She began to lead the way across the snow with Skord, Ashurek, Medrian and Estarinel helplessly following. The demons trailed at the rear like dogs, gibbering to each other. Here, the Worm’s control over the weather was total. Ghastly lights swathed the sky; the wind had dropped and there was a thickness in the atmosphere, a stench that filled them with revulsion. Instead of clouds, oily smoke rolled to and fro, spitting out bitter-cold snow. The flakes fell like pebbles. The snow-plain stretched endlessly before them, grim and bleak and pitiless.
The walk swiftly became a nightmare. The snow seemed meat-coloured, raddled with maggot-holes, soft with decay. Behind them, demonic illumination flickered and hissed like acid, while before them a cold, cruel, impassive evil waited grinning at their approach. From it radiated sickness, insanity, hate and bloodlust, like threadworms chewing through and through the Earth, causing it to suppurate and rot.
Presently they were staggering rather than walking, drunk with horror and exhaustion; sobbing with despair as they went. But Arlenmia strode on as if impervious to any sense of horror; and in contrast to the dreadful, carious surroundings, she seemed to glow with joy, like a bright emerald. She ignored the others as if they had ceased to hold any meaning or reality for her, and yet she drew them on in her wake, like an awesome and terrible beacon.
Delusions gripped all of them. Estarinel became convinced that he was in Forluin, and the Serpent’s desecration was complete. Around him his loved ones were wandering an ash-grey plain, his mother and father, Lothwyn, Arlena, Falin and his family, Lilithea… all were crying out in misery and he knew that it was his fault. He had failed them. Again and again he saw Lilithea in front of him, tears running down her face, saying, ‘There are some things I cannot heal, E’rinel.’ And, worst of all, in the delusion he could not restrain himself from laughing at them, as if he had become as mad as a demon.
Ashurek felt that he was wandering on a black mountainside, where thousands of pairs of eyes were staring accusingly at him out of the darkness, Silvren and Orkesh and Meshurek among them. But all he felt was the desire to possess the terrible leaden power of the Egg-Stone, so that he might destroy all those sorrowful accusing eyes, punish them for laying bare his irremediable guilt.
And Medrian could no longer feel snow below her feet or see anything but a smooth grey void. She was drifting with M’gulfn and towards it at the same time. Its fear of Miril was forgotten and now it was speaking to her, gently and chidingly, Come, my Medrian. No more will you shun me. Most precious of all my hosts… my last host… we will be together now, forever… and she felt that her sanity had been displaced at last, and the idea that she had ever existed independently of the Serpent seemed a bizarre and distant dream.
Skord, too, was locked within his own nightmare of memories: Gorethrians rising out of the sea like dark giants, cutting down his countrymen, conjuring a multitude of demons that surrounded him, their smooth bodies smeared with the blood of his sister and his mother… demons, always demons, laughing with malicious glee… and Arlenmia, whose image was a splinter of diamond impaling his mind. For her, he had cast a plague on two strangers, who had claimed to be his parents… for her he had murdered a girl who had loved him… for her he had forsaken the only peace he had ever known – with Setrel – and for her he now stumbled through a cacotopia towards an appalling doom.
Arlenmia halted and turned towards them. The sound of her voice brought them all back to themselves, only to find that reality was no better than the horrendous visions that had plagued them. The snow seemed like flyblown flesh and the sky resembled a black inferno.
‘We are going to stop and rest now,’ she said. Her face and eyes were radiant. Her bright, vibrant joy at the Worm’s loathsome evil struck deep sickness to their souls. ‘There is no need to look so afraid. M’gulfn will surely forgive you, if only you would admit defeat.’
‘How far are we from it?’ Ashurek forced himself to ask.
‘Not far. It is just beyond the horizon. Can you not see?’ She extended an arm towards the north, smiling. What they could see was not what they had expected. Like an incongruous mirage, they could discern glittering cliffs of ice that were white and turquoise, half-veiled by great curtains of icy mist through which a topaz-yellow light glowed. Above, the green fires were beryl-pale, almost pure. The air throbbed with oppressive power.
‘What is that?’ Ashurek said, drawing his fingers across his forehead. Despite the cold, he was sweating. He felt unclean, contaminated by M’gulfn. ‘Where is the Serpent?’
‘It is as if we stand in a hellish pit, looking at heaven,’ Arlenmia replied. ‘And the pit through which we walk is but a test of our faith. Now will you believe that M’gulfn is not evil, but beautiful?’
‘How have you–?’ Medrian began, but fell silent, shaking her head. She was wide-eyed and looked as confused, Estarinel thought, as he felt.
‘Sit down, all of you,’ Arlenmia went on. ‘We must eat and rest before we come in sight of M’gulfn. And I have one last preparation to make. Then shall the Quest be completed!’
They did as she said – not that they had any choice – and seated themselves on the brown-grey snow. Grimy clouds roiled overhead, shot through with abscess-yellow lightning. Ashurek felt that the hint of weird, crystalline beauty at the North Pole, in such sinister contrast to their immediate surroundings, must hold some kind of warped revelation that would deal a death-blow to the last remnant of his spirit. He looked at Medrian and Estarinel, both as pale and wretched as Skord. They were all moving towards the Serpent animated only by Arlenmia’s will; perhaps they would soon be wholly in her power, and even their thoughts would not be their own. But he knew no way to halt what was happening.
He made Medrian and Estarinel sit with their backs to the north, and lit the H’tebhmellian fire. For a few moments it gleamed like a mote of sanity in the Worm-defiled surroundings. Then the Shana began to hiss with disgust, and at once Arlenmia exclaimed angrily, ‘Put that out! It is an affront to the Serpent M’gulfn!’ He had to obey. At least they were able to partake of the H’tebhmellian food and wine. Although they had little appetite, it heartened them. Arlenmia seemed to have relaxed her grip upon them.
‘I saw such terrible things as we were walking,’ Estarinel sighed. ‘So real.’
‘So did we all, I think,’ said Ashurek. Silently he cursed the impossibility of speaking to each other without the demons and Arlenmia overhearing. Perhaps the best thing would be to initiate one swift battle now and get it over with; they stood no chance of victory, but it was certainly preferable to die than to live on under the Serpent’s reign. He continued to think on this as they ate.
It was doubtful that he could resist the weight of Arlenmia’s will even long enough to start such a fight. And the chances were that even if they perished, the Shana would trap their souls in the Dark Regions. He felt he was going mad, blackness pressing on him from all sides. There was no escape; this insane nightmare was real.
‘Medrian, I have something to discuss with you,’ Arlenmia’s voice intruded on his grim thoughts and he looked round to see her standing near the Alaakian woman, touching her shoulder.
Medrian stared at Arlenmia, white-faced. Estarinel put a protective arm around her. ‘For pity’s sake, leave her alone, Arlenmia. None of us has anything to say to you.’
‘No,’ Medrian silenced his protests with a meaningful look. ‘It’s all right, Estarinel. I will talk to her. But it must be alone, Arlenmia. Away from the others.’ She stood up at Arlenmia’s side with chilling calmness.
‘Very well. I’m glad you realise how pointless it would be to argue. Besides, I only want to talk – there’s nothing to fear.’ Arlenmia slipped her arm through Medrian’s, like a sister. ‘We’ll walk a little way over the snow. In order that you shan’t be lonely, Ashurek and Estarinel, I will of course leave the Shana to look after you.’
She and Medrian began to walk away eastwards across the snowfield as Estarinel and Ashurek watched.
After a couple of hundred yards, the two women were lost to sight in a dip.
‘Arlenmia still wants to become the Serpent’s host,’ Estarinel said bitterly. Skord was sitting a few yards away, his head resting on his bent knees. The demons were stirring, surrounding the three humans.
‘It will be the culmination of her dream,’ said Ashurek.
‘And we have to sit here, helpless, while she does some unspeakable harm to Medrian.’
‘But Medrian used the opportunity…’ Ashurek glanced at the Shana. ‘I expect she’ll keep Arlenmia engaged and away from us for as long as she can.’
‘Then how do we use this opportunity?’ Estarinel whispered. Siregh-Ma was bending over Skord, poking at him with long argent fingers, muttering sibilantly. The boy whimpered with terror and Estarinel felt sick to the core of his soul, knowing that they could do nothing to keep Siregh-Ma away from him, especially as Meheg-Ba and Diheg-El were now converging on him and Ashurek. Their eyes shone like white coins and they stank of metal and blood. Perhaps it would have been better if Medrian had not led Arlenmia away after all.
Ashurek jumped to his feet and said, ‘Keep your distance, Meheg-Ba. Have you forgotten your mistress’s orders?’
‘Well, she is not here to give any orders at present, is she?’ Meheg-Ba said gutturally. ‘And she is not our mistress. We merely–’
‘Use her,’ finished Diheg-El.
Estarinel now scrambled to his feet and went to Ashurek’s side, fighting an uncontrollable revulsion that threatened to paralyse him.
‘Indeed?’ said Ashurek. ‘Then I must congratulate you. Your impersonation of three abject curs was faultless.’
Meheg-Ba gave a sibilant exclamation of annoyance. ‘Don’t make me angry, Prince Ashurek. She also makes the mistake of thinking we are stupid. However, I know more than she does. I also have something to discuss – with you and your Forluinish friend.’
‘Don’t look at them, Estarinel, however hard they try to make you,’ Ashurek warned. ‘Meheg-Ba, I don’t know what you have in mind, but I will make no bargains with you. Not even upon Silvren’s life.’
‘Bargains! What a fool you are!’ exclaimed Diheg-El. ‘What we require, we can simply take, so you are hardly in a position to bargain. We are only discussing it with you in order to taunt you.’
‘That is in character, at least.’
‘We are referring, of course, to the weapon that he is carrying.’ Meheg-Ba pointed at Estarinel. Siregh-Ma had ceased his torment of Skord and was standing behind them, grinning.
‘We both have swords,’ said Ashurek evenly.
‘Oh, do not pretend to be more stupid than you are. You think that such as we cannot sense a long, thin rod of silver that presents such danger to the Serpent? Not that you stand any chance of wielding it now, but that is not the point. It is still a nasty toy, and an insult to us.’
‘Don’t try to take it!’ Estarinel exclaimed, horrified that he felt so helpless.
‘Estarinel, don’t speak to them,’ Ashurek warned again.
‘Take it?’ said Diheg-El. ‘You would be well advised just to give it to us, if you value your sanity. Which would you prefer: running about on the Earth doing our will, or languishing in the Dark Regions?’
‘Alternatively, what an excellent joke it would be if he were to wield the Egg-Stone for us,’ said Meheg-Ba. ‘We would prefer it in hands we can control… I know that you would like the Egg-Stone back, Ashurek, but you cannot be trusted with it.’ The Shanin leered and sent out a bolt of silver fire. It crackled around Ashurek’s shoulders until he groaned with pain. ‘You would like it, wouldn’t you? What a shame that you proved a greater fool than your brother. You are still going to work for us, though.’
‘And so are you.’ Diheg-El stretched out a hand and a searing energy surrounded Estarinel, filling his brain with malignant light. When it subsided he was trembling violently, gasping for breath. ‘Now, are you going to give us the weapon?’
Knowing he could not bear the Shanin to touch him like that again, Estarinel found himself reaching with shaking hands for the Silver Staff. He pulled the leather cover off the top, and drew it slowly from its red sheath. But as he grasped it, a different kind of silver fire filled him, something pure and calm. He held it by the shaft with the egg-shaped orb towards Diheg-El, offering it to the demon – at the same time determined not to let it go.
The demon, its blood-red mouth stretched in a grin. reached out for it. In the same moment a word burst from Ashurek’s mouth, a raw despairing cry for help: ‘Miril!’
And something happened. The tiny movements within the silvery orb became frantic. The translucent shell shattered. And a shining white shape fluttered out, straight into the arms of Diheg-El.
It was over in an instant. The demon’s silver skin peeled back as if consumed by invisible fire; its flesh turned black, bubbling with blisters from which yellowish fluid poured. It was screaming as it burned, a horrific, unearthly scream of terror and pain. Then all at once it was gone, crumbling away into a pile of black ashes that swirled around on the snow at Meheg-Ba’s feet.
Miril, shining like a star and singing loudly, alighted on Ashurek’s hand. There were several moments of absolute stillness in which the two remaining demons, staring at Estarinel and Ashurek, turned almost grey with rage and fear.
Meheg-Ba had had to send Ashurek to fetch the Egg-Stone, all those years ago, because the Shana could not fetch it themselves. ‘The Stone is guarded by a creature,’ Meheg-Ba had said, ‘who could destroy a Shanin with the merest touch.’
When Arlenmia had sent them into the volcano, Miril had not been there to guard the Stone. She had been trapped in the Black Plane, but now she was free.
Ashurek smiled malevolently. ‘Well?’ he said.
‘Skord, help us!’ Siregh-Ma exclaimed, but the boy only stared, red-eyed.
‘Don’t be an idiot,’ Meheg-Ba hissed at its comrade. ‘Keep your head.’ It raised its arms and began to mutter ugly words. Siregh-Ma followed suit and at once a dark knot appeared in the atmosphere to their right. Out of it stepped another demon.
Ashurek moved forward with his arms outstretched and touched Miril to the new Shanin. It was destroyed at once. Meheg-Ba’s and Siregh-Ma’s voices rose. Another demon came through, and another, only to be consumed by Miril’s fire as each set foot on Earth. She could have flown free but she remained in Ashurek’s hands so that no demon could touch him without touching her first.
The entrance to the Dark Regions swelled. The laws allowing them to come only when summoned were breaking down. Demons began to step through in twos, threes, fours, more than Ashurek could destroy at once. Meheg-Ba was shrieking now, issuing frantic instructions to its comrades in a sibilant tongue incomprehensible to humans. Siregh-Ma laid hands on Skord, evidently hoping to make Ashurek desist by threatening the boy. Demon-created illusions began to dance around Ashurek and Estarinel; imps as red as fire skipped about their feet, gouts of violet flame roared from the snow, forming the shapes of lions, humans, eagles, snakes, in wild succession. Their perspective changed and they beheld impossible scenes. Gullies in the snow became rivers that raged towards them, lumps of ice became mountains with vast armies of bronze creatures marching along the valleys. A thousand copies of Miril thronged in the air. Weapons flew at their heads – axes, morning stars, spiked chains – and venomous crimson insects buzzed round them.
‘These are only illusions!’ Ashurek cried to Estarinel. ‘Stay behind me.’ Estarinel had sheathed the Silver Staff, knowing it was only to be used against the Serpent, and had drawn his sword instead. It was useless against the terrible demonic hallucinations thronging around them.
Demons thronged in a hellish horde from the Dark Regions, and the entrance grew wider and wider, a lightless pit gaping in the fabric of the atmosphere. Ashurek strode surely among them, Miril blazing like a sun in his hands, destroying them one after another. Their hideous, inhuman shrieks filled the air as they were consumed
by her fire, boiling and dehydrating and blackening to cinders.
Skord fled past Ashurek, shouting hoarsely for Arlenmia. Ashurek realised that Miril must have dispatched Siregh-Ma. Estarinel caught Skord, and the boy collapsed onto the snow, sobbing.
Abruptly the hallucinations subsided. Ashurek swung in a circle but found there were no longer any Shana around him.
‘Miril, have we destroyed them all?’ he gasped, disorientated.
‘They have retreated, look,’ she sang. He turned to see the ragged hole still yawning down into the Dark Regions. And he was seeing it still with distorted perspective, or with some kind of witch-sight. Meheg-Ba was standing just within the chasm, its face ghastly with rage; behind was a multitude of demons. Intuition told him these were all the Shana, summoned by Meheg-Ba to help against Miril. Now they stood glaring out at Ashurek like blood-famished wolves, knowing they would die if they dared to emerge. Yet overlaid on this scene Ashurek could see a second view, as clear and detailed and undeniably real as the Shana themselves.
He was looking down on the noisome swamp where he had once walked with Calorn. Milling about wretchedly in a herd of uncountable numbers were the pale forms of the human cattle. He could see them so clearly that he could even discern the individual lashes of their closed eyelids. In their midst stood Silvren. She looked pale and ill, her hair matted and her white robe ragged and begrimed, so desperately thin that she was no more than bone under the thin fabric. But still alive, and so close that he felt he could have reached out and touched her.
‘Silvren!’ he shouted. Miril added her voice to his.
And Silvren looked up, and saw him; and at once he knew what she had been trying to ask him when he had seen that brief vision of her on the ice raft. ‘Ashurek, I need to know the words, can you remember?’
‘Silvren!’ he cried again. ‘You must make them open their eyes…’ He stopped, realising with horror that he no longer had the faintest recollection of how he had done so himself. ‘Miril,’ he said thickly, ‘can’t you help her?’
A Blackbird In Darkness (Book 2) Page 40
