Silver on the Tree (20 page)

“Roses are hard to predict, my lord,” a voice said easily, conversationally; then a small edge came into it. “And so are the people of the Lost Land.”

And Gwion was there, suddenly, a neat dark figure standing beside the fountain. They could not see where he came from; it was as if he stepped out of the rainbow floating over the glittering drops.

The Rider's horse stepped uneasily once again; he had difficulty stilling it. He said coldly, “A hard fate will come to you, minstrel, if you give aid to the Light.”

“My face is my own,” Gwion said.

The black stallion tossed its head; it seemed now, Will thought, to be straining to get away from the high-hedged garden. He glanced over his shoulder at the rose-bright arch through which they had come in, and saw, standing out there, dazzling in the sunlight, the still form of the whitecloaked rider on the white horse.

Gwion's gaze followed him. He said softly, “Oho.”

“I am not alone in this land,” the Rider said.

“No,” Gwion said. “Indeed you are not. The word was about that the greatest Lords of the Dark were gathered in this Kingdom, and I see it is true. Indeed you have all your strength here—and you will have need of it.” He spoke lightly, without stress, but the last few words were dragged deliberately slowly, and the Rider's face darkened. With an abrupt gesture he pulled his hood about his face, and only the voice, hissing, came from the shadow.

“Save yourself, Taliesin. Or be lost with the useless hopes of the Light! Lost!”

He wheeled his horse round, the black cloak swinging; his words flickered out like stones. “Lost!” He gave rein to the restless horse and it sprang towards the arch, the White Rider wheeling in greeting as it approached; a thunder grew suddenly, rapidly out of the distance, and the horsemen of the Dark who had passed Will and Bran earlier came rushing through the park like a great cloud marring the bright day. They bore down on the waiting horses of the two Riders, the Lords of the Dark, and enveloped them and seemed to carry them off; the dark cloud disappeared along the road and the thundering died. And Will and Bran and Gwion stood alone among the roses, in the City, in the sweet-scented garden of the Lost Land.

Will said, “Taliesin?”

“A name,” Gwion said. “Just another name.” He put his hand out caressingly to a spray of white roses beside him. “Do you like what you see of my City, now?”

Will did not quite return his quick smile. Something had been nibbling at his mind. “Did you know we should see the Rider, when you sent us off in the coach?”

Gwion grew sober, fingering his beard. “No, Old One, I did not. The coach was simply to bring you here. But perhaps he knew that. There is little the Dark does not know in the Lost Land. Yet also there is little that they can do.” He swung abruptly towards the fountain. “Come.”

They followed him to a spot before the centre of the fountain, where the water flung up in a glittering spiral from the intertwined white dolphins. Nearby climbed the biggest of all the great sprawling rose-bushes, a tall mound of delicate white dog-roses as broad as a house. A fine spray from the fountain spangled their hair and dampened their faces; Will could see the sparkling drops caught even in Gwion's grey beard.

“Look for the arch of the Light,” Gwion said.

Will gazed at the dancing water, the gleaming dolphins, the four-petalled roses; everything blurred together. “You mean the rainbow?”

It was there again suddenly, a sun-born curve of hazy colour within the fountain, with the hint of another faint rainbow arching above.

Gwion said softly, behind them, “Look well. Look long.”

Intent and obedient they stared at the rainbow, gazed and gazed until their eyes dazzled in the sunlight reflecting from the marble and the leaping water. Then suddenly Bran cried, “Look!”—and in the same instant Will started forward, clenching his fists. They could see, faintly outlined behind the rainbow, the figure of a man seeming to float in the air; a man in a white robe with a green surcoat, head drooping, every line of his body drawn down by melancholy—and in his hand a glowing sword.

Will strained to see more clearly, hardly daring to breathe. The figure half-raised its head, almost as if it sensed their gaze and were seeking to look back; but then lethargy seemed to overtake it again and the head drooped, and the hand….

… and nothing was there but the rainbow, arching through the fountain's glittering spray.

Bran said, his voice tight,
“Eirias.
That was the sword. Who was the man?”

“So sad,” Will said. “Such a sad man.”

Gwion let out a long breath, breaking his own tension. “Did you see? You saw clearly?” There was anxious appeal in his voice.

Will looked at him curiously. “Didn't you?”

“This is the fountain of the Light,” Gwion said. “The one small touch of the Light's hand that is allowed in the Lost Land. Only those who are of the Light may see what it has to offer. And I am … not quite of the Light.” He was looking keenly at Will and Bran. “You will know that face again? The sorrowful face, and the sword?”

“Anywhere,” said Will.

“Always,” Bran said. “It was—” He stopped, perplexed, and looked at Will.

Will said, “I know. There's no way of describing. But, we shall know him. Who is he?”

Gwion sighed. “That is the king. Gwyddno, Lost King of the Lost Land.”

“And he has the sword,” Bran said. “Where is he?” A curious intentness seemed to take possession of him, Will saw, whenever there was any mention of the crystal sword.

“He has the sword, and perhaps he will give it to you if he hears you when you speak to him. He has not heard anybody for a long time—not because he cannot hear with his ears, but because he has shut himself up in his mind.”

Bran said again, “Where is he?”

“In his tower,” Gwion said. “His tower in
Caer Wydyr.”

As he spoke the Welsh words, Will realized suddenly that the faint lilt to his speaking of English had all along been the accent of a Welshman, though less pronounced than Bran's.

“Caer Wydyr,”
Bran said. He looked at Will, his forehead wrinkling. “That means, the castle of glass.”

“A glass tower,” Will said. “Which you can see in a rainbow.” He looked back at the spiralling jets of the fountain shooting up, breaking, falling in diamond rain over the shining backs of the dolphins. Then he paused, peering more closely. “Look down there, Bran. I hadn't noticed. There's something written on the fountain, right down low.”

They both bent to look, hands shielding their faces from the spray. A line of lettering was incised in the marble, half hidden by grass; the letters were patched green with moss.

“I am the …”
Will parted the grass with his hands.
“I am the womb of every holt.”

“Bran frowned.
“The womb of every holt.
The womb is where you come from in the mother, so that must be—the beginning, right? But holt? What's a holt?”

“A refuge,” Gwion said quietly.

Bran pushed his dark glasses down his nose and peered at the carved words. “The beginning of every refuge? What the heck does that mean?”

“That I cannot tell you,” Gwion said. “But I think you should perhaps remember it.” He pointed out through the arch, at the blue coach waiting. “Will you come?”

Will said, as they climbed up the folding step into the coach, “What is that golden crest on the door, with the leaping fish and the roses?”

“A Dyfi salmon, that fish,” Gwion said. “The heralds will call it, later,
Azure, a Salmon naiant Or between three Roses Argent seeded and barbed.”
He swung himself up over their heads to sit as coachman, gathering up the reins, and the last words came down faintly. “That is the crest of Gwyddno the king.”

Then he flicked the reins and the black horses tossed their plumed heads and they were away, swinging and rattling through the gardens of the broad green park and out into the City's stone streets. Here and there groups and pairs of people were walking; they lifted their heads, now, as the coach jingled by, and looked after it with surprise and sometimes curiosity. None offered any greeting, but none ignored their passing as before; this time, every head turned.

The coach slowed; they swayed round a bend. Looking out, Will and Bran saw that they were turning in at the arched entrance to a courtyard. High pillared walls rose on all sides, set with tall nine-paned windows; fantastic pointed towers rose above the balustraded line of the roof. Every window was blank; they saw no face anywhere.

The coach stopped; they climbed out. Before them a narrowing stone staircase rose to a square pillared doorway ornamented with carved stone scrolls and figures—and, dominating the rest, a replica of the crest of the leaping fish from the carriage door. Will and Bran glanced at one another, and then ahead. The door stood open. Nothing but darkness was visible within.

Gwion said, behind them, “It is the palace of Gwyddno Garanhir. The Empty Palace, it has been called, since the day when the king retreated to his castle by the sea and never afterward came out. Go inside, the two of you together. And I will meet you in there, if you find your way.”

Will looked back. The splendid coach and the midnight-black horses were quite gone. The great courtyard was
empty. Gwion stood at the bottom of the steps, a neat dark figure, his bearded face upturned and sudden lines of anxiety written unaccountably clear upon it. He was tense, waiting.

Will nodded. He turned back to the immense open doorway of the palace. Bran stood there gazing in at the murk. He had not moved since before Gwion spoke. Without turning his white head he said, “Come on, then.”

They went in, side by side. With a long creak and a deep-echoing crash the huge door slammed shut behind them. Instantly the darkness burst into a blaze of white light. Will had a second in which to see Bran recoil, shielding his eyes, before the impact of what lay before them hit him and he gasped aloud.

All around, in an endless fierce glitter, were countless repeated images of himself and Bran. He spun round, staring; the Will-images spun round too, a long chorus-line retreating into space. He shouted, instinctively expecting an infinitely repeated echo to go bouncing to and fro, just as the reflections before him echoed through his sight. But only the one sound rang dully around them, and then died.

It was the sound that somehow gave Will a sense of the shape of the place where they stood: long, narrow.

“Is it a corridor?” he said, bemused.

“Mirrors!” Bran was looking wildly to and fro, eyes screwed into slits even behind the dark glasses. “Mirrors everywhere. It's
made
of mirrors.”

Will's head steadied out of its whirling bewilderment; he began to sort out what he could see. “Mirrors, yes. Except for the floor.” He looked down at glimmering darkness. “And that's black glass. Look, up and down. It's a corridor, a long curving corridor all made out of mirrors.”

“I can see too many of me,” Bran said with an uneasy laugh. There was a flash of white at each face as all the endless lines of Bran-images instantaneously laughed—and then sobered, staring.

Will took a few uncertain steps, flinching as the rows of
reflected figures moved with him. The curve of the corridor opened before him a little, reflecting nothing but its own brilliance, like a gleaming empty page in a huge book. He reached out and tugged at Bran's sleeve.

“Hey. Walk alongside me. If there's someone else to look at, even out of the corner of your eye, all those reflections don't make you so giddy.”

Bran came with him. He said uncertainly, “You're right.” But when they had gone forward a little way he stopped suddenly; his face looked pinched and ill. “This is
awful,”
he said, his voice tight. “The glass, the brightness, all of it pressing in so close. Pressing, pressing, it's like being in some terrible kind of box.”

“Come on,” Will said, trying to sound confident. “Maybe it opens out round that bend. It can't go on forever.”

But as they rounded the curve, peopling the glass walls with their endlessly reflected figures, they came only to a pair of sharply angled corners, breaking the reflections into even more wildly repeated lines, where another mirrored corridor crossed the first so that they had now a choice of three forward directions to take.

Bran said unhappily, “Which way?”

“Goodness knows.” Will reached into his pocket and brought out a penny. “Heads we go right or centre, tails we go left.” He spun the coin, caught it, and held out his arm.

“It's tails,” Bran said. “Left, then.”

“Whoops!” Will had dropped the penny; they heard it roll and spin. “Where is it? Ought to be easy enough to find here…. Funny how there don't seem to be any joints anywhere in the glass—it's like being inside a sort of square tube—” He caught sight of the strain on Bran's face, and was shaken. “Come on—let's get out of here.”

They went on, up the left-hand turning. But the glass corridor, identical with the first, seemed endless; it stretched on and on, curved sharply to the left, then straightened again. Their footsteps rang out, dropping into immediate silence whenever they paused. At length they came to another crossroads of corridors.

Bran looked round despondently. “Looks just the same as the other one.”

A glitter that was not glass drew Will's eye to the floor; stooping, he found it was his penny. He straightened, swallowing hard to muffle the sudden hollow feeling in his throat, and held out his hand to Bran.

“It is the same. Look.”

“Duw.
We've come in a circle.” Bran looked at him, frowning. “You know what? I think we're in a maze.”