Emerald Magic_ Great Tales of Irish Fantasy - Andrew M. Greeley [18]
It did all it could do, as She bent down and reached for it. It ran. Crushing cars, knocking mortals aside, it ran to get as far inland as it could. It got as far as St. Stephen’s Green, and dived into the Square, through the trees, and out of sight.
From way behind, I cursed when I saw it do that. By the time we caught up with the Tiger, it would be out the other side of the Green and into Dublin 2 somewhere—
I looked over at the Eldest Leprechaun, then back to see where Anna Livia had gone. She was briefly out of sight, a block or so over now. “Come on,” he said, “the Green—”
We went there—it was all we could do. When we got to St. Stephen’s Green, all surrounded by its trees, there was no sound of further disturbance anywhere else. “It’s still in here—” I said. We looked through the archway at the bottom of Grafton Street and could see nothing but the little lake inside, placid water, and some slightly startled-looking swans.
“Now what?” I said under my breath.
The Eldest Leprechaun gestured. I looked where he pointed. At the top of Grafton Street, by Trinity College, Anna Livia had taken a stand.
She ventured no farther south. She simply raised Her hands and began speaking in Irish. And as we looked back through the archway into the Green, down toward the lake, we saw something starting to happen: water rising again—
“The swans . . . !” the Eldest Leprechaun said.
It wasn’t the regular swans he meant. These were crowding back and away from the center of the lake as fast as they could. The shapes rising from the water now were swans as well, but more silver than the normal ones, and far, far bigger. They reached their necks up; they trumpeted; they leapt out of the water, into the greenery, out of sight.
A roar of pain and rage went up, and the Celtic Tiger broke cover and ran up out of St. Stephen’s Green into Grafton Street, down the red bricks, in full flight, with the Children of Lir coming after him fast. It may not sound like much, five swans against a tiger: but one swan by itself is equal to an armed knight on horseback if it knows what it’s doing. Five swans fighting, choreographed, in unison, are a battalion. In a city street lined with chain stores, and with plate glass everywhere, when you hear the whooping whooshing uncanny sound of swan wings coming after you, you think: Where can I hide? But five giant swans who are also four pissed-off Irish princes, and their sister, worth all the rest of them put together . . . if you were a tiger with any sense, you’d leave the country.
This one didn’t have quite that much sense.Maybe it was bloated with its own sense of its power—for hadn’t it had its way all this while? It turned, roaring with fury, and leapt back down the street toward its pursuers—
A swan’s wing caught it full across the face. The Tiger shied back like a horse struck with a whip across the eyes, then was battered by more wings,merciless. The Tiger turned and ran again, back the way it had been going first, around the curve in Grafton Street, with the Children in hot pursuit . . . and ran, in turn, right into Anna Livia.
She reached down and picked it up, yowling and howling, like a woman picking up a badly behaved housecat. Herself turned and walked past Trinity, the flood that had been following Her carefully containing itself, and She made her way north toward O’Connell Bridge, the waters roaring, the Tiger roaring, the horns of frustrated drivers honking all up and down the Quays as She went. What are they seeing? I wondered, as in company with the leprechauns I followed Herself as best I could. I had a feeling that the next day there would be stories in the Irish Times about flash floods, water main breaks, anything but the truth.
The truth was mind-bending enough, though, as we looked at the River Herself standing on