Samples from books that we have published at Eartherean Books.
This is another in a series from the fourth book in the 4-book series The Doom-Quest of Ara-Karn: Darkbridge.
© 2009 by A. Adam Corby
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
The Dark Lands
FOR A MOMENT Allissál wondered whether it would be better to turn back and discover who called, or to ride on and sunder all her bonds to the world. In truth, this might have been some stratagem of his. But in the end she turned back – perhaps it was some quality in that voice she recognized which decided her.
For the one who called was Emsha.
‘Ah, majesty,’ the old nurse wheezed, ‘what a terror you put into this old heart! As if it weren’t enough that I have had to chase your majesty across half the world, and climb these cliffs at my age—! Then I reach here just in time to see your majesty ride off where even I would not be able to find you!’ She half laughed as she spoke, she was so happy to have outwitted her mistress.
Allissál was dazed. To discover Emsha here had been the thing farthest from her thoughts. ‘How did you follow me?’
‘Majesty, have I not been with you since before you even spoke? I know you, after all. This was the road you would take – I knew it as soon as I gave it a moment’s thought. Does your majesty not remember when you were young, and ran off into the mountains? I have not. Straightway I got this stout pony and rode for Ul Raambar – and made good going, too, for the wars are ended, and all the lands have taken him for the new Emperor.’
‘I followed the out-of-the-way roads,’ Allissál mused. ‘Else your little pony would never have caught Kis Halá.’
‘He got me here, that’s all I’ll say.’ A lock of hair had fallen aslant the old nurse’s brow, and she blew at it to set it back in place – but it only fell down farther.
Allissál sat back and laughed.
She had never felt so much love for anyone. She hugged the old nurse, and pinched her broad cheek hard, making Emsha cry out. ‘And what now, my old wise hen?’ she asked. ‘Are you willing even to follow me there, beyond the dark horizon?’
‘I have a basket of food here with me at least – more than I can say of your majesty, who was ever forgetful of little matters. But you have not asked me, majesty, why I came after you. I have news!’
The smile faded from Allissál’s face. ‘News of him?’
‘Oh, no – better. When you chose to be so cruel to me – but there, that’s forgotten – I went to the Brown Temple to pray to Goddess. And when I entered, I found that all was arranged properly, and the sacred fire still burned. Then I prayed, for a long while, it seemed to me, for guidances for what was to become of me lacking you to oversee and care for. When I arose there was a priestess before me, in the golden mask and ceremonial robes.
‘When she learned I was your majesty’s servant, she did me all honor, and guided me to chambers hidden beneath the altar. There I told her all that went on, and how you had gone away. It was she who sent me after you. She told me how the priestesses from all the lands and cities have gone to a place in the Desert, to build a city there and keep alive the worship of Goddess and of Elna. And majesty, she said they had left her there only that she might wait to see if she might reach you and take you to that secret city. There, she said, they still do you your proper worship, as the body of Goddess upon Earth.’
Allissál looked out to the bright horizon. ‘What else did she tell you, Emsha, of this city and the priestesses’ plans?’
‘That they will wait there until Goddess grants them Her fiery lance again. And until that pass they will work in secret against this new rule by the barbarians, and bear the word of Goddess to all true men and women.’
‘No,’ said Allissál: ‘that is a road I have already ridden. I will not fight him, Emsha. Let him be, and live on as happy as he can. I have put the world behind me. I am bound to go on, out of his power.’
‘But where is it we are going?’ Emsha asked. There was a touch of fear in her voice.
Allissál pointed down the shadows.
Emsha paled. Her eyes grew big and dark.
‘I am going there, Emsha, to seek out Darkbridge and the world beyond. If Darkbridge is anything more than a myth some men whisper. And you, old one – do you have the heart to seek that way with me?’
Emsha blushed happily. ‘Oh, no, your majesty. I have no courage. For I am so fearful to be parted from you, that even going that way seems to me a little thing.’
Allissál smiled, and held Emsha’s hands. ‘I am glad of it, you know. Oh, why did I not bring you along from the first?’
Again they laughed, but that was a little thing against the darkness beyond.
§
IT WAS A FULL PASS before they took their leave. Emsha would not hear of starting until all was properly done. At last all the bags and provisions met the old servant’s stern requirements; and they started down the road. At the great wall of rock beyond the battlements, Allissál showed Emsha the farewells of Ghezbal Daan’s army, and offered to carve her something; but Emsha shook her head.
‘I have no parting words. And anyway, who would be interested in the farewell of an old unimportant slave?’
So they rode on.
Soon the darkness grew so strong about them that the outlines of the battlements behind them were invisible.
And Emsha fiddled with her pony’s leads. Allissál heard her old nurse muttering old chants and prayers. She herself looked about them, and down into the maw of blackness that threatened to engulf them.
Her heart was beating fast. She felt hot and cold by turns. Something caught in her throat. She heard a dull roaring, and looked about before she knew it was the sound of her own blood rushing through her veins.
‘Majesty…’ The word was a little squeak. Allissál saw stark terror burning on the dim features of the nurse.
She rode alongside her servant, reached out, took her hand. The old nurse’s grip was fierce. For a moment they halted, looking into each other’s eyes.
All about them darkness loomed.
No dimplace was ever so dark as this. And yet there remained of Goddess a purplish glow cast over the rising peaks of silver-black mountains. The worst lay ahead of them.
The torches that they held seemed dwarfed and lost. All about the small halos of light swam an unmeasured sea of darkness and blackness. Darkness and blackness such as they had never known in all their lives!
There had been plays, fantastical poems, legends told of what lay beyond the dark horizon. But these had been the idle thoughts of childish minds. Nothing in them could compare to what lay all about them now.
There was the travel Book of Skhel, by the learned Inozelstus of Anoth, which claimed to tell truly of a journey one Horath had made into the darklands. There the Madpriests were said to live. Men – or half-bred men – who were born and bred in darkness! Ul Raambar was built to defend against them, but even so Allissál now wondered whether all that could have been truth. Was it not rather some dream? No one could endure such darkness.
‘Majesty,’ Emsha breathed. She snuffled. She was crying, weeping for sheer terror of the dark.
Allissál leaned over and hugged her oldest and best friend. ‘Go back, dearest servant. Go back into the light.’
‘Yes, majesty. Let’s be going far from here!’
But Allissál shook her head. ‘Dearest one … I cannot turn back. I have sworn … you know how stubborn I am … my heart would fail if I went back now … I would lose the last part of me…’ But the truth of it went beyond that. He was to blame, somehow. He was bound up in what she was doing. She had thought she would defy him. But was it not nearer the truth to admit that she still walked and rode where his will, his bodily existence upon her world, commanded?
‘I cannot go back,’ she said, at last.
The old nurse stiffened her back. She sat upright in her saddle, and shook her reins and clucked her tongue. She urged the stout pony forward against its will, and led the way.
Allissál rode after.
After a while, even the purplish glow over the silver mountain crowns was gone.
They chose their path with care, tightening their eyes to pierce the darkness beyond the torchlights. The grotesque bushes and stunted, writhing trees were like black talons eager to clutch and point out these intruders. Shortly after the sight of the peaks faded, a pack of wolves caught the scent of the horses and began to track them. Their eyes were red in the reflected glare from the torchlights. The pony shuddered at the smell of these predators, but Kis Halá held herself bravely.
At the base of the mountains, they followed for a while the muddy bed of a stream carven in the rock. It was a shallow tame flow now, but come the winter storms and the spring melting, and it would rage in torrents. The horse and pony picked their way warily down the twisting stream. It was about that time that the wolves left them, crawling back to their mountain lairs, as if there was that in this land of black-huddling hills which could frighten even them.
Thereafter they were left in relative peace – save that now and then they would hear some stealthy darting sound behind them. Allissál would turn about swiftly, to see a swift-vanishing gleam just beyond the light, as of something slimy and foul. Emsha refused to look back. ‘If they will come gobble me,’ she said, ‘let them come. But in the meanwhile don’t ask that I look at them.’
‘A wise policy, befitting such a dignified chara,’ Allissál said. In her heart, however, she was ill at ease. She had not known how terrible this darkness would be. It was the light that attracted the things, and the light only that held them at bay. She reached down to the bundle of torches at her saddle-side. When they were gone, she would have to try cutting branches from these malignant trees, if indeed they burned. Not well, by the look of them.
At the bank of the stream they found again the trail left by Ghezbal Daan, a swath of charred trees and stumps chasing the path of dark God. Here and there along the edges of the trail were bones and broken lance-points, as if this path had not been forged without price.
The air was deeply chill and damp, as if it had never been dry or warm. The ground seemed half frozen. They huddled together for the sleeps, and Allissál spread her cloak over both of them. Each sleep they gathered bundles of dead twigs and logs and built a fire. The fires kept the beasts away, but burned fitfully, with much smoke, and gave off little heat. No, Allissál thought grimly, such wood would not make torches. From time to time the pony woke them with a whimper, and Allissál gripped the hilt of the shortsword she had brought.
So they went on for half a dozen passes – or so Allissál guessed: for thick clouds hid the moon, and there was no other way to count time’s passing. For the first passes Allissál was heartened by Emsha’s chatter; but then the darkness overmastered the old nurse’s heart and the words died on her lips.
On the seventh pass or thereabouts they crested a small wooded hill and came upon the beginning of a great, hollowed plain. The horses seemed unwilling to go on. There was the smell of bitter cinders in the women’s nostrils. Kis Halá stumbled over something – Allissál saw by the torchlight two metal-clad figures lying in each other’s arms, fastened in the embrace of death. The stink of half-consumed flesh assaulted her.
The clouds parted briefly, as if by design. The full power of the restless jade eye stared down, flooding the plain with its evil light. A tangled patchwork of intricately grouped bodies of men and horses and dogs and wolves and other, unknown beasts, covered the great plain. Moonlight glinted off the icy metal of silver hauberks, notched axe-blades, torn iron mail and shields with curving slivers cut from them. For a long moment the two women stopped, entranced by the mute horror of that scene; then the clouds moved in, and darkness took again the plain.
At last Emsha, her shudder audible in her words, asked, ‘Majesty … what is it?’
‘The necropolis of Ghezbal Daan,’ Allissál replied. ‘Come.’
She rode down the field, picking a careful path among the bodies of the slain. Emsha hesitated, then muttering and making the Sign of Goddess ten times over, urged the pony after. In silence they wandered, holding cloaks over their mouths and nostrils. Allissál thought briefly of Ampeánor riding through Egland Downs. It was no wonder he had returned so near to madness. She wondered how this now might affect her; and she urged Kis Halá to a greater speed.
Twice round the circuit of that hollow plain Allissál led Emsha, searching for signs of another path leading away from the place. But there was none. Apparently all those who had gone with Ghezbal Daan had perished here. The last of Ul Raambar had ended their lives here, in a place where none would mourn them, nor give them proper rituals. Not even Goddess should know their end, unless it were that dark God told Her.
At the center of the plain, surmounting a tremendous pile of the stained broken bodies and the wolf-friends of the Madpriests, Allissál found the helm of Ghezbal Daan. Only the helm she found, and nothing more: but she knew it, for she had known Ghezbal Daan, and his helm had been like no other’s. She kissed it, tasting the salt and blood dried upon its dented crest. She placed it on the peak of those heaped bodies like a crown.
‘Please, majesty,’ Emsha said, ‘can we not leave this place?’
It had begun to rain, an ice-cold rain of winter. It pelted them, making of their cloaks sodden heavy masses. The hiss of it spattering from all the war-gear of the dead was the most mournful sound Allissál had ever heard. She lifted her face into the rain and opened her mouth. The chill drops bit her tongue. Even rainwater was bitter here.
‘Very well.’
The wind rose again, colder with the rain, as they left that verminous plain. They went at hazard, Allissál letting Kis Halá choose her own path through the woods and vales. How the little trees managed to live here she could not tell, but it seemed all the more horrible, and all the more mocking, that they did.
For three passes the rain fell unabating, gathering in flood-roaring streambeds and leaving icy sheens upon the undersides of rock ledges. The darkness was complete about them now, as if they had been driven into a bag tied tight: nor Goddess, nor God, nor even the little light of the torches lit their path, for the rain had killed them all. Finally they stumbled upon a small cave in a face of rock. There they huddled together wordlessly, wringing the water from their clothing and awaiting the rain’s end. It seemed as though it would never end; but at last it did.
They rose and took up again their journey. Allissál disdained now to carry the torches. Her eyes had grown big in the darkness, and bright things hurt them – moreover torches were beacons here, and she could not slough the feeling of being spied upon. They rode deeper into darkness. Though the rain had ceased, clouds still covered heaven. They rode, and felt the bushes and brambles catching at and scratching their legs, rending the hems of their cloaks.
There were other reasons to avoid the bushes, for slimy, creeping things congregated there, their pallid moistened eyes bulging in the darkness, then winking out. Once the pony started and all but bucked, and even Kis Halá lifted her massive head anxiously in the breeze. There was a strange odor in the cold air, unclean and loathsome, and from far off came the rumbling, shambling sound of some monstrous, reptilian beast. Thereafter Allissál kept to the rocky hills and ledge-plains, even though it exposed them more to wind and watchful eye.
The air grew colder. Now it seemed colder to Allissál than even the mountain air about her childhood castle in winter. Emsha began speaking again, in short hasty sentences. Allissál knew she spoke to distract herself from the cold. She felt a little ashamed of herself then, that she had allowed Emsha to accompany her.
They halted to rest and eat. The clouds broke open, and God blazed over their heads. Grudgingly and with great difficultly, Allissál built a small fire. Emsha huddled over it. Allissál beheld her old nurse’s hands and arms, calloused and grimy, and her legs filthy and scarred. She looked as filthy as any squat barbarian witch-woman of the far North. Allissál had often wondered how anyone could live like that. Then she thought, And do I look any better?
She rolled into a ball away from the fire. Still she could feel the dirt upon her body. She itched beneath her robes, her flesh crawling with insects. She shook her head angrily and crawled to the side of a small nearby pool.
‘Majesty, what is it you do?’
‘I am bathing,’ she answered angrily.
‘But majesty – the cold. You will fall ill.’
‘I care not.’ She threw off her robes and sank into the pond. The coldness of the water beat her like a blow, numbing her feet and knees and breasts; but she set herself against it and washed herself at her accustomed speed, scraping her flesh with chipped flat stones. Her hair she found in such knotted snarls it would have been better suited for a wild bird’s nest. She cursed beneath her breath. What had it ever brought her, this hair of hers, but misery, and a kind of fame she had not wanted? She caught it by the handful and slashed it with the dagger. The hair fell in thick sheafs onto the dark mud, gleaming in the glare of the fire. Now all that remained was a ragged brush. She rubbed it beneath her hands, liking the feel of it.
‘Majesty! Whatever have you done?’
She stood up out of the black pond into the toweling rough hands of the wind. ‘Only what should have been done long ago.’
Emsha took Allissál to the side of the fire and covered her with the heavy cloak. But the fire gave off little warmth as it hissed and spumed with what fell into it. For it had begun to snow.
The two women huddled together beside the fire. Allissál insisted on opening her cloak and arranging it over the both of them, so it served them like a little fallen tent. Down came the flakes of snow, whitening the back of the great cloak. Allissál abode silent for a space, listening with but half an ear to the tales Emsha told of colds and sicknesses. She shuddered and shook with cold. It was not sickness she looked for, but death, death by frost. It maddened her for a time, then she ceased to care.
She looked out beyond the fire in the meanwhile, and watched with wonder this black land turning white.
‘Emsha, were you ever in love?’ Her words were chattered; she could not rule her jaw, which shivered and shook.
‘I love your majesty.’
‘No. I meant a man.’
‘Ah.’ Emsha was still for a time. Then, ‘Yes,’ she said in a hushed voice. ‘Once, there was a man for me, majesty. He was in the Palace guard. He was a Fulminean – not tall or very handsome – in fact he was not what you would call a great man in any way. But he was sweet to me, and I loved him with all my heart. Ah, I sound like a foolish girl now. Then he was put into another command, and I bore his child apart from him. That was a strong fat boy, a beauty to behold; but he fell ill and died within passes of his birth. It was just then that your majesty was born; and the Merciful Lady granted that I be honored as your nurse. The man – Nerphalen Eron was his name, is that not a nice name? – he wrote me letters for a while, and then there was nothing. There have been times I have wondered what our boy might have become. He was free born, you know, since his father was free and would have owned him.’
‘Emsha, why have you never told me this before? I would have united you and your nicely-named Nerphalen Eron. I would have ordered it.’
‘Ah, majesty – perhaps that is why I did not tell you. Then I would have had to leave your majesty’s service. And it is not a fitting thing for a servant to complain about her life to her mistress.’
‘And you never saw him since?’
‘No. Yet I never left off loving him. Some sleeps I will lie and think of him, and remember the nice things he did for me, or the sweet way he had of doing little things. That gladdens me, especially when the sadness is upon me.’
‘Perhaps that is the best sort of man to love.’ Allissál’s fingers hurt her strangely, and there was a dizziness and lightness within her brow. She felt warmth and chill at once and wished only to lie and sleep forever beneath the snow; but not for anything would she tell Emsha.
‘Majesty, do not say it so,’ the old nurse protested. ‘Love is a wonder – the only thing we have from both the Lady and Her Lord. It is the most powerful force of all: for what else could hold even the sky-walking gods? Why, if I had never loved, I do not know what I might have become.’
‘It may be even as you say, my wise philosopher. And this way I love you is truly a pleasure to me. But of this love of men and women, it held little luck for me.’
Emsha was still a little while at that. Then softly she asked, ‘If you had the choice, majesty, would you then take back all the hours and passes you have spent loving men?’
Allissál did not answer for a long time. Then she answered, ‘No, Emsha, wise Emsha. I would not take back even so much as the most heartsick hour.’
‘Then there you are. Majesty, I have heard it said that only those who have never known love can speak a word against it.’
The snow fell thicklier about them now. The fire was dead. Allissál felt a dry ache about her throat, but would not cough. ‘There has been enough of philosophizing this pass, I think,’ she said as clearly as she could. ‘God should be falling low to the horizon now. Let us sleep, and see if His light will guide us when we wake.’
‘As you wish it, majesty.’ They lay very close together. Again Allissál felt the silent raging of the fever, and could not sleep at first, though she feigned it with her breath. She was starving, and wondered how it was Emsha could bear with the meager meals they shared. Even Kis Halá was but a remnant of herself. And this was but the first snow. The fantastic tales they told of Madpriests must be false. What sort of creatures could survive full winter in this land?
When she woke, it was from dreams of a winter she had spent in Vapio, where they wore thin loras all year long. Something heavy bore down upon her; she struggled, threw back the snow-laden cloak and sat upright in the darkness. Then she saw what had burdened her, and gave out a little choked cry.
Emsha lay stiff in the snow. She had died that sleep.
Quickly Allissál caught the old stout face between her hands and rubbed the pale, pale cheeks; but cold and stiff they stayed. Oddly, she herself felt better now. By some strange magic all her own, Emsha had rendered her a final service, and given her the vital heat of her own broad body.
Allissál sat silent for some minutes, weeping. Her fallen tears poked patterns in the silver snow.
At length, she bethought herself of Kis Halá. She heard a sound from close by, but it did not sound like her mare.
A black shape shot out of the silver and fell on her. An arm around her throat – a grunt in her ear – black robes over her eyes and mouth – a daring hand forcing its way up her robes—
She kicked and clawed at what she could. A mocking laugh greeted her efforts. She redoubled them. The man’s body pressed against her belly; she tried to reach the dagger but her cloak lay in the way. She beat at his arms, trying to keep his hand from choking her. Flecks of jade and fire-opal danced before her eyes.
For a moment she was above him and caught a glimpse of a half-muffled face and two gleaming, red-mad eyes staring into hers. They rolled again, and she was buried in his robes and the sour male stench of him. He pinched her about the buttocks. She brought up her knees between his legs. He grunted and hugged her closer and bit her cheek until she could taste the blood streaming into her mouth along with his spittle. Then her flailing hand struck a chipped stone beneath the snow and she drove it against his face. The stone slashed his cheekbone, scraping away flesh. With a foul oath, he released her.
But she was after him, striking him again and again. With a sweep of his long arm the Madpriest hurled her back. She fell, and lost the rock. But then Kis Halá reared and drove her heavy hooves against the black-swathed body.
Against those flashing weapons, not even a Madpriest had defense. Even after the man was dead the enraged mare would not leave off her attack, until Allissál clasped Kis Halá’s gleaming neck, speaking breathless words of calm into her ears.
Kis Halá at length consented to be soothed, and disdained the bloody mass below her hooves. Allissál swayed with the movements of the great beast, too weak to let go.
The sound of clapping hands brought back her strength. Snatching the dagger from her girdle she whirled about. Though the snow-clad land gleamed silver in the ceaseless darkness, the sky was black, and against it nothing could be seen.
‘Who is there?’ she cried.
‘Put away that toy,’ rejoined a rough masculine voice in a dialect oddly like to that of the barbarians of the far North. ‘Or I’ll rip those elegant robes from you and feed your body to my dogs.’
‘Who are you?’
There followed a slight, rasping chuckle.
‘Estar Kane.’
There was no title attached to that name; Allissál had never even heard it before. But the man spoke it as if he were the master of the world.
She glanced at Kis Halá’s back. But half a score of black shaggy mongrel shapes eyed her suspiciously, uttering low and hungry growls. She sheathed the blade.
‘And who are you, who dare to enter our lands alone and unprepared?’ inquired the voice beyond. ‘And in that cloak! It seems to me I have known that cloak before – but it was no woman who wore it!’
She bridled at his tone. ‘Address me with manners. I am the Empress Allissál nal Bordakasha, Divine Queen in Tarendahardil and last of the house of Elna.’
‘Elna!’ he said with scorn. ‘Elna was one of us! He sold his tribesmen to the women’s-cult for power. Do you think we get no news here? An empress without an empire is lower than a tavern slut. Now again, tell me who you are?’
Her shoulders fell. ‘No one.’
‘Better.’
A shape emerged from the darkness against a snowy hill. It was the figure of a man, tall, rangy, garbed wholly in black robes and close-swathed leggings. Even his head was concealed in those wrappings: only the eyes were bared, bright hard eyes wrinkled with ironic amusement, glinting the ruby red of madness. He stood casually, one hand lazily held on hip, the other holding in its black gauntlet a sword of exquisite workmanship, of bright flame-like blue steel and a hilt of silver and steel, upon which had been worked in gold and fire-opal an intricate device. Allissál had seen that device and that very sword before: it was the sword of Ankhan of the Strong Heart. Only by Ankhan’s murder could this man have gotten hold of this sword. Ankhan would never have surrendered it alive. The memory of the broken haunted ruins of Ul Raambar swept through her mind, and she grew warm with hatred. Now she knew the meaning of that name. This was the man who had destroyed the Jewel City.
He stepped forward, sheathing the sword with a swift smooth movement as he did so; knelt, and began rifling the body on the ground.
‘Better, but still not truth,’ he resumed in his barbarous tongue. ‘For now you are the slayer of Al-Tah, one of the most feared warriors in the Darklands; also one of my lieutenants. He was a demon of a fighter, Al-Tah.’
She recognized the respect in his voice and drew back a step. She had just murdered one of his friends. What was he likely to do to her in return?
He saw her movement and divined its motive. He chuckled. ‘Don’t think I will seek blood-price from you. If Al-Tah died, it was only his reward for having been stupid enough not to knock you senseless before he took you.’ He gathered the man’s valuables in one gloved hand, hefted them, then stowed them in a pouch at his side.
She was a tall woman, but she did not even reach his shoulders. His savage dogs growled and snapped. The wind blew oddly at his black wrappings. He was gazing at her with unmistakable desire within his sinister ruby eyes. ‘Do not think I would make the same mistake, beautiful one.’
Her hand felt for the hilt of the dagger. ‘Would you—’ she began, her voice a hiss.
His laughter stopped her: bitter, reeking laughter. ‘Fear not, She-Tooth! Those women hold no appeals to me I cannot buy or beat into submission. If I took my pleasure of you, I could never be certain when you might decide to let that knife of yours kiss me beneath my ribs. No doubt others have had equally delightful treatment at your hands, but not Estar Kane! – And I think it would be a waste to kill you, Golden One. Why do you come to my lands?’
‘To escape.’
‘From Ara-Karn?’
‘Yes.’
‘How?’
The old rumors recurred to her mind. She remembered words and artful hints, passages from the book of Skhel read between the lines, and the tales told at court. She spoke it then, that word upon which all her future had come to depend.
‘Darkbridge,’ she said.
He laughed.
‘Why do you laugh? Was it nothing but a myth, then? Does Darkbridge not exist?’
‘Dark Bridge! O She-Tooth, what do you know of a Dark Bridge?’
‘We know your people smuggle goods and refugees out of the South to somewhere. But beyond these lands are only the sunless Seas of God. Ships can be no good in darkness. You must have a way of doing that which no one else can.’
He studied her, still amused. ‘Perhaps we do. But you are wrong about the ships, straight one – so wrong! What could you offer us – what would you give to me, if I could gather you away from that world and its new lord, and bring you to a land of which you have scarcely dreamed?’
‘First you must tell me if this myth truly exists.’
‘Oh, it exists,’ he drawled. ‘But only to those who have paid the price.’
‘I have about me enough jewels to buy a crown.’
‘I have a crown.’ He shrugged. ‘The crown of Ul Raambar. One of my sluts plays with it: she thinks it a pretty toy. And a throne is only for those who wish to be seen sitting astride it. There is no sight here, Golden One. Tell me, what could you do if I decided to put an arrow between those sweet breasts, steal the jewels, and sell your body to the armies of Ara-Karn? I am sure they would pay much for you, in any condition – your majesty.’
‘Ara-Karn would not be pleased,’ she answered.
He sighed, perhaps hearing the conviction in her tones. ‘That is perhaps true. And what a waste! I sense fire in your loins, for the right man. This Ara-Karn, he is a strange man for one who casts a shadow. Unpredictable. He might even be one of us. And yet it would please him no more, if I helped you to escape from him. Give me the jewels.’
‘Not until I am safely in the world beyond.’
‘Woman, will you barter with me? Were you queen or grocer’s wife back there? Believe me when I say that, of all of us who cast no shadow, I am the only one who would, or could, see you across Darkbridge. Your life is in my hands. If it amused me (as it has amused me often in the past), I could lead you over a cliff in the darkness, and laugh as you fell to your death. Or I could be really cruel and leave you as I find you, to freeze and sicken in the darkness, wandering in circles until the Darkbeasts found your flesh!
‘Seven soldiers came into our lands some time after Ghezbal Daan sought my hospitality. They too sought this Darkbridge. They called it in the darkness, offering rewards or service for the favor: “Darkbridge! Darkbridge! Golden Elnics for word of Darkbridge!” But no one gave them answer. It pleased me rather to follow and watch them until they died – some sickened, the others starved. We had their gear and weapons afterwards, along with all their coins. And you would bicker with me over payment like some hag in the bazaar? You were of the gods, they tell me: gods despise gold. Give me your riches.’
He extended a gloved hand. She shrugged. Turning so that he would not see, she reached under the tatters of her skirts to where the small pouch rested between inner and outer lora. She handed it to him.
‘Heavy enough,’ he grunted, hefting it. He held it up to his swathed cheek and sniffed. ‘Warm still,’ he commented. ‘A subtle and not unpleasant fragrance. That is not all perfume either, I’ll wager. I only wish all my fees came thus.’ He stared at her, and she flushed beneath his gaze. Never before in all her life had anyone so humiliated and degraded her. Two years earlier, had someone done one-tenth of what this man had done to her, she would have had him taken and beaten until the blood flowed, and left him hanging in the Gardens.
Instead she bowed her head and said in low tones she could scarcely control, ‘And will you not show me the way to Darkbridge, Charan?’
‘Call me not by your titles, wench.’ He turned and gestured to his dogs. ‘Come.’
She had great ado to keep pace with him.
§
TWICE-TEN TIMES the Eye of God rode overhead as they journeyed across that snowy darkness deathly-cold, toward the North beyond. The Madpriest took the reins of Kis Halá in one hand and guided her from the saddle of his own horse; Emsha’s pony he fed to his dogs. So too he gave them the body of his dead friend; but Allissál guarded Emsha’s corpse, much to his amusement, and covered it over with some dignity. More than that she might not do.
At their sides and before them roved his savage dogs, scenting the paths for the dung of the beasts of this vile land. He rode on surely, as if he knew exactly where he was and whither bound; she did no more than slump half-asleep in the saddle, rocking back and forth. Her fever had returned, but he would stop to rest no more than the horses required. Yet he did concede to give her a strong drink with a bitter taste, which gave her strength.
Beneath her robes she now wore the black wrappings of Al-Tah, which Estar Kane gave her as spoils of the kill. And so they rode across the snow-bound, Moon-bright land in silence.
She longed to see Goddess again and bask in Her warm rays, if only for an hour. But they only went farther into the darkness, so deep that not even a violet-blue existed over the horizon to show that there had ever been a Sun.
At times, in the rages of her fever, she wondered whether he would lead her into a trap and sacrifice her upon the black altar of his God, as was writ down in the book of Skhel. But then she thought, perhaps that was no more than a lie. And she knew she had no other hope than trust this arrogant, taciturn man.
They traveled along rocky paths and over the numerous ledge-plains, where the winds and harsh downpouring of rain so frequent in this land kept any soil from clinging. Below them she glimpse lowland vales where the tangled undergrowth grew even this far into darkness. They went on scarcely stopping, the Madpriest so sure of his path and his uncanny ability to see in darkness that not even the failing of God gave him pause.
It was then that she noticed, through the mists of her fever, stars.
Little quivering things they were, impossibly small and far away, seeming to enlarge the sky and force back the plashes of heaven to illimitable depths. She leaned back gazing up at them so long she grew dizzy and had to look down, clutching her saddle with both her hands.
But she feared to look upon the moon in His fullness. The sight of that silver green orb soaring through Heaven almost brought her to tears. It began as a crescent sickle-edged, scything the field of stars, at home among its followers leading them to blood and glory, as the Madpriest explained. Each moon devoured the stars, adding their brightness to His own, until at last all were eaten and no more food remained. Then, one last time, He sailed alone in empty, desolate skies; and so came to His death. Then the stars came warily back until He came again. Allissál shook her head at these superstitions, but could not smile at them. The sight of the moon riding alone and solitary never failed to inspire in her breast a profound pity and dread.
So they progressed, encountering no others in that harsh land, until they reached the top of a hill with the sound of far-off roaring in their ears. The Madpriest drew his horse to a halt and gestured.
‘There,’ he said over the sound of the surf. ‘That is Darkbridge.’
