The Black North

by Nigel McDowell

  But the attention of Oona’s father – the anger – was all for Oona’s mother: ‘Why are you still painting that place? Tell!’

  A long time of nothing. And then Oona heard her mother say in the lowest whisper: ‘Because it is home, and soon it will be gone. Like everywhere in this Isle – it will change. Like you – it will Blacken, and rot.’

  A breath, and Oona saw her father lift his hand to strike –

  ‘Now you see,’ said the voice of the King. ‘Now you know.’

  Oona looked to Morris – at last he showed his face, and it was the face of their father.

  ‘There is no escaping,’ whispered the mouth of her father, ‘No denying this truth.’

  And same scene inside the cottage as out: hands raised to strike and Oona feeling the blow as it fell on her own back, in the same nightmared moment the same pain breaking on mother and daughter. In the same moment, same scream.

  64

  Some nightmares know no end. Oona opened her eyes, yet every dark thing remained. She felt a festering inside her, and waking did nothing to soothe it: she couldn’t escape new knowledge. She had to move. She reached out but discovered nothing – the press of Whereabouts Wolves was gone. They’d left her. Again, Oona was alone.

  No, the Loam Stone told her. It felt like the rawest wound on her palm. Not ever alone, not now.

  And what Oona had seen she saw anew: Kavanagh cottage, Morris at the window peering in, father with his hand rotting and mother and grandmother and then –

  ‘Ach look – she’s awake now! Sure isn’t she just the most delicate wee mite!’

  Oona struggled to make sense of the world. She was being shadowed. What she’d taken for all those stacked stones, were they all leaning close?

  ‘Must have had a bad dream, the look of her! Now don’t go too close, ladies. We don’t want to go and crush the poor dear. But let’s look after her, surely. Cuddle her and keep her safe, should we not?’

  And then a dark hand came reaching and grabbing and Oona was up, scrambling back with satchel thudding against her side, voices from everywhere saying –

  ‘What’s wrong with her? Skittish wee thing – like she’s scared of us old beings! Maybe she’s never seen a creature going through the Change?’

  Oona tried to see more clearly –

  Thickset pillars of stone, but did she imagine them like legs? Smooth bulges of stone – bellies? Great hunks with dark spaces that squirmed – surely eyes and mouths and nostrils? And – heart still a thundering thing wracked with pain – Oona was struck by a notion, a word: Giants.

  Indeed, the Loam Stone told her.

  ‘What she needs is a good looking after and that’s the truth!’ said the Giants, their flabby heads turning on stone shoulders; what must be hair crackling like straw and swinging like frost-stiffened rope. Each moment things made more sense: the Giants could move their arms, hands, but little else, too much of them covered in stone. Some didn’t move at all, as though they’d transformed long before.

  Oona said again, ‘The Echoes?’

  ‘What this one needs is a good family to cuddle and comfort her and that’s that!’ the Giants announced.

  And again came hands reaching and Oona felt a scream suddenly build in her throat that needed to be released: ‘Just get back and don’t touch me! Leave me alone! I’m sick of this damn Black North and all the filthy things in it so stay away! If you touch me I’ll cut your bloody fingers off and don’t think I won’t!’

  And again her words echoed and echoed on, in her hand the Loam Stone blazing bright. Quiet. And then the Giants all said, whole lot crying loud –

  ‘Bless and save us! In the name of the Hollow Mountain and all that’s holy – the wee creature has the Nightmare Stone! That damnable plague of ages, surely to goodness! Enduring dark! Worst dreams of the world and she has them in her wee hands!’

  All? Whole lot? To Oona’s ears it had sounded like the Giants spoke all together, but not in clamour – their voices rose and fell in unison, a low rumble forming words, collaborating on same sentences.

  ‘We can’t let her leave! Take her now!’

  So many hands came snatching for Oona but they were futile – she was too fast, and the Giants too anchored by stone to shift themselves. She hardly had to dodge or duck to evade as they wailed on: ‘Get her! Capture her or else!’

  And then one voice spoke alone –

  ‘You have nothing to fear from us, child, as you can see. No more reason to feel terror at the sight or sound of us than you do from the clouds in the sky! We are undergoing the Change. Like all in this Isle – we are not what we once were.’

  Oona looked for the source of this speaking: to the highest tumble of stone. But not stone at all. Oona knew better than to judge quick so waited, and then sure enough saw: like a memory of a face, a ridge of sharp stone for a nose and above it two dark openings for eyes with somewhere darker below to speak from.

  ‘Who are you?’ asked Oona.

  The other Giants chorused a reply –

  ‘The Aged One, so she is! More ancient than any! And she’ll know what to do for the best, oh aye. She’ll tell us all what to be doing! But she doesn’t have long left for chat, not long at all!’

  Oona watched the high tumble of stone. Saw it shift, and the voice of the Aged One said –

  ‘Such a burden to carry for such a delicate little thing as yourself. That Stone: you do not know what power it commands, what terror could be wreaked in the wrong hands if you do not –’

  ‘Look: I’m not delicate or nothing like it so stop calling me that!’ Oona had heard enough and let anger again rouse her: ‘And I know what this thing is! I know what it can do! I’m no fool.’

  A fresh glimpse, cold needle driven into the heart: cottage, father, mother, grandmother …

  ‘No,’ said the ancient Giant, ‘indeed you are no fool.’

  Oona saw swathes of dark moss covering the Aged – like sleeves on stone arms, like a bodice across the chest, like a crown encircling a head that was neither skin nor stone. There was no separating what might’ve once been flesh and what was no longer.

  ‘This Change you’re going through,’ said Oona. ‘Is it the Echoes?’

  The Giants all around groaned, moved as much as they could, but the Aged One said –

  ‘No. The Change is something that our kind have gone through always. It is no shame, no cause for weeping: all things must know the Change, in the end. As the rain falls and freezes, the woods rise and fall and mountains turn to dust – all things transform. But these Echoes – they are not a change, but an ending. Like the horror of the remaking that is taking place all around us, the Echoes lead to nothing except destruction.’

  And Oona thought: if the Cause are suffering from it, what might be happening to Morris?

  ‘The only place safe now is here,’ said the Aged. ‘Only these Melancholy Mountains can be a haven for you, child.’

  ‘No,’ said Oona. ‘I have to keep going. I need to warn people.’

  ‘It cannot be halted,’ said the Aged One. ‘Our husbands in the Hollow Mountain have spent years trying to unravel the mystery of the Echoes, to discover its source or secret. But they have failed. And even our husbands – wise and well-read! – are not destined for long life in this remade world, longing only to sleep.’

  ‘But we need to –’ began Oona.

  ‘The King is destroying so that he can raise his new Kingdom,’ said the Aged One, words unstoppable. ‘Smell the air – foul and dank with decay! Nothing is the same – the very foundations of things, the natural ways are being disrupted! How long has it been night? How long has the moon been full? How long will winter cling to the world? There is no stopping him.’

  ‘There has to be,’ said Oona. She held the Loam Stone tight, as thought she could squeeze answers from it.

  ‘As long as the King of the North exists,’ the Aged One told her, each word fading, the Change soon t o seize her completely. ‘As long
as that creature lives, then so will these Echoes. But know this too: so long as men have evil in their hearts, so long as this Cause persists so thoughtlessly, then the King of the North cannot be defeated. That Stone in your hand, child – if you cannot master the nightmares within, cannot take what truth it offers – then it will mean the end of everything.’

  65

  ‘There she is! Get her!’

  Oona slipped the Loam Stone into her satchel, instinct hiding it. She watched: Invaders in hundreds were entering the valley, their cries loud and vicious –

  ‘Don’t let her go! Do whatever you have to do to get that Stone!’

  Oona stood surrounded, Giants silent and not wanting to be seen. She didn’t know what to do, not till she heard another voice calling –

  ‘Oona! Hurry now – follow me!’

  Familiar voice? Oona looked for it, and first saw only a face. But it was one she recognised as well as she’d know her own: she saw her own self there, and shades too of her father and grandparents. And mother, in smaller ways. Oona spoke what she saw, and the word nearly snagged in her throat: ‘Morris?’

  ‘Oona!’ the face of her brother called back. He was standing not far, almost hidden behind stone. ‘Quick! They’ll be here soon – follow!’

  And Oona had to obey.

  She moved and Morris moved and they were soon running among Giants fully Changed.

  ‘Quick!’ she heard Morris calling. ‘Follow or they’ll catch you!’

  The cries of the Invaders were still heard, but Oona couldn’t hear words. She kept running, following. She rounded a final stack of stone and saw the river running so clear, bright mirror for moonlight. And crouching beside, hidden behind a final stack of stone – her brother.

  ‘Come closer!’ he told her. ‘Quick!’

  Oona ran to him, falling beside and pulling her legs close, asking again, ‘Is it really you?’

  ‘It is,’ he told her.

  ‘Morris,’ said Oona, and then again, ‘Morris – I’ve seen so much. I’ve seen things. I –’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I know. Quiet now.’

  Oona wanted to embrace him – not something she’d ever done, but felt she needed to. But –

  ‘We’ve no time for that, dear sister,’ he said.

  ‘But,’ said Oona, and was ashamed at the sob that rose to her lips. She swallowed, and could only repeat, saying again, ‘I’ve seen things. Mammy – I think that …’ And there stopped.

  ‘What have you been shown?’ asked Morris

  Oona looked at him: his eyes were wide, dark despite the moon. She whispered: ‘I’ve seen what them Invaders are doing to the North, what they’ve done already. The South could be in as bad a state by now. Everyone who wants to fight is going on North to some place called the Burren, so that’s where we should go too. Us two together, just like back in Drumbroken.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Morris, sighing. The thinnest smile appeared on his face, the neatest tear. ‘You have been a good girl, Oona. But tell me this: I’d say you have something that could be used as a weapon against the Invaders. It is something they are seeking for their noble King and it was bequeathed to you, was it not? An object of immense power. Please tell me – do you still have it with you?’

  Oona nodded. The river made a racket. She could hardly think her own thoughts let alone hear if any Invaders were near so she said, ‘We should move on, Morris. Shouldn’t wait here.’

  Again – Morris was all sighs and small smiles.

  ‘I am so very glad to hear you still have the Stone,’ he said. ‘Now – give it to me, will you dear sister?’

  Oona half-stood, slowly, asking, ‘How did you even know about it anyway? And since when did you start talking all fancy?’

  Morris’s face still just smiled that bland smile.

  ‘Don’t be difficult now,’ he told her. ‘Has that meddlesome creature – that filthy jackdaw – polluted your mind?’

  ‘How do you –?’

  ‘I know more than you can imagine. And I swear to you now – you will give me the Nightmare Stone.’

  Oona swallowed, stepping back and back until her feet met mortal cold in the river. Then she said, ‘And I’d swear something too – on the Sorrowful Lady’s head, you’re not one bit my brother!’

  Only then did Morris’s smile slip: one side of his face began to collapse, all features avalanching, and in their wake was left white, only a cold blank. A face that was no face at all. And the being that Oona had taken for her brother, had wanted so much to be Morris, returned, was rising – limbs stretching and clothes falling away to show a uniform underneath. A small bird with crimson eyes alighted on the Faceless Invader’s shoulder and in a small voice that burned with malice it said, ‘Take her!’

  66

  Oona turned, ran. But hopeless –

  Hands appeared, reaching out of nothing and grabbing and holding her: Invaders, unseen and patient among the dark, cloaked by Changeling skin. But Oona bit and kicked and screamed at them, ‘Let me go, you pack of animals!’ And in the scuffle they tore her mother’s cloak from her body, ripped the satchel from her grasp to search it. ‘That’s mine! Give it back you fools! Give it back or else I’ll –’

  ‘Else nothing,’ said the bird on the Faceless Invader’s shoulder. ‘Quiet now. No need for all this fuss – this is a solemn place, after all.’

  ‘Here, I found it!’ called one of the Invaders, suddenly. He held the Loam Stone in one hand and Oona’s satchel in the other. He couldn’t have looked happier.

  ‘Give it to me!’ said the bird, lifting its wings and shaking them, a sharp crackle, peevish impatience. The Faceless extended one arm – its reach snaked all the way to the Invader and snatched the Stone from him.

  ‘We have it now,’ said the Changeling, shifting on the Invader’s shoulder. ‘The most powerful object in this world, and now it belongs to the most powerful being – the great King of the North!’

  ‘And this too,’ said the Invader who still held Oona’s satchel. On the barrel of his rifle he’d hooked a half-closed claw, bruised, bloodied – what Oona had stolen from the Mother of the Briar-Witches.

  ‘And that too could be useful,’ said the Faceless.

  The Invader – not so happy at so gruesome a sight – returned the claw to Oona’s satchel.

  ‘You don’t know what to do with that Stone!’ Oona told the Faceless. ‘It’s mine by right – been in the Kavanagh family for years! I’m the only one that can –’

  ‘I said quiet!’ cried the bird, breathless, eyes still on the Stone. ‘You are to be afforded a great honour, child: we shall escort you North, and first you shall be of great use in gaining some information of us from the remaining Giants. You shall witness the fall of the last members of the Cause as we destroy their haven at the Burren. And finally – to the edge of everything, to the City of Echoes, to meet your King. You will show him what power this Stone possesses, and you shall show him how to make his nightmares a reality.’

  Oona loosed a final call: ‘Like hell I will!’

  And in answer – in support, Oona was sure – the Loam Stone blazed brightest white.

  Then a flood of grey-white-silver mud: the clearing where Oona and the Invaders stood was engulfed by Whereabouts Wolves. They charged, knocking Invaders aside as Oona kicked and slapped and bit on the hands that held her.

  She was dropped so ran –

  But Oona wasn’t far before gunshots sounded –

  Grey-white-silver-mud, then red: the Wolves falling, broken.

  ‘Get her!’ cried an Invader.

  ‘She’s escaping!’ shouted another.

  ‘No she isn’t,’ Oona heard the Faceless say. ‘She will not leave – she will not be allowed to.’ And Oona knew this truth: the Loam Stone wouldn’t let her leave. It wouldn’t be abandoned.

  She wasn’t far into her fleeing before she was stopped – her heart or someplace near it was seized.

  She felt as though she might retch. T
hen Oona only wilted, falling against stone.

  Next thing felt – a cold hand enclosing her waist, lifting her. Through tear-soaked eyes she saw the bird on the Faceless Invader’s shoulder spread its wings and throw its head back and cry an appalling cry. An answer came in no more than heartbeat – descending hush, a quiet that laid itself with the softness of snow as one of the carriages of the Coach-A-Bower swept into their midst and stopped. Its insides were empty, dark, and awaiting a new passenger.

  ‘No,’ murmured Oona, but barely a protest. ‘No.’

  Ropes were knotted around her wrists, a sack slung over her head and tightened and another dragged up to enclose her squirming body. And Oona’s only feeling then was of slipping – into cold, desperation as she was added, a lost soul, to the carriage of the Coach-A-Bower.

  The Faceless Invader stepped into the carriage beside, perhaps impervious to any feeling. And Oona heard the order of the Carrion Changeling: ‘Coachman – we have the Nightmare Stone! Take us now to the blazing heart of the new Kingdom – to the Hollow Mountain!’

  67

  A kind of movement that mortals rarely know: the travel of dreams, miles conquered in moments and acres overcome in the space of a shallow breath, seasons crossed like narrow streams. This was the travel of the Coach-A-Bower. It made a mockery of time and distance, and death. And Oona was imprisoned inside, unmoving, felt encased in the blackest of black ice. Only one thought kept Oona’s mind from slipping whole into the dark, one dreamed-of thing: Merrigutt. And a hope: that somehow the jackdaw would find her.

  And suddenly they were no longer moving. The carriage stopped, door eased open, and Oona felt herself being lifted, carried with such care. She felt she should struggle, give some protest somehow, but she didn’t. Instead Oona put all her concentration on listening … a few moments more and she heard a whisper-hiss-hush: sound of rushing water. Then she struggled.

  The Faceless, carrying her, soothed, ‘Settle now, child. No need at all for protest. Have I not said how very important you are? No harm will come whilst I am with you. I will keep you to the ends of the earth. Further than that – to my King’s city at the edge of everything.’