I was fascinated. He knew, of course, that I would be, and that was undoubtedly why he had embarked on teaching me something so mysterious. He’s got a kind heart, old Gurdyman, and he wanted to distract my thoughts from that wrecked, brutalized body.
We stopped at some point to go upstairs and eat bread and cheese, sitting outside in the inner court. From the position of the sun, I thought it was a little after noon.
We returned to the crypt, and I pleased my mentor by drawing a set of twenty symbols with adequate accuracy and reciting – very softly – the name of each one. Then, taking me utterly by surprise, Gurdyman said, ‘Enough of that for now. Go and fetch the shining stone, child, for it is time you told me of your progress with it.’
I obeyed him, but only because I had to. That day of all days, close involvement with my magical stone – the heirloom handed down to me by the huge awe-inspiring old Icelander whom I have only quite recently known is my grandfather – was the very last thing I wanted.
The shining stone is made of a strange substance that I had never heard of before encountering it. Gurdyman told me it is formed out of the red-hot, white-hot matter that is hurled out of the depths of the earth when a volcano erupts, and the heat is so tremendous that the very rock turns liquid. That is the first change. But then, when this newly molten substance cools – when, for example, it meets water – it turns to black glass. That is the second change.
No wonder there were strange, arcane forces at work inside the shining stone. It was, it seemed to me, the epitome of the sort of achievement men like Gurdyman strived for: one substance turned, or, as he would say, transmuted, into another. In the case of the stone, it wasn’t just the one transmutation.
Sometimes when I look deep inside it – at first glance it is plain, glossy black, but then after a while you can make out sinuous, winding strips of brilliant green and fiery gold – I find myself speaking to it. You were once rock, I say, and you lived in a place so far away that I can barely imagine the distance. My grandfather Thorfinn told me the stone came from a land beyond the sunset, where men’s skins are dark and they wear feathers in their long black hair. Then the earth caught fire, I continue, and the heat melted you, but your agony stopped and you grew cool again, and found yourself changed out of all recognition. I always feel sorry for the stone when I think about that. How does it feel, to be here with me so far from your home? Are you happy?
It may sound foolish to ask an inanimate object if it’s happy. Unless you had actually held my shining stone in your hands, you couldn’t understand, but there is life inside it, and I know it. It has the power to make you see the truth; it is ruthless; if you have the strength, it will enable you to reach out to the spirits and ask for their help. Of course it’s alive.
Understandably, I think, I’d been in awe, not to say terrified, of the stone for quite a long time after it came into my hands. But gradually, over the weeks and months, curiosity had overcome fear. What had really prompted me to stop being such a coward and get on with it had been when someone else – my grandfather, to be exact – had tried to make me use the stone to find out something he needed to know. Then I had been hit by a powerful combination of anger, indignation, resentment and possessive pride: You would have me use the shining stone for your own purposes, I yelled at him the last time I saw him. If you had a use for it, you should have held on to it.
I have regretted my cruel outburst ever since. I know my words hurt him deeply, for he loves me, as indeed I do him. I hope very much I shall see him again, and soon, in order to apologize and make things right between us.
But oh, he did me a favour. The power of my emotions that day acted like a cleansing fire, and afterwards I knew, as plainly as if it had told me, that the shining stone was truly mine. I had risked one peep into it since coming to this wonderful realization, and what I saw then shook me to my core. That had been back at home, in Aelf Fen, and I had resolved not to make a further attempt till I had Gurdyman beside me.
I found that I had wandered through the house to the foot of the ladder leading up to my little attic room, where I keep the stone concealed. Well, I thought, it looks as if the moment has come. Squaring my shoulders, I climbed up, knelt down and reached under the bed to the loose board beneath which the stone lay, safe in the soft leather bag that I had made for it. I took it out, held it briefly to my heart, and went back to the crypt.
With Gurdyman’s eyes on me, I took the stone out of its wool wrappings and laid it on the workbench. He had already cleared a space, as if perhaps he felt that the shining stone was too awesome an object to be placed among the clutter of the working day. Reluctantly I lowered my eyes and stared at the stone.
Perhaps it picked up that I wasn’t in the right mood to be allowed a glimpse into its depths; I don’t know. I hope that was the case, because I like the thought that we are becoming close, the stone and I, and that it is aware of my feelings as I try to be aware of its own. Whatever the reason, I saw nothing. I went on staring, but the stone didn’t allow me in, and all I saw was my own faint reflection in its glossy black and, today, impenetrable surface.
After a while Gurdyman said quietly, ‘Why are you unwilling, Lassair?’
I raised my eyes and met his. Was it so certain that it was my reluctance that was not allowing anything to happen? Why did he not consider that the blame lay with the stone, shutting itself away from me?
There didn’t seem any point, however, in arguing. ‘I don’t know,’ I muttered.
‘I think you do,’ he countered, although not unkindly. ‘I can think of three reasons. First, you have been badly affected by the body you were summoned to look at yesterday, and your sensitivity has been temporarily blunted.’
‘No!’ The response was instinctive; I didn’t like to think of my sensitivity being blunted, even if it was only temporary. Besides, although seeing the body had been a shock, it wasn’t true to say that it had badly affected me.
‘Very well,’ said Gurdyman. ‘The second reason is that it is I who am asking you to look into the stone, and you are no longer willing to do so at anyone else’s behest.’
Again, I met his cool gaze. I wondered if he knew about what had happened between my grandfather and me. It was quite possible. My aunt’s lover Hrype – another mystical figure who is almost as powerful as Gurdyman and, at times, far more threatening – had been present when I’d yelled at Thorfinn, and Hrype also knew Gurdyman. I found that the prospect of Gurdyman knowing how I’d behaved was both something to be pleased about – because he’d know that at last I’d stood up for myself – but at the same time a little shaming. It wasn’t right to treat people you loved in that way.
But Gurdyman was waiting for me to answer.
‘Er – it’s true that I’m not prepared to use the stone to find out things for other people now.’ I sought the right words to explain. ‘It seems a betrayal of the stone, or perhaps of the relationship we’re building between us.’
Gurdyman nodded. ‘I think that is right,’ he remarked.
‘But this, now, isn’t quite like that,’ I hurried on. ‘I don’t believe you want me to find anything out on your behalf. I think you want to help me, and, indeed, I do need your help.’