The Stone of Destiny

by Jim Ware

  Sources of bitter fighting were the three daughters of Ernmas.”

  “Now she rules the Sidhe,” said Sengann. “All of it but the fortress of Baile Daoine Sidhe, where the last of the faithful Danaans are holding out against her.”

  “And what about you people?” said Eny.

  Rury smiled sadly. “It’s small account she makes of the Fir Bolg, though laying us under heavy tribute and taxing all our produce: wool, crops, orchards, fisheries. Sorry I am to say that some of our folk serve her willingly. Our little band opposes her as best we may, if not by fighting, then by fooling. When all else fails, it’s running and hiding we do best.”

  “But what does she want?”

  “The Stone, of course. Lia Fail. For it is said that the one possessing it is destined to rule. None may be king or queen without it. By its virtue she is hoping to reunite the Sidhe and the Overworld. Her desire is to be mistress over all! Every inch of her power she is putting forth in search of it.”

  “And yet she is seeking one other thing as well,” said Anust, pressing Eny’s hand and looking intently into her eyes. “A prophecy there is among the Danaans, and it is what it says: that only a maiden of perfect purity, a maiden of chaste heart and seeing eyes, may ever hope to—”

  At that moment another shadow darkened the door of the hut. In came the aged couple, Genann and Crucha, with another Fir Bolg between them, a man Eny hadn’t seen before. He was ancient, stooping, and white-bearded, dressed in a sheepskin vest and leaning on a gnarled and knotty staff. His bright blue eyes shone like tiny stars amid the wrinkles of his brown face.

  “Semeon!” cried Rury, scrambling to his feet and taking the newcomer by the hand. “Come and see, brother! Our girl is up and awake! Come and see for yourself!”

  With that, the old man tottered forward and stood leaning on his staff directly in front of Eny’s makeshift couch. Then he bent forward and peered into her eyes. For a long time he studied her face intently, never speaking, never blinking, never moving a muscle. At last he closed his eyes, sighed deeply, dropped his staff, and raised his open palms above his head in a gesture expressive of gratitude and relief.

  “Is it not what I was telling you?” said Rury, hurrying to his brother’s side. “Is it not what I said when first we brought her to Luimneach?”

  Semeon, without taking his eyes off Eny’s face, made a slight beckoning motion with the fingers of his right hand. In answer, Liber brought a fleece and a couple of frayed cushions and assisted him to a comfortable sitting position on the floor. Once settled, he drew a long-stemmed clay pipe from his vest and lit it from a smoldering straw that Rury brought him from the oven. Then, puffing slowly on the pipe and releasing a circle of pure white smoke into the dark recesses of the hut’s conical roof, he bent toward Eny with his elbows planted firmly on his knees.

  “Now it’s my turn to be at the telling of a tale,” he said.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Tale of Eithne

  “In the time long ago,” Semeon began, “when Eremon, first king of the Milesians, ruled over Eire, and the Tuatha De Danann were gone into exile under the ground, having secreted Lia Fail out of the land, Manannan mac Lir had a daughter named Fedelm, she being given in fosterage to the Danaan prince Angus Og. Now the handmaid of Fedelm, daughter to Angus’s steward, was the fairest girl in all the Sidhe, though but a simple servant. One eye of her eyes was as brown as the heifer’s, the other as blue as a summer sea, for she was gifted with the double sight, perceiving the world above and the world below. And the name of the handmaid was Eithne.

  “This Eithne, for her beauty, was courted by a chieftain of the De Danann, Finbarr by name, but she refused his suit. Then it was by force he would have possessed her. At that rose up the spirit of Eithne like a flame of fire. A keenness for purity and virtue not natural to fairy folk, but pertaining hitherto only to the souls of mortal women and men, awoke within her heart. In the heat of that flame and by its power she rebuffed this Finbarr, and turning away from the life of that world, she began earnestly to desire the life of another. From that time out she sustained herself no more upon the magical food of the people of the Sidhe, but was nourished instead by the will of God—that, and the milk of two cows brought by Angus from the righteous land in the east.

  “Now the Danaan folk, having possessed Lia Fail time out of mind, it being the very Stone of Bethel itself, age not nor die like the sons and daughters of men. In youth they grow from childhood to maturity, but afterwards abide unchanged by the lapse of time. So it was that when fifteen hundred years had passed in the Overland, Laoghaire then ruling in Eremon’s place, Eithne went forth from the Sidhe one time to bathe with Fedelm in the River Boyne. For you must be knowing that there are many doors between your world and ours, one of them being the great mound of Brugh na Boyne.

  “And when the maidens, having risen from the waters of the river, were arraying themselves on the shore, then it was that Eithne missed her feth fiada, the Invisible Cloak of the Danaans that hides them from mortal eyes and lets them pass freely between the land above and the land below. And as she went along the bank in search of this treasure, Fedelm following, she came to a well, and thirteen men sitting around it in robes of purest white with open books before them on their knees.

  “‘Who are you?’ said Eithne in great wonder; for the sight of her eyes told her that these men, being mortal, were yet more than mortal men. ‘Is it gods you are, or fairy folk, or men from the hills of the Sidhe?’

  “‘I am Patrick,’ said the one, standing in the midst of the twelve, ‘and it would be better for you to believe in God than to be asking who we ourselves are.’

  “‘What God is it you speak of?’ asked Eithne then. ‘Whose son is he, and where does he live? Is he young or old? Rich or poor? Strong or weak? Is he one of the ever-living ones? Does he have sons and daughters? May we know his name?’

  “Then Patrick took those two maidens by the hand and began to school them in the true faith, urging them with many words to join their lives to the life of the King of Glory. And when he was finished, a great desire came upon Eithne, and she said, ‘It is my one wish that I might see Christ, my true husband and the lover of my soul.’

  “‘That may not be,’ answered Patrick, ‘except, like Him, you lay aside immortality and embrace weakness, humility, and death.’

  “At that word Eithne, being only a servant, but burning still with a passion for holiness and love, rejoiced in heart. But Fedelm, daughter of Manannan mac Lir, the mighty Danaan chief, cast her feth fiada about her shoulders and disappeared into the Sidhe. So then, Fedelm being gone, Patrick took some of the water of the well and received Eithne into the church of Christ and the race of mortals with the rite of baptism. And when in later years she slept in death, brought low by a dreadful sickness, the men of Patrick laid her in a bed and covered her over with lilies and white linen, keening her there.

  “But it is told among the people of the Sidhe that the death of Eithne was in this manner: that as she sat one time at prayer in a walled garden beside the Boyne, she heard a sound of many voices rushing through the air, lamenting and wailing and calling her by name, as if from a great distance. And she rose up to answer, knowing them for the voices of her kindred, the Danaans, and that they were longing for her and seeking her in vain. For Eithne was well beloved in the Sidhe. Moreover, since her departing, a rumor had gone abroad in the land underground that only a maiden of perfect chastity, such as she was, might bring Lia Fail back to Faery and restore its powers to the Tuatha De Danann, though wiser heads said that the Stone does not return, but must pass on and come at last to the place of its final destiny beyond all worlds. However that may be, Eithne, hearing those voices, was overcome with a desperate yearning and fell down faint and swooning; so that within a few days she lay dead on the breast of Saint Patrick. Yet it is said that she, or one like her,
will come to us again in the fullness of time.”

  The old man’s voice fell silent. Eny sat before him with the eyes of all the Fir Bolg fixed upon her, feeling as if she’d been caught in a crowd without any clothes on. A hot blush crept up her neck. Her cheeks and forehead burned. She wanted to pull the sheepskins up over her head, to hide beneath the bed of rags, to find the lost feth fiada and disappear. Except for the boom and sizzle of the waves on the beach outside the door there was not a sound to be heard in the little hut. The air was as still, as tense, and as pregnant with anticipation as the atmosphere before a thunderstorm. At last the voice of Rury broke the spell.

  “And now that our tales are told,” he gently urged, “it comes into my mind that, after sharing so many perils and adventures, it is still yourself we are not surely knowing. I was at the point of asking when the giants burst forth upon us from the wood, but from that time out I never had the chance. Not a man or woman sits or stands before you now but such as you may truly call a friend, and that to the bitter death. So then, my girl, will you not tell us: What is your name?”

  Eny swallowed hard. “It’s Eny,” she said in a small, quavering voice. “Eny Ariello. That’s sort of American—at least my mom always told me so—for Eithne.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Maelstrom

  Another long pause followed. Then Eny cried, “I was right! I told Morgan we couldn’t trust that woman! This is all her doing!”

  Crucha gripped her by both arms and looked up intently into her face. “What woman, child? Who is it you are speaking of?”

  “Madame Medea, she called herself! She wants that Stone, and she wants me! I’ll bet anything she was that old woman at the Cave of the Hands. She sent the crow and made the music! She put the vision of the green island in my head! She was there at the ford, too, when the giants were chasing us. I saw her eyes!”

  Semeon took a long and thoughtful pull at his pipe. He closed his eyes and blew out another lazily expanding circle of smoke. “If it was a crow you saw, then be sure the Morrigu was near at hand. The bird is her talisman and pet. And it is what I myself am thinking, that she and your Madame Medea are entirely one and the same. She it is drew you here, Eny, the better to lay her hands on you. It is her belief that you are the maid of perfect chastity. If that is true, then the Stone is useless to her without you.”

  Sengann spit and muttered a curse. “The Morrigu’s tower is no place for a slip of a girl like you. Its dungeons are filled with Overlanders taken captive in her quest for Lia Fail, and they in the custody of Balor, the one-eyed Fomorian king. It is not kindly he treats them.”

  “Sengann tells true,” said Rury, casting his eyes grimly around the circle. “So now, whether we live or die, it is clear what course we must take. We dare not let the enchantress find the girl.”

  It was agreed that Eny and the Fir Bolg from Rury’s dun should stay in Luimneach with Semeon’s folk until it became too dangerous to remain. Semeon sent scouts to Baile Daoine Sidhe, the Danaan stronghold, to consult with the De Danann and keep an eye on the pass of Beinn Meallain. Meanwhile, watch posts were established throughout the foothills, at the crossings of Inber Domnan and Inber Colpa, and all along the south coast of Mag Adair as far as Taman. Every sentry was instructed to send word to the little village on the seashore at the first sign of approaching Fomorians.

  “It is among the Tuatha De Danann you rightly belong,” said Semeon to Eny, “and to them you must go in time. But not today. Sure the Morrigu will be seeking you there, her henchmen having seen Rury’s band going that way. But about Luimneach and the poor Fir Bolg she will not trouble her head at present.”

  “Luimneach,” repeated Eny, letting the melodious name roll off the tip of her tongue. “That’s beautiful. What does it mean?”

  “Low-lying,” Semeon answered. “For the dun sits in the very mouth of the sea itself.”

  “And what about your village, Rury?” Eny wanted to know. “What’s it called?”

  Rury glanced at Sengann and frowned. “Eba Eochaid,” he said. “After Eochy, the brother of us both. But of him we do not speak.”

  So Eny lived among the Fir Bolg, observing their ways and learning their crafts and trades. She went fishing on the ocean with Semeon’s sons, Gann and Erc, in the currachs they made from the leather bags at their belts. Soon she gained enough facility in handling these unruly little boats to be able to explore the bays and inlets on her own. Gann and Erc praised her skill and marveled at her quickness. But they solemnly warned her to stay close to the shore, lest she fall into what they called the Morslogh, a great maelstrom or whirlpool that spun its dark waters in a powerful spiral round a bottomless black hole not far off the Point of Taman.

  When she wasn’t on the water, she helped Rury and Crimthann cut birch poles and thatch sleeping shelters and baking huts for the newcomers. Liber taught her to spin and weave. Crucha showed her how to grind grain in a hand mill and bake round loaves of sweet brown bread. Rindail, the village shepherd, took her into the foothills to watch the flocks and shear the sheep. Etar, Semeon’s niece, introduced her to the secrets of the potter’s wheel. Sengann and Slanga instructed her in the finer points of gathering mushrooms and blueberries and hunting with spear and bow.

  But Eny didn’t simply learn from the Fir Bolg. She taught them things as well. They had no fiddles, but a few of them were good at piping on simple six-holed whistles and fifes. Once she got the trick of coaxing music out of these primitive wooden instruments—which she did very quickly—she played them every tune she knew, including “The Silver Spire,” “The Lark in the Morning,” and “The May Morning Dew.” She told them stories, too. But the most important thing Eny taught the Fir Bolg was the art of slinging stones.

  “You don’t need to be afraid of the giants,” she told them. “You’ve got everything you need to fight them right here: plenty of leather and lots of pebbles on the shore. Here, let me show you. Just tie two good thongs to a round patch of leather like this. Then find yourself a smooth stone and put it in the sling—like so. Now swing it around your head really fast—see? Then aim and let go! Wham! Much better than those dinky little spears.”

  They had to agree. What’s more, they concluded that the sling was just what they needed to fend off an impending Fomorian attack. So they took up Eny’s challenge with enthusiasm and proved to be talented pupils. In a very short time the Fir Bolg had all become expert slingers and marksmen.

  Yet even with so much to keep her occupied, Eny could never completely escape the heartache of her homesickness. Though she loved the Fir Bolg, her longing for Santa Piedra grew deeper with every passing day. Anust seemed to know when her suffering was at its worst, and at such times she would take her by the hand and lead her on long evening walks down the pebble-strewn beach. Around the curve of the little bay they would go, to an upward sloping meadow that rose in soft green terraces from the level of the jeweled beach to the pine-clad heights at the foot of Beinn Meallain. There they would lie on their backs among fragrant grasses and tall-stemmed flowers, gazing up at creamy clouds in a burning blue sky where rainbow-colored birds flew in bright lines and wedges athwart the red setting sun. After that they would stroll through shadowy orchards of yellow-branched and ruby-fruited trees, up the grass-clothed, sheep-dotted hills to a spot where they could turn and look out across the glittering beach and glassy green sea to the distant purple horizon.

  In moments like these, Eny came close to forgetting her father, her mother, Morgan, and St. Halistan’s Church. Close, but not too close. For stunning though they were, the wonders of the Sidhe never failed to remind her of Laguna Verde and the softly folded hills above Santa Piedra. Often, returning from a walk with Anust, she would say to Rury, “It is beautiful here, but I want to go home!”

  “And so you should,” Rury would reply. “It’s there you will go if the Fir Bolg have anythi
ng to say about it. But what time you do, remember that Rury of the Road has put you under geis—a vow and a bond—to do all in your power to keep yourself and Lia Fail out of the hands of the Morrigu. And if ever again you should find the door between this world and your own, I charge you to come back and help the poor Fir Bolg win their freedom!”

  And Eny promised that she would.

  At last there came a day when she found herself paddling out beyond the breakers to go fishing with Rury, Gann, and Erc. The sea was calm, the morning bright. The sun flashed like fire on the peaks of the wavelets and the tips of the polished oars as they rowed their currachs into the salmon-rich waters between the mainland and the isle of Rachra.

  “Remember now what it is we told you,” called Erc as he tossed a corner of a great hempen net into the bottom of her boat. “Let you and Rury stretch the net and hold your place with the oars. Gann and I are to drop our end in the sea and trawl shoreward. When the net is full spread, it’s then we will pull it up on our side, the two of you to follow after. It’s a rich haul we should make, the seas being thick with scales and fins this time of the year.”

  “Myself, I like a line and a hook,” shouted Rury with an exaggerated wink at Eny. “Still, it is a good plan, and it may work.”

  Erc scowled. “It is no plan,” he answered, weighting his corner of the net with a large stone and lowering it into the water by a long rope. “It is the way we fish in Luimneach.” He bent and tied the rope to the frame of the currach. Then he and his brother turned and rowed off in the direction of the land.

  Eny watched them go, absentmindedly treading water while Rury, with another wink and a wave, paddled away to a spot about ten yards to her left. Above, below, and all around her stretched the endless soothing blue of sea and sky. The midmorning sun was hot on her hair, the smell of salt pungent in her nostrils. She leaned on her oars and sighed a sigh of deep content.