Realising the earnest desperation in their plea, Mirrortac consented to help. ‘I shall do any task that will help us escape this Netherworld, Roderick. What be your plan?’
Roderick sighed with relief and whispered: ‘I shalt call upon Krak and tell him that I wish to use thee fer an errand. I shalt sayest that I need thee to accompany Beth to the glade nearest the Wood. It shalt be for the collecting of herbs and nowt shalt be given the lie. Beth shalt collect the herbs and thee shalt protect her from the diva-creatures that mayest surprise her. When this is done she shalt return without thee and shalt sayest unto Krak that thine hath roamed too near the wood and ist lost. Thou must take the Tablet of the Abyss with thee and keep it close to thy sight. Keep the sun ‘afore thee and cross the wood. Cast thy eyes upon the tablet oft for it shalt remind thee of thy purpose. I shalt bind it to thy hand so thee might nowt loose it from thy grip; for the mind ist lost in the swift extinguishment of a dying flame.’
‘And what if Krak does not allow this errand?’ Mirrortac asked.
‘Thee shalt be gone ‘afore he mayest object. And where ist there to escape in Hopocus? He shalt nowt object.’
Beth cautioned them to be silent as she peered around the door into the hallway. Roderick returned the tablet to the box and the box to its place beneath the floor. A horrible laugh echoed down the hallway and they heard the pitiful wail of a lost soul. The door was slightly ajar, allowing Mirrortac a glimpse of Krak as he waddled past the room. The pale figure of a Nerthule man trudged behind, his head bent while his hands were the hoofs of some creature. The man was sobbing and wailing and his whole form quaked with despair. Roderick shook his head. ‘Oh Lord be merciful,’ he sighed.
‘What sorcery is this? The Nerthulian is part creature!’ whispered Mirrortac.
‘T’is the diva-creatures that hath done this,’ Roderick said. ‘He may hath done some wrong or took his own life. Now his soul ist lost. He shalt need help, that one. And there art many like him here. Many indeed.’
As he spoke, they could still hear the man’s wails as he was taken into another part of the castle. Beth knelt down on the floor and placed the palms of her hands together. Mirrortac listened and watched as she invoked her guiding spirit, calling the spirit ‘Lord God’ and ‘Father’ and beseeching his protection for the soul who had just passed down the hall. When she had completed the ritual her face lit up with a smile and she looked directly at the erfin.
‘I canst feel it!’ she beamed. Her face was radiant. ‘Ye art the one, Mirrortac. The Lord hath told me in mine heart.’
The erfin winced and wondered at her. She spoke with such conviction that he was inclined to believe her without question. He went down on one knee and opened his arms out to her. She acted without hesitation and raced into his arms. They embraced and she snuggled into his long green fur, kissing his hand as he patted and stroked her downy hair. But the old wizard was impatient to put his plan into action and called Beth to his side. She did as she was asked and stood by the wizard. Roderick waved his hand in front of her and the air crackled a little as some magic was performed. A basket appeared in her hand and her woollen skirt was transformed into another of a blue shade. The girl took out the box from its hiding place and Roderick withdrew the tablet.
‘Place out yer hand, sir,’ he instructed.
Mirrortac proffered a hand into which Roderick placed the tablet, chanting a few magic words. As Mirrortac watched, the tablet adhered to his palm and vanished although the feel of it remained.
‘The tablet shalt be invisible until thee reacheth the wood whereupon it shalt be made visible again. The spell shouldst hold the tablet agin thy hand sir, but alas, me magic ist poorly and I canst nowt promise that it shalt stay. Ye must nowt lose it for wi’out it, thou ist lost also, forever. When thou hast completed this task, ye shalt be led to the Well of Lost Memories wherein thou must placeth thy sword that I hath fashioned for the final purpose. Mayest the Lord go wi’ thee both. Go now. I shalt explain thy absence to the sorcerers.’ Roderick kissed Mirrortac upon his cheek and embraced him.
Beth embraced the wizard warmly then led Mirrortac out of the room and into the hall. The erfin accompanied her down the hallways and stairways that took them to the lowest part of the castle and to the gateway that opened to the track leading down from Fog Peak and into the Valley of Mists below. The way was stony and cold and the sun held station in the frosty green sky above. Their feet pressed into the stone as though it was only earth while their motion was strangely disjointed. Beth sang quiet psalms as she walked but her voice was quivering and the tiny silky hairs on her arms prickled with fear.
As they moved down the winding stone stair, a clammy grey mist swirled in around them. Dark shadows floated and dashed between the mist, growling and whining with threatening bestial sounds. One of the shadows floated out of the mist in front of them. It was a grotesque beast with warts, bulging eyes and two straight horns on its head. It snorted at them as it hovered then faded into nothing after the girl-child closed her eyes and chanted some words to herself. Mirrortac thought her a magician too although she would no doubt deny such a tag. They had no more trouble from then on as they descended to the valley floor where the mist hung just above their heads, revealing a landscape of odd plants and leafless trees that grew not out of the earth but down from the thick mist itself. Beth broke off a small branch and gave it to Mirrortac.
‘Here. Ye canst eat of this, sir,’ she said, plucking off a piece and chewing it.
He gnawed the tip of the branch and was surprised to feel the wood dissolve into his mouth, tasting of meat and bitter fruit. They ate a few branches; enough to fill ten erfin’s stomachs normally but in Hopocus, nothing could be expected to be normal.
When their hunger was sated, Beth led Mirrortac farther into the valley, plucking off bits of plant above her head as she went. The earth moved in slow waves beneath their feet while an odd lump of it would flop up suddenly into the mist followed by an almighty rustling as the plants competed to trap and consume each lump. Mirrortac was startled more than once when a lump of earth jumped up at him and lodged beneath his chin. Then it was a frantic struggle to dislodge it before the plants attempted to suck it up and half his chin with it.
Mirrortac lost all sense of time as he walked with Beth through the topsy-turvy Valley of Mists. The semi-grey light was constant as the valley brought them farther from the castle. The day wore on into an eternity and they did not tire nor desire food, water or sleep. It was as though time remained in the Now. After much walking, the mist thinned out and they emerged into a sunlit vale. Ahead of them was a bank of heavy fog where there stood the skeletal forms of the trees of the Wood of Forgetfulness, carrying their forlorn burdens of death and despair.
Beth shivered. ‘Yonder ist the Wood of Forgetfulness. Thee must keep the sun always direct in front of thee and remember to look at the tablet. It shalt guide thee even when the mind is nomb.’ She embraced the erfin and kissed him hard on the cheek. ‘God go wi’ thee, Mirrortac sir.’
With tears streaming down her cheeks, the girl-child left him, carrying her basket filled with herbs. Mirrortac peered down at his palm and watched as the vague outline of the tablet reappeared. Then he confronted the forboding wood and strode towards it.
The dull red of the unmoving sun was the only light that penetrated the fog reaches of the wood. Mirrortac scanned the black tree shapes for danger and, although he saw none, he felt apprehensive and giddy. He looked down at the silver tablet in his hand and for a moment, blinked at it thinking: ‘Now, what is that doing there?’ The sorcery had started to affect him already, making concentration difficult. ‘If I cross the woods at speed, the danger of it will pass quickly,’ he thought, starting to quicken his pace until he was running at a steady rate, regularly consulting the tablet to remind him of his purpose.
‘What am I doing?’ he thought, unable to remember why he was running and what he was doing in these woods. The erfin stopped and stood lo
st for thought. ‘These are...what are these? I do not...who?’ He sagged to the ground with his head in a muddle. He had forgotten everything, even his own name and the reason he was in the woods. He racked his brain to recall thoughts that eluded him just beyond mind.
A broken harsh voice shouted out of the fog. ‘Follow me!’ the voice said. ‘Follow me!’ it repeated. And as Mirrortac raised his eyes, he saw an old man wearing a tatty brown robe. The old man sauntered in his general direction, leading a group of bent over and dejected Nerthulians, all dressed in their rags and mumbling and shaking their heads. ‘Follow me!’ the old man kept shouting, waving his arms about in exaggerated movements and staring in front of him with glassy blind eyes. By some mindless rational, Mirrortac responded to the old man’s call and joined the group at the end of the queue, marching behind them as they strayed aimlessly through the woods.
Around and around the souls wandered in their eternal pathway of despair, mumbling meaningless dirges to themselves. Mirrortac followed, engrossed in his own confused mutterings until the blind old man staggered headlong into a tree and tried to walk up it. The band of souls sprawled into the old man and tumbled into a mass of arms and legs, crawling over each other as though they had all been struck blind. Mirrortac tripped and fell, passing right through the soul of a woman who lay in front of him. His head hurt and he lifted his hand to feel the bruise. The silver tablet passed before his eyes and recognition dawned in his consciousness.
‘The sun! Ye must follow the sun always!’ flashed the thought.
Groggy but determined, he pushed himself up with his hands and came to his feet. A dull red sun shone over his shoulder. He had no reckoning of how long he had spent wandering the woods but he fixed his eyes on the sun and walked on. In this way he stumbled on until his mind was foggy again and he forgot what he was doing. A glance of the silver tablet would remind him of his purpose until he forgot again, and after many such trials, he began to despair of ever escaping the treachery of the woods. Nearing panic, he peered out at the endless fog and the twisted forms of tree trunks and branches. He moaned with his despair despite the untiring energy given to him in this strange world. The menace of being forever trapped in these woods was frightening. Thought was an effort of will as his mind struggled with the vacuum that sucked all thought into it, into a numbing void where meaning was lost. The lure of this mindlessness nagged at him with a constancy that gnawed away at the thinning thread of his perseverance. He tried to keep his hand held in front of him such that he would always see the tablet but he kept being distracted and would forget why he held his arm up, surrendering to some stray thought that demanded he rest his arm – that was, after all, logical.
‘Your body is no use to you. Kill it. Kill your body. Kill your body with your sword. Why persist with such a silly burden?’
Mirrortac was lost again. These voices were floating around in his head, telling him to kill himself. He had forgotten about the silver tablet and he was standing alone, stunned. He blinked at the fog and the trees, unable to make sense of anything and listening to the mind voices.
‘The sword is by your side. This is the ritual. You must follow the ritual. There is a spell upon you. You must perform the ritual now. You must thrust the sword into your body and release the spell. You must do this now. Before it is too late. Too late. Do it NOW!’
Mirrortac absently removed Moongleam from its sheath and stared at the blade.
‘Yes. That is the way. This is your spellslayer. Kill your body and release the soul from its spell. This is the ritual. Do it now!’
He raised the sword above him and the silver tablet gleamed at him as his hands passed by his face.
‘Do it NOW! NOW! NOW!’ the voices screamed.
Mirrortac shook his head. ‘The sun. Must follow,’ he muttered, replacing the sword in its scabbard.
He had covered several hundred erfin-lengths when he was confronted by a pack of diva-creatures that floated out at him, chattering and growling. He did not remember what they were but had enough sense to reason out their intentions. He backed away slowly but the creatures drifted nearer to him.
They were making terrible noises at him: ‘Maning-ma-wa-grakkle-WOK!’ Fresh saliva dribbled out of their fanged jaws and their eyes blazed with fire. As Mirrortac edged farther back, the creatures started to encircle him, cutting off any avenue of escape. He took a long look at the silver tablet and fixed the sun within his sight. There was only one course for him to take, he decided.
Mirrortac moved swiftly, lunging and ducking beneath the creatures before they had a chance to grab at him. Growling a protest, they followed in pursuit. The erfin ran as fast as his feet would propel him, thumping over the soft ashen dust and raising up tiny clouds of it as he ran. The diva-creatures swept through the air with accustomed ease and were soon breathing down his neck. Their breaths were freezing and odourless and they reached out at him with claws that snagged at his fur.
Suddenly he was on the ground, his head reeling and aching. A low soot smothered branch quivered above him, mocking with unspoken laughter. The diva-creatures snarled down at him, crawling around him, dragging their limbs and cocking their heads. They sniffed at his toes, probed his ears with their cold snouts and scrambled over his body like mad insects. A creature with one eye and oversized back feet grunted in defiance, darting from side to side with disturbed snorts and behaving as though the erfin had set some impossible puzzle before it. All the creatures were likewise distraught and at a loss. Mirrortac watched with dumb acquiescence, oblivious to any danger to himself or puzzlement to the creatures. As he watched, one of the creatures thrust up its head and glowered at him with the scent of discovery in its manner. It leapt abruptly onto his chest and stared into it. Mirrortac propped up his head and tried to see what the creature saw but all there was to see was his green furry chest. The creature adjusted its position on his chest and fixed its eyes solidly upon it, making sucking noises as it revolved its jaw. Mirrortac shivered and felt suddenly alarmed. There was a strangeness as though his entire consciousness had jarred loose somehow and was being pulled out of his body through a hole in his chest. In a vain struggle, he made a frantic effort to dislodge the creature, but in his disjointed frame of mind, found it difficult to coordinate his limbs. His arms moved about with a life of their own, slapping into the creature with the impact of two dead serpents. The silver tablet flipped into view and he remembered:
‘Sun. Must follow!’
The words spilled out of his body’s mouth. The creature on his chest was startled by the sound of his voice and let go of his consciousness long enough for him to become one again. Mirrortac regained his feet and the creature slid off his chest and tumbled over the ground. Mirrortac faced the sun and walked onward. The startled pack of diva-creatures stalked behind, disquieted now by a soul who walked within a physical frame. They drifted in lazy gyrations as Mirrortac walked on oblivious to everything bar the one thing that meant anything to him: a hazy sun in a shadowy world of dead trees and fog.
The fog cleared and the Wood of Forgetfulness petered out into a barren plain where the earth was cracked, forming a pattern of clay diamonds. Mirrortac crouched next to the old stump of a former forest giant and sat staring across a shimmering horizon. Thoughts strayed into focus as he collected particles of his memory into a whole again - He first remembered the tablet and the wizard. There was a girl-child connected with his purpose. ‘Yea, I have come here for a reason,’ he mused.
‘Cast the tablet into a Raven?’ the thoughts congealed. ‘No. What Raven? How can I throw this tablet into a Raven?’ Mirrortac scanned the horizon and his eyes stopped as they rested upon the gaping sides of an enormous abyss, thousands of erfin-lengths wide and untold mooniths in depth. All he could see were the sides of the chasm falling away out of sight from the rim of the dry hot earth plain.
‘Chasm! Raven’s Chasm!’ The erfin leapt to his feet and handled the tablet, which lay loose in the palm of his hand. He exa
mined the strange silver metal and the inscribed symbols upon it. He remembered the purpose.
He started to run toward the lip of the chasm, shouting - ‘Cast the tablet into Raven’s Chasm and all shalt be released unto thee!’ His memories were becoming less clouded as he ran, adding momentum to his step and joy to his heart as he realised that he had finally made it through the woods and would restore the magic to the ageing Nerthulian wizard.
A hollow drone permeated out of the chasm, an effect of the play of the air as it funnelled down into the limitless depths. Mirrortac halted at the rim and caught his breath. He gazed down clear mooniths upon mooniths of sheer stone walls descending and converging into a black well in the rough shape of a raven. As he suspended the tablet over the chasm, he could feel the weight of it pressing upon his hand. He turned it in his fingers, taking one last look at it before he cast it out.
He threw the silver tablet as far towards the centre as he could but it dropped so fast, it was already several erfin-lengths down in just moments. He followed its progress as it flipped over and over upon itself, flashing tiny silver winks at him as it diminished into the abyss. Soon, there was no sign of the tablet and the chasm yawned at him with its droning voice of the air.
The erfin spent much time staring into the chasm but there was no change. He could hear no sound, see no display of light nor any phenomenon that suggested any change was about to occur. When he was bored of waiting, he began to amuse himself by throwing pebbles and dirt into the chasm and watching as the pebbles bounced down the walls, starting minor avalanches of rocks and dirt along the way. He shouted and sang, listening to his voice come back to him a hundredfold, fading away gradually as the sound pecked into the perpetual depths.
‘I am Mirrortac!’ he shouted. And the echoes answered: ‘I am Mirrortac - am Mirrortac - Mirrortac - am tac - I Mirror - tac - am - tac - tac - ac - ac - k’
‘Raven’s Chasm!’ he shouted.
The Wizard's Sword (Nine Worlds of Mirrortac Book 1) Page 35
