Free A Princess of the Chameln by Cherry Wilder Page B

her saddlebag and found the bronze sword of the Firn. She did not buckle it on, but carried the glittering scabbard as she approached the stone. It seemed to be a long way off; she missed the shield of the trees.
    The dolmen was of grey-white stone, twenty feet tall and subtly shaped. It had grown into the earth. Colonies of lichen, yellow, brown and white, patterned its surface. It had the grace of a veiled woman brooding on the lonely hilltop. Large, angry marks defaced the stone; there was a rune om and a rune thorn and there were runes she did not know. She thought this must be a strange speech with even the runes om and thorn having a different sound. The writing was done in a gritty brownish black paint or ink; she guessed it was a mixture of charcoal and blood.
    â€œO Stone, O Goddess in the stone,” she said, “I pray for deliverance, I pray that we may pass a safe night. I pray that rain will come to wash away the runes and purify this place. Grant my prayers in the name of the house of the Firn!”
    She drew the sword and held it upright so that the runes on the blade were near the stone. Then, as she lowered the sword, she felt another person standing at her elbow and jumped, nervous as a shrewmouse. There was no one beside her. She walked to her right, sunwise, round the stone and came to an old tent frame and the ashes of a fire.
    The evening wind was cool, here on the hilltop, but now she felt a thick, icy cold seeping up out of the ground. Among the ashes were bones and the blackened round of a small skull. A dead bird hung from a thread on the tent frame. She had come to a place where everything was crooked, where time and the natural world slid and shifted. Just out of earshot there were gusts of sound: shrieking, howling, cold voices, the hiss of arrows in flight and the beating of dark wings.
    She turned, she was turned towards the stone, and it was black and shining, like a mirror of basalt. A man stood in the depths of the stone, half-turned towards her. He was pale faced, with flowing dark red hair, and his loose robe was blue, a midnight color, with snakes and vines writhing upon its hem. His arms were upraised; he turned slowly as if to make a circle, and in her mind a voice said: “Sheath the sword. He will know you.”
    Aidris gathered all her strength of will and sheathed the sword. Then she felt a stab of pain in her chest, a small bolt of lightning, and before the man in the stone had turned towards her, she fell backwards. She came out of the power of the stone and lay sprawling on the cold grass of the hilltop. The stone was grey and lichen-covered again, with an old campsite at its base. Yet she knew the stone for what it was: a watch post where that sorcerer looked out upon the world.
    She felt the scrying stone, her own jewel, swinging cool against her skin; it had stabbed her with pain and driven her out of the circle of the sorcerer’s power. She drew it out now, but it was without light; a few sparkles around its frame were all that remained. She scrambled up and ran back to the others.
    â€œWhat is it?” cried Sabeth. “You look so pale. The witches have stolen your soul away!”
    â€œNot yet,” said Aidris. “You were right, Master Loeke, the standing stone is bewitched.”
    Ric Loeke cursed under his breath.
    â€œShall we go further?” he asked.
    Aidris stared at the distant stone.
    â€œNo,” she said. “We might as well stay here, in the lee of the stone.”
    They sat down, bone weary, and ate cold food. There was a spring across the clearing, but they watered the horses from their own water-skin. It was not a night for singing; Loeke stayed on watch, red-eyed, drinking his brandy.
    â€œYou’re a brave lass,” he said to Aidris.
    She lay down to sleep in her tent and was glad when the moon, the great avatar of the Goddess, rose full and white over the hilltop. They broke camp early, just before dawn, and rode