Robert Carter - Whitemantle

John Sefton, Lord Dudlea, King’s Commissioner of Array and sometime commander of ten thousand men, broke down and wept. At Gwydion’s summons he came forward and his jaw flexed and his knuckles turned as white as his wife’s on the edge of what he feared might yet become her coffin. His tears fell upon her, but if he had imagined that tears alone would wake her, then he now discovered otherwise.

‘Open the second,’ Gwydion murmured.

The face of the lord remained bloodless as Will prised open the crate that contained the boy. The waggoner had been well paid and charged with two duties. But speed and care did not ride easily together over the Realm’s badly rutted roads, and the cart had bumped and bounced over thirty leagues to bring it to this place of particularly good aspect. The boy, too, was perfectly captured in stone. He lay mute in the finest alabaster, ten years old and innocent. Just like his mother, he was covered in fine spicules of stone. A little detail had eroded here and there, but he seemed to be undamaged.

At Will’s prompting, Dudlea came to gaze upon his son, and again he wept with relief. How different the man was now to the Lord Dudlea who had bare weeks ago tried to force Will into carrying out a murder. It was a satisfying change, a true redemption perhaps.

Gwydion’s voice rose, at once soft and sonorous, and gave the command, ‘Come to me, John Sefton.’

At that the lord went meekly. Without being asked, he knelt before Gwydion as an earl might kneel before his sovereign. Gwydion laid a hand on his shoulder, saying, ‘I want you to understand what I am attempting. It is done neither for your sake nor out of charity towards your kin. No offer that you could make would ever be sufficient to pay for this service, and it is to your credit that you did not sink to the proffering of silver or gold to me. This is to be a corrective. It is a private matter between wizard and sorcerer, and also the rescuing of a promise made by another to restore your wife and son to you.’ His eyes flickered to Will and back. ‘Fortunately for you, I happen to owe that person a favour. It is wise to power some spells on gratitude whenever possible.’

‘Thank you, thank you. I’m as grateful as any man could be,’ Lord Dudlea babbled, and it was plain to Will that he considered himself fortunate indeed. He had clearly remembered Will’s warning to him not to offer payment or reward and not to disrespect the wizard.

Gwydion’s face darkened. ‘However, when the promise was made, the promiser did not know whether there was a spell to reverse what had been done to your kin. He did not know if it was even possible. And in that falseness of promise resides my present difficulty, for lies do poison magic. They weaken it.’

‘I understand,’ Lord Dudlea said eagerly. Though he did not understand much at all, and his eyes were fever bright. ‘I can vouch that Master Willand’s word was given in true hope, at least – hope that a greater good would be born of it.’

‘That, alas, is not nearly enough. For magic springs from moral strength. In the true tongue the name of magic means ‘keeping the word’. Such stuff may not be coldly traded, for in that case the results will not be as expected. And those whose hopes are pinned upon debased magic are doomed to be disappointed.’

‘Then, if only for pity’s sake…’

‘Pity, you say? How that word has been warped over the years! Pity is properly what we feel for those who have given themselves over to weakness and so harmed others. What you mean is not pity, but fellow feeling. Do I have fellow feeling for you, John Sefton? Do I have enough? That is what you want to know.’

The lord stared back as if already stricken. ‘Do you?’

‘The question you are asking now is: have you merited it?’ He shook his head, apparently amused, and turned back to the crate. ‘I must not try to remove the spell directly, for that is now all but impossible. However, I may attempt the laying on of a counter-spell.’

Dudlea swallowed hard. ‘Do whatever you think, Master Gwydion. Only, I beg you, please do not fail them. I love my wife. I cannot live without her. And my boy is both son and heir to me.’

The wizard inclined his head. ‘You have a quick mind, John Sefton, and how uplifting it is to hear a squalid politicker such as you speak from the heart at last. Is it not time that you put on the mantle of statesman and set aside your childish plots? You are not yet become another Lord Strange. You may still choose dignity. So cease your peddling of lies and threats, keep the promise of your ancestors, even as I shall keep Willand’s promise tonight. And remember that men of privilege are but stewards of this Realm. You should not fail it in its hour of need.’

The lord had hung his head but as Gwydion finished he looked up boldly and met the wizard’s eye. ‘I’ve behaved like a fool, Crowmaster. I told myself that desperate times called for desperate measures, but I see now that I was only being weak. I will take your advice as my watchword.’

‘See that you do. What passes here tonight is not to be spoken about. And, since true magic depends upon truth of spirit, what you pledge to me here and now will take effect in the flesh of your wife and son. If you break your bonden word to me, the counter-spell will be undone and your kin will slowly – painfully – return to stone. Do you understand this warning that I give to you?’

Dudlea closed his eyes. ‘I do.’

‘Then return to me your solemn word that what you witness here tonight will remain with you alone unto death.’

‘I do so promise.’

Gwydion gathered himself. He stood gaunt and twisted as a winter oak as he drew the earth power inside him for a long moment. Words of the true tongue issued from his mouth. Cunning words coiled like ivy, blossomed like honey-suckle, gave fruit like the vine. Then he stepped around the crates, gathering up a charm of woven paces and waving hands, dancing out in gestures and speaking a spell of great magic that began to fall upon the two effigies.

A crackle of blue light passed over woman and child as they lay side by side. Will seized Lord Dudlea’s arm when he started forward, knowing he must not let the lord interfere once that blue glow had enveloped them.

A noise that was not a noise grew loud in their heads. And slowly, as Gwydion danced and drew down the power, shadows flew and the tent filled with the tang of lightning-struck air. Their skins prickled and their hair stood up, and slowly in those two strange beds of straw the cold whiteness of marble became tinted as living flesh is tinted, and the wax of death began to give way to the bloom of life.

Will felt the unbearable tension of great magic. He closed his mind against it, but it tore at him as a storm tears at a hovel. Willow, tougher by far, hung onto the lord’s flailing arms, holding him back as his wife and son rose up from their coffins like spectres. Lord Dudlea called out. His eyes bulged in helpless horror as a weird light played blue in his wife’s eyes. Something moved the boy’s lips, then jolted them again as the figures floated free above the ground. But just as Will began to think they could not hold the lord any longer, a shuddering racked both woman and boy and they fell down as if in a faint. Yet now they were moist and soft and alive, and as the noise and light vanished away they began to breathe again.

‘Oh, joy!’ Lord Dudlea called out as he attended his kin. He reached up to touch the wizard’s robe. ‘Thank you, Master Gwydion! With all my heart I thank you!’

Will opened the tent and stepped out as soon as he could. Willow went with the wizard to join those by the fire whom Gwydion said must now have their minds set at ease. They left Lord Dudlea to his family, and Will stood alone under the moon and stars, trembling, a mass of glorious emotions coursing through him. The power that flowed at Gwydion’s direction was truly awesome, and Will reminded himself that it was not every day the dead came to life again.