Valorian (22 page)

The next several hours were a blur to Valorian. He was only vaguely aware of Aiden, Ranulf, and Gylden moving around him. Someone must have lit a fire, for he saw a vague, flickering light on the ground, and someone else pried his fingers from Hunnul's mane. It took all three men to lift him from the stallion's back and carry him to some blankets by the fire. He felt their shaking hands and knew they were as cold and exhausted as he. He wanted to get up and help them. They needed water and food, and someone had to take care of the horses, but when he tried to rise, a brutal pain in his back pinned him to his pallet. His senses reeled, and for a while, all light and awareness faded from his mind.

He woke briefly to see Aiden bending over him with a bloody cloth in his hands, then the pain abruptly lanced through him again, and he passed out once more.

It wasn't until late that night that he returned to consciousness. He woke in fits and starts to the sound of strange voices.

"Live will he?" a deep, rumbling voice said near his head.

Valorian opened his eyes. He was lying on his stomach, facing the fire. His vision was unfocused, and the only light in the big cavern came from the feeble embers of the low fire. All he could make out were the shapes of his companions under their blankets and Hunnul's front legs standing close by his arm.

"The Mother said he would," another strange voice replied.

Valorian couldn't see the speakers because they were behind his head. When he tried to move, his exhausted body would only stir.

The second speaker spoke again in a voice that sounded much like rocks being ground together.

"See, he wakes. Poultice we must give him. Amara asked."

Strangely the clansman wasn't afraid. Even though he had no idea who these speakers with the odd voices could be, he sensed they only wanted to help. Hunnul didn't seem to be upset by their presence.

At the mention of Amara's name, he relaxed back into his blankets. The Mother Goddess would watch over him.

As he drifted off to sleep again, he felt something warm and heavy laid across his back, and the gravelly voice said softly, "Peace, magic-wielder. When our home you leave, follow the little blind fishes under the mountain. Shorter will be your way."

Something large and ponderous moved slowly toward the back of the cave. Valorian roused himself just long enough to lift his head. There at the flickering edge of the firelight he thought he saw two upright, bulky creatures step into the dense darkness. He sighed once, and his eyes grateful y slid shut.

Another voice woke Valorian abruptly early the next morning, and this one he recognized. It was Aiden.

"Gylden, Ranulf!" he heard Aiden cry. "Come here. Look at this!"

The three men gathered around Valorian on his blanket.

"By all the holy gods!" Gylden exclaimed. "What is that?"

"Is he dead?" Ranulf asked worriedly.

"No," Valorian said before anyone else could speak. He opened his eyes and saw Aiden kneeling by his side, worry and confusion plain on his face. Valorian wondered what all the fuss was about.

Surprisingly the pain in his back was completely gone. Only a heavy lassitude kept him on his bed; he was still too tired to move and just holding his eyelids open was an effort.

"Valorian," Aiden said hesitantly, "there is something on your back."

"I know," he replied.

"What is it? It looks like a blob of cooled stone."

Stone? How interesting, Valorian thought. "It's a poultice,” he told his friends. "Someone put it there last night."

The three men exchanged glances.

"Can you take it off?" Gylden suggested.

Very carefully Aiden hooked his fingers over the edge of the blob. The poultice, or whatever it was, was smooth, gray, and heavy. It covered Valorian's bare upper back from shoulder to shoulder, as if it had been poured directly onto his skin and left to harden. It felt warm under Aiden's fingers. Gently he peeled it off and laid it aside.

All three men gasped. They had cut the arrow out of Valorian's back the night before; they had all seen the bloody wound and the damage to Valorian's shoulder. This morning it was virtual y healed. The deep puncture and the cuts were no more than lines of new pink skin.

"Carrocks," Gylden said suddenly.

Aiden and Ranulf looked at him as if he had lost his mind. Carrocks were supposed to be manlike creatures of living rock who made their home in the dark roots of the mountains. But everyone knew the beings were only myths.

"Carrocks," Gylden repeated, and his eyes lit with wonder. "That has to be it. The Carrocks helped us."

On his blankets, Valorian nodded. "Of course. Amara sent them," he whispered.

"That's impossible,” Aiden said. He stared down at his brother's back. "Carrocks don't exist. They're only legends."

Ranulf picked up the stone poultice and turned it over in his hands. "But what if they're real? I mean, look at this thing. Only the Carrocks in the tales had the healing stone. They lived in caves like this one." He waved a hand at the enormous cavern that sheltered them.

Gylden rocked back on his heels. "Something brought us here, that's for certain. When we got here, there was firewood, hay for the horses, even cut pine boughs for our beds."

The three clansmen stared around the cave at the dark corners and crevices, perhaps hoping for some glimpse of the mythical Carrocks.

Valorian remembered something Amara had said. "Magic ' is responsible for creatures that you have never seen and know only in legends,» he repeated softly. His eyelids gave up the effort and fluttered shut. Carrocks, he thought with pleasure. The stone people who had sprung from the loins of the earth when drops of Amara's blood fel from the sky and spattered on the newly formed mountains.

No one had ever clearly seen a Carrock, and no one really believed anymore that they existed. Until now. He wished he could have seen his benefactors, perhaps spoken to them and thanked them, but he realized they wouldn't be back. Their duty was done. He was healed, his friends were safe, and it was time for him to go home.

Two days later, Valorian stood at the mouth of the cave and looked out at a world transformed by snow. The blizzard had finally blown itself out, leaving behind brilliant blue skies, towering drifts, and a dazzling white landscape. It was incredibly lovely, and it would be incredibly difficult to travel through.

Sleep and the Carrocks' poultice had done their work well. Valorian felt stronger and fitter than he had in days. He just wasn't happy about continuing their journey through that deep, drifted snow.

Traveling would take longer, be Very difficult, and would be hard on the horses. Because it was an early storm, it was probable that warmer weather would be back soon and melt most of the snow. They could wait until then to leave, but Valorian didn't want to sit any longer than he had to. Kierla was waiting, and he wanted to get back to her.

He glanced around at the cave that had sheltered them for three days, and the last words of the Carrock flitted through his memory: "Follow the little blind fishes." His eyes looked down at the smal stream that flowed through the cavern. The water was shallow and perfectly clear; He couldn't see anything that looked like fish, so he walked upstream deeper into the cavern.

The cave was the result of massive long-term erosion in the side of a huge cliff. It had smooth walls, a floor of bedrock and gravel bars, and a towering ceiling that gradually dropped down toward the back.

Valorian had assumed the cavern was nothing more than a large chamber with a stream that bubbled up from a spring or some underground river. Now, as he explored farther back into the cave, he wasn't so sure. There was a distinct draft that grew stronger the closer he approached the back wall. Still following the little stream, he discovered that what looked like the back of the cavern was actual y a short slope and a rockfall. He scrambled up the rocks, and there at the top, where the ceiling arched down toward the floor, was a broad tunnel leading down into the mountain. A shiver crept up his back at the memory of other dark tunnels and the cold evil that had lurked there.

He paused in the dim remains of the light from the cave mouth and peered into the black depths where the stream came bubbling along its rocky bed. There was no movement or noise or any sign of life down there that he could see, and no indication that the tunnel ed anywhere but underground.

Yet the Carrocks would know where it went. Would they save his life only to lead him astray on a fool's path? He wondered. If it wasn't for the pink scar just below his left shoulder blade, he would have thought he had dreamed the whole thing.

Valorian glanced down at the stream by his feet. There they were, barely visible in the weak light, a school of small white fish feeding on the graveled bottom. When he stepped closer to see, they flashed in unison and swam upstream into the lightless waters. He saw them just long enough to note they had no eyes. The little fish settled his mind. He would go into the tunnel.

Convincing the others wasn't as difficult as he had imagined. They were all loath to travel in the snow and willing to try something different if Valorian thought it would work. Aiden's only suggestion was to mark their trail as they went along so they could find their way back if the going got too' rough.

The men saddled their horses and, out of habit, wiped out the signs of their camp. Valorian left the stone poultice sitting in plain view near the faint scorch mark of their fire. Perhaps the Carrocks could use it again. As a last thought, he dug through his saddlebags and found a smal green chunk of jade he had once carefully carved into the shape of a horse. It was rather crude, he knew, but it could serve as a smal token of thanks. He left it sitting beside the poultice.

One by one the four men led their horses over the rockfal and into the tunnel entrance that sloped gradual y down deep into the roots of the mountain. They paused together to stare down into the black passage. No one seemed wil ing to be the first to go into that underground hole.

"Where does the tunnel go?" Aiden wondered aloud.

Valorian shrugged slightly. "The creature didn't say. It only told me that our way would be shorter."

"I'm for that!" Gylden replied, trying to sound hearty. He was about to urge his horse forward when Valorian held out his hand.

"Wait a moment. We need some light." And before his friends' startled eyes, he formed two small spheres of bright light that dangled over his head like obedient stars.

Aiden laughed, a hint of relief in his voice. "I'd forgotten you could do that. Bless Amara and her gifts!"

The others echoed his sentiment, and in single file, they fol owed Valorian down the stone tunnel.

To their amazement, the broad passageway remained high, wide, and fairly straight. Its floor was smooth and level and ran parallel to the little stream. It was very much like a road delving under the hills to faraway, unknown destinations.

Although the passage was a natural formation, the men noticed a great deal of work had been done to enlarge and smooth the trail. Legends said that the Carrocks were incomparable miners and crafters of stone, and from the appearance of their tunnel, the legends were right. Skilled miners had removed obstructing rock, chiseled away rough spots, even constructed stone bridges where needed. They had also apparently tried to preserve the natural beauty of the caves. The occasional stalactites and stalagmites were carefully preserved, veins of gold or crystal were exposed and polished to reveal their beauty, and colorful mineral formations were kept clean of debris and dust. A few passageways, equally as large and wel tended, joined or intersected the road.

Once the riders rode by a stone statue of a squat, manlike figure standing like a guardian by the side of the road. The four men passed by wordlessly. They were awed by the statue, the spacious passageway, and the tremendous amount of labor that must have gone into the creation of both. They never knew anything like this existed.

"What are all of these passages?" Aiden mused when they passed another road intersecting their own.

Valorian peered down it into the impenetrable darkness. Then he looked up at the high ceiling and walls illuminated by his lights. He couldn't see anyone or anything, but he had the strong feeling that he and his party were being watched. He wondered if they were the first humans to have ever passed through the Carrocks' domain.

"I don't know," he replied, "but I wouldn't want to come this way without the Carrocks'

permission."

Aiden stifled a shudder that had nothing to do with the cold, damp air. "Neither would I," he said.

Time passed without measure in the strange, black tunnels. The men began to grow anxious. They stopped twice to eat and rest the horses before exhaustion final y forced them to make a brief camp.

They fed the horses a little grain and lay down on their blankets and tried to sleep. Unfortunately none of the four men could sleep wel . The immense weight of the earth over their heads, the confining stone around them, the stifling darkness, and especial y the unseen Carrocks played too heavily on the clansmen's minds. After only a short while, they saddled up and pushed on. Even the thought of fighting snow drifts began to look better than much more of this underground road.

Just as Valorian was about to call another halt, Hunnul nickered.
I see light.
The clansman stared up the passageway until he too, saw it: the faint, whitish light of day. He whooped with relief. Out went his spheres, and the four men trotted their delighted horses up the road to the mouth of another large cave.

The land was blinding with snow and afternoon sunlight, forcing the men to halt until their eyes grew adjusted to the light. True to the autumn season, the air had turned warmer, and the snow was melting rapidly into puddles and rivulets.

"Where are we?" Gylden cal ed from where he stood outside the cave.

Valorian didn't respond immediately. Instead, he turned and looked back the way they had come.

"Thank you!" he shouted into the blackness. There was no reply, nor did he expect one. He simply wanted to voice his gratitude and hoped the Carrocks would understand.