This Present Past

by Traci Harding

  ‘A strange creature will visit this place, hair and eyes and teeth of yellow.’ Taliesin conveyed that which he foresaw in his mind’s eye. ‘It will bring destruction upon thee . . . Maelgwn Gwynedd.’

  All the doors and windows in the castell suddenly swung wide, and Myrddin stood in the centre of the room. ‘Be gone, Mahaud.’

  ‘No!’ Taliesin’s protest came too late, for the darkness fled the castell, along with all the hostility, and the sky outside cleared to a sunny day. All within the room stood in wonder of the event, but Taliesin was not happy. ‘Why?’ he appealed to Myrddin. ‘We need to banish it according to the rite.’

  ‘Until we deal with Chiglas, she will only be summoned back,’ Myrddin reasoned, and then added more quietly, ‘She was stirring up ill-will . . . you just cursed the King in front of his entire guard.’

  ‘The King is ill from the curse we have dispelled this day that he has carried many years!’ Taliesin was offended, and spoke up for himself with great volume. ‘Why wish him dead, when the next in line—’ he motioned to Rhun ‘—is more twisted than his father!’

  ‘You dare slight a prince of Gwynedd?’ Rhun asked. ‘And smite our king . . .’

  Knowing what this prince had done to Melanghel, whom Taliesin loved more than a sister, evoked all the hatred he’d accumulated over the past week and he was too emotionally distraught to resist the temptation to unleash the supernatural ability coursing through his veins. With a thought he began restricting the airflow into the Prince’s lungs, and Rhun began to choke.

  Myrddin approached more cautiously this time. ‘The Night Hunter is hoping you will prove yourself unworthy of these gifts; don’t justify his cause.’

  The thought of his loved ones made Taliesin despair. Yet how did Myrddin know about his battles with the Night Hunter? How much did he remember of their near-death experience? Taliesin let the Prince go and he fell to his knees, gasping for breath. These men, upon whom he would expel his wrath, were his Grigori brothers, all hopelessly lost in the Night Hunter’s reincarnation games. Myrddin was right; lashing out in retaliation was not going to aid their plight. They had all been played, none more so than himself. This was not detachment; why was he surprised to be staring down utter chaos!

  As Rhun gave the order to seize Taliesin, he closed his eyes and envisioned Keridwen’s library. Logic denoted that if he could will something from elsewhere, then equally he should be able to shift himself to elsewhere. The rush of the force coming at him could be heard and sensed. Taliesin braced for impact, but felt only a slight breeze upon his person as all the commotion faded away.

  In the sanctuary of the ancient vault, Taliesin collapsed to the floor, mentally and emotionally spent. Without the energy to even weep, he just lay there, entranced by the horrid recollections and imaginings bombarding his brain. Some from this life, some from others, pushing his consciousness to the brink to fathom all that he was and now embodied. Clearly, he possessed supernatural ability beyond any he’d mastered before, which just made him dangerous. It was a triumph that he’d not unleashed all his untapped power and wiped Degannwy from existence.

  ‘You left the court in an uproar!’

  Taliesin looked up to see Myrddin, who had Selwyn over one shoulder, and gripped Calin Brockwell in the other hand.

  ‘What did you just do to me?’ Brockwell broke free, running his hands over his person, clearly as averse to Otherworldly phenomena as his father had been. He appeared as if he might be sick.

  ‘How did you get in here?’ Taliesin had thought this the one place no one would find him.

  ‘I followed you.’ Myrddin shrugged. ‘But not before I put most in the courtroom to sleep, to allow our allies to slip away to safety.’

  ‘You are like me.’ Taliesin raised himself from the ground.

  ‘Surprise!’ Myrddin announced jokingly. ‘I am.’ He concluded deadpan, ‘I’ve never possessed such influence over the material world before; death changed us.’

  ‘About that—’ Brockwell sought answers, but as Myrddin turned about to lay Selwyn down, the lad’s shirt came untucked and exposed many bruises on his back.

  ‘He’s been beaten.’ Taliesin aided Myrddin to lay the lad on the lounge gently.

  ‘I can’t imagine Mahaud liked him soothing her host very much.’ Myrddin looked with pity on the sensitive youth, who appeared roughly the same age as himself. ‘He will recover from his ordeal, with food and rest.’

  ‘Where in the name of Annwn are we?’ Brockwell was turning circles. ‘Who are you . . . folk?’ He swallowed hard on the word as ‘the folk’ was a common term for ‘the Fey’.

  ‘This . . . is Keridwen’s library,’ Taliesin informed his adoptive uncle, who observed the old form Taliesin was wearing with great wariness now.

  ‘She was my mother,’ Taliesin informed them.

  Brockwell, at first stunned, nodded, comprehending how this could be. ‘You were the child she was said to be carrying all those years.’

  ‘I had no father.’

  ‘Nor I,’ Myrddin concurred on that account. ‘At least it was claimed so. But then, my mother was mad.’ He raised his brows as if to own that people thought the same of him. ‘She claimed to be from an ancient world . . . Atlans?’

  ‘Atlantis.’ Taliesin’s eyes lit up.

  ‘Could be? My mother disappeared around the time I was born; the tale could have been distorted in the telling.’ Myrddin considered. ‘You know of such a place?’

  ‘I do, but it was destroyed about ten thousand years ago.’ This was very intriguing. ‘Do you know how she came to be here in Cymru?’

  ‘A god named Myduke brought her.’ Myrddin frowned, having no knowledge of such a god himself.

  ‘Marduk!’ Taliesin held his head as the part of himself who had been the Nefilim God, Anu, made the connection; this had been his grandson by his son Enki. ‘So the Gods do have a means to time travel after all.’

  ‘Time travel!’ Brockwell and Myrddin both paled at the suggestion, but Taliesin was excited.

  ‘Don’t you see what this means?’

  His audience stared blankly back at him, clueless, but he could hardly blame them when he was the only one who remembered their mission here – but this convergence of the Grigori did not have to be a wasted opportunity!

  ‘With such knowhow we could fix all of this!’ He could maybe even find a way to keep his promise to Creirwy. ‘I must find it! If I do, it could have been me who attended Owain in death. Perhaps the King of Gwynedd wasn’t spinning yarns when he claimed we’d met before?’

  ‘You’ve lost your mind,’ Myrddin concluded, blankly. ‘Even I am not so draft as to consider such things. We should be back at Degannwy sorting out the mess we left there! Neiryn could be dead for all we know as we cannot find him.’

  ‘I think Neiryn aided me to my harp.’

  All eyes turned to the lounge where Selwyn now sat upright, scratching his head as he gazed about.

  ‘He kept telling me to play as the Fey would protect me.’

  ‘From the witch?’ Taliesin queried.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Neiryn was wearing a Ring of Invisibility,’ Brockwell explained. ‘I thought he must have been knocked unconscious or worse when Maelgwn threw him off, but maybe he survived? He gave me this, before the battle.’ Brockwell removed the Cloak of Concealment. ‘For all the good it did us.’ He placed it aside on a table, along with the deadly blade that had ended his sister’s life.

  ‘Are there more of these Otherworldly treasures out there waiting to fall into the wrong hands?’ Myrddin quizzed.

  ‘A few are still unaccounted for,’ Taliesin replied, but in his mind he was formulating his own plan of action.

  ‘We should collect them all and store them somewhere safe, where no king, good or bad, can be enchanted by them,’ Myrddin was adamant. ‘I know of such a place.’

  ‘Excellent!’ Taliesin landed a hand on his new friend’s shoulder in support. ‘You do
that. I have another path to follow.’

  ‘But I do not know the treasures as you do,’ Myrddin opposed the idea of them parting ways. ‘A list, at the very least, would be helpful?’

  Out of thin air Taliesin manifested two scrolls. ‘One is a list of the sacred treasures I know of, thirteen in all, and the other is those cursed pieces stolen from this library. The ones crossed off the list are safe here for the time being as I am the only key besides Chiglas, and everything that remains is either of no use or no interest to him.’

  Myrddin unfurled the list of the thirteen treasures, and noted one with a question mark alongside it. ‘What about this one, the Lightning Chariot?’

  ‘That one I heard tell of, but I’ve never actually seen it. It may have been inside Castell Tegid somewhere when the realm collapsed.’ Taliesin grabbed a scroll from a nearby shelf and then moved to the Intelligent Game Board. ‘But I will borrow this.’

  ‘Why?’ Myrddin obviously felt this was no time for games. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To Llyn Cerrig,’ Taliesin advised, ‘to pick a fight with Gwyn ap Nudd.’

  ‘Was one stand-off with him today not enough for you?’ Myrddin hounded – he obviously remembered quite a bit of their near-death moment. ‘And what of dealing with Mahaud?’

  ‘You do what you can to right the situation in the middle kingdoms, I know how involved you are with this time, but my destiny is to detach from the middle kingdoms and bring the Otherworld into alignment with humanity’s cause.’

  ‘As above, so below.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Taliesin awarded, pleased by his brother’s understanding. ‘But first I have to convince the Night Hunter to give me access.’

  ‘With a game,’ Myrddin said flatly, unconvinced that was feasible.

  ‘It worked for my mother, so . . .’ Taliesin served him a hopeful look. ‘Fare ye well, brothers, until we meet again.’ It was as he reached for the game board that Taliesin realised there was a slight hole in his plan. ‘I have never been to Mon. I shall have to travel there via more conventional means.’

  ‘Mon is my home, I know it well,’ Brockwell piped up bravely to say, though he must have been dreading the idea of being dragged through another Otherworldly displacement.

  ‘Are you familiar with Llyn Cerrig Bach?’ Taliesin wasn’t sure if using another’s memory of a place would work.

  ‘Aye,’ Brockwell almost roused a smile, but not quite. ‘There is an old Roman temple close by the lake that I visited often as a youth.’

  Taliesin looked to Myrddin who agreed. ‘It would be safer to have Brockwell on Mon, away from the strife of Degannwy, until we—’ he motioned to Selwyn ‘—gauge the mood of his royal highness in the wake of the King’s deliverance and subsequent collapse.’

  ‘My king is ailing?’ Selwyn was plainly still devoted to Maelgwn, which spoke volumes to the man the King had been before the curse and Meddyf had twisted him. ‘I must return to Degannwy at once!’

  ‘You should consider remaining in Brockwell’s service,’ Taliesin was sorry to say. ‘Your king has the plague, and it will spread.’

  ‘No offence to your majesty,’ Selwyn addressed Brockwell. ‘But my king will need soothing now more than ever.’

  ‘I shall do all I can to lessen the spread,’ Myrddin assured the young squire.

  ‘And I shall do all I can to ensure this situation never comes to pass.’ The statement was so uplifting to his worn-out spirit that Taliesin knew that this was destiny come to claim him – though his associates did not appear as confident. ‘Fear not; theoretically none of you will even know your world has altered; it will just be more congenial.’ Hopefully.

  ‘May the Goddess, and the great houses Don and Llyr, support you in your great quest,’ Selwyn was the only one inspired enough to be encouraging.

  ‘It has been my pleasure to make your acquaintance.’ Taliesin was warmed that someone had faith in him. ‘The Fey favour you greatly—’ He paused mid-sentence, recalling how fiercely the Night Hunter’s waifs had defended their harpist.

  You risk his life while you linger? Don’t you know who he is?

  Taliesin gasped as he gazed upon the fair youth, whose fond gaze reminded him so much of another.

  The Lady Tegid also claimed that you visited her, one and twenty winters ago.

  The idea that he could at this moment be staring at the proof of Neiryn’s claim, made Taliesin tear up for many reasons. ‘You do your king and family proud.’

  ‘I have no family, only my liege,’ Selwyn explained. ‘I became Caswallon’s ward at the age of five and have served Maelgwn as squire for sixteen years since.’

  Taliesin was finding it hard to breathe; but with all Neiryn had told him, why had he not mentioned a son?

  ‘Are you quite well?’ Selwyn was concerned and Taliesin nodded to confirm he was.

  ‘I regret we must part ways so soon upon meeting. Yet I feel certain we shall meet again, all of us.’ He took the game board in hand, and as he did, every treasure, every scroll within the library vanished.

  ‘Tell me you did that?’ Myrddin appealed to Taliesin.

  ‘Not on purpose.’ Taliesin had no clue where they had gone or why.

  ‘I thought you said they were safe?’ Myrddin didn’t seem as eager to trust Taliesin’s plan now.

  ‘Wherever they have gone, I will find them.’ Taliesin was not about to try and explain the anomaly. ‘You just focus on your tasks, and take care of one another. Brockwell.’ Taliesin passed the Prince the game board to hold, and then placed his fingers to the Prince’s temples. ‘Focus on Llyn Cerrig.’

  ‘Are you reading my mind?’ Brockwell pulled his head away, uncomfortable with that idea.

  ‘I’ll only perceive what you present; just focus on our destination.’

  Brockwell was frowning deeply, but nodded to give Taliesin permission to continue and closed his eyes tight.

  Upon replacing his fingers, an image of several naked female statues standing watching over an old stone altar filled Taliesin’s mind. ‘Ah yes, I see the youthful attraction,’ he uttered as the stagnant air and the quiet of the library altered.

  Nature filled his senses in a flood of sound and smells, the most pungent of which was the rotten, decaying smell of the peat lake, carried on the gentle evening breeze that lapped against them.

  ‘Is it over?’ Brockwell ventured to peek with one eye. When he saw they had reached Llyn Cerrig he opened both.

  The altar by which they now stood was not of Roman construct. Upon it was a large ringed cross that, in ancient cultures Gwion had studied, represented the celestial realm. The nine statues of partially naked females who surrounded the altar were undoubtedly Roman – perhaps the nine muses – along with the rest of the crumbling structure that had been built around this ancient Cymry altar, to disguise it as something it was not.

  This place had once been the centre of druidism for the Cymry, until the Romans took the island and burned every druid alive in sacred groves untouched by human hand since ancient times. The forest here had obviously recovered, for nature climbed and hung all over the crumbing ruin.

  Brockwell placed the game board on the altar and moved to rip away the vines that had wrapped themselves around one of the statues. ‘Maelgwn and I used to come here when we were lads.’ He choked back the sentiment of the memory and ceased his labour. ‘We were friends once.’

  ‘I thought you said Maelgwn was never of right mind?’

  Brockwell relented. ‘If my mother had treated me with as much contempt as Meddyf did Maelgwn, then I probably wouldn’t be right in the head either.’

  Now you see!

  The statement from a third party startled them both as the Night Hunter stepped out from within a pillar. If your silly woman had only listened to me, this prince would be on the throne of Powys by now.

  ‘Who is this?’ Brockwell’s hand automatically shifted to his sword hilt.

  ‘No!’ Taliesin warned against drawing the
weapon. ‘You should go.’

  ‘What does he mean I should have been on the throne of Powys by now?’ Brockwell turned on Taliesin, who held up both palms in truce.

  ‘My quest will see it done.’ He looked to Gwyn ap Nudd, for he never failed to be able to make men turn on each other. ‘This is between you and I—’

  With a wave of the Night Hunter’s hand, Brockwell vanished, and Taliesin gasped.

  ‘Where—’

  Home to Anglesey. I would hardly endanger my choice for king. Gwyn wandered around the altar stone, observing the game board. So, a challenge, is it?’

  ‘If you are willing?’

  What are the stakes?

  ‘A realm right here,’ Taliesin stated. ‘Such as the one you stole from my mother.’

  Stole, is it? Gwyn found that amusing. And if you lose?

  ‘Name your price,’ Taliesin proffered, already knowing what the Night Hunter wanted.

  I get to snatch away your immortal being, just as I should have when you were born. Gwyn rubbed his hands together. Kings or Ravens?

  ‘Kings, naturally.’

  Who shall go first?

  ‘Your choice,’ Taliesin proffered in a sporting fashion.

  As important as the first move was in any game, it was not what ultimately won; willpower and imagination would always triumph over knowledge.

  The Night Hunter made his move and invited Taliesin to do the same, but he did not even think on it. Taliesin moved his piece without observing the board and the game commenced play on its own.

  Don’t you wish to watch your defeat? The Lord hung over the game observing the progress, but Taliesin turned his back on the distraction to wander around the ruin.

  ‘Do you not grow tired of games, Night Hunter?’

  Not really.

  ‘But with each amusing lesson you inflict on mankind, you get further and further away from your ultimate purpose.’

  Gwyn ap Nudd laughed at this. If you think so, then you are misinformed. He looked back to the game. I am whipping you, woodsman.

  ‘I know you believe I wronged you—’