Mythago Wood - 1 (30 page)

The Urscumug appeared through the trees, walking slowly, making a strange
snuffling sound in the still evening. We watched from cover as the great
boar-shape stopped at the water's edge and stooped to pick up the limp, crushed
body of one of the Hawks. It used its tusks to rend open the body and crouched,
in a startlingly human way, as it sucked the soft innards of the dead mythago.
The cadaver was flung into the river, and the Urscumug, growling deeply, looked
along the shore. For a long moment its gleaming gaze rested upon us, but it
surely could have seen nothing in the gloom.

Yet the white mask of the human face seemed to glow in the moonlight, and I
swear the lips were parting in an unheard communication, as if the spirit of my
father were speaking silently, and smiling as he spoke.

Then the beast rose from its haunches and waded into the water, raising its
huge arms to shoulder level, holding the gnarled spear slightly above .its head.
The thorn antlers it wore snagged in the trees on the far side, but apart from a
grumble or two there was no further sound from the Urscumug, save that an hour
or so later rocks clattered down through the woodland, and splashed gently into
the river.

On the river the boat bobbed noisily, caught by the current and straining at
its tethering rope. I peered into its hull. It was of simple, yet elegant
design; it had a narrow draught, but with space enough for perhaps twenty people
to huddle beneath the skin coverings which could be slung to weatherproof the
craft. A single sail, simply rigged, could let it take the wind, but there were
rowlocks of crude design, and four oars for calmer waters.

Sorthalan dug a fire pit and struck flame into dry wood from a flint
apparatus of his own making. He wood-roasted two pigeons and a woodcock, yet
there was scarcely enough meat upon the fowl to satisfy my own hunger, let alone
the appetites of the three of us.

For once we did not begin the pointless ritual of communication and
misunderstanding. Sorthalan ate in silence, watching me, but more intent upon
his own thoughts. It was I who tried to communicate. I pointed in the direction
of the primary mythago and said, 'Urscu-mug.'

Sorthalan shrugged. 'Urshucum.'

Almost the same name that Kushar had used.

I tried something else. Using my fingers to indicate movement I said, 'I'm
following
uth guerig.
Do you know of him?'

Sorthalan chewed and watched me, then licked the bird grease from two
fingers. He reached over and used the same two sticky digits to press my lips
together.

Whatever it was he said, it meant, 'Be quiet and eat,' and I did just that.

I estimated Sorthalan to be a man in his fifties, heavily lined, yet still
quite dark of hair. His clothing was simple, a cloth shirt with a ribbed leather
corselet that seemed quite effective. His trousers were long and bound with
cloth strips. For shoes he had stitched leather. He seemed, it must be said, a
colourless man, since all these fabrics were the same monotonous brown hue. All,
that is, except the necklet of coloured bones that he wore. He had left the
intricately patterned helmet in the boat, but didn't object when Keeton fetched
it to the fireside and ran his fingers over the beautifully depicted scenes of
hunting and war.

Indeed, it soon occurred to Keeton that the pattern of silver on bronze on
the helmet depicted Sorthalan's life itself. It began above the left eyebrow
ridge and ran in a subtly continuous scene around the crest to the panel above
the elaborate cheek guard. There was room, still, for a scene or two to be
etched.

The pattern showed boats on a stormy sea; a forested river estuary; a
settlement; tall, sinister figures; wraiths and fire; and, finally, a single
boat with the shape of a man at the prow.

Keeton said nothing, but was clearly impressed and moved by the exquisite
artistry involved in the etching.

Sorthalan wrapped his cloak around his body and appeared to drift into a
light sleep. Keeton poked the fire and put a new piece of wood on to the bright
embers. It must have been close to midnight and we both tried to sleep.

But I could only doze fitfully, and at some time in the dead part of the
night I became conscious of Sorthalan's voice whispering softly. I opened my
eyes and sat up, and saw him seated next to the deeply sleeping Keeton, one hand
resting on the airman's head. The words were like a ritual chant. The fire was
very low and I again made it up. By its renewed light I saw the sweat that was
saturating Sorthalan's face. Keeton shifted, but stayed asleep. Sorthalan raised
his free hand to his lips as he glanced at me, and I trusted him.

After a while the softly chanted words ended. Sorthalan rose to his feet,
shrugged off his cloak and walked to the water, stooping to wash his hands and
splash his face. Then he crouched on his haunches, staring into the night sky,
and his voice grew louder, the sibilant, hesitant sounds of his language echoing
into the darkness. Keeton woke and sat up, rubbing his eyes. 'What's going on?'

'I don't know.'

We watched for a few minutes, our puzzlement increasing. I told Harry Keeton
what Sorthalan had been doing to him, but he showed neither fear nor concern.

'What is he?' Keeton said.

'A shaman. A magic man. A necromancer.'

The Saxon called him
Freya.
I thought that was a Viking god or
something.'

'God grew out of the memories of powerful men,' I suggested. 'Perhaps an
early form of Freya was a witch.'

'Too complicated too early,' Keeton said with a yawn, and then we both
reacted with startled surprise at a movement in the underwood behind us.
Sorthalan remained where he was, still stooped by the water, but silent now.

Keeton and I rose to our feet and stared into the darkness. An increasing
amount of rustling heralded the approach of a vaguely human shape. It hesitated,
swaying slightly in the gloom, its outline only just picked out by the fire.

'Hello!' came a man's voice, not cultured, very uncertain. The word had
sounded more like ''Allo!'

Following the hailing cry, the figure stepped closer, and soon a young man
came into view. He hovered in the zone of elementals, surrounded by the wraiths
and ghostly forms of Sorthalan's entourage, which seemed to urge him forward,
though he was reluctant to come. All I recognized at this time was his uniform.
He was ragged, certainly and without equipment, neither pack nor rifle. His
khaki jacket was open at the neck. His breeches were loose at the thigh and
bound tight to his calves with cloth puttees. On the sleeves of his jacket he
wore a single stripe.

He was so obviously a soldier from the British Army of the First World War
that at first I refused to trust my senses. Used to a visual diet of primitive,
iron-wielding forms, so familiar and comprehensible a sight did not ring true.

Then he spoke again, still hesitant, his voice rich with cockney vowels.

'Can I approach? Come on, mates, it's bleedin' cold out here.'

'Come on in,' Keeton said.

'At last!' said our night guest cheerfully, and took several paces towards
us. And I saw his face . . .

And so did Keeton!

I think Harry Keeton gasped. I just looked from one to the other of the men
and said, 'Oh God.'

Keeton backed away from his alter-image. The infantryman didn't appear to
notice anything. He came into the camp and rubbed his arms vigorously. When he
smiled at me I tried to smile back, but confronted with the spitting image of my
travelling companion my uncertainty must have shown.

'I thought I could smell chicken.'

'Pigeon,' I said. 'But all gone.'

The cockney infantryman shrugged. 'Can't be 'elped. Bleedin' starvin' though.
I ain't got the equipment to hunt properly.' He looked from one to the other of
us. 'Any chance of a fag?'

'Sorry,' we said in unison. He shrugged.

'Can't be 'elped,' he repeated, then brightened. 'Name's Billy Frampton. You
get lost from your unit?'

We introduced ourselves. Frampton crouched by the fire, which burned
brightly, now. I noticed Sorthalan approach us, and circle round to come behind
the new arrival. Frampton appeared to be unaware of the shaman. His fresh face,
sparkling eyes, and flop of fair hair were a vision of a younger Harry Keeton -
and without the burn mark.

'Meself, I'm heading back to the lines,' said Frampton. 'Got this sixth
sense, y'see? Always did, even in London as a sprog. Got lost in Soho once,
about four years old.

Found me way back to Mile End, though. Good sense of direction. So you'll be
okay, mates. Stick with me. You'll be right as rain.'

Even as he spoke he was frowning, looking anxiously at the river. A moment
later he glanced at me, and there was a wild sort of expression in his eyes, an
almost panicked uncertainty.

'Thanks, Billy,' I said. 'We're heading inwards. Up the far cliff.'

'Call me Spud. All me mates call me Spud.'

Keeton exhaled loudly and shivered. The two men exchanged a long stare, and
Keeton whispered, 'Spud Frampton. I was at school with him. But this isn't him.
He was fat, and dark

'Spud Frampton, that's me,' said our guest, and smiled. 'Stick with me,
mates. We'll get back to the lines. Getting to know these woods like the inside
of the old Cockney Pride.'

He was another mythago, of course. I watched him as he talked. He continually
glanced around: he seemed to be in a deep and growing state of distress.
Something was wrong, and he knew it. His existence was wrong. Inasmuch as any
mythago could be called a natural woodland presence, Spud Frampton was
unnatural.
I intuited why, and murmured my theory to Keeton, while Spud stared at the
fire and kept repeating, in an increasingly pointless tone, 'Stick with me,
mates.'

'Sorthalan created him out of your mind.'

'While I was sleeping . . .'

Keeton said, 'I
know
him, then. Yes. My father spoke of him. Or of
them.
Shellhole Sam was one. And he told me several stories of a cockney corporal
- Hellfire Harry, he called him. They were all about "getting home".
Hellfire Harry was the corporal who'd slip down into your shell hole, in the
mist, where you were crouched, utterly buggered, utterly lost, and would somehow
get you home. Hellfire Harry used to do things in style, though. He got one
group of lost soldiers from the Somme in France right back to their croft in the
Scottish Isles. "Well bugger me, mates, I
thought
me feet was sore .
. ."' Keeton grinned. 'That sort of thing.'

'Mythago forms as recently as that,' I said quietly. I was astonished. But I
could well imagine how the horrors and disorientation of the Flanders trenches
could cause the anguished generation of a 'hope' form, a figure that could
confidently lead, give new inspiration, reinvest the lost and terrified soldiers
with courage.

Yet looking at our acquaintance, this rapidly created heroic figure, I could
see only disorientation and confusion. He had been created for a purpose, and
the purpose was language, not myth.

Sorthalan approached and eased his bulky form into a crouch, resting a hand
lightly on the soldier's shoulder. Frampton jumped slightly, then looked up at
me. 'He's glad you found the courage to come.'

'Who is?' I asked, frowning, and then realized what was happening.
Sorthalan's lips moved, though no sound came. As he spoke silently, so Frampton
addressed me, his cockney tones sounding strange against the legend he spoke. He
reiterated in words the picture story on Sorthalan's helmet.

'He found a large boulder with a water-worn furrow in its surface. He placed
his ghost in the stone, and the stone on a high pinnacle. The stone grew for two
seasons, then Mithan pushed it from the pinnacle. It broke open and an infant
was curled up inside. That was how Sorthalan was born.

'Mithan nourished the child on secret herbs from the grasslands and the
woodlands. When he had reached manhood Sorthalan returned from the wild lands to
the tribes, and gathered families from each. Every family built a boat, and
carried the boats by cart to the grey sea.

'The first boatman led them across the sea and along the coast of the isle,
searching the cliffs and the dark woods, and the river estuaries, for a safe
place of landing. He found reed-choked marshlands, where wild geese and moorhens
swam. They slipped into the land through a hundred channels, and soon found a
deeper riverway, leading inwards, cutting between wooded hills and steep gorges.

'One by one the boats moored on the bank, and the families trekked away from
the river to form their tribes. Some survived, some did not. It was a journey
into the dark ghost places of the world, a journey more terrifying than any that
had ever been contemplated. The land was inhabited, and these hidden folk came
against the intruders with their stones and spears. They summoned the earth
forces, and the river forces, and the spirits that united all of nature, and
sent them against the intruders.

But Sorthalan had been well taught by the old priest. He absorbed the
malevolent spirits into his body, and controlled them.

'Soon only the first boatman remained upon the river, and he sailed north,
the land's ghosts with him. He sails the rivers always, waiting for the call
from his tribes, and he is always there to help, with his entourage of these
ancient forces.'

Sorthalan, through his human medium, had told us of his own legend. That
marked, more than anything, the power of the man. And yet his powers were
limited; he could not achieve what Kushar had achieved. And he, too, seemed to
be waiting for me, as the
shamiga,
as the Knight, and as the Saxon family
had been waiting.

'Why is he glad that I've come?' I asked. Now it was Frampton's turn to mouth
the silent words, and a moment later he said aloud,

'The Outlander must be destroyed. It's an alien thing. It is destroying the
woodland.'

'You seem powerful enough to destroy any man,' I said. Sorthalan smiled and
shook his head, answering in his cockney way.

'The legend is clear. It's the Kin who kills the Outlander - or is killed.
Only the Kin.'

The legend was clear?
At last, then, the words had been spoken to confirm
my growing suspicion. I had become a part of legend myself. Christian and his
brother, the Outlander and his Kin, working through roles laid down by myth,
perhaps from the beginnings of time.

'You've been waiting for me,' I said.

'The realm has been waiting,' Sorthalan said. 'I wasn't sure that you were
the Kin, but I saw what effect the oak leaf had upon you. I began to will it to
be.'

'I've been expected.'

'Yes.'

To fulfil my part of a legend.'

To do what must be done. To remove the alien from the realm. To take his
life. To stop the destruction.'

'Can one simple man be so powerful?'

Sorthalan laughed, though his mouthpiece remained solemn, saying, The
Outlander is not simple, and is not a simple man. He doesn't belong -'

'Nor do I - '

'But you are the
Kin.
You're the bright side of the alien. It's the
dark that destroys. He has come so far since the guardian was lured to the
edge.'

'Which guardian?'

The Urshucum. The Urshuca were the oldest of the Outlanders, but they grew
close to the earth. The Urshucum you have seen had always guarded the pass to
the valley of the flame-talkers, but it was called to the edge. There is a great
magic beyond these forests. A voice called. The guardian went, and the heart of
the realm was exposed. The Outlander is eating at that heart. Only the Kin can
stop him.'

'Or be killed by him.'

Sorthalan made no comment at that. His piercing grey eyes regarded me
narrowly, as if still searching for signs that I was the man to fulfil the myth
role.

I said, 'But how can the Urshucum have always guarded these - ' what had he
referred to? - 'flame-talkers. My father
created
the Urshucum. From
here,' I tapped my head. 'From his mind. As you have just created
this
man.'

Spud Frampton made no response that would have indicated his understanding of
my cruel words. He watched me sadly, then spoke as the necromancer directed him.
'Your father merely summoned the guardian. All that is in the realm has always
been here. The Urshucum was summoned to the edge of the realm and changed as
Sion had changed it before.'

This meant nothing to me.

'Who was Sion?'

'A great Lord. A shaman. Lord of Power. He controlled the seasons so that
Spring followed Summer, then Summer followed Spring. He could give men the power
to fly like kestrels. His voice was so loud that it reached the heavens.'

'And he
changed
the Urshuca?'

"There were ten minor Lords,' Sorthalan said. 'They were afraid of
Sion's spreading power so they came against him. But they were defeated. Sion
used magic to transform them into beasts of the wood. He sent them into exile,
to a land where the longest winter was just ending. That land was this place,
which once had been buried by ice. The ice melted, and the forests returned, and
the Urshuca became the guardians of that forest. Sion had given them the power
of near immortality. Like trees, the Urshuca grew but did not wither. Each went
to a river, or a land valley, and built his castle to guard the way into the
newly growing greenwood. They became close to the earth, and were friends of
those who came to settle and hunt and live from the land.'

I asked the obvious question. 'If the Urshuca were friends of man, why is
this one so violent? It's hunting my brother; it would kill me without thinking
if it could catch me.'

Sorthalan nodded, and Frampton's lips hardly moved as the words of his
creator emerged.

'A people came who had flame-talkers with them. The flame-talkers could
control fire. They could make fire jump from the sky. They could point their
fingers to the east and the flame would spread to the east. They could spit upon
the fire and it would become a glowing ember. The flame-talkers came and began
to burn the forests. The Urshuca opposed them violently.'

The communication stopped for a minute or so as Sorthalan rose to his feet,
turned from us, and urinated impressively into the night.

'There were men controlling the fire that night when Christian came,' Keeton
whispered. I had not forgotten them. I had called them Neoliths. They seemed the
most primitive of Christian's entourage, but apparently they had a mind control
over fire and flame itself.

I could well imagine the simple historical basis from which legends of the
Urscumug and the flame-talkers had sprung. The vision I had was of a time when
the last Ice Age was rapidly declining. The ice had advanced as far as the
English Midlands. Over the centuries, as it withdrew, the climate had been cold,
the land in the valleys marshy and treacherous, the slopes bare and frozen. The
pines had arrived, a sparse fir forest, foreshadowing the great Bavarian forests
of our own time. Then the first of the deciduous trees had begun to take root,
the elms, the thorns, the hazels, followed by the limes, oaks and ashes, pushing
the evergreen forest northwards, creating the dense greenwood cover that
partially survived to this day.

In the dark, empty spaces below the canopy, boars, bears and wolves had run,
deer had grazed the glades and glens, emerging occasionally on to the high
ridges, where the forest thinned and the bramble and thorn formed bright
spinneys.

But human animals had come back to the greenwood, advancing north into the
cold. And they had begun to clear the forest. They had used fire. What a skill
it must have been to set a fire, control it, and clear the site for a •settlement.
And what a greater skill it must have been to have resisted the re-encroachment
of the forest.