The Circle of Stone: The Darkest Age

by A. J. Lake

  There was no palisade around the settlement: they could simply walk in, over the springy turf that stretched to the very doors of the houses. Elspeth looked through an arched doorway to see a sleeping-pallet and a slender-legged table holding a cup.

  ‘Don’t stare!’ Cluaran snapped, dragging her forward.

  But Elspeth still gazed about her: she could not help it. They passed houses with brilliantly coloured flowers and leaves growing from the walls, or festooned with vines. Others were covered with carvings of swirling lines, or images of beasts, birds and human faces. There were no people about, though: even the man she had seen at the top of the tower had vanished, and the singing had fallen silent. Cluaran was almost running now, his hand gripping her arm.

  ‘Remember what I said!’ he hissed at her, as they rounded a house grown about with glossy green bushes and came on to a wide grassy space.

  It looked like a town square. The tall houses surrounded it, and in the centre was a fountain ringed with smooth white stones. And there were people here: half a dozen men and women standing in front of the fountain and glaring at them.

  Cluaran had stopped dead and placed himself in front of Elspeth. An angry buzz came from the Fay and one of them, a tall, dark-skinned man, stepped forward and addressed Cluaran.

  The language of the Fay sounded harsher in his mouth than it had in Roslyn’s. Elspeth could not understand a word he said, but the anger in his face and his sweeping hand gestures made it clear that he wanted them to be gone. As his voice rose, more Fay came into the clearing by twos and threes, until there was a crowd around them, all facing Cluaran, their faces set in various expressions of anger and disgust. None of them looked at her, Elspeth realised; there were just a few furtive glances, quickly withdrawn.

  The speaker paused for breath and Cluaran spoke, his voice soothing. He gestured towards Elspeth and towards a point behind the crowd, and held up his hand, palm out.

  The tall man strode forward and grabbed Cluaran by both shoulders, shouting into his face. The minstrel stared back at him calmly, and the man’s voice became a roar. His hands moved to grip Cluaran by the throat.

  Elspeth gave a small cry, but before she could move Cluaran threw his arm out to block her. He was on tiptoe now, pulled upwards by his assailant’s grip. His face was turning red, but he made no move to defend himself. The crowd was yelling almost as loudly as their leader.

  There was a flash of white light, and then silence. The tall man’s grip slackened and Cluaran crumpled to the ground, gasping and clutching his throat.

  The crowd parted and a woman walked through. She wore a long cloak with a hood, and was shorter than most of the people there, even shorter than Cluaran. She came over to the minstrel and raised him to his feet. She made a small sound of concern as she looked at his face. Then she pushed back her hood, and Elspeth saw with a shock that she was old: grey-haired and wrinkled, with deeply sunken eyes. No one she had seen in this land had been anything other than young and beautiful.

  The crowd had begun to melt away. The woman turned to the man who had attacked Cluaran and snapped a few words at him which made him duck his head and stalk off without a word. She called after him, something that Elspeth took to be a warning. Then she turned back to Cluaran.

  ‘Well, Ainé,’ the minstrel croaked as she shook her head at him, ‘you took your time. Another moment and I would have had to fight.’

  ‘I came as soon as I heard the racket,’ the woman said. ‘You must allow an old woman to move slowly.’

  Cluaran snorted. ‘You don’t need to be old, Ainé!’

  ‘No,’ she agreed levelly, ‘I don’t. I choose to show my years.’ She turned to Elspeth. ‘So this is the girl. You’re welcome here, child – by me, if by no one else.’

  She took them to a house on the edge of the settlement, a lower and simpler building than the others. She sat them on stools in a corner, out of view from the outside, and offered them oatcake and berries.

  ‘Take your fill,’ she said when Elspeth hesitated. ‘I know there are some who claim that our food harms outsiders, or gives them uncanny powers, but I’ve never known either to be true. Eat: you’ll need all your strength in the days to come.’

  Elspeth realised she was ravenous. As she filled her mouth with the sharp-tasting berries, the old woman looked at her appraisingly.

  ‘It was not wise, bringing her to the town,’ she said to Cluaran. ‘I could have met you at the gateway. But it’s true that time is short. The Chained One gathers strength as he draws men’s belief to him.’ She looked searchingly at Elspeth. ‘You’ve been hurt, child; I fear you’re not yet at your full strength. Do you feel ready to meet him?’

  ‘No,’ Elspeth admitted.

  She heard an exclamation from Cluaran, immediately bitten off.

  ‘And why is that?’ the old woman asked.

  ‘I don’t have a weapon!’ Elspeth burst out. ‘How can I fight him with no sword?’

  ‘Ioneth has come back to you!’ Cluaran protested. ‘We saw her today.’ Ainé looked at him enquiringly, and he told her how he had called on Ioneth at the pool, and how the sword had reappeared.

  ‘But it was only for a moment, Cluaran.’ The hope in his face filled Elspeth with a dull anger: didn’t he think she’d know if it had truly returned, the sword that had once been as much a part of her as her own arm? She looked up at Ainé, willing the Fay woman to understand. ‘I couldn’t make her stay – I couldn’t even feel the sword in my hand. It wasn’t really there.’

  ‘Let me see,’ said the old woman. She did not take Elspeth’s hand, but continued to look into her eyes. ‘Ioneth,’ she murmured, so softly that Elspeth had difficulty hearing her, ‘are you awake? Do you know me?’

  There was an answering murmur inside Elspeth’s head. ‘Ainé . . .’ Beside her Cluaran drew a deep breath: the faint glow was forming again around her hand and arm.

  ‘We can help you, Ioneth,’ the old woman went on. ‘I’ll give Elspeth all the protection I can, and Cluaran will not leave her side. But the final stroke must be yours. Do you have the strength?’

  The glow was brighter now, stretching again into the shape of the crystal sword, but still pale and insubstantial. Elspeth stared at the blade, willing it to take solid form, but it remained little more than a thin edge of light.

  ‘It’s no good,’ she whispered. ‘This isn’t the sword. It’s just . . . just seeming. I can’t fight Loki with this!’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ Ainé said. ‘You could not fight any human enemy. But Loki is not a man.’ She leant forward, her face intent now. ‘Don’t you see? He has form and substance only because he makes them for himself. He was bound to his human shape by the chains we put on him – but even so, he could never be killed by iron alone.’

  Elspeth recalled the being she had met in the cave, straining against his chains. She had been able to wound him then: his shriek of pain still rang in her mind.

  Ainé smiled and rose to her feet. ‘Ioneth is still with you,’ she said, and reached out a hand to pull Elspeth up, too. ‘She poured all her life into one purpose: to destroy the Destroyer. It’s that strength of purpose alone that will kill him. But we must move quickly.’

  She led them out of the house, heading for the fields beyond the settlement. ‘I have a warning for you, and a gift,’ she told them as they hurried across the springy grass. ‘I’ll give you both as we go to the gateway.’

  She walked with long strides, faster than Elspeth could have believed, speaking over her shoulder as she went.

  ‘Loki is still bound by the one chain that he could not break. He seeks to cast off that chain so that he can abandon his physical form and become a god again. If he does – if he regains the world of pure spirit – nothing will be able to kill him. We have always believed that only the sword can sever that final chain – or Elspeth’s own hand, which still holds the sword.’

  ‘He tried to trick me into cutting it,’ Elspeth said, remembering Wulf with a
shudder.

  Ainé nodded. ‘But what he may not know – what we must keep from him at all costs – is that there may be another way for him to free himself. Beneath Eigg Loki, he tried to drain the life from you, Elspeth, and afterwards he was able to break one of his bonds himself. It may be that he no longer needs your hand to free him. He may try instead to consume you; to take your soul and Ioneth’s together.’ She stopped to look at them, her small figure suddenly commanding. ‘So my warning to you is this, Elspeth. Strike at his heart, but whatever happens, do not allow him to touch you. And, Cluaran: tell Eolande to keep his fire from touching her.’

  ‘Rely on us,’ Cluaran said, and his eyes blazed.

  ‘She must rely on you,’ Ainé said. ‘On all her companions. She will not succeed without you.’ She held his gaze for a moment longer, then became brisk again. ‘And now we are here.’

  She raised both hands above her head, and suddenly there was a shimmering line in the air. She pulled her hands down a little way. Through the opening came a sound Elspeth had not heard for many weeks, but which made her eyes prick with its familiarity: the crash of waves on shingle.

  ‘This isn’t the place!’ Cluaran exclaimed. ‘We need the Hanging Stones, Ainé!’

  ‘The stone circle is less than three leagues away,’ the old woman told him. ‘But this is where you should be now.’ She turned to Elspeth. ‘There’s little enough I can give you, child. Less than you deserve. But I can offer you the company of your friends, at least until the circle, and show you something you thought lost. Take this for your protection.’ She handed Elspeth a stem of mistletoe, dotted with white berries like pearls. ‘Wear it until you reach the stone circle,’ she said. ‘It has a charm of concealment on it: the Chained One will not find you until it withers.’

  Elspeth’s hands trembled as she took the little sprig. Ainé smiled at her once more, then put her hands on Cluaran’s shoulders and kissed him. ‘There’s nothing I have to give you but a word, Eolande’s son,’ she said. ‘When the time comes, you’ll know what to do. And your name will be honoured here.’

  She returned to the gateway, bringing her hands down swiftly until the misty opening stood outlined in the air. Cluaran looked as if he wanted to ask her something more, but she stepped away from the opening, raising her hand in farewell. He shrugged and took Elspeth’s hand. Together they stepped through the doorway, the mist closing around them, while the sound of the waves pounded in Elspeth’s ears.

  The fighting had reached Wessex. Aagard, chief war-adviser to the king but too old to wield a weapon himself, fought back despair as he turned from his fire. The charm was spent, and he had found no trace of Elspeth or the sword – nor of the Chained One, who commanded their attackers. Edmund was on his way home, with Cathbar and the Fay woman, but what could those three do, however brave, however skilled, against the armies who besieged their coasts? And there was the grievous news of King Heored’s death. His men had returned just ahead of the enemy, and had given great service in repelling the first wave of invaders. But how would they hold against the next attack, and the next? Already some of the marauders had landed further up the coast, in Kent and Essex, and were spreading their cult of the Burning Man.

  The fire spat out one final spark. He turned to extinguish it – and stopped, appalled. Something was stirring in the depths: something white-hot and malevolent. As he watched, the fire leapt up again and roared out at him, a huge mouth. For an instant it filled the room with flame, throwing Aagard on his back. The fury raged around him: Coming! Coming now! And then it was gone, leaving only a ringing echo.

  And far to the north, beneath Eigg Loki, the final bond snapped. The great dragon soared into the air, his mouth gaping in a scream of rage and joy. Flame blossomed around him as he gained height and turned, crackling like lightning, to obey his summons to the south.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  After more than two days at the oar, Edmund decided he would never understand Elspeth’s love of the sea. They had started in choppy water, dodging around a great number of other boats, from fifty-oared cargo ships to fishing boats barely larger than their own. All the vessels seemed headed for Sussex and Wessex, and in such numbers they put Edmund in mind of an invading fleet, raising new fears for his mother and their household. One hulking vessel had come so close it had nearly rammed them. It had taken all the oarsmen’s skill to avoid the looming hull, and then to keep from being capsized by the wake. As they frantically bailed, Cathbar cursing beside him, Edmund had looked after the vast ship to see the image of the Burning Man painted on its sail.

  After that the boat-master had steered them south, out of sight of land. It was not until they reached the open sea that Edmund realised how tired he was. The other oarsmen tried to take slack for him – the carter Fardi, in particular, who had placed himself behind him, and showed an unexpected strength and skill at the oar – but Edmund was determined to pull his weight, and by nightfall he was so weary, and his hands so blistered, that he could think of nothing else.

  The next day’s work came more easily, but now the wind dropped and the sun began to beat down. There was no refuge from the heat – and no refuge, he could not help thinking, if a storm should break out of that clear sky, as it had done before, and a dragon appear again. The sense of exposure, of being watched, weighed on Edmund, and he did not look up as he rowed.

  The sea was so still by the second night that they shipped their oars and slept, leaving two men on watch, and the next morning a smudge of land had appeared to the north, which the boat-master said was the island of Wiht.

  ‘Take us west of there,’ Eolande told him. ‘I’ll show you the place.’

  The sight of land restored Edmund’s spirits, and when Eolande finally steered them to a cove and they brought the boat safely in, he felt a wash of relief that made his hands tremble on the oar. It weakened his legs as they scraped on to the shingled beach and jumped out into the foam.

  They were dragging the boat on to the shore when Eolande gave a cry, pointing up the beach. There, only a hundred yards away, were two small figures: a slightly built man, and a black-haired girl.

  ‘Elspeth!’

  Edmund raced across the shingle, his tiredness forgotten. Elspeth started at the sound of his voice, then gave a cry of delight and ran towards him, leaving Cluaran behind. She threw her arms around him, and he saw that her hands were healed.

  ‘It’s so good to see you,’ she gasped as they hugged one another. ‘And is that Cathbar with you, and Eolande?

  Edmund nodded. ‘Where did Cluaran take you? How did you get here so fast? I never thought...’

  He stopped as Elspeth’s face froze. She released him abruptly, her hands falling to her sides, and stood gazing at their boat as if in horror.

  ‘Elspeth?’ Edmund faltered. ‘What’s wrong?’

  She seemed not to hear him. Slowly, as if she was unsure on her feet, she walked past him towards the little knot of men tying up the boat.

  One of them had left the group and was standing alone, watching her. It was Fardi, and after a moment he came forward to meet her. His eyes were wide, his gaunt face suddenly as white as foam. After a few paces he stopped and held out a hand, as if he was feeling his way through darkness.

  ‘Elspeth?’ he whispered.

  She gave a sob, then hurled herself forward. ‘It is you,’ she cried. ‘It’s really you this time, Father.’

  There was little time for explanations. Edmund waited while Elspeth wept and told her father some of what had befallen her since the wreck of the Spearwa, but Cluaran soon came up to interrupt them.

  ‘We can’t stay here,’ he said bluntly. ‘There’s a place we must reach. It’s some leagues away, and the sooner we’re there the better.’

  Elspeth looked down at a pin she was wearing: a mistletoe twig that Edmund had not noticed before. ‘Cluaran’s right,’ she said. ‘We must go.’

  There was a settlement a short distance inland, where they left the oth
er sailors with thanks and silver. The men tried to persuade Trymman – the real name of Elspeth’s father, formerly known as Fardi – to stay with them to rest and toast his new-found good fortune, but Cluaran would not wait.

  ‘We’ll likely be walking through the night as it is,’ he said. ‘We must be there by tomorrow – our protection will not last much longer.’

  Elspeth held on to her father’s arm as they walked, and he gazed at her as if he could never look enough. He had the same thick black hair as hers, and maybe the same shape of face, though it was not easy to tell, he was so thin. But now that Edmund knew who he was, he could recognise the master of the Spearwa as he had last seen him, with his keen gaze and bristling brows.

  The man must have felt Edmund’s scrutiny: he turned to him with a lopsided smile. ‘You were my last passenger, the boy who was heading for Francia,’ he said. ‘I thought you seemed familiar. You’ve grown taller, and your face is older, or I’d have known you before. I’m glad I could finally take you where you were going – more glad than I can say.’

  They travelled for most of the day, only halting when the sun was low in the sky. They stopped at a farmhouse near the road for milk and barley cakes, and for news of the region. Edmund, thinking of his kingdom and his mother, asked about the road to the east, and the farmer shook his head: marauders were attacking further down the coast, he had heard, and a Kentish pedlar who passed this way yesterday had told stories of a heathen cult that had overrun the eastern kingdoms, making converts by force and burning villages as sacrifices to their god.

  It was a subdued party that took up the journey again. The farmer’s stories had left Edmund sick with worry. Let us meet Loki soon! he prayed. We have to stop this – to try, at least.