by Marc Secchia
A silvery rain of notes thrilled the air as the Druid briefly tuned his instrument, and his crooked hands caressed its polished surface as if to assure the harp of his tender love. The frame was gold-embossed; it threw glints of light onto his face as he hunched over the strings. He drew a breath, picked out a chord of stunning simplicity and perfection, and said, “This song is called The Orison of Carralil Hima, a particular favourite of mine. Carralil, good outlander, was the little-known founder of the order of Druids, and the first to codify our Druidic knowledge, mores, and beliefs. He was a true servant of the Forest, which is Mother to us all.”
“Even so,” murmured Alliathiune, sitting cross-legged to listen.
Amadorn’s beautiful voice filled the cavern with its rich sound, never overpowering, but in truth a finer instrument than the harp he played so dextrously. At the end of the first refrain, there was an awed silence as he let the topmost note of his tenor fade amidst the rocks and crannies. And when he was done, it was several long minutes before anyone dared to break the reverential mood.
“That was wonderful,” said Zephyr. “The best I’ve ever heard it done.”
Amadorn bowed deeply over his instrument.
The others were quick to agree. Kevin thought it curious how the music had drawn them closer together, a common thread between diverse creatures that for a moment allowed them to forget all differences. But the wind outside was rising, making the stand of black cherry trees guarding the cavern entrance rustle and creak, and a swirl of air made their campfire dance and flatten abruptly.
Akê-Akê stirred restlessly, drawing his bow closer to hand. He peered suspiciously into the shadows. “This darktime has an evil aspect,” he muttered. “It turns my blood to ice. Perhaps it’s just that Witch out there, stirring the occult forces. I don’t trust Witches!”
“Neither would she trust a Faun Loremaster,” the Unicorn pointed out. “Come, who will offer another song?”
“He who speaks should also act.” The Druid offered Zephyr his harp. “Would you play for us, noble one-horn? Take our minds off this Faun’s dark murmurings. Play for us a song of merry foals sporting in a verdant meadow.”
Kevin’s mouth hung slightly ajar. How was the Unicorn to play, he wondered?
“You will make me homesick.”
“Is the grass not green and lush here in the Marches?”
Zephyr batted his long eyelashes at Glimmering of Dawn, perched upon a dry branch which Snatcher had dragged into their shelter. “I’m afraid the soil in this region is poor in nutrients and acidic withal, noble Eagle, yielding a type of grass which is plentifully available but poor in nourishment. I shall sup more richly once we depart the fens.”
“My ignorance shames me.”
“Do not bow your head so, worthy scion of the lofty places. You meat-eaters should hardly concern yourselves with the quality of the turf beneath the paws of your hapless prey.”
Alliathiune put in, primly, “Such uncalled-for violence!”
Glimmering of Dawn flexed his talons purposefully. “It may not be Elliadora’s way, good Dryad, but this is what we Eagles were created for. Why else be furnished with a strong beak, mighty talons, and eyes to pierce the farthest distances? Good Dryad, you cannot imagine the joy of swooping down upon one’s prey like lightning from a clear sky, with one sharp, clean strike to break their neck, and–”
“Ugh! That’s quite enough, thank you!”
“Or the thrill of a long, stealthy pursuit of one’s dinner,” added Hunter, smiling until her fangs gleamed in the firelight, “followed by the pounce, claws rending flesh, and hot, thick blood spurting down one’s throat … wonderful!”
Alliathiune pinned her with a stare fit to drill holes in her hide. “Say that again, good Mancat, and I shall turn your precious tail into a leafy vine!”
“Sss!”
In the shadows to one side of their merry campfire, the Lurk clapped his palms together to produce a sudden gunshot of sound. It startled Ss’aywaaull’ss-ara so much that she leaped to her feet, all claws extended like daggers and fur a-bristle, before she subsided with a further hiss of annoyance. “Let us hear from the Unicorn,” growled Snatcher, his eyes gleaming in the dark. “This bickering is purposeless.”
Zephyr cleared his throat awkwardly. But with nothing more forthcoming from the Lurk, it was up to him to continue. “This piece comes from the Vo Tomalia cycle by Luminar the Bard, a renowned Unicorn musician who was also the sire of Sudibar Treefriend. It is said that he finished this composition on the eve of his death, and though it was intended to remind his friends of happier times ere the wars began, he never lived to see those times fulfilled.”
So saying, he bent his horn towards the harp and caused it to be plucked several times as if by invisible fingers. “What a beautiful timbre it has,” he whispered, and bent his whole concentration to the task.
His musicianship was outstanding, and his horn-magic could produce combinations of notes unreachable by Human hands. The melodies he wrought were as complex and delicate as a finely-worked filigree, full of minor and diminished chords in the opening passages, but gradually developing into spirited, lively glissades of sound that hearkened in an extraordinary way to the picture of foals playing on a bright, summery meadow.
Kevin covertly watched Alliathiune watching Zephyr. Shame and mortification clogged his breast. But what could he do? Those rash words of his could never be unsaid, not with the best will in the world. He had no courage to pierce the shroud of silence she had drawn about herself.
Feeling dispirited and full of bitter melancholy, he eventually drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 16: The Black-Rock Mountains
“Shäyol reborn!” whispered Alliathiune, staring at the destruction with disbelief and horror in her eyes. She rounded on Kevin and demanded, “How did you know?”
He shuffled his feet, fervently wishing not to have spoken out of turn. Kevin had woken with the dawn to hear Hunter urgently telling Zephyr that the Lurk was missing, having sneaked past her–a feat in itself. Glimmering of Dawn took to the air, scouted briefly, and returned to report that the encampment of the Men of Ramoth lay in smoking ruins. Then Kevin had a horrible flash of insight–and blurted it out before he could think to clamp his jaw shut. This had recently become a habit, to his dismay.
Kevin examined his boots and whispered, “Just a lucky guess.”
“You must be the luckiest guesser alive!” she grumbled at length. “The fouling of the Well was a guess too, if memory serves me.”
“Very curious!” agreed Zephyr, regarding Kevin with a wizardly gleam in his eye. “Do you call this ability some kind of Earth logic, good outlander?”
“It’s intuition, that’s all.”
It was more than a lucky guess. Snatcher had been acting out of character ever since Glimmering of Dawn had spied the Men of Ramoth, and his agile mind linked that with an unguarded moment following their crossing of the Küshar Ravine, when the great Lurk had referred to ‘the hurts of the heart’. He had secrets. He had never spoken of his past. Eager though he was to leave Mistral Bog in their company, yet he had seemed hesitant and unsure of himself, needing Zephyr’s permission and approval before he would join their quest. Kevin had simply guessed that Snatcher’s hurts had something to do with these Men. If only he had kept his blasted tongue still!
There, in the heart of the encampment, between the smouldering frames of tents, enshrouded in the drifting billows of smoke and ash, was the lumbering figure of the Lurk, dragging his club in the dirt behind him as he wandered aimlessly to and fro, apparently unseeing. Bodies lay scattered like seed upon infertile ground. A sweetish, sickly smell assaulted the nostrils. Akê-Akê readily identified this for Kevin as the savour of burnt flesh. He promptly heaved up his breakfast of waycrust.
Alliathiune made an exasperated sound and glared at Hunter as though the Mancat had personally aggrieved her. “Exactly how does a ten-foot mountain of a Lurk sneak out of a cave past
a Mancat who can see in the dark?”
“Swamp-dweller magic,” hissed the feline, drawing her blade with a zing of honed metal. “Akê-Akê spoke aright. This is an evil darktime’s work.”
“The Men of Ramoth are not above such labour themselves,” said Zephyr, lifting his gaze to the sky. “Where is our companion the Eagle?”
“Scouting.”
“Think you this is their whole number, slain in bloody vengeance?”
Akê-Akê grunted, “I would not count on it, good Unicorn. Some will have escaped, and will now thirst for our blood.”
“A Lurk’s vengeance, but for what?” Amadorn whispered, leaning heavily upon his staff, but the whole company heard him. “Shall I summon rain to douse these fires?”
“Nay, let us draw no further attention to ourselves,” counselled Zephyr. “We should collect the Lurk and hurry on, lest a multitude of Skanks descend upon this ghastly buffet and mistake us for the main course. Look, already the grimflies gather to these ripening corpses. Who, then, will approach the Lurk?”
There was a collective scuffling of feet and toeing of dust that drew a great snort of disgruntlement from the Head Witch. “What–are none brave enough?” she sneered, looking down her bony nose like a teacher deriding an unruly class. “I cannot imagine how we will face the Dragon-Magus Amberthurn! Prepare to be eaten, I say.”
“Helpful advice as always, Witch!” Akê-Akê snapped back. “Follow me. I’ll lead the way.”
In solemn silence, the companions filed down into the encampment, pausing to test each hollow or shadow amongst the debris for fear of ambush. Kevin was astonished at how easily the Mancat’s slender figure melted into the shadows, only to reappear somewhere unexpected, such as on the far side of what he had thought was open ground, or behind them when a moment before she had been ahead. At one point there was a slight scuffle and Ss’aywaaull’ss-ara trotted up to confer briefly with Zephyr, while wiping red stickiness onto a scrap of cloth. He did not want to know what she had done. Body after crushed and broken body, with sightless eyes and shattered and severed limbs, lay obscenely sprawled amidst the wreckage. The sights and smells of ruin struck his senses like morbid drumbeats, dull and insistent, invading, and torturing his mind. He knew he would dream about it later.
Snatcher’s eyes were dry and bloodshot. The Lurk looked upon the party not only as if they were complete strangers, but as if he were barely conscious of them at all, his face devoid of expression. His hide was charred and abraded in numerous places. Dirt and grime mingled with half-dried blood was splattered in drips and globs across his torso and limbs like paint flicked onto a ghastly canvas. From his aspect, it was abundantly clear what had been the engine of ruin in the encampment that previous darktime, but also it was clear that his revenge–whatever the motivation–had run its full course.
What could be said? The companions were stunned and dismayed. Even the Mancat, usually so decisive, faltered as they approached the Lurk. She looked to Zephyr for a lead–but he too was dumbstruck.
But Alliathiune acted. Stepping up to the Lurk with a gentle greeting, she reached up for his free paw, which hung eye-level to her, and grasped it with both of her hands. She needed both hands too, for together they barely encircled one of his thumbs, such were her petite dimensions in comparison to the great swamp-dweller.
“Come with me,” she said. “We travel south this lighttime.”
The Lurk followed her like a lost puppy.
* * * *
For three lighttimes thereafter, the companions marched as if the very breath of Shäyol blistered their backs, as though by pushing on to the end of the Southern Marches they would leave behind all memory of the Men of Ramoth. The weather turned warmer and brighter, afflicting Kevin with anxiety that the direct sunlight would sicken him as on Earth. But the worst he suffered was a sunburnt nose, apart from a tangle with a patch of briars and the fright of his life when he discovered a grass snake in his bedroll one morning. The warmth brought out thick swarms of grimflies. They were as tiny as gnats but had a bite disproportionate to their size, which would raise into itchy red welts the size of Kevin’s fingernail. The reptilian Skanks, which fed upon the grimflies, bothered Glimmering of Dawn in the main, but he soared above them or rent them with his talons in order to secure a modicum of peace. Those on foot suffered regular flurries of the aggressive little reptiles, beating them away with blows and curses.
There was little conversation, save the occasional curse or complaint and the regular sound of sharp slaps against necks or arms to swat grimflies, which rose from the rank fens in the late afternoon and evening seeking to feast. Outlander flesh was definitely on the menu.
At least the terrain was more hospitable, for a turn or two beyond noon, the ground began to rise into gently rolling hills, still dominated by verdant, grassy meadows and odd stands of hardwood trees, but the fens dried up. The clouds obscuring the Black-Rock Mountains blew away under a freshening south-easterly breeze, which brought with it a resinous and slightly musky tang of forested slopes and dry, dusty draws nestled amongst those forbidding, volcanic peaks. Kevin eyed the route ahead uneasily. Billows of smoke rose from several peaks. He was certain he could see the crimson ribbon of a lava flow. ‘Hellfire and brimstone,’ he muttered. ‘Where else should a Dragon-Magus elect to live?’
Zephyr paused to take his bearings from a cluster of saw-edged granite spires, before deciding upon a route slightly more westerly, that he declared would lead them to Amberthurn’s lair after another four lighttimes’ travel.
Despite the miraculous improvement in health he had enjoyed since his arrival on Feynard, the extra pace was a stretch too much for Kevin. The Forest might be beneficial to Humans, but he had less stamina than any of the others. Even Amadorn, stumping along with his walking stick, comfortably outdid him for both speed and endurance over the course of a lighttime. Kevin had blisters on top of his blisters. His breathing developed an asthmatic rasp which had Alliathiune looking on with concern.
“We’ll kill the outlander at this rate,” she noted to Zephyr.
Kevin wheezed unhappily as his companions talked across him.
“Tell that to the survivors of Ramoth, but seven turns travel behind us,” said the Unicorn. Tell it to the wanderer that Glimmering of Dawn reports in their midst. Mayhap the Dark One stalks us even now.”
Later that evening, the Eagle returned with a more detailed report. “I glimpsed a strange creature marching with the Men of Ramoth. He had skin of sooty bronze, almost black, and his eyes were pools of crimson. His form was Human in aspect. I suspect your Dark Apprentice, or a sending of his.”
They discussed his report in low, worried voices, but did not draw any further conclusions save the need to travel on swiftly come dawn.
Kevin, sleeping the sleep of the dead in a low hollow, woke before dawn in a sweat-soaked tangle of blanket and robe with a cry choked on his lips and the acid tang of bile in his throat. “Blasted nightmares,” he whispered, rolling over to discover a fallen branch poking into his back. “Filthy sticks. I want my nice, comfortable bed back.”
More truthfully, he did not. Why could he not have good health and a cosy bed? With a soft, self-pitying snuffle of disgust, Kevin decided that further sleep was now impossible and besides, he needed to water a convenient bush. Whereas before his digestion had been the bane of his life, these days his bowels were surprisingly well-behaved, apart from the odd reaction to a disagreeable tuber. The vegetables and berries these creatures so loved, kept the plumbing working well–sometimes rather too well. Kevin regarded the thickly-starred sky, thinking: he had never seen such splendour. Was Earth up there somewhere? Sulä yielded enough moonlight, albeit from behind a thin frosting of cloud, to alleviate his fears of stepping upon something nasty, so with a grimace, he rose, wrapped his cloak close for warmth, and stepped away from the sleeping bundles of his companions.
The final turn of darktime was cool and still, with a slight ground-mist hanging
about the roots of bushes and boles of trees. It was like stepping out upon a carpet of fairy mists, Kevin thought, remembering his first dreams of Alliathiune and Driadorn’s need. Who would ever have imagined he would now be wandering a strange land in such company as had gathered to the cause of curing the stricken Forest? The cause of getting eaten by Amberthurn, he muttered beneath his breath. Talking Eagles and mythical creatures indeed! He was starting to take it all for granted. He was losing his scientific perspective to the persistent irruption of reality that characterised the Land of the Seven Rivers; to its pervading magic, and to the damage he had wrought through the mysterious Key-Ring bequeathed to him. Kevin hesitantly touched the keys in his pocket. Who knew what use they would be? He found himself unable to shake the premonition that peculiar and powerful keys implied the existence of peculiar and dangerous doors to be opened by one Kevin Albert Jenkins.
What was that sound? He paused. A trickling of water, a breathy sighing sound akin to wind keening deftly through a narrow aperture …? A flush of fear instantly made his heart trip along. He shrank at once into the cover of a nearby gloamingbark tree–but this was furnished with a large spider web, which made his exit resemble being shot from a cannon. Tripping over an exposed root, the outlander sprawled headlong in the direction of the sound he had heard. Leather brushed against stone; something hard struck against his back, crushing him to the ground with a gasp of breath squeezed out of his flattened lungs.
