by Damien Black
Night’s terror haunts your waking days!
So take the eastward road in need,
Seek the sanctuary of your creed,
The warrior prophet’s blood was shed
That mortal man might thrive instead!
This is our counsel: heed it well!
To stop the yawning gates of hell,
A crooked path you now must tread:
Gloom gathers on the road ahead.
So keep your wits about you all,
Many are the Fallen One’s thralls,
And though trees may offer refuge,
Yet others conceal subterfuge...
While the disembodied voices were chanting through the final four stanzas, the light suffusing the faerie kings had grown to an almost blinding radiance, until it seemed to Adelko that they were actually made of it. Gazing on their lucent forms, now stretched to unnatural proportions like a corpse on a rack, the novice felt a queer chill pass through him. It fell short of the sheer horror he’d felt at times since his adventures began, yet he had no doubt that he was in the presence of something altogether alien, only now revealing its true form.
The lambent figures pointed at them with spidery fingers; their features were similarly distended and no longer looked beautiful. Nor did they even look ghastly: they simply defied mortal description. Their eyes were points of deepest night, falling forever back into a nebula of bright bilious green. Worst of all, Adelko felt his thoughts were being watched, as though his very soul had been laid bare to the scrutiny of soulless beings. He heard the voices return, whispering to his subconscious; he thought of the first devil he’d encountered, back in Rykken a hundred years ago, but this was different: somehow he felt these voices were encouraging him, though to what deed he could not say. But the good wishes of the treacherous Fays unsettled him almost as much as the psychic assault of any demon.
The light grew relentlessly brighter still, forcing his eyes shut. Adelko could now hear two words, overlapping one another and repeating over and over again: sssanctuary-sssubterfuge, sssanctuary-sssubterfuge, sssanctuary-sssubterfuge, sssanctuary-sssubterfuge, SSSANCTUARY-SSSUBTERFUGE, SSSANCTUARY-SSSUBTERFUGE, SANCTUARY-SUBTERFUGE!
With a great crack all the lights suddenly went out, the voices dropping away into still silence. After a moment of darkness the companions found themselves surrounded by a thick dank mist, of a colour so ordinary it made Adelko feel even more anxious. But there was nothing ordinary about the speed with which it parted, and as the tendrils fell away and dissolved into nothing another bright light washed over their eyes, accompanied by a warmth that none of them had felt for a seeming age.
They were in a clearing surrounded by birch trees. The skies overhead were a perfect blue, and the sun was shining brightly.
Blinking in amazement, the three of them gazed about them. There was birdsong in the air and the trees looked perfectly normal, their leaves budding as the full bloom of spring was on them. They might have been standing in any stretch of wood in Northalde.
Over to their left was a trail. No trees parted suddenly to reveal it: it looked as if it might always have been there. The grass and weeds at their feet waved gently in a breeze that rustled the leaves on the trees. But there was nothing sinister or untoward in the sound they made.
Turning around, Vaskrian stared at the two monks. His eyes were wide and glazed, his mouth half open like a village idiot’s.
‘I had the most strange and terrible dreams...’ he said, repeating his words in the Hag’s hut before his voice trailed off.
‘So did we all,’ replied Horskram gently. ‘But now they are over – for the time being at least. Let us be gone from this place, it is past time we were leaving.’
They took the path set before them. Vaskrian wandered in a daze, and seemed barely to register his surroundings. But to Adelko the dappled sunlight and clean fresh air were like a draught of water to a man in a desert after the horrible hues and strange smell of the haunted forest.
They followed the path for several hours. Adelko began to feel very footsore and weary – how long had it been since he’d slept? There had been the Hag’s lair, but that hardly counted as real sleep. He felt his eyes begin to droop as he mechanically placed one mud-caked foot in front of the other...
And then suddenly there were no more trees. The three survivors of Tintagael found themselves standing on a rough sward that stretched out before them, dipping at a gentle incline towards fields and meadows that stretched as far as the eye could see, dotted with hamlets and orchards. The sun was low in the sky now, dipping over their heads behind the forest. Turning to follow it Adelko was shocked to see oak trees looming up behind them, looking every bit as dark and forbidding as the ones that had parted to let them into the forest, seemingly an age ago now.
But even that wasn’t quite the final scare Tintagael had in store for them.
‘Look!’ gasped Vaskrian, his wits suddenly returning to him.
He was pointing agitatedly to the south, a look of fear and wonder on his face. Turning in that direction, Adelko stifled a cry of horror. Grimly Horskram made the sign.
‘From thence flows all the wickedness we have lately suffered,’ he said in a subdued voice.
The dying rays of the sun revealed a sight Adelko felt sure he would remember for the rest of his days.
Though a shattered ruin for five millennia, the Watchtower of Tintagael still made for fearful viewing. Only five storeys had survived the wrath of the Archangels, yet it was still higher than most castles. Its octagonal structure bore witness to its age-old destruction in the form of a broken crown of smashed stonework that cut jaggedly against the blood-red sky. Each storey was slightly smaller than the one just below it, giving the remains of the gargantuan edifice a curious tapering effect. The lowest one alone was many times the size of the keeps Adelko had seen on the Wold, and he could only wonder how big the tower had been before it was broken. Strangest of all were its huge stones: no ordinary rectangles or squares, but a myriad of bizarrely interlocking geometric shapes. Adelko tried to follow them with his eyes, but they made his head hurt: there was something unnatural about them, as though they had been wrought in defiance of any earthly craft. And they were impossibly big, each larger than a man, leaving him gawping at the thought of the mighty engines that had laid them – if engines indeed their builders had ever used. Even their varied colours were peculiar, and teased the eye with the same malignancy as the trees of Tintagael, veering maddeningly between shade and tint but never quite finding a place in the spectrum. Seemingly set at random intervals with no thought to precision or order, dozens of windows gaped at them: some were round, some octagonal, some oblong, while others like the stones were shapes Adelko had never seen before, their peculiar angles spurning mortal symmetry with a horrid indifference.
The Watchtower of Tintagael was entirely alien, as much as the Fay Folk had been.
It stood about a hundred yards away from them, near the edge of the forest. The ground about the tower was scorched black: nothing had grown there for five thousand years, and nothing ever would. Vast fragments of its hideous stonework were the only things to grace that lifeless threshold, their presence offering scant comfort for mortal eyes.
A steadfast aura of evil emanated from the awful ruin, so intense that it somehow made the thought of their recent travails pale into insignificance.
‘Come nightfall that cursed precinct will be wailing with the banshees of the dead, and other worse things,’ said Horskram in a voice that suddenly sounded dry and brittle. ‘Let’s not tarry here. If we follow yonder incline we should be able to put the sight of Tintagael behind us, tower and forest both, before we rest.’
Exhausted as they were, neither youth disagreed.
Setting off with renewed vigour, they marched for another hour as twilight’s deep purple followed fast on the red heels of sunset. Only then could Adelko bring himself to look back, but when he did he mercifully saw only the rising ground
they had just descended, and shortly after that he could see nothing at all except what moon and stars cared to reveal. At that point Horskram called a halt.
His voice was thick with fatigue as he said: ‘We have left Tintagael safely behind us, we should sleep now. Tomorrow morning I should think we will wake to find ourselves on the skirts of the King’s Dominions once more, though we have emerged some leagues due south of where we entered the forest. But we shall speak more of that on the morrow.’
The old monk cast himself down on the grass to sleep without another word. The other two followed suit.
As he did so, Adelko noticed a few birches over to the right, their branches waving gently in the moonlight. He supposed they might offer some shelter, should the weather turn foul in the night.
On second thoughts, he reflected shudderingly, open countryside would do just fine, rain or no.
CHAPTER VII
All At Sea
Braxus ran his slender fingers across his harp, trying to ignore the pitching of the ship as the waves rolled it erratically on its course. His cramped cabin creaked in time with the surf, an accompaniment he could well have done without.
It didn’t help that the piece he was rehearsing was Maegellin’s Lay of High Firth, which told of the trickster hero Bendigedfryn’s tragic death on the slopes of that name a thousand years ago. It was one of the more complex pieces in his repertoire, and on dry land he could play and sing it without effort. Now he felt as if he could barely play it alone, never mind the rest. He tried some vocals in his high, clear alto, but they didn’t sound right. He still felt queasy.
He didn’t like the sea. He knew half a hundred songs that told of his ancestors’ journey from the reclusive Island Realms to the north and west, after the Wars of Kith and Kin had seen the brothers Curufin and Orbegon exiled with their tribes. For centuries bards had sung of their fraught journey across the spirit-haunted Sea of Tanagorm to found new kingdoms on the mainland. He supposed that meant his people had been a seafaring folk once, but that had been long ages of men ago. Put him astride a horse rather than a ship, any day.
Or better still, put him astride a hot wench. That was another thing he hated about the sea – no women allowed aboard ships. Who in the Known World had dreamed up such an evil custom? Something about bringing bad luck, and Conway, captain of The Jolly Runner, the small merchant cog they’d chartered at Port Grendel to take them to Strongholm, was little different from any other sailor.
He’d had a good mind to look up Siana when they were in town, the ample-bosomed daughter of a local tradesman he had lain with on occasion. So far as he knew, he had not gotten her with child yet – another bonus. And what she lacked in true beauty she more than made up for with enthusiasm.
He hadn’t had time to see her, a shame. He had bedded plenty of high-born ladies who weren’t nearly so pleasing beneath the sheets. But then that was often the way with common wenches – they had an earthy spirit that made them catch fire when their passions were aroused.
Grimacing as the ship lurched and creaked again, he set aside the Thraxian harp. His amorous thoughts were only frustrating him. There would be no women, high-born or low, until they reached Strongholm. That thought appealed to him, though. He’d never bedded a Northlending before. Yes, he wouldn’t mind that – their blonde goddesses were famed far and wide for their beauty. A little on the cold side, mind, from what he’d heard – but then what was life without the spice of a challenge now and then?
At any rate, he would see to it that he took ample reward from this fool’s errand. Which is what he’d decided this was, on further reflection. Getting to his feet groggily he lurched past his lute and mandola towards the stubby pine door. He’d insisted on bringing all his instruments – if his father saw him as nothing better than a messenger now, he was damned if he was going to make the journey a joyless experience.
Of course the old man had been quick to justify his decision, even praising him for once. He was likeable, a real charmer, and he spoke the Northlending tongue fluently (he had always had an aptitude for languages as well as music – his memory for lyrics was prodigious, so perhaps that was no surprise). He was, next to his father, the most high-ranking noble in Gaellentir. In short, the perfect envoy.
But Braxus knew better. This assignment was really intended as a punishment, for his lack of success against the highland raiders.
Was it is his fault if they were up against the most determined and canny leader those savages had had in generations? He had protested that his place was in Dréuth, fighting with his brothers in arms to defend his people, but would the old man listen?
Emerging onto the see-sawing deck the young knight felt his mood blacken further. Nothing he ever did was good enough for the old man, nothing. They had never seen eye to eye and never would.
At least he’d convinced his father to let him bring Vertrix. Braxus had squired for him during his training for knighthood, and the old vassal had taught him many a useful thing. And he’d always seen the good in him, unlike the old man, never doubting his skill or courage on the battlefield. When he did admonish him, it had always been done gently, in the manner of a master instructing a wayward but able pupil in need of occasional guidance.
Though it pained Braxus to admit it, and he would never say so out loud, Vertrix was in many ways the father he had never had.
The old knight was standing at the port side of the deck gazing out to sea. Sir Vertrix turned to favour him with a smile as he drew level with him. ‘Finding your sea legs at long last, Sir Braxus?’ he asked.
‘Hardly,’ replied Braxus with a frown. ‘But better up here than down below. At least the bracing air will do me some good.’
‘Ah, it’s not so bad once you get used to it,’ offered Vertrix. He was nearly sixty, though like many active men of service who had been lucky enough to survive that long he wore his winters well. Braxus was not aware that the old sworder had ever been to sea that much though. Perhaps it just came naturally to him – few things seemed to unruffle him.
‘Where are the others?’ he asked.
‘Sir Bryant and Sir Regan are below decks playing at dice. Their squires are with them I think. Gormly’s tending to Paidlin in their quarters – poor lad was sick again just now.’
Braxus rolled his eyes. His hapless squire was an even worse sailor than his master. ‘I wondered where he’d got to,’ he replied. ‘Will he be all right, d’you think? Shall I check on him?’
‘Nah, leave him be for now, sire,’ replied Vertrix with a wry smile. ‘Reus knows he’ll have to learn to toughen up if he’s ever to be a knight. And last I heard, seasickness never killed anyone – although they might wish it did at the time!’
Braxus grimaced again. He had certainly felt that way on their first two days out of Port Grendel. It was their fifth day at sea now, and he was only just beginning to feel his guts were mostly where they should be.
‘All right, so. I’ll look in on him later. Have you spoken to the captain today? How are we faring?’
Vertrix nodded across the deck. ‘Think he’s just about to tell you himself.’
Striding across the shifting boards with a carefree ease that Braxus could only envy, Captain Conway called out a cheery greeting as he drew level with the knights.
‘Top of the mornin’ t’ye, sires!’ he exclaimed, his snaggled teeth cracking an ugly grin. ‘And how are the Tyrnian Straits agreein’ with ye this fine day?’
‘Good day, captain. They’re not,’ replied Braxus curtly.
The grin did not leave the captain’s face as he stroked his rust-red whiskers. A grizzled old sea dog of about forty winters, he hailed from Port Craek in Garth province. Like most of his kind he had been pressed into the sea from an early age: water was like soil to him.
‘Ah well, just be thankful we’re not sailin’ north, towards the Island Realms of our far ancestors,’ he said for the third time since they had boarded his ship. ‘I’ve been that way a few times, whe
n I was a boy, and let me tell ye, ye haven’t seen anythin’ until - ’
‘No, I’ve not,’ Braxus cut him off. ‘But I’ve heard all about it from you – twice already. If it’s all the same to you, captain, I’d rather not hear about what the ghosts of drowned mariners, capricious Mermaids and sea spirits are wont to do to unfortunate sailors. I feel queasy enough as it is. Can you tell us how long till we reach the Farov Isles?’
The captain’s grin twisted into a strange sort of grimace, his usual expression when asked a question requiring a straight answer.
‘Well, let me see, hmm, the Farov Isles...’ he mused, as though he had never heard of them before. Braxus and Vertrix exchanged half amused, half impatient glances as the captain went on. ‘Well the winds ain’t blowin’ too rough, and I’ve got yon swabs runnin’ her tightly enough, so I reckon, give or take, we should be there in another two days, maybe three. Course, that’s assuming we get through the Pincers all right – we’ll run into choppy waters there and no mistake. If y’think this is bad, just you wait!’
Favouring his charges with another gap-toothed grin, Conway ambled off to bark some more orders at his men. Braxus felt his heart sink into his ailing guts. Now he wished that for once the captain had been a little less direct.
So far their journey had been relatively trouble-free. Braxus was in a pessimistic enough mood to doubt whether that would last.
They had set out from Gaellen just over a week ago, taking a low-lying sloop across the still waters of the Cuchlain before reaching the Burryn River at its north-west tip. Even without having to pass between the crags of the Brekken Ranges, infested with highlanders, it was a daunting enough journey. Those lands were ill settled – it wasn’t hard to see why Slánga and his fellow chieftains were so determined to extend their boundaries.
Reaching the fork where the Burryn met the Rygar they had caught a glimpse of the northerly reaches of the Liathduil Forest as it stretched up to meet both rivers. The southern woodlands were well enough, but few ventured into its more northerly stretches, long said to be the haunt of Fays and other malignant spirits.