by Sarah Rayne
After some little time — Annabel could not be sure how long, because time seemed out of kilter down here — the light began to change and grow cold and greenish, and ripple against the cave walls. Fael-Inis stopped and lifted his head and appeared to listen very intently.
“The Horsemen getting nearer?” said Taliesin. And then, “No. Something else.”
Fael-Inis gestured to the cave walls. “Watertight,” he said. “A darkness. A lapping of water.” He turned to face them and took their hands in his. “We are very close to the River of Souls,” he said. “We are very near to one of the foremost dangers of the world.”
“Can we avoid it?” asked Annabel, who did not like water very much, and who particularly did not like dark ancient rivers that flowed silently and sinisterly and were presided over by nameless evils.
“The River of Souls flows between all the worlds,” said Fael-Inis. “It is dark and never-ending and runs nine times around the world. The Ferryman is unceasing in his vigil for souls.” He looked at Annabel. “I cannot tell if we shall be able to avoid it,” he said.
“Will we see it?”
“You may not do so. You will hear it. You will hear, as well, the echo, for it is said that all the world can be spanned by the River of Souls, and it is said as well that to stand at the mouth of the River is to stand at the epicentre of Time.” The golden eyes flickered. “It may be that we shall be called upon to listen to the agonies of the drowning souls,” said Fael-Inis, “or that we shall be forced to witness the dying struggles of the worlds that have been before this one.”
Annabel said cautiously, “Have worlds died before?”
“Assuredly. And will do so again.” Fael-Inis regarded her. “Nothing is constant, Mortal. Even worlds sometimes die.”
With a whimper or with a bang …
Taliesin said, “Have you encountered the Ferryman?”
“He has many guises and we are old enemies,” said Fael-Inis, but the other two thought that there was a wariness in his voice.
They had rounded a sharp curve in the tunnel, and Annabel had noticed and wondered whether she should comment on the trickles of water seeping through the walls. There was a dank damp feel to the air; a coldness that made you want to turn up your collar and stamp your feet and that seeped into your lungs and made you cough and think of clammy autumn nights when fog clung everywhere and you could not see anything properly.
Taliesin had just started to say, “It is getting very dark,” when Fael-Inis put up his hand and halted them.
In the dimness they stared at one another.
Annabel said, “I don’t —” and Taliesin said, “Hush. Listen.”
And then they all heard it quite clearly.
The ticking of a clock.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Lost Boys had helped Fergus far more than he would have believed possible. When he first emerged from the terrible agony and the anguish, they were at his side, silent and attentive, but with him. He thought that they were determined that he should return to the world and he thought, as well, that without their gentle insistence that he lead them out of the Prison of Hostages, he would have been lost indeed.
But after the first terrible days when he was wracked with pain, and when he could hear nothing and feel nothing beyond the wrenching agony between his legs, they began to talk to him about the world outside the Prison. They drew him away from the pain, they talked to him about the Ireland they had known a century before Fergus was born; of the dreadful days when the cult of Crom Croich had held the land in a merciless grip, and how the legendary Wolfking Cormac had ridden out to destroy the high priests of the cult.
“Remarkable,” they said, their eyes bright with a kind of amused veneration, “a marvellous King.”
“He would have saved us if he could,” said one of them. “He saved the ones after us, though,” said another.
“I saw him once,” said Michael. “In a procession. I liked him. I cheered a lot, and people threw flowers.”
“But,” said Niall, “Fergus will save us, now.”
“Fergus will take us back to the world,” said another, and they all looked at Fergus with such trust that a different, gentler pain twisted his heart. How can I fail them? he thought.
He would not fail them, and when at last he walked with them, back through the great echoing halls and the golden galleries, and the vaulted chambers of blue and ivory, he did so with a feeling of immense inner peace, so that he thought, Yes, I believe I have traversed the eye of the storm, and found the still, calm centre … I think I can return, thought Fergus. I think it will be all right. On through the crimson panelled halls, and through the glittering chambers, and back through the strangely named places … Here was the Land of Ever-Living … the marble and porphyry … the Lake of Darkness … And in my house are many mansions …
As the great Doors of the Sky yielded of their own accord, he felt a tremendous uplifting and a great surge of power. We can do it! We are succeeding! We are going through the Doors of the Sky, through that massive Gateway from which it is said no human has ever escaped. We are breaking the bonds and going out of the Prison of Hostages, and down into the world. I think it is going to be all right.
The Doors were fully open now; they were standing wide, and Fergus and the children moved as one. Each of them had the sudden feeling that there would be only this one chance, and there would be only a very brief space of time when the Doors would let them through.
There was a shaft of pure light as the Doors caught the rays of the sun, and there was a moment when the Doors were outlined quite clearly against a gold and rose dawn. The Gates of Golden Light, studded with chalcedony and jasper …
They did not look back. “We do not dare to,” said Fergus, but each of them sensed that the Prison had receded into the mists. “We cannot go back,” said Fergus, looking at the boys. “And so we shall go forward. See, there is a path. Leading downwards,” said Fergus, who had not had any idea of what they would find. “But I think we are still very high up.”
It was cold and sharp, with the bright dry coldness that catches in your throat and makes your eyes prickle with tears, but that also makes you want to take great lungfuls of the clean pure air, and that fills you up with soaring energy.
As they went, Fergus noticed that the children were becoming more solid, their cheeks were filling out and their eyes were shining. Several times they reached out to touch the trees and the bushes growing at the side of the path; as the path wound downwards, one or two of them gathered in handfuls of berries and ate them.
They drank from the clear, cold mountain streams, and they ate the berries; twice they managed to catch a small shoal of fish from the stream, and grilled them on a fire with pointed sticks.
“Marvellous,” said Niall, licking his fingers which had become burnt in the grilling process. “I’d forgotten about eating and drinking.”
“I hadn’t,” said Michael. “I missed being hungry.”
The crags and the canyons were smoothing out now, and the path was becoming less difficult.
“We are nearing the world,” said Conn, and Fergus saw that the boys looked deeply happy. He thought, but did not say, And to become a part of the world of Men once more, we have first to cross the bridge that exists between all the worlds.
The River of Souls, guarded by the Ferryman …
Fergus thought they would surely see the River very soon, and they would surely know it when they did see it. But although he scanned the horizon, and although he watched for any sign of water or lake, there was nothing.
They seemed to have been walking for a very long time when the mountains finally flattened and receded, and the way ahead became dryer and rather barren.
“A plain,” said Conn, rather uncertainly. “At least it will be easier to walk across.”
“Baked rock,” said Niall, a bit dubiously. “Fergus, do you suppose we can cross that?”
Fergus was eyeing the flat, b
arren, desert waste with misgiving, but when Niall asked if they could cross it, he at once said calmly, “Yes, of course,” and smiled at them. “I have crossed far worse than that,” he said, and the boys looked at him uncertainly.
“There are things,” said Michael. “Scuttly things. With slithery tails and scaly skins. I can see them.”
“Lizards,” said Fergus. “Interesting creatures, lizards. Gentle.”
“Nasty,” said Michael.
“No,” said Fergus, and bent down so that he was on a level with them. “We have to cross this desert,” he said. “There is no other way forward. And I promise you it can be done. We can do it. I have led the men of the Fiana across dreadful desolate plains, and we have always reached our destination.”
But it was more difficult than he had imagined, and it was far worse than he had feared. There was a dry heat in the air now, and the stench of death. Several times they came upon bones, bleached by the sun.
“Small animals,” said Fergus calmly.
The boys were remarkable. Fergus looked at them and felt his heart contract, because they were brave and determined and they were so trusting that he could hardly bear it. He saw that they were becoming tired and frightened and hungry, and he knew that after their years inside the Prison they would be confused and bewildered. They ought to have been led gently back into the world by stages. Instead, they were being forced to march across a baking desert.
Fergus put his fears aside. He made them rest every few miles, and he taught them the marching songs of the Fiana. He said there was nothing so heartening as a good song to march to. “And then,” he said, “you will all of you teach the rest of us a song. Will you?” And saw interest brighten in their eyes.
They liked the songs, and they liked knowing that they would presently be called on to teach their own songs. “For,” said Niall seriously, “although we have been together for a very long time, we are most of us from different parts of Ireland and from different times.”
Conn said it was altogether great to learn songs from other times and other villages and towns.
“We could tell stories as well,” said one of them hopefully, and Fergus smiled, and was grateful as he had never thought to be grateful for the Irish delight in story-telling, and the Irish gift for recounting a tale.
When the sudden desert night fell, Fergus set them to keep watch, turn and turn about. “There is not very much danger,” he said, “but there may be the odd prowling creature. If we had the means to make a fire we would do so, but there is nothing we can do. And so each of you must take turns at watching.”
Niall said, “I think there is a way to make a fire without sticks — something about striking two sharp stones together. And catching the sun’s rays.”
“Could we try tomorrow?” asked one of the boys.
“Of course we will try,” said Fergus, and smiled, and remembered that by tomorrow they would all be hungry and thirsty, and that they would have to start searching for raw lizards’ eggs to eat.
When the sun rose the following morning, the boys were hot and dusty and their eyes were red.
“But we are still here,” said Conn, and Niall said wistfully, “Yes, but we’re all awfully hungry.”
“I wouldn’t mind missing being hungry now,” said Michael.
Fergus said, and tried to keep his voice light, “Well, there is food of a kind in the desert, but it is not very palatable. But it will sustain us for the moment.” And managed to make a very light-hearted matter of searching for lizards’ eggs and of cracking the tough thick shells, and dribbling the glutinous liquid on to the sizzling rocks.
“Better with a little fresh milk and some butter,” said Niall, eating his with a struggle.
“Better with newly baked bread,” said one of the others, and another said, “Oh, yes! I remember newly baked bread.”
“I remember fruit and honey and cream from the churn.”
“And rabbit stew and baked carp.”
“Jugged hare.”
“Roast chestnuts and apple dumplings,” said Michael firmly. “That’s the very best.”
But they ate the eggs courageously, and gathered a few berries from the sparse desert bushes, and Fergus showed them how to suck the sap to gain moisture.
Conn was just saying that they ought to be getting on again, when Fergus looked up and caught a sound from above.
The beating of wings on the air.
Michael, who had heard it as well, started to say, “What —” and then they all saw the vultures gathering above them.
Fergus did not stop to think, and he certainly did not stop to reason. “If I had,” he was to say, “I might have remembered that vultures rarely attack until after death. We would have been safe from them for a time.”
But the time might not have been so very long. They were tired and hungry, and there was very little prospect of food. There was even less of water.
Fergus flung down the handful of berries, and grasped the arms of the nearest boys.
“Run!” he shouted, and began pulling them with him, looking back over his shoulder, seeing the vultures swooping and darting, knowing that they had sensed that their prey was already weakened. They would come swooping down, and their great wings would beat on the air, and they would fly at their victims’ eyes, rending flesh, tearing muscle … Fergus ran, pulling the boys with him, knowing there was nowhere to run to, but running all the same, because surely anything was better than to suffer the talons and the claws and beaks, anything would be better than being ripped open and eaten as you died, bleeding and mutilated on the baking rock.
Conn, who was managing to urge the smaller boys on, gasped out, “But where —” and Fergus gestured and yelled, “On! Keep running! There will be somewhere.”
And then Niall said, “There’s a kind of cave just ahead.” And Fergus saw the gaping hole under the overhang of rock.
Sanctuary.
The space beneath the rock was larger than it looked. It was very nearly a cave, and it seemed to stretch back farther than was possible.
But they all squeezed through; they had all somehow scrambled into the opening, leaving the vultures cawing angrily and beating the air with their wings, and emitting horrid little snapping sounds with their beaks. As Fergus pulled the boys to the back of the cave, they could see the vultures clawing at the opening, pushing their beaks in to peer through the gloom.
“Will they get in?” asked Niall, and Fergus said, “No. No, there is not room. But just to be sure, we will try to fill up the opening with rocks.”
The boys began to pile up stones and rocks, shutting out the light.
“It’s made it awfully dark,” said one of them.
“But it’s better than letting those creatures get us.”
“They won’t be able to get through the rocks, will they? Fergus, will they?”
“No,” said Fergus. “We are safe for the moment. Is everyone all right?”
“I scraped my shoulder diving in,” said Niall. “But I went head first. Did you hurt yourself?”
“I grazed my arm.”
“I went in on my bottom,” said Michael. “So I’spect my bottom’s a bit bruised.”
Niall, who had been crawling to the cave’s rear, said, “Fergus, this is a very deep cave.”
“It doesn’t smell very nice,” said Michael.
“But we are safe and dry here,” said Fergus, and tried to shut out the knowledge that they could not stay here for very long, because there would probably not be very much air, and before long they would have to go out into the desert again and the vultures would probably be there waiting.
And then Niall, who was still at the back, said, “Fergus — all of you — come here. I think there is a kind of tunnel.” And Fergus moved across and Niall pointed, and without warning Fergus found himself slithering down a steep slope, unable to stop himself, sliding at a terrific speed, going helter-skelter downwards with rocks and stones and rubble bouncing and flyi
ng, grasping at the ground, but still slithering and falling.
Above him, he heard shouts, and then he heard cries of alarm, and dirt and stones cascaded into his face as he tried to look up. He knew that the boys were following, and soon, at any minute, they would all hit the bottom of the chimney or the shaft, or whatever it was they had fallen into.
And then, quite suddenly, the sliding stopped, and they were on level ground, and although it was dark, it was not pitch dark, and they could see one another.
Fergus, dazed and with all the breath knocked from him, got cautiously to his feet and looked round. They were all together in a dark, high-ceilinged tunnel which stretched ahead of them and wound round to the left.
Fergus turned back to the boys. “Everyone here? Did we all come down the shaft? We’d better have a roll call, I think. Stand still, everyone. Now then. Names and degree of injuries!”
But although there were scraped knees and grazed hands, and although Michael seemed to have lost his shoes (“I’ll have to walk in my socks, won’t I?”), no one was seriously hurt.
“Bruises and grazes only,” said Fergus. “Very good. It could have been much worse.”
“Where are we?” said one of them.
“Have we got to go into the tunnel?” said another. “It’s a bit dark, isn’t it?”
“It’s like a nose,” said Michael. “It’s like a nasty dark nostril in a giant’s nose.” He sat down and turned his socks over at the tops. “I didn’t think we’d have to go crawling into a giant’s nose,” he said, and Fergus grinned.
“I haven’t the least idea of what it is or where it will lead to,” he said, ‘‘but we are somewhere other than the plain, and that is something to be very thankful for.” And still he could not repress a feeling of triumph, because they had escaped from the eternal light of the Prison of Hostages.
The tunnel seemed to take them deep into the earth’s core, and Fergus, sorting the boys into single file, thought, Well, I suppose this is all right. Will it take us to the River of Souls? But he could no longer plan that far ahead. And yet, thought Fergus, I believe we are closer to the world now …
