To Ride Hell's Chasm

by Janny Wurts

  ‘Marriage,’ whispered Anja. After Devall, and Mykkael, the prospect seemed bleak.

  Shown her jagged-edged trepidation, the elder inquired, ‘Do you fear the young prince is not comely, or that he might be of unsound character?’

  Anja sighed. With her fingers still clasped in the elder’s calm touch, she regarded the pool, and the fugitive rings carved by the falling droplets. ‘I don’t need to know.’

  Yet the inner voice clamoured through her resignation. This emperor’s son might be beautiful and kind, or he could be ugly and mean. The difference seemed moot. He would not be Mykkael. The seer’s steady presence impelled her to acknowledge that stifled fragment of honesty. Love refused to stay mute. Though the pain cut like glass, the Princess of Sessalie firmed her will and crushed down her passion with silence.

  The blazing flame in her heart must not blind her. Days ago, before the terrors of a sorcerer had impelled her flight through Hell’s Chasm, she had once confided to her best friend Shai, that she would have gladly married a monster, if Sessalie’s people should benefit. The young woman who now watched the sunrise on the far side of the Great Divide had touched horrors that destroyed goodness and life. She wept in mourning for a dead brother. If the untried spark of her idealism had seared away under hardship, the core of her upright integrity remained. The heritage of her royal lineage was not revocable. Still, she held the weal of a nation in the palm of her unsteady hand. A crown relied on her power to bind an alliance. Her duty was clear, whether the emperor’s son was appealing, or plain, or a wastrel.

  The seer smiled, then released her as though in salute. ‘Brave Princess, you shall not choose without sight.’ He raised his finger and tapped her forehead.

  The morning world rippled. Water and dewfall blurred into dream. Anja beheld a wide plain. A party of horsemen rode under the crisp snap of Tuinvardia’s banners. They were led by a young man with reddish hair and blue eyes, splendidly tall in chased armour. He sat his fine horse with impeccable skill, his clean-cut, handsome features lively with laughter as he caught a ribbing from the troop captain at his right hand.

  Then the brief vision fled, leaving the fathomless gaze of the seer, regarding her with expectancy.

  ‘He is younger than I am,’ Anja blurted, overcome by the boy’s similarity to her lost brother, Kailen. The crown prince’s vivacity would be sorely mourned. How easily the incumbent council in Sessalie might come to love this brash son of Tuinvardia’s emperor.

  ‘In fact the young man has a year more than you.’ The seer’s seed-black eyes sparkled with a surprisingly caustic amusement. ‘As the emperor’s fifth son, Prince Trigal’s importunate humour has yet to be tempered. He will mature quickly. If you take him as husband, his well-spoken character will swiftly be put to the test. He would rise to match you. Any man must. The passage you survived by the sword of your warrior has sharpened you to discernment. You know what it means to be vibrant and living, and to treat with hard choices fearlessly’

  ‘Mykkael’s example would have me choose peace for my people. Let his crown oath to serve be released.’ Anja straightened her shoulders with resolve. ‘I will honour the strength of his sacrifice, and marry for Sessalie, and rule as Tuinvardia’s ally’

  The seer bowed to her. Then he turned, and Anja discovered that Anzbek waited at the far edge of the glen. The eldest dreamer seemed already aware that she had reached her anguished decision. His snakeskin cap was perched atop his white head, and his regard showed tranquillity as she left the seer’s presence, and strode from the pond’s verge to meet him.

  ‘Daughter,’ he addressed her in his accented northern. ‘We have a patrol of four warriors prepared to move south down the canyon. Fox clan circle must bear urgent word back to court. Vital patterns they carry must be received by Tuinvardia’s next grand vizier. You can go now, and meet Prince Trigal’s armed company. Or you can wait here, until the emperor’s mounted escort can be summoned to receive you in state.’

  Anja drew a painful, shuddering breath. ‘Mykkael, has he wakened?’

  The ancient shaman shook his head, no.

  ‘Then let it be now,’ whispered Anja through the aching shimmer of her pent-up tears. ‘Delay will make parting no easier.’

  After the brave young princess departed, Jantii tribe’s fox clan circle prepared to sing for the great warrior’s deliverance. The shamans waited until the new day warmed the ground. When the lingering damp of last night’s rainfall dried from the rustling leaves, they bore him from the cave on a litter of spears. Four warriors stood guard at the cardinal points as they laid him naked on the green verge at the edge of the pool, in the flood of the morning sunlight. Birth to death, a man only borrowed his skin. Earth mother’s embrace would acknowledge him.

  His Sanouk-marked sword they placed at his right hand. At his feet, symbol of the harsh path he had trodden, they arranged his falcon surcoat, and the shred of scraped hide that had lately contained the shape-changer’s perilous leavings. By these tokens, they signified his release from a charge accomplished with unswerving strength. His other hand, they left empty, freed for the future that was his choice alone to receive. At his head, Anzbek held his planted stave, to keep the place of his ancestors, whose clan name they did not know, and therefore could not invoke to watch over his spirit.

  Under his nape, against the warding tattoos that defended the land from Gorgenvain’s shadow, they placed the tattered silk with the Sanouk royal dragons, for remembrance that they were not first among the world’s people to acknowledge his signal worth.

  ‘Let the circle be joined. Grant this warrior our song, for the healing or release his spirit requires for completion.’ Anzbek led the pitch that wove the first note through the sacred hush of the clearing. Amid birdsong and the whisper of wind, the other singers joined in.

  Then the wizened elder who acted as spokesman and healer knelt at the warrior’s side. He extended his hands, palms turned downwards, and evoked the listening silence to sound out the flow of the life force. He would map the cords of love that bound Mykkael to survival, and reaffirm those that were worthy. The ones that persistently tied him to pain, the circle’s raised song could dissolve, as his spirit granted permission.

  Eyes closed, the healer probed gently. His sensitive touch traced the bars of strong energy arising from Mykkael’s heart. With tender care, he tested each one. Of those that mattered, he found seven. Two held clear potential to strengthen his will. Two more framed regrets. One, shining bright as a chain, still enslaved him. And two more, again, held the power to kill him, as they leached the stream of his vitality.

  The healer addressed the least difficult, first. Deft in wisdom, he opened the song and began.

  His chosen register awakened the powerful lines that spoke of kin ties and fellowship. Around him the circle of initiate elders framed the imperative chord to quicken the tone into potency.

  Far off in Sessalie, Jussoud raised his head. His silver eyes glinted with pleased recognition, as he acknowledged the distant, bright contact sourced by the Scoraign shamans. He gave his reply without hesitation. ‘I will speak for Mykkael. He is the adopted son of the Sanouk dragon. His name is welcomed, and his star shines with honour alongside those of my ancestry. His place in my heart is a brother’s. As my own blood, I will cherish him.’

  The circle received the sincerity of the steppeland nomad’s affirmation, and used its colour to augment their song. The rich chord they braided burgeoned and burned, woven into an exultation.

  Bathed in a haze of glimmering light, the healer’s brown hands moved onwards and traced the tension in the next binding. His sustained note changed key, and called on the aspect that bespoke shared wisdom and teaching.

  One of eight chosen men appointed to keep the Sanctuary vigil over King Isendon’s bier, Sergeant Vensic, just promoted to crown commission, lapsed into a moment of daydream. ‘Mykkael is my mentor, the uplifting example who raised me from the drudge of the farmyard. He showed me how to
discover my gifts, and instilled the discipline of self-achievement. For his inspired standard of leadership, I honour him.’

  The shaman’s phrased melody affirmed the tie, then enriched its resplendent tonalities. To the solemn acknowledgement of professional competence, they unveiled the gift of Vensic’s admiration and loyalty.

  The healer’s touch tested with tacit care, next pressing against the inflexible strings that anchored the warrior’s regret. He sang for the first, and the circle followed his line, rousing the dissonance of a tragic conflict, engendered when an oath-sworn priority had entangled with an upright crown officer’s imposed duty.

  Commander Taskin cursed his forced inactivity, then the strapping that bound his right arm, though the chubby physician who poked at his bandage insisted his shoulder was healing. Imperious, impatient, he dismissed the prompt of the shaman-sent dream with his usual brisk dispatch. ‘Captain Mykkael? Damn his ungodly prowess with a sword! His loyalty was ever beyond my reproach. For her Grace’s survival, I forgive him.’

  The circle responded, and mellowed the discord that carried the sorrow of bloodshed. Under their singing, the scar of regret was reforged to the martial beat of a competent commander’s awed respect.

  Again, the healer’s touch shifted. While the sunlight streaming into the glen smote through the enveloping glow spun by the singers’ weaving, he listened again with stilled subtlety.

  His next note summoned the first of the ghosts.

  Prince Al-Syn appeared, aggrieved as he had not been in life. His graceful, ringed hands clasped the sceptre inscribed with the penultimate patterns of guard laid down by his court vizier, Perincar. The wardings shone blue, that had once failed to spare a kingdom engrossed in its arrogant complacency. His answer to the song that called his shade to redress the cry of his doom re-echoed with woeful remorse. ‘For Mykkael, the bravest and best of the captains who stood to Efandi’s defence? Tell him that I lament the ruin caused by the folly of my royal pride. I beg the grace of his forbearance for the cost he paid in blood and suffering to spare the life of my only child.’

  For the knot of sorrows Prince Al-Syn’s error bequeathed, the shamans sang of requital. One after the other, they struck the clean notes that transmuted the horror that had overcome Mykkael’s valiant company, and the twenty-five of his finest men lost to a desperate retreat. When the echoing resonance of terror had been quelled, and the grisly event lay detached into distanced memory, the healer extended his touch yet again.

  His following note struck the chain of bound duty and drew forth a monarch just departed.

  King Isendon of Sessalie already understood that his daughter was saved, with the threat to his realm cleared and broken. To the peace of that knowledge, the Scoraign seer raised his gift and sang into the future: of a kingdom’s succession secured in alliance with the Emperor of Tuinvardia. Anja would wed Prince Trigal before harvest. War would follow, as the two allied nations sent armed troops and learned viziers marching into the lowcountry. The engagement would be savage, but brief, and the gratitude bought by Devall’s restoration would win Sessalie her right to seaport access in perpetuity. ‘Captain Mykkael?’ The late king addressed those who petitioned his shade with magisterial surprise. ‘The man never failed any sovereign who employed him. He has served my royal oath with the utmost integrity. With gratitude, I release him.’

  The shaman’s melody sang dissolution, and freed the sworn tie to crown service. In the glen, the circle of elders rested. Their pause gave thanks for the world’s sunlight, and rejoiced for the warrior, who now breathed more easily within their shield of spun light. When at length they resumed, Anzbek bade them join hands, for ahead lay the shadows that tugged hardest, weighing the heart and draining the passion Mykkael required to live.

  The healer poised his trembling hands, then sounded the note for the final, most dangerous summonings. His tone called in love, with a purity that scalded, and a haunting overtone that keened like tapped glass with despair and desolation.

  On foot, trudging under noon sun in the company of tribal warriors, a blonde-haired princess turned her head, and looked backwards with opened, green eyes.

  ‘Did you love me?’ said Anja.

  This time the burden of the reply fell to the stricken warrior. He appeared as a faded shadow of himself, yet his answer was instant, and true. ‘Of course, your Grace. I ached to possess you the moment I dreamed of the spirit I saw in your portrait. But your strength of character would have been wasted alongside a man of the sword. Your people revere you. Their need for your peace is more pressing than mine, that has been too well tempered for war. Anja, brave heart, you were never for me. Therefore I held your love briefly and lightly, like the butterfly poised in the opened hand once inscribed in a verse of your poetry. Return in triumph to Sessalie. My witch thoughts will watch you ride spirited horses and pick wild-flowers in the high meadows. Princess, I beg you to marry in state. Bear your crown with courage, and forget me.’

  ‘No, Mykkael.’ Anja’s smile was bittersweet, and her beautiful eyes, changed for ever by poignant regret. ‘Marry I must, but not to forget you. The artist who once fashioned my likeness shall paint yours as well. The portrait will hang over the throne within Sessalie’s great hall of state. There, your bared sword will hold the true steel of your ethics over the heads of my chancellors. Your name is inscribed in my nation’s history. Warrior, your story shall be told, and retold to my royal children and grandchildren. Your part in their legacy shall be remembered for as long as Isendon’s blood reigns.’

  Of Anja, the shaman circle sang of parting, tenderly softened by the passing of years. They shifted the enduring burden of sadness, and enhanced the rich depths of shared intimacy, selfless honesty and grace, until the glen rang with the haunting purity and altruism of wise choice.

  Lastly, the healer stalled in hesitation. His poised touch now tested the current bearing the most grievous binding of all. He glanced, uncertain, towards Anzbek, who nodded.

  ‘Mehigrannia sends the light of her mercy as a balm to all human suffering.’ The elder dreamer bowed his white head, his grasp firm on his planted staff. ‘What has been started shall finish here, whether this singing begets life or death.’

  The healer gathered himself one last time, and began. The note he struck emerged as a whisper, then swelled and gained force, until his throat spilled a cry of passionate sorrow over the morning quiet. Pierced by its poignancy, the circle of Jantii shamans gathered and sustained the difficult intonation. Tears spilled from their knowing, experienced eyes, as they sang of terror and pain and enslavement, and wove the fabric of dark refrain that comprised Orannia’s madness.

  The notes built and rolled, their forceful beat like war drums and distant thunder. Anzbek, who guarded, sharply lifted his head. His fierce gaze narrowed as he measured the conjured sound, and the steel thread of discord laced through its depths raised his skin into violent gooseflesh. As eldest, and dreamer, he sensed the ominous, unnatural forces that bespoke active spell lines spun by a sorcerer. Worse, he could name the bound creature’s demon, an ancient, unforgotten evil preserved with strict vigilance in the legacy of Jantii tribe’s memory.

  His shout ripped the close-woven chant of the singers. ‘Cease!’

  One word smashed the burgeoning ring of cruel power, and left desolate, ringing silence. For a heartbeat, no voice spoke but the sough of the wind. Then the ancient shaman sank to his knees. He lowered his white head. The thin braids at his temples trailed on the ground, as he touched his forehead against Mykkael’s brow.

  ‘Ah, warrior,’ he said in his gentlest whisper. ‘Fox clan circle recall the lines for Rathtet.’

  There and then, out of gratitude, he started the old song of warding, leading the banishing phrase that resurged as the circle rejoined him. The chant swelled and resounded. As Anzbek dreamed to enact the grand healing, their powerful harmony burned to moving light, then bridged over distance, sustained by the patterns stitched into the heirl
oom embroidery tucked beneath Mykkael’s head.

  Far off, in the eastern steppelands, sheltered under a painted tent, a raven-haired Sanouk princess stirred awake and opened her silver-grey eyes. The old matron who tirelessly guarded her life sat erect, and beheld the dawning miracle of her restored sanity. ‘Orannia? Granddaughter?’

  Tears spilled down the woman’s creased cheeks. ‘Granddaughter,’ she repeated, astounded. Then the startled elation that lifted her heart was seared through by the gift of a witch thought. ‘I see your man, Mykkael, astride a black horse, guarded by our Sanouk royal dragons. He comes, his arms open to meet you.’

  In the glen, while the circle of Scoraign shamans repeated that grateful refrain, Princess Orannia responded. Her voice shot new light through the weave of the dream, and the notes were all of rejoicing.

  ‘My heart beats with gladness, for the name of Mykkael. I will love him. Pray send him speedily home.’

  Epilogue

  THE NOTES SWELLED INTO A MIGHTY CHORD, THEN BLENDED TO UNISON AND DWINDLED TO SILENCE. THE SONG FOR THE WARRIOR’S HEALING was done. The seer broke the circle and summoned his gift. His face bright with gratitude, he spoke for Mykkael’s future, and foretold a long life, both vital and vibrant.

  Yet when the shamans arose, and the guarding spearmen offered their mantles to bear up the hero’s sleeping form, Anzbek planted his staff and forbade them.

  ‘We are not finished. This man may marry into Sanouk, and bring up his children in steppeland heritage. Yet he is a son of the Scoraign desert. Although his ancestry has been forgotten, let him not make his way in the world without the acknowledgement his beginnings have sadly denied.’