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(back to page 5)
He began by addressing the sacredness of the mighty project. They all claimed, he said, that they wished nothing less than the finest possible memorial. "Our dead," he said, "will always be with us–therefore we must honor them with something that will always be there. And we can't say that of wood. Wood doesn't last."
Yes, he agreed, wood was beautiful, a child knew that. But wood rotted; a child knew that, too–maggots ate into the wood, and the ruin did the rest.
"There's only one thing that lasts," he said, "and that is–stone."
He held out the fingers of one hand and counted. One, stone was magnificent in appearance. Two, it came from the ancient world. Three, it would last to the end of time. Four, it could be shaped. Five, it would accept carved messages of respect and belief.
Then he closed his mouth and sat down on the floor.
People stared at the wild young man, their mouths gaping. They turned to each other, dumb with wonder, their faces reflecting unasked questions. And then, from every corner, in the safety of their numbers, voices began to attack him. What did he know? How could he be so foolish, so impractical? They could easily ferry wood, but how could anyone transport stone? Beneath each complaint and accusation lay an ignoble question: Who was he, a moody killer, to tell them they were wrong? Their words danced like sparks across the shadows of the Long House.
He rose and spoke again. His high-pitched voice sounded something like a girl's, and he looked lean and disturbing. He didn't say, "You fools!" but his tone conveyed it.
"Don't you understand? Stone is unyielding but not unfriendly. The marks we make on it will last forever. What could be more suited to remind us and our children's children of who has gone before?"
But he was speaking to people who had never thought deeply of stone.
To them stone was like air or water–no personality until you do something with it, and it lies out there in the fields, doing nothing and with badges of moss all over it. What more was to be said of it, except that it yielded a good axe now and then?
The young man had little concern for what Newgrange thought. Like many great people, all he cared about was what he felt and what he wanted to do. The force of his passion made everyone peer at him, and the light from the fire made him look more mysterious. His head of tawny hair seemed to flare wilder. The wrinkles on his frown grew darker, his deep-set eyes lost in the shadows of his face.
Slamming one fist repeatedly into the palm of the other hand, he made point after point.
"I sense more things than I can name. I understand more than I can describe. Visions come to me and flashes of light that I can't explain. But all of you–you all have such feelings. Look for them in your heart."
In a voice powerful enough to fight off all comers, he told them that one of life's greatest mysteries lay within stone. No matter how it was approached, whether attacked, caressed, or cut wide open, stone never surrendered the story of its origins.
"As with ourselves," he said, "we don't know where it came from. It must have belonged to the beginning of the world."
His listeners shivered. They felt the same uncomfortable wonder as he did–because the young man had touched a dim, half-true knowledge. In his passion for stone, he had placed his hand on something inside every one of them–and now he tightened his grip.
"Sometimes at dawn, sometimes in the dead of night, sometimes when a breeze feathers the waters of the river, we tremble inside, and we wonder: What power that we cannot see, but we can feel, guides us? What great spiritual authority governs our lives? That's the force of our ancestors. We mustn't commemorate them with anything that's less than immortal."
In the awed silence that followed, the Chief Elder stepped in and said that he proposed to appoint the wild young man as architect. The young man didn't react at all.
One of the Elders, though, sensed the discomfort among the people, and he felt that many might think they had been ridden over roughshod. This man had suave ways and a silky voice, and he knew how to persuade folk to his point of view; we shall call him the Silken Elder. If he spoke to you, his voice never rose. When he stood conversing, he held his hands folded on his stomach. And a little pursed smile always danced on his plump mouth.
In fairness, he himself had much distinction. This was the Elder who took responsibility for all the rituals practiced on the hillside–the praising of the rain, the warning of coming storms, the songs to the sun. If some unusual act of nature, such as lightning or a whirlwind, drove fear through the people, he was the one who uttered smooth words to fight the danger. He was the man who taught Newgrange how to make offerings to the skies, the trees, the river, and he worked all this so calmly and soothingly that many people liked him. But this Elder was himself a dangerous man; in short, he was a liar, an untrustworthy and shifty man, insincere.
The Silken Elder decided that it would be to his advantage to speak for the people who disagreed with the decision they had just heard. Smoothly he began to question the young man.
"What are you going to build?" he said. "How long will it take?"
"I will create something the world has never seen, something it will always consider extraordinary."
This astonishing reply quietened the room somewhat. Even the Silken Elder was taken aback, but, he hurried not to show it, attacked afresh.
"How do we know you won't abandon the job before it's finished?"
That insult sent a hiss of wonder through the crowd. The young man looked calmly nowhere and never said a word.
So the Silken Elder tried again.
"Do you intend to be answerable at all? These folks–this room–-these are your people. Will you answer to them? To your Elders? To anyone?"
Our young man never moved, never spoke. The questions drew none of his blood. He knew enough to wait. Soon the Silken Elder fell silent, appealing to the audience with raised arms, as if to say, "I don't know what we can do about this fellow."
The young Architect of Newgrange turned around and walked across to where the Silken Elder stood. As though it were a lamp, he thrust his big, tawny young head forward. Six inches from the Silken Elder's face he shone the beam of his eyes straight at the man. Like two boxers they glared at each other for a long moment.
The Silken Elder broke first. He stepped away.
(continued on the next page)
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