Lords of the Shadows, page 12
part #4 of Raven Series
They jumped down as they came into the low cliffhang and led the horses into the dry.
An old, black robed man scampered from them, away from his blazing fire, his long hair falling over his face as he cowered. He silently watched the intruders by the light of the fire and two torches that were slung from the walls among battered skins and corroded pieces of metal of bizarre shapes and sizes.
Raven walked towards him, raising her hands and welcoming the warmth of the fire she felt on her bare skin. “Do not be afraid, old one. We seek only shelter for the night…”
At that moment she felt herself bowled backwards as if by a fist striking her on the jaw. When she staggered to her feet it was to see the hideous fangs of an enormous spidery beast clacking together as the creature scuttled towards her.
She shrieked and stumbled away from it. Spellbinder’s angry cry sobered her, and she saw the warlock make a pass in the air, spit a word or two into the cave. The spider vanished, the same stooped figure of the old man ran away from her again as Spellbinder rubbed his hands together to east he unpleasant sensation of the magic he had felt.
“We mean you no harm,” shouted Spellbinder, and added, rather diffidently, “My magic is stronger than yours.”
Silver took his lead from the old man’s sudden calming. He hauled the carcass of a small boar form his horse and brought it into the cave. “Tonight we shall dine like Warlords.”
As he placed the dead pig down by the fire, the old man made an almost imperceptible gesture with his left hand; the disemboweled boar suddenly sprung to its feet and ran towards Silver, Silver screeched in shock.
Again Spellbinder cancelled the spell, the cadaver collapsed, and Silver tentatively prodded it with his foot.
Later as Silver cut the boar into roastable joints, Raven squatted down by the old hermit and asked his name.
His eyes were colourless, she noticed as she stared at him, and this made her uncomfortable. Then his lips parted and he chattered his yellowed teeth together. A moment of that, and then he pointed to the dust about them. Where he pointed the word Niknuggel appeared. The old man laughed, as if at some private joke.
“Niknuggel?” repeated Raven, amused by the sound of the name, more amused by the old wizard’s uncontrolled mirth. “That’s your name?” The old man nodded, tears in his eyes. “Are you a hermit?” He nodded again. “Banished from some tribe?”
Niknuggel scowled.
Spellbinder came to crouch beside them. “We seek the valley of the three peaks. Is it far?”
Niknuggel laughed, then shook his head. “I can take you there,” said a voice behind Spellbinder, and warlock turned quickly, startled, then scowled as he realised this was more trickery. “Others seek it too,” said the voice, this time behind Silver. “Dark riders on white horses, who passed this way without seeing me some long long time ago. But I heard their talk. They sought, but had failed to find it. One rider returned, perhaps a day ago, it is hard to remember.”
Raven, trying to forget the fact that the voice was now silky, speaking from behind her as Niknuggel’s mischievous features creased with humour, said to him, “I am sure that the Dark Rider knows where the island is. And when he reaches it he will destroy those who are entombed there.”
That sobered Niknuggle a little, and he looked from one to the other of them.
Raven said, “It is our intention to destroy the Dark Riders, but we must find first the island so that we may block their power swords. Can you take us?”
“No,” said the disembodied voice of the old one. “For I have seen it only from a distance, and only when the magic that conceals it slips a little. At some times of the year the forces of the earth and sky are not in harmony, and at those times I can see that place of ghosts, and the great monument at its centre. But then it is gone again; one could ride across it into the swamps beyond it, and never know it was there. But I can show you where that place is.”
Then his eyes wandered beyond Raven, to the pig joints which Silver had now spitted and which were beginning to crisp in the flames of the fire.
True to his ghostly word Niknuggel gathered his ragged black robes about his withered body and at first light of day scurried away from the cave, in the direction of the high ground; here there were craggy rockfaces and overgrown gullies, through which he ran with surprising agility. Raven cantered behind him, repeatedly offering him a place in the saddle. The man appeared not to hear.
Silver heard, though. “A place in your saddle, Raven! Then I shall become a hermit myself!”
Towards midday the land abruptly changed. They had journeyed across some high rocks and wound down through a narrow gully to emerge into a cool and sticky forest, but not a wood of tall, clean trees such as were scattered across the tribal lands; this was dense undergrowth and gnarled trunks, dark colours that made it seem as if they rode through some nightland.
Spellbinder rode beside her, his head bowed beneath low-slung branches and dangling trailers of vine and other creeping plants. Niknuggel seemed to get lost in the denseness of the jungle, but occasionally Raven would see him, watching her from the shadows, then darting ahead again.
“A jungle like this should be stifling,” said Raven. “Hot, like the jungles of Ishkar.”
“And noisy,” said Spellbinder. “There is no sound of animal life. It’s as if we were the only living things within. I like it not.”
They came to a vast swampy area, water gleaming in pools between twisting trunks, and small islands of intensely rich vegetation that seemed to reach towards them as they passed. They rode about the edge of it, splashing occasionally, but always following the solid path that Niknuggel trod, his robes gathered high about his white, spindly legs.
Raven cast an unnerved look at that muddy land, and as her gaze roved across the placid pools, she saw areas of turbulence, small at first and growing. Dark shapes shifted about below that pool and at times she thought she could see the glowing points of bright, nightseeing eyes.
She was glad when the silent swamp was behind them.
They had come by then into a vast lowland area, ringed by the World’s End mountains, a swampy land shaded by this exotic but cool jungle growth. Raven sensed instinctively that the Island of Crystal would be found here; she was not surprised then when Niknuggel appeared before them, his arms raised, his body blocking their path through a pathway of yellow leaved trees, whose lush foliage curved across their heads to form an archway.
His disembodied voice whispered to them from all about the jungle. “I dare go no further. The place you seek likes a few minutes’ journey onwards, but it is hidden from mortal eyes.” The wizened man’s gaze fixed almost arrogantly on Spellbinder. “Perhaps you have the magic to see it. Perhaps.” And on Silver, “My thanks for the feast.”
And then he raced past Raven, causing her horse to rear slightly. When she turned to look for him, he was gone into the gloom, back towards the swamp.
Spellbinder pointed out the grassy ridge that led about, and across this swamp. “One would ride there, and never realise that an island lies disguised in that water.”
“But how do we see it? It is of no use to us invisible like this.” Raven felt uncomfortable, almost hostile. This place was cold, like her home jungles, yet unlike them; the marshy land filled her with a sense of foreboding. Though the jungle about them was silent of animal life, she could hear and see movement just below the unwelcoming water.
Spellbinder dismounted and passed the reins of his horse to Silver, whom Raven saw was pale and unnerved by this place. His eyes glittered brightly in the way that told of his constant readiness for action. The warlock stripped off his cloak and walked about the marsh, his black armour bright in the shafting light that pierced the thinner foliage.
As he crossed the dry earth ridge Raven saw how his breath began to frost; a thin sheen of brightness covered his dark hair where moisture condensed upon it. He was shivering, his lean frame freezing beneath his mail and leather clothing. He called back to Raven, his voice hollow in the stillness. “There is an enormous field of magic energy here. You would pass it with closed eyes and beating heart. There is something vast guarded by greater magic than mine.”
“Then there is no way in,” said Raven, dejectedly. “We must search for this forge alone.”
Spellbinder laughed bitterly and crouched to pass a hand through the lapping waters. He drew back his hand with a cry, shaking it. “By the Mists of the Ghost Isle! This water drains all heat in an instant, so cold is it.” He looked back towards Raven, continuing the thought that had made him laught. “You give up with alarming ease, Raven.”
“This place unnerves me,” she said. “I would as soon be gone, searching without help for our forge.”
“The fear you feel is part of the magic,” said the warlock. “Watch.”
He gathered several short twigs of dead wood and broke them carefully, arranging them in a pattern on the ground. One he dipped into the water and laid the frosted wood across the pattern carefully. He drew his knife, then, and nicked the skin of his arm so that a thin line oozed blood sluggishly. A single drop he smeared with his finger and touched to the wood.
He stood back, staring at the pattern of nature he had made, then looked up at Raven. “Come here, and add a drop of your own blood to this stick. You too, Silver. The magic field that guards the place is already testing us, examining us, and we must allow it to know us better.”
Raven obliged, walking stiffly along the pathway, refusing to remove her cloak and expose her body to this unnatural chill. Light played off the water beside her, and sleek shapes swam there, daring out of sight almost as soon as she met their glowing-eyed gazed.
She added her blood to Spellbinder’s, and Silver did the same. Then she stood back as the warlock made an aerial pattern with the hilt of his sword, holding it carefully by its blade. At once he was grimacing with pain and effort, the blade slipping and cutting the palm of his hand. He turned frightened eyes on Raven, then shook his head, stopping her from speaking.
“It may take some time,” he said, sounding breathless. “But I shall achieve it.”
He turned back to the empty swamp, raised the sword by its blade again and began to make the pattern. Raven could almost feel the tension in the man’s body, and she found herself tense in sympathy with him, her fists bunched, her teeth clenched with the warlock’s mental effort. The lingering poison of the Mabion blade was resisting him more with each movement he made, but the sword moved on, the pattern completed, and Spellbinder’s magic began to win through.
Now he spoke in the language of the Sorcerers, a mix of incomprehensible and partially recognisable words. His eyes were closed and Raven observed his dark hair slowly rise about his scalp, standing straight on end as some ill-defined energy passed through his body; she felt her own skin tingle, and her hair tug at her scalp; self-consciously she brushed at it. She was too scared to find Spellbinder amusing, through Silver, his own hair standing straight up like spikes, was red-faced with mirth. Raven’s cloak flapped about her body, her bare legs frosted and she rubbed off the unpleasant deposits of moisture, feeling colder and colder…
And then, out across the water, there appeared a shape. Misty, at first, like the heat vision in a desert that is just the play of sun on sand. It swayed and rippled in the air, a tall building surrounded by luxuriant trees and highly coloured flowers and bushes. It rose from the undergrowth like the temples of Ishkar, slanting slightly, its façade decorated with animal faces and human faces, and faces that were not human nor animal at all, but were ugly and evil, a depiction of things long dead.
Spellbinder seemed to be listening, his lips moving as he repeated words silently that were spoken only in his head. Suddenly he called out aloud: “Alwu Parwya-ki alwavan bara-Korm!”
His voice sounded dull in this cold place; it resounded across the water and faded away. Again Spellbinder called the words, which Raven took to be a spell of entry, and again, and yet again.
Hours passed.
Raven and Silver huddled together, miserable, hungry, despondent. The island floated half in, half out of vision, a spectral place that soon Raven came to believe was no more than an illusion, a dream, a tantalizing glimpse of something now sunk beneath the mire.
Spellbinder became exasperated. “They have told me the words, but they do not achieve anything!” He turned to Raven, frowning. “I think the ancient mechanisms of this place are faulty. IT may take some time before they function correctly. Have you the patience?”
“I am too cold not to have,” said Raven, and then her eyes widened. She sprang to her feet and pointed. “Look!”
The island had suddenly hardened, come into focus so abruptly that for a second none of them could really believe it had occurred. The waters of the marsh had receded about a land bridge that led from where they stood to the closed door of the stark, dark-stoned building. The cool was dispersed by a sudden warm wind. The waters about them stirred violently, angrily, and the scattered marsh trees bent and whispered about in a wind that suddenly howled about them.
Spellbinder hesitated only a second before leading the way across the ridge of land, his feet slipping on the slick surface, still muddy and weedy form its time in the water. Raven and Silver followed, hands on swords, eyes alive for danger.
And danger came, even as they slipped and skidded their way onto the island. There was a rushing sound behind them, as of something rising fast from the water. Turning, Raven gasped with horror. She called to Spellbinder who joined her and Silver in a line, swords drawn, mouths open in shock, eyes staring.
A host of them there were, great shambling beasts, high as a man, dripping gore and mud as if this was a part of them. Grey and decayed, the flesh hung upon their bones like trailing weeds. Their arms hung limp and unmoving, their legs shifted through the swamp as they came, step by ponderous step, closer. Mouths hung open, rotted teeth and tongues seemed alive with the squirming movement of saprophagous life within. Eyes, golden, were alive and seeing…decayed they were, yet alive, as if they had been born this way.
Their stench preceded them, the smell of entrails baked in the sun, or a dead horse or man left too long in an enclosed place where the gases of the body swell and foul, the flies lay their squirming larvae, but no earth could shift to cover up the offensive sight of death.
“We must get inside,” said Spellbinder quickly, and turned and ran.
Raven followed with no second thought. “But what are they?”
“Part of the defence of this place; unused for ages, they have been called upon by mistake, since we were invited onto the island.”
“Or else tricked!”
They wove through the lush trees that surrounded the high building, and came to the heavy wooden doors. Twisted, leering faces watched them in stone; snakes and strangely formed reptiles curled about the colonades that stood on each side of the entrance.
Spellbinder pushed against the door, then harder, and with Silver’s weight added to the task, they opened the doorway and stepped inside the building.
The decayed beasts, the preserved guardians of this place, had hesitated at the edge of the island, shifting aimlessly, staring through the trees and undergrowth.
Raven and Silver pushed the door closed again, then turned to see what lay within.
Ten
A storm has come across the land
Once-great warriors dull their swords
The men’s screams are the cries of the tormented
It is a dark time in the land of the Braigdanas.
from the Killing of Nui’rioth—Dubthag epic poem
It was a tiny chamber within the narrow building; there was no window to admit light, but about the walls were scattered gently glowing stones of green and red that cast a sombre light upon the polished floor. The ceiling of the place was very high. Small creatures scuttled away from Raven as she stepped into the place, insects and spiders, and perhaps shadowy rats of tiny size. There were ledges and holes about the walls of the chamber, deep recesses into which air could drift, and from which the life of the island could come, perhaps. Too narrow for a man, these tunnels formed the air into a gentle sound, a susurrance of murmured greeting, an all-but-inaudible moan of welcome.
In the middle of the room were two crystal tombs, carved and designed with such intricacy that the light from the wall seemed to blind Raven as it was reflected from these tombs; she could see, as she moved about the place, that each block of crystal held a naked human figure.
Spellbinder was already bending close, peering through one facet of one tomb to see the face of the man who lay within.
“His is asleep, not dead,” came the warlock’s voice. Raven bent to look and saw a noble face, aquiline and regal, the eyes closed, the mouth wide and full and almost smiling; fair hair, ringed and cut in a way unfamiliar to Raven, was spread about his head, and a thin, almost translucent band of some precious substance wound about his forehead and above his ears. The man’s body was muscular and strong, his legs thick, his calves slim, his waistline trim as a boy’s, his dark member that of a virile man.
Raven turned away and joined Silver, peering into the second tomb.
“A woman,” she breathed, and then was silent as she took in the beauty of the body that lay there, the serenity of the lovely face that slept below her gaze; soft where her companion was hard and ridged, the woman was full-breasted and wide-hipped, and her hair as well was ringleted and spread about her face, long longs of it curling across her shoulders and resting gently on her unmoving breast.
Raven drew back, questioning Spellbiner with her gaze.
The warlock shrugged. “How to release them? I know not.”
There came a loud hammering on the door. All three turned abruptly to face that end of the chamber, and Silver drew his sword and stepped quickly down to the entrance. As he stood there, and Raven joined him, the door buckled inwards against the lock that Silver had turned.
