12
TEARS AND FLAMES
When weatherlords to battle fared, the glinting of the yellow blade
Was spied from far off. Wild and strange the melody, the blood-song played
By winds against the leading edge. The wielder of the golden sword
Smote wightish heads, hewed pathways of destruction through the goblin horde.
Their smoking blood blacken’d the ground. Unseelie wights were vanquished. Then,
‘To victory!’ sang Fallowblade, ‘Sweet victory for mortal men!’
Upon a dark time long ago.
A VERSE FROM THE SONG ‘FALLOWBLADE’
On the morning of the very day that William’s expedition discovered the Inglefire, Asrăthiel’s sky-balloon Icemoon arose from King’s Winterbourne. With her she took two prentices and the sword Rehollys—a wand of glimmering gaslight—its sheath buckled at her side. The brí-summoned wind was swift and strong. In a single day her aircraft made the journey, passing above the Wuthering Moors, over the remote township of Paper Mill and across the Harrowgate Fells to the foothills of the northern ranges. The landscape rushing past underneath the basket was still brushed by the fading flames of Autumn. Sere and shrivelling, the last leaves clung to black boughs as Winter began to set in. Rivers and lakes gleamed like new-minted pewter.
The aeronauts reached the northern ranges late in the afternoon, as the sun was beginning to sink and lines of birds were flying home to roost, calling to one another like echoes from a distance. Magnolia and fuchsia clouds straggled in elongated rows across the west. The mountains were partially submerged in a flood of mist, only their rugged peaks showing, snow-crowned and floating rootless on the pearly haze. Overhead, the clear skies deepened to indigo.
Asrăthiel murmured words of power, sketching invisible signs with her hands. Her copilot tugged judiciously on a cord, allowing heated air to escape from the envelope. The weather-mage and her crew spied the cluster of carts, swathed in evening shadows, whose location indicated the cave mouth through which William’s party had entered under ground. As the balloon was commencing its descent towards the carts Asrăthiel strained her eyes to see if she could pick out the shape of the fantastic bridge and the gates of Sølvetårn, further to the right. All at once she spied a band of horsemen clustered on the heights and, unexpectedly, her heart began to hammer. The sight of riders near the bridge reminded her of goblins, but it was impossible that the Argenkindë could still be in the mountains. All the same, she was puzzled as to how men on horseback could have escaped the attentions of the Kobold Watch, who were ever ferocious to persecute and prosecute mortals who made burdens of themselves upon living creatures. It was particularly unusual that riders should have ventured so far north, to the very doorstep of the kobolds’ erstwhile abode, placing themselves in extreme danger. With a whispered word she changed the aerostat’s course and headed for Sølvetårn’s gates.
As the balloon drifted down she suddenly clutched at the edge of the basket, giddy with hope and dread. The riders were not human at all. They were indeed goblin knights, mounted upon daemon horses. Eagerly she scanned their faces as they came into view. She recognised Zaillian and Zwist, and several other foremost lieutenants of the Argenkindë, but the one she sought was not amongst them. Nevertheless, she could hardly restrain her excitement.
‘My lady, those horsemen are of the unseelie horde,’ one of the prentices pointed out nervously. ‘Some still linger here! Perhaps all! If goblins are abroad, what mischief might they have worked upon Prince William?’
As the truth of his words sank in Asrăthiel uttered an exclamation of horror.
‘We must be careful to choose a landing spot far away from them,’ said her crew member, ‘and take all precautions.’
‘No,’ Asrăthiel said decisively. ‘I wish to speak with them. Fear not. As I am with you, they will not harm you.’
Alarm was plainly written upon the faces of the prentices, yet they respected Asrăthiel too well to remonstrate with her, and said nothing more about their misgivings. With all haste the weathermage set the balloon down upon a rocky shelf. As the floor of the basket knocked against stone the goblin riders swiftly approached, sombre and splendid, arcane and hazardous, their black cloaks fluttering like wings on the wind. The hooves of the svelte trollhästen clapped against bare basalt.
The demeanour of the eldritch knights was grim, in contrast to their usual light-heartedness. On second glance Asrăthiel noted some even more profound change in their manner since last she had seen them, but she was unable to define it. When she vaulted from the basket the goblin chivalry gathered around. Lieutenant Zwist called out urgently, and without preamble, ‘Come quickly, Lady Maelstronnar. Ride behind me.’
The prentices huddled close to the sun-crystal cradled in the centre of the basket. Above their heads the still-swollen envelope swayed and rippled, flapping in the evening breeze and reflecting the shifting colours of twilight. Gently the aerostat bobbed up and down, hovering close to the ground. The riders paid it no heed, their attention being bent upon Asrăthiel. Clearly they were impatient.
‘What trouble is afoot?’ she asked. ‘Where is Prince William?’
‘No time for gossip. Be quick!’
‘I will come with you,’ said the damsel, ‘but my companions must wait for me here, and first you must swear not to harm them.’
‘On behalf of this company,’ Fourth Lieutenant Zande said peremptorily, ‘I swear it.’
To the prentices Asrăthiel said, ‘If I fail to return by morning, depart without me, for I shall be beyond your aid,’ and they nodded mute acknowledgement, their faces drawn and their eyes glazed with terror.
Zande picked up the damsel by the waist and swung her onto the back of a daemon horse behind Zwist. Off they galloped with her, she clinging limply like a doll made of rags, drained of vitality, her mind reeling. What have they done to William? Onwards rushed the riders, the long-legged trollhästen leaping with improbable accuracy from crag to crag. The world went past like a smear. It came to Asrăthiel that she and the goblins were travelling within an eldritch time zone; that weird dimension which enabled them to act with supernatural swiftness. Through some secret portal in a cliff they plunged beneath the mountain. In the dark they raced along miles of underground tunnels, flying up and down leagues of subterranean stairs that went by in a blur of incredible speed, so that the damsel could hardly catch her breath, but she glimpsed enough to know that they now moved through Sølvetårn.
Abruptly the horses slowed and halted. The riders leaped to the ground, bringing the damsel with them, and entered a high-vaulted chamber that she recognised at once. It was a room of gothic loveliness, circular in shape, its walls perforated almost all the way around by unglazed archways exposing the interior to the elements, the ceiling an intricate openwork lattice giving almost unrestricted view of the ice-sharp summits that towered against the magnificence of sunset. To one side, a table upheld a casket of embossed silver filled to overflowing with frost-jewels. In the centre of the chamber stood a divan piled with sleek and glossy cushions.
On that divan a figure lay unmoving, as if dead.
Asrăthiel and the twenty knights had come in with a rush, in a swirl of cloaks, a clatter of boots and a jingling of jewels and weaponry which the damsel could have sworn was deliberate, since the goblins could move silently at will. At the sight of the prone figure they stopped short, like a blast of wind that had suddenly subsided. Utter silence washed over them like a wave. Outside, even the sky-borne breezes cutting themselves to ribbons on the heights died away.
The strangest and most discomposing aspect of this silence was the fact that the room, though large, was filled to capacity with statuesque goblin knights clothed in black draperies. Their mode was no longer flamboyant, as at feast times, nor was it rakish and dashing, as for the hunt. Neither were they garbed in war harness, with antlered helm and engraved cuirass. Instead these dark and mighty warriors were in the solem
n costume of ceremony: robes long and flowing, gracefully arranged in loose folds, plain but exquisitely cut. Impressive of stature they stood composed, as straight as spears. There must have been hundreds, and amongst them, the half-pint figures of several trows.
With folded hands and bowed heads the lords of unseelie stood without stirring or speaking, as if keeping some dreadful vigil. Luxurious swathes of their black hair, untied, fell forward like curtains, partly concealing their wondrously comely features. It was a sight to unsettle the most adamant heart.
Outside, the wind began to croon once more. Only its sorrowful song could be heard, and even that seemed subdued as it sighed amid lonely crags and across chasms of emptiness. This seeming lullaby of the airs, in its tranquillity, contrasted sharply with the taut atmosphere that saturated the gothic chamber from wall to wall, and the sense of coiled energies on the point of raging out of control. So intense was the ambience that the floor beneath Asrăthiel’s feet, indeed her very bones seemed to reverberate below the range of hearing, as if charged with a powerful current. The sense of impending cataclysm was immediate.
When the damsel appeared amidst the watching knights several of them turned to observe her. Some moved to block her path. Of these, Zauberin was foremost, scowling, although even hostile grimaces could not mar the eldritch perfection of a goblin warrior.
‘Why did you bring her here?’ the first lieutenant gratingly demanded of Zwist. ‘She is not welcome.’
‘Let me see William!’ Asrăthiel cried wildly, ignoring his rancour. ‘What has happened? Is Zaravaz here?’ Unreasonably—flustered, perhaps by the swiftness of the supernatural ride and the shock of encountering the Argenkindë—she had at first assumed the recumbent form was that of William, then realised it could not possibly be the prince, because goblin knights would hardly be gathering around in solemn quietude as if honouring someone they revered. With this realisation came a cold surge, as if a breath from the grave had blown out her vital spark.
Zauberin and his close companions hissed censoriously at Zwist’s party, and spat invective at the damsel. The two sides began to argue vehemently but softly, speaking in their own tongue. Asrăthiel stepped out of their range, all the while casting agonised glances at the motionless figure in the centre of the chamber. She could not reach the couch; too many figures of impressive stature barred her way.
At length the altercation ceased. The opposing groups moved away from each other, the vast crowd parted, and at last the damsel was led through the assembly to the couch.
Upon reaching it she staggered, almost swooning, and dropped to her knees.
A masculine form, long and lean, lay there with eyes closed—
the goblin king.
The sight of him was a sword thrust of hurt and ecstasy. In its abandonment to oblivion, his face looked even more wrenchingly handsome. The fans of his lashes were ink strokes against his skin’s bronze pallor. His arms rested by his sides, and funereal hair drenched his shoulders with liquid night. At that moment, for Asrăthiel there was nothing else in existence but his exact lines of symmetry and vigour, his dark beauty that outshone every one of his knights. In all respects he was matchless.
Yet he, an immortal being, was lifeless; as cold and immobile as a statue carved from finest limestone, and seeing this the damsel thought the world had dropped away from beneath her feet. For an instant the sense of unreality was so overwhelming that she felt as if she were standing outside herself, looking on. She dared not touch him, dared not trespass on aloof perfection.
‘Does he live?’ she whispered at last. The lords of wickedness who surrounded her offered no answer. ‘Prithee, tell me what happened!’ she begged, her words catching in her throat, as dry as husks.
After a moment Zwist spoke. ‘He is fading,’ the knight said slowly, as if he found it difficult to choke out the words.
Fading was an eldritch term for the immortal equivalent of dying. It meant the process of transforming from the original state to some lesser form. For Asrăthiel, a tiny but fierce sun at the centre of all purpose and meaning dimmed and threatened to blink out. Virtually paralysed with incredulity she murmured, ‘How can this be?’
‘I saw it all,’ said Zwist, ‘from the sidelines. Your boyfriend brought Toadstone to the cavern of the Skagnyaile, the cursed flames. That is what began it all.’
‘Tell me!’
And so the second lieutenant proceeded to describe, in low tones, the events that had occurred in the cavern of the were-fire. As he did so, the story unfolded vividly in Asrăthiel’s mind.
After Aonarán had inadvertently pulled William after him into the Inglefire, uproar exploded amongst the expedition members. Some flung themselves forward in an effort to save the prince, yet stopped short of casting themselves futilely into the pyre.
‘He is gone!’ cried Lathallan. Kneeling at the well’s edge he shoved his hands in amongst the dazzling corkscrew flames, enduring the suffering it caused, casting about, trying desperately to locate the young man. All the while he screamed, and tears streamed down his cheeks. The effect of the verdant radiance must have been harrowing beyond belief. When he withdrew his hands they appeared undamaged, but he spread out his fingers and gaped at them, saying chokingly, ‘I thought the flesh had charred off my bones.’
‘A curse upon the fiend Aonarán!’ his companions cried. ‘The noblest son of Narngalis has fallen.’
Even as they spoke, the air blurred. A blast from nowhere briefly levelled and parted the flames, raising billows of dust and whipping at the garments and hair of the frantic men. At this onset the Marauders bellowed and ran blindly about. In the confusion, a flaming bundle came hurtling out of the heart of the Inglefire. The Narngalishmen jumped up, drawing back in fear and astonishment. At their feet the naked body of a man lay prone on the rocky floor, limned with wavelets of lemony fire. Suddenly Lathallan uttered a glad cry and threw his cloak over the burning figure, dousing the flames. The men could not believe their eyes. It was their prince who lay there, insensible but miraculously unscathed. His garments had vaporised but not so much as a hair of his head had been scorched, and his flesh was whole. They were too stunned to rejoice, but the chirurgeon-apothecary gathered his wits, tore open his bag of remedies and began attending to his lord.
Next instant someone gave a shout and all turned to stare at the pit. The Inglefire had altered. A tremendous change had taken place in its substance and nature, for now, instead of burning with helical green-gold flames too bright for the eye to penetrate, it roared ruby red. The flames had flattened and clarified, transparent as panes of glass, and through them not one, but two figures could be discerned within the pit, a few feet below floor level. Both were on fire.
In all the commotion the Narngalishmen could not ascertain which of their number had toppled in. One of the two blazing men was standing motionless, as if astonished or numb, while the other desperately tried to climb out but fell back, overcome by weakness, writhing in utmost terror or agony. The first, they supposed, was Aonarán, immortal born mortal, who appeared to have fallen into a trance. The second must be one of their own. Pity moved the observers to immediate action, and they lowered their salvage equipment into the flames, calling out to their comrade, ‘Take hold! Take hold!’
The suffering man barely had the strength to grip their chains, but managed to hang on for just long enough that they could haul him up as far as the brink. Knight-Commander Lathallan actually leaned forward and thrust his hands right into the blaze once more, though sobbing all the while. Enduring the most searing pain, impossible to describe, he laid hold of the victim and resolutely drew him out over the edge. They laid him on the floor, wrapping him from head to toe in cloaks to extinguish the flames.
The instant he was pulled out the colours of the werefire changed again, transforming to blinding emerald-citrine. Dazzled by the light’s intensity, the men lost sight of Aonarán. For a few moments the tongues of scalding light shrank, as if the fire were gutteri
ng out, before bursting upward with renewed vigour. During those moments of low smoulder the fire pit was clearly visible. Aside from the flames, now almost pure gold, it was empty. The men had no idea what to make of this, then one of them cried, ‘Look there!’ and they spied a figure silhouetted against the glare, crawling along the ground on the far side of the cave. It was Aonarán.
‘By the Fates, that reprobate has climbed out of his own accord!’ Sir Torold cried in disbelief. ‘A prodigious feat. And if I can believe my eyes, he is living yet! Secure him!’
Men-at-arms ran to do his bidding, skirting the pit with care. In a daze, Knight-Commander Lathallan had slumped on the floor, head bowed. The chirurgeon-apothecary and his assistant were still tending the unconscious prince, while the others were ensuring that all the flames lapping their rescued companion had been put out. Enveloped in the folds of the cloak, this man had ceased writhing and lay as still as the prince. As still as death.
‘Two went in, and three came out!’ marvelled the Narngalishmen. ‘How did it happen? Which of us fell in? Who is missing?’
‘We shall soon see,’ Sir Torold said.
And they began to peel back the cloaks to reveal the identity of the one they had rescued . . .
The Narngalish adventurers could not know that the goblin king and some of his knights, driven by curiosity and animosity, had followed them to the seat of the Aingealfyre. The immortals had watched, concealed in the walls of the cavern, where the radiance of the eldritch blaze could not reach to scald them. After William was dragged into the pit, Zaravaz had leaped out with supernatural speed, so swiftly that human eyes could detect nothing but a blur. He had jumped into the werefire to save the prince’s life, but the flames of purity were too much for him, of course. He paid a very high price.
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