The Tirnano - Book 1 'FINN'

by Peter Emmerson

  Winn’s back was turned as Jeanne and her uncle approached, for she stood before the creature, signing to it with amazing rapidity. John Wilson crouched next to her, occasionally adding his own brisk finger motions. At their entrance, however, and the shifting of Ny-mo’s attention to them, Winn also turned.

  “Uncle Tom, Dr. Jeanne,” she said softly. “C’mon in. This is Ny-mo. Ny-mo,” she said, turning back to the visitor, “this is a friend of my father’s brother. She is chief of her own tribe.”

  The teen spoke aloud, but flashed her hands and fingers at the same time. Not only, Jeanne realized, was she kind enough to translate out loud for them, she had also latched onto something else very quickly; she was attempting to teach the Croninn to understand speech ...and may well succeed, given the little creatures’ aptitude for learning.

  “Please tell him I’m honoured,” Jeanne requested, stepping close behind Winn and Wilson.

  Winn’s hands flashed, her mouth also working as she repeated the words. A beat in the conversation as the Croninn’s gaze flickered from Jeanne to Tom and back again. Then, lifting his hands, moving them with that lightning fast dexterity no human could ever fully replicate, he clicked something that made Winn snap, “Ny-mo!” in an affronted tone of voice. John Wilson chuckled, highly amused.

  Jeanne frowned. “What did he say?”

  Glancing over his shoulder, the artist grinned. “He asked if you two were mating, and said it would be a good thing if you were. We need powerful alliances between tribes in dangerous times like these.”

  “Oh my...”

  Jeanne felt a bit light-headed. Is the chemistry between the Yank and me that obvious?

  In response to the question, Winn’s hands were moving faster than ever-agitation-while her normally open features were twisted into an irritated scowl. Jeanne felt like scowling herself. The urge only deepened when her colleague leaned in to murmur, “Maybe ol’ Ny-mo’s got something on the ball, eh Jeanne?”

  “Be quiet,” she hissed back, embarrassed that the professionalism she’d maintained throughout the years he was managing to vanquish with a few choice words, teases, hints, glances and kisses.

  It was all she could do not to start kicking something. Mainly, herself.

  What’s the matter with me? Here I’ve got the opportunity of a lifetime to study creatures recorded history has never seen. I’m across the ocean in a place I’ve never been before, and never thought to see. If Tom and his niece are correct, we face a worldwide disaster that we’re going to have to come up with some kind of solution for. And I want to let myself get all distracted and muddle-headed over some man? Get over it!

  It was a nice little sermon; she was proud of her own delivery. At its conclusion, maybe the chemistry between the Yank and herself hadn’t vanished, but at least she had stiffened her spine enough to shift away from him and closer to Winn. For now.

  “Ask him,” she said, clearing her throat. “Please ask him if I might put some questions to him.”

  Winn’s fingers flashed, her mouth moved. Ny-mo lifted his left hand to make a simple gesture, a single short click.

  “That’s an affirmative,” the teen said seriously, her mannerisms so adult, so conscious of the responsibility she held that Jeanne wanted to smile.

  In another time, in another place, she and Paul would probably be good friends.

  “Very well. Would you ask him to tell me, please, about how his people and the natives of his land are related, as well as the threat they face and the power their magic-wielders exert?”

  “He’s already told us all that,” Tom’s niece let her know. “Why don’t you ask him something new?”

  Luckily, Tom stepped in. “Sometimes it’s good for a fresh pair of ears to hear a story, honey. Jeanne and John need to hear what we’ve heard firsthand. They might pick up some details we missed, or think to ask some questions we haven’t asked.”

  “Oh alright,” Winn huffed, with a typical teen sigh.

  Jeanne’s lips twitched. That’s Paul all over. The lad’s ahead of his time.

  She may’ve been minutely disgruntled, but Wintergreen Evans was not one to sulk and pout. Her fingers took to flashing, her mouth working as she translated aloud, and soon Jeanne found herself caught up in the astounding tale.

  ‘The world was in darkness,’ began the Croninn, Winn translating aloud, ‘then came the light. The light came from Those Beyond, who dwell in the Higher Realm, and in the light was life. Those Beyond created the beasts, birds, and all two-legged races: you humans with your divisions, the Brosynan with theirs. Seeing we were weak in comparison with our fellow beings, those-who-were-merciful granted us also means to protect us: the Anakim with their steeds, the terrifying Gurts.

  ‘In the course of time, as a number of Those Beyond grew greedy and others weak, they who were meant to protect both the humans and the Brosynans turned instead to slaughtering and devouring them. The Anakim became our Enemy, arrayed in their stone armour. At this time, those who favoured the Brosynans and those who favoured the humans granted our races special portions of their powers, in order that we might make war and defend ourselves.

  ‘I have told you earlier of how the Brosynan and the Plainsmen intermingled, creating the Croninn. We were long shunned. Yet now, in times of terror and sadness, come Brosynan and human alike to seek the Croninn’s aid. I do not boast when I proclaim my people the strongest magic-wielders of all.’

  “Because you are a combination of human and Brosynan,” observed Tom aloud.

  Winn flashed her uncle a glance of slight annoyance for interrupting, but John Wilson took up the slack, flashing a translation for Ny-mo.

  ‘Indeed,’ Ny-mo answered, Wilson speaking aloud. ‘As we are both human and Brosynan, so our powers are both human and Brosynan.

  ‘You,’ he said, the tale now picked up once more by Winn, ‘call these powers magic, I believe. We have another name, yet names and titles bear little weight at this point. What matters is that they do exist.’

  “But how?” broke in Jeanne, standing at Tom’s left elbow. “With all of our technological advances we’ve never discovered anything that couldn’t be explained by the laws of science. Magic just doesn’t exist.”

  “Like trolls don’t exist?” Winn asked quietly.

  Jeanne’s eyebrows rose. For a moment, she didn’t know whether to be annoyed or pleased by the teen’s astute inquiry, but chose to concede the point.

  “Touché. Maybe some things do exist that we can’t explain.”

  Winn, offering her own smile-luckily free of triumph-turned back to her unusual friend.

  “Tell them about the nature of your magic,” she signed, speaking aloud.

  Ny-mo nodded. ‘Our magic, then, comes from the light, which emanates from Those Beyond. Humans use the power of this light for fire and for weapons of fire. Brosynans use the power of interchanging light and darkness to move backwards and forwards-swiftly-through the days. Both of these skills my people claim, but our Shamans have further devised how we might use the power of the sun during the daylight hours, and that of the moon and stars at night, to erect shields about our homes.

  ‘For scores of years longer than our eldest tribe members have lived these were successful. Now, in the twilight of the ages, we fear Those Beyond have begun to lose their power as you humans-’ His glance at Jeanne was sharp, accusatory, making her wonder if already he understood more English than they’d given him credit for. ‘-Give more credence to natural laws which you call science than you do to Those Beyond.’

  Jeanne felt her cheeks warm but refused to be drawn into the centuries old debate of science versus religion. The Croninn has his beliefs? Fine. She had hers too. And she wasn’t quite ready to concede them all, despite the fact that science was ever changing and was going to have to change a lot more what with these recent startling events in which she, herself, was centred.

  Maybe there’s room for magic, religion, and science to coexist, she admitted inward
ly, grudgingly. I guess we’ve got to progress with the times. And clearly, this mess isn’t going to be explained away by science alone.

  ‘Either that,’ Ny-mo went on, heedless of Jeanne’s private compromise, ‘or else the Enemy have found magic of their own. Because of their great stature and prodigious strength, as well as their mighty steeds, Those Beyond did not initially grant them a measure of their strength. They wielded no magic. Now, however, the Enemy destroys, slips past, or shatters our shields. They invade our camps. They devour our tribes. More and more difficult becomes the task of the magic-wielders who seek to forestall their attempts.

  ‘Nor is this all.’ Ny-mo’s grey features compressed grimly. ‘With each attack upon my people, the power of the magic-wielders weakens. It is as if a taint is spreading upon all magic, cursing those who wield it.

  ‘Furthermore, in years past, the Brosynans wrapped the Enemy in their magic, transporting them to another time. Yet, as I have told this brother of my heart-sister’s father-’ He nodded first at Tom, then at Winn, his translator. ‘The Enemy have learned to rend the fabrics of time. They come to my time.’ His golden eyes dimmed with sorrow, pain. ‘They come to yours. Great will be the sorrow of the world throughout the ages of time when the power of Those Beyond, as well as the power of the Shamans and magic-wielders finally ceases, as-in due course-it surely must. The Enemy will devour all, and their evil, ravenous race will stand supreme.’

  Jeanne shivered, throwing Tom a helpless, worried glance. The Holborn Circus incident, as well as the more recent debacle in Brazil, added emphasis, weight to the creature’s otherwise fantastic tale.

  “Tom,” she whispered faintly. “What if it’s already started? What if they’ve already figured out how to make their way into our world?”

  In response, the Yank slipped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. “Then we’ll find a way to stop them,” he promised, squeezing her tight, brushing a kiss across her hair.

  Ignoring both protocol and the others’ presence in the barn, Jeanne allowed herself to lean into his strength. “Well...we’ve got humans,” she said slowly, mind racing-and not just from the Yank’s touch. “We’ve got Brosynans. Now we’ve got Croninn, as well.

  “Tom,” she said soberly, lifting her face to his. “What if this is no accident? What if Those Beyond, or those-who-are-merciful-providing they exist-are handing us the tools to right this wrong? We’ve got the three races from different time periods. We’ve got somebody here with sound knowledge of the Enemy who may be able to wield magic and ferry us back and forth through time. We’ve got Case and his Feds here-we’ve basically got access to the best soldiers and weapons modern-day humans have to offer. What if it’s no freak accident? What if Somebody - or Something - is planning this out? And has chosen and brought together all of us for its own ends.”

  “Planning what out?” the Yank frowned, a bit mystified by her line of logic.

  Jeanne drew a deep breath. “Planning for us to eradicate the Enemy. For good. Permanently.”

  John Wilson, listening from his corner, spoke up. “How can we do that when we don’t know how, when, or where they’ll strike next?”

  “Only one solution for that,” piped up Winn.

  Three pairs of adult eyes, and one of Croninn, switched to her. She shrugged. “Isn’t it obvious? We’ve got to take this war to the Enemy’s home turf.”

  “The sooner we get our three incomers together the better. Do you think the American agencies will agree to work with the British?” Jeanne said as they arranged themselves in a circle.

  “Only one way to find out, I’ll have a word with Case.”

  “I don’t want to throw a damper on this little plan,” it was Wilson, speaking from where he was still kneeling on the floor. He climbed to his feet as all eyes turned towards him. He continued, signing to Ny-mo as he spoke; “As you know, I have been to the ‘other side.’ It was a year after my wife passed on, and the girls had gone back to their father. I used to walk with my memories a lot back then, my favourite spot was in the woods behind above Loch Muick. I had my 12 bore with me, hoping for a pheasant or two.

  “Anyway, this time I spied a little fellow in buckskins and followed him thinking he was a bit suspicious, a few deer had been disappearing. I later discovered he was a Brosynan hunter; He disappeared almost in front of my eyes; I moved to where I had last seen him. I discovered a tear, a rent in the air exactly where he had disappeared. It was, and still is beyond my comprehension, the edges were beginning to knit together, I wonder why I did, but I stepped through before it closed.

  “I was tripped, and a bone knife pressed to my throat, accompanied by a grunt and rapid finger clicking. I lay as still as I could for a moment, then my military training clicked in, I know I told you that I was an RSM in the Coldstream’s, but that was before I served in the SAS, not something that I generally broadcast.

  “I bucked and threw him off, I guess I caught him unawares, suffice it to say, we stood looking at each other, sizing each other up, he was short but powerfully built, in a straight wrestle I probably wouldn’t have stood a chance. I took a chance, both barrels were loaded, if I discharged one it might startle him, frighten him off, I raised the barrel, pointing at the sky and pulled the trigger.

  “Nothing happened.

  “I pulled again, firing the second chamber, nothing happened, I could hear the pin fall, but that was all. I popped the gun open and from my pocket reloaded with another two shells. Again I fired, both barrels were dead. The little creature stood watching me, his face questioning my sanity.

  “I placed the useless shotgun on the ground and held out my hands to him in a gesture of friendship. He approached me confidently; without warning, from his mouth slid a long forked tongue. It took all of my self control to stop myself from cringing away from the gruesome appendage but I managed it. The tongue flicked about my hands, and then across my features, again I flinched internally.

  “He turned and with an unmistakable gesture for me to follow, moving away from me. I had my first opportunity to look around. The terrain and the vegetation were unlike anything I had any previous experience of in Scotland. If I could believe the possibility of it, I would swear I was in a different land, or horrors of horrors on a different planet. I picked up the useless shotgun and with a deep breath followed the little creature.

  “My reason for telling you of that first encounter with the Brosynan is to let you know that any modern appliance is rendered useless by the magic in that land. I had with me a torch, it too would not work, I carried it with me right up to when I returned to this time when it immediately began to operate.”

  “So, basically what you are implying is our weapons, and all our modern paraphernalia is totally useless?”

  “Yes, Jeanne, if we are to take any weapons they cannot be dependent upon modern technology.”

  “Where does that leave us?” asked Tom.

  “Bows and arrows, spears, swords, I even thought of catapults and slings, siege engines like the Trebuchet and of course our own magic - ‘fire,’ any of that lot will work just fine.”

  “What about vehicles?”

  “You missing your Rover?” asked Tom with a grin.

  “Aye, it would be useful if we could use vehicles, I always believed if the good Lord wanted us to walk everywhere, he wouldn’t have allowed us to invent the motor car.”

  “Nope. Vehicles of any kind are a no, no.”

  “Mmmm you might have something there,” Tom responded to Jeanne with a big smile, changing tack completely he asked John, “What about horses, could we take them?”

  “Don’t see any reason why not, there were horses on the plains. The Brosynan didn’t use them though.”

  Ny-mo had been silent through the exchange but he clicked, attracting their attention; ‘Horses are our brothers on the plains, we have many head, and the humans too use them. Many full moons past, we observed a patrol of Brosynan hunters, they ride a creature from the nort
hern plains, it is like a serpent that stands on its hind legs like a man, it is almost twice the size of our horses. We observed these creatures for a long while, they are meat eaters and are fearsome to behold, but they are close companions to the cave dwellers.’ Winn translated, John nodding in agreement.

  “They must have formed this alliance after my time,” he said.

  “After your time?” Winn said, her shock creeping through her normally controlled demeanour.

  ”Somehow I slipped through time; my period with the Brosynans was over two hundred years ago, or so Finn tells me.”

  ‘Finn?’ it was a question from Ny-mo.

  “Finn is our male Brosynan, the female we have is called Kesha, she has a newborn child of just couple of weeks old,” Jeanne’s voice was soft as she spoke of her charges, for she had grown fond of the little female and the tiny baby.