by Holly Taylor
Not knowing exactly what she was doing, she found herself moving toward the chamber where she used to sleep when she had lived here. But as she did, the glow from the ring faded. So, she thought, so even the familiar ways, which held enough terrors for her were not right. It was not enough that she was, once again, beneath the earth. It was not enough that she was alone. It was not enough that all she could think of was that the walls would collapse and cover her.
Taking a deep breath, she retraced her steps and took an unused passageway at random. The light of the ring strengthened slightly. She followed the passageway down for what seemed like hours. The passageway abruptly ended into a junction. Here there were three more passageways, three pools of darkness, and three more ways to die.
And she knew that she had come to it at last—Cyfnos Heol, the Twilight Road; the path from which no one was said to ever return.
“Stop that,” she muttered, as she stood still, trying to decide which way to take. Her words seemed to be swallowed up instantly, smothered, left lifeless. Like she would be soon. The walls would collapse and she would—
She would start screaming in a minute if she didn’t stop this. She moved to stand before the east passage and looked down at the ring on her shaking hand. It seemed as though the glow had lessened. She moved to the north passage, but the glow did not change. West, she thought to herself as she came to stand before the last passage. Of course, west for Modron the Great Mother. And, indeed, as she stood before the west passage the ring began to glow with a greater intensity. Taking a deep breath, she hitched the coil of rope more firmly over her shoulder, griped the lit torch and the unlit one tightly, and began to walk down the passageway.
It was narrow to begin with, but it seemed to narrow even more as she went. In some places her shoulders brushed both walls. Only the thought of what the others would say if she came back empty-handed prevented her from turning around and running away.
Longer and longer the passage ran. There were no other exits, no openings, nothing but this narrow passageway. Truly she was on the Twilight Road. She was finding it hard to breathe now. She had no idea how long she had been down here. She glanced at the flaring torch and was startled to see how far it had burned down. She would need to light the other torch, soon. But if she did that, how would she make it back before the second torch went out? She should have brought more. Gwydion should have seen to it.
She continued down, following the twisting, serpentine, narrow way. Down she went to the center of the earth, to the realm of the Mother. Twisting and turning, turning and twisting, spiraling through this maze of passageways, traveling the Twilight Road.
The torch guttered. Shocked, she realized that it had almost burned down. She would have to light the second torch. She stopped and, remembering what Gwydion had taught her, took a deep breath to calm herself. She stared at the tip of the unlit torch and willed Fire to come to it. But nothing happened. No, this was wrong. She was trying too hard. Another deep breath, a moment to find and feel the inner balance. A moment to reach for the flames. But still, nothing happened.
Fool, she thought to herself fiercely. You cannot do what every Druid in Kymru could do. Oh, gods, if only her mother had not hidden her away all those years she might have learned how to do this. If only her mother had sent her to Caer Duir to learn, she might be able to bring fire now.
No, these thoughts would not help her now. “Modron,” she whispered. “Great Mother, Giver of Harvests, Queen of the Earth, please help me to call fire.” But nothing happened. Her other torch had nearly burned down. She could not do it. Quickly she touched the lit torch to the unlit one. The new torch blazed up, and she set the old torch on the ground.
Please, Modron, she thought, please don’t let it be much farther. Or else I will never get out of here. But, no, Modron had not answered her earlier plea. Modron cared nothing for her. She felt a pull, a faint tug, something—but what? She stopped, wanting to understand. The ring on her finger lost some of its glow. Had she missed something? Some turning? But how? There were no other ways out.
The glow of the ring became fainter still. The pull she had felt became stronger. And then she realized what she had to do, why Modron had not answered her prayer for fire. Fire would not do for the Great Mother. Fire belonged to Mabon of the Sun. But the Mother was different. Abruptly she threw the torch on the ground and extinguished the flame. Total darkness surrounded her.
No, there was light. The light from the emerald began to glow stronger. Modron was here, guiding her. She started forward, and the rocky ground became smooth as glass beneath her feet. The passageway began to widen.
Somehow her fear was gone. She almost ran down the passage lit by the verdant glow of the ring. There, not far now, an opening. A pit of blackness far, far beneath the earth. And she was not afraid.
She burst into the cavern, and the ring flared up even brighter than before. The chamber was perfectly round, the walls smooth and glittering with gems. In the center a green light glowed, pulsing, ever-changing. She walked slowly toward the light that came from the pit.
The pit. One much like the pit she had fallen into so many years ago. But this time she was not afraid. The ring on her hand, the glow from the pit, the beat of her heart pulsed in the same rhythm. She squatted by the hole and leaned over to look.
And there it was. Y Pair, the Cauldron of Modron. Buarth Y Greu, the Circle of Blood. The shallow bowl was made of glittering gold with a dizzying array of spirals etched on all sides. The lip of the bowl was covered with emeralds. In the center of the inside of the bowl was a figure eight, etched in onyx, the sign of Annwyn, Lord of Chaos.
She shrugged the rope from her shoulders. There was nothing to tie it to anyway, and she knew she would not need it. Not now. Not now that Modron had given her access, at last, to that place within her, that place that had always been there, but she had never been able to reach easily or consistently. Because now she could Shape-Move whenever she wanted. She could feel other things inside her that she could now do. She could Fire-Weave, calling fire when needed. These things denied her for so long, were hers now.
“They have always been yours.” The low, musical voice that seemed to come from everywhere, from nowhere, from the pit, from her heart, was warm and kind.
“Who is here?” Gwen asked. “Who are you?”
“I am Arywen ur Cadwy var Isabyr. I was the Fifth Archdruid of Kymru.”
Her heart in her throat, Gwen whispered. “The Archdruid to Lleu Lawrient, the last High King.”
“Yes,” Arywen agreed with a sigh.
A flicker of green and brown shimmered at the end of the pit, then the shade of Arywen coalesced in the emerald light. She had long, black hair, held back from her beautiful face with a band of gold and emeralds. Her Archdruid’s robe was forest green, trimmed in brown at the hem and throat. Around her slender neck hung the ghost of the Archdruid’s torque, shimmering emeralds set in a circle within a circle.
“You—you are here? Have been here all this time?” Gwen asked.
“I have,” Arywen’s shade said.
“How you must have loved him,” Gwen said in awe.
“We all loved Lleu Silver-Hand. Bran and Mannawyddan, Taliesin and I, his four Great Ones, loved him with such a love that death itself could not sunder it. I am glad you have come, White One, so that I may now complete my journey to the Land of Summer and see again those I have loved.” Her green catlike eyes glowed emerald in the shifting verdant glow from the pit.
“I thank you, Archdruid,” Gwen said formally, “that I have been led here. And I thank you, most of all, that Modron’s gifts have at last been given to me.”
“They were always yours, but you would never take them.”
“I was afraid. The caves—”
“Are Modron’s places. The warm, dark places of the earth. Her places just as much as the crops that grow above, the wheat that reaches toward the sun, the apple trees, the wildflowers. To embrace that which she
has to give you must embrace all that she is. And this you have never done. Look to yourself, Gwenhwyfar ur Rhoram var Rhiannon, for that reason.”
“My mother—” she began.
“Loves you. And left you for the good of Kymru. Your fears, White One, are your own.”
At last, after so many years, she understood. She knew, now, why her druidic gifts had been so hard to reach. For what gifts could have made their way through a heart so hard?
At last, she said, “I am the White One, the one who comes to take the Cauldron back to the land above, so that we may reclaim Kymru. Joyfully I have come. May I take it?”
“It is yours, daughter. Take it.”
Gwen stretched out her hands toward the bottom of the pit, and the bowl began to rise.
THEY WAITED BY the mouth of the caves as they had waited all day and into the night, rarely speaking, but comforted, nonetheless, by each other’s presence.
Gwydion absently fed another piece of wood to the small fire. Overhead the sky was just beginning to brighten as morning crept over the horizon. He looked over the campfire at Rhiannon. She had not slept—none of them had slept—as they waited. There were dark circles beneath her eyes. Her fears for Gwen were etched in the tight lines bracketing her mouth.
“I truly do believe she will come back,” Gwydion said quietly.
Arthur rose from his place next to Rhiannon and went to stand by the mouth of the cave. He stared into the entrance and did not bother to answer.
“I have not been able to Wind-Ride after her at all,” Rhiannon said softly. “I can see nothing. Why?”
“Modron,” Gwydion replied. “It is her doing. I have not been able to track her, either.”
Arthur started, then peered even more intently into the cave mouth. “I thought I heard something.”
Rhiannon leapt to her feet and grabbed Arthur’s arm. “Are you sure?”
“No, but I—”
From the mouth of the cave came a faint, emerald glow. The light grew stronger. Gwydion came to stand beside Rhiannon and Arthur.
Gwen walked from the cave to stand before them. In her hands she held the golden Cauldron of Modron. The emeralds on the bowl were glowing, pulsing in time to the emerald on her hand.
Gwen smiled.
“It is done,” Gwydion said.
Part 4
The Return
Three things are worse than sorrow;
To wait to die, and to die not;
To try to please, and to please not;
To wait for someone who comes not.
A Kymric proverb
Chapter 21
Mynydd Tawel
Kingdom of Gwynedd, Kymru
Gwinwydden Mis, 499
Gwyntdydd, Tywyllu Wythnos—early afternoon
Arthur gazed at the purple mountains that rose sharply before him, their stark edges outlined against the deep blue sky. Jagged peaks pierced the skyline, still dusted with snow, even at this time of year. He took a deep breath of clean, cool air. Home. At last, he was coming back, to the only home he could remember, Dinas Emrys, the little village where Great-Uncle Myrrdin had raised him.
This portion of Sarn Gwyddelin, the main road through Gwynedd, wound up and down through the mountains. In front of him the wagon creaked along. Gwydion drove slowly here, trying to avoid the worst of the rocks on the road. In a few days they would have to abandon the wagon, as they made their way closer to Mynydd Tawel, the hiding place that Arthur’s father, King Uthyr, had prepared for his people. And there, they would meet Arthur’s sister, Morrigan, who had the ring of King Uthyr in her keeping. At last he would meet the sister he had been too young to remember.
And there, too, would be Ygraine, the mother Arthur barely remembered, for he had not seen her since he was four years old. All because of Gwydion. All because of the Dreamer’s plots. All because his uncle had plans. His hatred of Gwydion, a hatred that sometimes slept but never fully departed, blossomed again in his heart like a deadly rose.
Suddenly Arthur was filled with a longing to go to Dinas Emrys. Of course, Myrrdin was not there. But he so desperately wanted to see again the only home he had ever known. After all, it was on the way to Mynydd Tawel. No reason that they could not take the time. No reason at all. Taking another deep breath, he urged his horse forward next to the wagon box.
“Uncle,” Arthur said sharply.
Gwydion, never taking his gaze from the road, replied quietly, “You are to call me da, boyo. Remember that.”
“There isn’t anyone else around,” Arthur exclaimed, “and you know it.”
“And how would I know that?”
“Because Rhiannon has been Wind-Riding this whole time, looking to be sure we are alone here.”
Rhiannon, in her place next to Gwydion in the wagon box, did not even turn her head. Her gaze was blank, as her spirit roamed the mountainsides, looking for signs of trouble.
Gwen urged her horse up next to Arthur’s. “What are you arguing about now?” she asked.
“What makes you think I’m arguing?”
“You’re talking to Gwydion. And that means you are arguing,” she said smugly.
He flashed her a distinctly unfriendly look. It did not seem to faze her.
“Uncle,” he began again, “we are going to Dinas Emrys.”
“We are not,” Gwydion replied. “We don’t have time.”
“I want to go,” Arthur insisted.
“No,” Gwydion said again.
“Why? Because you know how much I want to?”
Gwydion took his eyes from the road and turned to face Arthur. His cold, gray gaze held a hint of contempt. “There are always reasons for what I do, Arthur. And none of them have to do with pleasing or displeasing you.”
“So I noticed,” Arthur flared, “years ago.”
“Then remember it. And remember, too, what we are doing here and where we are going. And remember that we must be at the Doors of Cadair Idris with the Treasures in our hands by Calan Gaef.”
“Why must we be there at the New Year?” Gwen asked.
“Because that is the time when the nights are the longest, and when the veil between the worlds is the thinnest. If Arthur is to succeed there, he will need all the help he can get.”
“Thank you, uncle,” Arthur spat, “for your great faith in me.”
“I will have faith in you when you are a man.”
“I am a man now!”
“No, you are a boy, one who thinks of yourself first. When you begin to think of Kymru instead, then you will be a man.”
“You—” Arthur began.
But at that moment, Rhiannon stirred by Gwydion’s side. Her lids flickered rapidly over her green eyes, and then her gaze came into focus.
“What is it?” Gwydion asked, one hand still holding the reins, the other on Rhiannon’s arm.
“A wyrce-jaga,” she said quietly. “And some soldiers. And—and some prisoners.”
“Prisoners? Who?” Gwydion asked.
“Dewin,” she whispered. “And Bards. I know them, and so must you. And they are coming this way, down the road. They are wearing enaid-dals. Even if they wanted to Wind-Speak with us, even if we wanted to offer some word of comfort, we could not. We can give them nothing.”
“They wear collars,” Gwydion said flatly. “Collars that the Smiths are making.”
“So they do, and will, until the Smiths can be found and freed,” Rhiannon said.
“The Smiths should never, ever be doing such a thing,” Gwen said fiercely. “They should have died first.”
“The Coranians have the Smith’s families, Gwen.” Rhiannon pointed out. “Their wives and husbands, their children and grandchildren. And so they make the collars.”
“They are cowards!” Gwen insisted.
“And you know all about cowardice, don’t you, Gwen?” Arthur said coldly.
Gwen’s face turned bright red. “You would throw that up to me.”
“Hush,” Gwydion said. “Enou
gh of that. The Smiths know that one day we will find them and rescue them. Until then, they wait. As all Kymru waits.”
“Here they come,” Rhiannon said tightly. “Just around the bend.”
“Will any of them say anything to us?” Arthur asked. “Give us away?”
Rhiannon turned her green eyes on Arthur, then turned away. “No,” she said coldly.
“I was just asking—”
“It was a foolish question. Now hush, boy,” Gwydion said.
The wagon rounded the bend, then halted, as Gwydion pulled the horses to the side of the road to allow the other party to pass. There were ten Coranian soldiers, five in the front and five in the back, surrounding the prisoners. They carried spears and shields carved with the boar’s head, symbol of the Warleader. They wore shirts of woven mail that reached to their thighs. Behind the first five soldiers walked a wyrce-jaga. He was dressed in the customary robe of black, moving like a shadow in the sunlight. Following him were two men, two women, and a young girl, their hands bound behind them, collars of dull, gray metal clasped around their throats. The skin on their necks that bordered the collars was red and blistered.
“Clear the way,” one of the soldiers barked as they neared the wagon.
“We have,” Gwydion said shortly. “There is plenty of room to get by.”
Arthur saw Rhiannon rest her hand on Gwydion’s arm, as though restraining him. A muscle worked in Gwydion’s jaw as he looked at the prisoners.
Slowly, the prisoners raised their heads and gazed back at them. None of them made a sign, but Arthur thought he saw the glint of recognition in the eyes of the four adults. Then, as though they might have feared someone else would see it, too, they lowered their gazes back to the ground.
The wyrce-jaga strode up to them. “You are rude, peasant,” the man sneered. “We will have to teach you manners.”