Jack Whyte - The Skystone

"Go back to sleep, Publius, and sleep well. "

I saw her shape, outlined in the moonlight as she turned to leave.

"Wait! Wait, Luceiia!" She turned back to me as I rubbed the last of the sleep out of my eyes. "What's happening?" I asked her, though I knew, finally. "What was that all about?"

Her voice was low-pitched. "I sent Cylla away. She is a foolish woman and a dangerous one. Her husband is not as stupid as she thinks he is. Had he awakened and found her gone, he would have come right here. There are only two beds she could visit, apart from his, and Meric is too old and too holy to appeal to her. "

"Uh, " I grunted, at a loss for words. Then I found my tongue. "Thank you for that. I was asleep and thought it was a dream. "

"I know." I could have sworn I heard a smile in her voice. "I heard you."

"But... how did you come to be here? What hour of night is it?"

"It is late, Publius, but I have known Cylla all my life. I knew she would come to you. So I waited for her. Would you rather I had not?"

"No! No. I thank you for your thoughtfullnes. You may have saved my life. You were right. That was both foolish and dangerous. And unsought. "

"Then your broken dream was not of Cylla?" Again there was that smiling sound in her tone.

"I cannot remember, " I lied. "No, no, I was not dreaming of Cylla. "

"Good. Then go to sleep again. She will not be back tonight, and we have to be afoot early tomorrow. Meric is not a patient guide. Good night, Publius. "

She closed the door gently as she left, and I had a hard time regaining my lost slumber.

XIX

I know that there are people who love hills and mountains. I hate them. They stink of blood and death and ambush. They hide enemies. I have lost too many good friends among hills ever to be impressed with their beauty. Hills are a hazard to the lives of travellers, and of soldiers. Place me on the top of a high hill with an unobstructed view of the countryside in every direction and I might be tempted to relax for a while, but I could never lie down and sleep on a hillside, nor can I ever be cheerful and talkative on a journey that wends through valleys. As I said, I hate hills. The Mendip Hills are no different to any of the other hill ranges in south Britain. They look exactly the same. But the Mendip Hills held the promise of skystones, and because all of my experiences since landing in this part of the country had been happy ones, I was prepared to treat the Mendips as friendly territory for the time being; for the first time in my life, I did not feel threatened or claustrophobic. I only realized that, however, when we pulled our horses to a halt at the crest of a high hill and looked down into the valley on the other side, a valley that had been visited by dragons.

"Well, what do you think?"

The voice belonged to Meric. I did not answer him immediately; I was too busy scanning the floor of the valley.

Even from the top of the hill I could see that the grass was thick and rank, mottled already with the browns and yellows of wintertime. Everything I saw had that wet, chilled, unwelcoming look that meant December, and I felt no promise in the prospect in front of me, even though I could count about thirty large boulders scattered across the floor of the valley. The surface of the lake at the far end looked cold and hostile, opaque with wind ripples, and the excitement of the trip turned suddenly to disappointment and depression. I glanced sideways at my two companions. Both of them sat huddled on their horses, swathed in cloaks against the bitter, gusting wind.

"I don't know what to think, Meric, " I answered. "Are you sure this is the place?"

He started to snap a response but restrained himself and turned his eyes away from me, down into the valley. It was obvious that he had decided not to lower himself to the level of my ill-mannered tone of voice.

"Yes, Varrus, I am sure this is the place. I have been here several times and it has not changed. " He nodded towards the valley floor. "Are those boulders the stones you think fell from the sky?"

"They might be. I doubt it. I think they're too big. You realize I've never seen a skystone either? I have no idea what they look like. " There was a roughness in my voice that I tried, too late, to conceal. It wasn't Meric's fault that this place was different from my expectations. To tell the truth, I hadn't known what to expect. "Tell me again what happened that night, Meric, " I said more gently.

He shivered and drew his cloak more closely around his shoulders, and when he spoke his voice held no indication that he might be irritated by my request.

"Very well, but remember, please, I am only reporting what was told to me. The event took place during my boyhood, before I joined the Brotherhood. Apparently, the night it happened was a wild one — cloudy and windy, with great gaps in the clouds through which the stars were plainly visible. At about the second hour before midnight, many lights were seen in the sky. Each of these lights was separate from the others at first, but as they approached, at great speed, they became blindingly bright and were accompanied by a great roaring noise. They crashed to earth among the hills in fire and flames that lit up all the undersides of the clouds, turning them red as the fire itself, and the smoke of their coming blotted out the stars. This was all seen by hundreds of people who live in and around the hills here, and it was obvious to every one of them that the dragons of the legend had returned.

"On the following day, some of the more adventurous among the people came into the hills to see what had to be seen. Among them was Athyr, the old man who became my teacher. He was the one who told me what he saw with his own eyes. He brought me here to this very spot and tried to describe for me the devastation that had been wrought. " He paused, and for the space of many moments there was no sound on the hilltop except for the bluster of a gust of wind and the clump of hooves as Luceiia's horse sidled away from us slightly. Meric cleared his throat and took up his tale.

"There had been a small herd of cattle grazing in the valley that night —

the riches of the village. The whole herd was dead, and the villagers left with nothing. Some of the cattle had been torn to pieces and the pieces scattered far apart. Some had completely disappeared. Vanished without trace. Others had been roasted alive. The entire valley had been drowned in mud, feet deep in places. Athyr said the mud reached the tops of the surrounding hills. " He pointed to a cliff face to the west. "The entire side of that hill over there was blasted to rubble. You can still see the rocks at the foot of the cliff, although they're almost overgrown now. " I looked and, sure enough, the bottom of the cliff over by the distant lakeside which I had taken, from this distance, to be sloping hillside, was in fact a tumbled confusion of ruin overgrown by rank, tufted weeds and scraggly shrubs.

"Everything was covered in mud, and yet Athyr said the cattle were roasted alive. I still don't understand how that could have happened, how it could have been true. " He shrugged his shoulders. "I can do no more than accept it on faith. Athyr would never lie about anything. I have never known a more truthful man. He told me that is what he saw, therefore that is what he saw. He believed what he told me, and I believed him. By the time he brought me here, more than ten years had gone by and the grass had begun to cover everything again, although not so thickly as it has now. "

I interrupted him. "What about the lake?" He looked at me in surprise.

"What about it?" "I don't know what about it. That's why I'm asking. Did Athyr say anything about the lake?"

He frowned, remembering that day. "No. No, Athyr said nothing about the lake. Why do you ask?"