Free Only the Stones Survive: A Novel by Morgan Llywelyn

magic. I suppose it’s possible. Remember the strange fog that prevented our landing?”
    “I’ll never forget it,” Sakkar asserted, “but at least we survived. Not one of us was hurt.”
    “Are you saying the natives are harmless, magic or not?”
    “I don’t know,” the little man replied honestly. “This is all new to me, and I’m … I’m confused, Amergin. Can we leave it at that?” Sakkar was beginning to wish he had told his hosts the more sinister stories about the island. In his own eagerness to find a paradise, had he led them to something very different?
    But it was too late now.

EIGHT
    T HE ARRIVAL OF THE MÍLESIANS was disconcerting, but the Túatha Dé Danann did not foresee its being a catastrophe. I knew nothing about the invaders because my parents did not tell me. When I was supposed to be asleep, I occasionally heard Mongan and Lerys murmuring to one another in the night, but I made no effort to listen. People who share their space learn to give each other privacy. I understood that my parents’ tender exchanges were not meant for me.
    During the day our lives were unchanged—except my father began to be away more often and for longer periods. I assumed that his absences involved the tribes that Aengus had said were causing trouble.
    Sunseason was also known as battle season, because that was when the soft, damp earth of Ierne dried up enough for fighting. Yet I never envisioned my father taking part in a battle. Mongan was the gentlest of men. My mother once told me that all Dananns were gentle unless a different quality was necessary.
    “We have it in us to be whatever is required,” she said. I did not understand. Then.
    While Mongan was away, Melitt sometimes came down the valley to see if my mother and I needed anything. She never failed to bring a loaf of her fruit bread, still warm from the stone oven outside her house. Crisp at the crust but soft in the middle.
    My father was usually home before moonrise, and if any of Melitt’s bread was left, he ate it.
    The remainder of sunseason passed slowly, sweetly, for me. A gift from my parents who tried to shield me from disturbance for as long as they could. One day can be half of a happy eternity if it is filled with expeditions and discoveries, with dreams and fantasies, with billowing white clouds and the smell of grass after rain.
    Battle season traditionally ended with harvest time. My father stayed home then; there was a lot of work to be done in preparation for darkseason. Before the rains of autumn set in, I helped him to collect a large supply of fallen branches for firewood and to build a shelter to keep it dry. My mother showed me how to find and gather edible roots and other wild foods and store them in the earth. She had always done this by herself before; sharing it with me was an honor I appreciated. One more acknowledged step toward adulthood.
    During that darkseason I learned many new things. My father taught me to shape flint into blades and to make footwear out of hides taken from the bodies of animals who had died in the forest. Mother showed me how to grind grain in a quern—which was hard work!—and make cheese from the milk of goats. She even let me use her precious bone needles to mend my own clothes.
    The adult tasks gave me a heady sense of importance, although my own adulthood was still far away. Or so I thought.
    Darkseason, which had seemed interminable when I was younger, passed quickly because I was kept busy. When my mother measured my increasing height against a line carved in our doorway, she said, “You will soon be taller than I am, Joss.”
    She sounded very surprised.
    I arranged sticks at the edge of the clearing where our house stood, and every day that the sun shone I went out and measured the length of my shadow. I could feel my muscles swelling beneath my skin.
    When the days began to lengthen, Mongan announced, “It is time you learned the use of weapons, Joss.”
    “Not yet, surely!”