“What is”

“Shh!” the druid hissed. “Listen!”

Taliesin fell instantly silent, turning his head this way and that to capture any stray, wind-carried sound. He heard nothing but the ordinary sounds of a woodland steeped in summer.

At last Hafgan relaxed. He looked at the boy. “What did you hear?”

Taliesin shook his head. “I heard the wren, a wood pigeon, bees, leaves rustling in the breeze-that is all.”

Hafgan stooped to retrieve his staff and straightened, brushing grass and twigs from his gray mantle.

“Well,” demanded Taliesin lightly, “what did you hear?”

“It must have been the bees.”

“Tell me.”

“I heard what you heard,” replied the druid. He turned and began walking back toward the caer.

“Ah, Hafgan, tell me what you heard that I did not hear.”

“I heard three crickets, a moorhen, the stream yonder, and something else.”

“What else?” The boy brightened at once. “My father?” he asked hopefully.

Hafgan stopped and turned to his pupil. “No, it was not your father. It was something else-it may not have come to me from the world of men, now that I think about it. It was a groan-a long, low groan of deep enduring pain.”

Taliesin stopped walking and closed his eyes once more, listening for what Hafgan had heard. The druid walked a few steps and turned back. “You will hear nothing now. The sound has gone. Perhaps I imagined it in the first place. Come, let us go back.”

Taliesin joined his teacher and they walked to Caer Dyvi in silence. When they reached the village they were met by Blaise, who was sitting somewhat anxiously at the outer gates. When he saw his master, the young man ran to him.

“Did you hear, Hafgan?” He saw the answer to his question on his master’s face and asked, “What do you make of it?”

Hafgan turned to Taliesin and said, “Run along home now. Tell your mother we have returned.”

Taliesin did not move.

“Get along with you,” insisted Hafgan.

“If you send me away, I will only spy on you to hear what you say.”

“As you wish, Taliesin,” the druid relented. He turned back to Blaise and said, “It will bear study, but I think it may be beginning.”

Blaise stared for a moment and then sputtered, “But-but how? Is it time? I thought-thought it would be-be…”

“That it would be some other time? Why? All things happen in their season.”

“Yes, but-now?”

“Why not now?”

“What is beginning?” demanded Taliesin. “What is it? Is it about the Dark Time?” He had heard the druid speak of it before, though he knew little about it.

Hafgan glanced at the boy. “Yes,” he said. “If I read the signs aright, the time is fast approaching when the world will undergo mighty travail. There will be storms and great rend-ings; the stony roots of the deep with be disturbed and old foundations shaken. Empires will fall, Taliesin, and empires will rise.”

“To what end?”

Hafgan hid a smile of pride. Young as he was, the boy had the knack of piercing to the heart of the matter with a question. “Ah,” he said, “that is what we all want to know. Get you home now; your mother will be wondering what became of you.”

Taliesin turned reluctantly to go. “You must tell me when you figure it out.”

“I will tell you, Taliesin.” The boy walked off dragging his feet and then, overcome by a sudden fit of exuberance, leaped over a stump and raced away.

“Watch him, Blaise,” said Hafgan. “His like will not soon come again. And yet, great as he will be”

“One greater is to come. I know. You tell me often enough.”

The druid’s head jerked toward his filidh. “Do I tax you with my aimless nattering?”

Blaise grinned. “Never more than I can bear.”

“Perhaps you would rather join Indeg at the Baddon Cora-he is getting on wonderfully, so I am told. Instructing the indolent sons of very wealthy men. You might do as well.”

“I have my hands full with just the one indolent son and his cranky druid.”

Hafgan placed a hand on the young man’s shoulder and they started through the caer. “You have chosen well, Blaise. Still, I know it must sometimes seem as if you are stuck all alone in the world’s furthest outpost watching and waiting as life hastens by in the distance.”

“I do not mind.”

“You could travel, as I have told you. You could go to Gaul, or Galiza, or Armorica. Anywhere. There is still time. I could spare you yet a while.”

“I really do not mind, Hafgan,” said Blaise. “I am content. I know that what we do here is important. I Believe that it is.”

“And your faith will be rewarded tenfold, a hundredfold!” The druid stopped and turned slowly. “Look around you, Blaise!” he said, gray eyes gazing past his surroundings as through a window into another world. “We are in the center. This” He swung his staff in an arc before his face. “This is the center. The world does not know it yet, perhaps never will. But it is here. It is here that the future will be decided. Whatever happens in the age to come will owe to us for its beginnings. And we, Blaise, we are history’s midwives. Think of it!”

He wheeled suddenly toward Blaise, his face radiant with the power of his vision. “Important? Yes! Many times more important than anyone now alive can guess, more important even than you or I imagine. Though we be forgotten, our silent shadows will stretch across all future ages.”

“You speak of shadows, Hafgan.”

“In the Age of Light, all that has gone before will seem as shadow.”

Taliesin squirmed on a rock overlooking both the track along the sea cliffs and the trail from the woods leading to the caer-either one of which his father might choose. Four other boys bore noisy vigil with him, clambering among the rocks, seeing who could throw stones the furthest. The day had been calm and bright, but clouds were sliding in from the west, low and dark, full of tomorrow’s rain.

Watching the clouds, and thinking about what Hafgan had said earlier, Taliesin felt himself drifting, his mind sailing free like a bird loosed from its cage. He let himself go and it was like flying. He rose up on tiptoes. The air shimmered as with noonday heat. He still saw the boys playing around him, heard their careless talk, but their forms had become vaguely blurred and their voices echoed to him as if from far away. A murmuring roar filled his ears, like that of the ocean breaking on the beach after a storm.

He turned his eyes toward the west and the clouds gliding in. The water gleamed like oiled sunlight, and further out, just at the horizon, he saw an island. It glistened and shone like a faceted stone or polished glass, and was nearly as transparent: an isle of glass.

The beams of light glancing off its central peak struck his eyes, pierced them like spears and passed through him. The fire of their passing burned his bones. He felt brittle, as if he would shatter.

The roar increased. He could make it out now. It was a chorus of voices. They cried out as one:

Lost! All is lost! The gods are fallen from on high, and we die. We die! All is lost… lost… lost…

The voices trailed away. Taliesin looked and the Isle of Glass faded, its outline dim and vanishing like a vapor on the wind. Then it was gone and he was standing at the edge of the cliff, trembling, the sound of his friends’ voices booming in his ears, his head throbbing.

“Taliesin!” shouted one of the bigger boys. “What is wrong? Taliesin! Quick, one of you run and fetch his mother!”

Taliesin shook his head and stared at the others gathered around him. “No… no-it was nothing.”

“You looked like you were in a fit,” said another boy. “You said you saw it. What did you see?”

Taliesin glanced out at the sea again; the horizon was clean and empty. “I thought I saw something that was not there.” The other boys craned their necks to study the sea, and it came to him that they would not understand, perhaps would never understand. “It is gone now. It was nothing.”