Lavondyss

by Robert Holdstock

  Story … vision … and stranger sense, the sense of somehow having been to that ancient land. The air had chilled her, the smoke had choked her, the blood stench had sickened her. She had been there. She opened the way to Gaunt’s ‘fierce battle’. She had changed the landscape, bringing the old winter to her modern summer.

  The Hollower was with her, she realized. All of this was for the purpose of showing her another facet of her power, her skill. Tallis: mask maker, mythago maker; her grandfather’s child.

  But by midnight she was distressed. Because, for all the insight – whether right or wrong – she felt most strongly for the dying man.

  She stood by her window, a frail shape in a thin nightgown. She stared across the night land to the silhouette of her tree. Tears came and she imagined she could hear her warrior crying too. She didn’t know his name and she desperately needed to call to him. She should try and help him. She should take him bandages, and food, and antiseptic ointments. She should jump from the tree into the field and comfort him, tend to his wounds.

  Her warrior had crawled to Strong against the Storm; perhaps he had heard her as she had adventured with her cousin! He had called to her, and for help. And what had she done? Nothing. Made no sound; only watched him and wept!

  Angry with herself she pulled on her plimsolls, then crept downstairs into the garden. On impulse she tore a wide strip from the hem of her nightdress for use as a bandage. She thought about going back to the house for food and medicines, but changed her mind. By starlight she ran towards the Stretley Stones.

  She had expected that night would have fallen in the forbidden place as well, but as she crawled along the branch she passed suddenly back from darkness into the winter daylight. Below her the young man was exactly as she had last seen him. The storm still a distance away. The fires were the same.

  For a moment this confused Tallis. Then she realized that her warrior was staring up into the branches of Strong against the Storm. He was murmuring words that were too faint for her to hear.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Tallis called. And again, more loudly. ‘What’s your name? I’m Tallis. Tallis. I want to help you …’

  At the sound of her voice the young man’s gaze hardened slightly. A frown touched his pale skin. Then he seemed to smile, just briefly, as if amused, and his eyes closed.

  ‘Tallis …’ he murmured.

  ‘What’s your name?’ the girl insisted from the tree.

  All he said was, ‘Tallis …’ And then a desperate cry of strange words, words which fled through the branches of Strong against the Storm, meaningless, eloquent, elusive. Tallis threw down the strip of gown; her bandage for the young man’s wound. For a second she lost sight of it, but then there it was, unfurled, fluttering down to the reclining man. He saw it fall. He reached for it, tears of joy in his eyes, his mouth, till now a grim slash of pain, becoming a wide smile of hope.

  He clutched the rag and held it to his lips. He shook violently and the blood on his body gleamed where the flow began again. ‘Tallis!’ he cried, and then shouted the word, ‘Scathach!’

  He fell back, arm outstretched above his head, nightgown fragment fluttering in his fingers. Tallis watched in shock. His eyes remained open but a dullness appeared there instantly. The smile on his lips faded and he became utterly still. For a moment Tallis thought he had died, but then she thought she saw movement in his hand. He wouldn’t die. He couldn’t. She had saved him. Whoever he was, he had heard her voice. The Hollower had helped, of course; or perhaps Tallis’s own talent for hollowing. But he had heard the voice and perhaps imagined that she was a goddess, or a tree spirit. It had been a sign of hope for him and now he would live. He would live for her, for Tallis. He would stay by the tree. When he was well again he would build his house there, and perhaps climb the wide trunk of Strong against the Storm. Or perhaps …

  Yes. She would climb down to him. When she was older. When the time was right to join the spirits of two worlds. She was not ready to climb down yet.

  ‘Tallis!’

  The angry voice ripped through the moment of joy. She slipped on the branch, kept her balance, but the forbidden place had gone.

  A torch shone brightly from the ground beyond the field where the Stretley Stones had fallen. When her name was called again she realized it was her father.

  He knocked on the door of her room, then opened it. Tallis remained by the window, staring sullenly out across the dawn. She was wide awake, even though she had had no sleep. She was dressed in her dungarees, a white blouse, gym shoes. She had refused to wash her face, content to let the tears remain, a reminder of her anger.

  ‘Tallis?’

  ‘Go away.’

  He was gentle, now. He had been upset at midnight, and frightened too. Now, he explained to her, he was just anxious. There was something wrong with his daughter and that worried him. The way she was behaving was so unlike her. Whatever had upset her was very real to her. He had decided to do a little probing for the source of the concern.

  ‘Why were you in the tree? What were you doing there?’

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘Tallis? Talk to me. I’m not angry any more.’

  ‘I am. You sent him away.’

  ‘Him? Who did I send away?’

  She looked at her father, furious, her lips pinched, her eyes narrowed as if to challenge his stupidity. He smiled. He was unshaven and his greying hair, usually so neatly combed back, was unkempt. It gave him a wild look, an odd look. He was still in his pyjamas. Now he reached out, gently touching his daughter’s arm.

  ‘Help me understand, Tallis. Who was there? Who was in the tree?’

  She looked back towards Stretley Stones meadow. She felt her tears again and a deeper longing than she had ever known. She wanted her warrior, wanted to be there, looking at him. In her young mind she had grasped a strange truth: that time, for her wounded hero, existed only when she was watching him. The storm was coming. With it would come the rain.

  In a way which went deeper than simple consciousness she knew that when the storm came so her romance would be finished. It was as if a part of her knew the truth behind the dulling of her young man’s eyes, and that cry, so final, so full of relief …

  Yet she refused to acknowledge it. He was not dead. He would live again.

  Something, though … something terrible …

  She had been thinking of it all night, all the early hours during which she had stood here, staring out to where Strong against the Storm waited for her. She was afraid to go back. Afraid to look at him. Each minute which she spent with him was a minute more of his own life, and the storm would be a minute closer.

  She was alarmed by that storm. She had seen the sombre shapes of carrion birds, circling closer, just below the clouds. It was no ordinary storm. It was a wind from hell and it was sweeping the land of her hero, gorging on the dead, the dying. She had read about such storms. She knew all the names of the hell crows, the scald crows, the scavengers, the ravens …

  Her father was still speaking to her. Without looking at him she cut in abruptly. ‘What is written on the Stretley Men? On the stones?’

  He seemed surprised by the question. ‘It makes very little sense. Didn’t I tell you that once?’

  ‘But there must be something. Other than the “wanderer” and the “bird”. Isn’t there one name?’

  He thought hard for a moment, then nodded. ‘I think so. Several names. Odd sounding names. I’ve got them all written down somewhere, in a book on local history.’

  Excitedly she said, ‘What are they? What are the names? Is one of them Scathach?’

  His frown was almost of recognition, but then he shrugged. ‘I can’t remember. Where did that name come from, anyway?’

  ‘He’s there. His name is Scathach. He’s one of the old people, only he’s just a young man. I’ve seen him. He’s beautiful. He’s like Gawain.’

  ‘Gawain?’

  She ran to her bookshelves and pulled
the leather-bound volume from among the piles of storybooks. She leafed quickly through the pages and placed it down upon the bed, open at the picture which reminded her of the man in the meadow. Her father stared at the figure for a moment; then he turned the pages, finding the letter which had been written by his own father, several years before. ‘This is your grandfather’s writing. Have you ever read it?’

  Tallis wasn’t listening. She stared towards the meadow and her eyes were wide, her whole face radiant with pleasure. She was sure she knew his name, now. He had called it to her. And it was certainly one of the strange names on the stones. An odd name, but a lovely one to her ears. Scathach. Scathach and Tallis. Tallis and Scathach. Scathach and the Tree Spirit. Scathach’s stone, a monument to a great hero, a youngest son, left in the field where he had found life and love with a strange and slender young princess from another world.

  She clapped her hands. She had to see him again. Then she remembered the storm and she felt afraid and helplessly young. She was not old enough to be of true assistance to him. Not yet. She must bide her time.

  ‘Tallis! Who’s in the tree?’

  It was her turn to be gentle now and she brushed her fingers across her father’s face, trying to reassure him.

  ‘He’s not in the tree. He’s below the tree. Scathach. That’s his name. He’s very young, very handsome, and one day, a long time ago, he was a very great warrior. He was wounded in battle, but a tree spirit came to him and saved him.’

  Frowning, her father said, ‘Take me to see him, Tallis …’

  She shook her head, placing her finger on his lips. ‘I can’t do that, Daddy … I’m sorry. He’s mine. Scathach is mine. He belongs to me, now. That’s why the Hollower let me see him. It’s part of my training, don’t you see? The stories, the masks … I have to do what I’m told, and see what I see. I mustn’t resist. And I have to save Scathach before the storm comes. I’m sure that’s what my function is. Before the storm comes. Before the crows come. Don’t you understand?’

  He brushed his hand through her hair and concern glistened in his eyes. ‘No, my darling,’ he said softly. ‘No, I don’t understand. Not yet.’ He hugged Tallis quickly. ‘But I will. I’m sure I will.’

  He stood up from the bed and left the room. When he looked back, Tallis was facing the window again. She had her eyes closed. She was smiling. She was whispering.

  I out-last feather

  Haunter of caves am I

  I am the white memory of life

  I am bone.

  The crows were coming. And the screech owls too, and the blood ravens. All the birds of prey. All the birds of hell. Coming to gorge upon the dead, to become fat with flesh. She had to stop them. She had to protect him. She had to find the spells to turn them back. She had to find their bones.

  She cleared one of the walls in her room, taking down the bark masks that she had hung there, all except Falkenna, because the hawk was a hunter; she was a hunter; Scathach was a hunter; and through the hawk’s eyes she might see the hated birds which preyed upon the dead.

  Around Falkenna she painted crows and ravens, using water colours and charcoal. As each was finished so she blinded it with a knife, cutting deep slashes across the cold, piercing gazes. She made models of the birds, from straw, from paper, from clay. She buried these in Stretley Stones meadow, face down towards the bedrock. She marked each of these graves with the feathers of dead birds which she found in the hedgerows. She tied black feathers and strips of her white nightgown to each of the oaks that bordered Stretley Stones meadow. She made a daub of her own blood (squeezed from a graze on her knee) mixed with brook water and the sap of thistles and nettles. With this she painted the oaks around the field, painting birds whose bodies were split in two, painting arrows in the clouds, where the birds hid, and painting beaks that were broken.

  Finally she painted the two masks on Strong against the Storm, one facing out from the meadow, one facing in. They were triumph masks, and they were both shaped like hawks.

  In this way, then, she had turned the meadow into a cemetery for the consuming birds. Yet still she felt the crows circle closer. So she gathered the skulls and bones of birds wherever she could, plucking the feathers away from the maggoty corpses and stripping the flesh away with pincers. She kept the bones in a leather bag and each day ran around the meadow with them.

  As summer heightened Tallis felt a growing need to see Scathach again, just once, just a glimpse of him to see her through to the new term at school, to give her strength to last until Christmas, closer to the New Year, closer to an age at which she might really help him.

  She walked across the fields. She sat below Strong against the Storm and read books. She loved to go into the hidden meadow and stretch out below the oak, arm above her head, body twisted just so, just as Scathach was even now lying there. He was staring up, as she stared up, and perhaps what he could see was what she was seeing – the tangle of leaves, the darker form of the branch. But there was no smiling face for Tallis, no tree spirit for her as there was for him.

  She was aware, over the weeks, that the cowled women who haunted the woods were moving with increasing agitation through the concealing undergrowth. She scarcely bothered with them any more. The image of that young man, Scathach, grew to consume her. She forgot about Harry.

  One day, when she heard horses, she tried to follow their movement but soon gave up. More of Scathach’s story, which she now called Old Forbidden Place, began to crystallize. He was not just a lost son, his tale had been lost too, forgotten by the tongues and minds that had preserved so much else of legend. She struggled to make sense of the thoughts, the sensory excitement, the glimpses of a strange land and a mound-covered fortress, the wild sounds of the cycle of adventure that was the Tale of Old Forbidden Place.

  She stopped going to school. This made her parents angry, but she had no time for them, now. Sometimes she was aware that her mother was crying. Sometimes she would wake from sleep to find her mother sitting in the room, watching her from the darkness. This all made her feel sad, but she crushed the feeling; she had no time for it; whatever the Hollower was doing to her she had to be receptive to everything. But she could not fail to be aware of the arguments. Her behaviour had precipitated a crisis in the house. When she heard her parents talking about Strong against the Storm she listened intently through the door. Margaret Keeton wanted to cut the tree down. But James said no. If they did that they might lock Tallis in this summer madness for ever. They had lost Harry … he couldn’t cope with losing Tallis too.

  Summer madness. What madness could they mean? She listened more. There was talk about ‘dreamstate’ and ‘fantasy’ and ‘hallucination’. No mention of what she was doing for Scathach. No mention of her fear that the carrion eaters would attack him as he lay unconscious. She scowled, closed her ears to the gabble of the adults. Was it madness to try to understand how to protect the wounded man? Was it madness to make her charms and spells? She had the books, the story books of wizards and witches, and the magic ways. In all of them she had read that belief was the greatest ingredient of any spell and now she focused her young mind on believing in her ability to keep the crows at bay. It didn’t matter what she did, there would be power in all her acts, all her words, all her talismans.

  Almost at once she knew how to make her ninth mask. Cut from the bark of a young wych elm, fallen in one of the hedges, it was painted first white, then with azure blue around the eyes to give a look of innocence. This was Sinisalo, and made her think of shimmering blue forests; but its secret name was seeing the child in the land.

  In Stretley meadow, between the fallen ogham stones, she found other stones, small, hand-sized rocks that were smooth to the touch. She gathered as many of these as she could carry, then returned for more, piling them up below the oak. When the stones had been cleaned she fetched brushes and paints from the house and took a few of the pebbles up to Morndun Ridge, where she sat on the earthwork bank, facing Ryhope Wood, try
ing to imagine the black sea of forest that had once existed here.

  She painted the Killing Eye on some of the stones, the sign of the Bird of Prey on others, the crosses, circles and spirals of olden times on still more. She scoured the books in her collection, and on the family shelves, for suitable charms. She copied the blind faces of the victims of Druids, the lifeless stone heads of Celtic times, and sensed at once the energy of otherwordly life imbued within them. She created her tenth mask, dead from the front, but so alive from behind. It was called Morndun, which made her look with puzzled eyes at the earthworks on the hill. Its second name, a secret one to her, was the first journey of a ghost into an unknown region.

  Finally she painted Leaf Man and Leaf Mother, each on separate stones. She painted them in green, and then added red eyes, red blood for her own blood, the common bond with Scathach.

  She tied strings around Leaf Man and Leaf Mother and climbed to her branch. It was not something she felt wise in doing. She had not been here for eight weeks. She had decided not to look at Scathach until the first day of the autumn term. If he lived only when she looked at him then she would have to stretch his life out over several years.

  She was powerfully taken with the idea of her stone faces, however, and wanted them to protect her young man. So she edged forward from summer into the early winter of the forbidden place. She peered down at the sleeping warrior.

  He was just as he had been those few weeks before. Nothing had changed. She smiled at him, called to him, then lowered the guardian stones from the branch. She lost sight of them, and then they appeared again. She could see how the string from her branch vanished, appearing in thin air a few feet to the south, but this illusion didn’t bother her. The two leaf faces dangled above Scathach’s body, turning slowly this way and that. She tied them to the branch, secured the knots, and leaned down to call to him once more –