A Blackbird In Darkness (Book 2) (39 page)

‘The Hrunneshians also,’ Estarinel added. ‘They’ve just told us that killing the Serpent would be wrong. That it is the same as destroying life itself. Hranna said much the same. Miril, are we doing the right thing, or are the Guardians misleading us for their own ends?’

‘They have their own ends, it is true,’ Miril answered. ‘But in the final evaluation, however it appears, they do not conflict with yours. You speak of “killing”, but I know nothing of this. I only know that certain powers must be brought together: myself and the Egg-Stone, the Serpent and the Silver Staff. This is not destroying, it is creating. But it must be done with love and gentleness, as I told you, Ashurek.

‘If you wondered why the Guardians could not essay this task themselves but had to send three humans, the reason must be clear to you now. They are not human. It is true that they could have destroyed the Serpent, and the Earth with it. But only through humanity can the Earth be redeemed. They sent you not because they are callous, but because they wished to give the world a chance.’

‘If this is true, it changes everything,’ said Estarinel.

‘Ah, but there is still great risk, and your choices must be the right ones.’

‘Miril, can you not come with us on the rest of the Quest?’ Ashurek asked.

‘Oh, but I am coming with you,’ she sang joyfully, to their relief. ‘Don’t you know that this is why you had to find me? Estarinel, take out the Silver Staff.’

Surprised, he obeyed. As he drew the Staff from its scabbard he was overwhelmed by its joyous song and by a feeling of tranquil strength. It illuminated the blackness, splashing silver light onto the wet stone. He wished he had thought to use it before.

The blackbird chirruped, and her notes were in exquisite harmony with the Staff’s song. ‘You know the power within the Silver Staff is that which is opposite to the Worm. Do you know also that I am a part of that power?’

‘I had half-forgotten it, but yes, the Lady told us,’ said Ashurek.

‘In order to come with you, I must be absorbed into that power. This is why you need me. Without me, the Silver Staff is incomplete. Just as, without the Egg-Stone, the Serpent is incomplete. Estarinel, hold the top of the Silver Staff against my breast.’

Ashurek began to protest, but Miril silenced him. Her voice was lilting and gentle as she said, ‘Do not fear: in this way will I escape the Black Plane, and show you an Exit Point to the Worm’s domain, and fulfil my purpose. Although I will be with you, I will be invisible to you, and you must make your own choices. Yet you may call upon me in times of greatest need for my help. Now, Ashurek, hold me firm while Estarinel touches me with the Silver Staff.’

Then Estarinel raised the Staff and hesitantly pressed the blunt end to Miril’s breast. She stretched out her wings and put her head back, beginning to glow from within so that her feathers were silhouetted against the light. Then they, too, absorbed the radiance until she shone as if afire. The Staff burned in Estarinel’s hands with the same brilliance, while its carefree innocent energy reverberated through him like a paean. Miril cried out and leapt aloft, hovering on motionless wings, burning brighter and brighter until she blazed silver-white, and they could hardly bear to look at her.

She seemed to have lost her three-dimensional quality and transmuted into a heraldic symbol in front of them. When their eyes grew used to the brilliance, it seemed that they were looking at a bird-shaped hole in the fabric of the Black Plane, through which they could see the sky of their own world. The corporeal Miril was no more.

‘She said she would show us the Exit Point,’ exclaimed Ashurek. ‘Come on!’

Still in a daze of brilliance and warmth and immanent strength, Estarinel slid the Silver Staff back into its scabbard. Then he bent to pick up Median’s unconscious, slender body. As he did so a voice near them said, ‘Wait.’

It was Valcad, who seemed to be the only Hrunneshian still there.

‘Must you go?’ the neman said sadly. ‘We had looked forward to many long and enriching talks with you.’

‘Well, we must disappoint you,’ said Ashurek. ‘We must return to Earth and complete our Quest. Where are your companions?’

‘They went back to the other side,’ Valcad said, ‘because we could not understand the speech of Miril, and her presence was too disturbing to our philosophy. But I waited in case you needed further help.’

‘Thank you, but we have found what we sought. For your help in that, we are profoundly grateful.’

‘I must thank you, too,’ Valcad replied, ‘for we will be no longer troubled by Miril, and you have given us much food for thought. I ask only that in your Quest you bear in mind the philosophical paradoxes that we have brought to your attention.’

‘Yes, we will,’ said Ashurek with a grin. ‘There is some truth in them. Farewell.’

‘What is truth?’ they heard Valcad musing behind them as they turned and headed for the silver shape that was the Exit Point.

It was larger and further away from them than they had realised, and they walked for many minutes over the treacherous, dark rock before they reached it.

‘If I’d had to spend any longer in the company of those philosophers, I would have gone mad,’ said Estarinel as they walked. ‘They could make any nonsense sound profound.’

‘I disagree,’ said Ashurek. ‘I think the Hrunneshians are quite right: there are no real answers to anything. And I think if they ever proved anything, they would all cease to exist.’

The surface beneath them began to slope upwards and they slithered and stumbled on the rock until they finally reached the bird-shaped window in the darkness. Ashurek looked through and Estarinel, behind him, called out, ‘What can you see?’

‘Nothing. It’s too bright. It’s all silver and white, and it’s cold – freezing. Come on, let us go through.’

Side by side they stepped through the Exit Point, and the Black Plane vanished, and a cold, white brilliance embraced them.

As they stepped through the Exit Point, it was several minutes before their eyes adjusted sufficiently for them to see where they were. Around them the air was cold and still, as if in an enclosed space. Then they saw that the brightness was not that of the sky at all; it was the whiteness of ice. They were in a cave, formed by a crevasse that had become sealed at the top. Walls of ice rose around them, shining like frozen glass, with hints of pale blue gleaming in their depths.

Estarinel saw a flat ridge on the far side of the cave and went over to lay Medrian down upon it, skidding on the ice floor as he went. He made her as comfortable as he could, reassured to find that her eyes were closed and her breathing steady. There was even some colour in her cheeks.

‘Miril said she would recover,’ Estarinel said pointedly, looking at Ashurek.

‘I cannot withdraw what I said about her,’ he replied softly. ‘However, I’ll admit I was wrong to want to abandon her. She is part of this Quest until the bitter end. The Serpent’s victim, like the rest of us.’ He walked slowly round the cave, searching for a way out. Presently he found a crack concealed by tumbled blocks of ice.

‘I think Miril has specifically placed us in here so that we’d be safe for a time,’ said Ashurek, his voice echoing in the high-roofed cave. ‘We’d better rest and eat before we think of going on. We’ll stay here until Medrian has recovered.’

Estarinel nodded, grateful for Ashurek’s change of heart.

Having settled Medrian, he drew the Silver Staff from its red scabbard to check it. As soon as he touched it he knew it had changed.

‘Ashurek, look!’ he exclaimed. On top of the argent rod, where previously there had been only a small rounded head, there was an ovoid the size of Estarinel’s palm. It seemed to be made of the same metal as the Staff itself, but it had a translucent quality. At its heart, something stirred with tiny, soft movements, like an unhatched chick.

‘She said she would be with us,’ Ashurek said. He touched the silver orb with a long, dark finger. ‘I don’t know what this means, except that she is somehow within the Staff, and may be called upon to our aid when we have great need of her.’

Estarinel replaced the Silver Staff carefully in its sheath. ‘You don’t still believe that there is no answer but the Earth’s destruction, do you?’

Ashurek sighed. ‘I was wrong about that as well. But it’s still a danger, and it is up to us – all of us – to find the right way of finishing the Quest. I fear... well, I fear that I many have to face the Egg-Stone again. I don’t know whether I will survive that.’

‘But you said it was lost with Meshurek.’

‘Yes, it was. Ah, I don’t know. Perhaps those philosophers have turned my brain. Now,’ he said more briskly, ‘it’s very bright in here and I think we are not far below the surface. The first thing I intend to do is locate a way out of this cave, and see what is outside. I’ll mark the way as I go if it proves tortuous. I’ll be back soon.’ Ashurek turned to go, then paused. ‘There were many things I said on the tundra that I now regret. Nothing has changed, about Silvren and the others, but Miril made me understand... well, that the path I had chosen was insane. As you so rightly pointed out. It was wrong of me to try to take the Quest upon myself. I now know that the three of us are the Quest.’

‘It’s all right,’ Estarinel said, looking at him with a half-smile. He had not forgotten that when actually faced with the decision of slaying him and Medrian – by which means the Serpent certainly would have triumphed – Ashurek had turned aside. ‘It’s over and done with.’

Ashurek nodded and gripped his shoulder briefly. Then he scrambled over the ice-blocks to the narrow opening in the cave wall, and his tall, lean figure vanished from sight.

#

Medrian found herself lying on a firm surface with softness pillowing her head. She felt warm. She lay with her eyes closed for a long time, half-asleep, not wanting anything to disturb the peaceful, gentle darkness in which she drifted.

Where was M’gulfn? Ah, there it was, within her still, but very distant, like a child lost in the night. Let it stay lost. For the first time since the Blue Plane, she knew respite from torment.

She wondered where she was, but felt it did not really matter. She knew she was safe. There were a lot of strange memories within her, all confused and overlapping, though no longer disturbing. There was something about a Plane of black crystal on which tall, four-armed philosophers walked; a viscous grey sea of terror; and then a sweet silver-gold light, driving back the sea until it shrank and shrank into nothingness.

Miril had restored Medrian to herself. She had complete mastery of the Serpent, such as she could never have achieved alone. There was no need for a great glacier to protect herself from it now. No need to encapsulate her thoughts in ice, or to force emotions to lie frozen in the pit of her heart. She could say and think and feel whatever she wished, and M’gulfn might writhe in her mind and groan and whimper all it wished, but it would never touch her. Never, never again.

She stretched and opened her eyes. The whiteness all around her made her blink, until she realised that it was ice. She propped herself up on her elbows, to find herself lying on a flat ridge, wrapped in her cloak and with her pack under her head.

Floating near her, about three feet above the ground, was a sphere of starry blue light. She looked at it in surprise, unable to think what it was, but noticing that it gave out a wonderfully cheering warmth. Estarinel was kneeling by the sphere with a gold vessel in his hand, apparently heating some wine.

Medrian stared at him as if she had never seen him before: his long, dark hair, fair face and gentle brown eyes. She found herself so desperate to speak to him that it was like an ache of starvation within her. As she gazed at him, he looked round and saw that she was awake.

‘Drink this,’ he said, handing the vessel to her. She swallowed the warm H’tebhmellian wine gratefully, feeling a pleasant heat and vitality spreading through her body. ‘Now, how do you feel?’

‘Better. Much better than I have for a long time,’ she replied, and smiled at him. ‘What’s that?’ She indicated the starry, floating lamp.

‘Oh, a device the H’tebhmellians gave us. Look.’ He reached into the sphere, which despite the heat it gave out was cool to the touch. At once the light vanished, and he showed her a small sapphire ball lying in his palm. ‘To light it, you press this indentation,’ and at once the cloud of blue stars appeared again. ‘It floats in the air wherever you place it. It’s to give us light and heat now that normal fires are impossible; works best in Arctic conditions. So Filitha told me, anyway.’

‘Where’s Ashurek?’ she asked, swinging her legs over the edge of the ridge and sitting up.

‘He went to find a way out of this cave, only a few minutes ago. Medrian, do you remember anything about the Black Plane?’

‘Hardly… There was something vague about nemen. But I remember Miril.’

‘Do you? Did you hear what she said to you?’

‘No. I couldn’t see or hear anything. There was a silver and gold light. Estarinel, will you come and sit by me?’

He seated himself next to her on the ridge and said, ‘Miril told me to tell you this: although you think your feelings are a weakness, they will prove to be your strength.’

She lowered her eyes and did not reply. Presently he noticed that her dark eyelashes, curved against her pale cheek, were glistening with tears.

‘There’s something I must tell you,’ she whispered. She slipped her cold hands into his and looked up, her shadowy eyes as brilliant as rain. Estarinel could tell that something had changed within her, as it had on H’tebhmella and in Forluin, but in a subtly different way. She had always been intrinsically self-contained, yet now there was also tranquillity about her, as if she had come to terms with a lifelong fear. ‘I always intended to wait until the very end of the Quest to say this... but things have changed. There’s nothing to prevent me from speaking now.’

He remembered all the times he had tried to persuade her to talk to him, and the despair he’d felt when she doggedly kept her pain to herself. And now here she was, about to tell him everything, and he found himself dreading what she had to say, almost not wanting to know. He sat clasping her hands, waiting wordlessly for her to begin.

She hesitated. She was thinking of Forluin, which she had had to put from her mind of necessity, so M’gulfn could not use it to torment her. But now she recalled with acute longing how it had felt to be free of the Serpent, the sad ache of finding love while all the time knowing she was going to lose it again. And here was Estarinel, regarding her with the love and concern that he’d always shown her, steadfastly, no matter how strangely she had behaved or how hard she had tried to rebuff him.

Would he still love her after she had told him?

Perhaps he would pity her; but she did not see how he could fail to feel revulsion, or even bear to touch her. She hated herself for deceiving him, but she could not stop; she craved a few minutes more in which he did not know the truth, and still loved her.

‘Medrian? What’s wrong?’ he asked gently.

‘I have to tell Ashurek as well. I can’t say it twice.’

‘That’s all right; we’ll wait for him. Don’t worry.’

‘You have been very patient,’ she said faintly, and she leaned her head on his shoulder and put her arms around his waist. His astonishment only lasted a second, lost in the simple joy of holding her and kissing her. It was strange how effortlessly pain and loneliness could be eased, tragic that Medrian had for so long been trapped in bitter isolation.

He could not have guessed how confused her feelings were at that moment. In a way she despised herself, but at the same time, how good it felt to love and know she was loved, to feel his arms round her, his hands in her hair. And M’gulfn not touching her. Distantly she observed its jealousy, and she did not care. The detachment on which she had based her life was ashes.

But at the back of her mind, a small voice warned her,
in this way the Serpent will win.

Presently Ashurek returned, and Medrian drew away from Estarinel and sat stiffly upright, trying to regain her grim self-possession. But he kept hold of her left hand, and she made no attempt to release herself.

‘I’ve found the way outside. It is long, but not difficult,’ Ashurek said, stretching out his hands to the warmth of the H’tebhmellian fire. ‘Is there any of that wine left?’

‘We still have three flasks. We’d better make them last,’ said Estarinel.

‘I have something to say.’ Medrian’s voice was almost a whisper.

Ashurek looked at her with surprise. He seated himself on a block of ice and said, with unusual gentleness, ‘Yes, go on.’

Her head bowed, her dark hair falling around her face, and her eyes fixed on her right hand where it lay curved limply on her knee, she began, ‘The Quest is almost over. I was always going to explain myself near the end... not this soon, but eventually. I could not – could not–’ her voice was fragile and cold, a crust of ice. She swallowed, and made herself continue, ‘I could not tell you this at the beginning of the Quest, for two reasons. I was not allowed to speak of it, but even if I had been, I still would not have told you, because if I had... you would never have taken me with you.’

You are not permitted to speak of this. You will be silent
, raged M’gulfn, but she ignored it. As if her mouth were flooded with poison, she said,

‘I am the Serpent’s human host.’

She could hear the sighing of the Arctic wind and the distant creaking of ice in the silence that followed. She felt Estarinel’s grip on her hand lose its strength, as she had known it would, and she let her hand slide from his, and she felt metallic bitterness invade and petrify her soul.

‘Ashurek, don’t tell me you didn’t guess,’ she whispered.

‘I knew you were working for it,’ he replied quietly. ‘I should have known. Perhaps even I was unwilling to believe the very worst of you. And I suspected Arlenmia so strongly that it clouded my judgement. This explains everything, of course: how the Serpent always knew where we were, how it was able to thwart us so often...’

‘Estarinel?’ she said, her tone acidic with self-hatred. ‘Now do you understand why I warned you so often not to trust me or grow fond of me? The most selfish thing I ever did was to return your love in Forluin. Don’t you agree?’

He did not speak, did not look at her.

‘So everything we have said to you, or in your hearing,’ said Ashurek, ‘has been like speaking to the Serpent itself? And is so now?’

There was so much more she had to say to make them understand. She held herself steady and tried to ignore Estarinel’s tangible abhorrence. ‘No, no, you don’t understand. I am not the Serpent. I hate the Serpent! It did not send me on the Quest to sabotage it. I came against M’gulfn’s will, to kill it!’

‘Yes, I can also believe that,’ Ashurek said thoughtfully.

‘I have so much to explain. I want to start from the beginning,’ she said. And as she related her story she stared fixedly at her hands the whole time, and her voice was as low and chilling as the wind sighing across a desolate plain of snow. ‘The Serpent was within me from my birth. I never knew a moment without its presence. My earliest childhood memories in Alaak were of the rattle of looms in my family’s cottage, my mother and father working – sometimes laughing, sometimes talking in low voices about Gorethria. And there was a pile of unspun fleece – I think that is the very first thing I remember, sitting on it, feeling how soft it was, picking out the burrs and bits of twig – but before that, there was the Serpent. Before ever I had a thought of my own, it seemed I was a grey, ancient, mocking intelligence in the guise of a baby.