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.
