“That will need time. Fortune. Chance …” protested the boy.
“Youth is ever impatient. I have lived long with time. Enough to know that you must make it your servant, not let it be master. There is no way you can do this thing otherwise. For you cannot move a stone such as these”— the Druid waved his hand to the rings behind him—“except with men, a ship and warriors to clear a path for you. Do you believe those of the Western Isle will easily give up what they believe to be a powerful trophy?”
Myrddin strode back and forth, impatience eating at him. He had little faith in (he Druid’s suggestion. It rested on too many strokes of fortune which might go either way. Yet for all his tutoring by the mirror, at this moment he could see no other choice if Lugaid would not help him. Going again himself to Ambrosius after the firm dismissal he had received would gain him nothing.
He came to a stop and placed his hand on a tall blue stone set in the outer ring. Somehow through that touch there flooded into him a sense of age so great that it awed his spirit. Small crystals, pea-sized and cream in color, were sprinkled over the bluish surface. And it towered so that in the shadow of its bulk he felt dismay. He did not know the size of the stone he must seek, but if it were like this one, then half a hundred men, a hundred even, might not stir it.
No, Myrddin took hold on his confidence. Men with all their strength might not stir these from their beds. But the beings who had built this place had their own secrets and the mirror had given him some of them. Doubt now made him wish to try that power.
He looked beyond the stone he touched. The next in line had fallen and lay with tough, withered grass rising about it. He reached for his belt knife. No staff could serve him, not even one such as Lugaid carried cut from wood, even though that wood might be the sacred oak. His tool must be metal, and one which would give forth the right ringing tone.
Unsheathing the knife, Myrddin stooped to set its tip against the fallen stone. He began to tap, slowly, with a certain rhythm. And, as he tapped, he voiced the guttural sounds which the mirror’s voice had made him repeat over and over again until he could give them the right inflection.
Faster and louder grew the tapping. His throat ached a little as he strove to utter sounds almost beyond the range of his own vocal chords. Suddenly he was aware that another chanting had joined his, that Lugaid was facing him across the bulk of the stone.
Tap—tap—his hand moved so fast, building up the sound’s measures—thus and thus and thus—Myrddin’s face grew shiny with sweat, his arm was weary, yet he would not surrender to the weaknesses of his body. Tap—chant—tap—
He was so intent on what he did that the first movement of the stone caught him nearly unaware. It was stirring in the furrow which its weight had caused when it toppled generations ago, stirring as some animal aroused from a long sleep. Tap—chant—
The rock was rising, he had not been deceived! Yet he could not hold it so and, as his hand dropped, his wrist weak with the effort, the megalith settled back into its groove. Myrddin sank to his knees beside it, drawing his breath in long gasps, the strength gone out of him. If he had tried to move at that moment he would have measured his length beside that of the stone. “Well done. Sky Son!”
His ears rang but not enough to deafen them to Lugaid’s words. The Druid also leaned against the stone on the other side, gazing at Myrddin in astonishment.
“But,” he continued, “you must have a better tool than a knife for this work.” He swung around, still resting one hand to steady himself against the stone. “And you may gain it, if you are strong enough in spirit.” “Where?”
“From the grasp of those gone before.” The Druid pointed to the low ring-mounds beyond the circle of stones. “For such did they work with in their own time. And when they died their tools were buried with them, for they were not to be fitted to the hands of lesser men.”
“To take from the dead!” That part of Myrddin which was of his own world revolted from the suggestion. The dead were jealous of their treasures. Men must be very reckless, and without normal clan feeling, to break the rest of those gone before.
“You only take what they would give you if they were alive to put such a tool into your hand,” Lugaid replied. “There are those resting here who are of Sky Blood also. And when a man dies, he lays aside one body for another, as worn-out clothing is dropped and forgotten. There are no guardians here, only methods to prevent such tools from coming into the wrong possession.”
“But—“ Myrddin struggled up, wavering, needing to cling to the stone to keep his feet. “A man could search a lifetime among all these graves and not find the right one.”
“Like calls to like,” Lugaid replied calmly. “Look.” He touched the neck of his robe and, from beneath that covering, drew out a tiny bag of linen stained with sweat as if he had worn it a long time. He loosed the drawstring, which was also the thong to hold it suspended, and into the palm of one hand he shook a scrap of metal which gleamed almost with a jewel’s fire. “Take it, feel it,” he ordered. Reluctantly Myrddin held out his own hand, felt the Druid drop that scrap into it.
Then he brought it closer to his eyes, rolled the fragment across his palm with a fingertip. The thing was not bronze, he was sure, nor had it the softness of pure gold. With that coloring it could be neither tin nor iron nor silver … perhaps like bronze it was a mixture of more than one metal, but if so he could not guess which. In color the scrap was a very light silver, yet across it, small as the piece was, there played a rainbow of colors, changing with the movement of the bit.
“That is of the Sky People,” Lugaid told him. “We have not handled such material since the age before the world turned over. But if those who wrought this Place of the Sun lie here, then this shall let us know where any of its matter lies hidden. As those who have the gift seek for water with a rod and their own senses, so can this be used.” He pulled up the hem of his robe and carefully unraveled a thread from its frayed edge. He tested the thread’s strength by jerking it between his fingers.
Next he carefully tied it to the small fragment of metal and wound the other end of the string between two fingers, then held out his hand so the metal swung freely below. “Thus do we seek,” he said.
Together they prospected the ring-mounds. Some were shaped like disks and some were circles, broken at one side or the other. They climbed each one, Lugaid’s hands outstretched, the fragment dangling from the thread.
By nightfall Myrddin’s confidence was broken. He was near to denying that there was any hope of Lugaid’s device showing them some strange other-world tool. Yet the Druid seemed quietly content with their labors and his spirits, when they returned to the hut, were unshaken.
“If not today,” he .said as he fed bits of leaves into a pot he hung to boil, “then tomorrow.”
“And tomorrow and tomorrow …” the boy commented sourly.
“If necessary.” Lugaid nodded. “Myrddin-Merlin, above all else you must learn patience, for you seem lacking in that. But so is ever the fault of youth.”
“As you said before,” Myrddin commented as he fed their small fire with another stick, “I must wait for Ambrosius’ possible favor, I must wait for searching by metal, I must wait—perhaps too long!”
“I do not ask for the reason for your need.” Lugaid stirred the pot with vigor. “But now I do ask the need for haste.”
“There are two things I must do,” the boy said, “though why these have been laid on me, I do not know. I did not ask to be born of a Sky Lord.” He sat back on his heels, staring moodily into the fire. “Little have I had of my heritage except trouble upon trouble.”
“No heritage is free from that,” observed Lugaid. “If you were to lay aside your life’s labor, then what would you choose? The sword of a warrior with perhaps a quick death, achieving nothing by your dying but the cutting down of the life of another?”