Lavondyss Read online

  LAVONDYSS

  Robert Holdstock

  www.sfgateway.com

  Enter the SF Gateway …

  In the last years of the twentieth century (as Wells might have put it), Gollancz, Britain’s oldest and most distinguished science fiction imprint, created the SF and Fantasy Masterworks series. Dedicated to re-publishing the English language’s finest works of SF and Fantasy, most of which were languishing out of print at the time, they were – and remain – landmark lists, consummately fulfilling the original mission statement:

  ‘SF MASTERWORKS is a library of the greatest SF ever written, chosen with the help of today’s leading SF writers and editors. These books show that genuinely innovative SF is as exciting today as when it was first written.’

  Now, as we move inexorably into the twenty-first century, we are delighted to be widening our remit even more. The realities of commercial publishing are such that vast troves of classic SF & Fantasy are almost certainly destined never again to see print. Until very recently, this meant that anyone interested in reading any of these books would have been confined to scouring second-hand bookshops. The advent of digital publishing has changed that paradigm for ever.

  The technology now exists to enable us to make available, for the first time, the entire backlists of an incredibly wide range of classic and modern SF and fantasy authors. Our plan is, at its simplest, to use this technology to build on the success of the SF and Fantasy Masterworks series and to go even further.

  Welcome to the new home of Science Fiction & Fantasy. Welcome to the most comprehensive electronic library of classic SFF titles ever assembled.

  Welcome to the SF Gateway.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Gateway Introduction

  Contents

  Epigraph

  PART ONE: Old Forbidden Place

  White Mask

  Earthworks

  Broken Boy’s Fancy

  The Hollowing: Bird Spirit Land

  Shadow of the Wood

  The Bone Forest

  Geistzones

  PART TWO: In the Unknown Region

  The Mortuary House

  The Sudden Flight of Birds

  All Things Undreamed Of

  The First Forest

  Ghost of the Tree

  CODA

  Website

  Also By Robert Holdstock

  Dedication

  Author Bio

  Copyright

  Darest thou now, O soul,

  Walk out with me toward the unknown region,

  Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow?

  Walt Whitman

  Darest Thou Now, O Soul

  PART ONE

  Old Forbidden Place

  A fire is burning in Bird Spirit Land.

  My bones smoulder. I must journey there.

  Shaman dream chant, c. 10,000 B.C.

  [GABERLUNGI]

  White Mask

  The bright moon, hanging low over Barrow Hill, illuminated the snow-shrouded fields and made the winter land seem to glow with faint light. It was a lifeless, featureless place, and yet the shapes of the fields were clear, marked out by the moonshadow of the dark oak hedges that bordered them. Distantly, from that shadow round the meadow called The Stumps, the ghostly figure began to move again, following a hidden track over the rise of ground, then moving left, into tree cover. It stood there, just visible now to the old man who watched it from Stretley Farm; watching back. The cloak it wore was dark, the hood pulled low over its face. As if moved for the second time, coming closer to the farmhouse, it left the black wood behind. It was stooped, against the Christmas cold, perhaps. Where it walked it left a deep furrow in the fresh snow.

  Standing at the gate of the farm, waiting for the moment he knew, now, must surely come, Owen Keeton heard his grandchild begin to cry. He turned to the dark face of the house and listened. The sobbing was a brief disturbance; a dream perhaps. Then the infant girl was quiet again.

  Keeton retraced his steps across the garden, stepped into the warm house and kicked the snow from his boots. He walked into the parlour, prodded the log fire with the metal poker until the flames roared again, then went to the window and peered out at the main road to Shadoxhurst, the nearest village to the farm. He could just hear, very distantly, the sound of carols. Glancing at the clock above the fire he realized that Christmas Day had begun ten minutes before.

  At the parlour table he stared down at the book of folklore and legend that lay open there. The print was very fine, the pages thick and of good quality paper; the illustrations, in full colour, were exquisite. It was a book he loved, and he was giving it to his granddaughter as a present. The images of knights and heroes inspired him; the Welshness of the names and places made him nostalgic for the lost places and lost voices of his own youth in the mountains of Wales. The epic tales had filled his head with the sound of battle, war-cry and the rustle of tree and bird in the glades of haunted forest.

  Now there was something else in the book, written in the white spaces around the print: a letter. His letter to the child.

  He turned back to the beginning of that letter, where the chapter on Arthur of the Britons began. He scanned the words quickly:

  My dear Tallis: I’m an old man writing to you on a cold December night. I wonder if you will love the snow as much as I do? And regret as much the way it can imprison you. There is old memory in snow. You will find that out in due course, for I know where you come from, now …

  The fire guttered and Keeton shivered despite it, and despite the heavy coat he wore. He stared at the wall, beyond which the snow-covered garden led to the fields, and that hooded figure, coming towards him. He felt a sudden urgent need to have done with this letter, to finalize it. It was a sort of panic. It gripped his heart and his stomach, and the hand that reached for the pen was shaking. The sound of the clock grew loud, but he resisted the urge to stare at it, to mark the passage of time, so little time, so few minutes …

  He had to finish writing the letter, and soon. He bent to the page and began to squeeze the words into the narrow margin:

  We bring alive ghosts, Tallis, and the ghosts huddle at the edge of vision. They are wise in ways that are a wisdom we all still share but have forgotten. But the wood is us and we are the wood! You will learn this. You will learn names. You will smell that ancient winter, so much more ferocious than this simple Xmas snow. And as you do so, you are treading an old and important pathway. I began to tread it first, until they abandoned me …

  He wrote on, turning the pages, filling the margins, linking his own words to the unconscious child with the words of fable, forming a link that would be of value to her, one day in her future.

  When he had finished the letter he used his handkerchief to blot the ink then closed the book. He wrapped it in heavy brown paper and tied it with a length of string.

  On the brown paper he wrote this simple message: For Tallis; for your fifth birthday. From Granddad Owen.

  He buttoned up his coat again and went back out into the cold, silent winter’s night. He stood outside the door for a moment feeling frightened, very disturbed. The hooded figure had come all the way across the fields and was standing by the gate to the garden, watching the house. Keeton hesitated a moment longer, then trudged over to it.

  Only the gate separated them. Keeton was shivering inside his heavy overcoat, but his body burned with heat. The hood was low over the woman’s head and he could not tell which of the three she was. She must have been aware of his unspoken thought since she looked up slightly, turning to regard him. As she did so, Keeton realized she had been staring past him. A white mask gleamed from below the woollen cape.

  ‘It’s you, then …’ Keeton whispere
d.

  Distantly, moving down the slope from the earthworks on Barrow Hill, he saw two other hooded figures. As if aware that he had noticed them, they stopped and seemed to shrink into the whiteness of the land.

  He said, almost bitterly, ‘I was beginning to understand. I had begun to understand. And now you’re abandoning me …’

  In the house, the child cried out. White Mask glanced towards the landing window, but the cry was another transient moment of disturbance. Keeton watched the ghost woman and couldn’t help the tears that surfaced to sting his eyes. She looked back at him and he thought he saw some hint of her face through the thin holes that were the eyes.

  ‘Listen to me,’ he said softly. ‘I have something to ask you. You see, they’ve lost their son. He was shot down over Belgium. They’ve lost him and they’ll grieve for years. If you take the daughter, now … if you take her now …’ he shuddered, wiped a hand across his eyes and took a deep breath of the frozen air. White Mask watched him without movement, without sound. ‘Give them a few years. Please? If you don’t want me … at least give them a few years with the child …’

  White Mask slowly raised a finger to the lips of the chalk-smeared wood which covered her face. Keeton could see how old that finger was, how loose the skin on the hand, how small the hand.

  Then she turned and ran from him, her dark cloak billowing, feet kicking up the snow. Halfway across the field she stopped and turned. Keeton heard the shrill sound of her laughter. This time, as she ran, it was away to the west, towards the shadow wood, Ryhope Wood. On Barrow Hill her companions were running too.

  Keeton knew the country well. He could see at once that the three figures would meet at the edge of Stretley Stones meadow, where five ogham stones marked ancient graves.

  He was both relieved and intrigued, relieved because White Mask had agreed with his request; he was certain of it. They would not come for Tallis, not for many years. He was certain of it.

  And he was intrigued by the Stretley Stones, and by the ghost women who were moving to rendezvous there.

  The child would be safe ….

  He glanced round, guiltily. The house was in silence.

  The child would be safe for a few minutes … just a few minutes … he would be back at the house long before Tallis’s parents returned from the Christmas service.

  Stretley Stones beckoned him. He pulled his coat more tightly around him, opened the gate and waded out into the deep snow of the field. He followed White Mask’s tracks, and soon he was running to see what they would do in the meadow where the marked stones lay …

  [THE HOLLOWER]

  Earthworks

  (i)

  ‘So you still don’t know the secret name of this place?’ Mr Williams asked again.

  ‘No,’ Tallis agreed. ‘Not yet. Perhaps not ever. Secret names are very hard to find out. They’re in a part of the mind that is very closed off from the “thinking” part.’

  ‘Are they, indeed?’

  They had reached the bottom of Rough Field, walking slowly in the intense summer heat, and Tallis clambered over the stile. Mr Williams, who was an old man and very heavily built, manoeuvred himself across the rickety wooden structure with greater care. Half-way across the stile he paused and smiled almost apologetically. Sorry to keep you waiting.

  Tallis Keeton was tall for her thirteen years of age, but very thin. She felt helpless, watching the man; she felt certain that any steadying hand which she might offer would be useless. So she thrust her hands into the pockets of her summer dress and kicked at the ground, scuffing up the turf.

  When he had crossed into the field Mr Williams smiled again, this time contentedly. He pushed a hand through his thick, white hair and rolled up his shirt sleeves. He was carrying a jacket over his arm. They began to walk on, then, towards the small stream which Tallis called Fox Water.

  ‘But you don’t even know the common name of the place?’ he said, continuing the conversation.

  ‘Not even that,’ Tallis said. ‘Common names can be difficult too. I need to find someone who has been there, or heard of it.’

  ‘So … if I understand correctly … what you are left with to describe this strange world which only you can see is your own name for it.’

  ‘Only my private name,’ Tallis agreed.

  ‘Old Forbidden Place,’ Mr Williams. ‘It has a good sound to it …’

  He broke off, about to say more, because Tallis had rounded on him, a finger to her lips, dark eyes wide and concerned.

  ‘What have I done now?’ he asked, prodding the ground as he walked beside the child. It was high summer. The animal droppings in the fields buzzed with flies. The animals themselves were gathered in the shade beneath the trees which were grouped about the field. Everything was very still. The human voices seemed thin as old man and girl walked and talked.

  ‘I told you yesterday, you can only say a private name three times between dawn and dusk. You’ve said it three times already, now. You’ve used it up.’

  Mr Williams pulled a face. ‘Terribly sorry …’

  Tallis just sighed.

  ‘This business of names,’ Mr Williams persisted after a while. They could hear the stream, now, tumbling over the stepping stones which Tallis had placed there. ‘Everything has three names?’

  ‘Not everything.’

  ‘This field, for example. How many names?’

  ‘Just two,’ Tallis said. ‘Its common name – the Hollows – and my private name.’

  ‘Which is?’

  Tallis grinned, glancing up at her companion. They stopped walking. Tallis said, ‘This is Windy Cave Meadow.’

  Mr Williams looked around, frowning. ‘Yes. You mentioned this place yesterday. But …’ He raised a hand to his forehead and shaded his eyes as he looked carefully from right to left. After a moment he said dramatically, ‘I see no caves.’

  Tallis laughed and raised her arms to indicate the very spot where Mr Williams stood. ‘You’re standing in it!’

  Mr Williams looked up, looked round, then cupped his ear. He shook his head. ‘I’m not convinced.’

  ‘You are!’ Tallis assured him loudly. ‘It’s a big cave and goes into the hill, only you can’t see the hill either.’

  ‘Can you?’ Mr Williams asked from the scorched meadow, in the middle of a farm.

  Tallis shrugged mysteriously. ‘No,’ she confessed. ‘Well, sometimes.’

  Mr Williams regarded her suspiciously. ‘Hmm,’ he murmured after a moment. ‘Well, let’s get on. I’d like to dip my feet in cold water.’

  They crossed Fox Water by the stepping stones, found a suitable, grassy piece of bank and slipped off shoes and socks. Mr Williams rolled up the legs of his trousers. They flexed their toes in the cool water. For a while they sat in silence, staring back up across the pasture, Windy Cave Meadow, to the distant dark shape of the house that was Tallis’s home.

  ‘Have you named all the fields?’ Mr Williams asked eventually.

  ‘Not all. The names for some of them just won’t come. I must be doing something wrong, but I’m too young to work it out.’

  ‘Are you indeed?’ Mr Williams murmured with a smile.

  Ignoring the comment (but aware of its wry nature) Tallis said, ‘I’m trying to get to Ryhope Wood on my own, but I can’t cross the last field. It must be very well defended …’

  ‘The field?’

  ‘The wood. It’s on the Ryhope estate. It’s a very old wood. It has survived for thousands of years according to Gaunt – ’

  ‘Your gardener.’

  ‘Yes. He calls it primal. He says everyone knows about the wood, but nobody ever talks about it. People are frightened of the place.’

  ‘You’re not, though.’

  Tallis shook her head. ‘But I can’t cross the last field. I’m trying to find another way to get there, but it’s hard.’ She stared up at the old man, who was watching the water, lost in thought. ‘Do you think woods can be aware of people, and keep them
at a distance?’

  He pulled a face. ‘That’s a funny thought,’ he said, adding, ‘Why not use its secret name? Do you know its secret name?’

  Tallis shrugged. ‘No. Only its common names, and it has hundreds of those, some of them thousands of years old. Shadox Wood, Ryhope Wood, Grey Wood, Rider’s Wood, Hood Trees, Deep Dell Copses, Howling Wood, Hell’s Trees, The Graymes … the list is endless. Gaunt knows them all.’

  Mr Williams was impressed. ‘And of course, you can’t just walk across the field to this name-thronged forest …’

  ‘Of course not. Not alone.’

  ‘No. Of course you can’t. I understand. From what you told me yesterday, I understand very well.’ He turned round, where he sat, to peer into the distance, but there were too many fields, too many slopes, too many trees between himself and Ryhope Wood for him to have a view of it. When he looked back, Tallis was pointing beyond the trees.

  ‘You can see all my camps from here. In the last few months I’ve heard a lot of movement in them. Other visitors. But they’re not like us. My grandfather called them mythagos.’

  ‘An odd word.’

  ‘They’re ghosts. They come from here,’ she tapped her head. ‘And here,’ she tapped Mr Williams’s. ‘I don’t understand completely.’

  ‘Your grandfather sounds like an interesting man.’

  Tallis pointed to Stretley Stones meadow. ‘He died over there, one Christmas. I was only a baby. I never knew him.’ She pointed in the opposite direction, towards Barrow Hill. ‘That’s my favourite camp.’

  ‘I can see earthworks.’

  ‘It’s an old castle. Centuries old.’ She pointed elsewhere. ‘And that’s Sad Song Meadow. There, on the other side of the hedge.’

  ‘Sad Song Meadow,’ Mr Williams repeated. ‘Why did that name come to you?’