A Blackbird In Darkness (Book 2)

by Freda Warrington

  Before Arlenmia had finished, she was sitting with her head in her hands, her golden hair covering her face, so blank with horror and culpability that she could not even weep. ‘Oh, what have I done?’ she muttered.

  ‘Silvren, don’t be a fool! I know you’ve never agreed with my ideas, but now I have a chance to prove that I am right. Give me a chance, at least.’

  ‘A chance? By the gods, Arlenmia, the Worm is infernally evil! I don’t know how to make you understand! I beg of you, don’t do this; go away, go home, anything.’

  ‘After I’ve found what I have been searching for all my life? A genuine, godlike being with the power to transform life? Oh! Silvren, you are a milk-and-water idealist! You want to help your Earth, but you don’t want to change it. Would you plant new flowers in a bed without pulling out last year’s rotten ones, and the weeds too?’

  Silvren stared at her, wild-eyed. ‘This is fanaticism. Delusion,’ she whispered.

  Arlenmia seemed stunned, as if she could not quite believe that Silvren was serious. Eventually she said, very sadly, ‘So you are not going to help me, after all?’

  ‘Never. Never, until you see that you are wrong. I shall do everything in my power to stop you.’

  ‘Silvren, I don’t want our friendship to end like this. Please, don’t make me–’ But Silvren had turned sharply away and was walking to the door. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m leaving. Are you going to stop me?’

  ‘No,’ said Arlenmia. Suddenly her expression became one of icy rage. ‘Silvren, I warn you, if you insist on fighting me – I will send one of those demons after you.’ Silvren froze in the doorway. ‘I mean it. No one is going to prevent me from pursuing my plan. No one.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ Silvren replied with equal adamancy. ‘Someone has got to.’

  That was how the nightmare began. From that day she was hounded across Tearn by the Shanin, Diheg-El, and other eldritch creatures of the Worm. Protecting herself against them placed a great strain on her sorcery, leaving her nothing with which to fight Arlenmia and M’gulfn. She became an outcast, unable to seek anyone’s company without putting them in terrible danger from her pursuers. The years eroded her resilient spirit until all she knew for certain was that she must go to the Blue Plane. Only there could she be safe from the demon, and find advice and help. But time and again she failed to find an Entrance Point, and at last, wearied beyond endurance by her struggles against the Shana, and desperately lonely, she was certain that her strength was about to fail.

  It was then, on a dark, damp night when she was not even sure where she was, that she opened a tavern door and saw a Gorethrian, clad in black war gear, sitting alone. His brooding, handsome face scarcely betrayed that he was a loathed and feared figure the world over. Silvren knew who he was at once, and, to her witch-sight, the Egg-Stone was an orb of white-hot lead at his throat.

  And from then on, Ashurek’s history was hers, until Diheg-El captured her at last.

  What was it about evil people, she wondered in her cell, that fascinated and drew her? Either it was that she was evil herself, or else, in her arrogance, she deluded herself that she could redeem them. Fighting the Shana, destroying the Serpent... all had been a delusion. In her blind, arrogant belief that she was ‘good’, she had brought nothing but evil to the world. Everything that I most dreaded to be, I now know that I am...

  There was movement at the end of her cell; the transparent membrane was being peeled away. Argent hands seized her ankles and she was dragged out onto the gritty, discoloured path that ran between the cell mounds. She was pulled roughly to her feet and found herself standing, swaying and disorientated, in the grasp of Diheg-El. In front of her, Meheg-Ba was reprimanding a third Shanin.

  ‘Did we not make it clear to you, Ahag-Ga, that she was not to be treated as an ordinary prisoner? Look how thin she has become. For this infernal incompetence, I am going to send you on a dreary errand to Earth. You are required to go and destroy the so-called House of Rede.’

  ‘That’s hardly a punishment at all,’ sneered Diheg-El, ‘in the face of your crimes. Ashurek was here and you let him escape! And now this mishandling of Lady Silvren, my sorceress. She is not to imagine that she is a prisoner. She is to understand,’ the demon grinned, ‘that she is one of us. Please accept my apologies, my Lady, I hope you have not been too uncomfortable.’

  ‘I think she looks bored. Don’t you think she looks bored, Diheg-El?’ Meheg-Ba mused. Silvren had grown so used to them that they hardly frightened her any more.

  ‘Oh, there is nothing more terrible than boredom,’ Diheg-El said. ‘We will have to find you an occupation, my sorceress, to keep you busy while we are on Earth again. Otherwise you will begin to bore us, and that is dangerous.’

  She lacked the energy to reply.

  ‘Yes, they are dull when they no longer argue, aren’t they?’ Meheg-Ba agreed. ‘Well, we need a new herdsman, since Exhal was destroyed. I’m sure she will do the job admirably.’

  ‘I agree. It’s not good for her to lie about doing nothing,’ said Diheg-El, laughing sibilantly. ‘We might as well take you up to the plain now, because all of us, including this fool Ahag-Ga, have to answer our summons to Earth. Come along. You will enjoy the job, sorceress.’

  Presently Silvren found herself alone on an infinite, rubbery swamp without much idea of how she had got there. In the darkness shapes were moving, converging on her, but she stood still and watched them, completely without fear or any other emotion. Soon she was surrounded by creatures that had human heads and torsos yet walked horizontally on six human legs. Their faces were like tragic paper masks stretched over their skulls, with closed eyes and open mouths. They swayed from side to side and groaned as they sought her, blindly, without knowing why. She felt no revulsion towards them, only pity. She stretched out her hands to touch their faces and to feel their warm, moist breath.

  ‘Oh, I am not like the Shana, I am like you,’ she said. ‘Soon I will die and join you, and then I will be more human and less evil than I am now. Oh, I wish you could open your eyes, so that I could know I am not the only human soul here. You opened your eyes for Ashurek, don’t you remember?’

  Yes, we remember, the human cattle seemed to say.

  ‘Someone loved me enough to brave this terrible place for my sake. Isn’t that strange? But it is true.’

  We want to open our eyes, said the souls. We would open our eyes for you, if you tell us to.

  ‘I don’t know the right words.’

  Evil only triumphs where there is no love. We are dead and damned, but you are alive and loved. You can free us, if only you will find a way to open our eyes.

  Silvren had a flash of insight then – the insight that may come in the deepest despair or madness – that what she had come to believe of herself might only be opinion, not truth. She still believed it, but here were these poor trapped souls seeing her as the only being in the Dark Regions who was not evil, but their only hope. Who was she to prove them wrong?

  The herd of dead souls was now her responsibility. It was an acute relief to turn her thoughts from herself to others; she felt somehow cleansed by it. In those moments as she stood on the swamp with the herd milling wretchedly around her, she saw the Dark Regions in a different way, not as a place of nightmare terror, but as somewhere sterile and self-defeating, an ultimately impotent weapon.

  ‘I’m not frightened any more,’ she said, feeling this to be a revelation. ‘Do you think it’s possible to become so inured to horror and fear that you emerge on the other side, whole? Even when that horror was of yourself? I only know that you are more in need of help than I.’

  You are our herdsman. The herdsman always knows the words, the human cattle sighed in response.

  ‘Don’t even think of it,’ scraped a harsh metallic voice nearby. Silvren looked round and saw, squatting on the back of one of her creatures, the hellish aviform parody, Limir.

  #

&nbs
p; ‘There. Ten arrows will do for now,’ Calorn said, some time later. They had strung the makeshift bow with twine that Calorn had in her pack, and made arrows by sharpening and notching straight twigs. The tough leaves of the trees could be cut up to make adequate flights. Calorn shot a couple of experimental arrows into a tree trunk and said, ‘Hm. Not bad. It’ll do. Do you want to try?’

  She held out the bow to Medrian.

  Yes. Yes, take the bow. Wait until she turns away. Then... Medrian struggled against the persuasive thoughts and the illogical feeling that if she only killed Calorn, all her pain would cease.

  ‘No. No, I don’t,’ she said hurriedly.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ Calorn said, giving her a curious glance. ‘Come on, then, let’s hunt.’

  They found a part of the forest where the undergrowth was thin and the trees widely spaced. There was a good population of rabbits here, lop-eared, silver-grey creatures as big as hares. Calorn waited while Medrian worked her way round in a half-circle to flush the animals towards her. Calorn picked off three and, pleased with her skill, walked over to gather them up.

  Meanwhile, Medrian had vanished. Eventually Calorn spotted her, standing like a figure carved out of alabaster between two tall trees.

  If you think you can avoid killing the human merely by forgoing a weapon, then you are mistaken, murmured the Worm, its thoughts stabbing like poisoned spikes into Medrian’s brain. A weapon is not necessary. I can make you kill her without even touching her.

  ‘I do not believe you,’ Medrian replied intractably.

  I will make you believe me. Look at that creature.

  ‘No. No!’ She resisted desperately, but she felt her self-control slipping away, like jagged lumps of ice sliding through her hands. There was a large rabbit just a few feet from her, sitting on its haunches, staring at her. The Serpent forced her head round and up until she was looking straight at it.

  ‘No. Don’t do this... please,’ she begged, struggling to move. The Serpent’s will held her in a vice.

  And Calorn, watching from a distance, witnessed something extraordinary and horrible. She saw Medrian standing as rigid as stone, and she saw the rabbit in front of her, motionless but for the twitching of its long, colourless whiskers. At first she thought it had frozen in fear, and that Medrian was planning to catch it. Yet there was something unnatural, eldritch in Medrian’s stance and expression. Her face was glowing faintly with a ghastly, acidic light and her eyes were glazed with a bluish cast.

  Calorn suddenly felt cold and sick with the same kind of fear she had experienced in the Dark Regions.

  As she watched, the animal wilted under Medrian’s intense, preternatural gaze. Trembling, uttering tiny screeches of fear, it keeled over, kicked a few times, and lay dead. The hideous light faded from Medrian’s visage and she put her hands up to her face, visibly shaking.

  ‘Medrian? Whatever is the matter?’ Calorn cried, starting towards her.

  ‘Don’t – don’t come near me,’ she exclaimed, turning her head away and putting out a hand to ward her off. ‘Go back to the camp – I’ll follow in a while.’

  Calorn did as she said. It was not like her to abandon someone who was in obvious distress, and she couldn’t excuse herself for turning and almost running away. It was an illogical, uncontrollable fear, made worse for being inspired, not by some ghastly creature of the Dark Regions – but by someone she counted as a friend.

  When she reached the fire she had to force herself to stop and not flee any further. She went and leaned against Taery Jasmena, breathing hard as his warmth and solidity slowly eased the chill in her heart.

  She did not even want to think about what she had just seen.

  A few minutes later Medrian rejoined her, now perfectly composed. She went up to Calorn, but avoided her eyes. She looked ordinary again, human, frail and exhausted. Her lips parted and she murmured, ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Well, now I see why you didn’t need the bow,’ Calorn said shakily.

  The joke was feeble, and Medrian did not seem to appreciate it. ‘I can’t explain,’ she said dully. Then, after a few seconds’ pause, ‘Please don’t tell the others.’

  ‘I won’t. There doesn’t seem to be any point.’

  ‘No. There isn’t. We had better skin those rabbits.’

  #

  The Serpent was raging at Medrian, but she felt distanced from it. Its attempt to prove its supremacy, by killing the rabbit, had disgusted her to the core. An animal was bad enough; the idea that she could be forced into a similar, grisly murder of Calorn appalled her. So sick with revulsion had she felt that she had found a hidden reserve of strength. The very anger and despair the Serpent had caused, she had used as a weapon against it. She had resisted, and she had won.

  Now it was wailing its frustration and rage, but for the time being it could not touch her. The effort required to control her for those few moments had tired M’gulfn.

  She remembered an occasion when she had bent its will to hers: Ashurek had summoned a demon who had then refused to return to the Dark Regions. She had used M’gulfn’s will to make it depart. The Serpent had never forgiven her for that. Even after Gastada had tortured her in the most horrendous way, it did not feel that justice had been done.

  ‘Oh, be quiet,’ she murmured to it, like a mother chiding a truculent child. Unexpectedly it ceased struggling and railing at her. Its sudden silence was ominous.

  Darkness fell, and Ashurek had not returned. They roasted and ate a rabbit, then decided upon a watch rota. As Medrian made to sleep, wrapped in her cloak, Calorn said, ‘What’s that?’

  ‘What?’ Medrian sat up and peered across the clearing, which was illuminated by the eerie red glow of the fire. In the shadows, barely discernible, stood a black horse. It was an ugly beast, too long in the back and with a pinched, aggressive look to its head. Even in the gloom its eyes shone bright blue.

  ‘Ye gods,’ Medrian breathed.

  ‘A loose horse. Looks an ill-tempered beast. What is it doing here?’

  ‘I’ve encountered such creatures before. We have to drive it away.’ Medrian climbed to her feet and, never taking her eyes off it, backed into the trees and began pulling down hefty branches which she shoved into the fire. ‘Help me. We need brands to frighten it off.’

  ‘What about my bow and arrow?’

  ‘No use, you’d only wound it. It would hardly feel anything. It’s a creature of the Serpent, you see.’

  ‘But we can frighten it?’

  ‘Yes.’ Medrian actually smiled. ‘They are not very clever beasts.’

  ‘We’ll work in relays; one of us fires the brands, while the other drives it off.’

  ‘Yes. Let me go first.’

  Medrian advanced across the clearing, swinging a branch with a great plume of fire spitting on its end. The horse snorted and bared its teeth, edging uncertainly backwards. Fire ran down towards her hands and began to burn her, but she continued threatening the beast until she was forced to drop the branch. Then Calorn took her place, yelling as she lunged at the horse, making ghostly streaks of fire in the air.

  Near the fire, the tethered palfrey was whinnying with fear.

  Medrian advanced again, and the black creature was retreating among the trees now. ‘Go! I no longer have any need of you!’ she was muttering through clenched teeth. She had gone quite a long way into the forest when she heard Calorn, back at the camp fire, give a yell of astonishment and pain. She ran back towards her, and saw another creature of the Serpent.

  It resembled a great white bear, but there was a sinuous quality to its movements that also suggested an ape. Its thick pelt gave off a rank, musty stench and its eyes were the same searing blue as the horse’s. It had crept silently behind Calorn, who only sensed it at the last moment. She swung round: the mighty swipe it aimed at her head glanced off her shoulder. Her cloak protected her, but its long sabre-like claws caught and tore the material.

  She and Medrian swung their flaming branch
es at the bear, but it was not as easily cowed as the horse. It dipped its head from side to side, something between a growl and a roar emitting from its red, carnivorous mouth. Rising on its hind legs, it sniffed at the smoke and heat, irritated. Then it lumbered forward, losing its balance, and lunged at the two women with its forepaws.

  Medrian saw the curved, vicious claws flash past her face and she felt the branch jerked from her grasp. The bear’s muzzle was close to her, the rows of flesh-tearing ivory teeth shining with saliva, its breath foul and steamy on her cheeks. She stumbled backwards, pulling Calorn with her to the other side of the fire.

  Now she knew the reason for the Worm’s silence. It had decided to defeat her physically instead of mentally. The creatures would incapacitate or even capture her, and kill Calorn.

  ‘By heaven,’ Calorn hissed. ‘There are more – look!’ Nebulous white shapes were moving amid the trees, converging on the clearing. The stench of bears filled the air. Taery Jasmena reared frantically. The picket to which he was tethered came out of the ground, and he bolted into the forest. The creatures ignored him.

  ‘Are these creatures of the Serpent as well?’ Calorn asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

  ‘Yes.’ Medrian pulled another branch out of the fire and swung it back and forth before the bear’s head, so that it followed the movement with its eyes as if hypnotised. Then it growled and snapped at the flame, whimpering as it burnt its mouth. ‘Have you got the bow to hand? These things are not as impervious as the horse.’

  More bears were moving into the clearing. Calorn counted seven. Muscles rippled under their shaggy pelts as they ambled forwards. They were magnificent in their way, but the monkey-like fluidity of their gait marked them as unnatural. There was something horribly wrong, malformed, about them. And the mindless glare of their cyan eyes repulsed her like the acid light of demons.

  Picking up her weapon Calorn carefully took aim at the bear that was menacing Medrian. The first arrow thudded into its throat and made it pause and howl with rage. The next found its eye but still it remained on its feet. It staggered and the third shot missed, but the fourth pierced its head and at last it toppled heavily onto its side and died with milky blood oozing from its wounds.