Avilion

by Robert Holdstock

  He tried to assess the size of the group, first by listening to the bone pipes - he heard four - and then by counting torches: two at the windows, but a further four on the woodland side of the lodge. When the torch at the outer window vanished, he darted there and scanned the darkness, noticing three altogether. Eight, then, which probably meant ten or twelve, since some would be hugging the darkness, unlit, waiting.

  Jack strung the bow, found an iron-tipped arrow - silver would have been better - and strode to the flame at the double doors to the garden. As he came to the glass panels, reflection confusing him for a moment, he saw the eyes of the creature that was searching the interior. They were looking down at him!

  He took an involuntary step back, startled to realise the height of this investigating Iaelven. Not Muurngoth, not the small, teasing creatures he had often come across during his youthful years in the wood: these were Amurngoth! They were a far more dangerous species of Iaelven. He had seen them only once before.

  He thought back to the signs, the traces he had seen on the river. Yes, now he remembered that the fire-pits had been large, the temporary wooden enclosures too wide for the less robust form of this life.

  But they would still respond to his defences. Jack stepped forward again and unlatched the French windows, pulling them in with his bow hand as he thrust the iron-tipped arrow forward with the other.

  The Amurngoth looked at him through the narrowed vertical slits of its eyes. The stink that came from it was overwhelming. Its pursed mouth stretched into a parody of a human smile and it shook its head slowly, the long frill of its hair flowing like weed in water.

  It made a whispering noise, then sang briefly, a sound that set Jack’s skin crawling and which made him falter, almost dropping the pointed and drawn arrow.

  But his shadow stepped forward, screeching loudly, drew back the bowstring and pressed the iron point of the arrow against the Amurngoth’s bare-boned chest.

  It retreated, dropping the torch. Shrilling sounds, and a chatter like magpies, signalled the sudden and rapid departure of the raiding band, though Jack noticed, with human eyes and Haunter instinct, that they moved along the edge, rather than retreating inwards.

  They were out for prey, and they clearly had Shadoxhurst in their sights.

  The Amurngoth were the true ‘stealers’. Change-hunters. They stole the new and left their own behind. They carried a supply of shards, unshaped pieces of wood, usually rowan or willow, and when they found the opportunity to steal, they were adept at shaping the shard to reflect the stolen life, usually that of an infant child, sometimes an older child, though that involved a great deal of effort. In Jack’s father’s time, the Amurngoth had all but disappeared, though, in the generations before, the Amurngoth had become a considerable and tangible presence in the outer world. It was akin to a slow invasion. It had worked well for many generations; but the Amurngoth had been frustrated by the one thing they could not control: change.

  They never changed, and they lived by different rules of time. The world they coveted changed and was steady in the passing of days.

  The days, eventually, had passed the Amurngoth by. On the outside world, at least.

  But they were here again now, and Jack couldn’t help but think that they had been following him. This was more of his Haunter’s instinct. Having seen the traces of them by the river, mistaking them for the smaller kind, he’d assumed they existed at that location. But perhaps they had merely overtaken him.

  His journey from the Villa to the edge had been an opening of a channel, perhaps. He felt alarmed at the thought, since it meant he might have put the small town over the rise in danger, all because of his curiosity.

  Could they move that far from the edge of Ryhope Wood? It was a consoling thought that if a half-human could only just make it, a non-human would be drawn back far more quickly. Nevertheless, he would have to find a way of warning the priest without alarming him, and suggest he find a way to quietly spread the word: there is danger at the edge.

  The torch that the Amurngoth scout had dropped had ceased to flare, but it would still be useful. It burned again as Jack picked it up, but the flame died as he placed it in the kitchen sink. The chaotic chorus of birds was signalling first light and he made a rapid inspection of the dew-frosted land, walking rapidly as far as the silent outskirts of Shadoxhurst itself, inspecting the pasture and the rough tracks for signs of the Iaelven, but he saw nothing but animal traces.

  Returning to the sticklebrook, he stood at the place where twin alders crossed and let the Haunter look for signs of the band.

  They had been here. This was where they had found the open land. But they had not progressed further than this, returning instead to the deeper wood, and moving towards the Lodge on one side, and . . . yes . . . they had divided into two groups, the other exploring away from the house.

  Everything was silent now. There would be no piping, no singing, no enchanting summons. Not now, not in the day. But the Haunter was uncertain. It sensed that the Amurngoth were still close, folded up in their nests, awake and canny, listening and learning.

  Tired and hungry, Jack returned to Oak Lodge and savaged open another of the cans from the larder. The contents were soft and smooth, tasting of very little that he recognised, and he ate it with the chewy but sweet bread that Julie had brought him the day before. Once again, he tried to remember the joy of his mother Guiwenneth’s sharp-flavoured cooking, the solid, fatty meats, the belly-satisfying grain cakes, the scalding and soothing broths.

  He finished the can and the bread and made a quiet decision to go hunting later - but beyond the edge, not within it. There might well be new game to find in the hinterland around Shadoxhurst.

  As the empty can clattered into the sink, so a sound came from above, as if an animal had been suddenly startled.

  It surprised Jack as well, and he reached at once for his bow and arrows, wiping the blade of his iron knife clean and sheathing it.

  The sound had come from the room where - he tried to remember the way this house was constructed - yes, where his uncle Christian had stored his belongings, slept, and prepared for the day.

  Jack went upstairs; there was little point in being quiet since the wooden boards creaked loudly, several of them threatening to give way beneath his hesitant step, so much so that he almost ran to the landing and then walked purposefully to the open door of Christian’s room.

  He saw a bed that was now dishevelled, a scatter of books, an open wardrobe, the clothes scattered.

  A voice whispered, ‘Chris?’

  Turning, he saw his grandfather standing at the top of the stairs. Huxley was staring at him, yet through him. The old man held shirts and trousers in his arms; in his right hand he held the school notebook in which he had begun to keep his latest record. He had a vacant look and was wildly unkempt, his trousers creased, his feet bare. He had shaved his beard roughly, and there was dried blood on his neck and cheek. His hair was sticking out in spikes, perhaps the result of a restless sleep.

  He had been here all night. While the Amurngoth had probed the edges of the Lodge, Huxley had been upstairs all the time!

  ‘Hello, George. Hello, Grandfather. Can you see me?’

  ‘Chris?’

  ‘Jack. It’s Jack.’

  ‘Steven?’

  ‘No. Not Steven. Jack.’

  Jack approached the man cautiously. The rank odour from the man’s body was suddenly overwhelming, no doubt the same smell of sweat and travel, of distraction and the wild that would have greeted the two boys on Jack’s first appearance at the edge of Ryhope.

  ‘You need a bath, old man. A good wash.’

  ‘Chris?’

  Huxley was staring into a different time; whether into a truly remembered time, or a time created out of the mythago’s dreams, Jack had no way of knowing. Was this the real man, returned after many years’ absence? Or a mythago drawn from Jack’s human side? Haunter, the wildwood aspect of Jack, whispered: not real
.

  And yet this Huxley, this risen presence, knew what he had had, knew what had been in his life, knew his sons, and knew that he had given his life to documenting the apparitions and the phenomena, even the nature, of Ryhope Wood.

  In his right hand he clutched the simple journal in which he - a mythago - was accounting for his new existence in the home from which he had vanished in 1946, a disappearance that had not resulted in a reappearance until now.

  Jack stared hungrily at the tattered notebook. Had his grandfather been writing during the night? He had obviously been curled up on Christian’s narrow bed; he had raided the wardrobe for clothes; he had surrounded himself with the tangible memories of one of his two sons.

  But had he written in the journal? And had he proceeded beyond that question mark after the letter Y?

  Was there anything, yet, about Yssobel?

  George Huxley seemed to wake from a daydream. He became aware of the clothing he was clutching and let it drop. His gaze still vacant, still not aware of his grandson, he stumbled awkwardly down the stairs and into his study, sitting down heavily at the desk, smoothing out the pages, staring for a moment at the garden windows. Then he plucked a pencil from the holder and started to write.

  Jack found a cushion, tossed it to the floor in front of the cabinet of flint and bronze artefacts, and sat down, folded his arms and watched Huxley. They were face to face across the room, and occasionally Huxley looked up, looked directly at Jack, but in a distracted way, as if thinking rather than seeing, returning quickly to the rapid scrawl of words.

  There was something of a fever in the older man. His breathing was loud, with long pauses, gasps of understanding, little sighs of satisfaction, and the occasional groan of frustration. And he talked constantly, though the words were uttered so sibilantly, and in so low a voice, that Jack could make out very little.

  I made you, Jack thought, and with that thought there came a moment’s affection.

  Old man: lank hair, grey, rough-hewn cheeks and scarred chin, sagging eyes, clothes dreamed out of nightmare; and the pulse of blood in his temples, and the odour of moss and undergrowth on the breath.

  I made you. I summoned you. And you came, equipped with memory. My father was right. You would come equipped with memory. And you have it, though you think of it as jigsaw.

  Each time gaze met gaze, Jack felt his heart race. It was impossible to tell whether Huxley was seeing him or not; and yet, there was the distinct sense that the older man was aware of the presence of his half-human, half-Haunter descendant.

  ‘Yssobel,’ Jack finally said aloud. ‘Your granddaughter, my sister. Yssobel. She is the very image of a woman you once loved: my mother. Guiwenneth.’

  At the sound of the name, Huxley frowned, though he did not look up. He paused for a moment before continuing to write.

  ‘Yes, Guiwenneth,’ Jack persisted from his sitting position, almost taunting the man now. ‘So beautiful. You loved her. You summoned her. You summoned love, because you wanted it, as I have summoned memory - memory of you, grandfather - because I need it. Guiwenneth!’

  Huxley made a keening sound, his eyes closed, his body hunched, the hand that held the pencil now shaking. If he spoke words, Jack again could not hear them. And after a moment, the spasm of grief, or whatever was causing the distress, passed away.

  ‘Yssobel,’ Jack repeated now. ‘I know you can help me find out where she went. I saw you talking to her, at the edge of the villa, when I was younger. Was it you? Or a shade of you? How do I know? But Grandfather, you know of your granddaughter. You know of Yssobel.’

  Yssobel, the shade of Huxley murmured, and Jack leaned forward.

  ‘Yes. You remember her.’

  Huxley looked around as if seeing his surroundings for the first time. ‘Yssobel.’

  ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘Yssobel,’ breathed the ghost.

  Jack spoke softly: ‘When I was a boy, I saw you. I saw you many times at the villa, where your Steven lives now. And a few seasons before she rode off, before she disappeared, I saw you talking to her. You came and went, just as you always do. You came out of the wood and you whispered to her. She remembered nothing of your visits, but I do: I saw you so many times. Whispering, whispering. You know, you alone know, where she went, and why she went, and what drove her away. Talk to me, George. Talk to me. About Yssobel!’

  ‘Yssobel,’ the man repeated quietly, sitting up straight, as if he had just seen something startling. ‘Oh no, oh no . . .’

  The forlorn voice, the forlorn whisper, were the last words the mythago spoke.

  Huxley pushed back from the desk and stumbled to the French windows, pushing them open and staring into the gloom of Ryhope. As Jack struggled to his feet, the old man lurched away. He could not possibly have walked so fast as to have vanished into the wood by the time Jack reached the garden. But Huxley had gone, absorbed yet again.

  Jack called for him twice. Silence was his only reply.

  He went back to the study and sat down at the desk, leaning close to the scrawl of words, deciphering them as best he could.

  I have been dragged from the grave. The ghost-lit boy has dragged me here. He stinks of the wood, a stink I know so well.

  Dragged from the grave, but also dragged out of time. I was lost. This haunting ‘boy’ has resurrected me, and I begin to remember the LIFE before.

  So much reconstructs itself. The jigsaw shuffles, the pieces turn and twist and shape and fit. Bit by bit, shape by shape, echo by echo, memory by memory, all begins to congeal. I am . . . Huxley. I can shape my life.

  I am reborn with the flesh and mind and recollection of my first incarnation. That is to say - as far as I can tell. I can shape it, both the flesh and the dream. In order to remember. And the ghost-lit boy will recognise me. But will I recognise the ghost-lit boy for what it is?

  Is it attached to me? This boy? A version of myself? I have no way of knowing yet.

  The genesis of ‘myth imago’ forms is more intricate than the Ur-Huxley, the original form of me, could possibly have understood.

  I am more aware than him, though it is his struggle to understand that drives my own curiosity.

  Ur-Huxley? Jack stared at the word, bemused by it. ‘The original form of me.’ Did he mean the real man, the true man, the man who had been a child, had grown, had learned, had lived in the Lodge, had explored, sired two children; had pursued a strange dream; and died in the heartwoods?

  So the memories and dreams of Ur-Huxley also rose in the mythago, just as the ragged clothes were re-formed, just as the flesh and bone, the blood and beat and pulse of the heart were shaped again.

  But from whose memory? From the human side of Jack? From Steven? Or from Jack’s ‘haunter’ side, the aspect of him that was silently in tune with the timelessness of the wildwood.

  Haunter was quiescent inside Jack, understanding nothing of this. Haunter was instinct.

  Jack turned back the pages of the notebook to see what had been written during the night when the Amurngoth had visited and distracted him, while all the time his grandfather was upstairs in hiding, sketching his visions in words.

  This scrawl was even harder to decipher, but underlined several times was his sister’s name. And under that bold statement, which signified either confusion or realisation, were the words: Yss. Her birth. Eagles.

  The name Yssobel, or Issaubel, is whispered to me, and I have remembered a small story relating to the later life of Guiwenneth, though I cannot remember who told it to me, nor where it was that the story was spoken.

  She was born in the early evening. Eagles flew around the fortress during her mother’s labour, and with her first cry of life they scattered, though one came back later and stayed. The child was in distress. At dawn, when she was taken to the spring to be drowned and reborn, the child reached and wailed, watching the solitary eagle through eyes that showed awareness, but no comfort, only anxiety. And yet - piercing through the misty, infant blue
- curiosity!

  Yssobel was the daughter of Guiwenneth, who was known as ‘the Green’ and was of noble birth, being the daughter of the Warlord Peredur and his wife Dierdrath.

  In her childhood years, Yssobel and her mother were close and affectionate, and Yssobel learned much about her mother’s hardships, and the loss of her father under cruel circumstances. But in later years, the friendship between mother and daughter was broken.

  Guiwenneth wounded the girl with her words, and the house became angry.

  Although Yssobel continued to live in her parent’s house, hardly any words were spoken between them, and when they were, they were brief and usually harsh.

  There came a day when Guiwenneth went out from the fort and never returned. All that is known of her is that she was heard singing the Song of the Islands of the Lost, which are reached by one of the five valleys that lead away from her father’s memorial stone at the edge of Lavondyss.

  Distraught at the loss, her daughter went to search for her, and in doing so found a new world of her own. She, too, disappeared.

  There is another story about her, almost as small, but more intriguing. It is unresolved. I must try to reimagine it.

  At this point, the entry had been underlined and it ended; the journal was closed over the pencil. By the harsh light spilling into the room, Jack could see a handprint, made perhaps from sweat. He pressed his own hand against it, not truly knowing why he did so.

  The account was a shadowy reflection of the true events - they had not occurred in a fort but in the Roman villa where the family had lived until its abandonment. And Jack was intrigued by certain things, particularly the reference to the memorial stone. And The Sons of the Islands of the Lost was a favourite song of his mother’s. But he needed more if he was to find his sister and, in that finding, understand what had happened to Guiwenneth.