The goblin king kicked away from the wall and came striding forward, statuesque, smiling pleasantly, his long black hair swinging in rhythm with every step he took.
‘What are you doing here?’ William cried, incredulous. ‘You said you would depart at the full moon.’
‘We are not obliged to explain our business to anyone, let alone the likes of you, boddagh!’ said Zauberin, who had appeared behind the shoulder of his lord.
‘In fact,’ Zaravaz pointed out to his lieutenant, ‘we are not even obliged to explain that we are not obliged to explain.’
‘But you said you would go away, and you are unable to lie!’ the prince said angrily. ‘How can this be?’
Zaravaz spoke a word to Zauberin, who responded, ‘It was I who told your weathermage we intended to leave.’
‘My aachionard was following orders,’ said his sovereign. ‘I chose to say tell her we will leave, rather than I intend to leave, tell her so. It is true we do not own your delightful ability to directly tell falsehoods, nevertheless we do not allow that to incapacitate us. We can direct others to speak falsely on our behalf, if they are not aware of the truth. Furthermore, we can change our minds. Perhaps I changed my mind. I will depart when I am ready, not when the moon is in a particular phase.’
‘Why does your horde remain here?’ Lathallan growled.
‘We have told you enough about our own business. What is yours?’
William answered brusquely, ‘We have come to salvage our gold from the Inglefire.’
‘Indeed,’ Zaravaz said politely.
Expecting the eldritch knights to try to block this enterprise the men hefted the weapons in their hands, but Zaravaz said, ‘Well you’d better get on with it then,’ and merely watched them, his head cocked to one side, a faint smile playing about his fine mouth. Immediately the men suspected a trick of some sort.
‘Do you mean to assault us?’ demanded Sir Torold.
‘We are but casual passers-by. La! We are not even protected by armour. How should we dare assault you?’
‘Tell us,’ pressed William, determined to penetrate any goblin word play, ‘will you try to prevent us from reaching the Inglefire?’
‘We will not,’ said Zaravaz, ‘try to prevent you.’ Once more he leaned idly against the wall, as if bored.
And William silently cursed himself for failing to choose his words more carefully, as one must do with eldritch wights. That statement could be interpreted to mean the unseelie knights would not merely try, they would succeed. Pride, however, prevented him from rephrasing the question and asking a second time. Instead he gave a stilted nod of acknowledgement.
‘Oh!’ said Lieutenant Zwist, as if noticing the men’s weapons for the first time. ‘You have dipped your palings in gold! Did you think those yellow sticks would make us run away?’
‘Why don’t you make your boasts with this sword pressed against your flesh?’ invited Lathallan’s second, feinting at the goblin knight. Zwist flung a handful of what appeared to be nothing at the captain, whereupon he dropped his blade with a clatter and doubled over, clutching his hand to his chest.
‘Desist, Rotherfield!’ Lathallan said sharply.
‘Those poor imitations of Sioctíne will avail you naught,’ Zwist said with contempt.
‘Be careful not to stumble and fall on them, or you might cut yourselves!’ gibed Zauberin.
He and the other goblin lieutenants were laughing softly as they stood at ease around their king. ‘You walk so stooped, men of Tir,’ they mocked. ‘You jump at every sound and cringe from every shadow. What are you afraid of?’
‘We fear nothing,’ William’s men retorted.
Said the unseelie knights, ‘Do not lose your charms, and amulets, for the spinners down here are passing fierce for old biddies! It is fortunate your weapons are so many and so formidable. The worms and beetles of the underworld will surely tremble at the sight of such warriors as you!’
The faces of the men suffused with rage and they were sorely tempted to attack their harassers. Controlling their ire they held back, for William had too much common sense to throw away everyone’s lives, the Companions of the Cup were well disciplined, and the rest were too terrified to make a move.
Wise judgement prevailed.
‘We will not be provoked by your taunts,’ said William.
At that the beautiful chivalry laughed aloud, but Zaravaz raised a languid hand, whereupon they bowed derisively, turned their backs on the human men and swaggered away. The goblin king had already melted into the dimness. As his lieutenants and other knights disappeared from view they were still jeering and calling out offensive remarks. Zauberin was heard to say, ‘Let us go and play with the water-girls.’ It appeared the goblins were leaving the intruders to their own devices. The Narngalishmen, however, were leery of being duped again.
The Marauders lumbered to their feet, sweating, panting and trembling. Still wielding their swords the human men continued on their way. Now doubly vigilant, they lit more lanterns to banish the obscurity that hemmed them in. Aonarán whimpered incessantly, while the Marauders crowded so close to their companions that they jostled them, and Lathallan had to order them to stay clear.
Deeper into the mountain they went. The adventurers had descended a rough stair and were passing through another gallery when their attention was caught by the appearance of a second flicker of light, this time at the far end of the cavern. This new light, however, was utterly unlike the lunar goblin brilliance.
It was a golden glory, like flawless topaz with a piece of the sun at its heart. As they drew nearer the glory intensified, but most wonderfully, this radiance was singing. To William, it produced a soft clear music like the pure voices of children in unison, voicing a wordless melody, and within that pouring syrup of melody there were sudden glints of chimes, as if golden bells were ringing.
The jaws of the Marauders dangled ajar.
‘Hark!’ exclaimed one of the Narngalishmen. ‘That is the sound of goodness! It is the laughter of children.’
‘It is the song of the blackbird in the early dusk,’ said his comrade.
‘No, it is running water,’ said a third man.
‘It is a mother crooning a lullaby,’ said someone else, but others claimed it was the music the stars would make if they fell through the strings of a harp. The song was variously like wind through the leaves of poplars, the beat of a loving heart, the patter of raindrops on a tiled roof, the sigh of the ocean, or the purring of a great cat. The listeners could agree on one point only—that they all heard something different.
Enraptured and intrigued, the Narngalishmen followed Aonarán towards the lustrous source of the music. Around a corner the walls opened out, and there before them in a rocky chamber a bonfire leaped twenty feet high, in full splendour. None had ever before beheld such a phenomenon, yet there was no doubt in their minds that this was indeed that which they sought: the Aingealfyre.
The interior of this light-splashed cavern was sculpted, as if water-worn. A wide and roughly circular well in the floor contained the source of the golden light. Translucent flames flashed in towering spirals from this pit, their glow so bright that the bottom of the well could not be seen, if indeed it had a base and did not pierce right through to the centre of the world, or even to the other side and beyond, to where comets roamed the universe. Spills of jewelled radiance welled up; shimmering crimson and orange were the colours of the flames, now tinged with sea-green copper. Unlike normal combustion this conflagration did not involve oxidation accompanied by the production of heat and light, nor did it give off smoke. It was a self-sustaining blaze of eldritch energies, engendered by gramarye.
The Aingealfyre’s chamber was splendid. Its clean, dry walls were veined with glimmering ores. Fractured images of the intruders glanced from countless angles, for the walls and ceiling were not entirely smooth. Indeed, they were pierced with apertures great and small, and fluted, and buttressed, and recessed and niched. R
efracted light danced on polished surfaces; brassy and apricot, luteous and rubicund.
Spellbound, the men tentatively approached the barley-sugar flames. No fierce heat assaulted them, only a gentle warmth, as of Spring sunshine, yet for some this temperate incandescence was painful, while for others it was like balm. Furthermore, while it did them no harm, they sensed peril in that radiation.
Gazing in fascination, most of the party arranged themselves around the edge of the pit. Aonarán, however, hung back. He ceased his mewling and his tugging on the ropes, and instead became very quiet and still. After a while William recollected himself and said, ‘By the Powers, we have found our goal at last. It will not do us much good to stand staring—let us get to work!’ He issued orders, whereupon the swarmsmen unloaded the equipment they had carried thence on their brawny shoulders, and the miners unpacked it.
Hesitantly, for the act somehow seemed like desecration, the men, standing as far away as possible from the pit’s brink, thrust large iron ladles into the strange blaze, and lowered crucibles on chains. Soon and with astonishing ease, just as they had hoped, they were scooping out lumps of gleaming metal, as soft as wax, sometimes mixed with a few jewels unmarred, sparkling as if rinsed in rainwater. Neither soot, nor ash, nor cinders tainted the precious ore or gems, and to the amazement of the Narngalishmen their booty was relatively cool to the touch, once free of the flames.
Truly, the fire of gramarye was mysterious.
With willing zeal the labourers piled up their gleanings. They accumulated quite a quantity, which they stowed in bags of hempen canvas and stacked against the walls, later to be loaded onto the shoulders of the bearers. Every member of the expedition became engrossed in the task. As the men hauled out their salvage Aonarán stood silently by with a look of awe on his hideous face, never taking his eyes off the fire. He had tilted his head, like a man listening for a far-off sound, and wore a slight frown as though trying to understand a foreign language or to grasp a message.
‘All seems to be going well,’ Lathallan murmured to William as he and the prince watched over the proceedings.
‘The men feel safe here,’ said William. ‘They know the goblins could never come near this place.’
‘Is that true?’ asked Lathallan.
‘I believe so,’ the prince replied. ‘The weathermasters say that if a mortal man should enter the Inglefire he would not perish immediately, but fade, gently, without pain, in a dream or trance, as it were. Those who are chaste of spirit survive longer than those whose hearts are corrupt. For unseeliekind it is a different story. They also perish slowly, but as they decline they suffer unimaginable torment, shrivelling slowly until they become a wisp of dust or soot, still alive and sentient. Eventually they float away, doomed to drift on the wind until time’s end. Even to view the werefire from afar is painful to them. They will not come here.’
‘Nonetheless, we had better watch out for goblins as we depart through the tunnels,’ said Sir Torold. ‘They are our sworn foes, and no doubt will assail us on our way out.’
William was about to respond with a suggestion, when all of a sudden someone rushed past him and ran straight towards the pit. It was Fionnbar Aonarán.
‘Stop!’ yelled the prince, dashing after him, but it was too late.
Everything happened swiftly. Aonarán deliberately let himself drop over the brink into the fire. At the instant he toppled, William, who was hot on his heels, grabbed him by the shirt. As Aonarán fell, William was still hanging on. Aonarán’s flailing arms knocked the prince’s head against the pit’s edge and William, fainting, was dragged into the blaze by the weight of the man he was trying to rescue. Both of them vanished into the inferno.
Throughout the Northern Ramparts millions of tons of rock arched and strained, fighting the slow battles of geological evolution; shaped, made and unmade by tectonic, volcanic, gravitational, chemical and climatic forces. In underground chambers, solutions of calcium carbonate dripped leisurely, depositing travertine to form stalactites and stalagmites. Far below the cavern of the Inglefire, molten lava, ash and gases forced their way through crustal vents, a sluggish ooze of volcanic release. On the exposed peaks thousands of feet high, lacy snowflakes fell, blanketing the firn, while crazed winds scraped along the skies at full pelt, sharp-edged and cold as scalpels, as if attempting to chisel the stars from their niches.
The wind veered. It began to blow hard from the north. High in the upper atmosphere miniscule ice crystals were borne along on an air stream, in ribbons so fine as to be almost invisible. The crystals passed southwards across Narngalis; over the foothills of the Northern Ramparts, the Harrowgate Fells, the town of Paper Mill, and the Wuthering Moors, until they reached King’s Winterbourne, where they descended, melted to become airborne droplets, and tamely mingled with the other atmospheric humidity.
One speck of moisture drifted through a cranny in a house called The Laurels. It was inhaled by a weathermage, and temporarily became part of her substance. Later it vaporised from her dewy skin and floated away to resume its innocent, ancient, elemental journey.
Asrăthiel had not seen William for weeks, yet she was unconcerned about his absence. She knew he was away attending to important matters of state, and for her part, she was busy with her own tasks. Avalloc was staying at The Laurels, helping her train three prentices who were lodging there also. In addition her weathermaster skills were much in demand, for Autumn, the fruitful season, now stirred up storms aplenty.
Days were becoming shorter. Early on misty Ninember mornings the hedgerows of Narngalis would be silver-netted with the dew-spangled webs of orb-spiders. The first frosts froze the last of the butterflies and other winged insects. Wood pigeons pillaged the countryside in large flocks, feasting in fields of clover, gorging on the wild bounty of grass seeds, hedgerow berries and acorns. Along the margins of meadows the last lingering blossoms mingled with the bronze and gold coinage of fallen leaves; speedwell and wild pansy, mayweed and white deadnettle. The brilliant red domes of fly agaric toadstools studded woodland carpets.
On the final morning of Ninember Asrăthiel had strolled with her grandfather through a beech wood just beyond the outskirts of King’s Winterbourne. Both wore their robes of weathermaster grey; they walked like two shadows side by side; one with hair like pourings of alabaster, the other with torrents of ebony, flowing from beneath embroidered caps. Early sunlight was shining through the foliage. Amongst the dark stems of the trees floated great drifts and bowers and spangled clouds of colour; points and splashes of rich bronze and cinnabar, poignant green, fabulous gold, shimmering in sun and air, fair as some enchanted realm.
‘Of all seasons,’ said Asrăthiel, gazing up at the overhanging boughs, ‘I love Autumn best.’ But saying this she was suddenly overwhelmed by a wave of sadness, for the beauties of the season, being ephemeral, would soon pass away, and reminded her of the transient nature of mortal lives. To be immortal amongst mortals is to be doomed to sorrow, she thought. If I am always to lose those whom I love, fain would I love no more.
A flock of swallows winged slowly overhead like drifts of dark leaves, navigating southwards.
‘Tomorrow,’ said Avalloc, ‘will be the first day of Winter. Already, townsfolk and villagers are making ready for the year’s end celebrations.’
‘The first of Tenember?’ exclaimed Asrăthiel. ‘So soon? The weeks have flown!’ She pondered. ‘It strikes me that William’s absence has been much prolonged.’
‘Where has he gone?’
‘I know not, for he would not say. But after my return from Minith Ariannath he was surpassingly attentive, writing to me almost every day and visiting frequently. The letters have ceased. It is unlike him to be away for so long, and to send no word. It seems odd. I wonder . . . ’ She broke off, pondering.
‘What are your thoughts, my dear?’
‘I wonder whether he has gone looking for the Inglefire. He spoke to me of such a mission but I declared I was against it.’
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‘Then if he has gone to find it, doubtless he deliberately refrained from telling you so, to avoid distressing you. Will asked me for permission to wed you, you know.’
‘I guessed as much,’ the damsel admitted.
‘If you are anxious about him, petition Warwick for enlightenment. I am certain he will set your mind at ease.’
‘I will do that.’
That evening Asrăthiel took her grandfather’s advice. Together they paid a visit to Wyverstone Castle, where the sovereign frankly informed her of the whereabouts of his son. ‘He has taken an expedition to seek the goblin prison and the Inglefire. His intention is to gather the gold that, according to legend, human slaves threw into the flames.’
‘I am dismayed that he would undertake such madness!’ Asrăthiel exclaimed on hearing this. ‘The goblins may well have left guards. The fire itself is reputed to be dangerous—that is, if they ever find it in that labyrinth, with tricksy wights rolling boulders hither and thither to change the configuration of the tunnels. My liege, have you heard from William of late? Has he sent any message at all?’
‘Not since the expedition passed beneath the mountains,’ Warwick answered gravely. ‘I confess, I am troubled. William’s party had homing birds in their care, concealed from the watch, but so far, we have received no news.’
‘I, too, am troubled,’ said Asrăthiel. ‘Did he take that knave Aonarán as guide?’
‘That he did.’
‘The fellow is not to be trusted, besides which the Northern Ramparts are riddled with the perils of chasm and slippery slope, not to mention being haunted by unseelie wights. The Companions of the Cup are brave fighters, yet there are some things in that region which cannot be combated by warrior’s sword, or charms of iron and rowan. I ask your permission to depart straightaway by sky-balloon to seek the expedition, that I may render them my assistance if they are in some straits.’
‘Granted,’ the king said at once. ‘In hindsight I wish I had sent a weathermage with them, but William would insist on keeping it all secret. I hope I do not live to regret that omission.’ Earnestly he added, ‘Go with good speed, Asrăthiel.’
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