The Iron Grail

by Robert Holdstock

  Though they had seemed to abandon their tents, those temporary dwellings, too, had been swallowed by the earth.

  A heavy footfall on the ladder behind me announced the arrival of Rubobostes. He had snatched a little sleep and a little food and was looking better. I reached out to help the brawny Dacian on to the platform inside the palisade and the hand that gripped mine was like an iron vice.

  ‘You would have made a fine match for Heracles,’ I told him.

  ‘I’d have liked to have known him. He was famous in my land. He carved a valley through a hill with his bare hands. The river that rose there still flows to the sea. We call it by a name that means “The famous man’s urine”.’

  ‘I’m sure you do.’

  ‘I’m glad to see you again, Merlin.’

  ‘I’m glad to see you as well, though I saw you in the hinterland. How did you get across the river? Argo, I suppose.’

  ‘Mielikki opened the way. It’s a strange thing: when we were exploring that strange edge-land I could swear that I heard your voice. We were attacked by a squadron of riders, one of them a very angry, very furious young man.’

  I told him I’d been there, witnessing the assault from across the meadow. ‘And what happened to your horse? Ruvio?’

  Rubobostes’ mount had been a creature of supernatural strength. Man and beast might well have been created together.

  ‘We’ve left him close to Ghostland; strategically placed. He was exhausted from the journey and there are several wild mares at the edge of the forest, and good grazing. When Ruvio looks at me in a certain way, I never argue. I gave him his head and by now the bellies of those mares are filling up with little stallions; they’ll be greatly useful in times to come.’

  The sun suddenly sparked into fire above the trees. Rubobostes went quiet for a moment, going through his sacred dawn ritual with a haste that narrowly bordered on the blasphemous. It occurred to me, briefly, that I would have liked a ritual of my own, but if I’d ever had one it was long forgotten. When the sun rose in this way, bright, clear, suddenly sharp, it opened a thousand memories for me, all of them profane.

  ‘Before the others rise,’ the Dacian said quietly, when he had finished, ‘there are six old friends who never sleep and who would like to see you. The druid has let them enter the apple grove. He’s too frightened of them to refuse.’

  I glanced towards the nemeton behind its high wicker walls. The Speaker for the Past stood before the gate, his hazel staff clutched in both hands as if he was guarding his precious orchard from anything else that might want to sully its precious soil. He looked dark-eyed and deeply unhappy.

  ‘How did Jason raise them?’ I asked the Dacian quickly, but Rubobostes shrugged his broad shoulders.

  ‘He’d raised them before he found me again. I was on my way home, after that big fight in Makedonia, on the way to Delphi, remember? But I changed my mind. I’d got the taste for adventure again, Merlin! And as I think you found out for yourself, it’s nothing if not adventurous around that cold-hearted Greeklander. I found him and his new retinue riding north through the foothills, close to the river Daan, where we’d hidden Argo before heading for Makedonia. The six were with him. All I know is that he had called on a promise they’d made to him. Apparently, you were there at the time. Some sort of bond of honour made when Argo sailed for the golden ram’s fleece.’

  The Dacian’s words surprised me, though I wasn’t shocked. I’d spent a great deal of time with Jason on that famous voyage of Argo, seven centuries in the past. He’d made many deals to achieve his ends. I began to understand what might have happened.

  Advising Rubobostes that, though he was weary with travel, he might be well employed echoing the procreative activities of his horse, since Urtha would need a strong retinue in his later years, I left him for a more difficult meeting.

  He looked bemused for a moment, then called after me, ‘Just to be clear: you’re not suggesting I mate with horses?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘But the women here all look so fierce! Even the unmarried ones.’

  ‘The gentle sound of a harp, a love song … very soothing, very pleasing.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said sarcastically. ‘I can’t sing and I can’t play the harp. Thank you.’

  * * *

  The druid scowled as I approached him. He had limed his short hair and it rose in a series of curved spikes across his head, emphasising the gaunt anger of his shrivelled face. He was wearing a dark cloak, tied at the left shoulder, and he had smeared the garment with clay. He now held his hazel staff like a spear, pointed towards me. He was very upset indeed, and clearly considered himself to be in danger.

  ‘There are six dead men in the orchard,’ he growled. ‘Stay away.’

  ‘We’re fighting a war against the Dead,’ I reminded him. ‘And these six are on our own side.’

  ‘They are not dead like the Dead. The Dead are still alive! Shadows of Heroes. These dead are dead. Reluctantly resurrected! They don’t belong here.’

  ‘Then why did you let them into the orchard?’

  ‘Better there, in Nantosuelta’s reach, than out here; more chance of descending into the earth, out of harm’s way. And that ship is down there, in the heart of the hill. They belong with the ship. Who are they, Merlin?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. I know that they are six of Jason’s argonauts; six of the old crew. Let me pass. You’re in no danger from them. I’ll lay my life on that.’

  ‘My life doesn’t matter,’ Speaker for the Past murmured angrily. ‘This fortress matters; only this place.’

  He stood aside, but as I stepped into the orchard he ran the tip of his staff down my back. A little charm, a crude thing, both protective and spying, touched my bones. I let it rest there. I trusted this man and it would be a good thing if he could see what I knew, and learn that his fort was not under threat from these Six of Reluctant Resurrection.

  They had scattered through the grove. Each of them had found a place to stand in the early morning gloom of the sanctuary, but as I entered the orchard they turned to listen and look. I went to the grass-and-flower-covered stone mound that marked the deep shaft to the tomb of Durandond and his queen. One of the old argonauts drew close. He removed his helmet to expose his face. Though his eyes were haunted, there was also the shadow of pleasure there, and hunger; hunger to understand, perhaps, or hunger to hear a greeting from an old acquaintance.

  ‘Tisaminas. How well I remember you. You stayed with Jason until his death. You were the best of them, the most courageous.’

  The haunted expression in the strong, grey face didn’t change. ‘Was I? Does it matter? I saw him die in Iolkos. But they all came back when Argo sailed away with his body. All the crew. Do you remember how they lined the cliffs above the harbour? They cast their torches into the sea. It was a moment of wonder. The moon swallowed the beautiful ship. Yet here he is again. And you! Antiokus. Antiokus. How can you still be alive and warm?’

  Antiokus was the name by which I’d been known on Argo.

  I saluted the old man, then took his hands in mine. They were cool, not cold; he was strong in this resurrection, not frail; Jason had somehow launched life back into the bloodstream of his corpse.

  ‘You always knew that I was from a different time, a different age,’ I reminded him.

  ‘Did I? I’ve forgotten.’

  ‘Who else is here? Who else among the six of you?’

  ‘Hylas; Cepheus of Arcadia; Lynceus of Arene and Leodocus of Argos, both wounded; and Atalanta.’

  If I were to use the language of the Celts, this would have been one of the Seven Shocking Revelations of my life. I had been shocked before; no doubt I would be shocked again; but I will not deny that though the mention of Hylas—Heracles’ young servant, lover and spear-carrier, and a helpful friend to me during my first difficult days on Argo—had sent a surge of anguish through my stony heart, the mention of Atalanta was more distressing.

  Hylas h
ad become tired to the point of desperation with Heracles and his ego. Jason had conspired with the other argonauts to hide him from the monstrous man, pretending he had been taken by water nymphs, seduced and drowned when we’d put ashore on our way to Colchis. Heracles had destroyed the lake where he believed his favourite boy had been killed, before stalking off to other adventures. Hylas had sneaked back on to Argo, departed from us at the mouth of the river Acheron, and I’d hoped had gone on to have a long and less demanding life. It would be difficult to greet him again.

  Atalanta, however, was another matter. I have not mentioned her before because, truth to tell, she kept herself to herself when she sailed for the fleece. She was not given to easy conversation, and though she took her pleasure with several of us, as we all did with each other in those lonely times on the wide sea, she did not share the spirit of the ship; she had her own tasks to perform. She was good company and a good hunter, and she had sea-sense and a woman’s nose for impending trouble that had served us well on that voyage.

  When she went ashore and decided to stay ashore, before we reached Colchis, she was missed for a long time.

  I had known her briefly, and not very well. But I knew the woman who had descended from her: Ullanna, Urtha’s new consort. Ullanna: Scythian and strong, and living in admiration of her legendary ancestor.

  This would be a difficult introduction.

  Wise Tisaminas had read my concern, perhaps. He said, ‘We are a strong band, even though we are out of Time. We are here because of Jason, because of our promises to him. We can be kept apart from the others. When Little Dreamer is in his arms, we can all go home. No need to look so concerned, Antiokus.’

  ‘Where is home for you, Tisaminas? How did Jason persuade you away from it?’

  The old man looked at me and almost smiled, but the weight of his displacement from his land dragged at the muscles of his once handsome face. ‘Home is a wide plain, with olive groves, fresh water, wine flavoured with resin and the occasional visit of my ancestors, none of them so old that they wish to stay long, none of them so young that they have to make an effort to sit and talk and drink and eat with me.’

  ‘Is that what you wished for in life?’

  ‘Doesn’t everybody?’

  ‘I don’t know, Tisaminas. I’m one of the visitors.’

  ‘So you are. I remember now. But that can change; if your future is to be as long as your past, you can build a tower to the moon. In my day, I’d heard that there were people in the east who were planning to do just such a thing.’

  ‘They didn’t succeed.’ I was able to tell him. ‘The builders came from lands too far apart. Too many languages; too many foremen; too much bargaining; too much cheap mortar trying to keep the whole thing together; too soft.’

  ‘It collapsed?’

  ‘They always collapse.’

  ‘Nothing changes.’

  ‘Not even you, even though you’ve been dragged abruptly from your grave.’

  ‘Don’t call it a grave, Antiokus. Graves are where the bodies go.’

  ‘But this is your body. Isn’t it?’ I pinched his cool flesh.

  ‘On loan.’

  ‘Tell me about the terms of the loan.’

  His answer was a whisper, his face darkening even further, brow-furrowed and frightened, as if the answer to my question was a curse in itself. ‘Kolossoi. Kolossoi.’

  It took just a moment for me to realise the significance of what he was saying. Everything I knew about Jason at that moment became meaningless. Cold fury burst in my breast. I had not realised how truly that man had been a mercenary, how much he had gathered! I had not known the man at all. I felt stunned and betrayed. But where had he hidden the spoils of his greed?

  ‘I can help you,’ I said angrily to Tisaminas. This shade of my old friend seemed to recognise my intention and begged me not to. He seemed alarmed by my urgency.

  ‘Not yet. Not yet. The consequences are unforeseen. We gave him kolossoi willingly. You must realise that. We had no comprehension of what he could do with it if he so wished. But I understand that it is his right by our agreement.’

  ‘He’s a bastard. He tricked you.’

  Tisaminas tried to calm me. ‘He gave kolossoi to us in exchange. We never felt the need to use it. We discarded it long ago. We did it willingly.’

  ‘Listen to me! Last night I summoned a wolf to protect one of Jason’s more recent argonauts, a woman called Ullanna. That act, the enchantment, cost me very little. Perhaps one more grey hair, a minute off my life. I use my talents sparingly. But every so often I use them rashly and with pleasure. Something in me makes me do this. I never question the impulse. And I want to do it now. Tisaminas! I can help you, all of you. You don’t belong here, and you don’t deserve this callous summoning; Jason has betrayed you. He accused me of betraying him. The man is greedy, selfish, lost in instinct; he’s a wolf, chewing at the corpse of his remembered life, a scavenger on everything still living that reminds him of that life. To kill him would cost me dearly. I’ll age. I’ll get gout in winter! But I’ll kill him for you, and gladly. Just tell me where he has hidden the kolossoi. I can do nothing without knowing that.’

  A voice behind me murmured, ‘Do you think if we knew the answer to your question we’d still be here?’

  As I turned, so Atalanta kissed my cheek, cool lips on a fevered face; a gentle touch of affection, calming rage. I returned the embrace.

  She had not lived to old age. Whatever had killed her had taken her in the prime of life. Gaunt though she was, she was beautiful; and from her eyes, Ullanna watched me; it is always the eyes that tell of the unbroken bond. There is something in the look from eyes that passes down the centuries.

  Behind her stood Hylas. I recognised him at once. He too had failed to pass his middle years; no painful rigor of his bones, then; the gods of his age had been fickle and capricious; no doubt they had punished him for his desertion of their beloved Heracles. He was still in good shape, though more brawny in limb than when I’d known him, and the lines of distress, inflicted by the grotesque demands of his lion-skinned master, had smoothed away.

  Hylas said, ‘You must have loved us very much when you sailed on Argo to offer such a sacrifice now. It will age you.’

  ‘I didn’t know you knew. About the cost in years to me of performing magic.’

  ‘The girl on the ship talked to me about it. The Northlander. She loves you, Antiokus. She talks about you in whispers. She whispers to me about her feelings.’

  A chill hand clasped my heart. Niiv had clearly penetrated the shade-cloak of this youngish man. She could seduce the dead! Good gods, I’d have to keep her close! I realised at that moment that I could never let her get away from me. Whatever her shaman father had bequeathed to her, on his death in the far north, it was more than I’d realised. She was akin to a rose, growing strongly, reaching for the sun: beautiful, spreading untamed, not always in blossom, but always extending suckers to snare the unwary.

  * * *

  It was upsetting, to say the least, to be reunited with these friends from the past, friends whose deaths or departures I had mourned at the time before coming to terms with their absence. That crew aboard Argo, in the long-gone, when the seas had been full of challenge and a misty shore spoke more of the unknown than of the known, had been as close to a family as I had ever come, since beginning my walk around the world.

  They had felt something similar. The confines of a ship create an intimacy of spirit that transcends clan, tribe and family. Everything is shared just as everything is risked. That we sympathised with Hylas over his overbearing master, Heracles, was simply testimony to the essential democracy that formed on such a tiny world within the world of Ocean.

  But of these sad resurrections, it was Tisaminas whose presence upset me most. I had liked him very much, and he had been the most faithful of the argonauts to Jason, staying in Iolkos long after we had all dispersed, looking after the ageing, rotting man, keeping him in food
and simple comforts, being the listening ear that could cope with Jason’s tirades of anger and grief against Medea, and at the loss of his sons.

  Tisaminas should not have been here.

  This was a rotten move of Jason’s. He had used the kolossoi, given to him in friendship to signify Tisaminas’s willingness to take up arms for Jason in the living world, as a means to crew his new ship on this selfish mission with the easy option of arms and limbs. For Tisaminas, this meant an absence not from his life after death, but from his life during life. I knew enough of the gift-bringing that was represented by kolossoi to know that for every day Tisaminas spent in the living world as a ghost, he had been shorn of vitality when he had been alive and with his family; and he had had a big family, four sons and two daughters, a clan that would have been a great burden to many in Iolkos at that time. Fortunately, one of his sons grew vines and one of his daughters had entered the Temple of Pallas Athena. A parent’s problems are often solved by such a combination of produce and promise.

  The last thing I asked Tisaminas was how long he had been on Argo, this time round.

  ‘Half a year,’ he said. ‘Looking back, I can see where I was absent. My wife was distraught; she took a lover! My eldest son tried to kill me. I even tried to kill myself in the harbour of Iolkos. I felt like a shadow of myself. I slept like a cat. I remembered nothing from day to day. A man who lives his life in the arms of wine-swilling Bacchus could not have felt more estranged from the world than I did at that time.’ His gaze was full of pain. ‘But it lasted more than half a year…’

  How strange: to think that Tisaminas’s life several centuries in the past was now dependent on my dealings with Jason. This is what the Dacians called a conundrum; a knotty problem.

  ‘Old friend, what has been taken cannot be returned; I’ll send you home as soon as I can. While you are here, you are still alive in Iolkos, but in a stupor, and there is a celebration to be had when you appear to return from the living dead.’