Page 51 of Celtic Love and Legends (Lords of Eire)

CHAPTER ONE

Present Day

“W hat in the hell is that guy doing up there?”

The woman asking the question looked genuinely curious. Her friend, wrapped up against the cold afternoon and kicking at a rock in the middle of the footpath, glanced up to see what the woman was referring to. She could see a man at the top of the green, damp mound, a very big man, speaking with great animation to a group of young people.

“That guy?” She pointed.

“Yes.” Her friend nodded. “He’s waving his arms around like he’s trying to take off.”

The friend giggled, looking back to the footpath they were on so she wouldn’t trip. “I have no idea what he’s doing.” She snorted. “These ancient religious places seem to affect people.”

The first woman looked around. It was a beautiful afternoon in the lush countryside of Ireland, a color of green she had never seen before. It was so vibrant that it was almost neon in patches. The weather was cool and damp, as it had rained heavily that morning, but now the sun was out and everything just seemed fresh and vivid. A cool breeze blew in from the Irish Sea to the east, stirring the bushes and branches as the pair walked up the path toward the animated man and his captive audience.

“It’s not just these religious sites,” the first woman said as she shoved her hands deep into the pockets of her jacket as the wind picked up. “It’s the Irish in general.”

The friend turned to look at her. “Don’t bash my people.”

“They’re my people, too. I can bash them if I want to.”

The two women snorted as they made their way up the muddy, grassy path. They were clearly Americans from their accents, so the talk of bashing the Irish was in a tribute to their heritage, watered down over the generations. They were currently on a tour of the “old country,” on a whirlwind holiday that saw them paying a visit to the great Neolithic burial mound of Dowth.

About thirty-two miles north of Dublin, Dowth was a massive Neolithic site that was larger than its better-known counterpart, New Grange. Not many people came to visit Dowth, but Destry Caldbeck and her friend, Aisling Reilly, had made the trip, mostly because Aisling was kicking Destry all the way across Ireland and forcing her to participate in activities when Destry would rather be sitting in a pub drowning her sorrows.

Being jilted at the altar had had that effect on her.

The truth was that Destry and Aisling were enjoying what should have been Destry’s honeymoon, but it had been an uphill battle. Constant sightseeing had been Aisling’s way of keeping Destry’s mind off the situation. Even now, she tried to keep the mood light as they reached the crest of the ancient mound, noting the enormous man with the group around him at closer range. The man was indeed waving his arms around, apparently acting out some kind of scene as the people around him watched intently. Aisling and Destry couldn’t help but watch him, too, until Destry finally shook her head and looked away. She pulled a small guidebook out of her pocket and began to read.

“Okay,” she said, finding her place in the book. “Let’s see what this has to say—Dowth dates from around three thousand BC and has all sorts of underground storage chambers. It’s part of the Brú na Bóinne monuments.”

Aisling looked around the top of the mound where they were standing. “What does that mean?”

Destry continued to read. “Neolithic monuments like New Grange.”

“That one is next on our list.”

“I know.” Destry put the guidebook down and began to look around. “This site is really big.”

Aisling began to wander. “Huge,” she agreed, wrapping her scarf more tightly about her neck because the wind was blowing. “But why is it so darn cold? You would think it was January and not September. I feel like I’m in the Arctic.”

Destry shrugged. “Maybe we should have gone to the Bahamas.”

“Maybe.”

Aisling continued wandering, looking at their surroundings. Then she came to a halt, cocking her head in the direction of the man and his group. She listened a moment before looking to Destry.

“It sounds like he’s giving a tour,” she said. “I can hear him.”

Destry’s gaze lingered on the man several dozen feet away. “Should we go listen?”

Aisling waggled her eyebrows devilishly. “We didn’t pay for the tour. Not only that, but we busted through the fence to get up here. I really don’t think we’re even supposed to be here.”

Destry shrugged. “The worst he can do is tell us to go away.”

Aisling snorted as Destry began to saunter casually in the direction of the group. The area of the top of the mound was fairly vast and uneven and had been closed off to the public. But Destry and Aisling had climbed through the fence anyway and walked up the narrow path.

As they neared the group, they could hear the man as he continued his story.

And what a story it was.

*

“…tomb was emptied of its original contents when it was plundered by Viking raiders around 861 AD, who basically plundered all of the tombs in the Boyne Valley,” he was saying with great drama. “Much of our Irish heritage ended up on a long boat bound for Scandinavia, where some of it is now in Scandinavian museums.”

A young college student with a dirty stocking cap on his head threw up a hand and began to speak. “Dr. Da Derga?” he called. “Haven’t we tried to get our treasures back from the Scandinavians?”

Dr. Conor Da Derga turned to look at the young man with a wry smirk on his face. “It’s like the British stealing treasures from Egypt and putting them in the British Museum,” he said, his Irish brogue heavy and dramatic to the point of barely being understandable. “The British won’t give them back to Egypt, and the Viking plunderers won’t give us back our treasures, either. They stole our history and claim it as their own.”

A question-and-answer session followed as Destry and Aisling stood at the back of the group, listening. Destry’s attention was mostly on the teacher and not on the students. Since the group was made up of young adults, she could only assume it was a college class. Dr. Da Derga was, in fact, everything an Irishman should be—he was loud, passionate, animated, handsome, and had a deep red mustache and goatee that stood out against his milky-white skin. Even though the man was bundled up against the cold, she could see that he had red hair beneath his well-worn newsboy cap.

But she noticed more—he was absolutely enormous in both size and height. She was three inches over five feet herself, and the man had to be well over a foot taller than she was, and built like a linebacker. She thought he was very good-looking with his chiseled features and brilliant smile, something that Aisling silently agreed with as she flashed a wicked smile in Destry’s direction.

And he was dynamic, too. Great passion came forth as he moved away from plundered Irish history and began to describe the history of Dowth. He waved his arms and bugged his eyes as he described ancient man and their toils on the mound. Then he began to speak of more recent history, of the Dark Age village that had popped up around Dowth, fragments of which had been excavated.

Destry watched the man, finding herself focusing more on his handsome features than what he was actually saying. A couple of times, their eyes met and she felt strangely unsettled as he focused in on her. The man had intense blue eyes, bordering on something magnetic and powerful, and Destry was too fragile to rationally deal with anything intensely male at the moment. She tried to stay and listen, but his gaze kept coming back to her, each look more potent than the last. Disturbed, she broke off from the group as Aisling remained and wandered away.

The grass was thick, wet, and vibrantly green as she made her way down the side of the mound. She lost her footing a couple of times and slid in the grass, eventually ending up at the bottom of the mound.

There was a lot of foliage around the base of the mound, thick brush growing out from the sides. She pulled out her guidebook and began to read again, noting that it said there were three entrances at the base of the mound, all facing southwest. Getting her bearings, she shifted direction and wandered through the brush until she came to the first of the three passages.

The first passage was small, and all she could see was darkness beyond the stone-braced doorway. There was a metal grate covering the entrance that was wobbly in parts, but she didn’t feel like pulling it back and charging in to a bottomless black pit. Moreover, she didn’t have a flashlight, and the sun was beginning to set, so it was difficult to see more than just a few feet inside. Still, she could smell wet earth and mold coming forth, invisible wisps of ancient times that were reaching out for her. She wasn’t superstitious by nature, and she wasn’t easily spooked, but something about the dark bowels of the ancient burial mound made her shiver. Maybe it was just the coldness of the air coming forth. Whatever it was, she shrugged it off and moved to the next entrance.

She could see more through this entrance, but it wasn’t any grander than the last. It was just old and creepy, covered with another gate. On to the third entrance, she moved in and out of the heavy growth, trying not to get wet from the moisture that still lingered.

Over to the southwest, the sun was sitting on the horizon as night began to approach, and Destry was beginning to think that they should head back to the car. She was looking forward to a hot meal and a hot bath, in that order. Maybe they would also hit a few of the pubs, seeking some solace and distraction in the Irish pastime. Not that she wanted to get drunk. Well, maybe. It seemed to be the only thing that made her forget about the hell of the past two weeks.

Of the anguish she’d been put through.

The third passage was taller than the other two, with the same black-hole entrance. Oddly, the gate was ajar. Destry couldn’t see more than a few feet inside of it, and wished she had brought a flashlight. She could feel the dampness from this hole reaching out to her again, caressing her face with cold fingers. It also smelled strange, like the dank depths of a grave, which it essentially was. The guidebook said that Medieval people used the mound to store food and that there was a storage chamber inside.

Peering into the blackness, Destry noticed the weak rays of the setting sun were shining on this side of the mound. A few streamed through the bushes and fell upon the peripheral of the ancient doorway. She stood there for a moment, hoping if she waited long enough that the sun would act as a flashlight and shine down into the tunnel.

It was growing colder as the sun was lowering in the sky, and she tightened up her scarf and shoved her hands into her pockets, waiting for the sun to shine its dying rays into the ancient tunnel. The breeze had picked up, too, filtering through the bushes around her. The wind whipped into the passageway and found its way out again. The first couple of times, it whipped around her, and she shivered against the iciness. Then came a particularly strong gust of wind that soared through the other tunnels, and then blasted out of the tunnel where Destry was standing. She turned her back on it as it swirled around her, whistling through the stone and earth with an odd hum. At the height of the gust, she thought she heard something whispered upon the wind.

Etain!

Startled, Destry turned to see if someone was standing behind her. It sounded as if someone had whispered in her ear, a breathy gasp that was quickly gone. But the tunnel was dark, the wind brisk, and she shook her head, thinking that it had only been the wind. Clearly, it couldn’t have been anything else.

Yawning, she watched the sun set lower on the horizon, turning to see that some of the weak rays had invaded the tunnel. She was looking forward to seeing what was deep down inside the hill. But another gust of wind whipped through the mound, and she turned away from the tunnel as bits of rock and loose earth kicked up at her. She closed her eyes against the flying dust, and the whisper on the wind filled her ears again.

Etain!

Destry jumped at the sound, turning back to the dark opening now that the sun was just beginning to fall upon it. She gazed at it suspiciously, thinking that someone was playing tricks on her.

“Hello?” she called. “Who’s in there? Come out of there or I’m coming in.”

Nothing but the wind answered. Levelheaded and brutally practical, Destry waited for a few red-headed Irish kids to come running out to scare her. But no one emerged from the tunnel, and as she moved in to get a closer look, the sun’s rays hit the ancient entrance, reflecting on stone and earth that had seen five hundred centuries of such events. The sun reached the rock, cut by the ancients, and the cold, porous blocks roared to life.

Abruptly, it was very bright in the entrance, and Destry could see all the way back to the end of the tunnel. The walls were lined with stone, great carved slabs that held back the tons of earth surrounding it. The sun gave the stone a strange yellow glow, reflecting the brilliance of the setting rays. But as Destry studied the tunnel with interest, the yellow glow took on an even brighter countenance.

It wasn’t so much the stone, as something else seemed to be creating a light of its own. The great yellow glow became brighter and brighter until it was nearly white. Destry put a hand up to shield her eyes from the glare, and as she did so, something in the midst of the great white glow reached toward her.

“ Etain! ”

It wasn’t one whisper; it was several. It was like hundreds of children whispering as one, a chorus of angels that breathed life upon the earth. Destry felt a great rush of air as the whisper burst forth like a thousand shooting stars, reaching out to touch her. It all happened so fast that she didn’t have time to be startled; as she stood there, something brushed against her hand, and she heard the chorus of whispers once more.

“ Fanacht, morrigan, gnáthlá agus oiche og ceanna; tar ar cúl do sinne. ”

Destry didn’t even remember running away until she was halfway up the hill. Her heart was pounding and her head swimming, and she was so frightened that she could hardly think straight. But she was walking very quickly up the hill, anxious to put space in between her and the mysterious tunnel. She had no idea what those odd whispers were, but it was the touch that had sent her scurrying.

For several long moments, disorientation consumed her. There was no way that whatever had happened was real, she told herself firmly. She forced herself to calm, taking deep breaths, struggling with her equilibrium and her composure. It hadn’t been real; it couldn’t have been. The sunlight, the wind, had been playing tricks on her.

She kept telling herself that, over and over.

By the time she reached the top of the mound, Destry was slightly less frazzled, but only barely. At least she wasn’t gasping for air any longer. On the crest of the mound, the students had disbanded and were walking around the ancient hill in small clusters, inspecting it, and she could see Aisling standing with the tall and imposing figure of Dr. Da Derga. She was talking to him about something, her hands flying all around, as they usually did when she talked.

Taking another deep breath, and with a glance over her shoulder, Destry made her way over to Aisling and Dr. Da Derga.

But she swore that the whispers were following.