're going to live like a Highlander, you ought to carry a weapon befitting one..."

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By now Penance was adept at crafting basic steel weaponry. He knew all the ins and outs of the forge, and all the little tricks of the trade that went into crafting a superior blade.

Except for one thing.

Uallas directed the boy in turning those chunks of iron ore into steel, and much of the process was just what Penance had learned, but there were strange differences this time that the boy did not understand. For one they cooked the iron not just over coals, but mixed in with all that greenery too— the bamboo and oak leaves— and the stuff put out a frightful amount of black smoke. Additionally Uallas kept quenching their nascent steel in his water bucket far more often than usual, and at each quenching he hammered in slivers of that low-grade iron to the body of the steel, which to Penance was like putting a façade of shitty paint on a grand castle's wall; it just wasn't done. Those colored stones had their uses, too, and the manner in which Uallas used them confused Penance even more.

The steel they finally ended up with was at first a very curious looking thing. Coming out of the fire it was riddled with very tiny holes and sunken depressions, like a brittle chunk of volcanic rock. As it cooled and took shape under the barrage of their hammers, however, the pattern in the steel changed: its surface solidified and became smooth, but it also grew a slew of banded, squiggly lines.

"'Liquid steel'," Penance muttered, turning over the cooled blade in his hands.

"Indeed," Uallas said. "A sgian dubh: the little knife a Highlander might conceal in the side of his sock. It is a thing more befitting emergencies than planned combat. So it can be for you, Penance, but with a difference; this blade will have no equal in Heaven or on Earth. If God himself tired of you living so long on this world and reached down to pluck you up off the ground you could swipe at his fingers and make him bleed for his trouble."

"Blasphemy," Penance mumbled.

Uallas smiled.

"Nice, right?" The man watched Penance examine the blade, evidently enjoying Penance's awe at the thing. He reclined against the side of his workbench and wiped his brow. "In my travels to the far east I learned a great many things. For some years I journeyed through the land of India, and it was there I first learned the secret of their steel."

"But why are you teaching this to me, now?" Penance asked. "You never showed me how to make this, before; I thought you wanted to keep it a secret from me."

Uallas shook his head, smile widening.

"Ah, that's not exactly true. No, it was my promise, Penance, and not my desire that's kept this secret from you. You see I studied long and hard with a master smithy in India, and I lived with his family for quite some time while doing so. When the day finally came— when he taught me this sacred technique— he explained that the process was too precious a thing to pass on to mere acquaintances and strangers. No, he told me that one could only pass down such a technique to family. As I had lived with his family long enough at that point I qualified. And I've never taught this technique to anyone in all the years since then, having no real family of my own to share it with..."

Penance nodded at Uallas' words, still turning the blade over in his hands. Slowly, however, he grasped the significance of the man's speech, and he looked up.

Uallas nodded:

"That's right, my boy. You'll go far in this life, Penance, and your adventures will certainly be grand ones. I have no more pessimism about your situation: you will survive. Thrive, I think. And wherever you go, and whatever you do, know that there is always a hearth and a home you can call your own, wherever I may be."

Penance smiled, swallowing a lump in his throat. He nodded.

The pair stood there in silence for a time, exchanging appreciative glances, when finally Uallas coughed and slapped his hands together:

"Well, right then: let's get to work on the hilt, shall we?"

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Over the next few days Penance practiced with his liquid steel knife, now set in a heavy staghorn grip. During this time he learned just how sharp and tough the thing could be. And yes: part of that lesson came from grievous accidental injuries inflicted upon himself. Long story short, Penance could say that his blade had the ability to sink into a human eye like a knife cutting through hot butter.

And it was difficult to get out, too.

One night he got the idea to practice his throwing, but of course he had to be out of reach of Uallas to do so. If the old codger knew that Penance was throwing that weapon around the boy would probably end up eating the thing.

Literally, too.

Penance journeyed down the sloping hill leading to the loch, moving away from the homestead, until he was in a little clearing just above the shoreline of the black water of Loch Maree. He practiced on a rotted tree stump, still trying to get used to holding such a ridiculously sharp blade in his unprotected hand. After an hour of practice he still had all his fingers attached, so that was something, at least.

He took a break, sitting on the splintered stump, when his eyes were drawn down to the dark waters of the loch. A group of pale lights bobbed and weaved on the water, swaying to and fro like a bank of ghostly will-o-the-wisps. After a moment Penance understood the motion: they were swaying with the current, obviously lanterns at the heads of several small boats. The boy got on his tiptoes on the stump and squinted. The lights were moving off away from shore, toward that large black shape at the center of the water: the Island of Maolruibhe.

There was something different about the isle tonight: flickering torchlight waxed and waned near the center, barely piercing the tall trees around the ruined church and well. The strange light scattered odd shadows about, making the whole isle appear as if it were some otherworldly phenomenon looming out of the tranquil water: like a portal to the underworld risen out of the earth, or maybe a festering and infected pimple.

Penance smiled. Yeah, that was it: a pimple.

The boy scoffed and shook his head. Maybe it was those half-naked pagans sacrificing up some bulls, like Struana had told him about. If they wanted to play their little games on the isle then by all means they had the right to do so. Penance took up his knife and moved off for the homestead.

As far as he knew he had no reason to care for such things.

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The next day Penance awoke early to find Uallas gone from the house, already up at the forge. Cadha angrily explained that the man hadn't even gathered eggs from the chickens for breakfast, nor had he said hello to Struana as he usually did, putting the little girl in a dour mood.

Penance walked up the hill to the forge, the light of the breaking dawn barely touching his back. As he approached the building he heard noises coming from inside. Uallas was speaking to someone, but the words were all strange to him. The language was very halting and guttural, and it was unlike anything Penance had ever heard before.

The boy dared to venture inside, and when he did he discovered quite a surprise: that crazed pagan Penance encountered on the island in the loch— the one standing sentinel over that ruined well— sat on Uallas' workbench, absently flexing his slender legs. He was dressed more conservatively than the last time Penance saw him, with a rough-spun shirt and ratty pants extending down to his ankles, but his face was that same mosaic of stylized crosses and brilliant blue paint.

Both men took note of Penance, and both stopped speaking momentarily.

"Ah," Uallas finally managed. He motioned to the pagan, fumbling over his words: "Penance, this, uh, this gentleman is..."

"Abhag," the boy nodded. "We've met."

"Have you?" Uallas blinked. "Uh, well, yes..."

The pagan nodded at the boy, flashing him a salivating grin:

"Hello, Penance! Hello, dearie," he drawled.

"What business do we have with a pagan like this," the boy crossed his arms.

"None. For you, at least," Uallas said. "I have some matters to discuss with him, briefly. Would you please go and get the eggs for breakfast, Penance? I bet Cadha's almost through the roof with me."

Penance again looked at the grimy pagan.

"Penance!" Uallas repeated. "Our girls down there will not abide their empty stomachs for long..."

The boy nodded and slowly walked off, leaving the forge. He started down the hill, but then stopped and turned on his heels. He crept along the wall of the forge and put his ear to the timbers. He heard more of that guttural speech; Abhag's words flowed freely and effortlessly, but Uallas' were halting and less certain. Finally the man had enough of using that strange tongue and slipped into modern Gaelic:

"All I am asking," Uallas growled, "is for an explanation. Why is she coming up, now? She was supposed to stay down there another decade, at least! That's what she wanted, wasn't it?"

"That's what she want-ed," Abhag cooed. "And wants change. Circumstances change. Heads roll, Normy, and lightning burns the sky. Remember? Electrifies everything. Even crosses the water. And for one with her talent feeling that electricity is no trouble. Even under the waves..."

Silence ruled the air. Penance heard a body moving about; it was likely Uallas pacing. Abhag spoke again:

"So you willnot meet her, Normy?"

"Of course I'll meet her, you dog!" Uallas growled. "But she must know my situation, here—"

"She knows your situation," Abhag said. "And she knows her situation, too..."

Uallas shooed the man out of the forge soon after this, and Penance barely had time to sprint down the hill to the homestead without being seen. When he got there, out of breath and panting, he realized he had more questions than ever before.

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Penance made a brief trip into town early the next day, and he was back before the sun hit its peak in the sky. He found the homestead particularly quiet, with the regular buzzing of bees and tweeting of birds replaced with a stillborn silence. On his way up the path he encountered two men, both under a set of trees marking Uallas' property. They stood casually, leaning against the trunks, and their faces were painted up just like Abheg's; their blistered skin looked sunbaked and cracked. The men nodded to the boy as he passed them on his horse; one of them gibbered a bit, slapping his knee as if he'd just heard a good joke. Neither man responded to the boy's questions.

Uallas was just outside the house, seated at a small circular table he'd removed from the home to place out in the grass. An afternoon tea service was all set up on the table, and Uallas shared it with a companion seated across from him. It was a woman, her frail body wrapped up in a long, flowing shawl adorned with a complicated pattern of Celtic crosses. Her back was to the boy, but when Penance dismounted she turned to see him in profile.

The woman was a mess of wrinkled skin and bulging, exposed veins. She was at least 70 years old, and perhaps far older than that. Her colorless skin was bunched up in a disorganized waddle along her bony neck, but her toothpick body sat erect in her chair with an almost impossibly perfect posture, like a statue. Her hair was white like dirty snow, delicately combed and arranged in an ornate braid running down her back. A small chain of braided silver graced her neck, and a tiny pendant dangled over her breastbone. Two small slivers of gold jutted from either side of the pendant, and it took Penance a moment to recognize what they were: they looked like the wings of a butterfly.

The woman gazed at the boy with a pair of dull and faded blue eyes. They were blue in name only, like the pale visage of the sky through a bank of thick clouds. As filmy as they were her eyes still appeared sharp enough; she met Penance's gaze quite easily, and she methodically surveyed the boy's body from the crown of his head to the tips of his feet.

"Well met, my young dear," the woman's voice was soft and genteel, like the precise speech of a well-practiced queen. She looked at Uallas with a thin smile. "This must be your boy. Mustn't it?"

Uallas motioned for Penance to approach the table, and he pointed between the two of them:

"Penance, come and meet my, uh, friend."

"Friend?" Penance asked.

The ancient woman smiled:

"A very old friend, in fact. Isn't that right, Ferrant?"

The man smiled uneasily, awkwardly brushing back one of those ratty gray locks from his ear:

"Uh, that's actually Uallas, now, my dear." He looked back at the boy. "Penance, this is, uh... er..."

Uallas looked at the woman, his lips scrunched. Penance had never seen the man give anyone that kind of look, before. It was strange to see, almost like the look Penance gave him whenever he was unsure how to proceed at the forge, or when he fumbled over a technique in their sparring practices. Deference, that was it. At the very least it surely wasn't the kind of look one gave their equals. The man stammered over his words until the ancient lady finally interjected:

"Nicnevin," she bowed her wrinkled head in Penance's direction. "Please call me Nicnevin, my dear little lad."

Penance reciprocated the old woman's nod:

"Penance, ma'am. Please to meet you."

"Oh, and I you," the woman smiled, exposing a set of impossibly white teeth. "Indeed: I you..."

Nicnevin reached for the teapot at the center of the table, and Penance reflexively got it for her. As he handed it off his fingers brushed hers and a well of electricity surged up his arm and into his head. He stumbled back. The elderly woman merely smiled at him and nodded:

"Yes, we're all of a kind, here, are we not?" She extended one bony, brittle hand and pointed at Penance's knife, which dangled from his hip. "I hope I can trust you not to lop off a poor old woman's head, can't I? Not before I've had my fill of tea, at least." Nicnevin motioned up and down her haggard body. "What's more: I'm quite afraid my days of 'combat' are long behind me, now."

Penance relaxed. When the old woman's thin smile widened the boy reciprocated, and he slowly set his blade down on the tabletop as a sign of good faith.

"Thank you, my young dear. Why, I'm told you have the blood of an animal in you, is that right, child? It certainly cannot be easy for you to show such restraint, can it?"

"I don't bite," Penance said, "if I'm not provoked."

Nicnevin had a good, polite laugh at this. She did not stay much longer, excusing herself from the table minutes later. As she hobbled up to her feet Penance thought to help her, but before he could even touch her arm she was quickly brought to her feet by the two other pagans who had been waiting inside the house. The painted men bowed their heads as they assisted her.

"Now, Uallas," the old woman said, "you will, of course, be inviting me for supper one of these nights, won't you? I simply must see this lady friend of yours, and her charming little daughter, too." Nicnevin looked over at Penance, and her shrewd, cloudy eyes narrowed. "And, of course, I would be delighted to get to know this young, tender thing a bit more, as well!" The woman put her bony hand on Penance's head and gently slid it down his hair, over his brow and around his cheek. "That's if he promises not to bite, of course." The woman laughed, her whole body shuddering like a rickety cart with a loose wheel.

"Of course," Uallas nodded, looking off at the distant hills beyond the homestead. "Anytime, my dear..."

Penance took the old woman's seat after she departed with her pagan escorts. He looked at Uallas with a furrowed brow:

"She can't be a client, can she?" He asked. "I doubt she could even lift a weapon..."

Uallas stared down at his teacup and toyed with the handle. He slowly shook his head:

"Ah, no. She is no client, my boy. She is, well..."

Penance squinted. He thought about the way Uallas acted around the woman, and he figured that he could make a pretty good guess as to what their relationship was.

"Is she what you are to me?" Penance asked. "She was your teacher, wasn't she?"

The man looked at Penance with surprise, but then he smiled:

"Just so. Very observant of you, Penance. She is a very old Immortal, you see—"

"Yeah, I can see—"

"Not like that," Uallas held up a stern finger. "Ah, it's a long story, the story between her and me. Not to go into too much detail, but I tasted the sting of death not too long after I landed on the shores of England. In the aftermath of great William's conquest there were certain, uh, abuses committed against the natives of the isle. With no measure of pride I can say that I participated in some of them, and it was at one determined landowner's home that I met my end. The poor devil was just trying to protect his family, really, for all the good it did him..."

"He killed you? You died there for the first time?"

Uallas nodded.

"And it was not an undeserved death, I suppose. But in the wake of my true 'birth', as it was, I wandered the land very confused and disoriented. I fled north, if for no other reason than it was a nice, cardinal direction to flee into, and it was there— up in the highest shroud of the mountains— that she found me."

"Nicnevin, you mean?"

The man smirked.

"At that time she didn't have that name. But she did have many names, even that many centuries ago, and a certain fame about her. Some called her the Lady of Fortriu, others the Grande Dame of Uerturio, or the Painted Woman of the White Mountain."

"Well, what's her real name?"

"What's yours, child?" Uallas asked.

The boy drew a short breath and looked away from the table. This made Uallas chuckle a bit:

"Just so," he said. "She either has no more use of her true name— just as you seem not to— or else she has forgotten it entirely. Fitting, I suppose; she's forgotten more of the history of this earth in her time than almost anyone else can remember of it." The man motioned to the scenery around them with one hand. "She knew this land when it was first terrorized by the great eagle of Rome. And perhaps she knew the land long before that, as well."

Penance sat back in his chair and put one leg up on the side of the table; he turned all the facts he knew over in his head, and it didn't take him long to put some of the pieces together:

"What was she doing down in that well on the Island of Maolruibhe? And how long was she in there, anyway?"

Uallas scoffed:

"Well, she's been 'swimming' down there about a decade, I would think. And just where did you figure that part out, lad?"

"I felt her presence when I first came to Letterewe, when I rested on that island and touched the rope above the well. I didn't know what she was at the time, though."

"I see. Well, she is of the belief that the water on Maolruibhe has certain, uh, curative properties..."

Penance blinked:

"But Nicnevin's one of us, right?" He asked. "She can't get sick, can she? What does she need a cure for?"

"There are certain things other than sickness that one might seek a 'cure' for, Penance..."

Penance scrunched his lips, waiting for the man to elaborate. He did not.

"So she just had her pagan friends dunk her in the water and leave her there for years?" Penance asked. "And what's she doing hanging around with those guys, anyway? Do they know what she is? And isn't that against the rules?"

Uallas smiled:

"Well, for one as old and as frail as our fair lady the 'rules' are a little looser, I suppose..." The man shook his head and got up abruptly. "Her associations are of no consequence to us, Penance. Look: help me bring all this stuff back to the house before Cadha and Stru come back up here with the wash. That woman would be furious with me for disturbing the furnishings..."

Penance helped the man with his heavy lifting, all the while thinking about the ancient woman and her shrewd, cloudy eyes. There was something in her gaze that was beyond Penance's ability to explain, and it was something he didn't particularly like. What it was, exactly, he didn't know, and he figured it wasn't that important, anyway.

He figured wrong.

Penance didn't know what she was when he first sensed her in that well, and he still didn't know what exactly Nicnevin was when he met her on that day, either. He thought there might be more to her than just the appearance of a kindly old woman, but still he was wrong. On that day he hadn't met a kindly old woman at all.

Nicnevin was something else, entirely.

And Penance wouldn't realize it until it was far too late.