(no subject)

[theravenboy]

Arranging for Bran to visit the Stantons for a few days was easy. Will’s family was more than glad to have his friend from Wales come to stay; Bran and his da were not so happy about the matter, but something had to be done about the sword, after all.

Deciding just what to do about it was almost as simple. Mr Stanton, reading the Guardian before tea yesterday, had said, "They've been putting up ropes around Stonehenge. To keep the punters from damaging the stones too much."

"I am sure it was not before time," said Bran.

"Think of all those stones, standing for five thousand years, in danger from too many tourists with chisels," said Mr Stanton. "Yes, five thousand. The archaeologists say that bit we learned in school, about Merlin bringing the stones from Ireland, is all rubbish, and they really put up the stones long before the Romans came."

"Not surprised," said Will. "A lot of the things stories blame on Merlin happened well earlier than Arthur's time."

Will's eyes met Bran's, then, and that was that.

***

"Stonehenge, then?" Bran nods his head towards his suitcase. Owen gave it to him recently for university, used, but still good. Somewhere in it, hiding among the light shirts and jeans he’s packed to wear for holiday during the warm English summer, rests the sword Caliburn, scabbard, belt and all.

Will, too, glances at the suitcase. “I think so. Yes.”

“Well, then. Let’s join all the holiday-makers looking for Druids.” Bran opens the suitcase and arranges some of the contents in a portable, unrecognizable bundle which he carries under his arm.

After negotiating for the loan of James Stanton’s bike (“Only if you take very good care of it, and don’t crash, and watch the paint job,” James tells Bran several times), Will and Bran ride to the train station at Slough. Two trains and three hours later, they climb back on the bikes, taking the road from Salisbury to Stonehenge.

Comments

[sign-seeker.livejournal.com]

It's just under ten miles from Salisbury station to the henge, and a warm ride it is in July. The sky is clear and bright as Bran and Will pedal along the margin of the wide road cutting across the chalky soil of Salisbury Plain; bright enough, in fact, to make Will half-wish he'd thought to bring sunglasses. Bran, of course, is wearing his, to hide his tawny eyes and make his white hair and pale skin stand out even more dramatically stark.

They're not the only ones biking along, and they pass the occasional walking party too, but most of the tourists have opted to go by car or bus. No way to tell how many of the passing cars are bound for Stonehenge, of course, but on a fine day in July Will guesses that plenty of them contain tourists on day trips. Which is just what he and Bran are, of course -- except for the ways in which they are not tourists on this trip at all.

In the basket of Bran's borrowed bicycle, carefully balanced, is a shapeless bundle. Inside it is the sword Caliburn.

[theravenboy]

The Stonehenge car park, when they reach it, is full of tourists: English tourists, American tourists, Europeans murmuring to each other in French and Italian. A dozen Druids, in white hooded robes, emerge from one of the busses; several delighted visitors snap pictures of them.

Between camera flashes, Bran murmurs to Will, "They look like Iolo Morgannwg, only not as authentic."

[sign-seeker.livejournal.com]

For a sais bach, Will knows quite an astonishing amount about the old bards and lore of Wales and Britain -- though of course, for an Old One this is not astonishing at all. 18th century forgeries thereof, however, were not part of the gift of Gramarye, which is why he shoots Bran a brief blank look.

[theravenboy]

"Oh, Morgannwg was a good Welshman. Loved medieval Welsh culture enough that he made up some culture of his own and told everyone it came from the thirteenth century." Bran grins, dismounting and leading his bike towards the henge. "In the course of his research, he 'discovered' quite a lot about druids. I am not sure, but I think the white robes are his fault."

Ahead of them, a woman with a strong American accent says, "What do you mean we can't go into the inner circle?"

[sign-seeker.livejournal.com]

Will snorts.

"Paid quite a lot of attention to what their laundry must have entailed back then, I see."

He digs in his pocket for the admission price, as they queue up behind the American woman and the two women who seem to be accompanying her. "For conservation purposes, ma'am," explains the harried-looking guard for what's clearly the hundredth time today. "Quite a lot of people walking by over the centuries, and it wears the henge down. Want to protect the stones, don't we."

The woman snorts. "Well, that's silly," she informs him. "They're stone."

Both the guard and the woman's companions try very hard to not look pained.

[theravenboy]

"Worse than the tourists up on Happy Valley," Bran mutters as the women enter the park.

Taking Bran's and Will's money, the guard conceals a smile.

As the young men push their bicycles into the park, Bran says, "What would you like to see first, Will bach?"

Translation: You're the Old One. You tell me what to do next.

[sign-seeker.livejournal.com]

Will tilts his head as if listening to something just beyond hearing, as he considers the question.

"In as far as we can go, to start," he says thoughtfully, still with that absorbed, listening look, as they fasten their bikes to the rack. "Towards the center of it."

[theravenboy]

"Of course, it has to be where everyone else is going..." But Bran grumbles quietly, trying not to disturb Will as he listens.

The crowds are thickest towards the ropes and the stone circle; people will see them. Nevertheless, Bran removes Caliburn from its wrappings and belts it around his waist. "I remembered to bring my costume," he says. "I want to get into the spirit of things. Like the Druids."

[sign-seeker.livejournal.com]

"Mm," says Will vaguely. Which is a fairly sure sign that most of his attention is elsewhere, for all that Bran's comment was mostly intended for any curious observers.

"Tremendous, aren't they? Like great doors, those ones there."

The stones loom above them, huge dark masses, solid and deep-rooted. Tourists in t-shirts and shorts mill around the perimeter, snapping pictures and chatting, but they look ephemeral and unreal against the ancient weathered stone.

The chalk plain is very green around them, and very flat, and the air shimmers with heat-haze.

[theravenboy]

"I suppose so, a little." Bran, too, is distracted, as if he is listening for a melody too far away to hear.

They have nearly reached the rope barrier, now, but the barrier itself is fading; the grass behind it shows clearly through the rope. Even the tourists are colourless, almost translucent. Will alone seems solid, an ordinary stout young man walking through the park.

All at once Bran finds himself grinning crazily. "It's working, isn't it? This has to be right."

[sign-seeker.livejournal.com]

Will glances at him, and the same joyful grin lights in sudden response.

"Yes," he says happily.

The grass is solid underfoot, and the chalky soil beneath, and when Will scuffs the toe of his shoe against a pebble it rolls away. But he and Bran pass through the rope barrier as if through mist, and no one glances at them. And then even the shadows of tourists and ropes are gone, as the two boys move closer to the great stones.

"We are not in our own time any more. And less so every step we take. But the stones are old, and they stay."

[theravenboy]

"Not quite--" Where some of the uprights had lain at angles upon the ground, and some of the lintels had fallen or been missing, every arch is now complete in the circle.

"It's lovely," Bran says, raising a hand nearly close enough to touch one blue stone.

Inside the circle, under one of the arches in the inner horseshoe, something yowls. Bran jerks his head upward, staring.

"I am an infant," he quotes clearly. "Who but I peeps from the unhewn dolmen arch?"

Bran wondered what that verse meant, once. Now he knows. He crosses into the circle and kneels before the arch, where a mottled cat sits in an upturned pile of dirt.

There.

[sign-seeker.livejournal.com]

Bran spotted what Will had not, and this part is his. But Will sees the shadows in the stone Bran kneels before, and a slow satisfaction is growing in his mind as he moves to stand behind Bran and watch.

[theravenboy]

The cat climbs down from the dirt, dusts his face with his paws and wanders away, meowing to himself.

Bran unbuckles the swordbelt and lets it rest in a grassy area beside him. With his bare hands, he makes a long, narrow hole in the dirt under the dolmen arch. The loose soil is easy enough to move, and it takes about a half hour for Bran to create a trench one foot by one foot by seven feet.

It is silly not to touch Caliburn with dirt-stained hands, when the sword is going into the dirt in any case. Nevertheless, Bran wipes his hands in the grass before taking it up again and laying it in the ground.

The moment is solemn, but Bran laughs a little. "Whoso pulleth forth this sword... It will be in a time of great need, if it happens. May it be wielded as it deserves, and may the one who carries it at last triumph."

Taking a clump of soil, he begins to cover Caliburn up.

[sign-seeker.livejournal.com]

It doesn't take long. The clots of dirt fall scattering over the bright hilt and scabbard, until the only sign of its presence is a slight mounding of the loose earth. In a few days, even that will be gone, as the soil settles.

Will looks down at the grassy soil, hands in pockets. He takes a deep breath, and begins to sing quietly.

This is the spell-singing of the Old Speech, and the words are a matter of nuance as much as sound, not quite like any language of the ordinary world; clear in the moment they are sung, and then gone into indistinct half-memory an instant later. The Spell of Afaliach is what he is laying into place, and by its power there are very few who will be able to look at this spot and find anything but the dirt and stone and grass they might expect to find there.

It, too, does not take long.

[theravenboy]

Bran lays his hand on the surface of Caliburn's grave in a kind of farewell, and rises.

"Come on, then, Will," he says. As Will and Bran walk together under the lintel of one of the outer arch, a faint thread of melody spirals through the air. Bran listens, listens, and then he is hearing the loud laughter of the American tourist group.

Bran will never hold Caliburn again, he knows, and Eirias has been lost to him for a long time now. Pushing aside a wave of grief, he says, "Race you to the train station, Will bach?"

[sign-seeker.livejournal.com]

Will glances at him sidelong, and for an instant more his face is grave and unreadable.

And then the impression is lost in a quick grin, and he might only be a boy, out on a day trip to Stonehenge to see the sights. "Sure."

The great stone circle is behind them, now, austere in the center of a lapping sea of bright-clad tourists, and as they wheel their bicycles across the car park neither boy looks back.