A Blackbird In Darkness (Book 2)

by Freda Warrington

  ‘This weather only makes our journey uncomfortable, not impossible,’ Ashurek said. ‘I would far rather be struggling through it than waiting days for it to subside.’

  The others could not disagree with this. Fastening their hoods they emerged into a slippery valley which they followed until it joined a path winding roughly northwards between barricades of ice.

  Medrian was right. The snowstorm had swung round to the south while they slept. They stepped out into its force and found themselves walking at considerable speed, the wind pushing at their backs like a giant, ghostly hand. Flurries of snow raced past them and diminished into the distance, giving a strange, hypnotic illusion of spiralling into a vortex. Apparently the Serpent was dragging its enemies avidly towards itself, eager to make an end of them. Estarinel did not even let himself think of reaching M’gulfn. He let the wind propel him and concentrated only on keeping his feet.

  Soon the air was so thick with snow that they could see barely a yard ahead. The wind was as bitter as a frozen knife. While their clothes protected them from the worst of it, their cloaks became stiff with ice. A polar wilderness of swirling grey and white ice surrounded them, and within it they did not notice how dangerous their path had become until it was too late.

  Ashurek, still in the lead, suddenly discerned that the walls on either side of them were no longer made of solid ice, but of an insubstantial, swirling mass of snowflakes. The way ahead lay along a blade-sharp ridge with a sheer drop on either side. Turning back was impossible, since it would have meant walking into the teeth of the gale. All they could do was to keep going, but they were being forced along at a pace too swift for safety.

  As soon as the ridge angled somewhat to the right, the wind drove into them like a ram, and the inevitable happened. All three lost their footing and fell.

  Their plunge off the ridge was sharp and breath-stopping. It was over in an instant: snow saved them. Badly shaken, they dug themselves out of the deep, cold drift in which they’d landed and stood shaking the snow and ice from their cloaks, trying to recover their breath.

  The wind had dropped abruptly. Ashurek looked enquiringly at Medrian, but she only shook her head to say that she was no wiser than he. The snow, however, continued to fall thickly from the clotted, steel-grey sky. Seeking a fresh northerly route, they resumed their walk, with the white blanket deepening around them.

  Their fall had left them in a crooked ravine, and it seemed they would face a climb whichever route they chose. Already exhausted, they decided to find shelter within the ravine and go on after they had slept.

  When they emerged – after the brief eerie twilight that was the Arctic night – gusts of wind were dancing along the ravine, raising a foam of ice crystals on the snow. The sun appeared briefly, transforming the grim, bitter landscape into a realm of exquisite beauty, all pearl-blue crystal and glittering whiteness.

  Some hours later they climbed out of the ravine, and reached a vast, smooth plateau. Pausing to get their breath and look back, they heard a soft rumbling, and watched as the entire face of snow that they had just negotiated collapsed in an avalanche.

  They began to trudge across the plateau. Beyond lay the pale, frozen fangs of the ice cap. These stretched in an unbroken line from east to west, but appeared to end some ten miles to the north. They hoped that another day’s travelling would take them clear of the hostile crags; although they felt no optimism about what lay beyond. Meanwhile they tried to take advantage of the lull in the blizzard. Only a few flakes of snow were drifting from the clouds, although a raw wind still prodded at their backs. Occasionally hints of Serpent-sent discoloration gnawed at the sky, deeply depressing.

  Ashurek was ahead of Medrian and Estarinel when he sensed the snow beneath his feet creaking and straining. Calling out a warning, he turned to retrace his steps. Even as he did so a chasm split open beneath him and he vanished in a flurry of white crystals.

  Medrian and Estarinel hurried to the chasm and lay on their stomachs, peering anxiously over the edge. It was deep, and its sides were sheer, diamond-hard ice. Ashurek was lying in the bottom, some thirty feet down, half-covered by the snow that had fallen with him.

  ‘Take the rope out of my pack,’ Medrian said to Estarinel, pushing back her cloak. ‘Ashurek! We’re going to throw you the rope!’

  ‘It’s no good,’ was the faint response. ‘My arms are pinioned. This crack extends below me. I can feel myself slipping further down.’

  They cast the rope down to him, but it fell short by the height of a man. Ashurek was unable to move to reach it. Even as they watched, helpless, they could see him sliding gradually deeper into the blueness of the crevasse.

  ‘Pull the up rope,’ said Estarinel. ‘If we tie both our cloaks to it–’ As he spoke, the ice creaked again, and they watched, horrified, as Ashurek slid down another fifteen feet or so. Now they could barely see him.

  ‘No, it’s hopeless,’ Medrian muttered.

  The plateau began to creak and shudder beneath them and the crevasse narrowed, so that Ashurek was lost to sight, swallowed by the ice. They heard his voice, faint but very clear and calm, calling, ‘Leave me. You must go on with the Quest. Go quickly before it breaks up and you join me.’

  ‘He’s right,’ said Medrian, her face adamant. She seized Estarinel’s arm and pulled him bodily away from the chasm. ‘Don’t even think of arguing. Come on.’

  She was coiling the rope with one hand and propelling Estarinel across the snow with the other even as she spoke. They had walked perhaps fifty paces when the ground juddered violently, flinging them both off their feet. Cautiously, they rose on hands and knees, feeling an ominous certainty that another crevasse was about to open beneath them. A deep rumbling noise droned far beneath them, more sinister than the shifting of ice.

  ‘What’s that?’ Estarinel gasped. Medrian shook her head. They both looked anxiously around, gazing back at the place where Ashurek had fallen.

  As they looked, they witnessed a remarkable sight. Ashurek’s head – his hood thrown back – appeared over the edge of the crevasse. Slowly and smoothly his whole figure rose into view, just as if something were lifting him. Presently he was clear of the chasm and they saw that he was standing, feet apart for balance, on what looked like the back of a massive living creature. As his feet reached the level of the rim he leaped out onto the snow, rolling as he landed. Then he jumped to his feet and ran over to Estarinel and Medrian. The rumbling grew louder. The crevasse groaned and widened and from it erupted a ghastly creature like a gigantic snake. Its head came first, a hideous visage befitting a monster of the ocean, then a long, undulating body scaled with sickly purple and maroon. At the other end of it, in place of a tail there was another head, with upward-staring eyes and a circular mouth crammed with hook-like teeth. It slid across the snow for perhaps fifty yards, then plunged its leading head into the surface and burrowed again. They watched it slide smoothly under the snow until it vanished. The plateau continued to crack and shudder beneath them as the creature continued its underground route into the distance.

  ‘Another sort of Amphisbaena,’ Ashurek muttered.

  ‘What?’ Estarinel exclaimed. ‘What was it?’

  ‘A creature of M’gulfn’s, without doubt. I had heard that such things wander the Arctic. Its passage must have caused the crevasse to open in the first place. By fortune, it also rescued me. I was trapped and I could feel the ice tearing open beneath me. Just as I was expecting to fall again, there was a firm, moving surface under me. I managed to bestride it and stand up. Perhaps it was irritated by my weight on its back and merely wanted to rid itself of me – whatever, I can but acclaim its decision to rise to the surface.’

  Estarinel was laughing with relief. ‘Oh, by the Lady, I’m glad you’re safe! Are you hurt?’

  ‘No, only somewhat startled,’ Ashurek replied. ‘I never thought I’d have cause to be grateful to M’gulfn for anything.’

  ‘You may not have now,’ said Medrian. ‘
The Serpent doesn’t want to be deprived of the pleasure of meeting us all in the flesh.’ Despite her morose words, she looked as relieved as Estarinel at Ashurek’s escape.

  They crossed the plateau and were descending a slippery spur on its northern edge when the blizzard began again. They found shelter in a cavern formed by blocks of ice, where thawing and refreezing had caused massive icicles to curtain the entrance. Here they ate and tried to sleep, but beyond their small circle of light, snow was swirling past and the wind was howling off the plateau. Sometimes bromine-orange fires could be seen dancing amid the heavy clouds.

  Estarinel became aware that some oblique perspective he had had on the Arctic was changing. At first it had seemed a raw, wild realm in which the Serpent had no place. But now, as he stared sleeplessly through the curtain of icicles, his viewpoint was transformed. The Arctic seemed wholly the Serpent’s domain, while they were the unwanted intruders. It was as if the polar cap were a drum-skin on which the Worm lay, feeling and understanding the tiniest vibration. Nothing escaped its notice. This was its kingdom, where it was omnipresent.

  Something Estarinel had not sensed when he’d first seen M’gulfn was how deeply cleaved to the world it was, and how massive and all-pervading was its power. How could the slender needle of silver at his side possibly harm the Worm? Surely M’gulfn would feel it as no more than a flea-bite, if that; and how it would revel in mocking them, torturing them…

  He tried to suppress these thoughts, but they returned again and again. Somehow the deadly chill of the Arctic had seeped into his bones and he felt that despite the H’tebhmellian fire, the protective clothes – even Medrian, who was huddled against him, drowsing – he would never feel warm again. Even thoughts of his family failed to make him resolute; it all seemed so pale, so far away. How clever the Serpent was to destroy people through their own despair, without ever touching them... he moved his hand to touch the Silver Staff, but its singing seemed to have grown shrill, nerve-jangling, and he snatched his fingers away. He felt exhausted, weak with fear, paralysed by the freezing cold... convinced that he could not go on.

  They had now been in the Arctic for five days, and Medrian had estimated that they’d covered about half the distance. How close that seemed – how final – Estarinel must have betrayed some reaction because Medrian looked at him in concern and said, ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m terrified,’ he admitted candidly. ‘I don’t know how much further I can go.’

  ‘We’re all afraid,’ she said. But he already knew that and she realised it wasn’t much help to him.

  ‘The reality of it – being here – is worse than even I thought it would be.’

  ‘But there’s nowhere for any of us to go except on to the end of the Quest. Nowhere. And I need you.’

  ‘There’s a certain satisfaction in doing what you know you must, however hard it is,’ Ashurek had added. And although these words did nothing to reduce Estarinel’s conviction that he could not go on, when the time actually came to resume their journey, he climbed stiffly to his feet and walked out into the blinding snow without conscious difficulty.

  The sky was iron-grey, the air clotted with whirling flakes. The wind roared behind them, driving them onwards, crusting their cloaks with ice. All day they struggled through the glacial crags, as small and frail as moths blown across a hostile mountain range. The white blankets swathing the landscape looked deceptively soft and welcoming while concealing a grim and bitter heart.

  Wrapped in whiteness they came at last to the end of the ice crags, and took shelter beneath them to eat and sleep. When they awoke, snow was falling sparsely, so they could see what lay ahead. It was not a heartening sight. Facing them was a vast, flat plain of snow unrelieved by any kind of landmark. The crags had seemed hostile, but at least they had offered refuge when it was needed. Frigid wind blew unremittingly across the snow, packing it into ice. Above, the sky was marble-white and sullen, but on the northern horizon, malevolent olive and ochre lights danced like demons.

  There was something moving on the snow, a bruise-coloured, many-legged thing that might have been coughed up from the Dark Regions. It did not attack but simply sat and watched them for several minutes, then dug itself into the snow and disappeared. Yet it was enough to instill them all with a sick disgust and wretchedness that made it even harder to set off across the plain.

  #

  Muddled with Medrian’s own first experiences of the Arctic were M’gulfn’s memories, so that each new place they came to, she felt she had seen before, from all different angles, in light and dark, fine weather and storm. And the sight of the white expanse, the Serpent-glow on the horizon, the silent spidery watcher, filled her with unspeakable despair. What am I doing in this horrible place? she thought. The snow seemed to reflect a nauseating mauvish glare that mocked her dismay. She knew there was nothing left between them and M’gulfn but this awful plain.

  She thought, why did this have to be the last place I will ever see?

  She turned to Estarinel and hid her face against his shoulder, and he held her, his eyes closed, trying to forget that the Arctic was there. But after a minute she straightened up and said, ‘Now we must go on.’

  Ashurek touched Estarinel’s arm and pointed to the left. A few yards away, under an overhang of ice, stood another unpleasant creature. It was about four feet high, greenish-yellow in colour, with rudimentary limbs, a huge head and dark, skin-covered swellings where its eyes should have been. Obscenely, it resembled a foetus standing on spindly legs. As Ashurek made to draw his sword it opened its shapeless mouth and gave voice to a thin, piteous mewing filled with such uncomprehending hopelessness that it stole his resolve to kill it. It turned and burrowed mole-like into a snowdrift.

  ‘Medrian, what are those things?’ Ashurek asked grimly.

  ‘The Serpent’s experiments in parodying life,’ Medrian replied, her voice thick with revulsion. ‘They will do us no harm. Not physically, at least. They fear me.’

  Then they set out to walk across the snowfield. The gale pushed insistently at their backs, and snow spiralled past in splinters of ice. What beauty the Arctic possessed, however wild and raw, was non-existent here. The sense of malevolence and desolation was not due to the physical aspect of the plain, but to the aura emanating from the Worm. It increased with every step they took.

  In his imagination, Estarinel turned and ran any number of times; but in reality, with the wind at his back and Medrian’s hand on his arm, he walked steadily on towards the Serpent, so afraid that he was merely numb.

  More creatures emerged from the snow, stared at them, disappeared. Perhaps some of them were not even real, but illusions sent by the Serpent to confound them; it didn’t matter, because they served their purpose. The three tried to ignore them, but the phobic repulsion induced by M’gulfn’s experiments did nothing to improve their state of mind. Out on the plain they felt exposed and vulnerable, as if floating on a disintegrating raft in the middle of a freezing ocean.

  ‘Does this snowfield extend all the way to M’gulfn?’ Ashurek asked.

  ‘Yes, I believe so,’ Medrian said thinly. ‘This is its territory, its home.’

  Ashurek was about to ask what the possibility was of the Serpent coming to meet them, but seeing Estarinel’s expression, he thought better of it.

  ‘How much further?’ he enquired in a matter-of-fact tone.

  Medrian had no chance to reply. There was a sudden creaking and groaning below them, followed by the deafening concussions of the ice cap fracturing. The surface heaved. They halted in consternation and hung on to each other, but a moment later they were pulled apart.

  The snowfield reared under them, tearing with a roaring noise like a great avalanche; then the whole Arctic seemed to turn upside down and they were falling, falling, buried under tons of crumbling ice and snow.

  #

  Estarinel was floating. He had never dreamed it was possible to be so deeply, achingly cold. He could feel bands
of iron gripping his chest and see red and black stars bursting across his eyelids. At the same time he knew he was unconscious and close to death. Yet he did not mind. He felt quite calm…

  Somewhere above him he thought he could hear a familiar female voice saying, ‘Ashurek, I need to know the words, can you remember?’ Then it seemed that he was lying on a deadly hard surface, and it was cold, so cold. He opened his eyes and saw nothing but whiteness, as if he were trapped in a tiny room, like the hut in the domain of the Silver Staff – disorientated, he sat up violently, coughing water.

  ‘Estarinel,’ said a voice near him, not the disembodied voice he’d imagined, but Medrian’s. She was sitting at his side, and Ashurek was in front of him. ‘It’s all right, you’re safe now. Comparatively, at least.’

  ‘I’m frozen. I thought I was drowning.’

  ‘That’s because you nearly did,’ said Medrian.

  He looked around and realised that they were perched on a block of ice, roughly fifteen feet square, that was rocking gently beneath them. They were afloat on a slate-grey, apparently infinite ocean, with a great mass of icepacks jostling around them. It had almost stopped snowing and the sun shone pale and bright through the clouds.

  ‘What happened?’ Estarinel was shuddering so hard he could barely speak.

  ‘The ice field broke up beneath us – whether due to a thaw, or something more sinister, I do not know,’ said Ashurek. He lit the H’tebhmellian fire and made it float near Estarinel. ‘Part of the plain must have been a mere crust above the ocean. It was only by luck that Medrian and I found ourselves on this ice floe. You went into the water, but we managed to haul you out. Your cloak trapped air and kept you afloat.’

  ‘It’s fortunate that these clothes are waterproof,’ Medrian added. ‘Otherwise the cold alone would have killed you.’

  ‘If it doesn’t yet. We’d have died a dozen times over without the H’tebhmellians’ help,’ Estarinel said, feeling the warmth of the starry fire trickle into him. ‘What now?’