Merlyn's Arc

Chapter 4 of 19

The broken coin lay cold on the anvil, and Merlyn's strength had come back. But the sight-rune still held only a boar's price. To buy his eyes, he needed the greater price, and he did not know its name. His master's book might hold it. He had carried the heavy volume for weeks and not dared open it to that page. Now he did. He worked in the seer's workshop by feel, running his fingers over the raised marks. The book was a slab, its covers cut like temple pillars, its pages stiff as stone. Merlyn read the sacrifice-page slowly. The rune for sight demanded a thing beyond blood. It wanted heart-wood from the ash-tree doorway, cut living, still wet with sap. His master had written the price. He had not written where such wood could be found. "It names the cost," Merlyn said. "Not the place. He left that out." Kjell stood by the wall. Two more men had come with him from the deep roads. Merlyn knew their steps. Thorin, old and heavy in his mail. Thorgar, wide as a door, smelling of ash and salt. They had fought under the mountain and lived. Now they crowded the small room. "Read it again," Kjell said. Merlyn traced the marks. Then his thumb caught the border. Along the page's edge ran a ring of small stones, carved in a circle. Standing stones. He had felt them before and thought them only decoration. Now he counted the runes cut into them. "There is a ring drawn here," Merlyn said. "Round the page. Old stones. Each one marked." Thorin leaned close. His iron beard-rings clicked. "I know that ring. North of the pass. Twelve stones in a circle. My clan passed it every spring." He stopped. His voice went flat. "An ash-tree grows in the middle of it." Merlyn's hands went still. The doorway. The living heart-wood. It stood inside the stone ring Thorin had walked past his whole life. "The place was never in the words," Merlyn said. "It was in the picture. He hid it in the border." Gunnar spoke from the doorway, blunt. "Then the tree is real. And so is the price." "A living cut," Merlyn said. "Still wet." He closed the book. The pillars pressed cold under his palms. He had the name of the price and now the place to pay it. That was more than his father ever held. His father died blind, bent over sealed stone, and never got this far. Merlyn stood. His forearms glowed faint as he steadied himself. "Then we go north," he said. "To the ring of stones." Thorin picked up his axe. "I'll take you. I know the road." The way was found. But the ash grew inside a broken circle of old markings, and no book told him what still guarded it.