The Sword of Feimhin by Frank P. Ryan Page A

Kate Shaunessy who had returned from Africa, alive but wrecked, wanted to run. The Kate who lost her mammy and daddy and her brother Billy – that Kate was screaming in panic, deep inside her. She felt so weak she couldn’t have taken a single step. Her hope withered.
    â€˜You must go now,’ Shaami whispered.
    No! She was done with being afraid. She was done with running. She refused to be cowed by her rising panic. She stubbornly shook her head. ‘Shaami, take me to the Momu.’
    â€˜Please listen to me. Ulla Quemar is doomed. You must abandon it while there is yet time to save yourself.’
    â€˜Shaami – from what I can see, we don’t have time to argue about it. You must take me to the Momu right now – to the chamber of the One Tree.’
    He reluctantly led her deep into Ulla Quemar, to the chamber that opened into the solid rock in the oldest quarter. But even though Kate kept her oraculumsearchingly open, there was no choir of harmonious voices to flood her mind, none of the hauntingly beautiful atmosphere she had sensed before. Their way was blocked by more of the aggressive warriors who seemed drunk on grief or, worse still, on the verge of losing their reason.
    Shaami tried to hold Kate back when she arrived at the entrance to the chamber. ‘Oh, please – I beg you for a final time. Don’t enter there.’
    â€˜Why not?’
    â€˜I fear what you will find.’
    Kate remembered with a cruel clarity her previous welcome arrival into the chamber of the Momu. But now the warriors’ eyes were flatly hostile, half-shaded under bulging brows. Their armoured limbs, with powerful lobster-like claws, were tensed against her entry. They knew who she was, but still they obstructed her.
    â€˜I must go in. I have to speak to the Momu.’
    â€˜The Momu cannot speak.’
    Kate saw a hint of madness in their eyes – a madness born out of the loss of the hive control, which depended on the central focus of the Momu.
    â€˜Be careful.’ Shaami raised his hands, with their podgy nail-less fingers. ‘The warriors are apt to strike without warning.’
    Into Kate’s mind came cautionary words spoken with a gentle voice:
    â€˜Oh – Momu! Is it you speaking?’
    There was a long pause, and then she heard it again, though terribly faint, the soft, deeply musical voice:
    Kate didn’t understand the meaning of the strange words, but she was sure that she was speaking mind-to-mind with the Momu.
    â€˜Please address the guardians. Make them let me through to you.’
    The door was probably the last to be under any formal control in the city, but now it irised open. With a jarring crash of their distorted right arms against the shell-like carapaces of their chests, the warriors made space enough for Kate to squeeze between them, but then they crossed arms again to ensure that Shaami could not follow her into the chamber. The great door irised shut behind her, casting Kate into a terrifying gloom.
    She searched the large cavern through the eye of her oraculum; the chamber had been transformed with dark energy. Flickering arcs of lightning flared over the natural rock walls. Where the Momu had hailed her arrival across the birthing pool, Kate now faced a freezing shower of sea water falling from the roof. Wading through, she discovered the Momu lying on her back between the massive roots of the One Tree, which had proliferated around her body, entangling her limbs. There was no sign of the hand maidens who had cared for her on the last occasion Kate had come here.
    The Momu’s lips flickered, to allow the softest whisper. ‘My dearest Greeneyes. I regret that you should witness my final humiliation.’
    â€˜Oh, Momu – I have come back to save you.’ She came close