The Language of Stones. Robert Goldthwaite Carter

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ magic must always be requested and never summoned. Always respect it, and never treat it with disdain. And when you ask, ask openly and honestly, for the honest man alone has the right to speak the words of power.’

      By now they had come to a river bank, and Will saw a small standing stone sticking up out of the grassy bank.

      Gwydion said, ‘Come here and put down the crane bag.’

      Once more, Will did as he was told, and the wizard made him jump up and sit on the stone. ‘Do not be afraid. This little stone is called Taynton Sarsen. It is as benign as your own Tarry Stone. It marks an important ancient crossing point over the stream.’ He took from his pouch a piece of flint so sharp at the edge that it could have been used to shave with.

      ‘What are you going to do with that?’ Will asked, eyeing the flint uncertainly.

      ‘Give you a beggar’s head.’

      ‘What?’

      The wizard tested the edge of the flint, then began to cut off locks of Will’s hair. ‘Hold still. The place where your braids used to hang looks like a half-harvested wheatfield and we can’t have that.’

      Will screwed up his face but endured the indignity and when at last he put a hand to his head he found his hair was no more than half a finger’s length all over, and tussocky. He ruffled it and followed the wizard, picking up a stick on the way. ‘Why did you cut my hair?’

      ‘It is a disguise.’

      ‘It’s not much of one.’

      ‘It will serve to confound those who have been sent to make report on you.’

      Will felt renewed anxiety cramp his stomach. ‘People sent by Maskull, do you mean?’

      ‘It is not unusual for him to have me watched when he can get news of my whereabouts. It is likely we are being watched now, for he certainly knows my bag-carrier was lodged in the Wychwoode.’

      Will’s anxiety turned to alarm. ‘He found out about me?’

      Gwydion smiled. ‘I made sure of it.’

      ‘You mean, you told him?’

      ‘I made sure Maskull found out that I had brought an unsatisfactory apprentice lad to Lord Strange’s tower for a summer of correction.’

      ‘Wasn’t that dangerous?’

      ‘Of course. But far less dangerous than if I had not done so. You see, Maskull does not know who you are. He will dismiss the detail from his thoughts, and once dismissed it will stay dismissed.’

      ‘I hope so.’

      ‘He believes I am a coward. He cannot bring himself to believe that I would dare bring the one spoken of in prophecy into plain view, for were he in my place he would certainly have kept you locked away in a fortress of spells. Be warned, Maskull wants very much to find the prophesied one, and if ever he decided that you were he, then…’ The wizard’s words petered out and he made a lethal gesture.

      Will passed a hand over his throat and looked around uncomfortably. Fresh fears bubbled up inside him. It was terrifying to think that his survival now depended on his being mistaken for his own decoy. ‘Where are we going?’

      ‘You’ll know that when we get there.’

      ‘Well…how far is it?’

      ‘About as far as it is to Nempnett Thrubwell.’

      Will gave a hard, frustrated sigh. ‘Oh, Master Gwydion, why will you never tell me where I came from and what is to become of me?’

      ‘As to the first, I do not know. And I have already told you the second – you are going to be taught.’

      ‘Taught what?’

      ‘What the world is truly like.’

      Will snorted. ‘Who can know what the world is truly like?’

      Gwydion tapped his nose with a forefinger. ‘Ah! The world is the sum of what men believe it to be. Now, that is deep wisdom, if you did but know it.’

      He liked the idea. ‘Do you mean that if most men thought the sky was green and the grass was blue then they would be?’

      The wizard smiled. ‘Willand, I mean precisely that.’

      ‘Is that why magic is leaving the world? Because people are stopping believing in it?’

      Gwydion’s eyebrows lifted. ‘Why, Willand, you surprise me! That is a very interesting question. Indeed, there is an important rede that says, “Magic alters” and another that says, “Magic to him who magic thinks”.’

      Will swished at the dust with the stick. ‘But what I really want to know is why did Maskull put that spell on Lord Strange if he’s not an evil sorcerer?’

      Gwydion picked his way towards a mass of brambles. ‘Three steps forward, two steps back. How easily you use the word “evil”, Willand. Where did the idea come from in the first place?’

      ‘I don’t know.’ He shrugged and pushed the spiky briars aside with his stick. ‘Isn’t it right? To use the word “evil”, sometimes. I mean, surely Maskull is evil, even though he may not know it.’

      ‘“Evil” is a dangerous idea to have in your head if you wish to understand magic properly. Each of us carries tremendous power for the doing of what you unthinkingly call “good” and “evil”.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘I suppose you ought to be given instruction about this, though you hardly seem ripe for it.’

      Will wrinkled his nose at that. ‘I don’t want to know.’

      Gwydion stopped dead and turned so that the charms which hung inside his shirt clattered together. ‘Is that truly so? Make no mistake, people are forestalled or led on by knowledge – and by the lack of it. I must be careful what I reveal to you, and what I hide. You must be taught. You must be prepared. But I must not fill your head with so much that your essential nature is altered. Do you see?’

      Will thought about that as they followed the banks of the river. The sky deepened and the brighter stars began to appear. Before night fell fully, they camped. Gwydion picked a place close to running water and in the lee of a hill. He danced earth magic around his chosen spot, then produced a cooking pot that was heavier when taken from the crane bag than the bag was with the pot and all its other contents put together.

      ‘What’s this pot made from?’Will said feeling the weight. ‘Some kind of stone?’

      ‘Correct. That is cleberkh, or loomlode as some say, a kind of stone found in the Isles of the Sword, a place that lies beyond even the Orcas in the Far North. At first the stone is soft enough to shape, but the more you cook with it the harder it gets.’ Gwydion took out a patched brown travelling cloak much like his own. ‘And this is for you. It will help you to sleep.’

      He took out a slate blade and cut a yard square in the grass, made nine turfs of it and stacked them up. Then he gathered twigs into the hole and whispered a merry fire into being. In the pot СКАЧАТЬ