Echo City Page 26

  A middle-aged woman whose forearms would have done credit to a weightlifter was kneading a huge mass of bread dough on the countertop, assisted by a child of eight or so. Around their feet wandered a whole bunch of fluffy gray puppies. Wolfhounds, probably, and impossibly cute. The child kept shoving puppies away with her bare foot, giggling. She stooped to pet one of them and then went back to kneading the bread.

  No health department in the world would approve of this, but it made a really sweet picture.

  I didn't see the other person in the room until he moved. A man was sitting beside the fireplace, leaning against the wall with a book in his lap and long hair falling around his face. He raised his head, and I realized I was looking at Gwyn ap Nudd, death god and bookstore proprietor, last seen wearing an antlered deer mask and riding a black horse. Right now he wore jeans and a sweater, and his feet were bare, with a couple of fluffy wolfhound puppies curled up against them.

  "Good afternoon, Kay," he said.

  "Uh, good afternoon," I said, floundering a bit. Should I add Sir? Or Mr. God of the Dead, maybe? I finally went on with, "Thank you for the help."

  "A deal is binding." He stretched and rose in one limber motion. The puppies squeaked sadly and then nestled down together and went back to sleep. I peeked at the cover of his book—as a bibliophile, I couldn't help myself. Today's tome of ancient wisdom was by Terry Pratchett.

  He saw me looking at it and smiled. "You can borrow it later, if you like. Would you care for something to eat?"

  I was so desperately hungry I wanted to die. But I had learned from Jill Frost. "Is it safe?" I asked, through a watering mouth.

  "Yes," he said simply. "You are guests. No obligation will attach to you for anything you eat here."

  Whatever else they were capable of, fairies couldn't lie to humans; I believed Muirin about that. "Then yes, please."

  I didn't see any communication pass between Gwyn and the others, but the child ran off somewhere and came back with a bundled-up cloth napkin containing a lump of hot, crusty bread and a thick slice of soft cheese. I smiled at her, and she blushed. "Thank you," I said, and shoved a large enough bite into my mouth that I nearly choked. God, I was hungry.

  "Taliesin is showing your friend Fresca around," Gwyn said. He laid his book on the edge of a shelf, which earned him a disapproving look from the cook. "Shall we find them? Oh, and perhaps we'd best find a cloak for you as well. You'll be cold."

  "But you won't?" I asked through a mouthful of bread, with a glance at his bare feet.

  His smile was small and full of secrets. "I don't get cold."

  A few minutes later, buried in a heavy, hip-length fur cape, with the bread and cheese demolished to crumbs and memories, I followed him up a long flight of stairs. This was no trendy, Park Avenue fur; it smelled of animal musk and a sharp scent that was probably whatever had been used to tan it. The outer fur was coarse and rough.

  And I was glad I had it as soon as we stepped outside. A bitter wind cut through my jeans and savaged my cheeks. We were atop a sort of watchtower, stone crenelations framing a view of the valley. Fresca and Taliesin stood at the edge, looking down. I burrowed as deeply into the fur as I could, squinting against the cold as we went to join them.

  "Hi you," Fresca said.

  She was bundled up like me, though her fur was patched black and white, where mine was brown. "You're wearing a cow," I said.

  "You're wearing a bison."

  I looked around. Rather than standing atop a castle, our watchtower protruded from a windswept, grassy ridgetop. A nearby chimney stack let out a plume of woodsmoke, so we must be above the kitchens.

  "Oh my gosh," I said. "It's a hobbit house."

  "It's a barrow," Fresca declared loftily. "Taliesin was just telling me about it."

  "Aren't those for burying kings and such?"

  "And such," Taliesin said, his eyes sparkling and his cheeks bright pink from the cold.

  "Where are we?" I asked. "Or would a better question be when are we?"

  "Annwn," Gwyn said.

  "The Welsh otherworld," I said, to show I had been doing my reading, and then it really sank in, and I wobbled a bit.

  "You needn't look so surprised," Taliesin said. "You've been in Shadow New York a fair amount, haven't you? This is a similar kind of place. Your friend Muirin comes from another place similar to this, not so far away in some sense, though difficult to get to from here."

  "As cryptically enlightening as all of this is," Fresca said, "I think my legs are about to freeze off. Can we go somewhere warm? With food?"

  Gwyn stayed on the watchtower, but the rest of us trooped back down to the kitchen. Taliesin spoke to the cook in a language I didn't understand, though I could recognize his flirty-teasing tone and her equally flirty response. There were more kids now—the girl from before, and a couple of younger kids, maybe six or so—and they brought us more bread and cheese, along with small, tart apples and mugs of hot cider. We sat in front of the fireplace to eat. Kids and teenagers darted in and out, carrying buckets of water and bundles of linens, cheerfully chatting or calling out commands in that same rolling language. There was also the odd wolfhound or two, begging and getting underfoot.

  "Are these people—" I waited until none of the servants were in earshot, even though they couldn't seem to understand me, and then whispered to Taliesin, "Human?"

  "Some of them," Gwyn said, and I jumped, slopping my cider over my hand. He moved as quietly as a cat; I hadn't heard him come in. "Each of them with a story of how they came to be here."

  "Are you human?" Fresca asked Taliesin.

  "Fresca!" I protested.

  "What? I'm curious!"

  "Yes, he's human," Gwyn said, while Taliesin merely looked amused.

  "So that means you have a story too," Fresca said to Taliesin.

  "One story? Ah, maiden," Gwyn said. "He's a storyteller. He has many. And I am fond of stories, which is why I keep him."

  Interesting choice of words, that. Gwyn and Muirin seemed so human; it was only now and again that I ran smack into the awareness that they weren't. They were powerful, glamorous creatures who had once been gods, and in this place, might still be. I glanced at Taliesin, but he only smiled at me and rose.

  "Have you had enough to eat? Excellent. Come this way, ladies."

  He paused to retrieve three squat, dark-green bottles from a crate, then led us up some more stairs and down another dirt-floor corridor to a small sitting room with low couches draped in furs. Fresca and I sat on one of them, and Taliesin across from us. I ran my hand over the fur: dark, shaggy, very prehistoric-looking. I could smell its faint animal musk, complementing my cloak.

  "So," Taliesin said, "you wish to hear the tale of Taliesin the Poet and Gwyn ap Nudd, Lord of Annwn."

  "Yes, please," I said. Fresca and I accepted the bottles he handed us, which contained a very dark, rich beer. Guinness, maybe? All the beer I'd ever had was canned and cheap. This was a little bitter for my taste, but it wasn't too bad, even though it was warm.

  "Annwn is the world of the Tylwyth Teg—the Welsh fairy people," Taliesin said. "But this story does not take place there."

  His voice fell into a singsong cadence. I leaned forward to listen.

  Chapter 21

  "In the days when Urien ruled over Rheged," Taliesin began.

  There was, in that place, a certain poet in Urien's court who was known to be particularly quick-witted, and this poet's name was Taliesin. It was said that Taliesin could sing the stars down from the sky and the dead up from the ground, the cattle from the field and the birds from the air, and the skirt from a virtuous maiden. Many stories were told of his parentage and the manner in which he had come into his powers, each more fantastic than the last, and many of them composed by Taliesin himself.

  Eventually his fame was such that word spread all the way to the cold halls of Gwyn son of Nudd, Gwyn who rules the Otherworld in winter and guards the gates to the land of the dead. Curious
about the poet's skill, Gwyn went in disguise to Urien's court to hear the poet's songs for himself. There he was as charmed as the rest of the court by the poet's wit and humor and voice.

  Afterwards Gwyn went in search of Taliesin and asked him to come back to the Otherworld and entertain him in his halls under the earth. There he would never grow old, never know sickness or hunger, and live forever in the strength of his youth.

  But Taliesin, flush with the confidence of youth and fame, shook his head. "Though I thank you for your kindness, Lord," he said, "I like this world, with its infinite changes. It is the wellspring of my songs, and though I am sure your land is very beautiful, in a place where nothing changes I would have nothing to sing about."

  "Very well," said Gwyn son of Nudd. "I will not force you. A leashed hound does not hunt, and a caged bird does not sing. But I will ask twice more and then never again."

  And so he went away, and the years passed. Urien king of Rheged, who had been a close friend to Taliesin, died of the treachery of Morcant Bulc, son of Concar. As Urien had been a great warrior, Gwyn ap Nudd rode in person to bring his soul home, and he tarried to speak to Taliesin.

  "Come with me, bard," said he for the second time. "I see the silver frost has crept into your hair, and grief has reddened your eyes. You are not young anymore. Come with me where no one dies and no one sorrows, before age steals your voice and grief steals your heart."

  But Taliesin, even in the depths of his grief, shook his head. "I have sung my heart full on youth and beauty. But I should be a poor poet if I knew nothing of grief or hardship. I stand on the shore of a vast ocean of songs unsung, because each breath of the spring brings new awakenings, new understandings. I can sing songs now that I could never have sung as a callow youth. Again, Lord of the Dead, I can only say this: your offer is kind, but I am not yet finished with the world."

  "As you wish," said Gwyn ap Nudd, "but know that I will come for you only once more."

  And so more years passed by, and Taliesin the poet dwelt in the court of Owain son of Urien. Though the beauty of his songs remained unsurpassed, not so many came to hear him in those days, because he did not sing often and those songs he sang were complex and hard to understand, altogether different from the songs of his youth. It was other bards now who carried the old songs of Taliesin far and wide, and these songs became familiar and beloved. Taliesin preferred to compose new songs rather than sing old ones, but fewer people wanted to hear them, seeking the comfort of the familiar old tunes rather than the wonder and discomfort of the new ones.

  Still, Taliesin was happy, and satisfied with his choices.

  In time, and not so much time—for those were troubled days—Owain was slain in battle. Owain like his father before him was a great warrior, and Gwyn ap Nudd rode to fetch him with an honor guard of hounds at his side. Gwyn, masked, with horns upon his head, lingered long at Owain's bier and listened to the death-song that Taliesin had composed. It was indeed a beautiful song, a song filled with the richness and beauty that could only have come of experience with all the best and worst that life had to offer.

  After all was done, Gwyn rode to Taliesin's side and waited until the poet acknowledged him. "So, great poet," Gwyn ap Nudd said, "what will it be? Your hair is white and your hands tremble like leaves in the wind. I can hear the falter in your heart. You have missed the eternal youth that you might have enjoyed, but I can still save you from the indignities that age has yet to bring. Come with me to the land where none must die, and sing for me in my court forevermore."

  But Taliesin, though bowed by weakness and age, shook his head. "I am flattered by the honor of your regard, Lord, but I am not yet ready to leave this world. I look upon myself only ten years ago—only five!—only two!—and I cannot help but think of the songs I might sing if I have but two years more."

  "I have told you before that when I leave you this time, I leave forever," Gwyn warned.

  "I know. I am sorry, but still I must stay."

  And yet, Gwyn lingered, knowing there must be a way to sway the stubborn poet. "Do you understand, singer, that the children of Urien, son of Cynfarch Oer, of the line of Coel Hen, will fall into obscurity after this day? Rheged as you knew it will be torn with strife and beset by enemies. You will not have a wealthy patron to comfort you in your old age. You will not have children to weep at your bedside, or a wife to smooth back the hair from your brow. You will not even have a fire to warm your bones in the winter. You will have nothing if you do not come with me."

  And Taliesin said lightly, "I will have my poetry, and it is as warm as a fire to me, as fine as a wife, as good as sons and daughters. Do you curse me thus, Lord of the Dead, and the land I love along with me?"

  "I tell you only what will be."

  "Then," said Taliesin, "a poet's words will be all the more important in those dark days. I look forward to the songs I will compose. Good day to you, lord, and good journey."

  Gwyn whistled his hounds and rode away. But in the winter lands, he was still troubled. He understood the poet's first refusal, for it was given from the confidence of youth and strength. He understood the poet's second refusal, for men make rash decisions when grief rules the soul.

  But his heart rested uneasy as he tried to comprehend what could sway a man in his sane mind from comfort and home and hearth, from youth and even from eternity, to wander without master or succor in the world.

  Taking a ragged cloak and his favorite hound, Gwyn ap Nudd went back into the world. He walked out of the winter lands at Beltane, when winter gives over to summer, when his own power waned, and he sat by the roadway until Taliesin came walking by, singing a song to himself. Gwyn rose and asked if they might walk together. So they did.

  From Beltane to the end of summer's season, they walked the world together.

  Gwyn watched Taliesin and listened to him, and the poet sang as beautifully for beggars and the orphaned children of war as he had sung in the courts of powerful lords. He sang for the people of Rheged and for the enemies of Rheged with equal fervor.

  Gwyn ate as Taliesin ate, from scraps and leavings and the little they were given when Taliesin sang for both their suppers. And Taliesin charmed farmer's wives and baker's daughters and blacksmith's sons, as he used to charm highborn ladies and the fair-haired sons and daughters of kings.

  On the eve of Samhain, when Gwyn's own power would come back into the world, they rested in a cattleman's byre and talked of many things: politics and the weather and philosophy, and the way that the Romans' faith of Christos had blended with the faith of the land into something new.

  "And now you must go ride," Taliesin said, looking up at the waxing moon, as the night of the dead grew deep about them. "I'll make a song about it."

  "You know who I am," Gwyn said.

  "Of course. You are not a very convincing beggar. But I thought you would not come for me again."

  "I did not come for you. I came to see this world you cherish so, through your eyes."

  "And?" Taliesin said. "What do you think?"

  "I think that I do not understand you, and I never shall."

  Taliesin looked upon him thoughtfully, and he said, "These people of yours, in your dark halls—they would understand me even less, I presume?"

  "Probably," Gwyn conceded.

  Taliesin sat up in the hay. "Then I would like to come with you. I am tired of people who think they know me inside and out, who memorize my old verses and ask for the same songs over and over again, caring nothing for anything that is not familiar. I have given them as much of myself as I will. To produce songs fit to charm the jaded Tylwyth Teg would lure even the weariest poet." He held out an age-palsied hand, laced with blue veins like the roots of a tree. "So, Gwyn ap Nudd, let us go!"

  The Lord of the Dead could only look at him.

  "You said that you would not ask me again," Taliesin said impatiently, "and you are not, are you? I wish to go on a journey, and to reach that place, I need a guide. I will pay you with
a song, should you consent to it. In particular, on our journey, I would very much like to partake of a single ride of the Wild Hunt, for that would be a song to sing. "

  Gwyn mistrusted this, but the mortal's forwardness intrigued him. "Even in my kingdom, I cannot grant you the youth that you have given up. That is not within my powers."

  "I am done with youth anyway," Taliesin said, and placed his hand in Gwyn's. "I have told that story already, and I have also told the story of age and loss. What stories are left for me to tell now? Go on, Lord of the Dead: show me, that I may discover it."

  And so, under the moon, with Gwyn's hound at their heels, they went from the farmyard, and what happened to them next is a different song.

  Chapter 22

  The beer, forgotten, had gone warm in my hands by the time he finished. There was a singsong cadence to his calm, warm voice, transporting me to that long-vanished world when ancient, horned gods walked moonlit roads side by side with men.

  "And you've been here ever since?" I asked.

  "Here, there, everywhere. I can spend but short spans of time in the mortal world, for there I age normally, and I have few years left." He looked down at his hand, stretching the fingers; blue veins and tendons flexed beneath the age-spotted skin. Still, I saw little regret in his face, more like a sort of satisfaction.

  "How do you know all of the Gwyn parts?" Fresca asked. "You're telling it from Gwyn's point of view instead of your own. You couldn't know exactly what he was thinking."

  Taliesin smiled. "It makes a better story that way. Who wants to hear all the thoughts of an old poet, when one can hear of the Otherworld's king?"

  "A very tricky old poet, who I am still not convinced hasn't conned me all these years," Gwyn said from the doorway.