Celtika

Chapter One Niiv I was neither a stranger in this territory, nor familiar with it. The last time I had passed this way, the route into the wilderness of forest and snow that was the northern land of Pohjola had been an open gorge, guarded by nothing more sinister than white foxes, chattering mink and dark-winged carrion birds. But in five generations or more, things had changed. As I came out of the birch forest into the gathering mouth of the gorge I faced a barrier of grim-faced wooden statues, five times a man's height, each ringed with torches that illuminated the leering features. I counted ten such grotesques. They spanned the gorge. Between them, a thick thorn fence barred anything but a snow-rat from passing, and if there was a gate through this sinister wall, I couldn't see it. I used the thorns as hooks and erected a crude shelter from the tent-skins in my baggage. I fed the horses then studied each tree-face in turn. One leaf-haired, grim-eyed mask held my gaze for several moments before I realised what it was. The knowledge shocked me. It was an image of Skogen, an old trickster friend of mi≠ his name meant 'shadow of unseen forests'. That is exactly what he had been. In the remote past, when he had still been in human form, we had adventured together. Now he was here, in eternal night, a god in wood, face cracked by ice. He had no business being here. When I called out his name the torches that girdled his neck seemed to flicker with amusement. I was not amused, and nervous memory was returning. Now a second face suddenly became familiar to me, once I had seen through the rough-hew of its carving. Another old 'friend' from the early years, this one gentler. 'Well, well. Sinisalo. You used to climb trees. Now youareone. You used to play tricks on me then run away like the wind. Now you're rooted.' Sinisalo was the 'eternal child in the land'. I myself had once beensinisalo. All of life's creatures aresinisalofor a brief moment. The child's power is usually left behind in the process of growth. But for some of us, that funny, frisky fawn always remains at the edge of our vision, to be summoned at will. The eternal child. Here she was, five thousand years on, a memory in carved birch. 'Sinisalo,' I whispered again, with affection, and blew a kiss. The face on the towering trunk didn't change its expression, but large, dark birds began to rise from their winter nests and perch upon the craggy ledges of all the statues. It had been a long time since I had last encountered these entities, and I had forgotten most of them. What I remembered was that every time I encountered them, in stone, or wood, or bone or as masks or colourful patterns on the walls of caves, whenever our paths crossed, my life changed. For the worse. It had always seemed to me that these ten old faces in my world were watching me, appearing to me as unwelcome portents of a shift in my life of travel, security and pleasure on the path I walked. Not that these frozen wastelands of rock, ice and forest were a pleasure to cross, but I was here on personal business, and had been anticipating a change for thebetter. No, these gruesome, grinning totems were not at all a welcome sight. My bones itched. Their namesall but Skogen and Sinisalocontinued to elude me. That there was life in the wood, that they had tracked me down for their own purpose, did not escape me. I wondered if they could read my confusion and my reluctance to remember more clearly. 'Listen!' I shouted. 'I know two of you. I'd probably know all of you if I could recognise you. I'm a friend. I walk the Path. This is my hundredth time of walkinHoldstock, Robert is the author of 'Celtika' with ISBN 9780765349040 and ISBN 0765349043.