Exodus of the Xandim (GOLLANCZ S.F.) Page 9

  Seeing the scowl on Taine’s face, Aelwen took the initiative before he could speak again. ‘We are cautious because we are fugitives,’ she explained, ‘fleeing from the Phaerie. We are under a sentence of death in Eliorand, so every stranger must seem a threat – even one who has just saved our lives.’

  A keen light kindled in those wise old eyes. ‘You are fleeing Hellorin? Then all is well, my friends. If you are foes of the Forest Lord you will have nothing to fear from me, for he is my enemy also.’

  Aelwen could see the struggle taking place in Taine’s eyes. What happened to you, my love, in all our years apart, to make you so wary? she thought. For the first time, it occurred to her that they were no longer the Taine and Aelwen of their youth, full of innocence and high ideals. Time and absence had made changes in them both.

  A frisson of unease went through her. Then, to her relief, Taine exhaled with a sigh and his tense posture relaxed a little. ‘Forgive my suspicion, sir,’ he said. ‘For many years my life has depended on wariness and vigilance. Such is the price for enmity with Hellorin.’

  The ancient one nodded. ‘I understand all too well the bitter price you have paid, my friend, for I too have paid, and still am paying now. But let us go inside. The ghosts cannot enter this place. Though it is not exactly comfortable, at least you can rest and, if you will, we can relate why and how we all came to be here.’ He stepped forward and laid his hand on the curved stone of the strange structure and spoke a word in a language Aelwen did not understand. Beneath his hand a doorway appeared, a narrow archway with utter darkness beyond. ‘Come,’ he said, gesturing them to follow. ‘I will lead the way so that you may have light.’

  Aelwen ducked inside, leaving Taine no option but to follow. Whatever was inside, could it be worse than what awaited them out here in this haunted forest? She could only take the chance that it would not.

  6

  ~

  THE SORROW OF THE DWELVEN

  Aelwen followed the old man quickly, ducking under the low arch, eager to be out of the clearing. Taine followed, sword still in his hand. Once they were safely inside, the door closed behind them, vanishing as if it had never been.

  She felt the change as soon as she had crossed the threshold. The waves of fury and menace fell away as though they had been cut off with a knife. The pain from Aelwen’s many wounds vanished abruptly, and when she looked down at herself in the light that surrounded the old one, she realised with a shock that the injuries had gone too. The bleeding had stopped. Her skin was smooth, whole and unblemished, and even the rents in her tattered clothing had somehow disappeared, the cloth and supple leather just as they had been before the attack. Wonderingly, she looked at Taine, and found him as uninjured as herself, though the expression of utter bafflement on his face must, she thought, be a mirror image of her own.

  It was as though the attack had never happened.

  It was as though the ghosts had never been.

  Aelwen turned wondering eyes towards the ancient one, but before she could do more than draw in a breath to frame her question, he had answered her. ‘You see these runes? This place is protected by very powerful spells. The ghosts may not enter here, and nor can any evil that they have done.’

  ‘But – but what about when we leave? Will all those hurts come back?’

  ‘No, my dear. Your injuries have been healed by the spells set about this place, and after I have told you the tragic history of those phantoms, it may be that your fear will be diminished also. And if you truly do not fear them, they will never be able to harm you again.’

  Much as she liked this old one, Aelwen felt that she’d be reluctant to put his statement to the test. Curiously, she looked around this chamber that held such power, finally taking in all the details. Another shock ran through her like a cold, bright bolt of lightning. ‘It’s a tomb!’

  The curving walls were the same grey stone as the exterior, carved all over with more of the glimmering runes – but in the centre stood a raised tomb of pure white marble. Incised into the lid was a complex symbol bordered by more of the incomprehensible runes, and carved beneath in Phaerie letters were two words:

  ‘KALDATH. TRAITOR.’

  Taine and Aelwen moved closer together, and the stranger sighed. ‘I suppose I cannot fault your unease, after what you have experienced tonight, but you can rest easy, my children. There are no dead here. This tomb is empty, and nothing more than Hellorin’s idea of a cruel jest. You see, long ages ago, he consigned me to a living death here on this island, as a warder of the ghosts you have seen and felt tonight. I am Kaldath, and this is my tomb, set here to remind me daily of my fate.’

  Now it was Taine’s turn to gasp. ‘I’ve just realised where we are – or I think I have. And we both would have realised sooner, when we saw those spectres, if they had left us any chance to think. Is this the Haunted Isle?’

  Kaldath gave a deprecating shrug. ‘Could it be anywhere else? There are precious few other islands on this river.’

  ‘So the legends are true.’ Without thinking, Aelwen sat down on the edge of the tomb. This news, coming on top of all the shocks and alarms of the past hour, left her feeling a little shaky – and it was hardly surprising. All the Phaerie, Hemifae and Pureblood alike, had grown up with the horrific tales of this place, a long, narrow island in the middle of the border river. It was said to have been formed from thousands of corpses, the mound of flesh and blood and bone turned into stone and soil, by Hellorin’s magic. Thus the Forest Lord had dealt with his enemies – though who they had been or what they had done had been hidden, forgotten or lost. It was said, however, that no Phaerie could survive a night on the island, for after dark all the ghosts of the slaughtered ones would come forth, thirsting for vengeance. Aelwen had always thought the whole legend nothing more than a tale to frighten gullible children. Tonight, she had learned the truth.

  ‘But where do you fit into the story, sir?’ Taine asked. ‘If you are not a ghost, why are you imprisoned here?’

  ‘First of all we should tell Kaldath who we are,’ Aelwen interrupted, ignoring Taine’s almost imperceptible shake of the head. ‘My name is Aelwen and my companion is Taine, and as you already know, we have become enemies of the Forest Lord. How that happened, and the reason we apported so abruptly onto your island – well, that is a long and complicated tale.’

  ‘Then you must make yourselves as comfortable as you can, Aelwen and Taine,’ Kaldath said, ‘for I can see that you are weary. For all these centuries I have needed neither sustenance nor sleep, though I have missed them greatly, but unless I miss my guess, you need both food and rest. Do you have any provisions?’

  ‘Enough to get by,’ Taine answered. ‘And as for comforts, this place will serve us just as it is. We are only too glad to be safe.’ Aelwen noticed the change in his attitude. He was beginning to warm to Kaldath, and she was glad.

  The two travellers did their best to settle themselves. Fortunately, the air within the tomb was not cold, for the structure had no ventilation, so they were unable to make a fire. They sat with their backs to the tomb, stretching their legs out gratefully, and began to unwrap their provisions. Aelwen took a long drink from her water flask. While the ghosts had been attacking, fear had dried her mouth and throat, and now she was safe, she was suddenly conscious of a raging thirst.

  Kaldath sat opposite them, with his back against the curving wall of the mausoleum. For a moment he said nothing. His head was bowed, as though he was concentrating on the hands that were folded in his lap, but his gaze was inward, seeing people and places that had vanished long ago. Then, seemingly with a great effort, he came back to the present, raised his eyes and looked at Taine and Aelwen.

  ‘I am extremely old,’ he began. ‘So old that you would find it impossible to imagine all the years I have lived. My father was with Hellorin before the Phaerie even came to this mundane world, when we dwelt in another dimension of existence known as the Elsewhere.’

  ‘The Elsew
here?’ Aelwen had not intended to interrupt, but the question burst out of her in sheer surprise.

  Kaldath, slightly put out at her interjection, looked at her sharply. ‘How do you know of the Elsewhere? Our origins ceased to be common knowledge among the Phaerie long ago. Hellorin wished it to be so.’

  Aelwen took a deep breath to explain, then thought better of it. Maybe Taine’s wariness was contagious, but she found herself reluctant to tell Kaldath about the Windeye of the Xandim and her search for the Fialan, until she knew more about him. ‘The explanation is long and complicated, and I fear it must wait for our part of the tale,’ she said, ‘but suffice it to say that a friend of ours has been there before, and returned there just before we came to this place, with another of our companions.’

  Her brows drew together as a spasm of worry gripped her. In the shocks and dangers of the past few hours, she had almost forgotten Corisand and Iriana. Were they all right? Had they succeeded in their mission? Had they been able to return from the Elsewhere? So much of the sketchy plan that had been thrown together in haste in Athina’s tower depended on them.

  Kaldath’s voice pulled her out of her reverie. ‘I cannot believe this to be possible, and my mind is a whirl of questions.’ He sighed. ‘I said I would tell you my history first, however, and I will hold to that.’

  ‘It may make the telling easier if I say that we know how the Phaerie came here from the Elsewhere. We know about the Moldai, and the Stone of Fate.’

  Kaldath’s mouth fell open. ‘But how . . . ?’ With an effort he collected himself. ‘I am beginning to realise that more than chance brought you here to me. Maybe your desperate apport was not as random as you thought, Aelwen. I believe that fate, or some other influence, has played a part.’

  The image of Athina immediately flashed into Aelwen’s mind – but surely that couldn’t be – could it? The kindly Creator who’d broken all the laws of her own kind to befriend the Windeye and her companions had been exiled from this world by her brethren, for meddling with its fate. And yet . . . Aelwen knew how much the Cailleach had cared about this world she had created; had cared about – nay, loved – Dael, the mortal slave she’d rescued and adopted, for a brief, doomed, happy time, as her own son. If there was any chance that she could reach out and help she would, disregarding the risks to herself.

  Kaldath was still speaking, and Aelwen wrenched her thoughts back to concentrate on the here and now.

  ‘That you know of these matters will certainly shorten my tale,’ he said, ‘for it will save us a number of tedious explanations. There is one race you have not mentioned, however. You say you are aware of the Elsewhere and the Moldai, but do you also know of the Dwelven?’

  Taine swallowed a mouthful of jerky and shook his head. ‘That part of the tale we have not heard.’ He turned aside to Aelwen with a smile, and pointed at the untouched food in her lap. ‘Don’t forget to eat.’

  It was as if his words had unleashed her hunger. She took a huge bite of bread, but her eyes never left Kaldath as he continued. ‘I suspected you might not. No one will speak of them, neither the Phaerie, the Magefolk nor the Moldai, for there is blame and shame on all sides. The Moldai failed to protect their companions, permitting Hellorin to snatch them away into slavery, and the Magefolk and Phaerie – well, you will hear that presently.

  ‘The Dwelven and the Moldai had close ties, like the Phaerie and the mortals, save for one fundamental difference: the Dwelven were not slaves. The relationship was far more complex; symbiotic, if you will, based much more on love than power. And just as the Moldai were not shaped like the Phaerie, the Dwelven had different forms from mortals. They were – well, you saw their spectres here tonight. You know what they looked like.’

  ‘Those creatures?’ Taine said. ‘But as far as I could see there seemed to be two entirely different types, the quick, lithe ones and the heavy ones with the rounded carapaces. Surely they cannot be the same race.’

  ‘Yet they are. As they grow older they change from one form to the other. The quick, lithe ones, as you call them, are known as the Sidrai. They are the younger Dwelven. This is how they start their lives. They are the warriors, the foragers, the artisans. When they reach a certain age – about a hundred and fifty years, in our terms – they metamorphose.

  ‘When a group is ready to make the transformation, for siblings from the same hatching tend to change more or less at the same time, they find themselves becoming sleepy and slow. Then there is a ceremony, and all their friends come, both to celebrate and perhaps weep a little too for, as with any of the great transformations in our existence, there is some sorrow for what is being left behind, as well as joy in the expectation of what is to come. The Oredai, the other type of Dwelven, are there also. They dig special chambers, one for each of the Sidrai, deep within the rock underground, and the Sidrai are sealed within. They sink into oblivion for a long time – almost a year – and when they awake they have transformed. They dig their way out of the chambers to where the other Oredai are waiting to welcome them, and help them begin their new lives.

  ‘The Oredai are the miners, who can dig through solid rock with their powerful claws and forelimbs. It is they who make the underground dwellings and shelters for themselves and their Sidrai brethren, and they who mine metals and gems for the Sidrai to work and trade. They also bear the young. Before it metamorphoses, a Sidran will mate many times – they are hermaphrodite, both male and female together, so that all of them can form eggs, and all can fertilise. The eggs remain within them, very small and undeveloped, until the Sidrai transform. Then each of the Oredai will dig a nursery, wall itself up inside, and tend the eggs until they hatch – as Sidrai. They are then returned to the Sidrai community to learn and grow, and the whole cycle begins all over again.’ While Kaldath had been speaking of the Dwelven he had been looking far away into his memories. Now he raised his head and looked at his new companions.

  Aelwen had been utterly absorbed in his tale, and now found herself sitting with her partly eaten chunk of bread in her hand, half-lifted to her mouth. She took a bite, wondering how long she’d been holding it there. Taine was frowning. ‘You said that neither the Phaerie nor Magefolk nor Moldai would talk about the Dwelven because there was shame on both sides,’ he said. ‘So tell me, how were the Magefolk involved in this? What did Hellorin do to the Dwelven and why did the Moldai permit it? Or was it that they simply couldn’t stop him?’

  A mirthless smile, almost a grimace, passed across Kaldath’s face. ‘I see you know the Forest Lord well.’

  ‘Too well, and to my cost,’ Taine said grimly.

  Aelwen was about to protest that Hellorin was not all bad: he could be good-humoured, charming and generous, he was protective of his people and a good ruler of the Phaerie, for under his auspices his people had flourished. One only needed to observe the chaos that had befallen his realm in his absence to see that. He had loved his lifemate, Estrelle, Aelwen’s Pureblood half-sister, beyond everything, and his son and daughter too. He’d loved and nurtured his horses . . .

  His slaves.

  At that moment, she realised that the driving force behind Hellorin, his real love, was power. He could afford to be kind and generous to those in his sway, but if they opposed him, another, darker side of his character emerged. Power was what he craved, to the point of enslaving entire races. With a shudder she realised that though he had been content for a time within the realm he had carved out in the mundane world, that state of affairs would not, could not last, especially now that he’d come so close to regaining the Fialan. A chill struck her heart as she finally understood that he would never stop now until he had regained the Stone – and if he succeeded, he would stretch out his hand to enslave the Wizards, then the other Magefolk, only ceasing when he held the whole world in his grasp.

  He had to be stopped.

  Someone had to stop him, and that staggering responsibility had landed squarely on the shoulders of herself and her companions.
<
br />   ‘Aelwen?’ Taine touched her face gently, and she came out of her dreadful thoughts to see the concern in his eyes. ‘Are you all right? You went absolutely white. Are you still hurt somehow?’

  ‘I’m all right. I’m sorry. I was thinking about Hellorin, and . . .’ She shuddered. ‘Never mind. It’s just that I suddenly realised exactly what we were up against.’

  ‘The Forest Lord is a formidable enemy, as we all know to our cost,’ Kaldath said. ‘Even to beings as mighty as the Moldai. You know that when the Stone of Fate was made, the Moldai included a spell that the Phaerie could never complete, so the Fialan would never be completely in Hellorin’s power?’

  Taine and Aelwen nodded.

  ‘In his rage, the Phaerie Lord swore to be revenged upon them. When he brought his own people into this world he cast a spell to bring the Dwelven also, sundering them for ever from the Moldai. Ghabal, to his credit, even though he was driven insane as the titanic forces of the Fialan opened a portal between the Elsewhere and this realm, tried to protect them, wresting them away from Hellorin’s control. But they emerged from the Moldan’s shattered peak in the mundane world, and the Magefolk, having never seen their like before, believed them to be responsible for the disaster.

  ‘The Winged Folk, who dwelt closest to what is now known as Steelclaw, feared some kind of invasion from unknown beings from beneath the ground. They called on their allies the Wizards to use their powers of Earth to help them, and the Wizards cast a spell that would seal them beneath Steelclaw’s remains. Unfortunately, Hellorin discovered their whereabouts and, since they were already confined by magic, they could not escape him. He broke the Wizards’ spells and enslaved the Dwelven, taking them to the mountains to the north of Eliorand, to mine the gems that the Phaerie use so freely, for ornament and for trade.’