The Language of Stones

by Robert Carter

  ‘Do you feel anything about the land here?’ Gwydion asked.

  ‘Uh…no.’

  ‘Are you sure? Do you not feel the least prickling in your feet?’

  ‘Nothing like that, Master Gwydion.’

  ‘Then let us go on.’

  They descended into the valley half a league and saw a ridge where a large stone tower stood. Will began to smell smoke. It was rising up greasy and acrid from the walled yards of the chapter house below.

  ‘That stink is their lard vats,’ Gwydion said. ‘Do you know they destroy every animal they collect in the tithe?’

  ‘Oh, no! Is that true?’ Will said, not wanting to believe. ‘What do they do that for?’

  ‘They eat the livers and drain the blood to make puddings. Then they grind the bones to make bread. But they keep the fat to boil up and make soap and candles for their rituals. They burn candles by the hundred.’

  ‘I can see why they would have to wash,’ he said, disgusted. ‘But why would men with no eyes want to make candles?’

  ‘Their washing is not simple cleansing, Willand, for they are trying to wash away guilt. That is why folk call them “red hands”, for they wash endlessly. The longer their devotions, the redder their hands, for there is a kind of soda in their soap that breaks the skin and turns their fingernails into yellow claws. It is a sign of honour to them. As for the candles, they use them to light up vile pictures that hang inside their chapter houses. Those tall windows are glazed with obsidian, which is a black glass that admits only a dark brown gloom. It hides many horrors.’

  ‘But if they are sightless, why do they hang pictures up at all?’

  ‘It is thought they have some dull sense that replaces sight. It turns left into right as does a mirror.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because when recruits are first taken into the Fellowship they confuse right and left, as if their minds have been scrambled up by what has been done to them, or they are not yet used to their new way of seeing.’

  Will shivered, and Gwydion steered him down and past the quiet fishponds that stretched out to their left. Their path wound onto the ridge and ran close by a square tower on which four small stone spires had been set. The tower had been raised in the soft local stone, which was a dark brown colour and it had become fantastically patterned by pale green lichens, so that now the very fabric of the building seemed leprous. The chapter house beside it was also unwelcoming. Tall, blind windows rose over the high walls that surrounded it, and an ornate iron weathervane stood above the roofs, showing the sign of a white heart and the letters A, A, E and F for the four directions. Above the main door was a large letter E. And Will saw a series of other letters cut into the right side of the stone arch:

  NISLIN

  And into the left side:

  EROBAL

  He felt a wave of disquiet pass through him. ‘I don’t like it here.’

  ‘Have no fear, they will not approach us.’

  ‘I still don’t like it.’

  Gwydion looked with narrowed eyes at the rich estate. ‘Once they went as beggars, but now their poverty is in name only. A sham to deceive the churlish folk, for in truth they are feverish collectors of gold. Their houses and cloisters are most richly endowed, more richly than the lords whom they both serve and seek to control. Look how far these confiscators of the common treasury have led us from the true path!’

  Will followed Gwydion onward past the ghastly walls. He had heard enough tales of the Sightless Ones, and the memory of the dark-garbed Fellows who had groped about near those walled yards had already begun to make the hairs rise up on his neck. Nor was the feeling soothed by Gwydion who seemed determined to walk openly down their road and to pass as close by their front gate as he could. Will wondered why the wizard did not go the long way around, but he remained silent until they had left the place far behind.

  ‘They stole all the places of best aspect in the Realm for themselves and polluted them,’ the wizard said bitterly. ‘Too many sacred groves, cromlechs and dolmens did they lay to waste. They have no understanding or love of the land. They have succeeded only in making fine places ugly. They care only for gold and self-enrichment through the advancing of loans and the selling of empty promises. How greatly do I oppose and pity them.’

  As Will came to the top of the hill he saw they were standing on a watershed. From here the land drained eastward. Gwydion pointed to a grey smudge in the distance and said that was where the unfortunate village of Nadderstone had once stood. The village was no more than a ruin now, sinking back into the green earth.

  Gwydion studied the sky. ‘It is growing near the time,’ he said, and took out his Y-shaped hazel wand.

  ‘Can you feel anything?’ Will asked.

  ‘The natural flows of the earth are here. The patterns are strong. Feel them for yourself.’

  ‘I’d rather not,’ Will said. This seemed to him to be a place of bad aspect, and the nearness of the chapter house had unsettled him.

  Gwydion inclined his head and said firmly, ‘Here. Take the wand and do not be afraid. Scrying is harmless and I am here by your side.’

  He let himself be shown how to hold the hazel wand in the special inside-out grip that Gwydion always used, a branch held in each hand to make it point ahead. When he twisted his wrists the wand turned either up or down. He felt sweat begin to break out on his forehead as he stepped forward uncertainly.

  ‘Turn your elbows out. That is much better.’

  For the first few paces he felt nothing, so he stopped. Gwydion motioned him on, and he moved a little further, then he began to feel annoyance that there was nothing at all coming from the wand. ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to be trying to feel, Master Gwydion. Perhaps I should just stop now.’

  But he went on for a few paces more. Then a few dozen. Then a hundred. At last he let out a curse and said, ‘This isn’t working!’

  ‘Calmly, lad. You cannot see for looking! Do not force it. In scrying, serenity is your best friend.’

  Will took a deep breath, feeling a long way from serene. He took a dozen more self-conscious steps. Nothing. And again nothing. He held his arms just so, and fixed his eyes on the skyline ahead. He tried again, but then his mind began to wander more than his feet had.

  As soon as he stopped trying to feel, something odd moved inside him.

  ‘Oh!’ he cried. ‘I think…I think that was it!’

  Gwydion smiled and nodded at the way the wand had curled upward. ‘Ah! At last!’

  But whatever had made it happen had now disappeared. Will flexed his fingers and tried to compose himself once more. Having had the first experience he now knew what to expect, and was eager to feel it again. The sudden excitement had knocked him off balance. Then he noticed the faintest sensation, a tension rising across his chest. He held onto it very gently. It rose and fell as he walked a straight line, then his arm twitched and he lost the feeling. ‘It’s gone. But that was quite strong! I could feel it for fully six or seven steps!’

  ‘Now turn and come back towards me,’ Gwydion told him.

  He did, and felt the tension rise and fall once more. The trick, he realized, was not to try to feel for the earth flows directly, but to sense them as they were reflected as a pattern of feeling in his arms and chest.

  He yelped. There was no mistaking it now, nor the pattern it made in the meadow. After about twenty more steps he stopped. ‘I’ve walked across a flow!’ he said, grinning. ‘I could feel its edges! I could feel it flowing! It’s just like a stream!’

  Gwydion laughed with delight. ‘Now try to go along it.’

  ‘There it is again,’ he said, wandering away. ‘Now it’s going – but if I come back towards you again it rises.’

  ‘Ha ha! Now you are scrying!’

  Will felt hugely pleased with himself. The feeling was that of a flow coming up the wand, into his right arm, across his chest, down his other arm and back into the wand. If he concentrated too
hard he lost the feeling. Too little, and it faded away. Only when he was in just the right frame of mind and bodily tension could he detect the flow properly.

  As he walked along the earth flow the feeling slackened a little. It felt something like the time they were in the boat and moving up the river on an incoming tide. When he turned around he felt the flow in his chest reverse, and he knew he was walking back against the current.

  ‘This is wonderful!’ he said, marvelling at the feeling and how it seemed to move strongly in and around his heart.

  ‘It just takes practice.’

  ‘Are you sure this feeling isn’t anything to do with your magic?’ he asked, looking up.

  ‘It is none of my doing.’ Gwydion smiled, though he seemed thoughtful. ‘But you have a strange talent. Let me tell you – I have never seen anyone scry the way you do.’

  ‘But it’s fun!’ Will said, lost to the thrill of it. ‘I hope I’ll be able to remember how to do this tomorrow.’ He shaded his eyes and looked along the direction of the flow he had scried. ‘And this big one feels quite different to what’s going on above and around it. It’s…I don’t know how to explain it.’

  Gwydion looked to him. ‘Big one? Where? Show me.’

  But Will was more interested in what the hazel wand was telling him. ‘Do the deep flows always run in so straight a line?’

  ‘Deep you say?’ Gwydion asked, staring at him. ‘Straight? Are you sure of that?’

  ‘Why, yes, Master Gwydion. It’s as clear as clear can be. It’s like when you look at water when autumn leaves fall on it – you can see the leaves floating, but if you adjust your eyes you can see the bare trees reflected there too, as if there was another world upside down through the water.’

  ‘And the deep pattern? The trees? You can see them?’

  ‘It’s not so much trees, just a single straight line. The little pond back there, the chapter house and Nadderstone, all stand exactly on it – or so it seems to me.’

  ‘Straight…’ Gwydion said, his face unreadable.

  Will looked back the way they had come. ‘Stand over here. Feel it yourself. What’s the matter, Master Gwydion?’

  But the wizard did not move. He put a hand to his head like a man who had received a dazing blow. ‘I cannot,’ he said looking piercingly now at Will. ‘I cannot feel it. For there is no straight flow in nature.’

  ‘What do you mean, Master Gwydion?’

  ‘In the Black Book it was suggested that the ligns of the lorc run as straight as the rays of the sun, and by this we may know them.’

  ‘You mean…this is a lign?’ he said, disbelieving it. ‘Are you sure? But it’s easy to feel!’

  Gwydion’s face began to light up. ‘Oh, this is good. This is very good!’

  Will whooped and took the wizard’s arms and they began to dance around each other like mad men. But then Gwydion seized him. ‘Quickly!’ he said looking up at the sky. ‘We must make use of the time of power while it lasts!’

  ‘Do you think my talent might go away?’Will said staring after him.

  ‘No talent is ever constant. But that is not the reason. Come! The sun and moon move faster in their courses than men are accustomed to think!’

  Will hurried after the wizard. They went towards Nadderstone, following the line that he was feeling. Enormous confidence was running through him now, and Gwydion was exultant.

  By now they had come close to the ruins. Ravens cawed in the treetops nearby. Flies buzzed up from the tall grass as they approached. It was a sad and deserted place. The frames of the houses had been broken or burned black, and the last remnants of them were mouldering now in decay and overgrown with brambles.

  ‘Not much of the Black Book survives,’ Gwydion said. ‘But the fragments I have gathered have taught me a great deal. The battlestones were not made equal in power. There are greater and lesser stones among them. Not all mark the site of future battles. Though the task of the greater stones is certainly to bring men to strife, the lesser ones may serve only to link the greater, for the Black Book is clear that they must have knowledge of one another. It is also written that they may be made to tell what they know. Of the greater stones there is certainly one of monstrous power, which is called the Doomstone. It was planted last of all. It will, I think, be the first to kill when war comes, and it is said that it will exact a heavy price in blood before it is satisfied.’

  ‘Unless we can find it and destroy it,’ Will said.

  ‘We?’ Gwydion turned sharply and looked at him intently for a moment as if gauging him.

  Will wandered among the broken buildings and felt his own mood darken. It seemed to him that somehow Gwydion had tested him and found him wanting. The wizard’s words had sounded ironic. They had slighted him, so that he felt put in his place. He heard the cawing of rooks in the distance and hated the sound. Despite the sunshine, this place had a chill to it.

  One of the biggest buildings, once the inn perhaps, seemed to have been burned down. Many years of weather had left the ruins a mass of thorns and weeds, but there were no flowers blooming here. He stooped to pick up something from the ground and found it was grey and finger-like and pointed at one end.

  ‘Let me see that,’ Gwydion said, putting out his hand.

  Will polished the dirt off, but held it back. ‘Why should I?’ he murmured. ‘I found it.’

  ‘Because it may be an important clue,’ the wizard said, snatching it from him.

  ‘Clue to what?’

  ‘These little knick-knacks are often called thunderbolts. Unlearned folk call them elf-bolts and say they are goblin arrowheads. Others claim they are what kills when a man is struck by lightning. Yet others say they are what is left when lightning strikes the ground. When folk hereabouts find them they bore a hole in them and wear them on cords about their necks for good luck, or else they put them in their thatch as a protection against fire.’

  ‘Do they work?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘Only sometimes?’

  The wizard’s lip curled. ‘It depends on how much they are believed in.’

  ‘Does magic work that way? Do people have to believe in it for it to work?’

  The wizard sighed heavily. ‘See! This bolt carries a charm mark upon it. It came from the thatch of the burned house. You can see where the fire started. Those discoloured stones. I have noticed the same thing often enough. Lightning was the culprit here.’

  ‘So your thunderbolt charm didn’t work?’

  Gwydion looked at him with hooded eyes. ‘That is the point. If this charm did not ward off the lightning, then something else must have been at work here too.’

  Will stared around, oppressed now by the eerie emptiness. The wind rustled in the long grass nearby, but no birds flew or sang. Gwydion passed the hazel wand to him. ‘Go and try to pick up the lign again.’

  Will took the wand, but then his courage failed him and he tried to give it back. ‘I told you, this place gives me a bad feeling.’

  ‘You must take the wand and do as I say!’

  ‘Why must I?’

  ‘Do it, Willand!’

  The wizard’s words carried such sudden force that he felt his belly turn over. He took the wand again and began to walk back and forth, but he did so reluctantly.

  ‘Will you please engage with your task?’

  ‘I am engaging with it!’

  ‘You are not!’ Gwydion watched him darkly. ‘The knowledge of where each lign runs has long been lost. The Black Book said the flow rises and falls with the season, the weather and the phases of both sun and moon – though it is always at its strongest on sacred days. How does it seem to you now?’

  Will had the distinct feeling that Gwydion was using him, exposing him to dangers that he would rather not face himself. It was a feeling that was impossible to ignore. He stopped and put a hand behind his neck as if to stroke down the hairs that had risen there. When he tasted the air it seemed sour.

  ‘Go on with yo
ur scrying, I said!’

  He swallowed hard and went on, but his trust in Gwydion had dimmed while the sense that he was in mortal danger surged. He felt the scrying sensation rise in his arms and chest as he moved back and forth. ‘I’ve found it again,’ he called unhappily.

  ‘Good. Now follow along in the direction of the flow.’

  ‘But I feel…Master Gwydion, it’s dangerous!’

  ‘Pay no attention. Just do as I say.’

  Why should I? he asked himself as he trod the green lane. Why should I trust him when he’s sending me where he fears to go himself?

  He’s putting you in harm’s way, came an answering thought. Using you as a boar hunter uses his dogs. The old coward only taught you to scry to save his own skin. What has he done but bring you pain and hurt? He almost got you killed when Duke Edgar’s sword came flashing through you. Do you want to die through one of his mistakes?

  He stopped in his tracks and gave the wizard a hard look. And what about Willow? the thoughts in his head asked. You wanted to see her again more than anything, didn’t you? You couldn’t stop thinking about her. But you have now. Curious that Gwydion turned up just as you and she were about to meet again. Maybe he feared you’d prefer to stay with her instead of going off on one of his wild goose chases. That was why he conjured up the marish hag. It was all to scare you…

  He walked on through a nettle patch, fearing the thunderbolt that he was now sure the wizard was about to throw at him. Then he came to a well, a stone kerb and a round wall of brown stone with an iron handle still attached above it. He looked down the well and saw a disc of light and himself looking back up the hole from four fathoms below. He found himself fighting an overpowering urge to tear the hazel wand in two and fling the pieces down into the water. Instead he dropped it to the ground, walked over to an old doorstep and sat down. There he hid his face in his hands and tried unsuccessfully to hold back a flood of tears.