Stones Of Power - The Last Sword Of Power Part 9

'You are not my son, Cormac. Would that you were!'

'But you were with her!'

'I loved her, but I am not your father. That honour goes to her husband, Uther, High King of Britain.' Cormac stared at the strong, square face of the warrior who had been Revelation and searched in his own heart for hatred. There was nothing. In that moment of recognition something had died within the boy and its pa.s.sing had been masked by his instant anger. Now that anger was gone, and Cormac was more truly alone than he had ever been.

'I am sorry, boy,' said Culain. 'Pick up your sword. We must go.'

'Go?' whispered Cormac. 'I'll not go with you.' He retrieved his blade, turned his back on Culain and Anduine and began to walk towards the south and Noviomagus. But just before he reached the edge of the Circle a blinding flash of light reared up before him and his vision swam. As swiftly as it had come, the brightness was gone and Cormac blinked.

Ahead of him was not the scene of recent memory, the sea glistening darkly beyond the white walls of Noviomagus. Instead mountains reared against the horizon, snow-capped and majestic, cloaked in forests of pine and rowan.

'We need to speak,' said Culain. 'And you are safer here.'

Suddenly Cormac's anger flared once more, this time as a berserk fury. Without a word he leapt at Culain, sword flashing for the man's head. Culain blocked the blow with dazzling speed, but was forced back by the ferocious, double-handed a.s.sault. Time and again Cormac came within scant inches of delivering the death-blow, but each attack was countered with astonishing skill. In the background, unable to see what was happening, Anduine stumbled forward with arms outstretched, calling their names. In his rage, Cormac did not notice the blind girl and his sword slashed in a wide arc, missing Culain and slicing towards the girl. Culain leapt feet-first at the boy, catapulting him from his feet, the swinging sword catching Anduine high in the shoulder. Blood spurted from the scored flesh and Anduine screamed but Culain ran to her, holding Cormac's Stone against the wound which sealed instantly.

From the ground Cormac viewed the scene with horror and deep shame. He sat up and, leaving his sword where it lay, approached the others.

'I am sorry, Anduine. I did not see you.'

She reached out and he took her hand. Her smile was as welcome as the sunshine after the storm.

'Are we all friends again?' she asked. Cormac could not reply and from Culain there was a grim silence. 'How sad,' said Anduine, her smile fading.

'I will find some wood for a fire,' said Culain. 'We will camp here tonight, and tomorrow we will journey into the mountains. I used to have a home here; it will afford us safety for a while at least.'

He stood and wandered from the Circle. Under the bright moonlight Cormac sat with Anduine, unable to find the words to approach her. But he held to her hand, as if it was a talisman. She shivered. 'You are cold?' 'A little.'

Reluctantly he released her hand and fetched the blanket, which he wrapped around her slender frame. During the battle with the Vikings the spell of changing had vanished, and now she was as Cormac had first seen her - dark-haired and possessed of a fragile beauty.

She held the blanket to her with both hands and Cormac felt the absence of her touch.

'Has your anger gone?' she asked. 'No, it is waiting deep inside me. I feel it like the winter chill. I wish I did not.' 'Revelation is not your enemy.' 'I know. But he betrayed me, he left me.' 'He thought you dead.'

'But I wasn't! All the years of my life have been filled with pain. Had it not been for Grysstha, I would have died. And no one would have cared. I never knew my mother; I never felt her touch, nor her love. And why? Because Culain stole her from her husband.

From my father! It was wrong!'

'The story of the Betrayal is well known,' she whispered. 'Perhaps too well known. But there is nothing base about Revelation. I know. I think you should wait until you can speak with him. Hold your anger.'

'He was the King's closest friend,' said Cormac. 'The Queen's Champion. What can he say to lessen his shame? If he needed to rut like a bull, why did he not choose one of a thousand other women? Why my mother?' 'I cannot answer these questions. But he can.'

'That, at least, is true enough,' said Culain, dropping the bundle of dry wood to the gra.s.s.

Once more he wore the brown woollen habit and carried the wooden staff of Revelation, though this time there was no beard, no lion's mane of grey hair.

'What happened to my mother?' asked Cormac, once the fire was lit.

'She died in Sicambria two years ago.'

'Were you with her?'

'No, I was in Tingis.'

'If you were so in love, why did you leave her?'

Revelation did not reply but lay back, his eyes fixed to the stars.

"This is not the time,' said Anduine softly, laying her hand on Cormac's arm.

"There will never be a time,' hissed the boy, 'for there are no answers. Only excuses! I do not know if Uther loved her, but she was his wife. The Betrayer knew that and he should never have touched her.'

'Cormac! Cormac!' said Anduine. 'You speak as if she was an object like a cloak. She was not - she was a woman and a strong one. She travelled with the Blood King across the Mist and fought the Witch Queen alongside him. Once, when he was a hunted child, she saved him by killing an a.s.sa.s.sin. Did she not have a choice?'

Revelation sat up and added wood to the fire. 'Do not seek to defend me, Anduine, for the boy is right. There are no answers, only excuses. That is all there is to be said. I wish it were different. Here, Cormac, this is yours.' He tossed the Stone and the chain across the fire. 'I gave it to your mother a year before you were born; it was what saved you in the cave. It is Sipstra.s.si, the Stone from Heaven.'

'I do not want it,' said Cormac, letting it fall to the ground. He watched with satisfaction as the anger flared in Revelation's eyes, and saw the iron control with which the warrior quelled it.

'Your anger I can understand. Cormac, but your stupidity galls me,' said Revelation, lying down and turning his back to the fire.

CHAPTER FIVE.

The following morning the trio made their way deep into the Caledones mountains, far to the north of the Wall of Hadrian, arriving at a ruined cabin just after noon. The roof had given way and a family of pack-rats nested by the stone hearth. Revelation and Cormac spent several hours repairing the building and cleaning the dust of many years from the floors of the three-roomed dwelling.

'Could you not use magic?' asked Cormac, wiping sweat and dirt from his face as Revelation packed the roof with turves.

'Some things are better done with hands and heart,' Revelation answered.

These were the first words spoken by the two men since the clash in the Circle and once more an uncomfortable silence settled. Anduine was sitting beside the nearby stream, scrubbing at rusted pots and carefully removing various fungi from the wooden platters Cormac had found in a rotting cupboard. Late in the afternoon Revelation set traps in the hills above the cabin and, after a cool uncomfortable night on the floor of the main room, they breakfasted on roast rabbit and wild onions.

To the north of here is a second cabin,' said Revelation, 'and close by you will find apple and pear trees. The game is also plentiful higher in the mountains - deer and mountain sheep, rabbits and pigeon. Can you use a bow?'

'I can learn,' said Cormac, 'but I am expert with the sling.'

Revelation nodded. 'It is wise also to learn what plants give nourishment. The leaves of marigold contain goodness, as do nettles, and you will find onions and turnips in profusion in the western valley.'

'You sound as if you are going away,' said Anduine.

'I must. I need to find a new Stone, for I have little magic left.'

'How long will you be away?' she asked and Cormac hated the edge of fear in her voice.

'Less than a week, if all goes well. But I will remain here for a while. There is much to be done.'

'We do not need you,' said Cormac. 'Go when you please.'

Revelation ignored him but later, as Anduine stripped and dressed the rest of the meat, took him out into the open ground before the cabin.

'She is in great danger, Cormac, and if you are to protect her you must make yourself stronger, faster, more deadly than you are now. As matters stand, an old milkmaid could take her from you.' Cormac sneered and was about to reply when Revelation's fist hammered into his chin. The youth hit the ground hard, his head spinning.

'The Romans call it boxing,' said Revelation, 'but it was refined by a Greek called Carpophorus. Stand up.' Cormac pushed himself to his feet, then dived at the taller man.

Revelation swayed back, lifting his knee into Cormac's face, and the ground came up at him once more. Blood oozed from his nose and he had difficulty in keeping Revelation in focus. Still he rose and charged, but this time a fist crashed into his belly and he doubled over, all air smashed from his lungs, and lay on the ground battling for breath. After several minutes he struggled to his knees. Revelation was sitting on a fallen log.

'Here, in these high lonely mountains, I trained your father - and your mother. Here the Witch Queen sent her killers, and from here Uther set out to recapture his father's kingdom^ He did not whine or complain; he did not sneer when he should have been learning. He merely set his sights on a goal and achieved it. You have two choices, child: leave or learn. Which do you make?'

'I hate you,' whispered Cormac.

'That is immaterial. Choose!'

Cormac looked up into the cold grey eyes and bit back the angry words crowding for release. 'I will learn.'

'Your first lesson is obedience - and it is vital. In order to be stronger, you must push yourself to the edge of your endurance. I shall ask you to do more than is necessary, though at times you will feel I am being needlessly cruel. But you must obey. Do you understand, child?'

'I am not a child,' snapped Cormac.

'Understand this, child. I was born when the sun shone on Atlantis. I fought with the Israelites in the land of Canaan, I was a G.o.d to the Greeks, and a King among the tribes of Britannia. My days are numbered in tens of thousands. And what are you? You are the leaf that spans a season, and I am the oak that weathers the centuries. You are a child. Uther is a child. The oldest man in the world is a child to me. Now, if you must hate me - and I fear you must - at least hate me like a man and not like some petulant babe. I am stronger than you, more skilled than you. I can destroy you, with or without weapons. So learn - and one day you may beat me ... though I doubt it.'

'One day I will kill you,' said Cormac.

'Then prepare yourself.' Revelation thrust a long stick into the ground, then a second a foot to the left. 'You see that stand of pine on the mountain?'

'Yes.'

'Run to it and return here before the shadow touches the second stick.'

'Why?'

'Do it or leave this mountain,' said Revelation, standing and wandering away towards the cabin.

Cormac took a deep breath, wiped the clotting blood from his nose and set off at an easy lope, the clean mountain air filling his lungs, his legs driving him easily up the mountain trail. Once in among the trees he could not see the stand of pine and he increased his pace.

His calves began to burn, but he pushed himself on. As the gradient grew ever more steep, so his breathing grew faster. He emerged from the trees still a half-mile short of the target and staggered to a walk, sucking in great gulps of air. He was tempted to sit and recover his strength, or even to return to Revelation and tell him that he had reached the pine. But he did not. He struggled on and up. Sweat drenched his face and tunic and his legs felt as if candle-flames had been lit inside them when at last he staggered into the grove. Hanging from a branch was a clay jug of water. He drank deeply and set off back for the cabin. On the downhill run his tired legs betrayed him and missing his footing he stumbled, fell and rolled down the slope, coming up hard against a tree-root which gouged his side. Up once more, he continued his halting run until he came into the clearing before the cabin.

'Not good,' said Revelation, staring coolly at the red-faced youth. 'It is only two miles, Cormac. You will do it again this evening, and tomorrow. Look at your mark.'

The shadow was three fingers' breadth past the stick.

'Your arms and shoulders are strong, but it is strength without speed. How did you build them?'

Cormac, at last able to excel, moved to a tree and leapt to grab an overhanging branch.

Swiftly he raised himself to touch his chin to the branch, over and over again with smooth, rhythmic movements.

'Keep going,' said Revelation.

At the count of one hundred Cormac dropped to the ground, the muscles of his arms burning, his eyes gleaming with triumph.

'That builds strength, but not speed,' said Revelation. 'It is worthwhile, but it must be complemented with other work. You are powerful for your age, but you are not supple. A swordsman must be lightning-swift.' He took a long whittled stick and held it horizontally between his fingers. 'Place your hand over the top of the stick, fingers straight, and when I release it - catch it.'

'Simple,' said Cormac, holding his hand over the wood and tensing for the strike.

Revelation released the stick and Cormac's hand swept down, clutching at air.

'Simple?' echoed Revelation. Three times more Cormac attempted to catch the stick, and once almost made it, his fingers striking the wood and accelerating its fall.

'You are too stiff in the hips, and the muscles of your shoulders are tense and therefore immobile.'

'It is not possible,' said Cormac.

"Then you hold the stick.' The boy did so, and as his fingers parted Revelation's hand dropped like a striking snake when the stick had fallen less than a foot. 'Speed, Cormac.

Action without thought. Do not concern yourself about catching the stick, merely do it.

Empty your mind, loosen your limbs.'

After some thirty attempts, Cormac succeeded. Then followed another ten failures. It was galling for the boy, but his will to succeed carried him on. Before the morning was spent he had caught the wood seven times with his right hand, three times with his left.

Revelation lifted his hand to his face and his image shifted and blurred, becoming once more Culain of the Silver Lance.

For an hour more Culain and the tiring youth practised with swords. Cormac almost forgot his hatred of the tall warrior as he marvelled at the man's natural grace and superb reflexes. Time and again he would roll his wrists, his blade skimming over Cormac's to hiss to a halt touching the skin of the boy's neck, or arm, or chest.

Culain lach Feragh was more than a warrior, Cormac realised, he was a prince among warriors.

But as soon as the session was over Cormac's hostility returned. Culain read it in his eyes and sheathed his sword, creating once more the silver lance.

Take Anduine up into the hills,' he said. 'Help her to identify the paths.' Turning on his heel the warrior strode into the cabin, bringing the girl out into the sunlight.

Cormac took her arm and led her into the trees.

'Where is the sun?' she asked. 'I cannot feel her heat.'

'Above the woods, shielded by the leaves.'

'Tell me about the leaves.' Bending, he lifted a fallen leaf from the ground and pressed it into her hand. Her fingers fluttered over the surface. 'Oak?'

'Yes. A huge, h.o.a.ry oak, as old as time.'

'Is it a handsome tree?'

'Like a strong old man, grim and unyielding.'

'And the sky?'