The Hollowing (28 page)

“You’ll be safe,” Richard said, although he was aware that mythagos did not survive the electronic defences. “At least, you’ll be safe from me—”

The centaur suddenly cantered through the palisade and into the tall grass, following the path to the longhouse, stooping to peer inside. It dropped dung at the entrance and as if embarrassed stepped back and reached down to gather up the three hard pellets, tossing them into the wood and brushing its hands together. It prowled about the house, then curled up in its entrance. It feigned sleep, though as Richard stared down its eyes opened slightly, like a child’s when sleep is necessary but curiosity remains.

Who were these new arrivals? He could hear shouting and banging, a drumbeat, and a moment later the area was pierced by the shrill tones of a horn, high-pitched, rising in note, repeated ten times while the drum was sounded. The centaur shivered, curled up on its side, its almost-human arms wrapped around its bearded head.

Richard crept back to the lake, night gathering around him. Torches burned everywhere and there was much activity. He could hear furtive movement around him and kept low in the gully, alert for any sudden attack. All he could make out in the gloom was that a skin tent had been erected, tied to the gunnels of the stranded vessel at one end and to the exposed roots of a willow at the other. A cauldron of water was heating and women’s voices came from that area of activity. Two men were swimming out across the black lake, calling to each other, others were hauling lengths of rigging into the tree branches. The great sail had been dismantled and folded. Three figures, heavily built, long-haired, were lifting down a huge wooden image from the stranded ship. Richard could see a woman’s face and breasts, an expression of fury carved and luridly painted. This image was erected at the water’s edge, facing towards the woodland, and two tall braziers, flaming brightly, placed on each side of it.

Further along the shore, flames that glowed brighter than a cooking fire suggested a primitive forge had been established. A large man fussed over this flame-pit in the high rocks and it was he who saw Richard, as if by far sight, and moved stealthily towards him. As the giant loomed up, Richard saw that he had only one eye. The beard that fringed his broad face was grey-streaked auburn. His arms were huge, each tattooed with a winding snake. Through the white hairs of his chest a brand had marked him, a wheel around a cross, with wings on each side. He stank of sweat and honey, and breathed hard as he stepped closer and closer to the crouching man, dragging one lame leg behind him.

He was just close enough when Richard said, sharply, “Come any further and I’ll kick your other leg away. Do you understand?”

The giant hesitated at the sound of the voice. From the beach he was called and shouted back. The words were guttural, strangely unfamiliar since they were no doubt a form of early Greek. Again he dragged his bad leg towards Richard, who fumbled in his clothes for Lytton’s lighter, which he raised and struck, with the flame set to shoot high. To the other man it would have seemed as if the flame had come from Richard’s clenched hand, and he was satisfyingly startled. Richard flicked the fire on and off twice more, then said menacingly, “Get back to your forge!” indicating the flame in the rocks.

The smith glanced over his shoulder, then frowned and began to back away.

On the lake shore, an old man in a long, dark cloak, holding a long spear, watched what was happening and called again. The glint of firelight on this tall character’s eyes reminded Richard of the light on the serpent’s gaze as it had consumed Taaj, illuminating a soulless curiosity and aggressive determination. Richard shivered as he looked at the man by the water.

The smith spoke to this figure again, and this time Richard thought he heard a name:
Yar sun.

The name was familiar. He played its sound in his mind. It was
distinctly
familiar, and when the smith repeated it the sound became clear, and Richard felt a thrill of excitement as he realised who was confronting him on the shore.

Jason!

*   *   *

The argonauts had worked all night and by dawn the
Argo
was secure and upright, still impaled on the rocks but ready, now, for the first planks to be repaired. At the water’s edge the effigy of Hera was a grim depiction of the manipulative nature of the Goddess. Her face was pinched, her eyes wide and angry, and although there was beauty there, the effect was disempowering. One would not enter lightly into a relationship with a woman whose need for gratification was so determinedly portrayed. Ten feet high, wreathed in the coils of black smoke from the braziers, the statue gazed across the bowed, crouching shape of a man in a black, wool-trimmed cloak: Jason himself, but a man now long-years-since finished with the quest for which he had become renowned.

He was talking occasionally and nodding, as if in communion with the idol. When he stood it was a sudden movement and he turned quickly to look directly at Richard, hidden among the rocks. Richard started with shock as the dark face broke into a cruel grin and a brawny hand lifted, finger extended, pointing. The idol had drawn attention to him.

This was an
old
man. Below the dark fur hood, Jason’s hair and beard were grey, and the naked torso that was now revealed was sagging, the belly full over a wide sword belt, like a girdle, the thighs still strong, but loose-skinned. He was in his seventies, by the look of him, and his companions not far off, their women friends too; they formed a gap-toothed, grey-haired, crouch-boned crew of adventurers, but strong in arm, and still strong in menace.

The smith was attacking rigging rings and bolts, sending sparks flying. The dull sound of hammered bronze pulsed along the lake shore.

Richard returned to Old Stone Hollow in time to see the centaur moving furtively away up the river. It glanced back as it heard movement and raised an arm in thanks before trotting jerkily into the shadows.

An hour later the first of the argonauts edged cautiously through the gully and approached the giant effigy which Richard had constructed at the gateway to the compound. The man had no beard, just a wide moustache. His grey hair was lank, but held back by a simple purple headband. He carried a bow, a quiver of arrows, and a wide-bladed cutting sword that reflected greenly as he held it at the ready. Apart from sandals and a belt fringed with leather strips, he was naked below the heavy cloak of stitched skins that he wore, opened at the front. They had come from hot Aegean weather into this brisk, chilly autumnal world.

The man stood across the river and peered into Old Stone Hollow, observing the cliff, the longhouse, the height of the palisade, the wooden Guardian. He was nervous, curious, and perhaps only an advance guard. From hiding in the long grass Richard scanned the cliff top and the other paths, but he saw nothing. As the argonaut stepped into the river, to cross it and enter the compound, Richard darted quickly to the tent that protected the generator and increased its power to the wires, ground tracks, and laser channels around the Station.

The effect was astonishing. The man stopped suddenly, very puzzled, then began to scream, stumbling back in the water, falling, dragging himself up onto the bank again. Around him, the land heaved, the trees shuddered. He jerked his hand away from the sudden tug of green tendrils that had emerged to wrap around him. Again he screamed, this time in terror, his voice taking on a strange quality, deepening, until it was not recognisably human. He was still standing, but he had become grey. Gradually his spine arched and he tumbled back. There was a scurrying of activity around him and ground-ivy flowed to cover him. Below this unlikely shroud he continued to struggle and breathe for some time, occasionally emitting a cry of intense pain, occasionally calling helplessly for Jason.

As he had fallen, so there had been a quick movement back towards the gully. Richard darted round the palisade and peered out, in time to see Jason and two others returning in haste, and certainly in confusion, to their lakeside camp by the
Argo.

*   *   *

Later in the day, one of the women and another argonaut edged through the gully. They called out repeatedly, advertising their presence, and took a wide arc up the slope, above the river, before cautiously coming to the water’s edge, grinning and nodding, there to place a gleaming jug and a roll of fleece on the ground. They were unarmed and crept away. Richard watched them go, then fetched the offerings into the compound, delighting in the fact that he was clearly regarded as some terrible creature that would need placating. He remembered the Gorgon, however, and was not unaware that to these ageing adventurers, placation might only be a first ruse in the eventual tricking and destroying of the mysterious, magical life-form that they had encountered.

How did Jason and his crew regard him, he wondered? They had adventured against cyclops and titans, gorgons and sirens, the guardians of magic groves and serpents. Here, now, they had beached by magic on a cold lake shore, after passing, perhaps, through an odd storm, or clashing rocks, on the sunny Aegean. They were in a mysterious land, and threatened by a wild man, a wizard, who summoned the very earth to consume one of their men by touching a bizarre, metallic monster that hummed a single note, and whined to call for more prey.

The jug was of beaten gold. It contained a sharp wine, flavoured with lavender, and he was immediately suspicious, risking no more than a taste on the end of his finger. The vessel was exquisite, decorated with figures of heroes, and the full and leafy features of the god of all things indulgent. The roll of fleece did not reveal gold, to his disappointment, but was beautifully soft, white with fine streaks of grey, and cut carefully to make a shoulder wrap, the ties at the front being the small, scaly horns of the creature that had perhaps once worn the hide more naturally. The horns were not pronouncedly like a goat’s, nor sheep-like—more in the fashion of Pan, he thought.

The sounds of repair were loud. Richard heard trees being felled, the wood then chopped and shaped. The forge rang continuously and sometimes the breeze brought the smell of cooking and Richard sighed as he remembered good, tasty stews and succulent Sunday roasts of lamb and pork.

Perhaps his hunger carried on that same breeze. In the late afternoon, Jason and another burly fellow, both unarmed, both in sheepskins, brought a small copper cauldron to the river’s edge and left it there. A tantalising aroma of fish and Mediterranean herbs came from the pot. Jason’s companion withdrew nervously, but the leader of the argonauts remained. He produced a wooden spoon and consumed three mouthfuls of the soup and fish, then drew back so that Richard could cross the water and take the container. Jason made encouraging sounds, grinning, his mouth full of black teeth.

“Thank you,” Richard said, and added, “Daksi.”

Jason shook his head thoughtfully, crouched on his haunches, eyes alert for every movement, every twitch of the forest. Richard carried the cauldron back into the compound then came to the river’s edge again, dropping into the same tense crouch as his visitor. He was conscious of being explored carefully, examined in every detail, from his tennis shoes to his denim shorts, from the ragged affair of blankets that he wore around his shoulders for warmth to his braided hair and the bone slivers and egret feathers with which the boy had decorated him in recent, happier times.

Jason indicated the crumbling mound that was his dead companion and said a few words. Richard spread his hands and shook his head, before hunching forward again. “I didn’t know it would happen. There’s a defensive field around Old Stone Hollow—” He waved his hand behind him and repeated slowly: “Old Stone. Hollow.” Jason nodded and said, “Hollow.”

Richard went on, “The field kills in different ways. It didn’t kill the centaur at all, and you seem safe enough. You’re mythagos. All of you. And you’re all vulnerable in different ways. This is a dying-place, for mythagos. It’s dangerous for you to be here.”

“Hollow,” Jason said. “Mythaaga…”

“Mythagos, that’s right.”

Jason shook his head, looking beyond Richard, then scanning the high rise of shadowy cliff. He stood and stretched, rubbing circulation back into his tanned and muscular legs. His bones creaked and cracked as he straightened, like the
Argo
on the beach, and he grinned broadly, an acknowledgement of age. He pointed to the stew and said something encouraging, then raised a hand in temporary farewell.

As he left he glanced back twice, his face an open book of thoughtful planning.

*   *   *

What was Richard’s significance to them? Were they afraid of him? Did he represent some goal in their adventure? Did they believe that he might be in possession of a magic that would aid their greater quest?

The
Argo
had been pulled down from the rocks, and was now suspended by ropes. Its stern was in the water, but its prow, and the damaged area of the hull, were more accessible to the carpenters and metalworkers, and Richard, watching from above the gully, could see how the planks had been cut back to expose the great tree that formed the keel.

An aspect of the Jason legend came back to him: the
Argo
was built around a sacred oak. He had always assumed that the keel had been shaped from the tree, however, not that the tree itself had been incorporated into the vessel. Yet there it was, its branches like veins, reaching up and through the narrow space below the deck, winding around like roots, a cage of branches containing strength and magic, a cage of branches within the man-formed sleek shape of the ship itself.

Two of the argonauts were at work repairing several broken branches, applying an unguent. Smoking censers had been placed inside the tree, and the vapour wafted out across the lake. Looking carefully, Richard could see movement inside the oak cage, acts of propitiation, perhaps, or repair to the main trunk.

It was as he watched the bustle of activity that he heard the sound of a girl crying out in anguish. A harsh male voice barked an order. Much of the work on the ship stopped for a moment and there was a clattering, somewhere below decks, the sound of hooves, or stamping, and then a rattle of metal followed again by the girl’s shrill cry.