Just beyond the northernmost border of the land Belyn surveyed stood a great hill surrounded by marshland with a very broad but shallow lake beside it. Avallach claimed this hill on which to build his palace; Belyn remained in the south, settling his remnant in Llyn Llyonis, on that narrow peninsula jutting out into the sea. Maildun stayed with him. I think Belyn wanted to be near the water to see the missing ship if it ever should arrive.
Avallach’s hill, or Tor as the locals called it, was set in a strange and fantastic landscape: roundly humped hills and wide glens seamed through with darksome, wood-bound rivers and glinting silver streams, with heavy stands of ancient oak, yew, elm, and horse chestnut-a tree so large that an entire herd of cattle could shelter beneath the lofty, spreading branches of just one venerable grandsire of the wood. It was a moody and melancholy place of quiet airs and shadow, of great distances made short and small things made large, a waterworld on dry ground.
It was an old and secretive land, empty, haunting, inhabited only sporadically throughout its long history. In time I came to love this place, with its subtle, shifting light and misty atmosphere, although it never lost its strangeness for me.
In the midst of this eerie landscape stood the Tor. From the top, even before Avallach established his tall gleaming towers there, we had an unlimited view in any direction. At any distance the hill drew all eyes to it, although strangely, from certain nearer vantage points, the Tor disappeared from view.
Building stone was plentiful nearby, and there was good timber for the taking within easy reach. The lakes teemed with trout and perch and pike; the meadows nurtured game of all kinds. Cattle fattened readily on the fertile pastures, and grain grew almost without care. Wild fruits and berries could be found in die wooded glens, along with all varieties of edible herbs.
If not as generous as our lost home, it nevertheless yielded what comfort it possessed. And within a few short years we had built an enviable holding, becoming the source of endless fascination and speculation for the native tribes round about, who never tired of watching us and discussing our activities at extraordinary length among themselves. We observed them, in turn, learning their customs and eventually mastering their bewildering language.
We paid dearly for our gain, however, and the price was high. The climate, chill and perpetually damp, gave rise to a host of diseases which our Atlantian blood had never encountered and could not tolerate. More nights than I care to remember, I stood by helplessly as mysterious feverous maladies carried off my people, steadily dwindling our numbers.
But each year work continued on Avallach’s hilltop palace; his lakes were stocked, fields plowed, orchards planted. Lile, happier than I had ever seen her, took the care of the orchards and gardens as her own particular duty, and seldom could she be found elsewhere than among the dappled leaf-green shadows of her Beloved apple trees. Little Morgian grew up with twigs and blossoms in her hair and rich soil under the nails of her herb-stained fingers.
Annubi grew more and more into himself, living almost entirely alone, shut in his room in the palace. Rarely seen, still more rarely heard, he became a living shade that haunted the dark byways of the palace grounds and the remote high places. The Dumnoni called him Annwn and made him out a god of the Otherworld, their netherland where the dead lingered on in twilight. In this they were very nearly right.
Curiously, Avallach’s wound never completely healed-sometimes forcing him to his bed for several days, whereupon he would conduct the business of his court from a special canopied litter he had constructed. But when he felt better he would resume his activities as before-especially fishing which became his passion. He spent countless hours out on the lake Below the palace. It was a common sight to wake in the morning and see Avallach, like Poseidon plying through dawn’s golden mist in his boat, motionless, fishing spear poised.
And me? I roamed the moody hills on horseback and visited the secret places in the land-forest pools and private glades where no one ever went. This wandering suited my restless and melancholy spirit, and I spent my days dreaming of a time and place now lost forever. For, having brought my people to this land, my task was accomplished, my purpose achieved, and there was nothing left for me to do.
Charis slipped from the saddle and dropped the reins. Her gray pony wasted no time getting at the long, sweet grass beneath its nose. The clearing was not far from the palace, just beyond the hill opposite Ynys Witrin, which was what the natives had taken to calling the Tor now that Avallach’s palace was there: Isle of Glass. This lesser hill had, as far as Charis knew, no name, nor had the clearing, although obviously it had been the site of habitation in the past.
For at one end of the clearing stood the remains of a small, sturdily-built timber structure. A house of some kind perhaps, but a good deal larger than the houses of the natives and with a steeply pitched roof of thatch, now broken in several places. If it had ever boasted a door, that refinement was now long gone and the house stood vulnerable and open.
Charis studied the clearing and its ruin with interest; the place, like so many of the places she discovered for herself, had a distinct air about it. She had become expert at discerning the subtle textures of the atmosphere exuded by these secret places, and this place had a strong aura. Something significant had happened here upon a time, and the air still tingled with the memory.
If only I could read that memory, she thought, what would this place tell me?
The question occurred to her every time she visited the ruin, which was often because its peaceful solitude touched the restlessness inside her and calmed it for a while.
She advanced slowly from the cover of the surrounding trees, leaving the pony to graze. The ruin’s timber frame was intact, although much of the mud had crumbled from the wicker wattles between the beams. The broken roof allowed what little light that penetrated the clearing to fully illumine the weed-choked interior. Charis stepped to the open door, aware once again of a hushed whisper-the breeze, or an echo of a voice long past.
Something important had happened here once. Either that or a very powerful god ruled the place and imbued this little patch with his own potent Charisma. Whatever it was, Charis could feel the immense attraction of this primitive magnetism within her own spirit. She had felt it before but never stronger than this time. As a result, she stood at the door of the rude hut, holding her breath, listening, imagining to herself that the place, even in its decaying state, had been the site of the most high and holy of temples.
“Who are you?” she asked quietly, half-expecting an answer. The still, quiet air reverberated with the sound of her voice. The upper branches of a nearby ash tree rustled and a woodcock took flight. Charis listened to the soughing of the breeze in the leaves. The burring buzz of an insect seemed to fill the entire glade with its drowsy drone.
She stepped inside the decaying structure, placing a long, slim hand on the rotting doorframe as she passed. “Speak to me,” she whispered. “Tell me your secrets.”
The interior of the habitation was overgrown with nettles and nightshade and lacy-leafed fem. The smell of damp soil and rotting wood was strong in the place. She moved into the center of the building, ducking beneath one of’the fallen beams. There were no furnishings to be seen-not the smallest utensil or fragment of pottery remained. In fact, there was no firepit or oven, no place for warmth or cooking anywhere that she could see. How odd, she thought. Who had lived here that had no need of warmth or food?