The Endless Knot

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  Lowering the rod, he stretched it over my body. “So it was spoken, so it is accomplished,” Tegid said. “The Great Year is ended, the old world has passed away and a new creation is established.” Indicating my crimson-clothed body, he said, “The Aird Righ of Albion is dead. The Hero Feat for which he was chosen has been performed. Behold! He has reclaimed Tir Aflan and brought it under his sovereign rule. Thus, all lands are united under one king: from this day, Albion is one. This is the Reign of the Silver Hand. The prophecy is fulfilled.”

  Back through the mountains, now remade: glistening, silver-crowned giants bearing the wide, empty skybowl on their handsome shoulders. Pure white clouds graced the slopes like regal robes and raiments; sparkling streams sent rippled laughter ringing through the valleys, and mist-shrouded falls filled the heights with rainbows. The road was no longer; instead, a grassy path curved up through the high places and joined them with the lowlands beyond . . .

  Back through the moors, transformed into meadows of vast aspect, dotted with trees and brimming with sparkling spring-fed pools. Herds of deer and wild sheep grazed the grassy expanse; birds passed overhead in chattering flocks, or trilled their songs to a sky so fair and blue it made the heart ache to see it . . .

  Back through the hills and valleys, now made new: gently sculpted mounds rounding to grand crests and descending to shade-sheltered glens of solitude. The greens of the hills and glens were as verdant and various as the shifting hues of golden light that played on the cloud-dappled knolls . . .

  Back through the forest now remade: towering columns of magnificent trunks rising to a vaulted archway of myriad spreading branches beneath a fine leafy canopy: nature’s own sanctuary, illuminated by a softly diffused light. By day the grassy path was lit by an endless succession of falling shafts of sunlight; by night the moon and stars poured silver upon rounded boles and slender branches, favoring every leaf and limb with a delicate tracery . . .

  Back along the river, now a noble watercourse, handsome in its generous sweep and broad-bending curves, deep-voiced in the sonorous music of its stately passage. Swans and geese and other waterfowl nested in its reed-fringed banks; fish aplenty lazed in its cool shallows, and leapt in the sun-warmed currents of clean, clear water . . .

  Back through a world reborn: more fair than a loving heart’s fondest dream of beauty, more elegant than delight, more graceful than hope. Back through Tir Gwyn they carried my body, back to the place where three swift, sleek-hulled ships waited on the strand. And then back across a white-waved sea of startling color and clarity.

  Back across this luminous, ever-changing firmament of liquid light they bore me to Albion. And though it took many days, my corpse showed not the slightest sign of decay or corruption. It was as if I slept; yet no breath stirred in my chest, and my heart was still and cold.

  My corpse lay on a bier made from the silver shields of the Gwr Gwir bound to golden spear shafts. My scarlet cloak covered me and Goewyn rode or walked or stood ever by me. She would not leave my side for a moment. When the company stopped at night, she even slept beside the bier.

  They reached Albion and in procession carried my body through a land familiar, yet transmuted into a higher vision of itself. Albion had been transformed into a wonder that swelled the soul with joy and made the breath catch in the throat, as if its former beauty had been but a reflection compared to the reality, for Albion now wore a splendor purer and finer than harpsong and more exquisite than music, and it made their hearts sing to see it.

  The procession bore my body to Caledon, over the hills and across the plain, up Druim Vran to Dinas Dwr, where Lord Calbha and my people waited. Upon learning of my death, the people mourned with a deep, surpassing grief. The bones of Alun Tringad were interred in the dolmen atop the Hero Mound at the foot of Druim Vran. Professor Nettleton’s head was buried there too. My body, however, was placed in the king’s hall to await burial, for Tegid had determined that I should be buried in a special tomb that he would build. Meanwhile, I lay on my golden catafalque in the king’s hall, and Goewyn, inconsolable, stayed beside me day and night while they prepared the gorsedd.

  One evening, Tegid came to the hall and knelt beside Goewyn. She was spending the night, like every other night, sitting in the antler chair beside my lifeless body. “It is time to release him, Goewyn,” the bard told her.

  “Release him? I never will,” she replied, her voice softened by grief to a whisper.

  “I do not mean you should forget him,” Tegid soothed. “But it is time—and past time—for Llew to begin his journey hence. You hold him here with you.”

  “I hold him here?” Goewyn wondered. “Then,” she said, reaching out to take my cold hand in hers, “I shall always hold him and he shall always remain here with me.”

  “No,” Tegid told her gently. “Let him go. It is wrong to imprison him so.”

  Taking her by the shoulders, he held her at arm’s length, staring into her eyes, willing her to look at him. “Goewyn, listen to me. All is as it should be. Llew was sent to us for a purpose, and that purpose has been accomplished. It is time to release him to continue his journey.”

  “I cannot,” Goewyn wailed, grief overwhelming her afresh. “I shall be alone!”

  “Unless you release him, your love will sicken in you: it will steal your life and the life of the child you carry,” Tegid replied firmly.

  Tears came to her eyes. She put her face in her hands and began to weep. “Oh, Tegid, it hurts,” she cried, the tears streaming down her face. “I hurt so much!”

  “I know,” he said softly. “It is a hurt not soon healed.”

  “I do not know what to do,” she cried, the tears falling freely.

  “I will tell you what you must do,” the wise bard answered, putting his arms around her. “You will give birth to the child that he has given you, and you will love the child and raise it in his memory.” He took her hands in his. “Come with me, Goewyn.”

  She rose and, after a last loving look, went out with Tegid. Scatha and the Raven Flight were waiting at the hall’s entrance. As soon as Goewyn and Tegid emerged, the Ravens entered the hall and came to the bier. They lifted the shield-and-spear litter to their shoulders and carried it outside; then they processed slowly through the crannog to a boat and rowed the boat across the lake to where Cynan waited on the shore with horses and a wagon. Three horses—a red and a white, with a spirited black to lead them—drew the wagon; the horses’ hooves and the wagon’s wheels were wrapped in black cloth. Beside Cynan, holding a shield and spear likewise shrouded, stood Lord Calbha, and behind them, unlit torches in their hands, thronged the people of Dinas Dwr.

  The corpse was placed on the wagon, and the procession slowly made its way along the lakeside to the place where Tegid had erected the Hero Mound inside the sacred grove he had established for his Mabinogi. Mounting the long slope to the grove, the company passed by the mill, completed in my absence by Lord Calbha and Huel, the master builder. As we passed, I blessed the mill to its good work.

  The cortege entered the shadowed grove, dark under a sky of brilliant twilight blue. The gorsedd had been raised in the center of the grove—a hollow stone chamber, mounded with earth and covered with turf and surrounded by a ring of slender silver birches. Someone had left a shield beside the cairn, and upon entering the grove, I heard the croak of a raven. A swift shadow passed overhead, and a great, black glossy-feathered bird swooped down and settled on the rim of the shield. Alun, I think, had sent a messenger to say farewell.

  The golden bier was laid at the foot of the gravemound before the silent throng. The Chief Bard, standing over the corpse, placed a fold of his cloak over his head.

  Raising his golden rod over me, he said, “Tonight we bury our king. Tonight we bid farewell to our brother and friend—a friend who did for us what we could not do for ourselves. He sojourned among us for a while but, like Meldryn Mawr, who held sovereignty before him, Llew served the Song of Albion. His life was the life of
the Song, and the Song claimed the life it briefly granted.

  “The king is dead, cut down in a most vile and hateful manner. He went willingly to his death to gain the life of his bride, and those of his friends whose release he sought and won. Let it never be said that he grasped after glory; let all men remember that he humbled himself, breaking his geas so that he might lead the raid on Tir Aflan.

  “And because he did not cling to his high rank, great good has come to this worlds-realm. For in Llew’s death, the Song of Albion has been restored. Hear, O Albion! The Great Year is ended, a new cycle is begun. No longer will the Song be hidden; no longer will it rest with the Phantarchs and kings to preserve it, for now the Song is carried in the heart and soul of every woman and every man, and all men and all women will be its protectors.”

  Tegid Tathal, Penderwydd of Albion, lowered his hand then, saying, “It is time now to release our brother and send him on his way.”

  He kindled a small fire and lit a torch. The fire was passed from brand to brand until all the torches glowed like stars in the night-dark grove. Then he directed the Ravens to lift the bier once more. Drustwn, Emyr, Niall, and Garanaw, with Bran at my head, began, at Tegid’s direction, to carry my body around the gorsedd mound slowly in a sunwise direction. The people, led by Tegid, with Goewyn walking directly behind him, Scatha at her right hand and Cynan at the left, followed the body—and they all began to sing.

  I was there with them in the grove. I saw the torchlight glowing on their faces and glinting in their tears; I heard their voices singing, softly at first, but more strongly as they released their grief and let it flow from them. They sang the Queen’s Lament, and it pierced my heart to hear it. Goewyn sang too, head held high, eyes streaming with tears, which threaded down her cheeks and throat.

  I could feel the weight of sorrow bearing down her spirit, and I drew near to her. Goewyn, best beloved, you will live forever in my soul, I whispered in her ear; truest of hearts, your grief will ease.

  Tegid led the funeral procession once around the mound . . . and then a second circuit . . . and a third. At the completion of the third circuit, the people formed a long double line, holding their torches high. They formed the Aryant Ol, the Radiant Way by which a king’s body is conducted to its rest. And in the time-between-times, I was carried to my tomb.

  The Ravens, tall and grim, shouldered the bier and, with slow, measured steps, began moving toward the gravemound along the Radiant Way. Tegid, with Goewyn and Cynan behind him, lofted his torch and the three followed the Ravens up the Aryant Ol and into the cairn. They placed the bier on a low stone pallet in the center of the chamber and, one by one, made their farewells, each kneeling by the body and touching the back of the hand to his forehead in a final salute.

  Finally, only Cynan, Goewyn, and Tegid were left. Cynan, tears clinging to his eyelashes, raised his hands to his throat and removed his gold torc. He placed the ornament on my chest and said, “Farewell, my brother. May you find all that you seek—and nothing you do not seek—in the place where you are going.” With that, his voice cracked and he turned away, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands.

  Goewyn, eyes bright with tears in the flickering torchlight, stooped and kissed me on the forehead. “Farewell, best beloved,” she said bravely, her voice quivering and low. “You go, and my heart goes with you.”

  Tegid handed his torch to Cynan and reached into the leather pouch at his belt. He withdrew a pinch of the Nawglan, the Sacred Nine, which he deposited in the palm of his left hand. Then, taking some of the Nawglan on the tip of his second finger, he drew a vertical line in the center of my forehead. Pressing his fingertip to the Nawglan again, he drew a second and then a third line, one on either side of the first— both inclining toward the center. He drew the gogyrven, the Three Rays of Truth, in the ash of the Sacred Nine on my cold forehead.

  “Farewell, Llew Silver Hand. May it go well with you on your journey hence,” the bard said. Then, quickly planting his torch at the head of the bier, he turned away to lead Goewyn and Cynan from the tomb.

  The Ravens, waiting outside, began to close up the entrance with stones. I watched the cairn opening grow smaller, stone by stone, and I was on the inside, looking out. I saw the faces of those I had loved: Scatha, Pen-y-Cat, regal, brave, and beautiful; Bran Bresal, Chief Raven, dauntless lord of battle; the Raven Flight: Drustwn, Emyr Laidaw, Garanaw Long Arm, and Niall, stalwart companions, men to be trusted through all things; Lord Calbha, generous ally; Cynan, steadfast sword-brother and friend of the heart; Goewyn, fairest of the fair, wife and lover, forever part of me; and Tegid, wise Penderwydd, Chief Bard of Albion, truest friend—whose love reached out beyond death to smooth my passage.

  I saw the people, my people, passing the stones hand to hand up to the Aryant Ol to seal my tomb. And then I heard Tegid’s voice, clear and strong, lifted in a song that I recognized as a saining song. Cradling his harp, his fingers playing over the sweet-sounding strings, he sang:

  In the steep path of our common calling,

  Be it easy or uneasy to our flesh,

  Be it bright or dark for us to follow,

  Be it stony or smooth beneath our feet,

  Bestow, O Goodly-Wise, your perfect guidance

  Upon our kingly friend,

  Lest he fall, or into error stray.

  In the shelter of this grove,

  Be to him his portion and his guide;

  Aird Righ, by authority of the Twelve:

  The Wind of gusts and gales,

  The Thunder of stormy billows,

  The Ray of bright sunlight,

  The Bear of seven battles,

  The Eagle of the high rock,

  The Boar of the forest,

  The Salmon of the pool,

  The Lake of the glen,

  The Flowering of the heathered hill,

  The Craft of the artisan,

  The Word of the poet,

  The Fire of thought in the wise.

  Who upholds the gorsedd, if not You?

  Who counts the ages of the world, if not You?

  Who commands the Wheel of Heaven, if not You?

  Who quickens life in the womb, if not You?

  Therefore, God of All Virtue and Power,

  Sain him and shield him with your Swift Sure Hand,

  Lead him in peace to his journey’s end.

  The opening in the cairn was little more than a chink in the stone now. And then that small hole was filled and I was alone. Tegid’s voice as he stood before the sealed gravemound was the last thing I heard. “To die in one world is to be born into another,” he called to the people of Dinas Dwr. “Let all hear and remember.”

  The fire-flutter of the torch filled the tomb, but that faded gradually as the torch burned down. At last the flame died, leaving a red glow, which lingered a little while before it went out. And darkness claimed me.

  How long I stood in the rich, silent darkness, I do not know. But I heard a sound like the wind in bare branches, clicking, creaking, whispering. I turned and saw behind me, as if through a shadowed doorway, the dim outline of a white landscape, violet in a blue-gray dawn. Instinctively, I moved toward it, thinking only to get a better look.

  The moment I stepped forward, I heard a rushing sound and it seemed as if I were striding rapidly down a long, narrow passage. And I felt a surge of air, an immense upswelling billow like an ocean of air flowing over me. In the same instant, the pale violet hillside before me faded and then vanished altogether.

  Trusting my feet to the dark path before me, I stepped forward. The churning air swelled over and around me with an empty ocean’s roar. Emptiness on every side and below me the abyss, I stretched my foot along the sword bridge and stepped out onto that narrowest of spans. In the windroar I heard the restless echo of unknown powers shifting and colliding in the dark, endless depths. All was darkness— deepest, most profound darkness—and searching silence.

  And then arose the most horrendous gale of wind,
shrieking out of nowhere, striking me full force, head-on. It felt as if my skin were being slowly peeled away, my flesh shredded and pared to the bone. My head began to throb with pain; I found that I could not breathe. My empty lungs ached and my head pounded with a phantom heartbeat.

  Ignoring the pain, I lifted my foot and took another step. My foot struck the void, and I fell. I threw my hands before me to break the blind fall; my palms struck a smooth, solid surface, and I landed on all fours in the snow outside the cairn in the thin, gray dawn.

  “Llew . . . ?” It was Goewyn’s voice.

  39

  THE ENDLESS KNOT

  I raised my head and looked around to find her. The effort released something inside me and cold air gushed into my lungs. The air was raw and sharp; it burned like fire, but I could not stop inhaling it. I gulped it down greedily, as if the next breath would be my last. My eyes watered, and my arms and legs began to tremble. My heart pounded in my chest, and my head vibrated with the rhythm. I squeezed my eyes shut and willed my heart to slow.

  “Lew . . .” came the voice again, concerned, caring. I felt a light touch on my shoulder, and she was beside me.

  “Goewyn?” I lifted my eyes and glimpsed a trailing wisp of reddish hair—not Goewyn, but her sister, the Banfáith of Albion. “Gwenllian!”

  “Lew . . . Lewis?”

  My eyes focused slowly and her face came into view. “Gwenllian, I—”

  “It’s Susannah, Lewis. Are you all right?”

  From somewhere in my mind a dim memory surfaced.

  “Susannah?”

  “Here, let me help you.” She put her arms around me and helped me stand. “You’re freezing,” she said. “What happened to your clothes?”

  I looked down to see myself naked, standing in about an inch of light, powdery snow. The wind sighed in the bare branches of trees, and I stood outside the narrow entrance to a hive-shaped cairn, reeling with confusion, despair breaking over me in waves, dragging me under, drowning me.