Arthur Quinn and the World Serpent Read online

  It Takes

  A Hero

  to defeat

  a God

  MERCIER PRESS

  3B Oak House, Bessboro Rd

  Blackrock, Cork, Ireland.

  www.mercierpress.ie

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  © Alan Early, 2011

  ISBN: 978 1 85635 827 9

  Epub ISBN: 978 1 85635 975 7

  Mobi ISBN: 978 1 85635 969 6

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Dedicated to

  Nana Moran,

  who has kept every word

  I’ve written

  Prologue

  The agony is unbearable. Unbearable and endless.

  His scream echoes through the cavern as another pearl of venom drops from the serpent’s tooth.

  The pan, once a source of brief relief, now overflows one drop at a time. The woman who emptied it is long dead.

  He doesn’t notice the limestone dust flutter down from the ceiling; he doesn’t hear the rumblings of machinery above. And neither does the snake.

  The single stalactite shudders. It draws the viper’s attention. But too late. The stalactite snaps and falls like a rock spear, taking the snake with it and pinning it to the ground. It dies instantly.

  He strains to gaze at the snake, his neck creaking. Despite the agony, and for the first time in more than a thousand years, he smiles.

  Chapter One

  ‘Ahh!’

  Arthur Quinn woke with a start, disoriented. Sitting in the driver’s seat next to him, his dad laid a hand on his shoulder and said something inaudible over the thump of music in his ears. He pulled his iPod earbuds out and said, ‘What?’

  ‘I asked are you all right?’ repeated his dad.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Just a bad dream. A weird dream.’

  ‘Yeah?’ His dad fixed his attention back on the road. ‘Weird how?’

  ‘I dunno. Can’t really remember it. Just this … smile … It doesn’t matter.’

  He popped his earbuds back in and stared out the window. A Coldplay song had come on; it kind of suited his mood. They were nearly there. Dublin. It had been an uncomfortable three-and-a-half-hour drive from Kerry, especially with most of their worldly belongings piled on the back seat and in the boot, and all that concerned Arthur now was a toilet break.

  Arthur had shaggy brown hair and blue eyes flecked with green. Freckles danced across his nose and high cheekbones. He looked at his dad. With his grey temples and deep wrinkles, Joe Quinn appeared a lot older than forty-three. But then, he’d gone through a lot in the past couple of years. They both had. His dad’s head started to turn and Arthur quickly averted his gaze.

  Heuston Station passed by outside. People flowed constantly in and out of the building, hailing taxis and waiting for the next LUAS. Arthur reflected that, in all of his twelve years, this was the first time he’d arrived in Dublin by car. Every other time they’d taken the train, making Heuston Station their threshold to the capital. He could even pinpoint the last time he’d been to Dublin: two years ago, at Christmas. They had travelled up by train to go ice-skating: himself, his dad and … his mum. That had been just before she’d gotten ill.

  He looked down at the ribbon tied around his right wrist and fingered it absent-mindedly. It was a pale golden colour, soft to the touch. The edges were neatly cut and hadn’t frayed, even at the knot. It had been his mother’s; now it was his.

  As they drove along the quays it started to rain. Arthur looked past Joe at the drops hitting the River Liffey. The water was high and dark, reflecting the clouds above. Somewhere nearby was his dad’s new office.

  It had all happened so quickly – Arthur had barely had time to say goodbye to all his friends. Three days ago he’d come home from school to find Joe all flustered, making phone calls and filling out forms.

  ‘What’s up?’ Arthur had asked as his dad finished the call he’d been on.

  Joe looked at his son. ‘Well, it’s a long story.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I got a call this morning. You know the new Metro line they’re digging in Dublin?’

  Arthur had of course heard about it. Who hadn’t? The fact that Dublin was finally getting its own underground rail line had been front-page news for weeks. They’d been planning it for years and construction had finally started. Well, excavation had finally started.

  ‘Yeah. What about it?’

  ‘Well, they’re having trouble excavating under the Liffey,’ his dad had continued. ‘Turns out the foundations aren’t as stable as they first thought and they’ve had a couple of small cave-ins. Anyway, they’ve offered me a job.’

  It made sense. Joe was an engineer with experience excavating tunnels. As a young man in the early nineties, he’d even worked on the Channel Tunnel, the train link under the sea between England and France.

  ‘Cool!’ Arthur had exclaimed. ‘So what does that mean?’

  ‘Well, for starters, it means we’re going to have to move.’

  ‘Move?’

  ‘To Dublin.’

  ‘What? When?’

  ‘Well, Sunday. But –’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Look, Arthur, it’ll be fine. They’ve found us a house and a school for you – it’s a really good one. And it’s a nice house, they’ve sent me pictures. I’ll show you them later.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Please, Arthur. It’s good money. Really good. And it’s only for six months or so. Just the rest of this school year, really. We’ll be back here for next year, for secondary school. And I think a break from Kerry will do wonders for both of us.’

  Without another word, Arthur had gone to his room and started to pack.

  And now, driving alongside the Liffey, Arthur couldn’t help but wish he was back in that room.

  Willie Higgins inhaled greedily on his cigarette as the rain pattered on the roof of the security shed. The shed itself was very basic, consisting of four walls and a roof, all constructed from corrugated iron. A small Perspex window had been fitted in the creaky door, while the floor was a sheet of plywood that bounced slightly as he walked on it. The only pieces of furniture in the shed were the small yet comfortable wooden stool he sat on and the gas heater that kept him warm on days like these. He opened the Sunday World to the sports pages and started reading about today’s games.

  Willie was one of eight full-time security guards posted to the Usher’s Quay Metro site. From here, the construction company, Citi-Trak, was excavating the first tunnel for the state-of-the-art Metro. They planned to have the tunnel complete within five years, an optimistic estimation in anyone’s book. Ordinarily, work would continue fourteen hours a day, seven days a week, even on a Sunday. But work had been stopped on the previous Wednesday following a small cave-in in one of the secondary tunnels. Luckily no one had been injured – or worse, killed – but, nevertheless, work had been suspended.

  Well, suspended for everyone but Willie and the seven other security guards. But Willie didn’t mind. At sixty-two, he was glad to be out of the house, especially on a Sunday when all the grandkids were around, screaming their heads off. He had a flask of tea, his papers, some sandwiches and
a radio. What more could he want?

  ‘Excuse me.’

  The voice startled him so much he dropped his paper onto the plywood floor. He had been so engrossed in the story he hadn’t even heard the hut door open. He bent to pick the paper up, but the owner of the voice reached it first and handed it to him.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Willie and looked up at the speaker. She was tall – over six foot – with long blonde hair and wearing a slinky red dress. She had no coat on but held a black umbrella over her head. Against the grey rubble of the site through the window, she stood out like a sore thumb. No, that wasn’t right – she’d stand out anywhere. She reminded Willie of the supermodels his wife watched on that television show. And now he saw the door was shut behind her but, again, he hadn’t heard it closing.

  ‘Jaysus, you scared the life out of me,’ he said. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Willie, isn’t it?’ Her voice was smooth, breathy and had no distinct accent.

  ‘That’s right. Do I know you?’

  ‘I don’t think we’ve met.’ She offered her hand. ‘I’m Aidan Byrne’s wife.’

  ‘Oh, Mrs Byrne!’ he exclaimed, shaking her hand a little too vigorously. ‘Lovely to meet you! How’s Mr Byrne today?’

  ‘He’s fine. Actually that’s why I’m here. He forgot his jacket in the office – the feather-head.’

  ‘Oh well then,’ he started to pull on his rain jacket, ‘let me get it for you.’

  ‘No, it’s all right, Willie. I’ll get it. You stay here, nice and dry.’

  He hesitated, one arm in the jacket. ‘Are you sure, Mrs Byrne?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure, Willie.’ She held out her hand and smiled. Willie unhooked his heavy bunch of keys from his belt-loop and placed them in her palm. ‘No problem at all.’

  The Citi-Trak office was just over the crest of some rubble, barely out of sight of the security shed. The office consisted of two prefabs side by side. One prefab housed a kitchenette-cum-canteen and two small bathrooms, while the other housed the office itself. Without looking, the woman picked the correct key and let herself in.

  Inside, papers and plans were piled high on desks. Blueprints were tacked to the walls, alongside computer-generated designs of the Metro trains and tracks. There were four desks in the room, each with its own laptop, and a large boardroom table in the centre. Along one wall was a row of tall filing cabinets. The woman slowly walked over to the cabinets, dragging her red fingernails along the nearest desk as she went. She read the labels on the fronts of the cabinets, eventually opening a drawer labelled ‘Human Resources’. Her nails flicked through the files quickly then stopped suddenly. She pulled a folder out and shut the drawer with a clang that resounded around the prefab. With a laugh that would have chilled even Willie’s warm heart to the core, she took the file with her and left.

  While Mrs Byrne was gone, Willie returned to reading his paper. He received another shock when she peeked in at him through the Perspex window.

  ‘All done!’ she mouthed, dangling his keys by her face. Willie got up to open the door. The cold wind blew around his ankles and he pulled his heavy coat around him tighter, half-wondering how Mrs Byrne could wear something so light in this weather. She dropped the keys back into his open hand.

  ‘Did you get sorted, Mrs Byrne?’

  ‘I did indeed, Willie. Thanks so much.’

  As she walked away over the rubble, Willie shuffled back to his stool, trying to return his attention to the Sunday World. But there were two niggling thoughts in the back of his mind. The first was that Mrs Byrne didn’t have a jacket with her as she left. The second was that he’d never heard of an Aidan Byrne.

  As suddenly as the thoughts formed in his mind, they were gone. Just like the woman.

  ‘Well, this is it,’ said Joe as they pulled into the drive.

  Arthur didn’t want to admit it but it was true – the house was nice. It was red-brick, boxy but modern-looking. The most prominent feature was a large floor-to-ceiling window at the upstairs landing. There was no front lawn, just a stone-paved driveway. It was nice, all right. But it wasn’t Kerry.

  They got out of the car and, as Joe got to grips with the seemingly complicated unlocking procedure, Arthur took in his surroundings. The estate was reasonably new, with only a handful of other houses in it, all identical apart from the colours of their doors. There was an open grassy area in the centre of the estate. He heard the thump of a plastic football being kicked and followed the sound. In the far corner, a boy of about seven or eight with curly brown hair was volleying the ball against a garage wall. As the ball bounced past him, he turned and noticed Arthur. The boy waved excitedly.

  ‘Got it!’ Arthur heard Joe exclaim behind him and he turned. Joe pushed the blue door open and Arthur followed him inside.

  As expected, the interior of the house was as modern as the exterior. All open plan, white walls and cream carpets. The kitchen, on the other hand, was all stainless steel and flowing curves.

  ‘It’ll be like living in a spoon,’ commented Arthur.

  One good thing downstairs was the forty-six-inch LCD HD television hanging on the living-room wall. There were three bedrooms upstairs: the large master with a king-size bed and two big single rooms. Arthur and Joe took a single room each, leaving the master bedroom unoccupied.

  For the rest of the day, they unpacked. With the addition of his favourite posters, Arthur’s new bare white bedroom now had a bit of life and colour in it, but it still didn’t feel like home. Later they ate take-away pizza in a silence that was broken only when Joe eventually spoke. ‘Looking forward to tomorrow?’

  ‘Meh. You?’

  ‘Yeah, Arthur, actually I am. This’ll be good for us.’

  ‘So you keep saying.’

  Arthur went to bed early, even though Joe offered to rent a DVD for them. Apprehension over his first day at a new school kept him awake until after three, but he eventually fell into a fitful sleep.

  Chapter Two

  In a time before written history, in Asgard, the realm of the gods, it is said that the great wolf Skoll chases the sun across the sky and that this is why the sun changes position throughout the day. If this is so then Skoll has just begun his chase, for it is dawn. The sun is still low on the horizon and the sky is a deep bronze colour.

  Twelve gods and twelve goddesses reside in Asgard, ruled over by the one-eyed All Father, Odin. None of them stirs this early in the morning. They continue to sleep on their soft feather beds in their great halls. All of them are sleeping heavily after the enormous feast they enjoyed the night before. They ate wild boar and drank sweet mead till their bellies were full. All of them rest. Except one.

  The Father of Lies leaves his hall and squints up at the brightening sun. The heat of it still hasn’t reached the earth and a light dew has formed on the ground. He pulls his black cloak around him tighter against the cold, then makes off in the direction of the sea.

  He has many names, the Father of Lies. The Sky Traveller is one; the God of Mischief is another; the Trickster God is another still. But his true godly name is Loki.

  Asgard is a land of contradictions: beautiful yet barren, fertile yet rocky. As Loki makes his way across the rock-strewn fields southward, he recalls the feast of the night before. He spits on the ground, remembering the insult that the other gods inflicted on him.

  A giantess from Jotunheim, the land of the giants, was the guest of honour. She was an ugly, dreadful beast, but powerful and strong, so the gods meant to befriend her. When Loki arrived at the feast, he was taken aback by the very sight of the giantess. She was obscenely fat, with lank red hair stuck to her brow with sweat. Warts covered her nose while blisters covered her hands and she had a shadow of thick bristles above her lip. Loki, being the God of Mischief, couldn’t resist commenting on the vile woman.

  As soon as he entered the banquet hall, he bounded onto the long feasting table and announced in his loudest voice, ‘I knew we were having wild boar tonight, bu
t I didn’t expect one as wild or as boarish as that!’ He pointed directly at the guest of honour, the giantess, to gasps and stifled laughter. Suddenly, the giantess leaped from her bench (the only bench large enough for her was a full-sized table) and strode down the hall towards Loki. She picked him up in her sweating, blistered hands and, before he could protest, she pulled a needle and thread from a pocket in her ragged skirt.

  Loki wanted to scream but never had a chance. The pain was excruciating as the giantess went to work on him with the needle and thread. Most of the other gods looked on in awe, but All Father Odin didn’t even look up from his meal. As far as he was concerned, Loki had insulted their guest and would get his just desserts.

  When the giantess was done, she dropped Loki to the ground and went back to her bench, muttering apologies to the other gods as she passed. Loki struggled to his feet and pawed at the stitches that now bound his lips tightly shut. As he strained to tear the binding, a couple of the other gods started to laugh. Then more joined in, and more, until finally the entire banquet hall of the gods was full of laughter. Guffaws directed at him. Even the great Odin managed a chuckle.

  Red in the face, Loki stormed out of the hall. On his return home, he managed to free his lips, but all he could hear was the echoing of the laughter in his ears. He vowed he would have his vengeance and spent the night forming the perfect plan. Now, early in the morning, he is putting that plan into action. He starts to smile at the thought of it, but his lips still sting from where he tore the thread out and the smile turns into a wince.

  The sea rises into view before Loki, shimmering and golden in the morning sun. The waves lap the shore lightly. A handful of small vessels are docked, tied to an out-shooting rock, but no fisherman or captain is in sight. Loki is glad of this as he walks over the sand towards the boats. He could have easily tricked any sailor present into giving him a boat, but he is anxious to set about the task at hand.