He began to look for another hole for Kathleen. But then he remembered suddenly the blue flame of her eyes, and the limber column of her neck, and her hair red as the oak leaf in autumn. And he returned to her and lifted her out of the wrecked ship and took her to the river, where he laved her face until the cool water awakened her. She looked at him silently.
He said: “On second thought you shall journey with me, to the far home of Angus Og whose magic I will implore to rejoin the halves of your poor husband, whom you and your mother-in-law between you have succeeded in tearing apart. For it is a far journey I make and a great boon I ask at the end of it, and a heavyweight of dead body I carry in this sack—so I shall not leave you here, but you will come with me and help. It is your husband in the sack, after all.”
“Who are you?” said Kathleen. “And why do you thrust yourself into my household affairs?”
“I am Finn McCool. And I advise you to ask no more questions in that tone, my girl, or I may clout you on the other side of the jaw. For you are a beautiful creature to look at, but a terrible shrew. As for your household affairs, I wish I were heartily out of them. But I am under hero vow to do favors when asked, and I was asked. And here I am. So shut you up, and come along.”
That night, after their evening meal, as they sat on a bluff overlooking the sea upon which a roadway had been kindled by the moon, there was a rustling in the air, and a flash of green fire from four wild eyes, high and low, and Finn’s companions, the hawk and the cat, came to him from where they had been off hunting.
The falcon perched on Finn’s shoulder. The cat, without hesitation, stepped into Kathleen’s lap. And Finn noticed with admiration that the girl was not at all frightened by the sudden apparition of a huge black tomcat with blazing green eyes who shot out of the darkness at her. She stroked the cat, saying:
“Good evening to you, Master Puss. You’re a handsome beast, to be sure, but I see no one has taught you manners, leaping out of the black darkness like that.”
She stroked his head and shoulders, and he closed his eyes and purred his low rasping purr. The falcon said to Finn:
“I have a tale for your ears. May I tell it now?”
“Tell away,” said Finn.
“Lord McCool, tell me—did I hear that bird speak to you, and you answering it?” said Kathleen.
“You did.”
“Well, that’s a marvel now,” said the girl.
“Not so marvelous,” said the cat. “I speak too. And in more cultivated tones—without that screeching hawky accent.”
“You too!” cried Kathleen. “Well, I have been turned out of my peaceable home, and seem to find myself in the middle of an adventure, with strange companions. A meddlesome gray-eyed stripling who calls himself hero, and minds everyone’s business for them, and claims an acquaintanceship with sorcerers, and a hawk that speaks, and a cat who boasts of even greater eloquence. Sure, and I’ve fallen into curious company.”
“You’ve known worse,” said Finn.
“May I tell you my story,” said the falcon. “I seem to have been interrupted.”
“Proceed,” said Finn.
“It’s the kind of thing that interests you, master. An adventure within an adventure, as it were. And all of it holding enough peril to suit even you.”
“I’m listening,” said Finn.
“I heard this story from a gull—with whom I had been disputing property rights over the carcass of a fat fish, which he had caught, to be sure, but which I had made him drop. Anyway, he was a pleasant enough bird for a gull; we resolved our quarrel and got to chatting of this and that. And he told me there was soon going to be a terrible fish shortage because of the anger of Lyr, God of the Sea.
“ ‘Why is he angry?’ I asked.
‘You would be angry too, if you were a prisoner.’
‘Lyr, a prisoner? But who can imprison a god?’
‘Another god, of course,’ said the gull. ‘Here’s what happened. Some months ago Lyr was on one of his rare trips inland to inspect certain rivers which flow to the sea, and which are part of his domain. He spied a beautiful ice maiden, dispatched by Vilemurk, god of winter, to delay the spring and blow her sweet icy breath upon various streams and ponds that were trying to thaw, and freeze them fast, though the month was April. Lyr watched the ice maiden for a while, and liked what he saw. He flung his green cape about her and flew back with her to his crystal and coral island in the very middle of the seven seas. She resisted at first, but he promised her this and that, if she would consent to stay with him and become his youngest wife. It meant being a queen, of course, and he promised her the choicest pearls of the oyster crop, and an ivory comb curiously carved, and her own dolphin chariot, and a mermaid’s tail and gills for when she wished to travel underwater. And so she agreed to stay with him and become the most recent and most beautiful of all his briny brides.’
“All this the gull told me, master. And I listened patiently, though it is not my nature. For I could see that there was trouble coming in the story, and that’s worth waiting for.”
“Get to the trouble, then,” said Finn.
“Yes, it came immediately,” said the hawk.
And she went on with the story the gull had told her, and which goes like this: Now, Vilemurk, whom some call the frost demon, was hugely angry when he learned that someone had stolen his favorite ice maiden, and that this someone was his old enemy, Lyr, whom he had always hated because huff and puff and chill as he would, he could never freeze the wide seas. All except that one time, remember, in the year of the Great Frost, when Finn first started on his journeys, and took the seeds of fire from the frozen sunset. But even then the sea was frozen for only a short distance past its shores. And so, Vilemurk, King of Winter, had always hated Lyr, God of the Sea. And now, of course, he hated him worse than ever, with a hatred that had to end in death or torment.
What he did then was spread a tale of a treasure in the northern seas where Vilemurk holds more power than other places, and keeps great fleets of ice thronging the open waters, and has dyed all the animals the color of snow. Well, the rumor he spread was one meant to appeal to Lyr, lover of all that glitters. A giant crystal, the rumor said, had been spotted floating on the black northern waters. A pure water crystal larger than the largest iceberg, hard as a diamond, and so carved by aeons of knife-edged polar winds that it was all polished surfaces and glittering angles. When the sun hit it, the giant crystal blazed forth with rainbow light, making all the jewels of earth seem drabber than the pebbles you find in the dust.
Rumor of this wondrous crystal fired Lyr with a wild greed. And he rushed off north to see for himself. Left in such haste that he left behind his escort of swordfish and spearfish and fire-eels and shark-toothed mermen, and all-ignorant and unguarded sped northward to where his enemy, Vilemurk, lay in ambush.
Now Vilemurk had brought with him all the disastrous giants that the foul-weather fiend commanded:
The huge coiled serpentine monster that lies underearth, stone asleep, until he awakes in rage to make earth quake.
And the giants who dwell in hollow mountains whose cooking fires are called volcanoes.
And the Master of Winds, who can whistle up a hurricane as a man whistles for his dog.
All these and more: The bat-winged mist-hags, who, flying low and in formation, can lay a blindness upon earth and sea. Those same chill crones whose fingers are icicles and whose breath can freeze the marrow. When they have nothing else to do they go about robbing the cradles of girl-babies and train them up as ice maidens.
All these lay in wait for the god of the sea. Lyr came northward, traveling alone in his sky chariot drawn by flying fishes. Toward a rumored treasure and an unknown foe he rushed, standing tall in his chariot, clad in whaleskin armor with a mantle of seal furs swinging from his mighty shoulders; wearing his crown of pearls, white beard flying, holding his three-pronged spear, which he could hurl like a thunderbolt if he wished, or handle as delicately
as a seamstress does her needle. Northward he came, flashing across the low horizon, making a strange sun in the northern sky, which was entering its season of night.
All a-glitter, hot with greed, Lyr came riding across the sky to seek the huge gem of water crystal he had heard about—and flew right into Vilemurk’s ambush.
Such was the tale the hawk told Finn, sitting on his shoulder in a clearing of the wood where the little fire Kathleen had cooked supper on made tree shadows dance. But Finn and the tall girl sat motionless among the dancing shadows, still and rapt, drinking in the words of the strange tale told by the hawk, who had heard it from a gull.
“Go on!” said Finn. “Don’t stop now, just when Lyr is about to be trapped.”
“Flying fish,” hissed the falcon. “Imagine fish flying. Disgusting! Sure, and Lyr deserved what happened to him, employing such unnatural creatures.”
The cat yawned in the firelight, half turning on Kathleen’s lap, and lifted a paw to play with a plume of her hair.
“But what did happen to Lyr?” crooned Kathleen. “Don’t leave us hangin’, falcon dear. ‘Tis a fearsome exciting tale, and you tell it so well. Did he fall into Vilemurk’s trap, or what? Was he ambushed there by the frost demon in the northern wastes? Was there a battle perhaps? Tell … tell. …”
“Remember the big storm a few days back?” said the hawk.
“Oh, yes,” said Kathleen. “It fair leveled the forest over our heads. And didn’t mighty waves pound the beaches, swallowing up fishing huts, sweeping away barns and byres, drowning cattle. Most terrible storm in years it was—and the next day my mother-in-law came a-callin’.”
“Well, that terrible storm, Kathleen ni Houlihan, was only a tiny ripple of the tempest that raged in the north when the forces of Vilemurk came screaming out of ambush and fell upon the sea king.”
“Go on … what happened?”
“I don’t mean to leave you in suspense,” said the hawk. “But, unfortunately, I cannot finish the story … because the gull never finished it. He got too hungry. The fish had been very scarce, and when he saw the shadow of a trout he dived at it, leaving me there. I waited for him, but he never came back. So he must have kept on hunting, and I don’t know how the battle ended.”
No one said anything. Kathleen stared into the fire. The flames snapped. The cat yawned. Suddenly, across the orange face of the moon were pasted the black silhouettes of wild geese. A long flight of them, necks outthrust, wings low, honking faintly, almost a barking sound, like hounds of the sky.
The hawk rose in the air and balanced herself just above Finn’s head.
“Good night, master!” she cried. “I go a-hunting. We eat goose tomorrow.”
She disappeared. The honking grew clamorous, alarmed—then nothing was heard save the snapping of the fire.
“What do you think, lad?” said Kathleen. “What happened out there in the northern wastes? How went the battle? Did Vilemurk conquer Lyr? Did Lyr prevail? Tell me your opinion.”
Finn said nothing, but stared into the fire, gently biting his thumb.
“Don’t sit there sucking at your thumb like an idiot child,” cried Kathleen. “I asked you a question. I want an answer. I get excited by stories. I don’t like them to stop before they end. And a good guess is better than nothing.”
“You have no way of knowing,” said Finn. “But I’ll tell you now. I don’t have to guess, because when I bite my thumb this way, the very one that was scorched when I fried the fish of knowledge—which is another story I may tell you sometime—why then knowledge comes to me, and I know beyond guessing. I invoke this power only upon special occasions. Not for little secrets, you understand. But the fate of the sea god seems occasion enough. And, as I bite my thumb this way, pictures appear in the fire, and I can see them.
“What do you see?” said Kathleen. “Tell me … tell me. …”
“I see right into the awful depths of the earth that opens out under the sea, void under void. I see beyond those depths into the central fires of the earth, whence grows a pillar of rock, molten rock far under, then cooling, cooling, until finally cooled by the northern sea, where the rock turns into ice. From this granite base grows a mountain of ice, which is like a huge iceberg, but does not float. And beneath this mountain, right where the granite turns into ice, there to that massive shaft is chained Lyr—shackled by the heaviest bolts ever made by those smith-gods who labor inside Vilemurk’s smoky mountains and forge his weapons in the volcano fires.”
“You see all that?” whispered Kathleen.
“Indeed I do.”
“What else do you see?”
“Tilted in the flame I see the oceans of the world. They are lead-colored now, and have lost their shine. No fish leap, no gulls fly. Crabs and lobsters crawl out of the seven surfs, fleeing the beaches, and trying to climb trees. Yes, there is grief upon the waters, for the god has fallen.”
“Is he dead?”
“Gods cannot die. But they can suffer. And this one is suffering. Chained underearth, deprived of water and light and majesty—tormented by Vilemurk’s bat-winged mist-hags who gnaw at him with their snaggly teeth—aye, he suffers. And the waters grieve. And those who live off the bounty of the sea, sailors and fishermen and such, they will perish, too.”
“Terrible pictures you see there in the fire,” said Kathleen.
“Yes … and I go to change them.”
“What?”
“I go to free the god of the sea.”
“You? What can you do?”
“That is what I mean to find out. Farewell. I go north.”
“And what am I to do, young sir, while you go cavorting off on your adventures? What am I to do with that bag of bones that was my husband? It is your fault I am in such a plight. If you had not brought his mother to see me, I’d still be living happily with him in my hollow tree. But no! You must try to act like a hero and meddle in my affairs, and bring that old witch raging down upon us, so that the poor lad was torn apart.”
“But I have promised to restore him,” said Finn. “I deny that he was sundered by my doing; nevertheless, I have taken it upon myself to see him whole again. It is only by the mighty magic of Angus Og that his poor bones can be reknitted.”
“Exactly,” said Kathleen. “And you are supposed to be taking us to Angus Og. But now you abandon us. You choose to go waltzing off on some conceited errand to the northern wastes. I’ll not have it! You must keep your promise to me, and leave the god of the sea to those better able to conduct such high affairs.”
“Will you be silent, woman?” cried Finn. “Buzz, buzz, buzz—I cannot think! Nag, nag, nag—you drive me to distraction! Can’t you see that I have no choice, despite my promise? I am shown a larger danger, and I must choose it. To challenge Vilemurk and rescue Lyr is a deed worthy of Cuchulain himself, best of the ancient heroes. It puts me in a fever to think of such opportunity. So you must wait. Your husband must wait. My promise must wait.”
“Wait how long?”
“Till I return.”
“And if you fail to return? If Vilemurk is powerful enough to capture the king of the sea himself, what makes you think, puny mortal that you are, that he will not squash you like a bug?”
“Without peril there is no honor.”
“And so—you will be destroyed. And I will wait here with my sack of bones through the long years until I grow old and gray and withered and wouldn’t know what to do with a husband if I had one. No, thank you. I am your responsibility now. You thrust yourself into my business and made it yours. I am not so easy to get rid of, you will find. Go north if you must, but I go with you.”
“Kathleen—be reasonable. I have fighting to do. I’ll have no time to take care of you.”
“Perhaps I’ll take care of you. I can fight too, you know. And pretty well … pretty well. So you may as well stop arguing. You won’t budge me. Where you go, I go, and that’s flat. As for this bag of bones that is my husband—well, we’ll store it
in a safe place, and pick it up when we return, if we return. There’s a good flat rock. We’ll bury the bones under it, and they’ll be safe from prowling dogs. Start digging, Finn. The moon grows pale, and the waters grieve, and we have much to do, you and I.”
Vilemurk had conquered, and his forces were everywhere at work, shrinking the seas, stretching the polar ice cap. The north wind blew triumphantly, sweeping the warm sea southward, and paving the path of its retreat with rock-hard ice tundra.
Vanquished Lyr, manacled hand and foot to the granite pillar of ice that supported the roof of the world, could not struggle free. His oceans shrank, and fishermen and sailors perished.
It was only autumn, but the coldest autumn Ireland had ever known. Ice-cold rain fell without ceasing. The sun was all shriveled to a pinpoint of light, when it could be seen at all, but mostly it was not seen, for a queer cold fog covered the shores, confusing day and night. As the month advanced, the cold rain turned to hailstones big as eggs that fell with such force as to kill cattle in the field. Men did not venture out unless they wore helmets. Their wives, when they left the house, wore iron pots on their heads. Then, before October ended, the snow began to sift down out of the gray sky. And fell and fell and fell. No one knew what had happened to the weather, and why the frost demon triumphed so, and was able to torment those islands known as the jewels of the sea.
Of all men, only Finn knew, he and Kathleen. And they were far to the north, fighting through a howling blizzard on their way to try to rescue Lyr. They were clad in white fur, which made them very difficult to see against the snow. Finn had gone hunting and had come back with a pair of huge polar-bear pelts, which Kathleen had cut and sewed into two mantles and two hoods for herself and Finn. These furs kept them warm in the teeth of the savage north wind.
That night they held a council of war around their campfire. And how did they build a fire in a blizzard with no tree in sight, and no earth beneath their feet, only ice? Well, you will remember the seeds of fire that Finn, once, in another great frost, had dug from the roots of a frozen sunset before its weight tilted the horizon and it slipped toward the pole and lodged in that sky, casting marvelous colors, and became known as the Northern Lights. Finn had kept these seeds of fire always. Now, each night, he scraped a shaving off one of the pulsing golden pods, and that shaving was enough to start a fire anywhere—for it was a particle of the primal flame itself, that heat which is at the center of all life and drops to us from the sun. Each night Finn started a small blaze which he fed with icicles, and the flame ate them as if they were twigs of wood, and leaped merrily, hissing and growing brighter as the snow fell upon it.
The Green Hero Page 9