The Tall Stones

by Moyra Caldecott

  He sat on the grass outside the circle and waited patiently for her to ‘return.’ He enjoyed the sun, the song of birds, the sea glinting and winking far away to the east. From time to time he looked back at his sister. She had not moved. The same still pallor was upon her. He longed to know what was ‘happening’, but there was no way he could until she told him.

  Suddenly he was shocked to see her jerk ‘awake’ with tremendous force, her face distorted with fear. She half tumbled, half scrambled off the leaning stone and almost fell out of the Sacred Circle into his arms. She was sobbing and clinging to him, at the same time beating him with her fists. He did not know whether to hold her off at arm’s length, or hold her tight and comfort her.

  ‘Why did you not help me!’ she screamed. ‘You just left me there!’

  ‘What? What!’ He tried to ward off her blows. ‘How could I help?’

  She sobbed and sobbed and he could get no sense out of her. But she stopped hitting him and he drew her down beside him on the grass and held her in his arms and tried to calm her.

  ‘I want to go away from this place,’ she said, the little girl again. He decided not to say anything, but to help her to her feet and lead her away. When they were well away from the circle and out of sight of it they sat down side by side and he tried to make her tell him what had happened.

  ‘You just seemed to lie there. You looked peaceful enough. I did not know you were in any kind of trouble.’

  ‘It was horrible,’ she said, shuddering. ‘I thought I was dying.’

  ‘Maal looked as though he was dying, but he was not,’ Karne said. ‘Did you not think of that?’

  ‘I could not think of anything! It was so horrible!’

  ‘What happened? Tell me about it.’

  ‘At first it felt all right,’ she said, sniffing slightly, ‘as though I was just falling asleep. But I did not fall asleep. I sort of died!’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, one moment I was lying there just the same as usual and the next moment my body was lying there but somehow I was not in it.’

  He raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Were you in the place you saw when you were with Maal?’

  ‘No. I was still here, in this circle! I could see you as clearly as anything looking at the sea and some birds and not paying any attention to me, and I could see my body as clear as I could see you . . . only I was looking at it from outside and it looked dead. I tried to move my legs and arms but nothing would move. I tried to scream out to you but no sound would come. I even tried to open my eyes thinking that would make me wake up. But my eyelids would not move! And anyway I was not asleep. I really was awake, but I was not in my body’

  ‘Are you sure you did not go anywhere else?’ Karne asked, visibly disappointed.

  ‘No!’ she screamed. ‘You do not care about me at all! You just want your stupid questions answered. If I could not have returned to my body I would have died!’

  ‘How did you get back?’ Karne asked with interest.

  ‘I do not know. I just tried and tried to get back in and suddenly there was a snap and I was in and everything was normal again except that I am never, never going to try that again!’

  ‘I am sure it is a beginning,’ Karne said thoughtfully. ‘I mean . . . we could not expect you to do too much the first time . . .’

  ‘It is not a beginning,’ she said vehemently, ‘it is an end!’ And with that she stood up and marched off.

  Karne remained sitting for a long time thinking about it all.

  Chapter 4

  The Midsummer Festival

  Not long after this the chief Elder, Thorn, ordered the construction of Maal’s burial mound. Maal asked for it to be sited on the line of earth power that ran invisible but straight as a spear throw from the Sacred Circle, along the processional route, through Maal’s house, beyond and through an older burial mound, to the horizon where a notch had been cut in the skyline to lead the eye to sunset on Midsummer’s Day.

  Karne was among those deputed to gather stones of the right shape and size to line the tomb and the path leading to it. The actual construction was left to men who had the skill of building, the boys gathered the stones and piled them near the site. They worked in pairs and chatted cheerfully as they worked, not really thinking much about the purpose of their work.

  * * * *

  Midsummer’s Day was near approaching and there was much talk of the ceremonies and festivities that accompanied it. Dawn was always something special. Everyone brought flowers to the circle and Maal prayed and made obeisance to the Sun. There was singing and music and the whole day was holiday and pleasure. A great deal of barley ale was drunk, and there was dancing from the oldest to the youngest. By the evening they were all greatly tired and when the sun came to set directly into the notch on the hill it was a very solemn moment. The evening ceremony was a quiet one, and afterwards they wandered contentedly home to rest.

  This year there was the added poignancy that it was Maal’s last midsummer ceremony. Kyra went far into the forests in the south the afternoon before to gather some special white lilies she had set her heart upon. The forests were always considered dangerous places by the villagers because of the wild boars and other beasts and they did not venture there alone if they could help it. But Kyra was determined and she slipped away without anyone seeing her.

  From the bright hillsides near her home it was as though she had entered a cave of dark and sinister green. It was much denser than the light woods she had known before and she could not help a moment of hesitation and fear. But the lilies hunters had once brought to the village from deep within the forest called to her, and she plunged into the shadows trying to shut her mind to the dangers. Sometimes she heard the leaves rustling and twigs crackling as though creatures were lurking and moving in the undergrowth. She kept her attention sharp and moved quickly, making sure to note unusual things so that she would be able to find her way out again. After a long time searching she decided, tired, discouraged, filthy and scratched, to abandon the search. Hearing the whisper of water running she pulled aside some heavy and dangerously thorned branches to find a tiny stream picking its way carefully over moss covered stones to fall and disappear into a cleft in the rock. Drinking thankfully from it she could hear that it continued underground and longed to follow the intricate passage of its course, wondering what secret and beautiful delights of crystal and moss frond she would uncover. As she lifted her head from the water she met face to face the delicate, glowing whiteness of the very lilies she had been seeking. Breathlessly she stared at them, half afraid they were a vision and would disappear. But a very practical bee appeared and busied itself with one of them and that gave her courage to believe in their reality. She picked some, careful to leave enough behind for them to fruit and seed and reproduce themselves. The ends of the stems of those she had picked she wrapped in damp mossy earth to keep them fresh, and then she set off to find her way out of the forest again.

  When she returned home just before nightfall, exhausted and very much muddied and scratched by thorns, but clutching triumphantly in her hands the lilies of her choice, her family realized where she had been and she was treated to a severe lecture on the dangers of the forest. But when she had finished her harangue, her mother hugged her close, greatly relieved that she was safe, and bathed her scratches herself as though she was a little child again, muttering many a tender phrase and name.

  Karne brought rushes from the marsh in full flower and as tall as himself. Most of the rest of the family just picked the wild flowers from the hills and fields around. Even the baby had a little crown of daisies tied to its bald head. Karne could see it with its chubby hand trying to pull it off as they walked together as a family in the dim light just before dawn towards the standing stones.

  Maal was there already. It is probable that he had been there all night. He was standing now in the dead centre of the circle facing east, his arms raised, his full ceremonial
robes giving him a stature he did not normally possess.

  One by one they arranged their offerings of flowers around the outside of the Sacred Circle. Kyra climbed to her special stone, the one she had first touched, the one with the ribs of crystal pointing to the sky, bowed slightly and put her lilies at the foot of it. As she raised her eyes she met those of the priest looking directly into hers. She stood very still, feeling his mind closing in on hers. He was trying to tell her something, but the ‘noise’ of all the other minds around was getting in the way. He was appealing to her, asking for her help, searching her for some way out, as though he were caught in some kind of trap.

  She stood amazed. This could not be. She must be misinterpreting. She strained to catch something more specific but she could not. As more and more the general hubbub of the minds around intervened and pulled them apart she thought she caught the word ‘Thorn’ several times and then something that sounded like ‘take care’, and strangely she had a mental image of the sunset through the notch in the hills, but this time there seemed to be something in it . . . something dark. She could not make it out.

  Someone pulled her back. She was too close to the Sacred Circle. It was against the custom for ordinary people to go so near to the tall stones.

  ‘I see you put your lilies next to your stone,’ Karne whispered to her as she joined him. Her face was troubled and she did not reply.

  ‘What is the matter?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘It will not be long now,’ her mother said and they all began to turn towards the East. By the time the first running point of blazing gold appeared above the distant liquid line, the whole community was aware of it. A kind of gasp that seemed to come from one throat, but came from all in unison, greeted the god of fire and life. Maal lifted up his voice and the most beautiful hymn in the world, the hymn affirming life and the renewal of life forever, burst and rose upon the clean, clear air of the land. The gasp the people had given was the first note of the hymn and the last note was the people’s too. Their voices rose above the priest’s and seemed to fill the land from horizon to horizon. Tears came to Kyra’s eyes. It was the most moving ceremony of the year and somehow this year it meant more to her than it ever had before. Somehow she was part of life’s mysteries, life’s renewal, life’s magic. Life would never again be for her a humdrum and meaningless daily routine of waking, chores, eating and sleeping. There was something more to it. Something she did not yet fully understand but which she knew would unfold to her as she grew, revealing with every unfolding something new and magnificent.

  When the hymn was over and the sun fully risen one might say the secular festivities began. The women had prepared a special festival breakfast, the communal eating of which took up most of the morning. Karne’s task was to help move the smooth, hot cooking stones from the fire into the hollowed log filled with water in which a special broth was boiling, and back again to the fire when they had started to cool. He liked the way the water bubbled and boiled around the hot stones. But it was a tiring task and he was not sorry when he was relieved by his brothers.

  After the meal there were the competitions – the log chopping, the pole climbing, the spear throwing, the steer catching, the dancing, the singing, the reciting of heroic poems handed down from their forefathers and extended by themselves.

  The priest was not part of all this and Kyra did not see him again until he arrived for the sunset ceremony when everyone was more or less over-fed and worn out.

  Karne was drunk on rough ale and impossible to talk to. He kept following one of the girls around, the one called Mia, the village flirt. She giggled at everything he said and Kyra felt sick that her brother looked at her with such eyes when there were girls like Fern present, tall and beautiful, thoughtful and dignified.

  At the end of the afternoon the Elders gathered first and stood in front of their particular stones very impressively. The tardy and somewhat dishevelled villagers gradually gathered themselves together for the last big event of the day, the sunset.

  Maal approached with dignity.

  The sky had become somewhat overcast without anyone paying it much attention. Now, however, there was some speculation that they would not be able to see the sunset in the special place because of the ominous black clouds that were gathering in the west. In fact the approaching storm lent drama and splendour to the scene. The clouds were broken enough for the dazzling light of the dying sun to illuminate them in strange and royal ways. Purple and crimson were the predominant colours, where gold and silver and mother-of-pearl had been the gentler colours of the dawn.

  Where the sky was not black and sullen with the weight of brooding storm, it was rent with blazing flame and flagged in purple and red. Directly above the notch on the hill there were no clouds at all, but a weird and sickly green.

  The villagers grew very quiet as they turned to look at the west. While the morning sun had lifted up their hearts to joy and hope, the evening one was causing depression and despair. Kyra could not see Maal’s face, but she was thinking of the experience of the morning and was watching for the sunset with some anxiety. The warning she had felt she sensed from Maal had something to do with the sunset. Perhaps it was the storm. Perhaps the storm would do great damage to their crops and houses. A rumble of distant thunder disturbed the air that had become so thick and silent. The sun sank blood red into the hole in the hill. Maal’s voice, deeper than usual, droned the incantations of the evening, and for a moment as the great orb touched the hill they saw silhouetted against its fiery furnace a small but distinct black figure.

  Kyra remembered the vision of the morning in a flash. Strange. Strange. A man standing in the sun!

  How she longed to talk to Karne. This once when she would have liked to discuss matters with him he was incapable of it. She looked for him despairingly and he was standing as she had thought he would be with his arm round Mia, who was simpering and not even looking at the sunset.

  How could it be!

  She looked back to the hill but the figure had gone. The sun itself was sinking fast.

  After it was over everyone started talking at once. It seemed most people had seen the figure, but some refused to believe that it had been there. Others believed, took it as an omen, and were afraid.

  Thorn, the chief Elder, lifted his impressive arms for silence, and when he had obtained it spoke in a loud and awesome voice.

  ‘The man you saw walking in the furnace of the sun is the priest for whom you wait.’

  A stunned silence followed his words.

  Kyra looked beyond Thorn at Maal. He seemed to have shrunk in size. Thorn had spoken in his place, with his authority. No one seemed to notice it but Kyra. She remembered the half-formed warnings of the morning: ‘take care’ and ‘Thorn’, and the vision of the black mark in the setting sun.

  There were things she needed to understand.

  Chapter 5

  The Arrival of Wardyke

  The coming of the new priest brought a great deal of excitement to the small community.

  Midsummer’s night had been, as the sunset foreshadowed, a night of violence and storm. After the dramatic disclosure by Thorn that it was indeed their new priest who stood upon the hill, a deputation of villagers was sent to welcome him and guide him safely through the night to his new home. The father of Karne and Kyra was one of those chosen and the two young people stood beside their mother watching the flickering torches as the small group set off into the rapidly spreading darkness. As they reached certain high points on the track they lit beacons and the Sacred Circle itself was ringed with flame till it looked to Kyra like the flickering spectre of the Sun god itself.

  Usually when darkness came to the land and the sea the people were safely in their homes, but this night, wild as it was, saw the whole community still upon the hills. At first the numerous fires upon the earth made up for the lack of stars and moon but as the wind rose that was the harbinger of the storm the flames were whipped
every way, pulled and torn by the demons of the night, till some of them could hold their own no more and were extinguished. The villagers were afraid, but hesitated to leave.

  Maal stood still within the circle as though in trance. They could see his figure with its giant shadow intermittently as either the flames or the growing frequency of the lightning illuminated it.

  Thorn and the other Elders stood at the entrance to the circle and exhorted them to put more wood upon the fires.

  Karne, sober now, worked energetically, Kyra at his side.

  The women and smaller children were sent back to the huts and Kyra could see them as a sudden sheet of lightning lit the valley, scattering like leaves before the wind, wailing with fear.

  She herself was very much afraid, but was determined not to give way to it. As long as Maal is there, she thought, he is in control. Concentrated in his body, through the circle, through the inexplicable forces she had sensed in the standing stones, was a power that held chaos at bay. Around them, moving darkness was ripping at the trees, tearing the very roots from the soil, shaking and pulling and whirling, trying to reduce their ordered community to a scattering of useless fragments. But the centre held, the circle held. Somehow they were held together. They were stronger than the demons of the air.

  Was the power, the magic, that held them still working against the forces of disorder and disintegration, in the stones themselves, in the shape of the circle itself – the divine and perfect shape – or was it in the man within the circle holding them together with the powers within himself, the powers of which she had only recently become aware?

  She found herself smiling, in spite of the situation, thinking that she was becoming as curious about things, as questioning about the hidden mysteries, as Karne himself. Her brother would be proud of her.