Fallowblade (71 page)

‘A master of rhetoric,’ Dristan acknowledged.

‘Will you do something for me?’ Zaravaz asked the child. She nodded shyly. ‘Will you tell that cowardly Fridayweed over there on the table that too many comfits will give him a bellyache?’ Corisande nodded again and giggled, after which Zaravaz rose to his feet with a swift and graceful movement, and only Asr
ă
thiel noted the slight flinch.

Awkwardly, though with rigorous observation of decorum, Asr
ă
thiel’s friends and kindred made their salutations as the goblin king took his leave of them. The atmosphere in the blue drawing room remained fraught with strain and incredulity. Most of the mortals were poised between disappointment and relief at the brevity of his visit.

Having said his farewells, Zaravaz conducted Asr
ă
thiel out to the balcony. People stepped back to clear a path before them and nobody tried to follow, for it was clear they wanted to spend a moment alone; nevertheless the entire crowd watched them through the open doors as they conversed briefly together.

‘It is well that Lathallan did not challenge me,’ the goblin king said, ‘whether to a wrestling match or mortal combat. Since the burning made me seelie I am incapable of slaying any thing, and it goes hard with me to do any harm.’

‘Is that the only change in you?’

She saw in his eyes that it was not, and guessed that the agony of such a burning as he had endured would always be with him, though he would never admit to it.

‘The only important one,’ said Zaravaz. ‘To the consternation of Zauberin and others, who seek a cure.’

Asr
ă
thiel smiled.

‘It is my design to join my knights in the far north, beyond the ranges,’ Zaravaz said, clasping both of Asr
ă
thiel’s hands within his and drawing her close to him. ‘I deem we may safely leave these kingdoms in the hands of the Kobold Watch. Perhaps some day your people will learn to deplore the eternal catch-cry of the bigot; man to woman, fair to dark, dark to fair, human to nonhuman,
It is not like us, therefore it is inferior; whereby we have the right to treat it ill.
’

‘Perhaps they will learn. I hope so.’

‘If you wish to come with me, set your affairs in order and meet me at Sølvetårn. I will be waiting there for you.’

‘I want to go with you,’ she said, ‘but I cannot do so if my leaving will bring sorrow upon my family. And, should they give me their blessing, I cannot know how long it will take to make the necessary arrangements. How long will you wait?’

‘I have all the time that ever will be,’ said he, looking down at her with eyes the colour of storms, ‘and so do you. I will wait until you come to me.’

With those words, and with a parting kiss that rendered her speechless, he sprang onto the balcony parapet, let flare his aerofoils of dark energy and flew away.

No sooner had he done so than hoarse and shrill screams arose from the blue drawing room. The damsel ran back inside, where she encountered a low level of chaos. Ornamental daggers, knives and dress swords lay strewn across the floor. Their owners were regarding them with suspicion, or sheepishly picking them up and examining them.

Albiona was standing with her hands on her hips, surveying the scene. ‘He could not help himself,’ she declared severely. ‘He had to leave a parting gift, that bothersome urisk!’ She was laughing, despite her cross words.

‘What happened?’ Asr
ă
thiel asked her aunt.

‘Oh, as soon as
he
had gone the blades all turned into serpents,’ she replied. ‘You should have seen the men’s faces! And the way they all leaped into the air, casting the vipers from them and yelping as if they’d been bitten! It’s a wonder no one was hurt, with people and objects flying in every direction.’

‘A glamour, just a glamour,’ said Asr
ă
thiel, trying not to smile. ‘Of course the snakes would not be real. He would not wish to harm the creatures.’

The three princesses then proceeded to cross-question her, wanting to know all that Zaravaz had said to her and all she had said in reply, but she refused to satisfy their inquiries.

Later that same night, when the rest of the household was abed, Asr
ă
thiel consulted with her parents and grandfather. Their discourse was intense and candid; all facts were laid bare, all feelings expressed.

‘You have found happiness,
a mhuirnín
,’ Jewel said, her joy bittersweet. ‘We love you too much to keep you from it.’

‘Zaravaz could never live amongst us,’ Asr
ă
thiel began hesitatingly.

‘Of course not,’ said Jewel. ‘We cannot expect you to stay with us now, though it costs me dear to even contemplate your departure.’

‘Mother!’ the damsel wrapped Jewel in a loving embrace.

Said Arran, ‘Though it hurts me to say so, it is clear how matters stand between you and he, Asr
ă
thiel. Every bird must fly some day.’

‘No!’ Avalloc said vehemently. ‘Not if they fly towards the hunter’s arrow! My dear child, I cannot condone your going off with this—this
wight
. For a start, there is an age difference of thousands of years!’

‘You speak of Zaravaz,’ said Asr
ă
thiel, ‘as if he were human. With eldritch races vast time spans are meaningless. For example, they are always in their prime—’

But her grandfather interrupted. ‘Nothing you can say will persuade me, Asr
ă
thiel. Zaravaz is of unseeliekind. I do not know what fires have burned him, but he is King of the Silver Goblins, who have wrought us great ruin, and of all men, human or unhuman in Tir, I deem him the least worthy of you.’

A surge of pent sorrow and other emotions threatened to overwhelm the damsel, but out of love and respect for the Storm Lord she bowed her head. ‘If that is your opinion, Grandfather, I will not oppose you. I will not go with him.’ In her mind she said,
I will stay here as long as you live, but after that I will consider myself free.

‘That is well!’ Avalloc said grimly, ignoring Jewel’s reproachful look and Arran’s questioning expression.

As soon as their meeting ended Asr
ă
thiel went out into the night. She took herself down the road from Rowan Green to the plateau, far from human habitation where, alone, she walked for hours through starlit orchards and wild places, and the thoughts on which she dwelled were profoundly stirring to the spirit.

In her mind’s eye she pictured Zaravaz and thousands of Silver Goblins racing across the white wastes of Midwinter, the hooves of the trollhästen kicking up glittering clouds of snow crystals. And riding in cavalcade to meet them, she envisioned, came the Ice Goblins, lords and ladies both;
graihyn
and
liannyn
. Then the two groups merged, and with great rejoicing they wheeled and sped off into the unknown, and nothing was left to show that they had ever existed, for the snow sifted across their tracks, and all became pathless.

When, after dusk, Asr
ă
thiel returned home her grandfather met her at the door with a lantern in his hand, his eyes of clear jade glimmering with tears.

‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘What right has anyone in the land to deny you happiness?’

‘What are you saying?’ The damsel was afflicted to see him so distraught.

‘I am saying, my dear, I have thought it over and I see now what a selfish old dotard I have been. Go ahead and seize your dreams. If you want to venture into the wider world with someone who has captured your heart, then do not hesitate.’

But Asr
ă
thiel said, ‘I
will
hesitate, Grandfather. My mother and father will live on, but if I go now, I may never see you again.’

‘Do not allow that to hold you back,’ said Avalloc.

‘But I must,’ she insisted, clinging to the old man as if she were a child again, and he as strong and hale as he once had been. ‘I have all the time in the world. My destiny lies north of the mountains, but I will not leave High Darioneth before you do.’

‘I am but seventy-two Winters old,’ said the Storm Lord. ‘Let me tell you, my dear, that it was given to me to know the exact span of my life. I will live for another forty years. You may go away now, and return to visit us every once in a while. I’ll still be here.’

When she heard his words, the damsel’s happiness had no boundaries.

She returned to the Mountain Ring with her family after the betrothal celebrations came to an end, and took a week to put her affairs in order and make her preparations. When it came time to pack her belongings, the only thing she took with her was the gift of Zaravaz, the iridium sword
Rehollys
. After saying all her goodbyes she made one final tour around the house of Maelstronnar. She gazed long at the portraits of the beloved weathermasters who had lost their lives on the ferny hill, visited the places where she used to play as a child and the library where she had conversed with Crowthistle, ran upstairs to the deserted glass cupola where her mother had slept for so long, viewed the antique fishmail shirt displayed on the wall, the jewel of Strang in her mother’s trinket box, and Fridayweed lying asleep, curled up in a sunny nook with his tasselled tail twitching as he dreamed eldritch dreams.

With each familiar object she saw and touched, the damsel felt a pang of wistfulness and a frisson of fear, to think of leaving behind all that was so dear and so familiar. Simultaneously she looked forward to the future with a thrill of excitement, and if at times she became so overwhelmed by nostalgia that she thought she could never depart, she would think of her lover waiting on the heights, and imagine the lands beyond the borders that had yet to be explored, and she would whisper to herself, ‘It is time to put aside old things. I cherish the past, yet it lies at my back. A new life beckons.’

It was in the dining hall, the wide, low-ceilinged chamber panelled with walnut and arrayed with comfortable furniture, that Asr
ă
thiel’s eyes were drawn to the great sword in its scabbard hanging on the wall above the mantelpiece. There it was, Fallowblade, the golden sword, slayer of goblins, and heirloom of the House of Stormbringer. From beyond the casements came the musical notes of small songbirds twittering, and the soft cries of children playing on the greensward. The mountain wind, ever unquiet, sighed and murmured as it prowled the eaves and ruffled the rowan leaves with cool fingers. For a long moment Asr
ă
thiel stood motionless, looking at the mighty weapon. One last time she climbed up, lifted it off the wall with both hands, and drew the blade from its sheath.

The fluted tongue of Fallowblade was a pillar of golden flame. Gripping the hilt firmly, Asr
ă
thiel held it vertically in front of her body, as she often had done before. White-gold spangles ran up and down its glimmering length. The atmosphere seemed to sing with arcane voices where the sharp edges of Fallowblade severed the very air, particle from particle. Gently Asr
ă
thiel hefted the sword in her hands, swishing it slightly, almost imperceptibly, from side to side, her gaze never shifting from the blaze of aureate loveliness around this beautiful, shimmering, lethal thing.

‘Thank you for what you have done,’ she said.

Then she slid the sword back into the scabbard and replaced it on its mountings.

The mountain tops around the rim of High Darioneth had disappeared into a layer of vapour. Giant cloud formations billowed and surged overhead, mist-edged for the most part, their borders hard-stencilled with silver-gilt when they churned across the face of the rising sun. The niveous dome of
Icemoon
’s inflating envelope could be seen rising tremulously behind the tiled roofs of the houses on Rowan Green, glimmering palely against the darkness like an imitation of the moon.

At the launching-place, on the apron carpeted with small-leaved creeping mint, a large assembly thronged about the wicker gondola suspended beneath the balloon. They had gathered to bid Asr
ă
thiel farewell. She kissed and embraced her parents, torn between sadness and exhilaration, but never for an instant doubting that she was setting out along the road to her rightful destiny.

Almost fully buoyant, the aerostat was anchored to the ground by four thick cables. The enormous satiny envelope shivered and swayed high above, its multiple gores rippling as the interior temperature increased. The triangular facets of the sun-crystal beneath the balloon’s mouth gleamed and winked like water in moonlight, but in its heart dazzling white-gold rays bristled like a miniature star, or like a pincushion stuck with white-hot needles, and none could look directly into those depths without being blinded, for some quality of the sun was trapped therein.

Asr
ă
thiel’s copilot caused the crystal’s heat to be gradually released, flowing out from the crystal’s peak. Meanwhile, balloon stewards held open the sprung steel band at the lower edge of the fire-proof skirt clipped to the mouth of the balloon, so that all heat was directed inside the silken envelope.