by Des Sheridan
If Robert needed any confirmation of Pascal’s evil intent those words provided it in spades. He felt a chill descend on his heart.
Chapter 50
La Roche aux Fées, France, 31 October 2014, 22:40
Pascal watched as Cernunnos, having captured his audience’s full attention, proceeded with the ceremony.
‘I now must anoint Pascal as servant of the Daghdha, the God of Magic, who makes all this possible. Kneel!’
Pascal knelt in front of Cernunnos, who placed his hands on his shoulders. Dipping a finger into the small thimble-like canister that Freya held high, Cernunnos stroked the would-be-king’s eyelids. ‘I anoint you with eyebright to give you supernatural vision.’
This accomplished Cernunnos turned to the assembly.
‘You are the tuath and he is your king. Behold, I crown Pascal as your King! Tonight the spirit of the Daghdha, the great Earth God, will visit his body as its own!’
With that he took a crown from Freya’s hands and placed it on Pascal’s head. It was a bronze headband with a series of roundels that carried the whirligig symbol, an elaboration of the Triskell spirals. Pascal rose to his feet and a roar went up from the assembly who were enjoying the spectacle being laid on for them.
Cernunnos raised an arm for silence. Morten seemed in his element, Pascal noted, quite at ease in his leading role. He would need watching and most likely cutting down to size. I can do that no trouble, thought Pascal, and start with bastard’s balls. The voice of the Horned God rang out again.
‘And every King needs his Queen!’
Two men dragged Tara from the tomb over in front of Cernunnos and pushed her to her knees. Freya was meant to keep Tara at knife-point, to make sure that she didn’t try to pull any stunts, but Pascal noted that his Chinese assistant had forgotten that detail. Bugger it, he thought. If the director of events can’t stick to the script what hope was there? He would punish her later for this sloppiness. Cernunnos placed a gold torc around Tara’s neck and called,
‘Arise, Tara, Queen to Pascal!’
The men pulled Tara to her feet, and Pascal called out.
‘My people, bow to the East, where Lugh, the Sun of Spring, will arise. My bride carries the bloodline of the Seers of the Celtic world! Tonight the Mórríoghain will occupy her body and the Daghdha mine, and as is customary at Samhain, the Goddess and the God will mate, their fertile union enabling the birth of Spring next year. View your Queen!’
With that he tore at the upper part of Tara’s tunic, ripping it open and exposing her breasts. She looked simultaneously vulnerable and defiant in the glare of the torchlight, with her exposed bosom jutting forward over her beige tunic. As he intended, she recalled the Delacroix image of Liberty leading the French people over the barricades. Her terrified eyes bore into Pascal, as she strained against those who held her. The sight of a half-naked reluctant bride, struggling against the grip of her captors, fed the lust of the crowd, which roared its approval in anticipation of the forthcoming consummation. But Pascal wasn’t ready to meet their wishes just yet.
‘Later, my friends! First things first. My bride is a Seer who will help us activate the Triskell in a few short minutes. This is the ancient device of the Celts which can read the future. You are about to witness great Celtic magic, courtesy of Queen Tara.’
He gave a further command, pointing to his right.
‘My people, bow to the North, to the cold face of winter! Now come, drink from the cauldron of the Daghdha’s wisdom. It will sustain you through the long wintertime.’
Indicating left he carried on,
‘And behold the Daghdha’s gift, intact from the age of the Druids – the Triskell. With it I, your King, led by the spirit of the Daghdha, will pass between the two worlds and divine the future for the first time in three hundred and fifty years!’
A roar of delight sprang up from the crowd. This news came as a surprise to them as Pascal had intended. They knew of Pascal’s obsession with the Celtic ability to read the future but knew little or nothing of the Triskell and had wondered what the beautiful but strange contraption was.
As the gathering queued obediently to taste the liquor from the cauldron, Pascal was first to raise the cup to his lips. The drink, an unhopped beer brewed from wheat and barley, would hone their readiness. Kirsten had done well, he acknowledged inwardly. The confection contained absinthe, which carried psychoactive wormwood, mixed with henbane for intoxication and honey as a source of wild yeast. It was dark, cloudy and somewhat sour to taste. Pascal, detecting an aroma of chrysanthemum, recognised the presence of mugwort which would heighten clairvoyance and assist astral projection. Drinking deep, he reflected how splendidly things were proceeding with the ceremony, thanks to Freya’s mise-en-scène, the rehearsals of the day before and his magnificent performance.
He stood a few minutes, watching the crowd mill about the cauldron, as the liquor hit his stomach and warmed his innards. Feeling on top of his form he bridled against having to wait for Freya to invoke his life-long companion, his Avatar, to join him and – for the first time - fully inhabit his flesh. He was irritated at her deviations from the agreed script for the event. Why then should he stick to it? It wasn’t as though he needed her mediation any longer. He was absolutely certain he could assert direct control himself. At the thought he felt something stir deep inside and the thought of totally merging with the entity he had met so long ago thrilled him, like a deep sexual taboo being broken. Nonetheless to avoid disrupting the proceedings he would bide his time. The next stage was to activate the Triskell.
‘It is time! Bring the device to the inner chamber. The chosen ones come with me and Queen Tara to consult the Triskell of the Ancients. The rest of you, be patient, soon I shall return to share with you what the oracle has revealed. And we will culminate proceedings with sacrifice and the mating of your King and Queen!’
Four men in robes moved forward and raised the bier, on which the Triskell rested, to shoulder height. As they proceeded the horde struck up a rhythmic atonal chant, to the beat of drums, to accompany the removal of the object. The Triskell, all three sides and the base re-united for the first time in centuries, shone and gleamed in the torchlight, until the dark mouth of the tomb at La Roche aux Fées swallowed it up.
Chapter 51
La Roche aux Fées, France, 31 October 2014, 22:57
A trail of eight people, including Tara, followed Pascal into the sepulchre, winding its way through the outer and middle chambers, before reaching the inner sanctum. It was a sizeable room but seemed to visibly shrink in size, closing in on itself as more people arrived. Tara saw no sign of Aoife, but she didn’t feel alarmed. She knew instinctively that the child was safe whilst the Triskell divination took place. She noticed Freya, the strange Chinese woman, whom Pascal had ordered to watch her closely, move quietly again to her side. Tara wasn’t sure what to make of Freya. Earlier the simian-looking woman had been very threatening, on Pascal’s command, and poked a knife into Tara’s back to control her, but now she seemed content just to stay close. Tara found her an ambiguous figure and a lot less threatening than Kirsten but, at the same time, Tara knew that all Pascal’s close companions must be viewed as highly dangerous.
As the last few attendees arrived, Pascal barked out.
‘Move back along the wall, we need the space! Move!’
Everyone stepped back from the centre of the chamber, drawing closer together as a result. A sense of claustrophobia and dread crept over Tara. She knew what Pascal was capable of doing in caves. Suddenly he was standing beside her, the penetrating gaze of his uncanny green eyes locking on her. She jumped involuntarily. There were no two ways about it, he terrified her, but with native cunning she held his gaze and hid her fear. He spoke in a low voice and his breath touched her neck.
‘You know what the Seer needs to do, relax and open up to the incoming spirit of the Mórríoghain. It will enter you now as surely as I will penetrate you later. If you don’t c
omply, or if this summoning fails, then I kill the child. If the device fails, I will need an alternative spectacle to keep my followers impressed and spilt blood will do it nicely for them. You get my drift? So don’t oppose me and help me make this work. That way your life and the child’s are secure.’
She didn’t know what to believe and remembered his taunting jests in the woods. The only safe path with him was never to trust him, she decided.
He directed her to lie down on a low wicker couch along the western side of the room. Then he approached the Triskell and placed a large crystal of citrine - yellow quartz – to dangle from its apex, just as it had done in her first dream. Pascal was well informed, she observed, although she had no idea how he could have acquired that information. Then, in a loud voice, he announced the commencement of the Seeing.
Tara closed her eyes and let her mind drift. She thought of the preparation work she had done at Taizé with Malachy. She would not be a vehicle for Pascal’s mad Celtic god. Instead, concentrating hard, she silently called on God to come to her aid and prayed that the Triskell would work and that she and Aoife might be safe. Utterly ignoring her surroundings she immersed herself in this mantra-like triple meditation, repeating over and over her prayer. She thought of Jesus in his suffering and then as risen and triumphant Lord and called on Him to be with her now. And she thought of Malachy with his reassuring tone and with bright, shining blue eyes. She couldn’t recall where this latter image had come from for her but it was comforting so she just accepted it. Malachy as her knight in shining armour - like an Angel.
Had Tara been a mind reader she would have discovered that Pascal too was deep in concentration, opening his mind to the arrival of the Daghdha, knowing that he might take a number of forms. Pascal prayed that it would be his Avatar whom he had first encountered when he was nine years old. He had come to accept Freya’s interpretation that he had connected on his visionary journeys with an avatar of great significance – a powerful animal god. It would certainly explain the nature of the creature’s foetid smell. To this day he had not seen its face despite a dozen or so encounters over many years. Pascal prayed to the Daghdha to finally let him see the face of his Avatar on tonight’s Samhain journey, lifting the veil between this world and the Otherworld.
So it was that the two protagonists were silent, lost in prayer, each to their own very different gods, summoning their intervention and inviting a battle between good and evil.
A gasp prompted both to open their eyes. A few feet in front of them the Triskell had stuttered from its centuries of rust and cobwebs into life - a life which caused everyone to freeze, as if painted against the walls of the cave. A blurred array of sparks and shooting lights of various colours was just visible through a smoky haze that billowed around and encircled the orange-glowing crystal. There was a strange quality to what was unfolding, an almost mechanical process about these manifestations from another world, as though this instrument was more akin to a Swiss clock than anything else.
Pascal, who was sounding increasingly intoxicated and had a dangerously unhinged look in his eyes called out, ‘Triskell, reveal to us the next great upheaval to affect the Celtic heartland. Show us our future!’
Chapter 52
La Roche aux Fées, France, 31 October 2014, 23:05
Pascal was convinced that the Triskell would work. The cumulative momentum of recent events left him in no doubt that destiny had chosen him and fate was with him. He got his answer almost immediately, as spinning lights, responding like a pet animal to the command of its master, began to whirr and coalesce, assuming shape as rapidly shifting pictures that came and went in a hologram-like mist within the contraption.
A procession of images of barren, parched landscapes, suffused in brown and ochre tones, filled the cloud. The scenes oscillated between sharp focus and a blur as one replaced another. The Triskell watchers saw sand blowing across a land surface, but this terrain was no natural desert. Instead towns and cities seemed to be stranded in countryside almost totally devoid of vegetation, a panoramic landscape exhausted by drought. As the images shuffled in succession, a shifting kaleidoscope of architectural forms - minarets, domed churches, baroque spires – left little doubt that these images were sampled from a large area of the Mediterranean, perhaps from The Levant across to Spain.
A jumbled cacophony - the calls of muezzin, a blast of car horns, the ringing of brass bells – provided a soundtrack to the imagery. At first the sound was diminished, as though from a radio whose batteries were perilously low but, as the Triskell proceeded it seemed, like an old gramophone coaxed back into life by steady winding, to gain in strength and amplification.
Although projected in miniature, rather like a coloured version on a 1950’s small TV set, the power of the images to compel attention was absolute. Drooping trees and scrub soared up in wildfires that engulfed houses on hillsides, the sound of crackling flames and rushing drafts of hot wind, now roaring in the ears of the audience. Inhabitants fled in fear and panic by car and on foot, their cries of despair and anguish all too visceral to ignore. Miles of roads chocked with traffic testified to the scale of the displacement. People were shouting and fighting and firing guns to try and jump the queue, although it gained them little, just a place slightly further along the stymied caravanserai. Car horns, gun shots and screams collided and coalesced in a dissonance of distressed sounds.
The experience of watching the scenes unfold was like watching old black and white reels of 1920’s footage. It had the same staccato, jagged effect of a signal received intermittently. But the content was another matter. There could be no doubt that what you were seeing was full Technicolor future reality. Pascal’s body hummed with excitement, his senses tingling from the thrill of witnessing this cacophony of chaos and pain pulsing out from the future and mesmerising the audience. As conjuror of this bizarre unfolding he exulted in every moment. Nothing would stop him now!
And then a wash of blue tones arrived, so immediate and tangible that Pascal could almost feel the cooling splash upon his skin and taste the salt seawater upon his tongue. Thousands of boats, of all shapes, sizes and styles, packed to the gills with men, women and children of all ages, were heaving dangerously on rolling waves, a great marine cavalcade heading steadily north across the waters of the Middle Sea, fuelled equally by desperation and hope. But drowning was not the most immediate threat they faced. That came from coastguard ships and low-flying jet fighters, exhibiting a striking emblem. Like the flag of the European Union its main feature was a circle of yellow stars on a navy background but within the circle resided a yellow triangle. Pascal recognised the ancient symbol of the Other Path but was astounded. It seemed somehow so familiar. Then the import of it all struck him. This was his future and these were his forces! The ships and planes systematically and remorselessly attacked the boat people, strafing them with bullets and shells that blasted the convoy to pieces and sank great numbers of vessels – ignoring the fact that many flew the UN flag. The cries of men, women and children, as they drowned in an indiscriminate sea turned red by the unstaunched flow of their life blood, rose in chorus to join the clamour of the cries of gulls and other sea birds. Pascal was on fire with impatience – he had always been right, he could not wait, he would make it happen now, this very night. And still the story unfolded, the future he would make into history.
The greens and browns of a well-watered landscape followed and provided a brief visual respite from the red gouache. As the blur of colours crystallised into sharper focus, the Triskell watchers saw that some of the tones belonged to camouflaged tanks and armoured cars which again carried the highly distinctive emblem emblazoned on their flanks. The vehicles of war, engines roaring and throttling, rolled rapidly across green countryside and through towns where frightened-faced people cowered in shell-pocked buildings and smoking ruins.
But the image of a makeshift hospital, showing doctors and nurses tending to wounded civilians, made Pascal feel suddenly u
neasy. The Red Crescent flag was flying over the unit. His eyes rolled towards Tara. What is the bitch doing? A trickle of cold ran down his spine and the images became less vivid to his sight as the woman became clearer. Now he could turn his head. She seemed to be unconscious but he was suddenly uncertain.
Bright yellow and red flashes of light from the Triskell compelled his gaze again, as explosions and firestorms engulfed cities and air-borne missiles rained down upon them. The choking smell of charred wood and burnt flesh reeked through the chamber about the Triskell, and even Pascal’s throat tried to close against the reek. A basement, filled with children and adults of all ages, seemed to be offering a place to hide. Women wearing the symbol of the Red Cross were busy everywhere and, for the first time, the Triskell showed smiling faces. Pascal’s face twisted into a sneer. Years into the future and the do-gooders were still hopelessly fragmented! That was why the Other Path would win through. It was better organised and more ruthless. His mind filled up again with the images of strength, of true mastery.
Chapter 53
La Roche aux Fées, France, 31 October 2014, 23:30
The spectators at La Roche aux Fées watched transfixed in awe, no one daring to speak. Not one of them thought to peer deep into the dark shadows of the crevices between the great wall stones, where another watcher stood. Alongside them, but undetected, Robert saw the likeness of a newspaper page flutter on the wind, then snag on a wire fence and become momentarily legible.
State of Emergency declared in the Euro State as President assumes Special Powers. Euro State forces occupy the Balkans and cross the Bosphorus to restore order in face of migrating hordes.
Nor was there any mistaking the date, whatever the language, 21st August 2034.