Three days after setting forth on the by-way, Jewel and Arran reached the mouth of the Khashayar Tunnel, on the very outskirts of Saadiah. They spent the night in the open air, concealed by rocky outcrops covered in sagebrush, before venturing under the mountain the next day at dawn.
As they rode deeper into the subterranean way, the sun’s light began to fail. The sound of their horses’ hooves was partly muffled by swathes of sand that had drifted in from the desert. Farther still, and visibility was only possible by means of dim reflections from rock facets: ahead loomed blind darkness. From far off, somewhere in the secret cores of the mountain, there sounded a tap-tap-tapping and a chinking of metallic percussions, as if a dozen clockwork dolls were involved in rhythmically hammering and chopping, each slightly out of tempo with the rest.
Arran murmured outlandish words. Before they entered the Tunnel he had removed from his saddlebags a slender staff of ash that he had carried with him from High Darioneth. Such objects were known to the weathermasters as light javelins. The tip, sharpened to a point, was encased in a slim cone of brass. Raising this spear high in his right hand, Arran spoke again, now gesturing with his left hand. Overhead, the atmosphere jostled and tingled. The tapered end of the javelin gave off a crackling noise, as of droplets swiftly freezing to ice-crystals. A sudden blast screamed as two air currents gusted in opposite directions, not head-on but back to back, grating against each other as they passed. The air tasted like iron, and smacked of burning. A swarm of tiny blue-white sparks shot forth from the javelin’s end. Scaldingly brilliant, they clustered about the brass point in a sphere of incandescent cloud, shedding a moonbeam radiance all around.
“A corona discharge,” Arran explained to Jewel, who was taken aback. “Sometimes these glowing orbs are called ‘corposants,’ but their true designation is ‘Erasmus’s fires,’ named after a fabled hero, the legendary patron of sailors. We shall use them to light our way.”
“Does weathermaster law permit such use?”
Small lightnings fizzed and crawled on the brass cone.
“Indeed. Erasmus’s fire can be contained as a local phenomenon, and is therefore not disruptive to larger systems.”
Dazzles whizzed and jumped eerily in and out of the luminous sphere at the top of the javelin. Jewel’s hair stood on end, and she exclaimed with astonishment.
Through the Tunnel they passed, and out the other side, and their traverse was uneventful. As they rode they cast many a backward glance to see if their hunters had tracked them down, but they could spy nobody following in their wake, and allowed themselves to hope that they had thrown Lizard and Scorpion off their trail.
After two and a half days more, Jewel and Arran arrived in the heart of the Saadiah region. During that time they met only one other party of travelers: a large convoy journeying toward the east. A string of dromedaries was laden with wrapped bales. Heavily armed outriders guarded the procession; two horsemen saluted the travelers with a wave of the hand, but the rest merely stared distrustfully.
Taking its native name from the unusual rock formations at its center, Saadiah was a remote district between Jhallavad and the Grïmnørsland border. It was cradled in the bosky foothills of the coastal ranges. The perennial wind current known as the Fyrflaume came racing across the hot stone wastelands to the south, while the freezing ocean current called the Glassingtide pounded against the rocky shores to the west. The moisture-laden breezes that crossed the mountains from the ocean dumped their burdens in the foothills, becoming as parched as husks by the time they blew across the hinterlands. These phenomena combined to produce Saadiah’s local climate.
To the incoming travelers Saadiah seemed an oasis, lush and verdant. They rode amongst hills clothed with forests and orchards. The wind in the foliage moved the boughs gently, slowly, softly, and the sound was the sound of a thousand voices whispering. Leaves were falling down, twisting, gliding, fluttering as they descended in shoals, like fish. The sky was a pane of lapis lazuli, smoky at the edges, and, above the mountain range that reared steeply in front of them the riders saw the rugged, jagged shapes of the peaks echoed in a second range, one that climbed the sky and was formed of clouds building up over the distant ocean. Dark purple and stormy loomed the nearer clouds. Those rising behind them were purest silver-white.
They rode beneath dipping boughs, while winged things fluttered by like dislocated flowers. Patches of cool shade dappled their heads and shoulders. Deep in the groves young women were picking great quantities of leaves, thrusting branches inside their sacks and stripping them bare with their hands. Some barefoot children accompanying the women were playing a game with sticks and seed-pods. Jewel smiled at them as she rode past.
The entire region appeared prosperous; the cottages were well built and in good repair. Beside most of the farmhouses stood long buildings perforated by tiny windows. In the middle of each village loomed an imposing structure with large, pointed-arch windows. The principal township, Spire, boasted a modest sanctorum, a distillery, several large wineries, and a couple of establishments devoted to the drying and storage of fruits.
That evening, in the Wheel and Spindle, the travelers put it about that they had come to Spire to view the well-known rock formations.
“Has anyone ever managed to climb them?” Arran asked a serving-lad.
“Hardly likely! They are guarded by the korred.” The lad shook his head as if astonished. “You foreigners! Doesn’t everybody know that?”
When the servant bustled away, Jewel said, “Saadiah is not as famous as the inhabitants suppose.”
“No place is,” said Stormbringer.
A woman sitting nearby, resting her elbows on the table, said, “Many have tried to climb the pinnacles.”
“Oh yes,” said her neighbor, nodding eagerly. “Many hopefuls have come here with their hammers and spikes and ropes, for there is naught as attractive to some folk as a peak that has never been conquered. But the pinnacles defeated them all, that they did!” She chuckled. “Couldn’t get so much as a toe-hold, they couldn’t! The korred wouldn’t let ’em.”
“What is the korred?” Jewel asked.
“They,” corrected the first woman, now speaking more softly and glancing over her shoulder, “are short and stumpy wights with shaggy hair, dark wrinkled faces, and little deep-set eyes that are as bright as carbuncles. Their voices are cracked and hollow, their hands have claws like a cat’s, and their feet are horny like a goat’s.”
“They are expert smiths and coiners,” added the second woman, leaning close to the visitors and speaking in confidential tones, as if the wights themselves might be eavesdropping in the shadows nearby. “ ’Tis said they have great treasures hidden in the pinnacles where they dwell, and which some folk believe they themselves built. The korred dance around the pinnacles by night, and woe to the belated passer-by who is forced to join in their roundel, for he usually dies of exhaustion. King’s Day is their weekly holiday, and the first King’s Day in Mai their annual festival, which they celebrate with dancing, singing, and music.”
Eager to prove herself equally as knowledgeable as her neighbor, the first woman elaborated, “They are always furnished with a large leathern purse, which is said to be full of gold.”
“But if any man succeeds in getting it from them,” the neighbor chimed in, “he finds nothing in his hands but hair and a pair of scissors!”
“These guardian wights sound formidable,” Arran commented.
“In trying to reach the top of the pinnacles,” the first woman went on, “some folk became quite inventive and tried to fling themselves up by way of human catapults and such. Always ended in disaster,” she concluded, with an air of nostalgia.
“But I reckon the weathermasters might have a chance, floating in one of their balloons,” speculated the neighbor.
“Not a hope,” her friend disagreed. “The korred wouldn’t let them get near; that’s what everyone says.”
Their difference of opinion
evolved into a long-winded debate, during which the women paid no further attention to Jewel and Arran.
Spire township was situated less than one league away from the pinnacles, to which the travelers paid a visit next morning.
The track led through luxuriant groves. As they followed it, vertical splinters of sapphire slashed through the tree-stems ahead, and abruptly the trees opened out onto a vista; a great harbor of air flooded with blue sky, in which the massive petrified boles of ancient forest giants were standing; a gigantic forest of decapitated trees. Yet they were not trees.
Jewel and Arran found themselves in a natural bowl that was immense, possibly a mile wide but only about twenty-five feet deep. Its walls were formed of clay, colored ocher, raw sienna, burnt umber, hard material in which few plants could find purchase. The sides appeared vertical at first, but closer inspection showed they were pleated with minor landslides, scored with crevices and channels of erosion. The gradient of the incline was gentler in some parts, and it would not be difficult to navigate a route down to the hollow’s floor.
The pinnacles, disposed about two hundred to four hundred yards apart, were perpendicular, sheer-sided towers of stone, too smooth to climb, too adamantine to be chipped with an axe to create footholds, apparently devoid of crevices. Unlike the stunted rock formations of the desert, they were very lofty, tall, ancient cores from around which the surrounding material had eroded away, and whose heads seemed to pierce the clouds. The wind sang amongst them. No vegetation clung to their flanks.
Myrtle bushes and short grasses sprang between and around the pinnacles, and the eastern half of the circular dell was blanketed by velvety shadows. There was no sign of any of the guardian korred, but the place had an eldritch feel. It was deserted.
That is, it appeared at first to be deserted.
Having clambered down, Jewel and Arran wandered amongst the inscrutable steeples, gazing ever upward, considering how the summits might be reached. Five small children were darting between the bases of the towers. They were clad in knee-length culottes, and loose-fitting shirts of silk or muslin. Thin brass bangles jangled on their wrists and ankles, which were bare and sun-browned. A cooing sound went up like a sudden release of bubbles. It was their giggling. Jewel guessed they were pretending to be hunted by wicked ogres, represented by herself and her companion. She had often played such games herself, as a child.
Arran was of the same mind. Playfully he feinted a lunge at one of the tots, who broke into a gleeful laugh and scampered away, only to reappear again in the next instant, peeping from behind a column. The young man threw himself energetically into the game, leaping and running, darting and dodging. Jewel followed his every movement, admiring his vitality and masculine beauty. Lithe and lean, he moved with the poise of an athlete. Impulsively she threw aside her hat and joined in. A romp ensued. The travelers chased the little ones until the exertion and the waxing heat of the day tired them all out.
As Jewel and Arran cast themselves down on the soft grasses in the shade of a myrtle bush, their erstwhile playmates self-consciously approached, trying to hide behind one another, fascinated and attracted by the appearance of newcomers.
“Which one is the Comet’s Tower?” Jewel inquired.
“That one,” said the tallest child, pointing a stubby, grubby finger.
It was not far from the center of the dell, and the loftiest of all. Predictably. Clouds scudded across the skies above its peak, seeming so near as to scrape its very crown. Close to the top a great chunk was missing from the pinnacle’s side, as if some giant mouth had bitten it almost right through. Only a thin shelf of rock remained, overhanging the gap like a protective canopy. The onlookers could see right through this cavity, to the racing clouds beyond.
Such a height seemed impossible to reach.
The children giggled again. The smaller ones hid their impish faces behind the apron of the eldest girl.
The young man reclined against the slope and closed his eyes. His hair, which had worked loose from its bindings during the frolic, spilled in a tangle across the turf. Jewel lay flat on her stomach and cradled her head in her arms. The day was warm. They were weary from their travels, and stymied in their purpose. Now that they had at last arrived at their destination there seemed no way to achieve their ultimate goal.
In an attempt to regain their attention, three of the little girls lined themselves up in a triangular formation. Playing a game of clapping their own hands and one another’s hands in rhythm, they chanted,
“My mother said I never should
Play with the gypsies in the wood.
If I did, she would say,
’Naughty girl to disobey!
Your hair won’t curl; your shoes won’t shine;
Naughty girl, you shan’t be mine!’ ”
After a second rendition of the verse, Stormbringer opened his eyes, but the singers had already decided there was more entertaining employment elsewhere, and run away. Their laughter effervesced through the sultry atmosphere.
Shadows inched across the dell. The wind sang between the pinnacles, and oceaned through the luxuriant foliage of the trees lining the rim.
“Thank the powers they have gone,” murmured Jewel. “I was afraid they might begin on some similar doggerel, one that the wagoners’ children used to sing interminably. They go round and round in your head, those chants.” After a pause she said, “Too late. The other song is back in my brain. Wind a cradle for a moth, tight against the Winter’s wrath. Ugh!”
Arran remarked quietly, “Did you say ‘a cradle for a moth’?”
Jewel sat bolt upright. “Indeed I did!” she exclaimed. “How strange are the workings of the inner mind! Unintentionally, I may have solved the sorcerer’s riddle.
“Wind a cradle for a moth,
Tight against the Winter’s wrath.
Spin a thread to make a cloth
Lighter than a puff of froth.
Needle, needle, stitch a thing
Pretty as a beetle’s wing.
Cradle, cradle, lift me up
Till the raindrops fill my cup.
“It is a song of the silk-merchants!”
“Ignorant foreigners that we are!” said the young man in mock disgust. “How could we have missed the obvious? Those are groves of mulberry trees, the fodder of silkworms.”
The Comet’s Tower
That very Sevember morning, five riders were trotting along the main road through Saadiah. They were the same distance away from Spire as Jewel and Arran Stormbringer had been at the identical time on the previous day. Their flowing Ashqalêthan robes were suited to the desert climate, albeit ragged. Two of them were the men known to Jewel and Arran as Scorpion and Lizard. Yet had the damsel and the young man looked upon them now, they would scarcely have recognized their erstwhile companions of the road. Gone were the smiles, the twinkling glances, the crow’s-feet crinkles of habitual merriment. Scorpion scowled heavily, while the features of Lizard hung slack and vacuous.
This sullen pair rode in the dust kicked up by the hooves of the two leaders, one of whom was a middle-aged man who was swigging from a flask as he rode. Beneath a flared nose his short, black beard covered a heavy jaw and scarred slab cheeks. His eyes drooped downward at the outer corners, as though his face were beginning to melt, and his hair was close-cropped. The one who rode with him, slightly ahead, was somewhat younger, a spare fellow, morose and hungry-looking. Wisps of his thinning hair adhered to the sweat of his brow. The fifth wayfarer was a woman. A scarf muffled her face and she rode at the rear.
They were passing amongst the green and water-rich margins of the region. Trees drew in close to the road at either hand, their foliage rustling and nodding. As the morning wore on, the riders passed a long, many-windowed magnanerie attached to a farmhouse, where women were hauling in sack-loads of mulberry leaves to feed the ravenous caterpillars.
The lean fellow then dropped back to join the riders at the tail of the band.
“When we arrive,” he said, “you three must lie low. They would recognize your faces. Weaponmonger and I shall go in search of them.”
“If we are not too late,” murmured the woman.
With earnest intensity, the fellow turned to her. “Should we ride any faster, these nags would likely drop dead beneath us. Even desert hacks have their limits in the heat of Summer. Tardy indeed we should be, if we had to walk into town!”
“Tardy for what?” interjected the man known sometimes as Lizard. “We do not even know what they are looking for!”
“Something of value,” replied the gaunt leader. His pale eyes rolled sideways like two withered peas. “Something they learned about in the fortress of the sorcerer.”
“We could as easily ambush them and seize this treasure as they ride back along the by-road! They are two to our five.”
“You know not what you say.”
“I know not, because you tell us naught! You guess some secret, but you keep it to yourself.”
“Hold your clacking tongue, Gaspar. I tire of your noise.”
“What do you mean by ‘lie low,’ Aonarán?” asked the man who often gave his name as “Scorpion.”
“I mean, find some hovel and remain there until I summon you.”
“But—”
“Argue not with me, Sohrab! It is your fault they became suspicious and tried to elude you. No doubt you were careless when you gave the landlords your garbled, almost unintelligible instructions to pass on to us.”
“But the ploy worked and you were able to keep track—”
“I said, argue not!” Aonarán emphasized his command by landing a savage, backhanded blow across the jaw of Sohrab. Scorpion flinched but did not cry out. A tendril of blood trickled from his cut lip. The man with the cropped hair laughed gutturally.
The Well of Tears: Book Two of The Crowthistle Chronicles Page 31
