Lavondyss (Mythago Cycle) (40 page)

‘I’ve seen your masks,’ the old man said. ‘I saw it at once. That one is Falkenna …’

‘The flight of a bird into an unknown region.’

‘And the one with the new growth upon it is Skogen …’

‘Shadow of the forest,’ Tallis breathed. ‘I have always felt a strange affinity for that one.’

Wyn laughed, a wheezing sound. ‘It was how I knew you were coming. It changed. Skogen is the
changing
shadow of the forest. I thought that my son was doing it, changing the totem because of the way he was reaching towards me. It was you, though. You are the skogen. You are the shadow of the forest … like Harry before you. It is in the shadows that you will find him.’

He looked up again, pointed to the rajathuk which Tallis knew better than all, because of her own obsession with the wood …

‘Moondream.’

‘The eyes that see the woman in the land. I lost that mask. I dropped it when I left for the realm. My father has it, now.’ She smiled. ‘I sometimes wonder if he is watching me through it.’

Wynne-Jones seemed alarmed by what she had said, though. ‘You must make it again. If the masks have remained of importance to you, you must certainly fashion it again.’

‘Important to me?’ Tallis shrugged. ‘I use some of
them. Others I hardly ever use. They seem to work, though. I see things through them …’

‘You miss the point of the masks,’ Wynne-Jones murmured, stroking his grey beard and watching Skogen. ‘Perhaps you are not yet ready to use them correctly.’

‘I use the Hollower whenever I wish to cross a threshold …’

Wynne-Jones chuckled. ‘Of course. What else would you use? But Tallis … listen to me … in
legend’s
terms, the masks, like these rajathuks, are the facets of an oracle! The voice of the earth speaking its vision through the shaman: that’s me; or you; or Tig. You cannot use the masks as an oracle if one of them is missing.’

He turned to stare at Tallis, who pulled a face. ‘But they still work.’

‘They work to an extent. But they could work much better. Think of each mask alone as being on a chain. That chain leads from the mask, when you wear it, deep into your mind. There are many concealed places in your mind, many
forbidden
or
forgotten
places. Think of each mask as reaching to one of those locked parts of the mind. The patterns on the masks, the shape of the wood, the touch of the wood, the smell of the wood, any smell you have incorporated, the bright colours, or the dull shades … all of these are part of the essential
pattern
, the essential
knowledge
, the unknowing knowing that is at the heart of magic. Each mask
unlocks
lost memory when you look at it; each mask gives access to a lost talent: it opens the door, if you like, and lets the legends
out
… or perhaps
in
across the threshold. So if that is the capability of
one
mask at a time … think of the power of all ten!’

Tallis said nothing, frightened by the old man’s words. He simply shrugged, tapped her on the shoulder with his staff, then pointed again at the rajathuks.

‘Think about oracles later. For the moment, look closely at the faces of
my
masks. Do you see? They’re lopsided. One eye on each seems to be ruined. One side of the mouth droops. Do you see?’

Understanding blossomed in Tallis’s mind. She began to shake in anticipation of Wynne-Jones’s words.

‘Years ago,’ he said, ‘a man from outside the realm passed up the river towards Lavondyss. The wood sucked out his dreams to make mythagos. He made everything you see, the Tuthanach, the lodge … the totems. There is only one thing I can tell you of these totems. He had a mark on the left side of his face. It was a mark that controlled his life. He was obsessed with it. Disease, perhaps, or a wound? Deformed?’

‘Burned,’ Tallis said. She stared at Skogen. Suddenly its dead face took on life. Wynne-Jones was right. The shadows there were shadows of Harry, not the forest. It had seemed a cruel and empty face; now she saw urgency and sadness. Had he gone into the wood to find a way to cure the blemish?

Burned in the war. Shot down. Burned. He had come to her in the night.

I shan’t be far away. There is something I have to do. A ghost I have to banish
.

The ghost of his burning; an ugly mask – fire, fear and evil – a mark that had spread across his face; it had not covered him completely. But a mask is what it was, and he had hated the mask; and unlike Falkenna, Sinisalo, Hollower, it could not be used at whim. It could not be removed.

All this Tallis expressed to the shaman, Wyn-rajathuk, who listened in silence, his hand on her arm, his eye on the face of Harry which watched from the pieces of dead wood.

‘Then it was Harry who passed up the river all those
years ago, ahead of me. He is years ahead of you, but he is there. Those years may sound like frustration to your quest, but that is not necessarily the case. Time plays strange tricks in the wood. I’ve been lucky: Scathach has returned only four years older than I expected him to be.’ He took a breath, squeezed Tallis’s arm hard. ‘But equally, when you get to Lavondyss you may find that Harry is a million years away. I do not understand the laws which govern Lavondyss. I say this only because of what I have gleaned from the living myth of the wood. But be prepared for it.’

Tallis helped him sit again, sheltered in his cloak. The wind was growing even colder. ‘Winter is coming,’ Wynne-Jones said.

‘A terrible winter,’ Tallis agreed. ‘It seems to have been following me all my life.’

‘What little I know of Lavondyss has left me in no doubt of one thing: it is a place of snow, of ice, of winter, of an age past when the land was frozen. Why this should be of such importance in the minds of you and me, and all the others from the world of the nineteen-forties I do not know. Later myths make of the Otherworld a place of endless hunting, endless feasting, endless pleasure … a sunny place. A bright realm. It is reached through caves, through tombs, through hidden valleys. But that is wish fulfilment. Adventurers have quested for Lavondyss since the beginning of time. I wonder how many of them knew that they would find a barren world, a place of death, of cold … no magic in Lavondyss … and yet the memory is there. There is
something
there, something that calls. Something that engages.’

‘My brother travelled there, I’m convinced of it. He called to me from the place. He is trapped there and I have made it my promise, Tallis’s Promise, to release him. If he went up-river, then that’s where I shall go.’

‘And what will you find there?’ Wynne-Jones asked with a smile.

‘Fire,’ Tallis answered without pause. She had learned of the place from an encounter some years ago. ‘A wall of fire, maintained by the fire-makers of an older age than even these Tuthanach. I shall pass through the fire and into Lavondyss.’

‘You will burn,’ the shaman whispered pointedly, shaking his head. ‘No one passes through the fire. No human. I have heard of mythagos which have succeeded, but they are
part
of the myth that says tumuli and fire guarded valleys are the way to the Otherworld. For you, the route certainly lies in another direction entirely. It will take you through a forest far stranger than this tiny Ryhope Wood.’

‘Harry got there.’

‘
If
Harry got there,’ the old man said, ‘then he got there by finding his own path. He certainly didn’t pass through the fire. And nor can you … Because, like me, you are human. We don’t belong. We are voyagers in our own living madness. Around you are your brother’s dreams, later modified by myself, recently modified by you. What
we
have that these wretched creatures around us do not, is freedom. The freedom to choose. Oh, I know Scathach has chosen for himself, for a while … but look at him, touch him, feel his mind … I was awake for just a little while and I could tell –’

Alarmed, Tallis said, ‘Tell what?’

‘That the
wood
in him is being called. That the
legend
in him is being summoned. That his time with us is fast coming to an end. He must go to Bavduin, to be reunited with his knightly comrades.’

Tallis felt sick. She looked up to the skyline, where Scathach’s tall form was a silhouette. He was looking to the north, away from the river.

Tallis said, ‘I once had a vision of your son. I saw him at the very moment in his life when he
earned
the name Elethandian gave him: the boy who listens to the voice of the oak. I am not ready for him to achieve that moment of glory. Not yet …’

She would have talked on, but Wynne-Jones had suddenly pushed his hand against her mouth. She jerked back, surprised by the anger on his face, then reassured by the apology she saw there. The hand lowered.

‘I beg your pardon,’ the man said. ‘Like you, I’m not ready to hear or know my son’s ultimate fate. It would tempt me to interfere. If we interfere we become involved. We become trapped … I have discovered this over many years.’

Tallis leaned forward, suddenly excited by the old man’s words. She was thinking of her brother, of being trapped, of being caught … ‘Then is it possible that Harry interfered with legend? Is it possible that he found the way into Lavondyss, changed something, and is caught
because
of it?’

‘Very much so,’ Wynne-Jones answered simply.

‘Then how could he have called to me?’

‘To answer that,’ the old man said, ‘I need you to tell me the story of your girlhood. Your memories of Harry. And everything that has happened to you in the way of learning. I dreamed something about a castle made of
stone which is not stone
…’

‘Old Forbidden Place,’ Tallis said. ‘Or at least, a part of the tale. I whispered it to you while you slept.’

‘You must tell me again,’ the scientist murmured. ‘It may be that I have seen this place. A long way from here, but a place that is familiar from your whispered words.’

Her heart missed a beat. ‘You’ve
been
to the castle?’

But he shook his head. ‘I’ve only seen it from a great distance. It is well defended; by a storm that would
surprise you. Before I settled among the Tuthanach I wandered further up the river, crossing the great marsh. But it was too cold up there, so I returned. It was too far. Too remote. There comes a time, for people like you and me, when the mind has been stripped of all that is mythic. It’s hard to describe the feeling: it’s a kind of tiredness, of exhaustion … of the spirit. I felt vigorous; my work fascinated me; I remained handsomely potent –’ He smiled and shook his head at his own unspoken memories. ‘But something had returned to the earth, and it took me with it. So I came back here, to the Tuthanach. They are an earth people and their legend is horrific, dramatic, almost senseless. Each and every one of them will undergo death by burial and rebirth renewed. They are part of the legend, of course; you and I wouldn’t survive it.’

Scathach called from the other side of the enclosure. ‘Tig is coming up the hill, from the south. He’s carrying an axe.’

‘Take me back to the lodge,’ Wynne-Jones whispered. ‘I’m tired and cold. You can tell me your stories in the warmth of my hut. And I want to hear
all
the stories.’

Tallis smiled. ‘I was asked that once before. It seems like a lifetime ago.’

‘There are old truths in the memories of childhood,’ Wynne-Jones said quietly. ‘Make that journey for me … then make Moondream again. I’ll give you what help I can …’

At dusk an eagle began to swoop and soar over the village. The children imitated the bird’s behaviour, arms outstretched. The young men stripped and painted themselves in black and white imitation of the feather pattern on the predator: bringing the hunting eye of the eagle to the clan.

While all eyes were on the majestic bird above them, Tallis had seen the fluttering movement of a more sinister flock, in the high trees around the river. One of the birds flapped towards a tall, dead elm, whose limbs had been stripped by fierce winds until only two remained, like gnarled horns, rising from the top of the trunk. Black against the sky, the black stork, too, was a silhouette. It perched on the elm’s horns and soon several others followed it. When they launched themselves into the dusk they seemed to fill the sky to the north for long minutes, and their cries reached as far as the village.

Scathach had seen the storks as well. He approached Tallis, drawing his fur cloak tighter round his chest. He smelled strongly of woodsmoke after his long hours in the lodge, nursing his father. ‘Are they an omen?’

Tallis turned to glance at him. She saw affection and concern in his eyes, but imagined that the love was gone, the intensity of the gaze, that knowingness that she had shared for so many years as they had fought to find this place through the forest.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But they disturb me.’

He watched the birds again. ‘Everything is going north,’ he murmured. ‘Everything. I feel impelled to follow …’

Tallis nodded her agreement. ‘That’s where I must go too, if I’m to find Harry. But first I have to make Moondream again.’

Scathach frowned, not understanding. Tallis had always kept her masks to herself. ‘To allow me to see that woman in the land. Your father says I should carve it again. I hadn’t thought it important, but perhaps my power to open the hollowings has been affected by its absence.’

‘I’ll help you make it,’ Scathach said. His hand was on
her arm. Tallis wrapped her fingers round the welcome grip.

‘What about Morthen?’ she asked pointedly. The girl had returned earlier, and prematurely, from the hunt, but was not around as far as Tallis could see.

‘Morthen is my sister and a child. I am her brother from the wood, but until she gets older, that’s
all
I am. And by the time she reaches a suitable age, I shall be long gone.’

‘Does she know this?’

‘She knows it. Besides, what I do with Morthen I do because of the forest in my blood. What I choose to do with you I do because of love.’

Tallis said, ‘I hadn’t realized you knew about Gyonval.’

‘I knew that you loved him. But I never felt that you’d stopped loving me. So that seemed to me to be all right.’