Chapter Sixty-Seven
Nicole
SCáTHACH’S TEMPLE WAS HIDDEN IN A SEA STACK: A TOWER of rock that had once been attached to the Isle of Skye by a land bridge. Now, it stood by itself.
It had taken them five hours to drive from Edinburgh to the Isle of Skye, having opted to take the family car instead of risking renting one.
Kyan had filled Nicole and Remi in on what he could remember of the place and details of the Fomóiri and Túatha Dé.
But when the island rose ahead, severe and wild as a felled blade of the gods spearing out of the ocean, Nicole hadn’t been prepared for the sight.
Now, the sea stack jutted up ahead of them, almost blotting out the sun.
‘There’s a temple in here?’ Remi shouted as they made their way over the slick boulders that led to the structure. Water foamed and soaked Nicole’s trainers and the ankles of her jeans. The sea crashed around them and she gulped down the strong, fresh marine scent.
Any temple inside must be thousands of years old.
‘How is it still here?’ Nicole asked against the spray of the sea.
‘Scáthach had it warded,’ Kyan said over his shoulder, some words snatched by the wind as cold speckles of water sprinkled onto her cheeks. ‘No doubt with the help of whoever secured her fortress. This will stay here no matter what natural disaster strikes.’
Nicole’s head tipped back to take in the searing rise of the structure, dark and shadowing.
As they got closer, Kyan strode across the water and didn’t sink into it. Evidently there was some unseen path. Nicole glanced at Remi who smiled slightly, intrigued, and she took her hand as they cautiously followed Kyan.
Sure enough, a hidden path lay inches beneath the rushing waves, and in a few steps, they were in the great cooled shadow of the temple.
Once Kyan reached the dark stone, he ran his hand over it.
Swirling patterns glowed gold beneath his touch, as if aware of the presence of the Empyrean inside him.
A great cracking sounded, and Nicole grabbed onto Remi. But the structure wasn’t crumbling, it was opening.
She watched in awe as the swirling patterns on the rock gave way to a door and the darkness within. Warily, Nicole and Remi followed Kyan inside.
‘What type of temple is this?’ Remi breathed, as the ancient air rushed out around them, buffeting their hair and clothes.
Nicole took in the glistening walls and inscribed images that winked like silver and gold.
‘It’s an Empyreal temple to the Old Gods,’ Kyan said, unhooking a great rusted brazier from the wall and pulling out a lighter from the back of his dark jeans. He set the torch aflame, as anticipation flared in Nicole’s stomach.
Supernatural religion was obscurely documented, even in their society. Perhaps due to the fact the Wake – as invading gods – had wanted to keep the knowledge of others secret.
Finding an ancient temple, whole and unscathed … it was a discovery that could rewrite supernatural history.
Ahead, the small corridor of rock led into a circular chamber.
Kyan stepped to the right, allowing Nicole to see the altar. It was nothing but a small dolmen and a circular, spiral pattern inscribed into the floor in a subtle groove. There was no stone figure to worship, only the inscriptions on the walls.
Celtic artwork didn’t often depict human figures, and if it did, they were more stylised, like the oval M?ecké ?ehrovice Head found near Prague, or the figures that marched across the silver planes of the Gundestrup Cauldron. These depictions, however … she’d never seen their like before.
Some beings were more ethereal and taller than the others, perhaps representing the Old Gods.
On the left was a great battle, meteorites raining down above it, studded with gleaming stones that looked like pyrite.
Another inscription showed a figure with long hair floating in a triskelion pattern around her head, something flying above her. A crow? Nicole reached out to another figure and in her chest was an embedded piece of gold that flickered in Kyan’s torchlight.
‘It’s the story of the first Empyreal,’ Nicole breathed.
‘Hey, look at this,’ Remi said, one of her still-healing fingers tracing the depictions.
‘A woman with a harp. She’s splitting it up into pieces: removing the three strings and the bridge.
Then, she hides the rest of the harp away, sending the strings in all different directions.
One on land? One in the sea? One in the sky … ’
Remi reached for her sleek little backpack and unfolded a piece of padded red velvet cloth, revealing an arched piece of charred wood – the harp bridge.
It had three stud-like grooves on one edge, and beneath the shimmer of varnish it was made of metal.
A sound like a plucked string shuddered through the space and vibrated through Nicole’s bones. She gripped Remi and Kyan was suddenly there – but the stack wasn’t coming down. The piece merely resonated with the temple, and with it, more of the varnish flaked away.
‘It’s beautiful,’ Nicole breathed as Remi raised the piece of the divine instrument before the engraved wall.
‘The Gáe Bolg isn’t here,’ Kyan said, having checked the temple’s hiding places.
‘You said she had a fortress here?’ Nicole asked.
He nodded. ‘Her Fortress of Shadows: Dún Scáith.’
‘Maybe she hid the weapon there instead?’ Remi asked.
Kyan seemed doubtful but nodded, looking back to the altar.
‘Are you all right?’ Nicole asked gently, as Remi busied herself with putting the bridge back in her pack.
He nodded, and squeezed her fingers when they snuck into his hand.
‘Then, let’s go.’
Kyan
SCáTHACH’S FORTRESS WAS BUILT INTO THE JUTTING CLIFFS beside the famous Old Man of Storr – a rock formation much like the sea stack temple.
The light was waning when they hiked up to the great structure, the grass dark and rich on the foothills and speckled with rocks and loose chunks of grey stone of every size.
Free of trees, the spires of the disguised fortress cut into the skyline, as severe and sharp as Kyan remembered Scáthach to be.
To the right of the stark four pieces of rock towered a hill, as wide and high as a great defending wall.
From here, the sea around the island and its loch in the foothills reflected the steely sky like a great mirror.
‘I thought you said it was varnished, or hidden?’ Nicole asked. ‘Why would she pick such an obvious location?’
‘She didn’t,’ Kyan said. ‘Humans think her fortress is a castle structure to the south, and while this has become a famous location for hikers and photographers, no one knows what’s inside.’
‘Speaking of which,’ Remi said, ‘what will we do about them?’ She nodded her chin to a few straggling hikers.
‘They should be gone soon,’ Kyan said, but his gaze was focused on the towering structure.
Over the next hour they searched the fortress’s boundaries for a way to get inside, to no avail. Kyan grew increasingly certain that Scáthach had locked it and perhaps never returned.
‘I need the weapon,’ he said, pressing his forehead to one of the structure’s old stone doors. ‘There is a great danger. I can’t defeat it on my own.’
He thought of the crack of Logan’s neck in his hands. Alexander’s.
The warnings of the Wake; the image of Freya on the database, killed.
And Nicole.
‘Where is the Gáe Bolg?’ he asked in Irish.
Perhaps it was the language, perhaps his desperation, but the stone glowed faintly under his hand.
Kyan followed the light’s darting flight as it moved through the stone and around to a ledge that jutted out over the time-scraped landscape.
Nothing but wind and dark stone and silence.
He cursed Scáthach’s eternal tests.
But before he turned, his gaze was drawn to a carving in the stone, low enough to miss.
A crow.
Kyan crouched, fingers stroking over the bird. Not just one, but a few, carved as if in flight. He followed them around the ledge, to where the last perched.
Lines of ogam revealed themselves in that faint golden glow, fading again as he read them.
As gifted from the sea.
So returned.
He closed his eyes with a sigh, then stared out at the silver water sprawling out from all directions.
Somehow, Scáthach had put the Gáe Bolg back in the Atlantic. Which meant that the weapon he’d hoped could have defeated Alexander, and maybe help kill one of the gods, was gone.