Avilion (Mythago Wood 7) (38 page)

She pushed Yssobel down to the earth, standing over her, hand on the belt where her sheathed blade was slung. ‘I’ll kill you too.’

‘You don’t mean that. You couldn’t do it.’

‘Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps you’re right,’ Guiwenneth repeated forlornly.

She looked up, smelled the air, glancing around nervously. A strong wind was blowing, and the movement in the earth was powerful once more.

But this was a different movement. This was not the tension of departing, the tremor of Legion moving off through time, but of something rising, all-encompassing.

To both women’s astonishment, the lake began to flood its banks, flowing towards them. Distantly, children ran excitedly as the waves and the reeds, detached from their resting place, lapped and brushed at their heels.

The sky darkened.

Then the earth itself gave birth.

I had come to the edge, I knew it. I was lost, but I found Steven.

We could hardly understand each other except for the fact that we knew each other, having never known each other. As if from a shared dream.

He was young: so was I. I remember the wide-eyed consternation and delight in his face as I first approached him. I had walked from the edge of the wood into a small compound, beside a large villa made of red and black brick. I had never seen its like before. A tall and beautiful home. A house which echoed with time and laughter, but also with a darkness that I could not comprehend.

Steven was shy, gentle, funny; and very curious about me.

Our languages combined to create an understanding and he told me stories of his life, and I tested him with riddles from mine. He seemed to know the answer every time, and I knew that when we laughed, one evening, sitting outside the strange villa and drinking a dark wine that made us laugh even more - I knew that it was he who had called me from my dream.

I loved him there and then.

It was so short a time of love and contentment. The edge of the wood burst into fire. Hawks came tumbling through, bronze-metalled men, savage and screeching, the hawk-masks they wore taking on a life of their own. And the horsemen followed them. And the fat and ugly man came through last of all, his hair burning, a crown of fire. He ignored the flame that scarred his head until one of his comrades reached out and brushed the fire away. It was as if he had not been troubled by the heat - though the marks were there.

His eyes were on me, and on Steven, my lover, caught by those Hawks and held down.

Others dragged me and tied me. I was slung over the broad back of this burned man’s horse. He lifted my face and kissed me, grinning with triumph. He said words that made me sick. He turned to Steven, his brother, and the last I saw was Steven being hanged by the neck from a rafter.

I knew later that he had survived that execution.

I had been told tales of ‘eternity’. I came to know its meaning. Eternity is not endless; it is pain and despair for what seems to be a lifetime. But there is peace at the end of it.

The long trek through the great wood, the growing desire in this burned-haired man to exercise his strength upon me, which finally he did, all of it lasted an age.

There was no desire in him when done, no pleasure, just disappointment.

It was Steven who had called to me, not that man, that Christian. And Christian knew it. He went through agony. I could see it in his face and in the screaming of his words, in his anger at having found what he thought would be love, finding only eyes that were cold and hard. I was a ghost in his world; but I was Steven’s ghost, not his. And I was glad to be Steven’s ghost. Not his.

He carried me far, a prisoner, bound and protected, cherished yet hated.

Then we were in snow, a winter place, although a wall of fire burned by my father’s stone, where my father’s life was carved; and Lavondyss lay a few steps away if you knew how to get there.

Christian was lost, desperate, alone. He had no purpose, he had no desire.

He had me killed.

As I died, I remembered one of the songs that the Jaguth had sung in my later life. It was my father’s song, though he had perished before I ever knew him.

And where am I now? I have met the man who is my father and yet who is far younger than me. Where am I now? Is this a death dream?

I ache for the need to kill the man who haunts me. I also ache for the need to love. And my daughter haunts me, as if I’m some resurrected ghost . . .

 

Yssobel suddenly took her mother by the right shoulder and backside and threw her into the lake. The woman came up, spluttering and angry, but woken loudly from the spoken and savage reminiscence. Her daughter stood on the bank, furious. ‘Stop dreaming, Gwin! Why did you leave? The true reason!’

Guiwenneth shouted back, ‘Because I’m dead!’

‘You don’t look dead to me,’ her daughter replied coldly. ‘Get out of the lake, mother. Something is happening and I don’t like the feel of it.’

The earth was birthing a new forest, a forest of yews. The children ran screaming. Horses panicked. The world became darkened with green, even the lake draining down as the wood consumed Legion.

But within this new growth surfaced old hate.

Christian moved through the burgeoning underbrush without effort, stepping between the rising trees, his eyes fixed on Guiwenneth. Behind him came five men, their long cloaks flapping as an autumn wind blew cold and hard. For a moment he saw Yssobel and hesitated in his step. Guiwenneth ran for her sword, but Christian was faster. He pushed her into the water, her second drenching, following her in.

Yssobel stood defiantly before the five men. Peredur suddenly stepped among them and they all seemed alarmed. They had been expecting Aelfrith, no doubt. Peredur’s face was dark with anger and pain.

‘If any one of you enters the lake,’ Yssobel said quietly, ‘they must pass me first.’

A furious struggle was taking place. Peredur stepped forward. ‘What happens in the water happens. I promise you there will be no interference.’

He came and stood by Yssobel, turning to face Christian’s companions.

Guiwenneth and Christian were below the surface. There was a gush of red among the rushes. Guiwenneth surfaced and screamed, then dived again. Christian came up, howling like a hound. He too sank again.

When he came out of the water he was blood-bedraggled and opened. He held himself together, kneeling carefully, looking up at his companions and at Yssobel. Such sadness in his eyes.

Christian seemed to come to a sudden understanding. ‘It wasn’t her. She was not the ghost I kept seeing. You were the ghost.’

He was a torn and forlorn man. Yssobel went to him, crouching down, lifting his chin. She contemplated him for a long moment. ‘I dreamed of you. I even painted you.’

‘You haunted me.’ Regret and confusion softened his scarred features. He shook his head, gazing at the woman. ‘You are so like Guiwenneth.’

‘Her daughter should be just that!’

‘Her daughter . . .’

‘Everything must end,’ Yssobel murmured. ‘Dreams end the fastest.’

‘I suppose it must.’ He looked up, still holding himself tightly. Then he smiled. ‘Why did you cut your hair?’

‘You were going to damage me.’

Christian shook his head. ‘Never. I would never have done that. I was a man afraid, and my men knew it. I was a man who took a wrong direction at the crossing place. But I feared Guiwenneth.’

‘You killed her once. What have you done now?’

The wind was becoming fierce. There was confusion in the air. The widened lake heaved against the reeds. Christian’s men had backed away, drawing their long cloaks around their bodies.

Yssobel looked at the man who she knew to be her grandfather.

‘What do I do? I have a greater task ahead of me. What do I do with this man?’

Peredur drew in his breath, then shook his head. ‘Whatever you must. Whatever seems right.’

Then from behind them: ‘You’ll do nothing!’

Guiwenneth emerged from the lake, bloodied and furious. ‘Leave this to me,’ she growled, and walked to where Christian was sprawled.

She stood over him, the weapon in her hand held low. Her look was determined as she pushed back her saturated hair. She was holding her side. With a long and searching stare at her daughter, she asked: ‘Have you finished charming him? I hope so. I don’t think I have very long, thanks to his blade.’

The blow was quick and clean. Christian was gone in an instant.

Mother looked at daughter, softly now. ‘Don’t try to find me again, Yssi. Go back and care for Steven. If there’s any finding to do, leave it to me.’ Hesitating only for a moment, Guiwenneth came forward and put her arms around Yssobel, leaning her face against her daughter’s. ‘I was here before, and came back. I’ll come back again, I promise. I always loved you, Yssi. I was only ever angered by you; and that anger came from fear.’

She kissed her daughter without meeting her tearful gaze, then stepped back. She tilted back her head and uttered a series of eerie wailing cries. They had the effect of making everything go still, except for the birds, which rose in panic from their roosts in the forest.

Legion, in the distance, was still moving in its slow, cumbersome, rhythmic way.

Again, Guiwenneth gave voice to the call.

The sky darkened and the wind changed, still fierce but now bringing with it a powerful animal smell. From the shadows among the yews, five huge ragged figures emerged, draped in layers of hide and fur, and wearing the masks of deer, antlers cropped to stubs.

Guiwenneth said, ‘I felt human for a long time, but I am green; I am mythago. I always was. It’s time for me to return. If only for a while.’

And with that, she walked towards the Jaguth. One raised its mask. A face neither human nor animal watched her, and a hand reached out for her. ‘Magidion!’ she cried. ‘I knew you would not be far away!’

She shook the Jaguth’s broad shoulders and the group clustered protectively around the woman, turning and disappearing with her into the darkness. For a brief moment her pale features could be glimpsed, staring back at the lake.

The face faded like a dying flame, and Guiwenneth was gone.

After a while, Yssobel addressed a question to Peredur. ‘Why did you not protect her?’

He shook his head and said softly, ‘Because it was her end; and she knew it. In the form that I am, I am not yet quite ready to sire the small beast that will be your mother. Don’t question Time. Question the danger that is coming to you.’

‘Then how did you recognise her?’

‘We recognised each other. Legion, led by Christian, was drawn to her, though he didn’t see her. But I did . . .’

Yssobel, too, was drawn: to this young man with the easy smile and the hard but kind eyes.

‘Will you help me, then?’

‘As best I can.’ Peredur looked around at the rising storm. ‘Legion is moving. Avilion is alive. I cannot tell where the next and last event will take us.’

 

Avilion was the lake, within its island of yew trees. Deep in its waters lay all of death and all of life. To break those waters was to return to life.

In the yew-green forest, as Legion moved away, Yssobel clung to the memory of her mother.

‘We are not part of the army. We stay here.’

The dismembered body of Christian lay in a posture of agony, some of his men grouped around it, insecure now, confused. They looked to Yssobel for direction.

The woodland was stripped as Legion moved away. Who was leading it now? she wondered. One of Christian’s men, perhaps; the truth, and the tale, did not matter at that moment.

The lake was calm.

When the waters broke, it was Arthur who emerged, rising rough-armoured and angry, flanked by two women in long black robes. He stepped through the blood-red rushes and came onto the bank, pushing back the shallow mask of metal that concealed his face, throwing it aside, stripping the false armour from his body, standing naked and furious as he stared at Yssobel.

Yssobel slowly dropped the armour from her own body. She brought it to Arthur, placed it down. The armour of the king returned.

The dark-cloaked women revealed their faces, and for a moment Yssobel felt joy as she saw Uzana and Narine. But they shape-changed into giant birds, rising on outstretched wings above the lake. There was no movement in their flight, just the ascension. They hovered there like hawks, looking down, waiting for the kill to fill their ghost-led desires, rising on Avilion’s strong breeze. Watching with the eyes of those who know that soon there will be flesh to eat and soul to take.

Yssobel stared up at them. They returned the gaze with the hard focused glitter of the predators they were. She called out, ‘I liked you. Uzana? You were fun to be with.’

The dark women in their bird forms had no time for memory.

Arthur looked like this:

His auburn hair was unshaped, draped about his face, long and lank. His eyes, green and angry, expressed a fury that was as alive as fire. His bearded face was grim, his fine lips held tight with anger. His shoulders were scarred, his breast was scarred, the deep slash on his body oozing guts. His thighs bled again from the wounds of battle. His feet were strong, his long-fingered hands as strong and pale and beautiful as flowers.

With the flowers of his hands he reached for Yssobel, but gently.

‘Why did you steal my death?’

She shook and shivered, then reached into Arthur’s cold and damp embrace. ‘I had to pass the crossing place. The idea came to me in an instant. It came from the memory of a story that my father told me.’