The Swan Kingdom Read Online Free

undulating rhythm could be discerned. The sound came from the mound, I realized – from the rocks. They were whispering.
    “You must change your clothes,” Mother said softly. “Open your pack.”
    I pressed my lips closed on the questions that wanted to escape, and instead took the pack from my shoulders. I pulled out a long white shift, belted with a twisted cord of gold. It was new, and must have been specially made for me; not many people needed a shift so long.
    The night air shivered over my skin as I took off my cloak and gown and dropped the cool shift over my head. My mother took the cloak and reversed it so that the red lining was on the outside, glowing vividly in the half-light as she clasped it at my throat. She pressed a kiss to both my cheeks and I heard the quiet huff of her breath, slightly quicker than usual; then, with a last touch to my shoulder, Mama left me and walked forward to lay a hand on the lintel stone.
    The rock whispering grew louder. More voices joined the first ones, their strange words mingling into a soft babble of sound. Around us, the forest seemed to fall still.
    “You must pass through the gateway.” Mama gestured to the waiting shadows within the opening.
    “I…” My stomach fluttered. “Alone?”
    “Yes,” she answered. Her tone was even but her fingers curled into a fist on the stone.
    I hesitated. Mama’s face softened. “This must be done, my love,” she said, so quietly that I could hardly hear the words. “But if I did not think you were ready, I would never send you through alone.”
    Send me through? Where was I going? I looked at Mama’s face again. There was no trace of expression now. I knew she would not force me to do anything. She was waiting for me to make my decision.
    I took a deep breath and stepped forward. Bending, I ducked my head and squeezed into the narrow opening under the horizontal slab. The dark enveloped me as if a hood had been thrown over my head; there was nothing except blackness. The sound of my breathing echoed as if in a much larger space, overlapping the whisper of the rocks. Then there was a hollow percussion, as if hands had clapped over my ears. My body seemed to jolt; my ears rang; and I blinked furiously as light shone suddenly into my face.
    Eyes watering, I emerged from the darkness.
    When I stood, it was not in a clearing in the forest but on a circular plateau at the crest of a hill. At regular intervals around the edge of the plateau were seven standing stones, each taller than a man; they thrust up into the belly of a turbulent sky that roiled with silver-purple storm clouds and irregular pulses of lightning. The stone chamber through which I had just crawled was at the centre of the circle.
    The voices of seven women, echoing and overlapping, rose from the standing stones.
    This is the Circle of Ancestors, and you are welcome here.
    I gasped, stepped back involuntarily and bumped into the earth mound. Small workings I knew, and my mother’s familiar gift; but the scale of the power in this place dwarfed and frightened me. It was all I could do to quaver out, “What – what must I do here?”
    You must pass the test.
    “Test? What test?”
    There was no answer. The wind whistled across the hilltop, catching my hair and blowing the shift against my body. I drew the cloak more closely around me and waited for the stones to speak again.
    They stayed silent.
    Gradually, as nothing more frightening confronted me, my tension eased. I began to look about with a little more interest. After a few more moments, I ventured from the safety of the earth mound to the edge of the plateau. The land spread below me like a tapestry, so clear I felt I could reach down and stroke the uneven bumpy smudges of forest and velvety patchwork of farmland. My eyes wandered to the jagged far-off peaks of the mountains and, still more distant, a thin grey rim on the horizon I was sure must be the sea.
    The land at the foot of the hill was strange,