"No, I'm looking for a..." Rufus bit his lip, thumbing through the translation app on his phone. "... a
fón cúiseamh
?"
The three villagers exchanged confused looks and shrugged at him. The two men—one old, the other young—were dressed in woolen vests and simple breeches. The woman wore a simple pale dress and carried a basket of what appeared to actually be potatoes. She wore a simple rosary around her neck.
The older man said something in Irish which Rufus did not understand.
Rufus had arrived in Ireland one night ago. While in Ireland, he had stayed in an air conditioned hostel while his bunkmates below argued about the proper techniques for defeating a
Skyrim
final boss, dropped by a McDonald's to get a Big Mac, and caught a bus plastered with advertisements for skin care, suicide prevention hotlines and the upcoming
Minions 4
film to make it out here.
He had stepped off the bus and found himself in another world. Had he been dropped off here to begin with, without the stay in Dublin, he likely would have assumed that all of Ireland was still a lot of intensely quaint pastoral villages. Villages where, apparently,
no one
spoke English.
He grimaced. "Um...
Mój telefon się rozładowuje.
" Rufus's Polish was terrible, but at least he knew a little. In his university days, he'd learned Polish, Spanish, French, and a good chunk of Russian. Never Irish. Damn it.
They only shook their heads. The woman said something that Rufus was pretty sure referred to the Poles. It probably wasn't very flattering, given that they all laughed afterwards.
He groaned. His phone had seven percent of its battery remaining, and after that, he was going to be absolutely stranded—unable to even call a bus back here. Nobody had told him how isolated this area was. He glanced back, biting his lip, at the covered bridge the bus had led him over. The bus driver had seemed so uncomfortable leaving him out here. Now he knew why.
They looked sympathetic. The older man gestured to the phone and made a gesture, miming plugging something into an outlet.
Rufus's heart leaped. "Yes! Uh...
tá
!" He nodded eagerly.
The older man nodded, smiling now. He beckoned, saying something to the other two. They laughed and nodded at Rufus. They were all smiling now, the puzzle solved. The mysterious foreigner's problem revealed.
Rufus profusely thanked them—in English—as they led him back towards their home. They really were out in the middle of nowhere. This dale was surrounded not only by hills, but by thick forest and moor. Rufus had checked his maps a dozen times, and as far as he could tell, the bridge he'd taken represented the
only
wheeled access. It was hard to find transportation to take you there, too.
The dale was a true bubble in the middle of a fully industrialized country. A look at Ireland's past, or a slight twist on it—at the very least, these people had outlets, so it wasn't exactly the Middle Ages.
It was an enormous hassle. It was also a point of tremendous excitement to Rufus, now that his phone emergency was settled. Bubble realm meant not much outside access. Meant not many archaeologists had been through here already.
Meant that his theory
just might
be right. Or at least, there was no reason to assume it was wrong. Less reason.
Professor Rufus Hastings, archaeologist in exile, had nothing left to lose here. But here, he had a chance at redemption. And that tiny chance made his spirit soar.
The woman asked him something, beaming at him. She was young—probably a bit too young, in her early twenties at most and more likely close to nineteen—but pretty, with long, curly red hair and pale, freckled skin. She walked barefoot, and there was an unmistakeable spring in her step as her toes sank into the grass. She had a smile that Rufus was quite familiar with.
Rufus was in his late twenties, with thick brown locks, dusky browned skin, and bright brown eyes that blinked rapidly when he was thinking hard about something. A pair of tiny spectacles constantly slid down his slightly pointed nose. He was slender, with wide hips and long, willowy arms that always stayed close at his sides—a habit developed after many years spent around college dormmates who were just a little too handsy. He was used to pretty men and women smiling at him like that, but it never failed to make him blush.
He tried to piece together what she'd said. He was pretty sure she'd given the words for 'why' and 'here', which probably meant she was wondering the reason for his presence in the dale. That was a pretty fair question.
They were coming up on the cottage now—a quaint brick house that probably served these three just fine, but wouldn't long accommodate a guest, Rufus quickly noted. Smoke billowed from the chimney. That was a bit strange, considering it was late spring.
It can't be for heat. Do they cook on a woodstove? I suppose I'm lucky they even have an outlet!
Especially since the next-nearest house was about a mile away, further into the dale. Rufus had no wish to walk that far, especially wearing his heavy leather coat and jeans. It was not a cool day.
He decided the easiest way to answer the woman was a visual trick. So as he came to the doorway, he reached into his pocket, where he had been delicately toying with the item up until now, and drew out a rather plain medallion.
The medallion was made of brass, with a thin, chipped gold plating. A misty green glass rhinestone was embedded in the center, visibly cracked and chipped. The chain was copper, and deliberately (as far as Rufus could tell) stained a greenish hue, giving it the look of tangled creeper vines.
Overall, it was a cheap, tacky decoration—the kind one might find in a sketchy pawnshop. Which was exactly where Rufus had found it. The real meaning of the medallion, though, lay on the back, scratched by a crude implement—perhaps a knife or file. Ogham runes. Faded, dented Ogham runes in a language that had, as far as anyone could tell, none living to recall it. A language found only on ancient stones, tablets and gravestones.
When Rufus had found the medallion in the pawnshop, something about it had called to him. He had let the chain dangle from his finger, staring at the engraving.
As he'd stared at the medallion, a thrill had run down his spine.
The medallion wasn't proof. Far from it—it was basically trash. But it was different. It was no old withered stone. Somebody had engraved this thing and sent it overseas to what would later become England to end up in an old pawnshop. The language, the writing, the alphabet, the phrase—it had nagged at him.
Decoding the phrase had taken weeks. The only known text utilizing the language—a widely discredited parcel of inked goat skins generally agreed upon to be a very cunning fraud—was not easy to get access to.
And all he could firmly establish, in the end, were two words:
Property
Library
And for Rufus, so badly disgraced, so devoid of hope for his career... that had been enough. The text had a corroborating sample, even if it was on a tacky old talisman. The Library
could
be real.
And if it was, it likely existed here, where the medallion had been made. That was what the medallion meant to Rufus.
But what it meant to these villagers seemed quite different. Because the second he drew it out, the woman's smile melted away like water off a roof tile. She said something, and the two men turned—and froze, their eyes widening.
Rufus blinked rapidly.
The next instant, the men were shouting at him, waving the medallion away—as though it were a wasp that would fly at them at any moment. The young woman was backing away, her eyes narrowed, clutching at her rosary.
"I'm sorry," Rufus said uselessly, putting the medallion away, "I don't—"
The older man grabbed him by the wrist. Rufus nearly jumped out of his skin. He didn't pull away. He was too frightened to even move.
The man said something in a terse growl. He pointed, very deliberately, at Rufus's pocket. He turned and pointed in the same emphatic way at the houses a mile off.
He then turned and, glaring fiercely, as if willing Rufus to understand, pointed back west.
Towards the bridge.
He was speaking slowly, and carefully, and clearly. Rufus couldn't understand a word of it. He tried to look at his phone, but the battery icon was flashing, it was red, and...
The man released his wrist roughly and pulled away.
Rufus stared at them. His heart was racing. He took a step back.
They stared back at him. Their eyes were wild, almost... terrified.
No, not terrified.
Rufus's old roommate and colleague, Charles, had once told him about the time a moose had broken into his uncle's house while they'd been sleeping there. The moose had been scared out of its mind, bucking and swinging and kicking at anything that came near. It had nearly killed his uncle's dog before an Alaskan ranger had arrived to shoot it down—extracting it alive hadn't been an option.
Its eyes had been pale, wild, mad. Not mad in the way of illness, but mad in the way of total lack of reason or rationality, mad in the way of cult patriarchs and grieving parents. Mad in the way of an animal with no way out, no ability to understand or control what was about to happen to it.
Their eyes reminded Rufus of Charles's story. They looked lost. Helpless. The younger man and woman were clutching each other's arms as they watched him.
The older man pointed again—medallion, village, bridge. Then at the bridge again. And again. And again. And again.
Rufus slowly backed away, then turned and ran, his heart pounding hard enough to shatter his ribcage.
~ ~ ~ ~
For about a minute, Rufus did nothing but run—run to the bridge, run for the road, for civilization, for sense. His heart was beating hard and fast enough to serve as an orchestra's percussion. His vision was blurred with fear. He ran in almost complete mindlessness, almost every thought in him dedicated to raising his feet high enough to clear the next step without falling flat on his face.
And then for about ten minutes, as he hunched, panting, his chest in stitches, he felt like a complete idiot.
Of
course
the locals would be superstitious. What gossip he'd been able to dig up from the driver and pawnbroker had indicated that this region was known for being extremely 'backwards'—meaning non-Catholic. Roughly two-thirds of the population apparently favored old 'pagan' worship, and had never been fully won over by the missionaries. Where Christ was acknowledged, it was as another great being or spirit, not as any singular godly being.
He'd just found a family among the 25.6% of the district. Of
course
