Merlin's Wood (Mythago Wood) by Robert Holdstock

Author:Robert Holdstock [Holdstock, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy Fiction
ISBN: 9780575088061
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2014-01-30T06:00:00+00:00

An altar bell was ringing.

‘Martin!’ came the cry. (Again! … he had been half-aware of being called for some minutes.)

It was very cold. He sat up and stared around him, at the empty glade, the long-dead fire, the moisture on the grass, the scattered stones of the cairn, the trees. Where was Rebecca?

Again, the tinkling of the bell from the lake, and the priest’s call. Martin looked at his hands, suddenly shocked to see the shallow scars, the still-sore cuts and patterns. As he stood inside clothes that were damp and rank, so he felt the pain of cuts from neck to groin. He looked quickly to the tree where the bones of Merlin lay. The yellow shards were scattered, fox-struck, batted and played with as the marrow was found to have long been sucked away. Of Conrad, of the corpse, there was no sign.

Something was wrong. That damned bell! And the priest sounded frightened as he called. And the silence …

And the beard on his face.

Martin touched the thick stubble. It was wet with dew, an abrasive beard, now, a week’s growth perhaps.

Where was the waterfall?

He was hungry, his hands shaking. He called, ‘Rebecca? Daniel?’

His trousers were saturated with his own urine. Around him, where he had been curled up, were the remains of bread, some rinds of cheese, the picked bones of a chicken, a china flagon that might have contained cider or water.

And the dream broke! Rebecca wasn’t here – she had never been here – just a dream, just as Merlin had promised, but nothing more …

‘Rebecca!’ he cried aloud, then let his disappointment surface in tears, hugging his body, rocking where he sat as the anguish came through, and the brief touch with his family was taken away from him by the cold dawn, by cold reality.

When the despair had quietened, he left the grove of Merlin’s tomb and followed the path to the lake. Father Gualzator saw him and stopped ringing the small, brass bell.

‘I was worried about you,’ the priest called from the canoe. The boat drifted sideways on the still water, just beyond the rushes. The man frowned, peering hard.

‘Martin?’

‘I saw her. I saw them both …’

‘Who?’

‘Rebecca. And Daniel.’ The dream flowed through his mind again. He stared into the distance, remembering. ‘I ran for so long, Father. It was such a wilderness – nothing but forest, and rivers. I ran across hills, I ran through caves, I felt the strength of a hound in my legs, I kept running. I was so lost, but I kept running – I could hear them, ahead of me, always just ahead of me. And then I found them, by a pool below a fall of water from the high rocks. They were crouching, drinking with cupped hands. For a while they didn’t see me. I stood across the pool and watched them. Then I called to them and they seemed to hear me. I was very tired and I lay down by the pool and watched them.

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