The Keeper (17 page)

Oisín watched in agonising slow motion. Brad bowled into Stephen and knocked him forward. Brad's skateboard was thrown backwards, wheels spinning in mid-air. For a moment, everything was suspended in the sky: Stephen, Brad, the skateboard. Then gravity remembered its job and they all started to fall.

Oisín rushed to the edge. All he could see was Brad's silver skateboard, gleaming like a log on a river of fire. It only took a few seconds for it to disintegrate into the hungry lava. Oisín was sure Brad and Stephen had already been swallowed by the fire. But then the two boys appeared. That was the moment when Oisín understood why Madame Q had selected Brad as a Quint. Even as he was falling, he had managed to turn his tie into a rope and lasso himself onto the side of the volcano. He scrambled up onto Cnoc na gCnámh, shocked but alive.

This was also the moment when Oisín understood why Stephen had been the one to pull An Freagarach from the Underwater Caves. He was inching his way, hanging by his hands, across Droichead an Chlaímh, the hilt of An Freagarach in his mouth. His hands were streaming blood as he made his way across, but Stephen didn't let go.

The first thing he did after Antimony and Oisín pulled him up was to leap on top of Brad Washington.

‘You almost killed me,' he shouted, pushing Brad into the chalky dust of Cnoc na gCnámh.

‘Dude, I'm sorry,' Brad said. ‘I just wanted to help.'

‘Where are the other Quints?' Stephen said, holding out An Freagarach.

‘I don't know,' Brad said. ‘But I know it can't be good.'

‘Well, you can stay here and wait for them,' Stephen said.

‘I came to help, not to be pushed around.'

Brad pulled out his baseball
croíacht
from his trousers, as if he was ready for a fight.

Caoimhe stepped between them.

‘Let me fix that,' she said, taking Stephen's hands and placing ashgrass in her pen. ‘It'll sting a bit,' she said as Stephen winced. ‘But it'll burn out the cut.'

Caoimhe was right. Tiny ash stitches made their way across the deep red gashes on Stephen's palms. Apart from a thin scar, his hands were back to normal after a moment. Tom's knee had healed just as quickly. Caoimhe allowed herself a small smile of satisfaction.

‘Let's get moving before the ravens come back,' Tom said.

Stephen pulled out his sword.

‘I can handle this. You all stay here and wait for help.'

Even with the blade of An Freagarach in front of them, nobody was willing to stay behind. Stephen rolled his eyes at the collection of dusty children and one Quint in front of him.

‘All right, not exactly my dream crew, but I guess we're going together.'

Stephen dusted off his jeans and held up An Freagarach. Oisín knew that he was thinking of Sorcha.

‘Let's get going. We've got one green-eyed monster to kill.'

Up in the sky, the sun continued to shine stupidly, unaware of what was happening below. It shone over the battle on
Eachtra's
deck. It shone over Droichead an Chlaímh's sharply glinting blade. And it shone over Cnoc na gCnámh, its pale white surface gleaming in the light, daring anybody to approach.

Chapter 20

Cnoc na gCnámh

T
HE CHILDREN climbed up Cnoc na gCnámh in silence. The smooth surface of bone was hot and slippery in the sun and it took all their concentration to keep moving. Oisín scanned the skies for ravens, but it was eerily calm.

After an hour or so they reached an archway that led into a twisting tunnel. Tom touched the sides of the cave. Slowly, his Earth Magic reached some scraps of moss and they started to glow. Oisín wasn't sure if he wanted to see. The inside of the tunnel was carved from bone, but the walls were lined with real skeletons of animals and humans. Small femurs and tibias spelt out a message on the floor.

‘Enter at your peril,' Oisín read with a shiver.

‘So friendly. And we forgot to bring chocolates,' Tom murmured.

‘Ssssh,' Stephen whispered. ‘I read in one of the books that there's a Guardian of the Bones. We don't want to wake whatever that is up.'

‘Bookworm,' Oisín muttered.

There was the hint of a smile on Stephen's face. Then he gripped An Freagarach and walked past the message and into the cave. Oisín followed. He could feel it as they walked through the twisting passages deeper into Cnoc na gCnámh: they were getting closer and closer to the Book of Magic.

Finally they reached a huge cavern. Like the rest of Cnoc na gCnámh, it was lined with bones, but the ones on the ceiling were gigantic, as if they belonged to a dinosaur. The patches of moss that Tom had enchanted continued to flicker, so Oisín could just make out some of the terrifying skeletons on the wall. He turned away from the long fish in front of him, deciding he didn't want to imagine how sharp its teeth had been when it was alive.

Stephen pushed against a large cylindrical slab in the centre of the room. It looked like the only doorway but no matter how hard Stephen pushed, it refused to budge.

‘It won't move,' Caoimhe said. ‘It's enchanted.'

Oisín peered at some lines cut into the surface of the slab.

‘It's Ogham,' he said after a moment. ‘We did this in school. It's the script that was used in ancient Ireland to mark the names of chieftains on stones. It must be a riddle.'

Angus Óg had told them about Ogham too, all those weeks ago in the snowy mountains. He searched his brain, remembering how he had carved out his own name. He scratched out what he could remember of the Ogham alphabet in the dust. Now that he had a task, he felt calmer. He almost forgot about the others until he heard the fear in Caoimhe's voice.

‘Tom, what are you doing?'

Tom was looking at the skeletons on the wall.

‘It's not right,' he said.

The glowing moss was very dim, so it took Oisín a second to see what was troubling Tom. He was looking at a picture on the wall: two human skeletons were playing with the skeleton of a fox. A woman was pulling at the fox's tail, while a man yanked the fox's ears. Even as a collection of bones, Oisín could see that the fox was in pain, forever trapped with his mouth open.

‘We can't leave him like that,' Tom said.

‘Tom, it's just a picture,' Caoimhe said.

‘Imagine if it was Giant!' Tom said. ‘I couldn't leave him trapped here.'

‘No!' Stephen hissed.

It was too late. Tom had eased the fox's tail from the triumphant lady's fingers.

‘We shouldn't move anything,' Caoimhe said, panic in her voice.

There was an ominous creaking sound, as if the cavern was waking up.

‘Let go of me,' Tom said, going on trying to help the fox.

‘Tom, nobody's holding you!'

Tom gulped as he turned around to see three bony fingers gripping onto the back of his T-shirt. The female skeleton from the wall had creaked slowly to life and moved forward. Tom tried to step away but the skeleton gripped him tighter, clattering her bony teeth together in anticipation.

‘Leave him alone,' Caoimhe shouted, shooting out pebbles from one of her pen's many compartments.

The skeleton tumbled backwards, but her male friend was also coming to life. He raised a sword of bone in the air. With a quick snarl, the fox leapt up and bit his wrist, sending the sword crashing to the floor. There was another creaking sound. The movement of the skeletons had aroused all the other bones lining the cave and, slowly, terribly, they started to come to life, creaking and twisting their forgotten limbs. There was a bear with a huge snapping jaw, a collection of hands not attached to anything, the long fish with very sharp teeth.

‘Don't stop, Slowsnail!' Stephen snarled at Oisín. He swiped his sword at a skeleton-snake without pausing for breath. ‘We'll never get out of here if you don't solve that riddle. Move it!'

Oisín turned back to the Ogham, which he had just finished deciphering.

‘What you see if you look at this for ever,' he read carefully.

What did that mean? His own reflection? The other side? He racked his brain desperately. It was a little hard to concentrate with the sounds of the skeletons behind him. He could hear a low rumbling sound, as if the whole ceiling was shaking. He looked up and saw with horror what was above them: the long skeleton of a slender dragon. It pulled itself off the roof and stretched. It was very long, with a sharp, twisting tail and a huge mouth. The Guardian of the Bones.

‘Now would be a great time to solve the riddle,' Brad said, hitting a clatter of hungry teeth with his baseball.

Oisín looked at the Ogham slab desperately. ‘What you see if you look at this for ever,' he repeated to himself, feeling none the wiser. He heard the terrible sound of the dragon coiling down the wall, the swish of An Freagarach as it curved through the air. Then there was an awful boom and the cavern was filled with light and smoke. The Guardian could blow fire.

‘We're all OK,' Tom shouted, seeing Oisín turn his head to check. ‘Just keep going.'

Oisín heard another creak as the Guardian switched position behind him. They were all going to end up as skeletons. They wouldn't see anything if they stayed here for ever, just death.

That was it, Oisín realised, with a terrible chill. The answer to the riddle was
death
.

Oisín picked up a stone and quickly carved the answer in the bone slab. The boulder creaked open. Inside was a narrow passage leading into a murky body of water. Oisín didn't like the look of the shadowy water but at least it wasn't breathing fire.

‘Come on!' he said to the others. The boulder was already starting to close.

They all looked at each other. On one side was an army of skeletons and a dragon who'd had several centuries to work on his rage. On the other was an unknown pool of water and the Morrígan's chamber.

The five children took a deep breath and dived in.

Chapter 21

Betrayal

A
NTIMONY was in a different part of Cnoc na gCnámh, one of the oldest parts of the mountain, where the magic was so deep it made the air feel heavy. It had been a couple of hours since she'd arrived. Crossing Droichead an Chlaímh had been easy for her, but the riddle had taken her a while to work out.

She felt the Book of Magic flutter in her hands. It wasn't sure about her yet, but it wasn't entirely resistant either. She wasn't sure how long the
béal tine
she had used would work. She had to move fast.

She waded through the dark water into a small side chamber. It was the one she'd read about in the library, the reason she'd come to Cnoc na gCnámh: the old chamber had very deep magic, the kind that could make the darkest of spells work. Antimony climbed up onto the small island of bone in the centre of the chamber and put the Book of Magic down. The room pulsed with a strange green glow, from candles which flickered in a chandelier made out of bones. The chandelier made Antimony shiver, so instead she focused on setting up. There was only a small bit of
béal tine
powder left: she'd used most of it to steal the Book. This was her only chance. The Book of Magic flapped its pages to the Quintessence section, bracing itself.

Are you sure you want to do this?

Antimony ignored the voice in her head and placed a drop of her blood into the jar. She pulled out a fire-beetle and placed it inside. Deep in her bag were the two items she had been saving: her mother's favourite turquoise ring and the special spoon her father used to stir his firecocoa. She added them to the jar and picked up the Book of Magic.

‘Are you sure you want to do this?'

The voice wasn't coming from her head but from the cavern. Antimony rubbed a couple of loose shards of bone against her slingshot quickly.

‘You don't need a weapon,' the voice said softly.

Antimony scanned the small chamber. There was nothing there except the chandelier, the walls of bone and a pool of clear water.

Antimony sparked the bone shards into a sword. Better to be safe.

‘I told you, child, you don't need a weapon. Swords can't hurt me any more.'

Antimony turned around to see the pool of water shifting slowly, until Deirdre of the Sorrows had formed her watery self in its centre.

‘I'm busy,' Antimony said, turning back to the Book.

‘I know,' Deirdre of the Sorrows said. ‘Are you sure you want to do this?'

‘It's none of your business.'

‘I know the sadness you feel.'

There was something different about Deirdre of the Sorrows' voice, a trace of genuine concern.

‘You don't know anything,' Antimony said, turning back to the swirling indigo smoke. She mustn't let her brain become distracted.
Béal tine
could only work with total concentration. And she would only be able to use the Book of Magic if she stayed focused. It stretched on the floor beside her, excited.

‘You don't want to help your friends?' Deirdre of the Sorrows asked.

‘They're just people I know.'

‘I don't think that's true.'

Deirdre of the Sorrows flicked back a watery strand of hair. ‘I know how hard it is to make friends. Believe me, no girl wants to be friends with the most beautiful woman in Ireland. It's a terrible trial having eyelashes that everybody else would die for.' She stopped herself and continued in a different tone. ‘Good friends are hard to find. They're worth keeping.'

Antimony concentrated on her mother's ring, remembering the first time her mother had let her dress up with her jewels. She had to hurry. The kind of magic she wanted to do could only work on Lughnasa. She remembered the first time her father had spoken of the six lost books of the Tuatha Dé Danann. He had told her of the Book of Magic's power. It has the power to overcome everything, he had said. Even death.

‘It won't work the way you want it to,' Deirdre of the Sorrows said. ‘
Béal tine
never does. The Book of Magic is no different: it tells you what to do, not the other way around.'

Antimony tried to ignore her.
Béal tine
had worked when she wanted the Book to stay on the island, hadn't it? She wasn't going to back down now.

‘My child, I know your sadness,' Deirdre of the Sorrows said, her watery cheeks swelling. ‘But your parents have moved on to the Land of Shade. It's no use pulling them back.'

‘If it's so great there, why don't you go?' Antimony said angrily. The Book of Magic shook in her fingers and she struggled to keep hold of it.

‘I often wish I did,' Deirdre of the Sorrows said, gazing sadly at her own reflection. ‘Tears can't keep me warm in bed like Naoise could. Many a night I wished I could bring him back by my side. It's too late to save my Naoise. But it's not too late to save another warrior.'

‘What do you mean?' Antimony couldn't help asking.

‘The Keane brothers have come to Cnoc na gCnámh,' Deirdre of the Sorrows said. ‘With one of the Quints and your siblings.'

‘The Houlihans aren't my siblings.'

‘Your friends, then,' Deirdre of the Sorrows continued. ‘They're all swimming towards terrible danger.'

‘Stephen has An Freagarach. They'll be fine,' Antimony said.

‘My Naoise had An Freagarach too,' Deirdre of the Sorrows said sadly. ‘He still died. The boy will too, without the aid of the Book. They all will. It's clear as water.'

‘They can look after themselves,' Antimony said, her fingers trembling.

Deirdre of the Sorrows closed her watery eyes as she read the vibrations of the other streams in Cnoc na gCnámh.

‘There is great danger coming for the brothers. Betrayal is ahead.'

‘I've already betrayed them, haven't I?'

‘Not yet, my dear.'

Antimony looked down at her father's teaspoon. She couldn't change her mind now.

‘Why don't you go and stop the Morrígan then? I'm just a Wren.'

‘A Wren who's holding the most powerful book in our world.'

The Book of Magic moved its pages slowly. Antimony stared at the words that were forming in silver writing so small it was almost invisible. The Book of Magic knew what she wanted. All she had to do was use the
béal tine
to make sure it happened.

‘She'll get the Book if you do this, you know,' Deirdre of the Sorrows said. ‘She'll come for it soon.'

Then I'll have to be fast
, Antimony thought. She tried to ignore the sounds of Deirdre of the Sorrows, but her ears couldn't help listening.

‘Our world tilts on a knife edge. What you decide today will shape the years to come. If you do this kind of deep magic, you'll change the Book of Magic for ever. The Morrígan will win.'

The silver words gleamed in the bright light. Antimony stared at the sentence that could bring her parents back from the dead.

‘Child, you must choose,' Deirdre of the Sorrows said urgently. ‘Think about what your parents would want.'

Antimony struggled to hold the Book in her hands. That was the problem: how could she know what her parents would want? Wouldn't they want to be with her? Wouldn't they want her not to be alone?

‘You can bring back your parents from the shade,' Deirdre of the Sorrows said, ‘or you can save your friends. You must choose: the living or the dead.'

A magical tear rolled down Antimony's cheek and sloshed onto the parchment. It spread across the small silver words, slowly dissolving them. Indigo smoke swirled in the jar beside her. If she wanted to do it, it had to be now. Antimony looked at Deirdre of the Sorrows' watery eyes and knew she shouldn't have. Images flashed across Deirdre of the Sorrows' clear body: Antimony's mother in her laboratory, grinning as lime green dust fizzed in a beaker. Her father teaching her his grandmother's recipe for firecocoa. Her parents together, watching her win her first game of fireball when she was six. Another tear dropped down. Without needing to look, Antimony knew it was spreading across the parchment. The sentence would be invisible in seconds.

Just as she was about to turn to the
béal tine
, another set of images flashed across Deirdre of the Sorrows. Tom showing her the best tree to climb in the Houlihans' forest. Caoimhe tending her ashgrass. Sorcha hopping onto the beach when the DART landed. Oisín helping her to swim in the Underwater Caves. Stephen handing her a mudball to throw at the Quints. Tears trickled down her cheeks, a stream now. Antimony closed the Book of Magic and leant her head against the wall. She felt as if somebody had carved open her chest and there was nothing left any more.

Deirdre of the Sorrows glided over to her. She had absorbed some of Antimony's tears, so she was even fuller than usual.

‘You don't need to bring them back, my dear. They'll always live on in you.'

Antimony found some anger somewhere in her empty chest. She was tired of people telling her about her parents.

‘What do you know? You didn't know them. You don't know what they'd want.'

‘I knew your father when he was a Quint here and he was always very kind to me.' Deirdre of the Sorrows' expression changed as she recalled Antimony's mother. ‘I met your mother at the wedding. Of course I couldn't help crying about how my Naoise and I could never have a ceremony like that, perfectly natural. Maybe I did make the wedding cake
slightly
soggy and I suppose it was not
ideal
that your mother had to float down the aisle, but even so, I still don't think she had to shoot so much fire at me when I cried for the thirtieth time! Even though she put it out, some of my beautiful braids are still charred.'

Something different stirred in Antimony's chest, something warm and ticklish. She felt her mouth curving into a smile. She remembered the photo of her parents' wedding: her mother in an emerald green dress, her father's dreadlocks tied back in a ponytail. She could picture the two of them flashing fire towards Deirdre of the Sorrows' floods of tears one moment and helping her the next. Antimony found her feet and stood up shakily. For the first time, she thought she knew what her parents would want. She picked up the Book of Magic.

‘Can you take me to them?'

Deirdre of the Sorrows nodded and merged back into the water. Antimony followed her, wading down the twisting corridors of bone, trying to ignore the skeletons that served as decoration. Finally they reached an ornate door made of bone. The Book of Magic pulsed in Antimony's hands, as if it knew what was inside. Antimony wasn't sure what it wanted now. She had been about to use very deep magic and had stopped just when the Book of Magic could show how powerful it was. It twisted in her hands. She couldn't tell whether it was excited to see its Keeper or the Morrígan.

‘I can't go in,' Deirdre of the Sorrows said. ‘There are too many shadow-fish in this water.'

Antimony nodded. She felt both very alone and full of fire. She pulled out her slingshot and turned the cold white doorknob very slowly. As Deirdre of the Sorrows floated off, Antimony peered through a crack in the doorway.

The room was huge, the size of a football field. At its centre was an enormous pyramid of skulls and bones, protected by a moat of shadow-fish and a circle of curtains that hung from the ceiling, the thread so thin that it was almost invisible. A magnificent throne of bone sat on top of the pyramid of skulls. Antimony shuddered: she'd arrived at the Morrígan's chamber.

It wasn't the Morrígan standing there, though, but a handsome boy, his blazer slung over the back of the throne and his tie whipping through the air like a weapon.

Lysander Quicksilver looked over at Antimony in surprise.

‘Stay out of this, Ogoni,' he said.

Antimony saw who he was fighting: Brad Washington, who was using his own tie as a weapon in defence. The two Quints circled each other, their ties snapping against each other like swords. Brad tripped on the skulls and tumbled over.

‘Help me,' he shouted to Antimony as Lysander towered over him.

Antimony raced through the shallow moat of shadow-fish and ducked through a gap in the curtain. She picked up a shard of bone, placed it in her slingshot and aimed for Lysander's chest.

‘No!' Lysander shouted as the bone knocked him over.

Brad leapt to his feet. His tie caught Lysander just as he tried to scramble away and Lysander was thrown into the curtain. He stayed there, like a fly stuck in a web. He
was
stuck in a web, Antimony realised with a lurch. The thread was so fine because it wasn't a curtain but a cobweb.

‘What do you think you're doing?'

Antimony gasped as somebody grabbed her from behind. It was Raqib Paro.

‘Stop messing and give me the Book like a good little Wren,' he said.

Raqib might have been the finest chemist in the Himalayas but he certainly wasn't the finest fighter. Antimony gave him a quick dig in the chest, pushed him away and kicked him into the cobweb-curtain.

Antimony looked up and saw that Ben Washington had attacked Brad at the same time. Brad had managed to push him into the cobweb-curtain, though. The three Quints struggled uselessly against the fine thread, which had bound its way across their mouths so they couldn't talk. Antimony shivered. This felt quite different from throwing mudballs.

‘Thanks, dude,' Brad said, pocketing his brother's calculator
croíacht
and gingerly making his way down the pyramid.

‘Where are the others?' Antimony asked, scanning the chamber for any sign of her friends.

The cobweb curtain stretched around the perimeter of the pyramid of skulls. Antimony thought she saw some movement behind the throne, but couldn't make out what it was.

‘Man, we all got separated,' Brad said. ‘The shadow-water was real deep. You should have seen it! I wish I'd had my skateboard – I could have surfed out of there.'