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Authors: Eithne Massey
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into the darkness, although she was resisting with all her strength. His cloak was blowing about her shoulders, and her hair was the one spot of brightness in the blackness all around.
He tried to run towards her to help her, but then she faded into wisps of mist and moonlight, and now he himself was being pulled into the cave’s mouth … It seemed to Brendan that he was being buffeted and blown like a feather in the centre of a dark whirlwind. He was being pulled further and further in, falling down into blackness.
Then the wind stopped. Brendan was standing on dark stone deep inside the cave. He held up his torch. The walls around him were lit by a faint green glow. The dreadful smell that had filled the clearing was much stronger here. It smelled as if dead bodies had lain here for a long, long time.
Brendan tried to keep from swallowing the foul air into his lungs and looked around him. Therewere strange designs painted and carved on the walls of the cave. The patterns were not unlike the spirals and circles, the lozenges and triskels and interlacings that were part of the patterns Brendan had seen, and indeed helped to draw, in the Book. But here the message they carried was not one of goodness and hope. Here they meant something evil. He could feel it coming out of the walls. There were bones scattered around the cave too. He did not look too closely at them as he had a horrible feeling that some of them might belong to humans.
There was one pattern, one image that was bigger and more vivid than any of the others. It lay at the centre of the maze of patterned walls. It was a bright livid green, the green of frogspawn and lichen. No, not frogspawn. More like the skin of some huge serpent, coiled around the walls of the cave. Each scale was so delicately etched that it seemed almost lifelike.
Brendan felt his head begin to spin. Was it Crom Cruach’s body, curled around the inside of the cave? If only, he thought, I had at least brought a weapon with me, a knife from the kitchen or a stick from the forest.
At his feet a crack opened and Brendan was falling again, through swirls and spirals of pattern. It felt to him as if he had moved into some other dimension, where he was falling through water rather than air.
Yet it was not real water, because he could breathe in it with difficulty. He tried to swim upwards through the blackness. He looked at the shape on his hand; it was glowing, like a torch in the darkness, and now it showed the serpent Crom. His eye followed the length of the coiled serpent to the small, evil head. Its eyelid was closed as if it was sleeping. The head moved up slowly, sniffing the wind; the red, forked tongue flickered out of the great mouth. The head turned slightly. Was raised up. The creature had scented him. Scented his fear. Its eye opened, a glistening crystal, a shining focus of white fire. The creature twisted and coiled around the walls, encircling Brendan on all sides. He lashed out with his hands.
As Brendan looked into the eye it seemed to mesmerise him, draw him into its depths. He forced himself to turn his head away from it. Butas he did, his heart nearly stopped. He felt something at his legs, and he realised that the green and silver coils were moving, wrapping themselves around his feet and flicking him into the air, like a cat playing with a mouse.
Brendan’s blood was beating in his head, like some kind of wild and frightening music, as he was buffeted and thrown through the darkness. A piece of chalk fell out of his pocket, and he grasped it in his hand.
From somewhere Aidan’s voice came, as if Brendan were back in the Scriptorium and his friend was urging him to let his mind go free:
‘Use your imagination, lad, your imagination can do anything, can go anywhere. Let it free. There’s something holding you back from letting it go. Unless you turn around and look at what that is, you will never be free of it …’
And suddenly Brendan was in the forest,
He tried to run towards her to help her, but then she faded into wisps of mist and moonlight, and now he himself was being pulled into the cave’s mouth … It seemed to Brendan that he was being buffeted and blown like a feather in the centre of a dark whirlwind. He was being pulled further and further in, falling down into blackness.
Then the wind stopped. Brendan was standing on dark stone deep inside the cave. He held up his torch. The walls around him were lit by a faint green glow. The dreadful smell that had filled the clearing was much stronger here. It smelled as if dead bodies had lain here for a long, long time.
Brendan tried to keep from swallowing the foul air into his lungs and looked around him. Therewere strange designs painted and carved on the walls of the cave. The patterns were not unlike the spirals and circles, the lozenges and triskels and interlacings that were part of the patterns Brendan had seen, and indeed helped to draw, in the Book. But here the message they carried was not one of goodness and hope. Here they meant something evil. He could feel it coming out of the walls. There were bones scattered around the cave too. He did not look too closely at them as he had a horrible feeling that some of them might belong to humans.
There was one pattern, one image that was bigger and more vivid than any of the others. It lay at the centre of the maze of patterned walls. It was a bright livid green, the green of frogspawn and lichen. No, not frogspawn. More like the skin of some huge serpent, coiled around the walls of the cave. Each scale was so delicately etched that it seemed almost lifelike.
Brendan felt his head begin to spin. Was it Crom Cruach’s body, curled around the inside of the cave? If only, he thought, I had at least brought a weapon with me, a knife from the kitchen or a stick from the forest.
At his feet a crack opened and Brendan was falling again, through swirls and spirals of pattern. It felt to him as if he had moved into some other dimension, where he was falling through water rather than air.
Yet it was not real water, because he could breathe in it with difficulty. He tried to swim upwards through the blackness. He looked at the shape on his hand; it was glowing, like a torch in the darkness, and now it showed the serpent Crom. His eye followed the length of the coiled serpent to the small, evil head. Its eyelid was closed as if it was sleeping. The head moved up slowly, sniffing the wind; the red, forked tongue flickered out of the great mouth. The head turned slightly. Was raised up. The creature had scented him. Scented his fear. Its eye opened, a glistening crystal, a shining focus of white fire. The creature twisted and coiled around the walls, encircling Brendan on all sides. He lashed out with his hands.
As Brendan looked into the eye it seemed to mesmerise him, draw him into its depths. He forced himself to turn his head away from it. Butas he did, his heart nearly stopped. He felt something at his legs, and he realised that the green and silver coils were moving, wrapping themselves around his feet and flicking him into the air, like a cat playing with a mouse.
Brendan’s blood was beating in his head, like some kind of wild and frightening music, as he was buffeted and thrown through the darkness. A piece of chalk fell out of his pocket, and he grasped it in his hand.
From somewhere Aidan’s voice came, as if Brendan were back in the Scriptorium and his friend was urging him to let his mind go free:
‘Use your imagination, lad, your imagination can do anything, can go anywhere. Let it free. There’s something holding you back from letting it go. Unless you turn around and look at what that is, you will never be free of it …’
And suddenly Brendan was in the forest,
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