The Crystal Chalice (Book 1) (40 page)

 As the brothers led
them along the labyrinth of passages, the Prince asked if he could say goodbye
to Varinia.”

 “Our sister will say
farewell to you, never fear,” Elro replied.

 They reached the foot
of a spiral staircase and began to climb upwards into the darkness. After many
steps, the staircase appeared to rise right into a stone ceiling. They halted, puzzled
by what appeared to be a dead-end, but Elro reached up and manipulated
something in the ceiling. It instantly began to slide back with a grinding,
groaning sound. A sudden breath of scented night air rushed inwards and faintly
above them the stars became visible.

 They emerged to find
themselves in the little ruined shrine. The wild roses rustled conspiratorially
in the night breeze and wept petals onto the ground with every breath, as if
sad at their departure. The gap in the stone floor closed quietly behind them
again and the valley was silent except for the sound of running water.

 As they looked, they
saw Varinia standing by the deep pool where they had bathed. She seemed as
ethereal as a ghost, lit by a shaft of moonlight descending between the trees,
so bright that it turned the darkness beside it into deep blue.

 “Farewell, Children of
Light,” she called softly.

  Celedorn instantly
realised what her voice had reminded him of - it was the sound of water falling
into a deep pool.

 As they watched, she
raised her hand palm upwards and resting upon it was a tiny silver-winged
butterfly. More and more silver butterflies appeared and danced and fluttered
around her until she was surrounded by a shimmering cloud. Then all at once
they realised that her human form was fading, gently dissipating until she had
merged with the glittering cloud that danced and pirouetted in the moonlight.
The butterflies danced ever lower until they settled on the surface of the
rippling water and blended with it, so that all that was left were the sparkles
cast by the moon.

  The foothills of the
mountains did indeed become volcanic, as Varinia had described. The Hidden
Valley began to seem like some kind of distant dream, as they struggled once
more through a dry and arid landscape. Stunted pine trees grew here and there
in patches, convoluted in their search for water but mostly the hills were bare
and grey, their skeletal sides clothed in crumbling ash that rose in choking
clouds when disturbed by even the lightest footstep. It coated their clothes
and faces and got into eyes and between teeth. Occasionally they passed smoking
vents exuding a strong smell of rotten eggs, and once, a small bubbling
mud-pool plopped dismally in a little hollow. The only tiny stream they
encountered was unpleasantly warm to the touch, flowing over rocks slicked with
leprous, mottled lichens. Bearing in mind Varinia’s warning, they didn’t drink
the waters and even resisted the temptation of using it to remove some of the
dust from their faces. Yet as they climbed each bare hill, the range of
mountains beyond drew nearer, looking healthy and cool, their steep sides
clothed in a dense pine forest of deep, fresh green. The trees rose right up to
the skyline where the jagged heights tore at the sky.

  After three days of
heat and ash, they discovered that the volcanic hills came to an end as
abruptly as they had begun. In the distance they could see a distinct boundary
where the grey ash suddenly encountered the shade of the pine forest.

 The sight cheered them
and they hurried forward, anxious to reach the coolness of the trees and escape
from the heat and glare. They bowed their heads against the dust and trudged
on. Andarion was a little ahead of the others, working his way up a dome of
dusty, grey earth scattered with loose rocks, when suddenly he gave a cry and
vanished. Elorin and Triana froze in astonishment for a moment, unable to take
in what had happened, but Celedorn reacted instantly. He shed his pack and
raced across the rubble-strewn earth to the place where the Prince had
disappeared.

 A hole had opened in
the ground from whence arose a shimmer of hot air and a faint reddish glow. A
single human hand was desperately clutching the edge of the cavity, but there
was nothing to hold on to and the clutching fingers were sliding inexorably
towards the edge.

 Celedorn threw himself
forward, just as the hand disappeared down the hole, and grabbed the Prince’s
wrist in a vice-like grip. He could now see into the fissure and what he saw
turned his blood cold. The Prince was dangling in space from the roof of what
appeared to be a gigantic volcanic vent. Far, far below, glowing red in the
evil darkness was a lake of fire, hissing and burning, sending wafts of hot air
upwards towards the roof. Instantly sweat began to pour off both men,
endangering Celedorn’s grip on the Prince’s wrist.

 “Give me your other
hand!” Celedorn ordered, bracing his feet on either side of the fissure.

 The Prince looked up,
his face contorted and shining with sweat.

 “You can’t pull me up,
Celedorn. I’m nearly your weight - plus my pack. You can’t do it. I’ll only
pull you in. Just let me go!”

 Celedorn’s teeth were
clenched with the effort of holding the Prince, his face twisted with the
strain.

 “
Give me your other
hand, damn you!”
he snarled.

 “You can’t hold me! The
sides of this hole could collapse at any moment! Just leave me!”

 Celedorn interrupted
him with a choice expletive that graphically expressed his opinion of that.

 The Prince capitulated.
“I’ll have to swing round.”

 “Hurry! My grip is
slipping!”

 Andarion kicked his
legs, circling wildly above the fiery gulf and managed to swing his left arm
upwards. On the first attempt, their fingers touched, but the Prince swung away
before a strong grasp could be established. On the second try, Celedorn caught
his wrist and felt Andarion’s hand close on his own wrist in a tight lock. He
then began to lean backwards, balancing both their weight on his feet braced on
either side of the hole. Small stones began to be dislodged from the torn edges
of the fissure and plunged down past the Prince into the burning abyss. A
larger piece broke loose, forcing Celedorn to change his foothold.

 “It’s going to give
way,” warned the Prince desperately, but found himself ignored.

 Elorin started forward
to help, but Relisar restrained her. “No, Elorin, you would only distract him.”

 She watched helplessly
as Celedorn took up the strain on his thigh and back muscles, forcing himself
inch by inch to heave backwards, his face wracked with strain, the heat soaking
his shirt with perspiration.

 Slowly, infinitely
slowly, the Prince’s hands and arms came into view. Still Celedorn heaved, not
relaxing the power he was exerting for a moment. Andarion’s head rose clear of
the vent and he gasped the cooler air like a drowning man. With a final mighty
effort that brought him down flat on his back, Celedorn hauled his companion
clear of the vent. They both collapsed on the dusty grey earth their chests
heaving for breath, the fine ash caked on them like a scaly second skin.

 Elorin whipped out a
flask of water and ran to them. Celedorn could not yet speak but took the flask
from her and poured it over his face.

 Andarion struggled free
of his pack and rolled over with a groan, oblivious to the dust.

 Elorin was lavish with
the water, pouring its coolness over hands and faces.

 “Use it all, Elorin,”
Relisar advised. “We are near the end of this accursed region. Surely those
mountains must hold streams.”

 He offered his own
flask to Andarion with a hand that shook slightly. “Drink this, my dear boy.
You gave us all quite a scare.”

 “The ground just gave
way beneath me. I......there was nothing I could do. I thought that my last
hour had come. I have no idea how I managed to get a temporary handhold until
Celedorn came.” He rose shakily to his feet and crossed to his rescuer who was
sitting on a rock with his head bowed.

 “You’re a stubborn man,
Celedorn,” he accused. “I never thought that I’d be glad of that quality. I owe
you my life.”

 Celedorn looked up
briefly, then shook his head and would have turned away, but the Prince reached
out and gripped his shoulder. Speaking so softly that only Celedorn could hear,
he said: “Do not put up so many barriers against friendship.”

 Their eyes met in
something very close to understanding. The Prince briefly tightened his grip
before releasing him.

 “I feel as if I have
been lightly cooked,” he remarked in a lighter tone.

 “Done to a crisp,”
agreed Celedorn.

  Andarion laughed. “By
the way,
what
exactly was it that you called me a short time ago?”

 A gleam of amusement
crept into Celedorn’s eyes. “I forget,” he replied with aplomb.

 Elorin was surveying
them both with her hands on her hips. “What you two need is a bath.”

 “She has a mania for
hygiene,” Celedorn explained. “A bit of dust never hurt anyone.”

 But the normally
immaculate Prince, begrimed from head to foot, was surveying himself with
disgust and was inclined to agree with her.

 The pine trees were deliciously
cool and shady after the acrid glare of the foothills. As they climbed higher,
the air grew ever fresher and purer, scented with the evocatively pungent smell
of crushed pine needles.

 The mountains reared
their green-cloaked sides to the sky, the highest ridges here and there touched
by wispy clouds, startlingly white against the azure sky. The ground was dry
and springy with a brown layer of old needles, and as with most pine forests,
there was little undergrowth to impede their progress. Eventually they came to
a tiny freshet which tiptoed down some mossy stones set in a hollow beneath the
pines. Its waters were clear and icy cold. Flasks were soon replenished and
dust washed away.

 “I like it up here,”
declared Triana to Elorin, peering down through the trees to the baked grey
hills some distance below. “I have always loved pine trees. They are so clean
and stately. In Kelendore there is a forest like this where my sisters and I
used to play when we were children.” Her gentle smile of recollection began to
fade a little. “I wonder if there are pine forests in Serendar?”

 “You are having second
thoughts?” suggested Elorin.

 Triana shook her head
vigorously. “No. There can be no second thoughts. I cannot disappoint my father
or fail my country. It is my duty.”

 “Sometimes there are
advantages to being a nobody.”

 “Elorin! That is not
what I meant!”

 “I know that,” Elorin
laughed. “I just think that I’d rather be poor and free to choose, than having
someone chart out my life for me.”

 Unexpectedly, Triana
found that amusing. “I couldn’t picture anyone dictating to you - not even
Celedorn.”

 “That doesn’t stop him
trying!”

 Relisar looked up when
he heard their laughter. “I wonder what those two find so funny?”

 “It’s probably better
not to know,” replied the Prince distractedly, his attention on other matters.
“I wonder what our friend has seen?” he asked, directing Relisar’s attention to
where Celedorn stood some distance away, his shoulder propped against a tree,
his eyes intently scrutinising the mountainside to the east of them. He
appeared interested in a patch of forest on the far side of a tree-filled fold
in the mountain rendered a misty blue-green by distance. His expression was
watchful, his eyes the colour of steel.

 Andarion rose and
crossed to him. “Do you see something?”

 “I thought I did,” he
replied without taking his gaze off the spot that interested him. “For a moment
I thought I saw a flash like the sun glinting off metal - a helmet, perhaps, or
possibly a shield.”

 The Prince stood silently
beside him, concentrating his vision on the place indicated, but after several
minutes, saw nothing.

 “We must find a pass
through these mountains,” he remarked. “I had thought of turning east where the
mountains seem lower but now that would not seem advisable. What do you say to
heading a little to the west?”

 “Perhaps it was
nothing, but the simple rule of the Forsaken Lands is that anything that moves
means trouble.”

 “Upwards and westwards
it must be - and no fire tonight by the looks of it.”

 “No,” Celedorn cast a
last look across the mountainside. “They are out there somewhere - I can feel
it. The question is, do they know we are here? We will have to move very
cautiously, for the Turog are in their element in a forest. Their woodcraft is
matched by few men. At least these tall pine trees make their favourite trick
of dropping from the branches less likely, as the canopy is too high, but
ambush is still their favourite tactic and we must be alert.”

 “Elorin is of the
opinion that your woodcraft is at least as good as theirs.”

 “Long years of fighting
them has left its mark.”

 “Is that why they fear
you?”

 “No, they fear me
because I never show them mercy. If they come within my reach, I slay them
without compunction. If they die in battle, they die quickly. If they are
captured, the death I meet out to them is not so pleasant.”

 “I heard you tear them
apart,” remarked the Prince grimly. “You seem to deserve your reputation.”

 Celedorn’s eyes
narrowed. “In that respect, yes. In others, well, let’s just say stories of
that nature never lose anything in the telling.”

 Andarion smiled
slightly: “Was that an excuse?”

 His companion’s mood
changed with disconcerting swiftness. His straight brows drew together in a
hard look. “I excuse nothing. I apologise for nothing. I am what I am for
better or worse.”

 Andarion returned the
fierce look unflinchingly. “My friend, you present me with a dilemma.”

 Celedorn did not
pretend to misunderstand. “Not until we reach Eskendria. I think the Prince and
the Brigand will cease to be friends then.”

 Andarion did not reply,
but directed his gaze into the distance, his eyes troubled.

 The air was cool that
night and for the first time in many days they were glad of their blankets.
When it was Elorin’s turn to be on watch, she seated herself on a mossy log and
stared out into the dark forest. She was aware that Celedorn was also awake.
The figure wrapped in blankets at the foot of a large tree didn’t stir, but
instinctively she knew he was not asleep - that like her, his eyes probed the
darkness. Like her, his ears were attuned to the slightest sound out of the
ordinary. Her instinct was soon proved correct. When a twig snapped in the
stillness nearby, he was instantly at her side, his hand already on the hilt of
his sword. They both stared wordlessly into the darkness, tensely awaiting
another sound, then both suddenly relaxed together when a large badger lumbered
past, snuffling and complaining.