The Crystal Chalice (Book 1) (56 page)

 On the following day,
as the time for their departure drew near, all the brothers began to assemble
in the courtyard where the horses, already saddled, stood waiting. The
companions were in Master Galendar’s study, taking their leave of him. He had
already bestowed gifts upon them of food, maps and anything else that could
conceivably be useful to them. Now he bestowed the only thing he had left to
give - his blessing. He placed his hand gently on each head in turn, golden,
dark and white and in the gracious words of the Book of Light, invoked the
blessing for the protection of travellers. However when he came to Celedorn, he
looked at him a long moment, saying nothing.

 At last, in a distant
voice, he said:  “You possess a sword of the Old Kingdom, my son, withdraw
it from its scabbard.”

  Celedorn, a little
mystified, obeyed the request. In the silent room the sword made a sharp
metallic scrape as it came free from its housing and the light from the tiny
windows flashed on the shining blade. The hilt rested in Celedorn’s hand as if
it were an extension of him. Galendar leaned forward and touched the tips of
his fingers to the three chalice flowers engraved below the hilt, then began to
murmur some words in the old language so softly that the others could not
distinguish what he was saying. As he spoke, a strange sense of power began to
fill the room, a feeling of warmth, and light, an exhilarating, liberating
atmosphere, making them feel that nothing was impossible, that good in its own
quiet way was stronger than evil, and light would prevail over darkness. It
swept through each of them, making them draw in a sudden breath, then just as
it seemed almost too wonderful to bear, it began to subside and gradually faded
away until the room became again just a quiet, dusty study filled with books.
Celedorn was so shaken by the experience, that it took all his will to prevent
himself from sinking to his knees before the holy man.

 “Your sword will protect
them,” said Galendar. “That is what strength is for - to protect.”

 Celedorn nodded,
although he was not certain that he entirely understood, and sheathed his
sword.

 Galendar conducted them
to the courtyard and watched them mount their horses. All the assembled
brothers then followed them to the gate and stood watching them, their hands
raised in farewell. Relisar noted that not one of the brothers set foot outside
the gate.

 When they gained the
ridge where they had first seen the monastery, the companions halted to look
back in a final gesture of farewell, but they suffered a shock. There was
nothing in the valley below them but trees. The promontory where the monastery
had stood was still there, but was empty of everything but grass and some small
bushes. The Monastery of the White Brotherhood had gone.

 “Is it the curtain of
concealment?” whispered Triana.

 “No, my dear,” said
Relisar. “It has gone for ever. Its purpose has been fulfilled. Its reason for
existence has gone.”

 “Did we dream the whole
thing?” Andarion asked in an awed voice. “Our experiences there, were they
real?”

 “They were real,”
confirmed Celedorn, drawing aside the collar of his shirt to reveal the
diamond-shaped scar on his shoulder. “Here is the proof. The monastery may have
gone, but all that happened to us there was real.”

 “I will now never be
able to return here,” said Elorin regretfully.

 “Preserve it in your
memory, my dear,” said Relisar, “and it will always exist.”

 Her gaze was distant
across the valley. “For someone with no past, I am accumulating a great many
memories.”

    For the
next few weeks the golden, idyllic autumn days continued. Each morning dawned
with the clarity of a diamond. Each day, leaves began to turn gold and copper,
drifting gently one by one to the ground to accumulate like forgotten treasure.
The nights grew colder, and for the first time in many weeks, warm cloaks were
unpacked and were donned as the days began to shorten and the evenings grew
chill. Yet for all the Prince’s urgency to reach the Harnor, two at least of
the company were reluctant to leave the Forsaken Lands. Two rode side by side a
little behind the others, absorbed in each other.

 Celedorn told Elorin
more of his life before he had met her, of the many things he had seen on his
travels, of the austere beauty that Ravenshold had possessed before it was
ravaged. He told her of his life with the brigands, of his search for the
Great-turog, but he did not speak again of the fateful day so long ago which
had changed the whole course of his life. She respected his reticence, knowing
that it arose not from a desire to exclude her, but from the conviction that
she understood how he felt without the necessity for words. So she allowed him
to lead the conversation where he wished, content to listen to him and watch
him, enjoying his perceptiveness, respecting his keen intelligence. Often he
made her laugh by describing with wry humour something that had happened to him
on his travels, and a little to her surprise, she discovered that he was not in
the least averse to making fun of himself. With an increasing sense of
contentment, as the mellow, fruitful days of autumn passed, she observed his
bitterness recede like an ebbing tide and self-loathing shrink to
vanishing-point. The desire for vengeance had not gone but it was no longer
fuelled by a sense of failure. He began to accept, perhaps for the first time,
that there was nothing that a mere boy could have done to have averted the tragedy,
and the barb that had been planted in his heart that day by the Great-turog
finally began to dissolve.

 Out of consideration
for the others, he and Elorin were not overtly demonstrative with each other
but they hardly needed to be, for an aura of happiness surrounded them as warm
and beautiful as the autumn sunshine.

 The Prince, observing
it, grew wistful. His own affairs, in contrast, seemed hopelessly entangled.
Although King Orovin had proved to be a somewhat unsatisfactory neighbour, only
he had an army large enough to provide real assistance to Eskendria in her impending
struggle with the Turog. Yet he had played games with the Prince, conducting
secret negotiations with Kelendore, sending him upon a fruitless mission. If
the Prince’s object had been revenge, he could hardly have chosen a better
weapon than to inflict the humiliation of depriving the King of his bride, but
Andarion could not allow himself the luxury of such an emotion. Eskendria’s
interests must at all times take precedence over his own. He looked ahead at
Triana, riding beside Relisar, her golden hair shining in the sun and wondered
if he had the resolution to let her go, to let her marry a man she did not care
for. He had said nothing to her of his feelings but there had been no need.
Somehow she knew. Her own dilemma was similar to his, for her father had
arranged the marriage to cement the alliance with Serendar. The betrothal had
been presented to Triana in the light of a duty owed to her country and she too
was expected to sacrifice her own wishes in the interests of the greater good.

 Then there was the
thorny question of what he would do about Celedorn once they were again on
Eskendrian soil. Even though administration of justice lay within his province,
only the King, and the King alone, could pardon a capital crime and Andarion
doubted that his father could be made to see the issue as he did.

 In many ways the King
was a fair man but tended to be a little cold and emotionless. His judgement
would not be swayed by issues of friendship. The thought brought Andarion to
the point to which his mind had often strayed since Celedorn had told his
story. Was it possible that his father had abandoned his friend and his own
sister out of fear for his personal safety? Celedorn was utterly convinced that
it was so, but Andarion simply could not believe such a thing of his father.
Yet somewhere buried deep in the darker corners of his mind was the forbidden
thought that he did not really know his father. The Prince more closely
resembled his mother in personality and was too different from his father ever
to be really close to him. He knew his father considered him to be too much
ruled by emotion and preferred his younger son’s coolly utilitarian approach.
Even so, the Prince shied away from the idea that his father may have made a
very pragmatic decision that bitter day, not out of cowardice, but out of
practicality. An utterly cold, logical and callous decision not to lose more
men in a futile rescue attempt. The image of his father refusing to risk men in
an attempt to rescue Elorin from Ravenshold, kept recurring in his mind. To
him, such coldness was almost worse than cowardice and less comprehensible.

 If it had been any
other man than Celedorn, Andarion would have felt that the attempt should at
least be made to persuade his father to show mercy, but Celedorn was the most
feared man in Eskendria. No ordinary criminal would have had an army despatched
against him to winkle him out of his lair, and no ordinary criminal could have
forced that army to return home, discomfited. Yet it was such an unpromising thought
that planted the seed of an idea in Andarion’s mind. Whether that seed ever
grew to fruition depended on what they found when they reached the Harnor. He
had told Celedorn that things would not change when they crossed the river,
meaning that their friendship would not alter, but in all other respects he
knew that Celedorn was right, the Forsaken Lands lacked reality. The
unpalatable truth was that their greatest test lay before them upon their
return to the world of men.

 The halcyon autumn days
came to an end with great suddenness. Late one afternoon the sun disappeared
behind a thin veil of cloud that rapidly began to assume a sickly, greenish
hue. The strange light painted every branch, every leaf, with a lurid,
unnatural colour. The wind dropped as if shot by an arrow and it became still
as death. They could hear each soft flutter, as leaves fell exhausted from the
branch-tips. The trees trembled, holding their breath in suspense, as if
awaiting a cataclysmic event. Even the cheerful birds fell silent, so that the
only sounds to be heard were the hollow thuds of the horses’ hooves and the
slight creak of saddles. 

 Celedorn lifted his
face to the sky. “There is a storm coming,” he remarked to Andarion. “A bad one,
too, by the looks of things.”

 “Then we should leave
these trees and seek shelter in a safer place,” replied the Prince. “I’ve been
caught amongst trees during an electrical storm and it is not an experience I
would care to repeat.”

 “Indeed. It’s strange
how trees seem to attract lightning. In southern Serendar, I once saw a man
struck by lightning as he sheltered beneath a tree and there was hardly enough
of him left to bury.”

 “We should be near
Korem by now, if the Master’s maps are accurate. It may be in ruins, but surely
there must be at least some buildings intact enough to provide us with
shelter.”

 “A city that has been
deserted for a thousand years may be difficult to find. It is surprising how
quickly a forest can reclaim its territory and obliterate all traces of
civilisation.”

 A cold gust of air
struck their faces like a spiteful blow. “Nevertheless,” said Andarion, “it’s
the best I can think of at the moment. How much further do you estimate the
city to be?”

 “About a mile or so due
south of here.” Celedorn looked with foreboding at the darkening sky. “The
storm should probably hold off until nightfall. That should give us just about
enough time.”

 Andarion nodded and
turned to the others. “We are going to make for Korem,” he informed them. “A
storm is on its way and we need to find cover.”

 Only Relisar was
pleased. “Excellent,” he said in satisfaction. “I have a great desire to stand
in the ancient city of the High Kings. It was known as the city without walls,
you know. When the three Orders were strong in the days of the Old Kingdom,
they protected it with their power, so there was no need for walls.”

 Celedorn was
unimpressed. “Yet it fell,” he observed cynically.

 “Sadly, that is true.
The brotherhood was betrayed and weakened - as we have but recently discovered.
How great was their vanity, when they thought that they could hold this place
against the Destroyer purely by the strength of their will. It is a lesson to
us all.”

 Triana looked a little
unsettled. “Must we go to it? A ruined city sounds eerie to me - especially in
a thunderstorm. What if it is haunted? I think I would rather not spend the
night there.”

 Relisar smiled
tolerantly. “It has long been deserted, Triana. Old stones and empty buildings
will not harm you.”

 When he turned away,
Triana leaned confidentially towards Elorin and murmured: “Just as long as they
are
empty. Kerrian-tohr was supposed to be empty and yet was very far
from it.”

 “You may have a point,
but it appears to be our only option at the moment. Don’t worry just yet, it’s
possible that we will not find it.”

 But to everyone’s
surprise and Triana’s dismay, a short distance further on, the forest began to
thin and then suddenly ceased. They emerged on the top of a gentle ridge that
sloped away southwards towards a small plain embraced by the encircling arms of
a range of low, treeless hills. In the centre of the plain, instantly
recognisable despite its ruined state, stood Korem.

 The sickly copper sky
spilled molten light in long stripes across the plain, creating deep purple
shadows which made it difficult to distinguish individual buildings within the
city. It brooded in the distance like a jumbled grey blot, exuding, even from
afar, a sense of ancientness and decay.

 Triana edged her horse
closer to the Prince. “I don’t like the look of that place,” she said
nervously. “Even from this distance it emits a sense of threat. I would rather
take my chances on the open plain.”

 Andarion laughed. “I
think you are letting your imagination run away with you. It’s just an old
ruin, besides, I, for one, am not keen on a soaking and that is precisely what
we’ll get if we are caught on the open plain.”

 “What if there are
Turog in the city?”

 “Well, we won’t know
until we are closer, will we?”

 For the first time
Triana became a little irritated with him. “I wish you’d stop treating me like
a child,” she snapped and urged her horse alongside Relisar’s.

 Even as they watched, a
mass of inky black clouds began to loom up from behind the distant line of
hills, like some evil cauldron boiling over. The freshening wind caught them
and fanned them out across the brazen sky like a monstrous funeral pall. Wider,
spread the blanket of cloud, and closer, being driven directly towards the
watchers on the ridge. A distant flicker of lightning briefly illuminated the
bulging underbelly of the clouds, turning them to purple and indigo. Then long
after the flash of light had gone, borne on the rising wind, the faint rattle
of thunder reached their ears.

 “Come,” said Andarion,
“the storm will be upon us soon. We must make haste to the city.”

 When they descended to
the short grasses of the plain, they urged their horses to a canter and the
distance flowed beneath their hooves. Yet all the time above them, the
blackness burgeoned and billowed, filling the sky, prematurely dimming the
daylight. Thunder growled and grumbled around the hills, distant yet, but
growing in power and threat.

  When seen from the
level of the plain, the city seemed more dominant, its ruined towers tall
against the bruised sky. The storm, coming from the south, lit the sky behind
the city with vertical forks of lightning, throwing it into haunted silhouette.

 Just before the
daylight had gone completely, they reached the outskirts of the city. The
horses dropped to a walk and their hooves clopped dismally on the fragments of
paved road that remained. What had once been a residential area with many fine
mansions was now a desolate ruin. No roof remained intact and few walls. All
lay in a state of ruinous collapse. Tumbled heaps of stone littered the devastated
landscape. Surprisingly, nature had made very little inroads into the city.
Here and there a tall plant had made its home, rattling its desiccated seed
heads like spears in the mournful breeze. Yet although weeds and grass sprouted
from crevices in the rubble, the ruins seemed more the product of some recent
upheaval, rather than a distant event. The powers of the brotherhood, although
not proof against the Destroyer, seemed to protect the tumbled stones from the
ravages of time.

 Triana’s eyes darted
everywhere looking for sign of danger. She was unsure whether to be relieved or
even more alarmed when she saw nothing. Her horse, however, always a little
highly strung, began to tremble, picking up its rider’s unease.