5237 words (20 minute read)

Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

August, 1991: Terminal 1559 inside Los Angeles International Airport.

A group of people waited one summer day inside its concrete confines doing everything they could in order to pass the time before their flights home. The businessman read the latest edition of the Wall Street Journal detailing the attempted coup of Soviet Union President Boris Yeltsin in Crimea. A few seats beyond him sat the college student with her Walkman playing “Shiny Happy People” by R.E.M., ready to return to school. There were also kids fidgeting in their plastic seats, reading X-Men and Sandman comic books as the calming sounds of the flight attendant at the checkout desk filtered from of the speakers overhead. It was a soothing, female voice.

“Flight 299 from Los Angeles to Seattle is now boarding in Gate 1559.”

From the small sea of humanity a long line began to form in front of the airplane’s entrance door. Near the back of the line waited William Duncan, a kindly professorial man in his early 50s with a balding mop of dark hair, thick black-gray beard and green eyes heightened by a pair of reading glasses. Clutching his right hand was his seven year old daughter Amanda, wearing a set of foam and plastic Mickey Mouse ears atop his light brown curls. Each step that he took telegraphed the young boy’s bubbly, excited mannerisms. She held a large plush Goofy doll tightly in his arms as she looked up at her father.

“That was so awesome, Dad! The rides, the candy, Epcot...can we go again next year?!”

The old father chuckled at the words of his child. “We’ll see, Mandy. In the meantime, we have to get you ready for school on Monday.”

Young Amanda’s mood sank as the cold stink of reality reemerged. Her mind pictured her mother lying on a cold hospital bed, holding on to the last vestiges of life. “Oh...we’ll still see Mom in the hospital when we get home?”

William looked down at his daughter and flashed a heartfelt smile, patting Amanda lovingly on the head as they moved closer to the gate. “Of course we will. The second we get back home we'll go see her.”

The father and his contented offspring showed their boarding passes to the blond flight attendant who smiled and welcomed them. Young Amanda’s eyes darted left and right at the other people slowly walking the cold tunnel to the plane, inviting smiling glances from some of the other travelers. She even spied what she believed was a leprechaun in front wearing sunglasses and a business suit. It was a brief glimpse, but enough that she liked what he saw of the older man.

Ten minutes passed before the young daughter and her father arrived onboard, greeted by one of the flight attendants as they moved to their seats. As Amanda moved to his aisle seat in row 24 of the plane, she saw the short bearded fellow with sunglasses again a couple of rows in front.

“Hi...” Amanda said timidly to the fellow as he was buckling himself in to the seat.

The short fellow looked over the seat behind him at a smiling young face staring back at him. He was silent for a few seconds smiling back at Amanda before replying in an Irish brogue, “Hey there, little lass!”

Amanda’s shy instincts overtook her and she retreated back into his own world, buckling himself into her seat as the flight attendants began the pre-flight ritual and the plane began taxiing onto the runway.

Somewhere over Fresno, the little girl grew antsy. She felt a desire to do something to pass the time. Her father was reading, her beloved Game Boy was tucked away too high to reach in the overhead compartment. All there was were months old copies of in-flight magazines. She tugged on his father’s jacket in order to pull attention away from the nonfiction book about Celtic Mythology.

“Hey Dad!” She peered into his father’s book. “Tell me a story.”

“Okay.” William bookmarked his place in the book with a finger. “Which story do you want to hear? Finn MacCumhail, the Da Derga Hostel?”

“No, I've heard those stories before. I want a good one I haven't heard before.”

“Okay, my dear.” William checked his book. “How about I read the tale of the trifune god Lugh? It's one of my favorite tales.”

***

Lugh was a child of many talents, a poet, carpenter, mason, and druid. He lived in a village of small and humble means north of the area known today as Cork, a gleaming picture of peace and serenity for all those who were fortunate to call it home. That is, until Balor and his Fomorian army descended from the mountains to ravage the land.

A contingent of a thousand Fomorians descended onto the tiny village. They were a race of massive giants nine feet tall who wielded clubs as large as oak trees. They had a single eye that in the afternoon light gleamed like stars in the sky. Their hair was an unkempt mass of straw that remained stationary regardless of the weather. Their clothes were made from the furs of bears and sheep they killed for food. Legend has it that one swing of their mighty clubs could lift whole towns from their foundation. To keep their hand-to-hand combat skills finely honed, the strongest and most skilled of their ranks would take on all comers in that village.

Many warriors from the village and others around it were placed in front of the marauding army and its leader Balor. They ranged from the great marksmen of Gaul to behemoths that traveled from Rome and the Viking strongholds who responded to the Balor's formidable challenge. Each man who stood up came with the goal of stopping his murderous rampage and obtaining glory throughout the land. But each challenger was defeated without a bead of sweat touching King Balor’s massive brow.

He grew tired with the lack of challenge each village and warrior presented to his Fomorian horde. Not one had tested his mettle or that of his men. He issued one last decree in a soundly booming baritone to the remaining members of the town still standing. A cry that reached the ears of young Lugh working on a set of horseshoes a half mile from somewhere.

“Are there any among you who can give me or my men the challenge, the fight we crave?”

The crowd was silent for a few moments, locked in fear of the massive behemoth that had caused so much destruction. Meanwhile, back at his humble hut, Lugh rose up from his stool and walked over to see who had issued the challenge. He saw the carnage and destruction that had befallen his fellow villagers. His physical dimensions were hardly an equal to those of Balor. But deep inside, he felt a great urge to fight for his fellow man.

“I will take you on, beast!” Lugh said when he was certain he was within shouting distance of him. The watchers turned around and made a small walkway for which the young man could go through the crowd toward Balor.

King Balor narrowed his one huge eye upon his diminutive would-be challenger and scoffed him casually. “You? Do you really believe you can defeat me?”

Young Lugh picked up a Viking langsverd off the ground. He then walked through the crowd to face Balor. “With Dagda on my side,” he said, “there can be no other result!”

And so they met up in a field north of the village just as night fell. A group of people encircled the field where the battle would take place, hoping for the defeat of the powerful occupier. Lugh stepped up, dressed in flimsy battle armor carrying a sword that had belonged to one of the fallen warriors. He took a position in the large patchy green field that had some pale yellow patches as a result of prior battle to the cheers of his hopeful fellow townspeople.

King Balor swaggered to his position in the field flanked by two of his loyal subjects dressed in his own battle wear with his large club casting a massive shadow behind him. The two exchanged intimidating looks and circled one another. The posturing felt like hours to the nervous crowd before they charged at one another.

[CLING CLANK!]

The ground shook and great gusts of wind appeared from nowhere with each movement of Lugh’s sword and the giant’s club. The blows that they both delivered to each other rang out across hundreds of miles. The fight dwarfed over the villagers watching like an eclipse. Minutes became hours in the field when, moments after being hit by Lugh’s blade on his side, Balor caught his opponent on his shoulder with his mighty club.

The force of his large weapon propelled Lugh’s body backwards, landing like a heavy rock onto the floor. As King Balor approached his fallen opponent, it became evident to those watching that their village along with their lives will soon come to an end. The first of those lives ending would surely be that of young Lugh.

Bleeding on the ground, every bone and muscle in his body screaming in agony, he mounted one last plan in hopes of changing the course of the battle. He stood, ran with as much energy and fight as his legs could manage, and flew high into the air swinging his sword at the massive monarch. Much like a common house fly to a human, he was swatted away with little effort by the powerful Balor.

Balor watched with a cocky condescension as the boy’s body landed deep in the forest almost two miles from the battlefield. “Now then...” the King boomed to his generals and their waiting soldiers stationed behind him, “lay waste to these bugs!”

***

As the remnants of his beloved village fell to the Fomorian force, Lugh picked himself up off the cold ground. He braced himself against a nearby tree to survey his surroundings. His lungs scraped and clawed for any type of air as he tried to spy any sign of the town, just a speck in the distance with a stream of black clouds rising from it.

“I failed them!” Lugh sighed to himself, holding back a sudden rush of tears. “I tried to defend my people and...I failed them!”

He began to contemplate where he might rest to await the arrival of Dis Pater when he heard a rustling from the distance near the forest that grabbed his attention. A bright ball of light cut across the sky like a shooting star before hovering in one spot above him. It then descended to the ground a few feet short of him, blinding Lugh as it reached the dirt and leaves.

The glowing ball of light held an almost angelic being whose dark, flowing hair and emerald eyes blended well with the beauty of the forest. She spoke his name—“Lugh...”—in an operatic tone that vibrated gently amongst the trees. Her long white dress gleamed in the light that left the area, complete with a skirt that weaved and connected with each other like tree branches.

He coughed out an answer while enraptured by her beauty. “Who—Who are you?” Pangs of curiosity joined the pain stabbing at him.

The apparition spoke. “My name is Flidais, goddess of the trees and the animals.” She floated towards Lugh, her long white dress moving with the air among the trees. As it weighed no more than a leaf, she lifted him to his feet with one hand. “I can help you defeat the Balor.” She said as he released the piece of wood and followed her.

She led the injured Lugh down the forest floor for a half-mile. With each step, he silently cursed the deity’s stoic silence as to where he was being led, and he cursed as well the agonizing pains in his abdomen. Perplexingly, his prior pain had begun to recede compared to just a short time ago. Finally, they stopped in front of a large elder tree that scaled so high that one could logically surmise the top of its green foliage lightly brushing an assemblage of cumulus clouds in the blue sky.

“What is this place?” Lugh asked surveying the height of the tree.

“This is a Tromm tree. One of only fifty such trees here on Earth.” She bent down on one knee near the base of the tree’s trunk. “It has been said that a piece of its bark has special properties for whoever holds it.”

Flidais proceeded to cut a small piece of bark from the tree by grazing her fingers slowly down it. The five-inch piece fell noiselessly into her hand. She then handed the piece to Lugh, “Here...take it!”

Lugh considered the unimpressive piece of bark she held out to him. “And how will this help defeat Balor?” He asked.

“Just wait...” she said with a trusting smile, placing the bark in his hand, “...and see.”

The little piece of wood sat in his right hand for a few moments with little effect upon his person. He examined the bark as doubts to Flidais’ reasoning continued to seep into his brain. A shade under a minute later though, the first effects of the bark became visible to Lugh.

The scarring on his hands and arms began to heal instantaneously. His energy level rose to heights he hadn't felt since the battle with the Balor King began. The broken bones that had pained him over these many hours he could feel healing and realigning with each passing second. The sensation terrified and excited Lugh all at once. He was ready to let out an ecstatic cheer of approval and thank Flidais when suddenly a large shock rattled and shook his body violently.

A loud chorus of clanging metal and the rustle of leaves and dirt followed as the shock slammed him to the ground. Flidais hovered above him with a watchful eye, examining the latest developments as Lugh struggled to come up with the words to communicate the power rushing through his body.

“Focus! Focus, young Lugh.” She said calmly to Lugh, who was petrified by the violent changes going on throughout the whole of his body. “Let the energy flow into you…”

The advice rang hollow to his ears as the possible realization of his own death flashed inside his brain along with the first signs of morning. The prior thrashing stopped leaving his body motionless on the ground. The piece of bark was gone from his hand. He lay motionless on the ground for another half hour as Flidais hovered above him. She had no idea how his body would react since it varied depending on whoever touched it. One lad from the coast had his chest explode in a great fire. Another was changed into an eagle that nested in a tree next to his former home.

Lugh finally began to wake from his comatose slumber. He could feel the base of his head throbbing as if it were hit by a large boulder. What a dream, he thought to himself as his eyes readjusted themselves to reality. He could see Flidais there, but also another young man on each side of her that resembled him.

“How is that possible?” He gasped.

“They are parts of you,” she said in a matter of fact tone as she stepped back between the two apparitions of him. “Their numbers, their placement, their power--all controlled by your thoughts and actions.”

Lugh let her words sink in as his eyes locked onto the two doppelgangers standing next to her. It was like staring into a mirror for him. He moved his arms and hands in different directions to make sure this wasn’t all a dream. Each movement was mimicked without fault by the doppelgangers. After three rotations of movement, he decided to test out the goddess’ words for himself.

“Their numbers, their placement, their powers—all controlled by your thoughts and actions.” She said to him as he situated himself with the clones.

He closed his eyes for a second and imagined both doppelgangers had disappeared from sight. When they opened, he saw the clones gone from the area. A small, amazed chuckle exited from his lips at the bit of magic that had just taken place. He was so amazed that he wanted to try it out again. He closed his eyes once more, this time imagining three doppelgangers in front of him. And as his eyes opened, three of them stood in front of him.

“That is amazing! That is absolutely amazing Flidais!” he said. Then a stroke of logic returned to his thinking, bursting through his euphoria. “How exactly will this help me defeat Balor?”

Lugh Two raised his eyebrow at what he viewed as a challenge. He took ten steps north from his position, stopping at a medium sized oak tree that was slightly bathed in the blue and orange of the new day sun. He then unsheathed his sword and, faster than one man’s eye blinking, sliced a chunk of the tree no bigger than a foot. The amazing part was, as the block of wood flew from the blade gently to Lugh Two’s hand, the rest of the tree remained fully intact.

“Does that answer your question?” Lugh Two smirked at his gobsmacked creator who didn’t have a reply.

***

Meanwhile, as the new dawning sun rose over the village that had been Lugh’s home, Balor sat upon his jeweled throne and oversaw his giant minions as they subjugated the few hundred remaining souls left alive from the onslaught. Many of the villagers of good youth and vigor would be used by the King for slave labor to feed and take care of the Fomorian hordes. The women would be sold off as slaves and sexual concubines for the needs and wishes of the occupying force. The King, though, reserved a few of the more beautiful women for his own needs and whims. Two beautiful teenage girls each dressed in a two-piece fox-fur bikini stood next to Balor fed the greedy, spoiled monarch fine fruits from the garden.

“I could surmise even Dagda would be jealous over the domain that I rule,” he said with a deep chuckle before one of the girls placed a grape in his mouth. The grape slid without effort down his throat, punctuated by periods of chewing as he gazed flirtatiously at his brunette slave.

His gaze moved to the second woman shortly after finishing the grape. She was holding a piece of a fresh apple in hand for him to eat. As the apple moved to his lips however, her hand skipped ever so slightly causing the piece of fruit to land harmlessly on the ground. The place around the throne fell in silence, waiting for Balor’s response.

“I’m—I’m sorry, your highness!” The petrified young girl with blonde and black curls shook with fear. “That has never happened before. It--it slipped! I got nervous!”

Balor rose from his throne, a look of menace coloring every inch of his face. His right hand moved to the scabbard holding his massive sword. Many people present expected the monarch to slay the girl at that moment in a feat of fitting Royal punishment, commending her to a quick and relatively painless death like any other disobedient slave wench. But the ruthless Balor, felt a twinge of empathy.

“Oh my child, I...” He said to her, going down on one of his massive knees in order to meet her face to face. “I would love to choose the path of mercy for you. But what is there to keep you from making the same mistake again tomorrow? Or the next day?”

“You have my word, my liege!” She trembled to think of the mercy he appeared to be hinting at. “To all the glorious and merciful gods in Avalon, I promise never to make a mistake in your presence again.”

Balor rose up to his feet, lifting the frightened girl as he did with his hand. “Your words are sweet, my young lass.” His free hand gently caressed her curly hair, fingering a section of it at he pondered his options. “I’ll allow you to live for now. But it will not be without a great penalty given to you.

He viciously grabbed the girl by the back of the head. She let out a frightened squeal as Balor lifted the eye patch covering the place of his other functioning eye from days long past. All that remained now was a mass of scarring and blisters and slabs of puss that encircled the hole where his eyeball once was. With a smile, the monarch took his sword and pierced the supple abdomen of the young woman.

The screams of the frightened youth could be heard throughout the village. From the diseased eye, a stream of green slime flew from the eye socket landing on her face as she grimaced in pain. He then broke his grasp, leaving her to scream and writhe in agony, which pleased him.

In a booming voice, the King addressed the gathered and frightened masses in front of him. “Let her be a lesson for any of you who think to laze about in front of me. Now, get back to work!!”

And with great speed, the villagers returned to their labors at building huge monuments to Balor from local granite. This included a group of villagers tasked with feeding the giant soldiers occupying every inch of their land, and which drove most of them to starvation. Like a power hungry God, Balor looked upon his winnings and felt nay invincible as his remaining female consort continued feeding him fruit. His vanity was interrupted by a familiar voice from the distance. “BALOR!”

The giant rose from his throne to find the source of the taunt. He let out a displeased groan as his single eye jutted out from left to right and back again. With each attempt, it seemed as if the voice was bouncing around from place to place, mocking him. “Who are you? Show thyself, coward!”

“Who am I?” The mysterious voice laughed at him. “You have not figured this out by now?”

With that, Lugh made himself visible directly in front of Balor. Some of the villagers who caught sight let out a cheer for their erstwhile savior who seemed to have returned from certain death, while others were amazed that he was still alive. His sword gleaming in the sunlight, he looked upon the oppressive monarch ready once more for battle. “Hello Balor!”

“Lugh...” The King made his way away from the throne towards him, signaling for his weapon from one of his other slaves. “Cheating Dis Pater again?”

“No, I was just learning from my prior mistakes.”

Balor laughed at the young man’s statement. “If you had really learned from your prior mistakes, you would be kneeling in front of me and taking your death like a true warrior.”

Lugh began to unsheathe his sword from his scabbard, not intimidated by Balor’s threats, but energized with newly sparked bravery. “That would be the noble thing to do if one had no plan of action and an ironclad certitude of death. But...” He punctuated the statement with his sword high above his head and a smile on his face. “I came prepared.”

He plunged the sword blade first down into the soft Earth with fiery emphasis. Immediately, the countryside shook and rumbled as if caught up in a great earthquake. It shook and tumbled so much that it even moved the ground below the Balor's feet, much to his surprise. The land filled up with his doppelgangers, hundreds upon hundreds of them, ready to fight as they let out a battle cry and charged at the invaders. The Fomorian force saw the large mass of doppelgangers in front of them, charging to dispose of them.

Though only one-sixth of the giants’ size, the doppelgangers swiftly battled for control of their larger counterparts as hours of fighting passed. Losses were present in some sections of the battlefield for the doppelgangers. But for three of those that fell by the giants’ club, another four equally fell by the doppelgangers’ blades and ingenuity. For the first time since it started, the weary villagers could taste victory and freedom once again.

Balor watched in horror as he saw his grip on power begin to slip away from him with each fallen Fomorian. “My army—my beautiful army!” The carnage had begun to eat away at his reasoning. He looked out at the scene to find where the original Lugh was standing. It was a difficult to start with. That is, until he saw a Lugh staring back up at him with murderous rage. He knew at that moment he had found the perpetrator of his heinous act.

His only response was to charge Lugh with his club while Lugh’s back was turned, busy with other tasks. In six steps Balor was upon Lugh, ready to strike a death blow. As Balor swung his club, Lugh leaped fifteen feet in the air, sword in hand, so that the club missed widely. With a seamless motion, Lugh sliced Balor’s head from his body.

The battlefield was silent as Lugh fell back to earth, followed moments later by the Balor’s decapitated head. The surviving giants drew back at the sight of the bloodied remains of their former leader before retreating back in haste toward the forest. The remaining doppelgangers looked on with joy, letting out a sigh of relief. Lugh calmly placed his sword back in its scabbard.

The villagers were the first to respond to the great news with a roaring cheer and an embrace of their glorious young champion. Almost immediately, they began the task of rebuilding their village stronger than it once was. They anointed Lugh their leader. He was hesitant at first to take on such a monumental task. But he swallowed his pride and decided to take it on “for the greater good.” He would rule the village for the remaining forty years he had on this earth with honor and dignity, ushering peace and prosperity as far as the eye could see.

As he lay on his bed taking in his last breaths of air in this life, he was visited by the All Father Dagda, a tall noble man dressed in a brown tunic. Father Dagda’s harp was strapped over his left shoulder as he approached Lugh’s bedside.

“Welcome, noble and righteous Lugh,” Father said to Lugh in a soothing, powerful tenor, “...to Avalon.” He grabbed Lugh’s hand and began to raise him up to the waiting gates of Avalon where he reigns to this day.

***

With those words, William closed his book and ended the tale with the familiar words concluding all fairy tales- “The End.” His young audience responded with a wide smile.

“That was awesome!” Amanda cried with glee. “What happened to Lugh after he got to Avalon?”

The father thought to himself for a moment. It was something that he never really considered. “I—I don’t really know. No one's ever been able to find out what exactly happened after that. Maybe you’ll find the answer to that when you grow up.”

Amanda laughed a little at the statement as she reached into the complimentary pretzel bag for a piece. The plane was crossing over the southern part of Oregon as the little girl happily pondered his dad's statement. "I wanna be the first woman that goes to Avalon when I grow up!”

William laughed lovingly at his son's flash of imagination. His better parental instincts thought about different ways of trying to break the reality of the situation to Amanda.

But before he could voice his thoughts, the plane began to shake. It started to sway from left to right like a ship on treacherous waters. It rose quickly up and fell down again as if locked inside a snow globe being shaken furiously by a curious child. The fury continued for another minute, sending the over one-hundred passengers on board including young Amanda into a panic as some of the oxygen descended down from their containers above the passengers.

Just as peace began to return to the airplane, including the two seats in Row 20 where Amanda was being calmed down by her father who dusted pretzel crumbs from the boy, a large pool of light filled every inch of the plane. All the passengers had stopped screaming and turned their attention to what had caused the noise that had left the plane. The plane went silent for a few seconds longer before a bright white light filled the cabin...

Next Chapter: Chapter 3