‹ Prequel: Ninety Days of Water
Status: Active.
Tundra
Chapter XXV – In Memorium – Part III
Long did I lie in the barrow for spirits, that spiral etched into sacred black sandstone standing stones. Fortunately, I had died close to the ritual site. It did not take my friends long to drag my body through the trees, which parted to reveal a pool in the centre of the ring of stones. They buried me nearby, Eiron solemn, Hackley trembling and Aais respectful as he recited a song called The Current’s Farewell, pausing from time to time to wipe the tears from my Apprentice’s eyes.
‘It shouldn’t have happened like this!’ she kept saying. ‘I’ve lost two Masters now…’ It broke my heart to hear it, but I could not intervene. Fainter than a shadow, I could only watch the world when I descended from time to time to the physical plane. No-one ever came after me. If they knew it was possible to communicate with beings on the astral plane through druidic ritual they must not have believed me to be in such a place. As far as they knew, I was simply the consequence of a plan gone wrong, an ordinary death, with a soul gone forever.
In time, each of my friends went their separate ways. Eiron said a stiff goodbye and left for the coast, taking nothing with him but his axe. Aais, the first fish-man to walk on solid land, walked confidently in another direction, towards another shore. Hackley rode with the mammoth riders until the tundra was a grey blur beneath her feet, and the horizon a distant echo of the same washed-out tone. I followed her furthest, but it was not long before she was beyond my reach. Then, I had other things to watch. The forest around the grove began to grow back, its progress hastened by the fire, which cooked the sacred acorns and encouraged them to hatch. Vines formed new slings for broken branches, and flowers began to bloom, budding from the ends of twigs that had been snapped.
Finally, one day a sunbeam came, lancing down through the meshed canopy to alight on my stone. That stone had much in common with the acorns. The heat warmed it as though it were an egg; the spiral began to brighten on the dull surface of the stone. As the circles, symbols of cyclical life, grew bolder, I also grew steadily stronger and more restless. It was as the First Druid had said– there was something of me left in the grove. At the equinox I first began to feel sensation in my hands and feet, buried so far underground. Slowly but certainly, my body reanimated, the fungus working its magic now that the sacred season was upon the tundra. I knew that all over the grove druids would be forsaking their bonds with reality to become part of the Otherworld, and to take on the monstrous appearances that the infected Seafarers and mammoth riders had one worn. I knew, therefore, that they would look like me.
The fungus gave me vigour. It dredged me up from the grave, but though it had slowed my body’s decay it could not restore the parts that had rotted. My fingertips were sharp arrows of protruding bone, yellowed and dry. My skin was sallow, and my muscles wasted. I stared into the reflective pool in the centre of the ring of standing stones and saw something unrecognisable, little more than a skeleton, peering back. My eyes stared out of dark sockets like caves, while my hair was thin and stingy. Yet, I had a body, and that was something. It was better to be corporal than to drift aimlessly in the Otherworld. It was better to be reanimated than to be dead.
My thoughts were interrupted when I felt something heavy fall onto my shoulder– a hand, which followed an arm and finally a face that appeared behind my own in the shimmering surface of the pool. I expected admonishment, maybe even a second execution, but the druid’s voice was kind.
‘There is a place for you here,’ he said, ‘if you want it. Your body has fed the Grove, and it would be wrong of us not to demonstrate our gratitude in some way. You would have to be bound by our laws, and sleep in the earth while you wander the real world. No southerner has ever been offered this before, but this has been a strange time for all of us.’
I turned around. ‘You’re grateful?’ I asked.
‘Of course,’ the druid said. I noticed that the tips of horns had just begun to sprout out of his nest of hair. ‘None of us wanted Grissos to break the seasons, but we could not do anything about it,’ he explained. ‘We needed a tool, and you presented yourself, in the same way that Eiron did. Now, you can claim your reward.’
‘Maybe someday,’ I said, cupping handfuls of water to rinse the fresh earth from my face. I managed to wash away enough clods that cheekbones could be seen again, protruding so sharply that they threatened to break my skin. ‘My work is not yet done.’
‘You saved us all,’ the druid said. The dappled light and shade of the grove played across his face, and I began to think about exits from the forest, and where I would find them. ‘What else do you have to do?’
‘Selfish things, mostly,’ I replied, ‘but valid ones.’
‘It shouldn’t have happened like this!’ she kept saying. ‘I’ve lost two Masters now…’ It broke my heart to hear it, but I could not intervene. Fainter than a shadow, I could only watch the world when I descended from time to time to the physical plane. No-one ever came after me. If they knew it was possible to communicate with beings on the astral plane through druidic ritual they must not have believed me to be in such a place. As far as they knew, I was simply the consequence of a plan gone wrong, an ordinary death, with a soul gone forever.
In time, each of my friends went their separate ways. Eiron said a stiff goodbye and left for the coast, taking nothing with him but his axe. Aais, the first fish-man to walk on solid land, walked confidently in another direction, towards another shore. Hackley rode with the mammoth riders until the tundra was a grey blur beneath her feet, and the horizon a distant echo of the same washed-out tone. I followed her furthest, but it was not long before she was beyond my reach. Then, I had other things to watch. The forest around the grove began to grow back, its progress hastened by the fire, which cooked the sacred acorns and encouraged them to hatch. Vines formed new slings for broken branches, and flowers began to bloom, budding from the ends of twigs that had been snapped.
Finally, one day a sunbeam came, lancing down through the meshed canopy to alight on my stone. That stone had much in common with the acorns. The heat warmed it as though it were an egg; the spiral began to brighten on the dull surface of the stone. As the circles, symbols of cyclical life, grew bolder, I also grew steadily stronger and more restless. It was as the First Druid had said– there was something of me left in the grove. At the equinox I first began to feel sensation in my hands and feet, buried so far underground. Slowly but certainly, my body reanimated, the fungus working its magic now that the sacred season was upon the tundra. I knew that all over the grove druids would be forsaking their bonds with reality to become part of the Otherworld, and to take on the monstrous appearances that the infected Seafarers and mammoth riders had one worn. I knew, therefore, that they would look like me.
The fungus gave me vigour. It dredged me up from the grave, but though it had slowed my body’s decay it could not restore the parts that had rotted. My fingertips were sharp arrows of protruding bone, yellowed and dry. My skin was sallow, and my muscles wasted. I stared into the reflective pool in the centre of the ring of standing stones and saw something unrecognisable, little more than a skeleton, peering back. My eyes stared out of dark sockets like caves, while my hair was thin and stingy. Yet, I had a body, and that was something. It was better to be corporal than to drift aimlessly in the Otherworld. It was better to be reanimated than to be dead.
My thoughts were interrupted when I felt something heavy fall onto my shoulder– a hand, which followed an arm and finally a face that appeared behind my own in the shimmering surface of the pool. I expected admonishment, maybe even a second execution, but the druid’s voice was kind.
‘There is a place for you here,’ he said, ‘if you want it. Your body has fed the Grove, and it would be wrong of us not to demonstrate our gratitude in some way. You would have to be bound by our laws, and sleep in the earth while you wander the real world. No southerner has ever been offered this before, but this has been a strange time for all of us.’
I turned around. ‘You’re grateful?’ I asked.
‘Of course,’ the druid said. I noticed that the tips of horns had just begun to sprout out of his nest of hair. ‘None of us wanted Grissos to break the seasons, but we could not do anything about it,’ he explained. ‘We needed a tool, and you presented yourself, in the same way that Eiron did. Now, you can claim your reward.’
‘Maybe someday,’ I said, cupping handfuls of water to rinse the fresh earth from my face. I managed to wash away enough clods that cheekbones could be seen again, protruding so sharply that they threatened to break my skin. ‘My work is not yet done.’
‘You saved us all,’ the druid said. The dappled light and shade of the grove played across his face, and I began to think about exits from the forest, and where I would find them. ‘What else do you have to do?’
‘Selfish things, mostly,’ I replied, ‘but valid ones.’