Cloudfyre Falling - a dark fairy tale (37 page)

Corpses of vault raiders lay on
the stairs, scattered about. The sweet stench of their
decomposition were rank and thick, filling their nostrils like an
acrid smoke. These were recent raiders whose lives had most
obviously been curtailed since the initial rolling of the
shockwaves. It seemed possible too, with every door ajar or torn
free of its hinges, that Dark Ones had been here too and done their
killing.

Hawkmoth put up his hand, ushering
for all to halt. As they did, he slid from his mount, got down on
one knee and took his staff into grip.

Here for the
first time Gargaron witnessed the sorcerer wield this weapon. He
had noticed its two faces, the angel and the demon, but had not yet
had occasion to see them at work. ‘
Lanx
,’ Hawkmoth spoke aloud.
‘
Maykess dees deed wuns aryz frumiss
deeth
.’

Gargaron saw the mouth of the
staff’s demon face come open, watched its eyes turn from the colour
of coal to burning red, and saw from its jaws a tongue flick forth,
jabbing in rapid succession three of the corpses piled there on the
paved floor.

It were not immediately evident
what Hawkmoth were trying to achieve. Gargaron wondered if he
paying his respects to the fallen. If so, why had he not performed
this act upon every slain corpse they’d chanced upon since
Varstahk?

Soon however, Gargaron, Melai and
Locke witnessed the rising of the nearest carcass. Or more
correctly, the rising of some peculiar part of it. A vapour. An
essence. Something. It rose out of the corpse, a spectral thing,
glowing a soft, creamy, sulphurous witch light. It rose, standing
there as if just risen from a coffin. It looked about, eyes blank
and formless, like wells into an afterlife… And like the wrinkled,
desiccated face of the corpse, this face were pale and
ghastly.

Melai, Gargaron, Locke watched on
with some intrigue as a second and a third corpse “arose”. These
ghosts floated there, illuminating a vast swathe of these black
tunnels; for a hundred paces or more there were now
light.

Before the death of her sisters,
before she had met Eve, Melai would have argued that the dead had
the right to stay dead. But now moral conflict clouded her. She
leapt from Grimah’s shoulders and flew back up the
stairwell.

Gargaron, surprised, watched her
go, wondering what she were doing. He dropped from Grimah’s saddle
and started after her. But it were Hawkmoth whose voice trailed
her.

‘
Dear Melai, she of the forest
nymphs, forgive my actions, yet I use these arcane arts sparingly.
And only at desperate times. We may not be alone down here. We must
remember that. The Dark Ones, as the giant calls them, may be in
hiding. Awaiting our arrival. The spectres I have made rise from
their fallen shell, will not only comfortably light our way, but
will also alert us to any Dark fiends waiting to ambush us. These
are desperate times, my dear, none of us can afford to hold to our
precious sensitivities, ideals, and ethics in this world beyond
days.’

Melai reached stone doors at top
of stairwell, where she landed and hesitated. Out there a wicked
wind kicked up dust and tossed the tips of weed and grass to and
fro. Gargaron reached her. Knelt at her side. ‘Melai, what be the
matter?’

‘
I cannot watch,’ she said. ‘That
the dead might be treated so flippantly.’

‘
Aye, I share your concerns but we
have no choice in the matter. If we were not here, Hawkmoth would
still conduct this strange magic.’

She remained silent, watching the world
beyond.

Gargaron sensed something else
were afoot. ‘I feel something more concerns you.’

She would not speak.

‘
Melai.’

She hung her head. Outside they
could hear the roar of the shockwave rushing closer.

‘
Melai, please. Let me in. We have
little time. Tell me what fears you so.’

She looked up into his eyes as he
knelt there at her side. ‘I fear the unbounded sky,’ she said, ‘I
fear the lands devoid of trees. I fear the realms where there be no
water beneath my feet. Yet, what I fear most be the darkness of a
place such as this. I fear being entombed.’

He nodded, understanding now her
concerns. ‘Aye, though for now it should be the sky we fear,’ he
told her softly. ‘It hurls at us another of those shockwaves and we
would do well to be down here away from its reach. If there be some
menace in the dark awaiting us then we shall deal with it as we
discover it. But I am here with you and I will let naught bring you
to harm.’

She turned and watched him. She
smiled. ‘Why would you bother when I tried so hard to kill you on
our first meeting?’

‘
Life were precious before the
blight,’ he told her. ‘Now even more so. Our destiny lies with
death but I will not let him find us today. And not down here.’
Gently he took her hand. The growling sounds of the shockwave
growing closer and closer. ‘Come now, Melai,’ he begged of her. ‘We
have not much time. If you choose to part ways with the sorcerer
then I shall come with you, but let us see out this coming
shockwave first and in safety. Please, Melai.’

She swallowed. She hung her chin. She stared
at her little fingers. ‘I miss Thoonsk, Gargaron. And everything
with which I were familiar. I do not pretend to understand this
world beyond her.’

‘
Aye,’ Gargaron said, ‘and I can
only imagine what it must be like. But I too miss my home. And
family. Forever had I known that simple but rewarding existence.
But life is as much about change and challenge as anything. For
better or for worse, nothing stays the same, not forever.’ He held
out his hand. ‘Come now,’ he urged her gently.

She looked up
into his face. How far they had come since she had first watched
him crashing down through Thoonsk’s canopy and wished him dead. She
could not admit to entirely trusting this
Rjoond
, even now, but he had grown
on her since their initial meeting. And as each day passed she had
grown more fond of him. As she gazed into his eyes, she found she
did not wish to leave him.

She clasped his hand and they
moved with urgency back down the stairwell to where Hawkmoth and
Locke had pushed on into a long, wide passage at base of
stairs.

3

The corridor here widened to
reveal what would once have been a subterranean settlement: hovels
and “cottages” hewn from the stone, a market place, a house of
governance, a necropolis beside an underground brook where black
trees grew on sodden banks, leaves of white rustling in a soft
breeze of damp air that carried with it the odour of wet rock, and
the odour of wet moss, and the high thin stink of lime.

Here the tall ceiling and the
sheer walls appeared to glow softly of their own accord with a
carpet of blue and white moss. And toadstools. And lichen. It gave
off a soft light, as on a clear night when the moons shine stark
and bright. There were also strange shelled critters. Some still
clinging to walls. Others dead or dying. Bats the size of hoardogs
hung from the high ceilings. But they did not move; did not stir
nor twitter in ways a healthy, thriving bat colony might. Hawkmoth
suspected death had come for them.

Zebra flicked her tongue in and
out, and Grimah and Razor sniffed at the air cautiously, the sounds
of their hooves going clippity clop, clippity clop, clippity clop,
echoing long down the vast cavern as they walked.

There proved no sign of the royals
of old. Nor did Gargaron expect to see any. The royals, as Hawkmoth
had told them, had left these realms two centuries before. And it
were only Hawkmoth who knew those dark rumours that still
persisted, that told of a world below the ground, dark and wet and
wormy where King Charles and his family had devolved into
sightless, pale-skinned folk who haunted the
underground.

4

The vaults were hewn from granite,
inlaid with walls of iron four feet thick. The circular doors could
be rolled in and out of place via an intricate lever system. The
only fear were of being locked within should the coming shake
compromise the integrity of the lever mechanism, preventing the
door from opening once it had shut them in.

The vaults were numerous. And each
were enormous. Gargaron were surprised. He had wondered how they
were all to fit inside one but now that he lay his eye upon them,
one after the other, he marveled at their scope. They were also not
quite empty. Many of the heavier, bulky items that raiders had not
managed to thieve were still there: golden tables; mirrors lined
with thousands of rare gems; a gold steed standing almost as large
as Grimah. And in a world that were dying and dead, none of it now
worth dust.

It seemed pointless to Melai. She
had heard tales of gold and greed but to horde such items for the
sheer sake of hording were something she could not get her head
around. ‘I would have used it to buy shelter and food for the
sickly and less fortunate.’

Hawkmoth smiled at her. ‘As would
I, my dear. But there are many who do not think like you and I.
Now, time to lock ourselves away.’

They pushed into one of the
vaults, chosen because of its lack of stored plunder, and wealth of
space. Though as they shuffled in with their various mounts in tow,
Melai remained hesitant. Gargaron looked around at her. ‘What if
the entire place should collapse?’ Melai asked. ‘We shall be
entombed.’

‘
King Charles’ royal builders
built their subterranean dwellings to account for natural
groundshakes,’ Hawkmoth explained. ‘And it shall be many years yet
before the last of these fortresses comes down I would
wager.’

Reluctantly Melai trailed her
companions inside and Gargaron wound the wheel on the wall and the
enormous stone door rolled slowly into place, sounding gritty,
almost wet, on the stone as it went.

Before long they were all shut in
and with it swept Melai’s breath as she fought a wave of panic, her
eyes squeezed shut, her tiny fingers digging into the calloused
hands of Gargaron. He knelt beside her and held her close. And all
the while, Hawkmoth’s wraiths hung there staring at them all with
their hollow godless eyes.

5

When the wave came they heard
above ground, and somehow through the rock, a deep sonorous sound
that were almost physical, even this far below surface, with an
ocean of rock and stone to shield them. What it must do to the
organs of the living should you be caught in its path this close to
its epicenter, were something Melai did not wish to
contemplate.

The deep
solid
earyth
around them groaned. And while the vault held tight, there
came the sound of rock smashing into the floor beyond the vault
door. Melai huddled up against Gargaron, his huge arm held
protectively around her. She believed the huge cavern were
collapsing around each vault—instead of being crushed to death she
would be entombed alive. The prospect terrified her and she wished
she had run from this place when she’d had the
chance.

For her sake, Gargaron tried to
project an air of calm. Though within he felt pensive. He believed
like Melai that the subterranean settlement were caving in. That it
would leave them imprisoned. Though he reminded himself they had a
sorcerer at their disposal—Hawkmoth would have some spell to free
them, surely.

He looked across at the sorcerer
who sat there as if the ordeal were merely an academic problem he
were thinking through, mentally ticking off each groan and roar, as
if they’d been expected, as if he had calculated each one. Though
his look of calm were nothing compared to that of Locke. Of them
all, the crabman seemed most at ease. And sat there smiling, as if
enjoying himself, his eyes trailing between the giant and the
nymph, as if amused by their consternation.

‘
Does this not concern you?’
Gargaron called out to him.

‘
On the contrary,’ Locke called
back with a grin, swilling whiskey from a small fogged-glass
vessel, ‘I find it rather exciting. And amusing it must be
said.’

‘
I find nothing amusing in it,’
Melai snapped.

‘
You would if you could see your
faces.’ He smiled. ‘I’ve been to sea. Sailed the broiling Godless
Ocean. Waves a hundred feet tall and whalefish chomping at the
hull. So, this be nothing.’

6

The groan became a roar as the
stone plateau beneath which they were sheltered protested, like a
gortroll hunkered against a mighty wind, heaving with all its might
to stand its ground. It went on for what felt like hours. Grimah
and Razor snorted nervously, pushed together side by side, Razor’s
eyes glowing green in the dim light. And Locke’s serpent were even
more relaxed than her master, curled up and asleep she were.
Hawkmoth’s three ungodly wraiths hovered there, their expressions
never altering, demonstrating no fear, no angst, no happiness no
sadness. Nothing. They just seemed to stare and stare at the
living.

When the rumbling and the noise
finished it happened quickly, with nothing but the booming sound
rolling away like an ocean wave crashing and sweeping away to
shore.