[A Dream of Eagles 01] - The Skystone

by Jack Whyte (ebook by Undead)

  Plautus smiled a wicked smile. "General Britannicus, how firm are you on the old disciplines?"

  "Completely."

  "Then I'm with you." He smiled that wicked smile again. "So! There's your first priority: defence. How many forts do you think we'll need?"

  Caius's tone was confident. "One will suffice for now. The others can come later. As we grow stronger."

  Plautus nodded, accepting this. "Then you think we will grow stronger?"

  "I know it."

  "Good. What next?"

  "After defences?" Caius looked around his listeners, catching each man's eye before continuing. "People. We have to start planning for our future needs. We will need builders, stonemasons, bakers, weavers, thatchers, barrelmakers and a hundred other tradesmen."

  Tonius Cicero interrupted. "What about control? In the sense of law, I mean. Government. Have you thought about that?"

  "I have. I would like to see a Council established, exactly like the ancient Senate."

  There was a murmur of approval. Our start had been well made. The rest of the night was given over to planning in more detail. The more we talked, the greater grew the problems we foresaw, and yet, in spite of that, our vision grew apace with them, and our thinking became the more ambitious.

  Plans were made to buy up surrounding villas and to link them all defensively as soon as possible. We knew we had time to measure in years, but we could not bank on even one decade.

  Lists were compiled of all the skilled people we would need to make us self-supporting, and each man there was alert from that time on to finding men of the calibre we sought. Before the discussion ended, everyone present was sworn to secrecy in the knowledge that, until the day came when the legions left, our entire scheme was treasonous. Talking carelessly of it could mean death for everyone concerned.

  By the time the wedding feast came to an end four days later, others had been recruited, and each man who knew our plans took home with him a dream of hope for the future. Each knew that the safety and well-being of his entire family lay in his own hands. And each had already begun to plan how he would transport his worldly goods to Caius's Colony when the time came. There were heartfelt smiles and handclasps at the time of parting.

  XXVI

  On the morning after the last of our guests left, I was up with the larks and away into the Mendip Hills alone, not even wishing to share this visit with Equus. I left my wife abed, smiling with smug satisfaction, while my own mind concentrated singularly on the search for my skystones.

  Now that all the festivities were over, I was frustrated and impatient. The stones I had found were all too small. They were far from tiny, but none of them was large enough to offer me any great hope of being able to smelt heavenly metals from them. I felt strongly that there was something in the Valley of the Dragons, as we had come to call it, that I was missing — something that lay just beyond my vision, or just beyond my comprehension. More than three months had gone by since my last visit, and I was hoping that the time lag would enable me to see the valley with new eyes.

  My hope was fulfilled that day in a way that I could not have dreamed of. The information my eyes relayed to my brain was so startling and so overwhelming that I did not trust myself to believe the evidence of my own senses. I rode back to the villa at breakneck speed, almost choking on my excitement.

  It was dark by the time I got back. I leaped from my horse before its hooves stopped clattering on the cobblestones of the courtyard and shouted a greeting to my wife, who came running to welcome me home. We bathed together and I told her of my discoveries, and then for a long time we made little noise.

  It must have been approaching the tenth hour when I entered Caius's cubiculum and found him reading by the light of two bright lamps. I was surprised to find him there, for I had presumed him abed long since. He was immersed in Ovid's Art of Love and feeling, he told me later, mildly nostalgic for the vanished pleasures of youth.

  "Caius? Am I disturbing you?"

  He looked up with pleased surprise. "No, not at all! It is a pleasure to see you back on your feet again."

  I felt the blankness of incomprehension on my face. "What?"

  "I said it's good to see you up and around again. Marriage makes more men take to their beds than illness ever will."

  "Ohh!" I smiled, suddenly self-conscious. "I see what you mean."

  "Come in. Sit down and pay no attention to me. I was merely tweaking your nose. Perhaps I am growing jealous of your youth."

  "Are you so old, then, General? So suddenly?"

  "Don't call me that. I'm old enough to know what I can do and what I'll never do again, my friend. What have you done today?"

  "Caius —"

  I started to blurt out what it was I had to tell him, but then I restrained myself. He watched me clench my lips and inhale deeply through my nostrils. Then I bit down on my breath and expelled the air explosively between my lips, the way a horse does. Caius waited, patient as always, for me to arrange my thoughts in order. Finally, I began speaking, feeling that I had the right words.

  "I wanted to come to you with this as soon as I got back, but I was — distracted — as you have observed."

  He smiled. "Where is she now, that your distraction has faded?"

  "Asleep. Caius, what had you planned to do tomorrow?"

  "Nothing that cannot be changed. What do you have in mind for me to do?"

  "Could you stand the journey up into the hills with me? There's something I would like to show you. I need your advice."

  "I can think of nothing I would enjoy more. What do you have to show me?"

  I shook my head. "I would rather not say, right now. You might think I had lost my wits. But it's important. I think I'm right. In fact, I know I'm right. But I haven't got the courage yet to back up my conviction. That's why I want you to see this for yourself, and to advise me. If I'm wrong, and I could be, I'd feel very foolish."

  The Britannican eyebrow was up. "You intrigue me, Publius. This sounds fascinating. I can hardly wait to see what it is. Will I recognize it?"

  "I hope so, Caius. I hope so!"

  "It has to do with your skystones, obviously."

  "Yes, it does."

  He raised his thumb and forefinger to the sides of his mouth, pinching his lower lip outward and downward, as though wiping away dried crumbs from a recent meal. "I saw some of them this morning, in the smithy. Equus told me what they were. I was hoping to talk to you about them."

  "What were you doing in the smithy? You don't often go down there."

  He smiled and told me what he had done that morning.

  Apparently the villa had been as quiet as a tomb that day, after all the preceding weeks of hurly-burly, and Caius had been hard put to remind himself that this was normal. He had prowled the grounds like a lost soul, angry at himself for having slept later than usual and losing some precious hours. Then he found out I had been gone since dawn, up into the hills, and that increased his bad temper, for some reason. Luceiia, he said, had tried to be nice to him over breakfast but knew her brother well enough to see that he was in one of his most foul frames of mind and left him to his own devices.

  He had spent two fruitless and frustrating hours trying to write, but found himself too volatile to concentrate for any length of time on what he was about, and eventually, some time after noon, he had found himself in the smithy, watching Equus pounding a glowing ingot.

  Equus had looked up and seen him standing there, and had greeted him, calling him "Gen'ral!" He had picked that up from me.

  They had exchanged pleasantries for a while, and then Equus had returned to his work, leaving Caius to his own devices. Caius had then walked to the back of the smithy and idly examined the bizarre-looking stones that lay there on the shelf along the wall.

  "Funny-looking things, aren't they?" Equus's voice had startled him.

  "What are?" he'd asked.

  "Them skystones."

  Only then had Caius realized wh
at he was looking at, for I had kept them secret even from him, so keen was my disappointment in their size. Now he examined them more closely. There were seven of them, ranging in size from the smallest, about the size of a new-born baby's head, to the largest, which was the size of a half-grown boy's head. They were all the same kind of stone, a heavy, dull grey-black. And all of them were smooth: not the worn smoothness of a watered pebble, but more of a glassy texture. He had picked up one of the intermediate ones and hefted it, thinking that, if I were correct, this thing had fallen from the sky! His logical Roman mind told him that was impossible. Everything must come from somewhere, so where had it. fallen from?. Caius knew, as every child knows, that in order for something to come down from high in the air, it first has to be put up into the air. But the weight of this thing, he realized as he held it, made the thought of its being hurled upwards from the earth into the sky more than ludicrous. It was impossible. He knew how high and how far the strongest catapult could throw such a stone. He had seen his own armies hurl them, and they never were lost from sight. So how could this thing have fallen from the sky, on fire, as he knew I believed, and struck the earth with such ferocity that it could bury itself and throw up a ring of earth twelve or more feet across?

  And yet, as he admitted to me that night, its surface did seem as though it had been melted at some time. And he knew I had dug it up from the middle of one of my "dragon's nests." At least, he thought he knew that.

  At this point in his recital, Caius stopped and looked at me, waiting for me to say something. I did not know what he expected, so I shrugged.

  "That is correct. I dug it up from a dragon's nest. What are you struggling with, Caius?"

  He shook his head in bewilderment. "I don't know, Publius. All my education tells me that what you are asking me to believe is impossible. And yet you stand there facing me with all the confidence of an augurer who has just pulled a rotting heart from a healthy chicken. Until I see metal from these stones, I will never be able to accept your contention that they fell from the sky. And even then, I feel constrained to point out, any credence I give to the matter will be based strongly upon nothing more than my faith in your peculiar style of madness." He paused for a short space. "But, as I say, your positive results have me mystified. What is it that you want me to look at tomorrow?"

  The following forenoon found us high on the hill overlooking the valley of my dragons. There were only three of us — Caius, Equus and me — and Caius, at least, had enjoyed the ride up into the hills.

  "So, Publius, this is the valley of the famous dragon's nests. I had forgotten how magnificent it is." He nodded towards a newly dug hole in the hillside. "I presume that is one of them?"

  "Yes. And there's another down there to your left. And one more to your right, across there. Seven of them in all, General."

  "Seven. I can see only four. And each of them has yielded you a skystone?"

  "Yes."

  "So what is worrying you? Are there no more?"

  "Oh, there's more. I've found ten that I haven't dug for yet. But they are all too small." I hawked and spat. "The largest of the seven I have came from the largest 'nest' I could find. The nests are really impact rings, thrown up by the force of the stones' landing. The biggest of those is twelve long paces across."

  "Twelve paces?" Caius began to gnaw his lower lip. "Varrus," he said at last, "I have to be honest. I know I've said this before, and I know you're probably sick of hearing it, but even if your stone did fall from the sky, my mind cannot grasp the prospect of a stone that small falling hard enough to blast an impression that big."

  "No more can mine, General." I tried hard to keep my voice impassive. "But the fact remains: it happened. Believe me. It fell. And it created that impact ring. Only God Himself can know where it came from. Perhaps it fell from a star. Perhaps it was a star!"

  Caius tutted disapproval. "Stars are light, Publius. These stones of yours are black."

  "They are now, Caius. But they fell as fire. Iron is black when it is cold, but heat it and it takes on a white and blinding brightness. And we are hampered by the fuel we have to heat it with! Given the fires of Heaven, who can tell how bright it might become?"

  I knew there was no answer for that. Caius stared at me in perplexity.

  "Anyway," I went on, "that is the biggest I am likely to find here, unless my guess today is correct. The stone my grandfather found was more than twice that size, and by the time he smelted it, he was left with just enough metal for a dagger and the best part of a sword. That's all."

  He was quick to see my chagrin. "But if you smelt all seven of them together? Would not that produce enough to fit your needs? And what of the other ten?"

  I shrugged. "Perhaps. Who knows? I have no way of knowing how much metal there is in such small stones. There might be none."

  Caius looked down into the valley again. "What was it that you wanted me to see?"

  "A dragon's nest, Caius, bigger than all the rest combined. A mighty dragon's nest."

  "Where? In the valley?"

  "Aye. In plain sight. But you must see it for yourself, with your own eyes. I cannot help you. If I did, I might not be convinced myself that you could truly see it. I looked at it for months, not knowing it was there. You know it is now. Find it for me, Caius. You too, Equus."

  Heeding the plea in my words, they began to scan the valley, and I watched them closely as they looked. I saw them discern each of the rings I had already found and identified with a cairn of stones, but nowhere could either of them see a mighty ring, try as they would. I watched Caius in particular as his gaze ranged the entire valley, from the raw cliff at one end to the lake tucked into the folding hillside at the other. He scanned each hill from top to bottom. Nothing.

  Finally he spoke again. "Are you sure what I am looking for is there, Publius?"

  "Aye," I said, with more confidence than I felt. "It is there. What I am not sure of is that it is what I think it is."

  "And I should be able to see it? Now?"

  "Correct."

  He tried again, sweeping from north to south, from east to west, again and again, not knowing what he was supposed to see. And then I saw him catch a shape from the corner of his eye, or an impression of a shape. He jerked to look, and it was gone. But it had been there, I knew it had been there, for I had seen the same thing the day be-fore.. l watched him move his eyes off slowly and held my breath, praying he would see it again. Then, from the quickening of his gaze, I knew he had found it again and recognized it for what it was. Now he looked straight at it and saw it clearly. Not a circle, but a segment of a circle— a clear-edged part of one. I watched his startled gaze adjusting to the size of it, and my heart began to beat faster.

  "The lake, Varrus," he whispered at last in a voice full of wonder. "The lake is a dragon's nest! But huge! Enormous!"

  I leaped from my horse and dragged him down from his, pinning him to my breast and swinging him around in triumph and shouting at the top of my voice.

  "I knew it, Caius! I knew you would see it! The lake is it! A huge bowl full of water! Not circular, because the hillside absorbed much of the shock. And the debris and boulders blocked the flow of water down through the valleys below, and turned the impact ring into a lake!"

  I set him back on his feet and together we stared down at it.

  "And that explains the cattle, too," I added, suddenly realising the truth.

  Caius looked at me. "What cattle? What d'you mean?"

  "The dead cattle." I realized then that he had not heard that part of the story. "There was a herd of cattle, Jack apparently, in the valley the night the skystones landed. They were all killed, naturally enough, but there was something about it that didn't make sense. It bothered me. I thought it was highly unlikely that anyone would drive those animals all the way over the hills, into the valley, when the grazing was just as good on the other side." I nodded down again towards the lake.

  "But there's the answer. The valley m
ust have been open at that end before the cataclysm, so it would have been accessible to the cattle, offering shelter from the winds. The upheaval caused by the skystone blocked off the access and threw up the rim that now contains the lake."

  "But didn't Meric say there had always been a lake there?"

  "Aye, and there probably was. But it would have been smaller, and shallower. That's where the mud came from that coated everything the day after. The skystone must have blasted every drop of water and mud out of the lake and punched a deeper bed for it."

  I turned to Equus and he was gaping at both of us as though we had gone mad. Caius saw this too, and we both broke out in laughter.

  "Equus!" I asked him, "what's the matter? Can't you see it, man?"

  "Aye, I can see it. It's a massy lake! So what's all the excitement about? How will you find a skystone at the bottom of a lake? That's what I'd like to know."

  "The same way he found the others, Equus!" Caius was jubilant. "He will dig for it!"

  Now Equus knew that we were both quite mad. It was plain on his face. We fell about with laughter as he became completely confounded. Finally I took pity on him and pulled myself together enough to put his mind at ease.

  "Equus," I said gasping, "it's a simple matter of military engineering. We'll drain the lake, letting the water run down into the other valleys. Then, when the mud at the bottom of the lake has dried out, we'll dig up the skystone."

  Poor Equus! He was enormously relieved, and we soon sat down to eat the meal that we had brought with us. We had not brought much wine, but we were so light-headed that what we had was ample.

  XXVII

  The buck was magnificent — sleek, beautiful, graceful and not yet come to prime. He had emerged almost unnoticeably from the copse in the dawn light, solidifying magically from the low-lying mist and moving forward delicately, picking his way on tiptoe through the knee-high, dew-drenched grass of the meadow. His breath steamed visibly in the motionless air so that it seemed he was producing the mist by himself, and through the screen of young leaves that hid me from him, I could see water droplets hanging from his antlers like precious stones. Slowly, careful to make no sudden sound or motion, I drew my bowstring back towards my ear, feeling the tension of the braided sinew on my calloused fingertips and the long, lethal glide of the shaft of the iron-barbed arrow against my thumb. My drawing thumb touched my cheek and as it did so the buck froze, head up, ears forward, a perfect target. I closed one eye, sighting carefully.