The Hollowing (11 page)

The hollyjack shrieked suddenly. He turned quickly, staring at her from the altar, close to the golden cross that gleamed from its protective thicket of thorn. She seemed rooted. Her arms were over her leafy body and her branch tusks clattered. She was watching him in earnest, but a moment later she turned away and scurried awkwardly to her nest from which, for a long time, came the sound of her chattering, a sound of pain.

Helpless, Alex left her in the nest, leaving her sanctuary through the window, by the stone falcon, and dropping to the wet grass of the graveyard. Everything was still. He went to the well and drew water, drinking and staring at the wood a few feet away. Someone was standing in the cover, hardly breathing. He could feel the gaze on him, detect the shallow intake of breath, the betraying thump of the heart. When he moved slightly, as he lapped water from his cupped hands, he glimpsed dull grey fabric, a shawl and long dress, and red hair in a wild tumble. The glitter of watching eyes eventually resolved from the sparkling points of light that were wet leaves. These eyes were fierce, yet the hesitancy suggested fear. And a name came to him, drawn from the figure, finding a roost in his head.

Guinevere …

At once, as if the name on leaving her had released her from a spell, she screamed and ran. And at once the wood a few paces away erupted into a second flurry of movement. Alex backed towards the cathedral as the giggler broke through the tangled wood, a giant, stooping form whose stench emanated suddenly from the undergrowth, and whose voice rose from a growl to the braying laugh that haunted Alex’s waking dreams. The woman stepped out into the open for a second and Alex grimaced at the face below the flowing hair, the twisted features, the vile mouth. This was not the beauty of his story-dreams. Her clothes were the rags of shrouds. She seemed to stare at him with pity, or perhaps uncertainty, but a moment later she had vanished into the wood and for a long time the sounds of the hunt told of her speed, and the giggler’s determination.

Alex withdrew to the porch roof, below the ascent to his sanctuary. Rain came and went, and there was further furtive movement: a boy, then a figure in red uniform, then a hooded man. All of them glanced out from the wood, then retired: but not before he had named each of them, a whisper of recognition, a second’s delight.

Suddenly the giggler grinned at him, fresh blood on its white face and teeth, the briefest of apparitions in the undergrowth, so quick that Alex could hardly grasp it. It chuckled as it withdrew, moving heavily away to the right.

A touch on his hair made Alex jump with fright. The hollyjack had eased herself down the ivy rope so carefully, because of her size, that he had not heard her approach. She crouched on the porch now, shaking like an aspen in the wind. There was something very final about her. In as much as Alex could tell her expression from the oddly shaped eyes, deep in the twisted wood of her skull, he perceived anxiety. She wanted to show him something.

She led the way to the ground and reached around in the grass until she found a place in the earth where she could root. Alex curled into her, and flowed with her on the Big Dream …

It was the height and the depth of summer and the daurog moved through the stifling wood like shadows in the green. It was thick with heat. Where the forest thinned they passed through the deep wells of light, raising faces to the sky so that the sun shone on their polished tusks, emerging now from full, thick leaf on their fat bodies. Oak and Ash led the slow journey to the cathedral. Hazel and Holly kept to the fringes of any clearing. Beech, Birch, and Willow walked slowly, using tall staffs to keep touch with the ground. Behind them, moving carefully, always watching, always listening, always feeling for the eyes and ears that came to him through the rootweb, the shaman was a sinister presence, never quite visible, taking deep root quite often so that he trailed behind the family, catching up with them by moonlight, as the others of the group formed into a spinney to rest.

The shaman had carved a face on his thick staff. Sometimes when he pushed the gnarly wood into the earth, Alex was drawn up to the face, and the shaman watched him, silently and closely, scratching the face with thorny nails, then clattering his tusks before walking on.

They were in summer, then, and safe. They were closer than before, and searching for the stone place, for Alex. But there was something wrong with them, an emptiness that could not be conveyed, only touched. They sought something more than Alex, and they were in great pain.

Now he reached again, journeying on the Little Dream, feeling for his father, and touching the man, expecting to find sadness but finding a new joy. He was close and he was with a woman, not his mother. They were dancing by a fire. There was contentment and excitement in the air. The boy edged closer, came closer, and slipped back into the earth, draining towards the dancing man, expanding through the giant roots, curling around the deep stones, the hollow tombs, the bones of the dying-down and the being-born that littered the vast wood. When he could hear the sound of song and pipes, feel the drum of the dancers in the earth, he rose from the rootweb, and called for the man he loved …

Old Stone Hollow

(i) The Bone Yard

Five hours later, Lacan led the way out of the tangle of dark wildwood into clearer, lighter forest. Tall columns of stone rose among the trees, ivy-covered, weathered, some carved with the shapes of armoured men, others inscribed with glyphs and symbols reminiscent of those to be found in the Minoan remains of the Aegean. Further on, they passed below four corroding bronze pillars, each decorated with the faces of lions, one fallen at an angle and resting against an oak.

Lacan led the way carefully, taking a winding path through these majestic ruins. A huge wooden building, steeply thatched, had slipped to one side, folding into itself. Elm saplings had begun to penetrate the roof. Fallen idols, crudely hacked from stumps and sarsens, littered the ground before it, and Lacan ducked below the cracked, oakwood lintel to snatch a photograph of the interior.

The place was known as the Sanctuary. It was a collection of shrines and temples, and according to Lacan was dangerous.

“At least two
hollowings
lead away from here. We’re not sure where exactly. We know a safe path and we keep to it. But this is where Dan Jacobi went missing, over a year ago. There’s his marker. Richard saw the grey and rotting doll, hanging loosely in an ivy trail from a tall column. “I think he must be dead by now,” Lacan went on. “I have a feeling for such things. But it’s still all we can do to stop his wife going after him. She won’t believe he’s dead. Good for her! All love is blind to reason, and maybe that’s why some people are so strong.”

“A
hollowing?
” Richard asked. “What is that, exactly?”

Lacan was impatient to continue. He brushed aside foliage, and walked in the lee of an immense, marble wall, from which spectacularly grotesque faces peered out through the forest.

“A hollowing is a way
deeper,
” he said unhelpfully. “We are going further into the wood, but there is a way under us. Not in physical space, you understand. Just
under,
going to other planes, other lands, other
otherworlds.
It’s dangerous to enter a hollowing. The wood is criss-crossed with them, woven with them. Another system of space and time. The only ones that we know are safe are close to the Station. We know where they come out. But there are many others. Helen will show you, later.”

His voice had faded as he strode ahead, out of sight, striking at branches with his staff. Richard struggled to keep up, noticing the furious activity in his peripheral vision, alarmed by this and distracted by the sense of being watched from within.

Suddenly Lacan was in front of him, a huge, broad back, blocking out the light. The Frenchman urged silence. Ahead, Richard could hear the sound of rapids. This was beechwood, the land sloping gently down, the light intense in places, shifting. Two figures moved slowly through that light, approaching the river. When Richard came closer he saw that they were children, crudely cloaked, flaxen-haired, each carrying a painted staff. Their movements were so deliberate that it took a moment for him to realise that it was sluggishness, not caution, that governed their actions.

“It is not pretty, up ahead,” Lacan whispered. “Not pleasant at all. Harden your heart against these two. And just remember—they exist in other places. They are alive, they are not alive. These are dying—”

“Dying? Why?”

“Because this is a dying place,” Lacan said coldly. “We made it so when we built the Station. We made it so when we set up the protective field to keep ourselves apart from the wood. These mythagos, these helpless creatures, are drawn here, drawn to us, and the closer they come the more their lives are drained. You must remember something: they are just dreams. Like dreams, they seem so real for a while, and then they disperse and are soon forgotten. Harden your feelings until you can understand better.”

He walked on, skirting the frail, shuddering figures. As Richard passed them, forty yards distant, one turned slowly. A sweet face, full of pain and puzzlement, watched him. The boy’s head shook slowly, then his eyes closed and he subsided slowly, kneeling, then hunching, to remain quite still.

His companion was standing in a thin stream of brilliant light, looking up at the sky. Gradually her arms dropped and she remained immobile, stiff, not breathing.

“Who are they?” Richard asked.

Lacan shrugged irritably.

“Who knows? If you’re that interested we can set up a study programme. That’s what we’re good at here. Hold your breath. We’re coming to the bone yard.”

They were in sight of the river. The sound of it, fresh, powerful, clean, was a welcome sensation as Richard looked around him. To right and left, the wood was filled with the rotting figures of what Lacan had called “mythagos.” He stared in numbed horror at the wooden bones. He was reminded of sculpture. Faces, skulls, shapes, their limbs were cracked, their postures awkward, as if they had died crawling, reaching for the river, heads thrown back with the effort of gasping for air. It was as if a graveyard had been unearthed and scattered. Leaves sprouted on drooping jaws. What appeared to be piles of firewood were hunched, agonised figures, their ribs returning to the earth. Coloured rags of clothing, and the dull reflection of metal ornaments, suggested the rotting vestments of these sad dead.

They were all facing towards Old Stone Hollow, Richard noticed.

“They are drawn to us,” Lacan murmured again. “It is a function of these creatures. They are compelled to find and touch their maker, their creator, whichever one of us it might be. We have had to defend ourselves powerfully. But each time one of these things dies, someone in the Station dies a little too. There is a connection which we don’t yet understand.”

Behind them, the cloaked girl began to sing to the sunlight, her voice faint, very weak, very final. Lacan watched her for a moment, then turned away quickly, looking very grim. “Come on. There’s nothing we can do for her. And besides, I’m hungry.”

(ii) Sciamachy

“There is something wrong,” Lacan murmured as they came in sight of the rough palisade that marked Old Stone Hollow. “It doesn’t feel right.”

“In what way?”

“It’s too quiet. There should be someone to hail us.”

They were on the slope of wooded land that led down to the turbulent stream. A flimsy-looking rope bridge spanned the river. The gate through the palisade was open, revealing a wide compound, several tents, and the end of a turf-roofed longhouse, from which smoke rose. But for the moment, Richard’s attention was taken by the two odd figures that stood outside the wall, one on each side of the gate: they were made from poles, simple structures that suggested crucified men, leaning forward. The heads were grotesque bulges on the skeletal frames, draped with skins, rags, and the black, rotting carcassas of carrion birds. Unquestionably, Richard realised, these hideous scarecrows were designed to discourage entry. Indeed, as he looked from his vantage-point at the trees around the compound, he could see masks, shields, and weapons slung in the branches, and the shapes of totems rising behind the tents. The door of the longhouse was framed by the extended, elongated, and lurid blue effigy of a tusked boar.

The defences of Old Stone Hollow were not, then, restricted to the thin barrier of electronics and infra-red that could be glimpsed as gleaming traceries extending between trees and bushes.

At the far side of the cluttered compound was dense scrubwood, white with elderflower, and otherwise coloured by pennants tied to branches. This wood separated the clearing from the awesome rise of a rock face, a cave-riddled cliff that towered against the bright skyline and cast deep shadow over the Station below, making Old Stone Hollow seem uninvitingly gloomy.

There was a slow, cautious approach behind them, as they watched, and something—someone—stumbled and was still, although a piece of rock rolled for a while down the slope.

“Lytton?” Lacan called, and his face registered his concern. “McCarthy?”

There was no response. When the breeze shifted, though, the scent of beef stew came on the air. Someone, somewhere, was cooking.

They crossed the bridge, Lacan warning Richard of the dangerous nature of the river, which was often a “through-way” for “Wild Riders,” and entered the compound. “Wait here. Watch the bridge approach,” he said before moving swiftly to the canteen tent, a small, green marquee from which the smell of the stew was emanating. He emerged a moment later, chewing, shook his head, then checked the other tents and the longhouse. “Deserted!”

Finally he hacked his way through the tanglewood below the looming wall of rock and called into the deep overhang, his voice echoing clearly.

While Lacan was otherwise occupied, Richard strolled warily around the Station. By the back wall of the rough longhouse were piled weapons, armour, helmets, bits of wagon, the broken hull of a narrow boat. It was a junkyard of the past, fascinating and repelling at the same time. An Etruscan helmet still contained the mummified skull of its owner; the patterning on a browning long bone proved, on closer examination, to be an intricate series of pictures of canoes on a river, each action dominated by beasts, animals, or unidentifiable half-human shapes.