The Language of Stones

by Robert Carter

  It was the last question Will wanted to be asked. He knew it was a mistake to believe that one important confidence necessarily deserved to be repaid by another, so he chose his words with care. ‘It’s called the Dragon Stone. Master Gwydion says it’s a powerful engine of harm that was wrought long ago. Beyond that I don’t know much.’

  Edward’s eyes glittered. ‘I watched it being taken down into the cellars under the keep. It was the same day my father left for Trinovant. Masons came at Gort’s bidding. They took that stone and placed it exactly according to instructions left by the Crowmaster. It stands upon two blocks of sandstone. They’re fitted into a tomb in the foundations of the keep. Shall we go down and look at it?’

  ‘What?’ Will hissed. ‘Are you mad?’

  ‘What’s the matter? You’re not scared, are you?’

  ‘Only a fool wouldn’t be.’

  ‘Why? What does the stone do? Tell me.’

  Will decided he must say no more. Uneasiness stirred in him as he lay awake and alone in the darkness that night, listening to the cool, fetid wind drifting in off the Great Deeping Fen. In the uncertain land between sleep and waking he fancied he heard curlews, but then the sound became the voice of violent forces screeching and groaning within a stone tomb, straining against slowly decaying binding-spells. A feeling of dismay rose up inside him, a feeling that made him smell again the reek of Death and look out across the inner bailey in expectation of an unwelcome visitor.

  The morning after next Will noticed an excited whisper running between the duke’s two younger daughters. It seemed to him they had heard a rumour.

  ‘Tell me,’ he asked Margaret. ‘Is your father coming home?’

  ‘Father?’ Margaret said, her eyes suddenly opening wide. ‘Have you heard something about him?’

  ‘No, but I thought you had. There’s some kind of secret. You and Elizabeth are whispering like mice. And Edward’s acting strangely too.’

  Margaret shifted her gaze. ‘I shan’t say.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Edward said not to tell.’

  ‘Then, I’ll have to go and ask Edward myself.’

  He left the girls to their embarrassment and went to look for Edward, who only laughed when Will confronted him. ‘Yes, we’re all going down to look at the magic stone tonight. I didn’t mention it to you because I knew you’d not want to come.’

  ‘The stone?’ Will said, shocked. ‘But you can’t do that.’

  Edward smiled as he produced a big iron key. ‘Can’t? Why not?’

  ‘Because it’s dangerous!’

  ‘It’s just an old stone, Willy Wag-staff. Oh, I knew you’d be like this – boring!’

  ‘It’s not just an old stone. It’s…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s…evil. Well, no, not evil exactly – that’s a word Master Gwydion says we shouldn’t use. What I mean is…’

  ‘Magic!’ Edward snatched the key away as Will made a grab for it. ‘One of the cooks says it has powers. It can tell fortunes.’

  ‘That’s nonsense. What do the cooks know?’

  ‘Plenty. All cooks know lots. Will, don’t worry. We’re only going down to look at it. If it’s not evil, then where’s the harm in it? There’s no guard on it even.’

  ‘No guard? But I thought—’

  ‘A lot of the jacks are in a bad way. Two dozen of them have gone down with the gripes. Sick as dogs and shivering. Sir Hugh’s not going to waste good jacks on a stone in a cellar when the news is so uncertain and there’s a full circuit of walls to look after.’

  ‘Oh, no.’

  ‘You’re worrying about nothing. We’re all going tonight. Look, you might as well come too.’

  Will thought about the offer, knowing that he could not stop Edward. ‘I’ll come, but you must promise me, on your father’s life, that you won’t try to touch it.’

  ‘I’ll swear to that,’ Edward said easily. ‘Now you swear by the sun and moon not to tell anyone where we’re going.’

  ‘I’ll swear by the moon and stars.’

  ‘If you like.’

  He looked at Edward, wondering at the other’s curious charm. He had a disarming directness, and Will saw his father in him, but this time in the bone and not in any studied way.

  That night, the early winter darkness fell along with a drizzling rain, and they all went obediently to their beds before the eighth chime had struck. But they did not sleep. Instead they listened to the wind getting up for a long time, and when everyone else had retired and left the castle to the care of the night watch, they rose and dressed and gathered together in secret in the shadows of the inner bailey.

  The night was wet and blustery, which kept everyone else indoors and so played into Edward’s hands. With determined stealth he led his brothers and sisters up the steps to the keep, then produced the key and counted them all inside and down the dark stair that led into the cellar below.

  At Edward’s insistence, every one of the duke’s children had come on the adventure. Even two-year-old Richard who was in the care of the Lady Anne, and five-year-old George who now held the Lady Elizabeth’s hand. Lady Margaret and Sir Edmund brought up the rear. When lightning flashed outside it made them all jump, and the low rolling of thunder made them uneasy. They stood breathlessly in the dark. Then brilliant yellow flashes came from Edward’s steel as he struck sparks into his tinder box. There was a small red glow as he blew gently onto the kindling and the smell of smoke drifted in the dank cellar air. Then the wick of a new tallow candle caught in flame and a feeble light began to pierce the gloom.

  The lime-white walls were cold and moist all around, the ceiling vaulted with arches of stone and, where the jointed flutes met their supporting pillars, grinning goblin heads were carved. They seemed to watch, greedy-eyed, from the shadows.

  There, set on end in the centre of the floor, was the Dragon Stone. In the flickering candlelight Will saw the ogham standing out clear along its edges. The visitors stood huddled before it like petitioners who had come before their lord. They waited and watched with bated breath until George mewed unhappily and said, ‘I want to go home.’

  ‘Watch this,’ Edward told them, and drew the wand of unicorn ivory out of his sleeve.

  Will said, ‘You shouldn’t have brought that!’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I told you before: the stone’s dangerous. You’ll rouse it. Take it away!’

  Edward ignored him, but stared, unimpressed, at the marks that shimmered as they appeared in the surface of the stone, though his brother took keener notice.

  ‘It’s some kind of writing,’ Edmund said, approaching the stone more closely.

  ‘Edmund, keep back,’ Will murmured. The hairs had risen on his neck, and he knew for certain now that he should have found some way to stop this foolishness.

  Edward used the wand as a pointer, running it dangerously close to one of the stone’s edges, making the ogham sparkle. ‘It’s probably a prophecy. I can’t read it. You’re the wizard’s apprentice. What does it say?’

  Will repeated the straightforward reading he had pondered on the way to Foderingham:

  ‘King and Queen with Dragon Stone,

  Bewitched by the Moon, in Darkness alone,

  In Northern Field shall Wake no more,

  Son and Father, Killed by War.’

  ‘It’s just poetry then,’ Edward said, disappointed. ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Look!’ Anne said, her eyes widening. ‘Look at it now! What’s happening?’

  They all stared, not knowing what they were supposed to be looking for, scared yet rooted by their fear. The two younger girls clutched one another, wondering if their eyes were playing tricks on them. George began to snivel again, and the echoes set baby Richard crying. Edmund grasped Will’s arm. ‘What’s it doing?’

  ‘Quiet! All of you,’ Edward hissed. ‘Do you want us to be found out?’

  ‘We ought to leave now,’ Will told him.

  Bu
t the stone cut off his words, for it had begun to pulse in a long, steady rhythm as if it knew how to play on their fears. It glowed with a brick-red light of its own, and then the surface began to shimmer again, as solid stone turned into velvety liquid.

  ‘Look at that! It is a prophecy! Words. Real words,’ Edward said. He took the candle closer and began to read. ‘“My first in the West shall marry. My second a king shall be. My third upon a bridge lies dead. My fourth far in the East shall wed. My fifth over the seas shall send. My sixth in wine shall meet an end. And my seventh, whom none now fears, Shall be reviled five hundred years.” A prophecy and a riddle too!’

  ‘We must get out of here,’ Will said, feeling the nausea beginning to roll in his belly. It was just how he had felt the day he had found the stone. And he knew that, despite the powerful bonds holding it, it was coiling itself like a serpent ready to strike.

  ‘Get out! Save yourselves! Now!’

  He did not know if his words broke a spell, but two things happened: the candle blew out and they all made a dash for the steps up to the door. For a panicky moment they were in darkness, amid piercing screams, all clambering over one another. It seemed forever before they tumbled out into the rain, scrambling down the wet grass, sliding among the spearplumes, shaking with terror. Only after the Lady Anne had rushed the crying younger children away down the mound did they realize that Edmund was not with them.

  ‘Where is he?’ Edward demanded.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Will told him.

  They went back together towards the door. It was now hideous with light, and they soon saw why. The Dragon Stone was glowing red now, bright as a horseshoe held in a blacksmith’s pincers. And Edmund was embracing the stone. His arms were around it, clasping it as a sleeping child clasps its mother.

  Edward made a move towards him, but Will held him. ‘No! Stand back!’

  ‘He’s my brother!’

  ‘No! You don’t know what you’re doing!’

  He pushed Edward aside then steeled himself fiercely, concentrating his mind, ready to oppose the stone’s malignant power. He called to mind the effort that had drained him the day he had saved Osric. Then he reached out to lift Edmund away.

  Immediately an almost unbearable tingling began to pass along his arms. Will hung on grimly. The tingling tried to enter his chest, but he found he was able to use his scrying skills to hold the surge in check. He knew he must not let go of Edmund until the boy’s grip on the stone slackened, yet he lacked the strength to oppose the stone directly.

  ‘Dragon Stone, release him!’ he ordered sternly.

  But there was no response. Despite the binding-spells that held the stone’s power in check, an impression of massive force confronted him, a malign force that was blind and hampered, yet still aware of the disparity in their strengths. It refused to waver. Then the tingling inched further up his arms, as if testing him. His failure to order the stone to obedience dismayed him. He felt the stone feed on that dismay. As another wave of uncertainty passed through him, he felt the tingling consolidate in its wake. It was a deadly force, a venom seeking to enter his chest. He must not let it reach his heart, yet he saw how his fear helped it.

  He called upon all the disciplines he had been taught. He thought he must make a fist of his mind, hardening it, making it proof against the battlestone’s probing. Already the tingling had reached cold fingers down inside his ribs. He switched his attention away from himself, concentrated instead on Edmund. The boy’s eyes were open but his body felt as slack and heavy as a sleepwalker’s. He pulled, but Edmund’s hands remained locked around the stone.

  But, yes! The true tongue! There was his defence!

  Some instinct or shred of memory made him realize that he must employ the stone’s true name. But what was it?

  He tried the command again, this time in the language of stones. ‘Acilui beithirei, scaiol!’ Dragon Stone, release him!

  But once again, the monstrous stone refused. Instead, a vicious surge of power jolted from it, making Will gasp in pain. Edward jumped back as blood-red light pulsed from the stone.

  ‘What’s happening?’ he shouted. ‘Will, tell me!’

  But Will gave no answer. He could not, for he was locked in a death struggle. The lethal tingling had now closed a loop around his chest and was threatening to strangle his beating heart.

  He forced his thoughts elsewhere. A bright emerald began to blaze in his mind. He latched onto its pure light and the colour took him back to the green barrow of the Blessed Isle, and to the sister-stone’s eerie verse. The verse that had seemed to make no sense at all…

  ‘Si ni ach menh fa ainlugh?

  Tegh brathir ainmer na.

  Tilla angid carreic na duna,

  Aittreib muan nadir si a buan.’

  He let the words form dryly on his lips:

  ‘But whose light am I?

  The name of my brother is “Home”.

  Here in the morbid stone city.

  Has my dragon returned to dwell.’

  and suddenly all became clear.

  ‘The name of my brother is “Home”!’ he cried.

  The power of the stone faltered. Will’s mind strained to the limit to remember the word in the true tongue. The battlestone’s true name was ‘Home’, which in the true tongue was…was…

  ‘Tegh!’ he cried. ‘Tegh, scaiol!’

  And in a moment it was as if all power had been thrown back inside the stone. As its light withdrew, Will pulled Edmund backwards and they fell together onto the floor. The red light surged back. It seemed angry to have been thwarted, but contact was broken and its rage was once again spell-bound and impotent. Edward, blank-faced and shaken, helped Will drag his brother up the stairs and out into the open air. The drenching rain was still falling. It was cold and sharp and very welcome.

  ‘Quickly!’ Edward hissed. ‘The night watch! They’re coming!’

  The guards had been roused. There was a clatter as a file of men passed them, heading in the wrong direction. Edward held back in the shadows until the way was clear, then he motioned Will out. They took Edmund between them and managed to get him back to the Garden of the White Rose and into their quarters without being seen. What they found there was almost worse than being caught. Edmund’s face was cold to the touch. He was weak and it took more than a little effort to wake him from his trance. When he came to, he was barely able to speak and wholly unaware of what had happened. He could only say that he had stumbled in the darkness and had put his hand on the stone.

  ‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ Will said.

  ‘He knows that!’ Edward spat back. ‘And you shouldn’t have brought the evil thing to Foderingham in the first place.’

  ‘Master Gwydion brought it here, not I. And it was put under lock and key for a reason. If anyone’s to blame for tonight, Edward, it’s you.’

  ‘My hand hurts,’ Edmund whined.

  When they looked at his palm they saw an ugly burn.

  ‘Don’t worry,’Will told him. ‘I’ll bring salves from Gort. It’ll heal. The pain will go, I promise you.’

  ‘We can’t wake Gort,’ Edward said.

  ‘We must! We’ll say it’s a kitchen burn.’

  ‘No. The guards are out. He’ll guess the truth. We’ll wait till morning.’

  Will helped Edward get his brother undressed and into bed, and as they parted Edward said, ‘You’re not to say anything to anyone about this. Do you understand?’

  ‘I’m not a fool, you know.’

  ‘Still, I want you to promise!’

  ‘All right, I promise! But only if you promise to put that unicorn wand back where it belongs among your father’s things and never touch it again.’

  Three days later Will and Edward were in harness and facing one another again, this time with practice swords. Each blamed the other for what had happened in the chamber under the keep, and that made for an unusually vigorous fight.

  Steel rang against steel. The blow
s were full-blooded, unforgiving. Will drew deep, moist breaths inside his iron mask, taking cuts and bruises without noticing. Their clashes rang in his ears, loud groans of powerless frustration for both their defences were stronger than their unedged weapons and neither could hurt the other decisively. Plates clattered as they wrestled and tumbled and rolled on the ground. Fingers, sweaty and numbed by many layers of protection, struggled to tear off pauldron straps, to rip at exposed mail, to force a way into one another’s armour. And though neither carried a war-dagger, each imagined he might have and so played the game of killing as if for real.

  In the end their dignity was all used up and the jacks who had watched with interest began to laugh. Sir John stepped between them to call off the combat, saying that stirring the dirt like that was unseemly and served only to put dust on the crusts of the pies that cooled outside the kitchen window.

  Will met Edward’s eye unafraid as they took off their helmets. The skin of Edward’s face was bruised and scraped where Will’s swordblows had pressed the helmet’s unpadded interior against it. His hair was sweaty and bound up inside a dirty linen skullcap. Will knew his own face was bruised and his nose was bleeding at the bridge, cut where his helmet had been momentarily forced forward.

  But as they faced one another with less than their usual friendliness, there came a sound they had long waited for. A horn blowing from the barbican – two rising blasts that told of the approach of mounted men from the south.

  Instantly, Edward threw down his helmet and bolted for the gatehouse. Will ran after him, tearing off his own skullcap and gauntlets, clattering up the stone steps to the ramparts.

  ‘It’s Father!’ Edward said as they stood side by side in the narrow space. ‘It has to be!’

  ‘Move up. Let me see.’

  Others were now caught up in the excitement. Jacks were gathering in knots along the walls. Word began to pass swiftly that the duke had returned.

  ‘Look,’ Will told him, pointing. There were standards flying, and now they could make out the livery of the riders.