Cloudfyre Falling - A dark fairy tale
Page 33
Gargaron wondered what time of day it were. The last occasion they had experienced some semblance of night were those hours before they had trekked to Appleford Terminus. Their railcourse journey alone had taken much of the day. Dusk should have transpired when they were busy constructing their footbridge. Yet it had not. Now they were some hours since Hawkmoth had performed that strange incantation to have saved Razor, (a spell that perplexed them still) and there were yet no sign of night.
It ought be beyond midnight, thought Gargaron. Though the air be grey with fog, not be black with night.
He gazed sleepily at Hawkmoth who slumbered still. And did not intend it, but as he gazed back into the flickering flame, his mind drifted and his eyes began to shut. He told himself to stay awake. Then his head lolled slowly forward… And into deep slumber he fell.
3
Gargaron opened his eyes. He found Grimah curled up behind him and Razor lying with his head beside Grimah’s. Locke’s serpent had coiled itself close to fire, and purred like a cat as it slept. Melai were snuggled in beneath Gargaron’s jacket. He watched her a moment or two, searching for her breathing. He relaxed when he saw her chest slowly rise and fall.
He sat up slowly, careful not to wake Melai. From habit he attempted to tap into his Nightface. Of course nothing came of it. He sighed, lamenting again his loss. He spotted Locke, sitting there, toking on the sorcerer’s pipe. The crabman coughed, his face a grimace. He looked around at Gargaron, his eyes red as berries, his jaw hanging loose. He went to speak but for once the crabman were without words. He tipped his head at Gargaron and grinned lopsided. Drool ran down his lip.
Gargaron pulled blankets over Melai, then stood, stretching, looking about, searching the heavy cloud. Locke pointed to something above their heads, spoke some silent words, laughed. As far as Gargaron saw, there were naught there but hefty fog.
He spotted Hawkmoth then. The sorcerer were some distance away, seated there in the mist with his back to campfire. Snow fell heavy. Gargaron felt relieved that the sorcerer were at last drawn from his unconscious state. But to sit over there in the cold, his back turned to his companions, struck Gargaron as a bit odd.
He started his way over. Slowly. And came up around Hawkmoth’s right side, giving the sorcerer a berth of several yards. He were not certain why he did this. Perhaps he were anticipating a surprise that never came.
He found Hawkmoth awake and lucid, searching foggy skies. When Hawkmoth’s eyes found him he said, ‘Oh, giant, you are awake at last. Two sets of eyes be better than one. Come sit with me and help me search.’
Gargaron frowned, looking at the sorcerer, suspecting now that, like Locke, he too had smoked some weed and his mind lost to its enchantments. ‘For what do we search?’
‘A marker.’
‘I have to confess,’ Gargaron said, ringing the cold from his fingers, ‘I do not follow.’
Hawkmoth indicated the shrouded landscape before them. ‘It has been many years since I have been this way, giant. In my youth I could negotiate these mountain passes in my sleep. However, the exact route to Sanctuary has since caused itself to fade somewhat from my memory. Yet, I do recall a particular crag, known by some as the Witch’s Beak. On sunny days you will see it from the lowlands. It be a mountain peak that looks to have been melted by some dragon fire and drooped over. If I happen to spy it, I should know where we are positioned, and thus understand which direction we must head.’
Gargaron sat, crossing his legs, pulling his jacket up about his neck, searching through the mists, hoping to spy this crag. ‘Might you have had two sets of eyes on it already,’ Gargaron said, pointing back at Locke. ‘You do know our good Sir is at your pipe?’
The sorcerer simply smiled. ‘Aye. He claimed he had never smoked and were curious about it. Thus he requested a toke. I warned him that the weed I enjoy be not for the faint of heart. He insisted, saying he had never been more keen for new experiences than he has in these days of the Ruin. Perhaps it were lack of judgement and foresight on my part…’ He shrugged. ‘You must admit, he certainly looks to be enjoying himself. And who am I to deny folk their small pleasures in such times when we have all lost so much?’
Gargaron begrudged no-one their small pleasures. But he hated to think how they would fare if suddenly they were ambushed by Dark Ones, or some other such critter; they were essentially now one fighter short of a full compliment.
If he were not still distracted by events that had taken place hours earlier he may have questioned Hawkmoth’s reasoning and emphasised his concerns so that it might not occur again in future. As it were, he sat there surveying the drifting cloud banks with his mind still back there on bridge. And to the question of exactly what had happened. One Razor had fallen to some sort of strange ghostly fate, while a second had galloped across a phantom bridge. That particular Razor, as far as he knew, lay over there beside Grimah. And Grimah, judging by how comfortable he appeared in the other horse’s presence, did not seem to sense a difference.
Hawkmoth studied for a moment his chronochine. And gazed again about the fog banks. ‘A stroke beyond midnight,’ he declared.
Which meant Cloudfyre’s orbit were again out of sequence as there were certainly sunlight beyond the fog, not darkness. And it felt more like midafternoon than middle of night.
‘While we sit and search for this marker,’ Gargaron said, ‘do you mind if I ask what happened back there at Pukaya’s bridge?’
Hawkmoth were silent for some time. Deep in thought. As if he had forgotten such an incident and were having some fight to recall it. In the end he said, ‘Aye, I thought you’d want an explanation.’
‘Well?’ Gargaron breathed in of the chilled mountain air, waiting for the sorcerer to go on.
‘You recall the story of my Eve? How I brought her back from death.’
‘Aye, I do.’
‘Well then, now you have witnessed my method.’
Gargaron were puzzled. ‘You brought Razor through time?’
‘Aye. As I did Eve.’
Gargaron were thoughtful. ‘Yet, I do not follow. When you recounted the tale of your wife, you told me that you had brought her through in pieces.’
‘I have somewhat perfected the process since, you understand. Still, the spell remains more a curse than gift.’
Gargaron eyed him, curious. ‘How so?’
‘Did I did not tell you how I came to learn the trick?’
‘No, you did not.’
‘Hmm. I thought I had. Well, would you like to hear it?’
‘I would, aye.’
4
Hawkmoth stared distantly at the ground, taking his mind back. ‘I gained knowledge of this curse from a witch I had set out to capture. A particularly venomous witch known as Chianay. I were part of a contingent of Sanctuary Brothers who rode after her for days, through swamp and mountain and desert. We on our steeds. She on her wingless Skink, Firebird. We arrived in a town called Ulchurch, through which she had passed some hours prior, and to which her Firebird had lain waste. We found naught but incinerated bodies and countless burnt cottages. Still, a handful of shell-shocked survivors told us what she had done and which way she had fled. Though the stories were conflicting. According to them she had fled in several directions. There were five of us. We decided to split and each trail a separate route. Should we find her, we would summon the others via war horns. So, my path lead to an abandoned monastery on the Blasted Hills. Razor were on some scent by then and so carefully I set about searching the ruins.
‘To carve a long tale short, that’s where I found her, cornered and hiding in one of the northern halls. She were injured I saw. Her Skink nowhere to be seen. Before she could muster any magic against me I bound her with Wood Feet, an incapacitation enchantment.
‘She looked frightened as I dragged her back to Razor. And were much younger than me, I noticed. Strange, for we believed we had been chasing a far older witch. It were a youth enchantment, I convinced myself, for she wept and tried sellin
g me a story that she were but a young girl stolen from her family and recruited into Vantasia against her will, used as a witch’s pawn and sent out to fight unjust causes for which she had no fervor. She said her family would be tortured if she disobeyed her orders, and her family killed if she absconded, that she’d had no choice but to carry out her missions against sorcerer folk and their sympathisers.
‘At first, I listened to her not. For resolute I were and ambitious and single minded in my youth. But while we travelled back to Sanctuary she offered to teach me, for her freedom, a special enchantment from a branch of magic I’d had only a vague awareness. Temporal magic. I were a far younger soul in those days. Blinded by youth and ambition. I once sought the glory of my brethren’s seat of power in Sanctuary. I thought the gaining of knowledge, to have power over and above that of my Order, would help put me there. And so, in exchange for Chianay’s liberty, I told her to teach me this magic.
‘I had used it but once before I used it on Eve. But have learnt its dark secrets in the days that have followed. What you saw earlier… well, I opened a doorway into the past and plucked him from his position seconds before he went down into ravine. At the same time I summoned the standing bridge from the days before its collapse, hoping no garetrain were running its course at that particular moment. For a few sunflares, three separate rivers of time were but one. Thus Razor completed his escape from the Harbingers and made ravine’s crossing in relative safety.’
5
It were still fascinating to Gargaron, that someone had such an ability. To corrupt time. To revert events that had already transpired. And once again, it took his thoughts all the way back to the day he’d been fishing on Buccuyashuck River, the day that first shockwave hit and for him this Ruin began.
Hawkmoth searched Gargaron’s eyes. ‘Something troubles you, giant.’
‘Aye. Why must my family die when there are those such as yourself who might simply pluck them from a time before their demise?’
‘I have answered this, giant, if you recall. Were I to pluck them from an old time stream and deliver them to this one, this blight would still have killed them. That seems to be the way of it. I can be no more blunt than that.’
‘Could you not have delivered them to a time when this blight has been chased off?’
Hawkmoth shook his head. ‘Sadly, no. I have but the ability to bring them only to the present, to me. Not cast them into the future. If there be a way then I know it not.’
Gargaron stared into the falling snow. I need accept they are gone, he told himself forlornly. There were a lump in his throat as he pictured his daughter’s dear smiling face. His thoughts took him to the elven woman he had lifted from Grimah’s saddle. And to Locke’s elven companion. ‘Should one of us perish,’ Gargaron said allowed, still staring into the falling snow, ‘would you enact this strange magic and bring us back?’
‘Depends on the manner of death. If it be a result of the blight, then no. And you must remember, giant, this time magic be a curse. Every time I use it, part of me turns to stone. Ultimately it will kill me.’
Gargaron looked at him. ‘Stone?’
‘Aye, giant, stone.’ Hawkmoth shuffled in his robes, lifting them up so that his ribs were exposed. A huge slab of his pale skin were blackened and course. He scratched his nails against it and tapped it to demonstrate what he meant. ‘I let Chianay go, believing she had bestowed on me a great power. And I returned to Sanctuary feeling like I could conquer the world. I spoke nothing of my time with her to my Brothers. But I were soon to learn that certain field reports had been received telling of captured witches trading cursed magical lore for their freedom.
‘I were young and arrogant. I refused to believe it. Yet when I tested my new skill on a deceased canine I discovered the truth of it. I managed to bring bits of the dog through time but for my efforts I were struck down with stoneskin. I were furious. I tracked down Chianay and demanded she reverse it. She laughed at me and said it could not be reversed, that it were mine now forever, a keepsake to help remind me of my greed and avarice.
‘My rage would have had her killed that day. For I were bad tempered and irrational in my youth. But I were chased away by her sisters. For years I sought revenge but alas time has a way of teaching you introspection. I began to look upon life in a new light. I had once believed I were untouchable, a kind of immortal for all the magical powers I possessed. But Chianay, for better or worse, opened my eyes. And in fear of my mortality I refrained from pursuing temporal lore.
‘Many years later however, after meeting my dear Eve, I were convinced, with Eve’s help, that I could utilise this magic for good. We stumbled upon a combination of herbs that helps dampen the stoneskin curse. Yet, it remains a spell I must use most sparingly. For obvious reason.’
Gargaron looked at length at the sorcerer.
‘I see the pain in your eyes, giant. But none of us can escape death. Those who live, die. It has always been this way.’
‘Aye. But loved ones are plucked from us far before their time. That part of life be unfair.’
Hawkmoth nodded. ‘Yes. You are right. That part of life be most unfair.’
6
They were interrupted by Locke’s drawling, weed affected voice. ‘Thaaat therrr look a bitty lark a haaag’s beak t’meeee.’
Both Hawkmoth and Gargaron turned and saw the crabman’s pointing fingers. Through a break in the fog banks, high up and far off, there appeared to hang a peculiar formation of stone. Black and glistening. Hawkmoth smiled. ‘Aye, that be it, my good fellow. And with it comes my bearings.’
He hefted himself to his feet with what looked to Gargaron like a decent struggle. As if he had taken a knife to his ribs. Hawkmoth noticed Gargaron’s look of concern. ‘I be fine, giant,’ he told him. ‘I be fine. My stone skin shan’t kill me today.’
SHADOW GUARD
1
THE final push to Sanctuary took another two hours over rough, rocky terrain. The scenery did not change much, although as they drew higher into the mountains the trees and shrubs became ever smaller and more tortured looking and the covering of snow on ground grew thicker. Locke were mostly sobered by then, yet although he smiled, he spoke little. When Melai asked if he were alright he said simply, ‘Aye, and enjoying this chilled air on my skin.’
Gargaron wondered if he were not suffering some interminable headache.
Not long after, Hawkmoth could be heard saying, ‘We should have encountered snow beasts by now.’
‘What’s that you say?’ Gargaron asked.
‘Snow beasts,’ Hawkmoth said aloud. ‘Up in these reaches of the Bonewreckers, they form a natural guard against any encroachers.’
‘Snow beasts?’ Melai asked.
‘Aye. Monsters. Big shaggy brutes. They amble about on all fours and you’d probably think them docile to lay eye upon them. But they are quite adept on two legs, and can run like a gale. Their specialty is devouring creatures far bigger than themselves.’
The others looked about, searching the fog banks now with a no small amount of disquiet. Gargaron laughed without humour. ‘You did not think to warn of us these creatures earlier, sorcerer?’
‘Well, giant, I have had a lot on my plate.’
‘As have we all,’ Gargaron reminded him.
Hawkmoth conceded with a dip of his head. ‘Yes. Quite right. Though, it be the Bewitched we ought be concerned about. More so than the Snow Beasts.’
‘The Bewitched?’ Gargaron asked.
‘Aye, the Bewitched,’ came Hawkmoth’s reply as if obvious.
‘And what pray tell be the Bewitched?’
‘Witch puppets. Dolls. They walk taller than me and possess not a soul amongst their number. They are made of wood and metal and some peculiar material known as plasteec, a material devised and used only by the witches. They possess vacant eyes and without flesh nor heart they feel no pain. They are fearsome creatures and I have often seen them match the might of Snow Beasts.’
Hawkmoth looked scolded. ‘Oh, perhaps I am not explaining myself. Snow Beasts are not our enemy, giant. I were master of beasts during my time at Sanctuary. I coexisted with them for close on a year. That were some time ago, of course, but they are long lived and I’d wager the older ones among their ranks, should they still live and be not perished like almost all else, would recognise me and hold off an attack.’
Gargaron searched the fog banks. ‘Well, let us hope upon that then, shall we.’
2
They pressed on and had been going for several minutes when a wall of rock, shaped somewhat like an enormous frozen wave, loomed up out of the mists before them. Beyond it, like grey wraiths, mighty stone towers could be seen amidst the shifting fog banks; towers unlike Gargaron, Locke, and most certainly Melai, had ever laid eyes upon.
‘We have arrived,’ Hawkmoth said, pulling Razor to a halt. ‘I give you all, Sanctuary.’
It were not how Gargaron had imagined. He had expected a blocky mountain fort constructed of square stone bricks, with a large barricading wall, possibly even a moat. He’d imagined guard towers soaring to dizzying heights and numerous battlements packed with sorcerer folk ready to fight off would be intruders.
What he saw instead were beautiful bizarre, organic structures; structures more like that of rounded, elongated, domed cacti, structures that looked simply to have grown rather than put together by some builder’s hand. And as tall as hills they were, soaring out into misty skies. Gargaron counted seven or eight of them, none of them with a flat edge. And there were no sign anywhere of sentries. No sign of sorcerer folk.