The Giants' Dance

by Robert Carter

  ‘This time’s different,’ Will said shortly.

  When Jackhald shook his head and asked why, Gwydion muttered over his shoulder, ‘Because this time we are not looking for a dead sheep. It would not matter who you sent down, they would not come up again.’

  That was enough for Jackhald. He cast a glance at Will and fell silent. Will was already taking off his belt and pouch. He handed them to Gort, then stripped off his borrowed finery and pulled his shirt over his head.

  Gwydion attached a second rope to the first and made it fast, then Will climbed over the stone lip of the well, fitted his left foot into the loop, and the lowering began.

  He took with him no lantern, but descended the twenty or more fathoms in a blaze of blue magelight sent down from above. He was naked except for the greenstone talisman that hung at his neck. He put a linen pad to his nose and mouth that had been treated with some aromatic drops of Gort’s devising, meant to combat the stench. It worked after a fashion, but it could not fully disguise the foulness of the air that wafted up from the butcher’s sewer below.

  For the first fathom or so, the inner part of the well-head was round and smooth. It was made of dressed stones neatly fitted by masons. Then, for another couple of fathoms, the walls were of rough stones laid upon one another without mortar like a country wall. Below that, the well was hewn from the red sandstone ridge on which the castle stood.

  Will felt the air on his bare skin growing cooler. To take his mind off the steadily worsening stench, he fixed his thoughts on a strong memory of bumble bees flying between the long stalks of purple lavender that grew in his garden at home. It was a pleasantly distracting thought, but part of his mind remained watchful and aware that he must not let himself drift into a daydream. His eyes saw chisel marks slipping by, marks that were two or three hundred years old, marks from the well’s first making, and among them magical sigils that had been carved here by some practitioner of old. One of the marks, he saw, was to ensure the purity of the water. Another was set to discourage water drakes from infesting the well. The first of them crumbled at his touch.

  At least drakes are one danger I won’t be facing, he thought wryly as he bounced a little lower, twisting slowly on the rope. A sudden, vivid image came to him – he imagined a gigantic spider letting itself down on a thread above him. Cautiously he forced his mind tight closed, countering the stone in case it was already probing his fears. He found his hand straying to check the talisman on its thong. As ever, it made him feel better to touch it with his fingers, but it seemed to be alive with warnings now.

  As he saw the surface of the water below rising up to meet him, he took the pad from his mouth and shouted for the rope team to hold. His order was relayed too quickly and he stopped too soon. Echoes returned, and he hung for a silent moment in that unbearable reek, suspended a little way above the surface. He shaded his eyes briefly from the blinding brightness of blue light shining from above and reflected from below. There, almost beside him and lying at an angle against the side of the well, was the battlestone.

  Its top stuck out of the bloody water. Magelight cast sharp shadows and its colour turned the oozing blood that seeped from the stone’s surface black. Will carefully untied the second rope and tugged on it until it began to pay out. Bracing his right foot against the wall, he bent forward ready to pass the rope behind the stone.

  ‘That’s enough! Stop!’

  There was a delay. Echoes filled the shaft. But then the rope jerked to a halt. The cloying stink seemed to intensify suddenly, driving him to want to get out of the narrow space. A sudden lightheadedness assailed him as he fought the impulse, and he thought he was going to faint. He straightened, felt his knees buckling. Now he was sure he was going to faint. He just had time to realize the danger he was in when his foot slid out of the loop. He plunged down into the cold slime below.

  Every part of his skin crawled with horror as his head went under. He thrashed, then felt slippery stones under his feet, and when he pushed against them his head broke the surface again, and he gasped for breath.

  The shaft was full of noise, anxious shouts folded back on themselves until they were meaningless.

  Fetid air rushed into his lungs, but the cold splash had brought him out of the faint into which he had been falling. He wiped his face.

  ‘Nearly…but not quite!’ he told the stone fiercely, then slammed his mind closed again.

  He scooped more of the stinking blood from his eyes and looked up. The blue light glared back unwaveringly as the rope loop snaked and dangled like a noose a few feet above his head. He jumped for it, but it was beyond his grasp.

  Gwydion shouted a question, but again its meaning was lost in echoes. He called back and heard his words lose themselves too. He was chin deep, his arms raised, fingers dripping blood. Then, slowly, something broke the surface next to him. It thrashed, twisted.

  He cried out in fear. But the fear immediately dissolved when he realized what had come to the surface. It was not the snout of some fierce water drake, but the end of the second rope that had dropped into the water in the stone’s shadow.

  As relief broke inside him, he drew on his courage and began to convince himself that he could counter the stone’s best efforts. He tied the second rope round it, tried his full strength against the bowstring knot that Gwydion had told him to put in it, then he shouted up the shaft again for them to ease the loop on which he would ride to the surface a little lower.

  Once again his message was garbled by echoes.

  Just a few feet more…

  Still the loop hung too high for him to reach. There was nothing for it but to climb up the stone itself, but it was slick with blood. His fingers and toes found a purchase on the spiral figures that were carved on its sides, but as soon as he laid hands on them his mind filled with the coldness of dead flesh. He almost lost his grip, but his hand groped for the loop, touched. Once he had grabbed it he was able to steady himself. As the rope stretched under his weight, he wiped his hands on the dry, fibrous twists and set his mind as firmly as he could on imagining the journey back.

  ‘Pull!’ he shouted.

  As the echoes began to die away, the loop jerked under his foot and he began to rise up the shaft half a fathom at a time. It was a long, long ride. When he came near to the surface the magelight sputtered then burned out. He saw Gwydion looking down anxiously. The wizard dragged him bodily out over the lip of the well, where he slid onto the floor of the kitchens, looking like some strange newborn thing.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ Gort cried.

  The draught of good air made Will retch. He tried to rise to his feet, but skidded in the blood he had puddled on the stone flags. Now that it was over the horror of it hit him.

  ‘What happened?’ Gwydion demanded.

  Gort splashed a bucket of water at him.

  Will spat. He was shaking. ‘Never mind me. Pull the stone out, Gwydion. Do it quickly! But don’t break the rope or drop it. Whatever happens, I can’t go down there again!’

  The men began to haul on the second rope. This time, the effort they made was much greater. When the stone appeared in the mouth of the well Gwydion would not let anyone approach it. The rope was tied off securely, and Jackhald’s men were warned away. Then a stout wooden beam was lifted up and together Gwydion, Will and the Wortmaster levered the stone up and out of the well-head. It crashed heavily to the floor, scraping the flags as they hauled it like a sled into the brewhouse. Gwydion insisted they lift it upright as quickly as they could.

  The wizard stood back, his gestures looping loose rings of magical influence over the stone. Will pressed another of Gort’s kerchiefs perfumed with honeysuckle and woodruff to his nose as he ran his eyes over the moist stone. The vile stink in the brewhouse doubled and redoubled, though it seemed to Will to be as sweet as mountain air compared to the reek down below.

  ‘We’re lucky it wasn’t cracked in two by the fall!’ Will gasped.

  Gwydion said, ‘The ques
tion is: how did it get into the well? Was it always here? And if so, what effect must its malevolence have had on the castle and those who have dwelt here?’

  ‘It was thrown down,’ Will told him. ‘And recently.’

  Gwydion looked more closely at the stone. It was the colour of raw meat. Blood wept from it continuously and soon began to pool on the floor. There was damage to its corners where it had rattled down the well and struck the bottom. The wounds oozed pus like half-healed flesh.

  ‘Where are my clothes?’ Will asked. When he went to the door he saw serving folk loitering in the innermost ward. He stared back, drenched in blood and slime, and looking like a man who had been flayed alive. Cries went up at the sight of him.

  He allowed Jackhald to lead him to a corner of the ward where he washed in water pouring from the cisterns. Will’s clothes were brought, but as he put them on and began to towel his hair he felt fresh pangs begin to assail him.

  The dislocated stone was awakening by degrees, slyly, just as the Blow Stone had awakened, and with the same inevitability. Maybe the lorc was learning to counter the attacks they were making on it. Maybe the stone had read their method and knew their minds, maybe it had read their minds and now knew their method. But how could that be so? For they had none.

  He laughed humourlessly, then stopped, abrupt.

  The moon was swinging higher and the Ludford madness was returning. He knew he could fight it for a while, but he would need help tonight. Now that the stone had been raised there would have to be a confrontation.

  The nauseous wave passed. Lucid clarity settled on him. Sharp thoughts pricked his mind. He called Jackhald to him. ‘I want to speak with the man who went down the well before me, the one who pulled the dead sheep out.’

  Jackhald’s eyes narrowed. ‘Why?’

  ‘Gwydion needs to prove how the stone came into the well, and how long it’s been there.’

  A man was brought. He was dirty and his huge jaw was unshaven. He eyed Will suspiciously. ‘Pooh! Master, it stank worse than a dunny down there.’

  ‘This one’s a waster and a whiner, and none too bright at that.’

  ‘Jackhald, please…’ Will turned to the man. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Edwold, Master. But let another man go down there this time, for I won’t!’

  ‘Edwold, I don’t want to send you down the well. Just tell me what you saw down there.’

  Edwold stared blankly. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Nothing at all?’ Will rubbed his chin. ‘Was there no water?’

  ‘Ar. Water. ’Tis a well.’

  ‘Was there…was there by any chance a large stone? Like this?’ He drew a shape in the air.

  Edwold grinned toothily. ‘Ar! But ‘twas bigger by twice than what you’re showing there.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Jackhald growled. ‘You said nothing before about no stone.’

  ‘I said naught about it, for ‘twas but a stone!’ Edwold looked from face to face, fearing he was about to be blamed for something he thought was no fault of his. He turned to Will. ‘Master, I thought it no great matter for a stone to be down a well. I was sent down to hook out a sheep, was I not?’

  Jackhald growled. ‘What you mean is, you said naught about any stone because you was afeared of being sent down again to fish it out!’

  ‘Calmly, Jackhald.’ Will spoke again to Edwold. ‘Just tell me all about the stone and how it got there.’

  ‘There’s been a lot of peculiar goings on since the new people come here,’ Edwold said darkly. ‘The accursed lord come here with a dozen men in his company to the outer gate a few nights back. He starts banging to be let in. We opens up to him and we sees who it is right well.’

  ‘Accursed lord? You mean Lord Strange?’

  ‘Ar! Says he’s come to speak with his grace, so we lets him in. And why not? For we all knows the Hogshead for who he is, and ‘twern’t none other, eh?’

  Will smiled encouragingly at him. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, then, see, there’s these dozen liverymen of his comes in carrying something big.’ He spread his arms vaguely. ‘Three men goes before it. And three men goes behind it. And three goes upon either side, like it’s a coffin maybe with a dead man inside. But ‘taint no dead man. I sees what it is – no more than a big, carven stone, and all muddy like.’

  ‘The truth of it now!’ Jackhald said angrily.

  Will went on. ‘You mean, it looked freshly taken out of the ground?’

  ‘Ar. That’s it.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Well…that’s all. Except Dorric. He’s the second gateman. He tells me next day that the Hogshead’s men happened upon that stone in the earth while they was digging trenches out yonder.’ He pointed towards the river.

  ‘Did you know that he’d put it down the well?’

  ‘Not I! I swear it!’

  ‘Truly, now!’ Jackhald demanded, and threatened a blow at Edwold.

  ‘Only yesterday did I know that! Maybe I did know before, but I weren’t like to speak of it to nobody. I heard it were a magic stone, see? Like the one that done the healing after the battle. Dorric, he says the Hogshead’s men hid the stone down the well on the say-so that it would henceforth give good ale in place of water.’

  Jackhald nodded with grim satisfaction. ‘Now we’re coming to it!’

  Will let out a gasp of exasperation. ‘Is that what Lord Strange’s men gave the servants to believe?’

  ‘Ar.’

  ‘And that’s why nobody spoke much of it.’

  ‘It seemed like his grace the duke knew, and that Lord Strange’s promises would come very well to pass.’

  ‘And no one dared say anything after the duke drank blood.’

  ‘Ale. That was the promise. Though, by the stink of it, it’s not much like any ale that I ever tasted.’

  Will dismissed Edwold and when Jackhald had taken the gateman away, he steeled himself to return to the foul brewhouse. Gwydion was treading lightly, dancing binding spells about the stone. Will, knowing he must not interrupt the sequence, waited silently for the wizard’s acknowledgment.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘It seems Lord Strange’s mattock-men found it while digging entrenchments along the banks of the Theam. He took secret possession of it, had it brought here days ago. It was put there before Lord Dudlea put the sheep down.’

  Gwydion’s lips pursed. ‘Oh, but this is bad news indeed. For Lord Strange is a weakling spirit, a man of too-pliant loyalties. If he has engaged with the stone then—’

  Will waited for the wizard to finish, but he did not. ‘What is it?’

  Gwydion put up his hand as if waving away an unworthy thought. ‘Only that a mind such as his would be driven to treachery.’

  Will’s thoughts crystallized as he recalled the vile dream that he had had in which a large black slug had come out of the Blow Stone and crawled up Lord Strange’s nostril. In the clean light of day he had shaken the horror of that dream off and forgotten it, but now he realized he should not have done so without first questioning its meaning. Perhaps that had been the Blow Stone’s gift to him – its way of telling him what would happen with its successor.

  He said, ‘When Willow was a young girl she lived close by Lord Strange’s tower in Wychwoode. She told me how little respect his foresters had for him, how he always blames others for his own shortcomings. I myself have seen how all along he’s failed to heed your warnings. I fear for us all if the battlestone has whispered in his ear.’

  ‘It is an odd flag that turns about on its flagpole and thereby causes the very wind to change direction!’

  Gwydion stroked his beard. He seemed about to say something else when the castle chimes clanged out, sounding the first hour of the afternoon. Instead of replying, he waved Will away, turned and went to stand by the window, and when Will ignored the dismissal, he said, ‘Willand, I would be grateful if you would leave me alone for a while.’

  Something in Gwydion�
��s tone alarmed Will, but he began to do as he was asked. He saw that as soon as the brewhouse door was closed, the wizard would begin the hazardous business of draining the stone. It gnawed on Will that he no longer trusted the power of Gwydion’s binding spells. That bloody day on Blow Heath, his failure had been made plain. He had not even been able to contain the harm of a battlestone that was active and ready, and to draw one out was a vastly more dangerous undertaking.

  ‘I ought to help,’ he said.

  Gwydion shook his head. ‘It will be best if you sent Gort here and then left matters to us.’

  ‘Gwydion, I—’

  ‘Go to your wife and child, Willand! Be with them in this dark hour. There is nothing more for you to do here!’

  The snub burned. Having found the stone and brought it up, it seemed his usefulness was at an end, but he bowed his head obediently and withdrew. As he emerged again into the innermost ward he quailed at the gamble Gwydion was taking. The destruction that would be wrought inside the castle and the town if he failed would be tremendous. It seemed suddenly to be a desperate gesture, the act of a wizard whose powers were failing, whose time was nearing its end.

  Will found Gort, who asked for Jackhald to stand a guard on the brewhouse door.

  ‘Where are Willow and Bethe?’ he asked.

  Gort looked over his shoulder. ‘They’re indoors. Shall I fetch them out?’

  ‘No, leave them be.’ Will fingered the talisman at his neck. The green stone was smooth under his fingers. He looked long and hard at the mark – three triangles set one within another. Gort gathered up a bundle of charms and headed for the brewhouse.

  ‘If only Morann had left them at home,’ Will muttered. Lightheadedness ghosted through him again. It was dreadful to know that so fearsome an array of enemies were so close at hand and all means of escape now blocked. ‘As it turned out, Gwydion was right – they would have been much safer in the Vale.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  THE BLOOD STONE

  Despite the agreement to parley the next day, the king’s army was being readied to launch an attack. All afternoon, drums had been beaten and banners ridden up and down the lines, provoking the enemy with brave defiance. Will walked the circuit of the town walls with Willow and his daughter. He carried Bethe and found her weight in his arms a great comfort.