Mythago Wood - 1 (36 page)

The fire closed in about him. There was a long, piercing scream, then only
the roar of the flames; maintained by earth magic, they cut me off from my
brother's terrible fate.

I could hardly believe what had happened. I dropped to my knees, staring at
the fire, deeply shocked and shaking as if with a fever.

But I couldn't cry. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't cry.

It was done, then, Christian was dead. The Outsider was dead. The Kinsman had
triumphed. The legend had resolved in favour of the realm. The destruction and
decay would cease henceforth.

I turned from the fire and walked back through the crowded wood, to the snow
line and on up the valley. Around me, the land was blanketed with white. The
bright stone that towered above me was almost invisible in the heavy fall. I
walked past it, no longer afraid of confronting Christian's mercenaries.

I struck the stone with my sword. If I had expected the note to ring out
across the valley I was wrong. The clang died almost immediately, though no more
quickly than my bellowed cry for Guiwenneth. Three times I called her name.
Three times I was answered by nothing but the whisper of snow.

She had either been and gone, or had not yet arrived. Christian had implied
that the stone
was
her destination. Why had he laughed? What did he know
that he had kept so secret?

I suppose I knew even then, but after such an agonizing journey in pursuit of
her the thought was too painful to contemplate, I was unprepared to acknowledge
the obvious. And yet that same thought tied me to the place, stopped me leaving.
I had to wait for her, no matter what.

There was nothing else in the world which mattered so much.

She came to the valley during the second night, walking so softly across the
snow carpet that I almost missed her. The moon was half full, the night bright
and clear, and I saw her. She was a hunched and miserable shape walking slowly
through the trees, towards the imposing rise of the monolith.

For some reason I didn't shout her name. I tugged on my cloak and stepped
from my tiny enclosure, wading through the drifts in pursuit of the girl. She
seemed to be staggering as she walked. She remained hunched up, folded in on
herself. The Moon, behind the monolith, made the stone a sort of beacon,
beckoning to her.

She reached the place of her father's burial and stood, for a moment, staring
up at the rock marker. She called for him then, and her voice was hoarse,
breaking with cold and pain, and pure exhaustion.

'Guiwenneth!' I said aloud, as I stepped through the trees. She visibly
jumped, and turned in the night. 'It's me. Steven.'

She looked pale. Her arms were folded across her body and she seemed tiny.
Her long hair was lank, soaked with snow.

I realized that she was trembling. She watched me in terror as I approached.
I remembered, then, how like Christian I must have seemed to her, darkly
bearded, bulky with furs.

'Christian is dead,' I said. 'I killed him. I've found you again, Guin. We
can go back to the Lodge. We can be together without fear.'

'Steve . . .' she said, her voice a mere whisper.

And collapsed against the stone, clutching herself as if in pain. She was
exhausted. The walk had taken so much out of her.

I walked quickly to her and lifted her into my arms, and she gasped, as if
I'd hurt her.

'It's all right, Guin. There's a village close by. We can rest for as long as
you like.'

I put my hands into the warmth of her cloak, and with a sense of terrible
shock, felt the cold stickiness on her belly.

'Oh Guin! Oh God, no . . .'

Christian had had the last word after all.

Her hand, lifted with the last of her strength, touched my face. Her eyes
misted, the sad gaze lingering on me. I could hardly hear her breathing.

I looked up at the stone.
'Peredur!'
I
called desperately.
'Peredur!
Show yourself!'

The stone stood silently above us. Guiwenneth folded herself more deeply into
my embrace and sighed, a small sound in the cold night. I hugged her so hard I
was afraid she would snap like a twig, but I had to keep the warmth in her body
somehow.

Then the ground shook a little, and again. Snow fell from the top of the
stone and was dislodged from the branches of trees. Another vibration, and
another . . .

'He's coming,' I said to the silent girl. 'Your father. He's coming. He'll
help.'

It must have stood there for a minute or more, and in all that time I waited
for the feel of its fingers pinching about my shoulders, lifting me to my doom.
When nothing happened I looked up. The Urscumug was still there, watching me,
eyes blinking, mouth opening and closing, showing the glistening teeth within.
It still held the Fenlander's body, but with a single, sudden motion that made
me jump with fright, it flung the corpse away, and reached for me.

Its touch was more gentle than I would have thought possible. It tugged at my
arm, making me release my protective grip upon Guiwenneth. It picked her up and
cradled her body in its right arm as easily as a child cradles a toy.

He was going to take her from me. The thought was too much to bear and I
started to cry, watching the shape of my father through a blur of tears.

Then the Urscumug stretched out its left hand to me. I stared at it for a
moment, and then I realized what it wanted. I stood up and reached out to the
hand, which enclosed mine totally.

In this way we walked round the stone, through the snow to the trees, and
through the trees to the fire wall ahead.

So much passed through my mind as I walked with my father. The look on his
face was not a scowl of hate, but a soft and sad expression of sympathy. In the
garden of Oak Lodge, when the Urscumug had shaken me so hard, perhaps he had
been trying to shake life
back
into my body. At the wooded gorge, when my
father had hesitated, listening for us, perhaps he had known where we were all
the time, and was waiting for us to pass him by.

He had helped me in my pursuit of the Outsider, not hindered. When he - as
all things in the realm - had come to need me, he had rediscovered compassion.

My father placed Guiwenneth on the hot ground. The fire roared into the sky.
Trees blistered and charred, branches falling in flames as they reached towards
the barrier. It was an odd place. The sweat poured from me, the heat of that
supernatural inferno soaking me. The struggle was eternal, I realized. The wall
of fire probably never moved - trees grew into it and were consumed. All the
time it was maintained by the flame-talkers, the first real heroes of modern
humankind.

I had imagined that the three of us were to pass through the flames, but I
was wrong. My father reached towards me and pushed me away.

'Don't take her from me!' I implored him. How beautiful she looked, face
framed in red hair, skin glowing with the brightness of the fire.
"Please!
I
must
be with her!'

The Urscumug watched me. The great beast's head slowly shook.

No. I could not be with her.

But then he did something wonderful, something that was to give me courage
and hope for the long years to come - a gesture that would live with me as a
friend through the eternal winter, while I waited with the Neolithic peoples of
the nearby village, guarding Peredur's stone.

He touched a finger to the girl's body, then pointed to the fire wall. And
then he indicated that she would return. To me. She would come back to me, alive
again, my Guiwenneth.

'How long?' I begged the Urscumug. 'How long will I wait? How long will it
take?'

The Urscumug bent to the girl and picked her up. He held her towards me and I
pressed my lips to Guiwenneth's cold lips, and held the kiss, my eyes closed, my
whole body shaking.

My father curled her up into his safe grasp and turned to the flames. He
flung a great handful of earth at the wall and the flames died down. I had the
briefest of glimpses of the mountains beyond, and then the shape of the boar
passed through the charred trees into the timeless realm. As it walked, so it
brushed past a blackened tree stump that looked uncannily like a human figure,
arms raised to its head. The shape disintegrated. A second later the flames grew
bright again and I was alone, left with the memory of a kiss, and the joy of
seeing tears in my father's eyes.

At that time, in the life of this people, Mogoch the giant was set a task by
the fates, and walked north for a hundred days without resting. This brought him
to the furthest limits of the known world, facing the gate of fire that guarded
Lavondyss.

At the top of the valley was a stone, ten times the height of a man. Mogoch
rested his left foot on the stone, and wondered for what reason the fates had
brought him this far from his tribal territory.

A voice hailed him. 'Take your foot from the stone.'

Mogoch looked about him and saw a hunter, standing on a cairn of rocks,
staring up.

'I shall not,' said Mogoch.

'Take your foot from the stone,' shouted the hunter. 'A brave man is buried
there.'

'I know,' said Mogoch, not moving his foot. 'I buried him myself. I placed
the stone on his body with my own hands. I found the stone in my mouth. Look!'
And Mogoch grinned, showing the hunter the great gap in his teeth where he had
found the brave man's marker.

'Well, then,' said the hunter. 'I suppose that's all right.'

'Thank you,' said Mogoch, glad that he would not have to fight the man. 'And
what great deed brings
you
to the borders of
Lavondyss?'

'I'm waiting for someone,' the hunter said.

'Well,' said Mogoch. 'I hope they'll be by shortly.'

'I'm sure she will,' the hunter said, and turned from the giant.

Mogoch used an oak tree to scratch his back, then ate a deer for his supper,
wondering why he had been summoned to this place. Eventually he left, but named
the valley
ritha muireog,
which means 'where the hunter waits'.

Later, however, the valley was called
imarn uklyss,
which means 'where
the girl came back through the fire'.

But that is a story for another time, and another people.