A Blackbird In Darkness (Book 2) (26 page)

The light grew stronger. Pale candlelight illuminated the round, plain chamber, filling its recesses with dancing shadows. On the far side a tall figure, concealed from head to foot in a shroud, was holding a huge candelabrum and lighting each wick from a taper. In the centre of the room lay the butterfly woman from the cliff-top, who had rushed into the tower ahead of Estarinel.

She was dead.

She lay on her back, her eyes staring sightlessly into the air, purple fabric draped in folds around her thin form. From chin to collarbone, her throat was a mass of torn flesh, glistening with dark red, congealed blood.

To the left of her stood a huge wolf. Its glowing eyes were fixed on Estarinel and its tongue lolled over its great fangs, drooling bloody saliva onto the floor. On the right stood a child of about three, blond and rosy and innocent. His huge wondering eyes also were intent upon the Forluinishman.

‘Now, your final test,’ said the shrouded figure in a toneless voice. ‘This woman, as you see, has been savagely killed.’

‘Nothing you do would surprise me now,’ Estarinel whispered, his voice bitter with disgust.

‘All we require is that you correctly identify the murderer so that they may be justly executed. The wolf,’ the figure moved a hand to indicate, ‘or the child?’

‘You’re mad!’ Estarinel exclaimed, exasperated and weary with despair.

‘You must choose. Otherwise you will have failed.’

‘This is a trick. It must be the wolf, mustn’t it? But that is too obvious... so knowing that, and knowing the child would therefore be chosen, perhaps it is the wolf after all.’

‘Just so,’ said the grey figure.

‘And if I choose rightly, the murderer will be executed?’

‘Yes.’

‘What if I choose wrongly?’

‘Then you will suffer the same fate as this woman, and be used to test the next one who passes through this tower.’

‘But you know – you know that I cannot choose the child!’

‘Choose as you will,’ was the impassive reply.

‘Very well, I’ll tell who it is!’ cried Estarinel furiously. ‘I am the murderer! If not for me, this test would not have been set up! Stop this evil charade – stop it now!’

The grey one uttered a noise that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. ‘You have answered well,’ it said.

‘What?’

‘I said, you have answered well. You have passed the test. No one is going to be executed; it was, as you said, a charade. A philosophical riddle. To test your wits.’

And as the figure spoke, the child moved, its limbs elongating, its rosy skin becoming fawn-coloured. And the woman sat up from the floor, and stretched out her arms, transforming into something like a rough, flexible clay figure. Meanwhile the wolf’s coat flattened and its ears, muzzle and legs were absorbed into its body. Then the three shapeless beige creatures touched and melded into one humanoid form

It was the shape-changer that had haunted his whole journey. And it turned to Estarinel and gave a deep, mocking bow. Then it rippled like a reflection created by a heat-haze, and dissolved into nothingness.

‘You will follow me, please,’ said the figure, oblivious to Estarinel’s obvious consternation, ignoring his entreaties to be told what was going on. It raised a hand and pushed open a small, arched door. ‘It is time for you to be judged.’

Estarinel had thought they were at the top of the tower; he expected to see the pale mound below, and the two greenish suns. He was wrong again. They were at ground level, and before them was a sweep of rich green grass rising between an avenue of stately copper beeches rustling in a summer breeze.

And at the end of the avenue, on the summit of the hill, stood a castle, a beautiful, terrible, splendid castle of red glass. It was vast, towering above them in a glory of rich, translucent blood-reds and crimsons. Sunlight poured down upon it like red gold. Snow-white pennants flew gaily upon its towers.

Estarinel knew at once that it was a place of great power. He had often glimpsed it in moments of prescience, and those glimpses had filled him with intense dread.

‘Follow me,’ said the shrouded figure again. It began to walk briskly along the avenue towards the castle.

‘I think I am owed an explanation, after all I’ve been subjected to. What exactly is the idea of all this?’ Estarinel persisted angrily.

The Grey One ignored him for a time, but eventually replied, ‘You are owed one thing only, and that is a final examination to judge your worthiness to wield the Silver staff. You were told there would be tests. We are not bound to explain them to you.’

‘Tests? Murders!’ Estarinel exclaimed, trembling with an overwhelming sense of outrage at the Silver Staff’s atrocities. The shrouded one said no more. Estarinel subsided, awed by the closeness of the castle.

An oppressive sense of doom filled him at the prospect of entering. Swallowing his dread, he marched through a great arched doorway after the Grey One. Within, they passed through corridors and halls of red glass. Walls, floors and ceilings were transparent and he could see into the rooms beyond; all a confusing pattern of rubescent light, like the gleaming facets of a garnet. Beautiful though it was, the sanguine glow was unnerving.

Presently he could see figures ahead, shadowy figures seen through red glass. He could feel them looking at him. They were as faceless as the shrouded one by his side, yet he sensed that they were ancient beings with narrow eyes and long, pale beards. And they were powerful and heartless, just as he had seen them in the Cavern of Communication. Neutral, yet utterly without compassion.

They were the Guardians. The Grey Ones.

The figure at his side said, ‘Wait here,’ and he stopped like an automaton. They were in a many-sided room like the inside of a jewel. The Grey One continued through a doorway, and mingled with the others, swiftly becoming indistinguishable from them. Estarinel could hear a murmur of voices. He waited grimly, watching the shadows moving behind the translucent glass wall. The redness of the castle was the colour of the blood staining the Guardians’ hands, Calorn’s and Shaell’s and that of the countless other murders they had no doubt committed. The blood of their inhumanity swelled and ebbed in the air.

He waited an hour or more while the Guardians talked. He could pick a few words out of the general murmur, but could not make sense of them. The Grey Ones seemed puppet-like, distant and wooden, as if they had their reality in a plane far above his understanding. The knowledge that they were judging him filled him with revulsion.

‘Don’t be foolish. It is quite unnecessary.’ He heard these words clearly, and strained his eyes to identify the speaker.

‘I disagree. I say that he deserves an explanation,’ another voice replied.

‘With what purpose?’

‘That of his better understanding! He is not a child. Humans grasp more than you can possibly realise!’

‘Well, you alone of us should know. But still I say it is a waste of time.’

‘And I say you are wrong!’ answered the second speaker. ‘I must talk to him. Can you not understand, I owe him that at least?’

‘No, we cannot understand this apparently – ah – human obligation. However, if it is what you wish, you may go to him. We have no reason to gainsay it.’

Estarinel saw one of the shadows moving away from the group. It glided along behind the wall and passed through the doorway towards him. This figure was massively built, cloaked in pale robes that were steeped in the red light. It stopped in front of him and said, ‘Estarinel of Forluin. The Guardians have assessed your endurance of the various tests that were laid in your path. You have been judged and found clear of purpose. You will be permitted to wield the Silver Staff.’

Estarinel experienced no thrill of victory at this speech. His apprehension subsided abruptly, but he still felt bitter fury against the Guardians and the Silver Staff.

‘At what cost?’ he said, not expecting an answer.

‘I will take you now to the Silver Staff,’ said the Guardian.

‘Wait,’ said Estarinel, his voice low but insistent. ‘I want to know the nature of this – thing I will be wielding.’

The Guardian paused, looking at him through the gauzy veil hiding his face. ‘It cannot be described. When you touch it, you will know its nature.’

‘I believe it to be evil.’

‘No, Estarinel, it is not evil.’

‘How can I believe anything the Guardians say? I won’t know until I touch it, and then perhaps there will be no going back. Like the Egg-Stone,’ he spat.

‘No. Ah no, I swear to you it is not like the Egg-Stone.’ Human distress entered the Guardian’s deep voice.

‘You swear? And the tests – if they were set by the Silver Staff itself, why then do the Guardians stand in judgement on me?’

‘Oh, Estarinel, how you’ve changed. You have suffered much,’ the Grey One said sadly. He gripped the edge of the veil and raised it to reveal an old and noble face with a high forehead, broad nose, and clear grey eyes. White hair appeared, and a dishevelled white beard.

Eldor.

Estarinel was barely aware that he was backing away until he felt a wall against his back, and he was half-sobbing with a mixture of dismay and astonishment. He had one hand on his forehead as if to shield out the blood-red light.

‘Eldor. Eldor. By the gods, you are one of them,’ he was gasping. Eldor, the wise, kindly sage of the House of Rede. Eldor, who had advised them, helped them, told them that the Serpent must be destroyed and given them hope that it might be achieved. Who had been the one anchor-point on an insane Earth. Trusted. Completely trusted.

And now... Eldor revealed as a Grey One. An eyeless, heartless manipulator of destiny. A pitiless tormentor and murderer of Calorn.

On the Quest, Estarinel, Ashurek and Medrian had often felt that they were being manipulated by unseen beings, tossed back and forth between the Serpent and the forces opposing it. But never, never had he dreamed that they had been used from the very outset by the one kindly being in whom they had put absolute faith.

They had been betrayed. Betrayed, he thought. And it was Lothwyn he was thinking of, his little sister and all those others who had least deserved to die, even less deserved this betrayal.

‘Bastards,’ he whispered. ‘You bastards.’

‘Estarinel,’ said Eldor softly, approaching and placing one large hand on the Forluinishman’s shoulder. ‘I know what you are thinking. That is why I came out, and not one of the others, to try to explain.’

‘Explain? This is explainable?’

‘Yes. But please, trust me in this. I want you first to come and take the Silver Staff. Then we will go outside the castle, and talk.’

‘All right,’ Estarinel sighed. An unnatural calm and resignation came over him, so that he felt grimly self-possessed. ‘I can’t judge what’s right or wrong any more. I’ll do as you say.’

He followed Eldor out of the room, through a maze of halls and staircases, and along a gleaming, geometric corridor that led to the heart of the castle. There they entered a chamber of silver light.

It blinded him at first, his eyes having become accustomed to the deep redness within the castle. Then he saw that they were in a many-sided hall that was crimson in its furthest recesses, but with a heart of pure light, like a fountain springing from a pedestal of diamond.

At the centre of the brilliance was the Silver Staff.

It was lying on a base shaped like a giant ruby. It danced before his eyes, a rod of solid lightning with curves of silver radiating from it. All the glory of the star-filled night through which he had first entered the domain was concentrated here, fiery, searing, promising wild invincibility.

‘Take it,’ Eldor prompted gently.

Estarinel approached it hesitantly. The incandescent power of the Staff was real, dangerous, crackling white and silver with electricity. He felt waves of static dancing like fireflies against his face and hands. He outstretched his fingers to grasp the Silver Staff, braced in anticipation of a great shockwave.

The sensation as he touched it was surprisingly gentle, then quickly increasing to devastating intensity. The feeling was elation. In that moment Estarinel felt that the Serpent and all the demons of the Dark Regions held no fear for him; should he but turn on them and laugh, they would retreat before him and be consumed by silver fire, blackening and crumbling and blowing away on the wind before the Staff’s glory…

And the Silver Staff was speaking to him. The words were voiceless, rapid, indistinguishable, full of humour and delight, like a hundred children each singing a different song. The Silver Staff was a wild entity, as joyous and vital and carefree as a child. It was not evil, yet it had no concept of good. No conscience. It was simply itself: powerful, yet a total innocent.

Estarinel shared a strange fellow-feeling with it then. It seemed vulnerable in its innocence. The Silver Staff had been manipulated by the Guardians, and it did not even know. It, too, had been used.

It became quiescent under his touch, the flaring electricity fading until he was able to look at it without being dazzled. It lay in his hands, cool and heavy. He felt surprised at how plain it was, although he didn’t know what else he had expected. It was a silver rod three feet in length, about the width of a knuckle in diameter at one end and tapering to a needle-sharp point at the other. The thicker end was finished with a small silver orb. That was all. There was no engraving or decoration on it to mark it as unusual. He wondered how it could be used; it certainly could not be wielded like a sword, and seemed so delicate that it would surely break before it did harm to anything.