Chapter Seventeen

Beep-beep-be–

Ash switched off her alarm clock midway through the third ring. She turned on the bedside lamp and rolled out of bed, already fully dressed. Arthur and Will were climbing out of sleeping bags on her floor, both also in warm clothing and both rubbing sleep from their eyes. No one spoke as they readied themselves and left the house, taking each step carefully to avoid creaking.

The night sky was cloudless – no doubt part of the reason that it was so cold – and the moon hovered brightly above the city. They went around to the side of the house where Ash had hidden two bicycles earlier in the evening; Arthur was going to ride Stace’s bike, which she rarely used any more, with Will sitting on the crossbar. This arrangement worked out well since Will had never learned to cycle. He was carrying a backpack on his shoulders as they got onto the
bikes.

‘What’s in there?’ whispered Arthur, tapping the bag.

‘School uniforms and stuff. I figured we’d have to go straight from the tunnel.’

‘School really wasn’t on my list of priorities. But good thinking all the same,’ Ash said in a low voice as they rode off.

Cycling through the quiet city at 2 a.m. on a Wednesday morning was an experience Arthur wouldn’t soon forget. The route they’d mapped out took them down side streets and back alleys. They chose this rather than the busier main roads to avoid being spotted by any curious gardaí. All was silent and still. The only thing Arthur saw moving the whole way to Usher’s Quay was a fox scavenging in some bins. As the bikes approached, the fox looked up, its eyes shining green under the streetlights, and ran off into some nearby bushes.

A high wall, constructed from chipboard and painted with a repeating pattern of the Citi-Trak logo, ran around the entire perimeter of the Metro site. They skidded their bikes to a stop along the gravelly, unfinished path and surveyed the wall.

‘How will we get over?’ Ash wondered out loud.

Will got off the crossbar and pointed to a rubbish bin by the side of the road. ‘We can stand on that and pull ourselves up. We should be able to make it.’

Just then, a third bike skidded around the corner next to them.

‘Hi guys!’ said Max, bounding off the bicycle happily.

Ash let her own bike crash to the ground. She grabbed him and shook him by the shoulders. ‘What are you doing here? Did you follow us?’

Arthur pulled her away, allowing Max to explain himself.

‘I heard you talking about going out. So I just hid in the hallway and followed you here. I almost lost you. You’re a fast cycler, Arthur.’

‘Max,’ said Ash, kneeling down to get eye-to-eye with him, ‘this is dangerous. Really dangerous. You have to go home.’

‘He can’t go home on his own, Ash,’ Arthur reasoned.

Will laid his hand on her shoulder. ‘He can come in with us. We’ll take care of him. It’s safer than making him wait out here or going home alone.’

‘Really?’ she sneered sarcastically. ‘Is it really safer?’ She took a deep breath, considering the options and quickly realised that, although she hated to admit it, Will was right in a way. It would be very unsafe for Max to cycle all the way home on his own at this time of night in what could be a dangerous city – if something happened to him there would be no one around to help him. And they couldn’t leave him on the site: the security guard might find him and that would blow all their plans. Reluctantly she realised they had no other option than to take him along. ‘All right. I guess we don’t really have a choice. Max, stay close to me at all times. And don’t touch anything.’

‘I won’t,’ he promised.

She looked him straight in the eye again. ‘And if something happens, just get out of the tunnel and run straight to the security guard on the site. Okay? Get help.’

‘I will,’ he said, starting to look a bit scared. ‘Don’t worry.’

They locked their bikes and clambered onto the bin one by one. Will went first, balancing precariously on the top of the wall to help Max over. They were quickly followed by Ash, then Arthur was the last to vault over the wall. He landed heavily on some dried mud. Ash was already consulting the map, working out the best way to reach the storage containers without being caught by security.

The work lights mounted on thirty-foot poles throughout the site cast their shadows deep and dark as they scuttled towards the storage area. Finding their way around the site had been easier than they’d thought and locating the storage units was even simpler than the confusing map had hinted. On their way they passed the prefab office they’d been in on their school tour. The lights were on inside. Arthur waved to the others to duck down. He put his finger to his lips then walked sideways like a crab, inching his way along the outside wall of the office. His fingers gripped the edge of the windowsill and he cautiously pulled himself up then peered into the office. The young engineer, Ruairí, was inside. He was keeled over at one of the desks, fast asleep. His head rested on a pile of plans and blueprints and drool from his mouth slowly dripped onto the paper. He held a half-eaten fried chicken leg in his left hand while his right arm was wrapped around a cardboard bucket of chicken pieces.

Arthur turned back to his friends. ‘It’s okay,’ he whispered, ‘he’s fast asleep.’ They crept past the prefab and on towards the storage area.

‘This is it,’ said Ash, as they came across the rows of containers. The one marked on the map with the dynamite was the centre container in the third row. Arthur shone his flashlight on the shut door. The word ‘danger!’ was painted there. It was like a warning for the rest of the night.

‘Great,’ he muttered sarcastically when he saw the thick padlock that was keeping the door shut.

‘No problem,’ said Will, pulling a long instrument from his backpack. It consisted of a pair of steel blades at the end of two long arms. Joe owned a tool just like it: a bolt-cutter. Will positioned the blades over the lock then the four of them pushed the arms together. It took quite a bit of effort but they managed to snap through the lock.

The entrance swung open with a loud, rusty screech. Arthur’s torch wasn’t strong enough to light up the inside properly, so Will switched on his flashlight as well, illuminating the interior of the container. Wooden crates were stacked neatly against the back wall. ‘Warning!’ was painted across each box in bold red letters, ‘explosives’.

‘Guess we’re in the right place,’ Arthur said, taking a large canvas shopping bag out of his backpack. They started filling the bag with the bright red sticks of the explosive.

‘Who’s there?’ someone called from outside. ‘Is someone in there?’ It was Ruairí. The screeching of the container door must have woken him. It sounded like he was still a little way off and was probably just outside the office prefab. Arthur looked at Ash, Max looked at Will, then they all looked at each other. None of them so much as took a breath.

‘Hello? I heard something. Who’s there?’

Arthur frantically pointed at the bag of explosives and then to the door. He kept his finger to his lips so they’d know to be quiet. He picked up a handle of the bag but it was so heavy that he could barely budge it. Will took the second handle and, between them, they carried it out into the night air, their feet treading as lightly on the gravel as they could. They could hear Ruairí’s approaching footsteps.

As Arthur and Will carried the bag in the opposite direction to the footsteps, Ash and Max carefully pushed the container door shut. They all winced as it creaked slightly, and Arthur turned and waved for them to leave the door and just follow him.

All four of them managed to tiptoe around the side of the last container just as Ruairí entered the row.

‘What’s this then?’ he murmured to himself when he saw the half-open container. ‘Is somebody there?’

They pushed themselves against a container wall, each too afraid to even blink. As Ruairí slowly approached the open door, his footsteps grew louder. In the tense silence Arthur could hear his heart pounding loudly in his ears.

When Ruairí got to the container, he eased the door open and peered carefully inside, ready to jump back quickly if anyone took a swing at him. Upon finding it empty save for the wooden crates, he pushed the door all the way shut. It made a slamming sound that echoed all over the site.

‘Huh,’ he said to himself, ‘must have just been the wind.’ Someone should really make sure these things are closed and locked properly, he thought. Looking around one final time but seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he proceeded to walk back to the office – and his bucket of fried chicken. Arthur counted a full two minutes in his head before he turned to the others and nodded. As silently as they could, they all lifted the bag and started to retrace their steps. As they returned through the corridor of containers, they slunk further into the shadows. When they passed the office, they weren’t surprised to find Ruairí asleep once more. They hurried on.

‘Do you think we have enough?’ asked Ash, looking into the bag between them.

‘I guess we’ll know when we get down there,’ answered Will.

‘Get down where?’ asked Max as they walked towards the dark opening to the Metro tunnel.

The drill lay dormant in the tunnel when they got there. Max ran to it for a closer look but Ash briskly called him back, reminding him of his promise to stay close. They rested the bag of dynamite beside the grate to the Poddle. Will prised it open. Straight away, they could smell the familiar stench and feel the cold air rising. Shivers ran up Arthur’s spine at the memory of his last visit to the river. Ash leaned in for a closer look. Her hand rubbed against his. He looked up at her, surprised. She blushed then went to move back but he took her hand and squeezed it once. She smiled in gratitude and Arthur let her go.

‘Scared, Max?’ Will asked, stepping back from the hole in the ground.

‘No,’ replied Max, his eyes wide and fearful. He was beginning to regret his decision to join his sister and the two older boys on their night-time adventure. ‘I’m not scared of anything.’

Will took a rope out of his backpack and handed it to Arthur. He then climbed down the ladder first, as Arthur and Ash tied one end of the rope to the bag with the dynamite.

‘Ready!’ Will shouted up. The others twisted the rope around their arms and slowly lowered the bag of explosives down the shaft. Even Max took up the slack at the end and gave a hand.

‘Slowly, slowly!’ Will yelled up again. ‘Okay, I have it!’ He guided the bag onto the damp stone floor then looked back up. ‘Come on down.’

They climbed down, first Arthur, then Max and lastly Ash, Will shining his flashlight up the shaft to make it easier for them to see the rungs of the ladder. Max didn’t complain once on the way down and Arthur and Ash were relieved that he seemed to be taking it all in his stride. Arthur assumed that he was just happy to be spending time with them and made a mental note to play with Max more after this was all over – that was if they all made it out. He quickly pushed that thought away.

They all switched on their torches. The improved lighting didn’t show up much of interest apart from a clearer view of the brick walls. The water was just above ankle height and already soaking into their socks. Arthur checked the time – it was 3.52, which gave them over three hours to get out before the place flooded. They started walking down the tunnel, now familiar with the slippery terrain. Arthur and Will carried the heavy bag between them.

‘Don’t let it get in the water,’ Arthur warned. ‘I remember Dad saying that it made dynamite useless.’

Before they knew it, they’d reached the fork in the tunnel. Again, they took the stone tunnel leading to the right. With the flashlights, Arthur could make out the strange carvings on the wall. The pendant was, as always, in his pocket and, even without its power hanging around his neck, he knew what the runes said. He’d written it himself in class thanks to the pendant: ‘beware the jormungand’. It really was just like the ‘warning’ sign on the explosives container.

‘Wow,’ Max said, noticing the runes. ‘This place is kind of creepy.’

‘Are you okay?’ asked Ash. He nodded with a smile but still reached for her hand. She held it tight. ‘I’ve been wondering, why did the Vikings divert this part of the Poddle underground?’ said Ash.

‘It was the only way they’d be able to transport the Jormungand,’ Will explained. ‘It’s massive, remember, and very heavy. Easier to move on rafts. And then, I guess, when the engineers made the rest of the tunnel during the last century they just left the Viking part as it was.’

‘That would explain why the other part of the tunnel seems newer,’ Arthur said.

They continued further than they had the last time, although Arthur had travelled this far in his vision. He recognised the carvings on the wall and looked ahead for the turn to the right that he knew should be coming up. His heart pounded faster as he thought of the men who’d travelled down here a thousand years ago to keep the Jormungand imprisoned.

‘It’s just around the corner,’ he said.

‘What is?’ asked Ash.

‘Wherever the Jormungand is. I saw it in that vision in class.’

They cautiously turned the corner and came face to face with –

‘A dead end!’ Ash exclaimed.

They rushed forward to the stone wall ahead of them. It was indeed a dead end: a completely solid rock surface with the same runes carved deep across it. But aside from those and a small groove in the centre, the wall was smooth and seamless. A drain to the left made a soft trickling sound as the the water from the Poddle escaped.

‘We came all the way here for nothing?’ cried Ash in dismay.

‘No,’ Arthur said, ‘it can’t be. In the vision, they went down the tunnel, turned the corner and went through here.’

‘Arthur, look,’ said Will, pointing at his jeans’ pocket. When Arthur looked down, he was shocked to see it was glowing green. Or, rather, the pendant inside was glowing green. He took it out. It was glowing brighter and more vividly than it ever had before. He studied the dead end again. He put the pendant up to the letters and it glowed brighter still. Then he moved it closer to the groove in the wall. The green light pulsed off it rapidly.

He pushed the pendant into the groove – it was a perfect fit. He counted in his head to ten but nothing happened, so he tried turning it left and then right, but still nothing happened, so finally he pulled the pendant out and dropped it back into his pocket, dejected.

‘Guess we’ll have to try something el–’

Suddenly, there was a low rumbling sound and the ground started to vibrate. Slowly the wall started to slide to one side. It opened like an elevator door, exposing a wide cavern behind it. As in Arthur’s vision, the cavern was lit by a hundred flickering torches mounted on the stone walls. An iron shield hung beneath each torch. They were a variety of colours and patterns, some with snakes on them, others showing wolves, while some even depicted monstrous-looking women.

‘There it is,’ said Will, striding into the cavern. They all followed in awe, jaws hanging open.

The Jormungand looked like it was nearly a hundred feet long, and it was lying curled in the centre of the cavern. Standing near it, they could guess that its body had at least a seven-foot diameter and that it was wide enough to swallow a grown man whole and on his side. Each scale on its expansive body was twice the size of Arthur’s hand; they were shiny, too, and appeared to glitter in a variety of reds and greens. Although the Jormungand was known as the World Serpent, it was much more than just a snake. A massive ribbed and leathery wing lay still on each side of its body, while four small legs with feet ending in vicious-looking claws were attached to its belly. The legs were tiny compared to the rest of the beast and reminded Arthur of pictures he’d seen of Tyrannosaurus Rex. Three ridged fins ran over the beast’s head and its eyes and mouth were closed. It looked so peaceful that Arthur wondered if it was alive at all. But then he noticed slits on the side of its head opening and closing, just like gills, as the serpent breathed in and out.

‘Just like the legend said,’ Ash commented. ‘Asleep for an eternity.’

‘Look at that!’ exclaimed Arthur. Beyond the Jormungand was a Viking ship. With no water in the cavern, it was tilted slightly to one side. It looked just like the pictures of Viking longboats he’d seen in films and history books. It had low sides, with spaces for oars for rowing, and the bow curved dramatically upwards. At the top of the bow was the carved wooden head of a dragon. The stern also swept upwards and ended in a carved swirl. A red and white striped sail hung limply from the mast with no wind to fill it.

‘How did they get that in here?’

‘They must have built it in here,’ Arthur explained. ‘I remember seeing some of the men with building materials and tools in my vision. But look what’s in the boat!’

What Ash hadn’t noticed, and most shocking of all, was that there was a dead man sitting at each oar. Their skin had turned black and leathery, stretched tight over their skeletons. Most of their eyes were shut and their mouths hung slightly open. They wore helmets and the black tunics Arthur had seen in his vision. One man sat apart from the rest, at the bow, facing the Jormungand. He alone wore a bronze helmet while the others all wore leather ones. Apart from that, the helmets were of an identical design, with rounded tops and a long strip covering the bridge of the nose. The symbol of the World Serpent clinging to the tree adorned the front of each helmet, to protect the soldiers from the dangers of the Jormungand.

‘They’re really well preserved,’ Ash said. ‘Who do you think they were?’

‘They’re the hundred men who guarded the Jormungand,’ Will explained. ‘They died guarding it.’

‘What’s that?’ Max asked. He was pointing to a stone table near the boat. In fact, it wasn’t a table, Arthur realised as he approached it: it was an altar. A helmet, tunic, trousers and sandals were arranged on it in the shape of a man. These were all identical to the ones the soldiers in the boat wore. Gloves stood in for hands and one of the gloves was wrapped around a large iron hammer, like a hand clutching it. The hammer’s head was curved downward slightly on top, almost like a boomerang. Runes were carved into the iron but none that Arthur recognised. The wooden handle the head was attached to was quite short, barely long enough for a grown man to grip, and wrapped tightly in fine twine. There was nothing in the least bit attractive about it, but Arthur just couldn’t help reaching out and touching it.

Flash!

The green flash of light was brighter than any of the ones he’d experienced before – in the water or when Will had touched the pendant – forcing him to shut his eyes. When he opened them, he found himself standing at the bus stop near his house. Suddenly he saw Max running towards him, kicking his football as always. But coming after him was none other than Arthur himself! Ash was beside the other Arthur, strolling slowly. They all seemed blissfully unaware that there were two versions of Arthur at the bus stop. In fact, if Max didn’t watch out, he was going to run straight into him. Arthur braced himself for the collision, but then something even stranger happened – Max ran right through him as if he wasn’t there. Then the other Arthur and Ash arrived and walked right through him too.

Arthur suddenly realised that what he was seeing wasn’t really happening. It was some kind of memory. It appeared to be a memory of his first day at Belmont. The bus was approaching at the end of the road and Max was gloating that he’d won the race to the bus stop. Will was crossing the road towards them.

‘Hi,’ he said. His voice reverberated, as if the sound was really echoing though Arthur’s mind. He supposed it was.

But from this point on the scene was not how Arthur remembered it.

‘Hello,’ said Ash. She seemed irritated. ‘I’m sorry but do I know you?’

Will planted his arm around her shoulders. Ash, Max and the other Arthur all appeared confused and looked at Will suspiciously.

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘not now you don’t. But you will. Because, you see, I’m one of your best friends. Have been for years. And little Max, you adore me. Now, I’m going to walk away. I’ll be back in a minute. And you’re going to introduce me to Arthur here.’ He turned to cross back over the road.

‘And another thing,’ he said, stopping in the middle of the road and turning around, ‘you’ll also forget that I was just here when I click my fingers.’ And with that, he clicked them.

Flash!

Back in the cavern now and back in reality, Arthur took his hand off the strange hammer. He turned to look at Will, who was examining the Jormungand’s face more closely. Max was near him, standing slightly away from the creature. Will rubbed his hand tenderly across one of the World Serpent’s closed eyelids. He seemed lost in thought but eventually looked up to see Arthur staring at him.

‘Arthur?’ he said. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘You lied to us,’ Arthur accused him.

‘Well,’ said Will, a grin forming on his face, ‘it is in my nature.’