Star Harbor Nights

My name, to my shame and that of my ancestors, is Mei Lin hap sen Leng. I came to the Isle of the Mighty as others had come before me: in search of a dream.

It was a relatively short journey from the island of clay which rose up from the fens to the hill which the Fisher had described to me, but I made no great hurry. I had come so far, waited so long already, that it almost seemed a sin to rush now. I had every confidence I would make it there and back in time to settle my boastful wager with the wise man of the hill.

There were some roads in that  land, made  in the unmistakable style of the empire, and it was these that I followed, stopping only once to divine the path where the road branched. If the empire had one virtue, it was their building of roads. If there was anything of importance on this forsaken speck of land, I knew the empire would have built a road to it.

No road took me all the way to my destination, but it was unmistakable even on the horizon. The priest of the new god had told me it would be a hill ringed with standing stones. At the time, I had supposed he must mean a wall of some kind, but as the hill came into sight I saw I had been mistaken.

With some trepidation but an equal measurement of excitement, I approached the shrine... for what else could it be? It even had immense stone gates, in a different scale and material but otherwise somewhat in the style of the shrines of the distant east. I crossed over a moat-like ditch and raised embankments and reached the edge of the inner circle of stones, where I waited, though I was not waiting long.

From the ground near a stone on the opposite edge of the circle, a figure arose. She didn't seem to break through the topsoil so much as grow out of it, and she did so without disturbing the wild grass. She was a woman lying on her side, in form at least... a naked woman composed mostly of rich brown soil, streaked with swirling strata of colors ranging from pale white to fiery orange, and speckled with tiny flecks of quartz and perhaps other, rarer gems.

For the first time in my very long memory, I found myself at a loss for words... but only briefly.

"Are you the spirit who holds the sword of my ancestors?" I asked in a very passable voice... but this question was a mere formality, for I could plainly see that she was no mortal creature, just as I could plainly see the fabled object of my search: a thick, straight sword with a wedge-like blade and an ornate hilt, lodged into the stone altar in the center of the arrangement. "Are you the kami of earth?"

Even if I didn't recognize the weapon by its distinctive appearance, no other sword could have been driven through solid stone.

"To some, I am known as the Queen of the Underhill," she said. "But I know this word 'kami' with which you honor me, Mei Len hap sen Leng, and I humbly accept it as an accurate description. Yes, I am the keeper of the blade you seek."

"Tell me, what is this place? What means this arrangement of stones and earthworks?" I asked, gesturing around at the rings of hanging stones, the huge, elaborately-inscribed monoliths, and the elaborate rings of ditches and mounds. As eager as I was with the end of my quest in sight, I couldn't help but feel overwhelmed by the grandeur and mystique of the kami's abode.

"It is... nothing," she said, shrugging and reclining back against one of the stones... in fact, she leaned into it, part of her back passing through it as if it wasn't there. "When my attention is drawn to this island, I often stay here and I change things around to suit my mood. I'll probably eventually put everything back in its proper place... or maybe I'll leave it to tumble and fall as it may."

"What would the children a future generation think," I wondered, "to come across a place such as this?"

"I doubt they'd think much of anything," the hill-queen said. "Very likely, they would chop the stones up and cart it away to build a fortress of some kind."

"Great lady of the hill, I am fascinated by your conversation, but I do have pressing business. I have come a long ways in order to reclaim my sword..."

"The sword belongs to the island," the kami said firmly, though she made no move from her position of comfort, nor did she show any anger or threat of violence on her bejeweled face.

"Great lady, the island is mistaken," I said in my humblest and most conciliatory tone. "The sword belongs to me."

"Would you not like to hear the story of how it came to be here, and why it must remain?"

"I see no reason why I should listen to such a tale when I can simply reach out and take it," I said, stepping towards the altar. "Unless you would move to prevent me?"

"By all means," she said, smiling graciously and gesturing for me to go ahead.

I seized the hilt of the sword in one hand and pulled... and then I grabbed it with both hands, and even braced my foot against the rock in a most undignified display... but no matter how strongly I pulled, the sword would not move the slightest bit. The blade which must logically have sliced through the stone when it was placed there was now held implacably in place by the same stone.

"Upon more careful consideration," I announced, releasing the hilt, "I have decided to hear the island's claim before rashly removing the property in question."

The kami moved from the stone, slowly and with a little reluctance, as though she were parting from a lover's touch, and began her story. Though her feet never seemed to completely break contact with the hilltop, she walked with uncommon grace to the center of the ring, even coming to within an arm's length of myself. I accepted her proximity as an honor. I may have trembled a little, but only as much as was proper when dealing with a spirit of such divinity.

"This is the sword of the departed emperor," she said, stroking the pommel with her fingertips. "In his day, the wisest and most handsome of men, and the bravest."

"I think it is not such a difficult thing to be held as the wisest with the most respected counsel of an empire at one's ear, nor the handsomest with its greatest artisans vying for your purse, nor the bravest with its army at your disposal," I scoffed. "But I, a rude and boorish peasant, am a humble guest in the house of the kami... so please continue."

"He came to the island as general of a mighty army, at the order of the emperor before him, but he was not merely serving at the other man's sufferance... he was here in search of a dream. He first had this dream on a hunting expedition, and though he dreamed it again many times thereafter, it was in each respect the same, in every quality consistent."

"Consistency in quality is the mark of an accomplished craftsman," I noted. "But not of a masterful one."

"In his dream he came to the highest mountain in all the world, a mountain as high as heaven, and as he came over it, he saw the fairest and widest plain in any realm. Across this plain, he saw many great wide rivers, and he followed one that was..."

"...as great and wide as ever a river there was," I guessed. "If this great man did all else with but half the fervor with which he dreamed up geography, it is no small wonder men made him emperor."

"I'm sorry," the kami said archly. "I was under the impression you were interested in this sword's history."

"It is I who apologize," I said, bowing low. "I have been told that there is no use in hiding one's thoughts from a kami for she would pluck them from your very brain, so as an attentive guest I sought to ease your labor by carrying them to you."

"Suffice it to say, in his dream he followed the widest of the rivers to the greatest city on the coast, and in there he found the fastest ship in the largest fleet, which carried him to the fairest island in the wealthiest reaches, where he found a great castle, in which a richly appointed old man was busy carving toy soldiers from gold, with which younger men played games on a board of silver. As amazed as he was by all the wealth that he witnessed within this castle... go ahead, Mei Lin, and voice the wicked thoughts which wrestle with your humble tongue."

"Mighty kami, I only thought that it must have been great wealth indeed to amaze a general of the Western Empire."

"Indeed it was... but as amazing as it was, it paled before the sight he saw next: a young woman of unearthly beauty, whom he took to be the daughter of the figure he had seen. He saw himself enthroned with her in a golden chair, the two of them embracing... and then he awoke. Every time he slept it was the same dream, and each time he was awakened by some disturbance just as he found his fair maiden."

"And so he had himself assigned to this dismal and wretched place in the hopes of getting an uninterrupted night's sleep so that the dream might follow to its natural end, I would suppose," I said.

"No, and in truth, he was not the sort of man to be appeased by a mere dream of a girl," the kami said. "He sent his men out in every direction with a description of his dream-bride, in the hopes that somebody would know her and lead him to her. After three years, during which the swiftest messengers carried the general's orders to the furthest reaches of the empire and back..."

"Fortunate messengers to have their continued employment assured by such urgent missions."

"...he was ready to despair. For all that he was devoted to this girl, though, he was not a man of a single ambition... as a popular and successful general, he was already very close to the imperial throne, but he needed to establish a base independent of the Roman army to solidify his claims. At the same time that his messengers were returning with word of their failure, it happened that an envoy from this island of Prydein, the Isle of the Mighty, arrived, bearing tidings from one of their great kings, who sought a powerful Roman heir to marry his daughter and help strengthen his own holdings."

"Ah!" I exclaimed. "I begin to see how this dream might intersect with reality... but what a cruel trick to dress up the surroundings of his bride so that his messengers would never recognize the truth of her humble origins."

"The dreams did not lie," the queen of earth insisted. "They only showed him the truth that lies beyond reality. The beauty and richness that he saw in this land represented its potential that is yet to be expressed."

"That I may believe. In truth, if I have ever witnessed a land with more unexpressed potential, I do not recall it... so this general brought my sword to this land, and he died, and now it is stuck in a rock... why?"

"In due time, he became ruler of not just this island realm but, through the acclamation of his men, of the whole western empire... though his claim was tenuous, and when he left to fight a challenge to it, he left the sword here with his commanders, as the symbol of his continuing authority, and here it has remained. This sword, which can cleave stone and cut steel, had become far more than a mere weapon but the symbol of rulership and of the land itself... the badge and rod of King Macsen Wledig, the departed Emperor Magnus Maximus," the kami said. "When word of his death reached the island, the lesser kings and lords who had been unified under his leadership each desired to take it for themselves, and fighting very nearly tore the land apart at the very moment when unity was most needed, when the raiding wolf packs whom the Romans had held at bay threatened to descend once more onto the countryside."

"And so you removed the blade from the grasp of the squabbling mortals," I said. "A very wise and very clever solution, and a judicious one, which I may humbly offer to help to make permanent. Relinquish the blade into my care, and I will remove its troublesome presence from this island."

"I am honor-bound to hold it until a worthy wielder comes to take it up. Do you deserve to wield this blade?" she asked me.

"More so than any man who now walks this earth," I said. "Of all that live, my claim to it is the strongest... I tell you, truthfully and in all humility, that the child is not yet born who is better suited to wield this blade than am I."

"Boldly stated, but true," the earth-spirit said. "Yet, you have not answered the question... do not speak of who deserves it more or less than you, only tell me with equal candor: are you yourself fit to wield it?"

"How dare..." I began, anger flashing briefly behind my eyes, but in the unflinching chiseled face of the stone woman, I wavered, and my arrogance flowed from my like water. I considered my words carefully, and then began again. "I... in truth, I am not. Though there be no one better suited, I am myself not worthy."

"Then it saddens me to tell you I cannot relinquish the sword to you," the earth kami said.

"Mighty spirit of the hills and islands," I proclaimed. "Though I am a humble man in the face of a divine force such as yourself, in all humility I must reveal to you that I am not unskilled in the arts of prophesy and divination, nor in the ways of manipulating fate's paths."

"This much is known to me," the queen said.

"Then know this, as well... I proclaim to you, truthfully and with full humility, that though the child is not yet born who will claim the sword, yet I vow that I will see his way into this world, and I will train him, and when he is of an age to be worthy, I will bring him here, and as honor-bound as you are to refuse me now, you will then be equally bound to give up your treasure. What have you to say that?"

"That nothing would delight me more," the kami said, and she smiled... a slow gesture that spread and rippled across her face like the sun rising over the hills. "Nothing at all."

I was left with the singular and unmistakable impression that the spirit not only welcomed my oath, she had expected it, as well.