Free Boneland by Alan Garner Page A

told and done he set the hammers down and fetched the Motherbone. He laid it by them and sat through the night, and he and all were singing in one dream.
    At dawn he drank and fed and shat. He breathed in and a little out and breathed and breathed again. He felt the spirits wake. He took the hammer that was white and black and with it tapped the bone. He took the yellow and grey. He tapped. The one knew the way to the blades, and the other how to free them.
    His palm held, his fingers told, his eye grew strong, his hand lifted, the spirits came, and all cried down upon the bone. It sang hurt and joy. It sang birth and making.
    The hand lifted and bore again. Hammer and hand and eye and bone spoke, and the maker spirits in the walls answered and shaped their spirit blades of spirit bone. He was of them and they of him and Ludcruck rang.
    On through the day he hit, and the blades rose towards him from the marrow. He rested, drank, and hit again. But though his eye was strong, his hand began to lose its thought. His fingers slurred. The voice of the bone was dulled, the hammer deaf; the spirits paused and watched. He lifted, havered, struck. The bone shattered and the blades were gone.
    Pain sat all in him. His eye told his hand, but his hand did not hear. He went to the lodge, and it was cold.
    He woke and felt to know that he was dead. His groin was warm. He touched his eyes. It was day. He rolled onto his knees, pushed and stood against the pain, holding the pole of the lodge. He went out to Ludcruck.
    The hammers glinted, but the shards of the Mother lay spent. He gathered them and searched their veins. He saw that they were old and he had chosen wrong. Brown lines of blood that could not live again ran deep. His eye had not heard. The world was lost through him.
    He turned the last piece. It was no bigger than two hands. The brown ran through all the weight that he had brought; but ended here. In this one fist there was no flaw. He took the white and black, and tapped. The bone answered, and it was another song, deep where he could not see. He took the yellow and grey. He tapped. He took the white and black again and worked down into the bone. He stopped and tapped with yellow and grey.
    He went on, unfettering the rock. Something lay within. It was close, though he could not see. He came upon it as he would a hare. Tak. Tak. Tak. Tak. Tak.
    At his most gentle touch the bone split and stole the dawn. He covered his face and looked between his fingers. In the last hope of the Mother lay a rod of light. Its ridges were crests of blades worked by other hands, hands from the Beginning, waiting in the bone. He lifted it. The Mother had given. The spirits laughed.
    He took the blades and trimmed their crests, strengthened their edges with pressing and soft blows. He went down into Ludcruck, his mind hard against pain, past the nooks of the dead, along the seam of grit, by the clamour of beasts, down the cliff to the great cave and the Stone above the shining waters. He sat by the Stone, moving his thought, and then he danced until the moon lifted in him, brought pictures to his tongue and shone across the wall to the gap. He followed, twisting at the crack. The waters were near. He stretched. He touched the nipple in the rock.
    He shifted back and raised his lamp. The swelling of the veil was more than he could pass as the woman pushed, but there was a groove beneath. He lay flat and crawled under the belly, though he could scarcely go. His arm, head and shoulder led him through, and the lamp showed the space beyond.
    He stood, and looked back. Now he saw the breast. From here he could cut the veil. He set the lamp where it would light the work, and he took a blade and put it to the rock where the nipple thrust. And then he cut, guiding his hand with song.
    He carved the breast, and when it was clear he followed the throat to open the mouth so that the woman could breathe. He marked the eyes so that they might see the way, and