The Serpent in the Glass (The Tale of Thomas Farrell)

by D. M. Andrews

  Then Thomas felt something claw at his legs, and he almost lost his concentration and dropped the Glass before he realized what had happened.

  ‘Ghillie get front-view seat!’ Ghillie Dhu whispered into Thomas’s ear after he’d climbed up to his shoulders. ‘So what Og Tiarna doing?’

  ‘I’m trying to heal the Way Gate,’ Thomas whispered back. He looked around. No one seemed to have heard his voice above the whooshing and crackling sound the barrier was now making. ‘But I don’t know how to do it!’

  ‘To see, you must look beyond what you see,’ Ghillie advised.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Thomas whispered back without turning his head, so as to not draw attention.

  ‘See through illusion. Ghillie knows it’s there. He can see the land though his eyes are closed. Must look harder! Must not get distracted,’ the Gruagach explained.

  Must not get distracted? That was hard when a sharp-clawed Gruagach that could grow to eight times its normal size was sitting on your shoulders. Thomas looked again. The darkness beneath still seemed solid. He stared at it and tried to pretend it wasn’t there. It seemed a futile task, but he tried all the same. Then, just for a moment, he thought he glimpsed some stony hills. They disappeared almost as soon as he’d seen them.

  Beyond? What did the Gruagach mean by that? Then Thomas had an idea. Maybe if he could pretend he wasn’t here, but beyond the cavern’s mouth — like he did in a lesson when he felt embarrassed and wanted to escape? Yes, that was it. He needed to look beyond what wasn’t there, so he could see what was there. That is what Ghillie must have meant. Thomas imagined himself behind the writhing ocean. Suddenly he could see hills, rocks, mountains and bits of cloudless sky. It was working! The whirlpool began to grow smaller and with it the barrier thinned and the landscape beyond became clearer. Thomas felt the opposing force yield, dim and dissipate. But just as the whirlpool flickered out, Thomas felt a new power rushing to fill the void. A raw power, not of illusion but of death.

  Thomas looked up and saw a chariot approaching drawn by two horses dark as midnight. But it didn’t come across the land. This chariot flew through the sky! And its charioteer filled Thomas with dread, for in the flying chariot stood a dark, caped figure with what looked like antlers upon his head. It was the chariot from his dream in the Hall of Tales!

  ‘Cernunnos!’ he heard Gallowglas call in warning.

  Thomas faltered and the glow of the orb fell from the cavern’s exit, but Trevelyan moved up behind him and grabbed his arm.

  ‘The Glass, Thomas! Do not lower it! The wall is down and the way exposed. You must —’

  Mr Trevelyan’s words were cut off as a foul power enveloped them and threw the High Cap back. The force knocked Thomas down as well, but somehow he was cushioned from its full effect. Around him a hundred glass balls scattered; his bag of marbles had spilt all over the floor of the cavern. He sat up and suddenly realized that Ghillie Dhu wasn’t on his shoulders anymore, but he didn’t have time to look for him or even to call his name because two huge dogs the size of ponies had appeared at the cavern’s mouth. Both were unlike any dog Thomas had ever seen. As black as night they were, their ears red tipped as if they’d been dipped in blood. Huge maws hung from their hunched shoulders, and foaming saliva dripped from between their wicked-looking fangs.

  ‘Ratchet Hounds!’ Gallowglas shouted.

  Thomas heard the Suits lift their spears. The Hounds bayed. Thomas winced. It was the most chilling sound he’d ever heard. It sapped him of both hope and courage. He forced himself back to the cavern wall, but couldn’t get up. Suddenly there was a clash of metal as the Hounds tore into the Darkledun Guards with terrible force. The Suits were no match for the Hounds, and it was only their number that kept the Hounds from breaking through. Then a third Hound Thomas hadn’t seen before bounded through a gap that had opened in the line, but it didn’t get far, for a volley of crossbow bolts struck it and it fell away yelping and disappeared out of sight behind the Guards.

  Thomas glanced back at the men anxiously reloading their crossbows as Gallowglas sent all the remaining Suits forward. Behind them Penders and the others looked horrified. Thomas could hear Jessica shouting his name, but Salus wouldn’t let them go to him. Gallowglas leant over Trevelyan. The High Cap wasn’t moving.

  Thomas felt a hand on his shoulder and tensed. The Gruagach had opened his eyes and was no longer invisible, but he stood in the shadows of the cavern to avoid being seen. Not that there was much need. No one would have noticed him in the thick of things.

  ‘The Gate, it is open. Must close the Gate. Horned One cannot defy power of the Ard Tiarnai once it is closed,’ Ghillie explained.

  ‘But, I don’t know how to close the Gate,’ Thomas said as a fourth and then a fifth Hound rammed into the Guards. One of them leapt clear over the embattled Guards and a second volley of crossbow bolts hammered into the beast. It fell wounded, but before the men could reload the fifth Hound broke through the thinning line of Guards. It had the greave of a Guard in its mouth which it tossed away as it landed. It looked at its fallen companion and then for those who had downed it.

  It stood so near that Thomas could hear the Hound breathing. Then it turned its massive head toward Thomas and Ghillie Dhu. It snarled and looked at them with soulless eyes. It seemed to Thomas then that though these creatures could be harmed, they weren’t entirely natural. Many of the Guards had fallen, mauled and broken, and too few remained to turn and challenge the one that now faced Thomas. Thomas pushed himself up against the wall and waited for that which he couldn’t stop. But it didn’t come.

  He heard Gallowglas shout something, but he couldn’t tell what. A battle cry of some sort perhaps. A couple of crossbow bolts were loosed, but they did little more than anger the Hound, though they did take its attention from Thomas. The beast howled and hurtled toward the crossbowmen with the grim-faced Gallowglas at their head. It was going to reach them before they could reload! But then the fell creature lost its footing and slipped, hitting the ground hard. By the time it recovered, a dozen bolts had been loosed into its black hide. It thrashed once and then went limp.

  A marble rolled over toward Ghillie who picked it up and looked at it in wonder. ‘You never tell Ghillie “marbles” so powerful!’

  But the danger wasn’t over. Two more Hounds were quickly overcoming the remaining Guards. Gallowglas hung back with his men now, perhaps hoping the Guards would destroy at least one of the fell creatures to give them a fighting chance. Both the Hounds were bleeding, but this did little to slow their effort in making short work of the Darkledun Guards.

  Thomas stood and looked toward the mouth of the cavern. Cernunnos had reached the ground, stepped from his chariot, and now approached. Thomas saw him more clearly now. He was tall, and wrapped in a yellowish-brown cloak that reminded Thomas of dying leaves. Around his neck he wore a thick golden torque that ended in serpents’ heads, and upon his head he wore a helm crested with an enormous pair of antlers. His face, like his garb, reminded Thomas of dead leaves, shrivelled and brown. His right hand rested on the hilt of a longsword that hung from his thin waist, but his left hand was entirely missing. As he moved to the threshold of the cavern, two of the Suits challenged him. Thomas felt sick as he sensed the foul power again. It came from Cernunnos. The Suits were lifted off the ground and crushed like tin cans. One of their flat helms rolled towards Thomas and came to rest by Ghillie Dhu who promptly picked it up, climbed swiftly (and somewhat painfully) onto Thomas’s shoulders, and placed the helm on Thomas’s head.

  ‘Suggest you use Glass now!’ Ghillie said as he shut his eyes and disappeared.

  ‘But how?’

  ‘Ard Tiarnai give Serpent Glass to you and not tell you how to use it!’ Ghillie muttered. ‘But Ghillie thinks he remembers Ard Tiarnai say it must be felt.’

  Thomas concentrated. It took a few seconds to feel the warmth as before, but even then it was but a trickle so thick was his fear.

  ‘Og Tiarn
a needs to be a bit quicker,’ Ghillie suggested unhelpfully. Thomas was going as fast as he could.

  Thomas became aware all of a sudden that Cernunnos’s eyes had fixed upon him. He looked and saw that he was right. The other’s eyes were pitch black, spheres of darkest night; no white touched them and no mercy. Yet, for a moment, Thomas thought he saw surprise in their cold depths.

  Cernunnos headed straight for Thomas, mangling another Guard that dared to oppose him, not even sparing the flat helm this time. Thomas gripped the Glass as tight as he could and allowed the warmth to creep into him. The silver glow began to encircle him, to caress his skin with gentle strokes, to reach out, out toward the cavern’s entrance. Suddenly the glow spread out across the mouth of the cavern and Thomas felt its power seeping into the great stones that edged the cavern to form the Way Gate on the other side. An opaque film of silver-white formed across the entire entrance. Thomas was vaguely aware that two remaining Hounds were growling and hurling themselves against the barrier the Glass had created in an effort to finish off what was left of the Darkledun Guards. The film stretched and crackled but it didn’t yield and the Hounds soon ceased their attack.

  Cernunnos stepped forward now into the Glass’s light and Thomas felt a sudden crack, as if a whip had narrowly missed him. Cernunnos had stopped on the outer edge of the silver-white sheet, surrounded in what Thomas could only describe as a dark light. It touched and strove with the silvery glow, testing at first and then exploiting. Thomas could feel it making its way toward him. He knew instinctively that he mustn’t allow it to reach him.

  Put down the Glass, boy! Cernunnos hissed in his mind. The words were like shards of ice. Thomas felt compelled to obey.

  Thomas thought he could feel Ghillie shaking him and shouting something in his ear, but he could no longer hear the outside world. His only awareness now was of himself, the Glass, and the dark figure before him.

  You cannot win. Surrender, surrender while there is still something to surrender, the voice breathed inside his head again.

  Thomas felt the power of the Glass drawing back toward him as if in protection, or perhaps in flight. The opaque film that covered the entrance to the cavern thinned and wavered. Thomas’s heart pounded and fear gripped him. He felt a coldness brush against him through the warmth, and he shivered. Perhaps Cernunnos was right. He was just a boy. He knew nothing of the Old Power. Trevelyan had been strong, the strongest perhaps, and Cernunnos had just tossed him away like a child. Perhaps he was dead. Thomas thought he might soon be joining him. He wanted to run. Maybe he could make it to the Manor Way Gate? Cernunnos wouldn’t be able to follow him through the De Danann stones. He could leave this world behind forever, and the dark terror that now stood before him.

  Then Thomas felt another flow of power. It was small, but very focused. It brought his mind back to the outside world with a snap as if he’d been shaken from a daydream. What had he been thinking? Running away and letting others die, just so he could get away?

  ‘Call on them! Call on the Ard Tiarnai!’ Ghillie Dhu’s voice came strong and clear before it was cut off by the darkness and Thomas again found himself severed from all awareness except for the power of the Glass and Cernunnos.

  The air around Thomas swirled and grew colder. You are weak, boy, the chill voice sounded in Thomas’s mind. And victory is mine!

  Thomas’s arm shook and his mind raced. He couldn’t do it, he thought. This was beyond him. But he couldn’t give up. The men in the cavern would be killed. They’d defended him, drawn the attention of the Hound. Put their lives at risk. And then there was Jess and his friends. What if they couldn’t make it to the Manor Way Gate in time?

  Help me, Thomas pled silently. Don’t let anyone die because of my failure.

  As though in answer to his call, the Glass flashed and grew bright again. Thomas could feel some of the warmth return, and then suddenly he became aware of a large shadow at the other entrance to the cavern. The shadow moved inside the cavern and Thomas looked about frantically for help, but everyone seemed frozen to the spot just like in his dreams. Perhaps he was dreaming now, but he couldn’t see how sleep could come at such a time as this.

  Then, to his dismay, Thomas saw what he’d sensed with the coming of that shadow. There, sliding now past Penders and the other children, came the giant serpent of his nightmares. Its claws scraped against the cavern floor as it drew closer to Thomas, mouth working as if in anticipation of its prey. There was nowhere to run. He was trapped between the serpent and Cernunnos, just like in the dream in the Hall of Tales. Perhaps it was a vision of the future. A vision of his death.

  Thomas turned toward the serpent. Anger mixed with his fear, anger at his inability to avoid this fate. The serpent had stopped now, towering above him on its hind legs. It looked down at him, no doubt sizing up its victim before it struck.

  Thomas gripped the Glass tightly. He wasn’t going to run anymore. Not that he could. If he was going to die, he would do so with his friends. He’d never had so many friends. It was sad that they’d only known each other for such a brief time. He wondered what his second year at Darkledun Academy might have been like had he lived long enough to see it.

  Then a very strange thing happened. Thomas heard a voice that sounded like soft, soothing music, and the same subtle but focused power that had snapped him from his dark thoughts descended upon him again.

  Thomas Farrell, the Gloine Nathair is yours to wield.

  It was more in his head than anywhere else, but somehow he knew that it had come from the serpent; and, as the words ended, the scales, fangs, claws, and wings all fell away and disappeared to reveal a woman, robed in white, standing in the air. Her countenance seemed like lightning to Thomas, and her eyes were no less green than the serpent’s. Most noticeable of all, however, was the flaming fire in the shape of a crown that hung suspended a little above her long golden hair.

  Thomas gazed up at her in wonder. ‘Who are you?’

  The woman stared back at him, her green eyes warm like the smile that now spread across her face.

  What do you see? she spoke in his mind. Her arms lifted, but her lips didn’t move.

  ‘A beautiful woman dressed in white,’ Thomas replied. ‘With a fire above her head like a crown. Where is the serpent? I don’t understand.’

  The serpent was of your own making. Your fear. You have faced your fear and it has fled. Now you see what really is, and what ever was. Now trust in yourself, bind the Gate!

  Suddenly he was keenly aware of Cernunnos again and the power flowing from the Glass, and the foul power seeking to surround him, and of the voices in the cavern shouting orders or crying in fear. But the voice and presence of the woman filled Thomas with a strength and sense of hope, a feeling that it was up to him who would win this contest — that his fate wasn’t sealed after all. He had a choice. As these feelings took hold upon him the darkness around him fell back, retreating before the glow of the Glass toward the cavern’s mouth.

  Cernunnos stepped back at the unexpected resistance. Thomas felt the foul presence waver. The silvery light began seeping into the stone again, shutting out all that had no right to pass its stone-hewn pillars. Then his heart leapt as he felt what he’d felt in his dream: all four Way Gates thrummed together, the beat of one power shared between the four. Before him the cavern walls glowed like gold-amber coals, like the fire in his dream. The Way Gates were healed. Then suddenly the glow of the Glass dimmed and withdrew to immediately surround Thomas. He saw Cernunnos attempt to push through the entrance, but something invisible stopped him and he howled in what Thomas thought dismay. The tall, dark figure lowered its hand and stared at Thomas. The cold, dark eyes filled with malice, and yet Thomas knew the Horned One could do him no harm now.

  One day you will step outside your prison, Cernunnos hissed, and you will not be safe from me then, boy. One day! And with that Cernunnos turned and slunk away, his remaining Ratchet Hounds following after him. Thomas watched as the chario
t took to the air and departed. He felt the world go still again, but this time there was an exception. When Thomas looked back down at the ground the demonic Hounds had disappeared into the rocky landscape.

  Ghillie Dhu let out a short, high-pitched sound and jumped down from Thomas’s shoulders to the floor.

  ‘My Lady!’ Ghillie bowed so low Thomas thought his large nose would touch the ground.

  Thomas looked at the others in the chamber. Nothing had changed. They had frozen again, though this time wearing expressions of surprise or joy. Trevelyan lay on the floor, his eyes closed. Gallowglas leant upon his sword and stared at the fallen High Cap, his expression unreadable. Jessica, Merideah, Thayer, Treice and Penders wore expressions of concern and wonder on their faces. Master Salus wielded a broad-bladed sword in one hand and seemed to be cheering their victory. The crossbowmen stood bunched around Gallowglas, eyes fixed on the cavern’s entrance.

  ‘Greetings, Ghillie Dhu!’ The white-clad woman spoke now with her mouth, and it sounded like the voice of an angel to Thomas. Perhaps she was an angel?

  Thomas looked at the small creature. ‘Ghillie, you know who this is?’

  The Gruagach raised his bushy eyebrows. ‘Of course, Ghillie know Lady of the Ard Tiarnai when he see one!’