-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Heart of the Hill Marion Zimmer Bradley and Diana L. Paxson Out of Avalon [anthology] 2001 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Marion Zimmer Bradley (mzbworks.home.att.net/), who died following a heart attack in 1999, is best known for The Mists of Avalon (1983), a novel of transformation that reclaimed the Arthurian mythos for women, and was recently made into a TV mini-series. She frequently collaborated with other writers. Her collaborations with Diana Paxson were among the most fruitful. She was also influential as an editor, presiding over Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine and a number of fantasy anthologies. In all, she published over eighty novels. Her Darkover series (in twenty-one volumes) has a cult following so strong it has generated an annual fan convention (Darkover Con). Diana L. Paxson (home.pon.net/rhinoceroslodge/paxson.htm) lives in Berkeley, California, in a literary household called Greyhaven. She is the author of the Chronicles of Westria, nine historical fantasies, including The White Raven (a mainstream fantasy based on the legend of Tristan and Iseult), and the Wodan's Children trilogy (The Wolf and the Raven, Dragons of the Rhine, and The Lord of Horses), which tells the story of Sigfrid and Brunhild. "The Heart of the Hill," which appeared in Out of Avalon, edited by Jennifer Roberson, is an atmospheric story with strong images. It is an Arthurian fantasy, a territory familiar to both writers, but has links to other, older legends and mythologies. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morgaine speaks… Time runs strangely in Avalon, but I no longer look into the Mirror to see what passes beyond the mists that separate it from the world. Arthur is dead, and Lancelet as well, and on the other isle, Christian nuns pray for Viviane's soul. Saxons have overrun the land, and the priestesses here are fewer than they were when first I came here as a little girl, but from time to time the little dark people of the marsh still send to tell us that a daughter of the old blood has come. One such was brought to me this morning. Ildierna, they call her, and she is the daughter of a chieftain from the Welsh hills where they keep the old ways still. I do not remember what I said to her—and no doubt she was too awestruck to really hear me. She was too amazed to see one whom all in the outside world think must be long dead to pay proper attention. But there was strength in her, and it came to me that she was just such a child as I might have had if I had borne a daughter to Accolon, and I wondered if I were looking at the maiden who will one day follow me. But I think now that it is not Accolon that she reminds me of, but another maiden whom I knew long, long ago when my breasts were scarcely grown. These days I find it hard to remember the young priestesses who serve me, and call them sometimes by each other's names or by the names of maidens long dead or grown, but I remember quite clearly the girls who were being trained on Avalon when I first came. There was one called Gwenlian whom I remember very well. I do not know why she should come to mind just now, except that this new girl has the look of her, with her strong bones and bright brown hair, and because she taught me a lesson I had great need to learn. "This is work for servants, or slaves!" exclaimed Gwenlian, lifting the crude straw brush from the limewash and watching the white drops fall back into the pail. "Most assuredly it is not a task for a princess, or a priestess of Avalon!" Grimacing, she let the brush fall. Morgaine reached swiftly to catch it, jumping back to avoid the spattering droplets, for even diluted, the stuff could burn. "But we are neither," she answered tartly. "Only novice priestesses who will be very glad next winter to have water-tight walls." Whitening the daub and wattle walls of the House of Maidens was a yearly task. The mixture of burned lime shell and fat repelled water, but it did need to be renewed on a regular basis or it would wear away. It had never occurred to Morgaine to resent the task, any more than she did the spinning, which was the constant occupation of all the young priestesses when indoors. As Viviane had once warned her, the life of a priestess could be hard and bitter, but she did not include among its hardships this work, which at least got her out in the sun and air. "You are so very good!" exclaimed Gwenlian mockingly. "The perfect little priestess, afraid to take a breath that Viviane does not allow. But I was brought up to make my own choices." "She who is slave to her own will has a fool for a master…" Viviane had often said, and yet they were also taught that a priestess had to be willing to bear the responsibility for her own deeds. Soon Morgaine would begin her year of silence, and after that face the ordeal of initiation. She was almost a woman—and almost a priestess—already. Was it perhaps time for her to begin thinking like one? She dipped her brush into the whitewash and slathered the stuff over another section of wall. "And what, princess, would you choose?" Her tone was tart, but not, quite, mocking. Gwenlian was tall and fair skinned, one of the sun people. Beside her, Morgaine was once more reminded of her own lack of height and small bones, and the skin that so readily darkened when she spent time out of doors. "Morgaine of the Fairies" they called her, but it was a brownie she felt most like just now. And yet when the younger girl had first been brought to the House of Maidens, Morgaine had been made her guardian, and despite their differences—perhaps, even because of them—Gwenlian was the closest Morgaine had to a friend. Rather absentmindedly, Gwenlian dipped her brush into the pail as well. "To learn…" she said in a whisper. "To use the abilities that the Goddess has given me, instead of sitting and chanting lists from the old lore with the little girls." "By learning the old lore we train and discipline our minds…" Morgaine began, then realized that in this, too, she was merely repeating what she had heard from Viviane. To commit vast quantities of information to memory was the ancient way of the Druids, but it did not encourage creative thinking. Viviane spoke often of the necessity that bound her—had the traditional ways of training constrained her thinking so much that she could not change it even if she desired? With a shock, Morgaine realized that she was on the verge of criticizing the Lady of Avalon. She stopped short, biting her lip, the brush dripping milky drops onto the ground, but words came from some part of her mind she did not control. "What would you do?" "Whitewash the stones of the Processional Way so that we do not trip when we ascend the sacred hill in the dark?" Gwenlian shook her head and laughed. "No—that would be a child's trick. I want something real. In meditation, I have had visions. The egg-stone, the omphalos, is calling me. If I could touch it, join with it, I would touch the power at the heart of the hill, and then, I would know…" "Know what?" Morgaine asked faintly. "What I truly am…what I was meant to be…" Gwenlian was wrong, of course. There were no shortcuts, no magic beyond simple patient hard work and discipline in the making of a priestess. So Morgaine told herself, but she could not help thinking about what the other girl had said to her. Her head told her that Gwenlian's impatience with the training was the petulance of a child, but her heart kept wondering, at the oddest moments, if what she had said might just be true. And if even she had doubts, then what was Gwenlian thinking about now? In the days that followed, Morgaine contrived, whenever she could do so without being obvious, to keep an eye on her. She told herself that she watched her so that she could put a stop to it if Gwenlian tried something foolish, that she would feel responsible if the other girl came to harm. She never questioned her own motivations until the night when she awakened to glimpse a white form slipping through the doorway of the House of Maidens, and felt a pulse of excitement flare through her veins. And then there was no time to wonder, only a moment to find her own shawl and her sandals and in the same ghostly silence, to follow. Clouds covered most of the sky, but those stars she could see told her that the time was a little past midnight. The Druids, whose task it was to salute the hidden sun, would by now have finished prayers in their temple and sought their rest. It was not one of the great festivals when most of the community watched through the night; any of the priestesses whose own work required them to be wakeful would be doing so hidden and in solitude. Otherwise, the isle of Avalon was wrapped in slumber. If I can catch up with Gwenlian swiftly, no one will ever know! thought Morgaine as she hurried down the path. The columns of the Temple of the Sun were a pale blur in the gloom, but something paler still was disappearing between them. What could Gwenlian be seeking there? Then, between one step and another, Morgaine remembered that the Temple of the Sun was where they kept the omphalos stone. The Druids preferred to worship beneath the open sky, but the Temple had been built by the wizards from the drowned lands across the sea, and was still the setting for those rituals the Druids had learned from them. Nothing will happen, she told herself. Without the proper rites, without the touch of the priest to awaken it, the omphalos will be no more than an egg-shaped stone. But nonetheless, she forced herself to move more swiftly. The hinges of the heavy wooden door were kept oiled so as not to squeak during the rituals, and they made no sound as Morgaine slipped through. The oil lamp that was always kept burning in the sanctuary cast a faint, flickering illumination. Its light gleamed from the colored stone set into the granite floor, and highlighted the textured images in tapestries so ancient their colors had faded away. Morgaine stopped short, her head whirling. She had been here only a few times, when they needed a maiden to serve in the rites, and then she had been so intent on playing her part correctly she had not had much attention to spare for the setting. But her most recent training had addressed the art of reading information from one's surroundings, and now she was nearly overwhelmed by the hard, bright masculine identity that radiated from every stone. As a novice priestess, she was an initiate of the mysteries of the darkness, of the cool radiance of the moon. Here, all things spoke of the Sun, and the Son, the northern Apollo of the Apple Isle, and even in the depths of night, she was dazzled. She controlled her breathing, rooting her awareness in the earth—at least that was still the same—until she could see once more. A grunt of effort brought her back to attention. In the center of the mosaic star set into the stone of the floor lay the omphalos, a flattened egg-shaped stone about the length of her arm. Gwenlian knelt beside it, pressing her hands against the stone. Swiftly Morgaine hurried to her side. "For a moment I felt it, Morgaine!" Gwenlian whispered. "The stone tingled against my palms!" Her eyes were alight with mingled frustration and fear. Morgaine tugged at the other girl's shoulders. "You found the egg-stone—come away now, before we're found." "But I haven't!" wailed Gwenlian. "The power is gone." In the next moment her resistance abruptly eased and Morgaine staggered backward, but it was not Gwenlian, but the stone that had moved. The slab on which it lay had shifted to reveal an opening and a flight of steps, which led down into darkness. "A passageway…" breathed Gwenlian. "It is true then. There are tunnels that lead into the hill." "Or somewhere…" objected Morgaine. But her heart was pounding too. "Now you know—come away!" Gwenlian got to her feet, and Morgaine released her grip, but instead of turning, the girl flung herself forward, into the opening. For a moment Morgaine stood with her mouth open, staring. She has no light—in a few moments she'll come back, she thought, but Gwenlian did not return. With a sinking heart, Morgaine realized she was going to have to follow her. She took an unlit torch from its holder on one of the columns and, trembling, lit it from the altar lamp. No blast from the heavens punished her impiety. With a last look over her shoulder, she followed the other girl into the passageway. The air in the tunnel was damp, but that was not what set the shiver in Morgaine's bones. The Druids were masters of wood, not stone. As she looked at the mighty blocks that formed it, she knew that this passageway had been old when the first of the British-speaking tribes came over the sea. The ancient wizards who built the Temple of the Sun had made this passage into the hill. Morgaine trembled with wonder and with fear, for she was not an initiate of these mysteries. She half expected to find Gwenlian huddled at the first turn of the passageway, whimpering in the dark, but she continued for some time without finding her, and when the tunnel forked she realized this might be more difficult than she had expected. Symbols were graven into the stones to mark the turnings. Which way had Gwenlian gone? The other girl had moved so quickly—something must be drawing her. If there really was an omphalos in the heart of the hill, perhaps she had been sensitized by touching its image. But Morgaine had no such connection with the stone—only with Gwenlian. She closed her eyes and let her breath move in and out in a steady rhythm as she had been taught, sending awareness inward. Gwenlian, where are you? Gwenlian, think of me and I will come to you…She built up the image of her friend's strong-boned face and brown hair and launched her will toward that goal. At first her mind bubbled with a confusion of impressions: Gwenlian winning a footrace, slapping limewash on the wall, eating porridge, lifting her hands in ritual. Morgaine allowed each picture to take shape, to add its essence to the whole, then sent it bobbing away, while her awareness sank deeper and deeper, until all the images merged in the powerful current that was Gwenlian's true identity. It drew her, and Morgaine started to move again, slitting her eyes so that her upper mind could note the turnings and mark them. Her superficial senses noted that the blocks were giving way to solid stone—she must be moving under the Tor itself! Presently the marks of the chisel became fewer, and she realized that this tunnel was a natural one, carved by running water. Indeed, the walls were shiny with moisture, and a trickle of water was wearing a new channel into the roughly leveled floor. Now the torchlight showed her wet footprints, but she hardly needed them. She could feel Gwenlian ahead of her, and something else, that pulsed in the air and throbbed in the very stone. "Goddess, defend me!" she whispered, understanding with her very soul, as her mind had already accepted, that what Gwenlian had believed was true. A change in the air warned her that she was approaching a larger chamber a moment before the last turn in the tunnel. She took another step and stopped, blinking as the torchlight caught, corruscating, on a thousand crystal flecks in the rock walls that surrounded her. And then, as if those flecks were mirrors, all the refracted light focused in the center of the chamber and kindled an answering light deep in the center of the egg-shaped stone. Morgaine gazed in amazement, for the stone was translucent as curdled crystal. She could not imagine from what distant place it had been brought to lie here in the heart of the hill, if indeed it had come from anywhere in the world of humankind. And her magic had not misled her, for here was Gwenlian, curled around the egg-stone with her arms clasped around it. Her eyes were closed, but there was tension in her arms; Morgaine did not think she was dreaming, but rather in the throes of a vision. Here also iron sockets for torches were set into the wall. Morgaine fixed her torch into one of them and moved gently to kneel beside her friend. "Gwenlian…" she whispered, "Gwenlian, come back to me—" There was no response. Frowning, Morgaine snapped her fingers around the other girl's head and blew in her ears. Gwenlian stirred a little at that, but her eyes did not open. If there had been water, Morgaine would have poured it over her, or even plunged her into it—that method could break even the deepest trance. Clearly, Gwenlian could not be brought back to consciousness so long as she was touching the stone. In general, people in trance should not be touched, but she had no choice now. Taking a deep breath, Morgaine put her arms around her friend to pull her away. The first thing she realized was that although Gwenlian's body moved, her arms remained fixed around the stone. The second was that the power that pulsed in the omphalos was passing through Gwenlian's body, and now Morgaine could feel it in her own limbs. At least she could still let go, but physical contact would make it much easier to establish a psychic bond. She was too small and slight to pick up Gwenlian, and even a full-grown warrior would have found it difficult to carry both the girl and the stone. The only way in which she could rescue Gwenlian would be to go into the Otherworld in which Gwenlian's spirit was wandering and find her. Beneath the surface of her thoughts another voice was nagging. "Foolish child, this task is beyond both your strength and your skill. Leave the girl and go to the Druids. They will know how to set her free." It sounded like Viviane. Had the Lady of Avalon somehow linked with her in her dreams? Surely not, for if that were so, the Druids would have been here already. No, this was only that part of her that had been Viviane's most faithful pupil, speaking in the Lady's voice to keep her in line. If the Merlin had been there she might have called to him, for he had always been kind to her, like the grandfather she had never known, but he was away, with the king. No wonder Viviane lets me go about without her supervision! I carry her inside me, doing her will even when she is not here! Suddenly that seemed to Morgaine intolerable, that her own mind should have enslaved her to the Lady's will without anyone asking her yea or nay. If the Druids came, at the very least, Gwenlian would be sent home in disgrace, if they didn't think of something worse to do to her. Morgaine was almost a priestess; if Viviane had trained her well, she should be able to find her friend's wandering soul and wrest it free. She closed her mind against that inner voice and gripped Gwenlian's arms once more. She could feel the power of the Stone, pulsing against her awareness, but she repeated the verses with which she had been trained to keep control, holding Gwenlian in her arms, listening to the other girl breathe until her own rhythm was the same. Then she set herself to follow the path to the Overworld, one image succeeding another as she walked the Sacred Way. A swirling radiance blurred the edges of her mental pictures, and she knew it was the power of the Stone, but she continued until she came to the gray expanse where only the occasional shadow of some half-remembered hill or standing stone marked the way. And even these mists were shot with roiling colors. But still she searched, calling her friend by her secret name, and was rewarded at last by the sight of a sturdy figure around which lightnings played. Morgaine hurried toward her. The image of Gwenlian stretched out her hand. Morgaine knew there was some reason why she should not take it, but the other girl looked so happy, so eager for her friend to share her joy. As Morgaine touched her, linking on the inner planes as they were in the flesh, awareness of the Overworld vanished, and she stood with Gwenlian in her vision and saw with her eyes. Two minds in one, male, body, they stood on a parapet above a mighty city built of white stone. The sky was blue as it only is in southern climes, and the bittersweet cries of gulls rang in the air. Beyond the harbor rose a pointed mountain, from whose summit a trail of smoke twined lazily into the air. "Behold the Isle of Atlantis, how mighty its works, how resplendent its wisdom," came an inner voice, or perhaps it was memory. But as the words faded, the man whose body they inhabited felt beneath his feet a faint vibration. When it ended, from the streets below came a babble of question. He looked up once more and saw the smoke from the mountaintop thicken, billowing upward in dense gray clouds. Another tremor, much stronger, shook the tower. Now he could hear screaming. He staggered toward the stairway. "To the Temple"—came a cry from below, "we must save the hallows! We must save the Stone!" He realized then that this was the trust that had been laid upon him. The vision began to fragment as he struggled downward, or perhaps it was the island, tearing itself apart as the mountain cracked open in ash and flame. Somehow he reached the shambles that had been the Temple of the Sun. The Stone lay among the rubble, glowing through the dust that filled the air. A few others had managed to join him—together, they lifted it into a chest and dragged it from the disintegrating city. The harbor was a confusion of tossing ships and maddened men. Some of the closely moored boats had smashed into each other; others capsized beneath the weight of the men who tried to board them. But he knew a hidden cove—drawing his mantle over his face to filter out the ash that was falling, he helped to carry the heavy chest to the place where his own pleasure craft lay at anchor. The images were even more chaotic now. They were clambering aboard, struggling to get out of the cove, flailing with the oars at the choppy sea. They had reached the ocean, and the sea heaved beneath them. Fire from the mountain filled the sky. Fire…darkness…the glassy, flame-shot curve of the sea…A tiny voice yammered at the edge of Morgaine's awareness—This is not happening, this is not my memory, this is not me! And with more strength than she imagined she possessed, she pulled free as with a roar that transcended all other sound, the mountain blew. Morgaine opened her eyes and flinched from the flicker of flame. The volcano's blast still echoed in memory—her head ached, and it took a few moments for her to realize that here, all was still. Or very nearly. A faint, eerie groaning vibrated from the masses of rock that surrounded her. Then a tremor shook the Tor. For a moment terror froze her limbs. Then a glimmer of moving light showed her the omphalos rocking on its slab and Gwenlian lying sprawled just beyond it. Morgaine breathed a prayer of thanks that whatever force had wrenched her out of the vision had enabled her to pull Gwenlian free as well. She grabbed the torch and then, with a strength she had not suspected she possessed, heaved Gwenlian's limp body across her back and staggered from the chamber. As she struggled back through the tunnels, more tremors shook the hill, one of them strong enough to knock her down. For several minutes she and Gwenlian lay in a tangle of limbs as she waited for falling rock to crush them. But by then they were in the last straight passage that led to the Temple, and although she was peppered by falling pebbles, the ancients had built well, and the great stones did not fall. The torch had gone out when she fell, but now Morgaine could make her way by the feel of the stones, and soon the faint glimmer of the lamp in the Temple shining through the opening showed her the steps, and she hauled her burden up onto the polished floor. The earth had ceased to quake, but from outside she could hear shouting. Shaking with reaction, she shoved the slab back over the opening, then grabbed Gwenlian beneath the arms and dragged her to the door. Morgaine would have told all to Viviane immediately, but in the aftermath of the earthquake, the Lady of Avalon was surrounded by priestesses and Druids alike, wanting instructions, and there was no way she could be heard. The young priest who helped her carry Gwenlian to the healers assumed that the girl had been hurt in the quake. In a sense, thought Morgaine, it was true. But as she sat by her friend, watching her twitch and mutter as she made the long journey back toward consciousness, she wondered whether the tremors that had shaken the hill had caused Gwenlian's vision to fix on the drowning of Atlantis, or whether by awakening the memories recorded in the Stone, they had created a sympathetic vibration in the Tor. When Gwenlian regained consciousness at last, she forbade Morgaine to speak of it. Viviane's implacable calm had restored order quickly, and although the quake had shaken some things down in the dwellings, the stone halls were too sturdy, and the daub and wattle round-houses too flexible, for the tremors to do them much harm. And the priests who kept the Temple of the Sun did not appear to have found anything wrong with their stone. Morgaine told herself that no harm had been done. It was only gradually that she realized that although Gwenlian was recovered in body, she had changed. When at last Morgaine ventured to ask what she remembered of her vision, the other girl refused to speak of it. Nor did she come to her studies with the joy she had shown before. It was as if that part of her that had craved the things of the spirit had burned out. Now, Gwenlian's responses were as halting as if she were one of the Once-born, and after the feast of Midwinter, she asked to leave Avalon. But by then, Morgaine had begun her year of silence. When the time came for Gwenlian to go, she embraced her friend, weeping. But she could not even say goodbye. I never saw Gwenlian again, though I heard eventually that she had been married. It may be that this girl, Ildierna, is a child of her line. If that is so, it will be as if Gwenlian herself has come back to pardon me. In my life I have known diffidence and rebellion, pride and fury and despair. Now, when I am near its ending, forgiveness is a gift that I have great need to give, and receive. For a long time after Gwenlian left us, guilt made me even more obedient to Viviane's will than I had been before. If I had told her and the Druid priests what had happened, could they have restored Gwenlian's soul? Hindsight assures me that Viviane would have considered what happened to my friend a fit punishment, and assured me that those who are priestess-born will find the way back to their powers, as indeed I did myself, in the end. Now, when I reflect on Gwenlian's tragedy, I wonder what it was I should have learned. What lack in our training drove her to dare a deed beyond her strength, and laid on me the guilt for it, and thus, deprived me of the will to question Viviane? If I had not allowed the Lady of Avalon to meddle in my life, would Arthur rule still? I have played my part in that story, and given over meddling in the affairs of the outer world. If I have something to teach this child who has come to me, it is that each soul must bear the burden of its own fate and make the best choices it may. My vision does not show me what dangers this girl will face, or even if Avalon will survive. But I will teach her as best I may to use whatever abilities the Goddess has given her. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MNQ December 30, 2007 4,900 words