The old man turned his tired eyes to the boy.
‘Kyra must do it herself.’
Kyra drew in her breath sharply.
‘And you,’ he said to Karne, ‘and you . . .’ he turned to Fern, ‘must help her and protect her in every way you can. You must do it,’ he said directly to Kyra and his eyes were anxious. ‘It is very important. You have promised.’
‘And you have promised!’ Kyra sobbed, ‘You have promised to come back to me.’
He nodded almost imperceptibly and then his eyes closed.
They could not rouse him again.
Fern and Karne held back the weeping Kyra, afraid she might harm him, she was so desperately trying to wake him again.
‘He is so old,’ Fern said gently to Kyra, ‘and he has been through so much. Let him go his way in peace now.’
Kyra drew back and tried to control herself. She did not want in any way to harm Maal, but she felt very much alone and vulnerable without him.
‘Come,’ Fern said, taking her arm. ‘You have done everything you can for him.’
‘I will leave the sphere with him. It might help him in some way,’ Kyra said, looking her last at the frail discarded shell of her friend, his thin hands locked around the spiral stone.
‘Yes, do that,’ Fern said, and gave her a gentle tug.
The two girls went out first into the sunlight. Karne stayed behind to have one last look around to see that everything was safe and ready for the long centuries ahead. They had built this little chamber well, half dug into the earth and lined with stone. During the day the girls would cover it with soil and then Fern would transfer growing plants to it so that soon it would look like nothing but a natural mound of trees, ferns and bushes, and would be unnoticeable.
He beat out the torch and followed the girls.
In the early morning sunlight they worked together to put the largest stones they had found to seal up the entrance.
It was arranged that Karne would run home and make up some story to cover their absence. Fern and Kyra would meanwhile have a few hours’ sleep and then do their best to disguise the tomb.
When Karne could find an opportunity, he would fill in the tunnel to Maal’s official tomb. As no one suspected it was there he was not anticipating any trouble.
* * * *
Kyra awoke from her sleep at noon to find Fern already at work on the mound.
‘You look better,’ Fern said with a smile as she saw Kyra approaching. She did indeed. Fern would almost have said she looked happy as well as rested.
Kyra smiled cheerfully.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I had a good dream.’
‘About Maal?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is he all right?’
‘I am sure he is.’
‘What did you dream?’
‘I cannot remember exactly . . . but I know it was all good. Instead of the fog I had in the dream I had about him before . . . there was a great deal of light and beautiful luminous things . . . even the people were tall and shining . . .’
‘Did you see him choosing a new life?’
‘No. I do not think it happens quite like that.’
‘I cannot imagine how it happens.’
‘Nor can I,’ Kyra said thoughtfully. ‘But all the darkness and fog was gone. Of that I am sure. Everything was light and beautiful. But it was as though I was looking at it reflected in something . . . I think it was a pool because something dropped and the whole image shimmered and broke up . . . sort of shattered into millions of sparkles of light . . . and then I woke up.’
‘Perhaps being still in a body you could not look directly at the scene, but only at a reflection of it. The direct brightness of it might be too much for you.’
‘Something like that,’ Kyra said, and then they both laughed at one of Maal’s much used phrases.
‘Come on,’ said Fern then, ‘we have a lot to do.’
They worked hard together and the mound was finished and covered with growing plants before the sun set over the hills.
Kyra washed herself in Fern’s little stream and walked home, her limbs weary, the shades of the night gathering around her.
Chapter 14
The Triumph of Wardyke
When Kyra woke to the dawn of the next day she knew that she would not sleep again until she had spoken with the Lords of the Sun. All day she thought about it as she went about her work, and the more she thought about it the more anxious she became.
She had not been given specific instructions about what to do. Maal had said enigmatically that she would ‘know’ when the time came, but even that was referring to working together. It was he who was supposed to find the Lords. Her task was to have been to help him through Wardyke’s invisible barrier and boost his failing strength with what embryo power she had. Even the secret knowledge she was supposed to have about the correct configuration of the stars was a mystery to her. She could remember the beauty and the splendour of the vision, but no specific configuration. The impression she had gained in that moment of illumination was that there was no set and rigid pattern, but that everything was moving and changing all the time. The driving force of the Universe worked through a process of minute, delicate and orderly adjustments between each specific thing, great and small.
* * * *
In the afternoon her family task was to grind the grain to make flour. She knelt beside the grinding stone, crushing the grains of wheat into the hollow of it with a sea-rounded pebble. As she worked she tried to bring together in her mind all the teachings of Maal, to see if from their accumulated bulk she could pluck what she needed for the night. She had learnt a great deal, but Maal had warned her that knowledge never really took root until one had occasion to use it.
As she worked and pondered, her baby sister sat in the dirt beside her and played with the pebbles she was not using. One by one they were picked up in the chubby little hands and chewed and slobbered over. Those that were too big to lift the baby leant down and gnawed at with toothless gums, as Kyra had seen a dog gnaw at a bone.
Sometimes Kyra would have to break off what she was doing to thrust her finger into the baby’s mouth to remove one of the smaller pebbles she was in danger of swallowing. It seemed to her that no matter how hard she concentrated on the work of grinding, her mind was working busily on several other levels at the same time. One on the difficult task of creating order and system out of the bits and pieces of knowledge she had gained from Maal, another looking after the baby and noticing when it did anything that was potentially harmful to it, yet another noticing the village life around her, Faro and her father talking in lowered voices, women bringing washing back from the stream, children playing a game of hopping and jumping. It seemed a long time since she had played such a game and she felt the urge to drop everything she was doing and go and join them.
And through it all, separate from all these different threads of consciousness, she was aware of herself being aware of them.
‘And Maal says we only notice a few of the threads with our ordinary minds, there are many others within me at this very moment.’
She knew she wanted more than anything else to train herself to be aware on all these different levels, of all these different states.
‘How rich it would make life,’ she thought. ‘How much richer than it already is.’
She stopped her work for a moment and bent down to pick up the baby. She held it high above her head and noticed with a smile that it was beginning to be really heavy. The little creature laughed delightedly as she dropped it to chest level and gave it a hug. It clung with its legs and arms around her, nuzzling its dirty little face against her neck, loving her.
She was just about to put it down again and resume her work with the grain, when she heard a shout and turned to see what was happening.
Her brother Thon was running, waving his arms and shouting. He seemed agitated and shocked. Villagers were looking up at him and some left what they wer
e doing to follow him. He stopped when he reached Faro and her father and, waving his arms and gesticulating, he began to tell them something. A little group of villagers began to gather round the three men.
Kyra, still holding the baby, ran to join them. She could not make out quite what was happening because everyone was talking at once, but she gathered it was really horrifying.
‘What is it?’ she cried, nudging people, trying to get nearer the centre of the group so that she could hear what Thon was saying.
At last one of the women, unable to make herself heard against the strident voices of the men, and anxious to communicate her horror with someone, turned to Kyra and told her the whole story.
Thon had found the body of Mia battered to death amongst the trees just beyond the north pasture.
‘We are going to fetch her now,’ the woman added, and moved off with the others, led by Thon.
Kyra rushed back to her home and deposited the baby unceremoniously with her busy mother.
Breathlessly she ran to catch the others. Mia was a pretty girl, much sought after by the village boys; a little dull, Kyra had always thought, but nevertheless she was fond of her.
What a terrible thing!
What was happening to their village?
There had been anger and hatred between people from time to time but no one in her memory, or indeed in the memory of her father and grandfather, had killed another except by accident. Now Maal was dead and probably Wardyke had killed him. Was he responsible for Mia’s death as well?
A group of people had already gathered round the body of the girl when they arrived; standing in a circle round her, silently staring. Kyra pushed forward to see, gasped and withdrew immediately. Whoever had done that to her was evil beyond anything Kyra had come across before. She stood back, her heart beating. The girl’s clothes were ripped and soaked in blood. Where the bones were broken, Kyra could see white splinters sticking out of the flesh.
She must find Karne. She was afraid for Fern, for herself, for all of them. The feelings she had that Wardyke was evil and inspired evil in others were being confirmed with dreadful speed. The urgency of her mission to the Lords of the Sun was becoming greater at every moment.
* * * *
Karne met her on the path leading back to the village from Maal’s tomb.
‘What is wrong?’ he called as soon as he saw her face.
Words tumbled from her. His face went black with anger. She could see the muscles tensing along his arms and shoulders.
‘No, Karne!’ she cried in alarm.
‘We cannot let this happen!’ he shouted and left her, running like a deer across the rough terrain towards the village. When she arrived panting and out of breath, he had already joined a group of men all of whom were angry and ready for action. She heard his claim that Wardyke had killed Maal, and Wardyke must surely have killed the girl.
‘Wardyke is no true priest. He is an impostor!’
‘Karne! Karne!’ she cried, trying to stop him. This was not the way. This way they would not stand a chance. This way Maal had warned them not to try.
But her voice was thin and womanish and did not carry across the storm of their anger.
As one unit they turned and strode towards Wardyke’s house, seizing wood and stones as they went, determined to put an end to what they were beginning to feel more and more as a tyranny. The mood was ugly and there was the scent of more blood in the air.
Kyra ran behind, desperately trying to think of a way to stop the inevitable catastrophe.
As the angry marchers neared Wardyke’s magnificent house they were joined by others, until almost the whole village was marching. As they marched they chanted, an impromptu chant of hate.
‘War-dyke! War-dyke! War-dyke!’
Kyra’s blood ran cold to hear her peaceful, friendly villagers so twisted and locked upon a knot of rage and blind hate. She knew there was no way they were going to win against Wardyke in this battle. In a sense they were becoming just what he wanted them to become, a senseless mob pulled by primitive feelings that he could manipulate as he wished, their god-given gift of reason and intelligence overthrown and helpless.
As they mounted the last ridge before his house they were brought to a sudden halt. He was standing before them, gigantic and imposing. He held up his hand and for a moment they were cowed, then one of their number, it might even have been Karne but Kyra could not be sure, shouted belligerently, ‘Who killed Mia?’
The others took up the cry.
‘Who killed Mia?’
‘Who killed Maal?’
The shouting and the noise was deafening, some of the younger boys clattering sticks together to make a kind of terrifying drumming sound. But although they shouted and they were still angry they did not move forward. Wardyke’s hand was up and it was as though there was an invisible barrier keeping them back.
He waited as though he were carved of rock. Only his eyes had life in them and they were like black fire, their flames licking the earth in front of the marchers, daring them to take a step forward.
Suddenly another noise joined the one the marchers were making, and a quick imperceptible movement of Wardyke’s hand and head subtly directed the marchers’ attention to it.
To the left of them was another mob, mostly consisting of Wardyke’s strangers, and they too were shouting and angry and they were dragging the figure of a man in their midst.
Wardyke took advantage of the momentary pause of surprise amongst the hostile villagers to say in a voice of thunder, the deadly dagger of his bony finger pointing directly at the captive man, ‘He is your enemy. He killed Mia!’
A sort of composite scream went up from the mob and within a second they had transferred all their hate from Wardyke to the captive.
Horrified, Kyra saw them turn upon him and join with the strangers in beating him with sticks and stones, until he was lying bleeding and broken in a heap on the ground.
Only then did the people pause and think about what they had done.
They did not even know who it was they had destroyed. If questioned they might have said they thought it was one of the strangers because he was among the strangers, but they had not used their minds. They had moved like one body of concentrated venom on the point of Wardyke’s finger.
Kyra, trembling, looked for Karne. She found him back from the mob, alone on the path. He had realized what was happening in time and had not joined the mob in stoning the man, but his face was a study of stunned horror. He had played his part in rousing the rebellion. His words against Wardyke had seemed justified at the time. But now, when he could see where it had led, he knew Maal had been right to warn them against this course of action. They were deeper in the mesh of Wardyke’s evil than they had ever been.
Someone cried out. The broken body of the man was lifted and recognized. It was one of them, one of the villagers; not a man at all, but a boy of sixteen, simple-minded but gentle. The villagers knew with a terrible certainty that he could not have killed Mia.
There was silence now as they realized what they had done. The strangers had cunningly disappeared, leaving the stunned villagers to survey their handiwork.
Wardyke had disappeared as well.
They were alone on the hill with their pain and their guilt.
A woman started sobbing and this was the only sound as they picked up the mangled heap of bones and carried it home.
* * * *
That night the bodies of the two young people, Mia and the boy, were laid side by side to await burial. The villagers lit fires around them and kept vigil all night.
Never had they needed guidance and help so much, but there was no one to whom they could turn.
As the stars whirled quietly across the sky many of them turned inwards for help, trying to think it all out for themselves, questioning themselves . . . looking at the bodies, the dark earth, the fires around them and the stars in the sky . . . puzzling about the relationship of each to each and the mea
ning of the whole.
Chapter 15
The Lords of the Sun
Wardyke was within the Sacred Circle when the bright and wandering star the villagers called Magus rose above the stone of the star. He stood in the centre and spoke the incantations to the gods that were expected of him. Around the circle, making another circle, the seven new Elders walked with slow and measured tread, keeping a constant circular current going. Beyond them Wardyke’s strangers stood, and beyond them again some of the villagers who were not at that time keeping watch by the burial fires waited forlornly, still numbed by the events of the past few days.
Karne, Kyra and Fern were among these but well to the back, in the shadow, keeping carefully out of sight.
Kyra was very tense. Her fingers gripped those of her brother with an almost crippling force. Once or twice he tried to loosen her grip, but it was no use. She needed him and she was not letting go.
They could see Wardyke clearly as torches were placed between each standing stone. The combination of flickering fire and darkness and the fact that the circle was higher than the watching villagers made him and his Elders seem like giants.
As the star rose it was the custom to sing, and some with stringed instruments and reed flutes would play sweet music. But this night the watching crowd remained silent and the star rose only to the sound of Wardyke’s voice. He lifted his arms and called on the gods to give him strength to carry out his work among the people of the Magus. He spoke of his prowess as a priest and how he had gathered together people of many communities to form a larger community which he would lead to be the greatest people on the earth.
‘They will glorify the names of the gods and carry your power wherever they go.
‘They will spread over the face of the earth making one people, led by one priest, Wardyke your servant. Wardyke your right hand.
‘They will trample on your enemies and slay your foes.
‘Your names will be revered and feared as they were in the ancient times.’
His voice rose in a kind of ecstasy. It magnified against the rocks and reverberated among the people.
Fern drew closer to Karne and slipped her arm through his. Kyra bit her lip until it bled.
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