The Return of the Arinn

by Frank P. Ryan

  ‘You, or your buddies over there, have any real explanation for what makes folks burn down their own cities?’

  ‘Sir, can I ask if General Chatwyn is still privy to this conversation?’

  Chatwyn’s voice arrived through the laptop, though he remained invisible from the screen. ‘Yes, Brett, I’m here.’

  ‘Right, Sir! Over here they call these basket cases Razzamatazzers – Razzers for short.’

  ‘Brett, I want you to see this. This is Central Park, right now.’

  The screen showed vast numbers of Razzers gathering in the park. They appeared to be milling around a specific focus, next to a pond. As the camera focused in on individual faces, they saw hundreds of thousands of men and women milling in dense crowds around what looked like a raised bandstand.

  ‘Look at their expressions, their eyes!’

  The camera focused on face after face, showing the same blank looks, the same repetitive chanting on their lips.

  ‘Brett, you have any idea what’s going on?’

  ‘It’s a kind of mind control, Sir.’

  ‘You mean they’re drugged – stoned?’

  ‘Some may be stoned. But from what I’ve been gathering here, Grimstone doesn’t need drugs to control folks. He can do it through the effects of a talisman, a kind of magical sword. They call it the Sword of Feimhin.’

  ‘Now, you know as well as I do how that sounds.’

  ‘Yes, Sir. But I’ve seen Padraig here wield a magical battleaxe. He saved all our lives with it. Crazy things appear to be happening.’

  ‘Up to now, these guys – the Razzamatazzers as you call them – have been indulging in criminal behaviour. I’ve sent in the National Guard in support of the police, and not just in New York but in Chicago, Washington, LA, and other cities. But the size of the problem is overwhelming our resources and we’ve failed to stop them. They’ve already burned out entire cities. And the madness is spreading.’

  ‘Following the same pattern as here, Sir.’

  ‘We’ve called up every reserve. They take no notice of warnings. They don’t appear to care if they’re shot.’

  ‘I gather you’ve come across this guy, Grimstone?’

  ‘He’s everywhere.’ The President glanced to his left, where somebody was muttering something to him in a soft voice. President Harvey turned to face them on screen again. ‘I’ve just been informed that he’s making an appearance in Central Park. He’s what these flakes have been waiting for.’

  ‘What’s he doing?’

  ‘Talking to them – sermonising, as far as I can see.’

  ‘Can I have a look, Sir?’

  ‘Okay! They’re uploading pictures right now. Hold on a moment. I can make out his face. This your guy?’

  Brett turned to Mark, who nodded.

  ‘It’s him, Sir, the Reverend Grimstone.’

  Mark cut in, ‘He’s no Reverend.’

  ‘You hear that, Mr President?’

  ‘I heard.’

  ‘That’s from his adoptive son.’

  Mark said: ‘See if he’s carrying a sword.’

  The President spoke: ‘He’s sure as hell hefting something. Whatever it is, it’s getting the crowds excited. But it looks more like a cross than a sword.’

  Mark said, ‘Could we see it in close-up?’

  ‘Okay, you guys!’ The President’s voice muted, as if addressing somebody off screen. ‘Maybe the camera in the chopper . . .’

  Mark and Nan craned in to get a closer look at what Grimstone was holding aloft. ‘Yeah, it’s the Sword of Feimhin – but he’s holding it upside down so the hilt and crosspiece resemble a cross.’

  ‘You getting this, Sir?’

  ‘I’m with you. But what does it mean?’

  Mark looked to Brett: ‘May I explain?’

  ‘Go ahead.’ Brett spoke to the President, ‘I’m going to ask Grimstone’s adoptive son, Mark, to explain, Sir.’

  ‘Go ahead, Mark.’

  ‘Sir, I’d also like to rope in my friend, Nan. She knows far more about the Tyrant than I do. I’m afraid that Grimstone has long been the servant of the Tyrant of the Wastelands. We believe that the Sword links Grimstone to both the Tyrant and the Black Rose.’

  The President hesitated a moment or two, as if to consider what Mark had told him. ‘Mark – I should explain that there are some very sceptical people this end. You need to take that on board.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘Very well then, Mark and Nan, the floor is yours.’

  ‘Sir, as far as Nan and I have been able to observe, America is following a very similar pattern to what we saw in London. We believe that the Tyrant of the Wastelands has declared war on Earth. If, as we now assume, Grimstone has been his servant all along, he’s been preparing for this war for many years, decades even. So the groundwork has been laid down during this time. It’s all about power, really. Taking control on Tír to start with, and now Earth. Grimstone has been spreading a false religion, aimed at mind control. Several years ago, he took me and my adoptive sister, Mo, to Clonmel, in Ireland, but he was after the Sword even back then. He must have known that Padraig was its custodian. And he wanted to get his hands on it.’

  ‘This is the same sword Grimstone is lofting in the Park?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘My word, Mark, I’m looking at that sea of faces! They’re mesmerised by it.’

  ‘Sir, we believe that the Sword is a repository of enormous power. We think it is capable of drawing power from the Fáil.’

  ‘But you claim this Sword has been hidden in Ireland for thousands of years?’

  ‘Sir, the war on Tír has been going on for thousands of years. We believe it extended into Earth right at the beginning. And it was only ended here when an army known the Fir Bolg crossed from Tír into Earth and killed Feimhin, a Bronze Age prince who wielded the Sword back then.’

  ‘You’re talking thousands of years ago?’

  ‘Yes, Sir. I would like to ask Padraig to speak to you. He and his family have been custodians of the Sword for all those thousands of years. It was hidden in a barrow grave in Padraig’s woods, on the foothills of the Comeragh Mountains.’

  ‘Is Padraig prepared to speak to us?’

  Mark looked across to Padraig. The old man nodded.

  The President studied Padraig’s face. ‘Would you care to add to what Mark has been telling us?’

  ‘I concur with all that Mark and Nan have told you, Sir. Nan in particular knows far more about Earth’s sister world, Tír, than I do. Grimstone is the Tyrant’s servant. The Sword, which, alas, we now see wielded in Central Park, is the repository of dark power. It is also likely to be the key to the mind control we heard discussed in this conference. But Grimstone is not the main threat, even when wielding the Sword. The real threat, and I believe it to be a very great threat indeed, is the arrival of the Black Rose in central London.’

  ‘But why is the Earth so important to this Tyrant? From what you say, he’s an alien being from an alien world?’

  ‘This is a very important question, Sir, and one I have given much thought to in the last day or two. I can only conclude that the arrival of Mark and his three Earth-born friends into Tír has threatened the Tyrant’s plans in that world.’

  ‘But you claimed that Grimstone has been paving the way for the present catastrophe for decades. From what information General Chatwyn has been sending us, the four friends only entered Tír a few years ago. Why would the Tyrant have made preparations to extend his war here a generation before there was any threat to his plans from any incursion into his world from Earth?’

  Mark interrupted. ‘Sir, if I might interrupt. I think that perhaps Nan might be best able to answer that question.’

  ‘Nan, can you throw any light on this?’

  ‘Sir, it
is understandable that you still do not understand the Fáil and the power it wields over life, and over worlds.’

  ‘Can you explain it, then, in words we might understand?’

  ‘The four friends, Mark, his adoptive sister, Mo, Alan and Kate, were seduced into entering Tír by the powers of the Holy Trídédana – these goddesses are immensely powerful back on Tír. I would presume that their powers also derive from the Fáil. In attempting to gain access to, and thus control, the Fáil, the Tyrant of the Wastelands threatens the goddesses. The goddesses are his rival for power, and thus his ultimate enemy.’

  ‘But that would assume that the Tyrant – and perhaps these so-called goddesses – anticipated the future? That would imply that the Tyrant must have known, in ages past, that the friends from Earth would, in the future, threaten his plans?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘He can predict the future?’

  ‘There can be only one of two explanations. Either he anticipated the seduction by the goddesses of the four friends – or the Earth has always been an important conquest in his plans.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘The Black Rose must have taken years to effect. We met a girl called Penny, who sensed its presence long before it made an appearance. She painted a fresco over an entire ceiling of what she called the City Below. We think that Penny’s City Below came from the growing roots of the Black Rose underneath the city of London, which she called the City Above. This was going on long before we travelled into Tír. It suggest years of planning and preparation on the part of the Tyrant.’

  Mark added: ‘And Grimstone has been preparing his false church for decades.’

  The President nodded on screen: ‘So what might this imply?’

  ‘The Black Rose must be central to the Tyrant’s ambitions to control the Fáil.’

  ‘Which also implies that the Black Rose is the key to this war?’

  ‘That is what Mark and I believe, Sir.’

  Attack on the Rose

  ‘This place,’ Tajh muttered, ‘is freaking me out.’

  Mark glanced down at his observation partner, who was curled up within the horseshoe of bricks and rubble they had cobbled together in an attempt to keep warm. He and Tajh were one of three observation posts based around the location of the Pig, though they remained close enough to keep in touch through hand signals. As Seebox was operating a fleet of surveillance and attack drones, it would have been suicide to transmit any kind of radio or electronic communication.

  Although Mark liked Tajh, he wished they had teamed him up with Nan. But Cal and Brett had said that the oracula were too valuable to put in one place; divided, he and Nan could cover more ground.

  Tajh moaned: ‘I’m wearing two vests under my shirt and two thick pullovers over it. And I’m still freezing.’

  Mark shivered.

  The ruins they had chosen as their shelter still bore the remnants of pea-green paint on the rubble, but all that was left of the front façade of a former restaurant was three feet of powdered brick.

  ‘Shit!’ Tajh continued to grumble. ‘Look at that sky. Is that pretending to be daylight?’

  Proximity to the Rose had put all of the crew under tremendous strain. The vast, alien nature of that soaring deadwall was unnerving, all the more so when you could feel the vibrations coming from it through the ground. The dread of it leached into your consciousness, as if you had woken up into a nightmare that refused to let you go.

  Mark rubbed his hands together: Focus on the present!

  By now Seebox was probably aware that his perimeter blockade had been breached. The crew had camouflaged the garage walls with heaped rubble to hide their den from the drones with their infrared scanners, but they couldn’t avoid detection forever.

  Tajh’s voice fell to a whisper: ‘Hisst – out there!’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Thought I heard something.’

  Mark peered out into the grey murk. In the distance, he saw the ruins of a six-storey warehouse with its concrete roof caved in, its broken walls flecked with a rust-grimed tangle of ironwork.

  Then he also heard something. After a second or two it faded again. It had sounded like an engine.

  ‘What do we do?’

  ‘We keep our heads down.’

  The snow continued to fall onto the ruined landscape like a leprous confetti, creating a horrifying vista in which the tormented cityscape seemed upside down, with the ground lighter than the lowering sky.

  ‘Try to think about something pleasant.’

  ‘I can’t bring to mind a single blessed thing,’ Tajh grumbled.

  ‘Think about green fields.’

  ‘You’re talking to a city girl, Mark. No rosy-hued dream of growing things or keeping chickens. I get claustrophobic if I don’t see houses.’

  Mark grunted: there weren’t many houses round here any more.

  ‘Try thinking about drinking cold pure water out of your cupped hands from a mountain stream.’

  ‘Don’t push it.’ But she managed a grin.

  ‘Then what?’ Mark asked.

  ‘There was one thing.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘A little cock robin – when I was eight or nine years old.’

  ‘A cock robin?’

  ‘With his little puffed out chest. He was always in our yard, even when the snow was a couple of feet deep. I got the little sod through some hard winters.’

  Mark returned the smile. ‘You fed him?’

  ‘Yeah. Every time I peeped out into that yard, there he was, cheeky laddie, always up to something.’

  ‘No cheeky robins around here, huh?’

  ‘Not a one,’ Tajh paused. ‘Mark, you really believe that Brett knows what he’s doing?’

  ‘We have to believe so.’

  Tajh snorted. She paused for another second or two, then climbed to her feet having spotted a signal from Cal, whose head was poking out of a foxhole fifty yards away. Cal had been paired with Nan. Now Tajh got out the binoculars to interpret his gestures.

  ‘Vehicle incoming.’

  ‘Shit!’

  They ducked back down into the horseshoe, peering now and then over the snow-capped sill of what had been a street level window. Within a minute or two they spotted the ghostly shape of an armoured car, its outline slightly darker than the grey murk, its exhaust billowing smoke. They could make out the silhouette of it more clearly as it drew abreast of them; it had the flat top of the gun turret at the front and the long aerial dangling from the rear. By the time it was thirty yards away, Mark could make out the helmet of the driver poking out of the front of the cab. The vehicle sported a heavy cannon and had a dish on its roof.

  ‘What now, Marky boy?’

  She had only begun to call him that with this present assignment. Mark put it down to her growing nervousness. He said: ‘I need to think.’

  The dish was scanning through 360 degrees: eavesdropping for electronic signals. Tajh muttered: ‘What if those blasted drones have picked up on Brett’s satellite comms?’

  Mark shrugged. There was nothing they could do about that if they had, but even if they hadn’t, it wouldn’t be too long before they did. When that happened the garage would stand out like a painted target . . . and it was the only place to hide in the surrounding square mile.

  ‘That cannon could do some damage.’

  Mark flashed a mind-to-mind picture of what he was seeing, and thinking, to Nan.

  ‘We have to destroy it,’ Tajh said.

  ‘That could bring even more attention down on our heads,’ Mark whispered.

  But then they saw that the circling dish on the top of the vehicle had stopped – and was pointing straight at the garage. The cannon rotated in the same direction.

  ‘Do it! Do it now!’ Tajh shouted.

 
Mark focused his oraculum on the squat grey outline and incinerated the occupants of the armoured car in blue-black lightning. He did his best to dampen the flare, but he couldn’t guarantee it hadn’t been spotted from overhead.

  ‘Jesus – glad to have you on our side!’

  ‘Sorry Tajh. One of us is going to have to check they’re dead.’

  ‘Meaning me?’

  He watched her scurry over on the crouch to the ruin of the vehicle. While she was checking the bodies, Mark used his oraculum to reconnoitre the surrounding environment: ground and sky. As far as he could determine there were no responding drones, but Seebox’s people were bound to investigate the missing patrol. Within a few minutes, Tajh was back in their foxhole and signalling to Cal – thumb and finger in a circle: threat dealt with. Something he signalled back excited her. She looked a lot more cheerful when she signalled Cal back: copy that.

  Mark said: ‘Copy what?’

  ‘The strike on the Rose – it’s on!’

  *

  From the moment they had first arrived, it had become obvious that the Rose had been Brett’s primary assignment. He had been sent there to find out what it was, what it was capable of doing and how to eliminate it. Upon arrival, he had fired a series of three separate drones into the inky blackness of the night sky, aiming for a point high above the Rose. These had enabled him to make some key observations on the positioning and size of the Rose, and now they were providing readings that might reveal much more to his team in the USA.

  Right now, in his foxhole, Mark knew that Resistance HQ and America were analysing the data Brett had sent them. The confirmation of the impending strike would please the crew. It meant their mission had achieved its end. But, as they were so close to the Rose, it also meant they were in danger of friendly fire. Yet, they had no option but to stay: the fate of London and perhaps the world at large depended on them continuing to monitor the Rose and the effectiveness of the strike.

  Figuring this out, Mark muttered, ‘Shit!’

  Tajh’s voice betrayed her shivering: ‘C’mon, Marky boy! Get down here and huddle up. Keep us warm.’

  ‘D’you reckon Cal is keeping an eye on us?’