by N. K. Vir
Dear Reader,
This series would not be possible without the love and support of my family and friends both here and departed.
A special thanks to my husband (“husbandger”) John, my partner in life and in crime, my rock and port during the stormy times in life, who always believed I would one day achieve what I dreamt of doing since the age of eight, you are my rúnsearc; sometimes wishes really do come true.
Thank you to my kids, both the kind that walk on two legs as well as the kind that walk on four, for understanding that even though mom is in the house sometimes you can’t have her attention.
Thank you to my illustrator Patricia Reed. You are an amazing artist and a beautiful person. Without you this series would only get half the attention it deserves.
Thank you to my friends new and old who not only supported me then but support me now. You have no idea how lucky and blessed I feel with you at my back.
Thank you to Mom and Dad for always understanding the way my bizarre mind works and for letting me take six years of English in high school, even making up a few along the way, only to go to college and study history. Yep it made sense at the time.
And of course thank you to all of you who have discovered the Otherworld series and have followed me on this crazy adventure so far.
Thank you all,
With deep love and respect,
N.K. Vir
The Otherworld Series Book Two:
The Screaming Stone
By
N.K. Vir
Cover art by Patricia Reed
The Screaming Stone
Prologue: The Children of Danu
Chapter One: Out of the Darkness
Chapter Two: Into the Light
Chapter Three: The Derby Nine Divided
Chapter Four: Speaking of Sam
Chapter Five: Death has a Voice
Chapter Six: Regression
Chapter Seven: Inn and Out
Chapter Eight: A Stranger Knock
Chapter Nine: Tales of Truth
Chapter Ten: Battle Scars
Chapter Eleven: Failinis the Fierce
Chapter Twelve: A New Threat Takes Flight
Chapter Thirteen: In the Shadow of Tara
Chapter Fourteen: Stranger Danger
Chapter Fifteen: Truth in the Dark
Chapter Sixteen: Just Like the Movies
Chapter Seventeen: Superstitions
Chapter Eighteen: Corpse Candles in the Graveyard
Chapter Nineteen: The Black Storm Rises
Chapter Twenty: Death Marches on
Epilogue
Prologue
The Children of Danu
The children of Nemed, the Fir Bolgs had traveled from the distant lands of the Mediterranean to seek a home of their own, one free of slavery and subjugation, and settled upon the land of Ireland; but they were not alone. A race of deformed yet semi-divine beings had already claimed the rocky green island as their dominion. The Fir Bolgs were of little threat to the current rulers of Ireland, the Formorians, and so were allowed to settle and colonize. Their people would only enjoy peace for a single generation.
Upon distant shores to the north and west of Ireland another race also descendants of Nemed was birthed by the great goddess of earth, Danu. Her children were raised in the four ancient cities of the druids where we learned the arts of poetry, healing, magick and warfare. Seeking a new home of our own we took to the seas, guided by Manannan son of Lir, who held power over the water, he guided us safely to Ireland.
Seeing that the land was already home to some of our own distant kin some insisted we leave them in peace and seek a land of our own. However my mother, Danu, had promised us good fortune upon the first piece of earth we would land on. The eldest of the children of Danu, Babd, Ogma, the Dagda, Nuada, Macha and I took her at her word and burnt our ships to prevent any of us from leaving our promised land. And I, mistress of magick, the Morrighan took delight as the skies burned red and the smoke set a mist upon the land sending fear into the hearts of all who saw the sky burn that May day.
Nuada, our wise, generous and just king was willing to share the land with our brethren and chose to sue for peace even as the Fir Bolg King, Eochaid, sent out his finest champion Sreng, to challenge us. But to our council Nuada listened. In return we sent out a great champion of our own, one so beautiful and so loved by the Tuatha de Danann, the Halfling Bres.
I watched, hidden in the shadow, unseen by either champion. Each champion showed courage, displaying his arms and armor to the other while neither spoke a word. Until after such time as Bres broke the silence speaking in the ancient tongue of our father. Sreng showed surprise as he recognized the language as his own and soon Nuada’s terms were being discussed. Half of Ireland would be ruled by the Children of Danu, the other to be kept in peace by the Fir Bolgs. Sreng and Bres parted as brothers with Bres promising, no matter the outcome, to honor Sreng as a friend. That was the first time I witnessed Bres’ treachery and I did not forget.
As the two parted I followed Sreng to Tara, the seat of the High King Eochaid son of Ere. There, true to his honor, Sreng passed on his knowledge of the power and might of the Tuatha de Danann and prayed his king would spare the slaughter of his people and accept the Children of Danu as the brothers they were. To this the King laughed and swore an oath that only upon his death would such terms be accepted. I vowed to hold him to his word. As their council began to speak I halted their speech with a curse of silence to last three days to give my own brothers and sisters time to hold a council of our own. As the curse took hold I saw into the dreams of Eochaid. The King of the Fir Bolgs had foreseen a coming of people stronger than his own and with this knowledge I raced back to my own people.
Nuada, upon hearing, from Bres, the power and might of the Fir Bolgs chose to bargain for peace one last time and sent to Tara our best silver tongued poets. That was the second time Bres betrayed his mother’s kin. I found Nuada’s ear and to me he listened carefully. I told him of Eochaid and his court and the fear they harbored and under my wise council Nuada ordered the Children of Danu to make ready for battle. When the poets returned with the news that peace would not be won by words but rather by mighty deeds we were already well into fortifying our position. The Dagda’s club was ready to strike and his cauldron prepared to heal the wounded and dying. Macha, my sister and Babd had kept quiet their voices so their power to frighten the hearts of warriors would be more potent and more powerful than usual. The son of Lir’s sword, Answerer quivered in anticipation and Nuada himself strengthened his sword grip by building earthen ramparts to protect the druids who were to guard our backs. While I, the Battle Queen, the mistress of magick, prepared to kill a king.
Three months quickly passed and on the dawn of Midsummer the Fir Bolgs and the Tuatha de Danann, both descendants of Nemed met in battle at Magh Tuiredh.
The battle raged for four days and each evening the wounded were collected and tended to. The Dagda bathed our wounded heroes in his cauldron where they were reborn whole and healed and because of our superior magick we overcame the Fir Bolgs and their king until but one of their battalions remained, led by the brave warrior Sreng. Fearing Bres’ affection for Sreng I seized the opportunity to end the battle and so called upon my magick. It settled upon King Eochaid and drove him to such a mad thirst that he separated from the company of his guards to quench it.
He was alone and unguarded when I fell upon him with the battle cry of Macha and Babd at my back for strength. My dagger found its mark and sunk deep into the king’s breast piercing his heart. When Sreng saw his king dead and his warnings to the Fir Bolgs pr
oven true he threw down his arms and surrendered to the might of the Children of Danu.
But we were not without a great loss of our own.
Nuada, the great king of the Tuatha de Danann, had received a terrible blow resulting in the loss of his sword hand. As by tradition our king must be whole to rule and on the field of battle, at Magh Tuiredh, the Children of Danu lost their king. He was granted a stay and allowed to end the battle as he saw fit and under the council of Bres allowed the remaining Fir Bolgs, now under the leadership of Sreng the right to one fourth of the isle at their choosing. Nuada, whether from blood loss or woven spell, named Bres his successor and gave him rule over the Tuatha de Danann.
I trusted Bres no more.
The Children of Danu won peace that day but it was not long lived. For under the cruel Kingship of Bres they suffered and were thrown into servitude, beholden to the people of Bres’ father, the Formorians. As for the Morrighan, well I chose to withdraw until the eyes of my brothers and sisters opened and saw Bres for what he truly was, a traitor. I hid in the mist, became one with the night, a screaming portent of death upon the land calling out the names of the dead and traitors. I waited for Bres to make the mistake of stepping too far towards his father’s people. For I knew there lingered in the awakening shadow of the fore time another halfling king that would deliver us to the light.
Chapter One
Out of the Darkness
Darkness filled with nuanced threads of various colors of black rippled in front of his eyes draping him in a cocoon of emptiness. His sense of smell and touch told him nothing of his surroundings. His ears failed to detect the slightest echo of a whisper. Only the undulating darkness would reveal itself to his senses. His mind began to race with conflicting thought, theory and emotion. Fear refused to surface and peace began to numb his erratic mind until all conscious thought ceased. He was floating with no sense of where, and no recollection of who he was. His essence blended, molding itself to the darkness, to the void and to the emptiness; and when he was depleted of the past he became injected with the present.
His inert non-existence jolted back to the plane of reality. Color and light exploded in front of his eyes momentarily blinding him and giving him a distorted watery sense of sight. His ears burst as a symphony of sound pounded his ear drums mercilessly. His nostrils were assaulted by every scent they had ever encountered leaving an imprint of his tongue. His body spasmed as every nerve ending pulsed with pain and pleasure. His mind, his internal being revolted against the sudden assault and for the space of a cosmic second he was obliterated. His cells expanded ripping him from the safety of the darkness to the uncertainty of the light.
His body was left whole; untouched by the power that had held him. The world around him refocused as he too refocused with it. A sense of darkness still surrounded him but with nuances of light and texture similar to the natural world. His hands and body appeared to his eyes and shadows of light appeared against a darker surrounding. His ears detected faint sounds in the distance. No more than murmured tones of varying pitch falls and rises that indicated human speech. His nose found the pleasing scent of a cooking fire floating above the earthy musk of summer grass and meadow flowers.
Home.
His mind chose that one perfect word that meant nothing to him. He tried to protest, arguing with himself, but no matter what line of thought he chose, no matter how hard he tried to convince himself that that word was a lie, he failed. He was indeed home. In one final attempt to convince himself that the thought was absurd and to rebel against the comfort he found in that word he began to run. He ran towards the smell of roasting food and voices decorated with laughter. He ran, his bare feet digging in hard to the moist grass that flew up behind him softly pelting his bare back. His lips parted as he drew the sweet and earthy air deeper into is lungs.
He ran for a distance he could not measure until suddenly he was stopped by the most unlikely an obstacle… a door.
It had appeared from nowhere. There had been nothing but darkness before him then, suddenly, there was a door. Its sudden appearance caused him to come to a skidding stop. His lungs dragged in air and his chest heaved with the effort. He was terrified and excited at the same time.
While the rest of the world was cloaked in shadowy tints a top a dark inky outline this door existed in bright color and detail. It was oak and copper. The thought came with such force and clarity that it did not occur to him to question it. The planks of the rectangular door were thick and crafted by a well-trained hand. The woody grain was only slightly bleached and aged by the elements it was built to keep out. The hinges and handle were hammered and molded by hand as well, but had not fared as well in the open environment. Slight variations in color from copper red to faded blue to mossy green alluded to the true age of the door. But it was the seal upon the door that became the focus of his attention.
Forged out of copper it gleamed and shone in an unseen light, reflecting blinding beams of brilliance back at him as he stared at it, unblinkingly, in wonder. The image, which had been expertly etched by a remarkably skilled artisan, wove around the circular seal in a pattern without an end or beginning. The spirals and loops were so intricately interlaced to perfection that the central portion they were meant to frame appeared as if it had been done by a child drawing with a stick in the sand.
He dared to take a few steps closer, enthralled by the shimmering seal upon the door. With every cautious step he took the dim glow that emanated from behind the door pulsed and brightened. He tried to keep his attention on the copper disk’s focal point. This was important, it needed to be remembered and honored. He forcefully kept his mind away from the curiosity that was quickly building inside of him. What lay just beyond he door did not matter now; where the growing light emanated from did not matter. Only that ornately framed symbol mattered; it was all that existed in his field of vision
But the harder he stared, the more he focused, the louder the distractions became. His eyes began to burn as he stared unblinkingly at this lone symbol, this important seal. This was what frightened him, this is what excited him, this innocent image, because he knew it was his past and he knew it was his future. When his eyes threatened to rebel as they grew tired and drying and his body shook with the physical demands of remaining focused and still for so long; only then was he released from the spell this symbol had woven around him.
The door appeared to sigh and a haunting ethereal woman’s voice whispered one word.
“Cuimhnigh.”
As the last breathy syllable ceased to resonated sound the oak door flew open and he was sucked into the burning white-yellow light the door had been trying to contain.
Dreams, secrets, prophecies and shadowy visions; he hated them all. The magick that existed, that bound the universe together with fragile and delicate stitches could only seem to communicate in this frustrating manner. He had never bothered or even concerned himself with the coded messages the universe sent out on a daily basis. In the past all forms of ridiculously encrypted attempts at communication had not been directed at him. Now he seemed to be the only recipient of their incessant chatter. It was one of the many things that had begun to eat away at the tenuous hold he had on his temper.
Only good should have come out of all that he had endured and successfully overcome; that was the way it was supposed to end. The Derby Nine, as Robert had nicknamed them, had overcome the impossible, banishing and defeating, however temporarily, the champion god Bres. But forces within and beyond the groups control had shortened an already short timeline.
Two days had already passed since Annie made her decision to accept the will of the stone of destiny in a last attempt to separate Sidhe from mortal. During that time Manny and Finn spent hours behind closed doors barring anyone from entry. Rian slowly regained his strength and found an illogical sense of bravery. Fiona divided her time between her household duties and scolding Knackers. Griffin and Kat were gone most of the time preparing the shop and trai
ning a few new staff members to pick up the slack while they were gone. While Duncan had seen very little of Annie, as they were both keeping their distance from each other.
Somehow in the few days since the Battle at the Wharf, that for him had slowly passed by, it had been silently agreed upon that everyone would be accompanying Annie to her almost certain death. The thought, the idea, of Annie purposely putting herself in danger plagued him so much that Knackers had even abandoned him preferring to practice sword play with an enthusiastic Robert.
“Tis no wonder the girl refuses yer company!” Knackers had angrily shouted at him yesterday. “Yer constant mutterings of death would put off a Beansidhe!”
Duncan scoffed at the memory. As far as he could tell he was the only one with a sense of realistic clarity, even if it was on the doom and gloom side. None of them had seen what haunted his sleep. Even he could not fully remember what he had seen; as every night and sometimes more than once he would awaken drenched in the cold grip of fear. His sleep had become erratic, draining his energy reserves and even, on a few occasions causing him to fall asleep in the middle of the day.
After his first terrifying visit to the land of dreams he had left Annie’s house to reclaim his borrowed rooms next door. His careful retreat seemed reasonable to him, even if it seemed illogically out of character to every other member of the Derby Nine. No one had expected Duncan to leave her side. Annie had begun to slowly withdraw from him. The more he protested her willingness to march bravely to her own death the further she seemed to step away from him; although he suspected there was something more to her abrupt withdrawal.
Although he refused to agree openly with Manny he too was sure the stone would separate the two souls that co-existed in one vessel but it would be violent, sudden and deadly to at least one of them. Even though he could not explain to anyone how he knew such things he believed them to be true. He was positive the Sidhe would not grieve the loss of a mortal; he did not think he could bare it. He had said and he had done everything he could think of to dissuade Annie from her suicidal course. She had grown tired of his “pessimistic attitude,” and it was as much for her comfort, as well as his own, that he had retreated to his own lodgings. At least that was the lie he had told himself. The truth was too covered in darkness and shadow to see the light of day.