by Peter Harris
Shelley opened her eyes. The cave was still the same, except that the light seemed clearer and outside the rain still fell, though now there was a luminous quality to the air, and sunlight caught the drops as they fell. The lake looked to Shelley like a brimming bowl of diamond water with diamonds drifting down from heaven to make it overflow. She laughed and stretched happily.
Then, as if from another world, she heard her name being called. It was a rousing, musical voice she loved but could not quite recognise as it rolled from peak to peak, echo merging with echo. It definitely was not Korman out looking for her already; or her father, or Pipes. She sat still turning her head to catch the sound again. Then her heart gave a great leap. ‘It’s Quickblade!’ she cried. She jumped up and ran out of the cave.
He was walking the lakeshore, calling as he went, scrambling over driftwood logs, leaping from boulder to boulder along the inlet where she had found the boat. He sounded different now, humbler, more vulnerable, even lonely. She called back to him as loudly as she could without sounding as though she was screaming at him, ‘Quickblade! Over here! I’m on the island!’ Her echo rolled across the hills, but immediately he turned towards the very place where she stood on the narrow shoreline.
‘Stay there! I will come to you!’ he yelled, and his words ran around the mountain walls of the valley as if chasing her echo: ‘Come to you… come to you…’ He flung aside his pack and bow and arrows and dived in like an otter. Shelley thrilled with anticipation, then, as his body disappeared under the silver haze of the surface blurred by raindrops, she shivered with alarm. ‘Can you swim?’ she found herself yelling in a high-pitched voice. But there was no answer. ‘What a silly thing to say,’ she told herself, blushing. But she kept holding her breath until she saw him come up, far out into the lake, his strong arms beating the water rhythmically, his head turning to breathe, in the proper overarm stroke, which she had never learned.
Soon he was wading up the steep beach of the island. But he stopped when he looked up and saw Shelley standing there, glowing white in the morning sun shining on the raindrops, a faint halo of rainbow colour hovering in the golden mist about her. He had heard of the Lady of the Lake, Ainenia of the Nine Lives who used to live on the sacred isle of Avalon with her maidens, forbidden to all but those who were called there. Stories were told around campfires, of those who had stumbled upon her island uninvited, landing in the mists that drifted about it, and were never heard of again, but their boats were found drifting, empty but for a single rose. It was doubly terrifying for him, the leader of the Boy Raiders, who must never succumb to the Siren call of the Woman, on pain of breaking the spell of Everchild. If he did, he could no longer be leader. He would be forever banished from the tribe.
So it was that Quickblade – who had never flinched in the face of terrible dangers in battle, in the dark mindtrap-infested forests of the Badlands or even on the Mountains of Terror where the Roggas lurked – hesitated, dazzled and abashed, before the divine vision of the Shelley.
‘Are you going to come out of the water, or am I going to have to come in and get you?’ asked Shelley, giggling to see the proud boy so embarrassed. He opened his mouth to speak, but she had already splashed in and held out a hand to him, palm down like a queen allowing a subject to kiss it. And she was willing him to do that, and more…
‘Is it… safe? I mean, is it permitted… to set foot on this isle?’ he asked, taking her hand uncertainly.
‘I don’t know about safe,’ replied Shelley, smiling at him mysteriously, ‘but it is permitted – if you are civil.’
‘Of course I’ll be civil…’ he began in a haughty voice, then stopped himself. ‘I mean, let us talk, Lady Shelley, She-who-walks-in-Faery. I have come far, through fire and wind and rain, to see you and ask for your hand… I mean for the honour of your esteemed presence alongside my Boy Raiders in the north, where the war goes badly for us on account of the magic of the Birdmen, the Aghmaath, whom they tell me only you can defeat.’
‘Very eloquent! Who writes your speeches?’ laughed Shelley.
Quickblade blushed, and angrily shook out the water from his hair, smoothing it back over his proud forehead. She noticed he had an old scar along the hairline, and many new scratches all over his face and hands. They were now standing on the beach and the sun had gone behind dark clouds again.
‘You mock me, but my boys are being mind-wiped, and the Birdmen are using cavalry, with long cruel spears of tempered thornwood! My messengers have been gone too long, and I fear for their lives. And you stand here, in this safe hidden valley, like… like some queen, and tease and mock at me.’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to mock! But tell me, how did you find me here?’
‘In the night, as I lay on a high ledge in the mountains, unable to sleep for the cold and the strange voices on the wind that blew through the ravines, a great white unicorn appeared to me and showed me this place – in a vision – and you here, on the island. I thought you might have left Korman and be on your way to join the Jilters. So I rose up and climbed on through the night, but the next day it was misty, and I was lost, then suddenly I came upon a narrow pass where none had been a moment before, and it led down into this valley. And now, you will return with me, won’t you?’
His eyes were bright and eager. Shelley hesitated, hating to hurt him.
‘I… I’ve already told you, I’ve made up my mind to follow Korman to…’
‘That wizard! They say he is in league with her, the one they call the Lady of the Thorns! I was talking to the hermit of the portal hills, Moonwit, and he says Korman’s gone mad, following her, leading the Chosen One into the living death in the thorns, lured by the thorn witch!’
‘What?’ yelled Shelley. ‘Korman’s not mad! You are, for listening to some crazy old hermit! We were attacked and nearly killed by a bunch of mad hermits! Don’t talk to me about hermits! Anyway, I didn’t think you believed in the Chosen One.’
‘I didn’t say that,’ began Quickblade, but Shelley interrupted.
‘And I won’t let you stay on this island a second longer if you say another word against the Lady. I’ve seen her, I mean in a vision, and she saved Korman on the bridge over the Bottomless Canyon, and…’
‘All right, I retract my words about the Lady of the Thorns. Perhaps she is good, perhaps she is on our side. I don’t know. I’ve never seen her – or been helped by her. And they say she’s on the side of the Jilters. But you, Shelley, what about you? Will you fight for me… I mean, with me, against the Enemy?’
There was a silence as Shelley struggled, and failed, to remember all the reasons why she should stay with Korman and send Quickblade away empty-handed. The fire in her seemed to grow even as the words they exchanged were harsh and combative, as if their heads said one thing but their hearts another, equally eloquent though wordless.
Quickblade felt it too, and he seemed to grow afraid. He felt a mysterious bond between them, an energy as of fire, or the lightning-bolt which can fall from stormy skies to crack open strong oaks. In his head he heard his man-at-arms say, mockingly, ‘You’re ’arfway up the ol’ Fire Mountain, all right.’ But he just smiled at the thought; it pleased him. No one had told him it would feel like this. He cared nothing now for the rules of the Boy Raiders, or the Code. He felt a wild joy and relief. Shelley was not going to be a Jilter! He dared to hope that she loved him…
The island became an enchanted, sacred lovers’ retreat as they looked into each other’s eyes, and a strange attraction drew them irresistibly towards each other, like the invisible pull which draws together two copper coils when the fiery power of the lightning pulses through them. Both were resisting its pull, for different reasons; and both were succumbing to the blissful power flowing through them.
Korman had become worried. He went down to the lake, looking for Shelley and calling her name. Hearing his voice in the distance, she shook herself free from the most powerful attraction she had ever felt and managed
to say, ‘Quickblade, I’m being torn in two! But you know I can’t come, not yet. I’ll see you after Ürak Tara, I promise.’
He looked at her for a second as if struck through the heart. Then, seeing that she could not be turned from her path, he took hold of her promise, which was like a hopeflower shining small and white in the darkness of his own path, which now led back over the Mountains of Terror alone, back to a desperate siege.
‘Though all the Thorns of the Birdmen stand between us?’ he asked. ‘Yes!’
‘What token will you give me of your promised help?’
And they both knew it was no longer Shelley’s help they were talking about, but her love. Shelley turned and ran lightly back to the mouth of the cave, watched longingly by Quickblade. She picked a single white hopeflower bud, and put it in Quickblade’s hand.
‘I’ll give you this,’ she said, her eyes shining. If she had known how beautiful she looked then, she would have trembled at who she was becoming, and known why Quickblade stood in a bittersweet dream, staring at her as the bud slowly opened in his hand into a perfect white flower. He bent over it and smelled the sweet, wild perfume, filling his consciousness like music, the essence of her lovely soul, driving out all bitterness and fear. He looked into her eyes and smiled, unreservedly, all his defences swept away. She smiled back. They moved towards each other. Then he swept her up in his strong arms, and they kissed. The world stood still, then began to spin slowly around them as they stood together, fused into one, body and soul, incandescent and joyful.
Korman was calling out again. They ignored him for one, two more calls. Then on the third call Quickblade let go of Shelley. ‘Think of me at the next Blue Moon! I will take out this flower and gaze on it, and as it opens again in the moonlight, I will see you.’ He took the waterproof tinderbox from his pocket and put the flower into it. ‘And… I was going to give you this…’ He unclasped a chain around his neck and held it up. On it hung a medallion of the Boy Raiders, two children with drawn swords riding a galloping horse, the eight worlds wheeling above them, the same as on the wax seal on his letter but cast in dusky bronze, its surfaces shining golden, polished by long wearing. ‘Smithy made it. It’s for bravery. It’s my promise to you, that I’ll come to find you at Ürak Tara, though all the thorns of the Birdmen stand between us – and get my medal back!’
‘I’ll be waiting, and keep it safe for you. Meanwhile, it will help me feel braver, every time I touch it… and think of you,’ said Shelley.
Quickblade put the medallion around her neck and gently fastened the clasp. He held her hands and looked once more into her eyes. Then he turned quickly away, dived into the cold waters, and swam for the shore where Korman stood waiting.
Quickblade said few words to him when he reached the shore (as he was out of breath) but they were courteous words, and Korman looked at him in wonder. ‘The boy has changed,’ he thought. ‘There is a new light in his eyes. He sees a new destiny before him. And he found his way into this hidden valley, just as Shelley did! Their fates seem indeed to be entwined. The soul-weaving begins… But it must not – not yet! They both have so much to learn. And, she must be able to return through the Portal…’
Then Korman spoke with Quickblade of their different paths, and blessed him. Then Quickblade, not to be delayed a moment longer, picked up his light pack and bow and arrows, and strode off into the perilous mountains again, seemingly refreshed, as if he had not travelled all night. ‘Ah, love!’ sighed Korman as he watched him go, into what perils he hated to think.