In the Earth Abides the Flame (57 page)

Maendraga spoke with sudden solemnity. 'The guardians are not enough for the Arrow. You see, Bewray wanted the Arrow defended with physical as well as magical snares. He reasoned that most of those who master the magic arts are likely to be too old to surmount the natural obstacles he placed in their path. This was done to prevent the servants of the Destroyer seeking to discover the Arrow and availing themselves of its power. So he placed it in a virtually inaccessible location, as the young man has guessed. In a cave on an island, in the middle of an ice-cold lake, locked between high mountains accessible only by scaling a waterfall and navigating a rope stretched across a deadly drop. That is the task before you.'

'And how do we choose the correct side of the cliff to climb?' Prince Wiusago asked.

Maendraga stared at him with a most penetrating gaze. 'It is the Random. Even the guardians do not know.'

'What?' nine voices asked him in unison.

'Random. The most powerful defence of all. The snare that caught the questers a thousand years ago.'

'I understand,' said Leith slowly. 'We are supposed to guess which cliff to climb. If we get it right, we are obviously the Chosen of the Most High.'

'Yes,' said Maendraga, smiling and turning to the Haufuth, the one he thought of as master.

'You have been well served by bringing one with such intelligence. He is right. Bewray judged chance might achieve what snares might not. He told no one the correct route up the cliff, but provided a choice, so giving the Most High an effective way to prevent unworthy claimants to the Arrow from reaching their goal.'

'The guardians believe the Most High will speak to the Arkhimm, telling them which of the routes to take,' added Belladonna.

'So, what it comes down to is this,' Phemanderac summarised: 'choose the correct path up the cliff, thereby solving the Random. Then cross the rope - through the air - take a boat over the lake - over water — to an island, enter a cave - in the earth - where we shall find the Arrow -

abides the flame.'

'I don't want to bring up the obvious,' said the Haufuth sadly, 'but there may be one or two of us who might have some trouble with the task.'

'Yes,' Kurr agreed. 'I should have done this many years ago, and you should have done it many meals ago.'

'Very funny.'

'But deadly accurate,' said Te Tuahangata. 'Frankly, neither of you would make it up the cliff.'

'Then what do we do?' asked Leith.

Everyone turned to him.

'That's what we were going to ask you,' the Haufuth said.

I don't want to ask you, you know that. I'm only asking because I have no choice. 1 can't give them what they want.

said the voice dryly.

I'm sorry. But will you tell me which of the cliff faces we should climb?

Neither? Then what?

It was beautiful, was it not?>

An image of the rippling waters flashed across Leith's mind, just as he had seen it from the scree slope . . .

Oh. But isn't that cheating?

Leith looked up into the inscrutable face of Maendraga. 'Tell me,' he said. 'The scree slide wasn't there in Bewray's time, or even a thousand years ago, was it?'

'No. It appeared in my grandfather's time, after a month of torrential rain. The land was scarred in many places, but none worse than the one above us ...' His words faltered as comprehension dawned on him.

'We came down the slide, and it appeared to me the lake was easily reachable from it, if from nowhere else,' said Leith. 'But can we climb back up the scree?'

'Are you saying we should avoid the cliff altogether?' Kurr exclaimed. 'Is that allowed?'

'Random exists to ensure the rightful claimants find the Jugom Ark, nothing more. It is a matter of chance.' Leith spoke earnestly to Kurr, and as he did so, suddenly, incongruously, an image of himself as a boy working in Kurr's barn flitted across his mind. As a boy? It was less than a year ago. He shut the image away and continued. 'If we have been granted the good fortune to avoid making that choice, has not Random fulfilled its function? Is it not clear that we are led by the Most High?'

'We certainly cannot attempt the cliff,' said Prince Wiusago. 'Had I known we would face such a test, I could have brought ten or a dozen of my best soldiers, skilled in mountain-work and rope-craft. With their help we might have made the crest of the cliff. But I am uncertain myself of making the climb, raised though I was in the hills of northern Deruys where scaling hills was the play of boys. I fail to see how the northerners could scale more than fifty feet. It would be an unnecessary casting away of life. And if I was to gain the cliff top, what then?

Would I gain access to this relic, in the absence of the Five of the Hand? I think not. No; we must take the proffered scree slope or turn around and make our way back north towards home.'

'Then let us make our decision,' said Te Tuahangata. 'For

myself, I do not fear this little mountain wall. But I think the prince is right regarding the northerners. I suggest we try the scree slope.'

'And I,' agreed Wiusago. 'What say the Arkhimm?'

'I want to know what Achtal thinks,' said Phemanderac. 'Can we climb the slope? It seemed insubstantial and treacherous to me. What does the Bhrudwan say?'

Hal turned to his companion. 'Can we scale the stony slope?'

The fierce Bhrudwan looked with a practised eye at the visible section of the scree slope, then turned to Hal. 'Difficult. Two steps up, one step down. Take rest of the day.'

'There is another reason to avoid the cliffface,' Belladonna said unexpectedly. 'Look! See the mare's-tails high in the southern sky? They foretell the weather. Rain from the south, they say, within the next twelve hours. It might burst upon you before you attained the top of the cliff; and it would pluck you from the face and dash you to the ground.'

Maendraga turned on his daughter. 'You depart from the ways of wisdom! What, or who, has turned your head? How shall they be affirmed as the Chosen unless they choose correctly at the Random? They must take the test.'

'Must we?' countered Phemanderac, and his suspicion of the magician returned. 'You strengthen our resolve to avoid this test. What does it matter to us if you do not believe? Yet my heart tells me you shall not see the relic you have guarded most zealously, unless you accompany us on our climb. And logic defies you! By random chance we came from the north and, unlooked for, we found the location of our quarry. Is this not the randomness your test was designed to determine?'

'We have debated long enough,' said the Haufuth. 'We will re-climb the scree, whether the guardians will it or not. And we will begin now.' With that, he repacked the remainder of his lunch, and slung his pack on his back.

'He must be serious about this,' said Kurr quietly, 'to have sacri-ficed his meal.'

'I'm glad we do not risk the cliff,' said Phemanderac. 'I would have been compelled to leave my harp behind.'

Te Tuahangata frowned, the nearest he could come to a smile. 'Light-heartedness masks true feelings. You are a strange people, you northerners! Yet I have enjoyed my journey with you, and will follow you until the end.'

'Then let us leave,' Maendraga growled. 'I have no wish to be in the open when the weather arrives.'

The task began easily enough, though tramping up the stream-bed took longer than Leith remembered. An hour passed before they reached the base of the shingle slope, and there his heart almost failed him. How could it have been so impossibly steep? Up and up it stretched, and as they contemplated it, gathering whatever inner strength they had, a small stone slithered down the incline and clattered past them into the stream.

With increasing weariness the travellers forged their way up the initial slope. They began by tackling it head-on, striking straight up the slope; but a few minutes left many of them gasping for breath. Leith's legs shook uncontrollably, and his ankles ached with the pressure of anchoring him to the scree. After this they zig-zagged across the incline, each sweep taking many minutes and gaining them but little ground. After an impossibly long time of this labour, Leith looked down, to find they had risen only a few hundred feet above the valley floor. Already the sun began to quarter towards the horizon.

'I don't like this,' Kurr said worriedly during one of their frequent halts. 'The Haufuth is about done in, and even I, an outdoorsman, am finding the will to go on more and more elusive.'

'I would find it harder to go back,' retorted Te Tuahangata.

'Tua has his fear of being shamed to impel him forward,' commented Prince Wiusago. 'I have my love for my father. I suggest each of us explore deep within ourselves now and find something to keep us going. Whatever it is, we will meet it again only by conquering this slope.'

Across and back, across and back. Sun behind, harsh heat rising from die grey stone slope.

Legs screaming their ache. Achtal stopping to help the Haufuth. Hal ahead, legs crabbing efficiently up the slide. Rocks dislodged, sliding into ankles, calves, knees; rattling their way down the slope behind them, crashing into trees hundreds of feet below. Packs threatening to tip them backwards, send them falling, falling. No talk, just the ragged sound of laboured breathing ahead and behind. Across and back, across and back. Kurr staggers and falls; the Escaignian thrusts out an arm and grabs him. No breath even to express thanks. Only the Bhrudwan and, surprisingly, Belladonna seem relatively untroubled. Payback time for months of borrowing on reserves how depleted. Unable to think with any coherence. Across and back.

Maendraga turns and points: with care they pivot and look to the southern horizon, where a dark smudge spreads wide across the sky, reaching out to swallow the sun. Deep, deep breath, then back to the slope, the random rock-patterns flowing slowly under their boots. Across and back. Down behind them mist gathers in the shadowed valleys, puffs from deep stream-scoured folds, curls up the valley walls. Sun dives towards the mountains. Shadows lengthen, stretch out towards the ant-like figures on the rock-face, hesitate, then leap at them like hungry predators. Sun touches a mountain peak. Across and back, across—

'Nearly there!' someone ahead has the energy to cry.

Sobbing with the effort, Leith forces his legs on by pushing his hands down on his unwilling knees. The Haufuth is all in: Achtal helps him up the slope. Then they stop.

'Leith!' Prince Wiusago calls. 'Is this what you saw?'

There, to their right and perhaps fifty feet below them, lay the basin Leith had seen the day before. It was dark and colourless now, as the sun slipped behind the ridge opposite the travellers. They could make out the island, vague in the gathering dusk.

'Yes, this is it,' he said wearily.

'We can't go any further,' Wiusago stated firmly. 'It would take some time to find the rope, and none of us are in any condition to attempt it. We are going to have to spend a night up here.'

'A cold and wet night, I fear,' said Maendraga. 'An ominous night to wait in Joram's arms. The storm is upon us.'

As if his words called it down, drizzle began to fall from a leaden sky. Far to the west the sun sank below the horizon, and deep gloom rushed up the Vale of Neume towards them.

'Can't you fashion an illusion solid enough to shelter us?' Leith asked him.

'And who will sustain it when I am asleep?' Maendraga asked him a little shortly. 'Or are you suggesting I remain awake all night?'

'Father,' said Belladonna quietly. 'There's nothing you can do about it now. Here we are, the first guardians to look upon the sacred lake. Let that satisfy you.'

'I've heard too many disquieting things about this basin and the mountains that support her to be satisfied,' Maendraga grunted in reply.

The Arkhimm and their companions worked their way down to the lakeshore, and began a search for shelter. To their left the bluff rose into the gathering darkness, sloping steeply away from the lake, the naked rock metallic in the fading light. No shelter there. A miserable grey rain-curtain slanted in from the south.

'Over here!' Hal called.

The cripple had discovered a ledge near the lake shore, over to the right. It was part of a ridge which swept down from the mountainside they had climbed, vanishing in the murk ahead of them. It promised little shelter, but perhaps it would keep out the worst of the rain.

During the long night the wind rose and howled all about them in a demented rage. Whenever the wind died, the rain soaked the company, few of whom could find more than a few moments' sleep. In his uneasy dreams Leith found himself caught under the great waterfall, or rolling, tumbling down the scree, falling with no hope of stopping. Whenever he awoke it was to the roar of the wind and the slash of rain.

'Can't you conjure something to keep this rain and wind off our backs?' he heard Maendraga say at some point in the darkness.

'Hardly. I can barely tie my own shoelaces,' came the Haufuth's weary reply.

'Are you not the leader? Did you not do the magic in my house?' The voice carried a note of surprise.

'I am the leader, but I know no magic. I'm sorry for the deception, but it seemed necessary at the time.'

A woman's laugh came from the darkness. 'I wondered how a northern peasant had become an adept at the magic arts,' she said. 'It seemed so unlikely. So who is the magician?'

'No one,' replied the headman. 'But Phemanderac can recognise it, seemingly.'

'Then how - how did I become caught in the Truthspell? A spell of that power takes years of training.' Genuine puzzlement lined Maendraga's voice. Leith was learning to recognise magic in speech - the Wordweave, Kroptur had called it - and through it discern between truth and falsehood.

'He says he didn't study magic. I suppose he was lucky.'

'Luck?' the magician growled. 'Luck does not exist.'