Sean nodded, but he was beginning to feel overwhelmed with the enormity of what he was undertaking. He just kept in mind what Barney had said, and found that concentrating on the long list of things to do and not to do was a convenient way to ignore his fear.
“Now, along the way you may see sights of wonder and beauty, but never, never leave the path, save at your guide’s bidding. There’ll be a house of light and music, and one whose cornerposts are mighty trees, larger than redwoods. You’ll be tempted to enter, but do not. You may not return.” Barney turned his head away as if seeking to see something in the night, and his red-rimmed eyes ran with tears. “There are so many stories, lad, and I can’t recall but a tenth part of them. Ah, where have my wits fled? I can’t remember.” With emphasis he said, “Sean, whatever else, remember this one thing. Don’t leave the path, save when you’re bid to by whatever guide God sends you.”
They approached the backside of the hill, and Barney led Sean up the side, shining the light on the wet ground. He reached down and plucked up a handful of grass.
“What are you doing?” asked Sean.
“Making it possible for you to see what is real,” answered Barney, holding out his hand for Sean to see. “Shamrocks.”
“That’s clover,” said Sean.
“And what do you think a shamrock is, Sean Hastings? A bloody California cactus?” He unscrewed the cap of the jar of holy water. He crushed the shamrocks in the lid, holding the open jar under his coat. Adding some holy water, he used his thumb to mix the mess together. “I don’t think any of God’s clean rain will dilute this too much,” he whispered, a half prayer. He motioned Sean close and dipped his thumb in the greenish mess. “Close your eyes,” he instructed. He rubbed his damp thumb lightly over Sean’s eyelids. “Use your hand to cover your eyes, so the rain doesn’t wash the stain off.”
Sean did as he was told. Quickly Barney intoned, “Blessed St. Patrick, watch over this boy and let his eyes see what is true and what is not. Amen.” He said to Sean, “Without the juice of the shamrock mixed with holy water, you’d not be able to resist their guiles. The fairy stone will keep their hands off your person, lad, and this will keep your mind free of their glamours and spells, but only so long as you don’t wash it off. Remember, there is much that is beautiful but false in the land of the Good People. Be cautious.” He emptied out the lid and, still protecting the holy water, used the falling rain to cleanse the lid of stains. When he was satisfied he had purged the lid of foreign matter, he screwed the cap back on the jar.
He handed the jar to Sean and led him toward the Troll Bridge. “When you reach the end of your journey, you’ll meet the Fool.” Barney stopped before the burned-out oak stump under which Jack had found the gold. Barney knelt, ignoring the mud, and gripped Sean’s shoulders. “Listen close if you would have any hope for your brother or yourself. They call him the Fool, for in the old tongue that is his name, but you can’t be thinking him a silly or clownish fellow. In the old language ‘fool’ means one who is unmindful of risk: a wanton, reckless sort of a rogue with no mind for danger, one who will dare things no sane man would. And this Fool is dangerous beyond contemplation. Do you understand what I’m saying to you, Sean Hastings?”
Sean nodded, but it was evident much of what Barney was saying was confusing him. At last Barney said, “Well then, just be mindful he’s as dangerous as anyone this side of the devil can be, and you’ll have the right of it. Now here’s what you must do, lad. You must call him by his true name. Amadán-na-Briona. Say that name.” Sean repeated the name, and Barney said, “No, that will never do.” He drilled Sean a dozen times until he was satisfied with the boy’s pronunciation.
Barney glanced toward the hill, a black shadow rising against a broken gloom of trees. “When you say his true name, you’ll have power over him. Not much, but enough. Command him by our blessed Lord Jesus to give back your brother to you and let you go free. You must instruct him, and his followers, to let you go unmolested. He must do this thing. But be cautious of how you say it, lad, for you may only command him once.” Barney told Sean exactly what to say, then his face clouded. “I wish we knew what sort of beastie this Bad Thing of yours may be, but we don’t, so there’s no use dwelling on it. If he comes, he comes. The fairy stone will keep him leery of you, but you must protect Patrick. Use your dagger and perhaps some holy water. These creatures were those who stood aside when Satan led his host in rebellion against our Heavenly Father. Not so righteous they could remain in God’s heaven but not so evil they deserved hell with the devil, they were placed in this land between. Still, they are given to avoiding things holy, so use the water if you must, but save some. This is most important.” Barney gripped the boy’s shoulders tightly, as if to impress upon him what he was saying. “Once you’ve found your brother, you must pour some of the holy water on his head and make the sign of the cross upon his forehead and say, ‘In the name of our Lord, you are free.’ Repeat it.” Sean did so and got it right.
“Do not overlook this in the excitement of the moment. For until you do this thing, Patrick’ll be the servant of the Fool, and he may fight to stay. Then you must leave quickly, for should there be any way the Fool can devise to follow after you, any way he can get around your order to let you go free, he will. And should he follow you outside the hill, he may take you again. And that would be for once and for all. No one outside can best him, save a true bard or some other manner of sorcerer, and neither you nor I’ve the knack of magic. So bid him stay behind when he frees your brother, for after midnight he must leave. Now, the last: Do not stop to rest, even should your guide permit it. Time is not there as ’tis here. Stop to nap and you’ll awaken years from now, no older but for a night, but hopelessly lost to return, and too faraway for finding. So keep awake and keep moving.”
Tears filled Barney’s eyes and he said, “Ah, ’tis a perilous path you’ve chosen, Sean. Keep moving, remember what I’ve told you, and trust no one save True Tom if you should chance to meet him. When you’ve returned, come out the cave, and move deasil—clockwise—round the hill nine times and you’ll be back. You must be gone from the hill by midnight, or who knows where you’ll come out.” His voice softened, and he hugged the boy tightly. “If I were a man instead of a drunken old sod I would be doing this brave thing instead of standing fearfully aside while a boy goes to do it. You’re a fine and courageous lad, Sean O’Brien Hastings, even if you’re only half Irish. Go now and be quickly back, and may blessed St. Patrick and the Holy Mother protect you.”
With the sign of the cross, and a shove, he sent Sean off. The boy spun and faced the hill. He moved off to the right, making a complete circle of the hill. After the eighth pass, he disappeared from Barney’s sight. The old handyman continued to kneel in the mud, and he took out the rosary beads and shouted into the night. “I’ll pray for you, Sean Hastings. I’ll pray to St. Jude, who watches over impossible undertakings, and Our Lady, and St. Patrick … and even to that Englishman, St. George, so he might guide your dagger should there be need.” His voice softened, and he added, “And I’ll not leave until the twelfth stroke of midnight, you dear brave lad.” Ignoring the rain that beat down upon him, and the mud in which he knelt, Barney Doyle prayed. And he prayed with a fervency he hadn’t felt since a boy.
26
Sean moved away from Barney, shielding his eyes against the heavy rain. He was conscious of everything around him, the tattoo of the rain in the trees and the odd echoes that sound made around him. There was a pungent and wet piny odor in the air, a damp wood smell so intense it made Sean heady as he breathed it in. He felt and heard the plopping of sticky mud reluctant to let go of his rubber rain boots. Gabbie’s blouse stuck to his body, and he felt the chill caress of the wind. He pushed these concerns from his mind and tried to recall everything Barney had told him as he moved around the hill, passing from Barney’s sight.
On his third pass, the rain halted, and he lowered his hand from where it had shaded the
grass stains around his eyes. He saw that Barney looked odd, as if they were separated by some strange sheet of amber glass.
On his fourth, it got warmer.
On his sixth, there seemed to be more light.
On his seventh trip, the hill was definitely brighter, while the surrounding woods were plunged into jet blackness, so that he could no longer see the kneeling Barney. The wind was a distant whisper and the odor of pine and wet earth a faint memory.
On his eighth pass, the hill was an island in space, with no hint of surrounding countryside. No light or sound existed beyond the hill.
On his ninth pass about the hill, he came to a cave mouth. Through it he could see light a great distance off.
Sean paused, took a deep breath, and entered the hill.
27
Sean stepped into the cave in the side of Erl King Hill. Cautiously at first, he crept down a long tunnel, feeling his way in the blackness. Suddenly he fell forward, as if stepping into a huge hole. For an instant he screamed in terror as his stomach twisted. Then abruptly he was standing on firm ground. He cried out again as he experienced the jolting change in orientation. It was as if the world had swung up ninety degrees; he was falling, then suddenly standing upright as gravity caught up with him.
Sean knew he was someplace else.
He could see nothing save a faint illumination at the far end of the tunnel. Forcing himself to stop crying, he felt around in the gloom until he recovered his dagger. He checked the holy water and was relieved to find the jar still safely in his shirt. Sean took a deep breath, then told himself, “Shut up, crybaby.” Feeling better for that admonition, he resumed his travels.
He walked for what seemed a long time through the darkened tunnel, surrounded by the rich, musty odors of damp earth. After a subjective eternity, he saw the distant golden light begin to grow larger. He made his way to it and emerged from a cave in a hillside.
Sean exhaled as his eyes drank in the alien landscape before him. Trees too perfect to exist on earth swayed in a gentle breeze under a sky halfway between blue and black. It was daylight, but eerily so, as if the light came from all directions rather than any single source, and at a quarter normal illumination. It was a hazy beach day without the glare. And there was something golden in the light, a shade of champagne color that gently skewed the eye’s perception. Everything within Sean’s view looked dark, yet he could perceive detail.
The boy shuddered a moment and fought off his first real attack of panic. This was like nothing he had expected. He had thought of some sort of Walt Disney place, painted in bright colors of intense hue. Instead he looked out across a land of halftones, of golden hazes and soft smokes, every color cut and muted as if he looked through grey lenses. It was a place of fog, yet that fog was unseen. Light came gently, as if the rules for light were different here. No sunlight, Sean thought; ever.
A path, or rather a road, ran from under his feet off into the distance. It was fashioned of stone, light, almost white in color. He stood unable to move. He looked off into the distance and saw some people issuing from the darker places between trees near the edge of the meadow. He hadn’t seen them a moment before. They moved toward him, as if in frolic, pointing at him and speaking in an unknown language. Sean’s eyes nearly boggled as they came close enough for him to see detail. They wore all manner of clothing, from being almost entirely naked to being covered from head to foot in richly embroidered period clothing of fine weave and complex fashion. But all of them had green skin. The wind carried the faint sounds of laughter, and Sean shivered. It was not the mad laugh of the Fool, but there was nothing human in its sound either.
Sean swallowed a giddy fear and reached up to touch the stain on his right eyelid. He felt the gunk still there, so if what Barney had said was true, there were green people running toward him. He swallowed the urge to cry and spoke the words Barney had forced him to remember. “By the blessed St. Patrick, Our Lady, and in the name of our Lord, guide my way.” His voice was high-pitched, strained by fear, but somehow he managed to say the words loudly.
Instantly a humming sound filled the air, and the green people halted their movement toward him. From the far end of the path an object appeared, speeding along toward him. A miniature sun hurled toward Sean, but as it neared he saw it was only bright in comparison to the muted landscape in which he found himself. It was a globe of golden light, spinning rapidly, so that no feature or detail of its surface was apparent. The green people spoke softly among themselves, gesturing to the boy and the golden sphere. It raced toward him with a low hum, until at last it hovered before the boy. Sean said, “Are you my guide?”
The globe bobbed, as if affirming its nature, and Sean said, “Help me. I want to find my brother, Patrick. The Fool’s got him.”
The globe seemed to spin erratically for a moment, as if struck by fear, but after an instant of odd movement it circled around Sean and began moving down the road. Sean sucked in a deep breath, realized he had tears on his cheeks, and wiped them away. With a show of resolution he didn’t feel, he marched after the slowly moving globe, determined to follow it to quest’s end. The green people were silent as the boy moved past them. They seemed undisturbed by what they had witnessed, but they had lost their gay demeanor at the mention of the Fool’s name, and they stepped out of Sean’s way, letting him follow his guide unhindered.
28
There seemed no time. Barney had mentioned something about this, but Sean couldn’t recall what he’d said. Sean felt the faint stirrings of hunger and wished he had brought something to eat, maybe a peanut butter sandwich. But he couldn’t be expected to think of everything. He clutched his dagger of silver in his right hand and followed after the golden ball of light. He had tried talking to the light, but it had remained mute. The landscape through which they moved was an eerie delight to the senses, woodlands of dark and alien beauty. Streams of crystal water flowed nearby, and Sean wondered if the water was safe to drink. Barney hadn’t said anything, but Sean thought it best to wait until he absolutely had to have a drink.
The ball moved in an odd rhythm, swaying from side to side above the road, almost as if dancing or skipping. Sean plodded silently along the center of the off-white stones.
After some long and uncounted time, Sean saw a castle in the distance. He thought it took the longest time to reach it, for it was very large and grew slowly as he marched along. Rounding a curve in the road, Sean saw a man sitting near the roadside. He was perched upon a large rock that sat at an intersection of the white road and a smaller path that led to the drawbridge of the castle.
The boy squinted to get a better view of the castle in the haze, and for all his efforts, he could only tell it was an immense place, with walls that seemed more like glass than stone. Upon the distant towers brave pennants flew in the odd breeze and people moved, though Sean couldn’t tell if they were really people. The light in this place made anything distant look funny. The castle rose up above a beach, upon the shore of a large lake or bay. Sean wondered how he could not see such a large body of water until now. He glanced off to the other side of the castle and saw the shore quickly enshrouded in mists, which faded to silver and gold light. A tremble passed through Sean as he tried to understand what he was seeing. To him it seemed like a TV picture where the screen changed from one image to another, but somehow got stuck in the middle of the dissolve. Putting aside his disquiet, the boy keep moving along the road, bringing him to where the man sat.
Sean slowed to study the man as he passed him. The man’s dark hair hung to his shoulders and his beard was thick and unkempt. He wore a shirt of iron rings sewn to leather, with a simple pair of woolen trousers tucked into boots of soft leather, sheepskin surrounding the top. Sean thought he looked sort of like a Viking, but he had no helm with horns. Sean approached cautiously to the edge of the road, bringing him to within twenty feet of the silent warrior, but the man showed no sign of being aware of the boy’s presence. He seemed in a trance, or s
o deep in thought he was oblivious to anything else. Along his scalp ran a deep scar, pink and puckered, with only a short growth of hair around it, looking only recently healed. Sean noted he held an empty scabbard across his knees. The boy slowed his progress even more, so he could watch as four women accompanied by a cortege of servants emerged from the barbican of the castle and crossed the bridge. Each seemed human, if not without an otherworldly quality to their beauty. One was dressed in regal raiments of crimson and gold, while the second was equally splendid and commanding in a gown of deep green. The third wore white and silver, while the fourth was dressed in black. As they approached, Sean halted, unable to take his eyes from the wondrous procession. The woman in black was the only one who seemed to notice Sean, but she merely looked at him a brief moment, a sad and resigned expression in her blue eyes, as she gifted him with a hint of a smile, then turned to face the man upon the rock. She spoke so softly that Sean could not hear her words, and the man seemed to come out of some trance.
The four women waited while the warrior slowly stood. He paused a moment as he caught sight of Sean, then spoke. His words were in a language unknown to the boy, and faint, as if some agency were preventing Sean from clearly hearing what was said, and his manner was hesitant and uncertain. The woman in black spoke, casting a brief glance at the boy. The man nodded and offered his arm to the woman. She took it and the pair turned toward the castle, the other three women following, their servants bringing up the rear.