Stone Rising

by Gareth K Pengelly

  There, for the first time, Gwenna saw the prone form of Pol before the fire, his eyes closed, breathing shallow, a great stain of crimson about the crossbow bolt that lay lodged in his chest. A shiver went down the shaman girl’s back as she beheld the sight, torn now, as she was, between the urgent, desperate need to track down and rescue the French girl and her duty to stay and do her best for her dying companion.

  “Is there anything we can do?”

  Arris’ eyes were pleading.

  Gwenna went to shake her head, but something stopped her, a voice within, like whispered words from a half-remembered dream. She screwed her eyes shut, then slowed her breathing, calmed her thoughts, suppressed herself and let ages-old wisdom rise, slowly, from the depths of her soul, to the surface.

  After long moments, she opened her eyes, the green orbs glistening with newfound knowledge and purpose, at least for now. She nodded.

  “Shamans, to me.” She turned to Felice who stood, pale and fearful, wrapped in the one uninjured arm of her husband. “What you are about to see may scare you, but fear not; what we are about to do is only good, is only natural. If you wish, you may leave the room. But rest assured, there is no danger to yourselves.”

  With that, Gwenna strode over to the unconscious form of Pol, kneeling down before him and taking in the scope of his wound. The bolt had pierced his sternum, possibly penetrating organs within. This would take great power, more than she could call upon herself, at least in this land. But through the wisdom of Wrynn, she knew what could be done.

  “Arris,” she command. “Larcia, each put a hand on my shoulders. The others, hold hands, form a circle and empty your minds.”

  The shaman lad and the shaman girl both did as they were bade, placing their hands on their leader’s shoulders, the other shamans clasping their hands until the group had formed a circle of power. They emptied their minds, reciting mantras taught them for just such a purpose.

  Gwenna closed her eyes, expanded her consciousness. Yes, there, that was good; the empty, still vessels of the other shamans, trained as they were, provided a buffer, a spill-over, that would help to reduce the shock of the inevitable spirit-sickness that would follow this crafting. Back in times past, before they’d crossed the portal into this world, Gwenna could have taken on this task without such precautions. But here, as she’d experienced so many times of late, the spirits were mistrusting, flighty, and on the rare occasions they deigned to help, they exacted a fearsome toll on the soul.

  The connection to her fellow shamans firm, she opened her shaman-senses, followed by her eyes. All about her, the spirits of the area gathered, watching with interest the ritual taking place. Aware of her scrutiny, they began to dart away, but she called out with her mind.

  I’m not here to bind you, she spoke to them with a voice that was not a voice. I want your help willingly. Please. We have an agreement with your masters, with the Avatars themselves. Honour it. Help this man that lays stricken before you.

  A glittering trail of light circled down, the figure of a Sylphii, a spirit of air, alighting atop the tip of the crossbow bolt. It had the appearance of a human female, of perfect proportions, yet tiny, no more than a couple of inches tall, with delicate gossamer butterfly wings that protruded from its back. It regarded Gwenna with dark and mesmerising eyes. The shaman could feel the powerful influence of the creature’s magic, its glamour, like the heady aroma of perfume that could cause you to lose your focus. But she resisted, experienced at dealing with creatures such as this.

  The Sylphii harrumphed, as though its fun had been spoilt, then opened its mouth to speak, its voice delicate, playful, like the tinkling of tiny, crystal bells.

  “You speak of agreements, child. You speak of avatars. Yet we do not know you.”

  Another Sylphii, similar to the first, with long hair and a slim, elfin form, flitted down to land on Gwenna’s shoulder, hopping from one of Arris’ fingers to the next as it spoke into her ear.

  “You have the gift, that is true. You have been trained in the craft, that is also true. But you do not belong.”

  Gwenna nodded.

  That’s true, she told them, knowing that they could hear her very thoughts. We do not belong here. But that should not stop you from aiding us. I knew of another, once, who didn’t belong. Not only did the spirits aid him, but he became your champion, a man of great power, who has promised to return to us. To find us.

  The sprite on her shoulder backed away a few steps, eyes wide in surprise, glancing over to its kin that still danced and twirled atop the crossbow bolt.

  “Intriguing, it is,” said the first Sylphii, “that you should make such claims.” The tiny creature eyed the shaman with suspicion. Gwenna shuddered, knowing full well that such spirits were ancient and capricious, with power to end her and everyone in the room in an instant if they did but wish. However, the sprite continued. “Yet, that alone doesn’t prove the truth of your words. Any fool with a trace of the gift would be able to speak of such things right now.”

  It was Gwenna’s turn now to frown in confusion. How do you mean, she asked?

  The sprite atop her shoulder laughed, the sound musical and light, yet full of mockery.

  “Can you not feel it, child? Can you not sense the approach, like the bow-wave before a ship? Like the pressure in the air before a great storm?” It looked deep into her eyes, a smile on its face at once mocking and full of wonder at the thought of that which it spoke. “He comes…”

  The red-haired girl gasped. Stone, she enquired? He is coming?

  “We know of no names, human,” spoke one of the sprites, though whether it was speaking the truth or not, she could not tell. “We are not like our masters, the Avatars, we have no certain knowledge of things to come. But like the birds taking flight before an earthquake, we can feel the arrival of a powerful being, a master of the elements, the likes of which we have never felt before. It is imminent.”

  Then there is no time to waste, she implored the spirits. This individual comes to claim us, to return us to our rightful time. This man here is part of that promise, yet he lies dying. And there is another, a girl, that we need to save. If what you say is true and Stone truly is coming, then we cannot tarry!

  The Sylphii atop her shoulder waved its arms as though dismissing her attempts to hurry them along.

  “Calm down, child! Fie, mortals have such little patience. Is it any wonder, when your lives pass like those of the mayfly, snuffed out in an instant like a candle on the breeze? We must take our time, ascertain the truth of your words, the honesty of your intentions.” The creature narrowed its eyes again, till they became inky pools of suspicion. “There are other powers abroad, in this time. Dark powers. And even now they draw near.” It strode along her shoulder, across Arris’ hand, till it reached her cheek. “We must taste you.”

  With that, the sprite lashed out with one tiny, delicate-seeming hand, the slender fingers parting a tiny nick on her skin like the flick of a miniscule razor. A bead of blood, a droplet smaller than that taken by a gnat, glistened on its hand. Quick as a flash, it flitted over to join its sister, the two taking turns to lick the droplet, their tiny, beautiful faces rendered primal and unsettling by the smears of crimson across their lips and cheeks. They conversed in crystal chimes that Gwenna couldn’t make out, before turning to her one last time.

  “We are satisfied,” spoke one of them, “that you are not one of the lifeless ones.”

  “Yet of your other claims,” continued the other, “we are not so sure.”

  “Therefore,” finished the first, “we shall aid you this one time and no more. There will, however, be a price…”

  Gwenna nodded in understanding, feeling the warmth of the hands on her shoulders. The price would be spread across them all. The suffering not too great to withstand.

  Do it.

  ***

  James gazed with awestruck eyes and a mouth that hung open, whether from astonishment or fear, even he didn’t know. T
he light that had flooded the room began to dim and the crossbow bolt that was in Pol’s chest crumbled like so much fine ash, to be dispersed into the air until not a trace of it remained.

  The flesh about the puncture wound seemed to melt and flow, until the injury had vanished entirely from sight, the skin unmarked, not even a scar remaining to hint at the grievous blow once dealt the lad.

  The tension, the frisson in the air that had occupied the last few moments seemed to vanish, too, the group of travellers all holding hands seeming to visibly relax, then stumble, as if each of them had been struck at once by a blow to the head that left them reeling.

  Pol stirred in the centre, murmuring as his eyes began to flicker open. Weary cheers and relieved laughter began to ring out from the group of companions as they rejoiced this miraculous healing.

  This was too much for James. He was a simple man, of simple pleasures. To be left alone, to live with his wife and to introduce the French locals to the joys of real English ale, that was all he desired. He had no truck with forces beyond the realm of nature.

  He needed a beer.

  He let go of his wife, who stood, in stunned silence, turning as if to make his way to the bar. He stopped, eyes dropping to the point of the sharp sword that pressed gently yet insistently to his chest. He looked up.

  There, crowding into the inn from the doorway, a score of armed figures. Their long, black overcoats and wide-brimmed hats spoke of business. Their expressions grim and stoic. About their necks, each armed man had a pendant, a silver hammer dangling from a chain.

  As the travellers behind him turned from their rejoicing, to slowly, wearily take in the newcomers, another figure strode through the door. He was tall, balding, with grey hair about the edges of his scalp and the imperious look of an eagle, with an aristocratic nose and cold, grey eyes that seemed to judge all with impunity.

  He stood, surrounded by his retinue of warriors, eyes taking in the scene before him with a sneer of disgust as he took a great, theatrical sniff of the air.

  He spoke, his voice laden with cold contempt.

  “I smell sorcery afoot…”

  ***

  The interior of the dark wagon was crowded with figures that sat, knelt or otherwise lay, trying to get some sleep as the cart bounced and rocked along the night-time road. Outside, the excited whimpers and snuffling, of the Malleus’ pack of hounds, as they kept pace with the train.

  Gwenna gazed about, shuddering almost in deja-vu as her eyes took in the iron bars that penned them in. Yet it wasn’t her own memories that caused her to shiver, but those of Wrynn that coursed through her, speaking to her of times long-since past. Times of old when slavers used to raid the mountains of her homeland and the plains of her forefathers, to take screaming captives back south to Pen-Merethia.

  No, corrected the voice within. Merethia had not been its name back then. It had had another name before that.

  The Barbarian City.

  Such cruelty, it seemed, such need to inflict violence and suffering upon others was merely human nature, no matter which world or which time one hailed from. Even here, now, so far away from her homeland in both space and time, men had stalked them, bound them, carted them off to who knows what fate.

  Though, if she were to be honest to herself, she knew what fate awaited them, for Virginie had spoken of it more than once. These men, these warriors – these Malleus – had but one task in life; to hunt down those suspected to have a trace of the gift. To hunt them down and bring them to execution, in the name of their merciful god.

  The thought of the French woman caused a surge of loss and anger to flood Gwenna’s veins, and she thought for an instant of summoning great fireballs or forks of lightning to blast their way out of the wagon and set off in pursuit. But she knew that such thoughts were in vain; not only did the claws of spirit-sickness still dig deep into her soul, filling her with leaden fatigue, despite the aid of her companions, but the Sylphii had been true to their words; since the healing of Pol, she had felt the spirits keeping a wary distance from the troupe.

  There would be no aid from that quarter now, the creatures of the elements content to merely sit back and watch how things played out, as though the lives of the humans were no more real or important than those of characters in a stage-play. Perhaps to the spirits, they weren’t.

  Besides, even if she could have summoned the power to blast them free, the link between herself and the girl had long-since faded. She would not know where to even begin searching.

  She looked around, trying to make out the faces that were crammed in about her in the dim wagon. Arris and Pol, both ended up in this cart with her. Pol had barely said a word since his healing, barely had the chance to, in fact, so quickly had the Malleus burst in. Having seen his companions in danger once more, he had tried to rise from his place before the fire, making to charge at the foe, before stumbling pathetically, his strength not yet returned to his limbs.

  Now he just sat there, on the bench opposite Gwenna in the dark, his face half hidden by shadow. He was full of rage, Gwenna could tell. To reach out with her shaman-senses would be painful still, but she didn’t need them. Just the set of his jaw, the furrow in his brow, the way his fists were curled tight, knuckles white. Something plagued him.

  They were all angry, of course. Each and every one of them. The feeling of powerlessness that had beset them these last weeks was now only intensified, bound like cattle, as they were, in these carts. For years, even the lowliest of the shamans had been used to having the power of the elements at their finger-tips. In times past, even one of the shamans could have taken down that entire troupe of black-clad warriors.

  Falcon-sight; to blur into a realm of speed that no mortal eye could follow.

  Earth-tap; to suffuse the limbs with the strength of the ground itself, to bend steel and deflect the mightiest of blows.

  Yet no such options available here. No option but to be herded like sheep at the point of sword and crossbow, lest they be cut down like children.

  Demeaning.

  She looked to the right, now, out past the bars at the end of the wagon to spy the horses walking along behind them, towing their cart’s twin, within which were held the rest of the shamans, as well as Felice and James. That cruel leader of the Malleus had spared no-one. Anyone found to be in connection with the group was as culpable as they in his eyes.

  Gwenna understood now why Francois had come and taken Virginie away. Whatever his influence within the ranks of the Malleus, if any, would not have been enough to save her from that bald-headed raptor of a man should Virginie be found with them. Perhaps Gwenna should be grateful. She snorted at the idea, then turned her thoughts back to the leader of the Malleus.

  In all their journeys through this land of France, people had shown a superstitious and naïve fear of spirit-craft, drilled into them at an early age by l’eglise. Upon even the tiniest workings of magic, she had witnessed the fear of hellfire in the eyes of men and women, young and old. Only Virginie had failed to show such fear, her eyes ever-alight instead with wonder and curiosity. Gwenna suppressed a pang of pain at the memory of those eyes. Such bravery and insatiable thirst for knowledge and new experiences had been one of the things that had set the girl apart from the rest of her country-folk, one of the things that had first caused Gwenna to come to trust her.

  But this leader of the Malleus…

  Even his elite group of black-clad warriors had looked taken aback at the workings of the spirits, fear and anger warring in their eyes as they saw the crossbow bolt turn to dust and grievous wounds healed in a flash. Yet their leader had shown no such displays of emotion.

  Only a sneer of contempt.

  As she had been marched past him, he had regarded her with those cold, grey eyes with an intensity she had found chilling. It really was as though he could smell the power, home in on those with the gift. Perhaps he could; the gifts and talents of man were nigh-limitless, she had found. Was not the Woodsman, wherever
he may be, a testament to that? Was not Stone himself?

  Yet there was something more, something different about this tall, stately and aristocratic looking leader of the Malleus. He had carried himself with an effortless grace and a steely lack of fear that seemed out of place amidst his zealous and frothing Malleus bon-frères.

  She didn’t like it.

  Gwenna knew that he would be riding up ahead, on his pitch-black steed, alongside his bodyguard. Perhaps she should reach out with her shaman-senses, try to discern what manner of man he really was? But no; she was still too tired, still too sore. Her mind still in too much of a muddle, with her fears for Virginie and these new thoughts, these new hints from the spirits that Stone might, might, be returning soon.

  She lay back, her head resting against the hard wood of the wagon and closed her eyes, trying to get to sleep, oblivious to the baleful stares of the shaman youth that sat opposite her in the dark of their rumbling, rocking prison.

  ***

  “Let me go!”

  Virginie struggled against the bonds of rough rope that held her, but she knew it was to no avail, so she relaxed again, leaning back against the trunk of the tree at the base of which she sat, bound and helpless.

  “Francois, please…” she implored into the cold night air. “Be reasonable.”

  From the fire several yards away, the robed figured turned where it sat, eyes full of venom as he glared.

  “Silence, beast! How dare thee sully the girl’s innocent lips with your words!”

  The French girl frowned as she replied.

  “Francois… it’s I, Virginie. I’m no beast, no demon. It’s just me.”

  The bon-frère rose, striding over to where she sat bound. He stooped down to study her. For a moment, it seemed as though his face softened, as his eyes took in her youthful face, so full of beauty and innocence. Then a flash of rage twisted his features.

  The slap of his ringed hand threatened to knock the teeth from her mouth and she blinked her eyes in stunned pain as her vision blurred and her head swam. Blood began to trickle from the corner of her mouth where a ring had split her lip.