The Longsword Chronicles: Book 02 - Sword and Circle

by GJ Kelly

  Gawain found the wizard’s bag where he’d left it hanging on the back of a chair, and stepped quietly to stand a short distance from his lady.

  “E, what are you doing?” he whispered.

  “Trying to find my way around the room by myself!” she said, harshly, and whipped her head around to gaze angrily at the sound of his voice. Then her eyebrows raised in sudden surprise. She lowered her arms, and turned towards him. “G’wain, am I facing you now?”

  “Yes,” he replied, and his heart began to beat faster, hope beginning to blossom.

  But then she turned, slowly, a little at a time, moving her head this way and that, and then back towards him. She turned a full circle and faced him once more.

  “And now, G’wain?”

  “Yes!” and his heart beat harder.

  But Elayeen turned once more to face the fireplace, raised her hands in front of her again, and began slowing inching towards it. “Take Allazar his notebook, miheth. It may help to quieten him.”

  Gawain sighed. He had been dismissed, and knew it. Suddenly deflated, he nodded uselessly, and then quietly let himself out of the room to return to Allazar’s bedside.

  “Mi scribendana.” The wizard smiled when Gawain fished the book from its resting-place between the wrapped remains of sandwiches, and the joy which infused the two words made him sound like a child receiving a long yearned-for birthday pony.

  “Yes, wizard, your scribendana.”

  Allazar squirmed beneath the bedclothes and for a fleeting moment Gawain thought the wizard was having some kind of convulsion, until he realised that in fact Allazar was attempting to transfer the staff from his right hand side to his left.

  “By the Teeth, wizard, you have my permission to release the stick! I didn’t mean for you never to let go of it when I named you its keeper!”

  But the wizard either ignored Gawain, or defied him. It wasn’t until the staff had been moved from one side of the bed to the other and the notebook transferred to the wizard’s right hand that Allazar seemed to relax. Then, with his left arm, and to Gawain’s astonishment left leg, wrapped around the staff, Allazar flipped the pages of his notebook until two blank leaves faced him, and made the universal sign for a pen or writing implement.

  Once again Gawain rummaged in the wizard’s bag, and retrieved a stub of a pencil not much longer than his thumb. He handed this to Allazar who promptly wrote:

  I understand everything you say

  “Well if that’s true, Allazar, understand this: you’ve been hurt, a head injury. Your words are mostly meaningless to all of us, the healer is concerned for your brains and you are to remain in this bed until some kind of sense returns. Do you understand that, wizard, or am I going too fast for you?”

  Allazar simply underlined his first sentence.

  “Oh. Well then, Elayeen is blind. I… I don’t know how to comfort her, Allazar. I try, but… the circle has robbed her not only of sight, but also the elven throth that was between us. There is no longer any black in her hair, nor mine. We smote Morloch, Allazar, we smote him so hard, but now, I do not know what to do…”

  Wait Allazar scribbled urgently.

  “You think it temporary? You saw something in the runes? You have some knowledge?”

  Wait

  “Dwarfspit, Allazar, wait for what?”

  Suddenly the wizard snapped his head to the right, past Gawain sitting on the bed, and stared at the blank wall, clutching the staff tighter as though fearing its imminent theft. His eyes rolled back in his head and he mumbled something incoherent. After a few moments, his senses seemed to return, and he scribbled hastily again.

  I hear voices they talk to me filling my head

  “What voices, Allazar? Whose? I hear nothing, see nothing.”

  They are not for you to hear remember the circle

  “Remember what about the circle?” Gawain reached down to grip the wizard’s arm, “Dwarfspit Allazar I need you! Elayeen needs you! What are you trying to tell me?”

  Great sorrow seemed to wash over the wizard’s face, and then pity, and finally great frustration before he drew in a shuddering breath and wrote in the notebook once more:

  Adjectives

  “I don’t understand.”

  This time Allazar simply drew two bold underlines beneath the word ‘wait’.

  “Easy for you to say, you one-eyed mumbling whitebeard bastard. You’re not the one who caused all this.”

  But Allazar jerked again, staring this time to the left, his eyes wide, and he seemed to struggle to speak. Finally he managed three words:

  Friyenheth Ceartus Omniumde!

  And then he sighed, his eyes rolled back, and he mumbled, and slept.

  Gawain waited a while, watching the wizard mumbling in his sleep, clutching the staff and the notebook, the pencil lying on the sheets by Allazar’s right hand. Gawain picked it up, gently took the notebook and read the scribbled messages the wizard had scrawled. Wait, with its double underline, gave him great cause for hope, as did the fact that Allazar clearly did understand all that was being said in the common tongue around him. At least he did until the strange ‘voices’ seemingly drew him away from this world.

  He tucked the pencil into the spine of the notebook, and then wedged the book itself between the wizard’s left arm and his chest, so it would be to hand when Allazar next woke, should he need it.

  Feeling completely at a loss, Gawain decided he should tell Elayeen what had occurred, and the wizard’s instructions to ‘wait’. That one word suddenly seemed to possess great importance for the King of Raheen, particularly when a vision of his beloved inching blindly towards the crumbling edge of the cliffs of the Sea of Hope pressed unbidden to the forefront of his mind.

  He left the sleeping wizard and returned to his own room, only to find Elayeen standing this time in the corner to the left of the door, facing the wall like a naughty child in school.

  “Elayeen…”

  “Hush.”

  “What?”

  “Hush. Take off your boots and don’t say a word.”

  “May I know why?”

  “Which part of ‘hush’ don’t you understand, G’wain?”

  Filled with the conviction that the strange madness which had befallen Allazar in the circle had now spread to his beloved, Gawain simply did as he was told, and pulled off his boots to stand quietly by the door in his stockinged feet.

  “Have you done it?”

  Gawain didn’t answer.

  “Have you done it, Gawain?” Elayeen asked again, sternly.

  “Which part of ‘hush’ don’t you understand?” Gawain grumbled. “Yes, I have.”

  “Good. Now. As silently as possible I want you to move and go and stand somewhere in the room. I will count to five, slowly, and then I will turn, and try to point my finger at you. If I succeed, you will say ‘yes’, and that’s all. And then we shall proceed again. Is that clear?”

  Gawain’s heart lurched. “Your sight is returning!” he gasped.

  But Elayeen let out an angry sigh and balled her fists. “G’wain please, just do as I say I beg you!”

  “Sorry… I’m sorry. Of course.”

  “You remember what you have to do? It’s important, you mustn’t make a sound.”

  “Yes.”

  Elayeen began counting. Feeling distinctly idiotic but with the word wait blazing in his mind’s eye, Gawain lifted his knees and crept silently, though somewhat comically, to stand by the window.

  “…Five.” Elayeen finished. Then she turned away from the corner to face into the room. Her head swivelled slowly, her wide-eyed gaze sweeping the entire room, and then to Gawain’s astonishment and delight, she lifted her right arm, and pointed towards him.

  “Yes!” he called, “But you were a bit to the right!”

  “Just ‘yes’ G’wain! Hush! Dwarfspit, please!”

  “Sorry.” Gawain whispered as Elayeen turned to face into the corner again.

  “One…” sh
e began, and Gawain happily tip-toed back across the room to stand in the corner opposite Elayeen. But the sword strapped across his back scraped the stonework of the fireplace as he turned to look at his lady and she cried out in frustration.

  “Vayen vakin Denthas! Can you not do this one simple thing!”

  Gawain could hear the frustration and anguish in her voice and hurried to her, hastily unslinging the sword and casting it on to the bed before gently grasping her shoulders. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Elayeen, miheth, it was the sword, I’ve taken it off, look, there, it’s on the bed…”

  But that, of course helped not a jot, and she let out a sob, turning to pound on his chest with both fists. He drew her close and held her until her anger and frustration slowly waned. A little.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered again. “Truly.”

  “Then you’ll play the game properly now?” she sniffed.

  “Game?”

  “I don’t know what else to call it.”

  “Yes, I’ll do it properly, I swear by my love for you.”

  Elayeen sniffed again and wiped her eyes, drew back and then turned to face the corner once more.

  “One…” she sighed, and at once, as silently as he could, Gawain crept away from her.

  Five times Elayeen turned and five times raised her finger, and five times Gawain uttered an astonished ‘Yes’. Then, on the sixth occasion, with hope pounding in his heart, a sudden doubt made him stop before he reached the corner of the room to Elayeen’s right, and he crouched, as silent as if he were back at the farak gorin with black riders pursuing him. Then he lay down, almost at Elayeen’s feet.

  “…Five.” She announced, turning as before, and as before, swung her head from side to side. She swivelled her hips slightly and started to raise her hand towards the window, the evening sunshine beaming through it, but then she stopped, and cocked her head this way and that.

  Finally, after scanning the room once more, she smiled, and looked down, and pointing at Gawain said quietly, “Dwarfspit and Elve’s Blood, my King is a sneaky cheat.”

  Gawain leapt to his feet with a joyous call of ‘Yes!’ and swept her into his arms. “Oh miheth is it true? Your sight is returning! Allazar said we should wait…”

  But Elayeen simply smiled sadly up at him, and wrapped her arms around his waist.

  “What? What is it?” Gawain mumbled, confusion rushing over him again.

  “I do not think my sight is returning, miheth,” Elayeen sighed. “Something is happening, though. I began to wonder earlier, each time you were near and I thought the world a little brighter. Then later, when I was measuring the distance from the bed to the fireplace and you came in, I felt sure of it. I cannot see, G’wain, all is darkness, but you, you are a brightness to my eyes. I see it now, this close to you it’s everywhere, like facing the sun and closing your eyes. I did not see you, miheth, in our game, but I saw your brightness, and that is something.”

  “Yes, my love, that is something indeed.”

  Gawain kissed her, led her to the chair in front of the window, and sat, drawing her into his lap, and while he caressed her hair he told her of Allazar, and of the notebook.

  “Adjectives?” she asked softly, her eyes closed and her head on his shoulder.

  “Yes.”

  “Then we should wait.”

  “Yes.” Gawain agreed in the gathering gloom, wondering how it was possible that such a slender form could contain so much courage. And wondering if he could bear it half so well were it his vision the circle had taken.

  oOo

  12. Gingerbread

  And so they waited, there at the outpost at the foot of the Downland Pass. For Gawain, the waiting was bitter-sweet. Bitter, for the guilt he still felt, sweet for the long hours alone with Elayeen, holding her close in the night, and in the day as they walked the cobbled road, he describing their surroundings and she tilting her head this way and that as he did so. Allazar was content to rest quietly in his room, occasionally and furtively studying the notes he’d made in the Keep, but mostly dozing quietly and mumbling. Captain Tyrane and the Callodon guards were quietly efficient in their watch, and also the epitome of gallantry whenever Elayeen was near.

  On the third afternoon, sitting by the wells after a refreshing drink, Elayeen glanced around and announced to Gawain:

  “We are alone, miheth.”

  “Yes.”

  She nodded, and then pointed. “Are those the wells?”

  “Yes!”

  “I think I am beginning to discern shapes, G’wain. They seem featureless, but shapes nevertheless. And people. I see your shape so brightly now, you’re like a man made from sunlight. And over there,” she nodded towards the bend in the road where it curved away to the north, “I believe that is the shape of Captain Tyrane moving towards us?”

  “Yes!” Gawain gasped, “By the Teeth, it is!”

  “He is bright, too.”

  “Really?”

  Elayeen smiled. “He shines, miheth, is what I mean. Though not as brightly as you do.”

  “I don’t think I understand. But I don’t mind. If it means you can see something, I don’t mind at all.”

  “Perhaps you were right, G’wain, perhaps my sight is returning. Or perhaps not. There are patterns of light and dark, shapes in the gloom, and people seem bright to a greater or lesser degree. You blaze like the sun, the Captain… well he shimmers more than burns.”

  “He shimmers.”

  “Yes. But you blaze, so don’t complain.”

  “Do I keep you awake at night?”

  “Yes, miheth, but that has nothing to do with your brightness or my eyes.” Elayeen smiled, and for the first time since Raheen, the smile lit her up as if she herself glowed with some inner light.

  Allazar was allowed out of bed that same afternoon when a brief exchange of notes with the whitesleeves seemed to convince the healer that the wizard was suffering not from a serious injury to the brain, but some rather more mystic injury inflicted by the dark magic of Salaman Goth. But he was not permitted to venture beyond the boardwalk in front of the inn, at least for now. The wizard continued to be ‘distracted’ from time to time, and though more and more words of the common tongue were slowly creeping back into his speech, he was still assailed by ‘ghosts’, as everyone was beginning to call the voices only Allazar could hear.

  And yet, later that afternoon, Gawain and Turlock manhandled a table and chairs out from the inn and set them up on the deck facing the wells, and there, as the shadow of the mountain swept over them, the three who had stood in the circle together above, now sat around a circle of wood here below.

  “Meleeah Elayeen,” Allazar sighed, joy etching his features, “Eyem hatak to see you at last!”

  “Oh G’wain,” Elayeen gasped, “Allazar shines as bright as you! And there, that is the staff?”

  “Yes, the two are practically glued to each other.”

  “It sparkles,” she smiled, tilting her head, “As though it were filled with stars, all swimming in moonlight.”

  Allazar nodded, as if a suspicion had been confirmed, and Gawain quietly explained that Elayeen could now discern faint shapes, and that people ‘glowed’.

  “It is more than this, though,” Elayeen said softly. “The world for me is all shades of grey, but if I look closely, I can discern shapes and other things. The ground by the wells has a sheen of lighter grey upon it, like a sprinkling of dust, and so too the ground at the stables, and around the inns, and occasionally, here and there, on the cobbles of the road. I think the dusty sheen is grass.”

  Allazar nodded, and began scribbling in his notebook.

  “To the north, where the road curves around the bottom of the cliff on its way to Jarn, if I look closely, there are tall threads of dusty silver-grey like polished iron or dull steel, and about the top of the threads, small clouds of the same. These, I think are trees. People, and the horses here, and also the birds if I look hard enough, are like the biscuits
lady Merrin made for the infant Travak, but glowing, some brighter than others.”

  “Gingerbread men,” Gawain said quietly, “The biscuits. Truly, there are no other features? You cannot see my face, or my eyes?”

  “No,” Elayeen sighed. “Though your brightness Gawain I would know in a crowd of shining gingerbread men.”

  “Eyem certain now, Meleeah, erest an circle.” Allazar said quietly, looking around as if for eavesdroppers and sliding the notebook across the table to Gawain.

  “He’s written this, E,” Gawain said, and began to read aloud until Allazar shushed him to a quieter tone of voice:

  We must be careful when speaking of the circle especially around others I believe the circle was not only waiting for those of certain qualities to unlock the ancient power but that it also wrought changes upon us adding to those qualities

  “Adding?” Elayeen asked, sadly.

  Allazar snatched back the notebook and began scribbling again.

  “He’s writing again.” Gawain sighed.

  “Yes, I guessed as much when I saw his gingerbread arm reach out. He took the notebook?”

  “Yes,” Gawain gazed at her, the awe he felt at her inner courage ballooning once more.

  Allazar shoved the book back, and again, Gawain read to Elayeen:

  I believe they have granted you the sight of the Eldenelves that you are seeing the magic within all creatures of nature

  “But why? For what purpose, Allazar?” Elayeen asked sadly. “And why has this unwelcome gift been inflicted upon me?”

  Allazar took back the notebook, sighing with frustration.

  “He’s writing again.” Gawain explained. “And while you’re at it wizard, why have they robbed you of sensible speech? What kind of gift is that, garbling your words and making you appear like a gibbering idiot?”

  Allazar looked up briefly, pausing, and then began scribbling frantically, turning a page.

  “And,” Gawain added, “Why did they simply not afflict me with all of these ‘gifts’ instead of you?”

  Again, Allazar paused, and then again continued writing. Finally he passed the book back to Gawain who read: