In the morning grayness, little different here in the Marai from the afternoon grayness, I looked for my host; but he was nowhere to be found. So I mounted Feldore, all brushed and shiny and rounded with apples and hay, and rode again east, and the way was before us all along—
—until here. Again I was flung onto the floor, and as I scrabbled to my knees yet once more I stopped and dared not move. The light was changing, somehow; was not as it had been…
And I saw why. From a crack in the stone slabbing beneath and in front of the altar, something was groping its way upwards. It moved in a blind yet somehow knowing way that filled me with utter terror and dread; outside, I could hear Feldore give that high thin terrible horse-scream. But I could do nothing for him; I did not know even if I could save myself.
For now the thing raised itself up out of the gap in the stone. It was a black hand and arm, all black, as if gloved and sleeved in darkness. It groped, flailed, pulled back—then reached eagerly forward, its fingers seeming to close to a fist.
And the light was extinguished. There came a horrible wailing sound from the direction of the crack at the altar’s foot, and no more. Or no more that I waited to hear, at least. At the instant of the light going out, I found my legs beneath me, and I take no shame to tell you I turned and ran like the hounds of Arawn for the door behind me.
For this is what I remembered from Oeth-Anoeth, the half-memory that had tugged and teased at my waking mind and my sleeping mind alike, that I had come nearest to remembering when I lay beside Morgan the day after my return from my captivity. And I would for no sake remember any more about it… So I ran.
The rain had stopped, and stars were beginning to show through ragged flying clouds. I grabbed up my gear, slung it onto Feldore’s saddle, followed it up and we were gone, the horse no less eager than I to put as many miles as we could between us and this uncanny crossroads place. I do not recollect where we slept that night, but there were seven running streams that lay behind us before we felt it safe to rest. And even then neither of us passed an easy night.
* * *
Chapter Eight
In the days—I know not how many there were, truly; time seemed strangely altered—between leaving Inisguidrin and coming by night to the haunted annat, I came to face a few of those terrors Avallac’h had warned of: Feldore and I at the River of Blood; giving wide skirt to Ben Shulow, the Mountain that Walks (and not soon did that horror leave us; for nights thereafter I woke with pounding heart from dreams of that gray monster, shedding stones like raindrops—hence its name—pursuing me like some great stalking beast); some minor portents and menaces here and there, easily countered.
But I knew well that the real questing was barely begun. What the others were doing, either here on Tara or off on the other worlds, I did not know. In my familial concern I hoped weal and luck to Gerrans my son and Loherin my wife’s cousin, but the forefront of my thought was full of three only: Morgan, Gweniver and Donah. We had been separated in the aftermath of Corryochren, and not all my magical seeking could find them. They were as hid from me as was the Cup itself, and I liked it no more than I liked that first loss.
So it was with no high expectations that I rode into a wood in which I had been told was a fountain, called Venton Race, where very often things happened; though the countryman who confided this to me could be no more forthcoming than that. Still, it seemed a thing to be looked into, and I had turned Feldore’s head off the highroad with vague hopes stirring.
The wood was larger than it had appeared from across the valley, and it was aflame with all the colors of the autumn, so that it was lighter within than it would have been in high summer. Feldore found his own way among the trees, his hoofs silent on the yellow leaf-carpet, and barely troubled to allow clearance for my booted leg on either side as he ambled between treetrunks, or for my height above his back as he went under the bright branches.
I had fallen into a kind of waking dream, an ashling of sorts, so that when Feldore snorted and half-reared and bounced back to earth again I was myself all but bounced from the saddle. But he was chuffing and ruckling with eagerness, not with fear, and I hauled myself back upright behind the pommel and peered forward into the clearing ahead, which was the clearing of the fountain, Venton Race—Fyntenras or Fount of Grace—and seemed overhung by a veiling blue mist.
And I all but flew from the saddle, for before us in the clearing by the fountain one stood attending to the lamed off fore of a splendid bronze chestnut mare. I was hugging Donah before she was even full aware of who it was embraced her; but she was as joyful to see me as I to see her, and it was many moments before either of us calmed sufficiently to give coherent account of our doings and whereabouts since that unceremonious and nearly fatal beaching off the southern coasts.
"It was much the same for me as it was for you, my uncle," she said, companionably linking her arm in mine and leading me over to where she had deposited her gear and made a small cook-fire. "I have been thinking perhaps it is part of our search, to go alone for a time and consider?"
"Maybe so, but it is hard on the goers—and I was so feared for you and Guenna and the Queen that I had little time to ponder quest-mysteries."
Donah grinned, and I saw her father stamped upon her face, like a doubled impression upon a silver coin.
"Not to make light of it; but I am sure they are as well as we have found ourselves… Are you hungry? I have made shakla, and there is some cold beef we could grill again over the fire—"
During the impromptu meal I listened to Donah recount her own recent adventures, and truth to tell they were even stranger than my own…
"When the ship broke up, I found myself in the sea," she began, her voice and face reflective, and reflecting of wonder, "and though I felt about to go under for that the waves and tiderippets were too much for me, suddenly I felt myself pushed and lifted and carried through the breaking surf to shore."
"Silkies?" I asked with interest, remembering well a time when the gentle seal-folk had done as much, and more, for me. "Or was it the Moruadha—the merrows? They favor that coast from of old."
"Neither of those folk. It was sun-sharks; indeed, I saw them help others as well, though none of us came to land together. They even helped my mare—I saw them press against her flank, to guide and steer her just as my leg would have done had I been in the saddle… Any road"—the Keltic idiom sat delightfully upon her—"I set out inland rather than along the coast; it seemed best at first, but I did not meet any of the others whom I had thought to come up with."
"It is a wide and empty land throughabouts. Perhaps the others hauled out farther along the shore, or rode west rather than north or east." I gave her shoulder a small swift shake. "We will find them now, do not doubt it! But you found nothing to the quest’s purpose?"
For the first time Donah seemed ill at ease, and when she spoke again, there was new hesitancy in her voice.
"Not found. But I did See."
She fell silent again, and I did not press her. But I did watch her with a new attention, not as an anxious uncle to a cherished niece but as a sorcerer to one afflicted, one who has encountered things with which she is not fit or trained to cope. Perhaps Gweniver had done ill, to choose Arthur’s daughter to ride as one who sought the Graal… But then I looked at Donah again, and suddenly saw that which Gwennach had seen, to make her choose so: For, in all the royal houses of Keltia from of old, there have always been those of the blood to tend the Treasures; usually not the monarch or the heir, but one of the line and Name. And sometimes even to some of these a greater calling was given, a higher consecration: to be Sword-Prince or Graal Princess, Stonelord or Spearhand.
Not always was there one of this special, holier calling to serve one or another of the Hallows; but when one was called, the vocation must be served out. For such tasks did not always last forever; and afterwards the one so chosen was free to go about as before. But the Hallow must be served, there was never any choice about
that; and the one chosen as servant very often did not know of his or her choosing until the moment was come for which the choosing had been made.
So I looked now at Arthur’s daughter, Majanah of Aojun’s daughter, who was a niece to me in law and love, and saw not Donah the Jamadarin that would be but the present Graal Princess of the Kelts. And was pleased in what I saw: She had grown tall and fair and quick of mind and speech; I knew well her skill with sword and with the bow that was the chief weapon among her own people. Morgan had trained her not as a Ban-draoi, for magics on Aojun are not as magics in Keltia, but in the way of the Ban-draoi with sorcery; she was well able to withstand all but the mightiest of cast spells, and could defend herself with active returning if so she chose.
Yet as I watched her and was so pleased, it came to me also that there was another young princess of the House of Don: Galeron, whose mother, Marguessan, was the author of all this dark unblest web. And if Marguessan sought to make herself a Black Graal, a Cup of Darkness, might she not also seek to raise up a dark princess to serve that Cup as Donah must serve the true Graal?
Not a pleasant or an easy thought; and immediately I had thought it I knew it for truth. Whether Marguessan had as yet acted upon it, I could not sense: But it was not far off; might even, indeed, be upon us.
But before I could voice my fears, Donah began to speak, in a low hushed hurried voice, and all my worst fears were turned to fact.
"When once I had come to land," she said, "as I just now told you, I set out away from the water, following the line of a small river running northwards. After a day or two, the river brought me to the foot of a great ben, which a woman I met on the road did tell me was called the Cobbler."
The Cobbler! Now we were getting somewhere… I pulled out my well-worn and much scrawled-upon map of the Northwest Continent, stabbed an area far in the southeast known as the Hand, fingers of land running through the sea.
"Over here, that is where you were. And you came all this way back."
Donah nodded, studying the map closely. "Aye, and you were here, and rode as far again eastwards. But see: Where this river went by the Cobbler, there was a ford of white stones, and by it stood a man in black, who spoke my name and said he was the ford’s keeper, and I must ask his leave to pass."
"This has a strangely familiar ring to it—and did you ask, then?"
"Oh aye! And he was nothing loath to allow me, but said I must take him up behind me on my horse, so that he might the more easily point the way across. Well, that did not altogether gladden my heart, and I said so. But he said there was no other ford and that if I would cross—and cross I must—it must needs be as he had said. So I did as he bade me, though with no great liking."
She was silent again, and I did not press her. "Well, it was strange," she said after a while. "He was most mannerly and full of all courtesy, that is the simple truth. And he did guide my horse’s way across the ford."
"But?"
"But it was not a ford at all! Somehow it had become a bridge of glass, so solid that it bore up under all our weight, but so clear that I could see the water running beneath as I looked down through it. When my horse’s hoofs beat once more upon the earth, he—this fordkeeper—leaped down and took the bridle, to lead us forward into the wood that was there."
I poured us both another mether of the shakla that had been warming over the fire, and did not let on by an eyelash’s flicker how alarming I in truth did find all this coil. That man in black I knew of old, or thought I did; and though there was no evil in him, still I wondered. What did Fionn the Young at the White Ford, and did he represent the will of the High Danu toward the Graal Princess, and the quest? But Donah was speaking again.
"He did not lead us far into the trees, but stopped by a huge-grown hazel. Its leaves were already turning, and yet the ground about its roots was thick with shed nuts."
"Not so strange, that."
"That is not the strange part." She smiled, but I could see that fear and awe were still upon her. "There was a child standing in the branches, whether lass or lad I could not tell; very fair of hair and face, and robed in red. But the tree, uncle—
"Aye?" I asked gently, when she did not at once go on.
"The tree was feyn—alive and aware. And its branches—they were full of tiny lights."
Her voice had fallen to a whisper, but it was not this that had sent the grue shivering down my spine, and I said the first words that came to my tongue.
"The black hand—"
Donah looked at me with astonishment. "The hand in the annat—the child spoke of it, and, I know not how, I saw it. Or rather Saw it… Any road, the child then bade me take an apple from a tree I would find, and that tree would be guarded by a snake-maned lion. But I was not to fear, for only one who has taken a throne unlawfully can be harmed by such a lion; and I must give the apple to the Keeper when it was asked for."
I shivered again in spite of myself. "You saw Avallac’h."
Again her face went bright and blank with amazement. "Aye, but not yet a while—how did you know?" Then, answering her own query: "Oh aye, he said one had been—you then, of course, it would be… Well, after the tree and the child, the man in black having somehow vanished, I rode on alone, and I came to the apple tree the child had spoken of. And at its foot, curled up asleep like any sunning cat, was the greatest lion I have ever heard of. He was tall at the shoulder as my mare here, and his mane as black as Feldore’s, and his coat deep dark gold. And his mane was naught but snakes, hissing."
"Did he speak to you?"
She nodded slowly. "To say that only the usurper need fear him. I said with some sharpness that I was the heir of a king and a queen both, and no usurper, and then—it is strange to tell of—it seemed that the lion bowed to me."
"And you took the apple as bidden."
"Indeed, I dared not otherwise!" she said laughing. "From there I must near have crossed paths with you, uncle, for I came to the swamp of the Marai, and found the path of white stones, and came to Inisguidrin in the dusk. Gerrans was there before me, and after him came Loherin of Kernow, and—and one other."
I had a sudden sharp flash of an-da-shalla. "Gwain son of Marguessan."
Her face was white and strained. "Aye. It seemed—not correct. That he should be there with us, or at all, or even on the riding for the Cup to begin with. Oh, do not mistake me, he was friendly and courteous, greeted me as cousin, seemed cheerful and honest enough… I do not wish to lay upon his shoulders a mantle he does not merit, but—well, is he not a spy for his mother?"
"Very like," I said. "Then again, as likely not. We do not know. When Gweniver chose him to be one of the seekers, she herself admitted she did not know why she chose him. But she also said she was not the one who did the choosing… What came to pass, then, at Inisguidrin?"
Donah smiled, the smile of one who sees a wonder in memory’s eye. "We spoke to him! To Avallac’h—he told us of his kinship in the House of Pendreic to which we four belonged; and how he had come to be there, in the White Island; reminded us that we were all cousins, bound by blood and by dan to do as we must. And then he looked straight at me, and asked if I had such a thing about me as an apple."
I had tears in my eyes, thinking of that ancient noble soul, kept so long past his release by his own honor and a crime not his to atone for.
"I gave it him, of course," said Donah, after another long silence. "He received it from my hand as if it had been the Cup itself."
"For him it was," I said softly. "It was his deliverance, his key of freedom. He had kept well his faith and vigil… Did he go well?"
"The gentlest going I have ever seen," said the girl gravely. "He ate the apple, down to the very nub, then smiled at me—at us all—and he was simply… gone. Sunlight was in the room, and a wind out of summer; and when those had gone, so had he, not even his body left behind. And yet I could not feel that a death had been. Strange."
"And Gerrans, the others?" I asked presently. "W
hat did they then?"
"Not much," said Donah reflectively. "We honored his going, then we ourselves rode all our separate ways. When I looked back, I saw that the tower Inisguidrin had crumbled away, and stood now a ruin."
As if in five minutes all the centuries of its lord’s enduring had caught up with it… I was silent again, seeing before me that ancient gentle face, hearing the wise words. And I wondered anew, feeling as Donah did, if this were truly the end for Avallac’h. It seemed that there was deep work yet undone; for had not Avallac’h said to me that the Graal Server would come to him before the end, and he would know him when he came?
"Well, did he?" asked Donah, and I realized I had spoken my thought aloud.
"You must tell me that, I think," I said, for I had a thought I dared not speak, about one of the royal cousins… "Did Avallac’h say aught that might point to one or another of you?"
"Not that I recall, though he did bless each of us just before he Went. But he did say one thing to me that struck strange… He said that one can only be called if one is free and prepared to obey the calling; if one is not able to be called, one will not be. Does that make any sense to you, uncle?"
I murmured something meant to be reassuring, but otherwise took care to conceal from her my true feeling. She was too young yet for such a truth to find any fitting-place in her soul, though I understood why Avallac’h had held it out to her—to them all, come to it.
By now it was full dark, and we were both weary, so after seeing to Feldore and Donah’s lovely chestnut Khamis, we settled in on either side of the fire and went to sleep. Though not before I had drawn, once Donah was safely slumbering, a triply-sealed protective circle round us all, and set runes of might and terror at each of the Airts, for good measure… For you never know, I thought, as I lay down at last, and all too much can be abroad at night in such a place as this, where folk say things happen.
The Hedge of Mist Page 11
