Only the Stones Survive: A Novel (26 page)

The tender network, he had said.

The Dagda had been more than a king. In a race of exceptional people, he had been the most exceptional. His funeral rites must befit his status. But how could the appropriate ritual be performed by a small band of refugees hiding in caves with bats?

In the end, we are perfectly safe. All things are one and part of the same Word.

I knew then what I had to do.

We covered the Dagda’s body with the finest blanket we had and carried him to the coldest part of the cave. Then I asked everyone to join me on the riverbank. I was not sure they would come; it would be the first test of my leadership. No one had conferred the honor on me, and I had not requested it. But the space was there. And I stepped in.

In the same way they had come to bid the Dagda farewell, the Dananns arrived in twos and threes to hear what I had to say. Wounded warriors, weary mothers, feeble elders. And the children too; I had requested the children in particular. What was going to happen would become part of their memories. The children should not be shut out—I felt strongly about that.

When I announced what I planned to do for the Dagda, the Dananns protested. “The Mílesians will discover and slaughter us all!”

“We still have one protection,” I said, “their fear of the unknown. If you will trust me and we work together, I believe we can create an illusion they dare not approach.”

No one was totally convinced, but no one was willing to relinquish the funeral of a great king either.

We traveled by night, carrying the Dagda’s body wrapped in blankets and with our wounded warriors acting as lookouts. Once or twice, we almost ran into a band of the New People—perhaps searching for us—but they did not live in caves and were unsure in the dark. They did not know the land as we did. Shinann knew it best of all. She danced on ahead of us, leaving a faint silvery trail that we could follow …

 … all the way to the temple on the hill.

Along the way, we gathered firewood and enough material for a torch.

As a parting gift the Dagda had shared the secrets of three temples with me—not all of the secrets, however. “Some you must learn for yourself,” he had said. When we reached the mound on top of the ridge, I lit a single torch. With great effort, we opened the heavy doors behind the Guardian Stone. Then we carried the Dagda’s body up the narrow passageway to the central chamber.

In the recess that had held my mother, the same stone basin waited for him. Just beyond the triple spiral.

I left Melitt with her husband’s body and went back outside to give instructions. First, we had to remove the heavy plugs of quartz blocking the aperture over the entrance. Combined with the open passageway it would be sufficient to create a draft.

There were not enough of us to surround the mound while holding hands. So we pressed our hands onto the mound itself, onto the layer of white quartz. Wounded warriors, weary mothers, feeble elders, and the children too, connecting with each other through the temple.

“Now,” I said as loud as I dared. “Think of the stars. Enter the stars. Become one with the stars.”

The people on either side of me passed on the command.

The faintest ripple ran through us—or perhaps I was imagining it. “Again,” I said urgently.

I was beginning to hear what sounded like voices approaching in the distance, shouting to one another in the accents of the invaders.

“Become the stars!” I cried. “Now! The stars!”

The faint ripple intensified. An icy heat ran up my arms and into my body. Jolted through me. Through us. Ignited the quartz covering of the mound until it emitted a radiance I could see reflected on the faces on either side of me.

The temple glowed like the moon.

It would have been a terrifying sight to any unsuspecting Mílesians.

When we removed our hands, I did not know how long the light would last, so we had to act quickly.

We could not all crowd into the central chamber to view the ritual, but we could all chant the invocation the Dagda had taught to me. The Dananns filled the other two recesses and the passageway and gathered around the Guardian Stone outside while I lit the fire in the large basin. It only smouldered for a few heartbeats before blazing up around the body of the Dagda.

The billowing of smoke, the crackling of flames, flesh and bone and fabric burning—yet what I shall always remember is the haunting fragrance of ancient stone dust.

We waited with the Dagda until the fire died down.

The last thing we did before leaving the temple was close and seal the heavy stone doors. I adjured the Guardian Stone to block any attempt to enter until I returned.

As we made our way down the ridge, the unearthly glow of the quartz was just beginning to fade. We traveled all the way back to the limestone caves without being molested.

Éremón was furious. “You found some of the Túatha Dé Danann, but you let them get away? How could that happen, Gosten!”

The stocky warrior squirmed under the withering gaze of his chieftain. “I didn’t say we found them and I didn’t say we didn’t. The shining path Ruari claimed he saw would only be visible at night, so we’ve been trying to find it at night. Blundering around in the dark like idiots,” Gosten added under his breath.

“What did you say?”

“Hunting in the dark. Not easy to do, Éremón.”

“Surely you’ve hunted game in the dark before.”

“Deer and wild boar, yes, but not people. I’m not sure that what we were hunting this time could be described as ‘people.’ The Túatha Dé Danann are…” Gosten tried to think of the right word.

Éremón said impatiently, “Did you find them or not?”

“A couple of times I thought we had, but we never actually got our hands on them. We did follow them to a bend in the river below a ridge and…”

“And?” Éremón was drumming his fingers.

“They just weren’t there. But we could see this huge white light…”

“White light,” Éremón repeated sarcastically. “In the dark. You were looking at the moon, you fool.”

“It wasn’t the moon. This was entirely different, a sort of mound at the top of the ridge. Personally, I think the place is haunted. My men spooked like frightened horses and refused to go any closer. To avoid outright rebellion, I had to bring them home.”

Éremón’s face was turning red. “You should have stayed where you were and ordered them to thoroughly investigate it, whatever it was! What’s wrong with you, Gosten? You had your orders!”

The dwelling within the walls of the royal fort was fast vanishing over the horizon, but Gosten struggled to keep his temper. “There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m as loyal and obedient as anyone in your command, but I can’t do the impossible. I would like to see you march a company of warriors up a hill that glittered brighter than the stars.”

Éremón momentarily closed his eyes, trying to imagine the scene. Recalling some of the other incidents that had happened since they came to Ierne.

In his heart of hearts, he knew he would not have gone to investigate the glowing mound either.

He opened his eyes and looked at Gosten. “Haunted, you say? By evil spirits?”

“That’s what I think. A druid might be able to explain; someone like Colptha.”

“We seem to be a little short of such druids at the moment,” Éremón replied drily. “For now, Gosten, stay away from that area and keep your men away too. We don’t want anything to weaken their resolve. If the Dananns do still exist, we will discover them sooner or later and wipe them out.”

Éremón spoke with the confidence the Gael expected of their chieftains, but his bravado did not reach to the marrow of his bones. He would never admit it to anyone, but from the beginning the Dananns had unnerved him. They were able to speak in his own language—albeit with a trace of an accent that strangely reminded him of Sakkar’s—although they lived on an island that had never been visited by Gaelicians. If it had been, surely the event would have become part of tribal history.

There were other things that bothered Éremón too. No matter how hard he stared at the Dananns, he could never see them clearly. They were always at the edge of his vision, as if about to flicker out of sight. When they spoke to one another, they sounded like birds twittering. Oddest of all, they had come to battle with songs on their lips and flowers in their hair.

There was something very wrong about the Túatha Dé Danann.

Gosten had referred to the ridge being haunted. By what? And how malign were its intentions?

Although Taya complained, Éremón began taking his sword to bed with him. Cold iron had worked against the Dananns before; it might protect him again.

We had returned safely to our friends the bats but the future looked bleak. The New People were actively hunting us, and they had come too close already. I was convinced that our best protection would be to move as far away as possible.

Shinann suggested we go beyond the Wide River. She had grown up in the west of Ierne, and her descriptions of the territory at the edge of the Cold Sea were as lyrical as a bard’s. “We would be safer there,” she assured me, “because the New People would never travel that far.”

“They have already traveled the length of the land,” I reminded her. “If they are so determined to get us, even the Wide River won’t stop them.”

“But they won’t know we are there, Joss! Who will tell them? The wind? I don’t think so; the breezes are our friends, not theirs.”

No one had said anything to me about formally accepting the leadership of what remained of the tribe, but one by one the others came to me to discuss my plans.

My plans, for them.

The weight of responsibility settled on shoulders I thought were too young to bear it, but what options did I have?

I asked Shinann to describe those western caves in detail. Then we prepared for the journey.

TWENTY-EIGHT

O
NCE AGAIN,
we would travel by night, at least until we reached the Wide River. Shinann said the river that ran below the limestone caves was one of its tributaries, so we followed it like a pathway. The forests clothing much of Ierne were so dense that in places the only way to get through them was along the bank of a river or a stream. In other places, we had to pick our way across rough terrain or skirt dangerous bogs.

Ierne could be hospitable; she had been hospitable to us Before the Before. She had taken us in when we were broken and given us a home.

But the arrival of the New People had made her wary. They were not gentle and respectful of the land, and her defenses were up now.

My little sister wanted to hold my hand as we walked. I was carrying both my belongings and hers in a pack on my back, and her arms were so short I had to stoop to take her hand. But if I let go, she cried.

Drithla’s tears were like a knife through the heart.

Remembering how the Dagda had once carried me, I swung her up onto my shoulders. To my surprise, the burden was much less than I expected.

Love lightens burdens.

Then too I was growing stronger day by day; taller, heavier, becoming a man as quickly as a fledgling becomes a hawk. Necessity was the magic. My people needed me.

Shinann was changing too. As we drew nearer the Wide River, I began to notice aspects of her that I had never seen before. Her light and sparkling voice was becoming deeper, more melodious. She no longer danced; she flowed.

I was growing into a man, but Shinann was already a woman, with a woman’s power.

When we made camp for the night, it was always in the heart of the forest and we did not light fires. A fire might draw unwanted attention to us, but more important it could damage our friends the trees. The trees who protected us, who lowered their branches to shelter us and turn the rain away, who sang lullabies to the children and perfumed the air to comfort the weary travelers.

In order to keep the little ones warm at night, we wrapped them in their blankets and placed them in the center while the adults crowded close around them. I slept on the outer edge of the circle. Watchful, always.

During the night, I was increasingly aware of the bodies lying next to mine. Touching mine. Pressing against me. Other hearts beating. Warm breath on other lips.

I began to have disturbing dreams.

My people.

My ties of blood with most of them were very close. If not for the invasion of the New People, I would have begun traveling on my own soon, seeking a woman who was not kin to me. Someone light and lovely, from a distant clan. We would marry in the custom of the Túatha Dé Danann and in time there would be a child; maybe even two. Because of us, the tribe would continue.

But what if …

On the morning before we reached the Wide River, I asked Shinann, “What will happen to us if there are no more children?”

She did not hesitate. “There will always be children.”

“Born to the Túatha Dé Danann?”

She stopped walking and turned to look at me. “Carrying the blood of the Túatha Dé Danann,” she said slowly.

I heard her thoughts. They were so deeply personal that I changed the subject. She was not thinking of me.

The Wide River ran like a mighty artery through the heart of Ierne, dividing east from west. The reliable rains of leaf-spring had swollen the river to a torrent. We had to search for a long time before we found a ford where we could cross. As sunseason advanced, the level of the water was dropping, but we could not wait. We needed to find a new sanctuary now.

The river was strong and cold. The riverbed contained a number of deep holes that could swallow anyone who took a misstep. At the suggestion of Agnonis—who thought about such things because he could not see—we used ropes and vines to link us to one another. The smaller children rode on the shoulders of the adults. Once or twice, I stumbled but dare not fall; Drithla was perched on my shoulders with her tiny fingers locked in my hair.

Besides, Shinann had assured us the river would not harm us.

By the time we reached the opposite bank, the light had changed. Later, I would observe that the light always changed from east to west; two parts of a single whole.