Barrowlands

The crew put me off the boat at the bend in the river where the forest ended and the barrowlands began. It was not a tearful farewell. One minute, I was leaning over the rail. The next, I felt hands in the small of my back, and I was falling over the stern into the water, and the crew were hoisting extra sails to catch the breeze.

I swam to the bank. My boots sank into the black mud. Stinging nettles bit my hands as I climbed out. Sheep were grazing here, and a little way off a little shepherd boy in a wide-brimmed hat sat atop a rise, twirling a sling casually and munching on a bun.

"How do?" I said, touching my index finger to my forehead.

"Fuck off," replied the quaint little bumpkin. He stuck two fingers up at me and went back to twirling.

The river looped, broad and flat, out towards the distant sea. There were pools of standing water here and there, shining in the late afternoon sun. The barrows muscled up from the plain like tumours, hundreds of them in all directions covered in thin grass, some crowned with a ring of broken stones, some with an arch leading nowhere. Massive tors hulked against one another like broken teeth. Here and there sheep were grazing like friendly little stones.

I shunned the high road, keeping to the riverbank, though the way was longer. The sun slowly sank to the right of me, turning the lakes and pools to flame. The barrows threw endless shadows across the flat ground. I walked through the stripes of them, one minute dazzled by the brightness, the next shaded by a distant tor.

I climbed a barrow to scout my route. In the far south, the sea was a shivering grey band. Teleth Kier was a lichen crust between the ocean and the sky. Lights floated over it, balloons and lanterns and the tall masts of ships. Beyond, the Centester was a white dome in the bay, a pepper pot with a golden crown.

When the final wavering red specks of the evening sank below the horizon, and the sky had segued into a pale millpond green shading to fathomless blue, I went looking for shelter from the night. It was not hard to find. I chose one of the barrows with an arch, just three stones really, two upright and one horizontal, all leaning up against the mound. The arch didn't go anywhere, but it gave a little shelter from the wind. I rested my back against the scrubby grass. I had a piece of salt fish that I had stolen from the boat, so I chewed on it while I laid the things in my pack out to dry, and then I sat back and watched the little bats chasing each other through the deepening night.

It is an interesting thing, magic. It attracts other magic, as an icicle gathers more ice unto itself until it stretches the height of a building, or perhaps as a small crack in a dam grows wider until the torrent rages through.

As I sat beneath the hoary old stones, I sensed at my foot a slight movement in the grass and smelt a faint tang of something unpleasant, something unwashed. I moved my foot away, expecting to see a mouse or a toad. Instead, looking back up at me, was a snake.

I fumbled with the catch on my good iron and almost dropped it. I scrambled to my feet, trying to see the little thing, but it had moved.

"You may not kill me, for we have businesss."

The voice was oily. It insinuated itself into my thoughts like a knot, a slippery knot made of swollen intestines, and a smell like old meat that weighed on me, pressed on me like a boot, down and down until unwillingly I knelt and finally lay flat with the snake inches from my face, its little black tongue flicking at my nose.

I'd like to report that I said something manly. Something like: "Begone foul beast. I have no words to say to you, now unto the end of days," but instead, I made a kind of high-pitched yelping sound like a puppy that has run between someone's legs and been accidentally kicked.

Its eyes were mottled gold. Its face was wedge-shaped, with shiny green scales, and when it moved, I saw that it had yellow-gold patches down its back.

"Now you are ready to trade," it said.

As everyone knows, a bargain with a snake is a fool's business, but back then, I was a fool on a fool's errand, running from a love that frightened me towards nothing much at all.

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There were epic words to be spoken then, eye to eye with the Snake. A battle of wits and wills, fought with logic and subtlety. The situation demanded a lawyer, or a card sharp, or an indomitable warrior and yet all I managed to choke out was: "How can I help you?"

The Snake stared at me, its little tongue flickering. It looked almost disappointed.

"You can do better than this, Tamberlyn," it said after a minute. "A little back and forth, a little pleading, a little subtle coaxing? It's part of the game. You want to be part of the game, don't you, Tamberlyn?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"I am here to help you Tamberlyn. I am here to make your wishes come true. I am the hero of ages. I am the sssaviour of men." It said this last part with a kind of relish, as though it were enjoying a joke too subtle for the likes of me to understand.

"I don't need any help from you," I managed to say, though it cost me everything to say it.

"Oh please," said the little creature, weaving from side to side. "We both of us know, there is a girl."

The Snake waited, watching me intently. Fen's face and form stepped out unbidden into my mind. Fen shining in the moonlight, swaying like a cat. Fen doing a cartwheel across the lawn. Fen stroking my hair while I knelt in the tower, her long white hands brushing my ear.

"She doesn't want to see me," I choked out.

There was a sound like a sigh. I felt the awful pressure ease. The smell became less unbearable. "Come, sit with me awhile," said the Snake, and it's voice was no longer quite so oily. There was a touch of sadness in it. I felt a kind of kinship with the little crawling creature. We were both of us broken in our own ways.

I sat up, leaning against the barrow, rubbing my shoulders which were suddenly aching. The Snake coiled next to me, and together we watched the stars.

"You know," said the Snake, in a slightly less wheedling voice, "I do feel a certain sympathy for a boy like you. Broken, despised, chased away from everywhere you've ever felt at home just because you were damaged. I do feel a certain, how shall I put it, affinity?"

I sat by it, watching it, but I could think of nothing to say, and it said nothing either. It just coiled quietly and watched the darkening sky.

"These bats here," it said at last. "They flap around, looking for moths, and if they catch one, the moth dies, and they get to live another day, but if they don't, the moth lives, and the bat starves, but there's no real reason why it should be the moth, or the bat, don't you think? Why is the bat more important than the moth? It's faster, and it has better wings. That's all. It's a bit like you and I, Tamberlyn. All the others were faster, and they had better wings."

I held my peace, watching it to see what it would do. I was conscious I was in the presence of something far older than me. Something that could probably kill me with a thought.

"Talk with me Tamberlyn," it said. "I tire of hawking poison fruit to foolish princes. Speak with me."

"What do I do now?" I asked. It seemed to me like it might have some pointers.

"Oh, I don't know. Do what you like," it said, dismissively. "I travel the ages, doing as much evil as I can. It is a curse I never asked for, just like you, broken on a wheel while you were a child, and now you must live with the consequences. There's nothing to be done about it, just one day, then the next. One thing though," it said, seeming to consider. "You might want to consider playing a musical instrument. Have you ever thought of that?"

I shook my head. "I never thought of it."

"Just something to ponder on. I used to love music."

A shooting star flashed overhead. The Snake made a little "Hmmm" noise, as though it recognised it.

"Tell me about the girl," it said.

And so I did, haltingly at first, describing how we had first met underneath the wall surrounded by passion flowers, and how her light had lit the undersides of the leaves and made the shadows dance.

"Tell me of her appearance," said the Snake.

"She is like, um, like the moon..." I started.

The Snake snorted. "Oh please, do you know how many young men have described their paramours as 'like the moon'? The moon is cold and desolate and a long way away. Do better, Tamberlyn. Your name means 'darkening drum' in Old High' Laician, did you know? Give me some power. Stir me up a beat I can dance to. It has been years since I cared about anything."

"She is like, like the realest thing I ever saw," I tried again. "And when I'm with her, I feel like time sort of fades away, and I can say or do or be anything because it's only one moment forever."

"A little better," said the Snake. "Try again without the sort-ofs."

Something opened in me, and the words began to flow, like a worn down old damn, finally letting go, and through the breach came a flood of words, and I scarcely knew where they came from.

"She is the grass and the fields and the rolling hills. She is the wide sea and she is the sky. Her voice is sweeter than roses and crueller than thorns. She cuts me with her eyes. My heart is laid bare, still beating, resting now in her two cupped hands."

"There you go, Tamberlyn," said the Snake. "That time you sounded like you meant it."

"What can I do?" I said. "How can I be worthy?"

"I have no dominion over love," said the Snake. "For me, it is a sweet, pale memory from another life, I am a cursed creature now, no good can come from me. But I will help you if you ask it."

"Help me," I said.

The Snake sniffed. For a moment, it almost looked disappointed, as though I had stepped into a snare I should have spotted a thousand leagues off. A snare I see now only too well.

"Very well," it said, and its voice was suddenly bitter. "If you insist."