Mythago Wood - 1 (10 page)

She smelled strong. It was the sort of smell I would come to associate with a
life in the forests and remote places of a barren land, a life where regular
washing was something of a luxury, and where one was marked by aroma as clearly
as, in my own day, one was marked by the style of clothes.

So she smelled . . . earthy. Yes. And also of her own secretions, the sharp,
not unpleasant smell of sex. And sweat too, salty, tangy. When she came close to
me and peered down I got an idea that her hair was red, and that her eyes were
fierce. She said something like, 'Ymma m'ch buth?' She repeated the words
several times, and I said, 'I don't understand.'

'Cefrachas. Ichna which ch'athab. Mich ch'athaben!'

'I don't understand.'

'Mich ch'athaben! Cefrachas!'

'I wish I
did
understand, but I really don't.'

The blade dug deeper into my neck and I flinched, and raised a hand slowly to
the cold metal. Gently I eased the weapon away, smiling, and hoping that in the
darkness she could see my willing subservience.

She made a sound, like frustration, or despair, I'm not sure which. Her
clothing was coarse. I took the brief opportunity to touch the tunic she wore
and the fabric was rough, like sacking, and smelled of leather. Her presence was
overwhelming and quite overpowering. Her breath on my face was sweet, though,
and slightly . . . nutty.

'Mich ch'athaben!' she said, and this time it was almost with a tone of
hopelessness.

'Mich Steven,' I said, wondering if I was on the right track, but she
remained silent. 'Steven!' I repeated, and tapped my chest. 'Mich Steven.'

'Ch'athaben,' she insisted, and the blade nicked sharply into my flesh.

'There's food in the pantry,' I offered. 'Ch'athaben. Downen. Stairen.'

'Cumchirioch,' she retorted savagely, and I felt myself insulted.

'I'm doing my best. Do you have to keep prodding me with the spear?'

Abruptly and unexpectedly, she reached out and grabbed my hair, jerking my
head back and peering at my face.

A moment later she was gone, running silently down the stairs. Although I
followed her swiftly, she was fleet of foot, and became absorbed by night's
shadows. I stood at the back door and searched for her, but there was no sign.

'Guiwenneth!' I shouted into the darkness. Was that the name by which she
knew herself, I wondered? Or only Christian's name for her? I repeated the call,
changing the emphasis in the name. 'Gwinn
eth
! G
win
eth! Come back,
Guiwenneth. Come back!'

In the silence of those early morning hours my voice carried loudly,
hollowly, reflected back at me from the sombre woodland. Movement among the
blackthorn scrub cut off my cry in mid-name.

By the sparse moonlight it was hard to see properly who stood there, but it
was Guiwenneth, of that I was sure. She stood quite motionless, watching me, and
I imagine that she was intrigued at my use of her name.

'Guiwenneth,' she called softly, and it was a throaty, sibilant sound, a
pronunciation more like
chwin aiv.

I raised my right hand in a gesture of parting and called, 'Goodnight then,
Chwin
aiv.'

'Inos c'da . . . Stivven . . .'

And the enfolding shadows of the forest claimed her again, and this time she
did not reappear.

By day I explored the woodland periphery, trying to penetrate deeper but
still unable to do so; whatever forces were at work defending the heartwoods,
they regarded me with suspicion. I tripped and became tangled in the rank
undergrowth, ending up time and time again against a mossy stump,
bramble-covered and unpassable, or finding myself facing a wall of water-slick
rock, that rose, dark and daunting, from the ground below, itself eroded and
covered by the twisting, moss-furred roots of the great sessile oaks that grew
here.

By the mill-stream I glimpsed the Twigling. Near to the sticklebrook, where
the water swirled more rapidly below the rotting gate, there I caught sight of
other mythagos, moving cautiously through the undergrowth, their features barely
discernible through the paint they had daubed on their skins.

Someone had cleared the saplings from the centre of the glade and the remains
of a fire were pronounced; rabbit and chicken bones were scattered about, and on
the thistle-covered grass were the signs of a weapons industry, flakes of stone,
and the peelings of bark from young wood, where a shaft for a spear or arrow had
been fashioned.

I was conscious of the activity around me, always out of sight, but never out
of earshot; furtive movement, sudden rapid flight, and a strange, eerie
calling-bird-like, yes, but clearly of human manufacture. The woods were alive
with the creations of my own mind ... or Christian's - and they seemed to be
clustering around the glade, and the stream, moving from the woodland at night
along the oak tendril that reached to the study.

I longed to be able to reach deeper into the forest, but it was a wish that
was constantly denied me. My curiosity as to what lay beyond the two hundred or
so yards of the periphery began to peak, and I created landscapes and creatures
as wild, in my imagination, as had been the imaginary journey of the
Voyager.

It was three days after Guiwenneth's first contact with me that an idea for
seeing deeper into the woodland occurred at last; why I hadn't thought of it
before I cannot say. Perhaps Oak Lodge was so remote from the normal stream of
human existence, and the landscape around Ryhope so far from the technologically
advanced civilization at whose heart it lay, that I had been thinking only in
primitive terms: walking, running, exploring from the ground.

For, several days I had been aware of the sound, and occasional sight, of a
small monoplane as it circled above the land to the east of the wood. On two
days the plane - a Percival Proctor, I think - had come quite close to Ryhope
Wood, before turning and disappearing into the distance.

Then in Gloucester, on my way to the bank, I saw the plane again, or one very
like it. It was photographing the city for a land survey, I discovered.
Operating out of Mucklestone Air Field, an area of some forty square miles was
being photographed aerially for the Ministry of Housing. If I could just
convince the air crew to 'loan' me the passenger seat of one of their planes for
an afternoon, I could fly above the oak woodland and see the heart-woods from a
vantage point where surely the supernatural defences could not reach . . .

The man who smiled uncertainly at me as I entered was in his early thirties,
perhaps, fair-haired, bright-eyed and hideously burn-marked around his chin and
left cheek. He wore the uniform and insignia of an RAF Captain, but had the
collar of his shirt open, and wore plimsolls instead of boots. Everything about
him was casual and confident. He frowned, though, as he shook my hand and said,
'Don't quite understand what exactly it is you want, Mister Huxley. Sit down,
won't you?'

I did as he bade me and stared at the map of the surrounding landscape that
he had spread out on the desk. His name was Harry Keeton, that much I knew, and
he had clearly flown during the war. The burn scar was both fascinating and
hideous to look at; but he wore it proudly, like a medal, apparently not in the
least bothered by the grotesque marking.

If I regarded him curiously, he was equally puzzled by me, and after a moment
or two's hesitant exchange of looks he laughed nervously. 'I don't get many
requests to borrow a plane. Farmers, mostly, wanting their houses photographed.
And archaeologists. They always want photographs at dusk or dawn. Sun shadows,
you see? It shows up field markings, old foundations, things like that . . . but
you want to fly over a wood ... is that right?'

I nodded. I couldn't actually make out where, on the map, the Ryhope estate
lay. 'It's a woodland by my house, quite extensive. I'd just like to fly across
the middle of it, and take a few photographs.'

'It's on the Ryhope estate,' I said, and stood and bent over the map. After a
second I saw the name. Strangely, there was no indication at all of the
woodland, just a dotted line indicating the extent of the massive property.

Keeton was looking at me peculiarly when I straightened up. I said, 'It isn't
marked. That's odd.'

'Very,' he said. His tone was matter of fact ... or perhaps slightly knowing.
'How big is the place?' he asked then. 'How extensive?' Still he stared at me.

'Very extensive. A perimeter of more than six miles . . .'

'Six miles!' he exclaimed, then smiled thinly. 'That's not a wood, that's a
forest!'

In the silence that followed I became certain that he knew at least
something
about Ryhope Wood. I said, 'You've been flying close to the place yourself.
You or one of your pilots.'

He nodded quickly, glancing at the map. "That was me. You saw me, did
you?'

'It's what gave me the idea of coming to the air field.' When he added
nothing, but just looked very slightly cagey, I went on, 'You must have noticed
the anomaly, then. Nothing marked on the survey map . . .'

'Partly. Most of it is quite wild, though.'

He leaned back in his chair; the burn scar had darkened slightly and I
thought he seemed to be restraining a growing excitement. 'That in itself is
amazing,' he said. 'The Forest of Dean is immense, of course, but it's well
managed. There's a wood in Norfolk that's wild. I've been there . . .' He
hesitated, frowning slightly. 'There are others. All small, all just woodland
that has been allowed to
go
wild. Not real
wildwood
at all.'

Keeton suddenly seemed quite on edge. He stared at the map, at the area of
the Ryhope estate, and I thought he murmured something like, 'So I was right. .
.'

'Can you help me with a flight over the wood, then?' I asked and Keeton
glanced at me suspiciously.

'Why do you want to over-fly it?'

I started to tell him, then broke off. 'I don't want this talked about -'

'I understand.'

'My brother is wandering somewhere inside it. Months ago he went exploring
and hasn't come back. I don't know if he's lost or dead, but I'd like to see
what can be seen from the air. I realize that it's irregular . . .'

Keeton was immersed in his own thoughts. He had gone quite pale, now, all
save the burn scars on his jaw. He focused on me suddenly and shook his head.
'Irregular? Well, yes. But I can manage it. It will be expensive. I'll have to
charge you for fuel. . .'

'How much?'

Fine,' I said. I'll be here.'

We shook hands. As I left the office I glanced back. Keeton was standing
quite motionless behind his desk, staring at the survey map; I noticed that his
hands were shaking slightly.

I had flown only once before. The journey had lasted four hours and had been
in a battered, bullet-ravaged Dakota, which had taken off during a thunderstorm
and landed on deflated tyres on the runway at Marseilles. I had known little of
the drama, being drugged and semiconscious; it was an evacuation flight arranged
with great difficulty, to the place of convalescence where I would recover from
the bullet wound in my chest.

So the flight in the Percival Proctor was effectively my first trip skywards,
and as the flimsy plane lurched and seemed almost to leap into the skies, I
clutched hard to the hand-holds beside me, closed my eyes, and concentrated on
fighting down the sudden package of innards that seemed about to burst from my
throat. I don't think I have ever felt so potentially sick in my life, and how I
remained in equilibrium is beyond me. Every few seconds my body parted company
with my stomach as a gust of wind - a thermal, Keeton called them - seemed to
grasp the plane with invisible fingers and shift it upwards or downwards at
alarming speeds. The wings buckled and flexed. Even through the helmet and
headphones that I wore I could hear the creaking complaint of the aluminium
fuselage as this tiny model structure fought the mindless elements.