Stephen Lawhead - Taliesin

Hafgan accepted this calmly. Blaise pushed forward and asked, “Can anything be done?”

“Oh, yes, something can always be done. Turn back the years, Blaise. Stop time in a jar. Wave your hazel wand and conjure me a young man’s body while you are about it-not that this one has served me ill. Well, what are you staring at? I have told you what to do. Get busy!”

Blaise flushed crimson. Taliesin wondered at the exchange. What was old Cormach so upset about? Surely Blaise’s remark had been spoken out of concern for his one-time master.

“If I have offended you” began Blaise.

Cormach made a face and waved the apology aside before it was finished. “Go and boil me a cabbage for my supper, lad,” he told the filidh. “And put some fish with it if you have any.”

Blaise brightened at once. “I will catch some!” he said, trotting from the clearing.

“Taliesin, come here,” said Hafgan, turning toward the boy. “Cormach wants to speak to you.”

The youngster approached cautiously. He had always stood in awe of Cormach, whose abrupt and sometimes caustic manner often made him appear fierce. Taliesin was not really afraid, merely wary, and anxious in case he should say the wrong thing in front of the Chief Druid.

Taliesin came to stand before the old man. “I am honored, Master,” he replied, pressing the back of his hand to his forehead in the sign of utmost honor and respect.

Cormacn examined him for a moment and smiled, his face creasing with wrinkles. The smile disappeared as suddenly as it had come. “Have you had a vision, lad?”

The question took Taliesin by surprise. “Y-yes,” he answered, before realizing that he had not yet mentioned it to Hafgan.

“Tell me about it.”

Taliesin hesitated, looking to Hafgan.

“Do not look at him, look at me!” instructed Cormach. He gave a half-turn of his head and said, “You may go back now. I wish to speak to the boy alone.”

Hafgan nodded and withdrew Cormach’s rowan staff from behind the saddle, handed it to his master, and left without a word.

Cormach limped to the stump and settled himself heavily upon it. “Come here, boy. Sit down. There, like that.” He gazed once more at the golden youth before him and h’s manner softened. “Excuse an old man, lad. If I seem harsh with them, it is only because I no longer have the time for formalities and empty ceremony. Besides, I have earned the right.”

Taliesin returned the Chief Druid’s gaze but did not speak. He always felt a strange mixture of excitement and dread in the old man’s presence, drawn and repelled at the same time. There was nothing physically threatening about Cormach- he was withered as an old branch and his face lined with wrinkles, the skin well tanned from a lifelong occupation standing over aromatic fires. For that was how Cormach prophesied-entering his awen by gazing into flames.

Perhaps that was it: there was something of the Otherworld about Camiach, as if he stood with one foot in the world of the living and one foot in the world beyond. Taliesin sensed that he saw more than other men. To have those eyes turned on him, a mere boy, excited and frightened him a little.

“Tell me about the vision,” Cormach repeated.

Taliesin nodded. “I saw the Glass Isle, Master. It was far away in the western sea, shining like a polished stone, a beautiful gem…”

“Yes? What else?”

“It was beautiful but sad. They cried out… voices crying… Lost, they said, all is lost. So sad, Master. There was no hope for them.”

“And then?”

“Then the island vanished and I could not see it anymore.”

“How did it disappear? Think carefully now.”

Taliesin closed his eyes to help him remember. “It faded away. Yes, it faded, but it also seemed to slip beneath the waves as it vanished.”

“You are certain?”

“I am.” Taliesin nodded solemnly.

Cormach sighed and nodded. He raised his eyes to the patch of blue-white sky showing through the branches overhead. The glade was warm and the birdsong sleepy; the leaves on the branches whispered to one another in the gentle talk of trees.

“What does it mean? “asked Taliesin. “Is the Glass Isle really enchanted as men say?”

“Enchanted? No.” Cormach shook his head slowly. “Not enchanted… At least not like you mean. It is a real enough place. It is the Westerlands, the Summer Isles, or what is left of them. What does it mean? Yes, well, what does it mean?”

The Chief Druid wrapped his hands around his staff and leaned on it, resting his head on his forearm. “It means that the darkness is coming again, Taliesin, and we must be ready.”

“The Dark Time?”

“Hafgan has told you, I see.”

“But where does the darkness come from?”

“Yes, well, this is the way of it. When the Supreme Spirit made the world, he made the sun to shine and banished the darkness to the underworld where it resides, glowering from its cold cave upon the world of light and gnawing with envy at its own black heart. But from time to time the light weakens and the darkness breaks free to assail the world and ravish it, possess it. But it can never possess the world again, and what it cannot keep, it tries to destroy.

“For many thousands of years the Westermen have been the guardians of the light, and while they remained strong the darkness has been sealed in its cave. But now… they weaken somehow. I do not know why it happens.”

“Has it happened before?”

“Oh, yes, many times before. But each time is worse. The darkness becomes stronger, and it is more difficult to defeat and force back into the cave.

“Darkness engulfed the entire world for hundreds of years last time. Again it was when the Westermen weakened and the sea swallowed the greater part of the Summer Isles.”

Taliesin’s eyes were wide with the awful mystery of it. “What happened then?”

“Some of the Westermen came here, others went other places, but some, a remnant, lived on in the last of the Wes-terlands, the island whose reflection we see from time to time and call the Glass Isle.”

“Then I really saw it?”

“Oh, you saw it, lad. Not everyone can.”

“Have you ever seen it?”

“Twice.”

Frowning, Taliesin considered all that Cormach had told him. “If the Westerlands are lost,” he said at last, “it is up to us to hold back the darkness.”

Cormach’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you say that?”

“It must be us. We are the only ones that know; we are the only ones that can do anything.”

The Chief Druid pondered this and for a long moment sat gazing at the boy before him; fair-haired, with that high, shining brow; eyes like forest pools, now blue, now deep green; long, slender limbs and torso. He would be a tall man, taller than most. Cormach gazed at him and asked, “Who are you, Taliesin?”

The question was not unkindly put, but the boy started, his expression full of anguish. Cormach saw the youngster’s distress and thought, Hafgan is right. This Taliesin is different, and one forgets he is but a boy after all. Still, how much does he know? What powers does he possess?

“I am Taliesin ap Elphin,” he replied and then admitted, “But sometimes I think I will remember something else-thai I have only to think very hard and I will remember everything. But I never do.”

“Nor will you, lad. Not yet, at least.”

“Last night I remembered part of it-but it makes no sense to me this morning.”

“One day it will, Taliesin, if you keep watching and listening.”

“But tell me, Master, what can be done about the darkness? We must do something.”

“Each must do what he can, Taliesin. That is all that ever can be done by men. Yet, if all men did only that, it would be enough. Yes, and more than enough.”