The Language of Stones

The gift that Gwydion had taken when they left the village was a loaf of new-baked bread. For this was Lammastide, also called in the Vale ‘the festival of loaves’, the day when the first ripe grain was cut and threshed, ground and baked into bread, all in the space of a day. This was ritual bread-making, a solemn and sacred duty, and done to mark the bounty of the earth. A time to give thanks to the land, and for folk to count their blessings.

They climbed the flat-topped hill and munched their bread, and it seemed to Will that the taste of it was as good as any food he had ever eaten. Festive bonfires burned red across the plains of the old Kingdom of Wesset to the north. As darkness deepened, folk would be attending each of those fires, toasting bread on long forks. There would be butter and honey for the children, and much ale drunk and many songs sung. They sat together and talked far into the night and Will felt himself to be closer to Gwydion than ever before. Tonight the wizard seemed joyous and wonderfully wise and very pleased to be here. He spoke much about history, showing Will to the very the spot where, almost a thousand years before, Great Arthur had stood to address his assembled troops.

The wizard said quietly. ‘Shall I tell you the name of this hill in the true tongue? It is “Dumhacan Nadir”.’

Will repeated the words as if he half recognized them. ‘“Dumhacan Nadir” – the Dragon’s Mound.’

‘You have not slept upon a dragon’s mound before, I think. Nor shall you again for a very long time.’

Will patted the ground under him in wonder – there was something too regular about this mound for it to be a natural hill, and nearby was an odd bare patch of chalk, a part where the grass would not grow.

‘Flenir was the greatest of the great dragons of old, the most famous in the land. Huge and fierce was he, the “winged beast with breath of flame” of which many tales were told and many songs sung in a time long before the establishment of the Realm. For long years did Flenir misuse this land, preying upon sheep and cattle across the domain of Angnor. Any man unwary enough to be caught in the open at his approach would be torn to pieces like a mouse caught in the talons of an eagle. Flenir would breakfast in a place near here – it is still called Wormhill Bottom – and when he had rent enough flesh from bone he would return to his lair to lie. The top of his mound is flat because Flenir was accustomed to rest here, rubbing his great red belly free of the lice that clung to it. All dragons had lice, Willand, and dragon lice were as big as a man’s hand. In daylight you can see the groove where Flenir wrapped his tail around the mound, and if you look carefully down there you might discover the entrance he used, though it has long since been sealed. It is said that one day, while flying over Angnor, Flenir saw the figure of Arondiel and became enamoured of it. That is why he made his mound here. Though other tales say the site was chosen only out of jealousy.’

Will looked down into the darkness below. ‘I think a dragon would have found this a perfect place to launch himself into the air.’

‘That much is certain.’

Will scuffed at the turf with his toes. ‘So was there once a great treasure buried under here?’

‘There was, for as you know the great dragons were like magpies. They would collect any trinket that glittered. They coveted bright metal for its own sake and would always try to make a hoard of it. But in the end Flenir did not much like the bright bronze blade that was forged up on yonder ridge, for that was his bane.’

Will thought of those brilliant, ancient days, all long gone now and impossibly heroic. But what kind of heroes did the world have now? Men who wore the heads of pigs, and lords whose own increasing greed showed in the Hogshead. A shiver passed through him as he sat there, and thoughts of home began to crowd in on him. His fingers went to the greenstone talisman that hung at his neck, and he remembered the song that Valesmen used to sing every year called the Wyrm Charm. Last year it had been Eldmar’s turn to sing it. The moment had come when they had all raised their hot, steaming dragon soup together and supped off the flavoursome liquor, then Eldmar had raised his voice and led the others through the verses.

Will felt a tear come to the corner of his eye. He sniffed, fighting the sadness away, knowing very well that it was no use pining for home now. He stood up and went to stand alone and a feeling of such strangeness came over him then that his eyes rolled up into his head and his hands went deathly cold and it was as if all the world was melting away before him. And when he opened his eyes he saw a ghostly army of ten thousand filling the space below, and he knew they were gathering here before starting their heroes’ march to Badon Hill where great deeds of war would soon be accomplished.

He saw them clear as day, saw their burnished war gear, watched them shake the charms on their spearheads and clash their spearshafts against shields that bore the device of the hawk. He saw their faces, and heard them raise such a shout that it echoed across a forsaken land like rolling thunder. And he stared back, enthralled, standing at the edge, lifting up his arms, to shout in reply, ‘Anh farh bouaidan! An ger bouaidhane!’

Then Gwydion’s arms were instantly around him, and the echoes were rolling around the hill as he shook himself out of the vision and when he came to himself he was cold as death and he could still hear the horns of Elfland faintly blowing.

‘Where am I?’ he said, falling.

The wizard drew him back from the edge. ‘Do not sit here. Do you see how it is bare of grass? That is where dragon’s blood once was spilt. Nothing has grown here since.’

He staggered in the wizard’s arms as vague fears flashed through him. For a moment he wondered if he had unleashed some unnamed peril upon them, but when he looked up at the sky, only the cold stars shone down, pitiless as the glint in a dragon’s eye.

His words came all in a rush. ‘Master Gwydion, let me go home. I can’t be this Child of Destiny you’ve been looking for, really I—’

‘Easy, lad. The Rede of Foolishness says, “Talk not about things whereof you know nothing.” You are what you are. Stop fighting yourself.’

For a moment Gwydion’s answer put a stone in his heart, but then he saw a shooting star flare and its beauty so moved him that he wept. The wizard laid a comforting arm across his shoulders and Will leaned against him and soon he began to drowse. It seemed he had been sleeping half the night when he woke up with a start to find that all was still and silent. Gwydion was nowhere to be seen, so he got up and began to look around. This time he was careful to respect the bare patch as if it was a gravestone. He walked around the top of the hill, telling himself not to worry, then he stumbled over something hard and sharp that was half buried in the grass.

When he knelt down to try to discover what it was, it felt cold to his fingers, like metal, and as he scraped the hard earth from around it he saw that it was curved, a metal rim – like the edge of a goblet – sticking out of the ground.

The more he scraped the freer the goblet became, until he was able to pull it out. Then he saw it was no goblet at all, but a horn, clogged with earth, the silverwork upon it battered and tarnished black but a horn all the same. It was not the sort that shepherds blew, but the kind warriors winded to send a warning clear across a valley. Even in the starlight he could see there were words cut in the metal.

He knocked the dirt out of it and tucked it into his bundle. Then, with a heavy sigh, he lay down to sleep.

The next day they travelled onward, following the meandering path that climbed up the ridge. They passed a great bank of bracken that was overgrown with bindweed. It parted before Gwydion’s steps, and the many pale pink flowers closed up and seemed to nod respectfully as he climbed up between them. Will saw revealed another ancient earth enclosure much like the one in which they had rested on their way to the Wychwoode. This ruin was round in form, and Gwydion said it was the remains of a burgh, a dwelling camp, built in a time when all men raised their homes in timber and thatch and did not arrogantly root out the bones of the earth for the sake of vanity.

‘They used only those stones which the earth itself offered up. A great gate once stood here. How wondrously worked were the timbers of that camp, how great the magic knotted into its carven beams. But great though the ancient camps were, all of them fell easily to the iron-girt invader.’ Gwydion’s eyes flashed. ‘There was no defence against Slaver steel and Slaver sorcery once the Isles were betrayed. The Slavers were the beginning of the darkness that has ever since shadowed this land. I do not say such a thing easily, but I would that Gruech had never lived!’

‘Gruech? Who’s he?’

‘A foul traitor! One whose bones lie in a dusty cave far away.’ Gwydion grunted. ‘Let me tell you how it was: King Hely reigned forty-four years, longer than any king of the line of Brea since Dunval the Great, and his first son was called Ludd. When Ludd became king, he rebuilt Trinovant, the city that Brea had founded near a thousand years before. So great were King Ludd’s works that the city was renamed Caer Ludd, in his honour, but on his death the name Trinovant was taken up again. Ludd’s body was interred in one of the great gates of the city that bears his name – Luddsgate. It was I who gave his funeral oration, and at that time I made known certain truths that disqualified Ludd’s son, Androg, from the kingship.

‘This was well done, for Androg was possessed of a weak spirit, and four years after Ludd’s death, during the reign of his brother Caswalan, there turned out to be much work for a strong leader. The mighty power from the East that we called “the Slavers” first invaded the Isles. They claimed they had come on the Day of Auspices, one thousand years to the day since the landing in the Isles of the hero Brea. By this boast they sought to terrify the people, for Iuliu, the captain-general of the Slaver army, was a famous seer and he had said that the line of Brean kings could stand only so long.

‘But our bards sang well their histories in reply. They countered that the true Day of Auspices must already have passed unmarked during the reign of King Hely, and Iuliu’s prediction was therefore false. Thus were our warriors heartened, and afterwards they scorned the claims of the enemy, even when what they said was true. Now as the first Slaver foot stepped upon shingle shore, the lorc awakened. It happened exactly as the fae had always intended it should. Soon a great battle was fought, and one of Ludd’s younger brothers, Neni, who was a master of many arts, fought bravely against the Slaver armies that day, though in the end he paid dearly for his enterprise. The Slavers were setting camp on the banks of the River Iesis when the great clash came. Neni’s men rushed upon them and he himself captured the Slaver sorcerer’s sword, but it cut him and the poison entered his body, so that he died of his wounds fifteen days later and was interred in another of the northern gates of Trinovant. The sorcerer’s gilded blade which he took as spoil, and which he named Thamebuide, or “yellow death”, was buried with him.

‘And that’s how the Slavers won the Realm?’ Will said, frowning.

‘Oh, not so! The Slavers’ ill-fated first invasion was ended by their captain-general, Iuliu the Seer. Ever since landing on the shingle shore, he had been troubled. He suffered falling fits and terrible night visions, both of which were conjured in his mind by the lorc. So affected was he that after the great battle fought against Caswalan and Neni, he chose to withdraw his dread army back across the Narrow Seas. He returned with it to his great capital of Tibor where he vowed never to trouble the Isles again. Iuliu the Seer became a despot upon his own people and was murdered by his friends.’

Will scratched his head. ‘Then how did the Realm pass to the Slavers?’

‘A hundred years later we were betrayed by one of our own.’

Will nodded. ‘And that must have been Gruech’s doing?’

‘Indeed it was. And all the worse for he was one of the druida, and a bard. There could have been no greater betrayal than his.’

Gwydion strode onward in silence then, and a little while later they passed by some ancient stones and the wizard explained that this was the place where Welan son of Wada had forged the exquisite bronze sword called Balmung, the same that had shaved the scales from the dragon’s ribs.

‘These stones mark the place where Wada was laid to rest by his grateful people.’ The wizard’s lips pursed wryly. ‘Had Welan but known how, he might have charmed Flenir to his will, and then there would have been no need to forge a sword. There is no need to dig earth-iron from holes when you have skill in your hands and in your head. The earth gives up freely all that a wise man needs. She holds fast to that which should not be had by fools. Alas! The earth can never give all that men desire, for men’s desire is limitless.’

But Will’s mind was already bounding along another path. ‘Could the great dragons be tamed by words alone, then?’

‘Tamed? Never! But charmed certainly. At least in some measure, for the greatest of the dragons were vain and greedy beasts, and those are failings against which compliment and flattery most easily succeeds. In that, dragons were much like kings.’

Will looked back the way they had come. In the bright summer sun he could see for many leagues, and the view served to make him wonder at the vastness of the Realm and how small was the world that he had hitherto known.

‘Where are we going, Master Gwydion?’

‘That question again? Over hill and down dale to sup with the king.’

Will sucked his teeth, hating to be so casually talked down to. ‘There and back to see how far it is,’ he muttered.

Gwydion poked him good-naturedly with the foot of his staff. ‘We go to the king to offer him consolation in his time of trouble. But travelling is not simply an attempt to arrive somewhere by the shortest possible route. A destination must be arrived at properly, for there is much more in the going than there is in the getting there.’

‘You’re not making much sense.’

‘Then let me put it plainly – there may be those whom we might wish to meet with on the way, or those who might wish to meet with us.’

Will sighed. The crane bag seemed to be heavier, though he knew it could not be. Then he realized that it was weighed down with a secret. He had not yet told Gwydion about the silver-bound horn. I’ll tell him about it when he tells me where we’re going, he thought, and swapped the bag from hand to hand. Fair trade is no robbery, and that’s a Valesman’s rede!

At Lyttenden Hill they came upon ancient, wind-bitten towers and a lake of mist below. The ridge turned south again and they walked on along high ground, coming down at last, late and after dark, into a looming wood that lay across their path.

On the way, Gwydion told him about some of the different sorts of magic. There was ‘seeming’, which was making things appear to be what they were not. Then there were the persuasive arts of talking people into a state of sleep or enthusiastic agreement. Then came the power of perceiving deceit in men’s hearts. ‘No motive is hidden from a wizard,’ Gwydion said. ‘He hears truth in people’s voices as others hear joy in laughter or sadness in sobs. Much that folk suppose is powerful magic is really only illusion-weaving. Most people cannot tell the difference, but it is the difference between a person believing he sees a mouse change into an apple and the change actually taking place. True transformations are much more difficult – they are very tiring, and they tend to return to their original state in a short space of time. Which is especially upsetting if you have just eaten an apple that once was a mouse.’