by Peter Harris
Chapter Thirty-nine
A Fateful Pact
Now that she was sure she would go all the way to Ürak Tara with Korman before she did anything else, and no longer half-wondering if she should go to Quickblade, Shelley began to think more about the dangers ahead in the Valley of Thorns. But Korman told her there was a long way to go yet before they had to face that trial. ‘Hishma,’ he reminded her. ‘Stay in the moment. You are growing stronger, more ready for whatever may lie ahead.’
Then he showed her a game played with sticks and stones, like noughts and crosses but more complicated. She found she was soon beating him at it. She expressed surprise, and he looked at her knowingly.
‘You are growing nimble of mind, as I knew you would,’ he said. ‘It is the air of Aeden. You are remembering old knowledge.’
As they played, Korman seemed to be a little nervous, as if he was trying to say something. Shelley finally asked him, ‘Korman you seem a bit tense. Is there anything you want to say to me?’ She was sure it would be about Quickblade, but she was secure enough now not to worry whatever he said.
‘Shelley, when a boy likes a girl a lot, and… well, there is a wonderful thing left in the soil of Aeden by the Makers which enables a child to choose the time of his, or her… ah…’ Shelley laughed.
‘I know, Korman, don’t worry. Pipes told me all about it. It’s called Everchild, and if two children past the age of thirteen fall in love, and soulbond, and kiss each other, it starts to lose its power, and they mature into man and woman, and can have children of their own.’
Korman was visibly relieved.
‘Well, that’s that, then. Good! Now, whose turn was it?’ Shelley smiled inside, and wondered if he had seen her kissing Quickblade, and whether she really would suddenly start to mature. But she was already used to that idea; after all, back on Edartha nearly everyone matured at a ridiculously young age, ready or not.
So the rest of the afternoon passed in a relaxed way. They had plenty of food in their packs, and the spring water to drink, but just before the hidden sunset, when under the cloudy skies everything turned a glowing colour, Korman went down to the lake where he saw a splash and a glimpse of rainbow silver, and threw out a silken fishing-line with a pearly lure tied to it – a present from Pipes. Soon he was cooking a supper of trout by the cave mouth as the light quickly faded from the water-laden sky. After they had eaten, Korman stood and looked up at the rain pelting down outside the cave mouth. ‘I sense a change in the weather,’ he said. ‘For the better.’
‘You’re joking, it’s wetter than ever,’ said Shelley.
‘Wait and see.’
Shelley went to bed early, and lay for a long time looking at the medallion, and thinking of Quickblade. Then she fell asleep, still holding his gift, and dreamed she was riding with Quickblade at the head of the Boy Raiders, galloping joyfully across the plains.
Sure enough, the next morning dawned clear and bright, a lovely fresh rainwashed morning. Shelley woke and yawned and stretched but didn’t get up. She felt relaxed and peaceful. There was no longer the question about Quickblade hanging over her, and they had nowhere to go until the Ürxura returned. It was a lovely feeling, especially because she was in that hidden valley, which now whispered to her of love from every misty mountain peak, every pebble on the beach and every ripple on the calm lake.
She saw Korman walking by the lake, the steep mountains a dramatic backdrop to his robed, wizardly figure. ‘This is such a beautiful place! I want it to be mine and live here forever with Quickblade,’ she thought, and snuggled into her blankets again for a long time.
Finally, after a late breakfast she went for a long ramble, gathering pine-cones for the fire, and exploring the lakeside. She noticed a lot of mushrooms and toadstools newly-sprouted after the rain, and it reminded her of happy times mushrooming in Northland with her parents. She came across Korman sitting on a rock overlooking the water, meditating, the freshly-polished glittering crystal blade of Arcratíne lying across his knees.
When Shelley greeted him, he sprang to his feet and sheathed the sword in one graceful movement, and said ‘Now you are up I will teach you something of the art of fighting with staves, as I promised.’
‘Oh yes, do!’ she replied.
‘I will cut us staves from the lakeside saplings,’ he informed her as he strode to the nearest bushes. He cut one small ash sapling for Shelley and showed her how to strip the bark from it and scrape it smooth with the sheath knife Pipes’s father had given her.
‘The surfer people of the Salamander still know how to make a good blade,’ he commented as he handed the knife back to her.
‘Yes, it was made by Firebrand. I wonder if he still refuses to make weapons of war – if he’s still alive, that is…’ And she wondered about Pipes, whether he had taken up the sword as he had urged his people to do.
Korman looked sadly at the blade. Then he chose a larger sapling and sawed it through at ground level where it was thicker, using the serrated section of his larger knife, for which he had traded his last crystal at Sanmara.
‘When we get to the Valley of Thorns, if it is permitted for me to draw Arcratíne and strike dead the Mother Thorn, I will cut a new staff from the branches that bloomed with roses about the Lady where she stands entwined in the cruel thorns,’ he said, grimly. And Shelley, looking into his eyes, guessed that the hardest thing for him, in going to the Valley of Thorns, would be to see the Lady there and know that he could not rescue her – not until the Thorn could be withered and the sleeping spell broken.
‘Now,’ Korman began, ‘first the basics. You must always watch the eyes of your adversary, if you can, so you will see which way he intends to move… If the eyes are hidden, you must sense the subtle movements of his body and his intentions. Hold the staff so…’
After some practice swinging the staff this way and that, lunging and parrying, they had a practice duel, their staves hitting together with sharp cracks which echoed off the solemn mountains about the lake.
Then Korman said, ‘Now, the most likely enemy will be an Aghmaath. I will pretend to be one. See, my eyes dart to and fro, seeking your weakness. Then I fix on your brow, the third eye, ready to cast a mindbolt. I have thornpod scale armour for a tunic, so you cannot hurt me there, not with a staff. And my head is bird-like, quick as a striking snake, so I will dodge any blow to the head. It is covered in thick spines that close tight together anyway. My legs and feet are thick and leathery, with natural scales, and…’
‘What are you saying, Korman? They’re invincible?’
‘… and my hands are gauntleted. But, I do have a habit of leaping up to come down on the heads of my victims, seizing them in the powerful talons of my feet.’
‘That’s handy to know! A great help!’
‘Ah, but when I am up in the air, I can be spun around if caught with a jab to one side. Then, as soon as my back is exposed, you must swing the staff round and strike my back hard, near the top. There my big lungs are close to the surface, and you can wind me, or cause bleeding and unconsciousness. Then if it is necessary, you can come in and finish me off with your knife. Now try it. I leap at you thus…’ Shelley saw her moment and lunged at his right side, bracing her arms, using his downward momentum to add force to the jab. He spun round and she swung her staff, hitting his upper back with a thud. She stepped lightly aside as he crashed to the ground at her feet. Quick as a flash she had her knife out and held it to his throat.
‘I… I’m sorry. Are you hurt?’ she stammered, getting up. Something in her had taken over, and it at once shocked her and gave her a thrill of triumph.
‘You are a natural, Shelley Arkle!’ said Korman, gasping for breath. ‘I should have worn padding!’ But he looked at her proudly.
After more sparring, during which Shelley became faster and better at a rate that scared her, and landed some very good blows, Korman cried, laughing, ‘Enough, and more than enough, for today! Let us swim and cool down, and wash our clothes a
t the same time.’ He plunged in, still wearing his tunic. Shelley wished she had swimwear and a washing machine for her clothes instead, but followed him in, and the clear waters of the lake cooled and washed them as they swam and laughed under a clear blue sky, the green hills all around, enfolding them.
‘I thought Guardians don’t wash except after sundown,’ Shelley commented as they waded out.
‘The Lady does not seem to mind,’ replied Korman. ‘I think she would prefer that a Guardian sets a good example of cleanliness to his young disciple.’ He smiled as she laughed. It seemed to her that much of his earlier stiffness and formality was falling away. ‘I like the new Korman better,’ she thought.
The sun and the breeze soon dried them as they gathered firewood under the trees and then returned to the cave.
Shelley now felt it was time to do something she had been meaning to do for ages: write a diary of her time in Aeden. She had a lot of catching up to do. She found a paper-tree, a kind of bush that grew in many places in Aeden, which Korman had shown her. Its leaves were thin but tough and would take ink. Then she found a large swan feather by the lakeshore – there was a family of white swans which floated gracefully on the lake, nesting on the far side of the island – and she cut the feather obliquely and put a slit in it to make a quill pen. Next she got some soot from the fire and mixed it with starchy water from boiling a root which Korman had also shown her, and she soon had a good supply of jet-black ink.
The rest of that day was spent in the cathartic labour of writing down on the paper-leaves all her adventures since that rainy day in Silverwood when she met the white Ürxura. She wondered who would read it, and whether she should censor it, but then she thought, ‘That’s silly. Mark is safely on another planet, and no one here reads English handwriting, I guess. Anyway, I’m not ashamed of anything I think or do now.’
So she wrote of how close some of the people in Aeden had become to her. ‘Pipes, of course, and Rilke and Goldheart and Kernan, and even Hillgard somehow, and Korman the Outcast… Especially Korman,’ she wrote. ‘He’s always been there for me, totally. My future man will be like him in lots of ways, I hope. Just a bit more laid back. And a lot younger of course!’ Naturally she was thinking of Quickblade as she wrote it, and realised she hadn’t spoken of him yet. So she took a deep breath, and bared her soul to the leaves, covering many of them with her smooth, firm script, telling of her journey of love so far.
Almost a week passed – a perfect seven days, writing and swimming in the bracing waters of the lake, fishing from the little boat far out over its dark depths (Korman helped her caulk the boat with resin from a tree that grew in the forest), catching rainbow trout and golden perch, and other more exotic fish which Shelley had never seen before; thinking and dreaming on the island; and gathering mushrooms in the foothills of the mountains. Korman assured her that there was no need to go anywhere: the Ürxura would come for them when the time was right, and it could take them, far faster than they could ever walk, across the northern slopes of his country to the mountains of the Makers, the Southwest Arm, which overlooked the Valley of Thorns.
‘We are favoured by the Lady and the Ürxura. While we are in their land we should rest under their protection, as we have been doing, and store up strength of body and heart for the labours ahead,’ he said.
And for once, Shelley was content to wait, in fact more than content. She was blissfully happy, for only the second time in her life that she could remember. The first time was at the Waveriders when she was friends with Pipes and rode the waves with him. She felt completely at home in the hidden valley, as if she was for once right in the centre of things, where her heart was, and there was nowhere to try to get to. She knew they would soon have to leave, and that there would be many labours and dangers, but one day she would return, and build a home here, and live happily ever after with the boy she loved, who would then be a man, and she would be a woman. She remembered the night of the Blue Moon festival in the Waveriders’ cave, and her glimpse of the paths ahead, and her certainty that along one of those paths she would meet the man of her dreams. She strained to see beyond that intuition to catch a glimpse of the man she would share it with, to make sure it was Quickblade, and what kind of house (or castle) they would live in, but the veil did not part. She began to doubt now whether she would ever see Quickblade again. In spite of his heroism, now that the passion of their last meeting was fading she was not totally sure they could ever get on well enough to be ‘soulwoven,’ as Pipes called it. Still, she felt sure she would be with someone, and the thought made her feel warm inside, and very happy.
‘That’s the only reason I want to leave,’ she thought. ‘So I can get to the day when I return with him, and we can kiss and turn into man and woman, and create our own paradise here together.’ The cicadas in the tall trees above and in the willows by the shore seemed to be singing a chorus of agreement that one day the circle of her destiny would be complete, and bring her home in triumph, back to these very shores beneath these very mountains.
‘Still, I suppose it could all be a lovely illusion – or a mindweb,’ she thought, but that unpleasant possibility had no power over her present happiness. And Korman was with her, a great anchor for her life on Aeden, her Guardian and guarantee that all would be fine and work out just the way it should. ‘He’s a Tidak, my sworn Guardian, who will defend me to the death,’ she murmured as she watched him do his exercises by the lakeside, swordplay and somersaults and difficult stretching and sitting positions. It was hard to know when he was meditating and when he was exercising; it was all one graceful whole.
He was cheerful during this time of waiting, but also very focused, almost fierce in his practice, as if he was preparing for some great battle. After the first few days it began to affect her with a kind of tension. She tried to ask him about it, but he only smiled and said, ‘It is good to be prepared.’ She thought, ‘There’s something really preying on his mind. It’s the Lady and the Valley of Thorns, I guess.’
One day as she walked higher in the mountains, looking for mushrooms at the southern end of the lake, the late afternoon sun glancing over the green grass below, she noticed the faint outline of old walls in the contours of the turf. ‘I wonder who lived there?’ she wondered, and a sad but peaceful feeling stole over her.
The next day she came across a little valley in the hills to the west of the lake. Halfway up the valley she found a ruined building which looked out over the lake. There were mossy stone walls with arched openings draped in trailing jasmine, sweet-smelling in the sun, and old flagstone floors cracked and overgrown with dandelion, forget-me-not and soft chamomile like a fragrant green carpet under her bare feet. Peach tree branches and grapevines grew through the holes where a big bay window used to be. Butterflies flew lazily from flower to flower and basked in the sun.
To one side of the ruins she found an old orchard. Gnarled, lichen-covered apple trees clung to life under vines and creepers. She found several small ripe apples. It was a sad and solemn place, but romantic, as if hanging on in hope, waiting for a new couple to come and rebuild, taming and tending the garden, rebuilding the walls, and raising new beams for the roof. She spent some time there, picking flowers, eating the apples and daydreaming, watching the butterflies come and go, weaving in and out of the ruins.
When the seventh day dawned and there was still no sign of their ride, Korman said, ‘It is time we talked in detail of the road ahead. I will draw a map and teach you things that will be important for you to know, if anything should happen to me.’
Shelley’s heart sank at these words, and she recalled the paper-leaves she had seen him writing, addressed to the Lady, then screwing them up and throwing them in the fire, but she smiled and said, ‘I’m listening, teacher.’
They took their cups of pale yellow chamomile-flower tea that Shelley had made, sat down on the fine springy turf by the lakeside, and began. Korman had lost his map in the fall into the torrent of the Firewa
ter, but he drew another one from memory for Shelley, using five large paper-leaves which he had sewn together with flax thread, each leaf representing one of the sectors of the island realm of Namaglimmë. Shelley drew in her lake and marked it, ‘Lake Shelley,’ and she told him, ‘That’s just for now. When we come back, Quickblade and I will name it together.’
‘It has been named before, you know, long ago, like all places on Aeden,’ replied Korman. ‘I do not know what its name was; only that it was hidden from mortal sight. Perhaps one day we will find out.’
‘Well, I do want to know, but if I don’t like the old name I’m going to make up a new one anyway. Now, can you show me what the land’s like between here and Ürak Tara?’
Korman shook his head at her presumption, but said nothing.
‘Anyway, Korman, if this valley has been hidden for so long, who did the boat I found belong to? It didn’t seem all that old.’
‘I do not know. I guess many things about this land and its place in the Unfolding of the ages, but the mysteries are deep, and you will learn them best from the masters of the Ancient Lore, at Ürak Tara.’
‘OK, but who do you think owned the boat?’
But Korman would not be drawn, and he returned her attention to the map. First he drew on it the lands they had already passed through, right from the portal on the plains where she had first entered Aeden. He answered some of her questions about the things they had seen on their journey so far.
‘Now I will show you something of the path ahead,’ he said. He began to draw, and Shelley groaned.
‘Oh no, it’ll take ages just to get to the Valley of Thorns!’
‘Of course not,’ replied Korman, ‘You are forgetting: the Ürxura is swift, and if I rightly understood his speech, he has promised to take us all the way to the borders of the occupied territory, on the mountains of the Makers. There, however, his protection will cease, except perhaps in dreams of guidance. Then we must trust to our wits, the Concept and the Lady, to make the long descent into the Valley of Thorns on foot. Then, by her grace we will go up the other side over the Mountains of the Travellers, across the northern wilds to the Northern Spur where Ürak Tara lies, shrouded in the mists of the Lady, high in the Mountains of Avalon, or, as they are also known, the mountains of the Silver World.’
‘You mean Earth? That’s what they call it, isn’t it, the Silver World?’
‘Yes. You will feel a familiarity in the energy of those mountains. But it will be a strange feeling, too, I think. Your world has almost forgotten its roots in the Order of the Makers; almost forgotten Avalon. It will be a shock to learn just how much you have lost.’
‘Is that why I have to go to Ürak Tara for my initiation, because it’s linked to Earth?’
‘Perhaps, partly. For whatever reason, that is where Ürak Tara, the last remaining Labyrinth of initiation, and the Teachers in the wisdom of the Old Order, and the five Tidak, guardians of the minor crystals, are to be found, if at all.’
‘If at all! Can’t you be more encouraging? What if we can’t find it?’
‘Then we would make for Avalon, where the Maidens of the Lake – and the wise Fairies, if they live still in the woods by the lake – would be able to teach you what they know, which is a lot; but not as much or as comprehensive as the Labyrinth and the Teachers of Ürak Tara. Also, the Fairies may be able to lead us to Ürak Tara itself, since it is the Lady’s enchantments that keep it hidden until the time is right for its unconcealing.’
‘Is that the time when the Kortana comes?’
‘If the prophetic poems are true, yes.’ Korman stood and recited:
When the Tidak from Türás are taken
And the pathways of Faery forgotten
The Goddess is trampled, forsaken,
The Bindrak of Bazragh begotten
When eight Ainenias are spent
And the ninth is in darkness enshrouded
The outcast to the portal is sent
His Tímathan wisdom beclouded
As a comet will come the Kortana
Through star-ways of Beauty hurled
Upon the Ürxura padmara
From out of the Silver World.
Temnarath will come to her aid,
To lighten all her trials,
Makarya will mind the maid
From all of Aghmaath’s wiles.
Estafar flowers at her feet
Glimtarak goes with the Girl;
Under Ürak many will meet,
For grief a green ensign unfurl.
When Tidak return to Türásë,
The War of the Void will begin;
When serpents encircle Marathë,
Yet hope for the Heartstone to win.
When the Arcra to Tara is taken
And the springs of the Wouivre are woken
The pillars of Aeden are shaken
And the backward words are spoken
Then shall the Loonlith be rent
Then shall the Makers return
Then shall the Iron bar be bent
Then shall the Diamond burn.
‘Oh, well that’s clear as mud,’ said Shelley. She was looking at the rough map, and frowning. ‘Why do we have to go through the Valley of Thorns, Korman? Couldn’t we just go around it to the west, over there?’ She pointed at the gap between the Valley, with the Deadwater Lake and the Dark Labyrinth, and the Aghmaath harbour of Phagra.
‘Well,’ said Korman, stroking his beard in a way she had not seen him do before, as if he was unsure of what he was saying, ‘It is a narrow gap, a treacherous bog, and perilously close to Phagra… Also…there is something I wanted to try to do in the Valley. It is just possible that there will be some way to rescue the Lady. She has been imprisoned there for so long, and I could not come to her…’
‘Because you were guarding the portal on the other side of Aeden, waiting for me to appear?’ Shelley finished the unspoken part of the sentence.
‘Yes. Only once in that time did I meet the Lady, when I left my post to the hermit of the Portal hills, and went seeking her. And we met in the valley, and it was because of me that she was taken and thrown into the thorns. Then I swore not to draw Arcratíne or to leave my post again until the Kortana appeared, or I died waiting for her. But now you are here, and we are so close to the Valley, I am tormented by the thought that she is still there. I am drawn there as a hopemoth to the candle’s flame.’
‘But we could get caught!’
‘Yes, and we could go to the west and still be caught: that path would take us under the shadow of the Hills of the Phangür Aghinax, who never sleep, they say.’ He looked hard at Shelley, then looked away. There were tears in his eyes. ‘But you are right, of course. We should go west.’
‘I didn’t say we should go west, Korman. If you want to try and see the Lady, we can go that way. It’s time we rescued somebody from the Aghmaath!’
‘Shelley! You are brave and noble!’ He paused, and thought. Then he looked at Shelley and said, ‘Yes, I believe that if you choose this path, together we could walk in Faery, even in that terrible place, at least for long enough to reach her. Then, who knows, the Mother Thorn may be persuaded to release her, by fire – or this!’ He drew his sword and plunged it into a stone, which glowed red for a moment, then cracked in half.
‘Yeah, now you’re talking!’ said Shelley – in English, she was so excited.
‘Of course I’m talking,’ said Korman, laughing, puzzled.
‘It’s a figure of speech we have, silly,’ she informed him, laughing. And in spite of all the differences between them, she felt very close to Korman, and knew that she had made him very happy. Then she remembered (not for the first time) the myterious text she had received that fateful day so long ago when she had just arrived on Aeden. ‘Why haven’t I ever told him?’ she asked herself. ‘I was scared of her words about leaving this world to come to Her. I didn’t want to be left alone. Or was I jealous?’
Aloud she said, ‘Ko
rman, the reason I think you should go to the Valley of Thorns is… I think … the Lady loves you.’
‘Of course, she loves us all…’ began Korman, then he stopped. His eyes misted over, and he clutched his chest as if in pain.
‘When I first came here I got a text, as you know. Well, it didn’t end where I said. I didn’t say, but I think it ended with a message to you. It went something like:
Korman, My Moonbird
We are one
Break out from this world
To be with me where I am
-Ainenia
Korman stood for a second frozen as if he had been shot in the heart, then he beamed, and shouted a great shout of mingled anguish and joy that echoed around the ring of hills. And they laughed together as if suddenly mad with joy.
Then, swept up in the moment, heedless of all dangers and the white swans which eyed them suspiciously from a distance, they danced around the lakeside, the mountains echoing to Korman singing the Guardian war chant,
Hethür, Krithür, Shaktha!
No more was said of the matter, but from then on Korman seemed to Shelley to be a different man, more troubled and more joyful, torn with longing and with fear that he would never be able to answer her call – or that she was already dead.
As Korman practised his swordplay, Shelley worked on her moves with the staff, thinking about how good it is to fight for the Right – and for Love. But she couldn’t help wondering if Korman knew what he was doing, getting ready to use Arcratíne before the Lady gave the word.
‘Maybe he thinks she will tell him it’s time when he comes to her,’ she speculated. But she didn’t like to question him on it, and spoil the moment.
That night Korman meditated upon the Lady, Avalon and the Zagonamara, and their place within the Concept of the Guardians. ‘Are they not ancient wisdoms which go back to the Templar ancestors? I do not know from whom they received those teachings, but I begin to see more clearly how they fit together. And I give thanks, Lady, for Shelley through whom you have taught me so much. And brought me the message for which I hardly dared to hope.’
He resolved to try again to open the hopeflower by directing love onto it. He took the flower out of the battered little wooden box in which he still carried it, and gazed upon it. To his delight, with a faint glow of white light it slowly unfolded to the perfect star shape, white as snow. ‘The little star of hope, easily overlooked by the heart – until it is lit by Love,’ he murmured, ‘which lights the darkest valley when sun and moon are hidden! Now I am ready.’ The aroma of the hopeflower lingered in the cave as he lay down to sleep in perfect peace.
Chapter Forty
Journey to the Brink