‘Alas, I cannot go into the Dark Regions,’ she chirped. ‘But you are right. The human herd must open their eyes, but only Silvren can help them do so.’
‘Prince Ashurek,’ rasped Meheg-Ba, its eyes shining a ghastly pink as if through a film of blood. ‘Don’t do this. If the sorceress so much as opens her mouth, she will be killed at once. By Limir. You do remember Limir, don’t you? Good. We have reached an impasse. You are very clever, but you will not prevail. I am going to close the portal now. You damned fool! Don’t you know that we’re on the same side? I no more wish Arlenmia to achieve her goal than you do.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Ashurek, certain that the Shanin had begun to bluff in order to win itself a fresh chance.
‘Is it not obvious? If the Serpent gets its eye back, it will be all-powerful. It will have no need of helpers such as the Shana. It will destroy us. We don’t want that! We want the world to continue as it was! And we only wanted the silver weapon in order to help us get the Egg-Stone back from that wretched woman. You will never do it alone, Prince Ashurek.’
‘Don’t listen,’ said Estarinel over Ashurek’s shoulder. ‘It must be lying.’
‘I advise you not to take that risk!’ Meheg-Ba screeched.
‘I believe you are telling the truth for once,’ said Ashurek.
‘Then allow me to come back onto Earth without destroying me!’
‘Very well,’ Ashurek said carefully. ‘But on one condition. You must release Silvren. Let her come out before you.’
‘Yes, yes, nothing could be easier,’ said Meheg-Ba. ‘It was only Diheg-El who wanted her anyway!’
Estarinel looked questioningly at Ashurek, but he and Miril both remained intent on the entrance to the Dark Regions. He did not share Ashurek’s witch-sight, and all he could see was Meheg-Ba, standing just inside a lightless abyss.
Meheg-Ba turned, apparently instructing one of the other demons to fetch Silvren. In those few seconds, the frail, faint voice of Silvren reached Ashurek’s ears. She was chanting. Her eyes were closed, her hands moving slowly as if stroking the heads of the herd without actually touching them.
Meheg-Ba gave a roar of rage. The other demons began to mutter with anxiety, their mingled glow becoming dim. In the overlaid vision, Ashurek clearly saw the eyes of three of the herd fly open, as blue as H’tebhmella. And he saw the hideous bird, Limir, appear as if from nowhere and flap purposefully towards Silvren.
‘No!’ Ashurek roared. Miril gave a piercing cry. There was nothing they could do; Limir descended on Silvren like a sack of knives, and she fell, and was lost to view amid the human-cattle.
She had been silenced, and yet, somehow, the herd members were continuing to open their eyes. The demons were wailing with consternation – Estarinel covered his hands to block out that appalling cacophony – and they were becoming ash-grey, powerless.
The human cattle had ceased their restless milling and were standing very still, all gazing upwards at Ashurek, their eyes clear and calm and intelligent, shedding sapphire light. And two of those pairs of eyes were those of Meshurek and Orkesh…
Hissing with dread, Meheg-Ba stumbled out of the gaping hole onto the snow. The rest of the demons began to follow, terrified of Miril yet more terrified of what lay in their own Region. And as they came, one by one, Ashurek and Miril destroyed them.
Estarinel watched incredulously. Ashurek had become a larger-than-life, preternatural figure, cloaked in shadow, his dark face disturbingly calm while his green eyes burned with purpose. Miril sparkled on his hand like a fiery, avenging diamond. Unable to stop themselves, the Shana plunged out of the darkness with skin as dull as mercury; and each met its painful end at Miril’s touch, vaporising into wisps of ash.
It was over with unexpected, merciful swiftness. Within minutes the last but one of the demons had been reduced to cinders. Now only Meheg-Ba was still alive, its skin rusted iron, its face almost human with dismay and trepidation. And close behind the demons, the herd of trapped souls began to wander out of the darkness.
Ashurek could not bear to look at them. He did not want to know which ones were his brother and sister, imprisoned in the Dark Regions in death because they had dealt with demons in life. He shut his eyes.
Miril flew free of his hand and proceeded to touch each of the wretched creatures in turn with her wings. As she did so, each one stood erect, losing its terrible deformity and taking a colourless human form; then silently dispersing to nothing on the air.
‘Ashurek,’ said Estarinel, moving forward to shake his arm as he realised the Gorethrian was not watching. ‘Look.’
Lying across the back of the last of the creatures was Silvren.
Limir was still crouching on her shoulders, shapeless wings thrashing in frustrated anger. With a gasp, Ashurek sprang towards it, but Meheg-Ba got there first.
‘You damnable – incompetent – negligent imbecile,’ the Shanin hissed. It was addressing Limir, not Silvren, and it stretched out a metallic hand and pulled the hellish vulture off her. Limir did not even cry out as the demon broke its back and tore it apart, flinging the pieces back into the darkness like bits of rag.
At once Ashurek seized Silvren’s body from the human-beast, and Miril touched it and freed its soul. And in the same moment, as if it had only been waiting to exact its revenge upon Limir, Meheg-Ba turned and deliberately stretched out a hand to touch Miril, and so perished.
Estarinel was standing with one arm round Skord, trying to soothe the boy’s hysterical sobbing. Ashurek was holding Silvren’s lifeless form in his arms, his head bent over her, his tears falling onto her face. Miril circled over their heads, first brushing Skord with her wings, then Silvren, and finally alighting on Ashurek’s shoulder.
The great hole yawning into the Dark Regions remained, but all was dark and silent within it.
Silvren opened her eyes and said, ‘I’m alive,’ as if both surprised and pleased at this realisation.
#
‘I think you know what I wish to talk about,’ said Arlenmia.
‘Yes,’ said Medrian without inflexion.
‘Here is a hollow; is this far enough for you? Shall we sit down?’ Medrian did so, pulling back her hood from her pale and expressionless face. Arlenmia sat beside her, intently studying her sharp profile. ‘I know that I tried to kill you once… It really was very foolish of me.’
‘Don’t apologise. I would have been happier if you had succeeded,’ Medrian said acidly.
‘Don’t be bitter; I want to help you, truly. See, I am not wielding the power of the Egg-Stone over you. You could walk away now if you wished. But I think you half-hope that I may help you after all.’ Medrian smiled thinly at this. ‘You would like to be free of the Serpent, wouldn’t you?’
Medrian replied quietly, ‘I have been free of it. I have known a few days of peace and a few hours of happiness, which is more than many can say. I chose to take the burden up again, and carry it to the end. What you offer is empty and false. I want nothing.’
Arlenmia slid her fingers into Medrian’s hair and forcibly turned her head to hold her gaze. Her blue-green eyes glinted with anger, but Medrian’s were as shadowy and unreadable as her face.
‘You mean it, don’t you? You almost fell before, but not now. And I might as well save my breath.’
‘Yes,’ said Medrian.
‘Well, I’ll waste no more time on gentle persuasion, then. I had not the strength to force you before, Medrian, but now I have. Besides, why would the Serpent stay with one who wishes to destroy it, when it could come to me?’
‘If it wanted you, Arlenmia, it would have gone to you years ago,’ Medrian said with a touch of malice. The fingers tightened in her hair, and she felt a languorous, hypnotic force flowing from Arlenmia’s eyes to her own. She could not resist it. She was being drawn from the physical world to a mental battleground, an indigo void where Arlenmia’s strange thoughts and visions became real.
‘Look at my dream,’ said Arl
enmia’s voice in her head. And Medrian saw a sphere like a perfect glittering topaz with a pulsing sapphire heart. It was enmeshed by a net of shining capillaries in which corpuscles like jewels pulsed towards the heart, singing their worship of M’gulfn, which no longer resembled a Serpent… And each of the corpuscular jewels had once been a human, but was now elevated to a higher level of being in which there was nothing but joy…
Medrian stared at the vision for hours, years. It was beautiful. It was freedom from the pain of life and the oblivion of death. It was the fulfilment of ecstasy beyond the dreams of mortals… she was weeping, falling towards it with outstretched arms. So this was what Arlenmia intended! If only she had known–
Medrian, said a voice somewhere in the darkness. Ah, my Medrian. Must I tell you of the unspeakable pain and loneliness you have caused me? None of my former hosts did to me what you have done. Yet none of them really mattered to me either… not in the way that you have been precious to me.
Medrian turned round and round in the void, and she could feel the Serpent’s presence all about her. And she realised that it could not see Arlenmia’s vision; it could only see her, its host.
Ah, you mean much to me, my Medrian. What have I done to deserve your hatred? Why, when I cherished you from birth, did you turn away from me? Why return my care with despite? Such pain I have suffered, because I would not forsake you. But I cannot allow you to slay me. They shall not slay me. Even now I do not want to leave you… it will cause me excruciating pain… but I must go instead to someone who does love and worship me…
Then Medrian felt a terrible pulling and tearing sensation in her limbs and stomach and eyes, but worst of all, in her mind. And although she could see nothing, she was aware of Arlenmia’s face very close to hers.
‘M’gulfn, no, don’t leave me!’ she cried out in her thoughts.
The pulling lessened. Why not? said the Serpent. Now you plead with me? Now, when it is too late?
‘Please. It is not too late. You don’t want Arlenmia, you know you don’t. It’s true I wanted to be free of you before, but that’s changed now. I want you to stay with me to the end.’
The tearing began again. She realised that it was the Serpent’s own pain that she was feeling. No, Medrian, it is too late! You should have surrendered years ago. This is your fault. You have betrayed me over and over again. No more. I am going to her.
‘No. You won’t love her, she won’t love you. And you can’t bear this pain. Stay with me.’
She worships me. She will never betray me.
‘Oh, but she will. I promise you, she will betray you. You are not going to leave me, are you?’
The Serpent screamed and groaned in its confusion. Somewhere at once very distant and very close, Arlenmia was calling, ‘Leave her, M’gulfn. Come to me!’ And Medrian felt that she and the Serpent were falling together, tumbling over and over as they hurtled towards the crystalline sphere of Arlenmia’s vision. But the sphere was dull and cold.
Promise you will betray me no more. Promise you will not spurn me nor share yourself with other humans. Promise–
‘Hush, now,’ said Medrian. ‘You are not going to leave me. I won’t let you. We will be together until the bitter end.’
The pulling stopped.
Arlenmia found her own powerful vision wrenched from her and replaced by another. The Earth was grey… Of all colours, she hated grey. And it was not round and crystalline, but shapeless and bloated, filled with glutinous matter that could never be expelled – dead and worm-ridden and decaying. And across its desolate landscapes bent figures wandered, knee-deep in ash, weeping, endlessly seeking a way to end their misery… but they could not comfort each other, because all they felt for each other was hatred. And the heart of this hell, the perpetrator, itself lay atop the husk in a despairing torpor, alone and wretched and devoid of intelligent thought. And enclosing the Earth was a leaden membrane through which nothing could pass, so that the outside forces, which might otherwise have helped, did not even know that it existed.
With a mixture of relief and anger Arlenmia suddenly realised that this nightmare vision was only one conjured by Medrian to trick her. She gathered the power of the Egg-Stone and flung it at the vision, destroying it with a thud of energy.
All at once, she and Medrian were in the physical world again, sitting on a snowy slope in a grim landscape, looking at each other. With an exasperated curse, Arlenmia released Medrian’s hair. ‘Damn you,’ she said.
‘You see, it is futile,’ Medrian said. ‘M’gulfn cannot leave me even if it wants to. You will never be its host.’
‘You prevented M’gulfn from coming to me!’
‘How do you know? Did M’gulfn actually speak to you?’
‘No… but it wanted to!’
‘Then how can you be so sure that you understand its nature, when you have never touched it? Did you not see the true vision of Earth if the Serpent gets back the Egg-Stone?’
‘True? If you cannot believe my vision, how then can you expect me to believe yours?’ Arlenmia retorted icily. ‘More likely it is the world’s doom if fools like you persist in fighting the Serpent.’
‘Arlenmia, please listen to me. Hate is all that motivates the Serpent. It doesn’t care about you. It is using you to get its eye back, that’s all. You are no more to it than – than anyone. It knows nothing of your vision! All it knows is hate, sterile and destructive, and all it cares about is taking revenge on the life that it thinks has usurped its supremacy on Earth. Why would I want to lie to you about this?’
‘I really do not know, Medrian.’
‘You still cannot believe that you are wrong. I know of no way to convince you.’
‘I should kill you!’ Arlenmia exclaimed, her face bright with anger. ‘I would, if I knew how! I have shown you the future – and still you deny it! Still you cling to this nonsense of hate and decay. You are all the same: The human race does not deserve what I am trying to do for it.’
‘That’s true,’ Medrian murmured, and Arlenmia made to strike her.
In that moment, Arlenmia became aware of a strange cacophony issuing from the direction of Ashurek and the Shana. It had been going on for some time, but so intent had she been on Medrian in their shared trance that she’d barely registered it. Now she leaped to her feet with a cry of rage.
‘What are they doing?’ she demanded.
‘It looks as if the Shana are disobeying you,’ Medrian said as she stood up.
‘So this is why you wanted me away from the others!’ Then Arlenmia did strike her, with such force that Medrian sprawled several feet away on the snow. She was stunned for a moment, but she quickly dragged herself upright and followed the figure of Arlenmia, striding furiously across the snow.
Ashurek and Estarinel both took off their cloaks and wrapped them around Silvren’s frail form. They moved several hundred yards from the grim entrance to the Dark Regions, then floated the H’tebhmellian fire near her and made her sip the reviving wine. She was very weak, but the sparkling warmth of sphere seemed to ease the pain of the wounds Limir had caused, while the wine visibly restored her.
‘Now I must return to the Silver Staff,’ Miril had said when the purging of the Dark Regions was over. ‘But understand, all of you, that I can be called to your aid only once more before you reach the Worm. You must choose that time well. Fear not,’ she added, ‘you have chosen well so far.’
Then she alighted on top of the Staff and, while retaining the form of a bird, became inanimate – a carved figure.
There was much that Ashurek had wanted to ask her, but it seemed she was unwilling or unable to spend time talking to them. As for Estarinel, Miril’s appearance, her transformation from living creature to statuette and all that had gone between were so miraculous that he was left speechless. Even in this terrible polar waste, so close to the Serpent, she had given them a short respite from dread.
‘Ashurek, why does this place feel as terrible as the Dark Regio
ns?’ Silvren asked. She seemed disoriented and half in a dream, hardly surprising after what she had undergone. ‘And so cold. It is Earth, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but we are very close to the Serpent,’ he said gently.
‘Oh – oh, the Quest,’ she said. ‘I am sorry – I’ve forgotten so much, and I am not myself yet. I thought perhaps it was all over – but no, I’m glad that I’ll there at the end of it, after all.’
‘Don’t try to talk, beloved,’ Ashurek said. He was holding her in his arms, unspeakably relieved that she was alive, but aware that she was very frail, while the worst danger of all still lay ahead.
‘No, I want to talk. I am all right, truly.’ She looked sideways. ‘Is this Estarinel?’ Warmth was returning to her previously dull eyes. ‘Ah yes, I remember you. The Glass City. And who is the other young man?’
‘His name is Skord,’ said Estarinel. The youth was sitting cross-legged on the snow with his head bowed, silent but apparently calm and composed since Miril had touched him. Estarinel hesitated to explain who he was, having a strange intuition that Silvren would be disturbed by the knowledge that Arlenmia was with them.
‘The demons are all dead, aren’t they?’ Skord said suddenly, looking up at Silvren.
‘Yes, all destroyed,’ she replied kindly, as if she understood his fear; and in that moment Ashurek could have wept for joy to realise that the Shana had failed to change her after all. She seemed to know what he was thinking, and went on, ‘Now the Shana are gone, I can look back clearly upon how they deceived me, as if it happened to someone else. I know I’m not evil. Only human. And I am so, so sorry for the pain I caused you by making you leave me behind that time.’
‘Silvren, I am only glad that you were able to see the Shana’s lie for what it was. I knew that Miril would help you.’
‘Oh, but it was not just Miril; it was those poor trapped souls,’ she said. They didn’t see me as evil, and they needed me; and I felt their judgement was surer than my own. And it was.’
‘And now they are free.’
A Blackbird In Darkness (Book 2) Page 41