Cloudfyre Falling - a dark fairy tale (50 page)

None spoke for a time. Not until
Melai asked, ‘Sorcerer, do you sense witches within?’

Hawkmoth answered, ‘I do.’

Again silence. Gargaron readjusted
his grip on his great sword. Hawkmoth pulled his stone casket from
his side-pack.

The silence were
broken suddenly by Locke who yelled, ‘
Hey!
Slimy toad lovers! Come out and face us!
’

Melai and Hawkmoth both started,
and Gargaron winced. They all looked around at the crabman seated
there upon his serpent; even Grimah’s two heads regarded the
crabman with a look of unease.

A moment later Locke noticed them.
‘What? Too insulting?’

‘
Might be best to keep your voice
to yourself for the time being,’ Hawkmoth advised.

Locke shrugged.

Hawkmoth released his little
insect spies and off they flew to do their spying.

Much time went by. And they did
not return.

‘
Something be amiss here,’
Hawkmoth said. ‘Something has incapacitated them.’

‘
Right then,’ Locke spoke up,
hefting his blow-flute into his hand. ‘So something indeed awaits
us within.’

Melai shrugged off her shawl and
leapt for the air.

‘
Melai,’ Gargaron asked, ‘what be
on your mind?’

She hovered there, her beating
wings a blur, falling snow flurrying about them. She pointed.
‘Those there windows. I might fly up and peer in. See what I can
see.’ Before anyone could object she were off, circling upwards,
flying toward Citadel’s domed roof.

They all watched her rise away
from them; Hawkmoth taking his staff into hand as she went, as if
he expected Melai’s excursion to stimulate some attack from within.
But as Melai lit upon the roof none came.

They watched as she knelt there,
her small hands against the rim of one window, She gazed in, her
small green nose against the glass pane, her wings beating slowly,
keeping her buoyant.

When she were satisfied she flew
back to them, landing upon Grimah. ‘There be folk inside. But none
alive.’

Gargaron looked across at
Hawkmoth. ‘What detains your flies then?’

Hawkmoth were ruminating on this.
‘One thing comes to mind. The air within may have been poisoned.
This be Citadel’s final defence against invaders.’

‘
Poisoned air?’ Gargaron queried.
‘Another aspect of this place you did not warm us of.’ He were
beginning to think the sorcerer had suffered more than stoneskin
after saving Razor from death. He had lost parts of his
mind.

‘
It has been many a year since I
were here, giant. Forgive me if some aspects of it slip my
thoughts.’ Hawkmoth aimed his staff up at the high Citadel windows;
from Rashel’s mouth came a narrow beam of searing blue light. First
assaulting one window before the next.

Gargaron waited for both to
shatter in an explosion of glass. Yet, no such thing transpired.
Each pane instead seemed to melt. And with a tug on each light
beam, like a fisherman pulling trout, Hawkmoth hauled the warped
slabs of glass from their housing. He lifted them quietly into the
beds of snow beside the building. There they lay, melted lumps of
glass slag.

Hawkmoth nudged Razor forward and
as Citadel’s large rounded opening loomed he aimed his staff into
the darkened interior. He spoke a short incantation, and without
warning a cyclonic gale roared from the mouth of Lancsh. Moments
later, from Citadel’s roof, twin blasts of air squealed out into
the cloudy atmosphere, gushing away with tremendous ferocity any
and all toxic gases.

Hawkmoth waited some moments
before he waved his companions on. With some trepidation (or
anticipation, on Locke’s part) they pushed forward.

4

The Citadel’s interior were
spacious. A vast rounded hall lay at its centre with a covered
walkway running around its rim. Tall columns stood, sporting
curling glass lanterns. None were currently lit. Illumination came
from the diffuse grey light pushing in through the window recesses
in the citadel’s roof. And through these fresh snow fell. Spaced
around the edge of the walkway were chambers shaped like enormous
hollowed eggs (as if creatures of great size had once hatched from
them).

As Melai had reported, the place
were scattered with the dead. Witches and sorcerers both, fallen in
battle along with their animal companions and protectors: wolves of
the sorcerers, harpies of the witches. No signs yet of the
Bewitched, Hawkmoth saw, if at all they had been here.

Hawkmoth took Razor to Citadel’s
centre. Here there stood a high statue. He pulled Razor to a
standstill and bowed his head. He pressed his fingers into his
forehead and then made a gesture with the same fingers, as if
offering his mind to it.

‘
Who be the beauty then?’ Locke
asked, indicating the statue.

Hawkmoth briefly explained. ‘The
entity, Vhada.’ Her mighty wings were outstretched, and the world
of Cloudfyre held within her palm. The figure beside her were a
depiction of Ravenblack, Hawkmoth told them. Bearded and cloaked
and stern of face, holding aloft his Wolven staff, with Thorn,
great wolf of the stars, depicted there at staff’s tip in the form
of a mighty, roaring head with fangs as long as sabers.

If they had been
here on a more casual visit, Gargaron may have questioned why the
sorcerer order, a male bastion founded by this Ravenblack, had been
essentially given birth to by a female entity. (And if Hawkmoth
cared to tell him, Gargaron may have been surprised to learn that
the witches called the same entity their founding mother, though to
them her name were
Vudha
.)

Beyond the statue something lay on
the floor that did not seem to fit with the rest of the Citadels’
aesthetic. An object Gargaron took for an enormous clouded slab of
glass.

Hawkmoth and his companions
approached it now.

Gargaron noticed that it were
surrounded by yet another circle of metallic Shadow Guard. Each of
them stood as still as stone. Though something seemed amiss. A
number of them were splintered, shredded, knocked over at awkward
angles like old nails. And parts of them had been blown out across
the stone floor.

Hawkmoth told his companions to
stay back. Yet, as he dismounted Razor and stepped forward with his
staff gripped in both fists, none of the Shadow Guard moved. It
were as though whatever enchantment had given them life in days
before this one, had been lifted.

Cautiously, Gargaron, Melai and
Locke dismounted and trailed Hawkmoth.

They reached the
glass block, its edges smooth and rounded. Hawkmoth could see her
now. Within the
mighty glass ampoule in
which she had been interred for nigh on two hundred years were the
daughter of Vudha herself: Mama Vekh
.

5

Hawkmoth knelt to inspect her.
Gargaron, Melai, Locke all crowded around.

‘
Here lies witch
goddess, Mama Vekh,’ Hawkmoth said, bowing his head. Though he
wasted little time on ceremony and set himself to work extracting
her from her prison. He prod his staff upon the glass slab and he
murmured, ‘
Riliss Ma Veekus frumss dees
conteensmahnt
.’

The outer portion of the giant
ampoule remained a solid mass while inside it turned to liquid.
Before the others had time to understand what were happening, the
wet, wrinkled body of Mama Vekh were suddenly birthed from one end
of the giant ampoule. Out onto the floor she splashed.

Gargaron and Melai took a step
backwards. Locke though took a step forwards, his crab feet covered
in birth slime. Hawkmoth knelt to receive her, his robes spread
upon the floor around him, soaking up the rank water. He took her
and lay her against his forearm.

‘
By Thronir,’ Gargaron murmured.
‘Such a pitiful looking thing I have never seen.’

‘
Does she live?’ Locke asked
eagerly, kneeling too.

‘
I do not know,’ Hawkmoth said.
‘The Ampoule of Tarr be meant to sustain her. Yet…’

Her tiny wrinkled body lay there
against his arm. She were no bigger than Melai, though she looked
smaller for her muscles had wasted. She did not move. Her face were
pale and her lips wrinkled and her eyes half open.

‘
She does not breathe,’ Locke
reported.

‘
Aye,’ Hawkmoth said. ‘That much
we can see ourselves.’

Water and slime spilled from her
mouth, dribbled down her neck. Gargaron reached forward and touched
her forehead. He shut his eyes. When he removed his palm it were
wet. He shook his head. ‘She has not lived for many a year, I
feel.’

Hawkmoth tugged thoughtfully at his
beard.

‘
Were she alive when your lot
kidnapped her?’ Melai asked the sorcerer.

Hawkmoth turned to eye the nymph
for a moment, pondering the sound of accusation in her voice.
‘Aye.’

‘
Do the witches know she has
perished?’

He sighed. ‘If they have caused
this mess here then I say they have.’ He looked about. ‘Although it
puzzles me. Why did they not retrieve her?’

None had answer for him. Nor had
he answer for himself. Perhaps his Brothers had made a pitched
battle here and driven the witches off before such an act could
take place. Perhaps surviving sorcerers had taken the fight back to
Vantasia and were yet to return here either victorious or to lick
their wounds in defeat.

6

Hawkmoth returned to Razor. He
unhitched two things from saddle: a leather sling, and a rough
blanket. He positioned the sling so that it hung down Razor’s
flank. Then he spread blanket across floor at Mama Vekh’s side and
gently he lifted her wet and wrinkled body onto it. Slowly then, as
if preparing her for some mummified after life, he wrapped
her.

Once done, he carried her back to
his steed and rest her within the sling. A set of straps held her
snug in place. Just as he were finishing there came a sudden noise
from across the hall.

Hawkmoth’s company whirled about,
weapons readied. They saw to their surprise one of the scattered
bodies lift its head from the cold stone floor, as if it were some
Undead stirred by their activity.

In a weak rasping
voice, it spoke. ‘
Ah, I sssee you.
Hawkmoth Lifegiver, I ssseeee
you.
’

Hawkmoth turned and stared at the
talking corpse. ‘Who speaks?’ he asked sternly.

‘
Why, you do not
recognise me?
’

Hawkmoth drew a little closer.
‘No.’

‘
Lord Skitecrow,
I be.
’

Hawkmoth walked cautiously toward
him. Melai had a Crink arrow aimed directly at the thing’s head;
the moment it tried something it would find its face crumpled
inwards. Hawkmoth reached the corpse and gazed down at it, studying
it for several moments, trying to discern this old withered
ghoul-like soul from the powerful sorcerer he once knew.
‘Skitecrow?’

‘
Lord Skitecrow to you,’ it
rasped.

‘
Oh, I think not. You have not
been my Lord since the day you ordered my banishment. Though I am
pleased to say your face does not look as smug as it did the last
time I saw it.’

‘
W
hy have you returned after all
these years, Hawkmoth, witch lover?
’

‘
I come for Mama Vekh.’

This Skitecrow
spluttered, spit flying up and landing on his cheek.
‘
Mama Vekh? Ha, my suspicions have rung
true! You return to us a witch’s thrall!
’

Hawkmoth smiled. ‘If I return here
of my own free will, then I do not see how I could be named a
witch’s thrall.’

‘
Then why do you come?’

‘
I have just told you. To fetch
Mama Vekh and to deliver her back to Vantasia.’

‘
You
fool.
’

‘
Fool?’ Hawkmoth
laughed. ‘Ha, you call
me
fool?
You
be fool for keeping her.
You
be fool for not sending her back
years before this time. Now look at you. You reap what you have
sewn, Skitecrow. This silly pig-ignorant war with the witches has
finally seen the end of Sanctuary. And the end of yourself. This be
the legacy you leave, this will be how you shall be remembered, I
will see to it. Now, time for me to return Mama Vekh and put an end
to this mess that you have helped perpetuate.’

‘
By conceding,
damn you?
’

‘
Conceding?
’ Hawkmoth asked.
‘Is that what you believe? And to think I
actually once held you up as the wisest of us all. Well, alas, wise
you are not. In the end, you are just another sad clown. Look
around you, all is lost. The witches have finally had their way
with this place. With all the Vale too as far as I have
ascertained. Because of your blind arrogance and pride they have
lain waste to our world with their accursed boom weapons, doing
untold damage, killing untold millions. After all this time, after
all these countless years, after all those pointless deaths, this
is what it has come to. And for what?’