Chapter 4 #2
The tunnel narrowed in places, then widened in others.
Its almost smooth walls were damp with condensation.
His headlamp threw long, narrow cones of light against the stone, illuminating the carved glyphs that wrapped along the wall in a spiral so precise it looked machine-laid.
His boots crunched over dry stone and embedded grains of black sand.
The air had changed three symbols ago—becoming lighter, warmer, and easier to breathe.
He paused at the middle glyph and adjusted the beam angle of his headlamp.
It caught on a triskelion with broken lines—a swirl turned in on itself that he’d missed.
How did I miss that on the way down?
“Impossible. This whole place is impossible.”
You keep saying that word. And yet you’re standing inside a volcanic cave on a chartless island, face to face with pre-Ogham symbols that match a lakeside boulder in County Waterford. So maybe stop pretending impossible still applies here.
He lowered his pack to the ground and opened it, flipping to his field journal to read the chant again.
Behold, son of Cumhaill, true king.
Under starlight blood, beneath the heart of the sun,
We bind your power to the bones of the earth,
With the wind’s voice and the tears of stone.
There is no path home,
Unless you turn back upon your own heels.
The only thing that didn’t make sense was that it was only six lines, because the numbers three and nine were way more powerful to the ancient Irish.
Why six and not three or nine?
Did I miss something?
He strode back to the beginning and tracked the symbols again.
This time, the glyphs translated more easily in his head.
Each one built on the last. He noted the repeating imagery and the pattern and spiral progression they took.
He could feel it—linguistically and physically that he was missing something, where the tunnel curved downward on the side of the symbols, almost touching the floor.
“What comes after, ‘with the wind’s voice and the tears of stone,’ and before, ‘there is no path home?’” He was missing something.
He felt it in his soul. He just had to find it.
Getting on his knees, Ward ran his fingers along the bottom of the wall, feeling with his fingertips for any dips or changes in the smooth rock wall.
He’d almost given up when he found it—what felt like the beginning of another spiral.
He had to crouch low and crawl beneath an almost invisible overhang, flashlight in his teeth, to see it.
His pulse thudded in his ears as excitement tugged and twisted at the edges of his unease.
Wriggling on his back, he slipped in under the overhang and scanned the walls.
“There you are.” Whoever carved or put these glyphs here hadn’t wanted this one to be easily found.
He worked out the most logical translation in his head from memory, as there wasn’t room to pull out his notebook, and repeated it twice to memorize it.
“Let your breath be silenced by root and flame. Let your breath be silenced by root and flame.” He was now up to seven symbols, which left two missing ones to make the magical number nine.
He dug his heels into the rock floor and maneuvered himself deeper under the overhang.
“Where are you? Come on. Come into the light.”
The beam of his flashlight caught on an inverted arc, and he could barely make out that it was bisected by three vertical lines which ran like shadows down to disappear out of reach of the light.
Shit, what does that mean?
In his head, words he’d almost forgotten from that day in the Irish Gaeltacht echoed. Ward repeated them twice so he’d remember to write them down correctly.
Let your name be forgotten beneath shadowed time. Let your name be forgotten beneath shadowed time.
He decided he’d study them later to see if they fit the sequence. It was a struggle to fish his phone out of his pocket, but he managed it, snapped an image of the glyph, and made a mental note to take one of number seven on the way out. “That’s eight. There has to be one more here somewhere.”
Scooting on his back, he pushed as far forward as he could and stretched his neck, peering at the wall.
“There you are.” Three times he tried to take a shot with his phone before he got one that he hoped he’d be able to use.
“Now I just need to get out of here.” He managed to get his flashlight out of his mouth and shoved it into his pocket, and somehow was able to fit his phone in there too.
Bracing his hands on the rock over his head, he pushed himself forward.
“Fuck, I need to start doing more arm workouts.”
He was out of breath by the time he made it to where he could roll over to crawl free of the overhang.
“That was a stupid thing to do with no one to make sure I got out.” But he couldn’t bring himself to care.
He moved away from the wall and sat, legs folded beneath him, journal open on his thigh, and pulled out his phone to study the photos of the new glyphs.
Let no song find your ears nor light your path.
“Is that correct?” He cocked his head to one side and squinted at the photo. “You know, I think it is.”
Let no song find your ears nor light your path.
Let no song find your ears nor light your path.
He flipped open a new page in his journal and once again drew the glyphs, but this time he included the missing three, and then added the lines he thought they might mean under each.
Behold, son of Cumhaill, true king.
Under starlight blood, beneath the heart of the sun,
We bind your power to the bones of the earth,
With the wind’s voice and the tears of stone.
Let your breath be silenced by root and flame,
Let your name be forgotten beneath shadowed time,
Let no song find your ears nor light your path.
There is no path home,
Unless you turn back upon your own heels.
His skin prickled, and he stared at the wall.
If he concentrated, he should be able to connect the dots.
His ability to connect dots where no dots existed was what earned him a place at the top of his field.
“What if, when the Fianna were said to disappear into the mists of Tír na nóg, they didn’t vanish into the fae realm?
” He knew their stories, songs, and swords became the roots of Irish folklore.
But there were the alternate tellings of them.
The older ones he’d heard whispered about in the rural pubs.
That the Fianna went on, but Fionn did not.
What if those tales were the nugget of truth in the sea of myths and legends?
Ward’s pen shook slightly in his hand.
No. No, don’t get lost in fantasy.
Stay grounded in reality.
Translate.
Document.
Report.
But the logical part of his brain was starting to crack under the weight of what the rest of him felt deep in his soul. This place, this tunnel deep in a mountain on an island where it had no business being, was a prison, and the glyphs were the key opening it.
His stomach rumbled, and he fished into his Indy-pack, searching for a cereal bar, and came up empty. A quick glance at the lock on his phone told him he’d been in here for almost eight hours.
No wonder I’m hungry.
I’ll just have one last look on my way out.
He scrambled to his feet and walked down the tunnel to the last symbol.
Five swirling arms, like a sun turned inside out.
Each spiral ended in a carved dot that had once been inlaid with—he leaned closer—yes, he could make out faint traces of long-faded copper or gold.
“Unless you turn back upon your own heels. Unless you turn back upon your own heels. Unless you turn back upon your own heels.” He stood and stepped back from the spiral, and the ground beneath him rumbled. He stilled.
Is that an earthquake?
Even if it was, he decided it probably meant nothing.
Volcanic islands had minuscule earthquakes all the time.
They meant nothing more than the earth adjusting around the shifting magma in the chamber deep inside the earth.
He moved to the next glyph and paused to study it too, while muttering what he thought it meant.
“There is no path home, there is no path home, there is no path home.”
He stepped away, slowly, and felt another tremor come up through the soles of his boots.
It was barely enough to be classed as the ground taking a breath, but it was enough to send a shiver of apprehension down his spine.
“Okay,” he whispered. “This is above my pay grade.” He hurried toward the exit, but couldn’t stop himself from pausing at each glyph to mutter the translation three times.
At the seventh glyph, he muttered softly, “Let no song find your ears nor light your path, let no song find your ears nor light your path, let no song find your ears nor light your path.” Yet again, the island rumbled its displeasure.
At number six, he decided if the island was rumbling, he really shouldn’t crawl under the overhang again, so he flipped up the journal to the page and recited, “Let your name be forgotten beneath shadowed time, let your name be forgotten beneath shadowed time, let your name be forgotten beneath shadowed time,” before moving to his left and pausing in front of the approximate location of glyph number five.
“Let your breath be silenced by root and flame, let your breath be silenced by root and flame, let your breath be silenced by root and flame.” This time, the rumble under his feet made a noise that sounded like falling rocks deep in the tunnel behind him.
At least I got to see it before the whole place collapses.
He paused mid-step at the edge of the overhang and whispered, “With the wind’s voice and the tears of stone, with the wind’s voice and the tears of stone, with the wind’s voice and the tears of stone.” A gust of wind raced past him.
Shit, did those falling rocks open a new opening on the cliff face?
Maybe I should just go. Because every time I stop in front of one of these, the whole place shakes.
“We bind your power to the bones of the earth, we bind your power to the bones of the earth, we bind your power to the bones of the earth,”
If he didn’t want to commit the whole experience to memory, he’d already be racing for the opening and getting to the beach.
But every fiber of his being demanded he finish what he’d started.
“Under starlight blood, beneath the heart of the sun, under starlight blood, beneath the heart of the sun, under starlight blood, beneath the heart of the sun.”
He traced his fingers over the first glyph he’d seen and repeated the words he thought it meant. “Behold, son of Cumhaill, true king. Behold, son of Cumhaill, true king. Behold, son of Cumhaill, true king.”
Nobody is ever going to believe this without proof.
He carefully packed the notebook and double checked he hadn’t left the scanner behind, then zipped his Indy-pack closed and froze as a low subsonic vibration hummed through the cave.
Jesus, that feels heartbeat-deep.
The stone wall beside him shivered. Cracks whispered into existence along the ceiling.
Pebbles rattled loose. A spray of dust coated his shoulders.
Ward bolted for the opening. A large rumbling pulse sent him to his knees, and the temperature dropped a full ten degrees.
He was almost there. With about three meters to go, the world exploded in a boom.
A howling crack exploded through the tunnel like a stone being ripped open, and somewhere behind him, deep in the mountain’s throat, something collapsed.
The wall beside him burst outward in a thunderous echo, spraying shards of basalt and root and dust into the tunnel like a shotgun blast. Ward threw his arms over his head, choking on ash and rock.
Heat poured through the opening in front of him.
A shockwave of air and heat slammed through the passage like a hurricane from hell as he scrambled to his feet, half-choked, half-staggering.
The outer tunnel had become a furnace. Red light flickered down the corridor as if the world outside had caught fire. Heat poured in, curling the air into waves.
Volcano. Oh my God, the volcano ? —
There was another ear-splitting rumble outside, and he raced for the exit.
He needed to make it to the ocean, and pray like hell the magma flowed down the other side of the island.
He started to run, but before he made it to the opening, a dark shape filled it and slammed into him, knocking him on his ass.
“MOVE.” Ward was hauled to his feet and dragged behind the man who’d bellowed, “Deeper. We have to go deeper if we want any chance against the pyroclastic flow.”