Cloudfyre Falling - A dark fairy tale

by A. L. Brooks

  ‘What be your name?’ he asked her.

  ‘Cahssi of the Xoord.’

  ‘And pray tell us, Cahssi, what are we facing?’

  ‘Mortatha. The End Times. Cloudfyre Falling.’

  RECORD OF GHARTST

  1

  ‘THESE are the ruins of cities once belonging to men,’ Cahssi told him. ‘They stood before the last Great Fall. Eons beyond eons lost to time and lore. And may stand here again if those of the Void do not find it.’

  Hawkmoth frowned. ‘Those of the Void?’

  ‘The formless demons that invade our lands.’

  ‘The Dark Ones,’ Gargaron murmured.

  ‘Aye, whatever name you know them, they have crawled from their barrows from where they have lain for ten thousand years. They wreak havoc now throughout our country, and perhaps by now have spread throughout all countries of Cloudfyre. They spread poison on the air and contaminate our rivers and oceans and they pummel the living and leave no trace of towns and cities. Everything be in peril and none can halt their march.’

  ‘Can they be stopped?’

  ‘If there be a way, I know it not.’ She watched them, saw the skepticism in the sorcerer’s eyes. ‘If you won’t believe me then cast your gaze across the paintings in this cave and you will learn their story soon enough.’

  Hawkmoth looked up, surveying the inside of the strange shelter. But could not see much in the lightless parts. ‘What be it we face?’

  This Cahssi breathed hoarsely. But managed to speak. ‘I told you. Mortatha. Cloudfyre Falling. As it is written on these walls.’

  He frowned at her. ‘Mortatha?’

  ‘Aye. Recorded and foretold here by the hands of those of Ghartst.’

  ‘Ghartst?’ Hawkmoth did not comprehend. The tablets Skitecrow had spoken of were of Ghartst. He blinked, perplexed.

  He stood, hefted his staff about and scratched it against the wall and Rashel’s eyes gave off soft illuminating light.

  Cave paintings became apparent. Ancient beyond ancient. And Hawkmoth had an immediate sense of tremendous age. Twenty thousand, forty thousand, perhaps as much as fifty thousand years these dated.

  And what they showed chilled his veins like nothing had ever in his long life.

  Dark Ones. Harbingers. Those of the Void. Of many shapes, many sizes. Black, bright of eye. And immense bell towers, of which he did not recognise. And death, destruction, shockwaves. It were extremely detailed. Set out like a story. Each one below the other, crude vertical columns of pictographs accompanied by strange Ghartst language characters.

  The others had crowded up beside him.

  ‘What be this?’ Gargaron asked.

  Hawkmoth tugged at his long beard thoughtfully. ‘How the ancients recorded their tales. There are many such sights in the realm but none so old as this, I feel. And ones I have seen are primarily concerned with hunting, with moon worship, with burial of great clan leaders. Some go back two thousand years. Some eight thousand. But none have I ever encountered be of this age.’

  ‘Can you interpret it?’ Melai enquired.

  ‘Some. Not all.’

  ‘What do you read here then?’

  And here Hawkmoth felt the need to concentrate, lest he misinterpret things.

  2

  At first Hawkmoth found it hard to comprehend exactly what he were seeing. There seemed to be countless tales of mass dying, of shockwaves killing people. And of mysterious virus wiping out entire populations. And folk not knocked off by any of these forces were cut down by legions of Dark Ones. In all so many different shapes and sizes did they come: ones who rode the air, ones who walked the earyth, ones who swam the oceans, ones as small as beetles. The idea seemed that they cleansed, for whatever reason, Cloudfyre of all living things.

  Melus and Gohor, the suns, were also depicted. If Hawkmoth were reading it right, it seemed that every ten thousand years Cloudfyre’s orbit kicked off a series of strange catastrophic events. End times, when Cloudfyre’s orbit were pulled violently from one sun’s keeping to the other.

  Last of all, Hawkmoth learned of the Death Bells. The single cause of the boom shocks. Again, if he were interpreting all of this correctly, a ring of these Death Bells, housed at the tops of mighty towers, circled the planet in a north-south band. And their tolling, were primed and activated by Cloudfyre’s orbital phase, namely the commencement of Cloudfyre’s transition from one sun’s gravitational hold to the other.

  Hawkmoth left the spherical interior of this cave. He wanted fresh air, sunlight, some breeze on his face. None of which he found outside.

  3

  Gargaron had been studying the cave paintings, trying to glean some meaning from them. He had deciphered some of it. But not all. ‘Hawkmoth?’ he said. ‘What does this mean? Is there still some way here to aid our plight?’

  ‘Three of our kind left for the closest of the Empty Towers, to bring it down,’ the witch informed the sorcerer. ‘I believe they have failed. Or perished.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Melai asked, fluttering about the cave, studying the diagrams and pictures. ‘What does it all mean?’

  Locke sat patiently outside, trusting that he would be informed of current developments in due course.

  ‘Did you notice Cloudfyre?’ Cahssi called out to Hawkmoth, pointing up at the diagram on the wall. ‘The closest Bell Tower lies north of here… oh so many leagues away. Beyond the Grass Sea. That be where the boom shocks emanate.’

  Hawkmoth did not reply. And would hear no more. He needed space, he needed silence, some place to think.

  Above these ruins a monstrous outcrop of granite loomed like a colossal anvil stretched out above the Dark Wood. Without saying anything he took his leave from his companions and witches and walked off into the woodland. Melai went to go after him, or have someone stop him, but Gargaron called her back.

  ‘Let him go,’ he told her.

  ‘No. Why? Where is he going?’

  ‘Time and space to think things through, I suspect.’

  Melai looked flustered. ‘But I don’t understand. What is going on?’

  Gargaron strolled back into the cave with a sigh. ‘Let us go through this methodically,’ he said. ‘I believe I understand some of it, but cannot comprehend what it yet means for us.’

  ‘It means we all die,’ the witch said.

  Gargaron ignored her and hers all lying there huddled, unconscious, dying. And tried to make sense of the cave paintings for himself.

  4

  Hawkmoth sat at length atop the granite crag, overlooking the woodland and all the world beyond. He did not much else but think of his wife Eve and their little home together and all the animals they had on their property and all the lives he had saved. It saddened him greatly that he may likely see them no longer, that he had somehow failed them. That his time taken to fetch Mama Vekh back to the witches had taken far too long and had now been wasted.

  He wondered if his Order had known of these Death Bells prior to now. Considering Skitecrow’s claims, maybe they had not. There had long been rumour of mysterious towers, a ring of them at intervals of thousands of miles, that circled Cloudfyre. But they were places none he knew had ever visited. And were said to be impossible to reach; either located in such places that left them difficult to access, or they were imbued with unknown enchantments that could render you dead in an instant, or they were believed sacred and better left alone. Yet, it troubled him that he had lived such a long life on this world and had never known of these Death Bells.

  So, what now? he asked himself.

  Well, there were naught left to do but trek to the closest of these Death Bells, the one that sat atop what Cahssi had named the Empty Tower. It were situated in a perilous place of course, upon an island the cave wall called Vol Mothaak, surrounded by the mysterious Grass Sea. Once there he supposed they would set about dismantling it. The Ghartst diagram appeared to indicate as much. And the final diagram, after the destruction of the Death Bell, s
howed renewed life, renewed growth, rebirth.

  That were his last option now. An almost insurmountable task. For, would the destruction of one Death Bell be enough to end the shock and sound waves? Enough to end the disease and dying? Enough to send the Dark Ones back to their barrows? Maybe not for all of Cloudfyre. But perhaps it would be enough at least for Godrik’s Vale. And that were all he could hope for.

  Still, by the time it took to carry out such a task, the enchantment around his home might have fully diminished, and by the time he returned home he would find his dear Eve perished, if she had not already, and all beasts currently sheltering there dead and rotting.

  Do I send myself on one last errand then? he wondered. Or do I fetch myself home and die peacefully at Eve’s side?

  He sat there and closed his eyes and concentrated his breathing, taking in the sweet, warm air, the sunshine warming his skin.

  5

  When Gargaron found him, Hawkmoth were dispatching his last communiqué to his wife. Gargaron stood back a moment, sensing some sadness from the sorcerer, and watched as Hawkmoth sent his Windracer, that strange wooden boy, on its way.

  Hawkmoth watched it run from there, leap the edge of the outcrop and drop down into Dark Wood, vanished from sight. ‘Right then,’ he said softly. And when he turned to leave he found Gargaron there.

  ‘Be you well?’ Gargaron asked gently.

  They regarded each other for a moment before the sorcerer hefted up his satchel and his staff and walked by the giant. Hawkmoth nodded. ‘Aye. I needed time to think, that is all.’ He stopped and turned to savour the scenery one last time. ‘A lovely view from here don’t you think? You would not think anything were wrong with the world.’

  Gargaron nodded. ‘No, you would not.’ For some moments both of them stood in silence, surveying the vast vista.

  ‘I saw my Eve in my daydreams,’ Hawkmoth said softly. ‘The curse of this Doom chips slowly away at the boundary of the enchantment I placed around my hill and home. Soon it shall be gone and my dear Eve exposed and everything I sought to harbour from this curse will die.’

  Gargaron eyed him, sorry the sorcerer were facing this predicament so far from his wife. He himself could not fathom what the sorcerer were feeling.

  ‘Even her Grey Huntress will fail to protect her I fear.’

  Gargaron looked puzzled. ‘Grey Huntress?’

  Hawkmoth took a moment to answer, and when he did it were with the air of someone distant in thought. ‘A wraith. Her guardian. One that can swallow foes and render them unconscious or dead.’

  Gargaron thought back to the day he and Melai had arrived at sorcerer’s cottage on Dead Man’s hill. Something had been standing there, behind them. Something his Nightface had detected far too late. Something that had swallowed them, captured them. He remembered this only now.

  ‘She summoned it to her service after I revived her,’ Hawkmoth said. ‘To keep her from harm while I were away. But I fear it has not the power to protect her from this Doom.’ He sighed. ‘If I left now for home, would I make it back before she dies?’ He smiled sadly and shook his head. ‘I cannot even but hold her. And with all my learned skills I stand here inept and useless.’

  Gargaron stepped to his side. ‘I would not begrudge you if you turned back. If I knew my wife and daughter remained in Hovel alive yet were facing certain death, then… I do not know how I would feel. But I guess I would want to be with them.’

  Hawkmoth smiled ever so slightly. ‘Still, without Razor, without my zeppelin, I would not make it. My best chance is to press on to this Tower. If we find success in bringing it down then it be the best chance for my Eve.’

  ‘Aye, and if not, we die trying.’

  Hawkmoth gave a wan smile. ‘Aye. We die trying.’ He regarded the giant for a moment. ‘I am sorry that Chianay Timethief be dead. I know you had hoped one day to call on her powers. To return to you your girls.’

  Gargaron said nothing, simply drew in a deep breath. ‘Were too much to hope for, I feel.’

  ‘And yet hope be all we have left.’ He clapped the giant on his shoulder. ‘Come now, friend,’ he said. ‘We have one last mission before us.’

  6

  When they reached the round cave again Hawkmoth saw that the witches had perished. All save for Cahssi. She had draped her kin in the skins of her foremothers, from face to foot, and had emptied their bellies, withdrawing their innards and lying them, still attached, around their torsos. She had also sliced the corners of their mouths to their ears, and removed their tongues, lying these beside their necks. Their mouths, seen faintly beneath the layer of thin transparent skin, gaped wide, large enough now to permit someone’s fist. Hawkmoth had heard of this ritual but one he had never witnessed. They believed the spirits of their ancestors would come to take these bodies, but in order to carry them away, they must be able to fit inside each one in order to lift them.

  Cahssi’s hands were blood stained up to her scrawny forearms, and had painted some of it on her forehead, one stripe for each death it seemed for she had seven stripes in all. She gazed up at the sorcerer. ‘I do not understand it. Why are some of us dying so, when some like yourself remain so vibrant and alive?’

  ‘I have no answer for you,’ he said sorrowful. ‘But we must leave now.’ He pulled his eyes up from her eviscerated kin. ‘If I read these walls correctly then it tells me we have one last chance of stopping this blight.’ He looked around at Melai, at Locke, hoping all would hear what he had to say. ‘But the land where this Death Bell be situated be sadly far, far away. It will take us some traveling to reach it. Shall we remain alive long enough is something I cannot tell. But if you, my companions, wish to join me on one last quest, then we ought leave without further delay.’

  Cahssi watched them from where she sat upon the rocks. ‘You have returned Mama Vekh to us. For that I am grateful. So… let me assist you now.’

  She went to stand but wobbled, and threatened to fall until Gargaron took her arm. She looked up at him. She squeezed his hand before she allowed him take her weight. There were a sensation of unease, even a stinging feeling, as she did it. But she looked deep into his eyes. He thought she meant to say something but whatever it were she held it to herself. ‘You needn’t take weeks,’ she said. ‘I will show you a quicker way.’

  SLÜV THE VANISHER

  1

  THE Vanisher were situated in what seemed the deepest part of the Dark Wood, an area where the trees possessed bizarre twisted trunks that cork-screwed from the rock and leaf matter and heavy black-purple soil, bending upwards this way and that. The crowns of these peculiar trees seemed intertwined and intricately woven together, as though this place were impenetrable from the air. (Indeed Hawkmoth had heard of such places governed by witches, where you could fall upon the roof of a forest and not fall through, instead snared within its thorny netting, you would be subsequently penetrated by tendrils with tiny mouths that would slowly suck the juices from your body.) Hawkmoth looked up once or twice. The canopy permitted such small amounts of sunlight but here and there he were certain he glimpsed the bony remains of creatures sucked dry, silhouetted against the sky.

  The land dipped away into a vast bowl and the ground became soggy and marshy. There were bugs here still living, flitting about the faces of Hawkmoth, Gargaron, Melai and Locke, though they seemed to leave the witch be, though it were evident they were dying, flying in mindless circular motions, spiralling down into the boggy ground where millions of their kind had already come to rest; the ground here seemed to be alive, writhing, wriggling, buzzing with dying insects great and small.

  Hawkmoth frowned, looking about. Though a diffused yellow light hung about the canopy, it were as if permanent night had descended upon this realm. And there were a strange sensation that the woodland were attempting to bury them. The trees grew taller and more dense. The ground dipped further. Until in the end Hawkmoth and his fellowship could but faintly see the canopy, so high and so far it hung above th
em.

  2

  Hawkmoth brought Rashel’s eyes to glow, and Gargaron his lantern, and together they lit a vast swathe of this cheerless forest. Even so, the place were still sapped of colour. Trees, leaves, any rambling brambles were all dark and black. Aside from the light of Hawkmoth’s staff, of Gargaron’s lantern, what little light there were seemed to come from bioluminescent plants; lichen, or toadstools. Even some bark. But a subdued, dark yellow light it were, nothing so bright and cheerful.

  ‘Where do you take us?’ Hawkmoth asked the witch, suspicious that this were some intricate ploy to get rid of him and his company.

  Cahssi had weakened markedly, almost too weak now even to speak. She pointed with a limp, emaciated arm. Forward, it seemed to say, unto darkness.

  It made Hawkmoth and Melai nervous. Locke, astride his serpent, still nursed a splitting headache thanks to Gargaron’s war juice, feeling like he’d polished off an entire hogshead of strong Coral Coast Ale. Yet he relished the subdued light. And the coolness of the woodland.

  Gargaron however, surged forward where the others seemed reluctant, his boots pushing down in the mud and bog.

  ‘Careful,’ Melai warned him hushly.

  ‘All be well,’ he reassured her, looking from her to Hawkmoth. ‘All be well. I see her thoughts. She speaks true. We face no trap. Trust me.’

  It is not you I question, Hawkmoth thought.

  3

  Finally when it seemed all light had been sucked from the woods, Cahssi of The Xoord rose from her semi-conscious state and looked about. She coughed weakly. ‘Slow now,’ she rasped. ‘She Who Eats All, be close.’

  She Who Eats All? Hawkmoth thought. An ambush for certain.

  But he were surprised to hear Gargaron’s voice. ‘Easy, good sorcerer. There be no ambush. She speaks true.’