Taliesin: Book One of the Pendragon Cycle

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  "The flesh will corrupt, leaving the bones behind."

  "Precisely." He took another bite. "Why ask the question when you already know the answer?"

  "I mean," said Taliesin, gnawing his apple, "what will happen when the flesh has dissolved?"

  "The bones will be gathered and taken to a vault in the earth where they will be laid to rest with the bones of our brothers who have gone before."

  "But the birds and animals will disturb the body."

  Hafgan shook his head lightly. "No, lad, they will not come within the sacred ring. And anyway, flesh is flesh; if it feeds a fellow traveler on his way, it has performed one purpose for which it was made."

  Taliesin accepted this, took another bite of his apple and tossed the core into the fire. "The bier floated, Hafgan, when you spoke in the secret tongue—was it an enchantment?"

  Again the druid shook his head. "I merely called on the Ancient Ones to bear witness to our brother's deeds and grant him safe passage along the way. The body was light"—his palm floated upward as he spoke—"because there was no longer anything to bind it to the earth or weigh it down."

  The boy contemplated the fire, eyes sparkling. "Will we see him again?"

  "Not in this world. In the Otherworld perhaps. A soul lives forever—before birth and after death it is alive. This world is only a brief sojourn, Taliesin, and it is doubtful if men remember it when we pass on—just as we forget the life before this one."

  "I will remember," declared Taliesin.

  "Perhaps," said Hafgan evenly, gray eyes keen in the firelight as he watched Taliesin. In the shimmering light the boy's face seemed to take on a different aspect. It was no longer the face of a child but a timeless face, neither old nor young, the face of a youthful god, an immortal beyond the reach of age or time.

  Hugging his knees, Taliesin began rocking back and forth. He stared into the flames and said, "I was in many shapes before I was born: I was sunlight on a leaf; I was star's beam; I was a lantern of light on a shepherd's pole.

  "I was a sound on the wind; I was a word; I was a book of words.

  "I was a bridge across seven rivers. I was a path in the sea. I was a coracle on the water, a leather boat that plowed bright waves.

  "I was a bubble in beer, a fleck of foam in my father's cup.

  "I was a string in a bard's harp for nine nines of years; I was a melody on a maiden's lips.

  "I was a spark in fire, a flame in a bonfire at Beltane…a flame…a flame…"

  The voice dwindled, becoming a young boy's voice once more. Taliesin hunched his shoulders and shivered all over, though the night was not cold. "Never mind, Taliesin," said Hafgan softly. "Do not strain after it; let it go. The awen comes or it does not. You cannot force it."

  Taliesin closed his eyes and lowered his head to his knees. "I almost remembered," he said, his voice a whimper.

  Hafgan put his hand on the boy's shoulder and lay him down beside the fire. "Sleep, Taliesin. The world will wait for you yet a little longer."

  TWELVE

  TIME UNWOUND IN A SLOW, ENDLESS COIL FOR CHARIS. AT the end of the second week she felt well enough to fend for herself again. Each day she expected news from Kian, but the days ground away and no word came.

  Lile came to see her often and although she repeated her offer of help, she did not press Charis in the matter. For her part, Charis endured these visits, maintaining a chilly politeness toward her father's wife. Lile said little regarding Charis' attitude. Yet, the cold formality must have hurt her more than she let on, for one day toward the end of the third week of Charis' convalescence she threw down the tray she was carrying and left the room without a word.

  A little later, Charis encountered her in the garden. Charis had grown restless, and despite Annubi's warnings had decided that short walks would do her more good than whole days flat on her back. At first she contented herself with attaining the length of the corridor. But soon she was restless to be in the fresh air again, and one morning rose and tottered along the corridor and down the long winding flight of stairs to the garden. The lower garden flourished behind a decorative hedge, and to reach it one passed through an arch cut in the green wall. Charis approached on the stone pathway which led to the garden and found that a door had been hung in the formerly empty archway.

  She paused and wondered at this, but the door was slightly ajar, so she pushed it open and stepped inside. She had not set foot in the garden since leaving home and marveled at the change before her. Gone were the flowers, lush and fragrant in tiered beds, the climbing roses and flowering vines, and gone too the ornamental shrubs with their delicate lacy shrouds of blossoms. In their places, and in greater variety and abundance than the flowers themselves, were herbs and grasses, ferns, moss, and mushrooms. The latter of these she detected by scent rather than sight, for the heady floral aroma she remembered had utterly vanished and was replaced with the sick-sweet, earthy, rotting-flesh fungal smell.

  The garden was clearly well-tended, but the plants were left to grow as they would—unhindered, untrimmed, unencumbered. The result was distinctly shabby, seedy, and weedy-looking. Charis kept to the main path and walked deeper into the heart of the garden, passing stands of willow herb, nightshade, and nettle, rue, hart's tongue, and moonwort, cranesbill, wood sedge, and hare's tail, and many, many more that she did not recognize and could not name.

  And amongst the fallen branches, on deep beds of decaying leaves, there were puffballs, swollen and obscene; stink-horns, with their sticky, black ooze and fetid reek; death caps and black trumpets in darkly sinister clusters. From these and countless unseen others came the odor of decay that pervaded the garden.

  Charis sauntered along the path and came to a small grove planted in the place where a greenspace had once been. In the center of the lawn there had been a circular fishpond; a fountain at one end of the pond splashed down a fall of marble steps to feed the pond. But the fish and fountain were gone, for on the shallow banks of the pond, and in it, grew numerous water plants: reeds and rushes and cresses of various types.

  All around the pond in neat concentric circles were small trees whose thin branches were laden with pale, perfectly round apples. Charis stepped to the nearest tree and reached out to pick one of the green-gold globes.

  "I should not think it would be ripe yet, Princess Charis."

  She pulled back her hand and turned to see Lile walking toward her through the trees. "They are beautiful though."

  "Yes," replied Charis, annoyed that she was not alone in the garden, but not greatly surprised to see Lile since she deduced that the place had become the woman's haven. "I do not think I have ever seen such apples."

  "They are special," replied Lile, reaching up to caress one with her palm. She was dressed in a rough-woven linen, the hem of her pleated skirt drawn up between her legs and tucked into her girdle in front. Her feet were bare.

  "You have taken over this garden," observed Charis without warmth.

  "It was in decline."

  "A pity you were not able to save it."

  Lile rose to the gibe with quick anger. "I cannot guess what Annubi has told you, but I can see that it has poisoned your heart against me."

  Charis looked at her distractedly but said nothing.

  "I feel it every time I come near you."

  "Then why do you keep intruding where you are not wanted?" snapped Charis viciously.

  Lile shrank from the attack. "Why does everyone hate me so?" she wailed, throwing her hands over her face. When she raised her head again her eyes were dry. "Have I ever done anyone harm? Why is everyone so afraid of me?"

  "Afraid of you? Surely you are mistaken."

  "Fear—it must be that. What else can make people treat me the way they do? You distrust me because you are afraid."

  Charis shook her head violently. "I am not afraid of you, Lile," she said. But Lile's accusation had hit close to the mark.

  "No?" Lile frowned with misery. "Annubi is afraid that I have u
surped his influence with Avallach—which is why he tells lies about me."

  "Annubi does not lie," Charis replied with quiet assurance. In all her life she had never known the king's advisor to so much as shade the truth, let alone utter an outright falsehood. Be that as it may, he had not told her the whole truth about Avallach's wound and had mentioned nothing at all about Guistan's death.

  "Threatened enough, anyone will lie," asserted Lile with equal conviction. "I have threatened him, so he speaks against me. No doubt he told you my father was a Phrygian sailor—" began Lile.

  "Named Tothmos. Yes, and you said the man was a slave."

  "My father was Phrygian, it's true. And yes, his name was Tothmos. As a young man he was a sailor—but he owned his own ship and he did buy a slave."

  "A slave also named Tothmos?" Charis sneered.

  "My father gave him his freedom, so the slave took his name. It is a common enough occurrence. Why must Annubi twist everything I say?"

  Once again doubt entered Charis' mind. Could what Lile said be true? Could it be that Annubi resented her so much that he twisted her words and used them against her? But why would he do that?

  "There is only one way to prove me," Lile said.

  "What is that?"

  "Try me and see if I stand or fall."

  "What trial would you suggest?"

  "Any trial you like, Princess Charis. For it to mean anything, you must choose it."

  "I have no wish to try you, Lile," sighed Charis, shaking her head wearily. "You say one thing, Annubi another. Words, words, words. I do not know what to believe anymore."

  "Believe me when I tell you that I mean no one any harm. Believe me when I tell you that I have not come grasping after power for myself. Believe me when I tell you that I want to be your friend."

  Charis was shamed by the words. She felt there was truth in what the woman was saying and she wanted to believe. Yet…and yet, there was something in Lile that could not or should not be wholly believed. Something darkly sinister, like the mushrooms in their fetid beds, or worse, something kept chained and out of sight—a grotesque beast which is never seen but watches from its shadowed corner. Charis could feel the presence of the beast; she could feel it watching, waiting. And this made it impossible for her to trust Lile completely.

  "I would like to believe you, Lile," said Charis, meaning it.

  Lile smiled, but the smile died as quickly as it had come. "But you cannot."

  "I cannot," Charis admitted. "Not yet. But I will not lie to you."

  Just then they heard a light, lilting voice, high-pitched and happily out of tune. A moment later a sunny head bobbed into view as a barefoot child of four came skipping out from behind a boxbush. The girl was flaxen-haired and brown as a bean. She wore only a linen skirt of sky-blue, the once-crisp pleats now hopelessly wilted and wrinkled. A single daisy drooped from behind her ear, and around her neck she wore a necklace of the same flowers, their stems broken and clumsily plaited together. Except for this necklace, her upper body was bare. In her hand she held a half-eaten greengage, the juice of which glistened on her chin. When she saw Charis she stopped in midskip and stared at her with eyes as green as the fruit in her hand, as green as the leafy hedge enclosing the strange garden.

  "Come here, Morgian. I want you to meet someone," said Lile.

  The girl stepped forward shyly. The green eyes scoured Charis' face, and she found herself unsettled by the frankness of that innocent stare.

  "Morgian, this is Charis. Say hello."

  "Hello," replied Morgian. "You are b-blootiful."

  "So are you," said Charis.

  "But you are big," said the little girl.

  "Someday you will be big too," Charis told her. "I see you like greengages. Is it good?"

  Morgian looked at the fruit in her hand and dropped it, as if a guilty secret had just been discovered. Her mother gave her a stern look and explained, "She knows she is not supposed to pick anything in the garden…Correct, Morgian?"

  The little girl looked abashed and lowered her eyes. She pushed the greengage with a dirty toe.

  "You may go, Morgian. Say good-bye."

  "Good-bye, Princess Charis," Morgian said and was gone.

  "What an enchanting child," said Charis, watching her flitter away.

  "She is a joy. Your father says she looks just like you did at that age."

  Charis nodded. "Lile, you asked me to try you," she said abruptly. "I need your help."

  Lile held her head to one side as if weighing conflicting responses. It was impossible to tell what she was thinking behind those hard, dark eyes. At last she said, "How may I serve you?"

  "Walk with me. I have something to tell you."

  The two women moved off together, and Charis began explaining about Throm's prophecy of cataclysm and doom. Unlike the others Charis had told about the coming disaster, Lile took it seriously, accepting Charis' astounding pronouncement without qualm or question.

  "What can I do?" Lile asked. Her voice was steady, with no hint of apprehension or fear.

  "Belyn has agreed to go after Seithenin's fleet. There is a plan, and a small chance they will succeed. Once we get the ships—if we get them—it is only a matter of filling them."

  Lile's eyes grew wide as she glanced around her. "It would take years!"

  "We do not have years, Lile. A month, two perhaps. Not more. Annubi is trying to find out how much time is left."

  "I see." There was such resignation in the words, Charis stopped and turned toward her. Lile was staring at the palace whose balconies, porticos, and terraces were towering over them. "We leave it all behind. We start again."

  "Yes, we start again—but we take with us what will be most helpful in beginning life anew."

  Lile took a deep breath, as if she meant to start bundling crates to the harbor at once. What an unusual woman, thought Charis. But I am glad I told her. I could not do this alone.

  As if reading Charis' thoughts, Lile turned to her and said, "You are not alone now, Charis. I will help you all I can. Where do we start?"

  "I have been thinking about that," answered Charis, and they began walking back to the palace. "Clothing, tools, food—those are all important. But I think we start in my mother's library. There are books there that should be saved."

  "I agree. Knowledge will serve us better where we are going—" She broke off with a strange smile.

  "What is it?"

  "How can we begin preparing for the doom of our race if we have no idea where we are going?"

  "West, I think," replied Charis. "There are lands there much like these, I am told, and little inhabited. We will be able to make a life there much like the one we know here."

  "Or better," said Lile, and Charis noticed the set of her jaw as she said it.

  "Tell me," said Charis. "Do you believe me—about Throm's prophecy?"

  "Of course," replied Lile. "Should I not?"

  "No one else does."

  "Then they deserve their fate," muttered Lile darkly. Her expression was fleeting but unmistakably fierce. Cold hatred gleamed in the dark depths of Lile's eyes.

  Was this the beast that watched from the shadows? wondered Charis. Have I made a mistake telling her?

  But Lile smiled and the beast, if it was there, withdrew to the shadows once more. "You ask why I believe you? I will tell you. All my life I have known that this would happen. I have carried the knowledge within me—" She raised a hand to touch her heart. "I did not dare hope that I would see it, but I knew it. I felt it. Even when I was very small, I looked out on the world and knew that I looked at a world that could not last. When you told me just now, I knew that it was true, for your words merely confirmed what I already guessed."

  "This will be the trial you asked for then," said Charis. "Everything I value in life, I have placed in your hands."

  "No, not everything." Lile touched her gently on the side. Charis winced. "Trust me to help you, Charis. I can heal your injury. You will nee
d your full strength in the days to come. I can give it to you much sooner."

  Charis hesitated, then relented. "What you say is true. You have your way, Lile."

  "I will not fail you, Charis. Believe me."

  "I will try," promised Charis. "Believe me."

  * * *

  Charis' trust was rewarded and Lile proved true to her word and to her skill, for the chirurgia was flawlessly successful and Charis recovered rapidly. A few days after the bandages were removed, Annubi found Charis sitting cross-legged among a pile of vellum scrolls, her chin in her palm, scanning studiously the unrolled document before her. He watched her for a moment and then entered the disheveled library.

  She glanced tip as he approached. "Oh, Annubi, what word? Something from Belyn?"

  "No." He shook his head.

  "About the stars?"

  "No, nothing yet."

  "What then?"

  "About you, Charis."

  "About me?"

  "You told Lile about the cataclysm."

  "Yes, I did. Why?"

  The seer sighed, dragged a chair across the littered floor, and collapsed onto it.

  "Why?" insisted Charis. "Have I done something wrong?"

  He shook his head wearily and passed a hand over his eyes. "I cannot see anymore." This admission came so casually that at first Charis did not realize the import of his words.

  "Why was it wrong? I thought it best to—" She stopped. Annubi sat as if his chest had collapsed; his shoulders slumped and his long fingers twitched in his lap. "Annubi, what has happened?"

  "I cannot see anymore," he said, spitting each bitter word. "The Lia Fail is dark to me. There is no light anymore."

  "You are overtired," offered Charis, setting aside the manuscript. "I have pushed you too hard—asked too much. You will rest and it will come back."

  "No," he groaned. "I know it will not." He paused and then lifted his shoulders in a gesture of hopelessness. "But that is not why I came."

  "You said I should not have told Lile. Why? What has she done?"

  "I found her in my room—with the Lia Fail. I was angry. I shoved her…I wanted…to kill her…" He shook his head in disbelief. "I did this. I, Annubi! I have never lifted a hand against another living being in all my life."