Robert Carter - Whitemantle

Will tries to understand the significance of Chlu and what he desires, but answers concerning him are few. Now Ludford is overrun and the Ebor forces flee over the seas. Gwydion magically disguises both Will and Willow so that they may masquerade as an emissary of the Blessed Isle and his wife. They attach themselves to the royal court, but they are ensnared by the wiles of Lord Dudlea who wants Will to arrange the murder of Richard of Ebor before he too can return into the Realm. Maskull is behind this demand and when his plan fails he punishes Lord Dudlea by turning his wife and son to stone.

Nothing is seen of Gwydion for many months and Will fears for him. Then news comes that an army loyal to the House of Ebor, and commanded by Edward, Duke Richard’s heir, has landed and is marching north. As The Giants’ Dance reaches its conclusion, Will battles Chlu face to face and drives him off from one of the battlestones, but in doing so he loses his main weapon against the battlestones – the red and green fish talismans fuse together and become a real, live fish, which escapes. However, there is better news when Will finds that Gwydion is being held in the queen’s dungeon at Delamprey. He works hard to free him, and also to redeem himself by thwarting the battlestone that lies buried there. He discovers that one reason Maskull has been so keen to see the war proceed is because he knows a way to tap malign power from the battlestones and use it for his own ends. He has even employed some of this power to make sorcerous manacles which have impaired Gwydion’s ability to do magic.

Seeing no other way, Will promises Lord Dudlea that if his forces will betray the queen and allow Edward an easy victory, then Gwydion will undo the spell that has made statues of Dudlea’s wife and son. Dudlea agrees, and in consequence the battle of Delamprey is soon over. Unfortunately, though King Hal falls into Duke Richard’s hands, the queen makes good her escape: this means that the war will go on.

Once Gwydion has the manacles stricken from his wrists, he tells Will all he knows about the Dark Child – Chlu and Will are twins. Chlu’s name is, in the old tongue of the west, ‘Llyw’, and according to prophecy Will must never pronounce that name in a spell or he will be no more. Gwydion goes on to reveal that almost twenty years ago, he surprised Maskull while he was conducting magical experiments on two baby boys. He rescued them and took them in secret to two separate villages, to lessen the chances of them being found. These places Gwydion then magically hid from prying eyes. Since discovering Chlu’s whereabouts, Maskull has been using him as a means of locating Will. The sorcerer knows he must destroy Will because Will stands between him and the future he is trying to bring about. Will is to become the third incarnation of Arthur, and once that is allowed to happen, Maskull will fail.

Will is angry that Gwydion has delayed telling all that he knows for so long for fear of affecting the outcome of the prophecies and appalled at the responsibility that now faces him. It is up to him to act, and to act heroically, but how can he become King Arthur, as Gwydion says he must? In addition, the wizard warns that the harm they have been drawing out from the battlestones in an attempt to prevent the fighting has not been destroyed, merely dispersed. Like a poisonous smoke, it is filling the world and bringing down the very future that Maskull so desires. And so, as the second book of the Language of Stones cycle ends, Will sees that he must solve the riddle of his own nature, the riddle that will rescue his world.

It was a mild summer night in July and the sun’s dying beams cast shadows from the elms. To the wise man the trees told of storm and strife and contentions in the upper airs, but down here in the evening glade neither breath of wind nor drop of rain threatened, for a strange peace enfolded all.

Four men dressed in the livery colours of Lord Dudlea sat quietly in the clearing – a waggoner, the waggoner’s lad, and two servants. They were warming themselves and spooning down chicken stew, but although they enjoyed the gentle cheer of their master’s camp fire, still a dull fore-boding shadowed their minds. The sleeping infant that had been left among them was the only one untroubled by the magic that lay heavy on the air, and each of the four knew that before the night was done weird deeds would be accomplished in the lordly tent that stood nearby. They knew it because the great wizard, Gwydion, had told them it would be so.

Only one of them had any idea of what was in the wooden crates they had brought with them, or why a wizard should be here with their lord in a forest clearing at dead of night.

Inside the tent that stood thirty paces away the mood had now become brittle. Lord Dudlea waited impatiently as Gwydion refreshed himself, drawing power from the meadow. Candlelight flickered as Willand carefully lifted the lid from one of the wooden caskets and began to tease out the straw packing and bare the stone cold flesh within. When Gwydion returned he asked Dudlea to sit alongside Willow on the far side of the tent then turned to look with close interest upon the fine-veined marble of the lady’s cheek.

‘This spell has been well worked,’ Gwydion said at last. ‘I have never seen detail like it.’

Will saw how stone eyelashes and other wisps of hair had been shattered under the first and least careful of the handlings that had brought her here. A sprinkling of fine-spun stone was to be seen in the folds of the statue’s wrappings as the last coverings came off.

It was an incredible transformation, a perfect statue of Lord Dudlea’s wife, but no mortal sculptor had made it. This was malicious work, that of a potent sorcerer.

As Gwydion reached a hand under the figure’s head, Dudlea stood up and said, ‘Please, let me—’

‘Sit down,’ the wizard told him shortly.

‘But if you’re going to lift her, I’ll call my—’

‘It’s not necessary,’ Will said, looking up.

Gwydion’s tone became compassionate. ‘Leave your men be. They are keeping true to their word, and on that much hangs. I asked them not to spy on us, come what may.’

‘ Come what may? ’ Dudlea blinked in alarm, and Gwydion laid a calming hand on his shoulder that made him draw in a long draught of air.

‘Take courage, John Sefton! You must be strong, for hope is one of our most important magical resources.’

Dudlea nodded and backed away. At Gwydion’s signal, Willow tied the tent’s flap firmly closed. Her daughter, Bethe, was sleeping by the camp fire, wrapped tight in a blanket. She and Will had been reunited with her only yesterday after a torturous separation. She had fared well in the care of the Duchess of Ebor, and as soon as Duchess Cicely had set foot in the Realm following her husband’s victory she had made every effort to return the child to her mother as quickly as possible. Still, Willow’s feelings had not yet fully settled. Will knew that was a concern to the wizard. He had tried to smooth their worries before the spell-working was begun. Any source of disturbance was best anticipated and dealt with ahead of time, for emotional auras would spark and fizz in bright display during magical transformations.

Will leaned over the nest of straw, checking the lady’s perfect visionless eyes informed by a glint of surprise, the knuckles, the fingers, so expressive in their attitude, gripping the stiffened folds of her robe.

‘She’s quite undamaged,’ he told Dudlea, touching the man’s spirit. ‘The delicacy of her face is scarcely blemished. Look how its waxy shine remains unscuffed. Nothing so much as a fingernail has been broken.’