Ringships

by Peter Claisse

  Totally absorbed she never noticed her father come into the room. Finally, he touched her shoulder. She jumped up in fright and turned as he spoke, ‘Lynella, in God's name!’

  ‘It's lovely, I want it for ever.’

  ‘You can't. I'm sorry, you don't understand.’

  ‘But I want it! Look, my dolls love it.’

  ‘I know but it's not good for you.’

  ‘I don't care, I want it!’

  Saying this she turned back to it. The lights glowed more brightly than ever. They seemed to want to go out; something was trying to put her lights out. How would her dolls see? With a surge of anger, she pushed back to keep them alight. They were trying harder to go out now and she threw all her energy into one enormous pulse. The jewel on her forehead flashed and the lights flashed with it. It took control; draining energy from her. Now the room was full of people, trying to take it off her forehead. In the ruins of their house, her two dolls lay twisted and broken; their shattered faces could never comfort her now.

  She never saw her father after that. They told her he had died but would never say any more about it. It had just been an accident.

  3

  Lynella’s energy returned slowly, and two days later she was out of bed, finding the other children playing outside. As she approached they stopped what they were doing and gathered into a tight group against a wall. Her cousins Edward and Henry stood in the centre, watching her walking across the empty courtyard. She stopped where they had left their frayed leather ball a few paces in front.

  ‘What’s wrong? Why have you stopped the game?’ They were so quiet she could hear them breathing. One of the younger boys in the middle looked as if she was about to reply but a hand went up to silence him.

  She picked up the ball.

  ‘We’ll find another.’ Henry looked around to make sure the rest were with him.

  ‘I didn’t mean to hurt anybody’.

  ‘Neither shall we.’ He took just one step forwards. She dropped the ball and ran. When she was at the far side she turned to see them, all watching her. She saw them re-start their game from an overlooking window alcove three floors above.

  Her mother had removed the jewel and left her alone with her governess, but the governess left the castle the following day. The steward made sure the servants brought her food and clean clothing, but they scarcely spoke to her.

  The castle was enormous, and only one wing was lived in. Several doors from the area she knew appeared to lead away into other parts, but they were always locked. Choosing a time when she hoped there would be nobody about, she tried to probe one of the locks. Without her jewel she could see nothing apart from the vague outline of what appeared from the keyhole to be a simple mechanical catch. The next time she took one of the iron rings with her. It was just small enough to hold in the palm of her hand but still felt heavy in the bag on her shoulder. Holding it firmly on the door she pictured the parts that a key would move and used it to push against them. Hearing people in the distance she decided to ignore them and keep trying. With a faint click from the old worn mechanism, the lock opened, and she rushed through, slamming it shut just as the group appeared around the corner. She waited. The voices came closer. Some she recognised. But the footsteps never stopped.

  A long corridor led on with doors she couldn’t open, dimly lit by high, narrow windows. The pathways and nodes were tantalisingly close but unreadable without her jewel. She even tried lying on the worn dusty carpet but being close to them made no difference.

  At the far end there was another door with a keyhole. Completely alone, she took her time to try the ring in different places. This lock was less worn but by putting the ring directly below it, and pushing as hard as she could at anything that would move, she managed to make it open with a loud click.

  Beyond was the old keep. Rough stone walls, uneven floors and a smell of damp. But there were the signs that the mages had shaped it for themselves. Intricate glass lighting spheres hung down on golden wires. The doors had runes inlaid into the surface of the wood. She could sense the ancient power all around her. Ahead there were no windows, but she could feel something drawing her on. The darkness closed in. She moved over to feel her way along a wall. The floor was sloping downwards. She heard water dripping ahead. The image became clearer and more familiar, but it was not by the wall. Moving away she stepped tentatively into the void, only to find herself going down into a pool of water. Soon it was up to her knees, but she ignored the cold as she was drawn into it. Each step was challenge on the rough floor. Slipping on loose stones in the darkness. The regular sound of the falling water was all around now, never changing, never stopping. She went on. Up to her waist with tendrils of unknown plants catching her dress, pulling her down. Deeper, until what was hers was immediately below her. She had to dive down to feel with her hands. The stones were piled up here, but she knew where to reach. Moments later she was gasping for breath, holding up a handful of them – but she knew which one was hers. Shivering by the side of the pool she used it to light up the globes, so she could see the size of the vast cavern carved into the rock.

  The steward spent many hours telling her stories about the great age of the mages. He would send for her and read aloud from one of the books that were kept in the library. The stories were very exciting with heroic mages flying ships and fighting bravely for their kings. Somehow, however, they always had sad endings with the mages getting killed, going mad, or even betraying their kings. All the magic and the power that went with it never seemed to do any good in the end. Despite this, she enjoyed hearing the stories. They had bright pictures which she could see as she sat beside him, and they were written in a way which was easy for her to understand. She also had a sense of pride at being chosen by the steward to hear them. He was the most important man in the kingdom until her brother came of age and became the next king.

  Now that she had shown beyond any doubt that she had some power, these sessions were organised on a more formal basis. The stories now only took part of the time. He insisted that they should look at the compact. It was several pages long and full of ideas she could not understand about what mages were and were not permitted to do.

  When they were studying the section about the source, he took her to have a look at the markers. She had seen them on a few occasions before when they had travelled along the old road which ran along outside them, but she had never paused to think about them; she just knew that nobody was allowed to cross them. Now they were sitting on the hillside looking at them, down across the crucibles. It was a hot summer day and a horse and cart was struggling along the road with a load of dressed stone. Passing the crucibles, it did not turn to go along the road to their Southern Kingdom; it was going all the way from west to East. The driver and his horse were suffering in the bright sunlight.

  ‘Do you know why he has to go all the way round the source? It would be so much easier to go straight across.’

  Looking at him, puzzled by the obvious question she replied, ‘Because we're not allowed to, it's forbidden by the compact. Of course, I know that.’

  ‘But do you know why it's forbidden?’

  ‘Because otherwise we would have more battles and people would be killed.’

  ‘Do you know why?’

  She stopped to think. He occasionally started with questions like this and never let them go until she at least guessed an answer.

  ‘It's because that's where the ships could fly.’

  ‘Yes - I suppose so but why fight about it? Why not just fly the ships?’

  ‘That's because mages always do fight, don't they? And one day there will be mages again won't there?’

  By now, the cart was directly below them; they could see the white streaks on the horses’ flanks. The driver saw them and waved as he urged the horse forward to the stream that crossed the road a mile further on. He never once looked towards the source.

  Lynella's mother had forbidden her from using her power in any way
at all. When she had asked the Steward about this, he had hesitated and then replied that she certainly should do nothing until she had learnt the rules in the compact. She had now learnt the rules and could recite them fluently, she waited for a good moment and asked, ‘Can I start learning how to use my power now?’

  This time the hesitation was longer.

  ‘I know I said you could when you had learnt the rules, but I just don't think you're old enough yet.’

  ‘But I ought to learn sometime, shouldn't I?’

  ‘Yes, Yes you should. After all, what's the point in all this if you never learn?’

  ‘So why don't I start now?’

  ‘Your mother doesn't want you to.’

  Two particular incidents had set the tone for this part of her life: the first summer festival after her fourteenth birthday and the visit by the monk a few months later.

  4

  The annual festival was a major event which was held at each of the castles in turn. With no cause for the High Council to meet, it was the only occasion when all the royal families gathered together. Now that she was sixteen, she would be permitted to mix freely with the sons of the other families, a prospect she looked forward to it with considerable hope mixed with a good measure of trepidation. These were people whom she had only seen previously at brief formal presentations. The steward had explained her position in his usual pragmatic way, ‘The idea was that you should be proud of what you are. When the last of the mages was gone everybody desperately wanted more to be born.’

  ‘So why don't I just tell them?’ she had asked bemused.

  ‘Times have changed. It's the monks; they have slowly changed the way we think about things. The great legends of the deeds of the mages are now seen as something to be ashamed about.’

  ‘What am I supposed to do?’

  ‘I don't know. Perhaps you will be lucky and find someone you can trust enough to tell. Perhaps things will change again, and people will be glad to welcome you into their families.’

  Her memory of the festival itself was mixed and confused. After travelling to the Eastern Castle, they had spent a day resting and getting ready. A brief visit to the town had increased Lynella's curiosity far more than it had satisfied it. In the small community near her own castle, she knew every face and every name. This town was so much larger that she couldn't imagine how anybody could even know all the streets. There were crowds in all directions and enormous numbers of young children. The sights, sounds and smells confused her but, above all, she could not understand why it was so different. At home, the families were small and many of the houses were half-empty, but here there were new ones being built in every available space. The town seemed to be visibly bigger than it had been when the festival had last been in it three years previously. Their hosts had shown them round with considerable pride, insisting that they should sample the enormous range of produce that could be seen in the shops. At one point, she heard one of them say pointedly to the Steward, ‘It was a stupid antiquated system which was obviously leading nowhere. Look what we have achieved, just two generations after abandoning it.’

  She resolved to find out what this meant and, when they had returned to the castle, she went to the steward's room and knocked on the door.

  ‘Come’, came the steward's familiar shout from the room. ‘Hello my dear. Are you all right?’

  ‘Quite all right, but nobody's telling me what's happened here. Why is it all so different?’

  ‘And you heard them boasting about it didn't you? I thought that would trouble you. Sit down and we'll talk about it.’

  She sat in one of the large comfortable chairs and waited. The Steward refilled his ever-present wineglass, sat in a chair facing her, and asked directly, ‘Do you understand what the compact says about inter-marrying?’

  ‘Yes, I think so’

  ‘Well what it says is that the Royal families should not marry commoners. It's not a rule; we can't complain if someone else does it. It's just a suggestion.’

  ‘Are you saying that they don't obey it here?’

  The steward lowered his glass as if to reply but said nothing. She continued, ‘I thought we all had to. Don't they want to have any mages? The compact promised us that if we waited long enough, we would have mages again.’

  ‘Yes, it did. It's just that was written hundreds of years ago. Then about 50 years ago, the Abbot at the time came around trying to persuade people to abandon it. I can remember it clearly. I was a young man then. He told us we could have large healthy families if we gave it up. As you can see he was right.’

  ‘Why didn't we give it up? Don’t we trust the monks? ‘

  ‘Because we could see the power was getting stronger in each generation. Your power is very strong.’ He stopped and drank slowly. ‘They do make excellent wine here. Yes, you are right. We don’t trust the monks, well I don’t. They have their limited power and they keep working on it and I don’t think they want anybody else to have any.’

  ‘Does this mean I can't marry anyone from the Eastern Kingdom?’

  ‘I don't know, I just don't know at all. Perhaps some of them have kept to the true lines. You ought to talk to your mother. She may know somebody from the Western kingdom.’

  They both knew that, since her father's death, this had become progressively more difficult. She let the conversation drift and decided to wait and see what the evening would bring.

  The royal family of the Eastern Kingdom went to enormous lengths to impress their guests for the festival. Every inch of their Great Hall had been cleaned and polished for the occasion. The steward noted in passing that this would have been somewhat easier than achieving the same result in his own castle because this hall was noticeably smaller. Lynella, however, was overwhelmed by the noise of the crowd and the smell of the food which met her when she entered.

  The meal seemed to last forever. She sat, looking out across the room at the strange faces, wondering who they were. Almost all the other children had managed to sit in groups, and were talking and laughing ever louder as the meal progressed. Lynella was between her mother, who just scolded her for not eating her food, and the steward who seemed to be finding it difficult not to fall asleep.

  Finally, it ended. The servants moved the tables away, and the real social event began. Lynella had seen this each year throughout her life. The girls were escorted across the room by their mothers and introduced to suitable families. Lynella's mother, however, refused to move and told her firmly to go away and not to interrupt a conversation with an elderly relative. Wandering aimlessly through the crowd, she saw the dancing start. The other girls wore all kinds of jewellery and this was flashing in the bright light from the many oil lamps hung from the rafters. She felt in her small leather purse for the comforting cool of her own big jewel.

  She had guessed that this would happen but never quite been able to admit it. Her dreams of meeting new people were shattered. She had been looking forward to a new life in which she could be accepted as an ordinary person, but now she stood out as the only person in the whole hall who was alone and felt as if everybody was watching and pitying her. All the groups around her seemed closed, impossible to enter. Without an introduction, she was not supposed to talk to anybody except the others from the Southern Kingdom, and they didn't want to talk to her. She finally sat down on a chair in a quiet corner and hoped that nobody would notice her and that next year things would be better. Her solitude was interrupted by two boys. They were standing a short distance away, looking at her. Lynella had seen James before with her cousin Henry.

  ‘Look Marcus. That's the Princess Lynella from the Southern Kingdom. I saw her trailing around the town earlier.’

  ‘What's she doing sitting there? She should have been launched into the thick of it by her mother. Doesn’t she look great.’

  ‘I saw her mother over the other side. I don't think they get on.’

  ‘So, she's completely stuck,’ Marcus laughed. ‘Look at that, sticking t
o a load of stupid ancient conventions instead of having any fun.’

  ‘Don't laugh too much,’ James cautioned him. ‘I remember now, rumour has it that that one can do some tricks.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘She's got some of the old powers.’

  ‘What? Like the old mages?’

  ‘It's just what I heard.’

  They thought about this for a few moments until Marcus asked, ‘Do you think that she would mind if we went and talked to her? Perhaps she'd do some tricks for us.’

  He was already walking towards her before James could stop him. He started talking to Lynella and, after some hesitation; she joined in a conversation about the castle and all the work he had done preparing for the party. She was not sure whether this was really permitted but anything was better than sitting alone, being stared at. James was quieter than his brother and generally stood in the background, smiling appropriately and appreciating the warmth of Lynella's smiles that she gave in return. Eventually, Marcus found the chance to ask, ‘They were saying earlier that you have the old power. Could you show us?’

  Lynella's heart sank. She suddenly looked serious and tried to duck the issue.

  ‘Who said that?’

  Marcus looked at James who made no move to respond.

  ‘You said you'd heard it, didn't you?’

  James replied to Lynella, ‘I think that my little brother's getting a bit mixed up. This is the first I'd heard about powers.’