Cloudfyre Falling - a dark fairy tale (44 page)

Locke eyed him sideways, grinning.
‘No. And even if it were, you would not wish to hear me put voice
to it.’

Gargaron smiled. ‘So what be this
weapon then? I have never seen its like before.’

‘
It were a gift to me by the sea
goddess, Ehl Nori,’ Locke told him. ‘She gave it to me after I
saved her daughter from fisherman who had hauled her up in their
nets and planned to sell her to pimpeteers.’

He unhitched it and handed it to
Gargaron who took it, turning it over as he studied it. It were
cold as steel, with texture not dissimilar to dead coral. It had a
single mouthpiece but up to twenty firing holes. It had a sense of
age about it, a sense that it had grown in the depths of ocean a
trillion years ago. He felt also it were something he should not be
handling. With a sensation of growing discomfort, he handed it back
to the crabman.

‘
It be a formidable weapon,’ Locke
assured him, taking it. ‘Anything I strike with it, I
kill.’

Gargaron frowned. ‘Really? Such
did not seem the case during our recent fight.’

‘
You did not see me take down
those hounds?’

‘
Aye. I also saw your darts having
no effect.’

‘
Yes, well some occasions it takes
its time assessing an enemy’s weakness.’

‘
Assessing enemy weakness?’
Gargaron said intrigued. ‘What do you mean?’

‘
It be a magical object. Its
supply of darts be endless. But it is not always immediately
effective. If my first volley of darts not kill my attacker then
each subsequent volley will slowly unravel the secrets of its
defences. Thus the poison and lethality of any following dart will
be adjusted so as to make it more target specific. The only music
this “lute” makes be the cries of my assailants dying.’

‘
Sweet music then after all,’
Gargaron said.

‘
So, what of your own blade,
giant?’

Gargaron shrugged. ‘Why, it be
just an ordinary great sword. Blooded in no war. Has no name.
Though, it means much to me as it were my father’s and his father’s
before him.’

‘
A treasured possession then. And
what of this hammer hilt you lug with you?’

Gargaron shrugged as if to suggest
it were useless. ‘Drenvel’s Bane. Famed throughout the Vale as far
as I am lead to believe. Belonged once to Hor the Cutter, legendary
warrior who heralded from my village. I lifted it from our village
temple after the first Boom shake killed all. At present I am not
counting it as a weapon. Though I am beginning to think it came in
two parts and its better half were stolen long before I got to
it.’

‘
What about you, nymph of
Thoonsk?’ Locke asked Melai. ‘That little bow of yours packs some
power.’

Melai looked tired and, Gargaron
guessed, perhaps in no mood to brag about weaponry. At Locke’s
insistence, she lifted her bow from her chest and handed it to
him.

‘
Such a slight item,’ Locke
commented. ‘I would not have believed it packed such viciousness
had I not witnessed it with my own eyes. Be it a weapon of your own
devising?’

Melai shook her head. ‘When I were
a but a youngling of the forest, I were given it by Sera the wood’s
spirit who taught me how to wield it. It be made of Starwood, and
it bears three chords spun from arachnid silk; that means I can
nock multiple arrows simultaneously, thus striking multiple targets
at once.’

‘
And your arrows,’ Locke said.
‘From where do you source those?’

‘
My quiver provides them, grows
them. I simply spike them with deadly toxins and poisons derived
from the plant life I carry with me from Thoonsk.’

Locke were impressed. ‘A single army in but
one compact little forest nymph. I would not wish to go up against
you.’

‘
No,’ Gargaron said with an ironic
smile, ‘you would not. I can personally attest to that.’

Locke raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh? Do
tell.’

After hesitating, Gargaron retold
the account of his and Melai’s first meeting. Locke laughed. Melai
smiled at the memory though she felt somewhat uncomfortable at how
she had treated the giant.

4

Melai did not expect to find sleep
on that strange vehicle. She walked down the enormous, silent
corridors of the first and second carriages, unable to access any
of the sleeping compartments for the doors were all slid shut and
she did not possess the muscle to open them. And if she had not
already been along with Gargaron as he had inspected each room she
might have feared some monster hiding behind each door.

Eventually she found one whose
door were not quite shut and in she squeezed. It were large and
imposing: every object, the desk by the window, its chair, the bed
and basin and luggage rack (things pointed out to her earlier by
Gargaron) all loomed high above her. Nothing here had been built
for people her size.

She spread her wings and flew to
the desk where she alighted and sat by the chilled window, watching
the darkened countryside race by. The desk were wood she were glad
to find, but dead wood and did not speak to her as the trees in
Thoonsk did. Her initial fear of being confined within this
garetrain were lifted somewhat, for cooped up in this compartment
reminded her somehow of being cradled in her willow tree. She sat,
sore, tired, gazing out window.

5

Back at rear of train, Locke made
to climb for train’s roof where the chilled rain thundered down.
‘If you’ll excuse me, giant,’ he said, ‘I have a need to feel the
elements on my skin.’

‘
Would you not prefer to stay
dry?’ Gargaron asked him. ‘There be room for many in these here
carriages.’

Locke laughed. ‘Giant, I am of the
seashore. I am of the water. Too long lately have I been away from
it. And too much have I missed sitting upon the cliffside rocks
with my clan, gazing out to thunderous sea during a hefty rain
storm.’

Gargaron nodded at him
respectfully. ‘Very well then. Not something I might entertain
myself but I respect your wishes. Watch that rail beam though won’t
you.’

‘
Aye, I shall keep my head about
me.’ Locke eyed the giant sideways for a few moments. Then went to
move off. But hesitated and turned to eye Gargaron. ‘I ought tell
you something, friend. Something I have not yet spoken aloud to any
of you. Not even to the good sorcerer. On my journey from
Barnacle-On-Sea to find the sorcerer, I happened to stumble upon an
elven woman, tall, fair, beautiful. She told me she had been
tracked down by a peculiar metal man and were now off to see
Hawkmoth. I told her I were heading the same way and as we had not
the luxury of a zeppelin we opted to travel together.

‘
Eyferith her name were and she
turned out to be friendly company. As we traipsed across land we
enjoyed good conversation, and much laughter too despite all that
had befallen us. I grew quite fond of her. We were with each other
for several days when one morning I awoke and she did not. I tried
rousing her but somehow, somewhy, she had passed during the
night.’

Intrigued, Gargaron could not help
but think back to the elven woman who had inadvertently delivered
him Grimah. How he had found her perished in saddle.

‘
I have no explanation as to what
caused her demise,’ Locke said. ‘She may have harboured some
unknown ailment or illness, though she seemed in good health the
entire time I knew her. I have deduced that whatever phenomena
brought down my clan, brought on her demise.’ He paused at length
in his tale… and then digressed. ‘I have not always been this
optimistic soul that you see, giant, you may wish to know. Eighty
three wives and one hundred and twenty children have a way of
loosening the screws of any sane person. But those wives and
children strengthened me too somehow. You would understand this,
having a wife and child of your own?’

Gargaron nodded. He knew that
strength, a strength of soul and mind and spirit, and how it had
grounded him. A strength of feeling and of self-affirmation.
Feelings of deep, eternal love. Something he had not known in days
before fatherhood.

‘
I marveled in the innocence of my
children,’ Locke continued. ‘The delightful way they viewed their
surroundings, their world. Everything to them were new, everything
exciting, wondrous. Since Cloudfyre turned, since Eyferith
succumbed, I have come to realise that any point in time, any day
or night, could be my last. Thus I now live and love and breathe
every moment granted me as I would were I a wee innocent
child.

‘
How many times have I wandered
the shore and not noticed the shells or the sand around my claws?
How many times have I strolled through a woodland and not breathed
of its woody smells, or enjoyed the songs of birdlings, or touched
the damp moss upon its stones? Too many, I would wager. Because
life has a habit of throwing other things to crowd your mind with:
chores of a domestic nature, commitments to vocation, involvement
in communal activities or campaigns. Day to day life sees one
scurrying hither and thither without pause for thought of the
greater world. And now, mostly, since Cloudfyre turned, since
finding my children and wives all perished before burying them each
at sea, that is all there is to consume one’s time. And I find that
it excites me more than it concerns me. For, should I die in the
next moment, then I die, giant, without fear nor
regret.’

6

Gargaron left Locke and wandered
back into the carriage where the spiderling had camped itself. The
stench of its sweat and excrement lingered like gamey bore
flesh.

Gargaron ignored the stink,
hitching the saddles from both Grimah and Razor before sharing with
them some dried apples from his pack. The serpent Zebra seemed
curious by the offerings and lifted her face toward him, her tongue
swishing in and out of her side-ways mouth, tasting the
air.

‘
I am not certain you’ll like
apples,’ Gargaron told her. Yet she opened her jaws and gently
tried to take a piece from his fingers. He let her have it. She ate
eagerly just as if she were gulping down Locke’s clam meat. Again
she nudged him. Gargaron had naught seen this tender side of her.
She allowed him touch her; he ran his large hand down her scaly
skull. She shut her several eyes and inclined her head into his
caress, enjoying his touch. Though both Razor and Grimah wanted
some attention too he soon found, all of them gently swamping him.
It were a touching moment. He dished out another serve of dried
apples, surrounded by these animals.

7

Gargaron found Melai asleep in a
sleeping birth in carriage two. The smell were far more pleasant
this end of the train. And far less like some fetid creature had
been holed up there. The interior were polished rosewood with
sleeping compartments and at the far end a smoking booth with a
beverage bar. A lovely aroma of sandalwood and spice hung in the
air.

Melai were not curled up in the
enormous bed as Gargaron had expected. But squished inside one of
the horizontal wooden beams that, he supposed, mimicked the thick
branches of her home tree. Positioned by the sliding door, he found
himself watching for the rise and fall of her chest, haunted by
what Locke had just imparted to him, about the seemingly healthy
Elven woman succumbing to some mysterious condition and never
waking.

Were it possible
that Melai, himself, Locke and Hawkmoth might simply just drop dead
at random and without warning?
Perhaps we
are not survivors
, he thought,
but are simply ones who have not yet died.
The thought chilled him. Causing him to swallow
nervously. He would let Melai sleep. And decided, when she awoke
(and pray she awoke), he would not burden her with Locke’s
tale.

He shut the door quietly and
strode forward toward the engine.

8

Hawkmoth were seated in driver’s
compartment, lost to his thoughts, sewing a patch of cloth over a
tear in his side-pack.

‘
Mind if I join you?’

Hawkmoth started mildly at
Gargaron’s sudden presence but did not object. ‘No, come in, good
giant. Sit down if you please.’

Rain pelted the locomotive’s long
nose but a rain guard kept most of the deluge from the forward
windows. Gargaron could clearly see the arcane railcourse stretched
out before them—the peculiar green energy beam that propelled the
monstrous garetrain vanished off into the heavy rain, sizzling as
the rain pelted against it, illuminated like some ghostly
artefact.

Giant and sorcerer sat for a time
not speaking, watching the northlands sweep toward them and rushing
by, feeling the rhythm of the vehicle as it shot
forward.

‘
Everyone well back there?’
Hawkmoth eventually asked.

‘
Aye,’ Gargaron said. ‘All be
well.’ He studied Hawkmoth’s sewing. He saw now it were not so much
a tear in his side-pack but more as if some substance had corroded
it.

‘
Have an accident?’ he
asked.

‘
Aye, you could say that. I were
rammed against carriage during our siege at Appleford. A number of
my vials were crushed.’