A Fire in the North

by David Bilsborough

  Vaagenfjord Maw, denizens of: Little pulses of light, some great, some small, some motionless, some on the move, and all different colours depending on . . . depending on what? Size? Gender? No, on type – species. Have to sort that one out later. Not too much later, though. Right now where’s Bolldhe? That’s the question. Or, more to the point, where’s Flametongue?

  Searching . . . searching . . .

  Hellfire! There they are, only moments away from reaching the Chamber of Drauglir! Vetters, Cervulice, Paranduzes, a hound, a Wyvern, a half-huldre, and humans – one carrying Flametongue . . . But what’re those? A whole army, just behind them and closing fast. There must be hundreds . . .

  That was it. No more time left. It was now or never. Finwald extended his hand and snatched at:

  Languages, modern: Ah, that’s handy! Each language is represented by an icon, a symbol. Let’s see now: Venn, Rhelman, Findic . . . What damn language do they speak anyway?! Ah, of course, Cant.

  Searching . . . searching . . .

  Damn, not even listed here! Just an icon of a pink embryo, all wrinkled and moist. Barbarian Tyvenborgers, their language was too young. Just how long ago had these tomes been written? Useless thieves. Just what did they think they were doing here anyway? They were more like a bunch of drunken oafs spilling out of a tavern on some alcohol-fuelled dare than men on a quest.

  Ah, here’s one: Godthan. Didn’t someone once mention that the Dhracus came from Godtha? Without hesitation Finwald selected her language. ‘Drauglir’s chamber,’ he rapped out in flawless Godthan. ‘Been there yet?’

  Dolen would have turned even paler if she could have. Things had been bizarre enough since she and her fellows had ventured underground, but nothing had prepared her for the shock of hearing this human suddenly speak her language.

  ‘Come on, come on! Have you been there or haven’t you?’

  ‘We’ve . . . Yes, I suppose. We came in that way.’

  ‘Show me then. As fast as possible.’

  The Dhracus jabbered something in Cant, the uncouth syllables tripping over each other in their haste to exit her mouth. Finwald found himself staring down the flared bore of Eorcenwold’s blunderbuss, simultaneously hearing the indignant uproar of the enraged thieves and the drawing of knife, spear and missile.

  For a second he was taken somewhat aback by their reaction and aware how, after all, his attention was now totally focused on the thieves. He realized that he could actually smell their anger, that hot yellow-brown secretion that poured from liver into duodenum, taste the salt of their sweat and the metallic mordant magic upon their weapons, feel the bright expectancy throbbing in their brains.

  Their words, ‘We’re going that way anyway, but not till you’ve shown us the loot,’ spoken in a language he had not yet accessed, meant little to him however. But their tone was unmistakable, and Finwald did not like it. He touched another glowing bauble in the tome and immediately his entire body shivered under the sensation of this latest spell to be dicovered.

  A word – just one word – was all it had taken, one incantation of admittedly formidable pronunciation, and he could feel an aura of protection pulse into life around him, like oil-steeped kindling leaping into flame. To the thieves the aura was invisible, but to Finwald it felt as if he was enveloped in a cocoon crackling with rainbow-hued energy, a suit of impenetrable armour that encased him wholly, the only possible chink being the risk of a temporary lapse in his concentration.

  The vestige of the child in him giggled with the thrill of it all, as the tingling sensation ran over every inch of his body like a swarm of ants, causing him to twitch and squirm. But most of all he was laughing at what he had achieved, how far he had come and where he now stood in the world.

  Time to try this out, he decided mischievously.

  Just as it had taken but one word to awaken the spell, so too did it take but one finger to test it out, one finger raised in the appropriate manner, with just the right amount of impertinence, right in the face of the thief-sergeant himself.

  ‘THAT DOES IT!’ Eorcenwold cried, and his finger squeezed the trigger of the blunderbuss. The dog-spring was released, hammering the serpent into the pan, and the needle lanced straight into the fleshy nerve-ending of the dragon tooth that nestled there waiting in the chamber . . .

  . . . And the entire cavern almost expanded with the force that exploded from the gun.

  When their eyes had recovered from the blinding flash of detonating dragon tooth, the thieves turned back in anticipation to look upon the headless, shoulderless and possibly even chestless corpse of the Lightbearer. However, though the muzzle had been aimed directly at his head, mere inches from his face, he was still there, as intact and unharmed as any of them, altogether unaffected by that most devastating weapon in the thieves’ arsenal. Save perhaps for the blown-back hair and the kind of expression normally seen on a dog with its head poked out the window of a rapidly moving carriage.

  The reverberations of the shot continued to bounce back and forth around the cavern until eventually swallowed up by the abyss below. Eorcenwold’s large eyes now dilated to plate-like proportions, and he seemed unable to move. It was only the timely action of his sister, who had remembered to douse the stock of his weapon with that same cold green liquid coolant, that had saved them all from being blasted apart by the blunderbuss.

  ‘Finger must’ve slipped,’ Eorcenwold stammered unconvincingly

  Finwald smiled magnanimously, savoured the looks in their eyes, the awe that was so appropriate, so fulfilling for him, then he snapped his fingers, and all hell, it seemed, broke loose.

  The stone floor around them exploded like a minefield, as a host of the Dead sprang up from their graves below. Wire-haired banshees spun like dervishes out of the walls bearing whips of scarlet acid, and the walls themselves melted into a boiling mud that formed huge faces which whooped and slobbered then lashed at the terrified thieves with serpentine tongues. The shattered floor shook with the tread of rusty bismuth giants that leered down imbecilically and reached for them with huge mantraps. A tornado of fire wreathed with crackling lightning appeared in the air, and from its howling cone flew terrible rawgrs bearing arquebuses the size of cannons.

  None of which existed, of course, but if there was one thing Finwald needed right now it was urgency. This he now attained, as the thieves instantly fled the cavern in screaming terror, any thought of loot entirely forgotten in their haste to return to the Chamber of Drauglir and get out of this place forever.

  That’s it, you slope-headed bastards. See how you like being the little guys for a change . . .

  Still smiling, he followed them.

  Finwald’s vision of his old companions’ progress – those little pulses of light – had not been wrong. For here they were, Bolldhe, Nibulus and the others, with the Wyvern team and the company of Cyne-Tregva, just moments away from reaching the Chamber of Drauglir. They had finally gained the uppermost level and were at that very moment retracing the footsteps taken by Scathur on that momentous day five centuries ago when he had marched along the corridor past his terrified men on his way to give his report to his master.

  Here the corridors were at their loftiest, rising higher even than a lantern beam could reach, and were buttressed by tusk-like columns that appeared to have thrust up through miles of the earth’s crust from the depths of the place below. Whenever the intruders brushed against them, the walls of rock crackled and hummed with a crystalline energy, or rang like metal being struck. Indeed the surrounding rock seemed more like iron than stone, its weight compressing the air till the ears popped and the brain began to ache. This sense of pressure seemed to increase the further they went, producing cracks in the flagstones, ripples running like columns of ants along the walls and tiny flakes of stone drifting like dead skin from the ceiling. Little glints of light constantly winked at the travellers as they passed, as if the walls had eyes following their progress.

  All could sense an increasin
g tension, though its source was not yet clear. The Vetters seemed more aware of this and would constantly gaze up at things the humans could not see, like a cat suddenly staring up at a blank patch on the wall. Before long the humans started doing likewise, for they too could now hear the strange sounds that were causing the Vetter ears to tingle.

  As silent as the rest, Bolldhe stared around as he walked. As the principal bearer of illumination, he should have been concentrating on lighting the others’ path but he found himself increasingly fascinated by the noises that came from the rock on either side. They reminded him of his mother’s house all those years ago, when as a child he had cowered beneath his blankets as he had listened to the nocturnal scurrying of rodents in the spaces between the walls. In the dead stillness of the night, broken only by the gentle moan of the wind through the woods beyond the town’s stockade-wall or by the occasional tapping of a gate against its post, these furtive scrapings and sprintings had always sounded too loud to come simply from the rats or mice he knew must make them. In his child’s mind they had evoked visions of beastly night-bred horrors that might reach out at any moment to snatch him from his bed and draw him into their narrow world between the daubed lath walls, there to remain forever hunted by nightmare creatures, calling out in vain to his mother, who would never be able to hear him.

  Looking about now, Bolldhe very much doubted that these massive walls had any pockets of warm insulating air beyond them. And any creatures therein would be genuine monsters, and not merely imagined.

  ‘Hold that bloody lamp steady, will you!’ hissed Nibulus.

  Bolldhe frowned. It was precisely at times such as these, when he had the greatest need for alertness and focus, that he found his mind wandering. But almost immediately he found his thoughts drifting again as he considered the present company.

  Next to him, heading the line, strode the Peladane Nibulus Wintus. Strong as a red bison, fierce as a stag in the rutting season, but at the end of the day about as imaginative as a sheep. Just why, Bolldhe wondered, did he think he was here? The man was as clueless as himself. What kind of man other than a Peladane could be so fatuous as to come to a place such as this for no other reason than ‘It’s what we do’?

  Wodeman, on the other hand – at least that one knew how useless he was. Now that all that playing mentor rubbish was behind him, he was just another bloke with a bit of sharp metal in his trembling hand.

  Then there was Bolldhe’s other supposed mentor, that mad old ascetic with a body and mind about as firm and vigorous as his jabbering lower lip. Appa’s brittle old skeleton may have hauled his bones this far, but there was very little gristle remaining to hold them together by this stage in the game. Now there, if any, was a man driven by purpose.

  Well, if he’s going to teach me anything, he’d better do it soon.

  He was just beginning to muse upon the debilitated Paulus and the enigmatic Gapp, who was now leading the mercenary along by the hand, when his thoughts were interrupted by a tug at his sleeve. He looked down and saw Appa. ‘Bolldhe,’ he whispered, ‘do you feel it too?’

  He felt it. He had been hoping that his musings might manage to block it out but no, he could feel it. That pressure, that almost audible tension that filled their heads like a swarm of electric wasps, waxing with each minute that passed. Bolldhe looked around and saw that the Vetters and their steeds were greatly troubled by it, some of them flattening their long ears against the sides of their heads. Occasionally one would shake his head vigorously as if to dislodge this new discomfort.

  Appa leant closer to whisper in his ear, ‘It’s coming from behind us.’

  A huge weight suddenly opressed Bolldhe’s soul and almost dragged him to his knees. Until now he had concentrated on dealing with his fear of going forward, to whatever awaited them; now he really did feel trapped, as did obviously the Vetters, who were now continually looking behind them. Caught between the Rawgr in front and his army behind, Bolldhe thrust his hand out to grasp the old man’s shoulder, as if to hold himself up or draw on whatever reserve of fortitude the mage-priest might provide.

  He began to breathe heavily. This was worse than in the Moghol, worse even than Smaulka-Degernerth. And Bolldhe was beginning to suspect why. That sleep they had had earlier, though it had done them all a world of good, had also robbed them of something. Of what precisely, at first Bolldhe did not know, but then it occurred to him that it was the blood. Yes, the power of Wodeman’s blood spell. But what exactly had that all been about?

  Whatever the shaman had done for them, it was gone now and they had only themselves to rely on. For Bolldhe this was the way it had always been and, he supposed, the way it always would. But for the others, well, he did not have to be a mage to see that they were beginning to fall apart. The heavy sweating, the breathing, those skittering eyes . . . Their courage was spinning towards snapping point on its last fraying thread.

  ‘Light!’ hissed Nibulus, and instantly Bolldhe’s wavering lantern beam snapped round to focus ahead.

  Directly ahead something was blocking the corridor. Wandering along as if in a dream, Bolldhe continued forward until he realized he was on his own; all the others had simply stopped in their tracks. Then he heard a couple of familiar footfalls and the clicking tread of Ceawlin.

  ‘What’s up?’ came Kuthy’s voice, reassuringly dispassionate.

  ‘It . . . it’s a door,’ stammered Bolldhe.

  ‘Come on then,’ Elfswith muttered testily. ‘Nothing scary about doors.’

  With the Wyvern team, Bolldhe advanced carefully, blood thumping in his head, until the trembling shaft of lantern light could pick out the portal in detail. It was a huge door, wrought of adamantine steel and engraved with silver images of the fires of the abyss. Yet it hung awry upon its ancient hinges, and a great hole appeared to have been blasted through it. Elfswith approached it with uncharacteristic wariness and ran an investigative finger along its molten edge, studying the magic-scarred surface.

  Then he turned and looked Bolldhe full in the eye.

  ‘Looks like we’ve arrived,’ he whispered, his voice like a sigh from the crypt.

  FOURTEEN

  A Breath from the Tomb

  UNDER THE DREAM . . . Bolldhe thought, though he did not understand what he meant by this. Under the dream? He swayed vertiginously to one side as his legs weakened beneath him.

  Something was definitely coming from behind. Something or some things. Bolldhe could feel them. Whatever they were, they were not close enough to be heard, but they were approaching with a speed sufficient to drive the cold air of the corridor on before them. As the crypt-chill of the passage sighed over them, one by one in rapid succession the company’s torches winked out.

  Or so it seemed to Bolldhe. For none of his immediate companions was reacting. There were no cries of fear, no hurried fumbling for tinderbox, flint or steel, not even when the xienne flame of his own lantern – which supposedly could not fail – also blew out.

  And then they were submerged in total darkness.

  Bolldhe croaked. The sound of his voice echoed in the strange silence that now closed around him.

  So silent it was. And empty, totally empty. For Bolldhe perceived that he was now utterly alone in this place.

  Where’ve they gone? Where are they?!

  And why did it feel so cold in here all of a sudden? So icy!

  Now, finally, he began to understand. It was because he was under the dream.

  Bolldhe had suffered recurring nightmares for so long that he was almost accustomed to them. He had previously supposed that they had no meaning, for as a fake seer he had a knowing disdain for ‘all that’. But he did know they had a source, and it was this he had never been able to understand. In fact, it often made him beg the question: was there something deeply wrong with him?

  But that was not all, for beneath these habitual nightmares, he could sense, lay the real horror. There was always the feeling that the bad dream he was experiencing was m
erely the tip of a deeper and much more terrible dream, a tiny hint of what had gone before, something he could not remember.

  This dream-beneath-the-dream, Bolldhe feared, must be so terrible that, were he to confront it openly, it would surely fracture his mind.

  Standing now before the great door of the Chamber of Drauglir, looking through the ragged hole that the magic-users of five hundred years ago had blasted through it, Bolldhe felt he was hovering upon the edge of that immense pit that lay beneath his nightmares, staring into its compelling but unbearable blackness as if dragged here in shackles to face his own worst dread. No way back now: trapped between something that bore down on him from behind and the enemy waiting in that black pit before him.

  This is it, then. This is what’s been waiting for me all my life.

  And this, he knew, would be what ended his life. For it was his own death he could sense in the freezing silent darkness of the limbo he was now caught in.

  Reaching out before him, his groping fingers curled around the rough edge of the hole blasted in the door. But, instead of the steel he expected, it felt like melted ice. Then there was a sound, the faintest murmuring he could just about discern above the trembling of his own breath: running water and dripping limestone. With it came the smell of caves.

  Bolldhe’s scalp stiffened, and he felt his hair frost over.

  Within the Chamber of Drauglir something was moving about. He leapt back but then it was gone. He had not been able to discern much, but he had definitely seen a pair of legs move across his view – naked, filthy, skinny legs that glowed with a pale green phosphorescence.

  He was no longer in Vaagenfjord Maw, of that Bolldhe was certain. He had long ago left the Benne Nighe of his soul-journey up on the ice field but now she had caught up with him. She had led him back to her stony caverns and the bloodied waters of her stream.

  He was back in his dream world facing the pit of his deepest and darkest memory.