The Return of the Arinn

by Frank P. Ryan

  Her words provoked a stunned silence, not merely in her audience but within Penny herself. There was something deeply wrong about them. Penny had no memory of thinking the words. Jeremiah had somehow spoken through her as if . . . as if he were becoming an integral part of her mind. The realisation shocked her to the core. Penny tried to force her mouth open. She attempted to speak the truth, to contradict Jeremiah. But no words emerged.

  The Keepers were already intoning:

 

  Alan spoke his thoughts aloud:

 

  The Keepers intoned:

 

  Penny saw Mira’s face appear above the spindle as a gigantic mask of bright glowing jade. It comforted Penny to see such a wonder of light. The eyes in the mask were closed in repose, like those of an embryo. The face of the mask was serene with grace. Around the periphery of the spindle, the Keepers eyes turned up towards the mask to become crescents of reflection. In that moment, Penny felt a change in her. She felt an expansion of knowledge. She saw with amazing clarity the mathematical precision of creation, the gravity driven cycles, the greater spirals, the lines of force, and the chaos that was an integral part of the whole: the chaos that would accompany the end of the old world and the birth of the new . . .

  She was receiving a communication . . . but not in words.

  What could it possibly mean?

  A communication at odds with mundane reality, like the wordless communication she had sensed with, and between, the Akkharu . . .

  In what seemed a mere fraction of a second later Mira spoke to the assembled multitude:

 
  MY PURPOSE IS TO CARRY OUT THE JUDGEMENT.>

  The gathering of Keepers, as a single choir, intoned:

 

  In Penny’s mind, she heard Alan speak, his voice caustic with condemnation:

  *

  In Kate’s mind she recalled the dragon’s tale, as Driftwood was ferrying her back from the Cill children to rejoin Alan. She recalled the terrifying vision in which the golden ring of Nimue the Naïve was held within the grasp of a clawed hand. She recalled her lack of courage then, the decision she had been too timid to make. Was the ring captured within the claws of menace, or was it being offered up by the friendly hand of a dragon, helping to return the power of Ree Nashee’s magic to his queen, Nimue? If she voted with Alan the magic would die, and with it her beloved Driftwood. This time she had no hesitation. In her mind she felt herself dive into the cold dark pool within the cavern and she felt her fingers close about the ring.

  Her voice was equally determined:

  The Keepers intoned:

 

  Mark heard the chaos of voices address him mind-to-mind. He recognised among them the furious warnings of the Trídédana: Mab, Bave and Mórígán. They addressed him in the ancient language of power, a strange mixture of Mórígán’s fury with the mother-soft pleading of Bave and the melodious seduction of Mab and her daughters:

 
  WOULD YOU FORGET WHO SAVED YOU FROM CERTAIN DEATH ON THE RATH OF NANTOSUETA?>

  He spoke his thoughts:

 
  KNOWING WE OWN YOU, HEART AND SOUL?

  WOULD YOU SACRIFICE IMMORTALITY,

  FOR YOU AND YOUR BELOVED?>

  He insisted:

 

 

 
  THEIR LANDS ARE LOST IN THE MISTS OF TIME.>

 

 

 

  The great raven manifested over the spindle, as she had over so many battlefields.

 

 

 
  SHE, LIKE YOU, WOULD SPURN IMMORTALITY?>

  Nan spoke for the first time:

 

  Mark and Nan spoke in one voice:

  *

  The judgement was decidedly strange to Penny. She didn’t understand what Mark and Nan were proposing. She had no idea who the Fir Bolg might be, or why Mark and Nan should sacrifice so much on their behalf. But surely it was the answer that Jeremiah had craved. Two of the three chosen had voted for the Fáil to be reborn. Yet she sensed a bridling uncertainty in him. And the gigantic face in glowing jade still hovered over the spindle, the Arinn in repose . . .

  He’s afraid of Mira. Jeremiah – the dreadful thing I glimpsed in that awful darkness – he hates the Arinn because he still fears her.

  Moreover, the great shadow of Mórígán was also unsettled, the shades within the darkness wheeling and moiling, a magma of implacable menace. What Penny had assumed all settled, it really wasn’t settled at all.

  A tidal wave of darkness was pouring out of the shadow that was Jeremiah and filling the space between the mask and the spindle. A fury was emerging from it, a colossal anomaly, exuding as if out of nothing and into being. Penny gazed upwards, eyes agog. She saw how lines of force followed a weird mathematical symmetry within it, fashioning spirals of great complexity, to create a maelstrom of what, to Penny, felt like wrath. She stared up at the ghastly phenomenon, which still appeared in the throes of its own evolution.

  ‘What is it?’

 

  Penny shrunk from the vision. It resembled the spawn of a monster – a perversion of what might once have been functional and beautiful, reduced to a deformity of bones and flesh and organs.

 

 

 

  The Trídédana cursed its appearance, threatening storms of violence. But the attack was constrained by the will of the Arinn.

 

  Jeremiah’s shout was directed at Penny, a thunderous hiss, croaky with expectation inside her mind.

 
  OPEN WIDE THE PORTAL.>

  Penny stared up into the monstrous spawn. This was his portal? She whispered:

 
  MANIPULATE THE FÁIL!>

  Penny’s terrified eyes lifted beyond the spawn to the titanic mask of jade above it, the face of the Arinn, serene and terrible. Was she mistaken in sensing a split-second communication again. Another communication beyond words? Penny swallowed against what felt like a bone dry throat. She forced herself to recall Jeremiah’s lesson, to imagine the st
ream of consciousness once again. She directed its flow towards the monstrous anomaly. Mathematical lines of force began to wheel around it, exploring it, discovering huge unknowns. She found herself within it. The latent power shocked her, disorientated her senses.

 

 
  CLEAVE OPEN THE PORTAL!>

  To Penny the violence of what he was suggesting was wrong.

 

  She felt her mind, her spirit, penetrated by a blade sharper than a serpent’s fang.

 

  Penny wasn’t sure that she did. There was that strange sense of communication again: a communication with the mask, without words.

 

 

 

 
  TOGETHER WE SHALL REAM ITS SECRETS!>

  Penny screamed, a wail of terror, of abandonment, of fury, as the darkness enclosed her. She felt the overwhelming power of him. She was no more than a speck lost in the adamantine darkness of Jeremiah. He was hurling her, hurling them both, into the resistant monstrosity. It was like being sucked into a maelstrom. And only now did she observe that there was a presence waiting at the heart of Jeremiah’s portal, a cold thing, with empty eyes.

  She gasped with horror.

  She saw a vision of apocalypse far worse than anything Hieronymus Bosch had ever imagined in his most tormented nightmare. Penny fought to hold herself together. She recalled the experience of her attempted rape. What horror could eclipse that? She felt a gentle power close down what was vulnerable in her mind, like a gardener, patiently putting the lids onto hives of bees. The gentle power was the source of the communications beyond words. She was reminded of the secret resistance of the Akkharu: the poor creatures of brilliant creativity who had been the slaves of Jeremiah for millenia. She sensed the secret communication beyond words:

  <>

  She gritted her teeth in anticipation . . .

  The moment fell, a vastness of stygian darkness, during which Penny’s mouth was wide open in a soundless scream.

  There was no time anymore, nothing . . .

  The moment ended with another communication from the Arinn, a communication that was visual, without need of words. The great eyes in the jade mask were opening wide. She felt an overwhelming desire to rise into them, to be comforted by them. Within them she saw, appearing, as if from darkness, the wonder of cosmic explosion, the birth of stars, the emerging galaxies . . .

  Somewhere distant to her, Jeremiah was screaming, but already his scream was fading, had faded into nothing.

  Then Mira spoke to Penny, a communication in words:

 

 

  Penny shivered:

 

 

  The lips in the jade mask smiled even as they were in the act of gentle exhalation. Penny was liberated with what felt a gentle kiss on her brow.

 

  The mask spoke gently in the language of beginnings, addressing all that had assembled, divines and mortals.

 
  GO TO WHERE YOUR HEARTS DIRECT YOU.

  THE JUDGEMENT IS UPON US.

  THE NEW UNIVERSE IS BORN.>

  Earth Song

  Kate wept into Alan’s shoulder. Around them there was a snow-covered green and the white-capped distant Comeraghs. A cutting breeze whipped up the sluggish waters of the Suir, thick with river algae. She lifted her gaze up to the far bank and the sloping garden of the Doctor’s House, partly obscured by bushes and trees.

  ‘It’s still there.’

  ‘Yes.’

  It was a little frightening how easily Magtokk had guided them here at what, judging from the cloud-blanketed sky, felt like dawn.

  ‘Was any of it real?’

  Alan hugged her in silence.

  ‘I shall miss them, Mark and Mo.’

  ‘Me too. But I’ve thought about it, Kate. I think Mark made the right decision to stay on Tír. There was nothing left for him here.’

  ‘And Mo, she called herself Mira! Said she wasn’t even human. I don’t know what to make of it.’

  ‘It’s too soon to think. We’re both exhausted.’

  He continued to hug her until she had cried herself through, then he picked up the Spear of Lug, which he had dropped onto the snow-covered grass, before guiding her towards the path by the river by the side of the limestone wall of the Presentation Convent. They walked in silence, lost in memories both bitter and sweet, arriving at the curl of steps that took them up onto the second of the two stone bridges. To their right the road would take them to the sawmill and the wooded foothills. A moment’s hesitation, but then they turned left. Kate linked her arm with Alan’s left, his right leaned on the spear. They trailed footprints in the snow as they crossed the first of the bridges over the river tributary and then the road junction at the top of Irishtown. Left again and they arrived at the high twin gates to the Doctor’s House.

  Kate stood before the small door in the left hand gate. Her voice shook as she whispered: ‘I don’t dare to hope.’

  They heard a furious barking coming from the other side of the door. Alan clicked the old-fashioned iron latch and the door swung open. A furry bundle of black and white erupted from the doorway, whining and running circles around them. Kate was blubbering all over again, and before they quite knew what was going on, Bridey had joined her in blubbering, before Kate’s uncle, Fergal, was ushering the melee of humans and dog back into the strange old house, with its Georgian windows and corner turrets.

  Bridey plumped down in one of the thick armchairs in the sitting room, a glass of whiskey clasped between her red-raw hands. A log fire blazed in the hearth. ‘Sure I thought . . . Ah, mother of mercy! I don’t want to go reminding myself of what I’ve been tormenting myself with!’

  Kate, clutching Darkie fiercely to her breast, had collapsed in another of the chairs. ‘I’m sorry, Bridey – and for you too Uncle Fergal. We never knew what we were letting ourselves in for.’

  ‘Sir,’ Alan had placed his glass on a small side table, untouched, ‘is there any word of my grandfather, Padraig?’

  ‘Don’t you know about the fire at the sawmill?’

  ‘What fire?’

  ‘Mark and Nan didn’t tell you about it?’

  ‘Mark and Nan were here?’

  Bridey’s eyes were round with excitement. ‘Yes, they came and told us some of what happened to you all. We thought they were spinning a yarn. But at the time they arrived London was troubled with them riots. Everywhere was burning.’

  Alan pressed her: ‘What about grandfather?’

  Bridey shook her head, sniffed tears back into her nose. ‘We don’t know. There was nothing seen of him after the fire. He disappeared.’

  ‘Disappeared?’

  ‘We assumed he had died in the fire. But the fire brigade, the guards, they didn’t find him in the ruins.’


  ‘So you don’t know what became of him?’

  ‘Things have been very confused for some time,’ Fergal added. ‘The university in Cork has been closed for the duration. It’s the same everywhere.’

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Don’t you know about the riots in London? The monstrosity they call the Black Rose? The whole world has gone mad. Big cities everywhere have been razed – the madness, Razzamatazzers?’

  Alan and Kate stared at him.

  ‘I can show you the papers. You’ll see what we’re talkin’ about.’ Bridey was waved to sit down by Fergal. ‘Young people losing their wits.’

  Fergal sighed. ‘I was away when Mark and Nan called round. Bridey told me what they told her. I could scarcely believe my ears. I thought she was mad to help them. Something about a Fir Bolg battleaxe.’

  Alan and Kate jerked alert at the mention of Fir Bolg.

  Bridey took a swig from her glass. ‘A vicious looking thing! We had to smuggle it to them after they had left for London.’

  Kate was stroking Darkie’s head, gazing down at the grey hairs that had appeared over its muzzle in her absence.

  Bridey looked from Kate to Alan, and back to Kate again, as if still unable to believe she was back with them. ‘Did ye never meet up with Mark and Nan after they left here?’

  ‘Yes, Bridey, we did.’ Alan recalled the extraordinary judgement at the spindle. ‘But there was no opportunity for explanations.’

  ‘No time even for proper goodbyes,’ Kate said, still close to tears.

  Fergal said, ‘Half of Dublin has been razed like London. Like the big cities everywhere. Belfast, Cork, Limerick . . .’

  Bridey added, ‘Nobody had the slightest notion of what was going on.’

  ‘That’s right. We don’t know if the madness is settled, even now.’

  Alan looked at Kate, then turned to Fergal, who was auburn-haired, like Kate, and sporting a close-cropped beard. ‘Sir, this fire at the sawmill? Was anything left standing?’

  ‘Only the old dairy.’

  ‘Your little den,’ Bridey nodded.

  *

  Mark and Nan stood within the wide breach in the walls of Ossierel and watched the Fir Bolg climb towards them through the many mountain trails. They looked weary, as well they might after thousands of years of enslavement. Mark and Nan felt weary themselves after climbing the many steps to the summit of the Rath, there to issue the command of liberation. Cataracts of blue-black lightning had arced once more throughout the Valley of Ossierel, exciting rainbows over the steep slopes throughout the wooded vales and crags. The lightning bolts had separated into myriad rivulets and streams as they struck the slopes, sundering one stone head after another. And everywhere, amid forest and rocks, rising out of the beds of streams and from meadow and the very roots of the trees, the reawakening had begun. Ensheathed in crackling spiderwebs of power, the horned heads of the war beasts tore open their former graves and the drum masters were beating out a new message of freedom.