Awakening

by William Horwood

  4

  DISCOVERY

  As the sense of silence deepened about Bedwyn Stort there occurred one of those shifts in time which had often been noted as something that happened at the seasons’ turn.

  He had left Beacon Hill not long after twilight fell, only an hour or two before, but his chronometer showed it was midnight. The rain clouds above his head sucked away to north and south, east and west, as if time had speeded up. Then they circled round the horizon like a halo, in the centre of which, revealed in all its wonder and glory, was the Universe itself: the deep unknowable black of space the setting for a hundred million stars, the moon soaring bright, the cold air taking his two hands in its clean grasp and stretching them above his head in reverence and in welcome.

  The ground trembled beneath his feet and he heard again the roar of the advancing wave and guessed that his life was more than ever in danger. But he knew that he must stay calm, stay firm and have faith that his courage and purpose would hold and see things through.

  He realized it was in this same place, when he was a boy of eleven, that he had first met Imbolc the Peace-Weaver. Now, as then, a chill ran through his body which hollowed and aged him. His knees gave way and he felt his life begin to flee.

  When Imbolc came before she had been near the end of her great journey down the centuries, the passing of each season of her spirit life marked with the loss of that season’s gem until the last, that of Winter, had been lost.

  Since then she had been Peace-Weaver on borrowed time, waiting for the coming of the Shield Maiden.

  Stort felt the blizzard cold, and realized that destruction was almost on him. He could only hope that Imbolc would come again, her journey over and the time for her to go to Beornamund’s side finally come.

  He tried to speak, but could not.

  He tried to keep his arms and hands raised to the bright Universe, but could not.

  He tried to keep his eyes open to the world he loved, but felt them beginning to close.

  Help me, he whispered to the gods.

  Help me! he cried out to the Mirror-of-All in which mortals live their brief lives.

  Help me, he asked of Imbolc in the silence of his dying mind.

  ‘Help me,’ said Bedwyn Stort.

  The silence fled.

  The wall of water raging up the hill mounted so high that it blocked out the lights of the sleeping city below and the star-filled clouds on the far horizon.

  ‘Help me,’ he whispered a final time as he waited for his body and his life to be torn apart and lost for ever in what now began to reach him.

  It was then she came, standing between him and the raging dark water that would kill him, a woman so old she seemed part of the Earth and the Universe as well, a crone, her legs thin sticks, her wrists and hands no better than bleached twigs, her hair white gossamer, her body so bent and frail that the slightest puff of wind would break and scatter it.

  Imbolc had reached the last moments of her great and lonely journey down the years since the gods sent her on her voyage as Peace-Weaver to the Earth, with only the White Horse to keep her company and a pendant with her life’s seasons in the form of gems having to be lived and lost down the centuries.

  Horse and gems all gone now, Beornamund nowhere to be seen, just a mortal on his knees whose name she knew and in whom she had known for twelve long years the hope of Earth and Universe would lie.

  She had heard his weak cry and come to him, his faith her final strength. She showed no fear of the wave advancing up the hill towards them.

  She went to Stort, reached out her old hand and said, ‘Rise and stand by me and you’ll be safe as you see what you must.’

  Stort did so.

  ‘Hold my hand,’ she said, which he did fearfully, for Stort was afraid of her touch. It had nearly killed him twelve years before.

  She smiled and said, ‘Never fear, you survived it once and have proved yourself most worthy since. No harm shall ever come to you from a touch such as mine, only love.’

  So he held her hand and took strange comfort from it.

  ‘Now listen carefully,’ Imbolc continued. ‘My sister is born this night and that means my time is run. Yet I have strength left for one last thing but I need your help to do it! But . . . hold fast!’

  Her voice was drowned as the water tore into them and round them, leaving them untouched, unmoved even as it ripped the earth from around their feet.

  Then it was gone on up the hill, sucking the riverbed dry as it went.

  For a moment all was still again but for the muted roaring of the water that was now above, turning, falling, boiling at the river’s source before . . . before . . .

  ‘It’s coming back down!’ he said.

  He might well at that moment have finally run for his life, but something in the mud of the river bed, so briefly sucked dry, caught his eye. A glinting of sorts, a dull glow, a light not quite obscured.

  He went to the river bed, Imbolc with him.

  ‘It’s a great boulder,’ he said, ‘and there’s a light shining from beneath it.’

  ‘No,’ said Imbolc, ‘that is Beornamund’s old forge, exposed for a few moments of time before the water that now returns will carry it to oblivion. You have not time to seek out what it is that shines beneath.’

  But Stort ignored her.

  He went on his knees in the mud and reached under the old forge. Forcing his hand through mud and gravel, he sought the source of the light. All he could find was what felt like a small stone, but when he touched it with the tips of his fingers it moved first to one side then to the other before slipping beyond his grasp.

  ‘It must be the gem of Spring,’ he cried out desperately, ‘but I cannot reach it . . .’

  The Earth beneath him trembled as the wave of water rushing back down the hill towards him gathered strength.

  ‘Come back,’ Imbolc called out to him, ‘I cannot protect you if you stay there. Come back!’

  But Stort would not.

  Again and again he thrust his hand and arm under the stone, sure that if only he could reach far enough and grasp tightly enough the gem of Spring and all its mystery would be found at last.

  The Earth shook more, Stort reached too far, and the forge, great and heavy, shaken by the approaching water, slipped a mite and then a mite more until, feeling the pressure on his arm, Stort tried to move it out and found he was pinned down where he lay, even as his hand found the gem and held it fast.

  ‘I touch it, I see its beautiful ambient light,’ he cried, ‘but I cannot free myself! At least I shall die having touched the stone the great CraftLord who loved you made and lost!’

  Brave words of a brave hydden, but not the truth.

  Far above him the sky cracked open and in that great crack the fires of the Universe shone forth for a moment before a vast shadow came and blocked out the brightest light to form the silhouette that seemed mortal but was as great as the sky above.

  A hand reached out of the shadow and, grasping the edge of the forge, heaved it off Stort’s hand and arm.

  Stort looked up in surprise and relief and found himself staring at two great stars and knew he looked into immortal Beornamund’s eyes.

  The wave hit them then, but Beornamund stood guardian to Stort and Imbolc both, the water flying safely over their heads. The roaring slowly abating until all was still again and the crisis over.

  Stort, sitting in mud, his clothes half torn from his back, opened his fist and saw therein, nestling in his palm, the lost gem of Spring in whose deep depths shone the light of bright new life.

  ‘Give it to me,’ commanded Beornamund.

  Which Stort willingly did, for such a thing should never be held for long by mortal hand.

  Then Beornamund turned to Imbolc, who seemed now to tower above Stort as well, her head among the stars, and he put the gem into its proper place, which was in the old pendant that hung around her neck.

  Immediately her youth returned and she was as r
adiantly beautiful as in the springtime of her life when Beornamund first met her.

  She took the pendant from her neck and knelt by Stort, or so it seemed to him, and placed the pendant with its gem safely inside his jerkin.

  ‘Bear this for the Shield Maiden who has been born this night. Give it to her when she is ready for it. Keep it secret and safe. Bear the burden as only you can, bear it for her with the same love you have for Mother Earth and all things in her and on her. Will you do this for my sister and for me?’

  ‘I will,’ said Bedwyn Stort, his eyes beginning to close with fatigue, ‘I will . . .’

  ‘Sleep not, Bedwyn Stort, not here . . . Rise now, go home to Brum, let your friends care for you through the days ahead, for you have journeyed further this night than on a mortal pilgrim road. Be careful, for the floods rage back and forth and the season’s turn is with us still.’

  Stort rose and stumbled down the hill, pausing only at the bottom to look back.

  He saw the clouds begin to close in again, swirling and turning in the sky until, filled with the light of stars and moon, they took the form of the White Horse which galloped across the Universe to Waseley Hill.

  Beornamund raised his Imbolc into the saddle and mounted it too and then they were gone on the night wind, into the stars from which they came, a reflection that rode right across the Mirror-of-All.

  Briefly, utterly exhausted, Stort slept. But then he felt himself borne along as if by the flooding river itself, bumping, bashing, bruising as he went, trying to stay awake, reaching towards the city he loved, trying to keep hold of the memory of what had happened, bewildered, amazed, astonished and, finally, unable to do more than stop and rest.

  ‘I must not sleep,’ he muttered, ‘but I fear I will . . . and if I do I trust I shall awake after daybreak, see where I am, and trek the last part of the journey to Brum without more difficulty.’

  5

  IN THE DARK

  But if Stort hoped he would arrive home in Brum without further difficulty he was mistaken. He fell asleep again on the way down, perhaps several times, until when he finally woke properly he found himself to be wet, muddy, battered and bewildered and standing in a daze caught still in the pitch of night.

  ‘Strange to find myself in this condition,’ he muttered to himself before, memory returning, he cried out, ‘Oh no! I cannot have lost it!’ He turned about in the darkness, encumbered by the enormous portersac on his back, his legs tangling with his stave, while he frantically searched the many pockets of his trews and jerkin. Then, with great relief, he found what he thought he had lost: the pendant into which Beornamund had placed the gem of Spring.

  For the first time he allowed himself to feel all the excitement and elation that came with realizing again exactly what it was he had found in the previous wild hours of the night, up on nearby Waseley Hill. He had succeeded in doing what generations of hydden had failed to do for fifteen hundred years. There were few hydden who knew better than he that of the four gems, Spring was the most important of them all. Why? Because the whole point about Spring is that it’s the start of things.

  But quite what the implications of his discovery were he was unsure.

  What the gem’s power was, he dreaded to think.

  What the consequences might be, goodness only knew.

  ‘Bit odd really,’ he mused aloud, as he often did, ‘finding Spring tonight, considering this is the first day of Summer, technically speaking. On the other hand . . . maybe it isn’t odd at all. You can’t very well have Summer without first finding Spring, which means . . .’

  A new and rather terrifying thought occurred to him.

  ‘. . . which means that it may not be long before the gem of Summer shows itself as well. Like . . . well . . . very soon!’

  One thing was certain, he told himself; he was not going off to look for the next gem in a hurry. He would leave that to someone else to find. Yes, most definitely! For if one of the gems could shift the moon and stars above his head, goodness knew what two together might do, let alone the whole lot of them. No, one was quite enough for now, and the best thing he could do was tell no one he had it for the moment. Not even his friends. He was tired and needed sleep. Beyond that he no longer wished to think.

  In such a circumstance most sensible travellers would have moved away from the river bank, dug about in their portersac for some dry clothes, and hunkered down until first light. Then, and only then, would they proceed further.

  Not Stort, as events earlier that night had shown. ‘It is a long time since I rested my head upon my own pillow, in my own bed, in my delightful humble,’ he told himself. ‘It is not far. So . . . now that I am recovered, onward I shall go!’

  So off he went, floundering on through the pitch-black night, rain in his eyes, wind in his hair, stave firmly in his hand and thinking that so long as he kept the sound of the angry river to his left he would, eventually, get to the West Gate of Brum. Logic dictated it.

  ‘If I continue thus, I must get home! Nothing can stop me now!’

  But logic is not always the best of guides on a dark and stormy night when the seasons are turning.

  Moments later he walked straight into a large and very solid wooden post that towered above him in the dark, erected by humans some years before, on which were painted words he could not even see. Had he been able to he would have read this: DANGER, DEEP WATER.

  It marked a dyke that ran into the river to his left, and the footbridge that gave safe passage over it.

  Bang!

  He started back in a daze, veered to the right instead of the left, entirely missed the little bridge over the dyke below, lost his footing and fell headlong in.

  Splash!

  A new and more permanent darkness descended upon him as his heavy portersac dragged him beneath the surface and cold, muddy water filled his lungs. His hands and fingers scrabbled uselessly at the bottom and the sides of the dyke.

  His feet drifted away from him one way and then his body in another. As for his mind, it drifted in a different direction altogether. An already strange and terrifying night had brought him to something worse. As the cold intensified and his mouth filled with water and the pain in his chest increased still more, Stort knew that he was drowning.

  I must not . . . the gem . . . the Shield Maiden . . .

  He reached about until he caught hold of what felt like the root of a tree or bush. He pulled himself towards it, found the bottom of the dyke with his feet and pushed himself upward as hard and fast as he could.

  He broke the surface of the water, was wheeled round by its flow, and had he not been holding the root might easily have been swept into the river he could hear but not yet see.

  He scrambled up the side of the dyke, water pouring from his clothes and portersac. He lay on the muddy ground and caught his breath, spitting out mud and leaves.

  When he opened his eyes again the night had lightened and dawn was finally on the way. He saw the post into which he had bumped on the far side of the dyke, the bridge he had missed and his stave that lay on the ground.

  He got up shakily, retrieved his stave, crossed the bridge once more and set off along the river bank. He checked for the thousandth time that the gem was safe, he paused again to take a look at it, knowing even as he did so it might be a mistake. He did so anyway.

  Suddenly the pendant turned and twisted in his hand, the chain slithered about like a snake and a bright and blinding light shone forth, suffusing everything it touched with the bright green of Spring, even him. Stort felt suddenly that he wanted to sing and dance and fancied he heard lovebirds in the branches of the trees overhead and the happy plash of fishes leaping for joy in the river nearby.

  He felt a surge of energy, of delightful madness, and stirrings of a Springlike kind. However, his natural instinct for survival overcame any desire he felt to run, jump, dance and sing.

  With a commendable effort of will he stood where he was, stowed the troublesome gem and its p
endant away again and set off once more.

  ‘That was a close thing,’ he told himself, ‘because I nearly . . . I mean I might have . . . I . . .’

  The events of the night, the gruelling experience he had had, and the curious and disconcerting influence of the gem itself, finally got to him.

  He stopped, he started, he seemed to see the sun rise faster than usual, and the river’s waves appeared to reach up towards him like watery hands.

  ‘It wants to steal the gem!’ he told himself.

  The stalks of bulrushes poked at his shins.

  ‘They want to steal it too!’ he cried.

  A deep puddle appeared before him, across the path.

  ‘It wants me to fall in and the Earth Herself will take the gem.’

  He began to run, to creep along, to look behind him, to wave his stave about aggressively, to fear everything.

  ‘I shall not yield to any who try to steal it from me!’ he cried out aloud.

  He saw a hawthorn tree ahead and the West Gate of Brum some way beyond it.

  ‘Nearly home,’ he muttered, ‘but who can I now trust? And yet . . . this tree . . . a hawthorn . . . a benign, friendly sort of tree . . . perhaps I could, just for the briefest of moments . . . just lay my stave down, and my portersac and sit . . . yes, rest my back . . . so I can think what to do . . . just for a second or two . . .’

  Bedwyn Stort sat down, closed his eyes and knew no more.

  6

  REALITY

  Whatever hopes and dreams Katherine and Jack had about their coming baby, they were shattered by the reality of what they faced as the sun began to rise in the first hours of Judith’s life.

  Her crying was like no other sound either had ever known. It cut through their ears, their heads, their hearts and their bodies. It was like the threat of a red-hot knife: utterly demanding of immediate attention.

  It seemed to be worse for Katherine than for Jack, weak as she still was.

  She held Judith, she tried the breast, she petted her, she whispered to her, but still the crying came, wave after wave, never stopping, and an absolute demand for attention and help. Wah wah wah wah wah wah . . .