‘We barely touched Ularamyth,’ said Hercol. ‘I could read this country for a lifetime and never tire. But that is not our fate.’
Then he bent low beside Myett, and offered his hand like a platform. When she stood upon it he raised her to the level of his eyes.
‘Never hide your darkness from us, sister,’ he said. ‘We will meet it with whatever light we can. There is no shame in sadness. But also, there is no sadness that may claim us as its rightful prey. This lesson I myself struggle to remember. We dwell in pain, and journey from loss to loss, but there is also love and wonder about us, and bright sunlight on the peaks. For today I am merely glad that you choose to carry on at our side.’
Thasha saw that Neda was watching Hercol and Myett with a curious intensity. How much of what Hercol was saying could she understand?
‘My choice scares me,’ said Myett, ‘but not because of the dangers ahead. No, I fear that I shall seek what I cannot find. Or perhaps the opposite: that I shall find something I do not seek at all. But none of that matters now. It is the heart that chooses for us-’
‘And who may ask it to explain?’ said Hercol with a smile. ‘Diadrelu taught me that.’
‘In the world’s last hour, the Unseen shall demand explanations from us all,’ said Cayer Vispek sternly. Neda, as if startled from a dream, turned and rushed from the chamber.
‘Could be,’ said Mandric, ‘but meanwhile, have a look at what the selk have brought us.’
Ranged neatly along the back wall of the chamber was a large assortment of knives, bows, baldrics, leather jerkins, warm furs, gauntlets, arm-guards, throat mail of fine steel chain. There were snow-picks and grapples and other climbing implements, a tent, a light telescope — and a fine selk sword for each. Cayer Vispek lifted one of the sheer blades, twirled it, tossed it from hand to hand.
‘Exquisite,’ he said, ‘and very old, though the edge on them is new, and lethal. I wonder how long these blades have slumbered here.’
‘Find the sword that fits you,’ said Ramachni. ‘Then try on your snow garb, ready your belongings, fill your packs. We must all try to slumber a little before our midnight climb.’
The preparations took longer than Thasha had expected. When they were done at last, many of the travellers did try to sleep. Thasha tried as well, and failed: she had never been able to sleep when the sun was high. She wanted to take Pazel back to their green field one last time, but he was deeply asleep; she did not have the heart to wake him. She took a swim with Bolutu instead, and he showed her river eels that flashed golden in the sunlight, and clouds of freshwater squid no larger than coins. Across the river she saw Lunja and Neeps walking close together among the trees. They were talking quickly, gesturing, and for the first time Thasha heard the soldier laugh.
At sundown they ate a light meal and returned to their beds. This time Thasha dropped into sleep as though falling into a well. She dreamed of stone breaking, a crack that spread like ivy on a granite wall. She pressed her fingers to the crack and sensed a hand on the far side doing the same, heard a woman’s voice berating her, Let me out, selfish girl, you claim to love them, when will you prove it, who will save them if not me? and then a ghost passed through the fissure and her hand caught fire. She examined it: that blazing hand, that power. The flames were bright and sulphuric and she could not feel a thing. She was invulnerable; she had ceased to be herself.
18
Blood Upon the Snow
At midnight the party filed out of the snug little house, packs on shoulders and the dog Shilu at their heels. Pazel had expected a lonely walk through a sleeping Ularamyth, but what he found was quite different. Some two dozen selk had gathered outside. Each one carried a staff that curved at one end like a shepherd’s stick, and at the end of each hook dangled a pale blue lamp. The light danced in the sharper blue of the selks’ eyes. There was no other light from any quarter, save the heavy brilliance of the stars. But Pazel could see a line of the blue lamps, marking the path through the village and beyond.
As the travellers emerged the selk began to sing, their voices so soft that they merged with the night wind. As before the words defied Pazel’s understanding, but it did not matter; the feeling in them was clear. A nomadic people had come to witness another departure, another leave-taking, the very stuff of their lives.
When they started walking the crowd of selk went with them. They passed the workshop where Skip had become so enthralled with selk craftsmanship, the tree where the tortoise slumbered in his burrow, the little volcanic hill. Each selk they came upon fell in with the rest, taking up the melancholy song. But when they reached the great hall the singing ceased. Lord Arim stood among the pillars with his hand on Valgrif’s shoulder. Thaulinin too stepped from the shadows, and the three figures approached without a word.
Now the procession walked in silence, so that Pazel could hear the night birds, the autumn crickets, the gurgle of the streams. In this way the miles passed, and the hours. Lord Arim walked as swiftly as any, though now and then a look of pain creased his face.
They reached the end of the crater floor and began to climb. There were by now several hundred selk with them, and the lamps swayed close together like a school of deep-sea fish. Up they went, by stair and switchback. Pazel walked beside Thasha, now and then touching her arm, or holding her hand for a few paces. He noticed that both Neeps and Lunja, though they walked some distance apart, looked often for the other, as thought to be certain the distance between them had not changed.
By the time they reached the North Door it was very cold. Here the path broadened into a great stone shelf, large enough for all the selk who had joined the climb: and surely almost the whole thousand were here, Pazel thought. The black triangle was just what it had seemed from below: a tunnel mouth, framed with great blocks of stone, and richly carved with both figures and words. An icy wind issued from it, much colder than the air about them. Pazel squinted at the carved words, but it was still too dark to read them. There was also a smaller door at one end of the shelf, and several windows carved into the stone: the Way-House, Pazel guessed.
Thaulinin called the travellers together and presented the ten warriors who were to join them. He told a little of their deeds and life-stories (a very little; the youngest was two thousand years old) and voices in the crowd called out with contributions of their own. Then the selk gave each traveller a folded cloth, silver in colour but woven of some rough, sturdy fabric.
‘Tie back your hair with these,’ said Thaulinin, ‘or wash your face, or bundle them about something you do not wish to lose. They do not look like much, but they were woven by Arim’s mother, Irehi, before the journey from whence she never returned. And this week they have been soaked in the five sacred springs, and touched and blessed by every selk in Ularamyth. Still you need not handle them like relics: they are strong, and meant for use.’
Then Pazel felt a hand on his shoulder. Lord Arim himself stood beside him, and his old lips formed a smile.
‘You tried to read the words above the threshold,’ he said, ‘and well you should: they are a parting wish for travellers. Shall I recite them for you?’
He spoke then in Sabdel, and Pazel was moved by the beauty and simplicity of the verse. Then Arim repeated the lines in the language of Bali Adro, for all to hear:
Behind you dieth a dreamland, ahead is the blinding day.
Still thy song is in all tongues and on all voices lifts,
And even the white range declares it to the skies.
Never but by you is it forsaken, no silence but thine own is its decay.
Go not mourning what is ended.
Go not with winter in your eyes.
‘That is our hope for you all,’ he said. ‘But come: we must rest in the Way-House. Your true journey begins at sunrise.’
Then the selk came forward in groups, touching their arms, whispering words of farewell. Pazel had come to know some by name, and dozens by sight, and felt a great sadness at this leave-tak
ing. Very soon it was done, however, and Arim led the travellers into the Way-House, and a simple room where they could sleep.
Most did so quickly, but once more Pazel found himself wide awake, and unable to be otherwise. This is crazy, he told himself. Sleep, fool, or you’ll be useless at dawn. At last he gave up, as he had done on Sirafstoran Torr, and found his way back outside. He crossed the wide shelf, and saw a ribbon of blue lamps snaking down into the darkened Vale, and dispersing by many paths along the crater floor.
An hour later the party was on its feet, and the sun was gleaming on the crater wall. They glanced a last time at Ularamyth, and Prince Olik knelt on the trail where it began its descent into the crater, and kissed the earth. Then they all turned away, and followed Lord Arim into the tunnel, and not one of those travellers ever again set foot in the Secret Vale.
It was dark in the tunnel, but the selk still had their lamps. Pazel tightened his coat against the biting wind. Very soon he saw ice slicking the walls, felt his boot crunching a thin crust of snow. Every five or ten minutes they would climb a long, steep staircase. They were still ascending the mountain, only this time from within.
After an hour’s march they reached a gate very much like the one in the tunnel by which they had entered Ularamyth. Thaulinin opened it with the same key he had used before, and when they had passed through he locked it behind them. Shortly thereafter Neda remarked that the air was growing warmer, and so it was: decidedly warmer, until they were all loosening their coats. Walking beside Valgrif, Pazel asked what was happening, but the wolf said only that he would see soon enough.
Then the tunnel widened abruptly, the walls falling away left and right, and Pazel realised that they had stepped into a natural cave. The air here was dry and hot. By the dim lamplight he could just make out the ceiling, where stalactites hung like rows of teeth. Fifty feet or so ahead, a staircase climbed the left-hand wall. As they moved nearer he saw that it led to a large, round archway overlooking the cave below.
‘Now,’ said Lord Arim, ‘I must speak to the guardian of the North Door. You may come with me, Arpathwin; but the rest of you must wait for us to return. Do not approach, no matter what you see or hear! You cannot go on without the guardian’s consent.’
He started off at once, and Ramachni went with him. Pazel studied the archway. There was something about it he did not like at all. He glanced at the others and saw that they did not feel it. They were curious, and perhaps slightly worried by the mystery, but none were suffering from the dread he felt, the sense that something terrible was near.
Arim and Ramachni climbed the stair, and stepped before the archway — rather cautiously, Pazel thought. Then they walked inside. ‘Valgrif,’ Pazel murmured, ‘what sort of creature is this guardian? Why was Lord Arim so concerned that we not approach?’
‘Because we could not help, only imperil ourselves,’ said the wolf. ‘Let us speak no more of it. They will return at any moment.’
But the selk and the mage were gone much longer than Valgrif predicted. Through the stone, Pazel thought he felt a low, angry rumble, as though thunder were shaking the earth. At last the two figures emerged from the opening and started back. Ramachni walked straight to Pazel, and in his black eyes was a look of concern.
‘My lad,’ he said, ‘the guardian is an eguar.’
‘An eguar!’ cried Pazel. ‘Oh credek, no!’ Of all their party, he alone had ever faced one of the demonic reptiles — and it had savaged him, burned him, and dug like a mole into his mind. Worst of all, his Gift had forced him to learn its language, and it was the weirdest and most painful tongue Pazel had ever heard before that of the demon in the Infernal Forest.
‘Ramachni,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to see an eguar. Kirishgan told me the selk sometimes talked to them, but I didn’t know they used them as blary border guards.’
‘The creature will not harm you,’ said Ramachni. ‘Arim and I had words with it. They have an accord of long standing: the selk permit the beast to live on the doorstep of Ularamyth, hidden from enemy eyes by the same spells that hide the Vale itself. And in return the eguar keeps watch on the North Door.’
‘It is a task well suited to the eguar’s stillness,’ said Lord Arim. ‘Forty years have passed since last a traveller came to us by way of the Sky Road. But each door must have its watch, and this eguar has been a friend to Ularamyth for centuries. I am sorry, Pazel: I did not know that you had faced an eguar before. They are deadly, of course. But as a rule they are not evil — not given to killing for its own sake, or to mindless hatreds. The creature you met on Bramian is an exception. I know him: Ma’tathgryl, a wounded and embittered beast. This one is also an exception, but of the opposite sort. He has given us many timely warnings of the enemy’s deeds, and has even descended into the Vale, and bathed in the waters of Osir Delhin. He discarded his birth-name in favour of the one we gave him: Sitroth, which means Faithful. We selk revere him for his wisdom, and his guardianship.’
‘But you protect him as well?’ asked Bolutu. ‘What threatens him?
‘In the past, nothing,’ said Arim. ‘But today the Platazcra madness has brought death to the eguar as it has to many others. You know that the Plazic weapons were made from their ancient bones and hides, dug from eguar grave-pits by the alchemists of Bali Adro. In time those pits were emptied, and the warlords faced an end to their power. They tried to leach that power from other materials, such as the bones of dragons and the teeth of the Nelluroq serpent. None of these efforts succeeded. At last, in desperation, they sought out living eguar to butcher and exploit — at a terrible cost in dlomic lives, needless to say. And these experiments too were failures.’
‘But not perfect failures,’ added Ramachni.
‘No,’ said Arim, ‘and for an addict, even the smallest whiff of one’s chosen poison can be irresistible. To our knowledge, fifty-one eguar were sought out and killed to provide such whiffs: a sword that splintered on its third use, a siege engine that exploded on the battlefield, a helm that gave the wearer titanic strength, then burned through flesh and skull like some horrible acid. Fifty-one eguar: and to our knowledge that leaves but eighteen alive in all the world.’
Corporal Mandric hissed. Pazel looked up, and terror seized his heart: from the archway a sea-green light had begun to shine. It grew stronger even as he watched, and so did the heat.
The dog growled. Pazel was struggling to breathe. I don’t want to see it, I don’t want to hear it. He stepped backwards, and would have tripped if Neeps had not caught him.
‘Rin’s blood, Ramachni!’ said Thasha. ‘That mucking thing’s language is a torture to Pazel, you know that!’
‘Peace, Thasha,’ said the mage. ‘The creature has pledged not to speak in his native tongue.’
‘But what a splendid gift, Pazel Pathkendle!’ said Thaulinin. ‘Not even the selk have ever learned to speak the language of the eguar.’
Pazel was shaking all over. ‘Never. . try,’ he said.
At that moment a shimmering vapour began to pour from the archway. It was exactly the same vapour that had engulfed Pazel on Bramian — and there, there was the smell: rank, acidic, burning his nostrils. Out it came: the sliding, slouching black creature, lizard-shaped, elephant-huge, hotter than the depths of a furnace. The row of spines along its back scraped the top of the archway, and above the black crocodile jaws its eyes glowed white-hot.
The creature emerged only halfway from the arch, then settled on its belly at the top of the stairs, with one great clawed foot dangling over the ledge. Within the cloud of vapours it was hard to look at steadily. But its eyes drilled down at them with an intensity that was almost physically painful.
‘Humans!’ it said, and its voice was like a boulder shifting. ‘Woken humans! Come forward, and do not fear me. It brings me joy to see you.’
‘Why is that, old father?’ said Ramachni.
‘So many reasons,’ said the eguar. ‘Because their form is fair. Because I sense friendship, even
love, between them and their dlomic comrades, although the dlomu enslaved and killed them. Because to see the proof that their race is not extinguished gives me hope for my own.’
With each breath, the creature threw off waves of some great force; Pazel could not see anything, but felt them pulsing through his body. His mind was thrown into confusion: the eguar had spoken with undeniable courtesy, and yet it was so much like that other, a creature that had swallowed a man whole before his eyes.
‘They must pass swiftly on, Sitroth,’ said Lord Arim, ‘but I shall return within the hour, and will count myself blessed if you will talk with me awhile.’
‘You honour me, my lord,’ said the eguar, ‘but can they not tarry a little while? Since I cast my lot with the selk my blood is thinned. I crave company, and speech, although my kind would call me weak if they heard of it.’
‘Our kind calls you friend,’ said Arim. ‘But no, they cannot wait. The humans are castaways, and the one ship that can bear them home is drawing away even now. They must hurry to catch up with it while they can.’
The eguar lowered its head onto its forelegs. ‘That need I understand. The fate of the castaway is hard. Go, then, humans, and seek your ship.’
Pazel dared another glance at those burning eyes. Dumbfounded, he realised that the terrifying creature was lonely, starved for companionship of its own kind or any other. It had allied with the selk, and been changed — as they themselves had, perhaps. For just an instant he felt tempted to speak to the creature in its own tongue. But no, that was impossible: eguar put whole speeches into single, unimaginably complicated words. On Bramian, just hearing one of them had felt like being screamed at for an hour by a mob. Trying to form such words might just drive him mad.
But he could speak to it in the common tongue.
‘I wish-’ he said aloud, sputtering (what in Pitfire did he wish?). ‘Oh, credek — that is, I wish you could be happy.’
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