A Blackbird In Darkness (Book 2) (43 page)

‘What’s that?’ Estarinel gasped. Medrian shook her head. They both looked anxiously around, gazing back at the place where Ashurek had fallen.

As they looked, they witnessed a remarkable sight. Ashurek’s head – his hood thrown back – appeared over the edge of the crevasse. Slowly and smoothly his whole figure rose into view, just as if something were lifting him. Presently he was clear of the chasm and they saw that he was standing, feet apart for balance, on what looked like the back of a massive living creature. As his feet reached the level of the rim he leaped out onto the snow, rolling as he landed. Then he jumped to his feet and ran over to Estarinel and Medrian. The rumbling grew louder. The crevasse groaned and widened and from it erupted a ghastly creature like a gigantic snake. Its head came first, a hideous visage befitting a monster of the ocean, then a long, undulating body scaled with sickly purple and maroon. At the other end of it, in place of a tail there was another head, with upward-staring eyes and a circular mouth crammed with hook-like teeth. It slid across the snow for perhaps fifty yards, then plunged its leading head into the surface and burrowed again. They watched it slide smoothly under the snow until it vanished. The plateau continued to crack and shudder beneath them as the creature continued its underground route into the distance.

‘Another sort of Amphisbaena,’ Ashurek muttered.

‘What?’ Estarinel exclaimed. ‘What was it?’

‘A creature of M’gulfn’s, without doubt. I had heard that such things wander the Arctic. Its passage must have caused the crevasse to open in the first place. By fortune, it also rescued me. I was trapped and I could feel the ice tearing open beneath me. Just as I was expecting to fall again, there was a firm, moving surface under me. I managed to bestride it and stand up. Perhaps it was irritated by my weight on its back and merely wanted to rid itself of me – whatever, I can but acclaim its decision to rise to the surface.’

Estarinel was laughing with relief. ‘Oh, by the Lady, I’m glad you’re safe! Are you hurt?’

‘No, only somewhat startled,’ Ashurek replied. ‘I never thought I’d have cause to be grateful to M’gulfn for anything.’

‘You may not have now,’ said Medrian. ‘The Serpent doesn’t want to be deprived of the pleasure of meeting us all in the flesh.’ Despite her morose words, she looked as relieved as Estarinel at Ashurek’s escape.

They crossed the plateau and were descending a slippery spur on its northern edge when the blizzard began again. They found shelter in a cavern formed by blocks of ice, where thawing and refreezing had caused massive icicles to curtain the entrance. Here they ate and tried to sleep, but beyond their small circle of light, snow was swirling past and the wind was howling off the plateau. Sometimes bromine-orange fires could be seen dancing amid the heavy clouds.

Estarinel became aware that some oblique perspective he had had on the Arctic was changing. At first it had seemed a raw, wild realm in which the Serpent had no place. But now, as he stared sleeplessly through the curtain of icicles, his viewpoint was transformed. The Arctic seemed wholly the Serpent’s domain, while they were the unwanted intruders. It was as if the polar cap were a drum-skin on which the Worm lay, feeling and understanding the tiniest vibration. Nothing escaped its notice. This was its kingdom, where it was omnipresent.

Something Estarinel had not sensed when he’d first seen M’gulfn was how deeply cleaved to the world it was, and how massive and all-pervading was its power. How could the slender needle of silver at his side possibly harm the Worm? Surely M’gulfn would feel it as no more than a flea-bite, if that; and how it would revel in mocking them, torturing them…

He tried to suppress these thoughts, but they returned again and again. Somehow the deadly chill of the Arctic had seeped into his bones and he felt that despite the H’tebhmellian fire, the protective clothes – even Medrian, who was huddled against him, drowsing – he would never feel warm again. Even thoughts of his family failed to make him resolute; it all seemed so pale, so far away. How clever the Serpent was to destroy people through their own despair, without ever touching them... he moved his hand to touch the Silver Staff, but its singing seemed to have grown shrill, nerve-jangling, and he snatched his fingers away. He felt exhausted, weak with fear, paralysed by the freezing cold... convinced that he could not go on.

They had now been in the Arctic for five days, and Medrian had estimated that they’d covered about half the distance. How close that seemed – how final – Estarinel must have betrayed some reaction because Medrian looked at him in concern and said, ‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m terrified,’ he admitted candidly. ‘I don’t know how much further I can go.’

‘We’re all afraid,’ she said. But he already knew that and she realised it wasn’t much help to him.

‘The reality of it – being here – is worse than even I thought it would be.’

‘But there’s nowhere for any of us to go except on to the end of the Quest. Nowhere. And I need you.’

‘There’s a certain satisfaction in doing what you know you must, however hard it is,’ Ashurek had added. And although these words did nothing to reduce Estarinel’s conviction that he could not go on, when the time actually came to resume their journey, he climbed stiffly to his feet and walked out into the blinding snow without conscious difficulty.

The sky was iron-grey, the air clotted with whirling flakes. The wind roared behind them, driving them onwards, crusting their cloaks with ice. All day they struggled through the glacial crags, as small and frail as moths blown across a hostile mountain range. The white blankets swathing the landscape looked deceptively soft and welcoming while concealing a grim and bitter heart.

Wrapped in whiteness they came at last to the end of the ice crags, and took shelter beneath them to eat and sleep. When they awoke, snow was falling sparsely, so they could see what lay ahead. It was not a heartening sight. Facing them was a vast, flat plain of snow unrelieved by any kind of landmark. The crags had seemed hostile, but at least they had offered refuge when it was needed. Frigid wind blew unremittingly across the snow, packing it into ice. Above, the sky was marble-white and sullen, but on the northern horizon, malevolent olive and ochre lights danced like demons.

There was something moving on the snow, a bruise-coloured, many-legged thing that might have been coughed up from the Dark Regions. It did not attack but simply sat and watched them for several minutes, then dug itself into the snow and disappeared. Yet it was enough to instill them all with a sick disgust and wretchedness that made it even harder to set off across the plain.

#

Muddled with Medrian’s own first experiences of the Arctic were M’gulfn’s memories, so that each new place they came to, she felt she had seen before, from all different angles, in light and dark, fine weather and storm. And the sight of the white expanse, the Serpent-glow on the horizon, the silent spidery watcher, filled her with unspeakable despair. What am I doing in this horrible place? she thought. The snow seemed to reflect a nauseating mauvish glare that mocked her dismay. She knew there was nothing left between them and M’gulfn but this awful plain.

She thought, why did this have to be the last place I will ever see?

She turned to Estarinel and hid her face against his shoulder, and he held her, his eyes closed, trying to forget that the Arctic was there. But after a minute she straightened up and said, ‘Now we must go on.’

Ashurek touched Estarinel’s arm and pointed to the left. A few yards away, under an overhang of ice, stood another unpleasant creature. It was about four feet high, greenish-yellow in colour, with rudimentary limbs, a huge head and dark, skin-covered swellings where its eyes should have been. Obscenely, it resembled a foetus standing on spindly legs. As Ashurek made to draw his sword it opened its shapeless mouth and gave voice to a thin, piteous mewing filled with such uncomprehending hopelessness that it stole his resolve to kill it. It turned and burrowed mole-like into a snowdrift.

‘Medrian, what are those things?’ Ashurek asked grimly.

‘The Serpent’s experiments in parodying life,’ Medrian replied, her voice thick with revulsion. ‘They will do us no harm. Not physically, at least. They fear me.’

Then they set out to walk across the snowfield. The gale pushed insistently at their backs, and snow spiralled past in splinters of ice. What beauty the Arctic possessed, however wild and raw, was non-existent here. The sense of malevolence and desolation was not due to the physical aspect of the plain, but to the aura emanating from the Worm. It increased with every step they took.

In his imagination, Estarinel turned and ran any number of times; but in reality, with the wind at his back and Medrian’s hand on his arm, he walked steadily on towards the Serpent, so afraid that he was merely numb.

More creatures emerged from the snow, stared at them, disappeared. Perhaps some of them were not even real, but illusions sent by the Serpent to confound them; it didn’t matter, because they served their purpose. The three tried to ignore them, but the phobic repulsion induced by M’gulfn’s experiments did nothing to improve their state of mind. Out on the plain they felt exposed and vulnerable, as if floating on a disintegrating raft in the middle of a freezing ocean.

‘Does this snowfield extend all the way to M’gulfn?’ Ashurek asked.

‘Yes, I believe so,’ Medrian said thinly. ‘This is its territory, its home.’

Ashurek was about to ask what the possibility was of the Serpent coming to meet them, but seeing Estarinel’s expression, he thought better of it.

‘How much further?’ he enquired in a matter-of-fact tone.

Medrian had no chance to reply. There was a sudden creaking and groaning below them, followed by the deafening concussions of the ice cap fracturing. The surface heaved. They halted in consternation and hung on to each other, but a moment later they were pulled apart.

The snowfield reared under them, tearing with a roaring noise like a great avalanche; then the whole Arctic seemed to turn upside down and they were falling, falling, buried under tons of crumbling ice and snow.

#

Estarinel was floating. He had never dreamed it was possible to be so deeply, achingly cold. He could feel bands of iron gripping his chest and see red and black stars bursting across his eyelids. At the same time he knew he was unconscious and close to death. Yet he did not mind. He felt quite calm…

Somewhere above him he thought he could hear a familiar female voice saying, ‘Ashurek, I need to know the words, can you remember?’ Then it seemed that he was lying on a deadly hard surface, and it was cold, so cold. He opened his eyes and saw nothing but whiteness, as if he were trapped in a tiny room, like the hut in the domain of the Silver Staff – disorientated, he sat up violently, coughing water.

‘Estarinel,’ said a voice near him, not the disembodied voice he’d imagined, but Medrian’s. She was sitting at his side, and Ashurek was in front of him. ‘It’s all right, you’re safe now. Comparatively, at least.’

‘I’m frozen. I thought I was drowning.’

‘That’s because you nearly did,’ said Medrian.

He looked around and realised that they were perched on a block of ice, roughly fifteen feet square, that was rocking gently beneath them. They were afloat on a slate-grey, apparently infinite ocean, with a great mass of icepacks jostling around them. It had almost stopped snowing and the sun shone pale and bright through the clouds.

‘What happened?’ Estarinel was shuddering so hard he could barely speak.

‘The ice field broke up beneath us – whether due to a thaw, or something more sinister, I do not know,’ said Ashurek. He lit the H’tebhmellian fire and made it float near Estarinel. ‘Part of the plain must have been a mere crust above the ocean. It was only by luck that Medrian and I found ourselves on this ice floe. You went into the water, but we managed to haul you out. Your cloak trapped air and kept you afloat.’

‘It’s fortunate that these clothes are waterproof,’ Medrian added. ‘Otherwise the cold alone would have killed you.’

‘If it doesn’t yet. We’d have died a dozen times over without the H’tebhmellians’ help,’ Estarinel said, feeling the warmth of the starry fire trickle into him. ‘What now?’

‘The current is taking us north,’ said Medrian, closing her eyes and trying to sense M’gulfn’s thoughts. ‘The Serpent has not been disturbed; less than forty miles from here, the ice cap is undamaged. All we have to do is wait.’

The Serpent-fire on the skyline had turned to vivid green. It danced and spat, sending coruscating sheets of acidic light across the clouds. Flecks of discoloured snow fell hissing into the waves around them. Now that the initial relief of survival subsided, Estarinel’s spirits sank once more in the face of the Worm’s grim power. Even retreat was impossible now. It was as if they were caught in a ritual dance of evil, drifting with a supernatural, leaden rhythm towards the heart of a nightmare.

Again he felt that he could not confront the Serpent. He found himself wishing that he had drowned after all; and although he knew these thoughts to be self-destructive, and that for Forluin’s sake he should be facing the end with a bold and glad heart, it was completely beyond his power to feel anything but despair. Only the Worm’s sickness was real; everything else was dreamlike, distant and ineffectual. For the time being he could function outwardly, but he felt it was only a matter of time before this wretched sense of panic overcame him.