The Fifth Beast (ManxMan Chinese/Celtic Fantasy Story)

Chapter 54

Inside, Emain Maсha was much larger than outside, it was impossible to walk through it even in a few days. Of course, thirty thousand people didn't live here, as in Khanbaliq, but there were about a thousand lords of the Tuatha Dé at any given moment and about a dozen mortal servants to each (although no one kept exact numbers).

There were also gates leading outside of Emain Macha, more than a few of them, but the Tuatha Dé rarely used them. They could go outside hunting, for example, but even for that they generally preferred the cromlech: it is much easier to step through a portal, say, to Ath Luain and be supplied with weapons, horses, hounds, beaters and handsome fennids as a company.

Niall and Cumal used to sneak outside for a walk on foot or for a horse ride, when they didn't know yet how to use the cromlechs, and when they wanted some privacy. In Emain Macha there were many nooks and crannies, but there were also plenty of prying eyes, and plenty of servants scurried back and forth, be it day of night. Besides, many of the Elemental Lords had inhumanly acute hearing, observation powers and abilities bestowed by their elements — for example, to feel, who was in vicinity, what they were doing and with whom. No, thanks.

Niall remembered that he rarely looked at Emain Macha from the outside. Not only because he was thoroughly and completely absorbed in Cumal and everything that they were planning to do or just did. There was nothing special to look at. Like many halls of the Tuatha Dé, Emain Macha looked like a heap of rocks which didn't look like a civilized dwelling. The windows opened not in the outer walls, but into the inner courtyards and gardens, and many rooms were underground. Some rooms had a skylight — a window in the ceiling, and such a room was called 'sunny room', grianan. It was usually used for embroidering, drawing, jewelry work and other arts that required good lighting. Most of the light came from candles, mirrors, and the Tuatha Dé magic, while the heat came from the underground hot springs. They also warmed the water in the luxurious baths of Emain Macha.

From a bird's eye view, one could probably see the courtyards, the Queen's Garden under its magical transparent roof, the skylights and the gigantic cromlech in the center. Niall remembered Khanbaliq, surrounded by a wall that had surprised him so much. Beautiful but impractical. An impregnable city, the capital of the great realm, should look like Emain Macha. However... He remembered Faolan Three Beasts and his white eagle. A dozen barbarians with flying kirins, a surprise attack in the deep of night... Another reason to report the barbarian threat to the Queen's Steward as soon as possible. Who knows what the Kirinches would be capable of in a hundred years or so.

Come to think about it, the kirins were related to the demons of Anghaine, but Niall had never heard any mention of demons being able to fly. So Fao's eagle was a very dangerous phenomenon for many reasons.

Excited by that thought, Niall burst into Roigh's chambers, barely waiting for the servant to announce his visit. At the door, he almost ran into a handsome young lord of the Tuatha Dé, who looked very much like Roigh, and both of them bowed to each other with exaggerated politeness.

"My dear Steward of the North Niall Mac Nechtan, it is always a pleasure to see you at Emain Macha. You so rarely give us the joy of your company," the young lord said very politely, but his emerald eyes gleamed maliciously, and his tone clearly suggested that he would have managed perfectly well without the joy of Niall's company for another hundred years.

When the Queen had just appointed Roigh Mac Rowan her Steward, and Niall literally never left his chambers, it was this young man who, with the same kind smile, asked if Niall's subjects had forgotten what their master looked like, and whether it was time to remind them.

'My dear Steward of the East Curoi Mac Daire, the pleasure is mine," he replied in the same sweet theatrical tone, not even trying to hide its falsity. "Don't be in such a hurry, stay and listen to the news from the North. I so don't want to deprive you of the company of your beloved uncle."