Cloudfyre Falling - a dark fairy tale (10 page)

And here amidst numerous Corpse
Flowers, skorks and greeps hissed at his intrusion, black little
devil bugs with beetle eyes and long slurping tongues. He had hoped
for life here, sentient life, but alas all that seemed
dashed.

4

He took his steed to base of
tower. A spot upon which he had never stood. Indeed not being of
the Watchguard, he would not have been permitted to otherwise. And
never would he have foreseen such a day when he could simply amble
up to Watchguard Gate and simply stroll through unchallenged. Now
here he stood, marveling at the craftsmanship of the tower, a true
engineering wonder, gazing up and up and up… to where Skytower’s
upper floors needled the clouds.

He heeled his steed, circled the
vast base of the tower; the clip-clop of the great horse’s hooves
echoing off the surrounding domed Watchguard buildings and its tall
outer walls. Two arched gates, gates too left open and ajar, lead
through fifty feet of base wall to an inner courtyard.

He took Grimah through and stood
there gazing up into tower’s tall, hollow interior. It were
essentially a giant needle, he observed, hollow all the way to its
tip, far out of sight above him; it ached his neck to crane back
his head to look. He circled about looking for a way up.

There were more Corpse Flowers
here too, he observed, growing up the tan stonework.

Gargaron slid down from his steed,
but did not tether the beast. He did not want the great destrier
hitched if those Dark Ones he had seen suddenly appeared. He would
rather the horse bolt and save itself than be cut down
defenseless.

He withdrew his great sword and,
before further business, strode forward and hacked down the hideous
violet flowers where they had embedded themselves within the
carcasses of his people. The Flowers mewled horribly in protest as
he did so, and spat out clouds of purple spore as they
collapsed.

Gargaron stumbled backwards,
mindful not to breathe in whilst the spore clouds passed away upon
air and breeze. He did not understand enough of their kind to know
whether or not this spore could lodge within the lungs of the
living and germinate. Some old stories alleged that they could.
That they could spread disease such as Crimp Pox, and Creeping
Sickness and Wailing Wounds. Gargaron did not wish to find
out.

5

The going were slow. Not because
of the horse. The great beast proved eager enough, indeed the steed
actually seemed quite at ease, as if it had climbed this ramp
before, for it showed no fear with the heights they gained as they
ascended the tower, nor did it seem to mind those terrible wind
gusts that wailed through the open walls, biting and tearing at
Gargaron’s cotton shirts and clawing at his hair.

Gargaron, on the other hand, did
not feel its ease. From a distance the Skysight Tower appeared a
formidable piece of engineering, always imposing, magnificent,
portraying the idea that nothing could shift it, move it, that it
would stand until the last stars in the Great Nothing winked out.
But here as Gargaron climbed it, the building felt suddenly
imperfect, inadequate, compromised by his weight. As if it might
begin to sway, and without warning, topple.

Why, it holds a
hundred Watchguard giants at once
, he
reminded himself. And
their
steeds.

But that were not all. Both inner
and outer walls of this tower had been constructed at regular
intervals with gaping floor-to-ceiling arched openings to allow a
through-hole for buffeting gales, and there remained no railing to
prevent one falling out of the tower if one slipped or tripped. And
nothing to prevent one’s steed from charging out into open space if
one’s steed suddenly found itself spooked.

Gargaron had himself alternatively
hauling Grimah left as one of these gaps came up on his right, or
pulled his steed right as one emerged on his left. The steed
however did its best to fight this pattern, pulling back as much as
it could to the centre of the corridor as the floor (or skyramp as
Gargaron had heard it named) wound up and up and up around the
central well.

Ultimately it were the two-headed
steed that won out.

‘
I feel you have done this
before,’ Gargaron said, to the horse. ‘You must indeed be a steed
of the Watchguard. Right then, I put my trust in you. But here be
my proposal: you get me to the top and down again without falling
out and the next load of apples we find I shall give you the king’s
share.’

And so on they went, guided by
steed.

6

Gargaron tried his best not
looking down. But mounted on Grimah, regardless of whether the
horse were a trained mount of the Watchguard or not, eventually
became too much. The skyramp would have been thirty or forty feet
across, but from his vantage atop the horse it felt as though they
were traversing naught but a narrow beam. Aye, Grimah seemed more
than sure of himself upon that ramp, at those tall, tall reaches of
the tower, but that dizzying height ate at Gargaron’s waning
confidence. So, finally, feeling vulnerable, unsafe, rocking there
side to side on that great mount, gripping the reins till his
knuckles hurt, he dismounted and chose to climb the remaining
reaches on foot.

That felt somewhat safer. Slower
aye, but safer. Though the winds seemed to buffet him with greater
fervour now, as if angered by his decision to leave his mount, and
they seemed to grow more and more frantic the higher he climbed. He
hunched his shoulders and where he could he clasped the wall for
support. And where the walls opened on either side presenting him
with giddy views on either side of the ground far, far below he
slowed to a crawl.

He would not now
ever believe those stories he had heard of seasoned Watchguard
members racing each other to the top of this tower on backs of
gallant twin-headed steeds. ‘
Pure folly,
if ever there were!
’ Gargaron hissed under
his breath. And every now and then, his horse, who strolled
casually ahead, apparently unafraid, would stop and peer about and
Gargaron could have sworn it looked amused.

‘
Aye, if you could talk,’ he said,
‘you might be of a mind to let me know how silly I look. But laugh
all you like. Just do not forget to ask yourself who shall be
laughing more the harder once your eagerness takes you tumbling out
over this treacherous edge?’

Frustrated, Gargaron crawled on
belly to tower’s inner edge and without meaning it he gazed down
into the “well”. The diametre of this “well” had been a hundred
feet at ground level, and were growing steadily narrower the higher
they went. But it made no difference to the level of his fear. It
were still a mighty drop. The Corpse Flowers he had slain what felt
like hours earlier still lay there but so far away did they appear
that they looked no more than a smudge of violet against the
ground. Of course, his intention here had been not to look down but
to try and search upwards, to gauge how far he yet had to climb.
From where he lay, flat on his belly, this were a much harder
action to conduct, to crane his chin and neck upwards, to strain
his eyes in search of the pinnacle. The effect made it feel as
though he were suddenly leaning precariously out over the vast drop
below him, that the demon force that hauled all things to ground
would grip him and pull him from the ledge. How he had ever stood
with his toes over the edge of the Great Precipice were beyond
him.

Vertigo swam through him and his
fingers clamped against the edge of the skyramp, fingernails
bending backwards with strain and effort.

Slowly he wriggled away from the
edge, catching his breath. When he looked up he saw both faces of
Grimah watching him.

‘
Laugh but once,’ he told it, ‘and
I shall throw you from this infernal place myself!’

It did no laugh of course but
Gargaron were certain it smiled.

7

It took Gargaron and steed another
hour of slow, careful, plodding to reach the top. And it were with
momentous relief that the skyramp finally came to end as the tower
tapered to a point where a circular floor sat atop the well. Here
the ramp culminated and Gargaron lead his steed onto the landing
and tethered it to a hitching rail on a central column; here Grimah
drank heavily from a trough filled with water.

‘
Is that why you felt the need for
haste?’ Gargaron said good naturedly, scratching it behind one set
of ears and then the next. ‘To reach water?’

He took his gourd from his belt
and quenched his own thirst.

From there he
took a few moments to catch his breath and take in his
surroundings. He knew he were not yet at tower’
s roof.
At least a
level above him it were, he judged. The platform on which he
currently stood lay perhaps fifty feet across. There were no outer
barrier, no wall nor rampart, nothing to prevent the hapless from
tripping and falling out; just a series of eight columns supporting
the higher deck. And a stairwell leading upwards.

‘
Stay here,’ he ordered his horse.
And wandered off toward the stairs.

8

Above he emerged onto another
circular platform, the sky fine and high above him. The winds were
chilly and bit at him and blustered his hair and ragged his
clothing. At ground level such wind would not have concerned him.
He may have declared it a mere breeze if someone had commented on
it, but otherwise he would have paid it no mind. Up here, at what
felt the top of the world, it felt as though it worked at pushing
him to the edge of the platform and over it if it could. Though the
edge of the platform had a low rampart around it for which he were
grateful.

He turned his attention to the
Skysight. It consisted of a brass mast protruding from the centre
of the platform, jutting straight up into the heavens for another
three hundred feet or so. He had never used the Skysight,
obviously, but had heard many times of its make-up and usage.
Within the mast there were said to be a pipe of polished Lhulic,
steel made from metals mined on sites out near Graveston, and
hidden within this pipe lay an intricate conglomeration of mirrors
and copper tubing which worked in conjunction with an enchanted Eye
of Moonglass that could scour the Vale thousands of leagues in any
direction. The contraption had been designed, engineered,
constructed, and erected entirely by giant magers.

The base of it hung suspended from
a steel basket whose struts ran down diagonally into the stonework
of the platform. The space beneath the basket were large enough to
permit someone of Gargaron’s size, as it had been
designed.

On a circular dais beneath the
brass Skysight mast sat a large metal seat. Above the seat,
suspended from the base of the mast, were a sight-helmet with a
flexible brass hose hanging down that attached to a wide cup which
enveloped the entire forward part of the helmet. Gargaron fitted
himself into the seat. He found it rather comfortable, leather
bound and padded beneath. He reclined. He took hold of the helmet
and without further hesitation pulled it down over his
head.

1

FOR a long while it were dark. He
saw nothing. He sat a few moments, waiting for something to happen.
He had heard the Skysight tapped into electrical impulses within
the brain. So he were happy to wait.

Soon
… he saw
light.

Blurred, indistinct light.

And then…a sensation of movement,
of rushing toward something at tremendous speed and then halting
abruptly, and instantaneously the blurred light coalesced into
mountains so close before him he felt as though he truly hovered in
the air before them.

The effect were dizzying,
nauseating. And so unsettling Gargaron went to remove his helmet.
He gripped the mechanism encasing his head. But hesitated… For his
giddiness were beginning to subside. And he began to feel something
else.

Awe.

He felt bird-like, hovering there,
staring at the mountains. He looked down. And saw ground far, far
below him: rain swept fields and glacial valleys, and the
meandering grey course of some cold trickling brook. Somehow he did
not fear the height. He felt free, and were almost convinced that
he could not possibly be seated in some chair at the top of
Skysight Tower, that he must have fallen asleep in that chair and
carried away on some dream.

If he looked left and right he saw
the mountain range sweeping away in both directions. He found he
could turn fully about and view heather clad hills and a lake to
what he guessed lay southways of him. He could hear the lonesome
wind rolling out of the mountains. He could feel biting alpine air
against his skin, in his hair, burrowing into his clothes; the
smell of it proved crisp and fresh, he filled his lungs with
it.

At length he hovered there.
Looking about. He soon realised, other than turning about, he had
not moved from this position.

He turned about
again. The mountains swung back into view. He wondered distantly if
he had somehow died. Perhaps the Tower had collapsed. Or maybe the
Skysight had somehow sapped up his soul and spat it out across the
Vale. Now he were but a wandering spirit. No legs below him. No
torso. No arms either side of him. He were but a simple
consciousness, an entity of pure thought floating somewhere out
over Godrik’
s Vale’s
vast reaches
.