The Broken Kings

by Robert Holdstock

  “What sort of nuts?” one of the Greeklanders asked.

  “Large ones,” was all she said, and the Greeklander suddenly understood.

  Better news was to come. A loud hail from the cliff top, towards dusk, announced the return of Bollullos and Caiwain. They were in the company of three of the young kryptoii. As they began to descend the treacherous path, Tairon noticed that the big man was carrying something around his shoulders. It was soon revealed to be a goat, still alive, tethered by the hooves. It was an odd-looking animal indeed, with horns that spiralled in strange ways, and a colour to its coat that seemed more in keeping with the bright hues of flowers than the dull disguise of a grazing animal.

  Kymon and Colcu were not with this party. They appeared above the Akirotirian Cave in the company of Talienze. Urtha was disturbed by this.

  I flew up to the cave, watching closely, hovering before them in the form of a hummingbird as they helped each other down the craggy face of the cliff and onto the narrow ledge at the mouth of the cave itself.

  They explored the interior, wondering at the paintings, then descended to the harbour.

  Bollullos had made his own report.

  “The land is enchanting. From the top of the cliff you can see there are valleys stretching away into the interior, and a mountainous region in the distance. Some of the valleys are obscured by clouds, others are heavily wooded. But there are open spaces where all manner of creatures are running and grazing. To the east, I can see a plain, and a wide river. What looks like storm clouds in the distance must be more mountains. This place is wide, wild, and shrouded.”

  “Are there signs of people?” Tairon asked.

  “Hard to tell. There are patterns on the land, and structures that might be the ruins of buildings.”

  “But no living person,” Urtha prompted.

  “Only goats and creatures that must be special to this place.”

  When Colcu arrived, he confirmed what Bollullos and the other boys had said, but added, “There are certainly buildings; they seemed to me to be in the process of being swallowed by the earth, half here, half in the rock. And another thing: I saw smoke in the distance.”

  Kymon added, “There is movement in the distance, on the dawn side of the land. Flashing light, reflection, apparent movement, a little like people running into hiding.”

  “This is certainly not the land I left,” Tairon said to me cryptically. I had been watching him as he listened to these various reports, and he was clearly disturbed and perplexed by what he was hearing.

  “It was a long time ago that you left in your maze-wandering,” I reminded him.

  “I know. But this change—the hint of it, at least—is very odd. It’s almost as if this is not the same island. Just a form of it. I’m puzzled, but I need to think.”

  He moved away from me; a while later I saw him board Argo and creep cautiously into the stern, below the goddess. He stayed there for some time, talking occasionally—he was quite animated when he talked—mostly crouching quietly, perhaps listening, perhaps contemplating this return to his old land.

  At the other end of the ship, the motionless oaken figure of Segomos stared back at him.

  * * *

  The goat was skinned and gutted, stretched out to hang for a day or so. We made a meal of its liver, lungs, and stomach. The Greeklanders knew just what to do, and the food was delicious, if a little sweet.

  Tairon came walking down the ramp from Argo and returned to us, but he was distracted; he sat brooding, moody, his attention often drawn to the dark mouth on the cliff above us. He suddenly sat upright and attentive when Urtha reached into his belt and drew out several coils of bronze.

  “I found these in the cave,” Urtha said. “Beautifully wrought, very intricate. This piece has the small head of a hawk.”

  The metalwork was indeed fine, several broken lengths of twisted bronze, very strong; and two pieces of a softer metal mix that was flexible. Urtha demonstrated this by twisting it several times. “You’d expect it to snap, but it doesn’t. It’s like rope, but stronger. It’s not all metal. There’s animal sinew in here as well. And I can see thin strands of gold.”

  Now Tairon emptied the contents of a small cloth pouch onto the floor in front of us. “I’ve been collecting, too,” he said. “These were very deep in the cave, along the narrow passage, scattered. I think they’ve been torn in anger. Creative anger.”

  His own treasure was similar to Urtha’s. Urtha picked up a length of the entwined bronze strands. It had a dove’s head on the end. “Made by a true craftsman. But what are they?”

  “Bits of rigging,” Tairon said quietly.

  “For a ship?” someone asked.

  “Not for a ship.”

  “If not for a ship, then what?” Jason asked irritably, growing tired of Tairon’s cryptic behaviour.

  The thin man looked up at the sky, at the first gleam of stars. “For two boys,” he said. “And a journey that may even now be still under way.”

  * * *

  “I realise now the significance of this particular cave,” Tairon said, pointing up to the cliff. “I knew the story, but like everyone of my age and time on this island, I was never sure where the final events had occurred. I’m certain of it now. This is the most remote of his Shaping Chambers. He had a hundred such chambers, hidden on the island. And it was from this harbour that the Shaper’s sons made their final, fatal flight. Somewhere to the north of us, one found the end of life, either in the sea or on the rocks. These are the trimmed struts and rigging of their earlier wings, I imagine. Perhaps not strong enough.

  “You see? He has shaped the ends of each main wire into the heads of the two birds that symbolised his sons. His two lost sons.”

  Niiv, paying close attention to Tairon’s words, nevertheless found a moment to squeeze my arm. “More lost sons? This is becoming a habit. Are there any lost sons in your own life, Merlin?”

  “None. Be quiet.”

  “I don’t think I believe you,” she teased, with a sly glance. “I don’t think I believe you at all. And now I’ll be quiet.”

  * * *

  It was now that Tairon told us one of the hundreds of tales from his homeland, an ancient event: of how a father, a man with the talent for what he called “machines,” had created wings for his two sons.

  The tale contained a shadow of familiarity for me, though Tairon’s Island was not on my Path. It had been preserved in the memory of the Greeklanders, though in a much changed form. The father was Daidalos, of course, in one of whose many labyrinths Tairon had run as a youth and become lost, before finding me, Jason, and Argo.

  And it seemed that Argo had now asked Tairon to recount the legend.

  * * *

  Raptor rising:

  The wings (Tairon told us) were like a mix of swan’s and hawk’s wings, sewn deeply into the bodies of the boys, one set of white and one of black, waterproofed with wax, sewn to the muscles with bronze and gold-threaded bull sinew. When the boys flexed their shoulders, the wings moved.

  Their father believed that between the harsh, storm-scoured realm of earth and the unchanging and glittering vault of the heavens there was a world, invisible to the eye: a hinterland. That which changed in the heavens changed here, in this middle realm, and only darkness stopped the land being seen. He had become aware of it whilst studying the stars from one of his Shaping Chambers, at the centre of a maze that ran inside a hill whose summit was open to the sky.

  But how to reach that place? How to fly that high and understand all that might be seen? A mechanical bird was of no use. But his sons were light-bodied and athletic, and were keen to do their father’s work.

  He set his sons, white-winged Icarus and black-winged Raptor, the task of flying higher and higher every day, and every day they came back exhausted, with tales of how the very air itself seemed to thin, how despite the Sun, the air was colder. How, despite the Sun, the stars began to show from the vault, as if night were coming. How
their eyes seemed to see with crystal clearness. But they could not see the middle land.

  Daidalos strengthened the metalled tendons in their spines, ran threads of twisted bronze across their flesh, girth-lashed them with ivy roots, trimmed the flight feathers of the wings, coated their bodies in oil to make them slip more easily through the aether. He gave them masks, with narrowed eyes and sharpened noses, to refine what they could smell and see to a higher degree. He launched them from a cliff towering over the western sea—this same cliff—and the boys swooped, caught the rising thermal wind, ascending out of sight.

  Day after day, each day flying higher.

  “Did you see light on the hidden land?” Daidalos asked impatiently.

  “No, but the darkness is brighter than we have ever seen,” said Icarus.

  “If our wings would carry us, we could fly on forever,” said Raptor. “Father, that vault is vaster than any land you might dream of.”

  Clipped in places, extra feathers glued, more harnessing, more cables in the flesh, even their food became the food of birds, intended to keep them light, to hollow out their bones.

  “No middle land, but the vault is ablaze with stars!”

  “To look down, the earth is like a lake, a perfect lake, so blue, so white, like a dish of crystal water. Our land floats in it like a great ship lying on its side.”

  “Go higher!”

  On the last day, Raptor saved his energy whilst Icarus strove strongly to rise. Raptor fell behind. His brother was a small white speck in the darkening sky above. Already, the sheen of star-glitter was brighter than the other flier’s broad white wings.

  Raptor now used his strength, leaving the rising heat, stretching every feather to find this thinning air.

  After a while he saw a bright star gleaming. Coming closer, he saw it was Icarus, hanging at the edge of destruction, exhausted, wings moving, head turned up in wonder. Mars glared at them, fierce and red. They could both see the long roads and sturdy fortresses that covered the heavenly land of the War God. And Luna herself, half in shadow to the earthbound, showed her dark face clearly to these young men’s eyes.

  “There is no middle land but wasteland,” Icarus murmured with almost his last breath. “Just wasteland!”

  Then he fell, wings collapsed.

  Horrified, Raptor swooped down to catch him, caught him, holding him above the clouds, but Icarus shouted, “Go higher! You can’t stop my fall! I’m finished, brother. But you can go higher.”

  Raptor’s fingers, struggling to hold his brother, tore away his brother’s wings; struggling to catch him again, tore open his brother’s chest; struggling to retrieve him, tore open his brother’s throat.

  Icarus plummeted. Raptor, grieving and frightened for what he had done, struck up to the vault, crying, “I will see what our father dreamed for us!”

  He was never seen again. There are those who say that wind came from the Sun and helped him through the wasteland, where there are no paths, where the air is ghostly thin, where no spirit beckons to you, no guide to lead the way. With father’s love and brother’s blood, Raptor came at last among the stars. Some believe he hides in what the Greeklanders call Cassiopeia. If you look closely, you can see the shape of wings.

  * * *

  Tairon had told the story in a strangely formal way, as if reciting from the memory of an older storytelling. His eyes had been focused elsewhere. His hands had shaken slightly as he gesticulated in a theatrical way to accompany the events he described.

  Now he returned to normal and looked around for a response from his listeners.

  Most of us were quietly bemused. Kymon said, “If one brother was dead, and the other lost, how do you know what was said between them?”

  Tairon just smiled.

  “What was the point of the story?” Bollullos asked. “I liked the story. Don’t get me wrong. Very unearthly. But—its point?”

  There followed a long and confusing discussion on the meaning of Tairon’s tale, everything from the true nature of birds to the nature of wastelands, from the cruelty of fathers towards their sons, to the search for knowledge, and the necessity of sacrifice. Everything was nonsense.

  * * *

  “I’ll tell you what the story means,” Niiv said suddenly. I hadn’t seen her getting to her feet. She stood, half in shadow, only the bare skin of her folded arms catching the firelight; and her eyes, bright like crystal as she stared at me. “It means that when two people strive for the same thing they should succeed together or fail together. Raptor could have gone on but he tried to help Icarus when he fell. Icarus begged Raptor to abandon him and try alone for the middle realm. These were both good motives. But Icarus broke on rocks, and Raptor was lost against the vault. Nothing was achieved. If Raptor had helped Icarus, if one bird had helped the other safely back to earth! If they had flown together! Then both would have lived to try another day.”

  Urtha nudged me, whispering with a little laugh, “I’m not sure, but I think she’s talking about you. You’ve been neglecting her.”

  * * *

  The argument ceased. All eyes turned to Tairon.

  “I told you the story because Argo asked me to,” he said quietly. “Whether there is a point to it remains to be seen. But if I understand Niiv correctly, then she has come closest. There has been a conflict here, on this island, between two minds that see the world in different ways. Argo asked me to tell the story. She must have had a reason.

  “By the way.” He glanced at me. “She has asked to see you. I think she wants us to sail along the northern shore and find Ak’Gnossos.”

  “The old city?”

  “She’s taking us into the heart of the island. I don’t know why. But I think we should follow her instructions.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Maze of Echoes

  I boarded Argo and climbed down into the prow, to the threshold of the Spirit of the Ship. I’d expected that Argo would allow me in, but she turned me back.

  Mielikki whispered, “Not yet. She doesn’t wish to speak to you at the moment. But she has told me to tell you to sail east, to the Bull Palace. There is a hidden river there that will take you deeper into the island, to a city close to the Chamber of Discs. She asks you not to enquire too closely at this moment. This is difficult for Argo.”

  I reported this to Jason and to Tairon. The Bull Palace, Tairon told us, was famous for its labyrinth and sat at the heart of Ak’Gnossos, a high-walled city. After a brief discussion, it was decided that there was no real alternative than to obey Argo, unenlightening though her instruction was. We had arrived here in confusion, sailed here in obscurity, at the whim of an old and beautiful ship, worked at the oars by painful memories that had yet to be revealed.

  We prepared the ship, took the huge pithos of honey with us, and rowed from the colourful harbour, catching the wind and sailing along the northern coast to the legendary and labyrinthine palace at Ak’Gnossos.

  We kept as close to the cliffs as was safe. Tairon surveyed them constantly as we steered our way through the heaving waters. Rubobostes was at the stern oar; Bollullos drummed out the rhythm when we were forced to row. It was dangerously rocky here, and the swell surged back against the ship, a booming resonance that rocked the vessel. The cliffs were over-looming, sheer, encrusted with gnarled growth, occasionally shimmering with outcrops of crystal, or with the fall of streams of water draining from mountains beyond our view.

  The cliffs never fully dropped away, but occasionally receded slightly to expose steep beaches and the narrow mouths of widening valleys, revealing cloud-obscured hills in the distance. Bright colour and illusory movement, in those misty regions, told of villages and small havens, but everything was drowned in silence, a land that was smothering life.

  A day later we reached the bleaker, ruined harbour that guarded the river leading to the Bull Palace.

  Once, the river-approach from the sea to the great palace had been awe-inspiring. Towering figures had lined the ban
ks. The tombs and shrines of the kings of the land and their powerful consorts had shone white and gold. Guard stations and trading stations, sprawling forges and tanning sheds had mixed with pleasure gardens and the beckoning fragrances of honey-traps, where music played and the sounds of revelry were a delight to the sea-worn ears of the traveller.

  Most impressively, four great bulls had once bestrode the river, one of bronze, one formed from accretions of obsidian, one carved from cedar wood, and one shaped from gleaming marble. Their massive heads had been lowered, the horns horizontal, a clever mechanism in each of the heads making the huge tongue lap slowly up and down into the water, so that each ship that sailed to Ak’Gnossos had to adjust its stroke to miss these dangerous rhythms.

  It was part of the bull game, Tairon remembered, part of the private humour of the sea-lords and kings who had owned the surface of the land for generations, coexisting mostly peacefully with the two primal forces that had warred with each other for possession of the island’s deeper realms.

  Tairon had been a child during that fabulous time, and memory was now an echo; now, however, he stared at the bleak remains as Argo moved against the flow of the crystal waters, between the corrupt and fading edifices of that age.

  Of the obsidian bull bridge, only the curved horns remained, rising forlornly from the river. We passed through them without interruption. Of the wood bull, a charred mass on the western shore suggested its fate. The marble creature was recognisable only by its eyes, the horns broken off, the once-savage features smoothed and shaped by wind and rain.

  The bronze bull was drowning, its muzzle above the river, greened and corroded, a great hoof stretched onto one of the banks, a twisted horn rammed into the trees on the other side. Argo’s keel scraped the dead metal as we crossed the statue, a scream, an echo, a despairing cry of memory. And at that moment we saw the palace, and were astonished at the sight.

  The land was sucking it down, reclaiming the shaped clay as it was reclaiming the whole of the created world of men. The high walls were sloping towards the south, half-consumed, the foundations, close to us, being torn from the earth. Away from us, the buildings and chambers, the courtyards and watchtowers, all had already been wrapped about by the folds of rock and soil. Trees of all kinds were growing up the angled walls, branches clutching at every nook and cranny, helping to drag the vast royal residence back to nature.