Mythago Wood - 1 by Robert Holdstock

sound, like frustration, or despair, I'm not sure which. Her
clothing was coarse. I took the brief opportunity to touch the tunic she wore
and the fabric was rough, like sacking, and smelled of leather. Her presence was
overwhelming and quite overpowering. Her breath on my face was sweet, though,
and slightly . . . nutty.
    'Mich ch'athaben!' she said, and this time it was almost with a tone of
hopelessness.
    'Mich Steven,' I said, wondering if I was on the right track, but she
remained silent. 'Steven!' I repeated, and tapped my chest. 'Mich Steven.'
    'Ch'athaben,' she insisted, and the blade nicked sharply into my flesh.
    'There's food in the pantry,' I offered. 'Ch'athaben. Downen. Stairen.'
    'Cumchirioch,' she retorted savagely, and I felt myself insulted.
    'I'm doing my best. Do you have to keep prodding me with the spear?'
    Abruptly and unexpectedly, she reached out and grabbed my hair, jerking my
head back and peering at my face.
    A moment later she was gone, running silently down the stairs. Although I
followed her swiftly, she was fleet of foot, and became absorbed by night's
shadows. I stood at the back door and searched for her, but there was no sign.
    'Guiwenneth!' I shouted into the darkness. Was that the name by which she
knew herself, I wondered? Or only Christian's name for her? I repeated the call,
changing the emphasis in the name. 'Gwinn eth ! G win eth! Come back,
Guiwenneth. Come back!'
    In the silence of those early morning hours my voice carried loudly,
hollowly, reflected back at me from the sombre woodland. Movement among the
blackthorn scrub cut off my cry in mid-name.
    By the sparse moonlight it was hard to see properly who stood there, but it
was Guiwenneth, of that I was sure. She stood quite motionless, watching me, and
I imagine that she was intrigued at my use of her name.
    'Guiwenneth,' she called softly, and it was a throaty, sibilant sound, a
pronunciation more like chwin aiv.
    I raised my right hand in a gesture of parting and called, 'Goodnight then, Chwin
aiv.'
    'Inos c'da . . . Stivven . . .'
    And the enfolding shadows of the forest claimed her again, and this time she
did not reappear.
     
Three
     
     
    By day I explored the woodland periphery, trying to penetrate deeper but
still unable to do so; whatever forces were at work defending the heartwoods,
they regarded me with suspicion. I tripped and became tangled in the rank
undergrowth, ending up time and time again against a mossy stump,
bramble-covered and unpassable, or finding myself facing a wall of water-slick
rock, that rose, dark and daunting, from the ground below, itself eroded and
covered by the twisting, moss-furred roots of the great sessile oaks that grew
here.
    By the mill-stream I glimpsed the Twigling. Near to the sticklebrook, where
the water swirled more rapidly below the rotting gate, there I caught sight of
other mythagos, moving cautiously through the undergrowth, their features barely
discernible through the paint they had daubed on their skins.
    Someone had cleared the saplings from the centre of the glade and the remains
of a fire were pronounced; rabbit and chicken bones were scattered about, and on
the thistle-covered grass were the signs of a weapons industry, flakes of stone,
and the peelings of bark from young wood, where a shaft for a spear or arrow had
been fashioned.
    I was conscious of the activity around me, always out of sight, but never out
of earshot; furtive movement, sudden rapid flight, and a strange, eerie
calling-bird-like, yes, but clearly of human manufacture. The woods were alive
with the creations of my own mind ... or Christian's - and they seemed to be
clustering around the glade, and the stream, moving from the woodland at night
along the oak tendril that reached to the study.
    I longed to be able to reach deeper into the forest, but it was a wish that
was constantly denied me. My curiosity as to what lay beyond the two hundred or
so yards of the periphery began to peak, and I created