by R. J. Grieve
“He fears that it has been defeated in his absence.”
Celedorn appeared to consider this. “We must leave tomorrow,” he said suddenly, then equally suddenly a little devil of mischief danced in his eyes. “Which is a pity,” he continued with mock solemnity, “because you and I will have to be more circumspect.”
“Circumspect?”
“Indeed, we must, after all, show consideration for the others when we travel in their company.”
“Show.......? Oh, I see!” she exclaimed, discovering his meaning. Her face promptly fell.
“These disappointed looks are very flattering to my vanity,” he remarked smoothly.
She suppressed a crow of laughter and said: “Did anyone ever tell you that you are a very aggravating man?”
“I believe someone did once, but I can’t immediately recall who it was.”
He had raised himself on his elbow as he spoke and promptly found himself pushed flat on his back again. She leaned over him.
“We still have tonight,” she suggested ingenuously.
“Not to mention this morning.”
“Shouldn’t we be getting up?”
He drew her face down and kissed her. “Not just yet.”
She looked down at him tenderly. “I was hoping you would say that.”
When they joined the others in the orchard, the morning was far advanced - although everyone was by far too polite to mention the lateness of the hour.
“Good morning, my children,” Relisar beamed at them. “Another fine day, is it not?”
Triana laughed. “Since you two got married he has become positively patriarchal. I have been reduced to infant status.”
Leaving Elorin to respond to that comment, Celedorn sat on the bench beside Andarion. “You are impatient to resume our journey,” he suggested.
Andarion smiled ruefully. “I thought I had concealed it so well. I do not want you or Elorin to feel that I am pressing you to leave.”
“Nonetheless, it is time we were going. Even today the sunshine has that mellow feel of approaching autumn and that tells me it is time we were at the Harnor. I was looking at some of the maps in Galendar’s study and it would seem that we are only about four weeks journey from the river. Our quickest route is to pass through the forest to the south-east of here and then skirt the ruined city of Korem. After that we should turn directly south for about a week and hopefully we should reach the Harnor at roughly the place where you had your brush with the Turog.
“Do you think they will still be there?”
“It’s impossible to tell. What I do know is that as we approach the Harnor we will be entering the most dangerous part of our journey and must proceed with the greatest caution. There is also the little problem of how we are to get across the Harnor - but we’ll deal with that when we come to it.”
In an attempt not to dwell on the depressing thoughts circulating in his head, Andarion said: “Perhaps if all goes well, you and Elorin could return here someday.”
“Perhaps, but I find it difficult to think so far ahead. I am trying to decide what to do once we cross the river into Eskendria. Obviously that depends to a large extent on what we find when we do so, but I am also quite aware that while we are in the Forsaken Lands we live in some sort of dream divorced from reality. Once we cross the river that all ends. Reality will have to be faced in whatever form it appears. Everything changes then.”
“Not everything,” the Prince disagreed somewhat obscurely.
Relisar, who had only been half listening to their conversation, suddenly interrupted. “Do you feel it too? A certain dreamlike quality about this place? The way the bell began to toll in the forest that day, just when we were in such desperate need of help, was little short of miraculous. There is something about this place, some quality in the air, in the light, which makes it like a lovely, peaceful dream from which one has no desire to awake. I could stay here happily studying the manuscripts in Master Galendar’s library for the rest of my life and forsake the outside world entirely. Yet there is something strange and mysterious as well. How is it that this place still exists a thousand years after the fall of the Old Kingdom? I know it is hidden from the Turog by a curtain of concealment but where do the young apprentices come from? Where does each successive generation of brothers come from? There are no towns or villages, indeed, no human beings at all nearby and they apparently have no contact with the Kingdom of Adamant. So how is it that the brotherhood is renewed, when the older brothers die, in what is clearly an exclusively male environment?”
“In one of my long conversations with Master Galendar when I was ill,” Celedorn said, “I asked him much the same thing and he gave me a rather enigmatic reply. He said that the monastery was being carefully preserved against time until its purpose had been fulfilled - whatever he meant by that.”
Relisar was intensely interested. “Then it is as I suspected. Do you realise what he was saying? These are not the successors to the original brothers who saw the fall of the Old Kingdom, these are those very same brothers, who have not aged a day in over a thousand years. Time does not exist within these portals. Everything remains exactly as it was until the reason for its preservation has been fulfilled.”
“And what is that reason?” asked the Prince.
“I....I am not certain, but it is perhaps an unexpected yet wonderful reason.”
The Prince looked at Celedorn. “That’s his way of saying that he knows but is not telling us.” He glanced at the old Sage who was staring raptly into thin air. “Relisar has left us,” he observed. “Come, cousin, we must inform Galendar of our plans.”
As they crossed the lawn towards the cloisters, Celedorn asked: “Do you think Relisar is right?”
“Hardly. There must be some logical explanation.”
His companion glanced shrewdly at him. “There is something else that troubles you. I would guess that King Orovin is not far from your thoughts.”
Andarion stopped dead and stared at him. “You are uncanny. How do you do it? You are, of course, absolutely right.”
“You are wondering, perhaps, how he would react if the Crown Prince of Eskendria stole his bride from under his nose.”
Andarion flushed a little. “Something like that.”
“He is like all weak men,” said Celedorn contemptuously, “he is vindictive. There would be little chance of help from that quarter against the Turog, and he might very well poison Kelendore against you as well.”
“Then it looks as if I shall not be as fortunate as you,” concluded the Prince gloomily.
His cousin gripped his shoulder. “I am resisting the temptation to repeat to you all the words of wisdom that you said to me, but I will content myself by paraphrasing Relisar, by saying that fate can take some strange twists and turns, so do not despair just yet.”
On the following day, as the time for their departure drew near, all the brothers began to assemble in the courtyard where the horses, already saddled, stood waiting. The companions were in Master Galendar’s study, taking their leave of him. He had already bestowed gifts upon them of food, maps and anything else that could conceivably be useful to them. Now he bestowed the only thing he had left to give - his blessing. He placed his hand gently on each head in turn, golden, dark and white and in the gracious words of the Book of Light, invoked the blessing for the protection of travellers. However when he came to Celedorn, he looked at him a long moment, saying nothing.
At last, in a distant voice, he said: “You possess a sword of the Old Kingdom, my son, withdraw it from its scabbard.”
Celedorn, a little mystified, obeyed the request. In the silent room the sword made a sharp metallic scrape as it came free from its housing and the light from the tiny windows flashed on the shining blade. The hilt rested in Celedorn’s hand as if it were an extension of him. Galendar leaned forward and touched the tips of his fingers to the three chalice flowers engraved below the hilt, then began to murmur some words in the old langu
age so softly that the others could not distinguish what he was saying. As he spoke, a strange sense of power began to fill the room, a feeling of warmth, and light, an exhilarating, liberating atmosphere, making them feel that nothing was impossible, that good in its own quiet way was stronger than evil, and light would prevail over darkness. It swept through each of them, making them draw in a sudden breath, then just as it seemed almost too wonderful to bear, it began to subside and gradually faded away until the room became again just a quiet, dusty study filled with books. Celedorn was so shaken by the experience, that it took all his will to prevent himself from sinking to his knees before the holy man.
“Your sword will protect them,” said Galendar. “That is what strength is for - to protect.”
Celedorn nodded, although he was not certain that he entirely understood, and sheathed his sword.
Galendar conducted them to the courtyard and watched them mount their horses. All the assembled brothers then followed them to the gate and stood watching them, their hands raised in farewell. Relisar noted that not one of the brothers set foot outside the gate.
When they gained the ridge where they had first seen the monastery, the companions halted to look back in a final gesture of farewell, but they suffered a shock. There was nothing in the valley below them but trees. The promontory where the monastery had stood was still there, but was empty of everything but grass and some small bushes. The Monastery of the White Brotherhood had gone.
“Is it the curtain of concealment?” whispered Triana.
“No, my dear,” said Relisar. “It has gone for ever. Its purpose has been fulfilled. Its reason for existence has gone.”
“Did we dream the whole thing?” Andarion asked in an awed voice. “Our experiences there, were they real?”
“They were real,” confirmed Celedorn, drawing aside the collar of his shirt to reveal the diamond-shaped scar on his shoulder. “Here is the proof. The monastery may have gone, but all that happened to us there was real.”
“I will now never be able to return here,” said Elorin regretfully.
“Preserve it in your memory, my dear,” said Relisar, “and it will always exist.”
Her gaze was distant across the valley. “For someone with no past, I am accumulating a great many memories.”
Chapter Thirty-one
The Demon of Darkness
For the next few weeks the golden, idyllic autumn days continued. Each morning dawned with the clarity of a diamond. Each day, leaves began to turn gold and copper, drifting gently one by one to the ground to accumulate like forgotten treasure. The nights grew colder, and for the first time in many weeks, warm cloaks were unpacked and were donned as the days began to shorten and the evenings grew chill. Yet for all the Prince’s urgency to reach the Harnor, two at least of the company were reluctant to leave the Forsaken Lands. Two rode side by side a little behind the others, absorbed in each other.
Celedorn told Elorin more of his life before he had met her, of the many things he had seen on his travels, of the austere beauty that Ravenshold had possessed before it was ravaged. He told her of his life with the brigands, of his search for the Great-turog, but he did not speak again of the fateful day so long ago which had changed the whole course of his life. She respected his reticence, knowing that it arose not from a desire to exclude her, but from the conviction that she understood how he felt without the necessity for words. So she allowed him to lead the conversation where he wished, content to listen to him and watch him, enjoying his perceptiveness, respecting his keen intelligence. Often he made her laugh by describing with wry humour something that had happened to him on his travels, and a little to her surprise, she discovered that he was not in the least averse to making fun of himself. With an increasing sense of contentment, as the mellow, fruitful days of autumn passed, she observed his bitterness recede like an ebbing tide and self-loathing shrink to vanishing-point. The desire for vengeance had not gone but it was no longer fuelled by a sense of failure. He began to accept, perhaps for the first time, that there was nothing that a mere boy could have done to have averted the tragedy, and the barb that had been planted in his heart that day by the Great-turog finally began to dissolve.
Out of consideration for the others, he and Elorin were not overtly demonstrative with each other but they hardly needed to be, for an aura of happiness surrounded them as warm and beautiful as the autumn sunshine.
The Prince, observing it, grew wistful. His own affairs, in contrast, seemed hopelessly entangled. Although King Orovin had proved to be a somewhat unsatisfactory neighbour, only he had an army large enough to provide real assistance to Eskendria in her impending struggle with the Turog. Yet he had played games with the Prince, conducting secret negotiations with Kelendore, sending him upon a fruitless mission. If the Prince’s object had been revenge, he could hardly have chosen a better weapon than to inflict the humiliation of depriving the King of his bride, but Andarion could not allow himself the luxury of such an emotion. Eskendria’s interests must at all times take precedence over his own. He looked ahead at Triana, riding beside Relisar, her golden hair shining in the sun and wondered if he had the resolution to let her go, to let her marry a man she did not care for. He had said nothing to her of his feelings but there had been no need. Somehow she knew. Her own dilemma was similar to his, for her father had arranged the marriage to cement the alliance with Serendar. The betrothal had been presented to Triana in the light of a duty owed to her country and she too was expected to sacrifice her own wishes in the interests of the greater good.
Then there was the thorny question of what he would do about Celedorn once they were again on Eskendrian soil. Even though administration of justice lay within his province, only the King, and the King alone, could pardon a capital crime and Andarion doubted that his father could be made to see the issue as he did.
In many ways the King was a fair man but tended to be a little cold and emotionless. His judgement would not be swayed by issues of friendship. The thought brought Andarion to the point to which his mind had often strayed since Celedorn had told his story. Was it possible that his father had abandoned his friend and his own sister out of fear for his personal safety? Celedorn was utterly convinced that it was so, but Andarion simply could not believe such a thing of his father. Yet somewhere buried deep in the darker corners of his mind was the forbidden thought that he did not really know his father. The Prince more closely resembled his mother in personality and was too different from his father ever to be really close to him. He knew his father considered him to be too much ruled by emotion and preferred his younger son’s coolly utilitarian approach. Even so, the Prince shied away from the idea that his father may have made a very pragmatic decision that bitter day, not out of cowardice, but out of practicality. An utterly cold, logical and callous decision not to lose more men in a futile rescue attempt. The image of his father refusing to risk men in an attempt to rescue Elorin from Ravenshold, kept recurring in his mind. To him, such coldness was almost worse than cowardice and less comprehensible.
If it had been any other man than Celedorn, Andarion would have felt that the attempt should at least be made to persuade his father to show mercy, but Celedorn was the most feared man in Eskendria. No ordinary criminal would have had an army despatched against him to winkle him out of his lair, and no ordinary criminal could have forced that army to return home, discomfited. Yet it was such an unpromising thought that planted the seed of an idea in Andarion’s mind. Whether that seed ever grew to fruition depended on what they found when they reached the Harnor. He had told Celedorn that things would not change when they crossed the river, meaning that their friendship would not alter, but in all other respects he knew that Celedorn was right, the Forsaken Lands lacked reality. The unpalatable truth was that their greatest test lay before them upon their return to the world of men.
The halcyon autumn days came to an end with great suddenness. Late one afternoon the sun disappeared behind a thin veil
of cloud that rapidly began to assume a sickly, greenish hue. The strange light painted every branch, every leaf, with a lurid, unnatural colour. The wind dropped as if shot by an arrow and it became still as death. They could hear each soft flutter, as leaves fell exhausted from the branch-tips. The trees trembled, holding their breath in suspense, as if awaiting a cataclysmic event. Even the cheerful birds fell silent, so that the only sounds to be heard were the hollow thuds of the horses’ hooves and the slight creak of saddles.
Celedorn lifted his face to the sky. “There is a storm coming,” he remarked to Andarion. “A bad one, too, by the looks of things.”
“Then we should leave these trees and seek shelter in a safer place,” replied the Prince. “I’ve been caught amongst trees during an electrical storm and it is not an experience I would care to repeat.”
“Indeed. It’s strange how trees seem to attract lightning. In southern Serendar, I once saw a man struck by lightning as he sheltered beneath a tree and there was hardly enough of him left to bury.”
“We should be near Korem by now, if the Master’s maps are accurate. It may be in ruins, but surely there must be at least some buildings intact enough to provide us with shelter.”
“A city that has been deserted for a thousand years may be difficult to find. It is surprising how quickly a forest can reclaim its territory and obliterate all traces of civilisation.”
A cold gust of air struck their faces like a spiteful blow. “Nevertheless,” said Andarion, “it’s the best I can think of at the moment. How much further do you estimate the city to be?”
“About a mile or so due south of here.” Celedorn looked with foreboding at the darkening sky. “The storm should probably hold off until nightfall. That should give us just about enough time.”
Andarion nodded and turned to the others. “We are going to make for Korem,” he informed them. “A storm is on its way and we need to find cover.”