A Cast of Stones

by Patrick W. Carr

  “Your staff is made of ash,” Rale said. “It’s light and springy. Until you put some muscle on that frame of yours, you’ll want to stay away from the weight of oak.” He brandished his own staff, and Errol noted the honey-colored striations in the wood.

  Rale moved into a stance similar to a swordsman. “Now, the first thing you need to know is what most swordsmen won’t expect.” Without warning his staff moved, and before Errol could step back out of the way, the wood cracked across his leg midway between his ankle and his knee. The blow wasn’t hard enough to break his leg, but even so it dropped him to his knees.

  “Even with your limited training in the sword, you didn’t expect me to strike at your legs,” Rale said. His voice cadenced as though he’d said these words many times before. “Swordsmen are taught, and rightly so, not to strike for the lower legs. For them it means death, but for a man with the longer reach of a staff, the legs are just another target. And one of the better ones, since a swordsman won’t expect a blow to be aimed there.”

  The pain ebbed enough to allow him to stand.

  Rale nodded his approval. “Now, hold your staff like this. . . .”

  An hour later, Errol sat at the table shoveling chunks of mutton and potatoes into his mouth. Rale reminded him of Cruk. Both men seemed to think the quickest way to teach someone to fight was to beat them until they couldn’t defend themselves. Maybe they were right. After one session with this strange farmer, Errol knew one thing for sure—he preferred the staff to the sword. The length of wood fit him in a way that a sword never would. Perhaps the sword’s lethality repelled him, or maybe the span of the ash in his hand felt more comfortable because of his less-than-average height. But speculations aside, he enjoyed the staff more.

  “You’ve got a knack for it, boy,” Rale said around a mouthful of stew. “Some people are born swordsmen; some are made for the staff. There are a lucky few who can master both.” He pointed his spoon at Errol. “You have balance. I don’t know where you got it, but it’s the best I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen more than a few. You’re a staff man.”

  Errol felt a stare upon him and glanced over to see Myrrha looking at him, eyes bright and shining. He ducked his head, his face red, and tried to concentrate on his food.

  Anomar must have seen the look as well. “Myrrha, run to the spring and fetch us some water for the dishes.” The look Anomar gave Errol after Myrrha left the cottage bore no resemblance to her daughter’s. Anomar rose and disappeared from Errol’s vision for a moment before returning with a pitcher of dark, foamy liquid.

  Ale.

  As his mouth watered, Errol counted back. How long had he gone without a drink? Three weeks? Four? He stared at the pitcher, his hand moving toward it of its own volition. When his fingers were close enough to feel the cooled air surrounding the thick stoneware, he stopped.

  Anomar’s laugh drifted across his hearing, sounded at once friendly and far away. “Go ahead, lad. Our ale is a little darker than most, but I’ve never had a complaint.”

  He pulled his hand back, aware now that sweat beaded on his forehead and that Rale watched him, his eyes dark, intense. Errol licked his lips. Did he want a drink? He hadn’t gone more than two days in a row without a drink since he was . . . since Warrel . . . the quarry . . . stone.

  Memory crushed him, blinding him to the cottage, to Rale, to Anomar. His arms covered his chest. He rocked back and forth, heard whimpering noises in a voice he recognized as his own. Stone. He reached out a hand without seeing, groping for the pitcher of ale.

  He couldn’t find it. Images assaulted him. He couldn’t see past them.

  “Boy!” Anomar’s voice sounded in his ear, close enough for him to feel the breath of her words. A hand came to rest against his cheek.

  “Leave us, Anomar,” Rale’s voice ordered. “This is beyond your healing.”

  Footsteps.

  Motion.

  His chair scraped the floor. A pop of sound and his head whipped to one side, and an instant later his cheek stung. His eyes snapped open to see Rale in front of him, arm raised for another blow.

  “Can you see me, boy?”

  Errol managed a nod.

  “Good.”

  He felt himself lifted from the chair. Rale threw him over one shoulder like a sack of grain and carried him out to the yard, where the farmer dumped him on the ground.

  Pictures of his past drifted across his vision. He couldn’t seem to stop them. Blood everywhere. And silence. Not even a breath of sound. Errol opened his eyes, but the memories followed him.

  An ash staff rested on his ribs.

  “Come, boy,” Rale said, soft but commanding. “Fight it.”

  As though Rale’s voice had the power to command him, he groped for the staff like a drowning man grasping for a rope. His fingers closed on the wood, gripping it tighter and tighter until his knuckles cracked and ached with the effort.

  That was as far as he could go.

  Tears wet his cheeks. Warrel . . . blood . . . so much blood.

  Hands gripped him, strong, implacable. “Fight, boy!”

  Errol stood, stared as Rale’s staff whistled through the air, coming for his legs.

  He ground his staff, felt the impact of wood against wood. His palms stung with the vibration.

  “No!” The word’s echo still hung in the air as he lifted the butt end of his staff and struck, trying with all his might to smash through Rale’s defense. Wood struck wood. Errol twirled, reversed his grip and struck again.

  And again Rale parried.

  He thrust now, hands at the lower end, trying to put the end of the staff into the farmer’s midsection, face, throat, anything.

  Errol screamed with every attack.

  Nothing landed.

  He didn’t know how long it went on, but when at last he found himself on the ground with his vision clear, his voice was raw from screams and blisters were forming on his hands.

  Rale pried the wood from his grasp and sat by him in the dirt of the yard.

  “How long have you been in the ale barrel, boy?”

  Errol drew a racking breath into his lungs. “About five years, I think. I’m not sure exactly how old I was when Warrel died.”

  A nod. “I’ve seen it before, though not in any so young. It’s usually a man who’s lost a wife or son. Men mostly—women seem to be stronger somehow. I saw a lot of it in the last war, with soldiers that lost their company. I think they felt guilty for living—all of them desperate to escape the pain of their loss. Most of them chose the ale barrel. A few opted for the healer’s concoctions. Some chose the sharp end of the dagger.”

  Rale fell silent but made no move to rise.

  They stayed that way, sitting side by side in the dirt until dusk crept over them and the fields and trees beyond the cottage and barn blurred, becoming indistinct.

  “Who was Warrel?” Rale asked.

  Who indeed?

  “Warrel Dymon, the man who raised me.” He sucked in air, squinted against that last bloody memory. In a voice like a child’s he made one last plea. “Do I have to tell it?”

  He sensed rather than saw Rale’s nod. “If you ever want to be free of the ale, yes. I’ve known a few who could manage the drink and something of a normal life, but there was no mistaking how broken they were.”

  “I think I was fourteen,” Errol said. “Warrel worked in the quarry at Callowford, my village. It’s just a village, nothing like Windridge.” He stared into the deepening gloom, saw the village street in front of him. “I was playing. There weren’t many chores for me, since it was just the two of us. I spent a lot of time in the smithy, watching Knorl make horseshoes. I liked the way the water boiled and steamed when he put the hot metal into it.

  “Cantor came riding up the quarry road like he had demons chasing him, screaming my name the whole way. When he found me, he didn’t say anything, just lifted me with one arm and put me on the saddle behind him. We pounded back up the road. He wouldn’t answ
er any of my questions.” Errol shrugged at the memory. “Maybe he didn’t hear.

  “When we got to the quarry, a couple of men grabbed me and ran me down into the pit at the bottom. Warrel was there, lying under a block of . . . stone.”

  He didn’t think he could go on. The memories were—

  Rale’s hand found his shoulder. “I’m sorry, boy. It would have been better if he could have said good-bye.”

  Errol barked a laugh that tore at his throat. “Better? No, I don’t think it was.” He shook his head. “Warrel wasn’t dead, not yet. The fool. He knew better than to walk under a piece of hanging stone, no matter how strong the ropes were. But he hurried, or maybe he just forgot. He never said. They tell me he heard the creak of tackle at the last second and dove away. It was almost enough. The stone came down on his legs, just below his hips.”

  He drew a breath, forced himself to go on. “Durastone is heavy.” Now that the moment held him, he wanted to tell it all, every detail. “The slab crushed his legs, forcing the blood into his body. He lost consciousness. The men didn’t dare move him. The moment they moved the stone, Warrel would bleed to death in an instant. Instead, one of them opened a vein, let enough blood out for him to regain consciousness. He sent for me.

  “By the time I got there, he was already fading from the shock and pain.” Errol’s head bowed under the weight of the memory, and tears splashed on the dirt, making mud. “I ran to him, begging him not to die, calling him Da over and over again. ‘Don’t go, Da. Don’t go.’ ” The recollection overwhelmed him. He started to laugh.

  “My head was on his shoulder. I knew what was coming. Quarry men are careful, but even careful men make mistakes, and more than one man died before Warrel.” He fell silent. The image had him now.

  “And then?” Rale’s voice croaked in the darkness.

  “Then he told me I wasn’t his son. Not ‘I love you’ or ‘I’m proud of you’—just that. Then the pain wrenched his face into something unrecognizable, wiped away whatever he might have said next. He waved at the men around us, and they hoisted the stone off his legs. Warrel was gone from the hips down. He bled out in less than a second.

  “I walked back to the village. Warrel had some gold saved, and I spent it all on ale. It helped keep the memories away. When I didn’t show any sign of sobering up, Pater Antil took Warrel’s name from me. He changed my last name to Stone so everyone would know I was an orphan. He started trying to beat me sober about then.”

  Errol stopped, finished and hollow. His tears made faint splashing sounds.

  They sat in silence. Errol felt the memory spreading, taking Rale and his farm back to Callowford, back to Warrel’s end.

  And his own.

  12

  COMPULSION

  ON A CLOUDY MORNING some days later, Errol woke with the nagging feeling he’d lost something. The sensation persisted throughout the day, relieved only by the repeated amazement he experienced at being able to think clearly for more than an hour at a time. Now that the twin effects of sickness and ale no longer plagued him, he found he could see and think with a clarity he’d never experienced before.

  True, without the ale’s dulling effects his emotions, raw and powerful, lurked just beneath the surface, easy prey for memories that came upon him unaware, and unbidden tears tracked his cheeks more than once when memories of Warrel took him by surprise. But the pain faded a little each day, and every day that he refused Anomar’s offer of ale, he felt his resolve and strength grow.

  Rale often beckoned him to the yard in front of the cottage with a sideways tilt of his head, and the two of them would dance with the staff. At those times, moving the two spans of wood, he imagined himself whole, or almost, just another young man trying to please his master so that he could spare himself unnecessary bruises.

  Errol drank in Rale’s advice—“Don’t keep your hands so close together on the staff. You struggle against the weight of the wood, and it slows your strike. Every weapon is fought with the whole body, not just the arms, and half the battle is fought from the neck up”—and strove to master every nuance of technique, balance, and strategy the man showed him.

  One day, after parrying a blow, all the hours of training and advice clicked together. He pivoted, moving faster than thought, spun his staff, and struck.

  A soft thwack sounded, followed by a grunt from Rale, who stepped back to rub his shin. “Bones, boy. That was quick.”

  Rale smiled and Errol’s heart soared at the farmer’s approval.

  “Let’s see how you handle this, lad.”

  Errol retreated before an array of blows so fast and numerous they should have come from two men. Each thrust and strike of Rale’s onslaught came closer and closer to landing until at last the oak staff found the meaty part of Errol’s thigh and he backed away, wincing.

  That earned him another nod. “Not bad, boy. Not bad at all. Most men wouldn’t have lasted half the time you did. The only thing you need now is the one thing I can’t give you.”

  Errol’s heart leapt and sank with Rale’s words. “What can’t you give me?”

  Rale came forward and tapped him on the chest and then gripped his arms. “Muscle. You’re fast, boy. One of the fastest I’ve ever seen, and your balance is perfect, but if you want to move that length of wood fast enough to knock the lightning from the sky, you’ll need to thicken up.”

  Rale laughed. “I wouldn’t worry too much on that account, though. If you can manage to stay out of the ale barrel, you’ll be fine. As long as you get enough to eat and work the staff, your body will do the rest. It’ll make up for the years you lost. You may not end up like this Liam you told us about, but you’ll have nothing to be ashamed of, and no man will take you for granted in a fight.”

  Looking down at his arm, sinewy but thin, Errol imagined how it could look and found the idea appealing.

  “Now, boy,” Rale said, pulling his attention forward, “let’s see if you can touch me again. Attack.”

  An hour later, sweating and panting so that the air whistled in his throat, Errol held up one hand for a halt. The moment their staffs came to rest, the feeling of displacement returned, as though he’d lost something. It was ridiculous. He didn’t own anything. There was nothing to lose, nothing. Perhaps the church’s compulsion to go to Erinon acted upon him at last.

  Two days later he felt the sensation again and told his host of it. Rale paused in the midst of feeding the cows to lean on his pitchfork and consider him. “It’s yourself you’ve lost, boy.”

  Errol made as if to look for something. Then he patted himself. “I’m right here. That’s a relief.”

  Rale smirked in a way to show Errol he didn’t think the joke very funny. “Keep your sense of humor, boy. You’ll need it, such as it is. What I meant was you’ve lost your sense of self.” He threw another forkful of hay over the fence. “I’ve seen it happen to other men who’ve crawled out of the barrel. For the last five years your aim has been to keep yourself drunk enough to keep from remembering Warrel’s death. Now, without that, you’ll have to find some other purpose.”

  At the mention of Warrel, Errol’s mouth watered and an image of a foaming tankard of nut-brown ale rose in his mind. Waving one hand, as though he could shoo the picture away, he made himself relive Warrel’s last moments. He wanted to throw up.

  “Come, Errol,” Rale said. “We’ve time for a bit of staff work. It will give you something to distract you, at least for a while.”

  Errol looked at the pile of hay and the pitchfork lying discarded next to it. “What about the cows?”

  Rale laughed. For a moment his face lost some of it hardness. “You’ve never worked a farm, I see. The work is never over, just delayed. The cows will be fine.”

  They sparred for nearly an hour. Errol wore an assortment of bruises that made him look as if he’d been born with spots. Rale sported exactly one mark, a slight purpling above the ankle. He sat on the ground, rubbing it and gave Errol a considering look.
“You’re getting better. I have to work harder to get through your defenses and you can get through mine one time in ten. Most of the lads I’ve trained can’t touch me until I’ve worked with them for a couple of months or better. And then, they can only do it once.”

  Errol ducked his head in acknowledgment of the compliment that eased the ache in his muscles. “Will it work for me to use the staff ?”

  Rale’s brows furrowed. “For what?”

  He shrugged. “To replace the ale.”

  “I don’t think so, boy. The ale was never your problem. The hole that Warrel’s last words and death created was the problem. You tried to fill it with ale. That didn’t work so well, did it?”

  Errol rubbed one cheek, remembering the feel of Cilla’s wood floor that had sufficed for his bed. “No. Not so much.”

  Dark gray eyes considered him. “I’ve known men that gave themselves to the sword, or the bow, or the staff when they sobered up. I’m not sure they were much better off.”

  Errol felt a shock of surprise.

  Rale held up a hand. “Don’t misunderstand me. The staff is as close to making music as I can come with these hands, but it’s not enough. You need something to fill that hole inside you, lad.”

  “What?”

  Rale smiled. “Deas will tell you when the time’s right.”

  Talk of Deas reminded Errol of Antil. He didn’t pursue the subject.

  On a cool morning nearly a week later, Errol awoke outside the door of the cottage with the rising sun at his back. He stood in his smallclothes and gave a shiver against the chill of the early morning air. He had no memory of leaving his bed, traversing the floor of the cottage, or opening the door. Yet here he stood, his skin pebbling against the breeze and his face set to the west in expectation.