Avilion

by Robert Holdstock

  He ran from grassy slope to underground passage, with a raging torrent of water carrying him in the dark, until suddenly ahead:

  The dark shapes of the Iaelven, doggedly walking their trail, the small boy walking in the middle of them, a pack on his back, a staff in his hand, his head turning this way and that as he took in the strangeness that surrounded him.

  Haunter roused Jack. They were in a vast cavern. Sound echoed and echoed again. The walls were patched with phosphorescence. A river ran through the centre, but there were stone banks on each side, and the Amurngoth had built a fire in the distance and were crouching at the edge of the icy water itself. The sound of their talk was shrill and unpleasant. The boy was sitting under the guard of a small Iaelven. He was wrapped in a leaf cloak. One of the Amurngoth was washing his clothes.

  Where is this?

  A crossing place, Haunter said. They are waiting for another clan. They are close.

  Jack watched from hiding as a strange act of care occurred. Spears were joined at the point to make a rack, and the boy’s wet clothing was hung there to dry. Two of the Iaelven went to the bulging water-scoured walls and scratched marks, using dark stone knives. The whistling and clicking was constant, a persistent chatter which suddenly stopped.

  A second band of Amurngoth emerged from what Jack had thought to be a shadow on the rock wall, but was most likely the exit from a separate cave system.

  These were more colourful and taller. The two bands spread out cautiously across the sloping bank of the underground river, and sat down, facing each other on either side of the boy.

  An argument occurred. Much slapping of the cold rock. Much shaking back of the long hair. Several times small stones were scattered angrily between the two groups, one or other of the two sides reaching to a pouch to grab a handful of the pebbles and throw them.

  After a while there was silence. The new band stood and stalked, without referring to the others, across the icy water and disappeared into a cleft in the rock again.

  The boy crowed with laughter. Whatever he understood of the situation, he had at least comprehended that something had failed for his captors, an exchange perhaps, a trade. The wet clothes were taken down and flung at the lad.

  He pulled them on without demur. The band rose and gathered their weapons and sacks, and were soon lost at the far end of the cavern.

  They are stuck with him, Haunter laughed. I think we should stick with them.

  I agree.

  Later, they were walking through sun-dappled woodland. The Iaelven seemed almost to fly as they passed through this place, moving so fast that Haunter was breathless. The guardians of the boy lifted him and lowered him, like two parents with their child. Their progress was so fleet that at times Jack/ Haunter found himself in silence, aware of nothing but shadow and sun through the canopy, streaks of light and silence.

  Then a whistling cry would alert him to the direction they had taken. Soon he could smell them again, and soon they were descending, but not before Jack had seen the state of his body, his limbs obvious to his inspection, his face reflected back when he stooped to drink from a shallow pool of water.

  His hands were brown, the bones gnarled, his skin so translucent that he could see the network of thin veins deep in his flesh. When he touched his face he felt no flesh at all, just carved wood, dry-lipped and stark.

  I’m a corpse! I’m drying out!

  A corpse in good hands, Haunter reassured him. Give me control. You are in good hands. Now get back to dreaming. Create! Bring life to the wood. You, the human. We are going deep again, and this will be difficult. But I think the journey is almost over . . .

  He slept and he dreamt, and in his dream he saw the king’s stone, though it cast no shadow. He had an idea, now, of where his sister had gone. But he had been gone a long time from the villa. In his dream he began to question whether he had done the right thing, forging his way to the edge of the wood; on a whim; with the idea that he could summon the spirit of his grandfather, and in doing so ‘read’ the memories of the man, in the hope that the old man would have found stories to do with Yssobel.

  You were right, Haunter whispered through his dream. Your intuition was right. How we go from here, I don’t know. Stay sleeping. We’re almost at the cavern. These Iaelven are even more familiar to me now.

  When Jack woke next it was with a start, an unvoiced cry of fear.

  The Amurngoth’s face was close to his, long fingers gripping his shoulder, foul breath dizzying and vile as he became more aware and focused.

  The cat’s eyes were wide. Jack became aware that he was in a rock-walled hall, from which hung bones, skulls and shapes fashioned out of wood. And as he looked harder, he saw the petrified forms of both Amurngoth and human. There was a dull glow in the place, and the echoing of movement and voices, the familiar song of the Iaelven.

  This was the trophy hall.

  Almost out. The stone figures are dead heroes from the Iaelven wars. I can hear their whispered memories.

  The haunter side of Jack had withdrawn when this Amurngoth had approached, though not completely. Its whisper came to him: Female.

  Another Amurngoth passed behind the female, glancing down. There was the smell of fresh winter air. The creature that held him offered him a carved bowl of pungent fluid, and he realised it was water. Jack sipped it reluctantly, though the taint was of nothing more than moss. When he had drunk a little, she cast the bowl aside and as if by magic produced the polished iron elf-shot that Jack had been carrying. She looked at it carefully before casting it aside too. Transfixed by the fierce eyes of the Iaelven female, Jack was only vaguely aware that his leather packs were still beside him, opened but not ransacked.

  Knew we were following.

  No danger. Stay calm.

  The Amurngoth rose to her feet and pointed back into the hall. Jack felt weak as he struggled to stand, and was still shocked at the skeletal nature of his body. He was aware also that his beard and hair were long and matted, coarse with sweat and mud, and stinking powerfully.

  In the distance he heard a boy’s wailing cry. It broke down not into sobs but into growls of rage. A fighting spirit.

  The female Amurngoth never let her gaze shift from Jack’s, but she was watching him restlessly.

  ‘Let the boy go . . .’ he started to say, and at once her hand clutched at his throat, the long fingers finding pressure points and causing him pain. The hold did not relax, but again he managed to gasp:

  ‘Just let him go back. He doesn’t belong here. What good can he bring you? He’s unhappy . . .’

  A series of clicks in his face, accompanied by a fetid stench, seemed to signify that he should be quiet.

  Haunter, distantly, unnecessarily, whispered: She says no.

  The Amurngoth picked up the water bowl and squeezed liquid from a sack that she carried. The sludge was dull red, and smelled of fruit. She offered this to Jack but he turned his face away. Placing the bowl down beside him, the female rose and departed, but as she did so she revealed to Jack’s view a slim and silver woman, a pale gleam in the trophy hall. She was as thin as a willow, and it was only the grey of her hair and the pallor of her face that made her seem silver. Her dress was grey as well, although it picked up the phosphorescence of the cavern. Her eyes were green and seemed not to see. They were blind eyes, blinded by time and sorrow. They saw Jack, but from a soul that had long since become weary. And yet she was lovely.

  She stood above him for a moment before slowly kneeling and taking his hand in hers.

  ‘You saw me once,’ she said. ‘There was a fire in the field behind your home. You were young. The change-hunters let me out into the air and I saw you. Did you see me?’

  Jack struggled to find memory in this hall of chaos. He scoured his childhood dreams. He couldn’t remember.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

  She didn’t answer him. Cocking her head, she touched his cheek with a slender finger; ephemeral and sad.


  ‘Jack, you are at the edge of your world again.’

  ‘You know my name?’

  ‘I know your name. I watched you play, I watched you grow. You are home now, a field away, a wall away; your villa is there, beyond this hill. You must not try to save the boy. The Iaelven have a task for him.’

  He stared at her, confused. ‘Who are you? Do you have a name?’

  ‘Nothing, no one of importance,’ she said dreamily. ‘I was taken as a small child, and sometimes I think my name in the old world was Deirdra, though perhaps that is just a wish. Here, they refer to me as Silver.’

  ‘You’re a Change. That much is clear.’

  ‘Yes. Like the boy you followed, but older. Much, much older.’

  She didn’t look old at all. Jack was again struck by her elfin beauty. ‘Why did they steal you?’

  She smiled, leaning back on her haunches. ‘For a task that I refused. They brought me here, yes, a Change in swaddling: to be a bride.’ She laughed quietly; leaning forward, she whispered, ‘To go willingly is one thing. The Iaelven do not understand resistance.’

  Again she sat back, moonglow in frail body, ancient beauty sustained by the under-realm.

  She sighed. ‘I know what is going through your mind.’

  ‘That you should escape?’

  ‘That I should escape,’ she echoed. ‘But my time is gone. I am now in limbo. I age very slowly. And your son, if he fights, will be in limbo too. You should go back into the fresh air, Jack. The Iaelven have been tolerant of you. That tolerance is a rare gift.’

  His son? She meant the Hawkings’ boy.

  ‘What do they want with him?’

  Silver shook her head. ‘Nothing until he’s grown. The Iaelven travel the under-realms and sometimes they need the strength of men like you, like the boy. Human strength. If they’ve taken your son . . .’

  ‘He’s not my son.’

  She seemed surprised. ‘If they’ve taken the nameless boy it’s because they have lost one of his kind. There is nothing you can do for him, Jack.’

  ‘And for you?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she repeated, with a shake of her head. ‘I am the ghost bride. I denied the Iaelven warrior who fetched me. I wax and wane with the moon now, but they will never let me die. Go on, Jack. Go home.’

  She rose, serene and gentle, translucent. Turning from him she walked away, but her left arm stretched back, the pale hand reaching for him, and he stood and took that cold hand. She walked him through the trophy hall.

  Echoing distantly, he heard the sound of a boy’s voice, still angry, defiant.

  Fight, he thought. Fight for your life.

  The trophy hall narrowed and became no more than a ferny and dank crevice in the hill. Silver stepped aside and pushed Jack forward. He caught the last glance in her eyes, the last sallow smile, the subtle movement of her lips as she whispered goodbye.

  Then he stepped out of the hill and onto the open land. It was icily cold, and in the dead of night. The field that stretched away from him, down towards the villa, was frosted. The villa was a dark sprawl of buildings with bright torches along its outer walls. There was a sense of desertion about the place. The moon was crescent. The surrounding hills were dark in the gloom, though against the pale night cloud the valleys that led away from here could be seen as cuts in the ridge.

  A man was standing in the middle of the field, holding a guttering torch. He was leaning forward, peering hard at the hill, at the cleft in the hill where it opened below the tree line.

  Silver gave Jack the lightest of pushes with her finger. He glanced back to acknowledge her as she withdrew into her own darkness. Then he stepped out into the frosting night and called for his father.

  Steven Huxley dropped the torch and bowed his head, and Jack went down to greet him.

  ‘I’m home,’ he called. ‘I’m home! And I know where Yssobel has gone.’

  PART • TWO

  The Villa

  The Valley

  At dawn on the day of her fifth birthday, Steven took Yssobel to see the valley through which her mother had returned, several years ago, after her time in Lavondyss, the land beyond time, the place of healing. Yssobel was a strong and robust child. Steven had hoisted her onto his shoulders for the walk, and she gripped his hair with small fists of iron. Her legs, clamped around his neck, threatened to strangle him.

  ‘Easy, girl. Easy. My neck’s not as young as it used to be.’

  Yssobel was excited by the dawn treat, although as yet she had no idea of why she was being taken to see the valley known as imarn uklyss. All she knew was that imarn uklyss meant ‘where the girl came back through the fire’.

  The air was fresh, the light stark and clear.

  ‘The valley! The valley!’ she chorused as her father walked her through the enclosures, towards the tall gate that separated their homestead from the wild. And though she shouted the words in English, she also called them out in other languages.

  Aged five, Yssobel could already speak in tongues, and her favourite was the language of her mother Guiwenneth, which had a ring to it and which could be used effectively in arguments with her older brother Jack because of its rich content of abusive expression.

  The valley opened before them, forested on both sides, wide, with the silver gleam of three rivers that seemed to flow from nowhere, disappearing into the distance to where the valley narrowed. There it curved away to the right, taking its secrets with it, to begin its dangerous course towards Lavondyss itself.

  But here, beside a stream, in the overhang of willows, sitting on the smoothed grey edges of rocks, Steven let his daughter down to survey the passageway through which her mother had returned. There were no creatures to be seen this morning, other than birds: a flock of starlings, the usual crows, and a solitary eagle circling in morose fashion, as if half asleep.

  Yssobel stared into the valley. The sharp breeze caught her auburn hair and she brushed at it; but her green eyes searched only for the unknown. Her feet kicked at the rock, her hands clutched the cold stone; curiosity made her pale face glow.

  Steven watched her for a while.

  How like Guiwenneth. That half of you that is Guiwenneth. The wildwood half.

  It was not the same with seven-year-old Jack. The boy, tall and edgy for his age, was human in all respects; or if not, then the wildwood had not yet exerted its force upon him.

  This was not Jack’s day. This was Yssobel’s.

  The sky brightened, the valley shed its gloom. Slowly.

  ‘That eagle’s seen its prey,’ the girl announced suddenly, just as Steven was about to speak.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘The gleam in its eye. It flashes with the sun. It’s cocked its head three times now, in the same circle. Breakfast is on the ground. The eagle is pretending not to know.’

  ‘You can see that from here?’

  Yssobel laughed and looked up at her father. ‘Can’t you?’

  When he looked back, the eagle had disappeared, only to reappear a moment later, rising with speed, legs dangling, wings beating, its prey hanging limply in its talons.

  ‘Sometimes,’ Steven said, ‘I believe you know this world better than I do. And I’ve lived here for twenty years.’

  ‘I dream that I’ve lived here for ages,’ the girl said quietly, then kicked the stone seat again with her heels and said in a sing-song voice: ‘The valley. The valley. Tell me. Tell me.’

  ‘Have you heard of the giant known as Mogoch?’ Steven asked. The girl frowned, then said brightly, ‘Yes. From Jack. He used his tooth to mark a great man’s grave.’

  ‘It is a big tooth,’ her father agreed. ‘And it marks the grave of Peredur. And do you know who Peredur is?’

  ‘An eagle!’

  ‘He transformed into an eagle, certainly. But he was a great king. And . . . and . . .’ The two of them exchanged a stare.

  ‘And?’ Yssobel prompted.

  ‘He was your grandfather.’

 
; ‘My grandfather was an eagle?’ The girl looked delighted.

  ‘More than that. Much more than that. But about the valley: this is the short and simple story: ‘At that time, in the life of this people, Mogoch the giant was set a task by the Fates and walked north for a hundred days without resting. This brought him to the furthest limit of the known world, facing the gate of fire that guarded Lavondyss.

  ‘At the top of the valley was a stone, ten times the height of a man. Mogoch rested his left foot on the stone and wondered for what reason the fates had brought him this far from his tribal territory, to the edge of the Unknown Region.’

  ‘What’s the Unknown Region?’

  ‘It’s what I call Lavondyss. Now be quiet and listen . . .

  ‘A voice hailed him. “Take your foot from the stone.”

  ‘Mogoch looked about him, looked down, and saw a hunter, standing on a cairn of rocks, staring up.

  ‘ “I shall not,” said Mogoch.

  ‘ “Take your foot from the stone,” shouted the hunter. “A brave man is buried there.” ’

  ‘Peredur! Peredur!’

  ‘Yes, Yssi. Peredur. Now be quiet.’

  ‘ “A brave man is buried there.”

  ‘ “I know,” said Mogoch, not moving his foot. “I buried him myself. I placed the stone on his body with my own hands. I found the stone in my mouth. Look!” And Mogoch grinned, showing the hunter the great gap in his teeth where he had found the brave man’s marker.

  ‘ “Well, then,” said the hunter. “I suppose that’s all right.”

  ‘ “Thank you,” said Mogoch, glad that he would not have to fight the man—’

  ‘He would have won - the hunter would have won!’

  ‘Yssi! Quiet! I’m trying to tell you the story.’

  She jumped up and down on the rock, her face beaming, hair swirling.

  ‘ “And what great deed brings you to the borders of Lavondyss?”

  ‘ “I’m waiting for someone,” the hunter said. “Someone of importance to me.”