The Weirdstone of Brisingamen Read online

  Colin felt most uncomfortable. They could not just walk off and leave this peculiar woman in the middle of the road, yet her manner was so embarrassing that he wanted to hurry away, to disassociate himself from her strangeness.

  “Omptator,” said the woman.

  “I … beg your pardon.”

  “Lapidator.”

  “I’m sorry …”

  “Somniator.”

  “Are you …?”

  “Qui libertar opera facitis …”

  “I’m not much good at Latin …”

  Colin wanted to run now. She must be mad. He could not cope. His brow was damp with sweat, and pins and needles were taking all awareness out of his body.

  Then, close at hand, a dog barked loudly. The woman gave a suppressed cry of rage and spun round. The tension broke; and Colin saw that his fingers were round the handle of the car door, and the door was half-open.

  “Howd thy noise, Scamp,” said Gowther sharply.

  He was crossing the road opposite the farm gate, and Scamp stood a little way up the hill nearer the car, snarling nastily.

  “Come on! Heel!”

  Scamp slunk unwillingly back towards Gowther, who waved to the children and pointed to the house to show that tea was ready.

  “Th – that’s Mr Mossock,” said Colin. “He’ll be able to tell you the way to Macclesfield.”

  “No doubt!” snapped the woman. And, without another word, she threw herself into the car, and drove away.

  “Well!” said Colin. “What was all that about? She must be off her head! I thought she was having a fit! What do you think was up with her?”

  Susan made no comment. She gave a wan smile and shrugged her shoulders, but it was not until Colin and she were at the farm gate that she spoke.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “It may be the heat, or because we’ve walked so far, but all the time you were talking to her I thought I was going to faint. But what’s so strange is that my Tear has gone all misty.”

  Susan was fond of her Tear. It was a small piece of crystal, shaped like a raindrop, and had been given to her by her mother, who had had it mounted in a socket fastened to a silver chain bracelet which Susan always wore. It was a flawless stone, but, when she was very young, Susan had discovered that if she held it in a certain way, so that it caught the light just … so, she could see, deep in the heart of the crystal, miles away, or so it seemed, a twisting column of blue fire, always moving, never ending, alive, and very beautiful.

  Bess Mossock clapped her hands in delight when she saw the Tear on Susan’s wrist. “Oh, if it inner the Bridestone! And after all these years!”

  Susan was mystified, but Bess went on to explain that “yon pretty dewdrop” had been given to her by her mother, who had had it from her mother, and so on, till its origin and the meaning of the name had become lost among the distant generations. She had given it to the children’s mother because “it always used to catch the childer’s eyes, and thy mother were no exception!”

  At this, Susan’s face fell. “Well then,” she said, “it must go back to you now, because it’s obviously a family heirloom and …”

  “Nay, nay, lass! Thee keep it. I’ve no childer of my own, and thy mother was the same as a daughter to me. I con see as how it’s in good hands.”

  So Susan’s Tear had continued to sparkle at her wrist until that moment at the car, when it had suddenly clouded over, the colour of whey.

  “Oh, hurry up, Sue!” said Colin over his shoulder. “You’ll feel better after a meal. Let’s go and find Gowther.”

  “But Colin!” cried Susan, holding up her wrist. She was about to say, “Do look!” but the words died in her throat, for the crystal now winked at her as pure as it had ever been.

  CHAPTER 3

  MAGGOT-BREED OF YMIR

  “And what did owd Selina Place want with you?” said Gowther at tea.

  “Selina Place?” said Colin. “Who’s she?”

  “You were talking to her just before you came in, and it’s not often you see her bothering with folks.”

  “But how do you know her? She seemed to be a stranger round here, because she stopped to ask the way to Macclesfield.”

  “She did what? But that’s daft! Selina Place has lived in Alderley for as long as I con remember.”

  “She has?”

  “Ay, hers is one of the big houses on the back hill – a rambling barn of a place it is, stuck on the edge of a cliff. She lives alone theer with what are supposed to be three dogs, but they’re more like wolves, to my way of thinking, though I conner rightly say as I’ve ever seen them. She never takes them out with her. But I’ve heard them howling of a winter’s night, and it’s a noise I shanner forget in a hurry!

  “And was that all she wanted? Just to know how to get to Macclesfield?”

  “Yes. Oh, and she seemed to think that because we’d only recently come to live here we’d want a lift. But as soon as she saw you she jumped into the car and drove away. I think she’s not quite all there.”

  “Happen you’d best have a word with yon,” said Bess. “It all sounds a bit rum to me. I think she’s up to summat.”

  “Get away with your bother! Dick Thornicroft’s always said as she’s a bit cracked, and it looks as though he’s reet. Still, it’s as well to keep clear of the likes of her, and I shouldner accept ony lifts, if I were you.

  “Now then, from what you tell me, I con see as how you’ve been a tidy step this afternoon, so let’s start near the beginning and then we shanner get ourselves lost. Well, you place wheer you say theer was such a grand view is Stormy Point, and the cave with the hole in the roof is the Devil’s Grave. If you run round theer three times widdershins Owd Nick’s supposed to come up and fetch you.”

  And so, all through their meal, Gowther entertained Colin and Susan with stories and explanations of the things they had seen in their wanderings, and at last, after frequent badgering, he turned to the subject of the wizard.

  “I’ve been saving the wizard till the end. Yon’s quite a long story, and now tea’s finished I con talk and you con listen and we needner bother about owt else.”

  And Gowther told Colin and Susan the legend of Alderley.

  “Well, it seems as how theer was once a farmer from Mobberley as had a milk-white mare …

  “… and from that day to this no one has ever seen the gates of the wizard again.”

  “Is that a true story?” said Colin.

  “Theer’s some as reckons it is. But if it did happen it was so long ago that even the place wheer the iron gates are supposed to be has been forgotten. I say yon’s nobbut a legend; but it makes fair telling after a good meal.”

  “Yes,” said Susan, “but you know, our father has always said that there’s no smoke without a fire.”

  “Ay, happen he’s getten summat theer!” laughed Gowther.

  The meal over, Colin and Susan went with Gowther to take some eggs to an old widow who lived in a tiny cottage a little beyond the farm boundary. And when they were returning across the Riddings, which was the name of the steep hill-field above Highmost Redmanhey, Gowther pointed to a large black bird that was circling about the farmyard.

  “Hey! Sithee yon carrion crow! I wonder what he’s after. If he dunner shift himself soon I’ll take my shotgun to him. We dunner want ony of his sort round here, for they’re a reet menace in the lambing season.”

  Early in the evening Colin, who had been very taken with the legend of the wizard, suggested another walk on the Edge, this time to find the iron gates.

  “Ay, well I wish you luck! You’re not the first to try, and I dunner suppose you’ll be the last.”

  “Take your coats with you,” said Bess. “It gets chilly on the top at this time o’day.”

  Colin and Susan roamed all over Stormy Point, and beyond, but there were so many rocks and boulders, any of which could have hidden the gates, that they soon tired of shouting “Abracadabra!” and “Open Sesame!” and instead lay
down to rest upon a grassy bank just beneath the crest of a spur of the Edge, and watched the sun drop towards the rim of the plain.

  “I think it’s time we were going, Colin,” said Susan when the sun had almost disappeared. “If we don’t reach the road before dark we could easily lose our way.”

  “All right: but let’s go back to Stormy Point along the other side of this ridge, just for a change. We’ve not been over there yet.”

  He turned, and Susan followed him over the crest of the hill into the trees.

  Once over the ridge, they found themselves in a dell, bracken and boulder filled, and edged with rocks, in which were cracks, and fissures, and small caves; and before them a high-vaulted beech wood marched steeply down into the dusk. The air was still and heavy, as though waiting for thunder; the only sound the concentrated whine of mosquitoes; and the thick sweet smell of bracken and flies was everywhere.

  “I … I don’t like this place, Colin,” said Susan: “I feel that we’re being watched.”

  Colin did not laugh at her as he might normally have done. He, too, had that feeling between the shoulder blades; and he could easily have imagined that something was moving among the shadows of the rocks: something that managed to keep out of sight. So he gladly turned to climb back to the path.

  They had moved barely a yard up the dell when Colin stopped and laughed.

  “Look! Somebody is watching us!”

  Perched on a rock in front of them was a bird. Its head was thrust forward, and it stared unwinkingly at the two children.

  “It’s the carrion crow that was round the farm after tea!” cried Susan.

  “Talk sense! How can you tell it’s the same one? There are probably dozens of them about here.”

  All the same, Colin did not like the way the bird sat hunched there so tensely, almost eagerly, and they had to pass it if they wanted to regain the path. He took a step forward, waved his arms in the air, and cried “Shoo!” in a voice that sounded woefully thin and unfrightening.

  The crow did not move.

  Colin and Susan moved forward, longing to run, but held by the crow’s eye. And as they reached the centre of the dell the bird gave a loud, sharp croak. Immediately a cry answered from among the rocks, and out of the shadows on either side of the children rose a score of outlandish figures.

  They stood about three feet high and were man-shaped, with thin, wiry bodies and limbs, and broad, flat feet and hands. Their heads were large, having pointed ears, round saucer eyes, and gaping mouths which showed teeth. Some had pug-noses, others thin snouts reaching to their chins. Their hides were generally of fish-white colour, though some were black, and all were practically hairless. Some held coils of black rope, while out of one of the caves advanced a group carrying a net woven in the shape of a spider’s web.

  For a second the children were rooted; but only for a second. Instinct took control of their wits. They raced back along the dell and flung themselves through the gap into the beech wood. Fingers clawed, and ropes hissed like snakes, but they were through and plunging down the slope in a flurry of dead leaves.

  “Stop, Sue!” yelled Colin.

  He realised that their only hope of escape lay in reaching open ground and the path that led from Stormy Point to the road, where their longer legs might outdistance their pursuers’, and even that seemed a slim chance.

  “Stop, Sue! We must … not go … down … any further! Find … Stormy Point … somehow!”

  All the while he was looking for a recognisable landmark, since in the fear and dusk he had lost his bearings, and all he knew was that their way lay uphill and not down.

  Then, through the trees, he saw what he needed. About a hundred feet above them and to their right a tooth-shaped boulder stood against the sky: its distinctive shape had caught his eye when they had walked past it along a track coming from Stormy Point!

  “That boulder! Make for that boulder!”

  Susan looked where he was pointing, and nodded.

  They began to flounder up the hill, groping for firm ground with hands and feet beneath the knee-high sea of dead leaves. Their plunge had taken them diagonally across the slope, and their upward path led away from the dell, otherwise they would not have survived.

  The others had come skimming lightly down over the surface of the leaves, and had found it difficult to check their speed when they saw the quick change of direction. Now they scurried across to intercept the children, bending low over the ground as they ran.

  Slowly Colin and Susan gained height until they were at the same level as the pursuit, then above it, and the danger of being cut off from the path was no longer with them. But their lead was a bare ten yards, and shortening rapidly, until Colin’s fingers, scrabbling beneath the leaves closed round something firm. It was a fallen branch, still bushy with twigs, and he tore it from the soil and swung it straight into the leaders, who went clamouring, head over heels, into those behind in a tangle of ropes and nets.

  This gained Colin and Susan precious yards and seconds, though their flight was still nightmare: for unseen twigs rolled beneath their feet, and leaves dragged leadenly about their knees. But at last they pulled themselves on to the path.

  “Come on, Sue!” Colin gasped. “Run for it! They’re … not far … behind … now!”

  The children drew energy from their fear. Above their heads a bird cried harshly three times, and at once the air was filled with the beating of a gong. The sound seemed to come from a distance, yet it was all about them, in the air and under the ground.

  Then they ran clear of the trees and on to Stormy Point. But their relief was short-lived; for whereas till that moment they had been fleeing from twenty or so, they were now confronted with several hundred of the creatures as they came out of Devil’s Grave like ants from a nest.

  Colin and Susan halted: gone was their last hope of reaching the road: the way was blocked to front and rear: on their left was the grim beech wood: to the right an almost sheer slope dropped between pines into a valley. But at least there was no known danger there, so the children turned their faces that way and fled, stumbling and slithering down a sandy path, till at last they landed at the bottom – only to splash knee-deep in the mud and leaf-mould of the swamp that sprawled unseen down the opposite wall of the valley and out across the floor.

  They lurched forward a few paces, spurred on by the sound of what was following all too close behind, but then Susan staggered and collapsed against a fallen tree.

  “I can’t go on!” she sobbed. “My legs won’t move.”

  “Oh yes you can! Only a few more yards!”

  Colin had spotted a huge boulder sticking out of the swamp a little way up the hill from where they were, and, if only they could reach it, it would offer more protection than their present position, which could hardly be worse. He grabbed his sister’s arm and dragged her through the mud to the base of the rock.

  “Now climb!”

  And, while Susan hauled herself up to the flat summit, Colin put his back to the rock, like a fox at bay turning to face the hunt.

  The edge of the swamp was a mass of bodies. The rising moon shone on their leathery hides and was reflected in their eyes. Colin could see white shapes spreading out on either side to encircle the rock; they were in no hurry now, for they knew that escape was impossible.

  Colin climbed after his sister. He ached in every muscle and was trembling with fatigue.

  When the circle was complete the creatures began to advance across the swamp, moving easily over the mire on their splayed feet. Ever closer they came, till the rock was surrounded.

  From all sides at once the ropes came snaking through the air, as soft as silk, as strong as iron, and clung to the children as though coated with glue; so that in no time at all Colin and Susan fell helpless beneath the sticky coils, and over them swarmed the mob, pinching and poking, and binding and trussing, until the children lay with only their heads exposed, like two cocoons upon the rock.

&nbs
p; But as they were being hoisted on to bony shoulders it seemed as though a miracle happened. There was a flash, and the whole rock was lapped about by a lake of blue fire. The children could feel no heat, but their captors fell, hissing and spitting, into the swamp, and the ropes charred and crumbled into ash, while pandemonium broke loose through all the assembly.

  Then, from the darkness above, a voice rang out.

  “Since when have men-children grown so mighty that you must needs meet two with hundreds? Run, maggot-breed of Ymir, ere I lose my patience!”

  The crowd had fallen silent at the first sound of that voice, and now it drew back slowly, snarling and blinking in the blue light, wavered, turned, and fled. The dazed children listened to the rushing feet as though in a dream: soon there was only the rattle of stones on the opposite slope; then nothing. The cold flames about the rock flickered and died. The moon shone peacefully upon the quiet valley.

  And as their eyes grew accustomed to this paler light the children saw standing on the path beneath a cliff some way above them an old man, taller than any they had ever known, and thin. He was clad in a white robe, his hair and beard were white, and in his hand was a white staff. He was looking at Colin and Susan, and, as they sat upright, he spoke again, but this time there was no anger in his voice.

  “Come quickly, children, lest there be worse than svarts abroad; for indeed I smell much evil in the night. Come, you need not fear me.”

  He smiled and stretched out his hand. Colin and Susan climbed down from the rock and squelched their way up to join him. They were shivering in spite of their coats and recent exertions.

  “Stay close to me. Your troubles are over though I fear it may be only for this night, but we must take no risks.”

  And he touched the cliff with his staff. There was a hollow rumble, and a crack appeared in the rock, through which a slender ray of light shone. The crack widened to reveal a tunnel leading down into the earth: it was lit by a soft light, much the same as that which had scattered the mob in the swamp.

  The old man herded Colin and Susan into the tunnel, and, as soon as they were past the threshold, the opening closed behind them, shutting out the night and its fears.