Darkling Fields of Arvon

by James G Anderson

  "These are significant?"

  "Indeed, they are," Kal said. "They provide the key." Aelward stared fixedly at him, but said nothing, and he continued. "The key by means of which one can know how to order the verses around the hinge verse. Look here." He refreshed his quill in the ink. "If I was to render these lines in a more literal translation—though the language may seem a bit stilted—so as to preserve the stressed characters, the lines might run . . ."

  Deprived of harp the bard midst his tower looks for the forgelord.

  Throneless the king midst his tower happens upon the lay's meaning.

  " 'D' . . . 'm' . . . 'l' . . . 't' . . . 'm' . . . 'h' . . . ," Kal said as he retraced the stressed letters in each line. "These letters would mean something significant to Ardiel, and to Hedric, too, for Ardiel would expect him to recognize and so solve the riddling kingsverse using the key."

  "Do you have a sense of the solution?"

  Kal's lips lifted in a half smile as he glanced up at the grey-haired man beside him. "As a matter of fact, I do. Let me show you. 'Midst his tower' is the hinge verse, so it stands in the middle and is written only once in kingsverse—though its meaning is determined in delicate balance, like a swinging door, by the two verses before it and then by the two verses that follow. So, in effect, though the hinge verse appears but once, it is rightly read twice. Because it appears on both the strap and scabbard was the sign to me that it was indeed the hinge verse." Kal wrote the hinge verse on the page. "The other four verses fit around it according to the key. A key with the four letters 'd,' 'l,' 't,' and 'h' around the one 'm.' A key with meaning to Ardiel and Hedric . . ."

  "Yes, ingenious."

  "Do you see it?"

  "Yes. It is that which is of meaning to both Ardiel and Hedric."

  "And that which, I suspect, was of key importance to Ardiel's last journey—"

  "And what set him on the path at the first—the Talamadh."

  "And so," Kal said and bent over the page once more, "arranging the verses according to their first letters, our piece of kingsverse would read so . . . ." The quill scratched again over the surface of the rough paper. Kal's hand paused occasionally to revisit the ink vessel.

  Throneless the king

  Looks for the forgelord

  Midst his tower

  Deprived of harp the bard

  Happens upon the lay's meaning.

  "But what meaning does this new riddle, begot from the two, render to your mind?" Aelward said, turning to study Kal's face in the candlelight. The young Hordanu could feel the older man's scrutiny. "If it is, as you suggest, a message from Ardiel to his closest companions, then what is its meaning? What was Ardiel trying to tell them?"

  "I-I would . . . I'd suggest," Kal said hesitantly, "that the hinge verse indicates the place to which Ardiel journeyed." He paused and cleared his throat, coughing gently into his hand. "And it is not the tower of king nor that of bard, as we might have—"

  "And who is the forgelord? And what the lay that he speaks of?"

  "I would suggest that it is—"

  "And who is the throneless king? And who the bard deprived of harp?"

  Kal was beginning to feel badgered by the tall man, whose hawkish eyes remained fixed on him. He knelt to the stone floor and reached out to collect the pages that had fallen scattered there in the pooled light and shadow. He would not be nettled by the man's insistent questions, he told himself; Aelward could wait for an answer. The stillness of the chamber felt strangely oppressive, despite the homely glow of the candles and the earthy scent of peat smouldering in the hearth.

  "Ardiel himself," Kal said at length as he picked up the last sheet from under the table. He straightened and placed the neat sheaf of pages on the table, then turned to face Aelward again. "Clearly, Ardiel speaks of himself as the harpless bard and the throneless king. He abandoned both harp and throne, one at the beginning of his reign, and the other upon his departure on his final journey." Aelward remained silent and attentive, and Kal spoke on. "That he fashioned the strap for the Talamadh and the scabbard for the sword—harp and sword each emblematic of the respective offices of Hordanu and king—shows that he had distanced himself from both, entrusting them to those whom he knew would be the only ones able together to decipher the meaning of his cryptic message. And so doing, follow him."

  "To . . . ?" Aelward asked, his eyes gleaming in the candlelight.

  Kal met the tall man's gaze with a level stare. "To the forgelord's tower, to Irminsûl."

  "Irminsûl," Aelward said and nodded, his face expressionless.

  "I suspect that Ardiel discovered something of great import about the Talamadh at Irminsûl," Kal said, dropping a finger to the page on which he had written the verses. "No doubt, that's why he used the word 'talamadh' as the key to discerning his kingsverse riddle. Perhaps he was summoning his companions, Hedric and Thrysvar, to conjure meaning from the puzzle and so journey to join him. Only Thrysvar's sudden demise prevented that from ever happening. Indeed, Thrysvar's death left the message unknown to any since Ardiel first framed it."

  Aelward nodded again. "And the lay? The lay in the kingsverse?"

  "His own Lay of Investiture, I would assume. 'The Lay of the Velinthian Bridge.' "

  The tall man raised an eyebrow.

  "Much of Ardiel's Lay has remained obscured from understanding, even from its first singing. But that Ardiel should venture to Irminsûl and make some significant discovery stands within reason. Whÿlas, his mentor, chided Ardiel repeatedly throughout his twenty-some years of high kingship that he had not fulfilled that which had been laid before him to accomplish, that which had been foreordained in his own Lay of Investiture. 'King and bard together shall quest the master's hidden tower forge'—so run the lines in 'The Lay of the Velinthian Bridge.' What, according to Whÿlas, ought to have been one of Ardiel's first quests as high king was in fact his last—to venture to Vali's ancient home, the Tower Forge, birthplace of both the Talamadh and Lightenhaft. It all stands to reason. But, what did he discover there?" Kal fell silent for a moment, rereading the kingsverse in the candlelight before lifting his gaze to the tall man. "I suspect, as is the nature of these things, that there is a prophetic bent to the riddle's meaning. Only now does the prophecy come to bear the fruit of meaning. I wonder if my fate and Starigan's are not also bound in these ancient lines. Perhaps it is within Wuldor's watchfulness that we should happen upon the message now, in these days. Perhaps it is Starigan, the throneless king, and I, the harpless bard, that were meant to venture to Irminsûl."

  Aelward nodded yet again, the faintest hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "So, you hit the mark with your reasoning, Kalaquinn, and arrive at the same conclusion as I," he said.

  Kal looked from the man back to the words written on the page, his brow knit, until, in dawning comprehension, it smoothed, and his eyes first widened, then narrowed. Blood rushed to his head, and the back of his neck prickled and burned. "Have you played me the jack, Master Aelward?" He rounded on the tall man. "You have known all along of the kingsverse and its significance, haven't you? Tell me! You have known all along of it, haven't you? Am I not correct?"

  The silence crackled between the two men as the elder regarded the younger. Aelward's aloof smugness irked Kal, and he struggled to contain his anger. At length, the man lifted his open hands in gesture of entreaty.

  "Peace, Master Kalaquinn," he said. "Be at peace. Yes, I guessed at the puzzle when first I studied the Talamadh's strap. But I needed to test my conclusion against your own. Forgive me for leading you on. But know this—what took me nearly two days to discover, you solved in but the span of an hour."

  Kal felt the tide of his anger begin to ebb. Of course, he told himself, Aelward had been astute to let Kal come to his own solution to the riddle and so confirm what the man himself had already discovered. Kal sighed, then said, "My apologies for my outburst, I—"

  The tall man raised a hand as he dipped his head, eyes c
losed. "No. No apology is necessary, my lord Myghternos Hordanu." He set his grey eyes on Kal again and continued, "We have arrived at the same conclusion, and now we must speak of what action needs be taken."

  "My heart misgives me at the thought . . . ." Kal stared absently at the page in his hand, then placed it on the table atop the sheathed sword and leather strap. "Yet another dire leg in an already impossible journey."

  "Kalaquinn, do not listen to the voice of fear, for fear is a very bad counselor," Aelward said, then placed a hand on Kal's shoulder, stooping slightly to look him in the eye. "And do not be afraid to hazard the impossible, for, in doing so, you will learn by necessity to depend on a strength that is not your own, but on one that is far, far mightier. In Wuldor's keeping, you will not be asked to do that in which he will not himself sustain you." He slapped the young Hordanu on the back. "Come, we have a journey to plan—two, in fact. You to find the lost prince, Starigan, and with him to acquire a spark from the Balk Pit of Uäm. Broq and I to the hyperboreal lands to find the hidden Tower Forge of Irminsûl and so scout it for you and Starigan."

  A smile creased the tall man's face, and he squared his shoulders. "Ah, Kalaquinn, do you see it? These are indeed days of wonder. The Hordanu and the heir to the throne of Arvon—you and Starigan will venture forth like a new Hedric and a new Ardiel! I have waited a long time for this hour. But, come," he said, turning his attention to the paper-strewn table, "we will leave at dawn the day after tomorrow, and, if we are to leave so soon, then we have much preparation to make and little time to make it in. But first, who shall accompany you to Kêl-Skrivar?"

  Twenty-Four

  Night was gently seeping away with the rising dawn. Atop the low stone wall that girded the hilltop upon which stood Aelward's Cot, Kal sat huddled in his cloak, chilled by the damp marshland air. He regarded the heavy sea of mist that covered the dwellings below. He had not been able to sleep, so at first hint of light he had stolen from his bed and climbed the slope to sit alone with his churning thoughts. For nearly an hour, as the darkness leached from the sky, he cherished the peace and stillness of the mist-shrouded landscape. His heart was filled with joy that his folk had found a safe haven. As for himself and his chosen comrades, this brief respite, he feared, would prove to be little more than the calm before the storm.

  A marsh pony nickered distantly from stables on the far side of the Cot. The verge of the mist gave way to the steady influx of morning light, allowing Kal a glimpse of a few ghostly dwellings set along the edges of the rising hillside, now out of reach of the ebbing tide of fog. A rooster crowed from somewhere below him, and the village stirred with the signs of slowly wakening life, men and women rising to their chores.

  From the door of the nearest dwelling emerged a large stout-limbed figure, unmistakably that of Devved, night pouch slung over his shoulder, short sword at his hip, and bowstaff in hand, ready, as they had agreed, for departure at break of day. Close behind him followed a slighter body, hobbled by a leg wound that would never fully mend—Devved's son, Chandaris. Outside the stone cottage, Devved turned to face the boy and leaned his bowstaff against the wall of the dwelling. He placed his hands on the lad's shoulders, then spoke to him, his head bent over the slender figure. Chandaris looked up, nodding now and again to his father. After a time, the burly blacksmith gathered his son to his chest. He held him for a long moment. Then, finally, after stooping to kiss his son's forehead, he stepped away and slid a sleeve across his eyes.

  Chandaris stiffened. His chest swelling and his chin held raised, the boy played the part of the resolute young man. Father and son faced one another, the one a small caricature of the other, and Kal felt an unnerving qualm of guilt and doubt. Had he been too selfish in choosing Devved as a companion for the journey? Had he pressed him into service out of his own need for the Holdsman's iron-wrought strength, as solid and reassuring as a storm-weathered oak?

  Devved again spoke a word to his son, then retrieved his bowstaff and, placing his arm across the boy's shoulders, led him towards a snug cottage that loomed visible through the thinning mist not a stone's throw away from them. It stood on the other side of a track that led through the marshland village up to Aelward's Cot. A plume of wood smoke rose from the cottage chimney to merge with ragged tendrils of mist. A taller boy careered from the door, a sword held aloft in each hand. Kal smiled. Bren and his makeshift weapons. He was forever sparring, his mind ablaze with the heroic feats of arms and the warrior. Bren rushed to Chandaris and thrust one of the wooden swords into his hand. The two young friends fell to playful blows, as they had many times over the past few days, in a reckless exchange of thrust and parry. At the same time, Kal's mother stepped from the door, lifting an arm in greeting to Devved. While Marina and the blacksmith talked, they regarded the lads with amusement. More than once, Marina nodded in emphasis of something she said to the man, placing a hand on his forearm. Kal knew the gesture well. No doubt Devved was feeling reassured, content in the knowledge that his son would surely be left in the best of care. So, too, Kal began to shed his own sense of misgiving. Marina would be to Chandaris like his own birth mother. Similarly, to the boy, Bren would ever be the watchful older brother. Even now in the swordplay Bren was showing it, for clearly he held back, not pressing his advantage in age and soundness, granting leeway to the younger boy. Soon enough would manhood come to both the lads, and each would have his own path to tread—and in manhood there were no easy roads, no sure way to escape hardship and toil. Kal sighed. It had been a hard decision, choosing Devved, but it was the right decision.

  Devved glanced over his shoulder, his attention attracted by the approach of two men. Gwyn and Galli strode up the road. Like Devved, each carried a bowstaff, each wore a sword, grim reminders of the perilous journey ahead. They had come on foot from the lower dwellings, which remained wreathed in a deeper mist. The blacksmith and Marina turned to greet them. For a short while, they conversed; then Galli stepped towards the boys, who paused in their sparring. Borrowing Chandaris's weapon, he illustrated a finer point of swordsmanship, advancing on Bren, who was forced to scuttle backwards on the defensive. The onlookers' laughter rose to where Kal sat as Galli handed the wooden sword back to Chandaris and thumped him on the back. The three men took their leave of Marina and the two lads and turned to climb the hill to Aelward's Cot. Devved lagged behind a step and swung his body around to give a final nod of the head to his son, who stood gazing up the slope, wooden sword held slackly in his hand, until Marina beckoned her charges indoors for breakfast.

  As the three trudged farther up the gentle rise, Gwyn spotted Kal on the stone wall and pointed him out for his companions. Kal waved to them, then slipped from where he sat to join them at the crest of the hill.

  "Ah, Devved. Briacoil. All is well?" Kal said.

  "Aye, the lad's settled in nicely with your folk," the blacksmith said, patting his night pouch with a big pawlike hand. "And I'm ready to leave when you are."

  Kal turned to Gwyn and Galli and, after a further exchange of morning greetings, the four men advanced along a path that led to the iron-bound oak door of the Cot. Drawing nearer, they met grooms leading saddled marsh ponies to hitching posts before the stone walls of the keep.

  "Our trusty steeds," Galli said with a wide grin.

  Devved stopped with the others and turned to look back at the stocky ponies. "Don't laugh, lad. I tell you, in all my years as a smith, I've never encountered horseflesh quite like this. I've helped with the farriery and seen them at close hand. There's sinew enough lying beneath that shaggy coat."

  "Devved's correct. They have a strength that is out of all keeping with their size," a voice behind them said. The heavy door to the Cot stood open, and there, in the dark portal, stood Broq. "Amazing creatures—sturdy, sure-footed in these treacherous boglands. They have the uncanny and unerring ability to find ground that's safe to tread, where you and I would see none. And these," he said, holding an upturned hand towards the ponies, "they are a gif
t to you, and a most generous gift, from Aelward, who awaits you within. Come." Broq stepped to the flagstone doorstep and stood aside, bowing his head and touching two fingers to the browmark that wound high across his forehead. Galli returned the gesture as he bowed to the older Telessarian.

  Followed by his companions, Kal stepped past Broq and entered a windowless antechamber, torchlit but still gloomy, with a flight of stairs directly ahead. The stairs led to a narrow hallway from which they entered a chamber already familiar to Kal—the room where he and Aelward had unravelled so many tangled threads of meaning. Now its shutters were flung open to a morning light, which, though feeble, was strong enough to chase away the shadows from the crooks, staves, shears, ewe's and ram's bells, pipes, horns, horn vessels, wolf traps, and other oddments that adorned the walls. All the manuscripts and parchments that had littered the table and the floor were now stored away in their cabinets and pigeonholes. Except for the large map still laid out on the table in the centre of the chamber, there was no evidence of the disarray they had left two nights before.

  "Briacoil, Kalaquinn. Briacoil, my boon companions. Welcome. It's good to see you," Aelward said as he turned from a window. "You've probably already eaten. Or perhaps you haven't yet. Either way, help yourselves. We've a long ride before us today—an uneventful one, I hope—but still, food may become a scarce thing in the days ahead. Come, do eat." Aelward held out his arm, inviting them across the room to a sideboard filled with loaves of warm bread and platters of cheeses and dressed meats side by side with brimming flagons of ale.