The Amber Legacy

by Tony Shillitoe

  ‘You talk like my father is already dead,’ Meg interrupted angrily. ‘He’s not dead,’ but as she finished her protest the remnants of a dream stirred in her memory.

  Emma looked as if she was going to refute Meg’s statement, but instead she said, ‘Your father came to Summerbrook as a young man to start the farm, but he was never a natural farmer. In fact, he took the surname Farmer rather than use his own.’

  ‘Then what is his real name if it’s not Farmer?’

  ‘It was a foreign name. Kushel. His grandfather came from the eastern lands. You’ve noticed, surely, that you and your brothers’ names aren’t like any other names?’

  ‘Yes. But I thought it was—I don’t know.’

  ‘What does Megen mean? Or Daryn?’ Emma asked. ‘In Western Shess, names have plain and simple meanings. You know what a person does or what their family origin is by their names. Farmer. Sheep Shearer. Lintel Window. Names have simple meanings. But your names only have meanings in other languages.’

  ‘So why did my father come here, to Summerbrook, and not choose somewhere else?’

  ‘He knew his uncle was here. Samuel’s surname was also Kushel, but only your father and I ever knew the truth. Samuel’s great-grandfather came here after his ship was wrecked off the coast in a storm. He was trying to head south to the trading ports, but it was too far and he was already an old man. For whatever reasons, ones we’ll never know, he came inland and ended up staying in Summerbrook. Samuel’s parents were born here, as was Samuel. His parents and his grandmother died of a plague-like illness when he was only three, so his grandfather was left to raise him. When his grandfather died, Samuel retreated to this cave and became the hermit soothsayer. At least, that’s what everyone wanted to believe him to be, and because he knew the truth about many things he let them think that way. Your father knew a lot about Samuel’s past, but Samuel and he had a pact to maintain the secret. They were sworn to hide the Conduit from people who were seeking it for the wrong reasons.’

  ‘What is all this weird talk? You’re making all this up.’

  Emma allowed a wry smile to wrinkle her mouth. ‘I could be. But why would I do that?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe you’re trying to make me believe you know all sorts of things. It’s like you’re trying to tell me I do have the Blessing, or that I can make magic. You know I don’t believe all the crazy things people like you and Samuel and others in the village claim that Samuel or you can do. You can’t see into the future. It hasn’t happened yet. You can’t look inside people’s heads. You can’t fly or vanish or conjure dragons. Magic isn’t real. It’s all made up in the stories my mother tells my brothers when she’s putting them to sleep and in the stupid songs the drunks sing in the tavern.’

  ‘Are you saying magic doesn’t exist?’

  Seeing Emma’s serious expression, for an instant Meg doubted herself, but the instant faded, and she answered, ‘Of course there isn’t any magic. I’ve never seen anyone really do something magical. If it’s real, show me now. Convince me.’

  Emma sighed, shaking her head slowly. ‘I can’t do very much at all. I only have a shadow of the real Blessing.’

  ‘In other words, you can’t do magic. You’re telling lies. Next you’ll say you’re my grandmother or something strange like that,’ Meg said, no longer disguising her annoyance.

  ‘If I was your grandmother, girl, you’d have more respect for other people,’ Emma said, glaring. When she relented, she said, ‘I’m not your grandmother. But we do have a distant relationship. Samuel was my cousin.’

  ‘How did you come here then?’

  ‘That’s my business,’ Emma replied abruptly.

  The old woman’s sudden decision to stop sharing information startled Meg, but she was determined to lay to rest the myths that clouded the minds of the people in her village. ‘So you can’t prove there’s magic, can you? All this talk about the Blessing—and a what? A Conduit, you said? What does that mean? It’s all made up. Why are you doing this to me?’

  With a harrumph, Emma got to her feet with her walking cane and shuffled forward three steps. She flexed her arms and wrists and fingers and coughed, held out her right hand, palm skyward, and concentrated, moving her lips silently. A familiar shiver rippled along Meg’s spine. A tiny flame flickered to life in Emma’s palm and slowly grew until it was a small fire, burning, enveloping her entire hand, licking at her wrist, her sleeve. Meg stared in disbelieving horror. She leapt up, but Emma waved her left hand over her right and extinguished the flames. ‘How did you do that?’ Meg blurted.

  Emma swayed, as if overcome with exhaustion, and Meg took the old woman’s arm to steady her. ‘Sit me down again,’ Emma said. Settled, she rubbed her forehead, sighing heavily, perspiration pooling in the creases of her skin. She blinked, drew a breath, and said, ‘I don’t have the Blessing, but I can do little things.’

  ‘Like what else?’ Meg asked, her amazement metamorphosed into ravening curiosity.

  Emma snorted and flashed an ironic grin. ‘How many spells do I have to cast to convince you that there is magic?’

  ‘It was just—just so incredible!’ Meg exclaimed. ‘You made fire out of nothing.’

  ‘Not exactly nothing,’ Emma replied. ‘Fire is air. You can’t make fire from water or from earth. There are rules. There’s an immeasurable mountain of knowledge to be scaled before you can do even the simplest of spells.’

  Meg shrugged, her mood dropping from elation to despondency, as if a cold cloud shadow engulfed her sunlight.

  ‘What brought on that look?’ Emma asked.

  ‘I’ve tried making spells. I told you. Remember? I can’t.’

  Emma laughed. ‘That’s because you don’t know what to do yet. You can’t just throw a spell. It takes training—sometimes years of learning first. You have to be able to read and write, and you have to be patient while you take risks. You have to learn about the elements and chemicals and the relationships between them all and how words, when they’re spoken in the right sequence and at the right pitch, can set up a resonance and make events happen that ordinary people call magic. You’ll make more mistakes than have successes for a very long time.’

  ‘Who taught you what to do?’

  ‘My mother, but she didn’t have the Blessing. What there was of it in my family line passed through her to me. But she could read and she learned what to do so that she could teach me, in case I had any of the Blessing. As it turned out, I had a small residue, enough to perform the simplest spells, but not enough to be more than a clever soothsayer. I was never a Potential.’

  ‘Will you teach me?’

  Emma took Meg’s hand. ‘You may not have the Blessing at all. Samuel thought he saw that you are a Potential in the crystal, and that’s why he’s left it for you. The crystal comes from another place, another time, and it amplifies the psychic abilities of anyone who truly has the Blessing.’

  ‘Psychic?’

  ‘Magic comes from the mind’s ability to focus and force the physical world to either change, or appear to change. Your mind is a powerful energy force.’

  ‘Then why don’t you use it?’

  ‘The little touch of the Blessing that resides in me is not enough. If Samuel saw true, you might have a greater amount. But I’m making no promises, girl, no promises. All I offer at first is a little learning. It won’t be easy. You’ll need patience. And you cannot tell anyone else about this. You saw Samuel’s cave. There are evil people who want what you have.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The same people to whom you must go if you really have the Blessing.’

  ‘Who?’

  Emma shook her head. ‘Until I know for certain that you are a Potential, some things I can’t tell you for your own good.’

  ‘But who killed Samuel?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Emma, sadness flooding her voice. ‘But they didn’t get what they thought they would find. Samuel was too clever for them.’

 
‘What if they’re still around?’ Meg asked, looking to see if Sunfire was alert. The dingo was snoozing in the shade, oblivious to a magpie that was feasting on worms nearby.

  ‘I very much doubt they would still be here. My guess…no, I’m sure, they would’ve believed Samuel was the only one who might have what they wanted, and when it wasn’t found they left.’

  ‘All this is about the crystal?’

  ‘Keep it safe,’ Emma warned. ‘No one else must know that it is in your keeping.’

  ‘What will I tell my mother?’

  Emma gazed at Meg and said, ‘You won’t tell her anything yet. What you know now is for you and me alone. Understand? This is for us. I want you to promise me that.’

  Button Tailor was waiting by the swimming hole. She was late. The sun was already low on the hilltops and they would have precious little time to walk together before darkness drove them home. She walked quickly to meet him and apologised, telling him that her errands had taken longer than she’d anticipated.

  ‘I know how that happens,’ he said, ‘but you’re here and so it doesn’t matter.’ And his smile melted her fear that she’d annoyed him by coming late. She saw his eyes rest on the fragment of amber crystal on the fine gold chain around her neck. ‘I didn’t see that the other day. Were you wearing it?’

  ‘No,’ she said, her hand rising to touch the object, and tuck it away. ‘It’s a—family heirloom. I don’t wear it very often.’

  ‘Which way?’ he asked, gesturing in random directions.

  ‘This way,’ she decided, choosing to head along the riverbank, away from the eyes of Summerbrook’s gossips.

  They walked along the winding path, Sunfire wandering behind like a chaperone. Meg wasn’t sure how to begin a conversation, but Button rescued the silence. ‘I saw your brothers fishing by the bridge.’

  ‘They should have been stacking firewood at home. Mother will be annoyed.’

  ‘I can drop by tomorrow to help stack the wood,’ he offered.

  ‘I’ll get them to do it,’ she said. ‘It’s their job.’

  ‘Do they listen to you?’

  ‘What’s that meant to mean?’

  Button laughed. ‘No offence meant. I just mean I know that boys don’t like being bossed by their sisters, especially older sisters.’

  ‘And how do you know that?’ she asked.

  ‘I have two older sisters, remember? Lucy and Jen.’

  She laughed. ‘Now I feel sorry for you.’

  ‘But I don’t feel sorry for your brothers. They should be respecting a sister as clever and as beautiful as you.’

  She blushed, and looked at her feet to hide her embarrassment. No young man had ever told her she was beautiful—at least, not in the manner Button used. It sounded strange, but it was very flattering.

  ‘Do you watch the sunset?’ he asked.

  She looked up to the west. ‘Most evenings,’ she said. ‘The colours always make me relaxed and happy.’

  Button stopped to stare at the sinking sun, and Meg paused beside him. ‘I used to think the sun was going to set the trees on the hills alight when I was little. Sometimes it looked like it had.’ He turned to her, and said, ‘It’s as if your hair is on fire, and your skin is amber.’ He raised his right hand and his fingers brushed gently against her cheek to push aside a loose lock of her glowing red hair.

  She shifted uncomfortably, and stepped away from his reach, saying, ‘I forgot to brush Nightwind. We’d better start back.’

  Button smiled, lowering his hand. ‘So you have called him Nightwind.’

  ‘I liked the sound. You were right. It suits him.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  Meg turned to where he was pointing. Through the trees at the outer edge of the village a dozen horses were walking steadily, their riders masked by the lengthening twilight shadows. ‘Soldiers, I think,’ she said, her voice dropping to a wary whisper as her mind raced through the possibilities. One made her skin crawl with fear. What if Samuel’s killers were returning?

  ‘I have to go,’ Button announced.

  ‘Why? What’s wrong?’ She recognised the men as Queen’s soldiers and her fear weakened.

  ‘Nothing. I just have to go.’ And instead of heading towards his home, Button jogged along the riverbank path, into the bush, leaving Meg wondering why he was running from the Queen’s soldiers.

  In the dream, she was disembodied and in darkness. She thought at first that she’d woken up but hadn’t opened her eyes, yet when she concentrated on opening them nothing changed—she was awake in the dream and there was nothing to see. But she felt something—a presence—no, something more, something immense.

  I am in you and all of you, a deep voice said.

  Who are you? she asked.

  I am everything.

  But what is your name?

  I have many names. I am all names. Call me what you choose. I am still who I am.

  I don’t understand, she said, but her voice seemed to melt into the darkness.

  When she woke, she was clutching the amber crystal in her left hand. It was already sunrise and the kookaburras were warbling jubilantly in the gum trees. The dream—full of darkness and the voice—stayed solid like the crystal. She would decipher its meaning somehow.

  PART TWO

  ‘Of all the pains we must endure,

  love hurts deepest when it is unrequited.

  Don’t talk to me of what you have felt,

  for I know this pain in its purest form.’

  TRANSLATED FROM ‘BEYOND THE ETERNAL LONGING’,

  AN EPIC POEM BY ASHUAK POET LAK ASHARA,

  IN THE SECOND DYNASTY

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘As long as men go a-wandering, And maidens are so sweet, There’ll always be a fresh rose plucked, By men who can compete For a young girl’s charming smile, For a young girl’s charming smile.’

  Meg hesitated at the half-open door, held by the raucous singing within, and she tried to ignore the lecherous grins of the soldiers who were leaning on the hitching post outside Archer’s Inn, chewing tobacco. Sunfire’s ears flattened and his hackles rose. The Queen’s soldiers had commandeered the inn the previous night, and had been drinking copiously, entertained by minstrels who travelled with them. Her mother said that the village men were bickering over who should berate the soldiers for their uncivil behaviour, but no one wanted the responsibility. Meantime, the belligerent and demanding Queen’s men were holding Fletcher Archer, his wife and their three children hostage in their tavern, forcing them to endlessly serve food and ale and spirits. Feeling sorry for the Archers, Meg’s mother sent her protesting daughter with a basket of freshly baked bread and cake to feed the hapless family.

  ‘Want the door opened wider, gorgeous?’ offered a rakishly thin, sparsely bearded soldier at the entrance. He glanced down at the dingo that stared back at him.

  ‘Thank you,’ she replied. She clutched the basket close to her chest, as she eased past the young man whose breath reeked of alcohol and vomit, and Sunfire slid in behind her.

  ‘What have we here?’ a harsh voice asked as she entered the smoky common room.

  ‘Another beauty,’ a second answered. ‘Come and sit on my lap, girlie.’ Meg’s morning sunlight blindness dissipated. At least ten men sat or stood around the three square tables that normally furnished the room. A motley crew—a mixture of young and older men, all unshaven and, from the pungent pervasive odour of humanity underlying the smell of stale ale and smoke, they were all in desperate need of a good bath. The man who’d offered a lap was lean, like an underfed dog, and his eyes shone with his hunger. ‘Come on. I won’t bite you,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t believe him,’ another man warned, and the group laughed.

  ‘Her dog might bite you, though, Lambcutter,’ a pudgy-cheeked soldier observed. The soldiers laughed again.

  There were two young women with the men. Axle Wheelwright sat on a soldier’s knee, her tunic unlaced and open, exposin
g her breasts, her dark hair dishevelled, and she glared at Meg as though she resented her intrusion. The second, Leafy Wood, a plain mousy-haired girl Meg’s age, the third daughter of Henry Wood, the village woodcutter, stood behind a sitting soldier, her arms dangling around the young man’s neck, and she was laughing at Meg, like the men. ‘What’s in the basket? More food?’ a hook-nosed soldier asked.

  ‘It’s for the Archers,’ Meg told him.

  ‘They’re not as hungry as us,’ the soldier insisted, as he rose and reached for the basket.

  Meg pulled the basket away and Sunfire growled menacingly. ‘The food isn’t for you.’

  ‘Whoa-ho! Spirited!’ the soldier declared, grinning. ‘Come on, girl, let’s have some sport from you.’

  ‘Touch me and I’ll kill you,’ Meg snarled, her anger flashing. Sunfire stepped between them, his teeth bared.

  ‘Will you now? You’ll kill me, will you?’ The soldier laughed, and his companions laughed as well.

  ‘She won’t kill you, Gardner, but the dog will,’ someone else quipped. The soldiers laughed again.

  ‘And what’s your name?’ Gardner asked.

  ‘My name isn’t for your foul mouth.’

  The soldier snorted and, turning to Axle, asked, ‘What’s your friend’s name?’

  ‘Megen Farmer,’ Axle explained, ‘and she thinks she’s too good for everyone else.’ She screwed up her face in contempt.

  ‘Flame-haired Meg,’ said the soldier. ‘Fiery. Foreign name, too. I think you’d be a fine piece of flesh in the sheets.’ He moved closer, his lips curling with anticipation, his hand reaching out. Meg tensed, prepared to swing the basket to ward him off, but Sunfire leapt, latched onto the man’s arm and dragged him off balance. Gardner wrestled his arm loose and kicked, but Sunfire dodged effortlessly, and took up guard again between Meg and the soldier, snarling viciously. ‘Looks like your bloody dog needs some lessons,’ Gardner said, shaking blood from his wrist. He drew his sword.