The Tall Stones

by Moyra Caldecott

  As she recognized him she instantly turned her face away, her expression no longer the same, but still compounded of something Karne did not understand. She usually lit up with pleasure when she saw him. What had gone wrong?

  ‘Fern?’

  She turned back to him now, and this time she was composed.

  ‘Why, Karne,’ she said. ‘I am sorry. You startled me.’

  He was still puzzled. He had never known her to be startled like this before.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  He was close to her and trying to look into her eyes, but hers would not meet his. For the first time since he had known her there was the shadow of something held back between them.

  ‘There is something.’

  ‘No.’

  He took her hands, but she still would not meet his eyes.

  She tried to smile at him, to reassure him, but her smile was not very convincing. She pulled her hands away and drew back.

  ‘Come, Karne,’ she said brightly. ‘I want to show you something.’

  ‘You do not look well,’ he still persisted while he was following her down the little winding path that ran deeper into her garden, brushing aside trailing fronds of bracken as he walked. He had noticed that she was paler than usual, the healthy bloom of her cheek considerably reduced. There was also something about the garden, he could not make up his mind what it was but it somehow did not look as flourishing and vigorous as it normally did.

  She noticed the frown in his blue eyes and took his arm. Her composure had returned. She smiled and kissed him lightly on his brown cheek and ran her fingers through his long, light hair.

  ‘Come on,’ she said laughing, ‘are you going to be as gloomy as this all morning?’

  He looked at her bright face and there were no longer shadows there. He began to feel he had imagined what he had seen a few moments before. He shrugged and smiled.

  ‘That is better,’ she said, ‘and now I can show you something special.’

  She drew him to a place where that morning she had found a new flower growing, one she had never seen before. A tiny, spiky, defiant one, half hidden in the grass, but growing as though it meant to stay. She cupped her hands around it and their heads were very close together as they admired it.

  ‘It looks as though it was trying to be a star,’ she laughed, ‘but it was too small so it had to settle for being a flower instead.’

  ‘I wonder where it came from?’

  She shrugged and indicated the arching sky.

  ‘The birds sometimes bring me presents. They fly to lands of which not even Maal has heard.’

  Karne laughed.

  ‘That is hard to imagine. Maal has heard of everything.’

  ‘Not everything,’ she said suddenly, sadly, and again he fancied that he saw the shadow of secretiveness cross her face.

  ‘In fact, I have brought a message from Maal,’ he said, and stood up.

  She joined him and they walked awhile in the garden, Karne telling her about the night of the rising star and the timing of the attempt to reach the Lords of the Sun. She was greatly interested and added up in her mind the number of days left. Not many. She was glad.

  As they walked she was tempted several times to tell Karne about Wardyke but she knew that if she did the boy would go crazy with rage and probably rush off to attack the man. Karne would not stand a chance against the giant magician, and she could not bear him to be hurt or killed.

  None of them knew quite what to expect from the Lords of the Sun, but Karne, Kyra and Fern certainly expected the situation to be resolved immediately. If pressed, they might have admitted to expecting a sudden thunderbolt to remove Wardyke dramatically from office.

  Maal knew it would not be quite like that, but he said nothing of what he expected.

  * * * *

  During the next few days Kyra spent a great deal of time with Maal, learning everything she could. And so it was that neither of them noticed the many changes that were taking place in their community.

  Wardyke had doubled the workers on Maal’s tomb and it was very near completion. There was talk that the building of it was to be finished by the night of the rising star and that it would be during that night, or very near to it, that Maal would be interred. Maal was not informed of this and was surprised when Karne, out of breath from running, told him of it.

  Kyra was horrified.

  ‘But how will we contact the Lords of the Sun if Maal is not with us?’

  Maal looked grave and shook his head.

  ‘Surely Wardyke has no right to set a time for your death?’ Karne asked.

  ‘No right at all,’ Maal said sadly and was silent, thinking hard.

  At last he spoke.

  ‘Was this an official announcement at the meeting stone?’ he asked Karne.

  ‘Oh no,’ Karne said, ‘it was just talk, just rumour. It may not happen at all, but I thought you ought to know that people were talking about it.’

  ‘What people?’

  ‘Mostly Wardyke’s strangers. They have been working on the tomb with me and they are full of confidence that they know what is in his mind. There is something about a prophetic dream of Thorn’s too.’

  ‘If it is only rumour I do not think we should concern ourselves too much.’

  ‘Maybe not . . .’ Karne sounded doubtful, ‘but when I hear them talk like that it makes me angry!’

  Maal smiled at last, the gravity lifting like a cloud from his kind face.

  ‘You must learn to control that anger, lad, it will be the undoing of us yet!’

  ‘Everything grows worse and worse . . . and I am doing nothing,’ Karne protested. ‘You and Kyra work every day, but all I do is wait! Even Fern seems to have secrets these days!’

  Maal looked surprised. He had been so busy with Kyra he had not seen Fern for quite a time.

  ‘What secrets?’

  ‘How would I know,’ Karne replied irritably, shrugging his shoulders. ‘I cannot see into people’s minds!’

  Maal was thoughtful.

  ‘I have neglected her,’ he said regretfully. There was so little time and so much to be done.

  Kyra was about to say something, but Maal raised his hand to keep her quiet. There was much he needed to think about. His expression became more and more withdrawn.

  ‘Come,’ Kyra whispered to Karne, and took his hand. Quietly they started to move away.

  When they were out of earshot, Kyra said, ‘I thought we ought to leave him. He looked as though he wanted to think things through by himself.’

  Karne nodded. He had sensed it too.

  ‘Perhaps you could go and see Fern,’ he said. ‘You and Maal have been so busy in that house of his . . .’ His voice almost carried a touch of resentment.

  ‘I know,’ Kyra said. ‘But you have no idea how complicated everything is and how delicate the balance is between success and failure. Sometimes,’ she added miserably, ‘ I get so desperate. I cannot believe I will do everything right, and if I do the slightest thing wrong we are finished!’ She gave a deep sigh. ‘And now . . . what will happen if Wardyke puts Maal away before we can reach the Lords of the Sun?’

  Karne shook his head, momentarily as despairing as Kyra. And then he pulled himself together.

  ‘Somehow,’ he said, ‘we have to prevent that.’

  ‘But how?’

  Karne shook his head.

  ‘Somehow,’ he repeated, frowning with determination.

  * * * *

  The following day Kyra slipped away to see Fern before she went to Maal.

  She found her sitting by the spring, her knees drawn up and her head resting upon them, her whole posture one of despondency.

  ‘Fern,’ cried Kyra with concern, and knelt down beside her, her arm around her shoulders.

  ‘Oh, Kyra,’ Fern said with relief, and turned to bury her head upon her friend’s shoulder.

  ‘You are crying?’ Kyra was amazed, feeling the warm
th of the tears. Fern, who was always so calm and strong, was crying!

  She did not ask what the matter was but held her and rocked slightly backwards and forwards as a mother does with a weeping child. Her cheek was upon Fern’s bright hair and occasionally she kissed the top of her head.

  Gradually as they sat together Kyra began to feel that strange feeling of knowing something she had no ordinary way of knowing.

  ‘It is Wardyke!’ she said suddenly with conviction. ‘Wardyke has been here?’

  Fern nodded miserably.

  The two girls were silent, sitting side by side. Kyra’s arms had fallen from Fern’s shoulders and they both gazed into the moving water of the busy little spring.

  Kyra did not put it into words, but she knew exactly what had happened to Fern. She was surprised how calmly she was reacting. Although the knowledge had startled her at first, it seemed that almost immediately she had accepted it as something that had happened and in no way could be changed. There was no point in being shocked or moaning about it in any way. The situation existed and they must somehow cope with it.

  ‘I have not told Karne,’ Fern said quietly. She was calm now too.

  ‘I think you were right,’ Kyra agreed. Karne’s reaction would have been violent and angry. She remembered Maal suggesting that it was just this quality in Karne that would be their undoing.

  ‘He suspects something is wrong.’

  ‘I know,’ said Fern miserably. ‘I hate keeping anything from him, but this . . .’

  ‘Yes, this . . . must be kept. At least till we have reached safety, on the other side of the night of the rising star.’

  Fern nodded sadly.

  * * * *

  After a while the two girls parted, Fern to work on her garden with greater composure now that she had shared her burden, and Kyra to visit Maal. She felt as though she had imperceptibly aged since the day before. Some days were like that. One seemed to take a leap into further knowledge and understanding as though a lot more time had passed than could be measured by the passage of the sun across the sky.

  In fact in this summer as a whole time seemed to have speeded up. She looked back on the long slow days of quiet routine she used to have with nostalgia. Everything had been so much easier then!

  Maal had obviously been thinking a great deal about the problems facing them since they last met, and seemed to have worked out certain things in his mind. He seemed less disturbed.

  He listened to Kyra’s news about Fern quietly, his only reaction being a deepening line between his brows and a conviction that what he had decided to do was right.

  ‘I am going to break a very ancient and very strict law,’ he said to Kyra, his face grave and tired.

  Kyra looked alarmed.

  ‘Is that wise?’ she asked.

  ‘I have no choice,’ he said heavily.

  ‘I thought you said we always had choice?’

  ‘I did,’ he said wearily, ‘and in a sense now, literally, of course I have choice. What I mean is . . . I have chosen this way because I think it is the only way in which we can be sure to stop Wardyke in the time we have available.’

  He paused.

  ‘What is it? What law are you going to break?’

  ‘The law that says the departing priest should tell no one the sacred configuration of stars but the priest who takes his place.’

  ‘Who are you going to tell?’ Kyra was intrigued.

  ‘You,’ he said simply.

  Kyra gasped.

  ‘No!’

  ‘You need to know,’ he said quietly and gently now, knowing that she would need persuasion.

  ‘You mean . . .’

  ‘I mean that if anything happens to me . . .’

  ‘But I cannot . . .’ Her face was a study in alarm and dismay.

  ‘You can,’ he said firmly.

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Listen my child . . . listen to me . . .’ He put his hand upon her arm. She was beginning to protest again, but was silenced by the soothing power of his touch. When he could see that she was calmer and prepared to listen he began to speak again.

  ‘You mention choice. I have said we always have choice. Our ability to choose, to make decisions, is crucial to our development in all the different levels of existence through which we are journeying. When we reach the source of light and consciousness, we will no longer see bits and pieces among which we have to choose, but will see the whole as a magnificent pattern in which everything fits together in harmony. We will see it and we will be it simultaneously. The agony of choice will at last be over.’

  Kyra sighed. It was a grand idea, but she was a long, long way from that kind of realization at this moment.

  ‘I know . . .’ he said softly, sympathetically, and sat quietly a few moments for her to absorb what he had said.

  ‘But these choices we have to make,’ he continued at last, ‘are not always made with the surface and most obvious level of our selves. The Kyra whom the villagers can see when she walks among them wants to make one decision, one choice, but the Kyra whom they cannot see, the one that is in touch with the deeper levels of reality, knows the decision has to fall another way.’

  She knew he was right, but she tried still to fight against it.

  ‘But I know on every possible level I cannot do what you ask of me!’

  ‘That is not true,’ he said simply, and she was silent.

  ‘If it were true,’ he continued, trying to give her more help, ‘you would not come to me for lessons . . . you would not ask the questions you have been asking, develop the powers you have been developing. Over this summer you have been gradually getting ready for this moment . . . I had hoped you would have had longer . . . but no moment ever seems perfect to us . . . we can see so little of the Whole.’

  ‘But what if I am not ready?’

  ‘We will not know that until you have tried . . . but I would say the moment of crisis will make you ready.’

  Kyra buried her face in her hands. It seemed to her that inside her head was a great space full of darkness that was whirling and roaring.

  ‘I cannot . . .’ she cried, turning her head from side to side as though she was trying to escape some physical attack.

  Maal put both hands upon her head.

  ‘You can,’ he said. ‘You must!’

  He held her head still, putting more and more pressure upon it until she cried out in pain. Then he withdrew his hands and they sat together in silence for a while.

  Kyra at last lifted her face and it was pale and drawn, but resigned.

  ‘What must I do?’ she said quietly.

  Maal moved away from her and fetched something from a shelf in one of the darkest places in his house. She watched him with interest as he returned to her holding something carefully in both hands. He motioned her to sit relaxed and he sat opposite her, putting what he carried between them. It was a small parcel wrapped in bark cloth. She looked at it with curiosity and stretched out a hand to take it.

  ‘No,’ Maal said, putting his own hand over it to protect it from her. ‘Do not touch.’

  She could sense that a change had come over him. He was no longer the friendly, fatherly figure with whom she could talk so easily. He had become Lord Maal, the priest, and sat straight and tall, his face masked so that she could not read his eyes.

  She was a little afraid and sat straight herself, feeling the solemnity of the moment most intensely.

  When he saw that she had grasped the situation, he began to unwrap the parcel very carefully, using ritualistic movements, his lips murmuring something inaudible to her as he proceeded. Her heart began to beat faster and as he reached the last layer of bark cloth, she was leaning forward breathlessly to see what lay between them.

  It was a sphere of yellowish-grey stone, small but exquisitely carved, the patterning following the curvature of the surface in intricate spirals.

  She stared at it fascinated.

  Maal folded his hands. She notice
d he had touched only the wrappings, the sphere itself he left strictly alone.

  She looked up at him, her eyes questioning but not daring to say anything to break the impressive silence surrounding the stone sphere.

  ‘Move your head from side to side,’ Maal said, speaking his priest’s voice, ‘but keep your eyes on the sphere.’

  Kyra was puzzled but did as she was told. As she moved the light that fell on the stone from the doorway struck it from different angles. With sudden splendour the sphere seemed to send up shafts of green-blue light. Kyra gasped and retreated.

  The stone lay still and dark again.

  Maal drew her forward with a gesture and again as she moved the stone seemed to come alive with an inner luminosity. Each surface that had been carved reflected light in a different way. Reflected? No. Kyra was sure the light came from within the stone.

  ‘How can that be?’ she whispered to herself.

  ‘Take the sphere,’ Maal said in a deep, quiet voice. ‘Hold it between your hands.’

  She hesitated.

  ‘Hold it,’ he commanded.

  Tentatively and hesitatingly she put her two trembling hands forward and cupped them around the magical stone. The light within it seemed to go out and it felt like ordinary cold stone.

  ‘Close your eyes.’ Maal spoke still with firm authority.

  She closed her eyes.

  ‘Feel the pattern of the stone with your fingers.’

  Delicately she moved her fingertips over the cold surface. She felt the pattern.

  ‘No. Do not open your eyes.’

  She was in a very dark darkness. It seemed darker within her head than it normally did when she closed her eyes. No images whatever came to her, not even those peculiar little wisps of shape that usually seemed to float upon the inside of her eyelids.

  She could feel the icy ball of stone within the cup of her hands. Her fingers began to trace the spiral round and round the surface.

  It seemed to have no end. Her finger tracing . . . the groove . . . the spiral . . . the sphere.

  The spiral never left the sphere and yet never ended . . . as though the sphere and the spiral were eternal . . . She began to drift . . . to feel only the spiral groove going round and round the sphere until at last she lost consciousness of even her own finger in contact with it and was aware only of herself the spiral . . . herself the spiral . . .