Lord of Mountains: A Novel of the Change (37 page)

“As sure as the beat of my own heart that you should be here,
anamchara
mine,” he said. “And that this is the rightful place.”

This was daunting to him, and she was less at ease with things of the Otherworld than he, but he saw the lioness courage of her soul brace her shoulders.

“Then what do we do?” she asked.

They’d cached their oiled-leather bedrolls and the little tent, an ingenious contraption from the Lodge’s storerooms. With that and a fire and the provisions in their packs they’d be as comfortable as necessary. He took a deep breath of the cold wet air and opened himself to the world. The heartbeat of it sounded in his ears with the flow of his own blood.

“I…know. Now I know. Here,” he said, where a rock thrust through the thin duff and scattered snow, rising to waist-height.

Artos of Montival drew the Sword of the Lady. A ripple ran through the world, felt with the inner mind rather than seen. He touched the point to his finger, and a bead of blood welled out to lie pooled on the not-steel. Wordlessly, her eyes grave, Mathilda did likewise.

“Now make your prayer,
mo chroi
,” he said gently.

She went to her knees on the other side of the snag of black rock and took out her crucifix, kissed it, and held it between her hands.

“
Ave Maria, gratia plena—”

He faced the Quarters, greeting each with the Sword raised high across his palms.

“By the North…” he began, calling the shapes of the Guardians and their protections, invoking their vigilance. “By the East…By the South…By the West!”

Then: “By Earth! By Sky!”

He knelt across the stone from her. She met his eyes and then put her hands around his on the hilt of the Sword as he placed the point on the hard basalt. The strength of her grip ran through him.

“We are the land’s, and the land is ours,” he said, and she repeated the words after him. “Its flesh has fed us, and we are its body; its water has given us life and flows in our veins. As guardians to all its kindreds we shall be, and to that we pledge ourselves and the line of our blood so long as it shall last; until the sea rise and drown us or the sky fall and crush us or the world’s end.”

“
Amen
,” she said.

“
So mote it be,
” he replied.

And
thrust
the Sword downward with all his strength. The length of it sank into the rock with a long crackling
shunk
sound.

Rudi screamed as the world split apart in whirling fragments.

Glimpses tore at his mind. He could
feel
Mathilda beside him, their beings joined in some inconceivable way, her fear and steady willingness. Feel the new life that was growing beneath her heart; feel the coiled essences that lurked in every cell of their beings, all three, and their linkage to the Sword. For a moment he could
understand
it, and his soul recoiled from the vastnesses contained within himself.

And he could see; see all the land at once.

— And a man in the dried-blood colored armor of the Sword of the Prophet knelt in a tent, screaming as he hammered his fists against his temples, and slow trickles of blood ran down from his eyes like red tears—

— and Sandra Arminger gasped and clutched at her chest and whimpered—

— and Juniper Mackenzie smiled with a transforming joy, looking around at the snowy woods as at a world glowing with numinous life—

— and on a high prairie of thin grass where a mist of ice crystals cut vision to yards, men huddled in buffalo robes looked up in surprise as an ancient figure rose from beside the fire and began to shuffle and stamp around it.

“Dance, brothers! Dance, Lakota! White Buffalo Woman dances the world awake today!”

— and a humpback whale broached in the gray Pacific waters, falling in monumental playfulness, an ocean of spray that drenched the awed fisherfolk at their oars. More and more circled them, dolphin and orca and the slow majesty of a great blue—

— and in an abbey atop a tall hill set in green rain-misted fields, a white-haired man in an embroidered robe knelt with arms outstretched before an altar that bore the Cross; the swords of his fallen Brothers were ranked on the stone floor before it. His face lit with happiness as he felt the Man of Sorrows speak within, and behind him the monks broke into a thundering chorus—

— and in Mithrilwood, Alleyne Loring paused as he laid the urn which bore the ashes of the
Hiril Dúnedain
on an altar. It was in the midst of a circle of leafless oaks, but sudden golden light ran from branch to branch and bough to bough like living fire as his blue eyes went wide. The children weeping beside him looked up in wonder, their tears drying as smiles broke free. The fire blossomed in leaf and flower of gold and silver and ruby, until the trees blazed with light and life and fragments floated like sparks among the crowd of watchers. He caught one in his hand, and it shone through the flesh as if his living self were glass.

The slow mourning music of flute and viol stopped, but notes still rang through the air, faster and faster. The watchers began to circle and pace with hands linked, whirling among the floating jewels that joined in the rhythm of their movement as the children laughed and a voice whispered in his ear:

All shall be well,
bar melindo,
my darling one, all shall be very well
—

— and a bear bellowed, a tiger snarled, a red mare stamped until the mountains shook, elk raced across a meadow, ravens flew about a single blue eye—

— and a man and woman danced above the High King and his Queen, huger than the sky itself, stars glittering in Her blue robe and springing like sprays of silver where Her fingers touched the purple vault of heaven; His horns traced patterns against them as he whirled in a wild fierce joy larger than worlds, infusing all that was with meaning—

Artos screamed again, not in pain but as his being
stretched
beyond what a human soul could encompass.

S
 o bright, so bright!
Mathilda thought.

The chaos of images faded, lost in light. As if she stared point-blank into the sun, but there was no pain. A whirling feeling, as if she were being swept away, dissolving without losing herself, perishing and yet more conscious, more aware with each passing instant—

And she was on a hillside. She blinked and staggered a little. It was a sunny afternoon and warm beneath a sky that was a pure arch of blue. The ground beneath her was rocky but starred with small blue flowers. It was not quite a desert, but it smelled a little like the deserts she was used to, dust and spice, yet subtly different. More like…

Fennel
, she thought.
And thyme.

The hillside was dotted with small gnarled trees, their trunks twisted and curved and ancient, sometimes hollow. The leaves were silvery-gray and green, flickering in a slow hot breeze and providing a thin but welcome shade. Mathilda was acutely conscious of everything, each passing instant, each scented breath of air, the distant tinkling of a bell. Downslope the land leveled out, and became small straggling fields much greener than the dusty faded color that covered the hills; she recognized growing wheat and barley. A patch of low goblet-trained vines drowsed in the sun not far away, in full leaf but before bud-set. Here and there a tree was in flower, fruit-trees but not ones she was familiar with. The shrilling of insects was a murmur in the background.

More distant was a village, dun mud-brick buildings with flat roofs huddled together, twists of acrid woodsmoke rising from beehive-shaped ovens that stood in the yards, carrying the smell of baking. Beyond that were more rocky hills shimmering in the heat and stillness.

Mathilda bent over and touched a flower, a blade of grass, watched an insect scurry.

“Is this a dream?” she said. “I don’t think so.”

It was
more
real than waking life, not less. The grass blade was soft enough beneath her fingertip, but she felt that it had been carved out of something harder than diamond—something like the
idea
of diamond in the mind of Eternity. Each leaf-flutter and crawling beetle and anonymous little brown bird flitting by struck her like war hammers forged from purest
meaning
. She panted a little at the strain of it, as if taking a step here was like fighting for her life in plate armor.

But I’m not in armor
, she thought, looking down at herself.

It was herself, down to the little scar on a thumb she’d gotten from a sharp stone in a brook one summer when Rudi taught her how to tickle fish. But she was wearing a long robe of coarse wool, and a headdress of wrapped linen that framed her face and a shawl. Sandals were on her feet, plain but honestly made with straps of soft leather. She began to pick her way down the hill, until the sound of rocks clicking against each other came to her.

A man worked, building a drystone wall. The work went steadily, though she could see his hands were scuffed and bleeding in a few places, and sweat rolled down his skin. He had a cloth wrapped around his head and a beard of brown hair, and his robe had been shrugged aside so that the top of it also hung down to his knees and left his sun-toughened torso bare. His face was square and strong, the eyes a yellow-brown.

“Father,” she said softly, clutching at the bark of an olive-tree beside her. “Father…do you know me?”

Norman Arminger looked up. “Peace, maiden,” he said.

I’m not speaking English,
she realized; the language was unfamiliar, harsh in her mouth with glottals and rough breathings, a language for poets and prophets and warriors.

“No, I don’t know you,” he answered after a moment, pausing with one stone resting atop the half-built wall. “But I did. I will. Now I must work. I must serve the sheep.”

“The sheep?” she said.

“Wolves or robbers may come,” the man said, turning the rock and fitting it, with the weary half-grunt of a man doing hard labor and knowing that he’d do much more. “I must build the wall strong for them. I failed before because I thought it was for me. Now I must work for them. Peace be upon you.”

“And upon you, peace,” she whispered.

It seemed a long time that she watched him work, and she took a few steps and sat on a chunk of white limestone that heaved up like the bones of the world. The shadows lengthened, and the day grew cooler. A figure came up the track that led to the valley, a woman in the same dress as she, with a blue mantle draped across her head. She carried a bundle wrapped in coarse cloth and set it down on the half-finished wall…that seemed to be no nearer finished for all the long day’s work.

The man faltered as the woman approached; he was exhausted now, like a convict pushed beyond what could be borne by a harsh overseer, and the smell of his sweat was rank. He gave a single tired sob and sank to his knees as she stopped, tears among the sweat on his haggard face.

“You are weary,” the woman said. “I have brought you food; eat and drink and rest a little.”

She unfolded the bundle and laid it on the wall. There was a clay jar within it. Mathilda knew the scent of watered wine as she unstoppered it. Two flat wheatcakes were wrapped around some soft cheese and a handful of small blackish fruits she recognized as olives, from rare treats brought from over-sea.

“Take and eat,” the woman said again, and the man did.

His hands were still bleeding, and they were callused and strong, but they moved gently on the plain food, as if it were something delicate and wonderful. As he ate he straightened, and smiled as he finished.

“Thank you,” he said. “The food strengthens me. I must work until my task is finished.”

“Work until you have built yourself, child of Adam,” the woman said.

She turned, and Mathilda caught a glimpse of a face under the shadowing mantle; a thin middle-aged face, large dark eyes and the marks of work and grief, and a smile…

Suddenly she was sobbing against the woolen robe. A hand stroked her head. When she could, Mathilda spoke:

“You brought my father food?”

“My Son offers all men nourishment,” she said. “Many come to it through me.”

“Thank you! Then…then there’s hope for him?”

“There is always hope, if we accept it,” she said, laying her hand on Mathilda’s head for a moment. “Because he loved you and your mother, your father can receive it from me. Blessings and peace upon you, daughter of Eve; and upon your children and the children of your children.”

The figure in the blue robe rose and walked away, and it was like a rupture in her heart, but somehow the thought of crying out didn’t occur to her. After a while she walked up the hill. It wasn’t a surprise when a figure in a plain Benedictine habit fell in beside her, and she smiled at him.

“Is this real, Father Ignatius?”

The monk was as she remembered him, telling his rosary as they walked, something of a warrior’s stride in the way his sandaled feet crunched on the loose rock and dirt.

“Very real, my child, though that is a complex matter. Do you remember a time I heard your confession, at the beginning of our journey together?”

“In the desert, Father? We looked up at the stars, and you said that all that glory and beauty would be finished someday, and still
I
would go on.”

He nodded. “That was true. There are truths, and then there is the Truth, the One, the Wholly Real.”

“That…
light
I saw?”

“That for which the light is simply a symbol. There is the Real, but we are like…as a wise man once said…like prisoners in a cave, seeing
only shadows cast upon the wall. Until we waken, and go further up and further in, always closer.”

Mathilda nodded. “And you’re here to help me?” she said. “Thank you, Father.”

Ignatius laughed. “We help each other; that’s how we progress along the road ourselves. I’m returning a favor done to me, my daughter, and one done for me a very long time ago, if time has any meaning as I am now. Returning it the only way one really can; by passing it along to another.”