The Paradise War (50 page)

“The Song is lost.”

“Then we must find it.”

Tegid scoffed. “A fool’s errand. It cannot be done.”

I threw a hand toward the imposing vessel. “Only a fool would stay here and wait to be starved and overwhelmed by these fiends and their accursed pot. It seems to me, brother, we are fools either way.”

The bard glowered at me, and I thought he might tip me over the wall. But then he glanced at the cauldron once more, and at the thousands of teeming Coranyid cavorting obscenely around its shimmering, fire-wrapped bulk. “What do you propose?”

“I propose we find the Phantarch. Maybe he is not dead. We do not know that he is dead. We will not know for certain until we find him.”

“Impossible,” grunted Tegid. “And futile.”

“What have we to lose?”

“Must I say it all again? No one, save the Penderwydd, knows where the Phantarch resides,” protested Tegid weakly. “Ollathir knew and—”

“And Ollathir is dead,” I snapped. I had no more patience with Tegid’s pessimism. “So you keep saying. Well, I say
someone
knows where the Phantarch resides, because whoever killed him knew well enough where to find him.”

Tegid, who had been about to object, jerked suddenly upright, his eyes narrow as he sifted the truth of my words.

“It seems to me,” I continued, “that we have either to find out who killed the Phantarch or find out how they discovered him.”

“It will be difficult.”

“Difficult is not the same thing as impossible.”

“Now you are talking like a bard.” Tegid allowed himself a fleeting smile.

It was meant as a jest, but, even as he spoke these words, I remembered my solemn vow to the Banfáith:
It seems to me a task more befitting a bard,
I had told her.
Yet what may be done, that I will do.

“It is a task for a bard,” I said. “I am no bard, Tegid; we both know it. And yet the Chief Bard’s awen was given to me.”

The smile faded, and his face clouded with the despair that had dogged him since Sycharth. He said nothing.

“Yes, to me, Tegid. It was given to me! It should have been you—I wish it
had
been you. I know I am no fit vessel. But the fact remains that I was there when Ollathir died, and I was the one who received the awen. That is the way of it.”

Tegid’s mouth twitched unhappily, but he did not respond.

“I am willing, but I do not know what to do. You do. You are a bard. Tell me, Tegid; tell me what I need to know. I remember nothing of what Ollathir told me. But I would like to remember. And, maybe if I could remember it, it would do us all some good.”

Tegid was silent still, but I knew he was considering what I had said carefully. And I could sense that he was even now beginning to put his hurt and disappointment behind him. He stared hard at me—as if I were an untried horse and he a reluctant buyer trying to decide where he could trust me. Finally, he said, “Will you do whatever I tell you?”

“What may be done, that I will do.”

Tegid turned abruptly and said, “Follow me.”

33
H
EART OF THE
H
EART

W
e slipped out into the wind-lashed night, the light from the hall spilling like molten bronze upon the snow of the yard. We carried torches, fluttering in the gusting wind with the sound of rushing wings. Pulling a fold of my cloak across my face, I followed Tegid across the dark expanse of snow.

On the walls above us I could see the torches of the watchers. I heard the shriek of the Coranyid as they swarmed without the walls and the shouts of the warriors as they hurled stones down upon the vile brood.

Tegid led us to a small stone house in the shadow of the great hall. The hut was a storehouse for leather, wool, and other supplies, dry and smelling of sheep, with bales of fleeces and tanned oxhides rolled and stacked against the walls. There were also slabs of beeswax and bundles of carded wool for weaving. The roof was thatched with heather and moss; the floor was timber, and there were no windows.

In the center of the room stood a post, and next to it a square opening in the floor. Tegid moved to the opening, handed me his torch, and stepped down onto a wooden ladder. He disappeared into the square of blackness, and a moment later he said, “Hand me the light.”

I moved to the edge of the hole and handed down first one torch and then the other. Holding on to the post, I lowered myself into the darkness, feeling for rungs with my toes. Beneath the floor, the constricted hole opened into a narrow passage, almost—but not quite— high enough for a man to stand upright. “This way,” Tegid said, handing me a torch.

Two other passages opened off either side, but Tegid, head down and shoulders hunched, moved off along the central passage. It was dry, but cold. Our breath drifted in curling vapors to the stone ceiling above our heads. In thirty paces the passage ended in a larger chamber, where we could stand upright once again. At one side of the chamber there was a stone trough carved in the wall. A thin trickle of water seeping down a groove in the wall filled the basin, and the overflow dripped into a cistern. I could hear the pinging echo of the drips as they splashed into the cistern somewhere below. On the wall opposite the trough a knotted rope hung down into a round hole cut in the floor.

Tegid walked to the hole and gave me his torch. He then seized the knotted rope, stepped to the edge of the hole, and lowered himself down. “There are steps in the wall,” he told me when he reached the bottom. “Take the rope and throw down the torches.”

Following his instructions and example, I took hold of the rope and dropped the torches down the hole. Tegid retrieved them and held them high, so that I could see the clefts cut in the rock face. Half-dangling and half-climbing, I lowered myself down the vertical steps to find myself in a large, round, vaulted room which was the interior of the cistern itself. A rock ledge bordered the deep, dark pool of water. Without a word, Tegid handed me my torch, turned, and led the way along the ledge. We stopped at an opening halfway around the circumference of the cistern and half a man’s height from the ledge.

Two small holes bored into the stone at the side of this larger aperture held our torches, and we clambered up and into the entrance, and into another passage. Recovering our torches, we proceeded— first on hands and knees, then in a cramped crouch, and at last upright as the roof rose away into the darkness overhead. Though outside our small, wavering sphere of light the passage lay in darkness, I could tell that it was leading downward at a slight angle, and also turning slowly inward. The walls of this passage were wet. Water continually seeped, trickled, and dripped from the unseen ceiling. It may have been the exertion of our endeavor, but the passage seemed to me warmer, and I began to feel a clammy sweat on my face and neck.

How long this passage continued, I could not tell. I lost track of the steps and it seemed as if we might walk all night. At times the stony corridor narrowed so that we were forced to go sideways for some distance. Other times, the walls widened until lost to the light from our torches. As we followed the passage further, the way became steeper, and the floor beneath our feet smoother and more slippery— as if the passage had been carved into the heart of the mountain by an underground river. I also began hearing, faintly and far away, the sound of running water, like that of a brook splashing and sliding over its rock-strewn bed.

After some time, we arrived in a huge, hive-shaped chamber—naturally formed, not made by men. Through the center of the chamber coursed a stream, wide but not too deep, and Tegid followed it, making for a crevice in the wall through which the waterflow disappeared. This fissure spanned the height of the room floor to ceiling, and was wide enough at floor level for a man to enter.

“This is the womb of the mountain,” Tegid said, his voice echoing in the hollow chamber. “Here is where a bard is born. Beyond this portal the awen is awakened.”

He moved the torch to illumine the rock face at the edge of the crevice. I saw that a square patch of the wall had been smoothed and a design incised in the center of the square. It was a design I knew well, a common device seen throughout Albion: the circle maze whose elaborate, hypnotic loops and whorls could be found on arm rings, tattoos, brooches, shields, wooden utensils . . . almost anything. The circle maze also adorned standing stones and was cut into the turf on hilltops.

“That was on the pillar stone on Ynys Bàinail,” I said, indicating the carving. “What does it mean?”

“It is
Môr Cylch
, the maze of life,” Tegid told me. “It is trodden in darkness with just enough light to see the next step or two ahead, but not more. At each turn the soul must decide whether to journey on or whether to go back the way it came.”

“What if the soul does not journey on? What if it chooses to go back the way it came?”

“Stagnation and death,” replied Tegid with mild vehemence. He seemed irritated that anyone would consider retreating.

“And if the soul travels on?”

“It draws nearer its destination,” the bard answered. “The ultimate destination of all souls is the Heart of the Heart.”

Tegid moved to a niche carved in the wall, reached in, and brought forth two fresh torches which he lit from the one in his hand. He gave one of these to me and placed his used torch in a cleft beside the circle maze, directing me to do the same.

He turned and, hunkering down, stepped into the crevice. I heard the splash of his steps and saw the flame-flicker of his torch on shiny walls. Then he called out to me, “Come with me, brother. Here is where memory begins.”

I stooped and entered that narrow way, squeezed through a pinched opening and emerged into a high-ceilinged passage, wide enough to stand with hands outstretched to either side. The curved walls of the passage were smooth and shone as if polished. Along the floor ran the water from the stream. The turbulent crash of rushing water was louder here, though still distant-sounding and distorted, as if shunted and reflected by innumerable walls or baffles.

This was, in fact, the case, for we had entered an enormous maze— the likeness of which was carved on the wall outside—and the sound of the waterfall reached us through the many turns and curving pathways of the serpentine structure. We walked in water to our ankles, and soon our feet were wet and numb from the icy flow.

After wading for a little time in silence, Tegid began to tell me about the place and why we had come there. “This is very old,” he said, reaching out and slapping the smooth stone with his hand. “Almost before anything else in Prydain existed, this was made. This is the
omphalos
of our realm, the Navel of Prydain. It has been kept and protected by our kings from the creation of this worlds-realm.”

I had wondered why Meldryn Mawr required a fortress so far away from his lands. “But I thought the White Rock was the sacred center of Albion.”

“This, too, is the center,” Tegid replied, apparently unconcerned that there should be more than one sacred center. “And everyone who would become a bard must tread this pathway into the Heart of the Heart.”

We walked along the gently curving passageway and came eventually to what I first thought was a blank wall, but which, at closer approach, I saw was actually a close turn, doubling the passage back upon itself. We proceeded along this new corridor, holding our torches high to throw as much light before us as possible.

Despite Tegid’s guidance, I found the maze utterly disorienting. As we moved along the curving walls to the sound of rushing water all around, I felt like a lost soul stumbling alone, steering by my fitful light, hoping to reach I knew not what. And the water, swiftly flowing, was like time or the force of life, bearing us along on our journey.

The passage turned abruptly once more and we rounded the bend and started down yet another curving corridor, this one just slightly more sharply curved than the last. It may have been my imagination, but it did seem as if the bend became both a literal and symbolic turning point, a point of doubt requiring a decision. The way ahead was dark and uncertain, the way behind could no longer be seen. To go ahead meant to trust in the Maker of the Maze that the reward sought at the Heart of the Heart would bless and not curse.

The curves of the maze became sharper, the turns more frequent. By this I knew that we were coming to the center of the maze. The sound of rushing water grew louder as well. We would reach the central chamber soon. What would we find there?

The sound of water all around, the darkness, the cold, the hardness of the rock—I felt as if I had indeed entered into an initiation. Here is where memory begins, Tegid had said. Memory begins with birth. Was I being born into something? Or was something being born in me? I could not tell, but I felt the expectation growing with each step.

Tighter became the turns, quicker the steps. I felt my pulse racing and the surge of anticipation rushing through me. Water, fire, darkness, stone—a world of elemental simplicity exerting an elemental force upon me. I could feel the pull in my bones and blood. My mind quickened to a call older than any other, ancient, primeval: the summons to life which had called man forth from the elements.

We rounded the last bend in the maze and entered a circular chamber. It was empty—except for a large hole in the floor where the icy stream which had coursed through the winding pathways of the maze now disappeared. The roar of the water voice, like that of a god, came up through the dark hole as the falling stream shattered on the rocks somewhere below.