Cuchulainn was lost.<\/p>\n
Ravenwing startled flurrious his head;
\nSwordheft weighted quickening his hand.<\/p>\n
This place was gloomthick, not meadowbright.\u00a0 Either it was not T\u00edr na n\u00f3g or all he had ever known was in vain.\u00a0 The path sloped away and he dropped into dryfog.\u00a0 Riverrun past.\u00a0 Gradually his arm felt lighter, his head more clear.\u00a0 No quiver of warpspasm now, his armslength companion since that houndhaunted night at the hearth of Culann.<\/p>\n
No land of youth, this: shades clattered from shadows, barbarring toothless and waterrank.\u00a0 Somewhere, a rhythmless plucking of dissonant strings.\u00a0Ahead, two shades, clearly heroes, one of them decidedly middle-aged, greyturning, turning now to face Cuchulainn.\u00a0 He wore the skin of a demoncat and leaned on an ironmaul with a head like the head of Dub, the Brown Bull of Cuailnge.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, you\u2019ve come,\u201d the aging shade began.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ve been waiting for a hero like you for quite some time now, as much as time really matters any more.\u00a0 There is no after here, you see, and that makes all time somewhat suspect.\u00a0 They say that three make a crowd, but I also find that a third breaks a tie, so perhaps you can help us find our tune, as it were. \u00a0My name is Rostam, and that surly fellow there is Achilles.\u201d\u00a0 Now Cuchulainn could see the other hero, cutfooted darkbrow, bent into a private gloom, fretting over harpstrings.\u00a0 This then was the source of the outmoded earangst he had heard.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow long, whitebeard, have you waited here, gloomstruck and songlost?\u201d<\/p>\n
Rostam slipped into verse: Then a break from the dissonance, and Achilles began:<\/p>\n \u201cHail Cuchulainn of the Red Band of Ulster, Achilles rose.\u00a0 He gathered up a great stone that no two men could lift – such as men are now – and set it level beside his own bench.\u00a0 Cuchulainn sat.<\/p>\n \u201cTell then,\u201d Cuchulainn said, growing interested, \u201cwhat great feats your herosong describes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTo be truthful,\u201d replied Rostam diplomatically, \u201cwe hadn\u2019t gotten as far as feats.\u00a0 In fact, we hadn\u2019t gotten past the hero\u2019s birth.\u00a0 I did tell you, did I not, that we cannot agree about the first thing – the very first thing – that makes a hero.\u00a0 We agree that the birth must be great, supernatural even, but we cannot come together on what that means.\u00a0 See for yourself.\u00a0 Achilles, sing for Cuchulainn what you sang for me when I arrived.\u00a0 Sing of your birth.\u201d<\/p>\n As Achilles sang, his tone grew more resonant.\u00a0 He was on familiar ground now, singing of gods lusting after a water nymph and of a prophecy that her son would outstrip his father and be the greatest of a generation.<\/p>\n Rostam interrupted and the strings rang sour.\u00a0 \u201cWhat kind of hero,\u201d he challenged, \u201cis born to a god?\u00a0 And what kind of god has traffic with nymphs and with men?\u00a0 What superstition is this, gods and goddesses concerned with lust and sons and being outstripped?\u00a0 You sing fairy tales, Achilles, not hero songs.\u00a0 My mother was no goddess, and she was certainly not foisted on any man to bear him his destruction.\u00a0 She was pure as a mountain stream, sweet Rudaba, and just the mention of her beauty won my father\u2019s heart, but she was human, and I was the greatest human child ever born.\u201d<\/p>\n Achilles kept raking the strings of his harp.\u00a0 \u201cA large child, maybe, but hardly great.\u00a0 A man is just a man unless he is also part god.\u201d<\/p>\n Rostam rolled his eyes at Cuchulainn.\u00a0 \u201cYou see what I have had to tolerate all this time?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAchilles\u2019 song is my song here,\u201d offered Cuchulainn, \u201cfor I too am godsprung and skysired, though unlike your waterwombs, my birth was snowbound.\u00a0 Judging by your sunbaked skins, you two probably don\u2019t even know what that means.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh, you are the worst of all,\u201d cried Rostam, \u201cson of a god and a storm called snow.\u00a0 You remind me of Heracles.\u00a0 You would absolutely love him if he were still here, though I found him intolerably self-important.\u00a0 As for you, Achilles, and your immortal arrogance, I still maintain that a man must be fully man if he is ever to be anything great. \u201cIt is profitable and it is glorious,\u201d Achilles scowled, \u201cand I would not mind having had more of it.\u201d\u00a0He stormed off, leaving Rostam and Cuchulainn in what seemed a slightly lighter gloom.<\/p>\n After a silence of some time, Rostam spoke.\u00a0 \u201cFor what it\u2019s worth, I believe I do know what snowstorm is.\u00a0 There were those who called my father by such a name.\u00a0 He used to tell me about cold days alone on a great mountain.\u00a0 He was covered in white stuff, the mountain and my father both, and everyone thought him a bit strange.\u00a0 I imagine snowstorm to be a magical place, and frightening.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI know it only from birth, a place of magicfright indeed,\u201d answered Cuchulainn.\u00a0 \u201cOf course, every songsmith tells the tale differently.\u00a0For some it is all birdflight and snowstorm, for others the wyrmcup and Lugdream.\u00a0 Twiceborn, really, if you take the stories clearfaced.\u00a0 Of course, that probably counts as no great feat to you,\u201d he teased, \u201cwith your preference for all things mortalborn.\u00a0 Still, you must have enjoyed having both parents in the world.\u00a0They say my father is everywhere, but I only have memory of my mother, under all the violence.\u201d<\/p>\n Rostam smiled at this and told of his own birth, of a father swollen with pride and a mother great with new life.\u00a0 He told of an enormous bird with plumes of fire cutting through ivory flesh to bring forth a child.\u00a0 \u201cTo some, I presume, I was not born of woman.\u00a0 Your two births must suffice for us both, then.\u201d<\/p>\n Cuchulainn wondered at a firebird both nursemaid and knightsbane.\u00a0 All of Ulster and all of Connacht knew his stunstone feat, thirty birds dropped dead at a shot from his sling, but this Simurgh was wonderstuff indeed.\u00a0As they talked, they walked along an indeterminate expanse of water.\u00a0 The water moved, but neither hero could tell if it was falling or rising, running or just turning in great eddies.\u00a0 The impression was of ever the same water, ever passing.<\/p>\n They walked toward a deeper gloom and the sound of discordant strings.\u00a0 Achilles saw them coming, for it is always easier to see out of the darkness than into it.\u00a0 As they approached along the water\u2019s edge, though, he couldn\u2019t make out if it was still just the two of them, or if more had joined their embassy.\u00a0 He stopped his tuning and listened, could hear Rostam speaking of the phoenix, bird of fire, and of his father, old man of many adventures.\u00a0Two heroes brought with them the cast of many stories.\u00a0 But the phoenix – there was a tale indeed.<\/p>\n He thumbed his harp to catch their attention and bend their step, a beacon of sound.\u00a0 \u201cHere\u2019s a finer tune than the one I left you with.\u00a0 A beast that rises from its immolation.\u00a0 That is the dream, is it not?\u00a0 To burn out and then to rise again ever higher.\u00a0 Not the way Heracles did, that literalist oaf, lighting his own pyre to become a god.\u00a0 Better to do it like the serpent that sheds its skin to be reborn with new wrath, fed by spring grass.\u00a0 Only thus can we be both kings among the dead and masters among the living.\u00a0 A dream indeed, unless . . .\u201d and Achilles fell into song: Achilles\u2019 fingers played on the strings, preparing another set of lines, but Cuchulainn and Rostam scolded him in unison, \u201cDo not speak to me of sons!\u201d\u00a0 All three fell silent, but only Cuchulainn seemed surprised.\u00a0 He turned and caught a glimpse of himself reflected in the ashen face of Rostam.\u00a0 Achilles explained:<\/p>\n \u201cCalm, Red Hand of Ulster, unavenged champion of Conall, Cuchulainn recalled eveningfire amid leafshade, a proud boy stubborn in his namelessness come to confront the Red Band of Ulster.\u00a0 Demonfast the boy fought, fiercer still than Aife.\u00a0 Cuchulainn had felt he fought the sea itself, but in the end the boy\u2019s pride was no proof against warriorwile and spearsedge.\u00a0 The memory dissolved like blood in the surf.\u00a0 Again, Achilles spoke first, now standing to face them.\u00a0\u201cSympathies for you both, then, you who have killed a son for the pride of a land or the reputation of a king.\u00a0Each of you greater than your sires and, at the end of the day, greater even than your own sons.\u00a0 Greatest of them all, indeed.\u00a0 Sometimes I wonder how my own red-born son would have fared across from me.\u00a0 I like to think he would have stood a chance.\u00a0 But no, Pyrrhus\u2019 fate was to return from Troy.\u00a0 The same cannot be sung of any who fell within my spear\u2019s orbit.\u201d<\/p>\n Rostam was appalled.\u00a0 \u201cMurder it was, the death of my son, and no act for the best of men or for the arrogant speculations of a surly mercenary.\u201d\u00a0 His face waned paler still, seeming a snakebit ghost or curdled milk, and then faded into the gloom.\u00a0 At last he showed just two eyes, like stars, starting from their spheres, and then even these were gone.<\/p>\n When it was just the two of them, Cuchulainn turned to Achilles.\u00a0 \u201cYou spoke of the fate of Pyrrhus.\u00a0 Tell now, what came of fate.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh, my child.\u00a0 I think on fate a great deal, now that time is cheap.\u00a0I cannot figure how it is that fate can be called such when it offers us the choice of how we ruin ourselves.\u00a0 I had a choice, you see. \u201cMy choice was timeforced,\u201d replied Cuchulainn.\u00a0 \u201cIn childhaste I paused to hear only half of Cathbad\u2019s fatespeak.\u00a0 I seized the bladeglory, deaf to warnings of too soon a death.\u00a0 What sort of choice does that make, if you act before the second option falls to words?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYour dilemma was not unlike ours is here, as we have lost the third to our chord.\u00a0 Where do you suppose Rostam has gone?\u00a0 He can\u2019t have gone anywhere, really, and yet I do not see him.\u00a0This whole heroes\u2019 song was his idea, and now he has left no trace, no print to point to himself.\u201d<\/p>\n As they walked, Achilles sang of wrath, of the bitterness of Styx itself, of a hero\u2019s most glorious day, which promises everything then falls short by a foot.\u00a0 He sang of an anger sweet as honey and expansive as smoke.\u00a0Cuchulainn heard a familiar song, of ragetorque and battletremor, of a madspiralling that leaves nothing to destroy.<\/p>\n Rostam was there again then, materializing from the gloom behind them.\u00a0 \u201cYou sing of Styx as if it is the source of life, a mothering stream.\u00a0 You sing rivers of death, Achilles, as if they define the hero\u2019s life.\u00a0 Surely it cannot just be anger that drives you two on.\u00a0 There must be something greater for which you fight.\u00a0 My family are kings, but beyond and before that, we are the bulwarks of Iran. Even as the red water of my son\u2019s life ebbed away and I felt it was I who died, still I knew I was duty-bound to fight for a king and for the idea of a land greater than myself or my son.\u00a0 I do believe that young Cuchulainn will agree with me here, that there is something that transcends us as heroes, something to be heroic for.\u201d<\/p>\n Cuchulainn replied, \u201cPerhaps this is the start of your everyman\u2019s herosong.\u00a0 If we willingly give ourselves to our birthreach, what price to give one\u2019s bloodson?\u00a0 As Connla lay dying, he greeted the men of Ulster and they loved him.\u00a0 In that moment, all knew that a terrible righteousness had been served.\u00a0 And when he was gone, fishgutted and proudeyed, each could say without doubt that no man would ever stand against the men of Ulster.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSome say we fought for Greece,\u201d Achilles offered, \u201cbut I never knew what that meant.\u00a0 There was a king there, a low and petty man.\u00a0 Some fought for him.\u00a0 He fought for his brother, who fought for his wife.\u00a0 So many subcontracts tire the sword arm.\u00a0 My rage to fight fills the space where my desire for rest does not reach.\u00a0 The weariness of bickering men makes that latter desire swell.\u00a0 Oh, but we did bring righteous suffering to the people in great masses, I and my mustered Myrmidons.\u00a0 In the end, Paris\u2019 fluke shot could not forestall fate: my brilliance shines in all directions from the shattered mirrors of Troy.\u201d<\/p>\n Rostam was quiet, and then, \u201cPerhaps what makes the hero is not what we do, but whom we leave to tell of it.\u00a0Each of us knows our own life best, but if we remain each the only singer of our song, then our songs descend with us, and our deeds fade like a lamp that has run out of oil.\u00a0 Those who witness our lives must be the ones who tell our stories, and for that to happen, our stories must close before the mouths of our friends do.\u201d<\/p>\n Achilles struck his harp, a rich and harmonious chord.\u00a0 The three heroes paused, then parted company, off to sing their song of all heroes, each in his own mode.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A song of all heroes Cuchulainn was lost. Ravenwing startled flurrious his head; Swordheft weighted quickening his hand. This place was gloomthick, not meadowbright.\u00a0 Either it was not T\u00edr na n\u00f3g or all he had ever known was in vain.\u00a0 The path sloped away and he dropped into dryfog.\u00a0 Riverrun past.\u00a0 Gradually his arm felt … <\/p>\n
\n\u201cWhen I arrived he was already here<\/em><\/span>
\nslumped in\u2019s tent, bronze greaves and ashen spear.<\/em><\/span>
\nAnd many heroes had since come below<\/em><\/span>
\nwho knew not him nor I did ever know<\/em>.<\/span>
\nBy the time I got here, Achilles was already composing a song about himself.\u00a0 Classic hero stuff, really, and rather self serving, I felt.\u00a0 Still, to pass the time that never diminishes, I proposed that he and I might piece together a Song of All Heroes, vastly experienced as we are.\u00a0 Actually, I find him rather young to have much experience.\u00a0 He\u2019s barely out of his piss cloths, but he wears the scars and shares the stories.\u00a0 All the same, the two of us can\u2019t seem to agree on the first thing about what makes a hero, and until we do, he won\u2019t ever get his harp in tune.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nBane alike of cattle herd and battlefield,
\nRaider, ruffian, son of thunder,
\nWho first took arms on Cathbad\u2019s fateful day,
\nWho took his name from Culann\u2019s faithful hound.
\nMany the wife of Connacht wailed the morn
\nshe sent her love to join the cattle raid.
\nJust as the salmon, ripe with roe,<\/em><\/span>
\nslip joyous and fertile upstream,<\/em><\/span>
\nunaware of the bear sow<\/em><\/span>
\nwho grows fat on their glistening bellies,<\/em><\/span>
\nso did the men of Connacht march against Cuailnge.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n
\nA bare-armed wrestler steps into the field<\/em><\/span>
\nto face a warrior with sword and shield.<\/em><\/span>
\nNine times of ten the warrior takes the prize,<\/em><\/span>
\nbut gains no glory in the peoples\u2019 eyes.<\/em><\/span>
\nBut that one time the wrestler wins the game<\/em><\/span>
\nhe gains forevermore a hero\u2019s name.<\/em><\/span>
\nHeroism comes from impossibility, my friend, and not from inevitability.\u00a0 Tell me, what benefit is victory to the invincible?\u201d<\/p>\n
\nA farmer or a woodsman called off to war<\/em><\/span>
\nshoulders his spear, glances back at his home.<\/em><\/span>
\nHis wet-eyed wife clutches close their son,<\/em><\/span>
\nthe son\u2019s job now, to wield the plow and axe.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n
\nYou wouldn\u2019t know of Rostam\u2019s life, his most awful deed,
\nthough we know of yours, we who came before.
\nHe would not have it sung, his life\u2019s great shame,
\na father\u2019s brooch revealed too late,
\na mother\u2019s love tossed against the stone of Sistan.
\nThe sea draws back from the shore, forgotten and silent,<\/em><\/span>
\nthen builds into a wave of towering force.<\/em><\/span>
\nRoaring huge, it smashes ships, scatters fish,<\/em><\/span>
\ntosses kingfisher couples chattering over broken nests.<\/em><\/span>
\nBut when the wave, heavy with its flotsam spoil,<\/em><\/span>
\nmeets again the headland that gave it birth<\/em><\/span>
\nit breaks back on itself, coating the stone with futile salt.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n
\nTwo moths circle a lamp in a plowman\u2019s hut,<\/em><\/span>
\nThe family huddles over bowls of broth.<\/em><\/span>
\nOne moth settles on a roof-beam, forgotten;<\/em><\/span>
\none draws all eyes to a single burst of flame.<\/em><\/span>
\nOnly once have I regretted my choice, that time these gloomy reaches were pierced by the smell of roasted meat, the unflinching voice of a companion still breathing salt air.\u201d<\/p>\n