Stephen Lawhead - Taliesin

King Elphin, fatigued beyond all endurance, only nodded as he sat hunched before the glowing remains of a fire. He had not the strength to summon an answer.

“We must leave here,” said Hafgan. The words were stinging wasps on his tongue.

Elphin raised his head; defiance stirred in the depths of his eyes. “Never!”

“Father,” said Taliesin more gently, “listen to me.” He sank to his knees beside the king. “It must be. There will be other battles, other wars for us. But not here. I have seen this.”

“Listen to the one you call your son, ESphin,” put in Hafgan. “There has been too much dying here. If there is to be life, it must be elsewhere.”

“Go then,” croaked Elphin. “Take as many as will go with you. I mean to stay.”

“No,” Taliesin said simply. “You are the king; your people will follow only you. We will need a strong leader in our new home.”

Elphin passed a weary hand over his face and shook his head. “Lieu help me, I cannot,” he said hoarsely. “The disgrace”

“Death has no dignity,” replied Taliesin. He rose slowly and extended his hand. Elphin looked at it, his eyes glimmering with unshed tears. “Come.”

The king took the hand of his son and climbed to his feet. When dawn pearled the skies the next morning, clan and kinsmen left Caer Dyvi forever. Of Elphin’s proud warband of three hundred, fewer than a hundred remained, and only slightly more than a hundred clansmen.

They left, taking what provisions and possessions they could carry in three wagons, driving their cattle and pigs before them. As the last kinsman passed through the gates, Elphin gave the order and the caer was put to the torch. Amidst rolling smoke and crackling flame the king followed his people down the hill and away, the remnant of his war-band riding grimly at his back.

They kept moving through the wet, miserable autumn, traveling south, leaving Gwynedd behind, eventually passing into and through Powys. Along the way they saw sights most of them had only heard about in rumors and traveler’s tales: rich Roman villas with painted statues of fountains and mosaics on the floors; wide, smooth-paved roads; triumphal arches; a splendid stadium for racing horses; and carved into a hill in one prosperous town, an amphitheater where several thousand people could gather at once. They wintered in Dyfed, near Brechaniauc where Elphin’s mother, Medhir, had once had a kinsman and the name of Gwyddno Garanhir was remembered with honor. The cold took many whose wounds, and the rigors of the long journey, had weakened them beyond recovery.

When spring came they crossed the channel Mor Hafren into Dumnonia where they began hearing tales about a strange people-the Faery, or Fair Folk-who had come to the region with their monarch, Avallach, called the Fisher King.

These people, it was said, were extremely tall and handsome to behold: the men were well-formed and robust, the women beautiful beyond compare. Further, skilled in every art and endowed with every grace, the Fair Folk possessed many unusual powers which enabled them to attain vast amounts of wealth with little effort so that even the lowest of them lived more lavishly than the emperor himself in Rome. In short, a more noble race could not be imagined.

Elphin and his people listened to the stories and decided to go to this Avallach and see the truth of these tales for themselves. Elphin called a council and announced, “If what is said about this Fisher King is true, it may be that he will receive us and help us find lands of our own.”

Hafgan heard the stories too and puzzled over them. He remembered that blazing night of long ago when the starfall lit the sky and wondered if this Avallach was the one whose coming had been foretold that night. He also wondered where these Fair Folk had come from. Sarras, some said; Llyn Llyonis said others; from the Westerlands across the sea, from the Isle of the Ever Living. Guesses were many, but no one seemed to know anything certain.

“Yes,” Hafgan told Elphin, “it is a good plan. As the Romans hereabouts can offer no aid, we must seek it where we can. It may well be as you say.”

Taliesin also agreed readily. He had his own reasons for wanting to see the Faery. From the first that he had heard about the Fisher King and his people, his heart had burned within him. He had entered his awen and tried to follow along the scattered paths of the future, but a dense, glistening fog had obscured the way and he had been forced to return lest he lose his way in the Otherworld. But before the shimmering fog had taken his sight, he saw a tangle of smaller tracks merge a small distance ahead and took this to mean that, for good or ill, the futures of his people and Avallach’s were in some way bound together.

“In any event,” said Elphin, “it is only right to offer respect to the king whose lands we hope to pass through peacefully.”

Thus, it was agreed to search out this Avallach and pay him a visit. That same night Taliesin took himself off to a secluded grove and, chewing a handful of specially prepared hazelnuts, entered his awen to attempt once more to peer into the future regarding the fortunes of his people.

Closing his eyes, he began to sing softly to himself and in a moment felt the dark headlong rush and the sudden stillness that indicated to him that he had crossed over into the Oth-erworld. Opening his eyes, he saw once again the shadow world that had over time become as familiar to him as the world of men.

He saw the luminous sky like shining bronze and heard the familiar strains of the haunting, ethereal music. He smelled the sweet, heady fragrance of land and saw the mountains in the distance, and though he had explored their slopes many times it was not to the mountains that he turned now. Instead, he found himself gazing on a small stream winding through the trees to empty itself in a forest pool nearby.

Taliesin followed the stream among the glimmering trees to the pool, pushed through the bracken-covered bank to the water’s edge, and wondered if she would still be there-the lady he had seen so long ago. Kneeling down, he peered into the crystalline water, his breath catching in his throat…

The lady was gone. The water still flowed, the green horsetail weed still waved among the smooth, amber-colored stones, but the woman was not there.

He rose slowly and retraced his steps along the stream to the place where the pathways converged. Choosing the one he had followed before, Taliesin started off. As before, he had not gone very far when the strange, glimmering, glistening fog began curling around his legs. In a few moments the fog had risen and deepened so that he could no longer see the path before his feet. He pushed on a short distance and stopped.

Reluctantly Taliesin decided to turn back and discovered that the fog now surrounded him completely. All about him the dense vapor curled and wreathed on unseen channels in the air. Taliesin knew the peril of stumbling through the Oth-erworld blind and dropped to his knees. He crawled a few more paces on his hands and knees before settling down to wait for the fog to clear.

He waited a long time, but the fog did not lift. Instead, the luminous sky-showing through the fog overhead like a roof burning with a dusky flame-began to dim, and the fog grew deeper and more dense. Taliesin had never before been frightened in the Otherworld, but he became frightened now.

He waited, hugging his knees and rocking back and forth as the sky darkened and the Otherworld slipped into one of its rare, interminable nights. To buoy his sinking spirit, Taliesin began to sing, quietly at first, but with increasing volume to keep the fear away by the cunning beauty of his verse.

While he sat there, wrapped in his cloak, singing his most powerful songs, he heard footsteps on the invisible path behind him. He stopped singing. A soft radiance shone through the rolling fog, and he perceived the presence of an Other-world being approaching: an Ancient One.