Lavondyss

by Robert Holdstock

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I can make sense of it. Of the words, anyway …’

  WJ has returned from the wood. He has been gone four days. He is very excited, also very ill. He is suffering from exposure, two fingers quite badly frostbitten. He has experienced a climate far more severe than this cold, wet autumnal England: he has been in a winter land. He took nearly two hours to ‘thaw’, his fingers bandaged. Drank soup as if there was no tomorrow. As he recovered he repeated the phrase ‘forbidden places’ as if this were some desperate secret, needing communication.

  Later I learned this: that he has been further into the wood than either of us. Subjective time for WJ is two weeks, a frightening thought. This simple relativistic effect seems confined to certain woodland zones. There may be others where the effect of time on the human body is the opposite, the traditional time of the fairy world, where a traveller will return after a journey of a year to find a hundred years have passed.

  WJ says he has proof of this, but he is more excited about what he calls his ‘geistzones’, and I must record as best I can his rambling, difficult description of his recent experience.

  He has come to believe that the mythogenetic effect works not only to create the untouchable, mysterious figure of lore and legend, the hero figure, it also creates the forbidden places of the mythic past. This would seem obvious enough. The legendary clans and armies – such as the ancient shamiga who guard their river crossings – are also associated with place. And the ruined castles and earthworks, too, would fit into this category. But WJ has glimpsed these realms he calls geistzones, archetypal landscapes generated by the primordial energies of the inherited unconscious, lost in the lower brain. He has found a mythago which he designates ‘oolering man’ after the chanting cry that the figure emits before it steps from the woodland through the entrance to the geistzone which it has created, or made to appear.

  The geistzone is a logical archetype, logically generated by the mind. It can be both the desired realm, or the most feared realm; the beginning place or the final place; the place of life before birth, or life after death; the place of no hardship, or the place where life is tested and transition from one state of being to another accomplished. Such a realm would appear to exist in the heartwoods. There are clues enough to this fact in the mythic ruins that abound in the outer zones of the wood.

  WJ sees the ‘oolering man’ as a guardian of the way to that land. It is a shaman figure, that much is clear. Its attributes are a face painted white but with the eyes and mouth striped with red; a body clothed in ragged strips of uncured hide and skin, some blackened with age, some fresh and still bloody; a necklet of severed birds’ heads, long-beaked birds such as herons, storks and cranes being central, and the colored bills of smaller birds taking up the back; various rattles and whistles to simulate bird-song; and a dancing movement that imitates a wading bird, pecking through the water to the mud below.

  WJ will try to relate this to the myths of birds as messengers of the dead, bringers of omens, and transformation into human form. (From the eyepoint of a bird, all the extremes of the land are visible, and the shaman emulates this far-seeingness by adopting the trappings of flight.) But the ‘oolering man’, with its function at the entrance of heaven, or hell, is of more interest than this simple shamanism. It seems to be able to create these gateways. Belief in such a thing must once have been very strong. The geistzone that WJ witnessed was a winter land, and a freezing and hellish wind blew from it for three days, while the ‘oolering man’ sat before it, facing the unwelcome visitor, almost defying him to approach. WJ has suffered from this, though the ‘oolering man’ seemed to come to no harm. Eventually he rose, stepped through the entrance to his geistzone and folded space around him.

  When James Keeton looked up from the smudged text he saw his daughter standing by the window, watching him through the crudely gouged eyes of the white and red mask which she held to her face.

  ‘Oolering man?’ he said. ‘Geistzones? Shamiga? Do you understand any of what this means?’

  Tallis lowered the mask. Her dark eyes were bright, her pale skin vibrant. She stared at her father, but at the same time was looking through him. ‘Hollowers …’ she whispered. ‘Oolering man … hollower … the same. Guardians. Creators of the path. Creators of the ghost realms. The story is coming clearer …’

  He was confused. ‘Story? Which story?’ He rose to his feet as he spoke, adjusting his braces, pacing round the sitting room. The smell of rotting wood and earth was strong.

  Tallis said, ‘The story of Old Forbidden Place. The journey to Old Forbidden Place. Harry’s geistzone. So near yet so far …’ She suddenly became excited. ‘It’s what Harry said to me. Do you remember me telling you?’

  ‘Remind me.’

  ‘He said that he was going somewhere very strange. Somewhere very close. He would do his best to keep in touch.’ Tallis walked over and took her father’s hand, and Keeton closed his two hands around the small, cold fingers. Tallis went on, ‘He went into the wood. But he went further. He went into a geistzone, through a hollowing. I thought they were just visions, but they’re gates. He’s here, Daddy. He’s all around us. He’s somewhere close, perhaps trying to get home right now. He might be in this very room, but to him … the room is somewhere else, a cave, a castle. An unknown region.’

  She raised the mask to her face again. The sinister features stared at Keeton from another age. Tallis, from behind the wood, whispered, ‘But he’s in the wrong part of the Otherworld. I’m sure of it, now. He’s in hell. That’s why he called to me. He’s lost in hell and he needs me to go to him.’ Lowering the mask, looking confused. ‘I’ve opened three gates. I’ve hollowed three times. But I only opened them to the senses. I could only see things and hear things and smell things … no … in Stretley Stones meadow I threw stones into the other world. But I don’t know how to travel yet. I don’t know how to open the space and close it again, like the “oolering man”.’

  Her father looked alarmed. ‘You’re not planning to run away, now, are you? To hell? I’ll have to put my foot down about that. When you’re twenty-one, you can do as you please.’

  Tallis smiled and stared out of the windows, across the lawn and the fence to Morndun Ridge.

  How to journey? That was the question.

  What was it her grandfather had written to her? I have made my mark upon that ragged tree. When you have done the same it will mean you are ready for the riders.

  All of her life she had heard the sound of riders where there were no riders to be seen. The same ghosts seem to have haunted Grandfather Owen. He had known more than he had written in the folklore book …

  ‘I must find Broken Boy,’ she said from the window. ‘The ragged hart. I must mark him.’

  ‘You persist in believing in this ghost …’ her father said gently.

  ‘I do. So should you, Daddy. When I find Broken Boy, and mark him –’

  ‘How will you do that?’

  ‘I’m not sure yet. But when I do I’ll be able to take the first step into the wood. I’ll bring Harry home to us. I promise. It’s in the story. I’m sure of it. It’s in the story. If I just knew the ending of the story …’

  In the story!

  Her grandfather had at least known of the Bone Forest: he had referred to ‘Ash’, in his letter. Had he known of the other tales, and of Old Forbidden Place?

  They will tell you all the stories, he had written. All her life she had thought up gentle stories, and epic quest adventures, and sad tales of lost knights, and funny stories of people who lived in the woods. Perhaps she had them all, then; perhaps they had all been told to her by White Mask. She suspected not. There were more to come, more tales, more fragments of the oldest story of all, the epic vision that filled her head, with its deep gorge, it impossible creatures, its gigantic trees, and the castle of stone which was not stone …

  Somewhere in that story were the clues to finding Harry. She had an absolute conviction, now, t
hat Harry and the story were linked. To bring him back she simply had to wait to hear how Old Forbidden Place would end.

  Her father was leafing through the journal again, distractedly now, perhaps overwhelmed by what he had been hearing, exhausted by his daughter’s strangeness, and her strange alertness. ‘WJ,’ he said. ‘Who was he, I wonder?’ He closed the book. The sound of the piano stopped. Outside, a bicycle bell rang and Tallis’s cousin Simon appeared, walking across the lawn, hands in his pockets. He was to be a companion for Tallis for the evening while her parents were out.

  James Keeton said, ‘I’m beginning to be frightened by you. By what you say.’

  ‘Don’t be. There’s nothing to be frightened about.’

  Her father gave her a tired, sardonic smile. ‘There isn’t? Harry is wandering around some bleak and snowy geistzone, below the earth on the borders of hell, guarded by these ooling people –’

  ‘Oolering man. Shaman.’

  Keeton laughed and ran a hand through his damp hair; the laugh was a desperate sound. ‘Good Lord, child. I don’t even know what a shaman is! I can only think of witch doctors!’

  Tallis said, ‘They’re keepers and teachers of knowledge. Knowledge of the animal in the earth. In vision, in story, in the finding of paths.’

  ‘Where did you read that?’

  She shrugged. ‘I just know it. I expect one of the masked women told me.’

  ‘Whispered to you …’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Psychic powers? Is that what you think?’

  ‘The whisperers belong to me,’ Tallis said. ‘I made them. In one way, what they know is what I know.’

  ‘Mythagos,’ Keeton breathed. ‘Images of myth. And we all carry them in our minds. Is that right?’ Tallis nodded. Her father went on, ‘But we can’t see them or hear them or know them until they become real. They are brought into existence, in the woods, and then we can talk to them …’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Like talking to ourselves.’

  ‘Our old selves. Our dead selves. Ourselves of thousands of years ago.’

  ‘Why haven’t I made any of these things?’

  With a mischievous laugh, Tallis said, ‘Perhaps you’re too old.’

  ‘But Granddad seems to have managed it.’

  ‘He had the right feelings,’ Tallis murmured.

  ‘That makes a difference, of course,’ her father said with a smile. He leaned forward and kissed the top of her head. ‘I’ll make a deal with you. Don’t do anything rash, like adventuring into the underworld, until we get back from dinner tonight. Tomorrow evening, when I get home from work, I’ll go with you to the house in the woods. We’ll stay there until we see a mythago. I’ll listen and learn.’

  Tallis was delighted, as much from the relief that his words brought to her, the sign that he was beginning to believe her, as from his offer to accompany her back to Oak Lodge.

  ‘Do you sincerely believe that Harry is still alive?’ she asked him.

  Keeton stooped, placed hands on her shoulders and nodded solemnly. ‘Yes!’ he said emphatically. ‘Yes I do. I don’t understand how or why. But I’m willing to learn. Tomorrow. Lessons begin tomorrow. For both me and your mother. We must both receive the education.’

  Tallis squeezed her father round the waist. ‘I knew you’d believe me one day.’

  He was sad, yet he smiled. There were tears in his eyes. ‘I don’t want to lose you,’ he whispered. ‘You must try to understand how sad this house has been. I love you very much, even though you’re as weird as they come. You’re most of what I have left, now. Losing Harry was a terrible blow –’

  ‘Not lost for ever!’

  A touch of large finger to small nose. ‘I know. But he’s not with us now. Things between your mother and me …’ He broke off, looking uncomfortable. ‘It happens sometimes that two people grow more distant from each other. Margaret loves you as much as do I. We’d both be lost without you. She doesn’t show affection as easily as some people. But you mustn’t ever think she doesn’t love you.’

  ‘I don’t think that,’ Tallis said quietly, frowning slightly. ‘She just gets very angry with me.’

  ‘Part and parcel …’ her father said pointedly. ‘Now go and say hello to Simon.’

  (ii)

  She needed to think; the day had been an eventful one, to say the least. Images and information crowded her young mind. She needed time and a peaceful environment in which to let the things she had seen, and the facts she had learned, take a fuller shape.

  Something was making her uneasy. Something about what she had seen, or perhaps read, was trying to draw attention to itself. She felt overwhelmed and at the same time determined. A thought needed to crystallize, and that meant she would have to go to one of her secret places.

  From her bedroom window she could see cows moving in small numbers along the edge of Stretley Stones meadow. The dark line of trees that was Ryhope Wood was also obvious. The alley between the machine sheds was empty and silent. But on Morndun Ridge, close to the ancient, wooded earthworks, there were the silhouettes of human figures. As Tallis watched, so they seemed to dissolve into the late afternoon shadows and the girl immediately felt called.

  With her cousin Simon in tow, Tallis left the house and went up to the old fortifications. The boy stalked off among the trees that grew from the earthen banks, walking around these battlements, perhaps fantasizing about the knights who had once lived here.

  Tallis stood in the entrance to the ring of earth. Once, perhaps, this gate had been marked by great stones, or the tall trunks of trees. The banks had been steep and high. Inside, where sheep now grazed … what had there been? The great castle she had always imagined? Or just a village? Or even a shrine? Tallis didn’t know, although when she looked back into the enclosure she felt a shiver: someone walking over her grave, she thought. For a second she smelled smoke, and something else, something rotten, like a dead animal. The evening wind stung her eyes and she turned away again, looking back towards her house, across the slope of the fields. Her home was in shadow, a dark shape. Above her the skies were becoming overcast, dark clouds swirling towards the east, forming strange patterns in the heavens over the fields behind the Keeton farm. There was a hint of rain in the air, even though the early evening was still warm.

  Darkness was gathering. There was movement on the fields, mimicking the movement above the ridge. The earth vibrated slightly beneath her feet, but the eerie sensation passed swiftly away.

  Winter.

  Everything that she was witnessing, everything that seemed to obsess her, was connected with winter. Her grandfather had written to her on a winter’s night, then walked out into Stretley Stones meadow, there to sit upon a stone and die quietly, perhaps seeing a vision that delighted him in that last, frozen moment of his life. The stories she told were most vivid in her mind when she thought of the winter sequences. It had been winter in the land where she had seen Scathach. The camp in the alley, the hollowing that she was able to conjure there, sent the strongest and most potent scents of that dead and icy time of year.

  And the man in his furs today!

  Of course. That is what had been nagging at her consciousness! The cold, wet animal skins that had clad the intruder to the ruined house; he had come from a biting winter. He would have been boiled alive in the summer heat, and even as she had watched the man in the room so he had begun to divest himself of his thick protective layers.

  Excitedly, Tallis relived the movement and the sounds of the visitation. He had come from the deep wood, and the ice had still been on him. The last time she had been in the glade she had dreamed a similar apparition …

  An ‘oolering man’, according to the Huxley journal, guarded the gateway to a terrible winter, to a fearsome geistzone.

  It was possible, then, that the visitors had come to Oak Lodge through such a gateway. Yes! There was a hollowing in the wood, a way to pass into the cold world. And it could be Tallis’s way too, i
nto the realm where her brother was a lost and frightened soul.

  Simon had been prowling through the dense wood on the north side of the earthworks. At the sound of Tallis’s cry he reappeared in the field. ‘What’s up?’ he called.

  She ran over to him, breathless and bubbling with delight. ‘There’s a gateway in the wood. Close to the old house. There must be. The fur-clothed people came through it today. That’s why they were still icy.’

  ‘Who were still icy?’

  ‘The ancient folk. Two of them. A man and a woman. There was a boy with them too. He called me rajathuk.’

  ‘I call you looney,’ Simon said after a moment, but Tallis ignored the comment.

  A hollowing to the winter world, close to the house. All she had to do was find it. That, she imagined, is how Harry first entered the Otherworld. A place close by, yes, but far away.

  He must have found the way to make his mark upon the stag, if mark it he had done. And perhaps … perhaps he was lost because he had not marked the stag.

  What did the ritual involve? What did it mean?

  Simon was waving a hand in front of her face. ‘Tallis? Wake up, Tallis! The men in the white coats are coming …’

  She stood there, her back to the trees, dusk casting shadows on her face. Simon was holding a long stick and he walked away from her, beating at the turf. He moved towards the animal shelter, staring away through the gate, towards the farm-house.

  Tallis was about to follow him when a hand reached out from the darkness behind her and touched her shoulder.

  She stood quite still, her heart racing. She was terrified. A second hand touched the top of her head and ran its fingers gently over her hair. She felt dizzy with fear. She had not heard anyone approaching, but they were right behind her and she could sense gentle breath on her neck.

  ‘Simon …’ she called in a tiny voice. ‘Simon …’

  The boy turned. He looked suddenly shocked. His mouth gaped slightly and the stick fell from his fingers. But he remained quite motionless, staring at Tallis and at whoever it was who had hold of her.