The Snowmelt River Page 9

  ‘Ugh!’ Kate made a face.

  ‘Now switch off your torches for a moment and watch – you, Mark, in particular.’ In the pitch dark, they stared with a prickling awe as they saw how the sigil of the triple infinity glowed, like a silvery malignant eye, in the dark. ‘Bear with me a moment longer,’ bade Padraig, as he poured the insects in a living trickle over the black blade. There was a sparking, like an electric discharge, on contact, and then a fierce smoky flame. The insects convulsed and burnt.

  The four friends jerked back, their nostrils filled with the acrid stench. The torches flared back on, in trembling hands.

  ‘Whuh-whuh-what does it muh-mean, Mr O’Brien?’

  ‘Even today, thousands of years after it was forged, the blade still retains its ancient power. Such is its potency it is still deadly to anything it touches. A formidable weapon. And I’m afraid that you but glimpse its real potential for malice – undimmed by time.’

  Alan’s eyes narrowed. ‘Who was he?’

  ‘I think you have guessed that by now, every one of you!’

  ‘This is Feimhin?’

  ‘The warrior prince himself.’

  ‘But who defeated him? Who killed him?’ Kate’s finger was pointing to the cloven skull.

  ‘The Ogham tells of a warrior tribe who were not native to Ireland. They talk about little people, no taller than children, but yet the fiercest warriors. Some say they were called to assist another tribe, known as Tuatha De Danaan – the people of Diana – when the de Danaans were being conquered by the newly arriving Celts. More likely it was civil warfare within the Tuatha De Danaan themselves. The name of these ferocious warriors was Fir Bolg. The words, in that old language, are believed to mean something like “Warriors of Destiny”.

  ‘According to the legends, it was Feimhin himself who, in his lust for power, first opened the gate on Slievenamon. His call was answered by a force of darkness, perhaps the same force that forged the sword – and Grimstone’s broken dagger.

  ‘What followed was chaos, raging throughout the length and breadth of Ireland, and extending far beyond, to Britain, as it is now known, and further still, deep into Europe, and even beyond. Never-ending war, all driven by that unassuageable malice. The slaughter is described as fearsome. Everywhere throughout these lands you find funeral mounds and circles of wood and stone, calling on the gods and goddesses to save the tormented people.

  ‘The wisest of counsels suggested the boldest possible answer. Since the chaos had been imported from another world, through Feimhin’s gate, they called for assistance through that same portal. In answer to their call came the Fir Bolg, who had long perfected the arts of warfare in combat against that same dark force in that other world.’

  Padraig ran his finger over the Ogham.

  ‘“Here,”’ he read, ‘“the strangers came, in answer to our prayers. They fought through rack and ruin, with indomitable courage.”’ Padraig’s finger ran further along the chiselled lines. ‘Fir is Mna – they fought men and women, side by side, spurning the weapons of local tribes and princes and favouring their own ward-strengthened axes of bronze. Look here at this description. I’ll read it so you can see for yourselves – “Men and women of unearthly countenance … Warriors whose very hair turned to flame in battle”. The inscriptions go on to describe them as fearing nothing, not even the darkness that had taken this prince’s soul. The terror was finally brought to an end when the Fir Bolg overcame Feimhin’s armies and slew the prince himself in the heat of battle, ending the chaos.’

  Padraig’s eyes fell from the Ogham to turn and look at the cloven helmet and skull of the warrior. ‘A blow,’ he murmured, ‘from the battle-axe of a Fir Bolg.’

  Kate murmured, ‘What did they mean, describing the Fir Bolg as looking unearthly?’

  Padraig shrugged. ‘The legends refer to them as strangers, warriors from another world. Perhaps some elements of the stories are fables. People of other races – but from Earth – might have been mistaken for beings from another world. But is it not also possible the storytellers were merely recounting the truth?’

  Mark muttered, ‘Like Tír na n’Og – the land of eternal youth.’

  ‘Indeed, Mark, the story of fair Niamh, who fell in love with Oisín the hunter and poet and took him to her land of perpetual youth. But even in your English legends, don’t you have Avalon?’

  Mo was staring at Padraig, her eyes round with a mixture of terror and wonder. In her fright the stammer had worsened. ‘Whu-whu-whu-wh … what if – if suh-suh-some-buh-body—?’

  ‘If somebody bad were to take up the weapon of Feimhin again?’

  Mo nodded.

  ‘Well, now, hasn’t the same thought entered my head!’ Padraig ruffled her hair, in reassurance, then spoke abruptly to all four of the friends. ‘Enough of this talk of wars and ruin. I think we’ve spent sufficient time in the company of that sword.’

  Back at the sawmill, sitting in a daze of wonderment on the grass in the now late-afternoon sunshine, Alan continued to question Padraig. ‘Did Mom know about Feimhin’s grave?’

  ‘I had no son, nor was I likely to have one since my wife died in giving birth to Geraldine. So I was obliged to pass the knowledge to my daughter.’

  Understanding now dawned on Alan. ‘That was why Mom ran away? She ran because she was frightened?’

  Padraig turned to gaze at their faces, one by one. ‘Knowledge of Feimhin’s grave, and his black blade, is a great responsibility. Its existence must remain our absolute secret.’

  There was a tremor of anguish Alan could not keep from his voice. ‘Then why did you show us, Grandad?’

  ‘Are you not being called to the gate? The same gate through which both darkness and the Fir Bolg were summoned long ago?’

  Mo spoke softly, ‘Buh-buh-but we’re not wuh-wuh-warriors!’

  Padraig nodded, his face grim.

  Kate agreed with Mo. ‘We know nothing about those sorts of things. What could we possibly have to offer some … some other world?’

  Padraig reached out and briefly squeezed her hand. ‘You do have something special about you. The killing of your family tells me that. My Geraldine! I have to wonder if what happened is linked with the same burden, and now your involvement. Ah, sure this is an accursed place!’

  ‘What are we to do, Grandad?’

  ‘I will do what little I can to help you. Teach you some things in the short time we have before you leave.’

  Leave! Kate’s mind reeled just that single word.

  ‘Teach us what?’ Mark’s incredulity did not stop his asking.

  ‘How to get you past the gate.’

  ‘Get past the gate!’ more than one voice shrieked at once.

  ‘Are you not heading for the summit of the mountain that is calling you? Sidhe ár Feimhin is surely your destiny.’

  ‘Hey, just let me pack my overnight travel bag, folks. I’m on a little jaunt to the world of fairy tales.’

  ‘Scoff as you will, young Mark. But I wager you will still answer the calling. And you have precious little time to prepare for it. For, if I judge right, Grimstone is back in just twelve days.’

  Mark’s face paled.

  Alan’s eyes met those of his grandfather. He understood now the hurt in his expression, his fear of losing him.

  ‘Supposing – let’s just say supposing – we did climb to the top of Slievenamon, what are we going to find there?’

  ‘There is a cairn of stones at the very top of the mountain. Legend suggests it marks the portal.’

  ‘But what does that mean?’ Alan shook his head in bafflement. ‘Are you saying there’s no real gateway into this world?’

  ‘If legend is true, and a portal there is, it will hardly take the form of a gate of lintel and wood.’

  ‘But then how the heck do we find it?’

  ‘Hidden within the cairn of stones lies a basin of stone. I know it is there because I have seen it with my own eyes. It seemed an altar of sorts, but to
what unearthly power I could not even hazard a guess. If legend is true, the altar is warded by invocation to that power.’

  ‘What sort of invocation?’

  ‘Drawn in the same Ogham you saw in the barrow.’

  Alan shook his head. ‘Invocations to what power?’

  ‘Grimstone carries a black cross, which, if I guess right, is the hilt, cross-piece and upper blade of Feimhin’s dagger. This has spoken to him of old power, a power lost and buried for millennia, but still clinging to the landscape. Slievenamon is at the heart of it, the mountain itself, and the three rivers that girdle her skirts.’

  ‘Thuh-thuh-thuh … thuh-Trídédana?’

  ‘You’ve a great deal of sense in you, Mo Grimstone. The Trídédana indeed!’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘We know that to the Celts all rivers were sacred. Indeed, rivers were seen as sacred to a great many ancient peoples. Even in Christian teaching, did not John the Baptist wash Jesus in the waters of a river? Do we not baptise using water?’

  ‘Yuh-yuh-you remember what Grimstone said about ruh-rivers.’

  ‘Mark?’ Kate turned on him.

  Mark smiled wryly, then intoned Grimstone’s snarl, ‘“Three rivers – evocative of the foulest pretence – the stink of a heathen trinity?”’

  There was a silence lasting several seconds as they all digested that.

  ‘So,’ Padraig rubbed at his brow, ‘if I interpret the best course, you should gather the waters of the three rivers – we still call them the three sisters – to mix in the stone basin. Then invoke the Ogham you discover there.’

  ‘But none of us can read Ogham.’

  ‘I’ll have to teach you what I can.’

  ‘In just twelve days?’

  ‘It’s all the time you have. And we must also equip you with a weapon.’

  ‘What weapon?’

  ‘One appropriately warded with force. I doubt you will get safely through the gate without it.’

  Alan shook his head. ‘Aw, come on, you guys! This is getting crazy!’

  Mark laughed softly in Alan’s ear. ‘What have I been telling you? Welcome to cloud cuckoo land!’

  The Spear of Lug

  When, at the crack of dawn, Padraig emerged from his front door, Mark was already up and waiting for him. Mark sat in the fragrant grass by the side of the dairy, leaning against the pear tree, which was fruiting tiny, stone-hard fruit, meanwhile watching Padraig stride up the short curl of gravel path in his direction, then halt mid-stride when crossing the yard in the direction of the timber sheds. Noticing Mark, he came over to see what he was doing there so early.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Mr O’Brien, I want to help you.’

  Silent for a second or two, Padraig peered at the young Londoner as he swiped at grass heads with a stick.

  ‘How do you propose to help?’

  ‘I’ve a pretty good memory for languages – foreign words.’

  ‘You mean you want me to teach you Ogham?’

  ‘I’m not pretending to believe everything you’ve been telling us. But one thing I do know now is that we’re down to eleven days. Then Grimstone will be back. When he comes back he’ll take me and Mo away from here for good. I – I don’t want that to happen.’

  Padraig swivelled his head round, as if ready to walk away.

  ‘Mr O’Brien – I’m telling you the truth.’

  Padraig hesitated, gazing down at Mark, eye-to-eye.

  ‘Please, Mr O’Brien! Mo is really frightened.’ Mark pressed his lips tightly together. ‘I don’t want to appear vain, but I really don’t believe any of the others could learn enough Ogham in that time.’

  ‘But you reckon you could?’

  ‘I could learn a little – maybe enough to make a difference.’

  ‘Why would you offer to become sorcerer’s apprentice when you doubt the very art of sorcery?’

  Mark nodded. ‘I know how it must look. I can’t pretend to believe everything you’ve told us. But I saw the sigil on the sword. I saw it glow in the dark. I saw the insects fry on the blade. I don’t think Grimstone’s cross is a cross at all. I think you’re right – it’s what’s left of a dagger.’ Mark scrambled to his feet so he wouldn’t have to squint in the low morning sunshine when looking into Padraig’s face. ‘I don’t really know what it is, or what Grimstone is up to, but it frightens me too. I can’t bear the thought of going back to live in that house.’

  Padraig put his hand on Mark’s left shoulder.

  ‘I know you’ve done your best to protect your sister.’

  ‘For all the good it did her!’

  ‘And you believe you can learn some Ogham in eleven days?’

  ‘I’ll work really hard at it.’

  ‘Arrah, this will be blacksmithing in a hot forge. Devilish hard work – harder than you could possibly imagine.’

  ‘I don’t care how hard it will be.’

  ‘Then we are agreed!’

  Padraig surprised him by spitting into the palm of his right hand, like a tinker at a horse fair. He extended his hand. Mark hesitated, then did likewise. His hand was dwarfed by the callused and horny grasp of Padraig’s.

  Later that same morning, when Alan heard that Mark had volunteered to assist his grandfather in the little-used smithy behind the house, he couldn’t hide his astonishment. He couldn’t stop talking about it to Kate and Mo, when they gathered, as usual, over the table in the dairy.

  Mo said, ‘Muh-Muh-Mark is duh-desperate.’

  ‘Heck, I don’t know! I just don’t know what to make of Mark any more.’

  What was he supposed to think? Just when he was beginning to admit to himself that the sceptical Mark had probably been right all along, Mark did the very opposite to what you would expect, going to work for Padraig like some willing convert to his grandfather’s superstitions. Since yesterday’s trip to the mountains, Alan had had time to sleep on it, and today it seemed that the strange calling on the top of the mountains simply defied all common sense.

  ‘We’ve got to look for normal, rational, explanations for all of this.’

  Kate shook her head. ‘Don’t you start pretending that yesterday didn’t happen.’

  ‘C’mon, Kate! You can believe it’s like Slievenamon calling?’

  ‘You have an alternative explanation?’

  Oh man!

  Where was the sceptical Mark when you needed him? ‘Oh, come on guys! How the hell are we supposed to buy what’s going on? You know as well as I do it’s crazy. You can’t communicate with a mountain.’

  This just led to furious glares from the girls.

  But his natural scepticism continued to haunt Alan and he couldn’t help going over things, again and again, in his mind.

  Wasn’t it more than enough that they were no longer orphans struggling to carry on alone? They were friends, with common experiences, who wanted to support one another. That was good enough for him, without the contagious blarney that had taken hold of them on the mountain. He tried again with the girls. ‘Hey, we have a lot of hurt in common. We’ve got to recognise that that could play tricks with our feelings, like some kind of common emotional charge.’

  They shook their heads.

  ‘Can’t we just go back to having fun?’

  ‘Oh, Alan!’

  But he really meant it. The way he saw it, something really nice had blossomed, easy and natural as cherry blossom. His rational mind ached to find a way of getting back to that.

  Over the days that followed he took to driving around the tracks in the woods, sitting on his own in the bench seat of the old flatbed truck Padraig used to deliver logs. He’d pull in to a halt in the middle of the track, or in a tree-framed glade, looking out the windshield into the summery sky, watching the clouds roll over, as if the answer lay there. Clouds and sky and trees. And mountains – one mountain in particular!

  Oh, boy!

  Here in Clonmel, even in the depths of the woods, you couldn’t escape th
e brooding shadow of Slievenamon!

  The townspeople, now that his despair was lifting, seemed like friendly, decent people. They talked a little different, with a lilt to their words, but essentially they came across as the same kind of commonsense people he had grown up with. That approach had been drummed deep into his way of looking at the world. Now, suddenly, right in the middle of things getting right for him, a big hole had appeared in his world. Nothing added up any more.

  It was driving him crazy.

  He was just sitting there in a daydream, the truck’s cab throbbing to the rhythm of the diesel engine, when he was aware that somebody was rapping for his attention on the doorframe. He jerked with surprise, then saw that it was Kate.

  ‘Alan! You have to turn this thing around and go back to the mill. Your grandfather has something to show us.’

  Alan groaned. He threw open the passenger door, which was missing a handle on the outside, so Kate could join him in the cab. He performed a six- or seven-point turn in the narrow confines of the tree-hemmed track, and headed back.

  Kate had to hold firm to the dash, grinning, as the vehicle rocked and jerked through the manoeuvre. ‘Where did you learn to drive a thing like this?’

  He shook his head, little inclined to explain that his dad had taught him to drive, off-road, for his fourteenth birthday.

  ‘Alan, will you stop moping like this?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like you’re out of your mind with jealousy, because Mark is working in the forge with Padraig?’

  It hadn’t for a moment occurred to him that that was what the girls were thinking. And now she said it, it only made things worse. He refused to speak another word over the mile or so of weaving and winding, until they broke free of cover at the edge of the mill yard to find Padraig sitting with Mo and Mark on the knoll by the dairy. Across Padraig’s knees was a strange metal object, about three and a half feet in length, and heavy, like a shallow S-shape. It certainly wasn’t made of steel. It had a greenish metallic sheen, like old bronze, but was cut with patterns and arabesques that flashed and glimmered with the slightest movement.