Alium, page 49
Night came quickly, and now even Zenidow did not carry the hues of the sinking day, though still it was quite illuminated by the stars and moons. They continued knocking on doors to no avail of a place to sleep or even a peep from another living creature, and Ogwold could think only of the corpse in the river. Finally Byron simply decided to open one of these, and inside there was nothing but a cot, an empty black pot, and a pile of dull rocks. Hardly hesitating he sat and leaned his back against the wall, crossed his arms, and closed his eye.
The ogre carefully laid himself on the bed, but despite his best efforts it suddenly collapsed into a heap of rubble. Byron’s eye opened and he chuckled, but was soon at rest once more. The ogre lay there marvelling at the comfort of the simple mattress, however lumpy was the support of its broken structure below, before rolling over and pulling his cloak about himself. He dreamt of the river, but there were no dead bodies.
*
Ogwold woke to the invariable absence of the mercenary gone to train, but he was not alone. A little old man clad in grey rags and a big black hat watched him from the door, where he sat evidently waiting for the beast to rise. Beams of pale sunlight shafted through the windows, and dust motes swirled about the place like light snow, settling in the stranger’s ashen beard.
“Hello,” said Ogwold, sitting up. The old man’s eyes went directly to the Fonsolis as it caught the light. “I’m sorry to have taken your cot for the night. I needed a place to sleep out of the snow. I mean no harm really.”
“… It is all right,” croaked the man. “I’d hidden with the others when we saw that more cloaked ones were coming to our village. I see that you are not like them now.”
“Cloaked ones!” Ogwold stood up suddenly, and the man gulped at the massive stature of the ogre. “Where did they go?”
“The Old City, on the cliffs.” The old man’s eyes mournfully gazed at the destroyed bed.
Ogwold bowed. “I am very sorry about your cot,” he said shakily.
The man was silent and grim. “Please, just go.”
Ogwold sheepishly ducked and squeezed through the tiny doorway. The streets were still empty, but now he saw that some folk looked out through windows, or even stood outside of their homes watching him. They figured perhaps that Ogwold and Byron meant them no harm, but it was obvious that they were not welcome. He thought of the corpse in the river, and though it turned his stomach, it was a good thing to see that many villagers were alive.
“Byron,” he said, walking up to the man who had clearly been swinging his sword for hours beside the river. “Zelor was here. He went up to… well…” Ogwold turned and scanned up along the sheer vertical wall above the village. It seemed even that the rising sun went with his eyes, for just then the clouds behind him shifted and a beam of pale light passed over the high clustered towers and walls of a black city. “There,” he said softly.
“So I’ve been told,” Byron said, hefting the sword onto his shoulder. A powerful gust came up over the bank of the river and tore his cloak so that it flapped and cracked like a tattered coat of arms. “Come, spar with me before we go.”
“We should hurry, Byron. He must be on the other side of this mountain now.”
The mercenary held out the massive sword at arm’s length, so that the point hovered before Ogwold’s chest. “Fight me, ogre!”
“We are only a short flight to Zenidow.”
“And so we test your strength one last time.”
Finally Ogwold smiled. “So be it. Let us be quick at least.” Since they had left the citadel of Azanak, the ogre’s familiarity with the tongue of the Fonsolis had grown considerably, and he could not deny that he wished to show the mercenary the word for ‘blade.’ So he bellowed, “Spathakri!” His great green arm collapsed into liquid, whipped out to twice its length, and threw up along its back down to the elbow a long sharp edge, which arced like a scythe; in a moment all was hardened and gleaming in the sunlight that rebounded off the blinding snow. Byron grinned.
Their weapons clashed loudly in the stillness of the settlement. The townspeople who were not afraid came out into the streets and ventured to the edge of town to watch the fight. It was clear that Ogwold had greater might, greater strength, and that he was trying the hardest, for his face was terrible to behold, and it was true that he had always wanted to get the better of Byron in a duel. But today was not his day. The villagers gasped as the mercenary so easily parried even the most brutal, crushing blows, not by absorbing their impact, but by turning them away softly and smoothly. He never attacked, playing only defence. Ogwold’s flurry and intensity only quickened, but at last Byron’s green eye flashed, and he swung his sword in offence. There was a loud crack, and a boom, and huge drifts of snow flew up around the fighters so that they were obscured, but when it all fell the people saw that Ogwold had blocked Byron’s attack by sheer strength of will. Down on one knee in the snow, the ground had cracked beneath him, snow had been blown clear away, and the Fonsolis shook, Byron’s blade embedded in its tough flesh. Byron withdrew and flung the blade atop his shoulder. Already the vegetable flesh began knitting together.
“Better,” said Byron. Ogwold was stunned. He had never beheld such ferocity from Byron before, even against Azanak. He figured he would never know why Byron was so powerful, for all he could say was that the young man certainly practised enough.
They trudged up the snowy hill as the mist closed in behind them and the roar of the river diminished, until by noon they found Wygram, fast asleep in the broad day, and woke her with their shouting. She peered blearily at them. “Today is the day,” said Ogwold. “Zenidow is just beyond that peak.”
Wygram sighed and preened her long whiskers. “I will take you as close as I can, but then I leave, Son of Caelare. Your fight is not mine.”
“As you wish, Wygram.” Ogwold bowed. “We are indebted to you for your grace as it is.”
“Oh please. I am free because of your valiance,” she thrummed musically in her long throat, and it was clear even in the serene changelessness of her countenance that she appreciated their thanks.
One last time they gathered their things and climbed aboard her great spine, and she carried them up into the sky on the massive motions of her wings. Zenidow loomed, and they drew near to the last range of peaks bordering it as the morning waned, looking down on the black city where it clutched against the flat rock.
With the sun high in the sky, they came over the left shoulder of that very mountain, and below them appeared unmistakably, from this height, an enormously vast and deep crater, at the centre of which stuck Zenidow like a bullet from heaven. The whole bowl in the land was ensconced by other, more normal looking mountains, jaggedly arranged at equal distance to the centre; everywhere within this circle of peaks there was little change in the landscape but for the ever sloping snow and stretches of forest. The closer to the Great Mountain the thicker clustered those spans of trees so that about the base of the great silver ellipse itself, for some hundred miles in all directions, was the densest forest either Byron or Ogwold had ever seen.
“That is Pivwood,” said Wygram over the rushing wind. “But I cannot take you so far,” and as she banked off to the side descending, her riders saw now the turning patch of dark cloud that hovered like a small storm system over the open snow just outside of the great forest. They landed themselves in a clearing, far beneath the high steep rim of the crater, but perhaps equally far from their Pivwood. Ogwold and Byron slid to the ground with a tremendous thump and a soft tap, and stood in the snow bewitched with the mountain as it caught the evening hues so awesome in its closeness. It seemed wholly unlike anything in the world, standing so pure and spotless against the purples and reds of sunset.
Wygram spoke softly. “Son of Caelare, and you, Demon Eye, fare you well. There is a great evil at large before the threshold of Pivwood such that I cannot go any closer. It will not be easily met, but truly you are brave warriors both.”
“Where will you go?” Ogwold leaned back calling up, for the Euphran’s neck unfurled now to its utmost height as she gazed out into the open sky.
“To be with my own,” she said, turning that long diamond skull so that one ice-chip irid beheld them as from another world. Then she was off, so grand and mysterious in all her shining scales soaring over the trees, now but an angular blue shadow high above, already fading.
The Euphran had taken them well inside the caldera rim, though the land was still quite steep, and they could see far ahead over a low stretch of trees. It seemed there was a cessation in that wood, though it was hard to tell how wide was the open plain presumed then to lead to Pivwood. All that seemed to occupy the space between this forest and that which surrounded Zenidow itself was a lone, wicked spire like some enormous, branchless tree whose roots were the jagged fissures that sprawled about its base. All the more black and twisted did it look interposed against the vast silver face of Zenidow.
“He is there.” Byron squinted down and off at the distant point.
To Ogwold it was indeed difficult to call merely a gathering of dark clouds those evil black vapours which swirled like tendrils about the thing. He imagined that these were the long and haunting spirits of deep roots which had been ripped up from the world—the source of those ghastly furrows. “Is this what the Xol do to trees?”
“No. That is a tower of rock. Zelor’s magic is with the minerals. I only knew from the stories he told of his father and the line of his blood’s weave; that is, until he turned even those powers upon our family. But this is good. If he’s made a fortress, he must have been prevented from entering the forest.”
Ogwold pondered this. “Such a fantastical place must have its own folk.” As if to join in, the sphere spun up out of his pocket to float between them. “Can’t you just fly to the mountain now?” he implored. It made no reply, hovering still, sweetly humming as ever. “Well, if you’re coming with us, I’ve a promise to uphold. Without Byron we wouldn’t have made it here. This Zelor has it coming! And still, we don’t know what we’ll find down there. It looks like we have a long trek ahead of us.” The light then began to fade, for the sun now sank behind the mountains beyond Zenidow.
*
In the morning, Novare and Nogofod began their hike down through the sloping woods. The grade was incredibly steep, and its streaks and patches of ice so treacherously slick that they were forced to move only very slowly, now round an enormous tree, clinging to its system of hard roots, staggering rapidly to a cluster of boulders, stopping to stand and rest and peer down over their friable pates.
When at last they came to a more gradual decline, Ogwold flung himself into a seated position and slid at a great speed down along a streak of ice, gradually losing speed as the land evened out, plunging noiselessly into a cumulus snowbank. His huge head appeared, shaking its mass of dreadlocked hair all around, and Byron even grinned, deftly side stepping down the grade, as the ogre’s hearty laugh boomed up to him. Reunited they walked more easily, for the snow was hard-packed such that in places even Ogwold’s huge crushing feet did not sink. Dark and broad fir trees thickened quickly, shielding them from the wind which whistled shrilly in their needles.
Slowly as they went there developed a low rumbling, as from the pits of their own ears, now trembling and holding along the vast plains and sheets of ice like the crashing of some massive distant surf. When Caelare's palace had spun beyond its daily apex, the roaring medium subtly became punctuated with a rising and falling of noise which began to sound very much like a succession of tremendous explosions. Yet at their clearest and most bone-jarring these troubling and powerful movements suddenly ceased, and all was eerily still.
Now through the thinning trees Ogwold and Byron beheld from afar the inky spire of Zelor silhouetted in the crepuscular glow before the shining hull of Zenidow, the two towers separated, it seemed, only by that dense orbit of forest which Wygram had called Pivwood. As before, Zelor’s fortress looked like an immense needle, but now they saw that its base was structured and walled more broadly by tremendous formations of rock. Around the great lower bulk of the building stood chaotic sequences of rocky walls, having pinnacles of their own, everything jagged and ominous, so arranged as if the grounds of the place were heavily guarded.
Ogwold was deathly cold and wished dearly to move behind the protection of the rock walls and out of the wind. The pain of the Fonsolis was his as well, and it was not fond of the cold. Wrapped around his shivering core to keep warm, now as the last trees fell away and the wind struck them fully, all that kept them moving forward was the tightly held wrap of the great white cloak. Wide and barren for several more hours of trudging through the ice was the rock-strewn field leading to the outermost walls, but as darkness fell the adventurers bivouacked beneath a great slab of leaning stone, which shielded them finally from the elements. Ogwold collapsed against the overarching angle and huddled deep down into the frost caked cloth, rubbing his hands together and breathing into the stiff digits of the Fonsolis. Byron sighed, sat beside him, arms crossed, brow lowered, and seemed to stare straight through the rock towards the tower of his enemy.
Before dawn their quest was renewed with vigour, for the Fonsolis free to wander from its cloaken cloister had drunk deeply from the soil below the hard crust and snow, and now Ogwold cheered with the warmth of its satiety. As day broke in great gleaming chunks of pale light, they transitioned from bold approach to the seeping cover of boulders and giant shards of displaced rock. Moving slowly through the plain they came to the first high rock wall, craggily imperfect, haphazardly sprung as it was from below. Many more such barriers rose at varying heights and widths in concentric slabs, interlocking, leaning one upon the other in a far more perplexing anarchy than had seemed from afar. At the centre of the shield-labyrinth, huge shifting mountains of rock melded together, and from their communing, hulking shoulders shot the high, wicked seat of Zelor.
Chapter XXVI
Old Friends
Already Byron melted into the shadows of the maze, and clumsily realizing his partner’s absence Ogwold stumbled after him. More graciously than before the stabbing wind was wholly cut off in the lanes between the high walls, and the cold receded. Around another wall they went, and now through a great crack. Once they were able to walk forward through many arches of rock, but were suddenly suffered to circumnavigate an endless plane of stone all along whose surface there seemed a hieroglyphic legend written in eon-webbed layers of ancient strata. At last they came within the innermost buffers, and peering round one cracked high ring saw the roots of the tower where they had exploded out of the ground. There were no windows or doors anywhere to be seen, and as they walked cautiously into the open, now a little more confidently—for the place was silent as death—even when they came around to the front there seemed not a single feature to the structure but for the aquiline spear which jutted high above their heads from the tip of it all.
Ogwold shivered quietly in the cold, feeling the slow thaw of the still resuscitating Fonsolis, listening to the omnipresent drone of the small silver orb in his pocket which offered no images or advice. At last he said, “Maybe we should just break in?”
Suddenly the echo of breaking rock split the air, and the very ground beneath their feet shook so violently that they both were hurled upon it in a rising fog of snow. With a massive shifting and tearing, the face of the tower bore upon its heavy flank a fractal crack of chiselled lightning, and at its lowest point began to open as two parting pieces unto a black triangular void. Already they could hear a great commotion approaching within the bowels of dark.
“Quick,” hissed Byron leaping up, and yanking after him the ogre with surprising force. Stumbling over the still grinding valley floor they reached a close but low slab and hid themselves behind it, just peering round through a nick in its edge.
Now the concentric slabs that stood in layers between fortress, battlefield, and forest began to separate through their midst in like jagged fashion as the makeshift doors of the tower proper, as in a sequence of immense crude gates, revealed lastly a high narrow view of an open plain of snow and far away the border of Pivwood itself, serene and still with the dawn.
Then from the base of Zelor’s tower, where only moments ago the adventurers had sat peacefully, there emerged a slow flood of pure darkness, advancing unto the path between the barricades sundering before them. At first the procession was as one surging, formless shadow, but in time Ogwold could distinguish among its motions the multitudes of hideous creatures which wore its aura like a collective gauze. Such warriors cast from the tower forth were like man-sized reptilian insects bejewelled in compound eyes pointing in so many chaotic directions as the jagged claws and spikes which jutted all about their bodies. Yet for all the scales and shining carapaces that went among them, each being undulated and rolled as though made entirely of ectoplasm, their endless limbs and antennae expressed like inky fluid to feel out the posterior of whatever entity went ahead, the whole spectacle moving as by some blind overarching intention. So it was that everywhere about the moving tapestry of evil were the suggestions of tendrils undulating, reaching, grasping, everything with its clear relation to and origin in the utmost chamber of Zelor’s tower over which there turned more dark and malevolent than ever the nebula of black which was his menacing will.
Byron whispered harshly. “My brother could only be found in the heart of a battle; this Zelor sends others to do his work…” But he trailed off, and placed one hand upon the leg of his partner, for a terrible, silent evil now followed the horde into battle.
It was a group only few in number, though quite different in aspect. Where the other shadows had taken the shapes as of chaos and bloodlust incarnate, these creatures were modest and lean. They walked upright like men, and carried themselves with a kind of sapience that could not be ascribed to the infantry that went before them. At the turn of their indistinct, featureless faces, looking like smudges out of focus, as though they could not be adequately rendered in this world, shudders of freezing chill shot down even the spine of the mercenary. It seemed as though these beings had no business at all with the world in which they now walked, perhaps just as the mindless shadow spawn that came with them; yet more evil was it to see that indeed they knew they did not belong, that at last they had been given form, that they had mind with which to think not only, but bodies with which to act. As they passed through the first of the great broken gates, the last of the walkers turned back, and Byron and Ogwold quickly hid. Whether or not it had seen them, a terrible chill seemed for a moment to stop the blood in their veins; then the evil thing went to meet the war parties far off in the storm.
