Becoming P.T. Lyfantod - 41
A serial fantasy novel
What follows is Part 41 of Becoming P.T. Lyfantod
If you missed Part 1, start there:
Chapter Twelve:
Fair Play
Pencils were put to paper, and the susurrous rain and the clanking heater were joined by the scritching sound of five of Sketty’s best minds hard at work. Or… four of Sketty’s best minds. Because I remembered about as much of Lightfoot’s riddle as I did about the Cymmer Colliery explosion. I wrote:
With wisdom of — knight?
Avalon… Caerleon? — blood!
Kingly arm, saintly hand
Charm, disarm, and step inside
glory, sing, ring…?
Gnawing my eraser, I grasped at the frayed strands of my memory, but they refused to ravel any further. Stealing guilty glimpses around the table, I saw Tom’s and Iain’s pages scattered with scribblings no more complete than mine. Stuart’s and Merry’s were so full, however, that I thought they must be recollecting things never sung at all.
“Eyes on your work!” Tom built wall with his arms. I pretended I’d been admiring a reel of Christmas bulbs.
“Come off it, Firth,” sniped Iain. “You haven’t got any state secrets over there.”
“All I’m after is a fair accounting. So we know when all’s said and done who remembered what.”
Stuart exhaled through his nose. “This is hard.” Merry hummed agreement and kept writing, pausing now and then to dimple her chin with her eraser.
“Ith… tid?” she murmured, underlining a word near the top of her page.
“You know I was wondering about that,” Stuart said, and Merry finally glanced up. “Lightfoot is Irish, right? But his first standing stone is in Wales…”
“Because he was injured, and fled,” I supplied.
“And the inscription on the first stone is in Old Welsh—not Irish.”
“Because the people most likely to find it would’ve been Welsh speakers,” nodded Merry.
“And if they didn’t know the song, they wouldn’t be able to sing it,” I said. “Makes sense.”
“Lightfoot already made the point of using the local language once,” Stuart continued. “Then he spoke English, which is even more confusing. Maybe he just knows it’s the predominant language here now… but it wouldn’t have been when he wrote the riddle. People spoke Welsh here until I think sometime in the late 17th or early 18th century. I can’t remember. Maybe the language of the song changed then. Or maybe it was always in English—”
“Does this have a point?” asked Tom.
“I’m getting to it. So maybe the song was in Welsh and got translated to English. But you can’t translate names. What if it was Illtud the Knight, not Ithtid?”
“Illtud?” Merry repeated. “Illtud… Yeah, it totally could’ve been.” She jotted a quick note. “With wisdom of Illtud the knight, a thirsty stone was—
“Set aflight,” said Iain, when she paused.
“Sent aflight,” Stuart said. “I think.”
“—sent aflight,” Merry wrote. “To cellar house from—
“Earl’s land!” I said, the phrase completing itself of its own accord. The corner of her mouth twitched, and she wrote it down.
“By kingly arm and saintly hand,” Tom said.
“Saintly arm,” Iain corrected. “Kingly hand.”
Merry grunted. Her pencil clicked against her teeth. “Then…?”
“Something about a briny drink?” said Iain doubtfully.
“No, that’s further down,” said Stuart.
“Blood,” Tom crossed his arms. “The next bit was about blood. From…”
“With blood that flowed…” Stuart scanned his page. “And. And…”
“And carried on,” Merry muttered, following along on her own.
“Oh!” I stabbed my notes with a forefinger. “From Caerleon to Avalon. Avalon—does that mean Lightfoot knew King Arthur? Or… I guess the timing doesn’t match up.”
“Maybe he knows his ghost?” Stuart said.
“And now it lies at briny brink, longing for its Yule drink,” Merry read.
“Briny brink,” Iain slapped the table. “Of course!”
“—With word for those who wish to sing,” Stuart recited, “whose voices shall in glory ring, a prize for you does here abide—” We joined him in hushed tones. “Charm, disarm, and step inside.”
Everyone fell silent.
“I think we all know what that last means,” Tom slid Merry’s notes into the middle of the table for a better look. “Find the stone, and use the first spell to open it.”
“Easier said than done,” remarked Iain.
“What is a thirsty stone?” I asked, scanning the page line by line.
“Whatever it is, it has to do with Christmas,” said Merry. “Yule drink?”
“But why thirsty?” said Iain.
“Obviously,” said Tom disdainfully, “it’s a metaphor.”
“Surprised you know what that word means,” muttered Iain. “A metaphor for what?”
Tom shrugged. “How should I know?”
“A thirsty stone was sent aflight,” I read aloud. “That means it was on fire, right? And then… they put the fire out with water?”
“You’re thinking of ‘set alight,’” Stuart said.
“Oh.”
“Down here,” said Merry, “set aflight by saintly arm and kingly hand. It was thrown.”
“from Earl’s land to… cellar house,” said Iain. “But what the hell is a cellar house?”
“Well, Earl is a rank of nobility,” I said. “But it’s also a name…”
“Like James Earl Jones,” Iain nodded.
“The clues are in the specifics,” Merry said. “If we can figure out the names, they’ll tell us where to look.” She tapped the first line with her pencil. “Illtud the Knight. I do think Stuart’s right about the spelling.”
“Do we know who that is?” I looked around the table.
“No,” said Merry. “But when we find out, we’ll be one step closer to finding that stone.”
“Blood that flowed from Caerleon to Avalon—” I said.
“I think it was Caer Lleon,” corrected Iain.
“Avalon,” Tom rubbed his chin. “I’d swear I’ve heard that name somewhere before.”
“You know,” said Merry. “Avalon.”
“King Arthur?” I prodded.
Tom smirked. “That’s Camelot. Even I know that.”
Merry put a hand on Tom’s arm. “It’s where Excalibur came from.”
“It’s a mythic island, where Arthur supposedly died,” said Stuart. “Nobody actually knows if it exists. At least…” He looked down at the page, a little awestruck.
“So is that where we’re going?” said Tom.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “Look here. It’s just describing the person. Illtud the knight, maybe. Saintly arm, kingly hand, and blood that flowed from Caer Lleon to Avalon…”
“Kingly hand,” said Iain softly. “D’you think it’s talking about King Arthur?”
“Why not just say Arthur if it’s about Arthur?” said Tom.
“Well it’s a riddle, isn’t it? If he just goes and says it, it’s too easy.”
“Hold on,” Merry pushed back her chair. “I have an idea.” We watched her crawl over an obstacle course of old bicycles, rusty tool chests, and lawn care equipment, toward a shelf along the wall.
“Thought of something, have you Mer?” said Tom proudly.
Merry grunted. “This weighs a ton…” Her arms disappeared to the elbows inside a sagging box. “Bolivia… Ceylon, Congreve… no. Ear disease… Metalwork—huh? Sonar, Tax law—ugh! Where are you…? Jackson… damn it! Humidity, Ivory Coast…” A pause. “L. L… l-m-n-o-p-q-r-s-t-u-v—got you!”
“Uh, Merry, are you all right?” asked Stuart.
“Oh yeah,” Merry was struggling to remove something from the box, and it wasn’t clear whether she’d heard him. “Ch—yiah!” She managed to wrest free her prize and held it up. It was a book. Or, no—not a book. An encyclopedia, bound in black leather, with gold lettering on the spine.
“Oh,” said Iain. “He’s bound to be in there!”
Clambering back, Merry slapped the book down on the table and prised it open. “They were my uncle’s.” She brushed aside onionskin pages. “Dad wanted to donate them, but mam said they’re too valuable to just give away, so they ended up here. Lucky for us. Iblomorpha… Iddesleigh… Ikaros… Illegal wildlife…” Her finger slid down the page. “Illness anxiety disorder… Illness as metaphor… Illo—illo… I can’t pronounce that. Illuminated manuscript—s-t-u-v… Shit!” She slammed her fist down on the table. “He’s not here.”
“Maybe Jenkins got the spelling wrong. Give it here.” Tom snatched the book and flipped towards the back. I watched his eyes flick across page after page until he stopped, working downward. He frowned, then shook his head. “Nothing.” He snapped the encyclopedia shut and slid it back.
“It was still a nice idea,” said Iain.
Merry sighed.
