The Power of Seven

by Peter R. Ellis

  “But how are you going to find them if so little is known about them?” Sieffre asked.

  “We have no time for pointless quests,” Aurddolen said, “Our priority must be to find a way of assisting the Cludydd in opposing the Malevolence.”

  “I think the Cemegwr are the only lead we’ve got,” September said, “but Sieffre’s right. Where are they?”

  No one spoke for a while but September could see that Cari was thinking hard. Eventually she spoke.

  “From what I recall, some tales of the Cemegwr mention Coedwig Fawr.”

  “Coy what?” September asked.

  “Coedwig Fawr, The Great Forest,” Ilar explained, “It stretches from the foothills of Mynydd Tywyll to the Northern River.”

  “I remember flying across it,” September said, “It’s vast.”

  “And dense,” Sieffre said, “many parts are impenetrable. There are few tracks or paths that cross it.”

  “Perhaps that’s how the Cemegwr, like it,” September noted, “Stop people blundering in on them.”

  Cari had more to say, “The tales come from woodsmen and charcoal burners who supply the mines and foundries here in the mountains. Just once in a lifetime perhaps they come across these people who act differently.”

  “Differently?” Breuddwyd queried, raising an eyebrow.

  “They are just normal people who for some reason have been cut off, probably because they have no cludydd o efyddyn,” Aurddolen said.

  “Perhaps, but these people shun contact, and are hostile to cludyddau,” Cari explained.

  “I’m not surprised if the cludyddau consider them to be heretics,” Breuddwyd said.

  “Right, so I need to go to this Coedwig Fawr, and listen out for secretive people who are different,” September said, determined to make a start on something, “I’d better go.”

  “Wait,” Aurddolen said, “Even if these people, these so-called Cemegwr exist, even if you find them, they may be servants of the Malevolence.”

  “In which case I have wasted time as they won’t have the answer to my problem but until someone comes up with a better idea, I’m going.”

  “I’ll help you,” Breuddwyd said.

  “No Mother, you must track down Malice, find out from where she is controlling the Malevolence and think of ways of stopping her.”

  Breuddwyd nodded.

  “So first I need to get into the forest. Cari, give me an image of the most remote and apparently unpopulated place you know.”

  The young cludydd o efyddyn closed her eyes. September saw in her mind a dark place under immensely tall trees so close together that their branches intertwined. September closed her hand around her starstone and moved.

  19

  She was standing ankle deep in dry, fragrant pine needles. It was dark, but not the darkness of the Malevolence in the polar night but because the thick foliage far overhead blocked out the rays of the Sun. Just a dim green illumination reached the ground. In each direction September saw tree trunks, crowding together, straight and tall, reaching upwards for the light.

  There was less noise in her head from the spirits of hate. The spirits must be well above her in the sky above the forest. For some reason they had not descended between the trees. Then she noticed that the pain in her hip, a constant companion since she had returned to the Land, had lessened to an irritation. Something in this forest was resisting the Malevolence, keeping it at bay. September summoned the power of efyddyn to listen for mental chatter. There was less interference from the hate of the spirits but at first there was nothing else. She concentrated, amplifying the soundless voices in her head as much as she could bear. Yes, there was a hint of something else, different in quality to any cludydd or person that she had hitherto had contact with. It was self-contained and confident but it seemed distant, very distant and difficult to pin down.

  September changed into the panther and set off in the direction she thought the mind signals came from. She loped through the trees, their closeness preventing any attempt to move in a straight line or at speed. She made a few false starts, the signal weakening as she moved. At last she found a direction where the thoughts became stronger although they were still incomprehensible. She padded carefully through the forest using all her feline senses to detect her quarry. She picked up a strange scent. It contained wood smoke but there were other components. Sulfur and chlorine she recognised from home, school and swimming pools, but others were unfamiliar. There were sounds now as well; the crackling of fires, of hammers falling on metal. Still, though, the projections of the mind were weak and more like a shaft of light leaking from around a closed door than the bright beacons that were the cludyddau or the flaming torches that were the minds of normal people.

  The trunks of the trees became more widely spaced but still close enough for their branches to overlap. She froze when she stumbled in to the clearing. There was a space where no trees grew although the foliage of the trees at the edge of the circle still formed a canopy high above.

  At first she thought the clearing was empty but as she looked around she caught sight of a different image like looking at the myriad broken shards of a mirror. If she looked straight ahead she saw nothing, but at the edge of her vision she had glimpses of a different scene. She turned her head away and tried to see without looking directly.

  At the centre of the clearing was a forge. There were four people working at the furnaces tending the fires, stirring the contents of ceramic pots and hammering on an anvil. They wore identical clothes of rough brown tunics and trousers and all had light brown hair. Only the men’s beards and the women’s bosoms revealed that there were two of each gender.

  September returned to her normal form.

  “Ah, so you have found us at last.” The woman stirring the pot paused in her action and, looking directly at September, called out “Join us, holder of egwyddorpum.” The image seemed to crystallise in front of her as if all the pieces of the mirror were coming together to form one. She saw clearly at last.

  “You expected me?” September took a step forward. Each of the people had stopped in their tasks to look at her.

  “Of course. We felt your arrival in the forest and followed your attempts to locate us.” The woman looked young, with long hair tied back.

  “You didn’t give me a signal to find you easily.”

  “It was not for us to guide you but for you to find us. You have succeeded.”

  “You are the Cemegwr?”

  “So we are called.” The woman stepped out from the forge and a man who had been hammering took her place, taking over the stirring. The other two resumed their work. The woman directed September to a pair of wooden chairs. She sat in one and indicated that September should sit in the other.

  “Show me your egwyddorpum,” the woman said in a voice that expected to be obeyed. September found herself opening her hand to reveal the half of the Maengolauseren lying on her palm. The woman’s eyes were drawn to it. She seemed to be examining it.

  “Ah, but this is but one half of the carregmam. Where is the rest of the Maengolauseren?”

  “My mother has it,” September replied, surprised that this woman should be able to identify the starstone so clearly. No cludydd, not even Aurddolen, had looked at it as closely.

  “Ah, your mother. The previous Cludydd. She has returned to the Land with you.” It wasn’t a question but a statement of fact.

  “Yes. How do you know these things?”

  “We listen and we feel the currents in the substance of Daear.”

  “But you have no contact with the People or with the cludyddau.”

  The woman waved her hand dismissively.

  “Mere children and dabblers in the power of materials.”

  “You know more than Aurddolen, or Arianrhod or Cynhaearn or any of the cludydd? You don’t seem old enough.”

  “How old do you think I am?”

  September looked closely at the woman’s unlined face, her glowing skin,
long shining hair and smooth hands.

  “I’m not sure. You look less than thirty years old but you act as if you are older.”

  “If you had seen me when your mother came to the Land, I would have looked the same.”

  “But that is a thousand years ago. Here that is.” September was confused and astonished.

  “Time does not age me.”

  “I don’t understand.” September wanted to know more but she remembered that she was in a hurry to find a solution to the crisis facing the universe. “But you won’t have time at all if we don’t stop the Malevolence.”

  “The evil cannot harm us,” the woman said dismissively.

  “Why not? I can see that manifestations do not seem to be threatening you. How do you do it without the protection of lead and tin?” September looked up to check that there was no sign of a dome of plwm.

  “Because they are no protection. Your powers and those of the cludyddau,” she said the word derisively, “attract the evil and can only hold the spirits at bay for a limited time.” September recalled the hordes of manifestations besieging Amaethaderyn, Mwyngloddiau and other settlements that used the powers of the metals for defence.

  “So you have a better way?”

  “The evil cannot harm us,” she repeated.

  “Is that because the bearers of the starstone before me, such as my mother, kept the spirits from you?”

  “They had their little triumphs,” the woman shrugged.

  “But it’s all gone wrong now. I failed. My twin sister, Malice stopped me. Now the Malevolence is pouring down and it will destroy everything. Aurddolen says that the Malevolence won’t stop until it has destroyed everything in this universe.”

  “So space and time will come to an end.”

  “Yes. Doesn’t that worry you?”

  “It is an inconvenience but it will not affect us.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because with the power of egwyddorpum we can create a new universe. You know there are many as you come from another yourself.”

  September was shocked by the assertion but it meant little to her. What did concern her were the people of the Land who she knew and those she didn’t.

  “Yes, but what about all the people who will die or become spirits of hate?”

  “They are no concern of ours nor we of them.”

  September was disgusted and angry.

  “What do you care about?”

  “You can have no conception of where our interests lie.”

  September was annoyed by her haughtiness but she dismissed it.

  “I don’t care. It’s what’s happening here that worries me.”

  “Why do you feel such an attachment for these people? How long have you been on Daear?”

  “A few months. It was autumn when I was first called. I know it’s been less than one night at home.”

  “So in a quarter of one year taken out of your lifetime you have come to think of yourself as the saviour of the whole population of Gwlad and everything in it.”

  “That was my task. Aurddolen told me. Everyone expected me to stop the Malevolence.” September was confused. Tears came into her eyes and a sob was growing in her chest.

  “And you thought it would be easy?”

  “No, I didn’t, but once I’d been to the planets and learnt how to use the power of the metals I thought I could do it. Until, until…”

  “You failed.”

  “Yes, because of Malice.”

  “Partly but not solely. You don’t understand do you?”

  “What?”

  “Who you are and why you are here.”

  “I’m the Cludydd o Maengolauseren. I have to send the Malevolence back above the stars.”

  “That’s what you’ve been told. Who are you really?”

  September remembered. She was a fat, stupid, silly teenager. She buried her head in her arms and cried.

  “I’m September Weekes and I’m useless.”

  “There’s no need to be so hard on yourself.”

  September peered through her hands at the woman who was looking at her with an inscrutable expression.

  “But you said…”

  “I asked who you were. I didn’t say you were good for nothing. Since you have been here you have been strong and fearless. You have defeated countless manifestations of evil and helped thousands of people. You are who you are and you can be whatever you have the power to be.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “That’s better. You have admitted the one truth that is important.”

  “But Aurddolen has explained things to me. I’ve visited each of the planets.”

  “And who did you meet there?”

  “The spirits of cludyddau who are alive now and who were alive in the past.”

  “Exactly. All your contact has been with cludyddau who have told you what they think they know and nothing else.”

  “But their powers are like magic. They do things with metals that would be miracles at home. They understand how this universe works.”

  “They think they do but they themselves are of this universe and only see part of it. A person standing on a beach can only see a short distance out to sea. A leaf on a tree has no experience of what it is to be a root or the bark of the tree trunk.”

  September thought she understood the analogies.

  “So you’re different. You can see and understand more.”

  “Yes. As I said, we create universes. We made this one. We experiment with modes of existence and this was one.”

  “You’re gods?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Creators, all powerful beings.”

  “No, gods is too grand a term. We inhabit the dimensions from which universes emerge. We are scientists, experimenting, observing, analysing, evaluating.”

  “Why are you here?” September looked around at the forest clearing, the open fires, the people in the simple clothes. “Why aren’t you outside looking at us through some cosmic microscope?”

  “Because to truly experience our construct part of us has to live within it.”

  “But what about the Malevolence?”

  “What about it?”

  “It’s destroying this universe you say you created.”

  “The Malevolence is everywhere and attacks all the universes.”

  “Even mine?”

  “Even yours. The black holes at the centre of galaxies, gobbling matter – a manifestation of the Malevolence. The cancers that consume your bodies – the same. Viruses neither dead nor alive – yet another.”

  September wasn’t sure what she was talking about. She wasn’t even sure she was following any of this conversation.

  “But why let the Malevolence destroy this place?”

  “Because it’s reached the end of its lifetime. A little soon to be sure but it’s degraded so its time has come.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The woman took a deep breath.

  “Let me try to explain. Why are you the Cludydd o Maengolauseren?”

  “Why me? Aurddolen told me that it was because I was the seventh child.”

  “Good; and how many Cludyddau have there been?”

  “People don’t seem sure but they think Breuddwyd, my mother was the sixth. So I’m the seventh.”

  “And how many metals, planets and principal emotions are there?”

  “Seven.”

  “Do you see?”

  “No. Yes, I see that seven is important but why?”

  “We designed it that way. It amused us to set up a universe governed by the principles dreamt up by thinkers from your universe. They believed that the number seven plays a significant role in the workings of your universe. That was before your modern scientists discovered some different truths. It was our intention to run this universe for seven cycles, seven conjunctions using seven Cludyddau to hold back the Malevolence.”

  “What went wrong? Why couldn’t I do the job.�
��

  “Well things do go wrong. Entropy, chaos. Things wear out. Your twin died.”

  “Are you saying that Malice has mucked up your experiment?”

  The woman bit her lip and for the first time showed some emotion.

  “There was some interference when you were born and your sister’s spirit became merged with the Malevolence. It is complicated.”

  “I don’t understand. What’s the connection between my family and this place? Why are Mother and I the Cludydds?”

  “Is that all you’ve noticed. Haven’t you wondered why the people speak the same language as you or why they have these quaint old names for themselves and things?”

  “Uh, well no. It was just one of the things I took for granted.”

  September wondered why she hadn’t thought about these things before.

  “You take a lot for granted don’t you.”

  “Well, there’s been quite a lot to take in.”

  “I suppose there has. I shall try to explain it to you. Since this universe is linked to your own by the beliefs on which it is based we made your family the conduit. Do you know anything about your ancestors?”

  “Not a lot. Mother comes from Wales. She’s still got family there.”

  “That’s correct, an old people, celts. Celtic was the root of the old language the people here were given and the language of the first Cludydd o Maengolauseren; later it became English as your ancestors acquired the language.”

  “So all the Cludyddau have been my ancestors?”

  “Of course. Daughters who were the seventh child.”

  The sudden noise of rending wood and falling trees caught September’s attention and she noticed the woman look into the forest anxiously. The tall trees swayed and branches crashed to the forest floor. Shadows moved and then at the edge of the clearing appeared a huge lizard. When it raised itself up on its rear legs, ten metres tall or more, it resembled a tyrannosaur. September leapt to her feet. She hadn’t seen dinosaurs on Daear before but she knew what this was.

  “It’s a Pwca,” she said, raising the Maengolauseren.

  “Calm yourself,” the woman said, still seated, “It’s only a manifestation.”

  The monster lurched forward, its red fiery eyes fixed on September.