Mythago Wood

by Robert Holdstock

  And on the air came the smell of grilled onions!

  I passed the clay pot to the old man, and leaned forward, imagining that I was expected to daub my features in some way. He seemed pleased and touched his finger to the ochre, then quickly drew a line on each of my cheeks, repeating the decoration on Keeton. I took the pot back, and we went deeper into the village. Keeton was still agitated, and after a moment said, ‘He’s here.’

  ‘Who’s here?’

  But there was no answer to my question. Keeton was totally absorbed in his own thoughts.

  This was a Neolithic people. Their language was a sinister series of gutturals and extended diphthongs, a weird and incomprehensible communication that defies even phonetic reproduction. I looked around the bleak and uninviting community for some sign of the connection with myth, but there was nothing to demand interest save for an enormous, white-façaded tumulus being constructed on a knoll of high land towards the mountains, and an elaborate display of intricately patterned boulders surrounding the central house. Work was still continuing on the carving of these stones, supervised by a boy of no more than twelve years of age. He was introduced as Ennik-tig-encruik, but I noticed he was referred to as ‘tig’. He watched us searchingly as we, in turn, watched the work of pecking out patterns using antler and stone.

  I was reminded of the megalithic tombs of the west, of Ireland in particular, a country I had visited with my parents when I had been about seven years old. Those great tombs had been silent repositories of myth and folklore for thousands of years. They were fairy castles, and the golden-armoured little folk could often be seen by night, riding from the hidden passages in the mounds.

  Were these people associated with the earliest memories of the tombs?

  It was a question never to be answered. We had come too far inwards; we had journeyed too far back into the hidden memories of man. Only the Outsider myth could be related to these primitive times, and the earliest Outsiders of them all: the Urshuca.

  A grey and shivery dusk enveloped the land. Freezing mist shrouded the mountains and the valleys around. The woodland was a stand of sinister black bones, arms raised through the icy fog. The fires in the earth huts belched smoke from the holes in the turf roofs, and the air became sweet with the smell of burning hazel wood.

  Keeton abruptly stripped off his furs and pack, letting them fall to the ground. Despite my query, he ignored me, and ignored the old man, walking past him towards the far side of the enclosure. The white-haired elder watched him, frowning. I called Keeton’s name, but was aware of the futility of the act. Whatever had suddenly come to obsess the airman, it was his business alone.

  I was taken to the main hut and fed fully on a vegetable broth in which rather unpleasant chunks of fowl were floating. The tastiest food presented to me was a biscuit, made from a grain, nutty in flavour, with a slight aftertaste of straw – not at all bad.

  In the early evening, replete but feeling very isolated, I stepped out into the yard beyond the huts, where torches burned brightly, throwing the palisade into shadowy relief. A brisk, freezing wind blew, and the torches guttered noisily. Two or three of the Neoliths watched me from their furs, talking together quietly. From below a canopy, where light burned, came the sharp strike of bone on stone, where an artist worked late into the night, anxious to express the earth symbols that the boy ‘tig’ was summoning.

  In the distance, as I peered into the nightland, other fires burned between the mountains. These pinpricks of light were clearly communities. But in the far distance, eerily illuminating the mist, was a stronger, widely diffuse glow. We were already coming into range of the barrier of fire, the wall of flame maintained by flame-talkers, the boundary between the encroaching forest and the clear land beyond. There, the world of mythago wood entered a timeless zone that would be unexplorable.

  Keeton called my name. I turned and saw him standing in the darkness, a thin figure without his protective clothing.

  ‘What’s going on, Harry?’ I asked as I stepped up to him.

  ‘Time to go, Steve,’ he said, and I saw that there were tears in his eyes. ‘I did warn you …’

  He turned and led me to the hut where he had been sheltering.

  ‘I don’t understand, Harry. Go where?’

  ‘God knows,’ he said quietly, as he ducked through the low doorway into the warm, smelly interior. ‘But I knew it would come to this. I didn’t come with you just for fun.’

  ‘You’re making no sense, Harry,’ I said as I straightened up.

  The hut was small, but could have slept about ten adults. The fire burned healthily in the centre of the earth floor. A matting of sorts had been laid around the edge of the floor space. Clay vessels cluttered one corner; implements of bone and wood were stacked in another. Strands of grass and reed thatch dangled from the low roof.

  There was only one other occupant of the hut. He sat across from the fire, frowning as I entered, recognizing me even as I recognized him. His sword was resting against the supporting pillar for the roof. I doubt if he could have stood in that tiny place even if he’d wanted to.

  ‘Stiv’n!’ he exclaimed, his accent so like Guiwenneth’s.

  And I crossed the floor to him, dropped to my knees, and with a sense of incredible confusion, and yet great pleasure, greeted Magidion, the Chieftain of the Jaguth.

  My first thought, strangely, was that Magidion would be angry with me for having failed to protect Guiwenneth. This sudden surge of anxiety must have made me seem as a child at his knees. The feeling passed. It was Magidion himself, and his Jaguth, who had failed her. And besides: there was something not right with the man. For a start, he was alone. Secondly, he seemed distracted and sad, and his grip on my arm – a welcoming gesture – was uncertain and short-lived.

  ‘I’ve lost her,’ I said to him. ‘Guiwenneth. She was taken from me.’

  ‘Guiwenneth,’ he repeated, his voice soft. He reached out and pushed a branch deeper into the fire, causing a shower of sparks and a sudden wave of heat from the declining embers. I saw then that there were tears glistening in the big man’s eyes. I glanced at Keeton. Harry Keeton was watching the other man with an intensity, and a concern, that I could not fathom.

  ‘He’s been called,’ Keeton said.

  ‘Called?’

  ‘You told me the story of the Jaguth yourself –’

  I understood at once! Magidion, in his own time, had been summoned by the Jagad. First Guillauc, then Rhyd-derch, and now Magidion. He was apart from the others now, a solitary, questing figure, following the whim of a woodland deity as strange as she was ancient.

  ‘When was he summoned?’

  ‘A few days ago.’

  ‘Have you spoken to him about it?’

  Keeton merely shrugged. ‘As much as is possible. As usual. But it was enough …’

  ‘Enough? I still don’t understand.’

  Keeton looked at me, and he seemed slightly anguished. Then he smiled thinly. ‘Enough to give me a slight hope, Steve.’

  ‘The “avatar”?’

  If I felt embarrassed as I said the word, Keeton just laughed. ‘In a way I wanted you to read what I was writing.’ He reached into the pocket of his motorcycle trousers and drew out the damp, slightly dog-eared notebook. After cradling it in his hand for a moment he passed it to me. I thought there was a certain hope in his eyes, a change from the brooding man who had developed over the last few days. ‘Keep it, Steve. I always intended that you should.’

  I accepted the notebook. ‘My life is full of diaries.’

  ‘This one’s very scruffy. But there are one or two people in England … ’ He laughed as he said that, then shook his head. ‘One or two people back home … well, their names are written at the back. Important people to me. Just tell them, will you?’

  ‘Tell them what?’

  ‘Where I am. Where I’ve gone. That I’m happy. Especially that, Steve. That I’m happy. You may not want to give the wood’s secret away �
�.’

  I felt a tremendous sadness. Keeton’s face in the firelight was calm, almost radiant, and he stared at Magidion, who watched us both, puzzled by us, I thought.

  ‘You’re going with Magidion … ’ I said.

  ‘He’s reluctant to take me. But he will. The Jagad has called him, but his quest involves a place I saw in that wood in France. I only glimpsed it briefly. But it was enough. Such a place, Steve, a magic place. I know I can get rid of this …. ’ He touched the burn mark on his face. His hand was shaking, his lips trembling. It was the first time, I realized, that he had ever referred to his wound. ‘I have never felt whole. Can you understand that? Men lost arms and legs in the war and went on normally. But I have never felt whole with this. I was lost in that ghost wood. It was a wood like Ryhope, I’m sure of it. I was attacked by … something …. ’ A hollow-eyed, frightened look. ‘I’m glad we didn’t come across it, Steve. I’m glad, now. It burned me with its touch. It was defending the place I saw. Such a beautiful place. What can burn can unburn. It’s not just weapons that are hidden in this realm, and legends of warriors and defenders of the right, and that sort of thing. There is beauty too, wish-fulfilment of a more … I don’t know how to describe it. Utopia? Peace? A sort of future vision of every people. A place like heaven. Maybe heaven itself.’

  ‘You’ve come all this way to find heaven,’ I said softly.

  ‘To find peace,’ he said. ‘That’s the word, I think.’

  ‘And Magidion knows of this … peaceful place?’

  ‘He saw it once. He knows of the beast god that guards it, the “avatar” as I call it. He saw the city. He saw its lights, and the glimmer of its streets and windows. He walked around it by watching its spires, and listening to the night-calls of its priests. An incredible place, Steve. Images of that city have always haunted me. And that’s true, you know ….’ He frowned, realizing something even as he spoke. ‘I think I dreamed of that place even in childhood, long before I crashed in the ghost wood. I dreamed of it. Did I create it?’ He laughed with a sort of weary confusion. ‘Maybe I did. My first mythago. Maybe I did.’

  I was bone-weary, but I felt I had to know as much from Keeton as possible. I was about to lose him. The thought of his departure filled me with a powerful dread. To be alone in this realm, to be utterly alone …

  He could tell me very little more. The full facts of his story were that he had crashed in ghost woodland, with his navigator, and the two of them had stumbled, terrified and starving, through a forest as dense and as uncanny as Ryhope Wood. They had struggled to survive for two months. How they had come across the city was pure chance. They had been attracted by what they thought were the lights of a town, at the edge of the wood. The city had glowed in the night. It was alien to them, unlike any city of history, a glowing, gorgeous place, which beckoned them emotionally and had them stumbling blindly towards it. But the city was guarded by creatures with terrifying powers, and one of these ‘avatars’ had projected fire at Keeton, and burned him from mouth to belly. His companion, however, had slipped past the guardian and the last Keeton had seen blinded by tears, hardly able to restrain the screams of pain, was the navigator walking the bright streets, a distant silhouette, swallowed by colour.

  The avatar itself had carried him away from the city and set him loose in the woodland fringes. It had been a warning to him. He was captured by a German patrol and spent the rest of the war in a prison camp hospital. And after the war he had been unable to find that ghost wood, no matter how hard he tried.

  Concerning Magidion, there was little more to tell. The call had come a few days before. Magidion had left the Jaguth and moved towards the heart of the realm, to the same valley which was my own destination. For Magidion, and his sword-kin, the valley was also a potent symbol, a place of spiritual strength. Their leader lay buried there, brave Peredur. Each, on being summoned, made the trek to the stone, before passing either inwards, through the flame and thence into no-time, or back out again, as seemed to be Magidion’s destiny.

  He knew nothing of Guiwenneth. She had loved with her heart, and the tie with the Jaguth was broken. Her anguish had summoned them to Oak Lodge, all those weeks ago, to comfort her, to reassure her that she might, with their blessing, take this strange, thin young man as her lover. But Guiwenneth had passed beyond them in her tale. They had trained her and nurtured her; now she needed to go to the valley which breathed, to raise the spirit of her father. In the story which my own father had told, the Jaguth had ridden with her. But time and circumstances changed the details of a story and in the version that I was living out, Guiwenneth had been a lost soul, destined to return to her valley as the captive of an evil and compassionless brother.

  She would triumph, of course. How could it be otherwise? Her legend would have been meaningless unless she overcame her oppressor, to triumph, to become the girl of power.

  The valley was close. Magidion had already been there, and was now retracing his steps across the inner realm of forest.

  When the fire finally died down, I slept like a log. Keeton slept too, though during the night I woke to the sound of a man crying. We rose together before first light. It was bitterly cold, and even in the hut our breath frosted. A woman came in and began to make up the fire. Magidion freshened himself, and Keeton did likewise, breaking the ice that had formed on a heavy stone pot of water.

  We stepped outside into the enclosure. No-one else was about, although from all the huts came the first thin streamers of smoke. Shivering violently, I realized that snow was on its way. The whole Neolithic compound was bright with frost. The trees that loomed around its walls looked like crystal.

  Keeton reached into his leathers and drew out the pistol, holding it towards me.

  ‘Perhaps you should have this,’ he said, but I shook my head.

  ‘Thanks. But I don’t think so. It wouldn’t seem right to go against Christian with artillery.’

  He stared at me for a second, then smiled in a forlorn, almost fatalistic way. He pocketed the weapon again and said, ‘It’s probably for the best.’

  Then, with the briefest of goodbyes, Magidion began to walk towards the gate. Keeton followed him, his pack large upon his back. His body was bulky in the fur cloak. Even so, he seemed tiny next to the antlered man who led the way into the dawn. At the gate Keeton hesitated and turned, raising a hand to wave.

  ‘I hope you find her,’ he called.

  ‘I will, Harry. I’ll find her and take her back.’

  He hovered in the gateway, a long, uncertain pause before he called, ‘Goodbye, Steve. You’ve been the best of friends.’

  I was almost too choked to speak. ‘Goodbye, Harry. Take care.’

  And then there was a barked order from Magidion. The airman turned and walked swiftly into the gloom of the trees.

  May you find your peace of mind, brave K. May your story be a happy one.

  A terrible depression swamped me for hours. I huddled in the small hut, watching the fire, occasionally reading and re-reading the entries in Harry Keeton’s notebook. I felt overwhelmed by panic and loneliness, and for a while was quite unable to continue my journey.

  The old man with the white beard came and sat with me, and I was glad of his studious presence.

  The depression passed, of course.

  Harry was gone. Good luck to Harry. He had indicated to me that it was just two or three days’ journey to the valley. Magidion had been there already and there was a huntsman’s shelter close by the stone. I could wait there for Guiwenneth to arrive.

  And Christian too. The time of confrontation was scant days away.

  I took my leave of the enclosure in the early afternoon and paced away through the thin flurries of snow that swirled from the grey skies. The old man had marked my face with different ochres, and presented me with a small ivory figurine in the shape of a bear. What purpose was served by paint and icon I have no idea, but I was glad of both contributions and tucked the bear-talisman deeply int
o my trouser-pocket.

  I nearly froze to death that night, huddled under my canvas tent in a glade that had seemed sheltered but through which an evil wind blew continually from midnight to dawn. I survived the cold, and the following day I emerged on to clear ground, at the top of a slope, and was able to look over the woodland at the distant mountains.

  It had been my impression that the valley of Peredur’s stone lay between those imposing, snow-capped slopes. Now I saw how wrong that belief was, how misleading Sorthalan’s map had been.

  From this vantage point, I could glimpse for the first time the great wall of fire. The land rose and fell in a series of steep, wooded hills. Somewhere among them was the valley, but the barrier of fire, rising above the dark forest in a band of brilliant yellow which merged with a pall of grey smoke, was clearly on this side of the mountains.

  The mountains were in the realm beyond, the no-place where time ceased to have meaning.

  Another night, this time spent huddled in a sheltered overhang of rock, which could be made warm by a small fire. I was reluctant to light that fire, since my shelter was on higher ground and the flame might have been noticed. But warmth was a precious thing in that bleak and frozen landscape.

  I sat in my cave, starving, yet without any interest in the meagre supplies I carried. I watched the darkness of the land, and the distant glow of the flame-talker’s fire. It seemed, at times, that I could hear the sounds of the burning wood.

  During the night I heard a horse whinny. It was somewhere out among the moonlit trees, below the overhang where I huddled. I moved in front of my dimming fire to try to block the light. The sound had been muffled and distant. Had there been voices as well? Would anyone be travelling on so dark and cold a night?

  There was no further sound. Shaking with apprehension I crept back into my cave, and waited for dawn.

  In the morning the land was shrouded in snow. It wasn’t deep, but it made walking hazardous. Among the trees it was easier to see the ground and avoid the twisting roots and trap-holes. The woodland rustled and whispered in the white stillness. Animals scampered within earshot, but were never visible. Black birds screeched and circled above the bare branches.