Mountains
can
be climbed. Questions can be answered and the most difficult of puzzles can be solved. The greatest deeds are not always the most spectacular to behold.
We were to make one last, earth-bound, journey together. I carefully set Norda Elfwych and her raggedy babbie upon Dandy. The hobb took the imposition most graciously, and bore the load without annoyance. And while Wily Cockatrice, Dogsbeard, Licentious, and Wood-shanks came after us a-foot, Lowly Crows chose my shoulder for her perch. If Earthrise was not such a fearsome challenge in its newly diminished state, it was still a hard-fought climb all the same. Remarkable then, that there was no disquiet at the task or the toll it took upon a company already failing by measures. Indeed there was not a single complaint before we achieved its summit. You see, this time we were not a company journeying alone. The Beggar Bards came after us. Aye, to that very same spot…
The Beggar Bards: all of them; each and every one, perhaps two hundred or more in number, though they were not easily counted. They arrived always alone, without a companion, and all came in their own time, just as they expected to. That is, the never-time that belongs to a Beggar Bard’s tale, and is not easily reckoned or reconciled by common men.
They too struggled up that mountain, came upon it from all sides. Found a way. Some, possibly many, travelled in sight of each other. It did not spur them on to a greater effort. It did not shy them away from their task. They simply came on, regardless, and from every corner of the Graynelore (it has so many). They arrived: a-foot, and sitting upon horse and cart, and riding upon their hobbs – until the rising ground beneath them forbad it, and forced them to scramble, often down upon their hands and knees. They climbed steep scarps and came across rock-strewn scree slopes that shifted dangerously beneath them with every step.
The youngest of them appeared to be little more than babbies. The eldest, among many, was much older even than Wily Cockatrice, the ancient crone.
And when at last they found themselves upon the summit of the mountain they each did a most simple thing. (After first taking a short respite, either to catch their breath, or to bite upon a piece of bread, or to suck upon a pipe, or to scratch away a needy itch, or to wipe away a lathered brow…Or else to take a moment to contemplate the world now revealed around and about them: from the unknown wastelands in the North, to the Marches in the South, and to the unending shorelines of the Great Sea.)
And what they each did was this:
They put their hands inside their cloth and took out a small piece of broken stone – that often flashed with gold, glittered temptingly in the sun – and they laid it down upon the ground. Each stone was left upon exactly the right spot, and met perfectly with the last one placed there; edge for edge, line for line, without a mistake or need of correction. And so the tablet of stone grew and the patterns upon its ancient time-worn face were slowly revealed.
I felt it was a most sacred deed.
In all of this, the Beggar Bards did not purposefully look to seek us out there. Their tales were all told…When eyes met, a few lent a cautious greeting; a nod and a sly wink; a discreet bow. Though they did not ask anything of us eight. And we did nothing more than wait there for them all to come. No one of them was needed any more than any other; no one of them could have been done without. If there was never a time when two Beggar Bards came face to face upon that mountain top.
By chance I recognized Ringbald when he came and left his own precious relic. He stayed no longer than any did. I showed him my hand in friendship and he showed me his in turn, only to turn away, as each and every one of them turned away, and immediately began his struggle back down the mountainside. At that moment, from off my shoulder, Lowly Crows launched herself into the air, and come to Ringbald’s side; she transformed herself once more into the woman in black. In this way, and in private conversation, she accompanied him a little way along his downward path, only to return once more to me…
And so the thing was done.
I have seen many things in my life. I have known no greater wonder than this.
When all of the Beggar Bards had come and gone again, there, laid out before us on the ground, was a stone tablet. Upon it, there was a map. There were markings made for all things living, as well as for all things naturally dead. Around the edge there were words cut into the stone, in a language and of a description beyond any of our knowledge. Everything was there. Nothing was missed out. The Great Wizard had truly known his world in all its subtle complexity, in all its simplicity too. This was the true Eye Stone. And upon it was shown a Graynelore complete in every form, excepting…
Excepting, there
was
a gap in the face of the tablet.
A single shard of stone was still missing.
There was, as yet, no Faerie Isle.
I did not make a great fuss of it. I knew the part I had to play. I put my hand inside my cloth and laid it upon a strap of leather bound to my wrist. I unwound it and drew out my precious talisman. I took off its clasp, threw away the leather thong, and laid the fragment of stone carefully in its rightful position.
And so, the Faerie Isle was at last revealed to us…without a wish, if not without a Wishard. And where it was marked upon the stone tablet, there it was in truth for our fey eyes to behold – standing out upon the distant sea. We had only to look for it with the right eye, and in the right circumstance, and toward the right spot to find it there.
‘How very small it is…’ said Norda Elfwych. ‘How very small and insubstantial…’ She raised her arms, lifted up her raggedy babbie, as if to let it see.
‘How miraculous…’ I said.
An island, floating upon the sea, passing slowly across the horizon…Never still, nor ever wanting to be still. And where it moved upon the Great Sea it moved again upon the face of the stone tablet: the one, a perfect model of the other.
As I looked upon it, and between the faces of my company, I realized there were expressions of concern.
‘What is it?’ I asked Norda Elfwych.
‘Well…if the Faerie Isle is indeed found again…does that mean that all the creatures of fey are to return into the world?’
In truth I did not know. ‘I have never given it any thought,’ I said, carelessly, ‘I suppose so.’
‘And are all faeries,
good
?’ Norda winced slightly at the use of the word as if it was indicative, but not quite appropriate. (Good and bad are so close together, and yet so far apart in faerie as to be less than satisfactory terms of measurement, if not, quite hopeless.)
‘Are all men, good?’ I replied.
‘I fear, hardly any at all,’ she said, quite dispirited.
‘There is your answer then,’ I said.
‘I thought so,’ she said, and nothing more on the matter. Though the memory of that short conversation was, in after times, often to come back to me, if not in this tale.
Wily Cockatrice had rather more immediate concerns.
‘Ah, but then…how are we to get there…across the Great Sea?’ she asked, at the same time, sucking furiously upon her pipe. ‘A wyrm cannot fly home, nor will she take to the water and swim…’
‘How indeed?’ said Lowly Crows. ‘Unless, of course, you will make us another wish, Rogrig, and give us a ship and a crew to man her?’
I paused…did not reply to her at once.
I was standing at the very top of Earthrise, the black-headed mountain, upon the threshold of a dream. My back was turned firmly against my past. Before me was the Faerie Isle. I was about to find my true home at last.
I had only one, regret.
Notyet.
Her name rested upon my tongue, where it stayed, unspoken. The time for wishes was past, for now.
I shook my head, gave Lowly Crows her answer.
‘No?’ she said, adding, not unkindly, ‘then, I suppose, it will be down to me, again.’ With that, the woman was once more transformed. The sky above Earthrise drew in, and became deep black again. Not with dust, nor yet with cloud, but with a great host of birds, come out of every part of the world, and in a number far beyond our counting. Of course, if we were to wait for as long as it took them all to appear, then my tale, which is fast approaching its desired end, would become far longer than it might, so I will say only this: appear they all did.
And if there had been a man watching us at a distance, he might have thought he saw a great storm of birds. He might then have imagined there was a dragon in the sky, and a wych, and an elf, and a host of other fey creatures. And among them, strangest of all, he might have seen a man riding upon a unicorn. And it might have seemed to him that, together, they rose up into the sky upon a tide of black wings. And that they appeared to come down again upon a far distant Isle that stood out upon the Great Sea. Only the moment they did, the Isle was suddenly no more and the sea was just the sea, after all. And the sun was shining, and its light ran between the distant waves, and then broke apart, into a thousand points of perfect gold…
At the end, would you have come with me to the Faerie Isle, my friend, would you have followed me there and seen it for yourself? In truth, there is very little of a tale in peace and beauty and tranquillity. And the place is not so very different from the lands you have already known.
What I remember best of it is that very first view. Sat upon an enormous shelf of rock, rising out of a broad green pasture, was a pair of magnificent wyrms, lazing together in the sun, their shining scales of purple and red and silver, their great tails endlessly twisting about and about them. There too the living forests, where the dryads and the woodland nymphs stood out to greet us. There too the kelpies frolicking in their blue-green pools. And the trolls, and the bogarts, and the dwarves, seated at the entrance to their dwarven holes, just as the Beggar Bard tales had so often described them. And more, much more, and many: only, these were, truly, as of nothing. For most fabulous of all, out upon their golden pastures was a great host of creatures, moving together in the way of a herd. These were the unifauns; the gentle, the beautiful unifauns…
And there, upon that wondrous Isle, we eight were to stay a while; and regain ourselves. We were to learn, and to remember what we had once been, become what we truly were, and be forewarned of what might, in later times befall us…
I stood before the mirrored pool and saw, at last, my own true fey image reflected there.
Though, we were not, all of us, to remain there forever.
You see, my friend, there is a bitter with the sweet; a final sadness yet to sully the picture and to stain our hearts a little redder still. For if I was to know the joy and the beauty of a growing child; I was also to know the sorrow of a dying mother. Though each deserved better, of both men and the world…I cannot, no, I will not describe Norda’s final moment (though you would beseech me) for that belongs to her alone. The measure of her frailty was too great to be undone. She was never meant for old bones.
Know only this: the man’s stone heart did, finally, break, and give her up a tear…
At the end, Norda called to me from out of the shade, and in her fading shadow-tongue gave me her final farewell:
You cannot have love without hate,
You cannot know joy without first knowing sorrow,
You cannot have wrong without right,
Nor the light of the day without the darkness of night…
I understood.
It was in the fullness of a summer’s day when I found myself, at last, before the door of a familiar house. I had been a very long time absent.
I was sat upon Dandy. Lowly Crows was perched upon my shoulder. Licentious, the gigant, ambled idly a-foot, at my side. He carried a young boy upon his back, who giggled lightly for the lark. The child was elfin. Though I knew him for a Wishard; a Wishard out of an Elfwych…My son, whose name was Sarrow. We had been travelling at our ease; I had given Dandy her head, let her decide upon the path we should take. She had, of course, chosen to take herself home.
There were some new faces among the men, the women, and the babbies who stood out upon the fields, and upon the roadsides, and at their open doors, watching us as we strode past. There was the odd stretch of burnt ground, where, perhaps, a shieling had once stood, or where the mark of an old scourging had not yet quite healed. But little of matter had changed thereabouts.
The bastle-house that had once been my childhood home looked strongly built still. Its walls were solid and unbroken. It stood out under the sun. Someone was at a wind-eye keeping a close watch at our approach. Though, the few men who stood in our path as we came on turned their heads and shied away from us. They were either feigning indifference, or ignorance of who we were. Men, such as us, who were obviously faerie-touched, were never likely to be well received here.
When Dandy stood up in front of the door, I knew why she had brought us here.
‘Old Emma’s Notyet!’ I cried out. ‘Notyet Wishard! I am Rogrig Wishard, also of the Three Dells and born of Dingly Dell. You know me well enough!’
There was a brief moment’s silence. The face within the wind-eye stepped away into the darkness of the house. Then the door of the house was made ajar.
‘Yes. I know you, Rogrig Wishard.’ she said, from out of the dark, and without appearing. ‘And you can piss off! Go back to wherever it was you came from!’
At my shoulder, Lowly Crows beat her wings furiously, as if to ward off her foul tongue. Licentious turned his head, lifted his great hands in mimic of a shield, and eyed me cautiously. Only to realize I was smiling.
‘Are you certain about this?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I said.
I dismounted, took the child from the gigant’s back and sat him upon Dandy for safekeeping. Then, with my two companions for support, I stepped into the house, regardless of the welcome.
This was not going to be an easy meet.
‘Will you sit down, will you sit?’ I said. Notyet was pacing furiously across the earth floor before me. I could see her face was red with anger, and already wet with tears. ‘Please…There is so much to tell you. I must explain it—’
‘Must you?’ she said, keeping up her pace. They were only words, and yet she used them with such venom I could not mistake the rebuke. Nor could I make any answer other than to repeat myself.
‘I must explain—’
‘Rogrig! You stand before me as if we have never been apart.’ She turned, stood up abruptly, and brought her face close to mine. ‘You smile sweetly and beg me to sit down. For the fortunes! The seasons have turned over, and turned again! Where the hell have you been? And what manner of man have you become?’
Before I could answer her, she had moved away, was unravelling a bound cloth, and preparing to take up a rusting iron sword, two-handed.
‘Listen, I – Many things have happened,’ I said, feebly. ‘Difficult to explain…I have done some stupid things…bloody stupid. I thought it was for the best, but…’
Already the sword was flailing dangerously. Though, I made no move to avoid it. She was unbalanced and aiming well off her mark.
‘Only stupid!’ she said. ‘You have sent me no word in all this time. I had you for dead, among all the rest. Aye, and long dead!’ Again the sword flailed. It slid across the wall and notched a wooden table. ‘Not one single word for me! I can think of far better rebukes than stupid!’
Where to begin? I wanted to tell her everything. Only now the end of her sword had suddenly become her pointer to drive home her remarks. A wagging blade is not the easiest of confidants. Though I did try…
I let my tongue run quickly over the events of my tale, put emphasis where I might, left empty holes where I thought it prudent.
Notyet was sorely unimpressed. I was forced to step aside as her sword sang close to my ear.
The gigant, as well as he might – being, obviously, far too big for the room – had already backed himself away into a corner. While Lowly Crows had lifted herself off my shoulder and flown up into the ceiling, lest she would catch an accidental blow meant for me.
‘Oh, yes? And what do you take me for, Rogrig? Are all the birds in the sky really the prettiest of little faeries? Are all the trees sweet wood nymphs and every wildcat a true wych’s familiar?’
Can so many words say one thing, and yet mean so very different?
‘Well, yes…I suppose some of them are,’ I said. I admit my poor answers were not helping my cause.
Again the sword came down and drew sparks as it raked the stone hearth and scattered burning cinders from the fire.
‘Ha! And I suppose Tom Troll here, really
is
a gigant?’
‘I thought I was the one who was not so bright?’ I said, letting my anger get the better of me. I had not meant to lose my temper with her. ‘The clue is in his name…and the…the height thing!’
‘And my name is, Licentious,’ said the gigant, unhelpfully.
‘This is what you would have me believe, Rogrig?’ she said with a scowl, stabbing the end of her sword toward him.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘This!’ The gigant, forced to retreat, backed clumsily against the wall, cracking stone.
‘Yes.’
She lifted the sword again, as if to make it swing in my direction, only one-handed now; her wrist was not practised enough to take the leverage. The blade rang out loudly as it clattered to the floor. She let it lie there.
‘Anything else?’ she said. She folded her arms, glaring. Dared me to speak again…
It was too late for swaggering bluster or half-truths. I asked Licentious and Lowly Crows to leave us, before I continued. They, for all their bravery, could not escape that house quickly enough.
I began my tale again, with the worst of it – well, the worst of it, as I figured she would see it – spoke plainly.
‘I…I have lain with a faerie,’ I said.
‘What? What are you saying now?’ she returned. ‘Is this your true confession, then? At last…You have lain with a…you have what?’
‘I think you heard…’ I said. ‘And I…I am not only the common man you think you see before you—’
‘You? You are a dagger’s arse, Rogrig! Is this the best you can offer me? You play me lazily, for a fool, and make fun? This is the Graynelore. I am not blind to it! I have seen men before now, rutting the common whores…taking their easy pleasures upon the Ridings…Only now you would have me dress it up in a…a babbie’s tale! With faeries and all—’
‘No. For the love of the fortunes, no! Listen. Please. What I am telling you is the truth. And
real
—!’
‘Oh, just leave me alone. Will you? Go, and drown yourself! Take a great leap into ma hinnies’ puddle! If your absence was not bad enough…you can only lie to me, still.’
I might have braced myself, in fear she was about to raise her skirts and rudely piddle upon me! She…did not.
‘I know how it appears,’ I said. ‘I do know. But I do not lie. I mean what I am saying. I mean it, and I will tell you, Notyet…I have been so often scared. Aye…scared.’
I wanted to take a hold of her.
I wanted to bang her about the ear and knock the rotten truth into her.
If only, I could have made a wish…I stopped myself. Better the ordinary man, now, and
not
the fey Wishard.
I did nothing.
‘Have your rant,’ I said. ‘Take up your sword. Break my head in with it, if you must. Surely, I deserve it. Only, believe me. This was not a weak man’s passion. Rather, it was a necessity, not a wanton lust. It was she took from me, not I from her. There was no caress in her cold touch. It was a stranger’s hand. If there was a desire, it was only the desire of a thief to steal.’
‘Oh, I beg of your pardon,’ she said. ‘I misunderstood! It was obviously you who were wronged here, and not I! And perhaps it was ever
our
loins that brought us two together, never truly our hearts…’
I closed my eyes for a moment. I could not bear to see the look of pain upon her face.
‘Now you twist my words,’ I said. ‘I did not intend this…’
‘No? What did you intend, then? Why are you here? Am I to want you still – is that it? Am I to forgive you for your…
honesty
? Tell me Rogrig, what must I say to allay your fears?’ Her eyes, soft with fresh tears, burned with fury.
‘Say…Say only this: if a motherless child were ever brought to you, you would mother him and not blame him for his father’s…weakness. For myself I ask for nothing. I will go, if you want me to go. I will not return here…’
‘Ha! So, you have come here only to give me a task, then! Is this it? You would leave me with your faerie-child – your changeling, and steal away again. Rogrig, this is unbearable. What kind of a man are you?’
‘I am…I am a…’ How hard, and for how long had I been trying to answer
that
question? Could I not do it yet?
‘Speak, will you. Speak,’ she said. ‘Say something, say anything to me, or else be damned for your silence! I swear to you, I will take up this sword again and I will cut you down with it.’
‘I am a man who has made mistakes…’ I said. Though truly, she did not want to hear my follies. I tried again. ‘I am…a man who is in love…’ I said, prising the words from my tongue.
‘Aye?’
‘With you, Notyet.’
‘Then, you will say it, Rogrig Wishard.’
‘Have I not already?’ I said. ‘You are my heart’s meat. What more is there?’
‘Say it,
properly
then…’
‘I fear I have killed men with far less trouble!’ I said.
‘Say it!’
‘I am…in love with you,’ I said. ‘I love you. Once, and for all…’
There was no hint of faerie slight.
THE END