Beneath dreaming trees, three men worked at a fallen oak. They were
themselves little more than the stuff of dreams, their thoughts as dim
as the world they inhabited. Heorath, Thygnar, and Cyn - their names
sounded harsh, like the barking of bears. And they looked a bit like
bears, shaggy and unshaven, hacking at the stubborn wood with great,
unwieldy axes. All three of them looked up when the witch-wife
appeared suddenly beside a laurel bush.
They had often seen her gathering herbs, muttering spells as she
glided through the clearings. She was the mother of Thygnar’s father
but this did nothing to allay his fear of her.
She eyed them as she came nearer, making Thygnar move aside. He
set down his axe lest she think he meant her harm, and he tried not to
look directly at her. Her face was long and worn, reddened with the
wind, and fallen in about the cheeks. Her nose and chin came
uncomfortably close to one another. Her yellowed braids hung lank and
greasy from beneath a leather cap shiny with age, and her dress was the
color of the earth.
"It is time," she said, and all three dared look at her. She had
twined her staff with ivy and sacred flowers. "It is the time of the
end," she repeated.
Thygnar stifled a small sound of dismay and made a sign to ward off
calamity. His cousins, Heorath and Cyn were more deliberate as they
lowered their axes and stared at the crone.
"Why do you say this, Grandmother?" Cyn asked her. He did not
call her Grandmother because he claimed kinship, but only out of
respect.
"It is the time of the bale-fire," she said. "It is the time of
destruction and ending. The pillars of heaven have fallen to the
ground, and all else will follow."
For a moment it looked as though Heorath, at least, might raise his
axe once more and strike off her head. He had recently taken a wife
from among the River Clan. His strong arm kept her safe from bears and
wolves, while the runes he knew kept off what ran and gibbered in the
night. But for this new thing he had no spell. Neither spear nor axe
could strike down fate itself.
But his brother Cyn laid one hand on his arm. "Speak plainly, Old
Woman," Cyn said, setting his own axe aside. "What has come to pass
that you would say this thing?"
She raised her pointed chin. "There yonder, beyond the Hill of Bears, the heavens have fallen, I say."
Cyn frowned, running one hand through his hacked beard. "Do you
mean a hole in the ground?" he asked. "Do you speak of ruin and
desolation?"
The witch-wife gave a derisive laugh. "Would I stop in my coming and
going to tell you there is a hole in the ground?"
"Then what?" Cyn asked her. "What have you seen, Grandmother, that
you wind the holy flowers around your staff and come away from your own
affairs?"
"I have seen the sun," she said, "pouring down upon the rocks. I
have seen and smelled the herbs of heaven. And I have heard the surf
and seen the sea as dark as the memory of the autumn grape."
Cyn had never seen the sea, though he had heard of it from the men
who brought cups and knives to trade for furs. It was as a lake, the
traders said, wherein the lands were set, and where the sun and the
moon and the stars took their rest, each at its appointed time.
But the sea, these men had told him, was grey, and where the old
woman was pointing the sun shone but weakly. He frowned and looked at
his brother.
Heorath had been all the while fingering his own
axe, staring first at Cyn and then at the witch-wife. Now he
spoke.
"The sea is far from here," he said. "And even as far as I
have been - a day’s walk or more beyond the hills - there is only the
forest. The pigeons call among the trees, the deer run before the
hunter, and one sees in the valley the huts of men. But there is no
place like the one of which you speak."
The witch-wife fixed her somber gaze on his face. "I have seen
what I have seen, O Heorath," she said. "And it was no dream. Here!"
She drew forth a sprig of palest, dusky green and held it out to
him. Reluctantly he took it in his hand and sniffed. Cyn could smell
the sharp aroma from where he stood. There were tiny, purple blooms
among the thick, hairy leaves.
"This fell from heaven?" Cyn asked.
"It grew there in the sun," the witch-wife told him, “not far from the sea."
"Were it not for this herb, the like of which I have never seen,"
Cyn mused, "I would not believe. But what this may mean, I cannot
guess."
The old woman shrugged. "It is the end," she said. "The heavens
have broken apart, and soon the bale-fire shall be upon us."
At this, Thygnar rose up and, taking from the ground his axe and
his spear, he turned from the others and departed. Heorath and Cyn
watched him go. Neither of the brothers said what was in their
thoughts - that Thygnar was afraid.
When their cousin had gone, Heorath turned his gaze on his brother,
while Cyn looked down at his hands. When he spoke at last, it was plain
that all had changed. He was no longer merely a shaggy tribesman living
his murky life in the dawn times, but a shaper of men’s memories. Thus
Cyn spoke according to the manner of that which he had become:
Our fate lies before us: the sea in the forest.
Our spears and our axes, we bear to that shore
For death or for fighting.
Heorath bowed his head and spoke in turn, for he too had changed, not knowing what he now was.
O Cyn if you hear me, turn back from this venture.
Content with our lives here, we struggle or die.
But seek not that shoreline!
Cyn looked up at him and Heorath was silenced. "My thanks to you,
Grandmother," he told the witch-wife. "I know you do not lie. But what
truth you are telling remains to be seen."
The old woman snorted and turned away. "I tell what I see, O Cyn.
It may be that you will stand unafraid before the fires of doomsday,
the bale-fire itself. For I can see you are the stuff of heroes."
Once more Cyn bowed his head. "There are other
fires, O Grandmother, than that one. But a man takes what is
given."
When he looked up, she was gone.
The brothers stood a moment beneath a mossy oak and studied the
herb Heorath still held. "A curse she has given," Cyn said. "A breath
of our doom." But then he smiled, and Heorath saw that smile. It made
him shiver.
They did not stop to bid farewell, not Heorath to his woman nor Cyn
to his mother. Hasting along the forest trail, Heorath bore his axe
and his spear and Cyn the great sword that had passed to him from his
father. What help these might be they could not know, but they climbed
the Hill of Bears while the wind sighed among the chestnuts and the
oaks. Heorath had cast away the herb, though its scent lingered on his
hands.
On the other side of the hill, the trees grew more thickly while
mossy streams murmured in their beds of slate, dark beneath the ferns.
They passed a giant beech, half-fallen. Here they paused.
Before them the clouds parted and were no more - and the sun shone
on rock and stone where strange things grew within sight of the
restless sea.
Heorath drew in his breath at sight of this place where no such
place had ever been. The sky was blue as the sky seldom was in the
forest lands, and the sea beneath the radiant sun was as dark in its
depths as the witch-wife had said.
But Cyn was not looking at these things. His gaze was caught by
something small upon the waves but running rapidly before the wind.
Silently he pointed.
"What manner of beast is that?" Heorath whispered. "Is it not the great worm that devours men?"
"It has an eye."
Heorath stared. "So it has. Yet that eye does not blink, nor does it shine."
"There are dwarves upon its back – there beneath the wings. They
shine silver in the sun and their hair is like the plumage of birds."
Again Heorath stared. "You have sharp eyes, O
Cyn. But I think those are plumes. They are wearing caps of metal."
Now great oars had been let down, and the beast proved itself to be
a boat, though of a greater size than any the two brothers had ever
seen. The lake boats they knew were hardly more than rafts.
"They see us," Cyn said, and he grasped his sword tightly.
Indeed, there was more than a little confusion on the boat as
silver-breasted men jabbered and pointed. Their speech flowed like
water tumbling from a rock. It was plain they were as taken aback at
the sight of the forest as the brothers were at beholding the sea.
What had they expected? More rocks and sunshine? More of the
pale, hairy plants? Cyn wondered. He turned about and saw the trees
behind him, mossy, damp, and dark. But now there was something odd
about that darkness – and then he knew what it was.
In the past, whenever he had come to a clearing, the
forest had ended in a wall stuffed tight with holly and laurel, and ivy
and blackberry, towering flat and green. But now he saw, all around
him, splintered trees. It was as though the forest had been
disemboweled, and he and Heorath were standing in a gaping wound.
"They are coming, these creatures," Heorath said,
looking ahead and not seeing the devastation around him. “And
they have swords and spears."
"They are men," Cyn told him, still looking in amazement at the destruction. "Men wrapped in metal."
The strangers had beached their strange beast-boat,
and now some of them waded ashore. Cyn stepped away from the broken
forest, fingering his weapon as he stared out in wonder. Sunlight
poured down on the brisk-stepping men and on their painted craft and
the dancing sea. But behind him the forest brooded as it ever had
beneath a silver sky. There the moss gleamed wet and chill and
green.
The leader of the boatmen stopped, balancing on
sandaled feet, his arms and legs bare, his face half-seen beneath more
metal. The plumes above his cap waved in the wind.
Still, Cyn waited. He thought the smell of
wizardry hung about the stranger, blew in scented waves across the
land, drifted from the boat and from the sea. Cyn squinted aloft
at the enameled sky, and peered toward the horizon where the sea became
mist and melted into the heavens. Then he glanced behind him
where clouds lay dark and heavy above the trees
. A dank breeze blew from the wound in the forest.
He saw the boatmen’s leader look up at the trees and
the clouds. There was fear in the man’s face, but he quickly
overcame it.
Somehow this gave Cyn more courage. "You!" he
shouted across the distance. "Are you fallen from the sky as the
witch-wife told us? Is this the sea of cloud from which the rains
fall?"
The stranger gaped at him.
"They do not know our speech," Heorath said. He came up to stand beside his brother.
For one moment, a tremor seemed to pass across the
seascape, and the painted boat grew blanched beneath a lusterless
sun. The leader stretched out one groping hand.
Then all was as it had been as Cyn put up his sword and began to pick his way down the rocks.
The seafarer paused, sheathed his own weapon, and
then reached up to unfasten his helmet. Cyn came up to him so
that they faced one another, Cyn with the forest behind him, the other
man backed by the sea. The stranger spoke in his liquid speech,
but the words fell short, meaningless. Cyn shook his head and the
other man spread his hands, his face furrowed as though he would force
new words from the air.
"They have the speech of the bright ones above,"
Heorath said, walking across the sand. "They must have listened
to the gods through that gate that lies between their land and heaven."
Cyn did not answer. He watched the stranger, who was
making gestures with his hands. First the man pointed to himself and
then behind him to the sea.
Cyn indicated the sky, pointed to the boatman.
But the stranger shook his head and pointed once more across the sea.
"I do not think they come from the sky at all," Cyn
said. He reached out one hand to touch the other man. But it was
as though space took substance between them and he felt nothing save
the suddenly solid air.
The other man drew back in surprise, extended one
hand, fingers outspread. Cyn reached for him and felt again the
solidness of the air. He and the stranger eyed one another in
perplexity. The seaman was not so young as Cyn had first
thought. His hair and beard were grizzled, but his eyes were blue
and keen. He might have been one who looked at fate and laughed.
Cyn did not laugh. He had seen the forest -
his very home - cut in twain. Here, before him, was mystery,
enigma. He did not like enigmas.
The stranger stood back, considering. Two of his men
came up to him and the three conferred in low voices, gesturing, moving
about on their sandal-shod feet. Then their leader addressed Cyn
once more.
"Odysseus," he said, pointing to himself. Then
he pointed to Cyn and the ship and then away across the sea. All the
while, his bright gaze remained fixed on Cyn’s face, and a light was in
his eyes.
Cyn stepped forward, feeling for the barrier that
separated him from the other man. The air seemed to thicken as reached
into it.
"Cyn!" Heorath called desperately. "Come back!"
His brother arched his neck beneath the sun, staring
into the cloudless sky. "I see my fate," Cyn said. "I am like one
penned in a small place and now the gate is unclosed!"
"It is your bane, Cyn!" Heorath cried. "You are
fey!" Already the boat had ceased to be a boat in his eyes.
Cyn raised his sword, startling the strangers, who
moved back. But when he swung, it was to strike at the air
dividing him from the sea and from the boat. He felt the blade
rebound, but he knew he had made a small wound. He felt it with
his hand. He pushed forward against the barrier and was suddenly
set one foot in the surf. Odysseus, seeing what he did, watched
intently.
But Heorath cried out again, speaking in staves:
Depart not the twilight, your home in the forest!
The ways of our people, your sons who will mourn,
So long as they live!
Cyn paused but a moment before he raised his sword
again and struck. This time a shimmer passed through the air, and
he stepped deeper into the surf.
Heorath called out to him:
It’s death you pursue, not glory in battle!
The world lies in pieces; It is better to mourn.
Go not from your home!
But Cyn did not stop. With his sword he hacked
such a slit in the membranous air that he almost fell through it.
It seemed then as though the forest behind him had darkened. Rain
made a small pattering sound upon the leaves. Glancing back from
where he stood, his former world seemed unutterably cold and dreary.
Once more Heorath pleaded:
O Cyn my own brother, my heart calls you back!
Go not from the twilight; go not from the firelight.
The warmth of our halls!
Again the air trembled and Cyn gazed out over the
sea. How large it was - and the sky! He addressed his
brother for the last time:
Great oak may fall, and I shall not see it.
Great bear may prowl, nor will I pursue it
Beneath that dark sky.
Fought I with all, the beasts and the shadows.
Now in the light, in friendship with heroes,
I fight with the gods!
With this he stepped through the rent he had made
and, taking the hand of Odysseus, joined the warriors in the boat. But
even as he climbed aboard, there came a great swell and a mighty wave.
And when the spume had cleared, sea, sky, sun and ship -- if it had
been a ship at all --had all vanished.
Heorath stood for a long time beneath the dripping
oaks, the dense undergrowth, staring at the place where the sea had
been. Cyn had gone beyond the things he knew, had left the world of
men. When he turned away, Heorath spoke his brother’s death song:
The dragon is fallen, who brought the fell sunlight.
The bale-fire is tempered, the earth shall remain
The forest shall stand.
A hero has fought here, the greatest of battles,
Who perished in felling, the beast from the sea,
For death was his fate.
This song he sang at length, continuing the tale in
the same manner, for this was the only way Heorath could make sense of
what he had seen. He was, after all, a man of the twilight. And
so, still making staves, he returned to the halls of his kindred,
remembering only how the ship had become a dragon and Cyn had drawn his
sword to strike it.
At home, his wife awaited him. For as long as
he lived, his axe would keep off the beasts of the forest. His
runes would hold back the formless dark. And he was content.
As for Cyn, sailing over wine-dark seas, he forgot the forest. And he, too was content.
Colleen
Drippé has written essays and articles for many years. Her work has
appeared in The Wanderer and Catholic Family. A science fiction
writer, she has published a novel entitled Godcountry. Her
short fiction has appeared in various small-press magazines. For
several years she taught first grade, but currently she devotes herself
to her husband, her children, her grandchildren, and her garden.
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Revised January 9, 2007
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