The Green Hero (12 page)

“You have no way of knowing,” said Finn. “But I’ll tell you now. I don’t have to guess, because when I bite my thumb this way, the very one that was scorched when I fried the fish of knowledge—which is another story I may tell you sometime—why then knowledge comes to me, and I know beyond guessing. I invoke this power only upon special occasions. Not for little secrets, you understand. But the fate of the sea god seems occasion enough. And, as I bite my thumb this way, pictures appear in the fire, and I can see them.

“What do you see?” said Kathleen. “Tell me … tell me. …”

“I see right into the awful depths of the earth that opens out under the sea, void under void. I see beyond those depths into the central fires of the earth, whence grows a pillar of rock, molten rock far under, then cooling, cooling, until finally cooled by the northern sea, where the rock turns into ice. From this granite base grows a mountain of ice, which is like a huge iceberg, but does not float. And beneath this mountain, right where the granite turns into ice, there to that massive shaft is chained Lyr—shackled by the heaviest bolts ever made by those smith-gods who labor inside Vilemurk’s smoky mountains and forge his weapons in the volcano fires.”

“You see all that?” whispered Kathleen.

“Indeed I do.”

“What else do you see?”

“Tilted in the flame I see the oceans of the world. They are lead-colored now, and have lost their shine. No fish leap, no gulls fly. Crabs and lobsters crawl out of the seven surfs, fleeing the beaches, and trying to climb trees. Yes, there is grief upon the waters, for the god has fallen.”

“Is he dead?”

“Gods cannot die. But they can suffer. And this one is suffering. Chained underearth, deprived of water and light and majesty—tormented by Vilemurk’s bat-winged mist-hags who gnaw at him with their snaggly teeth—aye, he suffers. And the waters grieve. And those who live off the bounty of the sea, sailors and fishermen and such, they will perish, too.”

“Terrible pictures you see there in the fire,” said Kathleen.

“Yes … and I go to change them.”

“What?”

“I go to free the god of the sea.”

“You? What can you do?”

“That is what I mean to find out. Farewell. I go north.”

“And what am I to do, young sir, while you go cavorting off on your adventures? What am I to do with that bag of bones that was my husband? It is your fault I am in such a plight. If you had not brought his mother to see me, I’d still be living happily with him in my hollow tree. But no! You must try to act like a hero and meddle in my affairs, and bring that old witch raging down upon us, so that the poor lad was torn apart.”

“But I have promised to restore him,” said Finn. “I deny that he was sundered by my doing; nevertheless, I have taken it upon myself to see him whole again. It is only by the mighty magic of Angus Og that his poor bones can be reknitted.”

“Exactly,” said Kathleen. “And you are supposed to be taking us to Angus Og. But now you abandon us. You choose to go waltzing off on some conceited errand to the northern wastes. I’ll not have it! You must keep your promise to me, and leave the god of the sea to those better able to conduct such high affairs.”

“Will you be silent, woman?” cried Finn. “Buzz, buzz, buzz—I cannot think! Nag, nag, nag—you drive me to distraction! Can’t you see that I have no choice, despite my promise? I am shown a larger danger, and I must choose it. To challenge Vilemurk and rescue Lyr is a deed worthy of Cuchulain himself, best of the ancient heroes. It puts me in a fever to think of such opportunity. So you must wait. Your husband must wait. My promise must wait.”

“Wait how long?”

“Till I return.”

“And if you fail to return? If Vilemurk is powerful enough to capture the king of the sea himself, what makes you think, puny mortal that you are, that he will not squash you like a bug?”

“Without peril there is no honor.”

“And so—you will be destroyed. And I will wait here with my sack of bones through the long years until I grow old and gray and withered and wouldn’t know what to do with a husband if I had one. No, thank you. I am your responsibility now. You thrust yourself into my business and made it yours. I am not so easy to get rid of, you will find. Go north if you must, but I go with you.”

“Kathleen—be reasonable. I have fighting to do. I’ll have no time to take care of you.”

“Perhaps I’ll take care of you. I can fight too, you know. And pretty well … pretty well. So you may as well stop arguing. You won’t budge me. Where you go, I go, and that’s flat. As for this bag of bones that is my husband—well, we’ll store it in a safe place, and pick it up when we return, if we return. There’s a good flat rock. We’ll bury the bones under it, and they’ll be safe from prowling dogs. Start digging, Finn. The moon grows pale, and the waters grieve, and we have much to do, you and I.”

Vilemurk had conquered, and his forces were everywhere at work, shrinking the seas, stretching the polar ice cap. The north wind blew triumphantly, sweeping the warm sea southward, and paving the path of its retreat with rock-hard ice tundra.

Vanquished Lyr, manacled hand and foot to the granite pillar of ice that supported the roof of the world, could not struggle free. His oceans shrank, and fishermen and sailors perished.

It was only autumn, but the coldest autumn Ireland had ever known. Ice-cold rain fell without ceasing. The sun was all shriveled to a pinpoint of light, when it could be seen at all, but mostly it was not seen, for a queer cold fog covered the shores, confusing day and night. As the month advanced, the cold rain turned to hailstones big as eggs that fell with such force as to kill cattle in the field. Men did not venture out unless they wore helmets. Their wives, when they left the house, wore iron pots on their heads. Then, before October ended, the snow began to sift down out of the gray sky. And fell and fell and fell. No one knew what had happened to the weather, and why the frost demon triumphed so, and was able to torment those islands known as the jewels of the sea.

Of all men, only Finn knew, he and Kathleen. And they were far to the north, fighting through a howling blizzard on their way to try to rescue Lyr. They were clad in white fur, which made them very difficult to see against the snow. Finn had gone hunting and had come back with a pair of huge polar-bear pelts, which Kathleen had cut and sewed into two mantles and two hoods for herself and Finn. These furs kept them warm in the teeth of the savage north wind.

That night they held a council of war around their campfire. And how did they build a fire in a blizzard with no tree in sight, and no earth beneath their feet, only ice? Well, you will remember the seeds of fire that Finn, once, in another great frost, had dug from the roots of a frozen sunset before its weight tilted the horizon and it slipped toward the pole and lodged in that sky, casting marvelous colors, and became known as the Northern Lights. Finn had kept these seeds of fire always. Now, each night, he scraped a shaving off one of the pulsing golden pods, and that shaving was enough to start a fire anywhere—for it was a particle of the primal flame itself, that heat which is at the center of all life and drops to us from the sun. Each night Finn started a small blaze which he fed with icicles, and the flame ate them as if they were twigs of wood, and leaped merrily, hissing and growing brighter as the snow fell upon it.

How did Finn carry these seeds of fire, then, without getting holes burned right through him? Well, when he dug out the seeds he went to a secret underground workshop where labor the craftsmen of the Tuatha da Danaan, those ancient gods of Ireland who have shrunk up because people ceased believing in them, but who can still do magic when necessary. They work underground, polishing gems, tanning leather for the finest boots, making daggers for kings and such. The chief tanner there became interested in Finn’s problem when it was explained to him, and fabricated a very special leather to make a pouch for the seeds of fire. The problem was to make it cold enough; to do that was needed the coldest hides in all the world. Now the crudest and coldest of all the animals is man at his worst, and the coldest part of him is his heart. So, from a storage bin the tanner drew out the heart of a miser and the heart of a tyrant and the wizened heart of a bard whom no one listened to, spun a thread of tiger sinew, mixed a paste of shark’s blood and snake spit and crocodile tears, and sewed Finn a pouch, speckled, greenish-brown, beautiful—and demonishly cold. So cold it could hold the seeds of fire, and Finn could carry them at his belt without harm.

Finn had told this story to Kathleen over the first campfire made from the fire seed, and it was a wonder to the girl. She loved handling the pouch and watching the seed sprout its magic flame. They sat about their fire on this night then and plotted what to do. The hawk perched on Finn’s shoulder and the huge black tomcat lay in Kathleen’s lap. And their fire was the only spot of light in all that howling waste.

“We’ve almost come to where I want to go,” said Finn. “But what to do when we get there I do not know.”

“That sounds like a song,” said Kathleen. “A sad song.”

“Yes, and I beg your pardon. A true hero should grow more joyous as his hour of peril approaches. But I am no true hero, you know.”

“I didn’t know. How could I tell? You’re the only one I’ve met, true or untrue.”

“Well, take my word for it. By nature I’m a coward. I just pretend to be brave. And sometimes the pretense wears thin. I hate fighting. I can’t bear the sight of blood. I don’t even like loud noises.”

“What in the world are we doing here then, picking a quarrel with the frost demon himself and all his fearsome friends? Why must you pretend to be brave if you’re not?”

“It’s a funny thing about courage. If you pretend hard enough it becomes real.”

“Ridiculous! Why should you have to be a hero in the first place?”

“I didn’t have much choice,” said Finn gloomily. “My father was a hero. And various uncles. And grandfathers and great-grandfathers by the bushel, stretching back to the original family of giants who bullied their way onto this island and chased smaller folk off. I was the runt of the litter. Everyone was disappointed in me, and no one expected much in the way of sword play and such. But, as it happened, I was even more contrary than I was cowardly. I decided to change myself, and went to work becoming what everyone expected me not to be. I have sought dreadful adventures, and have come through with honor. But before every battle, I’m afraid. I’m afraid right now. But maybe I’ll forget about it when the fighting starts.”

“Are we close to fighting then?”

“Close enough. See that giant pile of ice glimmering off yonder? That’s the end of our journey. In the side of that ice mountain is the mouth of a cave. The cave winds down to the base of the mountain, which is the granite shaft to which Lyr is chained. The mouth of that cave is the doorway to our adventure.”

“So you mean to go down there and rescue him? Is that it?” said Kathleen.

“Ah, I wish it were as easily done as said. You see, I haven’t told you about the dragon.”

“What dragon?”

“The one that stands guard over Lyr.”

“There’s a dragon down there?”

“There is.”

“That’s all that’s needed to make a bad case worse.”

“Yes. …”

“Actually, I don’t really know what a dragon is. I’ve heard about them in the old tales, but I’ve never seen one.”

“Well, those who have don’t usually last long enough to tell about it.”

“Are they that bad?”

“Worse. Imagine a lizard. … You’ve seen a lizard, haven’t you?”

“Yes … nasty scuttling little reptiles with long tongues like springs that uncoil to catch bugs on the wing.”

“Well, imagine a lizard grown as large as a barn, with teeth the size of plowshares, sharp as knives. And great leathery wings to fly with. All of him covered with leather scales so thick and tough he cannot be wounded by sword or spear wielded by the mightiest warrior. Now this creature has a tail half the length of his body. This tail, when he lashes it, becomes an enormous flail. He can knock over houses with it. Wreck ships. Beat a whole team of oxen flat, and smash the wagon. Yes, a dragon’s tail is the most fearsome weapon in all nature. And that’s not all. Eight legs the beast has, each of them armed with a set of ripping talons. With a single swipe of his paw he can shred an oak tree.”

“Any other features a girl should know about?”

“One more. And that, perhaps, the worst. His breath. It is cold, deathly cold, colder than the essence of frost. When he breathes upon a living creature, its marrow freezes. It turns to ice. This particular dragon has been seen hunting walruses. He breathes their way and petrifies them at the distance of half a mile. Turns them into blocks of ice, and then ambles up to them, and gobbles them down. That’s the creature, my dear, who is guarding Lyr down in the cave.”

“And you think to go down there and trick the dragon in some way and strike the manacles off the sea god? All by your little self? Confess, isn’t that your clever plan?”

“I’m not exactly by myself,” said Finn. “I have you, and you have been explaining to me for a thousand miles how formidable you are when aroused. And I have my two trusted friends, the hawk and cat. I have the sword given me by my father and the mission given me by fate.”

“I still say it’s a mismatch,” said Kathleen.

“When mismatched,” said Finn, “and that’s the case usually with me, for I have not yet reached my full growth, as you know—well, when facing up to a foe overwhelmingly strong, then, I’ve learned, you must use his own strength against him. That’s the secret of winning against odds.”

“What exactly do you propose?”

“I don’t know exactly. That’s why I’m discussing it with you. I’ll tell you what there is of my plan, and invite your opinion.”

“Thank you.”

“Now it is clear that we alone cannot possibly vanquish the frost demon. No … it takes a god to conquer another god. Therefore, what we must do is release Lyr so that he may use his power against Vilemurk.”

“Release Lyr, is it. That’s what I said you were after. I knew that before you started this heavy discussion. But how do you propose to do it?”