The Tales of Amergin, Sea Druid

by Peter Green

  Replete with sinister satisfaction, MacCuacht marched on through the nightmarish Shadowlands.

  In this reducing and diminishing light, the storm clouds brewing and boiling over the Iveare Mountains and the high mountain fortress of Hawardden looked even more threatening.

  Once more the storm front, with a wall of cold, dense, dank, condensing mist was rolling inexorably down the mountain sides, encroaching in all directions, in to all provinces. “The epoch of Xustra is upon us!” snarled MacCuacht with his twisted grimace.

  *

  The High Priests of the Temple of Xhara had gathered for the equinox. They had prepared their religious rituals for the week of the “killing moon” as it was known in pagan circles. They were very aware of the significance of this lunar event. The alignment of the planets and the trajectory of the sun meant the veil was at its most vulnerable. They were also conscious of the fact that they were far too few to resist the army of lost souls, led by the dark one MacCuacht.

  Most of the Priesthood of Xhara were deliberately spread around the land, trying to protect the portals, the High Priestess Sceine was at Sliebh Mis, knowing that it was too dangerous to travel east.They were exposed and vulnerable. The army of lost souls will be amongst them in a few days.

  MacCuacht will arrive in time to influence the rituals at the commencement of Xustra. Disaster!

  The priesthood realised they were defenceless! The priesthood prayed at the Inner Sanctum. They knelt before the Tree of Life, looking for answers. They chanted sacred verse and began to fall in to a meditative trance. They communed with the Guardians of Light and journeyed beyond the veil. Soon, the priesthood would unveil their plans to slow MacCuacht and the army of lost souls.

  A few of the priesthood journeyed through the network of portals to find Amergin. The news that he had gone to sea to arrive in the Eastern Province before MacCuacht, encouraged them. They visited the Temple of the Sun, only to find Gonne of the Chapter of Mystics under the influence of the dark Sidhe. They were heartened to see the great portals of the Western Province still radiating their pure Divine Light.

  On returning they communed with the Guardians of Light, searching for a solution. They were given an answer by the Guardians, “We will send our emissaries to delay the dark one. The army of lost souls is growing all the time... only if the destined one, Amergin, arrives in the Eastern Province in time, will you and the Temple of Xhara be safe...” Then they gave the priesthood a salutary warning, “Beware of the Witches of Hawardden! Sceine is in great danger. The destiny of the promised land will be in Sceine’s and Amergin’s hands!”

  The select few priests returned to the mortal realm. They spread the word to the rest of the priesthood. They all continued to pray at the Tree of Life. They prayed for the success of the Guardians in delaying MacCuacht. They prayed for the safe journey and the arrival of Amergin and the Milesian fleet. They prayed for the safety of the High Priestess of Xhara, Sceine. All prayed that Sceine and Amergin will meet and the ancient prophecy will be fulfilled…

  *

  On the edge of the Shadowlands lived a remote tribe descended from the first wave of invaders in the time of the ancients. They were the Aganti, living independently on the edge of the Shadowlands. They were mountain people, survivors able to eke a living out of the harshest wilderness, renowned as fearsome guerrilla warriors. No one stepped foot in to this land without their permission.

  An emissary of the Guardians of Light visited the leader of the Aganti in one of his dreams.

  He was told of MacCuacht’s journey. The Aganti were throwbacks from the ancient times. They believed that when their warrior chiefs died, their spirits entered the giant stones strewn all over the Shadowlands. The megalithic stones were organised in shrines to the pagan gods. Only the Aganti were permitted to enter the most sacred of the shrines on the high plateau of the Shadowlands, shrines that comprised of a circle of twelve stones, each stone representing a lunar cycle.

  The chieftain of the Aganti, Lutha, saw in his dreams, the dark one known as MacCuacht approaching. In his dream he saw him march straight through the shrine, pushing sacred stones over as he went, in an act of senseless vandalism. Lutha was apoplectic with rage!

  The Aganti were firm believers in the power of dreams. They straightaway formed a band of guerrilla warriors, armed to the teeth with stone-age weaponry, axes, bows and arrows, daggers and spears.

  They stalked MacCuacht and his army of lost souls.

  The masters of guerrilla tactics, they would harry and pester MacCuacht and the army of lost souls, like wasps stinging the backsides of grizzly bears. The Aganti could not stop them, but they certainly would slow their advance. Lutha knew the Shadowlands like the back of his hand. The track MacCuacht took to go to the Temple of Xhara passed through some of the most inhospitable country. This would be to the advantage of the Aganti.

  Beyond the Shrine of Bealach and its ring of twelve standing stones was the Gorge of Dunlar. The perfect place for an ambush! Lutha and fifty of his fiercest warriors scaled the sides of the Gorge, exactly at the place where it constricted to its narrowest. They dislodged and loosened giant granite boulders, ready to be launched in to their foe.

  Lutha, still enraged at the desecration of the sacred Shrine of Bealach, yelled out with great delight as he gave the order to send the avalanche of boulders in to the midst of the oncoming army of lost souls. MacCuacht and the army of lost souls wound their way through the meandering and tortuous track at the base of the Gorge of Dunlar. Lutha’s yell echoed around the gorge. MacCuacht looked up, but too late! The avalanche of granite descended with almighty force, crushing some of the elite bodyguard. MacCuacht hurled himself in to a fracture in a massive glacial boulder at the last second…

  He watched helplessly as the avalanche smashed in to the advance party. Dozens perished.

  Devastation in a place of desolation! The granite dust settled.

  MacCuacht heard the jeering tormentors high up on the side of the gorge. He prised himself out of the protection of the massive fractured glacial boulder. He seethed with rage. Undeterred he barked commands at his deathly cohort. They soon retrenched and marched on with serious intent. They were so many and the Aganti so few. The army of lost souls had only been distracted and slowed.

  Indeed, to MacCuacht this was nothing more than an inconvenience. There would soon be many more lost souls to join him...

  Lutha of the Aganti was overjoyed at the mayhem and destruction he had inflicted upon MacCuacht. He watched as the army of lost souls continued in to the ever narrowing gorge. This section was only passable at times of low rainfall. The path was the river bed. No other way through, but to wade along the shallow torrent cascading from rapid to rapid. The Gorge of Dunlar was so narrow, so steep, that very little daylight could percolate down.

  Wading and picking their way over the slippy, rock strewn river bed their progress was painfully slow. MacCuacht pushed his army on, “This is taking too long!” They picked up their pace, some fell on the angular, protruding rocks. One of his elite bodyguards fell headlong, splitting his head open. Blood darker than pitch spilt from his scalp, mingling and staining the river. The colour of this dark infected blood was shocking. The Aganti were oblivious to the infection that swept downstream... Any person, or beast, coming in to contact with the contaminated water would be poisoned with the infection of the dark Sidhe.

  MacCuacht was oblivious to the strategy of the Aganti. Lutha had sent a band of his guerrillas upstream, to go behind the ranks of the lost souls to the Lake of Serpents. Many hours ago now, they had created a blockage at the point where the stream exited the lake. These Aganti had created a land slip of mud and boulders that plugged the waters. Hour by hour, the waters of the lake had risen. Now the Lake of Serpents was primed, ready to burst. Slowly the waters eroded away at the earth and stone dam.

  MacCuacht noticed the waters of the stream reducing in volume. “Strange!” he thought, but he put it down to the naturally
drying and receding head waters. The further they descended in to the narrowing gorge, the more he worried about the water level. The precipitation from the building and brewing storm clouds in the high Iveare Mountains would surely feed this river?

  Lutha watched and waited, and waited some more, until the advancing army of lost souls reached a place in the Gorge of Dunlar where the sides of the gorge had been polished smooth by repeated floods. Here, the riverbed was strewn with particularly jagged and treacherous boulders. At this point, and at his signal, a flaming arrow was fired skywards... the signal for the Aganti upstream to send loose boulders crashing in to the manufactured plug damming the river... A poignant pause as the head waters slowly undermined and undercut the blockage. In a watershed moment, the dam burst! Deep lake water poured violently in to the gorge. The pent up fury of the Lake of Serpents crashed and roared down the gorge, sweeping all before it...

  MacCuacht heard the low distant rumblings, before he saw the flood waters. He instantly recognised the danger, “Get to the sides of the gorge! Climb for the high ground!” The flood struck at the speed of a cobra. A wall of water, well over overhead, surged and boiled, creating white water rapids and a raging turbulence, where before there was a shallow torrent. Hapless victims could get no purchase on the smooth, polished sides of the gorge and were sent at breakneck speed in to the jagged river bed. Over a hundred lost souls were swept downstream. Lutha rejoiced at the sight of the army of lost souls in complete disarray. As the Aganti celebrated, the dark oozing blood of the lost souls contaminated the flood water and swept downstream through the villages of the Shadowlands and onwards in to the tributaries and rivers of the Eastern Province…

  MacCuacht was momentarily non-plussed. He had watched many of his army of lost souls being swept away and dashed to pieces on the rock strewn riverbed. He clung like a drowning rat to an outcrop on the side of the gorge, “Maybe a hundred lost!” but he was still undeterred and with the twisted grimace, “There will be many more to be converted to the dark Sidhe!”...as he watched the flooding river, stained with the dark infected blood of his lost souls, flow across the Shadowlands and to the sea...

  Lutha of the Aganti and his guerrilla warriors felt avenged for the desecration of the Shrine of Bealach. More importantly they had slowed the progress of MacCuacht. In the universal scheme of things, delaying MacCuacht was critical. Lutha and the Aganti guerrillas moved out of the Gorge of Dunlar, leaving MacCuacht and the remaining army of lost souls to regather and restrengthen.

  Unscathed they marched back to their tribal villages on the edge of the Shadowlands. They followed the river, and the aftermath of the flood. The waters were receding now and every now and then they came across a body of one of the lost souls washed up on the silted river bank. Open wounds from the collision with the jagged riverbed, still oozed the dark infected blood. Lutha and his tribesmen were oblivious to the black peril they had unleashed. The flood waters from the Lake of Serpents contaminated with the dark virus had flowed through the hinterland and through their own village. Even now, as they marched back to their homesteads, some of the villagers washed and bathed in the infected river water, and children played in the shallows.

  A plague fell upon Lutha’s own village, a plague unlike any others. By the time they had marched back to the village, members of the tribe and even his own family began to show the awful signs of the infection, symptoms of delirium, anxiety and depression. The flood waters had flashed through at the worst conceivable time, when families gathered after the evening meal. They all chatted whilst washing cooking utensils in the river water. More than a hundred were infected. That night they could not sleep and as the dark one marched through the Shadowlands, they gave their allegiance to the dark Sidhe. Without so much as a backward look towards their own village, they joined the legions of the army of lost souls marching with MacCuacht.

  The Aganti tribe awoke to find their numbers decimated. “The sleepwalkers of the Shadowlands” as they became to be known, left in the dead of the night, never to see their loved ones again.

  Lutha took the rest of the village that were uninfected, to the Shrine of Bealach, the next day. He and the tribal elders did not fully understand the evil that had befallen their tribes. But they did suspect the rotting corpses of the army of lost souls littering the banks of the river between their villages and the Lake of Serpents.Instinctively, Lutha had taken his people to the headwaters above the Lake of Serpents, to the Glade of Siveen near the sacred shrine of Bealach. Here they would make camp until they were sure the evil had passed.

  MacCuacht had marched on. His legions were now on the edge of the Shadowlands. Their numbers swelling as the water borne infection flowed in to the tributaries and rivers of the Eastern Province.

  The word was out... the dark one marches on! The High Priests of Xhara and the gathering of enlightened beings at the Temple of Xhara joined in prayer. The Temple of Xhara was one of the few portals in the Eastern Province still pristine and pure. So far, the infection of the dark Sidhe held at bay by the power of prayer.

  The High Priests communed with the Guardians of Light. They knelt in meditative prayer at the Tree of Life. The veil was the closest they had ever known. This time was the commencement of the cycle of Xustra, the time when the mortal realm was at its most vulnerable. Now, the Divine was amongst them. A pure radiant Light enveloped the Temple. The Light of the Divine at this time of the commencement of the Cycle of Xustra was known as the Aurora Gahallen. This was a time of empowerment, enlightenment and illumination. The High Priests celebrated the Divine in nature.

  The oldest and longest serving High priest of Xhara, Seanach, approached the Tree of Life. He celebrated the presence of the Divine at the Temple. His celebration was tinged with fear and a sense of foreboding. The commencement of the Cycle of Xustra was being overshadowed by the arrival of the dark one MacCuacht.

  Seanach was wrapped in the Aurora Gahallen. Unearthly, illuminated spirit beings shone before him. They communicated telepathically to all the priests gathered in the Inner Sanctum of the Temple of Xhara. “We rejoice with you. We come to celebrate the commencement of the Cycle of Xustra. We bring you the Aurora Gahallen to bathe your land in the Light of the Divine.”

  At that moment the radiant Light shone even brighter. The Tree of Life shone intensely with the Divine in nature. The High Priests of Xhara were in awe. They knelt in deference to the Guardians of Light.They were heartened. Their spirits rose. Even in this time of great adversity, they must be strong. Their faith must endure…

  The tales of horror that were befalling the faithful in the Eastern Province were turning the weak minded amongst them in to doubters. To raise their spirits the Guardians of Light sent a message throughout the land. The Aurora Galhallan lit up the land. A radiant ethereal Light travelled across all boundaries, reaching out to the faithful and reassuring the doubters. A subliminal message was wrapped in the Aurora, available to only the believers and enlightened beings of the land, “There comes the destined one to this land. He travels to the Temple of Xhara by sea. He is the Sea Druid Amergin, champion of the Milesians. He is destined to meet the High Priestess of the Temple of Xhara and Princess of the Western Province, Sceine. He has sailed over the Northern Ocean, and now he sails around the Island of Destiny. He comes to join us at the Temple of Xhara. He meets with great adversity, natural and unnatural. The dark Sidhe will become aware of his sea voyage, and they will send dark forces to fight him. MacCuacht draws the dark Sidhe through the veil. With Amergin we will be strong. We will open the portal at the Temple of Xhara to stop the dark Sidhe pouring forth. Pray for the destined one, the Sea Druid Amergin. Pray for his safe passage and arrival at the Temple of Xhara. Pray for his destined meeting with Sceine...”

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR:

  THE SEA JOURNEY OF THE NORTH

  Amergin hauled at the sheet to tension the foresail, relieved to have rounded the Cape of Wrath. He busied himself with routine matters. The fleet is still to
gether, still in tact... More than could be said for the Pirates of Grannh! Their vessels had felt the wrath of the cape. Senet’s vessel set adrift at the mercy of the incessant equinox storms of the Northern Ocean. The other twin masted, red sailed vessel sunk, fodder for the Whirlpool of the Coirin, lost without trace, the wreckage only now surfacing. Most consigned as flotsam in the Northern Ocean drift, some became salvage for the Firbolg wreckers, scavenging the shoreline of the Northern Province.

  Amergin stood on the prow, feeling the ocean breeze, refreshing and reinvigorating. He turned to face in to the freshening South Wester, the salt air stinging his eyes, his mane of golden brown hair encrusted with sea salt. The long distance groundswell was only mast high on this coast, the disappearing Cape of Wrath awarding some protection now.

  Amergin watched as an alien landscape unfolded. The mighty cliffs of the cape were giving way to flat- topped escarpments with steep but negotiable sides. Then narrow fertile coastal plains leading to jagged, angular coastal cliffs, with the strangest formations he had ever seen. Pillar upon pillar of hexagonal shaped igneous rock of all sizes and dimensions, emerging from the ocean. The hardened, volcanic substances glistened and glinted in the evening light. Crystals sparkled and veins of quartzite shone brilliantly. The powerful ground swell crashed in to the formations, hardly a sound resulted. The hexagonal pillars absorbed all the energy, reducing the breakers in to vaporised brine. As a result the entire coastline was unusually quiet. Hardly a seabird broke the slience.

  MacCuill stepped up to join Amergin. He pointed eastwards along the coast of the Northern Province, “Observe the furthest flat-topped escarpment my lord. The highest with its summit shrouded in cloud,” he went on, “You can just make out a fortress set high up on the mountain’s flat top. This fits the description, brought back after the Tuathan forays in to the Northern Province, of the headquarters of the Shamen of Land’s end.”