Celtika (15 page)

‘I’ll not let her drown. Crack the ice yourself, Jason. See how easy it is!’

‘Don’t betray me a second time!’

‘I didn’t betray you a first! But now I might! For your cruelty…’

Whatever Jason screamed at me then I lost as I summoned warmth into my body and leapt overboard, swimming down among the
voytazi
towards the motionless, sinking form of the girl. Her heavy skirts were raised like dark waterweed above dangling white and naked limbs, a skeletal frame, a girl so gaunt she might have been a corpse. When I reached her she was on the verge of breathing out the last of life. I gave her some of my own life, then kicked to the surface of the lake. She screamed and gagged when we reached the air, then panicked. I held her close, keeping her mouth above the water. The ice had closed around Argo, flowing around her, trapping the ship in a frozen tomb. I could see Jason on the stern, leaning out towards me, timeless and motionless, reaching a hand as if to call me back.

‘Let me go, let me go,’ Niiv gasped, struggling again in my arms. ‘Save Argo. Save your friends. I can swim back to the shore.’

She tried to push me away. I had lost concentration and the cold was numbing. Each time my grip loosened on Niiv her waterlogged clothes drew her down into the lake.

I watched Jason as he began to die for a second time, furious with him, and at the same time terrified of losing him.

I held Niiv in my arms, determined not to let her go. My life had changed, though I was too cold, too confused, to be aware of it at that moment.

I began to sink.

Nipping fingers lifted me. The lake swirled around me, hands held us, pike-faced elementals took the pressure off my legs and arms, holding me afloat as if I were straddled on a floating log.

The ice around Argo melted. Jason was shouting, ‘Get ropes! Get ropes! Merlin, hold the water, we’re back-oaring to fetch you!’

Ropes came down and I tied one around Niiv and one around myself, and Urtha and others hauled us, battered and beaten, up the flank of Argo, wrapping us in warm furs.

Oars were raised, lowered, and the ship lurched southwards again, towards that glowing, watching eye.

Urtha was all grins and tease as he helped me recover from the lake, his attention half on me and half on the brooding figure of Jason, now at the steering oar. ‘There’s more to you and that girl than meets the eye, then, is there?’

‘No.’

‘Liar. But I’m glad that this has happened. Your friend Jason is more dangerous than I’d realised. I’m telling you this, Merlin,’ he touched a finger to my lips as he spoke, held my gaze, ‘because, friends though you are with him, I wouldn’t want you to think that his oarsmen are expendable according to his whim. We’re in this together, this journey—for our different reasons, yes, but
together
—and if he tries again to throw away the unwanted, just because it suits him, it’ll be Jason screaming for a spar in the sea while he drowns in our wake. I hope I make myself clear.’

Urtha spoke softly, a young man with a young voice, but his anger signalled itself clearly, and I nodded appreciation of his sentiment.

If not Niiv, or the
voytazi,
that had created this difficult launch, then who? Or what? The answer came as easily as waking from a shallow sleep. I went down into the underdeck, picked my way through the bales and ropes and leather packs, past the softly breathing horse, and came to the forbidden part of the ship, below the figurehead, below Jason, who still held the steering oar.

‘No closer,’ whispered Mielikki.

‘You blinded her uncle, you tried to kill the girl, you tried to kill us all. Is this what we can expect from Mielikki, Argo’s new protector?’

‘The man was blinded because he came too close,’ she whispered voice came back. ‘The girl belongs to me. Yes, I tried to kill you all; why would I want to leave my land? What are you all, if not just cold spirits from cold lands? Yes, I tried to kill you all. But you saved the girl. The girl belongs to me. So I have let you go. And I will tell you two things. I will have her back in my own groves, no matter what she wishes, though you can have her for a while. And she is dangerous. You have rescued your nemesis. And one more thing: I am at the edge of the world this ship contains, not within it, and someone deeper is aware of you, and wishes you dead. This for the girl’s life; the rest I will decide as we sail.’

I asked her more, this Lady of the Forest, but she was silent behind her half-lidded eyes. It had been Mielikki herself who had raised the ice, not Niiv, not the lake spirits, but the goddess, reluctant to be taken from her own land. Only to save her servant, the capricious Niiv, had Mielikki relented, releasing Jason to his southward quest. We were on our way, but it was clear to me, now, that we were as much in danger from Argo as under her protection.

And someone, hidden in the ship, wanted my death!

I avoided Jason, choosing to sit down close to Urtha. He was muttering vile oaths as he heaved on the oar. He suggested that I helped him, and when I refused he swore at me. But I felt comfortable in his presence, and Argo struck across the lake to the steady rhythm of the drum. Soon, the lake narrowed, stark winter trees crowding over us, and we entered the mouth of the river, the beginning of our long journey south, to freezing seas and hostile coastlines and then to the Island of the Dead, to Alba.

PART THREE

In Ghostland

CHAPTER NINE

The Hollow Ship

The ice storm, and the possibility that our ship’s guardian was less happy to be on board than perhaps we would have liked, soon passed from consideration. We navigated carefully along the winding rivers, gradually getting used to the weight and rhythm of the stroke and to those sudden, urgent needs to ship oars, when a fallen tree or jutting rock loomed out of the darkness.

Tairon and Jason stood together at the prow of Argo, Tairon’s nascent skills in ‘walking-in-labyrinths’ helping us find our way to the main waters, and not get caught in a circular backflow. Elkavar complained loudly about blisters, the Volkas seemed at ease with the task, and the
keltoi
told outrageous tales of the ships they had rowed, sailed and stolen in the past. Jason kept an attentive eye on everything, especially the stroke, instructing and criticising quite freely, and I noticed that this irritated the Celtic king, Urtha, who did not like him. I heard him mutter to Cucallos that it seemed quite wrong for a man, until recently dead, to so presume the role of captain.

But Manandoun counselled him wisely, and Urtha settled into his role on the bench, hauling on the oar. He also acted protectively towards Niiv, who was in great fear of Jason, and I took this careful kindness to be part of Urtha’s culture as much as his nature.

Soon, Argo entered that part of the Northland which is more lake than land, and here we could set the sail and cut across the water at a greater, easier speed, Rubobostes on the steering oar when the wind was hard and Argo listed, the slimmer Tairon taking over when the breeze was gentle.

It would not be long before we reached the cold sea, and turned towards the setting sun.

*   *   *

One night, when we were moored below drooping willows, resting, Elkavar nestled down beside me on the hard bench, and wished me good evening.

‘I don’t wish to intrude,’ he said, ‘but I was wondering if I might ask you a personal question. I certainly don’t want to offend you.’

‘There is no harm in a question,’ I reassured him. ‘And I’m slow to take offence.’

‘You see,’ he went on, his brow furrowed, ‘I’m not an experienced man, not at all well travelled. Except by accident, that is. Well, that’s true. So I suppose you could say I
am
well travelled … but without intending to be. I wasn’t paying much attention, and most of the time I’ve been more concerned with getting home than with asking questions about where I was. The underworld is a terrible place, especially for people like me who sort of stumble into it by, well … accident.’

‘And your question is?’ I prompted him.

‘In all these
accidental
journeys I’ve made, I’ve met a variety of people. By the Good Father himself, some of them dressed in a strange way. And the food! I draw the line at eating the eyes of any animal, except a small fish. Disgusting. But as I say, I’d not really taken much notice of these strange folk, because I suppose, strange as they were, silly hats, curved swords, eyeballs for breakfast, I still recognised them as being … well,
sort
of similar to me. If you get my drift.’ He looked at me sharply, then said, ‘But not you. I don’t recognise you at all. You’re wrong. You’re not right. You don’t belong here. Anywhere. You make my guts crawl, in the same way as when I see a spider hanging above me in my bed. You’re not taking offence, I hope.’

‘Not yet.’

‘You see, Merlin … it is Merlin, isn’t it?’

‘It is.’

‘Though Jason calls you Antiokus?’

‘That’s the name by which he knew me. I made the name up. I’ve been known by many names.’

‘I was going to say … the scuttlebutt on this ship is that you can defy Time itself. Is that right?’

‘Not defy it. I’m just careful with it.’

Elkavar laughed approval. ‘Well, indeed! That’s a good thing to be. We should all be careful with our time, though for most of us that means using it wisely. The candle always burns, but more brightly when we’re young. You, though. Your candles seem to burn without burning
down.
’

‘They’re burning down, but more slowly than yours.’

He laughed, as if in triumph. ‘You see? This is what I mean. You don’t belong here. You’re like a man from the stars. A different light has warmed your skin. Different water pisses out from you. I knew it the first moment I set my eyes on you. How old
are
you, exactly?’

‘Exactly? I’ve no idea.’

‘You’re not taking offence?’

‘I’m not taking offence. All I know is, that when I was a child the world was quieter, the woods more vast, and the chatter of men as occasional as the chatter of a magpie. It was a big world and the sound of the wind and of rain was the loudest sound of all. There were drums and flutes, but they made a gentle sound. Now there are drums and horns in every valley, and the air screeches with pipes played by windbags and madmen. No offence intended, by the way.’

He shrugged. ‘My pipes don’t screech. And you always need a windbag. And I’m certainly a madman. But back to you … You’re very old, then.’

‘Yes.’

‘And you have magical skills.’

‘Yes.’

‘May I know them? That was my question, really. The question I’d hoped wouldn’t give you offence. What exactly can you do?’

For a man whose guts clenched when he thought of me, Elkavar was certainly warm and close, a man at ease with the confrontation. He looked much the same age as me, though I think the twinkle in his eyes was a touch brighter. He seemed easily inclined to laughter and mischief, perhaps in equal measure with his inclination to song. Even as I sat on the bench, wondering what to tell him, he had offered to ‘compose a song about you in exchange. A good ballad. Completely flattering!’

Since Jason knew my skills, and Niiv was aware of them, and since they would certainly come to be used on this voyage, I decided that there was no harm in letting him know the truth. The truth, of course, was that only a fraction of my talents were yet in use, and they were the obvious ones of ‘shifting’ and ‘travelling’.

I told him that I could summon the spirits of hounds, birds, fish and stags, and run with them through their own realms. I could look forward in time, but that was dangerous, especially if the vision involved myself. I could summon a corpse to glimpse the underworld, but that was to be avoided at all costs. I could break the lie from a trick, to expose the truth, as I had done for Jason, to let him see how Medea had confounded his senses and made him believe in the death of his sons.

Elkavar was silent and thoughtful as Argo drifted on that gentle river below the bright, night clouds. Then he said, ‘Who taught you such things? Where do you go to learn such things?’

‘That,’ I told him truthfully, ‘I cannot answer. All my life I’ve walked a path, a road around the world, more or less circular. It passes through Gaul, and Greek Land and mountains to the east, and through the snow-wastes of winter and the mosquito-misery of summer of this country.’

‘Are you alone?’ he asked quickly, and with a frown.

And what a strange question that was! I tried not to show how deeply those words had struck. Because in my dreams I dreamed of others, old friends, children who had played by the same pool, beneath the same willows, and chased the same small deer as me in that land so long gone it was no longer on my bones. But that was my
dream,
the comforting story in my sleeping mind.

Was the question innocent? Looking at the dishevelled but bright-eyed Hibernian, lost in the world yet abundantly optimistic, I decided that it was.

‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Not now, of course. I have companions. You, for example. Elkavar, this is the second time I’ve pulled an oar on this ship. I’ve been a long time alive. A long time pulling rough-hewn oars. It is not a favourite way to spend my days.’

He looked at his hands, the skin already blistered with the effort. ‘I couldn’t agree with you more. Rowing boats is harder than I’d thought. Well, with all those great strengths in enchantment, can you at least summon a wind to take us south, Merlin?’

I told him that I couldn’t.

‘Much good you are, then,’ he said with a quick smile, then leaned forward in an attempt to sleep across the oar.

Urtha suddenly whispered from behind me, ‘I heard all that. Our druids are not as potent.’

‘So I saw.’

He hesitated for a moment and then asked, ‘Can you enter Otherworlds?’

I knew to what he was referring. ‘Not easily. Most of them are closed against me.’

‘Not
too
powerful, then.’

‘It takes too much of a toll. I like being young. I like what youthfulness can add to life. I’m careful with my power.’