Doom-Quest of Ara-Karn 4 Darkbridge

by Adam Corby

  Upon the third pass she was awakened by Kis Halá’s warm tongue licking her face. shoved the long head out of her face; but Kis Halá looked back at her with bright, amused eyes.

  ‘Are you ready, then?’ Allissál asked. ‘Very well. But you need not bear my weight for this part of our road.’

  She looked skyward. The mountains rose like a castle wall, and about them carrion birds wheeled. Even as Allissál watched, the jade chariot of God touched the peaks and passed beyond the lands where men dwell. Far away, at the opposite end of heaven, Goddess sat just above the bright horizon, fat and shining like a gorged blood-beetle.

  The mountains of Yron Ghadil stretched to either side, in ramparts of crimson, violet and silver. Here so high and far away from Goddess the air was chill, and Allissál felt watched by angry eyes. Shuddering, she gave Kis Halá the last bit of sugar she had saved. She left the girths of the saddle loose, took the leads in hand, and began on foot to ascend the narrow path which led to Ul Raambar.

  After a pass she gained the narrow stony field before the city where she had once been welcomed with great honor by the Charan Ankhan and Chara Lisalya. The high stone walls had arched here before her, to form the famous Iron Gates, those gates fashioned in likeness to the Gate of Elna’s fastness. The Raamba gates had been high things of iron and bronze with a frieze of poured warriors, and in blue steel characters worked with fire-opals, the name of the city. Now the walls were rubble, and the gates but scattered fragments bidding entrance to the leavings of the Madpriests, heaps of trash and clean-picked bones.

  At her feet Allissál perceived a part of the gates’ device, robbed of fire-opals and broken on both sides so that only ‘AAM’ remained, like a voiceless moan testifying to the fate of the city and its people.

  She turned away. The stones fell down to the Marches. And Goddess-sun shone on, as serene now as when Allissál stood here in the arms of Ankhan and Lisalya.

  ‘O Sun,’ she muttered, ‘be not such a whore, at least avert your face.’

  Wearily, Allissál entered the wasteland.

  She had loved Tarendahardil better than any city of the earth, but her heart had held a special place for Ul Raambar. Ever she had been forced to see the squalor and corruption of the City Over the World; Ul Raambar had had none. Tarendahardil had sprawled – Ul Raambar had perched on the rocks nice as a gerlin’s nest. Tarendahardil had been fat – Ul Raambar lean; Tarendahardil wealthy – Ul Raambar noble; Tarendahardil softened in her age – Ul Raambar hardened in hers. Tarendahardil had been the seat of the Bordakasha, the World-Rulers who gambled all on power and glory, and knew the risks they took; Ul Raambar had been innocent of guile. She had only sought to guard the lands of men from the Madpriests; now, for another’s whim or cruelty, she was waste.

  Allissál saw broken arrows among the bones of the fallen. It had been upon her cause that Ara-Karn came here, to make friends with Ankhan and Lisalya even as he planned their death.

  She walked on, leaving Kis Halá behind.

  In the city center lay a flat field of stone. Once the palace of Ankhan had towered here. Allissál walked on, but the dirt clung to her feet, as if imploring remembrance of what once had been. Like a ghost wandering the grave-heaps of those too poor to build barges, Allissál passed on.

  The ground sloped down beyond where the palace had stood, where trash-heaps were obscured in rising shadows. At the far end of the city the walls of the mountains loomed on either side. The streets ran together to one thoroughfare, like a river to the choke-point of the Pass, where the walls had been thickest, and Raamba soldiery had defied the red-eyed Madpriests.

  The mountaintops gleamed bloody overhead, but their bottoms drowned in shadow. A wolf bayed somewhere from the darkside. Even the air seemed tainted by the darkness beyond.

  It was the end of life, the edge of the world.

  Once again Allissál had the feeling of being watched. She stopped. The wind pouring up from the Pass beyond caught her full in the face, tearing back her hood, scattering her hair, invading her mouth. She caught an odor unlike any she had ever known. An odor of foulness and sickness and cold and death and hatred. A nameless dread surged within her. She knew she could go no farther. She ran back up onto the field of the city, to find and embrace Kis Halá, the only other living thing.

  * * *

  She ate and slept and rested. So the passes fled, and Allissál huddled in the shelter of some stones, and dared go no farther.

  Something held her there – therefore she waited. From time to time she wondered what he did, and how he had received the news of her flight. She stood outside the shattered Iron Gates and looked back on the world. What went on there, she wondered. It was a curiosity simple and without regret: an innocent wonder in a faraway land that she would never enter. She walked back to her shelter and lay down again in sleep. Now it seemed to her she slept more than she waked.

  She woke from a dream she could not remember, and looked into the sky beyond the bloody peaks. God hung there, larger than ever, smiling-bright. He sank away, and was no more.

  She stood. Her body seemed light as frost. She heard Kis Halá’s laughing whinny. Something stirred in her, a thing she had considered dead, lost to her forever.

  She cast off the heavy cloak and began to move. A song played in her mind, a peasant song she had loved when she was a girl in the mountains. Her feet moved faster. She took up the steps of the dance she had learned with the song. She danced and let go of all thought, she danced and entered wholly into her body as it moved. She did not know what had come over her, except perhaps that she endured so much misery and unhappiness that now she could stomach no more: she became happy instead. Faster and faster she spun until she fell, laughing without breath or mirth.

  She caught Kis Halá, pulled tight the girths and vaulted into the saddle. She drew the cloak about her shoulders and urged Kis Halá forward. Uneasily the mare obeyed.

  She rode down the Pass. The shadows swallowed her; she took up and lighted a pine torch. It flared in the wind. She urged Kis Halá up and over the thick high walls, where the Madpriests had left their ramps. The mountain-stone rose smooth and soft beyond. Lifting the Torch in one hand, she read what had been graven there:

  UL RAAMBAR HAS FALLEN,

  ITS LORD AND LADY SLAIN.

  WE GO TO SEEK MADPRIESTS

  TO MAKE THEM PAY.

  —Wrought in the four hundred and thirty-second year of the jewel city by Ghezbal Daan, last captain of Ul Raambar, and these others:

  Below it in the soft stone were carven, chipped and scratched two hundred names, marks and devices: some of lords highly-titled, others of rude peasants unable to do more than chip out some design in place of a name. Riding closer, she reached out with the jade dagger and scratched:

  Allissál

  once Empress

  once of the Bordakasha.

  Loving the enemy, she fought him,

  Despising him, surrendered;

  Defeated by him, she conquered.

  She leaned back in the saddle, surveying her work. Then she spat into the teeth of the wind, pricked her mare in the rump, and rode down into darkness.

  But of a sudden she drew rein. She heard a human voice, faint against the winds from the waste above. She held the torch farther from her ears.

  Again she heard it, faint and weak and prayerful, thrown into the Pass.

  The voice was calling her by name.

  X

  The Dark Lands

  FOR A MOMENT Allissál wondered whether it would be better to turn back and discover who called, or to ride on and sunder all her bonds to the world. In truth, this might have been some stratagem of his. But in the end she turned back – perhaps it was some quality in that voice she recognized which decided her.

  For the one who called was Emsha.

  ‘Ah, majesty,’ the old nurse wheezed, ‘what a terror you put into this old heart! As if it weren’t enough that I have had to chase your majesty across half the wo
rld, and climb these cliffs at my age—! Then I reach here just in time to see your majesty ride off where even I would not be able to find you!’ She half laughed as she spoke, she was so happy to have outwitted her mistress.

  Allissál was dazed. To discover Emsha here had been the thing farthest from her thoughts. ‘How did you follow me?’

  ‘Majesty, have I not been with you since before you even spoke? I know you, after all. This was the road you would take – I knew it as soon as I gave it a moment’s thought. Does your majesty not remember when you were young, and ran off into the mountains? I have not. Straightway I got this stout pony and rode for Ul Raambar – and made good going, too, for the wars are ended, and all the lands have taken him for the new Emperor.’

  ‘I followed the out-of-the-way roads,’ Allissál mused. ‘Else your little pony would never have caught Kis Halá.’

  ‘He got me here, that’s all I’ll say.’ A lock of hair had fallen aslant the old nurse’s brow, and she blew at it to set it back in place – but it only fell down farther.

  Allissál sat back and laughed.

  She had never felt so much love for anyone. She hugged the old nurse, and pinched her broad cheek hard, making Emsha cry out. ‘And what now, my old wise hen?’ she asked. ‘Are you willing even to follow me there, beyond the dark horizon?’

  ‘I have a basket of food here with me at least – more than I can say of your majesty, who was ever forgetful of little matters. But you have not asked me, majesty, why I came after you. I have news!’

  The smile faded from Allissál’s face. ‘News of him?’

  ‘Oh, no – better. When you chose to be so cruel to me – but there, that’s forgotten – I went to the Brown Temple to pray to Goddess. And when I entered, I found that all was arranged properly, and the sacred fire still burned. Then I prayed, for a long while, it seemed to me, for guidances for what was to become of me lacking you to oversee and care for. When I arose there was a priestess before me, in the golden mask and ceremonial robes.

  ‘When she learned I was your majesty’s servant, she did me all honor, and guided me to chambers hidden beneath the altar. There I told her all that went on, and how you had gone away. It was she who sent me after you. She told me how the priestesses from all the lands and cities have gone to a place in the Desert, to build a city there and keep alive the worship of Goddess and of Elna. And majesty, she said they had left her there only that she might wait to see if she might reach you and take you to that secret city. There, she said, they still do you your proper worship, as the body of Goddess upon Earth.’

  Allissál looked out to the bright horizon. ‘What else did she tell you, Emsha, of this city and the priestesses’ plans?’

  ‘That they will wait there until Goddess grants them Her fiery lance again. And until that pass they will work in secret against this new rule by the barbarians, and bear the word of Goddess to all true men and women.’

  ‘No,’ said Allissál: ‘that is a road I have already ridden. I will not fight him, Emsha. Let him be, and live on as happy as he can. I have put the world behind me. I am bound to go on, out of his power.’

  ‘But where is it we are going?’ Emsha asked. There was a touch of fear in her voice.

  Allissál pointed down the shadows.

  Emsha paled. Her eyes grew big and dark.

  ‘I am going there, Emsha, to seek out Darkbridge and the world beyond. If Darkbridge is anything more than a myth some men whisper. And you, old one – do you have the heart to seek that way with me?’

  Emsha blushed happily. ‘Oh, no, your majesty. I have no courage. For I am so fearful to be parted from you, that even going that way seems to me a little thing.’

  Allissál smiled, and held Emsha’s hands. ‘I am glad of it, you know. Oh, why did I not bring you along from the first?’

  Again they laughed, but that was a little thing against the darkness beyond.

  * * *

  It was a full pass before they took their leave. Emsha would not hear of starting until all was properly done. At last all the bags and provisions met the old servant’s stern requirements; and they started down the road. At the great wall of rock beyond the battlements, Allissál showed Emsha the farewells of Ghezbal Daan’s army, and offered to carve her something; but Emsha shook her head.

  ‘I have no parting words. And anyway, who would be interested in the farewell of an old unimportant slave?’

  So they rode on.

  Soon the darkness grew so strong about them that the outlines of the battlements behind them were invisible.

  And Emsha fiddled with her pony’s leads. Allissál heard her old nurse muttering old chants and prayers. She herself looked about them, and down into the maw of blackness that threatened to engulf them.

  Her heart was beating fast. She felt hot and cold by turns. Something caught in her throat. She heard a dull roaring, and looked about before she knew it was the sound of her own blood rushing through her veins.

  ‘Majesty…’ The word was a little squeak. Allissál saw stark terror burning on the dim features of the nurse.

  She rode alongside her servant, reached out, took her hand. The old nurse’s grip was fierce. For a moment they halted, looking into each other’s eyes.

  All about them darkness loomed.

  No dimplace was ever so dark as this. And yet there remained of Goddess a purplish glow cast over the rising peaks of silver-black mountains. The worst lay ahead of them.

  The torches that they held seemed dwarfed and lost. All about the small halos of light swam an unmeasured sea of darkness and blackness. Darkness and blackness such as they had never known in all their lives!

  There had been plays, fantastical poems, legends told of what lay beyond the dark horizon. But these had been the idle thoughts of childish minds. Nothing in them could compare to what lay all about them now.

  There was the travel Book of Skhel, by the learned Inozelstus of Anoth, which claimed to tell truly of a journey one Horath had made into the darklands. There the Madpriests were said to live. Men – or half-bred men – who were born and bred in darkness! Ul Raambar was built to defend against them, but even so Allissál now wondered whether all that could have been truth. Was it not rather some dream? No one could endure such darkness.

  ‘Majesty,’ Emsha breathed. She snuffled. She was crying, weeping for sheer terror of the dark.

  Allissál leaned over and hugged her oldest and best friend. ‘Go back, dearest servant. Go back into the light.’

  ‘Yes, majesty. Let’s be going far from here!’

  But Allissál shook her head. ‘Dearest one … I cannot turn back. I have sworn … you know how stubborn I am … my heart would fail if I went back now … I would lose the last part of me…’ But the truth of it went beyond that. He was to blame, somehow. He was bound up in what she was doing. She had thought she would defy him. But was it not nearer the truth to admit that she still walked and rode where his will, his bodily existence upon her world, commanded?

  ‘I cannot go back,’ she said, at last.

  The old nurse stiffened her back. She sat upright in her saddle, and shook her reins and clucked her tongue. She urged the stout pony forward against its will, and led the way.

  Allissál rode after.

  After a while, even the purplish glow over the silver mountain crowns was gone.

  They chose their path with care, tightening their eyes to pierce the darkness beyond the torchlights. The grotesque bushes and stunted, writhing trees were like black talons eager to clutch and point out these intruders. Shortly after the sight of the peaks faded, a pack of wolves caught the scent of the horses and began to track them. Their eyes were red in the reflected glare from the torchlights. The pony shuddered at the smell of these predators, but Kis Halá held herself bravely.

  At the base of the mountains, they followed for a while the muddy bed of a stream carven in the rock. It was a shallow tame flow now, but come the winter storms and the spring melting, and i
t would rage in torrents. The horse and pony picked their way warily down the twisting stream. It was about that time that the wolves left them, crawling back to their mountain lairs, as if there was that in this land of black-huddling hills which could frighten even them.

  Thereafter they were left in relative peace – save that now and then they would hear some stealthy darting sound behind them. Allissál would turn about swiftly, to see a swift-vanishing gleam just beyond the light, as of something slimy and foul. Emsha refused to look back. ‘If they will come gobble me,’ she said, ‘let them come. But in the meanwhile don’t ask that I look at them.’

  ‘A wise policy, befitting such a dignified chara,’ Allissál said. In her heart, however, she was ill at ease. She had not known how terrible this darkness would be. It was the light that attracted the things, and the light only that held them at bay. She reached down to the bundle of torches at her saddle-side. When they were gone, she would have to try cutting branches from these malignant trees, if indeed they burned. Not well, by the look of them.

  At the bank of the stream they found again the trail left by Ghezbal Daan, a swath of charred trees and stumps chasing the path of dark God. Here and there along the edges of the trail were bones and broken lance-points, as if this path had not been forged without price.

  The air was deeply chill and damp, as if it had never been dry or warm. The ground seemed half frozen. They huddled together for the sleeps, and Allissál spread her cloak over both of them. Each sleep they gathered bundles of dead twigs and logs and built a fire. The fires kept the beasts away, but burned fitfully, with much smoke, and gave off little heat. No, Allissál thought grimly, such wood would not make torches. From time to time the pony woke them with a whimper, and Allissál gripped the hilt of the shortsword she had brought.

  So they went on for half a dozen passes – or so Allissál guessed: for thick clouds hid the moon, and there was no other way to count time’s passing. For the first passes Allissál was heartened by Emsha’s chatter; but then the darkness overmastered the old nurse’s heart and the words died on her lips.