Only the Stones Survive: A Novel (10 page)

The warriors of the Gael fought back as best they could, but the element of surprise almost defeated them. Step by step, they lost ground.

This was land the primitive natives knew well; they were able to take advantage of every tumbled boulder and fold of earth. They gave their opponents no chance to form a battle line. The threatening insults and grandiose boasts of Gaelic warriors, which were meant to intimidate their opponents, went unheard in the hysterical shrieking of the tattooed people.

From long habit, Amergin never allowed chariot warriors to get too far ahead of him; his long legs could trot tirelessly in pursuit of the horses. Where the warriors were was where the action would be, the raw material for bardic epic. Or there might be an opportunity to make peace between opposing sides, one of the prerogatives of a bard. When he heard the familiar sound of battle cries, he broke into a run. As he ran, he slipped Clarsah from her satchel so she would be ready if inspiration struck.

Amergin reached the dense stand of pine trees in time to see his mother draw her sword from her belt and slam it across the sword of a painted native, breaking his blade. “Take the blow of Mílesios!” Scotta cried as she brandished her weapon in triumph.

A man covered with tattoos darted under her guard and speared her in the ribs.

Before Scotta could feel the pain she was attacked again. She staggered sideways, determined not to fall. The enemy closed around her. She lunged toward one of the savages only to see him dance away, mocking the spectacle of an old woman trying to fight. Her anger was as hot as the blood flowing from her shoulder. Swords and spears and shouting; a stone club to the side of the head. Daylight became gray light, fading …

Scotta had thought she heard Amergin calling to her. She thought she heard the music of Clarsah. The besieged woman tried to shake off her attackers and go to her favorite son. The Gael always followed the harp.

A savage wrapped in otter skins tore her head from her shoulders with a bronze blade.

Amergin’s shout of horror rang through the pines.

When the painted savages saw a man holding a harp in numb fingers, they stepped aside for him.

Ír killed the person who had killed Scotta. But it was too late. His mother’s head lay on the ground in a spreading lake of blood, with her blue eyes open. When Ír crouched down to close them, he lost what was left of his mind.

The other sons of the Míl were beyond shock. Beyond pain and grief and even rage. While they stood beside Scotta’s dead body, every man made a silent vow in his heart.

When they looked up, the Ivernians had melted away. It was a victory, of sorts.

At Donn’s direction they buried Scotta where she fell, an honor accorded to warriors killed in battle. Her other sons thought she should be carried back to the rest of the tribe, but in the end Donn was given his way. He was the oldest.

On the following day, a tomb of stones and sod was raised over Scotta. Colptha conducted the funeral rites. This displeased Éber Finn, who complained to his charioteer. “Colptha talks as if our mother was a sacrifice to the land. That’s not the way it was.”

Scotta was interred with all the property she had brought with her, which made Éremón unhappy. He wanted to keep her velvet cloak and the best of her jewelery to give to Taya, to make up for the unexpected inconvenience of having his first wife along. But the others were watching and he did not dare.

Ír alternately blubbered like a baby and tried to demonstrate how he slew Scotta’s murderer. He almost injured several of the mourners before Amergin succeeded in taking his sword away from him.

At the end of the ceremony, the bard sang a eulogy for his mother. Then he removed a glittering brass wire from his harp and laid it atop the tomb.

In spite of his grief, one recurrent thought kept coming back to Amergin: the painted, tattooed natives had recognized a bard and stood aside for him.

Only Celtic tribes did that.

After Scotta’s burial there was no stopping her sons. As soon as a fort was ready to protect the noncombatants, the Mílesians declared war on all the inhabitants of Ierne, on any and every one. Day after day, season after season.

No mercy.

My mother would be fatally wounded on the Day of Catastrophe, near the end of the Great War. “Catastrophe” is another word for change.

My sister, Drithla, was born that same day. “Drithla” is another word for sparkle.

TEN

A
S THE WAR
with the invaders continued, the Danann elders and the children too young to fight were sent into hiding. There was no longer any pretence of normalcy. Our land had become a dangerous place for young and old alike, and survival was imperative.

My parents asked the Dagda and his wife to take me and five small cousins to sanctuary. I resented being classed with the little ones and insisted my place was with the adults. Yet I knew I was not quite one or the other.

In the presence of the Dagda I still felt like a child.

Fortunately for us, his wife, Melitt, whose name was the word for honey in the old language, had talents aside from the baking of fruit bread. When it was raining, she anticipated sunshine; in darkseason, she prepared for the light. No matter how bad things were, she could summon a mouthful of chuckles. She was exactly the right person to accompany us.

By now a presentiment of what was to come was darkening the horizon. We needed someone cheerful to blow the clouds away.

I did not yet realize they would never blow away.

Our nearest clanfolk brought their children to our house before sundown: my cousins Rimba, Sinnadar, Demirci, Trialet, and Piriome—three small boys and two little girls. There was not much sleeping that night. The whispering went on and on until Mongan told the children, rather irritably, to be quiet. Before dawn we were given packs containing food and blankets and filled water skins to tie around our waists. When the Dagda and his wife arrived, they were carrying supplies too. Among the four adults there was a brief but determinedly cheerful conversation; then we were hugged good-bye as if it were an ordinary day.

But we knew; even the smallest of us knew. Not the face of the thing that hovered over us but its dark shadow, its malign intent.

Our journey from the river valley began with the sunrise. As we set out, the Dagda told us about our destination, but my imagination kept galloping off in other directions. Thinking about Mongan and Lerys; what would they do today?

How soon would they come to bring me home again?

The Dagda said we were going to a place he knew well, which had been constructed long ago. That was the point at which I stopped listening. “Long ago” was as meaningless to me as Before the Before. I couldn’t imagine a time without me in it. As far as I was concerned, my vividly alive self had sprung into being full-blown and brought the world with it. How could there have been anything before that?

When the Dagda realized he had lost his audience, he fell silent, except for an occasional remark to his wife. We walked. We drank from a clear spring, ate a few mouthfuls of food from the packs on our backs, and walked again. My cousins chattered among themselves, but I was occupied with my own thoughts.

By observing the position of the sun, I realized we were not traveling in a straight line but in a very large circle. Two, three, then more, alternating with long zigzags. When I remarked on this to the Dagda, he said, “Well done, Joss. You are correct; we are not going a great distance but leaving a long trail that will be impossible to follow.”

The pack on my back grew heavier as the day progressed. My feet were heavier too, and harder to lift. I began to regret that I had slept so little the night before. The second time I stumbled the Dagda picked me up and sat me on his shoulders with my long legs dangling down.

I was astonished that such an old person could lift me, much less carry me. Yet when we wearied he carried each of us in turn. His shoulders were broad and more sinewy than they looked, and his snowy hair smelled of wood smoke.

He was a man.

And I was not.

Yet.

Shortly after sunset we came to a wide river. Swift-flowing brown water, hissing, hurrying water. The Dagda was eager too, picking up the pace. We struggled to keep up as he led us along a reed-lined riverbank. Where the rushing water was diverted by a ridge, he turned his back on the river and began climbing. By this time I was so tired I did not think I could follow him, but I did; we all did. Melitt came at the end of our little procession, shooing us through the gathering twilight like a mother bird with her chicks.

At the top of the ridge the Dagda took some flints from his pack and struck them together, making sparks to ignite the torches. Their sudden flare drove the darkness back. Melitt held both torches high while the Dagda edged past a large boulder, then placed his hands on a heavy stone door and slid it aside as if it weighed nothing.

He came back to take a torch from his wife. “Follow me, all of you,” he commanded. We did—and were swallowed by the earth.

After several anxious heartbeats, I realized we had entered a cavern. Or perhaps a tunnel. The sweet smell of the soil was hauntingly combined with the dry scent of stone dust.

Ancient stone dust.

How could I know that?

Following the Dagda, and with Melitt bringing up the rear, we walked single file along a narrow passageway between upright boulders taller than a man. The passage had been constructed with a gentle upward incline and a slight angle at midpoint. At the end of the passageway we came to a circular chamber built of more massive stones. When we entered, we were enfolded in a muffled silence.

The hair lifted on my arms.

The Dagda and his wife wedged their torches into niches in the stones, filling the chamber with a warm, honey-colored light. “Now,” Melitt told us, “you can rest. We will be safe here.”

At those words my bones failed to support me any longer. I sat down abruptly on the floor of the chamber.

Melitt collected all the packs and emptied out the contents. She handed out blankets to make beds while her husband poured a small measure of honey wine for each of the children.

And for me. Who was glad to be counted as a child.

A small part of me wanted to stay awake and ask questions, but most of me had other ideas. After a few sips of wine, I fell fast asleep. A dizzying slide down into darkness.

When I awoke, the torches were still burning. Their dark smoke hung on air that was just as warm—or as cool—as it had been when I went to sleep. It might have been midday or midnight; both were the same in the womb of the earth.

When we had finished yawning and rubbing our eyes, the Dagda led us back down the passageway to relieve ourselves, but he would not let us go all the way outside. “It would be dangerous now,” he said.

Adults often made remarks like that to keep children from doing what they wanted to do, but in this unfamiliar place, at this worrying time, we were willing to accept his warning.

After we devoured a meal of bread and soft cheese, the Dagda took up the explanation he had abandoned the day before. We sat around him in a little circle, listening obediently. “We are inside an immense earthen mound on top of a ridge above the river,” he said. “The mound is not a natural formation but was constructed long ago by layering turves and stones.”

“Long ago” was taking on new meaning for me. “Ancient time!” I blurted out. “That’s what I smelled last night when we came in. Ancient time.”

“You are perceptive,” observed the Dagda. “I suppose that is how it appears to you.”

“But…” Something teased at the edge of my mind. “But you said time is an illusion with a purpose.”

He nodded.

“Then how do you explain…”

“There are things you must learn for yourself,” the Dagda said. “The most important lessons are always learned alone.”

I was more baffled than before.

Next the Dagda called our attention to the huge stones that formed the walls of the chamber. They had been painstakingly fitted together with pebbles forced into every gap. “What you see is no accident; this is the work of highly skilled craftsmen. Look at this.” He raised a torch while we tilted our heads back and gazed up. Up and up, into dancing shadows and quiet mystery.

“The vault of stone above our heads is over four spear lengths from the floor,” said the Dagda. “The huge capstone at the top seals the dome so the interior of the mound remains perfectly dry, even when rain is plummeting down outside. A network of stone channels carries the water away.”

My cousin Rimba, a sturdy little boy with an outthrust jaw, asserted, “You’re making that up.”

The Dagda’s smile was almost lost in the forest of his beard. “I assure you it is true. On rainy days I used to come here to listen to the water gurgling in the walls. The builders cut drainage channels into the tops of the roof stones and sealed any gaps with sand and burnt soil, so the chambers and passageway would stay absolutely dry. It seemed magical to me when I was a boy, and it still does—not the concept of drainage, which I understand, but the breadth of mind that envisioned this structure.

“I grew up here, you see. Here and around here, in the valley of the cow goddess. When I was a boy my parents tilled the rich soil along the banks of the river. In one season we could grow more than enough to feed ourselves and our animals for the next three, so we had ample time to lie on our backs and gaze at the stars.”

“I do that too!” I burst out.

“Do you really? What do you think they are, Joss? Better still, what do you want them to be?”

I caught my bottom lip between my teeth and wished I had kept my mouth shut.

Unperturbed, the Dagda went on. “Among the stars we found constellations like tribes and felt kinship with them. The wonders in the sky had inspired the building of temples and…”

My voice cut across his again. “What is a temple?”

The Dagda blinked; came back to us. My interruption had summoned him from a distant place.