Whatever had once filled the castle had long been plundered away or decayed to dust. What remained were lonely stones that spoke of a distant grandeur long-past.

Lindsay explored every forgotten room in the dreary old building, each adding more weight to his doubting heart. He returned to the main chamber and sat against the north wall.

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He puckered his lips hard to one side, bit on the inside of his cheek, pressed a clenched fist tightly under his nose, and spoke loudly, “I have come to you as you have commanded. This is your castle, is it not, Shadow Woman? Your Dún Scáith? So where are you? I am tired. I am hungry, and I am in no mood to be toyed with.”

His complaint went unanswered, and the wind and waves that rambled in jovial conversation with each other outside seemed to be mocking and taunting him. The sun did not remain as witness. It kept its course and time, diminishing its contribution to the fortress interior until the hole in the roof where it had stabbed through revealed a small cluster of brightening stars.

Those few stars did nothing to illuminate the room. Lindsay strained his eyes to make out the deep lines between the stones. There was nothing but darkness, as if he had been placed into a tightly latched trunk. His eyes yearned for anything to embrace, so he turned them upward, to that small hole and cluster of stars. He was more angry than frightened — but at whom — at some mythical legend who may or may not have been based on a real person long dead?

“King of the Gulls”

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Still seated as he had been in the cold, dark chamber, he alternated between doubting the existence of Scáthach to cursing her for her tardiness. His thoughts went suddenly to Vanora, unaccompanied and God-knows-where on the dark and wild isle. He began to stand to go in search of her, but managed only a twitch before the tiny twinkling of those few stars disappeared and returned, as if a large hand had passed over the hole. It froze him in place, staring upward.

He released a long, slow sigh when the phenomenon repeated itself, and he knew it for what it was — a bird. A bird, or perhaps several, circled above the fortress, passing over the hole in staccato patterns. They announced themselves formally with a single squawk, which was echoed by another, then accompanied by many.

What began as a delicate song of gulls in dulcet concert with the sound of the waves, grew piercing and shrill. Louder and shriller it rose.

“There must be thousands of them!” Lindsay yelled, but not loudly enough to hear himself over the riotous scream from the sky.

The noise turned painful. He stood, buckled over, and cupped his ears with his hands. As he did, and the hovering chaos muted, it began to transition in tone, or so he imagined. It transformed slowly from the united squawk of a thousand gulls to a voice, a feminine, melodic voice, seeming to hum an ancient lullaby. He removed his hands from his ears, expecting a painful resurgence of noise, but the noise was gone, and the feminine song remained.

The song came from above him, from the circling birds, as if they had been possessed by a thousand angels sharing a single voice. No light came through the hole in the roof. The gulls formed a flying curtain that shut out the heavens. But in the complete darkness, David Lindsay felt like he faced the brightness of paradise. Such was the intoxicating effect of the song. 

The voice seemed to descend, to saturate the fortress and echo from the deep cracks between each stone. It moved up and down mysterious scales, with notes that would have been incongruent with one another had they come from a less heavenly voice. The hummed melody began to take the form of syllables, of consonants and vowels that danced so comfortably with each other that they blended seamlessly. When those syllables became language he could understand, it chilled poor Lindsay to the bone.

“Scáthach?” he whispered timidly.

Echoing simultaneously from each stone in the fortress, the voice spoke,

This floor where you now stand
This air where we meet
Is not of this world 
Or for worldly feet

You are of sun
Presented in time
To learn of the truth
And see the sublime

The council of gulls
Has carried me here
To show you the ways
Of facing this fear

You are the one
Chosen from love
To carry the sword
Of the lion and dove

As the echoes of the final verse died away, a striking realization settled on Sir David. Scáthach, the gulls, the Pictish ancestors of the island, Vanora, and the old man at the coronation — there was a strong connection between them. He could see that clearly, but the nature of the connection was still out of his grasp. He suddenly swelled with pride in being the one man, of all the noble lords of Scotland, to be in that cold, dark fortress, to be part of this intimate circle of arcane understanding into which he was just taking his first steps. There was no more anger, no frustration or fear, only loyal determination and open-hearted obedience.

He dropped to one knee and declared himself her willing disciple. 

“Rise!” she answered.

As he returned to his feet, the room brightened just enough for him to make out the dark cracks in the opposite wall — and a shadow! The chamber was still very dim, and the shadow moved so fluidly that he could not discern where it ended and where the darkness of the room began.

“Please hold still, Scáthach,” he begged, “I cannot make out your form.”

The voice went deep and stern, and echoed more reverberating, as if in a hollow chamber four times the size.

These shadows you see
Are not from above
They are enemies of old
Trapped outside of love

This castle you see
Is not of this land
For it holds the truth
Of light and of sand

I am with you
But not in this light
I fly with gulls
Where all is in sight

Chills ran across every inch of his skin as he drew his sword.

He waved his weapon haphazardly in front of him, then declared, “But I see only shadows, and not the figures that cast them.”

Do not fear
These shadows at hand
For they are outside
The ways of the land

Follow the gulls
And seek their high call
For they are the path
Beyond shadows and wall

Despite the lesson, he winced his eyes, straining to see what was not there. Without warning, Lindsay felt the steely strike of an armored fist across his cheek. His knees buckled beneath him, but he did not drop. The invisible attacker was no phantom, the pain, no trick of his mind. Blood ran from his cheek and dripped from his jaw onto his shoulder.

Scáthach repeated,

Do not fear
These shadows at hand
For they are outside
The ways of the land

“Yes!” he said, “I understand. I must not seek with my eyes what is apparent to the eyes.”

Do not strike at shadows
Nor swing at the air
But at the darkness that cast them
Aim your blade there

Lindsay sheathed his sword and darted forward to the wall. Facing the wall, he shuffled to his side until his own body covered the elusive shadow on the wall, then he turned, drew his sword, and thrust it forward. A hideous, screeching scream rang out. The shadow fell onto the floor and disappeared, as its pitiful holler turned into the normal squawk of a gull above.

“The gulls and the spirit,” he thought to himself, searching for a connection.

He began a question he could not finish, “Are the gulls a sort of—”

He was struck in the back. The blow felt as if it slashed him deeply. The sting swam through his blood to saturate everything beneath his skin. Again, he did not fall. He hunched forward slightly, drew one quick breath, then stood erect and sought the shadows, with no thought of the figures that projected them.

Lindsay swallowed his reason. He pocketed his logical thoughts and gave way to his instincts. His hands and feet seemed to act on their own,  as if controlled by a puppeteer high above him. His sword flew with wild precision, not at the shadows on the walls and floor, but at the invisible phantoms that cast them. One shadow after another fell into the floor and disappeared, and each wretched scream turned into the normal call of a very normal bird. As each fell, another appeared. Scáthach allowed no break for rest or instructions, but struck him with damaging effect each time he paused or took a wrong step.

For endless hours it went on, and when Lindsay thought he could not raise his sword to the level of his waist, the first rosy brush of the morning’s light stroked across the wall opposite of the archway. The shadows dissipated. The gulls scattered. And David was left with an empty fortress, the sounds of the waves, and more bruised and bloody wounds than he had ever suffered.

He dropped his sword, collapsed against the wall, and cried, not from the physical pain. That was nothing to him. It was the surge of understanding, the sudden and violent opening of doors in his mind that swelled his emotions beyond containment.

Stefan Scheuermann is the award-winning author of a dozen books. He holds a bachelor’s degree in history and a master’s in literature. Having taught writing at his local university, he now serves on the board of the Colorado Authors League. Scheuermann’s lifelong drive to tell the stories of our species has spilled over into multiple mediums. After a long career as a ballet dancer, he now teaches and choreographs and has served as editor to new and aspiring authors. He partnered with local poet and storyteller Paul Alexander to write the historical fantasy novel, “King of the Gulls.”