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The broad dirt path soon became a thin weedy track that cut through undergrowth and in and out of stands of trees. Their party had to walk single file and the horses were much bothered by vegetation slapping into them. Rosvita, at the fore, apologized more than once for getting and letting a branch spring back directly into the head of Villam’s son, but Berthold never complained. It was a still day, a little muggy, suggesting a hot summer to come.
The crown of the hill was not, as she had supposed, the same thick forest through which they had ascended. The path broke suddenly into sunlight and they emerged onto a level field strewn with great fallen stones and the scattered saplings and bushy undergrowth that marked this as a place once inhabited by people but now abandoned, being slowly overtaken by the forest beyond. Four mounds overgrown with lush grass and wild-flowers rose in the great clearing.
“I never knew the old Dariyans built on hills as high as this,” said Villam, obviously surprised to find ruins here.
Rosvita ventured farther into the clearing. She bumped up against a stone hidden by grass. It was a great block of stone, gray and weathered, with pictures or words carved into it, so worn away by weather, years, and the lichen grown into its curves and grooves that she could not make out what the long-dead builders had chiseled into the stone. She followed the shape of the monolith with her hands, tearing grass away. The block of stone was huge, twice her height though it now lay full length on the ground. At its base she saw the deep hole where it had been sunk into the ground. Now the sinkhole sprouted a thick tangle of nettles.
“This is not a Dariyan ruin, I think,” she said when Villam and his son came up beside her. “See. These inscriptions or images here are much worn, and usually we can read those left by the Dariyan peoples. Also, all of the Dariyan forts I have seen were built to square lines. Look.”
She turned to survey the clearing. From here the four mounds stood equidistant and at equal angles to the position of the base of the great stone block. The forest surrounded them, tall trees cutting off any view they might have of the lands below.
“It looks as if the other stones are laid in a circle around this one. And all of them contained by the earth mounds. This is not Dariyan work.”
“Then whose might it be?” asked Villam. He was still puffing. “Giants must have carried this stone up here. Horses could not have dragged it, not up so steep and high a height as this.”
“And with the trees so high,” added Berthold, who was clearly intrigued by these ruins, “this serves no purpose as a fort. We can’t see anything of the land around us.”
Rosvita studied the mounds and the tree line. “I wonder.” She used her walking stick to beat the undergrowth aside and made her way across the clearing to one of the mounds. Berthold followed her while Villam remained behind, still catching his breath. The men-at-arms had taken the horses aside to graze. As she walked and became more aware of the old stones around her, Rosvita felt suddenly that the men-at-arms might simply be reluctant to enter the old fallen ring of stones.
Since that certainly was what this was. A giant’s ring, some called them; elf crowns, said others. Some said they were the teeth of dragons who had fallen asleep and turned to stone when sunlight struck them. Others said that even before the Aoi, the Lost Ones, had abandoned Dariya under the onslaught of Bwrmen and their human allies from the east, there were other creatures who roamed and built here: giants, or the half-human spawn of dragons, or the descendents of angels. These creatures were said to possess a strength and knowledge now lost to humankind, just as the collapse of the Dariyan Empire some four hundred years ago had left the humans who survived that calamity with but a fraction of the knowledge and wisdom that had grown and flourished in the great union of elves and men known as the old Dariyan Empire.
She used her stick to help her climb up the steep slope of one of the mounds—the westernmost one, she judged by the position of the sun and the shadows. Her robes got in the way, and she yanked them free of her feet and of grasping bushes with a grunt of irritation. Berthold did not follow her up. Rather, he ranged around the base of the mound, knocking at slabs of stone and shoving aside shrubby stumps of plants with the butt of his knife.
Breathing hard, cheeks flushed, she scrambled up to the uneven top of the mound and stared out with great satisfaction. Indeed, as she had suspected, from the mounds one could see out over the trees, although the lines of sight did not bring her eye down into the valley but rather to the summits of other hills and to the heavens themselves. From where she stood she had a good view of the clearing, the footprints of fallen stones in the tangled undergrowth; as far as she could tell, they had been aligned in a circle.
“Look here!” Berthold sang out with sudden excitement. He stood below her at the base of the mound on the side that faced away from the stone circle. She made her way carefully down to him, arriving at the same time as his father.
He was pink with excitement. “I’ve seen old mounds like this before. There was a cluster of them out by the river at my blessed mother’s estate on the Auras River. Always there is some kind of opening, a passageway. And see. Here.” He had found a sturdy stick and wedged open a fallen slab of stone. Rosvita knelt and peered in. A dark opening yawed there, black as pitch and with the scent of air and objects long uncovered to the light. She shuddered and drew back. Berthold, with all the enthusiasm of youth, took her place, shoving the opening a little wider.
“Do you think that wise?” asked Villam suddenly.
“We crawled into the other one.” Berthold shoved his shoulders into the gap so far his voice was muffled. “There was nothing but a dry chamber deep inside. Some old bones and broken pots. And dirt.”
Villam drew the Circle of Unity at his breast. “Is that the way to respect the remains of the dead?” he demanded. “Or at the least, to be prudent when dealing with—” He broke off.
“Ai!” said Berthold with disgust, backing out. “It’s too dark and we have no torch. Even if I could move this slab, there’s a bend in the passage ahead, and there’d be no light to see by. But I could come back up tomorrow or the next day, with some of my men and torches.” He glanced up over his shoulder, grinning sweetly. “With your leave, Father.”
“And disturb what manner of creature?” asked Villam, looking appalled.
Rosvita could not help but nod in agreement. The old tomb, if tomb it was, was better left undisturbed. But Berthold had all the blithe enthusiasm of youth. He looked delighted.
“Do you suppose?” he asked. “No. If old sorceries were at work here, then certainly they have long since gone to sleep. There might be treasure!”
“Surely, Sister Rosvita,” said Villam, appealing to her in the face of his son’s excitement, “you believe, as I do, that it is better to leave the dead asleep and not to disturb them unless they themselves invite you in.”
“I know little of sorcery, Lord Helmut. The sisters of St. Valeria are better known for their studies of the forbidden arts while we at Korvei have long labored over our chronicles. But any suggestion of sorcery is not to be taken lightly. Whether living or long dead.”
She spoke sternly, hoping to make some impression on the young man, but Berthold merely nodded his head obediently and then went to investigate the other mounds.
Villam sighed. “He is a fine boy. But too curious, and lacking prudence.”
“We will be riding on from Hersford Monastery soon, Lord Helmut. I will attempt to keep an eye on him until that time.”
“I thank you.”
Watching the young man pressing through the grass, her gaze traveled along the forest’s edge. And there, she saw a track. It was no more than an opening among trees, but it corresponded to the vague directions given her by Father Bardo. “Beyond the height of the hill follow the trail of the animals, or so I have been told.” Father Bardo had not, evidently, seen fit to visit the most famous holy member of his own cloister. But then, Father Bardo enjoyed his comforts and did not like to leave the pleasant luxuries of the monastery.
Be not too proud, Rosvita, she chided herself, lest you be judged as harshly as you judge others in your turn.
