by Angus Wells
“Have faith,” he repeated, “Yssym spoke true.”
Bracht and Katya sheathed their blades, their faces both pale. “It calls for faith to risk those,” the Kern said hoarsely. He looked back to where the dragons stood, grumbling like distant thunder, jaws snapping irritably. “Faith or madness. Ahrd! One wrong-placed step …”
“I suspect this road safe passage and test, both,” Calandryll said. “On it, we cannot be harmed; but do we allow these creatures to panic us … as you say—one wrongplaced step.”
“Are they then the creations of magic?” wondered Katya. “Or living beasts?”
“Those jaws look real enough to me,” Bracht grunted. “But wait—I’ll put it to the test.”
He rummaged in his pack, bringing out a piece of dried meat that he flung out over the swamp. A dragon turned its head, attracted by the movement, snout darting toward the morsel, that disappearing between the jaws. “I vouch them real,” he declared.
“Then is all this real?” Katya gestured at the looming mangroves. “Do we traverse Gessyth? And if we do, might this road not be found by means other than the gate?”
“Those dragons have substance,” Bracht said, “and teeth, and so I deem this Gessyth. As for the road—I know not.”
“I think we cross Gessyth,” Calandryll suggested, “but by some way found only through the gate—and that entered only with the aid of the syfaba, who in turn show only those judged true by the Old One. I think we pass along some magical dimension.”
“Or stand idling,” said Bracht. “How far, think you, to Tezin-dar?”
Calandryll fetched out the map, kneeling to spread it on the smooth, dry stone of the road, remembering the elders’ laughter. “I think,” he said, touching the parchment. “that the Syfalheen village stood here. A day’s march would bring us here.” His finger tapped an area designated by Orwen ‘Dyre swampe, where monstyres be an alle manner of foule creationnes moste peryllousse to menne.’ “Tezin-dar is here.”
Bracht looked to where he indicated and grunted. “Winter will be on us ere we walk that far.”
“Save that we tread a magical path,” Calandryll replied, “which I believe will bring us to the city swifter than we know.”
“Grant that you guess it aright,” said the Kern.
“In time we shall know,” he nodded, folding the map.
They went on, down a tunnel overhung with moss-draped limbs, the light become an insubstantial haze of bluish-green, the water that boundaried the road black, the trees huge columns of grey. The lesser menaces of the swamp were here, like the dragons, magnified: they saw grishas large as a man’s hand scuttling over the moss, and yennym like serpents writhing among the spider-legged roots, great shoals of shivim rippled the water, and where the lovely, deadly flowers of the feshyn bloomed, they were the size of platters. But none breached the safety of the road and the three strode on, holding to the center, marching steadily until hunger called a halt.
They partook of the food the Syfalheen had provided and rested a while before continuing, still among the mangroves, still traversing a tunnel that denied sight of the sky, the sun lost and all sense of time with it so that they could judge the hour only by the weariness that assailed their limbs and the growing pangs of hunger in their bellies. Calandryll had hoped to encounter another hostel before they were forced to halt, but of such refuge there was no sign and they finally succumbed to aching muscles, settling at the road’s center to eat and sleep.
There was no indication that night harbored intention of falling, the blue-green haze remaining constant, a depressing twilight poised, eternally it seemed, between night and day, the air busy with the sounds of the giant insects, the tidelike rippling of the predator fish and the far-off bellowing of dragons. Near exhaustion granted them respite from that clamor, but still they woke more than a little stiff, and less rested than before, rising to massage knotted muscles before starting off again through the trees.
They could tell no better here than before how long they marched, allowing their bodies to dictate their halts and counting it a day between waking and sleeping for want of better calendar. By that reckoning it was five days before they came to the second building.
Like its predecessor this stood across the road as though a single block of stone were set in their way, and it possessed the same impossible dimensions, larger within than without. They entered with no hesitation to find themselves in the twin of the first refuge, crossing immediately to the farther windows to inspect the path ahead. They saw a water meadow filled with lilies and dragons, spread out as far as their eyes could see, the road a fragile-seeming ribbon of stone still straight across the water, lit red-gold by a sun that fell toward its setting.
“What time has passed?” Calandryll wondered aloud. ’The sun was hew risen when we came on the road and sets now—a day? No more than that?”
“My legs claim longer,” Bracht murmured.
“You said it yourself—we traverse the dimensions of magic,” Katya said. “Though the dirt I feel is real enough—I’m to the bathhouse.”
She left them to explore, finding all as before, and when they, too, had rid themselves of the sweaty detritus of their journey they ate, and drank good wine before retiring, thankful for beds softer than the unyielding stone of the road.
When they awoke they found their clothing miraculously clean and food once again set out. They broke their fast and filled their canteens, then started across the enormous lily meadow, no longer concerned with the dragons that roared all about, but pressing hard onward, the sun at their left shoulder, agog to know if its imminent descent into night should mark the ending of their journey, or merely the dying of the magical day: the prospect of a night so long was daunting.
Time, or distance, or perhaps both, contracted now: it seemed they walked but a single day, though the sun did not shift, before they came to a third marker.
No hostel this, but a dolmen of black stone, two upright pillars rising massy from the fabric of the road, supporting a great cross-member, the passage between narrow, barely so wide as to allow the three to pass together. Beyond that portal was darkness, a voidance of light so total it seemed solid. They halted, wary of that negation.
There was, however, no way around the monument, or, when Calandryll retraced his steps to peer past the obstacle, further sign of the road. It ended there, beyond the dolmen only the lily meadow and the dragons.
“There is no other way,” he said, studying the great black pillars dubiously. “This must be a second gate.”
“The elders sang us through the first,” said Bracht. “Shall we pass unscathed without their aid?”
“We must,” Katya said. “Or turn back.”
Bracht’s face assumed a pained expression as he shook his head, vigorously. “Ahrd, no! No more walking, I beg you.”
Katya laughed and said, “Then onward—to Tezin-dar, I hope.”
“Aye,” Calandryll declared, “To Tezin-dar and the Arcanum.”
He moved to Katya’s right, Bracht to her left, and together they stepped into the void between the stones.
DARK so cold it cut like knives of ice; and cold so dark it leeched breath. Falling: a soft missile flung through eternity. To crash on the hard stone of reality?
Or some softer landing?
Grass?
Aye, sweet-scented grass, and small flowers, their petals a delicate white, veined through with purple, crushed beneath boots translucent with rime of ice that melted, glowing, in the warmth of a hew sun suspended in a sky of purest azure, ribboned with pennants of white cloud. Bird song, and the lazy buzz of pollen-weighted bees, the chirrup of crickets. Calandryll looked about, mouth open, words lost in wonder. Surely not Gessyth? Not reeking, swamp-filled Gessyth, this fabulous place.
He rose from the grass where he had fallen, seeing his companions no less amazed as they, like he, looked on the meadow that surrounded them, the dolmen standing stark behind, bleak monument in that green sw
ard all decked with little blossoms. His head swung, eyes blinking at the vision that flickered in and out of sight, like a fragmented dream. He saw the spires of a great city, stately and tall, unwalled, serene; and tumbled ruins, the towers bare-ribbed and fallen, the halls rendered down into rubble that spilled over wide avenues filled with laughing, handsome folk; or empty, the stones grave markers of forgotten splendor.
He sighed and shook his head and the vision faltered, shimmering like sunlit water rippled by a breeze, or a pebble thrown by younger sight. It faded, dreamy as evaporating mist, and was gone, in its place that other vision, less welcome but more real: across the meadow—that, at least, corporeal—stood the ruins of Tezin-dar. It must be Tezin-dar, he told himself, and sighed afresh, for this place was ancient and wrecked, and held no sign of Old Ones; or of men, or Syfalheen, or any other folk. And yet, he wondered as he stared in silence at the fallen walls of once-great halls, the shattered bulk of spires, the road had brought them here; the Old One, back in the village of the Syfalheen, had sent them here; the syfaba had directed them down that long path to this place: it must be Tezin-dar, and somewhere within its jumbled confusion must be the Arcanum.
‘I thought I saw,” he heard Katya whisper, her grey eyes wide, wondering, “I thought I saw …”
“What was?” he asked, no louder. “The city that was once and is no more?”
She nodded, speechless.
“Yssym said the Old Ones dwell here still,” said Bracht, “yet this is but a ruin … For all I saw folk parade its streets.”
“Naught but stones,” Katya said sadly.
“We saw a memory, I think,” said Calandryll. “The Tezin-dar that once stood here, before the gods fell to war.”
“And the Old Ones?” Bracht asked. “Those who shall bring us to the Arcanum—where are they?”
“Yssym also said the city is forbidden the Syfalheen,” Calandryll murmured, “And none have seen the Old Ones.”
“Then must we search all this?” Bracht’s hand flung out to encompass the dead city. “Ahrd, we might spend a lifetime at this task!”
“Varent said the stone would guide me,” Calandryll reminded, touching the pendant at his throat. “That it would lead me to the Arcanum.”
“And Varent said the walls stood still,” Bracht retorted, “and believed Orwen’s map would guide us here—and he was wrong.”
“It must be here,” Katya said, “and we must find it.”
“In all of that?” Bracht gestured again at the ruined city. “Save that in this one thing Varent did not lie, we have no hope.”
Katya’s eyes grew stormy then, and she clenched her fists so that the Kern raised protesting hands and smiled an apology for his skepticism, saying, “I had not thought to put my trust in Varent, but so be it—fetch out your magic stone. Calandryll, and let us begin.”
Calandryll nodded, bringing the stone out from beneath his shirt. It hung lifeless upon his chest, no sorcerous fire shining, nor scent of almonds to alert his nostrils to wizardry.
“Likely we must come closer,” he said cautiously.
“Then come,” Bracht answered, starting toward the ruins.
They drew hearer, finding the grass-grown memory of an avenue leading to a shattered arch, the sundered remnants of the outer buildings beyond, all driven in as if catapults, or thunderbolts, had struck against the walls, stones fused and run in glistening snail tracks, melted by unimaginable powers. They skirted a barricade of jagged blocks and climbed another, finding themselves in a plaza where once a fountain had stood, now a crack-lipped pit awash with sour water on which green algae floated. About the plaza stood walls like broken teeth, angled chaotically at the cloud-decked sky, the streets between the broken buildings all pocked and pitted, grass and weeds and some few flowers finding purchase among the desolation. They wandered at random, for it was no longer possible to discern logical pattern in that confusion where the wreckage of once-proud buildings covered whole streets and avenues ended in gaping chasms too wide to jump. They clambered over walls and crossed courtyards; found paths through houses where charred timber spoke of burned furniture and melted metal glittered, surprised—for all that they were, too, relieved—to find no evidence of human remains amid the waste. The sun, that had been not long risen when they began, traversed the sky and moved toward the west, casting ragged shadows that hid the pitfalls of the broken streets and gaping cellars, threatening broken bones did they continue searching: they agreed, reluctantly, to cease and find shelter for the night.
Beneath the overhang of an arched door, what was left of its surrounding wall some further shelter, they built a fire, its flames small comfort to their dampening hope. They huddled miserable about the glow, chewing on the cured meat the Syfalheen had given them as the sickle of a quarter-full moon rose and filled the dead city with eerie silver light. A wind got up, sighing through the ruins: a lament for lost Tezin-dar.
And Bracht sprang to his feet, falchion gleaming in the fire glow as unexpected sound intruded on their contemplation.
Katya and Calandryll rose beside him, each with sword in hand, moving instinctively away from the revealing flames, eyes probing the shadows as ears picked out the slow drag of footsteps in the susurration of the wind.
“Back,” the freesword urged softly, “where we may use our blades unhindered.”
They paced warily to the center of what had once been a stately hall, standing shoulder to shoulder, their blades extended to meet whatever menace should appear. The fire shivered in the breeze, sending dancing shadows over the tumbled walls; cloud drifted to obscure the moon, pooling darkness within the hall. Calandryll felt a prickling against his chest and saw the red stone pulse, thrusting it beneath his shirt lest it betray them all. The footsteps came closer, paused, then came on, and a shape filled the arch, halting there.
Eyes pale-lit by moon and uncountable years surveyed the three, the fire’s flames lending shadow to a face sunk in on itself, dry lips drawn back from yellow teeth in time’s ancient smile, the cheeks hollows, parchment skin stretched thin over clear-etched bones. White hair curtained the narrow shoulders, falling lank over a robe of blue, skeletal hands all mottled with age thrust from the sleeves, one rising to beckon.
Two more figures shuffled slowly into the ruined hall, one robed in blue, the other in white, both old; so old as to seem beyond age. They aligned themselves before the three newcomers. Calandryll lowered his blade as the central figure spoke.
“Put up your swords—this place has seen enough of bloodshed.”
The voice was dusted with the weight of ages, rustling and dry, and sad as the wind mourning through the city.
“Old Ones,” Bracht said softly. “Yssym spoke the truth.”
“So the Syfalheen name us,” said the ancient … man, Calandryll saw as the cloud cleared the moon and he was able to discern the features: both those in blue were men, the white-robed figure a woman. “And they speak true. This Yssym—he was the appointed Watcher?”
“Aye,” Calandryll said, his voice unreasonably loud against the other’s whisper. “He brought us to his village, where the elders—the syfaba—brought us to judgment by one of yours.”
“Sennethym.” The death’s-head face ducked in confirmation. “His was the hardest part—to wait alone.”
“He sent you out,” said the female of the three, “to take the road?”
“How else might they come here?” asked the second man.
“By wizardry, perhaps,” she replied. “Long and long have we waited, and how might we know what magicks pertain in that world now?”
“None to find the road,” replied the man. “On that I’d wager. Were that knowledge abroad there’d be others come ere these.”
The central figure raised a hand, stilling their debate. “You took the road?” he asked.
“We did,” said Calandryll. “After … Sennethym? … sent us forth, the elders of the Syfalheen brought us to a dolmen, through which we passed onto
the road. That, we walked to a hostel, and then another, and thence to a second dolmen that brought us here.”
“You see?” demanded the man beside the first speaker. “If wizardry there still be, it is of a younger kind than ours and cannot find that road. Nor should it pass the gates unscathed—Sennethym found them true.”
“Tereus, Ayliss—would you debate their coming, or judge their worth?”
The two fell silent as he spoke. He touched his chest: “I am Denarus; my companions Tereus and Ayliss. Do you name yourselves?”
“I am Calandryll den Karynth, lately of Secca in Lysse.”
“I, Katya of Vanu.”
“Bracht, of the clan Asyth of Cuan na’For.”
“Time has passed,” said the woman Ayliss. “Gods, but what time!”
“Lysse—Cuan na’For, they were wild lands when this place stood.” Denarus’s voice was oddly apologetic. “The domain of small, hairy men more animal than human. As Ayliss says—time has passed.”
“Vanu, though,” said Tereus. “We knew not Vanu.”
“It lies far to the north,” said Katya, “beyond the mountains of the Borrhun-maj.”
“Did Janax succeed then?” wondered Tereus. “Gods, did he find his promised land?”
“She has the look of The Folk,” said Ayliss. “How think you, Denarus?”
