Veneficus: Stones of the Chosen (9 page)

“Could it be that those who fight do understand, but their need drives them onward?” asked Twilight.

“Then they do not understand.”

“Did King Arthur understand?”

“No, and, paradoxically, neither did I.”

“You were, perhaps, dazzled by Arthur’s brilliance?”

“Blinded by it. All my many years of training in prophecy and the enchantments completely deserted me when I most needed to draw on them.”

“So, as well as not being indestructible ,we can make mistakes, too?”

“Disappointing, isn’t it?” The long magus smiled sadly at the boy. “The only thing to be said in our favor is that such defects enable us to better understand the rest of humankind, but I fear it is a weak argument, especially when taken against all the advantages that we have. By now the natural evolvement of nine thousand eight hundred years of venefici should have eradicated all such imperfections, but it hasn’t, and probably never will.”

“Who names the stones?” Twilight caressed the cool rock of the Elder Pendragon’s Summit stone.

“The outgoing veneficus names his own stone, usually after a great edifice or grand design of nature in order to show our oneness with the earth’s natural structures.”

The long magus paced out thirty steps away from the Summit.

“You will place my stone here. It will be called Obelisk and will be the ninety-ninth stone in this mighty ring.”

Twilight ran an equal distance away. “And the one hundredth stone will be placed here. It will be mine, and I will begin to think of a suitable name for it. Who will place it, I wonder?”

Merlin chuckled. “You have many tens of years before you need to think about a successor, little skirmisher. I will teach you how to recognize him or her in good time.”

Twilight pointed to the many smaller stones dotted around the big named stones.

“What are those?”

“Those are the burial stones of ligamen and other brave souls. Loyal humans and animals that gave their life in a heroic way in support of the ruling veneficus and liege-lord in whose shadow they now rest. If you look three paces to the right of where your stone will stand, you will already see that you have one small stone in place.”

“Is this the resting place of the old cob that carried my father and me through the forest to your compound?”

“Indeed it is. I said the beast’s sacrifice would be commemorated. This is how it is done.”

“There are many, many small stones around the spot where your Obelisk will stand. They are your Merlin falcons?”

“Some,” said the long magus softly. “But many are not.”

Twilight took a long look around the circular avenue of large stones.

“Every single burial stone has smaller stones surrounding it. It is a dangerous business to make friends with the likes of us.”

“One more thing you should know,” said Merlin. “If any of these stones are defaced in any way or moved, they will dissolve into their own weight in blood, which will gather in a pool where the stone stands. That blood will never evaporate or lose its deep crimson color. It will remain as a permanent reminder to the world of the desecration of a venefical monument.” He paused to let that sink in before dropping his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Come, let us stroll around the great circle and I will name all the stones and tell you something of the mighty feats and echoing legends of the venefici beneath them before we resume our journey to Stonehenge.”

Later they walked the undulating Ridgeway track that ran over the crown of the Wessex chalk downs. Behind them the dark mass that was the mighty Savernake, brooding and secretive, gradually receded into the clear blue haze. Their journey took them close to hill shepherds sitting amid their grazing flocks, cursing swineherds, and a small group of open flint-miners on their way home. As they passed they were greeted with downcast eyes and much sign making. An approach was only ever made to the long magus if an insurmountable problem, usually involving demonic forces of unmentionable evil, had taken hold of a man or his family. There was, however, a great deal of surreptitious interest in the short magus by his

side. There had been rumors that the mighty sorcerer was nearing the end of his reign
-
was this boy to be his replacement?

A floppy-eared brown hare, disturbed by their progress, broke from its resting place and ran a safe distance from them before warily settling down again. Merlin led Twilight to the spot where it had rested and got down on his knees.

“There are many ways of understanding and influencing what is going on around us. You will remember from your own journey to my compound that I had placed conspicuous apparitions along the way to guide you. Here is another way that can serve well as a warning system. See here.” He placed the flat palm of his hand in the depression where the hare had rested. “Providing the spot is still warm, as this is, all the sights and wise reflections experienced by the animal that sat there can also be accessed by you through your hand.”

Merlin took Twilight’s small hand and pressed it into the warm, flattened grass of the depression. Immediately a fast-moving landscape unrolled before his eyes, a constantly turning view that continuously checked for predators, understood the messages carried on the eddying winds, read all the movements, and heard minute sounds in the waving grass. The clouds rolled by quickly, and the air was strong and full of different aromas; one moment pungent with swine as a herder took his flock across the horizon, the next thick with the perfume of flowers. There was a sudden movement in the taller grass around a distant copse that brought instant, undivided attention and magnification. A small deer, surrounded by three full-grown wolves, was hauled to the ground. Around the periphery another hare, softer, feminine perhaps, danced a crazy back-footed jig and pawed the air. Alertness and speed, always speed. The strength and confidence of knowing that anything ground-based could be outrun, the fear that sky-borne talons could not. Look up, look out, look behind, sniff, listen, and look again.

The panorama of the downland scene played on; nothing was missed. The minutest movement was instantly pinpointed. Then there was a strange tartness on the eddying breezes: breath and skin musk entwined with cloth dyes and, for a fleeting moment, Twilight’s own image with that of the long magus came into view over the Ridgeway hill, receding quickly as the instinct for speed and the safety of open downland took over.

“The first one is fascinating, eh, skirmisher? Seen through the eyes of a hare, the earth is indeed a different place. It can be any animal: sitting fox, roosting game-bird, rabbit, hare, deer, or wild boar. Each has the same instinct for survival and will therefore keep a wary watch on events unfolding around them. So long as the spot is still warm.”

“I saw a deer hunted down by wolves,” said Twilight sadly. “It did not survive.”

“You saw the earth and its creatures getting on with the job of being the earth and its creatures,” replied Merlin.

Later, Twilight placed his hand in a larger spot vacated by a red deer. Its exuberance and skittishness, together with the accompanying images of a large herd, mollified him somewhat. Another encounter with the resting place of a completely befuddled gamecock on whom they had almost stepped soon restored his humor.

Nearing Stonehenge, the landscape became dotted with round barrows, the burial mounds of the people who had lived here for centuries. Grouped in circular cemeteries strung out along the ridge, the sacred barrows came in different shapes and sizes and were protected by manmade ditches. Merlin explained the significance of each shape. The large bell barrow was the burial place of the local chieftains, who were interred with all their symbols of rank and authority, including their bronze daggers, tomahawks, battle-axes, and huge two-handed swords; the significantly smaller bowl barrows were the resting places of the wives and sisters of the prominent men, buried with their favorite bead necklaces and other ornaments; the smaller and most prominent disc barrow was a depository for the ashes of the peasants who were usually cremated on a funeral pyre and their remains placed in a small pottery urn before the barrow was heaped over them; and finally, the smallest mounds of all, the pond barrows, were the final resting places of children who had not reached double figures. There were many of them. A flint stone pavement ran up to each barrow to enable grieving followers, friends, or relatives to properly honor their dead.

With a high view from the top of the ridge path, Merlin gestured at the neat barrows that stretched as far as they could see.

“These are resting places of the non-cowerers, the martyrs, those whose lives - however brief and insignificant - looked challenges in the eye and stood fast against them. The Fates recorded their heroics, and their souls were accorded everlasting and blissful peace as a result. It tells us much about the human condition that they are so few compared to the cowering masses that received no such honor and were banished forever to the impotence of the charnel mists. Remember this, skirmisher. Courage, heart, mettle, call it what you will, is a junior companion to capitulation in terms of numbers but as a king to a serf in terms of eminence. For every hundred humans there is only one with true courage, and each one is buried here. It is the containment of the other multiplier of ninety-nine unhappy souls that we are charged with.”

“Who decides which path a life has chosen, and therefore whether it lives forever in the raging mists or rests peacefully here among the barrows?” asked Twilight.

“They decide themselves. It is predicated upon the life they have led, and selection at the time of death is automatic.”

“It cannot be arranged or purchased, then? A cowerer, for instance, couldn’t possibly end up here in one of these barrows through a trick or because he was rich?”

Merlin chuckled. “Believe you me, many cowerers have tried it, especially when they are approaching the end of their life and beginning to sense the unremitting fate that awaits their cringing soul. But the balance of redemption needs to be in place through the continued act of diverse mettlesome deeds many years before they die in order to secure the entrance of their soul to one of these barrows. It is precisely because it is in their own hands that the rules cannot be challenged. The life

they have led determines the final resting place of their soul.”

Twilight ran ahead to the top of the Ridgeway path.

“I can see it, long magus. I can see the circles of Stonehenge!” he cried excitedly, pointing down to where the great and unique harlequinade of rectangular stones crowned the flat plain of Salisbury before them. Merlin caught up with him, and they stood high on the Wessex Ridgeway in a prolonged, neutral silence before the mighty veneficus spoke.

“Behold the crucible of the cowering dead, my boy. This place will dominate one day of your yearly life for the next eighty-seven years. Your presence at this creation of the ancients is your sacrifice on behalf of mankind and, perhaps, the reason we are upon this earth. Sit here by my side, for we will remain up here, and I will explain the runes, maxims, codes, and lore of our equinoctial duties when the heavy mists gather in the autumn. Time enough for walking among the stones of the berserkers when the Festival of the Dead demands our presence in the great circle. It is not a place to visit on a whim - the less time you spend in its venal circle, the better.”

Suddenly, Merlin spoke directly to the boy’s mind.

As an initiate, part of the great secret, engrave these words in your mind forever: Always give your soul what it needs for peace. Always give your heart what it needs for happiness. Always give your conscience what it needs for justice.

Twilight repeated the lines inwardly.

“I will be with you at the next festival?” he asked afterward.

“Oh yes, they wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“The cowerers know about me already?”

“Yes.”

“Everyone seems to know about me except me,” grumbled the boy.

“The arrival of the new veneficus is a rare event, happening as it does roughly every seventy or eighty years. It is foretold by the simple expedient of time. Everyone knows that I am nearing the end of my time and that, ipso facto, by the act itself, given the time required for learning, my replacement should be by my side. The cowerers who will interact with you will want to assess you at the first opportunity. You will, for the foreseeable future, become the most important factor in their lives, their only link with the great world beyond.”

“Who do we communicate with at the Festival of the Dead? Surely not all of them. There are too many millions to speak with together.”

Merlin let out the long sigh that the boy was beginning to associate with an answer of great sadness.

“They are represented by a council of leaders, usually drawn from those who led them in this life.”

Twilight persevered. “So who are they? Did you know any of them before they died?”

Merlin drew himself up to his full height and looked down at the boy for a long moment.

“Yes. One of the most strident leaders on the cowerers’ council was well known to me before he entered the otherworld. In this life he was known as Arthur Pendragon, King Arthur of the Court of Camelot.”

As the sun sank beneath the horizon of the Welsh Marches, Caleb Bonner, master long-bowman of the men of the north and leader of a cohort of ten other bowmen, rubbed his hands over the glowing embers of the campfire.