Druids - Morgan Llywelyn, ebook
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PROLOGUEHE HAD BEEN dead a long time.H;With a profound sense of shock he realized he was nolonger dead.Beyond an increasingly vivid sense of self he was still aware ofthe tender network from which he was being separated. From itsfabric those who were dear to him reached out, calling to him,seeking one more communion.Do not abandon me! he cried to them. Follow me, find me!Tightening around him, existence throbbed with the pulsing ofa giant heart. He was expelled into lightlessness, he was tumbledinto the unknown.Down and down he spun.Gradually he began recalling long-forgotten concepts such asdirection and distance and time. Concentrating on them, he foundhimself spiraling amid stars. Constellations bloomed around himlike flowery meadows.He reached out, hungry for the suddenly remembered sensationof touch . . . and slipped and slid and came to rest in a warmchamber lit by a dim red glow.There he lay dreaming. Sheltered and content, he was sus-pended between worlds, floating on tides regulated by the rhythmsof a universe. In this building-time he sorted among his memo-ries, deciding which to keep. So few could be retained and it washard to anticipate which he might most need. Yet a voicelesscommand urged him to remember, remember. . . .He drifted and dreamed until the pounding began. Shocked,he tried to fight back, but he was seized and squeezed and ulti-mately ejected into a place of hard surfaces. A burning floodpoured into his nostrils and open mouth.The infant used that first breath to scream his outrage.CHAPTER ONEAWOKE TO terror because I heard them singing.Yet we were a people who sang. We were of the CelticI.race, that tall people famed for their fierce blue eyes and fiercerpassions. Most of my clan, my blood kin, had fair hair, but in myyouth mine was the color of dark bronze.I have always been different.Nine moons after my birth our druids gave me the name ofAinvar. I was born of the tribe of the Camutes in Celtic Gaul;free Gaul. My father was not considered a prince, as he had noswords sworn to him personally, but he was of the warrior aris-tocracy and entitled to wear the gold arm ring, as my old grand-mother frequently reminded me. My parents and brothers weredead before I was old enough to remember them, so she raised mealone in their lodge in the Fort of the Grove. I remember when Ibelieved the fort with its timber palisade was the entire world.The air always rang with song. We sang for the sun and therain, for death and birth, for work and war. Yet when I was star-tied awake by the druids singing in the grove, I was badly fright-ened. What if they had discovered me?I should not have slept. I had meant to stay alert in some hidingplace until dawn, watching until the druids came to the grove.But I was raw with youth; the events of the night had exhaustedme. When I finally found a refuge, I must have tumbled into sleepbetween one breath and the next. I knew nothing more until Iheard the druids singing and realized they were already in thesacred grove. They must have passed very near me.Spying on them was strictly forbidden, subject to the direstpunishments, unnamed but whispered.y My mouth went dry, my skin prickled. I had not expected to^ be caught. I just wanted to see great magic done.4 Morgan LlywelynWith agonizing slowness 1 got to my feet. Every dead leafrustled my betrayal. But the druids continued without interruptionuntil I began to think they were unaware of me.Perhaps I could creep close enough to watch them after all, Itold myself. My fear was not as great as my curiosity-It never has been.My refuge had been a depression between the roots of a hugeold tree, a hollow filled with dead leaves. As I eased out of it, awinterkilled twig snapped beneath my foot and I froze. If thedruids had not heard the twig, surely they could hear my heartpounding. But their singing went on. And so, in time, did I. Verycautiously.Everyone in the fort had known our druids were going to tryto force the wheel of the seasons to turn. The traditional cere-monies for encouraging the return of the sun had failed, and thedruids had devised a new and secret ritual said to be of greatpower. Only initiates were to be allowed to see the attempt, bomof desperation.We were suffering a winter without end, a season of blowinggranular ice and icy granular wind. Gaul was cloaked in clouds.Livestock was emaciated, supplies exhausted, people frightened.Naturally we looked to our druids to help us.When I was only a knee-child my grandmother had caught mestaring, finger in mouth, at several figures swathed in robes ofundyed wool. The robes had hoods like dark caverns from whicheyes glowed mysteriously."They are members of the Order of the Wise," Rosmertahadsaid to me as she took my hand and led me away, though I con-tinued to look back over my shoulder. "Never stare at them,Ainvar; never even look at them when their hoods are raised. Andalways show them the greatest respect.""Why?" I was always asking why.Knees creaking, my grandmother had crouched down until herface was level with mine. Her faded blue eyes beamed love at mefrom amid their network of wrinkles. "Because the druids areessential for our survival," she explained. "Without them, wewould be helpless against all the things we cannot see."So began my lifelong fascination with druidry. I wanted toknow everything about them. I asked a thousand questions.In time I learned that the Order of the Wise had three branches.Bards were the historians of the tribe. Vates were its diviners.Though all members of the Order were usually called druids forthe sake of simplicity, in truth that tide belonged to the thirdDRUIDS 5division, who studied for as long as twenty winters to earn it.Druids were the thinkers, teachers, interpreters of law, healers ofthe sick. Keepers of the mysteries.No subject was beyond the mental scrutiny of druids. Theymeasured the Earth and the sky, they calculated the best times forplanting and harvesting. Among the practices attributed to them,in avid whispers, were such rituals as sex magic and death-teaching.The learned Hellenes from the south called the druids "naturalphilosophers."The principal obligation of the druids was to keep Man andEarth and Otherworld in harmony. The three were inextricablyinterwoven and must be in a state of balance or catastrophe wouldfollow. As the repositories of a thousand years of tribal wisdom,the druids knew how to maintain that balance.Beyond our forts and farms lurked the darkness of the un-known. Druid wisdom held that darkness at bay.How I envied the knowledge stored in those hooded heads! Myyoung mind was as hungry for answers as my belly was for food.What force pushed tender blades of grass through solid earth?Why did my skinned knees ooze blood one time, but clear fluidanother? Who was taking bites out of the moon?Druids knew.I wanted to know, too.Druids instructed the children of the warrior class, who com-prised Celtic nobility, in such skills as counting and telling direc-tion by the stars. We met in the groves and sat at our teachers'feet in dappled shade. Sometimes there were giris in the group.Celtic women who wished to learn were allowed the privilege.But our teachers never shared any real secrets with us; they wereonly for the initiated./ wanted to know.So of course I found a secret ritual of sufficient power to changethe season irresistible.The diviners had declared the fifth dawn after the pregnantmoon to be the most auspicious time. The ritual would be con-ducted in the most sacred place in Gaul, the great oak grove onthe ridge north of our fort. The fort itself had been built to gar-rison warriors like my father who guarded the approaches to thegrove, which must never be profaned by foreigners.Other fortified villages and towns m Gaul were the strongholdsof princes, but not ours. Ours was the Fort of the Grove and thechief druid of the Camutes was its supreme authority.6 Morgan LlywelynOn the night before the secret ritual was to take place I had lainin a froth of impatience, waiting for my grandmother to fall asleep.I had always lived with Rosmerta, who tended to my needs andscolded me as she saw fit. She would never allow me to go outon an icy night to spy on the druids.Of course, I had no intention of asking her permission.On this night of all nights, unfortunately, she seemed wideawake, though usually she was nodding by sundown. "Aren't youtired?" I kept asking her.She smiled her toothless smile at me. Her collapsed mouth wasas soft as a baby's. "I am not, lad. But you sleep, that's a goodboy.*'She hobbled around our lodge, doing little woman things. I laytensely on my straw pallet, burrowed amid woolen blankets andfur robes, letting my eyes wander from Rosmerta to the fadedshields hanging on the log walls. They had been untouched sincemy father and brothers were killed in battle shortly before I wasborn. My mother, who was really too old for childbearing, hadgiven birth to me and promptly followed her men info the Oth-erworid.The shields were a constant reminder of my warrior heritage,but their dimming glories did not excite me.I wanted to see the druids work great magic.My supper lay in my belly like a stone. Rosmerta glanced inmy direction occasionally, but she seemed preoccupied. At lastshe pulled her three...
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