Greenwode

by J Tullos Hennig

  He would not reject this.

  His father stood at the curved, black entrance to the cavern womb, unmoving and silent, a shadow with fire-lit tongues gilding him in fits and starts. His brawny arms held a staff. Rob blinked, then blinked again as his eyes filmed, went scratchy. Adam’s figure wavered, from sturdy to shadowed, from mortal guardian to horned, evergreen watcher.

  His eyes glowed.

  And suddenly, everything slowed.

  Cernun backed away, the movement sluggish, drawn out. Rob blinked, and even that was strung lengthwise, the time between eyes open and shut lingering, and when Rob could focus again, he saw Cernun, still retreating.

  But the bowl stayed there, hovering midair.

  Another blink, lasting several breaths… nay. One breath, one half a breath, the inhalation lasting. The bowl, hanging.

  Then exhalation, and eyes closing, Rob fell.

  Falling….

  With some part of his consciousness, he felt the hard, boneless impact against the stone, but it had nothing to do with him. He was already gone.

  Free….

  He slides from his body like a snake gliding from old skin. What tethers remain, he untangles with a gesture and a single word that fills the cavern… then hesitates at one, pulsing and gleaming, reaching outward from his heart.

  He follows the line of it, sees a pale, mortal creature lying homely and senseless amidst the cavern rock of Mother’s womb. Skinny limbs splayed like a doll of braided rags, long black tangle-locks sucking into the slack mouth with every rasped moan of breath, fair skin scrimshawed with earth-hued knotwork and sigils.

  Something in him recognizes that creature, is glad of the vein of light—heart line, soul tether—connecting him to it. Something else within, something hot and dark and growing stronger, sees it for what it is: merely a shell, a frail husk lying on the ground, binding him down. It twitches, raises a hand to its breast, and he starts to speak again, to sever it from him so he can fly.

  “Byddwch chwithau yn dal i!” It tolls from the dark, vibrates through his being. Another voice follows it, deep and warming; a familiar caress: “Be ye still.”

  Around the edges they wait, father-guardian and fulcrum-gatekeeper, and in this moment they have more power than he.

  Snared, stayed, he watches. And as he does so, the markings upon the creature’s skin begin to twitch then writhe, smoke from ivory-pale ash. From the edges comes the caress of words—ones he does not know, a gesture he cannot see—then the earth-marks begin to runnel, brown as earth, brown as old blood, onto the stone. Bleeding, gathering and forming into veins of light. Three, leading into the darkness, one arching up—like a whip, like a serpent—then arching forward, skimming up the line toward his heart and sending him hurtling.

  Falling. Only this time there is no impact, he is hurtling outward, shards of light and shadow flickering about him.

  Time was. Time is. Time could be.

  The bits of color coalesce into shapes, then images, flaring then… stretching, somehow, sucking past him into the black.

  Dancing…. Fire…. a man running through the Wode… leaping… changing… and a stag leaps through the flames….

  Hanging… panicked breath hot upon his neck… Marion! Clinging to him… both hanging above a chasm so deep and dark… his arms weakening and a voice… familiar voice—take my hand!—and he lurches… reaches… feels a hand in his, looks up to see a cowled, mailed figure holding him, and the hood blows back to reveal Gamelyn’s face….

  Flames in his mind… brilliant-hot reflections blinding him… a jeweled cross dangling above him from a silver chain, swaying to the beating of his heart, shivering with his breath, and it seems so… beautiful… but it is as treacherous as lovely….

  Heat. Blood. Fire. Blinding.

  It is over.

  It is blood, drip-drip-dripping onto the stones—his own blood draining from him and bringing the sweet, numbing nothingness of a sleep from which he will never wake, and there are arms clutched tight around him, a tear-soaked voice trying to stir him.

  It is fear, rending into his mind

  It is pain, clotting his lungs, a shard of agony stabbing fire into his ribs with every breath, the arrow swelling shock with every shudder of his flesh.

  Falling.

  Emptiness. Blackness, then breath, as if some massive winged wyvern from legend is venting in the darkness. Then something in the darkness… moves.

  Eyes glimmer, horn gleams, and it rises, black from the waves: animal, yet not, human, yet not. That it is male is unmistakable, naked and erect, muscles taut, issuing challenge with toss of horns and blast of defiance. It demands reverence. Submission.

  He knows he can give only one and hope to survive. He dips his chin and extends his hands, palm up, but does not drop his eyes. Stands his ground.

  Breath escapes the Horned Lord in a long, low hiss. Eyes, glowing fire red, bank to orange embers.

  I know you. The voice is deep, a growl. Have known. Will know. But you are not dryw, not in this now…. How is it you can call me? How do they call you, now?

  They? He searches, tries to find his name. He knew it, once. That skinny, emptied shell his heart would tie him to must know it, surely.

  Ah. He remembers. Tries to speak it. His tongue does not work, his mouth cannot shape the word, but nevertheless it comes from him. Rob. It echoes, tiny into the void, not enough, not true. He brings forth another, stronger one. My dam calls me Hob-Robyn.

  A sound like purling thunder escapes the beast-man; Rob realizes it is laughter, low and not terribly friendly. Even so. You are that, and more, little pwca. You are small, barely come to your power, yet that you have power is unmistakable. Otherwise you would not see me thus.

  Thus? His “voice” sounds thin, unfinished next to the Horned Lord’s thunder, yet is gathering strength with every echo.

  He who sired you sees the old man’s image, and the old man sees this. A shift, a glimmer, and a beautiful, pale stag-man stands before him. No less male than the dark one, no less potent and awe-full, but old; older than many an oak in the Shire Wode, and wise, and shining fair.

  It is my other aspect. I have many faces, each as powerful as the other. It is… interesting, that a stripling such as you would see not innocence, but awareness. Again, the blur, the shift and slide sideways into something Rob had no words for, and the light that had blazed forth then steadied sucked itself in, shaded ebon, gleamed along horns and lighting golden eyes with menace as well as wisdom. Of course. What else would you envision, o Hob-Robyn, darkling King of Shire Wode, one of few now walking the Ceugant who could so easily bear the cowl of death and vengeance?

  I… don’t understand.

  You must listen, little pwca. You must hear the breath beneath the words. The last, dying rattle of death, and rebirth.

  The Horned Lord charges. Rob has no chance to so much as throw his arms up in defense before he is picked up in the rack. Horns rake his flesh then he is flying, thrown aside… and just in time. Fire explodes upward from where he had stood. He cries warning but the Horned Lord merely smiles.

  Stay, young King. Stay, and watch the King die. Do you not know the true meaning of sacrifice?

  The flames burn hotter, higher, swifter than any mortal flame. The Horned Lord falls, screaming, writhing… changing.

  Silence. Darkness. Only a charred lump of ash remains… and the horns, blackened. Then the lump… moves. Rises. Covered in ash, dark as the Horned Lord had been, the figure is tall, and hooded, and it reaches for him….

  Somewhere in a cavern deep beneath the ring stones and the forest, his body convulses. Rob knows it, feels the waver of life pulsing from the heart line sunk into his breast. Hears the musical, polysyllabic language of the Barrow People, curling about the edges of the dream. It rings with power, with command: calling him back.

  He cannot go, yet. He has not heard.

  Instead, he reaches for those extended hands. There are runes scrawled over them, ba
cks and palms, whispers of forgotten lore. Tell me, he implores the cowled figure. I must know.

  There is a flash of white teeth beneath the hood, smile or snarl, he knows not which. Within those outstretched hands appear the antlers of the Horned Lord. Another smile, another murmur, this one resonating into the black, and now it is the horns that shimmer and shift before Rob’s eyes, the rune-marked hands shaping them into the longest bow he has ever seen… one to rival the power and grace that make the weapons of his mother’s archer-kin.

  Anadl tynged, the Hooded One says, taking aim. Anadlu eich tynged.

  And lets fly.

  It hits Rob square in the chest. He puts both hands to it, in almost the same instant takes in a huge breath, a gasp and swallow that rattles as the agony strikes.

  It is pain, clotting his lungs, a shard of agony stabbing fire into his ribs with every breath, the arrow swelling shock with every shudder of his flesh as he falls.

  Falling….

  He hears Marion, weeping as though her heart would break… hears frantic murmurs, spelling him from the void: his father, Cernun.

  Sees. Hears.

  Dies.

  Fading, falling, into blackness and the infinite, soul chilling as body shudders its last, stills.

  Then a hand clutches at his hair, and another splays flat upon his breast, burning. Twists. Pulls—to remove the arrow, arrow become heart line become real, solid against his breast—and yanks him upward.

  His body convulses, jerks against stone.

  His spirit, wings fouled, warms.

  No, Gamelyn says. No, not yet.

  Then the heart line wraps about his throat and pulls him from the black.

  WHEN ROB woke, hours later, spread-eagled upon the cavern floor, dry-mouthed and itching from the dried matter on his bare skin, he heard it.

  Like a breath, deep within a gravid belly. Like a heavy, slick-slow movement made underwater. Like a hum, deep and primal and almost inaudible, at the base of his neck and down his spine.

  Like the last, rattling gasp before the black, spilling secrets unto death.

  Like all of those, and none of them.

  “What do you hear?” Cernun asked him, and Rob lifted his head to see the old man sitting across the fire. He tried to push up, but failed. Instead he rolled over, clumsy with chill, shivering.

  “Nothing,” he whispered to the ceiling, his tongue thick and slow. “Everything.”

  From the shadows his father came, and covered Rob up with several furs. Cernun nodded, then leaned forward and fed up the fire.

  PAIN. PAIN, seizing his lungs, and the breath leaving him with a last, rattling gasp into the black….

  Gamelyn heaved up from the bedclothes with a muffled shriek. For a stuttered, shattered time he was unable to draw any breath back in, staggering up to his knees and clawing at the agony in his breast.

  Then, so abruptly he fell forward, both pain and the band about his ribs snapped free. Gamelyn sucked in a huge, grateful breath, then another. And yet another, his fingers digging into the woolen coverlets….

  Coverlets. He was in bed. His harsh gasps, punctuated by a slight wheeze, echoed against stone walls. His bed. His chambers. He dropped his head, still panting. The muslin bedclothes clung, damp and cloying, and his forearms, stretched out before him taut as weighted rigging rope, were wet with sweat.

  It had been a nightmare, nothing more, and the knowledge soothed him as his head began to clear, its pounding beginning to subside.

  His ribs felt as if he’d fallen from Diamant onto rock. Or as if Johan had been too assiduous in sparring practice.

  Gamelyn put his head in shaking hands. The nightmare must have been… spectacular. All the more because he didn’t dream. Well, not ones that he could remember, anyway. Nor, truly, could he remember this one. Except for the pain, striking his chest, and the breath caught within the pain… impossible to draw or release, as if it were not truly his own.

  A breeze riffled the curtains tied to his bedposts, skated across his heated, sweated skin. He looked up, found the full moon framed in his window, clearly lighting up the dormer room—in pale frost, though, instead of warm sunlit fire. Beautiful. And the breeze… it whiffled through his damp hair as if teasing breath back to him. His gasps had subsided to smaller pants, and it beckoned: cool, green, soothing.

  Lurching up from bed, Gamelyn made it two steps before vertigo made him clutch at the footer bedpost, tangling his fingers in the draperies there. His heart still hammered, his skin was still crawling with sweat, and the breeze from the window still beckoned. With a slight shake of his head and a small growl, he regained his equilibrium and tottered naked and unsteady over to the window. Leaning against the cool stone, he took in and then let out a huge, gusty sigh.

  Christ have mercy, but he never thought he would be so grateful for the mere act of breathing.

  The fields around Blyth were skimmed with the pale light, the tree line to the west and south black with shadow. The beginnings of the woodlands leading farther south, into the Shire Wode of Nottingham, and west toward Loxley.

  He wondered where Rob was, about now. If he was home, he and his father, from whatever business they’d had, or if Marion and Eluned were still snug in their cottage, tending to the upkeep while their men were away.

  His breath cramped within his ribs again, so savagely that he hunched over, eyes darkening. And against his closed eyes a shattered fragment showed itself….

  A figure on the forest’s edge, beckoning as he follows, and as he glides into the thick green Wode the figure is waiting. He has no face… nay, it is hidden, shadowed beneath a cowl, and as Gamelyn watches, the figure extends a hand to him.

  Only the hand is pushing against a great bow, taller than the hooded figure who wields it, and he draws back, releases, and the peacock-fletched arrow drives through Gamelyn’s chest and out his back, to lodge in the tree behind him as he falls….

  Sick—he feels sick not only with pain but sorrow, enough sorrow to end the world. Hunched over the windowsill, clenching his eyes and his teeth until pain throbs through his skull and the breath, once again, releases him….

  Gamelyn staggered, clung to the stone, and murmured a small litany into the darkness—a paean to Mary, first, then Her son, until the bleak, alien sorrow loosened its grip. He took in deep the cool air, let the moon-silver bathe him, remote and watchful.

  It was then he saw it.

  He blinked, several times, unsure that it was not another phantasm of nightmare hanging over him from sleep. Yet it did not waver. It stepped forward.

  It was the largest stag he had ever seen, with a spread of antlers that would seat a full-grown man. Its hide was uncanny pale, and the stag’s horns seemed dark in contrast, nearly black. It stood there, gleaming in the shadows of the tree line, then with a mind-bending grace stepped fully from the tree cover, pale fur casting from gleam to a glow that rivaled the moon’s silver light. It scented the wind, then let out a call—a note of longing, and hopeful recognition.

  Gamelyn’s heart lurched in his chest. He had never witnessed anything so beautiful, so wild, and so pure.

  Closing his eyes, he savored the image, then opened his eyes again, eager to take the loveliness in again, to feel the surge of… whatever it made him feel.

  But the stag was gone.

  V

  THE VERY next night, they blooded Rob into a copper goblet, bound him, eyes and hands, and took him to the flat bluestone altar of the standing stones ringed above the caverns. Uncovered his eyes to a full moon, and the fires blazing, before not only the covenant but a gathering of the common folk bound to their protection.

  Bright, it was, almost bright as day, but dim compared to the light in Marion’s eyes as she put the wreath of vine and mistletoe upon Rob’s black hair and called him, not novitiate, but drywydd.

  Drywydd. The word teased at memory, and as Rob listened for it, the knowing came to him in a flash: the Horned Lord, gleaming ebony, had called him
like to that, had called him….

  Dryw. It means “Seer,” in the old tongue of your dam’s blood. The voice sounded in his skull, deep and thick, and Rob beheld sudden movement over by one of the guardian stones, the south-most one. The mist of hot breath in the night, the gleam of horn and teeth, the glitter of golden eyes….

  Rob blinked, shook his head, and in that distraction, He vanished.

  The people murmured approval around him, almost a sigh, but Rob could nevertheless hear the ebb and rise, the echoes of something in truth beyond hearing. Could feel it, pulsing up through the stone beneath his bare feet.

  “Attend!” Adam’s command was instantly heeded, the gatherers falling silent. His brown head was oddly bare to the moonlight—no crown of horn and green this night—and as he walked toward Rob, the reason became clear. The horn-crown was held, outstretched, in his hands.

  Like the cowled archer in his Seeking, the one who had… killed him.

  For one ragged breath, Rob’s knees quavered and the need to flee possessed him. Spreading his feet wider, he set himself against the rock—with the rock—and reminded himself this mortal clad in the Horned Lord’s power was his father.

  Aye, little pwca, that I am. Another flit of horn and shadow near the south dolman, then, again, merely the hint, the breath and beat beneath Rob’s bare toes. It thrummed heavy, meeting and matching the sudden thump of his own heart against his ribs as Adam placed the horn-crown at his feet.

  “Your Maiden is now Mother.” Adam rose, his voice pitched quiet. Nevertheless it carried across the gatherers, sending them swaying like corn in a soft breeze. “She has given not only a daughter but a son to the Horned One.”

  Eluned came forward, bearing the copper goblet. And if Rob had thought the grounding of the horn-crown to set him sideways, it was nothing next to what surged forth. His mother held up the copper goblet and poured it over the stone beneath his feet. Nay, surge was not the word for it; it was as if there truly was a great and couchant wyvern coiled within the earth, taking in a great, heated breath then releasing it, mist to cover the crimson-dark that runneled over stone and into the fecund soil. Rob drew in another breath, could taste it, on the back of his tongue, thick and heavy and present, the beating, pulsing heart of the forest and the breath of it, shifting and ebbing, filling him. Filling….