‘Breakers!’ came Niiv’s cry from the prow. There were rocks here, stretching out like fingers. The sail was hauled up, braced to catch the good breeze, drawing us away from the cliffs, leaning against the gusts and waves, taking us into deeper waters.
Now Jason was in his true element. He knew that we should have followed the line of the shore, but not far from us, visible through the heave and spray of this quickening sea, was a steep-sided island, promisingly green and with the sparkle of white that suggested habitation.
Oar, sail and steering oar all combined to set Argo on a firm course, and in a matter of half a day we had come into the stillness of wind shadow, dropping the sail and drifting quietly in the lee of a promontory, searching for a landing place.
The beach, when we found it, was narrow and sandy, backed by cliffs and covered in footprints. Niiv waded ashore and ran among the tracks, calling out: ‘They are all the same. One man running frantically. Mostly in wild circles,’ she added.
A stream tumbled from the wooded heights behind the beach, spilling through a narrow gully into the ocean. Massive chunks of fallen rock hid parts of the shore from our view. And from somewhere out of sight came an unearthly wailing, five deep and different tones, blowing without change, though not all at the same time; the sound was a gusting cacophony, like bagpipes being started up, a terrible, groaning drone, the melody not yet installed. Or was it? There was something haunting about what I was hearing.
This was the island of the wailing man, I realised! Munda had seen it from the corner of her eye, as she’d been bathed in the Light of Foresight. And though my talents in enchantment had been stifled on crossing into Ghostland, my intuition remained unaffected. I remembered an old friend, an expert with the pipes, a songster and storyteller, a ‘chancer’ as his people would have called him, and a brave man.
If I was right, an Hibernian called Elkavar was lurking somewhere close. Was it possible? He had certainly intended to come this way after sailing with Jason and myself on our last journey to Delphi.
Elkavar had been born to find passages through the underworld: it was his function in legend, and like Atalanta and Rubobostes he was a being of legend. Alas, Elkavar had been given everything he needed … save for a reliable sense of direction! And this Otherworldly island was exactly the sort of desperate place that he would have stumbled into by mistake and his own impatience.
We found the carved pipes, five hollowed trees, positioned and shaped to catch the gusting ocean wind. They blew their mournful racket, so loud when the wind was strong that the reverberation knocked us back. Jason and Urtha stared up at the towering structure in amazement. They were monumental versions of the strange pipes our old friend had carried!
Niiv, clever little thing, jumped up and down, clapping her hands.
She too had recognised the calling sign of the piper. Our spirits soared.
It was Niiv’s intuition that persuaded Jason to stay on the island. Disappointed with what he saw to be a smaller place than he’d imagined from a distance, he was all for filling our flasks and barrels with the fresh water, then putting off towards the mainland to the west. He was convinced that his son would be found in ‘royal premises’.
He lives between sea-swept walls. He rules in his world, though he doesn’t know it.
But if Elkavar was indeed hiding on the island, he could be of great use to us.
Urtha elected to stay with the ship. Jason elected to search for the young Hibernian. Niiv stayed behind, reluctantly, along with Tisaminas and pale Leodocus. Rubobostes, Hylas, Atalanta and Jason came with me, following the path that ran beside the rushing stream, and crossing over the cliffs to find the plateau of wooded land within.
The other argonauts were sent to scout and hunt for supplies.
A sweeter blast of music suddenly drifted on the air, a fresh melody, slightly mournful, a brief snatch of some longer song. Then silence, then a scream of rage. I laughed out loud. I hadn’t recognised the rage. But the music was unmistakable, that combination of vivacity and longing.
We broke cover to find ourselves in a wide clearing, circled by three tombs, grassy and steep-sided mounds. There was a strong smell of earth, the whiff of dank caves, the hint of burnt bone. In the centre of the clearing was a grey stone house with many windows in its high walls, and a sloping roof, thinly thatched, more open to the elements than closed against them. Here there was the sickly smell of rotting meat.
Jason was about to stride towards the building when a series of brief, almost musical howls, sounding from within the walls, stopped him in his tracks. Again, the pipes were played, a melody of eerie beauty, something old and strange that affected Atalanta as much as it moved the old Greek Land goat.
At once, the low entrances to the mounds bustled with activity. Then, faster than a mortal eye could see, shapes darted from under earth and into the house. Manic laughter was accompanied by the shrieks and fury of the piper; the droning tones were now those of a set of pipes being rent, torn and broken. As these taunting elementals fled back to their mounds, one of them paused, so briefly that only I—and Niiv perhaps—caught a glimpse of it. She, used to voytazi and other elementals of the lakes and woods, was unperturbed by the astonishing appearance of this fleet tormentor. I had seen such corpselike creatures before as well. They were designed by some rough nature to terrify the vulnerable, not the knowing. Nature in dreadful disguise, but vulnerable itself, I suspected.
Jason was breathing hard, alert in every sense, brow furrowed. ‘I know this place,’ he whispered.’ Everything about it is familiar. Not in appearance, but…’
It came to him then. Memory and understanding.
‘There’s a man inside who’s waiting for us! We help him, and he will be our guide.’
Unstoppable, Jason, Atalanta and Hylas, fired by memories of an earlier quest, stormed across the clearing and entered the stone house. Rubobostes, aware that I hesitated, hesitated too. He followed me when I went to one of the high mounds, stooping to peer into the stone-lined passage that led inwards. The lintel and the uprights were intricately carved; the carvings shifted their shape as I peered at them, forgotten symbols of several ages. These were not simply tombs, they were the entrances and exits to a particular part of the world, one which the Celts knew well.
Lurking, out of sight, huddled in the side passages, were the creatures that were guarding these paths into other worlds.
Jason was calling to me. He called me by the name Merlin, something that surprised me. It was an unexpectedly friendly gesture from a man who had once sworn to kill me.
‘An old friend is waiting for us,’ I reminded Rubobostes, who seemed puzzled by everything that was happening. ‘The piper. Do you remember?’
‘How can I forget,’ the Dacian muttered. He had not been fond of the skirling tones that some people in the world called music.
If I had expected to find the happy-go-lucky, wisecracking man I had once known, however, I was soon disappointed. Grizzled and gaunt, watery-eyed and frightened, the man who huddled on the floor, between the crouching, sympathetic figures of Jason and his argonauts, was a shadow of the robust Hibernian who had guided me from the river watched over by the goddess Daan to the oracle at Arkamon, in Greek Land. Food was piled at one end of the long room—some fresh, mostly decaying, crawling with flies.
The floor was deep in shreds of leather and shards of shattered pipes, both bone and wood.
‘What happened? What happened?’ I remember muttering as I went to him and took his hands in mine. ‘Someone hasn’t looked after you. I thought you could sing yourself out of any difficult situation.’
‘Merlin,’ Elkavar breathed. His grip tightened, a fire came back to his eyes. He searched my face, seeking perhaps to convince himself that this truly was the man he’d once aided. ‘There are so many tricks and charms in this ocean,’ he said, as if reading my concern. ‘So many tricks. I fell foul of the trickster god itself!’ And again he drew me close, his breath sha
rp with bile, tears running from the forlorn eyes that had aged even faster than the wretched carcass from which they peered.
‘Is it you? Have you found me? Did my song carry? They never, ever let me finish the song! The bastards!’ he cried, repeating mournfully, ‘Bastards, bastards!’
No one said a word.
‘Did my song carry?’ he asked again, breaking through his own anguish. He looked furtive then. ‘I found a way to get one song out. The pipes at the shore, by the only landing place. They watched me as I built them. From above. They don’t go near the sea. If I tried to take proper pipes, they’d stop me; but they didn’t stop me carrying wood, great logs, hollowed out. I don’t think they understood what I was doing.’ He chuckled to himself. ‘I set the notes to remind you of that song, remember that song? The one we sang to call Medea back from the underworld? Five notes! And you heard them!’
Good God in Oak! I had heard them. That very first day when I’d returned to Taurovinda, to the stronghold’s ruins, and found the Three of Awful Boding dangling, bloody, teasing, from the rafters of Urtha’s lodge. That tune had been a wisp of sound on the winter’s air. I had noticed it and not recognised it: Elkavar’s desperate call, from his prison in Ghostland. And on the beach too, though the melody had been too deep, too slow to catch.
‘I heard it,’ I said to him.
‘And I knew you’d come! I knew you wouldn’t forget.’
Jason cast me a frosty look. Our presence here had nothing to do with Elkavar. But what was I to do? Lie to the poor wretch whose life was suddenly alive again?
Elkavar struggled to his feet and looked around. ‘You I know,’ he said to Jason, ‘Greetings.’
‘Greetings to you. You’re a thin man for so much food stacked up so revoltingly. Do you never eat?’
‘I never eat,’ the Hibernian said, looking at Atalanta and Hylas. ‘I don’t know who you are, but welcome to my humble home.’
‘It could do with a good clean out,’ Atalanta said through me. ‘With so much food, why do you never eat?’
‘Well, I eat sometimes,’ Elkavar replied. ‘They taunt me with food, so much I can’t cope with it. I take what I need, but the rest—carcasses, stews, broths, soups, fruits, flagons of wine—they build up, day after day. If I try to throw it away, they bring it back. I am entombed with nourishment, but they deny my music!’
‘Entombed with nourishment?’ came Rubobostes’ voice from the doorway. ‘This is my sort of inn. A little rancid, though. Do you have anything fresh?’
‘Rubobostes!’ Elkavar cried. ‘Now I know I’m not dreaming. I’m saved: I have charm from Merlin, guile from Jason and strength from you. My friends. My old friends.’ He turned in a circle, withered arms trembling, feet doing a small dance. ‘Help me stitch the bag for my pipes, help me play, and I’ll lead you anywhere you wish to go! It’s a certain skill of mine,’ he boasted at us enthusiastically, despite our uncertain glances at each other, ‘that I can find passages through the Otherworlds. Isn’t that so, Merlin?’
‘You managed it once, as I remember,’ I reminded him. ‘Just the once.’
‘Well … that’s true. But it means I can do it again. Doesn’t it? But first: eat! Take what you want. There’s more food here than could be burned at Beltagne. Danu’s kiss! If I stacked the roast pigs on top of each other I could lick the face of the moon. Go on, go on. They’ll bring more in a while, more to throw on the pile.’
We decided to wait for a while. At least the meat would be fresh.
And as we waited, we gently drew from Elkavar the story of his presence on this island, in the middle of an ocean, in the middle of Ghostland. Rubobostes was very keen to remind me, in a whisper, that: not everything was as it seemed. He was concerned that this was not Elkavar at all, but some trick, a beguilement designed to confound us.
‘To what end?’
‘To what end what?’
‘Why should we be confounded? Who is doing the confounding?’
‘I’ve heard talk of a Warped Man.’
‘So have I.’
‘The Warped Man is confounding us.’
‘The Warped Man is very likely confounding us. But I’d know this man anywhere. This is Elkavar. Elkavar is as confounded by the Warped Man as are we.’
The Dacian leaned close to me, tugging at the right side of his unkempt moustache. ‘I hope you’re right.’
Elkavar was very alert. As if blind, he gathered the ripped and ruined fragments of his pipes around him, clawing them in as a mouse claws at its nest.
‘There is only one way out of here,’ he said. ‘And to find the right exit I need to play the right melody. Each time I play it I feel the breeze of freedom, the escape from this desperate place, but those creatures swarm on me, bees on honey, and they shred my pipe-bag and break my pipes. I remake them. They shred and shatter them. They try to feed me until my bowels would burst. And they keep me here, trapped. And all because…’
He hesitated, frowning.
Jason, remembering a similar encounter with a blind man on his first quest, suggested: ‘And all because you challenged a god. The god has punished you. You questioned his judgement! Or was it a she-god? That would be worse. But it doesn’t matter. I can imagine what happened. You arrogantly assumed that in human terms you were wiser than a god. But so you are! Damn them! Zeus, Athena, Apollo. All gods can be appeased in the right way. I’m weary of these deities. Mightier, all knowing, thunderous, yes! But what do they know? Which god did you offend? I remember poor Phineus, the seer, we met him on our way for the fleece. He’d been blinded by Zeus and denied the delicious food that was brought to him every day because of attacks by two Harpies, who ate their fill of the feast, then pissed on the rest. And all because he had dared to suggest that he could read the portents of mortal fate more quickly than the god. No lengthy trips to oracles, no cash changing hands, no priests milking the unwary. Poor Phineus. Though it turned out that there was a problem with upsetting Zeus. But Zeus is Zeus: indefatigable in his lust for vengeance, almighty, even a god to strangers. He’s one of a kind. You don’t argue with Zeus. But he’s not here now. And your gods are nowhere near as terrible as ours. We can help you.’
Elkavar’s face was a picture of puzzlement and desperation. His quick glance at me was a search for reassurance. Jason’s enthusiastic declamation waned as fast as a cat’s interest in its murdered prey. He was suddenly surly again, all grim and hard-eyed.
Elkavar said (and I swear he sounded nervous at contradicting the older man), ‘But I didn’t upset a god. Not even a demi-god. I didn’t upset anyone. I give you my word on it. A madman has done this to me. A man whose laugh was like a sneer, whose face was pretty in a boyish way until he laughed, and was then warped and twisted, like the image of beauty in a battered silver shield. But that name … the name you just used. Phineus. That’s what he called me! “You are my Phineus,” he said. “Phineus was one of the best parts in the story. So we must make sure you have a fine house and good food; and appropriate little helpers.” Yes. That’s what he said. You are my Phineus…’
CHAPTER TWENTY
To Strive, To Seek, To Find
This is what Elkavar told us:
He sailed into the bay in a very strange ship; there were others aboard, but they stayed quite still at the oars. He came ashore and I was convinced he had come to rescue me from this island. I hadn’t dared leave by the route I’d arrived by.
Instead, he disappeared inland, but later came to fetch me. This house had suddenly appeared among the tombs. It hadn’t been here before, I’m certain of it. I came through one of those mounds on to the island in the first place! But he persuaded me that I simply hadn’t seen it, that it was a house that only showed itself at certain times.
We sheltered here and ate exquisite food, brought to us by young people from the other side of the island. This went on for several days. I told him all about my life and troubles, and Argo and Greek Land. He seemed very interested in Greek Land. In
that time he often went back to the cliffs, above the bay where his ship was moored—what did those other men eat or drink, I wonder? They never left the vessel as far as I could see. He kept gazing to the east, becoming more and more frustrated. He was waiting for something, but whatever it was it kept eluding him.
Then he began to taunt me, about my little weakness, my habit of getting lost in the passages under the earth. He started to find something very funny. He had changed. Now he became warped. I was frightened. I thought of a quick escape, back the way I’d come, though that was just as frightening, and he must have detected my fear. He asked me to play the bagpipes. I took my chance and played the melody that would open the ‘way down’, the gate back into the underworld. I thought I would take a chance on escape. But as I did so, the shutters on the door and windows burst open and creatures from a nightmare flew in and tore the bag to pieces before fleeing. One of them crunched through each of the wooden pipes as if searching for musical marrow.
The mad man laughed loudly and tossed me a joint of meat. As he ran from the house, he shouted, ‘At least you won’t go hungry. But you must wait for a ship that has taken an Age to get here before you can again find the pathway out of here! My Phineus!’
I followed him frantically to the bay, but he was a fast runner and had already struck away from the island when I reached the beach, nosing the vessel to the setting sun. That was when I saw, in the distance, ahead of him, a vast fleet of ships, dark-sailed and indistinct in the haze of sea and sun, but long vessels, war-galleys, I’m certain of it. Many ships, catching a vigorous wind and slipping steadily out of sight. I have no idea where they were going.
He played me for a fool. It was part of a game, a cruel game.
‘What emblem was displayed on his sail?’ I asked when it was clear that Elkavar had nothing more to say.
‘The sail was cloth-of-black with red-embroidered edges, and the green head of a woman at its centre; her hair was a tangle of serpents; her eyes were hollow.’
The Iron Grail Page 28
