A Blackbird In Darkness (Book 2) (29 page)

‘Then I have misled you... told you things that were false... because of those lies,’ she whispered. ‘To deceive the H’tebhmellians in that way is unspeakable!’

‘Yes, it is,’ said Estarinel, his voice stronger and steadier now. ‘Medrian? Ashurek? Have you nothing to say? You don’t even seem surprised at what I’ve told you. Perhaps you knew these things already.’ It sounded like an accusation.

‘No, I did not know,’ Ashurek replied. ‘But neither am I surprised, my friend; I always knew that we were being manipulated and deceived. This is only a clearer explanation of it. You are right to be so dismayed and horrified – I share your feelings.’

And if only you knew, thought Ashurek, of the Guardians’ ultimate deception: the false hope of the Silver Staff. But he had vowed not to tell the others. If they knew, they might want to stop the Quest, and he could not risk that.

‘Medrian?’ said Estarinel.

‘My opinion is the same as Ashurek’s,’ she said in a dull tone. ‘It doesn’t really matter. This knowledge is unpleasant, but it makes no difference to the Quest; we must forget it and go on.’

‘The world is unpleasant and unfair; good and evil are not always easy to differentiate. The terms can be meaningless,’ said Ashurek.

Estarinel stared at him, his normally gentle eyes glittering. ‘For once I agree with you. Don’t mistake me, I still intend to save Forluin. Nothing else matters now.’

There was tension between them, like a shell of black glass that was vibrating under such incredible pressure that it must surely fracture and implode, revealing what lay beyond: a writhing grey sky that was at the same time the Serpent M’gulfn, dwarfing the Earth with its unassailable, heartless omnipotence. It was oblivious to them, yet at the same it mocked them, its laughter utterly devoid of humour, vast and diabolic. Its insanity enclosed them like a prison of wire and thorns, binding them helpless, terrified and humiliated before it. And they saw a bird fall from the sky, dead, like a tiny black cinder.

Estarinel closed his hand over the top of the Silver Staff, willing it to reassure him. But the confidence and wild joy with which it had first filled him were gone. Perhaps they had just been illusions within the Guardians’ domain.

Gradually the vision faded. He could hear the horses grazing, the fire crackling, leaves stirring in a gust of wind... even a mouse running through the undergrowth. The moment was vivid and fragile. Then the faint, musty stench of the Serpent’s creatures came to him and in his mind he was suddenly running and running under the powerful delusion that escape was possible – only to find that he was running towards Falin’s house, and the Worm was in front of him, lying on the ruins, staring at him.

‘So, Eldor said that the Serpent would not know about the Silver Staff at once,’ Ashurek said, breaking his reverie. ‘But now the thing is actually on Earth, how soon will M’gulfn realise? Medrian?’

Medrian wondered how to answer. M’gulfn need never know, as long as she could mask the knowledge within her own mind. But she could not tell Ashurek that, and at the same time she could hear the Serpent whispering insistently,
There is something that I must know you must tell me what it is you must you will tell me...

‘It is my guess,’ she said carefully, ‘that the Worm will not know until we are close enough for it to sense it.’

‘How close is that?’

‘I don’t know. Perhaps the weapon protects itself.’

‘And what will happen when the Serpent does know?’

‘It will be frightened. Furious. It will do its best to destroy us and it will probably succeed. This speculation is pointless, Ashurek.’

‘Aye,’ he agreed, sighing. And now he began to see the Quest even more clearly. Surely all that was required was for the Staff to touch the Serpent. All they had to do was stay alive until they reached M’gulfn, or, better still, it came looking for them. It did not matter if it attacked them – as long as Staff and Serpent met – because they were all going to perish anyway.

Doubts began to assail him. Ashurek was hiding this knowledge from the others. He had withheld certain truths from his family in the past, thinking to protect them, and they had all died as a result. Perhaps there was another way...

No. As Meshurek and Karadrek had had to die, so must the Worm – whatever the cost. Sometimes the need for the destruction of evil outweighed the desirability of sparing what was good.

And yet...

Ashurek wrapped himself in his cloak, willing sleep to obliterate these black thoughts from his mind. Calorn also curled up and was asleep in minutes. She had her worries, but knew they were as nothing compared to her companions’ troubles. It moved her unbearably to see how haunted each of them was. She welcomed sleep.

Although they were safe within the circle of Setrel’s powder, they still had a watch rota and Medrian was keeping the first vigil.

‘Why don’t you go to sleep?’ she said to Estarinel, who was still sitting up and looking abstractedly into the fire. The desire to be free of the Worm, free to communicate with him, was intense; it weakened her in a way she could ill afford. She added in the same cold, flat tone, ‘You look exhausted. Are you all right?’

‘Yes, of course,’ he murmured. His longing to hold her, to share her misery even if he could not alleviate it, was so extreme as to be painful. He found it ever more difficult to watch her struggling alone. Gently, he said, ‘Medrian, we have a weapon now. Does it give you no hope at all?’

Her reaction was unexpected. She visibly recoiled and a deadly expression came over her face.

‘Don’t speak of it!’ she hissed. She was trembling and so stricken that he made to go to her, but within seconds she had regained her composure. Holding out a palm as if unconsciously warning him not to come closer, she said calmly, ‘Estarinel, I beg of you never to speak of the – the object to me. I don’t want to hear mention of it and I especially do not want to see it. Is that clear?’

‘Yes,’ he replied, knowing better than to ask why. He stood up and went over to Shaell, thinking, I can do nothing to help her; I must think only of Forluin. He stroked the satiny neck of his horse and the great head with its bold and kindly eye. This was the one creature that had seemed sane and real to him in the worst moments of the Quest. All the gentility, faithfulness and love that were missing from the world – everything that he was fighting to save – were embodied in Shaell. And he thought, I must help her. To lose her would be a loss beyond bearing. Then he lay down beside the fire and went straight to sleep, too exhausted to dream.

#

Morning came, and they were all ready to commence their journey. The remains of the fire had been obliterated, their packs shouldered, and there was nothing left to do but say goodbye to Calorn.

There had been some discussion about the horses, but eventually it was concluded that they could only ride so far north. Sooner or later they would have to abandon the animals somewhere on the cold tundra. This seemed an unnecessary cruelty when the three travellers could manage quite adequately – if more slowly – on foot, so it had been agreed that Calorn would take the horses aboard
The Star of Filmoriel
, and thence back to the Blue Plane. Estarinel in particular was adamant that he did not want his stallion to undergo any further hardship. Ashurek eventually conceded that Vixata was too old to endure the cold weather of the north.

There was now only one way for them to reach the Arctic, which was to plod northwards across the vast tundra until it joined the frozen Arctic Ocean. It was a long and daunting journey, but it had to be faced. Even the H’tebhmellians had only limited means of controlling the Entrance Points that might otherwise have shortened the way. They had compasses and maps, and Ashurek had planned a route, although he feared the maps were too inaccurate to be of any real value. They would have to take the country as they found it.

‘My task to help you find the Staff is over, so I must leave you,’ Calorn said with a cheerfulness she did not feel. ‘I don’t know what to say. It seems fatuous to wish you “good luck” – but I do, anyway. And I hope I see you again.’ She clasped Medrian’s hand, and there was a tenuous, comradeship between them, tempered by Medrian’s coldness and Calorn’s mixed sorrow for her and fear of her. Then she went to shake hands with Estarinel and found herself embracing him with tears in her eyes.

‘I’m going to miss you,’ he said.

‘Please take care of yourself,’ was all she managed in response. He had changed even in the short time she had known him. She was afraid that he was in danger of being destroyed by everything he had endured, and the feeling made her want to weep. She pulled abruptly away from him and went to Ashurek.

The Gorethrian looked at her for some time without speaking. Then he placed his hands on her shoulders and kissed her forehead, a Gorethrian gesture of love and respect that he had not bestowed on anyone for years.

‘I wish to thank you for your steadfastness in the Dark Regions,’ he said. ‘Even though we did not succeed, it wasn’t for want of courage on your part.’

Calorn bit her lip and said, very softly so that only he could hear, ‘I have something to confess. I deluded myself into believing that I really wanted to come with you to the end of the Quest, if only you would permit me. Now I realise that I cannot – I dare not. It is very hard to discover that you are not as brave as you thought you were.’ She did not add that it was Medrian who had inspired this dread in her.

‘Calorn, you must not doubt your courage; it is not bravery that’s required on this Quest. It is desperation. There is one simple reason why you cannot come with us; which is that you do not share our despair.’

‘Yes. I appreciate that.’

‘Go back to the Blue Plane with Neyrwin. If you can, return to your own world.’

‘I can’t do that,’ she exclaimed. ‘The Lady of H’tebhmella may still need my services.’ Then her expression changed. ‘Wait... this is a warning, isn’t it? That even the Blue Plane may not be safe?’

‘Who knows? It is only conjecture on my part.’

‘Well, I am not yet so devoid of nerve that I would put my own safety before my duty! But I will tell the Lady all that Eldor said to Estarinel. She may see a meaning in it that we can’t perceive.’

Ashurek looked at her a moment longer; then he took his hands from her shoulders and said, ‘Farewell, Calorn.’

She forced a smile onto her clear, valiant face. ‘Fare you well, all of you. I will see you again.’ She gave special emphasis to the last words and then she turned away and vaulted onto Taery Jasmena’s back. She gathered up the reins to lead the other two horses, gave a brief, fierce salute with one fist, and turned to ride away into the forest.

They watched her disappearing through the trees, an upright, cloaked figure, her long hair glowing copper-red in the translucent early light. On the near side of the blue-green palfrey, Estarinel’s noble brown stallion walked sedately, and on the off side, Vixata danced along with her head high, shards of golden fire flying from her mane. Presently they were out of sight.

Then it seemed that all warmth, colour and life had left with Calorn and the horses; Medrian, Ashurek and Estarinel each felt a discomforting sense of emptiness. They were together, yet each of them was alone. It was as if they were suspended in a hostile vacuum, black and white and utterly cold, like the pitiless depths of space. But there was also clarity in the feeling, the sense of a new beginning.

‘Now,’ said Ashurek with uncanny eagerness, ‘now the Quest of the Serpent truly begins.’

#

They walked through the forest for a day before it gave way to a terrain of folded hills. Trees washed between the ridges in long fingers of shadow, and when they had climbed a good way and looked back, the forest resembled a still grey tarn in the distance. Silver-green grass spilled over the uplands, constantly ruffled by the wind so that gleaming argent snakes appeared to glide and slither over the ridges. The sky was a clear, pale blue with layers of cloud drifting along the horizon, soaking up an aureate glow as the sun set. At intervals throughout each day swollen grey clouds edged with white tore across the sky, melding into a grim, thunderous mass. Then the companions would glance apprehensively skywards, fearing Serpent-sent storms. But the clouds always broke apart like scum on clear water and dispersed in trailing strands, precipitating nothing worse than a few drops of rain.

The ground had been forced up and folded into tortuous ripples across which there was no easy path. The ridges were gentle enough to be crossed on foot, but the constant toil up one slope and down the next was tiring. They took three days to cross a distance that would have taken two had the terrain been flatter. On the fourth day they saw with relief that the ridges softened into different country ahead: undulating grasslands sweeping towards a chain of hills that lay along the horizon like sleeping turtles, scaled with celadon and amber. They would be walking uphill, but the incline was steady.

By the fifth day they were amid the hills, plodding at a steady pace that enabled them to cover up to ten leagues a day. Sometimes there were great outcrops of granite to scramble over. But mostly they walked on star-shaped, springy tufts of pale grass, while around them lay rusty drifts of bracken. Here and there were clumps of tall evergreens crowned with clouds of dark needles. There was no shortage of small game to sustain them on their way, and often they found bushes bearing plump nuts or dark, sweet berries, growing alongside running water. They saw no sign of human habitation; the north of Tearn – with Gastada’s help – had long been thinly populated.