by Sarah Rayne
But if Annabel had heard the caress, she gave no sign of it. She said, quite seriously, “I do trust you. Both of you.”
“Why? Your world is so harsh — so much has happened to make you suspicious and wary.”
Annabel said, “I think it is a little that I have always hoped,” She looked at him to see if he was understanding, and then went on, “I should like to be able to believe in so much. So much that has been written and imagined and handed down.”
“And always,” said Taliesin slowly, “always you have woken up.”
“Awoke and found me here upon the cold hillside … Yes,” said Annabel. And remembered, but did not say, how she had read the poets and the dreamers, and gone willingly into dreams, but how the dreams had always dissolved. There had been many cold dawns, many awakenings to cold hillsides, many lonely dissolvings of dreams, because no matter how much you wished and pretended, still the reality was the Drakon’s grim world, where food was running out, and a Clock deep within the Fire Mountains was ticking away mankind’s last hours. And then, because it would not do to admit to all of this, Annabel said rather flippantly, “What should I wear for the journey? What is correct when you are going to save the world?” And then, in a different voice, “How shall we get there?”
*
The soft sweet beckoning music of the pipes spun and shivered and beckoned in the quiet square, and Annabel stood very still and felt the music wrap her about, and could not speak for the sheer delight of it. It was like something you could reach out and take between your hands, and treasure and store away, so that you could unwrap it later and savour its beauty …
The Time Chariot came smoothly and easily, materialising from the shadows outside the square, sending shafts of pure colour into the night. The salamanders bowed their heads submissively, and tossed their manes, and blurred into colour and fire and light, and then back into solid shapes, and then into whirling flame again, so that you could not be quite sure from one minute to the next if they were really there.
“They are there,” said Fael-Inis. “They bathe in the Fire Rivers beneath the Mountains of the Morning, and they can harness all of the world’s power and all of the world’s strength and light.” He turned to look at Annabel, who was standing in the spilled light from the Chariot, entranced and enchanted. Taliesin looked at her, and remembered how she had talked about always wanting to believe, and how he had seen the hope in her eyes … Surely there are dreams somewhere, her eyes had said. Surely this cold bleak world is not all there is? He watched her, and saw the delight dawn in her expression, and knew that she was seeing the dreams come tumbling into her world at last. When she reached out a hesitant hand to touch the Chariot, he saw how the light and the fire spilled across her skin, and he remembered Calatin’s spell, and made an abrupt movement. But, “All is well,” said Fael-Inis softly. “For we do not travel across Time, yet. The fires will be cool enough for you both.”
Taliesin thought, We do not travel across Time, yet. But before much longer we shall have to do so. Seven days, and then Calatin’s enchantment will be useless. And even then, it will serve to protect only one … I cannot leave her behind! thought Taliesin in silent anguish. And then, Could I stay here with her? And felt again the desolation and the despair of the world they had thought would be so filled with marvels, and knew a great and aching agony. He looked at her and thought, She is not for me, nor I for her, and felt a strange haunting echo, as if the pain was not being felt for the first time.
Fael-Inis had moved to the Chariot, and was standing, lit by the flames, his hands outstretched to them. “Come with me,” he said, and now it was noc the quiet, thoughtful philosopher who had sat in the small apartment and drunk coffee and listened to the story of the ending of the world; now it was the rebel angel again, the creature who had defied the gods and turned his back on the war in heaven. Annabel gasped, and put her hand out to Taliesin, and felt herself to be falling headlong into the world of make-believe where almost anything could happen, and where chimerical creations lived and walked, and where there were no cold hillsides and no lonely dawn awakenings … There was surely no magic left in the world, and yet there was magic unfolding before her eyes. I still do not believe any of this … I am Lewis Carroll’s Alice, and I do not believe … But we are going to save the world, and it will be the most exciting thing anyone has ever done anywhere ever … I ought to be wary, said Annabel to Annabel. I ought to be questioning everything and distrusting it all. I certainly ought not to be feeling exhilarated and I definitely ought not to be looking forward to it. Death or glory … I wonder if they really did say that, or if it is just something somebody made up. What I really ought to do is turn my back on this weird machine and these two people who are probably adventurers of some kind, and go back into the safety of my own apartment. That’s what I ought to do, said the voice of the sane and practical Annabel.
And — how boring! said the reckless Annabel, the one who believed in dreams and enchantments, and who had known all along that there were other worlds, only that you sometimes had to look very hard to find them. How dull and boring! If I do not do this, I shall certainly spend the rest of my life regretting it!
And then Fael-Inis took their hands and drew them forward into the Time Chariot.
*
When you have always lived in a world where the only way to get anywhere is by walking, to skim the earth’s surface with a speed so breathtaking that you feel as if you might fall over the edge of the world is probably the most overwhelming experience you will ever know. Annabel, clutching the sides of the Chariot, her hair flying in the soft, warm wind, tried to catch her breath, and then abandoned the attempt. Clearly if you were going to travel like this, you would not be able to breathe, and that was that. She thought she might very likely die from delight, and not being able to breathe, but she thought that to die like this, with delight soaring and exhilaration cascading, would be the most exciting thing ever. When Fael-Inis said, in a voice that Annabel thought of as pouring flame, “Hold on, Mortals!” there was just enough breath left to call back a reassurance, and then the salamanders were streaming effortlessly ahead of them, and below them were the sleeping meadows and farms and towns.
Annabel, clinging to the Chariot, thought hazily that the people of the last century must have felt a little of this when they travelled in the machines that took them everywhere. She had always liked the stories of the machines that moved across the earth’s surface, although the Drakon said, austerely, that they had been noisy and dangerous.
The machines had long since gone, of course. The great Oil Wars a hundred years earlier had meant that there was no longer the means to power the machines. The drying up of the Oil Fields had rendered the machines useless. Expeditions had been sent out to find more of the same substances, and research laboratories had been set up, but by that time the power supplies of the world had been dwindling, and there had not been the means.
The machines were still talked about. People could remember hearing grandparents tell about them; how you simply pressed buttons and turned wheels, and how you took yourself anywhere and everywhere. But there had been too many of them in the end, said the Drakon. The highroads had become choked; the people had been ill from the fumes and the gases that the machines used up. There was not enough space any longer.
Annabel would have enjoyed the machines and she was enjoying the Time Chariot. She did not fully understand about it: “And I do not want to,” she said, and Taliesin understood this, because when you are faced with something enchanting and magical, you do not always want to know how it works. When you watch an entertainment, you do not want to be reminded that the players have painted faces and that their swords are card and their jewels paste. You certainly do not want to think about the flimsy structures that appear to be castles and mist-wreathed isles, but are really only plaster and timber with men behind them creating an illusion. You want only to believe in the illusion.
And so Taliesi
n, who had watched the plays and the make-believe of his world, and Annabel, who had only read about them, were easily able to accept the Time Chariot and enter wholly into its enchantment, and find it all entirely believable. Taliesin thought that perhaps Fael-Inis was no more than an illusionist, but if that was so, then he was an illusionist of truly remarkable powers; Annabel, who had been searching for illusions and magic all her life, did not even stop to question it.
“I was enthralled then and for ever,” she was to say. “I had fallen completely under the spell of this golden-eyed being, and I do not think I really wanted to be released.”
*
The road to the Fire Mountains was dark, but there was a soft spill of light from somewhere.
“Starlight,” said Fael-Inis. “A sad light.”
Annabel, child of a city, had never experienced such darkness. “There were always lights and there were always other people,” she said. “And the patrols were always marching, carrying their lanterns.” And then, “Will the patrols be out here?”
“I think so,” said Fael-Inis. “Yes, I think they will.” And gestured below them. “There are houses,” he said. “There are farms and cottages. Yes, the Drakon will be watchful.” Because the Drakon sees all, and because it must appear to see all … that is the Drakon’s strength.
Annabel thought that this dark sombre countryside was like another world. On each side, rearing up steeply, were the rough cliff faces. “The sides of the mountains,” said Fael-Inis. “The beginning of the Fire Country.”
Ahead of them lay the Fire Mountains themselves, purple-misted and dark and remote. Here and there were vivid threads of colour; orange and scarlet, like tiny far-off rivers of living fire pouring down the mountainside. But they vanished as you looked at them; they were like skeins of silk that caught the light and then disappeared. It was difficult to know if you had really seen them at all.
“You are seeing them,” said Fael-Inis. “They are the fires that burn deep below the mountains. Sometimes curls of fire escape and that is what you are seeing. There are rivers of fire and lakes of burning flames, all beneath the mountains.”
Annabel said, “Were they not once called the Mountains of Mourne?” and Fael-Inis said, “Yes. That is a corruption of an even older name, though. They were once known as the Mountains of the Morning, because of the light that sometimes shone from them. But it was not the light of the morning,” said Fael-Inis. “It was the fire that burns in the underground halls and in the deep caverns. It is the light and the fire of an old, old power and an old, old force that was ancient before even the world was spawned.” He was looking at the mountains now, his eyes bright. “But I am from the beginning of Time, Child, and you are from the other end of it. At the beginning these were called, and truly, the Fire Mountains and now, nearing the end, they are again called so.” He smiled, as the Time Chariot drew to a halt. “Shall we go on? The road is narrow, but if we stay close, we do not need to walk singly.”
And to do so might lose us sight of one another … Nobody said the words, but Taliesin and Annabel thought that nobody needed to, because everyone knew. Annabel was trying not to remember the whispered tales of a terrible entity that the Drakon had called up to guard the Doomsday Clock. The Guardians … Of course it would not be true. Taliesin was remembering that the Conablaiche had walked here, and might still do so. And Annabel had said something about a terrible creature, the Claw, of whom all went in fear.
And then Fael-Inis stopped abruptly and tilted his head, and said, “Listen,” and Taliesin and Annabel stopped, and Taliesin said, “I can’t hear …” and then stared and felt fear clutch his heart, for he had heard it as well now.
Hoofbeats. Somewhere quite near, but somewhere over their heads. The sound of horses being ridden hard across unseen plains and unseen skies.
“Is it — someone following us?” said Annabel uncertainly.
“It is the Four Horsemen,” said Fael-Inis and, glancing at Annabel, said softly, “The Heralds of the end of your world.” And then, as Annabel stared at him, her eyes huge, her face white and pinched, he said, very gently, “They are in your myths, Mortal,” and Annabel said in a whisper, “Yes. Yes, of course. The Four Horsemen. Plague, Famine, War, and Death. I had not realised … Then there is truly no escape. Only I had not thought it would be like this …” And stopped again, and thought that however she had visualised the end, she had not visualised it like this: unseen creatures riding into the world. It was suddenly very easy to imagine the Horsemen — and yes, they were in all the legends! — riding hard across the skies, seeking a way into the world …
Fael-Inis said, “They have tried to enter the world for countless ages, but always they have been unsuccessful.”
“Will they — find a way in now?”
“I have no way of knowing that.” He stood, looking up to the night sky, where great dark clouds scudded. “I hear them,” he said, half to himself. “I hear their hoofs pawing the ground, and their spurs clicking. They are searching for a chink between their world and this.”
“How long have we?” said Taliesin.
“I cannot tell. They are impatient and they are hungry. Their manes are being tossed by the evil winds of the Dark Ireland, and they are hungry for the world,” said Fael-Inis, and Annabel shivered, because surely if the world was to end, it should not be like this, helpless before some terrible entity that nobody could fight; it should be in a firework display of explosions and huge glorious battles, where people could ride helter-skelter into the fray. Death or glory … Had that ever really been said?
They moved on, more cautiously now, continually glancing back over their shoulders, trying as well to keep an eye on what might lie ahead.
“The Guardians,” said Annabel, her eyes fearful. “Terrible creatures called up by the Drakon. I never believed, not really. Only out here, I am not so sure.”
Fael-Inis turned to look at her, and after a moment said softly, “So your world makes use of those creatures, does it? How remarkable that I should come across them here.”
“Nobody believes in them,” said Annabel, “not really.”
“I believe,” said Fael-Inis. “Just because you have never seen a thing, does not mean it does not exist.”
Annabel said, “The Guardians —”
“Tell us,” said Taliesin.
“The brotherhood of sorcerers,” said Fael-Inis, the faraway expression still in his voice. “Necromancers, and evil enchantresses who will guard any object and kill and maim and devour to preserve that object. They are greedy and merciless and venal.” He looked to where the mountains lay ahead of them. “Beneath those mountains,” he said, “are the eternal fires, and the burning rivers, and the homes of the salamanders. It is not strange, Annabel, that your world should have been able to summon the Guardians to keep watch over the Doomsday Clock. Your world has almost lost the art of magic, but out here, in these mountains, the magic is still here. Can you not feel it?” he said, looking at her, and Annabel, staring at him, said softly, “Yes. Oh, yes.”
“If the Drakon called to the Guardians,” said Fael-Inis thoughtfully, “really called to them, they would certainly have answered.”
“Shall we meet them?”
“Yes,” said Fael-Inis. “Yes, I think we shall meet them.” And glanced at Taliesin. “Afraid, my friend?”
“Helpless with terror,” said Taliesin promptly. “Because if you are to offer me up to be a sorceress’s sacrifice, I will tell you that there are infinitely preferable fates —” And then stopped and said, “Listen,” and turned to stare back down the narrow road with the high rocky mountains on all sides, which made it impossible for anything to hide, but which also made it impossible to hide from anything.
Annabel said, “What is it?” and then heard it as well. Marching. Steel-tipped boots coming closer. The Drakon’s patrol coming up the narrow mountain road after them.
*
The patrols had always sounded like this; Annab
el had grown very used to them. There had been a word once — military. The patrols were military. They marched exactly in step, and you could hear their boots ringing out in the quiet night. They had cold greedy eyes and they did not hesitate to knock on doors where they thought there might be a law being transgressed. Annabel knew people who had hidden in wardrobes and cellars or who had stood outside on narrow window-ledges to escape. No one ever did escape, of course. The Drakon saw all.
There was nowhere to run to here, and yet they must certainly not be found and caught by the patrol. It was after Curfew — it was very nearly time for the Curfew to be lifted, in fact, and Annabel was out alone with two strange men. She would be taken up at once and thrown into the Cuirim, and there would be an end.
Except that it could not be allowed to happen.
Fael-Inis grasped Annabel’s right hand at exactly the same moment that Taliesin took the left. “Run!” he cried. “Forward! Now!” And seemed to spring forward, taking them with him.
The patrol heard them at once, of course; it quickened its speed, and there was the sound of orders being rapped out. “Faster! There are people ahead of us!” And there was suddenly a sense of urgency, because they must not be found, they must not be thrown into the Cuirim.
Annabel was hardly looking where they were going, she was conscious only of Fael-Inis pulling her forward, and of her hand strongly in Taliesin’s, and of the night wind stirring her hair. She thought she could not run very much faster, and she certainly could not run very much farther, because her lungs were beginning to rasp and there was a tight pain across her chest, and after all perhaps it would be better simply to give in and she might as well be inside the Cuirim as anywhere else if the world were to end …
And then Fael-Inis halted and seemed to sniff the air, and turned sharply into what looked like solid rock, and pulled them through into a narrow jutting entrance. The soft starlight was abruptly shut off, and they were inside the mountain.