In the Earth Abides the Flame (59 page)

'I have never before willingly disobeyed him,' she said sadly. 'Yet he is wrong, the stubborn old fool knows he is wrong. If my mother had been here, she would have told him so. He would have listened. She was the real guardian.'

A shout came from further along the lake shore. 'Over here! Over here!'

'Perhaps we will talk more later,' Phemanderac said gently, respect' fully. Belladonna nodded, then followed the gaunt philosopher in the direction of the others.

The Escaignian stood proudly beside the boat she had discovered in a stand of dwarf-bush.

"There is some enchantment about it,' said Phemanderac in wonder, as they examined the strange craft.

'How else could it have been preserved here for two thousand years?'

Kurr nodded in amazement. 'Looks like the yawls used by the fishermen of Varec Beach. Not the same though - this has neither mast nor overlapping timbers. Is it safe?'

'Touch the wood!' The magician's daughter followed her own suggestion. 'There is a power of preservation in the wood. It is a very strong magic! It is a difficult enough matter to speed a natural process such as decay, but to inhibit it! Such power is required! I would not have dreamed it could be done.'

'Yet here is our transport,' declared the Haufuth, fingering one of the two small paddles lying in the boat. 'Or, at least, here is transport for some of us. How many will that boat carry?'

The water-wise Prince of Deruys looked carefully at the yawl. 'It was designed to bear five people; one in the bow, two in the centre and two in the stern. Consequent on the number of the Arkhimm, I suppose. Unless it has magic to keep it afloat, I would not exceed that number.'

'Two trips, then!' the Haufuth said. 'We'd better get on with it. My stomach tells me we have passed lunchtime already. I want to be off this mountain before nightfall.'

Hesitantly Belladonna pushed her way to the front of the assembled group. 'I doubt the wisdom of any other than the Arkhimm taking ship,' she said quietly but firmly. 'The island is a most holy place. Who knows what might happen if one who is not appointed steps ashore?

A powerful magic has been set in this place. I can feel it; my father was certain of it. I for one will wait here. It will be enough to greet the Arrow when it returns. And why should extra people be needed? If the Five of the Hand do not suffice, I do not know who else might claim the Jugom Ark.'

'Yet we are four only, not five,' said the Haufuth. 'Who shall stand for Stella? Or is it unnecessary?'

'The boat takes five, not four. Do not risk the island's wrath!' Belladonna said anxiously. 'Five should go!'

'Then Phemanderac shall accompany us, since this is more his quest than anyone's,' the Haufuth decided. 'And we had better be quick about it! I don't like all this talk about wrath.

Listen now! Do you hear it?' The Haufuth was right: Go no further! came the whisper.

Trespassers'. Intruders'. Curse the ground no more'.

'Illusion,' said Phemanderac sternly. 'Ignore it.' But that was easier said than done. The insubstantial words ground on Leith's nerves until they shrieked in agreement: I'm leaving!

Just let me go peacefully!

They cast off in the yawl. Leith and Phemanderac took up the paddles, and for a while splashed about dangerously until they synchronised their efforts. After that the paddles made little enough noise, dampened by the fine drizzle falling like quiet tears. The mist parted ahead of them, closed in behind, and within minutes they had lost sight of the shore. Then the thought struck them all at once. How in this sightless fog would they find the island?

No words were said. The Five of the Hand beheld the fear in each other's eyes.

Phemanderac and Leith kept paddling, but they could not be sure they rowed a straight course.

And would even a straight course find the island? In this place of magic they could imagine all their courses being thwarted, the mist taking them around and around the lake without ever sighting land, or holding them prisoners in the same spot, ensnared between the island and the shore, suspended evermore as punishment for daring this place ...

Now Leith would have been glad to hear the voice of fire; even a rebuke from that voice would have been better than the heavy silence enfolding them. Doubt encircled the Arkhimm like a tangible thing. 'It's a matter of trust,' the voice had said; but now that voice echoed only faintly, enfeebled by the damp grey mist. Trust alone would not suffice against such an unearthly place as this was.

'It was clear here two days ago,' he said quietly. 'The mist does not hang here forever.'

'Let us pass, will you!' Kurr cried aloud. 'We have the right! We have come to reclaim for Faltha what is hers!' His voice was

swallowed echoless in the mist, and a moment after it was as if he had never spoken.

'Better not to speak,' said the Haufuth. The mist seemed to draw in closer than ever.

'Illusion,' Phemanderac reminded them. Of the five, only he and Hal seemed relatively unaffected by the haunting fog. 'Don't give in to it. It is a spell laid here two thousand years ago, and it is indiscriminate as to whom it affects. Its only power is to force us to turn back.'

While Leith's mind acknowledged the good sense of the philosopher's argument, his emotions quivered as they continued into the mist.

Now the way seemed dark and uncertain ahead, as though they paddled into an inimical force.

Behind them the mist lightened, offering them a sure escape back to the shore. The only thing that kept Leith paddling in the face of this fear was the shame of being the first to give way, but while Phemanderac paddled steadily beside him, he would do the same. In the end the voice had been right. It all came down to trust. These men would not have led him here if his death was the inevitable outcome. The Most High would not set a puzzle that could not be solved. So many people had expressed their faith in him: the Hermit, the Fodhram (dear Axehaft!), Foilzie and the Escaignian, and his own parents. And others had opposed them: the Widuz, the Arkhos of Nemohaim, the Council of Faltha. Such wrongness surely emphasised the Tightness of their cause. They would get through the mist, they would find the island, because they must.

Out of the cheerless slate-grey curtain loomed a black shape, and another. Leith cried aloud: what new shades had been sent to oppose them? Phemanderac also cried, but not with fear.

'Land! It is the island!'

'Thank goodness,' breathed the Haufuth. 'A journey like that makes it hard to disbelieve in the supernatural.'

'It's a matter of trust, really,' Kurr said quietly. Leith looked sharply in his direction, but the old farmer gave no indication he had meant anything by it.

The dark looming shapes resolved into ghostly trees, the island shore appeared ahead of them and the keel of their small boat grounded itself on stones. The island was little more than a mound jutting out from the lake, a pile of rock upon which a thin veneer of soil had found fragile anchorage, providing a foothold to ferns, grasses and a few larger trees. They walked all around it, taking about five minutes. Perhaps a hundred yards across, surely no larger, the island seemed to hold no special terror. Half an hour later the small island still held no terror, but apparently it also held no cave.

With mounting apprehension the Five of the Hand scurried about the island, searching for anything resembling the opening of a cave. 'Through air, over water, in the earth!'

Phemanderac repeated again and again, as though he expected the repetition to conjure the cave into existence. 'It has to be here!'

'Does it?' Kurr countered. 'None of the guardians have been up here since Bewray placed the Arrow here. What do they know?'

'They know the Jugom Ark is on this island,' said Leith boldly. 'It's part of what Bewray told them. The Arrow is here, in the earth.'

'Could it be buriedV the Haufuth asked, horrified. 'It would take days to dig up the island.'

'More likely it is that the land itself has changed.' Kurr's face was set like stone. 'Two thousand years is a long time, far too long to entrust something as precious as the Jugom Ark to mere stone. Think of the scree slope. It wasn't part of the Riddle of the Arrow, yet we used it. What if the island has been worn down?'

'Possibly - but far more likely still is the possibility that the lake level has been raised. The entrance to the cave might now be offshore, under the water. What would we do then?'

Phemanderac was given serious pause by his own question.

The five figures searched the island in increasing despair. An indeterminate time passed, and as they searched the gloom deepened around them. They hadn't eaten, though in the tension of the moment even the Haufuth had forgotten that; but they also forgot the progress of the hours. Leith had seen the same three trees, the same half-dozen bushes, the same bleak black rocks and the same pebbly shore for far too long. It wasn't working out. All their dreams were dissolving at the last possible moment. He remembered how he had been gripped by depression after they were rejected by the Council of Faltha. He felt like that now. Yet they had gone on then, another alternative had presented itself. Maybe it would again.

By unspoken mutual consent they sat themselves down just under the rocky peak. The Haufuth brought out from his jacket a small green apple for each of them, and they munched quietly as the light slowly faded.

The village headman finished his apple, and cast the remains down the slope towards the water. He spoke reluctantly. 'We'd best be getting back.' He received four morose grunts in reply.

Kurr threw his apple core down at his feet, into a little scrubby thicket they had checked a dozen times. Leith had scratches on his arms from the thorny bush-lawyer. The core clattered through the thicket and a second later plunked on rock.

'I'm not staying here tonight,' continued the Haufuth. 'We'll camp back on the shore and decide what we'll do then.' He turned towards the boat; Leith, Hal and Phemanderac followed him.

But Kurr scrabbled about in the thicket for a minute, then called out to the others, who were making their way towards the shore. Already the Haufuth had disappeared into the mist.

'There might be another reason why we can't see the cave,' he called. Something in his tone caused Leith to jerk around. 'It might be that vegetation - say, a thicket of thorn bushes - grew up around the entrance, masking it from sight.'

'We've looked in all the thickets—' the Haufuth began. There was a pause, then four grey figures scrambled back up the rock to where Kurr held aside a long, thorny branch, revealing a round, dark hole.

'In the earth,' he said triumphantly.

The hole turned out to be a vertical drop of six feet to a smooth rock floor, on which rested a fresh apple core. The Haufuth went first, followed by Kurr, Leith, Hal and Phemanderac. The five men felt rather than saw their way down a narrow cavity descending into the gut-rock of the island. 'This is not natural,' the old farmer said unnecessarily: the smooth-sided walls and floor testified to the truth of his words.

Fifty yards or so on the cavity widened; ahead a soft glow illuminated a spherical chamber.

'We're probably under the lake,' Leith said, but nobody heard him. Their quest was on the brink of success.

Without words the Five of the Hand filed into the chamber. It was just large enough to accommodate them. In the centre of the chamber a small rock sat on the floor; or, more correctly, the floor rose into a small rock table. The glow came from the stone table. No, from the arrow on the stone table. A small arrow, about two feet long, fletched with feathers.

Glowing dull red, as though it was hot. The Arrow. The Jugom Ark.

'Look at it! It is beautiful,' Phemanderac breathed. Slender, perfectly proportioned, feathered with the rare plumage of the mariswan, a metal shaft which gave off a rosy light: altogether lovely, beauty disguising a severe justice.

'Why does it glow?' asked the Haufuth. 'Is it hot?'

'Illusion,' answered the thin philosopher. 'The final protection. But we need not worry. We are the Arkhimm. It will not burn us.'

Kurr was decidedly uncomfortable with the glibness of this explanation. After all, Phemanderac was not the one who would be picking it up. The old farmer could feel the heat from his position a few feet away.

'Don't touch it!' The Haufuth extended a hand towards the Arrow, and Kurr's urgent warning came a moment too late. The big man didn't touch it, but his hand strayed too close for a moment too long, and he jerked it back with a howl.

'Let me look at it,' said Hal tightly. 'Let me see your hand.'

'I didn't touch it!' But he held out his hand for Hal to see, and already it blistered, one large, watery blister to each finger. 'My hand hurts! Why is it so hot?'

'I don't know, I don't know,' said Hal. 'But we must get you out of here, out to the lake, and put it in cold water.' He led the headman to the exit. As they reached the hole the Arrow flared up, bursting into flame, flooding the tiny chamber with unbearable light and heat. 'Don't leave the chamber!' Phemanderac shouted. 'It'll kill us if we're less than five!'

'But my hand - all right, I'll stay.' The big man was almost sobbing with the pain. 'Let's find a way to fetch this Arrow and get out of here.'

One after another the Five of the Hand stretched out their hands, but none could get near the Arrow of Yoke.

Phemanderac cried out in frustration. 'In the earth lies the flame! But who can carry a fire in his hands? What is making it so hot anyway? What are we to do?' Even retreating into his still small place, supposedly making him impervious to such pain, made no difference.

'Perhaps this is why we needed all five of us from Loulea!' exclaimed the Haufuth, shaking his hand back and forth to ward off the pain. 'Had Stella come with us, we might already have claimed the Arrow. Now we may never—' here he grimaced with the pain, 'we may never complete our quest.'

'So near!' Phemanderac wailed. 'How can this be happening?'

said the voice of fire without warning.