‘Why us? Why send this thing to us?’ she kept gasping, the words escaping her lips in soundless screams.
Estarinel ran through the trees and gained the farm. Many images flashed before his eyes, but he didn’t take them in, for the Worm itself was before him and he saw nothing else. It was lying on what had been Falin’s house. Like a beached whale, a gross immovable slug it lay on the ruins, blood running from its fissured lips. The colours of its shapeless form were ghastly, like wet rusting iron overlaid by a filmy skin. In its ugly, heavy head two tiny blue eyes glinted malignly, while in a third, empty, eye socket, muscles twitched.
All this Estarinel took in, in a split-second, for immediately the thing leapt into the air with impossible speed for its bulk. Estarinel threw himself to the ground with a scream. Over his head the Worm took off with a deafening, groaning, continuous roar and its body seemed to pass endlessly over him as he looked up; an infinite tube of wrinkled, sickening, evil flesh.
A stream of searing fluid fell from its mouth, striking the ground only a few feet from him. He lay for a long time without moving, until he felt Lilithea’s hand on his arm, and heard her voice crying urgently.
‘E’rinel! E’rinel!’
He stood up, and saw the devastation around them. The trees through which they had just run were now blackened ash; the fields and plants all around were scorched and smoking. Pools of the steaming fluid lay everywhere, vile odours rising from them. And the farm where Falin’s family had lived was rubble, with spars of broken timber sticking out. Horror flooded Estarinel and Lilithea, and they stood clinging to each other. As they watched, they saw Falin and Sinmiel emerge from the ruins, weeping.
‘Our parents, our parents,’ Falin cried when he saw Estarinel and Lilithea. ‘My mother went outside – to frighten it off, she said–’ he began laughing in hysterical despair, ‘– it just seized her, like a doll–’ He trailed unintelligibly into tears.
Lilithea stretched out her hand as Falin and his sister began to stumble towards their friends. But Sinmiel missed her footing and stepped into one of the fluid pools. They watched, helpless and lost in disbelief, as she screamed in agony and collapsed. They all ran to help, but she was already dying, gasping convulsively as the acid consumed her.
They dragged her out, tried to hold her, but their skin blistered wherever the substance touched. In the end they could only watch, speechless with grief as she died between them; the same four who had that morning ridden joking and laughing through sunlight.
‘Oh – our farm, the village!’ Estarinel said hoarsely.
‘What can we do? Powerless to save even Sinmiel’s life.’ Falin lurched away, would have collapsed onto the poisoned ground had Estarinel not caught him.
The village itself had been spared, but many others had been seared and burnt, the blood of the people slavered on the streets. All over northern and central Forluin the Serpent spread doom and decay. It could not have happened to a people more disattuned to horror. Many survivors suffered Estarinel’s experience of seeing loved ones murdered and looking into M’gulfn’s dreadful eyes.
When he, Falin and Lilithea ran back to the Bowl Valley, they found the farm untouched. Estarinel’s sisters Arlena and Lothwyn were both there with his parents; the horses having been stabled before they bolted. They sat, close together and silent with dread, for many hours before they knew the Serpent had finished its evil work and gone.
People came from Maerna, Ohn and all the untouched parts of Forluin, to gather together the survivors and give them comfort. In some ways those whom the Worm had left alone were even more horrified by the devastation than those who had suffered. Surely the Serpent was only an ancient myth with superstitious origins in Tearn or Gorethria? That such a thing could happen was beyond reality.
The nearest Forluin had to a government was the Council of Elders, a nominated group of the oldest and most respected men and women who convened to mediate in disputes or other troubles. In the dim and terrible days after the Serpent, they called all survivors to a meeting in the Vale of Motha, many miles north-east of Estarinel’s home.
His parents and Lothwyn would not go, because there were animals to tend, and his father had developed a cough from the ash the Worm had left behind. Estarinel, with Falin, Arlena and Lilithea, set forth on horseback across their desolate land. They rode swiftly and in silence, the cause of their grief too obvious all around them to need any expression in words. It took them three days to reach the Vale, and in that time they missed the coming of the H’tebhmellian Lady.
The Vale was still whole, only the edges having been scorched by M’gulfn. There was a small cluster of cottages in the Vale, with a green stretching in front of them. Here the council was held, with scores of folk seated on the grass around the Elders. Estarinel and the others greeted many friends, but heard of the deaths of many others. And although the sun shone, there was a greyness in the air, and the stench of the Worm still hung over them. Many were falling sick with an unknown fever, and a sense of doom filled them, made far more terrible because they had never experienced such a thing in all the island’s history.
‘We have no resources to draw upon,’ said Englirion, the most senior of the Elders. ‘We cannot ask how our ancestors faced this situation, or any other; for they knew only peace, as we have.’
The Elders looked physically no older than the rest, except that most of them had white hair; only there was a quietness and grace about them. ‘Ancient writings tell us that the Serpent resides in the snows of the far north, that it always returns to its lair and cannot be destroyed. More than that… we do not know. So it would seem we have no guidance but our own instinct and judgment. Now there are two foolish lines we might follow. One is to remain drowning in sorrow, wailing with grief and regret that the Worm ever came, and to dream of how sweet life would have been if it had not. The other, suggested to us by many of you, is to form an army and chase the Serpent, in mad anger, back to the Arctic. Where, I tell you, we would all perish and the Worm would live – if you can call its miserable existence “life”.
‘We must all accept that an appalling, senseless, dreadful attack has taken place on our home. That cannot be changed, it is already history. And to undertake a suicidal journey to the North Pole to destroy what is reputed to be an invincible monster would be useless. It is easy to forge off upon a journey fired by a desire for revenge – but when that desire evaporates amid freezing snows and ice-storms, and you die in greater despair than ever, how will that have helped your countrymen?’
There was a murmuring of agreement. ‘In truth there is only one course we can take. Our priority must be to restore our country to its former perfect state, eradicating all traces of the unspeakable Worm; to cure the disease it has left behind. To prevent it attacking us, or any other country, ever again.’ Englirion paused, and Estarinel looked at Falin, wondering if his friend knew what the last statement meant. Falin looked equally puzzled.
Englirion made to continue, but succumbed to a fit of coughing. A woman with long white hair went on in his place.
‘Most of you know, for many of you saw her, that a Lady of the Blue Plane came to us.’ At this there was a murmur of wonder from the fringes of the crowd. ‘Not the Lady herself, but one called Filitha. However, I know some of you only arrived today, and I sorrow that you missed her.’
Estarinel felt, rather than heard, Lilithea sigh beside him. ‘She came because of the Worm, and the sorrow and despair we are in. She grieved for us… and she said that although the H’tebhmellians have never been able to help the world directly, they can offer advice, and this we accept with the love and trust there has always been between us.
‘There will be a party to try to destroy the Worm. But only one of us will go, and he or she must first sail south to the House of Rede, there to find the rest of the party. It will be a long voyage, but necessary, the Lady said, to distance the one chosen from the immediate horror of the Worm.
‘For it must b
e understood, she said, that others in this world know of the Worm and wish it dead also, and a great circle of power moves according to whether it lives or dies. Therefore we cannot go selfishly north alone, but must go to the House of Rede for the help and companionship that we will find there. And then the H’tebhmellians will provide a ship to take the travellers to the Blue Plane, where they will be told what they must do.’
Englirion finished a long draught of water and stood up again, adding, ‘So we are not without guidance after all. This is what must be done. One person will sail south, with a few companions to man the ship. The rest of us will stay here and wait, doing what we can to repair the damage.’
Suddenly Falin jumped to his feet and cried out, ‘Surely one should go who has lost all his family, and has no one left to grieve should he not return?’
‘Please sit down, my dear child,’ Englirion replied gravely and sadly, and as Falin did so, Arlena held his arm and bowed her head against his shoulder. The Elder continued. ‘There will be no volunteering. I have the job of choosing who will go. For this purpose the Lady Filitha gave me a device, a lodestone that will point to the one who must go. You must therefore all form a great circle, so I can set up the device in its centre. Anyone who truly does not wish to go may stay outside the circle.’
‘We all want to go, and we are all afraid to,’ said someone. But as the circle was formed, the only ones outside it were children. The device was a small, slender gold tripod, with a pointed blue stone hanging under its apex by a thread. Englirion positioned it carefully, then set the stone spinning. It seemed an age before it came to rest, and then the Elder moved round the edge of the circle and peered through a sighting glass for several seconds before nodding solemnly and walking towards Estarinel and his friends.
Estarinel hardly realised he had been chosen until Arlena exclaimed ‘Oh E'rinel!’ and Englirion was there in front of him, saying, ‘The lodestone pointed to you. Are you willing to go?’
‘Yes,’ he said blankly. And he thought of all the malignant evil that the Worm had brought and left behind, Falin’s mother trying to ‘frighten it away’ as if it were a crow, his father’s fever, Sinmiel – and he knew that he had to take action, that he could not remain behind waiting, waiting, waiting for the Worm to decide Forluin’s fate.
‘Yes. I am afraid to go, but I will.’
Preparations were made. The ship from An’raaga had returned, and this was the ship they took. It was built to hold ten horses, and was small and seaworthy. The only horse it carried on this journey was Estarinel’s stallion Shaell.
Englirion spoke to him in private, telling him of Filitha’s words, and of Eldor – for he had once met the sage. He explained that Forluin would see him as their sole hope; and that it was a perilous and grave journey upon which he embarked. Estarinel by now felt only numb, for he had already felt too much. He knew the grief his family would suffer if he should go and not return; and he knew he was stepping into the terrifying unknown.
He was to take four companions with him to the House of Rede. Falin and Arlena went gladly; but when he asked Lilithea, tears came to her eyes.
‘I cannot go; I can’t bear you to leave without me, but I am a healer, and people are sick, and I must try to help them.’ She hung her head, fighting tears for a few seconds, then she said, ‘Come back safely, E’rinel,’ and walked away.
Lothwyn wished to stay with their parents, for their father was now very ill. Eventually Estarinel took two of the crew who had been to An’raaga, for they were so distressed at the state of Forluin that they wished to be away again, and they knew how the ship handled. They were a blond man, Edrien, and a chestnut-haired woman, Luatha. He had met them because, in spite of the Serpent, they had gone to his mother to apologise that there was no Gorethrian horse for her.
A sword had to be fashioned for Estarinel, for there were few weapons on Forluin. They were given travelling clothes and provisions; and as they set sail there were blessings and tears from all. And they had just heard that Englirion had died of the Serpent-fever.
The Worm’s attack was weeks ago now. Yet the gloom and its stench had not lifted; no new growth had appeared on the devastated land. Many people were in the grip of a fatal fever, others in danger of starvation because of the ruined crops.
This was the country that Estarinel watched slipping over the rim of the horizon; his home, which had always been green and its people loving and joyful. He might not see it again, either in its present state or in its old, true one. And his misery was so great that it seemed to be outside him, so he thought he felt nothing.
As Estarinel finished the tale he was shaken to see how little the Gorethrian Prince and the Alaakian woman reacted; they hardly seemed moved by what was to him a monstrous tragedy. And these are to be my companions, he thought, these people who do not care.
Then Ashurek spoke.
‘I shall not comment on your story, because I do not expect comments on mine. Make of it what you will; it is a wild and evil tale, but true in every word.’
So Estarinel and Medrian heard a history that no one, not even Eldor, knew in full; and that was the story of Ashurek, Prince of Gorethria.
Chapter Three. The Egg-Stone’s Bearer
Gorethria was a bizarre and beautiful country that had spawned an equally strange people. They were tall, slim, graceful, and deep purple-brown of skin; their hair was black and worn long; they dressed ornately and were beardless; and their eyes were many-coloured and brooding. They loved beauty and brilliance; they were intelligent and creative, strong willed, loyal to their country – but they were an arrogant and pitiless race.
For over a thousand years they had subjugated the entire continent once known as Vardrav, now called the Gorethrian Empire. Their almost aesthetic delight in war and bloodshed and the fanatical precision of their strategy had meant that stronger but less finely-honed civilizations than theirs had fallen before their cruel armies. Their inborn ruthlessness and power of invention had kept those countries under Gorethria’s dark control ever since.
Ashurek’s father, Ordek XIV, had been Emperor of this vast, darkly shining realm. He was an extraordinary man, Ashurek remembered, as brilliant, fierce and unapproachable as a leopard, yet also wise and fair, and a loving father to his children. He had ruled the Empire well, consolidating many tentative conquests without causing much unnecessary bloodshed, and improving communications across the continent. Under him the Empire was stable.
Ashurek could not think of his father without bitter sadness. Ordek, the last Gorethrian worthy of admiration and respect. Then the vultures had come, in the form of his own children, to tear everything he had built up into bloody pieces.
Ashurek also remembered his mother, the Empress Melkish, with love and sorrow. True, she had been in some ways eccentric and cruel – was she not a Gorethrian? – but it was a loving, gracious woman that he remembered.
She and Ordek had three children. Ashurek and Meshurek were twins, but Meshurek, being the first-born, was heir to the throne. Their younger sister was named Orkesh.
How innocent can a Gorethrian be? Only in so far as he is ignorant of his own guilt – of the part his inborn sense of superiority and cleverness has played, or will play, in the cruel subjugation of other races. Yet Ashurek could remember a time – it had seemed infinite, stretching from horizon to horizon – when he had been, or at least had felt, innocent.
His earliest memories were of colour and brilliance. Courtiers moving through the marble halls of the palace, their dark skins like satin and perfumed with sandalwood and amber, dressed in reds and greens and golds, as jewel-like as tropical fish. The porcelain-white spires of the palace glittering under the burning sun as endless processions marched past – war-horses dancing like living fire in their purple, white and gold trappings. Soldiers, seeming to Ashurek alive with some dark, invincible strength, whose jet armour was as full of scintillating colour as black opal. Banners of silk, the cheering of dazzlingly-dres
sed crowds, and above all the majesty of his parents, who seemed brighter than the sun on such occasions.
Growing up amid the excitement and beauty of life in Gorethria’s greatest city, Shalekahh, and being trained from birth to fit naturally into his role as one of the country’s foremost statesmen, the palace lifestyle seemed to Ashurek as easy and invigorating as breathing. The army represented something desirable, wondrous in its mystery. If someone had explained to him the reality of their work – the fear, pain and misery they inflicted – it would have meant nothing to him. He had seen pain. It was a royal pastime to hunt a human – say an insubordinate slave – through the woods like a fox, and as soon as he and his brother and sister were old enough to ride, they were allowed to follow the chase. Pain was something to be inflicted on lesser beings to make them understand Gorethria’s supremacy.
And his parents – his mother, she who had personally stabbed a bringer of bad news and caused the floor to be inlaid with gold where his blood had fallen, and his father, he who had brought the ‘King’ of a distant country, who had begged for independence, back to Shalekahh and had him tortured to death in public – they were to be emulated, not feared. It was for lesser mortals to fear them. Their splendour – Gorethria’s splendour – eclipsed all else, justified every act.
Ashurek remembered being happy. He was certainly not unaware, as he reached adolescence, of how lucky he was to have been born into a life so full of glory, excitement and power. He recalled feeling actual pleasure when his father found time to speak to him. He remembered the dark elegance of his mother, the secret smiles she kept only for him, and how he used to talk and laugh with his sister, Orkesh, as they strolled through the vast palace gardens. What did we find to smile and laugh about? he sometimes thought bitterly. How clever we were, or how unthinkingly cruel? No, he thought. I can’t remember, except that sometimes it was about Meshurek. There’s no expression of emotion black enough for me to mourn him, to mourn all of them. Even weeping would seem like laughter.
A Blackbird In Silver (Book 1) Page 4
