Only the Stones Survive: A Novel (18 page)

“There’s nothing wrong with his mind,” said Amergin. “He’s a Phoenician, and they don’t think the same way we do, but he’s an asset to us.” Seeing the stricken expression on Sakkar’s face, he put an arm around the smaller man’s shoulders. “Come with me, Sakkar. I think I have half a pot of beer among my things.”

After further grumbling and several scuffles that solved nothing, the dispute faded away. Not over, still at the back of the mind, but temporarily superseded by more immediate considerations such as food and sleep.

Shinann of the Túatha Dé Danann was curious about the shouting that came to her on the wind. The friendly wind that so often brought important information. She waited until the angry sounds subsided and then drifted in their general direction, using the folds and hollows of the land for concealment. But not too much concealment. She did not want to make it impossible for her busy shadow to follow her; that would take the fun out of the game.

Awful things had happened and great pain had been inflicted, but Shinann had not surrendered to it. Life went on. She knew where the bright-eyed mother hedgehog burrowed under the leaves, where silken sacks were hanging as they incubated butterflies, where patient seeds waited in the cold dark earth to become flowers. Waited like wood mouse and mountain hare; gray seal and spotted fawn and tiny pipistrelle; the multifarious children of Ierne who endured death and life as they came, two halves of one whole.

That particular image kept recurring in Shinann’s mind: two halves of one whole.

Tragically, she had recognized her other half only to discover that he was the enemy.

It was Shinann’s nature to mourn until the flood of grief threatened to engulf her, then fight her way back to light and life. On this day and for her own amusement, she was leading Mongan’s son on a merry chase. Their route lay through part of the territory overrun by the New People.

Shinann intended to avoid the invaders herself, but it might be interesting to see how Joss reacted to them.

She made a wide circle around the plain on which the final battle had been fought; she could never set foot on that earth again. Beyond the battleground, she discovered a swarm of noisy New People polluting a pleasant valley fringed by streams. Urinating in the water. Throwing stones at the birds in the trees.

A cold knot formed around Shinann’s heart.

Picking her ground carefully, she led Mongan’s son to a location from which he would be able to see the encamped invaders without being seen. Then she waited for him to recognize the enemy.

It is important to know your enemy.

When Shinann was satisfied that Mongan’s son had observed enough, she made a sudden movement to catch his attention. Then she broke into a run, and he ran after her.

He could not catch her. No one could ever catch Shinann.

She followed a stream into a damp woodland thinly populated by leafless ash trees and a stand of alders. Seen from a distance, the many-stemmed alders were unprepossessing, more nearly shrubs than trees. Viewed up close, their crimson twigs and catkins glowed in the late winter sun. Shinann paused to appreciate their gift of beauty. Everything that contained the spark of life was beautiful to her.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched as Joss came closer. The stand of trees was too scant to provide him with enough cover.

He hesitated, unsure if he should follow her.

Smiling, she stepped out into a ray of pale sunlight.

Following Shinann meant pushing myself to the limits. Sometimes she moved so fast I had to run at top speed to avoid losing sight of her. She would halt when I least expected it and be as still as a stone. I had to do as she did. The slightest movement on my part might catch her attention.

One time when she halted abruptly, I understood why. Ahead of us, in a little valley partially screened by a stand of willows along a streambed, was a large encampment of foreigners. Men were unharnessing horses from chariots or cleaning hunting implements; women were skinning deer and building cooking fires; children chased one another while they shrieked with laughter.

Even at a distance, I knew who they were.

The New People. The enemy.

Shading my eyes with one hand, I strained to make out the details. By a sheer act of will, I narrowed the visual distance between us until I had a good look at them. The invaders resembled the Túatha Dé Danann in that each had two arms, two legs, and one head, but they were much taller and heavier than we were. Their hair displayed every shade of brown from near black to copper to ruddy gold. The women shaped theirs into curls and waves and twisted plaits. Most of the men had beards.

Only our elders grew beards.

Another difference between us was in the way they moved. The Túatha Dé Danann glide as light as feathers; where we have passed, there are no footprints. Clumsy and heavy footed, the invaders stomped across the earth as if unaware they were treading on a living being.

Their clothing was nothing like ours, either. I did not recognize the drab material from which it was made, though I supposed it was coarsely woven brown or black wool. The men wore layers of thick clothing that must have hampered their movements. Voluminous mantles were awkwardly draped across their shoulders and held in place with massive ornaments. Peeping from under the mantles were short coats, while their lower limbs were encased in leggings and low boots.

Women and children alike were dressed in robes that hung to their ankles and were dyed in muddy colours like goose-turd green and the yolk of an underdeveloped egg.

Everyone, even the children, displayed masses of jewelery. The daylight played on stacked arm rings and broad neck rings and elaborate clothing fasteners. Gold and silver and copper and electrum.

The invaders must be incredibly wealthy, I thought. It was apparent from what they wore that they thought our land was very cold. And they talked continually.

Into my head seeped the metallic clamor of alien tongues.

Suddenly, Shinann began to run. I ran after her. Away from the New People.

At some distance downstream from the encampment, we came to a damp, low-lying woodland. Shinann slowed to a walk and began to wander among the trees. She might have been a hunter looking for small game. Many animals make their homes in such places: hares and hedgehogs and red squirrels, foxes and stoats and badgers and shy pine martens, swift clever otters and elegant red deer. But the Túatha Dé Danann do not eat meat. Shinann’s only interest in the local wildlife must be curiosity.

I understood about curiosity, having more than my fair share, but this was no place to satisfy it. We were still too close to the camp of the invaders for my taste. They might send out a hunting party at any time and come upon us.

I had to find a way to lure her away from danger without revealing myself. Crouching low to the ground, I started to creep forward. Just as she came out into the open.

To my surprise, she looked straight at me as if she knew I had been there all along.

EIGHTEEN

S
HINANN LAUGHED.
I straightened up, feeling foolish.

She held out her hand toward me. “Come on, Joss, it’s all right. If you are so determined to know what I do, you might as well do it with me.”

“I was afraid you were in danger.”

“And you thought I was unaware? What a kind boy you are. Except”—she narrowed her eyes sharply—“you are not a boy anymore, are you? I thought you were much smaller.”

I was both pleased and embarrassed.

“Did Mongan ask you to be my bodyguard?”

“He … ah … this is a duty I gave myself.”

Her eyes sparkled with an inner amusement. “I see,” she said in a serious voice. “A man’s duty to his kindred, no doubt. Did you know we are relatives, Joss? Your father and mine are, or were, cousins.”

“The Day of Catastrophe?” I guessed. “That’s when my mother was killed too.”

“I know.”

Her voice was soft but not damp with sympathy; I could not bear sympathy. To move away from the pain of my mother, I said, “I suppose most of the Dananns are related.”

“Most of them,” she confirmed, “though some more closely than others. We have never been a very large race. Are you tired? Would you like to sit down for a while? That log over there looks dry.”

Following her gesture, I saw a large log lying only a few paces from us. I would have been willing to swear it was not there before. But all my attention had been focused on her, of course.

As we sat down side by side, I noticed that Shinann’s body gave off a delicate perfume. If scents had color, hers would have been pale blue and green.

“Is this not better, Joss?”

“It is, but I’m really not tired.”

“Of course not, a strong young man like yourself. Mongan must be very proud of you. Do you know what his name means in the old language?”

It had never occurred to me to ask what my father’s name meant in the old language. There were so many questions I had not yet asked.

“Changer of Shapes,” said Shinann. “Your father can assume other forms if he wishes. There are tales told about when he was a young man … Do you have the gift as well?”

She was studying my face. Any words I might have spoken dried in my mouth.

“Life is a school,” she went on casually, as if her previous statement was unimportant, “and we are always learning. If you plan to follow someone by pretending to be one of the trees, you probably should learn how to
be
a tree. Take my hand.”

Speechless, I accepted the hand she extended to me.

Shinann led me to a tall ash tree with an unkempt, ragged crown. I was absolutely certain the tree was not there earlier. She greeted the ash as if it were an old friend, then took her hand from mine and put her two palms flat on the trunk of the tree.

“Do as I do, Josh. That’s right, both hands. Now empty your mind.”

“How do I do that?”

“Think of nothing.”

It was impossible to think of nothing. Shinann must have known it because she laughed again. “Try and capture the moment just before you fall asleep, when you stop being aware of yourself. Be aware of the tree instead.”

I tried. I really did.

“
Totally
aware, Joss, with your whole being. Aware of the texture of ash bark, so smooth and gray. Aware of the hungry grasping of the roots deep in the earth. The stirring of sap as it flows through the trunk, keeping the tree alive. Feel it moving through you. Feel what the tree feels. Do not try to imagine anything, just let it happen to you. In you. Accept the tree. Become the tree.”

I stood with both my hands on the tree and …

 … and …

The magic came to me then.

On the following morning, Éremón took Taya for a tour of the battlefield. He drove his chariot himself, cracking the whip ostentatiously over the backs of his team until Taya remarked, “Every time you do that, the horses lay their ears back. Perhaps you’re upsetting them.”

“Of course not! I’m an excellent driver. They just need to be reminded that I’m in charge. Watch this!” He tried to snake the whip alongside one of the horses to force the pair to turn in the opposite direction, a maneuver he had watched his charioteer perform many times.

The horses veered in their tracks and bolted.

The chariot rocked up on its side with one wheel digging deep into the soft sod. Taya gave a shriek and grabbed Éremón—who was struggling to keep his own balance. Moments later, the couple were tumbled onto muddy and broken ground.

Taya got to her feet with all the dignity of a princess. Without saying anything more to Éremón, she brushed off her clothes with her hands, gathered her disarranged hair into a knot at the back of her neck, and walked away.

A deeply embarrassed Éremón was left to run after the horses as they careened around the battlefield, dragging the overturned chariot behind them.

A couple of days passed before Éremón could persuade Taya to go for another ride with him. She expressed no desire to see a battlefield where so many had died, so he took her as far as a long green ridge crowned by timber columns.

“The view from here is spectacular,” he explained as they approached.

Yet the closer they came to the hill, the more uncomfortable Éremón felt. He had the profound conviction that he was being watched. He was about to turn the horses and drive away when Taya tugged at his arm. “Is that where we’re going, Éremón? Look; isn’t someone up there?”

They had discovered Amergin, wandering alone where he had first seen Shinann.

He did not know if she was still alive, but he would feel it if she died. A great hollow would open in the center of him. Since it had not, he kept looking for her, watching for her. The ridge was important to her people, so maybe she visited it from time to time. Amergin visited it from time to time; almost every day. He had not expected to find Taya here, though; Taya whom he had once thought of marrying.

She was delighted to see the bard. Éremón was less so, but Taya was not attuned to the nuances of his personality. She took it for granted that Éremón and his brother were on good terms. After Éremón tied up the horses, she placed herself between the two men, taking each by an elbow while she steered them around the hilltop.

At first there was little to observe but mist and fog. When a breeze sprang up, the clouds were swept away to reveal the heart of Ierne spread out below them as far as the southern mountains.

Taya was enraptured. She wandered along the ridge, admiring the carvings on the wooden columns. “This is the most beautiful place in the world,” she pronounced as she stooped to pluck a tiny flower blooming far out of its season. Having no interest in flowers, Éremón walked on without her. And found himself facing the Stone of Destiny.

It hummed.

Éremón was unable to move.

Taya came running up, filled with the joy of discovery. “What an unusual stone, is it a monument?” she asked. Before Éremón could answer or warn her back, she touched the pillar stone with her fingertips. Then she trustingly rested her cheek against its grainy surface.