The Tall Stones

by Moyra Caldecott

  Even as Karne decided he must pull himself together, Kyra suddenly awoke and sat upright. Fern must have been awake all the time because she arose immediately to join them. They crept out from amongst the sleeping family like shadows, the snoring of the father effectively covering any sound they might make.

  Once outside they found the rain was petering out and the clouds were breaking up. Mercifully, some rays of moonlight were beginning to penetrate the dark valley. Stumbling through the wet grass and clinging mud, Karne holding Fern’s hand, they hurried, bare-footed and shivering, towards the dark bulk of the clump of trees beside Maal’s tomb. Once clear of the houses they ventured to whisper to each other.

  ‘I thought you would never wake,’ Karne whispered to Kyra.

  ‘It was a dream,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That woke me.’

  She slipped and nearly fell. Karne and Fern steadied her and they hurried on.

  ‘Tell us about the dream,’ Fern said when they had reached an easier, grassier place for walking.

  ‘It was nothing much,’ Kyra said. ‘I seemed to be in a thick fog . . . moving but not seeing anything . . . and then I heard Maal calling me.’

  ‘Did you see him?’

  ‘No. I just heard his voice, he sounded muffled and strange at first, and I went on drifting in the fog not taking any notice. I still felt tired although I was asleep. And then suddenly he sounded quite sharp and commanding. You know how he does sometimes? And it was then that I snapped awake.’

  ‘Do you think it might be that he is still alive?’ Fern’s voice sounded eager.

  ‘Maybe . . .’ Karne said, and their hearts lifted. They were more determined than ever to move Maal from the wrong tomb.

  Karne did not know about the other two, but he had decided, if Maal was still alive, to persuade him to live on hidden in the woods near Fern, at least until they had contacted the Lords of the Sun.

  * * * *

  The night was a long, hard one. The tunnel they had dug was difficult to locate in the dark. Once found, the crudity with which it was constructed hampered them in every way. Bits of it had fallen in and had to be scooped out. They had sensibly left dry wood and straw and digging implements within the first few yards of it and they soon had a torch burning to give them light as they worked.

  They worked in the tunnel by turns, one keeping watch at the entrance all the time. During Kyra’s watch she was frightened almost into hysterics by the sudden screech of a night bird which took noisy flight just above her head. Fern had to spend valuable time comforting her before she was prepared to stay alone again. She was constantly looking over her shoulder for the half animal, half man, demon figures she had seen there earlier. She could feel the presence of something hostile but she could see nothing.

  She was glad when it was her turn to go inside, crawling in the earth like a worm, to be beside strong, dependable Karne. He was always so unaware of mysterious presences that being near to him she could feel that they did not exist at all.

  At last they broke through to the burial chamber itself and stood side by side looking at Maal by the flickering light of the torch. There was no sign of breath or pulse. Kyra clung to Karne’s arm.

  ‘He is dead,’ she whispered miserably.

  Karne was silent. It certainly seemed like it.

  ‘Go and fetch Fern,’ he said at last. ‘She is stronger than you are. We will take him to the wood as we planned. He would want that.’

  Kyra nodded and crawled back along the tunnel. Fern took her place in the chamber and she and Karne dragged the stretcher-like bier behind them to the entrance. It was heavy work and breathing was not easy in the dark and confined space. Panting and sweating, their bodies aching from the strain, they finally emerged from the earth. Kyra started the work of filling up the tunnel while they recovered.

  The moon was fully out now but low in the sky, touching everything with an eerie beauty. Karne and Fern sat back to back, leaning on each other, too exhausted to talk, almost too exhausted to think. Each glad of each other’s company but making no sign of it.

  At last Karne was recovered enough for action.

  ‘It will not be long before the moon sets, we must be in your woods by then or we will never find the way.’

  Fern nodded wearily.

  As he removed his supporting back from hers and stood up, he turned and put his hands upon her shoulders, leant down and kissed the top of her head. This time she did not withdraw herself. He could just see the little wan smile at the corner of her lips as she turned her face up to his. Fleetingly he brushed his lips across hers and then turned to call Kyra. She crept out of the tunnel almost immediately but they could see she was agitated.

  ‘I am not nearly finished,’ she complained, out of breath.

  ‘Never mind. We have no time to finish now. We will cover it up again and come back tomorrow.’

  They dragged the heavy cover of leaves and branches and grass over the entrance and set off with Maal as best they could. The load was heavy, the ground uneven, the light inadequate, but somehow familiarity with the route and sheer determination sustained them. The last thing they saw as they entered the dark but friendly woods surrounding Fern’s garden was the magnificent sight of a giant moon, the colour of blood, slowly sinking below the horizon. They put their load down for a few minutes and stared transfixed. When it was gone they resumed their journey. At Fern’s house they dared to light a torch again and so found their way to the secret burial chamber with greater ease. Their main difficulties were now over. Within minutes Maal was safely laid to rest in the place he had chosen and the three stood beside him, the light of the torch revealing their muddy, haggard and dishevelled appearance beside his calm, composed and peaceful one.

  What to do now?

  They looked at each other. It would soon be dawn and they should be back with their family, but they were loth to leave Maal.

  ‘Should we say some prayers?’ Fern asked tentatively.

  Karne nodded.

  ‘That is a good idea.’

  But they hesitated. What prayers, and who should say them?

  Fern and Karne looked at Kyra.

  She caught their look and seemed alarmed.

  ‘But I do not know the words of the burial ceremony,’ she said.

  ‘That does not matter,’ Fern said. ‘Say what you feel.’

  ‘Pray for him, Kyra – any way you know,’ Karne said.

  Kyra sat on her heels beside Maal. For a while she looked silently and with deep love at his gentle, strong face, then she shut her eyes and lowered her head. The two beside her could hear no words, but fancied they could feel the warmth of her love for Maal and the concentration with which she was thinking about him.

  Inside her head no words were forming. The shutting of her eyes plunged her in a featureless, wordless darkness. She waited, quietly breathing, letting the darkness happen to her. Gradually, gradually she began to distinguish darker shapes within the darkness. She thought at first they were the figures of men, but later she realized they were the shapes of gigantic standing stones, different from their own in that they were taller, closer together, and joined at the top from one to the other by slabs of stone, curved to follow the shape of the circle.

  She seemed to be in the centre of the circle, looking out, and there were other stones around her within the circle. She could barely make out the shapes and sizes in the dark. There were no stars. No moon. She was not even sure that it was night. The darkness with its darker shapes was not like anything she had encountered before in her ordinary life. She let the experience happen and waited for whatever would come next. As nothing changed, her mind began to drift back to Maal and as the thought of him came to her an image of him appeared as a slightly lighter area in the darkness of the mysterious stone circle.

  ‘Maal!’

  It seemed to her she cried out and moved towards him, but something prevented her from going too near. The image of hi
m grew slowly lighter and lighter until she could see him as though through a light mist. She could see that he was holding something in his hands and that he was trying to attract her attention to it, although he was not moving in any way. Her eyes kept going to the object in his hands, but the image was too blurred for her to make out what it was. She could see his eyes beginning to despair, his image beginning to fade. She was conscious that she had let him down by not recognizing what he was trying to show her. She began to feel anxiety.

  ‘Maal!’ she cried. ‘Come back! Give me another chance.’

  But the image had disappeared and all the dark shadows of the standing stones had gone with it. She was left with the featureless darkness she had experienced first.

  * * * *

  She opened her eyes and found Karne and Fern looking anxiously at her.

  ‘What is the matter?’

  ‘What happened?’

  She looked from one to the other and then to Maal, her face pained and bewildered.

  ‘He was trying to tell me something . . . trying to show me something . . . and I could not make out what it was . . .’

  She was trembling. Fern put her hand on her arm.

  ‘I think he may be still alive,’ she said. ‘I feel it.’

  ‘So do I,’ Kyra said tearfully, ‘but I do not know what to do to help him and I can feel he needs my help.’

  Karne bent over Maal and listened to his chest. There was no sound. He hoped the girls were right, but he could feel no life in the old man.

  ‘There is something he needs . . . the thing he was trying to show me!’

  ‘Try and go back into the trance you were in,’ Karne suggested. ‘Perhaps this time . . .’

  Kyra tried to compose herself, but she could not. She stayed where she was.

  ‘It is nearly dawn,’ Karne said urgently. ‘We haven’t much time.’

  ‘I know,’ Kyra said miserably. ‘If only . . .’

  ‘Perhaps it is that little stone sphere of his,’ Fern said suddenly.

  Kyra gasped.

  ‘Of course!’

  The two girls clutched hands excitedly.

  ‘Well,’ cried Karne impatiently, ‘where is it?’

  ‘I will go and fetch it,’ Fern called, already on her way.

  ‘I’m sure it was that,’ Kyra said happily to Karne. ‘Now that I think of it I can’t imagine why I didn’t think of it before.’

  ‘Try and make contact with him again. Now that we have come so far we don’t want him to slip away thinking that the whole thing is hopeless.’

  Kyra knelt beside Maal and tried to make contact with him as he had taught her, but she found that she could not.

  She opened her eyes again and looked at Karne.

  ‘It is no good,’ she said. ‘I cannot.’

  Karne looked worried.

  ‘I wish Fern would hurry,’ Kyra said anxiously.

  ‘I am sure she is,’ Karne spoke in her defence quickly. ‘I don’t know why you didn’t put the stone in here. It seems the obvious place.’

  ‘We didn’t think of it,’ Kyra said gloomily. ‘We didn’t really think Maal was dead. It all happened so quickly.’

  Fern arrived back at this point with the little parcel of bark cloth in her hand.

  ‘It is getting light outside,’ she said, out of breath. ‘The birds are making a tremendous noise.’

  ‘Here,’ Karne took the parcel from her and handed it to Kyra. ‘Do whatever you think Maal wants you to do with it, but hurry. We will be in trouble if people start looking for us and it reaches Wardyke’s ears that we are missing.’

  Kyra took the parcel and knelt down beside Maal. She tried to compose herself again. After a moment or two she looked around at Karne.

  ‘Be quiet,’ she said sternly.

  He looked indignant.

  ‘I did not say anything.’

  ‘You are worrying and disturbing the air,’ she said, fixing him with an accusing eye.

  He flung up his hands in disgust and muttered something under his breath.

  ‘You see!’ she said triumphantly.

  ‘Just get on with it,’ he snapped impatiently

  Fern put her hand on his arm and drew him back a little way.

  ‘Perhaps we should leave her,’ she said quietly. ‘I too am agitated and probably making it impossible to concentrate.’

  He nodded and they slipped out of the stale-smelling burial chamber into the glory of the dawn light in the wood flickering with green leaves and bird song. He took a long deep breath.

  ‘I could do with some of your spring water,’ he said, and she led him there.

  After they had drunk, they washed themselves and then wandered through the wood tasting the freshness of the air and the closeness of each other. The sorrowful and harassing experiences of the past night and day began to fade slightly, and only the aching of their limbs reminded them of the darker side of the reason for their being together at this early hour.

  * * * *

  Inside the chamber Kyra unwrapped the little parcel as carefully as she had seen Maal do it, and when she reached the little sphere she placed it gently on Maal’s chest, folding his hands over it to keep it in place.

  Then she sat beside him very quietly, trying to offer herself to him to be used in any way he wished. She tried to imagine how it felt for him to be dead. This was not difficult as she had the experience in the Sacred Circle to remember. She began to feel it was herself lying on the bier unable to move her limbs, but this time she was not afraid. She lay there as still as stone, at first feeling nothing, and then gradually beginning to feel the weight of the little stone sphere on her chest. After the weight of it, the sensation associated with it was one of tingling. Then of warmth. The sphere seemed to be generating flow and warmth in her chest which was gradually spreading to the rest of her.

  She fancied she heard (or was it ‘felt’) a deep, low drum beat (or was it a heart beat?). She opened her eyes in surprise and found she was not on the bier at all but was crouching beside Maal looking at him. She stared fascinated at his chest and could have sworn she saw the little sphere rise and fall, rise and fall, with the rhythm of what must be breathing.

  She wanted to call the others, but did not dare break into the sequence of slow awakening. She did not want to do anything that would set back the process in any way.

  There was no doubt in her mind now that Maal was not dead, and her heart was filled with joy.

  She watched and waited. The process was painfully slow.

  She took his finger and used it to trace the spiral pattern of the stone sphere as he had taught her to do. She thought this might help, and indeed it seemed to, as his eyelids started to flicker as though he were dreaming. She was just wondering if she dared call his name aloud when Fern and Karne broke into the chamber, fresh and bright from their walk in the woods.

  They were amazed to see the breathing, but she held up her hand to keep them quiet. The three of them watched over him now, each one in their own way calling his name inside their heads, willing him to wake up and be with them again.

  ‘Maal!’ Kyra dared to whisper the word, and as no ill effect seemed to follow, she said it again and again, louder and louder until it became a kind of chant which they all joined in. The flickering of his lids became more agitated, his breathing more definite, colour began to creep back to his cheeks, his fingers gripped the sphere of spirals without Kyra’s help.

  At last he opened his eyes and looked at them.

  ‘Maal!’ they cried joyfully.

  Wardyke had not won after all!

  * * * *

  Their first overwhelming excitement soon gave way to a more sober appraisal of the situation.

  Maal was very weak, so weak he could not sit up and could barely talk. He had been through a great deal and although he was certainly alive now, it was obvious to them he was only just so. Karne began to realize he probably would not be well enough to go to the Sacred Circle on the night
of the rising star and undertake the difficulties of the journey to meet the Lords of the Sun.

  ‘What can we do?’ Kyra pleaded. ‘Tell us . . . how can we help you to get better.’

  Maal turned his head a fraction to look at her, his eyes full of love.

  He was trying to speak but his voice was so weak she had to lean very close to his mouth to hear what he was saying.

  ‘There is no way I will get better with this old body,’ he whispered.

  ‘Do not say that!’ cried Kyra.

  He shook his head very slightly and a smile flickered at the corners of his lips.

  ‘One must accept it, my child. It is so.’

  ‘I do not want to accept it,’ she said with unusual fierceness. ‘I cannot live without you. I need you.’

  ‘You will have to live without me,’ he said gently but firmly. ‘But not forever. I promise you . . .’ and here his voice faded to nothing and he closed his eyes as though he were slipping away again.

  ‘Maal,’ she cried desperately, seizing him by the shoulders and trying to force him back to life by the sheer passion of her desire.

  ‘What do you promise?’ she almost shouted into his face.

  His old, tired eyes flickered open again.

  ‘I promise you . . .’ he whispered and his voice was like a breeze rustling in dry grass, ‘. . . that I will join you again some time, some place . . .’

  Tears streamed down her face. She tried to stop herself sobbing so that she would not miss a word that he was saying.

  ‘. . . we have been together before . . . and we will be together again . . . many times . . .’

  ‘How will I know you?’

  ‘You will know . . . you will know.’

  ‘But how?’

  ‘You will know when the time comes. Now you must leave me . . . I must prepare for the transfer of my spirit . . . it is not an easy matter . . .’

  ‘But what about the Lords of the Sun?’

  Karne thrust his question forward anxiously.