The Snowmelt River (The Three Powers) (11 page)

They were all jittery and needed a break. Somewhere along the open farmland between Kilkenny and
Carlow, Alan pulled the truck off the road onto a grassy track that led down into an abandoned quarry. Here, screened from the world in a bowl of shadow, they talked in hushed voices and shared the chips and chocolate and the first of the two bottles of cola. Over the rim of the quarry, the mid-afternoon sun hid behind gathering clouds. Mo held on tight to the talisman dangling on the shoelace around her throat.

“Padraig did warn us that the gate would be warded.” Kate muttered quietly.

“He did.” Alan nodded. “But I don’t think any of us imagined it would be as scary as this.”

As they hurried on again toward the last of the sisters—the Barrow at its upper waters between Carlow and Athy—they knew the watcher was stalking them. The quiet lanes felt creepy as they hurried through them.

In the deepening shadows of late afternoon, Alan pulled to a halt over a slope of marshy ground, where the road and river parted, making them fearful of the distance between them. No one hurried to volunteer.

“Looks like it’s you and me, Mark!” Alan confronted Mark, with a challenging look in his eyes.

Mark snatched the third container from the back of the truck and started down the slope. Kate wanted to go with him but Alan said no. “Stay in the cab. Make sure the engine is running. And Mo, you just sit tight in the back. We may have to get out of here in a hurry!” Then, with a sigh of exasperation, he shouted to Mark to hold on so he could catch up with him. But Mark continued on his own.

“Don’t be a jerk! I’m coming!” Alan hopped up into the back of the truck and grabbed the spear before vaulting back to the ground.

But the fair-haired youth was already well down the slope, with a loping stride, so Alan had to break into a sprint to catch up with him, using the long wooden shaft of the spear as a prop against the boggy ground. The slope soon leveled off to a flat plain of clinging mud, with fouled rushes and giant weeds. Mark had to pick his way carefully now, doing his best to keep to the firmer humps of ground, using the empty container in places to stop himself from slipping into the mud. Following behind Mark into the dense shrub of pussy willow and overgrown oaks by the riverbank, Alan was startled by the silence. Other than the merest whispering of the water over slippery stones, there was none of the chatter of nature. And then, deep in the shadows, as Mark slithered down the bank to force the neck of the container into the murky water, Alan saw in the foliage above him an empty nest that had once been home to a family of wagtails.

The broken bowl of the nest was littered with feathers. He saw other clusters of feathers still attached to some fragments of wing and splinters of bone scattered on the ground close to his feet. There were tiny flecks of bloodied flesh around the bones. Panic rose in his chest. His lungs felt waterlogged. His eyes lifted to the shadows between the trees. The hooded figure was only yards away and stiller than the stones. Its eyes had the unblinking glare of a pike.

He called out hoarsely, “Mark! Don’t look up. Just pass me the container and let’s get the hell out of here!”

The embankment was much harder to climb up than it had been to slither down. There was no time to place their feet and they sank to their ankles in the clinging mud. Unburdened by the container, Mark moved faster than Alan, who saw him extend his lead on him, already a third of the way up the field, while, breathless with effort and jabbing at the foul ground with the shaft of the spear, he struggled to follow.

“Go on! Warn the others!” he shouted after him. “I’ll see if I can delay it with the spear.”

He had arrived to about midway up the slope. From what seemed a long way above him he could hear the high-pitched exhortations of Kate and Mo. He felt the mantle of suffocating darkness close about him. He could run no farther. He stopped and wheeled around. The eyes were so close he saw the wavering discs of quicksilver that were the irises, the imperfect pupils, black without reflection, opening on a void. His heart seemed to stop and he felt his legs buckle under him. In moments the darkness was lapping about him.

“Jesus—come on!” Mark shouted from far above him.

He had almost given up hope when he heard Mo’s song. She had left the truck and was standing at the top of the slope, her eyes clenched shut, the talisman raised above her head. Her song was sweet and repetitive, like a mysterious incantation. The monstrous presence seemed to recoil a little, the pike eyes wavering as if they had lost some of their substance.

He heard Mark’s voice roaring, “Now run, you idiot!
Run!”

In that strange suspension of time and distance, the slope, with its boggy ground, became a treadmill of pounding heart and rasping breath. A mist invaded his eyes. His feet sank into the wet mud. He tore them free, his flailing legs clockwork extensions of his terror. Though it harried and closed on him, the foul mantle appeared to hold back from attacking him, as if the presence of the tiny singing figure at the top of the slope was having some effect. Mark grabbed Alan on one side and by Kate on the other, as they hauled him and the container over the top of the field and onto the dirt road.

Oh, man!

He couldn’t believe he was safely back at the wheel of the truck, with Kate screeching and Mark and Mo on their feet in the back, hammering with their fists on the roof of the cab, as he shoved his foot to the floor.

“Nassty—nassssssty! We hates ol’ fish-eyes—yes, my preciousss. Nassty ol’ fissh-eyes, yesss!” Mark said in his Gollum voice.

His mind still in a daze, Alan crashed through the gears. He hardly registered the remainder of the journey, although it must have lasted an hour, along the main road southwest from Carlow, through the open streets of Kilkenny, past the ruins of the ancient castle, before, with the truck rumbling noisily in low gear as he turned right off the main street in Kilkenny to
Clonmel Road, he heard Kate’s relieved voice exclaim, “We’re here!”

He saw the sign for Nine Mile House and soon the final village, Kilcash, with its fading baskets of flowers outside the post office.

Through Feimhin’s Gate

“Suh-Suh-Suh-Slievenamon!” Mo looked up at it with round eyes.

Alan took them as close to the slope as the small lane would allow, then killed the engine, enabling them to alight from the truck and stand gazing close-up at the mountain that had called them, swathed as it now appeared in the heather of high summer. From this close it looked different, flatter, the peak invisible, including its cairn of stones. The boys took a drum of water each and the girls one between them and then they began the long slow climb through the brambles and ragged trees on the lower slopes. Alan took the lead, holding the drum of water in his left hand and the Spear of Lug in his right.

Moment by moment, the sky appeared to grow more heavily overcast. Every instinct bade them hurry. It wasn’t
long before the weight of the drums tired their arms. But they refused to rest or slow down, even when the narrow handles of the containers cut impressions into the flesh of their hands, forcing them to keep changing arms, no matter that their muscles soon began to cry out for a rest. So it continued, ever upward, under the black race of cloud and a sky that increasingly lowered down upon them. A charge of static electricity lifted the hair of their heads as, too exhausted to cheer, they crested the summit. Clonmel, within the crumbling remnants of its ancient walls, was visible in the hazy distance, its outline ghostly amid the smoky plumes of its chimneys.

Here they allowed themselves a minute or so to recover.

They had run out of cola so they refreshed themselves with the water from the high Barrow—it had looked like the cleanest of the three they had gathered.

Change was in the world about them, a galvanizing excitement that tingled on their skins, a pins-and-needles prickling that invaded their bodies from the charge of the mountain. Suddenly Alan’s heart was pumping madly, a cry rising to his lips. But Kate beat him to it. She shrieked so hard it hurt Alan’s ears, and she pointed ahead with a trembling hand.

Wheeling, they all saw the place where she was pointing. Kate and Mo were already running toward it, carrying their drum between them—the place every one of them had seen so many times in their dreams, a collection of dark gray boulders shaped like a table that was now no more than a hundred yards distant. But even
as Alan shared their excitement, his instincts caused him to glance over his shoulder, toward the west, where a growing darkness was blocking out the light. Mark, Kate and Mo had dropped their burdens and were already exploring the stones by the time he turned around again.

In a flushed but silent awe, they darted about the ancient tumulus, peering into clefts and touching the rough, lichen-encrusted surfaces. Then Mark’s voice was raised a pitch, looking at Kate who was shrieking, ear-piercingly, again. “What is it, Kate? What are you raving about?”

“Look there—
there
!” She waved to what appeared to be a stony ledge about four feet above the ground, half hidden in the jumble of stones.

Alan saw what she meant.

“Everybody—keep clear a moment!”

He placed the spear on the ledge and climbed up after it, then started to clear the rubble off the top.

“Hey—there’s a second level, under this rubbish!”

Mark hauled himself up to join him.

“You see what I mean? Under this big flat stone?”

Mark nodded. With their eyes bulging and the veins and muscles in their necks standing out, they tugged and levered at the big stone. It took every ounce of their combined strength, their muscles straining and the blood squeezed from their fingertips. At last, they felt it begin to slide.

“Watch out, girls!” Alan cried as, with a grinding rumble, the rock moved far enough for the two boys to
get their hands fully beneath it, then tilt it over the edge and send it crashing into the surrounding heather.

Both raised their fists and hollered and the girls cheered.

“What is it?”

The girls climbed up onto the ledge to join Alan and Mark in peering at the flat table of stone that had been exposed at about waist level. They brushed away the dust over a circular basin cut deep into the table, perhaps two feet in diameter—a font, as it now appeared, that formed a perfect half sphere. As Alan wiped his fingers over the rim, they could all see, deeply inscribed into the blue-gray lip of the basin, the lines and angles chasing the rim—words of power, clusters of them, running over and into the bowl.

“It’s Ogham!” Mark exclaimed.

“Ooh!” Kate murmured. “But what does it mean?”

It was Mark who answered Kate, Mark whose voice had suddenly become knowing. “Remember what Padraig said. He told us we’d find the basin here. If Padraig is right, it’s. . . . Oh, bloody hell! This is it. This is the gateway he talked about—
Sidhe ár Feimhin.
”

All four stared at the font in wonder.

Alan put his right arm around Kate’s shoulders. He felt Mo clasp hold of his free hand, trembling with nervousness. “Thuh-thuh-thuh-the guh-gateway!”

“Read it, Mark!”

“I’m doing my best. But I can hardly make anything out, it’s become so dark.”

They had been so wrapped up in their excitement that none of them had been aware of the enveloping darkness. Clonmel was no longer visible in the west. Mark moaned aloud, “How am I supposed to make out the words!”

Then, from out of the gloom, they heard a strange sound:

“Duvaaalll!”

“Holy Mother of God!” Kate’s left hand clutched at Alan’s T-shirt.

“C’mon you guys!”

Mark passed up the first of the drums, so Alan could empty it into the font. There was a gurgling of splashing water together with the hollow crunching sound of a plastic container when it emptied too quickly and sucked in the sides. A faint pink glow was coming out of the font. Mo’s face, close to the water, was highlighted by it, like a ghostly reflection.

“C’mon, everybody,” Kate addressed them urgently, “take off your shoes!”

“Whatever for?” Mark’s voice sounded discordantly calm.

“Remember the way Mo did it on the Comeraghs. Do it, quickly!”

Alan set the example, sitting down on the ledge between Mo and Kate, tearing off his sneakers. “Tie the laces round your neck, so you won’t lose them. But let’s get our bare feet planted on the ledge.”

Suddenly the air felt dank in their lungs, as if the individual molecules were turning chill. Hurriedly, they ripped off their shoes. Kate sprang up onto the ledge. “The
second drum—come on, boys!” Kate’s voice sounded out, quavering but still authoritative from above them.

Alan and Mark jumped back down to the ground, scrambling about in their bare feet, barely able to make out the containers in the gloom. Alan’s limbs felt leaden as if he were floundering under water. Then he heard it again, that same horrible rasping voice, coming out of the enveloping gloom.

“Duvaaalll!”

Kate was shrieking, “Oh, God—be quick!”

Alan and Mark groaned as they heaved burdens that seemed to have grown heavier up onto the ledge, then scrambled up themselves. Kate was already adding the second river to the mix in the font. They saw the splash of light, like a cataract of glowing silver invading the darkness, a spiral of vapor rising and illuminating all of their faces.

“Just one more!” Kate’s face seemed mask-like, her mouth closed tight, as if suppressing a scream.

Alan passed her the heavy bulk of the last container. It was the water from the River Suir. He helped her drop it onto its side and saw the cap come off in Kate’s hands. Her eyes were liquid reflections of the furnace that fumed and spiraled within the black outline of the stone. Her hands became one with the cataract of silvery light. Alan hugged her shoulders to steady her as she tipped the drum into the basin.

A rush of foul air enveloped them and was cut through by the sound of Mo chanting. Green cataracts of putrefying luminescence were approaching from the direction
they had heard the rasping of Alan’s name. A shape was coalescing out of the gathering darkness, a cowled head.

Alan shouted, “Hold on to each other!”

They formed a tight circle around the white-glowing font. No more than thirty yards away a growing malignancy spat green fire. Mark was violently shaking his head.

“I don’t believe it—it’s impossible—I don’t believe it!”

The monstrous presence was gathering substance and strength. The sanctuary of the stone font would not save them.

Mo’s face lifted heavenward as she uttered a rapid litany of incantation. A shower of brilliant sparks swirled from the moiling surface of the font, defying the darkness that was suffocating the light. Alan saw eyes appear within the cowl. He saw how the eyes changed from moment to moment, the silvery blue-green of rancid flesh, the rose of butchery, then a mad altercation, like a corrupted rainbow. The power of its malice was invading their minds.

“I cuh-cuh-cuh-can’t stop it! I cuh-cuh-cuh-cuh . . .” Mo wailed.

“Come on, Mark! You’ve got to read the Ogham!”

Mark stared at the glowing font. Now, in the bright light from the spiraling water, the letters stood out, as if aglow with some inner illumination.

“I can’t make myself think. I can’t remember anything.”

Kate shouted, “Will you just try, you idiot! Remember what you’ve been learning from Padraig.”

“Now I’m here, everything looks different.”

“Holy Mary and Joseph!”

Mark ran a shaky finger around the circle of inscriptions. He read it slowly, making it out letter by letter, and word by word, in the ancient Irish and then, as best he could, translated it into English:

“Whuh-whuh-whuh-what?”

“Stop it, Mo! You’re winding me up.”

Alan hissed, “Get on with it, Mark!”

“Don’t you think I’m racking my brains to understand the rest of it? You have a go for yourself, if you think you can do any better. It’s your name that thing is calling. It’s you it’s after.”

Mark’s words terrified Alan. He couldn’t help but glance toward the looming evil. Was it his imagination . . . or were the eyes gathering strength?

“Just try—you’re the only one who can!”

Mark focused on the Ogham blazing over the edge of the font. The water spun in an increasing vortex, now turquoise, now the old gold of the Celtic torcs about the throats of those ancient shamans.

“Duvaaalll!”

The voice sounded from so very close. It seethed, driven by a loathing so dreadful it vibrated in the rocks under Mark’s feet.

Mo sobbed out loud.

Alan grabbed the spear from the ledge. Although his legs were trembling with fright, he forced himself to climb up onto the table of stone that contained the basin. Now, with one foot on either side of the whirlpool of light, he held the Spear of Lug aloft, the spiral of the lance head glittering in the swirl of ascending light. He shouted his defiance into the air.

“Come on then! I’m not afraid of you!”

Though they were brave words, they scarcely hid his terror.

The eyes turned their full glare on his defiant figure. The upraised spear goaded the monster into a mounting rage. Alan wilted under the force of its malevolence, yet he held his ground while those eyes came nearer. The stench made him want to be sick. Open jaws were now visible below the eyes, glistening fangs protruding from a hideous maw. He could feel its rank breath on his face and in his hair.

He held his nerve until the maw was about to enclose him, the eyes black pits in whirling pools of blood, and then, dipping the blade in the foaming waters, he hurled the spear with all of his might into the monster’s right eye.

It burrowed deep into that baleful face. With a roar of fury that shook the ground, the monster shrank back into its own vortex.

But it wasn’t over. The presence merely drew back, incandescent with rage, in anticipation of a new charge.

“Bloody hell!” Mark’s voice was croaky with horror. “Alan—this is it, the best I can do:

“Whose name?”

“I don’t know.”

Alan’s mind raced. One of the three rivers? He shouted all three names, “Suir—Nore—Barrow!” But nothing happened.

What name?

In desperation, he stared at the circle of Ogham at his feet. He knew from the moans of his friends that the monster was no longer retreating. The new charge was beginning. In despair he gazed deep into the spuming cauldron where the waters of the three sisters had been brought to consummation. His mind reeled with the terrible visions that were growing there. He saw a battlefield from long ago, over which a thunderous sky lowered. An armored warrior lay mortally wounded amid the flames and the blood-soaked ground, his final act of defiance to raise his bloodied arm with its broken sword into that terrible sky. The warrior’s mouth was twisting into a desperate cry, a name anguished and broken:
“Mó-rí-gán!”

The monster roared, its maw an abyss of crimson between the slavering tors that were its fangs.

Alan sensed a faint sound of the warrior’s cry rising, spiraling and receding into the maelstrom overhead, where something distant and black held utterly still. The name was familiar, but he didn’t remember why.
If only he could focus on what it meant. . . . He recalled his grandfather’s words, “I will do what little I can to help you.” But what, in all he had learned from Padraig, might help him now?

The dying warrior reminded him of Padraig’s stories. Was it something he remembered from one of the legends, of Niamh and Oisín, or Balor and the imprisoned Ethniu, or the triple goddess, the terrible Trídédana?

Alan gasped.

Mórígán!

He remembered it now from several of the yarns his grandfather had told them—
Mórígán
, raven of the battlefield—goddess of death!

The impulse to incant her name became overwhelming. Alan had no more conscious control over his own diminished figure. He stood astride the cauldron where he felt the spiraling motes of sacred light from the font invade his flesh and glow fiercely within his very being.