Varlarsaga Volume 1 - Escape

Chapter 10 Bili

The Elloræ kindred, gathered there in that sunlit chamber, waited in silence, watching Corin whilst he struggled with the memories of his  imprisonment. From beneath the tower windows came the faint song of a bird and the humming of the ocean. Somewhere within, bells tolled the midday.

‘And so a time, that went beyond my endurance to mark, passed. Indeed, I had little need or reason to count the days and nights. I was doomed, without hope, to live until death claimed me,’ Corin continued. ‘Yet a strange and seemingly wondrous thing occurred.

One morning I awoke to the sound of rustling and there, whilst the west sun's rays played through the shaft, the shadow of another living creature appeared. It was a bird, a jackdaw, sooty black, waddling down that tiny tunnel from the outside.

I sat up, overjoyed to have a visitor after so long; even a solitary bird. Carefully, so as not to alarm him, I broke a crust and offered a morsel. He pecked at it, and drank a little water from my cup, all the while keeping a watchful eye on me.

I asked him how he fared and if he had come to make his home on the cliffs outside, and at that he hopped closer to me, spreading his wings. Then, he spoke. "Prince Mylor," he said, as clear as you like, and was gone fluttering through the shaft.

For long afterward I waited, listening and hoping. But the bird did not return.

And during my waking time, I was mindful of the visions and dreams come to me, and The Voices that spoke, unbidden, awake and asleep. Yet as the shadows of days and nights passed, I guessed the bird's arrival merely a chance; his words but the mimicry of some villager or farmer who had tamed him. So I put my little adventure from me, and wept anew for company and the green world, whilst the light grew ever less, and the dark, longer and longer.

A cold winter's bleakness descended, and only the visit of my jailer told me of another night to come.

Wrapped in a blanket, I picked at the food he brought me, and stared at the flickering candles. And then, wings were beating and there was a rattle of metal on stone! It was the bird, and at my feet he had dropped a key.

"Key, Prince Mylor," he said, fluttering to the board that was my table.

I picked up the key astounded, and the bird laughed. "Haw haw, Bili Jackdaw," and before I could think he was away again, perching a moment at the entrance to the air shaft. I cried out as he darted within. Then there was a rustle, and silence.

Hardly daring, I tried the key in the lock of my cell door. It fitted, but would not turn, and try as I might, the door remained fast. Bitterly disappointed, I gave up and spent most of that night awake, hoping for the bird's return. At length I decided to hide the key as far as I could push it inside the shaft, using a wooden spoon.

He came again the next morning, as I groped my way from restless sleep. The first I knew of Bili was a scratching at my shoulder and the coldness of metal upon my neck. He had brought a second key. Before I could even stir, he was off; the whirring of his wings beating up the dust of my cell.

"But what do they fit?" I cried, as he scrambled into the shaft.

"They fit. Haw haw," he squawked, and was gone.

This time the key was much too small and so I placed it with the first, though I began to feel sure that there was meaning to the bird's actions. What puzzled me was why he had come and who had sent him. Yet I had already guessed the use of the keys: four doors held me captive, and I was sure the pair Bili had given me opened two of them. Where had he found and stolen them, I wondered? Were there doubles of those Quillet carried? I had no way of knowing. My mind filled with wild thoughts that tortured and tormented me: could there be a hope of release, escape?

How would I escape? I was weakened, grown frailer in body and will. I feared greatly, lest the way be opened before me and I failed through lack of strength and courage. Still a tiny light in the darkness had arisen where none had been before and it was at that time The Voices called to me, coming from everywhere and nowhere, within my mind and outside my body. And as always They beckoned and for a while I was strengthened and encouraged. For a while.

When Prince Arleas stared at me through the grill of the cell door, my high hopes sank. He spoke not when he came in company with Quillet, though suspicion was plain to see in those hawkish eyes. And whilst my jailer searched high and low, that cold gaze never left me for a moment. I too was silent, afraid that any sound or movement might betray me. But in the end Quillet found nothing and I was left alone. The keys lay safe within the shaft where neither had thought to probe.

A few days later Bili arrived with the third key. I heard him enter the shaft and come scrambling down its length. Eagerly I dragged the board beneath the opening so as to climb up and greet him but he did not emerge. Instead, a few sooty feathers floated out as I peered into the shadows and there spied him. He had flopped to one side and lay, wings outspread against the stone. His breast heaved, spotted with red, and yet in his trembling beak he still held a key. Reaching in, I managed to gather him in my hand and gently lifted him into my cell where, even as I wrapped him in the folds of my woollen cloak, he fell into a swoon.

In the long time that followed I kept him warmed with my own body, and there were many times I thought him dead, but faintly and faintly his tiny form flickered with life. And in the greyness before dawn he awoke.

He stayed with me for several days, hiding in the air shaft when Quillet brought my evening meal and sharing my supper after he had gone. During that time, Bili would sit on my shoulder or at the platter and he would preen his broken feather ends whilst recovering his strength. The hawk, Hebog, had taken him, you see and Bili was fortunate to escape alive from the Prince's bird.’

Corin halted in his tale to take a sip from a goblet offered him by Elvra; it was cool to the tongue and refreshing, and tasted of wild berries blended with sweet herbs.

‘Eventually,’ he continued, setting the goblet dawn, ‘there came a morning when the jackdaw hopped to the shaft, allowing the faint breeze to ruffle his mending feathers, and I knew he meant to try his wings in the world.

"But where shall you go? Where do you come from?" I asked.

For answer, he flew to my hand, testing himself.

"I go to bring the last key, Prince Mylor, haw haw," he chattered. "They think me dead, struck into the sea by the hawk. Yet I know where the last key be, and you shall have it. My thanks for tending me, dear Prince; for my life you have saved."

And before I could reply he winged away and was gone.’

Corin lowered his head, and for long moments there was silence. ‘I trusted that bird; believed in him,’ he said at last, without raising his eyes. ‘And yet I thought him no more than a bird, wherever he was come. And the nights were long in his absence, and the three keys I kept would not let me pass that first door.

As my life seemed to dwindle, so gradually did I. So gradually, did my faith in him. I am ashamed now to say so, but I began to think Bili would never return. 0 wise folk, how can I explain what I felt, cut off from earth and sky, with only death awaiting me?

Time; time sifted by, and I counted it by the dust I saw through the light that faintly shone from the air shaft that was my one link with Ravenmoor. Again, I was alone.’

He lifted his face, and his eyes were stained with tears. ‘I waited: impatient, anxious, in vain. Perhaps then I learned some lesson, something that was needed. Perhaps I found a cleansing of my heart that prepared me for that doom without hope: the end of Voices, the end of striving, the end of Prince Mylor. If it had not been for the keys, I might have thought my mind taken to wandering. Indeed, I began to question what had come to pass; three keys given me by a jackdaw that spoke, no ordinary bird for sure. How could he be? We had talked as folk together do and he knew too much, as if he were given to a purpose. Over and over, I turned these thoughts without answer.

Then, one night as I lay abed, staring up at the weight of stone pressing down that was the roof over my head, I heard the faintest sound. At first I fancied it to be the scutter of rats beyond the cell door, but then I knew. A shadowy form appeared at the air shaft opening and an object fell to the flags with a clatter. Bili had returned, and here was the last key!

"This be the time," he crowed. "Late will come a storm, best for your escape. You have them all now Corin. Haw haw, Bili has done what he can!" His shadow retreated into the hole as I sprang from my bed. "Farewell Prince Mylor. Take care for your life, Corin," he called. "Bright day awaits you, haw haw."

Stooping to pick up the key, I suddenly halted, the faint sound of the bird's wings reaching me as he flew free into the dark of night. "Corin," he had called me. Yet how could this strange bird have known that name? Only The Voices ever spoke it. Only They, within my mind, in thought and dream. As if in a dream, I grasped the key, my heart racing, and tried it. With a creak, the lock gave way and the cell door fell open! There I stood on the threshold, peering out into the gloom of the tunnel beyond where rats scurried and spiders lurked,and water seeped, dripping into pools at my feet.

After a time that seemed to have aged me beyond my years, I was released from my prison. For a moment I was overwhelmed. My head whirled and a great weakness overtook me. I staggered back, bewildered and afraid. The way before me lay unbarred, yet I was still a captive of my own fears and doubts.

Then, through the rush of confusion, I remembered the hidden keys and fetched them from the depths of the air shaft with the aid of the wooden spoon. "Thankyou," I breathed, though Bili was long gone and whilst the sound of distant thunder boomed somewhere outside, I took my leave of that tomb and began my flight to the heights above.’

Queen Goldal raised the foxglove wand to her shining eyes. ‘The creature, this bird, was come to you when all hope had diminished. That in itself is a curious matter, yet oft hope rises unknown and unsought, when nothing else avails. Who knows how this can be? Chance? Perhaps. Or do Greater Powers work unseen?’

‘Mayhap we shall never read the meaning of it,’ said the King of the Elves, resting his fingers lightly on those of his Queen. ‘But tell us now what came to pass on that night.’

‘It was as Bili had told,’ answered Corin. ‘Even whilst I made my way up the stairs where all was the black of night, I heard the faint rumbling of a growing storm through the living stone. The midst of evening had long gone, that I knew, for Quillet had brought me food and water in the later hours before Bili's visit, when all others were already abed. Still, I judged that there would be time enough to find my way out before the dawn, and in that I was right. Groping along, I found each door and opened it in turn; never daring to have taken a candle from my cell, for fear a light might betray me. Only, took I the keys, and each in turn served its purpose as I passed the second and third barriers. During that time, I longed for the wind and rain on my face; yet I forced myself to move slowly, lest I miss a turn on the many and lose my way.

Up I climbed: fumbling, feeling searching. And at the last, I came to the final door. The last of the keys I thrust into the empty hole, where my trembling fingers felt. I heard a snick, and then the creak of the ancient hinges. Light poured through the crack as the door opened. Momentarily I was blinded. It was long, you see, since I had seen such brightness: lamps and lanterns, sticks of candles, torches burning fiercely in the stillness. How long I cowered on that brink I cannot say, and what was innermost of my thoughts and longings, is now beyond me. No breath of air moved the flames as I crept out, covering my eyes from the glare, stumbling forward the best I could. Before me, lay the lower levels that were used as store rooms by my father and the kings of Ravenmoor before him. There were holds of armour and weapons: foodstuffs, royalties, wineries, empty rooms that none of the Bran Kingdom, present or past, had ever filled.

So I came half blinded, to the steps that led upward into the King's Hall, from whence I had been dismissed to a living death. With my last pang of uncertainty I crossed the broadwidth of that place, keen knowing the storm and the danger above. At length I gained the upper ways, and in my travels I took what I could find: any garment, bow and sword, belt and boot. Through the King's Hall I hurried, where it so empty lay, where before me so many had walked that were named and nameless.

Lightning lit my footsteps as I hastened down the lines of faded hangings and out, out through the doors of the antechamber. The central court was deserted, as far as I could tell, and for the first time since my imprisonment rain beat against my face; filling me with such joy that I almost shouted aloud. As the storm drenched me I started forward keeping to the shadows of the stable walls, though with every streak of lightning I feared discovery. I passed the sculleries without mishap and reached the courtyard that bounded Reeth's quarters and there entered. Inside, no light shone from his tower rooms and I was almost to the small gate that led to freedom when I remembered the stables wherein he kept a horse or two for his own use. As fortune would have it there were several and choosing one, I managed to bridle and saddle it by thunder and lightning. I packed some food that I had taken from the store rooms beneath the King's Hall into bags and walked him from the stalls. The iron gate was bolted but not locked and so I made my escape that way without hindrance, yet I knew well enough that by morning the missing animal would be reported. Still, it seemed better to flee mounted if I was to elude capture.

As I rode through that stormy night, I felt the irresistible pull of The Voices, calling me onward. I had no thought further than to seek the far distant reaches of Ravenmoor, hoping there to find refuge in the great forest and perhaps a way beyond into the Tumberimber Mountains, to where I seemed drawn.

So was it that after days and nights, skirting villages and homes, dogged by pursuers, I came to Ways End and there by chance met the tinker Finikin Goosie at the Old Oak Inn. With his aid and the aid of other kindly folk, I managed to reach Forbidding Forest and there travelled on foot to the mountains where, by fate or chance, my path crossed that of these good elves.’

Here Corin paused, glancing at Morgan, Silval and Elvra; mindful of those who had harboured him during his flight: Spiggot and his daughter Flora, the Jug and Kettle Man and his woods-kin. Then he concluded, ‘There, noble folk, is my tale. As far as I know all, but the four conspirators in Ravenmoor, believe Prince Mylor dead. Perhaps this is so, since I shall never answer to that title or name again. Now I am Corin. The name given me by The Voices. The name that I have heard, over and again, since I can first recall.’

At this Elberl gestured to all those assembled saying, ‘We here have heard your words with eager ears, since it would seem that your past is linked to our future. The island realm whence you escaped once was a place where our High Kindred dwelt,  to judge by the signs brought us. After long search, Morgan Seawanderer has fulfilled his quest and given us direction. As to your tale of peril; it would seem that you Corin, have nothing to be shamed for. Many may lack understanding of things new and different. And many may be at fault, needlessly attacking that beyond their knowledge. Still, you have survived and are with us, and welcome in a time of need. For here, hope has blossomed on the tree of despair. With your coming and the findings of Morgan Seawanderer, we be guided anew. Now, all here in First Home must make ready to depart into the mortal world and you will venture there with us.’

Elberl's face grew grave. ‘Our way lies to the north, Master Corin; to the land from whence you came, and beyond. The days of Elfame are ebbing away. Our Realm is sinking into the sea!’