Cloudfyre Falling - A dark fairy tale

by A. L. Brooks

  5

  The night passed without incident. Though Gargaron stayed up late, shivering in the daunting cold, not allowing himself to sleep, not trusting in the alien critters helming the ship. He kept himself busy by mending as much of the ship as he knew how; tying spare ropes around and around the masts, reinforcing their breaks, and refastening snapped stay lines. The suns had gone and the moons of Vasher, Gorvhald, Veeo, Canooc hung bright and stark in the night sky. And although he did not report it for fear of alarming the others, Gargaron, as he worked, were witness to strange lights beneath the surface of the grass. He wondered many times if it were the coming of another Leviathan attack. But no more such beasts threatened them that night. Locke had forecast as much. ‘I have heard sailors say that if there be Kraken blood spilt on ship then Krakens will stay away.’ Though if he wished to consult the sorcerer on the matter, he were out of luck for Hawkmoth did not awoken.

  BY THE CAT’S EYES

  1

  HAWKMOTH were still in slumber by noon the following day. By then Gargaron began to grow concerned. Locke were at the helm, studying occasionally the various navigational instruments within the binnacle, or inspecting the sextant that hung from the iron gimble. Melai were again in the crow’s nest. She’d been watching Gargaron who had paced the decks constantly. Hawkmoth’s two fiends were at the sorcerer’s side, lying, again twisted and shrunk, like old bits of root ready for the compost.

  Melai had spotted islands on the dawn. Due north of their position. A sign, Gargaron hoped, that they may be coming to their destination. As they came to them they observed small, compact islands that stuck up out of the sea, each consisting of a single strange white rock prong, shining brightly in morning sunlight, a mighty curved spire that soared out into sky.

  Hawkmoth did not awaken that day. And at dusk Gargaron were the one to try to bring the root fiends to life, jabbing his thumb on their barbs. They awoke, suckling blood from his finger. It were an unsettling sensation, one that Gargaron were not sorry to see finished. Yet like the previous night, the root critters did their work diligently. By then though, Locke had discovered an item of some intrigue.

  2

  He and Melai had been rummaging about the lower cabins for blankets to sew together; Gargaron had berated the temperature drop of the previous evening and quipped how he could not fit below decks to escape the wind chill. (The fact Gargaron would not forsake his post for comfort even if he could fit below decks were beside the point.) Yet other than warming blankets, Locke uncovered a peculiar object.

  Melai helped him lug it above decks and once it lay there in the fading sunlight, Gargaron knelt to see what he might make of it.

  It were a bizarre looking object. And what it were fashioned from were difficult to determine. Wood or bone would have been Gargaron’s guess. Though no-one knew. Primarily it resembled the head and bust of some tortured angel. Her face were strained and stretched, for down her sides there perched small devil creatures with their arms reaching to her face and here they had their hands inside her mouth, pulling her jaw open to what must have been an unnatural limit, so that she looked forever frozen in a silent howl.

  ‘It looks ghastly,’ Gargaron said. ‘What be it?’

  ‘A whale horn,’ Locke said as though it were quite obvious.

  ‘To control whales?’ Gargaron asked, confused.

  ‘To ward them off,’ Locke said, laughing. ‘Honestly, I thought you claimed to have sailed.’

  ‘I were but a wee lad. Though, what need have we of a whale horn?’

  ‘Well, obviously this particular one be not for whales,’ Locke said. ‘I would wager it be for such as those Leviathans that attacked us.’ And here he looked about for a spot where it might be housed.

  ‘There?’ Melai said pointing. All eyes turned to a broken prong on the mast just below the lower hem of the mainsail.

  Locke skittered over on his crabs legs for a closer look, craning his neck. ‘Explains why it were removed. It had been in for repairs. All we need do is find some way to rig it back in place.’

  This task Gargaron took on himself, tying the whale horn there with ropes; he were the only one who stood tall enough to reach the area with ease. Once done he stood back, surveying his work. ‘How does it work then?’ he asked Locke.

  Locke shrugged his shoulders and replied, ‘Don’t know. I never sailed ships.’

  3

  Its method became apparent however some two hours after nightfall. The root imps, Gesha and Oosha, were again at their posts, one playing helmsman, the other in crow’s-nest. Gargaron were pacing the deck, keeping a lookout in the growing dark for any threatening shadows out to sea. He had also been searching for the Cat’s Eyes star constellation. He had just spotted its emergence when he heard a most peculiar sound. A peculiar mewling sound from somewhere on the vessel. He turned about, looking first at Melai who were seated near the helm, then at Locke who too wore a frown on his face.

  ‘You hear that?’ Locke asked, looking at Melai and then at Gargaron.

  It grew steadily louder, almost to a deep moan. The imp in the crow’s nest began making a chittering noise, pointing at something out to sea, alerting the imp at the wheel who now pulled the ship toward the northwest. Gargaron strode to starboard. And saw it. A dark shadow maybe a hundred feet off their bow. He were about to announce it as another scar when it dipped and vanished below the grass waves and when it surfaced again Gargaron saw in the growing moonlight the glistening of eyes and the glow of fangs.

  ‘Leviathan!’ he called. ‘Brace yourselves.’ He dashed to mid deck where Hawkmoth were still unconscious on his bedroll. Gargaron secured him to a mooring line and the keening sound lifted in intensity. Kneeling there Gargaron now turned and gazed up at the whale horn. He saw that part of it had come to life: the skull with its mouth being pulled open now bore the aura of some ghostly spirit and from this emanated a howl so piercing, so haunting, that it chilled the giant’s blood.

  Laughter from Locke somehow broke through the noise and he heard the crabman yell, ‘Ha, our Leviathan friend turns its little tail! Come and see!’

  Gargaron, gripping his great sword, ran back to the starboard bow and there he saw it, the Leviathan twisting about the grass waves in the moonlight, turning over and over as if it found the whale horn too torturous to behold. And soon off it slithered, retreating and diving down into the depths.

  4

  The islands they had seen were long behind them and Gargaron were afraid they had been going in circles. None of them knew how to operate the sextant but if the compass were in sound operating order then their carrack were held always on a northways heading. At night, the position of the Cat’s Eyes, the burning and ever watchful red stars that were always in the northsky, confirmed their direction.

  A far more pressing matter had arisen however. They had begun to run low on their provisions. ‘And naught have we anything with which to fish,’ Gargaron had said. To which Locke were quick to add, ‘if there were but fish to fish, of course.’

  The lack of any fresh water were also becoming a concern. They were down to but Gargaron’s gourd. As if in response to their prayers the sky grew dark with rain clouds and a gusty storm blew up, and the sea grew choppy and thunderous showers set in for almost two days. Gargaron, Melai and Locke placed tubs and jars found below decks, catching as much of the deluge as they could. Then there were naught to be done but wait out the storm, huddled there above decks, navigating via the compass housed dry within the binnacle. Gargaron told Melai and Locke to head below decks and out of the elements, but Locke smiled for the first time since the loss of Zebra and embraced the torrents. Melai fetched blankets from the cabins below (she didn’t wish to be below decks on her own) and all three helped stitch them together so that Gargaron might be covered while the storm lasted.

  5

  Hawkmoth did not awaken until mid-morning of their fifth day at sea. When consciousness returned, he opened his eyes and looked about. He s
aw he were lying on the sundrenched deck of the carrack. He knew not why, but he felt a surge of peculiar relief. The scar had not swallowed them. They were safely sailing upon the grass ocean. But there were no-one else about. No giant, no nymph, no crabman. None but his Eve standing before him on the decks of this empty ship.

  She smiled at him sadly. She knelt at his side and took his hand. ‘My dear Hawk,’ she said. ‘How far I have come to find you.’

  Hawkmoth blinked. ‘Eve, wh-what are you doing here? How did you get here?’

  ‘Hush, it matters not. But you must listen. The enchantment around our home has withered and failed. All is perished. I come… to say goodbye.’

  ‘No, Eve, this cannot be.’

  ‘Hawk, dear, it is. Thank you for finding me all those years ago. Thank you for saving me. Thank you for showing me what it is to be loved.’ She reached out and touched his face.

  His eyes shot open. He sat up and looked about. He spied Gargaron at the helm, and Locke and Melai near the prow gazing northways from their position. All were too keenly watching something ahead of the ship to have noticed Hawkmoth’s waking.

  He looked about, but saw no Eve. Yet she had been here, presently. He were certain.

  6

  Hawkmoth pulled himself to his feet, still expecting to spy his witch wife somewhere on the carrack. ‘Gargaron, is Eve amongst us?’

  Gargaron started slightly at the voice. He looked around at the sorcerer, a corpse risen from death it seemed. ‘Glad to see you have come around at last.’

  ‘Is… is Eve here?’

  Gargaron looked confused. ‘Eve? No. Why would she be here?’

  Hawkmoth swallowed and drew in a long breath and rubbed his face in his palms. ‘Ignore me. It were but a dream.’ He slumped back to the deck once more, leaning there up against the bulwark. Or a nightmare, he thought gravely.

  Melai and Locke turned at the sound of voices. Seeing Hawkmoth awake they started over.

  ‘Tell me, did we avoid the scar?’ Hawkmoth croaked as if the event had only just transpired.

  ‘Which scar do you mean exactly?’ Gargaron asked.

  ‘The scar…’ Hawkmoth frowned. ’Where you toppled ov…’

  Gargaron eyed him closely. ‘Toppled overboard? That scar be five days gone. We have had to avoid many since. Not to mention Leviathan beasts. And storms.’

  ‘Leviathans?’

  ‘Aye, my little Zebra did much to defend our first attack,’ Locke said as he neared the sorcerer. ‘Alas, she has left us.’

  Hawkmoth felt most confounded. ‘Zebra?’

  ‘Aye. She were a hero,’ Gargaron said.

  ‘Oh, I am sorry Locke.’

  ‘Be not. For I prefer to believe she has not perished but enjoying herself at the bottom of this sea, stirring up its beasties.’

  ‘Aye, those are fine thoughts.’ He drew in a long breath and rubbed his neck. ‘How long have I been gone?’

  ‘Five days,’ Gargaron said.

  ‘Five days?’ It were not possible.

  ‘Aye,’ Gargaron confirmed. ‘You have slept through much on this voyage.’

  ‘How have you navigated these seas?’

  ‘Compass by day, stars by night,’ Melai told him. ‘A whale horn to scare off the sea monsters. Oh, and your little imps to alert us to sea scars. I stole the idea from your thoughts.’

  Hawkmoth shook his head, thoughtfully. ‘I recall none of this, it would seem. Though, sounds as if you have all been quite resourceful.’ He eyed Gargaron for a while. ‘How many troughs and Leviathans have you encountered?’

  ‘Many,’ Melai told him.

  ‘Boom shakes?’

  Gargaron shrugged. ‘None, surprisingly.’

  ‘Most strange,’ Hawkmoth said. ‘And I see you stand before me, giant, lest you be some apparition thrown out by some jaded part of my mind.’

  Gargaron considered the sorcerer’s words. ‘I suspect your temporal sorcery be the cause of my salvation. If so I give you my thanks.’

  Hawkmoth stared long at the giant. He reached his hand to the small of his back and felt layers of stone covering him from his hip to his shoulder. ‘I have little recollection,’ he said softly. ‘But whatever I did, I am glad it were not in vain.’ He took in a prolonged breath, filling his chest, feeling the pain at the rear of his ribs where there were no give anymore in the flesh about his spine. ‘So where are we? Have we made no headway?’

  Gargaron pointed. ‘See for yourself. Perhaps you might tell us if that be the land we seek?’

  Hawkmoth stood, this time with Melai’s aid. Unsteady on his feet, he surveyed the way forward. He felt a tad giddy. But he spied a large landmass on the horizon to the north. Running his eyes along its distant shore, eyeing its towering inland trees, he knew here from his text books that this were Vol Mothaak at last.

  THROUGH THE GATES

  1

  THERE were no moorings. That much became apparent. No jetties, nor pier, just wild, uninhabited coastline for as far as they could see.

  ‘Do we seek one then?’ Locke put to them all. ‘A jetty.’

  ‘Or do we sail until we catch first sight of this tower?’ Gargaron suggested.

  Hawkmoth knew not why, but he felt somehow that this strange land had no piers nor jetties. He somehow knew that this were as wild a place as any he’d ever visited. And somehow more ancient than anywhere on the Vale; he had never felt about anything such a sense of age as he did as they sailed toward this unchartered coast; older too than the cave paintings he had seen in Dorubudur. Though something about it were odd, unnatural. There seemed a peculiar precision to the dimensions of the coastline. As if it held a perfect, unbroken, and unwavering curve. Were he floating high above in one of his zeppelins, he wondered, would Vol Mothaak look a perfect circle? He could not shake the idea that the land before them had been carved by intelligent hands.

  ‘We head straight for shore,’ Hawkmoth told them, ‘I feel there be no place on this land to moor a ship. And I feel this tower we seek be located at island’s central point and not visible from the coast. Thus we should simply head for land and forge a pathway inland.’

  2

  The shoreline were raised up from the Grass Sea so that when they met land they did so shunting the starboard side up against the grassy bank and grabbing hold of strange trees overhanging the whispering waves to hold the carrack in place. Locke and Hawkmoth scrambled ashore with mooring ropes, securing them to hefty tree trunks. Once done Gargaron left the helm and jumped ashore, offering to carry Melai with him. She insisted on flying though, and it felt lovely to stretch her wings again and not be dragged so heavily downward as had been the peculiar influence of the grass ocean. But Gargaron stuck as close as he could to her lest the Grass Sea happened to drag her back one last time into its ungodly waves.

  Still, she flew freely, unhindered, it seemed. And before they turned their back on the carrack entirely Hawkmoth surveyed it. Looking one last time for Eve.

  ‘What be it?’ Gargaron asked him.

  Hawkmoth shook his head. ‘Nothing, giant. It be nothing.’

  3

  The land before them sloped downwards. It felt to Hawkmoth that he and his companions stood on the high rim of some amphitheatre. At its base there ran a looming iron fence that followed the island’s curvature eastways and westways. There were what looked to be gates interspersed at regular intervals along it.

  From their vantage point, Hawkmoth and his group stood elevated above the rim of the fence. Beyond, they could see rugged, shallow bushland and stunted trees. And far off on the horizon lay the island’s distant interior, shimmering in a heat haze.

  ‘If there be none who live here, and none who have ever stepped here,’ asked Melai, ‘then why are there gates?’

  ‘And,’ Locke said, ‘who built that fence?’

  Hawkmoth had no answer. Only speculation. ‘Perhaps some ancient, long died out race of guardians.’ He gazed far away northwards, to where the bushland va
nished into the haze, wondering if he should have been able to see the tower from where they stood. And as it were not visible, he wondered how long it would take he and his friends to reach it.

  4

  Through sand and stunted sea shrubs Hawkmoth lead his troupe downhill, Gohor and Melus above them both pushing their way up into the sky. They were halfway down the decline when suddenly a peculiar phenomenon arose. One that halted them all in their path.

  Firstly, the buzz and hiss of hidden bugs surprised them. Such a sound in recent times had become almost alien. It were a welcome noise in many ways, a comforting familiar noise. Yet to hear it here brought a sense of unease. Though the peculiarity that struck them all were not the sounds of bugs, but something else: the closer they drew to Vol Mothaak, the bushland beyond the fence appeared to grow in size. And with every step forward, the larger and taller it became.

  ‘What be this?’ Locke said sounding humoured. ‘Some illusion to trick us?’

  No-one answered. They all simply stared wide eyed at the scrub that were now a virtual woodland. Even the fence seemed higher somehow, taller. But now that Hawkmoth and his troupe had halted, so too had the growth of the woodland.

  Gargaron stood alongside Hawkmoth. ‘What magic be at work here, sorcerer?’

  ‘It be nothing I understand,’ Hawkmoth told him. ‘Perhaps as Locke suggested, it be an illusion. Perhaps one sent to test the minds and mettle of would be trespassers. Stay here a moment and tell me what you see.’ With that Hawkmoth retraced his steps through the coarse sand and made his way back up the slope behind them.

  5

  Melai and Locke and Gargaron watched him keenly.

  ‘How are the trees?’ Hawkmoth called down to them. ‘Do they remain so tall?’