Age of Secrets: Druid's Brooch Series: #8

by Christy Nicholas

  When they arrived at the mountaintop island, Fingin stared in wonder at the winding ribbon of stone steps carved into the side, wending up to the top in dizzying vertical construction. Around the bare mounds of stone, tufts of grass poked their way through the cracks, like a man losing his hair in a horrible disease.

  Still silent, the monks stowed his fish into packs on their back and began the climb. With a deep sigh and a prayer to Brigit for strength, he followed them.

  Each step seemed harder than the last. The rough-hewn stone steps climbed higher into the mists, which clad the pointed top of the island. It was as if he ascended into the sky itself.

  Step by step. His legs already ached, and they’d only climbed a third of the way. Step by step. He needed to stop and catch his breath, despite being young and fit.

  The monks didn’t wait for him.

  Step by step. His skin burned with heat and sweat. His lungs burned with a lack of breath. Step by step. His escort disappeared into the clouds as he labored to take more air into himself. Step by step. He drank more from his waterskin, the liquid hurting his throat as he tried to swallow past the dryness. Step by step.

  The sun dimmed as he reached the cloud. Everything around him faded into white, surrounded by mist. His skin cooled and grew damp, the chilly damp of the cloud mixing with the heat of his sweat. He wiped his face several times to no effect.

  Step by step.

  The final steps rose more steeply, and his leg muscles screamed in ache and agony. When Fingin reached the top stair, he stumbled, so used to stepping up.

  Then he did a foolish thing. He glanced down.

  His vision swam as he grew dizzy. He fell backward, toward the grass and not the stone steps leading down, down, down, into the ocean. Little black and white birds zipped below him, criss-crossing the stairs in speedy flight. One dipped straight down to the ocean, and the world spun around him. He waited for the earth to stabilize once more. When his vision stopped whirling, he opened his eyes, rubbed at his face, and glanced around.

  Four young monks ringed him, staring at him as he lay sprawled on the ground. They said nothing, but three nodded and left, leaving the youngest to help him.

  This monk grinned and put out a hand to help him stand. His blond curls seemed odd with the shaved forehead, but his smile seemed genuine and disarming. “Greetings to you, pilgrim. I understand you are in search of information. I’m called Onchú, and I’ve been assigned to assist you. What would you like to know?”

  Fingin smiled in response to the young monk’s cheerful manner. ‘I’m… I’m F-fingin. I’m searching for s-someone who… might remember my g-grandmother.”

  The young monk blinked several times. “Oh dear, oh dear. You have some difficulty speaking, do you not? Never fear, we can still help. Your grandmother, you say? There are no women here. We are all men, monks of the Christian faith. Why did you think you might find her on our isolated enclave?”

  Fingin shook his head. “I was t-told someone here might know her.”

  With a cock of his head, Onchú asked, “Told by whom?”

  He swallowed, as telling a Christian monk that a non-Christian goddess had sent him seemed the height of idiocy. Instead, Fingin answered, “A wise old w-w-woman. She lived alone.”

  “Hm. Well, wise old women have a great deal of knowledge we do not. Perhaps she did not send you on a wild chase after all. I’ll ask around for you. Some of us maintain silence, but I’m allowed to speak still. I’m not yet vowed to our Lord, you see. That means I’m free to ask questions. Come, you must be tired after your climb. I shall get you refreshment and rest, and then I’ll get some details from you.”

  Onchú led Fingin to his home, a hut made of stone, rounded like an upside-down bowl or a beehive. They crawled into the doorway. A sleeping pallet covered in straw and a wool blanket took up one side, with a simple stone table on the other. They both sat on the pallet while Onchú pulled several items from stone shelves above the table. A loaf of barley bread, a small jar of honey, and a drinking skin. He also retrieved plates and mugs, serving them both.

  Fingin dipped the bread and bit deep. He closed his eyes at the pure sweetness of the honey. When he drank from his mug, he realized it contained not water, but mead. His head had ceased to spin from his climb, but it spun again, this time with alcohol.

  Once they’d finished their meal, Onchú turned to face him, still sitting on the pallet. “Now, tell me. Do you know your grandmother’s name? When did you last see her? Can you describe her? Did she have any habits or traits?”

  Fingin took a deep breath, trying hard to make his words work. “Her n-name is C-Cliodhna. She left over… fifteen winters past.” He swallowed another sip of mead. It seemed to help. “She had thick, dark curls with streaks of white then. B-b-black eyes. Pale skin. Strong voice. She loved p-p-poetry. We lived in th-the east, near a river.”

  “Hm. That might describe half the women in Hibernia, to be true. I’ll inquire amongst the older monks. However, if they’ve been here too long, they wouldn’t have even seen a woman in dozens of winters. We have one who’s freshly arrived, so he might have seen her about in the world.

  “Why don’t you bide here and rest? With your difficulty in speech, I might have more success on my own. If I have questions, I can always come fetch you. Will that suit?”

  With some reservations, Fingin nodded. He’d expected to ask each monk himself but now felt relief at not being required to perform the onerous task.

  The young blond monk exited the beehive hut and disappeared into the ever-present mist. Silence pressed in on Fingin, making him at once comforted and nervous. The white cloud blanket removed all sound, all movement, almost as if he lived in some ethereal afterlife, in Tír na nÓg, the land of the ever-living. And yet, the silence disturbed him, as if at any moment, some primal scream or a raving madman might shatter it.

  He lay back on the pallet and closed his eyes, willing his body to relax. What could hurt him on this lonely mountain? Only religious men lived on this island. His parents would be thrilled to see him here, amongst their Christian people. His grandmother would be less thrilled. Would he ever find her? Would the brooch she held give him his normal voice back? Would it take away his ability to speak to animals? Would Bran and Sean still be friends with him if he couldn’t speak to them?

  As these questions swirled in his mind like the mist around the mountaintop, he remained tense, unable to sleep.

  Murmurs of male voices drifted past him, too low for him to understand the words, the people too far away for him to see them in the fog. The mist did strange things with sound, transporting it further than normal, or muting it in odd ways.

  One monk laughed somewhere. Fingin didn’t like the laugh, but he couldn’t say why. Then everything fell silent again.

  The lack of sound pressed on his ears, and he covered them, trying to keep the pressure away. He hummed to himself, but that made his uneasiness worse. He sat up, shaking his head to dispel the odd sensation.

  Perhaps he needed to be outside this tiny stone place. He crawled to get through the doorway. As he did so, he almost ran into Onchú, who had just returned.

  “Aha! There you are. Believe it or not, you might be in luck! I found not one, but two monks who may have met your grandmother! They might be thinking of different women, but this remote corner of Hibernia is not such a large place. It’s possible they knew her. Come with me, Fingin.”

  “You c-call our land Hibernia. Is th-that its name?”

  Onchú shrugged. “It’s a name. Ierne, Ériu, Hibernia, all describe this island. The Greeks used Ierne, and our people used Ériu before the Romans came. They call it Hibernia. Since we write in Latin, we use Hibernia.”

  As they walked down a narrow stone path, which wended through several more stone huts, Fingin asked, “‘Write’? What is ‘write’?”

  The monk stopped, putting a finger to his lips in thought. “Writing is… well, it’s a method of drawing words. We m
ake marks that represent the sounds, and those sounds form words. That way, we can record events or ideas, and later on, someone else can read those drawings and translate them back into speech.”

  This sounded much too confusing to Fingin. “Why not j-just tell the other p-person?”

  “If the other person is many leagues away, or must read it next season, they can do so whenever they wish, instead of that moment. It helps to record mighty deeds.”

  “Isn’t th-that what druí are for?”

  “Oh, certainly, the storytellers are important. But the druí are all pagan. We Christians need a way to pass our own stories on. We find writing is much more useful.”

  Fingin shook his head as he followed the monk, unwilling to argue with someone helping him. He supposed the new religion did things their own way. He hoped the druí would never go away, though. It remained their duty to remember the histories of the ruling families, the battles and legends, the tales, and adventures. They memorized hundreds of tales just to become druí. Some specialized in healing magic, or music, or the Brehon law, but each still memorized the stories and took pride in remembering every word as they learned them.

  Ériu would no longer be the same without the druí.

  Chapter Nine

  They first stopped at a beehive hut similar to Onchú’s. However, rather than crowd three people inside, the resident met them in front. They sat on the grass, cross-legged in a circle.

  This tall monk seemed about forty winters, give or take a few. The dark hair left from his tonsure had thinned and grayed around the edges, and the frown lines around his eyes ran deep.

  Onchú turned to Fingin. “Guaire, here, remembers a woman who passed through his village. He lived far to the east, didn’t you say, Guaire? Would your grandmother have lived in the east?”

  Fingin nodded. “Near a r-river called An Ruirthech. My f-f-father farmed there.”

  Guaire’s brow furrowed. “Yes, yes, I lived right along that river for a few winters. I remember a woman who roused quite a rabble, many seasons ago. Perhaps twenty? More? I can’t remember. Well, they ran her out of town. Some sort of wanton; loose with the men.”

  Fingin didn’t want to believe this description of his grandmother, but he remembered his dream. The mob had clearly attacked her, and she’d been with a man. Had the man been her lover? Guaire and Onchú waited for an answer. “I d-d-don’t know. I only counted eight winters myself. I don’t remember a lot of men.”

  Onchú frowned. “Well, maybe our other brother will have better information. Thank you, Guaire.”

  They rose. The older monk scowled as they left.

  “The next monk remembers a great bit more detail, so perhaps you will have more success. He’s my mentor, and his name is Maol Odhrán. He once fought as a warrior of the Fianna, long ago, in another lifetime, but now he lives in peace here. He even met the great Pátraic once, in his youth.”

  Fingin remembered the name Brigit had given him. At the mention of the Fianna, Fingin tensed, but he forced his shoulders to relax as Onchú mentioned peace. This man would be old now, and no longer vowed to the Fianna’s violence. He didn’t know much about this new religion, but peace seemed to be one of its strongest precepts. As a lone traveler on the island, he drew comfort from this notion.

  Maol Odhrán already sat outside his round hut. Though the mist swirled around him like a whirlpool, he sat on an outcropping, studying the ocean below through the fog. He stood as they approached, his arms wide in welcome. His long, white beard almost reached his waist, but he had no hair on his head at all. “Come, come, young friend. Oh! Oh, I do say! Yes, you must indeed be Cliodhna’s grandson. You have her dark eyes.”

  Startled, Fingin halted.

  The monk ignored his surprise and hugged him. The older man held him by his shoulders, peering at his face. “Yes, definitely her eyes. Her smile as well. Perhaps even a bit of her soul, though that’s buried deep. Do you have her powers?”

  Fingin blinked, unsure how to answer such a strange question.

  Onchú came to his rescue. “Father, be kind to him. This is all new and strange. May we sit and talk with you?”

  “Oh, of course, of course. Sit, be well. I shall fetch a drink.”

  Maol Odhrán ducked into his hut and returned with a waterskin, but no mugs. He swigged from the skin and passed it to Fingin. This time, he expected the sweet mead and drank deep. The buzzing in his head soon reduced his confusion to mere happiness.

  “Now, Cliodhna. I haven’t seen her in, oh, so many winters. At least fifteen. She’d been a tricky one, no doubt, but she disappeared into the hills. No angry mob would catch her. Even if they laid hands upon her, she’d simply call up the storm winds, and they’d scatter. A little thunder and lightning can do wonders to scare the masses, eh?”

  “D-d-did you know her well?”

  The older monk chuckled. “Well enough, well enough, my lad. We had many long, lovely conversations in the abbey gardens. I tried to convince her to become a nun. I tempted her with sacred texts and magical secrets, but she’d have nothing of the idea. The Abbot at the time didn’t like her in the slightest. Accused her as a witch and threatened to take her children away. Well, that certainly didn’t work! She called down her pet thunderstorm. I only saw her a few times after that at the village. I heard she’d lived near here, in a hut on the shore, but that was before I arrived. The monks had all sorts of outrageous tales about her riding dolphins, like some ancient sea goddess.”

  So much of his story confused Fingin, he didn’t know where to start. He grasped the one unfamiliar word. “D-d-dolphins?”

  “Dolphins. They seem like fish, but breathe air. You can see them off the coast from time to time. Helpful beasts. Sometimes they save a shipwrecked fisherman. Quite personable.”

  The Fae fish. Those must be the dolphins. He felt foolish for assuming them to be magical.

  “Where d-did she go?”

  “Oh dear, I’m afraid I’m not sure. She lived nearby, somewhere along the coast, but I had just made my vows here, so I daren’t leave to visit her.”

  Fingin bowed his head. His only lead offered little value. He’d have to search the entire coastline.

  Then an idea occurred to him. Perhaps the Fae fish—the dolphins—remembered her.

  Eager to test his theory, Fingin nodded to Maol Odhrán. “I th-thank you for your help.”

  The older man raised an eyebrow. “And what will you do now, young man? I noticed you never answered my question. Are you a weather-witch as well?”

  Fingin shook his head. His grandmother had warned of telling others of his power, and he’d had enough lessons in such things through the seasons. Truthfully, he possessed no command over the weather.

  A small bird chose that moment to swoop in and land on Maol Odhrán’s shoulder. Fingin had glimpsed the birds, but only in the fog. This had been the first time he had the chance to study them. Its black and white feathers contrasted with a bright orange beak. It cocked its head back and forth, studying him.

  “What sort of b-b-bird is that? I’ve never seen one before.”

  “This? This, my dear boy, is a puffin. Delightful creatures. Quite playful. Excellent at finding tiny fish. See? He has a few in his beak.”

  Fingin hadn’t noticed the thin minnows, but as Maol Odhrán spoke, the puffin gulped them down. In his head, the puffin said, “Sometimes they take my fish, but I can always catch more. Bye!”

  Away the little bird flew, flapping his wings madly. It disappeared into the mist.

  * * *

  Fingin rested after the climb down the almost endless column of steps. He stared at the empty landing area. The coracle had gone.

  Onchú scratched his head. “Uh, one of the other monks must have gone to the mainland. You might have to wait until tomorrow to get back.”

  They both glanced back at the steps. Fingin shook his head. “I won’t survive another… t-t-trip up those. If I c-c-can’t find my way b-back today, I’ll sleep
down here. I should be safe, right?”

  The monk frowned, glancing up. The cloud still clad the top of the mountain, but now other clouds crowded in the sky. Darker clouds, full of rain and fury, swept across the sun, and the temperature cooled, despite his sweat.

  “I shouldn’t leave you here, but I have duties I must tend to. Are you certain?”

  “Go home, Onchú. Th-th-thank you for all your help.”

  With a brief embrace, the young monk walked up the steps to his mountaintop home. Fingin waited until he disappeared from sight, swallowed by the white mists.

  He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted across the water. “I need help to get back to shore.”

  At first, nothing answered. Then a tiny puffin flittered near him. “You want my help with something?”

  He grinned. “Not you, but some of the Fae fish… I mean dolphins. The big fish who breathe air like us. Do you know them?”

  The bird dipped a few times, his version of a nod. “I do! There are several on the other side of the island.”

  “Can you lead them here?”

  The bird hesitated. “They don’t talk like you do.”

  “See if you can make them realize I need their help. I would be grateful.”

  For an answer, the bird flew away. Fingin hadn’t realized how fast the little bird flew, but he barely made out the speck of white against the far rocks before it disappeared around them.

  Not very much later, the familiar chittering of the Fae fish filled the air. Tiny birds swooped several times and then flew up toward the monks’ enclave.

  A Fae fish complained, “Those birds pecked our heads! We chased them here. Now they’re gone!”

  “I asked them to get your attention, but I’m sorry if they hurt you. Will you help me? I need to get to shore. Before the storm hits, if possible.”

  They held a disjointed conversation. Words floated across the water now and then, but they all spoke at once, and he had difficulty separating their voices. The largest one came forward, balancing in the water on his tail. “Why should we take you?”