The Crystal Chalice (Book 1)

by R. J. Grieve

  Thandian had a special gift for Elorin. “You expended your last arrow trying to shoot me,” he remarked with a rare smile. “So I give you these to replenish your quiver.”

  He handed her two dozen finely made arrows with silver-grey fletchings.

  Elorin was grateful but thought an apology was owed. “I didn’t know it was you in the willow tree,” she explained, “but I don’t suppose you were in any real danger.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Indeed? In that case it might interest you to know that your arrow missed me by a hair’s breadth. Corporeal form has its disadvantages.”

  He then turned to the rest of the company. “My brother and I will be your guides to the headwaters of the valley. We will leave just as it grows dark, so that your departure is less likely to be observed by any unfriendly eyes that might be watching. Beyond the headwaters, lie the maze of hills in which you lost your way. About a week’s journey will take you beyond them into the volcanic region, and to the far side of that, lies the Torst Range. Our knowledge ends there, and from that point you must trust to your own wisdom and courage to guide you home.”

  As the brothers led them along the labyrinth of passages, the Prince asked if he could say goodbye to Varinia.”

  “Our sister will say farewell to you, never fear,” Elro replied.

  They reached the foot of a spiral staircase and began to climb upwards into the darkness. After many steps, the staircase appeared to rise right into a stone ceiling. They halted, puzzled by what appeared to be a dead-end, but Elro reached up and manipulated something in the ceiling. It instantly began to slide back with a grinding, groaning sound. A sudden breath of scented night air rushed inwards and faintly above them the stars became visible.

  They emerged to find themselves in the little ruined shrine. The wild roses rustled conspiratorially in the night breeze and wept petals onto the ground with every breath, as if sad at their departure. The gap in the stone floor closed quietly behind them again and the valley was silent except for the sound of running water.

  As they looked, they saw Varinia standing by the deep pool where they had bathed. She seemed as ethereal as a ghost, lit by a shaft of moonlight descending between the trees, so bright that it turned the darkness beside it into deep blue.

  “Farewell, Children of Light,” she called softly.

  Celedorn instantly realised what her voice had reminded him of - it was the sound of water falling into a deep pool.

  As they watched, she raised her hand palm upwards and resting upon it was a tiny silver-winged butterfly. More and more silver butterflies appeared and danced and fluttered around her until she was surrounded by a shimmering cloud. Then all at once they realised that her human form was fading, gently dissipating until she had merged with the glittering cloud that danced and pirouetted in the moonlight. The butterflies danced ever lower until they settled on the surface of the rippling water and blended with it, so that all that was left were the sparkles cast by the moon.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  The Serpent’s Lair

  The foothills of the mountains did indeed become volcanic, as Varinia had described. The Hidden Valley began to seem like some kind of distant dream, as they struggled once more through a dry and arid landscape. Stunted pine trees grew here and there in patches, convoluted in their search for water but mostly the hills were bare and grey, their skeletal sides clothed in crumbling ash that rose in choking clouds when disturbed by even the lightest footstep. It coated their clothes and faces and got into eyes and between teeth. Occasionally they passed smoking vents exuding a strong smell of rotten eggs, and once, a small bubbling mud-pool plopped dismally in a little hollow. The only tiny stream they encountered was unpleasantly warm to the touch, flowing over rocks slicked with leprous, mottled lichens. Bearing in mind Varinia’s warning, they didn’t drink the waters and even resisted the temptation of using it to remove some of the dust from their faces. Yet as they climbed each bare hill, the range of mountains beyond drew nearer, looking healthy and cool, their steep sides clothed in a dense pine forest of deep, fresh green. The trees rose right up to the skyline where the jagged heights tore at the sky.

  After three days of heat and ash, they discovered that the volcanic hills came to an end as abruptly as they had begun. In the distance they could see a distinct boundary where the grey ash suddenly encountered the shade of the pine forest.

  The sight cheered them and they hurried forward, anxious to reach the coolness of the trees and escape from the heat and glare. They bowed their heads against the dust and trudged on. Andarion was a little ahead of the others, working his way up a dome of dusty, grey earth scattered with loose rocks, when suddenly he gave a cry and vanished. Elorin and Triana froze in astonishment for a moment, unable to take in what had happened, but Celedorn reacted instantly. He shed his pack and raced across the rubble-strewn earth to the place where the Prince had disappeared.

  A hole had opened in the ground from whence arose a shimmer of hot air and a faint reddish glow. A single human hand was desperately clutching the edge of the cavity, but there was nothing to hold on to and the clutching fingers were sliding inexorably towards the edge.

  Celedorn threw himself forward, just as the hand disappeared down the hole, and grabbed the Prince’s wrist in a vice-like grip. He could now see into the fissure and what he saw turned his blood cold. The Prince was dangling in space from the roof of what appeared to be a gigantic volcanic vent. Far, far below, glowing red in the evil darkness was a lake of fire, hissing and burning, sending wafts of hot air upwards towards the roof. Instantly sweat began to pour off both men, endangering Celedorn’s grip on the Prince’s wrist.

  “Give me your other hand!” Celedorn ordered, bracing his feet on either side of the fissure.

  The Prince looked up, his face contorted and shining with sweat.

  “You can’t pull me up, Celedorn. I’m nearly your weight - plus my pack. You can’t do it. I’ll only pull you in. Just let me go!”

  Celedorn’s teeth were clenched with the effort of holding the Prince, his face twisted with the strain.

  “Give me your other hand, damn you!” he snarled.

  “You can’t hold me! The sides of this hole could collapse at any moment! Just leave me!”

  Celedorn interrupted him with a choice expletive that graphically expressed his opinion of that.

  The Prince capitulated. “I’ll have to swing round.”

  “Hurry! My grip is slipping!”

  Andarion kicked his legs, circling wildly above the fiery gulf and managed to swing his left arm upwards. On the first attempt, their fingers touched, but the Prince swung away before a strong grasp could be established. On the second try, Celedorn caught his wrist and felt Andarion’s hand close on his own wrist in a tight lock. He then began to lean backwards, balancing both their weight on his feet braced on either side of the hole. Small stones began to be dislodged from the torn edges of the fissure and plunged down past the Prince into the burning abyss. A larger piece broke loose, forcing Celedorn to change his foothold.

  “It’s going to give way,” warned the Prince desperately, but found himself ignored.

  Elorin started forward to help, but Relisar restrained her. “No, Elorin, you would only distract him.”

  She watched helplessly as Celedorn took up the strain on his thigh and back muscles, forcing himself inch by inch to heave backwards, his face wracked with strain, the heat soaking his shirt with perspiration.

  Slowly, infinitely slowly, the Prince’s hands and arms came into view. Still Celedorn heaved, not relaxing the power he was exerting for a moment. Andarion’s head rose clear of the vent and he gasped the cooler air like a drowning man. With a final mighty effort that brought him down flat on his back, Celedorn hauled his companion clear of the vent. They both collapsed on the dusty grey earth their chests heaving for breath, the fine ash caked on them like a scaly second skin.

  Elorin whipped out a flask of water and ran to th
em. Celedorn could not yet speak but took the flask from her and poured it over his face.

  Andarion struggled free of his pack and rolled over with a groan, oblivious to the dust.

  Elorin was lavish with the water, pouring its coolness over hands and faces.

  “Use it all, Elorin,” Relisar advised. “We are near the end of this accursed region. Surely those mountains must hold streams.”

  He offered his own flask to Andarion with a hand that shook slightly. “Drink this, my dear boy. You gave us all quite a scare.”

  “The ground just gave way beneath me. I......there was nothing I could do. I thought that my last hour had come. I have no idea how I managed to get a temporary handhold until Celedorn came.” He rose shakily to his feet and crossed to his rescuer who was sitting on a rock with his head bowed.

  “You’re a stubborn man, Celedorn,” he accused. “I never thought that I’d be glad of that quality. I owe you my life.”

  Celedorn looked up briefly, then shook his head and would have turned away, but the Prince reached out and gripped his shoulder. Speaking so softly that only Celedorn could hear, he said: “Do not put up so many barriers against friendship.”

  Their eyes met in something very close to understanding. The Prince briefly tightened his grip before releasing him.

  “I feel as if I have been lightly cooked,” he remarked in a lighter tone.

  “Done to a crisp,” agreed Celedorn.

  Andarion laughed. “By the way, what exactly was it that you called me a short time ago?”

  A gleam of amusement crept into Celedorn’s eyes. “I forget,” he replied with aplomb.

  Elorin was surveying them both with her hands on her hips. “What you two need is a bath.”

  “She has a mania for hygiene,” Celedorn explained. “A bit of dust never hurt anyone.”

  But the normally immaculate Prince, begrimed from head to foot, was surveying himself with disgust and was inclined to agree with her.

  The pine trees were deliciously cool and shady after the acrid glare of the foothills. As they climbed higher, the air grew ever fresher and purer, scented with the evocatively pungent smell of crushed pine needles.

  The mountains reared their green-cloaked sides to the sky, the highest ridges here and there touched by wispy clouds, startlingly white against the azure sky. The ground was dry and springy with a brown layer of old needles, and as with most pine forests, there was little undergrowth to impede their progress. Eventually they came to a tiny freshet which tiptoed down some mossy stones set in a hollow beneath the pines. Its waters were clear and icy cold. Flasks were soon replenished and dust washed away.

  “I like it up here,” declared Triana to Elorin, peering down through the trees to the baked grey hills some distance below. “I have always loved pine trees. They are so clean and stately. In Kelendore there is a forest like this where my sisters and I used to play when we were children.” Her gentle smile of recollection began to fade a little. “I wonder if there are pine forests in Serendar?”

  “You are having second thoughts?” suggested Elorin.

  Triana shook her head vigorously. “No. There can be no second thoughts. I cannot disappoint my father or fail my country. It is my duty.”

  “Sometimes there are advantages to being a nobody.”

  “Elorin! That is not what I meant!”

  “I know that,” Elorin laughed. “I just think that I’d rather be poor and free to choose, than having someone chart out my life for me.”

  Unexpectedly, Triana found that amusing. “I couldn’t picture anyone dictating to you - not even Celedorn.”

  “That doesn’t stop him trying!”

  Relisar looked up when he heard their laughter. “I wonder what those two find so funny?”

  “It’s probably better not to know,” replied the Prince distractedly, his attention on other matters. “I wonder what our friend has seen?” he asked, directing Relisar’s attention to where Celedorn stood some distance away, his shoulder propped against a tree, his eyes intently scrutinising the mountainside to the east of them. He appeared interested in a patch of forest on the far side of a tree-filled fold in the mountain rendered a misty blue-green by distance. His expression was watchful, his eyes the colour of steel.

  Andarion rose and crossed to him. “Do you see something?”

  “I thought I did,” he replied without taking his gaze off the spot that interested him. “For a moment I thought I saw a flash like the sun glinting off metal - a helmet, perhaps, or possibly a shield.”

  The Prince stood silently beside him, concentrating his vision on the place indicated, but after several minutes, saw nothing.

  “We must find a pass through these mountains,” he remarked. “I had thought of turning east where the mountains seem lower but now that would not seem advisable. What do you say to heading a little to the west?”

  “Perhaps it was nothing, but the simple rule of the Forsaken Lands is that anything that moves means trouble.”

  “Upwards and westwards it must be - and no fire tonight by the looks of it.”

  “No,” Celedorn cast a last look across the mountainside. “They are out there somewhere - I can feel it. The question is, do they know we are here? We will have to move very cautiously, for the Turog are in their element in a forest. Their woodcraft is matched by few men. At least these tall pine trees make their favourite trick of dropping from the branches less likely, as the canopy is too high, but ambush is still their favourite tactic and we must be alert.”

  “Elorin is of the opinion that your woodcraft is at least as good as theirs.”

  “Long years of fighting them has left its mark.”

  “Is that why they fear you?”

  “No, they fear me because I never show them mercy. If they come within my reach, I slay them without compunction. If they die in battle, they die quickly. If they are captured, the death I meet out to them is not so pleasant.”

  “I heard you tear them apart,” remarked the Prince grimly. “You seem to deserve your reputation.”

  Celedorn’s eyes narrowed. “In that respect, yes. In others, well, let’s just say stories of that nature never lose anything in the telling.”

  Andarion smiled slightly: “Was that an excuse?”

  His companion’s mood changed with disconcerting swiftness. His straight brows drew together in a hard look. “I excuse nothing. I apologise for nothing. I am what I am for better or worse.”

  Andarion returned the fierce look unflinchingly. “My friend, you present me with a dilemma.”

  Celedorn did not pretend to misunderstand. “Not until we reach Eskendria. I think the Prince and the Brigand will cease to be friends then.”

  Andarion did not reply, but directed his gaze into the distance, his eyes troubled.

  The air was cool that night and for the first time in many days they were glad of their blankets. When it was Elorin’s turn to be on watch, she seated herself on a mossy log and stared out into the dark forest. She was aware that Celedorn was also awake. The figure wrapped in blankets at the foot of a large tree didn’t stir, but instinctively she knew he was not asleep - that like her, his eyes probed the darkness. Like her, his ears were attuned to the slightest sound out of the ordinary. Her instinct was soon proved correct. When a twig snapped in the stillness nearby, he was instantly at her side, his hand already on the hilt of his sword. They both stared wordlessly into the darkness, tensely awaiting another sound, then both suddenly relaxed together when a large badger lumbered past, snuffling and complaining.

  He did not return to his blankets but sat beside her on the fallen log, his shoulder touching hers, content to listen to the quietness of the night without feeling the need to talk. Yet for Celedorn the temptation to draw her against him was almost overwhelming. The intimacy of the darkness and the sense of companionship exacerbated his yearning for her, but he sat beside her resisting his emotions, hiding from her his inner torment, determined to bear his hurt
alone rather than see her turn away from him in disgust. When he finally returned to his bed on the pine needles, he dreamed of her. He dreamed she had turned to him in the soft darkness of the night and kissed him. He could feel her hand on his shoulder and the light pressure of her lips on his. He could hear her murmur softly: “It has always been you. Always.”

  When he awoke, the morning light was shining between the tree trunks, casting long, blue shadows on the ground. He reluctantly abandoned his dream to find that he was the last to arise, and had to endure some ribbing about his lazy habits. Still half under the influence of his dream, his eyes turned towards Elorin, but she was busy packing away her belongings, chatting animatedly to the Prince and didn’t so much as glance in his direction.

  They climbed ever higher that day, still bearing slightly west as Andarion had suggested. As the sun rose above the treetops, the floor of the forest became shady, cool and mysterious. The carpet of needles deadened their footfalls, preserving the quietude. The occasional calls of birds echoed between the tall trunks, giving reassurance by the fact that they were joyously undisturbed. The only disadvantage with their surroundings was that the trees were so dense that it was difficult to get their bearings. Occasionally a promontory of bare rock projected from the trees, offering a more extensive view of the mountainside. They emerged from the dim coolness into the brightness and warmth of the sun in order to ascertain their position.

  The grey foothills were now out of sight. They had crossed a fold of the mountains that gave a magnificent view into a steep valley below, along which a glittering river ran. The valley, too, was wooded but occasional open spaces allowed them to chart the river’s course. A path appeared to follow the river, ducking in and out of the trees. As they watched, a band of black forms emerged from the trees following the path. The Turog were travelling rapidly, jogging along in their usual untidy fashion. The companions were far above them, but Celedorn instantly signalled to them to keep low, away from the skyline. They all dropped to their knees, except Relisar who had been looking in the opposite direction, his hand shading his eyes from the sun.