“We shall have a time of it trying to catch them again,” mumbled Inchkeith. Quentin and Toli looked at each other. He had been mumbling darkly ever since they discovered the enchanted valley. While their spirits had risen on wings of joy, his seemed to have fallen lower by equal degrees. He was now quite sour.
“Do not worry on it, master Inchkeith. They will come running to Toli’s whistle without fail. He has a power over them, you will see.” Inchkeith said nothing, turning his face away.
“Now, then,” said Durwin, “listen to me. Here is the riddle once more. Think, now!
“Over tooth and under claw
mend your way with care.
When mountains sleep, sharp vigil keep,
you shall see the way most dear.
When you hear laughter among the clouds
and see a curtain made of glass
Take no care for hand nor hair,
or you shall surely never pass.
Part the curtain, divide the thunder
and seek the narrow way;
Give day for night and withhold the light
And you have won the day.”
Durwin looked at all of them, blinking back at them dumbly. “Well,” he sighed with exasperation. “As I thought. It is not so simple now, is it? Now that the time has come to solve the mystery-”
“Past time, if you ask me!” said Inchkeith sharply. “It is folly to roam these wasted rocks chasing a dream. Look at us! We are up here babbling like children over riddles and nonsense. Down there”-his hand flung wide in a gesture of anger and frustration- “down there men are dying. The blood of good men runs hot upon the ground while we putter among the clouds.”
Quentin’s brow wrinkled and his eyes narrowed as he listened, somewhat shocked by the armorer’s denunciation of their quest.
At last Durwin spoke, breaking the silence that had fallen over them with Inchkeith’s rancorous outburst. “Could we serve them better by taking up swords and throwing ourselves into the fight? Would our blades matter very much, do you think?”
“Does this matter? This riddle guessing, breaking our bones over these accursed mountains? For what?”
“I thought you were with us, Inchkeith,” put in Quentin. “I thought you believed as we did in the importance of our journey. You did! I know you did.”
“Maybe I did once. But I have had time to think. It was a mistake to come here; I do not belong here. I should be back at my forge and anvil. There is a war on, by the gods!”
Then Durwin, speaking softly as to a child, said a surprising thing. “Do not be afraid, Inchkeith. To others it is appointed to fight, and yes, to die. To us it is appointed to find the sword and bring it to the King. And if there is even the slightest chance that the sword will be the Zhaligkeer, I believe our efforts could not be better spent than in searching for it, though the whole world wade in blood.”
Do not be afraid.
The words struck deep into Quentin’s heart. Yes, that was it. Inchkeith was afraid of failing, of never finding the lost mines. Perhaps he was even more afraid of succeeding, and forging the legend-bound sword, afraid of believing the prophecy could come true. Better for him not to put it to the test. And this was the way of Quentin’s heart, as well.
Quentin, at first swept up in the excitement of great deeds and the promise of glory, had with growing reluctance come to view the enterprise as possessing little merit insofar as he himself was concerned. It was one thing to dream about being the long-awaited Priest King, but quite another to actually set off in search of the means to make that dream a reality. The aura of mystic fantasy had evaporated on the trail in the howling of the wind and in sleepless nights on the cold barren rock under the glare of distant unfriendly stars. And with every step that led him closer to the promise, he had grown more afraid.
Do not be afraid.
Although the words had been meant for Inchkeith, they stirred in Quentin a peculiar swirl of emotions. He wanted all at once to scream at Durwin, Why should I not be afraid? I have every good reason. I never asked to be this new king upon whose shoulders the world will rest. I never wanted it.
But Quentin said nothing. He turned his face away and looked out across the sparkling water of the Skylord’s Mirror.
That night they camped beside the lake, the white-topped peaks to the east glowing rosily across the green bowl, which was now immersed in shadows of deepest indigo. The Wolf Star burned fiercely in the sky and was reflected in the crystalline depths of Shennydd Vellyn.
Quentin sat alone-silent, brooding. He stirred only when the light tread of Durwin’s feet signaled the hermit’s presence. “So it is!” said the hermit, his voice seeming to resonate on the water. “You have come to it at last.”
Quentin regarded him with a questioning glance. Durwin, gathering his robes, squatted down beside him. “You have come to that dark and narrow place through which every servant of the Most High must pass.”
Quentin flipped a pebble into the lake. “I do not know what I have come to.”
“Oh yes you do. And that is what is bothering you. It has been gnawing at you ever since we left Askelon. It was worrying you that night at Inchkeith’s. I saw it then most clearly. I even spoke to you of it, but you evaded my question.”
“Is it not possible that we may all be wrong about this prophecy? If you ask me, I am not the one. And if I were, would I not know it somehow?”
“Yes, perhaps we are mistaken. It is possible we have misread the signs. But whether you are the one or no does not matter very much.”
Quentin cocked his head sharply; he had not expected the hermit to say that. “No,” Durwin continued. “What does matter is whether you are willing to follow the Most High, even in your unbelief.”
“I-I do not know what you mean.”
“Certainly you do. All your life you have served the gods in one way or another. Of the old gods you soon learned only to demand those things which they were capable of providing-an insignificant sign or two, a small favor vaguely asked. Then you met Whist Orren, the Most High God, the One True God of All. You have served him faithfully these many years and have learned much about his ways. But now is the first time you have ever really had to trust in him, to place yourself totally in his will, and you are afraid.”
Quentin started to object, but Durwin held up his hands. “Yes, afraid. You must now put your faith to the test. And such a test!- with lost mines and flaming swords and prophecies fulfilled.”
“Why should I fear that?”
“The reason is not so hard to guess. It is the same with every man. You fear testing your faith, because it means testing the Most High. Deep in your heart you fear he will fail. If he fails, you are utterly alone in this life and beyond; there is nothing you can believe in anymore.”
Quentin shook his head. “No, Durwin. That is not my fear.”
“Tell me, then.”
Quentin drew a deep breath, glanced at the hermit and then quickly away again. “I am afraid of being the Priest King. I cannot say why, but the mere mention of swords and mines fills me with dread. Look at my arm! How can I wield the Shining One with an arm as dead as firewood?”
“It is the same thing in the end, is it not? You fear to accept something the Most High has chosen for you.”
“How is that the same thing?”
“Most assuredly it is. To accept the crown of Priest King would mean placing your trust totally in the Most High. It means that you must trust him to know what is best for you, to know you better than you know yourself. It would mean trusting him beyond all trust, even when the way is unclear-especially when the way is unclear.
“When you trust like that, you necessarily test the god’s ability to hold you and keep you. You are-we all are-unwilling to make such demands of our gods. If we trust but little, we will be disappointed but little, eh?”
“If I do not believe, but follow anyway, does that not mock the Most High and defeat his will?”
“On the c
ontrary, my friend. To follow without seeing the end-in unbelief as you say-is really the highest form of trust.”
“It is but blind trust,” objected Quentin. The words of the hermit were making sense to him, but he still felt as if he must fight acceptance.
“Not blind trust. Not at all. Those who trust the powerless gods of earth and sky-they trust blindly.
“Quentin, look at me,” the hermit commanded gently. “You cannot serve the Most High without trusting him totally, for there always comes a time when he will put you to the test. He will have all of you or nothing at all. There can be no middle ground. It is a demand that he makes of his followers.”
Both men were quiet for a moment. The great bowl of the valley had deepened into violet dusk. The western peaks still held the faint glimmer of flame at their summits, but that too was dying fast.
“Look at it this way,” said Durwin. “Why should you be afraid to test the Most High? He invites it! You see your injured arm as proof against his will. Cannot the one who created bones also heal them? And if he chooses to raise an orphan acolyte to the crown of the realm, what is to stop him?”
Quentin smiled at the appellation. “You mean that I should go along with this strange business regardless of my own feelings about it.”
“Exactly. Do not seek to hide your doubts and fears, or mask them in any way. Give them to him. Let him take them. They are, after all, part of you.”
Quentin thought for a long time and then said, “What did you mean earlier when you told Inchkeith not to be afraid?”
Durwin smiled. “More or less what I am telling you now. We must not fear for the Most High; he can take care of himself. We must only look to ourselves that we remain faithful to his call. I know it is much to think about in one piece. It has taken me many years to understand these things, and I am asking you to comprehend them in but a few moments.
“Inchkeith does not know the Most High, but he is not an ignorant man. He still feels the fear of believing that something so good and so powerful can exist. And that, as I said before, is the place where most men turn aside.
“But if you go beyond your fears and doubts, and follow anyway-ah! Strange and wonderful things can happen. Yes, orphans can become kings, swords can sprout flames and great enemies can be laid low at a stroke.”
Quentin did not hear when Durwin left him, so lost in thought was he. But upon looking up into the night sky, now alive with blazing stars, he knew he was alone. His thoughts roiled and swarmed inside him; and rather than soothing his troubled spirit, Darwin’s words had only served to increase the confusion-or so it seemed.
Quentin lay down and wrapped himself in his cloak to watch the glittering stars and to ponder the words of the hermit. He lay for a long time thinking and then slowly drifted into a troubled sleep. As he lay beside the glass-smooth Shennydd Vellyn he dreamed a dream filled with things both strange and wonderful.
FORTY-ONE
THE MUDDY little tributary which Myrmior had indicated on the map lay across the path of the advancing Ningaal. It was, as Theido had advised, not a particularly large stream, but it was deep and lay below steep root-bound banks in a most dense part of Pelgrin. If anyone ever spoke of it at all it was called Deorkenrill, because of the air of darkness and gloom which surrounded it. Its gray and turgid waters slid quietly along a serpentine course through noisome bog and stagnant pools full of various unsavories, until at last it emptied into the mighty Arvin many leagues to the north.
As unwholesome as it was, it was at this very place that Myrmior proposed that the army of the Dragon King make a final stand to try and halt the invaders’ inexorable drive toward Askelon.
The plan was simple, designed to separate the amassed Ningaal into smaller groups which could be battled more effectively by the defenders. But like most strategems of war, Myrmior’s plan was not without its element of risk. The weary defenders closed their eyes to the danger, thinking that as it was likely to be their last hope of stopping the Ningaal before they reached the plains of Askelon, no risk was too great.
For many leagues to the north and south there was only one fit place for an army to cross Deorkenrill: a hollow at the bottom of a slight hill where the stream flattened out slightly to form a natural ford.
“This is better than I could have hoped,” said Myrmior when he saw it. “It was made for our purpose.”
“Well,” remarked Theido casting an eye around the wood in the gathering dusk, “it is not a place where I would willingly choose to do battle. Let us hope that the Ningaal think the same and do not suspect an ambush here.”
“They have become wary indeed. Their scouts now push far afield and ahead of the main body and are harder to elude,” pointed out Ronsard. “And Theido is right. This is no place to do battle. Look around you. Mud, trees, vines. A man can hardly draw his sword.”
“Brave sirs, that is precisely why this place is best suited for us. Whether they suspect or no, they must cross this water. I propose to make it as difficult as possible. But we must get busy. There is much to be done before first light tomorrow. We will need to work through the night.”
“Very well,” said Theido resolutely. “We have had our say, and we have no better plan. We put ourselves at your command. What will you have us do?”
Myrmior looked around him in the misty twilight. A malodorous vapor was rising from the swampy dingles along Deorkenrill’s banks to drift slowly among the gray boles of trees.
“There!” He pointed out into the hollow through which the enemy must march to the stream. “We will begin by opening a channel into the hollow. We will fill it tonight and drain it in the morning. The mud should be very thick by then. And have some men start carrying water to the far bank. I would have that slippery with mud as well.”
And so they began. Though they had come unprepared for excavating and carrying water, the Dragon King’s forces turned whatever implements they had to the task. Knights, more at home on horseback than on firm ground, slogged tirelessly through mud and stinking water, digging with their noble swords or with bare hands, cutting a channel to bring water to the hollow. They worked by the glimmering of torches, listening to the forlorn cries of owls and other creatures drawn by the unnatural activity.
Others climbed the taller trees along either side of the bank and began building platforms of branches and limbs from which archers could rain arrows down upon the enemy. Ropes were wound with vines and stretched from one tree to another. And for Myrmior’s supreme surprise, three of the largest trees growing at the edge of the near bank were chopped to within inches of falling and their upper branches were tied with ropes to other nearby trees to support them. Then the axe marks were covered over and filled in with mud and leaves.
This activity continued through the night and by the time the sky, glimpsed through irregular patches overhead, began lightening, Theido, Ronsard and Myrmior stood on the far bank looking at their handiwork.
“All that remains is to drain the hollow once more. And, we will need hot coals to use with the arrows,” said Myrmior, very pleased with what he saw.
“Then we wait. We should have a few hours to give the men rest before the first of the Ningaal come through here,” observed Ronsard.
“I am for it. We have done a labor this night. Let us pray that it has been to good purpose,” replied Theido in a voice strained and rasping from shouting orders through the midnight hours. “We will do what remains and then deploy our men to their appointed places.”
So saying, the lords turned at once to finish their tasks. Then, as the dun light of morning filtered down into the murky dell, all fell silent. All was ready and there was not the barest hint that everything was not as it should be, that it was not all it seemed. An army waited among the ferns and in the trees and behind the turfy hillocks and was invisible.
The first of the Ningaal to come through the hollow were the scouts. They crossed the ford and passed on unaware of the army lying in wait on either hand. The nex
t to pass were rank upon rank of horsemen, and just as Myrmior had hoped, the horses churned the hollow into a mud pit and made the far bank, already slick with the muck Ronsard’s men had created, a treacherous slide. But they, too, passed on unaware.
Tension seeped into the air. Theido could not understand why the enemy did not feel it, too. His stomach was knotted, and his nerves felt stretched as tight as bowstrings. Though he could not see them from where he hunched among the musty ferns, he knew his men must feel the same. Willing himself to remain calm, he waited.
The sun arched to midday when the first of the footmen started across the ford. Hundreds of men, line upon line, waded through the waist-deep water and slithered up the far bank with difficulty. Theido could see them as they poured into the hollow and noted with satisfaction that the soldiers moved more slowly now as the mire deepened and sucked at their feet.
He heard a sound and a swift shout, and suddenly a horse and rider appeared at the edge of the ford. It was a warlord on his black steed, and Theido could tell that he was unhappy with the time it was taking his soldiers to cross the stream. Without understanding the crude language at all, Theido knew that he was ordering his men to move along quickly; it was exactly what he would have done in the same situation.
The warlord sat straight in the saddle and looked long up and down Deorkenrill. Theido held his breath. Had the warlord spotted something amiss? Was their trap discovered?
But the grim lord swung his horse around and shouted once more to the scores of footmen trudging through the fen. Then he plunged through the stream and disappeared on the other side.
Nin’s soldiers were crossing in masses now, a hundred at a time. They staggered muddily to the ford and plunged in, then flung themselves up the far bank like fish flopping out of water.
Another warlord appeared, surrounded by twenty horsemen. He waited, as the other had, watching the men cross the stream, and then splashed across.
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