Shadow Lands Trilogy

by Simon Lister

  ‘An army has arisen from the East, it threatens all who live in Middangeard,’ replied Merdynn.

  The council erupted in renewed uproar at this declaration but the demands for an explanation were soon muted, as if they feared the Cithol Lord were directly responsible for this army and had the power to summon them forth even here.

  ‘If either of you can tell us more about this new army then take a seat at the council,’ Arthur indicated the vacant chair next to the king. The Cithol Lord made his way to the head of the table and those he passed turned to face him but they leant back to put as much space as possible between themselves and the apparition.

  Cei glanced across to Arthur with a bewildered look as the Cithol Lord took his seat. Arthur held up the palm of his hand to calm him. Leah had to force herself to stop making the sign to ward off evil while Ceinwen stood rooted to the spot, staring wide-eyed at the spectre among them. Merdynn drew up a chair and sat down next to Lord Venning.

  ‘You know more about the attacks on my villages across the Causeway?’ the king asked Merdynn, already suspicious of the link between the Cithol Lord, Merdynn and the army across the Causeway.

  ‘We know something of those behind the attacks but we should start with an account from one who was there,’ Merdynn said and gestured toward Arthur.

  Arthur was looking intently at the Cithol Lord and Ceinwen noticed how Arthur’s gray eyes had become glazed and seemingly sightless. As the silence lengthened the Cithol Lord slowly raised his bowed head and looked directly back at Arthur who jolted back as if stung. Arthur blinked and the life came back to his eyes. It had only been a few seconds but everyone in the room was watching the two of them. Lord Venning bowed his head again and as Arthur looked away from him Cei thought he saw surprise in Arthur’s eyes. Arthur clasped his hands in front of himself on the table and related the story of the attacks on Eald and Branque as he had done earlier to Kenwyn and the Wessex counsellors. All in the room listened as he spoke, nodding at various points as parts of the tale tallied with what they had already heard second or third hand.

  When Arthur finished speaking Maldred leaned forward and said, ‘You left them to their fate then?’

  ‘I could not change their fate,’ Arthur replied.

  Ceinwen stared at the king incredulously, fearing a repeat of the accusation she had heard from Cerdic when they rode through the edges of the Ghost Woods.

  ‘Could you not? Not even you? Are we to understand that the Warlord of Wessex turned and fled?’ the king asked.

  Ceinwen felt her anger rise again that Arthur should be accused of abandoning her family and friends, and by inference that she too had abandoned them. She turned to the king to speak her mind but her attention was drawn to the Cithol Lord sitting by King Maldred’s side who looked calmly at her with his black eyes. She felt the anger drain away to be replaced by fear and she kept silent.

  ‘I could not change their fate,’ Arthur repeated, not rising to the insult.

  ‘You left that you might yet change others’ fates.’

  All eyes turned to Lord Venning as he spoke. A pervasive dread of the Cithol Lord had settled on those around the table and they were unsure if he had spoken in Arthur’s defence or accused him of something.

  ‘Yes, Lord Venning,’ Arthur replied.

  ‘It would only have served the enemy to stand and die there. Had they known who you were you would not have left alive,’ Merdynn added.

  ‘A mistake they will have cause to regret,’ Arthur said.

  King Maldred leant back in his throne and took a drink from his replenished goblet of wine, trying to regroup after the shock of seeing someone walk out of the songs of myth. He had hoped to use this council to undermine Arthur’s authority after the disasters across the Causeway but he had lost control of proceedings even before the council had begun and he had no clear idea how to wrest it back.

  He turned to the Wessex Chieftain, ‘Kenwyn, are you and the Wessex counsellors content with this account?’

  Cei was about to stand and remonstrate against the suggestion that anyone here doubted Arthur but Kenwyn raised a hand to stop him and said, ‘We are, King Maldred. In these matters we place ourselves entirely at Arthur’s judgement. Perhaps it would benefit us all to learn more of these attackers?’ His eyes flickered between Merdynn and the Cithol Lord as he spoke.

  ‘Indeed it would, sensible Chieftain of the Wessex.’ Merdynn stood up, ‘Contrary to popular misconception, they were not Uathach. No, would that they were. I can tell you a little about them but Lord Venning will explain more in due course.

  ‘The armies that attacked Eald and Branque and possibly the Belgae villages were Adren. They come out of the East and are of a different race to those in Middangeard. I have reason to believe they are the Khan’s army. They are a new race of people to you and yet they are an ancient race. Their like has been seen before in these lands but no living person remembers that time except for myself - and possibly those who lead them. They are commanded by captains who probably number in the hundreds but the Adren are likely to be many thousand strong. Many years ago I travelled far in the East looking for others of my Order and the Adren were growing in number even then, ever stretching further west, ever seeking more land to support their burgeoning numbers. Perhaps I am at fault for not realising they could trouble us here so soon. There were signs but like so many signs before I hoped they were false. But false they weren’t.’

  The Anglian Chieftain, Aelle, spoke up, ‘Is it just land they want? Surely there’s enough and more to spare?’

  Merdynn looked across at Aelle and shook his head slowly before saying, ‘No, Aelle. No to both questions. A thousand years ago your own people came to this Island from shores to the North of the Belgae looking for good land to farm in peace. You were granted the lands you now live in. But the Adren come with a different purpose. Lord Venning?’ Merdynn sat as if weighed down.

  Everyone’s attention was fixed upon the Cithol Lord as he slowly stood. Their dread of the stranger among them was becoming mixed with wonder that they should be the ones to see the legends come to life.

  He was by the king’s side but he spoke directly to Arthur, ‘Our two peoples have had little to do with each other for many thousands of years. Yet it was not always so. Deep in the past we have a shared history, when the world was younger, when day followed night and night followed day, before the sun and moon slowed to their unhurried cycle. Those who lived in the world at that time were our common ancestors. The world was not always as it is now, yet our paths diverged when the world changed to as we now know it. We left these lands just before the last Age crashed in ruins.

  ‘Merdynn awoke to this world of darkness and toiled without cease to reform some order. It was he who brought you together in councils and tribes for you were but scattered and desperate remnants before. It was he who dragged your ancestors from their underground hovels and caves. It was he who brought you once more into the light and re-taught you all you had forgotten. It was the work of centuries and although it was only his appointed task yet it remains a tale unmatched in the history of the Ages.

  ‘Yet there were wondrous things in the world before the terrible times that plunged it all back into the darkness. We returned to find all the wonder gone from the world. Almost all gone. We could not remake the world as it had been before we left and what little knowledge we had withered away until it was no more than a sad memory of what had been. But there remained two places that we knew of that still held something from the past. One here, one in the East. We chose to remain here, in the Veiled City in what you call the Ghost Woods though we name it the Winter Wood and here we kept alive something of the old wonder.

  ‘You have had many names for us. ‘Ghost Walkers’ or ‘Star Walkers’, those that remain behind in the dark and walk like ghosts under the stars in the Winter Wood. Some have tried to find and enter the Veiled City. Few have succeeded for our halls are under the earth, lit and heated by a legacy
that existed before the long darkness descended, and that we brought back into the world. We have no fear of the winter darkness for it is never winter and never dark in the Veiled City. With the lore we hold we have no need of fields for our crops, nor do we need the sun and rain to make them grow.

  ‘Many hundreds of years ago your peoples used to journey east in the search for the sun but you were careless of your histories and much of what you knew has been lost. We preserve some of it, tales and maps from lands you once travelled, for in those days there was some contact between our peoples and long ago the city in the East was open to you too. We believe the Khan sent his lieutenant to command the Shadow Land City and he closed it to you forever and their borders grew and passage was denied to you. No longer able to take the eastern road you turned to building the tall ships that would take you across the Western Seas and, in time, forgot the eastern lands or Shadow Lands as you came to call them. And you forgot the City in the East. And you forgot the Lord of that City and you forgot how his people closed the road east and put up gates to bar the way. But he learned of the Veiled City from your tales and myths and guessed that it too held a power from the past like his own City. He did not forget. He sent word to his Master and bided his time and his army grew and his control spread westward. His time has come and only our peoples are left to stop him taking the Veiled City and controlling all the land from Middangeard to the far eastern sea.

  ‘I would not be here amongst you but for this matter for it concerns both my people and yours. It may well be that we have been idle for too long. Had we seen the danger earlier perhaps we could have forged alliances with the kingdoms that have already fallen to the East. If Merdynn is to blame then I too am guilty for we have long closed our City to you, choosing instead to be among only ourselves. Our only hope is that we have not left this too late.’

  Lord Venning concluded and sat back down in the silence that engulfed the room. Some were still trying to grasp the strange, unfamiliar history laid before them. Others had become spellbound by the cadence in the resonant tones of the Cithol Lord’s voice.

  ‘Couldn’t this army just be raiders from the Shadow Lands? We’ve faced such before,’ Kenwyn had a dogged, persistent mind that allowed for little imagination. Sentiments and higher purposes that he did not understand he simply ignored and until now his uncomplicated approach had served him well.

  ‘Haven’t you been listening? Do you think Arthur and Lord Venning dreamt up the account of the attacks on the villages and the history behind them?’ Merdynn shouted at him in exasperation.

  The king stood to speak, ‘This history is unknown to us. How could we have travelled east chasing the sun and yet now have no knowledge of it? How can your history go back before time to an Age where day followed night? The sun crosses the sky in these lands during the summer months between Imbolc and Lughnasa, the winter is ruled only by the cold moon. Has it not always been so? How could it be otherwise? How can Merdynn be the founder of all we know? Even with his deep enchantments, how could he live the lifespan of centuries? Taliesen, Cwenfled, is any of this possible?’ Maldred asked, addressing his last question to the bards of Wessex and Anglia.

  They glanced at each other and Taliesen said, ‘Lord, we know nothing of this. None of our tales speak of such times, yet these events happened many hundreds or thousands of lifetimes ago. Who is to say what tales have been passed down and which have been lost?’

  ‘Lord Venning apparently,’ Cei said from across the table.

  Arthur leant forward in his chair and said, ‘Lord Venning either tells the truth or not. Who here thought the Veiled City truly existed? Who here thought the Star Walkers merely lived in children’s stories? If the Cithol Lord claims his city is beneath the earth and untouched by winter by some sorcery from the past who are we tell him that it is not so? If they’ve kept themselves in secret for so long, why break it now if the need weren’t great and the threat not true? Some of what Lord Venning speaks of I have seen and know it’s true, for the rest I believe it to be the truth. I’ve seen these Adren and their attacks speak of a design.’

  ‘You’ve been to the Veiled City?’ King Maldred asked incredulously. Others around the table were looking at Arthur with astonishment too.

  ‘I have and what Lord Venning says of it is the truth,’ Arthur replied. The king glanced at Lord Venning then back to Arthur and though his suspicions grew he did not voice them.

  ‘Merdynn, can you speak of these times?’ Aelle asked.

  ‘Well, yes and no really,’ Merdynn looked uncomfortable.

  ‘Yes and no? Did you see or do you know of these things?’ King Maldred asked.

  ‘I, ah, missed quite a bit of it actually. Indisposed.’

  ‘Indisposed?’ the king shouted. It was his turn to become exasperated.

  Arthur’s voice rose above the growing confusion, ‘Merdynn! Now is not the time for your riddles. Now is the time to share your knowledge.’

  Merdynn’s indignation suddenly subsided and he sighed heavily, ‘Very well, I shall tell you what I know to be true though only a few of you will believe even a part of it. Where to begin?’ he genuinely looked lost.

  ‘Tell us your tale from the beginning, Merdynn,’ Arthur said.

  All around the table the counsellors, chieftains and warriors leant forward eager to hear at last the mysteries of Merdynn explained. Even the Cithol Lord turned with curiosity towards him.

  ‘Indeed? My tale? Your lifetimes are too short, far too short. This much will have to suffice:

  ‘I, like others, was sent into this world for a purpose, to see through a task until its end. Some of those who walked the Ages with me have passed from this world having either fulfilled their part or fallen from the path. I witnessed the histories of the Ages unfolding and I took my path through those times and stayed true to my course. Of those times there are no longer any records nor are there any alive who remember the tales that shaped the Ages. None except for I and perhaps two others. They may be behind this new threat but I don’t know for certain or even, indeed, if they still walk this world. The tale of those Ages is not for here.

  ‘Before the last Age ended in ruins I walked amongst men, guarding the line of kings that traced all the way back to the beginnings of your time here. I shaped events as best I could but one came who was as powerful as I. One of my kind who had strayed from the path but who came in a cloak of kinship that veiled the treachery beneath. His name then was Lazure Ulan and I hope he passed from this world when the last Age fell in ruins. Working through others he imprisoned me in a timeless place not wholly of this world and yet not wholly removed from it either. For the first few centuries of my imprisonment I could still discern something of what was happening in the world that I could no longer touch, but gradually my sight dimmed and the events of the world faded from my eyes. There I languished for years beyond counting and would still be languishing but for the events that caused the last Age to crash so utterly. So cataclysmic was that ending that it broke the spell that had entrapped me.

  ‘And so I walked the world once more at the beginning of this Age and it was a terrible time of ruination. How long I had been under the enchantment I do not know but I saw the wreckage of a time that must indeed have been wondrous for the world had changed beyond my recognition. I must have lain under the spell for thousands of years for such wonders don’t come into the world under a short span of time. But the fall was even greater than the rise and all that was left were a handful of people scattered and lost.

  ‘When I had last walked these lands, day did indeed follow night. The sun traversed the sky in the time it takes for one of your hourglasses to be turned twelve times and night reigned for the same duration before the sun returned once more. But no more. For long years the sun was hidden and at first terrible floods washed over the land. These were followed by the years of ice and snow. Those that remained were desperate survivors who were on the brink of being snuffed out altogether. I worked without
cease to keep that flame alive. Year by year and decade by decade the heavens cleared and the long summer day and the long winter night held sway. I helped where I could and taught what I knew. I could not recreate the wonders that the fading ruins spoke of so I recreated the world as I had last known it. The world I knew before I succumbed to the treacherous act of one I had counted as a friend.

  ‘The few who had lived through those nightmare times adapted to the new world, and the people, the animals, the plants and the forests either died or grew into their new surroundings, finding ways to survive the long winter and make the most of the long summer. I re-named the hills and valleys and rivers, some with the names of old when I last walked the land and some with the newer names that came as I watched from my prison. I learned the language of this land for it was new to me and I named the few children born to those survivors, but the children were so few. The woods and fields used to ring to their laughter and the new world seemed so bleak and silent without it. I taught the survivors the old crafts, the old ways for they were the only ways I knew. The flame flickered in the vast darkness stubbornly refusing to go out and, as time crawled on, the flame grew stronger.

  ‘The Cithol returned at this time but they too were unable to rebuild what had been so utterly cast down and gradually they withdrew into the home they had built for themselves and had less and less to do with those dwelling above ground. I, for my part, continued to guide you as best I could until you were able to once again determine your own paths and I began my long search to find the descendant of the ancient kings.

  ‘All that Lord Venning has told you about the city in the East and how your people once travelled that way to stay in the sunlight is true. When that city was closed to you and the way barred, that was the start of the long road that takes us from then to now. I do not know who counselled the city’s ruler to close the East Road. I fear that the Khan’s lieutenant, Lazure, was the power behind the city’s ruler and I fear that as the years passed it was he who assumed complete control of the Shadow Land City. I only hope my fears are baseless. It is clear to me now that the one who closed the East to you is the one who has brought the Adren to your shores. How you face that is now the decision before you.’