The Silver Hand Page 10

  Down into the trough, and up, up again. I heard water sucking rock and felt the boat lurch sideways as the wave pulled away. For the space of a heartbeat, the boat hung between sea and sky. The sea surged, lifting the boat free and hurling it high. We plunged and struck another rock, and I heard a sharp crack as wooden ribs gave way.

  “Hold tight!” wailed Llew.

  I flung my hands out to grip the sides of the boat and felt cold rock instead. I tried to push away, but the boat was already slipping down. In another instant we would be spilled into the seething sea. I gulped air and, with a last shout, cried deliverance from the watery grave yawning beneath us.

  The waves retreated and I felt myself falling. The boat fell sideways and rocked over, and over again. Water gushed into my mouth and lungs. The sea twisted my arms and legs, pulling me down into the churning depths. I was tumbled and turned, dragged deeper and deeper.

  I struck something hard with my knee, and my right shoulder collided with what seemed to me a hard wall. The weight of water flattened me against this wall, crushing me like a giant hand, forcing the air from my lungs. I fought with my hands to push free of the rock wall.

  And then—

  Air streaming over me! I gasped, choking on sea foam. Then the water fell away, and I found myself pushing against, not a wall, but a stony shingle. A wave crashed over me, first pinning me beneath its weight, then lifting me and hurling me further up the beach. Gasping, I scrambled like a crab over sea-slick rocks through the back-rushing water.

  The sea dragged at my legs. Seaweed tangled my arms and ankles. The wave surge swelled, rising to my hips, waist, chest. I was lifted again and propelled forward. When the water fell away once more I was on my knees, small rocks hard under my hands.

  I rose and stumbled forward, struck my foot against a stone and sprawled headlong. I heard the roar of the waves crashing in once more. I kicked with my feet for a foothold, but I was pulled back, my hands torn from the rocks, and the sea reclaimed me.

  All at once, I felt myself caught and held securely. And then Llew’s voice straining against the wind and wave roar, “Tegid! I have you,” he shouted. “Stand!”

  He clutched me by the arm and lifted me to my feet. Leaning on one another, we struggled further up the rock-bound shore and collapsed on a spit of sand.

  “You have done it, Tegid. You sang us to land!” Llew said, and then gasped. I felt him squirm beside me and realized he was writhing with pain.

  “Llew!” I threw my hands toward him. He clutched at my arm with his good hand and moaned—a hopeless, heart-tearing sound. I held him until the pain eased again.

  “You sang us to land,” he said, when he could speak again. His voice was ragged as frayed rope. “You saved us, Tegid. We were lost.”

  “The Goodly-Wise heard our song and reached down with his Swift Sure Hand and plucked us out of the sea—and out of the grave Meldron intended.”

  We lay on the beach, shivering with cold and weak with the pain of our wounds. Llew whimpered from time to time, when the agony was too great to bear; but he did not cry out. Through the night we lay on the sand, as the storm slowly dwindled around us. Then, as dawn seeped into the fleeting rags of storm wrack to the east I felt the first flush of sunlight warm my face. I sang the song I had been given.

  I sang the steep-sided glen in forest deep; the fortress in the lake, and the antler throne high on its grass-covered mound, with the white oxhide upon it. I sang the bright-burnished shield and the black raven perched on its rim, wings outspread, filling the glen with its severe song; and the beacon fire flaming the night sky, its signal answered from hilltop to hilltop. I sang the shadowy rider on his pale yellow horse, and the mist which bound them, and the sparks struck from the rocks. I sang the great war band bathing in the mountain lake, and the water blushing red from their wounds. I sang the golden-haired woman in her sunlit bower, and I sang the hidden Hero Mound.

  When I finished, Llew had fallen asleep beside me. I lay back on the sand and, with the sound of the waves sighing on the rocks, I slept.

  10

  THE NEMETON

  I could still hear the sea moaning, restless in its stony bed, but the sound abated as we moved further inland. In my left hand I held a length of sea-scoured oak which I used as a staff; my right hand rested on Llew’s shoulder as he guided me. From the way my steps seemed always to descend, I surmised that the land dropped away from the sheer-cragged headland directly behind.

  After a wretched, pain-wracked night on the beach, day had awoken our resolve to rise and toil inland, which meant scaling the sea cliffs of the headland. Neither of us could have done it alone. Even now, I do not know how we survived. It took most of the day, but once the headland was behind us we rested in a grassy cleft between two rocks and shivered when the sun went down. It was morning once more when we began our slow trek inland.

  As we walked, Llew described what he saw before us. “There are hills ahead,” he told me, “rising to peaks in the distance. I can see snow on some of the higher peaks.”

  “What is the direction?”

  He paused to take direction from the sun. “South and east, I think,” he replied. “The nearer hills are rounded and wooded—mostly oak and beech, and some pine. There is a stream just ahead, but we will have to climb down to it. The wood begins on the other side. We can rest at the stream before entering the wood, and—”

  He gasped. His shoulder tensed and he doubled over.

  It was another of the fiery pains that afflicted him—sharp, burning arrows of agony that suddenly flared without warning. When this happened, we halted until the attack passed and he could move again. I could but imagine the distress of his wound—perhaps it matched the hot spears piercing my eyes, searing through my head.

  “Where are we, do you think?” he asked in a moment, speaking through clenched teeth.

  “Are the peaks wooded?”

  “I think so,” Llew said; he gulped air and straightened somewhat.

  “They are far away. I cannot be sure, but it looks as if the slopes are dark with trees.”

  We began walking again. “It may be we have landed somewhere on the coast of northern Caledon. If this is so, the peaks you see before us are the Monadh Dubh.”

  “Clan Galanae, Cynan’s people—they are in the south of Caledon,” Llew offered.

  “Very far to the south. There are few people this far north,” I explained. “The land is wild and unsettled. These highlands are prey to violent winds and storms, as we have endured. It is no kindly place you see before us; we will not find any king to receive us.”

  Carefully we picked our way down the hillside to the stream where we knelt and drank, and then rested. Lying back on the grassy bank of the stream, my thoughts turned to the massacre on the mound. The gorge rose in my throat and a moan escaped my lips. How could I have anticipated such atrocity? Even now I could not comprehend it. How could I fathom such an attack? I could scarcely believe it had happened.

  When the Light of the Derwyddi is cut off, and the blood of bards demands justice, then let the Ravens spread their wings over the sacred wood and holy mound . . .

  So the Banfáith had said. The words, with dire certainty, were coming to pass. The learned brotherhood had been slaughtered, the light of their wisdom cut off; the blood of bards cried out from the earth, demanding justice. So be it!

  Resting on the bank of the stream, I let my mind sift these thoughts. In a little while, Llew stirred beside me. “What now?”

  “We need rest,” I answered. “And time to allow our wounds to heal.”

  “Are you in pain?” he asked, voice tight and breath measured.

  “I do not know which hurts me more, the loss of my sight or the loss of my brothers. It feels as if my soul has been torn from me.”

  Llew was silent for a time. “We cannot stay here,” he said at last. “There is water, but no food or shelter. We will have to move on.”

  “We will find shelter in the wo
od.”

  Neither of us moved for a long time. Finally, Llew stood up slowly. I felt his hand on my arm, as he pulled me to my feet. “I say we follow the stream and see where it leads.”

  The brush grew thick along the streambed, making progress wickedly difficult. But the stream soon joined a river. Taller trees grew beside the river, and wide water meads spread on either side, allowing us easier travel.

  We moved slowly, resting long and often. By nightfall we were no great distance from the place where we had begun. But the river valley afforded many hollows and rocky swells wherein we could find good shelter. I had nothing with which to make a fire, but I instructed Llew where to find a number of edible roots, which he dug with a stick and washed in the river. We might freeze in the cold night air, but at least we would not starve.

  That night I was awakened by Llew’s screams. He was in pain and trembling with cold. I roused him and, with much staggering and stumbling, we made our way to the river where I compelled him to suspend his stumped arm in the icy water until the flesh grew numb. This gave him some relief, but upon returning to our cold camp we were overcome with chills and could get no more sleep that night.

  Next day, I made certain that Llew found a flint striker and gathered dry moss aplenty to use as kindling, so that we would be certain of a fire from then on.

  “What good is flint alone?” asked Llew.

  “There are other stones which bring the spark from a flint. I will show you. Indeed,” I told him, “I will make a bard of you before we are finished. We will rescue Ollathir’s awen yet.”

  “Lead on, O Head of Knowledge,” Llew said. “To hear is to obey.”

  In this way, we journeyed into Caledon’s heart: halting, slow, pain-racked steps, with much pausing to bathe inflamed wounds in the clear, cold flowing river. During one such pause, I bade Llew unwind the bandage from his wrist. “Describe the wound to me,” I said.

  “It is mending.”

  “Describe it. I must know if it is healing properly.”

  He took a deep breath and loosed the strips of cloth with which I had bound his wound. He groaned—partly with pain and partly with grief—as the cloth came away from his gory stub. “It is black,” he said. “There are white flecks of bone in it.”

  “Wash it in the water and then tell me what you see,” I instructed.

  He lowered the arm gently and I heard him swish the limb forth and back in the water. “Clanna na cù,” he muttered through clenched teeth.

  “How does it look now?” I asked when he finished.

  “More red than black. Some of the bone chips have washed away.

  It is bleeding again.”

  “The blood—is it thick and red? Or is it thin and watery?”

  “Thick and red, I suppose.”

  “And the flesh around the wound—is it inflamed and hot to the touch? Or is it cool? What is its color?”

  “Well,” he answered after a moment, “it is warm to the touch, but not hot. The skin is red and swollen, but not inflamed. Here, you feel,” he said, and I felt his hand take my right hand to his arm. He pressed my fingertips to his wrist. “There.”

  I gently probed the flesh around the wound. It was warm to the touch, yes, but not feverish hot, as it would be if it were inflamed. When I touched the wound itself, he winced and jerked his arm away. “I am sorry.”

  “Well? What do you think?”

  “I think healing has begun. It should be wrapped again, but with clean cloth.”

  “Where will we get that?”

  I drew my siarc over my head and began tearing it between my hands. Llew protested. “Not your siarc, Tegid. You need what is left of it to keep warm.”

  “I have my cloak,” I replied and proceeded to rip the cloth into strips. “Now help me wash them in the water.”

  Together we knelt at the river’s edge and rinsed the strips of cloth. When we had finished, I gave them to Llew, saying, “Spread these on a bush and let them dry in the sun.”

  Llew did as I instructed him, and we slept in the warm sun. When the cloth strips were dry, I helped Llew to bandage his arm, whereupon he said, “Now it is your turn.”

  I reached a hand to the binding of my eyes. “It is well.”

  “No,” he informed me flatly, “it is not well, Tegid. It is filthy with blood and dirt. You have to change it.”

  I unknotted the ends and unwound the binding; the cloth stuck to the wound, and we had to pull it free, which started the blood flowing again. I bit my lip to keep from crying out. “You have to wash it now,” Llew insisted.

  With Llew’s help, and with difficulty, I lowered my face to the water and gently splashed water onto my face and the raw wound that had been my eyes. The sting of the cold water countered the fire of the pain somewhat, and I felt better for it.

  I raised my head from the water and turned to Llew. “How does it look? Describe it to me.”

  “It is a clean cut,” he told me. “The flesh is red and swollen around the gash, and there is some yellowish fluid seeping out. But the blood looks good—it is not watery.”

  I pressed my fingertips to the edges of the wound and felt the flesh. It was sore and inflamed. “What of my eyes?”

  Although he tried to keep his voice level and dispassionate, I sensed that he was disturbed by what he saw. “There is so much clotted blood and swelling . . . brother, I cannot tell. I think you should keep them covered.”

  He feared to say what I already knew: my eyes were ruined. Since Meldron’s cruel stroke, I had seen neither spark nor blush of light. Brightness of sun and darkness of night was all the same to me. I would never see again.

  We stayed two days in a grassy dell, resting, conserving our strength. We ate the roots of water plants that grew in the river, and kindled warm fires from fallen branches fetched from the surrounding wood. Thus refreshed, we moved on, following the river, as it seemed good to me. Day by day, as we walked, I instructed my amiable companion in the lore of wood, field, and forest. Llew welcomed the distraction from his pain which my teaching provided, and he showed himself a quick and able student. He remembered all I told him, and often engaged me in closely reasoned discussions concerning one small detail or another. I had only to tell him a thing once and it was his.

  After many days, we came to a waterfall. The river, which had been bending ever southward, became narrower and deeper, and the rocks along the watercourse larger, as the land rose higher in its approach to the mountains. We stopped, the sound of falling water loud in our ears. Llew gazed at the falls before us and said, “We will have to find a way around this rise. The boulders here are too big and the cliff too steep to climb.”

  “This is one of the gates to the mountains beyond,” I told him. As I spoke these words, there surged within me sudden conviction that we had been led to this place; the Goodly-Wise had directed our steps. “It is for us to go through here.”

  “Are you certain? I cannot see how we are to climb.”

  “Well, we will make a start.”

  Llew made no complaint, but sat down and began studying the tumbled mass of rock before him. After a time he said, “The boulders are big as houses, and smooth—there is no way to climb them. We might find our way among the smaller rocks, but they are covered with thick, green moss and splashing water, so they will be very slippery.” He paused and asked, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “Yes, I am certain.”

  “We could double back along the river and find another way, perhaps.”

  “This is the way of our path,” I told him. I stood and cast aside the oak branch I used as a staff. “I feel it—this is the way we must go.”

  Llew offered no further objection, and we began picking our way up the mass of stone. We were instantly wet to the skin from the mist and spray. Speech was difficult over the constant crash and clatter of falling water, but Llew shouted directions to guide me. Straining, slipping, fighting for every precarious foothold, we crawled up the rock face
before us.

  I moved in close-wrapped darkness, my hands gripping the rock, feeling the cool hardness beneath my grasp. I began thinking of stone: standing stones, pillar stones, the circle stones which mark rare powers on the land. I thought of ogham stones, and stone cairns. And all the stones were carved with the Môr Cylch, the life maze.

  I imagined the precise pattern of the curving pathway as if woad-daubed in blue. It seemed to me that I entered the Môr Cylch, blindly placing my feet on the twisting, turning path, trusting to the Maker of the Maze to guide my steps.

  “This is as far as we go,” Llew called over his shoulder. “We will have to go back and find another way.”

  He eased himself back to where I perched, pressing my body against the rock. When he spoke again his voice was closer. “It is too steep, too dangerous. What do you suggest?”

  “I will lead.”

  “Tegid, you are—” He stopped himself saying it. “How?”

  “I will lead,” I insisted.

  Whatever his misgivings, Llew did not dispute my judgment. He spoke not a word of fear, but shifted along the narrow rock ledge where I stood. I flattened myself as close to the rock wall as I could, as, with greatest care and difficulty, we changed places. And then I began, slowly and with extreme care, to feel my way up the sheer rock face.

  “Watch my hands and feet,” I called back to Llew. “Do what you see me do.”

  “This is insane!” he shouted back.

  “Well I know it!”

  Nevertheless, we continued our climb. Trembling, halting, fearful for every step, in the sightless dark, I sought the path. Trusting only to my fingertips and toes, I found first one foothold, then a handhold, and another. Step by shuddering step, we climbed. I held the image of the life maze in my mind, and each foothold became a step along the patterned way.

  Up and ever up, we scaled the rocky height. Mist and spray bathed us, drenched us. We paused now and again to gather the raveled threads of our faltering strength, and then climbed on. Llew called out encouragement to me, urging me on with high-sounding words.