by Peter Harris
Meanwhile Shelley, Rilke, Goldheart and perhaps forty others, were making for the South Gate, unaware that Hithrax was there and they were already too late to escape. As they approached the tower gate and crossed the Labyrinth courtyard, dawn was breaking, and the light streamed through the windows of the dome above. Beneath it stood a line of Aghmaath Trackers and warriors, blocking the way.
There was a terrible silence. The refugees cowered behind Mandala as their homes burned behind them, even as the mists blazed in the golden light of dawn reflected from the silver mirrors high above. The tallest of the Aghmaath stepped forward on stork-like legs bound with spiny greaves.
‘Surrender the Edarthan girl, who is called Shelley,’ it said in a deadly hiss. Then the memory of those shark-like features, the intelligent crocodile eyes, came back to Shelley. It was Hithrax, the head Tracker, head and shoulders above his warriors. He had so nearly caught her when she first came to Aeden. Korman had saved her then; but now she was about to be handed over to this monster, and Korman was nowhere in sight. The Dagraath growled menacingly at either side of Hithrax their master. Shelley felt her legs give way, but Goldheart caught her as she swayed, and held her protectively, defying the dark warriors.
Then through the horror that had fallen on them came a quiet voice of defiance. ‘No, you will not have her,’ said Mandala. ‘For she is the Kortana, who will restore the old wisdom of the Order of the Makers, which your accursed people have denied.’ As Mandala spoke, in the dark above, one of the guards of the gate crawled, mortally wounded by Hithrax’s spear, but intent on his goal.
Hithrax gave a harsh croak, which could have been a laugh.
He spoke again, in a loud voice now, like the roar of a crocodile, ‘Then you will all die, never to be enlightened, and you will suffer forever on the wheel of eternal rebirth.’
He raised his huge scaly hand in the claw-like salute to the Void. In his pale forehead the huge single eye once again snapped open, and from it surged the mindbolt Mandala had been expecting. He made the magical Sign of Averting. The mindbolt crackled and writhed over the heads of the people, but was reflected as if by an invisible wall around them, and they were unharmed.
‘Run! I will hold them off!’ cried Mandala.
The people hesitated.
‘GO!’ he cried.
They all turned and ran back down into the Canyon, now a place of ruin and death, smoke billowing from every cave. ‘Back to the Diamond Dog!’ yelled Goldheart. ‘I have an idea!’
Mandala, sword in hand, was battling the guards on the Labyrinth, and the dogs of war were closing in, when the roar of heavy chains and iron grating on iron drowned out the snarling of the dogs. The wounded guard had succeeded in his last task: to release the chain which held the inner portcullis. Mandala, fighting for his life, saw what was happening, and rejoiced, but he was surrounded. The portcullis landed with a great boom on the stone floor, its spikes ramming into the deep holes in the great flagstones, trapping the dark guards and their dogs in the tower. But the Dagraath closed in, and dragged Mandala down, pinioning his arms and legs. Then Hithrax raised his ritual thorn spear and plunged it with inhuman force into the exposed chest. A second later, Mandala’s spirit passed forever beyond their reach, beyond the gates of this life.
As they fled from the South Gate, Rilke was still clutching his fishing rod. He stumbled, and the rod almost tripped Shelley up. ‘Give me that!’ she said, a little more fiercely than she had intended. She grabbed the rod out of his hand and tossed it aside. Rilke cried out in protest but kept running.
Shelley was looking around as they ran. Korman was nowhere to be seen. ‘Goldheart,’ she gasped, ‘I have to find Korman. He’s my guide… my Guardian… I must find him. We’ll meet again, I know. Look… after… Rilke… and Worriette…’ She peeled off from the fleeing group and vanished into the mist before Goldheart could argue.
When Goldheart and the other refugees reached the inn, they saw its diamond-encrusted mascot swinging in the dawn breeze, red in the light of the nearby fires. They ran inside; it was deserted. ‘Quick, there is a secret door somewhere in here that leads to the diamond mines!’ said Goldheart. ‘I spoke to some smugglers last night. They were drunk, and boasting of it. If we can find that door, it will take us down to the deepest mines, right down to the lake level.’
‘The lake level?’ said an old man, horrified. ‘But the lake is haunted, did you not know? There lurks the Serpent of the underworld, devouring all who approach. I would rather face the Aghmaath than go down there!’
‘You are free to go, sir,’ said Goldheart. ‘But listen to me: the monks of Zagonamara live by the lake. They can help us escape through the Cave of the Voice which leads out to the Milkwater springs. From there we can go to a safe place, the Potter’s Retreat, where there is a colony of exiled clay-workers from Milkwater village, under the shadow of the Canyon hills.’
This was enough for most of the refugees, who turned their attention to looking for the secret door.
But some said, ‘Beware the black monks of the Bottomless Lake!’ and went out into the street and tried to hide in their homes, until the Dark Ones found them, one by one.
The others inside locked and bolted the door of the inn, and searched every inch of it, in vain. Then the door rang with a hard blow.
‘Come out and surrender, traitors, or we will set fire to the inn!’ came a voice. It was an Aghmaath, Goldheart guessed, by the bird-like tone. The rapping on the door was repeated, louder this time, and the warning. Then there was silence.
As they searched frantically for the secret door, there came the ominous sound of crackling flames. The smoke began to billow through the upper windows and under the door, and the people began to cough and scream, ‘We’re lost! We’re all going to burn!’
Through all this Rilke had been quietly shivering, holding Worriette for comfort, and staying close to Goldheart. But suddenly the little wurrier sprang from his arms, and Rilke let out a yell as he groped for her under a table. He got hold of her and pulled. She would not budge, but kicked against him and squealed. She was holding onto something for dear life. Coughing, his eyes streaming from the smoke, he looked under the table. ‘Worriette’s found something!’ he gasped. She was pulling frantically at a small ring on the floor. The others crowded around, and saw that the air under the table was clearer. ‘Worriette smelt the fresh air, coming up from the floor!’ grinned Rilke as he, too, tugged at the ring. But it was too heavy for him. A man slid a poker from the fireplace into the ring, and with shaking hands pulled the stone trapdoor open. The air in the inn was becoming choking hot. They slid and clambered and fell into the cool dark of the tunnel, and gulped in fresh air. Last of all Goldheart jumped inside and pulled the trapdoor shut, just as the beams of the ceiling collapsed onto the floor in showers of sparks and billowing flames.
‘Well, there’s nothing to do now but follow the tunnel wherever it may lead,’ said someone in the darkness – the man with the poker, Rilke thought – and they groped their way down the rough steps which descended into the bowels of the earth.
Meanwhile Korman was fighting for his life at the brink of the Canyon as the elite troops of the Aghmaath closed in. Even now he was faithful to his vow, and did not draw Arcratíne, but used the broken swords of other defenders to fend off the attackers. He was fearless and immune to the mindbolts, but he was tiring. The acrid smells of burning icons and dead bodies filled his nostrils. He saw the refugees enter the inn, and he despaired as the Aghmaath surrounded it, piling up wreckage, and fire and smoke engulfed it. But still he fought on, crying to the Lady, ‘Forgive me, I have failed you!’ He chanted the Guardian battle cry, Hethür, Krithür, Shaktha! But still he did not draw Arcratíne.
There was a change in the air around him: it seemed to clear, and the stench of the smoke was gone from his nostrils. The Aghmaath, spears lowered for the final charge, vanished. He turned, and there was Shelley, glowing with the same light that had surrounded the Lady on the b
ridge.
‘Korman! I had to find you! I suddenly remembered, I can walk in Faery, even if there are bad things happening all around!’
‘It must have been the Lady speaking to you! I only saw her; but you heard her voice, which is much better.’ Korman smiled, feeling for a moment like a child again. Then he was with her in Faery, and the sounds of battle faded. Together they walked through their attackers, in the green of that other level of Life. And lying in the middle of the quiet street, glowing in the early morning light they saw a pile of fine silk cloth and coils of silken cord, discarded by some fleeing silk merchant. Shelley looked at the glistening pile. Opening her mind to the infinite continuum of possibility which lies beyond the world as it is, she now saw a way of escape. Her heart pounded at the thought, and her palms went sweaty. She told Korman, ‘I think… we can jump into the lake. Goldheart said there are caves down there that lead out to the surface.’
She frowned, trying hard not to think of the huge Zaglizagonamara eel that she had hooked when she was pulling up Rilke’s line.
‘Dear Lady, it is many fathoms down to the lake! We would be killed for sure!’ said Korman, wondering if her mind had finally cracked under the strain.
‘No we won’t, not if we can turn this silk into parachutes!’ She showed him how to cut a stabilising vent hole in the centre of the two largest pieces, then tie the strong thin silken ropes to the corners. Now that they were in Faery, there was an eerie silence about them, and plenty of time for the task.
At last they stood on the edge, the ropes around their waists, holding the shiny bunched silk in their arms.
‘When we’re clear of the edge, we let the silk go and the wind will catch it, and we’ll just float down,’ she told him. He looked at her, wonderingly. ‘Trust me, it works. At least, it did when I tried it back home. Mum was mad at me for ruining her good sheets, but it was a science experiment, wasn’t it? Oh, and let’s throw down our packs first. They should float.’ Korman took his off, and was about to throw it over the edge, when he froze, a look of horror and guilt on his face.
‘What is it?’ asked Shelley, alarmed.
‘Bootnip!’
He rummaged around and pulled the protesting pet from the pack. He pushed a fold of cloth into Bootnip’s mouth to chew on before he could bite onto flesh, and shoved him down into his robes. The battle had put Bootnip into a very bad mood, even by anklebiter standards.
They stood a few paces apart at the cliff-edge, hearts pounding, looking down at the gulf below, where the dawn breeze along the Canyon was sweeping the mists away, leaving only faint shreds far down above the surface of the lake, like clouds seen from an aeroplane. Then Shelley counted, ‘One… Two… Three… JUMP!’