Shrill whistles sometimes preceded him along the gorge, echoing and re-echoing. He paused for a while, the horse shifting nervously beneath him. The whistles were answered as if news of his passing was being transmitted for many miles.
He hoped no unpleasant greeting was awaiting him further up the passage.
Nothing took him by surprise, however, or tried to kill him, and after a while the bizarre whistling stopped. An icy wind ruffled his hair and blew blindingly against his face. He sensed he had passed beyond the domain of the unseen creatures that had watched him, and entered a place deserted of all life, save perhaps the non-life of ghosts and the faintly echoing memories of millennia when these mountains had been a great land – or so he had been told – rich in kings and warrior élite.
Soon the walls of the gorge closed together above him and he found himself facing the maw of a great cavern, from which the bronze river flowed. A steep gully led up one side and Harald, after a moment’s hesitation, left the water and began to spur his horse up the almost impossible escarpment.
They didn’t get very far. The horse slipped and slid, and eventually went down on its knees and gave up. Harald dismounted and let the beast slide gently back to the river where it overcame its abhorrence of the bitter waters and drank, then scrambled on to the narrow rock ledge beside it, and waited there for its master.
Harald, sword held behind him to prevent it from snagging his legs, climbed on alone, finding a grip on the sharp rock sides of the gully, trying to overcome his fear as he climbed higher and higher and the drop behind him became more and more sheer.
Eventually he scrambled out of the gully and found himself on a wide ridge, overlooking deep, bare rock valleys and sharp-pointed peaks. A thousand caves winked at him; a thousand glittering stars against the rocks seemed to move, but they resolved, as he stared at them, into outcrops of brilliant crystal.
He drew the dirk from his belt and held it before his eyes. It was the same view that he now held, and as he realised the fact so the picture in the dagger vanished and the blade began to sing.
He was frightened by the unearthly sound, as it grew louder, more urgent, and eventually he cast the small weapon into the gorge behind him. It sparkled as it fell, and long before it would have hit the water, it had vanished.
Harald realised he was trembling, but he calmed himself and smiled after the blade, giving his thanks even if he didn’t voice them.
Turning back to the forbidden land he began to walk along the ridge.
Five paces later he stopped as a frightening roaring sound pierced his ears, and the ground beneath his feet started to shake and tremble violently. A great split in the ridge opened up and he leapt back from the gaping wound in the rock. Smoke and dust rose from the chasm and he peered cautiously over the edge.
He saw nothing but dark and a dull red glow, of fire, perhaps, or the heaving magma at the world’s core.
A moment later he realised that someone was standing on the other side of the crack, watching him.
He stood, and his hand went unconsciously to his blade. But he didn’t draw the sword, merely stared at the ancient man who stood there.
Clad in black robes tied tightly about waist and hips, with gleaming black hair flowing around his body as some bizarre veil of evil, the old man was at once a striking and terrifying sight. His eyes were brilliant blue, his lips mere lines that parted occasionally to give Harald a glimpse of ivory teeth. His nose was flat against his face, and thin. His cheeks were drawn and skeletal.
Wind blew the robes and the hair, and strands of black reached across the chasm to almost touch Harald as he stood his ground.
‘I am the Keeper,’ said the old man suddenly. ‘I am the only mortal man who is allowed into these mountains, save he who will replace me.’
‘The guardian of the Gate is long dead,’ said Harald boldly. ‘It’s many years since this forbidden place was actively protected from intruders.’
‘
I
protect it,’ said the warlock menacingly. ‘I can split the ground or reduce a man to fire. And if you think that all the guardians are dead …’
Harald shivered and glanced about him, expecting to see huge shapes emerging from their hiding places. He saw nothing.
The warlock, having trailed off in mid-sentence, glanced beyond Harald to where the crumbling gate could just be seen. ‘Actually, you may be right,’ he said tiredly. ‘It’s certainly many years since this place was a great centre. Men still fear it, though, and that is well, for there are secrets here that should remain locked within the mountain for all time.’
‘And those secrets you keep?’
‘I am the Keeper of the Rune Hall. That I guard the secrets of the ancients is a mere fantasy of mine, for their secrets are beyond even my understanding.’
‘The Dark Ones …’ said Harald, remembering what Deirdre had told him. ‘Are they the ancients that you mention?’
The warlock shook his head, staring steadfastedly at the young warrior. ‘The name is familiar, but I believe it refers to a mystical race who came after the race that inscribed the first secrets within this mountain. On this world, even in these crags, there have been a thousand peoples, and we are merely the last in the line, and perhaps not the last. Other races may follow us, and they too will read the secrets of all preceding ages and fail to understand them. But great knowledge resides here. It comes from the Lost Ones who inhabited these mountains when they were the crags of a vast island in the middle of a great sea. This is all I know. This is the extent of what I have understood from that which is recorded in the Rune Hall.’
For a moment there was just the icy wind, and a haunting look between warlock and warrior. Then the warlock’s thin lips parted in a brief smile. He said, ‘I know why you are here. I know your quest. I know your curse.’
Harald was not surprised, but he asked anyway: ‘How? Have you watched me, then?’
‘What reason in that? No, no. I know from a friend of yours, a saviour of mine. A man called Sigurd Gotthelm.’
‘Sigurd!’ cried Harald, feeling pleasure even at the sound of the man’s name. ‘If you only know how much I desired to see him again. A good friend he was, and I know would be again.’
The warlock seemed to be enjoying some private joke; his gaze was steadfast, but the humourless grin was still on his lips.
‘Then know that Gotthelm was here, asking how he might find you, how he might track you down. I helped him, and in doing so learned of your quest for release.’
‘Where is Sigurd now?’
‘He has searched for you for many months. Now he makes fast his approach to your father’s hold, to meet you there, on the ridge overlooking the fjord where you first saw the Bear god himself. That is your destiny, and his.’
Harald fell quiet, and sad. He shook his head.
‘I cannot return to Urlsgarde until this damned curse is lifted. My father would kill me now, and he might well kill me even so. I shall have to be very careful. But I cannot go back yet; perhaps not for years.’
The warlock shook his head. ‘You will be back before winter. You will have to be.’
Harald looked blank. The warlock beckoned. ‘Jump this chasm. I was unsure of your intent and hoped to discourage you from violence. I have the spell to crack the earth, but no spell to repair it. Jump the chasm.’
Harald leapt the great gash in the rock and the warlock walked across the ridge, hair and robe billowing and blowing in the mountain wind.
He led the way to a low cave and, bowing his head entered. Harald followed and they stooped and walked along a narrow passage before emerging into a small, warm chamber in the bosom of the mountain itself.
Human skulls adorned the walls. Other bones lay scattered on the ground, or crossed in magic positions on small tables and benches. Dead birds and the withered features of rats and dogs lay among the bones. The smell was fetid, and at times, when a gust of air blew from a small pit in the ground, sulphurous and acrid. A small bed stood in one corner, covered with thick skins. Above it were scratched, in the rock, the protective runes that guarded this man from the opposed forces of magic. Those Harald recognised immediately. Others on the walls he stared at without comprehension.
‘Are you hungry?’ asked the black-robed wizard, grinning as he observed Harald’s darting glances at all the strange objects and bric-a-brac of the cave.
‘Starving,’ said Harald quickly, feeling the rumbling in his belly. For the first time in days the bear emerged from its dark corner and growled in agreement. Harald felt his teeth tingling with the imagined taste of blood. His breath was a throaty growl that made the warlock glance sharply towards him. Then the man relaxed.
‘I have a spell that can disperse hunger. I shall cast it in a moment.’ He grinned. ‘I haven’t bothered to eat for years. So much effort. Mind you, it isn’t doing much for the physical condition …’ He pinched his wiry arms and shrugged.
Disappointed, Harald resumed his scrutiny of the rune-covered walls. The bear murmured irritably, but something about the warlock seemed to induce in it a sense of fear and it crept back into the recesses of Harald’s mind and behaved itself.
‘Keep your dark spirit under control,’ said the wizard pointedly. ‘There is one release that I can give you that is instantaneous. It is called death. And be in no doubt that if the Berserk rage takes you, you shall be dead instantly.’
‘I’ll control it,’ said Harald, frightened. ‘Just don’t spill blood.’
‘No blood needs to be spilled,’ said the warlock. ‘For I have no spell to rid you of this curse.’
Harald stiffened in shock. The cave grew darker and the bear within him seemed to roll on to its back and laugh in its ursine way.
‘No spell! But you have a million spells! Surely this is a simple matter!’
The warlock was angry. ‘Simple? The breaking of a curse imposed by a demon god! Odin is a fearsome force of evil, and I am just a mortal. I know spells by the million, certainly …’ Dark eyes flashed anger, the skull-like face of the warlock tensed and whitened. ‘You have come here to ask for help. What payment have you brought? Answer me that!’
‘None,’ said Harald glumly. He could hardly offer that which Deirdre had demanded.
The warlock grinned. ‘And yet,’ he said, raising a lean and long nailed finger and stabbing it towards the Berserker. ‘And yet … because of Gotthelm, and my great debt to him, I would help you if I could.
But there is no spell!
The release from the curse of Odin can only be accomplished with enormous difficulty.’
‘Then there
is
a release.’
The warlock hesitated, peering at the youth carefully. Then he nodded. ‘There is a release,’ he agreed. ‘But not a spell that I can shout or act out on my fingers. I can spread fire across the earth at the call of a single word. I can calm the oceans with the scratching of three simple runes upon the dark rocks of the shore. I can transform a man into any animal that has ever lived by chanting a brief song. I have spells to see a man’s future. I have a forge that can make weapons that will sing in battle, or warn you of approaching danger. I can do a million things that other men cannot do. But this is as nothing, this is trickery, hearth-side games compared to what the gods can do. I cannot break the curse of Odin. Only you can do that. And the price is high. Very high.’
‘Tell me. Tell me quickly. The sooner I shake off the curse of this bear the sooner I can …’ – he trailed off. Elena’s face swam before his eyes, which suddenly filled with tears. He saw her as she had been when they had been innocents together. He fought to prevent the change of her face into that mask of agony that was his last view of her.
The warlock beckoned him, and peered at the back wall of the cave. Rock slid into rock and a narrow tunnel was revealed.
They walked down the passageway in total darkness; then a second rock door opened and Harald followed the wizard into a vast and well-lit hall. For a moment he just stood, stunned and staggered by the pure size of the place.
‘It stretches the breadth of the mountain at this point,’ said the old man. ‘It takes half a day to walk its length, although as you can see, it is quite narrow.’
A gigantic hall! He could not see the other end. The ceiling was so high that it was shrouded in darkness; creatures winged about up there and their droppings had formed a thick floor of white rock below them. Across this Harald walked, turning as he went, and staring at the walls.
Not an inch, not a finger’s breadth of the vast walls, was not covered by runes. A million spells, a million different writing styles, a million different languages. Spells and charms from the thousand ages of man.
‘Once,’ said the warlock as he too let his gaze wander slowly across the loops and intricately styled letters of the hundreds and thousands of different languages, ‘once this mountain cavern was the centre of the world. All men of knowledge passed through here, and that which they knew or understood was inscribed upon these walls. There are runes hidden among the incomprehensible languages of the ancients that tell – or so I have understood it from more recent runes – of the creating of the gods, or the way a spell was cast to fashion the world from the void by a lone being who rests below us, in the impenetrable depths of the earth. There are spells here that are said to have been written by men not yet born, who travelled here from this world as it will become in the millennia following a great ice invasion that even now is building to cover the north-lands before three millennia have passed. A thousand different languages, and as many magic rituals as there exist stars in the sky. And I know and understand but a fraction of them.’
‘The knowledge is lost? Of the rest, I mean.’
‘No man can understand or accumulate the knowledge of so many generations. Over hundreds of years the Keepers of this hall have tried to learn as much as possible in order that their knowledge can be passed on, but gradually they have lost a fragment here, a spell there, the keys to many languages, and thus the loss of whole walls of magic rites. Among some of the more recent writings I have found the keys to older runes; and among
them
the key to older runes still. But always the trail ends, and one finds that only the first few yards have been understood. I have searched the ancient spells for one that would help you, and I have discovered only one way to release yourself, written in the very recent past in the runes of a strange race from the warm sea that lies half a year’s ride southwards.’