by Roger Taylor
Here and there the snow had slipped rakishly down a roof, to expose it like a flaunted shoulder.
He watched the people pursuing their various errands, huddled against the cold thaw wind; each movement part of the great momentum of the City’s life.
Then it started to rain, and very soon the view became blurred and distorted as rivulets of water began to flow down the window like uncontrollable tears.
Chapter 23
The following day, Andawyr led the group forward with seemingly greater confidence, scarcely hesitating as they continued to wend their way through tunnels and chambers and past innumerable junctions and branches. The route, however, still took them inexorably downwards; the temperature remained chilling, and the staleness in the air became almost tangible. Thus the journey which, hitherto, had been marked by the banter and mutual encouragement of companions in mild adversity, became for a while an introverted, almost sullen, procession.
Strange sounds began to drift through the stagnant air; scratchings and scufflings. Occasionally one of the walkers would turn sharply in an attempt to catch the tiny pinprick lights that might have been eyes, glistening red in the torchlight, but they were always gone.
And then a soft, scarcely audible sound, like an in-drawn breath, would sigh through the gloom, and twice Hawklan thought he heard a distant wailing howl.
On each occasion, his hand reached out hesitantly to catch Andawyr’s shoulder, but was equally hesitantly withdrawn.
‘There! I saw it,’ Yrain cried. ‘Look.’
A torch flared up and all eyes followed her pointing hand. Something at the edge of the darkness scuttled away.
Hawklan turned to Andawyr.
‘I don’t know,’ the Cadwanwr said, answering his question before he could ask it. ‘But this is not our place, we mustn’t linger.’ Then he was moving again.
Some of the group started to draw their swords, but Hawklan signalled them not to. ‘The light alone will probably frighten anything that lives down here,’ he said. ‘Let’s not be too anxious to kill things that we don’t understand.’
His manner as much as his words helped to dissipate the mounting unease in the group, but surreptitiously he loosened his own sword in its scabbard.
They continued in silence for some time until once again the walls and roof of the tunnel began to disappear beyond the torchlight and they felt themselves to be in an open area.
The air became fresher though there was still a strange quality about it.
Faint scurryings in the darkness marked their entry, but beyond these was an echoing emptiness in the silence that was like nothing they had encountered so far.
Isloman gazed around and then gave the instruction he had given once before. His voice was excited.
‘Douse the torches,’ he said.
This time no one demurred and once again the group was plunged into darkness.
Gradually a faint light began to manifest itself. Not, as before, coming from some particular rock formation, but from above, like the vanguard of dawn. Around the silent watchers, the silhouettes of great rock formations began to appear.
‘This is no cavern,’ Isloman whispered, as if even the slightest sound might dispel the faint and pervasive light. Dar-volci started chattering and whistling softly then Hawklan felt him brush past his legs.
‘Take care . . .’ he began.
‘This is a . . . landscape we’re looking at.’ Isloman’s awe-filled voice cut across Hawklan’s warning.
As the words faded, Hawklan felt the shadows around the group assume a new perspective. Though he could not distinguish any details, he knew that some of the shapes he was looking at were a great distance away. His eyes moved upwards. Somewhere, high above, faint lights sparkled.
‘Look,’ he said, pointing, though he knew the others could scarcely see him.
‘Stars,’ someone said softly.
Almost reluctantly, Andawyr intruded into the ensuing silence. ‘They’ll be insects of some kind,’ he said. ‘I’ve heard about them. Creatures that live underground and which glow in the dark.’
To give substance to his words, some of the lights began to move, very slowly. Others, Hawklan noted, were winking in and out of existence, though not rapidly like stars, but in a leisurely, fading way.
‘Where are they? How high?’ someone said. ‘It’s too dark to judge distances.’
‘They’re far above us,’ Isloman said. He rubbed his eyes and pointlessly stood on his toes as he peered upwards.
‘I think they’re whole clusters of . . . insects . . . or whatever,’ he said. ‘Clusters that keep breaking up and reforming again.’
Dar-volci interrupted any further discussion. His low excited whistling came out of the darkness, then he said, ‘Come here, carefully. Use a dimmed torch to see where you’re treading.’
Following his instructions, the group slowly made its way towards his voice, Isloman leading.
‘Careful,’ said Dar-volci urgently as Isloman neared him. The great carver stopped, gently extending his arms to stop those following him. Very cautiously he eased himself forward and then abruptly drew in a sharp breath and dropped on to his knees.
‘It’s a cliff edge,’ he said, before anyone could speak. Carefully he crawled forward.
‘Give me a torch,’ he said, reaching back. Dacu thrust one into the extended hand. Isloman struck it alight. It revealed him to the others, kneeling on a rocky edge, immediately beyond which lay darkness. He leaned forward and, lowering the torch over the edge, peered after it.
Cautiously the others joined him. There were murmurs and gasps of surprise.
Isloman swung the torch from side to side, and turned up its light. The ensuing brilliance at once shrank and expanded the world around the group. Shrank it by destroying the subtle radiance that had gradually increased as eyes had adjusted, but expanded it by showing that they were at the top of a craggy rock face which fell precipitately away from them into the darkness far below.
Tirke flicked a stone over the edge. It fell whitely through the torchlight and then was gone. The listeners waited silently, but no sound came back to record the end of its journey.
Tirke swallowed nervously.
‘Keep your torch alight, dear boy,’ Gavor said to Isloman, hopping to the edge of the drop. Then, before anyone could speak, he had launched himself into the darkness.
There was another long silence until he returned. ‘It’s a long way down, and very wide,’ he said.
‘Did you reach the bottom?’ Tirke asked enthusiastically.
Gavor shook his head. ‘I’m not a bat, dear boy,’ he said with mild irritation. ‘And flying in the dark’s not much fun you know.’
Dar-volci ended the discussion. ‘Come back,’ he said. ‘And turn that torch off.’
As the group retreated from the edge, Isloman did as he was bidden and once again they were plunged temporarily into utter blackness.
Slowly the faint glow and the subtle shadows came back to them. A murmur of questions came with them.
‘Look now,’ Dar-volci said over the growing hubbub. His voice was full of strange excitement.
All eyes turned again to look out into the darkness beyond the cliff edge. But nothing was to be seen. Nothing except more shadows within shadows, perhaps far below, perhaps far away.
‘It is a landscape,’ Isloman said. ‘We’re looking out over a huge area. It’s like being high in Anderras Darion.’
From somewhere in the dark distance came a faint noise that might have been the call of an animal.
‘Where are we, Andawyr?’ Hawklan said, his voice a mixture of curiosity and concern.
‘I don’t know,’ Andawyr replied. ‘But we must move on. It’s not our place.’
‘Some day . . .’ said Isloman, before Hawklan could pursue his question.
‘Some day quite possibly, carver,’ Andawyr said. ‘But this day and until we see Him perish, we must keep moving forward.’
He wave
d his hand for silence; it was a faint white blur in the shimmering darkness.
No one either spoke or moved until eventually Andawyr said, ‘This way,’ and, striking his torch, moved off again.
The others fell in behind as before, but Hawklan strode alongside Andawyr.
‘What do you mean, it’s not our place?’ he asked. ‘I don’t understand.’
Andawyr cocked his head on one side as if he were still listening to something while he answered. ‘It’s just not our place,’ he said again. ‘It’s . . . old . . . very old. From before . . .’ He waved his hand again. ‘Ask me no more, healer. I can’t answer you, and it’s . . . difficult for me here.’
Hawklan laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder and stepped back.
‘Dacu,’ he said. ‘All of you. Make sure our route is well marked.’
Encased within the dome of their own torchlight, the group continued on in comparative silence for some time, the main disturbance being Dar-volci, who kept chattering and whistling to himself.
Suddenly Jaldaric, who was carrying the rear torch, cried out in annoyance.
Hawklan turned to see the Fyordyn flailing his free arm as if to beat off some irritating insect.
‘Douse the torches!’ The command was loud, urgent, and unequivocal, and it was Dar-volci who gave it.
It was also effective, and the group found itself immediately in darkness yet again. But this time the soft diffuse radiance did not return. Instead they found themselves almost immediately underneath a cloud of vague, fluttering lights.
‘Sphrite!’ cried Dar-volci, his voice a bizarre mixture of surprise and delight mingling with a concern that verged on panic. ‘Don’t touch them!’ he shouted. ‘Get down on the ground. Get down! Right down and stay still. Now!’
‘Do as he says,’ Hawklan shouted, unnecessarily.
As he himself crouched down, someone pushed him off-balance and fell on top of him as he went sprawling. He heard a scuffle nearby and an oath from Andawyr. He was about to push the offender away when he realized that whoever it was, was deliberately protecting him with his own body. Loman’s amused taunt returned to him. ‘You have a bodyguard now,’ together with its unspoken corollary, ‘Whether you like it or not.’
He lay still.
Glancing upwards he saw that the fluttering lights were flying insects of some kind. He could hear the sibilant thrum of countless tiny wings beating as the creatures pursued whatever errand it was they were on.
‘They’re like butterflies,’ Yrain said.
‘Andawyr . . .?’ Hawklan began.
‘I don’t know,’ replied the Cadwanwr, his voice muffled and irritable.
Abruptly there was a grunt of effort nearby, and Hawklan became aware of Dar-volci leaping high in the air, his sinuous body twisting dark against the flickering lights. As he reached his peak there was the resounding snap of his jaws closing on something, and he was chewing audibly and with relish as he thudded back on to the ground.
Hawklan noticed that the shifting cloud scattered and rose a little at Dar-volci’s intervention.
‘Ssphride!’ said the felci, speaking with both satisfaction and his mouth full. Then, more clearly, and still urgently. ‘Keep down. Keep still.’
Twice more he leapt, each time catching something, and each time with the same effect on the hovering insects, then quite suddenly, they were gone. Hawklan looked up to see a hazy cloud of yellow golden light receding into the distance. He displaced his protector and rose into a kneeling position.
Out of the darkness came a loud belch. ‘Oops, sorry!’ Dar-volci said repentantly.
Someone struck a torch.
‘Put it out,’ hissed Dar-volci furiously.
The torch flickered out instantly.
‘I’ll tell you when it’s safe to strike it again, but when you do, keep it very dim,’ Dar-volci went on.
‘Dar, what’s going on?’ Hawklan and Andawyr asked the question simultaneously.
A further, stifled belch and a mumbled apology preceded the felci’s reply. ‘They were sphrite, they were sphrite, they were sphrite,’ he babbled, excitement overriding his alarm. Hawklan could hear him running about and bumping into people.
‘Dar!’ Andawyr shouted ferociously.
Regardless of the felci’s injunction, he clicked his torch into life. ‘Dar!’ Andawyr shouted again. Shadows etched out the lines in his mobile face as he waved his torch about angrily. ‘What in thunder’s name is going on? What were those things?’
‘Put that damn thing out,’ shouted Dar-volci.
‘No!’ Andawyr replied equally loudly, though at the same time he dimmed it.
‘Look, they are like butterflies,’ Yrain said again, cutting across the brewing quarrel. ‘There’s one on the ground here.’
The torchlight revealed her bending forward towards a small fluttering red shape on the ground. She had removed her glove and was reaching out gently to touch the insect with an extended finger.
‘No!’ cried Dar-volci.
In almost the time of a single heartbeat, Hawklan saw Yrain’s smile begin to change to a look of horror as the sphrite clambered on to her finger and closed its wings rapturously; saw Dar-volci leap forward and knock away the ecstatic insect with an extended claw; then saw him seize the woman’s wrist in his powerful claws, and close his dreadful teeth around the finger end.
He was spitting the bloody stump out and shouting, ‘Seal the wound, seal the wound!’ before Yrain’s piercing scream reached her lips.
Hawklan snatched the torch from Andawyr and, turning its dim yellow light into a glowing red heat, held it against the spurting finger end. The acrid smell of burning flesh rose up into the cold subterranean air. Yrain’s scream of fear and pain rose past its peak and descended into one of monumental anger.
Quickly handing the torch back to Andawyr, Hawklan reached out to put his arm around Yrain’s shoulders but, with a snarl, she brushed him aside, and snatched a knife from her belt. Her eyes turned, gleaming, towards Dar-volci but, recovering his balance, Hawklan seized her wrist and, spinning swiftly on his knees, twisted round, to take her gently but inexorably face down on to the ground.
Yrain struggled briefly, but Hawklan pinned her shoulder with his knee, and quietly slipped the knife from her already loosening grasp. Yrain beat her free hand on the ground in frustration for a moment, and then lay still.
‘Are you quiet now, Helyadin?’ Hawklan said softly.
‘Yes,’ said Yrain, her voice breaking.
Hawklan released her and gently helped her into a sitting position. She pushed him away, forcefully but not angrily, and began to nurse her injured hand. Tears were running down her face, glistening in the dull torchlight; but she was not sobbing and, though shocked, her expression was one of anger and bewilderment.
Hawklan swung a menacing finger round to Dar-volci, standing by the crouching Andawyr. ‘Explain,’ he said, his own shock showing as anger.
Unexpectedly, Yrain reached out and touched his arm. ‘No, no,’ she said, still breathing heavily. ‘It wasn’t his fault. I think he’s saved my life. There was something on that . . . thing . . . and it was doing something to me.’ She shuddered.
Hawklan looked at her and then turned back to Dar-volci. Andawyr had placed his arm protectively around the felci.
‘Turn the torch down, Andawyr,’ Dar-volci said. ‘As low as it will go. And the rest of you keep a look-out in case any more come back.’
Andawyr reduced the torchlight to a dull glow and the group drew closer together.
‘Explain,’ said Hawklan again, more quietly.
‘We must get away from here, Hawklan,’ Andawyr said, before Dar-volci could reply. ‘We must get away while I’ve still some semblance of rock sense in this place.’
There was an urgency in his voice that Hawklan had not heard before. He nodded reluctantly. ‘Can you walk?’ he said to Yrain, standing up and extending his hand to her.
This time she took it. ‘Yes,
’ she said. ‘I’ll be all right if I keep moving.’ Hawklan felt her shaking as he helped her up and as they walked he supported her inconspicuously. He felt a grateful squeeze on his arm.
The group moved slowly in the low torchlight. At Andawyr’s request, they walked in silence, though Dar-volci kept muttering to himself and occasionally whistling.
At one point, the terrain they moved over was strangely flat, and Isloman bent down to examine it. He made no comment when he stood up, though Hawklan sensed some turmoil in him.
Eventually, Andawyr stopped, and began turning from side to side like a weather vane in a blustery breeze. His face was concerned.
‘Alphraan,’ he said.
There was a long silence, then, ‘This place is beyond us too, Cadwanwr,’ said the voice. ‘We follow you.’
The voice was full of awe and the words were surrounded by an aura of profound regret and self-reproach.
‘There are dangers in all the ways,’ it went on. ‘But do not fear your doubts. You are better armed than you know.’
Andawyr looked round at the group, patient silhouettes in the faint torchlight, then, his face unreadable, set off again.
The ground became increasingly more uneven and after a while they found themselves scrambling carefully across a rocky plain. Again Andawyr cast about, then Hawklan caught the faint Alphraan whisper, ‘Here, Cadwanwr,’ and a hint of the guiding note that had led him once into the Alphraan’s Heartplace.
Andawyr turned to follow it and within a few minutes the group was entering what appeared to be a large cave. Andawyr stared into it and nodded to himself. His manner became noticeably more relaxed.
Isloman stopped and peered back regretfully into the hazy darkness through which they had just travelled. As he did so, he rested his hand on the wall of the cave. At once, he started, almost violently, and again Hawklan felt his turmoil.
‘What’s the matter?’ he said.
Isloman struck a torch and held it close to the wall without speaking. He inclined his head significantly, and Hawklan followed his gaze. The wall was rough and uneven, but here and there, even in the small patch of torchlight, thin, straight, joint lines could be seen.
