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Authors: Kage Baker
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men. You think that’s all it is, then, with Brother Crimthann? He’s been sneaking out at night to visit a girl?” Lewis leapt nimbly up on a rock and peered ahead, shading his eyes with his hand. “Ah. That must be the famous Dun Govaun.”
“That’s it.” I regarded it sourly. “The supposed hall of the fairies. Absolutely ridiculous! It’s a completely smooth and solid hill. Not even a rabbit hole on it anywhere. As for Brother Crimthann, he’s simply run away, if you ask me. That’s the trouble with these boys who get all inflamed by the idea of monastic life before they’ve had a chance to see what sleeping with a woman’s like.” I bent to untangle a branch of gorse from the leg of my trews. “Chastity seems like such a wonderful idea until the first time someone actually tempts them, and then they go all to pieces. Hysteria, night sweats, and Satan everywhere they look.”
“Not one of the better innovations of Christianity, if you’ll pardon my saying so,” Lewis remarked as we hurried on. “But let’s climb Dun Govaun. I’m eager to see if anything’s up there. There are, er … certain stories amongst my people, of creatures like the ones Brother Crimthann described. We’ve never been able to verify anything, of course. So what do you think the place is? Not a natural hill, at any rate.”
“Nothing more than the burial mound of some heathen king,” I said dismissively; but I glanced upward, for by then we had come to the base of the great hill, and I felt my opinion curdle in my heart. Perhaps a giant heathen king.
“There’s a place in Britain—” began Lewis, and then he stopped still in his tracks. He seemed to be listening intently to something. His face lit up. He began to laugh.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said, in rather poor taste under the circumstances, I thought. “They’re here, Eogan! There are actually living things inside this hill.”
“How do you know?” I was unable to see what should amuse him so.
“Let’s say it’s druidical wisdom,” he replied, chuckling, and began to pace rapidly along the side of the hill. “Yes—there should be a concealed opening, and I’ll bet it’s just about here—”
“What in Christ’s name are you babbling about?” I demanded, running after him until he suddenly vanished before my astounded eyes. I froze, staring at empty grass and windy sky. To my horror his bright voice went right on.
“Here it is, no doubt about it. Eogan? What’s the matter? Oh.” His head appeared in midair, a vision no less terrifying. He must have seen how frightened I was, for in a soothing voice he said: “This is only a conjurer’s trick, man. There’s magic in your Bible, isn’t there? Moses and Aaron working spells against the Pharaoh’s magicians? And this is less than that, believe me.”
“But—” I said, and that was when I felt my faith first shifting under me. All this while, I had believed that Christ’s coming had scoured sorcery out of the world, as the sunrise dispels darkness. Though the old stories might be good to tell and listen to, and the days of the heroes sentimentally longed after, no such wonders existed any more, if indeed they ever had.
Yet my logic had been flawed, hadn’t it? For the old prophets did work magic, Christ Himself had done so, and where in Scripture did it say that we lived in an orderly and rational world?
Lewis extended a disembodied hand, in a gesture meant to calm me. “Come around here, and I’ll show you.”
Christ forgive me, I went to see. As I approached, the rest of him appeared whole and sound, and I saw the wavering stripes of shadow he was pointing out so proudly. They were like the blurs that used to dance before my eyes when I’d worked too late by one candle. “Now, watch this,” he told me, and closed his eyes. I heard a humming sound and a snap. The mouth of a cave yawned before us, black dark and deep. I made the Sign of the Cross against all
“That’s it.” I regarded it sourly. “The supposed hall of the fairies. Absolutely ridiculous! It’s a completely smooth and solid hill. Not even a rabbit hole on it anywhere. As for Brother Crimthann, he’s simply run away, if you ask me. That’s the trouble with these boys who get all inflamed by the idea of monastic life before they’ve had a chance to see what sleeping with a woman’s like.” I bent to untangle a branch of gorse from the leg of my trews. “Chastity seems like such a wonderful idea until the first time someone actually tempts them, and then they go all to pieces. Hysteria, night sweats, and Satan everywhere they look.”
“Not one of the better innovations of Christianity, if you’ll pardon my saying so,” Lewis remarked as we hurried on. “But let’s climb Dun Govaun. I’m eager to see if anything’s up there. There are, er … certain stories amongst my people, of creatures like the ones Brother Crimthann described. We’ve never been able to verify anything, of course. So what do you think the place is? Not a natural hill, at any rate.”
“Nothing more than the burial mound of some heathen king,” I said dismissively; but I glanced upward, for by then we had come to the base of the great hill, and I felt my opinion curdle in my heart. Perhaps a giant heathen king.
“There’s a place in Britain—” began Lewis, and then he stopped still in his tracks. He seemed to be listening intently to something. His face lit up. He began to laugh.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said, in rather poor taste under the circumstances, I thought. “They’re here, Eogan! There are actually living things inside this hill.”
“How do you know?” I was unable to see what should amuse him so.
“Let’s say it’s druidical wisdom,” he replied, chuckling, and began to pace rapidly along the side of the hill. “Yes—there should be a concealed opening, and I’ll bet it’s just about here—”
“What in Christ’s name are you babbling about?” I demanded, running after him until he suddenly vanished before my astounded eyes. I froze, staring at empty grass and windy sky. To my horror his bright voice went right on.
“Here it is, no doubt about it. Eogan? What’s the matter? Oh.” His head appeared in midair, a vision no less terrifying. He must have seen how frightened I was, for in a soothing voice he said: “This is only a conjurer’s trick, man. There’s magic in your Bible, isn’t there? Moses and Aaron working spells against the Pharaoh’s magicians? And this is less than that, believe me.”
“But—” I said, and that was when I felt my faith first shifting under me. All this while, I had believed that Christ’s coming had scoured sorcery out of the world, as the sunrise dispels darkness. Though the old stories might be good to tell and listen to, and the days of the heroes sentimentally longed after, no such wonders existed any more, if indeed they ever had.
Yet my logic had been flawed, hadn’t it? For the old prophets did work magic, Christ Himself had done so, and where in Scripture did it say that we lived in an orderly and rational world?
Lewis extended a disembodied hand, in a gesture meant to calm me. “Come around here, and I’ll show you.”
Christ forgive me, I went to see. As I approached, the rest of him appeared whole and sound, and I saw the wavering stripes of shadow he was pointing out so proudly. They were like the blurs that used to dance before my eyes when I’d worked too late by one candle. “Now, watch this,” he told me, and closed his eyes. I heard a humming sound and a snap. The mouth of a cave yawned before us, black dark and deep. I made the Sign of the Cross against all
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