The Language of Stones

by Robert Carter

They left the larger woodland path for a smaller, deeper way, passing through a scene that was dappled many shades of green by the sun. When they came out it was onto a lane that was hedged with hawthorn. A wild cherry tree blazed in pink, shedding its blossom in the breeze. It was so beautiful to see the petals falling in the wind that Will was amazed he had never noticed such delicate magnificence in quite the same way before. In that place of good aspect he opened his mind wider than ever he had dared.

  ‘We must go south,’ he said, hardly knowing why he said it.

  ‘The Dragon Stone verse mentions a northern king and a northern field,’ Gwydion reminded him.

  ‘Still, I…I feel we must go south.’

  The wizard nodded slowly, his face betraying the message that, this time, Will had better be right.

  They celebrated Beltane in Aston Gravel, one of the pretty little villages along the River Rea. Gwydion said nothing to the villagers about Will turning fifteen that day, wanting no doubt to spare his blushes. On Will’s whim they headed five leagues to the north-west, and at Gwydion’s suggestion they visited Atherstone then went on to Bilstone and lingered at Congerstone. Then they moved up to Shackerstone and wandered away over to Snarestone and even up to Swepstone before coming down again by Nailstone and Barlestone to Odstone.

  ‘There is not a place in this Realm so confoundedly afflicted by places named after stones!’ the wizard said. ‘Are you sure you can feel the lorc here?’

  ‘Yes. Well…no. I mean, I’m not sure. But there’s something. It’s like a background hum. Or a smell, if you take my meaning. It could be coming this way – or it could be drifting over that way.’

  ‘But that is exactly the opposite direction! Oh, confound you, Willand! This is maddening!’

  ‘Not half as maddening as it is to me!’

  ‘Don’t shout at me!’

  ‘Well, don’t shout at me, then!’Will’s finger stabbed out. ‘Master Gwydion, you just don’t understand what it’s like. I feel as if I’m somebody who’s been blind from birth who suddenly gets the power to see. He wouldn’t know what he was looking at any more than I know what I’m feeling! Oh, why don’t you just leave me alone?’

  He stumped off in a rage and went to sit by himself and to attack a spot that had come up on his chin. It felt good to burst it and make it bleed. Nobody understood. Nobody could. Nobody!

  When he had sulked himself out, they tracked westward to a place called No Man’s Heath and there he declared that he had had just about enough of scrying and wanted to eat. They made camp and broke bread, but Will sat sullenly throughout and infuriatingly, just as he lay down to sleep, he felt the lign.

  This time, despite all the confusions in his head, it was strong enough to identify – it was definitely Mulart.

  The next day he tried to pick up the lign again. Gwydion gave him a freshly-cut hazel switch and asked him to do whatever he had done last night.

  ‘Last night, more than anything else I was wishing that Willow could be here with us,’ he said, opening out the hazel wand ready to scry.

  ‘I realize you are very fond of her.’

  Will came to a halt and smiled. ‘You know, I liked her from the first moment I saw her. I suppose she’s my best friend.’

  ‘Not…Edward?’

  ‘Edward? No!’ He gave Gwydion a sideways look. ‘Willow and I, we sort of think alike because we’re so different – if you see what I mean.’ He searched fruitlessly for what he was trying to say, knowing he was not saying anything particularly well. ‘Edward, though, he’s…he’s…’

  ‘Perhaps what you mean is that Edward is too much like you.’

  Will shook his head, feeling uncomfortable now and out of his depth. ‘Edward’s not like me at all. He wants to be a great man and a worthy heir to his father. He’s impetuous and full of brash show. I don’t think we’re alike at all. Do you think we are?’

  ‘Underneath perhaps you and he are more similar than either of you would care to admit.’ Gwydion shifted his weight from one foot to the other. ‘Let me tell you, Willand, the Rede of Magical Converses says simply: “Opposites attract.” It is often so with people. Perhaps that is why you like Willow, and perhaps also why you and Edward do not get along as easily as you might.’

  Will scratched his head. ‘I do hope that no harm comes to her, Master Gwydion.’ And a moment later he said, ‘Master Gwydion, are you sure you didn’t do anything to bring Willow to Foderingham? Anything…magical?’

  ‘I did nothing. You may rely on that.’

  He felt glad to hear that, but it opened up a greater question, one that he could not ask Gwydion about. If no one had magically steered Willow towards Foderingham, then how had such an unlikely thing happened? Had the Dragon Stone brought them together so that it could inflict a greater suffering upon them later? Or maybe Willow was right: maybe it had been his own magic after all. Could he have worked his desire without even knowing it? Did he have that kind of power? Old Gort had seemed to think so. Maybe that was what Gwydion had meant by calling him a Child of Destiny. And maybe, if he was the third incarnation of Arthur, and if Gwydion was right that Arthur need not necessarily turn out to be a king this time, then maybe he was destined to become some kind of magician…

  That thought was even more unsettling than thinking that one day he might have to win the throne of the Realm, because as a magician he would surely have to go up against Maskull.

  As they wandered on, Will decided it was high time he concentrated more closely on his task. He noticed the soil changing again – heavy clays alternated with crumbly brown loam, and the plants growing all around had changed too. The Wortmaster had said that it took hundreds of years for a wild meadow to settle down properly to itself after crops had been grown on it, and so they avoided tilled fields so that Will could let his feet feel the texture of the natural carpet that lay under his toes. His eyes delighted in the tiny multicoloured flowers that clothed the verges of the chalky brown fields. He let the land guide him until their path became not at all the path that would have been chosen by a traveller, or even by a wizard. Though Gwydion’s feet knew the best way forward and were able to find perfect paths of least resistance, they could not locate a lign. But, then, neither could Will’s today.

  The Middle Shires through which they now passed became rich farmland, green and fertile, with well-fed folk, but increasingly they found a shadow hanging over the towns and villages. Wherever they went they heard news that the Earl Marshal and the king’s commissioners of array had visited and had taken men from their homes. In the towns, numerous levies had already been raised, and on the estates of the great landowners camps had sprung up in which men were being trained in the arts of war.

  When they came to Wootton Wyvern in the district of Arden, Will looked around anxiously, remembering Lord Strange’s book of animals and the ‘man-eating beasts of the air’ that had been described against the picture of a wyvern. But Gwydion only called in at the sign of the Bull’s Head and there he learned from the innkeeper a piece of news that was far more dangerous than any ravening beast. King Hal had suddenly shaken off his illness, and the queen and Duke Edgar had used Hal’s surprise recovery as the pretext to oust Duke Richard and his followers from every office they held. For now the king’s sanity was restored there was no longer any place for a Lord Protector, though the king’s capacity seemed not to go far beyond the work of stripping the Ebor faction from their livings and replacing them with all the queen’s cronies. Already the Earl Sarum had lost his chancellor’s chain, and Lord Warrewyk had been deprived of his Captaincy of Callas. There could now be only one outcome.

  ‘Rumour has it that two great armies are forming ready to clash,’ the innkeeper told them. ‘Can’t be long before events are brought to a reckoning.’

  Gwydion’s grip tightened on his staff as he spoke softly but fiercely to Will in a private aside. ‘Maskull has bided his time well, and now he has released his spell from the king’s head, so that all I have
worked for has been brought to ruin!’

  ‘Is it that bad?’

  ‘It dashes your hope that war might come later rather than sooner. But it does not surprise me, for every measure I put in place to restore the fortunes of the Realm has been used by Friend Richard to enrich the House of Ebor and its allies. I warned that such greed would in the end bring him low!’

  ‘There’s one benefit to us,’ Will said, anxious to rescue a little hope.

  The wizard cast him a withering look. ‘What benefit could possibly come of this news?’

  ‘Well, it’s just that as war comes closer I expect it’ll be easier for me to feel the emanations.’

  And Gwydion stared at him, then threw back his head and laughed fit to burst, before clapping him on the back and saying, ‘Oh, you are a diamond among men, Willand! Truly – truly, you are!’

  The next day they crossed the River Arfyn and then the Stoore, and on the night of the new moon Will cut himself a fresh hazel wand and began to feel something moving in the earth.

  ‘Might this not be the Caorthan lign?’ Gwydion asked anxiously as they bent down to examine the ground. ‘We are no more than a dozen leagues from Aston Oddingley.’

  ‘I can feel something,’ Will said, still unsure. ‘But it’s confused. All I know is that my feet want to go this way.’

  ‘You wish to head south still?’ Gwydion asked doubtfully. ‘Surely, the lign runs more or less west to east.’

  ‘But I feel something drawing me the other way,’ Will said. He sensed the wizard’s frustration. ‘Does it seem wrong to you?’

  ‘It is you who must be certain. Open your mind. Are you reading the land as you should? Or are you listening to the desires of your heart?’

  ‘They’re one and the same, Master Gwydion.’

  ‘But perhaps they are not.’

  Will felt the wizard’s words cut like an accusation. ‘Don’t you trust me? Don’t you believe I’m trying to lead you the right way?’

  ‘Do not take it amiss. Perhaps there is a battlestone nearby.’

  ‘No. No, I don’t think so. This time I’m just angry with you.’

  ‘Face it, Willand. There is something else in your mind that is interfering with our task.’

  ‘Well, I don’t see it that way, Master Gwydion.’

  ‘For three days now you have been homing like a dove on a dovecot.’

  ‘A dove?’

  Gwydion put his hands together and said with a despairing smile, ‘You have been heading straight towards the Vale!’

  ‘Oh…’ Will’s shoulders sagged. ‘I see…’

  He looked inside himself. Of course it was true that he wanted to return home. And nothing would have been nicer than to have seen his mother and father again. His hand went to the leaping fish talisman that hung around his neck, the one that Breona had given him with her love. Despite all he had learned, the words on it remained stubbornly beyond his skill to read. He showed it to Gwydion again.

  ‘Breona said this token was with me when you found me. Can’t you read it?’

  ‘It is written in no script that I recognize. Nor can I guess at what the sigil means.’ Gwydion gave it back.

  ‘Three triangles nested inside one another – it’s a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside a…a…’

  ‘An enigma?’

  ‘Yes. An enigma.’ He stretched and yawned. ‘I could certainly eat a piece of apple pie tonight, but I really don’t think I’m forgetting about our task.’

  The wizard nodded, satisfied. ‘I believe you. But what I would like to know now is what else might have been drawing you this way.’

  ‘I don’t know…’ Will fell silent, but then he sat up and cried. ‘Master Gwydion!’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking a lot about the Dragon Stone. Three times now in dreams I’ve thought myself its master only to find the key to it had slipped away on waking. But now I think I know what the second reading means. I wondered where I’d heard the like of it before, and now I think I know.

  ‘Northern King’s bewitched son,

  Queen of the Moon in her father’s field.

  Dragon of Darkness, awaken and slay!

  Lonely Stone take war away!

  ‘Do you remember you once said you brought me into the Vale because of its nearness to the Tops and to the Giant’s Ring?’

  The wizard’s eyes were as unwavering as an eagle’s. ‘That is so, I did.’

  ‘You also said you thought the Ring might be near a lign, and that a form of protection flowed from it.’

  Gwydion nodded. ‘The true name of the Giant’s Ring is Bethen feilli Imbliungh, or the Navel of the World.’

  ‘This is where one of your history lessons pays back your efforts, Master Gwydion, for when we were in Dimmet’s snug you told me the story of the Giant’s Ring back in the time of the First Men. You told me about the tomb of Orba that stands nearby. You said she was the wife of Finglas, and called Queen of the Summer Moon!’

  Gwydion became thoughtful. ‘By all that lives and breathes, so I did!’

  ‘You also said that Finglas came from the north country. So we have: “Northern king’s bewitched son” – that could be Finglas – and “Queen of the Moon in her father’s field”. Finglas came south to take her as his wife, so this must have been the land of her people, and not his!’

  ‘That is so. She was later buried in the heart of her father’s domain, which later still was ravaged by the black dragon, Fumi.’

  ‘So: “Dragon of Darkness, awaken and slay!” And then the Dragon Stone itself: “Lonely Stone take war away!”’

  Gwydion walked in a circle, but for once his thoughts flew straight as an arrow. ‘It all fits, snug as a bud! And here is the clinch: Finglas quarrelled with those druida who came twice a year to Bethenfeilli Imbliungh to acknowledge the power of the lorc. He feared that it would involve him in war, and so he had a magical stone of his own fashioned and erected close to the Ring. It was called after him: Liarix Finglas – or as folk now say, the King’s Stone. If I had to make a guess where the next battlestone is to be found, I would say it lies close by the King’s Stone. Most likely it lies within the shadow made at the moment of Midsummer sunrise, for that is said to be the time of year when all the ancient stone rings of the Realm are most flooded with power.’

  ‘Then maybe we have a helper!’ Will cried. ‘Maybe the Liarix has been doing part of our work for us – what better place for a battlestone than under the shadow of a guardian stone all these years?’

  ‘But consider this: it could be that the failing of the Liarix is one of the reasons the lorc has sprung so suddenly back to life. The Giant’s Ring was always a place of great power. I suspect that it is the navel through which influence is fed into the lorc. That is what is understood by all land-feeling folk who have ever passed it by. In our age, shepherds are rarely men of great book learning, yet few mortal men appreciate the land as they do. And it is the shepherds who have always said that a piece of the Liarix gives them good luck as they drive their flocks to market over the Tops. In all these centuries they have chipped away many small pieces, so that now much of the Liarix is missing, and with it no doubt a portion of its blissful strength. Come, Will! We must visit the Giant’s Ring, for there I think we shall find our next clue.’

  They pressed on southward until sunset, and Will began to feel by the mood of the ground that they were coming very close to the Vale. Homesickness seized him as he remembered the day he had left. Cuckootide at home had always been a happy time – old Valesmen sitting on the benches in the sun outside the Green Man, lifting their cider flagons and telling tales of the olden days. Then the raising up of the May Pole, and the racing round the Tarry Stone. He thought of Eldmar and Breona then, and the stinging that came at the corners of his eyes told him he was about to weep. And when Gwydion called a halt, he was caught by surprise. He tried to laugh off his tears, and protested that there was no need to stop and that he could ea
sily walk another league or two. But the wizard said softly, ‘Little enough remains of our day’s journey, and perhaps it would be better if we reached the Giant’s Ring tomorrow, in morning light and fully refreshed. So let us rest here and prepare for supper.’

  Will did not argue. He was grateful for the chance to stretch out on the grass and to breathe the balmy air of a late spring evening. All day the ground underfoot had been changing colour to a more familiar brown, and now the very air tasted like it did at home. He realized they were closer to the Vale than he had at first supposed, for they were now on the Tops.

  While Gwydion went to find woodland food for their supper, Will stared into the flames that licked from under their simmering water pot. He felt greatly pleased to have solved the verse at last and guided Gwydion towards another battlestone, but he knew that finding it would only lead to another and then another, and all that would take him further from home.

  A powerful longing seized him. He imagined what Eldmar and Breona would be doing now in the cottage that he had not visited for two years. They would be preparing for bed, most likely. Breona saying goodnight to the neighbours, or going inside to lean over and kiss Eldmar on the forehead as she so often did. Or perhaps his father was coming in from the horse or finishing off an hour or two of tall tales and jolly songs down at the Green Man.

  Will could see nothing of the green cleft in which Nether Norton nestled, yet surely he could not be more than a league from the place he had always called home. If only he could steal back there for a moment and take a look at it…

  But how? The Vale was under a cloak of concealing magic, and even if it had been spread below him as plain as a pike-staff he would not have thought it right to go there until his duty was done.

  Yet he was filled with a powerful desire to speak with the folk he thought of as his mother and father, to hug them and to be with them just for a little while, and so be a wandering orphan no longer.

  He took the little green fish out of his shirt and rubbed it between finger and thumb. He felt the comfort it usually brought him, but then an eerie feeling came over him and he got to his feet and moved away from the fire. The night was clear and the moon a thin crescent, no more than a fingernail paring that was falling into the afterglow of the west. He thought of that strange Cuckootide when everything had changed, and of the fateful wish he had made to go up onto the Tops. So much had passed since then. So much had changed. But home never changed. The Vale would always be the same.