The Book of Avalon Eternal

Nimue leads Gawain further along the path towards the great oak. He is disturbed in his spirit about what Nimue has said about her communing with the gods. To Gawain, the gods are dangerous, and any attempt to draw their attention is ill-advised. They have been silent for so long and the religion of the Christians spreads so widely that the gods of Britain have long died, or perhaps fled. And yet, Nimue communes with at least one of them. At least one.

In a state of pondering, distracted from his surroundings, Gawain nevertheless takes in the misty vistas as they walk upward on the path towards Caradoc's house. He thinks how the Christian god, said to be three gods and one god at the same time, which makes no sense, is notoriously silent. The druids teach that this god is silent because its power exceeds what can be grasped by a human mind. Which is even more reason to avoid this god, to avoid drawing its attention. Despite its power, the druids say, it cannot replace the old gods. In fact, it is much like Rome itself - imperial and with designs to annex, overcome, dominate.

But Nimue's relationship with an old god, or at least a god known before the Christian god arrived in Britain, is disturbing, because that means she is consistently exposed to the unpredictability of the divine. It is even more concerning to Gawain that she communes with this Cernunnos, who despite not seeming overtly threatening, still imbues a sense of wildness that cannot be tamed. Something that operates outside of human thinking, human reasoning. Something that has goals of its own that are unknowable. A something, and a someone at the same time. A person, but not a human being. How strange to consider, he thinks.

Gawain is brought out of his reverie when Nimue leads him to the base of the oak, which is carved in an upward spiral to form a wide wooden staircase. There are no bannisters on the side of the stairs: the higher one goes, the greater the drop. Druids in their robes and hoods, some wearing special colors the meaning of which Gawain knows not, go up and down the staircase. Some are holding bound books, and some are holding scrolls; some are engaged in lively conversation with others.

'Are there no women here?' Gawain asks, looking around in the middle distance.

'A few. Women are more often visitors than residents.'

'I see,' he replies.

Seeing that there is more to Gawain's question, Nimue continues: 'The home of the witches is elsewhere. I will not tell you where it is. Perhaps one day there will be need to take you there.'

Gawain nods and follows Nimue up the staircase. The druids that pass either seem not to notice her - or they greet her warmly. Gawain realizes that he knows very little about Nimue's time here, about the training she had, about her experiences, her struggles. His thoughts drift to Merlin, and to the feelings about Merlin and Arthur that the creature from the woods summoned up in him; and he hastily suppresses those thoughts to look back out at the rapidly descending ground as they wend their way higher.

Just under the first branches of the great tree, the staircase opens onto a great terrace made of polished wood. There are higher terraces on top of this that extend out over the ground or further up into the tree's foliage. Across this terrace are small auditorium style seats that center around a stage or podium. The second level of the terraces also contains these auditoriums. These seem odd to Gawain, for he has never considered what the druids' training must be like, although he now wonders what he thought it would be like other than this. None of the auditoriums are occupied, and so no training is being conducted this morning it seems.

Ahead of him, Gawain sees another remarkable sight: a series of small platforms that go up and then back down. Their rotation reaches quite high, almost to the top of the foliage of the tree. The platforms are structured around a wheel that seems to be powered by a rushing flow of water. But Gawain sees no evidence of a river either coming in or going out of the fortress.

'How is that wheel being powered by water? That is the old Roman fashion of harnessing water, is it not?' Gawain asks.

'It is indeed,' Nimue replies. 'Harder to achieve than one might think.'

'But there are no rivers here,' Gawain continues, perplexed.

'Not here, exactly, no. But there are rivers in all the worlds. This one comes into our world from another, then it turns that wheel, and then exits our world, either back to its original world or to another one altogether.'

Gawain stares at her, not knowing what to say. The magic he has witnessed in his life has been personally done by either Merlin, Nimue, or Morgan, excluding the spells he has seen cast by enemy mages in battle - including the spell cast by Irun Gwilt on the hillside before Nimue's great strike. He has never seen this type of permanently harnessed magical power being used for a task so practical.

In response to his amazed stare, Nimue simply says: 'Well, that is what it is. Now come on and we can catch the next platform.'

She rushes forward, holding his hand, and they both hop onto the next platform as it goes up. The wheel takes them higher and higher in the tree, perhaps fifty yards or more into the air, and it still has a ways yet to go before it reaches the top of the tree's foliage. On one of the very top exit platforms, Nimue steps off, imploring Gawain with a glance to do the same. He does so, more clumsily than she, in part due to the shakiness of his leg, but in part due to his discomfort with heights.

Now before them, at the highest level of this tree with the foliage now forming a near canopy, Gawain notices that the space within the tree is nearly as dark as the forest far down below. The interior of the tree is lit with torches that seem to burn with something like fire, a deep orange glow almost like those he saw on the end of Senán's fingertips, but much larger and the light somehow warmer and more soothing.

Straight ahead is a large wooden structure of many levels, with its own balconies and verandas, and one tall wooden tower extending up and beyond the highest foliage line. Gawain assumes this is Caradoc's residence, for as the chief druid, it seems fit that he would live in the grandest house. To the left and right of the central house are two houses of similar grandeur but smaller in stature.

'Who lives in those houses?' Gawain asks.

'When I lived here before, the house to the left of the central house belonged to a great druid poet who has been gone many years now on a journey to the east to seek the spirit of a man who once lived in Britain. The house to the right belonged to Emrys, a brother of Merlin.'

'Merlin had a brother?'

Nimue's face is expressionless as she replies: 'Merlin had many secrets. That is part of the reason I sent him away.'

'Does Emrys still live here?'

'He does, but he does not receive visitor, nor does he go out. The acolytes bring him what he needs, and even they do not see him.'

'And in the central house is Caradoc?'

'Now it is Caradoc who lives there. It is always the residence of the chief druid.'

'And so Merlin lived in this house?' Gawain suddenly has a realization that stops him and feels like a curled fist has struck his stomach. 'Which means that you lived in this house.'

Nimue replies abruptly and tonelessly: 'I did live in this house, Gawain. Now be silent, follow me, and let me lead the conversation with Caradoc.'

She sets forth with determined strides, causing Gawain to limp behind her, finding that his leg grows weaker the faster he moves. Nimue crosses the fifty yards to the front door of Caradoc's house, while Gawain loses ground. She turns to face him, irritated, as he covers the final distance. He joins her on the wooden porch, which is wide and long, spanning the front of the house, while from the eaves hang baskets of flowers giving off fragrant scents, and luxurious chairs and couches line up and down the length of the space.

'Now, remember what I said. I am leading the conversation. I will signal if I need you to speak,' says Nimue.

Gawain nods and they cross the threshold into the great house.

The foyer of the house is adorned with candelabras and a rich rug of red and green. It extends into a long entrance hall in which the centerpiece is a grand staircase of polished wood that winds its way up to a second floor that remains dark. The entrance hall itself is lined with marble statues, Roman in style, but of druids rather than emperors or gods. Gawain wonders where the druids obtained this marble which is unattainably expensive for nearly everyone.

In the middle of the entrance hall, serving as a foreground to the staircase, a fountain bubbles endlessly. And above them, at the very top of the ceiling, branches and foliage form a significant portion of the roof of the structure. The effect is to make one feel they are in the forest and inside a well-appointed home at the same time.

Gawain follows Nimue towards the staircase, but as he passes the fountain, his eye catches a strange face in the middle of a sculpture of a tree. It is not as arresting as the statue of Cernunnos, and it is woven into the sculpture itself so that it is not apparent unless one is very close to the fountain as they pass by.

The water flows over the tree sculpture in a great rush, obscuring the details of it. But underneath the rushing water, Gawain sees the face clearly now. It is not a face that is recognizable, and it is not human. It is less wild and primal than Cernunnos, but a sense of dread washes over him as he looks closer that he did not feel when he beheld Cernunnos.

The face is made entirely of leaves. Large leaves form the cheeks, the forehead, and the wide mouth. There is what appears to be a beard that extends far down the fountain, made of sticks and straw, and ending in a bed of moss at the base of the sculpture. But the most dreadful thing about the sculpture is its eyes. Namely, that there are none. Just two black holes set into a face of leaves. As Gawain looks deeper, he gets the sensation that those eyes are not empty: that they are not eyes. They are holes through which something else watches.

If this creature were alive, and had those dark empty eyes, it would seem as though a multitude of strange beings peered out at him, as bandits in the forest may peer out to see whom they will rob and kill next.

'Nimue, what is this?'

She stops and studies the statue for a moment: 'That is the Green Man.'

'Is this another god?'

'No. The Green Man is not a god. It is more than a god, deeper than a god.'

'I do not understand.'

'A god is a person, but not a human, that has divine will. The Green Man creates the space where we exist and where gods exist when they are in this world. Also, the Green Man provides power that allow gods to enter into world.

'Now I understand even less.'

Nimue chuckles and dismisses the conversation with: 'The Green Man is not our priority right now. It may be someday, and that someday may be sooner than we expect. But today it is something we must set to the side.'

She starts up the staircase to the second-floor landing and begins the long walk down the hall behind the stairs that leads to Caradoc's room.

Gawain follows, the scent of water rushing over mossy green stone still in his nose, and the vision of the Green Man clouding his mind, making it difficult to think about anything else.