by Jon Jacks
Momentarily catching Gremir’s eye, Helen thanked him with a brief nod of the head.
She didn’t want him to know that she was probably more frightened than any of them.
Unlike her, they didn’t face the fate of being sucked into the darkness of the magical powers that had created this road for them.
And what power it was too!
It had slashed its way through the land as effortlessly as the finest blade hewing through the softest flesh.
She might be of the new religion; yet she still retained that residue of respect for the land that told her it wasn’t wise to treat it in so offhand a manner.
*
Chapter 39
Half and half.
Half of the men to take the road, and bring back her father’s massed forces.
Half to accompany her, and give warning to the empress that as well as the surrounding wolves, she now faced at least three legions.
Helen’s horse stumbled slowly and ungainly through the thickening snow.
Maybe, she thought, she should have created a road leading this way too!
The mounts of the men fared even worse, being of a heavier build than hers, reared for battle as much as speed and grace. They whinnied in fear, their nostrils flaring every time they caught the stench of any of the shadowing wolves that drew too near to them.
Any wolf risking coming too close was invariably quickly dispatched with an arrow from a deftly produced bow, briefly raising cheers of jubilation and laughter amongst the men. Yet no matter how many of the dark shapes jerked and writhed as a shaft slewed through them, the numbers of the following wolves never seemed to actually diminish, while the men themselves gradually sickened and ailed, as if suffering some unseen blight.
Why were the wolves keeping them all so closely under watch when they had ignored Helen while she had travelled on her own, making her more vulnerable than ever?
Although the land had temporarily bowed to Helen’s will, its resentment now showed in the way it seemed to be throwing every obstacle it could against her and the men.
Slippery rocks hidden beneath the snow threatened to bring them crashing down to earth, crippling their mounts. The streams they crossed were either in flooded, full flow, or covered with treacherous ice of an inconsistent thickness.
The trees were the worst of all, the branches coming to life as bony hands and arms in the whirling gusts, ripping at helmets, even striking men to the ground, until they were forcibly hacked clear by the increasingly unnerved men.
They frequently glanced Helen’s way with miserable, veiled snarls, either wondering why she didn’t use her magic to spare them this agony, or fearing that they suffered it because she had used it against the land.
The only creatures who appeared to be on their side were the crows, dark puffs in the sky who watched their progress every bit as attentively as the wolves but, every now and again, swooped down to daringly peck at the eyes of any animal drawing too close. Ominously, this only added to the men’s edginess, for it only served as yet more proof that they were now fighting on the side of darkness rather than light.
It wasn’t until they approached a hill from across a relatively sparsely vegetated section of land that Helen noticed the deep and wide track in the snow that, running almost parallel to their own course, could only have been formed by a large column, and one that had passed this way recently too.
She, Gremir and another man forced their mounts through the snow separating the tracks, hoping that a quick inspection of the trodden and impacted snow might give them an idea of the number of men they might end up having to deal with. But the prints were strangely uniform in the way they were so regularly flattened, as if by the most enormous boots. Moreover, immense drifts of pulverised snow lay in between them, the signs that the giant responsible had slovenly dragged his feet through the icy covering rather than bothering to raise them higher.
It was like nothing any of them had even seen before today; and yet they had all seen something exactly like it this very morning.
It was the track that the war elephant had made as it had strode away from the camp.
*
Chapter 40
‘Would the war elephant help us?’ Gremir asked Helen. ‘I mean, could we take it from the goblin, and use it to rescue the empress?’
‘We don’t know how easy it would be to take it from him,’ Helen pointed out. ‘He might not be able to use any of its weapons while controlling it, but we would still need to find a way into it.’
If she could have conjured up an easy way of capturing the elephant, Helen might have considered it a good idea to have it fighting on their side.
There was the access hatch below its neck, of course, but how many men might be lost to a vast beast like the elephant before anyone managed to clamber inside? And even then they would have to work out some way of getting into whichever room the goblin was in.
‘We’ll continue on our way,’ Helen decided. ‘The only problem we should have with the war elephant is if the goblin – for some strange reason – uses it to attack us.’
Needing to reassure herself that the goblin wasn’t continuing on his track leading towards the empress, Helen intently peered out across the land as soon as they neared the top of the hill. This high up, the snow whipped with particular vengeance at her face, while the land itself was covered with equally violently battling squalls of icy flakes.
There was no sign of the elephant, no matter how hard she tried to penetrate the multiple veils of flurrying snow. She couldn’t make out anything that could be its track either, which would at least have given her some indication of the goblin’s course.
When they surmounted the hill, the reason for all this was made perfectly clear; for the elephant had collapsed into a chaotic heap at the bottom of the steep incline.
*
As they drew closer to the crumpled elephant, Helen recognised that it wasn’t in any way the tangled wreck she had at first supposed.
It was more like an ox that, after a particularly hard day tilling the fields, had slumped exhaustedly to the ground. This being a machine rather than a living creature, however, the elephant had four knees, all of which had bent beneath it as it had slid to the earth.
Is that what had happened? Had the elephant reached the peak of the hill, only to uncontrollably slide down the other side?
There was a dull yet frantic knocking coming from the crumpled machine, the sounds of solid iron on sheet metal. It didn’t sound so much like the regular clank of a machine preparing to move, however, but the more persistent forcing of the ironsmith.
Closer still, Helen spotted the goblin, hammering frustratingly at the rocks caught within the interlocking pieces of a knee joint.
He was so intent on repairing the elephant that he hadn’t heard or seen the approach of Helen and her men. It wasn’t until they were almost on top of him that some kind of sixth sense caused him to glance up and, seeing Helen, cry out in horror.
Throwing his tools aside, he leapt up off his knees, skittering in the snow as he unsuccessfully attempted to both leap and climb over the elephant’s serpentine trunk.
Spurring his horse forward, Gremir had no trouble in grabbing the goblin by the back of his jacket. He tossed him aside into the snow as carelessly as the goblin had rid himself of his cumbersome tools.
‘Don’t hurt me, please don’t hurt me!’ the goblin wailed, looking up from the disturbed snow with all the fear of a cornered animal, but none of its determination to fight back. ‘I didn’t intend to leave you, not until I saw you with that–’
‘Did you lose control of it?’
Ignoring his hurriedly garbled pleading, Helen gazed at the disabled elephant.
The goblin nodded.
‘My legs: they suddenly grew shorter.’
As he looked up at Helen’s legs, she glanced down at his. She smiled with satisfaction when she saw that he had his own short legs back.
&n
bsp; ‘Serves you right,’ she said with an amused smirk. ‘But why did you betray me like that?’ she added more sternly. ‘I thought we were friends?’
‘I saw the other friends you keep,’ the goblin half sneered back, a sneer that was more one of fright than superiority.
‘The humbled man?’
‘That woman – the one I saw you talking with when you thought we were asleep.’
‘Mar–’ She was about to say Mary, but that wouldn’t mean anything to the goblin. ‘You saw her?’
‘See her?’ the goblin scoffed bravely. ‘I could smell her! Sense her evil!’
So, Helen thought, Mary of the Seven Daemons had been right: this had been no Mary, Mother of God who had visited her in the night, but a false one.
The young empress, telling lies about the old empress, trying to turn Helen against her. Trying, too, to prevent her from accessing the powers the old empress had been gradually teaching her to use.
‘What did she look like, this woman?’ Helen asked curiously.
Perhaps realising that he wasn’t in any danger after all, the goblin uneasily rose to his feet, dusting off a smattering of snow.
‘You couldn’t see?’ The goblin frowned perplexedly. ‘No, wait – you could; but what did she look like you?’
‘Kind, considerate.’
The goblin shook his head, chuckled in disbelief.
‘She must have had you charmed; I saw an imperious, arrogant woman, snarling at you with loathing and hate. She was like the witch who used to own me; using words as an imprisonment, while putting on this façade of being all sweetness and light, someone who’d only ever use magic for the best of reasons.’
‘I was being controlled by her, in a way,’ Helen admitted. ‘But not anymore.’
The goblin nodded, his way of thanking her for her honesty.
‘Then I apologise too,’ he said ashamedly, indicating her legs with a casual wave of a hand, ‘for the…mix up between us, I mean.’
‘Then you did do it?’
Helen scowled down at him. The goblin stepped back a little in fright, waved his hands before him consolingly.
‘No, no! I wouldn’t do that!’ he protested urgently. ‘I mean, I sensed what was about to happen between you and your horse–’
‘You did?’
Helen was more surprised by this admission than if he’d admitted to being responsible for the spell.
‘Well, it’s in the story, isn’t it? I didn’t think you’d be wanting that to happen, you being scared by magic and all that! But I didn’t think you’d end up with my legs!’
‘Story? There’s a story that could have warned me all about this?’
‘Well, it’s not directly about you, of course: but there are things to learn in it if you listen carefully.’
‘We haven’t got any time for stories–’
‘You have if you let me mount up behind you,’ the goblin insisted with a cheery smile, stepping forward and raising a hand in expectation of being pulled up to sit behind her. ‘I’m going to need help to get my elephant going anyway!’
*
Chapter 41
The Girl who Spared a Crow’s Egg
There was once a girl called Uraeus who, despite her lowly position, had a good soul, one that would be the envy of any richer man or woman; for she herself would never envy anyone for their good fortune.
Being nothing but a lowly peasant girl, a maidservant in the employ of those far wealthier than her, she would fall fast asleep in front of the fire after a hard day’s work, this being the only way she could keep warm in the large, draughty kitchen she was forced to slave away in.
It was while she was falling asleep in this way, snuggling as close to the dying fire as she dared, that she heard something drop down the chimney into the still warm and flickering ashes. She woke up with a start, her eyes wide with horror when she saw that it was an egg that had fallen in amongst the black soot and hot coals.
Without a care for herself, she reached out for the egg, fearing that the poor creature inside would be burned to a cinder before it had even been properly born. The coals and ashes burnt her fingers badly, yet she managed to rescue the egg, drawing it from the earthy darkness of the coal, the hot glow of the spluttering yet still potent flames.
Fortunately, the egg seemed undamaged by its adventure, suffering neither a crack, nor warming so much that it might have endangered the fledgling nestled inside.
‘Thank you for rescuing my child.’
Wondering who had thanked her, Uraeus spun around: and found herself staring into the black, beady eyes of a crow perched on the kitchen table.
Naturally, Uraeus was surprised to hear a crow speaking so politely to her: but being polite herself, she didn’t wish to startle the poor crow by pointing this out.
Instead she said, ‘I’d noticed that you’d built your nest on the very edge of the chimney top, and realised the egg – your child – must have fallen from there.’
The crow nodded in agreement.
‘From my nest, I’ve heard you mumbling in your sleep, and realise that you wish for nothing more than to attend the prince’s great ball taking place tomorrow night. For saving the life of my son, Alnilam, I offer my own life to you as forfeit: for I am Alnitak Imsety, and you can make a magic girdle of my feathers that will make any dress you wear look like it’s decorated with strings of the most beautiful black pearls!’
Uraeus shook her head and smiled pleasantly.
‘Why thank you, kind Alnitak: and to think, I’d heard that crows cackle happily as they devour our dead! But I can’t take your life simply for the sake of something as trivial as a dress!’
‘Then I insist you take these two worms,’ the crow said, hopping forward even as he regurgitated a worm and split it in two with his beak. ‘Just like me, they take the earthly matter man leaves behind as being redundant, then weave it into something wholly new.’
He let the split worm lightly fall before Uraeus: but before she could even decide what she was supposed to do with such a disgusting yet obviously well-meant gift, the split worm became two – and both of them immediately leapt into the fire place, where they swiftly darted in and out amongst the burning coals and ashes.
The dark coals shredded into the finest threads, the ashes into sparkling, golden grains that decorated them, the now energised worms having transformed into fiery serpents dragging the black, star-studded strands behind them.
The serpents continued to weave in and out between each other, like the weft and warp of a loom making funeral garb from the very darkest of materials, from the very night-sky itself, yet forgetting to dust off the firmament’s endless sprinkling of stars.
The thread itself seemed without end. As it became material, it was also no longer purely dark, but sparkled here and there with gold, blue, yellow, or even a blazing red, the colour and even the nature of vibrantly dancing flames.
It was at once a dress made from the darkly glittering cosmos that, far from merely portraying the firmament, did so remarkably accurately, even to the extent of displaying the swirling moves of the planets, the constellations, the stars, as if viewed from any chosen spot on Earth.
Indeed, the two fiery serpents had ensured they had left their own mark too, as seen within the snaking descent of Venus, along with its subsequent feathery serpentine rise after seven full days in the underworld.
And when the dress was finished, Alnitak had not only already left, but had also managed to take his son Alnilam with him too.
*
Uraeus had the most beautiful dress but no way – of course – of getting to the prince’s ball.
Ah well, Alnitak wasn’t to know that, Uraeus told herself: it was the most wondrous of gifts he had granted her, and she had no right to complain or moan.
She hung the dress in an old cupboard nobody used save her, and the next morning went about her daily chores as if nothing unusual had happened. She went out across the dew c
overed heath, collecting coals from an open pit there, and placing them in the huge wicker basket strapped to her back.
While she worked, she heard a pained squawking in the air above her. Briefly glancing skywards, she was just in time to see an eagle strike and bring down a hawk.
The hawk fell from the sky so quickly even the eagle was unable to keep up with it. It would have undoubtedly died if Uraeus hadn’t carefully positioned herself beneath the falling bird, holding out her dress to catch it in.
The poor hawk was stunned, but fortunately not dead, Uraeus realised happily.
‘Thank you for rescuing my bridegroom.’
Wondering who had thanked her, Uraeus spun around: and found herself staring into the strangely entrancing eyes of another hawk, this one perched upon a nearby branch.
Its eyes sparkled, but each one differently, such that one shone as silvery as a full moon on the darkest, clearest night, whereas the other glowed as if it were the scorching sun.
But of course, it is a mistake to think of them as such; for one is the Evening Star, which burns so brightly in the night sky before vanishing into the Underworld, while the other is the Morning Star, which can be seen rising even in the brightening of dawn.
Naturally, Uraeus was surprised to hear a hawk speaking so politely to her: but being polite herself, she didn’t wish to startle the poor hawk by pointing this out.
Instead she said kindly, ‘I’ve enjoyed watching your courting and would like to congratulate you on your forthcoming marriage, dear hawk.’
‘We too have watched you,’ the hawk replied, ‘and have both remarked that one so pretty as you has not yet met a suitable match for her own heart: and because of this, despite your outer happiness, you seem quite dead inside. For saving the life of my bridegroom, Saif, I offer my own life to you as forfeit: for I am Mintaka Qebehsenuef, and you can make a magic brooch of my eyes. When affixed to your breast above your heart, it will shine brightly and bring your heart’s desire to you.’
