The Gael Gates

Chapter 1-2

With a nod between them, they crept into Göbekli Tepe, backs to each other in a half-crouch, blasters held ready at shoulder. They circled one small outer ring, neither wanting to pass through it. They skirted a medium ring and approached the northernmost stele of the large inner ring.

They stopped just a foot away from the gate, the capstones nearly meeting in the middle twenty feet above them atop the stele on either side.

“This is ridiculous,” Phelan said, snorting in contempt, holstering his weapon.

“Eh? Have you lost your mind?”

“No, in fact, it's clear you've lost yours. There's nothing here.” Abruptly, he turned and went the way they'd come.

Stunned, disbelieving, Niamh stared after him, her back to the gate, her mouth working, her brain stumbling in its attempt to formulate words.

Suction grabbed her at nape and waistband and yanked her backward into the gate.

#

Professor Ríoghan Tanguy frowned at the stand of obeliscos dominating the skyline at Las Cogotas, on Galicia in the Southern Triangle. Under a cloudy sky, smoke billowed from between the obeliscos, the natives preparing for another transit. Or another travesty, she thought.

Although Celtiberian in extraction, she scorned the beliefs of these superstitious provincials. Give me an angstroscope and microcalipers any day! she thought. She and the local Druid, Arturo Lubri, had clashed publicly over their differences, Professor Tanguy excavating an ancient tor over the ridge, the local Druid claiming it was a sacred site abandoned by the proto-Celtiberians and therefore inviolate. Sylphs of the patron Elemental Air made their home at these sites, according to the Druid. Professor Tanguy had never seen one and scoffed at the Druid's assertions.

Clad in her digs, dun-gray and drab, garb meant for the dirty work of excavation, Ríoghan grimaced and made her way uphill toward the obeliscos. A straggler or two also made their way toward the hilltop, the plumes of smoke like a beacon, most the villagers having already assembled.

Druid Lubri is probably exhorting them all to dance and writhe! Ríoghan thought, greeting those who strode uphill beside her. Their lively dress, frilled cotton cloth embroidered with multicolor thread, made her look positively dumpy. She'd get no work today from the local laborers she'd hired, all of them attending the ceremony, Lubri herding his flock like an assiduous sheep dog.

The straight streets on Galicia were somewhat at odds to the winding, narrow labyrinths common to other planets in the Southern Triangle, the constellation occupied mostly by settlers of Celtiberian extraction.

The mechanism of transport through the Gael Gates was thought to derive from the principles of Alcubierre warp drive, and yet the Druids continued to mythologize their gate use with elaborate ritual and prestidigitation. Such sordid sortilege did little to advance a scientific understanding of the Gael Gates, hypotheses which still eluded astral and particle physicists, who posited that they operated on A-warp, in which time and distance were fundamentally the same properties, differing only in their articulation.

An archeologist, Ríoghan cared less about the theory and more about the ignorance being perpetuated by the Druids. She'd arrived at Las Cogotas through the gates two years ago to study the ancient sites on the planet. Gamma Doradus, the double-star system of her home planet, Nemetobriga, contained very minor proto-Celtiberian sites, all of them catalogued and excavated long before.

Each obelisco in the Henge on Galicia was etched in Celtiberian runes all the way to the top, the script still indecipherable to modern linguists, their study f*******n by both local superstition and the imperious Druid, Arturo Lubri.

Ríoghan reached the edge of the obeliscos, an area bordered by a low rock wall, the rocks fitted by hand without mortar, encircling the hilltop and the obeliscos within, nine pillars of stone poking into the sky, two smaller sets of three pillars standing twenty-seven feet on either side of a third, larger set soaring eighty-one feet. Each set known individually as a tribelisco represented one of the three Gates sacred to Neo-Pagan Druidry—the Well, the Fire, and the Tree.

Balderdash! Ríoghan thought.

Druid Lubri stood in a wide stance before the largest tribelisco, waving his heavily-embroidered and -sequined cape with an elaborate flourish as he intoned in ancient Galician the incantation needed to open the gate. Villagers encircled the tribelisco, hands held as though in vigil, repeating the Druid's utterances. New arrivals were incorporated into the ring, the archeologist along with them.

Arturo spun, flaunting his cape as though taunting a bull, his eyes glazed in ecstasy, a fine froth of spittle collecting at the corners of his mouth.

He looks possessed! she thought, as if he had rabies. Hydrophobia occasionally cropping up in isolated places such as this, she wondered what he'd do if she threatened to throw a pail of water on him. A giggle escaped her, and the woman beside her, Doña Noba Pacem, shrank in disgust.

Druid Arturo Lubri froze, his gaze fixed to Ríoghan. “We have an infidel in our midst! She who mocks the sylphs and desecrates our sacred sites!” His arm leapt at her, finger stabbing toward her. “Seize her!”

Multiple villagers converged on her before she could react.

“Bring her here,” the Druid commanded. “A rope!”

They easily overcame her struggles and dragged her into place between two of the eighty-one foot obeliscos. They tied each limb with rope, her legs three feet apart, her arms suspended at forty-five degrees overhead.

Lubri stuck his face into hers. His breath stank of queimada. “You'll desecrate no more, Infidel! You'll meet the sylphs face to face and then you'll believe!”

“What are you doing, Cabrón?!” she spat, seeing he was drunk.

He backhanded her, and her head flew to the side. “Perra pequeña! Cona! Back in position, everyone! Let's send this succubus to moura encantada!” As he backed away and resumed his chants and gyrations, the villagers joined hands again.

Her lip and cheek stung, and she tasted blood. She strained against the ropes, but none of them gave, her stretched-out arms giving her no leverage. “Dom Ontonio, help me!” she called to her lead laborer, who'd helped her recruit her dig crew.

Belenos Ontonio kept his place in the circle, sweat on his brow and fear in his eyes.

Lubri whipped his cape back and forth, grasped it with both hands and thrust it to the ground, kneeling at Ríoghan's feet and ululating stridently. Then he abruptly straightened and flung the cape back over his head.

Professor Ríoghan Tanguy heard a thunderclap, and she was sucked into the gate, rope and all.

#

The white-robed Cisalpine Druid, Óengus Tàillear, was nearly invisible against the scree of storm, helped by a spell to obscure his presence. Fuaranders played merrily at his feet, the six-inch Elementals each creating their own mini-snowstorms. The skies of Tucana Prime perpetually clouded, the planet was beset with unforgiving cold, hypothermia claiming thousands of lives every winter.

But the storm suited the Druid's purpose. He and his two companions stood at the rim of Montefortino, a henge of nine megaliths, whose divine placement created twelve Gael Gates, three megaliths in each triangle, the three triangles placed at the vertices of a larger triangle. Each smaller triangle of megaliths called a trigalith, the area around the megaliths was tessellated with tile, which was oddly free of snow. A knee-high, foot-wide stone ring encircled the henge. Beyond the henge, a thin forest encroached, the trees so thick with snow that branches couldn't be seen. The landscape was hilly and rocky, huge boulders jumbled upon each other in chaotic profusion. And all of it glaciated with perpetual snow.

Behind the three Druids stood the Monastery and Scriptorium, their lights barely penetrating the thick snowfall. Three Druid orders occupied one Monastery—Cisalpine, Golaseccan, and Senone. Cisalpine Druids were adherents of the fuarander, the Ice Elemental, while the Golaseccan Druids maintained fealty to the salamander, the Fire Elemental. So contentious was their rivalry that the Senone Druids constantly had to mediate. The two Elementals, Ice and Fire, were antithetical, always at odds with each other.

“Tis a good, thick night to cover our tracks, Brother Gus,” said the red-robed Druid beside him. Golaseccan Armel Gallou was one such salamander adherent.

“So good and thick we'll be buried in snow if we don't get on with it,” croaked the ancient crone beside them. Procter Gwrtheyrn Jézéquel, a Senone Druidess, stood barely five feet in her perpetual stoop. Gnarled hands held fast to a wormwood staff, snowflakes already accumulating on the bluing fingers. A skein of web-like hair hung over her face, so tousled no spider would deign to live there.

“Gwerth, you summon Air; Mel, you'll invoke Fire, and I'll conjure Earth.” Despite their professed fidelities, Gwrtheyrn and Óengus prepared to beckon other Elementals in violation of their oaths. This alone was enough to incur the Ministry's castigation, hence the invisibility spell that Óengus had cast. “Are you sure you want to try the final step alone, Gwerth?”

“Aye, Laddie, better that a senescent fool like me risk censure than either of you.” The old proctor was known to wander through the woods, even during blizzards, as though she were the embodiment of inclement weather. “Our success may bring the wrath of the Druidry upon us, perhaps even the attention of the Minister herself, Druidess Lìosach.”

“What could that fickle wench do to us?” Armel asked with a sneer.

“Blast you into the next universe, if she's a mind to,” Gwrtheyrn replied. “Let's get on, then.”

All three stepped into the ring, the tessellated ground no warmer than the thick drift they'd stepped from, but somehow, snow didn't stick to the tiles.

“Mel, remember to modulate the stability. You know what happened last time we brought Fire and Air together.”

Armel threw a glance her direction, scowling. “Yes, Gwerth,” he said.

As if Armel doesn't already know Fire's affinity for Air, Óengus thought. The one Elemental had nearly consumed the other.

Gwrtheyrn moved to the northern-most trigalith, while Óengus took the southeastern triangle and Armel the southwest. “I'll go last,” Armel said, Fire the most difficult to maintain in such frigid environs.

“Air, Earth, and Fire,” Gwrtheyrn began, “hear our plea.” She raised her staff above her head. “Paralda, Queen of Sylphs, bring me your life-giving breezes.”

A sylph coalesced inside the three stones, taller than Gwrtheyrn but slim as a willow, a storm swirling above her head, her eyes made of storm and her hair made of wind. “Gwerth of the Senones, I am yours to command.” She wore only a swirl of leaves.

Óengus at the southeastern corner turned to face the trigalith. Each stone soared to twenty-seven feet, a divine height. “Ghob, King of Gnomes, show me your fertile Earth!” he said, casting his arms over his head.

Inside the trigalith, a gnome sprouted from the ground, as gnarled as Gwrtheyrn but taller, its face a worm-rich loam, its hair a bright green cap made from grass, its build squat and thick like rock. The Elemental King could have crushed Óengus flat with a nasty glance. “Gus of the Cisalpines, I heed your call.”

To the southwest, Armel turned toward his trigalith, and his red robes ballooned outward as he raised his arms. “Djinn, King of Salamanders, bring forth your life-warming Fire.”

A fiery lizard as tall as the Druid flared to life inside the trigalith, flames l*****g around its head in halo. “Master Mel, my friend indeed, how may I serve thee?”

“Paralda, Ghob, and Djinn,” intoned Gwrtheyrn, gesturing with her staff, “follow me hence and draw together.” She hobbled into the center, around her the hexagram made by the six stone pillars. “Come to me from your trigaliths, and blend your energies in divine concatenation.”

They all three resisted. “Do this not, Druidess Gwerth!” hissed Paralda, her edges spinning into a dust devil, her middle a swirling maelstrom, turbid with debris.

Fire leered at Air, and Earth spread above Fire. Outside the henge, the wind picked up, whirling around the perimeter like a snake coiling around its victim.

Óengus restrained Earth by drawing his fist closed, and Armel dampened Fire by pushing both hands down.

The three Elementals reined, Gwrtheyrn swirled her staff in a circle as though mixing, and wisps were sucked off their bodies. Air howled, Fire writhed, and Earth roiled, all their faces in rictuses of pain.

Above Gwrtheyrn gathered their entrails, a whirling mix of tailings. As the mass grew turgid above her, the Elementals each grew smaller, their incarnations leaking slowly into the abomination taking shape in the center. Streaks of red, orange, white, and brown mixed into a gray muddy mess. The storm around the henge intensified, the blizzard so thick that it obscured the surrounding forest behind a solid white wall of sleet.

Óengus held Earth's integrity close, Ghob as likely to disintegrate into its composite elements as to slide into a thick slurry. He could feel Armel's exertions with Fire, the edges of their essences intermingling in the rich soup above Gwrtheyrn.

The mass began to form into a creature thrice the Elementals' sizes, its skin striated, its hair streaked and spiky, its limbs grotesque. As the last of each Elemental leaked into the monstrosity, a roar shook the stones. Eyes formed on a bulging, primordial face. Protuberant lips peeled back from a prognathous jaw, and a guttural voice thick with glottal stops snarled, “Who dares to wake me?”

“Druidess Gwerth, demon!” she snarled right back, undaunted. “Bow before me and prepare to do my bidding!”

“Miscreant Druidess! So you think!” And a mighty fist with Fire for bone, Water for blood, and Earth for flesh, swept around and snatched her from her feet.

Óengus put his hands out, summoning his power from deep inside his soul, and hurled fuaranders at the beast.

The demon vanished and along with it, Gwrtheyrn's scream.

A curtain of vapor was all that remained, and that too dispersed as the storm that had swirled around the henge descended upon the pair of Druids.

Óengus found Armel somehow in the blistering blizzard. “What happened?” He had to scream to be heard above the storm, his mouth near his fellow Druid's ear.

“We couldn't control it! Arawn blast, what do we do?”

Óengus pulled Armel in the direction of the Scriptorium, that part of the monastery closest to the henge. “We have to get out of this storm!” He wasn't sure his companion even heard him.

Together, they fought their way toward the Scriptorium door, spikes of cold driving nails into his ankles through his feet, his hands like lumps of ice at the ends of arms that wouldn't obey him. He attempted to summon a warming salamander, but his magic failed him.

Or maybe I've failed my magic, Óengus thought grimly.

They found the door somehow, and as it shut behind them, so too, it shut out the storm. Armel held a cyanotic finger to his lips for silence.

Óengus heard nothing but the faint scream of the storm just outside the door. And the echo of Gwrtheyrn's scream in his mind. “What do we do?!” he asked in a harsh whisper, barely able to keep from screaming himself.

Gwrtheyrn taken by a demon after they'd violated their vows and fused the Elementals! They were sure to be prosecuted for murder, or worse, stripped of their titles! Óengus could hardly think. His heart hammered in his ears, and sweat trickled down his back.

“First,” Armel whispered, grabbing Óengus' parka hood on either side of his face, “first and foremost, we tell no one. No one! Do you hear?”

Óengus nodded in time with Armel's shaking him. “No one!” he whispered back, the Scriptorium likely empty at this time of night, but taking no chances.

“Swear it,” Armel whispered.

“I swear to tell no one. Now you.”

“Of course I swear, i***t. You think I want to lose my standing?”

“What about Gwrtheyrn?” He loosened his parka somewhat, not knowing whether he was shaking from cold or shaking from fear.

“What about her? She knew the risks. She's nowhere near as daft as everyone thinks. Besides, they'll assume she wandered off and fell into a snow bank, won't expect to find her frozen body until spring.”

“But …but …”

“But nothing!” Armel's whisper was harsh, his tone cutting. “We'll look for her soon, but for now, we just wait and regroup.”

“How …” Óengus was so terrified, he could barely speak. “How long?”

“Four days,” Armel said, shrugging off his red parka and shaking the snow off it. “We give it four days, and then we'll look for her. All right, Gus? All right?”

Óengus saw that Armel was as frightened as he was, sweat soaking his Druid robes with darker patches of crimson. “All right, Mel. Four days,” he repeated, unable to stop shaking. They threaded a path through towering shelves of parchment toward the main monastery, Óengus wondering how he was going to keep his composure for the next hour.

Let alone four days.