Boneland by Alan Garner

Author:Alan Garner [Garner, Alan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fantasy, Fiction, General, Epic, (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
ISBN: 9780007463268
Publisher: Fourth Estate
Published: 2012-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The wild weathers of the world passed and the day lengthened in the bidding sun. But the woman did not come. Soon the clonter of the river would start and she could not cross. He hewed a holly branch to hold him and trimmed it and took the last of the food, and set out over the ice to fetch her.

He climbed towards the Tor of Ghosts from where he could see all the world that was.

He met spirits on the high fell; wolves, too, and bulls and bears and boars; but the way was longer than before and the land shifted under him, and the light around. He saw things that he could not tell: things that wound their tails round knolls, and the knars were big men that were not there. He dreamed horrors as he walked.

And the wind grew worse. Each hill had a hood, a huge hackle of mist, and the cold clear rain that shed from the clouds was ice when it hit. He should have been dead of the sleet; but Ludcruck held. The clamour of the cranes and the beasts reached out and kept him for this journey.

So. It was the morning when he woke and left the hole where he had slept and he followed a clough into a wood with banks on each side and the tangled trees were hung with skins of moss and on the twigs birds cried for pain of the cold. But it was shelter from the wind as he climbed, until he came out on a moor and the white snow lay beside. The sky was red, and the sun shone on the Tor of Ghosts above him.

He climbed towards the ridge of the Tor, leaning on the branch, and however far he climbed the ridge came no nearer. But he knew it was the trick of the Tor, so that only the strong mind would gain the peak. Behind him billowed to the Motherworld.

The sun was as high as it reached at that season, and he saw the ridge grow nearer and felt the ground ease under his branch. The wind had dropped. The ridge was before him. The rocks of the Tor were its crest, and he stepped onto them.

Below him lay all that was. He looked across to the hills that kept the Flatlands from falling into the sky. And in that distance there was no one. He called to the woman, but she did not answer. The bone of the Mother was pure, but his hand had not cut true. He had waited too long. Now he was not singer, not dancer, but the meat of pain.

He cramped on the rock of the Tor and wept. Then, because his head was low, he saw nearer, through the water of his eyes, the Hill of Death and Life stretching into the Flatlands. And from the Hill smoke rose in the still air.

He pulled himself by the holly to stand and look again. It was the smoke of one fire.

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