The Stone Lady

The group of weary travellers made their way slowly up the mountain path, dragging their feet and bemoaning the long detour they had been forced to take. It was the only safe option however, as the New Holy Empire had its men crawling over all of the major roads in and out of the capital… looking for them. The only one of the seven travellers who seemed to be taking the hike with no difficulty was also by far the eldest. He waited patiently for the others to reach the top of the next ridge, sitting on a rock overlooking a deep valley. “We’ll head down and make camp over there tonight. Out of sight from below… just in case.” There were audible sighs of relief from the others, followed by gasps as, one by one; they saw what was in the valley below. Taking up more space than they could believe possible was a statue of a woman, in giant proportion. It must have been close to the size of the mountain they were currently climbing. Even from a great distance it was clear that she was quite strikingly beautiful. “It’s incredible…” mumbled Ahad, a brawny man who seldom said anything at all. “Unbelievable… who is it?”



The old man, known to the others as Mag, followed their gaze. “It’s the Stone Lady. Been there, must be six thousand years by now. Nobody knows for sure when, or why, but most people assume it was the ancient Demi-God Herodimus who magicked it up on a whim like so many of his other miracles.” The group stared, mouths open, until they slowly managed to pull their eyes away. They shuffled down the ridge, around the corner and began to make camp. Last to leave was Mag, who stared at the face of the woman who filled the valley.



Even from their campsite at the bottom of the ridge, it was impossible to ignore the statue. Her graceful pose and delicate features struck a chord of longing in all of the men who had had to leave their families behind. Mag busied himself with preparing the campsite, trying not to look over his shoulder at her. With a flick of his wrist he conjured a campfire out of thin air. With a gentle push a small basin was depressed into the ground and filled with water. He pointed at the fire and caused a protective bubble of air to deflect any breezes that might extinguish his flame. Once this was done, he laid himself against the rock face and tried to rest. Soon, as the others gathered around his fire, he was met with the questions he had hoped to avoid.



“Hey Mag… you’re the last of the Magi right? Were you all the same, or where their others more powerful than you?”

Mag looked at Diede, the older man who had asked him the question. “There were some very powerful Magi in my time. That was a long time ago now though…” 

Ahad gestured to the statue, but Mag didn’t follow his point. “That powerful? Or was that really made by a god?”

“You expect me to know? Did I not tell you earlier that the statue was at least six thousand years old? Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Do you think it was Herodimus?”

“Do I think a God made a woman from a mountain? I think you’ll find, if you look hard enough, that the Gods are just men.  Perhaps a team of Magi, in the early days of potent Magic, before we became diluted shells of their former power… maybe. I try not to dwell on the past too much.”

“Diluted?” Diede asked jokingly. “Not too days ago I saw you cause a bridge to collapse just by touching it… if that’s diluted… you scare me.”



Mag went back to resting against the rocks as Ludei, the storyteller of the group, recounted what he know about the Stone Lady.

“Herodimus, the first Magi, got his powers from the gods in ancient times. Specifically, the Deceiver, who granted him incredible longevity and powers over all the world in exchange for releasing his bindings that kept him bound to the earth. At first, Herodimus travelled the world, performing amazing miracles and wonders everywhere he went. There are myths about him that crop up in any culture you care to look at. Hetod the sailor, who caused a storm so massive it wiped an island off the map. Heran of Old, who raised the defensive cliffs that surround the capital right now. Herothi who imprisoned a Great Wyrm high in the mountains above Bursham. The stories go on and on… then one day he just vanishes.”

“Some say that he was not immortal, and finally died. Other says that his name was used by many Magi over hundreds of years to protect them from being found out and persecuted… and then others think that he vanished because of her.” He pointed back at the statue. “He fell in love and when she died, as mortals do, he couldn’t bear to part with her and followed her to the underworld.”



The men stared at the statue, then one by one lay down and went to sleep. When he was sure they were all asleep, Mag stood up and went to look at her. It had been a hundred and twenty years since he last stood and looked at her, but he knew she looked exactly the same. He never forgot a thing about her. He though back over his extended life as a Magi, back over all the incredible things he had done and always came to the same conclusions. The day he released the Deceiver from his chains, he was cursed… he had levelled cities and rewritten the landscape all with a wave of his hands. He had fought dragons and clashed with gods. He stood alone as an unmovable force of nature, an unbending law of the universe all by himself. Yet he was cursed. He was thirty four thousand years old and everyone he had ever known had died. Yet he could not follow. When he first saw her, thirty thousand years ago he knew the price he had paid for his gifts. Every day they shared was incredible, and although she lived for eighty seven years… she was gone far too fast. He pleaded with Fate to let him die, and Fate had walked to earth to tell him “No”. He cursed Death’s name and Death cursed him in return. He challenged the maker of all things himself and was cast aside, as an affront to the authority of the gods. He had wandered all corners of the globe for hundreds of years until he found a cave to the gates of hell. He had passed through where no living man had gone before and there he found her one more time. A river had separated them then… the flow of souls. No living being could reach the other side without dying… and he could not die. She stood on the other shore, unable to return to the living, and so they stood and gazed at each other for ten thousand years.

When he finally pulled himself away, he went mad with grief and left the cave to find himself in these very mountains. He stood, as a man who could shape the world with his very thoughts… and over six thousand years… carved this statue of his wife with his bare hands.