Boneland

‘I was saying. Multi-element-radio-linked-interferometer-network.’

‘So you were. Cheers, mate.’

Colin made a fire and sat at the table through the night until the day showed. Then he put out the lamp, sprawled on his bunk; and he slept.

He woke, drank, blew a fire heap, ate meat, and left the lodge. He took smouldering moss and the lamp and went into Ludcruck from the Bearstone so that he did not cross the icefall.

He lit the lamp and worked through the grit past the nooks of the dead. The beasts trampled, but he did not stay. He lowered himself over the lip of the cliff inside the hill and climbed in the flicker, seeing nothing outside the globe in which he hung, hearing only the waters below, down to the great cave that was night, and the Stone that was its being, though it could be held in a fist.

The Stone was the womb of things. Nothing before it was made, and with it the spirits had chopped the marrow from the rock. It lay among the glint of its making; and the shining river ran beneath.

He put the lamp aside and sat a while, moving his thought. Then he stood and he stamped and he danced on the flakes and he sang. The chinking filled the cave, answering between the walls and the sky of the roof. He turned about the black Stone. He became the sounds, and was with the voices of the old, and the voices of the old were with him.

His step pressed the flakes; and from them under him rose moonlight, which grew with the dance, until it quelled the lamp. The moon lifted into him and flowed from bone to bone; along his spine and every rib, gleamed at his fingers, filled his skull, broke through his eyes, and brought pictures to his tongue.

Wolf! Wolf! Grey Wolf! I am calling for you!

Far away the Grey Wolf heard, and came.

Here am I, the Grey Wolf.

The woman. The child.

That is not Trouble. The Trouble is yet to come. Sit up on me, the Grey Wolf.

He sat up on the shoulder. The Grey Wolf struck the damp earth and ran, higher than the trees, lower than the clouds, and each leap measured a mile; from his feet flint flew, spring spouted, lake surged and mixed with gravel dirt, and birch bent to the ground. Hare crouched, boar bristled, crow called, owl woke, and stag began to bell. And the Grey Wolf stopped.

They were at the Hill of Death and Life.

Get down from me, the Grey Wolf, and gather the red rock, the white rock, the green rock, the blue rock, the brown rock, the black rock, and bring them here.

He got down from the Grey Wolf and went about the Hill of Death and Life. He gathered the red rock, the white rock, the green rock, the blue rock, the brown rock, the black rock, and brought them to where the Grey Wolf was.

He sat up on the shoulder, and the Grey Wolf struck the damp earth and ran, higher than the trees, lower than the clouds, and each leap measured a mile; from his feet flint flew, spring spouted, lake surged and mixed with gravel dirt, and birch bent to the ground. Hare crouched, boar bristled, crow called, owl woke, and stag began to bell. The Grey Wolf came to the great cave above the waters.

Hold the Stone. Grind thunder.

No one, not the living, not the dead, has touched the Stone. It is a spirit thing.

Long hair, short wit. I, the Grey Wolf, am speaking. Do it.

He got down and held the Stone in his fist. He put the rocks in among the flakes and bore on them with the Stone’s point; twisting their roughness, grating, churning. The rocks crumbled to sand beneath the weight. There was no moon but the cry of the grains of every hue, swirling, streaming about him, in him, through him, which became wind and thunder that picked him so that all that kept him was his hand on the Stone, his body tossed by the wind, until he could hold no more, and the thunder took him through the hill in a ball of rainbow and set him on the ground, by the river, under the sky.

He tasted lightning. He smelt it. The air was jags and spots. The Stone came as a cloud with flame from the Tor of Ghosts. The sky was riven in noise enough to break the hills. The land changed colours, and what was flat was black and what was steep was white; and the Stone flared and rent the slot of Ludcruck.

He dropped, his eyes shut, seeing only the wind. He sang, and with each song the earth shook. He lay, and was quiet; the earth stilled. His breath sounded in the great cave. Yet he lay a while, until the last quake died and his hands felt only the grasp of snow.

He opened his eyes. He was lying on the floor and the lamp shone. His hands bled from clutched shards. The Stone was in its place among the powdered rocks and had not moved.

Wolf. Wolf. Grey Wolf.

There was no answer.

He cupped the lamp in his palm and climbed, not feeling the pain as he pulled on the cliff.

Ludcruck was filled with summer. The ice had gone and the green mist of growing lit the spirit faces that looked out from the walls among fern, grass and holly along the twisting length.

The woman and the child lay in beds of eight-petalled white avens flower. He touched their faces and held their hands. The bodies were soft. He carried them out of Ludcruck to the hill. Here was snow and knars of grit stood draped.

He went to where a stack rose on ground above the valley and laid the bodies down. He snapped the icicles, clearing the way. He took the woman and climbed, and rested her on the snow at the stack top and opened her clothing.

She was lovely. Her cheeks were sunken, but had been so before when meat was late. Her nose was pinched, but he had seen that in winter. Only the hollow middle of her eye, the jaw and the stain on her shoulders her buttocks and behind her legs said that she would not come back. He loosed her hair, and laid it to either side of the sweet face.

Then he brought the child, wrapped in hare skin, and unbound it.

He left them together on the stack, where no beast would reach and steal, but birds could take them to the circle of life in air and earth, and he turned to the lodge. At the end of day, he looked out and saw that they were safe under ravens.

‘Risselty-rosselty, hey pomposity,

Knickerty-knackerty

Now, now, now.’

Colin took his bicycle and pedalled along the track to the road, adjusted his helmet, and crossed into Artists Lane. He stopped, lifted his feet and let the gradient take him down the dip slope of the Edge.

‘Risselty-rosselty, hey donny-dossity,

Knickerty-knackerty, rustical quality,

Willow tree wallowty

Now, now, now.’

He swept round the blind corner at Brynlow, past The Topps and The Butts to the Cross.

‘Risselty-rosselty, hey bombossity,

Knickerty-knackerty, rustical quality,

Willow tree wallowty, hey donny-dossity,

Risselty-rosselty

Now, now, now.’

He reached the main road and without looking right or left or touching the brakes went straight over from Artists Lane to Welsh Row. He coasted past Nut Tree and New House as far as Gatley Green until he came to the bypass and the railway bridge and had to pedal, after two point seven eight four three kilometres of free energy; approximately. Then it was Soss Moss, Chelford and Dingle Bank, to the telescope.

He punched the door code and went into the control room.