Out of the Dawn Light

TEN

I think it was that evening, as we sat round a driftwood fire and tried to dry our soaked boots and clothing, that what I had worked out ages ago first really dawned on Sibert.

Which, very simply was this. Romain, Sibert and I were all vital to this mission, Romain because it was he who had found out about the hidden thing, Sibert because he knew where it was concealed and I because my particular skill would allow me to locate lost objects. I had been naive and had omitted to agree a fair recompense for my trouble; it had been enough, when Romain approached me, that I would be escaping from my sister for a while and going off on an adventure with two young men, both of whom I liked quite a lot and one of whom I was really attracted to.

What terms had Sibert agreed?

Unless this treasure was easily divisible — which I seriously doubted since all along it had been referred to in the singular as an object — then only one of them could have it. Romain had been forced to admit I was right when I’d said he planned to use the treasure to buy himself back into royal favour, so it was possible he intended to sell it and give Sibert a share of the proceeds, reserving the rest for his own purpose. I wanted to believe it but I could not make myself. It really wasn’t very likely because the king probably had plenty of money already but it wasn’t every day an abject subject came grovelling to be pardoned for his father’s sin with an object of power in his hands. .

No. If I was right — and every instinct was shouting out to me that I was — then Romain had no intention of sharing the treasure with anybody. He would allow me and Sibert to find it for him and then at best he would offer us something for our trouble. At worst, he would betray us and desert us and we would never see either him or the treasure ever again.

I had worked out this truth long since and I was biding my time, not sure yet what I ought to do. Now, as we sat digesting what I have to admit was a pretty decent meal accompanied by the great luxury of smooth red wine, watching dreamily as the steam rose off our drying garments, I sensed that Sibert was at last realizing it too.

He shifted around for a while and I felt that he was wondering whether or not to raise the matter and, if he did, what he should say. Eventually, staring at Romain with an angry frown on his face, he opened his mouth to speak.

And in that instant I knew that he must not. Something was telling me urgently that this was not the moment. I did not wait to try to work it out but instead coughed loudly to cover Sibert’s first words and at the same time kicked him hard on the shin.

‘Ouch!’ he exclaimed, rubbing at his leg. ‘What did you do that for?’ Now he was glaring at me.

‘Cramp,’ I said shortly. ‘Sorry.’

While he was still frowning at me I mouthed, ‘Not now!’ and, thankfully, he seemed to understand.

I lay back, the tension seeping out of me. I had obeyed the inner warning without hesitation, partly because I trust my own instincts, which usually do not let me down, but also because of what I had sensed as I approached the sea sanctuary. There was such a sense of threat out there that I had wondered that Romain and Sibert had kept on their feet; as for me, I was so beaten back by the silent power emanating out of it that I couldn’t have gone on even if they’d dragged me. And I was so afraid. I knew that the sea was angry, for I could hear crashing waves like marauding ships breaking out there on the waterline. The wind was angry too, blowing straight out of the east. From somewhere — perhaps within the timber circle itself — there had come a low, forceful, unearthly sound that I could not begin to identify. But then I had recalled the name of this place: Drakelow.

I was hearing the muffled boom of the dragon. .

I was not only afraid for myself, although in truth that fear was more than enough to cope with. I had seen a dark cloud over Romain. As it billowed and waxed right above his head I recalled my granny’s words: He walks in the shadow of death.

Was this what she had seen? All those months ago in Aelf Fen when she stared at Romain, had her more practised eyes detected what was hidden to me until today? I did not know, but I strongly suspected it.

I liked Romain. Oh, more than that; despite the fact that I was fairly certain he intended to cheat Sibert out of a share of the treasure, I was drawn to him powerfully. In my foolish heart I still entertained the fanciful, optimistic hope that if and when I succeeded in bringing off what he wanted of me, he would stop treating me like an anonymous child and see me for the alluring and fascinating woman I was.

Some hope.

I was faced with a dilemma. My only — and very slim — chance of making Romain see me with new eyes involved my steeling myself to go back out to that terrifying timber circle and find the treasure. But I was afraid of the circle’s power and I also knew it was very dangerous for Romain. I could not bring myself to admit that I believed it would bring about his death; my mind kept hedging away from that. And I might be wrong. .

So, was I to do what I knew I should, and try to persuade Romain to give up the whole venture — finding the thing, giving it to the king, winning back the royal favour and with it his forefathers’ home — and slip away to the safety of whatever refuge he had found for himself? Or did I curl up like a frightened little animal and, when Romain deemed it was time to try again, meekly do what I was told?

I might be wrong, I reminded myself. And the rosy, pink-tinted daydream spotted its chance and slipped back seductively into my mind. I was in a beautiful velvet gown in a sea-green shade that brought out the colour of my eyes and on my head I wore a precious gold circlet. I strolled in a beautiful garden scented with pinks and roses and, beside me, lovingly holding my hand, walked my husband. He was broad-shouldered and very handsome, dressed like me in new finery, and behind us was our home. The home was Drakelow and the husband was Romain.

I can see now that my fantasy was childish and quite unrealistic. I couldn’t make myself see it then.

Presently we settled down to sleep.

I was wakened by a soft whisper in my ear and a firm hand over my mouth.

‘It’s me,’ Sibert hissed. ‘Don’t make a sound.’

Again I crawled after him out of the place in which we were sleeping. Again we crept away until we could speak without waking Romain.

‘What is it this time?’ I asked resignedly.

I truly had no inkling!

He said, ‘Dawn is close. The tide is almost at its lowest point and the water is well clear of the sea sanctuary. It’s gone quite a lot further out than it did yesterday afternoon. Let’s go.’

‘Wait.’ I spoke the single word so sharply that he did.

‘What?’ he demanded.

‘It’s dangerous,’ I said. It was pretty feeble but I had just been shocked out of sleep and I wasn’t at my best.

‘It’s not,’ he countered. ‘Weren’t you listening? I just said the tide’s a lot further out this time. The sand around the circle’s virtually dry.’

He had to be exaggerating. What about all those pools we’d splashed through when we made the previous attempt? Some of them were pretty deep. I was far more wary of the main enemy, however. ‘But the sea comes back in so quickly,’ I protested, ‘and we might get caught unawares.’

‘We won’t.’ He grabbed my hand and we hurried over to the dry stream bed, trying to wriggle down without dislodging too many stones whose rattling fall might disturb Romain.

Romain. .

Suddenly I was eager, willing to overcome my instinctive fear of the sea sanctuary and what it contained. Now it was I who was urging Sibert, running down the long shore and into the slowly paling eastern sky in pursuit of the retreating tide. For I had just thought this: if Sibert and I succeeded, we could slip away in the night with the treasure. Romain would know nothing about until he woke and by then we would be long gone.

His involvement with the sanctuary and what it contained would be over and perhaps — I was almost sure — that would mean the shadow of death would no longer hover above him and he would not have to die.

My actions tonight might well save his life.

We had reached the timber circle. I was shaking, once again cowering before its force. The low booming had begun again, louder than before. Now whatever power was making the eerie sound had eyes as well as a voice, for the tingling and prickling on my skin told me I was being watched. Somewhere out there in the pinkish, unearthly light, something was aware of us. Sibert looked pale and scared. I wondered if he too heard the sound and felt the eyes. .

‘We have to do this,’ I said. My teeth chattered with fear.

‘I know.’ He sounded no less terrified.

I don’t know who made the first move but suddenly we were holding hands. I’m sure it was as much of a comfort to him as it was to me. He stepped up to the upturned stump and crouched down. Letting go of my hand, he put his fingers on the exposed trunk, just above where it disappeared under the sand. This time, it was almost clear of water and as I stared I thought I could make out what he had felt: a sort of line that seemed to have been cut into the wood.

‘I think,’ he said, ‘that it might be time to see what you can pick up.’

Of course it was; that time had come quite a lot earlier, only I had been too awed by the sanctuary — too terrified of it, if I am honest — to act. Now I knew I had no choice.

I straightened up, stepped a deliberate pace away from Sibert and closed my eyes.

It was far, far worse with my eyes shut. The force lines that I had sensed whirling and spinning around us became visible behind my eyelids and they were harshly coloured, jagged and shocking. They touched on my bare arm and I felt as if I had been cut. I wanted to cry out, to scream, but I controlled myself. I wish you no harm, I tried to say silently to whatever it was that fought me, but it was a lie and the power out there must have known it; I did mean harm, for I intended to locate the hidden thing that the men of old had placed there so that Sibert could take it away.

I gathered my puny strength and fought back. Now they used different weapons, playing on my mind. My eyes were still tightly closed but yet I seemed to see the shore stretching away before me. The sea was out there; I could smell it and hear it and it was angry. Dawn was near and the sky in the east was lemon yellow, steadily filling with flame-coloured streaks. There was a ship on the horizon, sailing in out of the light. As yet she was just a black outline, but I could see by her profile that she was a longship and her proud prow was in the shape of a dragon. She was beautiful and graceful, but she brought horror.

I was so afraid, for I knew what her crew had come for.

Then I saw other men, behind me on the shore. One of them was a king, his high forehead bound with a narrow silver circlet. Beside him was a robed figure of dark aspect and I knew him to be a sorcerer, for magic hummed and thrummed around him and he glowed faintly as if lit from within. Lines of brilliant blue-white light ran across his body, down his arms and legs and out into the wild air of the shore, stretching away to link with other lines until they joined to make a vast web connecting everything and everyone on the earth.

The sorcerer carried something in his outstretched hands. Something in which he had captured his own power, for it shone brightly in the first rays of the rising sun.

Behind them a procession of figures slowly paced. On they came, on, on, until they reached the sea sanctuary. Still they came on, and the king and his sorcerer stopped beside the upturned stump. The king nodded and the sorcerer bent down, placing the object he held so reverently in his hands into the tree. .

. . where as if by magic it seemed to meld with the very wood and disappear.

The vision faded.

My downturned palms felt as if great jolts of power were shooting through them. It hurt — oh, it hurt! — but I gritted my teeth against the agony. I opened my eyes, and tears of pain ran down my face. I discovered that I was up against the tree stump, my hands close together hovering right above the strange line that Sibert had discovered.

I crouched down. The force stabbing into my hands changed, first fading and then, as I held my palms down below the etched line, suddenly coming back so strongly that at last I cried out.

‘There!’ I said, my voice not sounding like my own. ‘There! No, not where the line is, below it and to the right!’

It was as if the line had been carved into the wood as a pointer. Sibert, on his knees in the damp sand, was digging frantically like a dog after a rat, sending up showers of coarse grit. I stood at his shoulder, my hands still outstretched, enduring the pain because I had the strong sense that, if I stopped doing whatever it was I was doing — acting as a receiver, perhaps — the power would switch off and the thing would just not be there any more. .

It was a long way beyond anything I had learned with Edild.

I did not dare ask him if he had found anything. I could not have spoken at all; the effort of holding in the scream I was so desperate to let go was such that I had clamped my jaws shut. He dug on, deeper, deeper, desperate now. I watched him, aching for him to say something, to cry out in triumph, to slump in disappointment. Above all I wanted him to stop, so that the pain I was enduring would go away.

He was still. Suddenly, after all that desperate digging, he was perfectly still.

Then, so slowly that at first I had to look closely to detect he was actually moving, he backed away from the hollow he had dug under the tree stump. He had something in his hands. It was an object, roughly circular, wrapped in an earth-stained, salt-stained, torn and ragged piece of coarse cloth.

He stood up, turning to face me.

He unwrapped the cloth.

The first rays of the new day’s sun blasted out of the dawn and found their reflection in the object in Sibert’s hands.

The object was solid gold.