The Giants' Dance

by Robert Carter

  When morning came he awoke to find a beautiful white cat curled up on his bed, but as soon as he reached out to it, it vanished.

  Gwydion, who had sat in vigil with him most of the night, came in and laid a sign on his forehead and offered him kind words and a powder. ‘Gort says to drink this in water. Do you want me to bring Willow in? She’s worried about you.’

  ‘I’m all right.’ He croaked drily. His eyes swam. ‘What about the duke?’

  ‘He blames Gort for the embarrassment, though it was not his fault. Friend Richard must bear the responsibility himself. I told him he should have set a guard on the well, and a closer watch over Lord Dudlea.’

  ‘Dudlea? You mean—’

  ‘He made his escape yesterday.’

  ‘Then he’s the one who dropped the sheep down the well…’

  Will got up. Paradoxically, he felt better than he had for days. But he knew it was only a brief respite. Already his senses were starting to feel out of kilter. Willow brought him a filling breakfast, which he wolfed. Soon after, he complained of feeling sick. Despite her protests he went out as soon as he could to cut himself a fresh hazel wand, then he spent the rest of the day doggedly scrying the approaches beyond the outer ward. Once more, his efforts proved fruitless, but just before sunset, as he lingered by the lion cages near the main gate, he felt twitches in his thighs and he began to feel there was something flowing in his arms.

  At his back the moon was appearing above the eastern horizon. He felt a weird sensation prickling all down his neck and across his shoulders. It made him shudder violently. An old beggar at the gate grinned up at him and, as he passed, called out to him, ‘Somebody’s walking on your grave, stranger!’

  He turned to look at the old man, but the madness seized him, and a great roaring and grinding filled his head. There was the clanging of steel on stone. The next thing he knew he was thrown down on his left side by an irresistible force. When he put out his hand to lift himself up he was amazed to find that a lattice of thick timbers had appeared beside him. The portcullis had come down. Its great weight had driven its iron teeth hard into the mud-filled gutter designed to receive them. Two gatemen on the far side dashed from their door to discover what had happened. One of them asked if he was hurt. The other’s face was upturned, examining the recess from which a dead weight of timber and steel had unexpectedly dropped.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ he said, testing his left ankle. It was a light sprain, no more. He looked up in wonder at the portcullis. If he had not paused a step when the beggar had spoken to him he would have been impaled. But when he looked to find the old beggar, the man was nowhere to be seen.

  It was dark by the time he hobbled up with Gwydion to the winch house above the gate. Together they looked at the winding drum. Gwydion showed him where the rope had been cut.

  ‘Did you foresee this last night in your dreams?’ Gwydion asked, picking up a hatchet from where it had been allowed to fall below the winding drum.

  Will took the axe and ran a finger along the rope. ‘I don’t know.’

  The charms about the wizard’s neck clattered. ‘Recall what I once told you about the nature of premonitions.’

  ‘You said they’re warnings sent back from the future.’

  ‘Then you know what you must do.’

  Will closed his eyes, and for a moment he was one with his memories, back in the past with his former self, feeling what he had felt then. An eerie flow connected across a gulf of time, and he made an effort to cross that gulf with his thoughts. When he had projected the warning, he drew a deep breath.

  ‘Who was the old man who spoke to me?’

  ‘Who do you think he was?’

  ‘When he first spoke to me, I thought perhaps that it was you again. In disguise. Testing me.’

  ‘It was not I. What did he say?’

  ‘He called me “stranger”, and said someone had walked on my grave.’

  ‘Ah! That is the usual form of words used hereabouts when a person sees someone shiver. Did you shiver?’

  ‘I suppose I must have. The moon was rising. It’s almost at the full.’

  ‘As the flows rise and fall in the land so do dark currents move in our bodies and minds. Believe me, I am not wholly blind to your sufferings, Will.’

  ‘Someone chopped the rope,’ he said, meeting Gwydion’s eye. ‘Who did this? And why? Is it because of who you say I am, Gwydion?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘What do they want with me?’

  Gwydion said, ‘Maskull wants to kill you because you are the one who will prevent the fulfilment of his desires.’

  That was too much, and his mind turned away from it. He sat down beside the great windlass that raised the portcullis. The pain in his ankle throbbed as he bent to pick up the severed rope. ‘Perhaps someone else did this. Or perhaps what Maskull really wants is to get at you through me.’

  ‘Perhaps…’

  He let the severed rope fall. ‘And there are hundreds of red hands at the cloister. Their Elders are admitted into the castle. Maybe it was one of them.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Will put his finger into the groove where the axe blow had fallen, then positioned himself by the drum and moved as if swinging an axe himself. ‘Well, that’s something we can say at least,’ he said, looking up at the wizard.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Whoever swung that axe was left-handed.’

  As Will prepared alone for his ordeal, the moon opened a great, bloated, unblinking eye over the world. At the tenth chime of the castle clock it was riding at its highest, flooding wan beams across the stars of the south, and Will’s terrors began to grow unbearable. He sat upright, drenched in sweat, his breathing fast and shallow. And when he sprang from the bed he almost fainted from the pain that knifed through his ankle.

  On Gwydion’s advice much of the room had been cleared and Willow had taken herself and Bethe into the adjoining chamber. But now, unable to ignore his cries, she broke in on his solitary agony and helped him into a chair. Gort’s magical walls were alive with flames – the world was burning, as giants and dragons disputed for possession of the land. She fought him as he raved, comforted him and calmed him, nursed his head to her breast.

  He was as tense as harp wire, feeling the violence of the currents that moved within him. It seemed that running madly through the moon-drenched fields was the only thing that would take away his fever. It seemed like death to resist.

  Pangur Ban was in the room, watching him unreadably. Willow brought an ember from the fire and blew on it. Soon a gentle candlelight had filled the room. But now her voice mocked him. He tore at himself, rambling about his wizard’s mark.

  ‘Behold!’

  ‘Calm yourself. You don’t have any wizard’s mark.’

  ‘Then what am I? Where do I come from? Help me!’

  ‘I’ll fetch Gort.’

  ‘No! Gort was never one of the nine! He had a mark once, but it faded! He no longer has the power!’

  She gripped him. ‘Let me bring Gwydion, then.’

  ‘I’ve tried to ask him! He won’t tell me!’ He felt his eyes rolling in his head as he looked over his own body. He tried to twist himself about, to see what could not be seen. ‘I cannot find a mark anywhere! But what if it lies in the middle of my back? Or under my hair? Willow, what if it’s under my hair. Look there! Under my foot? A dark patch! A dark patch on my sole!’

  ‘The duchess has a looking glass. Tomorrow, we’ll ask her—’

  He raved with sudden panic, seized his foot in both hands. ‘No! The mark will not show in a glass!’ His staring eyes met hers as she bent to mop the sweat from his face.

  ‘Try not to trouble yourself…’

  Her voice was as soft as butter. It humoured him. When she reached out to touch his braids, he recoiled. His eyes were wild and fevered as he forced himself back into the corner of the room.

  ‘I must find it! I have to know!’

  ‘Hushhh…�
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  Again she calmed him with gentle coaxing. And when he subsided, she took out a knife and tore strips from a sheet. She bound him hand and foot to the chair, fearing that when the next outburst came she would not be able to hold him.

  His eyes opened wide and he laughed madly. ‘I have tried to be a good man!’

  ‘Will…it’ll soon be midnight. Then the feelings will go away. I promise.’

  But she could not promise. She did not understand. His muscles were taut, his limbs rigid. He would not – could not – control them. When she held him he suffocated.

  She closed his fingers round his talisman and let him be, but she would not leave him, and so they waited together in the unwavering candlelight for his affliction to break.

  When the next wave came he began to writhe and scream, and though she fought him with all her strength she could not keep him down. His hands spasmed. Blood welled in his eyes. Still she clung to him, and thrust him down. She put a stick between his teeth, fearing that if she did not he would bite off his own tongue.

  ‘Nnnngh! Nnnnnngh! Nnnnnnnngh!’

  But just as his shouts reached a pitch of agony that she feared he could no longer bear, the castle clock tolled midnight. The sound was like a charm. The fight began to go out of him, and within moments his struggles had died away. A bead of sweat trickled down her temple, dripped from her chin onto his face, and her own terror began to fade. Pangur Ban jumped up onto the bed and looked with serene golden eyes at the naked, sweat-drenched man. He put one white paw on Will’s chest, and at the sight of that, Willow began to cry.

  Will’s breathing eased. His thoughts slid back into focus as the moon started its long fall away into the south-west.

  ‘I’ve found it!’ he said with rapturous, limitless gratitude, still tied, still grasping the leaping green salmon in his wet hand. ‘Oh, Willow! I’ve found it.’

  ‘There, there. Of course you have,’ she told him, knowing the fever had made him believe he had found the stone. ‘Sleep now, if you can.’

  He drowsed for a little while and twitched once or twice, like a man who jumps in his sleep. In his dreams he saw a large black slug oozing from the Blow Stone. It wriggled up the snout of Lord Strange…

  Will coughed as he came awake. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and blinked. There were red marks on his wrists. Cool light was streaming through the window and Willow had just finished feeding their daughter.

  ‘And how are you this fine morning?’ she asked, reaching out to touch his face. ‘You’ve been asleep for a long while. That’s good.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Since just after midnight. The castle clock has chimed six bells. How are you feeling?’

  ‘As twitchy as a squirrel. And my head’s still filled with bits of dream, but I’m sane again.’ He kissed her hand, then her forehead, then her mouth.

  ‘Good. I’m pleased about that. Gort looked in on you. He’s made up another powder for you to drink.’

  Bethe looked at him, grinned and reached out a small hand. The innocence of the gesture went straight to his heart.

  ‘Da da da da.’

  A tear filled his eye. ‘By the moon and stars…I love you, child.’

  There was a moment filled with warmth and light, then Willow, practical as ever, took Bethe for a wash. As he lay back he found he could put facts together seamlessly without everything flying apart inside his head. He began to think about his attacker at the Plough. Why did he have no memory of the man’s face? The answer had to be magic. A spell of concealment. Then there was the gargoyle creature he had saved, the ked. Having tasted his blood it had been able to lead the would-be killer to him. Gwydion had said that the creatures were often kept by the Sightless Ones…and the Sightless Ones often mixed up left and right!

  He sat up, excited by his partially connected insights. Here was another clue – when he thought about the fight at the Plough, two things stood out. The first was that he and his attacker had been evenly matched; the second was that he had equalled the strength of his attacker’s right arm with his own left, yet at the same time his own right arm had been unable to overpower the other’s left. That could mean only one thing – his attacker was left-handed.

  He told Willow that he had finally worked it out.

  She gave him a hot infusion to drink. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Don’t you see? It fits with the left-handed axe stroke, the one that sent the portcullis plunging down. Before you arrived here I saw someone escaping over the walls. I chased him through the upper floor of the gatehouse. His face was masked, but I recognized him.’

  ‘Rest,’ she said. ‘Last night has taken a lot out of you.’

  He blew across the surface of the hot brew and sipped. It tasted of lavender honey and summer strawberries. ‘Gwydion told me not to doubt my inner feelings so much. They’re telling me it was the same man who fought me at the Plough. Whoever loosed that portcullis was the same one who stole the red fish. I think he’s been sent by the Sightless Ones. Where’s Gwydion?’

  The leech garden was bleak and windy. Blackbirds hopped in the bare autumn beds, turning over dry leaves. He heard their fluting cry of warning as Gwydion and Pangur Ban came by.

  ‘You must find the Ludford Stone, Willand. And you must find it soon.’

  He stroked the cat’s head then nodded at the wizard. ‘I’m doing my best. If you want to help, you might try buying us a little more time.’

  ‘You are forgetting that the battlestones were made by fae magic. The tune of worldly events moves to their beat, not the other way round. There is no more time available to Ludford than that which the lorc will allow.’

  Will pushed the complication away from his thoughts, eager instead to tell Gwydion his latest idea. ‘Look, I think it’s the Sightless Ones who’ve sent the assassin,’ he said. ‘And here’s why I think it.’

  He explained, and as he explained the certainty he had felt slowly drained away from him and his clever ideas seemed thin and threadbare in the cold, hard light of morning.

  Gwydion gauged him, then turned away. At last he said, ‘I think it may be the right time for me to tell you what I was really looking for when we visited the village of Little Slaughter.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A sign. A sign of someone called the Dark Child.’

  Will blinked. ‘Who?’

  ‘In prophecy he was called the Dark Child, but his name is Chlu.’

  ‘Clue?’

  Gwydion’s finger moved extravagantly in the air, making Will think for a moment that he might be about to step out a spell. ‘In the plain speech of today the name can be spoken that way, and perhaps spelled C-h-l-u, but the true name is ancient, it comes from one of the old tongues of Cambray. It means “he who controls or steers”. The Dark Child was hidden in Little Slaughter. He was the reason the village was destroyed.’

  ‘But you told me Maskull destroyed it because he thought I might be living there.’

  Gwydion’s back straightened. ‘I dare not tell you all that I know or suspect, and you know very well the reasons for that, but I now believe Little Slaughter was destroyed because the Dark Child was there. At first I thought the village was wiped out in order to kill him, but now I do not think that could have been the reason.’

  ‘Then, why?’ Will said, his eyes narrowing.

  Gwydion trod with great care. ‘For exactly the opposite reason – to preserve the Dark Child’s life in secret. Chlu was taken away, and the village destroyed to disguise his removal.’

  An unwanted vision flashed inside Will’s head: a purple sky, livid lightning flashes, a pretty village smitten into ruin at a single stroke. ‘But to kill all those people just to cover one man’s whereabouts?’

  ‘Maskull is more than capable of it.’ Gwydion’s eyes hardened. ‘He holds but one idea in his head. An idea so gigantic and so blinding that it blots out all other ideas. Remember the rede which says: “Unkind means are not improved by kind ends.”’r />
  Will let out a long breath. ‘This Chlu – whoever he is – must be very important to Maskull.’

  ‘He is.’ For a moment Gwydion seemed disinclined to make further comment, but then he said, ‘I believe Chlu is the one whose face you cannot remember.’

  Will stared back. ‘You mean he’s the one who’s been trying to kill me?’

  ‘I believe he is the instrument that Maskull is now using to find you.’

  ‘Then he wasn’t sent by the Sightless Ones?’

  ‘Not if I am correct about his true place in the scheme of things.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  A GLIMPSE OF THE ENEMY

  Will followed the wizard out of the garden, then out of the castle and town, and soon they came to where Duke Richard’s personal banner flew. There, splendid in shining armour, the duke stood with his allies. Will quickly saw that the duke was prepared to trust the strength of Ludford’s walls despite being outnumbered three to one.

  Gwydion raised his staff portentously and recited the Blow Stone’s curious verse.

  ‘Beside Lugh’s ford and the risen tower,

  By his word alone, a false king

  Shall drive his enemy the waters over,

  And the Lord of the West shall come home!’

  ‘What treason is this?’ Earl Warrewyk asked. He was resplendent in shining armour and crimson surcoat upon which was embroidered in fine-wrought silver a muzzled bear and a butchered tree.

  The duke’s hand stayed him with his rod of unicorn ivory. ‘That was no treason, but a portent of the enemy’s doom, eh, Master Gwydion?’

  ‘Alas!’ Gwydion called. ‘Is the day not come just as I told you it would? Hal’s host advancing upon you? Sixty thousand men within sight of these walls?’