by R. J. Grieve
The light had by that time disappeared, so Andarion described to her what they had seen.
“I’m glad I didn’t see it,” she said. “All this talk about ghosts gives me the shivers.”
A faint snore issued from the pile of blankets behind them.
“At least one of us seems unperturbed,” Celedorn remarked.
But the Prince, who had experience of travelling with Relisar, declared exasperatedly: “Relisar would not wake if you dropped a rock on him.”
“Let him sleep. Dawn will come soon enough now.”
Daybreak was a cool, grey affair. A bank of sea-mist obscured the horizon, blending the sea and sky into one. It sat like a feather quilt on the milky surface of the sea, mysterious and remote. The birds on the cliff awoke with their usual cackles and squawks and began to drift off the ledges, disappearing confidently into the mist. Celedorn stood staring out to sea, his grey eyes the same colour as the water and just as cool.
“The mist is moving towards us,” he informed the others, “and quite quickly too. I think we should try to find our way up the cliff before we are engulfed. Breakfast can wait till later.”
As they gathered up their belongings, he crossed to the far end of the bay, to the cliffs below the Palace and began to examine the rocks. When they joined him, he had obviously found something interesting because his gaze was fixed on the cliff at a point just above his head.
“Look,” he pointed upwards. “At some time in the distant past, steps have been cut into the living rock, probably to give the occupants of the palace access to the beach. The sea has eroded away the lower steps entirely but the upper ones appear to be still there - though much worn.”
“Do they go all the way up?” asked Relisar, leaning backwards to get a better view.
“I can’t see from here. I will go up first to make sure the way is open. Wait here until I signal to you.”
Andarion linked his hands and gave him a leg up onto the first accessible step. Slowly and rather precariously, he began to ascend the cliff face. The steps appeared to zigzag and were very narrow in parts, for they could see him flatten himself against the cliff face and proceed sideways for part of the way but he reached the top without mishap and disappeared.
When he didn’t immediately reappear, Andarion became impatient.
“Where is he?” he muttered.
“He will be checking the top of the cliff to see that no danger threatens before he lets us come up,” Elorin advised. Then reading Andarion’s thoughts, she added succinctly: “You will soon learn to value such skills.”
When Celedorn reappeared, he didn’t signal to them to follow but instead began to descend the stair. By the time he jumped down onto the sand beside them, the first tendrils of mist were drifting around them like fine, grey cobwebs.
“The top appears to be safe,” he declared, “but the path is difficult. It has almost worn away in places and requires much care. I came back down to help carry our belongings.” He turned to the Prince. “You and Relisar go first. I will bring up the rear with Elorin.”
While Elorin watched, he gave the others a leg up onto the step and watched as they began the slow ascent. Then he picked up his own pack and also Elorin’s.
“I will carry yours.”
She said nothing but continued to watch the others edge higher. When Celedorn turned to her, her face was as white as parchment. “I can’t do this, Celedorn,” she said with quiet desperation. “Ever since I fell from that bridge, I have nightmares about falling.” She looked up at the towering cliff. “There is no handrail, nothing between me and the sheer drop. I.....I can’t do this.”
“I know,” he said gently, “that’s why I came back down.” He took a length of rope from his pack and tied one end around her waist and the other around his own, leaving some slack in between. “This will keep you safe. You cannot fall while you are anchored to me.”
She groaned. “But I’ll just pull you down with me.”
“No you won’t. I’m much heavier than you. I promise, I will not let you fall.”
She stared at him in trepidation, her face still pale. He reached out and gently gripped her shoulders. “Look at me, Elorin,” he commanded. When she obeyed, he said with utter conviction. “I swear to you by all that is holy, that I will not let you fall. You must trust me.”
The determination that she saw in those grey eyes reassured her more than any words and she allowed him to boost her up onto the first step.
For Elorin the passage up the cliff face was a living nightmare. Afterwards, she remembered only Celedorn’s voice telling her not to look down and his hand against her back pressing her towards the rock face as they inched along. The mist assisted her by cutting off her view of the gulf below. It swirled around them in thickening drifts, until Relisar and Andarion above them were lost to view and all that could be seen was the next few feet of rock. Their arrival at the top came unexpectedly. The cliff wall gave way to open air with such suddenness, that she was almost unbalanced. The Prince, anxiously awaiting their arrival, reached out and grabbed her hand. She untied the rope from her waist and sank down near Relisar, trembling in every limb, while Andarion relieved Celedorn of his packs.
“Any activity?” Celedorn asked.
“None,” replied the Prince. “It’s as quiet as the grave.”
The mist indeed seemed to deaden all sound. The sea was as distant as an old memory. The birds were silent. Not a sigh of wind disturbed the quiet grey veil that enveloped them.
“Where’s Relisar?” Elorin asked suddenly.
The Prince looked round, unavailingly trying to distinguish the grey robe in the grey mist. “The old fool!” he exclaimed. “I know where he is. He’s gone off to explore the ruins.”
Celedorn came off with an expletive that for once Andarion agreed with. They gathered up their things and cautiously made their way through the ghostly tendrils towards Kerrian-tohr. As they approached it, the mist swirled apart for a moment and gave them a glimpse of the ruins. A tall unbroken archway stood before them. Its gates were long gone, but the delicate carvings on the grey stone were still intact, apart from a fine, silver crusting of sea-lichen. On either side of it stood tall, slender, cylindrical towers, much embellished with flying buttresses supported on the backs of writhing stone dragons. Window embrasures stared blankly down at them, hinting at hidden depths within. Sea pinks and campion made neat green cushions on the stones and the ragged tops of the towers were splashed white by nesting seabirds. Its air of ruined antiquity was vaguely undermined by a certain atmosphere of brooding watchfulness, a sense of dormancy rather than death.
Without a word being spoken, Celedorn and Andarion hid the packs behind some bushes and drew their swords. Silently, side by side, they stepped beneath the archway, followed by Elorin, her bow at the ready. They entered what had once been a vast and imposing hall. Bare ribs of vaulted stone rose emptily into the sky, wreathed in garlands of mist, the roof they had been designed to support gone without trace. At the far end, in the wall facing out to sea, was a huge window shaped like a many-pointed star. Its delicate tracery of embellished stone stood empty of glass, allowing the drifting vapour phantoms to trespass into the hall. The flagged floor, once polished and smooth, was cracked and pitted by rainwater. Weeds, limp and grey, grew dismally in every crevice. Here and there, water had pooled to coldly mirror the ribs of stone. Along each side of the hall a row of mighty pillars stood like sentries on guard, around which serpents twined and curled, their scales picked out with lifelike detail, their fangs bared in frozen menace. Behind the line of pillars many smaller arches gave access to side rooms and corridors, dark and uninviting. The only sounds in the deathly silence were the echoing plop of water dripping into a pool and the soft fall of the intruders’ footsteps.
Relisar suddenly appeared through a side door, causing both of the younger men to whirl round, their swords levelled aggressively.
Apparently unaware of his transgression,
he signalled excitedly to them to follow him.
“Come. You must see what I have found.”
Celedorn was about to deliver one of his scathing denunciations but Andarion beat him to it, and began to berate the errant Sage. His diatribe was cut short by Celedorn.
“Keep your voice down,” Celedorn hissed. “We have not yet established that this place is empty. And as for you,” he said, turning to Relisar. “I agree with every word Andarion has said, except that he put it in a more restrained manner than I would. If you have no sense yourself, at least try to listen to those who have.”
“I know, I know. I’m sorry I got a little carried away, but think of it, this place has not been seen in hundreds of years. The temptation was just too much. You must come and see what I have discovered.”
The Prince looked at Celedorn and shrugged. “You’re wasting your breath,” he murmured.
They followed the old man through a side arch into another chamber. In the centre was a long table made of grey stone. Around it were about a dozen high-backed chairs, also made of stone and seated on the chairs were life-size figures of lords and ladies, made of clear, transparent glass. The courtiers, dressed in flowing glass robes, sat like ice sculptures, frozen in an instant as they sat around the banqueting table. Some were leaning back in their chairs, others stretched forwards across the table, as if reaching for some delicacy. Two bearded lords sat with their heads inclined towards one another, obviously deeply absorbed in serious conversation. At the head of the table sat a tall woman in flowing robes, wearing a pointed crown upon her head. Her sightless eyes were turned towards the door through which they had just entered. One long glass hand was raised palm-outwards, as if to fend off some danger.
“What is this?” whispered Elorin.
Some strange trick of the acoustics took up her words and echoed them around the stone walls in a snake-like hiss.
What is this? What is this? ...is this?
When the echoes subsided, Relisar replied: “It is a legend that turns out to be true.” He pointed to the woman at the head of the table. “This, if I mistake it not, is Queen Sariel, the wife of Mendorl, tenth king of the second dynasty. He built this palace for her, so besotted was he, but her subjects called her the witch queen, for she came of the northern clan of Parth whose lands bordered the frozen wastes of the Destroyer. These dragons on the walls are the symbol of the clan. Powerful, they were, but dark and wayward, their loyalty to the crown always suspect. The clan of Parth did not send those with the gifts of the spirit to be trained by the masters of the three Orders, but trained them themselves in secret, in arts older than time and best forgotten. Sariel had much dark power and could bend many things to her will, but she was no traitor and loved her husband. She tried, in her folly, to protect his kingdom using the ancient arts she had learned. In arrogance she pitted her will against the Destroyer. But her powers did not come from the Father of Light and were too close to those employed by the Master of Darkness himself to succeed against him. Ultimately they destroyed her.
When the creatures of evil stirred in the north and began to move against the kingdom, Sariel called forth a wall of glass along the border, tall and broad, strong and unbreakable. The Turog could not breach it. But she deluded herself, for the Destroyer was stronger than she, and no sooner was the wall complete, than he exerted the power of his mind against it. Great cracks began to appear, shooting and splitting in all direction. Piece by piece huge shards of glass exploded off the wall.
The Queen, knowing nothing of this, invited her friends to the palace to celebrate her victory but in the midst of the feasting, a shard of glass thrown southwards by the Master of Darkness, the Destroyer himself, burst through the star window and became embedded in her hand. The wound hardened and before her eyes, her hand began to turn to glass, slowly inch by inch it crept over her, changing, enveloping and entombing her. The same fate befell everyone who sat with her at the table that day, all those who celebrated her victory.”
They all stared at the statues, mesmerised by the story. Finally Elorin asked: “What happened to the King?”
“The King was not present that day and was thus spared, but his house failed, for he died childless and a new dynasty began. Kerrian-tohr was abandoned, never to be used again.”
At that moment a slight movement at the door to a side chamber caught Celedorn’s eye. He signalled to Relisar to keep on talking and unobtrusively slipped off behind some pillars. Elorin fingered her bow nervously and kept casting sidelong glances in the direction in which Celedorn had gone, unsure of what he had seen. Suddenly, Celedorn sprang into view and grabbed something that had been hiding behind the archway. There was the sound of a scuffle and a sharp cry of pain and he dragged a small figure, dressed in grey breeches and a hooded jacket, into view. He had the figure’s arm twisted up its back and as he dragged it forward, it uttered another cry of agony.
In the struggle, the hood fell back, revealing curling, golden hair tumbled loose about a small, frightened face.
“It’s a girl!” exclaimed Andarion in disbelief.
Chapter Twenty-two
The Glass Queen
The girl began to struggle again but the only effect it had on Celedorn was to cause him to tighten his grip.
“Oh! You’re hurting me!” she cried.
The Prince stepped forward. “Let her go!” he commanded.
Celedorn’s eyes narrowed at the tone and noticeably he did not obey.
“We don’t know who she is, or what she’s doing here,” he said coldly. “Do not be deceived by a pretty face.”
The girl gave another cry of pain and tears began to roll down her face. The Prince, looking as black as a thundercloud, reached for his sword, but in one lightning movement, Celedorn changed his grip on the girl, grasping her with his left hand and drew his sword with his right. The Prince, with his sword only half out of its scabbard, was astonished to find the point of Celedorn’s blade before his face.
“Do not give orders to me, Princeling,” said Celedorn softly, but with a menacing edge to his voice. “I take orders from no man, least of all you.”
But Andarion was not intimidated and folded his arms defiantly. “I thought our truce would not last long, Brigand.”
They stared tensely at each other for a moment, before Elorin intervened. “I don’t think she’s dangerous, Celedorn. I mean, she’s tiny, not even as tall as my shoulder and she’s clearly terrified. Give her to me.”
Celedorn released the girl and with a final warning glance at the Prince, re-sheathed his sword.
“Those two will come to blows sooner or later,” muttered Relisar to no one in particular.
Elorin led the girl towards a fallen block of masonry and sat her down on it. She was indeed tiny but daintily made, with a small waist and delicate features.
“Don’t be frightened,” Elorin said, smiling at her reassuringly. “We won’t hurt you. Just tell us who you are and how you come to be here.”
The girl had stopped crying and was looking at Elorin uncertainly, gently rubbing her bruised arm. Andarion crossed to them and sitting on his heels beside her, looked up with his disarming smile. “Indeed, Elorin speaks truly. You have nothing to fear from us.”
A wavering smile was his reward. “I......my name is Triana and I am the youngest daughter of the Lord Protector of Kelendore. I was on my way to Serendar to formalise my betrothal to King Orovin, when the storm struck my ship. I was washed up on the beach below. As far as I know, I was the only survivor. I’ve been living here for the past few days and in all that time I have not seen a solitary living soul. I heard you arrive and hid in the side-chamber in case you were Turog.” She looked nervously at Celedorn. “Until he dragged me out.” She halted and stammered. “If I may ask, who are all of you?”
When Andarion had introduced everyone, she stared at him round-eyed with astonishment.
“You are Prince Andarion?” she asked incredulously. “You are the Crown Prince of
Eskendria?”
Andarion laughed, unoffended. “I can understand why you find that hard to believe. I too was washed up in the storm, but had the good fortune to reach Sirkris. However, all the ships were destroyed and as Sirkris is now besieged by the Turog, the only way to reach home is across the Forsaken Lands. That is how we come to be at Kerrian-tohr.”
“What is Kerrian-tohr, Your Highness?”
“The name of this place - and please, formality is out of place here. I am merely ‘Andarion’ in these lands, just a man trying to survive - as someone keeps reminding me.” He shot a dagger glance at Celedorn, who merely grinned annoyingly.
“How did you survive all this time?” Relisar asked. “There is no food here.” He looked vaguely around the dusty hall.
“Many things from my ship washed up on the beach, including one of my trunks, and more importantly, a cask of raisins. I’ve been living on those and rainwater. You have no idea how frightened I have been. This place is bad enough during the day, but at night it is simply terrifying. Sometimes I think that those glass statues are alive and are watching me. I haven’t dared to go near them until today.”
“Obviously a lantern washed up as well,” commented Celedorn, his mind on a different issue.
“A lantern? No.”
“A candle then?”
“I have no means of providing light. I have not even dared to light a fire.”
Celedorn’s dark brows drew together. “Come now, surely you carried a lantern along the battlements just before dawn today.”
She shook her head and looked anxiously at Andarion for support.
“Then what did we see?” Celedorn asked.
“I tell you this place is haunted,” Triana said vehemently. “When night falls, I go into the small side-chamber where you found me and hide under my blankets until morning. I have heard groans and cracking sounds, laughter and glass breaking, all coming from this room. If there had been any other shelter, I would not have stayed here. If I had known where I was or where to go to get help, I would not have remained here one single night.” She turned desperately to Andarion. “Wherever you are going, you must take me with you. Even deep into the Forsaken Lands sounds pleasant after this place. Please,” she begged, “I cannot stay another night here.”