To Carry the Horn

Chapter 10-1

CHAPTER 10

Huntsman!

I didn’t see that one coming, George thought. I just want to get home. He sighed inwardly.

Alright, let’s think about this like a job interview. I’m offered a new position, but to be fair I’ve done it before when someone needed to cover for John at the Rowanton Hunt. This involves a new pack, a new breed of hounds, and a strange territory, but there are people who can guide me with that. Two weeks is an absurdly short time, but perhaps it’s possible.

But this is the Wild Hunt we’re talking about. Someone will die at the end, however well deserving, brutally and in pain. And, in some sense, the whole world will be watching.

On the other hand, what a challenge. George felt the pull of that thought.

“What would happen if I turn this down?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Rhian may someday grow into this, she wants to, but she can’t do it yet and under these circumstances. Rhys might be able to, but this isn’t the way he’s inclined and a lack of enthusiasm might well be fatal. I could do it, but it’s not permitted. Beyond that, there’s no one. Iolo shouldn’t have died, and so we’re not prepared.”

He continued, “Besides, I think you were brought here for this. At the moment of Iolo’s death, a new huntsman appears. It can’t be coincidence. I think your father’s kin may have something to do with it. It’s the right answer. Even if it fails, it’s better than not to try.”

George protested. “I have a life of my own in another world. It’s one thing to visit, but I hadn’t thought of uprooting it altogether.”

“Let’s make this just for the duration of the great hunt. After that, if we’re all still here, we can decide together if it should continue.”

“May I give you my answer in the morning? I need to think about this.”

“That would be acceptable.” Gwyn looked at him directly. “I must warn you, many will be hoping for this to fail—my enemies who want to see me fall, traditionalists who won’t tolerate a mixed blood in the role, and those who just dislike humans altogether. Some of them might take steps to ensure you won’t succeed.”

George translated soberly: if this fails I may not survive to worry about it.

“If you accept, you’ll need to study with Ceridwen. She can help you explore your talents.”

And I’ll also need to spend some time with the weapons-master, Hadyn, and become competent with physical defense, George thought.

Aloud, he said, “I assume I can have whatever resources are necessary to get the job done? I’d want Rhys and Rhian involved.”

“You’ll get all the assistance you need.” Gwyn rose. “I’ll await your answer tomorrow.”

George stood at the dismissal, nodded, and exited the room thoughtfully.

He walked out into the yard and stopped someone passing. “Where can I find Ceridwen?”

The man pointed out her dwelling—two stories high, of stone, and just beyond the infirmary. He knocked on the green door. The servant who answered asked him to wait and returned with Ceridwen.

“I’m sorry to interrupt you,” George said, “but I wanted to take a few minutes of your time today. Should I come back later?”

“No, this is fine. I thought I might see you. Was your discussion with Gwyn… interesting?”

“Indeed,” he said dryly. “He offered me a job.”

She nodded. “And you have reservations.” Clearly she knew this might happen. She must’ve already discussed it with Gwyn.

“More than that. He implied strange things about my father and speculated on inherited abilities. I need information, badly, if I’m to make any sort of rational decision, and I was hoping you might be able to help.”

She smiled and led the way back into a large study, more of a library, with comfortable chairs, a desk, and great piles of books both on and off the shelves. A low fire crackled cozily, and they settled into two armchairs before it.

She gestured for him to continue.

“I don’t understand what I might inherit from Gwyn, three generations back.” He recounted the conversation about detecting glamours, and the earlier one about sensitivity to animals.

Then he told her about his father, and Gwyn’s remarks about being brought deliberately, and his father’s kin. “I don’t understand any of that.”

The servant brought tea, and she served them both. “As to what you may inherit, that’s never predictable. Most commonly, the child of mixed blood has little or nothing, but not always. You’ve made your life, or part of it, with animals, and so I think that talent may be true, if unexplored. You’ll have to experiment to see what you’re capable of there. For the glamour, yes, that’s unusual. I can detect one, sometimes, and perhaps Gwyn can, but we don’t discuss it since it’s more useful as a hidden advantage.”

She looked at him. “There are other things to test. Can you cast a glamour yourself?”

“I wouldn’t know how to try.”

“As you sit there, think of yourself as an old man and try to convince me of it, silently.”

George let himself feel shrunken and tired, conscious of small aches and a certain tremor in his hands. It was acting a part, but persuading himself instead of an audience. He looked over at Ceridwen, keeping to character, then released it.

“I think you may have it in you. I could see the glamour, dimly. You’ll need to work at it, but it’s a skill like any other.”

She looked at him speculatively. “How old are you?”

“Thirty-three.”

“Remind me, I don’t see many humans. Do you seem young for that age?”

“It’s hard to know what normal feels like, of course. My hair hasn’t started to gray yet, nor receded, but that’s not all that unusual. I feel well, but then I keep fit for foxhunting. I’m good for my age, but young? How would I know?”

“It’s possible you have some of the longevity, too. We mature at the same rate as humans, until middle age, and there we linger for a very long time.”

She took a sip of her tea.

“What Gwyn suspects about your father is much more of a surprise. Let me see if I have this right.”

She summarized. “You hear the pack at Iolo’s death, then see a pale stag, then, a bit precipitously, find yourself in the otherworld. Is that correct?”

“Yes, that’s about it.”

“Your father had no kin of which you are aware. He had a special affinity for animals. He worked in the woods. He vanished, with your mother, in the woods.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what ‘Traherne’ means?”

“I just know it’s Welsh.”

“It means ‘iron-hard,’ more or less. And ‘Corniad’ is ‘the horned-one,’ like a bull or a stag.”

She paused, exasperated like any professor facing a dullard at George’s apparent lack of comprehension, and spelled it out for him. “Gwyn thinks your father was a manifestation of Cernunnos, the lord of beasts, the great hunter, and that he brought you here for a purpose.”

He felt the blood drain from his face. Another stunner, he thought. He had seen archaeological portrayals of Cernunnos, a seated man with the antlers of a deer, but this implied a living god of some kind.

He shook his head in denial. “There’s a limit to my suspension of disbelief in the last couple of days, as I find myself here in the otherworld talking to near-immortal relatives, and we may have just hit it.”

Ceridwen smiled sympathetically. “We do have gods, they just don’t concern themselves with us very often, and the distinctions between our highest lords and our gods aren’t that great. Even our gods can die or vanish. Cernunnos is one of our old ones and, perhaps, still enjoys taking a hand in our affairs. He’s the ultimate sponsor of the great hunt.”

George said, “Never mind, I just can’t associate this with my father. If you’re both right, I’ll just have to think of it as another unusual set of traits, like wiggling my ears.” He muttered, “I’m beginning to feel like a specially bred hound.”

Ceridwen said, “I’ve never seen Cernunnos myself, nor met one in whom he took an interest, either indirectly or directly. This should be most intriguing.”

She paused. “A personal question, if you will. Why were you named George? Who named you?”

“I asked my parents that, since I was teased as a boy for such an English name in Wales. My mother said it was after her mother, Georgia. But my father always joked about it being a fine name for a dragon slayer.”

“Let’s hope that’s not prophetic.”

The fire crackled in silence for a moment as bits dropped off the logs on the andirons into the embers below.

George stirred from staring into the fire to glance at the andirons and chuckled. “I’ve been meaning to ask. Whatever happened to the ‘fearing the touch of cold iron’ tradition of the otherworld? Everywhere I look I see perfectly ordinary iron objects, not to mention the weaponry.”

Ceridwen laughed. “We don’t know where that legendary guidance came from, but we sometimes play along with it, for the gullible in your world. It’s useful to pretend to a false weakness and be underestimated.”

“I don’t suppose garlic or crosses matter, either?” he asked.

“We’re not vampires.” At his surprised look, she said, “Yes, I’ve read some of your books. Besides, consider your premises. We’re not part of Christianity, so those religious symbols are as irrelevant to us as signs to scare off the ‘evil eye’ are to you, and garlic’s used symbolically to ward off the evil and the unclean; we’re neither.”

“But King Arthur’s court is traditionally Christian.”

“We do take on the trappings of the human world over time, in fashions and language, and in names, so you’ll find occasional Christian names among us, if few actual Christians. And Arthur’s part of our history. But the stories you know have been very much modified in your traditions to conform with the needs and uses of the times. Sometime, when we have more leisure, I’d be glad to correct your understanding of that period.”

She continued, “There’s one more trait I’ve thought of from Gwyn’s line that may be relevant. Perhaps you found your own way here, having received the call. Has anyone described to you what a way-finder is?”

“Rhys mentioned something. Is Rhodri one, the fellow I borrowed the robes from? He also said something about tokens, but I didn’t quite understand.”

“Our realms in the otherworld lie in different areas, but all are connected to each other, and sometimes to the human world, in particular places. You could ride out that gate below and eventually come to the realms of Gwyn’s father and uncle, but it would take months and you would pass through much wilderness and danger along the way. You would even cross oceans. The ways are direct routes, shortcuts, either open to all or warded.

“A few of the high lords, and some of their descendants, can find new ways not yet in use, and claim them for ownership. Gwyn allied himself with Trefor Mawr, one of our greatest way-finders, when he found the first ways to the new world. He built settlements around the important locations. After he moved Annwn here, Gwyn let them be known and used, primarily for traders. They require tokens for their use. It’s not hard to obtain such a token, but the number of travelers a token can accommodate is limited. We don’t want armies to appear on our doorstep, after all.

“Gwyn also maintains at least one private way for family and friends, and those tokens are few. For the great hunt in the fall and the striving with Gwythyr in the spring, which are public events, he issues tokens for the guests, good for one use only. Not all guests are… friends.

“Rhodri has great talent as a way-finder in this current generation. Like any young man—I suppose he’s about your age—he’s swept up by the novelty of seeing other lands, but I expect he’ll settle down eventually. What I wonder is if you yourself have inherited any such talent and found a new way to the otherworld, as Gwyn did when he first visited your world from here.”

George couldn’t help thinking, I look for answers and get nothing but more questions. Aloud, he asked, “How can we test that?”

“Quickly, without thinking about it, close your eyes and point to the spot where you entered this world.”

He closed his eyes and held out an arm, as though he were a compass. He felt a bright pull to the southeast and pointed in that direction. “There.”

“That’s right,” Ceridwen said.

“But I don’t understand. I looked for it when I woke up and couldn’t find it.”

“You looked with your eyes, not your mind. Didn’t you?”

“True.” He nodded.

“They can be hard to see until claimed, even to their finder.”

He closed his eyes, and this time thought of himself as a sonar detector, sweeping around in a full circle.

“You’re right. Now that I’m looking, I can see five more.”

Ceridwen started. She rose abruptly. “There should only be three.”

She walked swiftly to her desk and pulled out a scroll from a shelf behind it. She unrolled it on top of the desk, shoving stacks of paper to the side carelessly, and weighted it down. “Come here. Show me.”