The Language of Stones

by Robert Carter

  ‘A premonition about a premonition,’ he told himself wryly. ‘Now that would be something…’

  Willow came out and said, ‘I’m glad we chose to call her Bethe. There’s strong magic in naming, for I can’t think now what else we could have called her.’

  ‘Bethe is the birch tree,’ he said. ‘“Beth”, first letter of the druid’s alphabet, and Bethe our firstborn.’

  ‘I like that.’

  ‘You know, the birch was the first tree to clothe these isles when the ice drew back into the north. Her white bark remembers the White Lady, she who was wise and first taught about births and beginnings, the one who some call the Lady Cerridwen. Our May Pole is always a birch, and Bethe was born on May Day, which is my birthday too. In the old tongue of the west “bith” means “being”. And “beitharn” in the true tongue means “the world”. Maybe that’s the reason I suggested the name and why you agreed – because our daughter means the world to us.’

  Willow squeezed him close and laid her head against his breast. ‘There’s such a power of learning in that book of yours.’

  She meant the magic book that Gwydion had given him that sad day at Verlamion. He said, ‘There’s much to read and more to know. It’s said that a country swain comes of age at thirteen years, that the son of a fighting lord may carry arms in battle at fifteen, and that a king must reach eighteen years to rule by his word alone – but one who would learn magic may not be properly called wise until he has come to full manhood.’

  Willow looked at him. ‘And how old’s that?’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. But as the saying has it: “The willow wand is slow to become an oaken staff.” And so it must be, for if I know anything at all it’s that there’s much more to be understood in the world than can ever be learned in one man’s lifetime.’

  Now it was Willow’s turn to sigh. ‘Then tell me true: do you read that book every day in the hope that one day you’ll become a wizard too? Like Gwydion?’

  He laughed. ‘No. That I can never be.’

  ‘Then why?’

  ‘Because Gwydion gave it to me and bade me read it. And I gave him my word that I would.’

  She squeezed him again, but this time it was to stress her words. ‘Well, now, you’re going to promise me something, Willand Bookreader, that you won’t be burning any candle stubs over hard words tonight!’

  He grinned. ‘Now that I’ll gladly promise!’

  They held one another in the starlight for a moment. A shooting star flared brilliantly and briefly in the west, and then a coolness stirred among the leaves of the nearest apple trees. She looked up, and he felt her stiffen.

  ‘What is it?’

  But there was no need for an answer, for there, high up over the Tops, an eerie purple glow had begun to bruise the sky.

  ‘Don’t look at it,’ she told him, turning away suddenly.

  He felt his foreboding intensify. ‘It’s…it’s only the northern lights.’

  ‘I don’t care what it is…’ Her voice faded.

  He stared at the flickering as it grew. ‘Gwydion once told me about the northern lights,’ he whispered. ‘But I’ve never seen them.’

  As he looked into the darkness he felt the earth power crackling in his toes. The apple trees felt it too. His eyes narrowed as he realized that this flaring glow was not – could not be – the northern lights. This was brighter, more focused, and it spoke to him.

  ‘Will, come inside!’ she said, pulling at his arm.

  ‘I…’ The light pulsed irregularly like distant lightning, though there was not a cloud in the sky. It was livid. It seemed to reach out from a source that was hidden by the dark hills surrounding the Vale. When he recalled what he knew of sky lore, his unease grew, for this was no natural light.

  His thoughts went immediately to the lorc, that web of lines in the earth that fed the battlestones. They had glowed with an eerie light. At certain phases of the moon they had stood out in the darkness, clothed with a pale and otherworldly sheen.

  ‘Look!’ he said, pointing. ‘That halo. It seems to be coming from near the Giant’s Ring.’

  The ancient stone circle could not be seen from the Vale. It was in Gwydion’s words Bethen feilli Imbliungh, the Navel of the World, a place of tremendous influence, and the fount through which earth power erupted into the lorc. That, Will had always supposed, was the reason the fae had set up one of their terrible battlestones there, the one that had fought Gwydion’s magic and won.

  ‘It can’t be the battlestone, can it?’ Willow asked as she peered into the inconstant light. ‘You said Gwydion had drawn all the harm out of it.’

  ‘So he did. But tonight is Lammas when the power of the earth waxes highest.’

  ‘We didn’t see lights there last year. Nor any year before.’

  Willow’s words ceased as a low rumbling passed through the ground. It was so low that it could not be heard, only felt in the bones. Will heard Avon whinny, then came the sound of ripe apples dropping in the orchard. The ground itself was trembling. As he stared into the night he was aware of Willow’s frightened eyes upon him. Then two flower pots fell from the window ledge at the back of the cottage. He heard them crack one after the other on the stone kerb below. Willow jumped.

  ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I’m going to see if Bethe’s all right.’ She vanished into the cottage.

  Will let her go, listening only to the night as the rumble passed away beneath his feet and stillness returned to the Vale. Gwydion had once spoken of mountains of fire that rose up in remote parts of the world, mountains that spewed forth flames and hot cinders. But there were none of those in the Realm. He had spoken too of tremblings that shook the land from time to time. They came sometimes as workings that had been delved deep under the earth long ago shifted or fell in on themselves.

  Could that have caused the rumblings?

  And if so, what about the light?

  There was something about that light that caused a shiver to run up Will’s spine. This rippling, eye-deceiving glow was the same colour as the flames that had once trapped and burned him within the compass of the Giant’s Ring. It was purple fire that had lifted him up high over the stones and had begun to consume his flesh. Purple fire that would have killed him in dreadful agony had not Gwydion’s magic saved him. And such a flame as that came only from Maskull’s hands.

  ‘By the moon and stars, he’s found me…’

  A great terror seized him. He recalled the time when he had sat beside Gwydion in a cart and the wizard had told him what could happen if someone tried to tamper magically with a battlestone. ‘If all the harm were to be released in a single hand clap…it would be enough to torment the land beyond endurance’

  And who else but Maskull would dare to tamper with a battlestone?

  Fears stirred, wormlike, in Will’s guts as he looked up at the Tops now. There was no doubt what he must do. He went inside and lit a fresh candle. The damp wick crackled as it caught from a flame that already glowed in its niche. Dust still sifted down from the rafters in the gloom. Willow stood by the cradle, her daughter in her arms. Bethe had been woken up by the quake and was mewling.

  ‘Where’re you going?’ Willow asked, seeing him climb the ladder into the loft.

  ‘To call on an old friend.’

  He went to his oak chest and brought out the book that grew bigger the more it was read. He brought it down the ladder, took a soft cloth and wiped clean the great covers of tooled brown leather. There was not much time. Soon the other Valesmen would notice the glow and they would come for his advice.

  He placed the treasured book on the wooden lectern by the fire, a piece of furniture he had made himself specially for it. Then he composed himself for the ritual that should always attend the opening of any book of magic.

  He placed his left hand flat on the book’s front cover and repeated the words of the true tongue that were written ther
e:

  ‘Ane radhas a’leguim oicheamna; ainsagimn deo teuiccimn.’

  And then he voiced the spell again in plain speech.

  ‘Speak these words to read the secrets within; learn and so come to a true understanding.’

  There were no iron clasps on this book as there were on most others, for this book was locked by magic. As he muttered the charm the bindings were released and he was able to open it. Inside were words for his eyes alone. He turned to a special page with Gwydion’s parting words in mind.

  ‘…should you find yourself in dire need, you must find the page where flies the swiftest bird. Call it by name and that will be enough.’

  His fingers trembled as the page before him began to fill with the picture of a bird, black and white with a russet throat and long tail streamers. He hesitated. Is this truly a moment of ‘dire need’? he asked himself. Am I doing the right thing?

  He looked inside himself, then across to where Willow nursed their daughter, and suddenly he feared to invoke the spell. But then he saw the livid light flare and heard Bethe begin to cry, and he knew he must pronounce the trigger-word without delay.

  ‘Fannala!’

  He spoke the true name of the swallow. Immediately, his thoughts were knocked sideways as if by a great blow to his head. A bird flew up out of the book and into the candlelight. There was a flash of white breast feathers and it was gone, so that when Will’s bedazzled eyes tried to follow it he lost it in the shadows. When he looked again not knowing what to expect, a grey shape had appeared in the corner.

  ‘Who’s there?’Willow shouted, clutching Bethe close to her and snatching up a fire iron.

  Will was overwhelmed. It seemed that a great bear or tiger cat had appeared in the room and was making ready to attack. Yet the shape gave off a pale blue light that faded, and then the figure of an old man walked out of the darkness.

  The wizard was tall and grave, swathed in his long wayfarer’s cloak of mouse-brown. His head was closely clad in a dark skullcap, and his hand clasped an oak staff. Bare toes peeped out from under the long skirts of his belted robe, and he wore a long beard that was divided now into two forks.

  ‘A swift, I told you! Not a swallow! Fool!’

  Will stared as the wizard stroked the two stiff prongs of his beard together and made them into one.

  ‘Master Gwydion…’

  The wizard looked around the homely room with heavylidded eyes, his brow creased. He footed his staff with a bang against the fireplace. ‘I hope you have good reason to summon me thus!’

  Will felt the wizard’s displeasure like a knife. Their parting had been more than four years ago, and Will expected warmer words.

  ‘Good reason?’ Willow said, putting down the fire iron but still unwilling to have her husband roughly spoken to beside his own hearth. ‘I should say there’s good reason. And less of the “fool”, if you please, Master Gwydion. Those who don’t mind their manners in this house gets shown off these premises right quick, and that’s whoever they may be.’

  Gwydion turned to her sharply, but then seeming to bethink himself swept a low bow. ‘I have offended you. Please, accept my apologies. If I was rude, it was because I was upon an important errand and I did not expect to be disturbed from it.’

  Will stepped towards the door without hesitation. ‘I can’t be sure, Gwydion, but I think this is something you ought to see.’

  Once they were outside Gwydion shielded his eyes from the purple glare, then took Will’s arm. ‘You were right to summon me. Of course you were.’

  Will’s heart sank. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Something I have feared daily these four years.’

  ‘Hey!’ Will called, but Gwydion had already taken himself halfway down the path. ‘Hey, where are you going?’

  ‘To the Giant’s Ring, of course!’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘That,’ the wizard called over his shoulder, ‘is entirely up to you.’

  Will watched the wizard stride away into the darkness. He looked helplessly towards the cottage door. ‘But…what about Willow? What about Bethe?’

  ‘Oh, they must not come! There is likely to be great danger on the Tops.’

  Will ran to the doorway and put his head inside. ‘Gwydion needs my help,’ he said. ‘I have to go with him.’

  Willow dandled their daughter. ‘Go? Go where?’

  ‘Up onto the Tops.’

  Her pretty eyes quizzed him, then she sighed. ‘Oh, Will…’

  ‘Don’t worry. I won’t be long. I promise.’ He held her for a moment, then kissed her hurriedly, unhooked his cloak and left.

  ‘What do you think it is?’ he asked as he caught up with the wizard.

  Gwydion tasted the air. He made hissing noises and held out his arm, but no barn owl came to his call. ‘Do you see how the night creatures hereabouts have all gone to ground? No bird can fly in this glare.’

  They climbed up the stony path that no one but Gwydion could ever find. It led up through the woods of Nethershaw, yet it wound past trees and the phantasms of trees and passed through impenetrable thickets of brambles that parted to let Gwydion through but then closed behind Will. He scrambled smartly up a mossy bank after the wizard and felt the earth crumbling away under his toes. But then the trees gave out and a dark land opened before them, stark under the purple glow.

  They walked onward across tussocky grass, over pools of shadow and a maze of spirals that Will sensed patterning the earth. Soon five great standing stones loomed out of the night, huddled closely one upon another like a group of conspirators. They were, Will knew, vastly ancient, all that remained of the tomb of Orba, Queen of the Summer Moon, who had lived in the Age of the First Men.

  She it was who had ruled the land here long ago, and close by was the dragon-ravaged tomb of her husband, Finglas. Now no more than a bump in the flow-tattooed earth. The wizard swung his staff before him, his eyes penetrating the dark like lamps. Will’s heart was hammering as the wizard paused and shaded his eyes against the sky’s sickly violet sheen. ‘It’s not coming from the Giant’s Ring after all,’ he said. It’s coming from somewhere in the west!’

  The wizard drew Will to a sudden halt beside him. ‘Behold! Liarix Finglas!’

  The awesome flickerings rose up in the sky behind the King’s Stone like a monstrous lightning storm. Will saw the great, crooked fang cut out in black against the glare. Beside it stood the twisted elder tree where Gwydion had once been trapped by sorcerer’s magic. Four years ago he had crossed blackened grass; now it had regrown and was lush and dew-cool underfoot.

  A clear view to the west opened up. There the sky was smudged by cloud, and far away a great plume had risen up through the layers, its top blown sideways by high winds, its underside lit amethyst and white.

  ‘Look,’ Will cried. ‘It’s a lightning storm on the Wolds!’

  ‘Did you ever see such lightning as that?’ When Gwydion turned a silent play of light smote the distant Wolds, making crags of his face. ‘And the rumble that shook down your pretty flower pots? Was that thunder?’

  ‘It seemed to come from far away.’

  Gwydion gave a short, humourless laugh. ‘You want to think the danger is far away and so none of your concern. But remember that the earth is one. Magic connects all who walk upon it. Faraway trouble is trouble all the same. Do not try to find comfort in what you see now, for the further away it is the bigger it must be.’

  Will felt the wizard’s words cut him. They accused him of a way of thinking that ran powerfully against the redes and laws of magic.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said humbly. ‘That was selfish.’

  ‘Liarix Finglas,’ Gwydion muttered, moving on. He slid fingers over the stone, savouring the name in the true tongue. ‘In the lesser words of latter days, “the King’s Stone”. And nowadays the herding men who come by here call it “the Shepherd’s Delight”. How quaint! For to them it is no more than a lump from which lucky charms may be chipped. Oh, how the a
ges have declined! What a sorry inheritance the mighty days of yore have bequeathed! We are living in the old age of the world, Willand. And things are determined to turn against us!’

  He heard the bitterness in the wizard’s words. ‘Surely you don’t believe that.’

  The wizard’s face was difficult to read as he turned to Will again. ‘I believe that at this moment, you and your fellow villagers are very lucky to be alive.’

  A chill ran through him. ‘Why do you say that?’

  The wizard offered only a dismissive gesture, and Will took his arm in a firmer grip. ‘Gwydion, I asked you a question!’

  The wizard scowled and pulled his arm away. ‘And, as you see, I am avoiding answering you.’

  ‘But why? This isn’t how it was with us.’

  ‘Why?’ Gwydion put back his head and stared at the sky. ‘Because I am afraid.’

  A fresh pang of fear swam through Will’s belly and surfaced in his mind. This was worse than anything he could have expected. Yet the fear freshened his thinking, awakened him further to the danger. He felt intensely alert as he looked around. Up on the Tops the sky was large. It stretched all the way from east to west, from north to south. He felt suddenly very vulnerable.

  With a sinking heart he looked around for the place where they had unearthed the battlestone and found its grave, a shallow depression now partly filled and overgrown, but the burned-out stone was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘You’re not as kindly as I remembered you,’ he told Gwydion.

  ‘Memories are seldom accurate. And you too have changed. Do not forget that.’

  ‘Even so, you’re less amiable. Sharper tongued.’

  ‘If you find me so, that is because you see more these days. You are no longer the trusting innocent.’

  ‘I was never that.’

  The wizard gazed up and down an avenue of earthlight that stretched, spear-straight across the land. To Will’s eye it was greenish, elfin and fey. But it was a light that he knew well, though very bright for lign-light, brighter than he had ever seen it. It passed close by the circle of standing stones.