A Blackbird In Silver (Book 1) (16 page)

‘This is the point,’ Ashurek said. They slid past the disc and, together, slowly forced it round upon its axis until it filled the shaft. Ashurek flung himself against it, but the barrier was solid. No return to the safe side of the Plane.

‘Good,’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘Now prepare yourselves. The tunnel mouth is ahead and we are unarmed.’

When they stumbled to the end, there were none of the pale humans to be seen. The danger that Hranna had feared was non-existent. With relief they climbed out dizzily onto the choking ash.

‘Now, Estarinel, the lodestone,’ said the dark Gorethrian.

‘The horses,’ the Forluinishman answered. ‘First we rescue the horses.’

#

On the far side of the White Plane Hrannekh Ol, Lenarg scratched upon his slate. Hranna looked over his shoulder. ‘They should reach the Exit Point here–’ he wrote an explanatory theorem, and Hranna nodded. ‘And Earth here–’

‘I see,’ Hranna said. Lenarg’s hand moved rapidly on, but he paused, crossed out his previous calculation, and wrote more feverishly than before. He sketched a graph with one axis labelled
t
for time, stone squealing on stone as he drew a parabola. ‘Of course, of course!’ he cried; then, ‘Oh no…’

The slate fell from his hand and smashed on the ground.

Hranna started. ‘What is it? I missed the last part.’

‘I never even thought – their ship was from the Blue Plane. They should have returned to it – they should have stayed on board all along – oh dear–’

‘Are we too late to tell them? Yes, of course we are.’ Hranna sat down on a rock. ‘So we have set them onto the wrong course. We are only supposed to work out the Earth’s fate, not influence it. How embarrassing.’

‘Perhaps
we
are the random factor,’ mused Lenarg. ‘It would make our predictions much easier if we were.’

‘No, it would not,” Hranna said with a sigh. ‘It would make them infinitely impossible. Don’t engage in speculation of that sort. There is no place for egotism in our calculus.’

‘You’re right, of course. It’s grievous to think we could make such a mistake.’

‘But unavoidable, perhaps. We think our theories are uncontaminated by our
selves
… but those folk of Earth came to us, so of course our interaction with them changed their course, as every interaction does.’

Lenarg threw his writing stone on the ground. ‘And there are no equations to describe good intentions going awry. Oh dear. Hranna, what have we done?’

They were near the low ridge that they had climbed when they first came to Hrannekh Ol. All that identified it was the white star of their ship’s centre mast shining beyond it. They ran as best they could through the thick ash to the ridge’s highest point.

What met their eyes was the sight of several Morrenish clambering about on
The Star of Filmoriel
’s decks like white ants. As they watched, five men came up from the hold, carrying various objects. The captain, supervising the rest, stood arrogantly on deck, prodding at the planks with his spear. Then he shouted a command. His voice did not carry far in the dusty atmosphere but they could just make out the words. ‘When we've sorted out all the goods we’ll dismantle the ship.’

Estarinel felt sick.

‘So,’ said Ashurek, ‘the shaft is unguarded because they are all down there looting the ship. We would do best to find the horses as quickly as we can, while they’re still busy.’

‘Wait,’ Medrian said, laying a hand on Estarinel’s arm. ‘Estarinel, hold up the lodestone.’ He did so. It pivoted on its thread and came to rest pointing on a line straight past the ship. ‘That’s the end of our luck; we can’t walk past the ship unseen.’

‘First things first,’ replied Estarinel. ‘Let’s find the animals.’

They retraced their steps to the Morrenish ghost ship and entered, for a second time, the tunnel in the rock. It was deserted. They made their way to the entrance to their former prison to retrieve their weapons.

Their belongings had gone. The door was still sealed.

‘Do the Morrenish think we are still in there?’ Estarinel whispered.

They walked deeper into a maze of round white passages, until they reached a junction of three tunnels. ‘Suppose we separate,’ Ashurek said, ‘and meet there.’ He indicated a shallow recess a few yards away. The others assented, and each went on alone.

As Estarinel walked he caught glimpses of caverns that were used as living quarters. He looked for weapons, and listened keenly for any sound of the horses. Presently he found a cavern that appeared to be a storeroom, and cautiously entered.

It was a place of death. A small, high-roofed cave, it was littered with the soft white robes and strange sparrow-like bones of the Peradnians. There were crumpled heaps of parchment; scattered wooden crates; a pile of translucent membrane reminiscent of human skin. His stomach turned. They stored the remains of living entities along with hoards of rubbish as if it were all the same…

At last Estarinel found something that was useful; a short steel knife with a padded handle of blue velvet. The blue was a spark of colour so unusual in the endless whiteness that it shone like a star. Estarinel seized it.

Then he heard voices. He dived behind a pile of boxes and waited.

Three men came in, laden with the ship’s provisions, which they dumped without ceremony in the middle of the cavern.

‘Grab those iron bars,’ said the leader who’d captured them. ‘We’re going to rip the ship apart. And you–’ he ordered one of his men, ‘Go and see to those horses. They can’t be left much longer, or they’ll be dead of thirst.’

Estarinel’s eyes widened at this. The man who was to tend the horses left, but the other two seemed to take forever, rummaging in the piles of junk. At last they too left.

Estarinel crept to the cave entrance and started off down the tunnel, moving quickly and lightly. At last he had the man in sight, and tailed him for a few minutes, pressed close to the tunnel wall. He saw the opening to another cave ahead.

He heard the sudden clop of hooves echoing through the passages. Medrian emerged from the cave, leading their three horses. She came out cautiously but the Morrenish warrior saw her, and pounced. He wrapped one arm tightly about her throat, his other hand twisting her arm behind her back. She struggled. He grunted as her elbow stabbed into his stomach, but held her tight.

Estarinel ran towards them, gripping the knife. He dealt one sharp stab into the neck. The man died almost instantly. Collapsing to the floor, he dragged Medrian with him, a thin pulsing trickle of scarlet running from the wound.

Medrian extricated herself from the corpse and hurriedly recaptured the horses who were shying back into the cave. She looked at Estarinel with a mixture of relief and irony in her black eyes – but he was staring at the knife in his hand, blank and shaken to the core.

‘Oh gods, what have I done?’ he muttered.

‘Saved my life, I think.’

Medrian sounded puzzled. She frowned as if taken aback by the horror in his eyes.

‘I know it’s difficult, but put this out of your mind,’ she said briskly, pushing Shaell’s rope into his hand.

‘I didn’t intend to kill him,’ Estarinel said as they led the horses back towards the meeting place. ‘These men aren’t evil – just unlucky seafarers, who no more deserve to be here than we do.’

‘Destiny is a strange thing… If someone had told that man, “You will die at the hand of a Forluinishman”, he would have laughed.’ Medrian grinned with icy humour. ‘I wonder if the Peradnians predicted that?’

‘How did you become so cold, callous?’ Estarinel said thinly.

Medrian sighed. ‘But if he was not dead, I would be. Would that not make you guilty of my death?’

‘I know I had no choice, and I’d kill a thousand times over to save a friend,’ he said unhappily. ‘But it’s still wrong. The deed can’t be undone, which makes me forever–’

‘A murderer, or murdered. That’s always the choice. Gods, are you always like this? A wild and lawless world has no use for gentleness or conscience.’

‘Well, perhaps it should,’ he replied quietly.

Medrian went quiet for a few paces. She said more gently, ‘I can barely admit it to myself, but I agree with you. Just remember why you came on this Quest. If you keep that alone in your mind, it will help.’

They reached the recess and backed the horses into it. The animals were nervy, but became calm under the touch of Medrian and Estarinel. Only Vixata fought, snapping at Medrian’s hands.

Estarinel stared down at the floor, trying to clear his mind. To be single-minded, and not to care – he began to see why his companions were as they were.

#

Medrian watched him. Estarinel did not seem strong – yet he had saved her without hesitating. Better to be tortured by doubt after a deed than before… an unexpected tenderness stole into her unguarded mind. As it did so, a hole seemed to yawn open in her brain, a subterranean tunnel that led down into a mole-black cavern, from which another tunnel led to another lightless cave on and on through the centre of the Earth, like jet beads strung on an infinite thread. From that black pit issued a rank wind, chill and burning at the same time. Agony – not pain, something worse. She gasped, clutching at her horse’s back to steady herself.

Another second and she had forced the hole closed, sealed it with iron. She pulled herself upright, drawing a long, shuddering breath of relief. By the time Estarinel looked up at her, she had composed her face into its usual pale mask.

He is a danger to me, she thought.

Ashurek appeared at last, a grin gleaming very white on his dark face as he saw them. ‘You have a knife,’ was the first thing he said to Estarinel. He outstretched a thin, dark hand. ‘May I?’

‘Certainly.’ Estarinel handed him the knife without hesitation.

The Gorethrian looked at the rust-red stain now congealing upon it. ‘Always clean your blade… one of the first laws of soldiering,’ was all he said.

Ashurek leading, knife in hand, and Medrian coming last, often glancing behind, they progressed through the passages. When they finally came out onto the plain of ash for the third time there was no sign of life. They ploughed their way back again, dust catching in their throats. They could stifle their own coughs but not those of the horses, who snorted and jibbed as they came. If the men were still on the ship they must have heard them by now.

When they reached the peak a strange sight met their eyes. Aboard
The Star of Filmoriel
and around her bows stood nine men, frozen motionless like statues. Some were caught in an attitude of striking out at the ship. The figures seemed to ripple, as if they were becoming translucent, as white and dry and crystalline as the Plane itself.

Wits dulled by thirst and the beginnings of fever, the three took a long time to take in the significance of the scene. Then Estarinel laughed uneasily. ‘I should have known. The
Star
has her own means of defending herself!’

He held up the lodestone and it swung to point their course.

‘This is our path,’ he said, pointing with a long, white finger.

The horses were too weak from thirst to be ridden. The humans, too, found it difficult to keep their feet. Dust and salt-rock and air wrapped them in a suffocating blanket that drew all vitality from them. They spoke little. Their voices were hoarse in their parched, swollen throats. Although they were hot and feverish, the faces of Estarinel and Medrian were as pale as death.

They gave the ship a wide berth. Frozen though the men were, their pale eyes rolled malevolently in their heads, disconcerting. Vixata, hyper-sensitive to the aura generated by the men, collected enough energy to crab-walk past as fast as she could, head in the air, mouth foaming.

Estarinel held up the lodestone for as long as his arm could bear it. EventualIy his hand dropped limply to his side.

#

They walked for endless hours, until they could walk no more, and then they crawled, staggered, stumbled until the dry air had sucked every drop of energy from their bodies and they were giddy with fever; and still they moved on. Estarinel was not sure that they were going in the right direction and eventually he no longer cared. Their limbs dragged like lead and their heads throbbed with the whiteness and they could not breathe for the ash. Their horses limped and stumbled, fell to their knees, rose and struggled on.

Estarinel began to hallucinate. He was back on the other side of the White Plane, on Peradnia, and he was strolling at ease through the forests that were like cobwebs of glistening ice. Hranna was with him. ‘The White Plane is infinite,’ he said, ‘and for eternity we will traverse it, nomads of infinity.’ They were standing on the edge of an endless lake; but it was a solid lake of white rock, glittering with a million tiny crystals. Hranna put his hand on Estarinel’s shoulder and pointed across the lake. Estarinel was swamped by nameless fear, and he looked down and saw, not Hranna, but the emaciated figure of a girl with flowing golden hair; and as he watched she changed and became a tall, vibrant warrior woman, bronze-limbed, chestnut-haired, with proud laughing face and grave eyes. She, too, was pointing. And the lake was not white rock at all, but an expanse of snow. And the woman at his side became Medrian. She stared at him with dark, terrifying eyes and he knew he loved her. And she was holding a needle-thin staff at his throat as if to slit it, but then it seemed she was offering him the staff. She opened her mouth and it was not her voice that spoke, but another’s; and it said,
kill me
.

And then he thought he was in Forluin, wandering down a cool valley alone, then laughing with his friends; but he opened his eyes suddenly and saw only the depressing eternity of white ash ahead. He could not see Medrian, or Ashurek, or the horses. Greyness fell over his eyes, then blackness. He thought he felt great cold drops of water raining exquisitely on his back, and smiled to himself at the realism of this last hallucination.

Dark shapes loomed in the blackness. Grass was beneath his feet. Suddenly he was lying face downwards on rain-sodden turf, and he realised that he was in truth back on Earth. It was a wet, black night. Estarinel had passed through the Exit Point back to the world, but he knew not where on Earth he was.

‘Medrian? Ashurek?’ he called out. There was no sound but the rain, rushing in the distance and pattering onto leaves and rocks nearby. He climbed to his feet. A square of light glimmered ahead.

Then something touched him on the arm. He started violently, turned to find it was his horse nudging him with his soft brown nose. Placing one hand on the beast’s firm neck, Estarinel turned slowly this way and that, peering hard through the walls of dark rain. He had become snow-blind to a degree on Hrannekh Ol, and could not adjust his eyes to darkness.

Suddenly he saw Vixata, and saw her clearly, for the golden mare shone with a light of her own. And with her was Ashurek, and gradually his eyes focused on a shape that was Medrian, and her strange horse.

The three stood motionless, staring at each other; and those few moments were like a dream. Then, as one, they all knelt on the soaking ground, laughing with relief. The horses were already munching the wet grass. Gratefully they let the rain pour down on them, soaking their dry skin and hair, running in rivulets down their faces. They sat there for minutes before they revived enough to consider their situation.

They were at the bottom of a hill. At its peak a lighted window shone yellow, and the dark bulks of buildings rose against the skyline.

‘We’d be well advised to stay clear of human habitation,’ said Ashurek.

‘It looks only to be a farm,’ answered Estarinel, one hand pressed over the wound on his shoulder.