Cloudfyre Falling - a dark fairy tale (36 page)

‘
Not exactly,’
he said, taking another healthy draft of river water. He swallowed
and went on. ‘Be
my
custom if any. Which many of my fellow crab folk have
mimicked. I let my children draw their pictures there and I were
proud to display their efforts. And after they had all sadly
perished I etched via looking-glass a unique piece by which to
remember each one of them.’

Gargaron listened to their
exchange and quenched his own thirst. ‘They are exquisite,’ he
said, ‘and a wonderful way to remember your family.’

Locke looked away downriver,
watching Grimah and Razor lazing about the shallows, lost to his
mind for a moment. ‘I thought so too.’

Midstream,
Gargaron proceeded to fill his gourds. As he did he happened to
catch his reflection in the water; for a moment his breath left him
for he did not recognise the face gazing back at him. ‘By Thronir,’
he murmured. Gone were much of the hair that had once framed his
face, gone were much of his beard. Parts of his nose and ears were
blackened. He reached around to the rear of his head. He swallowed
when his fingertips contacted the area. Wet, tender, inflamed skin,
skin that were blistered and hardened. The Nightface he had never
seen with his own eyes but which he were familiar with by touch
were no more; its eyes burnt and burst, leaving holes in his flesh.
He sighed and for a few moments studied his visage in the water as
it looked back at him. His girls would not recognise him, he
thought.
I would be a stranger to them if
they were to see me right now
.

He straightened
and concentrated his thoughts on the world around him. It were dead
to bird and bug and to any other critter likely to utter sounds of
life in daylight hours, but it were still a beautiful world. He
bent and splashed water over his head.
Many have lived without their Nightface
, he reminded himself as water dripped off his chin and nose.
He smiled despite himself.
Many too have
lived without their hair
.

He did not know it, but from the
shallows, Melai watched him in silence.

4

By midafternoon
the troupe traipsed through hilly ground where mighty rock
profusions jutted hither and thither from the
earyth
, each and every one carved in
the form of some ungodly sly-eyed face. Each of them towered above
Gargaron astride his mount. Their mouths were not only carved, but
caves, and inside, bones and teeth lay wrapped up in bundles of
dirty, flaking cloth.

While most of their attention were on these
strange stone formations, Gargaron noticed Hawkmoth peering off
into sky. And it were not the first time that day he’d noticed
Hawkmoth doing as such.

While Melai and Locke inspected
the insides of one of these “caves”, Gargaron pulled Grimah nearer
Razor. ‘Do you search for the Bonewreckers?’ he asked of the
sorcerer, following his gaze out into heavens that had grown more
and more grey and dark and overcast as the day
progressed.

Hawkmoth answered several moments
later. ‘Not entirely, my good giant. I do not expect to see the
Range for at least a hundred miles yet. No, presently I am testing
a theory.’

‘
Oh? And what theory would that
be?’

Hawkmoth shifted his staff where
it were suspended in its brace across his back. ‘Well… we have not
experienced a boom-shock for some days now. And whilst I would
dearly love to believe the witches have ceased their bombing, I
suspect there be more to come. Thus, detecting a boom-shock before
its arrival might be a way to forearm ourselves against its
shuddering effects.’

‘
And how might we know if one is
imminent?’ Gargaron asked.

‘
Well, that is what I am trying to
ascertain. Our friend, Sir Locke, on his way from the Stromness
Coast, claims he witnessed the sky fall yellow some minutes before
the strike of such a boom-shock. Whether or not that were
atmospheric conditions particular to his location at that time, I
cannot tell. But it has intrigued me. So, for now, I keep my eyes
peeled for any such development.’

5

They pressed on. What did become
apparent later in the day were a dizzying structure that soared out
of sight into the clouds. Gargaron at first took it to be a tower
like that of Skysight. One, albeit, pushed on a dire angle. As if a
simple shove would send it crashing to ground. He assumed it must
have rocked over thanks to these “boom shocks”. But the sorcerer,
when Melai asked what the structure might be, told them all it had
been built as such, for it were a stardrive system. Of course, this
explanation made little sense to any of them.

‘
What be a stardrive exactly?’
Gargaron questioned.

Hawkmoth seemed hesitant to
answer. He were at first busy consulting some strange contraption
on his wrist he called a chronochine; an intricate looking
glass-faced gadget full of cogs and springs and bits and pieces
that he claimed could tell the time of day and the phases of the
moon. He claimed it were powered by sun and moonlight. Even
darklight, whatever that were. ‘History’s scrolls tell us the
stardrive were originally built to send folk out into the Great
Nothing.’

They pushed on a wee bit further.
Around them the landscape had begun to present unusual features. It
were the bed of an ancient ocean, Hawkmoth told them. His Order
used to conduct field trips here to scout for rare and unusual
substances buried in substrata.

Today there stood
the remains of ancient tube worms jutting near and far from
the
earyth
, high
and looming and translucent. And enormous spiral shells from
critters long perished and turned to dust, some now growing with
small trees from their backs. There were bleached and cracked husks
of giant colossal crustaceans. There were fossilised animals
imprinted in rock, and eroding crusts of barnacles and chitin
against vast beds of stone. Coral stacks rose up from the grasses,
so tall were they that it were as if giants had built them. Some of
these had evidently crashed down in days gone; perhaps some more
recently under the shake of the witches weapons. Around these,
loomed towering rock grottos growing with grass and shrubs that
danced lightly in the wind. There were much evidence of portions of
these grottos having shaken loose and collapsed; any creature
unfortunate enough to have been caught beneath them at the time
would have had life instantly snuffed out.

Still, the dominating feature,
southways’n’west, were the stardrive tower. A mighty phallic
structure poking far into sky from the western edge of a
mountainous stone plateau that were raised up a hundred feet or
more from the ancient ocean bed. And occupying most of the plateau,
they saw now, were an old crumbling stone castle, a number of its
guard towers still standing, and a number of them
collapsed.

‘
That there,’ Hawkmoth said
pointing, ‘be the Lair of King Charles. Abandoned now for some two
hundred years but it contains vaults where the royals once horded
their considerable wealth. It be mostly told in myth and legend now
but the stardrive, as stories go, were built on King Charles’
orders before which specialised vessels were constructed to take
him and his royal host to better worlds amongst the stars. There
were a grand farewell, a mighty feast, then King Charles and his
subjects, pets and family, all packed themselves into one of their
star-vessels and left Cloudfyre, never to return.’

The castle were entirely dwarfed
by the leaning stardrive tower. And Hawkmoth went to say more… but
then stopped. His eyes suddenly focused on the heavens.

‘
What be the matter?’ Gargaron
asked.

‘
Well,’ Hawkmoth said, ‘you lot
might tell me. Do you all see that?’

Each of them looked, following his
pointing finger, even Grimah’s two heads appeared to gaze out into
the heavens. Razor too, his keen eyes searching the skyline.
Locke’s serpent however merely flicked her blue tongue in and out,
tasting the breeze.

At first Gargaron saw nothing but
grey skies and dark clouds. But when he heard Locke comment, ‘Aye,
that be what I were talking about, sorcerer,’ he saw it… a peculiar
phenomenon away in yonder clouds. Something of a ripple.
Accompanied by an off-yellow hew. Like discoloured water seeping
through paper. It were almost imperceptible. And Gargaron even had
to ask, ‘Do you three see that? Some disturbance in the cloud mass?
Is that what you mean, Hawkmoth?’

‘
Aye,’ Hawkmoth replied gravely,
and sounding at the same time intrigued.

‘
What be it?’ Melai asked,
concerned.

‘
If Locke’s theory rings true then
it be the front of yet another of these boom shocks.’ Hawkmoth
said. ‘I expect the closer we get to the war front the stronger and
more deadly these things shall become.’ He surveyed their immediate
surroundings. Then looked back at the atmospheric disturbance. ‘We
would do well to be away from here though. If that be another
boom-wave then it be likely to shake these coral stacks down upon
us.’

‘
Where would you have in mind?’
Gargaron enquired, looking about with little hope of finding a
suitable hiding place before the shockwaves rushed over them. Both
Grimah and Razor were now snorting nervously. Both unsettled on
their feet.

Hawkmoth settled his eye upon King
Charles’ distant fort. ‘Flat open ground would be ideal,’ he said.
‘Which we are currently without. But solid rock walls remain an
option.’

All eyes turned toward the castle. ‘You mean
these vaults you mentioned?’ Locke asked.

‘
Aye. I have not been this way in
some two decades but by all accounts, there beneath the fort those
vaults remain intact.’ He gazed back at the yellow discolouration
growing nearer in the sky. ‘Anyhow, if we are all agreed then we
ought proceed there with some haste.’

1

THE sounds of galloping hooves
thundered across grass and rock and shale as Grimah and Razor beat
a direct path for the plateau. Locke’s serpent, slithering swifter
than both steeds, could not be heard other than her smooth belly
swishing across land.

‘
There were once
a guarded stairway on the eastwun face
,’
Hawkmoth called above the noise, and sure enough, as they neared
the fort they saw what looked to be a narrow chasm cut into the
vertical rock wall and inside, leading up to the fort, were steps
that had been hewn from the rock. Guard towers looked down upon any
who approached. But they went unmanned these days. And an iron
portcullis that once barricaded the base of the steps had long been
pulled down and discarded; it lay half buried in sand and
shrubs.

Locke pulled his serpent up the
stairway, and the others followed: Gargaron and Melai mounted on
Grimah, Hawkmoth and Razor last. They ascended the stairway at pace
(a solid rock stairway between dark stone walls that were roofed in
a vast iron grate complete with a hundred murder holes). At the top
they charged through another ruined gatehouse and onto a weed
strewn courtyard.

Around the courtyard, the castle
ruins stood, stone stables and long deserted kitchens and guard’s
quarters. Higher levels would have contained food halls and bed
chambers and war rooms. All now mostly crumbled and collapsed. In
the weed strewn bailey a pair of half-domes rose out of the ground,
each with a walled face fitted with a monstrous stone
doorway.

‘
The vaults we seek lie beyond
those doors,’ Hawkmoth told them. ‘Gargaron, do you think you might
prize them open.’ With that the sorcerer lead Razor up the northwun
tower.

Gargaron dismounted and, with
negligible help from the crabman, set to work dragging the doors
open. When they were done, they beheld a darkened stairway leading
down into blackness.

‘
Haitharath
,’ Melai called up to the
sorcerer. ‘
What do you
see?
’

Hawkmoth employed
an ancient eye-scope with a strange glass lens and a glass crystal.
He ran it across the plains of grass that lay northways’n’west of
their position. ‘
I see the lands being
torn asunder
,’ he called back gravely.
‘
The shockwave rolls sourly and surely
toward us.
’ He turned and trotted Razor
back down the tower’s worn stone steps. ‘Come, let us get inside.
We have little time.’

2

They passed through the thick
stone doors and hauled their mounts down black stone steps, Grimah
protesting at first, but perhaps took some confidence from Razor
who strode down into the dark, head up, chest out proudly, green
eyes gleaming in the lightless depths. Sconces hung on the walls
but all were without lamps so for a time Razor’s gleaming eyes were
their sole source of light. Except for the small lantern Gargaron
had strapped to the side of Grimah. Locke were readying to release
a handful of bespelled glowbugs that would hover above the band of
travelers, giving off a warm yellow luminescence, lighting much of
their way forward. But Hawkmoth saw him preparing these and called
for him not to waste them.