My heat, I believe it to be the heat of the sun. My father is the sun, I know now.
To refuse a poet and singer of songs a gift is to know shame. Would I, who put my head willingly upon the block that it might be struck from my shoulders, accept such shame? Or, like the king who plucked forth his own eye in accordance with the bard’s request, should I do as they ask and damn the cost? When my enemies gathered round me, the anger of Medb hovering over them like the ash cloud of a ruined Dun, three times they asked me for my spear, and three times I agreed to their demands.
Loeg, you were more loyal than I deserved, for you loved me despite my greatness.
The Grey of Macha, peerless among your breed, may you die in peace.
The third cast was for me.
In a future time you will say I did not leap the wall of Dun Forgall, you will say I could not have broken the wheel-poles of a hundred chariots over my knee, or part whole fields of foemen from their heads with a snicker-snack of my sword, as weeds before the scythe. I see the hordes of Medb even now come upon us. While all Ulster’s manhood groaned in sickness and pain I alone held the field and a thousand thousand men I slew with each hand — their bodies made into mountains of red ruin and rot, their heads spitted upon poles and driven into the earth. Day after day I held the ford against their champions, and only despair undid me.
In my life, I’ve lived with death at each hand. My friends I’ve slain.
My son, slain at my hand — when I lick my fingers at the feast I taste his blood.
You’ll not see me weep; I chose this short, bright prelude to my end. Let others weep.
They have come to murder me as I stand — stand! — at the stone. There, there, there...in all directions they close upon me, their knives sharp, their eyes hungry. The foul sons of Calatin, brothers to those I’ve killed. My hand is weak.
Then a grey wind, a storm, and dying Macha kicks and bites at them, his hot blood spinning in the air as he spends it in my service. He, too, can be a monster and I laugh to see him kill so well.
They will say of me that I changed when the heat of battle came upon me, that I twisted and grew, that bloody mist surrounded me and light swirled about my head. It is true. It was my father’s gift to me.
I thought the gift made me great — and it did — but greater still was the choice I made. The choice I am making. Confuse not fate, confuse not geas, with lack of choice — long before I ate of my namesake I looked upon this death and rejoiced in its coming.
Perhaps that is why they will confuse me with that other; the humble men in their cold stone rooms writing of gods and heroes while wolves out of the north batter at their door.
But that is so far away from now. And you are farther still.
Fergia’s death was more painful than this; his death I regret the most.
I regret also killing the hound.
But now they come again, and the Grey I do not see. Come fate, come fame, come glory. They will take my head, and my hand, but with my back upon this stone I stand. I will not lie down. I die not as half a god, but fully half a man.
The Raven lights upon me, I feel its sharp grip. I go — having chosen. You will know my name; long after my father is forgot, you will know my name.
****
once upon a time
****
the unbedreamed
Christopher Johnstone
He walked the high hills under marbled skies, yet seemed to see none of it. He did not look at the boulders like knotty fists, his eyes never went to the heather or the mosses. Not once did he look into the distance, to gaze at the changeful Atlantic. Although the wind was cold, he did not shiver. Although the gleds cried like ragged eagles, he did not stop and listen. There were grey shadows on the irises of his eyes.
Dughall was hunting hares near Garleffin Fell and he already had three of them bloody and gutted on his belt. It would mean dinner tonight, and pelts to sell, but he did not feel happy to have them. He did not feel sad either. He did not, in truth, feel anything. When a shiver passed through a thick scrub of gorse, he stopped and eyed it, but he did not back away. When the grey muzzle poked out, when the black eyes shone and flashed, he did not feel fear.
The wolf was a half-starved thing, bone-thin and mean with hunger. It circled Dughall, and the man watched it, and wondered abstractedly if there were more, or if this were a straggler from its pack. Dughall slipped an arrow out and eased it into the cradle of his bow.
The wolf growled once, feverish, then came at him. Dughall's arrow went wide. There was no time for another, so he threw the bow aside, and plucked out his gutting knife.
It was strange. Even as the wolf knocked him over, even as it snapped at his face, he felt nothing. They rolled in the heather, man and wolf, like some monster, half-made and ill-made. They seemed to be one thing, full of self-hate… only… only… Dughall thought… he had no hate… no fear… just cold awareness.
The wolf twisted its head closer and dug its teeth into Dughall’s shoulder. The pain was distant. They writhed together. Dughall stabbed the wolf — once — twice — again. They were both red and sticky now. Their blood mingled. They were one creature truly. And together they tumbled down the slope, then slid, then tumbled some more. Teeth found a way to Dughall’s throat. He remembered, distantly, that he ought to scream or pray or something… and then… and then there was nothing… just a sickening sense of falling.
Was this death?
Dughall could still feel the wolf all over him. He could still smell its wet-dog reek. They seemed to twist together in mid-air, then they slammed into something very cold and hard.
He lay a long time in shadows, gasping, and not quite conscious, listening to the Devil singing. When his sense came swimming back, Dughall got up on one elbow and looked at the dead wolf. It would be a valuable pelt, he thought, but couldn’t summon anything more. Up above, a gash of grey light tore through an enclosing blackness. He could see clouds passing, and now and then the wings of a gled. He was in a hole. A tunnel to hell, perhaps, for Dughall could still hear the Devil singing.
He stood, shakily, and looked about for his knife, which he found buried up to the end of its bone haft in the carcass. The wolf must have broken his fall, and the creature’s back was shattered, the left side of its skull also a mess. He skinned it without haste or care, bundled the fur and tied it up on his back.
All the while, the Devil sang unseen in the dark.
There did not seem to be any way out of the hole, certainly he couldn’t climb back up — the walls were loose dirt and dead roots. There was another hole, though, one that was smaller and went deeper into the side of the hill. It was from this hole that came the uncanny voice, still carolling away.
Dughall crouched down, he sniffed the air of the tunnel, shrugged, and crawled inside.
He must have crawled for a hundred paces, two hundred, more, before seeing at last the sallow light of a candle. Now he went more carefully, creeping as quiet as he could, barely breathing… though not from fear, rather it was an abstracted sort of prudence.
Dimly he began to realise that this was all wrong. Why was there no fear left in him? It seemed wrong. He seemed wrong.
He edged to the end of the tunnel and peered into the candle light. It was, he supposed, some sort of workshop. The walls were lined with rough-cut stone, and the floor with reed mats and rugs. There was a burnt-out fire in the room, a bowl of embers, over which was a pot, and over the pot was the strangest fellow that Dughall had ever seen. He was a misbegotten thing, humpbacked, and stooped. His face had a bulbous nose and nostrils full of wiry hairs. His ears were huge and waxy and drooping. Though the hunched man’s clothing nearly reached the ground, Dughall could see that the poor fellow’s feet were malformed too, and it seemed that perhaps they looked more like the feet of a crow, or pointed backwards, though he couldn’t be sure.
All the while, as Dughall watched, the bent man sang and worked over the pot. So far, Dughall had not bee
n noticed, and he planned to keep it this way. He could see another opening not more than a few feet away — it was curtained with rotten sacking and the material swayed in a gentle breeze — surely, thought Dughall, a sign pointing to the way out. But as Dughall was about to sneak along the wall and vanish through the door, the misshapen man did a strange thing. He stopped stirring the pot, and picked up a full sack from the floor. When the man upturned the sack and emptied it into the pot, there tumbled out all manner of airy shapes and bubbles of colour. Rich and beautiful things went into the pot with a plop and a hiss. Beautiful phantoms were swallowed up and gone. Darker things too, small stormy nightmares, and grey and hopeless colours and then…Dughall couldn’t quite understand what he was seeing…
He saw a shape and in it was a field full of flowers and in the field was Iseabel, who he had fancied for some years, but lately… lately he had stopped loving her so much… then he had stopped loving her at all… and now he barely remembered her — they passed each other in the village sometimes and looked at one another with grey-shadowed eyes — but there she was, in such a beautiful field and in the same field, standing beside her and looking so happy, was Dughall. The image fell into the pot and was devoured by the boiling liquid.
It was a dream, he realised, one of his dreams — a dream he didn’t remember, but a dream he recognized all the same.
The wee man worked away steadily, pouring dreams into the pot. When he turned his back, Dughall took the opportunity to creep to the door and then he was through.
Dughall walked a way down the slope. He stood and watched the clouds sculpt and resculpt. A gentle rain crawled slow towards him, wetted him, then rippled away like the cave’s rotten curtain. Dughall let the rainwater trickle on his face, he tasted salt that had beaded on his lip… He looked again at the sky. Two gleds glided overhead, crying out, hunting for voles or mice.
He was alive.
He remembered.
That one small taste of a dream forgotten, it was enough to remind him that he was alive.
****
That night Dughall did not sleep. He ate his bannock and black sausage — as he always did — he put out his wisp lantern — as he always did — he went to bed and pulled his wool quilt up to his chin. But he did not sleep. Instead he put his gutting knife under his pillow, and waited. Darkness gathered in the room. He watched as a few fingers of moonlight snailed across the floor and walls.
The moonshine moved, the hours passed.
Dughall was still wide awake when a noise disturbed the night. He kept still now and watched. The shutters of one window opened, and a bolt of moonlight spilled into the room. Haloed in the light was a small, misshapen thing — the hunchback. It crept into the room, carrying in one hand a strangely shaped candlestick with five dim flames on five grey tallows. This odd stick was left on the window-sill, then, while singing softly to himself, he unravelled something like a fisherman's net, but silver-bright and gossamer. With net in hand, the man came to the bed-side, and then he cast the net into the air as if fishing for salmon, but instead of falling gently to cover Dughall, the net drifted over him, wafting as if the air were water.
Dughall had seen enough through his half-cracked eyes. He moved as quick as a wild-cat, snatching the knife out from under his pillow, then jumping at the wee man before the creature had a chance to do so much as shriek.
Dughall got a firm hold of him.
“What mickle is this?” said Dughall, “What are you doing here in my house? For I thinks ye're stealing my dreams.”
“Get off me.” The wee man squirmed, but his wizened bones were too weak. “Let me go.”
“No.” Dughall stretched the fingers of one hand almost the whole way around the man's throat and dragged him into the hearth-room, where a bundle of cord was lying ready. The wee man struggled as Dughall tied him up. He screamed, then wept, then begged. “I'll give you great treasures, if you'll let me go.”
“No.”
“Gold and silver. Fine carbuncles and rubies.”
“No.”
“Power. I promise power, wine, fine riches and women.”
“No.”
Satisfied that the knots were tight, Dughall plopped the wee man against a wall, and pulled up a stool. He sat down, glared and played with his knife for a time. “So, ye're been stealing our dreams.”
Neither of them said a thing more. Time passed. Dughall eyed the wee man, and the wee man glared back. Dughall considered trying to make him talk, but striking a bound man is a cowardly thing and probably against the church too, he thought. He decided to ask Father Seumas later. He grew bored waiting for the man to say something more, remembered the man's feet, and so lifted up the tunic's long hem. The feet were more disfigured than he remembered. They were so malformed that they did not ever look human, more like the feet of a bird.
“Ye're not a man at all, are you?”
The wee man glowered but said nothing.
When the grey of morning began to paint the air, the wee man started to look nervous. The sun rose, and the wee man started to fidget and chew his fat lower lip. “Lad, if you'll just be letting me go, I'm sure we can come to some arrangement that would be beneficial for—”
“No.”
“But aren't you tired? Wouldna you like to sleep?”
“My eyes feel like pissholes in a sandy beach. But I'm gonna keep awake, and I'm going to be watching you ‘til you tell me why you're stealing our dreams. It's the whole of Linfern village, isn't it. And probably Dalquhairn town too. Everyone's been dullard and grey for months now.”
Sun trickled through the still-open window and made a puddle on the floor, and slowly, Dughall realised, the wee man's attention was increasingly focused on the light. As the puddle of light crept closer to the wee man's feet, he looked first frightened, then terrified.
“You're worried about the sun?”
“Aye, you're a sharp one. State the bloody obvious. Cretin.”
Dughall yawned. “Fine. I won't move you then.”
“No, no, I didn't mean it. Please...I dunna like it.” “Don't like what?”
“When the sun gets me. I hates it. It's terrible. I hates it. I hates it.”
“But if you hates it, then it sounds as if it doesn’t kill you, aye? It’s not like you’d be some sort of troldey-creature that’d be turned to stone. Why should I move you, then?”
“But I hates it!”
“Tell me about the dreams.”
The wee man gurgled, unhappy.
Dughall leaned closer. “Tell me about the dreams.”
“Arrg!” He spoke rapidly. “Eideard, Thegn of Dalquhairn is secretly a warlock. Eleven-month ago, he worked a hex on me and bound me to serve him. Each night I goes out and I thieve dreams for him. I brew them into a fine broth, and on the tax-day each month, I gives him the potive, so as he can drink it. He chuggles down all the dreams of all the commoners and work-a-day louts, and as a consequence, he is fitter and finer, for he is full of dreams. And all his serfs, all of them are kept dull and obedient, cause they have no dreams, not any more. Right. That's all of it. Now, move me away from the sun.”
“The Thegn of Dalquahairn is a warlock?”
“Aye. That's the truth. Now, move me. Somewhere nice and shady. Under the bed, perhaps?”
“What happens when you get caught by the sun? Do you turn into a stone? Go mad? Is it painful?”
“No, it's not painful. It's just...well, it's embarrassing. Move me!”
“Look, you wee pillock, I'm being very civil and you're just being impolite. Mark me, I’m only asking out of being curious, and it'll be least another half-hour before the sun reaches your toes and—” But as Dughall was speaking he began absently waving his arms about. He still had his gutting knife in one hand and without realizing what he was doing, the blade slipped into the sunlight, caught it, and threw a flicker of light into the face of the wee man.
“Arrghur.” The wee man struggled against the ropes. “You idiot.
You creatin. Fool. Moronic, rock-headed...arguurhur...”
It spread across the man's skin like wind ruffling the waters of Linfern Loch...first it was a greenish tinge, then his flesh became even more warty and pocked than it already was. He began to shrink. Soon he was too small for the ropes to hold him, and Dughall, alert now, jumped to his feet. Soon, the wee man was too small for his clothing, and he disappeared within the greasy folds of linen. Something stirred within the tunic, and a tiny green face popped out. Dughall jumped on it and caught it before it had a chance to hop away.
Dughall cupped it in two hands and squinted. “You've gone and turned into a puddock.”
“Ribbet”, said the puddock, accusingly.
Dughall dropped the little creature into an iron cooking pot and weighed a lid onto it with a stone from outside. Then he lay down and slept, and for the first time in eleven months he dreamed, and he knew happiness and hope, and a nightmare or two as well, but that was alright, because he had other dreams that were happy and more.
When he awoke it was late afternoon. The puddock was still in the pot, which was good, though it still looked mean and angry, which he supposed wasn't so good. It would be an hour or so until the sun set, which was when Dughall presumed that the wee man would turn back into himself. At least, so he hoped. He used the time to cook some dinner, then set out two plates on the table. He found a full bottle of whiskey, and put this on the table with two mugs as well. It was as the sun was turning red and the sky was darkening, that frantic noises began to come from the cooking pot. Dughall removed the lid and upturned the puddock onto a stool, where it sat, looking miserable.
Dead Souls Page 8