Shadow on the Stones

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2

The Shadow of FearIsar made camp in a small cleft between two hills. It would perhaps have been more sensible if he had chosen a position nearer the top of the hill where the view of the surrounding countryside would have given him warning of any approaching danger, but he foresaw no danger.

A spring bubbled from lichen-covered rock and the green fronds of ferns enclosed the place as though it were enchanted.

He set his fire carefully so as to disturb the harmony of the place as little as possible. The scent of the wood smoke rising through tall trees and leaning bushes tugged gently at his memory of other places and other times that had been so wreathed in peace and quietness that they had become special times, times that brought renewal and refreshment.

He enjoyed being alone and never felt lonely. In the silence amongst growing things he had often felt the subtle stirrings of communication between all that existed and himself. This was a gift his mother, Fern, had given him for a birth present as other mothers give sun-metal or moon-metal discs. Growing plants did not speak to him quite as they did to her, but his sense of vision was more than ordinarily developed, and an arrangement of leaf and twig that would pass unnoticed by others could be a potent source of joy and revelation to him.

No one knowing Isar would associate him with his natural father, the cruel magician Wardyke. He had all his mother’s features and qualities. He was slender and lithe, his hair the colour of copper, his face gentle, his eyes light hazel with flecks of gold. His tallness might be inherited from Wardyke, but that was all. The Spear-lord Karne had brought him up as his own son, and it was Karne he respected as his father since Wardyke’s death.

He was sitting now with his back against a rock, relaxed and sleepy, watching the night shadows gradually snuffing out the distinctive patternings around him, pleased by the graceful and sinuous dance of the thin thread of smoke from his small fire, when he fancied he saw a shadowy figure standing in the darkness behind the smoke. So tenuous was the impression that he narrowed his eyes to afford a better focus, but did not move a limb in case the disturbance either dispelled the vision (if it were a vision) or caused the animal to charge (if it were an animal).

As he stared and his eyes began to smart with staring, he began to ‘feel’ that it was Deva.

His ordinary senses gave him no evidence of this, but he began to have the feelings in himself that he always had when Deva was near, stirrings of happiness and warmth, protectiveness, and also, sometimes, a touch of amused irritation.

But now he felt that she was worried and afraid. She seemed to be weeping and reaching out to him.

Forgetting momentarily where he was, he moved to take her in his arms, but even as he did so he realized that she was not there and it was the night held at bay by the last flickering of his fire, that waited under the trees.

In the morning, after a restless night of bad dreams he could not remember when he woke, he decided to return home. The impression he had received of Deva in trouble had been strong, even though it had been indistinct. He was determined to find out more about it even if it did mean he would not meet Janak, the great man he was travelling to meet, the man who could make dead wood live again in new forms.

As he packed his few belongings in to the leather pouch he carried slung over his shoulder, and returned the ashes of his fire with gratitude to the forest from which they had come, he argued with himself about his decision. He knew Deva would have tried to stop him had she known that he was leaving upon such a long journey, however innocent, and it was for this reason that he had not told her of it himself. He knew she was spoilt in many ways and had innumerable tricks to twist events the way she wanted them. By now she would have found him gone and would be wanting him at her side again to torment and delight. As the daughter of two priests it would not surprise him if she had ways of reaching him not available to ordinary people.

And yet... and yet there was something more to her pain this time... something deeper... more urgent... more serious.

He would turn back.

As he reached the top of the eastern of the two hills that had sheltered him in the night, the one he had climbed down to find his camping place, he took a last yearning look to the west.

On the horizon he could see a dark and ominous cloud of smoke. At first he thought it might be an accumulation of cooking fires and was about to turn away, when something made him stay.

He was never afterwards sure whether it was the scent of fear in the air, the sense of someone standing beside him pointing to the smoke, instantly gone as he turned his head, or curiosity within himself, that made him travel towards the west and not the east that day, forgetting Deva.

He journeyed far into the day before he neared the place where the fire had been. The smoke had died down long before he reached it but he had marked its position in relation to rocky outcrops and free standing trees, and thus had no difficulty in finding it.

Several times he saw groups of strangers carrying weapons and an instinct made him avoid them. He had never been as far west as this before, but the descriptions he had had of the gentle people who lived in the country did not tally with those he saw. In each case the sound of their voices, talking in an unknown tongue, was aggressive and harsh. But it was only when he saw one shoot a bird and laugh to see it fall, drawing his arrow callously from the broken feathered body, that he knew for sure these were not his people.

* * * *

He took greater care in his journeying, keeping to the bushes and the trees, avoiding open places, his heart heavy and anxious.

When he caught sight of the silhouettes of a group of tall stones upon a rise of ground his spirits leapt. Here at last would be the real people of Klad, the people who worshipped the Lord of All, symbolized by the burning disc of the Sun and the Sacred Circle of Stones.

Although he was tired, his pace quickened and he ran the last part of the way.

Where there was a Circle there would be a priest and a village community. He would settle at last the questions that tugged and scratched at his mind.

But as he came within clearer sight of the Stones he went cold.

This was not as it should be.

The whole area was blackened and charred by fire. The village that had been sprawling comfortably around the base of the knoll was now no more than smouldering embers and a broken cooking pot or two.

There was no sign of life and the air carried an acrid stench and a dry warning of hurt and danger.

He turned to the stones and nausea and horror overcame him.

The beautiful circle that had stood since ancient times for communion amongst all the realms of Being, was desecrated beyond belief and seemed to crouch like a wounded and despairing animal waiting for death.

Slowly Isar’s eyes moved from stone to stone and at every one he saw the burnt and mutilated body of a man, in some cases the hide ropes that bound them had not quite burned through.

Their pain was still present and he fell to the ground with the weight of it.

‘O God,’ he sobbed, ‘O Lord of all that is! How could you let this happen?’

A small breeze drily stirred the ashes.

No answer came to him from the blind Circle of Stones.

* * * *

After this... long after this... he gathered himself together and turned back towards the east.

Now he would go home.

He would walk through the night.

He would not rest until he had left the pain and evil he felt in this place, far, far behind.

Night creatures called shrilly from the darkness.

Moonlight drew grotesque shadows from the trees.

Twigs cracked where no one walked.

The world that had enclosed him up to now with such loving care, had turned hostile.

At the dawn he found himself further west into the land of Klad than he had been the evening before, and no matter how fervently he wished it, he could make no progress towards the east.

It was a long time before he came upon a village that was inhabited.

He paused upon a neighbouring hill and watched it closely before he approached.

He longed for friendly human contact and a warm and comfortable place to sleep, but caution held him to his post and he lay still, marking all who came and went with close attention.

The village itself seemed unremarkable enough, a cluster of small homesteads of wood and turf, smoke from cooking fires rising steadily, the cattle and sheep driven to their separate enclosures of banked earth and thorn-brake by village lads. He saw girls drawing water from the stream and carrying it in leather bags and earthenware pots as in his own village. If he had not seen what he had seen, nor sensed the menace in the air, he might not have noticed that all he saw were moving sluggishly like a stream choked by weed in time of drought. Even the young girls carrying the water had no spring to their walk and instead of chattering and calling to the boys as girls in his own village used to do, they kept silent, with eyes down, and there was no whistling with the cattle drive or singing amongst the shepherd boys.

He moved closer, every sense alert. He noted heaviness of heart, slowness, inertia, lack of any kind of hope or will to live, but there seemed to be no immediate danger.

He looked at the sky and knew that heavy rain was very close.

He decided to trust the village and, light as a deer attuned to danger, he sprang down the hillside scarcely dislodging a pebble from its resting place.

He stopped at the edge of the village, facing an old man milking a cow.

As soon as the man became aware of Isar’s presence, he stiffened as though expecting some harm to come to him, not believing that there was any way to avert it. He stopped his milking and stood up, arms hanging limply at his sides, head bowed, waiting.

Isar stared at him.

It seemed that he, Isar, was the one to be feared.

He noticed that the man had an ugly sore at the centre of his forehead, but otherwise, apart from his weary docility, was not unlike a number of old men Isar had seen in his own community.

Isar waited for the customary greeting of host to traveller, but it was not forthcoming.

He was plainly expected to say the first words and, although it made him uncomfortable so to break with tradition, he felt obliged to do it.

‘I greet you, sir,’ he said gently, ‘and may the Spirit Helpers of the Lord Sun be with you, teach you their ways and keep you from harm.’

The age-old form of words that Isar had used so often as greeting that they had become commonplace to him, seemed to shatter the mood of waiting resignation in the man.

He looked up startled, his eyes instantly going to Isar’s forehead as though seeking something there, and being surprised that he did not find it.

The man was plainly confused, not knowing whether to return Isar’s greeting or to run for cover.

Isar slowly raised his hand in the salute to the Sun his mother had taught him before she had taught him to speak.

Fear in the man’s face began to give way to hope.

He opened his mouth, but no words would come.

Slowly, tentatively, he raised his own hand in answer, and then in terror looked around to see if it had been observed.

‘Do not fear me,’ Isar said. ‘I am a traveller. I know nothing of this land or what it is you fear. I seek only lodging for the night.’

Other villagers joined them, and stood behind the man, staring at Isar. His eyes went to their faces, seeking the one who was their Priest or Elder and who would speak for them without the fear the rest so plainly showed.