Lugh stalked off into the night.  His mind was a-whirl with thoughts, with memories that he’d shaded with pleasantness only days ago, the pleasure of Von, hopes that she might at least remember him well.  But all such thoughts were ashes.  “They killed her.” Oatie had said and he had seen in her eyes that she even feared the same from him. 

Lugh didn’t even know for sure who “They” might be, but he felt guilt for it.  Guilt for his carelessness if nothing else.  Guilt for not knowing what had become of Von and for what had come of his good intention toward her.  I didn’t think you might be in danger, I only knew that I was.

Lugh heard movement behind him.  He had no desire to talk of it, only to think and be alone with this revelation.  He had long experience with running away, he realized, and so it was no hard thing for him to slip away from Oatie. 

I needed to remember, to sort out my life.  His hand went to the bones on the thong around his neck.  I only wanted good for you, but I did nothing to make it so.  Oh bones of Von, were you ever my friend or only a curse for what I’d done?

The night among the trees was dark, but the sky was full of stars.  Lugh looked to the heavens for answers, but the stars had none.  He walked silently in the night seeking a place to think and await the dawn.  What had he done with the life that Von had given him, it seemed, at the cost of her’s?  Not much to tell.

There had been things to do.  Weyland’s kingdom under the Western Mountains had been endlessly fascinating.  Well, as endlessly fascinating as things got for a god with a short attention span.  I’d quite forgotten that when I fled the Norfolk by the Saffron River, I didn’t stop my running until I reached the Western Mountains and hid myself there.  Weyland had no more love for Lyr than did I, though Lyr wasn’t trying to kill the lord under the mountain.

I’d planned to return to Von, wanted to, expected it, planned that return, but always I put it off until there was no more reason, until Von would have looked more like my mother than a girl like Oatie.  And then, after leaving the mountain halls of Loki, after living among the tribes above the desert south, there was then no chance that she would even be alive at all. 

It wasn’t Lyr that tried to kill me then, no, a daliance in the Gallic south had nearly done for me.  The Cult of the Virgin turned those refugees of the Tuath wars into murderous monsters.  I blame the endless red day and I did not mind leaving all that behind. 

Why am I always blown from one place to another?  Weyland has his mines.  Lyr has claimed the East.  Most of my brothers and sisters live in the misty Islands of the Inner Sea.  Even Bridgit seems to have gone to ground somewhere.  I don’t hear about her moving around like I hear about my old travels.  Strange to hear the tales of your own wandering.

They, whoever They might have been, probably shieldmen of his brother, Lyr, but that was only a guess, They had killed her.  Small comfort, he was not there to defend her, he never went back even to learn that she’d died.  If not for him Von would have lived.  What to do with that realization?

Should he not simply run?  Lugh thought, turning the idea over in his mind much more than he would normally, it was a night for thinking.  Who knew if Lyr would kill him now?  And yet he ran, or at least it seemed for one reason or another, often the same one, he ran and kept running though a trail that Lyr might have followed was now hundreds of years old.  The running began with Lyr, but the habit of it was just that, a habit that had become him, not an action taken for any real reason.

Lugh drifted through a young forest that rose above their camp-site, feeling his way with his feet, arms out to tough the young trees, and eyes that grew ever more accustomed to the starry night. 

This of the Norfolk is good work, he thought, making of a barren land a garden.  Sadness washed over him, If only I had shared this with Von, seen this with her, would she even have come with me?  I wonder.

Lugh came to a prominence, a rocky projection where the land fell away all around him.  He looked up at the blaze of starlight.  Look there is the Stranger, down on the horizon the great dark moon hung.  He gazed at that great hole in the starry host.  Suddenly, Traveller set a glow on the horizon before leaping into the sky, shining in colors of blue and gold and red, as it tumbled into the starry night.  How many times have I seen you, and this time the most surprising of all?  Lugh laughed, where are you going old friend?  Why shouldn’t I come with you?  Oh, that’s right, I can’t fly.

Oatie was moving quickly up the hill.  The exuberance of youth.  No respect for elders, thought Lugh.  He was about to ask her what the rush was when she stopped, looking out from where she stood.  Lugh saw that it was the top of the ridge and he saw that she was gazing out over the landscape below.

“I love this view,” Oatie said.

It was beautiful, the land laid out in green and blue, a patchwork of wilderness.  Perhaps more to a Norfolk like Oatie who might think, there’s where I planted those trees, hey look there is my field of wildflowers.  “I see what you mean.  You can see for miles up here.”

She looked at him and smiled, “Know what you don’t see?”

He scanned the land laid out before him.  It was beautiful, there were lakes, hills crowned with trees, swaths of color, but it was a puzzle to him what she meant.  He looked back the way they came, searching for some idea.  Strangely, but not really, the Norfolk intended, but still, it was surprising that the world seemed as empty behind them as before, “I can’t even see the sidhe from here.”

She laughed again, “That’s it!” Without another word Oatie Moss began to march down the path, whistling as she went.

Lugh paused to look around a bit more and to ponder.  He hadn’t pegged Oatie as being anti-social.  Perhaps she had her reasons.  Lugh, for his part, was accustomed to solitary periods.  Fleeing for one’s life makes it preferable, but Lugh thought he mostly liked to be around people.  Whatever, his current company had improved.  He thought, It seems that Oatie might not actually hate me at all, but rather she might have suffered the oppression of the thick human soup that was life in the sidhe. 

Lugh started after Oatie.  Not for the first time, he wondered why he found her so intriguing.  Then she turned and smiled at him and there was no more reason to think.

Why was he following her? The scenery changed rapidly as they walked, Oatie silent, Lugh following.  Sad to say he really had no place else to go, certainly no place better.  He was a wanderer who roved until he stuck, stuck until his habits cast him out, and then wandered again until some opportunity or curiosity or woman caught his fancy.

At first they’d strolled through fields and arbors, the land always falling slightly away.  They had crossed a marshy place, keeping to a causeway that showed the hand of man at points that would have otherwise fallen into the swamp.  Lugh shuddered to think that they might be headed back into the hell of biting flies he’d endured. If Oatie meant to be rid of him that was a sure way to do it.

Lugh was forced to wonder, Is it this woman that has caused me to stick?  Why should I?  She cares nothing for me.  Less then nothing, she is hostile. Not long after the causeway they began to climb a ridge that hid the land beyond.  The way became more and more difficult leaving thoughts of the swamp and its flies behind.

Oatie led them up through new forest, winding in and around young trees.  At last they topped a rise and looked down on a naked indent in the land.  There was some water gathered in the swale but little else.  Oatie dropped her pack and drew out her sling.

Lugh fumbled for his bow and looked around for some danger that would require killing, but Oatie calmly rummaged through her pack, unconcerned.  “What’s the problem?” asked Lugh, confused.

“No problem.  Opportunity.” Oatie placed one of the five balls she had set out into her sling and with a few efficient whirls flung it down into the depression where it plopped in the water at the edge of the puddle. “You could probably throw a few basics down around that water too.” she said and then went back to hurling balls down into the swale.

Lugh grabbed his sling, dug out a ball and hurled it.  The thing bounded off the rocks at the edge and made a big splash in the middle.

“Uh, don’t waste those things.  I thought you knew how to use a sling?” Oatie chided.

Lugh glanced over, ready to snipe back about how she’d hit the water too, but he saw the smile on her face and decided to be happy that she wasn’t mad anymore.  “Where should I put them then, oh wise one?”

Oatie laughed, “I told you, at the edge.  I’m putting some water lovers at the front of that puddle and hopefully they will stop it up a bit so that the water will rise. . .”

“Well, I aimed short, hit short, and the thing bounced in the water.  Not my fault.”

She laughed again, music to his ears, “Try aiming long so that if it bounces long it won’t be in the water.”

He spun a ball quickly and sent it to strike just beyond the water and skitter a bit farther.

“Very nicely done.  Good job Lugh,”  Oatie teased.  She squealed when he swung his sling, threatening her flank, and she laughed and laughed.

Oatie finished what she was doing and stood waiting for him.  Lugh dropped one last ball at the head of the swale and stowed the sling.  Oatie winked at him and marched off up the hill.  What was that? thought Lugh and followed her.

Cooled, shaded and blessedly free of his cloud of midges, Lugh rose from the water of the little lake, refreshed.  The mud felt good between his toes as he climbed up the bank, but it wouldn’t do to shove slimy feet in his good new boots.  There was a large low stone that gave him a perfect seat to wash off his feet and dress.

Sitting upon the rock and looking out on the little spring fed oval of deep blue water, Lugh had the feeling that he had been here before.  It was not deja vu, rather he realized that this was the spot, the very rock, that he and Von had come to so many years ago.  The trees were taller, or different, Lugh realized that in so much time there may have grown more than one generation.  For all he knew wild-fire or simple decay may have wiped that forest away completely and a new one grown several times since.

The rock was different, aged but not erased, still the lake was the lake that they had known together.  Likely it was the steep sides and the depth that swallowed the trees and reed that might have choked another forest lake.  This place endured by chance, not magic, or by the magic of chance.

Lugh sat and pondered life, What magic had linked he and Von, chance or something more?  Remembering was bitter sweet.  She had loved him, how fortunate for him that Von had touched his life and was it chance that brought them and chance that drove them apart?

That bit of sweetness had ended too soon in his long life.  Or would he have spoiled it like this latest of  Findabair and Gormflaith?  Perhaps he would have found some flaw in Von that would have driven him to destroy what had been good.  Like he had with Findabair who was dear, a fragile flower, but too clingy and stifling after the initial excitement of weedling his way past her natural defensiveness to possess the unpossessable.  

Gormflaith, on the other hand, was all brass and even more narcissistic than people thought him.  She was angry that he was still attracted to Findabair, viewing it as a slight.  She was pride in every line, and she had some reason to believe herself that remarkable, only being with one so self impressed quickly made him want for gentle Findabair.

Lugh looked out over the blue of the lake and remembered, regretted, “Oh Von, what shall I do?”  He clutched the bones at the end of the thong around his neck.  He sighed heavily, “Shall I go on north oh bones?” 

Lugh unstrung the bones from the thong and pressed them between his palms, “Tell me true bones, shall I continue north? Lugh cast the bones and looked.  “Two, and two, and two.  On north it is.” He said a bit sadly.  Lugh gathered his things and turning his back on the little lake, walked into the trees.

The bones had urged him on, but Lugh soon had to wonder if the bones were working for him or for the midges.  The pests returned with a vengeance after the cool of the lake was forgotten and the heat of the day began to tell on him.  He sweated and struggled along as the forest thinned to admit the cruel sun.  The trees, seedlings really, were close packed and the ground was uneven and dusty.

The small trees impeded him, whip-sawing at him, and then they were gone.  Lugh stepped out onto dry dusty ground and there before him was a little hill with a great spreading oak growing from its flank.  The shade of it seemed to him the most beautiful thing he’d seen in a long time, it hadn’t taken long for his trek to erase the pretty lake from his mind.

He rushed toward it, there was more green beneath the sheltering branches. When he came to the hill, Lugh began to walk up the side and then he stopped.  Strange, though the midges had deserted him, he felt ill.  Perhaps this island of cool shade in the midst of arid plain wasn’t empty.  Perhaps the  owner of this wouldn’t be welcoming.  I am being a fool again. 

Lugh slid his sword free of its scabbard, and instead of charging up the hill, he cautiously walked around the base, low to the ground.  The feeling did not leave him, a feeling of unease, a sickness in the pit of his stomach, but as he climbed into the cool shade beneath the old oak tree and there was no threat that he could find his mind eased if not his stomach. It is the heat and this long dry walk and nothing more, he thought.

Reaching the top of the hill a freshening breeze stirred and Lugh felt foolish for his unease.  He could look down from beneath the tree and see the heat of the sun, the dust, and he wanted none of it.  Time for some fish and a drink and a little rest here beneath this friendly tree.  Lugh stroked the bones where they lay beneath his shirt, Thank you oh bones of my friend Von, for you have done me good service.

This continues:  Concerning the Deer Riders from the second installment, Deer Riders Continued

It was dim when I woke,  the deep shade of a forest, not of night.  I could see, so, since it was my job to search and seek, that is what I did.  I walked along the path in the dimness, not really knowing what time of day it might be or what direction I was going.

I believed that the water and the valley I had seen was on my left, but I knew little more.  I hoped to come out to where I could see the sky, but I walked longer and then twice longer than I thought I should have.

I was frustrated.  I felt sure I had not missed a turning, but it seemed that I had.  I remembered walking past the steps rising out of the stream-bed and went back, now looking to my right where I expected to see the open vale.

This turning was more secret, but there it was, over grown and laid so that it could easily be missed by someone who didn’t know the way.

Then too, it was overgrown and I had to pick my way through invading brambles.  Slowly and painfully I made my way until fighting through a particularly thick stand of ropey, spine studded, whips I stepped out into a riot of flowers.

I wondered why I had not smelled them, but one moment there was only green leaves and pain, then the next I was beneath the sun, it was past mid-day, and surrounded by wild flowers of so many kinds that I could not ever remember seeing their like.

I looked back along my way and saw only a green wall of bramble-thorn.  I had a queasy feeling, I feared a magic other than that of growing things, but soon enough I found where I had come.  I tore at the brambles and pulled them aside to mark my way.  I looked around a little to get my bearings so that I could find this path again.

The green wall ran off, bending away each way.  Whereas I had come out into flowers, one way seemed blocked, or rather filled in with a riot of big leaves and huge yellow flowers. The other way was walled off with smaller trees and the brambles had made inroads, out from the green wall was a tall grass like plant that was above my head.

I tore out a few of these big stocks with what seemed to be grain pods on the sides instead of at the top like the oats and wheat with which I was familiar.  I placed my uprooted stocks against and holding open my path.  I marked the smaller trees and my hole into the bramble. 

I guessed the water was through the tall stocks and having marked well my exit in my mind I began to make my way through the tall grass.

In truth the going was easy.  So big were these things that they seemed to dominate looked at in depth, but they were not solid like a field of grain.  The big leafy, yellow flowered plants grew around and even climbed upon the stalks and everywhere there were flowers.  There were other plants I knew, rooting plants, and there were pod plants that climbed the big stalks like the yellow flower plants.

All chaos and randomness, but it dawned on me that most or all of these plants might well be good for food.  I looked around me and could see nothing, but the big stalks and slight sign of my passing behind me.  It seemed I was lost in some mad man’s garden.  Not many steps later the the tasseled stalks thinned and I could see ahead to a stacked stone wall.

Beyond the wall was turf, some of the plants I had seen were growing, widely dispersed, in what I guessed were pats of old manure.  And beyond that, cat-tails and then the water.  Now I could see the fall down a rocky tumble of the stream I had navigated.  At the top of the cascade was the grill-work, the first strangeness, I had recognized as such.

I looked along the bank, following the line of cat-tails to where. . .

. . . I gasped, there across a section of lake was the hill I had seen in my dream, my dream flight, my seeing.  I remembered myself, I was in the midst of some one’s place, I knew not who or whether they would want a visitor.  I quickly slipped over the stone fence.

Of course they did not want visitors.  I lay next to the wall thinking hard on my next move.  I had found the watch place above the stream, the cunning back cut trails, the circling, bramble girdled, wood all of these spoke of secrecy, not welcome.  But I had wandered far, I had stumbled around and met no resistance save deception, and the watch place, well that was moldering in long abandoned disuse.

I had given myself a shock.  But this place seemed to me, abandoned, and yet a wonder that needed exploration.  I determined to press on, but more carefully.  If there were jealous defenders, I would try not to arouse them.

I moved back into the mixed planting where I could see the wall but not much else.  Moving along it brought me through into places that seemed even less cultivated and more wild. I found another stand of trees like the ones I had seen at a distance.  These were heavy with fruit, but beneath them there were wasted fruits and a whole forest of seedlings springing from the fallen waste.

Just beyond this the water widened still more, coming right to my wall with no margin, and beyond it was the large central mound.  Right near to me was a smaller mound.  I determined to see if I could find my way into it.  I was nervous being so exposed, but passing around the bulk of the thing I found a stone lined cut with intricately decorated beams bracing them.  Looking closer I saw that the stone wall had carvings as well, here and there, but the wood was completely covered.

The cut was stopped at the back with more carved wood and more dressed stone.  There seemed to be two great doors positioned in the middle of the space, but in one of them was a much smaller portal and this one was ajar, whether the wall was just a wall or in truth a huge gateway, I could not tell.

I stepped into the cool interior, it was dark and I could not see anything but a little of the stone floor lit by the opened door.  The stone was very well dressed, tightly fit, there seemed to be gouge marks that ran from stone to stone as if they had been scoured by the same heavy hand.

Leaving the entrance I examined the walls.  The drawings there were marvelously fascinating.  There were pictographs of things I could make out, salmon, boar, deer, and there was much more that I could not imagine what they might be.  These carvings, all together on the rocks and carved into the heavy beams, meant nothing to me, I could make no sense of any of it, and finally gave it up.

I looked around the small hollow from my vantage at the front of the cut.  Here and their were sections dominated by trees bearing fruit.  The rest seemed strangely random.  Not far from me was the hill.  I gazed about me for signs of habitation I had missed, but finding none I walked toward the hill that I felt must be central to explaining this strange place.

I came on a hedge of sorts, low lying and dense.  I inspected it for thorns and finding none, I pushed through it.  Again I was presented with a variety of plants that looked like food plants I had gathered myself.  Seeing what looked like a sweet root plant, if perhaps a bit larger than the wild ones I knew and loved, I pulled it from the ground and found what I’d expected.  It tasted sweet and earthy and I promised myself I would keep my eyes open for more.

I glanced over at the hedge and was surprised to see clusters of mushrooms at its base, shaded by the hedge.  They looked good to eat, but I left them alone.  Near at hand was a big plant with small white flowers like the eating tuber plants we found when I was younger.  Lately they had not been seen and I confess I missed the lumpy things.  I grabbed hold of the bushy plant and heaved.  I fell, showering myself with dirt, but when I had recovered I examined the plant I had uprooted.  Around the base of it were many small red tubers.  I dug around in the disturbed earth where I’d uprooted the plant and found more and larger tubers. 

If only I had some wild onion, I thought, and there, not many steps away, were spikes of green just like what I sought.  Though young and small they were indeed what I’d hoped to find.  I stowed all the delicacies I found and started thinking about fire and a way to start one.

The day was fading fast in the tree ringed hollow so I made a dash for the top of the hill to have a look before all the light was gone.  On top of  that grassy knoll was a low circle of stones.  I looked around and could only marvel that such plenty seemed abandoned.  I remembered my need for firewood.  The orchard with the spoiled fruit might have something but I crossed the stone circle to see if there might be something even closer that would provide the needed wood for my feast.  I saw how a little stream bent around the hill and where it widened out into another little pond.

I stepped again into the middle to look once more for fallen wood.  I felt the ground give a little.  Sometimes one can find a burrow of coneys in that way and a whole group will erupt from their ruined home.  I stomped down a bit harder, with the intent to cave in what had given but slightly.  I heard a crunching and a dry snap and felt myself falling.  I desperately tried to spread myself to catch at the edge of the cave in I realized I had caused, but it seemed to me that the whole of the top of the hill, at least as far as I could reach, was falling into darkness.  There was a roaring as of a great wind and then I knew nothing for some time.

I guess this isn’t the conclusion yet.  Stay tuned for the Deer Riders, the Conclusion, part 2.