A Blackbird In Darkness (Book 2) Read online

  There were no demons or other creatures of the Serpent about, but despairing cries and moans issued from many of the dark mounds. Calorn ran to the nearest and peered into the grim cell within it. It was no more than a roughly-made, roundish burrow in the mound with a transparent membrane stretched across the entrance. There was just room for a human to lie inside, like a bee grub within its cell. The man lying there was skeleton-thin, skin and hair the same dull grey. Calorn tore at the membrane, but could not break through.

  She went to the next cell, and the next, and on the other side of the path Ashurek was doing the same, calling, ‘Silvren! Silvren!’

  In almost every dark, fleshy cell a prisoner lay, starved, tormented and aged by the Shana’s treatment, some weeping and shouting in desperation, others slumped unconscious or staring blankly out and muttering to themselves.

  It took Calorn every ounce of her self-control not to scream and run, but for Ashurek it was worse. He had never realised the Shana had so many prisoners. In his time here, he had thought himself totally alone. The prisoners were all unaware of each other’s existence and could not even seek comfort in their mutual plight. He ran on, fighting desperate terror, shouting, ‘Silvren! Silvren!’

  Meanwhile, Calorn slowed down in her search, disheartened. Even if Silvren were here, somewhere, in this apparently endless labyrinth of cells, would Ashurek even recognise her? Would she hear him? Panic began to swamp her – she who was renowned for her calm tenacity – and she could see the same thing happening to Ashurek. She ran to keep up with him, lest they lose each other and all hope of escape – all hope of everything.

  Then, all at once, a figure was coming towards them, clear to see because she was dressed in white. Ashurek and Calorn halted in the centre of the path, watching and waiting. The figure was slender and upright and walking with steady, assured steps. Her long, dark golden hair was glossy, her skin clear and healthy. She bore no signs of ill-treatment.

  She came to Ashurek and the two stared at each other, lost in amazement.

  ‘Silvren? It is you?’ Ashurek said hesitantly. She was wide-eyed, but seemed at the same time aloof and emotionless. It was hard to believe she was not imprisoned, not ill.

  ‘Yes. I heard you calling... I...’ Then suddenly she fell forward into his arms and was clinging on to him, shuddering as tears of relief and misery poured from her soul. It was, indeed, his Silvren.

  ‘I thought you were an illusion sent by the Shana,’ he said, so relieved to find her he could hardly speak.

  ‘I thought that of you,’ she sobbed, ‘but, oh, you are real.’ Calorn tactfully distanced herself and kept a look-out for the approach of any demon or other creature.

  ‘You look… well,’ he said. ‘Is it possible?’

  ‘Yes. The Shana have not treated me badly. I have been lucky. Oh, Ashurek,’ she wept.

  ‘Beloved, I don’t know how we are going to escape from this pit, but I have something that may–’

  ‘Escape?’ Silvren pulled back from him, confused. ‘Ashurek, how did you get down here? Have you gone mad? It must be a dream.’

  ‘Silvren, it’s all right. We came through from the Blue Plane. Calorn guided me – she works for the H’tebhmellians.’

  ‘Oh – H’tebhmella,’ Silvren gasped, as though a memory had revived that caused her intense guilt and pain. ‘You found your way there, at last?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ashurek, smiling, suddenly confident that somehow it would be possible to outwit the Shana and escape. ‘With my two companions, Estarinel and Medrian, we eventually reached the Blue Plane.’

  Yet Silvren did not seem overjoyed. ‘Then why are you here? What do you mean, you came through?’ she questioned, understandably – Ashurek thought – puzzled and distressed.

  ‘The Dark Regions hang from the opposite side of the Blue Plane,’ he explained gently. ‘I thought you must know. You gave me the first clue when you appeared to me and said that this hell-hole was blue, not black.’

  ‘Did I? I don’t remember,’ she said miserably. ‘I remember speaking to Estarinel, warning him about Arlenmia... oh, Arlenmia... but that was before... Oh, alas for H’tebhmella...’

  ‘It’s one more cruel trick of the Serpent,’ Ashurek said. At this, Silvren visibly winced as if from an unbearable burden of grief and despair – something he’d never before seen her do. He realised that although she seemed lucid and physically well, no one could be unaffected by the nightmare confusion induced simply by being in the Dark Regions. Perhaps her irrepressible spirit had been crushed by the Shana; it was no worse than he should have expected. At least she was alive, and sane, and now he must take her out of this appalling domain before it was too late.

  Not realising, yet, that it was already too late.

  He pulled Silvren to his side and called, ‘Calorn! We’d better make a move. Have you seen anything?’

  ‘There don’t seem to be any Shana-creatures about,’ she replied with a grin. ‘I think I’ve found the beginning of a way back.’

  ‘What does she mean?’ Silvren asked, distressed. ‘I used to try to escape. It’s impossible. Oh, Ashurek – how are you going to get back?’

  ‘Three of us are far stronger than one,’ he said reassuringly. ‘Come on, let’s follow Calorn. Somehow we will escape.’ He began to walk along the dull, gritty path behind the chestnut-haired woman. She was looking this way and that, sensing which way to go. As he led Silvren along, he felt her growing more and more tense at his side.

  Suddenly she jerked away from him and stood as if rooted in the corrupt ground, crying, ‘No!’ She was trembling violently. ‘I can’t go. I can’t ever…’

  Ashurek turned and held her, saying, ‘It’s all right. I’m with you now. Trust me, Silvren, we’ll soon be out of this accursed Region!’

  She pulled back again, and he saw that the clear light in her beloved eyes had been replaced by such desolation that he could not look into them.

  ‘No – you don’t understand, I can’t go there – I can’t go back to Earth. I’m…’ she faltered. Her shuddering stilled, like the last tremor of a dying bird. ‘Oh, my love, why did you come here? You were safe. I was content.’

  A terrible, cold sense of foreboding came over him as she spoke those strange words. Content – in the Dark Regions? He didn’t know what she could mean – except that whatever the Shana had done to her, it was something more devastating than physical torment or insanity.

  ‘Beloved, no need to fear the Shana now,’ he said quietly. ‘You must come.’

  ‘No,’ she repeated, as if the word was an amulet against madness. ‘No. I have to stay here.’

  Calorn came forward suddenly and grasped Silvren’s hands, trying to instil her with her own clear courage. ‘Who says so? Only the Shana, and they are not here. Please come. We need you to help us.’

  ‘Don’t speak to me as if I were a child!’ Silvren flared. ‘I say I can’t leave – do you think I don’t know what I’m saying? I don’t want to stay – oh, ye gods, I don’t want to – but I have to, for all our sakes.’

  ‘What have they done to you?’ Ashurek breathed.

  ‘Go back without me. Go quickly, before the Shana come. Leave me!’

  Her voice was fervent with the force of her will; she truly did mean Ashurek to go back without her. And because he had always trusted her judgment, and because of the love and anguish he felt for her, he had to know why before he rescued her against her wishes.

  ‘Have they taken away your sorcery?’

  She stared up at him, her eyes clear but lightless, like shaded water. ‘No, although it is weak and I cannot use it here,’ she sighed, ‘that burden still clings to me.’

  ‘Then, Silvren, what? I don’t understand you.’

  ‘They have taught me,’ she said, as if stricken by horror, not at the Shana, but at herself, ‘a fundamental truth about myself. I am evil. For the sake of the Earth, I cannot return there – I’ve already done too much harm.’

 
; ‘What are you saying?’ Ashurek spoke between gritted teeth, anger and desperation seething darkly in his face.

  ‘It’s true. They haven’t turned my brain. They simply explained it to me and I understood. It’s my fault that Arlenmia came to this Earth, my fault the Egg-Stone has wreaked its havoc and may be unleashed again. Because of my evil, the Serpent will win.’

  ‘Because – how can you believe that? You’ve spent all your life fighting it.’

  ‘That’s just it,’ Silvren replied, her face glowing with acid light as if the sickness of her soul were concentrated there. ‘I had no right to fight it. The Serpent was here before us and it will outlive us. Trying to find a way to slay it was arrogance. Just desire for power. Do you understand? I was arrogant, ambitious – evil. And my sorcery is just the outward manifestation of that evil–’ she repeated the word as if it were venom with which to kill herself – ‘and not the power for good I thought I was shaping it to be. Not the beautiful and magic future of the Earth. Just evil.’ She slumped in his arms, stricken by the agony of bearing this terrible knowledge about herself.

  Ashurek was numbed, so deeply shocked that his rage and sorrow seemed to be a bottomless pit into which he was falling, falling. He thought he had prepared himself for the worst, that she would be weakened by torture and lack of food, by the nightmarish torments of the Shana – dejected and hopeless of spirit. He had never, in his worst phantasms, foreseen that she would be so racked by self-loathing, destroyed by a simple lie.

  The Shana were cunning. They always found the sharpest weapon to use against the victim. ‘It’s a lie, Silvren.’ The words struggled up past the iron in his throat. ‘A lie, invented by Diheg-El to break your will.’

  ‘No, I know it’s true,’ she responded emptily but with unshakeable conviction. ‘I’ll tell you how I know. It’s because I felt – feel – jealous of Arlenmia’s power over the Shana, because she can control them and doesn’t fear them. And that’s because she’s more evil than they are. And I wanted that power! And I – and I loved her. And we are both entrenched in wickedness. It’s proof. I am a danger to the world as long as I still have my sorcery. So I can’t go to the Blue Plane, not with this taint of sickness upon me. Do you see? The only help I can give anyone now is to stay here.’

  Ashurek stared at her, feeling his heart torn into fragments, unable to find any voice for the screaming torment within him. Silvren looked back and knew what he was feeling. Tears fell from her eyes because there was nothing she could do to help him.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ashurek,’ she said, adding with hopeless irrelevance, ‘I don’t mind it here – they don’t mistreat me. No, don’t touch me again,’ she said, seeming to shrink back into herself. ‘I can’t bear it. Please leave.’

  Ashurek made a grim decision then. He had never before gone against Silvren’s judgment, never questioned what she thought was right or tried to submit her will to his. If she truly believed the Shana’s lie, and continued to believe it after they were safe on the Blue Plane, she might never forgive him. But he could not leave her here.

  ‘Lead on, Calorn,’ he said, and he gripped Silvren’s shoulders and pushed her on in front of him.

  She fought him, really fought. But her sobs of despair were for her own supposed evil, and inside she was fighting herself, not him. Gritting his teeth, he twisted one of her arms behind her back and frog-marched her after Calorn, showing no mercy when she stumbled or gasped with pain.

  And he prayed that she would one day forgive him.

  It was with a rush of relief that Calorn heard Ashurek say, ‘Lead on.’ Instantly she set forth along the path between the grim mounds, following the course she had tentatively plotted. The Dark Regions were constructed in an illogical way, unlike any world or dimension she had ever encountered before. Planes tilted and intersected with other planes, each incomplete, with no definite boundaries. Larger areas were contained within smaller areas. And all slid and changed position in relation to everything else, as if the Dark Regions consisted of a mass of restless amoebae. It would seem a prisoner could walk amid the ghastly cell-mounds forever. Although she could strongly sense paths leading out of the prison area, they were invisible.

  She tried to maintain calm confidence, but fear was growing that her skills would prove useless. The Dark Regions were treacherous and could turn a correctly chosen path into a wrong one in a second.

  And now, she could not even find the base of the invisible path that she knew led out of this terrible area. Unless…

  She broke into a run, Ashurek and Silvren following.

  ‘Here,’ she said, indicating the cell mound that had drawn her strongly. ‘We have to climb up it.’

  ‘I’ll go first – you help Silvren up to me,’ Ashurek said. Silvren had stopped struggling and was quiet and pale, as if she had also given up the fight against her own despair and shame.

  Calorn helped Silvren, who crawled up the steep side of the mound like a puppet. Ashurek lifted her up to stand beside him, then Calorn swallowed her own repulsion at the evil, fleshy feel of the mound and scrambled up its side.

  As she reached the top, the unseen path became visible at last, a brownish, steep bridge curving up and out of sight. The ceiling of darkness seemed to have receded.

  Relieved, she leapt to her feet, only to be blasted by an explosion of silver fire. She was flung off the mound and slammed into the ground below where she lay winded for a few seconds. Then she painfully crawled back up the steep side, dazed by the sudden light.

  As she regained the flattish top of the mound, she saw Ashurek’s tall figure silhouetted against the glow, which she now perceived to come from a being standing in front of him. She moved round to get a better look, and saw that the creature was human in form, perfect in proportion, asexual, with a broad, grinning face. It was naked and its skin shone like platinum.

  She might have known the Shana could appear at will. Watching out for them had been useless. And beside the demon – oh, horrible, impossible – the hellish bird Limir was hopping gently up and down with suppressed glee. Behind them, ambling ponderously down the narrow walkway, were the pale forms of Exhal and his herd.

  Calorn came forward to stand beside Ashurek and Silvren, facing the demon bravely although its aura filled her with revulsion.

  ‘Prince Ashurek of Gorethria,’ the silver figure was saying, the words oozing sibilantly from its red mouth. ‘I am privileged. My name is Ahag-Ga.’

  ‘I don’t give a damn who you are,’ Ashurek hissed. ‘You’ve destroyed her. She’s useless to you now. Let us pass.’

  Calorn was astonished at the contempt with which Ashurek addressed the Shanin. Plainly his anger must long ago have gone deeper than fear.

  Petulantly, the demon responded by suffusing them with a crackling argent light. The light was pure pain. Calorn staggered back, coughing, but Ashurek and Silvren stood their ground like two steel blades until the demon-power bled away.

  ‘Just a small reminder to show respect to those with power,’ Ahag-Ga grinned. ‘Forgive me, Prince Ashurek, I did not destroy your sorceress. That was the work of Diheg-El, with the encouragement of Meheg-Ba. However, as you will observe, those two venerable Shana are not here. They are at large on the Earth, with Siregh-Ma, so I am fortunate indeed in being the one to welcome you.’

  Ashurek perceived at once, from the wry jealousy permeating the demon’s mocking tone, that it was subordinate to Meheg-Ba and Diheg-El. But that did not make it any less dangerous.

  ‘Indeed, it would go badly for you if your superiors returned and found you had let us escape,’ he said acidly. The demon’s mouth stretched in a red hiss of fury. It did not notice the deft movement of Ashurek’s hand as he drew a small phial from a pocket.

  ‘My so-called “superiors”,’ Ahag-Ga sneered, ‘will, on the contrary, be more than delighted to find their lost Prince imprisoned here. However, I am not in the slightest degree interested in their petty bickering over you and the sorceress. There
is another score to be settled.’

  At this Limir bounced in visible glee, cackling with the chilling menace of a harpy.

  The demon continued, ‘It has come to my notice that on your way through the Dark Regions, you attempted what would, on Earth, be termed a brutal murder. The fact that your attempt failed is immaterial.’

  ‘We tried our hardest!’ Calorn blazed, angered by the demon’s mockery. ‘I can see no reason for Limir to return to life after what we did to him, except that he is too evil to find peace in death!’ She took a step towards the dreadful bird. ‘You would be dead a thousand times over if I had my way.’

  ‘You amuse me,’ said Limir. ‘It was an excellent joke, feigning death at your hands, but all jokes must be paid for eventually.’

  ‘I believe the penalty for murder, in many of the civilized countries of Earth, is execution,’ Ahag-Ga went on, grinning horribly. ‘But here in the Dark Regions we can offer many more terrible fates. Eternal ones if we choose, eh, Exhal?’

  The huge ox-creature said nothing, just glared balefully at them all.

  ‘As you can see,’ said the demon, ‘I am in no position to release you – even supposing I wanted to, in order to spite my so-called superiors. Justice must be done.’

  Ashurek gazed steadily at the demon as he raised his hand. The small phial was glowing with a pale golden light. It was the phial that Setrel had given them, claiming that the powder within had power against the Worm’s adherents.

  ‘Silvren,’ he said, ‘does this substance have any power that you can perceive?’

  ‘Yes, yes it does,’ she said. Her expression transformed as though she were remembering the beauty of her sorcery before the Shana had contrived to corrupt it. ‘Where did you get it? I can’t see how…’

  The hissing of the demon and the metallic screeching of Limir drowned her voice. Both looked furious, like blood-streaked ghouls in their anger, as Ashurek held the phial towards them like a weapon.