The Circle of Stone (Darkest Age) (26 page)

‘We haven’t,’ she said, and the sword thrummed more urgently in her hand. ‘He’s not dead. The dragon was only a part of him . . .’ Ioneth cried out suddenly in her head, and Elspeth reeled around to face the circle’s edge.

‘He’s here!’

Oh, well done.

It sounded in her head like a bell: the clear, beautiful, hateful voice. And Loki appeared, standing between two of the outer stones.

You always knew that I would come for you, didn’t you? For you . . . and for Ioneth.

Flames played around his head and behind his eyes, casting an orange hue on his swirling black cloak. Behind her, Edmund and her father were shouting, but she hardly heard them. Loki’s voice filled her head:
Come to me now
... She took a step towards him, and another.

She could hear Ioneth crying out; feel the tension in her arm. But the blade she held before her was pale now; hardly visible. Elspeth clenched her hand around what should be the hilt of the crystal sword, telling herself it was real. She had struck with it twice, unfelt and almost unseen, and it had wounded the fire dragon. Without giving herself time to think she darted forward, plunging the blade into the breast of the black cloak.

She felt no resistance; nothing at all. She pulled back for another blow – and found herself held, dragged forward towards the darkness. The cloak billowed out, filling her vision, and there was nothing behind it, nothing but emptiness, and the irresistible voice:

Come closer
.

‘Elspeth!’

Her father’s voice, harsh with terror and anger, broke the spell. Rough hands pulled her backwards. She sprawled on
the cindery ground, looking up in confusion: Edmund, his eyes wide with fear; her father and Cathbar each holding her firmly by a shoulder as if she might shake them off and run back to her destroyer. Even Eolande was on her feet, leaning on Cluaran’s arm and looking anxiously down at her.

‘He was pulling you outside the stones,’ the Fay woman said. ‘Drawing your mind to him . . . as he drew mine, once. But you’re stronger than I was. Fight him!’

Elspeth struggled to her feet. The tall figure of Loki still stood at the edge of the stones, flame-ringed. There was a mocking smile on his face, and he extended a hand and beckoned to her.

Yes: strike at me, Elspeth! Come, fight me!

She took a step forward, and stopped. ‘No,’ she said, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘I’ll not go to you again. Come inside the circle!’

Loki’s hand froze mid-gesture. The mocking smile widened, showing white teeth, and fire behind them.

‘Why not?’ he said, and this time his voice resounded through the stone circle, making the grey columns vibrate. ‘What have I to fear?’ He began to grow, the cloak whirling about him in a black mist shot with sparks.

Eolande laid a hand on Elspeth’s arm. ‘Are you ready?’ she murmured.

No!

It was Ioneth’s voice, clear and full of panic.
Don’t let him come closer
, she begged.
I can’t do it!

But we must
, Elspeth told her. The spiralling black cloud that was Loki had grown almost as tall as the stones now.
It’s time – the only time we’ll have
.

‘Don’t let her touch him!’

Cluaran was suddenly beside her, clutching at her hand. His voice was a breathless croak. ‘You can’t – please! You can see she’s too weak.’

It was Eolande who pulled him back. ‘She must,’ the Fay woman said. ‘They have to fight him now.’

‘He’ll swallow them both,’ Cluaran moaned, but he let his hand fall.

Now
. The word sang in Elspeth’s head, and she stepped forward. The raven whirlwind towered above her as she raised her glowing hand.

I need more strength
, Ioneth whispered – and her voice burst from Elspeth’s mouth. ‘Cluaran!’

Elspeth’s head whipped round. Cluaran was staring at her, his face rigid with shock. Elspeth looked at him in confusion. ‘She says...’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, of course.’ He turned to Eolande. ‘Mother – this is why I was brought here. Forgive me for leaving you.’

‘There’s nothing to forgive,’ Eolande said. She embraced him, murmuring words that Elspeth could not hear; then held him by the shoulders, gazing into his face. ‘Go to her, Cluaran,’ she said. ‘Go with my love.’

Elspeth had listened in growing dread. A vision filled her
head: a black-haired girl fading to nothing as the sword took her life, and the young man on his knees beside her, begging to take her place.

The face that Cluaran turned to her was suddenly that of a boy, transfigured with hope and fear. ‘What do I do?’ he asked her.

She opened her mouth, not knowing what to say, and the voice of Ioneth spoke through her.

‘Take my hand.’

His clasp was warm and dry, though shaking a little in hers, and the faint light of the sword lay along his arm, seeming to merge with the skin. It grew brighter as she watched, spreading like glowing mist. The wavering light wrapped around Cluaran, and she began to lose sight of him. His eyes widened, and she knew it was not her face that he saw.

My love
, Ioneth whispered inside her head.

The brilliance filled her eyes now. The hand clasping hers shuddered – and then she was gripping the hilt of a sword, solid and familiar as if she had held it all her life. A thrill of power shot up her arm, and the floating light merged into a single line of white fire.

The crystal sword had returned.

Elspeth began to shake. The blade in her right hand dazzled her, blazing as it had when it had first become a part of her, months ago. But Cluaran was gone – lost as though he had never been. Where he had stood before her there was
nothing but the blackened ground. For a moment, she was shot through with guilt and horror.

‘He’s not gone; not truly.’ Eolande was beside her. The Fay woman’s face was running with tears, but her voice was urgent. ‘You must use what he has given you. Quickly!’

A pillar of flame blazed between the stones, higher than the tallest of them, staining them with blood-red light. Trymman, Cathbar and Edmund darted around it, hurling rubble at it, retreating, then throwing again. The thing was man-shaped, Elspeth realised: a giant made of fire as the dragon had been, its feet burning the ground where it walked, its fingertips shooting flames. The hurled stones made ripples in its surface; each spot became pale and insubstantial for a moment, halting the giant’s progress before the flame filled it again. But it moved inexorably forward, towards Elspeth. It turned white-blazing eyes on her and opened a mouth as black and cavernous as the dragon’s jaws, spitting a torrent of fire.

Don’t be afraid
. Ioneth’s voice spoke in her head, clearer and stronger than Elspeth had ever heard it.
You wounded the dragon when I was no more than a light
.

She wasn’t afraid. The sword was firm in her hand, its strength pulsing through her. And the words she had heard were no longer from a single voice: there were two, intertwining like parts of a song, and both as familiar to her as her own thoughts. Then she was running forward, the sword blazing like lightning, to slash at the legs of the burning giant.

Flame poured around her, falling away harmlessly to each
side, and she knew that Eolande was shielding her for one last time. The giant screamed and buckled, shrinking in on itself. For a moment it dropped to its knees, toppling towards her blade. Then it was a whirlwind of flame, whipping back from her. Tendrils of thick black smoke snaked from it and wrapped around her, reaching for her throat.

Strike again!
cried the voices together, and she brought the sword up in a sweeping stroke, severing the smoke-tendrils as if they were flesh. There was another shriek – and now a cloud swirled around her, impenetrably black, save for the brilliance of the sword in her hand. She carved a path through it – and came face-to-face with one of the stones.

Elspeth backed away, disoriented. The great slab towered above her, and she put out a hand to steady herself against its rough surface.

‘Don’t touch him!’ shouted Eolande.

The face of the stone rippled. Elspeth brought the sword round to hack at it, and the whole column wavered before her and vanished. In its place was a small human figure: Edmund, his hands raised to fend her off and his eyes wide with terror.

‘Help me!’ Elspeth muttered, and closed her eyes as she struck. When she opened them there was nothing but mist in his place.

He’s weakening!
the joined voices urged her.
Drive him against the stones!

But she could not. The sword blazed in her hand, the only solid thing as the world changed around her. The mist became
a forest, its trees burning as she struck at them; a tidal wave, crashing down on her head; then a crowd of people with Edmund’s face; her father’s; her own . . . Elspeth could only stand her ground, keeping the sword steady as Cluaran and Ioneth guided her hand. Sometimes she thought she had hit him; more often her enemy simply faded to nothingness as she slashed or stabbed, and reappeared to taunt her in a new form. She heard her friends around her, crying out warning or encouragement, and she could not tell if it was their voices she heard or Loki’s.

Then there was a piercing cry from Eolande, abruptly cut off. The things around Elspeth were shaped like wolves now, with lolling tongues of flame, ringing her ever more closely as she spun and hacked at them – but at the cry, they vanished. She was back in the stone circle, and Loki was facing her, man-sized and alone.

He smiled widely, but not at Elspeth.

‘Ah, Eolande,’ he breathed. ‘I’ve worn through your charms again. You see, it does no good to turn on me.’

He turned back to Elspeth, his fiery mouth gaping wider. He stretched out his arms towards her, and from each hand a sword grew, blazing red. Elspeth could feel the heat on her face as he advanced, and hear Eolande weeping behind her.

‘And now, little one,’ Loki said to her, ‘we’ll fight.’

Edmund could bear it no longer. He had stayed at the edge of the fray with the others while Elspeth battled the
shape-changer, standing close to Eolande while she kept up her charm of protection, and throwing the shattered stones where he could, for the small help they might give. Loki’s shapes, all of them, kept away from the stones of the circle: when one of them brushed a slab, its outline flickered, became less solid. The flung stones had the same effect, but it was little enough, Edmund thought, against a power that could withstand the crystal sword.

And then Eolande screamed in pain, and the illusions vanished. For a moment Edmund thought his friend must have struck a killing blow – but Loki was on his feet, laughing, and Eolande crumpled to the ground.

‘I can’t protect her!’ she sobbed. ‘I can’t . . . But the flames must not touch her!’

Loki held two flaming swords, brandishing them in the air as he walked towards Elspeth. She stood awaiting his approach, apparently calm, and Edmund could see that she was watching for her chance to strike. He clutched the stone tighter in his hand: if she should miss . . .

‘No,’ Loki breathed, and flung his arms in the air. Flame burst from the sword-tips and spread to both sides of him, forming a ring of fire around Elspeth. And supporting the ring, as the uprights held the hanging stones, were other Lokis; a dozen of them, all laughing with cave-like mouths, all advancing on Elspeth. A dozen silver chains winked red in the fiery light.

‘Come, Elspeth.’ The bell-like voice was ugly with savagery,
coming from a dozen throats at once. ‘What use is your sword now?’

And all at once Edmund knew what he must do.

He ducked between two of the fiery figures, ignoring shouts from Cathbar and Cluaran, and ran to stand by Elspeth. ‘I won’t distract you,’ he said, as she turned an astonished face to him. ‘Keep the sword up – pay me no heed. But if I point to one of them, strike him.’

Before Elspeth could protest, he closed his eyes, trying not to flinch as he sent his sight sweeping around the fiery circle.

The overpowering rage took hold of him, but he rode it like a shipwrecked man in the storm-waves, keeping his head above the current, forcing himself to look through one burning gaze, then the next...

They were advancing on Elspeth, their swords merging into a forest of flame, laughing as she turned from one glowing form to the next. He could feel their heat on his body, singeing his clothes and hair as he dragged himself to the next one in the circle.

It threw him off his feet. Blindly, holding on to the fiery vision so it could not escape, he reached up and grabbed Elspeth’s hand.

‘There!’ he gasped. ‘That one!’

His whole body shook as Loki felt him and tried to throw him off, but he clung on with all his force. She would only have this one chance. There was nothing in the world but fire and rage . . . and a tiny dark figure, a sliver of brilliant light
in its hand, darting straight between the flaming arms. Too late, he felt the monster thrashing out, flailing at himself with his own fires, as the crystal sword pierced his heart. There was a whiteness too bright to see as the world exploded. Then the light winked out like a candle-flame, and Edmund’s sight with it.

It was four days later, and already the world was different.

The road east had been almost deserted as they took up their journey, but they saw no armed men, and by the second day carters and pedlars were venturing out again. Near Venta Bulgarum they had met with travellers who swore that the invading Danes were routed, driven off by the king’s men. As Elspeth shook out her bed-roll in the peace of a summer morning, she wondered if Loki and all his works would soon be entirely forgotten.

No
, she thought, watching Edmund as he sat with his face raised to the sunrise he could not see.
Not by everyone
.

She still could not understand how he could be so calm, how he could accept the loss of his sight without complaint or anger. She had begged Eolande to restore her friend’s eyes as she and her sister had cured her hand, and when the Fay woman told her sadly that it was beyond her skill, Elspeth had nearly wept with frustration. But Edmund had shown no sign of distress.