The Call of Agon: Book One of The Children of Telm Page 20

  “Perhaps this issue needs to be addressed with some higher powers,” Menon suggested.

  “Higher powers?” Teron quizzed. “Higher powers than Olagh?”

  “Well, surely Olagh did not choose these fools to lead his flock? It was arranged, right?”

  “Olagh does not listen any more. He has long deserted Iraldas.”

  “You cannot mean that, Teron,” Menon said.

  “No, you are right. I do not mean it. It is but the anger talking, so let us then cease and return to Larksong. There are new clerics on their way, and I must be there to receive them. One is of particular note. Ifferon is his name.”

  “The adventurer? The one that slew the Derakar in Remradi?”

  “Precisely the one,” Teron replied. “Precisely the one.”

  XIII – THE UMBRA OF THE MOUNTAINS

  “Thus ends my account of the last Calling of the Council of the Ardúnari,” Oelinor said, “though there are many things that I have not mentioned. There was much discussion, and many quarrels, as you have seen from my tale, but there were more yet, some that I overheard and others that eluded my ears. All went separate ways, travelling back to whichever part of Iraldas they had come from, but while haste was on their heels, rumour and wrath were on many tongues, and that was swifter yet.”

  Ifferon found the tale intriguing, and he talked long with Oelinor about it, as well as the Ardúnari in general, and the task ahead of them in particular. Then they both grew tired of talk and thought. Ifferon rested his head against the carriage wall, and then he dreamed that he was at the Council, that he was sitting in one of the seats between the quarrelling guests, and also frozen in the middle of the Stone itself. When the light shot forth, it shone from his eyes, and he saw into the hearts and minds of all it penetrated.

  Then Délin was there, or he could hear his voice; after a moment of confusion he realised that he was merely dozing, and that he could hear the conversation in the carriage between Délin and Oelinor. He sat up and rubbed his heavy eyes.

  Délin turned to him and smiled. “We are going to the Morbid Mountains,” he said.

  “If you were not a knight,” Ifferon replied, “I would think you were lying.”

  “Not at all,” the knight said, sighing deeply, as though he wished he were. “The Aelora will bring us right unto the foot of the Dead Hills and leave us there. From there we trek south-east, until we reach the heartland of Telarym.”

  “What about the Dead?” Ifferon asked, and suddenly he found that he was frightfully awake. “I have heard enough tales about the haunts of Halés there.”

  “Bah, the Dead shall not trouble us!” Herr’Don said, staring out the window at the blur of rocks and trees. “If e’er a bony hand should reach from the ground to grab at you, hack away at it or I shall hack for you! The Dead shall die a second death more terrible than the first at the hands of Herr’Don the Great!”

  “Who needs an army when you have the will of a warrior?” Délin said, smiling. “But come, I do not think we need worry about the Dead, queer as that land may be.”

  “No, the Dead will not bother you,” Oelinor said. He did not smile. Something troubled his thoughts, and this could be seen in the dimness of his eyes. “Their lives in death are but rumours. It is wolves you must be wary of. They plague the mountains from the Peak of the Wolf to the western edge.”

  “Just wolves?” Herr’Don asked with incredulity. “You ask Herr’Don the Great to be wary of wolves? Surely these Aelora have not heard of me, nor the many great and wonderful things I’ve done—and what a crime that is indeed!”

  “These are no ordinary wolves,” Oelinor explained. “They are the Felokar, the wolves of Halés, and are giants by comparison to their earthly brothers, if indeed we can say that they are related at all.

  “You will pass Feloklin, the Land of the Dead, which borders the gate to Halés, but you must be careful, for over that land the shadow of Tol-Úmari also lies. That is where the Alar Molokrán sleeps, and while he will be deep in slumber when you pass by, it is still unwise to stray too close, for the Vigil of Tol-Úmari is always kept.

  “Then you will cross the Chasm of Issarí over the River Soldím and into the Plains of Eridúl, the barren land that leads to Nahragor.”

  Herr’Don clapped loudly and bashed his fist against the carriage wall. “Let us bang at the Gates of the Black Bastion and wake all and sundry to our battle cry!” he shouted, and both Délin and Oelinor seemed disturbed by his reckless enthusiasm. Ifferon wondered if even the sentries at Nahragor had heard his roar.

  * * *

  The day passed quietly with little more talk, for they were all tired from their previous day’s journeying. It seemed that Oelinor went to sleep, though it was more a form of meditation, for he placed his hands upon his knees and bowed his head; then the light within him dimmed a little, as if he were an oil lamp that had been turned down. Herr’Don rested against the frame of the wagon, snoring loudly, and Délin stayed awake for some time yet, humming softly some old songs of the ancient days of Arlin. Ifferon bordered on the edge of sleep, nodding his head and closing his eyes, and Délin’s humming helped to lull him further into a peaceful slumber.

  * * *

  Suddenly the cart halted, almost throwing Ifferon and Herr’Don into Délin and Oelinor. “We will go no further,” Oelinor told them. “Even if I willed it, our horses will not cross this river, for the rumour of the corruption of the Taarí has spread in their tongue as well as ours. Be careful, for there are many leagues yet to go, and I would that I could ensure safe passage for you to Nahragor, that most unsafe of places, but such a thought is a dream that too few dream any more. For there are no safe passages in Iraldas now, not here on the brink of Telarym, and not even beneath the comfort of the white blanket of Caelün.”

  “Alas!” Délin cried. “Would that I had a battalion of my knights now, for while there may not be any safe passages left in this world, we could have made some safer. But Arlin rues my own departure on this errand, and I could not let her suffer alone while the Knights of Issarí go to the rescue of forsaken lands.”

  “One knight with the strength of many will suffice,” Oelinor said. “But take heed! Ever is the blessing of Issarí needed now, for this is the land of brook and stream, and that is her domain. She may no longer dwell here, and to her profit, I believe, for lingering here would have destroyed her, but the reach of her mind is vast, and she may turn many tides ere the waters are spent. So pray long and hard to her ere you attempt to cross any body of water here, be it the vastness of a lake or some narrow channel that may seem safe. And be careful of the gorge! Not all that bears her name still lies under her dominion.

  “Now go! Ever we tarry to listen to tired counsel, but my heart feels the better for the giving of it. Time is now a new enemy, and it is partly for this reason that I have stolen away from my duties in the north to see you swiftly to the south. Every wasted moment is a moment offered in sacrifice unto Agon, Aelor save us, for if the Call has come, and I do not doubt it, then we must do everything in our power to avert it.”

  With that he opened the door of the carriage and stepped out. The others followed him, finding that Thalla and Yavün had already left their vessel and were waiting by the river with Lëolin.

  “Glad you decided to make it,” Yavün said, grinning. “We’ve been waiting here for a good while now. Indeed, our carriage arrived a fair while before yours.”

  “Boasting does not become you,” Herr’Don said. “Had you wished for a race, then the carriage of Herr’Don the Great would have arrived before you crossed the starting line.”

  Yavün frowned and looked to the ground, like a pet chastised by a disgruntled owner.

  “We thought you might have gotten lost,” Thalla said to Ifferon and Délin. It was clear that she did not really think this, but was eager to avoid another conflict between the poet and the prince.

  “Nay!” Délin said. “Only lost down the passage of memory and th
e tunnels of deep thought.”

  “I hope you spent your time together as equally productive,” Ifferon said, waving his index finger in pretend admonishment. Even as he did so he regretted it, realising how it might seem to Herr’Don, whose own reprimand would not have been in pretence.

  Yavün looked at Thalla and beamed. “We have,” he said, and it almost seemed as though he was about to overflow with mirth. Thalla seemed more contained, avoiding the cold glare of Herr’Don’s piercing eyes.

  “Oelinor was just telling us about the dangers of time-wasting,” Herr’Don said. “It plays into the enemy’s hands. You better not have been playing into the enemy’s hands.”

  “I must be off,” Oelinor said quickly. “It is a long road back, made all the longer by the trek through the blizzards to Oelinadal in Upper Lün. Farewell, my friends, old and new, and take heed of my counsel, overt and concealed. Fasimërr!”

  And with that he climbed quickly into the carriage, as if he were a bolt of lightning and the land were the sky. He went more swiftly than he had come, as if a sudden need of haste was upon him. Ifferon guessed that Oelinor had spent longer than he had intended away from the siege upon Oelinadal, and that he had suddenly realised the peril he had left his homeland in. The carriage door slammed shut. The great white horses of the Aelora reared up and whinnied. And so they charged off, back up the path they had come from.

  “A need as great as your own drives him,” Lëolin explained. “We look oft to the evil in the south, yet I fear that the Aelora alone look to the evil that comes from the east o’er the Vast Sea, evil independent of the Beast, Aelor save us, and evil in league with him. Aelor’s Candle is what keeps the evil of the east out of the minds of Man and Ferian—but for how long?

  “But let us speak of evil no more. I pray that we may meet again, and I pray ever the harder that should that wish come true, that we may meet in fairer times. Mallem Oelin mid baeüa. Fasimërr!”

  And so he left them, taking his carriage and following the trail of Oelinor with haste. The sound of stampeding horses lasted for a moment, growing ever fainter with the passage of time, and then the company was left in silence, standing before the River Hamis.

  * * *

  They looked upon the river. It was vast, stretching out on either side before them, reaching into the mists and vanishing over the horizon. It was long, a never-ending river some rumoured, but it was not wide, at least not at where the Aelora had left them north-west of Tol-Úmari; nor was it deep at this point, being at most but three feet, but neither the width of the crossing or the depth of its base were what worried the company.

  “So we are come to the River Hamis,” Délin said at last, breaking the silence, and his voice was like a hammer-stroke against the wind. “It is known as Issar Chammas in Old Arlinaic—the River Barrier—and such it is, it seems, for the Aelora would not cross it.”

  “But the Aelora knew not the full might and courage of Herr’Don the Great,” Herr’Don said. “For if they did, they would have known that I would but glance upon this wall of water and it would quail and quake before me, and so be a barrier to us no more!”

  “Yes, yes, but be that as it may,” Délin said, “the crossing of it physically is not what worries me, for that I do not doubt we can manage. But the Chammas is a barrier of wills, like a sentinel protecting the land of Telarym. It is rumoured in Arlin that those who cross it lightly, with no concern for the spirits of the water, who some say require a sacrificial offering, may find that the river runs far, and may appear in one’s own land one day, stalking the reckless and revealing a might that is otherwise concealed.”

  “Bah!” Herr’Don exclaimed. “Do you ask that we tremble before a river? First Oelinor warns us about wolves, and now we must baulk before a stream?” But suddenly the prince looked down; he gave a cry and jumped away, for a creeping water had risen from the river many feet away, and it had crawled its way up to his feet.

  “Lo!” Délin said. “The river is listening to us.”

  “It is evil!” Herr’Don cried. “Evil! It tried to kill me!”

  “It tried to soak your feet,” Yavün said, laughing.

  “Aye, and drown me!” Herr’Don said. “’Twas not the water that startled me, but that which I saw within it. For it showed me a vision of my death, and I was drowning in the sea, and I flailed and clambered for air, but none but the ghost of a friend would come.”

  “’Tis best not to look into the waters of this river,” Délin said. “I am late in the advice, but I must also say that while that which it shows may hold truth or not, it is but one of the many futures open to us. I do not say this lightly, for my uncle, Délgrid, long rest he in the peace of the Halls, ventured far and wide around Iraldas, and so he came to Telarym and the Issar Chammas, and he was shown his death in the waters. He saw that he would slip and fall upon a high stair. But that was not his fate, for ever after was he consumed by a great fear of heights, and he built a level home, and would not climb a stair even were there gold glittering at the top of it.”

  “How did he die?” Yavün asked.

  “By the will of the gods,” Délin said. “But my aunt still holds that it was the stairs that killed him, for he worried overmuch, and the worry played ill on his health. He was not the same in his later years. And so, perhaps, the stairs took him after all, and thus did he descend the stairs into the Halls of Halés, where ever he rests now.

  “And lo, there is a verse that some of us in Arlin know, for there were many who knew my uncle, and the tales of his ventures spread far and wide, until minstrels sang of him. Some sang as follows:

  The Issar Chammas spans the land

  From western mount to eastern shore;

  To those who come upon its strand,

  They may see themselves no more.

  A curse is laid upon the river

  From days that are not counted now—

  And what dire fate shall it deliver?

  Death must come, but it tells how.

  A ghost may live within the deep

  And call poor men to final sleep,

  And there may throng a phantom host

  That marches from the misty coast.

  We do not know what makes it run,

  But those who pass may come undone.

  The Issar Chammas breaks the strong

  And stalks the weak who venture far,

  And many hear its spectral song

  In lands where no foul rivers are.

  The river stretches far and wide

  And crosses into shadow lands,

  And those who use its course to guide

  Will wander into deadly hands.

  Those who cross without a prayer

  May find the river deeper there,

  And those who wander to its rim

  May learn they cannot truly swim,

  And those who dare defy its host

  May never live to brag and boast.

  The Issar Chammas blocks and bars,

  And guards a land of twilight stone;

  It is not of this world of ours,

  And thus it runs its course alone.

  The shrewd will cross with this in mind,

  So never harking to its call,

  But those with sense of a better kind

  Are those who do not cross at all.

  “A dark omen,” Ifferon said. “I like the verse, but not the warning.”

  “And you will like less what is contained within the Chammas,” Délin said, “if e’er you dare to look into it. The Oracle of the Dead should not be used by the living, for it brings Death all the closer, and we have had enough of his presence in our company thus far.”

  “Aye!” Herr’Don cried, still shaken. “Do not look into the river as you cross. You may trip and stumble, and may feel drawn to look towards your footfalls, but that is a trick of the river, for it wills us to look within it. Bend all your will to looking upon the far shore and pray that we all cross swiftly without mishap.” />
  And so they set across the river, but their passing was slow, for even as Délin set foot within it, it looked as though it were rising, and that the knight was sinking into it like quicksand. Ifferon feared that Délin would not need to look into the water to find out what his doom was, for his death might come then and there in the river itself.

  “Are you sure you want to brave this?” Yavün said to Herr’Don. “I mean, after finding out you will die in water. Does fear not tell you it could be this river?”

  “Fear might, if e’er I listened to him,” Herr’Don replied. “But it would be a sore sight and state for Herr’Don the Great to tremble at a river so small.” But even as he spoke the river rose again, and it seemed that it was not just rising but growing wider too. “We must all go to Halés at some time, and I’ll have all eternity to think about its Halls when I’m there—for now I will think of life!”

  And so he stepped in after Délin, trudging along behind him and wading through the water which had risen to his waist, and just below the waist of Délin. The knight ahead still plodded on slowly, for it seemed that his feet were sticking to the riverbed, and he tore them from the ground with great strength and effort. He clambered out on the far shore and turned to wait for the others to help them out as they approached.

  “My robes will be shrivelled,” Thalla said as she followed Herr’Don. “I pray that Telarym is truly as warm as people say, for we shall need the sun to dry us out erelong.”

  Yavün followed, with the water up to his chest, for he was short and required the aid of Ifferon, much to his embarrassment and dissatisfaction. “Don’t drown,” Herr’Don called from the far side, laughing as he watched them struggle. Ifferon, however, was glad to aid the stableboy, for it meant that he was not thinking of avoiding looking down into the water below, which seemed to call to him, tugging on his mind and will. At one point he taught he saw that Yavün had looked for a moment into the mire below, and he was shaken, clutching to Ifferon with the strength of fear. Did you look into the river? he tried to ask, but the words would not come out, for dread had lodged in his throat.