A Blackbird In Darkness (Book 2) (50 page)

Medrian was after him at once. She seized his arm – as she had once before, in a valley in Forluin – and dragged him to a halt.

‘Stop – Estarinel, it’s all right, don’t be afraid,’ she heard herself saying, ridiculously. ‘The Egg-Stone is destroyed. M’gulfn won’t attack us, because it knows we have the Silver Staff. It is afraid of us, too. And you were right: its appearance before was an illusion, just Arlenmia’s distorted vision. Estarinel?’

As she spoke to him, his breathing slowed and she saw the panic fade from his eyes – only to be replaced by despair. He stared at her for a moment and then half turned away, although he did not make to run off again. He stood there with his back to the Serpent, seeming remote from her.

‘Come back with me,’ she said.

‘I can’t,’ he said stiffly. ‘Medrian, I’m sorry, I can’t face it.’

‘You must,’ she whispered. He only shook his head, and then she felt a kind of panic herself, a cold viscid realisation that it was beyond her power to restore his resolve. She reached out to touch his arm, yet he seemed to be slipping away from her.

‘Estarinel, there’s something I haven’t told you…’ her words were urgent, yet lost as soon as they were spoken, like a whisper swept away on a blizzard. ‘Something you should know.’ But it seemed to her that her own hand was an elusive thing sculpted out of ice, melting and sliding from his arm so that she could not keep hold of him; and that she was herself only a figure made of frost, insubstantial and transient. This is just a moment of my life, she thought, then I will be gone. I must make him understand before it’s too late… But he was staring straight through her as if she had no more substance than ice vapour.

‘It’s no good,’ he said.

‘In Forluin,’ she persisted desperately, ‘you remember when we went into the wheelwright’s barn, where they had laid your family?’ Oh, this is hard, she thought. ‘I had resolved not to tell you this, because it would only have caused you pain. But now I know no other way to make you see the Quest through.’

‘Medrian, what are you saying?’ He gripped her shoulders and a wild look came into his eyes. At least he was listening to her.

‘Their bodies were perfect. There was a reason for that. You see, even without the Egg-Stone, the world will still fall into M’gulfn’s power. Not at once, but within half a year, if you recall Setrel’s prediction, and then its venom will reduce the rest of Forluin to ash. And it will reanimate those that it killed in order to torment and enslave them. Do you understand me? Your family is not truly dead. M’gulfn holds them in suspension until its power is total. You remember what Silvren told you, about the world becoming a poisoned sac? You know that its rule would be hell on Earth. Without the Egg-Stone the Serpent is vulnerable, we have a chance to kill it. But if we don’t – if you turn aside – you are condemning your family and the whole of Forluin to something infinitely worse than death.’

‘You knew this, and didn’t tell me?’ he exclaimed.

‘It would only have hurt you.’

‘Or you kept it back so that you might use it if I lost my nerve?’

The accusation shocked her; mainly because it was half-true. ‘Yes, in a way. Not deliberately,’ she whispered. And he continued to stare at her until she felt more than ever that she had become a ghost.

Then the moment was over. He was embracing her, and she was real again, living flesh and blood. ‘Oh, Medrian, what am I saying to you?’ he cried. ‘Forgive me. You should not have to persuade me to go on. I feel ashamed. I gave you my word that I would not let you down, and I will not. I’m all right.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes,’ he said, taking her hand and walking determinedly back to Ashurek and Silvren. ‘I am ready. Let us finish it.’

‘I love you,’ she said faintly.

They stood together on the snow, a group of five figures: one apart, bowed down by her private wretchedness, the other four close together, gazing grim-faced upon the evil creature that they must somehow destroy.

‘I am glad that I’m able to be with you at the end after all,’ Silvren murmured to Ashurek. ‘I wish only that I could summon my power to your aid.’

The Serpent was edging slowly towards them, smearing the snow with blood and grey venom as it came. Its insatiable malevolence thrummed in the air, making it almost intolerable for them to stand their ground against it, let alone launch an attack on it. Silvren would not say it, but Ashurek knew she felt, as he did, that the Worm had proved to be indomitable after all. It was laughing at them, gloating.

‘Why does it not attack us?’ Ashurek asked. He had one hand in a reassuring clasp on Estarinel’s shoulder. Far from despising the Forluinishman’s near-surrender to fear, he could only admire him for overcoming it. ‘Is it because of the Silver Staff?’

‘Yes,’ Medrian replied. ‘It knows what the weapon is now, and is not so stupid that it doesn’t fear it.’

Estarinel had held the end of the Silver Staff to Miril’s breast as he had on Hrunnesh, but nothing had happened. The bird had remained lifeless.

‘We seem to be in stalemate,’ said Ashurek. ‘Always I had faith that once we had come this far, it would be obvious how to end it. It is not obvious. We must have gone wrong somewhere, or Miril would not be dead.’

‘I’ve thought and thought,’ Medrian said, ‘but I always arrive at the same answer. I don’t know whether it is right, but it is all I can think of.’

‘Well, what is it?’ Ashurek asked. ‘We must do something. I would rather take a chance than stand here discussing it forever more.’

‘I think I know what should be done,’ Medrian said, ‘but I’m not confident of how to achieve it. Its body must be destroyed with ordinary weapons. It is not invulnerable to them.’

Ashurek looked at her with surprise. ‘Maybe not. But all the same, how do we get close enough even to touch it? It will snap us up as it did poor Skord. What about the Silver Staff?’

‘You know that we cannot use the Staff to slay its body without causing a cataclysm. It must – it must not be used until afterwards. Besides, if we approach the Serpent with the Staff, it may flee.’

‘So either we spend eternity chasing it about, or else we advance on it with earthly weapons only to be killed at once?’ Ashurek exclaimed. ‘Medrian, you are making less sense, not more.’

‘No, hear me out,’ she said. ‘I can see only one way for us to succeed. This will be the way of it: I will go first to the Serpent and speak to it. It’s all right, Estarinel – it cannot touch me, any more than I can physically harm it. I will induce it not to defend itself. Then you two must advance with axes and slay it.’

‘Induce it?’ Ashurek sounded incredulous. ‘Gaining your independence from it is one thing, but to convince it to lie quietly while we murder it–?’

‘But it is our only hope!’ Medrian replied flatly. ‘Can any of you think of a better way? Estarinel, take off the Silver Staff and leave it here.’ He unbuckled the red scabbard and Silvren took it from him. ‘Now, I will go to it. Stay twenty or so yards behind me, and only advance when I signal to you. The H’tebhmellian clothes will protect you from its venom. Are you ready?’

‘Yes,’ both replied, taking their axes from their belts.

‘Remember what Miril said. It must be done with gentleness. Try to kill it swiftly, as if–’ She swallowed, ‘as if you were putting an animal out of its misery.’

Medrian seemed icily calm and resolute, and in fact she was not feeling any fear in that moment. To her the physical presence of M’gulfn was no worse than the mental presence she had endured all her life. Ashurek felt something like battle-fever gripping him, driving out even the strongest doubt and terror. And Estarinel felt so sick and weak with dread that he was sure some outside force must be propelling him towards M’gulfn; perhaps it was simply that no fate could be worse than betraying Medrian’s and Forluin’s faith in him.

‘How should we best attack it?’ Ashurek asked.

‘Behead it,’ Medrian answered matter-of-factly, ‘then dismember the head.’

And the three who had set forth from the House of Rede now walked together towards the end of their Quest, in darkness.

The air swirled thickly about them as they went, like a sea of bromine gas. They moved through it in agonising slow motion, choking on the Worm’s stench, the snow sucking at their feet like viscid flesh. Before them, the Serpent M’gulfn lay waiting, grinning like an impassive cockatrice.

Presently Medrian signalled the other two to stop while she went on ahead. Estarinel found it terrible to watch her advancing towards that vile creature alone, a small, brave figure outlined by green-brown phosphorescence. The Worm was bigger than he had realised; she looked tiny by its head. How shameful his own fears seemed in the face of her courage. He held his breath, thinking, surely she is not going any closer?

All the time Medrian was talking to M’gulfn, trying to draw it from the depths of her mind where it was sulking and make it listen to her. For a time there was no response. Only when she drew so near that she could have reached out and touched its great, wrinkled head did it speak.

Ah, my Medrian. You have come to me at last
.

‘Yes,’ she replied.

The loss of my eye was painful to me, but at least the hated bird was destroyed thereby. I devoured her. I have nothing to fear now. They dare not bring the silver weapon near me. I am safe, and you will stay with me forever
.

‘Yes, I will stay with you, M’gulfn,’ she answered quietly. It seemed quiescent; not fully aware of what was happening. Arlenmia’s tricks had left it shaken and confused. Perhaps this was not going to be so hard after all.

You are not lying to me, are you, my Medrian?

‘No, I am with you now. Hush, be still,’ she whispered. She could feel its mind sliding away within her own, as if in torpor or sleep. She probed at it cautiously, but it seemed utterly tranquil. Slowly, never looking away from its tiny blue eyes, she raised a hand. Behind her she heard the crunch of Estarinel’s and Ashurek’s boots as they began to advance. Those few instants seemed to drag on interminably, as if a fleeting nightmare had been crystallised in time.

Suddenly she was on her back in the snow, while overhead the Serpent hurtled into the air, the whirring of its wings deafening. A scream died in her throat.
Traitor! You think I did not know what you intended?
Its thoughts raked into her brain like poisoned barbs.
How dare you do this? I warned you I would make you sorry. You are going to suffer, suffer until you grovel for pity.

‘No!’ she cried, trying desperately to control and quiet it. But as the Serpent had lost its power over her, so had she lost what little power she’d had over it. It circled in the air, strings of blood and acid falling from its mouth. She struggled to her feet – skidding in the befouled snow – and saw Estarinel and Ashurek staring upwards, blank-faced and frozen, like figures of stone.

It dived over their heads, turning round and round in the air with hideous grace, like an eel chasing its tail in a murky sea. And Medrian knew that it was not going to kill them quickly, but very slowly and systematically, if at all. It wanted more than anything to humiliate them.

‘Stop,’ she gasped. ‘I won’t let this happen. M’gulfn, stop!’

They shall not slay me, not me!
it was crying, and its emotions seared her lungs like acrid gas.
I will give them confusion and pain and death, just as I promised when they took my eye!

Estarinel stood gripping the shaft of his axe, so numb and faint with terror that the Serpent itself seemed tiny, miles away from him in a grey-brown fog. He could do nothing to defend himself, it would spew its poison onto him as it had onto Forluin. He was trapped in a leaden nightmare from which there was no escape. And Ashurek stood determined to deal it at least one blow before if felled him, thinking all the time of Silvren.

The Serpent swooped. It did not touch any of them; instead it plummeted heavily onto the snow, sending up great pinkish-grey gouts of the stuff. It writhed there and they waited, petrified, for it to rise again.

Yet it did not. Medrian was standing rigidly upright in front of it, her arms by her sides and her head back, and she was singing. Her voice was low and the words of the song were strange, if they were words at all; but they seemed to have pinioned the Serpent. It lay thrashing on the snow, but could not rise.

#

Medrian had remembered the Guardian’s song. It was a deep, weird chant with which they had pinioned it all those millions of years ago in order to steal its eye. Perhaps they had forgotten the song, perhaps they hadn’t thought to suggest its use; but the Serpent had not forgotten. It still had nightmares about it. And now the song came directly from M’gulfn’s memory into Medrian’s mind, and she sang the slow, strange melody back to it until it sank helpless onto the ground, fear running like paralysis along all its muscles.

And there she held it, the song looping between their minds, until it became a cacophony of terror within M’gulfn’s skull; but she remained detached, not allowing herself to be drawn into the vortex of its fear. And, as she continued to sing strongly, she raised both hands and beckoned Estarinel and Ashurek to come forward again.

They saw that she had the Worm in check and once more they went cautiously forward. As they approached it, it opened its mouth and gave voice to a terrible groan. The groan went on and on; and the utter desolation of it filled their heads, so that they cried out in horror and staggered as if buffeted by a gale. The Serpent was pinioned, but still swollen with fell power.