Ancient Echoes

by Robert Holdstock

  I watched them for a minute only, for as long as they wrestled and rolled, energetically youthful, fighting with teases. When their mouths met, and they became quite still save for the slow unbuckling of belts and opening of shirts, I withdrew from my vantage point, sat quietly by myself and closed my eyes.

  Later, Perendour came up to me, stabbing his spear towards the gorge, making spider movements with his other hand. ‘They’re moving off,’ he seemed to be saying and I returned to the knoll.

  They had packed their horses, adjusted their clothing, and were preparing to travel on. I wanted to ride down the slope, into the gorge that separated us, but Perendour was adamant that it would be of no avail. By whatever means William had crossed into the maelstrom, he would have to find his own way back, or be sucked down into the swirl of the earth.

  After a while, my friend and his lake-girl rode on, then turned into a wood and were lost from sight. I was tearful for a few minutes, deeply affected by a strong sensation of loss and helplessness. I had wanted so much to meet William Finebeard again, a re-union he himself had hungered for, but he had eluded me, slipping through the time and the space of my own imagination, following a trail that was as much denied to me, the centre of my world, as it was to the scale-armoured mercenaries who even now were watching me with expressions that were solemn, uncertain, and distinctly shifty.

  Where was Ahk’Nemet?

  ‘What’s happened to my companion?’ I asked by word and sign.

  Perendour rose from his crouched position and looked towards the white stone gate, the watching place.

  ‘That woman is a witch. We should kill her and be done with it. Then maybe your great friend will find a way back to us.’

  ‘Nemet is no witch.’

  Were they saying ‘witch’? And if so, what did they mean by it? An evil woman? A wise woman? Not the latter, certainly, since Perendour seemed quite exercised by the need to dispatch Greenface. She had, as I understood him, brought ‘black charms and poisonous forgotten winds with her’, to a world in which she ‘did not belong’.

  He went on, ‘We occasionally see these people. They rise from the earth, or the lake, they come from the dark of the pit to beguile us, and shadow our vision with masks.’

  ‘Nonsense.’

  Perendour dropped to a crouch again, leaning forward between his knees and scratching patterns on the rock with his knife. He was thinking hard.

  What had happened to Greenface?

  On impulse I called out her name. Perendour glanced up, shouted something. The next thing I knew, one of his men, Gyldowen, had performed an odd, skipping dance, turning where he stood, doubling up …

  And a spear-shaft, green-gleaming at its tip, was flying towards me, wobbling slightly in the air as it covered the distance in less than a second!

  Acting by no more than reflex, I ducked. The ash shaft cracked against my head, blackening my vision for a moment. Perendour was on me in that instant, his flint knife above my left eye, held back by both my hands, but he was a strong man, far stronger than me, and his left hand clawed and scratched my flesh. I could hear his companions yelling with kill-fever, scrambling towards us.

  The arrow that knocked Perendour from my body struck him in the temple, arriving with the hiss of a snake and the thudding crack of bone. He lay beside me, eyes staring and mouth open, one hand brushing feebly at the shaft. I scrabbled for the spear and succeeded in stabbing it into Gyldowen’s thigh. He howled with pain and dragged himself away, then unleashed a jagged piece of slingshot that struck me above the nose. There was no real power in the shot, though the pain was excruciating, and I watched him blearily as he limped away, an arrow suddenly striking him in the shoulder, propelling him forward. He complained loudly as he staggered for safety.

  I looked round for Nemet, but it was Greenface who approached, since she had tied her sisters’ skins to her face again. The dyes and patterns of the tattoos made her wild once more, and somehow horrific. The skins weren’t smooth; they sagged across her firm flesh and she looked ancient, as if that flesh were running from her skull, her mouth dragging down in a sinister leer. She glanced at me then ran quickly to the fallen man. The last of Perendour’s companions was already far away in the forest, riding fast. Nemet danced around the head of the struggling man on the ground, her spear teasing and stabbing at Gyldowen’s flailing, defending hands until, like a fisherman, she saw the opening to her prey and stabbed down quickly.

  All frenzy left the knight.

  As she approached me now, she held her short bow; an arrow was nocked. Just in case? Everything about her was tied, bound, fixed, ready for running. She bristled with feathers, gleamed with colours, flexed and twisted with muscular energy as she came to me, half stooping, very wary.

  ‘I’m going home,’ she said. ‘Don’t try to stop me.’

  ‘We’ve had this conversation before.’

  ‘I have to go. Unless I go, Baalgor will never release his hold on you …’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘He needs me, Jack He thinks he can entice me out again, out of this hell, into the enchanted garden, the place of dreams.’

  She meant my own world.

  ‘You might like it!’

  ‘It might not like me. It’s not my earth. Nor Baalgor’s. We’ve been hunted as the Mudhawk hunts the snake, and the only way for peace is to go home, to find the city. If I go, Baalgor will follow, I’m sure of it. Without me he has no direction.’

  ‘He says he doesn’t need it. He can re-create you from my daughter.’

  ‘He’s a destructive man. He can burrow into your life, your lives, with the ease of a worm in a fig. But he can’t get back what he needs from me. If you want to lose him from your life, then let me go. Or if you want an eternal life with me … follow me to the sanctuary. Take his place.’

  There was something about the way she said ‘eternal life’ that suggested the life of the soul after a short and brutish murder. She was half smiling, aware of my hesitation, my distrust. ‘It’s all right, Jack. I shan’t beg you to come.’

  But I wanted to follow her! I wanted to stay with her, running this strange world, making our home in the lee of cliffs, or the bowers of the forest; I wanted to sleep with my face against her skin, my hands touching that smooth and supple flesh. Even through the skin masks of her dead sisters, her eyes sparkled with enchantment and longing.

  She leaned forward to kiss me with a moist passion that stunned me.

  ‘Goodbye, Jack.’

  ‘Wait!’ I called, moments later.

  She turned where she stood, below the watching eyes of the gate. There was a smile of expectancy on her gruesome face, then a frown. At the same time I felt a different wind blow from the trees behind me; there was a faint aroma of perfume, and something like ether … like a hospital! Deep voices seemed to moan incoherently, and I thought I heard my name.

  Ahk’Nemet suddenly cried out, shaking her head and throwing aside her weapons and pack. She ran to me, tearing away the masks.

  ‘Not back!’ she shouted. ‘Don’t go back!’

  Angela called to me. ‘You’re hurting … Jack … come home … Jack …’

  Arms were around my neck, fingers in my hair, holding tightly to keep me. A mouth on mine, tears in half-opened eyes, a cry of grief muffled by the kiss. ‘I’m not ready! I’m fine! Leave me alone!’ I shouted as I broke the powerful grip of the Levantine-looking woman. Nemet thought, for a moment, that I was shouting at her, but I grasped her face, stared into the wintry skies, aware that the world was spinning, that I was dizzy.

  I remember thinking, You bastard, Steve! Leave me alone! You bastard! Angela! Let me go! I belong here, now. Let me go. Don’t drag at me, don’t keep watching me!

  Then Greenface was staring through me, looking round frantically, her face at first haunted, then distressed. I reached for her again, but she was as insubstantial to my fingers, now, as I was invisible to her eyes.

  Weakened by the p
ull of another world, I sank to my knees, curled into a ball, tried to hold the last scents of the high forest, the older world, the woman from my heart.

  Then hands were on my face, and a voice said, ‘Got him. Thank God. I thought we’d never get him back. The bruising’s not too bad. Why is he struggling …?’

  And Angela murmured, ‘Why’s he crying?’

  PART SEVEN

  The Moon Pool

  28

  Disorientated, damaged and furious, Jack came back from the Deep like a ghost, sharing his life, through his senses and thoughts, between the reality of the Midax room and the surreality of the forested hill and Watching Place that looked down across the maelstrom.

  It was quite clear that he had been brought out too quickly, too abruptly; he had been too deeply immersed in the Midax state for a safe return, and only the concern for his bleeding, the fear that he might be in a skirmish against greater odds, had finally led Steve to agree with Angela to terminate the trip without first ‘nudging’ Jack back towards the Hinterland.

  But Angela’s expression, her demeanour, was transparent.

  She had argued with Steve about the necessity of return not because of the scratches and cuts but because she, like the other technicians, was aware that Jack was in an intimate embrace. As with the wound-induced stigmata, so his body exuded the smells of his encounters, and when stale sweat from the quiescent, naked body on the padded couch had changed to pungent sex, Angela had become very angry. Despite Steve’s carefully articulated explanation that Jack’s Midact would not necessarily behave in the same moral way as Jack himself – that he was experiencing only the equivalent of a powerful erotic dream – her jealousy was entrenched and resolute, and she won the argument.

  Jack was ripped untimely from the heart of his world.

  Angela quickly regretted her brief loss of control. As soon, in fact, as her husband lurched screaming from the couch, tearing at his drip-lines and sensors.

  It was clear that he was very ill, raging across the Midax room, his face dark, his muscles bunched, his wild gestures, his bull-like fury threatening to damage valuable and delicate equipment.

  It took a paramedic to subdue him. Partially pacified, he was led to a recovery room. But though he was calm, now, in his eyes, as he stared at Angela, there was only a gleaming, boiling expression of hate.

  An icy wind blew from the Watching Place, swirling from the maelstrom beyond. Storm clouds flowed across the forest and on the wind came the smell of fire.

  Greenface came running, body held low, dark hair streaming. There was blood on her broad-belted tunic. She carried her bow and sheath of arrows, and wore her sisters’ faces.

  Behind her, four dog-like creatures chased towards her, leaping high in the air as they covered the ground, necks widened with frills of hair, backs stiffened with ridges of spines. They were higher than the woman, black-furred and streaked with amber. Narrow eyes were set close together above long, grinning muzzles.

  Greenface turned and shot the leader. It stood up on its hind-legs, the arrow embedded in its shoulder. All four of the wolverines straightened, heads lowering as they stared at their prey. They spread out, then, moving carefully on their hind-legs, forepaws hanging stiff, claws gleaming.

  Again Greenface shot the leader, this time in the jaw, and the creature dropped from its upright gait, shaking its head and beginning to scream

  The taller of the females ran at the huntress. The creature, arrow-struck in the skull, kept coming. At the last moment it turned and swept out its hindquarters, legs extended, the claws raking Nemet’s arm and stomach.

  After this, the dire-wolves retreated, leaving the stench of the alpha male’s secretion where it had marked the site of its defeat.

  For several minutes they growled and called from the tree-line, close to the Watching Place, then were gone.

  Greenface was shaken. She sat down on the rocky ground and lowered her head, her right hand clutching the claw-wounds on her arm …

  As the encounter with her faded, Jack felt sun on his face and opened his eyes to the ceiling of the room; the window was open and the light was spilling in, making him squint. He swung his legs from the bed and looked around.

  He could hear the sound of a woman crying; and his name was being called.

  ‘She didn’t go through,’ he said aloud. ‘She’s waiting for me at the gate.’

  Across the room, Angela shifted in her chair, then opened her eyes from the nap she’d been taking.

  ‘Jack?’

  She came over to him, hesitant at first, then more gladly as he stood and took her in his arms.

  ‘Thank God,’ she said, kissing him and tugging his hair. ‘I thought we’d done you some serious harm.’

  ‘She’s waiting for me by the Watching Place,’ he whispered. He felt fear and exhilaration, and the fear was for Ahk’Nemet, who was clearly in a dangerous place, alone, and with limited defence.

  ‘Who is? Is it Greenface?’

  ‘Greenface,’ he repeated emptily. Then the circumstances of his departure from the arms of the woman came back to him. ‘Why did you break the journey?’

  Anger surfaced briefly and Angela stepped quickly back, but the shadow passed and he scratched his stubbly cheeks and chin. ‘I wanted to go with her,’ he said.

  ‘I know. Or at least, I could guess. I’m sorry, Jack. I couldn’t bear the thought of what you were doing. And besides, you looked like you were having all kinds of shit beaten out of you. You’re very bruised again.’

  ‘I was fine.’

  ‘You’d also been in the Deep for fourteen days. We were getting concerned about letting you away for so long.’

  ‘Two weeks?’

  He tried to digest the fact. Previously, for what had seemed to be a longer visit beyond the Hinterland, he had been in the Midax state for only a quarter of that time. He stared at the floor for a while, then Angela almost sighed.

  ‘Was she prepared to return with you?’

  And of course he could only shake his head. ‘No. No she wasn’t. She wanted to go back to the city. She wanted me to go with her.’

  Angela looked grim, her arms crossed as she stared at her dishevelled husband.

  ‘And you wanted to go with her, I suppose. You wanted to follow her. You wanted to follow her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Of course. Of course you do …’

  But he wasn’t sure, now.

  As he shifted back to reality, the passion in the dream was less intense, the urge that had been overwhelming him – to travel back to the beginning of things with Nemet, to help her atone for whatever she had done so long in the past – now seemed secondary to the sweet immediacy of his family.

  ‘How’s Natalie?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Angela said, and there was something almost tearful in her voice. ‘But I’m not fine, Jack. Thank you for asking.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quickly, and reached for her, holding her very tightly. ‘God, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Angie. I’m still between two worlds. I haven’t got my feet on hard ground yet.’

  She was apologetic herself. ‘Of course you haven’t. I’m too impatient. Natalie is … strange. She’s here, in the Institute. I don’t like to leave her alone, but somehow … when we’re home … somehow she always ends up dancing in the field. Do you think she puts a spell on us?’ She was smiling wearily. ‘Someone blinds us with charm when he wants to dance with our daughter …’

  Angela’s cold, tired words were like a blow to the heart, and Jack remembered the claustrophobic grimness of Glanum, and the crawling, mindless shade that was his daughter’s reflection in that world. From love, he was suddenly back in the reality of fear, because he would have to go again into Glanum, to beg for more time, another chance.

  Seeing the sudden anxiety on his face, Angela reached out to stroke a finger across his brow. ‘Don’t think about it, Jack. We should go home. Go home and spend some time together. Let’s go up to the moors, g
o walking, find a remote pub with good beers and home-cooked food and stay until we feel like leaving.’

  ‘I need a debriefing session, don’t I?’

  Though this time it’ll be selective and discreet …

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course. But after that … home for a while, then away into the moors. Without concern for the grey-green faces in your life.’

  Jack stared at the woman, her own face bright, now, and not just with enthusiasm but with a need, almost a hunger, that he hadn’t seen for several years.

  And all he could think was:

  but I WANT to be concerned for the Greenface in my life …

  It was over two days since his return and Steve was anxious to hear the details of his experiences.

  ‘How long would you say had passed since you were there before?’

  ‘Hard to tell. Nemet suggested two years. Time enough for William and his mercenaries to have built boats, sailed the lake and sacked the fishing village. But to create the fortress? And for the survivors of the village to have built their own strong-hold, and fleet? Two years doesn’t seem long enough.’

  ‘From what you could see of them, did William and the Fishergirl seem much the same age as before?’

  ‘Very much so.’

  ‘Then there may be a continuity of story on the level of your association with your friend William, but discontinuity of setting.’

  ‘Each time I go back, I go back to a variant of the experience?’

  ‘I think so. A third trip will help to get some hard and fast rules established. When you’re ready, of course. And only if you agree.’

  Greenface was singing; a love song; a song of longing; it was a warm night and she lay, covered in skins, below brilliant stars. Her words carried on the breathing wind from the earthpool, the maelstrom, beyond the place where she waited.