Varlarsaga Volume 3 - Consolation

Chapter - 56 Overview

If the mind and eye could travel vast distances, fleeter than the eagle's striking dive, if perception could conceive of swiftest motion, swifter indeed than all the dragon's wings or flying hooves of noble horses or salient deer; if, in an instant, all might be transformed from one place to another, then so like shall this tale tell...

‘Are many left of Ravenmoor folk?’

It was Erryldene, once the king of that island realm, who asked the question. He lay now in a great bed, amongst gold brocade and forest green. He was like a king of old, old king Edrun. He, who had died aboard the ship that once upon a time came steered by Forinth the fisherman, the Mariner, to find landfall on that strange, haunted isle.

The great bed rested within the queen's own chamber, an apartment off Belda's hall. Around that royal and most private couch stood but a tiny group: Belda herself, attended by her cousin Nalda, Quillet the Single-eyed, esquired by his son Bartram, Tewcross faithful Keeper of Penda and Halafor Oldmaster, last of the Ravenmoor councillors to depart.

‘There are few now, my dear love,’ whispered Belda, close in her husband's ear. ‘Only those who will not leave your side, If you will not come with us.’

Erryldene's eyes sparkled and a tear, one tear, glistened. ‘I would come with you wife, if I had legs and a desire to do so. Much, too much, has happened in my life. Too much have I wrongly wrought. Fate has found me out. Perhaps, in my life, if I had chosen some other way, all would have been altered...’

He lapsed into silence that, betwixt Belda and the others present, seemed best not to break. Not until he, Erryldene, said, ‘I want you to go. Go with those elvish folk; they who, having arrived here to defeat our foes, are now departing to do battle with them again. Go with them to this new land they tell exists over the sea to the north. Go with them. For it is, you see, that I feel a presage that my once-realm shall soon be no more; that here again as of old, will crumble and perish. Go with them.’

He turned his gaze, once each to them. ‘To you, Nalda wife-cousin, and you Halafor Oldmaster, faithful Quillet and your son, who bears a great name, to you dear Tewcross, I say a fond, and a final farewell.’ Erryldene's hand fell back hard to his bolster, and there it lay whilst his breathing laboured.

Each in turn kissed his fingers and filed out, save Belda.

With slightest sign, he beckoned close his wife. ‘Woman of my life, at last we speak as living and dying; you on, me gone. And it is hardest to bear that tiding for the one left behind, who cannot follow. Be blessed in all that you do. Grant bliss to any you choose, after me. And bring me into your thoughts, sometimes; for I, despite my faults and foolishness, have loved you dearly. Perhaps that is the only virtue to have grown within me over the years.’ He reached up to touch her shining face, his fingers feeling the warmth of her tears. ‘Take this with you, and keep it always, in memory of me,’ he whispered, offering the pendant Andradite, that now gleamed with a brilliant green light.

Belda took the stone and slowly lowered his hand to his breast. Then watched the last flutter of his eyelids, as soundlessly, peacefully, he died.

When, after a little time, Belda emerged from the chamber, her eyes misted, but her step firm, she spoke to those assembled. ‘Let it be known that my husband is beyond any mortal pain. You, whom I now choose, will take his body and bear it down into the bay of Berry; there to see it into the waters, where such enfolding keeps the first of his line in Ravenmoor; good, old King Edrun, he who lieth under the wave. I, and those who wish, shall accompany this last ceremony in Erryldene's honour. Once that is done, our days here in this realm, land of our birth, shall be short, for now have you another King; Ordrick, son of Arleas, and it his command that we should venture forth from the country of the Raven and follow him across the risen arches of White Bridge, fresh builded by the wondrous folk who came to our aid when all seemed lost, so there to lend our strength to theirs in that vast land where perils abound and menace lurks. Ordrick felt it his duty, and in turn ours, to take up the cause of the elvish peoples in their quest to wrest some foothold whence once of old did their forebears tread. In this, I and Erryldene, gave our blessing. At the passing of your old King, it is time to heed the will of your new. I shall remain Queen in name only, and perhaps you shall still bear me the respect of that title, however it is to Ordrick that your loyalty should now be directed. Any who remain must make the law unto themselves. Though remember, even the wild creatures of our country are following the elven peoples. Is that not sign enough? Mayhap in the distant future, some of us will return; or as of yore, others might set foot here, and discover a mystery of folk long vanished.’

So was brought to conclusion the realm of the Raven, which had seen the passing of six kings, whilst the last subjects of the queen and newly risen king travelled up its long length, through Forinth Forest and the mighty Tumberimber mounts; thence out over the great, arching span, built anew by the Elloræ, and into the unknown north of another world.

Across the wide plain, bordered in the east by the Barren Mountains, stark Kisir-Oba, and in the west by the Mounts of Ash, Colle-Oba, hung a grim and sullen pall. Of smoke and sifting flecks of soot was it composed, and in its languid fall from out the darkened daysky, did it blight an already blighted land. The yellow fields were gone, burned and trampled by swarming goblin-plague.

The towering Ziggurat, marvel of Kutha-Kesh, abode of Orsokon the second, fortressed Kurigaldur, loomed now like a gaunt skeleton. Birds hovered over it, alert for carrion, and tell-tale rents rived the whitewashed walls, tearing deep into its bowels. On the higher levels all the once green gardens lay lopped and dead; the pavements fruit-strewn, pith-spat, pip-stones and curled rind of bringal discarded amongst the debris, where piles of fowl feathers, heaped goat carcass and white calk of human bone protruded. Shreds of saffron garments clung to rib-cages or fluttered listlessly round hollow eye-sockets and grinning teeth-rows.

Within, down below, the levels were deserted. Dust, ash, crumbled stone filled, ever so slowly, the grandeur of the long walks, the avenues, sculleries, armouries, dormitories. Where the The Hall had been, that of the Wanax, the ceiling had caved in, and with it the floors above. There, hidden beneath the rubble, shattered into fragments lay The Stone Of Remorse, never to be seen whole again. Beneath, further again, buried under masonry were the crypts and tombs, even to the lowly resting cists of Cennalath and those other Indlebloomers, together with Wanaxi past. All utterly buried, the tall vaults collapsed and silent in the darkness of sifting dust. The home of Orsokon, mighty Kurigaldur, was empty, but for the dead. Huge vultures flapped lazily; picking, picking, whilst grey rained the ash, coating the last entrails.

Thus ended the empire of the Kurigaldans, the valley of Kutha-Kesh laid waste, deserted.

But were there no survivors, none of Orsokon's proud line left?

Eastward, over the blistered lands, the broken, barren depths of desert wherein had dwelt the pride of the dunes, the Dog-Face Hiung-Nu, and where once had stalked Death-Striker Ob, dragon-who-runs-on-two-legs. Eastward, over the sand-drifted remains of Etzela and his nation. Eastward, beyond the desolate regions of Lang-Shan, home of evil spirit Maruts, according to Hiung lore. Further again, almost to the eastern seas, there the coast, and there the green land of Rî-mer-Ri.

And to that place, after grave suffering, arrived the refugees of Kutha-Kesh, led still by Orsokon, his wife Silver-Tresses, yet clutching their child at her side. They had completed a terrible migration, and were there justly received by the Mistress Qwilla and the folk of that mythical, wondrous land. And there, welcomed, they stayed; though little in culture or custom had they in common. Except only that Corin and Menkeepir had visited, spent time, told tales and conversed with both peoples, so that at least they had this single, mutual bond. To most of those from Kutha-Kesh much was alien, though not unpleasant, and still Orsokon had the mastery of Rennish speech, as did his Doorward Shalim. This cherished and long nurtured second language was to prove a boon, for Qwilla and her Rî-mer-Rians also kept their own style of Ren dialect. Thus between them much was fathomed: homes billeted, food provided, land and workload assigned for cultivation, that the newcomers might fend for themselves. And alongside them, the little folk, the Pentanu, chittered and chattered; merry helpers happy as jays, digging, building, laughing. So those survivors from Kutha-Kesh were saved, even if, from proud and stately, they had come to adapt to a simple, rural and rustic way of life.

The Mistress, on the border of the great hedge, had said as much. ‘Through thæse bounden gætes, my will is all. Mark ye that, ænd wælcome. But mark ye also, abide here æt thæ plæsure of my subjects. Hærm none, ænd bæ not hærmed. Heed not, ænd our law will provæl!’

Thereafter did the Ri-mer-ians open the way, in good faith. And in good faith, did the Kurigaldans enter that green-fold of crannog lakes and fair pastures, and there rested their weary way.

In the northern marches, a far and distant step from Rî-mer-Ri, over scaur and spur, beyond the rocky passes and up into snowy reaches, there stood the bleak towers of the Hermitage. A wild wind blew across the peaks and swept around its naked walls. A wind so piercing as to penetrate the cloistered courtyards, and down through empty halls, vacant hermitories, bare passages and staircases, down to whisk about the stables and the ten stalls, where once ten black steeds had fed at manger.

Now all were gone.

The great iron-dark eyrie, like Kurigaldur's citadel, lay deserted.

High above the lonely alps, as that same mind's-eye of imagery raced, tracing a broad arc instantly north to where white storms, like wolf howl, bemoaned lands grim and frosted, was the domain of the Jutunn. Was, indeed, the roof of Varlar. Was Earth-Eye.

Like looming mounts of ice, the giants could be found, standing solitary amidst those snow-swept spaces, their herds banked with drifts that were the only windbreaks. At times a Jutunn scoured the surface and unearthed provender, that the beasts might curb their bellowed cry for food. But mostly, during those periods of over-snow, none moved; existing on body fat stored from better climes and conditions.

Thus was it then. Angerbotha had prevailed and become clan chieftain. Grith, his giantess, tended the cooking fires, deep amidst the hollows; those enormous out-scooped pits where often they were forced to dwell.

At the gaping hole, where before had been a pyre of charcoaled bones sacrificed to The-Eye-That-Looked-Allways, hunched the bulk that was Isbadden, Harfang his owl, clinging steadfast to his hoary head. Isbadden was, in truth, honestly puzzled. The events of the past mystified him. Earth-Eye had opened. Far had he fallen. Stunned was he then.

Later, long it was that he crawled out, following the small two-legged creature, round whom strange light shone. Back to the surface he arose, there to be received as hero by his own giant-kind.

Now, accepted, he squatted, waiting. Waiting for something, some Thing to happen. And during the long time that dragged, bit by bitterly bit, he and Harfang crouched, still as carven stone. Sometimes the sky was dark, sometimes alive with light, sometimes grey with rain. The other giants came, and watched and wondered. Some brought offerings of food and coarse-furred rugs, others brought a rough beer, brewed from nettles and deer antler and mosses.

Still Isbadden and the owl crouched at their vigil; blurred by the sleet, unmoving.

The Jutunn was sitting much as he had through snow storm and calm, Harfang a'cling to his shoulder. The pendant elf-blade was swinging, shining at his neck. None else were near then, gone away to tend the herd-tenders.

Daylight was upon them both. Sun had new-grown in the sky. The white bones around the rim of Eye-That-Looked-Allways glistened in the rime-frost. Isbadden nodded, blinked, and nodded. Behind him a solitary bone fell over the lip. Down the hole it went, where he and Corin and Darkelfari had fallen. Far fell that femur, and none came there a sound of its descent.

The giant drowsed, as it seemed did the great snowy owl upon his head.

From out the hole of Earth-Eye, something began to emerge. Groping, it reached out, and touched the Jutunn's foot...

‘Tand geccen ayla globoc. Grodk otroc melco nogara magga ptak. Attagark rog ur-engur scorck pesor tsawak gluh nattuu schnar sencha. Skragga aht sukkok drobban. Rashas noc orni strah!’

‘Shut your gob Bagseg, and quit that whining! Speak this bastard tongue, as They would have us do. They are near, coming soon. Skragga has told this to Oorlog, him come in last night. Nagana overheard and told Muridai. They are coming and when They do, you vicious little turd, you will use Their chosen speech or else! Better get used to it. And you can save that gut-gripe! Others have the fun now, killing and mangling and the like. Let them! Bigger fun to come. Only wait. Torture some ympari, if that makes you feel better. But keep shut of complaining, or you'll feel the whips of the new masters. Whips that will mugga you, dung-licker!’

‘For that insult, I should twist your neck and drink out its juice, my snappy Gobbo. Still, maybe there is meaning in your yap.’ He leered, and hefted a pair of yoked buckets onto his stooped shoulders. ‘At any rate, let's get on with swilling these ymps, before some trollska comes down on our necks.’

‘Ahhk, there's no bother. Besides, they're upstairs stoking the dragons and poking the squib something fierce. We'll have no trouble with 'em.’

Bagseg rolled his eyes, and in the oily lamplight they appeared rather like two bloody-veined oysters in his face. ‘Maybe, maybe not. But even a ymp squeaks. And squeaks can reach the highest ears. Gasric's like!’

Gobbo halted in his tracks, the slush-pails swinging on his humpen back. ‘Wot! Not King Gasric. He's far too busy seeing to other things. There's a war to be run, my squeamy son. And a zwerge siege. Other things too, like the ur-engur, I mean the briny, to attend. Gutwip may be out there in that cursed water but he takes his orders direct, mark me.’

‘Ay, I mark you,’ muttered Bagseg, turning away. ‘And so did that monster Beastrangl back there. Didn't you see him in the shadows? More like a stone post than a trollska; still, he must have heard.’

Gobbo swallowed loudly, uneasily.

‘But,’ said Bagseg reassuringly, ‘he's a thick one, ain't he? Better hope he's forgotten what he heard by time he takes it to Gasric!’

Down through the steaming, yellow air the pair hurried away; waddling like black, fat, hairy ducks under their load. They were but two of countless teams, assigned to the lowliest task, that of feeding the imps. Imps who were the mugs, slaves. Imps, who were consigned to the deepest dungeon cells, far below more habitable levels, where noxious gases seeped through stone of earth-pore, pervading all. Where bird or other small creature would choke and fall stunned, there to die.

Yet whilst the imps were capable of survival and work, they were to be fed where they huddled in those putrid holes. There, only dim light reached, and they could be spied, writhing and cringing together like some vast, living being; manifold-headed, tailed and legged.

Above, up the myriad tunnels and shafts, a nest, indeed reminiscent of ants, unravelled. There were gaping cracks from whence nameless, multi-clawed creatures snapped. There were slaughter-kitchens where anything, alive or dead, might make meal fodder. There were open cuts that fell into reeking voids. Barrack halls, vast enough to house whole armies in each, and did. Squib-dragons roared furnace breath, lighting towering trolls whose stone-flesh rendered them impervious to that searing heat. Stables of them were there: whipping cracker-drakes, sleazy fire-slimers, bursting-burners and strangle-grippers. The Nugobluk armouries rang, molten red and orange rivers flowed from cauldrons and cisterns down uncountable ducts to the vats and forges and hundred-score anvils of the goblin smiths. Their roaring, livid faces crimson with fanatic dedication, hammers pounding, beating to crescendo, never ceasing as shift followed shift, taking up the rhythm in mid stroke whilst that inferno work continued.

They were hard at it, fashioning the tools of war and torture: mace, pike, truncheon, scimitar and cruel knife, twisted short-bow, star-mace, double axe, hammers, tongs, two-edged hacker swords, leaf-blade spear, throwing darts, batter-ram, goad, sackbutt, lance, hand and leg gyves, racks and rods, needles and bone-crushers, cleavers, saws, mallets, spikes, thumbscrews, head-vices, disembowlers, brain spillers, bolts and arrows, horse-entanglers, mesh shirts, shields; round, concave, square, tri and diamond, convex bucklers, hand-targe and gloves, claws and rakers, stampers, bats and bludgeons, javelins, star-balls, masks, helms, breastplates, greaves, iron-shod boots, collars, shackles, pins, thorn crowns, ring-mail, teeth-pullers, eye-disgorgers, socket-wrenchers, barbed gowns, bard-plating, byrnies and ring-kilts, star-throwers, sling hilts, shot, skull-thudders and twibills. All these poured, glowing, doused, beaten, filed, honed, polished, greased and tested, into growing mountains, awaiting use.

Awaiting the thousands who were yet held back, deep within that vast underground fortress, known to them as Yaghan Gazzul, which lay in secret on the westward side of the Ramabad Mountains.

The dwarves had long been aware of that place, though only the facade. On the surface, it appeared as so many clustered and undulating hill groups, running in serried rows toward the western ocean, far away. To the Zwerge, these were the lands where once they had mined; which were, in latter times, over-run by their enemies the goblins. They did not, could not, have envisaged what had become of their once-upon-a-time tunnellings. These, the nugobluk and their slaves had so enlarged, so enhanced, so deepward delved, that by the period of this tale, the dark shafts pushed ever further down, ever further east, even to the very delves of the Ramabad. Many probes too there were, that ran to dead-end round Earth-Mouth. And again, buried roads drove north, south and west; some indeed extending out under the tumultuous seas. From those meandering corridors, the nugobluk, for past ages, extracted raw metals; the ore of armament. There, in hiding, dwelt and spawn-multiplied they. Waiting for the moment to come. The moment nigh at knell. For, in that hitherto time, had world-shattering plans been laid, to fester ere hatching. Now, the hatching loomed, very near.

On the surface, upon a low brow, a score of swart faces peered out, observing the regions eastward. Eastward toward the raised slopes and peaks of the dwarf-held Ramabad which the nugobluk, in contempt, named Kull Barka, Rubble Pile.

And there, the cruel eyes of goblin sentries descried distant forms, picked out against the thrown-up mountains; forms riding hard in the late noon toward Nugo-home. Gleefully the watch grinned and grunted, their fouled, black nails raking the mound they stretched so casually upon. Shortly, one was dispatched to bear the news below, into the maze of tunnels, whilst the others waited, gloating.

In a darkened hall filled with acrid smoke and the stench of putrescence, slouched Gasric, King of all Nugobluk, be they those once under the command of the dead Atgas of Ravenmoor, or those in Gutwip's service, who galley-slaved the waters. Be they those captained by Skragga and his lieutenant Oorlog, the pair who now marshalled the land war and siege of the hated Zwerge.

At this moment, King Gasric's malevolent eyes were lingering over many delights, pleasures of torture, where sundry creatures of Varlar were being transformed into shambling, witless, deformed monsters who might serve only one master, irreversibly, until death. Gasric grinned and wiped the dribble from his bloated chin, whilst the changing pageant swirled about him: there a broken dwarf, like shattered stone, hanging spent across a trellis, with just a glimmer of life left, that the King might savour his extreme suffering. And there, an elvin wench; debauched, burnt, defiled, pinched, pulled, spat upon and disfigured.

‘But oh, my dear, still living out her horror,’ thought Gasric, exulting heartily.

Over there, a thing that was once a horse, now a maddened being fit only to kill with its goblin-razored hooves, was bent on destroying itself to end its own misery.

And here, the partly de-boned figure of a she-human, whose task was to moan and squirm like a puppet jellyfish, for goblish entertainment.

‘And oh, dearest, it is still kept alive, until it grows too rank, too weak to move. Then will it be left to those dastards of mine who would sport. Imagine what might be done to an almost boneless body with mallets and stampers... Exquisite squish!’ Gasric laughed horribly. There were so many variations of torture, when evil minds were set into play. It was pleasant thus for the King of the Nugobluk to while away his time thinking up new inventions and watching the results. ‘Oh yes,’ he rumbled to himself, ‘the plucking of hair, fur, eyes, hearts... Oh yes!’ He rolled upon his hide couch, leering, gesturing. ‘Not long to wait, not long,’ he thought to himself, inside his awful obesity. ‘Kill those useless animals, they cannot take another spike!’ This he shouted, whilst straightway the pitiful creatures were put to death. He kicked out his iron-shod boot, knocking down an imp who had been oiling it. ‘Take this nuisance and play foot, with it as ball. And bring me flesh and bone, I am hungry !’ he roared. ‘Redness too, that I may slake thirst. Make it double quick. I dislike a congealed draught. Bring on another batch of prisoners as well. I will decide which to eat, and which to save for slow, slow...’ And here, drool slobbered from his gaping mouth, sliming his human-skinned coat. They, the yellow-eyed attagark, began to herd in the fangless, the clawless, the tongueless; since these might yet provide fun for Gasric's intense satisfaction.

Then, bursting into the King's private gratification, came a runner; one who was near skewered by the black spears of Gasric's guard. However, with much agility the goblin avoided such fate and ended, licking at his monarch's claw.

‘Scum! Dropping of dragon leaving! Speak! Or spit out your life on the chopping block!’

The runner's sharp tongue left off, its cruel, fear-filled mask lifted towards the King's dread countenance and it began gibbering away in goblish. After a few moments the king slapped at it with his leathery claw. ‘Speak in the tongue that I have commanded, that it pleasure Them when They arrive!’

In sheer terror the messenger quavered, ‘Crasting am I named. I serve to die. I live to die. I hunt and kill, I torture, and wait to die. I am yours, King Gasric, to live, fight, breathe, die!’

‘Yes, yes. I know all that,’ answered Gasric, hissing and wheezing. ‘Now speak, tell, and I shall be merciful with you, as those here well see me to be.’

‘They come,’ the lowly gark muttered. ‘Within this dark of night, They will be here. As was expected by Your Overpowering Self. I have seen...’

Gasric gave a mighty belch of relief and wickedness. Above his messenger, a large stone suddenly plummeted down, splattering Crasting, so that only his feet and claws protruded. The stone was devised merely for the King's enjoyment, which was immense. Gasric burst into gales of laughter. ‘I am finished with you, fool! Soon They come, bringing victory. The Riders of the north!’ He beckoned to his hench-goblins nearby, indicating the corpse. ‘Take it away. Now it is less messenger, and more mess.’ The King rubbed at his claws, as if having touched something distasteful. 'Raise that block again, for next time, and bring on some decent blood! I have much to think upon!’

Chapter 57 [next]