by Joan Lennon
One of his sleeves fell back a little, and the others stared down at him.
‘When did that happen!?’
The sores were gone. Healed completely. There wasn’t even a scar.
Jay pulled back his other sleeve, in case they’d somehow remembered the wounds being on the wrong arm, but there was no mistake.
‘They must have closed up when the hole between the worlds did,’ said Eo softly. ‘They’ve healed. I’m healed.’
Adom and Jay hunkered down beside him, and they viewed the whirling of the healed Heart for a while in a curious state of numbness.
‘We did it?’ asked Eo.
‘You did it,’ said Jay, shoving him with her shoulder.
‘We did it,’ said Eo mildly.
‘That’s right,’ said Adom. ‘We did.’
There was a deeply satisfied pause. Then, Any food left?’ asked Eo wistfully.
‘No. All gone,’ said Jay.
And we should be too,’ said Adom, heaving himself to his feet again. He gave them each a hand up and then they took a last look at the Dry Heart.
The cloud of gold sparks was changing. It was contracting in on itself, becoming smaller and denser. It was also moving further into the Heart, drawn to the G world, now orbiting blithely away from that of the Kelpies. The blue world and the black would pass each other again, when the times were as liminal as the place, but now there was a new partner to the dance. A new, golden globe, in a new, oblique orbit.
‘I always said you had beautiful hair,’ said Jay.
Walking out of the mazes with no path proved to be remarkably simple. The moment they thought to look for one, the three found a door leading from the Centre. It was tucked into the corner of the far side from where they’d come in, and the succession of corridors, galleries and stairs that ensued had one thing in common: at no point did they require the travellers to make any choices. The way wasn’t straight, or short, but it took them steadily and unambiguously up and away.
The Island was ready for them to leave.
They were each bone-tired, too weary to talk, or even think much. But they drew comfort from the others being there. And at last they stumbled out of a final tunnel.
They had emerged at the lower end of the Island, on to a shoreline jumble of hexagonal basalt stumps, with the grass turf beginning only a few metres above and behind them. For a moment they just stood, desperately grateful to be in the open air again, with a sky high overhead and room to breathe. Only gradually did they begin to realize that, even after everything that had happened, something was still wrong.
Very wrong.
‘It’s the tide. It’s still out. It hasn’t changed.’ Eo’s voice was husky from all the hours of dryness. ‘Look where the moon is. We’ve been underground for hours, but the water’s as low as ever.’
The others looked. It was true. The eclipse was over. The moon was moon-coloured again and just lipping the horizon. Soon it would set and the first faint paling of sunrise would show in the east. The tide should be at the full, higher even than usual because of being a spring tide, but instead, the same exposed expanse of sea bed still stretched out before them. Between the deeper pools, grotesquely shaped rocks glinted slimily in the moonlight. Things had died in the hours they’d been stranded. Even in the cold night air there was the whiff of incipient decay on the breeze.
‘It’s like nobody even noticed,’ said Adom dully.
‘But we did it,’ said Jay. ‘Haven’t they been paying attention? Everything’s supposed to be all right!’
What more can they ask of us? thought Eo to himself, only half-aware of something in the background, nagging for his attention. He was so tired it took a moment for his senses to sort out which one was being called upon.
Noise. A big noise, growing bigger all the time.
He looked at the others. Jay was saying something to Adom, yelling it more like, but nothing could be heard over the thundering. Adom was looking back at her with a half-smile on his face, shrugging incomprehension. For a split second, Eo was seeing them both, more clearly than he ever had before. He knew (without knowing how) that many, many years from now, when he was an old G sitting, sunning on a rock, he’d only need to shut his eyes, and their faces would be there.
He reached out and took their hands. They both turned, looking enquiringly at him…
… when the water struck.
19 Adom
Back at the inlet below Devin’s hall, what happened was this…
‘He’s gone!’ cried the Bard in horror – but before Columba could reply, the boy was back again! He reappeared out of thin air, in an enormous whoosh of water that flung him full into the Holy Father’s arms and knocked him flat. Then the water disappeared, and there was only the boy Adom and Columba in a heap, surrounded by staring peasants and a stunned silence.
‘I… we… you…?’ stuttered the boy before fainting dead away.
That was what happened. By late afternoon, however, the story had… evolved. Each witness had something rich and strange to add.
‘You should have been there – what a sight –’
‘– the stink of hell –’
‘– the screaming of the demons as they tried to drag the boy away –’
‘– hang on, I didn’t hear any screaming –’
‘– the Holy Father roaring prayers like an avenging angel, pulling on the boy with all his strength, and the demons not letting go –’
‘– I didn’t hear any roaring either –’
‘– a great holy tug-of-war –’
‘– roaring and heaving –’
‘I saw it with my own eyes and I can barely believe it!’
The Bard watched the little knots of villagers meet, wave their hands about and part to form new groups.
‘The story’s spreading nicely’ he said as he turned back into his hall. They had brought the still-unconscious boy here and Columba was keeping watch over him.
Columba looked up now. ‘What really happened down there, Devin?’ he said. ‘Do you know?’
The Bard shrugged and sat down on the bench beside him.
‘The boy must be special,’ he said.
Columba frowned. ‘Brother Drostlin told me he was stupid. Lazy and thick-witted. Couldn’t learn to read or write or speak Latin to save himself.’
‘Strange,’ murmured the Bard. ‘The demons certainly thought he was worth taking an interest in. How long have you had him on lona?’
Columba shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t had time for… Brother Drostlin takes care of things now.’
Devin tutted. ‘Since when did you rely on the likes of Brother Drostlin? The man’s soul must be the size of a shrivelled acorn at the most! You should have bigger souls than that around you, my friend. Like this boy’s maybe? Eh?’
FAQ 679: Why are there only heroes and heroines and champions and saints in the past? At the last Career Development Day I went to there was no material at all on any of these as a job prospect – and I checked everywhere.
HURPLE’S REPLY: Don’t worry – it’s just a question of labelling. What I mean is, we’ve got shy about calling anybody a saint or a heroine or a champion lately, but there are still plenty of people doing the jobs. You just need to keep your eyes open. (I wouldn’t want this to get out, in case my idea is stolen by industrial saboteurs, but I can say that I am currently working on a design for a ‘Perceptor Lens’ which, when made into convenient and inconspicuous glasses, will allow the wearer to see the approximate dimensions of the souls of others. It is based on the simple rule of thumb that the more heroic a person is, the larger their soul is, and should make spotting champions of every description much easier. If you would like to keep track of my progress on this project, watch this space!)
‘I thought he was just another boy.’
‘You were just another boy once too, as I remember it.’ Devin smiled fondly at him.
Columba grunted. ‘Though, you know,’ he c
ontinued slowly, ‘I can’t help thinking I’ve seen him before. Him, or someone like him.’
‘Look, he’s waking!’
At first Adom’s eyes were as glazed as a kitten’s, but then he seemed to focus on his surroundings and the men leaning over him.
‘Father?’ he said in a pale voice. ‘I saw you. I saw you in hell. But it wasn’t you. Not the true you. Bless me, Father, I have travelled far.’
He spoke in perfect Latin.
Columba reached out, a dazed expression on his face, and made the sign of the cross on Adom’s forehead.
‘I was told you knew no Latin,’ he murmured.
‘That’s right, Father. But I’ve learned.’ Adom lifted his arm to show Columba the wrist computer and realized, for the first time, that it was no longer there. ‘I really have learned!’ His smile shone.
The two men exchanged wondering glances.
‘Can you tell us what happened?’ Devin asked gently.
‘I can try’ said Adom.
When he’d finished, it was fully evening, and his listeners were silent and amazed.
The Bard stood up, drifted to the door of his hall and looked out, out over the village and the trees, to where the sea and the sky and the islands blended their colours at the day’s end. He felt the tale begin to find words for itself inside his mind, to lay itself out in shapes and rhythms, begin to become a thing that would last for maybe a thousand years.
Behind him, in the darkening hall, Columba spoke quietly.
‘Do I know you?’ he said. ‘From before?’
Adom smiled at him. ‘Yes, Father. I can tell you how we met, the first time, years ago, when you brought me back from the edge of death. Because that’s part of the story too.’
After a while, Devin looked back at the pair in the hall. The boy was still there, asleep again, and the holy man was still beside him, keeping watch. At first glance it looked as if no one had moved. But then he saw. In one small detail, the picture had changed.
Columba had taken Adom’s hand.
20 Jay
It was cold on the platform. There was a mean, biting wind, and the sea heaved and churned, inky black. Suddenly the lights came on, their flat glare blotting out any view of the stars.
‘… and you didn’t leave anything here. But you won’t take my word for it. Oh no…’
Two people emerging from the hatch had triggered the automatic lighting system. It was an old man wearing a peculiar coat, obviously a D-class or an RD, and his minder. She was providing a running commentary, in the voice of someone who is more than a little fed up.
‘… you have to see for yourself. Well, do so, please, and then let’s get back in out of the wind. There, what did I tell you? Nothing. Just a black sky, a black sea, a cold wind…’
‘And a dead girl,’ said the old man.
‘… a bunch of equipment, a – what?!
‘A dead girl. Over there. Oh, look, that’s strange. She’s throwing up.’
The minder rushed over to the sorry, sodden figure on the platform in a paddy of ‘Oh my!’s and ‘Dearie me!’s. The old man followed more calmly, with an air of detached curiosity.
The minder busily took off her own jacket and wrapped the girl up in it, clucking all the while. With a bit of effort, she got her standing and started to bundle her towards the hatch.
The girl was wobbly on her feet and more than a little woozy in her speech.
‘The Traveller wasn’t half as bad as that,’ she said blurrily ‘I’ve got a lot more sympathy for you now, Adom. I’d like to tell you that. So much I’d like to tell you all. And now I’ll never see you or hear from you again…’ She trailed off into a sob.
The words made no sense to the minder, who was anyway quite used to ignoring strangeness, but the old man, drifting along behind, gave a little yip.
‘Now that’s interesting. Why are you speaking sixth-century Gaelic, little girl?’ he said, coming alongside them with little skippy steps.
The whole party ground to a halt, there in the cold, black night.
‘Was I?’ said the girl, in English, now. ‘Sorry Long story.’
‘Tell me.’
He spoke as if he were giving an order, as if he really expected her to do so that very minute.
The girl stared at him. She said, ‘Tell you?!’ just as the minder squeaked, ‘Be reasonable, sir. She’s just an O.’
The old man turned into the full glare of the floodlights. It was uncanny how young he looked, under that wild white hair. ‘I want her to tell me. And my understanding of the system is, it’s what I want that matters.’
For a second, there was a look of shrewdness on that unlined face, a look very much on the ball, very wide awake and not a little frightening.
The minder had seen the look before. She knew what it meant.
As you say, sir,’ she sighed. ‘But not here!
He smiled sweetly at her.
‘What’s your name, girl?’ the minder asked crossly.
‘Jay’ the girl said through teeth that were beginning to chatter.
‘Right then, Jay, since the master has spoken. Let’s go…’
‘What’s she doing here?’
‘Does she think we don’t know?!’
‘The Ardnamurchan Reading Room is not and never will be open to Os.’
‘And what possible use could it be to them if it were?!’
The minders and scribes and shelf-stackers whispered together in corners of the Reading Room, shaking their heads and tutting in disapproval.
‘I’m afraid it’s my Dr Horace’s fault. He insisted. Don’t ask me why’ one of the minders said, privately hoping that no one would ask her why. She really didn’t want it generally known that her charge was so good at getting away from her, or that he went into Restricted Sectors like the surface platforms when he did. ‘You know what they’re like.’
The others nodded, wry expressions on their faces. They did indeed know what they were like.
‘Do you know what she said to me?’ somebody else said.
The others all leaned in close to hear.
‘No. What did she say?’
‘Well, I said, “If you’re going to read that stuff you’re going to need a download of Early Dalraidian Gaelic,” and she said, “I’m ahead of you there, sunshine. Got it already. Right here, in my enchanted arm.”’
‘She never!’
‘As I live and breathe!’
On the other side of the Reading Room, Jay sat at a table covered in ancient manuscripts and scholarly commentaries, some of them almost as old as the texts themselves. A voice long dead droned in her ears, one of many in the last weeks.
‘The name of the poet is not known for certain, though some scholars have suggested the work is by Devin of Dalraida. The fact that the poem is never included in collections or listings of his work is problematic. That the poem might have been written as a private work only, and not intended to be read or heard by the world in general, would have been an odd concept in his time…’
It had been a long day and she was tempted to skim, but something made her stick to it. Something made her pay attention.
‘… includes passages which mention “the otter-haired woman”, though some scholars think the correct translation is “the bald woman”. She may have been a nun, though it is not known for certain whether nuns of this period had their hair cut off. However, the tone of the references is distinctly more secular…’
Suddenly Jay wasn’t interested in the commentary any more. She shoved it aside, and peered intently at the thing itself – a peculiar poem of uncertain origin called ‘The Journey’. The manuscript was only a copy of a copy, in tiny crabbed writing and pale ink, hard to read, and harder to understand, unless you somehow, magically, knew what it was saying already.
… the otter-haired woman… the one from, the land of laughter… St James’s talking beast… the men of ice… the beasts of Eden… the Seventh Tide… the phrases swam in front of h
er eyes, making her afraid to blink, in case it was just wishful thinking, seeing them there. So she didn’t blink, for as long as possible, and then she did. And when her eyesight cleared, the words were still there.
Her shriek shattered the silence of the Ardnamurchan Reading Room.
‘I found them!’ she squealed.
All over the library, D-class and RD-class heads jerked up nervously. Minders and scribes hurried to soothe and placate, but after the first startlement had passed, D-class and RD-class smiles were seen. They recognized the Eureka moment, the joy of opening doors and arising possibilities. They recognized one of their own.
Jay looked round the room, smiling back at them. She kissed her finger, touched the pile of manuscripts on the table before her and began to dance.
21 Eo
Three clown-coloured oystercatchers – Gladrag, Market and Interrupted – circled high above the Isles as the tide, no longer restrained, surged back in search of its proper place. They looked down on a scene of foamy white chaos, as low-lying land was submerged and then returned to the air, battered but unmoved. Plumes of spume were thrown against the faces of cliffs and up into the sky, and dolphins freed from gullies rode the surf. Although they were in no doubt about what had happened, the birds still waited until they could see the top of the Island of the Dry Heart clearly before moving off.
There was no sign of the Queen, the Kelpies or their vortex. The door between the worlds was shut again.
‘Home?’ said one, and the others agreed.
The G island, some distance from the epicentre, had been a little protected. As the three oystercatchers came in to land, they saw how the beach was littered with torn-off seaweed fronds and a scattering of flapping fish, but there’d been no permanent damage done.
And there, in the midst of the mess, they saw the figure of a boy lying on his side, curled up tight.
‘Is he all right?’ Interrupted Cadence half-squawked, half-said, as he morphed from bird to human while simultaneously trying to get into a soggy robe.