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351 lines
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<title>Mythlands - Chapter 18</title>
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<h1>18</h1>
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<p>
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Far, far to the north, beyond the forest and the salt-marsh the craggy ridges to the north of Mid Temair, she stirred in the well of darkness.
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</p>
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<p>
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But now she was awake.
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</p>
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<p>
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She felt her strength return as the old <em>geas</em>, the old binding-curses, wore down and broke one by one. And as her vigour came back, so did her
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everlasting hate and anger, the very essence of her being. And with it, a burning thirst for vengeance.
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</p>
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<p>
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<em>Thin places</em>
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. Thin places, those cracks through which the tendrils of her slumbering mind had oozed like fog, searching for the one to free her. After all these eons
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of slumber, the finding seemed a mere heartbeat away.
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</p>
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<p>
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He had been formless; clay to be worked slowly into a shape that she could use.
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<p>
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She had found the weakness in an angry, vengeful mind, and she had nurtured it with dark promises.
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</p>
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<p>
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She had schooled that young mind, leading it to places where old knowledge waited to be found, arcane knowledge of magic once stronger in this world; dark
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secrets, waiting only for the right mind with a thirst, and a reason to seek it.
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</p>
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<p>
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This child of hers, this Mandrake-to-be, had found the knowledge and used it, binding himself to her, hungry for the power that she would have, the power
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she would bestow.
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</p>
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<p>
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She had tested him until she was sure that he shunned all good, all light, embracing the night and shadows that lurked unseen by human eye. Then she had
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drawn him out, with all that was needed to break the ancient curse.
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</p>
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<p>
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Oh then…<em>Oh then! </em>There would be a reckoning. The sons of the sons of the sons of men who had dared face her and bind her with songs of magic
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and blazing light, they would wither in her wrath.
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</p>
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<p>
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She sensed the day approach, awake and aware, impatient to feed and destroy.
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</p>
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<p>
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And yet. The key eluded her.
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</p>
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<p>
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She had sensed its presence, not here, but across the chasm of time that was bridged by the ancient stones. She had reached and summoned.
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</p>
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<p>
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Now the key and its bearer was here, in her Temair.
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</p>
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<p>
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She would have it.
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</p>
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<p>
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She was the <em>Morrigan</em>.
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</p>
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<p class='break'>* * *</p>
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<p>
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The Bard had warned them that the forest was a dangerous place.
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</p>
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<p>
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He had stepped from the reeds and led them to solid ground, while cries the Scree howled over the reeds and the Kelpie fed.
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</p>
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<p>
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"I'm Connal," he'd said, a tall reed-thin man in a long cloak that looked as if it had been sewn together from the skins of rainbow trout. It glistened and
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changed colour when he moved. "I am the Bard of Kelpie Holt. You've met my brother, I believe."
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</p>
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<p>
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"Finbar's your brother?" Corriwen asked.
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</p>
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<p>
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"In a manner of speaking. Brothership of the Bardic, we say. Near as you can get to the real thing, I imagine, without having to fight over shoes in the
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morning."
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</p>
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<p>
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His weathered face made him look hard and stern, but his smile was warm.
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</p>
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<p>
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"I heard from the swans that you'd had trouble. And then I watched you blunder through the flats. Not a place for young travellers to be, I can tell you.
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There are more bones resting down there in the quagmire than I'd want to count. The flats suck the unwary down, and the Rushen folk and the Kelpie take the
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rest."
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</p>
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<p>
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He put a hand round Corriwen's shoulder. "Now, Lady Corriwen. You and your journeymen here, you've put up a fair fight so far. I hope the rest is as easy."
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</p>
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<p>
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He led them on, with the otters whistling and frolicking around his feet, like huge quicksilver puppies. Eventually the came to a reed hut, thatched with
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bulrushes where a flock of golden swifts rested from the heat of the day, so many crowded on the roof that the thatch was almost invisible.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Now, do you like roast crab?" the tall man said.
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</p>
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<p>
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They wolfed the food.
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</p>
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<p class='break'>* * *</p>
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<p>
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"Here is the quagmire," Connal said, when they had eaten their fill. The Bard had a big pipe that looked as if it had been carved out of a solid bulrush
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and he puffed it to a fiery glow. The smoke made Jack's eyes water.
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</p>
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<p>
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Connal unrolled a sheet of what appeared to be papyrus and he used a stick of charcoal to illustrate it.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Quagmire here," he repeated, drawing a vaguely triangular shape. "And the Holt here. It's a point that runs straight south to the sea shore and cuts the
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marsh in two, and it's a good thing you don't have to travel the other side. It goes on forever, and worse things wait.
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</p>
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<p>
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"On the far side, the Labyrinth Rills, which you've come through, and the flats. You've met the thin folk, and there's not much to them, I know, but
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there's plenty <em>of</em> them. They eat raw fish and crabs and the odd traveller. Can't use fire, of course.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Creepy little beggars," Kerry said. "Marsh-hoppers."
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</p>
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<p>
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"From here, north. It's the only way. You follow the spine of the Holt, beyond the high-shore flats. And from there up to Sappeling Wood."
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</p>
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<p>
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"I've heard of that place," Corriwen said. "They say Leprechauns rule there."
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</p>
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<p>
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"What?" Kerry asked. "The Little People?"
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</p>
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<p>
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Connal frowned. "Whatever lives there, it's their forest. Don't stray from the road. Not an inch."
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</p>
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<p>
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And three days later, all of it on foot, here they were.
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</p>
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<p class='break'>* * *</p>
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<p>
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The Morrigan rolled in her dark centre, reaching out to sense it again.
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</p>
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<p>
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It had eluded her time and again, as had that girl-child who had disrupted Mandrake's work, because the strength of old kings ran in her blood. Girl child
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she might be, but the Morrigan sensed the light in her, as she sensed it in the other, the carrier.
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</p>
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<p>
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She reached into the night, and touched him.
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</p>
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<p class='break'>* * *</p>
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<p>
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Jack was dreaming. He had fallen into an exhausted sleep, every muscle aching, and when he slept he dreamt.
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</p>
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<p>
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They had all been together, in the trees, in some kind of deep forest, all shadowed with no hint of moon and something had been behind them, something
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unseen and monstrous.
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</p>
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<p>
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They had run, run as they had these past days, harried while the thing behind crashed through the undergrowth, grunting and snarling, hot breath on the
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backs of their necks.
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</p>
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<p>
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They had fled like deer, twisting and turning over gnarled roots and under fallen trees and somewhere in the dark glades he had lost them while the thing
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panted behind him, getting closer and closer and closer.
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</p>
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<p>
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And then he had turned and fallen down into a deeper dark, rolling and tumbling, trying to claw for a handhold to break his fall, but he had fallen from a
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dizzy height and the next thing he knew he was alone somewhere in the dark where all sound disappeared into an immense void and no echoes returned. The
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heart was beating on his chest, in time to his own, but now its pulse was fierce, something he could feel against him, a rhythmic squeeze that told him
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danger was here.
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</p>
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<p>
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He did not know where <em>here</em> was, only that he had lost his friends and was stumbling along in the blackness, probing with hands and fingers, while
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the sensation of being trapped somewhere deep and awful riddled through him.
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</p>
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<p>
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He tried to call to them, but no words came out. There was something he should remember, but he couldn't recall. The darkness pressed on him like a weight,
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like being buried alive.
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</p>
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<p>
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Things crept and crawled here. He sensed them all around, reaching for him with thin legs and palps and claws. Nothing touched him, but he sensed them and
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every nerve cringed.
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</p>
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<p>
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He had brought them here, somehow and they were gone and he felt the loss like a pain deep within him, as if something had been ripped from him and torn
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him apart.
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</p>
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<p>
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He wandered, stumbling, it seemed for a long time and he had no sense of direction.
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</p>
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<p>
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Jack was afraid, and the stone heart pulsed steadily, telling him to be very afraid.
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</p>
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<p>
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Something moved, something less dark. He heard it and felt the breath of motion and spun. The darkness was less now, or perhaps his eyes were acclimatizing
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to this, but now he could see movement, slow, dark on black, but movement all the same.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Corriwen?" His voice blurted her name and disappeared into the vastness, swallowed by thick and velvet black.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Kerry!"
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</p>
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<p>
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There was no reply, but there was something with him. Not some <em>thing</em>, he realized, but some <em>one</em>.
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</p>
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<p>
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He held what breath he had and listened. Something took hold of his hand. His heart leapt to his throat, but whatever held him gripped, soft and firm.
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</p>
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<p>
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"You are safe with me," a voice whispered. A woman's voice.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Where am I?" He sounded scared, which was just what he was. "Who are you?"
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</p>
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<p>
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"Safe," she whispered again. "I am here."
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</p>
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<p>
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"Who are you?"
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</p>
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<p>
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"Your heart's desire," she whispered, in a voice like a song, and he felt the bands holding his ribs tight loosen just a little. He breathed in, cold,
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clear air which bore the scent of lavender and lilac and summer days.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Rest friend," she said, and her voice was a balm. "I have waited so long."
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</p>
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<p>
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"I've lost my friends," he told her. "I must find them."
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</p>
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<p>
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"And you will," she said. Her face was now a pale oval in the dark close to him. She bent towards him and he saw dark eyes in that pallid, heart-shaped
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face, and black tresses that curled around slim shoulders and fell to her waist.
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</p>
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<p>
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"You have been searching for me," she whispered.
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</p>
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<p>
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She stroked his face, her touch like silk and he lay back, feeling the ache and tiredness drain away.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Where are my friends?" he said.
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</p>
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<p>
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"I am your friend. Come to me and forget everything." The hand trailed down his chest.
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</p>
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<p>
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Jack felt a pounding in his ears and that double pulse on his chest.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Give me your heart and be free forever."
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</p>
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<p>
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The hand stroked his bare skin and he realised his shirt was open, but there was no hurt now, just the sensation of smooth skin on his own. He closed his
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eyes, feeling the need to be at peace. The need to find Kerry and Corriwen ebbed away and he bent towards the warmth.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Give me your heart," she said, and in that instant, the voice changed from summer to winter and when she breathed on him, it was cold and foul, like the
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smell of rot in that faraway battlefield.
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</p>
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<p>
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His eyes jerked open and he saw the face and his heart froze.
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</p>
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<p>
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Her face was a ruin of wrinkled, peeling skin. A cavernous mouth with cracked lips pulled back from pointed teeth. Her hair writhed like snakes and the
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touch on his chest felt like the blackest sin.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Away," he tried to say, tried to take a step back, but she had him.
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</p>
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<p>
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One hand snatched the heart-stone.
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</p>
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<p>
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The other clawed at his skin. He felt her nails stab through flesh and twist between ribs until she had his beating heart in her hands. She ripped it out,
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smashing his ribs to splinters and cast him aside, screaming and betrayed, down, down, down while her laugh shook the ground.
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</p>
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<p>
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He lurched up gasping for air, both hands pressed to his empty chest.
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</p>
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<p>
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Kerry slapped an arm round his shoulders. "Jack man, you scared the bejasus out of me."
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</p>
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<p>
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"Thought I'd lost you," Jack managed to croak. "You and Corrie."
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</p>
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<p>
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"No chance of that," Kerry assured him.
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</p>
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<p>
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"You scared me too," Corriwen said. "
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</p>
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<p>
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Jack looked at them, bewildered, but the image hung there in his memory, that astonishing beauty which had turned into unspeakable ugliness. Kerry passed
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him drink of water and he sipped at it, feeling the heat spread through him, letting it warm him.
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</p>
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<p>
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He had been awake, but somehow caught in a weird sort of spell in which that awful presence had come in the dark and had <em>touched</em> him.
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</p>
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<p>
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And he felt he would rather die than feel that loathsome touch again.
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</p>
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<p class='break'>* * *</p>
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<p>
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They were three days out of the swamp now, and they had stopped beneath a spreading oak close to the winding road, a mile or so from a vast forest. They
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had camped here, rather than risk whatever might be in the shadows, for the bard had warned them that Sappeling Wood was a dangerous place.
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</p>
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<p>
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"I think we should get a move on," Kerry said. Jack was still numb from the waking nightmare.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Connal says it's the only way," Corriwen said. Her hand automatically moved to the hilts of the knives at her belt. "But we must be careful."
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</p>
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<p>
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"I think we should check the book first," Jack said. "It might give us a clue."
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</p>
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<p>
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He unbound the tooled leather and opened his Book of Ways, and they waited expectantly.
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</p>
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<p class="centered">
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<em>Verdant deep the neverglade</em>
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</p>
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<p class="centered">
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<em>Shadow dell and leafy shade</em>
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</p>
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<p class="centered">
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<em>Softly past the binding shoot</em>
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</p>
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<p class="centered">
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<em>Wary round the gnarling root</em>
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</p>
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<p class="centered">
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<em>Safe perhaps upon the way</em>
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</p>
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<p class="centered">
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<em>Peril those who walk astray</em>
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</p>
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<p>
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The forest closed around them in a dark green embrace.
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</p>
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