Stone Rising (5 page)

             
“Virginie? Virginie duSoleil?”

             
Merde.

             
She turned, slowly, recognising that voice from her youth. The cruel smile. That swaggering gait. The black robes of the clergy…?

             
“François?”

             
The robed man stood for a moment, a few feet from her, gazing dumbfounded, before shaking his head and stuttering a reply.

             
“Bon-Frere. It’s Bon-Frere François now.” He beamed, though his eyes remained suspicious. “It’s been a long time, Virginie. What brings you down here?”

             
“I’m on a pilgrimage with some friends. We’re making our way to Lourdes.”

             
The young monk frowned, a half-smile of puzzlement twitching his face.

             
“Lourdes? Is this the same Virginie I remember from our home village? I remember you as a girl who had no time for our Lord…”

             
She shrugged.

             
“Times change.”

             
“So it seems…” François looked thoughtful. “Are you going to introduce me to your friends?”

             
She started, then remembered Pol and Arris behind.

             
“Of course… this is Pol and Arris. They’re on the pilgrimage with me.”

             
The monk extended a hand.

             
“Interesting names.”

             
Pol grasped it in his, shaking firmly.

             
“We’re from the north.”

             
A nod, then the Frenchman turned back to Virginie.

             
“Seeing as you’re here, how about you and your friends join me for dejeuner?” He smiled, hopefully. “We could catch up on old times.”

             
Virginie paused, momentarily, then shook her head.

             
“Désolé, François. We’re leaving shortly. We don’t have time.”

             
He nodded in understanding, but his face was downcast and Virginie shuddered with the memories of when she’d last seen that expression. Time, it seemed, was not as great a healer as people often made out.

             
“It was nice to see you, Bon-Frere. Au revoir.”

             
Pol and Arris ran to catch up with the girl as she strode away from the stall. Pol drew alongside, a quizzical eyebrow raised.

             
“He was one of them? One of L’Eglise?”

             
She nodded.

             
“Oui.”

             
“And you were what? Lovers?”

             
She glanced at him, stunned by his bluntness. Though she had to admit, he was perceptive. Another trait she didn’t like about him.

             
“Not quite. There were more feelings on his part than on mine.”

             
Arris nodded as he strode along behind.

             
“That would explain what drove him into the service of his god.”

             
Pol glanced over his shoulder as they left the market place, spying the monk standing where they’d left him, staring after them, his expression cast into sudden shadow as he raised his cowl and turned away.

***

The birds sang, their melodious calls filling the fresh air now the sun had risen high. Either side of the winding path, the trees grew tall, green, bustling with life and colour. But no time to appreciate the beauty of this land.

             
They were nearly there.

             
Lourdes, their meal-ticket these last weeks, lay to the West, miles distant and receding all the time. For south was their goal. Each step bringing them nearer to the safety of the mountains. Each step taking them further from those that wanted them dead.

             
“Can you see them now?”

             
Gwenna glanced sidelong to the French girl that walked beside her.

             
“Hmm?”

             
“Les ésprits? The spirits you call upon to work your magic. Can you see them now, all about us?”

             
The shaman gazed about the forest on either side of the path, searching as much with her mind and soul as with her green eyes. Shapes flitted to and fro between the trees. Blurs, suggestions of elfin figures and faint laughter like the tinkling of bells. But where once the Sylphii would have merrily flown near and alighted on her shoulders, Gwenna could only watch from a distance as the spirits circled, wary and nervous.

The feeling of separation was acute; Gwenna, unlike the rest of her troupe, had undertaken the Journey, years before, proving herself before the Avatars themselves, those living embodiments of the elements and primordial source of all spirits. Ever since, the spirits had regarded her as a friend, an ally; their willingness to aid her rendering her powerful above and beyond her peers. But here, the spirits didn’t want to know, shied away. Were these sprites even the same breed as those of home? Who could tell how far they’d travelled upon passing through the Beacon Portal? Perhaps this new world had new Avatars to govern its elements. Perhaps a fresh Journey had to be undertaken.

But no; Gwenna had an inkling. These were the same spirits. The same Avatars that governed the laws of physics. It was
they
, the Shamans, that had changed. They were not where they should be. They had upset the flow of time. And whatever bond she had made with the elements was null and void until the damage was repaired.

“Yes,” she murmured, sadly. “I can see them. This land is fertile, strong. The spirits like it here.”

Virginie nodded, eyes full of wonder.

“What are they like? The men of L’eglise say that all spirits are malicious; leading us to damnation, craving our worship and calling us away from the one, true religion.”

Gentle laughter from those men and women that followed close behind, and Gwenna smiled, shaking her head. The things that men dreamed up to keep control of others.

“No. The spirits don’t crave worship. And why would they? The spirits of the elements have been here since the birth of the world. To them, we are but a flash of life; one bolt of lightning in the midst of the great storm of existence. Here one instant, gone the next.” She smiled, feeling the wisdom of Wrynn providing her the means to explain concepts far beyond her teaching. “Would you demand worship from a rabbit? Adoration from the chickens in your yard?”

The native girl laughed, her voice gentle, but her curiosity yet to be sated.

“But then what is their raison d’être?”

“Such is human nature,” smiled Gwenna, “to seek a reason for everything. Some things just are; there is no reason, no grand plan.” A ‘kree’ from high above, a red kite circling in search of prey. Gwenna raised her hand, pointing it out to Virginie. “See that bird? It hunts, it breeds, and, in time, it will die. There is no greater purpose for it. It is merely part of the physical world. And, just as that bird, that tree, you, me, are all part of the physical world, so the spirits are manifestations of the spiritual world. They exist in a different plane, invisible to most, but no less natural. And with no greater purpose.”

Comprehension dawned in Virginie’s hazel eyes.

“Oui. I understand, I think. But why do the spirits work with you? Why do they lend you power, if they get nothing in return? If they have no hidden agenda?”

Such curiosity, such keen eagerness to learn. A lot of the shamans behind her could do with that fire again, thought Gwenna. It was so easy to simply see the spirits as a means to an end; tools, rather than companions. Lose sight of that and you lose part of what it is to be a shaman. Words leapt unbidden to her mind.

Blunt instruments.

“But they
do
get something in return,” she continued to explain. “Stewardship.”

The French girl looked thoughtful, casting her mind back to the shaman’s words of before, of how the spirits flourished in the fertile land.

“So… if we look after the land, then the spirits look after us?”

Gwenna stopped for an instant, beaming. She had never heard it explained so clearly by a novice.

“Exactly. It’s not a master-slave relationship. It’s companionship. We’re all in this world together; man, beast and spirit.”

They continued to walk, relishing the warm air, the quiet of the forest, the low buzz of the bees and the whistles of birdsong.

“Une derniére question, before I wear out your patience.”

“Go on.”

Virginie looked sombre as she spoke, her mind thinking back to the lessons of childhood.

“If the world can be so idyllic, if we can all live together, man, beast and spirit, in harmony… then why are such things suppressed? Why are we told that we are damned if we parlay with the spirits of the world?”

A pause, the words hanging heavy in the air, but when the silence was broken it was not Gwenna, but Pol who spoke from behind them, his face dark, his tone low.

“Because, above all else, men crave power. They strive to have more than their fellow man. Make the whole world content, with food enough to go round and still, somewhere, somehow, one man will decide to steal from his neighbour.”

The native girl shook her head, but she knew with grim certainty the truth in his words. Gwenna echoed her thoughts.

“Fear keeps people in power, Virginie. And keeps the masses in line.”

“If only the whole world knew the truth,” the girl whispered. “If they could only see that there is nothing to fear; no lakes of burning fire; no demons in the darkness.”

Another ‘kree’ and the red kite darted from the sky to ambush its unwary lunch, Virginie gazing up to watch its stoop.

She didn’t see the darting look that passed between Gwenna and Pol at her words.

***

No effort to keep track of them from his vantage point atop the hill. Even now, the orange sky aglow with the fires of the setting sun, their torches could be seen, flickering in the distance as they wound their way through the foothills. They moved slowly, wearily; the journey had taken a toll on them. But no matter.

             
Their travels would soon be at an end.

             
The black steed beneath him stamped its feet, as though impatient in itself, as though anxious to be getting on with the work of their masters. He reached down, stroked its flank as he spoke in hushed, comforting tones.

             
“Soon, old friend. Soon.”

             
He reached within his black robes, pulling out the parchment that had been delivered only a week before. He read it again, lips moving in tune to the Latin scrawled thereon, before nodding to himself. The red-haired witch and her coven of associates, wanted for blasphemy and consorting with the devil. Accused of healing the sick by the power of spirits.

             
Yes, God had seen fit to place him in the right place at the right time. He replaced the parchment within his robes, his hand brushing against the silver crucifix that hung about his neck and, next to it, the silver hammer of his order, before withdrawing a small piece of blank parchment and a quill. He scribbled instructions in Latin shorthand, before reaching behind him to the small cage on the pack behind the saddle.

             
The pigeon cooed softly as he attached the note to its leg, though it didn’t struggle, well used to its task by now. Cupping the creature softly in both hands, he gently released it to soar heavenwards in a frenzied flap of wingbeats.

             
“Go, my little friend. God speed.” He looked down from its ascent, eyes staring out from within the shadow of his cowl as he regarded the distant flickers of torchlight in the steadily encroaching dusk. “I have my own tasks to see through before this night is done…”

Chapter Three:

In waves, they came. Throwing themselves through the smoke and haze, hurling themselves forwards as they came at the defences. Reckless. Relentless. No thought for their own safety. No thought for tactics, no use of cover. The air filled with the gibbering screams of the insane. Blood-flecked spittle and maddened oaths.

             
The smell of decaying human flesh.

             
The streets, fenced on either side by rearing buildings of grey stone, rusting metal, shattered glass, acted as funnels, channelling the damned into the path of fire. The mass of rushing bodies, hundreds strong, charged on, heedless of the broken window-panes beneath their feet that tore through tattered footwear and shredded flesh. Charged on, towards the rusting, twisted pile of wrecked vehicles that barred their path.