I gestured at my sister to be quiet as Erin and Gareth walked over and joined us. Then I smiled at Mrs. Patel as I stooped lower so we were at eye level. This time I spoke with deliberate calmness. “Mrs. Patel, do you remember your neighbors, the Symonds?” I said. “You know, William and Emma. You remember them, right?”
She smiled. Her teeth were stained yellow and it was obvious she hadn’t been keeping clean. “Will and Em, ah yes. Such a happy couple,” Mrs. Patel said while nodding slowly.
I nodded too as I kept on grinning. “That’s right, do you know where they are right this minute?”
Mrs. Patel nodded slowly, then she turned her head towards a small group of people sitting by a plowed field. “I think Em is over there. I know Will is still with the other men and boys.”
Amy started running over there as I patted Mrs. Patel’s elbow. “Thank you, Mrs. Patel, I’ll be right back!” I said as I got up and started sprinting after my sister.
By the time I got over to where she was, I found Amy on one knee beside my mother. As I squatted down beside them, I could see that my mum had the same glassy-eyed stare that Mrs. Patel had. An old woman who had been picking mushrooms nearby slowly made her way towards us.
Amy’s mouth was trembling with both anticipation and concern. “Mum, it’s me, Amy! Steve’s here as well. Are you alright?”
My mum swayed her head listlessly from side to side as she gave us a blank smile. Her clothes and appearance were filthy, just like all the others. “Oh hello, Amy…and Steve, it’s so nice to see you again. Will you help me pick some of these mushrooms, please?”
My sister looked up at me with tears in her eyes. “Steve, what’s happened to all of them?”
“It’s the mushrooms,” the old woman who stood by me said as she dropped her sack on the ground. “You eat enough of them, and they sort of make you somewhat catatonic.”
I turned and stared at her. “Who are you?”
The old woman’s clothes were less disheveled, though they had seen much wear and tear. She had also been keeping her face and hands clean. “My name’s Margaret Westwood, lad. Those monsters attacked us while we were being evacuated. They killed the soldiers and took all the civilians who wouldn’t fight back or run away. They brought many of us over here.”
As I glanced over to my side, I noticed Gareth and Erin walking over to us as they helped Mrs. Patel along slowly. I looked back at Margaret. “So how come you seem to be okay?”
Margaret snorted. “What do you think? I didn’t eat the mushrooms, of course. I merely pretended to. They forced us to eat them at first. As soon as the people around me took one bite, I could tell there was a change that came over them, as if they were put under a sort of spell. They lost much of their will and became confused. Now anyone could order them around. Not long afterwards, those ghastly creatures commanded all the able-bodied men and lads to start digging these massive pits. Meanwhile, all the women were told to start gathering these mushrooms so we could eat them every single day. I’ve been pretending to work all this time, just hoping that someone would come and rescue us all. God only knows what happened to the older folks and all the little children.”
“The Fomorians stashed them away in a few other dimensions,” I said to her. “So they’re alive, at least.”
Margaret nodded. “The Fomorians? I see. So that’s what they’re called.”
“What are they digging these earthworks for?” Erin asked the old woman as she held onto the ever-smiling Mrs. Patel to keep her upright.
The old woman shrugged as she rubbed some of the dirt off of her clothes. “I’m not quite sure. Some of those creatures speak a form of archaic English, you know, and I think I overheard one of them talking to another. They were the human-looking ones, of course, not the monstrous ones. I heard the word sword mentioned more than once.”
I pursed my lips. “Sword? That’s it! The Fomorians must be looking for Orna!” I said as I looked at Erin. “When I was at that old temple in the otherworld, I was able to gather some information about a Fomorian leader named Drel and he was out and about looking for the whereabouts of a sword called Orna.”
Gareth looked out into the distance. “So what you’re saying is that they’re digging up the surrounding area in order to find this sword?”
I nodded excitedly. “That’s exactly it!”
Erin kept holding onto Mrs. Patel as she looked around. “It’s funny, I don’t see any guards around at all.”
“You don’t need guards around when everybody’s addicted to these mushrooms,” Margaret said. “Everyone who eats them is as docile as a cow. A few of them come back towards dusk to herd us all indoors, then lock us in at night. The next day it starts all over again. Most of these so-called Fomorians are supervising the digs, but there’s not a whole lot of them either.”
Amy helped my mum up until she was standing beside us. “There must be a way to cure everyone’s addiction to these fungi,” my sister said.
“We’ll need to get them all out of here first,” Gareth said. “Once everyone is safe, then we can see if we can break them free of their addiction.”
“I always hear those monsters speak to each other as they herd us into the barns and warehouses for the night,” Margaret said. “They always say that they must meet at the stones to travel back to their homelands.”
“That’s it,” Gareth said as he pointed to the shaft of light out in the distance. “It all makes sense now. We’re about a mile away from Stonehenge. And this was all in the news just before London was overrun.”
Amy looked confused. “Can you say that again, please? What’s the significance of Stonehenge?”
“This is just a theory of mine, but I believe that the Fomorians use Stonehenge as a sort of portal to travel between worlds,” Gareth said.
“You may be right,” Margaret said. “When those Fomorians, as you call them, gathered all of us together here on the first day, they divided us into two groups: the able-bodied ones and the ones who were too infirm to do any work. The latter group was marched off to the area where that shaft of light is.”
And then I remembered the words of Tezcatlipoca back in that Fomorian ruin. I wasn’t quite sure what he was referring to back then, but having put two and two together, it all made sense to me now. “I’ve got a plan,” I said. They all looked at me.
“Go on, lad,” Gareth said.
I smiled. “Let’s gather who we can, and head over to Stonehenge. I think I have the solution to all of this.”
Sure enough, we were able to gather a few thousand people. There weren’t any Fomorians around and that made it easy. The placid crowd was content enough to follow our lead as we started making our way towards the Neolithic circle of stones, gathering an even bigger crowd along the route. Erin and I led the way. Amy was just a few steps behind; she made sure to keep my mum close by her side. Gareth brought up the rear, ordering the stragglers in the crowd to hurry up.
Stonehenge had been a national monument and a major tourist attraction before the Formorian invasion. I noticed a few wrecked tour busses as we passed them by. The level ground near the stones had been churned up by a lot of foot traffic. As we got past a line of trees, the way to the monument became clear and it was an incredible sight. Right at the center of the circle of stones was a massive shaft of light that stretched out into the heavens. Even though it was daytime, the energy was so powerful that we had to squint our eyes as we got closer. Some people in the crowd began to falter, but Amy and Gareth were able to keep them moving forward.
Sure enough, there were two Fomorians guarding the base of the monument as we got closer. One of them looked like a cross between a man and a fish: he had bluish, scaly skin and goggle eyes with webbed hands and a fishlike torso. The other one looked more human and had a thick red beard that stood out like it was made of steel mesh. As we got closer, the second Fomorian gave out a cry of alarm as the fish creature entered the glowing perimeter of the inner stones and instantly
vanished.
Erin tensed as she brought her fists up. “I think they just started calling for reinforcements, now what?”
I held up the obsidian mirror in my hand as I ran forward. “I need to get to the circle of stones; stay by the crowd!”
The Fomorian snarled as he drew his sword before advancing towards me as I rapidly closed the gap between us.
“You’re mad!” Erin said as she ran up behind me. “That creature will kill you!”
“Not bloody likely,” I muttered under my breath as I held out the mirror in front of me, towards the advancing Fomorian. I started to concentrate and a black mist began to radiate from the obsidian looking glass.
As we got to within ten feet of each other, the creature swung its sword at me but it was too late. The Fomorian suddenly dropped his blade and screamed as its physical body started to shimmer and fold in on itself. I remembered in school when our art teacher had taught us how to make origami by folding pieces of paper together and that was what it looked like. The monster’s physical form began to bend as if the spatial dimensions around it had become unstable. Within seconds, the Fomorian’s body had dematerialized into little particles as the mirror’s black mist engulfed it all before drawing the smoke back into its mirrored surface. A few seconds later it was all over and I ran up to the base of the swirling mass of bright energy.
Erin’s eyes were stretched wide as she ran up to me. “How did you do that? I never realized that the mirror had so much power!”
I scowled as I concentrated to harness all the forces the mirror could muster. “The Aztec god I met in the ruins, he told me about the power of the mirror. He said it could create and seal the bridges across time. I forgot about it because it didn’t make sense back then. But now it’s all come together. This place, the light above us, it’s a conduit to the otherworlds. It can bring more Fomorians here.”
The swirling waves of energy around us were so intense that we had to shout at each other just to be heard. Erin cupped her hands around her ear so she could hear me. “So you’re going to seal this conduit then?”
“Not quite,” I said; I could see black electrical currents starting to form around me. “The Fomorians have other conduits to get to earth so sealing this one won’t matter for now. I’m going to hit two birds with one stone. I shall alter this conduit’s path so that it will allow travel to a safe place and we can bring the crowd through it. Once that’s done then I will seal it!”
Erin nodded in agreement. The forking lines of black energy that surrounded my body acted as a shield as I slowly walked into the center of the vertical conduit of power. The churning waves of bright energy began to resonate wildly as the force of the mirror began to alter its frequency. I gritted my teeth in pain as the conflicting waves of black and white energy started pulsing through my body as I stumbled into the very center of Stonehenge. The energy here was so bright that my eyes started to hurt and I was half blind from the sheer intensity of it.
I slowly stretched my hands up towards the sky as I focused the mirror’s surface to face the heavens above. From where I was standing, it was apparent there was a hole in space just above me. Several gigantic, human-like forms began to materialize around me and I realized that the Fomorian reinforcements were trying to go through the portal. I forced my eyes open while I concentrated harder, and the mirror’s own black energies unleashed their full power and began to change the composition of the conduit. One misshapen creature that was trying to appear beside me shrieked in terror as its body began to compress into a lump-sized form of pink energy before dissipating completely.
Within moments, the pain that was buffeting my body began to ease as the mirror’s power had finally overcome the initial settings of the portal. Up above me, the hole had now opened up to a different point in space and the cascading energies had gone from bright white to a slightly glowing bluish color. I could sense that the otherworld that lay beyond would serve as a safe haven for everyone.
I could now see Erin and the others near the ring of inner stones as I continued to hold the mirror up. “Okay, it’s all set! Start bringing them over!” I said.
Erin gave me the thumbs-up as she started ushering the crowd through the bluish energy field. The walls along the edge of the conduit looked like the surface of a calm sea as people walked through them and were instantly transformed into sheets of energy that shot off into the hole above. At first it was just a few dozen, but it soon turned into hundreds.
“Steve!” Amy screamed as she stood in front of the energy wall. “Dad’s here! I found him following us, he’s at the rear of the crowd!”
Oh my God! Yes! “Well what are you waiting for?” I said. “Bring them both through the portal!”
I could see Amy holding both my dad and mum’s hands as all three of them stepped in together. Within half a second, they were transported out and were safe. I did it.
“Steve,” Erin said as she kept leading the crowd into the portal. “My father said there are more Fomorians coming this way from the dig sites.”
They needed my help so I was curious about whether I could go back out while still holding the mirror. Since the conduit’s energy field seemed to be stable, I slowly pulled back my outstretched arms to see if there were any visible changes. There weren’t any. Then I slowly walked over to the edge of the power field as I held the black mirror before taking my first step out of it.
It worked. I stepped back out into the perimeter of the monument. There were massive crowds of people that were going through but out in the distance I could definitely see a group of Fomorians congregating not far from our position.
Gareth had his sword drawn as he led Margaret up to where we were. “You’ve done all you can. Now go ahead and get to safety.”
Margaret smiled as she placed a hand on each of our arms. “Bless you all for helping us,” she said before stepping through the conduit.
Erin got herself ready as what looked like a dozen creatures started advancing on us. “So what’s the plan?”
Gareth looked at the crowd around us. There were a lot more people when it began but they were now thinning out as they kept passing through the portal. “Try to hold them off until the last one is through. Then we go in afterwards,” he said.
I nodded. “Sounds good to me. I’m going to try and draw as many of them away as I can.”
The battle was on. I ran through the crowd as I held the mirror in front of me once more. Gareth and Erin followed close behind. As I got close I saw the twelve creatures were of all shapes and sizes. A twenty-foot-tall giant hurled a massive boulder at me, but I used the mirror and sent the big rock to another world; the black mists swallowed it up and it was no more. The giant bellowed with rage and tried to swing its massive fists at me, but Erin darted in and pulled me aside and we both narrowly dodged the blow that would have sent me flying up in the air. One dwarflike creature with clawed hands tried to tear at me but Erin kicked him and he tumbled backwards for about twenty feet. Gareth swung his sword and cut off the arm of one of the more humanlike Fomorians as he waded through their ranks. I held out the mirror and its black mist enveloped three creatures with snake-like torsos. The fog swallowed them up and left no trace as to their existence. The angry giant tried to pick a fight with Erin, but she leapt up and punched him in the nose, and the Fomorian instantly fell back onto the grass, stunned. One of the smaller creatures, a toad-like dwarf, drew a dagger and stabbed Gareth’s lower back, causing him to scream out loud as he fell to his knees. Erin was able to close the gap as she grabbed the creature by the neck and threw it up forty feet into the air. The remaining Fomorians suddenly drew back and were soon in full retreat.
I stood over them, mirror at the ready while Erin knelt down and tended to her father. It didn’t look serious, but then again, I wasn’t a doctor so I couldn’t be totally sure. As I looked around, the Fomorians were well away and they continued to flee until they were past the tree line. There were only a few people left near t
he monument; it looked like it was time for us to leave.
Gareth groaned as he lay on the ground. He used his elbows as he sat up a little. “Looks like we did it.”
I looked at him with obvious concern. “Are you alright?”
Gareth let out a yelp as Erin picked him up and started carrying him towards the conduit. “Nothing a bit of bed rest won’t fix, lad. You’ve done well for someone who was untrained in fighting these creatures.”
I started running alongside them. “How many do you think we’ve saved?”
“By my own count,” Erin said, “I think it’s around fifteen to twenty thousand people.”
“In that case,” I said as we got to the edge of the conduit, “once you two are inside, I shall go back and look for others.”
Gareth tilted his head up and looked at me. “Is that wise, laddie?”
I grinned. “I can restart this conduit at any time if I choose to shut it off. Now that I know how to use this mirror, I can travel anywhere in the country and get people to safety. Now off you go, and don’t worry, you’ll like where it leads to.”
Erin nodded to me as she carried her father through the portal and they both disappeared. Three more stragglers entered the energy field less than a minute later and they too were gone. I was now alone. There was a sense of accomplishment at the back of my mind as I concentrated on the mirror and within moments, the blue-colored energy field began to dissipate. Less than a minute later I was standing beside a silent monument of standing stones, the wind whistling around me.
The giant began to stir and was soon awake. He sat up and looked at me for a few minutes before getting to his stumpy feet and trudging away into the countryside.
Chapter 10
I spent the next few months travelling from one end of the country to the other as I rescued as many people as I could. There wasn’t much resistance from the Fomorians since I was teleporting from one place to the next in a random fashion, so I doubted that they were able to set up an effective counter to what I was doing. From constant practice, I was able to develop the ability to actually see what was happening in the places where I was going before I even got there; it was sort of like a remote control video, so I knew exactly what the situation was and planned accordingly. Most of the time, I was able to get prisoners out directly from under the Fomorians’ noses without them even realizing what had happened. So far I had been able to find quite a lot of survivors hiding in a number of abandoned cities as well as those holed up in remote places in the countryside. I was even able to rescue the old folks and all the young children that had been trapped by the Fomorians in that swamp world as well as in many other places.
The Fomorians Page 12