Chains of Gold (24 page)

A hall, with a smooth floor that shone like black water. But so vast I could see no walls—and above, where there must have been a roof of stone.… I shut my eyes for a moment, dazzled, then looked again at a sun and several moons. But the sun was a golden serpent of flame floating far above me, slowly wheeling, his mouth clinging to his tail. And the moons were serpents of silver fire, some of them biting their tails, some curved into crescents. And between them arched the serpent of seven colors, the rainbow.

There was no time for gazing. Many presences filled that place; I sensed them. But I saw only one Presence, the mighty one beneath a canopy of gems and golden chains resplendent in snakelight. The elementals led me before her, and it was she, deity, the goddess.

Her Presence needed no throne. She lay on the dais, on lavishings of fur, coverlets and pillows of fur. Naked she lay there, brown, deep-breasted as earth, and all about her on the dais or beside it the most regal of beasts crouched or sat or lay, wolves and leopards and golden-maned yaels and suckling bears, and by her right hand rested a whip as she reclined, a whip of nine black strands, and knotted on the strands were white knucklebones from human hands.

“Little daughter,” she said to me, “welcome. It has been a long time since one of my children came so boldly to visit me.”

She was larger than any mortal woman, thewed mightily and yet billowing with softness like brown hillsides, clad only in her own lush hair of head and elsewhere, and there was a golden chain around her loins which covered nothing. Left hand and forearm steadied her head, and she regarded me levelly out of wide-set dark eyes, a handsome and frightening face. On her brow lay a golden fillet in the shape of a snake, a small and delicate serpent—or at least I thought it to be made of gold until it lazily lifted its head and flickered its tongue at me.

“Kneel,” someone hissed in my ear.

“She need not kneel,” the goddess said. “Leave us, all of you.”

I heard rather than saw my retinue withdraw. I stood speechless, my eyes caught by the Great Mother's eyes, my thoughts empty of everything except holy dread.

“So you have been unhappy, daughter,” she said in a voice that might have been intended to be soft, gentle; coming out of her it yet filled me with fear. “I had not meant it to be so for you.”

I moved my mouth with a great effort, wet my dry lips. “Lonn,” I whispered.

“Yes,” she agreed, “he is troublesome.”

“No.… Yes, but I mean Lonn, my baby.”

“You named him that?” Her head came up somewhat, and her brow creased in a puzzled frown. I quailed before that frown. But I had to ask her.

“Yes. I—we—I thought he might be here.”

“But why?” Her strong left hand came down, and she sat almost upright in her astonishment. “I know nothing of this.”

“I—we—that is, the oracle said—” It seemed more horrible, more wrong than ever, and I could no longer meet her eyes. I felt myself shrinking into an earthen lump of shame.

“Speak,” she told me sharply.

“We cast him away upon the Naga.”

Her breath hissed between her teeth, she tore off the serpent from her brow and flung it away, and in one horrible moment I saw her crouched like an animal among her animals, her gruesome whip raised in her hand, and I thought she would use it on me. I shut my eyes and stood still for it; I felt I deserved it. But she did not.

“There must be at worst a mistake, at best a reason,” she said roughly. “Foolish child, I gave you everything, and you have thrown it away, cast it away, your blessedness! Tell me why.”

So I told her, not daring to look at her again, told her the tale of Lonn's interference and our journeying in search of a remedy, and when I had finished she remained as angry as ever.

“Rae Cerilla Runaway of the Gwyneda!” So she really did know me, fully know me, my name and all about me. “Little fool, did you not know—could you not tell—look at me!”

I looked up, compelled by her command, and gasped: she was a skeletal serpent, huge, crawling toward me on the ends of her bleached ribs. But even as I gasped she was a hag, a wizened mandrake woman, hard and knotty as old roots in winter; and then the fierce mare, beast among beasts, rearing up with a mighty neigh; and the breasted serpent rising and swaying far above my head; and the wicca, the old wise woman of the woods, dressed as a peasant and laughing at me. And then she was standing naked as before, but her breasts were many, they hung like clustered fruit all around her. And she raised her whip, and she was the black aurochs with long white horns, and she was a raven stooping at me with a croaking scream. But before I could wince she was herself again in naked and motherly form, and she laid her whip aside and looked at me.

“You are brave,” she said.

Indeed, I was merely too stunned and miserable to run. I said nothing.

“And I know you are not stupid,” she went on, somewhat bitter but no longer angry. “You have all your father's shrewdness, and none of his spleen.… I thought it was all so plain. Could you not tell that my special favor went with you? That I suspended the requirements of the ceremonial for your sake? That none of the usual strictures apply to you? You could leave the Sacred Isle by my good grace, find shelter, eat the elderberries, receive the aid of the most puissant of mandrakes when you needed it, eat the food of the oak elves without harm, pass the many guardians of the forbidden places, be they serpents, wolves, bears or wild bulls, or the odd folk who live under the swaying stones.… You should have known you bore my blessing. Ophid should have known as well. You could have named the babe whatever you wanted.”

Utter astonishment made me bold. “But why?” I cried. “Why have you so favored us?”

She shrugged one vast bare shoulder, whimsical. “Who knows? Arlen, his love for my creatures, his wonder—I have always held a special affection for him. And you, your yearnings, your daring—”

Heart broke into anger at the thought of the gift that had availed us naught. “But how were we to know?” I shouted, stamping. “Whatever your—gracious intentions for us, our way was hard enough!”

“Daring,” said the goddess coldly, “can be overdone.”

I froze, eyes lowered.

“That was Lonn's doing,” she added more softly.

I ventured to glance at her again; she looked merely thoughtful. “But why?” I asked again, quietly this time.

“His reasons are his own.” She sounded mildly amused. “I am not privy to them.”

“Is he here, that I might ask him?”

“I think not. He is one who skulks about on the far side of the bourne, in the shadows, one who comes and goes. I have not heard of him lately, and I think he has not yet found the wherewithal to pay the boatman.” By my life, but she was callous, she! “But we shall see, if you like. Come here, sit.”

Warily I obeyed her, sitting at the feet of a leopard, on the edge of the dais. She still loomed above me; I did not dare turn my head to look at her, so close. Idly she clapped her hands, and tiny lights grew in the depths of the hall, as if stars somehow floated there, or white fireflies, reflecting faintly on the smooth, gleaming floor.

“Dance,” the goddess said.

The lights grew larger, yet softer, until they formed pale, human semblances, head and shoulders and a hint of trailing limbs. A vast crowd of them, a sea, a flood, spread into the reaches of that great hall, and they arranged themselves into serpentine lines such as the waves of the sea must be. At once, swaying, they started to move.

“You will see that your babe is not here either,” the goddess told me.

I became aware that there was music, a voiceless music coursing through me, my body, my heartbeat, my breathing. Such a silent dance, no scrape of feet, no talk, and yet all moved in perfect accord with that swelling rhythm, the rhythm of tides and days and seasons. The white lines rippled into spirals, flowed into interlocking circles that turned through each other, and after a while I dimly saw that the whole swirled in form of a great, circling wheel that slowly spun on darkness—the goddess, she the hub. The shifting vortex floated past me where I sat on the dais, and within the wheel the smaller circles ebbed and flowed, blooming like flowers, melting into each other, until I grew aware of a pattern I scarcely could grasp and knew that every luminous spirit of that whole vast throng had, for a moment at least, his place before me. And there were many whom I knew: my mother, my earthly mother, a white spiritous stranger; and Erta, and others who had gone beyond. And there were babies aplenty, but not my baby. And comely youths, but not Lonn. It must have been a long time that I sat there, but I think I went into a kindly trance, for I do not remember it so. I remember only the dance turning, turning, turning—

“Be done,” said the goddess, and the lights dimmed away.

“So you see,” she told me in tones of patience, “they are not here.”

“Is there not another place—” I hesitated, but I had to ask her. “—even more pleasant than this, a sort of meadow …?”

“Yes indeed. But Lonn is not there, I assure you.”

I looked up at her, letting her see my perplexity. “But he was a hero.”

“A hero without wisdom is only another sort of fool. Lonn was the usual sort of young ass, knowing only how to be loyal and brave. The shadow within self he could not deal with. The human way is not often the hero's way.” She stood up, waving me off the dais with one hand, and I went down to stand before her again.

“Go eat again, Rae,” she told me, “and sleep. I will consult the deep pools, to see what has become of your child.”

I stood blinking up at her. I must have been more weary than I knew, for I spoke as a child myself. “So you do not hate me, Mother,” I blurted. I dared to call her that to her face.

“Indeed, no!” She sounded shocked, amused, even tender—she who demanded twice yearly the sacrifice of youthful blood. “Where I have once given my favor, even on a whim, I will not lightly withdraw it, Rae. Your faithfulness is a mirror of my own.” She gestured softly, vaguely, in my direction. “Go, eat, sleep.”

I gave an awkward bow by way of courtesy, turned, and went blindly. Soon I was flanked by the elementals again. They led me back to my sumptuous chamber, and I slept for many hours.

I had one more audience with the goddess before I left that place. This time the hall glowed with the light of nine serpent suns, and the animals lay sleeping, even the serpent on her forehead. The goddess wore a full-skirted gown of a golden cloth that swirled about her hips; her bodice was studded with gems, and her breasts stood bare except for the nipples, which were gilded. I felt more uncomfortable in the presence of that finery than I had before her nakedness.

“I have seen the babe floating in the basket down the Naga,” she told me, and instantly I forgot her deep-clefted breasts. “He was struggling,” she added.

“Crying,” I murmured, aching with the old pang.

“No, not so much crying in the manner of babes; struggling. The tiny ones do not struggle against death, for they do not understand. This was Lonn struggling against loss of the body he had taken for himself. And he found strength in it somehow to tip himself into the shallows, and he crawled ashore.”

I listened with breathless hope. “Yes,” I said eagerly, “yes, he was growing very strong even before I—”

“Abandoned him. Say it candidly. So he had to grow rapidly, and he has grown more rapidly since. He learned to walk that first day, the pool tells me, toddled away from the river until some few days later he found shelter in a homestead.”

“Before—before the storm came down?”

“It must have been. At any rate he was fed, and the folk there think they were visited by a god, for within a few weeks he had grown to the size and skill of a boy of seven years, and within a few months he had grown to the likeness of a stripling of the age of passage, and a churlish one at that. And by the time the whitethorn bloomed he had attained the strength of a youth. And at the time of the ceremonial of the summerking he left them.”

“Bound where?” I cried.

“He did not say. But I think you know where.”

I did indeed know, and I fervently hoped I would return to Arlen before Lonn did. I took a few hasty steps before I recalled my manners. “Good my Mother,” I requested, “may I leave you now?”

“Certainly. The clothes you wear are yours to keep. And you know you need no gold for the boatman. Go with all blessing.”

“Thank you, Mother,” I told her, bowing, and I turned and ran, my red cloak flying behind me.

“And may yours be the victory,” she added, and though her words were quiet I heard them. But I gave no sign, for I was in haste.

Back under golden archways. Back past jade gardens, over marble floors; back past black pools where white swans floated amid waterlilies, past the singing serpent. It did not occur to me that I should ever muse on those things or remember them with wonder. I thought only of reaching the passage and Bucca. Should he still be there in his glade, should he not have strayed too far—

He was standing just at the rim of the rock, close by the passage entry, already saddled and bridled and awaiting me, and on him were loaded blankets and bags full of provision; I noticed the aroma of meats and freshly baked bread. And laid across his saddle was a single gold chain. I slipped it around my neck, hid it under my gown of green.

“Thank you, Mother,” I shouted to the forest, the rocks, the Adder's Head far below, glinting in the sunlight. Then I sprang onto Bucca and started with all speed back toward home.

NINETEEN

The season had advanced since I had ventured into the Afterworld. The early trees were starting to yellow. All my thoughts turned to hurry, the more so when I thought of Arlen; I tried not to do so. I hurt with yearning for him.

Down, down, we went, along the Naga as far as the Blackwater, for a rocky wilderness barred any other way, forcing me southward. And then, at last, moorland, and I turned sharply northward and eastward. The goddess had provisioned me well, and Bucca was well rested; we went relentlessly, the horse and I, dawn and day and twilight. I let Bucca gulp the tall grasses on the move. And although the Naga and the moorlands seemed to crawl snailishly away behind us, I am sure we traveled swiftly, more swiftly than heroes in legends of old. If Lonn went afoot, I reasoned, we might yet reach Arlen before him, or even overtake him.