Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn

by Robert Holdstock

‘Less at that time, when we left, than now as we sit talking.’ A glance was cast at me. ‘He will be in the way.’

  ‘He should see this,’ said Manandoun harshly. ‘He should see Eletherion, since the bronze man has sworn to kill the slathan.’

  Guiwenneth hissed with anger, distracting me from the shock of that revelation, that I was the target of a death squad. I imagine I was ashen as I looked at her, and she looked hurt and sorry, her hand on her left breast.

  ‘Modron’s Heart, Christian, I was keen to tell you that Eletherion also has you marked, but there was a right time to do it, to give you a chance to decide for yourself …’

  ‘Decide what for myself?’ I asked.

  ‘To return or to stay. To confront Kyrdu’s sons. I’m sorry.’

  ‘There is nothing to be sorry for. Later, you can tell me about him in greater detail. Now, I think I should accompany you to the Silent Towers.’

  The riders were unhappy about this, but clearly there was no time to sit on restless, tiring horses and argue the point.

  Some time later we began to smell death. I have no words to describe how awful that aroma is. There is something about it that is familiar, and yet which instantly tells you the dead await. After that, the sky darkened, another shift in space and time, and we were suddenly in a brightly lit night, the moon low and gibbous behind an earthen mound where a single tree grew, its branches winter-dressed, bare and stark. Steel clashed and men were screaming. There was an odd hollowness to the sound. The skirmish was ferocious, but involved few warriors. Torches streamed, illuminating frantic shapes engaged in combat. Ahead of us, framing the hill, was a wall that rose sheer to a turreted summit. It was shaking with the movement of Legion, of which it was a part, and crumbling before our eyes.

  Manandoun at once flung himself into the fray, disappearing into darkness. Gwyr uttered a bloodcurdling cry and also vanished into the gloom, towards the silver gleam of a river, where people were fighting in the water. Suddenly deserted, I turned anxiously to Guiwenneth, but a wildcat leapt at me, silver-flanked, black-maned, came right into the saddle, crouched there before me, a carved staff in its mouth. At once it transformed into Issabeau, who slapped my face hard and hissed: ‘Attonzion!’

  Then she dropped to the ground, crouching low, sniffing the air and shaking her black mane like the cat whose features she was adopting. She was looking for something and abruptly cried out, following in Gwyr’s tracks towards the gleam of the river, where metal rang and eerie light played.

  I looked again at Guiwenneth, in time to see her reel from the saddle, the sound of a stone from a slingshot cracking against the bone of her skull echoing loudly in my heightened consciousness. Stunned in my own way, I was easy prey for the silent figure that rode at me, face hidden behind the mask of an owl, chest bared, legs protected by strips of hide wound round to create a crude armour. I saw the spear stabbing at me and recoiled quickly. The blade glanced off my face but didn’t cut. Nevertheless, I tumbled from the uncomfortable saddle and hit the thistles on the ground hard and my frightened horse cantered away and vanished.

  The rider had turned and was coming back through the darkness, silhouetted by the moon, screaming a challenge, or an insult, something in any case that chilled my blood. I rose unsteadily to my feet to face him, watching the gleam at the spear’s tip, anticipating how I would snatch it, but before he reached me another rider thundered past, flinging a javelin that pierced the attacker through the shoulder, turning him and sending him screaming from the field. My saviour swung round and reached down for me, gripping me painfully by the arm and suggesting by every motion of his large, smelly body that I should jump up behind him. I did this, cracking my undercarriage against the wooden bar that marked the rear of the saddle, gripping onto the rolls of fat that warmed the waistline of this half-naked rider.

  He slapped at my hands with a yelp of pain. ‘Hold my hair if you must!’ he roared, and I did just that, gripping the long locks, silver and black in the moonlight, jerking his head back as I got a better grip, then leaning against the tickling jungle of hair on his sweat-saturated shoulders as he cantered again towards the hill. He had a torque around his neck, and he rattled with earrings and bits of metal tied to his hair.

  ‘Manandoun!’ he shouted. ‘Manandoun!’

  He rode this way and that, snarling angrily, then drew out a leaf-shaped sword and struck and hacked at an oak branch in pure frustration. He seemed to be talking to me sometimes, but I couldn’t understand him, and when I leaned forward and asked, ‘Say that again?’ he just pushed me back with the muscular ridges of his shoulders. When he suddenly kicked the charger into a gallop and I reached again for safety to the ample flesh of his flanks, he again slapped my hand away with an irritable shout. I rode behind this man, using his hair as reins, noticing that as he rode, he used the mane of the horse. The earrings jangled. The gold torque round his neck struck me time and again in the teeth and I was lucky not to lose enamel. I hardly had time to think of poor Guiwenneth, struck down by the slingshot, but my anxiety would have been grief had I not noticed her slowly standing even as my fat friend was rescuing me.

  Hopefully, then, she had escaped back to the inner lines.

  ‘Manandoun, you dog! Manandoun! Great Hound! Come to my side! Old friend … call to me!’

  My guardian’s voice deafened me.

  We had reached that turbulent river, the water thrashed by running men, dogs and horses, the far bank stalked by shadow creatures, wolves and stags, upright, monstrous and shifting in and out of vision.

  One such apparition was locked in a strange embrace with Issabeau. She was ankle deep in water, her face and breast fused with a man whose face and form writhed through the shapes of animals, as did Issabeau herself. Only her right arm was human. She held tightly onto the left hand of Someone son of Somebody, who was backed up against her, stark naked save for the golden torque around his neck.

  The two of them were protecting each other.

  He was fighting against three men in the curious, skull-like helmets of the ancient Greeks, all of them naked too, but pushing from the river at the proud Celt with shields and long, bronze blades which he was parrying with difficulty, though he screamed abuse at them. When his iron sword was struck from his grasp I thought it must be over for the shouting man, my companion from the Forlorn Hope, but my guardian flung his own sword into the fray, a spinning weapon that Someone grabbed from the air and, without hesitating in the movement, used to cut down his nearest opponent. The sword was flung back to my paunchy companion, who caught it with equal dexterity. Someone grabbed the dead Greek’s sword and shield and rampaged against the others on their own terms. As he forced them back into the river, Issabeau followed him, breaking the spell from her own opponent and sending him flying like a dark bird, screeching into the night, where shapes reached for him and seemed to shred him like a cloud ripped on the wind.

  I saw this over my shoulder. We had cantered uncomfortably along the river, the horse unhappy with our double weight. I saw the Fenlander, and Raven, fighting furiously from horseback, their shouts and challenges bloodcurdling and ferocious.

  And again came the anguished cry from my host: ‘Manandoun! Fall back! Come back! I can’t ride to you!’

  Then a terrible scream pierced the confusion of night. My blood went cold. I know now how that feels. The scream was short-lived, but my guardian had broken from hot sweat to cold fear, and his mare became agitated almost beyond control, eventually becoming still under the gentle persuasion of her master. I realised the horse was now limping.

  It was as if the whole skirmish had come to a sudden pause, an awful silence. Somewhere in the distance I heard a rider approaching, but my gaze was fixed upon the hill with the moon full behind it. A man was climbing to the summit, coming into view, dragging the body of another behind him. When he stood there, to one side of the winter tree, he was taller than the lower branches, a giant of a man, then. I struggled to see in this silver ligh
t. It seemed to me that the man on the hill wore a helmet with a high, vertical crest and a face-plate fashioned with the grimacing features of a church gargoyle. White skin gleamed from the clean-shaven face that showed through the frame of the mask. Hair flowed on one side only from below the helmet. He seemed to be kilted to the knee, but bare-chested like my guardian, though moonlight picked out the shine of bronze in a lacework across that body.

  He had raised his sword to the heavens.

  ‘No!’ said my guardian softly. ‘Not now … Old friend … Don’t leave me …’

  The sword moved down savagely, then cut again, and then again. The body in the bronze man’s grip slumped away from the head, which the bronze man swung round and round by its grey hair, then released, so that the spouting ball came towards us and struck the tree a few feet away.

  ‘That is Eletherion,’ whispered Gwyr grimly from behind me, and I turned to look at the Interpreter, glad not to be looking at that black hill. Gwyr had ridden up to us with a second horse, the great chestnut charger that Manandoun had loved, and my heart sank as I realised who had been slaughtered by this Son of Kyrdu.

  ‘I saw Guiwenneth struck,’ I muttered, ‘but she was still alive—’

  ‘She is alive. She is safe,’ Gwyr said. His eyes were narrowed with pain.

  ‘Where is Kylhuk in all of this?’ I asked, suddenly angry, and the man whose lame horse I straddled reached round and grabbed me by the shoulder.

  He half swung me from the saddle, but held me, his face inches from my own so that I could see clearly how his lower lip had been ritually cut to make it broader and angrier. Circles of blue dye covered one side of his face, the other was white with chalk. The teeth of small animals and glittering links of bronze were tied to the fringe of his hair. His eyes were dark in this light, but his cheeks glistened with a stream of tears, which dripped from the trimmed beard around his jaw and fell upon my hands … hands which still gripped him around the belt-line for balance.

  ‘Kylhuk is here in all of this,’ he said in a whisper. ‘I am Kylhuk. And truthfully, I have looked forward to our meeting, and indeed called you to it earlier today. But this is not the right time, now. I have just lost the closest friend a man could wish. His head is in that tree, caught among the branches. His life is in that man on the hill there, that bronze man, and I must find a way to get it back. Now … Let go of my skin!’

  I obeyed and he dropped me like a stone, then turned away, dismounted and disappeared into the night, leading his unsteady horse.

  Gwyr handed me down the reins of Manandoun’s steed. ‘Kylhuk will want you to have her. But she will be grieving for Manandoun, as indeed will we all. So ride her gently, and if she springs for the canter, let her have her head and wait until she finishes the Grieving Ride. I know little about you, but I have seen you gallop, and I have seen your concern for those around you. I know in my heart that you are a man who can understand this creature, and her needs, and her instincts. Her name is Cryfcad, which means “Strong in battle”. She is brighter than any of Uther’s sons, which is not saying much, but she will respond to affection, and to a resolute instruction. Is that clear?’

  ‘Who are Uther’s sons?’

  ‘The Three Arthurs,’ Gwyr said, and shook his head despairingly. ‘All born together when Uther had prepared only one name. I would have thought you would have known of them.’

  ‘Truthfully, I know of only one Arthur, a great king.’

  Gwyr looked at me for a moment as if I were mad, then said, ‘Never mind that now. Go and fetch Manandoun’s head.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Pick up the head,’ Gwyr repeated sharply. ‘Kiss its lips and eyes and tie it to the mane of his horse. Bring it back to the heart of Legion.’

  ‘Why?

  ‘Why? So that you can learn how to honour a great friend. Or even a great enemy, though Manandoun was no enemy of anyone save a coward. Kylhuk will expect this of his slathan.’

  ‘What is this slathan?’ I asked again irritably.

  ‘You are this slathan,’ Gwyr said coldly. ‘Clearly, you are this thing that you keep questioning me about. But I have no knowledge of it beyond what I have told you. Pick up the head. Do what I have told you. Then follow me.’

  I had found my legs and found the truth in my eyes, and though Legion made its ponderous way forward towards the Long Person through overlapping worlds of time and the forest, I was now accustomed to the dual movement, and approached the heart of Legion with Gwyr and without difficulty.

  As it moved, the heart was no more than a train of wagons, each pennanted with the identity of its owner or the task it fulfilled. The forest was opened before each cart or wagon by either a roadmaker, or a pathfinder, some of these functionaries forming into gangs of labourers, laying logs and stones at the front of the column, then picking them up behind, others using the wiles, tricks and magic of their own ages, from prehistoric to mediaeval, to make passages through the tightest thickets and the densest groves of ancient oak and elm.

  In this part of Legion, the true specialists that Kylhuk had gathered around himself lived, worked and journeyed as the garrison forged forward in its final quest, not just the cooks and brewers, weavers, leather-workers, saddlers and all the rest, but stone-shapers and metal-smiths, who used every bit as much sorcery in their craft as those sorcerers Kylhuk had cunningly stationed behind the Forlorn Hope and at the Silent Towers, at the rear of the column.

  But here as well were Kylhuk’s accountants, who traded spoils for assistance and exchanged quests with passing knights, or passed on the acquisitions of successful tasks to those who had asked for them. For Kylhuk was now a mercenary and took on challenges on behalf of the fainthearted, or the overburdened, or the just plain frightened.

  Since there was often a ‘hand in marriage’ at the end of a task, he had a team of Shapechangers who could appear as the triumphant knight, claim the marriage bed, and then be found ‘dead’ in a few weeks’ time. These were called the Marrying Men, and their position was keenly sought by all heroes who were blessed with the ability to alter their looks. There were Marrying Women too, but since they were often required to sleep with Giants, there was less demand for this particular station.

  Perhaps most important of all were the Cleverthreads, Kylhuk’s name for them, a group of women who could hold and weave the complex strands of fate that these many quests and tasks unravelled. Since any one action seemed to involve a host of other actions – as I was soon to find out from Kylhuk himself – these clever, silent women filtered and fashioned the consequences of each deed by each hero or heroine in the column. Without them, there would have been Chaos, and a grim ending to Legion.

  Far more powerful than sheer walls of stone, water-filled moats or armoured men, the Cleverthreads were the true fortifications that kept at bay the great enemies of Time, Confusion and Nemesis. And among them I thought I recognised the woman who had whispered to my mother.

  ‘Who is she?’ I asked, and Gwyr answered, with an ill-concealed shudder:

  ‘The dolorous voice. If she has a name, I don’t wish to know it. She whispers bad news or good news. Usually a simple word that gives a vision either of hope or despair. It is a double-edged gift since its whole purpose is manipulation. We can all act to change the vision – or not! Why do you ask?’

  ‘My mother died because of a word that woman said to her.’

  Gwyr thought hard for a moment. ‘Then take back the word.’

  ‘Can that be done?’ I asked, my heart pounding.

  Gwyr glanced at me. ‘Tell me how she died.’

  ‘Hanged by her own rope. From a tree.’

  ‘Who saw this act?’

  ‘I did. I tried to stop her. I saw it happen.’

  Gwyr laughed. ‘I doubt that you did. Not if the dolorous voice had been there first. But take back the word! That’s what you have to do. If you can do that, you might find things aren’t as you believe.’

  Elidyr had said that to m
e!

  ‘How do I take back the word?’

  ‘I don’t know. Others have done it,’ Gwyr said simply. ‘But don’t expect help from the Cleverthreads!’

  * * *

  I was anxious to see Guiwenneth and she had asked to see me. Gwyr led me to the wagon where she was being cared for. Someone son of Somebody rode behind the cart, facing backwards on his horse, his sword drawn and held across his lap. He was glad to see me and let me pass. I noticed that he had trimmed his beard, combed out his hair and changed his clothes. On the dimples of his shaven cheeks he had painted two small images of long-necked birds, one in red and one in white, their beaks towards his eyes. Gwyr whispered to me, ‘That’s interesting. He has done something without knowing what he is doing. That is the prerogative only of certain men.’

  ‘The birds?’

  ‘It is a powerful charm to protect Guiwenneth. Interestingly, he has learned it from Issabeau, the sorceress. And the backwards riding! And the hair hanging to his shoulders! Very significant. But our handsome friend is using magic without the knowledge of its power. As long as I live, I’ll pay more attention to his quest for his true name. He is certainly noble and what you’re seeing is a geisa …’

  ‘A geisa?

  ‘Yes! A courtesy he is bound to show, or a taboo he is bound to honour. He will have several of them, perhaps as many as ten, so if he ever behaves peculiarly, that is probably the reason. A man’s geisas are born with him, like a birth mark, but usually he hears of them from his family as he grows older. Someone, of course, was abandoned at his birth, so the geisas return to him like bad dreams.’

  ‘Which geisa are we seeing now?’

  Gwyr shrugged, leaning forward in his shallow saddle, legs dangling by the heaving flanks of his pony. ‘My guess would be that he is bound to ride backwards and ward off enemies – using any means he can – for seven days after the death of an honourable man. Manandoun was certainly honourable. It will be something like that. I may be wrong. But enough of this. Go and kiss the woman in your heart.’