The Hadassah Covenant

by Robert Holdstock

  ‘Well, that didn’t last long,’ he commented. ‘I hope it wasn’t something I sang. I can take criticism…’

  ‘You sang perfectly,’ I assured him.

  ‘Thank you. I thought so too. But I’d thought you might have had more to say to each other. You’ve clearly shared a past together.’

  ‘We have,’ I admitted, off my guard. ‘Far more than you can imagine. We’ve both been caught by surprise.’

  Elkavar sighed as if he understood exactly what I meant. Then he shook his head as if he understood exactly how I felt. Then he offered me advice. ‘I’d compliment you on your way with women, Merlin. But I’m afraid there’s nothing to compliment. You didn’t take the upper hand. You let her get away too quickly.’

  ‘What you’ve seen here is not the end of it.’

  ‘You’re going after her? Good man! The way she looked at you, it was obvious you’ve once been lovers. That flame can be rekindled. And I’ll write the song! What was her name?’

  ‘Elkavar…’ I started to say, but discovered I had no words to either reprimand, disabuse or compliment him. If he had seen something, with his talents for exploring the ways-under, then who was I to doubt his intuition? My past was a series of moments, vivid experiences in a void of walking the Path. Most of my life was as obscure to me as a landscape on a misty day; sensed but not seen; coming into vision only when approached closely.

  Lovers? The man was a romantic. She and I had been children together before Time began. No more than that.

  Our paths had separated. (And yet … and yet …)

  The love between Medea and Jason, however, had been startling in its intensity, shocking in its vigour, tragic by its betrayal. I had not recognised Medea for who she was when I had helped in her escape from Colchis and the furious king who regarded her as his daughter. (How had she crept into his life?) I had not recognised her on that day when she had fled from Jason, her sons in hand, her knife in hand, her tricks ready to block us from further pursuit as she trapped us in the tunnel behind bronze gates.

  I remembered how powerless I had felt, that day in Iolkos. Jason’s cry: Antiokus! Use your magic!

  I can’t!

  It was Medea herself who had stopped me. But I hadn’t known, then, how much I knew this woman. I wasn’t looking for it. She had just used the very words that I would have used: you were just a gentle dream. I was always one alone …

  Medea, I now was sure, was the ‘one who went astray’ in the words of the spirits of my past, in Ghostland. I was the one who couldn’t tie his laces. The others were home or almost home.

  Medea and I, left alone on the Path, though each of us had escaped the consequences and necessities of our lives in a different way.

  I had to find her again. I needed to gather her back to me. From the moment she had stepped from the grim wood and peered at me from behind the veil, I had felt an overpowering need to reclaim a part of my life that had been taken from me: its beginning.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Dreams and Memory

  Argo was meshed in the net of ropes once more, and Ruvio harnessed. The willing horse hauled the ship up the bank and across the deserted camp to the woods.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Jason asked suspiciously. ‘You have a bird-look about you.’

  ‘Later,’ I said. ‘I’m still giddy.’

  In fact, I was looking nervously around for Niiv. It was a relief to see no sign of her.

  Michovar and his men, and the Germanii, had prepared a hide for the vessel, a shallow trench covered with branches. Argo was wrestled and nestled into place. She would not be safe from anyone foraging in the forest, but she was certainly invisible from the river.

  Now Jason cut through the girth-lashings on the stern, and he and Rubobostes eased out the figurehead of the Forest Lady. This was wrapped and laid out in the larger of the two wagons that had been repaired. Jason alone entered the Spirit of the Ship and under Mielikki’s guidance hacked out the heart. The chunk of blackened wood looked no more than a lumpy, raw-edged piece of shipwreck as he carried it to the wagon, but it echoed with ancient days.

  Figurehead and heart were covered with two layers of canvas before planking was nailed over them. The rest of the cart was filled with supplies, ropes and weapons. The axles of the four broad wheels were greased. Two spare wheels were mounted at the rear. Ruvio would be able to haul this small vehicle without difficulty.

  All of this preparation took only a day; we overnighted by the fire in the enclosure, enjoying Michovar’s food and bowls of a rough wine that Elkavar had discovered in a clay jar, in a waste-pit by the river. There wasn’t much of it, but the Volka spiced it and mulled it, and the mood of tiredness and irritation among the argonauts lifted to one of humour and storytelling.

  Tairon told us a version of the tale of Icarus and his brother, Raptor, whose father had pulled bronze tendons through their bodies to hold pairs of mechanical wings. Elkavar sang for us, to Urtha’s delight, though to Jason’s grim-faced tolerance. Michovar and his men danced for us to the rhythm of a drum, accompanied by animal grunts and tuneful chanting: a dance in celebration of the successful hunt of a tiger and the stealing of its spirit. The tiger, we learned, was a creature that appeared rarely in their country and brought great change and good omens.

  Then Ullanna wailed a lament for her homeland, mercifully short, and Conan and Gwyrion hummed in harmony, an unusual sound that they explained ‘related to the unspoken need of all men and women to nestle safely in the land of their fathers’.

  Michovar was not impressed. All too sentimental. ‘You wouldn’t want to nestle in the land of our fathers,’ he grunted. ‘Snow up to your neck, frost-bitten arse, and mink-rats eating you from the toes up. At least our song was about hunting and catching things…’

  The fires began to die down and Conan went around them, stoking them and feeding them, bringing new life and new warmth. Cathabach and Rubobostes tended to the horses. Manandoun and Urtha huddled away from the rest of us, talking quietly. Then Manandoun rose and left the chieftain, shaking his head quickly at Ullanna who had been standing close by, watching.

  She settled down, drew her cloak around her, carefully positioned her spear and sword and stared at the stars. She didn’t move when, after a while, Urtha stood up, gathered his own cloak around his shoulders and left the enclosure. I followed him at a discreet distance, until I saw that he was going to the river. He was a motionless shape against the starbright water, staring at the vault of the heavens, deep in thought.

  I wanted to talk to him, to explain that I had decided to go ahead of the rest of the argonauts, but this seemed an inopportune moment. Before I could return to the enclosure, however, another man loomed out of the darkness, alert and curious, despite the heavy scent of wine on his breath. He came up to me and put an arm around my shoulder.

  ‘I’ve been talking to that wailing Hibernian. He’s told me to talk to you. Let’s walk. I know you’re leaving us; the least you can do is tell me why.’

  Jason, as ever, was both straight to the point and diplomatic.

  We walked away from Urtha, along the river. ‘He can smell those betraying bastards,’ Jason said, with a last glance at the forlorn figure of the Celt. ‘He’s summoning a Titan, I expect. Assuming these Celts raise Titans. To help when the moment comes.’

  ‘We’ll all be there, when the moment comes.’

  ‘Will we?’ Jason stopped and looked at me closely. ‘Will you?’

  I wondered what Elkavar might have said to the Greeklander. As if intuiting my thought, Jason said, ‘Elkavar says you’ve found a way to scout ahead. I was asking him where you’d slipped off to. I was worried about you, since the Pohjolan girl has disappeared as well.’

  Niiv? She’d be around somewhere, watching from the nightshadow.

  ‘He’s right,’ I told Jason. ‘There’s a way through the world that leads ahead of us, perhaps ahead of the army. I’m going to leave you for a while, to explore the way. I c
an’t tell you more than this: that a part of my life has caught up with me, and it needs resolving.’

  Jason shrugged. ‘Every one of us is catching up with their past. Why not you? But you should have told me earlier, Merlin, before we prepared the cart and the horses. We can all go south through your tunnel.’

  I quickly disabused him of the notion. No ordinary man could breach the gate to the underworld, not until his death. Elkavar, in his own words, had been ‘born’ to such travel, though inclined to go astray. Like several of the argonauts, he was half legend, half human: Tairon with his labyrinths, Rubobostes with his great strength, Ullanna, the echo of the Huntress. But none of them—perhaps Tairon excepted—would be able to enter and pass through the earth.

  ‘Where does your unearthly road emerge?’ Jason asked after a moment.

  ‘Certainly in the south,’ I told him. ‘And I have an idea where in the south, but I can’t be certain. Elkavar will help me if we should get lost.’

  Jason frowned for a moment, then caught the smile on my face and laughed a little. ‘Yes. Well, good luck with that.’

  What I didn’t tell him was that it was Medea’s pathway, or at least, a Daanian entrance that would connect with her pathway. As I’d truthfully told Jason, I couldn’t be sure, but all sanctuaries have their own smells—sweet, sometimes, like honey, or acrid like sulphur. And the hint of cedar and rosemary, strong despite the sulphur, as she had returned to confront me, suggested a place I had visited before; an oracle, yes; one particular oracle if I wasn’t much mistaken.

  ‘I notice you’re not wearing that little tooth amulet the girl gave you,’ he said suddenly.

  The sedja had been sewn into my sheepskin jacket. I’d almost forgotten it was there. But after the incident when Niiv had entered my hawkflight, over the army, I had removed the token. I suspected she could ‘fly’ to it and it was essential that she didn’t follow me.

  It lay hidden in denuded Argo, below the ship’s branch roof, deep in the hold.

  ‘I’m going to miss you, Merlin,’ Jason said as we turned back to the fires in the distance. ‘I’m aware that I’m here because of you, because of your certainty and belief in me, because of your powers of enchantment, because the world—my world—has gone mad! Is mad the right word? A son and a father, alive again seven hundred years after their deaths.’ He nodded to himself, thoughtfully. ‘Yes. I think madness is the appropriate way of putting it.’

  I almost told him, then, what I now knew: that Medea too was alive in his mad world. Indeed, that she must have always been alive, walking her path, walking the years down, wearing them down, until … strange thought … until her sons appeared on the earth, again, stepping from dark to light, from one era to the next, unaware of the loss of Time.

  But every instinct told me it was too soon to mention Medea. He would lose his focus. He needed to think of nothing but his son, and the way to find him.

  My experience on the shores of Ghostland, however, and Medea’s words—I stopped him on Alba, I can stop him here—were sufficient for me to tell him something else; something to keen his appetite.

  ‘What is it?’ Jason asked, staring at me. I’d been looking at him strangely.

  ‘I believe I know where Kinos is hiding,’ I said, and his eyes widened.

  ‘Kinos? Little Dreamer?’ His face was suddenly alive with surprise and wonder, and he gripped my shoulders. ‘How do you know? How can you know? You only saw Thesokorus, you told me. Did you see him? Was he visiting an oracle as well? Why didn’t you tell me before?’ Now his gaze became suspicious, and he repeated quietly, ‘Why didn’t you tell me before? Merlin! Where is he?’

  I eased his hands away from my shoulders; his fingers had dug so deeply I thought he would crush my precious bones.

  ‘He’s on Alba, hiding within that place called Ghostland. The Shadow Hero Land. He “lives between sea-swept walls”. Remember what I told you of Thesokorus’s visit to the oracle? The sea-swept walls are the cliffs of Alba. But Ghostland is a complicated country. It’s more than just a place of the dead. It’s a place of the unborn. And somehow, Kinos has managed to enter the realm.’

  Somehow? Medea sent him there! But I couldn’t say this to Jason.

  He was deeply quizzical. After a long moment he shook his head and drew back from me. ‘You work in strange ways, Merlin. You are a strange, unearthly creature. So why I should doubt you makes no sense. But I do doubt you. Only because I want it to be true, and I can’t bear the thought of disappointment. One son at a time, you always tell me, and I am tearing apart inside with the need to see my little Thesokorus. I can hardly wait to hold him again.’

  I couldn’t help laughing. ‘He’s not your ‘little Thesokorus’, Jason. He’s a big man. He’s nearly as powerful as Rubobostes. And he’s called King of Killers. I’d be wary, if I were you.’

  He nodded dismissively; he knew all that; that wasn’t the point. The point was, to see him; to be reunited.

  ‘How can you be sure?’ he repeated. ‘About Kinos?’

  ‘I saw a ghost of Orgetorix when I visited Ghostland. I didn’t tell you before because I’m confused myself about why he would seem to be in two places at once. Ambaros, Urtha’s father-in-law, knew that same young man from his own time spent spying on Ghostland. And he said there was a “brother” with the man. He was certain they were “brother wraiths”, as he called them. I have an idea what has been going on; by the time I see you again, I will try to know. One son at a time, Jason; but we’ll find them both, before too long. Hold that as a “wonderful” thought.’

  ‘It will be wonderful when I’ve held them both, and seen their eyes,’ he murmured darkly. ‘Then I’ll know this isn’t just a dream. Sometimes I think I’ll come to my senses suddenly, and ice water will be in my lungs again, and my shade will be screaming from the lake.’

  ‘This is real,’ I told him gently. ‘You’ll find out.’

  He nodded, a sort of thanks, then drew a quick breath, resigned to my departure. ‘Well, off you go then, Merlin. And may Poseidon guard your arse for you as you go under the world.’

  Jason agreed that the others would be told of my departure only after the event.

  I had thought that with the ship abandoned for the moment, some of the argonauts would also decide to abandon the journey south, Michovar and his Volkas especially, since they had only joined Argo as a circuitous way of getting home. They were hotly debating the issue, but thoughts of the warm south, and intrigue as to Brennos’s quest and the secrets of oracles, had persuaded all the rest of the crew to stay together. On horse and foot, a few in the cart pulled by Ruvio, they would form a land Argo.

  Urtha was still by the river. I approached him cautiously and told him I was leaving. He looked at me, scowling in the night. ‘You were going to abuse Cunomaglos for me, before his death. Your own words.’

  ‘I expect to be there to do just that,’ I replied. ‘You won’t catch the army for several weeks. And then you have to find your enemy. It’s a big army, spread out through the hills.’

  ‘I’ll find him,’ Urtha said with utter confidence. ‘That bastard’s stink is in my hounds’ noses. When they start to slaver and go red-eyed, I’ll know he’s close. Travel safely, Merlin. Where’s that girl?’ he added as an afterthought. ‘My dog-handler?’

  Where indeed? I told him I didn’t know, but that if he saw her to be gentle with her, and to persuade her to stay with the group and not to try to fly in pursuit of me. She would not find me in Poseidon’s realm.

  ‘I think we all know, by now,’ Urtha said pointedly, almost wistfully, ‘that you go where you choose to go.’

  * * *

  Elkavar had gathered together our provisions as we had discussed; food, water, small amounts of the bitter herbs I had located at the woodland edge, strips of bark from the oak, ash and hazel that flourished in the forest—these were precautionary, to be shaped into talismans should the need arise—and weaponry, not to fight the forces of the underworld
, but to protect ourselves in the world of men and warriors at the other end.

  We would each carry a sword, a knife, and four thin throwing spears with lean iron blades. Elkavar also had his sling, and a small pouch of tiny ‘fairy shot’ as he called it, which I recognised as the little stone arrowheads of a much earlier age.

  Thus equipped, we slipped away from the enclosure and found the stream, following it through the night, through the wood, to the high mound where the people of the Daan had buried their dead, at the edge of the world beneath.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The Ghost in the Land

  The Greeklanders had a word for it, the confusion and disorientation that follows arrogant certainty. I had been so sure that to pursue Medea through the underworld would be as straightforward as following an army of tens of thousands of men. But there are trails and trails, and an army leaves a land reduced to waste; in the chthonic realm where Persephone and Poseidon flew like bats, where the paths divided between one gloomy passage through rocks and another down to a black lake, where no hint or scent of her who had gone ahead remained on the stale air …

  We were soon lost.

  ‘This is all my fault,’ Elkavar said grimly, as he cast his line again into some dark water or other, hoping to catch a fish, drawing in only a clammy clump of weed. ‘I’ve not been paying attention to the signs.’

  What signs?

  Alas, he didn’t know. If there’d been signs, he’d missed them. He’d not been paying attention.

  Even his pipes were useless. He inflated the bag, squeezed it with his elbow and fingered the holes on the wooden pipes themselves. No sound came from them but the sad exhalation of dead breath.

  Poseidon had stolen his music. Without his pipes, he couldn’t sing. His voice was as dead as dust. He could not sing any song of summoning, or lament to the dead to come to our aid; he could not sing for the wind from the world above, or for the sound of thunder to roll through the caverns and allow us to follow its echo. He could not sing Medea’s secret song and hope to entice her back sufficiently far along the path to give the clue as to our direction.