The Winged Man

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 2

Journey Between the WorldsBladud soon found himself in a landscape of gently rolling chalk hills — of soft, feminine curves, where the forests had been almost completely cleared to make way for hamlets and villages nestling beside fertile fields of barley, wheat and rye. Many of the hills were crowned with grass-covered mounds — burials from the ancient days, and reputed to be haunted. Such was the superstitious awe they evoked that no one would build a house or grow their crops close to them, and so they remained for generation after generation, isolated and mysterious. As Bladud moved through the valley he could see them like a regiment of warriors keeping guard on an ancient secret. He was intrigued. He was fascinated. Yet as he had left the last village after rest and refreshment he had been warned not to approach them, and instead was directed round to the south, that would take him many miles out of his way. Watched by the villagers, he had set off as instructed, but once out of their sight he had doubled back so that his route took him close to an area where there was a particularly impressive group of these mounds.

For a while he kept to the valley, looking up at them from a distance, curious and wondering. Then he could bear it no longer: he had to know more about them. He left his horse cropping happily below, and started to climb the hill towards a cluster of three mounds. The long grass, uncropped by grazing animals, swished against his legs. Yellow, white and blue flowers shook out their scent as he brushed against them. There was no sinister darkening of the natural world around these burial places; all was light and bright and burgeoning. But under the trees that topped the first mound he reached, the shade lay thick and black in contrast. At its summit he sat down to rest, propping his back against the trunk of an oak, and gazing out through the other tall trees towards the dazzling landscape he had left behind. He felt alert, but not afraid. He was prepared for any adventure.

To his disappointment nothing happened at first. He sighed — so many stories, so little substance. Drowsily he began to drift into reverie. And then it seemed to him that he was sinking back into the tree. That he was becoming the tree. He could almost feel what it was like to be a branch high in the air, bending to the wind. He could sense how it must be to live for centuries watching generation after generation of men and women live and die. He could feel how it must be to be rooted in the earth, forcing a path through soil and solid rock, holding the mighty empire of trunk and branch and leaf steady against storm and tempest. All this now seemed natural to him. Suddenly his probing roots met no hindrance and dangled freely in a hollow space before finding purchase again between the square slabs of man-carved stones. At the centre of this empty space he became aware of the skeleton of a man — his legs entangled in the roots, his eye sockets filled with dust. In his mind’s eye Bladud could envisage the burial quite clearly. There was an elaborate dagger at the dead man’s side, its hilt studded with tiny golden pins. There was a great gold brooch at the shoulder which no doubt had once fastened a cloak long since disintegrated with damp and time. In the bony fingers of the right hand was still clutched a golden cup, curiously ridged, and ringed with jewels.

Startled at the vividness of this vision Bladud jerked upright from where he had slumped against the tree. His heart was beating fast. Was this a dream? It did not feel like one. He felt suddenly desperately thirsty, as though he had been asleep for a very long time.

He saw, or rather felt, a movement to his left. He glanced round quickly to see a huge man standing beside him. As Bladud looked up at him, the figure seemed as tall as the trees, but when he sprang to his feet in alarm, he found the man not much taller than his own father. Bladud’s first thought was that he was seeing a ghost, but he then dismissed this, as the stranger seemed solid enough. Swallowing his initial panic, the young prince tried to sound unperturbed.

‘I hope, sir, I am not trespassing on your land. I intended no discourtesy... ‘

The stranger was dark-haired and bearded, and clad like a warrior king, though in clothes that would have been deemed eccentric in any court that Bladud had ever visited.

‘No offence has been committed, lad,’ replied a deep and pleasant voice.

The man appeared so suddenly and so silently that Bladud felt awkward. Had he been observing him for some time? And if no one ever came to these mounds, as the villagers claimed, why was he here?

‘My name is Bladud of Trinovantum,’ he said at last, trying to speak with the authority which his noble lineage entitled him to. ‘I am son of the High King Hudibras.’

Bladud expected the stranger to identify himself in turn, but was disappointed. Instead the man continued to look deep into his eyes.

Bladud cleared his throat. ‘May I have your name and lineage sir?’ he prompted, feeling uncomfortable under the shrewd and steady gaze.

‘You have come a long way to this place. Yet you have no fear?’

‘Should I fear?’ Bladud asked.

The man did not reply.

‘I have waited a long time for you to come. You are welcome.’

‘How did you know I was coming, when I did not know it myself?’

‘Do you know everything about yourself?’ The question seemed gently mocking.

‘I thought I did,’ answered Bladud uncertainly.

The stranger threw back his head and laughed aloud. Bladud flushed and began to resent the feeling that he was being treated like a green boy instead of a man. For a boy on the threshold of manhood this could seem intolerable.

As though he understood Bladud’s hurt feelings, and now regretted his amusement, the man held out his right hand.

‘Drink. You must be thirsty after your long journey.’

Bladud was about to refuse sulkily, but then he saw what the man held out. It was a cup of beaten gold, ridged and ringed with jewels exactly as he had seen in his vision of the burial inside the mound. He gasped and stared. His first instinct was to run away as fast as he could, and he indeed took a few steps backward. Yet something stopped him. Curiosity? For a long time Bladud stared at the cup, unmoving. Then he reached forward and took it, draining the clear golden liquid in a few quick gulps. It was strange and tangy to the taste, but quenched his thirst instantly. He handed back the cup, and the man took it, smiling into Bladud’s eyes.

Suddenly Bladud seemed to be high above the mound and looking down. The landscape lay below him in every shade of green, huge trees appeared as small as puffballs, and a river he had just had difficulty in fording, no more than the silver slime-track of a snail. Strange. He turned and the whole earth seemed to wheel with him. I am flying, he thought. And then, with growing excitement, I am flying! The air held him. The air flowed around him like silk. Now the clouds were beneath him and the green forests above.

‘I am flying!’ he cried out loud — but from his throat came only a harsh and wordless sound. It frightened him. He had longed to be a bird when he had seen them winging so freely across the sky. But in reality to be a bird...

I don’t want this, he thought. I want to fly, but...

He was suddenly no longer flying.

He was standing on the mound where he had drunk from the mysterious golden cup. And he was alone. There was no sign of the man who had offered it to him. He rushed in turn to each side of the mound, peering out across the landscape in every direction.

Now Bladud felt truly afraid. He had drunk from the golden cup: a magic potion strong enough to transform him from man to bird. What else had the stranger in mind for him? He felt weird, as though he were drifting between two worlds, belonging to neither.

In a panic he ran, stumbling, to where his horse was grazing at the foot of the hill. He leaped on and rode away from that place as fast as he could.

He had not gone far in his blind dash to get away from the mysteries of the mound when he found himself galloping down an avenue of standing stones. Alarmed after his recent experience he tried to rein in his steed, but the beast pursued his headlong course as though directed by a master greater than the human on his back. On either side the grey shapes stood tall and sinister and, though they were spaced generously apart, it seemed to Bladud they formed a continuous wall of invisible force to hold him in and propel him onwards.

Suddenly the stallion came to a stop, and Bladud all but catapulted off his back. Ahead stood two huge stones much larger than any in the avenue, and on either side of them, curving away into the distance, loomed a defensive ridge crowned by yet more gigantic upright slabs of rock. He had heard of such places from his father’s High Priest, the Druid Fergal. Great circles of standing stones erected by giants who lived so long ago that even the local races who had inhabited this land before his own people arrived did not claim lineage from them. Some of the mighty slabs were fallen down, and the whole place gave an impression of disuse and dereliction. Overgrown as it was with tall grasses, brambles and trees, it was not easy to see how far the great circle extended.

‘They are gateways,’ Fergal had told him. ‘But don’t be tempted to pass through!’ Entrusted by Hudibras with his son’s education, his mentor had recognised only too well Bladud’s insatiable curiosity — particularly about aspects of knowledge that were forbidden.

‘Gateways to what?’ Bladud had insisted.

‘Some say the Otherworld.’

‘What do you say?’

‘I say we do not know, so we should leave them well alone. There are stories of young men who have dared to cross the threshold of the Otherworld while still in the flesh of this world, and they have never been seen again, or they have emerged a few days later, bent and old, white-haired and rheumy-eyed, so dazed and crazed that they were unable to remember a thing of what had happened to them. There are stories too of young men found wandering this world in search of their lost homes and families, which they claimed to have left only a few days before — but which proved to have been long since laid waste and perished.’

Bladud’s eyes grew big with excitement. To enter such a place — and come back knowing... !

But now his steed would not go forward.

‘One moment you won’t stop,’ the prince muttered angrily, ‘and the next you won’t start! Well, you can stay here. But I am going through.’

He swung off the animal’s back decisively. Gripping his spear and checking the dagger at his belt, he strode purposefully forward between the two great silent stones — the mighty gateposts of the gods.

He expected something dramatic as soon as he entered, and braced himself, but nothing happened. The grass within the circle felt just as springy, just as feathery and prickly as the grass outside. The buttercups and clover, plantain and lacy saxifrage were just as prolific. Alder and rowan and hawthorn trees grew peacefully. The only slightly unnerving sight was one of the mighty stones fallen on its side, riven in half by an oak whose roots were so closely entwined with the rock that it looked as though living stone was being strangled by a vast serpent. He could see other stones standing nearby, almost totally covered with bramble, but clearly not forming part of the main circle. He wondered about the old tales. Could the spirit lands be entered through these ancient sites? Why were there no trees hung with crystal, golden men and women, music so unearthly and so beautiful that, once heard, a person was spoiled forever for the things of this earth? Part of him was glad that none of this was evident, yet part of him was bitterly disappointed. He decided to retrace his steps, to find his steed, and continue on his way. He had already suffered too many delays.

Returning the way he had come, he soon reached the stone which had been felled by the oak. But after walking some way beyond, he stopped and puzzled why he had not yet come upon the two gigantic portal stones, or the deep ditch and the ridge. There was no sign of them. Instead, in front of him, rose a much smaller stone. Glancing to his left and right, and then behind, he found he was standing within a lesser circle contained within the greater one. He did not remember seeing this before, and decided that he must have veered off his course without realising it. This circle was clear of undergrowth and bramble, as though it had been recently tended, and the stones shone silvery grey in the sunlight.

Beautiful, he thought, and went up to touch one, marvelling at the intricacy of light that sprang, sparkling, from a million minute crystals on the rock’s surface. Suddenly he was not in such a hurry to leave, and began to experience a sense of peace such as he had never known before. Restlessness and impatience had always been a feature of his young life. He was often bored with the continual daily round and priorities of his father’s court. True he enjoyed the bardic tales, but not when they were no more than chronicles of bloody battles and cruel massacres of enemies. Many a time he had thought that there must be more than this to life: the giving of gifts to secure the loyalty of vassals, the killing of enemies, and the vengeance, jealousy and greed of those around the High King. He admired his father for the strength and order of his reign, but he could not talk to him about the strange stirrings of his heart — the yearning for some meaning to his life beyond birth, procreation and death, beyond the displays of gold and the gathering of tribute and tithes.

Nor could he talk to his mother, for she was dead. It was perhaps her death that had first alerted him to these feelings of dissatisfaction. He often had the impression his life was speeding by, and yet it felt as though it were somebody else’s life and not his own. He did not know exactly what he hoped to learn from the oracle he was now on his way to consult, but, if nothing else, he hoped she would explain who he was, and why he was here, and where he was going. Nothing else matters, he thought as he leaned his head against the stone. Nothing else.

* * * *

‘It is beginning,’ Bladud whispered, and his heart skipped a beat. Something was different. He could not define it but it was as though he was becoming aware of things he would not normally notice: the tiny creakings and chitterings in the grass of busy insects, the sound of wings in flight from birds so far away they were no more than faint specks in the sky. Similarly his sight grew more and more acute, till he believed he could see individual grass stems and the leaves of plants not only trembling in the breeze but actually growing. He watched a flower with intense concentration and saw it shake out its petals from the tight knot of its bud until it formed a blazing circle of yellow light and then — within moments — fade and droop and die. At first he felt elated by this strange sharpening of his senses, but then, as they became each moment more and more finely developed, he found the experience frightening and overwhelming. The faintest single sound became so loud that altogether the whole cacophony became no longer bearable. He covered his ears with his hands to shut it out. His eyes were dazzled by a blazing brilliance that, even with eyes closed, flickered through the lids. He crouched on the ground, his arms over his head, trying desperately to shut it all out: the sounds, the sights, the scents, the feelings...

And when he could bear it no longer, he lost consciousness, falling into silence and merciful darkness.

* * * *

When Bladud woke again he was thankful to find that his senses seemed to have returned to normal, though now, for the first time, he realised how primitive and inadequate that normality really was.

He found himself lying on a couch in a light and airy chamber. As his eyes adjusted to waking, he noticed a young woman standing beside him. Her hair was loose, falling to below her waist in shining golden waves. Her eyes were the blue of the summer sky, her dress fern green. She was looking at him with close attention.

He was startled. Was it after all true what he had heard about the Shining Realms — the Otherworld that mirrored our earthly wishes and desires? She looked all that he had ever dreamed of or wished for...

Trying to sit up, he found his limbs so heavy he could scarcely move them. The woman smiled and leaned over him, putting her fine white hands under his shoulders and raising him to a sitting position as easily as she would a child. He wanted to speak to her but his tongue was too heavy. He found he could not move it to form words, but uttered only a kind of croak when he opened his mouth. He was shamed that he seemed such an ugly lump of clay against her ethereal beauty.

Drawing back she poured liquid from a tall crystal flask into a silver cup and offered it to him. When he could not lift his hand to grasp it, she raised the cup to his lips. He could feel the liquid enter his mouth and run down his chin. And then he felt that it was bitter and burning, and he tried to cry out and push it away.

Another touch of a cool hand and the burning ceased. He looked up to find another young woman at his side, identical in every way to the first. Unhurriedly she poured some liquid from the same crystal flask, and held it to his lips. This time he tried to pull his head away in order to avoid drinking, but she persisted and he could feel it trickle down his throat. He braced himself, but this time there was no discomfort — and suddenly he found he could move his mouth more easily. Tentatively he flexed the muscles in his hand and found to his relief that they responded.

He looked from one woman to the other, marvelling at their likeness, puzzling that the liquid poured from the same flask should have such very different effects on him. Which of these two had given him the burning liquid, and which the cool? He could not tell. They were both watching him with amusement.

Suddenly he felt angry. Why was he, a strong and agile young man, being subjected to this humiliation? What did they want of him?

Then both young women offered him their cups together. No words were spoken but he felt he must choose between them, and that if he chose wrongly it would go ill for him. He looked from one woman to the other and could discern no difference.

‘I am no longer thirsty,’ he said coldly. ‘I want no more to drink.’

The women continued to watch him closely, and to his chagrin he found that he was thirsty after all: very thirsty, and growing thirstier by the moment. He also found that his limbs were again growing heavy and unmanageable.

He forced himself to speak once more, from lips that would now scarcely open.

‘Why are you doing this to me? Why... ?’

They came even closer, each offering him a cup — one of which he believed would save him, the other destroy him. With a tremendous effort he lurched forward, knocking both vessels from their hands, and reaching out for the flask itself. He strained every muscle in his body to grasp it, but could not. At least he must have touched it, because he saw it drop as he himself fell to the floor. The liquid splashed into his face, some falling on to his lips and into his open mouth. He swallowed.

‘Whatever happens,’ he thought, ‘I have made my choice.’

Two emotions were now in conflict: relief that he had outwitted his two beautiful tormentors, and fear of the consequences of his drinking directly from the flask. He closed his eyes.

After a moment, as nothing seemed to happen, he gazed around and found himself no longer in the chamber with the couch, but lying on grass in the open. Around him he could see the tall stones ranged as they had been before the strange incident. The sky above was blue, with drifting summer clouds. Buttercups and clover clustered close against his face. Cautiously he raised himself, finding with relief that his limbs moved easily. He stood up slowly and peered around in every direction. There could be no doubt that this inner circle had received recent attention, whereas the rest of the huge enclosure had not. Here the grass was shorter, and all brambles and nettles had been cleared away. But now he did not feel the eeriness of before, and he wondered if he had merely fallen asleep and dreamed the whole incident. But surely it had seemed too vivid for a dream? He realised that it had some purpose, a meaning of importance for him — though at this time he could not think what. But, dream or not, this place had a power that could affect him against his will, and he would be wise to leave it. He strode out of the inner circle without further incident, and almost immediately located the two great portal stones he had experienced such difficulty in finding earlier. Outside his horse was waiting for him patiently.

Riding away through the tall, shimmering grasses, the seductive beauty of the two young women haunted him. He could not shake off a feeling that he had not seen the last of them.