by Ross Lawhead
“Um. What about the others?”
Freya’s brow furrowed. “What others?”
“The other kids like us. The ones back out there.” She motioned behind her.
“There are more of you out there?”
“Oh yes.”
“We were just the ones brave enough to come here. We saw the fighting, you know, and so thought it best to wait. But the others were still scared, even though it had obviously stopped.”
“How many of you are there? All together?”
“Oh.” Gretchen blinked at her. “Hundreds, at least.”
Freya paused to let this sink in. Hundreds? Hundreds of children here?
“I’ll take some men to find them,” Alex said. “And I’ll set up regular patrols—they might still be coming.”
“Good, thank you. And you three, take these children to the Langtorr anyway. And you two—take her to the dungeon, now that we know there is one. Lock her up. Also, a few of you—you lot, there—go over to the Beacon. Godmund is there, and I want him locked up as well. I don’t think he’ll give you any trouble. He doesn’t seem to be hostile; I just want to keep track of him. Try not to listen to his poetry—it’s appalling.”
Those knights left, their duties assigned, and Alex started ordering the rest of them.
“Who will rule this place, if not Modwyn?” Ecgbryt, the only other one left in the courtyard, asked Freya as Modwyn was led away.
“Alex, of course. With a little help from you, me, and Vivienne. We’ll be a sort of council,” she said, just as three knights entered, carrying the body of Daniel Tully between them.
_____________________ II _____________________
“Are you certain this is the place?” Ealdstan asked, placing his satchel on the ground.
“Yes,” Daniel said. And he was certain. The centre of the plain pulled on him like an elastic string. Standing here, he felt at rest. What he wasn’t certain about was how much he could actually trust a man whose face kept changing. Was it just him? It was like there was a fog inside his eyes. It was hard to focus.
Ealdstan raised his hands and spoke words that were ancient and powerful. The air became like static; Daniel could feel his skin prickle and he felt tightness in his body.
“What have you done?”
“I’m sorry, Daniel,” the old man said, “but this is going to hurt, literally, like hell.”
“No.” Daniel tried to evaporate, but the rubber bands were back. “Stop it,” Daniel said. “Let me go.” He struggled more and more, trying to physically break free this time.
“This is what I’ve been searching so hard for,” Ealdstan said. “If I had come here directly from our world, then I would have entered through it naturally, but I passed into Elfland through a different gate.” He said more of the ancient words that were low and loud and seemed to come up from his gut.
“What are you doing to me?” Daniel tried to move but found his feet stuck fast, his legs immovable as if trapped in concrete. He found that his arms were raised now, just as if he were back in Kelm’s torture chamber.
“I am sorry, Daniel, I am. It sounds as if you have been experiencing intense pain here in this world. I know naught of this Night that chases you, but I can see the marks it has left on you inside. I did not intend you this course but—well, I make no apology. You are useful to me most in your current purpose. This opportunity is too fortuitous to pass up. I will have to place the rest of my hopes on the girl. Freya.”
“What does that mean?”
“That,” Ealdstan said, “would take far too long to explain.” He raised his hands, spoke more of the ancient words, and electricity danced from the ground to the souls of Daniel’s feet. “That’s not to say that I wouldn’t explain—I most certainly would—but now there is no time.” He bent down and picked up his satchel again.
“Ordinarily I would have to kill you at this stage,” Ealdstan said. “I may be opportunistic, but not cruel. But in your state, that is impossible. You will still endure agony, though—agony I cannot imagine. For that, I do apologise, most heartfeltly.”
Ealdstan stood so close that Daniel could have reached out and grabbed him if he could move his arms.
“But if you need something to help contextualise your suffering, imagine this: picture yourself as a doorstopper, propping open a gate between worlds. That is more or less your purpose now. The door wants to close, but you won’t let it, and so you will be destroyed—but so also will be the door.”
“Let me go.”
Ealdstan really did look regretful. “No—I am sorry. I . . . Good-bye, Daniel, and thank you. Thank you for everything. I had hoped that you, perhaps—but never mind. The girl. It is the girl now.”
And Ealdstan started to pass through Daniel—stepping into him. Daniel howled as his body’s cells and molecules parted to allow him to go through. He could feel Ealdstan move through his chest, his stomach, his spine, and out the other side.
And then he was gone, and Daniel was still left, writhing in almost unendurable agony.
_____________________ III _____________________
Fergus had made a friend.
Actually, he had made many friends, Kieran had noticed, but he and Rory were always at each other’s side. It was as if they were tied together. Even when they were running around the weird, underground city, they were never more than a few feet apart from the other one. They scrabbled around in the rubble, pointing out interesting carvings to each other, or sifted through bent weapons and tools for things that might still be usable.
Kieran tried to keep them in view at all times—he was feeling the pressure of his brotherly responsibility acutely in this foreign place. The woman who had spoken to them all just a little while ago as they assembled in the tower’s courtyard had assured them that this place was safe for now, and that everything was going to be done to get them back to where they came from, but that it would be best to stay in or around the tower for the time being.
Which some of them did, but others found it too crowded, or the city outside the walls of the tower too intriguing. The knights intrigued them, with their strange ways and language, and many of the children took to following them as they traipsed in and out of the Langtorr, or set up camp, or sharpened their weapons, or disposed of those strange little dead creatures. None of the knights spoke English, but that didn’t seem to perturb the children. Fergus and Rory were clearly caught up in the adventure of it all, and tore around in banged up helmets, brandishing bent swords at each other. Kieran had told them twice to be careful and to stop what they were doing, but all he got back were reproachful looks, and then the sight of heels as they took off to escape him.
He was looking for them now, with a silver lantern that he had taken from the city. They loved running along the top of the thick walls next to that eerie throne on top of the pile of stone. He couldn’t see them now, but he thought they might be hiding from him. He needed to tell them that it was time to eat. But he couldn’t find them. They must’ve headed back in . . .
The interior of the building was a series of round passages, all spreading from a central, circular room. Kieran couldn’t find any trace of them there, but in the central chamber, there was a tunnel that had been closed by two large, stone doorways, now broken and set aside.
It would be just like them to go exploring, Kieran thought, and started down the tunnel.
It was long and dark and he would have stopped almost immediately, except that he could see footprints in the patches of dust and grit on the ground.
He walked for about fifteen minutes. Many times he nearly turned around and went back, but he kept thinking that if Fergus and Rory really were down here, then they had to be found. And he would give them a good old proper telling-off when he did so.
But the sounds that soon met his ears—clanking, grunting, barking—came from the other end.
The tunnel opened into a massive area, as big as the plain above, except that there were huge rocky spires the size of c
athedrals hanging down from the ceiling. At first he marvelled at them, and then he wondered how he could see them. They were being lit from below, but how? And where was that noise coming from?
He was on a sort of ledge. Creeping forward, he made his way to a rickety wooden frame that something was chained to—a boat? Why would anyone need a boat down here? There’s no water.
There were bonfires. Hundreds of them. It was another encampment below the city. He saw monsters; great, big, lumbering, rock-like things, muscled men with the faces of different animals, things the size of rhinoceroses but with hairy, shaggy bodies and faces, and yfelgópes running to and fro between them, alternately feeding and abusing them. It was like a mythological menagerie, and some steel spikes that had been sunk into the ground kept all the creatures in. Around the edges, and on the other side, he saw tents and buildings—a more ordered settlement. Did they know about this?
Did the woman, Freya, know that there was what seemed to be a vicious army right beneath her feet?
If she didn’t, then he had to warn them.
He turned to go but was stopped. There was a flutter of hands around his face, and the whole underground world went dark.
EPILOGUE
A Tale of a Western Isle Continued
I heard another version of the tale that ends in this way:
When Coel had finished reading the Gospels and then finished his prayer, he opened his eyes and saw the boy was still sitting before him.
“I have marked all that you have read,” the boy said. “Tell me, is there any hope of forgiveness in those words for my people?”
“I am sorry to say that there is not.”
“You just now read that ‘there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents, than on a multitude who do not need to repent.’”
“Sooner would my walking stick here sprout branches and leaves than God would forgive you,” Coel said and walked back to the beach where he made fire, ate, and slept.
The next morning he woke up and remembered that he had left his walking stick near the forest. He went back to retrieve it and found that it had, indeed, sprouted branches and leaves. It had, in fact, become a deeply rooted tree. At first he could not believe it, but he recognised the area around it, and he saw markings on the trunk of the tree that were only known by him from his stick.
The boy was sitting below the tree.
Coel recognised this as a true miracle and began praying for the boy’s salvation and instructing him in the true path. And the boy added this knowledge to the knowledge that he’d gained from the hidden people, and he grew as great in knowledge as he did in power. And though he was born all those years ago, his days have not yet run out.
The Marriage of Modern Fantasy and Ancient Myth
A conversation between
Stephen R. Lawhead and Ross Lawhead
ROSS: So, Dad. Growing up in the household that I did, fantasy and myth were things that were literally just lying around, in novel and reference book form. Whether you were writing books with more of a fantasy slant, or a historical emphasis, they almost always contained a myth or legend touchstone—the stories of King Arthur and Robin Hood, say, or even just the feel and aesthetics of the Mabinogion. Very rarely did you ever write just history or just fantasy. Is that accurate?
STEPHEN: I think it is. I want my stories to have a heft and authority that was often lacking in most other “sword and sorcerer” stories that were popular when I was growing up, in high school and college, say.
ROSS: It gave them a different feel—less like you were just making this stuff up for the heck of it, just to have fun.
STEPHEN: Well, I hope they are fun, though! I want people to have fun. If people aren’t having fun . . . but no, I like to imagine what it was like to gather ‘round the campfire and listen to the tribal storyteller—the bard—tell the stories that are important for the community. And these tales have survived the centuries; they’ve been around a long time and seem to deserve our attention and respect. To keep them alive is a worthwhile endeavour. Your new series is a little different in this respect, though. There are myths and legends in them, but it’s not a retelling of a specific tale.
ROSS: No. When it came time to write the Ancient Earth series and I wanted a more fluid sort of story that actually did involve swords and sorcerers and wasn’t based on a specific legend, I pulled as many myth elements as I could from lore and legends of Anglo-Saxon England in order to put some power behind the themes I was using and the world I was creating.
STEPHEN: I have a lot of respect for the way you have underpinned your stories with good, solid research. We’re lucky living here in Oxford—which, they say, has more published writers per square foot than any other city in the world. We have easy access to world-class museums, libraries, and the opportunity to plug into the vast accumulated learning of the University—which you’ve done, as when you learned Anglo-Saxon English. It shows seriousness and a commitment to the craft.
ROSS: Thanks.
STEPHEN: It’s important. Having the language of these earlier times is a pathway into their culture, an ancient culture in which men and women lived daily in what we would call a fantasy world simply because they didn’t quite know how the world worked and were consequently more in touch with mystery and wonder—although they wouldn’t have thought of it in those terms. It’s really a short hop from that sort of academic investigation into the world of modern fantasy.
ROSS: What is your perspective on the meeting of ancient myth and fantasy in light of your current series? On the one hand you have a quantum-based speculative fiction framework that lets you dip in and out of about a dozen solidly realistic historical settings. What mythic elements have you culled for this science-fiction/fantasy hybrid you’ve developed?
STEPHEN: Really, I think what I’ve discovered in my career is that the line between myth and history is often very arbitrarily drawn, and everyone draws that line for themselves. To go back to Arthur and Robin Hood—are they myths or histories?
ROSS: It depends on how you view the source material.
STEPHEN: Right. Exactly right. So, for Bright Empires, I deal with a lot of myths that are either so well recorded, or so recent, that they are accepted as history. Myths in the making, perhaps.
ROSS: It’s a line that keeps on blurring. It blew my mind to find out that until the early to mid-1800s the city of Troy, which is the foundation of just about all of Western literature and poetry, was lost. Most scholars of that period would have said that it never existed, that it was all just an admirable fantasy. And then they found it. They actually found it and then they had to rewrite the textbooks. Literally. I loved that. I even put that incident into Book 1. It made me think: What else is still out there, waiting to be discovered? What’s the next thing that will make us rethink who we are?
STEPHEN: But that’s the case with all of these myths. Sometimes we might be lucky and, yes, find an entire city, but maybe sometimes, most of the time, we won’t. We may never find Excalibur, or Robin Hood’s bones—it may never happen. But is that any real reason to say that they didn’t exist? The reasons that people wrote, or told, rather, was not just for entertainment. There was something real that they were trying to communicate.
ROSS: And that goes right back to the stories told around the campfire. Trying to answer the questions of why we’re here and where we’re going. Who we really are and how we can try to be better than that. No matter our culture, our religion, our philosophy, we’re all still trying to figure out those fundamental questions, and history, myth, fantasy, whatever slice of the spectrum you like to take, is an essential part of that.
STEPHEN: Amen.
About the Author
Author photo by Colin Munro
Ross Lawhead was born in America but grew up in England. He studied screenplay writing at Bournemouth University before moving on to pencil the !Hero graphic novel and coauthor the !Hero novel trilogy with his father. He has also coauth
ored humorous books of poetry and created a theological superhero. Find him at rosslawhead.com/blog.
