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Oct. 27th, 2004 04:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sign_seekerWill clatters up the stairs, James only a few steps behind, and rounds the corner to trot alone up to his attic bedroom. He drops his schoolbooks carelessly on his bed, and turns to go back downstairs.
A bit of blue on a bookshelf catches his eye -- the blue-green stone from the Lost Land, sitting dusty on a shelf with other small treasures of far less personal meaning, pretty stones and tumbled bits of driftwood. He sits on the bed and regards it, remembering Gwion's words about them. A piece of a dream to take with you, away from the Lost Land, he had said lightly, though old king Gwyddno, still half-trapped in despair, had called them pretty but worthless.
And as he sees with memory's eye the stones rolling around in Gwion's clever harper's hands, he knows what is to be done. He has not felt it in years, not strong and certain like this, the Old One's instinctive knowledge clear and unquestioning in his mind. He does not know why, but that doesn't matter. There is no Dark in this, and could never be. Part of his mind is awhirl with speculation, but mostly he is calm and poised, waiting.
He slips the blue stone into his pocket, and from another shelf a smooth dark pebble taken from the shores of a Welsh mountain lake. After a moment, he grabs also a small curved horn, old and battered and dusty, hooking it onto his belt and pulling his sweater low over it as he makes his way down the stairs.
"Going for a walk," he calls, slipping out the door.
His mother's voice drifts after him. "Don't be too long! Remember you have chores still!"
"All right," he yells.
All along the road to Oldway Lane he hurries, driven by an urgency that sings through him like a bright horn calling the flickering notes of the avaunt. Oldway Lane, a tiny unpaved track edged with woods, is known locally as Tramps' Alley, but its older true name tells what it is: one of the Old Ways that wind across Britain, and bear their own sort of protection for those of the Light. Today it is deserted and Will sits tailor-style on the cold ground at the edge of the road. The blue stone is a rounded weight in his pocket, lying against the onyx key he carries there, as he fishes out the other pebble.
He cups the small black pebble of granite in his hands. It has no more magic in it than any thing of the earth, but to an Old One with the knowledge of earth and sky and water that is more than enough. Will whispers to it silently in the way of an Old One. He speaks to it of smooth stones rounded by lapping water, of the deep solid bones of the earth and firey roots of the mountains, of craggy peaks thrusting tall into the sky with the wind whining high about them; of boulders in fields, of piled cairns, of stone walls and stone cottages; of dark water and dark sloping stone and dark clouded sky, and pale high sun glinting off them all.
His focus narrows until the small stone seems the whole world and still he speaks to it, on and on for a hundred slow breaths, until at last the sunlight creeps changed into the edges of his vision with a rippling sound like a half-heard phrase of bell-like music, and he looks up to find himself sitting cross-legged on Cadfan's Way, another familiar Old Way, in Wales two hundred miles and more from Huntercombe. Before him lies the smooth dark water of Llyn Mwyngil, Tal y Llyn, the lake in the pleasant place. The slope of Cader Idris rises beyond to loom over the valley, no longer a place of the Dark but still high and wild and lonely. And only a few feet away stands Bran, inscrutable behind dark sunglasses, his white hair blowing in the wind.
A bit of blue on a bookshelf catches his eye -- the blue-green stone from the Lost Land, sitting dusty on a shelf with other small treasures of far less personal meaning, pretty stones and tumbled bits of driftwood. He sits on the bed and regards it, remembering Gwion's words about them. A piece of a dream to take with you, away from the Lost Land, he had said lightly, though old king Gwyddno, still half-trapped in despair, had called them pretty but worthless.
And as he sees with memory's eye the stones rolling around in Gwion's clever harper's hands, he knows what is to be done. He has not felt it in years, not strong and certain like this, the Old One's instinctive knowledge clear and unquestioning in his mind. He does not know why, but that doesn't matter. There is no Dark in this, and could never be. Part of his mind is awhirl with speculation, but mostly he is calm and poised, waiting.
He slips the blue stone into his pocket, and from another shelf a smooth dark pebble taken from the shores of a Welsh mountain lake. After a moment, he grabs also a small curved horn, old and battered and dusty, hooking it onto his belt and pulling his sweater low over it as he makes his way down the stairs.
"Going for a walk," he calls, slipping out the door.
His mother's voice drifts after him. "Don't be too long! Remember you have chores still!"
"All right," he yells.
All along the road to Oldway Lane he hurries, driven by an urgency that sings through him like a bright horn calling the flickering notes of the avaunt. Oldway Lane, a tiny unpaved track edged with woods, is known locally as Tramps' Alley, but its older true name tells what it is: one of the Old Ways that wind across Britain, and bear their own sort of protection for those of the Light. Today it is deserted and Will sits tailor-style on the cold ground at the edge of the road. The blue stone is a rounded weight in his pocket, lying against the onyx key he carries there, as he fishes out the other pebble.
He cups the small black pebble of granite in his hands. It has no more magic in it than any thing of the earth, but to an Old One with the knowledge of earth and sky and water that is more than enough. Will whispers to it silently in the way of an Old One. He speaks to it of smooth stones rounded by lapping water, of the deep solid bones of the earth and firey roots of the mountains, of craggy peaks thrusting tall into the sky with the wind whining high about them; of boulders in fields, of piled cairns, of stone walls and stone cottages; of dark water and dark sloping stone and dark clouded sky, and pale high sun glinting off them all.
His focus narrows until the small stone seems the whole world and still he speaks to it, on and on for a hundred slow breaths, until at last the sunlight creeps changed into the edges of his vision with a rippling sound like a half-heard phrase of bell-like music, and he looks up to find himself sitting cross-legged on Cadfan's Way, another familiar Old Way, in Wales two hundred miles and more from Huntercombe. Before him lies the smooth dark water of Llyn Mwyngil, Tal y Llyn, the lake in the pleasant place. The slope of Cader Idris rises beyond to loom over the valley, no longer a place of the Dark but still high and wild and lonely. And only a few feet away stands Bran, inscrutable behind dark sunglasses, his white hair blowing in the wind.
