A Fire in the North

by David Bilsborough

  And still the tumbril drivers hovered as if waiting for him, standing silently out in the fog, unmoving. He shivered and turned away.

  ‘Your world,’ she replied –

  (“ – your mind – ’)

  ‘ – What you’ve made it become.’

  ‘I told you before, I feel comfortable in here,’ Bolldhe insisted. ‘But up there, on that balcony . . .’

  ‘That is the highest point in the temple,’ Yorda explained, ‘the only place where you can view the real world – the world outside – beyond yourself. Do you really believe this quest is merely about you? You think you’re that important?’

  But Bolldhe did not bother to respond. He knew he was here to find out about himself, and that he could not help fulfil the quest unless he did just that.

  ‘What are all these books, anyway?’ he asked.

  ‘Your life,’ she replied. ‘Everything you ever did, every sight, every sound, every thought, all of it written on parchment and bound in leather.’

  He looked down the length of the corridor, at shelf after shelf after shelf, all crowded with great tomes, stretching out of sight.

  ‘Impressive, isn’t it?’ Yorda chirped. ‘Who would have thought that a man of your tender years could have done so much?’

  Bolldhe contemplated it all then said, ‘No, I reckon that’s about right.’ He went up to one shelf and scanned it. ‘Hmm, seems to be a section missing,’ he said. ‘There don’t appear to be any records on when I was aged eight.’

  Yorda remained silent. As she led him on past the bookshelves he felt her fingers intertwine his, and her grip became firmer. They passed a large mirror set into one of the wall spaces between the pillars, and in it was reflected his own image, being led along not by Yorda – nor by a Bisq’ra monk – but by Finwald, smiling confidently.

  He yanked himself free and stared round at his guide. It was Yorda still but, though she gave no indication that she had noticed his wariness, she did seem more distant and brittle, and she avoided eye contact.

  Bolldhe looked ahead in the direction she was taking him and sighed. The corridor seemed to be going round and round, leading nowhere. He could spend a lifetime reading these books and still remain none the wiser. His spiritwalker was not really helping him at all.

  The tower was no good, he decided. If I’m ever to find out anything, I need to go down, not up.

  No sooner had this thought sprung into his head than the corridor ahead of him forked. Yorda was no longer holding his hand but walked on ahead. She turned and beckoned him along the right-hand fork.

  ‘Just a minute,’ Bolldhe called out to her. ‘Where does the other way go?’

  Yorda looked sad now, and thin, perhaps even a little transparent. ‘I go this way, not that,’ she replied in a strangely quiet voice, her eyes cast down.

  ‘But what about the other way?’ Bolldhe demanded, staying put. ‘Does it lead down?’

  Yorda reluctantly nodded, and her eyes began to fill with tears. ‘I go this way, Bolldhe,’ she repeated, ‘and I would ask you to come with me. This world is so cold without somebody to share it.’

  As she spoke, memories of dappled sunlight reflecting off long shimmering black hair came flooding back to Bolldhe. Before his eyes the corridor began to transform into a narrow, leaf-strewn lane, the marble pillars into trees with boughs that arched overhead in a shady vaulted canopy. There came also the soft murmur of clear water, the contented croaking of a toad in the reeds, the single toll of a shrine bell that drifted across the fields with the smell of incense – and a lump in the throat that would not go away.

  Do you want my help, Bolldhe? Do you want . . . me? Which path do you choose?

  A part of him had ached to submit to her, to acquiesce to friendship and its ties all those years ago. But now he was aware he was just following this past dream like a dumb pack animal. He had walked away then, and he would do the same now. His choice was made.

  ‘Goodbye, Bolldhe,’ she said and dissipated into nothing. The bright green and gold of the lane faded to grey . . . and was stone once more. The peaceful sounds of a field in summer quietened, and the incense was snuffed out. He was alone again, with nothing of Yorda but a lingering sadness and a shadow of wonder at what might have been.

  They have no hold on me, he told himself, and I no obligation to them. For I am BOLLDHE, and I go my own way.

  Truly alone now, Bolldhe wandered through the winding corridors and secret chambers of his mind with mounting agitation and impatience, forever seeking a way down. Somewhere behind him he could hear the creaking of axles and the low rumour of tumbril wheels on stone, as the air turned rancid with visions of bad-toothed grins trundling after him. They had found a way in! He quickened his step, keeping his eyes focused dead ahead.

  Gradually he managed to work his way down to the lower levels, leaving the sounds and smells of his pursuers behind him. And finally he came to the cellars. No, these were not cellars – no cool vaults for fine wines and cold meats. This place had the dank feel of a dungeon. It was a place of rusted iron bars, walls of fingernail-scratched granite smeared with filth, manacles flecked with dried blood and old ragged skin. The floors were puddled with feculence and scattered with the wretched detritus of human misery: sheets of old parchment scratched with charcoal letters – diaries of prisoners’ final days – and crude idols formed from refuse by shaking hands and desperate minds. Despair flowed like a black vapour, and Fear, Evil and Death stalked cackling up and down between the cells.

  In one cubicle a single flame hovered in the darkness, shedding no light. As Bolldhe slunk past, it lengthened, solidified and became a snake with eyes burning magma-red. Held spellbound for a moment, he watched as the reptile expanded and became a tall broad-shouldered man wearing a yak-hide kirtle and a white satin coif. Only the apparition’s eyes remained the same.

  Before he fled, Bolldhe noticed that the red-eyed prisoner’s hands were tied, his mouth gagged and his cell door guarded by shadowy grey-robed sentinels. Despair was at its strongest here, and stank of condemned men’s sweat.

  Bolldhe blundered on through the darkness until he came to the end of the corridor. There he stopped dead. Before him lay the final cell, its door open wide, and within it nothing but blackness. This was the blackness of death without hope, final and inescapable. No conviction of faith or any glib philosophizing could stand up to such darkness. Not even the strongest power in the universe could sustain itself as more than a candle’s flame against the roaring tempest of that oblivion.

  And within that black void was the end of the quest.

  Olchor, the father of Drauglir.

  It was useless, he knew, but Bolldhe had to keep searching. Frantically he scanned his surroundings until finally his eyes latched on to another shape. It was a figure, familiar from days long ago, carved in relief on a manhole cover right under his feet. It depicted his erstwhile god Pel-Adan, holding the legendary sword Unferth in gauntleted hands. Strong and reassuring, Bolldhe grasped at this image with the desperation of a man drowning in quicksand, and heaved the lid off the manhole. Letting it fall upon the stone floor with a heavy clang, without hesitation he dropped himself down into the darkness below.

  Out of a bottomless ocean of blackness Bolldhe swam, up through the shallower waters of nausea and disorientation, to find himself spluttering and heaving upon the lonely strand of wakefulness. He raised himself carefully to his feet, clutched his head in agony and leant back against the wall.

  He opened his eyes cautiously and winced as bright yellow light pierced into the back of his brain. Slowly his eyes adjusted till he regained full consciousness. That was quite a fall he had taken. Quite how far, he did not know, for above him there was now just a low ceiling, with no skylight or vent down which he could have tumbled. Exactly how long he had lain unconscious, he could only guess.

  However he had arrived there, he now appeared to be at the end of a long corridor. Behind him was a dead end: a solid stone w
all engraved with that same icon of Pel-Adan he had recognized on the manhole cover earlier. There was a difference, though; for this one was considerably larger, and rather than a relief it was an indentation. Almost as if he were the reverse side of the manhole cover, but with the dimensions all wrong.

  Bolldhe turned to face the corridor. It was lit by beautifully wrought lanterns much like those in the upper rooms but more antique. The corridor itself was like an older version of those above, with a floor of polished stone, a rib-vaulted ceiling and the finely carved columns and arches of a triforium running along each side. It reminded him of the nave in the temple of Pel-Adan back in his birthplace Moel-Bryn, somewhere he had not been for so many years. Even the smells here brought back memories long forgotten: a mixture of clean white linen surplices, polished chainmail and wax-candle smoke. Faint sounds – more the ghosts of sounds – drifted down the corridor towards him: the strident singing of a choir, the moral exhortations of clerics, the hurried footsteps of a Peladane late-arriving clanking down the aisle, the mewling of the youngest of the congregation, the unselfconscious flatulence of the eldest and the impatient sighing of those in between.

  Solid beliefs for solid lives. What was he doing here?

  Down the nave Bolldhe strode, breathing in the air of his youth. About him he thought he caught glimpses of others his age then – ten-year-olds, young boys in ill-fitting cuirasses or surplices who seemed to develop an incurable itch the moment they set foot in the temple, and girls of a similar age trying to catch the eye of the dashing young knights.

  But the further he walked, the dimmer became the light. The antique lanterns gave way to naked torches positioned in black cast-iron cressets set along the walls. The polished floor, vaulted ceiling and triforium were now just plain dressed stone, with more ancient, cruder engravings of Pel-Adan etched into the surfaces at intervals. The singing was supplanted by a slow rhythmic chanting, and the smells were now of damp turf and penned sheep.

  Deeper and further he went until he entered the cold subterranean depths of a series of prehistoric caves lit only by the occasional burning log. Here the images of Pel-Adan were primitive petroglyphs engraved on the surface of boulders, and the only sounds were low, god-fearing, moaning chants against the beat of hide drums. There was now a pervasive stench of animal skins, blood and sweat.

  Stumbling among the stalagmites, Bolldhe continued. He did not pause until he came to a place where there was no light and no sound. No sound, that is, until he reached a spot which by its very feel he could tell was far more ancient and far deeper than any place he had yet been: the bottom of the well of his deepest memory.

  There was the sound of running water. He emerged into a vast underground cavern of dripping limestone and freezing air that smelt of ice. This was the lowest place he could go, the place where he would find that which he sought.

  No longer needing light or any other guidance, Bolldhe walked slowly over to the far side of the cavern. His outstretched hand met with a wall of ice, so hard and thick it might as well have been rock. In his mind he knew he must somehow get through it. He thought hard.

  The never-ending beat of hammer upon anvil . . . across the ice field . . . smoking fissures . . .

  The memory of Elfswith’s words chiselled away like tiny Knocker-hammers at the periphery of Bolldhe’s mind. What had he warned them they might meet on Melhus Island?

  The fire giants! The Jutul! Of course. In this land of fire and ice it was the only thing that made any sense.

  As if in answer to his thoughts, a tremendous ringing of metal upon metal broke out in another section of the cavern, so loud it sent tremors through the rock. Bolldhe could see the dull glow of fire, a shower of bright orange sparks with every beat that sounded and the enormous hulking silhouette of what could only be a Jutul.

  He had met a Jutul before, of course, the only Jutul any man was likely to meet. Uch-Toghyz was the armourer-in-chief to K’sar Govdelig IV, the warrior-chief and dromedary magnate of the Drur Hills, that ungovernable land of nomadic herders that separated Vregh-Nahov to the north from Ochtamman to the south. Uch-Toghyz was a singularity: a Jutul who chose not only to mix with non-Jutul but also to serve in their long-term employ. Having become thus accustomed to living above ground and coming into regular contact with people of diverse races and social status, he had developed a gregariousness and refinement that was staggeringly cosmopolitan by Jutul standards. Bolldhe himself had regularly shared tea on the mezzanine balcony with Uch-Toghyz, so getting to know much of his disposition, his customs and his interests.

  All of which was now to prove utterly useless of course, as the Jutul are the most solitary, bad-tempered, intransigent and mercenary oafs on the face of Lindormyn. Or under it.

  ‘FOKKIN ’ELL, BOY! WADDYA WANT? CAN’T YOU SEE I’M WORKIN’, ISN’T IT?’ the fire giant bellowed as Bolldhe tentatively approached.

  The Jutul that now strode out of the darkest corner of Bolldhe’s deepest memory was definitely not the urbane Uch-Toghyz. No easy-going conversationalist and with a cough that sounded like a spanner caught in gears, this was a Jutul cast from an entirely different mould.

  At ten feet tall and nearly as wide, the fire giant looked more like some heavy industrial machine than a living being. He turned his face to Bolldhe and glared fiercely at him. The creature’s pig-like face had metal tusks protruding from the lower jaw, a thick greasy layer of soot coating his skin and two glowing white eyes rimmed with red like the fire from a blast furnace. A walrus-skin apron pocked with scorch marks and smeared with graphite protected his front, but apart from that he was entirely naked. The hairs on his dark skin looked like steely curls of swarf, and his fingernails and toenails were chisel-like talons.

  Bolldhe took a step back, unsure what his next move should be. The Jutul blew an angry puff of steam from his nostrils then went back to his task. Girder-thick arms swung like pistons, a huge hammer and some tongs gripped in gigantic vice-like hands. Bolldhe had no idea how to communicate with such a being; his previous experience of Uch-Toghyz now seemed laughably irrelevant. No tea on the mezzanine would sway this lumbering slab of newly smelted pig iron from his labours – it would be like trying to negotiate with a siege engine. What Bolldhe needed was to get his attention with something precious, appeal to his greed . . .

  But, even if there was any such in this place, Bolldhe knew the Jutul would have little time for gold or gems. What they craved above all else was magic.

  In exasperation he puzzled, How can I lay my hands upon something I know nothing of in a place I don’t even understand?

  Maybe Wodeman might know. What was it the sorcerer had advised him? Expose himself to the elements.

  (“ – let the H’urvisg unleash your emotion like raw elemental energy – ’)

  Wodeman’s words resonated in his mind as loud as they could between the hammerings of the Jutul, but unlike most people Bolldhe had never been able to believe in something just because it would be advantageous to do so – and he certainly had no belief in the H’urvisg. It was time to finish all this metaphysical codswallop in the only way he knew how.

  ‘Listen, you!’ he shouted. ‘There’s a great wall of ice over here, and it’s in my way. I want you to thaw—’

  The Jutul wheeled around, flame and smoke belching from his mouth.

  ‘THAW, IS IT?’ he bellowed. ‘WELL, THERE’S IMPUDENCE FOR YOU, AN’ I DUNNO WHAT!’ And with that he picked up his glowing anvil and hurled it straight at Bolldhe.

  Even before it had left the giant’s fingers, Bolldhe had thrown himself upon the ground. A sudden explosion of elemental fury seethed through the air as the red-hot anvil exploded into the ice wall, destroying both. From the Jutul came a roar fit to shake the very foundations of the world. It vibrated with a painful buzz in Bolldhe’s ears, then trailed off into hollow silence.

  The Jutul was gone – and so was the ice wall.

  He leapt to his feet and stared at the opening in the cave where t
he ice had been. Slowly, hardly daring to disturb the profound stillness, he approached. Something important, something of the greatest significance for himself and possibly the whole world, was about to happen. He could sense the press of history, all those terrible and wonderful deeds, the deaths and lives of men and all their struggles, and indeed the destiny of men for centuries to come, all that he could feel now hinging upon the pivot of this very moment. He was about to step over a threshold – as he had almost done when he had killed Eggledawc Clagfast – and find out something about himself that would change everything forever.

  Steadily, almost ceremonially, he paced slowly towards that hole in the wall. As he did so he heard faint music, or maybe the sound of the sea, seeming to emerge from the rock itself. He reached the gap, held his breath . . .

  And looked through.

  Bolldhe stared expressionlessly at what lay before him. Then his eyes widened, his heart began pounding fit to burst and his lips retracted in a grimace of revulsion and horror.

  ‘Not me . . .’ he whispered in disbelief. ‘I never – not that . . .’

  He shook his head in sobbing denial of what he was witnessing. Then his mind snapped, and he tore himself from the hole and hurled himself screaming back the way he had come.

  The bells! was all he could think of. Those silver bells!

  He sped through the same tunnels, tripping, colliding heavily with the walls, splashing through the puddles on the floor that were already freezing over. It was a flight spurred by unreasoning insanity in which his only thought was to find the silver bells Yorda had told him about earlier and exit this nightmare.

  But there were none to be found down here, and he charged around the tunnels in ever-decreasing circles of despair.

  Where were those blasted tumbril drivers when you needed them most?

  Then, without warning, he came to a dead end. He realized through his panic that he had somehow arrived back at the commencement of this subterranean journey through his mind, at the place where he had dropped through the manhole. But it was all different now: there were no columns, no tiles or engravings like before; it was just another dripping cave of dancing shadows and hollow watery sounds.