The three men stood gazing into the depths of the enormous hole that lay before them.

“And you say the scouts found this?”, Eallair asked Garrick.

“Yes your majesty, I sent the scouts to explore the lowlands to the west and they came back to report they had found something very odd. And I think it is probably safe to say that they were right. I thought you should be informed of such a thing”.

“Yes, you were right about that Garrick, this is a very odd occurrence indeed”, Eallair agreed, stroking his beard thoughtfully.

“It must be many fathoms deep”, Lochan exclaimed, peering over the edge of the hole, “I cannot see the bottom”.

“I can solve that problem by measuring exactly how deep it is my dear cousin”, the King picked up a rock pitching it as hard as he could into the depths of the hole. Eallair had a strong throwing arm from many years of practice skimming stones on the castle lake. He had beat all of the other young males living within the castle walls, to become the well-known champion stone-skimmer. Unfortunately, he thought ruefully as the stone sailed through the air, being excellent at stone-skimming did not give you the necessary skills to be a good King.

All three men strained their ears to hear the sound of the stone when it hit the bottom. Long seconds passed until it became evident they were not going to hear it at all.

“How very odd”, Eallair mused.

“What is going on here!” Lochan cried gesticulating in the direction of the hole, “ I have never seen a hole before that was so deep a man could not hear a thrown stone hit the bottom”.

He turned to Eallair, “Could it be so deep that the sound would not reach us? But surely not, then it would be so deep it must reach to the very centre of the world itself”.

He paused for a moment to ponder this thought.

“But Lochan, what could make a hole of such a size”, the King asked excitedly. “This is not a natural feature as far as I can see. Could it have been some sort of giant explosion?”

“That I cannot say”, Lochan answered, “But do you not think it odd that everything surrounding it is dead… the grass does not grow here and the trees around it are blackened and definitely live no more”.

Both men were so involved in the conversation that they did not notice the growing discomfort of the Baron.

“What say you Garrick?” Lochan turned to him and asked.

“I… I do not know”, Garrick mumbled.

Lochan shrugged and turned back to his conversation.

Garrick was listening very hard. He thought he could hear something more than just the wind gently rustling the bark on the dead trees. He thought he heard a voice whispering very softly caught up amongst that sound.

“Garrick… Garrick”.

He turned to the King and the Duke but they were deep in conversation.

He shook his head in an effort to return to reality, but a sense of dread had settled over him like a blanket.

“Garrick!” the voice was louder and distinctly female, so shrill it felt as though his skull was pierced. But it was a voice he knew.

“Garrick!!! Garrick no!! Oh Garrick! No Garrick… please don’t!!!” the words were replaced by a loud shriek.

He clapped his hands to keep out the horrible sound of her screaming. It was a sound he knew very well.

The screaming stopped as abruptly as it had started.

He carefully removed his hands from his ears and looked around for the source of the noise.

“Isabelle?” he furtively whispered her name.

Almost immediately the screaming began again, this time it sounded like a thousand voices but all the same, all screaming his name over and over.

His hands flew up to his ears again, his eardrums feeling like they would burst under the pressure. The sound was so horrible, so ungodly, he wanted to claw his ears off so he would not have to hear it anymore.

This was not a mortal scream, but the scream of something unnatural that was not meant for human ears. He gritted his teeth in pain as the reverberating in his ears moved to his gut until he felt as though he would vomit from the intensity of sound.

He clutched at his stomach to hold himself together. He felt that if the sound continued his insides must liquefy completely and he would break apart.

With his hands removed from his ears the sound was now unbearable, and the pain in his head excruciating

He felt the world going black as he crumpled to the ground, his own name ringing in his ears.

Murchadh, Tadhgar, The Royal Family