Lavondyss (Mythago Cycle) Read Free

folk song.’
    ‘Not
another
one,’ Tallis whispered back.
    ‘I’m afraid so. I’ve had a go at most things in my time …’
    (ii)
    They stood among the alders by the wide stream which Tallis called Hunter’s Brook. It flowed from Ryhope Wood itself, then followed the shallow valleys between the fields and woods, coursing towards Shadoxhurst, where it disappeared into the ground.
    Ryhope Wood was a dense tangle of summer green, rising distantly from the yellow and red of the brushwood that bordered it. The trees seemed huge. The canopy was unbroken. It stretched over the hill in one direction, and in the other was lost in the lines of hedges that extended from it like limbs. It looked impenetrable.
    Mr Williams rested a hand on Tallis’s shoulder. ‘Shall I take you across?’
    Tallis shook her head. Then she led the way furtheralong Hunter’s Brook, past the place where she had first met Mr Williams and to a tall, lightning blasted oak that stood a little way out into the field from the dense tree hedge behind. The tree was almost dead, and the split in its trunk formed a narrow seat.
    ‘This is Old Friend,’ Tallis said matter-of-factly. ‘I often come here to think.’
    ‘A nice name,’ Mr Williams said. ‘But not very imaginative.’
    ‘Names are names,’ Tallis pointed out. ‘They exist. People find them out. But they don’t change them. They can’t.’
    ‘In that,’ Mr Williams said gently, ‘I disagree with you.’
    ‘Once a name is found, it’s fixed,’ Tallis protested.
    ‘No it isn’t.’
    She looked at him. ‘Can you change a tune?’
    ‘If I want to.’
    Slightly confused, she said, ‘But then it isn’t … it isn’t the
tune
. It’s not the first inspiration!’
    ‘Isn’t it?’
    ‘I’m not trying to be argumentative,’ Tallis said awkwardly. ‘I’m just saying … if you don’t first accept the gift as it is – if you change what you hear, or change what you learn – doesn’t that make it weak somehow?’
    ‘Why should it?’ Mr Williams asked softly. ‘As I believe I’ve said to you before, the gift is not
what
you hear, or learn … the gift is being
able
to hear and learn. These things are yours from the moment they come and you can shape the tune, or the clay, or the painting, or whatever it is, because it belongs to you. It’s what I’ve always done with my music.’
    ‘And it’s what I should do with my stories, according to you,’ Tallis said. ‘Only …’ she hesitated, still uncertain. ‘My stories are
real
. If I change them … theybecome just …’ She shrugged. ‘Just nothing. Just children’s stories. Don’t they?’
    Looking across the summer fields at the tree-covered earthworks on Barrow Hill, Mr Williams shook his head minutely. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Although I would think that there are great truths in what you call children’s stories.’
    He looked back at her and smiled, then leaned back against the split trunk of Old Friend and let the intense gleam settle in his eye. ‘Talking of stories,’ he said, ‘and especially of Old Forbidden Place …’
    He slapped a hand to his mouth, realizing what he had done as soon as he had spoken the words. ‘I’m terribly sorry!’ he said.
    Tallis rolled her eyes, sighing resignedly.
    Mr Williams said, ‘But what about it, what about this story? You’ve been promising to tell it to me for two days now –’
    ‘Only one.’
    ‘Well, one then. But I’d
like
to hear it before I have to –’
    He broke off, glancing at the girl apprehensively. He suspected he would make her sad.
    ‘Before you have to what?’ Tallis asked, slight concern on her face.
    ‘Before I have to go,’ he said gently.
    She was shocked. ‘You’re going?’
    ‘I have to,’ he said with an apologetic shrug.
    ‘Where?’
    ‘Somewhere very important to me. Somewhere a long way away.’
    She didn’t speak for a moment, but her eyes misted slightly. ‘Where
exactly?
’
    He said, ‘Home. To where