The Crystal Chalice (Book 1) (49 page)

 “I can’t see them but
they won’t be far behind. They will most likely guess where we are headed and
that does not give us much time. I hope Relisar has the curtain already open.”

 But Relisar had done
nothing of the sort. His anxiety about his companions made him agitated and
confused. He tried desperately to remember the words but he couldn’t
concentrate and they simply wouldn’t come. He was pacing back and forth before
the rock face where they had made their unexpected appearance in the kingdom
all those weeks ago, when he detected the sound of thudding hooves approaching
at speed.

 Andarion heard it too
and stiffened to attention, his hand on his sword. “It’s them!” he exclaimed in
relief. However, his greeting to Elorin lacked his usual courtesy.

 “You slipped away when
my back was turned, madam.” he accused. “Of all the idiotic things to have
done!” He flung up his hand. “Tell her, Celedorn!”

 But Celedorn just shook
his head. “It doesn’t matter. We’re here now and I’m afraid we have probably
brought half the guards in the kingdom in our train. Is the curtain open?”

 In reply Andarion
rolled his eyes heavenwards in a gesture more expressive than words.

 “I see,” said Celedorn
dryly. He turned to Relisar who was beaming at him with a smile that stretched
from ear to ear. “I appreciate that you are glad to see us, Relisar, but the
respite is only temporary. You must open the curtain.”

 “Yes, yes, don’t
pressurise me. I can’t think while I’m being harassed. Just move away a little,
and give me space to think. I’m sure I’ll have it open in a trice.”

 They did as he asked
and soon heard him muttering to himself. 
“Ingrendieth.....no.....incandria.....no....”

 “He’s going to do it
again,” remarked the Prince despairingly. “He’ll wait until we are on the brink
of destruction before he gets it right.”

 Triana touched Elorin’s
arm. “What happened in the city? How did you get away?”

 Elorin, suddenly shy of
speaking about what had happened, replied dismissively: “A lot of running which
ended in us climbing the city wall.”

 Celedorn, who heard her
reply, flicked a curious glance in her direction, but passed no comment.

 “Listen!” said the
Prince suddenly. They all heard it. The sound of many horses. He turned to
Relisar. “It’s now or never. Have you found the counter-spell yet?”

 “Oh yes,” said the old
man with great sang-froid, “I opened the curtain some minutes ago, I just
didn’t want to interrupt your conversation.”

 Andarion gave an
explosive noise of frustration and grabbed his horse’s bridle. “We must bring
the horses through with us, in case we are pursued beyond the borders of the
kingdom.” But he suffered a check when he found that his horse would not follow
him through the curtain. It jibbed and backed away, its eyes rolling in fear.
Even Celedorn and he together could not force it to go through.

 “We’ll have to leave
them,” snapped Celedorn, aware that the pounding hooves were getting closer.

 “No need,” said Relisar
blithely and lifting his hand, placed it between the horse’s eyes and muttered
something under his breath. “A calming spell,” he explained. “Try again.”

 Although the horse was
still reluctant, it allowed itself to be dragged through and disappeared into
the rock wall. Triana and Elorin, leading their mounts, went next. At that
moment a large body of cavalry rode into sight, ascending the white road at a
full gallop. They were led by Naldian.

 “Take my horse and go
through, Celedorn,” Relisar said tensely. “And don’t argue, you know very well
that I must be the last to go through.” When Celedorn had gone, he turned to
face the riders, now skidding to a halt in front of him in a cloud of white
dust.

 Unafraid, in a loud,
clear voice, he addressed them. “Your kingdom exists with the leave of the
Destroyer because the House of Parth betrayed mankind. Their treachery led to
the destruction of the Old Kingdom and the death of many good men. Now I tell
you, if ever the Turog are defeated, the House of Parth will not long survive
them. Eskendria, the last remnant of the Old Kingdom, will exact vengeance - of
that you may be assured.”

 Before they could
respond, he stepped swiftly back through the wall.

 When he emerged in the
tunnel, he was greeted by pandemonium. He had forgotten that none of the others
had any light and were consequently plunged into pitch blackness. The horses,
shaking off the temporary effects of the spell, had panicked, and in the dark
confines of the passage were rearing and snorting, cannoning into each other,
their owners clinging desperately to their bridles trying unavailingly to
control them.

 Relisar groped on the
floor for a stone. At first, all he encountered were strangely shaped, brittle
things that he could not identify.

 Triana was sobbing with
fright. “What is in here? What is frightening the horses so much? I can’t see
anything!”

 Relisar’s hand at last
closed on a stone, which he instantly caused to glow. A scene of total chaos
met his eyes. Triana’s horse reared up, lifting its diminutive owner right off
her feet, still stubbornly clinging to the reins. The Prince and Elorin had
become entangled with each other, the confusion made worse by their mounts
backing and sidling, showing the whites of their eyes in terror. Celedorn had
two horses to contend with and although his own stood still, sweating and
trembling with fear, the other lashed out with its hind legs, its hooves
narrowly missing Triana’s mount. In the same instant, the faint glow of the
stone revealed the cause of their terror. The passage was choked with the bones
of  Turog. Sculls, ribcages, thigh bones all picked clean and cracking
under the horses stamping hooves. Scattered amongst the carnage were weapons,
helmets and shields.

 The Prince, finally
getting his horse under control, suddenly realised what he was standing in.

 “Good God! What has
happened here? These surely are the Turog who pursued us.”

 Relisar was helping
Triana calm her mount. Her eyes darted fearfully around the tunnel.

 “Father of Light
protect us!” she exclaimed. “There is evil at work here.”

 “You are right, my
dear,” relied Relisar, who was the only one who knew what had happened. “We
must leave this place at once.” He glanced uneasily at the stone carvings of
the snakes, back in their place on the walls, thankfully inert. “There is no
time to be lost. The passage is too low to ride the horses, so we must lead
them across.....” he gestured helplessly with his hand. “......across all
this.”

 “I can’t cross that!”
squeaked Triana.

 “You’re standing in it
already,” observed Celedorn, somewhat less than tactfully.

 “I can’t! I can’t!”

 Elorin caught her by
the shoulder. “Then mount your horse. If you bend low over the saddle there
will be enough headroom. We must
go
!”

 Triana nodded and
swiftly mounted. Her horse showed signs of misbehaving again, until Celedorn’s
iron fist caught its bridle beside the bit and unceremoniously pulled its head
down.

 They began to pick
their way over the bones, leading their trembling horses. The macabre debris
cracked and crunched under their feet until Elorin looked as if she was going
to be sick. Some of the bodies appeared to have been ripped apart. Sculls lay
scattered, detached from their torsos, arm and leg bones protruded at crazy
angles from the chaos.

 Faintly, above the
crunching of the bones, Relisar thought he detected a soft hiss. His eye darted
towards the encircling blackness that lay beyond the faint halo of the glowing
stone. Beyond the light, at the edge of the darkness, something was moving.
Pairs of baleful green eyes began to glimmer in the darkness.

 “Faster!” cried
Relisar, the panic in his voice sending alarm through the others.

 The light briefly
touched the shining scales of a long tail as it slithered down the wall.

 “Run!
Run
!”
shrieked Relisar.

 The walls and ceilings
were all now moving and sliding as the stone serpents awoke. They had killed
recently and were ready to do so again. It mattered not to them whether they
feasted on Turog or human flesh.

 The company charged
along the passage. Triana’s horse, scenting escape, bolted down the tunnel with
its rider clinging desperately to its mane. The other horses, too, began to
drag their owners faster and faster along the winding tunnel in a
terror-stricken rout.

 A chorus of hisses took
to the air behind them, issuing menacingly out of the darkness, spurring them
on.

 At last they burst
through the curtain of ivy into the fresh, starlit night, away from the
claustrophobic confines of the deadly tunnel. A last faint hiss issued from the
passage before declining.

 “They were alive!” The
Prince shuddered. “The stone snakes actually came alive. Triana was right,
there is evil at work here.”

 “Indeed,” agreed
Relisar. “The House of Parth was ever evil, ever drawn to darkness.” He wiped
his forehead with the tail of his beard. “By the way, where is Triana?”

 “Here,” came a rather
woebegone voice from behind some bushes. “That.....that impossible animal no
sooner stuck its nose out of the tunnel than it threw me.” She emerged limping
slightly. “And to add insult to injury,” she added, “I landed in a holly bush.”

 Celedorn choked, vainly
trying to smother a laugh, but it was infectious and soon they were all
laughing, even Triana.

 The Prince admonished
his friend. “You are no gentleman, Celedorn, or you would know not to laugh
when a lady falls into a holly bush.”

 He turned to Triana.
“If we could find that damned fidgety horse of yours, then I think we should
get out of here. The snakes may not leave their tunnel, but we cannot assume
that the guards will not pursue us beyond the borders of the kingdom. Come up behind
me and we will see if we can find him.”

 Her horse had not gone
far, but was standing forlornly in a glade having brought itself to a halt by
treading on one of its reins.

 “Which way?” asked the
Prince.

 “South,” replied
Celedorn firmly. “Always south.”

  The hours of darkness
slowly passed and dawn arrived bringing with it a burst of birdsong, and
banishing to their proper place the fears of the night. As mile after mile fell
behind them, it became apparent that they were not going to be pursued beyond
the boundaries of the Kingdom of Adamant. Relisar’s view was that King Morthren
dared not trespass beyond the domain allotted to him by the Destroyer. His
power, though great, could not challenge his master’s.

 During the next two
days, they climbed higher through the pine forests until they crossed through a
narrow passage between two mountain peaks. To their surprise, there was no sign
of the Turog. They never knew if any of the ones who had pursued them into the
tunnel had escaped to tell their story. Even if none of them had ever returned
to report their presence to their masters, it was strange that the pine forest
was now so completely empty. As they descended the far slopes of the mountain,
the pine trees began to give way to deciduous woods that seemed to continue
without a break as far as the eye could see.

 Yet there appeared to
be little joy amongst the companions that they had escaped. Triana noticed that
all, except Relisar, appeared quiet and subdued. At first she thought it was
perhaps a reaction to the danger they had been through, but as time passed, she
became convinced that something was wrong. Elorin, in particular, was quieter
than she had ever known, often riding at the rear on her own, responding
uncommunicatively to any remark addressed to her.

 Elorin was in fact
troubled by what she considered to be her own perfidy. She was also aware, that
for the first time in a long while, Celedorn was a stranger to her. He had
often told her that she did not know him and she began to wonder if he was
right. His actions were shrouded in mystery. At one moment he had kissed her
with overwhelming passion, now he was aloof. She wondered if his kiss was just
a physical response from a man of strong emotions - as she knew him to be. She
had witnessed him in the grip of many powerful feelings. She had feared his
anger at Ravenshold, seen the fierce glow in his eyes when in battle, observed
him bitter, arrogant, hurt. But somewhere, unexplored in her mind, was the
knowledge that it was more than that. In that brief moment when he had looked
into her eyes, she had seen something else. Yet he was now utterly remote,
scarcely addressing a single word to her.

 She little realised
that his aloofness arose due to the fact that he had been plunged into despair.
It was as if the gates of heaven had been slammed in his face. The moment’s
dizzying sensation when she had responded to his kiss, had swiftly been
followed by her coolness towards him and his subsequent sense of rejection. She
didn’t speak to him. She didn’t look at him. She trailed behind the others
looking sad.

 For the first time he
reviewed his life with distaste, all his defiance and bravado gone. All the
reasons in the past that he had used to justify his behaviour now had a hollow,
empty ring. His past deeds defiled him, and in bitterness of spirit, he knew it
was too late to change. What had been done could not be undone. He was Celedorn
the brigand, the scoundrel, the criminal. Very likely what she was feeling now
was revulsion.