Arthur Quinn and the World Serpent

by Alan Early

  She had another idea and typed in ‘Viking pendants’. The search engine returned image after image of gold, silver and bronze pendants. Many featured the Jormungand design; many more featured faces. Some included the strange rune lettering they’d seen in the tunnel.

  Her eyelids were finally starting to feel heavy as she looked at the page. She yawned, her head resting on her shoulder as she pressed the Page Down key. Without realising it, her lids began to gradually close. Her mind was flowing in and out of consciousness when suddenly something shocking flashed in her vision. She opened her eyes wide, thinking she’d dreamt it, but she hadn’t. There it was, on the screen, clear as day! She pressed Print and leapt out of bed. She’d have to show Arthur straight away.

  Arthur had just taken the popcorn out of the microwave when the doorbell rang. He took one look at the burnt popcorn, dropped it in the bin then answered the door. It was Ash.

  ‘You’re early,’ he said.

  ‘This was too important to wait,’ she said and thrust a computer printout into his hand. ‘Look what I found.’

  He looked at the page then back to her.

  ‘Is this …?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Can it be real?’

  ‘I think so.’

  He looked back down at the printout. It showed a silver Viking pendant. Like his own pendant, it was circular with a hole punched in the top for the necklace. A face was carved into this pendant, surrounded by runes similar to those they’d seen in the tunnel. Though the carving was made up of simple lines with cross-hatching for shading, there was no mistaking whose the face was – from the intelligent, watchful eyes, to the hair cropped short to the skull, to the cheeky grin. There was no doubt at all that the face on the pendant was Will’s.

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘How can this be?’ Ash asked as Arthur stared at the printout. She looked over his shoulder at it, searching for any sign that she could have been mistaken.

  ‘I don’t know. But there’s no doubt that it’s Will.’

  ‘So what does this mean?’

  ‘I think it means he hasn’t been telling us the whole truth,’ Arthur said grimly.

  ‘He’ll be here soon. We’ll just ask him.’

  ‘There’s no point in asking. If he’d wanted to tell us he’d have told us by now.’

  ‘So what do you suggest?’

  Arthur sat on the stairs. He felt the pendant in his pocket dig into his thigh. The weight of it reminded him of something. Something he’d thought odd at the time but had forgotten about till this instant. He took the pendant out and looked at it in the palm of his hand. It wasn’t glowing now and hadn’t done so since the last time he’d worn it.

  ‘Ash, think back. Can you remember Will ever touching the pendant?’

  She looked up to the ceiling, recalling every time they’d examined the pendant. ‘No. In fact, I remember offering it to him and he wouldn’t take it.’

  ‘Thought so,’ Arthur said. He stood back up. ‘In that case, I have a plan.’

  Moments later, Will arrived. Arthur greeted him with a smile and led him into the living room. Ash was already stretched out on the sofa, balancing a large bowl of fresh popcorn on her stomach and munching away. She was too engrossed in the soap opera on the TV to say ‘hi’ properly, so she just smiled with a full mouth.

  ‘We were just watching this for a while,’ Arthur said. ‘We can have our talk when it’s over.’ He tapped Ash’s legs and she sat up straight, making room for them both.

  ‘No problem,’ Will said as they sat either side of Ash.

  Arthur reached into the bowl and took out a handful of popcorn, stuffing it into his mouth. Ash did the same and offered the bowl to Will. He chose one piece and popped it into his mouth.

  ‘Take more,’ she said, her mouth so full that some crumbs fell out. ‘Arthur burned the first bag – clumsy – but I helped him make more. It’s really good.’

  ‘Okay, thanks.’ Will laughed. ‘Didn’t they teach you how to make popcorn in Kerry?’

  Arthur laughed too. Will reached in, took his own handful and tried to fit the whole fistful into his mouth.

  Both Arthur and Ash giggled at him. They exchanged a quick glance, then looked back at the TV, pretending to watch the bad soap opera while really listening intently to the sound of Will munching the popcorn.

  When his first fistful of popcorn was gone, he reached for more, diving his hand deep into the bowl. Suddenly there was a bright flash of green light, just like the one they’d experienced underwater a week ago.

  Popcorn flew everywhere and Will leaped away from the bowl, as if in pain. He fell to the floor and held his hand to his chest, spluttering popcorn out of his mouth.

  Arthur leapt up from the couch. ‘I knew it!’ he cried triumphantly as he took the bowl away from Ash. He picked out the pendant they’d hidden there moments before Will arrived and showed it to him.

  Will’s eyes widened in shock when he saw it. He kept rubbing his hand. It looked red, as if it had been scalded in hot water.

  ‘I … I …’ He struggled to find the words.

  ‘Who and what are you?’ demanded Ash, standing up next to Arthur.

  ‘I … I …’ he said again. ‘Just … just don’t jump to any rash conclusions. I can explain.’

  ‘Well, you’d better start explaining fast,’ Arthur said. He walked around the couch to stand directly over Will, holding out the pendant like it was a weapon.

  ‘Okay.’ Will scrambled to his feet and backed himself against a wall. ‘Okay! Relax. Please, Arthur. I’ll explain. Just sit down. I’m not going anywhere.’

  Ash looked at Arthur, who was studying Will’s face. Slowly he nodded and they both sat down on the popcorn-covered sofa. Will sat in the armchair opposite them.

  ‘Where do I start?’ Will said aloud to himself.

  ‘With the truth,’ Ash answered angrily.

  ‘Okay. The truth. It’s a long story.’

  ‘We have time,’ said Arthur.

  ‘Do we, though?’ Will took a deep breath and began. ‘Everything you know about the Jormungand is true. The Vikings buried it in a cavern under Dublin, along with a hundred men to guard it until they died.’

  ‘The men I saw in the vision I had in class,’ Arthur exclaimed.

  ‘Exactly. And from your dream the other night you figured out what must have happened to Loki. That he was captured by the other gods and sealed in a cave under Dublin and that now he’s escaped somehow. But you don’t know the other lengths the Vikings went to to make sure the World Serpent couldn’t escape.’

  ‘Just get on with it, Will,’ Ash demanded. ‘Stop being so dramatic and tell us about the Jormungand and how you know all this.’

  ‘Sorry. Well, the serpent had almost destroyed the world once and the gods didn’t want it to happen again. So they charged a Viking family in Dublin, the Ó Dubhghaill family, with a sacred task: to protect not only the city but the world from another attack by the Jormungand. They were to make sure it never escaped. And if it did, they’d have to find a way to stop it. They were all trained warriors and the father was to pass the tradition on to his first-born son, and that son would pass it to his first-born son and so on down through the generations, so there would always be an Ó Dubhghaill in Dublin guarding the serpent.

  ‘Eventually, after hundreds of years of protecting the world, the Ó Dubhghaill family name, like so many other names, changed and became the more English-sounding “Doyle”. From the moment I was old enough, my father told me all of this. He taught me what my responsibility to the world was. But he died before he could train me properly.’

  Will stood up. He shook his hand and blew on it and the redness gradually subsided.

  ‘He died before he could tell me how to stop the Jormungand.’

  Arthur and Ash sat silently for a moment, letting all this sink in. Then Arthur pointed to Will’s hand.

  ‘But what about that?’

  ‘The pendant
has some kind of hidden powers that are unleashed when I touch it. Probably because I’m the last of the family. I only found that out when we almost drowned. I accidentally touched it trying to pull the grate off. The blast from it smashed the grate and freed us.’

  ‘But it hurts you, doesn’t it?’ Arthur asked.

  ‘Not really. It just feels strange. Like extra strong pins and needles running up your arm.’

  ‘Is there anything else you haven’t told us?’ Ash asked.

  ‘No, that’s it,’ said Will, sitting back down. ‘That’s the whole truth.’

  Arthur and Ash considered Will sitting there, looking at his feet.

  ‘I wanted to tell you sooner,’ he added, ‘but I didn’t know how. It’s a lot to take in. ’

  ‘Give us a minute, will you?’ Arthur asked.

  Will nodded, pushed himself out of the armchair and left the others alone in the living room.

  ‘Well?’ Ash started. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know what to think. He’s right about one thing. It is a lot to take in. But I can’t believe he didn’t tell us this sooner, when he first realised what was going on.’

  ‘I just wish he had. It would be easier to believe then. Now I’m not sure we can trust him.’

  ‘True. But I guess I can see where he’s coming from. Some things are hard to talk about.’ He remembered how difficult it had been telling Ash and Will about his mother.

  A full minute passed, the clock on the mantelpiece ticking away the seconds.

  ‘In that dream I had,’ Arthur said eventually, ‘the Norns mentioned that a young boy and his friends could stop Loki.’

  ‘So you think Will is that boy?’

  ‘Well, it would make sense, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose. So what do we do now?’

  He thought for a second before replying. ‘We’re going to need all the help we can get to stop this thing if it gets loose. I don’t think we have any choice but to trust Will.’

  Ash thought about it for a moment and then said, ‘You’re right, Arthur, I guess we should give him a second chance.’

  They called Will back in. He took his place in the armchair again and looked at them anxiously.

  ‘So?’ he asked.

  ‘I believe you,’ Arthur said.

  ‘So do I,’ said Ash.

  Will’s face lit up. ‘Thank you so much.’

  ‘But no more secrets, agreed?’ insisted Arthur.

  ‘Agreed,’ replied Will, clearly relieved they had accepted his explanation.

  ‘So what now?’ Ash asked.

  ‘Now it’s up to me as the last protector to stop this thing. I’ll go back to the Poddle and I’ll find the cavern and I’ll figure out a way to prevent Loki from awakening the Jormungand.’ He chuckled nervously. ‘Easy peasy.’

  ‘How will you do that?’

  ‘Well, as dangerously obsessed with explosives as Rob Tynan is, he did make an interesting point. There’s bound to be shed-loads of dynamite at the Metro site. I was thinking I might get some and use it to blow up the Jormungand. That’s one weapon they didn’t have a thousand years ago, and the only one I have a hope of getting hold of.’

  ‘We’ll help you,’ Ash said, getting to her feet. Will’s face lit up even more.

  ‘Eh, no, we won’t,’ Arthur said from the couch.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We won’t be helping,’ Arthur said. ‘In fact, Will, I don’t think it’s a good plan at all.’

  ‘Why not?’ Will asked.

  ‘You want to steal a load of dynamite from my dad’s workplace, and go back to somewhere we almost drowned a few days ago to find a giant serpent and try to blow it up?’ said Arthur, aghast. ‘All the while there’s an insane evil god chasing after you – and us! No, it’s madness. It’s way too dangerous. We could all be killed.’

  ‘Well, what do you suggest?’ Will asked. ‘If we don’t do something, the drilling could awaken the Jormungand and Loki will be able to free it to destroy the world.’

  ‘I’ll talk to my dad,’ Arthur answered. ‘I’ll try to convince him to stop drilling. If they don’t build the tunnel, the World Serpent won’t wake up and Loki probably won’t be able to find him.’

  ‘And if that doesn’t work?’ Ash asked doubtfully.

  ‘It has to,’ he replied, with a touch of desperation in his voice, ‘it just has to.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  The following morning, Ash and Will were still sound asleep on couch cushions on Arthur’s bedroom floor when he got up to speak to Joe. He quietly threw back his covers and tiptoed over his sleeping friends. Following Will’s revelations the previous night, they’d spent hours online, searching for more information about the Jormungand. They found nothing new – and definitely no clue as to how to stop it.

  As usual, Joe was leaving early; the sun still hadn’t risen fully in the sky. Arthur found him in the kitchen.

  ‘Good morning, young man,’ Joe said, surprised to see him. ‘You’re up early! How are your friends?’

  ‘They’re still asleep.’

  Joe was packing sandwiches into a small cooler bag to take to work with him. Arthur hovered nearby, watching him. Joe zipped up the bag then turned to his waiting son.

  ‘Something up, Arthur?’

  ‘No. Not really.’

  Joe took his car keys off the counter then Arthur added hurriedly, ‘Well … kind of.’

  Joe sat down at the kitchen table. He looked at his watch.

  ‘Okay. I have a few minutes. Take a seat and tell me about it.’

  Arthur sat opposite him. He didn’t know how to start. What he was about to ask his father seemed so ridiculous in the almost-light of day. And he definitely couldn’t be totally honest with Joe. Then he’d surely think Arthur had gone crazy.

  ‘What if you found out it wasn’t a good idea to build the tunnel?’ he asked eventually.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, what if I asked you not to excavate it?’

  ‘What’s this about, Arthur? Is it because you want to move back to Kerry?’

  ‘No, it’s not that. It’s just … I don’t think you should drill down there. I don’t think anyone should. And you could stop it. You could say it’s not safe and the whole thing would be cancelled. They’d find a different route or something.’

  ‘I could. But it is safe. We know that, Arthur. There’s nothing to worry about. We did geothermal scans of under the ground and nothing showed up.’

  ‘Nothing that would show up anyway,’ said Arthur.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I can’t explain it. But you have to trust me, Dad. Please get the project cancelled.’

  Joe stood up, angry.

  ‘Arthur, are you out of your mind? Ask them to stop a multi-million-euro job for no reason other than my son wants me to? That would be professional suicide!’

  ‘Dad, just listen to me!’

  ‘No, Arthur, I won’t. This is ridiculous. I know this is just because you want to go back to Kerry and I don’t want to hear another word about it. Now, I have to go or I’ll be late for work.’ He picked up his sandwiches and made for the front door, but the next words out of his son’s mouth made him pause.

  ‘Mum would have listened to me.’

  Joe stopped for a second then turned on the spot. He suddenly looked very old, very tired, his skin drawn across his face with dark bags under his eyes. ‘Well, she’s not here, Arthur,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m afraid I’m all you have.’ He turned and left the house in a hurry, both furious and disappointed. Arthur sat by himself in the kitchen with a lump in his throat. Eventually he made his way back upstairs and into bed.

  On the way to school, Arthur lied to Will and Ash about having talked to Joe. He didn’t have the heart to tell them how badly it had gone.

  ‘I’ll talk to him this evening,’ he promised.

  The rest of the day went very slowly. Miss Keegan had joked about Ar
thur, Will and Ash wanting to go for their weekly swim. Arthur was shocked it had only been a week since they’d almost drowned in the tunnel. So much had happened in the meantime: his whole view of the world had been turned upside down.

  The three of them avoided the subject of Loki and the Jormungand all day. Ash and Will sensed correctly that Arthur didn’t want to talk about it.

  ‘Let’s not mention it till he’s talked to his dad this evening,’ Ash said to Will when she got a chance. He agreed and that was the way they left it.

  During class, Miss Keegan twice noticed that Arthur was distracted and had to scold him. He half-heartedly apologised each time and went back to thinking about what his dad had said.

  Finally, the school day ended. Will went home while Ash and Arthur both returned to Arthur’s empty house. Although Ash had no reason to be there, she didn’t want to leave Arthur on his own just yet. She just had a feeling that he needed the company.

  The moon had risen by the time Joe finished work for the day. The darkness in the sky was even more pronounced at the Metro site, where the bright work lights contrasted with the blackness above and created sharp shadows here and there. Everyone else in the Citi-Trak office had gone home hours ago, but Joe had stayed back to finish some paperwork. Ruairí had offered to stay with him but Joe sent him home.

  Joe signed his last blueprint for the day, dropped it in a paper folder and then into a filing cabinet. He slung his coat over his shoulder, picked up his keys and left the office, locking it behind him. The click of the lock sounded unnaturally loud in the silence of the site.