Stone Rising (11 page)

Most of those she’d aided had been grateful for her attentions, swearing themselves to secrecy in gratitude. Others, not so much. Whether they truly had believed that the shaman’s powers were of the devil himself, or merely feared the justice of l’eglise, should they hear of their miraculous recoveries, some had fled, eyes wide with terror as soon as legs had become straight, as soon as fits of bloodied coughing had subsided.

That was how word had got out. That was why they were on the run.

Always, in her darkest moments, that fear of hellfire drummed into her at an early age had come back to haunt her. Consorting with sorcerers and witches. Party to magic of a most foul and deviant kind. She should run. Flee, away in the night. Perhaps if she found the Malleus herself, confessed her sins, led them to the fleeing outlanders, they might spare
her.Might grant her redemption in the eyes of a lord she wasn’t even sure she believed in. This is what any of her friends would tell her to do. What her family would have expected and hoped for her to do.

And yet, when she looked upon Gwenna and her troupe, she could not see the evil of which l’eglise had spoken and warned. She could only see good people, spreading good deeds and attempting to stay alive in a foreign land. Yes, the means by which they did these deeds were different. But different should not always mean bad.

Virginie knew this.

And it went beyond that. This new magic, or ‘spirit-craft’ as Gwenna had called it, fascinated the young Frenchwoman. The very idea that the world thronged with invisible creatures that sought only to exist in harmony with mankind, willing to lend their powers for the mere promise of co-operation. Such a different prospect to the distant and unknowable God of her childhood. Here, if Gwenna were to be believed, was a different way of living; spirits that could be seen and communed with, here and now, not needing to wait until you had passed from this world with only the zealous promises of the fat and frothing bon-frères to trust in.

How these two sides warred within the girl; the God-fearing youth and the inquisitive woman. Her soul teetered on a knife-edge and she knew not which way it would fall.

Yet she knew which way she wanted it to.

The creak of a door-handle in the dark of the room behind her caused her to start and she turned, eyes straining in the faint silver of the moonlight, before a smile of recognition lit up her face.

“Oh… it’s you. I’d hoped you’d come.”

*** 

Pol laughed again, almost falling off the barstool in his mirth at this latest crack from the Englishman.

              “Careful, mate,” came the admonishment he’d come to expect from Arris. “Think you need to ease back a tad on the ale, haha!”

             
Pol smiled, brushing off the warning with a wave of his hand as the outlander continued his conversation with James. Pol was determined to enjoy this night, to make the most of the chance to let his hair down and relax. How often did they have the chance to enjoy a drink in a safe and secure place such as this? How many times had they been afforded the opportunity to lower their guard, even for a night? Here in this land where persecution ran rife and fear of the witch was ever present, it was a rare chance to steal a moment’s mirth or an evening of drink.

             
It didn’t help that he was a youth of extremes. His humours ran from one end of the spectrum to  the other; his highs, high and his lows, low. This journey had taken its toll on him. How he envied Arris; the young man seemed to have a balance to him, an ability to cope with the troubles thrown at them without letting it darken his mood.

             
How Pol wished he could be like that, let things slide from him like water from a duck’s back. But that was not his nature; things stuck to him, niggled him. Wore away at his patience. Small things; the incessant drag of the journey south; the sneaking from hovel to dark, secluded hovel, hiding from the enemies they knew were chasing them.

             
But other things, too; deeper things, more personal.

             
He screwed his eyes shut for a moment, trying to stem the tide of visions, red hair and brilliant green eyes that bored through his soul, but the drink had loosened his grip, causing his mind, his desires and frustrations to betray him in a flurry of unbidden images.

             
Torture. That had been the word for this journey. How long had they been close, the two, the hothead youth and flame-haired girl? Throughout their childhood, the pair had been the top of their classes, the most naturally gifted in the shamanic arts. Both of them had matured faster than their peers. So alike, yet so different; her, sweet natured, yet with a serious streak when she needed it. He, stern, grim, yet with a playful side that could be teased loose by her merest smile. How many times had he dreamt, during his youth, of the two being together? Imagining in his deepest slumber the fantasies he daren’t act out in the waking world.

             
Yet it was those very same dreams that had caused that which he so desired to elude him. After one particularly lucid night, he’d awoken to find her standoffish, pale, unwilling to come near. Only when she’d confessed to her dream-walking had he realised that he had been betrayed by his own slumbering mind.

             
Yet over time, the years that followed, he’d found his way back into her good graces. Slowly, but surely, charming his way into her circle, gaining back her trust. Then, just as he’d thought himself in position to attempt to strike up a relationship,
he’d
arrived.

             
Marlyn. Perhaps in different circumstances they could have been friends. The young lad was certainly likeable enough, in a rural, country-bumpkin way. Too likeable, he thought, with a hint of envy, remembering the time the youth had spent with Gwenna after the Tuladors’ escape from the clutches of Bavard and Memphias.

             
Yet even now, even with the young knight out of the picture, transported along with the rest of his comrades to who-knows where or when, Pol couldn’t quite find the courage to approach Gwenna. Something seemed…
different
about her, since the victory at the top of the Beacon. She wasn’t a different person, no. But she seemed more ‘mature.’ Wiser, bolder, moving with more conviction. Every now and then he heard something in her words, a glint in her eyes that reminded him of their fallen master, Wrynn.

             
It was disconcerting, had taken him aback, yet it detracted not from her loveliness, or her appeal. Perhaps it was this potent English beer, or maybe he was just ready to snap, had taken enough and was willing to brook no more, but Pol resolved that he was going to make his move, come what may.

             
Only minutes ago he had watched as she had finished her wine, red-hair glinting in the golden light of the hearth, leaving behind her the sweet and subtle aroma of wild flowers as she had strode from the room.

             
He downed the last dregs of his pint, wiping the flecks from his stubbled chin as he nodded to his friends.

             
“Excuse me, gents. It’s been a pleasure. But methinks it’s time for me to retire for the night.”

***

Gwenna’s heart raced, but she fought it down, maintaining her composure. She had never done this before and wanted to do it properly; here, now, in this land where her connection to the spirits was weak at best, the process was harder than it should be. She closed her eyes, concentrated, feeling the warmth as she opened her shaman-senses to the elements.

             
Perhaps she shouldn’t be doing this at all. But was that Wrynn’s wisdom, or merely her own trepidation, she wondered? She had known the girl for mere weeks, barely more than a stranger. Yet she knew, deep down, that that wasn’t fair. They had been through much together; the flight from the North, through strange lands, this young woman’s knowledge of the people their only guide. Without her bravery and confidence in them, chances are they probably wouldn’t even have made it this far.

             
Besides, Virginie had a spark of something different within her; an enthusiasm, a craving for life, even a hint of rebellion, which mixed with her seeming innocence made for a heady combination. After the weariness and solemnity of her troupe since their appearance in this land, Gwenna found it refreshing, exotic. Dare she say it, enticing.

             
There, her link to the elements was clear; though she had long since lost most of her ability to call upon those spirits, to summon their aid, ask them to lend her their powers, this didn’t diminish her sight. They were there, all about them, subtle, almost invisible, close, within the room, further afield, in the rest of the inn, the village, even further within the darkness of the forest. She could feel the slow and stern spirits of the stones within which the troupe slumbered; the cackling and hungry spirits of fire within the hearth; the playful, capricious spirits of air that tittered and flew twixt the trees outside. An invisible world within a world, a bubble within a drop of water. Yet which world was the bubble, which the droplet? That of the spirits, or that of mortal man?

A sight, a knowledge that few amongst mankind would ever see, ever know. A knowledge that only the hungry would ever attain. Should those with the sight be willing to share.

              Gwenna was willing.

             
With that thought, she willed her essence down into her limbs, feeling the tingling passing through her arms towards the soft, cool hands that gently clasped her own, to where Virginie sat cross-legged before her on the bed, her own eyes closed, breath shallow, halting in nervous anticipation. The shaman’s energy flowed down, through her fingertips till it reached the girl’s skin, then stopped, resisted by infinitesimal force, a soap bubble brushing against gossamer fabric, the bubble not bursting, the gossamer not yielding, both in delicate balance.

             
“Open yourself,” the red-haired woman breathed, her voice quiet, soft in the darkness of the room, lit only by the pale light of the moon. “Have no fear, it is only I that you feel.”

             
A moment of pregnant pause, then the resistance faded as if t’were never there, Gwenna’s energy, her essence, leaping the boundary twixt flesh and flesh, skin and skin, nerve and nerve. A shock, a jolt, subtle, delicate, as connection was made, and both girls gave an involuntary shudder at the meeting of spirits, the joining of two nervous systems as one. There was no pressure on Gwenna’s part, no rush, no insistence, no forcing of her will upon the girl’s. There was only release, letting her essence slowly, naturally merge with that of Virginie’s, like paint slowly swirling and mixing with water in a jar, the two spinning, gracefully yet warily, feeling each other out before coming together as a whole that was not entirely one and not entirely the other.

             
The shaman opened her eyes and saw Virginie with her shaman-sight for the first time. The young woman was staring about, delicate lips slightly open in a wonder as her wide eyes scanned the room, taking in for the first time the sight of the spirits of stone that slumbered within the walls, further beyond her borrowed sight flaying the walls and reaching into the hearth of the bar area downstairs to see the hunger of the fire, further still, the sprites of air that flitted on damsel wings and trails of silver in the sky beyond.

             
Gwenna watched, her own heart pounding in empathic harmony with the girl’s. Had it been so for her, she wondered, her first time seeing into the world of spirits? Had she herself felt that awe, that wonder? And when, she thought, with a hint of melancholy, had she lost it? When had the power of the spirits become nothing more than a means to an end? Was this what war had doomed them to, to no longer enjoy life, but to see everything as nothing more than a tool to aid the fight? How she envied and admired the French girl’s naivety and innocence. How she wished she could recapture that. Part of her knew that that could never be. But another, stronger part of her rejoiced in seeing it within the girl before her, old feelings being given new life, new purpose simply by sharing this experience, by starting this girl on the journey.

             
Was this why Master Wrynn had been so great a teacher? Had his own sense of wonder, of joy been refreshed each time he had helped guide another new student along the path of spirit-craft? The wisdom within her suggested that this was so.

             
Virginie turned her head, brown eyes glazed with awe but then focusing, locking onto Gwenna’s own green orbs, the connection between the two deepening as they looked into each other; the sense of openness, oneness, the curious mixture of intimacy and vulnerability causing them both to shiver.

             
Can you hear my thoughts?
thought Virginie, the voice in her mind a reflection of her physical words.

             
Yes
, replied Gwenna in her mind, a smile upon her lips.
And you can hear mine.

             
How is this possible?