Mythago Wood

by Robert Holdstock

  The sound had been the roar of a wild beast. Tempered by distance, and the noise of the warrior band about me, I had not recognized the cry of the boar creature, the Urscumug. Now the sound became familiar, for it came a second time, and with it the distant groan and crack of trees and branches being snapped and pushed aside. In the garden, the hawks, the warriors, the strange men from cultures unrecognizable, began to move swiftly into action, gathering equipment, slinging the harnesses on to the five horses, calling orders, preparing to leave.

  Christian made a motion to two of his hawks, who tugged Guiwenneth to her feet, removed the spear-shaft from beneath her arms, and slung her over the broad back of a horse, tying her securely below its belly.

  ‘Steven!’ she screamed, struggling to see me.

  ‘Guiwenneth! Oh my God, no!’

  ‘Quickly!’ shouted Christian, repeating the order in another language. The sound of the Urscumug grew closer. I struggled against the restraining rope, but it was too tight, too secure.

  The company of mercenaries was moving swiftly towards the woodland to the south side of the garden, where two of them hacked the fencing down, before beginning the process of leaping through the flames of the burning orchard, to escape the garden glade.

  Soon, most of them had gone, only Christian, the Fenlander and one of the strange, white-painted Neoliths remaining behind. This ancient warrior held the horse over which Guiwenneth was tied. The Fenlander went behind the shed and I felt his tug on the rope around my neck.

  Christian walked close to me, and shook his head again. The fire around us burned brightly, but the sound of the approaching beast was loud. My eyes filled with tears, and Christian became a dark blur against the bright flame.

  Without a word he reached his hands to my face, and leaned close to me, pressing his lips to mine, holding the kiss for two or three seconds.

  ‘I have missed you,’ he said quietly. ‘I shall continue to do so.’

  Then he stepped away from me, glanced at the Fenlander and said, without pause, without concern, ‘Hang him.’

  And turned his back, calling a command to the man by the horse, who led the beast towards the burning orchard.

  ‘Chris!’ I screamed, but he ignored me.

  A moment later I felt myself wrenched from the ground, and the noose bit deeply, strangling me swiftly. And yet awareness remained, and though my feet dangled above the ground, I managed to keep breathing. Water blurred my vision. And the last I saw of Guiwenneth was her long, beautiful hair, flowing down the side of the beast which carried her. It snagged on the broken fencing, and I thought a strand or two of the auburn hair had remained there, caught in the wood.

  Then darkness began to close about me. There was the sound of a sea, pounding against rocks, and the deafening screech of a bird of prey, or some similar carrion creature. The bright fire became a bright blur. My lips moved but I could utter no sound …

  Something dark came between my dangling body and the flame trees. I blinked, and desperately tried to scream. In that brief action, my vision cleared, and I realized that I was looking at the legs and lower torso of the Urscumug. The stench of animal sweat and dung was overwhelming. The creature bent towards me, and through watering eyes I saw the stark, hideous features of the man-boar, painted white, bristling with hawthorn and leaves. The mouth opened and closed in a curious semblance of speech. All I heard was a hissing sound. All I was aware of were those slanted, penetrating eyes, the eyes of my father, the facial features around them grimacing and grinning, as if triumphant at having caught up with one of his errant sons at last.

  A clawed fist closed about my waist, squeezing hard, lifting me towards the glistening jaws. I heard laughter, human laughter, or so it seemed, and then I was shaken so violently – as a dog worries at a bird – that at last unconsciousness claimed me, and that terrifying moment passed into the realm of dreams.

  There was a sound like a swarm of wasps, which gradually faded. I could hear bird-song. My eyes were open. Patterns and shadows swirled and shifted, slowly resolving into a night vision of stars, clouds, and a human face.

  My body was numb, everywhere except my neck, which began to feel as if needles were being pressed into the bone. The hanging-rope was still tied in place, but its cut end lay beside me, on the cold ground.

  Slowly I sat up. The cooking fire still burned brightly. The air smelled powerfully of ash, blood, and animal. I turned and saw Harry Keeton.

  I tried to speak, but nothing moved, no sound came. My eyes watered and Keeton reached out and patted my arm. He was sprawled on his side, propped up by one elbow. The broken arrow shaft stuck obscenely from his shoulder, rising and falling with each of his laboured breaths.

  ‘They took her,’ he said, shaking his head, sharing my grief. I nodded as best I could. Keeton said, ‘I couldn’t do anything …’

  I reached for the cut rope, made a hoarse sound, querying what had happened.

  That beast,’ he said. The boar thing. It picked you up. It shook you. My God, what a creature. I think it thought you were dead. It sniffed you hard, then let you dangle again. I cut the rope with your own sword. I thought I was too late.’

  I tried to say thank you, but still no sound came.

  ‘They left this, though,’ Keeton said, and held up the silver oak leaf. Christian must have dropped it. I reached for it and closed my fingers around the cold metal.

  We lay there in the darkening garden, watching the bright streams of sparks rise skywards from the smouldering trees. Keeton’s face was ghastly pale in the glow of the fire. Somehow we had both survived, and towards dawn we helped each other into the house, and collapsed again, two woe-begone, wounded creatures, shivering and shaken.

  I cried for an hour at least, for Guiwenneth, with anger, for the loss of all I had loved. Keeton remained silent, his jaw set firm, his right hand pressed against the arrow wound, as if staunching the flow of blood.

  We were a desperate pair of warriors.

  But we survived the day, and when I had the strength, I walked to the manor house, and summoned help for the wounded airman.

  PART THREE

  The Heartwoods

  Inwards

  From my father’s diary, December 1941:

  Wrote to Wynne-Jones, urging him to return to the Lodge. I have been more than five weeks in the deep woodland, but only a fortnight or so has passed at home. For me, there has been no sense of the time shift, the winter being as mild and as persistent in the woods as at home. There was a little snow, no more than a flurry. No doubt the effect – which I am led to believe is an effect of ‘relativity’ – is more pronounced the closer to the heartwoods one journeys.

  I have discovered a fourth pathway into the woods, a way of travelling beyond the outer defensive zones, although the feeling of disorientation is strong. This route is almost too obvious: the stream that passes through the wood, which C & S call ‘sticklebrook’. Since this tiny rivulet expands to full flood within two days’ journey inwards, I cannot imagine how the water balance is worked! Does it become a full torrent at some point? A river like the Thames?

  The track reaches beyond the Horse Shrine, beyond the Stone Falls, even beyond the place of ruins. I encountered the shamiga. They are from the early Bronze Age in Europe, perhaps two thousand years B.C. Their storytelling ability is prolific. The so-called ‘life-speaker’ is a young girl – painted green – with clear ‘psychic’ talents. They are a legendary people themselves, the eternal guardians of river fords. From them I have learned of the nature of the inner realm, of the way to the heartwoods that will take one beyond the zone of ruins, and the ‘great rift’. I have heard of a great fire that holds back the primal woodland at the very heart of the realm itself.

  My difficulty is still exhaustion. I need to return to Oak Lodge because the journey is too daunting, too demanding. A younger man, perhaps … who knows? I must organize an expedition. The wood continues to obstruct me, defending itself with the same vigour t
hat originally made travelling through even its periphery a frightening experience. The shamiga, however, hold many keys. They are the traveller’s friend, and I shall attempt to rediscover them before the coming summer is out.

  The shamiga are the traveller’s friend. They hold many keys ….

  I have no sense of the time shift ….

  The girl affects me totally. J has seen this, but what can I do? It is the nature of the mythago itself ….

  How comforting the incomplete and obsessive journal became in the days after that painful and heartbreaking night. The shamiga held the keys to many things. The sticklebrook was the way in to the deeper woods. And since Christian was from the outside I found it comforting to think that he, too, was bound to the ‘routeways’, and I would be able to follow him.

  I read the diary as if my life depended upon it; perhaps there was value in the obsession. I intended to follow my brother as soon as my strength was back, and Keeton felt up to journeying. There was no way of telling what simple observations or comments of my father’s might have been of crucial value at some later stage.

  Harry Keeton received medical attention at the airforce base from which he operated. The wound was not dangerous, but was certainly severe. He came back to Oak Lodge three days after the attack, his arm in a sling, his body weak, but his spirit strong and vital. He was willing himself better. He knew what was on my mind, and he wanted to come with me; and the thought of his companionship was agreeable.

  For my part, there were two wounds to heal. I couldn’t speak for three days, and could only manage to swallow liquids. I felt weak and distraught. The strength returned to my limbs, but distress came in the persistent image of Guiwenneth, slung crudely across the back of a horse and dragged from my sight. I couldn’t sleep for thinking of her. I wept more tears than I would have believed possible. For a while, three days or so after the abduction, my anger peaked, and became irrationally expressed in a series of hysterical fits, one of which was witnessed by the airman, who braved my abusive assault upon him and helped to calm me down.

  I had to get her back. Legendary role or no, Guiwenneth from the greenwood was the woman I loved, and my life could not continue until she was safe again. I wanted to smash and crush my brother’s skull in the same way that I smashed vases and chairs in that sequence of physically powerful tantrums.

  But I had to wait a week. I just couldn’t see myself heading through tangled woodland without becoming completely exhausted. My voice came back, my strength returned, and I made my preparations and plans.

  The day of departure would be the 7th of September.

  An hour before dawn Harry Keeton arrived at the Lodge. I listened to the sound of his motorcycle for some minutes before the bright beam of his headlight swept through the darkened hallways, and the noisy engine was cut. I was in the oak cage, curled up in the tree hollow where I had spent so much time with Guiwenneth. I was thinking of her, of course, and impatient with Keeton for being late. I was also irritated with the man for arriving and breaking through my melancholy.

  ‘I’m ready,’ he said as he stepped in through the front door. He was wet with condensation and smelled of leather and petrol. We went into the dining-room.

  ‘We’ll leave at first light,’ I said. ‘That is, if you can move.’

  Keeton had prepared himself well, and taken the prospective journey very seriously. He was wearing his motorcycle leathers, with heavy boots and a leather pilot’s cap. His rucksack was bulging. He carried two knives at his waist, one a wide-bladed object, which he presumably intended to use as a machete as we forced through the underwood. Pots and pans rattled as he moved.

  As he eased the immense pack from his shoulder he said, ‘Thought it would be wise to be prepared.’

  ‘Prepared for what?’ I asked with a smile. ‘Sunday roast? A forest waltz? You’ve brought your life-style with you. You’re not going to need it. And you’re certainly not going to be able to carry it.’

  He stripped off the tight pilot’s helmet and scratched his tawny hair. The burn-mark on the lower part of his face was flushed brightly; his eyes twinkled, partly with excitement, partly with embarrassment.

  ‘You think I’ve overdone it?’

  ‘How’s the shoulder?’

  He stretched his arm, made a tentative swinging motion. ‘Healing well. Intact. Two or three days and it’ll be good as new.’

  ‘Then you’ve certainly overdone it. You’ll never carry that pack on one shoulder.’

  He looked slightly worried. ‘How about this?’

  As he spoke he shrugged off the Lee-Enfield rifle which had been slung behind his back. It was a heavy rifle, as I knew from experience, and smelled of oil where he had cleaned and waterproofed it. From his leather coat pocket he produced boxes of ammunition. From his breast pocket he produced his pistol, with ammunition for that from the zip pocket of his leggings. By the time this process of unloading had been completed his volume had withered by half. He suddenly seemed far more the slender airman of days before.

  ‘Thought they might come in useful,’ he said.

  In a way he was right, but I shook my head. One of us would have to carry them, and a trek through dense wildwood did not lend itself to carrying unreasonably heavy loads. Keeton’s shoulder had healed quickly, but he would clearly begin to suffer if the wound was subjected to too much abrasion and pressure. My own wounds had healed as well, and I felt strong, but not so strong that I could add twenty pounds of rifle to my neck.

  And yet, there would be rifles in the woodland. I had already encountered a matchlock. I had no idea whether or not heroic figures from more recent years were present in the forest, and what weaponry they might possess.

  ‘Perhaps the pistol,’ I said. ‘But Harry … the man we’re going in to find is primitive. He has opted for sword and spear and I intend to challenge him in the same fashion.’

  ‘I can understand that,’ said Keeton softly. He reached out for the pistol and returned it to its shoulder holster.

  We unpacked his rucksack, removing a plethora of items that we agreed would be more of an encumbrance than a comfort. We carried food enough for a week, in the form of bread, cheese, fruit and salt beef. A ground sheet and lightweight tent seemed a good idea. Water flasks in case we found only poisoned water. Brandy, medicinal alcohol, plasters, antiseptic cream, antifungal ointment, bandages: all of these seemed of the highest importance. A plate each to eat off, enamel mugs, matches and a small supply of very dry straw. The rest of our packs consisted of clothing, one complete change each. The heaviest item was the oilskin which I had obtained from the manor. Keeton’s leather outfit, likewise, would be a burden to carry, but for warmth and waterproofing seemed a good idea.

  All this for a journey through a stand of trees around which I could run in little more than an hour! How quickly we had both come to accept the occult nature of Ryhope Wood.

  Christian had taken the original map. I spread out the copy I had made from memory and showed Keeton the route I proposed to take, along the rivulet, to the place marked ‘stone falls’. This meant crossing two zones, one of which I could remember as having been labelled ‘oscillating traverse zone’.

  Christian was a week or so ahead of us, but I felt confident that we could still find traces of his passage inwards.

  At first light I picked up my stone-bladed spear, and buckled on the Celtic sword that Magidion had given me. Then, ceremonially, I closed and locked the back door of Oak Lodge. Keeton made some feeble joke about notes for milkmen, but went quiet as I turned towards the oak orchard and began to walk. Images of Guiwenneth were everywhere. My heart raced when I remembered the Hawks leaping through the burning trees, which had rapidly regenerated and were in full summer leaf. The day was going to be hot and still. The oak orchard seemed unnaturally silent. We walked through its thin underbrush and emerged on to the dew-glistening open land beyond, trekking down the slope to the sticklebrook, and the mossy fence that seemed to guard the ghostw
ood from the mortal land outside.

  I have discovered a fourth pathway into the deeper zones of the wood. The brook itself. So obvious, now, a water track! I believe it could be used to enter the heartwoods themselves. But time, always time!

  Keeton helped me wrench the old gate from where it had been nailed to a tree. It was half-buried in the bank of the stream. It came away from its attachments, trailing weed, rot, moss and briar rose. Beyond the gate the stream widened and deepened to form a dangerous pool, bordered by tangled hawthorns. Barefoot, and with trousers rolled up, I stepped into that pool and waded around its edge, carefully holding on to the roots and branches of that first, quite natural defensive zone. The pool’s bottom was at first slippery, then soft. The water swirled about my legs, cold and scummy. The moment we entered the dank woodland in this way, a chill came over us, the sensation of being cut off from the brightening day outside.

  Keeton slipped and slid his way after, and I helped him from the pool on to the muddy bank. We had to stoop and force our way through the tangle of snagging thorn and briar, easing our way along the stream’s edge. There were bits and pieces of fencing here, decades old, so rotten that they crumbled at the touch. The dawn chorus was subdued, I thought, although there was much bird motion above us in the high, dark foliage.

  The gloom lifted suddenly and we came to a more open patch of bank, and here sat down to dry our feet and put boots back on.

  ‘That wasn’t so hard,’ Keeton said, wiping blood from a thorn scratch on his cheek.

  ‘We’ve barely started,’ I said, and he laughed.

  ‘Just trying to keep the spirits high.’ He looked about him. ‘One thing’s for sure. Your brother and his troop didn’t come this way.’

  ‘They’ll be heading for the river, though. We’ll pick up the trail soon enough.’