Page 44 of Circle of Days
Soo and Dallo simultaneously said: “Where?”
“In the North Hills, a little way beyond the pit my family mines. I know the place well. I call it Stony Valley.”
There was a thoughtful silence.
Seft said: “I could take you there.”
Seft led the group with Neen by his side. Dallo took five of his cleverhands. Soo could not manage the long walk, so her deputy, Ello, came, bringing Inka and Joia. Elders Ani, Keff, and Scagga joined the group. A dozen or so villagers went along out of curiosity.
It was a full day’s walk, and the sun had risen before they set out, so it was getting dark by the time they reached Stony Valley. Seft had wanted them to be astonished by the sight of all the stones, but in the twilight they could see only a few, and their arrival was an anticlimax.
They lit fires and ate some of the smoked meat they had brought with them, then they settled down to sleep in their tunics. The summer was almost over, and the night air was cool. Seft and Neen lay together. Tired by the walk, they fell asleep immediately.
It was light when Seft woke. Some of the others were alreadywalking about, gazing at the stones, marveling at their size and smoothness. There were hundreds of them, some piled one on top of another. Perhaps long ago they had all lain on a level field, Seft imagined, and the Earth God had raised the sides of the field, causing the stones to tumble into the middle, leaving the hillsides free for the sheep to graze.
And what stones! Some of them must have been as heavy as a herd of cows. They were grey in color, though partly covered with moss and lichen.
Neen’s sister, Joia, was visibly excited. “These are magnificent!” she said. “The biggest stones I’ve ever seen.”
“Me, too,” said Seft.
“The new Monumentmustbe built of these!”
“That’s what I think,” said Seft. “But we have to convince Dallo.”
They looked around and spotted Dallo staring thoughtfully at one of the larger stones. They went to his side. The stone was the length of four men and as wide as one man was tall. He said: “I want to know how thick it is.”
The stone was partly sunk into the ground. Seft said: “We’ll need to excavate around it.” He had got into the habit of carrying a bag with a few essential tools. Now he took from the bag the shoulder blade of an ox, useful for digging. He knelt and began to loosen the earth around the stone. Joia picked up a stick and did the same. Several others joined in.
With a dozen or so people working, it did not take long to find the depth of the stone. It was about half as thick as it was wide.
Now that the full size was visible, Seft felt overwhelmed. Surely it was not possible to move this all the way to the Monument?
Dallo was feeling the same, for he said: “Well, now that we’re here, let’s see whether we can even tilt it up on its side. Everyone, cut yourself a stout branch to use as a lever. We’re going to try to raise this monster.”
Seft used his flint axe to chop down a small tree. It was not a quick job, and the sun was high by the time he had a usable lever. Others were taking even longer, and he spent some time helping them. He noticed that Dallo had accumulated a pile of narrow logs, and he wondered what their purpose was.
When everyone was ready, they needed to undercut one long side of the stone so that the levers could get underneath. Seft got down on his knees and again deployed the shoulder blade to dig away the earth. When he had finished, everyone with a lever lined up alongside the stone. There were about twenty-five people, he guessed.
They all pushed the thinner ends of their levers into the soft earth under the stone. Dallo said: “In as deep as they’ll go, or you won’t get any leverage.” When he judged the levers were well set in, he said: “Ready… heave!”
Seft put all his strength into pushing his lever inward and upward. He heard others grunt with the strain. The stone did not move. The people stopped pushing and breathed hard.
Dallo said: “This time, the moment I tell you to heave you must throw all your weight into it instantly.” He gave them a few moments to reset, then said: “Ready… heave!”
The stone moved. Its edge was lifted about the width of a man’s hand. Immediately, Dallo thrust a long, narrow log under the stone to stop it collapsing. He added a second log, then said: “And… rest.”
The people relaxed. There was a crushing sound as Dallo’s narrow logs took the weight. The gap shortened, but not by much, and the logs held up the stone at the slight angle it had reached.
They went on that way. Eventually the stone was standing at a wide angle, with upright logs supporting its weight. Seft saw that from now on the levers would be less effective and it would be increasingly difficult, and finally impossible, to raise the stone farther. Dallo clearly reasoned the same way, for he said that was enough.
It was late afternoon. Dallo moved away from the stone and asked everyone to sit on the ground around him. Seft felt sure he was going to give them a message of pessimism. He said to Neen: “I think your poor sister is going to be disappointed.”
Neen nodded agreement. “She always has such high hopes,” she commented.
Dallo began by saying: “Remember the stone we moved for the farmer across the river?” Several people nodded. Seft was not one of them. This must have taken place before he returned to Riverbend. But he saw from Joia’s expression that she had been there.
Dallo went on: “Recall how we got the stone into the bag: we laid the ropes down and rolled it. We’ve just spent a day proving that we can’t roll the giant stones we see here in this valley. We can’t even get this one upright.”
