The Broken Kings

by Robert Holdstock

  How much of the story could truly influence a growing mind, an ambition being tempered with caution, eyes wide open, heart racing, words ringing in ears that were now, like the man he was becoming, prepared to hear? A young man with an eagle’s mind, prepared to embrace the notion of restraint.

  I do not know what had happened to Kymon since we had left Crete. But his thoughts of Munda were changing. For a second time that night I chose to hold back a comment for the simple reason that I did not think it was my role to play.

  Kymon withdrew and Niiv slid down to be with me, squirming to get inside my cloak, breathing gently as we waited. The hand that engaged with mine was cold. She was shivering. I suppose we slept.

  We awoke at first light, saturated with dew, the river obscured by heavy mist. Argo’s hull was rising from the water close by, her keel furrowing into the mud as if she were approaching at full stroke. But she came gently, cutting the earth, nosing up beside us in silence, propelled by unseen hands, vast and draped with weeds, planks creaking, the sly eye on her keel, azure blue, framed in scarlet, watching us as she crept closer to nudge us from our sleep. She leaned and sighed, towering over us, shedding her cold tears; the water refreshed us. Kymon came slipping and sliding down the ridge.

  Get aboard and hurry!

  I invent the words, though I am sure they were whispered to me. Everything about Argo suggested the haste of this invitation. I called for Caiwain.

  Again, the ship seemed to whisper to me: Leave them.

  Kymon had run down the slope and somersaulted into the hull, then leaned over to help Niiv walk up the planks before drawing her over in an ungainly way. I heard their laughter as they tumbled out of sight onto the benches.

  Then two heads popped over the rails—one dark, one fair, both bright with youth.

  “Come on, Merlin.” The boy’s voice.

  Hands reached for me and hauled me in. Bones grated in my lower back. Mielikki scowled from the stern. Or perhaps it was suppressed laughter. Argo slipped back into the Winding One and the fog closed over us.

  “Do we row now?” Kymon asked as we huddled among the scattered cargo.

  “I think we wait,” was all I could think to say.

  “I’m hungry,” Niiv announced.

  Kymon flung back the outer covering of the honey child. The body was beginning to make itself known, despite our best efforts to keep it cold. “Have some honey,” he said with a laugh.

  Niiv scowled at him. “Wait until your belly starts to rumble.”

  * * *

  By evening, we were in Urtha’s land. And Urtha was there, too, and Jason, but we were at a distance from each other. It was Niiv who said it, as we peered from the river at the movements and mysteries of the new Otherworld:

  “This feels like a swan dance. Where you all circle the winter field as the music plays, and you have to guess who your partner is. It’s a tradition in the North. Everybody wears a bird mask, and covers their hands with feathers. Hands are too revealing, even with only the light of torches. Every so often you pick someone and meet them in the middle. And you twirl and dance in the snow and then you find if you’ve got the right person. If you have, you stay at the centre. If you haven’t, you go back to the edge. And keep on circling. And it’s like a swan dance here. Isn’t it? It’s a dancing floor. But a dancing floor of war. Everything is at the edge at the moment. Now we must find the centre.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Passing Shadows

  “There is something wrong here. I can smell it.” Niiv was looking alarmed.

  “You can smell it? How do you smell wrongness?”

  She looked at me sourly. “Rightness has a different fragrance.”

  I couldn’t help laughing at that. But she was right.

  Though the realm of the shadows of heroes had advanced across Nantosuelta, flowing into Urtha’s territory, consuming forest and plain, village, pasture, and fortress, the Otherworld had not fully possessed the place. It was an uneasy conquest, a defiant appearance, a raging presence. But the land had not been subsumed. It had merely been subdued. Along this stretch of Nantosuelta I had seen the growth of hostels, but they were still unformed, gathering their shape, bulging from the earth, but still struggling to rise and defend Ghostland.

  “Shall we go ashore?” Niiv asked.

  As if in answer, Argo pulled away from the shallows and continued upriver. Kymon now seemed to intuit what was happening. As we came to the bend in the river that marked the beginning of the evergroves, so he became more excited. “There! Look there. Our landing place!”

  The evergroves! A sprawling place of mounds and magic, a wooded area that stretched along the river for as far as it was possible to walk in a day, and spread towards the fortress of Taurovinda, across the Plain of the Battle Crow. A thousand or more tombs, more pronounced than the Five Sisters, lay concealed within it, some so large and so old that they were covered by the woods themselves; others nestled in the groves, low stone entrances whispering with dawn and sighing with dusk.

  Here resided the physical remains of those who rode wildly in Ghostland. Most of the tombs were mortuary houses; a few were “ways under.” I had always been most intrigued by those.

  Now, though, it was the fleeting glimpse of a tall ageing man walking one of the many track-ways through the evergroves that caught my attention. He kept pace with Argo’s sluggish drift on the water. He was dappled with light and shade. He was neither here nor there. He was a dead man. And Kymon, delighted at first with the recognition of our friendly stalker, suddenly became gloomy.

  “It’s Cathabach. But he never walked like that in life.”

  At length, where a small shallow creek cut into the groves, Argo nosed through the trees and came quietly onto the mud. A small tumulus rose on each side of us. The shattered bones of the figures that had been erected to guard this place leaned down towards us, their clothing ragged, their skulls greened with moss, their postures that of drooping men; and yet they would have power, small power, to turn away intruders.

  Cathabach stepped up onto one of the mounds, looking down at us. His sallow features suddenly flushed with crimson; his hollow eyes glinted. His flesh strengthened. I had not done this, but when I looked quickly at Niiv, she turned her head away.

  For once in my acquaintance with her, I did not criticise her rash use of her small charm.

  Kymon leapt from Argo and walked briskly to the old man, to Speaker for Kings; and without thought for what he knew was the case, that Cathabach was dead, he put his arms around the druid’s body, hugged him, then took his hand, knelt, kissed the cold fingers.

  “I’m glad to see you.”

  “This is a passing moment, Kymon. Very little time.”

  “I know. On the island we’ve just sailed from they call it ‘the ephemera.’ Who killed you?”

  “It doesn’t matter. There are more important things.”

  “We’ll deal with those,” the young man said, standing up. “We’ll deal with them first. But I need you to tell me who killed you. Because later I will need to deal with that.”

  “And later I will tell you.”

  “The moment may have passed by then.”

  “You’ll find out who did this to me. I assure you of that. I need to speak to your father.”

  “Ah.”

  Cathabach looked at me. “Urtha dead?”

  “Far from it. But he’s crossed separately from us. He came in through one of the hostels.”

  Cathabach considered this information, looked resigned. “He’ll be taking his chances, then. All I would have told him is that his fortress is now possessed. Perhaps you can understand this, Merlin.”

  Kymon withdrew as Cathabach walked down to stand in front of me. He acknowledged Niiv. The woman was pale and tense, her eyes moving in that way that suggests trance. There were lines on her face, and a strange smell coming from her skin. She was helping Cathabach stay as he was, but it was costing her. I quickly put my arm on he
r arm, took possession of the charm, and applied it to the Speaker for Kings. Cathabach was unaware of this transfer of power, but Niiv gasped, bent double, choked for a moment, then subsided to a sitting position, her head down, hair shrouding her features, breathing laboured; she might have been someone recovering from too much strong drink.

  “Urtha has crossed in disguise. He and several others are making their way here with an Unborn king.”

  “Pendragon?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then he’ll be safe. But when you meet him, warn him that he should not enter Taurovinda itself.”

  “If I know Urtha, and I do know Urtha, he has every intention of taking back his hill.”

  “As do I,” said a small voice from among the bushes. Kymon gave me a look that said it all: You tend to your business, my father and I will tend to ours. I hadn’t realised he could hear this whispered conversation.

  There was a half smile on his face, though, and a steady gaze in his look that testified to his blossoming strength.

  This would be tricky. Kymon wouldn’t be speaking as he did unless he meant it. Cathabach would not be struggling to stay in the present unless he knew something.

  From where we stood, deep in the evergroves, Taurovinda was a distant hill, high-walled, high-turreted, a dark shadow against the sky. It seemed lifeless, but that was just illusion.

  Cathabach said, “The town looks no different. But below the town on its surface, the hill is transformed. There are chambers down there that seem safer than others. The river is raging through the passages. The well has overflowed and is dangerous. But there are descents inside the orchard. They’re not very obvious, but all you need do is listen for the sound of the earth breathing. Two descents; one leads to the founding father.”

  “Durandond?” Kymon asked.

  “Yes,” said Cathabach. “Another—the old descent—leads to the overwhelming force that is transforming the land.” He glanced at me as he said this, then returned his watery gaze to the boy. “But first, you should find Munda. She’s in hiding and starving. She’s very scared.”

  Kymon frowned at that. “It’s because of my sister that the Dead overwhelmed the hill. It’s because of my sister that they breached the hostels. She encouraged them. She welcomed them.”

  “She was wrong,” Cathabach said quietly. “She found out soon enough how wrong she’d been. She was unaware of the force that was driving the invasion. But now she’s your only chance of taking back the hill. Be very careful how you judge her.”

  Cathabach looked at me again and for the last time. “You’ll find me somewhere here, when the time is ready. I’d expected to cross the river, but the river has saved me the trouble.”

  “I’ll miss you.”

  “I believe you will. If I’d had a few more simple skills, I’d have stayed around to help. Help is on its way, though. Watch for the flash of light.” He frowned, then. “It’s very strange. When we spoke before, a long time ago, when you hinted at a mind behind the invasion that was building, I got the impression that you were referring to a man. But it’s not a man. Very strange. Whatever it is, it’s in the hill—transforming the hill. Be careful.”

  He stepped past me, mournful of face, cold of flesh, the last glimmer of the ephemera fading from him as he went to seek a place in which to wait for his body to be discovered. He would curl up against a tree, I imagined, or in the overhang of one of the great, grey stones that towered over the mossy ground.

  Whatever it is, it’s in the hill—transforming the hill.

  So now we knew where Shaper had established himself.

  A small cool hand took mine. “Don’t be sad,” Niiv said.

  “Do I seem sad?”

  “You can cross and see him at any time you like. He will never be far away from you. You can travel.”

  “Yes. But Urtha can’t. Did you know that Cathabach was his brother? If I’m sad, it’s for the king.”

  “No. I didn’t know.”

  As one, we looked to where Kymon was standing. He was framed between two trees, a small bold shape against the startling light that had suddenly flooded the Plain, a glimpse of sun through the raging skies. He was staring at his home, arms folded, very calm. As Niiv and I approached him, he glanced back briefly before returning his gaze to the feasting place of crows.

  “Is it my eyes, Merlin? Are they failing? Or was Niiv right? There is something wrong. I seem to see two lands out there. One is the plain. MaegCatha. The other is very like the island we’ve just visited. I can smell autumn on the plain, and see the smoke from villages, and there are cattle grazing, and horses running. But it’s summer in the other place. And I see those grey-leaved trees. Olives. And stunted oaks. And fingers of granite, like broken teeth; stone everywhere. And what do you call those fragrant herbs? Rosemary, was it?”

  “And thyme. Lavender. Sage.”

  “Their scent is everywhere. I’m looking at Tairon’s land.”

  “I told you I could smell something wrong,” Niiv whispered.

  Taurovinda rose in the distance, a black mountain, its high walls and towers appearing as an uneven ridge, stark against the sky.

  On the plain between us, the forest was growing back. Herds of creatures roamed and grazed; horses stampeded. Occasionally, the flash of silver told of a hunter in full pursuit of his prey.

  All of that, a ghostly presence inside the scrubby, fragrant hills of Crete.

  Getting through this new Ghostland would be difficult.

  Then, just as Kymon was growing impatient with my hesitation (eager to get within hailing range of his fortress), a flash of gold appeared in the distance. Then a second. A spark chasing a spark across one of the overlapping lands. The sparks disappeared below a hill, then came dancing over the ridge, veering this way and that. They vanished again, this time behind woodland. When they emerged, it was from the broad face of the forest, and one spark came directly towards us, the other weaving in its wake.

  Soon, we began to distinguish the shapes of chariots. Soon after that, the high-pitched hailing cries of the charioteers.

  A valley consumed them for a moment, and when they reappeared, it was so close to us that it startled us. Conan was in the lead, Gwyrion furiously whipping the two white steeds that drew his own car, trying to catch his brother.

  When Conan at last reined in his horses, making the chariot slide noisily and dangerously to the left, he was breathing hard, but smiling broadly. As ever.

  Gwyrion was cursing as he came in a close second. He flicked the reins, and his two whites leapt over Conan’s chariot, making the young man fling himself to the floor. The animals fled a way into the evergroves before slowing.

  Gwyrion’s golden chariot overturned and smashed against a tree, though its driver had also leapt at the last minute, following his steeds in an acrobatic jump over Conan’s head.

  “My brother won the race, but I have more style,” he announced cheerily. Then he frowned, looking around. “Where are the others?”

  “Others?”

  “We were sent to fetch ten or more of you. Jason? Urtha? His uthiin?”

  “Travelling separately, though I imagine they could do with help. Who asked you to intervene in this?”

  As I’d suspected, the answer was “Cathabach.”

  “He called to us from the groves,” Gwyrion added. “We weren’t far away by then. I don’t know what charm he used, but we found him. Unfortunately, he sent us to the east, to the new river. We’ve been scouring the edges there for days.”

  “Until it occurred to me,” Conan interrupted, “that Argo would be slipping back towards the fortress itself.”

  “You claim that insight?” Gwyrion challenged darkly.

  “I do,” said Conan with a smile.

  “It came up in conversation, as you well know.”

  “Yes. But I initiated the conversation!”

  They argued for a while.

  Kymon was inspecting the chariots. He was very impressed b
y them, tracing out the symbols and faces on their flanks with his fingers. “Two?” he said after a while, a smile on his face as he glanced at Conan. “You’ve stolen two chariots? Your father must be in a fury. He’ll have your heads, then start a new family. You’re dead men, and no mistake.”

  “Not at all,” Conan said. He and his brother held up their hands. No further fingers had been taken and replaced with wood by their censorious father. “Llew, our radiant parent, has lent the chariot from his own garages. He is angry at what has happened to his peaceful Otherworld.”

  “As is our uncle, Nodens. This is his own contribution.” Gwyrion hauled the car upright and inspected the axles and the wheels for damage. “It’s heavier to drive than our father’s, which is why Conan had the advantage in the race.”

  “Nonsense. I gave you a good head start to adjust for exactly that.”

  Again, they challenged each other for a moment or two. Niiv had walked stealthily back into the evergroves and now led Gwyrion’s sweating horses back to their chariot, soothing them softly. It was decided that Gwyrion would go east in search of Jason and Urtha’s entourage, riding with Pendragon. Conan would transport us in style right into the bosom of the hill.

  He belonged in this other world and could come and go without suspicion. Even in a chariot of gold!

  Chapter Thirty

  Foresight and False Dream

  Munda woke up so suddenly, and with such a startled cry, that Ullanna, curled up next to her on the narrow pallet, screamed with shock. The older woman slipped from the furs and tumbled onto Rianata, who also awoke with a start. Munda was sitting upright on the bed.

  They were in Cathabach’s house, inside the orchard. Six other women slept there, too. The house was low-roofed, but cosy. Eight thin windows opened to the night air. A touch of moonlight illuminated the tools of the Speaker’s art; the masks and gangling figures, woven from various woods, were eerie. But the women had become used to them. The place was fragrant with forest herbs.