Earth Magic (21 page)

Without a look at Oliver, Giles smiled at the girl, rose, and walked away with her, accepting the moment. He did say, “He is not my grandfather. Not exactly.”

“How naughty you are to deny your own grandfather,” she said. “You look so much alike.”

Some time later, there was a lull in the singing and dancing. In that space, Oliver saw Giles take a sudden run at the Joy-tree and swiftly shinny it. At the top, Giles seized a sweetcake from the brush, and was cheered. When he returned to the ground, he carried the cake off into the dark.

Oliver could not help but marvel at how changed this Giles was from the young Haldane he had once known. And wondered whether he would depart by himself in the morning. But he thought not.

He need not have wondered. In the night, a second sign came to Giles, a dream that he had. This was when he slept alone.

In the dream, Giles followed the white wurox of the Goddess along distant roads unknown to him, over rivers and through mountains. And Giles was not alone in the dream. Oliver was with him, one step behind. They walked for the longest time where the white wurox went, and it seemed that they wished to stop, but could not. They must follow the wurox and go where the wurox went. But then they came to a place where the wurox turned and plunged into the earth and disappeared, swallowed by the land. Suddenly gone as suddenly appeared. And in that place, Giles looked over his shoulder and saw Oliver, one step behind. And in that place, they were able to stop at last because they knew it was the proper place to halt. Or so it was in the dream that Giles had.

In the morning, there was no white wurox to be seen and followed. But Giles joined Oliver when he was ready for the road. Giles had his signs.

Oliver said, “Do you bear me company home?”

“I’ll bear you company along your road,” Giles said. “I will bear you company home. That, or until I see a place I know. I will take my direction as I see it. But for now I will bear you company along your road.”

“Very well,” said Oliver. “I am grateful for your company while I have it.”

Many miles and many days later, they still kept company. It was the end of a day when there had been flowers. There was golden light, and on their left was a storm hanging heavy near the setting sun. The storm was black and the rain could be seen like threads in the sky. The storm paralleled their passage and gave them company as they walked the high road through the temperate golden spring.

They came over a crest of the hill, and a new world was revealed. Above the road on the hillside was a cottage, not unlike other cottages they had passed. Beyond the house there were sheep at graze, happy in the golden light, knowing nothing of impending storms.

“We are here,” said Oliver.

Here? This was no palace or great house. It was an ordinary hut, a little thatched house. Another confession. Another failure.

Giles looked out over the valley at the gathering storm. And in that instant, his sight was whole and clear and he saw madeness once more. The farther hill had to his eye the look of an animal. In the strange light he saw the head and forequarters of a great wurox, half-sunken in the land. When he saw that great sculpture, Giles knew this was the place.

He accepted the will of the Goddess. And he turned, and there at his elbow was Oliver, as though their destinies were linked.

They made their way up the path to the cottage door. There were flowers planted before the cottage.

“I had forgotten that,” said Oliver. “So much time has passed since I left home.”

They stood there in the golden glow, the first rising breezes of the storm only reaching them now. The door was painted green. It was a double door, unlike any Giles had seen before.

The top of the door opened, and a woman stood looking out at them. She was not yet old, but more than middle-aged. She held one plump hand to her large bosom.

“Yes?” she said uncertainly.

Oliver said, “Do you not know me, Berthe? It is I, Noll, your own brother, returned at last from my adventures with my grandson Giles.”

“Noll!” she said. “Can it really be you, Noll? It is. It is! It is my own dear Noll, come home at last as he said that he would.”

The door was opened to them and they were swept inside. As they were held and cried over and exclaimed upon, the red light of the last sun struck home in the dark storm as it overtook them at last. Thunder crashed, and the red rain fell like fire on the land.

Giles stood beside his grandfather Oliver—old Sailor Noll returned from his long travels at sea—and watched the rain fall for a moment, and then the cottage door was closed behind them and they were home.