Pain. Imagine each cell in your body being removed then scrubbed with a wire brush before it was popped back into place. That’s the feeling you get from a rothlú spell. I never thought I would be nostalgic about pain, but I remembered the last time I had this all-over body ache – my cousin was stealing my shoes. This time there was no tug on my foot to wake me. I opened my eyes the tiniest of cracks. I had no idea where I was but if it was daytime and out of doors, then the light was certainly going to be painful. Luckily when I opened my eyes I was greeted with gloom and deep shadows. I decided to give moving a try and discovered it wasn’t a good idea. I dropped my head back onto whatever I was on and slipped back into unconsciousness.
It was just as gloomy when I awoke again but this time, moving was only excruciating as opposed to being beyond the threshold of consciousness. I seemed to be lying on a pile of fresh straw in what I first thought was a dungeon. I crawled over to the only source of light. It was a candle infused with sparkling gold dust, Leprechaun-made – so I knew at least I wouldn’t be without light for a couple of years. Next to the candle was a shot glass with something that smelled mighty powerful. All of my instincts told me to leave it alone, but when I thought about it (which was difficult with the fife and drum band playing inside my head) I figured that if whoever got me here wanted me dead, I’d already be in the ground. I held my nose and knocked it back. My toes actually curled and my head tilted to a forty-five-degree angle. A full sweat broke out on my forehead and, even though there was no one there, I said the immortal words, ‘Haba yazza.’ When my vision cleared and the impulse to vomit passed, I felt much better.
I was in a cave. I guessed that was better than a dungeon. I grabbed the candle and, careful not to let it blow out, I explored the perimeter looking for an exit. After two trips around, I sat down, confused. There was no way out. I went around again – this time slowly looking for a hidden door or a crack or anything but there was nothing. I must have been dropped in from above, but the walls were so smooth there was no way of climbing or seeing what was up there. That’s when a memory hit me that filled me with panic. What if there is no way out? I remembered my father warning me that a rothlú spell could transport someone to the edge of a cliff. What if it stuck me in the middle of a cave that has no exit? What if I’m doomed to sit and thirst to death in a dark cave?
In all of my days and through all of my troubles I never had an actual panic attack. I was building to a good one but then thought, no, not a dark cave – a cave with a candle in it, a clean bed and a shot of hooch. Somebody brought me here, somebody wants me here. I relaxed, sat on my straw bed and thought. I had been stabbed twice with gold amulet darts. One knocked me out and the other brought me here. Somebody wanted me to drift into the Yewlands and whoever it was wanted me here. But who? I never heard of anybody using amulet darts but now that I thought on it – it was a pretty cool idea. And the rothlú that had got me in my hand honed in on me like one of Dahy’s knives. All of this information didn’t help me figure out who my captor was. Part of me, the same part that previously started to panic, feared that it was Cialtie but somehow this didn’t seem like his style.
With nothing better to do, I picked up the candle and climbed onto the rock in the centre of the cave. I was holding the candle up, hoping to see if there was a way out from above when I lost my footing. It was a tiny stumble, I didn’t fall but I jostled the flame enough to blow it out.
You just can’t imagine how dark cave-dark is, until you’re forced to endure it. The black seemed so opaque it felt like I could cut it. I dropped the candle and then carefully climbed down. Then on all fours I crawled until I found my pile of straw and sat. I sat staring into the sense-depriving darkness and started hallucinating shades of blackness. Imagine seeing wind – that was the kind of tricks my brain was playing with that total absence of light. I finally had to close my eyes. Strangely the darkness behind my eyelids was much more bearable.
I dozed again and in my dream, a small hand took my own hand in hers and led me out of the cave. Even though we were outside and I could feel the breeze and sunshine on my face I still couldn’t see.
‘Is this what it’s like for you, Ruby?’
She didn’t say anything but I sensed her nodding her head yes. She led me down a grassy hill and asked very politely of a tree if I could have a stick. Together we walked with our sticks sweeping before us as we listened and sensed and smelled our way through a day that – even though I couldn’t see – felt glorious.
‘See,’ she said, ‘It’s not so bad.’
Light. Blinding light entered the dream, bleaching out the mental image of Ruby and the pastoral scene. Painful blinding light burned into my eyes. I had to cover my face with my arm.
Where the dream ended and the reality began is open for debate. The blinding light focused itself into a doorway of light and in that doorway formed the shape of a man. It wasn’t until I pushed myself up into a sitting position and felt the straw underneath my hands that I knew for certain that this was real.
The silhouette in the doorway said, ‘Come,’ then turned and walked away.
The Lawnmower was still around my waist, so I drew it and walked towards the light.
My captor sat on a cave shelf looking out over a vista of endless sea. If I hadn’t heard the voice I would have thought that he was a she. Long brown hair fell to the middle of his back. His clothes were animal skins – not the nicely tailored stuff my Mom often wears, but home-made pelts that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a B grade caveman vs. dinosaur movie. He didn’t turn around.
‘Put away your sword, Prince of Hazel and Oak,’ he said in a croaky voice that made me think he didn’t use it very often.
‘First I want some answers,’ I said.
In reply, he threw a speck of gold out in front of him. It hovered in the air and then like a bullet zoomed in and hit me in the hand. I dropped the Lawnmower with a clang. When I tried to pick it up, I found that my right hand was numb and I couldn’t move my fingers.
When I reached for the sword with my left hand, he said, ‘Do you really wish to lose the use of that hand as well?’
He had turned around, and in his hand was another tiny amulet ready to make it so I would need assistance if I ever wanted to zip up my fly. The long hair down his back was matched by an even longer beard. Even though he looked like a children’s picture book version of a comic troll, his eyes told me that he meant business. I let go of the sword and stood. He turned back to his view.
‘What have you done to my hand?’
‘Sensation in your hand will return in a few moments. I have no desire to harm you, Conor. Come sit next to me and enjoy the vista.’
I’ve learned the hard way since arriving in The Land that when you’re outgunned and outmanoeuvred the best thing to do is just say OK. So I said, ‘OK,’ and sat. We dangled our legs over the ledge and looked out at a crystal blue sea edged by green rolling hills more manicured than any golf course. On a dock were two simple wooden sailboats. The place was postcard beautiful.
‘Where are we?’ I asked, trying to sound more conversational and less confrontational.
‘This is Ba Toirniúil.’
Ba Toirniúil means Thunder Bay. I had heard of this place. This is where immortals come when they no longer wish to live. This is where you go when you want to sail away into old age.
‘Whose boats are they?’ I asked.
When he didn’t answer, I figured this was going to be one of those I-ask-the-questions-around-here type situations but then he said, ‘I make them for whomever needs them.’
‘Wait a minute … are you the Hermit of Thunder Bay?’
He kept looking out to sea but I could see a small smile. ‘I suppose I am a hermit and I do live here in Thunder Bay. You have heard of me?’
‘I heard one of my guards say that his companion looked like the Hermit of Thunder Bay when he hadn’t shaved.’
He thought about this for a long while before he said, ‘So I’m famous in Duir for not shaving?’
‘Apparently so,’ I said.
After another long pause he whispered, almost to himself, ‘I suppose it is better than being entirely forgotten.’
I didn’t like the tone in his voice and decided that this line of conversation might bring us to morose musings that I wanted to avoid. So I said, ‘Should I call you Hermy? Or do you have a real name?’
He actually looked at me then. It’s unsettling when a guy as crazy looking as this one gives you a look like you’re the crazy one. ‘Hermy? Why would you call me Hermy?’
‘Everyone needs a name.’
The long pause kicked in again. I was starting to realise that chats with Hermy were about waiting a lot. Eventually he said, ‘A name is not something I require. One only needs a name if one is going to converse. I have not spoken to anyone but you, Conor of Duir, since … well, since long before you were born.’
‘But you’re talking to me now.’
Wait … ‘Yes, it appears I am.’
‘Were you the one who knocked me out so I would drift into the Yewlands?’
… ‘Yes.’
‘And did you throw that homing rothlú that brought me here?’
… ‘Yes.’
‘Why?’ He didn’t answer, or was taking his usual sweet time so I pressed him. ‘Why, Hermy?’
‘My mother instructed me.’
‘Your mother?’ I said looking around. ‘I thought the idea of being a hermit is that you live alone. You’re a hermit who lives with his mother?’
Hermy laughed at that. It was a sweet little chuckle, like he had only just remembered how to do it. ‘No, my mother is long dead.’
‘Oh, sorry.’
‘You should be. Your family holds the guilt of her murder.’
That reply made my stomach do a little flip-flop. Had he brought a son of Duir here to avenge his mother’s death? I looked down at the hundred foot drop and scooted over – out of shoving range.
‘Someone in my family killed your mother?’
Hermy nodded once.
‘Let me guess – Cialtie?’
Showing no emotion, Hermy nodded again.
Cialtie murdered his mother and this long-dead mother is leaving him instructions. I rattled that riddle around in my noggin and in less than the time it took for Hermy to say, ‘Hello,’ I came up with the answer.
‘You’re Ona’s son?’
… ‘I am,’ he said.
‘So why did Ona want me to enter the Yewlands?’
In reply he stood and walked over to a corner of his cave, picked up a long banta stick and handed it to me before re-sitting.
The wood was smooth and sticky, with the smell of fresh beeswax polish. ‘Is this the branch the yew gave me?’
… ‘It is.’
‘You finished it for me?’
… ‘I did.’
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Why does … did your mother want me to have this?’
… ‘You of all people, Son of the One-Handed Prince, should know that Ona’s will comes without explanation.’
‘I’m no longer the Son of the One-Handed Prince,’ I said quickly.
… ‘My point exactly,’ he said, standing. ‘Excuse my manners but it has been very long since I have had a guest. Would you like tea?’
‘Thank you,’ I said and watched him start a small fire with a fire coin then fill a kettle from a rain barrel.
‘If you haven’t talked to anybody in so long, how did you know I was the Son of the One-Handed Prince?’
My host placed a frying pan on the fire next to the kettle and then reached into a jar and pulled out a dripping handful of some seaweedy type stuff and threw it sizzling into the pan. ‘Would you like some …’ he stood frozen, looking up to the ceiling, then finally said, ‘I do not think I ever heard a word for what this is.’
I looked at whatever it was steaming in the pan and decided that it was probably better that it remained unnamed.
‘I have heard about your many exploits, Conor, from the beeches. Beech trees do love to gossip.’
‘I’ve heard that. So what did Ona say about me, exactly?’
I had to wait until Hermy finished making tea out of some sort of moss. When he handed it to me I was relieved to find that my fingers worked fine. It tasted exactly like tea made from moss.
‘She never mentioned you specifically.’
‘Wait, I thought you said Ona told you that I was to get a yew staff?’
… ‘No, Ona knew someone was to receive a yew staff – I just guessed it was you.’
‘You sent me into the Yewlands on a guess?’
In reply he shrugged.
‘And what if the yews had killed me?’
‘That would have been – unfortunate.’
‘Yeah, especially for me.’
He nodded in agreement like it was the first time it occurred to him. He stirred the dinner and then slid a portion into each of two wooden bowls. ‘Would you like some …’
‘Shall we call it gloop?’
He sighed in that exasperated way that made me realise he was getting to know me. ‘If we must.’
After tasting it, I decided that gloop was the perfect name for this stuff. It’s rare to get a dull meal in The Land but Hermy succeeded in cooking one.
‘Do you know what happened to my friends?’
‘The archer and the woman both survived their judgement. If that is what you wish to know. The archer exited the Yewlands not long after you. He held wood suitable for a bow.’
I hadn’t realised how much subconscious tension I had been holding in my shoulders until they relaxed with that news. ‘I must get to them – they will be worried about me.’
‘There is no need for them to worry, Conor. I will not harm you.’
‘They don’t know that.’
‘That your disappearance may cause your companions to fret is the least of your worries.’
‘So tell me, oh great bearded one who seems to know everything, if my friends are the least of my worries what is the worst of my worries?’
If Hermy noticed my annoyance it didn’t make him hurry up with his reply but when he did, he sure got my attention.
‘I would say your biggest worry should be – the blind child.’
‘What do you know about Ruby?’
This time the pregnant pause before his answer was unacceptable. I didn’t care if this guy had gadgets on him that could make me as limp as a Salvador Dali painting, I grabbed him by the arm and spun him to face me. ‘Tell me.’
‘Ruby,’ he said, ‘is that her name?’
‘What do you know?’
‘I, Conor, only know what my mother has written.’
‘And what did your mother say?’
‘Ona never spoke of these things, all of her prophecies were written.’
I stood. ‘Don’t screw with me, Hermy. What did your mother write?’
I had to take deep breaths while waiting for him to answer; otherwise, I think I would have stabbed him.
‘She said, “The blind child will need help from the bearer of the yew staff.”’
It took me a moment to realise he was talking about me. ‘Where is she?’
‘… According to the poplar trees your grandmother, Lugh and Cialtie are holding her in Castle Onn in the Gorselands.’
‘I have to get to Duir and put a rescue party together.’ I paced around the room looking for an exit. ‘How do I get out of here?’
Without looking at me, Hermy made a gesture with his right hand and another one of those damn flying amulets flew out and boomeranged into my neck. This time my whole body went limp and I crumpled to the ground, not even able to move my eyeballs. The hermit rolled me over on my back. His long beard swept over my face but I couldn’t feel it. He placed my new yew staff in my hand and said, ‘Ona did not write about a rescue party. She only mentioned you. I’m sorry if the paralysing amulet is uncomfortable but in the long run it speeds up the recovery from the rothlú. You will thank me later.’
He pulled a chain from round his neck and then from the hundreds of amulets hanging from it, he picked a tiny gold twin tornado. He looped it onto a chain and hung it around my neck. ‘If you find her, this will bring you home.’ Then he pulled a single twister from his collection, placed it in my palm and closed my fingers around it.
‘I have been thinking,’ he said, ‘and I do not like the name Hermy. If I must have a name then let it be the one I owned when I lived in Castle Duir. Call me Eth.’ Then he held my closed fist next to his mouth and incanted, ‘Rothlú.’