Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn

by Robert Holdstock

  Suddenly a face appeared ahead of us, carved from stone, a broad, narrow-eyed monstrosity of leaf and flower, a green-man’s face looming hugely, its nostrils flaring, its mouth gaping darkly. A hollow wind blew from the cavern. The twin streams were running like tears from its eyes, the beginning of the river along which I had recently rowed.

  Mabon placed a hand on my shoulder.

  ‘When my mother trapped me here she made it so that I could never enter the Underworld, only guard it in whatever way I wished. I am old and tired, Christian, and I have longed to make the journey into that silent and peaceful realm. I could only do it when a man came and shared the truth of his mother’s death. That was the spell she put on me for denying her my love. Love as she saw it. You have broken that spell for me and I am grateful. I will gladly lead you into this Beautiful Realm. Once you find your mother among the Shades, lead her out, but when you do so, don’t speak to her, no matter what she says to you, nor look back at her …’

  ‘I know the rules,’ I said. ‘I’ve read the story! Have you encountered Orpheus?’

  Mabon seemed surprised and delighted. ‘Yes! A long, long time ago. But he was impetuous and lost the woman he loved. He looked back …’

  ‘I know he looked back. I’ll be sure to take more care …’

  ‘Come on then.’

  But I stood my ground, nervous and edgy. ‘Not yet, I must go back to the others first. I need to see Guiwenneth before I enter … will I be able to go in – to Hell – on my own?’

  Mabon smiled. ‘Of course. One trip inwards. One life returned. My gift to you. And my thanks for releasing me, Christian,’ he added as he turned to walk towards the mouth of the green and monstrous, sighing head.

  The air hissed sharply and an arrow struck him in the shoulder, throwing him forward, screaming. Behind me, horses thundered through the tall rocks. Two more arrows streaked past me, one clattering against the rock face, the other catching Mabon son of Modron in the arm as he staggered to his feet.

  A man yelled triumphantly; riding down on me, a lance held low, its shaft tied with coloured streamers. I flung myself to one side as Eletherion stabbed at me and I felt the crack of the wood as he missed with the point and struck with the shaft.

  I was defenceless, and Mabon was badly wounded. The five horsemen rode over him and dismounted at the mouth of the Underworld, peering into the windy gloom. Eletherion took off his hawk-faced helmet and flung it into the void, then laughed with triumph, made a fist and banged it against the stone lip above his head.

  Raggedly dressed, save for their gleaming helmets, the Sons of Kyrdu turned to look at me. Eletherion’s eyes were bright with blood lust, his teeth gleaming white through the heavy, russet beard.

  Then he hefted his javelin above his shoulder, drew back his arm, aimed …

  Reeled back as a slingstone caught him above the eye!

  He turned where he stood and sent the javelin into the rocks, but it came back at him and struck one of his brothers. Kylhuk and Someone stepped quickly into the space before the gorge, armoured and smiling, Kylhuk in battle kilt and torques, daggers strapped to each thigh and each forearm, Someone in a purple cloak, his hair meticulously shaped above his crown, his whole bearing prouder and more magnificent than I had ever seen him.

  ‘I will take your head and heart for the life of my friend Manandoun,’ Kylhuk roared, and leapt at Eletherion.

  The man’s brothers barred his way and he struck furiously with his long, iron sword. Someone entered the fray, using sword and axe, sending a spray of blood each time he struck at one of Kyrdu’s sons. But these warriors were harder than they looked, and they spun and danced, weaving between the two Celts, drawing blood on the enemy themselves, screeching in their ancient language from behind the bronze masks of their conical helmets.

  ‘Slathan!’ Kylhuk shouted at me, and a dagger was flung to the ground at my feet. Eletherion was standing in the very entrance of the cave. Mabon was still breathing, I noticed, but his body was crushed by hooves and split by arrows.

  I picked up the dagger and hefted it. Eletherion glimpsed the movement and as the blade streaked towards him – a good shot, I was quite surprised – he raised an armoured forearm and caught the weapon, picking it up and grinning.

  Kylhuk could make no headway through the four brothers and his roar became frustration.

  ‘Fight! Fight me for the honour of the man you slaughtered!’

  But Eletherion could not understand the words, though he certainly understood the anger.

  Suddenly he barked an order. His brothers began to fall back, stepping nimbly, their bright blades deflecting the heavier, stronger iron of their opponents. With a quick laugh, Eletherion turned and entered the Underworld, the others following so fast that Kylhuk, unbalanced, could not reach far enough to strike at their backs. He faced to the mouth of the cave, screeched furiously into the darkness, but could not pass, of course. There might as well have been a stone wall there.

  Someone son of Somebody was licking the wounds on his arms, looking curiously at the void that marked the way to Hell. Kylhuk threw his sword to the ground, then leaned back against the stone, holding out his arms as if crucified, his eyes closed with frustration; the water from the left eye of the face washed the blood from his left arm.

  Then I noticed Someone grinning at me. He looked back at Kylhuk and said, ‘Are you refreshed?’

  ‘Why?’ asked the man.

  ‘Because if you are refreshed I shall call Eletherion back to you.’

  Kylhuk stood up straight, then carefully reached down for his sword. He stared at the unnamed Celt quizzically.

  ‘How can you do that?’

  Someone scratched his newly trimmed beard. ‘I’m not certain I can … but I can certainly try. This poor, dying man here, this Mabon, has released my name to me. I know my name, now! I know who my father was, who my mother was, and I know who I am, and I am astonished to discover the truth of my name, since my identity could hardly be more noble, more legendary, more famous in the world in which I have sought it. I am my own hero! I have sat with men and talked about the lost hero, and the lost hero was me! But of this triumph, more later. For the moment, all that is important is that I know who I am and what I can do. I have seven geisas on my life, seven! Only one man was ever issued with seven, and all my life seven has been a special number to me. I have always known myself without knowing the truth of myself. What a fool! How blind a man can be when he is lost in the wilderness. But seven geisas are mine to use, and I have only used one of them. A second is that I can summon to account for himself any man who sets his brother to fight against me in his place! When you are ready, Kylhuk, I shall call Eletherion back to account for himself, since he raised no weapon against me in this skirmish, but only set his brothers to do the task.’

  ‘Do it!’ yelled Kylhuk, standing ready, strong and tensed in front of the cave mouth. ‘Do it, and my life is yours for the taking!’

  ‘Thank you for the offer. If your life remains for the taking at the end of the fight, I’ll make a gift of it to you.’

  ‘I accept,’ said Kylhuk impatiently. ‘Now bring that bastard out of Hell!’

  * * *

  The proud Celt stepped to the cave. In a voice that boomed like thunder he shouted words in his own language, and over and over again the name Eletherion was embedded in that abusive, angry, furious exhortation, that exercising of his geisa against the eldest Son of Kyrdu.

  After a minute of this shouting, Someone fell silent, stepped back from the entrance to the Underworld and crossed his arms. Kylhuk stood there, a hound straining at the leash, the muscles of the arm that held his sword standing out so strongly that I thought they might explode.

  How long he waited I cannot say; it seemed for ever, and then suddenly a figure rose in the darkness, the helmeted and masked shape of Eletherion, walking hesitantly into the day. Even though his face was covered it was clear that the warrior was confused by what was happening
to him. He had stolen the secret of entering Hell – part of his legend – and now he was being dragged back to the world he had left.

  Frustrated in his ambition to loot the Underworld, he now found himself confronting the looting of his life by a man whose friend he had callously and tauntingly murdered.

  ‘This for Manandoun …’ Kylhuk breathed and struck the helmet from Eletherion’s head, revealing startled, bloody features.

  ‘And this!’

  He struck again, cutting deeply into the man’s shoulder.

  Now Eletherion came alive, spinning round on the spot, his bronze blade flashing in the bright air, catching Kylhuk off guard and sending him sprawling. Someone stood impassively, motioning me back as I involuntarily stepped towards Kylhuk as Eletherion charged down at him.

  But Kylhuk turned, used his feet to trip his opponent, stood quickly and backed away. As Eletherion, too, found his feet they rushed at each other; there was a quick, sharp ring of metal on metal, then Eletherion’s face went loose, his body went down on its knees, his arms dropped, and a moment later Kylhuk was sawing furiously at the sinews of the head he was claiming in triumph.

  When it was off, he spat in its face, then tucked it into the belt of his kilt by the long, russet hair.

  ‘Don’t worry, Christian,’ he said to me. ‘I, shan’t ask you to prepare this one for the pyre!’

  Then he faltered in his step, and Someone and I went to his aid. I realised suddenly that Mabon was nowhere to be seen. In the fury of the last few moments he had vanished completely, though a thick trail of blood led to the mouth of the stone head. I felt aggrieved and ashamed that in his dying moments, Mabon had had to haul himself to the place he had so longed for, and which for so long had been denied him by the sorcery of his mother.

  I cleaned and bound the wounds on Kylhuk’s body. He watched me all the while, a half smile on his face, then reached out to squeeze my shoulder.

  ‘I had plans for you,’ he said. ‘But things have turned out better than I’d expected.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ I asked.

  He closed his eyes. ‘Goodbye, Christian. And the best of fortune. It won’t be long until we meet again.’

  And then he drifted into a recuperating sleep.

  I went in search of Someone son of Somebody, and found him staring into the distance, away from the Underworld. He was restless, that much was obvious, and I guessed that he was as keen to get back to Issabeau as was I to Guiwenneth.

  ‘How is Kylhuk?’

  ‘He’ll live. He has more blood in him than most of us, and I saw a lot of it in his face today, as he avenged Manandoun.’

  ‘He fought like a boar cornered by hounds. He fought well. This is a good ending for him.’

  ‘And he called me Christian,’ I added with a smile. ‘Christian. Not slathan. Though I don’t suppose the courtesy will last.’

  To my surprise, Someone laughed out loud. ‘He’s released you. He had told me he would. You are no longer the slathan. He will keep Legion for himself. For the moment, at least.’

  What did the man mean? Kylhuk would keep Legion for himself? Had he intended to make a present of it to me?

  ‘Yes,’ the Celt said simply. ‘Exactly that. Well … not so much a present. He was going to pass it on to you. To trick you into taking it. To rid himself of the burden … Legion, and the quest for Mabon, and all the consequences of his questing, have been a burden on the man for years, exactly as they were for Uspathadyn before him. Uspathadyn tricked Kylhuk into taking on the quest for Mabon; Kylhuk was slathan to the giant, you see? In his quest for his own slathan, however, he found a boy – Christian Huxley – who could become the key to the rescue of Mabon himself, a boy whose mother could shape the boy’s life by a lie she was led to believe in, and who could have the truth revealed to him only after he had come of age. Kylhuk planted the lie in your mother, then harvested you later, to help end the quest.

  ‘I’m quite sure,’ Someone went on, ‘that he would have left you the responsibility of Legion, and therefore the anguish of fighting and fleeing from everything that is crowding and looming on its tail. But he can’t do it. His honour prevents him. As his slathan you were both his guide and his heir; the word means simply disguise. He had disguised your true nature from you. That was part of the trick. Now, though, you are free to go, free of him, free to enjoy the lusty Guiwenneth …’ he clapped his hands together spiritedly, ‘as I will enjoy that husky enchantress, that Issabeau, that divine, raven-haired creature to whom you have married me, Christian Huxley, and my thanks, my arm and my life for your life on that!’

  ‘Don’t forget,’ I said to him quickly, ‘that now you know your real name you can no longer confuse enchantresses!’

  ‘So she has told me. But that particular change in my talent isn’t in my geisas, not as I now know them. I will always confuse and confound enchantresses. One, at least!’

  ‘And your name? This great name? I can’t keep calling you Someone …’

  He turned to me proudly, then made a small bow of respect. The sun shone sharply on his waxed hair. ‘My name is that great name, the name I have always known, a name that will be as familiar to you as the sound of the lark on a hot summer’s day.’

  I waited almost breathlessly, my mind running through all the great heroes, all the giants of myth and legend that I had read or heard about in my scant years on the earth.

  ‘My name is Anambioros, son of Oisingeteros!’

  He paused for a moment, to let this information sink in. ‘Yes, Christian. I am that man. And despite what I must now do to fulfil the immense ambition attached to that name, I am always … always at your service.’

  ‘Say the name again?’ I asked nervously.

  ‘Anambioros, son of Oisingeteros,’ he said quickly, with a frown.

  ‘Anambioros! By Olwen’s hands, I thought you’d be older!’ I said with a laugh.

  He seemed relieved. ‘I’m still young. There is a great deal of adventure ahead in my life to put the years on me. I’m delighted you recognise me. I had thought – being the strange man you are – that you would not have heard of me.’

  I didn’t disabuse him. ‘Pleased to meet you at last. Anambioros! And what geisas do you have left?’

  He drew himself up to his full height ‘Just these: that I must give a word of advice to every stranger I meet, even if they don’t request it. I must address the first child I meet after the night of Beltane as if they are royalty. I must shave and trim the hair from the head of a proud enemy taken in battle, and have the head to my right at the first feast, and address it in conversation without mockery. I can give back one life before my own death. I must not enter the house or stronghold of a stranger unless a red-haired woman enters first.’

  I didn’t have a response that seemed appropriate. All I could think of was how strangely mundane they seemed, these geisas, compared to the elaborate and supernatural versions that had been devised fifteen hundred years later.

  ‘We should let Kylhuk rest, now,’ Anambioros said. ‘He’s quite safe. And it’s a long walk back to the stones, and to the others.’

  He paced off, walking with a new swagger in his step, cloak flowing behind him.

  ‘Anambioros, son of Oisingeteros,’ I murmured as I followed. ‘I’ll do my best to write your name into the storybooks when I get home. But if you had been called ‘Arthur’ or ‘Mordred’, it would have been a lot easier.’

  Twenty-Two

  From the confident way he strode off, away from the house where Kylhuk lay asleep, I thought Anambioros knew exactly where he was going, and jogged along behind him through the forest. He was fitter than me, despite his wounds, and his pace was furious, a combination of swift walking and steady running that soon had me falling out of sight of him, though he kept calling to me.

  I caught up with him by a river. He was standing, confused and uncertain, looking to left and right.

  ‘You’ve got us lost,’ I said. ‘And no geis
a to help us find the right track.’

  ‘Not lost…’ he said. Around us the wildwood stirred with wind. There was the scent of flowers on the air, and above us birds circled silently, as if preparing to roost for the night.

  ‘Do you know where we are?’

  ‘I thought I heard Elidyr call. I was following the sound of Elidyr’s voice. He told me to listen for him … as soon as I’d found you. But I can’t see him. Why would he hide from us?’

  We spent a minute or so calling for the boatman, but to no avail. Anambioros then suggested we went separately along the river for a few minutes, meeting back at this starting point. Knowing the realm as well as I did, with its shifts and uncertainties in time, I thought this was a very bad idea; but the Celt was insistent and we parted company.

  After a while I came to a part of the river where flowers in full bloom and swollen fungi grew from bank and tree trunk, hanging in great loops, plates and fronds from the branches, even rising in full, red and yellow petalled splendour above the flowing water. Insects buzzed and fed on nectar, dragonflies swooped and hovered, birds chattered and took wing, and Elidyr came towards me through the water, huge and menacing, his gaze hard as he watched me. He was dragging three small boats behind him. My heart began to race as I realised, shocked and horrified, who lay in them.

  ‘I have to take them now,’ Elidyr growled at me as he passed. ‘They have had long enough.’

  ‘NO!’ I cried, and stumbled into the water. I could see Gwyr’s ashen face in the nearest boat, and the tumble of Guiwenneth’s auburn hair in the middle one. I waded towards Elidyr, blinded by the tears in my eyes. ‘Oh God, please no! Don’t take her!’

  ‘Time to go,’ the boatman snarled again. ‘One kiss. Quick!’

  One kiss?

  He had stopped in the stream. The boats swayed in the current. I wiped a hand across my eyes and peered quickly down at the Interpreter, his face peaceful now, no sign of the charring that had destroyed him, his hands resting over his waist.