“Not exactly what you’d expect from a kid like that, is it?” said a voice from over Morgan’s shoulder.

He looked up. This time it was his father.

“Can’t say I’m surprised,” said John Izaak. “People can change in amazing ways when they get into tight, hot spots.”

Morgan tried to smile back. “The crucible. Right?”

His dad nodded. “True transmutation. Why, anybody would suppose you’d been reading Jacob Boehme!”

Morgan got up, put his arms around his father’s waist, and leaned his head against his chest. As he did, the tears began to flow again. Hard as he tried, he could not hold them back this time.

“I can tell you a lot about the Philosopher’s Stone,” said John Izaak, speaking very softly. “I’m also well versed in the lore of the Gral and the Sword. I know a good deal about Lia Fail, too—at least the part of its history that has to do with Jacob’s Pillow Stone. But I don’t understand what’s happened to Eny and Simon.”

Morgan looked up through his tears. “Why can’t anything ever go right without something else going wrong?” he said bitterly.

“What do you mean?”

Morgan felt hot anger welling up in the midst of his grief. “Mom got better, but then we lost the Stone. After that I started trying to find you. I wanted to find you more than anything in the world, and I did! And now that I’ve found you, I’ve lost Eny!” And the tears flowed afresh.

“I see,” John Izaak said gently, stroking his son’s hair. “And yet I don’t. Exactly where did Eny go?”

Morgan sniffed and wiped his eyes. “I should have realized! How many times did they try to tell me? All of them! The very first time I ever heard of Lia Fail, Mrs. A was explaining that the Stone could never rest until it came to the land of the sun’s going. Simon Brach agreed: ‘The Stone seeks its own destiny.’ The bard said the same thing in his song. But I think Eny knew it better than anyone else. She’s the one who told me, ‘Lia Fail travels the path foretold, no matter what we say or do: the Stone takes the road of its own choosing. We don’t control it. It decides.’”

“Apparently she was right.”

“Eny’s like that, Dad. She knows things. She sees what other people can’t see. And now I understand why. It’s because her destiny is tied to the Stone’s! It always has been! She is the Maiden of Perfect Purity, and she belongs in Inisfail! That’s where she’s gone! I should have been able to figure it out on my own! She tried to tell me—just last night! But I was too stupid to listen.”

Again he buried his face in his father’s ragged coat. But this time there were no tears.

“Dad,” he said after a while, “now that I’ve told you what you wanted to know—”

“Yes, son?”

“Well … there’s something I want you to tell me.”

His father stood back and held him at arm’s length. “Name it.”

“When we were in the Morrigu’s tower,” Morgan proceeded slowly, “you asked me how I got hold of the Sword of Paracelsus.”

“So I did.”

“And now I’m going to ask you the same thing.”

John Izaak rubbed his chin and chuckled softly. “A puzzle, isn’t it? Four hundred years is a long, long time.”

“Four hundred years?”

“That’s how long the sword was lost. Before I bought it.”

“Bought it?”

“Mm hm. At an exhibition and auction of alchemical artifacts in St. Louis.”

“But—who lost it?”

At this point old John Dee stepped up and interposed himself.

“Zooks, man!” he protested. “I never lost it! I told thee—I cast it away! At Paracelsus’ bidding!”

Morgan’s father laughed. “So you’ve told me many times. But that doesn’t explain how thing ended up at that exhibit. And just in time for me to find it!”

Dee frowned and wrinkled his brow.

“I know naught of a certainty,” he said, pulling at his scraggly beard. “Yet mayhap that which the lad hath spoken of the Stone is true of the Sword as well. Thou didst not find it. It found thee. It came to thee of itself—at the proper time and for the right purpose. Perchance there is no more we can say.”

John Izaak glanced over at Morgan. “You know what, old friend?” he said, turning to Dee and taking a firm grip of the ancient alchemist’s withered hand. “I believe you’re right! And isn’t that always the way of it? ‘In the fullness of time. A time for every purpose under heaven.’ That’s how it seems to me when I look back over the events of my life.”

For the first time since Morgan had laid eyes on the man, a smile played around the corners of John Dee’s wry mouth.

“Ha!” he laughed. “Marry, it rejoiceth me to hear the words of Scripture in thy mouth! But now methinks the time of our parting is at hand. For mine own appointed hour draweth nigh, and it cometh strong into my mind that somewhere beyond this cavern door, whether near or far, lieth that sceptered isle men call England, and Mortlake, the place I call home. I will not conceal that am heartsick with longing to see them. So I bid thee farewell, my friend, and au revoir, for I cannot but hope that we shall meet again.”

With that he raised John Izaak’s hand to his lips and kissed it. Then he turned and stood for a moment, gazing at the restless waves and the gathering mists and the shining pebbles on the beach. At last, as Morgan and his father watched, he sighed deeply, gathered up the ragged skirts of his robe, and stepped out into the fitful sunlight.

Instantly his body was reduced to a pile of dust and ashes on the threshold of the Cave of the Hands.

(To be continued …)

Gone!

Morgan groaned and turned his face to the wall. Eny, his best and only friend; Eny, his soror mystica; Eny, his most faithful critic, his most trusted adviser, the girl on whom he had pinned so many hopes and dreams (though he wouldn’t have admitted it until this moment): Eny was gone.

And that wasn’t even the worst of it. As he sat there on the cold, hard sand with the salt spray in his nostrils and the stinging tears in his eyes, it suddenly struck him that, this time around, their parting was final and absolute. All in one dreadful, terrifying moment he remembered all the stories he’d heard about the Sidhe, the Stone of Destiny, the Island of Inisfail, and he knew without a doubt that Eny was gone for good.

He had been sitting there a long time, shedding silent tears, when someone laid a hand on his shoulder. Thinking it was father, he rubbed his eyes and looked down. Like any boy his age, he was ashamed to let his father see him crying. But when at last he found the courage to glance up through the blur, he was surprised to see that it was not his father at all.

It was Baxter Knowles.

“Hey,” Baxter mumbled. “I just want to say I’m sorry. I hope you can—well, you know, forgive me. My mom always said I was a pill. Guess she was right.”

Morgan blinked. He opened his mouth to reply but nothing came out.

“I know where we are,” Baxter went on, nodding towards the cavern door. “Home. Those rocks out there, that beach, that curve of shoreline. It’s Santa Piedra. My dad practically owned the place. But he’s gone now. Gone for good.” He laughed a short, harsh laugh; but Morgan thought there was something glinting on his cheek.

“Yeah,” Baxter drawled. “I was thinking I could impress him with that sword of yours. But I was wrong. I’m really, really sorry. I see now that nothing would have impressed him.”

Morgan shook his head uncertainly.

“I need to say thanks, too. You could have left me back there, Izaak—back in that weird woman’s tower. You didn’t. How come?”

Morgan couldn’t speak. His lip was trembling and there was a big lump stuck in his throat.

“That’s okay,” said Baxter. “You don’t have to say anything. I already know the answer. It’s ‘cause you’re the son of your father. You just did what he would have done. Like I said, I think your dad’s a great guy. I only wish—well, never mind. I’d just like to know him better, that’s all. You too,” he added sheepishly.

He stuck out his hand. Morgan took it and squeezed it.

“So,” said Baxter, turning to the door again. “How long do you figure we’ve been gone? No idea? Me neither. But I know my mom will be worried. Better get going. See you later?”

Morgan nodded mutely. Without another word, Baxter ducked under the low-hanging doorway, stepped outside, and went crunching away down the pebbly shore between the rocky cliffs and the briny tide pools.

(To be continued …)

Many thanks to those who were kind enough to respond.

The final chapter of The Sword of Paracelsus, “Dust to Dust,” will follow shortly.

Dear Friends,

Only one chapter and a short epilogue remain of The Sword of Paracelsus.  I’m not sure what will happen when it’s finished at last … though I have seriously considered taking Pilgrimagination “off the air” at that time.  Any thoughts or reactions?  Or as my friend Charles Carr used to say, “Is this microphone on?”

The Humble Author of These Pages

Morgan shook himself and blinked.  His currach was drifting down a rapidly flowing subterranean stream, through a cavern of rubies and diamonds, under the glow of an inverted forest of sparkling stalactites.  Gone was the all-engulfing darkness.  Gone was the smothering abyss.  Through an opening at the end of the passage, an opening that drew nearer by the moment, he could see splotches of sunlight dancing on the surface of a sparkling sea.

“Morgan!” he heard Eny call from the other boat, which was dashing after Lia Fail some fifty feet ahead of his own.  “Do you see it?”

“See what?” he shouted back.

Eagerly she turned and pointed out through the door at the end of the tunnel.  “The Island!  The Green Island in the West!”

Beyond the mouth of the cave rolled the wide expanse of the ocean.  He leaned forward and stared at it hard, searching its rippling ridges for the object Eny was so anxious to show him.  And as he did, it suddenly dawned upon him:  he knew those blue waters.  He had seen them before.

He wasn’t sure how he knew this.  He just knew that he did.  The ceiling above his head might be studded with Faerie gems, but it was as plain as day that the light outside the cavern was not the light of Faerie at all.  It was the brave yellow light of September in California.  It belonged not to the world of the Tuatha De Danann and Baile Daoine Sidhe, but to the world of La Punta Lira and Santa Piedra Middle School.  And far away, at the very edge of that world, gleaming through a hole in a veil of mist, was the thing Eny was trying to make him see:  a bright speck of green; an island on the horizon, green as the first buds of early spring; a fresh, green land beyond the extremity of the sun’s going.

He turned.  The brave light of the Pacific Ocean was shining clear and strong on his father’s deeply lined face.  It lay like a mantle on the shoulder of old John Dee, whose crinkly eyes were glowing like Christmas morning.  It shone red-gold on Baxter Knowles’s ruddy complexion and rumpled blond hair.  It glinted blue in the corner of Eny’s eye.

He could see her there, standing in the stern of Simon’s currach, waving at him just as she had waved on the day when she moved away to Los Angeles.  He remembered that day with a pang.  He got to his feet and waved back.  But then, without warning, he stumbled and fell as his little boat struck an obstacle and grated to an unexpected halt.

“What was that?” said Baxter.

Morgan glanced over the side.  They had run aground on a shallow bank of sand and gravel not twenty feet from the tunnel’s end.  There was something on the wall beside the cavern door—neither gems nor jewels, but hands.  Hands painted in red ochre.  Morgan knew them, too:  hundreds of waving hands, red hands reaching and sweeping upward towards the ceiling like a chorus of living flame.

He jumped out of the currach.  The sand beneath his feet was cool and dry.  Gone was every trace of the underground stream that had carried their boat to this point.  The Cave of the Hands—for indeed it was La Cueva de los Manos—looked exactly as he remembered it: the sloping ceiling, the dripping gray walls, the pair of squat boulders at the rear of the shadowy chamber.

Sick with a sudden dread, he ran to the door and looked out.  Far across the rolling swells of the Pacific two tiny specks were racing towards the window in the shifting bank of silver-gray fog.  He recognized them at once.  The one was the Stone of Destiny.  He knew this, for he could see the sun sparkling brightly on the broken blade of the Sword of Paracelsus.  The other was Simon’s currach with Eochy and Eny aboard.  Already they were more than halfway to the spot where Green Island gleamed like an emerald through the oscillating hole in the swirling mist.

While he watched, the two specks merged.  As one, they slipped through the aperture on the horizon just as its swirling edges drew together like the mouth of a drawstring bag.  Then the green spark died and the fog bank collapsed.  The mist streamed shoreward like a sheet of bubbling foam.

Morgan crumpled against the wall with his head in his hands.

Morgan breathed a sigh of relief.  But in the next instant his ears were assailed by another sound, this one even more dreadful than the whirlpool’s mournful wail.  For over his head, on the tail of the shrieking wind, came a chorus of shrill and desperate cries—the voices of Sengann, Slanga, and Crimthann.  Looking back towards the Morslogh, he saw their currach spinning like a leaf on the cusp of the abyss.  A moment later it was sliding down the sheer glassy slope of the Maelstrom’s inner side, disappearing into the lightless depths without a trace.

“Horrible!” groaned Baxter, covering his eyes.

But Morgan couldn’t help recalling the conclusion of Eny’s story.  “Maybe not,” he said, thinking back to that night—it seemed so long ago!—when he had found her dripping with seawater on the front porch of the duplex in Santa Piedra.  “Remember, we’re in the Sidhe.  Strange things happen here.”

His father eyed him curiously.  “I believe you’re right.  In any case, they’re beyond our help now.  We have to keep on following the Stone, come what may.  Look!  Simon, Eny, and Eochy are still up ahead, right behind Lia Fail!”

Morgan peered at the curving shoreline.  It was bending towards another narrow inlet, and at the head of this inlet appeared something like a small black spot in the face of the white cliff.  The closer they came, the larger it grew.  Eyeing it intently through the spray and the mist, he soon realized that the spot was in fact the mouth of a cave.  A minute more and Lia Fail was plunging straight into this gaping hole in the rock, drawing the two remaining currachs after it.

And now came darkness—a darkness deeper, denser, more impenetrable than anything he had ever known.  Down through the opening in the cliff hurtled the two little boats, in under the shadow of the overhanging rock, along an underground torrent, and into the jaws of a sunless chasm …

     Dark essentiality.  Black bile in dry earth.  Absence of all, negation of none.  Tangible tincture, trembling turba, anguish of anxious Mercury.  Before the beginning, before all time, before the spoken Word—world without end, world without light.        

     Where there is stillness, he thinks, is neither joy nor motion.  For all life, external and internal, consists in poison and light.  Kingdoms in conflict.  Out of the Iliaster and up through the fiery hungry desire.  The seed of the woman and the serpent’s head.  The astrum and the sulphur.  Calcination, Dissolution, and Separation.  Conjunction, Fermentation, Distillation, Coagulation.      

     Time, times, and half a time.  And then a sudden something.  The Flagrat.  A displaying flash, brief as a heartbeat, small as a pinprick.  In the distance, a spark like a heavenly jewel.  The Broken Sword.  The Noble Stone.  The Bridegroom and the Bride.  The Sister and the Spouse.  For the one is the cause of the other, and the love-lubet rules them all.

     Faith, he says, is incessant desire; satisfaction the never-ending ache.  And as he speaks—or is it the voice of another he hears?—the stars blaze overhead.  He lifts his face; they drip with strands of gold.  They rain down beads bright as evening dew.  They swoop and swell in luminous festoons.  Upward heaves the vaulted ceiling.  Downward bend the gleaming spears.  Outward shoot the smooth-bright crystal walls.  And nearer now, just where the stream flows on to the end of the gallery, he sees a light at the end of the long, black tunnel.

(To be continued …)

“I’m here, Dad!” shouted Morgan as he pounded down the sandy beach and came panting up to the spot where his father and John Dee were shoving their currach into the water.  “Don’t leave without me!”

“Leave without you?”  John Izaak clasped his son to his side.  “After everything we’ve gone through to find each other?  Not a chance!”

Morgan hugged him back.  It was hard to believe that all this was actually happening.  The morning sun was bright and all his prayers had been granted.  His dream was coming true.  Here he was, his arms wrapped around the father he’d never known and sought for so long.  He smiled to think of what his mom would say when she saw them together.  He wondered why Eny had taken such a dismal view of things the night before.

“Jump in!” his dad said.  “You don’t mind if Baxter rides along, do you?  Ollamh—I mean, Simon—has decided to reduce our fleet by one.  You and I are teaming with Dee and Baxter.  Sengann, Slanga, and Crimthann travel together from this point forward.  More bolgs for storage that way.  Amazing how these leather currachs expand to accommodate the load, isn’t it?”

“It was actually Sengann’s idea,” grinned Baxter, who was already seated in the boat, lounging against the gunwale with his hands behind his head.  “By the way, Izaak,” he added in a low voice as Morgan climbed in beside him, “your dad’s a great guy.  So who knew?”

Morgan glared at him.  “I could’ve told you,” he said.

By the time they pushed off, Simon’s boat was already halfway across the bay.  Morgan could see Eny leaning out over the bow, her eyes riveted upon the floating Stone.  Hoping to catch up to her, he struck in with his oar and started rowing with all his might.  But it soon became apparent that his efforts were superfluous.  Just as it had happened on the previous afternoon, so this morning Lia Fail seemed to pull the three little boats along by means of a power all its own.  Glancing aft, Morgan caught sight of Sengann’s craft bounding along behind them.

Ahead lay the extreme tip of the Point of Taman, a wooded promontory that plunged abruptly into the sea just where three opposing currents collided in a boiling, churning jumble.  Once beyond this spike of rock, the Stone picked up speed and bent its course abruptly back towards the land.

“Watch it!” yelled Baxter as the currach lurched sharply to the right, throwing Morgan into his lap.  “You don’t need to get that close!”

“Don’t worry!” said Morgan, quickly righting himself.  “I don’t intend to!”

Looking up, he saw that they were now skimming along under the lee of a steep pine-clad ridge.  High cliffs, dark near the water’s edge but rimmed with gold at their bristling crest, loomed overhead.  The jostling currents, so violent and jarring out on the open sea, now smoothed themselves out and joined forces.  Driven by the waves and drawn by the irresistible attraction of Lia Fail, the three little currachs flew along the coast at an exhilarating rate.

“This is great!” whooped Baxter as the boat bounced over the water.  “Kind of like wind-surfing!  Lots more fun than my dad’s yacht!”

But Morgan, whose pulse was already racing in time with the precipitous flight of the Stone, was all but deaf to the other boy’s outbursts.  His head was full of another sound—a terrible, deafening roar that had rushed down upon them the moment they rounded the Point.  He turned and looked out to sea.

“Look!” he cried, grasping his father by the arm.

Even as he spoke, a picture flashed across his mind’s eye.  In a flash he knew exactly what he was seeing.  Eny had described it for him many, many times:  a small island rising out of the ocean like a rocky thumb; and between the island and the shore, so close to their fragile boat that the wind of its gyrations whipped his hair around his head, a swirling, booming funnel of dark green water—a deadly vortex half a mile wide and a thousand fathoms deep.

“Charybdis!” exclaimed old John Dee.  “The Maelstrom!”

“The Morslogh!” countered Morgan.  “Eny called it the Morslogh!”

“To your oars!” shouted his father.  “Everyone lean to starboard and pull towards the shore!”

Morgan did as his father said.  But it didn’t take him long to realize that every paddle stroke away from the Morslogh was taking them closer to the treacherous rocks at the foot of the cliff.  Though hot and sweating with the strain of rowing, he felt chilled to the core with fear.  For a few moments the only question in his mind was whether they would be sucked to the bottom of the ocean or smashed to pieces on the razor-backed reefs.  But then, in a heartbeat, it was over:  almost before he knew what had happened, the invisible magnetism of Lia Fail had snatched the little boat out of danger.

(To be continued …)

“This is Taman,” announced Simon Brach, as he, Eochy, and Eny jumped ashore and dragged their little boat up the beach. “A headland of the promontory we call Mag Adair. Thus far the Stone has led us. We’ll stay until it moves on.”

No one felt inclined to argue. Least of all Morgan, whose arms were aching with the strain of incessant paddling and whose quivering heart was ready to leap from his chest after the fear, excitement, and uncertainty of their escape from the tower and precarious passage of the strait.

They gathered wood, built a fire, and shared a scant meal out of the meager rations of the Fir Bolg and the few provisions left in Eny’s bag. Then, as the twilight deepened and the stars glimmered overhead, they reclined on the grass in twos and threes and began to talk over their adventures. Baxter sidled up to John Izaak and had soon engaged him in deep and earnest conversation. Morgan, meanwhile, left his father’s side to join Eny on a green knoll above the water.

“Didn’t I tell you it would turn out this way?” he said, sitting down beside her.

She turned and looked at him, her blue eye glinting strangely in the fading light. “I don’t remember. What did you say?”

Morgan laughed. “You know! I’ve found my dad! We got the Stone of Destiny back! We beat the Morrigu! And now—” he glanced away for a moment before continuing “—now we can all go home.” Hesitantly, he reached out and touched her hand. “Together.”

She seemed oddly apprehensive. “Can we?” she said, withdrawing her hand. “Do we control that?”

“Why not? What else would we do?”

Eny didn’t answer. Instead, she reached into her bolg, took out a sling-stone, and shot it far out across the inlet. It fell into the dark green water with a tiny splash.

“You say we got the Stone back,” she said after a silence. “So what do you think happens now?”

“I told you! We’re finished here. We go home.”

“That’s not what I mean. What happens to the Stone? Do you think we just take it back to St. Halistan’s?”

“I don’t know. I guess not. The tower’s gone.”

“Exactly!” She pursed her lips, whirled the sling over her head, and sent another stone whistling out over the water.

Sheepishly Morgan reached for her hand again. “I’m not sure what you’re trying to say, Eny. But—well, you’ve been my friend all my life. You’re my sister and my … well, what I’m trying to say is that I don’t want that to change. Not ever.”

Eny smiled sadly. “You’re sweet,” she said.

There was another long pause. Then Morgan said, “I have something for you.” Reaching into his own bolg, he drew out the Feth Fiada. “See? I found it on the floor of the Morrigu’s Hall. With this we can go home any time we want! At least that’s what she said.”

She took his hand in hers and pressed it. “You keep it, Morgan,” she said. “I already told you. It’s not about you and me going home whenever we want. It’s bigger than that.” Releasing his hand, she flopped down on her back. “We’d better get some sleep,” she said, gazing up at the stars. “There’s no telling what’s going to happen next. Or when it’s going to happen.”

Morgan’s heart was fluttering. “Guess you’re right,” he said. Then he too lay down.

After a few moments he turned his face toward her. She didn’t look back. Instead, keeping her eyes fixed immovably on the stars, she opened her bolg, pulled out the broken sword, and laid it between them in the grass. Then she rolled over on her side and fell asleep.

The sun was already high when they woke. There were voices and the sounds of hurrying feet on every side. Morgan sat up to find out what was going on and saw the other members of the party loading the last of their gear into the currachs and dragging them down to the water’s edge. Then he turned and saw the Stone Lia Fail floating away over the shining bosom of the jade-green inlet.

Simon Brach, who was standing on the strand directing the others, caught sight of them and waved.

“Missy!” he shouted. “Young Mr. Izaak! Lia Fail is on the move again! Back to the boats and follow the Stone!”

Without a word to one another they got up and ran down to the shore.

They all looked up. Though it was still broad daylight, the air above them appeared to be filled with glittering stars. What’s more, the stars were growing. No, not growing, thought Morgan. Moving closer. They were in fact rising up from the steep black headland across the water and bearing down upon the flock of seabirds at a great rate.

“Flying ships!” shouted Eny.

Squinting at the approaching points of light, Morgan could see that she was right. Even now he thought he could make out the red and blue stripes of their billowing spinnakers. A second later he clearly discerned the flash and sparkle of the painted shields lining their gunwales. And then came a burst of blazing pinpricks, like sparks from a bonfire, as the airborne archers let loose a volley of steel-tipped arrows.

“What’s happening?” panted his father. “Is it good or bad?”

“Very good!” answered Morgan. “It’s the Tuatha De Danann!”

“They’ve come from Taman!” Simon shouted. “That’s where the fleet is anchored!”

And now the arrows were whizzing and flashing around them like a deadly hailstorm. A shrill chorus of squawks and screeches rose from the throats of the stricken birds as hundreds of them splashed heavily into the water. The others rose up in a hurricane of flying feathers and wheeled back towards Tory Island.

“Hurrah!” shouted Morgan. “They’re running away!” But no sooner had the cheer left his lips than he felt John Dee’s bony hand upon his shoulder.

“Glory be!” cried Dee, once again pointing heavenward.

Following the old man’s trembling finger with his gaze, Morgan looked up and gasped. There was not a cloud in the sky, but the sky was parting like a curtain on a stage. The great blue dome itself was splitting from zenith to horizon. Within the widening crack, against a background like black velvet, shone a host of diamond stars. And looping down from the biggest and brightest of these stars, swaying above the sea like a ribbon of gold, swung the celestial stairway he had seen once before, on that fateful night at St. Halistan’s: Jacob’s Ladder. Its lowermost rung dangled directly above the surface of the floating Stone of Destiny. And upon the ladder, ascending and descending in rank upon luminous rank, were the terrible seraphim, fair-faced, many-eyed, eagle-winged, searing and burning like living coals in a red-hot furnace.

“E’en so they appeared to me, lo! these many years ago!” Dee murmured. “Edward never saw them!” he added emphatically, turning to Morgan’s father. “It was to me they taught their speech!”

Even as he spoke the vision faded and the shining stair withdrew. The edges of the rift in the sky drew together and the seam was tightly sealed once more. Dumb with wonder, Morgan watched the Danaan ships race away after the fleeing Fomorians. For an instant he thought he could discern a tiny spot of glossy black hurtling over Tory, far ahead of the rest of the flock. And then the entire cavalcade—the retreating cloud of birds and the pursuing specks of the glittering ships—disappeared beyond the heights of the island and went down unseen beneath the dim horizon.

The wind dropped and the waves fell flat. The current died and the sea fell still. On and on over the glassy water floated Lia Fail, nearer and nearer to the chalky cliffs on the further shore, the four currachs bobbing along behind it as if drawn by the Stone’s native magnetism. At last it rounded the tip of the headland and drifted into a calm inlet of smooth jade-green waters. There, as the sun touched the western horizon, it came to rest upon a wide, flat shoal of golden sand.

(To be continued …)

“Dost expect me to swim?” asked John Dee as they gathered on a rainbow-misted rock above the foaming breakers.

Simon shook his head and nodded in the direction of the four Fir Bolg, who were already turning their belt-bags into sturdy round currachs. “We sail with the tide!” he said. “Missy—bring us those few bits of driftwood. We’ll need some paddles.”

In a few minutes they had the four little boats in the water. Eny boarded the first with Simon and Eochy. Morgan tumbled into the second with his father and John Dee. Slanga and Crimthann manned the third, while Sengann was left with the lethargic Baxter as shipmate. “Row, you slug!” they heard the cantankerous Fir Bolg shout as they launched out into the surf and spray.

No sooner had they got beyond the breaking water than a blast like a thunderclap drew Morgan’s gaze back towards the land.

“There she goes!” shouted Simon; and as they watched, the tower of Tur Morraigu collapsed into the bay, casting a plume of white spray high into the still blue air. In the next instant something that looked like a column of black smoke shot up from the crest of the plume.

As this dark pillar flattened out against the upper atmosphere, spreading over the sky like a net of shadow, the rowers in the boats could see plainly that it was not smoke at all, but a dense flock of seabirds—cranes, herons, terns, petrels, cormorants, and multi-colored gulls. And at the head of this feathered throng one great black bird, conspicuous for size and commanding in aspect, was leading the rest down towards the four little currachs in a massive swooping wedge.

“Bend your backs!” cried Simon. “Out into the current!”

Morgan picked up his piece of driftwood and cast a glance at his father. Smiling grimly, John Izaak grabbed his own paddle and thrust it into the sea. Together they began to row with every ounce of strength they had.

“Whither away?” yelled John Dee.

“Follow the Stone!” answered Simon, driving his boat up the glassy slope of a steep green wave.

“The Stone?” shouted Morgan.

“Yes!” said his father, pointing out across the whitecaps. “Over there!”

Morgan shaded his eyes and caught his breath. Was it possible? Lia Fail, the Stone of Destiny, was floating on the surface of the water, exactly as in the picture in Rev. Alcuin’s book! He could see it, about twenty feet away, bounding over the crests of the jostling waves just as if it were a big piece of cork. The jagged sword blade sticking up out of its back made it look like a ship with a broken mast.

“By the beard of Erc!” cried a voice at Morgan’s ear. It was Sengann, who had just come alongside, paddling furiously while Baxter sat staring in the stern of the currach. “She’s going against the current! How do we follow that?”

“How indeed?” grunted John Izaak.

“Just keep rowing!” shouted Simon, whose craft was directly in front of theirs. “You’ll find out!”

So row they did. And at first it seemed to Morgan that the harder he strained, the greater grew the gap between the floating Stone and his fragile little currach. Nor was that the worst of it; for with every passing second the armada of flying Fomorians was getting closer. Already he could feel the wind of their wings on the back of his neck. Already he could hear their harsh cries echoing off the rocks.

Then, without warning, came a jolt from behind. Suddenly the currach was darting through the water like a torpedo. Morgan looked back to see what had happened. There was nothing there.

“Keep paddling!” shouted Simon. “Follow the Stone!”

And now they were tearing along, driven by some power they did not control, but which responded automatically to their feeble efforts to keep up with Lia Fail. For if they stopped rowing, this force faded like a dying wind; but as soon as they started again, it picked up and thrust them forward with all the energy of a violent gale. Out across the strait it carried them, away from Tory Island, straight towards the curving promontory of the mainland.

Morgan grinned, exulting in the speed of their flight. But a moment later he heard someone screaming in the next boat. He turned and saw Baxter Knowles standing in the currach, flailing his arms wildly in an attempt to drive off a big gull that was pulling out tufts of his hair with its beak. The birds were upon them!

“Stop your bawling and row!” shouted Sengann, taking a great swing at the gull with his paddle. But no sooner had he batted the bird away than the entire flock descended in a storm of flapping wings and jabbing bills.

“What now?” cried John Izaak, slapping a big cormorant with his oar.

Simon answered by pointing to the sky.

(To be continued …)

Grabbing Baxter by the hand, Morgan followed Eny up the aisle, through the twisted doors at the rear of the Great Hall, and out into the darkened corridor where the floor was thick with daggers of broken glass. There, through the reek of snuffed and smoking torches, he discerned a group of dusky silhouettes— Simon Brach, the four Fir Bolg, and his father with the frail John Dee perched upon his back. They were just turning down a narrow flight of stairs at the end of the hallway. Treading hard on the hem of Eny’s shadow, he plunged ahead and leapt down the steep winding steps after them.

It was a long, treacherous way down. At almost every turn huge stones fell thudding across their path. Several times the steps beneath their feet gave way and fell in bits and pieces into the steaming darkness below. When this happened, Morgan had to find a way to persuade the sluggish Baxter to jump over the holes and gaps. It was like trying to get a cow to dance a jig.

At last the stairway emptied out into an arched gallery paved with red tile and lined with stone pillars shaped like leering gargoyles and long-toothed ogres. At the far end of this lofty vestibule stood a tall double-leaved door of heavy, dark-grained oak, barred with heavy beams and iron girders.

“This is the way out,” explained Simon, as they all jostled up behind him.

“Hmph!” muttered old John Dee. “Much good may it do us!”

“Are we trapped?” asked Morgan’s father as the walls rumbled and the pillars shifted on their foundations.

Simon drew his sword. “Not this time.”

He touched the point to one of the oaken beams. Immediately the bars shot back and the girders fell jangling to the floor. The doors flew open and they found themselves gazing down a long, broad stairway leading to the gate in the outer wall. Beyond it rolled the billows of the restless sea.

“Everyone out!” shouted Simon. “Down to the shoreline!”

Morgan tugged at his companion’s arm as another bone-rattling concussion rocked the tower. But before he could get Baxter to budge an inch, Simon and Eny, who were already halfway down the stair, turned suddenly and began waving at him in great distress.

“Morgan!” they cried. “Behind you!”

He spun around. There in the shadowy corridor he saw a number of gigantic and fantastically misshapen figures thundering down upon him, their bulging eyes aflame with hate. Fomorians! The carven pillars had come to life!

Shoving Baxter ahead of him, he leaped down the stairs just as the first of the ogres and gargoyles smashed through the doorway, demolishing the frame and surrounding masonry with a single thrust of their powerful shoulders. An instant later the entire face of the tower crashed down on the monsters’ heads with a rush and a roar like a mountain avalanche. Without looking back, Morgan followed Simon and Eny down to the gate.

At the portal Simon dispatched the heavy locks and gratings just as deftly as he had managed the bolts and bars of the tower door. Then he lowered the drawbridge and they all trooped down to the water’s edge.

(To be continued …)