by T.A. Barron
Just then my staff slid off the stone. I reached down among the grasses to fetch it—when something pricked the back of my hand. I jumped, startling Rhia so much that both of us nearly tumbled off.
At that instant, I started to laugh. I lowered my hand into the grass. And I picked up the little hedgehog, stroking his bristly back.
7: STONE CIRCLE
Through most of the following day, we trekked north through Drama Wood. Thanks to Rhia’s knowledge of the hidden pathways made by fox paws and deer hooves, we covered much ground. And quickly. Only twice did our speed slacken: in crossing a thick stretch of thorny brambles, as high as our hips in places, that ripped our clothing and raked our shins; and in climbing a buttress of rock whose shadowed face already wore a slick layer of ice.
Most of the time, though, Rhia’s relentless pace left me breathless. She charged up hills, leaped across rivulets, and ran effortlessly through glades of oak, beech, and hemlock. Half deer herself she seemed, as I struggled to keep up with her. Whenever she spotted some tangy mushrooms or sweet berries, I felt doubly grateful—since they staved off our hunger and also gave us a chance to pause.
Yet I never complained about our pace. Urnalda’s urgent plea still rang in my ears. Time leaned on me, as heavily as a toppled tree. If only I could get there faster! And if only I had a better idea what to do once I arrived.
Early that afternoon, we entered a grove of cedars that skirted the base of a hillside. Suddenly, the wind grew stronger. Branches waved wildly, slapping and scraping. Trunks twisted and moaned. Rhia halted, listening intently to the cacophony around us, looking grimmer by the minute.
At length, she turned to me. “The trees—I’ve never heard them so agitated before.”
“What are they saying?”
“Turn back! Over and over they keep saying the boy of the wizard’s staff will . . .” She paused, working her tongue. “Will die. As surely as a sapling smothered in flames.”
I cringed, touching the still-tender scars on my face. “But I can’t turn back. If I don’t face Valdearg, then you and everyone else—including every tree in this forest—will have to face him. The Druma will be a graveyard.” The spicy scent of cedar pricked my nostrils. “If I must die, though, I only wish . . .”
I paused, listening to the clacking and creaking of the trees. “That I could be certain I will slay him, too.”
Rhia’s gray-blue eyes narrowed, but she said nothing.
“The question,” I said gravely, “is how. I’m not ready to battle a dragon. Let alone slay one! Never will be, probably. Not after what happened . . . back there at the rowan. No, I’m still just the boy of the wizard’s staff. Not a true wizard.”
A branch snapped just above us, splintering as it struck the ground at our feet. Rhia, biting her lip, turned to go. Buried in my thoughts, I followed.
In time, the sound of our boots squelching through muddy soil replaced the wailing of the branches. Puddles filled every path. Trees grew sparser, except for the whitened skeletons of those whose roots had long ago drowned. Water birds whistled in the rising mist, while the first traces of a rotting smell fouled the air.
I turned to Rhia as we walked. “Is this the great swamp at the Drama’s northern edge? Or a different one?”
She planted her boot of woven bark against a mound of peat, testing its firmness before plodding across. “It’s part of the great swamp. But more than that I can’t say. We’re much farther east than the stretch I usually cross, since I took the most direct route. I thought it would save some time.” Her voice dropped. “I hope I was right.”
The mud sucked at my boots. “So do I.”
The swamp, I knew, was not the only treacherous land ahead. When we reached the other side, we would find the fog-laden gullies of the living stones. Too often I had heard tales of travelers whose legs, arms, or heads had been suddenly removed from their bodies, crushed in jaws of rock. Nor could I shake the memory of the time when the lips of a living stone had nearly swallowed my own hand.
We began sloshing through a flooded stretch, stepping over decaying trunks and branches. By the time we reached a thick stretch of bog grasses, the sun had vanished behind a sheath of clouds. I looked over my shoulder at the western horizon. Rhia glanced in the same direction, then at me.
“Clouds are gathering, Merlin. There won’t be any stars to guide us tonight. If we haven’t reached the other side before nightfall, we’ll need to rely on your second sight to find our way.”
I took a deep breath, though the air reeked of things rotting. “That’s not what worries me. It’s what lives in this swamp. And what stirs after dark.”
Silently, we trekked on, slogging through water up to our knees. In the waning light, strange sounds began to bubble up from the bog. From one side came a thin, unsteady hum; from behind us, a sudden splash—though we whirled around to see nothing. Then a thwack, and a screech of pain, as if someone’s skull had been split. Soon the darkening mists echoed with distant wailing.
Without warning—something slithered past my shin. I jumped, leaving behind my boot in the process. Whatever it was quickly vanished, but we lost several minutes extracting my boot from the muck.
Sunset came and went without any change in the gloom. As dusk deepened around us, the wild sounds swelled. Suddenly Rhia stumbled, falling into a reeking pool. When she climbed out, I saw a huge leech, as long as my forearm, clinging to the dripping leaves on her back. It squirmed toward her neck. With a swipe of my staff, I knocked it away. The creature hissed shrilly before landing with a splash.
The light faded steadily. I began probing with my staff to help us avoid pits of quicksand—and whatever else lurked in the depths. We slogged on, trying always to head northward. But how could we keep our bearings without sun, moon, or stars? Each stumble, each twist in the route, took its toll. Merely staying together proved more difficult by the minute.
In the deepening darkness, strange shapes, twisting and writhing, rose out of the marsh. At first I tried to convince myself they were nothing but gasses bubbling up from below. Or shadows—a trick of the waning light. But their ghoulish forms didn’t move like gasses. Or shadows. They moved . . . like things alive.
The shapes began sighing, almost weeping. Then came sudden cries of anguish—cries that jabbed like icicles in my ears. As fast as we tramped, the shapes pressed closer. A hand, or what seemed to be a hand, grasped at my tunic. I dodged it, nearly tripping in the process.
Just then, in the near blackness, I detected a vague, sloping contour ahead. But for the high mound in its center, it looked as rounded as the back of a great turtle. An island! Though the writhing shapes hampered my vision, the island seemed devoid of life.
“Rhia,” I called. “An island!”
She halted. “Are you sure?”
“Looks that way.”
She leaped to the side to avoid one of the shapes. “Let’s go, then! Before these things—get away, you! —drown us in the muck.”
Taking her by the elbow, I rushed forward. The shapes writhed more frantically, swirling about us, but we eluded them. Finally, we reached the edge of the island. While the wailing cries continued, we trudged ashore, leaving the eerie shapes behind.
Total darkness embraced us as we climbed higher. Despite the squelching of slick vines underfoot, the land seemed fairly dry. And solid. With my second sight, I surveyed the area. Only the massive mound, brooding and mysterious, broke the island’s smooth surface.
“Nothing lives here,” I noted. “Not even a lizard. Why, do you think?”
Rhia stretched her back wearily. “I don’t know. I’m just glad those things aren’t here.”
I approached the mound. It was, I realized, a great boulder, about as high as a young oak tree. I froze. “There are no living stones around here, are there?”
“No. They keep to the higher ground, in the hills beyond. Here, in the swamp, we have other creatures to worry about.”
Cautiously, I drew n
earer to the boulder. I tapped it with my staff. A flake of moss broke off, spinning lazily to the ground. I placed my hand upon the surface, leaning into it until I felt certain of its solidity. Its stoneness.
“Well, all right,” I declared. “But it still seems odd—a huge boulder, sitting all by itself in the middle of a swamp like this. As if someone placed it here for some sort of reason.”
Rhia squeezed my arm. “If it’s all by itself, then at least you can be sure it’s not a living stone. They always travel in groups, five or six together.” She yawned. “Merlin, I’m about to drop. How about a little rest? Until dawn?”
“I suppose so.” I yawned myself. “We’re not going back out there until the light returns anyway. Go ahead and rest. I’ll take the first watch.”
“You’ll stay alert?” She waved at the swamp, whose chorus of harrowing sounds continued. “We don’t want any visitors.”
“Don’t worry.”
In unison, we collapsed at the base of the boulder. Tired though I was, I propped myself stiffly against the rock, determined to stay awake. A sharp knob pushed into the tender spot between my shoulder blades, but I didn’t move. Better to have the security of something solid behind me. No more swamp creatures would surprise us this night.
Rhia, stretched out by my feet, gave my ankle a squeeze. “Thanks for taking the first watch. I’m not used to having someone look after me on a trek.”
I grunted wearily. “That’s because nobody can keep up with you on a trek.” Then I added, “It’s our mother, I’m afraid, who needs looking after. She must be so lonely right now.”
“Mother?” Rhia rolled to her side. “She’s upset, worried sick about us probably—but not lonely. She has Cairpré. He’ll stick to her like resin to pine.”
“Do you really think so?” My fingers slid down the shaft of my staff. “He always has so much to do. I thought he would get her settled somewhere, then go on his way.”
Rhia’s laughter joined the noises bubbling out of the swamp. “Haven’t you noticed what’s been happening to them? Really! You must be as thick as this boulder to have missed it.”
“No,” I snapped. “I haven’t missed anything. You’re not telling me they . . . well, have some interest in each other, are you?”
“No. They’re well beyond that already.”
“You think they’re falling in love?”
“That’s right.”
“Come now, Rhia! You’re dreaming even before you’ve fallen asleep. That sort of thing doesn’t happen to . . . well . . .”
“Yes?”
“To mothers! At least not to our mother.”
She giggled. “Sometimes, dear brother, you amaze me. I do believe you’ve been so wrapped up in your training the past few months that you’ve missed the whole thing. Besides, falling in love could happen to anyone. Even you.”
“Oh, sure,” I scoffed. “Next you’ll try to convince me that we’ll find a tasty meal in a pool of quicksand.”
A despairing sigh was her only response. “I’m too tired to convince you of anything right now. In the morning, if you like, I’ll enlighten you.”
Tempted as I was to reply, I held my tongue. Right now we needed to rest. I adjusted my back against the boulder. Enlighten me, indeed. How could she be so sure of herself?
Even as I grumbled silently about Rhia, I stretched my second sight all the way across the island. Nothing stirred; nothing approached. The night progressed, full of the ongoing cacophony of the swamp. Yet no creatures joined us on this shore. I began to wonder whether the boulder itself might somehow deter visitors, though I could not understand why. Still, in an eerie way, it seemed more than it appeared.
Perhaps it was some quality of the rank air of the marsh, or the result of my own exhaustion. Or perhaps it was some silent magic of the living stone itself. Whatever the cause, it was only when I felt Rhia’s hand pulling wildly on my foot that I realized that I had been swallowed by a mouth of stone.
And by then it was too late.
8: CIRCLE STONE
First, silence.
No wind whispering, no swamp voices echoing, no gasses bubbling. No shrieking, chattering, or hissing. No thumping of my living heart. No whooshing of my very breath.
No sound. No sound at all.
What sound can I remember? Quickly! I must not forget. The stream we crossed this morning? Yes! I heard it long before I saw it. Spraying sound as well as vapor, it pounded down the banks. Ice, touched by the first finger of dawn, crackled and burst. Water spilled and splashed, thrummed and gurgled, singing like a chorus of curlews.
Yet . . . this silence, so complete, so enormous, slowly overwhelms the singing. With each passing moment, the sound of the stream grows more distant. I begin to hear instead the quiet, in all its richness. Soft enough to roll in, deep enough to swim in. No more clanging, no more dissonance. Only silence. Who could desire more than to hear the heartbeat of the void?
I could! I must struggle to remember. I must. Yet all the sounds I would remember feel so separate, so strangely far away.
Second, darkness.
Light is gone. Or never existed? Oh, but it did! I can still call it back, still see its glow. Luminous. Eternal. First light on the clouds, radiant footsteps ascending the sky. A gleam on the horizon, a flame on the candle, a tremble on the star. And another kind of light, bright in the eyes: Rhia laughing, Mother knowing, Cairpré probing.
Still, darkness pulls on me, coaxes me to sleep, to let go. Why fight for the wavering flame? So easily it fails, returns to the dark. So gracefully the night ever follows the day. Darkness is all; all is darkness.
Light! Where are you? I am so lost . . . so frightened . . .
Third, stillness.
As long as I can move, I am alive. As long as I can feel—the wind against my cheeks, the earth under my toes, the petal between my fingers. Yet all I feel now is hardness. Everywhere. Closing in, crushing me. Move, fingers! Move, tongue! They do not respond. They do not exist. Gone are my bones. My blood. My flesh. Squeezed into nothingness.
I cannot move, cannot feel, cannot even breathe. Whatever is left of me is pressed and condensed. I long to snap like a whip, to spin like a leaf. Yet, even more, I long to rest. To be still.
Now I hear only silence. I see only darkness. I feel only stillness. I begin to accept, to understand, to become. I am solid and strong; I have the patience of a star. I am ageless, unyielding.
For now I am stone.
Almost. Something remains of that former self, that former me. I cannot touch it—cannot name it—yet it stays with me still. Down, deep down, in the center of my core. Too small to see; too large to hold. Snarling. Flaming. Twisting. It prods me to remember. To escape if I can! I have a longing. A life. A self. Yes, I can still hear my own voice, even as another, ancient voice swells around me, urging me to let go of all the rest.
Be stone, young man. Be stone and be one with the world.
No! I am too much alive, even now, encircled in rock. I want to change, to move, to do all the things stones cannot.
You know so little, young man! A stone comprehends the true meaning of change. I have dwelled deep within the molten belly of a star, sprung forth aflame, circled the worlds in a comet’s tail, cooled and hardened over eons of time. I have been smashed by glaciers, seized by lava, swept across undersea plains—only to rise again to the surface upon a flowing river of land. I have been torn apart, cast aside, uplifted and combined with stones of utterly different origins. Lightning has struck my face, quakes have ripped my feet. Yet still I survive, for I am stone.
And I answer: I want to know you. Nay, more than that, I want to be you! But . . . I cannot forget who I was. Who I am. There are things I must do, living stone!
What is this strange magic that surrounds you, young man? That makes you resist me? You should have succumbed to my strength long ago.
I know not. I only know that my own self clings to me still, even as clusters of moss cling to you.
Come. Join me. Be stone!
I yearn even now to join you. To feel your depth; to know your strength. And yet . . . I cannot.
Ah, the stories I could tell you, young man! If only you would release yourself completely, allow yourself to harden. Then I could share with you all that I know. For a stone, while separate, is never far from the mountains and plains and seas of its birth. A stone’s power springs not from itself alone, but from all that surrounds, all that connects.
I want to learn from you, living stone. Truly, I do. Yet I want still more to live the life I was born to live. Though it may be futile, and fleeting—it is nonetheless mine. You must set me free!
You are a strange one, young man. Although I have very nearly destroyed you, I cannot seem to consume you. There is something in you I cannot reach, cannot crush. That leaves, I am saddened to say, but one possibility.
What is that?
It is not the best for you, nor the best for me. Yet it is, alas, my only choice.
9: SMOKE
With a thud, I landed on my back on the ground at the base of the living stone. Although Rhia’s sudden shriek would normally have chilled my blood, I was glad to hear it. I was glad to hear anything at all.
“Merlin!” She threw her arms around me and squeezed.
“Not so hard, will you?” I wriggled free, patting my sore chest. It ached, as did my arms, legs, and back. Even my ears. In fact, I felt as if one gigantic bruise covered my whole body. Then, seeing Rhia’s tear-stained face, so relieved, so thankful, I beckoned her to embrace me again.
She gladly accepted the invitation—more gently this time. “How?” she blurted. “How did you do it? I’ve never heard of a living stone releasing anyone it’s caught.”
Despite my sore cheeks, I grinned. “Most people don’t taste as bad as I do.”
