A Blackbird In Darkness (Book 2) (53 page)

Medrian looked steadily at him, her face white with both fear and diamond-hard resolve. How could he hope to equal her strength? Faintly – the words turning in his heart like a cry for pity – she said, ‘I’m ready, Estarinel. Let it be over soon. Please let it be over.’

It was then that he understood what Miril had meant when she said that love was selfish, compassion selfless. In his love for Medrian he was hopelessly seeking ways to redeem her, but every moment he delayed could serve no purpose except to increase her misery. What she needed from him was compassion, the understanding that there was no choice and that to end her life swiftly would be the truest, kindest proof of love. He did not know where he found the strength to act, except that compassion won.

She closed her eyes as she finished speaking, and he seized the instant as if his will had been suspended. The point of the Silver Staff slid deep into her throat. Her body went into spasm, but there was no blood, and she did not make a sound.

The Silver Staff began to glow.

#

Silvren, Ashurek and Arlenmia were staring towards the hollow in anxious silence, although they could not actually see Medrian and Estarinel. It was many minutes before anything happened, but just as Ashurek became sure that the Quest had failed, a whisper of light began to glow there. Swiftly it grew brighter until they were privileged to witness an extraordinary, breathtaking sight. From the hollow, a pillar of silver fire sprang up to stand silently between the snow and the sky.

Energy was pouring upwards in a silver-white blaze. The negative force that formed the Serpent’s spirit joined to the positive force within the Silver Staff, creating a fresh power that was neutral, yet vigorous and cleansing. The very fabric of the Silver Staff was fraying away to form that column of joyous light. Where it touched the sky, it spread out like a fountain, and the layer of oily cloud began to dissipate, incinerated by diamond-bright purity. Then from the base of the column, argent flames came pouring over the snow in a swift, foaming tide.

Before Ashurek even thought that they might be in danger, white fire was lapping all around them. But it was heatless, as sweet and soothing as fresh air. And as it reached the Serpent’s remains, the flames licking half-heartedly along them leaped into a gold and sapphire blaze. Paler and paler the H’tebhmellian fire burned until it became one with the greater incandescence of the Silver Staff. The Serpent’s hideous body caught like tinder and it flashed into vapour. And all the blood and filth that lay around it was also burned away, leaving the snow blessedly clean.

Then a cataclysmic noise began, a deep, tearing roar that vibrated painfully through their skulls. They flung themselves flat on the snow, wondering if the world was to be annihilated after all. Over their heads hurtled a vile flood of darkness, a viscid river swirling with grit and clots of filth. But the silver fire had spread to fill the whole sky, and as the dark flood touched it, it too was consumed. Then Ashurek realised that the fabric of the Dark Regions was being disgorged through the gateway that Meheg-Ba had opened. The Silver Staff’s power was drawing out and cleansing all the Serpent’s effluent.

At last the putrescent flood ended. The world was intact, the air as pure as birdsong. Silvren, Arlenmia and Ashurek sat up slowly, dizzy with relief to realise that it was finally over. Then they looked around in amazement.

All traces of M’gulfn’s defilement had been eradicated, and the snow was a blanket of pure white, illuminated by light that was brilliant yet soothing. The whole sky had become a vast ocean of pale silver fire. Within it the sun floated like an apricot-gold orb, the twin moons like iridescent opals. All around them stars were scattered, winking like diamonds from white to red to blue; and around each one circled planets that, with the exquisite illogic of a dream, could be seen in perfect detail. Each was different; a soft purple-blue sphere, an ellipse striated with ruby and amber, a jade globe encircled by flat, shimmering rings… their number was infinite.

And now the column of argent itself seemed to be singing, voicing the innocent cosmic joy that Estarinel had experienced in the domain of the Silver Staff. It was as if each of the billion drops of white fire was a wordless voice, swelling into a paean as wild and forlorn as infinity, as vast and vital as the birth of stars; powerful, ungentle, yet without guile. Even the Guardians did not understand what the Silver Staff was, for it was greater than them, but the song seemed to say,
We are a vessel; as the land holds the sea and the body contains the mind, so are we a vessel for this pure and perfect energy
… and as they watched, the pillar appeared to take on a sentient form. It could have been Miril, a winged child, a hippogriff... all or none of those. It was a mythic being formed of countless glittering, oscillating motes of light. In that form it began to ascend towards the sky – its task upon Earth complete – there to continue its enigmatic dance amid the stars.

From within the column of fire, Estarinel could hardly see it and was only aware of a cool upsurge of energy from the Silver Staff. The substance of the Staff itself was dissipating within his hands, channelling awesome energies from Earth to sky. Presently the slender metal rod vanished altogether. There was nothing in his hands, nothing piercing Medrian’s throat.

She opened her eyes and murmured, ‘Do you see the sky?’

‘Yes,’ he replied, cradling her in his arms. But all he really saw was the blood that sprang from the wound as soon as the Staff was gone. He tried to stem it, but she whispered, ‘Let it flow. There’s nothing you can do.’

He saw that she was right. More than a mortal wound was draining the life from her. All he could do was to hold her, kissing her hair, while her blood poured over his hands and she slipped towards oblivion.

‘I’m cold,’ she said presently, like a child. ‘I’m frightened.’

Bitter misery tore out his heart, but he could not let himself weep, not while she needed his comfort. ‘Don’t be afraid. I’m with you, beloved,’ he said gently, saying anything, anything to make her feel less alone. ‘Look at the sun, the stars; are they not beautiful? We won, Medrian. Everything is all right. You will always be loved…’ he carried on even when he was sure she could no longer hear him. Only when her eyes were closed and her heart stilled did he begin to sob, his tears falling onto her dark hair and ice-pale face.

Some stubborn part of him still could not accept that she was dead. Why could not those heartless forces leave her alive? he cried inwardly. Surely she must live – half-mad with grief he chafed her cold hands, rocked her despairingly in his arms. All the while he knew that his efforts were futile; and black sorrow claimed him, and he gave up.

A distant concussion shook the Earth, a shockwave from far off forces. The silver sentience had vanished into the heavens, and the fantastical vision of moons, stars and planets was lost. The scene returned to one of earthly normality; but the delicate blue of the sky and the purity of the sun were refreshing in their simplicity. All trace of the Worm was gone, and the Earth had survived to witness a new and sweet dawn.

But Estarinel was not looking at the sky, and did not even notice. There was a wheel of ice turning in his heart, darkness pressing on his eyes. Medrian was gone, no comfort could reach her; but still he remained there, hugging her to him, weeping silently. So he was still when Ashurek found him.

‘Estarinel,’ said Ashurek. ‘Come on. You can’t stay here.’

Estarinel insisted on carrying Medrian’s body, but Ashurek had to support him as they walked back to Silvren and Arlenmia.

‘The sooner we leave this place the better,’ the Gorethrian said. ‘I know it is hard, but we have to think of the return journey. There’s a possibility that it may not be as arduous as I’d feared.’ Estarinel said nothing. Ashurek went on, ‘There was something more fortuitous than we dreamed of in the purging of the Dark Regions. You know they were on the far side of H’tebhmella; if only that Entrance is still there, we may be able to go directly to the Blue Plane.’

‘Are you all right?’ Silvren cried as Estarinel reached her; and when she saw Medrian, she wept. Ashurek held her. Only Arlenmia showed no emotion, and Ashurek felt unreasonably angered by her.

‘Come,’ he said. ‘Let us go and see if the Entrance is still there. If not, we will have to think of something else.’

‘Not I,’ said Arlenmia. ‘I am going back to my iceberg vessel.’

Ashurek turned on her. ‘You are what?’

‘You do not expect me to come to H’tebhmella with you, surely?’

‘On the contrary,’ he said quietly, his eyes burning, ‘you must come with us. The Lady of H’tebhmella should decide what to do with you, what form your punishment should take.’

‘Punishment?’ Arlenmia echoed, an uncharacteristic look of fear crossing her face.

‘You assumed that your deeds would go unremarked? I’ve heard this is not the only world to which you have brought near-disaster; however, you will answer to this one first. Arlenmia, you show no remorse; a ghost of contrition at best. You should have died! You and I – not Skord, not poor Miril. And not Medrian!’

‘Ashurek, don’t,’ Silvren said. ‘She feels sorrow, but she is too proud to show it. She helped against M’gulfn. The truth about it almost destroyed her. Show her some compassion.’

He sighed, turning away from Arlenmia. ‘Ah, Silvren, you think too well of people for your own good. If she feels true remorse, let her prove it by coming with us.’

The Entrance was still there, now radiating light instead of yawning into darkness. To their astonishment, where once had stood a vile multitude of demons, there was now a throng of H’tebhmellian women. The Lady of H’tebhmella herself stepped forward to greet them, her beautiful face bright with relief and joy. The dark-haired Filitha and fair Neyrwin were at her side.

‘Oh, we are well met!’ she said. ‘No words can encompass the joy and sorrow of this moment. Only come through to us and receive the healing of H’tebhmella.’

‘We are grateful, my Lady,’ said Ashurek, and he took off his sword and threw it away onto the snow. He helped Silvren through the Entrance, and propelled the reluctant Arlenmia after her. Estarinel went through last with Medrian. Then they found that the H’tebhmellians were not standing on ground, but in a number of crystal boats that were bobbing gently in thin air. Each was shaped like a coracle and exquisitely figured with a pearly substance that shimmered all shades of blue and copper as the light changed. The Lady directed Arlenmia to step into another sky-coracle in the custody of Filitha and Neyrwin; then she bade the others to take seats in her own vehicle.

‘Alas, Estarinel,’ she said very softly to him, ‘although the Blue Plane can heal the living, it possesses no power to restore the dead. I know that you loved Medrian, but this was the only possible end. Be consoled by the knowledge that you acted rightly, and that Forluin has thereby been redeemed.’

Estarinel only shook his head, too lost in grief to answer her.

The sky-coracles began to drift through an infinite heaven of a rich, clear blue never dreamed of on Earth. Above and below and on every side were cloud-banks of breathtaking strangeness and beauty – if clouds they were. They seemed to hint at other, exquisite worlds, as if they contained the essence of those strange planets seen in the vision after the Serpent died, no less distant and yet heartrendingly real. The feeling they induced was of emerging from a windowless cell into a dew-clear spring morning caught in a net of light, and the contrast filled them with poignant and mixed emotions. For Estarinel, it made his loss unbearable.

Around the vehicle they shared with the Lady floated several others, crewed by H’tebhmellians. Presently, however, Silvren noticed that one, some way below them, contained a number of bewildered-looking humans, as thin and pale as herself.

‘They were the prisoners held in the Dark Regions,’ the Lady explained. ‘The Serpent’s death brought much good. That vile clot of darkness was torn away, and this, the far side of H’tebhmella, has been restored to its untainted glory.’

These revelations brought questions thronging into Silvren’s throat, but in the end, all she could manage was, ‘Are we staying on this side?’

‘No, we are returning to the other one,’ the Lady replied, smiling slightly at her evident relief. ‘The tranquil side.’

‘Forgive me, it’s not that this place is not beautiful – but I think my heart will stop if I am here much longer. It is overwhelming.’

‘It was never meant that humans should come to this side,’ said the Lady, adding enigmatically, ‘at least, not until they are ready to stay here. I know not how to explain it – except to say that it touches the subconscious mind, which is far simpler and far wiser than the conscious mind.’

After several hours they saw land below them. It was unlike the H’tebhmella they knew; rather, it contained everything that was most familiar, sweet and beautiful about the Earth. There were violet-blue mountains, wild hills, towering fjords plunging into shimmering seas, sunlit forests, orchards and flower-filled meadows. But each of them saw something different in the landscape, so that Ashurek thought he was looking at the mountains of Gorethria, Silvren at Athrainy’s hills, Estarinel at some part of Forluin he had never seen before.

The other sky-coracles flew on, but the Lady caused her vehicle to land in a green-velvet glade shaded by graceful chestnut trees.

‘E’rinel, there could be no lovelier place for Medrian to rest than here,’ she said. ‘Lay her down in the centre of the glade.’ Estarinel did as she asked, covering Medrian’s slight form with her travel-worn H’tebhmellian cloak; there was something pitiful, tragic in its tattered edges and snow-stains. He knelt on the grass at her side, his head bowed. Then the Lady cast a sphere of white and sapphire light – similar to the one that had sustained them in the Arctic – onto her. Soft flames sprang up along her body, like the ghosts of snowdrops and harebells. Gently and gradually she was consumed, like frost dissolved by a breath. Soon there was nothing left to mark that she had ever existed, save for a slight flattening of the velvet grass.

The Lady, Ashurek and Silvren withdrew to the edge of the glade, but Estarinel remained kneeling on the grass long after it was over, weeping in forlorn, unreachable despair. Eventually they left him by himself.

#

He felt more alone than he had ever believed possible, here in this place that was softly beautiful yet more remote and comfortless than the Arctic. He stared at the empty place where she had been, the meaning of the prescient visions he had had of her turning like a cold blade in his heart. Images came crowding back to him, heartbreakingly real and yet distant, gone forever. Medrian, sitting white-faced and quiet at the table in the House of Rede; walking with him through the white tunnels of Hrannekh Ol, trying to case his doubts; a shadowy figure in a dusty hayloft in Belhadra, or in a circle of firelight in Excarith, her eyes always terrifying, yet so compelling… and again and again, Medrian in Forluin. Lying with her arms around him, whispering, ‘I wish I could stay here forever.’ The hem of her blue H’tebhmellian robe brushing the ground as she turned to embrace him, saying, ‘I was alive here.’

After an hour or so the Lady returned alone. When she took his arm and led him towards her sky-coracle he went without protest, dimly realising the futility of staying in the glade. Medrian was not there. He sat without speaking as the little craft skimmed above the strange landscape. Presently it entered a crystal tunnel leading through to the other side of the Blue Plane.

It was not the passage through which Calorn and Ashurek had forced a way, but a wide one, unblocked when the Dark Regions ceased to exist.

On the other side – the Plane he knew, of tranquil blue lakes and exquisite rock formations – the Lady caused the sky-coracle to land on a secluded shore. She led him to a stream running between banks of moss, shaded by willows with leaves like jewels. There was no sign of the others.

‘They are resting, and you must do the same,’ the Lady said gently. ‘Here fresh clothes have been left for you, and food and drink. Here you may sleep for as long as you wish. I know it is hard for you to believe that this sadness will ever leave you, but let H’tebhmella comfort you, at least.’ She kissed him on the forehead and walked away through the trees.

Estarinel was exhausted, and it was good to strip off the travel-worn Arctic clothing and bathe in the clear, reviving stream. He felt too tired to eat, but he drank the honeyed wine that they had left for him. Then he lay down on the soft moss and, with the calming power of the Blue Plane pervading his mind and body, he fell at once into a dreamless, healing sleep.

#

‘Skord seemed beyond help, but I don’t believe he was,’ said Ashurek. ‘At Miril’s touch he seemed to regain reason and self-awareness. But Arlenmia’s hold on him was too strong. No sooner had he found hope – for the first time in his life – than he fell prey to the Serpent.’

‘Ah, the poor child,’ said the Lady sadly. ‘Would that he could have been saved from that fate.’ It was a day later, and Ashurek and Silvren were sitting on a sapphire shore in the company of the Lady and other H’tebhmellians.

‘His death was as much our fault as Arlenmia’s,’ said Ashurek with harsh self-condemnation. ‘She used him, but we used him also. From the very moment we met him.’

‘He was M’gulfn’s victim,’ Silvren began.

‘We cannot escape blame so easily. The fact is that he was the wretched and innocent victim of all of us – not just of the Serpent.’

‘Perhaps it is so,’ the Lady said, ‘but, Ashurek, I believe that you are putting all your own sense of guilt onto this one boy. His end was tragic, but remorse cannot bring him back.’

‘You are right,’ Ashurek replied, looking levelly into her clear grey eyes. ‘Yet I speak not of guilt, but of responsibility. It has been easy to blame all evil upon the Serpent. Now that it is no longer there to take the blame, how much better shall we fare? M’gulfn is dead, but so is Miril. How long will it take us to learn that good and evil are inside ourselves, not outside?’

A new voice said, ‘This is a wise question, but the answer is beyond me.’ They looked up and saw Eldor standing at the edge of the group. With him were Neyrwin and Calorn. The tall chestnut-haired woman rushed forward, smiling, to embrace Ashurek and Silvren. ‘We heard that you were back safely,’ she said, ‘but the Lady would not let us see you until you had rested. Oh, Silvren – both of you – I’m so glad. Neyrwin has been telling me something of what happened. Where is Estarinel?’

‘Here he is,’ said the Lady. Approaching from another direction was Estarinel with Filitha, who had gone to fetch him. As he reached the group he stopped in surprise to see Calorn and Eldor there.

They greeted him with unbounded relief and joy, and while on one level he returned their warmth and could have wept with happiness to see them, on a deeper level he felt detached from everything, as if the core of his soul had turned to ice.

Calorn embraced him and then stood back, her hands on his shoulders, looking at him. Yes, she was thinking, he has been destroyed, just as I feared he would be.

‘I’m glad you’re safe,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry about Medrian.’

He nodded, not looking her in the eye. ‘It’s good to see you,’ he said quietly.

Now he was wearing a loose white shirt and blue breeches, and went barefoot. Ashurek had on a simple, long robe of ultramarine hue, Silvren a silver-blue one tied by a cord at the waist. Already H’tebhmella had worked its healing power upon her. She had been weak and ill from her ordeal in the Dark Regions, and Ashurek had always feared that she might die in the harsh cold of the Arctic. He was sure that only her will had kept her alive. Now she looked healthy again; her ashen skin had resumed its golden hue, and her hair was glossy. It was hard for all of them to think of how clear-eyed and tranquil Medrian and Skord would also have looked if circumstances had been less unjust.

While Estarinel was greeting the others, Neyrwin came to speak to Ashurek. ‘It is simply a matter of your horses,’ she said. ‘Filitha is going to take Shaell back to Forluin today. What do you wish us to do with your Vixata?’

‘She is the last thing I have of Gorethria,’ Ashurek said thoughtfully. ‘She is no longer young; I would ask no more of her. Let her be taken to Forluin with Shaell. She deserves peace for the rest of her days, and I know they will care for her there. What about Taery Jasmena?’

‘The blue horse? I was told that he belonged to Arlenmia.’

Ashurek laughed. ‘Aye, indeed, that is so. Let her have him back! Then she cannot accuse us of worse than “borrowing” him.’

Neyrwin added softly, ‘Say nothing of Filitha’s visit to Forluin to Estarinel. The Lady thinks it best that he be told nothing – until he is ready to ask.’ Gravely, Ashurek agreed, and went to rejoin Silvren.