Banished
by one tribe. Condemned by another. Will an outcast's supernatural strengths be
enough to keep him alive?
549
AD. Raised by monks, Conchobar is committed to a life of obedience and peace.
But when his fishing vessel is blown off-course, the young man's relief over
surviving the sea's storms is swamped by the terrors of harsh new shores. And
after capture by violent natives puts him at death's door, he's stunned when he
develops strange telepathic abilities.
Learning
his new family's language through the mind of his mentor, Conchobar soon falls
for the war chief's ferocious daughter. But when she trains him to follow in
her path as a fighter, he's horrified when his uncanny misfortune twists
reality, causing more disastrous deaths and making him a pariah.
Can
Conchobar defeat the darkness painting his steps with blood?
The
Curse of Conchobar is the richly detailed prequel to the mystical Adirondack
Spirit Series of historical fiction. If you like inspiring heroes, unsettling
powers, and lasting legacies, then you'll love David Fitz-Gerald's captivating
tale.
Buy
The Curse of Conchobar to break free from the fates today!
Trigger
Warnings: Violence
Buy
Links
Universal Link
¸.•*´¨)✯ ¸.•*¨) ✮ ( ¸.•´✶
EXCERPT
From Chapter 25
I’m standing in a clearing on a
hillside with a nice view of the river. It is a short distance from our home.
I’m overwhelmed by a strange and unfamiliar feeling. I don’t know what compels
me to step from the game path into the clearing. I feel a surge of energy, yet
I feel dizzy at the same time.
I take another step and I walk
through shimmering air. Abruptly, instead of a winter morning, it’s a balmy
autumn day. I’m standing in freshly fallen colorful leaves, and I feel as
though I have been moved from one place to another. Only, it is the same exact
place. How can it be fall instead of winter?
I wander up the path in the
opposite direction of my stone house, though I don’t know why. What compels me
to walk in this direction? The path has quickly turned from a narrow game trail
to a wide lane that only humans could have made. That turns into a thick flat
surface that feels like stone beneath my feet, but looks too uniform to be
natural stone. A pair of strange yellow lines divide the road beneath my feet.
A short distance down this path, I
see a building. It is set a short distance from the stone road with the yellow
lines. It’s a handsome cabin. Its log walls look perfectly uniform. I wonder at
the uniformity of the logs. There are no signs of the woodsman’s axe on the
surface of the logs. No two trees are the same and yet each log in the cabin
appears identical. The door to the cabin stands open.
I step up to the door, peek
around, and look for people. I don’t see anyone anywhere. I tentatively step
into the cabin. The furnishings remind me of the kinds of tables and chairs
used by the monks at Skellig Michael, but this cabin has some strange items
that I don’t recall from the monastery.
There is but one room in this
cabin, and a loft up some stairs overlooks the room. Everything in the cabin is
tidy. Someone has cleaned it recently. Some sort of baked good sits on a ledge
by an open window. I walk to the window and breathe in the delicious, fruity
smell that reminds me of berries. I hold my hand above it and I can feel its
heat. It’s been so long since I’ve eaten. I reach for the dish and my hands
pass through it, unable to grasp it. I’m surprised and I try again.
In this strange place, I am a
spirit. That means I must be dead. Such a realization is hard to accept. I find
the need to grieve my own passing, but that sentiment is short-lived. Perhaps
that’s the way it is when you are a spirit.
As I investigate further, I find a
painting of a man and a woman on the wall. Only, in this painting, the subjects
appear lifelike. I can’t discern any brush strokes. The man has bright white
teeth and thick blond hair that looks unnaturally neat and tidy. The woman has
a strange pile of hair on her head, bright yellow and white clothing, and some
strange contraption perched on her nose so that you can’t see her eyes. I place
my face even closer, and I can see the image of an older man. He appears to be
wearing the robe of a monk. He has a thin, weathered face, and a long grey
beard. He doesn’t look the same as the man and the woman, and he looks
strangely out of place. His image is opaque, like he has been drawn from fog. I
feel like I’m looking at myself as an old man. Then I’m startled at the
realization that it is me in the painting. How can it be? I wonder whether this
man or this woman in the picture are somehow related to me, only in the future.
I see a small, box-shaped object
sitting on a long table. It has numbers on it. As I’m looking at it, one of the
numbers flips. Instead of 2:31, it now says 2:32. The plastic box is connected
by some kind of thick string to the wall.
Next to the object with the
flipping numbers, I see a yellow booklet. I bend to look at it closely. In big
black letters, it says, “The Old Farmer’s Almanac.” A four-digit number appears
in the middle of the cover: 1984. At the top of the booklet it says, “192nd
Anniversary Edition” and at the side where the book is bound it reads,
“Published Every Year Since 1792.” I do some quick figuring. If my numbers are
correct, it is 1434 years in the future. It is no wonder that I’m a spirit.
I hear music in the distance. I
follow the sound and find it coming from within another small box that is
connected to the wall. A singing woman’s voice repeatedly asks the question,
“What’s love got to do with it?” I marvel at the notion that music can come
from a box. There’s nobody in this cabin singing, and nobody is here listening
either, and yet there is music.
Next to the music box is another
strange-looking object. There’s a small string of dots hanging from a shiny
cylinder, under a conical covering of some sort. I concentrate on the shiny
beads until the string is pulled. It snaps back into the cylinder and light
floods the room. I jump in surprise. I’ve seen enough of such objects, and I
rush back through the open door.
Outside, I wander around the
cabin. I notice that the cabin is surrounded by very short grass that is
uniformly sized, perhaps a couple of inches thick. There is more of this grass
behind the cabin. Beyond that, I see trees at the edge of a forest.
A slight movement catches my
attention. It appears that there is a man near one of the trees. He is wearing
a red shirt with overlapping dark squares on it. His legs are blue; perhaps it
is some kind of fabric that he’s wearing on his legs. He also wears blue shoes
on his feet. I wander closer to get a better look. He lowers himself to a
sitting position beneath the maple tree, his arms resting on his knees and his
head in his hands. He seems sad, or distressed.
I step a little closer. The man has
a long length of rope in his lap. I see him make a loop at one end of it. Then
he wraps one side of the rope around the other, fashioning the rope into a
noose. I’m overwhelmed by sadness and angst. What could cause a young man like
that to do such a thing? I wonder if stopping him is the reason that I’m here.
But how can I stop him? How long do I have? What can I possibly do to prevent
what I can plainly see is just about to happen?
I hear a knocking behind me. It
startles me, and I can’t find the source of the knocking. Whatever it is will
have to wait. I turn back to look at the man under the tree. He is standing
now, and he is tying a knot around a stone at the end of the rope, opposite the
noose.
Then he throws the rock up and
over a thick branch of the maple tree, eighteen feet above the ground. The rope
follows the rock, and the rock lands on the ground a short distance away. The
man unties the rock from the rope and pulls the rope behind him. There is a
large boulder ten feet away. He ties the rope securely to the big rock and
returns to the tree. I feel his sense of hopelessness as he looks up into the
tree and sees the noose hanging. It would seem that the rope is the perfect
length for what he has in mind.
I have a hunch that this man is
related to the people in the painting on the cabin wall. Maybe he is their son.
Somehow, I can’t help but think that he is related to me as well.
It looks like he is drinking from
some manner of container that is wrapped in a bark-colored sack. After a while,
I see him toss the sack into the woods and it makes a clinking sound as the
contents of the container break upon impact. The man doesn’t flinch at the
sound.
He climbs until he’s sitting on
the branch that the noose hangs from. Slowly he pulls the rope until he’s
holding the knot in his hands. I look back and forth quickly, trying to figure
out what I can do. When I look back at the man, he’s placing the noose over his
head and pushing the knot against his neck. I run around the tree like a crazy
man. Why am I here? What can I do?
I look up and see that the man is
rising to his feet. This is it. He is preparing to jump. His legs bend, and I’m
sure that he is about to leap from the branch.
In a fraction of an instant, I
remember that I can enter the tree. I consider it a miracle that somehow this
healthy tree drops its living limb. I hear it crash to the ground as my spirit
separates from the tree.
A hundredth of a second later, I
levitate the big rock with my open palms toward the sky. It turns out that it
isn’t necessary.
He has landed heavily on the
ground. His breath has been knocked from his lungs, and he gasps for air like
he has a will to live. I can see that he is scraped up, but he appears to be
unharmed. I move the boulder so that it is directly above his head.
He looks up at the rock that hangs
over him, and he shields his head with his arm. Then he rolls away so that the
rock no longer hovers above him.
I lower the rock slowly and I see
the look of astonishment on his face. From where I stand, he no longer looks
like a man. Perhaps he’s in his late teens. With one upward-facing palm, I
maintain the rock directly in front of him. With my other arm, I direct small
stones to levitate from beneath the leaves on the forest floor. They gather,
swirling around us under the maple tree. Their movement reminds me of the slow
swirl of Tends Hearth’s spoon in her cook pot. The young man’s mouth hangs open
and his body shivers in fear.
It strikes me that I should speak
to him. What can I say? I set the boulder on the ground and gather the flying
stones into a pile as he watches. I approach him so that I’m inches in front of
his face. I cite Lector Beccán’s favorite prayer. The man turns his head
slightly, innocently, like he’s listening to a distant voice that he can’t
quite hear. It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t need to hear the prayer for it to
have power.
I place my hand on his shoulder.
He shrinks from my touch at first, then his face fills with an expression that
I would describe as wonder, or maybe it is hopefulness. Touching his shoulder
isn’t like touching the plate of food by the window in the cabin. It is more
like the sensation that I got when I passed through the shimmering air. I place
my other hand on his opposite shoulder. His eyes widen further. He crosses his
arms over his chest, placing his hands on top of mine. Then I kiss him, on one
cheek and then the other. I withdraw my hands from his shoulders and step back.
The man touches his cheeks gently
with the tips of his fingers, then he looks at the tips of his fingers. I hear
him say, “I’ve been kissed by God. God loves me. Oh, how can it be?” Then he
cries into his hands, asking, “Oh, what have I done?”
I place my hand on his shoulder. I
tell him not to worry about the past, and then I tell him to share God’s love
with the world. He nods like he understands me. I back away from him, and I can
see his gaze follow my departure. I turn my back to him and return along the
path that led me here. I laugh at the thought that this young man thinks that
he encountered God. It was only me in front of him, not God, but without God,
such moments would never be possible.
As an afterthought, I turn back
toward the man. I raise my palms and summon the boulder. I set the big rock on
the ground just outside the door of the cabin. Then I call the stones and pile
them on the other side of the cabin door. I’m taking a chance that the young
man lives in this cabin. I want to give him something to remember, something
that he can wonder about, and something that he will never forget.
I hope that I did what I was
supposed to do. I think of my little family―my wife and the healer. I hope that
I’m able to find my way back to them. I’m supposed to be hunting so that we can
eat.
When I return to the magical spot
on the hill overlooking the river, I’m grateful to find that the air still
shimmers. What’s love got to do with it? Everything, I suppose.
As I pass through the shimmering
air, I return from autumn in the distant future to the cold winter day of the
present. As I hurry home, I wonder: am I able to break the curse? Is that poor
man by the tree suffering from the wretched curse that was placed upon me? What
can I do to end such misery? How will I ever know?
¸.•*´¨)✯ ¸.•*¨) ✮ ( ¸.•´✶
David Fitz-Gerald
David Fitz-Gerald writes fiction
that is grounded in history and soars with the spirits. Dave enjoys getting
lost in the settings he imagines and spending time with the characters he
creates. Writing historical fiction is like making paintings of the past. He
loves to weave fact and fiction together, stirring in action, adventure,
romance, and a heavy dose of the supernatural with the hope of transporting the
reader to another time and place. He is an Adirondack 46-er, which means he has
hiked all of the highest peaks in New York State, so it should not be
surprising when Dave attempts to glorify hikers as swashbuckling superheroes in
his writing.
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