David Gemmell – Rigante 3 – Ravenheart

‘How do you know that a beautiful bow is within the stave?’

‘The yew whispered it to me. That is why I picked it up.’

‘Wood cannot speak,’ he said.

‘It cannot speak to those without a name, young man,’ she told him, her voice low and musical.

‘I have a name,’ he had told her. ‘I am Gaise Macon.’

‘Not a name recognized by the trees that surround you. Not a name whispered in the valleys, or borne on the wind towards Caer Druagh. Not a soul-name.’

‘You are speaking nonsense. Who are you?’

‘I am the flame in the crystal, Gaise Macon. My mother was the shadow on the oak. Her mother was the sheltering cloud. You wish to hear the names of all my line?’

‘I note you do not mention the men involved in your ancestry,’ said Gaise. ‘Did they have no soul-names?’

‘Sadly they did not,’ she said. ‘My grandfather was a Varlish captain, my father a merchant from Goriasa, across the water, where they have robed the magic in stone, and thus imprisoned it. When this happens men forget the magic of soul-names.’

‘Why did you bring me here?’

‘I brought you nowhere, Gaise Macon. You walked to my fire. You will walk away from my fire. Or run or fly. Whatever pleases you.’

‘I am dreaming,’ said the young man. ‘You are not real.’

‘Aye, you are dreaming. But it is a real dream, Gaise. A dream of meaning. A moment of magic, if you will. Would you like to see a story?’

‘You mean hear a story?’

‘I know what I mean, Gaise Macon.’ Then, yes, I would like to see a story.’

The woman raised her hand and pointed towards a small stream, a little way to her right. Water rose up from it in a shimmering sphere as large as a man’s head. It floated some three feet above the grass and hovered before the astonished young noble. Then it swelled and flattened, becoming a circular mirror, in which Gaise could see his own reflection. He saw that he was wearing a patchwork cloak of many colours, fastened with a silver brooch. The brooch was the crest of his house, a fawn trapped in brambles. He was about to ask the woman about the cloak when the mirror shimmered, and he found himself gazing on a distant moonlit mountainside. Two men were there. The images came closer, and he saw that one of the men was wounded. The scene changed. Now a stag was at bay, a great and majestic beast surrounded by wolves. His heart went out to the stag. A black hound, blood upon its flanks, charged at the predators. They scattered, though not before three were dead.

The images faded away. Water began dripping from the circle, first as a few drops, then in a rush, falling to the earth and soaking through the soil.

Gaise sat very still, trying to make sense of what he had seen. A dying man, and a wounded hound. A brief battle with a wolf pack.

‘Do you know what a geasa is?’ asked the woman.

‘No.’

‘It is a prophecy – of a kind. King Connavar’s geasa was that he would be killed on the day he slew the dog which bit him. And he was. What you have seen today is part of your geasa. You are the Stag, Gaise Macon. You will stand against the wolves.’

‘And who is the Hound who will rescue me?’

‘He will be a kinsman.’

‘I have no kinsmen. Only my father. I doubt he would risk himself for me.’

‘All will be revealed in its own time. Would you like a name that the mountains can hear, that the leaves can whisper and the rivers sing?’

‘I am Varlish. Why would I want a Keltoi soul-name?’

‘Come to me again when you do,’ she told him.

That was when he had felt the cold sweep over him, and had awoken in his bed. Now he was troubled, and did not know why. He sat by the fire until it began to die down. He reached for the coal bucket, only to see that he had used all four lumps. Anger swelled again, and with it the first seeds of rebellion stirred in his heart. He was the heir to the earldom. One day he would be the Moidart. Yet he sat here in this cold room, with no fuel for his fire, despite the huge store of coal stacked alongside the rear kitchen wall.