A Blackbird In Silver (Book 1) (20 page)

It was the inn’s landlord, Skarred. They halted and turned in their saddles to watch him come gasping and red-faced to a stop. ‘I wanted to give you all a warning.’ He recovered his breath. ‘I’ve just heard about the girl’s death, her mother told me. You three seem innocent of what is happening here, so I felt I must explain. The girl, rest her soul, was Skord’s betrothed – yes, well may you look surprised. Under the guidance of She To Whom We Pay Tribute, he played on her love and used her most cruelly; but she was no fool. When she realised that Skord was in Her pay, she rebelled openly and rejected him; so he had her struck with the plague.’ Tears squeezed from the landlord’s eyes, and a great sob wracked his body. ‘That plague will come to us all in the end, all who still have some pride left.’

‘Skarred, what has happened to Belhadra?’ Ashurek asked.

‘I don’t think I can remember, only vaguely… there were no soldiers… just messengers, such as Skord, saying they had come from the Glass City. The Glass City is only a fairy story, anyway. No one’s ever been able to find it. Still, they said they had been sent by the Sorceress there, to tell us that she had come to rule and protect our country, and we were to pay her tribute in return… or die.’ Skarred laughed. ‘Yes, it sounded mad, but the plague and brain-sickness the messengers brought was real enough. Men of power and their soldiers laid down their arms, became witless, disappeared or died.’

‘But what was the tribute she wanted?’

‘Just our minds, I think,’ Skarred said chillingly. ‘And she has them. All sense of time has been lost; purpose, everything. We will all die of this apathy. Tomorrow I will have forgotten all I tell you today. Tomorrow the plague may come upon me. It doesn’t matter. But Skord – he hates Her as much as the rest of us. He was no victim of Her slow brainwashing, was never threatened with the plague that comes to all who defy Her. He has some vile bargain with her from which he must long to be free.’ He looked at them, as if struggling with a puzzle he would never solve.

‘Have you ever seen Her?’ Estarinel asked.

‘Seen Her?’ Skarred answered strangely. ‘Her mirrors are everywhere. It is no longer possible to tell reflection from reality; is this town an ill reflection of a fair city, or is the truth far fouler? Does my real self still exist apart from this poor mirror-image? You see, one glimpse of Her looking glass destroys all sense of perspective. Somewhere, perhaps, Belhadra exists as it used to be; we live in a reflection. Oh gods, what am I talking about?’ The landlord shook his head, and his eyes cleared. ‘Look, this is what I meant to tell you. I can see why Skord picked on you three – you are spirited, and dangerous. If he can deliver you to Her, he will be well rewarded. Or perhaps he hopes to play you and Her against each other, hoping both sides will be destroyed.’

‘You obviously know the lad well, but you do not know us,’ Ashurek said. ‘We are going our own way, not Skord’s.’

‘But he must have made you look in the mirror, in Mel Skara’s shop?’

‘I can’t remember,’ said Estarinel, frowning.

‘No, you wouldn’t. So you see, you are in Her power already; you can only go straight to Her.’ There was a strained, cold silence as they all stared at the landlord.

‘My curiosity is thoroughly roused,’ Ashurek said, an unfathomable gleam in his eye. ‘Let us ride on, and see what awaits us.’

‘Perhaps we can find some way to help you,’ Estarinel added uncertainly.

Medrian exclaimed, ‘You’re wrong! Something awaits us that is better avoided. Darkness is there – I can see no escape.’

‘So it has been for me, many times. So it is still,’ Ashurek said more gently than before. He looked searchingly at her as if to discover the truth of her enigmatic words. ‘The question is, have you the courage to endure it?’

‘Yes. If it must be faced, it must,’ she said, looking down at her horse’s neck. ‘Come on, let’s waste no more time.'

They bade goodbye to the landlord who soon stood alone in the greyness of ever-falling rain. Presently Skarred heard a distant cry: Ashurek’s voice. ‘Ho, Skarred – we ride to your salvation, straight into the unknown!’

Estarinel watched Ashurek shouting with exuberance on a leaping, plunging Vixata, and realised that the expression in his eyes was not unfathomable after all. It was a dangerous eagerness, and in that moment he glimpsed a key to all Gorethrians’ eccentric and destructive behaviour. They enjoyed trouble.

#

For seven days they rode north. What Skarred had said of Mel Skara’s mirror seemed to be true; it was a complex hypnotic device that was drawing them, irretrievably, to a certain point in the world. Their maps seemed to make no sense, and their horses were unusually spiritless as they plodded the unseen pathway.

For the first three days they passed through undulating farmlands, networks of hedges criss-crossing greenish fields, with narrow, crumbling paved roads running this way and that between them. There were villages here and there, some deserted. The travellers kept clear of them, camping in fields and hedgerows, living on their own provisions and on small game or crops pilfered from fields and orchards. Sometimes people saw them, but seemed afraid to stop them.

In one village, however, the inhabitants did not seem afraid to state their opinion of Her. They came upon the villagers digging a mass grave for victims of the plague. As they rode past, even at a distance, they saw a man spit and heard him say, ‘That for She who took my children and my wife!’ There were feverish sores on his own face.

Gradually, farmland gave way to forest; twisted trees with dark foliage, growing thick and choked with undergrowth. These steamy forests were hilly, with thin paths that were treacherous with loose shale. And they were full of precipitous drops concealed by undergrowth or overhung by crumbling ledges; sudden deep bogs; dead ends that meant hours of retracing steps over untrustworthy ground.

On the sixth night, as they slept in a forest hollow, Ashurek saw a vision, and was sure it was more than a dream. He was not in the forest, but in a tiny chamber, all its walls shrouded in grey velvet curtains. A dusky glow highlighted the honey-gold hair of Silvren. She sat facing him, cross-legged. She was dressed in a milky-pale garment, and she was smiling, yet she seemed unutterably distant.

‘I wanted to tell you something I noticed about the Dark Regions,’ she said cheerfully. ‘It’s not black at all – it’s blue. Did you ever notice that? Blue – navy blue, indigo, blue like bruised skin or like the egg of a small bird, washed by the rain and left to rot in a deserted nest…’ She almost seemed to be singing a spell. He felt sure she would not hear him if he spoke.

‘I also wanted to tell you that I’m trying to watch over you. You are diving into darkness. I feel it, even from here… it’s not so bad, now pain has become a monotone dream. But I wish I could see what you are doing! And Ashurek… I wish you would remember why. It’s for the world’s sake that the Worm must die, not so that you can have vengeance on all that has hurt you.’

The bitter truth of her rebuke impaled him, like a needle of pure gold turning in his heart. ‘Well, there is my useless warning,’ Silvren said. ‘And oh, damn her, she was my friend!’

Like a faint light being extinguished, she was gone. Trees surrounded Ashurek, emanating heavy malice. He had not been asleep, and Silvren had been there, in shades of gold and pearl, although what she had said was dream-like, if not incomprehensible. She had been there, and now she was gone.

At dawn they were glad to be out of the close, silent forest and onto a plain of wiry grass. After resting the horses they took off at full gallop; dwarfed by the vast dome of tattered clouds above them, borne on a dry gale that swept them away to the north. They had still seen no sign of Skord.

Later that day, still on the grasslands, they came in sight of strange ice-white hills.

They rode, single file, into a pass between white cliffs that rose suddenly out of the plain. The path between the faces of glassy quartz was uneven and slippery and they had to dismount and lead the horses. At last the pass opened out into a wider terrain of crystal hills rising in steps and ledges to oddly shaped peaks.

Little glistening streams bubbled over rock here and there, running together to form small rivers and then wider ones. They must have climbed and trekked about ten miles over the hills of crystalline rock, following an ever-widening river, when they came to the peak of a final, high ridge. Below them a sudden valley fell away – falling, falling into grey depths. There lay below their feet an abyss miles across, filled with the thunder and vapour of many plunging waterfalls. It seemed bottomless, but they could see the far rim of the chasm on the horizon. Shafts of late sunlight caught the water, turning it to spirals of golden glass, glinting on white peaks of quartz, illuminating the banks of vapour to translucent silver-blue. Ahead lay many more such valleys, separated by hills that were like great crystals clustered together.

On horseback again, they began to edge slowly along the ridge, eyes fixed on the depths where water like molten diamond leapt on downwards from ledge to ledge.

Medrian trotted on in front, hair and cloak streaming, to a viewpoint some yards ahead. They were now riding across a shallow dip patterned with rock pools, surrounded by a jagged, sunlit ridge. They saw her silhouetted against a golden sky as she turned her nameless horse and sent him trotting and slithering along the glassy ridge back towards them.

‘Retreat!’ she shouted. ‘Make haste. There’s a mass of… warriors of some kind down there. Better not to wait and see if they’re friendly.’

‘We’ll wait on the far ridge,’ Ashurek said as they rode back. ‘Then they’ll have to get below us to get at us, and we’ll have the advantage.’

As they waited – three mounted figures gilded by the sun’s last rays – Estarinel thought that perhaps if they approached the swordsmen peacefully, they’d be allowed to pass without harm. When the warriors actually appeared, it was obvious the three companions would be pitched into battle. The swordsmen flowed over the ridge and across the dip, and more came from behind, streaming around from both sides until Medrian, Estarinel and Ashurek were surrounded.

The swordsmen were on foot, running lithely and strongly across the glassy rock. They had dark golden skin and hair, and stood around seven feet high, almost naked but for weapons strapped about their thighs, waists and chests. Their features were long and strange, neither male nor female. Most bizarre of all, each of the beings had four arms, one pair below the other; four muscular arms, four strong hands. And each hand held a weapon; sword, shield, axe, and morning-star – a spiked iron ball that whirled on a chain.

Ashurek and Estarinel drew swords. Medrian set arrow to bow. Then one of the creatures, apparently their captain, pointed at the three and cried, ‘Take them!’

They were not taken without a battle. They had the advantage of being on the narrow ridge and mounted on horses; but there the advantage ended. The creatures advanced in silence but for a curious rushing sound that was the slap of many bare feet on wet rock. Before they reached the three, Medrian was already sending arrows skimming with accuracy into the creatures’ ranks, picking off several of them.

Ashurek was the first to be assailed. It was difficult fighting several of the beings at once, each handling four weapons with skill and ferocity. He lopped the head from the first and it fell back, knocking down a comrade behind it. Vixata jumped sideways and a morning-star whistled close to his ear. A sword swung at him, and he turned so that it fell with a shuddering blow on his shield. He sliced two arms from one attacker, took another through the chest. His mare, a metallic streak of light, was rearing, kicking, dodging. She was a war-horse highly trained in the Gorethrian technique of fighting, finely schooled to strike, bite and kick at all assailants of her own accord, while obeying the slightest command of her rider. The rider, too, used great skill in sitting firm on the plunging steed, and fighting swiftly and ferociously at the same time. It was spectacular to watch, and it terrified and demoralised enemies.

Ashurek, as he wielded his sword, cutting off a limb here, a head there, feeling the lithe, strong movements of his sweating mare beneath him, was taken over by a familiar blood-lust. He was in his element. He gave an unearthly howl of joy.

Estarinel, meanwhile, was struggling. This was the first battle he had ever experienced. The Forluinish learned the use of weapons as a sport, and skilful with the sword as he was, there was a world of difference between a fencing match and a life-or-death fight. But he had killed once, and the next time, horribly, was easier.

The golden-skinned hominids crowded in on him. He twisted, ducked, blocked blows with his shield, severed limbs, struck and parried. Shaell had no such skill as Vixata, but through sheer strength and bulk was able to push the men aside, push them over and off the ridge.

There seemed no end to the number of creatures. Their attack never faltered. Strong, bronze-limbed, expressionless, they had a kind of asexual beauty. As one was killed or wounded, another would take its place, their multiple arms moving with graceful co-ordination. They had so far dealt no fatal blows, but horses and riders were incurring many wounds, rents, bruises. Blood creamed with sweat on the horses’ steaming coats and the animals were all growing distressed, breathing hard.

Medrian had to give up her arrow-firing and fight hand to hand. Ashurek, finding a second to draw breath and glance at her, recognised her Alaakian style of fighting, very fast and accurate. She favoured taking her attackers through the throat. Although her shield arm had taken a wound and blood was pouring down her wrist and hand, she fought on. She manoeuvred Nameless, using leg aids to make him barge into the beings and push them over.

The sun sank. A dim half-light shadowed the battle; mists fell. The roar of the falls was punctuated by the high, clear sounds of clashing weaponry.

Estarinel, attacked from both sides, turned one way to plunge his sword through a hominid’s chest. From the other side there was a low whirr of air and a morning-star caught him across the back. He cried out and half-fell from his stallion.

‘Come on!’ he heard Ashurek shouting. ‘Follow me!’ Ashurek turned Vixata, rearing, knocking three assailants out of the way and jumping over their bodies. Medrian followed, Nameless going swift as a gliding crow in the dusk. Shaell galloped after at full speed with Estarinel hanging onto his mane as they sped up the ridge. This tactic surprised their enemies, left them standing.

They careered down the outside of the ridge, forced their way round bluffs of white rock. Ashurek led them to the comparative safety of a barrier of large rocks overhung by a knoll.

‘Now what?’ said Medrian, as they hurriedly brought the horses behind the rocks, which stood high enough to conceal them. The hominids ran sure-footedly at amazing speed and were quickly catching up.

‘Get your breath. They’re following us… set arrow to bow!’ Ashurek said, sliding down from his sweating, shaking mare. They crouched behind the rocks and waited.

‘That was well timed,’ Estarinel said.

‘It can work,’ replied Ashurek. ‘Hold your ground, look for a thin patch, and then run like blazes… it’s a way out of a hopeless battle that gives you a break to rest and form a plan.’

‘Ho there!’ A cry broke in from below. ‘Surrender yourselves as prisoners!’ They glanced over the top of their rock barrier and saw three of the golden-skinned creatures approaching their refuge. Medrian released three arrows and felled them all. ‘Only one arrow left,’ she whispered.

A morning-star flew towards them and bounced violently off the rock about a foot from her face. She jumped backwards with a curse, crouching down again. ‘This is the best we can do,’ she said. ‘We’ve killed about fifteen but there’s still over forty of them. They’re starting to surround us. We can’t fight our way out – not with our horses exhausted and ourselves pouring blood.’

‘Very well,’ the clear voice continued. ‘We will wait for you until you decide to come out.’

Silence followed. When they looked out again they were indeed surrounded.

‘Let’s make ourselves comfortable,’ Ashurek suggested. ‘We’re here for the night now.’

Outside, the hominids were making a camp, lighting torches, building small fires that reflected a flickering red glow on the rocky knoll above the three companions’ heads. Estarinel was tearing up a muslin shirt to make bandages. He wished his store of healing herbs had not been lost on Hrannekh Ol. There was nothing he could do for their various wounds except stem the bleeding.

‘Medrian, will you roll up your sleeve please?’ he asked.

‘Why?’ she said absently, listening acutely for activity outside.

‘So that I can bandage your arm.’

‘Oh,’ she murmured, holding out her hand. It was crusted with blood, and blood still welled from a knife slash on her forearm. Estarinel made a tourniquet and held up her lower arm up to stop the dark red flow.

‘Do you feel all right?’ he asked. ‘You may have lost a lot of blood.'

‘Well, I expect I could bleed dry and still walk about,’ she answered shortly. ‘I feel better than usual.’

As he sat close to her, gently supporting her arm, he noticed that she did look less haunted than normal. It was as if whatever internal pain she felt was relieved, or at least numbed, by external danger. Presently she looked at him, her face in shadow, and said, ‘What did you feel about having to fight?’

‘Frightened. And sickened,’ he replied.

‘And shocked that your instinct to live is greater than your horror of killing?’

He smiled, grimly, at her perceptiveness. ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

‘You’ll get used to it.’

‘Used to it! I don’t want to get used to killing.’ He shuddered.

‘But when you do, the pain will be less, which will make it easier for you to fulfil the Quest,’ she said, her voice distant and somehow ominous. And he knew that while Ashurek had felt wolfish joy in that battle, Medrian had felt nothing, nothing at all, and somehow that seemed much worse.

‘Yes, but I came to kill a mindless beast, not human beings,’ he said unhappily.

‘But it is all part of the same thing. And even the Serpent has a mind, and when you kill it, it will feel, and know.’ She uttered a grim laugh. ‘Estarinel, don’t be tortured by self-doubt; it will pass.’

‘I don’t understand you,’ he said softly; and he did not understand how he could feel so drawn to someone so cold, strange, even callous.

‘Nor I you,’ she replied. ‘How can you have suffered so much for Forluin, yet still be able to care what happens in Belhadra?’

‘That’s just the way we are – in Forluin, I mean. I can’t help it. I care about you as well, Medrian.’

‘Listen,’ she said thinly. ‘What are you going to do when it all gets too much? Emotion is pain… I’m not afraid of pain, but I can only function by not feeling anything.’

He stared at her; she appeared small and frail, hardly any older than himself, her shower of black hair falling around her pallid face. But the terrible darkness was still in her eyes, and she seemed as delicate and clear and indestructible as a diamond. He could not bring himself to ask her reasons for coming on the Quest.

‘If you must care about so many things, Estarinel,’ she continued, a strange cold note entering her voice, ‘don’t make the mistake of including me. I am not to be trusted. As my companion you can help me best by finding a way to the Blue Plane… and bearing with my silence. The bleeding has stopped now.’

She gently drew her arm from his hands. Her words had brought an unexpected pressure of distress to his throat, but before he could say any more to her, Ashurek interrupted.

‘Nemen,’ he said. ‘That’s what they are.’

‘What?’ Estarinel said.

‘Our friends out there. Some of the races of Tearn have three sexes: men, women, nemen. The northern countries, Athrainy and Sphraina…’

‘Silvren came from Athrainy, didn’t she?’ Estarinel asked.

‘Yes,’ replied Ashurek, ‘that is how I know. It is said they are neuter, and having no sexual purpose they are shunned by society. So, they wander from their homelands and take arms for the highest bidder. It’s a life that makes them bitter and formidable adversaries… being an accident of nature without use. Like the whole damned Earth!’ He laughed cynically.

Estarinel shivered, looking up at the two alabaster moons gleaming benignly in the cobalt sky. He wished more than ever that he was at home, and that the Serpent M’gulfn did not exist.

They slept in turn. The black globe of the sky pivoted above them. Estarinel awoke suddenly to find Skord kneeling on top of their rock barrier, looking down at them.

‘Hello, what brings you to be hiding behind a rock like frightened rabbits?’ he mocked. ‘You three are fools. I send out an armed escort to look after you and what do you do? Attack them. You’ve had your chance now! These nemen are sensitive souls and they’re not likely to forgive your behaviour, even if it was a mistake – agh!’ The last exclamation exploded from Skord as Ashurek seized him and pulled him bodily from his perch into their refuge.

‘What are you talking about this time?’ Ashurek demanded, his eyes glinting dangerously.

Skord sulkily nursed a bruised arm. ‘You may not know where you’re going, but –’

‘To She To Whom You Pay Tribute? The Mirror of Mel Skara?’

‘Oh. So you’re not complete fools.’ Skord grinned. ‘I sent the nemen out as a sort of escort of honour – since you can’t avoid going to Her now, you may as well be made to feel welcome – but you’ve obviously rubbed them up the wrong way.’

‘Skord,’ said Ashurek, ‘what would you do if fifty or so four-armed warriors rushed you from all sides?’

‘It’s just their way,’ Skord said apologetically, still grinning slightly. ‘They’ve been instructed not to kill you.’

‘I see. It’s your idea of a joke to have us attacked and held to siege!'

‘Not at all, I’m saying–’

‘Now you’re here,’ Ashurek interrupted, drawing out a knife that gleamed coldly in the darkness, ‘it’s time for some explanations.’

‘What have I got to explain?’ Skord said, a trace of anxiety cutting through his swaggering tone.

‘Tell us about your bargain with Her.’

‘I have none – I work for Her of my own accord.’

‘Do you not loathe Her?’

‘We worship Her – we all worship Her.’ Fear began to show in his eyes. ‘I have only to shout a command and a horde of nemen will descend on this place.’

‘With you as our hostage?’

‘They have no love for me,’ Skord said, and it was probably the only honest statement he had ever made to them.

‘In that case, you’ll have no chance to shout.’ Ashurek put the knife to Skord’s throat. It was not the knife that Skord feared, but the Gorethrian himself. ‘What is your bargain with Her?’

‘None – none!’ Skord spat. ‘She’ll make you pay for this!’

‘Why should I fear your threats or Hers? I, who have defied demons and escaped the Dark Regions?’

‘She has more power than a demon – no, no, I am not threatening you, I am warning you.’ A note of hysteria grew in Skord’s voice. ‘I was only serving Her – I – oh no, no–’ His fair, rosy face became contorted and purplish, his eyes glazed, his breathing quick and shallow like a small animal’s.

Ashurek groaned and sheathed the knife. He had tried to dismiss it from his mind, but he could no longer: Skord’s erratic behaviour was similar to that of his own dead brother.

‘Something stopped him speaking,’ Ashurek said. ‘He was going to tell us too much, so something blocked his tongue. Whether it was Her or some other power… the Worm is dogging our steps all the way.’ He sighed and rested his dark head in his hands.

Estarinel broke hesitantly into the silence.

‘I think I can make him speak. An old Forluinish technique – a kind of hypnotism – it’s only supposed to be used for healing purposes.’ He looked uncertainly at Ashurek for approval.