The monk nodded, then rose to his feet in the now gently rocking boat and raised his right hand, upsetting practically everything in the process. "I think a blessing-"
"Sit down!" said Conn savagely. "And stay there . . ."
Luckily it was easier than I had expected, for the tide was stronger now and soon Snowy found the main current. We moved steadily upstream, Conn and I clinging to the sides, the better to tip up the suspect bows, gently kicking our legs up and down as Snowy directed. I felt better this time, partly because the exercise warmed me up; indeed I let go of the boat a couple of times, just to see what it felt like, and paddled with my hands. I even turned over on to my back and let the sea sing in my ears the way it had with my friend the seal, and my body unfolded in the water like seaweed and stretched itself, crooked back forgotten, and I floated, a log beneath the racing clouds- "Thingy!" yelled Conn. "You"re getting lost!" and in a frantic panic that forgot seal and swimming and turned my body awkward and deformed again I threshed my way back to the safety of the gunwhale, my throat and mouth full of choking, salty water.
We landed safely on a spit of land some miles upstream, where the river narrowed and curved to meet the opposite bank. Conn beached the boat, retrieved the rope and offloaded everything and everyone. I noticed how exhausted Snowy looked and slipped a comforting arm around his neck.
"Another half-mile and it"s sh.o.r.e and supper," I said. "You were great . . ." He nuzzled my neck, and I was aware in myself of an aching tiredness and the pain of cold limbs.
I looked round at the others: all present and correct, if as wet, cold and tired as me. All but our pa.s.senger; he seemed invigorated by the cold, revitalized by the water, and now flung his arms in the air and began invoking his Lord.
Conn sank to his knees and bowed his head; I thought I had better do likewise, and let the foreign-sounding words flow over my head like a warm, drying wind.
Behind us, in the fervency of prayer, the boat slipped off the bank and rocked on its way upstream, with two thirds of the sealskin . . .
"I shall travel to my brothers at Friarsgate first," said our travelling monk.
"Will you not go with me part of the way?" He was addressing Conn, who shook his head.
"Thank you, but our way now lies-" he glanced at Snowy, "-southeast."
There was the faintest interrogative lift to his voice.
"Six stones lie half a mile south," said Snowy.
"So we shall bid you farewell and safe journey," added Conn. He helped the monk arrange his pack of books-still wrapped in the other third of our sealskin-comfortably on his shoulders. "G.o.d speed you . . ."
"He will, He will," said the monk fervently. "He has my project in his care, for He sent you to my succour . . ."
I wished fervently at that moment that He, whoever He was, had thought to ask us first, for I could not remember ever having felt so damp and cold.
The monk hitched up his robe through his belt. "Goodbye, then, goodbye!"
and he strode off towards the dunes behind us, wet robe flapping about his knees. "Ask for me if ever you come to Lindisfarne. Or the Holy Isle. Or . . .
Name"s Cuthbert."
The little dog still sat where he was; at last he stirred, had a good hoof of his left ear and shook out some salt water. "Oh, well," he sighed, and rose to his feet. "Better see the old boy doesn"t turn left at Priorstown. Thanks, you lot . .
. Still say you"re unlikely."
"Why don"t you travel with us?" I asked. "You"re welcome, you know . . ."
"He knows," said the dog, nodding at Snowy. "He knows as how the old boy would be hopelessly lost without a guide. Sort of thing I"ve got to do, somehow. Sorry for the old b.u.g.g.e.r, really: head in the clouds, feet anywhere .
. . Oh, well," and he sighed again.
I pulled out a piece of dried fish from the pack. "Here."
"Ta!" He swallowed it. "Can"t live on fresh air like some people I could mention. Likes me nosh, I does." He burped fishily. "Don"t worry; I"ll get him where he wants to go. Keep him snug for the winter, then back to the b.l.o.o.d.y bogs come spring." He scratched again. "Gawd! Anyone"d think all that bleeding water would have drowned the perishers! Well, benny-b.l.o.o.d.y- d.i.c.kerty, you lot!" And he was away, jaunty docked tail and ears erect, trotting off in the steps of his master.
"There are saints and saints," said Snowy cryptically.
"Will he be all right?" I asked, and didn"t need to specify whom I meant.
"Of course," said Snowy. "They both serve the same Master, don"t they? He is a good guide: he found us." He twitched his ears. "The unlikely ones: I rather like that . . ."
"Come on!" called Conn, by now well ahead. "I can see the stones, as you said.
So we"re on the right road . . . Got any dry wood, Thingummy? I fancy a hot drink of something-or-other . . ."
Slinging the others all over me as best I could I followed Snowy"s sure steps, while above our heads a storm-driven buzzard or kite or whatever fled our path south.
The Binding: Fish
The Face in the Water
Pisky"s adventure, when it came, was over in a flash of fins.
But there were many days of travel before he had his moment of glory, and all through the preceding misty mornings and sharp nights of Leaf-Fall I was wondering, on and off, whether it would be his turn or mine. Each day was so beautiful and smelt so of the poignancy of decay as the world wended its way to the long sleep of winter, that often I would forget and run to catch a falling leaf, or gather finger-staining dewberries for their sharp-sweet explosion of taste. The last flowers were a patchwork of b.u.t.terflies and moths, and martlets gathered in soft twittering lines on bending sprays of hawthorn, their gaze south. Bees fed heavy and wasps found fallen fruit before I did, angry colours a warning. Squirrels raced the treetops, younglings not yet the russet of their parents, and chattered angrily as we plundered the nuts they would have h.o.a.rded and forgotten. We heard wild pig crashing in the undergrowth in their search for acorn and truffle, and at night their little p.r.i.c.kly brothers wandered sharp-nosed and blind amidst our sleeping bodies, rootling for slugs and snails. At night, too, the dog-fox barked his territory and once, far away, we heard the howl of wolf. Rutting stags roared and clashed their antlers, owls ghosted through the twilight to screech threat to every tiny creature that cowered within range, and mushroom and fungi uncurled and swelled between dawn and dusk so that we trod a cushion of them, marvelling at the shelvings and bloatings that shawled and blanketed the trees with deep, livid colours in contrast with the other, more muted colours of autumn.
Then came storms that shook the trees, bent the brittling gra.s.s, drove the clouds so fast they seemed not to know whether to drop their rain or carry it on to another market. On such a day as this I found two martlets and three fledglings locked fast in a cot where the door had slammed shut and the latch fallen. We were seeking shelter ourselves and I was first to the hut-probably some charcoal-burner"s-and wrenched open the door. Immediately I was swathed with wings, and even without Snowy"s interpreting presence I could understand what they said.
"Thank you, human, thank you: it is late, and we must fly. The children are fat, but little practised in flight. We had hoped . . ."
I listened to their soft trilling and stretched my arms wide so they might light on them. "Fear not, travellers; the wind is from the west and will carry you all high in its arms to safety. Fly now, and fear not . . ."
"We go, we go . . . And are grateful that you came. We and ours shall bring summer to your eaves when we return, and your home shall be blessed . . ."
And they were gone, the youngsters a little unsteady at first then, escorted tenderly by their parents, flying higher and higher till they were mere specks in the air and turning southeast- "Gawd! Wish I could stretch my wings like that!" muttered Corby who had joined me, striding and hopping through the undergrowth.
"You will, you will!" I promised, bending down to stroke the ruffled feathers.
"Not long now . . ."
But in spite of my optimism-had we not, after all, covered some hundreds of leagues in our quest and taken a whole summer and much of the autumn to do it?-the end of our travels, expected now in every turn of the road for there were only two adventures to go, still seemed as far away as growing up: the nearer, the farther. In the end even I grew impatient, feeling that if it were my "turn" next I should welcome it; anything would be better than this endless walking. Not that the way was unpleasant; rivers to follow, streams to cross, blue hills to our right, the vales to our left, woods full of the russet, yellow and browns of Leaf-Fall-but there was a sense of urgency in the air that sharpened and quickened with the first frosts and the great skeins of geese that pa.s.sed swiftly overhead, the way we were going but so much faster!
We ate well enough from wood, river, coppice and field, for the earth gave forth in plenty that year. With our fast-dwindling stock of silver we paused at town and village as seldom as we could, but we exchanged a night or two for the nuts and mushrooms we gathered on the way and luckily did not fall foul of foresters or verderers, for great lords seemed few and far between. The robin began his song again and once more we heard the large voice of the wren and the twitter of sparrow, long silent over the summer.
Then we came to the meres, the pools, the lakes-and, in particular, one lake.
We had managed, so far, to keep our direction by sidestepping, cornering, splashing straight through the shallower pools, but now we were faced by a lake whose ends, to right and left, seemed boundless. It was a misty, moist day and the sun shone faint as a moon through a veil of gauzy cloud. Ahead of us the water lay still, unnaturally still, its grey waters scarce rippling though all the while a cold steam rose from it and the reflected sun floated like a blob of yellow fat on its surface. Reeds stood up from the fringes some ten feet distant but they were winter-dying back to their roots and bent in dry hoops to their images, until the edges of the lake seemed looped with them. Ahead, perhaps some half-mile distant, hanging as though suspended above the surface, were trees, land; an island? The farther sh.o.r.e? There was no way of telling.
Conn chucked a stone into the water, as far out as it would go. There was a dull cloop! as though a lazy fish rose for sport instead of food, and a ripple or two ran in faint-hearted circles but disappeared before they reached the sh.o.r.e, as if the water were thick as oil.
"Hmmm . . ." he said. "A dead lake. Not very inspiring."
"Dead?" said Pisky"s inquiring bubbles. "Lemme see, lemme see . . ."
I tilted his bowl nearer the water. "There . . ."
He said something surprising. "I want to try the water!" He had never said anything like this before, had never ventured willingly outside his bowl except at The Ancient"s, and for a moment I hesitated, almost as though I was afraid that once in he would be lost.
"Don"t be silly, Thing dear," he said, reading my thoughts. "I only want a quick look. Besides, my scales itch. My great-aunt on my mother"s side always said that if one"s scales felt itchy it was either a change in the weather or mites."
"Mites?"
"Tickly things that bite like the fleas you humans and animals have. Now, lemme see!"
Obediently I lowered his bowl to the still lake and tipped it until he had ingress and egress. He hesitated for a moment and I saw a convulsive shudder run through his little frame, then slowly he moved from the shelter of his weed and I saw what I had feared, a golden-orange shape dim and falter as he moved out into the deeper water. Almost, stretching out my hand, I betrayed his trust, distressfully trying to catch him back before I lost sight, but Snowy nudged me with his nose in time.
"He knows what he does, Thing dear: have faith! And patience . . ."
It nevertheless seemed an age before the orange blur moved back to his bowl again, very thoughtfully. "I don"t know, I just don"t know . . . Never seen or felt water like that before. Soft, soft as the robes of a courtesan, the robes they used to trail in the Great Pond at Chaykung . . . Misty on top, but there are clear pools. Bottom"s thick mud and tangled roots. Difficult to swim in; slows you down, it does, but it"s breathable, just. Nothing living that I can see, but I feel that there is something, or someone, down there . . . Curious. Whatever it is is not unwelcoming, there"s just a kind of . . . nothingness. No feeling, nothing positive. Doesn"t operate on any level that I recognize.
"Wouldn"t do to fall in the deeper bits, Thingy . . ."
"As if I would!"
"There"s a sort of boat here," called Conn and, sure enough, there was a broad-bottomed craft lying hidden under the bank some hundred yards further up. It was built of some tough, greyish wood and looked very old, but when I tried it with my dagger it seemed sound enough. The flat planking inside was almost covered by a drifting of last year"s leaves. A long paddle lay amidships, obviously for steering and propelling the boat through a ring in the stern.
"Some sort of ferryboat?" I ventured. "Is it safe?"
"Seems so," said Conn, jumping down into the bows. He stamped around for a minute or two, but apart from the quiet ripples that spread in the water there was no other disturbance, hardly even a lowering of the boat"s level from his weight. Jumping back on the bank he leant forward and pulled in the broad stern. "Well, the only way is across, and it seems there"s land of sorts over there . . . Shall we risk it?"
"As you say, it"s the only way," said Snowy. "However, I don"t like the feel of this place and I shall be glad when we"re across." He stepped delicately onto the boards and lay down, his hooves tucked close. Somewhere a bird cried mournfully, but there was no other sound save the sluggish lap of water. I went up to the bows carrying Pisky, and the others settled themselves beside Snowy. Conn pushed the boat away from the bank and leapt in after, stepping the steering-paddle.
It was an eerie pa.s.sage, no sound save the creak and swish of the paddle, Conn"s heavy breathing and the "sss" of the water past our bows. No one felt like talking: it was almost as though we held our breath for fear of waking something. I looked back at the bank we had left but already it was disappearing in mist. The land ahead looked no nearer, although the trees we could see held a dark and menacing aspect.
We were perhaps some three-quarters of the way across when, glancing down, I became aware of a difference in the quality of the water. Where before it had had a thickness, an opacity that made it look like liquid iron, now this seemed to be drifting away, like heavy clouds clearing a rainwashed sky. If it had been real sky then all one would have seen would be an infinite blue, but in the depths there seemed to be tantalizing glimpses of another world, a world in which there were trees, fields, mountains and valleys, an image so immediate and real that I glanced up, expecting to see it was merely a reflection. But no: the mist seemed thicker and, more disturbing, my companions appeared somehow different too; discontented, distorted, disturbingly alien, like the time when I had laughingly viewed them through a piece of broken green Roman gla.s.s on our journey. Suddenly they all seemed strangers and I turned from them in discomfort to look again at my prettier pictures in the water.
They had changed also. Where there had been vague landscapes, viewed from a distance, now I could see flowers in the fields, birds in the trees. I leant closer and someone spoke behind me; irritated, I turned back and saw Conn mouthing at me, but he was speaking as though he had a mouthful of rags, and his face and figure were as grey as the mist. Impatiently I turned back.
There were other words, other voices still squeaking in my ears but I covered them and leant closer to the water, the better to appreciate the bright colours, the beautiful pictures that were such a contrast to the grim, grey reality above.
Now there were animals and people down there, too. Horses ran through the meadow, manes and tails flowing in the breeze; fair knights armed and helmed were practising swordplay; hounds were on the scent, their bright tongues lolling; birds, fishes, deer, all living in colours livelier than the day. It was like some great new-woven tapestry, but a tapestry that moved and lived and breathed. And there, right in the middle of it all, was a lady, a beautiful dark-haired lady who stretched her arms out to me and smiled a smile that I remembered from times past. Surely my mother must have had a smile like that? I cried out to the pretty lady and she leant up to take my hand and I clasped hers in both of mine and was drawn down, down into the overwhelming brightness beneath.
The waters sang in my ears and I was warm as an infant enshawled. The lady, so like my mother must have been, drew me into her arms and rocked me back and forth and the knights smiled and nodded and clashed their weapons, the horses threw back their heads and neighed and the hounds bayed a welcome, their tails waving like weeds in a stream- "Weeds in a stream! Weeds in a stream!" came a little voice in my ears, as insistent and annoying as the zinging of a gnat. "Rocks in a pool! Bones in a bog! Illusion, illusion and death! Come away, Thing dear, dearest dear, before you drown in a dream, before your lungs burst and the Creature nibbles your flesh from your bones in a kiss of death and arranges you in her gallery like the others . . . Look! Look, and see . . ."
And I looked, and I saw. As Pisky swam to and fro in front of my eyes I had to shift my focus and the lady"s green gaze no longer held mine. Her arms were about me still, caressing and stroking and soothing and I was aware of her smiling, scarlet mouth and the questing teeth- The knights were bones, the horses were bones, the hounds were bones. Their hair, their manes, their tails waved in the gentle current and they were prisoned by their feet, their hooves, their legs to the floor of the lake to dance and prance and bounce to the Creature"s whim. And were long dead and Its playthings, as were the rocks and stones and weeds that made Its landscapes.
I saw, too, that It had no heart, no evil intent even, just an overweening curiosity. And that curiosity drew me closer, closer, and I saw that It had drawn from me my own thoughts to create the illusions I had seen, and that It had no real form of Its own, just the locking arms and the open mouth and the teeth, that sought me and my blood and my breath and my being.
All at once I could not breathe and a little orange-gold fish with a pearl in his mouth swam between the teeth that threatened me and down the throat that waited and the Creature choked and gasped and convulsed and spat and loosed Its hold and I shot to the surface and was grabbed and hauled into the boat and all I could think about was a little fish and the sight of him disappearing down that gaping throat- "Thing, darling, are you all right? Christ Almighty, she"s near drowned!" came Conn"s distracted, loving voice and even with my tortured lungs and rasping throat I recognized that he had used my right name for a third time while I lay on the bottom boards of the boat, heedless, soaking, abandoned to decency and decorum, and spewed up the foul, cloudy water, murmuring between the violent retchings that Pisky had saved me.
"No thanks to your abominable gullibility!" came a little bubbling voice in my ear, and there was my rescuer, leaping back into his bowl no worse for wear.
"How anyone in their right mind could mistake an apparition like that for the real thing I do not know! My grandmother"s cousin, twice removed, was once suborned by one such but her disgrace was never mentioned. By my fins and scales-"
"Pisky you"re a darlin" and a hero, and if you weren"t in that bowl I"d pick you up and kiss you, that I would!" declared Conn, and leaving the paddle he stepped forward to cradle my helpless, revolting body in his arms. "I shall never be able to thank you . . . But unless we get this child to dry land and the water pumped out of her-"
With a sudden jolt-just as I was warming to his utterly unexpected embrace and revelling in both my escape and the sweetness of breath in my lungs and wondering at the supreme courage of Pisky"s rescue-the boat grounded on dry land and promptly broke up in pieces. I was shoved and trampled on as the others struggled with me and the baggage over rocks and boulders. Once there I was subjected to further indignity as Conn rolled me over on to my face and proceeded to press the air out of my lungs with the flat of his hand. I consequently threw up the contents of my stomach onto the ground, near choking with vomit and froth, my mask tangled in my mouth.
Just before I died from his ministrations Snowy luckily told him to stop and I was hauled round to sit upright, still gasping for air and shivering uncontrollably.
"Stay with her," ordered Conn to Moglet, Corby, Puddy and Pisky. "The unicorn and I will search for wood to make a fire before she perishes from cold."
"Wanna-come-with-you!" demanded Pisky, and, such was the aura of his recent success, Conn picked him up without demur and carried him off.
I staggered to my feet, I wanted to ask questions about the Creature in the water, about the bones and the hair and the pictures-but at that moment I looked up and saw the shadow of the seven stones and my adventure began . .
The Binding: Thing
The Last Giants and Ogres
Except for the seat of my breeches which was still damp against the stone floor, at least now I was dry and warm for the fire was very hot. Not that I was exactly next to it: I lay bound and trussed like a recalcitrant chicken against the woven fence that formed the outer wall of the cave-house. The wind whistled past my ears and outside I could hear the gale that roared and tore at the last remains of the trees in the forest. It was night, for we-me, Moglet and Corby-had been carried here for many miles along twisting, curling paths after our capture.
Prisoners. I had never been physically tied up before and I didn"t like it, not one bit. I closed my eyes, looked back on what had happened, wondered if it could have been different.
Conn, Snowy and Pisky had gone to find wood to build a fire and dry me out- so it had been my fault from the beginning. I had started to ask Moglet, Corby and Puddy a question-what question? It had all gone now, was not important any longer-and then had come that sudden crash, a cry from Conn, an unintelligible whinny from Snowy and the awful, hair-raising howl- I had run, we had run, away from the lakeside, stumbling and cursing over the twisted tree-roots, tearing our way through the shoulder-high ferns, pushing through thicket and briar, and all the while the wild threshing and howling grew louder until-until we came to the clearing, the net and the pit.
At first I thought I had been carried away by the Night-Mare, and fought against the reality I saw, even shutting my eyes tight and throwing my arms wide in an effort to transport myself to another dream or even, please the G.o.ds! to awake sweating on some pallet, somewhere else . . .
But no; it was real, and it was horrible.
In front of me, almost at my feet, opened a pit, dark and deep, and the broken branches that had hidden it tipped, crazy and broken, laced with man-high ferns, to the bottom some ten or twelve feet below, where Conn and Snowy were milling about, pulling at the branches which slid down on top of them.
Conn"s anxious eyes lifted to mine, then I saw him glance over his shoulder towards the other side of the pit. I followed his gaze and recoiled in horror.
There, illuminated by branch torches, sputtering with some oily foulness, stood half-a-dozen giants! Ogres. Trolls . . . ten feet high, more perhaps, covered with s.h.a.ggy hair, their clothing a few skins. Barefooted, tangle- locked, with long yellow teeth, flat noses and great craggy brows overhanging small, dark, red-rimmed eyes. Legs bowed with the weight of their bodies, hands with hairy backs grasping clubs, a spear, a- "Thing, look out!" yelled Conn, but even as I turned I was meshed in a creeper net, borne down by heavy bodies, smothered in the sharp tang of earth and leaves. I could not breathe, Moglet was nowhere, Puddy was missing, Corby was flapping on his back at my side; we were all panicking, panicking, and we shouldn"t panic, we should- I felt a thump on the side of my head, there were bright lights . . . then darkness.
I awoke to the realization that we were being carried in a kind of sling between two poles. My lungs were not fully recovered from the water, my head hurt, but even greater was the pain from creeper-fastened wrists and ankles. Worst of all was the terror of not knowing how or where, the disappearance of my friends, the awe-inspiring figures of my captors-Not knowing, not understanding what one is facing is far more terrible than facing the most tremendous calculable odds; the Tree-People had been worse than the Great Spider or the White Wyrme.