The Green Lady and the King of Shadows

by Moyra Caldecott

  Lukas lifted Creiddylad, whose brief moment of youth had already passed, and the little party set off again. They took the same route that Lukas had taken that first time when he had encountered the stranger on the Tor, the path in many places overrun with thorny strands of bramble and phalanxes of nettle.

  When they finally reached the first of the faintly marked earth walls that Lukas had noticed that first day, her face lit up. ‘You need carry me no further,’ she said and slipped to the ground.

  ‘I think you should . . .’ Collen began to say, and then he stopped because he could see that she was standing now as straight and tall as a young woman.

  Lukas remembered the girl with the flowering bough and the green cloak in his dream. A twig of apple buds he had given Creiddylad in the orchard was still clutched in her hand, but now it was a blaze of blossom. She looked at it, smiling, her eyes the colour of the summer sky.

  Lukas rushed off the trail and broke off two more branches for Collen and himself, one of hawthorn and one of oak. The hermit took the oak without question. He knew that they were all to play their part in a strange and ancient drama and held himself in readiness. Whether he himself had been one of the original protagonists he did not know. What his role would be exactly no one could tell. But he knew, whether he liked it or not, he had become part of it and he must see it through to the end. He followed quietly as they began to climb.

  * * * *

  Below them in the forest, though they did not know it, Cerdic ran, stumbling from one path to another, hardly aware of what he was doing, or where he was going, knowing only one thing and that was that he wanted to get as far away as he could from the pale bleeding figure of the boy he had left for dead.

  * * * *

  At each turn of the spiral the woman seemed to grow younger until by the time that they were nearly free of the forest she was the young girl Lukas had seen in his dream. Her beauty made them gasp — but even as they gazed at her in admiration a chill shadow passed over them. They looked up — and were shocked at what they saw. A tall building towered over them that Lukas knew had not been there when he had climbed the Tor before. It bore a close resemblance to the image he had first seen of the sorcerer’s house in the forest, the entrance guarded by tall columns of dark wood carved all over with sinister two-faced severed heads and weird designs of monstrous beasts and deformed men and women.

  Gwynn ap Nudd himself stood before the doorway, his eyes glowing like live coals, his cloak of shadows falling at his side like the giant folded wings of a bird of prey, watching and waiting.

  The man had been transformed. How could they hope to touch him now with their little bottle of well water, no matter how holy, their boughs and their piece of amber?

  ‘He’s seen us,’ whispered Collen hoarsely. And as he spoke the words, they were filled with such dread that they found that they could no longer move their limbs.

  They heard a voice as hollow as thunder in a cave.

  ‘You are welcome,’ the darkness from the centre spoke. ‘I have prepared a feast for you.’

  They stared at him, wanting to speak, but no words would come from their numb lips. Lukas remembered the time in Collen’s hut when he could not speak and he felt sick with fear.

  The King of Shadows raised his arm and the sound of it was like the sound of giant wings beating above them.

  ‘Come!’ he cried, and they found that they could move their limbs again but only in the direction that would bring them nearer and nearer his dread presence. Lukas looked to Collen for comfort, but he found that the hermit was looking as frightened as he was. Only Creiddylad held her head high and walked ahead as though she were choosing of her own free will to do so.

  Lukas felt ashamed, and gave up all thought of fleeing.

  They walked between the great columns. They entered the hall. The Lord of Annwn walked ahead of them and took his place on a huge and gleaming throne of gold. They stood before it dwarfed by the great wooden columns that held the roof up, by the huge carved wooden statues on either side of the throne, and by Gwynn himself who seemed to be larger than any man they had ever seen.

  In the centre of the hall a long banquet table had been laid with the most delicious food it was possible to imagine. The dishes were of gold, the goblets of fine crystal. Lukas’ mouth watered until he remembered the last time he had been faced by one of Gwynn’s feasts.

  Around the table on smooth, well-worn benches sat beautiful young girls and handsome young men, all dressed in rich and colourful clothes, all cheerful, all talking and laughing amongst themselves as though they were having a good time. At the side musicians played exquisite music.

  Gwynn looked down at the scene with satisfaction.

  ‘Sit!’ he said, his voice almost benign. ‘Eat! Enjoy!’

  There were places vacant and prepared for them near the head of the table, but not one of them moved towards them. Lukas felt strongly impelled to do so, but his recent experiences had taught him a great deal, and he resisted with all his strength.

  ‘Sit!’ commanded Gwynn ap Nudd, Lord of Annwn, once again, and the beautiful young people around the table fell silent and looked at the three strangers with growing resentment in their eyes.

  Lukas, finding that the power of Gwynn’s eyes was forcing him forward, exerted his own will to turn his back on him and walk towards the door. He half expected there to be an uproar at this, but there was no sound from behind him and he reached the doorway unmolested.

  He took a step forward, longing for the fresh and lovely air he believed would greet him as he stepped through the dark portal. He wondered if Collen and Creiddylad were following him. The sooner they left this enchanted place the better!

  But as he stepped out through the door he had entered no more than a few moments before, he gasped. Where there had once been a landscape of forested islands, flowering reed beds and water, he now saw a city that stretched to every horizon. Where there had been trees, there now were buildings. Where there had been living light reflected off water, there was now harsh, dead light reflected off glass. Huge chimneys belched steam and black smoke.

  Nowhere did the people touch the earth. Nowhere did the people look to the sky.

  A sound above him made him look up, and metal birds that roared flew across the sky in every direction, making so much noise that Lukas had to put his hands to his ears, and yet he could still feel the vibrations of their passing.

  A movement behind him caused him to spin round and he found that Collen and Creiddylad and Gwynn were behind him looking at the changed world.

  ‘But there is smoke between the people and the sky,’ Lukas cried. ‘How can they see the sun?’

  ‘They do not need the sun,’ said the King of Shadows triumphantly. ‘I have given them heat. I have given them light. They can have heat and light at a touch. Why should they want the sun?’

  ‘The earth,’ Lukas said sadly. ‘Where is the earth, the lovely growing green, the trees, the birds . . .?’

  Gwynn laughed and his laugh was like the sound of thunder over distant mountains. Lukas looked desperately for some sign of the world as he had known it. He had never seen so many people, never dreamed of so many . . . thousands upon countless thousands . . . and from their city he could hear sounds . . . sounds of hooting, screeching, banging, roaring . . . voices babbling incessantly from boxes . . . music, wild and clashing, frantic music . . . each sound rising higher and higher to compete with the rest . . . until the people were encased in sound . . . encased in Gwynn’s artefacts and gifts . . .

  Of all the levels of Being that had once been man’s reality, only the one was left — the material, the physical.

  ‘See how happy they are,’ said Gwynn. ‘I have given them everything they want!’

  And they were shown the faces of the people, and they could see that they were smiling, and laughing. But in their eyes there was something Lukas had never seen in the eyes of the people he had known . . . boredom . . . emptiness
. . . For all their possessions there seemed to be no satisfaction.

  They had lost the memory of the earth and its subtle energies and its fine harmonies. They had lost the capacity to reach deep into a wisdom greater than their own. Even their language no longer had words through which the ancient mysteries could be remembered and understood.

  Bitterly Creiddylad lifted her face to Gwynn’s.

  ‘You have cut them off from everything that comes to them from God and have forced them to live like blind maggots in a universe of splendours they cannot see.’

  ‘That is only the beginning,’ Gwynn said. ‘When I am ready they will plead for me to give them the one thing they lack. A god. And when they plead I will answer them: “I am Gwynn. You are my people. Do you want two suns? I will give you two suns. Do you want to live inside a crystal ball? You shall live inside a crystal ball. Do you want a new universe? I will give you a new universe!” ‘

  ‘A poor thing it will be!’ Creiddylad said boldly. ‘A universe, limited to your idea of what a universe should be!’

  Gwynn’s eyes flashed black fire. He lifted his arms like wings over her and they could feel the blast of his malevolence hot upon them.

  ‘You have refused my feast and now you mock me,’ he screamed. ‘There is no room for you in my world!’

  ‘Death was ever your kingdom,’ she said quietly, holding her ground. ‘But death used to be the gateway to a numinous land where the soul might rest before it continued its journey to the higher realms. Now you have become no better than those who fill us with the fear and dread of both life and death.’

  The air roared around them with his rage.

  ‘I’ll show you!’ he shrieked. ‘I’ll show you!’

  He looked around wildly for something that would impress her. In the west the sun was lowering to the horizon. Magnificently its vast red bulk slid down the green and silent slopes of the domed heavens.

  He stretched his arms above his head.

  ‘I will change the motion of the sun!’ he roared. ‘Even the sun will obey me!’

  They could see him straining his will towards the sun, his eyes fixed and staring. But still like liquid fire the great orb moved at its own pace, on its own course.

  They saw his face distort with rage and disappointment, and they trembled to think what he might do in his frustration. But the effort must have depleted him, because instead of rounding on them as they were sure he would, he stood a while hunched and brooding, the sullen and shadowy centre of a whirlpool of deadly currents of energy.

  They found they were free of the spell that before had made it so difficult for them to move against his wishes, and, had it not been for the currents that overlapped the summit and caught and flung them back, they might have prevailed at that moment against him.

  * * * *

  Cerdic found the forest around him unaccountably dark. It was as though the sun had been suddenly extinguished in some way, and birds that had been singing moments before were now silent. He looked around himself uneasily. Something . . . something was very wrong. He was not in the forest at all but in a strange place, buildings such as he had never seen before rising taller than the tallest trees, stone and metal and glass where there had been trunks and branches and leaves, filthy tin cans and paper where there had been bracken and brambles. Weird sounds and sudden flashing lights bore in on him and he found himself dodging people who were pushing and jostling past him. A door opened and he heard shouting and banging. Suddenly a figure came hurtling through the door as though thrown by someone from inside. He looked down at the face, blood trickling from the side of a pale mouth. It reminded him of Matthew. Terrified, he looked up at the doorway and saw the red-faced thug who had put him there. It was his own face, older, coarser, stubble upon his chin, but unmistakably his own face.

  He ran. He ran on the hard concrete and tarmac, down stinking alleyways where rats scavenged amongst rotting garbage and squealed at him as he passed. Someone threw a bottle at him which narrowly missed and shattered in a thousand lethal splinters on the wall beside his head.

  He turned a corner and saw a group of dark figures beating a body on the ground. He tried to turn back, but they had seen him and abandoned the victim they already had for the new one they could see running from them. They cornered him against some mildewed boxes and beat his head in. As he fell, trying to keep the kicking boots from blinding him, he knew that this must have been how Matthew felt . . .

  ‘I am in hell,’ he thought. ‘I have died and I have gone to hell in punishment for what I have done to Matthew.’

  * * * *

  On the top of the Tor the little group saw that the deep rich purple of the eastern sky above the layer of smoke had paled . . . and was beginning to shine and glow. It would not be long before the moon arose.

  Gwynn saw it. He roused himself and turned towards it.

  ‘The moon at least will obey me,’ he muttered hoarsely. ‘The moon shall not mock me!’ He gathered himself together again, rising tall and as black as night. They could feel the waiting in the air . . . the tense holding back until the disc of silver should appear above the layer of fog.

  Creiddylad raised her talisman in her right hand and her bough of glowing blossom in the left. Lukas saw her face flash with pain as she forced herself to move through the field of the sorcerer’s dark energies and stand in front of him.

  Both Lukas and Collen tried to move forward to help her, but they were flung back and lay groaning on the ground. Helplessly from there they watched the young woman standing before the fierce King of Shadows.

  ‘Gwynn,’ she said clearly, but Lukas caught the hint of a tremor in her voice.

  In an instant Gwynn moved his gaze from the horizon to see who dared stand so close and call him by his name. His eyes sparked angrily to see that it was the woman who had rejected him.

  Black fire suddenly flared up around them and crackled in the air.

  Lukas cried out for the safety of the woman he loved, but, still held by an invisible force, he could do nothing to help her.

  Mercifully, when the fire died down, she was still there, confronting Gwynn. He was lifting his hand against her in the gesture that Lukas had come to dread. The air around her was thick with acrid smoke and they could see she was holding her ground only with the greatest difficulty.

  ‘Gwynn!’ shouted Lukas desperately. He knew he could move no nearer, but he hoped his voice would cause a distraction. For a moment Gwynn wavered, and in that moment the girl gained strength visibly.

  The moon rose. It swam in the clear dark sky like a shining swan, irradiating light from every magic feather.

  The sorcerer forgot his opponent and turned his attention to the moon. He raised both his arms, his cloak of shadows billowing out so that its darkness covered all the land.

  Creiddylad held her ground and lifted her stone of power high, the bough of blossom beside it in the other hand.

  The moon beams found her in spite of Gwynn’s dark cloak, and Lukas gasped to see them join the light that lifted from her shining face, giving it a power and splendour far beyond anything he had ever seen.

  Across the huge and endless sky, light moved and flashed. It seemed to him Gwynn’s cloak swirled and flew, trying to break up the beams and rays of light and prevent them reaching the earth.

  Who knows if he would have succeeded had Collen, Creiddylad and Lukas not found in their hearts the words of an ancient and powerful prayer they had believed they had forgotten.

  Suddenly from the full circle of the horizon, above the black and ghastly fog, rose Shining Beings greater than the moon, more fiery than the sun. The transparent blue at the heart of any candle flame was dark to the light that swept and swirled across the horizon. Above it, arrows of white light swiftly rose, curved and fell in a shower of sparks, each one capable of turning the earth into an inferno beside which the mighty sun would seem a child’s harmless toy. A wind of flame blew hard and fierce, crackling and howling . . . l
ightning stabbed and thrust . . . Nowhere in the violent beauty of the night could the Lord of Annwn hide.

  Lukas shut and covered his eyes, but even through the lids and the thick bone of his hand, he could see the dazzle and sweep of light . . . the flurry of dark . . . and the final burst of brilliance.

  He fell down on the earth and hid his face . . .

  * * * *

  In the monastery that night Matthew fought for life. He had not been dead when Brother Peter carried him to the infirmary. All night long light and dark seemed to swirl and eddy around him. Sometimes he thought he heard voices, fine and high like the voices he imagined angels would have. At other times he heard harsh sounds and once he heard a scream that he thought he recognized.

  ‘Cerdic,’ he murmured, and Brother Peter who was sitting beside his bed leant forward at once and wiped his forehead with a cool damp cloth.

  ‘Cerdic is not here child,’ he said softly. ‘Don’t be afraid.’

  ‘Cerdic,’ whispered the boy again, and Brother Peter fancied that he heard no fear or hate in his voice, only pity. Tears came to his eyes. He had been sitting beside Matthew trying to pray, but finding that he could think of nothing but how much he disliked Cerdic. All his life Cerdic had enjoyed killing birds and insects and beasts — not just for food — but for pleasure. All his life he had terrorized anyone smaller or weaker than himself. It was as though the faculty of imagination, the eye of the soul, whereby the awareness of a person can leave its home and range freely amongst the rest of creation, seeing what others see, feeling what others feel . . . was missing in Cerdic. Brother Peter knew that until Cerdic found this Eye in himself and learned to use it — he would stay the blind, stupid bully that he was.

  * * * *

  It seemed to Cerdic that he lay a long time in a pool of his own blood, darkness and filth around him, pain in every limb. His tormentors had gone, no doubt thinking that he was dead.

  ‘Please God — let me not be dead!’ His mind said these words over and over again almost without his willing it. He was terrified of the hell the Abbot had described so vividly on so many occasions. He struggled to move his body but it would not move, he struggled to open his eyes but they would not open . . . he longed for the sunlight and the trees . . . the soft grass and the smell of herbs . . . and he even longed for the quiet routine of the monastery that had been so irksome to him before . . . anything . . . so long as it was life and away from this ghastly, soulless darkness that surrounded him. If only he could have the forgiveness the monks were always talking about . . . if only he could have another chance to start again . . .