The Broken Sword Page 24

  Aubrey drew the blade from right to left across Kate's belly, deep enough to cut the muscle without killing her. The pain would be excruciating, but she would remain alive during the entire length of the spell.

  Then he cut upward, and down again at an angle. Kate screamed as if possessed by a demon; then, on the next upward slash, when the pain became too terrible, she fell suddenly silent. Taliesin was relieved for her. Unconsciousness was the only mercy she could hope for.

  There would be two more cuts, he knew. Six incisions, forming a reverse pentagram, the symbol of the magicians' perverted art.

  The Innocent had explained the procedure to him once, long ago, during what Taliesin thought at the time was an idle conversation.

  How blind he’d been not to know that the Innocent never said anything idly.

  "It occurs in the Eastern lands," she told him. "At least it does now. One day the dark magic will be everywhere."

  "How can we fight it?" he'd asked.

  The Innocent had smiled sadly. "When that time comes, there will not be enough of us left even to try."

  Taliesin felt a surge of relief. '"It will be a long time in the future, then."

  "Yes," the Innocent said reassuringly. "A long, long time."

  They had been walking through a field of wildflowers, picking medicinal herbs. The Innocent had greatly expanded Taliesin's knowledge about healing, and he followed her eagerly whenever she invited him to accompany her.

  He was constantly astounded by her ability to pick exactly what she was searching for, because not only did she not possess the faculty of sight, but she seemed to use no other senses to find what she was looking for, either.

  "How do you know?" he asked.

  She inclined her head toward him slightly, her eyes as blank as water and moonlight. "About the magicians?"

  "About everything. About which herb to pick, without touching the leaves or smelling it. That asphodia was in the middle of a patch of thyme. How did you know it was there? How do you know that the sun shines through the two top lintels of the observatory precisely at dawn on the morning of the venial equinox? How can you explain the black arts to me, when you—as you yourself have told me—have never set foot outside the island of Mona?"

  She laughed softly. "Don't you believe me, little bard?"

  "I do. That's why I ask the question."

  The Innocent was silent for some time, moving like a tiny wraith in her white gown among the spring blooms.

  "There are matters which may strain your belief," she said at last.

  "In you? No, Master. I question nothing you tell me, even that it is possible to walk through rock."

  "Ah. I see you are still trying to learn how to do that."

  "I will never stop trying."

  "Then, child, one day you shall walk through rock." She handed him a batch of foxglove. "But though you may become the greatest of the druid wizards, you will not share in all my knowledge during your lifetime. And for that you should be grateful, because you would not be able to bear the pain of it."

  "Are you not mortal, then?" He realized that he sounded impertinent, perhaps even mocking, but he could think of no other way to ask the question he had been pondering for so long. "Not in any sense?"

  "Oh, certainly, in a sense. I have a body, such as it is. One day it will fall away to dust. The span of my life, in fact, will be much shorter than yours."

  Taliesin wondered at that, since he guessed that the Innocent must already have lived more than ninety years. "Then you are saying there is a part of you that is not mortal," he prodded.

  "Come now, my logical one. Even you, who are guided always by your intellect, must know that we all have a soul. Even the rock you wish to walk through is, in the essence of its being, immortal."

  Taliesin sighed, and the Innocent laughed at his frustration. "Ah, but you are thinking, ‘That is not what I mean.'" She sat down on the meadow grass. "But it is."

  He sat down beside her, trying to fight off his irritation. For someone so wise, the Innocent always spoke in riddles. Perhaps it was because she was a woman, he thought. In his experience, women lacked the directness of speech necessary for clear communication.

  Suddenly she laughed, as heartily as a peasant. "Oh, my, you are so impatient! I want to walk through the rock, now! Quickly, tell me all your secrets, that I may not wait a single moment longer!"

  He felt immediately ashamed. "I am sorry," Taliesin said, hanging his head. "Forgive me, Master. If you do not wish for me to know—"

  "But I do wish for you to know, little bard. I wish for you to know everything. But one cannot calculate the movements of the stars without first grasping the elements of mathematics."

  He frowned, confused. "I don't understand."

  "Tell me, Taliesin," she said, patting his hand. "Have you ever met one who has come back from the dead?''

  "From the dead?" He tried to follow her train of thought. This seemed like an odd way to explain how she had identified a flower. Or perhaps she had simply changed the subject.

  "No," he answered dutifully. "Well, once a man told me that he had drowned and been revived. But he was not quite well in his mind. He had been a fisherman, and even his family said that he never recovered his senses after his accident—"

  "In other words, you did not believe what he told you about his death."

  "It was the dream of a simple man, Master. He claimed that he fell through a dark tunnel to a place where a spirit made of light greeted him and reviewed with him every moment of his life. Afterward, he was led to a great city made of glass..." He shrugged. "For the poor, eternity is always grand and filled with riches. That is why they call it the Summer County, I suppose."

  "And how do you picture it, little bard?"

  Taliesin felt uncomfortable. He believed in the gods; he had seen their work in action. He even believed in a great universal order, in which every molecule of matter existed for a definite and specific reason. But he had never, despite his commitment to the holy life on Mona, quite been able to accept the notion of a life after death.

  "I cannot picture it," he said miserably.

  "Ah," the Innocent said. "Then you are not immortal? Any part of you?"

  He blushed at the way she had twisted his words. "The components of my body, perhaps. When I die, my flesh will return to feed the earth. My breath will become free air. The water in my blood will return, eventually, to the sea. That much I can understand."

  "And your soul?"

  He lifted one hand, palm up, in a helpless gesture. "I do not know. I have felt the presence of my soul. I have perceived with my mind its connection to a greater whole. And yet I cannot be certain that the thing I call a 'soul' is not simply my mind itself." He looked earnestly into the old woman's blank eyes. "How can one think without a mind? And how can the mind live without a body? After death, how can we know anything?"

  The Innocent smiled. "How can we be certain that we know anything before death?"

  "Because we perceive!" he snapped, momentarily forgetting that she was his superior in all matters. "I know you're here because I see you..." He blinked. "I see you..."

  "But I do not see you," she finished.

  "And you didn't see the asphodia. Nor did you hear it or touch it."

  "Or smell it," she added.

  "Then how? Do you possess senses which I do not?"

  "Yes," the Innocent said gently. "And so did the fisherman who tried to tell you about his city of glass. It was not glass, and he did not see it with his eyes. He was trying to explain an experience that you had no capacity to share. It was as if you tried to explain the color red to a dog, which sees no color and speaks no language."

  Taliesin tried to grasp the idea. "Do you perceive color?"

  "There is a vast spectrum, above and below yours, with which I am familiar. But that familiarity is not a visual experience. It is a perception of the soul. A perception I could not grasp until this lifetime."

  Taliesin fou
nd he could hardly breathe. "Are you saying that you have lived before?"

  "Many times, little bard. But the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth has ended for me. I am part of a larger cycle now, which encompasses, in part, this time on earth."

  "Then you are alive... voluntarily?"

  She nodded. "I suppose you could say that. I have come for a purpose."

  "To teach us," Taliesin said.

  The corners of her mouth drooped. "No," she answered softly. "For the path we walk will soon be overgrown, and the druids will disappear from the face of the world. My teaching will be as nothing."

  Taliesin felt a terrible sadness descend on him because he knew that, as little as he understood the Innocent, she always knew the truth. "Nothing," he repeated. "Then why—"

  "This is the beginning of a new time." she said quietly. "A frightening time to you, because during it the gods will die. I have come to help lead them to their death."

  Taliesin nearly sputtered. "But... the gods cannot die."

  The Innocent's face lightened. She laughed again, her voice as silvery as a girl's. "Of course they can! They can do whatever they choose." She extended her arms to him. "Now help me up. My bones are old."

  "Master..."

  "Shh. First learn to walk through the rock. Then you will be ready to think about the death of gods."

  They did not discuss her tragic vision again until the day Taliesin left Mona.

  "May I come back," he asked, "from time to time, to see you again?"

  "You will indeed see me again," the Innocent answered softly. "But you will have to be very wise to recognize me."

  He frowned. "I don't understand. I will not wait so long that—"

  "No, no, little bard. You are thinking with your intellect again. That is not enough." She cocked her head at him. "Have you a moment to spare before beginning your adventure?"

  "Yes, Master," he said gratefully. He had, in fact, been dreading the day of his departure. During his ecstatic vision during that first celebration of Beltane, his future had seemed so clear: He was to find the great sword in the wood and give it to the man to whom it rightfully belonged. He was to create a king who would change the world. He had known at once that he must leave the island of the druids, and the years he had spent in Mona since then had all been directed toward that end.

  Yet now that the time had come, he was no longer at all certain that he was doing the right thing. The vision itself, in retrospect, seemed a little foolish. But he had already announced his intentions. He had bade farewell to the order, turned in his garment, and collected his worldly possessions into a bundle. There was nothing left to do but leave.

  And so he welcomed the Innocent's invitation to spend a few more minutes in the world he had come to love, which had enclosed him like a mother's womb, a world to which he would never again be a part.

  She led him to a small lake only half a mile or so from the shore. In the pre-dawn darkness, they waited in silence as the mist rose from the surface of the water toward the full moon above.

  "The lake rises as vapor, falls as rain, rests as water, then rises again," the old woman said. "It is a cycle, like the phases of the moon, or the wheel of life. Do you understand?"

  "There is no beginning and no end," he answered. "Only change."

  "Yes, little bard." She seemed pleased. "My teaching was not wasted on you, after all."

  He smiled slightly. "I wish I did not have to leave you."

  "But you do," she whispered back, catching his hand in her knobby fingers. "You go now to begin a cycle, and I remain to close one, but in the end, they are the same."

  He knew she was talking about her death. "Does it have to be that way?" he asked, already feeling the loss of her.

  "Oh, yes. The gods have already fashioned the instrument of their destruction. One of our own shall kill them."

  "One of our..." His voice trailed off in shock. "A druid? But why?"

  She shrugged lightly. "Because it is their will. It is just a matter of time now, though I must admit the waiting is hard."

  Taliesin fell to his knees before her. "Oh, Mother," he whispered.

  She stroked his hair. "Do not mourn," she said, "for the gods we serve are old, as I am old. Let us rest for a while, like the water on the lake. In time, the wheel will turn again."

  "And then? Tell me, Master, for I will surely not be alive to see that day."

  "Ah, but you will," she said with a smile. "We shall all return then. You, me, the one who is your destiny, and whose destiny you will shape. All the ascended spirits, all the souls who fell on the darkened path to the source of All That Is. The seekers, the faithful, the blessed ones… We shall all be alive at the same time. We will have returned like the gods' lost children to celebrate a time of glory."

  "The... the end of the world?"

  Unexpectedly, the Innocent laughed. Her eyelids fluttered open. "No, no," she said gleefully. "There is no end, and no beginning. Only change, little bard. Only change."

  His teacher had been called the Innocent because she had never known evil, Taliesin thought sadly as he was forced to witness the magician cutting the finished shape of the pentagram into Kate's flesh.

  Taliesin, however, had known it too well. Even in ancient times, evil had risen all around him, like the stench in a slaughterhouse.

  He had been at his brother Uther's castle in Tintagel, on the southeastern tip of Wales, when word arrived that the druids had been massacred on their own island. While the castle occupants debated whether Mona had been attacked by the Romans or the Christians, Taliesin raced for the stables without packing so much as a jug of water.

  He galloped for three days and two nights, stopping only long enough to buy a horse when the one he was riding collapsed from exhaustion beneath him. He reached the channel separating Mona from the mainland at sunset, and only by threatening a ferryman at the point of his dagger was he able to reach the island.

  It was still smoking from the fires which had been set. No rain had fallen since the incident, and none among the herdsmen and fishermen from the mainland had dared to venture onto the place where so many powerful and angry spirits dwelled; and so it was that Taliesin was the first to see the carnage.

  He noticed the trees first, from the boat. The massive oaks that had stood since before anyone's memory were charred sticks poking into the twilit sky.

  "Come back for me tomorrow," he told the ferryman, who was looking around bug-eyed, as if expecting the ghosts of the dead to fly out at them. With a sigh, Taliesin took out a small leather pouch filled with silver and tossed it at the man's feet. "Tomorrow," he repeated.

  The ferryman picked up the pouch and weighed it in his hand, considering if the silver were worth the risk.

  "Daylight," he said. "Not night."

  "Daylight," Taliesin agreed.

  Finally the ferryman gave a curt nod and poled his craft back into the water.

  And Taliesin was alone with his dead.

  As he walked the familiar paths into the island's interior, the silence was so deep that it made his ears ring. There was no birdsong, no chattering of squirrels, no rustle of leaves. Every fragment of life here was gone. But as he walked deeper into the interior, the feeling that crept upon him was even worse than the specter of death. Something terrible had happened here. He could almost smell it.

  The first sign was at the mounds where the holy ones had lived. On one of them, atop the scarred grass, lay a man's severed arm. Beside it was a large pentagram, its top pointing downward, drawn with blood.

  "In this holy place," Taliesin whispered, numb with shock. Farther away, long gray objects swung from trees. They were the bodies of druids, still wearing what was left of their robes after the fire. There were dozens of them; most had fallen to the ground, the blackened ropes still around their necks, their faces distorted.

  In what had been the sacred grove of oak trees—in the same sacred circle, in fact, where the rites of Beltane had been celebrated
—five women lay naked, their throats cut.

  "Who could have done this thing?" he rasped.

  It is how the gods have chosen to die, came the answer. Taliesin did not know whether the voice had been the Innocent's or his own, but the thought of her sprang into his mind, and with it a pang of fear that felt as if his guts had been cleaved by an axe.

  The cave where she lived was nearby. There was no sign on the outside that betrayed any violence, but he knew, he knew.

  He walked slowly into the sacred dwelling, dreading what he would find. Breathing shallowly to keep from vomiting over the stench of corpses dead more than four days, he stepped over the bloated, maggot-riddled bodies in the entranceway. These were horrible enough, he thought, but at least they had been killed quickly, with knives or swords. A trail of blood led through the passage toward the high chamber where the Innocent had, not so very long ago, listened to the petitions of her charges.

  "Don't be here," he whispered roughly, feeling sweat pour into his eyes. "Don't."

  And then he saw her, and a moan like the wailing of the dead themselves rushed out of him to fill the profound void of silence there.

  She lay on the flat slab of the altar stone. On her belly was the sign of the reversed pentacle, and from beneath it her entrails had been pulled to spill over the sides of the stone. Through her feet were the blades of black iron knives. Her eyes had been plucked out. In her cupped hands, placed over her chest, was her tongue.

  Taliesin fell to his knees. "Why?" he shouted, his voice echoing through the empty cave. "You could have fled, become invisible, walked through the walls! You were magic, you could have done anything! Why did you remain here?"

  This time her voice was unmistakable. It was my time, she said, somewhere between the echo of his words and the silence that followed them. This is death in life, Taliesin, the black in the white. But the wheel will turn again. You will turn it. You and the one who lights your way.

  "I cannot!" Taliesin screamed. "I do not possess enough magic to bring back the gods! There is not enough magic in the whole world for that, not in the whole... world..."