Estarinel nodded grimly, released himself from Skarred’s grip, and bade him good night. As they reached the doors to the cramped, dim rooms, Estarinel paused and looked round at Medrian.
‘I feel lost,’ he said wearily. ‘What are we doing here? Thousands of miles from anywhere we know, and further than ever from even starting the Quest. Is this what the Worm can do?’ Medrian turned the frozen grey-and-black shadows of her eyes upon him, and he knew immediately that their tenuous contact on the White Plane was lost. There seemed to be a sighing waste of ice between them, and fear clawed at his throat – fear of her.
‘Good night,’ was all she said.
#
She waited, as still as an icon, until the Forluinishman had gone tiredly into his room. Then she went to Ashurek’s door and entered without knocking. A lamp filled the chamber with an acid, lemony light. Ashurek, who had been peering out of the small window, looked sharply round at her.
‘Did you see what was in the mirror?’ she asked. The tone of her voice was cold, metallic.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Mel Skara’s mirror – reflected in the mercury.’ Ashurek’s icy green eyes met her blank ones.
‘Have you come in here to speak riddles?’ he asked harshly.
‘Just to say – you are wrong.’
‘About what?’
‘About this – this journey,’ she gasped, and he realised with what difficulty she was finding her words, as if something struggled to silence her. Her face was sallow with hidden pain, but he only felt angered.
‘Are you saying we should not have come with Skord?’ She nodded. ‘But tomorrow we go north to find a ship. It’s the only thing we can do now, isn’t it?’
‘It’s too late,’ Medrian answered.
‘Why?’
‘Because of the mirror.’
‘What did you see?’ he demanded, impatient.
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Convenient. Do you know something, or is this just a feeling?’ She was silent, and suddenly there was a presence between them; she was the Alaakian rebel, and he the Gorethrian oppressor. Fury and bitterness shook Ashurek, and Medrian felt an old malevolence awake and focus upon them. Anger flamed white in her face, but was gone in a second.
‘The Serpent can muster more hate for my race than Gorethria ever could,’ she said quietly. ‘But it’s all gone now, it doesn’t matter.’
‘Go. Just go, Medrian,’ Ashurek whispered, his hand straying involuntarily to his sword hilt. She turned slowly to the door.
‘I’m sorry you wouldn’t listen – sorry I could tell you nothing worth heeding anyway.’ she said, her voice as quiet and sinister as a distant iron bell.
#
Morning was again pale with a light drizzle that darkened the paving stones before them as they rode. The peasants fell back in their wake as they had the day before, staring, whispering, coming from their houses to the litter-strewn streets to watch the travellers leaving. Skord had hardly said a word that morning, but the look in his cold, foxy eyes turned often to burning anger when he looked at the Gorethrian; an awful look of hatred that did not appear to disconcert Ashurek.
As they rode, Skord in his finery at the front, the other three a little further back, talking quietly, a girl ran out from an alley and threw herself at Skord’s mare. Skord pulled his mount to a halt. The girl was shouting, barely coherently.
‘…take my respect and treat me like filth… witch’s bastard… you’d betray me for my just revenge… curse be on you as the curse She laid on me for you! I spit on your damned soul!’
The girl’s face, framed by tangled, flying dark hair, was sweat-streaked and crusted with sores. She clutched at Skord’s stirrup with emaciated hands. Skord looked away and dug his heels into his fretting mare’s sides. The crowd of peasants did nothing as the mare, mouth foaming, started forward skittishly. The girl seized Skord’s leg and began tugging at his cloak.
‘What revenge is there for me… oh, may your fall from Her favour be hard and terrible…’
Skord spurred his mare to a canter, but the girl still clung to him, and, losing her footing, was dragged along. Then there was a ring of metal as Skord drew his sword and dealt the girl a crunching blow on the head with the pommel. She fell, outstretching white, claw-like hands to tear at the boy’s robes as she collapsed to the flagstones. And Skord, in a clatter of hooves, was gone.
Ashurek sent Vixata into a gallop after the boy. Skord’s mare seemed to have wings and, as they reached the edge of the town, he disappeared as if by sorcery. Ashurek cursed and turned his blowing mare back into Beldaega-Hal.
None of the peasants drew near to the little white heap that was the girl. Estarinel dismounted and lifted her weightless frame. Her head fell backwards, disclosing the lifeless, contorted face and staring eyes. Despair stirred in him, as he was suddenly and terribly reminded of Sinmiel, dying in Falin’s arms.
‘She is dead,’ said Estarinel. He still held her up, looking round the faces of the townsfolk. A woman came towards him, weeping.
‘Give her to me,’ she said shortly. Once with the girl’s thin corpse in her arms, she vanished into the crowd; and within a few minutes they too had dispersed and withdrawn miserably into their own houses and dark alleys. The three travellers stood alone with the ugly red walls rising around them, rain pattering onto the pale flags from clouds through which the sun no longer shone.
Ashurek leaned forward and stroked Vixata’s golden neck.
‘The three of us alone again,’ he said. ‘The miscreant Skord has vanished. Do we interrogate the townsfolk, or continue on our original journey?’
They rode on at a walk. ‘What if Skord wreaks some kind of revenge on them?’ Estarinel asked. ‘We must try to help somehow.’
‘No, we must go on,’ said Medrian. ‘The Serpent comes before all else.’
‘I’ve never met anyone like you!’ Estarinel exclaimed. ‘How can you be unmoved by events in this town? How can you watch murder and not turn a hair?’
‘But she is right,’ Ashurek answered. ‘To stay here, fishing for an obscure and shallow source of evil, would be useless. The Worm is the root of this, and we must forge straight on to destroy it. Have you forgotten why you came?’
‘Oh gods, no,’ he whispered.
‘Neither have I. I want Silvren back; I want M’gulfn to perish, and the demons; and if the world is turned upside down and Gorethria destroyed also, so be it.’ The single-minded, obsessive purpose shone in his eyes and voice, and Estarinel knew that this man would destroy the world if it meant the Serpent’s death. He shuddered, emptiness tearing at his stomach.
‘I don’t want revenge,’ he said softly. ‘I just want my country back.’
‘That may be the same thing as revenge, in the end.’ Medrian sounded strange and distant. ‘But perhaps setting out to end your own pain by ending your own life is selfish… still, what does the motive matter?’
‘The motive is everything,’ said Ashurek, staring harshly at her. ‘Perhaps Estarinel’s is right and mine is wrong – but at least both are known. What of you? If you want to kill yourself, Medrian, there are quicker ways, if not surer ones.’
She half-opened her mouth as if to retort, but no sound emerged. Instead she became so pale, her expression so bleak, that Estarinel thought she was going to pass out. He felt angered by Ashurek’s harsh words and distressed by Medrian’s reaction. He wanted to shake both of them out of their unexplained hostility and coldness but realised, unhappily, that nothing he said was likely to help.
Briefly he remembered how, on the morning of the Serpent, he had related to Falin his dream of a woman with a pale face and dark hair. Had he had a premonition of meeting Medrian? If there was such a thing as precognition, why should he have dreamt of her, and not of the Serpent itself?
Medrian urged her black beast into a jog ahead of the others, forcing them to follow or lose her in the twisting streets.
‘Oh, only let us find a doo
rway to H’tebhmella,’ she said, as if there might be one around the next corner.
At that moment there was a sound of running footsteps behind them, and a voice shouting, ‘Wait! Wait!’
It was the inn’s landlord, Skarred. They halted and turned in their saddles to watch him come gasping and red-faced to a stop. ‘I wanted to give you all a warning.’ He recovered his breath. ‘I’ve just heard about the girl’s death, her mother told me. You three seem innocent of what is happening here, so I felt I must explain. The girl, rest her soul, was Skord’s betrothed – yes, well may you look surprised. Under the guidance of She To Whom We Pay Tribute, he played on her love and used her most cruelly; but she was no fool. When she realised that Skord was in Her pay, she rebelled openly and rejected him; so he had her struck with the plague.’ Tears squeezed from the landlord’s eyes, and a great sob wracked his body. ‘That plague will come to us all in the end, all who still have some pride left.’
‘Skarred, what has happened to Belhadra?’ Ashurek asked.
‘I don’t think I can remember, only vaguely… there were no soldiers… just messengers, such as Skord, saying they had come from the Glass City. The Glass City is only a fairy story, anyway. No one’s ever been able to find it. Still, they said they had been sent by the Sorceress there, to tell us that she had come to rule and protect our country, and we were to pay her tribute in return… or die.’ Skarred laughed. ‘Yes, it sounded mad, but the plague and brain-sickness the messengers brought was real enough. Men of power and their soldiers laid down their arms, became witless, disappeared or died.’
‘But what was the tribute she wanted?’
‘Just our minds, I think,’ Skarred said chillingly. ‘And she has them. All sense of time has been lost; purpose, everything. We will all die of this apathy. Tomorrow I will have forgotten all I tell you today. Tomorrow the plague may come upon me. It doesn’t matter. But Skord – he hates Her as much as the rest of us. He was no victim of Her slow brainwashing, was never threatened with the plague that comes to all who defy Her. He has some vile bargain with her from which he must long to be free.’ He looked at them, as if struggling with a puzzle he would never solve.
‘Have you ever seen Her?’ Estarinel asked.
‘Seen Her?’ Skarred answered strangely. ‘Her mirrors are everywhere. It is no longer possible to tell reflection from reality; is this town an ill reflection of a fair city, or is the truth far fouler? Does my real self still exist apart from this poor mirror-image? You see, one glimpse of Her looking glass destroys all sense of perspective. Somewhere, perhaps, Belhadra exists as it used to be; we live in a reflection. Oh gods, what am I talking about?’ The landlord shook his head, and his eyes cleared. ‘Look, this is what I meant to tell you. I can see why Skord picked on you three – you are spirited, and dangerous. If he can deliver you to Her, he will be well rewarded. Or perhaps he hopes to play you and Her against each other, hoping both sides will be destroyed.’
‘You obviously know the lad well, but you do not know us,’ Ashurek said. ‘We are going our own way, not Skord’s.’
‘But he must have made you look in the mirror, in Mel Skara’s shop?’
‘I can’t remember,’ said Estarinel, frowning.
‘No, you wouldn’t. So you see, you are in Her power already; you can only go straight to Her.’ There was a strained, cold silence as they all stared at the landlord.
‘My curiosity is thoroughly roused,’ Ashurek said, an unfathomable gleam in his eye. ‘Let us ride on, and see what awaits us.’
‘Perhaps we can find some way to help you,’ Estarinel added uncertainly.
Medrian exclaimed, ‘You’re wrong! Something awaits us that is better avoided. Darkness is there – I can see no escape.’
‘So it has been for me, many times. So it is still,’ Ashurek said more gently than before. He looked searchingly at her as if to discover the truth of her enigmatic words. ‘The question is, have you the courage to endure it?’
‘Yes. If it must be faced, it must,’ she said, looking down at her horse’s neck. ‘Come on, let’s waste no more time.'
They bade goodbye to the landlord who soon stood alone in the greyness of ever-falling rain. Presently Skarred heard a distant cry: Ashurek’s voice. ‘Ho, Skarred – we ride to your salvation, straight into the unknown!’
Estarinel watched Ashurek shouting with exuberance on a leaping, plunging Vixata, and realised that the expression in his eyes was not unfathomable after all. It was a dangerous eagerness, and in that moment he glimpsed a key to all Gorethrians’ eccentric and destructive behaviour. They enjoyed trouble.
#
For seven days they rode north. What Skarred had said of Mel Skara’s mirror seemed to be true; it was a complex hypnotic device that was drawing them, irretrievably, to a certain point in the world. Their maps seemed to make no sense, and their horses were unusually spiritless as they plodded the unseen pathway.
For the first three days they passed through undulating farmlands, networks of hedges criss-crossing greenish fields, with narrow, crumbling paved roads running this way and that between them. There were villages here and there, some deserted. The travellers kept clear of them, camping in fields and hedgerows, living on their own provisions and on small game or crops pilfered from fields and orchards. Sometimes people saw them, but seemed afraid to stop them.
In one village, however, the inhabitants did not seem afraid to state their opinion of Her. They came upon the villagers digging a mass grave for victims of the plague. As they rode past, even at a distance, they saw a man spit and heard him say, ‘That for She who took my children and my wife!’ There were feverish sores on his own face.
Gradually, farmland gave way to forest; twisted trees with dark foliage, growing thick and choked with undergrowth. These steamy forests were hilly, with thin paths that were treacherous with loose shale. And they were full of precipitous drops concealed by undergrowth or overhung by crumbling ledges; sudden deep bogs; dead ends that meant hours of retracing steps over untrustworthy ground.
On the sixth night, as they slept in a forest hollow, Ashurek saw a vision, and was sure it was more than a dream. He was not in the forest, but in a tiny chamber, all its walls shrouded in grey velvet curtains. A dusky glow highlighted the honey-gold hair of Silvren. She sat facing him, cross-legged. She was dressed in a milky-pale garment, and she was smiling, yet she seemed unutterably distant.
‘I wanted to tell you something I noticed about the Dark Regions,’ she said cheerfully. ‘It’s not black at all – it’s blue. Did you ever notice that? Blue – navy blue, indigo, blue like bruised skin or like the egg of a small bird, washed by the rain and left to rot in a deserted nest…’ She almost seemed to be singing a spell. He felt sure she would not hear him if he spoke.
‘I also wanted to tell you that I’m trying to watch over you. You are diving into darkness. I feel it, even from here… it’s not so bad, now pain has become a monotone dream. But I wish I could see what you are doing! And Ashurek… I wish you would remember why. It’s for the world’s sake that the Worm must die, not so that you can have vengeance on all that has hurt you.’
The bitter truth of her rebuke impaled him, like a needle of pure gold turning in his heart. ‘Well, there is my useless warning,’ Silvren said. ‘And oh, damn her, she was my friend!’
Like a faint light being extinguished, she was gone. Trees surrounded Ashurek, emanating heavy malice. He had not been asleep, and Silvren had been there, in shades of gold and pearl, although what she had said was dream-like, if not incomprehensible. She had been there, and now she was gone.
At dawn they were glad to be out of the close, silent forest and onto a plain of wiry grass. After resting the horses they took off at full gallop; dwarfed by the vast dome of tattered clouds above them, borne on a dry gale that swept them away to the north. They had still seen no sign of Skord.
Later that day, still on the grasslands, they came in sight of strange ice-white hills.<
br />
They rode, single file, into a pass between white cliffs that rose suddenly out of the plain. The path between the faces of glassy quartz was uneven and slippery and they had to dismount and lead the horses. At last the pass opened out into a wider terrain of crystal hills rising in steps and ledges to oddly shaped peaks.
Little glistening streams bubbled over rock here and there, running together to form small rivers and then wider ones. They must have climbed and trekked about ten miles over the hills of crystalline rock, following an ever-widening river, when they came to the peak of a final, high ridge. Below them a sudden valley fell away – falling, falling into grey depths. There lay below their feet an abyss miles across, filled with the thunder and vapour of many plunging waterfalls. It seemed bottomless, but they could see the far rim of the chasm on the horizon. Shafts of late sunlight caught the water, turning it to spirals of golden glass, glinting on white peaks of quartz, illuminating the banks of vapour to translucent silver-blue. Ahead lay many more such valleys, separated by hills that were like great crystals clustered together.
On horseback again, they began to edge slowly along the ridge, eyes fixed on the depths where water like molten diamond leapt on downwards from ledge to ledge.
Medrian trotted on in front, hair and cloak streaming, to a viewpoint some yards ahead. They were now riding across a shallow dip patterned with rock pools, surrounded by a jagged, sunlit ridge. They saw her silhouetted against a golden sky as she turned her nameless horse and sent him trotting and slithering along the glassy ridge back towards them.
‘Retreat!’ she shouted. ‘Make haste. There’s a mass of… warriors of some kind down there. Better not to wait and see if they’re friendly.’
‘We’ll wait on the far ridge,’ Ashurek said as they rode back. ‘Then they’ll have to get below us to get at us, and we’ll have the advantage.’
As they waited – three mounted figures gilded by the sun’s last rays – Estarinel thought that perhaps if they approached the swordsmen peacefully, they’d be allowed to pass without harm. When the warriors actually appeared, it was obvious the three companions would be pitched into battle. The swordsmen flowed over the ridge and across the dip, and more came from behind, streaming around from both sides until Medrian, Estarinel and Ashurek were surrounded.
A Blackbird In Silver (Book 1) Page 17