by GJ Kelly
“Then what?” Gawain pressed. “I’m not about to charge back across the plains to that dread place without some degree of certainty that the Orb cannot be used against the peoples of the lowlands.”
“We must look to the sea, my lords,” Arramin declared. “The casket must be sealed, itself sealed in another container, and another and another if needs be, to ensure that no possibility exists of light being admitted to the Orb within. The bottom of the ocean, far offshore, that is the place for it.”
“Allazar?”
“Agreed. Nothing has ever returned from the deep, and surely there can be no light in such watery depths.”
“Then we’ll have to take it south to the coast of Callodon. Take a boat from one of the ports there, and out to the sea which is aptly named, especially since we’re pinning all our hopes on its murky depths to bury the Orb for all time.”
Arramin looked suddenly very old, and very frail. “Alas, my lords…”
“Peace, wizard Arramin. When I said ‘we’ I meant myself and The Keeper of The Stick. I’d sooner break your legs with your own staff than drag you up those endless flights of steps to the top of Crownmount, and thence to the city in the south.”
“Thank you, my lord,” Arramin managed, his eyes downcast, staring at the open pages of one of Allazar’s notebooks he’d been meticulously copying while Gawain had been reading Theo’s account.
“It was bad enough the first time,” Gawain said softly, remembering. “Besides, you’ve served the world more than enough since the Jarn Road. Seems like an age ago now you stood to the fore, ready with nothing but a sprig of silvertree to halt the Kraal’s charge. You’ve done more than enough, Arramin, and without you watching over us at Far-gor… well…”
Gawain saw tears threatening the old wizard’s dignity, and he continued hastily:
“And anyway, in these vaults may lie other valuable lessons and information which only an historian of your quality could unearth and understand. Any knowledge you find here and which may avail us in our continued vexing of that black-eyed bastard beyond the Teeth, could be of much greater service to the kindred than plodding back to that miserable forest might ever be.”
Arramin could only nod his gratitude, and wipe his eyes on the back of his woollen glove.
“How’s the book progressing, Allazar?”
“Ah. Master Arramin and I had just begun our endeavours at copying them from where Master Imzenn left off. It progresses well, and I feel certain that any new additions I might recall later can be appended in due course.”
“We’ll remain as long as it takes, then. I hope to persuade Eryk to have his scribes make many copies once we’re back up top. The Kindred Rangers will need them, here in Threlland as well as in all other lands. The west is in dark hands, and they’re using the creatures of the Pangoricon against people there. I don’t think it’ll be long before your work will be needed here, east of Elvendere.”
“And the Orb?”
“When you’re content that you have three good copies of the book, we’ll leave one here with Arramin for safety, keep one for our own reference, and give the other to Eryk for his scribes. Then we’ll return to Tarn, and thence head south.”
“So soon, Longsword?”
“Yes. To Juria first, I think. I wish to pay my respects to Hellin. From there, to Callodon, and to Brock. We’ll need stealth rather than strength in numbers when we penetrate the forest and make for Calhaneth, just in case the elves have ventured beyond the northern Wheel again. Or worse. The Kiromok and Razorwing at the baths tell us that the enemy knows about the Orb, or are at least aware of its power to destroy. Arramin is right, if we’d known precisely what we were dealing with the first time we witnessed the Orb’s power, we would not have left it there.”
“Then, Master Arramin and I should set to with the compendium of creatures, the sooner we finish, the sooner we can leave.”
Gawain shook his head. “Don’t sacrifice quality for haste, Allazar. Read Theo’s account, it might give you more of an insight into what needs to be done at the city. It’d take us at least two months to reach the edge of the forest east of Calhaneth, and that’s if we rode our horses into the ground, which we won’t. A few days here probably won’t make much difference. And, we won’t have a canal to speed our journey south, not now.”
“Indeed my lords,” Arramin announced, his voice still querulous with emotion. “I fear the destruction of the farak gorin and the collapse of so much rock into the source of Avongard will likely have had a significant and deleterious effect upon that great water road.”
“We’ll probably never know. At least, Arramin, we were able to glimpse something of Thal-Marrahan’s works, and see something of their glory as others might have done, before memories were stained by this fresh-discovered treachery.”
With that, Gawain left the two wizards at the table, and returned to his alcove. Sleep was a long time coming in spite of the silence from beyond the curtain and the surprising warmth of the blankets and the baggy hide-stuffed mattress. There were no pillows, but Gawain’s rolled-up cloak was comfortable enough. It was his free-wheeling mind that held sleep at bay, and the grim realisation that any ‘liefhargen’ he might indeed have been suffering had been entirely swept away by Theo’s account of the destruction of Calhaneth.
Now, instead of a litany of names and the faces of the dead plaguing Gawain’s conscience, now he had a purpose again. Now there was a deed to be done, and the glow of a familiar anger fuelling the drive to undertake and complete that deed.
The kindred races had been on the brink of banishing Morloch to the shadows for all time, but the treachery of whitebeards had prevailed, and countless thousands had died as a result. But for those whitebeards, Raheen would still live, there would have been no banishment, no darkness unleashed in Goria, no Grimmands in the east, no Battle of Far-gor.
As a warm fug of sleep finally enveloped Gawain, he smiled. Morloch might be beyond reach of the sword, but there were other enemies well within range, and the Toorseneth was one of them…
oOo
15. Ascent
In the time that followed, there being no way of knowing how many hours or days had passed in outworld while they worked deep below ground, Gawain left the two wizards to their task and wandered the vaults. He had frak, a warm blanket in addition to his cloak, and though the archives held little interest for him, here and there in the tunnels he found occasional artefacts which drew his attention; a hammer here, a dagger there, weapons, objects and relics from a bygone age. Each doubtless had a story, but since he couldn’t read the language of Threlland, such stories remained shrouded in the mists of time, and imagination had to fill the voids left vacant by facts. He wondered what some future generation might think of his sword, should they find it a thousand years from now entombed in some lost and forgotten catacomb deep under a mountain.
Gawain did note, however, that the tunnels containing the archives of more recent periods in Threlland’s history contained far more in the way of documents than the oldest. Progress and civilisation, it seemed, demanded ever more parchment, paper and ink, or perhaps, lives being generally longer in these modern times, people had more to say for themselves, and more time to say it than they did in days of yore.
While Allazar and Arramin worked meticulously and diligently on the book Gawain increasingly referred to as ‘the pocket Pangoricon’, the King of Raheen roamed the depths. He reflected on Theo’s account, allowing that familiar anger of his to warm his bones, and to drive away any lingering grief and bereavement which had plagued him, consciously or otherwise, since victory at Far-gor had been won.
Finally, when Allazar had declared the copying of the books complete, it was time to leave the vaults, and to make the daunting ascent up the countless flights of steps to the summit and Eryk’s hall. Arramin sent word of Gawain’s imminent departure up the chute, a curious construction much like a dumb waiter, activated by a winch on the surface when a wire ro
pe bell-cord was tugged. And then, the three who had endured much together, gathered in the echoing atrium at the foot of the steps.
“Well, Master Arramin,” Allazar sighed, and with a genuine sadness which all of them shared at their departure, for it had a terrible feeling of finality about it. “Now is the time for us to part once more.”
“Indeed, my lords,” Arramin sniffed, smiling weakly, his old eyes sparkling and damp in the dull yellow light of the glowstone orbs which made the bobble on his woollen hat seem almost to shine. And then he blurted with surprising passion, tears brimming and overflowing as he spoke:
“I would that I were young again! I would that I could go with you to that saddest of cities, to put right that greatest of wrongs, to end that ceaseless misery once and for all and to see that dread device cast into the deep far from all memory and knowledge! I would that I were young again my lord to aid your cause and bring forth from my staff the brightest of fire to smite the darkness and vex Morloch! I would that I were young, to ride again at your side, to see the wonders of the world once more and to fight for their protection! Oh my lords I would that I were young again!”
Without hesitation, Allazar stepped forward, and swept the frail and weeping wizard into his arms, and while Arramin wept into his shoulder, spoke softly, and kindly, in the wizard’s language.
Gawain sniffed and wiped his nose, hastily blinking back the tears which Arramin’s impassioned speech had summoned from some unknown depths far beyond the special anger Gawain nurtured for all those of wizard-kind. A memory of Imzenn of Mornland came flooding to the fore, another elderly and gentle wizard who had followed without question where Gawain had led, even to his own doom on the aquamire horn of a Kraal-beast. He drew in a deep breath, crushed the bubble rising in his throat, and spoke gently, but firmly, his voice echoing around the atrium, surprising even himself with the authority it contained.
“Without your wisdom, your knowledge, and your courage, Arramin, there may have been no victory at the Battle of Far-gor. If you hadn’t braved the journey to bring Brock’s message to us on the road to Jarn, we would have idled along the way and never known the urgency of the kindred’s need.
“Without your profound knowledge of history we’d still be marching north from Ferdan, assuming Morloch’s army hadn’t already crossed the farak gorin unopposed; it was your knowledge of the Canal of Thal-Marrahan and the operation of the great Wheels which sped our journey. But for you, we’d never have known of Calhaneth, and but for you, we’d never have learned of the existence of the Orb and the threat it poses. And it goes without saying, without you and your doves at the Point, there may have been no victory at Far-gor at all.
“I tell you this, Serre wizard Arramin, there is no gauge by which we can measure how much your service to the kindred has already vexed Morloch, but the fact of Far-gor is surely enough to make that blackhearted bastard curse the day you came into this world. And though you would be young again, I shall always remain grateful for the wisdom, experience, and knowledge which your many years of study have bestowed upon you, and which you have given so freely to us. I wouldn’t have you anything other than who you are.”
Arramin drew back from Allazar’s embrace, and wiped his eyes and nose on the back of his gloved hand, nodding in gratitude at Gawain’s speech and doing his best to stand as tall as he could while Gawain added:
“This isn’t an ending, Arramin. There’s much here in these tunnels to keep you occupied, and you may find more here that would be of great concern to both of us. I’ll make arrangements with Eryk to have any letters you send up the chute delivered to us wherever we might be.”
“Thank you, my lord,” Arramin whispered, and those four simple words seemed to carry with them more weight than the entire bulk of Crownmount pressing down above them.
With nothing more to be said, Allazar embraced Arramin once more, and Gawain utterly stunned them both by doing likewise. Then the two of Raheen turned, and began the ascent up the stairs, the sound of Allazar’s staff on the steps echoing behind them, and Arramin standing motionless and listening until finally they faded beyond range of his hearing.
Legs burning and breath coming in short gasps, Gawain flicked a glance at Allazar who nodded, and at the next landing, they stopped, and sank onto the bench seats opposite each other.
“Suddenly,” Gawain gasped, throwing open his cloak and unbuttoning his tunic, “It’s not so cold down here.”
“No, indeed,” Allazar managed, and then heaved himself up with his staff to take a long drink at the water fountain.
When he’d lurched back to the bench and stretched out on it, Gawain opened his eyes and asked: “How far up do you think we are?”
Allazar held up a tired hand, finger and thumb a couple of inches apart, and Gawain managed a choking laugh, and dragged himself to the water fountain on his side of the landing, momentarily shocked by the freezing water when it shot from the hole in the small stone basin.
“You surprised me, Longsword,” Allazar sighed when his breathing slowed and Gawain had taken his seat again.
“By doing what?” Gawain stretched his legs out in front of him, the muscles in his thighs twitching uncontrollably. Eryk was right, the ascent would take a lot longer than either Gawain or Allazar had imagined.
“Your farewell to Arramin.”
“Bah. Old goat deserved it. Don’t you go getting any ideas above yer station though, bloody whitebeard.”
Allazar smiled in the gloom. “I won’t, your Majesty.”
“Double bah.”
“Is it lunchtime yet, do you think?”
“Lunch? Who knows? One thing Martan taught me during our time under the Teeth, eat when you’re hungry, sleep when you’re tired. When there’s not even bat-poop to measure the passage of time, you find your own rhythm.”
“I just don’t want my sandwiches to get too stale. It’s a long way up, after all.”
“We’ll wait until my legs stop twitching like one of your beloved rabbits’ noses and then go up another landing or two.”
Allazar yawned, and nodded. “You’d think they’d at least have painted numbers on the wall or something so people would know how far there was to go.”
“What, and spoil the fun of being able to ask ‘are we there yet?’ at every landing we come to?”
“If I may be permitted to borrow a phrase from Martan of Tellek, you seem to be much more yourself than of late, Longsword, if’n you don’t mind me sayin’ so.”
Gawain smiled. “Yes, yes I am, and no, I don’t mind.”
“Is it the depths? I know you remember much of your time with Martan under the Teeth with a certain fondness.”
“Yes, I suppose I do. It was a remarkable adventure, one I never could have imagined when I was growing up at home. But no, it’s not the depths. It is the Orb.”
“The Orb?”
Gawain nodded, and folded his arms across his chest. “It will sound odd, and perhaps it is, but I feel I have a purpose again. Since we arrived in Tarn, I’ve been lost. You’ve had your book, Elayeen has whatever profound duty the eldenbeards have inflicted upon her and which remains unfinished, and I had nothing to cling to, nothing to keep me from drowning in grief after Far-gor.”
“And Master Arramin?”
“Reminded me that there are yet in this world a few solid gold exceptions to the rule that all whitebeards are bastards. Besides, there were no witnesses, or at least none that wouldn’t want to end their days walking with a limp if they ever spoke of it.”
“Ah.”
“And speaking of limping, let’s try for the next landing. Don’t suppose the eldenbeards taught you any kind of ‘carry a king up the inside of a mountain’ spell or anything remotely useful like that?”
“Alas. Not even a ‘carry myself up the inside of a mountain’ spell. Useless bloody eldenbeards.”
They’d only gone five steps up from the landing when Gawain asked “Are we there yet?”
Ga
wain and Allazar were astonished to learn that it was the 8th day of December when, finally, they emerged from the tunnel and stepped into the library at the rear of Eryk’s hall. It was dark, lamps half-shuttered, and it was a guardsman who greeted them upon their arrival. It was, they learned, an hour past midnight, the king had retired, but quarters had been prepared for Raheen and his First Wizard, along with a hearty meal of cold cuts and bread.
Even Gawain helped himself to a slab of roast beef, smothering it with horseradish before slapping it on a thick-cut slice of dark Threlland rye bread. The ascent from the vaults had taken much longer than expected, and had been hard. Hearty fare washed down with fresh-mulled wine was the order of the day, and the two ate in silence in their well-appointed room.
At length, they rested, wide awake, quietly waiting for dawn and an audience with Eryk.
oOo
16. A Matter of Honour
“So this thing, this Orb, was made by one of my people?” Eryk sighed.
“It was,” Allazar agreed, “And proudly was it done. Threlland cannot be held in any way responsible for the treachery which razed the city.”
“Even so,” Eryk shook his head, his bushy brows furrowed. “Even so.”
They were sitting in a small chamber, Gawain, Allazar, and the King of Threlland. Guards posted at the door guaranteed their privacy, and it had taken some time for Allazar to explain the nature of Arramin’s findings in the vault.
“It’s my intention,” Gawain announced, “To return to Calhaneth, to recover the Orb, and dispose of it as Arramin suggested, in the deep of the Sea of Hope.”
“How many of my men will you need?” Eryk asked, his expression worried.
Gawain looked surprised. “Actually, none, really. I was planning on a speedy journey, in and out and thence to sea. It’s not another battle we’re planning, Eryk.”