by R. J. Grieve
Eimer released a sigh of relief, his brief flare of anger gone, and showing unexpected generosity, offered Vesarion an escape route.
“You need not come with us, if you do not wish to,” he suggested. “I know your heart is not in this.”
Vesarion remained staring accusingly at Sareth, who was steadfastly refusing to meet his eye.
“I have given my word,” he replied flatly. “I will not break it.”
For a long time Vesarion lay awake that night, staring into the dying embers of the fire, his emotions in unusual turmoil. He regarded himself as a logical man, but all sorts of unfamiliar feelings, none of them logical, jostled for predominance in his mind. Anger, hurt, betrayal and beneath it all, in the unexplored depths, lurked a whisper of fear. He suspected that their journey would test him in ways that he had never been tested before and he was less than certain of the outcome.
The only emotion that he fully recognised was a sense of anger directed at Sareth. Clearly their betrothal meant nothing to her. She felt she owed him no loyalty, no support – all of which boded ill for their future. Considering the matter in a way he had never done before, he was forced to admit that he didn’t understand her. He had thought her as coolly reasonable as he was himself, anxious to get away from Enrick’s torment and appreciative of the position that being Lady of Westrin would bestow. But her behaviour since they had embarked on the chase had been erratic. Contrary to her unjust accusation that he expected abject obedience, he was perfectly ready to listen to her opinions but so, too, did he expect her to show consideration for his. Instead, she had sided with her brother and that strange girl, and had left him feeling betrayed. An uneasy impression that he had made a serious error, gnawed at the edges of his consciousness. An uncomfortable feeling was beginning to take shape, that the little girl who used to run around after him in the palace, was now someone he simply didn’t recognise. In more ways than one, he felt he no longer knew where he was going.
So Vesarion tossed and turned, unavailingly searching for answers, for a sense of direction.
Finally he drifted off to sleep, unaware that just a few feet from him, Sareth had let her tears soak silently into her sleeve before she, too, succumbed to weariness.
When Vesarion awoke, he was under the impression that he had been asleep for many hours, but to his surprise it was still dark. The fire still contained a few glowing embers. A few little worms of fire writhed their way along the edges of the wood ash, just enough to cast a dim blush of light over the figures of his sleeping companions. He lay still for a moment, wondering what it was that had awoken him so suddenly. Then he heard someone call his name.
He sat up, looking towards Bethro and Eimer, for it had been a man’s voice - but they were both asleep. Looking around in puzzlement, with a start, his eyes distinguished in the dim glow of the fire, the outline of a man sitting on a fallen tree-trunk at the edge of the light. Vesarion made a snatch for his sword, lying in its scabbard beside him, but the man’s soft laughter arrested the action.
“No need to reach for your weapons, Vesarion,” the voice said pleasantly. “I am unarmed and mean you no harm.”
Vesarion glanced at his companions, but they were all still fast asleep.
“Don’t worry,” said the voice, “they won’t wake. This conversation is between you and me alone.”
“Who are you?”
“Do you not recognise me?”
As Vesarion’s eyes attuned to the darkness, he made out a tall man, of about his own age, seated on the log. He had dark hair and a cool, level glance that was a little disconcerting. He was sitting with one booted ankle resting on his knee, apparently very much at his ease. As Vesarion hesitated, trying to pin down what was so familiar about this man, his interlocutor tilted his head to study the figures asleep on the ground. His eyes rested on Sareth.
“Is this Andarion’s granddaughter?” he asked. Then without waiting for an answer, he added: “She’s very pretty. You are a lucky man.”
“Who are you?” Vesarion demanded again, sitting up straighter. “Have we met before?”
The figure laughed softly. “No, we have not met before, but I am well aware that you disapprove of me. Apparently, I have brought disgrace on the name of Westrin.”
Vesarion drew in his breath sharply. “You couldn’t be!”
“Oh?”
“He died long ago. You couldn’t possibly be Celedorn.”
“You think in very straight lines, Vesarion. Bethro told you this very evening that I had returned to the Monastery of the White Brotherhood but you refused to believe him, just as you refuse to believe in so much else that is true.”
“The monastery does not exist.”
“Really? That is a strange thing to say when we are sitting within its walls even as we speak.”
“What? Are you mad?” Vesarion looked around wildly, wondering if he was dreaming. “There’s nothing here but forest.”
“The monastery can only be seen by those permitted to find it,” returned Celedorn. “You are not permitted – not yet. You are sitting on the promontory where it is sited. After my return to Ravenshold, I sought out this location several times over the years, but could find nothing – not until the time was right and Elorin and I were allowed to return. By the way, Triana sends her love. She is celebrating her reunion with Andarion at the moment, or she would have spoken to you herself but she asked me to tell you to take good care of Sareth.”
“Are you telling me that …..that grandmother is……?”
“She is with me, as is Elorin and Relisar. The companions are united once more – although, as always, it is virtually impossible to extract Relisar from Master Galendar’s library. Now, to business. I hear that you have been careless, Vesarion. I hear that you have lost something that belongs to me.”
“I didn’t lose it. It was stolen.”
Celedorn raised his eyebrows imperiously, in a manner that was vaguely familiar to his grandson. “Do you wish to quibble?” he asked coolly. “The sword has fallen into the wrong hands, has it not?”
“I do not know who has it.”
“That is unworthy of you.”
Vesarion, who had endured a trying day, began to lose a little of his poise. “If you are referring to Iska, I do not know who she is, or any reason why I should believe her story.”
“Are you telling me that you do not know the truth when you hear it? In your heart you have the answers but you refuse to listen to your heart – a grave error.”
“Perhaps I’m a little tired of being told my faults by other people.”
“You are correct. Like me, you must find these things out for yourself. It appears to be a family trait. For us, there is no master that teaches better than experience.”
Vesarion was silent for a moment. “You are telling me to go to Adamant?”
“That is for you to decide.”
Again Erren-dar’s grandson said nothing.
“Why do you hesitate?” Celedorn asked. “Have you no courage?”
Vesarion stiffened.
“Ah!” exclaimed Celedorn softly. “A sensitive point, I see.”
“I have never shirked my duty,” spat back Vesarion. “Not ever – unlike you! Or should I not speak to the great Erren-dar like that?”
But once more, he got the impression that inwardly Celedorn was more amused than offended.
“You may speak to me as you choose. All I would suggest is that you do not be so quick to judge others until you are sure that you understand them.” He nodded towards the sleeping figures. “Do you understand your companions? I doubt it. Do you even understand yourself? Do not be so quick to condemn. Iska, for all your mistrust of her, is correct. The enemy needs my sword for purposes as yet unclear but which will bring no good to Eskendria. You say you have never shirked your duty? Then do not shirk it now. Recover that which is now rightfully yours.” He glanced over his shoulder at this point, as if he had heard something that Vesarion had not.
“I must go,” he declared. “Elorin is calling me.”
He stood up and turned as if to leave, until checked by his name being called.
“Celedorn,” Vesarion began hesitantly, “are…..are my parents with you? Is…is my mother there?”
Erren-dar’s face softened. “You were very young when you lost them, but I promise you, such partings are not for ever.”
Then, with a brief smile, he disappeared into the darkness.
Vesarion was the last to awake in the morning and when he did so, he found that his head was full of his conversation with Celedorn. He looked at the log on which his visitor had sat, as if half expecting some evidence of him to remain. But daylight brought with it all the old distrust of anything that did not fit into his ordered world and it was only when he was half-way to convincing himself that he had merely dreamed the whole thing, that his eye fell on his sword. It lay on the grass beside his blanket, half-drawn from its scabbard, giving his relentless progression towards denial a sharp set-back. Thus, the others found him entering into their plans for their journey a little more readily than might have been expected after the previous evening’s confrontation.
“You must be our guide, Iska,” he said, “as none of us has ever been in the Forsaken Lands before. Do you have a map, or did you memorise your route?”
For once, Iska was thrown a little off-balance. “Em.….I made some sketch maps from the ancient charts of the Old Kingdom that are hidden in Callis’s library, but…..”
“Excellent,” declared Bethro. “Let us examine them to determine our route.”
“Well…er…there is a slight problem. I left them behind in Addania.”
Vesarion frowned. “We found no maps amongst your belongings.”
“You wouldn’t. Not unless you slit open the lining of my saddle – you needn’t look at me like that! If I had been caught with a map showing the route from Adamant, things would have gone ill with me.”
“But you remember the way?” prompted Sareth.
“Oh, yes, indeed,” she replied airily. “Our search has driven us a little off course but we should proceed in a northerly direction.”
Vesarion gave her a long speculative stare but said nothing. When it came to riding arrangements, he offered to take her up behind him in preference to Sareth, with whom he was still out of humour
She took the hand stretched down to her and swung up neatly onto the saddlebags behind him.
“I take it that the only one to get a horse to himself is Bethro,” she remarked, “for reasons that I need not specify.”
He was surprised into giving a smothered laugh, which caused the object of their discussion to look round suspiciously.
They set off in silence, in contrast to Sareth and Eimer who were using the opportunity of sharing a horse to argue animatedly together.
Iska, gripping Vesarion’s belt, which, he reflected, was fast becoming a popular pastime, found his silence intimidating and finally broke it by saying: “I’m glad you didn’t take Eimer up on his offer to let you leave us. It is important that you come with us.”
“Indeed? I’m flattered, but I was under the impression that you disliked me.”
“You have given me little reason to like you. It’s strange. Bethro believes my story but thinks that because I am of the House of Parth I must be a witch, whereas you give no credence to such things but think me merely a liar.”
“Let us say that I reserve my opinion until more is known.”
“Perhaps now is the time to confess that there is a practical reason that I wish you to come. There is something I haven’t told you.”
“I imagine there is quite a lot you have not told me,” was the caustic response.
Overlooking this aspersion, she continued: “Callis found an old manuscript in the hidden vault under the library. It was so old that the ink had faded to the point that the writing was almost illegible but he managed to decipher bits of it. One portion told the story of the creation of the sword. Apparently when it was being made in the forges of the Old Kingdom, the Master of the greatest of the three Orders of Sages, blessed the sword using a language that has now been lost. As the sword lay on the anvil, still glowing from the fire, the symbol of the three intertwined chalice flowers appeared by enchantment on the blade. The manuscript said that the sword was given a secret name on that day, and that apart from the great Erren-dar, it will obey no one unless it is called by its given name. I was hoping, as you are the heir of Erren-dar, that you might know what it is?”
He had listened intently to her narrative, remembering Celedorn’s words about not judging too quickly. Abandoning his customary cynicism, he merely replied: “I was not aware that the sword had a name.”
“Oh!” exclaimed she, clearly crestfallen. “Did your father never tell you of this?”
She felt him stiffen slightly. “My father died when I was ten years old.”
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. Knowing that the question would not be welcome, she nevertheless asked: “What happened to him?”
For a moment she thought he was not going to answer her, then he said: “My parents were travelling to a wedding. The daughter of the Lord Protector of Kelendore was getting married and my parents, along with many others of the Eskendrian nobility, were invited to attend. On the way, their ship was overtaken by a storm and sank, killing my parents and everyone else on board. The irony is that I had begged them to take me with them, as I had never been on a ship before, but they thought I was too young for such a long journey. That was twenty-six years ago and recently I find my memories of them becoming fragmented. I can remember with utter clarity my mother teaching me to read, using the fabled stories from the Chronicles of the Old Kingdom, but I cannot recall my father ever mentioning the sword to me. Perhaps that is why I asked to see it the very day I was brought to Addania by the King.”
“That is a pity, because without its name, it is just a sword. Its powers cannot be invoked.”
Shaking off the melancholy mood that talking about his parents always brought upon him, he replied lightly: “Well, at least the enemy cannot invoke its powers either.”
“Unfortunately we do not know that. What the thief has done is to deprive Eskendria of the protection of its presence. For some reason that I cannot quite explain, I feel that we must make haste to Adamant. Sometimes in my dreams, I relive that terrible night in the crypt and I wake up shaking with fear. I would be less concerned if we were just dealing with a greedy and ambitious man like my half-brother, but that….that thing which arose from the tomb has power that none of us can counter. All we can hope for, is that the sword can protect us.”
The sincerity in her voice was unmistakable and might have led to a thawing of Vesarion’s suspicions about her, had it not been for an unfortunate discovery two days later – Iska had been lying to them.
They had been travelling through a mixed deciduous woodland, stopping now and then to rest the horses or consume a rather frugal meal. Under Iska’s direction they had been proceeding relentlessly northwards. She had told them that they would soon reach a range of high mountains which they must traverse by means of a precipitous valley called the Pass of Ogron.
“The mountains are of considerable height,” she had told them, “and form a barrier across our path as they stretch from east to west. Even in summer, the upper reaches are snow-covered. We should see them any day now.”
It therefore came as a shock to the entire company that when they abruptly arrived at the edge of the woodland, they found themselves at the top of a long, gentle slope that descended to a wide plain bounded in the hazy distance by low, grassy hills. There was not a mountain to be seen.
What there was, taking up the centre of the plain, was a large lake. The sinking sun cast a nacreous light from behind a lacy veil of clouds, turning its crumpled surface to metallic colours: shades of steel and pewter, streaked with ruffled silver. Its edges were embraced by a bank of low sand-dunes, their r
ounded crests topped by long, hair-like grasses that bent before a stiff breeze. Flocks of wading birds crowded the sandy shore or wheeled in silhouette against the silvered water, their lonely piping brought by the wind to their ears.
Everyone turned and looked challengingly at Iska.
As Vesarion and the Prince maintained a stony silence, it was left to Sareth to say tentatively: “I am no expert, Iska, but I don’t think those distant hills quite qualify for the mountains you were describing.”
“Well…er….no. I suppose not.”
“Where are the mountains you spoke of?” asked Eimer sharply. “From your description of their height, they should be visible from some distance, but I see nothing – so where exactly are we?”
“I’ll tell you where we are,” Vesarion intervened. “We are lost. Iska has no idea of the way.”
Eimer swung round in the saddle to face her. “Is this true? I thought you had memorised the route?”
Iska, cornered but fighting, stubbornly proclaimed: “The whole point of drawing a map is so that one doesn’t have to memorise the route.”
“So you have no idea where we are?”
“She never had any idea,” Vesarion said looking over his shoulder at his passenger. “Am I right?”
“I thought that if we just kept heading northwards, we were bound to find somewhere I recognised.”
“So, you admit that when you told us that you knew the way, you were lying.”
“I had to,” she pleaded desperately. “If I had told you that I wasn’t sure of the way, you would have turned back and I couldn’t risk that.”
“So here we are then,” declared an exasperated Sareth. “Stuck in the middle of nowhere with very little food and a guide who doesn’t know where she is going.” She cast her hand towards the plain lying before them. “Is any of this familiar to you, Iska? Did you pass a lake on your outward journey?”
Iska drew breath to reply but was pre-empted by Vesarion. “The truth, this time, if you please.”
She glared at him. “No. I didn’t pass a lake. I’ve never been here before.”