Magus of Stonewylde Book One (37 page)

Later in the day Magus called again at Woodland Cottage. There was a strange, triumphant light in his dark eyes. He flung himself into an armchair, stretched his long legs out before him and linked his hands behind his head, grinning at them both like a satisfied cat.

‘What’s happened?’ asked Miranda.

‘Problem solved,’ he said smugly. ‘Cracked him in the end, just as I knew I would. I’m surprised the boy lasted as long as he did, but he couldn’t hold out for ever.’

Sylvie, lying on the sofa, sat up quickly.

‘What have you done? Have you hurt Yul?’

Magus chuckled.

‘That Village boy is no good, Sylvie, and you must forget him. There’ll be no more contact between the two of you.’

‘What have you done to him?’

‘I’ve broken his silence and forced him into submission. And now he’s gone away.’

‘What? Where? Is he alright? When’s he coming back?’

She jumped up and stood before Magus, her hair wild around her face. This was her first day out of bed and she was still weak. Magus laughed and held up a hand.

‘Not so many questions! Yul finally told me everything. It all came tumbling out in the end, just as I knew it would. All the things Old Heggy said.’

‘I don’t believe you! You’re trying to trick me.’

‘No, really. “Those who stand against you will fall, one by one.” Is that what she said?’

Sylvie nodded, feeling sick. What had Magus done to Yul to break him? He’d never have spoken willingly about that.

‘Yul told me something else too, Sylvie. Something about you.’

Magus rose and stood in front of her and she took a step back, feeling suddenly dizzy.

‘I know what you were doing on the night of the Blue Moon in the pouring rain. Yul’s betrayed your little secret.’

Sylvie swallowed. Her mother’s shocked face went in and out of focus. Magus loomed over her, his dark eyes glittering.

‘Yul told me, Sylvie, that you’re a moongazy girl.’

Q
uarrycleave was like nowhere on earth. A vast bleak place of tortured and blasted stone covering acres, it sprawled across the landscape like a white open wound. It bit into the land, shallow at the entrance but deep at the distant end where the rolling hills had been robbed of their stone hearts. Great craggy cliffs spilled out, boulders piled on boulders, faces of sheer white rock, stone protruding from the flesh of the earth like the very skeleton of the Earth Goddess.

She was laid bare and violate, spread open and looted, her body left desecrated and ugly when the men had taken their fill. No benign life force lingered here; no fertility or green earth energy remained in this place of desolation. Like an embittered woman whose beauty has been ravaged, the spirit here was malignant. It was an ancient place which screamed of suffering, moaned of torment, whimpered of death.

Despair hung like a foetid cloud over Quarrycleave, calling for sacrifice. It stalked the labyrinth between high walls of stone; lay in wait amongst the winding cuts cleaved into the very body of the land. Each jagged and vicious rock-face of the labyrinth represented untold aching sinews and groaning joints of the men who’d hewn and hammered here over thousands of years; men who’d given their youth, strength and lives to Quarrycleave in their quest for stone.

Stone – the one material representing permanence in a transient world where all else followed the natural cycle of growth
and decay. The one material that marked man’s dominion over nature and the landscape. Stone was power but, at Quarrycleave, too many lives had been claimed in its quest. Too many deaths had gone unmarked in the name of avarice; of haste and carelessness in men’s lust to rape the earth and plunder the pure white stone.

Quarrycleave sought human life to pay for all the centuries of pain and desecration. Greedy for blood to be spilt, the place soaked up lives to feed its hunger. The hunger was never satisfied, for nothing could atone for the obscene defilement of the land. Quarrycleave was the place of bones and death.

As the Land Rover had approached the shallow end of the quarry, Yul had felt a shroud of misery smother his spirit. Being so in tune with the Earth Magic from his daily visits to the Stone Circle, he sensed the negative, destructive energy of this place. He felt it snaking up out of the tortured landscape and curling around his soul. He began to shake and clasped his hands between his knees to still them.

Magus glanced at him, then swung the Land Rover away from the entrance. He pulled around the edge of the quarry, keeping safely away from the steep drop that marked the rim of the great horseshoe-shaped crater. He drove up the hill on the grass, by the side of the quarry, steadily bumping the vehicle over the rough ground towards the high summit on the skyline. It wasn’t possible to drive right to the top, for rocky outcrops and boulders littered the land here and it was too steep. Magus stopped when he could drive no further, turning the Land Rover so it faced inwards to the quarry, and switched off the engine. Silence fell.

‘Look, Yul,’ he said softly. ‘Isn’t it beautiful? There’s something about this place, a bleakness that touches me. I’ve always loved Quarrycleave. I rode up here as a boy, dragging Clip along. We used to play down there and he hated it.’

Yul sat silently, quaking inside and hoping his trembling wasn’t visible. Magus sighed, gazing out over the vast scene below. Yul saw how the quarry, for all its starkness, had become overgrown over the years as soil had blown in from the land
around. In places a few stunted hawthorns struggled for existence, twisted into grotesque caricatures of trees. Ivy grew everywhere inside the quarry, swarming up rock-faces in great sheets of glossy leaves, cascading down in torrents of dark green over the steep cliffs at the far end. Nature was attempting to reclaim the place, trying to clothe the stone’s nakedness with green and cover her shame.

But man had once again intervened. There were modern yellow machines crawling all over her: dumper trucks, an enormous digger with claws, a great drilling rig. Yul saw men moving about below them and an ugly assortment of old caravans parked around the shallow end. His heart filled with despair at the thought of spending two weeks here. The place invoked crushing fear and misery. How would he ever survive?

Magus turned and Yul felt the power in the man beside him. The Earth energy coursed through him; he who’d always been the master. Magus’ dark eyes glittered with authority and Yul could not meet his gaze.

‘You will learn to obey me, Yul. You’ll once and for all abandon any rebellious inclinations you may have felt in the past. Sylvie is Hallfolk and she’s most definitely not for you. Your father must be respected and obeyed at all times. Buzz and any other young person from the Hall must be shown proper deference. You’ll keep your eyes down and your head bowed when a member of the Hallfolk is present. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, sir, I do,’ croaked Yul, feeling close tears.

‘And you’ll never, ever challenge me in any way again. In six months’ time you’ll be sixteen and an adult. If I haven’t seen evidence of your absolute subservience by then, I’ll cast you out of the community.’

Yul nodded, his lips quivering. He wished with all his heart that he were at home now, in his cottage with his mother and the children, safe and loved.

‘Never forget, my boy, that living at Stonewylde is a privilege, and one which I may choose to withdraw any time I see fit. Better people than you have been sent packing in the past, and I’d have
no qualms about kicking out an unruly trouble-maker like you. Be assured, I’ll tolerate no further trouble from you in any shape or form.’

Magus looked hard at the boy, now barely recognisable as the good-looking young Villager who’d been dragged from the woodsmen’s hut five days ago. His face was so bruised and swollen, his body so hunched and shrunken that he could have been someone else altogether. Yul turned his battered face towards Magus.

‘Please, sir,’ he whispered, ‘please don’t make me stay here. I’ve learnt my lesson, I promise. I beg you, sir – don’t make me go down into that place.’

Magus raised his eyebrows at this and shook his head.

‘Oh no, young man! You wouldn’t even dare ask me that if you’d really learnt your lesson – you’d just obey without question. You’ll stay here for two weeks. If you’ve worked very hard and if Jackdaw is agreeable, you may come back to the Village after that. But not before.’

He switched on the engine and reversed, turning the Land Rover round and slowly heading back down the steep hill towards the entrance of the quarry mouth. Yul hung his head and began to cry silently, the sobs shaking his thin frame. He was too weak and confused to understand why he should feel so terrified of the quarry, but was unable to stop himself. Magus glanced at him as he drove carefully downwards along the quarry edge.

‘I see that Quarrycleave has the same effect on you as it had on my brother. He was terrified too, but I can’t see why. It’s a place of incredibly strong power and magic. Though I’ll grant you, the energy is strange here, unlike anywhere else at Stonewylde. I’ve considered celebrating a festival up here, just to see what sort of Earth Magic I’d receive. Interesting thought …’

Yul shuddered and wiped his nose on his sleeve, having nothing else to use.

‘And Yul – if I were you I’d stop the snivelling now. Jackdaw will have enough fun with you over the next fourteen days without branding you a cry-baby from the start. Pull yourself
together, boy – you really won’t survive this punishment otherwise.’

They parked by the shabby caravans. The area was a mess; rubbish and debris were scattered all around. An old minibus was parked next to a scruffy pick-up truck, and several dishevelled men hung about smoking and talking. As Magus pulled up, a large man emerged from one of the caravans, cigarette in mouth. Yul recognised him at once. The sight of Jackdaw filled Yul with further dread, for the man was infamous in the Village. He was enormous, heavily built with a huge barrel chest and exceptionally long legs. Unlike Alwyn his bulk was solid muscle. His large bald head was tanned nut-brown and both ears were pierced in several places. He was covered in tattoos and sported a few days’ beard growth. But most menacing of all were his eyes. Brilliant blue and bulbous, they gleamed with a manic light that spoke of an unhinged personality.

He approached the Land Rover as Magus was getting out and gave a mock salute. He was even taller than Magus, which was unusual. He eyed Yul, huddled in the car, and spat on the ground.

‘Afternoon, sir.’

‘Good afternoon, Jack. Here’s the boy as promised. He’s yours for two weeks, although that takes us up to the Solstice and I doubt I’ll be taking time out to come and collect him before the festival. Work him hard and don’t spare him in any way. He’s in a lot of trouble and I want him broken in, once and for all. You get my meaning?’

‘Oh yes, guv. Work him to the ground and knock the spirit out of him. Easy enough to do here, I can tell you. These bloody immigrants are worse than useless. Still trying to lick them into shape but it ain’t easy. Don’t speak a word of bloody English. Look at the state of them! Slouch around doing bugger all. Don’t trust none of ’em an inch.’

‘Yes but you know why we’ve got them. They’ve come very cheap with no questions asked about health and safety, so make the best of it, Jack. Now watch this boy carefully. If he tries to run off you have my permission to punish him however you like.
If he never came back to Stonewylde it’d be no great loss to the community, miserable little runt. Do you understand?’

The man tapped the side of his nose and winked.

‘Yeah, I got you. Disposable, if push comes to shove. Don’t worry, I’ll sort the little bugger out well and good. Just the sort o’ job I enjoy most. He won’t be no more trouble when I’ve done with him.’

‘You’ll need to feed him up or you’ll get no work out of him. Normally he’s pretty tough, but he’s been starved the last few days and now he’s very weak. But don’t spoil him.’

‘You know me better than that, guv! I don’t do spoiling.’

‘Everything else alright? Supplies getting in regularly?’

‘Yeah, no problem. Food, drink, fags, laundry – all delivered regular to the Gatehouse and I go along every morning and pick ’em up. The small plant’s all on site now, and we’ve started the core drilling. We’re still looking for the working faces, and we’re clearing some of the backfill too. We’ll begin crushing it soon for aggregate.’

‘Good – it all sounds in order. After the Solstice, you can give me a proper report. Right then, I’ll be off. Any trouble, go to the Gatehouse and phone down to the Hall. Oh, and Jackdaw – get something done about this bloody mess.’

‘Mess?’

‘All this rubbish lying about. You should know better, even if those damn Outsiders don’t. We don’t desecrate Stonewylde with litter.’

‘Right you are, boss. I’ll have a word with ’em and the boy can get started on tidying it up now.’

Magus yanked Yul’s door open and pulled him out roughly, marching him over to Jackdaw.

‘He’s all yours, Jack. Have fun.’

Yul very quickly got Jackdaw’s measure. Jump when he said jump and keep out of range of his hands and feet. Jackdaw saw that Magus meant what he’d said about treating him hard, for the boy had been given a thorough going over. His face was so swollen it was a miracle he could see or talk. He stumbled and
swayed and was of little use to anyone in his present state.