Orgetorix in spirit shape, it seemed, was as melancholy as the young warrior who had roamed the hills and valleys of Greek Land.
I should perhaps write a few words about what had happened to Orgetorix. He was the eldest of Jason’s two sons by Medea, many centuries before, born after the quest for the Golden Fleece. Named Thesokorus, he was nicknamed “little bull-leaper.” His brother Kinos was nicknamed “little dreamer.” When Jason betrayed Medea for another woman, Medea—an enchantress of savage power—slaughtered her two sons in front of her lover. Jason was devastated, never recovered, and eventually died of grief because of the loss. In fact, Medea had used trickery and illusion to present only an apparent execution. The two boys were spirited away into Greek Land. And then—and this was the ingenious part—she spirited them away into Time itself: into the future; into the very time in which this tale is set. The boys were separated, but Medea created a “ghost brother” for each of them, though this cost her dearly in life and power. Eventually the ghosts went their own ways. Kinos died under tragic circumstances, but Thesokorus, now known as King of Killers, after he had fallen in with Celtic mercenaries prowling the lands around the river Daan, was found by his father. They fought in the shadow of the oracle at Dodona, in Greek Land, and Orgetorix rejected the older man, having horribly wounded him.
And how had Jason himself returned to life so far in the future that he could meet his time-flung sons?
Well, a conspiracy between old lovers saw to that: a ship (Argo, of course) and me. And it was when I helped resurrect the Greek hero from his resting place, below Argo’s decks, at the bottom of a Northland lake, that I met the divine and dreadful Niiv, the persistent presence in my life, in my mind, and below my furs. (And under my skin!) But enough of that for the moment.
On the subject of Jason’s flesh-and-blood son: now, it seemed, he was having doubts about his decision—to abandon his father—and this shade was a party to that anguish.
At this time I had no idea where the living Orgetorix was. Somewhere in Alba, though.
“Are you Antiokus?” the shade asked again.
“Yes I am,” I confirmed. “I’m also known as Merlin, my nickname from childhood. I’ve had many names.”
“I seem to recall that you are very old. You don’t look old.”
“I’ve left more than a few traces, certainly. Wind and rain will have obscured them by now.”
He seemed amused by this, though only for a moment. “My bone-blood-brother is doing very much the same. His traces, unlike yours, still haunt the wind. He is hound-harassed; he is watched by eagles. He’s close. It won’t be long before he finds you. This place…” He looked around him at the small square, the low, cool houses. “I—he—waited here to visit a shrine. In a hot country. I sat below this tree. I was with companions. Rough men, but proud men. And that was when I saw you.” The shade looked hard at me. The memory was strong for him; and yet, the memory was coming from elsewhere. I was intrigued to know where.
I wondered, as we sat there, how much of this illusory place might be extended beyond the hostel. When I had indeed first set eyes upon Jason’s eldest son, he had been in Makedonia, waiting to ascend the hills with his small troupe of comrades, to consult an oracle where he would learn his true past. There were always truths and lies in shrines and oracles. Medea, his mother, had inhabited that oracle in Makedonia. Perhaps, again, she was watching over her son, waiting for him, waiting for me, waiting to guide him yet again.
What did we stand to lose by trying?
I said to him, “If this place is a true reflection of where I first saw you … the human you, I mean … then there is an oracle in the hills behind us.”
“I know. I was sent to take you there. I’ve been waiting for some time.”
“Take me there? To meet—?”
“My mother.”
“Ah.”
I was right.
As we untethered the horses, Thesokorus asked me, “Is the girl all right? She seemed upset, entering the hostel. But my mother’s influence is very strong. She came all the way through to this square. I tried to make her comfortable as I gave her the message to take to you.”
“The girl is fine. She’s the daughter of the king. She has a great deal of courage.”
* * *
Medea had created this hot and dry, heavenly scented piece of theatre, I was sure of it now. Orgetorix rode slowly up the winding path into the hills, stooping below the low-hanging branches of gnarled olives, clattering through the dry defiles, squeezing between the rocks with their intricately woven carvings, the clear signs that we were approaching an oracle.
Behind and below us, the small square shimmered in the lazy heat, the whitewashed walls of the buildings blurring into uniformity, though beyond them was the sprawling stretch of the hostel, a wide lodge bordering an almost unrecognisable river and the misty world of Urtha beyond. The hostel took on a different form when seen from Ghostland. It welcomed; it comforted.
As if he had been here before—and in his dreams, he had—Orgetorix rode slowly and without mistake to the outer enclosure of the oracle, following the wooded paths to the craggy wall of grey rock where the speaking cave could be found, behind its screen of heat-twisted oaks and olives. This was in every way a reflection of the Oracle in Makedonia, north of Greek Land. It had been called “the caught breath of time.” The wind whispered and called from the clefts in the rocks. I can think of no better way of putting the sound that summoned from the earth. Orgetorix seemed to enter a dream, passing me the reins of his horse and pushing me slightly away from him. “Go and hide in the rocks. Let me make the encounter. Quickly!”
He waited, still in a state of trance, as I withdrew to the overhang where, years before, I had listened to him ask about his fate, unaware that it was Medea who was answering him.
I tethered the horses and watched from the shadows. Orgetorix stepped towards the widest of the caves, leaning slightly as he peered into the darkness, his arms hanging limply and unthreateningly at his sides.
“Mother?”
He stood there for a long time, unmoving, the breeze catching his hair. I had expected he would repeat the call, but he stayed silent, unnervingly so, as if frozen, a creature caught suddenly by torchlight in the night, unable to make sense of the sudden brightness, mute-muscled with indecision.
Then he called again, almost a whisper, and this time I heard him say quietly, “He’s come. I found him and he’s come. Mother?”
The breeze stiffened. He straightened. The air seemed to silence him. A moment later the face of a ram, curled-horned and fierce, glared from the wide cleft. The horns were black, the face the colour of blood, the eyes wide and unblinking. The creature was monstrous. It came through from the earth in two bounds, towering over the young man before butting him to the ground and thrusting a hoof to his chest. The head lowered. The animal’s screech was angry, protective. It tipped its head and plunged a horn into the sprawled man’s belly, ripping it open in an instant. Orgetorix screamed, eyes streaming with fear and confusion. The second horn went into his throat, throwing him over, leaving him twisted in a death throe, one arm raised behind his back as if to reach for help. The creature urinated on the dying man, turned to stare at my hiding place, then bellowed and bounded towards the scrub oak that bordered the oracle.
I could sense it moving there, prowling, steaming, rubbing its horns against the trees, scraping off the blood. The priestess of the Ram, the murderess from Colchis; Jason’s wife. In familiar form.
Waiting for me, for the man who, when the world was raw, had been her first love.
Medea had always liked to play this game of animal disguise. I thought of following her in wolf form, but she—especially as a ram—would be a match for any such creature. A bear? She would be quicker. A rival ram? There had always been something ungiving about Medea, and I doubted I would win such a contest. It was the game she played, and as I realised and remembered this, so it occurred to me tha
t she was not setting out to hurt me, just—my first instinct—just to see me again.
But I could play a good game, too, though it would cost me. When I entered the open woodland, following her spoor, I went in the shallow illusory disguise of Jason, carrying a bow like that of Odysseus, bone-strengthened and double-strung.
When she saw me coming, a crouching, careful hunter, she struck the ground in irritation, snorting and backing farther into the rocks and the overarching trunks of oaks.
Her eyes gleamed, menacing in that bloodred face.
Illusion is cheap enchantment; to have fired a shot would have been expensive; the best shot was the shock of her suddenly seeing her hated husband, Jason, from those long-gone days in Iolkos, after Argo’s voyage to Colchis.
The ram disappeared. I approached the cave with caution, stooping to enter and letting my eyes adjust to the gloom.
Medea herself now sat against the cold rock, wrapped in the skin of the ram, watching me with fierce eyes.
“That was unnecessary. That was cruel.”
I almost laughed at her gall. “Not as cruel as the gore you’ve just inflicted on your melancholy son.”
“That? That was not my son, and you know it. Just the toy I made to keep his brother happy.”
“A toy that breathed. A toy that felt. A toy that was frightened. A toy that was lost.”
“We were taught to do it. We were made to do it. Don’t you remember? It was a long time ago, Merlin. We were taught to do some harsh things. We were told that our very bones were scarred with the codes and secrets that could make us stronger than rock. We were told we would never rest, that we should conserve the gifts that had been given to us, this charm, this magic. We were told to ‘walk a Path.’ But one by one—do you remember the others? There were others—one by one we fell to the wayside. Fell to the flesh. Fell into love. One by one. All except you. Toys? We are all toys. You have done far worse than me, when it comes to malice. I had two sons by Jason. I saved two sons from that monster, your friend, that same Jason. I gave each son a ‘toy’ … the ghost of his brother. The toys were my sign of love for my sons. I had to hide my sons from that monster. Your friend. Jason! I had to separate them. But they could not bear to be apart, so I made a toy for each of them: a brother-from-the-shade, a shadow-boy, the image of their needs. The comfort of familiar company. The toys don’t matter, as well you know. Only the sons matter. And one of them is already dead. The other … alive. And that is why I wanted you here. We must talk about Thesokorus. I need your help. And we must discuss that other man. Your friend. Jason.”
There was such a mix of intensity, uncertainty, anger, and regret in Medea’s voice and manner that for a while I couldn’t respond. We sat in silence. She gazed at first into the distance, then more fondly at me.
The ram’s fleece had loosened, and I suspected she was deliberately letting me see the body within.
I found my voice again. “Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?” she asked with a frown.
“Why are you sitting here, taunting me? Dressed in a ram’s hide?”
“Ah. Perhaps I want to show you my scars.”
She shifted and came towards me, holding the fleece more carefully about her naked body. She leaned towards me, watching me with amusement. “My scars, Merlin. The scars of a hard, long, desperate life. Would you like to see them?”
“Why would you want me to see them?”
She settled back, crossing her legs, adjusting the ram’s skin to cover her. “You’ve lived long, but you’ve not lived enough. Do you know why I say that? Because you forget the damage you’ve done. I have never ever forgotten the damage that I’ve done. And my body has the scars to show it. There are men here,” she taunted, stabbing a finger against her chest and belly. “Many men. Many Jasons, though he was the one that left the deepest scar. Your own scratch?” She gave a little laugh. “It’s somewhere here, below the fleece, if you want to be reminded. You were the first, Merlin. The little boy grown big, who still couldn’t tie the thongs that held his shoes in place. Isn’t that what ‘merlin’ means? ‘Can’t tie his laces.’ But your mark is on me. How many marks on you?”
“My marks are deeper. I hide them.”
“Of course you do,” she sneered. Then she seemed to soften. “Or perhaps they fade, like nettle rash and briar-scratch. Like that little northern snow-rose you fuck for your pleasure. How many snow-roses, Merlin? How many roses, bloom-lost because they met a man who couldn’t fall to the wayside; couldn’t fall in love; kept walking, shaking off the touch of life as a dog shakes off the touch of rain? I pity you.”
“And I pity you. Your great love, your sons, the remnants of your children, all of that so-precious touch of life has come to this.”
“Come to what?”
“Lost, alone, abandoned, all forsaken. Miserable in your melancholy, hopeless in your harrowing, dreadful in your dance with dying. You are dying, Medea. You’ve used your strength too much. It costs little to paint a fresh face. You cannot bring back a fresh heart.”
“My, my,” she murmured slowly, shaking her head. “What failed poet has been whispering to you, I wonder?”
We were silent for a while, each huddled in our own way, each remembering. The mood seemed to have softened. Medea’s sharp words brought back a passionate past, and the land where we had shared it, if only briefly.
I said something that would have best been left unspoken. “There was a time when I would have dragged you from the burial mound itself. For a final act of love.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Perhaps nothing has changed.”
“Then I’ll be sure to be cremated!” Her laugh was a crow’s laugh. “You can make my shape in ashes on your bed.”
“You’re cruel.”
Her sigh was of despair, as she cradled her head in her hands. “Oh, not that again! No, Merlin. Not cruel. I’m tired.” And she looked it as she suddenly gazed at me. “That’s what living does to you. It’s you, Merlin, who are dead. Not me. And you’ve been dead a long time. Since you were a boy, in fact. No snow-rose, squeezing you with her clever hands, putting the morning and evening sap into you so that she can sap it out at her whim, no clinging ice-whore can change the fact that you died when you made that silly little boat—”
“What silly little boat?”
“You called it Voyager. You set it to float along the river where we grew up, when we were children. You said that it would come back because all rivers came back to their source. Don’t you remember? You must remember, Merlin. Even the Dead have memories. That little boat meant everything to you. When you let it float away … your heart went with it. The rest of us practised our skills, learned our lessons, played our games, passed the tests, and went on our way according to what was written inside us. But you: oh, Merlin, do try to remember. You yourself floated away with that silly little boat. You are the only one of us who never grasped at the chances we’d been given.”
I remembered Voyager as if in a dream. It had taken me a long time to build it. One day the model ship had slipped away from me, caught by a current in the river, lost forever into the forest wilderness among the mountains. What did Medea know that I had forgotten?
I saw her more clearly now. She crouched before me, an ageing woman, hair grey, cheeks drawn, fierce-eyed, certainly, and strong in aroma and presence. She knelt before me as if subservient, but this was no position of humility or begging; I sat shivering and uncertain, aroused and dry-mouthed. She had me in a gaze that was both willing me to be gentle, and willing me to be strong.
“Do you want me, Merlin? Do you want me as you used to want me? Or have you forgotten how you used to want me?”
“I’ve forgotten,” I said bluntly—and noticed the quick frown of disappointment on her face, quick as the beat of a wing, but noticeable nonetheless. How quickly her mood could change. “But I’ve not forgotten that we’ve played this out before.”
“Played out? Are
we back to toys?”
“Played out this seduction. You’ve done this to me before. A hundred times.”
“A hundred times,” she echoed, shrinking back into the fleece. “A hundred times before. You remember all one hundred, I suppose.”
“I know that you’ve tricked me before.”
“You’re so easy to trick. It’s hard to resist you. But there’s more to a trick than just the trick. That’s the tease. After the tease comes the pleasure. You seem to have remembered the tricks and not the passion. What an odd man you are, Merlin. You are as old as me, despite your youthful looks. But you are as old as time. As fruit, we are ripe and sweet. In fact, we’re so damned old, we should be rotting on the vine. But you are still sour. Youth has kept you sour. And that puzzles me. I remember when you were young, and you were as sweet as honeyed fish. You said the same to me. And you should know. I’ve never tasted myself in the way you tasted me. But you have grown so bitter.”
“I would have expected no more from you.”
“No more than what?”
“No more than the same tricks. We’ve been here before. You know it. Nothing you say can hide the fact that you’re up to something.”
“I confess that I’ve tricked you before. But not this time.”
“I remember those same words. From before.”
“I have changed my mind about many things, Merlin. I won’t say I’ve grown wise. I’m tired. Tired of summoning anger and aggression towards a man who once was brutal, and now is just as lost as I am. And no, I don’t mean you. I mean Jason. I had two sons, Merlin, two that I kept. I let many go before they had breathed their first air. I had to. They were too full of the man. But I kept two, and I loved them. A little dreamer, and a little bull-leaper; a quiet boy and an active boy. Each, in his own way, a delight to me—and of course to Jason. When I stole them from Jason, I killed him there and then, killed everything he had known, every hunger in his heart, every dream of peace in his mind. Now I realise I wounded myself in the same way. Thesokorus is alive and searching for us. I mean it truly, Merlin. The boy—the man—deserves to be with both his parents.”