by A. L. Brooks
Reluctantly Melai trailed her companions inside and Gargaron wound the wheel on the wall and the enormous stone door rolled slowly into place, sounding gritty, almost wet, on the stone as it went.
Before long they were all shut in and with it swept Melai’s breath as she fought a wave of panic, her eyes squeezed shut, her tiny fingers digging into the calloused hands of Gargaron. He knelt beside her and held her close. And all the while, Hawkmoth’s wraiths hung there staring at them all with their hollow godless eyes.
5
When the wave came they heard above ground, and somehow through the rock, a deep sonorous sound that were almost physical, even this far below surface, with an ocean of rock and stone to shield them. What it must do to the organs of the living should you be caught in its path this close to its epicenter, were something Melai did not wish to contemplate.
The deep solid earyth around them groaned. And while the vault held tight, there came the sound of rock smashing into the floor beyond the vault door. Melai huddled up against Gargaron, his huge arm held protectively around her. She believed the huge cavern were collapsing around each vault—instead of being crushed to death she would be entombed alive. The prospect terrified her and she wished she had run from this place when she’d had the chance.
For her sake, Gargaron tried to project an air of calm. Though within he felt pensive. He believed like Melai that the subterranean settlement were caving in. That it would leave them imprisoned. Though he reminded himself they had a sorcerer at their disposal—Hawkmoth would have some spell to free them, surely.
He looked across at the sorcerer who sat there as if the ordeal were merely an academic problem he were thinking through, mentally ticking off each groan and roar, as if they’d been expected, as if he had calculated each one. Though his look of calm were nothing compared to that of Locke. Of them all, the crabman seemed most at ease. And sat there smiling, as if enjoying himself, his eyes trailing between the giant and the nymph, as if amused by their consternation.
‘Does this not concern you?’ Gargaron called out to him.
‘On the contrary,’ Locke called back with a grin, swilling whiskey from a small fogged-glass vessel, ‘I find it rather exciting. And amusing it must be said.’
‘I find nothing amusing in it,’ Melai snapped.
‘You would if you could see your faces.’ He smiled. ‘I’ve been to sea. Sailed the broiling Godless Ocean. Waves a hundred feet tall and whalefish chomping at the hull. So, this be nothing.’
6
The groan became a roar as the stone plateau beneath which they were sheltered protested, like a gortroll hunkered against a mighty wind, heaving with all its might to stand its ground. It went on for what felt like hours. Grimah and Razor snorted nervously, pushed together side by side, Razor’s eyes glowing green in the dim light. And Locke’s serpent were even more relaxed than her master, curled up and asleep she were. Hawkmoth’s three ungodly wraiths hovered there, their expressions never altering, demonstrating no fear, no angst, no happiness no sadness. Nothing. They just seemed to stare and stare at the living.
When the rumbling and the noise finished it happened quickly, with nothing but the booming sound rolling away like an ocean wave crashing and sweeping away to shore.
Melai’s fingers were still dug into Gargaron’s skin, though he hardly noticed. Everyone looked about, waiting now for the second wave.
It came, though not as wild or as booming as the first. Though it seemed to last longer. And when it were done Locke put away his whiskey and said, ‘Ah, nothing like a good groundshake to get the blood flowing.’
Hawkmoth worked at the wheel. It would not budge until Gargaron took over and put his considerable strength into it. Once the vault door got rolling it became evident that part of the opposite wall had collapsed against it.
Gargaron managed to heave some stones aside, making a path through which his companions could exit. Behind them the wraiths trailed.
7
Mounted again, Hawkmoth lead his small troupe through the subterranean settlement and Locke gazed wistfully at the treasure stashed in the vaults. ‘Oh, what that would have bought us had the world not gone to the rats.’ The troupe trudged back through tunnel and passage, up a hundred stairs, and through the large open doors where golden sunlight and fresh air met them. As they emerged, eyes squinting in the sun glare, they looked about, taking in their surroundings.
Part of the stone fortress had fallen, leaving a spectacular path of wreckage and ruin down plateau’s side. Trees had come down. A guard tower had smashed against the iron grate that spanned the stone stair case, the only way on and off this place. But most surprisingly, at least to Gargaron, were the stardrive tower. There it still stood, westways from his vantage point, on its awkward angle, eerily defiant, like the arm of some long dead demon pushing out into the atmosphere hoping to tug the moons from their orbit.
Hawkmoth stood before the three wraiths; they had trailed his every step and they hovered there now as if awaiting some command. He bowed his head and Melai heard him something to them, some strange incantation. Within moments, as Cjayen dragon’s spirit at Varstahk had done, the wraiths lifted away into the sky. Up and up she watched them, away and away into the heavens until they were gone.
Once they were out of sight, Hawkmoth mounted Razor and pulled him round, heading for the stairway. ‘Come,’ he called to the others. ‘Let us leave this place.’
BLUD OF WRENBUGGUS
1
THAT night the sky hung in a strange twilight. Melus and Gohor did not set; not entirely. And no moon rose but Vasher; though pale it were and low in the sky it hung, as if timid to rise further. Old Soor and the Cat’s Eyes never appeared. Hawkmoth, Gargaron, Melai, nor Locke, none of them had ever known such a phenomenon and it chilled them. Though you would not have known it with Locke. He seemed more fascinated than unsettled. ‘I have lived long and seen much,’ he said in the awestruck tone of someone watching perhaps the birth of a child, ‘but this is a first, I must say.’ He turned and looked at the others. ‘I feel privileged to witness this. It may never come again that at these latitudes night be as light as dawn.’
‘Our world lists like a dying fish,’ Melai answered him. ‘Why would you feel privileged?’
‘There be beauty in all things,’ Locke said. ‘Sometimes the things that terrify us most are themselves the most stunning to things to behold.’
‘Our world is being murdered. I see no beauty in that.’
‘So, we differ. Even in this, there is beauty.’ Locke slept soundly that night. Helmet off. Belly up, snoring against the hide of his sleeping serpent. But he were alone in slumber. For the others slept fitfully, if at all, consumed by what this strange night could mean.
‘I offer but one explanation,’ Hawkmoth declared late into the wee hours. Above, the moons of Vasher and Leenurs could barely be seen. And only the brightest of stars made themselves known. ‘And not a very informed explanation, I’m afraid.’
Gargaron and Melai, seated on opposite sides of crackling camp fire, waited for him to speak. They had made camp on the edge of a ridge. Around them were spread a sparse upland scrub. On horizon were snowcapped peaks, which gave them some hope, for there at last were the Bonewreckers, and the troupe had taken some heart that they were now in sight. Yet, like all nights since the coming of the Ruin (as Hawkmoth had termed it), there were no chirruping bugs, no night hour ornithens nor soaring batlings, no nocturnal critters scampering around unseen in underbrush. Naught but their stinking bones and carcasses lying in dirt or snared amidst branch and leaf and knotted in weeds.
Down ridge were a wooded valley, steam rising, forming a layer of mist across the canopy. Earlier in the evening, Melai had longed stared at it. To her it were Thoonsk, within reach, within grasp. Her sisters could have been down there awaiting her. To Gargaron it were Summer Woods, and he imagined he could hear his dear Veleyal calling for him to come and play.
‘These boom
-weapons have shaken Cloudfyre’s orbit,’ Hawkmoth finally told them. ‘Have you noticed our suns? These days Gohor be almost the size of Melus. Our world has been knocked off kilter. There be no other explanation.’ He sucked on his pipe, smoke lifting away into cool “night” air. ‘Thus it makes our mission all the more urgent. The sooner we pull up this witch assault on our world, the sooner we can begin to put things to rights.’
2
Later, Melai lay down beneath nearby trees, closing her eyes, her limbs sprouting roots that joined with stem and branch, hoping for some sort of bond with this scrubland. To hear its whispers, as she would have in her home trees back in Willowgarde. Hawkmoth sat by ridge’s edge, facing west where mists rose up from woodland below like arms of ghosts. His eyes were shut, his pipe out and placed by his staff and the remainder of his belongings near where Razor lay in slumber beside the two-headed Grimah.
Gargaron were not tired. He could not sleep while Melus and Gohor lingered there at horizon’s lip. The sky were streaked in red and yellow. As though it were sunrise… or sunset. He pondered an alien notion that perhaps Melus and Gohor would never rise, nor set again. That Cloudfyre’s orbit were now so corrupted that it would forever remain this way.
He looked across at Locke. There he slept soundly, a grin upon his face. A strange fellow to read, Gargaron thought. He tried to put himself in the crabman’s shoes for a moment. What would he say about the suns failing to rise or set forever more? Something stupidly optimistic, Gargaron decided. Perhaps something such as: At least we be not caught in eternal dark, nor stuck sweltering in eternal midday heat.
Which, Gargaron conceded, would have been a fair point.
Despite everything, it put a smile on Gargaron’s face. If he were not mistaken he were beginning to like that funny little fellow. And he could not place why.
He cast his gaze once more at the distant Bonewrecker range. There they lingered, distant and indistinct, ghostly peaks so tall they appeared to scrape Great Nothing’s dark belly. Hawkmoth had spoken of the urgency to see this mission through. Which meant first reaching this fortress, Sanctuary, high in those mountains. But how far to go and how long were it to take? Good sorcerer Hawkmoth suggested it might be yet another seven days on foot from this current position.
Gargaron spread out his worn vellum map, one his father had left to him. It had been passed down, father to son, for generations, and often added to by its successive owners. It were a map showing off vast regions of Cloudfyre, detailing rich hunting grounds and migration patterns and pinpointing locations of newly discovered species. It were crisscrossed in detailed trade routes, highways, backwater trails, byways. It showed locations of cities, towns, villages, settlements. It showed canals and railcourses. It showed ironways and bridges and aqueducts. Gargaron were intrigued to find also that the fort beneath which he and his new friends had sheltered away from the boom-shock were depicted, and even named. Though not quite as Hawkmoth had called it. King’s Lair, it were written here. And there were naught to denote its stardrive tower. Perhaps I shall add it to map when all this business be over, he thought.
It were here also, with eyes scanning for possible hidden secrets of this current region, that Gargaron discovered something else. Something intriguing. Something that may just hasten their push into the mountains.
3
Melus and Gohor began their rise sometime near where Gargaron adjudged natural dawn would have played out. By then Locke were still in blissful slumber. As were Zebra, lying there like a faithful hound, head tilted to one side, tongue lolled out. And Melai looked for all the world as if she had finally nodded off. Grimah and Razor were away nibbling grass. Hawkmoth though, still sat in his meditative state, unmoved now for hours.
Gargaron, in this silent dawn, got about quietly, collecting an armful of sticks and twigs and placing them upon the embers of their fire. It smoked profusely for a while before, whump, flames billowed and engulfed the pile. He sat back, staring into the hypnotic flames…
As fatigue tugged at him, he noticed Hawkmoth were roused from his meditation, gazing peacefully over the woodland below, and smoothing an oil cloth over his long two-faced staff.
Gargaron let him have some moments to himself but eventually he strolled over and sat beside him. For a while they both contemplated the world beyond. And Hawkmoth went on with his polishing.
‘An intriguing weapon,’ Gargaron remarked after a while.
Hawkmoth looked across at him, with the air of someone still waking. He past the staff toward Gargaron who took it tentatively, holding the faces at arm’s length.
‘Rashel be the angel,’ Hawkmoth told him. ‘Lancsh, the demon.’
The mouths of both were currently closed. And their eyes as dark as the blackwood they were carved from.
‘An angel and a demon coexisting,’ Gargaron said. ‘Even if they be mere depictions… well, don’t you sorcerers believe this a hex. Bad luck.’
Hawkmoth tilted his head in thought. ‘Aye. Unless you be me.’ He smiled. ‘I have adopted such an item as a charm. Especially since this one came into my possession a gift. Thus, the angel Rashel and the demon Lancsh be a harmonious pairing if ever there were one.’
‘A gift?’
‘Aye, from my dear wife. Eve relieved it from a sorcerer who tried to have her killed. Some Brother whose name I have long forgotten. What he were doing with such an item remains a mystery. But, in his case, the hex proved his doom.’ Hawkmoth wore something of a smile of irony. ‘Eve had him, ah, dispatched.’ As he sat there he packed his pipe.
Still gripping Hawkmoth’s staff, Gargaron watched the sorcerer work. ‘Speaking of Eve, I have not yet said, she were a most caring and hospitable soul. She made us feel very welcome when we arrived at your little house on the hill.’
Hawkmoth simply nodded, and a look of yearning filled his eyes. ‘Aye, she be a most amazing woman. I miss her much.’
Gargaron gazed across at him thoughtfully. ‘You love her deeply.’
Hawkmoth lit his pipe and took a long toke. ‘Aye,’ he said giving a look to the giant that seemed to say Why would I not? Exhaled smoke lingered about his face.
‘As I did my wife,’ Gargaron said. ‘But she were a giant such as I. And not my sworn enemy. As a sorcerer be to a witch. How, pray tell, would such a union ever come about? If you do not mind me asking, of course.’
For a time Hawkmoth simply smoked, lost in yesteryear, reliving memories from days long gone, a look of deep nostalgia watering his eyes. ‘I were sent out on a mission to eliminate a party of witches who had been ambushing sorcerers of the Order. Being a young sorcerer at the time I had secretly made up my mind that I wanted to get to know a witch. Especially since my idea to mend our bridges with the witches were ridiculed by my Brothers.’ He sucked back smoke, held it in his lungs then blew it out. ‘A strange thing to be told all my sorcerer’s life that witches were my sworn enemy, that I were to kill them on sight, when I had never met one. I felt a need to understand them. To discover for myself why they were so reviled, why we hated them so.
‘When we found them there were a brief battle. But we outnumbered them and those who were not slain were dragged back to Sanctuary and tortured for their secrets. Yet, I held a secret of my own. Eve. Or Renascentia, as she were known then. She had been amongst those we had ambushed, and she were a striking beauty. She had caught my eye instantly. This were perplexing to me as I had always been told that witches were brutish, ugly creatures, riddled with sores and holding a foul stench. But she belied all that. At first I thought it were an enchantment of beauty. But she, as I were then, were young and she certainly had no need for such enchantments, for naturally beautiful she were.
‘The day of our ambush, she feigned death in order to escape our wrath. But I detected it. I did not tell my fellows. I bespelled Eve with an enchantment of paralysis and hid her from wolven predators. As my fellow brothers marched our captives back to Sanctuary I posted myself as sentry to our captured
outpost. Here I returned to Eve and fetched her to a place in the hills. There I removed the spell. In effect I held her captive but as we got to know each other I learned that she were a likeminded soul, as curious about my kind as I were about hers. After initially distrusting each other we ended up forming a strong bond. Thus our friendship began.
‘I attempted to hide my relationship with her from my superiors and managed to do so for a number of years. But eventually I were found out. I were spending more and more time away from Sanctuary and my superiors grew suspicious and had me followed. When it were discovered that I had been running away to Eve I were incarcerated and eventually put on trial. I were then brought before a court, tried for treason and banished from the Order.’
4
Hawkmoth sat pondering those days. Lost deep in his thoughts. It were a touching story of love, Gargaron thought, a tad more dramatic than how he himself had met his own wife whom he had known and been friends since his boyhood. He had been keen on asking Hawkmoth about Eve’s death and subsequent rebirth yet did not know how to bring it up. Yet as he sat there he were surprised to hear Hawkmoth suddenly recount it.
‘It were they who had her killed,’ Hawkmoth said. ‘Once banished I made my mind up never to have anything to do with them. Thus I did not trouble my old Order. Yet they found it unconscionable that I should choose to live and love a ‘dirt hag’ as they called them. There were those who could not get passed this. Thus they organised ghost wolves to see to her, for it seemed they did not have the guts to face me.
‘Caught unawares, she proved no match for such creatures. She were ambushed and hopelessly outnumbered. I were alerted by the sparrows and finches with which she had communion, who flew to my abode and imparted what they had witnessed. I rode out on Razor and found the ghost wolves about to feast upon her. In my fury I dispatched each of them and hurried back to cottage with the remains of my beloved bundled up in a bloodied blanket.
