Earth Magic (18 page)

Chapter 22

O
N STONE HEATH, THE MENHIRS,
the great standing stones, stretch in rows across the moor that rises above the western bank of the Trenoth River, away from the river, eleven rows of stones in all. And at their heart, a tump, a hillock raised by men, with a stone circle at the top. Like so many giants, the stones stand imprisoned, sunk to their knees in the earth, rank on rank, for a league—fully three miles. They are rough-hewn misshapen things, crudely made, with no art in them. Some are as tall as a tall man, some the height of a tree. All are beyond the power of any ten men to lift with simple strength of arm and leg. They stand by the thousand, testament to the great will of those who hacked them from the mother mountain, brought them here from so far away, and put them in regularity for purpose forgotten out of time.

Those who put them into place were not like us. They did not think like us. They were neither artist nor artisan who made these rocks. If these menhirs be giants, some of these giants have their pointed heads buried, their gross legs high and kicking, as though they managed a poor headstand only with aid. This is a strange and careless way to place a rock. And within the great regularity that marks the whole, the rows are disorderly. But yet, to any man who lives with these rocks, it must in time become evident that these rocks are shaped as they are shaped, placed as they are placed, precisely as they were meant to be shaped, precisely as they were meant to be placed. There is power and purpose here beyond our power and purpose.

Such things are frightening. Few men live with the rocks.

Men do not dwell on Stone Heath, even far from the menhirs in their alignment. Stone Heath is a wasteland. Men come here to fight. Many men have fought in the shadow of the rocks. Single men. Armies. There are bones here, and armor. Cattle graze among the rocks. When Palsance was fiercer, men would sometimes say that blood made the children’s milk richer. It is not a thing that a modern man would say, not with the Gets for neighbors in Nestor, but some cattle still graze on Stone Heath, amidst the rocks, amidst the bones.

The face of the full moon shone on Stone Heath. It was a chill night and the rock legions were locked in mist, Libera’s Coverlet.

Naked the boy stood, alone among the towering rocks, lost in the mist that glowed from moonlight like the heart of a pearl. Neither mother nor father had he. He had no nation. There was no thing in all the world that was his. All that was his was a Name that was graven on his heart, and the Name was Libera.

He had no name of his own. He wore the name of Giles, which to him meant the Lover of Libera.

For a moment, he was cold. He did not know where he was. This was not the Stone Heath of his dreams. It was a far greater and stranger place than that, and he did not know it at first. All that he knew was the night, the moon and the mist, the cold, and these great presences that might suddenly topple and crush him. And then he remembered the Name and all was well.

He wrapped the mist around him like a blanket. And he walked among the rocks as though they were his own domain. He did not need to know the name Stone Heath when he knew the name Libera. In the name of Libera he could see beyond the mist, see with the mist. It was as though the mist was his own senses, and anywhere there amongst the rock lines he might let his senses roam over the bones and armor.

Very nearby, he suddenly sensed Oliver. He was sure in his heart of hearts, without knowing how he knew, that Oliver was close. The knowledge leapt into his mind.

He called to him, “Oliver! It is me . . . Giles!”

And he was both not surprised and surprised, because Oliver called, in a voice that revealed much: “Here. Here.” His voice was close and urgent, relieved and terrified, constricted.

They met between, nearer Oliver, for Haldane moved more surely and with less fear. The pearl mist glowed about them with moonfire.

Oliver said, “You are naked.”

Giles said, “I’ve met no one to ask if he would clothe a naked man.”

“But it has been so long,” said Oliver. “I counted you . . . I counted myself . . . You did not come to Barrow Hill.”

“I did come to Barrow Hill,” Giles said, “but by then you were not there. How many days has it been?”

“It has been four days since I saw you pursued by the hairy Get into the forest. Then I followed my map to Barrow Hill. After I got to Barrow Hill and was spying over a boulder there, I lost my map. A breeze took it from my hand like a swallow taking a fly. I do not know what happened to our pursuit while I followed my map, but then after two days in which I waited for you, Ivor and Arngrim were there together. I escaped them barely. I went in all directions until I lost my bearings. I did not know my right hand from my left. But Ivor and Arngrim followed me. I ran, and still they followed me. I ran from the pig and the horn wherever the flow of the countryside took me. Always I stayed before. Always they stayed behind. The sun was ever hidden and I did not know whether I ran through the heart of Nestor and beyond into the vastness of the Great Plains or whether I spun around and around in circles like a finger-top. But then I came to the Trenoth River and there was a boatman there. I could hear the horn behind me. I bargained with the boatman. I had naught else to give, so I gave him my magic book and my reading glasses to ferry me over the water. I kept only this cloak of all that I had. Then I followed the path that leads from the river to the bluff above and I found myself here. This could be Stone Heath. It must be Stone Heath. How came you to be here before me?”

“I did not know that I was before you,” Giles said. “In this mist can you tell before from behind?”

“No.”

“I was taken by the Get. He laid his mark upon me. Then I escaped. I went to Barrow Hill. Then . . . Then I came here.”

“You were branded?” And there in mistglow, Oliver did turn Giles around and examine the mark on his shoulder. He said, “Yes, I see. It is a strange red mark. It is a great letter—an L.”

Giles was struck by silence for a moment while his heart leapt to remember and wonder at the mystery. Libera. Libera. Then he said, “The name of the Get who captured me was Lyulf.”

And then, like some reminder that they were not alone in the mist and the night, came the golden sound of Arngrim’s Horn. Oliver started and kicked a helmet of some war against one of the great stones that was an inverted giant. It was a rattle in the night and Oliver looked about in apprehension.

He said, “Arngrim and Ivor and the pig are still behind me. We must run.”

“No,” said Giles. “There is armor here. And weapons, if we seek them. Look, here is an old knife.”

This knife that he found with the aid of his senses, the mist, was a wide-blade knife of iron, much rusted, with the handle broken. He held it out.

“That is no weapon for me,” said Oliver.

“We will find you a better,” Giles said, throwing it away. “But if it be you and me against Arngrim and Ivor and the pig Slut, then remember that Arngrim is old and Ivor has but one eye. You are fat and I am young. And the pig is a pig. I have chucked it under the chin. It may still love me. So let us turn and fight.”

Oliver was silent for a long time, and it seemed to Giles that he might set his cloak under his arm and flee again West down the line of stones.

But then Oliver looked at Haldane, as he thought him, but Giles as it now was, and said, “I will fight with you. I have not ever fought with a sword before and I will be no aid to you. But I will fight beside you even if they kill me.”

And so they cast about them. Oliver found a helmet that he thought befit him but did not. Giles found a short sword for Oliver, in the mist between the rocks.

Oliver tried it on the night, waving the old sword straight armed, holding his cloak which he carried in his left hand as though he had meant to drop it but then forgot. Giles leaned back from the cut of that poor sword in the hand of this one who was not a swordsman. Then he turned to look for a better weapon for himself.

He could not find one. The mist did not tell him of swords. It told him of one running upon them.

Giles looked up. It was Ivor Fish-Eye, doing again as he had done at Arngrim’s dun. He was rushing upon Giles, that defenseless boy, his cutting sword in his hand, intent to kill him.

Oliver threw his cloak at Ivor with his left hand, a toss to break his charge, like a slap on the nose to a bear. And it did that. It blinded Ivor’s one eye, hanging and clinging to head and shoulder.

Ivor snatched it away, turning on Oliver. He said, “Once again as at Little Nail. I do not like you, wizard man. I do not believe in wuroxes and I do not believe in you. I saw you wave your arms high and chant while I surrounded Morca, but while my back was turned to you, I killed Morca and you ran away. I wanted to kill you then. I will kill you now.”

Oliver tried to interpose his sword, but Ivor beat it aside with the ease of one who sets aside a kitten’s batting paw. Then he killed Oliver. He struck him a blow to the helmet that undid him and then casually but viciously struck him a great hacking blow that no man could survive. It was a backhanded blow with great power. And then Ivor struck him once again another blow as great as that. Oliver fell dead.

“Now we shall finally match armies,” Ivor said, turning upon Giles.

But Giles had a sword. “Libera,” he said, and came forward to meet Ivor.

Ivor wore a link shirt. He laughed at the boy’s rusted weapon. It was no match for his sound and well-loved piece. The boy’s nakedness was no proof against his great bloody long sword.

He said, “When I came upon you to kill you at Little Nail, the wizard tripped me with his bag and I knocked my head against a post. I will not knock my head against a post here. This wizard will trip no one again. He is dead, and so are you, Haldane of Morca.”

Giles swung his rusty weapon as though it were new. Ivor blocked the blow and flinders of rusted iron flew.

Ivor laughed.

Giles swung as before, and again Ivor blocked the swing and the sword came more to pieces.

“And once again,” said Ivor, and laughed a second time.

Giles did strike one more blow. The sword dissolved to nothing on Ivor’s blade and he was left with naught but the handle which was bits in his hand.

Ivor laughed a third time. And Ivor died.

He fell down dead. A sliver of rusted iron had passed through his link shirt to pierce his heart. The first of Haldane’s enemies was dead at the hand of Giles, now that it was no longer of moment to Haldane. But that is always the way of life.

Giles knelt by both men and both were dead. Ivor was dead and Oliver was dead. He took Ivor’s sword and rose again.

With his senses, he searched between the stones for Arngrim. He cast about to find him, his horn and his pig. It was like being in an outhouse on the night of the new moon and still knowing where everything was in the darkness—but the reverse of that. It was the full moon, not the new. There was a flood of light. And Giles was not an intruder in a place known, but was himself the place Stone Heath knowing an intruder.

And he sensed one in the mist, between his rocks, and he knew the place. There was a regularity in the ranks of rocks, and the one who moved among them was irregular.

Giles walked to meet Arngrim. When the one who tracked through the mist moved between the rocks, Giles matched him, so that ever more surely they two must meet. The place was there awaiting them.

Stone Heath was alive with power on this night. The mist glowed with it. The rocks surged with it. And the men who walked the lines were men with claim to power.

Their sources would be matched, one who was a Get against one who was not. He whose purposes were less would surely die.

So Giles moved lightly, naked young man, sword held before him, to meet the one who trailed and trailed. He knew that he was only the distance of the mist away. That close. Beyond the nearest rocks hid, there was the man.

And from that place, Giles heard a gaunt cough. Romund and he came together in the grass between the rock rows. The grass was cool and damp beneath his bare feet.

Coughing Romund coughed again. It seemed hollow in this moonfire mist.

He said, “Deldring, I am Farthing, come to kill you.”

“I am not Deldring,” Giles said. “I am not Haldane. I am not of the Gets. I am Giles. I am only of Libera.”

“You are Haldane, and you will die for it,” said Romund.

“I would not die for that. If you should kill me, I will have died for Libera. If you kill me, then I will know that Libera has willed it so.”

“I will kill you,” said Romund hoarsely.

Romund was a powerful man for one so gaunt and thin. He was a swordsman by whom swordsmen were measured. Giles fought well, but to Romund he was as Oliver to Ivor. He was but newly a man. Romund was a master.

Giles only managed to parry three blows from Romund. His arm was benumbed by the great force of Romund’s blows. Romund coughed, and still coughing delivered another blow that Giles raised Ivor’s iron sword to meet. Romund’s sword skipped away and the flat struck Giles in the head and knocked him down, sword flying wildly from his hand.

Coughing Romund stared at Giles as he fell face downward and rolled away. He demanded, “What is that disgrace you bear on your naked shoulder?”

“It is a brand. It is the great letter L.”

“You spoke truly. You are not of the Gets. Deldrings are not fit to be reckoned of our kind. I know you now. I know your back, which I have touched. That Lyulf should lie to me with my very hand touching you. That he would try to save you by branding you as a serf. And that you would agree. Even Morca would be ashamed of behavior such as yours, for if he was a Deldring, he was proud.”

Coughing Romund prodded at Giles with his sword, backing him step by step. “When you strove to save your coward life, you spoke true. You are no Get. You are not Morca’s son. And you are no threat to me, for no Get would follow such a one as you. But I would not have you save your coward life by such means as these. It is not right that such a one as you, without shame or propriety, should live. You are without manhood. Your father died killing many men. They and he would not rest if such a one as you remained alive. I foul my sword to kill you.”