Merlin's Wood (Mythago Wood) (18 page)

Each of us, then, was trapped by the other, and
perhaps we both deserved the fate. If I had truly wished to keep the woman away from me, I could have done so. Lust, intrigue, the need to control her vibrancy, all these things perhaps had made me evil, and I can say this now because I have paid the price, and so has she. Eventually, because that bone was broken at her birth, her flesh succumbed to time. Her bones, still smooth, lie at the bottom of the pool, by the waterfall.

As for the broken man himself, murdered that cruel time in the long-gone, I began to dream again. It was all I had power to do.

The damage was too great. I had nothing left to do but wait.

Vivien, for the time she lived, was as tied to Broceliande as was I. My children, carrying my magic, rounded the path time and time again, passing through the forest. Vivien was aware of them, but not of what they meant.

Yet somehow, as they walked through this old place, close to the murderous shaft, they sent off shadows, little echoes, shaped by experience, memories of the murder, raised by the pain that still survives within this grove. I was helpless to stop this process by which slow ghosts began to walk the path, moving southwards in the wake of my seven children, my eternal children.

Each ghost was a restless creature, a fragment of magic, magical to the short-lived children of Broceliande, and you danced within them, age after age, and shadow magic was yours for a while, odd powers, small talents, a moment of control, lost to each of you when the child in your heart was lost.

The ghosts moved south, then east, then north and west, following the path; echoes dogging the tracks of hidden wisdom. And time and time again they passed this place, my life in circles, never-ending circles.

A heavy mist was rising in the glade; it began to obscure the leaning stone, the shaft, the cowled shape of Conrad, who was whispering in a voice that was becoming hoarse and faint.

Martin prodded the fire, placed wood on it, shivered with a sudden cold. He realised he was becoming drowsy, a striking, irresistible tiredness that he recalled from his last night with Rebecca.

Merlin was watching him darkly. ‘If it isn’t already clear to you, let me make it clear; I have very little of my old skill left. Having put my talents outside of me, in the children, it will take time to gather them in again.’

‘Did you travel in Rebecca? The priest thinks you did. You’ve been escaping the grave-shaft for centuries, he said …’

‘The prison has been weakening, certainly. I could tell. It occurs periodically when the second shadow I released along the path to deceive Vivien – the one that failed – passes through Broceliande. As it does so it draws me up, it draws her out, it gives us a brief fling at
life, a fling at each other, it gives me an opportunity to taunt her …’

‘Costing the lives of families!’ Martin shouted angrily. ‘Costing the lives of children … My family, my child!’

The hooded figure lowered its head. Martin fought against the weariness that was draining all strength from his limbs.

Merlin said, ‘When we use a human body, it certainly dies. It becomes a spirit on the path itself—’

‘Always looking back. Always frightened.’

‘They are all frightened. My children too. I
made
them frightened. I made them cautious.’

He hesitated, thinking, then went on, ‘Oddly, a spirit-echo of Vivien must have stayed in Rebecca after that incident in her youth which the woodsman witnessed; when she murdered your brother. Later, when she was carrying Daniel, the echo slipped through to the child, and Vivien had a second chance.

‘But before Vivien was born again in the boy, I dreamed of Rebecca coming to the lakeside. I was as free as I would get, a shadow moving among shadows, not really free at all, but able to move away from the shaft. And Rebecca called to me, though of course, it wasn’t Rebecca calling. It was the enticement of the Vision of Magic. Your son was inside her, but all I could sense was
Vivien
. I was on the path for a while, a brief freedom, a spirit-echo only, and Rebecca was a warm shell for that dreaming spirit, and I passed into her. It would only be for days …

‘Once inside, realising the danger in her womb, I took away all of Vivien’s senses, all the senses in the boy Rebecca carried. It seems Vivien was stronger than I’d guessed. From what you say, she won them back.’

‘That was a cruel thing to do. The act against the boy.’

‘So it transpires. As I said, I
was
in a dream.’

‘So will I be soon. So I’ll ask you again – before I fall asleep: bring them back to me. Please! Can you bring them back to me? Or has all of this been nothing more than an opportunity for you to excuse yourself through story?’

The face in the glamour-mask round Conrad twisted with indignation, but Merlin said, ‘When I referred to damage, when you first brought me out of the shaft, I meant the damage to your family.’

‘Christ! They can’t be more damaged than they are!’

Merlin nodded kindly. ‘In the way
you
think, I suppose that’s true. But to bring them back risks bringing back the enchantress. And besides, the singing magic has gone. I told you this before. I am almost powerless. I can perform a few simple tricks. This body only seems alive because of glamour, and I’m quite sure that you don’t want
that
for your wife and son.’

‘No,’ Martin said quietly, frightened by the thought.

‘I can’t help you. I can give you illusion. Of comfort perhaps. I don’t think … I don’t think I can do more. You seem very tired. Go to sleep. I shan’t harm you.’

Martin struggled against the charm that was closing
down his mind. He thrust his hand into the fire, the pain bringing brief life to his cry.

‘No! I won’t sleep! I
can’t
.’

‘You must.’

Merlin’s grasp on his wrist was irresistible and his fingers were taken from the dying flames.

‘Give me some hope, then. Just give me a little hope …’

‘Hope?’

Martin stared hard into Merlin’s eyes, and the corpse-grimace of Conrad showed for a moment. ‘All I can give you is a vision. A small vision – of how it might end.’

‘Anything.’

‘Then go to sleep.’

Martin sank down into the cold mist by the guttering fire and half closed his eyes. As he began to dream, he was aware that Conrad had risen to his feet and was looking thoughtfully, almost curiously towards the lake.

*

An altar bell was ringing.

‘Martin!’ came the cry. (Again! … he had been half-aware of being called for some minutes.)

It was very cold. He sat up and stared around him, at the empty glade, the long-dead fire, the moisture on the grass, the scattered stones of the cairn, the trees.
Where was Rebecca?

Again, the tinkling of the bell from the lake, and the
priest’s call. Martin looked at his hands, suddenly shocked to see the shallow scars, the still-sore cuts and patterns. As he stood inside clothes that were damp and rank, so he felt the pain of cuts from neck to groin. He looked quickly to the tree where the bones of Merlin lay. The yellow shards were scattered, fox-struck, batted and played with as the marrow was found to have long been sucked away. Of Conrad, of the corpse, there was no sign.

Something was wrong.
That damned bell!
And the priest sounded frightened as he called. And the silence …

And the beard on his face.

Martin touched the thick stubble. It was wet with dew, an abrasive beard, now, a week’s growth perhaps.

Where was the waterfall?

He was hungry, his hands shaking. He called, ‘Rebecca? Daniel?’

His trousers were saturated with his own urine. Around him, where he had been curled up, were the remains of bread, some rinds of cheese, the picked bones of a chicken, a china flagon that might have contained cider or water.

And the dream broke! Rebecca wasn’t here – she had never been here – just a dream, just as Merlin had promised, but nothing more
…

‘Rebecca!’ he cried aloud, then let his disappointment surface in tears, hugging his body, rocking where he sat as the anguish came through, and the brief touch with his family was taken away from him by the cold dawn, by cold reality.

When the despair had quietened, he left the grove of Merlin’s tomb and followed the path to the lake. Father Gualzator saw him and stopped ringing the small, brass bell.

‘I was worried about you,’ the priest called from the canoe. The boat drifted sideways on the still water, just beyond the rushes. The man frowned, peering hard.

‘Martin?’

‘I saw her. I saw them both …’

‘Who?’

‘Rebecca. And Daniel.’ The dream flowed through his mind again. He stared into the distance, remembering. ‘I ran for so long, Father. It was such a wilderness – nothing but forest, and rivers. I ran across hills, I ran through caves, I felt the strength of a hound in my legs, I kept running. I was so lost, but I kept running – I could hear them, ahead of me, always just ahead of me. And then I found them, by a pool below a fall of water from the high rocks. They were crouching, drinking with cupped hands. For a while they didn’t see me. I stood across the pool and watched them. Then I called to them and they seemed to hear me. I was very tired and I lay down by the pool and watched them. Rebecca lit a torch. It burned green. She waded through the pool towards me, apprehensive and curious as to whom I might be. And then she said my name. The fire burned green and she leaned down to kiss me—

‘She kissed me. And for a moment I was home. I had come home …’

***

‘Martin!’

The priest’s voice was harsh in the stillness of the new day. Martin looked at the man and frowned. ‘Father …?’

‘Is that you, Martin?’

‘Of course it’s me.’

Father Gualzator seemed unsure, his face reflecting his confusion, his uncertainty. ‘I’ve brought you what you asked for. Dressings for wounds, antiseptic, plasters, some more food.’

What I asked for?

‘When did I ask for this?’

‘Two days ago. You came to the church. Don’t you remember?’

‘No. I fell asleep by the grave shaft. I’m cut all over. Christ, I’m cut from head to foot …’

The stinging began to be unbearable and he tugged at his shirt, feeling it peel away from his skin, wincing as shallow but raw wounds opened. And as he collapsed through weakness and distress, the priest shouted distantly, ‘By the Good God! What have you done to yourself?’ and rowed through the rushes, to make the shore.

He bathed Martin’s naked body with stinging antiseptic, then brewed a pot of coffee and insisted he eat the bread and coarse pâté he had brought from the village.

‘These are marks similar to those on the statue we excavated. You’ve mutilated yourself, copying the old man you say you saw.’

‘When did I tell you about the old man?’ Martin whispered. ‘Christ! It hurts.’

‘I should have brought fresh clothes. I’m sorry. You made me very nervous when you came from the forest. I haven’t been thinking.’

‘I don’t remember …’ Martin whispered. He tugged his jacket round his shoulders, pulled on the reeking trousers, the muddy shoes. ‘Where’s Conrad?’

‘In his grave,’ Father Gualzator said, grimly, pointedly. ‘Where he belongs.’

‘Rebecca? Daniel?’

‘Back at the house. Where you brought them. You don’t even remember that?’

Back at the house?

‘Are they … oh God … Are they …?’

‘Are they what?’ the priest prompted.

Martin grabbed at the man’s jacket. ‘How are they?’

Father Gualzator closed his eyes for a second, his head dropping as he realised Martin’s misunderstanding.

‘Drowned. They’re drowned. You resurrected them and brought them back to the house. I’d assumed you wanted to see them properly to their cold-earth homes.’

‘No!’

Shocked by the violence of the scream from the bleeding man, the priest stepped quickly back, stumbling and falling in the shallows among the rushes. As he picked himself up he was staring at Martin with a strange expression – part fear, part anger.

‘I should have guessed! It’s so obvious, now.’

‘What is?’

‘Who are you? Or do I even need to ask?’

‘I don’t understand.’

The priest laughed sourly. ‘What have you done with Martin?’

‘What do you mean by that? What do you
mean
, what have I done with Martin? Don’t you recognise me?
I’m
Martin. You fool! It’s only a beard. Only some cuts. I haven’t changed.’

‘No!’ Father Gualzator was defiant as he brushed water and mud from his jeans. ‘I
don’t
recognise you. And Martin wouldn’t call me
fool
.’

Martin watched the older man, felt the cuts on his body sting as his muscular response to the priest’s attack made the skin part painfully.
What had he just said?

‘I’m sorry, Father. I don’t know where that came from. I’m very confused, that’s all. I can’t remember coming to the church, asking for bandages …’

‘Of course you can!’ Father Gualzator growled, smiling grimly. ‘It doesn’t matter. What are you going to do with him? Don’t look so uncomprehending, you don’t fool me for an instant. My eyes are too old! Are you going to kill Martin like you killed Daniel?’

‘I don’t remember coming to the church,’ Martin said weakly.
What was happening?

‘
Martin
doesn’t, I’m quite prepared to believe that. But
you
do. And you killed Daniel … If I’m not mistaken. Stop pretending!
I know who you are
.’

Merlin allowed a quick smile on Martin’s face, then whispered, ‘Go back,’ and Martin, still confused, retreated to listen from within as the priest and the resurrected sorcerer confronted each other by the lake.

*

Merlin said, ‘I stopped the enchantress. I had to. In the boy she would have had fresh life. She would have been very damaging. She had learned many things – mostly illusion, but certainly some things more than that – but for all she had learned, she never learned the suppression of desire, or need, or of the senses. She never learned control, and that frightens me now as much as it frightened me then. Which is why, I suppose – it’s so long ago, now, I’ve had so much time to make my excuses – which is why I let her destroy me. It was the only way to destroy her.’

Father Gualzator formed mud into a ball, murmuring words from the
Bronzebell, Book
and
Nightfire
, drawing on the forest to make a weapon that might
hurt
this raw and resurrected spirit, stalking up the bank towards the stooped body of his friend, the hiding place of evil.

‘And now it’s Martin’s turn. Is it?’ he challenged. ‘Another life taken. Another death. And I’m helpless, I know it.’ He hefted the mud ball pointedly, he tried to show that he understood its small significance, its possible power, its restraining power. ‘But I’ll stop you if I can … believe me.’

‘I do believe you,’ Merlin said. ‘And I don’t believe you’re as helpless as you claim.’ He frowned at the lump of faith-blessed mud, then shook his head. ‘Although I’m not quite sure I’m right about that. Then again, I’m not sure about very much at all. I’m too new to the world. What I
am
sure about is that Martin let me out.
You were there to help him, I seem to remember, but I didn’t want you around. Martin let me out, then asked for my help. I’m free in one way, of course, and relieved to be so. In another, I don’t quite know what to do, where to go. I’m new to the world. I don’t recognise it.’

‘Let him go!’

‘No. When Martin let me out, he asked for my help, and there was no fear in the request, no expectation of agreement, and no fear of retribution. I was surprised by that. I tried to warn him of the damage, the possible damage, but he seemed certain that it was a risk he would take, and who am I, who have I ever been, to argue against a man who is prepared to take a risk? What other function do I have? Why else was I born on the path? I can give you the small magic that can arm you against an unknown enemy. I don’t
make
things happen, I can simply help in older, different ways.’