Lukas shut the cupboard door and ran back to Collen’s hut. As silently and as strangely as it had come, the memory of the girl whose talisman he carried left him, and he thought no more about her.
* * * *
Half way back Lukas had to cross a stream, a small flow of bright water over mossy rocks. After stopping for a moment for a drink he tried again to prize the ring off by holding his hand under water and pulling at it, thinking that it might slide off more easily if his finger was wet. But it would not move and Lukas was startled to see that the clear crystal water seemed to be taking on the deep red hue of the gem. He withdrew his hand hastily, but the stream stayed red. It reminded him of blood and he ran away from it as fast as he could, pulling and tugging at the ring as he went.
* * * *
Gwynn was propped up on his elbow when Lukas reached the hut, his eyes on the door. The young man stood at the entrance and could not bring himself to enter for a moment. He gave the ring one last desperate tug, but he knew he could hide nothing from those dark and piercing eyes.
Unwillingly he stepped forward at last and put the pouch of crane-skin beside the wizard. Then he held out his hand to show the great ruby. The hawk eyes looked at it with satisfaction, and the thin mouth smiled.
‘You may keep it as a gift for your pains in fetching me what I needed,’ he said.
‘I do not want it,’ Lukas quickly replied. ‘I only meant to try it on and then I could not remove it.’
‘What? Refuse a ring that would pay a king’s ransom?’
Lukas looked at the ring. He had not thought beyond leaving the monastery. The ring would buy him lands enough to be a great lord. Gwynn watched him closely. Lukas could feel his eyes boring into him. He lowered his head in an attempt to escape the disturbing power of that gaze.
‘I do not want it,’ he repeated firmly.
‘I could teach you to use it,’ the sorcerer said. ‘It is no ordinary ring.’
In spite of his better judgement Lukas wanted to hear more. He fingered the great stone with his left hand, watching how it flashed and sparked. It had turned a stream red. What more could it do?
He looked up and, although his mouth still shaped the word ‘no’, Gwynn could see from the expression of his eyes that he was eager to accept. ‘Ha!’ he thought. ‘I have you now!’ Confident in that, he now turned his attention to the pouch Lukas had brought. With shaking hands he fumbled with the gold thread, drawing it tighter rather than releasing it.
Lukas reached out to help him. He undid the thread and took out the piece of amber. How was he to know that Gwynn could not have reached the talisman if another hand, not tainted as his had been, had not released it for him? The man smiled darkly as Lukas handed it to him, and then clutched it fiercely to his breast.
‘Now leave me. I have work to do,’ he said sharply. Obediently Lukas left, and sat on the flat stone outside, turning his new ring round and round in the sunlight. He fancied he saw a small dark figure deep inside the stone, but it was gone once more before he could be sure. He turned it in every direction trying to find the figure, but finally he decided he had imagined it.
The sorcerer called his name and Lukas at once rushed to the door. He found him standing tall in the middle of the hut, his skin whole and clean again, his complexion as sallow as usual, but with a healthy glow. The amber talisman was back in its pouch and strung from his belt.
Lukas was amazed.
‘You see you have helped me to health quicker than your bungling friend.’
Lukas winced at the sneering tone applied to Collen, but he said nothing to defend him.
‘Come, we will go now.’
‘We?’ Lukas asked, startled.
‘Yes. You want to learn the magic of the ring,’ Gwynn said. ‘Come with me and I will teach you.’
Lukas looked uncomfortable. ‘I am not sure,’ he said. He pulled hard at the ring again.
‘Hesitations? Second thoughts?’
‘Yes.’
‘Let me show you a sample of what I can do and maybe that will settle your mind.’
Gwynn pointed at the table. His finger was taut and stiff and Lukas could see the intense concentration in the man’s gaze. Astonished, Lukas then saw that the table was no longer a table but a black cooking pot with three legs.
Gwynn smiled at his expression.
‘And again,’ he said, and pointed at a stool Lukas had sat on many times. It crawled away on scaly legs. There was no mistaking the astonishment and admiration in Lukas’ eyes.
‘There is nothing I cannot do if I choose,’ Gwynn said, and added ‘nothing!’ under his breath with a particular emphasis as though he were trying to convince himself. ‘Such trifles are easy. Whatever you see that looks solid is not solid at all. The solidity is illusion. The reality is a dance of minute and potent energies. Redirect their paths for them and you change their appearance and their nature.’
‘But . . . but how do you do that?’
‘The power of mind can do anything, my friend, anything! It houses an energy that can create universes . . .’ Gwynn broke off, a dark shadow crossing his face. ‘But that I will not show you yet,’ he muttered.
Lukas had forgotten everything but the excitement of the new skills he was about to learn. Perhaps he might have had a thought that if he learned some of the sorcerer’s tricks he would be in a better position to release the prisoner, but if he had, it was not foremost in his mind.
‘Could I learn to do that?’ he asked eagerly, looking at the table that was now a cooking pot.
‘Certainly,’ said Gwynn smoothly.
‘Now?’
‘No. Not now.’
‘Why not?’
The King of Shadows laughed. ‘Could you master in one day what I have taken centuries to learn?’
Lukas looked embarrassed. He circled the ‘cooking pot’ curiously, wondering if it were just illusion or if a real change had taken place. Gwynn watched him amused.
‘Touch it,’ he said.
Lukas tentatively put out his hand. It felt real. It felt like a pot, not like a table.
He tapped it with his knuckle. It rang hollow.
He drew a deep breath. The man had indeed changed its entire nature.
Gwynn was watching him with satisfaction.
‘Do you want something moved? I can move it,’ he said, enjoying his pupil’s growing admiration. He pointed his finger at the loaf of bread that was now lying on the floor, and it rose and flew towards the door.
Lukas gasped. Suddenly the room was full of moving objects.
Gwynn laughed. ‘You could learn to do all that,’ he said smoothly.
‘Could I?’ The eagerness in his heart made the triumph of the dark lord easy. He nodded.
‘Come,’ he said again, gathering his cloak about him. Lukas turned blindly to follow him.
He was still in the doorway, but Gwynn was outside preparing to stride off, when Collen suddenly arrived. He had been hurrying and he was out of breath, his hair more like untidy straw than ever. As he saw Gwynn with Lukas so meekly following him, he was filled with rage and his eyes sparked angrily.
‘Lukas!’ he shouted, and Lukas had never heard his voice so strong and fierce. He halted in confusion, looking from one to the other, no longer sure what to do.
‘He is mine,’ Gwynn said coldly. ‘Come,’ he commanded Lukas.
Lukas took a step forward.
Collen stepped between the two. He looked like a fierce fighting cock, all his feathers ruffled.
‘Out of our way old meddler, or you will pay for it!’
‘Let him go or you will pay for it,’ snapped the hermit. Gwynn laughed. The noise was huge and hollow. The whole forest seemed to shudder at it.
Lukas saw Collen flex his muscles, and, fearing for his friend, he stepped forward and took him by the arm.
‘He has not captured me Brother Collen,’ he said soothingly. ‘I’m going of my own free will. I want to learn something that may be use
ful to us,’ he added in a whisper.
‘Your own free will?’ the hermit snorted. ‘If it is your own free will, tell the man you will stay with me now and follow him later to learn this “art” of his!’
‘Now,’ Gwynn snapped. ‘Or not at all.’
‘Will you jump at his command, or will you stand your ground and prove that you have a will of your own?’
Lukas looked from one to the other.
‘You see I have this ring,’ he said at last to Collen. ‘He has given it to me as a gift and I want to learn how to use it.’
‘What ring?’ Collen asked sharply, looking at his finger.
This one,’ Lukas held up the ruby.
‘I see no ring. There is no ring there!’
Lukas stared as the ruby gleamed on his finger.
‘It is illusion. He has bewitched you! There is no ring!’
Lukas stared at the ring again. Within the ruby . . . deep . . . deep within its depths he saw the shadow of a figure once again. He looked more closely. It was himself.
‘O God,’ he whispered.
‘Come,’ Gwynn cried. ‘Do you want to learn my trade or not?’
‘No,’ Lukas said brokenly, in an agony of regret. He wanted to, but he knew he did not dare. He had seen the figure of himself within the gem in chains like the woman in the cavern.
‘Then come and be my slave!’ Gwynn screamed and lifted his finger to Lukas.
‘No!’ Collen shouted, and with surprising energy for such an old man, leapt upon the sorcerer, knocking him down into the dust before the deadly pointing finger could reach its mark.
‘Run!’ he roared at Lukas and, such was the power of command in his voice, Lukas, without thinking, ran . . .
* * * *
He had not gone far however when he realized the enormity of what he had been about to do. Sorcery changed things according to the whim or will of the sorcerer — everything from cooking pots to living beings. Lukas thought about the prayers he had said daily since he could first talk — ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’. At first the words had been no more than sounds he uttered because it was expected. Then when he understood them a little better he had resented them. He did not want to obey the will of some stranger. He wanted his own will to be supreme. But now, running through the forest, he realized that if his own will were supreme then so would the will of every other individual and the ensuing chaos would be disastrous. ‘Thy will be done’ took on new meaning. He no longer thought of God as a kind of arrogant Abbot imposing his rules and regulations arbitrarily on the world but as the source of a beautiful and satisfying creation, a living pattern of infinite variety, that had a meaning and a purpose that would be harmed by the meddling of uninformed and petty wills. He knew that much as we try to ignore it and deny it, we are capable of seeing something of that meaning and purpose, and when we do, and work in harmony with it, we find our only true joy. He was ashamed that he had left Collen in danger and run to save himself. He turned at once and retraced his steps.
He found Gwynn nowhere in sight and Collen lying on the ground as though dead.
‘Holy Mother!’ whispered Lukas, kneeling beside him and taking him in his arms. His weight was a dead weight, but his eyes were the eyes of a living man. Summoning all his strength he lifted the heavy body and dragged it back to the hut. What a fool he had been! What a fool!
Collen was looking at him, trying to tell him something.
‘What? . . . What?’ He leaned as close as he could to the ashen lips, but no sound came from them.
Desperately Lukas looked into his eyes and tried to read their message. But he could not.
In despair he sat on the floor, put his head upon his knees and tried to think. His guide and mentor was silenced: he had only himself to rely on. This thought sobered him and he pulled himself together. What should he do? What? In his mind he searched everything that had recently happened and he saw again the scene between him and Gwynn, and examined it in every detail. He remembered how the sorcerer had tried to open the pouch but had failed. At the time he had thought that it was because his hands were so damaged by the fire, and he had hastened to help him. But now — now he suddenly knew the significance of that failure, and he remembered, he knew in that instant that the amber had once been his before he had given it as a gift to the one he loved. The secret magic of the talisman lay not only in itself, but in the spiritual energy of the one who possessed it.
‘How did it heal the sorcerer then?’ Lukas puzzled. The answer came to him with startling clarity: ‘Because I believed it would work. Because I lent him my strength.’ In that moment it did not seem strange to Lukas that he had mysterious powers bound up with an ancient talisman. It did not seem strange to him that he, Lukas, existed on many levels of time and space simultaneously; that the mysteries of his past were even now present and working through him without his conscious knowledge. He realized that we do not cease to live in the Spirit Realms because we live on earth. We may forget and need reminding from time to time just how complex and magnificent being human is, but we never lose our true capacities no matter how far we drift away into carelessness and ignorance. They are there for us to claim when we have made ourselves aware of them.
He leant over Collen.
‘Can you hear me?’ he asked, speaking clearly and loudly, knowing now what he must do. Collen could not nod his head, but his eyes acknowledged the question. ‘I brought a pouch of crane-skin from his house and in it there was a piece of amber, a talisman, that used to belong to me. After he held it, his skin healed. I am going to fetch it now for you.’
Alarm showed in Brother Collen’s eyes.
‘I know,’ Lukas said soberly, ‘it will be dangerous. But it has to be done. I see many things clearly now that I could not see before. When you are better we will take it to the prisoner in the cavern. It is hers.’ He believed at that moment it would give her the strength to free herself and to reclaim her youthful form. ‘But first, I must try and undo the harm that I have done you.’
Collen’s eyes looked into his, desperately trying to warn him.
‘If I fail we cannot be worse off than we are,’ Lukas said, and rose to leave.
But in fact many things could be worse. Collen watched him go, powerless to stop him.
12
Creiddylad waited in the dark cavern and time meant nothing to her. She had long ceased to look for release from the kind of non-life, non-death, in which she was encased. Twenty years or sixty, twenty centuries or sixty millennia, might have gone by — she did not know. The one small flame of hope that burned in her heart and prevented her losing her mind, was that Gwynn ap Nudd could not, in the long run, win. However much he thought he could alter the design of existence, what he would achieve would be no more than one small aberration, soon absorbed into the whole. And she, however much the darkness she was in might seem endless, knew that it yet might be no more than a small black fleck in the whole gigantic and magnificent weave.
But there was a cold shade that lurked beside this tiny flame. If it was known by the great Shining Ones of the upper realms that she was here suffering what she was suffering, why did they not come to her rescue?
She knew Gwynn had learnt the art of changing matter to his will. She knew he had stopped death in her and so prevented her life, her rebirth and her growth towards the light. Somehow he had closed her off from the great spirits she used to communicate with so freely.
Time and again this thought had troubled her.
Did they know? How could they not know?
She tried with all her inner strength to reach the Silence where she could hear their voices, but Gwynn had taken all her strength. Her mind floundered like a butterfly in mud, and could not take wing.
‘I must not feel pain, nor fear,’ she told herself over and over again. ‘I must wait and rest. Strength will return with rest, surely. Surely they will come to me. Surely they will send Gwythyr to me.’
But ti
me came and time went, and no strength returned to her crippled spirit, no message came from the great Realms of Light.
She saw only the King of Shadows, and then only for him to mock her misery.
It was hard for her to keep despair at bay; hard to keep her faith alive.
And then one day she had seen the young man . . .
At first she had not recognized him. She had seen him only as a faint hope, a stranger passing by who had seen her plight. But then when he drew his sword she saw that the great Spirits of the Realms of Light had not forgotten her. Gwythyr, for whom her heart cried day and night, her chosen one, her lover, had found her.
Now she waited for deliverance with hope, praying that the years had taught Gwythyr cunning to match his love. It was cunning and ruthlessness that had given Gwynn the edge before. She prayed that her love would not be tricked again . . . prayed that he had learned the wisdom and fortitude he would need for the task.
13
After Collen had used his healing powers on Matthew for the second time the boy slept for nearly twenty-four hours, waking at last clear-eyed and full of energy. The first thing he did was to go to the chapel and offer up a heart-felt prayer of thanks, and then he accosted Brother Peter and pleaded to be allowed to go to Lukas. The monk looked at the thin figure before him, the pinched face, the hollow chest, the shoulder bones almost poking through the homespun tunic.
‘What you need is some good wholesome food inside you,’ he said. ‘You’ll be going nowhere until I’m sure that you have been well fed.’
‘Does that mean I can go?’
‘After you’ve eaten . . . then we shall see.’
Matthew’s face broke into smiles. Brother Peter smiled back. It was impossible not to. In spite of a childhood that had been an almost continual illness, Matthew had a way of smiling that made you feel the world was the most wonderful place to be in and that you and he were sharing the secret of just how narrowly you might have missed being part of it.
Brother Peter took Matthew to the kitchen and pulled out a stool with three long spindly legs. He set before him a platter full of newly baked rye bread, a beaker of creamy milk and some good red apples, the last left in the storage barrel from the previous season’s harvest. He watched with satisfaction as Matthew ate hungrily.
The Green Lady and the King of Shadows Page 9
