Robert Carter - The Language of Stones

Will passed a hand over his throat and looked around uncomfortably. Fresh fears bubbled up inside him. It was terrifying to think that his survival now depended on his being mistaken for his own decoy. ‘Where are we going?’

‘You’ll know that when we get there.’

‘Well…how far is it?’

‘About as far as it is to Nempnett Thrubwell.’

Will gave a hard, frustrated sigh. ‘Oh, Master Gwydion, why will you never tell me where I came from and what is to become of me?’

‘As to the first, I do not know. And I have already told you the second – you are going to be taught.’

‘Taught what?’

‘What the world is truly like.’

Will snorted. ‘Who can know what the world is truly like?’

Gwydion tapped his nose with a forefinger. ‘Ah! The world is the sum of what men believe it to be. Now, that is deep wisdom, if you did but know it.’

He liked the idea. ‘Do you mean that if most men thought the sky was green and the grass was blue then they would be?’

The wizard smiled. ‘Willand, I mean precisely that.’

‘Is that why magic is leaving the world? Because people are stopping believing in it?’

Gwydion’s eyebrows lifted. ‘Why, Willand, you surprise me! That is a very interesting question. Indeed, there is an important rede that says, “Magic alters” and another that says, “Magic to him who magic thinks”.’

Will swished at the dust with the stick. ‘But what I really want to know is why did Maskull put that spell on Lord Strange if he’s not an evil sorcerer?’

Gwydion picked his way towards a mass of brambles. ‘Three steps forward, two steps back. How easily you use the word “evil”, Willand. Where did the idea come from in the first place?’

‘I don’t know.’ He shrugged and pushed the spiky briars aside with his stick. ‘Isn’t it right? To use the word “evil”, sometimes. I mean, surely Maskull is evil, even though he may not know it.’

‘“Evil” is a dangerous idea to have in your head if you wish to understand magic properly. Each of us carries tremendous power for the doing of what you unthinkingly call “good” and “evil”.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘I suppose you ought to be given instruction about this, though you hardly seem ripe for it.’

Will wrinkled his nose at that. ‘I don’t want to know.’

Gwydion stopped dead and turned so that the charms which hung inside his shirt clattered together. ‘Is that truly so? Make no mistake, people are forestalled or led on by knowledge – and by the lack of it. I must be careful what I reveal to you, and what I hide. You must be taught. You must be prepared. But I must not fill your head with so much that your essential nature is altered. Do you see?’

Will thought about that as they followed the banks of the river. The sky deepened and the brighter stars began to appear. Before night fell fully, they camped. Gwydion picked a place close to running water and in the lee of a hill. He danced earth magic around his chosen spot, then produced a cooking pot that was heavier when taken from the crane bag than the bag was with the pot and all its other contents put together.

‘What’s this pot made from?’Will said feeling the weight. ‘Some kind of stone?’

‘Correct. That is cleberkh , or loomlode as some say, a kind of stone found in the Isles of the Sword, a place that lies beyond even the Orcas in the Far North. At first the stone is soft enough to shape, but the more you cook with it the harder it gets.’ Gwydion took out a patched brown travelling cloak much like his own. ‘And this is for you. It will help you to sleep.’

He took out a slate blade and cut a yard square in the grass, made nine turfs of it and stacked them up. Then he gathered twigs into the hole and whispered a merry fire into being. In the pot he made a thick, savoury broth in which pieces of roasted vegetable floated. Will could not tell if it was done by magic or the brown powder the wizard spilled into the mix, but the soup tasted wonderfully flavoursome.

As the flames of the fire died down Gwydion lay back and searched the sky.

‘What are you looking for?’ Will asked. ‘A sign?’

‘I am simply marvelling.’

Gwydion told him how the dome of the sky was very far away, and how tiny windows in the dome let through the light of the great furnace that was the Beyond. ‘Those windows,’ he said, ‘are the stars.’

‘And shooting stars?’ Will asked. ‘What are they?’

‘The Beyond is a place of unimaginable brightness. There are fireballs with hearts of iron that perpetually crash against the outer dome of the sky. Sometimes one of them falls down through a star window. That is what we call a shooting star.’

‘A shooting star.’Will echoed. He stretched out his hand in wonder. ‘Can a person ever touch the sky?’

He continued to stare at the vast, eerie dome, but soon his eyelids grew heavy and moments later he was asleep.

They rose early, just before dawn. Gwydion turned about on his heels, tasting the air warily until he was sure that no danger had been laid for them. Then he danced and paced and danced a little more. He spoke words to himself until it seemed to Will that a billowing net of blue gossamer came into being around their sleeping place. As Gwydion spoke, the light was drawn down to his hands and vanished inside him. Then, as if nothing had happened, he raked the ashes out of the fire and scattered them about, while seeming to thank the grass for having made them welcome. Will watched with raised eyebrows.

‘And now we must remake the ground,’ Gwydion told him. ‘Do you want to do it?’

He shrugged, feeling a little foolish. ‘What should I do?’

He was told to replace the turfs just as they had been before, and ritually water them. This he did, not really knowing how ritual watering differed from pouring the jug out over the ground, but Gwydion seemed to approve his actions, and when all was done and the ground looked almost as if they had never come this way, they set off.

‘What were you doing before?’ Will asked.

‘I was dancing back the magic that I laid forth last night as our protection.’

‘Against Maskull?’

‘Against all harm.’

Will’s heart felt suddenly leaden. ‘Why does Maskull want to kill the one spoken about in the Black Book?’

‘Because he was “…born of Strife, born of Calamity…born at Beltane in the Twentieth Year…when the beams of Eluned are strongest”.’

Will tried to be withering. ‘I suppose that’s meant to tell me everything.’

‘Perhaps it does not make much sense to you, but Maskull knows that the prophesied one will eventually stand between him and that which he most desires.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘To be the one who chooses the direction of the future.’

‘Well, I’ll not stand in his way. He can do what he likes with the future for all I care!’

The wizard smiled knowingly. ‘If you are the one, then you will eventually confound him. This he knows, and knowing it he cannot rest.’

‘And because Maskull is your enemy too, you’ve become my friend. Is that it?’ he said gloomily. It felt like he had been caught between gigantic forces, and that they were fast closing on him.

But the wizard smiled another wistful smile and shook his head. ‘I see that you doubt my sincerity, Willand. But I was a friend to you long before I suspected whom you might be.’

They continued south, skirting villages and avoiding the most well-travelled roads. They kept off the fields where golden grain awaited harvest, and Will enjoyed the walking. After weeks of homesickness and stifling study in the tower he felt truly free at last. Still, the wizard’s words had unsettled him more than a little.