Authors: Robert Holdstock

Celtika (47 page)

He suddenly reached down, groaning with the effort, and picked up his son’s wide-bladed sword where it had been discarded. He looked at it for a moment, at his own blood on the iron, then, with a roar, flung it at me. I moved just in time, and the bone grip struck against my shoulder.

Shaking his head, Jason limped away, towards the grove where his white horse was tethered by the stream. But he had not gone very far before he sank to his knees, head dropping, using his last strength, holding the shaft, to keep his body from keeling over.

* * *

I was running. I ran like a guilty child, up the hill to the ridge, to the oak of Dodona, which towered untouched, yet to be shaken by the approaching Celtic army.

There was no sign of Medea, but youthful Mielikki was waiting for me, tears in her eyes. She reached a hand for me. I started to weep, for the memory of childhood and the young woman who had become Medea, though not before we had shared love, a love I now longed to remember. And I wept for Jason, for the loss of a friend, that man, dying by the stream, crouching, clutching his side as he waited to see if his shade would rise and walk into Persephone’s silent realm.

The Forest Lady embraced me gently. I leaned against her, helpless and in despair. If Niiv had stepped out of the shadow of the tree and tried to steal from me at that moment, she could have done so with ease.

‘Nothing has turned out right,’ I whispered, unashamedly sorry for myself. ‘I don’t know where to go next. I’ve lost the Path.’

‘Fierce Eyes has softened towards you. That was unexpected.’

‘Yes. But what have I lost? I’ve lost so much.’

‘You can’t know that. Not yet. Not until everything is finished.’

For a moment her words confused me. But I thought of Urtha, slowly returning to his own land, a country blighted by desertion and haunted by an army of angry dead. And of Kinos, hidden somewhere in that same land, perhaps searching for Thesokorus as the King of Killers had searched for him. And Medea would certainly fall back to protect her offspring from Jason, if the man recovered from his wound and journeyed again to the realm between the sea-swept walls.

Forest Lady was right. It was not yet finished.

She soothed me. The wind blew through the oak, and the scent of honey from the hives was sweet on the air. Somewhere, not too far away, the earth was shaking as horsemen cantered blindly towards us.

‘It’s time you went home for a while,’ the Lady who held me whispered.

‘Yes,’ I said to her, clinging to that hope, that dream, with all my heart. ‘Take me home.’ I thought of Ghostland, and the memory was warm. ‘Take me to Alba.’

She seemed surprised. ‘To Urtha’s land? To the wasteland?’

‘
This
is wasteland,’ I remember saying bitterly. ‘Alba is as good a home as any.’

‘Then that’s where Argo will take you,’ Mielikki whispered. ‘We will both come with you. I can wait for the north. I don’t mind waiting. Argo will take you home.’

She took my hand and led me back to the river. There was no sign of Jason. We sat on the rocks and waited for dusk. And with the passing of the light, the river began to deepen. The hills seemed to rise to enfold us until only a narrow band of stars could be seen above.

We stood and stepped into the water. And the small, beautiful ship drifted out of the darkness towards us, a spirit from Argo, pale by the starlight. She nudged me gently as she passed and I hauled myself aboard, settling down among the skins and blankets and untying the laces of my boots.

Free for a while, to breathe and dream.

Afterword

On this wistful note, the first extended narrative text of the Merlin Codex ends.

The continuation of the story deals with Merlin’s return to Alba, hiding at the edge of ‘Ghostland’, haunted by Niiv’s stolen vision of the future as well as the certainty that Jason, if he has survived the wound, will return to the island, to search for his second son, Kinos, Little Dreamer. As he tries to understand both the nature of the wasteland that has blighted Urtha’s world, and the reason for the savage attack from the Land of the Shadows of Heroes, Merlin makes it clear quite quickly that he is in no doubt that Little Dreamer has much to do with the dark story unfolding between the ‘sea-swept walls’ of Alba.

He waits for Medea to emerge from the underworld again, and for the return of Argo, the Ship of Heroes; aware in both cases that circumstances have changed greatly.

R.H.

London, April 2000

Praise for
Celtika
and Robert Holdstock

“Dazzling … Holdstock more than lives up to his billing as one of the finest living crafters of myth.”

—
Publishers Weekly
(starred review)

“Strong and striking … Holdstock masterfully conflates two great myths of two disparate cultures. The personalities of Jason and Medea are consistent with their legends, but their motivations are revealed with a sure, contemporary astuteness.”

—
San Francisco Chronicle

“It astonishes.”

—
Kirkus Reviews

“Holdstock is the finest writer of metamorphic fantasy now working.”

—
The Washington Post

“Our finest living mythmaker.”

—Stephen Baxter

“Marvelous … Highly recommended.”

—
Interzone

“No other author has so successfully captured the magic of the wildwood.”

—Michael Moorcock

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

CELTIKA: BOOK ONE OF THE MERLIN CODEX

First published in Great Britain by Earthlight, 2001

An Imprint of Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

A Viacom Company

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

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New York, NY 10010

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Tor
®
is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

ISBN: 0-765-34904-3

First Edition: March 2003