The events of the spring still gave me bad dreams. They had also left me with an ache in my heart, for I had discovered a grandfather who I never suspected I had. Nobody but Hrype and Gurdyman knew about him; I had no idea how to reveal to my beloved father that his mother – my late and much-loved Granny Cordeilla – had had a brief and passionate liaison with a huge, bearded Norseman, and my father was the result. I was not at all sure how my father would receive the news that the mild, hard-working fisherman whom Cordeilla married, and with whom she conceived all her other children, had been temporarily usurped in her bed. Nor, indeed, how he’d feel on finding out his siblings were actually only half-siblings; neither are facts a daughter is usually called upon to explain to her father.
So there was news of Skuli. Well, Hrype could keep it to himself. I didn’t want to know. Skuli had sailed off towards the sunrise in his slim and elegant craft, and he had been heading for Miklagard. With brutal ruthlessness, he had done everything in his power to take a precious family heirloom with him, but, although he didn’t even stop short at murder, ultimately he’d failed.
That heirloom – the mystical, compelling shining stone – was now in my possession; put into my nervous hands by my grandfather.
I still missed him. I’d thought that the passage of time would ease the hurt. So far, it hadn’t.
With a shudder, I brought myself out of my reverie. I looked at Hrype, then at Gurdyman. My mouth felt dry, but I swallowed a couple of times, and then said, ‘I don’t know why, but I think this has to do with the shining stone.’
And, not really to my surprise, Hrype nodded.
‘Gurdyman and I believe that it is not in your best interests to postpone any further,’ he said.
I had an awful feeling that I knew only too well what he meant.
‘Er – you mean it’s time I began to – to get to know it?’ My voice wasn’t quite steady.
Hrype looked at me and there was compassion in his eyes. ‘The stone has come into your hands for a reason, Lassair,’ he said softly. ‘You know that.’ I nodded. ‘You will also know, I’m sure, that the intention was not simply for you to creep up to your attic room and unwrap the stone once in a while to gaze at it.’ How does he know I do that? I wondered wildly. Sometimes, my curiosity overcame my fear of the magical object that was currently in my possession …
‘We will be beside you, supporting you as best we can,’ Gurdyman said quietly. ‘It is an object of great power, and it is right that you are in awe of it, child.’
In awe was an understatement.
I looked at Hrype, then back at Gurdyman. They appeared to be waiting for something.
‘You don’t mean – surely you don’t want to begin now?’ I squeaked.
Gurdyman smiled encouragingly. ‘No time like the present.’
By the time I returned to the crypt, my heart hammering from the combined effects of just having raced up to my little attic room and my increasing apprehension, Gurdyman had made his preparations. A piece of clean white linen had been spread over one end of the workbench, and smooth beeswax candles had been lit at the four corners. The seriousness of the moment struck home: beeswax candles are fearfully costly, and Gurdyman had just lit four. Somewhere close by, incense was burning; sniffing, I detected the strong, heady smell of frankincense; another very expensive commodity. In addition, I smelt cumin, dill and garlic.
All four substances are used for protection.
Gurdyman and Hrype stood like guardians, either side of the white expanse of linen. Hrype beckoned, and I stepped forward.
When it had first been put into my hands, the shining stone had been wrapped in a coarse length of old sacking. But, feeling that such a covering was unworthy of the stone, I had fashioned a bag out of a piece of soft dark brown leather, decorating it with a pattern of tiny glass beads sewn into a spiral. I had stitched a narrow hem in the top of the bag, through which I threaded a drawstring. I had collected fluffy pieces of sheep’s wool from the hedgerows, and, once I had washed and dried them and combed out the burrs and the tangles, the resulting soft nest made a good protective lining to the leather bag.
Now, approaching the workbench, I loosened the drawstring and opened the bag. I drew the stone out of its wrappings. I can just hold it in one hand, and I usually find that it is my right hand that reaches for it.
‘Put it on the cloth,’ Hrype intoned.
I obeyed. The stone, a perfect sphere, made as if to roll to one side. Then it seemed to change its mind.
The three of us, Gurdyman, Hrype and I, stared down at the shining stone.
At first glance, it appears to be solid, unrelieved black, with a brilliant sheen that repels the attempts of an onlooker to peer into it. But there is more to it. It’s as if the stone has light inside it; light that seems to flow, as if in some strange way the centre is liquid. You see a flash of gold, then a brief ribbon of deep green, there and gone in an instant. I recalled what Gurdyman told me of the stone’s origin. He told me – and I still find it hard to believe – that once it had been solid rock within the heart of a volcano, heated to such a ferocious temperature that it turned molten and then, when it encountered water and cooled, turned once more into a solid, but of a very different kind. Its nature is for ever changed from what it was, Gurdyman said. Through the medium of fire and water, rock is turned into glass.
I had been sure when he told me, and I remain sure, that he had been describing some sort of alchemy, of a kind I could not even begin to imagine.
I took a breath, trying to steady my fast-beating heart.
‘Have you your piece of lapis lazuli?’ Gurdyman asked softly.
I started. ‘Yes.’ I took it from the pouch on my belt.
‘Hold it in your left hand,’ he said. ‘It will help.’
There was utter silence in the crypt. Then, his voice soft, hypnotic but also irresistible, Hrype said, ‘Lassair, look into the shining stone.’
Clutching the lapis tightly, I bent over the stone. Again, the flash of gold, and the deep green ribbon, moving as if it was water … a great river, perhaps. My eyes narrowed, and it seemed as if a film of smoke was swirling inside the stone. I thought I could make out faint images in the smoke: dark figures, moving in a wide empty landscape; a long line of hunched men, engaged on some arduous task; water again, as a river became a sea, white-capped waves breaking on a far shore. Then, across those vague, everyday images, suddenly something else: something heard, or perhaps sensed, rather than seen, for it sounded like the heavy hoof-falls of a fast-pressed horse … no, two horses. I leaned closer to the shining stone, trying to make out the horses and their riders, but now the smoke was swirling faster, and the images I had seen – imagined – were gone. Then I saw a pair of birds, jet-black against the pearly grey smoke, and instinctively I drew back. In that swift instant before they disappeared, it had looked as if they were flying right at me.
I took a deep breath, then looked into the stone again.
There was nothing. It was black once more; dense, impenetrable black.
My left hand eased out of its tight fist – I hadn’t been aware of how hard I’d been clenching the piece of lapis, but now I realized it had dug painfully into the flesh of my palm. I opened and closed my fingers a few times to ease the discomfort, rolling my shoulders to get the tension out of my muscles.
As if he couldn’t bear to wait another moment, Hrype said sharply, ‘Well?’
I turned to him. ‘Well what?’
‘What did you see?’ he hissed.
What had I seen? ‘Smoke,’ I said. ‘Figures, moving about. Water.’ I shook my head. ‘It was very vague, and I’m pretty sure I was just imagining it.’