That night we slept in a high corrie, out of reach of the wind's fingers. We had eaten a spare meal, as was our custom, and few words had been exchanged between us. Ailithir seemed lost in some far place, as if he listened to words he alone could hear; we had done more miles that day than had been our wont, and I was weary, so when the meal was done I wrapped myself in my cloak and tucked myself into a little hollow of the rocks.
I do not know what awakened me first—the light or the voice or the wind now risen to a gale—all I remember is that I was suddenly full awake, and shaking with a fear whose source I could not place. Then I looked up, and I knew.
Ailithir was standing atop the great granite outcropping that guarded the mouth of the corrie. His arms were uplifted under the blazing stars, his cloak cracked in the wind, and the moonlight fell over him like poured silver. He was speaking, not to me, in a voice I had never before heard him use—but then I had never before seen him in the fullness of his power, at full stretch as Druid. And though to see him revealed in his strength should have comforted me, perversely I was not comforted but terrified; I wanted him to stop, I wanted to be miles from him and from that place, safe behind stone walls and bolted doors and bars and moats and fences.
But I was there, and all I could do was what I did: buried my face in my cloak and pulled the hood over my head and clapped my hands to my ears. And still the terrible boneshaking thunder of his voice went on…
At last there was silence on the hilltop, and the wind had died away, and I ventured to peek out from the shelter of my cloak. What I saw made me gasp: Ailithir still stood upon the rock, but the light was gone and he looked—dwindled; small and spent and unspeakably ancient. I found myself wondering things I had never thought to think of: who was this man who called himself 'Wanderer,' what place had he come from, why was he here with me…
"Taliesin." The deep voice had lost none of its command, I must have been mistaken about the diminishment. Nor was there any question of its not being obeyed: I threw off the covering cloak and went forward to him.
He had stepped down from the rock as I came, and now he knelt to bring himself down to my own level. As he took my hands in his I looked into his face. Something of the druid-power still glowed in his eyes, but now it was nothing near so fearful; still of course a thing to be respected, but I felt nothing of the terror that had gripped me earlier, and I met his gaze with trust and confidence.
He did not speak until we were again down in the corrie, not in our little sleeping hollow but on the cliff's edge, looking down into the dark valley that fell away before our feet.
"Until tonight I have had no clear Sight of what was toward; only the warning—I fear not from your father, lad—that I must take you and flee Gwaelod for both our lives, and more besides. But by Hu himself I swear that had I had the smallest glimpse of what I have seen come this night, I had commanded all Gwaelod to flee…"
The terror was beginning to seep back into my bones. "What has happened, athro? What have you seen?"
Ailithir turned me gently to face the valley below; the ground-mist that rises in autumn was beginning to drift along the slopes, and I was somehow enthralled by those slow rippling veils.
"And dost think thou art strong enough to see, then, lad?" His voice murmured now in the High Gaeloch, the great formal tongue that I had heard only a few times in my young life. "Well enough; it is a thing must be seen, for none would else believe…"
I looked where he bade me, or rather where his thought bade me, for he spoke no word more aloud; into the white mist, until my sight began to swim, or perhaps it was the clouds that swam. All at once the swirling curtain was pulled aside, and I saw not the valley floor below the clouds, but Gwaelod itself, and Tair Rhamant on the edge of the sea.
How the magic was made I did not know—even now I am less than certain—but it was real enough: I was high above Tair Rhamant, above even the Canterfells, yet I could see with a strange sharpness all that passed so far below, even to the folk abroad in the twilight, and the beasts in meadow and lane.
The sun was on the point of setting, and darkness was beginning to engulf Gwaelod. Yet somehow it seemed strangely and terribly wrong, and as I leaned forward, puzzled by the wrongness, I saw with horror that the darkness came from the west, not the east, and that it was no darkness but a monstrous towering wave.
I must have cried out, for I felt Ailithir's hands seize my shoulders in an iron grip, but I did not look away; I think I could not have even had I tried, and certainly I wished to… Tair Rhamant the waters took first, that bright happy place gone in an eyeblink, vanished under the green wall. The wave must have been of colossal height, unnatural height, or else the land was sinking, or both together, for the water rolled on across the Canterfells as if the hills had been emmet-heaps, and burst down upon the lands that lay behind. Even from my vantage-point I could see the folk running wildly now, dashing out of their housen, running anywhere, anyhow, in a desperate vain attempt to escape the death that poured down upon them; then they too were gone, folk and beasts and buildings all alike, and still the water swept inland.
Inland—there was no more 'inland,' not now, only the sea, foaming furiously around the feet of the Spindles themselves, the mountain wall too high for even that towering wave to breach. All Gwaelod lay beneath the heaving waters, everything and everyone I had known…
I felt myself shaking—I had been until that instant unaware of my own body, still on the corrie's edge—and I clung to Ailithir's arms as he held me. "The hawks—the hawks—" I repeated over and over, not knowing if he understood my meaning or even my words. I could form no more coherent lament than that, seeing over and over in my mind's eye not the utter devastation I had just witnessed, that my mind, wiser than I, knew I could not survive with intact sanity the sight of, but a smaller grief: the flights of gray hawks, circling above Tair Rhamant as they and their breed had ever done, circling now over the sheets of sea that covered Gwaelod forever, circling and circling, until at last they plunged exhausted into the gray water.
Gradually I came back into myself, calmed enough to speak. "My father—the Marbh-draoi—"
I knew even then in my deepest heart that my father was dead, killed on Tara by the Marbh-draoi's word as surely as Gwaelod had been drowned by the Marbh-draoi's hand; but before I could bring this knowledge to light Ailithir had lifted his own hand and thrust it away for a time, knowing that to face it now would destroy my already wounded soul.
"The Marbh-draoi cannot endure forever, Taliesin." Ailithir's eyes were seeing something years and distances from this moment. "For his dan comes now upon him, and by the grace of Malen and Mihangel he shall be cast down; you yourself shall be among the ones who help to do so. But for now—"
He raised his hand again, and when it had passed before my eyes I looked up at him in puzzlement.
"Athro? I have had such a dream—why can I not remember?"
In the mercy of the rann of forgetfulness he had placed upon me, I did not understand the look that crossed his countenance: sorrow, and hope, and love, and a far triumph.
"Shall I remember?" I persisted.
And still I did not understand when he smiled and answered. "When there is need, son of Gwyddno; when there is need."
* * *
Chapter Three
Whatever the necessity of our flight may have been, for me it was no hardship to be travelling through that fair wild country, in what has ever since been my favorite season of the year.
It had been cool and bright for most of our march, with a few blowy days of wind and shower-squalls; on the slopes the trees were already well into their turning, though in the valleys the leaves were still showing some green. Above us, the geese were going, as they did all down the Arvon fly ways in autumn, their thin skeins black across pale skies; their far music, half-remembered and never forgotten, still haunts my dreams, and whenever I hear it in these latter days, I am back on those long-ago autumn hills.
T
his particular day was a glancing back to high summer, clear and bright and hot. The sun had burned off the morning mists, and now it brought out the fugitive hay-scent in the stubbled fields, so that when I closed my eyes and breathed deep of the warm fragrant air, it was August I breathed, not mid-October.
We had been journeying nearly a month now; already it was a full fortnight since that memorable night of vision I could still, most maddeningly, not remember. We had left north Arvon long since, striking inland now through the high hills, a little east of south. Ailithir, after a silent day or two, had put his somber mood behind him, as resolutely as he had turned his back upon Tair Rhamant, and for the days that followed he had been a cheerful companion.
It may seem strange that I accepted all this upheaval so calmly; but remember that I was yet only a month or so short of six years, and resilient as only a child can be. To me, a great journey south, sleeping out, in the company of the person I loved and trusted more than any other, was no bad thing at all; and the horror I had Seen had been mercifully masked from my memory—at least for a time. It could not, of course, be forever denied; but Ailithir, even as he had thought it best that I behold it, was to shield me from it for as long as he deemed that shielding best.
One thing he did not spare me was lessons: Even under the open sky, he drilled me while we walked in such lore as I had been studying at home, under his tutelage and Benesek's, and I was happy to be instructed—in languages (a Kelt's chiefest love and first learning; tongues are a thing innate with us, we seem to acquire them almost without being taught), and basic principles of music and bardery and history, and even some sword-drill and practice with bow and spear, though martial disciplines were not his best skill. But never once, during all that southward slog, did he impart to me magic—not the least littlest rann or rune or pishogue.
Informing all he did teach me was a loving reverence for the natural world, for the many realms of living things, that I have never seen equalled in any other, man or woman: To Ailithir all was truly one creation, the grass underfoot and the earth beneath the grass and the rock beneath the earth and the fires at the planet's heart; the waters that coursed and the winds that blew above them and the heavens that arched above the winds; and every creature that lived in and on and amid it all. Partly I think this came from his Druidry and the teachings of his order, but mostly I think it was something in him; and more than anything else it was this that I learned best on that long road into Arvon.
I was walking with my eyes closed, trying to do as Ailithir had been teaching me, to sense through other means than eyes alone. "When the eyes of the body are shut, the body becomes itself an eye; then you can see with your skin": It sounded simple enough when he explained it, as most of his precepts usually did—but, also as usual, I was finding it rather less simple in the doing.
I had succeeded so far, though, in that I could tell when clouds were passing far overhead even if they cast no shadow upon me, and when some bird of the meadow called away to my left I could follow its movement by the spacing of its cries and even the faint flap of its wings. But though at first I was most occupied with simply keeping my footing on the rough sheeptrack we were walking, after a time it did seem that my feet could see for themselves, and could be trusted to pick out the path most likely to keep me upright.
Alive so to the myriad sensations round me, I should not have been surprised that I felt the thing before I saw it, and before Ailithir quietly warned me of it: It rose up before my closed eyes and open senses like some great warning hand, as chill and palpable as the cloudshadows on my sun-hot skin, and my eyes flew open.
The landscape and sky seemed blinding white for an instant, bleached and leached of tint; then my colorsight returned, and I stared up at the tall gray sentinel stone rising out of the grasses, as if it had grown there since Keltia began—as perhaps it had, or very near. But Ailithir went up to the carved bluestone pillar, and laid his hand upon it as in greeting.
"This is the border-stone of Gorlas's lands; beyond this begins the maigen of the Lord of Daars. We are safe now." And that was the closest he was ever to come to admitting that we had not been safe before…
"We have but a league more to go, bach," he added then. "The lands of your new fosterers lay less wide to the north than to the other airts. If we do not tarry, we shall come to Daars in time for the noonmeal."
So we did not tarry, and coming over a heather-clad ridge, the hills blazing purple as far as I could see, we halted. Daars lay below us, the Caer-in-Arvon, small and neat and bright in its little valley. In truth it was not so small, either; larger by far than Tair Rhamant with its three straggling villages, and I began to feel a little out of countenance, like some country-boy, a keeraun faced with his first sight of Caerdroia.
No need to feel so, as I was soon to learn: Daars, no Caerdroia, was one of those places that welcome one home though one has never before passed their gates. On a rise of its own in the valley, facing south into the sun's full warmth, it was a proper town, with winding streets around a central square and broad fortified walls of cream-colored stone. Its castle loomed above the other dwellings, built on a cliff above the little river that bisected the glen. Prosperous Daars looked, too: I could make out even from our present distance the colorful signs swinging outside the shops, the merchants' devices plain upon them, and judging by the activity in the square it was market-day.
Seeing all this, my spirits rocketed up like a groundlark startled upon the nest. All at once there seemed to be lifted the strange weight like a restraining hand that had lain upon my heart for days; and there came to me at the same moment that warm smiling certainty that sometimes, if one is very favored, will come upon one all unlooked-for: the unsought sense, the found knowledge that a door stands ready to swing open into a time of change, upon a great and lasting happiness.
It swung sooner than I could have thought: We were not alone, Ailithir and I, in the high field. Perhaps twenty yards away, a boy stood watching us, his face alive with eager curiosity. At first he seemed but one with sun and sky and heather; then I touched Ailithir's hand and pointed. But he had already seen.
To my open-mouthed astonishment, he waved and the boy came running; it would seem they knew each other, for there had been gladness in that salute, and no surprise either side. Now that he approached, I could see him clear, as I see him still: a lad of my own age, give or take a year either way, tall for that age, and sturdily made, with hair as red-brown as a castaun and eyes the color of a peaty stream. His dress gave no clue as to his rank; it was the garb of any active child out for a day on the hill, tunic and trews and boots of good plain quality, having seen hard use and much wear. Though all my instincts were pushing me forward, shyness took me then, and I held back.
He conquered that with one look; young as he was, he knew already how to win hearts to him. He came toward me and held out his hand, and without thinking I put out my own to clasp it. From a distance, I heard Ailithir speaking, and his deep voice held warm satisfaction.
"Taliesin ap Gwyddno, be known to your foster-brother—Arthur of Arvon."
I remember very little of the rest of that day: Surely we must have all three of us gone down into Daars—Arthur would never have been so discourteous as to remain at his skylarking when there were guests in the gate, and there was no cause for us to linger on the hill—and presented ourselves before Gorlas, Lord of Daars, and been welcomed with due honor and ceremony. Surely all this must have happened, but it is vanished now beyond recall.
What will never vanish is my memory of what came next: of how, having been taken to a chamber that someone told me was to be my own, I saw a lady come into that chamber and kneel down beside me; and my memory tells me too that never before, and but once after, had I seen anyone of such perfection of face and form. And then she spoke to me.
"Taliesin"—her voice was deep and furry, the kind of voice a cat might have if it were to choose to speak, and I thought the voice as fair as the face—
"I am Ygrawn, Taliesin. I was your mother's friend, and I loved her dearly, and it is by her wish that I am to be your foster-mother. I know we shall be great friends, you and I." She took my hand, and I dared to look up into her eyes: Violet they were, not the vivid purple of heather but the pale cool lilac of amethysts, set off by two shining wings of blue-black hair.
Many there were who found Ygrawn Tregaron, daughter of the Duke of Kemow, a hard and proud and waspish woman; and doubtless they were right who found her so, for so had she proved to them. But if she had shown herself hard or vengeful, then just as doubtless had she been right to do so. I was to learn that never did Ygrawn strike or snap or chasten where it was not richly deserved, and even when she did so, seldom indeed did she act from her full strength. That strength would be seen later in its true light and measure; but I have ever thought Ygrawn to be among the most just judgers I knew, and I never saw cause to change my view.
And, at that moment, nor did I find her either hard or cold; one look from those brimming eyes, a few words more of my mother, murmured for my ear alone, and I was in her arms, my own thin arms wound tight around her neck.
But if I recall so little else of that momentous firstday, above all I remember Arthur. We had sat at the high table for the nightmeal in hall, he and I facing each other at the table's ends, with Gorlas and Ygrawn and Ailithir and several others of our elders taking the places between, beneath the canopy of state that hung along the wall.
I had been seized a while since by a notable hunger, having only just remembered that for the past four weeks I had walked long and far on scant commons; Druids are not known for their cookery, especially over a quartz-hearth on the march.
The Hawk's Gray Feather Page 3