by R. J. Grieve
He returned to the others. “It’s too dark to see very well but all appears to be quiet. I think we must lead our horses until we are clear of the city, as there is not enough light to ride with safety. It will be slower, but the roads are strewn with fallen masonry and the last thing we need at this moment is for one of the horses to be injured.” He turned to Relisar. “Which way?”
Relisar closed his eyes and sensed the atmosphere. “The Presence is coming from the east, we must therefore go west. The avenue across the square appears to head in the right direction.”
As they picked their way carefully along the overgrown roadway, Andarion drew level with Celedorn.
“This thing, is it as bad as you say?”
Celedorn glanced over his shoulder to make sure that Triana was out of earshot. “Worse. It has eyes in its depths that glow like embers and once they catch you in their gaze, you can neither move nor speak. It has no physical form, so it is impervious to all weapons. I do not know how to fight this thing - I suspect that the only one amongst us who might know, is Relisar.”
“Then heaven help us, cousin, if it should ever catch up with us.”
Relisar, a little ahead of the others was not thinking about what pursued them. He found himself oppressed by the city itself. All that had once been great had now been taken over by the shades of its unhappy past. It remembered not the joyful days when the High King reigned and the gracious courts and fountains had rung with music and children’s voices. Now it remembered only its fall, the destruction and slaughter wreaked by the black horde of Turog that had descended upon it like locusts on young corn. They had ravaged it, stripped it, destroyed it. Flames had burst from every window and smoke rose up to such a height that it could be seen as far away as the Harnor. The elegant courtyards had rung to the clash of weapons and the screams of the dying, and each beautiful, jewel-like mosaic floor had flooded red with blood.
Relisar sighed, his spirits dragged down by the waste and destruction. He remembered the description of the city’s beauty in the Lays of Tissro, and even though it had all happened so long ago as to be the stuff of legend, it cut him to the heart that so much that was beautiful and good had been lost for ever. Yet the shades of the past were being displaced by a growing sense of evil that was very much of the present. The very same evil that had been the source of so much slaughter so long ago, was still present, still active, still seeking the obliteration of mankind. The events that had happened in the city so long ago would never be ended until either good, or evil, had triumphed completely. Viewed against such power, the forces of good seemed weak and ineffectual. Like a scattering of tiny stars, those that were left still shone before a void of such immensity that it threatened to swallow them whole. Eskendria and her people alone held true, few in number and deserted by those who should have stood beside them. Alone, Eskendria stood against a dark tide with a courage that far exceeded her strength.
“Yet it is deceptive,” Relisar murmured to himself. “For the enemy greatly underestimates the one weapon that we possess that he does not - faith.”
When the ruins finally began to peter out, the company mounted their horses and headed westwards across the plain towards the shallow circle of hills. The last fragment of paved road soon fell behind, and as they encountered the level grass, their speed increased. All of them were now possessed of a sense of urgency, and many fearful glances were cast behind them, as if they expected to see the two burning eyes pursuing them relentlessly across the plain. Although there was still nothing to be seen, the conviction grew upon them, Relisar in particular, that the evil will that sought them drew ever closer.
When they reached the brow of the hill, they drew rein and looked back at the darkened plain.
“Will this night never end?” groaned Triana.
“Dawn is not so far away,” Andarion reassured her, “but it only guarantees our safety if the morning is clear and the sun appears. The demon of darkness is affected only by direct light. A cloudy day does not inhibit it.” He tilted his head to look at the sky. What he saw was not encouraging - a dark, heavy blanket of cloud that threatened more rain.
Relisar, shifting impatiently in the saddle beside the Prince, suddenly gave a sharp cry of pain and doubled up over the pommel of his saddle. “Oh! It has found me! Its mind has detected me! I feel its will bent upon me!” He cried out again and flung up his hands as if to ward off a blow. “Its thoughts burn my mind. An’Valedor! I repel you. An’Ethidor! I resist you!” His face contorted with pain. “My mind is my own and I deny it to you. Begone!”
With a cry he suddenly seemed to break free of the power that held him and with a gasp of relief, straightened up so abruptly, he nearly fell out of the saddle.
“It knows where we are. We must fly, my children, there is no time for caution, we must fly!”
He swung his horse’s head around and clapping his heels to its flanks, careered off down the far side of the hill with little regard for safety or prudence.
“We must follow him!” called Andarion to his hesitating companions. “Come on!”
Hell-for-leather they galloped down the shallow flank of the hill, risking everything in the interest of speed. The horses picking up the fear of their riders, willingly lengthened their stride until the ground flashed beneath their hooves.
It was Celedorn, glancing over his shoulder, who first realised that their flight was futile. Against the backdrop of the shallow hills, a patch of darkness moved. Blacker and more intense than the night, concentrated darkness, like looking into a void. Swiftly it crossed the plain behind them, faster than the fleetest horse. Steadily it gained upon them, and as it did so, it grew and spread.
Relisar suddenly drew rein, causing his horse to come to a skidding halt. The others shot past him before they realised what he had done. Hurriedly they too brought their horses to a halt.
Relisar had turned to face back the way they had come.
“It’s no use!” he called to them over his shoulder. “We cannot outrun it. We must stand and face it.”
“No!” screamed Triana, who had by now seen what pursued them.
“We must,” said Celedorn and slid out of the saddle.
Andarion dismounted beside him and drew his sword. Observing the action, Celedorn remarked: “You waste your time, my friend,” but nevertheless did likewise.
Relisar stood a little distance ahead of them, his light-grey gown glimmering in the darkness of the empty plain, looking small and frail. He let go of his horse’s reins and it promptly deserted him in favour of the company of its own kind.
“Relisar?” called Andarion. “What can we do?”
“Stay back,” replied the old man with certainty. “This I must face alone.”
The moving blackness was now close enough for them all to see the two points of fire that burned within it. A cold power swept over them, a will so strong as to fall like the hammer- blow of a thunderbolt. Triana fell to her knees.
It came to a halt a short distance before Relisar, and as at Skerris-morl, it began to rise up like a black wave about to break upon the fragile figure below it. The eyes were much larger now, burning with fury and malevolence. Celedorn suddenly realised that he was not frozen into immobility as he had been the last time, because the eyes were not looking at him. All their power, all their evil was concentrated upon Relisar.
Up and up it swelled, towering against the paling sky, completely dwarfing the tiny silver-grey figure which stood hopelessly defiant before it like a flower before a hurricane. By contrast, as the darkness around it grew a shade less intense with the approach of dawn, the blackness became even blacker, an absence of light, as three dimensional as a deep well into which one might fall for all eternity. Celedorn glanced at the sky, but to his dismay, the thick clouds continued unbroken above them. He watched as the two eyes, like molten ingots from a furnace, bored into Relisar, but the old man was not transfixed by them as he and Elorin had been. Instead he lifted his hand and hel
d it towards the rearing cloud, palm outwards in rebuke.
“I am Relisar, Keeper of the Book of Light. You have no power over me. It is written that darkness must give way before light.”
The was a moment’s ominous silence before a deep, harsh voice spoke from the depths of the cloud.
“There is no light here.”
So powerful was the voice that the words echoed across the plain, and those that heard it felt their legs weaken and almost give way beneath them.
But Relisar stood firm. “That is a lie,” he declared with conviction. “There is light everywhere except your master’s lair. He can tolerate its purity no more than you. It is alien to his very being and will ultimately destroy him. So I command you, return to the darkness from whence you came! An’Valedor seth mirente!”
But the blackness did not disappear, instead, it billowed up still higher until it blotted out the sky before them. Celedorn tore his gaze away from it and looked eastwards. The first threads of dawn were drifting like strands of mist behind the stark outline of the hills.
He nudged Andarion, who started as if awoken from a horrible dream. “If only Relisar can keep it occupied a while longer,” he whispered, jerking his head significantly towards the east.
But Relisar was playing a dangerous game, for the spirit in the cloud was rapidly becoming
enraged with his temerity.
“You dare to try to stand in my way!” it thundered. “You dare to attempt to oppose me? You pitiful creature, whose span is so short as to be beneath contempt. When mankind was twisted to my master’s will, I was there. When his servants wrought destruction on the Old Kingdom, I was there. When the final battle is won and all your miserable kind wiped out, I will be there! You dare to challenge me? You are nothing! You are less than nothing! Now watch as I snuff out your life as the fragile thing it really is.”
With a final growl of rage it poised itself far above Relisar and began to curl over like a huge black wave about to crash down on the helpless figure below it.
“No!” screamed Elorin and before anyone could stop her, darted forward and gave Relisar such a violent shove out of the way that he fell sprawling.
Celedorn leaped towards her, but he was too late. The darkness tumbled down upon Elorin like a black avalanche and she disappeared from view, engulfed within it.
Chapter Thirty-two
The Hill of the Seven Crowns
Just at that moment two things happened at once - Relisar called out something in a language that none of them had ever heard before, and as he did so, his whole being began to glow with a silver light. At the same moment, the heavy clouds on the horizon split apart and the sun peeped over the rim of hills, casting a long golden finger of sunlight across the plain.
A mighty roar of pain issued from the blackness. Light radiated from Relisar, turning his gown and beard to shining silver that grew ever stronger, until even his skin shone like moonlight. His whole being radiated such brightness that he lit the plain around him. So too, second by precious second, the sun’s golden glow increased in power.
The black shape began to writhe and twist in agony, diminishing in size as it did so. Still the two sources of light blazed upon it, and little by little it shrank down towards the earth, squirming itself into convoluted shapes as it did so. Soon it was only the height of a tree, and yet smaller it shrank, until its mass became small enough to reveal Elorin lying motionless on the ground. Celedorn darted forward and fell on his knees beside her.
Still the evil spirit shrank until it was the size of a man, then a book, then a hand, until finally it shrank to a tiny dot and vanished.
All the company watched this event with stunned disbelief - except Celedorn who had caught Elorin into his arms and was desperately trying to wake her.
“Elorin! Elorin!” he called frantically, as he had done so long ago at the Serpent’s Throat.
Relisar ran over to him. Celedorn turned up a white, distraught countenance.
“She will not wake! I can find no injury upon her. Her skin is warm and she is breathing but she will not wake! Help me, Relisar! Help me!”
The others gathered round as Relisar took Elorin’s hands between his own and closed his eyes. The glowing light had faded from him and he was himself again - just an old man deeply worried about someone he loved.
When he opened his eyes, he looked despairingly at the man kneeling so anxiously before him. “Her body has not been harmed, Celedorn, but......but the demon has taken her soul.”
“No! No!” Celedorn caught her closer against him. “It cannot be! She is not dead. Look, she is warm, she breathes. It cannot be!”
“She breathes because her body has not been hurt,” Relisar replied, his old voice trembling, “but the spirit that made her who she is, has gone.”
The Prince sank down beside Celedorn. “What does this mean?” he asked Relisar.
“The body will live until it dies of starvation. When that happens all hope is ended, for her spirit can then never return.”
Andarion snatched at the words like a drowning man. “You mean that while her body lives there is a possibility that her spirit might be restored to her?”
“I would not give you false hope. There is only one thing in all creation that is capable of restoring her soul, capable of reversing the evil that has been done.”
“What?” demanded Celedorn, his face haggard. “Tell me!”
“A chalice flower.”
“A chalice flower?” echoed the Prince blankly.
“But they are just a legend,” whispered Triana despairingly. “They do not really exist.”
“The Book of Light says they exist,” remarked Relisar quietly.
Andarion groaned. “No one has ever found a chalice flower. Not even in the days of the Old Kingdom.”
“That is because the chalice flower cannot be found with the eyes, it can only be found with faith - the substance of things not seen.” Relisar looked at Celedorn, still tightly cradling Elorin. “In the distance, arising out of the plain, you will see a perfectly round hill, topped by seven ancient oak trees. That is the Hill of the Seven Crowns referred to in the Lays of Tissro. In the centre of the ring of trees stands a stone altar that is older than even the Old Kingdom itself. Legend has it, that the flowers grow around the altar. You must go there to seek one.”
Celedorn remained staring at him and said nothing.
It was left to Andarion to voice his thoughts. “But the hill is only a few miles from Korem and must have been searched many times - yet nothing was ever found.”
Relisar had not looked away from Celedorn and some sort of unspoken message seemed to pass between them. “Perhaps the need has never been so great. You must go, nevertheless, and you must look not with your eyes but with your heart.”
Andarion stood up and shading his eyes against the rising sun, directed his gaze eastward across the plain.
“I see it. A small hill with trees on top. It looks about a mile or so from here. I will go with you.”
Finally Celedorn spoke. “No,” he said, his face ashen but set. “I must go alone.” Gently he transferred Elorin into Triana’s arms and bending forward, with great tenderness, touched his lips to her brow. Triana, unable to bear the look in his eyes, turned her head away and fought to control her tears.
“Take care of her,” he said softly.
He rose to go, but Relisar called him back. “You must leave your sword behind, Celedorn,” he advised. “No weapons are permitted in such a holy place.”
Slowly, Celedorn unbuckled his scabbard and handed it to Relisar. Without a further word, he put his foot in the stirrup and swung into the saddle.
Andarion stood for a long time, watching the mounted figure diminishing into the distance in the direction of the hill, until he heard Triana’s voice calling to him.
“I need your help to put some blankets on the ground to make Elorin more comfortable.”
“I think she feels nothing,” he remark
ed, looking down at the still figure.
“Nonetheless,” said Triana stubbornly. “I promised Celedorn I would take care of her.”
The Prince laid out some blankets and folded a cloak into a pillow, then he lifted Elorin in his arms and set her down carefully upon them.
“What do we do now?” he asked Relisar.
“We wait.”
“She looks as if she is peacefully asleep,” Andarion commented, then noticed that a tear had run along Relisar’s beaked nose and was hanging in a large drop at the end of it.
“She did it to save me,” he sniffed. “She had such a generous heart.”
Triana rounded on him as fiercely as a wildcat. “Don’t dare to speak in the past tense, Relisar! Elorin is with us yet.”
“You are right, my dear. Her fate now lies with Celedorn, as I always knew it would. If anyone can save her, he can.”
The long weary day dragged by like torment. The sun shone on the little encampment and its occupants, with a beauty that was wholly unappreciated. Not a movement was seen on the plain or the hills beyond. Scarcely even a bird cleaved the air. The hours crept by, with even nature appearing to join in the waiting. The sun slowly rose to its zenith, shedding the rich honeyed light of autumn, turning the dry grasses to dun, cinnamon and sand, and still nothing stirred. Andarion prowled restlessly around the camp, always ending up at the same spot facing east. Always his eyes searched the plain in the direction of the hill but there was absolutely nothing to be seen.
