The Language of Stones

‘It was inside your blanket when you were brought to us,’ Breona said. ‘It’s only right that it should go with you now. Wear it as a charm, for a mother’s love goes with it. And, like the salmon, may you return to us again some day.’

Her eyes sparkled when she smiled at him, and he threw his arms around her neck. ‘You’ll always be my mother. Always!’

Eldmar said, ‘I have nothing to give you, but I will do one thing before you go. Sit down.’

When Will sat down on the three-legged stool, Eldmar caught up a handful of his hair. His big, blunt fingers carefully teased out the strands. They twisted and pulled and twisted again, working expertly until two braids were done.

‘There,’ his father said as he stood up. ‘Now you’re a man.’

CHAPTER TWO INTO THE REALM

They climbed up towards the Tops through the pouring rain, and Will told himself that he had made a fool’s wish come true after all. He did not know how or why his feet followed one another, but after a while they felt the tread-worn track peter out and long grass begin. The stranger was leading him onward through Nethershaw Woods. There were thousands of bluebells clothing the ground hereabouts, but blind darkness pressed in all around, and he saw nothing. The air was alive with deep green smells, but apart from the sound of rain, the night was quiet. Creatures of fur and feather had drawn deep inside their holes and hollows, and nothing stirred.

It was as if the journey was happening to someone else. His new, manly braids felt strange as they swung against his wet cheek. He put a hand to them and began to think of his parents again, and that filled his eyes with tears. He stumbled in the darkness and the stranger said, ‘Tread softly, Willand, for we have far to go tonight.’

The steady climb brought them out onto open land. It was curious how slow the raindrops seemed to fall here, and how filled with echoes was their noise. Underfoot the going was as gentle as a sheep-cropped meadow. Will had never climbed so high before, nor walked so far or so fast in the dark. The stranger did not lean on his staff as an old man should, he wielded it. His long legs strode out as if he could see the night world around him as clearly as any cat.

A hundred questions about the stranger whirled in Will’s head. Perhaps he’s a sorcerer, he thought, dread welling up. It’s plain he’s got the power about him, and he spoke an incantation onto my…

His thoughts turned away from Breona and Eldmar. The pang in his belly felt like fear, and underneath it there lurked a dark and dreadful question – if Eldmar and Breona are not my real parents, then who are?

There must be a spell on me now, he told himself, or why else are my legs being forced to follow him?

Will tried to resist, but he could not. In the back of his mind, shapeless fears writhed.

‘What’s the matter now?’ the stranger said, turning.

He wanted to ask the dreadful question, but instead he stammered, ‘Are…are we going to the Giant’s Ring?’

The stranger loomed in the darkness. ‘What do you know about the Giant’s Ring?’

‘N…Nothing.’

‘Then why do you fear it? Are you drawn by its power? Tell me!’ The stranger gripped his arm. ‘What do you know about the Ring?’

‘Only that there’s a stone near it that shepherds say is lucky.’

The stranger’s tone softened, and he laughed unexpectedly. ‘Forgive me if I frightened you, Willand. We are not going to the Giant’s Ring. Nor was that ever a place where folk were ritually slain, or beheaded, or buried alive – as no doubt you have been led to believe.’

Will’s heart hammered at the strange answer, but already some of his fear had begun to turn to obstinacy. They went on, crested a shallow rise, and headed over the brow into lands that drained westward. Moments later they skirted the sleeping hamlet of what could only be Over Norton, a fabled place spoken of rarely by Valesmen. A hound barked in the distance, a deep-throated, echoing sound that was full of longing.

At last, Will staggered to a halt. He shielded his eyes from the rain, peering back the way they had come. They had reached another track, this time on level ground, that ran right across the Tops.

The stranger turned. ‘What now?’

‘I’m…scared.’

He flinched away as the stranger reached out and touched his shoulder, but the words that came this time were plain enough. ‘I will not say there is no reason for you to be scared. This is the most dangerous night of your short life. But I will do everything in my power to protect you.’

Something seemed to burst in Will’s chest and he blurted out, ‘Well, if you’re so wise, why don’t you just magic us to wherever it is we’re supposed to be going?’

The stranger paused and regarded him for a long moment before saying, ‘Because magic must always be used sparingly, and never without considering gains against losses. Magic must be requested, never summoned, respected, never treated with disdain. It must be asked for openly and honestly. Listen to me, Willand! I am trying very hard to deliver you to a place of safety. But we may not reach it if you decide to defy me. And the danger will be the more, the more you resist.’

The stranger seemed suddenly older than old, a man used to talking high talk, giving important words to important people, not a man who was used to coaxing frightened lads into following him through the night. Will stared at the ground sullenly. ‘Aren’t there…aren’t there giants up here?’

The other laughed softly. ‘Giants? Now who could have put that notion into your head? Ah, let me guess. That would have been Tilwin, the well-travelled man.’

Will’s mouth fell open. ‘Then – you do know Tilwin!’

‘I know a great many folk. Did Tilwin say he knew me?’

It was more than a question and Will gave no answer. He gritted his teeth, still fighting the urge that moved his legs forward. ‘You still haven’t told me where we’re going.’

‘The less you know about that the better, until we are a good deal closer to it.’

‘Is it far?’

‘Four more leagues tonight, three as the rook flies, then we shall come to a place of sanctuary.’ The voice mellowed. ‘Try to be easy in your mind, Willand. There will come a day when you are no longer afraid of giants – but we shall have to work hard to make sure you live that long.’

The stranger’s voice was as vivid as lightning – at once exciting, comforting and terrifying. Oh, yes, he must be a great sorcerer, Will thought. For who but a great sorcerer could use words like that? But four leagues! Four leagues was a very long way. In the Vale a single league was a trip from Nether Norton to Pannage then away to Overmast and back again. To go four leagues in one journey seemed unimaginable.

But I’m not going. I’ll test his magic long before that, he told himself stubbornly. I’ll bide my time. I’ll wait until he’s wrapped up in his big thoughts, and then I’ll fall behind little by little and make a run for it. He won’t be able to find me, because I won’t go straight home. No! I’ll wait till first light, then run down to Overmast and hide in Ingulph’s Oak. He’ll never find me there.

But a firm grip took him by the collar and hauled him onward. ‘Please try to keep up. Have I not already made clear to you the dangers?’

Will tried to pull away from the grip. ‘You’re trying to enchant me with your sorcerer’s whisper-words.’

‘Oh, a sorcerer, am I?’

‘It’s magic you’ve put on me. I can feel it working in my legs!’

‘And what do you know about magic? Your village has not even the benefit of a wise woman.’

‘I know sorcerers are evil!’

The stranger made no immediate reply, but then he sighed and his breath steamed in the moist air. ‘Do not speak to me of evil, for you do not know what that is. Be assured, your life and the lives of ten thousand others may depend on your obedience to me tonight. Now come along willingly or I shall have to take measures.’

Will refused to believe a word of it, but he could do nothing except pace onward through the gloom and wait for his chance. At length he said, ‘In the village they say you’re a crow called Jack o’ Lantern.’

‘Jack is as good a name as any. Noblemen have long used the word “crow” to mean wanderers such as I, but the folk of Nether Norton do not know the difference between a crow and a craft-saw.’

That was no help. ‘But it’s not your real name.’

‘I have a true name, but that may not be learned by others.’

‘Why not?’

The stranger’s eyebrow arched impressively. ‘Because if it became known to my enemy, it would put me in his power.’

‘Do you have many enemies?’

‘Only one.’

Will thought that was a very guarded answer. ‘What’s he called?’

‘At times he uses the name “Clinsor” at others “Maskull”. But those are not his true names any more than Gwydion is mine.’

Will seized on the slip. ‘Is that what I should call you?’

The sorcerer laughed. ‘Sharp! Let me put your mind at rest. I have been known by many names – Erilar, Finegas, Tanabure, Merlyn, Laeloken, Bresil, Tiernnadrui – but you should call me by the name the present lords of this realm use when they speak of me. Call me Master Gwydion.’

‘Master Gwydion,’ Will repeated, satisfied. He said portentously, ‘Gwydion the Sorcerer!’

‘Do not make such jests.’ The plea was made quietly, but Will heard in it a solemn warning.

‘Why not? You perform magic. You don’t deny that. So you’re a sorcerer.’

Gwydion put his face close to Will’s own. ‘Try to remember that words are important. They have precise meanings. I do not perform magic, Willand. Magic is never performed. It is not the stuff of conjuring shows, it is what links the world together. And you must never call me “enchanter”, “warlock” or “magician” – those words are easily misunderstood by folk of little learning. They cause trouble.’

Will stumbled over a coney burrow and almost fell. ‘I wish this rain would stop! I can’t see a thing!’

Gwydion grunted. ‘Wishes! Every spell of magic I expend tonight must be heavily veiled, but perhaps we might go by faelight for a while without any greater risk of being noticed.’

The sorcerer muttered hard-to-hear words, then he took hold of Willand’s head and used his thumbs to wipe the water from his face. All at once Will became lightheaded, and it seemed as if there was a glow in the wet grass around him, a glow like mist caught in a spider’s web, like a dusting of green moonlight over a soft land. Then he realized he had not opened his eyes. He gasped in wonder, still more than a little fearful of what was happening to him.

‘Am I dreaming?’ he asked as the rain began to slacken. A few moments more and it had stopped altogether. But not in the usual way. Each drop was now hanging in the air as if it had forgotten how to fall. He felt the drops collide with his face as he moved through them, like magic dew. Then, quite suddenly the drops began to fall again, but very slowly.

Up above, the clouds began to clear away. They revealed a host of bright, green stars. He heard the comforting call of a barn owl, and through the air it came, silent and huge and white and incredibly slow, as if swimming through the rain-washed air. It shattered the drops in its path and passed so close to him that he could have reached out to touch it. He saw every detail of each wonderful feather on its wings before it vanished. The sight of it astonished him, then all at once they were going along again, and it was as if they had walked out from the region of bewitched rain in a dream, because now the ground was stony and broken and dry as dust. The foot of the sorcerer’s staff was beating a rhythmic toc-toc-toc on what seemed to be a trackway. Will wandered towards it through the still faintly glowing land, while his mind bubbled and fizzed. Another enchantment had been laid on him, he knew that much. And was that not another very good reason to mistrust this dangerous man?

And yet – what if he was telling the truth about that greater danger?

‘Who’s Beltane?’ he asked at last. ‘What did you mean when you said “this son of Beltane”? Is Beltane my real father?’

Gwydion grunted, seemingly amused by the question. A crescent moon had begun to rise, low and large and ruddy in the east. ‘How much you have to learn. Beltane is not a person, it is a day. It lies between the equinox of spring and the solstice of summer. Beltane is what you in the Vale call Cuckootide, and what others call “May Day”. It’s a special day, the day that gave you birth.’

‘Who are my real parents?’ He said it almost without thinking, and like a painful thorn it was suddenly out. ‘Please tell me.’

‘Willand, I cannot tell you.’

‘But you must!’

‘I cannot because I do not know.’

‘I don’t believe you!’

‘I would not lie about it.’

But Will could not let it go. ‘Where did you find me, then? Tell me that.’

It seemed Gwydion would give no answer, but then he said, ‘When I found you, you were only a day or two old.’

‘But where did you find me? Who was there?’

The stranger halted. ‘No one was there. Willand – you had been left to die.’

The shock of that answer flowed through his heart like icy water. He let the sorcerer turn away and walk on, while his mind wandered numbly. Who would leave a little baby to die? What reason could there possibly have been? What was wrong with me?

The stranger came back, made a sign over Will’s forehead and muttered powerful words until the numbness dissolved and he was hardly able to recall the questions that had so troubled him. After that, the journey was like floating through the silent night. He watched the moon rise ever higher in the south-east. Gradually it lost its rosy glow and began to shine chalk white in a clear and star-spangled sky. For some time now a grey light had been seeping in from the east, and when Will next closed his eyes he found that the faelight had left him.

He marvelled at the low, flat skyline: there was so much more sky on the Tops than ever there had been in the Vale. Land stretched as far as the eye could see. It made a man feel like standing straighter and breathing deeper. He looked ahead. Far away the rich brown soil had been tilled and planted. Nearer by there was a shallow ridge and a slope. To the south the land dropped down into a broad valley, and on the far side it rose again in forest. The dawn was coming faster now, a power that would soon send unstoppable rays searching over the land. Already the glimmers revealed tussocky chases beside the trackway, pale stone clothed in a thin flesh of loam and cloaked in green. There were patches of woodland here too, and plenty of folds hereabouts where someone who wanted to make a run for it might choose to hide…

That idea brought his scattered thoughts up sharply. He had almost forgotten about escaping. He had walked all night, yet he was neither hungry nor tired. But things were changing. The faelight was gone and now the sensation in his legs had almost drained away too. His braids swung encouragingly at his cheek, and he put a hand to them. The Realm was indeed a bigger and stranger place than ever he had thought.

I won’t be able to find my way back if we go much further, he thought. I’ll have to make my break now, before it’s too late! But carefully, he warned himself. This Master Gwydion may have done me no harm as yet, but he’s a lot more dangerous than he tries to seem. Still, I’ll bet he can’t run as fast as me, nor aim his night-magic so well in full daylight. I’ll bide my time then – off! With a bit of luck his hood will stay up and he won’t even see me go.

He glanced to left and right. The old, straight track as it ran over the Tops was broken. It rose and fell no more than the height of a man in a thousand paces now, and it kept to high ground where the skin of the land was pulled tightest over its bones. There were sheep droppings among the grass, and coney burrows too. Grey stones outcropped here and there along the trackway, and Will hung back as far as he dared, wondering if these old stones might not be the remains of giants’ houses set beside the ancient road. Tilwin had once said that beyond the Vale there were houses and castles built of stone, wondrous ruins that had lasted since the days of the First Men…

Thinking no more about it, Will tore suddenly away and ran down the slope. Once out of sight he went as fast as he could, jinking over the tussocks like a hare, looking once, twice, over his shoulder to check that the sorcerer had not missed him. Only when he was sure did he dive down behind a hillock and lie pressed hard against the ground.

From here he could see where the track wound onward, and soon he spied a tiny, dark figure continuing along the track in the distance, wrapped up in his cloak and seemingly deep in thought. Will exulted. He’ll never find me now, he told himself, lying on his back among the moss until he had got his breath back. His clothes were still damp from the rain and he began to feel a certain weariness seeping into his joints, but none of that mattered. He was free. He would lie low until the sorcerer had gone. Then he would find a way home.

He thought of opening the bundle of sweetcakes that was lodged inside his jerkin, but decided against it. He might have greater need of them before the day was done. But thinking about the sweetcakes made him remember his mother and a lonely feeling crept over him. She’s not my mother, he thought. Though I don’t know how a real mother could have loved me any better.

He took out the fish-shaped talisman and turned it over in his fingers. He could not read what was written on it, yet still its touch comforted him. His feelings towards Breona and Eldmar had not changed, but now there were gaping questions where once there had been certainties.

A male blackbird looking for breakfast turned one wary yellow-rimmed eye on him and began clucking at him as if he was a cat. Will told it to hush, but the bird fled in noisy distress, and he wondered if the sorcerer was alert enough to have noticed it. Then the ground began to tremble and tear. He turned to look behind him and saw a huge grey-green shape that had begun to rise up from what he had thought was a small hill. The hill looked like a man’s back, but the shoulders were as broad as a barn door and the skin filthy and warty like a toad’s. Dread seized him and held him in its grip. He tried to yell, but the air was already filled with groans.

The creature was getting to its feet. It rose up from its hollow in the ground like a boulder being forced from its bed, and it carried on rising until it was as tall as the May Pole. Two immense legs were each as far around as an oak. And the body was built in proportion, with two heavily muscled arms. But it was the hairless head that was most terrifying – ugly and gross-featured, with a wide mouth filled with uneven, soil-brown teeth, a bone-hooded brow and bulbous, penetrating eyes.

Terror swarmed through Will. He could neither stand nor run, only stare until every self-preserving thought was blotted from his mind. But as the monster turned on him, he yelped and scrambled to get away. His arms and legs would not work fast enough, but then the monster’s eyes fixed hard on him. It let out a deep-roaring bellow and began to step forward. Each of its footfalls shook the land. It came so close that he could smell the earthy stink of its breath and feel the closeness of its hands.

Somehow Will ran clear of those flailing arms. He bolted along the trackway, never pausing to look back, certain that if the monster caught him it would eat him alive. His braids banged against his ear as he ran. When at last he did look over his shoulder, he saw that a great stone had been wrenched up from the ground. It was hurled through the air, bounced and blundered past him like a great wooden ball pitched at a skittle. Finally, it came to rest at the very place where a little while ago he had schemed to make his escape.

When Will saw the distant figure of the sorcerer by the brow of the next hill, he flew to him. The old man was continuing in the same way, his staff beating a steady toc-toc-toc over the stones. Will’s heart was bursting, his lungs gasping for air as he shouted his warning.

‘Master Gwydion! Master Gwydion!’ His hands grasped at the sorcerer’s much-patched cloak as he tried to get his words out. ‘A gi – a gi—! A giant coming!’

The sorcerer stopped, put a hand on Will’s head and smiled. ‘Alba will not harm you so long as you do nothing to harm that which he holds dear.’

‘He – he’s trying to kill me!’

‘Then stay close to me, for I am his friend. One day you will be glad that the flesh of this land is his flesh. But come now. The new day is brightening and we have yet to reach the Evenlode Bridge.’

Gwydion walked on, unconcerned. But the terror was still fresh in Will. He felt it rattling inside him as he plucked up the courage to look back again. There was nothing to see now, nothing except what might be the long shadow of an outcrop thrown across the track by the golden light of the newly-risen sun. As for the great boulder that had been hurled after him, it was there – a lone standing stone that looked as if it had been sitting by the side of the track for fifty generations.

It was a trick! Will told himself with sudden outrage. Just an evil sorcerer’s trick! And I believed it!

But a bigger part of him was not so easily persuaded that it had been a trick, and so he hurried to catch up.

CHAPTER THREE TO THE TOWER OF LORD STRANGE

By now it was late morning, yet they had seen no other person along their path. Folk must be dwelling close by, Will thought, for someone must work these fields, and once or twice I’ve seen the thatch of houses in the distance. Maybe we’re going the quiet way on purpose.

After walking down off the Tops and some way into the broad valley that lay ahead, Will halted. ‘I can’t take another step,’ he croaked.

The sorcerer seemed uncomfortable that they should stop here. He gave Will a hard look. ‘We will rest. But not in this place.’ Then he did a strange thing: he drew a little stick from his sleeve and twisted it over the ground, walking back and forth as if testing for something until they had gone a few hundred paces further on.

When he saw Will watching him, he said, ‘Do not be afraid, it is only scrying. Do you see how the hazel wand moves? It helps me feel out the power that flows in the land.’

Will stared back mutely, and the sorcerer carried on. The place he eventually chose for them to rest was an oblong enclosure of cropped grass about as big as Nether Norton’s green. It was surrounded by a grassy earth bank a little higher than a man’s head. Weathered standing stones guarded its four corners, sticking up like four grey teeth. Will had no idea who might have laboured to build such a place, or why, for as a sheep pen it would have been very poor. But as he let the feel of it seep into his bones he had the idea that this was ancient ground and very much to be respected. It did feel good to sit here as the swallows looped and swooped high overhead, but he also sensed an echo of distant doings – dark events – that seemed to run through the land.

Gwydion watched him closely. ‘Long ago, Willand, this was a famous stronghold. Here it was that, eighty generations ago, Memprax the Tyrant conspired with his brother, Malin, to gain the Realm. And when the Realm was won Memprax murdered Malin in his bed, and thereafter ruled as a despot. I remember it all as if it was yesteryear.’

Will looked at the sorcerer with astonishment, for who but an immortal could remember events that had taken place eighty generations ago? The thought made him uneasy. He took out and opened his bundle of sweetcakes, chose the smaller one for himself and offered the other.

‘That was kindly done,’ Gwydion said. ‘And in return you shall have this.’ He picked up a pebble, and offered it.

‘What is it?’

‘As you see, a pebble. But a very fine pebble. Or do you think otherwise?’