A Hero's throne

And then he was gone, and Daniel was still left, writhing in almost unendurable agony.

III

Fergus had made a friend.

Actually, he had made many friends, Kieran had noticed, but he and Rory were always at each other’s side. It was as if they were tied together. Even when they were running around the weird, underground city, they were never more than a few feet apart from the other one. They scrabbled around in the rubble, pointing out interesting carvings to each other, or sifted through bent weapons and tools for things that might still be usable.

Kieran tried to keep them in view at all times-he was feeling the pressure of his brotherly responsibility acutely in this foreign place. The woman who had spoken to them all just a little while ago as they assembled in the tower’s courtyard had assured them that this place was safe for now, and that everything was going to be done to get them back to where they came from, but that it would be best to stay in or around the tower for the time being.

Which some of them did, but others found it too crowded, or the city outside the walls of the tower too intriguing. The knights intrigued them, with their strange ways and language, and many of the children took to following them as they traipsed in and out of the Langtorr, or set up camp, or sharpened their weapons, or disposed of those strange little dead creatures. None of the knights spoke English, but that didn’t seem to perturb the children. Fergus and Rory were clearly caught up in the adventure of it all, and tore around in banged up helmets, brandishing bent swords at each other. Kieran had told them twice to be careful and to stop what they were doing, but all he got back were reproachful looks, and then the sight of heels as they took off to escape him.

He was looking for them now, with a silver lantern that he had taken from the city. They loved running along the top of the thick walls next to that eerie throne on top of the pile of stone. He couldn’t see them now, but he thought they might be hiding from him. He needed to tell them that it was time to eat. But he couldn’t find them. They must’ve headed back in. .

The interior of the building was a series of round passages, all spreading from a central, circular room. Kieran couldn’t find any trace of them there, but in the central chamber, there was a tunnel that had been closed by two large, stone doorways, now broken and set aside.

It would be just like them to go exploring, Kieran thought, and started down the tunnel.

It was long and dark and he would have stopped almost immediately, except that he could see footprints in the patches of dust and grit on the ground.

He walked for about fifteen minutes. Many times he nearly turned around and went back, but he kept thinking that if Fergus and Rory really were down here, then they had to be found. And he would give them a good old proper telling-off when he did so.

But the sounds that soon met his ears-clanking, grunting, barking-came from the other end.

The tunnel opened into a massive area, as big as the plain above, except that there were huge rocky spires the size of cathedrals hanging down from the ceiling. At first he marvelled at them, and then he wondered how he could see them. They were being lit from below, but how? And where was that noise coming from?

He was on a sort of ledge. Creeping forward, he made his way to a rickety wooden frame that something was chained to-a boat? Why would anyone need a boat down here? There’s no water.

There were bonfires. Hundreds of them. It was another encampment below the city. He saw monsters; great, big, lumbering, rock-like things, muscled men with the faces of different animals, things the size of rhinoceroses but with hairy, shaggy bodies and faces, and yfelgopes running to and fro between them, alternately feeding and abusing them. It was like a mythological menagerie, and some steel spikes that had been sunk into the ground kept all the creatures in. Around the edges, and on the other side, he saw tents and buildings-a more ordered settlement. Did they know about this?

Did the woman, Freya, know that there was what seemed to be a vicious army right beneath her feet?

If she didn’t, then he had to warn them.

He turned to go but was stopped. There was a flutter of hands around his face, and the whole underground world went dark.

EPILOGUE

A Tale of a Western Isle Continued

I heard another version of the tale that ends in this way:

When Coel had finished reading the Gospels and then finished his prayer, he opened his eyes and saw the boy was still sitting before him.

“I have marked all that you have read,” the boy said. “Tell me, is there any hope of forgiveness in those words for my people?”

“I am sorry to say that there is not.”

“You just now read that ‘there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents, than on a multitude who do not need to repent.’”

“Sooner would my walking stick here sprout branches and leaves than God would forgive you,” Coel said and walked back to the beach where he made fire, ate, and slept.

The next morning he woke up and remembered that he had left his walking stick near the forest. He went back to retrieve it and found that it had, indeed, sprouted branches and leaves. It had, in fact, become a deeply rooted tree. At first he could not believe it, but he recognised the area around it, and he saw markings on the trunk of the tree that were only known by him from his stick.

The boy was sitting below the tree.

Coel recognised this as a true miracle and began praying for the boy’s salvation and instructing him in the true path. And the boy added this knowledge to the knowledge that he’d gained from the hidden people, and he grew as great in knowledge as he did in power. And though he was born all those years ago, his days have not yet run out.