Cautiously, shoulders hunched, walking on the balls of our feet, prowling like thieves desperate not to wake the sleeping occupants, we entered the dark tower.
The air was damp and smelled of earth and wet stone like that inside a cave. Gradually, however, as our eyes became adjusted to the fluttering light, we began to pick out individual features in the darkness.
We stood in a single large chamber, two or three times larger, for all I could tell, than any king’s great hall. There was a single row of stone pillars through the center of the room supporting the floor above. Huge iron rings were fixed in the pillars at various heights.
“Here!” called Drustwn from a little way ahead. “Look here!”
In a jumbled heap, as if tossed aside in a moment’s wrath, were a score of bronze chariots, their wheels warped and poles bent or broken, the metal green with age. The high, circular sides of the chariots appeared to be wicker, but were in fact triangular strips of bronze woven together, immensely strong for their weight.
Lying a little apart from the chariots was a small pyramid of large discs, stacked one atop another. And beside this, a pile of oversized axeheads—unusual in that they consisted of a short stout blade on one side balanced by a blunt spike on the other. There must have been several hundred of these and as many discs, which, on closer inspection, turned out to be bronze shields.
Bran pulled one of the shields from the stack, causing a dusty avalanche. He lifted the round device by the rim and held it before him; it was huge, much larger than any the men of Albion used, and plain. Its only markings appeared on the center boss: a few curious symbols worked in raised bronze around the simple image of a peculiar thick-bodied serpent.
“Whoever carried this was a stronger man than me,” Bran remarked, replacing the shield and retrieving his torch.
We continued our examination but, aside from a neat row of short, heavy bronze thrusting spears, we found nothing else in the lower chamber and took our search up a flight of stone steps to the next level.
The round windows in the center of each of the four walls allowed some light to enter the large, square room, the floor of which was littered with helmets and war caps—high crowned and rising to a slight point at the top, all of bronze, and all with a bronze serpent coiled around the rim, its flat head raised upon the brow. Alun picked one up and set it on his head, but it was made for a man twice his size. There were perhaps two hundred or more of these serpent-crested helmets scattered on the floor, but nothing else in the room.
On the floor above we discovered a great stone table set with huge bowls of silver and bronze, with one gold vessel among them. The silver was black and the bronze green, but the gold was good as the day it was made; it gleamed dully in the light of our torches. Also on the table were three piles of coins in the rotted remains of leather bags. The coins were silver and gold. The silver coins were little more than black lumps, but the gold shone bright. We took up some of these and looked at them.
“Here is their king,” said Tegid, holding a coin before his eyes. “I cannot read his name.”
The coin showed the image of a man as if etched by a precocious child. The man clasped a short spear in one hand and a spiked ax in the other. He was bareheaded, and his hair was long, curling down to his shoulders; he wore beard and moustache almost as long. His chest was bare—he bore no torc or other ornament—but he wore what appeared to be striped breecs or leggings, and tall boots on his feet. Words in strange letters clustered like wasps around his head, but they were impossible to read.
We each took a handful of the coins to show the others, and Cynan took the gold bowl. “For Tángwen, when I see her,” he said.
Beside the table stood a large iron tripod bearing a huge bronze cauldron. Beneath the cauldron was a ring of fire-blackened stones, and inside it the baked, brick-hard shards of the last meal. But the outside of the cauldron was what caught my eye. The surface was alive with activity: warriors in chariots charged around the bottom of the cauldron, lofting spears, long hair trailing in the wind; on the next tier above, narrow-eyed men on horses galloped, brandishing swords and spears; above these were ranks of warriors on foot, shoulder to shoulder, bearing round shields and helmets such as we had seen in the lower chamber; on the highest tier a number of winged men were running, or perhaps flying, and each bore a serpent in his right hand and a leafy branch in his left. The rim of the cauldron was a scaly serpent with its tail in its mouth.
“The Men of the Serpent,” Tegid said, indicating the warriors.
“Do you know of them?”
“Their tale is remembered among the Derwyddi but, like the song of Tir Aflan, we do not sing it.” I thought he would not say more but, gazing at the cauldron, he continued, “It is said that the Serpent awoke and with a mighty war host subdued the land. When there were no more enemies to conquer, the Serpent Men fell into disputes and warring among themselves. They destroyed all they had built, and when the last of them died, the Serpent crawled back into the underworld to sleep until awakened again.”
“What awakens it?” I asked.
“Very great evil,” was his only reply.
Strewn about the room were objects of everyday use: more cups and bowls; many short, bone-handled swords fused to their scabbards; a few round shields; a collection of small pots, flasks, and boxes carved of a soft reddish stone—all of them empty; several long, curved spoon-shaped ladles and long-handled forks for getting meat and broth from the cauldron; numerous axeheads; knives of various sizes; a mask of bronze showing the glowering face of a bearded warrior with a great flowing moustache, elaborately curled hair, and a serpent helmet on his head, his mouth open in full cry; four very tall lampstands, one in each corner, bearing stone-carved oil lamps.
Underneath one of the shields, Emyr found a curious object—a circlet of small shieldlike discs linked together around a protruding conical horn. Turning it this way and that, he announced, “I think it is a crown.” Like most of the other objects we had seen, it was made of bronze and, when he put it on his head, it was shown to have been made for a much larger head.
“Mo anam,” muttered Cynan, trying the crown himself, “but these serpent men were giants.”
“Look at this!” called Garanaw, holding his torch to the far wall.
We crossed to where he stood and saw a painting on the wall. It was well done, and no doubt brightly colored at one time. And though the colors had faded to an almost uniform gray-brown, leering out at us was the face of a serpent man, fleshy lips curved in a mocking smile, pale reptilian eyes staring with frozen mirth, his mouth open and forked tongue extended. A mass of coiled curls wreathed the face, and below the chin it was still possible to make out the winged torso and a raised hand grasping a black serpent that coiled around the arm.
We turned from the painting, and Niall called our attention to an iron ladder set in a recess of one wall. The ladder rose through the stone ceiling to the roof above. He climbed it and then called down for us to follow. There was nothing on the roof, but the view was breathtaking. Looking to the south, far below us in the riverbed among the fallen columns, lay our camp, men and horses gathered near the gray thread of moving water.
To the west rose the gigantic hump of the mound, its top lost in the low-hanging cloud, and to the east only the river flowing on between its rockbound bluffs. To the north, behind the high stone wall stretching away to the east and west, lay an endless series of low, snow-covered hills, rising and falling like white sea waves in a frozen ocean.
The size and emptiness of the landscape, like that of the dark tower and its objects, made us feel small and weak and foolish for trespassing where we did not belong. I scanned the rolling hillscape for any sign of habitation, but saw neither smoke nor any trail by which we might go. “What do you think, bard?” I asked Tegid, who stood beside me.
“I think we should leave this place to its dire memories,” he answered.
“I am all for it, but where do we go from here?”
“East,” he replied without hesitation.
“Why east? Why not south or west?”
“Because east is where we will find Goewyn.”
This intrigued me. “How do you know?”
“Do you remember when Meldron cast us adrift?”
“Mutilated and left to die in an open boat—could I ever forget it?”
“In exchange for my eyes, I was given a vision.” He made it sound as if he had merely traded one pair of breecs for another.
“I remember. You sang it in a song.”
“Do you remember the vision?”
“Vaguely,” I said.
“I remember it.” He closed his eyes as if he would see it anew. He began to sing, and I listened, recalling the terrible night that vision had been given.
Softly, so that only I would hear, Tegid sang of a steep-sided glen, and a fortress on a shining lake. He sang of an antler throne adorned with white oxhide and established high on a grass-covered mound. He sang of a burnished shield with the black raven perched on its rim, wings outspread, raising its raucous song to heaven. He sang of a beacon fire flaming the night sky, its signal answered from hilltop to hilltop. He sang of a shadowy rider on a pale yellow horse, riding out of the mist that bound them; the horses’ hooves striking sparks from the rocks. He sang of a great war band bathing in a mountain lake, the water blushing red from their wounds. He sang of a golden-haired woman in a sunlit bower and a hidden Hero Mound.
Some things I recognized: Druim Vran, Dinas Dwr, my antler throne; the golden-haired woman in the bower was Goewyn on our wedding day. But other things I did not know at all.
When he had finished, his eyes flicked open again and he said, “This land has a part in my vision. I did not know it before coming here to this tower.”
“You mentioned no tower in your vision—was there a tower?”
“No,” he confessed, “but this is the land. I know it by the feel and taste and smell.” His dark eyes scanned the far hills, rising and falling one behind another to the edge of sight and beyond. “In this worlds-realm a mighty work waits to be accomplished.”
“The only mighty work I care about is rescuing Goewyn before—” I broke off abruptly. The others were not listening, but they were close by.
“Before the child is born,” Tegid finished the thought for me.
“Before anything happens to either of them.”
“We will journey in hope and trust the Swift Sure Hand to guide us.”
“A little guidance would not go amiss right now,” I confessed, gazing out at the trackless waste of hills and empty sky.
“Llew,” he said, “we have ever been led.”
We left the roof, retreating back through the tower to the gate. Tegid advised us to close the door, so we rolled the stone back to its place. Then we climbed down the bluff to rejoin our waiting war band. We showed them the coins we had found, and they wanted to go back up and get the rest, but Tegid would not allow it. He said further disturbance would not be welcome.
They let it go at that. The tower had a dolorous air, and even those who had not been inside felt the oppressive sadness of the place. Besides, it was already getting dark and no one wanted to risk being caught outside the fire ring after nightfall.
That night we listened to the plaintive cry of the wind tearing itself on the broken stones of the wall on the bluffs high above. I slept ill, my dreams filled with winged serpents and bronze-clad men.
Twice I wakened and rose to look at the tower—a brooding black bulk against a blacker sky. It seemed to be watching us, perched on its high rock like a preying bird, waiting to unfold its wings of darkness and swoop upon us. I was not the only one bothered by bad dreams; the horses jigged and jittered all night long, and once one of the men cried out in his sleep.
We continued on our way the next day, listening to the wind hiss and moan through the valley. The snow fell steadily and drifted around our feet; we pulled our cloaks over our heads, bundled our saddle fleeces around our shoulders for warmth, and slogged through the weary day. The scenery altered slightly, but never really changed— always when I lifted my head there were the sheer bluffs and the wall looming ragged and dark above.
For five days it was the same—cold and snow and deep starless nights filled with wailing wind and morbid dreams. We struggled through each day, riding and walking by turns, shuddering with cold, and huddling as close as possible to the fires at night. And then, as the sixth day neared its end, we saw that the bluffs had begun to sink lower and the river to spread as the valley opened. Two days later we came to a place where the bluff ended and the wall turned to continue its solitary journey north over the endless hills. Rising before us was the dark bristling line of a forest.
Seeing it, like a massive battle host arrayed on the horizon, my spirit quailed within me. Tir Aflan was a wasteland vast beyond reckoning. Where was Goewyn? How could we ever find her in this wilderness?
“Listen, bard, are you sure this is the way?” I demanded of Tegid when we stopped to water the horses. We had left the wall behind and were drawing near the leading edge of the forest, but there was still no clear sign that we were going in the right direction.
Tegid did not reply at once, and did not look at me when he did. “The forest you see before us is older than Albion,” he said, his dark eyes scanning the treeline as he rolled his ashwood staff between his palms.
“Did you hear me?” I demanded. “Is this the way we are to go?”
“Before men walked on Albion’s fair shores, this forest was already ancient. Among the Learned it is said that all the world’s forests are but seedlings to these trees.”
“Fascinating. But what I want to know is, do you have even the haziest notion of where we are going?”
“We are going into the forest,” he answered. “In the forest of the night, we all find what we seek—or it finds us.”
Bards!