A Blackbird In Darkness (Book 2) (14 page)

‘And in its people,’ Medrian said with a gentle smile. ‘Especially in its people.’

Now they were at the place in the woods where the Entrance Point would intercept them. They stood waiting calmly, but when it appeared, a distant cloud of blue light floating slowly towards them, Medrian turned to Estarinel and hugged him fervently.

‘Oh, forgive me for the future,’ she cried, almost in tears. ‘Remember that I love you, even if I can’t tell you again. This has meant everything to me... I have hope for you, if not for myself. For myself, I wish only for peace…’

He returned the embrace, kissing her dark hair, not knowing what to say. The Entrance Point was almost upon them and he suddenly felt terrible regret that they had to go through and continue the Quest, that time would not stand still for them. Hand in hand they prepared to step into the void, but just before they did so, Medrian looked at him with a radiant light in her face he had never seen before and probably would never see again. She had finally found words to express what she felt.

‘I was alive here,’ she said.

#

Even as Ashurek and Calorn span through blackness, Calorn was trying desperately to orientate herself. Upwards – the malevolent gale was bearing them upwards. With increased dread she realised that they were about to be expelled from the Dark Regions. She gagged with the effort of calling out a warning to Ashurek; but she could not make a sound.

Particles battered them, like stones caught in a hurricane. They were forced at painful speed through a moist fleshy tube, then through some dense substance like liquefied rubber. Gasping for breath they emerged from it and were flung through air and then against rock. Calorn caught the briefest glimpse of an infinite black swamp some forty feet below, before the dark wind thrust them upwards into a fistula of rock.

They were in the passage that led to H’tebhmella. Probably without the dark energy to lift them through the air they would never have regained it, but now that power also seemed intent on destroying them. It was forcing them through the narrow tunnel at agonizing speed; and they were helpless to slow down. The rock tore at their limbs and hands, ripped their clothing and abraded their skin. Calorn lost consciousness long before they were expelled, like battered dolls thrown by a child, onto the surface of H’tebhmella.

She didn’t know how long they lay there before they were discovered. Almost at once, it seemed, someone was bathing her face with sweet, cool water. With unspeakable relief she gulped in clean air, and opened her eyes to find Filitha, a dark-haired H’tebhmellian woman, bending over her in concern. Slowly her eyes focused on the gentle faces, pale robes and silken hair of several more H’tebhmellians. They thronged around the pillar of rock that contained the tunnel from the Dark Regions. Ashurek was already on his feet. Beside him stood the Lady herself; she seemed to be questioning him, but he only shook his head in grave reply.

Calorn pulled herself to her feet with Filitha’s help. The Blue Plane’s healing power acted more swiftly on those in greatest need, and already the ache of her bruises was fading.

‘Ashurek, are you all right?’ she asked urgently. His clothes, like her own, were torn and blood-soaked, and he looked as exhausted and stricken as she felt. With relief she saw that H’tebhmella’s energy was swiftly restoring him, but he did not answer her, and the look in his eyes was so distant and so grim that she recoiled. She felt the pillar of rock pressing into her back, Filitha’s hand on her arm. The H’tebhmellians were all gazing at Calorn and Ashurek in silent curiosity.

Among them she saw Estarinel and Medrian, equally perplexed.

Into the eerie silence the Lady said quietly, ‘Ashurek, Calorn, do you feel well enough to offer me some explanation of what has occurred?’

Recovering her self-possession, Calorn began, ‘Yes, my Lady, we…’ but trailed off as she saw the Lady’s expression. It was not gentle; it was stern, and sternness in that pure face shone forth with crystal clarity. It unnerved her more than Ashurek’s severe silence. She muttered, ‘Do you really need to ask?’

There was a terrible light in the Lady’s eyes, as clear as diamond and as hard and precise. Her tall form seemed to be clad in a mantle of icy light.

‘I realise that your purpose was to rescue Silvren. The miracle is that you have returned with relatively little harm to yourselves and H’tebhmella. Ashurek, I had thought I could place trust in you. I can hardly believe I was so wrong. I understand why you felt compelled to go, but surely you must have known that the task was utterly impossible. Why then did you attempt it?’

Still Ashurek did not speak, as if pain and misery had gone too deep within him for words.

‘You have put the Blue Plane at terrible risk,’ the Lady went on, her voice a ringing a steel bell. ‘I think you do not appreciate just how great the danger was. The Shana might have sent a destructive power after you that would have damaged H’tebhmella for all time, and your passage through the Plane would have made it possible. Did you not perceive it? Does it mean nothing to you?’ Her adamantine face was daunting, but Ashurek only glowered back, the pain in his verdant eyes equally formidable.

‘I will not expel you from the Blue Plane. You will be permitted to remain until the Quest departs, but under sufferance, and only because the Quest is so essential. I see you are not repentant. Ashurek, will you not tell me what befell?’ There was a beseeching echo in these last words, but the Gorethrian still did not respond. As if her words were no more than cobwebs destroyed by rain, he gave her one last baleful look, then strode away. The H’tebhmellians fell back to let him pass, and he was soon out of sight among the rocks.

The Lady turned to Calorn. ‘I hardly need to ask – it is clearly readable in your eyes – that you were fully aware of how dangerous and wrong your actions were. And yet, instead of trying to stop him, you used the very skills on which the Quest depends to help him. You put in jeopardy not only your life and his, but the very future of the Earth. Calorn, I trusted your judgment implicitly! What did you hope to achieve?’

Calorn felt she was facing a cold and pure wind that must surely destroy her inferior substance, destroy the loathsome part of her that had lusted for Limir’s death. But somehow she held the fragments of herself together and replied with all the warmth and honesty in her soul, ‘My Lady, you know the answer. I am human. Perhaps I have more idealism than sense. I could not stop Ashurek, but with my help, I believed we had a chance. Without me, he would have found his way there anyway, and he would have been killed!’

The Lady nodded gravely, waiting for her to continue. Suddenly tears sprang into Calorn’s eyes as she added, ‘My Lady, the rescue was so nearly successful...’

Gently, the Lady prompted her, ‘I think you should tell us exactly what happened.’

Fighting the excruciating revulsion and misery with which the memory of those events filled her, Calorn did so. Estarinel and Medrian listened in appalled silence.

‘It was Silvren’s own decision not to come back,’ Calorn concluded. ‘The Shana have done something terrible to her. They have convinced her that she is evil, and must never again taint the Blue Plane or the Earth with her presence. Do you wonder that Ashurek has nothing to say to you after that?’

The Lady’s clear eyes were shining with distilled grief. ‘Ah, Calorn, I cannot fully express the sorrow I feel for Silvren’s plight. Yet you have proved that the time for her rescue is not yet ripe. Until the Serpent dies, no shortcuts can be taken. Do you understand why I was angry?’

‘Yes, my Lady,’ Calorn answered. ‘Yet I would do the same again. Therefore I feel that I should resign from your service.’

The Lady did not reply at once. She placed a hand on Calorn’s shoulder, her face suddenly gentle. ‘Dear one, there is much doubt and obduracy mixed in you, but I will not, cannot expel you from my service. I cannot even adjure you to act only on my instructions in future, because it is your very independence of mind that makes you so valuable to us.’

Calorn held the Lady’s clear gaze and responded, ‘Then it is my only desire to continue to serve you.’

‘That is well. No amount of words can undo what is done, so I shall not speak of this again. Come now, and rest.’ The Lady began to walk away, the other women of the Blue Plane following.

Estarinel and Medrian hung back until Calorn caught them up, and the three walked along together, some distance behind the H’tebhmellians.

‘Calorn, are you sure you’re all right?’ Estarinel asked. She nodded, giving a rueful smile. ‘I can’t believe Ashurek tried to do something so insanely dangerous.’

‘Can’t you? I thought you knew him by now,’ Medrian put in quietly.

‘Yes, it was insane, I suppose,’ Calorn sighed. ‘And I’m extremely worried about him. You can imagine how he’s feeling.’

‘But the Lady was right,’ Estarinel said. ‘What have Silvren and Medrian said all along? The evil must be torn out at its roots. How could there be any hope of rescuing Silvren? Did Ashurek think the Quest ended at that? If he had brought her back safely, would he have stopped there? Perhaps he would have been content to let the Serpent win. He didn’t scruple to put H’tebhmella at risk!’

‘He has learned,’ said Calorn eventually. ‘He says that he will continue the Quest. But Silvren sent him upon it, and now that she has lost her resolve, he...’

‘He only has his own bitterness and desire for revenge to motivate him,’ said Medrian, looking at the ground. ‘I don’t think he has learned anything. I think he has lost too much. Haven’t we all?’ She gave Estarinel a brief, compassionate glance.

‘Well, I suppose you’re right,’ Calorn said. ‘I know we should not have gone. But I still believe we had no choice.’

‘No choice?’ Estarinel exclaimed. ‘What about H’tebhmella? If the Blue Plane had been maimed, what would any of us have had left? Ashurek has achieved nothing except to inflict more pain on Silvren and himself. He’ll destroy everything if he goes on like this.’

Calorn looked at him in surprise. ‘I thought – well, I thought you’d be rather more sympathetic to him.’

‘Why do you care?’ Medrian enquired acidly. ‘The Worm must be destroyed. Nothing else matters – nothing.’ And she hung her head as if she only half-believed her own words.

Sighing to herself, Calorn left them and went to seek Filitha’s company instead. She did not want to be alone with memories of the Dark Regions, for although her body was healing rapidly, her soul was still weeping raw from the sickness of that place.

#

The Lady was true to her word; she reproached neither Ashurek nor Calorn any further over the matter. There was no need; the awesome purity of her anger was not easily forgotten. It hung over the Plane like an intangible mantle of diamond, and nothing seemed quite the same.

Ashurek doggedly avoided company, rejecting Filitha’s and Estarinel’s attempts to talk to him with calm but uncompromising moroseness.

‘I don’t know why you’re worried about him,’ Medrian said to Estarinel. Several hours had passed, and they were alone in a secluded hollow by a waterfall. ‘Has he shown a ghost of concern about your family?’

Estarinel shook his head, sighing. ‘I wouldn’t expect him to. It’s not that. I’m thinking of the Quest: perhaps he feels unable to continue, after all.’

‘No. He won’t fail us in that.’ She slipped her hand through his arm. ‘I’m convinced of it, Estarinel. Don’t worry.’ It’s the least of my worries, she thought with a shiver of dread.

‘I wonder how much longer we have to wait?’ he murmured.

‘Not long. Not long,’ Medrian replied with quiet, sinister conviction.

A rich indigo twilight enfolded them. Soft blue-green moss sparkled beneath their feet, and all around them trees stood like columns of violet glass. Nearby, the stream slid musically towards the lake. No other sound disturbed H’tebhmella’s calm. Motes of light were drifting like dandelion spores across the dark blue sky, each as distant and awesome as a star, yet as warm and comforting as a candle lit to welcome an exhausted traveller.

‘The Quest can’t begin soon enough,’ Estarinel said, half to himself. ‘Yet how hard it will be to leave here.’ He turned to embrace Medrian, but she moved stiffly out of his grasp.

‘Estarinel, I told you that when we left Forluin, things must be as they were before,’ she stated, turning her back on him. She was thinking, I must be strong, I must end it before M’gulfn ends it for me.

Her inner struggle was evident in the taut lines of her neck and shoulders, and Estarinel’s longing to understand her turned like a knife in his heart. But he knew that anything he said or did would only make her conflict harder. He did not reply, just stood gazing at her, and suddenly, in total contradiction of what she had just said, she turned and put her arms around his neck and kissed him with a passion that was more desperate than his.

I have no strength left at all, she cried inwardly. Because of my weakness the Quest will fail, and knowing this, still I cannot help myself.

#

Estarinel was woken by someone calling his name distantly, but as he surfaced from sleep and sat up on the soft moss, he thought he must have imagined it.

And Medrian had gone.

The H’tebhmellian sky had returned to a clear, pale blue and all seemed calm, but he felt anxious. He stood up, looking about him. He must have been asleep for several hours; he wondered how long ago she had wandered off alone. Saddened, he knelt on the stream’s bank for a while, drinking the cool water and splashing his face and neck. After a minute he heard his name called again, closer now, and presently the H’tebhmellian woman, Filitha, approached him through the trees.