Norman Spinrad - The Druid King

Table of Contents

For Jacques Dorfmann
and
Richard Shorr

I

THE COUNTRY of the tribes of Gaul extends from the sere and rugged cordillera of the Pyrenees in the west to the grandeur of the snow-capped Alps in the east, from the dank fogbound coast of the northern sea to sunny southern reaches where the balmy tang of the Mediterranean can be smelled drifting up through the mountain passes.

But in truth, the lands of the Edui and the Arverni, the Carnutes and the Belovaques, the Turons and the Santons, and all the rest, their farmsteads, their cities, their pastures, are but islands in an ocean of trees. For it is the mighty green forest, cresting over hills and rolling down valleys, that fills the greater part of their world; it is the oak that reigns supreme, not man.

Deep within this endless oak forest is a round clearing, its grass sprinkled with wild flowers, mushrooms, mossy rocks. Waiting silently just within the ferny undergrowth fringing its margin is a circle of leaders of a score and more of the tribes of Gaul, wearing pantaloons in their tribal colors, woolen shirts, leather jerkins, their scabbards empty of swords. Each of these vergobrets stands beside a pole bearing aloft the sigil animal of his tribeboar, hawk, bull, bear, stag, wolf, and the likeroughly carved in wood or cast in subtly modeled bronze or silver.

In the center of the clearing, illumined by the bright noonday sun, stands Guttuatr, Arch Druid of all Gaul, a tall, slightly stooped man in early old age. His hair and neatly trimmed beard are silvery gray. He wears a white robe with no tribal colors. The cowl of the robe is drawn over his head, but does not hide his face, with its hawk-beak nose and its deeply set green eyes that seem to look through this world and into another. He bears, but does not lean upon, a gnarled oaken staff as tall as he is. Atop the staff is fixed a fallen star, a roughly spherical piece of dark-gray pockmarked iron twice the diameter of an apple.

He looks up at the sun, then down at his own shadow, severely foreshortened as the sun passes through its zenith. Then he raises his staff one-handed, the fallen star now a quarter of a mans height above his head.

From the four quadrants of the wind, their white robes trimmed in the many colors of the tribes of Gaul, druids emerge silently past the vergobrets and into the clearing.

They form an inner circle around the Arch Druid, then stand immobile. Guttuatr grounds his staff once more upon the earth. No one moves. No one speaks.

And then the ghostly-pale midday moon begins to move across the face of the golden sun.

The vergobrets gasp as a shadow begins to cross the clearing and the forest beyond, as the sky slowly turns a deeper blue.

The Arch Druid Guttuatr speaks.

As in the heavens, so upon the earth. The gods of night seek to conquer the day. Those who serve the dark war against those who serve the light. As upon the earth, so in the heavens.

The moon, like a mouth open wide, swallows an ever-growing portion of the golden sun, as if bent on devouring it entire.

The tribal leaders moan and shuffle their feet in distress. The druids stand silent, knowing eyes fixed upon Guttuatr, as if waiting for some signal.

Nothing is to be heard but the shuffling feet and softer and softer moans of the vergobrets, then the confused cries of day birds returning to roost and night birds awakening and the faint far-off baying of dogs and wolves, as the blood-red light of false sunset falls upon the forest.

Then the night itself descends. The sky turns black and the stars appear, but the sun is still visible, its face a void of darkness, but rimmed in a gauzy light like hair and beard aflame or the fiery crown of a celestial god.

The night destroys the day! Guttuatr shouts, and brings forth cries of terror from the men beside their tribal standards. The dark devours the light!

And the druids begin a stately circling round him.

Guttuatr begins a slow chanting.

But the Great Wheel turns and we turn with it....

The circling druids answer.

That which is eternal, that which passes...

As in the heavens, so upon the earth...

As upon the earth, so in the heavens...

Let the Great Wheel turn with us! Guttuatr shouts, raising his staff high above his head as if to command the heavens. Night into day! Darkness to light! Let the Great Wheel

Suddenly vergobrets and druids alike cry out, a great collective shout not of terror but of wonder. The druids abruptly cease their circling, and turn to stare at something above and behind Guttuatr. All at once the solemn spell is broken, and an unruly crowd is pointing at the sky, shouting and babbling.

Guttuatr himself whirls around, looks up to see

A point of light emerging from nothingness, growing brighter, and brighter, and brighter.

A new star being born.

Guttuatrs jaw drops slack, and his eyes widen in awe, as those of a man beholding the visage of a god.

Once in a thousand years... , the Arch Druid whispers.

The vergobrets do not move, but the druids crowd close to him, and one of them dares to speak.

What means this, Arch Druid?

With enormous reluctance, Guttuatr slowly turns from this mighty portent.

This is the sign of a Great Turning, he tells his fellow druids uneasily. This Great Age will die to give way to the next.

But what will

No man of the age that is passing can see clearly into the age that is to come, Guttuatr says quickly and more firmly. We have conjured more than those of the world of strife should know. We must finish the rite before the heavens finish it for us!

And he raises his staff aloft once more.

Behold! he shouts. The heavens themselves declare their favor! Light from darkness! Day from light! The Great Wheel turns!

The druids hastily and somewhat clumsily resume their circling and chanting. The vergobrets draw back.

We turn round, and round, and round....

Let the Great Wheel turn with us! Guttuatr commands.

And, as if to obey, the moon begins to disgorge the light it has eaten, and the sky begins to brighten in a gloriously luxurious purple-and-gold false sunrise. The forest awakens, and blue skies and bright sun once more look down upon a world of verdant green. The rite has succeeded.

Or so it might seem.

Half a dozen roasting boar and as many sheep dripped their fat on crackling log fires, perfuming the air with deliciously pungent smoke. Boys pulled planks of steaming loaves from the ovens and set them out to cool. Peasants brought in wicker baskets overflowing with ripe red apples, white turnips, and dark-green nettles, savory and freshly picked. Bards toyed with their harps, and here and there servants sang with them.

It was the happiest day of Vercingetorixs young life, trotting to keep up with the mighty strides of his father, Keltill, as they crossed the outer courtyard of the family homestead in the bright afternoon sunshine. It was the day of the great feast to be given by Keltill to celebrate the inauguration of his year as vergobret of the Arverni.