The Bitterbynde Trilogy

by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

  Yet in the second conflict, the andalum gauntlet failed also. Like the talium, it aged swiftly to dust in the aftermath of defeat, as chalk-white matrix and coal-black matrix rasped softly back into formation. What would happen if the challenger lost a third game? Would the last glove merely crumble and no opportunity be left for adventurers who came in later days? Perhaps the rocky corridor might bar itself against the loser alone but remain open to others, while three new gauntlets climbed the stone pedestal with their fingers and lay there like waiting armadillos. Perhaps a sudden rock-fall would, after all, crush the failed challenger, as punishment for lack of cunning and for the temerity of challenging the clever makers of the statues.

  “One chance left.” Sianadh sucked his teeth again. “Yan, tan, tethera. Third time lucky, as they say.”

  For three days they played Kings-and-Queens, hour after hour. How pleasant it was, at night, to sink into dreamless sleep where no warriors of light and dark slew one another in the ballet of silent, civilized, symbolic warfare.

  Sunrise washed the treetops with dilute gold.

  “May all fortune be on your side, Imrhien. And if ye do not win this time, I shall never forgive ye!”

  The Ertishman’s strong bellow, proving his lungs undamaged by their cracked cage, reached to the cliff top. Imrhien waved back, then threw aside the vine-curtain and slipped down the rock passage, eager yet dreading the last attempt.

  This time I shall command the black army.

  The glove slipped easily over her hand. Red gauntlet, with you my dark warriors shall win. She lifted her head and regarded the black host. Grimly they stared straight ahead, as always—at least, it was to be assumed that the knights whose faces were obscured by helms were also gazing blankly into the distance. Coal-ebony-sable lady, warrior queen of night, go with fury into battle. Shadow, eclipse light.

  There would seem an inevitability about this last trial. Third time lucky …

  She pushed the black queen’s wizard’s spearman.

  The game, slow and subtle, tense and attenuated, stretched from morning to afternoon and then to evening. Imrhien pondered every move, plundered each one for its utmost variety of possibilities. She sustained herself with water from the river, fruit from the vine, thoughts of hope for Sianadh and his optimistic plans.

  On the walls of the statue-cave, the luminosity of the quartzlike embedded gems and the fungous growths increased. Night had drawn its dim veil. The girl took it as a good omen. Yet she knew that even then, victory might go either way.

  Night dragged on. Through darkness the game progressed. The challenger allowed herself no sleep, although the grass was soft and inviting and the heat of Summer high. Instead she sat cross-legged, her clouded eyes masking inner visions of a thousand scenarios, a thousand thundering battle-plains. The snow queen proved herself a canny adversary, Winter of course being a hardened veteran of many battles. Prisoners of war lay scattered on the border tiles around the platform, their prostration revealing the swivel hinges under their bases that had attached them to the board’s hidden mechanisms and would probably do so again. Morning saw Imrhien and her swarthy battalion hard-pressed, defending against a brutal assault from the white host. Night was retreating now, both within the cavern and without. Winter closed in around the tall, dark king, threatening to freeze him to death.

  Late afternoon suffused the hollow with an amber softness, like tufts of saffron-dyed wool. Imrhien’s head swam with weariness.

  And suddenly, the black king lost his lover. The queen of night was taken, and he was left undefended, threatened on all fronts. There was nowhere to run. Doom had descended on the battlefield, and there could be only defeat for the tall dark monarch.

  Imrhien’s shoulders tensed. Her hair tingled on her scalp. She waited for some final blow, some catastrophe to sweep away the unsuccessful challenger. They stood, the game pieces, their visages changeless. No smile of triumph warmed the ice-pale faces, no look of despair weighed down the polished black brows. The slender snow-lily regina and her knights held the dark lord prisoner.

  Nothing happened.

  The red gauntlet, the copper, began to fray upon her hand. She threw it down, relieved, tired, dispirited, fed up. Third time unlucky.

  From the cavern she fled, and cast herself on the grassy apron at its mouth. Such foolish ambition, such presumptuousness! How could she, a novice, hope to defeat the wisdom of ages? Let her leave this place. Let Sianadh forget his foolish dreams. The concept of wealth easily gained was but a madman’s cipher. Reality was only poverty, ugliness, and homelessness. Beneath this cliff, under the very ground on which she lay—and overhead also—existed nothing but dirt, cold stones, blind worms, and sunless hollows, fathoms deep.

  She rolled over and lay sprawled on her back, summoning the strength to climb down and face the Ertishman. High in the rich mazarine blue of the evening sky, the first stars were pricking through. Some sparkled more brightly than others. The girl’s thoughts strayed. Sianadh had said he could see these same stars in his home country. What constellations described themselves up there in the daisy fields of the sky, and how were they named? One group of stars stood out, white points so brilliant that they were like the dazzle of sunlight on water.

  She counted them—yan, tan, tethera times tethera. These stars burned with a brilliant silver-white flame in contrast with the fainter garnet-red and topaz-yellow sparkles in their vicinity. Even their positions seemed significant—a line joining the bright stars might form a curve here, a point there—

  It came to the star-gazer that a marked resemblance existed between the gemmy scatters on the cavern walls and the starry patterns in the sky. Those bright shiners now—what had the Ertishman once told her concerning them?

  Abruptly she leaped to her feet and ran back into the cave.

  Nothing had altered. The fallen lay where they had crashed. The statues that remained standing loomed gray in the waning light. Reaching up, Imrhien touched the glowing gems of the wall, each in turn. The point of a beak, a ceres, an avian head, an eye—now her hand swept down the long, graceful neck to the curve of the wing. The nine stones gleamed like white fire caught in globules of water. One after the other, she brushed them with her fingertips, confirming, in awe and wonder, that they matched the constellation pulsing overhead, the sign of the Swan. She fancied each one sank a little into its socket and sprang back. These stones had been placed just so.

  This, this at last was the key.

  Had it been so simple, all along?

  The grumble of heavy stone was a phenomenon she had expected, but its source was not. It had split in half, the tessellated game board, and was sliding apart. Jumping back to a safe distance, the girl watched the crack widen to reveal broad stairs spiraling down under the ground. An entrance—but where might it lead? To a treasure hoard or to some ancient dungeon, long inhabited by monsters or unseelie wights? The hammering of her heart filled her senses, drowning all other sounds. Sianadh—she must go back for him. She could not venture down there alone, could not go at all into that well of cold stones, blind worms, and sunless cavities. She stood still, unwilling to leave what had been so hard-won and might vanish if she looked away.…

  In subterranean darkness, the walls of the spiral staircase shone softly yet were not studded with the same bluish phosphorescent fungi as the stone passageway. This glow was mellow gold, like the leaves of poplars in Autumn. It radiated up from below.

  Something lurks down there, for certain, to make such a shining! It seemed not an eerie light—rather, it looked benign yet somehow untamed—like the shine of a lamp in a window at night, but not as domestic; like the glimmer of candlelight upon ripe bullion it was perilous to covet; like the soft light of a harvest sunset or long, low shafts of morning at the waning of the year.

  Sianadh was unfit to climb. He could not help her. Was she to go back to him now and confess cowardice, in the face of his blustering bravado? After he had risked his life for her more than on
ce, could she not do the same in the cause of pursuing his dream? A sudden recklessness seized her. She bowed low to the statuettes made of moonbeams and the figurines wrought of captured shadow. Before she could change her mind, Imrhien plunged down the stair beneath the stair.

  Here where the sun never shone, a bone-coldness permeated—the intense frigidity of stone that had never quickened to the touch of the daystar. Yet even though the river flowed somewhere high above, no dampness reached out clammy fingers or slid weeping down the walls. The air was not dank or musty or tinged with the odors of subterranean centuries—soil, stone, roots, pale, soft-bodied things that hid from light—instead it was as sweet as the free and blowing airs of the upper world, which carried the scent of flowers and leaves and the subtle freshness of clear skies. Whoever had designed the system of ventilation shafts had achieved a wondrous feat—it was surely an efficient arrangement, built to last. The engineers of this substructure could only have been masters of their art.

  Knowing little of mines, the intruder treading the stairs understood enough to suspect that this was not one at all. Exactly what it was, beyond a long, terraced spiral bathed in dim golden light, could not be guessed.

  It was hard to estimate how far down the stairway took her. She was wondering whether the corkscrew drove headlong forever into the deeps when an archway opened before her and her skin prickled as though an unstorm were rolling in. After leaping down the last few treads, she stepped through the opening to behold a staggering, muted glory.

  The arch gave on to a gallery halfway up the wall of an immense, high-vaulted chamber. On the floor below, thousands of baffling shapes gleamed faintly. They were piled high and crowded as far as the eye could penetrate. From them emanated the pale golden shining. Imrhien’s hand flew to her pocket. The four-leafed clover remained reassuringly there—this was no glamorous illusion. The stairway now led her down the inner wall. Slowly she progressed, scarcely breathing, her hair crackling and lifting of its own accord as though she moved under water, her gaze caressing the mass of treasure, of incalculable wealth, revealed in this cold subterranean shining. Around the trove pulsed an eerie force like the unstorm and the world’s storm combined, dangerously exhilarating, invisible, but already dissipating up the stair as if fleeing through this new rupture.

  If a cornucopia of gorgeousness had been spilled at her feet, all sense of time was snatched away in exchange. How long she wandered in the treasury, she forgot to remember. At every turn, some new and wondrous object appeared to hand—gold cups and plates ornamented with jewels, silver-gilt candlesticks, ornate nefs, porringers, cast-gold aquamaniles shaped like lions with their tails arched across their backs to form handles, all manner of tableware, carven chairs inlaid with ivory or gold and silver wire, richly chased and engraved caskets filled with jewels, ropes of pearls, bracelets, rings, torques, gold-mounted cameos and intaglios, fine chains and gem-crusted girdles, shirts of mail, gauntlets, helms, greaves, cuirasses floridly engraved, etched and embossed with gold or silver—an entire armory—and weapons of an unknown metal, honed spite-sharp; damascened swords with ornately pierced or chiseled guards and mounts, gemmed scabbards fretted with precious metals, battle-axes, halberds, partisans, glaives, spears, pikes, lances, and jewel-pommeled daggers—a complete arsenal. Among these were many curious artifacts whose purpose could not be guessed. All possessed the same virtue as the statues at the overhead entrance, a supernatural beauty that could not possibly have been wrought by the hand of man. And all remained untouched by dust or decay, as if Lord Time were powerless here.

  Garments were here also, folded in chests. It was not until her teeth began to chatter that Imrhien became aware of the aching cold eating at her bones like poison. She donned a sleeveless shirt of some lightweight gray fabric, a garment that seemed narrow enough to fit. In a moment of panic she thought her stair lost and sought it wildly, for it was out of view on the far wall. While she searched, her gaze came to rest upon the wall close at hand, in which was set a pair of double doors about sixty feet high.

  She approached them and put out her hand. At a light touch they swung open, outward.

  Beyond lay an even greater cavern—so vast that its ceiling and walls would have been out of sight even had they been lit by a conflagration of torches. What towered there surrealistically, like white flame, made the treasure in the first cave seem almost mundane by comparison. Mounted on shadowy crosshatchings of gantries, stanchions, transoms, and davits, a marvel shimmered; a thing out of legend. Fashioned in the shape of a swan, gleaming, ready to unfurl and fly across the water with her sails and rigging all in place, here loomed a full-size threemasted barquentine.

  She was all white, except where she was silver. Her beams of bleached wood were everywhere carved like feathers, each pinion white-enameled. Taffrails, binnacle—every article of metal that would have been made of brass on another craft was here fashioned of polished silver, untarnished. Sails lay heaped along the yards like snow. The figurehead was a swan, and it lent the only color to the white ship. The ceres was a startling band of garnets like drops of blood, and almonds of jade formed the eyes.

  Beside this queen of ships, the girl felt herself diminished to a child’s toy. Caged in supporting fretwork, the aero-keel rose in a perfect curve far above her head, to where the great hull opened out like a giant lily. The graceful lines of the long planks were sculpted into feathers, as streamlined as the flanks of a bird.

  Walking beside this vision of splendor, gazing up in awe, Imrhien saw that the elegant swan figurehead faced a second set of tall doors. These also gave under the slightest pressure of her hands and swung back to admit a blinding blare of light and noise and a roaring, living giant brandishing a spear, his arm drawn back, ready to strike her down.

  Beside a river that clove its way through miles of wilderness, far from human habitation, peppercorn trees spread their boughs, dripping swaths of long leaves over a glade carpeted with springy turf.

  Here stood a chair.

  High-backed, this incongruity was fashioned from some dark, rubicund wood—possibly mahogany—inlaid with hammered red gold, embellished with garnets, studded with blushing rose-crystals. The feet had been carved to represent sprays of leaves, but the arms and sides and three-pointed back blossomed with a relief of poppies.

  A second piece of furniture faced the first—another chair, this time of blanched pearlwood. It was the twin of the first in size and design, but ornamented with green enamel and diamonds, sculpted with lilies. Between them squatted a low table of small dimensions; it was fashioned of walnut with silver and amethysts, and its motif was the cornflower. The table was laden with a motley array of silver dishes and golden bowls—and cups, each one hollowed from a single burning crystal, and chalices twined with gold-leafed grapevines whose fruits were emeralds. Among these fake fruits, a cocktail of real fruits had been heaped. Their juices filled the cups and also filled an upturned helm that lay under some bushes next to a standing armor of lustrous yellow metal damascened with fine silver foliates.

  From the open mouths of exquisite boxes and caskets and gable-lidded arks with cock’s-head hinges, jewelry spilled out across the grass. Red gold in alloy with copper, yellow gold, and pale electrum had been used to produce the effect of different shades of gold, thin layers that were chased in relief and carefully inlaid to create contrasting patterns over the sides and lids of many containers. On others, a gold or silver ground had been elaborately carved out, then filled with transparent enamel to give the appearance of intaglio gems. The rest were decorated with lavishly ornate combinations of mother-of-pearl, ivory, amber, horn, bone, leather, lacquer, silver, and precious stones.

  Handfuls of coins, flung in childish glee by Sianadh, lay glinting in the ferns like leaves discarded from metal trees, bright argentum, and scalding gold.

  Seated on the poppy chair, the big red-haired man now tossed over his shoulder an empty goblet of chased silver and leaned toward lmrhien in the lily th
rone. His hands danced, portraying every word.

  “We” (indicating himself and her) “are as rich as” (beginning with both extended index fingers pointing forward apart from each other, he brought them together, then raised his right hand up from the left and ended with a claw hand, palm down) “all” (making a large loop with his right hand) “the double-dealing” (pushing his index finger across his chin) “filthy” (with the knuckles of his hand under his chin, he wiggled his fingers) “fat pigs” (rocking his thumb and little finger on the opposite palm like a fat person waddling, then holding his downturned right hand under his chin and moving the fingers simultaneously up and down) “of Luindorn merchants” (forming the L-rune, followed by the miming of counting money) “put together.” (His fists made a clockwise horizontal circle.) Throwing back his head, the Ertishman roared with laughter. Then he settled himself back in the chair—which was padded with torn grass for comfort—and took up a brimming cup, sampling it with a satisfied air and watching the girl over the gleaming rim as she repeated every sign, almost to perfection.

  “Ye left the fat out of the pig part.”

  Having corrected his student’s error, he went to check on the helm of fruit juice, which, optimistically, he was trying to coax to ferment into something stronger. Imrhien remained reclining in the priceless chair, reveling in the glow of success. Idly she flipped gold coins in the sunlight. They winked light and dark as they spun. She had never even touched gold before—not that she could remember.

  There had been one appalling moment, when she had opened the rune-doors from within and stepped out under the lower waterfall, only to be mistaken for an unseelie wight and almost killed by the startled Ertishman. In her fright she had mistaken him for a spear-wielding ogre. But since that time, joy had reigned—peppered with the odd frisson of alarm, a feeling that had become almost familiar to the girl during her journeyings with Sianadh. Now Imrhien recalled with amusement the astonishment written on his features, as she emerged from the opening portals of the “mine.” In the instant of recognition he had frozen like a rough-hewn copy of a game piece, arm upraised, mouth gaping. Then the staff had dropped from his hand, accompanied by assorted Ertish expressions dropping from his lips. It was several minutes before she could get any coherent conversation from him, and that had been barely intelligible.