Lavondyss (Mythago Cycle) (28 page)

In his life in the wildwood, Scathach had encountered later forms of the twelve: there were always twelve, a number that contained a lost secret, or perhaps a lost significance. Twelve riders formed the Jaguthin, but though they rode together they were solitary souls, caught and tugged by the tidal wind of fate. Their summoning
could come at any time, and the voice was the voice of the Earth, and the form of the calling was the form of a Woman. She was the Jagad. When she crooked her finger, one of the Jaguthin would venture through the ages. He would never return. He would become the forgotten stuff of legend.

The three riders who were Scathach’s friends were all that remained of such an heroic band. Scathach was the ‘outsider’ who always featured strongly in the myth. Tonight it had seemed that Gyonval had been sacrificed as well, but the Jagad had not summoned him and his deed of valiance had not taken him from the time of his companions.

In later times there were other forms of the Jaguthin. Some of these were wild and weird, tall, fur-clad men with horned heads, or with tree branches to disguise their true nature. (One of these was Thorn, the tree as which Scathach had disguised himself while in this land of his ‘first flesh,’ and a tree, along with oak, for which Tallis felt a special affinity.) Wynne-Jones had told stories of Arthur, and a round table, of knights clad in a form of armour that gleamed like the moon on water and which could resist the swiftest of arrows. These were the last form of the Jaguthin, no longer known by the ancient name. Scathach had glimpsed them briefly in his life, but they were shadowy, insubstantial. For the most part, when he encountered the band of questing hunters they were of an earlier form, more savage, seeking places and totem objects that were beyond his comprehension.

Nevertheless, they would be important to Tallis.

‘If only I had listened to my father more …’ Scathach muttered darkly. ‘He had understood so much! But as I said, there is one aspect of the Jaguthin cycle that always has an “outsider”, a supernatural figure which has knowledge and skills beyond the Jaguthin’s own. Such entities
in the wood leave their mark in the fashioning and altering of legend. If Harry came into the wood, then you may well find him involved with the Jaguthin in one of their forms. He may have been real to you, Tallis … but to us he would have been from a strange and wonderful “Otherworld”.’

In the firelight, Scathach’s smile was very knowing, now. ‘Whatever happens to me when we pass into the deep wood, that is something you should do to find your brother: listen and watch for stories of the Jaguthin.’

His laugh was sudden, bitter. ‘You see? Already I am fulfilling
my
role in the tale. I am the creature from the forbidden world who has come back to his father’s land and finds it has shut him out. I belong in no realm at all. Gyonval is very moved by this. Curundoloc thinks I should be sacrificed. Gwyllos has agreed to accompany me to the place of my death. All of these reactions from my rider friends are part of legend. You will find this out. You will search on your own, but everything you do, and everything people do with you, or for you, or to you, all is part of their myth. They cannot help themselves. As my mother could not resist the call to continue her legend. She spent time with an outsider, with a spirit from the forbidden world. She gave birth to that spirit’s child. Then the Earth called to her, and she moved away …’

‘To do what?’

‘To do a terrible and wonderful thing,’ Scathach said sadly. ‘To bring to an end a cycle of tales that would leave you breathless to hear them.’

‘Tell me …’

‘Another time,’ he said firmly. ‘First we have to find your animal guide. There must be one. There must have been an animal that seemed to be watching you –’

‘Broken Boy,’ Tallis agreed. It had occurred to her almost immediately the subject of the
gurla
had been
raised in her room, a few hours before. ‘The only thing is: it was here, in the land, for years before my birth.’

‘A horse?’ Scathach asked.

‘A stag.’

‘It was waiting for you,’ Scathach said confidently. ‘It was sent to wait. You probably sent it yourself.’

‘How can that be possible?’

‘I’ve tried to explain,’ the man said. ‘The years, the months … in the wood they become meaningless. It was the one thing my father warned me of before I left. Different parts of the wood live their years at different speeds. A confusion of seasons.’

‘I must find a winter. Harry is there, and I just
know
that I can find him.’

Scathach’s smile was reassuring. ‘Of course. And I’ll do all I can to help you.’

‘But I can’t just leave my
home!
’ Tallis said loudly, and she felt a sudden panic. Curundoloc stirred where he slept, below thick hides, then returned to slumber. Tallis was remembering her father’s words.
We couldn’t bear to lose you, not after losing Harry
.

She had spent years trying to get her parents to believe her, to understand her, and for the first time – this same night, before the land had given birth to stones and birds – they had agreed to come and see the things that were haunting her.

If she left now she would betray them.

If she left now, she would break their hearts …

Scathach watched her by the dimming light of the fire. He was gentle. ‘How long could you afford to be away?’

‘I don’t understand …’

‘Could you come with me for a day?’

She didn’t even think about it. ‘Of course.’

‘Two days?’

‘Seven days,’ she said. ‘They would worry. But if I let
them know that it would be a week only, they won’t go mad in that time. If I’m back in a week …’

Scathach leaned forward and raised a finger. ‘At the edge of the wood, before it becomes too deep, you can have a
month
in the realm while only a week passes. My father was quite certain of this –’

Tallis remembered Huxley’s journal, its references to Wynne-Jones’s absences.

‘One month to listen, to ask, to see, to hear,’ Scathach went on. ‘One month to get clues as to where Harry might be trapped. You’ll go away for four weeks, back in only seven days. And you’ll go in and come out using your own skills. The benefit to me is that I will be able to travel back to my home using those same skills. What do you say?’

‘We’ll need Broken Boy. I have to mark him …’

‘He’ll come,’ Scathach said with great confidence.

Tallis nodded, then smiled. ‘I agree,’ she said.

‘Then get some sleep. Tomorrow’s journey will be particularly difficult.’

She had seen Broken Boy at dusk on several occasions, and at dawn on two, but never in the bright or dark hours between. So she took Scathach’s advice and wrapped herself up in a coarse woollen blanket, curling up by the glowing embers of the fire and drifting off to sleep.

It was a welcome rest. She was exhausted and confused, and in her dreams she passed like a ghost through a dense forest and came to float at the edge of a wide gorge, staring at the strange castle which grew from the wooded cliffs a mile away, across the steep and terrifying drop. But when, in this dream, she turned to face the wood again the trees had somehow slipped away and a great driving wall of snow and ice was curling down towards
her, a tidal wave of winter. Several human figures ran before it, escaping for their lives.

As they passed her she could smell the death upon them. There was a child among them, carrying a wooden totem, but it was a small statue not at all like the vast, rotting totem in the ruined house. He cried out
rajathuk!
The snow overwhelmed them. They floundered and screamed and Tallis screamed too, trying to rise above the swirling ice, grasping the cold, dead branches of the trees, clawing her way to the light as this liquid winter tried to drown her.

As she struggled against the running tide she saw a cave, and the cave mouth widened. A booming roar began to deafen her …

It was the roar of an animal, stepping closer …

It sounded again and she knew it, recognized it. It was a friend, shaking her as she drowned, shaking her half-awake …

Wake up … wake up
…

She opened her eyes, then, but a part of her slept on. The fire was glowing, its sweet smoke strong in the night air. From where she lay, wrapped in Scathach’s blanket, Tallis could see the crouched woman. The images of dream tumbled; the fire flickered and changed. Awake, yet asleep … Tallis journeyed in a realm somewhere between the two states of mind, where the mythagos stalked her, where the gaberlungi women could reach her easily.

Hush
, said White Mask. Old hand on young brow, stroking the soft skin in the summer night. Tallis’s mind flowed like a swift and gleaming river, the water a torrent of words, the banks that slid behind her filled with the images of legend: creatures, and figures, and high places of stone, and strange lands …

Hush
, said White Mask.

And as she slept, half awake, Tallis felt a story slip into her flowing mind, impressing itself upon her, impressing her with its simplicity, its starkness, its
age
… It was a story from the beginning, from the source; there was magic in the source. There was music there, in the wind, in the slap of loose hides against wooden frames, in the striking of stone against stone.

And music, too, in the cries of the hunters, as they faced death in this terrible age of ice and dimly glimpsed beasts, moving south over frozen rivers, seeking a place where there would be food again, and warmth …

Wake up! Tallis! Wake up!

The beast roared. It towered over her. Its stink enveloped her.

‘Tallis! Stop dreaming!’

She sat up quickly, confused and suddenly frightened by being brought so swiftly back to consciousness. Then
the fear dispersed, and the chill too. She was wrapped in Scathach’s horse blanket; the fire was low. She was still in the clearing. The three Jaguthin were standing, staring through the dark trees. Dawn light illuminated their dark faces, shards of gold on weatherworn skin, ragged clothes. The ash from the fire drifted slowly upwards, caught in the gentle breezes of the glade. The horses breathed softly, shaking their heads, tugging gently at the tethers.

I’ve touched the source. That was a story from the beginning … I’ve touched the source. I’ve come close to Harry. He’s there, I’m certain of it. I’ve touched the source. Harry is the source
…

Scathach was watching her, but his attention was elsewhere. And a moment later the sound came again, the unmistakable roaring of a male deer.

‘Broken Boy!’ Tallis said.

‘By the stream,’ Scathach agreed. ‘Beyond Bird Spirit Land …’

Tallis watched the sudden confusion around her, standing by the fire, the grey woollen blanket round her shoulders. The horses were packed and led along the narrow track to the edge of the wood. Scathach kicked over the fire, then slung his leather pack across one shoulder. Tallis shouldered her masks, and fumbled in her pocket to make sure the christening robe was safely there.

It was suddenly happening all too fast. She thought of her house, her parents, perhaps still asleep. She had not told them she was going, she had not said goodbye to them. They would be worried about her, even if she was only gone for a few days. She should have left a note for them.

In the new day she realized how misty, how damp the morning was. She ran with the Jaguthin, skirting the
wood, crossing the marshy field and entering the thin trees that lined Hunter’s Brook.

‘The beast must be here somewhere,’ Scathach whispered. Curundoloc led the horses to the water to let them drink, crouching down by the cool stream, but watching nervously for any sign of the ragged hart. Tallis moved through the damp ferns, tugging at the blanket as it snagged on briar.

There was no sound, not even bird song. The dewy mist drifted gently through a wood that was as still as an animal catching its breath, watching for the furtive movement of a predator.