And now there were these sheep. A field of them, white sheep, and then a river, narrow and stony, and beyond it a field sloping, and the sheep in that were all black. As he stumbled down the frozen slope he saw a white ewe cross the stream, slithering in and splashing across. It came out, and it was black. It cropped the grass. He stopped dead, watching. After a while a black sheep came this way. It came out of the water white. His eyes had been on it all the time. He hadn’t seen when it changed.
Taking a drink from the plastic water bottle, he rubbed a hand down his stubbly face and walked on. His lips felt cracked; his skin raw with the frost. As he walked among them the sheep moved apart, watching, chewing solidly, and at the stream he knelt and fearfully touched the surface with his finger. The rocky bed had a reddish tinge. Weeds hung under it.
He stood up, and waded across.
Did he change? He was colder, certainly; he shivered, his feet were soaked, and there were holes in the cheap boots that he hadn’t noticed before.
The land had changed though, it was steeper and rockier, and there were mountains now; it was darker. Time had passed. Where had it gone?
And a tree on the bank of a different river was burning, root to tip, half in leaf and half in flames, and as he backed around its trunk the heat of it scorched him, and on the leafy side birds sang, unsinged.
The sky darkened, lit, darkened. Moon and stars flashed over him; the sun circled like a hidden eye, watching.
He was wandering in his own delirium, his own nightmares. Sometimes he didn’t know if he walked awake or asleep; people opened secret doors in his head and came out and were trudging with him; Kai once, and the Grail girl, wrapped in a green brocade cloak, nagging at him. And behind him, always, so that he didn’t even have to turn and check she was there anymore, walked his mother, her hair with strange blond highlights that didn’t suit her, her clothes new, a red skirt, a gray sweater, and no mud on her, and no snow.
She pursued him; stumbling on the furrows, he knew she was there and said, “Leave me alone.”
But she only answered what she always answered, a whisper that was almost a threat. “I love you, Cal.”
He tripped and fell, full length in the dark, a jarring thud. Breathless, he lay there. He wouldn’t get up. He couldn’t. His eyes were blind with water, hot tears that swelled from somewhere deep; he sobbed silently, then aloud, a yell of anguish.
“Bron!” he screamed. “I’m here! I’m looking for you! I can’t do anymore.”
Silence. Only the hiss of snow. And far off, the faint creaking of burdened trees, an eerie, terrible sound.
Cal pulled himself up on knees and elbows, a convulsion of despair. “For God’s sake show me the way out!”
The reply came from behind him. With a gasp he whipped around, saw the glimmer of it move down the hedgerow. An animal. Big. Four legs. He scrambled up. It was hard to see, in the driving snow. White. A deer. A dog?
Floundering, he dragged his feet out of the mud and went after it, crazily swaying, because it would have shelter, it might be a farm dog, there might be a lighted window and a door that would open for it, a voice, calling out, a fire.
Snow drifted in his face. Wiping it away he slid and hurried down the rough grass slope, the blur of white far in front, and as it jumped the ditch into the copse down there he was sure it was a sheep, but when he reached the frozen reeds and crunched over them, lurching on the tilted slabs, he caught sight of it again, a narrow face, and it was slimmer, a white deer. It turned and entered the wood. With barely a hesitation, he went after it.
Usually, he avoided woods. They were too silent. You never knew what might be lurking in them. But now he went straight on, ducking under the low outer branches of pliant hazel, the snow dusting down on his head and shoulders. It was dark. There was no wind in here. Ahead, lost in shadows, the animal rustled.
He had to fight his way through, thorns snagging him and briars whipping back to scratch his face, and he was sure, suddenly and joyfully, that he was in the right place. The garden at Corbenic had been like this; he’d had to fight his way out, and that strange, childish idea came back to him of the castle in the fairy tale, hidden behind its tangle of growth.
His foot slipped; he reached out to steady himself. He caught hold of something slim and tall, a pole. As his hand came away it was wet and sticky with some dark mess; he jerked back, hissing with terror, rubbing his palm frantically on his sleeve, because into his mind with lightning clarity had come the image of the spear that bled. Then, carefully, he looked closer. It was a broken fence. Long ruined. Bending, he scraped through.
On the other side, a green mass rose up in front of him: ivy-covered walls, ghostly now with a phosphorescence of snow, ruinous and shapeless.
Just at his right, a small panting sound. In the dark, his fingers stretched out, groping, searching; he almost dreaded what he would touch, but when he found it it was a familiar shock, the slightly greasy wet fur, the lick of a hot rough tongue. A dog.
The dog did not bark, or whimper. It moved, padding and snuffling its way through the undergrowth, and Cal went with it, whispering, “Wait. Wait, boy,” terrified that it would leave him.
Under the walls of the building they went, a progression of rustles, and when Cal paused and hissed, “Where are you?” the night was silent. But not dark.
Light was coming from somewhere above him; he looked up and saw the moon, the frostiest of crescents, caught in a sudden gap of cloud, and the moon shone on an image that seemed to hang in the black and silver of the walls, an image of a golden cup, held in two hands.
For a second it was there. Then the cloud fragmented; the darkness was a window, its stained glass broken, a patchwork of vacancies and facets of ice, seated figures, a shattered supper.
This was not Corbenic. It was some sort of chapel.
Cal crouched by the wall, his breath a cloud. He was ill with disappointment; it overwhelmed him like the blackness over the moon. It darkened his whole mind.
The rough tongue licked his hand.
The thought came, out of what seemed a deep well of pain, that at least there might be a roof, some shelter, so he stood and groped for a doorway, found a pointed arch swathed thick with ivy and bindweed and stinging nettles and holly.
Ducking under, he saw the chapel was a green bower of growth. It stank of damp and mildew and mold. Weeds had climbed all over it, sprouted and tangled; the roof was a web of snow-littered branches. And under them, in the farthest corner, a fire was crackling.
The dog crossed a slant of moonlight, a slither of darkness. It nosed and snuffled a huddle of shadow. And the shadow raised its head and said, “So I haven’t left my moulting cage in vain.”
Chapter Twenty-one
If you had seen all I have seen you would not sleep.
Oianau of Merlin
Cal stepped inside warily. A handful of kindling was thrown on the fire; the flames spat a sudden crackle of sparks up into the ruined roof.
The Hermit sat cross-legged, his patchwork coat spread around him, leaning on a large bundle at his back. His narrow, crazy eyes glinted red in the flickering light. Behind him the dog went and lay down with a faint sigh, chin on paws.
Cal came and sat by the fire. The warmth of it was such a relief that for a long moment he simply absorbed it, as if something deep in him was frozen hard and had to be thawed. When he managed to speak his voice was rusty with disuse, his throat dry and hoarse. “I suppose I should have known it would be you.”
Merlin grinned, and fished in a filthy knapsack at his side. He threw something over; Cal caught it and found it was bread, still slightly soft. He tore a bit off and chewed it.