Only the Stones Survive: A Novel (12 page)

Looks can be deceiving.

I watched my new sister being cleaned and wrapped in a blanket and saw the beginning of the process by which Melitt and Mongan tended my mother. The Dagda stood off to one side, his lips moving silently. I was reminded of the distant roaring I heard the evening before. The roaring that was over now.

Sound without words; words without sound.

Mongan and Melitt gently removed my mother’s bloody clothing and bathed her ruined body with our drinking water. The final steps of preparing her were too intimate to see. Melitt asked her husband to take the rest of us outside.

The thin cry of the baby followed us as far as the Guardian Stone.

The fresh, cold air was welcome after the noisome atmosphere in the chamber. I drew a deep breath and filled my chest all the way to the bottom. The rain had passed; the rising sun was celebrated by myriads of songbirds. Placid sheep were grazing on the hillside.

Children with little experience of life are unprepared for the event of a death. My cousin Demirci suddenly burst into tears. His younger brother Trialet gave a nervous giggle, and little Piriome caught my hand and pressed anxiously against my side. As for me, I just stood there. Letting the day fill me up.

I had once asked the Dagda, “What was I before I was born?”

“You were you. A rather different version, but you.”

“What will I be after I die?”

“You can still be you,” the old man replied reassuringly. “A different version, but you. Minds forget, but spirit remembers.”

Without Lerys, there was no milk to feed Drithla. Fortunately, Melitt could do more than bake bread. She carefully selected various items of food and chewed them to a soft paste that she blended with water, then fed to the baby on the tip of her finger. Drithla tasted it, suckled at the proffered finger as if it were a nipple, then refused the remainder by spluttering and crying. Melitt altered the mixture slightly and tried again. And again. A drop of honey; the squeezing from a berry. Try again.

The baby consumed enough to stay alive. Then all at once she began eating with enthusiasm. Soon she was thriving on her diet; the spark of life in my little sister was very strong. Life has a way of enduring.

So does death. The opposite ends of the same experience, the Dagda said.

My mother’s death introduced me to the uncertain borderland that lies between the dead and the living. Mongan insisted that Lerys was always near him, close enough to summon if he chose. She might be singing songs beside the lake, he said, or dancing in a beam of sunlight in the meadow.

I wanted to believe him; I did believe him. The expression on his face assured me she was visible to him. He cocked his head as if listening to her voice. My eyes could not see her and my ears could not hear her, but that was my fault and not hers. Lerys was
there
; a permanent yet intangible presence.

Faith was my father’s greatest gift to me.

Mongan na Manannan Mac Lir was a prince of the highest rank. Nobility confers obligation. Mongan’s share of the fighting was over, but the real struggle had only begun.

As his son and heir, most of it would fall to me.

The New People gave us no time to mourn.

While the blood was still drying on the battlefield where my mother died, they began sending out warriors to locate the remainder of the Túatha Dé Danann. It would be a mistake to leave any members of such a troublesome race alive.

Cynos, son of Greine and the great queen Eriu, summoned an urgent meeting of what remained of the Danann army, to be joined by the surviving elders. Not at the Gathering Place, which now was behind enemy lines, but in a glade hidden deep in the woods. Cynos was the ranking warrior of his generation, the courageous men and women who had borne the brunt of the war so far and been almost destroyed. A brilliant crop full of promise for the future, brutally harvested by blades of cold iron.

Cynos himself had been badly injured. There were not enough of the tribe left to perform the healing ritual, but some of the wounded would survive anyway. Until they died, they would bear, on their beautiful, perfect bodies, the battle scars, like constellations of cruel stars.

Cynos was carried to the glade in the woods on a litter.

My father took me with him. He walked to the meeting on his own feet but kept one hand firmly on my shoulder. Only he and I knew how much he needed my support.

The Dagda was accorded the place of honor as chief elder. Melitt sat next to him with little Drithla in her arms. The sadness in the old woman’s eyes was mirrored in my father’s, and surely in mine too.

Cynos was barely able to talk. He only managed to gasp, “We have to plan our next step,” before doubling up with a violent fit of coughing. A second try was no better. At last he gestured to Mongan, as the next in rank, to conduct the meeting. My father began with a tight-lipped speech of welcome while Cynos lay crumpled beside him like a pile of discarded blankets.

When it was the turn of those in attendance to speak if they wished, Dos, whose throat was swathed in cobwebs held in place with linen, croaked like a frog. But at least we could hear him. “We made a grave error by demonstrating any of our powers,” said the Prince of the Lakes. “The invaders will enslave us in order to gain control of…”

Dos was interrupted by Torrian, the youngest of the surviving princes. There were only five of them, counting my father. One of Torrian’s ears was torn, and a jagged wound on his forehead was seeping fluid. The heat of battle was still in him, though; I sensed it quivering in the air. One of his grandfather’s grandfathers had been Nuada of the Silver Hand. “On the contrary, Dos,” he said. “We should have hit them with everything we had.”

“Everything but the Earthkillers,” amended the daughter of Fodla the Wise.

“
Especially
the Earthkillers!” cried the younger brother of Samoll the spear carrier. “We should have used them on the foreigners as soon as they set foot on our shores!”

One of the elders was shocked. “Remember what Eriu said? We cannot employ horrors without becoming horrible too.”

Like a river that burst its banks, unvoiced mutterings poured into my defenseless head. The sudden pain left me reeling. When I looked around for help, I saw the Dagda watching me with a quizzical expression.

Can you hear me, Joss? No, do not try to answer yet. Let your gift grow until it is stronger.

“I don’t want it!” I cried.

You have no choice. You must have inherited the gift from your mother; it only comes to a few of us. And never before to a child.

I looked away from him and closed my eyes as tight as I could, willing myself to shut everything out.

The argument continued on two levels, and I was the unwilling recipient of both. If the full complement of the tribe had been alive and present, their silent voices would have destroyed my mind.

Never to a child, the Dagda had said.

“We could survive here for the darkseason,” one of the elders suggested. I could barely hear him through the cacophony in my head, but I struggled to concentrate. “Maybe the invaders won’t come this far. If they do, perhaps we can avoid them for a while as we did before. Then by leaf-spring, we can…”

In voice clotted with pain, a woman grimly predicted, “By leaf-spring we’ll all be in chains.”

“We came here by sea,” said someone else. “We could build boats and…”

“And go where? Back to the last place we came from? By now another race will have been there for generations. It was good land, and they won’t give it up; why should they? They would rightly see us as invaders.”

“Persuade them that we come in peace!” exclaimed Melitt. Warm, soft, old Melitt who never raised her voice.

Torrian scoffed. “Would that make any difference to long-settled people who must consider themselves natives by now? I seriously doubt it. We would have to fight them, and what weapons would we use? Should we dig up the Earthkillers and try to carry them back across the sea? They would probably disintegrate on the voyage. We would arrive with only our battered bronze and have to face iron again, I suspect. I can tell you how that would turn out.”

“More and more war,” rasped Dos. “Killing and more killing. No end to it. No end at all.” With a groan like a death cry, he pulled his cloak over his head.

The Dananns turned toward my father then, seeking answers. Mongan looked old. Older than the Dagda, older than the hills. “As a people, we outgrew our enthusiasm for killing long ago,” he said wearily. “We brought upon ourselves the original catastrophe that left us homeless. Before the Before our ancestors thought they finally had found a new home here. This island fit us like our own skin. If we leave it, we may be homeless forever. If we stay, we will be slaughtered or enslaved; probably both. There are no other choices.”

“Use the Earthkillers!” someone screamed.

Another shouted, “Let’s die fighting!”

The noise in my head was building again. I clapped my hands over my ears, but it did no good, no good at all.

The group divided into factions. One segment argued for rearming and making one more effort to expel the invaders, even if it meant using the Earthkillers. Another said we should leave the island altogether and take our chances on the open sea. A few thought it might be better to surrender and plead for mercy, but they were shouted down: “We are a free people! We must always be a free people!”

The Dagda caught and held my eyes.
This is not the best place for you, Joss. Go to the temple, where you can think clearly.

I stared at him.

Go now,
he commanded.
Seek the silence and what you may discover. Stay there and do not return until I summon you.

Before the buzzing in my head completely overwhelmed me, I stood up and slipped away. To the timeless silence of the temple on the ridge.

Where the Guardian Stone was waiting.

TWELVE

A
MERGIN HAD LONG PONDERED
the mystery of the tattooed savages who had stood aside for a bard. They must be Celtic people, he concluded. Not unlike us in spite of their garish appearance. But how did they come to be here? And for how many generations have they occupied Ierne?

Should we slaughter our own?

There were other mysteries on his mind as well. Time was one. Ever since the fleet was lost in the fog, he had been aware that time was different in this place. The duration of day and night were undefined, and their passage uncertain. How long had the Mílesians been here? Sometimes it seemed as if they had marched across the island already and won a score of battles; the memory of them resonated at the edges of his mind. On other days, everything looked new, seen for the first time, and the future was still ahead.

Was it possible that the past and the future were interchangeable on Ierne? Was he remembering the future? Did he have yet to experience the past?

Could either of them be changed?

When Amergin mentioned this curious notion to the tribe’s diviner, the druid Corisios, the other man confirmed his impression. “I’ve been trying to read the omens and portents ever since we got here,” he told Amergin, “but every time I throw the bones or examine the droppings of birds, the answers come up different.”

“Doesn’t that worry you?”

“I don’t know what to think,” the diviner admitted. “I’ve reported my findings to Donn and Éremón, and they don’t seem too concerned. Éber Finn even laughed. ‘It will sort itself out when we get used to the place,’ he assured me. But then, Éber’s no druid.”

“How about Colptha?”

“Ah.” Corisios tugged at his lower lip. “He offers his sacrifices and comes to his conclusions, but he doesn’t share them with me.”

The diviner’s revelation worried Amergin. Until they came to Ierne, the druids had worked in unison as representatives of the spirit world. If Colptha was using it as an opportunity to satisfy a selfish need of his own, there could be serious repercussions.

The spirits were always watching.

When the weather was dry, Amergin took Clarsah from her case and cradled her against his chest so she could observe the land through which they passed. The harp was a being of remarkable sensitivity, deeply affected by the kiss of the wind and the caress of the light. In spite of her mysteries—or perhaps because of them—Ierne’s beauty was inspiring.

Amergin was not so arrogant as to believe Clarsah’s music sprang from him.

The Mílesians and their followers might appear to be a cohesive army, but in reality they were riven by dissension. In the vacuum left by Donn’s emotional withdrawal, Éremón and Éber Finn increasingly contested for the leadership. At first their rivalry had been limited to making sarcastic remarks about each other, but it had degenerated into criticism severe enough to drive a wedge between their respective admirers. Heroes always had admirers.

Colptha observed with keen interest the heated arguments between his brothers. The sacrificer overheard many things not intended for him; he had a habit of insinuating himself into the surroundings without drawing attention.

Their most recent encampment was on the edge of an extensive bogland. The chief advantage of the bog was that it provided an unobstructed view in all directions; the chief disadvantage was that it might swallow any person reckless enough to venture across it. In many areas the surface looked deceptively stable. Luring unwitting sacrifices.

Colptha liked bog. There was none in the homeland of the Mílesians, but from the first he had appreciated its qualities. Bog was indomitable. Bogs in low-lying areas overcame oak, pine, yew, and hazel to create a rich mix of slowly rotting vegetation that supported a stunning variety of life. Mountain bogs clothed hills and even mountaintops, waging war on the ubiquitous heather and often moving of their own volition.

Armies of bog. Bog that kept its secrets.

Colptha liked bog.