The Iron Grail

by Robert Holdstock

  They looked like Greeklanders!

  Iron on iron, iron on leather, the clang and thud of the skirmish was frantic, noisy and bloody. A woman’s voice screamed from the Ghostland host. One of the horsemen, the leader I surmised from the flash of gold on his helmet, rode around Jason, hacking down at him with a long, leaf-bladed sword, grim and determined as he tried to cut his way to Jason’s head. I heard him grunting the words, ‘You are not the one! You are not the one! Are you the one? No! You are not!’

  This was a strange encounter.

  Jason moved as if in a dream, his face blank, effortlessly parrying the cutting, slashing blows, but making no effort to slice at the exposed legs of either rider or horse, neither using his shield for offence, nor pushing forward, only cowering below the assault, anticipating the direction of the attack and responding to it. The rider hesitated only once, glancing in my direction, before returning to his singular task.

  Two of Jason’s men were cut down, two of the grim-faced, but they crawled back towards the defile before collapsing quietly. Then Rubobostes took one of the horses by its front legs, upturned the beast, crushing its rider, and swung its heavy carcass in a wide arc, unnerving the nearer warriors, including Jason’s determined opponent, though that particular horseman was already in nervous retreat. Sword held out before him, point towards Jason, he was making his mount step awkwardly backward through the long grass. His words, hissed like a wildcat at bay, were suddenly meaningless, but full of fear and fury. Whatever he had suddenly seen, it had upset him.

  The Dacian’s brawny intervention gave Jason and the others time to withdraw into the defile. Rubobostes bounded after them, his shield held defensively behind his head and upper body as three javelins thudded into the hide-covered oval of oak.

  As quickly as the attack had happened, the horsemen, all but the leader, streamed away through the grass, becoming tenuous in form as they wound through the orchard, before kicking into a canter and turning inland, towards the mountain fastnesses. Two of their number lay silent in the meadow.

  The singular rider came slowly over to where I crouched in cover. His body dripped with the sweat of the effort he’d made to cut down Jason. There was blood on his chin; he’d bitten through his lip. Dark, cold eyes stared at me searchingly through the gold-flecked Greekland helmet, skull-like and gleaming as it moved this way and that, the rider scanning the overhang.

  I noticed that on the left cheek guard was the image of a ship; on the right, the image of a ram. And on the brow: the unmistakable image of Medusa.

  ‘This is my place,’ the young man whispered in the ancient Greekland tongue. ‘You’re in my place. That’s the Father Calling Place.’

  His words were spoken without expression. Then he turned his horse and suddenly, with no further glance at me, sped away across the field, following his troop. I looked up at the overhang of rock and saw for the first time a ship, a phallus, a hound, and several little stick men carved on the grey surface. But this was not the Father Calling Place to which Kymon had taken me, when I came to collect the royal children. Could it have been Munda’s?

  I had no energy to think. I was still stunned by the sight of the vicious attack on Jason; still cold with the recognition of that screaming, feral, female voice. It had been Medea’s, of course. I had not seen where she was hiding. Indeed, she may have been one of the riders. She was trying to end Jason’s quest there and then, but had been frustrated by the big-boned Dacian, the Heracles of the new argonauts, who had pitched brawn against the supernatural and won the day.

  As I have said before, this hinterland was a strange place, equally alien to Ghostland as to the mortal realm. There were no true rules here, no true paths to guide the inadvertent traveller. This was unknown territory.

  Time passed. I stayed in the cover of the rocks, gathering my wits.

  After dark, Rubobostes came cautiously back to the meadow in the valley, a torch held high above his head, as if he were nevertheless unafraid to advertise his approach. The shadowy, slinking figure of Niiv crept after him. He gathered the two wounded argonauts in his fist, holding them by the hands—their eyes were open and alive, but they remained quite silent—and dragged them back to the river.

  Niiv stayed, standing boldly above the grass, her eyes glinting like a lynx’s.

  ‘I know you’re here,’ she whispered. ‘I can smell you. I knew you’d be here. Why don’t you show yourself, Merlin? You know you want to.’

  I stayed exactly where I was. The wind murmured through the defile, and the breeze chased across my skin like a ghostly finger.

  ‘I know you’ve been watching me,’ she called softly. ‘I was keenly aware of you watching me: first from your crow eyes; then from your gull eyes. Did you think I didn’t notice? I noticed! I watched you too, Merlin. First from my swan eyes; then from my spirit eyes, do you remember? Don’t try to deny it!’ she added with a little laugh. ‘You and I have eyes for each other!

  ‘I want you so much. You have no idea how much I want you. I would do nothing to harm you. When I first met you, I fell for you. We could be so strong together. I’ll walk your path with you. It’s not about spells and trickery—I don’t want to steal your magic. Just your heart! I forgive you for what you did with Medea.’

  With that ambiguous last comment, she turned and scampered back along the valley, following the fading torch wielded by the Dacian. Had she been spying on me even here, when I was beguiled by Medea? Or was she referring to something that had happened a long time in the past? Where had the girl been prying?

  Shortly after this disturbing encounter, I walked cautiously to the defile, followed along its narrow passage. When sinuous Nantosuelta came in sight, I could see pure, beautiful Argo moored against the bank, held strong against the powerful river. Her sail was furled, though the mast was still upright. Her colours were enchanting, the emblems and shades of her original crew painted on her hull as good luck and good voyage.

  Caped figures crouched on the shore of the inlet around a blazing fire. Rubobostes was standing guard, a small pile of spears at his feet, a large axe in his hand, his gaze restlessly shifting between the river and the defile where I crouched. I could see neither Niiv nor Jason. Mielikki, the goddess in the ship, scowled from her painted effigy in the stern, icy features, highlighted by flame, reaching forward as if she struggled to draw herself from the wood.

  The land across the river, the entrance to Urtha’s realm, was enfolded in night and mist. I needed to return there. And to do that, I needed Argo.

  I distracted the watchful Rubobostes with a cat’s cry, close behind him, and slipped past the ship to the reed-bed where the small boat should have been secured. She had been waiting for me, whispered that I should get in quickly, and as I hunkered down on the damp furs in her bilges she rocked away from the shore. I was startled to see a figure crouched before me, featureless for the moment. The boat passed like owl-shadow to the farther bank and spilled me out into the shallows.

  Then, turning stern-on, the hard face of the Forest Lady suddenly loomed greyly at me; the icy breath of Pohjola, in the far north, chilled my skin. Those slanting, fate-filled eyes blinked at me, but the thin lips stretched into a smile I’d known before. Mielikki, goddess of the northern woods, was very fond of me.

  ‘Well, Merlin, it’s time to leave you. I’m glad you found your way back here; I’m glad you found your feet again, after Delphi and that hot, unpleasant land.’

  Ah, Greek Land! How much I missed that heat, that fragrance, that dryness. But for this snow-wasted beauty, this stalker of ice-sheened birch forest, those sun-drenched climes had been a curse. I sympathised and thanked the guardian spirit of sleek-keeled Argo.

  She blew me a mocking, knowing kiss, adding, ‘Niiv will not let you go.’

  ‘I know. I’ll be on my guard.’

  She said, ‘I am her protector. What you do to avoid her is up to you. What you do to dissuade her is up to you. But if you try to harm her…’

>   To illustrate the implied threat, a voytazi of bull-like proportions loomed out of the water and snapped its gigantic jaws in front of my face before sinking back, gloating, into the shallows.

  ‘I will not harm her,’ I promised Mielikki. ‘But I will match beguilement with beguilement. And I will not stand in the way of her death.’

  Mielikki scowled; moonlight flashed on her teeth. Her eyes went blank with anger, but she accepted my words.

  ‘Your life is in her,’ she reminded me. ‘I can still smell the love in the lodge where you filled and thrilled her ancestor, generations ago when you visited Pohjola; I can still smell the sick on your breath as you tried to drown that woman, only to come to your senses; I can still taste the salt in your tears as you watched her child born, great-mother-to-be of your little Niiv. Like salt in diluted water, she is still potent with your own charm, so just remember: what you do to her you do to yourself!’

  As the little boat slipped away, Mielikki’s features becoming young and lean and beautiful as she smiled from the stern, I called, ‘She wants to strip the magic from my bones.’

  ‘You’d better fatten up, then,’ the goddess laughed.

  ‘She will gnaw me like a jackal, given half a chance. I shan’t let her do that, no matter what you say to me.’

  ‘It will be a long struggle for you,’ the goddess whispered back. ‘Whoever ages first will be the loser!’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Under Siege

  The little boat, the comforting companion, slipped away from the shore and was drawn into Argo, timber into timber, old time into the present. I felt sad to see her go, but I knew that Argo would be glad to have her back. Jason loomed darkly at the stern, peering across Nantosuelta, flint eyes seeking the shadow of the man he half suspected was watching him. Then he gave the order and Argo was cast free of the bank. Nantosuelta took her and shifted her to the side closer to life and the living; the oars rose and dipped; my old friend Rubobostes grunted the rhythm as he took charge of the steering oar, and in the prow the small, sleek dark shape of Niiv hunched like some cat, ready to pounce, staying still, as still as death, waiting for her moment.

  Argo passed from sight along the river between the worlds and I was forced to contemplate the more pressing reality: how to return to Taurovinda before Jason and his mercenary crew reached the stronghold.

  I had reckoned without Mielikki. She must have slowed progress down the river, perhaps because she was more sympathetic to me, a timeless creature like herself, than to Jason, whose agenda was personal, private, aggressive and abusive. In any event, after several days of running through the valleys, the forests and the narrow passes standing between Taurovinda and Ghostland, I finally saw the looming hill, with its fires and banners and totem figures rising above the high ramparts, the clear signal that Urtha was still in control of his home.

  Taurovinda, however, was under siege.

  I had been passed, during my journey, by a long column of what I believed to be the Unborn; they rode heavy horses and were cloaked in plain colours, reds and greens, rather than the elaborate patterns of the dead. Their swords were sheathed in gold-inlaid scabbards, and they carried single, thick-shafted lances rather than the clutch of slim javelins with which Urtha and his predecessors had become adept.

  Their shields were narrow ovals, very plain, and carried at the horse’s flank rather than slung over the warrior’s back. I was learning enough about Ghostland to be able to recognise a squadron of the future warlords of the realm.

  Though I had hidden from them as they’d passed, they conveyed no sense of danger.

  Then a band of Dead, twenty or so, stripped and stained with colour, rattling with bronze and bone rings on their upper arms, ears and ankles, had scampered past on foot, pursued by the shadows of ravens, a flock keeping an eye on the men upon whose appetites it would feed. Cruel and crude, this band seemed to exist in a world of hidden sense, aware of me though not seeing me, passing through the forest like moisture on a cool wind. Almost as soon as they had come into view they had slipped away, but I was able to follow them for days; they left a trail of wildwood slaughter.

  Somewhere in the besieging armies both Unborn and Dead had drawn into cover, encircling the hill, blocking all the paths and passages save for that which led from Nantosuelta, the winding track along which the wicker boats were carried bearing the corpses of the deceased.

  This was my way back to Urtha, as indeed it would be the way into Taurovinda for Jason when Argo finally berthed at the rough wooden harbour.

  Willow men, and hazel men and yew men and oak men encircled the hill in five ranks; sometimes elaborately constructed, mostly just two branches crossed and hung with human skin, these gaunt, grim idols would stop even scavengers from passing out of the fortress. In the long grass, the Dead moved like shadows. I circled them and came to the river. There were hundreds in the field, most of them curled up in sleep. Each breeze, each gust of wind was a passing ghost. The air was rank with decay. From the corner of my eye I could see the gleam of metal, the flash of plumage on a helmet. Tall horses and small ponies scampered in the half-light of near existence. When I opened my ears to the truth, there was the sound of laughter and battle practice, the crackle of fires, the baying of hounds.

  These invaders from the Otherworld were intent on winning back Taurovinda; there was no doubt about that. They had left their own world and brought a little bit of Ghostland to surround the Thunder Hill.

  But why? What could they hope to gain from possession of such a fortress?

  Urtha’s defences were the closed gates, sacred fire and the images of men constructed out of parts of the Dead. No doubt he had had advice from the Wolf-heads and the Speakers. They seemed to be effective against the enemy. The Shadows of Heroes were vulnerable here, as I have pointed out before.

  I was on the point of beginning my walk through the ranks of the Dead when I heard a girl’s voice, singing. For a moment I failed to recognise it, despite its familiarity, but when the soft song stopped and I heard the whispered words I see it green, I see it bronze I realised that Munda was somewhere close.

  I called for her, but the strange singing continued. The sound led me to her and I found the girl crouched in the jaws of two grey rocks, staring out across Nantosuelta, her eyes locked in Foresight, blind to the world of the river.

  I stepped inside her vision and she turned slowly to look at me; there was light in her eyes; she recognised me and smiled. There was no sound of the river, here, no sound of the wind.

  ‘Merlin,’ she whispered; she looked away. She said, ‘The warped man is very close. He will deal death. I see it, Merlin, but his face is so strange: it is both young and old. He is truly warped.’

  ‘That’s because he is out of his own time,’ I explained to the girl.

  ‘Is he? That accounts for it: I see him lost, I see him void; I see him angry; I see him crying.’

  I shook my head. ‘The man has no tears left. He didn’t cry when his eldest son rejected him at the end of a blade.’

  ‘I see no sons, only brothers. Two angry men with two pale ghosts who wear their faces.’

  Munda never ceased to astonish me, though that may reflect only my sense of her as being very young. The young can see the spirit world with great facility, but it is a narrow vision, hindered by lack of life. Not so Urtha’s daughter! She had seen Jason’s two sons with their tenuous companions: each brother, separated in the world when their mother had hidden them in the future, had been given the echo of his sibling, to keep him happy, to stop him grieving. Thesokorus was in far-off Greek Land, an echo of Kinos dogging his tracks. Munda had seen them nevertheless. I was very impressed.

  ‘Come out of the imbas forasnai,’ I said to her softly, and she shivered, drew in a deep breath and at once came back to the world of stones, trees and autumn breezes.

  ‘Merlin! Merlin!’ she cried with genuine delight, clapping her hands to my face and jumping up to embrace me. ‘Where hav
e you been? You’ve been gone so long! We’ve all missed you.’

  ‘I’ve been across the river.’

  ‘We’re under siege,’ she said darkly. ‘Only a few of us can get through the army. We follow the old track…’

  I smiled. ‘I’d guessed as much.’

  ‘But my father is furious with you for abandoning him! He’ll have some harsh words for you! But the sooner bruised, the sooner healed, so come on, come on.’

  And with that, the girl grabbed my hand and dragged me after her, away from Nantosuelta and through the spirit-ridden Plain of MaegCatha.

  * * *

  Urtha saw me coming. He sent men through the fires that blocked the winding approaches to open the gates. Munda, her grip on my hand like a tiny claw, dragged me through bull, stag, wolf, man and horse and almost flung me towards the welcoming cordon of chariots and grinning warriors, Urtha and Ullanna prominent among them.

  Save that Urtha and Ullanna were not smiling.

  Urtha grabbed his daughter by the shoulder, furious. ‘Where have you been? How did you leave the fortress? What have I told you? Do not leave the bounds!’

  ‘I can’t see in this place,’ she said. ‘It’s too confining.’

  ‘Too confining? We’ll see about confining. You have been forbidden to leave the walls. How many times have you done this before?’

  Munda stared brazenly at her father. ‘I cannot see in this place. I have to go to the one who winds around us.’

  ‘You seem to be seeing me without difficulty.’

  ‘Not that sort of seeing! Let me go.’

  But her father was too angry. Two High Women were summoned and Munda was marched, objecting, to the house where those guardians lived. She had broken her father’s law; she had endangered Taurovinda; that much was clear from the reaction of the High Women and the Speakers.

  As she was dragged away she continued to shout angrily: ‘You don’t understand! If I can’t see clearly, I can’t help you!’