The Sword of Feimhin (7 page)

Standing on a desert island, just one of the archipelago of a thousand islands that was the equivalent of the Garg royal city, Alan Duval watched the welcoming of the dawn by Shah-nur-Kian, mother of the Garg prince Iyezzz and queen of the Eyrie Gargs. He would never get used to the fact that Gargs had no use for roads or houses, or towns and cities for that matter. They revered all that was natural, inhabiting a metropolis of sand and rock and caves which, to a human without the ability to fly, was a labyrinth. In the sand, by his bare feet, Alan noticed the zigzag trails left by some sort of sidewinder snake. He wondered whether a Garg would avoid treading on that imprint, imagining its natural origin might be sacred to them in some way. He returned his attention to the silhouetted figure ahead, watching closely as she turned her back on the landscape to venerate the rising sun, which within a few minutes of the dawn, was already three quarters above the liquid-gold
line of the oceanic horizon. He saw Shah-nur-Kian lift her head to the sky as if studying the wisps of cloud or the strength and direction of the coastal breezes. Mind-to-mind, he heard her dutiful homage as the sea took fire, the golden incandescence devouring the tall, erect outline of the Queen.

Over the naked prow of her breastbone, between the powerful pectoral muscles that tensed as she opened her eight-foot span of wings, she bore the radiant gold-and-turquoise regalia of her royal rank. Her scaly, grey, membranous wings were tattooed with emblematic scenes of the dawn on her left and the ocean and its inhabitants on her right. Glistening arcs of those same royal colours decorated her great bulbous eyes; gold above the left and turquoise above the right.

Her voice was deeply melodic, incanting a repetitive psalm. Alan caught snatches of meaning. It was a hymn to the deities of dawn, sun and moon, which were the daughter-sisters of the Creator-of-All.

Taking his cue from the nearby Iyezzz he bowed his head, honoured to be there, but also puzzled at the honour.

What is it? What's really going on here?

As if reading his mind, the Garg prince explained: ‘Mahhh-nur-Sakkk, Sacred Lady of Tide and Oceans, saved the ancestors from drowning in the great flood, which was sent to punish the first people, who built the City of the Ancients. She did so by conferring wings upon them, so they could ride the storm that was to come. And here, in
Utna-Harruscum, the place of sanctuary, the ancestors of the Eyrie People made sacred these islands, which were birthed from the consummation of golden desert and the blue ocean.'

Alan was careful to demonstrate his respect for the Garg way of thinking. He now regarded Iyezzz as a true friend. The prince had shown himself to be both brave and resourceful in leading them out of a perilous swamp, helping Alan to find Kate after she had escaped from the Tower of Bones. How he wished that Kate was there right now! The Gargs respected her a lot more than they did him, and he was only just beginning to understand how much they revered her, with her emerald-green Oraculum of the Second Power: the power of healing and birth itself. Kate had greened the wasted lands of the Gargs, restoring life to the sacred tree. But she had left him to go back to the city of Ulla Quemar, the only surviving city of the Cill, where their leader, the Momu – a strange being that Alan had met in the cave of the City of the Ancients – was dying. She felt she had to help the Cill by saving the Momu.

Kate! I need you here!

Later today, Alan and his company would be heading for a formal confrontation with Iyezzz's father, Zelnesakkk, the Garg king. That meeting would decide whether or not the Gargs would help them invade the Wastelands to take the war to the gates of the Tyrant's capital city, Ghork Mega.

Alan should have been spending time preparing for the
meeting, discussing tactics with the young Kyra, Ainé, her spiritual adviser, Bétaald, and his friends, Mo and Qwenqwo. Instead, Iyezzz had enticed him here to observe this ritual of veneration by his royal mother, Zelnesakkk's wife. Alan knew that Iyezzz understood how critical the help of the Gargs was likely to be – and that suggested that Iyezz had a reason beyond the obvious for bringing him here.

Alan took a deep breath, reining in his frustration.

The estuary was vast and windswept, but still hauntingly beautiful in the morning light. It was icy cold, with dew twinkling like diamonds in the fronds of lichens, coating those spiky, rocky outgrowths that sprang upwards like miniature steeples.

Alan turned to Iyezzz, keeping his voice low: ‘Your father – surely he's not opposed to helping us?'

‘Do not imagine that my father has forgotten the Vale of Tazan. And he values the advice of the high shaman, Mahteman.'

‘You think Mahteman will be difficult?'

‘Yeshhh.'

Alan knew that the Gargs still referred to him as Duval the Slayer following the bloody battle at the ruined sanctuary of Ossierel. Thousands of Garg warriors had died there fighting Alan and an army of Shee, including Iyezzz's brother and Zelnesakkk's eldest son. It was asking a lot of the Eyrie People to help their former enemies now in an endeavour that might prove even more hazardous than Ossierel.

Alan and the invading army of Shee were now intent on destroying the Tyrant once and for all. Zelnesakkk and the wily shaman Mahteman were well aware of how dangerous that undertaking would be, given that the Tyrant had access to the Fáil. He would always be one, maybe several, steps ahead of them. And that, in turn, made the help of the Gargs vitally important. They knew this landscape: they could scout ahead and fly above obstacles that might be dangerous, or impenetrable, to forces that had no option but to advance on land.

Tense, shivering with cold, Alan reflected on the quandary that faced him while observing how, over several minutes, the emblematic patterns on the Queen's wings underwent a series of changes in colour and pattern. He had been mistaken to think them tattoos. The colours were, intead, generated by the scales of her skin; like the colours of a butterfly's wings. The display was mesmerising. Shah-nur-Kian controlled the chameleon-like changes within her own being. What an amazing visual devotion to the Sacred Lady of Tide and Oceans!

‘I'm glad you brought me here, Iyezzz.'

Iyezzz flushed a plum purple over his entire skin. It was a statement of emotion, accompanied by a musky scent exuded from his scent glands. When he spoke, his voice hissed through the gill-like slits that vibrated in his elongated throat. ‘The Queen performs this ritual to honour you. She alone has the power and grace to do so without needing the permission of the King.'

Shah-nur-Kian sprang from the cliff-top, her wings beating the air powerfully, slowly, to give her lift, then she soared out over the glittering gold waves. Alan glanced towards Iyezzz, thinking about what he had said, but the Garg prince revealed nothing more, his reptile-like eyes hooded and his features blank.

A hundred thousand Shee warriors would accompany Alan on the landward journey. They would be commanded by Ainé and Bétaald. The Shee would be assisted by half as many aides, the strange, largely silent women who played many important supportive roles to the Shee. All those lives would be placed at risk under Alan's command.

Alan stared at the distant cruciform figure of the queen under a sky that was a patchwork of cotton-wool clouds, which caused her silhouette to move between a mixture of azure and shadow.

Maybe she's looking for something. Perhaps a sign?

Iyezzz cried out. His wing talon pointed far away, into the distance, where the great ball of the sun was lifting free of the horizon.

Flying fish – a great school of them – had erupted from the ocean. The shimmering cloud of silver bodies merged flight trajectories with Shah-nur-Kian, chasing her graceful leadership. They rose and fell in a giant delta-shaped cloud. As they circled against the golden glow of the rising sun, coming closer and closer to where Alan and Iyezzz observed them, the rain from their wings ensheathed the queen in myriad rainbows of iridescence.

Iyezzz was trembling with emotion.

Alan sensed some profound communication, body to body, spirit to spirit, between the prince and the queen. Iyezzz drew his tall body erect, throwing his wings wide.

He was humming, as if in unspoken prayer, through the vibrating clefts of his gills.

*

‘What is the gain from such a perilous enterprise for the Eyrie nation?' Zelnesakkk demanded of Alan.

‘Honour – redemption.' Iyezzz interrupted.

The King snorted. ‘Have we not already afforded you and your army of witch warriors every assistance? Your fleet is cluttering up the bay; we have not hindered your army disembarking; you go about your purpose unchecked – what more can you possibly expect of us?'

Alan gazed around at the extraordinary setting in which the Garg elders were gathered. There was a crescent of basalt columns low enough to provide seating for those who chose not to stand, and landwards, the backdrop was an encircling cliff of much taller columns, some of them hundreds of feet high. Amidst this, tiny blue rock flowers blossomed, like furtive eyes peering up out of the shadows. Whether the Gargs had done a little sculpting of the natural, Alan couldn't say, but he had no doubt that the choice of place was another example of the Garg passion for nature.

‘Sire,' he said, ‘you know that our enemy is your enemy. The Tyrant can hardly be unaware that you helped us defeat
the Witch – his ally. What do you think he will do to you if he wins this war? Do you think he'll come here and offer trade?'

The King shook his bat-like head, causing the heavy, jowled cheeks to wobble. ‘You scorn us with your sarcasm, but it is not as simple as you paint it.'

Seekers were flying in and out of the Garg-inhabited caverns in the surrounding cliffs. They were so abundant that Alan wondered if the place was the site of origin of these bird-like spies.

The King had insisted on keeping a certain distance between him and Alan, which allowed his shaman, Mahteman, and others among his advisers, to be close enough to whisper in his ear. Was he aware that Alan was capable of reading their minds – of eavesdropping on their whispered conversations? Was the King testing Alan and his respect for their privacy?

The King spoke again, loud enough for the entire assembly to hear. ‘We have suffered enslavement – and worse – for tens of thousands of years. Briefly have we tasted this freedom, yet you would press us to risk this in your cause. What you are really asking of me, of the entire Eyrie nation, is that we risk annihilation.'

‘We risk the same fate.'

‘But your need is not ours. The continent of Monisle, with its witch warriors, has been at war with the Tyrant for thousands of years. Your purpose has ever been as it remains today – to destroy him. What you demand of us
would mark out a very new purpose, and danger, for our race.'

‘Father,' Iyezzz spoke from his position between Alan and the king. ‘I would ask that you allow Shah-nur-Kian to speak.'

Alan stiffened. Was this the opportunity that Iyezzz and the queen were waiting for? Would she explain whatever sign she had drawn from her dawn communion with Mahhh-nur-Sakkk, the Sacred Lady of Tide and Oceans?

The king turned to bow to his wife who stood beside him with her head held high and her regalia gleaming, but he did not invite her to speak. Instead he turned his eyes in the direction of Mahteman, who lowered his head to stare down at the sand between his feet.

Alan sighed. Perhaps neither king nor shaman needed the queen to explain, because they knew already. They, or their spies, would have observed the queen in every minutiae of her dawn ritual.

The wily king climbed to his feet. ‘We shall pause for refreshment. While we do so, I shall take counsel with my advisers, as you, Duval the Slayer, might take the same opportunity to consult with yours.'

*

Returning to his own camp, Alan could hardly control his disappointment. He couldn't really blame the Gargs for their reluctance to engage in this coming war. They had lost half their armies at the battle for Ossierel, when the Gargs had been allies of the Tyrant's own legions and Alan
and the Fir Bolg had been their mortal enemies. Now they were asking these same people to join forces in fighting the Tyrant in his capital city, Ghork Mega, some three-hundred leagues to the north of the Garg kingdom. It was true that the king had allowed them to move their advance party from its limited beachhead, surrounded by impassable marshes, and make a much easier landing in this sheltered bay. The main fleet now lay out to sea, a vast army of sails filling up the spaces between the islands. But as yet they dared not land. And all the while they were losing time.

Alan felt nauseous with doubt as he watched Mo, Turkeya and Iyezzz leave the camp to explore some nearby cave-dotted hills. He found himself joined by Qwenqwo and Ainé at the moving hinterland of the surf, where the brisk shore breezes fidgeted with the grasses growing out of the black volcanic soil about them.

The Kyra was uneasy in the proximity of so many Gargs. They were joined by Bétaald, who was the first to speak.

‘You must understand the Gargs' fear. All of their lives, and for countless generations past, the greatest power – a god-like, if ultimately malignant power – has ruled their every thought and action. Now you, a stranger, demand that they go to war against that same power.'

The breeze was building up. It dried the sweat on his brow even as it formed. Alan shrugged. ‘I have the feeling that they are waiting for something. But for the life of me I can't figure what it might be.'

‘Perhaps they await the return of Kate?'

‘They're not alone.'

‘Have you no word from her?'

‘Nothing.'

Kate was lost to him again – as if they had never been united at the sacred pool, in the City of the Ancients. The thought infuriated Alan. Where was she when he really needed her to be by his side? And Mark too – Mark who had cleared off on a desperate errand, determined to persuade the Temple Ship to take him back to Earth. And for what? To discover whether or not he was still alive. For a moment, Alan was lost in thinking about his friends, both armed with their own oracula of power, wishing that they were here to help persuade the Garg king.