The Girl and the Guardian

by Peter Harris

  Shelley lay in the warm bed in the little room, the covers glowing in the morning light streaming through a skylight in the ceiling. It took her a moment to work out where she was: still underground but apparently high enough up in the cliffs to allow the light of day to shine down. Korman had said the Padmaddim lived in the cliffs… A shadow passed over her mind at this; after her dream, how could she be sure of anything he told her? She was beginning to believe in her dreams; the last one had come true, about the white unicorn. If only she could work it all out. But where to start, now that nothing could be taken for granted? She wished she could be back home with her family, where at least she knew where she stood. Sinister mysteries lurked everywhere in this new land, and veils lay over the very landscape, mindwebs laid… by whom? The Thornmen, or the Lady and Korman?

  In spite of what reason told her, she found herself seeing Korman in a different - and alarming - light. ‘Why didn’t he tell me about these apples that make you able to fly, and give you such peace? All he’s offering is danger and drudgery, running away from the best feelings I’ve ever had! How lovely, to just rest! Who needs the battles of life? Endless striving to learn stuff, to “succeed,” when all along there’s such a blissed-out state of rest?’ she thought, lazily stretching in the warm bed. ‘And just what is this other place, this Ürak thingy, that Korman wants to take me to? Probably a hotbed of that “Heresy” they warned me about.’ She imagined escaping through the caves and finding the Thornmen, but there was the waterfall to get down in the dark, and the Dragon-snake in the water, the one Korman said was ‘usually’ harmless, which could attack her if she was on her own. She imagined being dragged underwater and torn to pieces by those needle-sharp teeth. No, she would have to keep quiet and bide her time.

  There was a sharp knock on the heavy wooden door of the bedroom. Shelley jumped, but managed to say ‘Come in’ calmly. The tall figure of Korman appeared in the doorway. She shrank inside, but glancing up at his steady eyes she guessed that her doubts of a moment ago were groundless. If any man was true, it was Korman. And yet…

  ‘Good morning!’ he said brightly. ‘The Teacher and I have been up a long time, and breakfast is cold. I have been teaching him your language. But come to the lookout room and see the morning sun shining over the hills. From there you can see the five peaks of the Plateau of the Tree – or, as we call it, the Tor Enyása, the High Mountain of the Nine Worlds.’

  Shelley was still dressed, so she got up, feeling a little foolish for doubting Korman. She was still sleepy, and feeling stiff and sore from the huge trek the day before, but her body felt healthier than it had for a long time. The slight cold she had had was gone. ‘I still feel like I did after those apples last night,’ she thought. ‘Glowing on the inside, sort of. And things look brighter… Sharper, even... Maybe my eyes are getting better! I still really need a bath though.’ She stumbled down the hall after the Guardian.

  They went through the same doorway she had gone through in her dream, and came out into a pillared room full of light. The room tapered towards a large curving wall with many arched windows, like the bridge of a ship made of carved stone. There was deep blue sky straight ahead. She had the feeling of being very high up, and as they approached the windows, looking down, she saw just how high up they were. The little gully where they had found the cave-mouth was somewhere down there, but too far below to recognise, and there were mists still rising from the ground in the morning sun. Stretching away beyond the mists she saw the Badlands. It was hard to be sure, with all the mist, but she thought she was seeing more clearly than last night. She walked to the left-most windows and looked down. She thought she saw the way they must have come yesterday, a long valley leading down to the plains, rusty nearby, shading to bluish further off. Beyond the plains, was a dim line of dark blue – the sea, Shelley thought. Going back to the middle window, she looked out. A few miles off at the edge of the rugged hills of the Badlands, overlooking another long valley, she could just make out a scattered cluster of maybe fifty reddish-brown cottages and one bigger building with a domed roof, all nestled in the folds of the bushclad hills. Korman pointed it out as Barachthad came out to join them. ‘That village is the next place we will stop. The people there are faithful to the Old Order – or were.’

  But Shelley wasn’t listening. ‘I can see those houses!’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s not my imagination; I don’t need glasses any more! What’s happening to me?’

  Korman smiled. ‘You are becoming well. Did you not believe me last night? You are on Aeden now. There is still great virtue in the soil and the fruits. Especially the apples. That is why the enemy has used them, and turned the power to other ends.’

  But once again Shelley barely heard him. She was looking beyond the village at the tall mountain in the distance, standing in serene contrast to the tumbled hills of the Badlands below. Her stomach gave a lurch. It was the five-peaked mountain she had flown to in her dream. She felt an intense vertigo at the thought now, looking across that vast expanse of air, hazy blue in the distance where the mountain stood wreathed in white mists, with its five wooded peaks surrounding a lofty central plateau (as she knew from her dream – the five peaks hid the plateau from view). Five slightly lower peaks surrounded the mountain, and Shelley could just make out a line of white, as of a great wall, joining them. She gripped the stone window-ledge to steady herself, and breathed deeply, her heart racing.

  ‘That is the High Plateau, the Tor Enyása,’ Korman was saying, unaware of her panic attack. ‘Alas, it is now the greatest stronghold of the Aghmaath, apart from the Valley of Thorns itself, and Phagra, the harbour of black ships. There behind ancient walls grow the impassable thorn thickets, guarding the corrupt apple orchards of the Aghmaath. There sit their most subtle Dreamcasters, weaving deceptions over the whole realm; and the Mindprobers and the Mindscouts, and Rakmad himself, they say. But on the five peaks still stand five Jewel-trees. When the Arcra was in the Tree of Life, they were portals to five other worlds of the Order (and through Earth, to all eight). In the centre, upon a green island in a deep lake full of sacred fish, stood the Tree of Life, the Centre of centres, the Hub of hubs which linked them all. It will be dying, alas – if it is not already dead. Perhaps it stands there still, or perhaps it has been cut down. Or perhaps they have found some way to corrupt it to their evil ends.’

  As he spoke of the Tree of Life, Korman looked grieved, and he fingered the hilt of his great sword, which Shelley had noticed he never unbuckled, even at the table. The knob at its hilt-end was fashioned out of a single gem like golden amber or topaz, but laced with gold fire within, as if lit by some energy. She wondered what kind of sword it might be, and what other magical powers Korman had, beside the mindwebs. Shelley was seeing many hints that this world was not simply primitive and medieval, as she had assumed at first. Those clear windows that looked very like plate glass, for example; and the golden amber lights that lit the rooms at night, and that glowing crystal on the table… But the apples, and her eyesight being healed overnight, that was something deeper, she felt. That was magic.

  She wondered if she should tell Korman about her dream. Perhaps she had already been mind-probed as she slept, and the Thornmen were right now weaving their webs in her head? Or was her dream a true warning from them? Was it not still possible that she was in enemy hands and the so-called Thornmen, the beings of light and peace, were her real friends?

  Pushing down these scary questions, she said, ‘Wow, that’s a great view. And something wonderful’s happened to my eyes. I want to learn more about this country! But first, I was wondering, could I have a bath before breakfast?’

  Barachthad shocked her by saying, in very passable English, ‘Korman, we must look after the little girl! A bath – yes, of course! What a good idea. I have some of my best ideas in the bath! Indispensable for relaxing and thinking. It’s down the hall, just past your bedroom, to the right.’

  ‘How did you learn English overnight?’ ask
ed Shelley.

  But Barachthad just smiled. ‘All in good time! After you have had a bath.’ They had not yet told her about the mindstone which lay on a round table in a secret chamber off the living room. Meanwhile, she felt glad to get away from that window, with its disturbing view over the hostile land Korman said they must travel, under the all-seeing eyes of the mind-readers on the Tor Enyása.

  The bath was delightful, better than her old bath at home with its limited hot water and uncomfortable Victorian shape. This was almost like a spa-pool, hollowed out of the living marble, smooth and polished like the stairs, showing the serpentine veins of greyish blue and flecks of deep green and iridescent gold. There was a hot and a cold tap, with handles of engraved silver, tipped with polished stone knobs, a shiny red one for hot and emerald green for cold. (Later she learned that the water was heated by the sun, trickling over black rock under crystal panes in the hidden valleys of the hilltops above the caves. All the hot water one could desire – as long as the sun shone.) The floor was also of polished marble. On it was a bathmat of the same woven stuff as in the living room. In carved hollows in the walls were all manner of soaps and perfumes, lotions and little oil bottles, covered in dust. The old man apparently did not use them.

  ‘It’s sad that he lives all alone in this beautiful place,’ said Shelley to herself as she looked around contentedly. The bathroom was lit from above by another of the skylights, though she saw now it was more like a light-pipe, bringing down the sunlight from far above where it shone on the land above the caves – the karst, as Shelley remembered it is called, where the rainwater drains into chasms and fissures that led to the cave systems, maybe miles and miles of them, far underground. There was a winding staircase, she would find out later, which led from Barachthad’s cave up to the karst, where the Padmaddim had tended their terraced gardens and apple orchards in the days of their prosperity, before the coming of the Aghmaath.

  She was luxuriating in the bath for some time, thinking lazily about this new world and how free she could be living here, if only there was no Mission, no Enemy, just peaceful living and exploring whenever she got bored. And of course she would want a few friends. She wondered if she could go back and bring her best friend Anna to this place. How she would gape when she told her she didn’t need glasses any more! And when she herself ate the apples and didn’t need contacts…

  She wondered briefly whether she would invite her mother too, but then thought, bitterly, ‘She told me lies all those years, about dad.’ She continued to daydream. ‘And then the Boy Raiders would come and visit – after the Aghmaath were defeated, of course.’ Apart from the unsettling dream of the night before, the hidden house of Barachthad the teacher felt like the perfect hideaway, far from the troubled world below. Her thoughts became euphoric, blissful. She lay back smiling in a daze, floating free in the warm deep water, and drifted off into sleep.

  Then she was back on the mountaintop, floating just above the grass, bathed in the purplish light of the Tor Enyása, and the Thornmen, glowing with inner light, were bending over her. But this time they were asking her urgent questions: ‘Where are you? We know Korman the traitor is with you, but he screens his thought from us by his black magic. You can help us, Shelley. Where are you right now? Let us stay with you when you awake. Let us see with your eyes. We want to help you, Shelley, but you must help us. Surrender to the light. Let us IN!’ At that point, she felt a sudden pressure in her forehead like a white-hot poker, and a choking as if something – someone – was trying to enter her mind and body through her mouth. She tried to resist, petrified, suspended halfway between sleep and the nightmare awakening, when this thing would be part of her, controlling her. She struggled fiercely against the dark writhing entity as it sought to possess her. It stopped for a second, but then more came, all together, seeking to subdue her. With a huge effort of will, she pushed them away, and awoke, screaming and spluttering in the bathwater.

  Korman and Barachthad rushed to the door, and just as Korman was about to break it down, Shelley called out, ‘I’m all right now! I’m coming out.’ She emerged, wrapped in a towel, trying to look unconcerned. ‘Just another dream,’ she said. ‘I fell asleep in the bath.’

  But Korman could see that she was trembling. He looked with grave concern into her eyes for a moment, then looked relieved, and said, ‘You have had a fortunate escape. It is plain that the Mindscouts have found you already. Perhaps the Dreamcasters were working on you in the night. They very nearly took you over! You are strong, Shelley – fortunately! But also foolish, not to have told us immediately of your dream last night – you had one, didn’t you? And I should have guessed. I should have told you about the Dreamcasters, but you were so tired, and I did not wish to frighten you. Now we must protect you, before they come back.’ Shelley burst into tears, in spite of herself. ‘It was such a nice dream. They said I could fly… they offered me peace, a feeling I’d never had before… but while I was dozing off in the bath they turned into these horrible eel things and tried to get into my mind… Oh, Korman, I’m sorry, I started to doubt you. They said…’

  ‘They lied,’ said Korman. ‘It is good that they lost patience and thought they could overpower your will, so revealing their true nature to you. Otherwise you might have been won over. Come, have some breakfast, and be comforted.’

  Barachthad brought out a small silver helmet, which he placed on Shelley’s head.

  ‘This is for you. It would have helped to screen your mind, though I dare say you would have taken it off in the bath, so there we go,’ he said, cheerily, making light of her near escape. Shelley was thrilled to receive such a beautiful gift. It was of solid polished silver. Embossed, interwoven dragon-snakes ran around the edge, and inside it was padded with blue velvet. She hugged Barachthad. ‘It’s nothing at all,’ he stammered, and turned bright red. He was not used to the company of girls.

  She ate her breakfast, which was a kind of porridge. Barachthad had reheated it for her, with stewed fruit that tasted like delicious feijoas (which reminded Shelley of home). Barachthad told her it was a kind of apple he was very proud of, being bred ‘Right here on the Karst’ by his people. She found her courage returning, and asked Korman and Barachthad many questions, now that she trusted them again. Barachthad answered most of the questions, in his jovial yet detached way, while Korman looked thoughtfully at her, as if weighing up her state of mind.

  She asked how Barachthad had learned English so fast, and learned of the Mindstone, a product of the Makers long ago, through which a skilled person could communicate knowledge directly into the mind of another. Her mind began to reel with the implications of what she was learning. The world of Aeden was apparently once home to beings far beyond humans in technology and in wisdom. Yet they were gone, and only a few precious relics were left.

  Barachthad admitted to being a tinkerer with bits and pieces of machines and devices from the Old Order (those that were comprehensible to him from the limited literature and examples remaining), and even an inventor ‘in a small way.’ But mostly he and his people had been mathematicians, delighting in the exploration into the infinite world of the abstract. Shelley had read a book which spoke of the ‘wild blue yonder’ of pure mathematics: the continuum, ‘transfinite’ sets, n-dimensional spaces, and equations whose graphs are like fantastic coastlines with sea horses and intricate designs, all infinitely repeating down to tinier and tinier scales, yet each repetition subtly different from the one before. She told Barachthad what she knew of Earth computers, how they can calculate such patterns, like the famous Mandelbrot set, and create detailed maps of them. Barachthad was intrigued – and envious. Shelley was delighted to hear of some of their explorations, and to think that this world shared with Earth at least many of the same truths. She wondered what it would be like to venture into the world of the Crystalline Entities. These beings saw, according to Barachthad, far deeper than the Padmaddim into the unseen reality that underlies all worlds. He had a n
ame for this Reality: Ovokor, the No-World. ‘For it is not one of the things numbered among the branches of Rathvala, the Tree of things which have unfolded into the Continuum of Possibility. Rather it is the “world” which underlies and shapes all possible worlds, whether they exist or not.’

  ‘Is it the same as Korman’s “Concept?”’ Shelley asked. Things she had never really thought through before now seemed to be falling into place.

  ‘Yes, I think, roughly the same,’ replied Barachthad, ‘Speaking for the Guardians, who rarely say much about it.’

  ‘They rarely get the chance, in the company of the Padmaddim,’ said Korman drily.

  Barachthad laughed. ‘We have to make up for you Guardians. Such a grim and silent lot!’

  Shelley plucked up the courage to ask about the Thornmen. ‘What do they want – why do they do all the horrible things they do?’ she asked Barachthad, as Korman seemed lost in thought.

  Barachthad became serious and replied, ‘I have learned something of their secret counsels. Korman here may know more. I understand that they truly believe only in their god, the Void, but they will tell you anything you want to hear at first, to get you to let your defences down. Then you find out, too late, what it is they worship: the Nothing, the Void. Giving up and drifting down the black stream into nothingness, taking all they can with them, rejoicing in their power over life, even their own lives, which they have taught themselves to hate. And at the edge of the Void there are the Dark Entities, more powerful than they, of which I have heard only rumours. But the Aghmaath may have secret dealings with them.

  ‘There, I have told you all you need to know of the religion of the Aghmaath. All the rest is details. The thing to remember, no matter what they or their servants say, is that they will not rest until everything is sucked back into the Void from which it was created. Everything, you understand… On all worlds, even your Earth.’

  Shelley stopped eating. The colour drained from her face. The menace of the Aghmaath, who could invade your mind and lived only to drag all living things down into nothingness, had finally sunk in. She looked around, bleakly.

  ‘Isn’t there anyone who can stop them?’ she asked, though she felt hopeless and sick at heart.

  ‘Now your training can really begin – if you really want to stop them,’ said Korman into the silence which followed. ‘For you must know despair before you can find hope, and join the fight against despair, which is their most powerful weapon.’

  ‘Yes,’ added Barachthad, ‘and our most powerful weapon against that despair is joyful love, the secret of which is the foundation of the Old Order of Aeden. You will learn it, and through the Unfolding become more powerful than you can guess.’ There was an awkward silence. Shelley hoped she could be joyful, loving and powerful, but she felt sure she would let them down.

  ‘Then there is the old knowledge which we are recovering,’ added Barachthad.

  ‘Oh yes, tell me about that!’ said Shelley, eager for their intense, demanding focus to shift away from her.

  So Barachthad told her about the wisdom of the Crystalline Entities, of the world of Kor Zuratimaddi, now under siege by the Dark Entities. She learned of the crystals, like the one on the round table in the main room, through which Barachthad and others had laboured to make contact with them, and of the fragmentary memories of ancient knowledge he and his students had thereby recovered, and how they had been close to a breakthrough in understanding.

  ‘But then the Mindprobers and Dreamcasters came from the Aghmaath, and infiltrated our ‘Community of Free Inquiry’ – what you would call a university – and we were scattered. Some were converted to the Void; most fled. I do not know where they went. We lost trust in one another. We were naive seekers of knowledge, not trained in resisting terror.’

  ‘How come you stayed on?’ asked Shelley.

  ‘It was thanks to Korman here. He told his brother Hillgard of our peril, and Hillgard came and protected me and the few others who chose to stay here. That was nearly seventy-three years ago, just before the fall of the Tor Enyása, where the Arcra-Nama was still being guarded by the remains of the garrison from the Guardian World.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Korman, ‘the Guardians remained there to the bitter end. But I did not know for sure, until we came here, that my brother had gone on an errand to the Padmaddim. And so it was that he missed the last stand on the Tor Enyása, and almost certain death. Now, where he may be we do not know. I hope to hear word of him on our travels. But it was he that taught Barachthad, and maybe others, the secret of mindwebs and enabled him to stay here undetected.’

  ‘So far,’ added Barachthad. ‘And I have not been idle. I have continued as best I could the researches of my fellows, and soon I may be able to find the key to…’ he hesitated, looked at Korman.

  ‘To what?’ asked Shelley. She imagined a vast store of secrets about to be uncovered. She wished she could be a part of it.

  ‘The key to the hidden knowledge of the Makers, still locked away somewhere on Aeden, or under it. This, I believe, is one of the reasons Hillgard came here, too. He spent many hours in the library, and asked many questions. He and I both believed that the hidden knowledge is not all lost. Who knows, we may even be able to contact the Makers themselves, and call them back to fight the Aghmaath. Or failing that, find the Tenth World,’ he concluded dubiously, looking at Korman. But Korman only shook his head, sadly, as if his thoughts were far away. Then, as an afterthought, Barachthad added, ‘Perhaps that is where your brother went, to the fortress of Baldrock? He asked many questions about it, and I told him what I knew, which was not much. But he became excited when I told him that after the closing of the Crystal World, some say that the key to the Outer Door, long kept by the Crystalline Entities, was taken and hidden deep in the caves of Baldrock.’

  ‘The Outer Door!’ exclaimed Korman, startled out of his brooding silence. ‘The legendary Portal to the Tenth World, Hub of the endless stars beyond the Great Sphere of the Makers, beyond the Nine Worlds! Much grief has come of men’s search for that Portal, Barachthad. Is it not written in the Ennead that the Makers caused it to be hidden, after they had departed that way to battle the Dark Entities? We were not ready for that power.’

  ‘But now the Makers are gone, Korman, and have not returned for thousands of years. Is it not possible that they would wish us to seek it?’ said Barachthad, nervously, as if he was not sure himself. Korman shook his head again, but remained silent.

  Later that day, in anticipation of Shelley and Korman setting out again Barachthad gave each of them silver shields, which he had devised as a backup to the mindbolt-deflecting silver helmets which they already both wore. Shelley’s was in the form of an umbrella of delicate segments which folded away into a short rod. ‘It’s a kind of Dream-catcher,’ he told her. ‘Not for heavy duty – more for night use over the bed.’ Korman’s was more substantial: a pair of wings made from overlapping silver scales that fitted the contours of his broad back, and could be spread to form an impenetrable canopy over him, big enough to shelter Shelley as well, at a pinch. Korman protested, ‘Gadgets! The only protection a warrior needs is a well-trained mind.’

  ‘What about your silver helmet then, Korman?’ said Shelley. Korman had no answer for that, so he took the gifts, and thanked the old man for his trouble.

  Shelley had felt much safer wearing the helmet, knowing that if she kept it on and did not open her mind to the enemy she would be safe, at least from a frontal mindbolt. Now Korman also instructed her in the art of making the mind itself like a mirror of silver, reflecting back the thoughts directed at it by Dreamcasters, giving no surface upon which they can fasten.

  ‘They prey upon fear, which comes from attachment to a separate self,’ he said. ‘Be as the chameleon lizard, which is not attached to its own colour, but takes on all the colours of the world, and so is invisible, and its enemies pass it by. That is how I remained hidden for so long by the Portal. So, if the Thornmen come as beings
of light, you also become as it were a being of light, and they will see nothing but the thought they have projected. If they come as snakes of horror, be as a snake of horror. Reflect and be hidden; resist and they will find you.’ Shelley said she thought she understood,

  ‘Sort of. But I’m scared I’ll be terrified of them finding me, and then they will,’ she ventured.

  ‘If you are scared of fear, you are already afraid, and more fear will find you. Therefore: do not fear fear.’

  ‘But how? I can’t let go of it.’

  ‘I know. That is what you will learn – to be attached to nothing is to fear nothing, and then you may do as you choose, and nothing will have power over you.’

  ‘This sounds awfully like the Void the enemy preaches, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. But they are attached to the Nothing itself, and try to force all things back into it. The true wisdom is to let all things be, coming forth from Nothing and returning to it.’

  ‘Then why fight the enemy? You sound so… defeatist.’

  ‘We let the enemy be the enemy, and we let ourselves be those who fight him.’

  ‘But,’ persisted Shelley, pushing Korman’s boundaries, half hoping for an answer, half hoping to see him flustered, ‘you must be fighting for a reason, because you think your way is better.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Korman.

  ‘Is that all you can say?’

  ‘For now, yes.’ He seemed to be smiling slightly, beneath his bushy moustache, and his eyes twinkled. Shelley thought, ‘He seems to be enjoying this. Is he trying to push my boundaries?’

  They were sitting in comfortable deckchairs in the lookout room; the Bridge, as Shelley called it. ‘Humph,’ she replied, stood up and walked back to the wide curve of the windows. She stared out. Far away, white specks of birds that looked like seagulls were wheeling, flashing motes in the sunlight against the growing darkness of an approaching storm front. Flashes of lightning drew her gaze to a peak she had not noticed before, which rose from the plains well to the left of the village Korman said they would head for.

  ‘It looks like a storm coming,’ she said. ‘What’s the name of that mountain over there, all by itself on the plains?’ Korman came to her side and gazed out at the craggy peak that reared high above and to the left of the Badlands.

  ‘That is Baldrock, a lookout place and fortress from long ago. It is deserted now, I think. But it still contains many secrets. My brothers of the Order, from the Guardian World, used to have a garrison there, long ago, but by the time I came to Aeden only the garrison of the Six Trees in the Tor Enyása remained, and when it fell all died but one, Hillgard my brother. I had heard nothing from him since, until we came here and Barachthad told me that Hillgard had come here, and so escaped the fall of the Tor Enyása. I fear he was captured after he left this place. But if he did escape the Aghmaath, perhaps he took refuge at Baldrock. It would be like him to find another fortress to defend, even if there was no company there but the rock-badgers.’ Korman looked sad as he watched the dark rainclouds roll up the hills towards them.

  ‘How long ago was this? Why weren’t you there when the Tor Enyása fell?’

  ‘It is a long story. Suffice to say that I was cast from the Order because I failed in my guarding of the central Jewel-Tree, whose Jewel was called the Arcra-Nama, or the Heartstone. Now it is often called the Arcra-Achrha, the Lost Jewel. For it was stolen. Seventy-three winters have passed over Aeden since the day I was banished from the Tor Enyása. Seventy-three years I have kept vigil on the plains of the Portal – waiting for you. This was my penance, to obey the call of the Lady when she appeared to me at the Springs of Hope. But it was a grief to hear of the battle for the Tree and the slaying of all the Guardians but one. And I could not go looking for that one, even though he was Hillgard the Lionhearted, my own brother.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘For fear of missing you when you arrived, as I knew you would soon be found by the enemy. I did not know the hour or day or even the year of your coming, but had to content myself with waiting in my cave overlooking the plains.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Shelley, ‘That was a long wait. But… that makes you old! As old as my grandfather.’

  ‘In Aeden, thanks to the apples, we do not age as you do in your world. At one hundred a man is considered mature, but not old. You yourself have eaten the apples, though you did not grow up with them. Still, I imagine that you too will stay young for a long time.’

  While Shelley was getting used to this revelation, Barachthad came to them, and said, ‘You can’t leave in this weather – have you noticed the stormclouds coming in over the sea from the north? The barometer is plunging. We are going to have a thunderstorm. First in years! What do you think of that?’ Korman nodded, then Barachthad added, in a lower voice but looking at Shelley, ‘Now, Korman, what of my suggestion? There is time for it since you are staying. Surely you can trust her enough now?’ Korman was considering his reply when the room was lit by a great branching bolt of lightning that seemed to bore right into the centre of the Tor Enyása. Korman started, and staring out into the growing darkness of the storm, he thought, ‘Another sign! The silver sap is rising in the Tree… the lightning strikes the Tor again! O Lady, is this possible? After all these years… So the Tree is not yet dead. There is still hope!’

  Aloud he said nothing; he was too moved to speak of the significance of what he had witnessed. He just nodded and continued looking at the lightning-flashes and the thick drifts of rain over the parched land. He glanced often at his ring; the amber orb set in it was glowing. Barachthad was examining the amber orb-lights in the alcoves of the room, talking excitedly to no one in particular. ‘Or-agathra!’ he kept saying. ‘The lights are getting brighter! Another sign!’ But Korman kept staring out the window at the Tor Enyása. At last he turned and asked Shelley, ‘Do you still wish to follow me to Ürak Tara, and learn of the Order and the Concept, and seek the Heartstone – now that you know the peril?’ He spoke gravely, but there was a light in his eyes like the amber of his ring which glowed like a cat’s eye in the light of a torch, and the shining orbs on the wall which shone like the sun of Aeden as it came up out of the mists of the sea.

  Shelley, who was very relieved at the talk of a postponement of their journey into danger, and was gladly imagining the prospect of an extended stay in this safe house (at least, safe as long as she didn’t give in to fear and wore her silver helmet), didn’t quite hear what Korman said. He repeated his question.

  ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ she said slowly, after a moment’s reflection. ‘If you’re right, I suppose I haven’t really got much alternative except to go on, have I?’

  ‘There are always alternatives in the Unfolding of Life, the Ever-branching Tree,’ said Korman. ‘By our thoughts we shift the Unfolding and the Tree grows branches where it would not have otherwise.’

  ‘Of course, she could stay here and help me contact the Crystalline Entities, and learn many wonders – things to help in the cause, also, of course,’ said Barachthad to Korman in Aedenese. But Shelley was looking thoughtfully at Korman. ‘If I didn’t go I’d always feel bad that I hadn’t done whatever it was I’ve been called into Aeden to do,’ she said, her fear giving way to a rising sense of adventure.

  ‘Then you know what you need to do,’ said Korman.

  ‘All right. So what is this thing you were thinking of showing me?’

  ‘Barachthad wants you to be shown the language of Aeden, our main dialect. It is spoken, or at least understood, by most of the races of the island.’

  ‘What do you mean, “Shown?”’

  ‘There is a Mindstone in this cave, through which I can impart all my knowledge of the language in a single sitting – at least all the grammar and the common words and sayings.’

  ‘You’re joking!’ Shelley had struggled with French at school, and Latin was even worse. This sounded too good to be true.

  ‘I rarely joke, and I never lie,’ said Korman.

>   ‘OK then,’ said Shelley, taking a deep breath, ‘Seeing is believing! Let’s do it.’

  Barachthad led them to the door of the chamber. It was locked. After some rummaging around he drew from a deep pocket in his jacket a small silver key with a blue crystal at the tip. He slid the crystal into a triangular hole in the brow of a carved head which was so lifelike it looked as though it was about to speak.

  ‘This carving on the door is a metaphor for the open mind, and my key is like the Mindstone which fits into the inner eye, illuminating it with the knowledge of new words,’ commented Barachthad. The door swung open, and he motioned for them to enter. Korman went in first, followed by Shelley, a little alarmed at the thought of a crystal entering her forehead. ‘I hope it really is just a metaphor,’ she thought as Barachthad wished her luck and shut the door behind her.