The place was known as the Sanctuary. It was a collection of shrines and temples, and according to Lacan was dangerous.
“At least two hollowings lead away from here. We’re not sure where exactly. We know a safe path and we keep to it. But this is where Dan Jacobi went missing, over a year ago. There’s his marker. Richard saw the grey and rotting doll, hanging loosely in an ivy trail from a tall column. “I think he must be dead by now,” Lacan went on. “I have a feeling for such things. But it’s still all we can do to stop his wife going after him. She won’t believe he’s dead. Good for her! All love is blind to reason, and maybe that’s why some people are so strong.”
“A hollowing?” Richard asked. “What is that, exactly?”
Lacan was impatient to continue. He brushed aside foliage, and walked in the lee of an immense, marble wall, from which spectacularly grotesque faces peered out through the forest.
“A hollowing is a way deeper,” he said unhelpfully. “We are going further into the wood, but there is a way under us. Not in physical space, you understand. Just under, going to other planes, other lands, other otherworlds. It’s dangerous to enter a hollowing. The wood is criss-crossed with them, woven with them. Another system of space and time. The only ones that we know are safe are close to the Station. We know where they come out. But there are many others. Helen will show you, later.”
His voice had faded as he strode ahead, out of sight, striking at branches with his staff. Richard struggled to keep up, noticing the furious activity in his peripheral vision, alarmed by this and distracted by the sense of being watched from within.
Suddenly Lacan was in front of him, a huge, broad back, blocking out the light. The Frenchman urged silence. Ahead, Richard could hear the sound of rapids. This was beechwood, the land sloping gently down, the light intense in places, shifting. Two figures moved slowly through that light, approaching the river. When Richard came closer he saw that they were children, crudely cloaked, flaxen-haired, each carrying a painted staff. Their movements were so deliberate that it took a moment for him to realise that it was sluggishness, not caution, that governed their actions.
“It is not pretty, up ahead,” Lacan whispered. “Not pleasant at all. Harden your heart against these two. And just remember—they exist in other places. They are alive, they are not alive. These are dying—”
“Dying? Why?”
“Because this is a dying place,” Lacan said coldly. “We made it so when we built the Station. We made it so when we set up the protective field to keep ourselves apart from the wood. These mythagos, these helpless creatures, are drawn here, drawn to us, and the closer they come the more their lives are drained. You must remember something: they are just dreams. Like dreams, they seem so real for a while, and then they disperse and are soon forgotten. Harden your feelings until you can understand better.”
He walked on, skirting the frail, shuddering figures. As Richard passed them, forty yards distant, one turned slowly. A sweet face, full of pain and puzzlement, watched him. The boy’s head shook slowly, then his eyes closed and he subsided slowly, kneeling, then hunching, to remain quite still.
His companion was standing in a thin stream of brilliant light, looking up at the sky. Gradually her arms dropped and she remained immobile, stiff, not breathing.
“Who are they?” Richard asked.
Lacan shrugged irritably.
“Who knows? If you’re that interested we can set up a study programme. That’s what we’re good at here. Hold your breath. We’re coming to the bone yard.”
They were in sight of the river. The sound of it, fresh, powerful, clean, was a welcome sensation as Richard looked around him. To right and left, the wood was filled with the rotting figures of what Lacan had called “mythagos.” He stared in numbed horror at the wooden bones. He was reminded of sculpture. Faces, skulls, shapes, their limbs were cracked, their postures awkward, as if they had died crawling, reaching for the river, heads thrown back with the effort of gasping for air. It was as if a graveyard had been unearthed and scattered. Leaves sprouted on drooping jaws. What appeared to be piles of firewood were hunched, agonised figures, their ribs returning to the earth. Coloured rags of clothing, and the dull reflection of metal ornaments, suggested the rotting vestments of these sad dead.
They were all facing towards Old Stone Hollow, Richard noticed.
“They are drawn to us,” Lacan murmured again. “It is a function of these creatures. They are compelled to find and touch their maker, their creator, whichever one of us it might be. We have had to defend ourselves powerfully. But each time one of these things dies, someone in the Station dies a little too. There is a connection which we don’t yet understand.”
Behind them, the cloaked girl began to sing to the sunlight, her voice faint, very weak, very final. Lacan watched her for a moment, then turned away quickly, looking very grim. “Come on. There’s nothing we can do for her. And besides, I’m hungry.”
(ii) Sciamachy
“There is something wrong,” Lacan murmured as they came in sight of the rough palisade that marked Old Stone Hollow. “It doesn’t feel right.”
“In what way?”
“It’s too quiet. There should be someone to hail us.”
They were on the slope of wooded land that led down to the turbulent stream. A flimsy-looking rope bridge spanned the river. The gate through the palisade was open, revealing a wide compound, several tents, and the end of a turf-roofed longhouse, from which smoke rose. But for the moment, Richard’s attention was taken by the two odd figures that stood outside the wall, one on each side of the gate: they were made from poles, simple structures that suggested crucified men, leaning forward. The heads were grotesque bulges on the skeletal frames, draped with skins, rags, and the black, rotting carcassas of carrion birds. Unquestionably, Richard realised, these hideous scarecrows were designed to discourage entry. Indeed, as he looked from his vantage-point at the trees around the compound, he could see masks, shields, and weapons slung in the branches, and the shapes of totems rising behind the tents. The door of the longhouse was framed by the extended, elongated, and lurid blue effigy of a tusked boar.
The defences of Old Stone Hollow were not, then, restricted to the thin barrier of electronics and infra-red that could be glimpsed as gleaming traceries extending between trees and bushes.
At the far side of the cluttered compound was dense scrubwood, white with elderflower, and otherwise coloured by pennants tied to branches. This wood separated the clearing from the awesome rise of a rock face, a cave-riddled cliff that towered against the bright skyline and cast deep shadow over the Station below, making Old Stone Hollow seem uninvitingly gloomy.
There was a slow, cautious approach behind them, as they watched, and something—someone—stumbled and was still, although a piece of rock rolled for a while down the slope.
“Lytton?” Lacan called, and his face registered his concern. “McCarthy?”
There was no response. When the breeze shifted, though, the scent of beef stew came on the air. Someone, somewhere, was cooking.
They crossed the bridge, Lacan warning Richard of the dangerous nature of the river, which was often a “through-way” for “Wild Riders,” and entered the compound. “Wait here. Watch the bridge approach,” he said before moving swiftly to the canteen tent, a small, green marquee from which the smell of the stew was emanating. He emerged a moment later, chewing, shook his head, then checked the other tents and the longhouse. “Deserted!”
Finally he hacked his way through the tanglewood below the looming wall of rock and called into the deep overhang, his voice echoing clearly.
While Lacan was otherwise occupied, Richard strolled warily around the Station. By the back wall of the rough longhouse were piled weapons, armour, helmets, bits of wagon, the broken hull of a narrow boat. It was a junkyard of the past, fascinating and repelling at the same time. An Etruscan helmet still contained the mummified skull of its owner; the patterning on a
browning long bone proved, on closer examination, to be an intricate series of pictures of canoes on a river, each action dominated by beasts, animals, or unidentifiable half-human shapes.
The longhouse itself had a fire in its centre. Richard stooped and entered the smoky interior. Light flooded the room from gaps in the turf roof, and from the slatted windows that had been shaped in the wattle and daub of the walls. There were tables here, and charts on crude frames. Chairs were scattered about, and there was a sectioned-off dark-room and a clutter of photographic equipment. This, then, was the research centre.
Richard was hailed and he stepped out of the lodge. Lacan appeared again from the undergrowth, tugging at his beard and shaking his head. He looked worried.
“McCarthy is here. I’m sure of it. I can see signs of him. I think he must be slipping away. He’ll need help.”
“Slipping away?” Richard asked, then realised he meant going “bosky.”
A thought occurred to Lacan. “The lake. Of course! He’ll be there. It’s the natural place to be.”
Richard dropped his pack and followed along the bank of the river, which eventually narrowed and deepened, flowing between sheer, mossy rocks and stunted trees. Holding on to each other, and grabbing at roots and rocky prominences, they waded into the freezing water and edged through the ravine.
The confinement suddenly ended and the river opened out into a wide, ice-blue lake. It was cool here, and across the shimmering water the woodland was in the bite of winter. Richard could see snow on the dark trees, a stone tower rising above the branches and the wrecks of ships piled in disorder against the length of the rocky shore. The middle of the lake was hazy, the forest beyond visible as if through frosted glass. Richard didn’t know it then but Helen told him later that this was “Wide Water Hollowing,” and was believed to connect ancient seas, meres, streams, and lakes, from Tuonela to the Aegean of Odysseus, from the magic waters of Manannan and the lake of Excalibur to the river gorges of the Lorelei. None of the teams at the Station, however, had yet risked a journey to the watery worlds of legend beyond, and most of their understanding was guesswork, based on the mythagos that had come through to their own world of Old Stone Hollow.
Just off the shore, where Richard and Lacan crouched, a small boat bobbed as the breeze sent waves against it. Two fishing lines stretched out from the lakeside, one of them flexing under tension, suggesting that its bait had been taken. Lacan strode to the glass-fibre rod and reeled in the catch, holding it up on the hook. He looked at the five inches of thrashing juvenile perch with silent disappointment before returning it to the water.
“I have no time for morsels!”
A few minutes later they found McCarthy. He was hunched up in the rocks, totally naked, his hair draped with green vegetation, his body streaked with blue and black dyes, which at first glance looked like bruises. He was staring blankly out across the water. He appeared to be shivering.
“Is that what you mean by ‘bosky’?” Richard whispered.
“First signs,” Lacan confirmed quietly as they watched, adding in a whisper, as he fiddled with the bear-tooth necklace around his broad chest, “It’s very sad, Richard. Very disturbing. He will become more and more primitive, wearing animal furs, and charms, becoming very strong in smell, very wild in his look. It is a most unpleasant change. We must resist it at all costs.”
Richard glanced at the big man, almost unable to believe what he was hearing, thinking Lacan must be making a joke. But the Frenchman was impassive, impossible to read. He said, “You see? He’s sitting there dreaming, listening to the wood. There’s nothing to hear. Not in here, at least,” he tapped his right ear. “But there is so much to hear more deeply. McCarthy is a talented sciamach. They often go first.”
“Sciamach?”
“Shadow dreamer. They use the wood, they probe the wood, it’s a sort of journey…”
Stepping into the open, Lacan shrugged off one of his heavy furs and flung it at the dreaming man.
“Get dressed.”
His words, abrupt and angry, seemed to shake McCarthy from his daze. He looked up through watery blue eyes and smiled.
“Arnauld! What’s happening?”
“Put the fur on. Quickly. You’ll die of cold.”
McCarthy stood awkwardly. Richard noticed the huge scar across the left side of his torso—he had been gored by a boar, Lacan whispered—and he looked like a wasted man, all ribs, pelvis, and prominent knees. When he tugged the dark fur round his shoulders he looked pathetic. He was still trembling. He reached a hand through the cloak to shake Richard’s. His face was deeply etched, very drawn, and in the way of dying men his teeth seemed too large for his mouth, his eyes loose in their sockets. But he seemed at ease, was content to be led and followed Lacan obediently back to the Station, not complaining as he waded through the cold river.
McCarthy’s speciality was dreams, although from the brief summary of his area of study Richard gathered that he was no psychologist. As he drank tea, and almost literally came back to earth, he talked of “lucid dreaming,” “dream travel,” and “dream correspondence.”
“Ghosts,” he said, as his enthusiasm returned, “dreams and creation—Ryhope Wood resonates with all of these things, and condenses them. If I can find the key to mythago-genesis, I can unlock the Big Dream, the First Dream.”
“I wish you luck,” Richard said encouragingly, again not understanding a word.
Lacan laughed. “I can’t understand him either,” he said loudly, bringing the hint of a smile to McCarthy’s morose features. “He speaks in tongues. But I like him! He may not be able to unlock the Big Dream, but he unlocks a very good cassoulet!”
* * *
When the Station at Old Stone Hollow had been established, three years ago by the time-standard of the world outside of Ryhope Wood, there had been twenty assorted scientists and anthropologists, all gathered in by Alexander Lytton, all with a specialist field, all made privy to the secrets and oddities of the realm of the wildwood. They had been divided into ten teams of two, but only five of these duets remained extant. Three had disappeared more than two years ago and were presumed dead. Helen had lost her husband Dan, although under circumstances that were unclear. McCarthy had been unable to save his partner from a lance wound, inflicted when they had been exploring one of the medieval castles that could be found in the deeper wood. Alexander Lytton and Arnauld Lacan had proved to be so temperamentally unsuited to each other that they had willingly and gladly separated and were the only two members of the research establishment who went on solo missions.
Helen was currently beyond a zone named Hergest Ridge, but was with Elizabeth Haylock, a specialist in first millennium Europe, and Alan Wakeman, a palaeolinguist and expert in “glyphs.” Two Finlanders were due back within a matter of days.
Helen’s team were several hours overdue at the Hollow, but McCarthy, before his temporary lapse into the bosk (it was his first, it would not be his last) had sensed the three of them returning, quite close, quite safe. They were vibrant shadows in the wood, and McCarthy could communicate with those shadows, although in a way which was unclear to Richard at the moment.
* * *
Exhausted by walking, made tired by wine and McCarthy’s gamey and substantial stew, Richard slept in the mid-afternoon. He awoke to the sound of voices, hailing the camp from a distance, and went out into the Station in time to see Helen carefully crossing the rope bridge. Haylock and Wakeman were already entering the compound.
Helen looked wretched, her clothes matted with mud, her face a tracery of thorn scratches, nothing serious enough to worry about. She greeted Richard very wearily, but managed the echo of an amused smile as she said, “How’s the man who dances with cricket bats?”
He noticed that moss was growing on the blackened bark of her right hand. Aware of his helpless glance, she covered the blemish, rubbing at it self-consciously.
“I really have to wash and rest,” she murmured. “I’ve be
en two weeks in the wild—”
Richard was astonished. Two weeks? He’d only seen her the day before yesterday!
“—I’ll talk to you later. I’m really glad you’ve decided to come.”
“I’m glad to see you too,” Richard said. “I’ve got a lot to learn. A lot to talk about.”
“And a lot to see,” she added as she walked tiredly to one of the sleeping tents. “And a lot of travelling.”
Wakeman and Haylock had unpacked onto a trestle table, displaying their finds, some of them quite gruesome. Stripped of their over-clothing, stretching their limbs after shedding the weight of their equipment, they made a strange pair, naked but for the tight, green body-webs both were wearing. Elizabeth Haylock was a tall, robustly-built woman with an angular face and restless eyes. Her hair was in a long, black pigtail which draped over her right shoulder as she talked to Lacan. She seemed shy of Richard, or perhaps uncomfortable with simple social graces. When he was introduced, and asked about her speciality, she was sharp; when he admitted his lack of understanding she seemed impatient. Perhaps she was just tired. He understood that she was also an expert on the Late Pleistocene, a part of the Upper Palaeolithic characterised by wide-scale treks of the hunter-gatherer clans, and the laying down of two separate streams of mythology, of which later echoes could be seen in the richly painted Magdalenian caves of the Pyrenees.
Her rambling words, her apparent hostility, blunted Richard’s relationship both with the woman and with her conversation. She walked off after a while, and emerged from one of the tents wearing a towel and carrying soap and a scrubbing brush. She joined Helen in the river, which earlier Lacan had called dangerous, and floated lazily in the turbulent flow, seemingly quite unbothered by the prospect of Wild Riders passing.
Wakeman too was distracted and exhausted. He was in his fifties, tanned, wore his grey hair in a ponytail, and was intricately tattooed with Celtic symbols on each of his muscular arms. A powerfully-built man, he reminded Richard of the sort of wrestler who appeared on television on Saturday afternoons. Wakeman was triumphant over a find relating to his own speciality: the Urnfield and Wessex cultures of the Bronze Age (a term he hated). The bronze mask was very tarnished, and quite battered, but the face it depicted was imbued with a terrible evil, and was unquestionably, he thought, related to a particular magician of the third millennium BC, a terrifying spectre who used the riverways of Europe to trade in the then current form of spells. His name, Wakeman believed, had been Mabathagus.