The Tirnano - Book 1 'FINN'

by Peter Emmerson

  THE TIRNANO

  BOOK ONE - FINN

  PETER M. EMMERSON

  ~~~~~~~~

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ~~~~~~~~

  ©2010 Peter M. Emmerson

  ISBN: 978-1-4580-2062-8

  Published by Peter M. Emmerson

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  ~

  ~~~~~~~~

  THE TIRNANO

  Book 1 - follows the build up by the forces of the Light in preparation for a confrontation with the armies of the Dark.

  Book 2 - tells the tale of a group of castaways in a strange land and how they survive through the years.

  Book 3 – all the protagonists are united in the concluding conflict between the Light and Dark Gods.

  Note:

  The Holborn Incident referred to in this book is described in full in the concluding pages of Part 1 – FINN.

  Prologue

  The Temple of Dilkadek.

  A millennium had passed since the Ennead of Heliopolis had laid aside their differences.

  “Why have you called me to this fly-blown, disease infested place, sister-wife?” demanded Seth.

  He stood where he had manifested, behind the black basalt cathedrae, his shadow thrown onto the wall beside them. His brother and two sisters rose from their thrones to face his flickering, grotesque silhouette.

  “We have grave news, brother-husband,” replied Nephthys, extending her wings in a gesture of homage.

  The Lord of Chaos strode from behind the dais, “Then speak!” he said, his voice, issuing from the outlandish mouth and throat boomed with an echoing quality, two voices blended ineptly into one. “I weary already of this place.”

  “Is that the only greeting you have for your siblings after all this time?” asked Isis in her soft sibilant way, she moved towards him in a sinuous manner.

  Seth threw up his right arm in a warding gesture, “Keep away from me sister; I need not your vile magic contaminating me.” He turned to Osiris his voice dripping disgust, “Have you no respect for your image brother, why have you not as yet improved your appearance, that filthy, ugly green face does you little favour.”

  “At least my brother-husband can be recognised, what is that ridiculous visage you refuse to give up?” asked Isis.

  “Enough,” cut in Nephthys, “we are not here to indulge in petty bickering.”

  “Well sister, what are we here for?” hissed Isis.

  “I have divined that the Light is contriving to bring together outlandish warriors to stand against us. Worse still, our Anakim have found no way to break through the crafted barriers shaped by that interfering aberration Bes’ offspring.”

  “Stamp them out!” Boomed Seth.

  “Ra and his kin have thrown in with that fat dwarf, there is no way that alone, have I been able to stand against them. I have need of you my dear brothers and sister, for together we can augment the Anakim’s ability to break the barriers. Together we can bring our father, Atum’s plan for this disgusting world to completion.”

  Nephthys looked at the three gods who stood before her. “Are you prepared to join me to bring to fruition his intention to create a paradise more splendid than that from which we departed so inconveniently?”

  “Has the Light yet activated the seeding?” Osiris spoke for the first time, the three spun towards him; the sound of his voice had not been heard for many thousands of years. It was a low croak, such as might have emanated from the throat of a great bullfrog; it carried latent horror. An intimate understanding of death curdled and crawled within it.

  “So it speaks,” said Seth.

  “I but posed a question brother,” continued Osiris, his grotesque parody of a head spun, his yellow eyes gazed malevolently at the magnificent figure of the Chaos Lord.

  “It has, - the creatures have been planted by the Ogdoad throughout the land masses.” It was Nephthys who answered.

  “What forms have they?” Seth interjected.

  “That of their creator… Anubis is as ever nothing but vain about his appearance.”

  “It matters not, they will provide our progeny with much sustenance,” hissed her sister.

  ~

  PART 1.

  1.

  THE CREATURE

  Aberdeen. Scotland.

  April 2011

  The room measured no more than four metres square. Everything was white, pristine white. Breaking up the colourless uniformity was a neat pile of clothing topped by a pair of dusty tan boots. A low shelf with a plastic covered mattress served as a bed. In one corner a white water closet protruded from the wall evidencing no visible means of support. Above it, recessed, a chrome flush button; to the side, at waist height, a diminutive, matching sink.

  He sat in the centre of the room, on the tiled white floor, cross legged.

  The lighting was harsh in its all-enveloping brightness. No shadows were cast, not even in the corners. Outside, from behind a one-way observation strip, they watched him. Every breath he took. Every movement he made. Every test he was subjected to, faithfully recorded. The digital data compressed and transmitted to London to be analysed, byte by byte.

  He spat again; the fifth and final time that hour. Exactly twelve minutes since the last time, and exactly twenty-four minutes since the time before. Every twelve minutes since assuming his position on the floor three days beforehand, he’d spat, the ball of saliva splattering onto the same spot each time, his target a tiny blemish.

  When initially placed in the room, he’d been wearing a hooded, long sleeved jacket and tight fitting pants, both made from a soft, unidentified hide. His knee high boots were crafted from the same substance, only dried, and to some extent stiffened for durability. The plain clothing was handmade, the stitching peculiarly neat and precise.

  He had been in the room for little more than a day when he had stripped off his clothing, folded it, and placed it in a pile. He then resumed his position, which he assumed again and again after being moved for numerous investigations and tests.

  Silently, Dr. Jeanne McLennan watched him. --- Thinking.

  She and Paul her twelve year old son, were comfortably ensconced in a company house in Blackburn, a ‘dormitory town’ north of Aberdeen. Jeanne had slipped easily into her new position as Chief Psychologist at ANS (Aberdeen) - The Academy of Natural Sciences, a pseudonym for a branch of National Security - she’d been living in Essex and working in London for six years, although she had retained her Scots’ accent. Paul had picked up the Thames estuary twang. Might being back in Aberdeen return my son’s latent accent, Just as it's bringing back uncomfortable memories I'd rather avoid?

  A number of years had passed since the Holborn incident. The backlash from that horrifying event had almost brought the UK government of the day to its knees and was responsible for her secondment from a comfortable, but boring desk job in Scotland Yard to the hurly-burly life of an MI5 operative. Oddly enough, it had also brought her back again, for the strangeness of this creature set off warning bells that chimed loudly; “Holborn, Holborn.” Whether or not this creature had anything to do with that terrible day remain to be seen; it was her job to study him, and figure such things out.

  He spat. Precisely twelve minutes had passed, and again his aim was perfect.

  For the thousandth time, Jeanne ran her eyes over him.

  Such a strange specimen…… Specimen.

  It seemed
a cold word, but whoever, whatever, he was, he appeared in many respects more specimen than animal. Besides, I’m supposed to be a scientist, thinking in factual, less than politically correct terms. In all honesty, specimen animal, or human, I can’t tire of looking at him. Where on earth - or not - has he come from?

  No-where known; that was for sure.

  His skin colouring, a light grey with stripes and swirls of dark olive. His hair, the colour of steel, flecked with black grew uniformly not only on his head, but also down his neck and across his shoulders resembling a mane. Bizarre - but what wasn’t about him? Apparently, the grey was his natural colour, not caused by advancing years.

  Their best tests and guesses put him in his early twenties; so old age couldn’t be a colouring factor. His build, that of a youth in the prime of life supported the theory. His shoulders were wide and powerful, complimented by muscular arms. His trim torso boasted a ripped stomach, sprinkled with coarse, wiry hair. His hips, though, were slim, and his legs slender, bowed, they look capable of having problems supporting his powerful upper body.

  Is he gangly? Are his movements awkward?

  Besides his spitting, Jeanne hadn’t seen him in motion long enough to tell.

  Her eyes hesitated a moment on his genitalia, large for his body size, before quickly skipping on. In her head, she ticked off fact after fact. His head’s a little disproportionate, a bit too big for his body. Large brain, she mused, but then he’s got small feet. Puts paid to that myth. She gave a tiny smile at her own internal joke, but it melted rapidly. Unfortunately, the creature was no joke, nor was it a laughing matter that communications were, as yet, not established with him.

  He’d made no sound since being carried into the Institute - or even before, (so the computer printout from the RAF claimed.) Not surprised he can’t talk, she observed from behind the surveillance window. His tongue is more like a lizard’s or snake’s than a human’s. The member in question was, indeed, long, slim, and forked. He used it like a reptile, too, flicking it continuously through his split top lip.

  Testing, Tasting, Testing, Tasting.

  For a moment she considered the way a snake places one fork of its tongue in each of the two holes in the roof of its mouth, sending a smell signal to its brain. This creature had two deep indentations in the roof of his mouth, just behind his large canines. Might they serve the same purpose?

  Is he, she wondered, acting like a reptile? Tasting the air with that gruesome appendage?

  He’d been quiet and compliant, without protestation at the many (sometimes decidedly personal) investigations they’d carried out on him. Only once had he become wildly animated, waving his hands in front of their faces and clicking his fingers in obvious distress. That had been yesterday, the first time they had drawn blood from his arm. The needle had caused him no unease, but the sight of his blood being drawn upward into the syringe had clearly troubled him.

  I wonder what his DNA will reveal ... the results are overdue.

  As if by magic, a technician from the lab appeared and passed her a report on the creature’s saliva. On a whim, Jeanne had requested a sample be taken from the wall, and she now ran her eyes down the list of ingredients.

  Odd... It’s like he’s filtering out every impurity in the room, as well as from each person with whom he’s come in contact. I wonder how he copes with the investigations they’ve performed on him. Each person who comes close must exude a flood of chemicals - perfumes, soaps, and scrubs, not to mention the fluoride in the water and the chemicals in the foods he’s offered.

  “Where’d they pick him up?” a male voice asked from her elbow, startling her, although Jeanne restrained a reaction, beside her stood the American anthropologist, Dr Tom Pinkerton, just up from London, on the Red-Eye this morning.

  Good looking, she mentally assessed, even if he seemed a bit geeky when they were introduced earlier. Around my own age, mid-thirties, probably married, even though I can’t see a ring, taller than me, but not by too much, dark, curly hair just flicking off his collar. Blue eyes, hmmm... not too bad, probably be a seven if I was to rate him. Shame he’s a Yank, and a bit full of himself.

  Actually, she modified an instant later, he’s a bit like my hubby Mike, well, when he was my hubby, years ago. But I really don’t care to think about that.

  “In the Cairngorms, North Slope of the Spittle of Glenshee near the standing stones,” she replied, in answer to the Yank’s question. “He was seen by an off piste skier. The RAF was called out and picked him up about an hour later. The chopper must’ve scared the crap out of him.

  “Speaking of that, he hasn’t completed a bodily function since he arrived. Not that he can’t,” she laughed at her new colleague’s upraised eyebrow. “He’s got all the necessary equipment.”

  “And some,” he noted dryly. “It’s been, what, five days?”

  “Seven, to be precise.” She shifted, resting a hip against the window ledge opposite the obbo pane. “I was brought in five days ago.”

  The doctor’s natural good humour burst through, “You’ve been standing here five days doing nothing but staring at him?” he grinned. “A guy should be so lucky.”

  “Maybe if you’d been found up at the Spittle and maybe if you had grey, zebra-like skin and a silver mane, I’d stare at you for five days too,” she quipped, turning back to the Institute’s latest inmate, patient, specimen.

  Whatever he was.

  “I’ll get to work on that,” promised the anthropologist with a half-chuckle as he edged closer to the glass. “You know,” he said next, bantering gone, “I’ve spent my time studying many so-called primitive tribes around the world. Seen a lot of strange people --- by our standards at least, places, customs, and things. But I’ve never seen anything like him.”

  “I know.” Jeanne joined him at the glass, resuming her observatory post. “Me neither. I’ve been racking my brain and our computer files ever since I got here. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. No known human race shares this guy’s qualities, besides the obvious: two legs, two arms, a head, et cetera.”

  “You think he’s human?” he asked.

  She wrinkled her nose. “Looks human enough ... in some respects...” She couldn’t blame the American doctor for his obvious scepticism. In plenty of others ... he didn’t.

  “Maybe he’s in some unstudied stage of evolutionary development.”

  “And maybe he’s the Missing Link,” she shot back. “Look, Doctor ---”

  “Oh, call me Pink. Or, better yet, Tom,” urged her companion with a more-than-friendly wink. “None of this ‘doctor’ stuff. We’ve been assigned to work this case together. Don’t you think first names will make everything easier?”

  Right, she thought, on guard. Drat, but he reminds me of Mike, even down to that mischievous wink. Which isn't necessarily a good thing; although I know I shouldn’t judge on so short an acquaintance.

  “Fine, I’d already thought of that.” Although I can’t bring myself to call him Pink, Tom, sure, but Pink? “And maybe, maybe, there’s something in what you say-about the evolutionary development, I mean. But I’ve studied all the charts ‘the anoraks’ have come up with. He doesn’t fit in anywhere; just doesn’t fit the pattern. And if we’ve overlooked something, and he is the next stage of evolution for mankind….” Her voice faded as the thought struck home.

  “Ouch.” Her new colleague winced. “That’ll put a crimp in the dating game.”

  In spite of herself, Jeanne struggled to hide a smile. “Exactly.”

  “So if he’s not the Missing Link and if he’s not some relic from evolution’s past just now turned up,” Tom spoke up, smoothly bringing the topic back on course, “just what is he?”

  Once more, on the other side of the glass, the creature spat. Jeanne didn’t bother glancing at her watch. She’d given that up days ago. His timing was never off.

  “That’s just the trouble,” she sighed, leaning her forehead against the cool pane, looking directly at the little creat
ure. “You know, I haven’t the foggiest idea.”

  2.

  JEANNE McLENNAN

  London, England.

  March 2011

  The radio alarm beside her bed burst into life. Disgruntled, Dr. Jeanne McLennan pried open her eyes. Green digits displayed 5:45 A.M. The accompanying music was the usual schmaltz. “Give me a break,” she muttered, tapping the snooze button and burying her head under the pillow.

  Please… just another five, she thought. Shouldn’t have killed the dregs of that Shiraz last night, always does it for me.

  Ten minutes later, ready or not it all began again. Tapping the alarm reset button, Jeanne left the radio playing while climbing out of bed and shuffling in the direction of the bathroom.

  “Paulie, darling, rise and shine, another school morning. Just a couple more days ‘n’ it’s your hols,” she called from outside his bedroom door.