The Rock and the Tree

©2001 Michael Bishop
All rights reserved.

From the moment that I planned my escape, I intended to take Miriam with me. It was not just because she was a woman in distress and thus chivalry demanded her rescue. Stealing the warden's concubine would be a fitting act of revenge for all the indignities the fiend had heaped on me.

Rumour had it that she was a local girl who been sold into slavery after the crucifixion of her father, who had been a famous Jewish rebel, or Zealot, as they call them around here. If true, then somewhere along the line she had fallen into the hands of the most sadistic man that I have ever had the misfortune of meeting. When he wasn't flogging us for misdemeanors real and imagined, he was in his quarters with Miriam. Nobody knew exactly what went on there, at least not in the chain gangs. Nevertheless, stories abounded and occasionally we could hear a woman screaming.

First, though, I had to work to free myself, no easy task without the help of the Old Magic. On my first latifundium I had attempted to draw the powers that reside in the pools and groves of the Land, but to no avail. There had not been even a whimper of energy. Because I was in a foreign country, I had had no idea where any shrines were, or even if they existed. On the next latifundium, I had tried again with the same results. Here, in the mines, I never bothered to make the effort.

Instead, night after night, I had chipped away at a link with the slither of steel that I had stolen. At times, I despaired of ever succeeding. However, a Celtic warrior never gives up in the face of adversity. Then, finally, one night the metal parted and I was a free man again.

The pen in which they locked us slaves up at night had sides so high as to be almost impossible to scale. Still, we Celts are taller than most folk, and I found that by stretching I was able to reach the top and pull myself up. The spikes designed to keep us in made very good handholds.

Once outside, I took a good look around. Back home I would have tapped the Old Magic to see if I could "see" any enemies. No chance of that here, so I used my eyes instead. The moment that I was sure that it was safe, I sprinted to the shadow of the warden's house.

Not that there would have been any one to see me. Once we were locked up for the night, the filth that guarded us was too lazy to set sentries. Instead, they stayed in their quarters sleeping, drinking, and cheating each other at dice. I knew that once I was out of the pen it was unlikely that I would be seen. Still, I had only one chance to escape, because if I were caught, the least that I could expect was the same fate as Miriam's father.

Once I was back in cover I stopped and listened. There was no sound of the alarm being raised, so I began to carefully pick the lock on the door to Miriam's quarters. I had no fear that the warden would wake up at the noise. He was out of town. Every month or so he and his cronies would go and visit the fleshpots of civilisation for a few days ... as they were on this night.

The noise that I made must have disturbed Miriam's sleep, because by the time I was inside she was awake. She did not scream in panic or yell for help, as one might have expected. Instead, she just lay there staring at me as I stood in the moonlit doorway.

I then uttered the first words that I had spoken to any female in Lugh-knows-how-many years.

"My name is Emrix. I have come to get you out of here." Not the stuff of legends, you might say, and you would be right. But this was not the time for a speech, even if I could have composed one. Anyway, what does one say to a woman whom one has never met when rescuing her from a monster? Had I been a hero in some legend or fable, then no doubt I would have swept her up in my arms. In return, she would have first kissed me and then offered her undying love. However, this was the real world, and things like that don't happen here.

I didn't wait for her answer. Instead, I broke into the warden's quarters to search for clothes, as well as food, water, and anything else that would be of use. A moment later, wearing a ragged dress, Miriam joined me. The two of us ransacked the place. I discovered a sword and quickly buckled it around my waist. The weapon was short by my standards; we Celts prefer a long slashing blade. Still, it was better than nothing.

When we were done, I poked my head out the door in case any one was about. However, the night was empty but for the sounds coming from the camp of the guards, their voices loud and boisterous with strong liquor. We tiptoed out of the hut and disappeared into the desert.

At dawn, we holed up in a cave. I would have liked to travel a little longer, but there was important business to be carried out first. For one thing, Miriam and I needed to talk about what we were going to do next. While she may have followed me unquestionably so far, then was no guarantee that she would continue. It was even conceivable that she might want to return to the camp rather than take her chances in the wilderness.

So we talked, and as we did, she let slip that the stories about her were true. That shocked me, for she sat there calmly and serenely, not the blithering idiot one might have expected. She didn't give any explanation for her manner and I didn't press her. I also noticed that she was good-looking. Thanks to the warden, there were bruises on her face and weals visible on the parts of her body that her ragged dress did not cover. Nevertheless, in spite of his handiwork, she was still a beauty. I admit that she was different from the girls that I had known back home. Her hair was black instead of blonde, and her height a foot shorter. Still, there was something about her that attracted me. I immediately brushed such thoughts away as having been in the mines too long. Besides, romance was not going to keep us alive. Only clear-headed thinking would do that.

It did not take us long to agree where we were heading. I knew virtually nothing about the country that we were in, so as long as I stayed out of Roman hands, one road would be as good as another. Miriam's knowledge was not much better, but at least she had an inkling of the lay of the land. There was no point going to her old village, because the Romans had torched it. However, she did know of a Zealot camp and was sure that we would find sanctuary there.

There was a second and equally pressing reason for the stop. I needed to cast runes to divine the future. This should have done before I attempted my escape, but that had been impossible. If secretly working away at the links on my chain had been dangerous, then performing a magical ceremony would have been positively suicidal. However, now that I was free, I intended to carry out the ritual. I had never before undertaken a major venture without doing so, and I had no intention of continuing this one until I saw what the gods had in store for me, and maybe for Miriam.

Of course, without being able to tap the Old Magic, the runes would be drawn by chance, but the central meaning would still be there. I just hoped that the gods would see my action in the spirit that it was intended and not as mockery.

I waited until Miriam was asleep. There was no point involving her in the ritual. Jews have the reputation of being a religious people and she may have understood what I was doing. On the other hand, she might have laughed at me or even regarded the ritual as black magic. In that case, we would have almost certainly gone our separate ways in spite of our chances of survival being better together.

First, I used the point of my sword to mark some stones with the symbols of the runes. Then after short prayers to Lugh and Esus, I closed my eyes and dipped into the pile. To my utter surprise, I felt magic flow through my body. For a moment I hesitated as I tried to focus on the source of the power, but to no avail. It was strong, but I couldn't divine what it was or in which direction it lay. I continued with the ritual.

The same thing happened when I drew the second and third stones: a feeling of power followed by a surge of energy each time I drew a rune. There was definitely a source of magic somewhere near by. However, without knowing what and where it was, I would be unable draw on it except when meditating or during a ritual. Still, it meant that that I could heal wounds and recharge my body when sleeping.

Back to the ritual. The first two runes, those of Circumstances and Action, were easy to interpret. I didn't need arcane powers to know what my present situation was and what I should be doing about it. Still, it was good that I was in agreement with the gods. No, it was the third rune, that of Outcome, which had me foxed. Because of the surge of power when I drew it, I knew that it was the right rune, and I could read that the symbol on it was iur, that is the yew tree. However, other than the explanation centred on magic or a thing linked with magic, I could not seem to lift the veil over it. Alternative themes of defence and protection made little sense and did not feel right. Yet, until I could uncover the entire meaning, I had no idea what the gods had planned for me.

After a few days' travel, it didn't take either of us long to notice that Miriam was making better progress than I. Our varying experiences in the mines had hardened both of us to the rigors of our surroundings. Nevertheless, the blistering heat and the exertion of crossing mile after mile of rock and sand took its toll on our bodies. If either of us had an advantage, it was me, because I was wearing boots while Miriam had only a pair of flimsy sandals to protect her feet from the burning sand and sharp stones. Yet, somehow she seemed to remain as fresh as one could, while I slowly faded, day by day.

When the sun went down the temperature dropped to below freezing, and we would spend the night shivering in thin, meagre blankets, there being no wood for a fire. It was then that I was able to meditate and draw on the mysterious power. However, without knowing anything about the source, my paltry spells could only tap a small amount from it. I was unable to repair all the damage from the day before.

The source was not a grove. I knew that for certain. No oaks or yews could grow out here among the sand and rock. It had to be a pool. When I had first been sent to the mines, I could never have guessed that one could find open water out here in the desert. Imagine my surprise when I learned that one can. There are ponds called oases, and they are surrounded by vegetation. I tried picturing one in my mind, but to no avail. I could only conclude that the mystery source was not that, either. Which left what?

It was Miriam who broached the subject when we made camp one night.

"If we go on as we are, then we are not going to make it," she emphatically announced as we sat there huddled in our blankets. She nudged me with her foot to keep me awake.

"What go you mean?" I drowsily replied. All I wanted to do was go to sleep and recuperate.

"Don't give me that nonsense, Emrix. Just look at yourself," she retorted. "I know that you are slowly dying. If the rays of the sun do not finish you, then the lack of water will. Why, I thought that I was going to have to drag you here this evening." That was a joke if there ever was one. She could no more move me than she could a fully grown ox.

"I guess the mines took more out of me than I thought," I replied. "I may die soon, but so what? It will be as a free man and not some Roman slave."

"Yes! Yes! You warriors are always big on dying. Let's talk about living, instead. If we work together, me with my knowledge of this land, you with your muscles, we should make it through to the camp. We sure aren't going to make it any other way.

"Besides, you are not just a warrior; you can also work magic. I saw you perform that ceremony in the cave, and the Lord knows that we need every scrap of magic that we can get."

"You saw me cast the runes?" I interrupted her. "I thought that you were asleep!"

"I was, until I felt someone calling on the power of the Lord. That woke me up. Then, as I watched, every time you did something with that pile of stones I felt another surge, so it had to be you. I haven't mentioned it before because you seemed to think that I hadn't seen what you had been doing.

"What I can't figure out is how a Gentile can pray to the Lord and be answered. That, and if you can actually call upon the Lord, why his response has been so weak." She stopped for a moment to think. "Unless of course, it is because you are a Gentile."

"I don't know anything about the power of your Lord." I replied. "All that I am doing is working some of the Old Magic. During that ceremony, as you call it, I discovered that there is a source of it somewhere in this land. The only problem is that because I don't know what it looks like, I can only tap some amounts of power from it."

Miriam rearranged her position as she considered my words. She placed her hands in front of her knees then asked, "What do these sources of Old Magic, as you call it, look like?"

"Groves of large trees and pools created by natural springs."

"I don't know about either of those, but when we Jews need the power of the Lord, we call upon him with the Temple in mind."

At her words, I looked blank.

"You Celts really are barbarians," she snapped. "You don't know anything! It is a large building, a lot like a Roman villa, only much bigger. It has been built on a rock called the Temple Mount and is hundreds of years old."

I ignored her gibe. We Celts are as civilised as the next race, and more so than some so-called advanced peoples.

"You mean that you can draw power from a rock?"

"If that is how you want to see it, then I suppose so, yes. But when we Jews pray to the Lord, we think of the Holiest of Holies of the Temple. If it weren't for the power of the Lord, I would have died long ago."

I didn't care how she saw the source or what she called the Old Magic. What was important was that there was a source of it in this Lugh-forsaken country, and the only way to win through was to draw power from it. That was what the runes had been telling me all along. I just needed somebody to tell me what it looked like. At the realisation that I was going to live, I nearly leaned forward and kissed Miriam. However, I restrained myself. The act would have probably embarrassed her. It certainly would have embarrassed me.

I made better progress over the next few days. Thanks to Miriam's enlightenment, I even managed to cast a few vitality spells without having to stop and meditate. Slowly but surely my body began to heal.

I also persuaded Miriam to tell me tales about the Temple Mount. The more familiar with its appearance I was, the more power I would able to draw from it. Some of what she had to say was sketchy, because she was a woman and thus not let into the heart of it. That was of no consequence, though. I could imagine what it looked like from her description of the rest of the shrine.

I also began to adopt some of her customs. Take the time that I killed a lizard with a deftly thrown stone. When I had skinned it, Miriam declined to touch the raw flesh, saying that it was unclean. Rather than offend her god, I threw the carcass away to become a meal for some lucky scavenger. We also saw some desert hares, but neither of us made a move to kill them, I because they are sacred, Miriam because they were filth. Strange people, the Jews! Still, the closer I moved toward their spirit and thus their Land, the more power I was able to draw. Even so, I did not lose my roots or respect of my own gods. They had brought me safely this far; they would see me through to the end.

We continued on our way until one morning, as I did my usual scan for lions and jackals, I suddenly sensed the camp. We were almost there!

But before I could give Miriam the good news, I picked up something else. Enemies! I put my hand on her arm to halt her, then made another scan. For a moment I felt nothing more, so I drew more power -- and there it was: a band of hostiles in front of us and moving in the same direction. There was something peculiar in their presence. They appeared to be floating in and out of this world, as though they were only partially here.

I don't know how long I stood trying to fathom the mystery until I uttered one of Miriam's prayers instead of my own native spells. As the words flowed from my lips, I felt an extra-powerful surge of energy and suddenly a crystal-clear image of the band appeared in my mind. Roman legionnaires! Soldiers of darkness, less than human because they cannot draw power from the Land to become more than human.

But it was not their presence or the sheer magnitude of power flowing through me that caused me to gasp. It was that I should not be "seeing" them at all. Our local druid always claimed that it was because legionnaires wear iron armour to mask their spirits. I cannot comment on that, but at home we never could sense them. Yet here I had cut straight through whatever hides them and could "see" everything down to the swords at their waists, the boots on their feet, and the scars on their arms. Moreover, I could read their minds, and what I learned sent a chill down my spine.

I came out of my trance and turned to Miriam.

"There are some legionnaires ahead of us! And they are heading in the same direction as us."

"Do you think they've discovered the camp?" she asked.

I nodded my reply.

"If we don't warn them, those brutes will massacre them!"

"Not if we get there first! The camp is over there." A wave of my arm indicated its location. "If we run like we have never run before, we can beat even legionnaires to it."

For a moment we stood there, eyes closed, hands held open in supplication.

"Help me O Lugh and O Lord," I prayed. "Give me the endurance to reach the camp. Give me the power to overcome any obstacles in my path. Give me the might to defeat any adversity on the way. Not for my sake, but for the sake of your helpless children. Their fate is in your hands. I implore you, let them live"

Then the two of us started running, I in the lead as befitting the warrior. I could feel Miriam close behind. I didn't concentrate on keeping back with her, though. Notwithstanding the progress I had made in the last few days, she still was in better shape and could thus hold her own. Instead, I focused on casting spell after spell to draw power, iterating prayer after prayer to give to myself strength.

In spite of my newfound vigour, my lungs began to ache from the strain and my feet throbbed with the constant pounding on the ground beneath them. My mouth rasped from lack of water. My eyes were almost blinded from the bright light surrounding me. Had it not been so hot, I knew that I would have been drenched in sweat. Instead, the sweat steamed off my back like morning dew at sunrise. Still, I forced my pace still further, relying on the power from the Temple flowing through my body to keep me going.

I neither felt the blazing orb above fry my tortured body nor noticed the harsh rocky land about me. Instead, my mind rested on a building miles away; that and the giant crag upon which it stood.

We were bounding over a field of boulders when one of them shifted under Miriam's weight and her foot slipped between it and another. She gave a cry of pain, the first word that either of us had uttered for hours, and I immediately flew back to her side. After rolling the stone away, I knelt down and ran my hand over the injured limb. It was bad. Even if I had been a healer, there was no way that I could had repaired it enough for her to stand on it; the damage was too great. And as for running on it? There would no chance of that for at least a week.

Still, she tried to stand up, using a boulder for support. But the moment she rested her weight on the ankle, she cried out in pain and collapsed back to the ground. For a while, we sat there, neither moving nor saying a word. Then, her voice came low and weak through her tears.

"Emrix! Leave me here and save the camp. I'll be safe here until you get back."

But I could not. Her last statement was a half-truth at best, a lie at worse. So far we had not seen any desert denizens, but we both knew that our luck could easily run out. Furthermore, if one were to discover her in her present condition, then it would first tear open her throat, then feast on her body. Yet, the lives of a group of helpless people rested on my getting to them in time to warn them of impending danger.

Chivalry demanded that I stayed with her, but honour required that I obeyed her wish.

For a moment, I continued to sit there, trying to decide what to do. The dilemma was too great for a mere mortal such as I to resolve. This one was for the gods. I closed my eyes and began to pray in both Jewish and Celtic. Then, I dipped into my bag of runes and pulled one out.

I should have guessed which one it would be, but still I stared at it in disbelief. Iur. The message was clear. Nevertheless, I continued to gaze at it for a while longer before slipping it back into the bag and going into a light trance.

For a moment, all that I could see was darkness ahead and behind me. Then a picture appeared inside my head. It was of a mighty structure standing on an even mightier crag: Miriam's Temple! But that was not all. Standing next to it was an object that neither her tales had mentioned nor that had appeared in previous visions: a tree. Not one of the local variety, though, all small, knurled and twisted by drought. No! This one stood tall and proud and green in the bright sunlight. It was the yew from the rune!

Still in the trance, I rose to my feet, reached down to Miriam, and picked her up in my arms. She cried out in pain and tried to resist. However, I was resolute in my purpose, until she surrendered by wrapped her arms around my neck. Then, with the new image in my mind, I drew on the power from the Temple Mount. Again I felt another surge of power, but this one was no ordinary rush. Instead, it was greater than I had ever felt before, even greater when I had used Jewish prayers. In spite of the knowledge that it was coming, its intensity still overwhelmed me.

At that moment, as though they had a life of their own, my legs began to move. It was difficult for me to balance with Miriam in my arms, but it did not seem to matter. It was almost as if my limbs were saying, you concentrate on holding her, while we concentrate on getting you to the camp in time.

If my passage before had been nothing less than sheer agony, it was now as though I was floating on a cloud. Better than that, it was though I was in different world. Just as the magic flowing through my legs had imbued them with their own life, so it did the same to my arms. The girl within them was light as a feather, and she barely needed to hold on, so strong was my grip. My lungs were working harder than ever before. I could feel them driving themselves to the limit, but there was no pain in it.

Valley sides, boulders and dunes, all flashed past me, but I barely noticed their presence. I could still sense the legionnaires but paid no attention to them; like everything else, they were no longer part of my world. In fact, I barely needed to cast any more spells to draw more power. It was as if some divine agency were performing that task for me.

Then, suddenly, I was among them. Whether or not they had heard me was of no consequence. I was moving too fast for mere humans to stop. I felt rather than saw the javelins they threw and the alarm they must have barked at my appearance. A moment later, I was past them and on my way.

Suddenly, as if from nowhere, a chasm opened in front of my feet, a chasm wider than any normal man could have jumped. I was no normal man. My legs gave one almighty push and I was flying through the air. Time seemed to slow down as I coasted toward the opposite side. A final javelin flew past my ear, but I barely noticed it. Instead, the instant my feet hit the other side, I was running for the ridge ahead of me.

At last I was skidding down the final slope into the camp, stones and dust cascading ahead of me. At the sound of my passage, heads appeared from cave entrances to stare at the unexpected visitor.

For a moment I stood there in front of them, my body wracked with pain now that that the trance was starting to die. Then I shouted, "Roman soldiers are coming," and indicated the direction by pointing with my head.

The warriors among them did not question my words. They grabbed a multitude of weapons before charging off in the direction that I had indicated. Compared with the approaching legionnaires, with their solid armour and weapons, they looked less than nothing. However, with the power of the Lord, or the Old Magic, they could not help but be victorious.

Two women stepped forward and I let Miriam slip into their open arms. Suddenly, her limp form had become a burden, and I was hard-pressed to hold her up. Other people came up to me and started to bombard me with questions.

For a while longer, the Temple Mount and the yew rested in my mind. It was though the two were smiling at me, as if to say, "You are safe now, but we are here if you ever have need of us again."

Then they faded away and I began to address my newfound friends.

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