Marion Bradley - The Mists of Avalon

About an hour before dawn they awakened her. Now, in contrast to the tranced unawareness of the previous day, she was wide awake and sharply aware of everything-the cold fresh air, the mists stained with pink where soon the sun would rise, the strong smell of the little dark women in their garments of badly tanned skins. Everything was clean-edged and brilliantly colored, as if fresh this moment from the hand of the Goddess. The dark women whispered among themselves, not presuming to disturb the strange priestess; she heard them, but she knew only a few words of their language.

After a time the eldest of them-the one who had welcomed her and led her inside on the previous night, and whose bed she had shared-came to Morgaine and brought her fresh water. Morgaine bowed to thank her, the salute, priestess to priestess, and then wondered why. The woman was old; her hair, long and tangled and fastened with a clasp of bone, was almost all white, and her dark skin bore faded blue stains. Her garment was of the same imperfectly dyed skin of the others, but over it she wore a cloak of deerskin, the hair still clinging to it, painted with magical symbols; and about her neck were two necklaces, one of beautiful amber beads-Viviane herself owned none finer-and the other of bits of horn alternating with exquisitely chased gold bars. She carried herself with the authority of Viviane herself, and Morgaine knew that this was the tribal Mother and priestess of the people.

With her own hands, the woman began to prepare Morgaine for the ritual. She stripped her naked, and painted the soles of her feet and the palms of her hands with blue dye, and renewed the crescent moon on her brow; on her breast and belly she outlined the full moon, and just above the dark patch of Morgaine's body hair she painted the dark moon. Briefly, almost perfunctorily, she parted the girl's legs and probed a little: Morgaine, beyond embarrassment, knew why she was searching. For this rite, the priestess must be a virgin. But the tribal priestess would find nothing wrong; Morgaine was untouched, but she felt a sudden half-pleasurable moment of fear, and at the same moment she was conscious that she was almost fiercely hungry. Well, she was trained to ignore hunger, and after a time the hunger left her.

The sun Was rising as they led her outdoors, robed in a cloak like the old woman's, with the magical signs painted on it-the moon, the antlers of the deer. She was aware of the stiff astringency of her painted body, and some part of her mind, very far away, stared with amazement and a moment's contempt at these symbols of a mystery far older than the Druidic wisdom in which she had been so carefully schooled. That was momentary and vanished at once; the belief of generations ancient past knowing invested this rite with its own power and holiness. She saw the round stone house behind her; across from her was another, and they were leading forth a young man. She could not see him clearly; the rising sun was in her eyes, and she could see only that he was tall, with a shock of fair hair, and strongly built. He is not one of their own people, then? But it was not for her to question. The men of the tribe-and especially an old man, with the gnarled swollen muscles of a smith, blackened like his own forge-were painting the youth's body from head to foot with the blue woad, covering him with a cloak of untanned raw skins, smearing his body with the deer fat. On his head they fixed antlers; at a low word of command, he swung his head to make certain they could not be dislodged, no matter how he moved.

Morgaine looked up to see the proud swing of that young head, and suddenly she felt a ripple of awareness run down her body, cramping her calves, running into the secret parts of her body.

This is the Horned One, this the God, this the consort of the Virgin Huntress.

They wound her hair in a garland of crimson berries and crowned her with the first of the spring flowers. The precious necklace of gold and bone was reverently taken from the neck of the Mother of the tribe and placed around her own; she felt its weight like the very weight of magic. Her eyes were dazzled with the rising sun. They placed something in her hand-a drum, taut skin stretched over a hooped frame.

As if it came from somewhere else, she heard her own hand strike it.

They stood on a hillside, overlooking a valley filled to the brim with thick forest, empty and silent, but within it she could sense the life in the forest-the deer moving on silent, slender feet, the animals climbing in the trees, and the birds nesting, darting, moving, asurge with the life of the first running tide of the full moon of spring. She turned for a moment and looked behind, on the hillside. Above them, carved white in the chalk, was a monstrous figure, human or animal she could not tell, her eyes were blurred; was it a running deer, was it a striding man, phallus erect and filled with the spring tide, too?

She could not see the young man at her side, only the surge of the life in him. There was a solemn, waiting hush all over the hillside. Time ceased, was again transparent, something in which she moved, bathed, stepped freely. The drum was in the old crone's hands again, but she had no awareness of having given it over to her. Her eyes were dazed with sun as she felt the God's head between her hands, blessing him. Something in the face ... of course: before these hills were raised, she had known this face, this man, her consort, from before the beginning of the world ... . She did not hear her own ritual words, only the surge of force behind them: Go forth and conquer ... run with the deer ... swift and strong as the very tides of the spring ... forever blessed be the feet that brought you here ... . She was not conscious of speech, only of the power, of her own hands blessing, of the force that streamed out of her body, through her body as if the very strength of the sun poured through her and into the man before her. Now the power of the winter is broken and the new life of the spring shall go with you and bring you to victory ... life of the Goddess, life of the world, blood of the earth our Mother, shed for her people ... .

She raised her hands, casting the blessing on the forest, on the earth, feeling the surges of power rushing through her hands like visible light. The young man's body was glowing like her own in the sunlight; around them none dared speak until, pulling her hands back with a rush, she felt the surge of power flung over them all, releasing the chant that rose around them. She could not hear the words, only the thrum of power within them:

Life surges in the spring, the deer run in the forest, and our life runs with them. The King Stag of the world shall bring them down, the King Stag, the Horned One blessed by the Mother shall triumph ... .

She was drawn to the last notch of tension, a strung bow pregnant with the arrow of power that must be sped. She touched the Horned One, releasing the power, and as if it sped through them all, they were off, running like the wind down the hillside, racing as if the very spring tides bore them. Behind them, feeling the power leave her, Morgaine crumpled and lay silent on the earth, feeling its damp chill strike up through her body. But she was unaware, tranced in the Sight.

She lay as if lifeless, but a part of her went with them, raced with them, speeding down the hillside, racing with the men of the tribe, flooding after the Horned One. Barking cries, as if they were hounds, sped after them, and a part of her knew that the women were crying out, speeding on the chase.

Higher in the sky the sun rose, the great Wheel of Life spinning in the heavens, fruitlessly speeding after her divine consort, the Dark Son ... .

The life of the earth, the pounding tides of the spring, flooded and pounded in the hearts of the running men. Then, as the ebb followed the flow, from the sunlit hillside the darkness of forest closed over them and swallowed them, and from running they moved swiftly on noiseless feet, imitating the delicate step of the deer; they were the deer, following the antlers of their Horned One, wearing the cloaks which held the deer spellbound, the necklaces signifying life as endless chain, live and feed and bear and die and be eaten in turn to feed the children of the Mother.