.

eerie purple glow had begun to bruise the sky.

      ‘Don’t look at it,’ she told him, turning away suddenly.

      He felt his foreboding intensify. ‘It’s…it’s only the northern lights.’

      ‘I don’t care what it is…’ Her voice faded.

      He stared at the flickering as it grew. ‘Gwydion once told me about the northern lights,’ he whispered, ‘but I’ve never seen them.’

      As he looked into the darkness he felt the earth power crackling in his toes. The apple trees felt it too. His eyes narrowed as he realized that this flaring glow was not – could not be – the northern lights. This was brighter, more focused, and it spoke to him.

      ‘Will, come inside!’ she said, pulling at his arm.

      ‘I…’ The light pulsed irregularly like distant lightning, though there was not a cloud in the sky. It was livid. It seemed to reach out from a source that was hidden by the dark hills surrounding the Vale. When he recalled what he knew of sky lore, his unease grew, for this was no natural light.

      His thoughts went immediately to the lorc, that web of lines in the earth that fed the battlestones. They had glowed with an eerie light. At certain phases of the moon they had stood out in the darkness, clothed with a pale and otherworldly sheen.

      ‘Look!’ he said, pointing. ‘That halo. It seems to be coming from near the Giant’s Ring.’

      The ancient stone circle could not be seen from the Vale. It was in Gwydion’s words Bethen feilli Imbliungh, the Navel of the World, a place of tremendous influence, and the fount through which earth power erupted into the lorc. That, Will had always supposed, was the reason the fae had set up one of their terrible battlestones there, the one that had fought Gwydion’s magic and won.

      ‘It can’t be the battlestone, can it?’ Willow asked as she peered into the inconstant light. ‘You said Gwydion had drawn all the harm out of it.’

      ‘So he did. But tonight is Lammas when the power of the earth waxes highest.’

      ‘We didn’t see lights there last year. Nor any year before.’

      Willow’s words ceased as a low rumbling passed through the ground. It was so low that it could not be heard, only felt in the bones. Will heard Avon whinny, then came the sound of ripe apples dropping in the orchard. The ground itself was trembling. As he stared into the night he was aware of Willow’s frightened eyes upon him. Then two flower pots fell from the window ledge at the back of the cottage. He heard them crack one after the other on the stone kerb below. Willow jumped.

      ‘What’s happening?’

      ‘I don’t know.’

      ‘I’m going to see if Bethe’s all right.’ She vanished into the cottage.

      Will let her go, listening only to the night as the rumble passed away beneath his feet and stillness returned to the Vale. Gwydion had once spoken of mountains of fire that rose up in remote parts of the world, mountains that spewed forth flames and hot cinders. But there were none of those in the Realm. He had spoken too of tremblings that shook the land from time to time. They came sometimes as workings that had been delved deep under the earth long ago shifted or fell in on themselves.

      Could that have caused the rumblings?

      And if so, what about the light?

      There was something about that light that caused a shiver to run up Will’s spine. This rippling, eye-deceiving glow was the same colour as the flames that had once trapped and burned him within the compass of the Giant’s Ring. It was purple fire that had lifted him up high over the stones and had begun to consume his flesh. Purple fire that would have killed him in dreadful agony had not Gwydion’s magic saved him. And such a flame as that came only from Maskull’s hands.

      ‘By the moon and stars, he’s found me…’

      A great terror seized him. He recalled the time when he had sat alongside Gwydion in a cart and the wizard had told him what could happen if someone tried to tamper magically with a battlestone. ‘If all the harm were to be released in a single hand clap…it would be enough to torment the land beyond endurance.’

      And who else but Maskull would dare to tamper with a battlestone?

      Fears stirred, wormlike, in Will’s guts as he looked up at the Tops now. There was no doubt what he must do. He went inside and lit a fresh candle. The damp wick crackled as it caught from a flame that already glowed in its niche. Dust still sifted down from the rafters in the gloom. Willow stood by the cradle, her daughter in her arms. Bethe had been woken up by the quake and was mewling.

      ‘Where’re you going?’ Willow asked, seeing him climb the ladder into the loft.

      ‘To call on an old friend.’

      He went to his oak chest and brought out the book that grew bigger the more it was read. He brought it down the ladder, took a soft cloth and wiped clean the great covers of tooled brown leather. There was not much time. Soon the other Valesmen would notice the glow and they would come for his advice.

      He placed the treasured book on the wooden lectern by the fire, a piece of furniture he had made himself specially for it. Then he composed himself for the ritual that should always attend the opening of any book of magic.

      He placed his left hand flat on the book’s front cover and repeated the words of the true tongue that were written there:

      ‘Ane radhas a’leguim oicheamna;

      ainsagimn deo teuiccimn.’

      And then he voiced the spell again in plain speech.

      ‘Speak these words to read the secrets within;

      learn and so come to a true understanding.’

      There were no iron clasps on this book as there were on most others, for this book was locked by magic. As he muttered the charm the bindings were released and he was able to open it. Inside were words for his eyes alone. He turned to a special page with Gwydion’s parting words in mind.

       ‘…should you find yourself in dire need, you must

      find the page where flies the swiftest bird. Call

      it by name and that will be enough.’

      His fingers trembled as the page before him began to fill with the picture of a bird, black and white with a russet throat and long tail streamers. He hesitated. Is this truly a moment of ‘dire need’? he asked himself. Am I doing the right thing?

      He looked inside himself, then across to where Willow nursed their daughter, and suddenly he feared to invoke the spell. But then he saw the livid light flare and heard Bethe begin to cry, and he knew he must pronounce the trigger-word without delay.

      ‘Fannala!’

      He spoke the true name of the swallow. Immediately, his thoughts were knocked sideways as if by a great blow to his head. A bird flew up out of the book and into the candlelight. There was a flash of white breast feathers and it was gone, so that when Will’s bedazzled eyes tried to follow it he lost it in the shadows. When he looked again not knowing what to expect, a grey shape had appeared in the corner.

      ‘Who’s there?’ Willow shouted, clutching Bethe close to her and snatching up a fire iron.

      Will was overwhelmed. It seemed that a great bear or tiger cat had appeared in the room and was making ready to attack. Yet the shape gave off a pale blue light that faded, and then the figure of an old man walked out of the darkness.

      The wizard was tall and grave, swathed in his long wayfarer’s cloak of mouse-brown. His head was closely clad in a dark skullcap, and his hand clasped an oaken staff. Bare toes peeped out from under the long skirts of his belted robe, and he wore a long beard that was divided now into two forks.

      ‘A swift, I told you! Not a swallow! Fool!’