Cloudfyre Falling - a dark fairy tale (48 page)

He started his way over. Slowly.
And came up around Hawkmoth’s right side, giving the sorcerer a
berth of several yards. He were not certain why he did this.
Perhaps he were anticipating a surprise that never came.

He found Hawkmoth awake and lucid,
searching foggy skies. When Hawkmoth’s eyes found him he said, ‘Oh,
giant, you are awake at last. Two sets of eyes be better than one.
Come sit with me and help me search.’

Gargaron frowned, looking at the
sorcerer, suspecting now that, like Locke, he too had smoked some
weed and his mind lost to its enchantments. ‘For what do we
search?’

‘
A marker.’

‘
I have to confess,’ Gargaron
said, ringing the cold from his fingers, ‘I do not
follow.’

Hawkmoth indicated the shrouded
landscape before them. ‘It has been many years since I have been
this way, giant. In my youth I could negotiate these mountain
passes in my sleep. However, the exact route to Sanctuary has since
caused itself to fade somewhat from my memory. Yet, I do recall a
particular crag, known by some as the Witch’s Beak. On sunny days
you will see it from the lowlands. It be a mountain peak that looks
to have been melted by some dragon fire and drooped over. If I
happen to spy it, I should know where we are positioned, and thus
understand which direction we must head.’

Gargaron sat, crossing his legs,
pulling his jacket up about his neck, searching through the mists,
hoping to spy this crag. ‘Might you have had two sets of eyes on it
already,’ Gargaron said, pointing back at Locke. ‘You do know our
good Sir is at your pipe?’

The sorcerer simply smiled. ‘Aye.
He claimed he had never smoked and were curious about it. Thus he
requested a toke. I warned him that the weed I enjoy be not for the
faint of heart. He insisted, saying he had never been more keen for
new experiences than he has in these days of the Ruin. Perhaps it
were lack of judgement and foresight on my part…’ He shrugged. ‘You
must admit, he certainly looks to be enjoying himself. And who am I
to deny folk their small pleasures in such times when we have all
lost so much?’

Gargaron begrudged no-one their
small pleasures. But he hated to think how they would fare if
suddenly they were ambushed by Dark Ones, or some other such
critter; they were essentially now one fighter short of a full
compliment.

If he were not still distracted by
events that had taken place hours earlier he may have questioned
Hawkmoth’s reasoning and emphasised his concerns so that it might
not occur again in future. As it were, he sat there surveying the
drifting cloud banks with his mind still back there on bridge. And
to the question of exactly what had happened. One Razor had fallen
to some sort of strange ghostly fate, while a second had galloped
across a phantom bridge. That particular Razor, as far as he knew,
lay over there beside Grimah. And Grimah, judging by how
comfortable he appeared in the other horse’s presence, did not seem
to sense a difference.

Hawkmoth studied for a moment his
chronochine. And gazed again about the fog banks. ‘A stroke beyond
midnight,’ he declared.

Which meant Cloudfyre’s orbit were
again out of sequence as there were certainly sunlight beyond the
fog, not darkness. And it felt more like midafternoon than middle
of night.

‘
While we sit and search for this
marker,’ Gargaron said, ‘do you mind if I ask what happened back
there at Pukaya’s bridge?’

Hawkmoth were silent for some
time. Deep in thought. As if he had forgotten such an incident and
were having some fight to recall it. In the end he said, ‘Aye, I
thought you’d want an explanation.’

‘
Well?’ Gargaron breathed in of
the chilled mountain air, waiting for the sorcerer to go
on.

‘
You recall the story of my Eve?
How I brought her back from death.’

‘
Aye, I do.’

‘
Well then, now you have witnessed
my method.’

Gargaron were puzzled. ‘You
brought Razor through time?’

‘
Aye. As I did Eve.’

Gargaron were thoughtful. ‘Yet, I
do not follow. When you recounted the tale of your wife, you told
me that you had brought her through in pieces.’

‘
I have somewhat perfected the
process since, you understand. Still, the spell remains more a
curse than gift.’

Gargaron eyed him, curious. ‘How
so?’

‘
Did I did not tell you how I came
to learn the trick?’

‘
No, you did not.’

‘
Hmm. I thought I had. Well, would
you like to hear it?’

‘
I would, aye.’

4

Hawkmoth stared distantly at the
ground, taking his mind back. ‘I gained knowledge of this curse
from a witch I had set out to capture. A particularly venomous
witch known as Chianay. I were part of a contingent of Sanctuary
Brothers who rode after her for days, through swamp and mountain
and desert. We on our steeds. She on her wingless Skink, Firebird.
We arrived in a town called Ulchurch, through which she had passed
some hours prior, and to which her Firebird had lain waste. We
found naught but incinerated bodies and countless burnt cottages.
Still, a handful of shell-shocked survivors told us what she had
done and which way she had fled. Though the stories were
conflicting. According to them she had fled in several directions.
There were five of us. We decided to split and each trail a
separate route. Should we find her, we would summon the others via
war horns. So, my path lead to an abandoned monastery on the
Blasted Hills. Razor were on some scent by then and so carefully I
set about searching the ruins.

‘
To carve a long tale short,
that’s where I found her, cornered and hiding in one of the
northern halls. She were injured I saw. Her Skink nowhere to be
seen. Before she could muster any magic against me I bound her with
Wood Feet, an incapacitation enchantment.

‘
She looked frightened as I
dragged her back to Razor. And were much younger than me, I
noticed. Strange, for we believed we had been chasing a far older
witch. It were a youth enchantment, I convinced myself, for she
wept and tried selling me a story that she were but a young girl
stolen from her family and recruited into Vantasia against her
will, used as a witch’s pawn and sent out to fight unjust causes
for which she had no fervor. She said her family would be tortured
if she disobeyed her orders, and her family killed if she
absconded, that she’d had no choice but to carry out her missions
against sorcerer folk and their sympathisers.

‘
At first, I listened to her not.
For resolute I were and ambitious and single minded in my youth.
But while we travelled back to Sanctuary she offered to teach me,
for her freedom, a special enchantment from a branch of magic I’d
had only a vague awareness. Temporal magic. I were a far younger
soul in those days. Blinded by youth and ambition. I once sought
the glory of my brethren’s seat of power in Sanctuary. I thought
the gaining of knowledge, to have power over and above that of my
Order, would help put me there. And so, in exchange for Chianay’s
liberty, I told her to teach me this magic.

‘
I had used it but once before I
used it on Eve. But have learnt its dark secrets in the days that
have followed. What you saw earlier… well, I opened a doorway into
the past and plucked him from his position seconds before he went
down into ravine. At the same time I summoned the standing bridge
from the days before its collapse, hoping no garetrain were running
its course at that particular moment. For a few sunflares, three
separate rivers of time were but one. Thus Razor completed his
escape from the Harbingers and made ravine’s crossing in relative
safety.’

5

It were still fascinating to
Gargaron, that someone had such an ability. To corrupt time. To
revert events that had already transpired. And once again, it took
his thoughts all the way back to the day he’d been fishing on
Buccuyashuck River, the day that first shockwave hit and for him
this Ruin began.

Hawkmoth searched Gargaron’s eyes.
‘Something troubles you, giant.’

‘
Aye. Why must my family die when
there are those such as yourself who might simply pluck them from a
time before their demise?’

‘
I have answered this, giant, if
you recall. Were I to pluck them from an old time stream and
deliver them to this one, this blight would still have killed them.
That seems to be the way of it. I can be no more blunt than
that.’

‘
Could you not have delivered them
to a time when this blight has been chased off?’

Hawkmoth shook his head. ‘Sadly,
no. I have but the ability to bring them only to the present, to
me. Not cast them into the future. If there be a way then I know it
not.’

Gargaron stared
into the falling snow.
I need accept they
are gone
, he told himself forlornly. There
were a lump in his throat as he pictured his daughter’s dear
smiling face. His thoughts took him to the elven woman he had
lifted from Grimah’s saddle. And to Locke’s elven companion.
‘Should one of us perish,’ Gargaron said allowed, still staring
into the falling snow, ‘would you enact this strange magic and
bring us back?’

‘
Depends on the manner of death.
If it be a result of the blight, then no. And you must remember,
giant, this time magic be a curse. Every time I use it, part of me
turns to stone. Ultimately it will kill me.’

Gargaron looked at him.
‘Stone?’

‘
Aye, giant, stone.’ Hawkmoth
shuffled in his robes, lifting them up so that his ribs were
exposed. A huge slab of his pale skin were blackened and course. He
scratched his nails against it and tapped it to demonstrate what he
meant. ‘I let Chianay go, believing she had bestowed on me a great
power. And I returned to Sanctuary feeling like I could conquer the
world. I spoke nothing of my time with her to my Brothers. But I
were soon to learn that certain field reports had been received
telling of captured witches trading cursed magical lore for their
freedom.

‘
I were young and arrogant. I
refused to believe it. Yet when I tested my new skill on a deceased
canine I discovered the truth of it. I managed to bring bits of the
dog through time but for my efforts I were struck down with
stoneskin. I were furious. I tracked down Chianay and demanded she
reverse it. She laughed at me and said it could not be reversed,
that it were mine now forever, a keepsake to help remind me of my
greed and avarice.

‘
My rage would have had her killed
that day. For I were bad tempered and irrational in my youth. But I
were chased away by her sisters. For years I sought revenge but
alas time has a way of teaching you introspection. I began to look
upon life in a new light. I had once believed I were untouchable, a
kind of immortal for all the magical powers I possessed. But
Chianay, for better or worse, opened my eyes. And in fear of my
mortality I refrained from pursuing temporal lore.

‘
Many years later however, after
meeting my dear Eve, I were convinced, with Eve’s help, that I
could utilise this magic for good. We stumbled upon a combination
of herbs that helps dampen the stoneskin curse. Yet, it remains a
spell I must use most sparingly. For obvious reason.’

Gargaron looked at length at the
sorcerer.

‘
I see the pain in your eyes,
giant. But none of us can escape death. Those who live, die. It has
always been this way.’

‘
Aye. But loved ones are plucked
from us far before their time. That part of life be
unfair.’

Hawkmoth nodded. ‘Yes. You are
right. That part of life be most unfair.’

6

They were
interrupted by Locke’s drawling, weed affected voice.
‘
Thaaat therrr look a bitty lark a haaag’s
beak t’meeee
.’

Both Hawkmoth and Gargaron turned
and saw the crabman’s pointing fingers. Through a break in the fog
banks, high up and far off, there appeared to hang a peculiar
formation of stone. Black and glistening. Hawkmoth smiled. ‘Aye,
that be it, my good fellow. And with it comes my
bearings.’

He hefted himself to his feet with
what looked to Gargaron like a decent struggle. As if he had taken
a knife to his ribs. Hawkmoth noticed Gargaron’s look of concern.
‘I be fine, giant,’ he told him. ‘I be fine. My stone skin shan’t
kill me today.’

1

THE final push to Sanctuary took
another two hours over rough, rocky terrain. The scenery did not
change much, although as they drew higher into the mountains the
trees and shrubs became ever smaller and more tortured looking and
the covering of snow on ground grew thicker. Locke were mostly
sobered by then, yet although he smiled, he spoke little. When
Melai asked if he were alright he said simply, ‘Aye, and enjoying
this chilled air on my skin.’

Gargaron wondered if he were not suffering
some interminable headache.

Not long after, Hawkmoth could be
heard saying, ‘We should have encountered snow beasts by
now.’

‘
What’s that you say?’ Gargaron
asked.