‘I didn’t intend to kill him,’ Estarinel said as they led the horses back towards the meeting place. ‘These men aren’t evil – just unlucky seafarers, who no more deserve to be here than we do.’
‘Destiny is a strange thing… If someone had told that man, “You will die at the hand of a Forluinishman”, he would have laughed.’ Medrian grinned with icy humour. ‘I wonder if the Peradnians predicted that?’
‘How did you become so cold, callous?’ Estarinel said thinly.
Medrian sighed. ‘But if he was not dead, I would be. Would that not make you guilty of my death?’
‘I know I had no choice, and I’d kill a thousand times over to save a friend,’ he said unhappily. ‘But it’s still wrong. The deed can’t be undone, which makes me forever–’
‘A murderer, or murdered. That’s always the choice. Gods, are you always like this? A wild and lawless world has no use for gentleness or conscience.’
‘Well, perhaps it should,’ he replied quietly.
Medrian went quiet for a few paces. She said more gently, ‘I can barely admit it to myself, but I agree with you. Just remember why you came on this Quest. If you keep that alone in your mind, it will help.’
They reached the recess and backed the horses into it. The animals were nervy, but became calm under the touch of Medrian and Estarinel. Only Vixata fought, snapping at Medrian’s hands.
Estarinel stared down at the floor, trying to clear his mind. To be single-minded, and not to care – he began to see why his companions were as they were.
#
Medrian watched him. Estarinel did not seem strong – yet he had saved her without hesitating. Better to be tortured by doubt after a deed than before… an unexpected tenderness stole into her unguarded mind. As it did so, a hole seemed to yawn open in her brain, a subterranean tunnel that led down into a mole-black cavern, from which another tunnel led to another lightless cave on and on through the centre of the Earth, like jet beads strung on an infinite thread. From that black pit issued a rank wind, chill and burning at the same time. Agony – not pain, something worse. She gasped, clutching at her horse’s back to steady herself.
Another second and she had forced the hole closed, sealed it with iron. She pulled herself upright, drawing a long, shuddering breath of relief. By the time Estarinel looked up at her, she had composed her face into its usual pale mask.
He is a danger to me, she thought.
Ashurek appeared at last, a grin gleaming very white on his dark face as he saw them. ‘You have a knife,’ was the first thing he said to Estarinel. He outstretched a thin, dark hand. ‘May I?’
‘Certainly.’ Estarinel handed him the knife without hesitation.
The Gorethrian looked at the rust-red stain now congealing upon it. ‘Always clean your blade… one of the first laws of soldiering,’ was all he said.
Ashurek leading, knife in hand, and Medrian coming last, often glancing behind, they progressed through the passages. When they finally came out onto the plain of ash for the third time there was no sign of life. They ploughed their way back again, dust catching in their throats. They could stifle their own coughs but not those of the horses, who snorted and jibbed as they came. If the men were still on the ship they must have heard them by now.
When they reached the peak a strange sight met their eyes. Aboard The Star of Filmoriel and around her bows stood nine men, frozen motionless like statues. Some were caught in an attitude of striking out at the ship. The figures seemed to ripple, as if they were becoming translucent, as white and dry and crystalline as the Plane itself.
Wits dulled by thirst and the beginnings of fever, the three took a long time to take in the significance of the scene. Then Estarinel laughed uneasily. ‘I should have known. The Star has her own means of defending herself!’
He held up the lodestone and it swung to point their course.
‘This is our path,’ he said, pointing with a long, white finger.
The horses were too weak from thirst to be ridden. The humans, too, found it difficult to keep their feet. Dust and salt-rock and air wrapped them in a suffocating blanket that drew all vitality from them. They spoke little. Their voices were hoarse in their parched, swollen throats. Although they were hot and feverish, the faces of Estarinel and Medrian were as pale as death.
They gave the ship a wide berth. Frozen though the men were, their pale eyes rolled malevolently in their heads, disconcerting. Vixata, hyper-sensitive to the aura generated by the men, collected enough energy to crab-walk past as fast as she could, head in the air, mouth foaming.
Estarinel held up the lodestone for as long as his arm could bear it. EventualIy his hand dropped limply to his side.
#
They walked for endless hours, until they could walk no more, and then they crawled, staggered, stumbled until the dry air had sucked every drop of energy from their bodies and they were giddy with fever; and still they moved on. Estarinel was not sure that they were going in the right direction and eventually he no longer cared. Their limbs dragged like lead and their heads throbbed with the whiteness and they could not breathe for the ash. Their horses limped and stumbled, fell to their knees, rose and struggled on.
Estarinel began to hallucinate. He was back on the other side of the White Plane, on Peradnia, and he was strolling at ease through the forests that were like cobwebs of glistening ice. Hranna was with him. ‘The White Plane is infinite,’ he said, ‘and for eternity we will traverse it, nomads of infinity.’ They were standing on the edge of an endless lake; but it was a solid lake of white rock, glittering with a million tiny crystals. Hranna put his hand on Estarinel’s shoulder and pointed across the lake. Estarinel was swamped by nameless fear, and he looked down and saw, not Hranna, but the emaciated figure of a girl with flowing golden hair; and as he watched she changed and became a tall, vibrant warrior woman, bronze-limbed, chestnut-haired, with proud laughing face and grave eyes. She, too, was pointing. And the lake was not white rock at all, but an expanse of snow. And the woman at his side became Medrian. She stared at him with dark, terrifying eyes and he knew he loved her. And she was holding a needle-thin staff at his throat as if to slit it, but then it seemed she was offering him the staff. She opened her mouth and it was not her voice that spoke, but another’s; and it said, kill me.
And then he thought he was in Forluin, wandering down a cool valley alone, then laughing with his friends; but he opened his eyes suddenly and saw only the depressing eternity of white ash ahead. He could not see Medrian, or Ashurek, or the horses. Greyness fell over his eyes, then blackness. He thought he felt great cold drops of water raining exquisitely on his back, and smiled to himself at the realism of this last hallucination.
Dark shapes loomed in the blackness. Grass was beneath his feet. Suddenly he was lying face downwards on rain-sodden turf, and he realised that he was in truth back on Earth. It was a wet, black night. Estarinel had passed through the Exit Point back to the world, but he knew not where on Earth he was.
‘Medrian? Ashurek?’ he called out. There was no sound but the rain, rushing in the distance and pattering onto leaves and rocks nearby. He climbed to his feet. A square of light glimmered ahead.
Then something touched him on the arm. He started violently, turned to find it was his horse nudging him with his soft brown nose. Placing one hand on the beast’s firm neck, Estarinel turned slowly this way and that, peering hard through the walls of dark rain. He had become snow-blind to a degree on Hrannekh Ol, and could not adjust his eyes to darkness.
Suddenly he saw Vixata, and saw her clearly, for the golden mare shone with a light of her own. And with her was Ashurek, and gradually his eyes focused on a shape that was Medrian, and her strange horse.
The three stood motionless, staring at each other; and those few moments were like a dream. Then, as one, they all knelt on the soaking ground, laughing with relief. The horses were already munching the wet grass. Gratefully they let the rain pour down on them, soaking
their dry skin and hair, running in rivulets down their faces. They sat there for minutes before they revived enough to consider their situation.
They were at the bottom of a hill. At its peak a lighted window shone yellow, and the dark bulks of buildings rose against the skyline.
‘We’d be well advised to stay clear of human habitation,’ said Ashurek.
‘It looks only to be a farm,’ answered Estarinel, one hand pressed over the wound on his shoulder.
‘In the darkness, the castle of Gastada looked only to be a farm, but that was the vilest prison–’ Ashurek stopped short, then continued, ‘We do not know where in Tearn or the Empire we are. We cannot risk approaching the place.’
‘But we must find food and water; and what of clothes and weapons?'
Ashurek shook his dark head dubiously.
‘Estarinel is wounded,’ pointed out Medrian. ‘We must go up to the building. Let just Estarinel and I go, for he has an innocent face, and they may be less suspicious of a woman.’
Ashurek grinned at this. ‘Very well. See what you can gain by it. I will wait in the shadows among the trees.’
The two climbed the hill, leaving the horses with Ashurek. A small stone farmhouse surrounded by barns loomed in the rain-veiled night. Reaching the door beside the lighted window, Estarinel knocked gently.
The door opened a crack, letting out a sliver of yellow light. A middle-aged, grey-haired woman peered out, her face careworn.
‘Yes?’ she said, and her eyes widened as she saw Estarinel with his long black hair dripping around his white face. ‘What do you want?’ The accent in which she spoke the common tongue was mid-Tearnian, easy to understand.
‘I am sorry to disturb you. We are travellers, seeking food and water for ourselves and our horses.’
‘Wait a minute,’ the woman snapped, and closed the door in their faces. After a few moments it opened again. ‘Where do you come from?’
‘Forluin, originally…’
A new voice intruded, the arrogant voice of a young man. ‘Those of Forluin are completely harmless, mother,’ he said from within the house. ‘If he’s telling the truth.’
‘Who is with you?’ the woman insisted suspiciously. From her attitude it was obvious she had no intention of letting them in. Estarinel felt desperate. They might have to walk miles before they came upon another source of provisions, and they were all exhausted.
Before he could speak, Medrian fainted suddenly and theatrically against the door. The woman jumped back and Medrian collapsed across the threshold.
‘Goodness! A girl! Oh dear.’ The woman glanced back into the interior of the room.
‘Let them in, mother,’ said the arrogant voice.
‘Come in, then.’ The woman beckoned them, agitated.
Estarinel picked up Medrian’s rain-soaked frame and carried her into the room. As he did so, she opened one eye in a quick, conspiratorial glance.
It was a bare stone room that served as both kitchen and living room. A fire in the grate cast a warm yellow glow onto the stone walls and plain furniture. The woman was wearing the rough brown smock of a farming woman. By the fireside sat a boy of about eighteen, dressed up in ornate robes of brocaded purple and blue. His face was rosy and handsome, his brown eyes bold, insolent, and fox-bright. His straight brown hair was cut short. He was sitting lazily with his feet stretched out, looking most unlike a farmer’s son.
His mother seemed deferential, almost afraid of him.
This youth gestured Estarinel to lay Medrian down on a bench by the wall. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘what do you want here? You are strangely garbed for travellers – no cloaks or provisions?’
‘We fell into misfortune, and have been without food and water for days.’ Estarinel disliked the boy’s insolent manner and deliberately addressed his mother.
‘Without water? It’s been pouring with rain here for weeks,’ the boy interrupted.
‘To be honest, we are quite lost. We need food, clothing, and maps. Medrian is ill and I have a wound that needs dressing. Please, would you to help us? Truly, we offer you no harm.’
‘If you really are from Forluin, I am sure you do not,’ the boy said with a note of scorn that antagonised the normally peaceful Estarinel. ‘Is she your wife?’
‘No, we’re travelling companions.’
‘And where are you travelling to?’
‘Not much further, if we cannot get help.’ Estarinel stood shivering with cold from his wet clothes while the boy rested his chin in his hand in an affected gesture.
‘How many of you are there?’ he asked.
‘We have horses…’ Estarinel said evasively.
‘Mother.’ The boy beckoned to her and the two conferred in corner near Medrian. ‘Very well,’ the boy began after a minute or two, but his mother interrupted sharply.
‘Have you means of paying us?’
‘We have almost nothing, but…’
‘No!’ the boy broke in. ‘We will provide your needs, but there is no need to worry about payment as yet.’
‘I don’t wish to be in your debt,’ said Estarinel.
‘You won’t, you won’t. Mother, prepare food. I’ll find clothes for you.’
The woman dressed Estarinel’s wound, while Medrian made a pretence of coming round from her well-timed swoon. Soon they were re-clothed in rough brown tunics and leggings, then given a meal of sour cheese, bread and sausages, water and hot cider.
As they ate, they concealed what food they could for Ashurek, but Estarinel suspected the boy had noticed this. Afterwards, the lad said, ‘I’m sorry we cannot offer beds, but you can sleep in the stables.’
They followed him outside, and by the light of an oil lamp he showed them to a dark wooden barn. ‘You can feed your horses here. There’s the water pump, and steps up to the hayloft; you’ll find it quite comfortable. Where are your horses?’ He swung the lamp around, and raindrops danced like fireflies in its glow.
‘Er… tied up, a few yards away.’ Estarinel muttered uncomfortably.
‘I take your word for it,’ said the boy with a knowing smile. He handed them the lamp and said, ‘Good night. Sleep well.’
Estarinel waited until he had walked languidly back to the house, then whispered, ‘What do you make of him?’
‘Something fairly unpleasant,’ Medrian answered. ‘I think Ashurek was right, we should not have come here.’
They found Ashurek sheltering beneath the trees just to the right of the stables, holding the peacefully grazing horses. ‘You took long enough,’ he said, grimacing.
Once they had stabled and fed the horses, they climbed a wooden ladder to the hayloft. It was a warm-smelling, musty place, with soft mounds of hay glowing beige under the swinging disc of light from the oil lamp. Paradise after Hrannekh Ol. They settled themselves on the hay and gave Ashurek the food they had secreted for him. As he ate, they related what had happened.
‘It’s a strange situation,’ Medrian said. ‘A small, poor farmhouse, and in it a lad with the clothes and manners of an arrogant young lord.’
Ashurek shrugged. ‘I expect he has found himself a position with some squire or lady, and is overcome with his own importance.’
Medrian went on darkly, ‘You are more right than you know. He is certainly in someone’s pay, but no mere squire. When they were whispering near me, his mother asked him what he was going to do with us. He replied that he was sure we were hiding someone.’ She smiled coolly at Ashurek. ‘The mother gasped, but he told her not to be alarmed, and that “She To Whom We Pay Tribute” would be very interested in us.’
‘Who?’
‘“She To Whom We Pay Tribute”,’ Medrian repeated with a shrug.
‘A wordy title,’ scoffed Ashurek. ‘Some little game of power he is playing, I expect… but we have nothing to fear from a young boy and his work-worn mother. We’ll sleep a few hours and be gone before he knows it.’
He cast himself down on the hay and turned on his side. Estarin
el dimmed the lamp and lay staring at the dark. At last sleep came to all of them, and they forgot Hrannekh Ol and their doubts and pains. Even the spectre of the Serpent dissolved in the darkness for a while.
Chapter Seven. The Mirror of Soul’s Loss
The boy stood in the half-darkness, staring down at Ashurek. The faint glow of the lamp caught the unmistakable features, the purple-brown colour of the skin, the handsome, cruel face. Black hair curled over his shoulders.
A Gorethrian. The boy was shaking. No wonder they had been so evasive. He looked across at the other two strangers, sleeping quietly on the hay. They all had black hair, he noticed, three vipers…
Fear and hatred of Gorethrians, always present in Tearn, had been made acute by the invasion of the Eastern coast in recent years. Yet there was something else that moved the boy’s hand to the dagger in his belt, an hysterical loathing of something so far in his past he did not now remember what it was.
A Gorethrian! His careful plans were swept aside as he experienced a complete loss of will to blind panic. His fingers had seized the knife and his arm was moving independently, sweeping down towards the accursed being.
Ashurek, by some sixth sense, awoke to find a dagger flashing down towards his throat. Automatically he twisted to one side and the blade stuck quivering in the floor beneath the hay. He grabbed the wrist that had held it.
‘What have we here?’
‘What’s the matter?’ came Estarinel’s voice as he stirred from sleep and turned up the lamp. Warm light flooded the loft, illuminating Ashurek holding the attacker’s arm in a steel grip.
It was the arrogant boy from the farmhouse.
‘Accursed Gorethrian,’ he muttered through clenched teeth, struggling uselessly in Ashurek’s grasp. Ashurek jumped to his feet and twisted the boy’s arm, forcing him to the floor. With one arm he held him, while with the other he reached and tugged the dagger from the floor.
He held the point at the boy’s throat.
‘Ah – a further extension of your hospitality, is this?’ he growled, his eyes green flame. ‘Would you die now, or after you have told us what you are doing?’
A Blackbird In Silver (Book 1) Page 14
