12.
World’s End
Dawn woke him, its greyness paling the air with the first light he had seen in an eternity. Heavy-headed, half-sleeping still, Jan watched the sun emerge from dark caverns housing the netherpath. The fiery stallion leapt onto the steep incline of the starpath, his radiance blazing around him in a burning sphere. Full tilt, he galloped up the endless bowed and rocky path of stars.
The dream passed. Jan found himself lying on a rocky promontory. Sun’s featureless disc, inflamed by dawn, floated at eye-level dead ahead. No horizon lay before him, only sky above and mist below. Disoriented, Jan stared. The flat, limitless Salt Waste had vanished, along with its sweltering heat. A cold tang to the air told him he was now much higher.
Sky ahead shone white where the sun burned, paling the stars, but overhead was darkly, intensely blue, almost evening’s shade. The trickle of breeze felt thin, the air oddly bodiless. Jan found himself breathing deeply, despite lack of exertion. Below and before him lay nothing but cloud. The narrow promontory on which he lay jutted out into the empty air.
The rock itself was barren black, of a sort he had not seen before. Fused and burned, it appeared as though it had once been thickly liquid, like oozing pitch, then hardened. It felt heavy, utterly solid beneath him, like the substance of skycinders. It echoed faintly, subtly amplifying a low, gentle rustling behind him. Jan realized he had heard it all night as he slept.
Turning his head, the dark unicorn saw the jut on which he lay sloped steeply down to a broad ledge adjoining a sheer cliff face. The ledge narrowed and curved around the cliff on either side. Jan could not see where it led. Down the escarpment’s face from above streamed a curtain of water, the stone’s featureless blackness visible beneath the swiftly moving glaze.
Reaching the spacious ledge, the transparent fall fanned out, rippling and murmuring, before spilling in wafts of pale spray to the white clouds below. The sheet of water drenching the ledge was less than hoof deep. Jan realized he had felt its coolness against his heels the night before, seen the stars reflected there, slipping over the rim into emptiness below.
Understanding gripped him then that one step farther, or to either side, would have taken him, too, over the edge. He lay on the promontory, breathless, staring at the colorless flow of water washing the cliff. The darkness behind its gleam seemed not solid but empty, holding nothing, not even stars. A pulsebeat or a millennium later, Tek’s likeness formed itself before him.
Mottled like the moon she stood, sad seeming, poised as though watching for something beyond her sight. Longing rose in him, and then a tide of nausea. He remembered Korr’s words. They clung to him. Salt welled in his throat, choking him. Tek’s filmy image rippled in the evermoving glints and shadows of the dark waterfall.
She is my mate! The silent cry rang through his mind. She cannot be my sister! His heart knotted. He felt as though it might burst. The herd will cast me out. And her… His belly lurched. The sky above wheeled. Cold tremors shook him. What will become of our young?
For a moment, Tek’s image seemed to look straight into him. Brow furrowed, ears up-pricked, she appeared to be listening. Jan flinched and turned away. Shaky with hunger and thirst and the thin air’s chill, he gathered his limbs, managed to rise. Despair enveloped him. Before him plunged the abyss.
He stared at the mist swirling far, far below, caught glimpses of dark ridges, all blanketed with the same. When had the Salt Waste given way? He had no idea, no notion how he had come here. It was as though he had stepped from the earth, walked among stars, then crossed back into the world here, among the clouds.
He stood swaying. His shifting weight dislodged a stone. Silently, it plummeted. He found himself thinking, How effortless, simply to fall…
The clang of hooves roused him. Distinct but distant, they moved at a walk: half a dozen sets, coming from below and around the bend of the broad, wet ledge. The dark unicorn turned, careful, suddenly, of the perilous drop-off. On the black escarpment before him, Tek’s image had disappeared. Only darkness loomed behind the falling water.
Above the murmur of the waterfall, sound carried undistorted. Underlying the hooves’ faint, rhythmic tramp, the young stallion detected a thrum of voices. The hard, black rock hummed with the sound, vibrating ever so slightly. Jan felt the sensation as a whisper in his bones. The hoofbeats neared, climbing toward his level, and the voices clarified. He distinguished words, a chant:
“Red Halla’s royal scouts roved forth,
Explored the Plain’s edge east and north,
Sought scarlet dragons’ Smoking Hills
Beyond bare Saltlands’ bitter rills.
Four scouts fared forth, fast shoulder-friends,
Climbed clouded cliffs where world ends,
And, ragged ranks reduced to three,
Were warned of wyvern treachery
By Mélintélinas, lithe queen
Of dragons languid, long, and lean.
One scout sped south, strove to return,
Lest Halla, herd, and homeland burn.
His fellows fallen, stranded here,
Have heard no word four hundred year.
Their daughters’ sons bide, yearning yet
For news of Halla’s offspring’s get
That wyrms lie vanquished, Hallows freed
By valiant victors’ distant deed.
Come outlander with tidings and
His name shall be the Firebrand.
More swart than midnight swept of stars,
The moon athwart his brow bescars.
One heel whicked white by wyvern stings,
His flame the final firefall brings.
We dragons’ denmates must remain
Till Firebrand fetch us home again…”
A line of unicorns appeared around the bend. They were all smallish, stocky, with shag thick as the dead of winter. Their beards were bristling, their fetlocks thickly feathered. Their manes stood up an inch or two before flouncing to one side. Perhaps half a dozen filed onto the black, water-washed ledge, all darkish: charcoals, deep blues, an earthen red. Most were roans, Jan noticed, with a dapple, two brindles.
As they caught sight of him, their words abruptly ceased. Only the lead unicorn had chanted, the others sounding a harmonious drone. He was a young stallion, his coat berry-colored, almost maroon, and frosted with paler hairs. He and his little band stared up at Jan, balanced above them on his slender jut of rock.
“Hail,” their leader called up, eyeing him curiously. “Who be you? Be you come for the Congeries?”
The dark prince stared in turn. The last creatures he had expected to encounter so far from home were unicorns.
“Jan,” he managed, voice a gluey mumble. Bowing his head made the world reel. “My people call me—”
The words caught in his throat—for he realized that no matter how the herd might hail him, he was not their prince. By rights, Tek should be princess, she who was Korr’s secret, firstborn child, his own beloved mate and the mother of his young. Cold sickness surged in Jan.
“Care!” He heard the other’s cry only faintly. “Come down!” As through haze, he saw the maroon start nearer. “Why stand you on the brink?”
The dark unicorn felt his balance right, grasped only then how close to falling he had just come. Unsteadily he picked his way down the rocky slant to the broad, drenched ledge. The young maroon gazed frankly at his flowing mane, lightly fringed heels, at his midnight coat and silky beard. Behind, the others murmured and stared. Jan realized only then that the frayed remnants of Illishar’s feather still hung amid his hair.
“I be Oro,” his hosts’ leader was telling him, bowing in turn, “come for the Congeries. But what manner of unicorn be you, with a falling mane and pelt so dark and fine? What people be these of whom you speak? Whence hail you?”
“I—” Again, Jan faltered. Never before had he hesitated to declare himself Korrson, born of the Vale. Now such an admission appalled him. “Storm dr
ove me across the Salt Waste,” he stammered, “from the Plain…”
Not a lie exactly. His head throbbed. The world receded. His knees felt dangerously weak.
“The Plain?” Oro’s voice vibrated with sudden urgency. “You hail not of here but from beyond?”
The others buzzed excitedly. Jan could not discern their words
above the plash of running water.
“What is this place?” he gasped, locking his legs to keep from falling. “Where have I come?”
Oro cocked his head. “Dragonsholm—or, as those in the time of Halla called it, the Smoking Hills.”
Jan raised his head, turned to gaze at the small, shaggy unicorns before him.
“What do you know of Halla,” he panted, “ancestral princess of my folk?”
He saw the maroon unicorn’s eyes widen.
“The Hallows!” those behind Oro exclaimed. “An he claim ancient Halla, then he hail of the Hallow Hills.”
Jan shook his head, careful not to unbalance himself. “Nay, though I have pilgrimmed there. I am from the Vale,” he said slowly, “many leagues to the south. There my people settled after Halla’s defeat.”
Again the hubbub, mixed with cries of consternation. “Defeat? Halla defeated—slain?”
“Not slain,” he explained, “but forced to flee.” His forelock had fallen into his eyes. He tossed it back. “Within the year, my folk intend…”
The sudden hush that fell was deafening. Most of the party started and drew back, some nearly touching the clear curtain of water behind. Only Oro held his ground, staring up wide-eyed at the dark unicorn’s brow. Jan saw others’ anxious glances, heard excited whispers :
“Come outlander with tidings, and/His name shall be…”
“Firebringer,” Jan murmured, “so my folk call me.”
Still staring, Oro drew near. He quoted softly, “More swart than midnight swept of stars,/The moon athwart his brow be scars…”
He seemed to come to himself, bowed deeply before Jan. His voice, at first uncertain, gained in strength.
“Be most welcome among us, swart Firebrand, outland born, moon-browed. Come below! Sing at our Congeries, whither we, already overdue, now hasten.”
To the rear of him, his fellows began ducking hurriedly into the flat darkness behind the shallow waterfall. Jan blinked, stared, unable at first to comprehend what he was seeing. Swiftly, one by one, Oro’s band walked straight into the dark, sheer stone—over which the clear watercurtain streamed rippling—and disappeared. The roan maroon was the last to go, backing away from Jan. His joyous words rang ghostly above the water’s patter.
“All Dragonsholm must hear your news! Four hundred year have we awaited it, and you.”
13.
The Netherpath
We ourselves hail of the Hallow Hills,” Oro was saying, “four hundred summers ago.”
He trotted alongside Jan. Moments earlier, as the dark stallion had followed the mountain unicorns from the ledge, he had found himself passing not into solid rockface, but through falling water, which sluiced the dust from his pelt, into the narrow opening of a steeply slanting cavern. Promising rest and sustenance below, Oro and his fellows sprang with careless agility along the dim, rocky path—at times less a tunnel than a shaft. Jan followed as nimbly as he could.
“We be the Scouts of Halla,” the young maroon continued, “descendants of the original four dispatched to gather news of wyrms when that verminous race first squirmed its way with honey-tongued lies into our own far Hallows. One of the four died, and another departed again to bring word to our waiting princess. We do not know if he succeeded, or what befell if indeed he managed to warn her of wyvern treachery in Dragonsholm before their flight to the Hallow Hills. You say the wyrms defeated Halla? That she fled north to some place called the Vale?”
Jan nodded, weariness weighing him. It was nearly all he could manage simply to stay on his feet.
“Each winter at Congeries we sing of Halla’s deeds,” Oro informed him, “and of the tragedy which parted our ancestors from her so long ago. We honor the line of Halla yet and hail the far Hallows our true home.”
Jan looked at the shaggy maroon trotting just ahead, negotiating the treacherous terrain with ease. “Did neither of your two forebears ever depart?”
Oro shook his head.
“What held them here?”
The other snorted. “Wounds,” he answered. “Exhaustion. Then young. Then age.” He sighed. “None of us born after have ever seen the far Hallows.”
“Have your folk never traveled thither since?” A furrow creased the dark unicorn’s brow. “Did none ever seek to find the Hallow Hills?”
“The Saltlands form a daunting barrier,” the young maroon replied. “After our progenitors died, none knew the way. Moreover, the shifting steeps to western south be at times impassable.”
“Only at times?” Jan felt the furrow on his brow deepen. Though till now too few in number to reoccupy the Hallow Hills, forty generations of his own folk had pilgrimmed there. The resignation of Halla’s Scouts to remain so long from their ancestral lands puzzled him. “Then what keeps you here?”
“Our hosts keep us,” his escort replied, clearly misunderstanding his meaning entirely. “They have sheltered us since our first forebears came. They subsist a rare long while. Many who greeted Halla’s original scouts be living still.”
“Hosts?” Jan inquired.
“The red dragons,” the maroon-colored roan answered, “who settle these steeps, which be drenched in swirling clouds of their slumbering breath. By their grace, peaks hereabouts hold stable and still, that we need not fear.”
The dark unicorn shook his head, not understanding. His companion chatted on.
“All summer we forage the lower scarps, where the bristlepine and the rock lichens green. Each winter we climb to the cave-mouth and take the netherpath to a Congeries, where we feed upon the cave straw, the waternuts and milky white mushrooms that flourish below. Many pass the time in the Hall of Whispers, singing of Halla and of other heroes for our own and dragons’ ears.”
“The red dragons,” Jan murmured. Hunger and thirst had fogged his memory. Slowly, he recalled. “They who once cherished our enemies the wyverns before those wyrms rebelled and fled, seeking refuge in our Hallow Hills, which they overran. Before that battle, Halla sent her scouts to consult the dragons’ queen, Mélin… Mélintél…”
“Yea, Queen Mélintélinas,” Oro exclaimed. “You do wit of our red dragons, then.”
“Too little,” the dark prince of the Vale replied. His mouth tasted of cobwebs and dust. “Tell me of them.”
“They be vast,” the young maroon responded, “and spend their lives underground, lost in what we deem slumber, but they call contemplation. Betimes they wake, but only rarely do they stir.”
Jan turned to study his comrade. “Will I see them?”
Oro sighed and shook his head. “Unlikely. Most of my kind live whole lives without setting eyes on them, so deep do our dragons lie. No unicorn could pass into these mountains’ fiery heart unscathed.”
The dark unicorn considered. “How do you know of them, then?” he asked his shaggy guide. “And they of you?”
“We hear them,” the young stallion replied. “They speak to us at Congeries. Their words reach us in the Hall of Whispers. All winter they hark our songs, our tales, while they meditate and dream.”
Jan found himself scarcely able to take in his companion’s words, so far had thirst and hunger dulled him. The maroon-colored scout rattled on, and the dark unicorn of the Vale heeded as much as he could. This descent by what Oro called the netherpath was often precipitous. The tunnels themselves looked like gigantic worm hollows eaten into the dense black rock.
Lightwells provided illumination. From time to time, the tunnels passed beside breaks in the outer wall, allowing views either of sheer canyons or drifting cloud. Once from such a view, Jan spied distant fountains of steaming water shooting skyw
ard, accompanied by rumbles like thunder. The tunnels themselves occasionally shook. As Jan and his companions descended deeper, the lightwells grew rarer, then altogether ceased. Soon the only light came from cave lichens, glowing pale shades of blue and amber, yellow and mauve. In places, small luminous creatures like crickets meandered the walls.
Though Jan frequently heard the soft plash of water, the tunnels themselves were warm and dry. A gentle heat radiated from the black rock itself, which carried sounds softly yet distinctly—over great distances, it seemed. Several times, the party passed cavernous cracks lit by a shifting, reddish glow. Gazing down into one, Jan saw very far below a sluggish river of fiery stuff. When he asked what it was, Oro responded, “Dragonsflood.”
The path they traveled, though steep, was well worn. Generations of hooves had smoothed even so hard a surface as the ringing black stone. Other tunnels beside which they passed seemed long abandoned, coated along their interiors with pale, smooth, crystalline stuff. Lichens did not grow there, nor cave crickets crawl, but the iridescent crystal conducted light, providing a ghostly glimmer along such tunnels’ length. Passing the first of many, Oro snorted as if catching wind of something foul.
“Those hollows once were wyvern ways, before our dragons cast them out. Slithery wyrmskin contains a volatile oil which rubs off as wyverns glide, leaving behind a shining trail which hardens over time. “
Jan nodded, little needing the other to tell him so. He had discovered as much during his first pilgrimage, when a wyvern queen had lured him underground and tempted him to betray his folk. The wyvern dens underlying the Hallow Hills were thickly coated with such shimmering crystal.
“We do not tread there,” Oro added, hurrying past along their own dark, winding path. “Wyrmsoil be flammable, the hardened residue as well. During their sojourn here, the wyrms lay ever in danger of fire.”
The Son of Summer Stars ft-3 Page 11
