Trespass: A Tale of Mystery and Suspense Across Time (The Darkeningstone Book 1)

by Mikey Campling

  “Very deep,” I said, but she didn’t respond. The running joke was over. I looked around as I walked over to her. It seemed to me that the ledge wasn’t just level—it was perfectly flat. And its edges were all totally straight. There was no way it could be natural. And it was pretty big, maybe five or six metres wide and fifteen metres long. A ledge that size must have had some purpose.

  “So,” I said as I stood beside her. “What do you reckon they kept up here—so far out the way? Something dangerous? Dynamite and stuff?”

  But she didn’t answer straight away. She just fixed me with a look, narrowed her pale-blue eyes. “Something dangerous? Maybe. But it’s got absolutely nothing to do with the quarry.” And she turned around and looked down at something on the top of the bank.

  I followed her gaze, not sure if she was being serious. And for the first time, I saw it. And felt the prickle of cold sweat across my back.

  CHAPTER 13

  3,500 BC

  WAECCAN STRAIGHTENED UP. The rain had eased, but as usual, it had washed a lot of soil onto the stairway. It was always a hard job to clear the steps, but clear them he must. At least, he thought, I haven’t been interrupted. The intruder had surely gone. It was a relief to focus on the simple but vital task of looking after the stairway. Each step had been carefully cut into the rock; each was a perfect copy of its neighbour. Together they made a perfect stairway—a harmony of toil and precision etched into the earth, wrought into the landscape.

  Waeccan and his father had made the stairway together. It had taken many months. Now, as he worked, he liked to think that Cleofan’s Shade was near, watching and approving.

  “Ah, Father,” he said. “Do you recall the beginning of the stairway? How you would only let me watch?”

  Usually, Waeccan expected no reply but today, his father’s voice was clear. “Of course—you were not ready. You were no more than a prattling child.”

  Waeccan smiled. His father had always been a stern taskmaster.

  “I didn’t mind,” he replied. “I liked to watch. Even then, I was fascinated by the work.” Waeccan could picture the rhythm of his father’s deft movements: split, chip, scrape and smooth, over and over. Every detail was important: the expert handling of the sacred instruments, the precise placing of the fingers, the exact angle of the splitting blade and the strange, high, singsong sound that came each time the striker hit the blade’s handle.

  “Well, you watched carefully,” Cleofan said. “I’ll give you that. And you learned. You were well-named, little watcher.”

  Waeccan paused in his work. He was almost halfway up the stairway—a special place. “And this was the first step I cut,” he said. He examined the step carefully. He could never be sure it was quite level.

  “Humph,” Cleofan snorted. “It’ll do. At least the next one didn’t take as long.”

  Waeccan returned to his cleaning. “And yet,” his father went on, “by the time we reached the ledge…I was the one who stood by and watched.” Waeccan smiled to himself. He’d long since given up on expecting praise, but it was something to know that his father recognised the value of his work. It was enough.

  He looked back down the stairway to assess his progress and frowned.

  “I sometimes wonder, though I’m sure you know best, Father, whether we should have done it…differently.”

  There was no reply. Waeccan went on. “Perhaps it would be easier to keep clear if we’d cut the steps deeper or wider or in a different place.” He shook his head wearily. The clearing of the stairway was a never-ending task. The soil continually crept onto the steps as though the earth was trying to heal its wound, trying to recover and reclaim them. And the forest was quick to join the effort: moss, ivy, liverworts and ferns missed no opportunity to obscure the steps and obliterate his careful work.

  “Waeccan!” His father was once again the strict master. “We do not choose the splits in the stones—they choose us. And now that the stones have allowed us this sacred stairway, it must be preserved.”

  “Yes, Father. You are right of course.”

  “And let us not forget, there is good reason to keep the steps clear.”

  Waeccan nodded. Even when clear, the stairs were so narrow as to be treacherous. It was even harder in the weak grey light before the dawn, but that was the time when he must climb them each and every day. “The difficulty of the climb,” his father continued, “is a daily test that you must pass.”

  Waeccan nodded thoughtfully. As he grew older and less steady, he sometimes feared he would slip or even fall from the stairway. What would happen if he did not reach the ledge, did not complete his vigil? It didn’t bear thinking about. So Waeccan cleaned the steps. It was part of his duty, and it could not be otherwise.

  “Father?” he asked. “You said I should have an apprentice. I do not mean to question, but…”

  “Soon, Waeccan. Be patient. Continue our work. Look for a sign.”

  “Yes, Father. Of course. As you say.”

  Waeccan moved carefully to the next step and began to scrape away the soil. Would there really be a sign? Was he really to have an apprentice? It was best not to question. He would wait and see.

  Tomorrow, before dawn, he would climb the stairway as usual. He would concentrate on the rock and empty his mind of cold, hunger and aching bones. He would keep his vigil until sunrise. Only then, when the Shades had returned to rest in the earth, would Waeccan return safely to the pit floor and, with the stone’s blessing, work upon the rock face. There may be a sign, or there may not. Either way, the stones would be waiting for him. No power on earth could alter that simple fact.

  CHAPTER 14

  2010

  “BEHOLD,” SHE SAID IN A PUT-ON, wavering voice. She held out her arms in mock worship. “The Black Stone of Scaderstone.”

  I took a sharp breath. I guess I hadn’t seen it before because of the grass on the bank. But now that I stood over it, it was so obvious, so imposing—I was amazed that I could’ve missed it. It didn’t seem like the sort of thing you could hide.

  The stone lay flat on the top of the bank, embedded into the ground. And it was perfect. It was an oblong about two metres long and one metre wide, and every edge was straight and true. And there was something special about its size and shape. It wasn’t that it was pleasing to look at—if anything, it was quite ugly—but it was somehow…satisfying. It’s so precise, I thought, so carefully made. How long had it been there? It seemed incredibly old, but there were no chips or cracks. Its surface was smooth, its edges sharp. And through its thin covering of dust and grime you could see the stone really was pure black.

  “Well?” she said. “What do you think?”

  I’d almost forgotten she was there. I looked at her dumbly for a second. “Wow,” I breathed. “What the hell is that doing there?”

  She laughed and said, “Ooh, you have a way with words.”

  “No, I’m serious,” I said. “It must’ve taken ages to carve that. All that effort—why leave it up here—on a ledge where no one can see it?”

  She gave me a look. “Maybe it was meant to be kept hidden—kept secret.”

  “But why? Why make it in the first place?”

  She raised a dark eyebrow. “Typical boy,” she said. “Who said it was man-made?”

  “Huh,” I said. I didn’t like the way she’d said boy. Typical girl, I felt like saying, always making everything into a fairy story. But I hadn’t climbed all that way to have an argument with her. I hadn’t even found out her name yet. So I took a breath and tried to smile. “Well, for one thing,” I said, “there’s no way it could be natural—it’s just too perfect. And for another thing, it looks like a –”

  “But it isn’t,” she said.

  I tried to keep the irritation out of my voice. “Isn’t what?” I said.

  “I know what you were going to say,” she said. “Everyone thinks that at first.”

  “Go on then—surprise me.”

  “It isn’
t a gravestone.” She smiled at the look on my face. She was right of course. That was exactly what I’d thought. The last time I’d seen slabs of stone lying on the ground like that, had been in a graveyard, covering the dead. I shuddered.

  “What makes you so sure?” I said.

  “Because it’s not just lying on the top,” she said. “It goes all the way down through here.” She swept her hand across the side of the grassy bank, which was at least half a metre high, maybe a little more.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Probes,” she said. “They pushed them in from the top, all down the sides. And then they did a load sideways through the soil here. Nothing under there but solid rock. They were going to try the magnetometer as well, but it kept going wrong.”

  “They?” I said. “Who are they?”

  “Erm, the prof and the rest of the team. Me and the other volunteers—my so-called friends—we took notes, filled in the record sheets.”

  Questions. My head was filled with a dizzying, incomprehensible rush of questions. There was so much going on here that I just didn’t know about, so much that didn’t seem to fit. I shook my head. I had to take a step back, push the questions to one side. I needed to get a few things straightened out.

  “Look,” I said. “Let’s start again.” I took a breath. “My name’s Jake—what shall I call you?”

  She looked me in the eye. “OK,” she said. “I’m Cally—short for Callisto.”

  “Like the moon?”

  “I’m afraid so.” She shrugged. “New Age parents.”

  “No,” I said. “It’s a nice name.”

  “Whatever,” she said. But I could tell she was pleased.

  “And you’re here with your dad?”

  “Er, no.”

  “But you said…”

  “Sorry—I just made that up. Just in case…you know.”

  I nodded wisely. I didn’t blame her. I could’ve been anybody. And now she’d owned up to her white lie; it might mean she thought I was OK. “So who’s this team?”

  “Professor Leyland—he’s an archaeologist—a couple of his PhD students, and there’s four of us volunteers helping out. Looks good on the college application form.”

  “And where are they now?” I asked.

  “They’re up there,” she said and nodded upwards. “I’d call them on my phone, but there’s no signal down here; it’s a real pain.” The slope above us was more gentle and dotted with trees. Somewhere up there I knew there was another high fence and beyond that, a windswept football field. For a second, I pictured a man in a white coat playing football. Cally saw my blank expression and added, “They’ve set up a base camp on the top, where it’s level. The prof’s up there now—he’s in charge of the dig.”

  “Dig?” I said. I looked around. There was no sign of any digging going on.

  “We call it a dig,” she said. “But we’ve only just got started, and we’re not allowed to actually dig anything up here—not yet anyway.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Oh there’s some problem with the paperwork and the permission and,” she pulled a face and made some air quotes, “the druids.”

  I stifled a laugh and copied her air quotes. “Druids? Around here?”

  “You’d better believe it,” she said. “A whole gaggle of them. And the funny thing is, they’re the ones who aren’t allowed in here. This is private property, and we’re the ones who’ve got permission from the owner.”

  “Hmm,” I said. I thought of the fence and the warning signs. Should I tell her I was trespassing?

  “Anyway,” she said. “You haven’t even seen the best bit yet.”

  She leaned over the stone and rubbed the dirt from one corner. Then she leaned closer, spat on the surface and rubbed it again. “Look,” she said.

  It was a good opportunity to stand closer to her, and I took it. I leaned forward and for a moment I could smell the shampoo in her hair. And then I forced myself to concentrate on the stone. And gasped.

  I was expecting to see a smooth stone surface, perhaps like a piece of marble. Instead, I was looking deep inside it. It was the most beautiful thing that I’d ever seen. The entire platform was carved from some sort of dark crystal. It was almost black but translucent, like black ice. The sunlight entered into it and danced inside. I knew, without doubt, that this black stone was unique. And I knew that whatever it took, I had to find out more. I turned toward Cally. She looked me in the eye, studying my reaction. Neither of us spoke. This was beyond anything I’d ever experienced. In that instant, everything changed. I was now involved with this beautiful, mystifying black stone. What I did not know was that this moment, and its consequences, would haunt me for the rest of my life.

  CHAPTER 15

  3,500 BC

  BURLIC STOOD AT THE EDGE of the pit floor, alone and desolate. I should’ve rushed in, he thought, used the darkness. I should’ve surprised Waeccan while he slept, held a knife to his throat, made it quick.

  But he had hesitated. His mind had reeled with a lifetime of dark tales—tales whispered as the fire died down to dull embers and the shadows grew deeper and flickered into life. In the village the Shades were kept at bay; the symbol carved over every the door, the dried herbs hanging in every hut and the offerings that many made down by the stream. But here, he was in the Shades’ territory.

  “And they don’t want me here,” he whispered. The Shades had protected Waeccan for as long as anyone could remember. He touched the talisman he wore around his neck. It gave him no reassurance.

  It was almost dawn and he had to act, had to pick his moment. Once it grew light, it would be harder to catch Waeccan by surprise. Burlic reached out to feel his way and took a few steps forward. And froze.

  “Burlic.” A hoarse whisper, but clear enough. Burlic’s breath caught in his throat. “Burlic.” Instinctively he tilted his head to identify where the sound was coming from. “Burlic, it’s Tellan.” Burlic turned as Tellan emerged from the shadows. The younger man moved slowly, holding out his hands to show he wasn’t holding a weapon.

  Burlic growled, and Tellan stopped, keeping a respectful distance between them. “It’s all right, Burlic,” he said. “I’ve come to help.”

  “Why?”

  Tellan swallowed. It was a good question. “For my sister’s sake,” he said. It’s not a lie, he thought. But my idea of help might be different from yours.

  “Huh,” Burlic said. “You saw sense, did you?”

  “Yes,” Tellan said. “I saw sense.”

  Burlic nodded. “All right,” he said. “Come closer. We don’t want to wake the old man.”

  Tellan did as he was told. At a signal from Burlic, both men crouched low.

  “It’s simple,” Burlic said. “I’ll circle that way toward his hut, and you take the other side.”

  “And when we get there?”

  Burlic grunted. “When we get there, you can leave the rest to me.”

  “You’ll kill Waeccan. Are you sure?”

  “Are you sure the old man really is Waeccan?” Burlic said.

  “What do you mean?” Despite himself, Tellan was intrigued.

  “Do you remember Gitsian?”

  Tellan was confused. The only Gitsian he knew was… “From the story?”

  “Yes, Gitsian,” Burlic said. “The greedy old man. That’s right.”

  “I know the story,” he said. Of course he did. It was a popular tale. Gitsian wanted power so badly he called on the Shades for help, but they overwhelmed him. An evil shade possessed him and caused mayhem and misery in his village. It was up to Bealdor, the hero of this and many other tales, to drive the wicked shade from the world of men and back to its own domain. There was only one way to do this. He had to destroy the possessed body that had once been Gitsian. This was not murder but mercy. Poor Gitsian’s spirit had already been cast from his body, but it could not rest. While his body lived, his soul could not be admitted to the Shade World. It remained, trapped
and in endless torment.

  Burlic said, “What if Waeccan is like Gitsian?”

  Tellan rubbed a hand over his eyes. “But Burlic,” he said. “Gitsian…that’s a story, a tale. He isn’t real.”

  But Burlic wasn’t listening. “What if Waeccan is possessed? What then, eh?”

  Tellan could hear the feverish edge to Burlic’s voice. It worried him, but he didn’t want to get into an argument just now. He needed time. And he needed Burlic to think they were working together. He said, “Burlic, if Waeccan is possessed, then killing him would be a mercy. But—”

  Burlic didn’t let him finish. In one movement he was close to Tellan. Even in the shadowy gloom Tellan could see the glint in Burlic’s eyes. “But what? Don’t you see? It explains everything: Scymrian, the stream dwindling away, the sickness—everything.”

  Tellan stood his ground. “I was going to say, if Waeccan is possessed then we had better not rush in. We’d better see what we’re up against.”

  Burlic ground his teeth together. “You’re afraid,” he spat. “Afraid of what everyone will say.”

  “No. Not afraid. Cautious. When you hunt do you just charge in and hope for the best?” He paused, but Burlic did not reply. “Or do you stalk your prey? Do you use stealth, cunning?”

  “All right,” Burlic said. “What do you think we should do?”

  “We watch. We see where he goes and what he does. And if we see him up to no good, then we will know what to do.”

  Burlic grunted. He drew his knife and held it in front of Tellan’s face. “I already know what to do,” he hissed. For a second Tellan wished he had not come. But then Burlic sniffed and put his knife away. “But you are right,” he said. “We watch.”

  Tellan relaxed a little. “We should go one at a time,” he said. “You wait here—find a place to rest. I’ll go first.”

  “Why should you go first?”

  “Because, Burlic, I’m the better stalker. The way you blunder about he’ll spot you too soon.”