Stag Youth was Scathach. The voice had told her, and now, by starlight, she could see the same proud features, the same gentle face, the same fire in the eyes.
What should she say?
‘Do you know me?’ he asked again.
Tallis began to feel light-headed. She had seen this man’s death and now he had returned from death to find her. Or perhaps not even that: she created visions; it was a new talent. So perhaps she had seen a vision of the future. Here was Scathach, unaware as he stood so quietly before her, that she was the sole possessor of the knowledge of his burning …
‘Scathach …’ she whispered, and her eyes filled with tears. The man before her was startled.
But before he could speak, a man called from outside. He went over to the window, peered out, then shouted something in a strange tongue. Tallis heard a horse whinny nervously. Another shout, more urgent this time.
Scathach seemed frightened. ‘There is very little time,’ he said, turning back to the girl. ‘Something has happened … you’ve done something … it has made our stay in the forbidden world too dangerous …’
That expression again. Forbidden world.
Scathach was saying, ‘We must go. And I need you to help me …’
But Tallis said, ‘Which is the forbidden world?’
Scathach frowned again, perplexed by the question. ‘This one. Which other?’
False understanding blossomed in the girl’s mind. ‘Of course! You’re a mythago. I made you. My dreams made you. Like the journal said …’
The young man shook his head. ‘Am I a mythago? I wish I knew. But whatever I am, you didn’t make me. I have come a long way to this place. It has taken me many years. And I have spent a full year here, camping near to the shrine, exploring the land, watching you.’
‘You’ve been watching me?
He nodded. ‘It took me a while, but at last I realize who you are. I saw the gaberlungi, the masked women. They’re your mythagos. I saw them follow you. I saw the way they helped you create the oolerins, the gates, some of them simple some of them wild … dangerous … that’s why I opened the Book for you.’
Opened the Book? Then Tallis understood. He was referring to the journal, to the way it had been marked for her.
‘That was you. You opened it at that page?’
‘Yes,’ Scathach murmured. Outside, the shouting had not stopped. It distracted Scathach for a moment, and when he turned back to Tallis there was renewed urgency in his voice. ‘But you should not have taken the Book from the shrine. It must never be removed. It is there for the journeyers, for the travellers, like me. It has taken me a long time searching for it, discovering it. It is a book of great power. It should not have been removed from the shrine.’
Puzzled for a second, she began to comprehend. ‘The ruined house?’ she asked. ‘Do you mean the old house in the woods? That’s the shrine?’
Scathach nodded slowly. ‘It is a place that is talked about in legend …’
‘It’s just an old ruin.’
‘It is the first Lodge, the place of first wisdom, of the first seeing. The man who wrote the words of the Book had been born from the mud bank of a river, out of its union with the roots of the willows which grew there. His was the eye that saw and the ear that heard; his was the voice that sang the first histories, and the hand that wrote the words. From his dreams came the wood; from the wood came his prophesies.’
‘He was a doddery old man, according to Gaunt …’
‘You should not have taken the Book,’ Scathach insisted. ‘It belongs in the shadow lodge, in the ivy box.’
Tallis was stunned by this odd tale. The ‘Book’ was a simple journal, written by a scientist (by all accounts an eccentric man) and left to rot in the ruins of his house. But to Scathach that journal was already an icon; a Grail; an object imbued with deep, mystic power.
‘I’ll give it to you,’ she said. ‘You can take it back yourself.’
‘You must bring it,’ he said sharply. ‘You took it. Replace it in the ivy box, just as it was. In later years there will be others who will come to find what is written on the pages.’
‘And what about you?’ Tallis asked hesitantly. ‘Have you found what you wanted?’
Scathach was silent. In the faint light Tallis saw his eyes sparkle as they watched her. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I have. My reasons for searching out the shrine are strange ones, personal ones. I came here to find something, but even now I’m unsure … do I belong here? Or is it truly a forbidden place to me? I can’t answer the question. But I do know that I’m frightened, and I do know that I was meant to find you. Finding you has turned out to be the most important thing of all.’
‘Me?’ Tallis said. ‘Why me?’
Again, from beyond the window came the urgent cry of a man.
‘The Jaguthin are getting impatient,’ Scathach murmured, and turned again to peer out at the night. Tallis followed him.
‘The Jaguthin …’ she said, staring at the three men on horseback; one of them held the dark horse that belonged to Scathach.
‘My rider friends … straight out of the heart of the wood. There were twelve of them once … they have been good company …’
Then he made a sound, of surprise, of horror. He was looking beyond the riders, towards the dark land where Hunter’s Brook flowed. The white shape hovered there, taller than the trees. It was the first time he had seen it.
‘Time is running out,’ he whispered. ‘You have certainly done something to allow that thing through to the land.’ He turned on Tallis quickly, grasping her by the shoulders. ‘What is your gurla? How do you summon it?’
‘My what?’
‘Your animal strength! Your guide!’ Scathach’s look became one of horror; then he made a sound of exasperation, as if he had finally understood something.
Confused, Tallis stepped back into the darkness of the room. She was thinking of Bird Spirit Land. Had her simple actions – driving away the carrion birds from the body of a prince – somehow summoned creatures of great malevolence?
She asked, simply, ‘Why is it important to have found me?’
‘You have the talent of the oolering man. There is something of the shaman in you. You can open the gates. But without a gurla I doubt if you can journey through them. I am trapped in this world. I had hoped to use you to re-enter the realm. Though this place is certainly the world of my first flesh, I don’t belong here as my father did. The Jaguthin can return to the heartwoods, and they are impatient to do so. But not me. I don’t belong here, Tallis. But I don’t belong in the wood either. I cannot penetrate beyond a place in the edgewood which my father mentioned: a horse shrine. The wood turns me back. I no longer belong, and yet I need to return to my father’s lodge …’
Tallis was aware of the sadness in the man’s voice. Scathach hesitated, then murmured, ‘I have a very great need to see him again, just once more, before the heartwood calls for him. Before he rides the spirit wind to Lavondyss and beyond …’
Lavondyss!
The word screamed at Tallis. Her heart surged. Her mind soared. Scathach’s words, his concern, faded. His sadness was forgotten in the ecstasy of discovery.
Lavondyss!
She had found the secret name at last. It had taunted her and eluded her for years. She had come close. She had felt the name; she had smelled the name; but it had haunted her, a shadow, just out of reach.
Now she had it! A name, as Mr Williams had said, very like Avalon. Very like Lyonesse. And in those more familiar names was the echo of the first name, the memory in folklore and legend of the name that had first been articulated to describe the warm place, the magic place, the forbidden place … the place of peace; a name used when the great winter had stretched across the world, when the cold and the ice had driven the hunters south and had eaten at their bones, and snagged their hair, and they had run from the frozen spirit of the land … dreaming of safety.
And a place, too, of t
he dead, where the dead returned to life. The place of waiting. The place of the endless hunt and the constant feast. The place of youth, the land of women, the realm of song and sea. Old Forbidden Place. The underworld.
‘Lavondyss …’ she breathed, sounding the word in her mouth, savouring the syllables, letting the word make images in her mind, letting the sound send its spirit wind coursing through her …
‘Lavondyss …’
(iii)
She had been conscious of Scathach moving past her as she dreamed, but had not responded. Now she realized he had gone. She went quickly to the open window and saw him, crouched on the outhouse roof a few feet below her, ready to spring to the ground.
‘Don’t go!’ she shouted. ‘I need to talk to you. I need to know about Lavondyss!’
‘Hurry, then!’ he hissed back. ‘If you want to come, then come now!’
Even as she spoke, again she saw the distant shape that seemed to have frightened the riders. She frowned as she stared at the dark trees by Hunter’s Brook. Her eyes filled with the eerie vision that moved there: immense; white; like a bird yet like a man, towering above the trees but not flying, just stalking along the stream, watching the night-land towards the house.
Detail was obscure. She could see the beak, she could see light shimmering in its body. And around and above it there was a dark cloud, like a flight of bats wheeling against the sky. The flying shapes were emerging from the brightness of the body and circling slowly above Windy Cave Meadow …
‘No time!’ Scathach called to her. ‘We must go. Now! It’s too dangerous to stay.’
‘I’m coming with you,’ Tallis said urgently, her eyes fixed on the terrifying bird-shape that seemed to guard the way to Ryhope Wood. ‘But I must fetch something … to mark Broken Boy …’
‘Hurry!’ Scathach urged. By the fence the three riders were already calling for their leader, their horses turning nervously on the spot, torches flickering in the night air.
The sky was alive with wings.
Tallis ran quickly to her parents’ bedroom, flung open the treasure chest where their precious accumulations of photographs, clothes and locks of hair were kept, and searched down among the junk for the fragment of antler which Broken Boy had given her. She found it. It was bigger than she had expected, a curved tine several inches long. It was encased in the strip of yellowing christening robe, tied with two pieces of blue ribbon. She slipped the antler from the silk and replaced the horn in the chest, tucking the fragment of material into her belt.
In her own room she looped a piece of string through the eyeholes of her masks, knotted the cord and slung them over her neck. They were heavy; they made her unwieldy as she moved to the bed where the secret journal lay. She closed the book and stepped quickly to the window. Scathach was already on his horse, beyond the fence. He saw Tallis and shouted almost angrily.
‘If you’re coming, come!’
One of his companions was riding towards the bird figure, lance held high. He weaved between the stones and trees, cantered across the hollowed land.
Tallis picked up the journal and clambered through the window on to the outhouse roof. When she jumped to the lawn she fell heavily. Scathach came to meet her at the gate, dragging her by the scruff of her shirt up on to the hindquarters of his horse. She clung on to his wool shirt with her right hand, the book held firmly in her left. Her masks clattered by her side as the steed was given its head and Scathach and the other two riders began to gallop through the chaos in the field.
‘What is it?’ Tallis shouted against the deafening sound of wings.
‘Oyzin,’ Scathach shouted back. ‘I felt it was coming. I thought we would get away before it came through …’
Tallis held on desperately to the young rider’s body. Her legs were bruised, her vision blurred with the jolting action of the horse below her. She felt sick and frightened. But she could not take her eyes from the strange creature by Hunter’s Brook.
‘It’s not real …’ she whispered.
‘It’s real,’ Scathach muttered darkly. ‘But Gyonval will go … Go now!’ he shouted suddenly, and Gyonval, with the lance, kicked his horse into a gallop, riding at the bird thing.
As Scathach galloped closer Tallis could see how the swirl of birds around the Oyzin were flying through its elongated body. They spiralled from the winter brightness of a world glimpsed through the feathers, then circled into the dark storm sky of the real world before flowing like a tide back into the winter. Giant wings rose and fell. A cry like the screeching of a crane cut the night air and the wind around Tallis’s clutching figure gusted violently.
Gyonval’s horse reared and bucked, a final protest before the strange knight plunged into the shuddering form of the mythago. At the last moment the horse rose in the air as if flying. The lance flashed, buried itself in the downy flesh of the creature’s neck. Then horse and rider had passed out of sight, through the body of the beast, lost in the swirl of wings and snow.
The Oyzin exploded, bursting in a silent spray of snow and ice, of birds and feathers. Tallis ducked down. Wings struck her hair, beaks pecked her back. Scathach brushed with his hands at the frantic flock, kicked his horse so that the animal leapt the stream, stumbled, straightened and galloped for its life towards the shelter of the wood.
The surviving Jaguthin followed. Of Gyonval there was no sign. Tallis glanced back and saw a vortex of brightness drifting up into the night, dense flights of birds flowing with it as it faded.
Scathach led Tallis along a winding track, through briar-filled hollows and over mossy rocks, until at last they came into the glade before the house, the old garden. She was clutching Huxley’s journal to her chest. She was cold; the book gave her a last warmth. For a moment they kept to the edge of the wood, watching the dead house, the silent starlit clearing with its fallen totem, its rags, its ghosts. When Scathach was sure it was safe he led the way through the darkness to the French windows, then stood guard outside while Tallis returned the book to its shrine, pushing shut the drawer, reaching in the blackness to tug back the ivy, covering the secret place.
When it was done she said a silent ‘thank you’ to the man whose wisdom had created this icon of belief and quest, then slipped out to re-join her stag-youth.
‘It’s done,’ she said.
‘As is my time here,’ Scathach whispered. ‘Come on. If the Oyzin formed then the carrion eaters can’t be far away …’
‘Carrion eaters?’
‘You saw them today. Here. Head-hunters; eaters of human flesh. There is very little time and I still don’t know what magic you used to bring them through.’
‘Bird Spirit Land,’ Tallis said quietly, and she felt the sudden fright in Scathach’s body as he ran. He stopped, stared at her hard. He knew the name.
‘Bird Spirit Land,’ he whispered, his head shaking as if he could not believe the words he was hearing. ‘What have you done? What have you done?’
Nervously, Tallis reached out to touch his arm. ‘I’ll show you,’ she said. ‘It’s a meadow. Stretley Stones meadow. Close to the stream …’
‘Quickly, then …’
She led him from the wood to the place where the old sign still rattled on its wire fence. Skirting Ryhope, keeping to the shadows, to the marshy edge, they came back to Stretley Stones. There was no sign of the Oyzin. The sky, cloud-streaked and bright, now, seemed empty of birds. But there was a sharp, unpleasant smell in the air, like bleach.
Tallis led the way to Strong against the Storm. The other tall oaks around Stretley Stones meadow seemed to shake as she came close. Tallis showed Scathach the mask of the bird which she had carved on the oak. The man ran his finger lightly over the shallow scar in the bark, feeling it rather than seeing it.
‘When did you do this?’ he asked.
‘At the start of the summer,’ Tallis said. ‘A couple of months ago.’
He laughed, banged the tree with his hand. ‘That was when I felt called back to the woo
d. Someone wanted us together … It was two months ago that I first realized who and what you were …’
‘There are more,’ Tallis said. And she showed him how the whole field had been ringed by her protective symbols. She indicated where she had buried the bones of blackbirds, crows and sparrows. She hinted at the knots of feathers tied to the thorn between the oaks. She remembered the circle of bird blood and urine that she had painted round the field. ‘Bird Spirit Land,’ she said, watching Scathach carefully, frightened to think of what she knew and what she should tell him. ‘And all to stop the birds from coming and pecking at a friend.’
Now he stared at her through his pale, sad eyes. She could smell the concern in him; she knew he knew. But he asked, ‘What friend?’
What should she say? What would be right? If she told him what she had seen perhaps he would flee in panic, back into the wood. Perhaps he would leave her, and she needed him, now. He knew the wood. He knew about the realm beyond the wood, where Harry was held prisoner. She had made a pledge to her parents to bring Harry home, and since meeting Scathach for the first time she began to feel that she could achieve that difficult task. She needed her Stag Youth as much as he seemed to need her. She needed him to help her understand. She needed his wiles and ways of the wood. She needed the reassurance of his company. And in any case, she had declared her love for him. He was strong, and he was fine looking. She knew she was supposed to feel things for him, in her heart, in her chest, but that would come. That would come.
Selfish! Selfish! she said to herself, but still she took the coward’s way again, shivering as she told the lie. ‘It was a vision. The vision of a battle. One of the hooded women taught me the way of vision …’
‘Go on …’
‘I saw the battle that once occurred here. There were dead men everywhere. It was dusk, in early winter, and a storm was coming. There were fires in the distance. Old women were moving through the field of the dead. They were hacking the heads from the bodies, and stripping the armour …’
‘Bavduin,’ Scathach said, his voice trembling as if some terrible truth were being revealed. Tallis watched him by darkness, remembering that name – Bavduin – from her tale of Old Forbidden Place. ‘The lost battle …’ Scathach said. ‘The forgotten army … Bavduin. You’ve seen it. You’ve had a vision of the place, And you say …’ His hand reached out to her shoulder. ‘You say you saw a friend there?’