Tricked

best way to make sure this happens is to teach you how to make your own paths to Tír na nÓg. I have agreed to do this. But I want you to make these paths in the New World. «
    » I beg your pardon? « I said. » Where is that? «
    » Far across this ocean there is another continent, vast and unspoiled and green, where the elementals are strong, the people sense their connection to the land, and not a single Christian walks upon it. They do not know it exists. We have discovered it ourselves only recently. I will take you there and leave you, and you will explore it, binding it to Tír na nÓg as you go. Thus you will allow the Fae to cross the oceans and provide yourself and other Druids a powerful refuge. You can find apprentices there, no doubt, and train them without interference. Meanwhile, the Tuatha Dé Danann will undertake a similar binding project here, so that when you do return to Europe someday, you will have options available to you that currently do not exist. «
    » The New World sounds fascinating, « I allowed, » but I have some questions. «
    » Speak. «
    » If I make these bindings to Tír na nÓg, won’t Aenghus Óg’s spawn be able to follow me there? «
    » Yes, there is no way around the necessity; we want the Fae to be able to travel there. But you can make different bindings and restrict that travel to your advantage, « Manannan explained. » Just as Druids can currently only use sacred groves to enter Tír na nÓg, you can limit Fae entry to the New World to certain areas. Then you can create many more bindings that only Druids may use. «
    » How many of these bindings would you want? «
    » For the Fae? Say, only one every hundred miles. For Druids, make as many as you wish. «
    It sounded like a splendid opportunity to me, so I agreed. We decided together that the Fae could travel only in places with oak, ash, and thorn; where these places did not exist, it would be my task to introduce the proper trees, if the climate allowed. Where it did not, then the Fae had no business roaming there.
    The Morrigan took her leave and I prepared a few things for the journey—mostly binding Fragarach into a waterproof package and doing the same for a knife, a set of clothes, and plenty of acorns, ash, and thorn seed pods.
    When ready, we stepped back through Manannan’s door-cum-portal to the stone hut overlooking the sea. We shifted to our bird forms—an owl for me and a great shearwater for Manannan—and then the god of the sea dove off the cliff. He plunged beneath the waves and shifted to his massive water form, the killer whale. Once he surfaced, I glided down, carrying my waterproof bag in my talons. I dropped it over his dorsal fin, and then I shifted to my otter form. I rode on Manannan’s back all the way to the New World.
    Manannan is unique among Druids and the Tuatha Dé Danann for being able to draw power from water as well as from earth. It was a gift given to him alone by Gaia, and his tattoos reflect this. He can swim without tiring. We took the shorter distance, heading north up to Iceland, where we spent a few days experimenting with bindings. Iceland was unbound at the time and the various elementals were small, so it was an ideal place for me to learn. Once I got the hang of it and we had shifted planes successfully from Iceland to Tír na nÓg and back, we continued our journey.
    We landed in Newfoundland and made the first binding to Tír na nÓg in the New World there. Once that was completed, Manannan Mac Lir bid me farewell and shifted back to Tír na nÓg. Before he left, he suggested I do all the coasts first and tackle the interior later. So that is what I did; I kept the Atlantic Ocean to my left and headed south, linking the east coast with Tír na nÓg. I met many fine tribes and got to know some magnificent elementals. Gaia’s bounty was made manifest to me all over again; it was like F. Scott Fitzgerald said, a » fresh, green breast of the new world. «
    It was not a week, however, before I grew lonely. I met an animal that was new to me, and only much later did people come to call them wolverines. But I bound my consciousness to his—like I have bound myself to Oberon—and called him Faolan, after the most loyal of the Fianna. It was an optimistic naming, for the wolverine Faolan was not naturally disposed to loyalty, but he was outstanding at warning me about the approach of marauding faeries and unafraid of taking them on by himself. It was also during