The Sword Of Erren-dar (Book 2) (21 page)

 “Don’t worry,” said the voice, “they won’t wake. This
conversation is between you and me alone.”

 “Who are you?”

 “Do you not recognise me?”

 As Vesarion’s eyes attuned to the darkness, he made out a
tall man, of about his own age, seated on the log. He had dark hair and a cool,
level glance that was a little disconcerting. He was sitting with one booted
ankle resting on his knee, apparently very much at his ease. As Vesarion
hesitated, trying to pin down what was so familiar about this man, his
interlocutor tilted his head to study the figures asleep on the ground. His eyes
rested on Sareth.

 “Is this Andarion’s granddaughter?” he asked. Then without
waiting for an answer, he added: “She’s very pretty. You are a lucky man.”

 “Who are you?” Vesarion demanded again, sitting up
straighter. “Have we met before?”

 The figure laughed softly. “No, we have not met before, but
I am well aware that you disapprove of me. Apparently, I have brought disgrace
on the name of Westrin.”

 Vesarion drew in his breath sharply. “You couldn’t be!”

 “Oh?”

 “He died long ago. You couldn’t possibly be Celedorn.”

 “You think in very straight lines, Vesarion. Bethro told you
this very evening that I had returned to the Monastery of the White Brotherhood
but you refused to believe him, just as you refuse to believe in so much else
that is true.”

 “The monastery does not exist.”

 “Really? That is a strange thing to say when we are sitting
within its walls even as we speak.”

 “What? Are you mad?” Vesarion looked around wildly,
wondering if he was dreaming. “There’s nothing here but forest.”

 “The monastery can only be seen by those permitted to find
it,” returned Celedorn. “You are not permitted – not yet. You are sitting on
the promontory where it is sited. After my return to Ravenshold, I sought out
this location several times over the years, but could find nothing – not until
the time was right and Elorin and I were allowed to return. By the way, Triana
sends her love. She is celebrating her reunion with Andarion at the moment, or
she would have spoken to you herself but she asked me to tell you to take good
care of Sareth.”

 “Are you telling me that …..that grandmother is……?”

 “She is with me, as is Elorin and Relisar. The companions
are united once more – although, as always, it is virtually impossible to
extract Relisar from Master Galendar’s library. Now, to business. I hear that
you have been careless, Vesarion. I hear that you have lost something that
belongs to me.”

 “I didn’t lose it. It was stolen.”

 Celedorn raised his eyebrows imperiously, in a manner that
was vaguely familiar to his grandson. “Do you wish to quibble?” he asked
coolly. “The sword has fallen into the wrong hands, has it not?”

 “I do not know who has it.”

 “That is unworthy of you.”

 Vesarion, who had endured a trying day, began to lose a
little of his poise. “If you are referring to Iska, I do not know who she is,
or any reason why I should believe her story.”

 “Are you telling me that you do not know the truth when you
hear it? In your heart you have the answers but you refuse to listen to your
heart – a grave error.”

 “Perhaps I’m a little tired of being told my faults by
other people.”

 “You are correct. Like me, you must find these things out
for yourself. It appears to be a family trait. For us, there is no master that
teaches better than experience.”

 Vesarion was silent for a moment. “You are telling me to go
to Adamant?”

 “That is for you to decide.”

 Again Erren-dar’s grandson said nothing.

 “Why do you hesitate?” Celedorn asked. “Have you no
courage?”

 Vesarion stiffened.

 “Ah!” exclaimed Celedorn softly. “A sensitive point, I
see.”

 “I have never shirked my duty,” spat back Vesarion. “Not
ever – unlike you! Or should I not speak to the great Erren-dar like that?”

 But once more, he got the impression that inwardly Celedorn
was more amused than offended.

 “You may speak to me as you choose. All I would suggest is
that you do not be so quick to judge others until you are sure that you
understand them.” He nodded towards the sleeping figures. “Do you understand
your companions? I doubt it. Do you even understand yourself? Do not be so quick
to condemn. Iska, for all your mistrust of her, is correct. The enemy needs my
sword for purposes as yet unclear but which will bring no good to Eskendria.
You say you have never shirked your duty? Then do not shirk it now. Recover
that which is now rightfully yours.” He glanced over his shoulder at this
point, as if he had heard something that Vesarion had not.

 “I must go,” he declared. “Elorin is calling me.”

 He stood up and turned as if to leave, until checked by his
name being called.

 “Celedorn,” Vesarion began hesitantly, “are…..are my
parents with you? Is…is my mother there?”

 Erren-dar’s face softened. “You were very young when you
lost them, but I promise you, such partings are not for ever.”

 Then, with a brief smile, he disappeared into the darkness.

  Vesarion was the last to awake in the morning and when he
did so, he found that his head was full of his conversation with Celedorn. He
looked at the log on which his visitor had sat, as if half expecting some
evidence of him to remain. But daylight brought with it all the old distrust of
anything that did not fit into his ordered world and it was only when he was
half-way to convincing himself that he had merely dreamed the whole thing, that
his eye fell on his sword. It lay on the grass beside his blanket, half-drawn
from its scabbard, giving his relentless progression towards denial a sharp
set-back. Thus, the others found him entering into their plans for their
journey a little more readily than might have been expected after the previous
evening’s confrontation.

 “You must be our guide, Iska,” he said, “as none of us has
ever been in the Forsaken Lands before. Do you have a map, or did you memorise
your route?”

 For once, Iska was thrown a little off-balance. “Em.….I
made some sketch maps from the ancient charts of the Old Kingdom that are
hidden in Callis’s library, but…..”

 “Excellent,” declared Bethro. “Let us examine them to
determine our route.”

 “Well…er…there is a slight problem. I left them behind in
Addania.”

 Vesarion frowned. “We found no maps amongst your
belongings.”

 “You wouldn’t. Not unless you slit open the lining of my
saddle – you needn’t look at me like that! If I had been caught with a map
showing the route from Adamant, things would have gone ill with me.”

 “But you remember the way?” prompted Sareth.

 “Oh, yes, indeed,” she replied airily. “Our search has
driven us a little off course but we should proceed in a northerly direction.”

 Vesarion gave her a long speculative stare but said
nothing. When it came to riding arrangements, he offered to take her up behind
him in preference to Sareth, with whom he was still out of humour

 She took the hand stretched down to her and swung up neatly
onto the saddlebags behind him.

 “I take it that the only one to get a horse to himself is
Bethro,” she remarked, “for reasons that I need not specify.”

 He was surprised into giving a smothered laugh, which
caused the object of their discussion to look round suspiciously.

 They set off in silence, in contrast to Sareth and Eimer
who were using the opportunity of sharing a horse to argue animatedly together.

 Iska, gripping Vesarion’s belt, which, he reflected, was
fast becoming a popular pastime, found his silence intimidating and finally
broke it by saying: “I’m glad you didn’t take Eimer up on his offer to let you
leave us. It is important that you come with us.”

 “Indeed? I’m flattered, but I was under the impression that
you disliked me.”

 “You have given me little reason to like you. It’s strange.
Bethro believes my story but thinks that because I am of the House of Parth I
must be a witch, whereas you give no credence to such things but think me
merely a liar.”

 “Let us say that I reserve my opinion until more is known.”

 “Perhaps now is the time to confess that there is a
practical reason that I wish you to come. There is something I haven’t told
you.”

 “I imagine there is quite a lot you have not told me,” was
the caustic response.

 Overlooking this aspersion, she continued: “Callis found an
old manuscript in the hidden vault under the library. It was so old that the
ink had faded to the point that the writing was almost illegible but he managed
to decipher bits of it. One portion told the story of the creation of the
sword. Apparently when it was being made in the forges of the Old Kingdom, the
Master of the greatest of the three Orders of Sages, blessed the sword using a
language that has now been lost. As the sword lay on the anvil, still glowing from
the fire, the symbol of the three intertwined chalice flowers appeared by
enchantment on the blade. The manuscript said that the sword was given a secret
name on that day, and that apart from the great Erren-dar, it will obey no one
unless it is called by its given name. I was hoping, as you are the heir of
Erren-dar, that you might know what it is?”

 He had listened intently to her narrative, remembering Celedorn’s
words about not judging too quickly. Abandoning his customary cynicism, he merely
replied: “I was not aware that the sword had a name.”

 “Oh!” exclaimed she, clearly crestfallen. “Did your father
never tell you of this?”

 She felt him stiffen slightly. “My father died when I was
ten years old.”

 “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. Knowing that the question
would not be welcome, she nevertheless asked: “What happened to him?”

 For a moment she thought he was not going to answer her,
then he said: “My parents were travelling to a wedding. The daughter of the
Lord Protector of Kelendore was getting married and my parents, along with many
others of the Eskendrian nobility, were invited to attend. On the way, their
ship was overtaken by a storm and sank, killing my parents and everyone else on
board. The irony is that I had begged them to take me with them, as I had never
been on a ship before, but they thought I was too young for such a long
journey. That was twenty-six years ago and recently I find my memories of them
becoming fragmented. I can remember with utter clarity my mother teaching me to
read, using the fabled stories from the Chronicles of the Old Kingdom, but I
cannot recall my father ever mentioning the sword to me. Perhaps that is why I
asked to see it the very day I was brought to Addania by the King.”

 “That is a pity, because without its name, it is just a
sword. Its powers cannot be invoked.”

 Shaking off the melancholy mood that talking about his
parents always brought upon him, he replied lightly: “Well, at least the enemy
cannot invoke its powers either.”

 “Unfortunately we do not know that. What the thief
has
done is to deprive Eskendria of the protection of its presence. For some reason
that I cannot quite explain, I feel that we must make haste to Adamant.
Sometimes in my dreams, I relive that terrible night in the crypt and I wake up
shaking with fear. I would be less concerned if we were just dealing with a
greedy and ambitious man like my half-brother, but that….that
thing
which arose from the tomb has power that none of us can counter. All we can
hope for, is that the sword can protect us.”

 The sincerity in her voice was unmistakable and might have
led to a thawing of Vesarion’s suspicions about her, had it not been for an
unfortunate discovery two days later – Iska had been lying to them.

 They had been travelling through a mixed deciduous woodland,
stopping now and then to rest the horses or consume a rather frugal meal. Under
Iska’s direction they had been proceeding relentlessly northwards. She had told
them that they would soon reach a range of high mountains which they must
traverse by means of a precipitous valley called the Pass of Ogron.

 “The mountains are of considerable height,” she had told
them, “and form a barrier across our path as they stretch  from east to west.
Even in summer, the upper reaches are snow-covered. We should see them any day
now.”

 It therefore came as a shock to the entire company that
when they abruptly arrived at the edge of the woodland, they found themselves
at the top of a long, gentle slope that descended to a wide plain bounded in
the hazy distance by low, grassy hills. There was not a mountain to be seen.

 What there was, taking up the centre of the plain, was a
large lake. The sinking sun cast a nacreous light from behind a lacy veil of
clouds, turning its crumpled surface to metallic colours: shades of steel and
pewter, streaked with ruffled silver. Its edges were embraced by a bank of low sand-dunes,
their rounded crests topped by long, hair-like grasses that bent before a stiff
breeze. Flocks of wading birds crowded the sandy shore or wheeled in silhouette
against the silvered water, their lonely piping brought by the wind to their
ears.

 Everyone turned and looked challengingly at Iska.

 As Vesarion and the Prince maintained a stony silence, it
was left to Sareth to say tentatively: “I am no expert, Iska, but I don’t think
those distant hills quite qualify for the mountains you were describing.”

 “Well…er….no. I suppose not.”

 “Where are the mountains you spoke of?” asked Eimer
sharply. “From your description of their height, they should be visible from
some distance, but I see nothing – so where exactly are we?”

 “I’ll tell you where we are,” Vesarion intervened. “We are
lost. Iska has no idea of the way.”

 Eimer swung round in the saddle to face her. “Is this true?
I thought you had memorised the route?”