A Blackbird In Darkness (Book 2)

by Freda Warrington

  ‘Ah, but I haven’t told you, about Arlenmia. Its priestess.’ There was bitter mockery in Medrian’s voice. ‘Arlenmia also recognised me. She wanted to be the Serpent’s host herself – I’m sure she can’t have understood what was actually involved, but she certainly possessed the power to transfer it from me to herself. Perhaps the power was no more than fanatical determination, but it was real. I feared her. It was so tempting… all my life I have craved nothing but to be free of it. Just to give in, and let the burden be taken away. But in the end I could not: I had already made my decision. I couldn’t abandon the world’s fate into Arlenmia’s hands, just for my own sake. Of course, my refusal made her furious. She decided to murder me instead, thinking that she would become the host instantly. It was ironic then that the horse protected me, because with Arlenmia as its host, the Serpent would have been invulnerable.

  ‘On H’tebhmella, I had my wish; I was free of M’gulfn. It cannot touch the Blue Plane in any form, and the part of it that dwells within me was left in a kind of limbo when we passed through the Entrance Point. Oh, that sweetness was edged with pain. It was everything I had dreamed of, while all the time I knew it could not last, and I had to go back into hell. It would have been better if I had never gone to the Blue Plane at all.

  ‘And as for Forluin, the Lady assured me that I would also be free of it there. And I could not resist the temptation to walk on the Earth in freedom for a time.’

  Ashurek said, ‘No one can blame you for that.’

  ‘I told myself I wanted to be sure that Estarinel didn’t give up the Quest, and that I wanted to witness the evil of M’gulfn’s work so that my own determination did not waver... and these reasons were real, but the main one was my selfish desire for a taste of freedom, which became a weapon for the Worm to turn against me.

  ‘Perhaps now you understand why I was so ill when we returned to Earth. At once the Serpent was within me again, and its anger almost destroyed me. Pain brought me back to myself, but my control was not what it had been before, because my experience of freedom had weakened me. And by the time we reached the river, Ashurek, M’gulfn was winning the fight, and by the time we reached the Glass City, it had won.

  ‘But Miril saved me. The Worm is terrified of her. When she touched me, it shrank away in fear. And that gave me back my control, stronger than it has ever been before. This is why I am able to speak freely now. I’m also able to think and act without its intervention. You were right to be suspicious of me, but there is no longer a danger of the Serpent sabotaging the Quest through me. It is still within me, but I am free of it. Do I make sense?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ashurek. ‘Yes, you do.’

  ‘I had to be careful about the Staff, of course. I have done my utmost to keep the knowledge from it. All it knows is that we have a weapon of some sort, and that troubles it. But it can no longer read my thoughts, or even see through my eyes. Miril has blinded it. I think she showed it a reflection of itself. And now my explanation is finished,’ she concluded dully, still gazing downwards at nothing. Estarinel sat beside her as if frozen, expressionless and ashen-pale.

  ‘I feel I must apologise to you, Medrian,’ Ashurek said. There was a quality of sorrow and understanding in his voice, even a touch of shame. ‘I misjudged you. And in a way that could have led the Quest to disaster. I am sorry.’

  ‘There’s no need,’ she replied with the ghost of a smile. ‘None of us can help being what we are.’

  Estarinel was sitting absolutely numb, stunned by what she had said. He had known, of course, that she was somehow unwillingly cleaved to the Serpent. Perhaps if he had cared to analyse everything she had done and said, he would have arrived at the appalling truth long ago. But he’d had even more cause than Ashurek to shut his mind against connections that led to this unthinkable conclusion: that Medrian, whom he loved, and the vile Worm, which was beneath loathing, were linked in such an intimate, obscene way as to be one being.

  His first reaction had been revulsion, and Medrian knew it, and he sensed how much this had hurt her. His abhorrence, though, was not really directed at her. As her story unfolded – so much more terrible than he could have imagined – his disgust and outrage at M’gulfn for subjecting her to such anguish became overwhelming. Understanding her pain, and knowing that he had caused her further torment himself, he bled with inexpressible sorrow for her. And the admiration he felt for her strength and her tenuous, adamant determination, was poignant in its extremity.

  Then he understood that he’d known the truth all along. She was M’gulfn’s victim, but more than that she was herself, and nothing she said could have made him love her less, only more.

  Estarinel realised that she was no longer at his side. She had wandered into the middle of the cave and was standing there with her back to him, dwarfed by the ice walls soaring around her. And on top of the dreadful burden of the Serpent, she believed that he had turned aside from her, and she hated herself, because she felt that she had betrayed him.

  In a second he was at her side, pulling her into his arms and holding on to her, tight, until she eventually relaxed and returned his embrace.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I never meant to deceive you, but I couldn’t stop myself. I despise myself for it.’

  ‘Medrian, don’t,’ he said gently. ‘Never, ever think such wrong of yourself. If you knew how much I love you – it’s me who should say I’m sorry.’

  ‘It must make a difference, now that you know,’ she said tightly, looking up at him.

  ‘Yes, it does – I never realised how much courage you had. I’ve always known that the Serpent was tormenting you in some way, but I never guessed it was this bad. What the Serpent has done to you is abominable beyond all reason. I never thought I could hate it more than I already do, but this…’

  ‘No, don’t say that,’ she murmured; ‘Anyone who has been tainted by the Serpent’s hate as I have could never truly hate anything again.’

  ‘Then say I am only more determined to stand by you.’ He hugged her tighter. ‘Never again doubt that you are loved.’

  ‘No one could have more steadfast companion than you and done less to deserve it,’ she said, bowing her head against his arm.

  ‘Why do you have so little regard for yourself, after all you’ve achieved, and against such monstrous odds?’

  ‘Because Miril was right, I see my feelings as a weakness, and I think I ought to be more than human.’ Her smile was self-mocking. ‘But I’m not.’

  ‘You’ve been a steadfast companion to me as well, and helped me through so many dark moments.’

  ‘There will be more darkness.’ And darkness seemed to be distilled in her large, unnerving eyes as she gazed at him. ‘I wish I could promise that you won’t be hurt again, but I can’t. I haven’t changed so much. Everything I do must still be for the Quest, and not for you. All I can say is that I hope you’ll forgive me – one day.’

  ‘Whatever happens, there’ll be nothing to forgive,’ Estarinel answered softly. ‘I wish I could give you hope that the future won’t be as black as you expect. I won’t allow it to be.’

  Medrian felt herself weeping, inwardly and without tears, at this. She was so grateful for his love and kind strength that she couldn’t bring herself to warn him not to hold any hope for the future. It would be an untimely, unnecessary cruelty. She said, ‘I dreaded the time when I would have to tell you the truth. But now I have, I feel relieved – almost happy. Just to be able to talk freely, and know you understand, and not hurt you by my coldness.’

  ‘The times I must have caused you torment, trying to make you talk to me…’ he remembered with dismay. ‘I’m so sorry. I thought love was the answer to everything.’

  ‘It is,’ she answered. ‘In the end, it is.’

  Hand in hand they went back to sit on the ridge near the H’tebhmellian fire. Its blue glow made firefly lights dance on the ice and on the folds of their cloaks. Ashurek handed out some H’tebhmellian provis
ions – dark bread and a sweet, compressed cake – and they ate in companionable silence. There was no tension or separation between them now, nothing dividing them. Instead, there was renewed comradeship, firmer than it had ever been. Although they were closer to the Serpent than ever, each of them felt calm, even resignedly cheerful.

  Presently Ashurek said, ‘At least now we can discuss the Quest more freely. You’re right in saying, Medrian, that had I known you were the host in the beginning – even if I had known the full story – I would not have risked going with you. Even on the Blue Plane I would have had serious doubts. But now I understand how essential your presence is, and I believe that you have M’gulfn sufficiently in check not to hinder us. I am wondering just how much further we have to go.’

  ‘About a hundred miles,’ said Medrian flatly. There was something unnerving in this unexpected preciseness; they looked at her in surprise. ‘I don’t know how many days that will take us. Obviously our progress will be slow across the ice, and it depends on the weather as well. And on the Serpent, of course. It’s all right, Ashurek – you could throw the compass away, and we would still find M’gulfn. I know exactly where it is. I usually know what it is doing. I will know if it moves, although it hates moving. Flights leave it torpid for months. That’s how I knew it could not have attacked Forluin a second time, whatever Arlenmia said. That’s why it attacks so rarely.’

  ‘Your knowledge of it will prove invaluable. Do you have any idea of the actual mechanics of killing it?’ Ashurek asked.

  He saw her suppress a shudder. ‘No, I’m afraid not. That is for us all to find out, as Miril said. There is still great danger. If it should attack us, above all we must not touch it with the Silver Staff. That would cause a cataclysm such as you predicted. At least, it should be done only as a last resort.’

  ‘Ah, I fail to understand how we are to use the Staff if we cannot attack M’gulfn with it directly,’ Ashurek said, shaking his head.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Medrian. ‘Somehow, we will find out. All I really know is that Serpent and host must die together.’

  She said this so matter-of-factly that Estarinel had to restrain himself from crying out in protest. Out of nowhere he recalled the words she had spoken, what now seemed an age ago, when he had asked her (how cruelly) if she did not have a home and family to return to when the Quest was over. ‘Once... long ago... but there’s nothing left,’ she had said. ‘Still, when choice is gone and the last journey is ahead, that has a kind of comfort of its own, doesn’t it?’

  Now that the meaning of these words was acutely clear, they twisted in his chest like a barbed hook. ‘Medrian, that can’t be the only answer,’ he said, clasping her hand. ‘There must be a way–’

  ‘Don’t hope for too much,’ she replied as gently as she could. ‘I have always known how the Quest would end for me. It’s all right. I want no more. I am prepared.’

  ‘But after all you have been through, you deserve better than that – a chance of happiness at least,’ he persisted. ‘Listen, you were free of it on the Blue Plane – if there was some way for you to go back there, while Ashurek and I–’

  ‘No, that would be impossible. When I was on H’tebhmella, the Serpent did not retreat wholly into its own body; it waited for me. Besides, as soon as it thought itself in danger, it would find a new host anyway. It might even choose Arlenmia.’

  ‘By the gods,’ muttered Ashurek.

  ‘Besides, without me to guide you and warn you of its movements, you’d stand no chance anyway,’ she added. ‘Don’t raise your hopes over this, Estarinel, I beg you.’

  Estarinel said no more, but he was still determined that she should be freed of M’gulfn without being harmed. The Serpent has taken enough from us, he thought. Medrian, I could not bear to lose you as well. I couldn’t bear it.

  ‘Do you truly think we have any chance of killing the damned Worm?’ Ashurek asked her morosely.

  ‘Yes, we have a chance,’ she replied. The dreadful sick, ashen look had left her face at last and although she was still pale, her visage was clear, almost radiant. ‘I will tell you why I think so. The Serpent has nightmares. It is afraid of something. It was only because of these that I set out from Alaak, or thought we had a chance at all. Terrible, desolate nightmares.’

  They slept for several hours in the ice cave, protected from the cold by their cloaks, and warmed by the H’tebhmellian fire. When they awoke they ate again, and then prepared to embark on the last stage of their journey.

  The H’tebhmellians had given them extra clothing for the Arctic: breeches, belted jackets, gloves, and thick boots all made of the same supple, pearl-grey material, so closely woven as to resemble kid. It was impervious to snow and wind and warmly lined with layers of fleece. Over this they wore their stout, weatherproof cloaks, whose hoods could be fastened to protect their faces against blizzards, when necessary. Now all they had in their packs – apart from a rope, which Medrian was carrying – were the provisions they needed to sustain themselves for the next few weeks. They also had vessels in which, using the H’tebhmellian fire, they could heat snow for drinking water.

  They still carried a sword and a knife apiece. In addition, Estarinel and Ashurek each had an axe, but Medrian had discarded her crossbow, having used all the arrows in the fight with the pterosaurs. And Estarinel carried the Silver Staff alongside his sword, its red sheath tied with thongs along the length of the scabbard so that neither inhibited free movement. The egg-shaped top of the Staff was protected by a leather pouch tied loosely over it.

  Presently they were ready to leave the ice cave that had been a welcome refuge between Hrunnesh and what lay ahead. Last of all, Estarinel extinguished the H’tebhmellian fire and slipped the weightless sphere into his pack, then swung his cloak over his shoulders.

  ‘I’m almost too hot in this clothing,’ he remarked.

  ‘Aye, but we’ll be more than grateful for it, out on the snowfields,’ Ashurek grinned. He led them across the cave over the blocks of ice and through the aperture into a narrow passage that tapered to a point above their heads. At once they discovered the value of the new, thick boots: they gave a sure grip on the frozen surface. This corridor was apparently no more than a flaw running through the ice, a way that might close when the massive sheets of Arctic ice next moved.

  The flaw widened as they followed it but, disconcertingly, began to angle downwards, leading them deeper into the ice layer.

  ‘There’s a series of strange caves ahead,’ Ashurek said. ‘Nothing happened to me before. I think there is no danger.’ The passage led down into a smooth, milky-blue cave, which they had to traverse bent almost double beneath the low roof. A thin, descending corridor led through three more similar caves, each smaller and dimmer than the last, like beads threaded on a strange necklace. Finally they entered a tunnel so low and narrow that only the slipperiness of its glassy walls allowed them to force their way through.

  ‘Are you sure you came through here before?’ gasped Estarinel, who had no love of confined spaces.

  ‘Yes, it widens out ahead,’ Ashurek replied, neglecting to mention that it first attenuated to a mere fistula through which they had to crawl on their stomachs. This proved more uncomfortable than difficult, and they soon gained the end of the constriction. Beyond, they found themselves in a wide, echoing subterranean grotto, all diamond white columns of ice and blue shadows.

  Wonder compelled them to cross it slowly and in absolute silence, looking about as they went. It seemed to be illuminated by more than refracted daylight, and the air reverberated with the distant cracking of ice. Estarinel became unpleasantly aware that there was no ground beneath the polar cap, only a slate-black, freezing ocean, and it seemed to him that there were tons of ice above them, and only a thin layer, like a pane of glass, below. He could almost see water swirling and bubbling angrily beneath the translucent floor, hear the ice groaning and giving under their weight. If this was an illusion, he didn’t know whether it s
prang from his own imagination or from an unseen sentience hovering in the frigid, motionless air.

  His foreboding seemed unfounded. They gained the far side of the cavern and entered a broad, glass-white passage that began to slope upwards once more. As they drew nearer to the surface the light grew more and more brilliant, while the corridor widened into another ice cave. They could not judge its size. Pure white diaphanous curtains of frost surrounded them, chiming softly in an imperceptible draught. It seemed a weird, faerie realm in which humans were unwelcome.

  They trod silently through the cavern, feeling that every point of light sparkling on the frost sheets was a tiny eye, and the tinkling of ice flakes the rumour of eldritch voices, disturbed by their presence.

  There was no real sense of danger, only an unsettling other-worldliness. The cave narrowed gradually into a rough fissure, at first enclosed by great slabs of ice leaning this way and that, and presently open to the sky. Then the fragile eeriness was crushed and blown away like dust by the imminent, stark reality of the Arctic.

  Estarinel quickly convinced himself that the apparent sentience of the ice caves was a product of an over-sensitive imagination. Even as he was telling himself this, Ashurek said, ‘I have often thought that there must be forms of life so remote from us that we do not even recognise them as life. We are more akin by far even to the Grey Ones than such things are to us.’

  ‘If it is so, they are still children of the Earth, and in as much danger as the rest of us from...’ Medrian did not speak the Serpent’s name. Perhaps she felt that to do so as they approached the Arctic proper would be too much like invoking it.

  A jagged ribbon of pale blue ran above their heads, gradually widening as the walls of the fissure became lower. Presently the walls were below shoulder height, and soon they diminished into mere blocks of ice merging with the snow that had blown into the end of the gully. They waded through the cold softness of the drift and came out, at last, onto a wide expanse of mirror-bright snow.