In the Land of the Everliving

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  Donal

  I was never anyone’s favourite. Not the least bird in the flock, nay, but never highest in the roost. No maiden’s smile ever comes my way when I enter a hall or ride through the gate of a ráth. The female eye does not linger long in my direction. My body is a little too thick and my hands a little too rough, perhaps, my ears poke out a little too much to turn a fair lady’s head, much less melt a maiden’s heart. I know this. I have always known—and if I am ever liable to be forgetting, there are always plenty folk around ready to remind me.

  Feel no pity for Donal mac Donogh. Save that for some sad wretch who needs it the more. In Fergal and Conor, I have a bond of trust and affection closer than blood. I would walk through fire for them. Aye, I would—and never ask why.

  And now … now I think I must include Rhiannon and her folk in that tidy number as well. They saved my life, pulled me back from the grave the Scálda dug for me. Besides the healing, the faéry folk have given me a gift granted only a few. I think this was an accident, mind. No one intended me to have it. In fact, Lord Gwydion’s faéry healers were as surprised as anyone that I should be the one to own it, but own it I do.

  Against any expectation—and maybe even nature itself—I now possess the Second Sight of a seventh-generation druid. Lest you be tempted to cry up this ability or hail it too highly, let me say that this rare gifting is not at all what common folk imagine it to be. At least, it is nothing like I thought it when hearing of such things. For one, I cannot gaze into the future—like some gatekeeper up his perch peering out across the dim and misty distance to tell you what is coming down the road from far away. Nor can I tell what you or anyone else will do two days from now. I cannot even say with certainty if it will rain or snow tonight.

  What I can see, when I use what I call my inward eye, is a very clear view of how a thing before me—a battle, say, or a chase, or any kind of action at all—will play out, how a matter will end, which of the many possible outcomes of a thing will likely prevail. I have only to close my earthly eyes, look inside, and I see the thing unfold before me—much, I imagine—as the hawk in the sky sees the field below him and knows where the mouse track leads and where the mouse sits cowering under the leaf. Like the hawk hovering over the corn, I see the field with its hidden tracks, and I see the mouse.

  Eurig, one of Lord Gwydion’s physicians, is a healer and druid of some high rank, and he tells me that this gift of mine may be improved over time with practice and determination. I am not so sure. That is, I’m not convinced that I want this Second Sight improved. But, Eurig tells me this gift came to me by way of my walk with the goddess in the fair and sunlit meadows of Mag Mell. He also says there is nothing I can do about it now but make the best of it.

  Making the best of things, I tell him, is something I have been doing all my life.

  He also tells me that I cannot return to my warrior ways. I am blind to very little that passes before me, but I can in no wise see why this should be so. Not be a warrior?

  I tell you the truth: the day Donal mac Donogh lays aside his spear is the day they lay him in the tomb. And that is all I have to say about that.

  6

  Riding ahead of Fergal and Donal, Conor had been listening to the grumbling and muttering since coming off the ship a short time ago. He paused on the trail and lifted his head to the freshening breeze. He smelled rain on the way. Búrach, Conor’s grey stallion smelled it, too, and jigged in place, chafing to move along. Conor reached down and gave the grey a firm pat on the neck. ‘Be easy, friend,’ he murmured. ‘We’ll stop soon enough.’ Looking back along the trail, he called, ‘It’s going to rain. We’ll stop next good shelter we see.’

  A moment later, Fergal and Donal reined up beside him. ‘Why not stop here?’ suggested Donal, looking around. ‘Before it gets too dark, is what I’m thinking.’

  Fergal glanced at the sky, low and menacing overhead. The brackencovered hills round about glowed in the dwindling light like burnished copper and the birch trees in the near distance etched white lines against the greens and greys of the wood beyond. The air was cool, damp, and heavy. ‘But it’s not dark yet,’ he pointed out. ‘And we’re due to find a holding of some kind soon. I say we push on. We might get a little wet, but we’re sure to find a friendly fire and ale to warm us.’

  Ale and a fire sounded better than a wet night under a dripping tree, so they rode on and the sky grew more threatening and the land more strange. In truth, the region had seemed odd from the moment they set foot back on Eirlandia’s soil. Though it was not something any of them could put a word to, each felt it in his own way: an uneasiness, a vague sense of menace—as if they had entered a land where unseen dangers lurked to ensnare the unwary. And although this was familiar territory with the same hills and trees and streams and marshes—the same they had known since old enough to walk—it appeared altered somehow. Indeed, since leaving the faéry ship, they had continually floundered, finding themselves on unrecognised paths, losing the trail, or discovering that the river or hill or holding they expected to see around the next bend was not there, or that it was a different river or hill or farming settlement entirely.

  The sense of peculiarity and uncertainty made them feel as if they were intruding, as if they had entered a foreign land, or a territory beset with taboos they did not know, a place where they were not welcome. Conor, who had grown used to being treated as an outcast, sensed this most acutely. He felt like a man returning to his home only to find he no longer knew it.

  ‘It is not Eirlandia, it is us,’ mused Donal as they sat on their horses gazing at wide lough populated by numerous little tree-bound islands—in a place where there should have been a broad valley sown with Volunti fields and farms.

  ‘Us?’ wondered Fergal. ‘You maybe. I’m the same as all I ever was.’

  ‘Nay, brother,’ countered Conor. ‘Donal’s right; we’re the ones changed, not the land.’

  Fergal gave him a sideways look and shook his head. ‘I haven’t changed,’ he maintained halfheartedly. ‘We just took the wrong trail, that’s all. Could happen to anybody.’

  Conor agreed with Donal. Some alteration within themselves would seem to explain the way he felt: ill at ease and nervy—much as he had as a boy stealing into the bake house for a bit of honey cake or loaf still warm from the oven. Or, as if he had awakened from a dream to find the world had changed around him while he slept and he no longer recognised it.

  Despite their current disquiet, the journey aboard the faéry ship had been swift and smooth, and accomplished, like the previous sailing, with an almost effortless ease. Following their audience with King Gwydion, they had gathered their things and trooped down to the waiting ship where they made their final farewells. The royal family, along with the physician Eurig, a few servants and some of the maidens who had taken a liking to the mortals, assembled on the wooden dock to wave them away with branches from a laurel tree. This was a traditional faéry farewell for a departing nobleman or beloved family member embarking on a long, perhaps arduous, journey. The simple ritual represented a hope for good fortune and a swift return.

  It was then that Conor had sprung his surprise. Taking Pelydr, the charmed spear Gwydion had given to him, Conor took it and, holding the shaft across his palms, approached the king as if to present it to him. At the king’s questioning glance, Conor had drawn himself up and said, ‘Your gifts were genuine expressions of your generous spirit and that of your people, and for this, Lord Gwydion, I thank you. But our need is such that—useful though these weapons would surely be—we cannot accept them.’

  The king, startled and amazed, glanced at his wife and daughter as if to make certain he had heard Conor correctly. ‘Cannot accept them?’ he echoed. ‘Why?’

  ‘Victory in the war with the Scálda is life and death to us. Every day we are attacked, our settlements burned, our herds of sheep and cattle and horses stolen, our people tortured and killed. Every day, Balor Evil Eye plots how to lay waste to o
ur land and bring our people to destruction. And every day, the Dé Danann marshal our forces and stand against the Scálda scourge. We fight, but the enemy is numerous and they are strong. We fight, aye, but we cannot prevail. At best, we can only hope to forestall the inevitable collapse, the destruction that will condemn our race to oblivion.

  ‘Know you, my king, when the Dé Danann go, the Tylwyth Teg and the Aes-sídhe will go, too. And Cymru, Prydain, and Albion will be no more. How long do you imagine you will survive when the fierce tribes of Eirlandia are no longer able to stand as a wall between you and the ravening hordes of blood-lusting Scálda? Not long, I think. And then all that is good and true and worthy in this worlds-realm will follow you into the darkness of everlasting night.

  ‘Your art, your craft, your mystical charms of song and magic, your elegance and grace have long given us mortals a taste of higher things and inspired a will to imitate and champion the most noble qualities in our own way and in our own world. These qualities have not only shaped all that is best in us, they have become to us as the shining stars that guide the storm-wearied seafarer to the sweet haven of better shores. That these great and worthy ideals should pass away does us a grief beyond contemplation.

  ‘Nevertheless,’ Conor concluded, ‘if that is your decision, so be it.’ Lifting the spear a little higher, he said, ‘At risk of causing further offense, I feel that we must return these gifts. For, if we cannot depend on your support to fight the Scálda, we will not depend on your weapons.’

  The King of the House of Llŷr stiffened at these words and the light in his eyes grew cold. ‘What was given was given to help you in the fight you describe. I will not take back the weapons.’

  Conor nodded, then stooped and placed the charmed spear, Pelydr, lengthwise at the faéry king’s feet. Then, with a gesture, he motioned Donal and Fergal to do the same; taking up their weapons, they added them to Conor’s; next they brought the swords and shields the king had given them and added them to the pile at the king’s feet.

  ‘What will you do now?’ The question came from Queen Arianrhod who, from her expression, appeared troubled and deeply moved by Conor’s words.

  ‘We are Dé Danann,’ replied Conor, rising from adding his sword to the little heap of charmed weapons. ‘We are the Children of Danu, warriors descended from a race of warriors. We will do what we have done these last many years. We will fight. We will fight until the last breath of the last man. And if, after all our striving, we are destined to go down to the Hag Queen’s hall, we will go down fighting.’

  It was Rhiannon who intervened to break the tension between them. ‘Dear friends,’ she said, raising her hands in a mollifying gesture, ‘there is something you do not understand.’ She went on to explain, to the obvious discomfort of those looking on, that among her people it was well known that to refuse a faéry gift, or to return one, not only renders the giver powerless, but foredooms the recipient to certain disaster. ‘So, I implore you to reconsider your decision,’ she pleaded. ‘If not for the sake of our friendship, then for the sake of your people who long for your safe return.’

  Conor, humbled by the princess’s appeal, regretted his decision. ‘Please know, it was never my intention to insult you, my king, much less cause you harm. Accept my apologies.’

  ‘Your loyalty to your people is laudable, Conor. I suspect your desire to help them has, perhaps, overthrown your better judgment. There is no fault to forgive,’ replied Gwydion. ‘Go in peace.’

  With a simple nod of assent, Conor stooped to retrieve his weapons. Fergal and Donal did likewise and the three offered a final, if slightly stilted, farewell.

  Nothing more was said after that; there was nothing more to say. The horses and sacks of provisions were already aboard the ship now, so the Dé Danann boarded the ship and the king’s servants pushed the craft away from the stone wharf. The sleek, low-riding vessel moved out into the bay—as serenely as a swan gliding across the glassy surface of a lough. Upon reaching the open sea, Eraint, the ship’s pilot, set a westward course. The triangular green sails bellied out and the craft took on speed, the high, sharp prow slicing easily through the wave swell. Within moments, they were fairly skimming over the wind-stirred sea.

  After a time—Conor was never able to say how long—a great, thick bank of mist and fog rose up before them. Eraint held a steady course into the fog. The dense clouds of mist and fog cut off all sight and sound save the splash of the waves sliding by the hull. Shortly after that—again, it was impossible to say how long after—the heavy fog wore thin and they heard the crackling sigh of the waves sifting the pebbled shingle of a near distant shore. The ship emerged from the mist with Eirlandia’s rock-rimmed eastern coastline in full view and the day far spent.

  Eraint made landfall on a deserted northern beach at a place Conor judged to be somewhere near Volunti territory. The Volunti were a fair-sized tribe of the northeast whose lands bordered the Brigantes to the south and the Darini to the north—which, Conor reckoned, would place them out of reach of the Scálda, but still a day or so away from Dúnaird. After bidding farewell to Eraint and his crewmen, the three had travelled inland—and into a land all but abandoned by summer. The woodland hills were adorned in autumn colours; the breeze that rattled the bracken and scattered the dry leaves across the trail was cool and smelled of damp, dying vegetation.

  Now, as the light faded in a darkly threatening sky, the travellers merely hoped to find a dry place before the storm broke and the rain set in. They guided their restless mounts around the lake and saw, in a sheltered curve of the low surrounding hills, a small farm holding. Little more than an earthen rampart surrounded by a ring ditch, it contained a handful of dwellings, a barn or two, and several storehouses; a series of pens for pigs and cattle lay just outside the settlement and recently harvested grain fields beyond these.

  ‘There!’ shouted Conor as he caught sight of a thread of smoke drifting up into the lowering sky. ‘Brothers, I do believe we will sleep dry tonight.’

  ‘Not a moment too soon,’ said Fergal as, even while he was speaking, the first drops of rain began spattering down. By the time they reached the settlement, they were well soaked but welcomed by the chieftain and his young son who met them outside the palisade gate at the end of the plank bridge across the ditch.

  ‘Noblemen, is it?’ he said, eyeing their exquisite clothes. ‘Well, you best come in and get out of this wet. It looks like settling in for the night.’

  Fergal thanked the fellow and introduced himself and his companions, saying that they were travelling home to Dúnaird and would be moving on in the morning. ‘I am Gobnu,’ the chief said, and this is Ródri, my son. He’ll show you where to put up your horses.’ He nudged the lad, who had not stopped staring at the splendid clothes and weapons since the riders entered the yard.

  The three dismounted and followed the youth into one of the barns where they removed the horse cloths and rubbed the animals’ coats with dry straw. While they were drying their mounts, Ródri and one of the farmers fetched water and oats for the beasts, and then they all went to join Gobnu in the big house. The genial chief had already summoned a few of the holding’s men and was pouring cups of ale from jars set on the board. ‘Here now, get this in you—good ale to warm your cockles,’ he said, passing the cups around. ‘My wife brews it, so she does, and I’ll put a cup of hers against any you care to pour.’

  ‘A fella can’t ask better than that,’ agreed Fergal happily; he swirled the frothy liquid, gave it a sniff, and sighed with contentment.

  Conor accepted his cup and thanked the chieftain for his hospitality. The three travellers drank then, watched by the farmers. When they lowered their cups and declared the brew the best they’d had all summer, the farmers smiled and nodded and then drank themselves.

  ‘Am I right in thinking we are on Volunti land?’ asked Conor as Gobnu refilled the cups.

  ‘Aye, so you are,’ he replied, waving Conor and his friends to seats at the board
. They sat and the farmers filled in places around them. ‘I’d a’thought a true-born Darini would know that.’

  ‘And you would be right to think it,’ Conor told him. ‘But we’ve come in from the coast, you see, and lost ourselves on the trail when the daylight gave out.’

  ‘Well, that can happen, I suppose—to those who don’t know the valleys hereabouts.’

  ‘Is it far you have come today?’ asked one of the farmers, speaking up. He received a dark look from the chief, but ignored it.

  ‘Far enough,’ said Fergal. ‘Truth to tell, we have been away from home for some little time. Maybe you fellas could tell us what all’s been happening hereabouts—’

  ‘If it wouldn’t trouble you overmuch,’ added Conor.

  ‘Nay, nay,’ said Gobnu quickly, ‘you’ll hear it soon enough anywhere else, you might as well hear it here first.’ He licked his lips and looked down the board, deciding where to start.

  The farmer next to Conor leaned over and whispered, ‘Your man there’—he indicated Donal—‘he don’t say much.’

  ‘True enough,’ replied Conor, ‘but he thinks deep thoughts.’

  ‘Ach, does he now?’

  ‘I suppose you know,’ said Gobnu, speaking as if making an announcement to a grand Oenach assembly, ‘that the Scálda scum killed that big king Brecan Brigantes. Killed him in ambush and sent him home tied to his horse like a gutted hog.’

  ‘We might have heard something of that,’ remarked Fergal, glancing at Conor.

  ‘Worse for that fella Cethern,’ chirped another of the farmers. ‘Him the dog-eaters chopped up in little pieces and left for the birds along the trail.’

  ‘That is low,’ muttered the man next to him. ‘Even for Scálda that is low.’

  They all nodded and took a sip of sweet ale from their wooden bowls.