When the time came to trudge on, I jostled Tegid gently and we hauled ourselves upright, sore-footed and weak-legged, hoisting the heavy bundles upon our injured backs. Then, slow step by aching slow step, we continued on our way.
It seemed ages, eons since we had left the Phantarch’s chamber. It seemed to me as if we had walked in this dim underworld forever— lost spirits, wandering shades, neither completely dead nor fully alive, made to journey between the worlds, bearing the weight of our transgressions on our battered backs until the end of time.
After two more brief rest stops, I noticed the passage we were traversing began to rise under my feet, becoming gradually more steep. Shortly after this—or perhaps days later, I cannot say—we came to a divide. On the right-hand side, the river side, the water frothed from a nearly vertical shaft; the left-hand passage was dry, and this appealed to me. We turned aside from the river and its roaring water, and entered the left passageway.
We had not gone far when I noticed that the walls had begun to narrow, and the cavern ceiling over our heads had begun to lower. Soon I could touch either wall with outstretched hands, and I had to duck my head to keep from bumping it on the rock roof above me.
We were being squeezed into an ever more narrow constriction. The further we went, the closer grew the walls and the more cramped the passage between them. Had I made a mistake in leading us this way? Perhaps I had taken the wrong passage, or had missed the way far earlier on. Perhaps we were simply wandering, lost, through endless underground caverns, aimlessly navigating passages with neither beginning nor end.
Doubts swarmed my mind like hornets shaken from a rotten log. Fool! I cursed myself inwardly. What are you doing? Where are you going? What makes you think you can do anything? You are doomed! You are lost. Fool, for thinking you are a match for Lord Nudd and the Coranyid! Give up, little man!
I stopped and stood wondering: should we turn back, or go on? Turning back seemed the wisest thing to do. We could always return here if the other passage proved to be wrong. No one could have come this way. Yet . . . and yet . . .
I could not decide. And I could not bring myself to take another step one way or the other until I was certain. Brute stubbornness would not let me turn back; indecision would not let me proceed. So I stood rooted with uncertainty, and the hesitation was more painful to me than all the wounds I had endured so far. I simply could not bring myself to take another step until I knew beyond all doubt that we were on the right path. But knowing was impossible.
We might have been standing there yet if Tegid had not roused himself and said, “I see light ahead.”
I looked and saw that it was so. While I had stood frozen in doubt, the tunnel ahead had lightened somewhat. Tegid’s light-deprived eyes had noticed it first. But, even as I watched, the passageway lightened some more. The thin, spidery light was definitely growing brighter.
It was dawn in the outside world. We had traveled underground through the night, and now the passage ahead was becoming brighter because the sky outside was growing light. Had we turned back, we would have missed it, and we might never have found our way again.
It came to me then that my attack of doubt was a trick of Lord Nudd, a subtle attempt at turning us aside. But we had not succumbed to his ruse. We now knew the way before us was the true path and, what is more, that we were very near the end. In all events, we were very near the end of our strength.
“Courage,” I said, more to myself than to Tegid, “it is just a little further.”
That little, however, turned out to be the most difficult by far. The already narrow passageway was made more so by chunks of rock and boulder-sized slabs protruding from the walls. We were made to go on our stomachs and worm our way under the jutting obstructions; or, faces pressed to the cold rock slab, clamber laboriously over, dragging our burdens.
We struggled slowly ahead, keeping our eyes fixed upon the dim light filtering fitfully down the shaft. The grayed glow neither brightened nor did it fade, but shone steadily, if faintly, from somewhere ahead. On battered knees and bleeding elbows, we advanced. Dogged, determined, but never drawing nearer our destination.
The buskins on our feet had long since become soggy scraps of leather; our clothing hung on us in shreds; our faces were bathed in a grimy mist of sweat and blood. And, when my muscles no longer obeyed, when my blistered feet refused to shuffle another step further, when the very bones beneath my flesh cried out for breaking, we came to the end.
The passageway terminated in a blank wall. The light we had seen issued from a vertical shaft. Snowflakes sifted down from above, and we could hear the wind’s shivering shriek as it tore itself against the rocks of the entrance somewhere high above. To look at the climb we must make was to despair. And we were not the only ones whom despair had caught in that desperate place. For, as we lay down our bundles of stones and stood for a moment blinking in the light, Tegid motioned to a heap of cloth partially covered in drifted snow.
“Murder has overtaken one of her own,” he said, prodding the heap with his toe. “This one is long dead.”
I joined him as he stooped and rolled the cloak-wrapped body into the light. Tegid pulled away the stiffened cloth to reveal that the gray, frozen features, eyes wide and staring, mouth open in an expression of disbelief, belonged to Ruadh, the prince’s bard. I had seen him only once or twice but recognized him nonetheless.
“Did he fall?” I wondered, looking up into the shaft above.
“I think not,” Tegid said, lifting the cloak. A brown-black stain, now hardened, spread across the former bard’s chest. “Whoever was with him let him lead the way out and then killed him here to seal the secret.”
We knew now who had killed the Phantarch, and we knew also that Ruadh had not acted alone. “How did they know about this passage?” I wondered.
“That we will learn when we discover who was with Ruadh.” He rose and turned his face to the opening above. “Come, we can do nothing more here and we are needed elsewhere.”
Stepping beneath the opening, I cupped my hands and boosted Tegid into the shaft. He climbed, bracing his back against one side of the shaft and his feet against the other, then hunching himself upward until he disappeared into the white haze of light above.
And then . . . after an eternity, I heard him call to me from somewhere above. I roused myself and stood. The end of a rope dropped before my face, and Tegid, his voice faintly echoing, shouted, “Tie one of the bundles to the rope. I will haul it up.”
I watched as the first bundle swung slowly up. After the longest time, Tegid shouted again and dropped the rope for my second bundle. When that had cleared, it was my turn to climb. Using a loop in the rope, I boosted myself into the crevice. Then I followed Tegid’s example and hunched my way up the vertical shaft. Tegid stood waiting to haul me out of the pit, whereupon we both collapsed and lay panting in the deep-drifted snow at the sheltered entrance to the cavern. It was cold, and the wind sliced at our skin. But, after the noxious darkness and fetid underground air, the crisp cold felt like a blessing. It revived us and quickened us to our purpose.
We had emerged from a dry well which had at one time served the kitchens behind the hall. We could not see the gate and eastern rampart from our position, but we lay for a moment listening—above the wail of the restless wind we heard the hideous cries of the Coranyid and knew that they were still swarming outside the walls. We had returned in time.
I looked at the tattered bundles we had, at enormous sacrifice of toil and strength, raised from the Phantarch’s tomb. In the cold, dim light of a dark Sollen day those two lumpy bundles of stones seemed pitifully small, an impotent weapon to raise against such a fierce and relentless foe.
Tegid watched me for a moment, shivering. Then, placing a heavy hand on my shoulder, he pushed himself up onto his knees and struggled to his feet. “Come, it is cold out here, and I am beginning to miss my cloak.”
I stood on stiff legs and forced stiff hands to grasp the
knotted end of my bundle. “Very well,” I said, swinging the burden once more onto my back, “let us do what we have come to do.”
It was all I could do to remain upright, and almost more than I could do to force my wooden stumps to totter forward. I did not think about the cold, or how wretched and exhausted I was, nor what I would do if my ridiculous plan failed. Inside the hall, the hearthfire burned bright. I held this image in my mind and drove myself toward it. The sooner I delivered myself of my burden, the sooner I could sit before Meldryn Mawr’s fire and rest . . . blessed rest. In the end, that was all I cared about; the thought of a warm cup in my hand and dry clothing on my weary limbs, and rest, kept my battered carcass moving.
Step by plodding, weary step we crossed the yard and reached the wall. The warriors on the rampart gaped at us strangely. They gazed down upon us with expressions of awe and bewilderment. No one said a word.
I thought it odd and called them to help us lift our bundles to the rampart, but no one moved. “What is wrong with them?” I asked Tegid angrily. “Why do they stand staring like that? Can they not hear?”
“They heard you,” replied Tegid oddly.
“Well, are they frozen up there then?”
“No.” He shook his head slightly. “Neither are they frozen.”
“What then? Why do they not help us?”
He did not answer. Instead, he shifted the burden on his back and indicated the icy step. “Will you go first, or shall I?” he asked.
Up the icy steps we trudged. A condemned man ascending to the gallows could not know a steeper or more labored climb. Fatigue and lethargy seemed to descend upon my weary limbs like loops of iron chain. My legs trembled to support me. My heart labored in my chest; my breath burned my throat. I wanted nothing more than to release the bundle I bore on my back—how stupid to be carrying rocks! Certainly, a moment’s rest would do no harm.
Rest . . . rest and sleep . . .
No. There could be no rest, no sleep, until the work I had come to do was finished. One step at a time, and each step seemed to take a lifetime. Shivering with cold and exhaustion, I placed my foot on the next step and heaved myself up. Oh, but I was tired. So tired . . .
I glanced toward the rampart and saw the warriors still frozen in attitudes of amazement. Why did they not help me? Why did they stand looking on like that? Would no one lift a hand to help me?
Black mist gathered before my eyes, stealing the faces from me. I closed my eyes and raised my foot to the next step and missed the edge. I toppled forward and struck the step with my knee. The bundle on my back slipped sideways, almost pulling my arm from its socket. Every nerve and sinew screamed for me to release the knot I gripped so tightly, to let it go, let it fall. It was not worth my life, after all. My stiff hands would not obey, however; dead cold, they held numbly on.
The pain brought tears, which the wind froze, stinging my cheeks where they dried.
And although my knees throbbed, at least the pain drove away the black mist clouding my senses. I could see clearly again. Lifting my bundle of stones onto my back once more, I raised myself up and took the next step, and the next.
And then I was standing on the rampart, standing clutching my precious bundle, surrounded by astonished warriors—astonished by my monumental idiocy, apparently—swaying as the wicked wind raked my ragged clothes, slicing at my flesh.
I lurched to the breast of the wall and lowered my burden. Tegid stumbled to a place beside me, and we looked out over the wall to the swarming mass of Coranyid below. They were more vile and heinous than I remembered: great hulking toad-bodied red monstrosities dwarfing smaller spindle-shanked skeletal subcreatures, whole ranks of scaly reptilian fiends and hosts of naked, squatting, half-human imps with exaggerated genitals and shrunken heads, and more.
I saw the squirming, bloated, misshapen, mangled bodies and mocking, leering faces, and I burned with anger at their profane glee. I fell upon the bundle at my feet and began tearing at the knot, suddenly afraid that I had come too late, that no power on earth could halt the advance of evil that had been unleashed against us.
My hands clawed at the knot. It was twisted tight and frozen with the sweat from my hands and would not give. I whirled in desperation and snatched the spear from the hands of the nearest dumbstruck warrior. I slashed at the cloak with the spear, tearing at the cloth. The rocks spilled out onto the snow, dull and colorless in the foul light. Their drab appearance mocked me. Surely, I was mistaken. Suddenly my plan seemed absurd and pathetic. It could not but fail.
I raised my eyes and found Tegid watching me. He mistook my hesitation for deliberation and said, “Here, brother, allow me.” He reached out and selected one of the larger chunks of rock from the pile. “Begin with this one.” His confidence was not abated by the ordeal we had endured. If anything, his trust was the greater.
I took the stone between his hands, straightened, and turned to the breastwork of the wall. The wind gusted sharp, as if to tear the stone from my hands. The Coranyid surged like a wind-lashed sea around the base of the fortress, screaming, wailing, grasping with their awful hands. Revulsion and disgust swept through me. In one swift motion I raised the stone and sent it tumbling from the walltop onto the hateful heads of the Demon Host below.
I saw it spin as it fell. The demons scattered, and the stone struck the rocky escarpment below, shattering on impact.
Instantly, the air swelled with the sound—that incomparable sound of the hand-struck harp, that sustaining chord I had heard in the Phantarch’s chamber. The extraordinary sound burst from the stone which had contained it, shattering the air with an explosion of vibrant music.
The demon Coranyid scattered. Before they could regroup themselves, Tegid handed me another stone, and I sent that one sailing down after the first. The second stone struck the rocks below and gave forth a ringing, jubilant sound which rose up in shimmering waves, spreading from the point of impact as if to engulf the world.
Tegid had a third stone ready, while the air still reverberated with the strains. I heaved it over the walltop and it struck the ground, splitting into fragments. Each fragment gave forth a shimmering, silvery note of astounding beauty that echoed in the mountain peaks round about.
Those standing with us on the wall heard the sound and were transfixed. From out of the king’s hall, kinsmen poured into the yard. They stood in the snow, gazing up at the mountains now reverberating with strange and exquisite music.
I bent down, gathered an armful of stones, and pressed these into the hands of the nearest stupefied warriors. Tegid did the same, and, at my signal, we all threw our enchanted stones down upon the Coranyid. The unleashed sound burst forth in a thunderous peal of chorused exultation.
The demons shrank from the sound, withering before it like flesh before red-hot iron. They squirmed and writhed, howling, shrieking, dancing in their torment, falling over one another in their haste to escape the assault of the singing stones.
The people in the yard heard the marvelous sound and rushed to the wall and climbed to the rampart to see the terrible Coranyid retreating, shrinking away in agony, their hateful presence dissolving like a filthy stain before the cleansing water.
Just as the demon throng seemed on the point of full retreat, a tumult arose among them, and from out of their teeming midst appeared an enormous dark-garbed figure, astride a huge aurochs black as a raven’s wing. This chieftain wore a black cloak and carried a black shield; in his right hand he carried a long, curved tusklike sword, black as polished jet—the Wyrm’s fang. At his throat he wore a coiled serpent, a living torc with a shiny black skin and yellow eyes burning like live coals. I could not see his face, hidden as it was beneath a war helm of black. But I did not need to see his face to know that this was Nudd, Prince of Uffern and Annwn, dread lord of the Nether Realms, who rode on his strange beast to join battle with us. He had come to stem the rout of his demon war host.
The swart figure of Nudd advanced slowly toward the wall. Th
e Coranyid, halted by the sudden appearance of their lord, scuttled after him, their wails of agony turned to ghastly peals of demented delight. They drew closer in a repulsive, gyrating mass.
Quickly, Tegid and I passed Song-laden stones along the walltop hand to hand—men, women, and even the children—until all who had joined us on the wall possessed a stone.
Nudd raised the Wyrm’s fang. The black blade circled in the air. At his command, storm clouds gathered. The wind shrieked to gale force, ripping at the stones in our hands, blasting and buffeting all who stood on the wall. The wind howl drowned out everything else. Snow and ice stung our eyes. Some collapsed under the frigid assault of ice and wind; their places were taken by others. The line remained unbroken.
Nudd advanced. The dread form loomed larger with every step, growing as he neared. I could not see the face hidden beneath the helm, but the dark lord’s malice stung me like the prick of a knife. My heart thumped savagely against my ribs.
The enemy was formidable beyond reckoning, powerful beyond imagining. We could not escape his wrath. He would crush us to dust beneath his feet. Already, he was drawing the life from our hands. My fingers were growing numb and slack. I could no longer feel the stone in my hands.
Lord Nudd leveled the black blade, and his eager minions leapt to the attack, tearing at the wall, scaling the vertical heights of the stronghold. I knew that my kinsmen were waiting for me to give the command to throw the stones. They were watching me, waiting for me to lead them. But I could not. Who was I to think I could outwit such a powerful enemy?
I turned away from their expectant faces. I turned away and closed my eyes.
And then I felt the touch of a strong hand on mine. I opened my eyes to meet Meldryn Mawr’s clear, confident gaze. I do not know when he had appeared, or from where. Weak with hunger and thirst, gaunt and swaying unsteadily on his feet—yet he was there, standing beside me, steadying my trembling hand. The king did not speak; he would not, but his courage emboldened me, bracing my faltering bravery as his hand strengthened mine.