Mythago Wood

by Robert Holdstock

  ‘Kill me then,’ I said bluntly.

  But he just shook his head and laughed ironically. ‘You’ve risen from the dead twice, Steven. I’m beginning to be afraid of you. I don’t think I’ll try it a third time.’

  ‘Well, thank you for that at least.’

  I hesitated, then asked quietly, ‘Is she alive?’

  Christian nodded slowly. ‘She’s yours, Steve. That’s how the story will be told. The Kinsman showed compassion. The Outsider was reformed and left the realm. The girl from the greenwood was reunited with her lover. They kissed by the tall white stone …’

  I watched him. I believed him. His words were like a song that brings tears to the eyes.

  ‘I shall wait for her, then. And thank you for sparing her.’

  ‘She’s a handy little girl,’ Christian repeated, touching his stomach wound again. ‘I had very little choice.’

  Something in his words …

  He turned from me and walked towards the fire. The thought that I was about to bid a glad adieu to my brother stopped me thinking about Guiwenneth for a moment.

  ‘How will you get through?’

  ‘Earth,’ he said, and reached for his cloak. He had piled soil into the hood. He held the garment like a sling; with his free hand he gouged a handful of dirt from the ground and flung it into the fire. There was a splutter and a sudden darkening of the flame, as if the earth had swamped the conflagration.

  ‘It’s a question of the right words and sufficient dirt to scatter through the flames,’ he said. ‘I learned the words, but the quantity of Mother Earth is a problem.’ He glanced round. ‘I’m a pretty poor shaman.’

  ‘Why not go along the river?’ I said as he began to swing the cloak. ‘That’s your easiest option, surely. The Voyager made it through that way?’

  ‘River’s blocked to people like me,’ he said. The cloak was swinging in a great circle around his head. ‘And besides, that’s Lavondyss beyond the fire. Tir-na-nOc, dear Steven. Avalon. Heaven. Call it what you like. It’s the unknown land, the beginning of the labyrinth. The place of mystery. The realm guarded not against Man but against Man’s curiosity. The inaccessible place. The unknowable, forgotten past.’ He looked round at me, as he swung the heavily laden cloak. ‘When so much is lost in the dark of time there must be a myth to glorify that lost knowledge.’ Back to the fire, stepping forward as he spoke. ‘But in Lavondyss the place of that knowledge still exists. And that’s where I’m going first, brother. Wish me luck!’

  ‘Luck!’ I cried, as he flung the dirt from the cloak. The flames roared, then died, and for an instant I saw the icy lands beyond, through the charred corpses of trees.

  Christian ran towards that temporary pathway through the surging fire, an old man, heavily built, limping slightly as his wound jarred painfully. He was about to achieve something that I had committed myself to preventing – save that he was alone, now, and not with Guiwenneth. And yet I could scarcely bear to think of what would happen to him in timeless Lavondyss. From hatred I had come full circle and now felt an uncontrollable sadness that I would probably never see him again. I wanted to give him something. I wanted something of his, some memento, some piece of the life I had lost. And as I felt this, so I thought of the oak-leaf amulet, still around my neck and warm against my chest. I began to chase after him, tearing at the necklet, ripping the heavy silver leaf from its leather binding.

  ‘Chris!’ I shouted. ‘Wait! The oak leaf! For luck!’

  And I threw it after him.

  He stopped and turned. The silver talisman curved towards him and I realized immediately what would happen. I watched in numb horror as the heavy object struck him on the face, knocking him back.

  ‘Chris!’

  The fire closed in about him. There was a long, piercing scream, then only the roar of the flames; maintained by earth magic, they cut me off from my brother’s terrible fate.

  I could hardly believe what had happened. I dropped to my knees, staring at the fire, deeply shocked and shaking as if with a fever.

  But I couldn’t cry. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t cry.

  Heartwood

  It was done, then, Christian was dead. The Outsider was dead. The Kinsman had triumphed. The legend had resolved in favour of the realm. The destruction and decay would cease henceforth.

  I turned from the fire and walked back through the crowded wood, to the snow line and on up the valley. Around me, the land was blanketed with white. The bright stone that towered above me was almost invisible in the heavy fall. I walked past it, no longer afraid of confronting Christian’s mercenaries.

  I struck the stone with my sword. If I had expected the note to ring out across the valley I was wrong. The clang died almost immediately, though no more quickly than my bellowed cry for Guiwenneth. Three times I called her name. Three times I was answered by nothing but the whisper of snow.

  She had either been and gone, or had not yet arrived. Christian had implied that the stone was her destination. Why had he laughed? What did he know that he had kept so secret?

  I suppose I knew even then, but after such an agonizing journey in pursuit of her the thought was too painful to contemplate, I was unprepared to acknowledge the obvious. And yet that same thought tied me to the place, stopped me leaving. I had to wait for her, no matter what.

  There was nothing else in the world which mattered so much.

  For a night and a full day I waited in the hunter’s shelter, close to Peredur’s monument, warming myself by a fire of elm. When it stopped snowing I walked the land around the stone, calling for her, but to no avail. I ventured down the valley as far as I dared and stood in the forest, staring at the huge wall of fire, feeling its heat melt the snow around, bringing an uncanny sense of summer to this most primitive of all woodlands.

  She came to the valley during the second night, walking so softly across the snow carpet that I almost missed her. The moon was half full, the night bright and clear, and I saw her. She was a hunched and miserable shape walking slowly through the trees, towards the imposing rise of the monolith.

  For some reason I didn’t shout her name. I tugged on my cloak and stepped from my tiny enclosure, wading through the drifts in pursuit of the girl. She seemed to be staggering as she walked. She remained hunched up, folded in on herself. The Moon, behind the monolith, made the stone a sort of beacon, beckoning to her.

  She reached the place of her father’s burial and stood, for a moment, staring up at the rock marker. She called for him then, and her voice was hoarse, breaking with cold and pain, and pure exhaustion.

  ‘Guiwenneth!’ I said aloud, as I stepped through the trees. She visibly jumped, and turned in the night. ‘It’s me. Steven.’

  She looked pale. Her arms were folded across her body and she seemed tiny. Her long hair was lank, soaked with snow.

  I realized that she was trembling. She watched me in terror as I approached. I remembered, then, how like Christian I must have seemed to her, darkly bearded, bulky with furs.

  ‘Christian is dead,’ I said. ‘I killed him. I’ve found you again, Guin. We can go back to the Lodge. We can be together without fear.’

  Go back to the Lodge. The thought filled me with warm hope. A lifetime without distress, without worry. Oh God, at that moment I wanted it so much!

  ‘Steve …’ she said, her voice a mere whisper.

  And collapsed against the stone, clutching herself as if in pain. She was exhausted. The walk had taken so much out of her.

  I walked quickly to her and lifted her into my arms, and she gasped, as if I’d hurt her.

  ‘It’s all right, Guin. There’s a village close by. We can rest for as long as you like.’

  I put my hands into the warmth of her cloak, and with a sense of terrible shock, felt the cold stickiness on her belly.

  ‘Oh Guin! Oh God, no …’

  Christian had had the last word after all.

  Her hand, lifted with the last of her strength, tou
ched my face. Her eyes misted, the sad gaze lingering on me. I could hardly hear her breathing.

  I looked up at the stone. ‘Peredur!’ I called desperately. ‘Peredur! Show yourself!’

  The stone stood silently above us. Guiwenneth folded herself more deeply into my embrace and sighed, a small sound in the cold night. I hugged her so hard I was afraid she would snap like a twig, but I had to keep the warmth in her body somehow.

  Then the ground shook a little, and again. Snow fell from the top of the stone and was dislodged from the branches of trees. Another vibration, and another …

  ‘He’s coming,’ I said to the silent girl. ‘Your father. He’s coming. He’ll help.’

  But it was not Guiwenneth’s father that appeared around the stone, holding the limp carcass of the Fenlander in its left hand. It was not the ghost of brave Peredur which stood above us, swaying slightly, its breathing a steady, ominous sound in the darkness. I stared up at the moonlit features of the man who had begun all this, and had no strength to do anything but bitterly shout my disappointment as I tucked Guiwenneth deeper into my cloak, bending my head above her, trying to make her invisible.

  It must have stood there for a minute or more, and in all that time I waited for the feel of its fingers pinching about my shoulders, lifting me to my doom. When nothing happened I looked up. The Urscumug was still there, watching me, eyes blinking, mouth opening and closing, showing the glistening teeth within. It still held the Fenlander’s body, but with a single, sudden motion that made me jump with fright, it flung the corpse away, and reached for me.

  Its touch was more gentle than I would have thought possible. It tugged at my arm, making me release my protective grip upon Guiwenneth. It picked her up and cradled her body in its right arm as easily as a child cradles a toy.

  He was going to take her from me. The thought was too much to bear and I started to cry, watching the shape of my father through a blur of tears.

  Then the Urscumug stretched out its left hand to me. I stared at it for a moment, and then I realized what it wanted. I stood up and reached out to the hand, which enclosed mine totally.

  In this way we walked round the stone, through the snow to the trees, and through the trees to the fire wall ahead.

  So much passed through my mind as I walked with my father. The look on his face was not a scowl of hate, but a soft and sad expression of sympathy. In the garden of Oak Lodge, when the Urscumug had shaken me so hard, perhaps he had been trying to shake life back into my body. At the wooded gorge, when my father had hesitated, listening for us, perhaps he had known where we were all the time, and was waiting for us to pass him by. He had helped me in my pursuit of the Outsider, not hindered. When he – as all things in the realm – had come to need me, he had rediscovered compassion.

  My father placed Guiwenneth on the hot ground. The fire roared into the sky. Trees blistered and charred, branches falling in flames as they reached towards the barrier. It was an odd place. The sweat poured from me, the heat of that supernatural inferno soaking me. The struggle was eternal, I realized. The wall of fire probably never moved – trees grew into it and were consumed. All the time it was maintained by the flame-talkers, the first real heroes of modern humankind.

  I had imagined that the three of us were to pass through the flames, but I was wrong. My father reached towards me and pushed me away.

  ‘Don’t take her from me!’ I implored him. How beautiful she looked, face framed in red hair, skin glowing with the brightness of the fire. ‘Please! I must be with her!’

  The Urscumug watched me. The great beast’s head slowly shook.

  No. I could not be with her.

  But then he did something wonderful, something that was to give me courage and hope for the long years to come – a gesture that would live with me as a friend through the eternal winter, while I waited with the Neolithic peoples of the nearby village, guarding Peredur’s stone.

  He touched a finger to the girl’s body, then pointed to the fire wall. And then he indicated that she would return. To me. She would come back to me, alive again, my Guiwenneth.

  ‘How long?’ I begged the Urscumug. ‘How long will I wait? How long will it take?’

  The Urscumug bent to the girl and picked her up. He held her towards me and I pressed my lips to Guiwenneth’s cold lips, and held the kiss, my eyes closed, my whole body shaking.

  My father curled her up into his safe grasp and turned to the flames. He flung a great handful of earth at the wall and the flames died down. I had the briefest of glimpses of the mountains beyond, and then the shape of the boar passed through the charred trees into the timeless realm. As it walked, so it brushed past a blackened tree stump that looked uncannily like a human figure, arms raised to its head. The shape disintegrated. A second later the flames grew bright again and I was alone, left with the memory of a kiss, and the joy of seeing tears in my father’s eyes.

  Coda

  At that time, in the life of this people, Mogoch the giant was set a task by the fates, and walked north for a hundred days without resting. This brought him to the furthest limits of the known world, facing the gate of fire that guarded Lavondyss.

  At the top of the valley was a stone, ten times the height of a man. Mogoch rested his left foot on the stone, and wondered for what reason the fates had brought him this far from his tribal territory.

  A voice hailed him. ‘Take your foot from the stone.’

  Mogoch looked about him and saw a hunter, standing on a cairn of rocks, staring up.

  ‘I shall not,’ said Mogoch.

  ‘Take your foot from the stone,’ shouted the hunter. ‘A brave man is buried there.’

  ‘I know,’ said Mogoch, not moving his foot. ‘I buried him myself. I placed the stone on his body with my own hands. I found the stone in my mouth. Look!’ And Mogoch grinned, showing the hunter the great gap in his teeth where he had found the brave man’s marker.

  ‘Well, then,’ said the hunter. ‘I suppose that’s all right.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Mogoch, glad that he would not have to fight the man. ‘And what great deed brings you to the borders of Lavondyss?’

  ‘I’m waiting for someone,’ the hunter said.

  ‘Well,’ said Mogoch. ‘I hope they’ll be by shortly.’

  ‘I’m sure she will,’ the hunter said, and turned from the giant.

  Mogoch used an oak tree to scratch his back, then ate a deer for his supper, wondering why he had been sum-

  moned to this place. Eventually he left, but named the valley ritha muireog, which means ‘where the hunter waits’.

  Later, however, the valley was called imarn uklyss, which means ‘where the girl came back through the fire’.

  But that is a story for another time, and another people.

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  Also By Robert Holdstock

  Mythago Wood

  1. Mythago Wood (1984)

  2. Lavondyss (1988)

  3. The Bone Forest (1991)

  4. The Hollowing (1992)

  5. Merlin's Wood (1994)

  6. Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn (1997)

  7. Avilion (2008)

  The Merlin Codex

  1. Celtika (2001)

  2. The Iron Grail (2002)

  3. The Broken Kings (2006)

  Novels

  Eye Among the Blind (1976)

  Earthwind (1977)

  Necromancer (1978)

  Where Time Winds Blow (1981)

  The Emerald Forest (1985)

  Ancient Echoes (1986)

  The Fetch (1991)

  Night Hunter (writing as Robert Faulcon)

&nb
sp; The Stalking (1983)

  The Talisman (1983)

  The Ghost Dance (1983)

  The Shrine (1984)

  The Hexing (1984)

  The Labyrinth (1987)

  Raven (as Richard Kirk, with Angus Wells)

  Swordsmistress of Chaos (1978)

  A Time of Ghosts (1978)

  The Frozen God (1978)

  Lords of the Shadows (1979)

  A Time of Dying (1979)

  Writing As Robert Black

  Legend of the Werewolf (1976)

  The Satanists (1977)

  Berserker Trilogy (writing as Chris Carlsen)

  1. Shadow of the Wolf (1977)

  2. The Bull Chief (1977)

  3. The Horned Warrior (1979)

  Collections

  In the Valley of the Statues: And Other Stories (1982)

  Dedication

  for Sarah

  cariath ganuch trymllyd bwystfil

  ‘I had that sense of recognition … here was something which I had known all my life, only I didn’t know it ….’

  RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS,

  Commenting upon his first discovery of British folklore and folk music.

  Robert Holdstock (1948 – 2009)

  Robert Paul Holdstock was born in a remote corner of Kent, sharing his childhood years between the bleak Romney Marsh and the dense woodlands of the Kentish heartlands. He received an MSc in medical zoology and spent several years in the early 1970s in medical research before becoming a full-time writer in 1976. His first published story appeared in the New Worlds magazine in 1968 and for the early part of his career he wrote science fiction. However, it is with fantasy that he is most closely associated.

  1984 saw the publication of Mythago Wood, winner of the BSFA and World Fantasy Awards for Best Novel, and widely regarded as one of the key texts of modern fantasy. It and the subsequent ‘mythago’ novels (including Lavondyss, which won the BSFA Award for Best Novel in 1988) cemented his reputation as the definitive portrayer of the wild wood. His interest in Celtic and Nordic mythology was a consistent theme throughout his fantasy and is most prominently reflected in the acclaimed Merlin Codex trilogy, consisting of Celtika, The Iron Grail and The Broken Kings, published between 2001 and 2007.