The Bitterbynde Trilogy (195 page)

The clipper's slim bows slid into a deep natural harbour, a rocky sound. There, between high cliffs of gaunt stone, she came about. The indigo-coloured sails lost the wind, hanging in great soft loops from the yards, their golden lion devices obscured by the folds. From the gently canting deck, crewmen clewed in the canvas, hauling hard on the lines, throwing back their heads to squint up at masts so tall they tapered like ladders into the sky. The anchor was lowered with a rattle of iron chain. Ropes were flung ashore and tied to trees and rocks. As the first mate barked orders, landhorses and baggage-laden packhorses were led down a ramp from the fo'c'sle where they had been stabled, and across the gangplank onto dry land.

The passengers mounted their steeds. The expedition set off, winding northwards through the landscape of tall stones and natural, granite-lined wells.

The news of the Geata Poeg na Déanainn had spread rapidly, and all creatures of eldritch were by now aware of the possibility that a way back to the Fair Realm might indeed exist. All the Faêran knew it, but only a few mortals had been made party to the knowledge. The tidings had not been broadcast among the mortal populace of Erith, for the Faêran considered it was their own business and not a matter to be bandied about by gossiping humankind.

Thus it was that few mortals rode amongst the company. The ninety Faêran lords and nine Faêran ladies of Eagle's Howe accompanied the expedition, and Thomas of Ercildoune and Roxburgh as well, and Alys beside her lusty husband, although Istoren Giltornyr had remained at Caermelor with Richard of Esgair Garthen. With such a fellowship no force of mortal wizardry or men-at-arms was required, and besides, who would stand against them now? Nonetheless the two powerful carlins Ethlinn and Maeve had come to Arcdur, and the best knights of the Dainnan. And there was Sianadh, who had lost his Windship in a card game and, undeterred, was looking for excitement; and four of Silken Janet Trenowyn's unruly brothers, who had gained some fey qualities while under the influence of enchantment, and who sought the same goal as the Ertishman.

Yet it seemed to Ashalind that she and Angavar were escorted only by the mortals of the retinue, for the Faêran passed noiselessly and swiftly among the monoliths, as outriders. She caught only fleeting glimpses of them riding through the landscape on either hand, and they seemed to her like beautiful images in watercolour, painted on the most fragile of tissue, so ephemeral they were already fading into the rain-washed pines, the rills that tumbled, tinkling, through jumbled stones and the moss that clambered over the rocks.

Cradled in the interstices between the monoliths, mists nestled like teased handfuls of raw silk. Lichen, like pale blue-green forests in miniature, clung to rocks. Heat and cold had worked upon the rocks of Arcdur's bones. Flakes of granite which had split from the parent boulders lay like tiny islands of lichenous leafage. At their old sites, clean-cut shapes remained; perfectly matched facets of pink rock.

Arcdur's outward appearance had not altered much since Ashalind's last visit—save in one marked respect. Throughout all her journeys through the lands of Erith, she had been accustomed to seeing wild birds and beasts flee at the approach of humankind. Now, on the contrary, the creatures of the wilderness came eagerly to the sound of their horses' hooves. Birds flew close and alighted on rocky ledges within arm's reach. At whiles Angavar would bid Errantry fly far off. Then he would raise his hand and small birds would come down to perch on his wrist. Sleek foxes and untame, topaz-eyed goats emerged from crevices to watch the riders pass. Lethargic snakes uncoiled. Glittering beetles spangled the air and lost themselves in the arcane drifts of Angavar's hair. Even nocturnal animals roused themselves and came forth from their hiding places to greet the Faêran riders and their King.

If the outer character of the land had changed but little, all else was different. Once, the scars and crags and granite stacks of Arcdur had withstood the attacks of wind and water with equanimity, even indifference. They had stood dreaming for millennia, lost in some remote mineral reverie, wreathed, from time to time, by mists, while year by year the ancient lichens flourished and grew on their hides at a pace so slow as to be apparent to no mortal creature.

Now, it seemed to Ashalind, the stones had awakened, and the trees and the waters also. She sensed a watchfulness, an excitement, everywhere. The air and the ground seemed charged with a kind of eldritch awareness. It was not difficult to guess the cause. Now that Angavar had thrown off his mortal guise and allowed his identity to be known, there was no thing unliving or living, no entity either
lorraly
or eldritch, that could be near him and not be stirred by the presence of that elemental power. As birds and beasts were attracted by this fair company, so also were the incarnations of eldritch. They, who typically would have fled or vanished in the blink of an eye, now showed themselves openly.

Large numbers of wights were seen by the mortals of the retinue. Many more were visible to the anointed eyes of Ashalind, and she saw they were diverse: hideous and fair, malign, tricksy and beneficent. She shuddered, and was thankful that she rode in the company of one who might subdue them all, if he chose.

Lesser wights crowded in rocky crevices or lingered on gravelly shingles by the brinks of winking pools. The waters of those pools would flurry momentarily. Sly eyes squinted from beneath sills. Beside a pebbly beck, the ferns abruptly twitched and nodded, as if something had waited amongst them but was already gone. Seated high on giant boulders, in places impossible for mortals to reach save by mountaineering or the use of sildron, pale damsels serenely combed their hair. At times, faint snatches of music rose from beneath the horses' hooves. Every shadow, every gnarled trunk, every crag seemed inherently, subtly, to harbour some manifestation. Every well and water sheltered some weird distillation, and if one watched for long enough, the lines of the land might shift to reveal another form. Even when the wind soughed through the pine needles, it sang with voices other than its own.

Angavar was fully aware of the attention, and permitted it, and did not ask for salutations or other acknowledgments of his sovereignty. That was not the way of the Faêran. That he alone was the ultimate sovereign of gramarye was incontrovertible. It needed no further proof, no validation.

From horizon to horizon, this country afforded an almost unimpeded view of the sky. The cloudscape arrayed it with awesome spectacle. Purple-grey cumulonimbi were piling up to great heights, crowding in from the west, borne on the back of a keen salt wind. They overtook the sun, blotting it out, haloed in silver by its hidden light. A dim veil of shadow crept across the landscape. Three strands of hair escaped from Ashalind's headdress and fluttered about her cheeks. A heaviness weighed down the air, a presentiment of rain. Like the quick stab of a pin, a single, miniature water-drop fell on the back of her hand.

Angavar was riding ahead of her, leading the party, for the country was so rocky they must progress in single file. The goshawk rode on his shoulder. She saw Angavar glance skywards. That was all—he did not gesture with his hands, nor did he call out some incantation. If he murmured any words at all, she was unable to catch them.

The wind veered. It swung around to the south, and now, overhead, the towering castles of mist were moving with it, as though on wheels. They billowed and altered shape, seeming to slowly explode from within and reinvent themselves in fantastic forms. Ragged holes and rents appeared, letting sunlight fall through in patches. As the rain clouds drew away from the sun's cool face, a wash of pale gold spilled over the stony heights of Arcdur, rinsing bluish shadows through chinks of rock.

Ashalind's servants rode at her heels. She heard them murmur, ‘Behold,
he
has averted the storm.' Her maids and all the Dainnan remained in awe of him, of what he had become. Angavar turned in his saddle and smiled at his betrothed, and at the brilliance of that smile her heart was lit, and sped like a hunted thing.

‘Do we continue upon the right path?' he asked.

She nodded, endeavouring to calm her pulse. ‘I believe so.'

And indeed, recollection and some inner voice told her that their heading was correct, that somewhere to the north lay the place from which she had stumbled in the rain, long ago, driven from the delights of the Fair Realm of her own volition, gripped by a need to live in the same world as one whose face she had glimpsed through a window, more than a millennium ago.

Soon she would pass through the Gate at Angavar's side. Then she would ride into his world, a fantastic world, wild and strange, where dwelled her family, and her friends, and all the Talith who had abandoned Avlantia. She would meet them again, embrace them. And this time, she would stay.

The path which was not a path widened, and Angavar dropped back beside her. A small rock-goblin jumped squeaking from beneath the hooves of his Faêran steed. Angavar's laugh was captivating, contagious, and she must laugh with him.

But the landscape of Arcdur continued to roll monotonously by, offering no familiar sign to Ashalind.

‘Is it possible,' she said anxiously, ‘that the outward appearance of the Gate has changed during the years since I last saw it?'

‘Possible,' Angavar said, ‘but not probable. Wind and weather would not alter the stones much in such a short span, although if the ground has shifted, the angles of the rocks may have subtly altered—some may have fallen.'

‘But if a trembling of the ground has moved the foundations of the Gateposts, then the Gate itself may have snapped shut or been thrown wide open!'

‘Not so. The gramarye of the traverses is not easily tampered with. No mere quaking of the ground may open or close a Gate between the worlds. Be assured of it.'

It had taken several days for Ashalind to cross this region of Arcdur on foot, wandering pathless and weak from hunger. This time, the sun set only once upon her journey. That night they rode on for many leagues under the stars until the mortal riders grew weary.

The sky over Arcdur was filled with a jewelled splendour so brilliant, so vast, it was as though the land was roofed by a dome thickly encrusted with crystals in a multitude of sizes and intensities, prisms which split their own light into every twinkling colour.

‘There once was a time,' said Angavar as they rode on, ‘when the peoples of a world now in ruins dwelt in mighty cities so wreathed about with smoke and fume, nightly so ablaze with light powered by the harnessing of the energies of levin-bolts, that they could but dimly view the stars, if at all. These people of an era long past could not understand why their ancient poets praised the glories of the night, for they saw the stars merely as faded pinpricks in the crown of the firmament. Only by journeying to the highest desert places, furthest from their cities and closest to the sky, were they able to behold their stars as we now behold these of Erith. As for the stars of the Realm—why, those they glimpsed only in dreams.'

As he spoke, Ashalind watched him. His face glimmered with the sheen of far-off suns; his hair eclipsed them. Wonder and passion exulted her spirits with a force that was almost palpable. And it may be that the Faêran were sensible to such forces.

After a while, Angavar said, ‘I love thee. How I love thee.'

He chose to make their bivouac in the shelter of a great stand of arkenfirs, down among the roots where fragrant needles had fallen in layers season after season, building up deep, dry cushions. Bolts of satin were thrown over these cushions, and the softest of beds they made. Lights kindled themselves amongst the boughs, and fuelless fires sprang up, whose flames gave out gentle warmth yet did not blacken the resinous mulch. No silken pavilions blossomed, decked with proud banners to proclaim that this was the stopping place of a king. There was no need for shelter. The rain would not fall upon them, nor would any wind steal into their midst like a thief to pry at their garments with fluttering fingers, or slip keen edges between their ribs. It was not necessary to set a watch for danger.

Beneath the arkenfirs a feast was held. Afterwards the Dainnan found repose, and Ashalind's servants also, and Ercildoune and Roxburgh.

‘Good night,' whispered Angavar as he left Ashalind's side.

But she lay waking among her maids, twisting the leaf-ring about her finger.

‘Fear no harm from wights now, betrothed,' he had told her, ‘nor from any mortal creature. For when I am with thee, thou'rt safe from all harm. When I am not, I shall leave thee in the care of others who can protect thee, or else thou shalt bide in some secure place.'

Overhead the bristling boughs nodded, black against the pale night sky. She watched the stars moving in slow arcs of monstrous magnitude, uncounted miles away. She was tired, wanting to sleep, but she ached for Angavar's presence and her lids and ears were held open by the songs of the Faêran, whose forms she glimpsed like pastel glows drifting among the rock formations. For the Fair Ones did not sleep, not on this eve—she wondered whether they ever slept. All through the night they roamed in distant groups, singing songs so deeply moving they made her want to laugh and weep, and when she did find slumber, it was filled with the most poignant of dreams.

Next morning, the expedition crossed a ridge clothed with conifers. To the west, a glimmer along the horizon betrayed land's end, the ocean-washed shores. In a shallow valley below the ridge a clear beck chiselled its way through rocks of chalcedony. Their horses splashed through the water, kicking up spray which glittered like crystals threaded on a thousand silver filaments.

They were climbing then towards the sky, the wind soughing in their ears and pushing against their backs as though to nudge them on their way. Reaching the next hilltop they reined in to survey the land that lay before and below them. Errantry soared up and was lost in the sky's pearl-blue expanse. Choughs gliding on updraughts darted after winged beetles. The grey pallor of the stacks and chimneys was broken only by patches of pink lichen and a few stands of blue-green arkenfir. Wind chanted through the chinks in the formations. Running water chuckled and chimed. Hundreds of feet high, the stacks of Arcdur resembled dishes cooked in a monumental kitchen—one was formed like loaves of bread; further away, another towered like a pile of giant pancakes.