Exodus of the Xandim (GOLLANCZ S.F.) (12 page)

‘I am extremely old,’ he began. ‘So old that you would find it impossible to imagine all the years I have lived. My father was with Hellorin before the Phaerie even came to
this mundane world, when we dwelt in another dimension of existence known as the Elsewhere.’

‘
The Elsewhere?
’ Aelwen had not intended to interrupt, but the question burst out of her in sheer surprise.

Kaldath, slightly put out at her interjection, looked at her sharply. ‘How do you know of the Elsewhere? Our origins ceased to be common knowledge among the Phaerie long ago. Hellorin
wished it to be so.’

Aelwen took a deep breath to explain, then thought better of it. Maybe Taine’s wariness was contagious, but she found herself reluctant to tell Kaldath about the Windeye of the Xandim and
her search for the Fialan, until she knew more about him. ‘The explanation is long and complicated, and I fear it must wait for our part of the tale,’ she said, ‘but suffice it to
say that a friend of ours has been there before, and returned there just before we came to this place, with another of our companions.’

Her brows drew together as a spasm of worry gripped her. In the shocks and dangers of the past few hours, she had almost forgotten Corisand and Iriana. Were they all right? Had they succeeded in
their mission? Had they been able to return from the Elsewhere? So much of the sketchy plan that had been thrown together in haste in Athina’s tower depended on them.

Kaldath’s voice pulled her out of her reverie. ‘I cannot believe this to be possible, and my mind is a whirl of questions.’ He sighed. ‘I said I would tell you my history
first, however, and I will hold to that.’

‘It may make the telling easier if I say that we know how the Phaerie came here from the Elsewhere. We know about the Moldai, and the Stone of Fate.’

Kaldath’s mouth fell open. ‘But how . . . ?’ With an effort he collected himself. ‘I am beginning to realise that more than chance brought you here to me. Maybe your
desperate apport was not as random as you thought, Aelwen. I believe that fate, or some other influence, has played a part.’

The image of Athina immediately flashed into Aelwen’s mind – but surely that couldn’t be – could it? The kindly Creator who’d broken all the laws of her own kind to
befriend the Windeye and her companions had been exiled from this world by her brethren, for meddling with its fate. And yet . . . Aelwen knew how much the Cailleach had cared about this world she
had created; had cared about – nay, loved – Dael, the mortal slave she’d rescued and adopted, for a brief, doomed, happy time, as her own son. If there was any chance that she
could reach out and help she would, disregarding the risks to herself.

Kaldath was still speaking, and Aelwen wrenched her thoughts back to concentrate on the here and now.

‘That you know of these matters will certainly shorten my tale,’ he said, ‘for it will save us a number of tedious explanations. There is one race you have not mentioned,
however. You say you are aware of the Elsewhere and the Moldai, but do you also know of the Dwelven?’

Taine swallowed a mouthful of jerky and shook his head. ‘That part of the tale we have not heard.’ He turned aside to Aelwen with a smile, and pointed at the untouched food in her
lap. ‘Don’t forget to eat.’

It was as if his words had unleashed her hunger. She took a huge bite of bread, but her eyes never left Kaldath as he continued. ‘I suspected you might not. No one will speak of them,
neither the Phaerie, the Magefolk nor the Moldai, for there is blame and shame on all sides. The Moldai failed to protect their companions, permitting Hellorin to snatch them away into slavery, and
the Magefolk and Phaerie – well, you will hear that presently.

‘The Dwelven and the Moldai had close ties, like the Phaerie and the mortals, save for one fundamental difference: the Dwelven were not slaves. The relationship was far more complex;
symbiotic, if you will, based much more on love than power. And just as the Moldai were not shaped like the Phaerie, the Dwelven had different forms from mortals. They were – well, you saw
their spectres here tonight. You know what they looked like.’

‘Those creatures?’ Taine said. ‘But as far as I could see there seemed to be two entirely different types, the quick, lithe ones and the heavy ones with the rounded carapaces.
Surely they cannot be the same race.’

‘Yet they are. As they grow older they change from one form to the other. The quick, lithe ones, as you call them, are known as the Sidrai. They are the younger Dwelven. This is how they
start their lives. They are the warriors, the foragers, the artisans. When they reach a certain age – about a hundred and fifty years, in our terms – they metamorphose.

‘When a group is ready to make the transformation, for siblings from the same hatching tend to change more or less at the same time, they find themselves becoming sleepy and slow. Then
there is a ceremony, and all their friends come, both to celebrate and perhaps weep a little too for, as with any of the great transformations in our existence, there is some sorrow for what is
being left behind, as well as joy in the expectation of what is to come. The Oredai, the other type of Dwelven, are there also. They dig special chambers, one for each of the Sidrai, deep within
the rock underground, and the Sidrai are sealed within. They sink into oblivion for a long time – almost a year – and when they awake they have transformed. They dig their way out of
the chambers to where the other Oredai are waiting to welcome them, and help them begin their new lives.

‘The Oredai are the miners, who can dig through solid rock with their powerful claws and forelimbs. It is they who make the underground dwellings and shelters for themselves and their
Sidrai brethren, and they who mine metals and gems for the Sidrai to work and trade. They also bear the young. Before it metamorphoses, a Sidran will mate many times – they are hermaphrodite,
both male and female together, so that all of them can form eggs, and all can fertilise. The eggs remain within them, very small and undeveloped, until the Sidrai transform. Then each of the Oredai
will dig a nursery, wall itself up inside, and tend the eggs until they hatch – as Sidrai. They are then returned to the Sidrai community to learn and grow, and the whole cycle begins all
over again.’ While Kaldath had been speaking of the Dwelven he had been looking far away into his memories. Now he raised his head and looked at his new companions.

Aelwen had been utterly absorbed in his tale, and now found herself sitting with her partly eaten chunk of bread in her hand, half-lifted to her mouth. She took a bite, wondering how long
she’d been holding it there. Taine was frowning. ‘You said that neither the Phaerie nor Magefolk nor Moldai would talk about the Dwelven because there was shame on both sides,’ he
said. ‘So tell me, how were the Magefolk involved in this? What did Hellorin do to the Dwelven and why did the Moldai permit it? Or was it that they simply couldn’t stop him?’

A mirthless smile, almost a grimace, passed across Kaldath’s face. ‘I see you know the Forest Lord well.’

‘Too well, and to my cost,’ Taine said grimly.

Aelwen was about to protest that Hellorin was not all bad: he could be good-humoured, charming and generous, he was protective of his people and a good ruler of the Phaerie, for under his
auspices his people had flourished. One only needed to observe the chaos that had befallen his realm in his absence to see that. He had loved his lifemate, Estrelle, Aelwen’s Pureblood
half-sister, beyond everything, and his son and daughter too. He’d loved and nurtured his horses . . .

His slaves.

At that moment, she realised that the driving force behind Hellorin, his real love, was power. He could afford to be kind and generous to those in his sway, but if they opposed him, another,
darker side of his character emerged. Power was what he craved, to the point of enslaving entire races. With a shudder she realised that though he had been content for a time within the realm he
had carved out in the mundane world, that state of affairs would not, could not last, especially now that he’d come so close to regaining the Fialan. A chill struck her heart as she finally
understood that he would never stop now until he had regained the Stone – and if he succeeded, he would stretch out his hand to enslave the Wizards, then the other Magefolk, only ceasing when
he held the whole world in his grasp.

He had to be stopped.

Someone had to stop him, and that staggering responsibility had landed squarely on the shoulders of herself and her companions.

‘Aelwen?’ Taine touched her face gently, and she came out of her dreadful thoughts to see the concern in his eyes. ‘Are you all right? You went absolutely white. Are you still
hurt somehow?’

‘I’m all right. I’m sorry. I was thinking about Hellorin, and . . .’ She shuddered. ‘Never mind. It’s just that I suddenly realised exactly what we were up
against.’

‘The Forest Lord is a formidable enemy, as we all know to our cost,’ Kaldath said. ‘Even to beings as mighty as the Moldai. You know that when the Stone of Fate was made, the
Moldai included a spell that the Phaerie could never complete, so the Fialan would never be completely in Hellorin’s power?’

Taine and Aelwen nodded.

‘In his rage, the Phaerie Lord swore to be revenged upon them. When he brought his own people into this world he cast a spell to bring the Dwelven also, sundering them for ever from the
Moldai. Ghabal, to his credit, even though he was driven insane as the titanic forces of the Fialan opened a portal between the Elsewhere and this realm, tried to protect them, wresting them away
from Hellorin’s control. But they emerged from the Moldan’s shattered peak in the mundane world, and the Magefolk, having never seen their like before, believed them to be responsible
for the disaster.

‘The Winged Folk, who dwelt closest to what is now known as Steelclaw, feared some kind of invasion from unknown beings from beneath the ground. They called on their allies the Wizards to
use their powers of Earth to help them, and the Wizards cast a spell that would seal them beneath Steelclaw’s remains. Unfortunately, Hellorin discovered their whereabouts and, since they
were already confined by magic, they could not escape him. He broke the Wizards’ spells and enslaved the Dwelven, taking them to the mountains to the north of Eliorand, to mine the gems that
the Phaerie use so freely, for ornament and for trade.’

‘You mean those mines were all excavated by the Dwelven?’ Taine asked in surprise.

‘He put the Sidrai to work cutting and polishing the gemstones. The greater part of the original mine network was excavated by the Oredai, though since Hellorin – disposed – of
the Dwelven, he has used mortal slaves to continue the work, notwithstanding that they have no natural feel for tunnelling and for stone. To be underground was natural to the Dwelven, though the
Sidrai spent a lot of time above ground, but not for mortals. Many of his human slaves die from overwork, lung diseases, accidents and cave-ins, but what is that to the Forest Lord, so long as he
obtains his gems?’

‘You seem to be very familiar with the mines and the conditions underground,’ Taine commented.

‘Indeed I am – and that brings me to the final, tragic part of my tale. You will see that I am Hemifae, like yourselves, but you do not realise that I am the same as Taine –
part Phaerie and part Wizard.’

‘The same as
me
?’ Taine’s mouth dropped open. ‘But I – but how—’ He put his hands up to his face, and when he took them away again, his eyes
glistened. ‘I thought I was the only one,’ he said softly.

Kaldath smiled gently. ‘Not many people can claim that. As soon as I saw you I recognised that you were the same as me. My father was one of the Phaerie diplomatic party sent to Tyrineld
to negotiate the borders of the Wizards’ realm and ours when he fell in love with my mother.’

He sighed. ‘Their love was doomed. The year I was born a plague struck Tyrineld. Before a cure could be found, many perished. My mother was a Healer and, while treating the victims, she
was infected, and died. My father brought me to Eliorand, along with a mortal slave who’d been bribed to say she was my mother.’

‘That sounds not unlike my own background,’ Taine said. ‘But when Hellorin finally discovered my true identity he was livid, and I was forced to flee for my life.’

‘That sounds like Hellorin – he never changes,’ Kaldath said wryly. ‘As far as we knew, my secret remained undiscovered, but I always believed that Hellorin could sense
some fundamental difference. I’m sure that’s why he sent me north, away from the city of Eliorand. I was Overseer of the mines and the Dwelven, and for many years I fulfilled my duties
efficiently and well. But the more I came to know the Dwelven, the more I came to understand and care for them, and the more they came to trust me, I realised just how angry and unhappy they were,
forcibly sundered from the Moldai, dragged unwillingly to a new and very different world, and enslaved. As time went on I felt increasing distaste for my role as Hellorin’s slavemaster, and
my sympathy with his slaves deepened until finally I could live with myself no longer. Though I could not return them to their original world, I joined with them in planning to overthrow the Forest
Lord, so that they could be free forever from his tyranny.’

Kaldath was silent for a moment, the lines in his aged face deepening with sorrow, his eyes dark and clouded with the memory of old pain. ‘We were not alone,’ he said at last.
‘Others joined us: human slaves and disaffected Hemifae, who were sick of all the privilege and ease going to the Purebloods, while they themselves were the ones who kept the Phaerie
civilisation running. At first we were at a loss, unable to find a way to broach Hellorin’s citadel, but finally an opportunity arose.

‘The Forest Lord was desperately proud of his horses, caring far more about their welfare than that of his slaves. They were remarkable creatures, far superior to the ordinary beasts
outside the Phaerie realms, though whence they came I do not know. Hellorin captured the original herd not long after we came here from the Elsewhere, but he was always tremendously secretive
– almost suspiciously so – about their origins. As far as I know, he told only his son Arvain where he found them and how he subdued them.’