Merlin

FIVE

Finding a nest among the rocks, I wrapped my cloak around me and settled myself to wait, knowing full well that I might have to spend the night there. But I did not like to think about that. Would the hollow hills claim another victim?

I did not like to think about that, either.

Later, as the deepening mist darkened towards dusk and I sat hugging my knees and trying not to be afraid, I heard a faint tinkling sound – the light jingling of a horse's tack – one of the warband coming to find me! I jumped up and called out. The sound stopped and I did not hear it again, although I stood still to listen.

'Are you there? Blaise! Who is it?'

My words fell to earth where they were spoken and there was no answer. I retrieved one of the water skins and returned to my huddle among the rocks, miserable now. I pulled my cloak more tightly around me and wondered how long it would take the wolves to find me.

I must have fallen asleep, for I dreamed, and in my dream I saw a tall, gaunt man sitting in a room painted with strange designs. His hands were stretched flat on the table before him and the eyes in his long, withered face were sunken and closed. His hair was uncut, falling around his shoulders like a net of cobwebs, and he wore a rich robe of darkest blue with a brooch and pin of silver inset with tiny moonstones.

Before him on the table was an object shaped like a large egg – a polished stone, perhaps, cradled in a holder of carven wood. Two wasted candles stood on either side of this egg-stone, guttering in the fitful wind wafting through the cracks in the walls and windows.

This man was not alone; there was another in the room as well. I could not see this other person, but knew, as one simply knows in a dream, that she was there with him. Oh, yes, the other was a woman. I knew this, too, before I saw her stretch her hand slowly across the table to entwine her young fingers with those of the man. He opened his eyes then, for I saw the glint of light from the candles, but his eyes were wells of darkness… darkness and death.

I shivered and woke.

An unusual dream, but even as I felt its lingering presence, I knew it to represent a real place, and that the man I had seen and the woman's hand I glimpsed were real.

I blinked and looked around.

Night had fallen full and darkness was complete. The wind stirred, swirling the mist and I heard again the light jingling sound. This time I did not call out, but remained silent, crouching among the rocks. The sound came nearer, but in the fog there was no telling how close it really was. I waited.

Presently, I saw a lighter patch floating in the darkness, swinging towards me through the thick, damp air. The light brightened, intensified, divided into two glowing orbs, like great cat's eyes. The jingling sound came from the lights swimming nearer.

Only when they were almost on top of me did the lights stop. I moved not a muscle, but they knew where to find me – by scent, I think, for the darkness and mist obscured all.

There were four of them, two to a torch, swarthy men in rough skin jerkins and kilts. Their bodies were well-muscled and compact, Two had huge armbands of iron and carried iron-tipped spears; all had bronze daggers in their belts. But I was not frightened of their weapons, for though they were men full grown, none were bigger than myself, a boy of but twelve summers.

Their eyes were dark, and cunning like weasel eyes. And the men stood gazing at me through the mist, shadows nickering over their faces. The torchbearers held their brands high and the other two advanced together to stand over me, jingling lightly as they moved. I looked and saw a chain with brass bells tied just below the knee of the foremost stranger. He squatted on his haunches and stared at me for a long moment, dark eyes glittering. He pressed a finger into my chest, felt the flesh and bone there and grunted. Then he saw my silver tore and raised his hand to stroke it.

After a moment he rose again and barked a word over his shoulder. The others behind him parted and I saw another figure approaching out of the mist. I stood slowly, hands loose at my sides, and waited while the newcomer came to stand before him. He was smaller than the others, but carried himself in the way of chieftains everywhere; he wore his authority like a second skin, and I had no doubt that he possessed rank among his people.

He motioned one of the torchmen closer, so that he could see me properly. In the fluttering light I saw that this chieftain was a woman.

She, too, looked long upon my tore, but did not touch it, or me. She turned to the one with the bells and uttered a short, harsh bark, whereupon he and the one beside him took me by the arms and we started off.

I was more carried than dragged, for my feet scarcely touched ground. We descended the hill and reached the valley, splashed across the stream and, from the sound of running water close by, followed the stream for a time before beginning another ascent. The slope was gradual, eventually levelling out to become a narrow track or gorge between two steep hills.

This track led a fair distance and we walked a time, one torch ahead and one behind; my companions on either side did not push me, neither did they loosen their grip, although escape was not possible – could I have seen where I was going in the mist, I would not have known where to run.

At last the track turned upward and we began a steep ascent. It was a short climb, however, and I soon found myself standing in front of a round, hide-covered opening in the hill itself. The chieftain entered and it was indicated that I was to follow. I stepped through the opening and found myself inside a large mound dwelling of timber and skin. Covered with dirt and turf on the outside, the rath, as it is called, appeared in daylight just like any of the innumerable hills around it.

There were fifteen or more people inside reclining in groups on grass pallets covered with fleeces and furs around the central fire – men, women, children and several lean dogs that looked as though they would have been more at home running the hills in a wolf pack – all of them, men and beasts alike, staring at me as I stood uncertainly in their midst.

The she-chief motioned me forward and I was brought to stand before an old woman, no larger than a girl, but white-haired and wrinkled as a dried plum. Her black eyes were sharp as the bone needle in her hand and she regarded me with frank curiosity for a moment, reaching out to touch my leg, which she pinched and patted. Satisfied with her appraisal, she nodded to the she-chief who jerked her head to the side and I was led to a pallet and pushed down upon it.

Once I was well inside the rath, the hill people seemed to lose interest in me. I was left alone to observe my captors, who, aside from an occasional glance in my direction, and a dog that came to sniff my hands and legs, appeared oblivious to my presence. I sat on the fur-covered pallet and tried to see what I might discover about these people.

There were eight men and four women aside from the she-chief and the old woman; scattered among them were five naked children whose ages were impossible to determine – the adults looked like children to me! All the adults wore woad-stained scars on their cheeks – fhain marks, as I was to learn. Distinctive spirals which, at the time of cutting, had the deep blue powder pressed into the wounds to colour them for ever. Individuals of the same fhain – the word means family tribe, or clan – wore the same marks.

I puzzled over who they might be. Not Picti – though they used the woad, they were too small for Painted People, who anyway would have killed me outright upon discovery. Neither were they members of any of the hill tribes I knew about. Their habit of living underground marked them for a northern people, but if so they were far south of their beloved moors.

These, I decided, could only be the bhean sidhe, the enchanted Hill Folk, as much feared for their obscure ways and magic, as they were envied for their gold. The bhean sidhe were rumoured to possess great malevolent power, and even greater treasures of gold; both of which were employed in tormenting the tallfolk, whom they delighted in sacrificing to their crude idols whenever they could catch them. And I was their captive.

The clan settled for the night and one by one fell asleep. I pretended sleep, too, but stayed awake to be ready to make my escape. When at last, judging from the sound of the snoring, everyone was sleeping soundly and peacefully, I rose, crept from my pallet to the doorway and out into the night.

The mist had cleared and the night was ablaze with stars, cold and bright, the moon already set. The surrounding hills showed as a solid black undulating mass against the deep blue of heaven. I breathed in the mountain air and looked at the stars. Here all serious thought of escape vanished. I had only to look at the jet-dark night to know that running in such darkness invited disaster. And even if I had been so determined, on the wind I heard the bark of hunting wolves.

It came to me that this was why my captors had not bothered to restrain me in any way. If I were foolish enough to tempt the wolves, so be it; I deserved my fate.

All the same, as I stood looking at the stars, I heard the rustle of the closing flap and turned to see someone emerge from the rath. As I made no move, my companion came to stand near me and I saw that it was the she-chief. She put her hand on my arm but lightly, as much to reassure herself that I was still there as to remind me that I was a captive.

We stood together for a long time so close that I could feel the heat from her body. Neither of us spoke; we had no words. But something in her touch gave me to understand that these people had some purpose for me. While not exactly an honoured guest, my presence was more than a passing curiosity.

After a while, she turned and pulled me with her back into the rath. I returned to my pallet, and she to hers, and I closed my eyes and prayed that I would soon be reunited with my people.

What the hill-dwellers wanted with me I discovered soon after sunrise when Vrisa, chieftain of the Amsaradh fhain – their name for themselves; it means People of the Killing Bird, or Hawk Clan – took me out to their holy place on a nearby hilltop. The hill was the highest around and took some effort to climb, but upon gaining the summit I saw a menhir, a single standing stone painted with blue spirals and the representations of various birds and animals, most notably hawks and wolves.

In Her belt Vrisa wore a long, flat-bladed knife, polished and honed to mirror brightness. The man with the bells – Elac, as I would later discover – kept his hand tight on my arm all the way up the hill, and two of the others carried spears. The whole fhain made the trek up the hill, gathering round us as we came to stand beside the menhir, humming softly, with a sound like wind through dry leaves.

A braided leather rope was produced and my wrists were bound tightly. My cloak was taken from me and I was made to lie down on the sun side of the standing stone. They meant to sacrifice me; there was no doubt about that, and judging from the bones scattered around the hilltop, I was not their first offering.

But, though this might seem boastful to some, I was more fearful of being left by my people, than having my heart carved beating from my body. There was no hate, no deception or guile in these people. They did not wish me harm in the least. And indeed, did not consider the sacrifice of my life any great harm at all. In their way of thinking my soul would simply take up a new body and I would be reborn, or I would travel to the Otherworld to live with the Ancient Ones in paradise, knowing neither night nor winter. Either way, I was deemed fortunate.

That I would have to die to come into one or the other of these enviable benefits could not be helped, and consequently did not concern them over much. And since it was a journey all must make sooner or later, it was assumed that I would not greatly mind.

So, as I lay there on the ground, waiting while the sun slowly climbed its way clear of the hills round about – this would be the signal: when the first rays of the morning sun struck the menhir, Vrisa would strike with her knife – I did what any Christian would and prayed for swift deliverance.

Perhaps the knife was poorly made; perhaps it was old and should have been recast long ago. Nevertheless, as the sun struck the menhir the humming chorus loosed a mighty shout. Vrisa's knife flashed up and down swiftly as a serpent's strike.

I squeezed shut my eyes and in the same instant heard a cry.

Opening my eyes, I saw Vrisa, clasping her wrist, her face pale with pain, teeth bared as she bit back another cry. The knife's handle lay on the ground, its blade splintered into gleaming pieces like shards of yellow glass.

Elac, eyes starting from his head, gripped his spear so tightly the blood drained from his hands. Others bit the backs of their hands, some lay prostrate on the ground whimpering.

I rolled up into a sitting position. The clan's wise woman, the Gern-y-fhain, pushed her way through the others to stand over me with her hands outstretched while she stared into the-risen sun, chanting in their singing speech. Then she made a motion with her hands and snapped an order at the men looking on. Two of them came to me, hesitantly, the last act in the world they would have chosen, and untied the braided rope and unbound me.

Now, men will say that I broke the knife with magic. I have even heard it said that it is not surprising in the least that the knife should break since, as anyone knows, bronze cannot harm an enchanted being like myself.

Well, I was surprised and did not feel the least little bit enchanted. Also, I had not yet learned the secrets of the ancient art. I tell you only what happened. Believe what you like. But, as Vrisa's sacrifice knife flashed through the air towards my heart, there appeared a hand – a cloud hand, Elac called it. The knife struck the palm of this mysterious cloud hand and shattered.

Vrisa's wrist was already swelling. The force of her blow and the shock of the shattering knife nearly broke her wrist, poor girl. I call her girl now, for I soon learned that she was but a summer or two older than I was at the time, yet already chief of her Hill Folk tribe. Gern-y-fhain, the wise woman with the flint-sharp eyes and puckered face of a nut-brown apple, was her grandmother.

Gern-y-fhain was not slow to recognize so powerful a sign. She stepped in, raised me to my feet, and gazed long into my face. The sun was up now and my eyes filled with new morning light; she scrutinized me and turned to the others, speaking excitedly. They stared, but Vrisa advanced slowly, raised a hand to my face, pulling down my cheek with her thumb, and stared into my eyes.

The light of recognition broke across her face and she beamed, forgetting her painful wrist for the moment. She invited the others to see for themselves and I was subjected to a painless ordeal as the entire clan examined the colour of my eyes by turns.

When they had satisfied themselves that I did indeed possess the golden eyes of a hawk, Gern-y-fhain put her hands on my head and offered up a thanksgiving prayer to Lugh-Sun for sending me.

The clan had felt they needed a powerful sacrifice to offset a run of extreme ill fortune they had been having for the last three summers: poor grazing and worse lambing, two children had died of fever, and Nolo's brother had been killed by a boar. Their prospects for improved fortune were decidedly bleak when Elac, returning home from a spoiled hunt, heard me shouting on the hilltop in the fog. They thought their prayers had been answered.

Elac climbed the hill and verified I was there, then hurried to the rath, told the others what he had found and, after chewing it over among themselves, decided to fetch me along and sacrifice me in the morning. The shattered knife put a new face on it, however, and they decided that I must be a present from the gods… unfortunately disguised as a sub-human tallfolk youth, it is true, but a gift nonetheless.

I do not mean to make them sound like backward children, though childlike is a fair description of them in many ways. Still, they were anything but backward; on the contrary, they were wonderfully intelligent, with sharp, accurate memories and a vast store of instinctual knowledge that comes to them through their mothers' milk.

But the strength of their faith was such that they lived their lives in unquestioning acceptance of all things, trusting their 'Parents,' the Earth Goddess and her husband, Lugh-Sun, for rain and sun, for deer to hunt, for grass to graze their sheep, for the things they needed to live.

Thus, to them anything was possible at any moment. The sky might suddenly turn to stone, or rivers to silver and hills to gold; dragons might coil in sleep under the hills, or giants dream in deep mountain caverns; a man might be a man or a god, or both at once. A hand might appear in their midst and shatter a knife as it slashed towards the heart of their much-needed sacrifice. And this, too, was to be accepted. Does this make them backward?

With faith like this it is little wonder that once they learned the Truth, they carried it a long, long way.