A Fire in the North

by David Bilsborough

  And pain.

  All light now faded, all glamer, all warmth, until they realized with awful clarity that they were beneath the ocean – the real ocean – and Jagt had abandoned them in the depths far beneath the seabed.

  With vengeful glee the pilot of the waves, who leaves no trace of those he lures to his dungeons, slammed the door of huldre-home on them with one last cry that was clearer than anything he had spoken to them earlier:

  ‘And don’t come back!’

  They would not be coming back that way. Not ever. The Door was closed and would not be reopened.

  No trace.

  The sea, that oily dead sea that lapped onto the Black Shore, erased every footprint, every last sign of Gapp and the others ever setting foot on that beach, then slid back towards the depths with a whisper that might have been laughter.

  ‘No trace,’ Kuthy brooded. ‘No trace at all.’

  ‘Like they stepped over that line of seaweed and simply ceased to exist,’ Elfswith agreed. He carefully picked up a rubbery frond of glistening bladderwrack on the tip of his pencil, scrutinized it, then dropped it into a small glass jar. This he sealed tightly and put in a pocket.

  ‘Sample?’ Kuthy enquired.

  ‘Supper,’ Elfswith corrected.

  It was forty-eight hours since Kuthy and Elfswith had left Wrythe. On that day they had risen above the trees upon the Wyvern’s back and surveyed the forest below for many hours. The sun had disappeared early, and they had been forced to adjourn their search. Sleeping in hammocks, they had spent the night among the treetops.

  The next day, however, the keen eyes of Ceawlin had spotted a group of wire-faces (‘The search party!’) heading north-east, and so they too had swung round and headed for the coast. There they had spent the remaining hours of daylight searching the coast, but then headed back to Wrythe, on the supposition that Methuselech intended to double back and steal a boat. But they had found nothing, no trace of the ones they sought, so spent a second night in frustration, this time camped on the beach.

  It was only on this third day, waking at dawn, that they had noticed the line of smoke rising far to the east. Not long after, they arrived at the nomad camp, by now nothing more than a smoking ruin of burnt yurts, scattered and wailing herd beasts and neatly decapitated Uldachtna-Torca. None had been spared by the wire-faces and their garrottes.

  An hour later they had caught up with the marauders. Rind-Head and his band had provided excellent target practice for them, till over forty garrottes lay rusting at the water’s edge. And an hour after that, here they were at the Black Shore. In the sand, the tracks of Methuselech’s company had been easy to follow.

  Until now.

  ‘Well, whatever it was old Mauglad was up to, whatever secret he had, it looks like he’s taken it with him to a very deep grave,’ Kuthy proclaimed solemnly. ‘Seems hard to believe . . .’

  ‘Too hard,’ Elfswith replied. ‘Mauglad died – what, six hundred years ago? The body of that desert friend of Niblus may be crab food now, but Mauglad’s spirit is still around somewhere, I guarantee.’

  ‘Searching for a new host, yes,’ Kuthy agreed. ‘What I don’t get is why it’s taken him over five hundred years to return. What was keeping him so long?’

  ‘Something, obviously; we’ll probably never know. But his soul is here now, and he won’t stop till he reaches Vaagenfjord Maw. That was his home for countless years; it made him what he is, and he knows more about it than anyone. Whatever he intends to do, I think he’ll do it very soon. Something big. Something way beyond the capabililty of all these hopeless adventurers coming here over the years . . .

  ‘Come on, Kuthy. We’d better get going!’

  SEVEN

  The Maw, the Merrier

  THUS CAME TO AN END, for the time being, at least, the search of Kuthy and Elfswith for Mauglad Yrkeshta – or Methuselech, or whoever/whatever it was that had somehow succeeded in causing a small army of Tregvans to plunge after it into the death-cold ocean off the Last Shore. The thoughts of those two searchers for the Hidden Mysteries now focused upon those Methuselech had travelled with from Wyda-Aescaland. And so they took to the air once again, heading for the ice bridge where they had parted company seven days ago, and from there, probably, on over Melhus and, if necessary, all the way to the Maw itself. Elfswith, it has to be said, had little confidence in the southerners’ ability, expecting to find, if anything at all, no more than a few sorry snow-cloaked lumps of frozen meat huddled upon the ice. Kuthy on the other hand could not settle the knot of anticipation in his stomach that he had borne ever since they had flown to Wrythe. He for one was convinced that interesting times lay ahead, and that everything pointed to the Maw.

  So the game was set and ordained, and all the players finally converged that same day upon the Maw.

  Kuthy and Elfswith upon the great Wyvern, soaring high above the Last Shore; Bolldhe, Finwald, Appa, Wodeman, Nibulus and Paulus, tramping along the last mile of the statue-head road; Scathur, sailing across the ocean with his Children, his wire-faces and his precious pickled people; and the thieves of Tyvenborg, perhaps a day’s journey behind Bolldhe, steadily approaching Ravenscairn.

  But what of Vaagenfjord Maw itself, that magnetic pole that inexorably drew all who bore iron to the north? What thoughts or secrets still lay within its stony fastness? Was it really awaiting them, chuckling from deep within its hellish chambers that had not seen any light for five hundred years? Or was it truly as lifeless as it appeared?

  At exactly the same time as Kuthy, Elfswith and Ceawlin lifted off from that dismal beach into a sky that was yellow-grey in the bleary mid-morning light, Bolldhe and his companions were coming to the end of the statue-head road, at last to look upon their final, long-sought destination.

  The road itself, they had refused to tread. It was the work of the enemy, and as such they would not avail themselves of its aid, even were it to speed them on to his destruction. Instead they forced themselves through deep snow and over jagged rock, using the lines of statues only as a guide, a pointer to their goal. All the while ice and ash howled through the air, and the ground rumbled to the anger of distant volcanoes, selfish giants simmering in fury at the presence of intruders in the secret garden of Melhus.

  But there was another reason why they avoided the road. For in truth none of them was willing to walk all those miles under the silent gaze of those grotesque ice-furrowed rawgr heads. Put simply, the road repelled them. More than that, it appalled them.

  For the last couple of miles, however, it had cut steeply downhill between two high cliffs of steep hoar-frosted rock and, with no other way available to them, the company had at last been forced to make use of it. They averted their eyes from the leering regard of the statues, keeping their attention firmly upon the ground immediately at their feet. Here at least the ice was not the same impediment it had been off-road, but they still had to brace themselves against the cruel blasts of arctic wind that howled up the cutting from the northern sea beyond.

  Then the road swung west, and continued its curve to the left until it almost led back upon itself, heading south, and the company found themselves staring, at long last, down into the very fjord itself. They had arrived at the summit of the eastern cliff of Vaagenfjord. Perhaps four thousand feet below them lay the dark waters of the inlet, while over on the other side, the western cliff rose grey and sheer from the lowest waters to the highest skies.

  The road was now no more than a cliff path, and ran not along the rim of the cliff but against its sheer face, gradually leading diagonally downward. This was the route that would take them down all the way to their final destination. And there, miles ahead of them and far below, the fjord ended against a black wall that, though from here it was nothing but a small dark patch in the distance, they knew to be the Maw itself.

  They halted, battered by the wind, and peered at it through the sleet. After nearly eleven weeks of hard journeying, there it was, the end of the road. For a ver
y long time, despite the freezing winds that snapped at their bearskins, the travellers could only stand and stare.

  ‘It looks so small.’ Nibulus, the first to finally speak, sounded uncharacteristically thoughtful.

  ‘And so empty . . . so dead,’ Paulus added, though what senses the Nahovian possessed that would tell him this at such a distance, none there could guess.

  The relief in their voices, however uncertain, was unmistakable. The terrible crossing of Melhus was over and, by the looks of it, so was the danger. To them the Maw really did appear extinct.

  Seated on Zhang’s back, Appa let out a long heartfelt moan of relief and closed his eyes tightly. All thoughts of rawgr and quest now receded from his mind, further and further. His ordeal upon the plain of fire and ice seemed finally over. He clutched his talisman and began to shake with sobs.

  The other mage-priest, Finwald, on the other hand, stared impassively at that little black smudge ahead of them, his feelings masked. And for Wodeman it was different again: he seemed to have something on his mind and, though none of his companions could know, this had nothing to do with either the crossing or what lay ahead within the Maw. What was perturbing him was a matter that had preoccupied him ever since learning of Bolldhe’s soul journey on the ice field.

  And Bolldhe, considered by some the central player in this game, what thoughts lay behind his silent gaze as he beheld his destiny?

  Of all of them, he was the only one who felt like turning back, simply heading back up to the ice field and leaving this place far behind. Like Kuthy, he was neither a fanciful nor a superstitious man but, again like Kuthy, there were visions of Fate crowding around the edge of his waking mind. After all these months of stony disbelief and contemptuous laughter, now that he actually stood there facing that dark patch at the head of the fjord, it seemed far from small and dead to him. He could sense that something bad was going to happen; maybe tomorrow, maybe today, maybe even in the next hour or so.

  But all he said was, ‘It’s waiting for us,’ and left it at that.

  Without pausing a second longer, Nibulus led the way down the cliff path. For months he had thought about this, imagining the moment when he would retrace the footsteps of his heroic ancestors right to this very point, at Vaagenfjord, and begin the last march unto the very gates of the Maw. On the long days and nights of the journey that had led him here, he had often wondered what it would feel like, what passions or fears would stir in his breast upon first setting eyes on that great defile that led to the Great Defiler. But, now that it came to it, he and his men were so tired, frozen and browbeaten by the terrible crossing that all he felt now was an overwhelming desire to get lower down and out of the wind.

  So they descended into Vaagenfjord.

  The further they progressed, the more the wind was left behind. Or rather above, for it still reverberated powerfully in the rock all around, but its icy demonic screeching remained up at the roof of the island and troubled them no more. From this they took some comfort, hearing the wind yet not feeling its life-sapping breath – as any traveller will do on reaching home and listening to it rattle harmlessly around his house while he is safely in the warmth.

  The ice upon the pathway too lessened, growing patchier, and upon the rock face to one side it had even less purchase. Thus the fjord grew blessedly darker to their reddened eyes, a small mercy after a week of snow-glare.

  The chill of both body and soul began to thaw.

  The company continued on down. Gradually, as they studied their new surroundings, they became aware of something unexpected. Holes began to appear in the cliff face – not natural cavities but carved with tools, regularly spaced vertical slits about six inches wide and three feet in height.

  ‘Arrow slits!’ Nibulus declared. ‘Look, hundreds of them!’

  Not only arrow slits, but below the path they could make out narrow ledges, balconies and sills, their edges curving slightly up. These were shaped to fit the contours of the rock so that from below they would appear as natural outcroppings of stone. In effect, they were camouflaged.

  Seen from above, however, the entire fjord resembled one vast honeycombed fortress wall. Even windows and doorways opening from chambers inside the cliff were plainly visible.

  Nibulus halted the group, and drew forth Gwyllch’s Chronicle. ‘It says here that, on that day as the fleet sailed up the fjord,

  “Ther cam from above a sudden rayne of arrews and speres that forsoth was so dens and thickly clustr’d that we coulde no longer see even the lite of daye . . .”

  ‘I’d imagine there’s more than a crumb of exaggeration there,’ he interjected, ‘but anyway,

  “. . . alle spouting from the very stone of the cliffes, yet no archer nor any wight ’pon those cliffs was ther seen . . . And ther’upon as we helde our shieldes above us that we myte yet holde back this rayne of helle, so cam a falle of rock to smite us. Many dyed upon that moment, and no small number of vessels did founder, rock-stryken. T’wer as iffe the very rock, the very Isle itself, wer rejekting uss.”

  ‘Pel-Adan save us, it must have been terrible.’

  Nibulus closed the book. For once even he seemed reverential.

  Bolldhe peered down into the shadowy blue-misted depths of the fjord and shivered. Poetic exaggeration or not, that cannot have been a good day for any warrior. All those longships and xebecs, so low in the water under the weight of so many Peladanes in their immensely heavy plate armour, crawling so slowly up the fjord, utterly open to attack from above and yet not a single target for them to fire back at. He reflected upon his good fortune that today they were approaching from above. And five hundred years after all the enemy have been slain, he tried to reassure himself.

  ‘All this here explains the “rayne of helle”,’ Nibulus considered, ‘but it also shows how unbelievably open the place is. We’ve always been taught the entire place was sealed off.’

  ‘Yes,’ Finwald concurred, frowning. ‘And it explains how all those previous looting parties gained entry too. I’ll be surprised if there’s a single flagstone left intact inside. Come on, let’s get a move on.’

  A move on was duly got. The path levelled out somewhat and led them alongside a smoother cliff-side punctuated with even more holes. No arrow slits this time, but windows and doorways that led into dark chambers cut into the rock. They peered inside the first one they came to, a small, rough-hewn room, but saw within it nothing more than a pile of boulders. Directly outside this chamber, on a crudely semicircular sill that jutted out over the drop, lay what they at first imagined to be the fossilized remains of some great beast whose days had long since passed. But on closer inspection these turned out to be an ice-covered pile of wooden beams and metal cogs, the shattered ruin of some enormous rock-hurling artillery weapon, its timbers petrified and its metal parts rusted into the rock.

  Now and again they would pass small quarries excavated on their left. These all had grooves cut across the path, to join a chute leading down a steep incline and thence over the edge of the cliff.

  ‘Just one small group of men – or a pair of ogres – could’ve kept a constant stream of boulders rolling from here down these chutes to crash upon our ships below.’ Nibulus winced. ‘How even one vessel made it through, I’ll never know. They must have been formidable, the fighting men of those days, the like of which we can scarcely imagine.’

  For the first time since he had met the man, Bolldhe saw that the Peladane looked almost cowed. There was undeniable pride in his voice, but it was the humble pride of admiration, and it bordered on awe. Maybe he’s beginning to realize just what it takes to be a real Peladane, Bolldhe thought, and not just the shadow of their ancestors that today’s sorry lot have become. And who can blame him? By Pel-Adan, this almost makes me proud of my old religion!

  Other openings, other chambers followed. None was particularly large, nor revealed connecting passages that might lead deeper into the fortress, and though each cavity was briefly searched, none
contained aught but scattered fish bones and other fouler-smelling filth.

  ‘What creatures still live in these roosts, I wonder?’ Wodeman speculated. Certainly this was the first sign of life they had seen since they had crossed the causeway onto Melhus.

  They pressed on.

  Finwald narrowed his lips in bewilderment: again that worry about how open the place was. Like the others, he had somehow imagined that there would be only one way into the Maw, one great brazen portal of immeasurable strength to defy access to any intruder that might come this way. Unlike the others, though, Finwald did not appear reassured that the place looked so dead.

  But as the windows and doors proliferated so too did the darkness in all their hearts. The wind, though a spent force down here, nevertheless moaned spectrally through the chambers, sometimes causing a slither of loose stones from above, and more than once the travellers were convinced it carried ill voices upon it: a stony cackling, a far-off yammering or a ghostly discordant whistling.

  ‘What d’you make of it, Wodeman?’ Nibulus asked the shaman, who walked ahead of the group.

  But Wodeman was preoccupied still with his private thoughts and merely shrugged. ‘I’m not of this land,’ he replied vaguely.

  ‘At least it doesn’t stink of rawgr,’ Appa put in. ‘I have a nose for— CUNA SAVE US, WHAT IS THAT ABOMINATION?!’

  They had already noticed a scraping sound and immediately followed the old priest’s gaze upward. There, not ten feet above their heads and crawling down the rock face towards them, was the most revolting . . . bird? . . . any of them had ever seen, heard of or even dreamt about in their more feverish nightmares. Though it looked like a newly hatched chick, naked, veiny and shrivelled, it must have spanned at least six feet. With bat-like wings ending in bony hooked claws, it pulled itself down the cliff, flapping its way forward with a repulsive leathery scratching noise. When it opened its pink-grey beak to caw evilly at them, they could see within its mouth four rows of sharp black teeth.