Moon Song (11 page)

‘Isoldé! ’ he called. ‘ Isoldé! Come up and join me.’

She stared. He was sat quite casually, swinging his legs over the vast head of water creaming its way through the hole in the rock below him. If he fell the water would thrash and mangle him on the sharp rocks below. She held her breath.

‘It’s OK,’ he called again. Somehow his voice was reaching her over the noise of the fall and without sounding as if he was shouting himself hoarse. ‘Come on up. It’s magical here.’

‘It’s magical down here too,’ she prevaricated.

Who was he? How did he know her name? This was Mark’s land, Caergollo land. Surely he was trespassing?

‘I live here,’ he answered the question in her mind. ‘I’ve known Mark all his life and Tristan before him. Come up so we can get acquainted.’

‘I’m no good at heights,’ Isoldé stalled again. ‘You will be,’ he said.

He was very attractive, long dark hair, olive skin, bright, merry eyes. He raised a hand, long brown fingers clicked then
beckoned. Involuntarily Isoldé began walking back to the stone stairway. She half checked herself then snorted in amusement. ‘You want to go,’ she told herself, ‘and you nearly went there first, just now, anyway. That must be where the rock shelf leads.’

She carried on up the steps and turned out onto the shelf. The path was narrow, slippery and uneven. True, there were trees beside the path, their tops coming up to her waist, which meant the drop must be at least thirty foot. Although the branches would break her fall she would be damaged. She had no confidence in the elf-man sat on the shelf being able to rescue her.

She crept along with her back pressed against the cliff, sliding one foot along sideways and bringing the other up to it to get along, glad of the trees so she couldn’t actually see the drop. It seemed to take forever to go the few yards around the cliff until she could see him. He stood up lightly and stepped off the stone bridge to take her hand.

‘Come on,’ he said.

His touch felt warm and cool at the same time, and she got a similar pulse through her fingers as had happened in the tunnel with her hands on the earth. She looked at him.

He looked rather odd now she was up close, like a man but …those ears were slightly pointed, reminding her of Spock in Star Trek. The skin was brown but silvery-blue lines traced spiral patterns over his cheeks, forehead, hands and arms. And his eyes were golden, with vertical pupils like an owl.

‘It’s OK.’ He smiled reassuringly. ‘I won’t hurt you. Nor let any harm come to you.’

For some completely crazy reason and quite unlike herself, Isoldé believed him. She let him lead her the last few feet to the end of the shelf and right out onto the narrow bridge which was the top of the hole through which the lower fall rushed. The noise was deafening and the rock trembled under her boots. He helped her sit down then sat beside her. Their legs dangled together some fifteen feet over the smooth, white curve of the water.

He clicked his fingers again and the sound lessened, seemed to go into the background, like he’d found the volume-switch. ‘Better?’ he asked.

It was. Her brain and mind felt less buffeted, the whole place was less in her face and she found she could think again. She nodded to him.

‘I’m Gideon.’ He held out his right hand, a bit awkwardly as they were sat so close together. She reached her right hand across her body to take it.

‘Isoldé,’ she said automatically, ‘but you already know that.’

‘I do.’ His eyes glinted as he took her hand and kissed her fingers.

That took her breath away, she gasped. The touch of his mouth on her skin set up ripples in her belly. She felt the colour rushing up her neck into her face, looked down into the kieve and slowly pulled her hand out of his. It was hard, she felt she didn’t want to lose the touch of him and knew he was smiling at her although she wasn’t looking at him. It was a soft, satisfied smile, like a cat purring.

‘Who are you?’ she asked.

‘I’m the water of life, the air you breathe. I’m the fire in your heart and the food in your belly. I’m the owl with the moon. I’m the cat on the hearth. I’m the ocean of waves and the wave itself.’

Isoldé recognised the words of Tristan’s song “The Trickster”. ‘You knew Tristan,’ she said.

‘I led him to the words for the songs,’ he said softly, turning to look at her. ‘As I’ll lead you too.’

‘Me?’

He nodded.

‘I’m not a singer, not like Tristan.’

‘We know that, but we need you.’

‘Me?’ she said again. ‘And who’s we? Who are you?’

‘I just told you that.’

‘No you didn’t, you recited one of Tristan’s songs. I want to
know who you are.’

‘For that we’d better get somewhere you won’t fall into the torrent. I’ve no desire to have to rescue you.’

He stood up. She found herself doing likewise, preceding him back along the shelf.

She looked over her shoulder. ‘Up? Or down?’

‘Down.’ He was suddenly ahead of her, leaping down the steps like a mountain goat. She followed slowly to find him on the shingle by the kieve, sat on a stone, another comfy-looking stone beside it. Isoldé sat on it.

‘You know Tristan’s songs?’ he asked her.

‘Of course.’ Isoldé was blushing again. ‘I’ve loved him and his work, forever. Since my uncle played them to me when he was teaching me to sing.’

‘Groupie …?’ Gideon looked at her, eyes twinkling.

Isoldé blushed even more, looked away, then she tossed her hair back.

‘I suppose you could call me that. I’m a fan and yes I went to all his concerts, even a master class once, although I was terribly scared and embarrassed as I don’t read music.’ She had a rueful smile at the memory. ‘There were all these people, musicians, students, terribly earnest and reverent. But they did get a bit screwed by some of the exercises he gave us.’ She chuckled.

‘So …what are his songs about?’

That gave Isoldé pause. She sat quiet, looking into the sheet of water tumbling through the hole in the rock. It was hypnotic. Pictures formed behind her eyes; the grey flash of a buzzard’s wing; trout leaping; waves crashing on cliffs or rippling softly on a sandy shore; the woods at night; the cave on Tintagel beach; the wind on the hilltop ruffling the smooth surface of Dozmary Pool. ‘They’re about the land here and its creatures,’ she whispered.

‘Yes,’ said Gideon, ‘that’s right.’

In the pause which followed Isoldé turned towards him. He was no longer there. Beside her sat a crazy creature, a chimera, a
mix of many beasts and trees. The long dark hair was like twigs and leaves, the cheeks were rosy now like apples, the legs wore fur instead of trousers and ended in cloven hooves. His arms ended in half-paws, similar to the hare-girl. Quickly, Isoldé’s gaze went back to his face, he still had owl’s eyes. That was still sufficiently like the original for her to cope. ‘Who are you?’ she asked yet again.

‘Who do you think?’ he said.

Her brow wrinkled. When he spoke his voice wasn’t scary but warm, brown and reassuring. It was just all the rest of him.

‘A shapeshifter,’ she said at last, then she stopped, thinking. ‘Gideon …Gideon …?’ She looked at him.

He nodded.

‘Gwydion …?’

He nodded again. One hand shifted back from paw to fingers. They touched hers, gently curled themselves around her hand. She didn’t resist. A smile began in her eyes, travelled to her mouth.

‘It’s ridiculous,’ she said, ‘me, sitting here with the master enchanter of all Britain. I don’t believe it.’

The fingers squeezed her hand. ‘Sorry,’ he said, there was a chuckle under his voice, ‘but you’ve got it right. I’m called Gideon around here. Some folk recognise me. To others, I’m the local man-o’-the-woods. I bring them game and sing at the local ceilidh. I dance too.’ He raised his eyebrows hopefully at her.

‘So do I, dance I mean.’

He was flirting with her she realised and she was responding. It seemed gentle, not having to go anywhere. He was attractive. There was a potent energy about him, if he looked at her with passion she realised he would be hard to resist. She brought her mind back to the present. The expressions crossing his face told her he had followed her train of thought.

‘So …why are we here?’

‘Because Tristan is dead,’ he replied.

She quirked an eyebrow. ‘So what?’

‘He died too soon. He hadn’t finished his work, hadn’t finished the Ellyon cycle.’

‘I sort of gathered that.’

‘There was …is …still the final song to do, the Moon Song. We need it to complete the cycle. All his images give voices to the ley lines, the land herself, the water, the rivers and the sea, all of which is good. But it’s no good if the Moon is not there to coordinate everything.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘We cannot come unless you open the door.’

Isoldé stared at him. Comprehension was tickling around the corners of her mind but wouldn’t come into focus.

‘You’ll have to spell it out for me,’ she said. ‘You want me to ask. You want us all to ask?’

‘Yes,’ he said then paused. ‘OK, think of it this way. You’ve seen the old horror films, haven’t you?’

Isoldé nodded. ‘But I’m surprised you have.’

‘You’d be amazed what we woodfolk get up to on the long winters’ nights. Whatever, they’re a good example of what I mean. Now, when the virgin goes to bed at night what happens?’

Mystified, Isoldé shook her head.

‘Her guardians shut all the doors and windows, hang garlic over them,’ he went on, ‘tell her on no account must she open the door. Of course she does or there wouldn’t be any story. But the point is that the vampire cannot come in
unless
she, the human, opens the way for him. He cannot, not with all his power, force his way in through a door which has not been opened to him.’

Comprehension was beginning to make itself felt. ‘Go on,’ Isoldé said.

‘Well, all of Otherworld is like that, like the vampire. Oh,’ he watched her begin to frown, ‘we’re not usually nasty, out to drink human blood or anything and anyway a vampire is an ex-human not one of us in the spirit world. But we cannot come into human
space unless and until we are invited. You have to ask us to come.’ He paused, watching her.

‘I see …I think …just a little,’ Isoldé said slowly. ‘In the old days people spoke to you, the fairies, spirits, gods, often in littleseeming ways like wishing-trees and wells, special places where people left flowers, even altars in the house or the hedgerow.

‘That’s right,’ Gideon said. ‘And the festivals were always remembered, celebrated. Fire and light at Imbolc; courting and jumping through the fire at Beltane; bread and weddings and driving the cattle between the fires at Lughnasadh; the winter cattle slaughtered and the ancestors remembered at the Samhain bonfire, the good fire.’

‘And all the things like John Barleycorn and the horn dances, the Obby Oss and the fiery barrels,’ Isoldé added.

‘Yes, all those things, and the songs themselves which everyone sang. Christianity knocked us about a lot, we had to go underground, become the little people. And the humans who stayed with us had to hide too, pretend they were worshipping the saints when all the while they were still calling to us, asking us to be part of their lives. But it’s science, modern science, which has practically wiped us out. We are a major extinction about to happen which most folk are not even aware of, or only at the edges of their consciousness.’

‘How?’ Isoldé reached for his hand now, comforting the lost look in his eyes.

‘Because so many, many believe that if science doesn’t know a thing then that thing doesn’t exist. It’s happened with psychology too, even though the word psychology is built around the Greek word “psyche” which means “soul” the psychologists rarely, if ever, believe in the soul. There is no soul, it’s all bits of sub-personality. Faugh!’ Gideon almost spat. ‘And we, too, have become a superstition, a figment of a disordered imagination, something to be denounced, de-bunked and ridiculed. So folk, afraid of the ridicule of their friends and
neighbours, stop doing the old things, they no longer sing the old songs, no longer ask us into the world.’

‘And Tristan’s songs rebuild the way for people to believe again, to ask?’ Isoldé said.

‘Hole in one!’ Gideon’s grin had come back now. ‘You’re a quick study. Yes, Tristan’s songs are part of the way back for us. And for humans. Despite your science you won’t survive without us, for the Earth will change if we die. It will go barren, no longer feed you, give you water, air. And without these things your bodies will die. And,’ he paused, ‘if you do not call us, speak with us, relate with us, then we
will
die. When that happens the planet re-forms, shifts herself into a new way of being which may not have a place for humans any more. She doesn’t like creatures that don’t respect others because they don’t look or act like themselves.’

‘And we’re only too good at that!’ Isoldé said bitterly. ‘Most people only care about themselves or, at least, only about human beings. Anything else is second.’

‘But there are changes.’ Gideon’s fingers stroked hers. ‘Lots of little things, folk festivals are more popular now, I mean things like the Oss and the horn dances, as well as the music festivals. People may not really know what they’re doing, like children, but they sing the songs. And that’s what Tristan helped us with. Dylan and Lennon did a lot but much of their work was social, about human relations with each other, about wars, poverty, hatred, race, all the things that divide you from yourselves. Tristan took it further, deeper, his songs bring you closer to the non-human, to the creatures, plants, rock even, with whom you share the planet.’

Isoldé sat quiet. The last thing she’d expected when she came out this morning was a philosophy lesson but it all made sense. Even the outlandish creature who sat beside her, who could morph parts of himself into bits of tree or goat or apples, made a strange kind of sense. She flicked her mental fingers at the
modern, rational part of herself who had to have everything pigeon-holed into neatly labelled boxes which were never larger than she could handle. Her mouth grew a sneer, she could be as bad as anyone else at not wanting to think outside the box but this morning had made a huge dent in her supercilious armour. She would never be able to deny Otherworld again. Uncle Brian would be pleased if he ever knew of it. It was a big sadness in his life that she’d not followed him into druidry. She didn’t think she ever would but, whatever way this strange path the woodman was offering took her, she knew she was open now to voices beyond ordinary twenty-first century reason.