Darkburn Book 3: The Gates of Kelvha by Tayin Machrie - HTML preview

Chapter 5

Yaret stood motionless inside the temple’s entrance while her eyes became accustomed to the dark. After the continuous clatter and bustle of the city streets it felt remarkably still in here. The sudden quiet was welcome.

What right had Kelvha to such busy normality, she thought resentfully, when her own town lay in blackened ruins? There it was, the familiar jolt of grief and anger, worse than it had been at first; as if it was always new and shocking. Yaret wondered at that.

But then she laid Obandiro aside, as she had to several times a day – but always gently, always with the promise to pick it up again – and concentrated on the scene around her. Once her sight adjusted, she could see a long, high, narrow space inhabited by rows of benches, and at the front three statues, indistinct from where she stood. Scattered candles provided the only illumination. A single candle was held by the man in dark blue robes – presumably a priest – who had allowed her and Durba in.

But he let them go no further yet. Barring their way, he said in a low voice,

“Why have you come to Borgun’s house?”

“My leg,” said Yaret. “Or lack of it.” She rolled up her breeches and tapped the wooden right leg. She had not needed to feign the limp on entering; for while the discomfort of her leg was usually dull enough to be ignored, she only had to concentrate on the stump to set it throbbing painfully.

The man lowered his candle to inspect the leg, and then nodded before he turned to Durba.

“And you?”

“The young gentleman can’t talk,” Yaret explained. “He’s one of the Riders of the Vonn who are visiting your city; since the battle in the north, he’s become unable to speak.” Next to her, Durba nodded and put her hands together in prayer.

“Visitors are welcome,” said the priest, now speaking Standard. “But how did you hear of us?”

“I too am a visitor, from the north. Someone in the market place told me that perhaps Borgun could help us. I don’t know anything more about Borgun than that. Can you explain what he can do for us? Do we need to make an offering?” As she asked the last question, Yaret wished that she had asked Tiburé for some money. She had very little herself.

However, the blue-robed man did not immediately demand a donation as she had expected. Instead he studied them both intently in the flickering light. She saw that he was quite young, for a priest; his long beard had misled her for a moment. But he looked no more than thirty, grave and earnest. After a moment he turned around.

“Come,” he said, and beckoned: and then he led them down towards the statues. Down, literally – for the floor, which felt uneven, like packed earth, sloped at a disconcerting downward angle. The temple’s walls – what Yaret could perceive of them – seemed to be built of such a hotch-potch of large mismatched stones that she hoped they wouldn’t collapse while she was in here. She saw the shapes of four people sitting on the benches, each solitary. None of them looked up.

The priest stopped in front of the statues which stood in the shadowed space at the front. “Borgun,” he said reverentially, his soft voice echoing, and bowed his head to them. Yaret and Durba did the same.

Yaret raised her head again to study the three statues. They were life-size, painted; carved in wood, she thought, not stone. The paint was cracked with age and in many places had worn away to show the wood beneath, darkly polished as if through years of being touched by ardent worshippers.

“Which one is Borgun?” she asked. For each statue seemed to show a different person. To the left, a small child was held up in the arms of a man who wore a crown: to the right was a much older, stooped figure, with one arm wrapped in his cloak, and the other hand upraised to the sky. Between these two, the statue of a man stood upright, looking ahead, his arms by his sides – except that his left arm was partly missing. She could not tell if it was deliberate or the damage of age, for the statue’s face appeared to be damaged too.

“He is all of them,” the priest replied. “There, he is the infant. Borgun was the child of a noble house, born four centuries ago. When he was three years old his family attended a festival. The High King of Kelvha attended also, and favoured the child by playing with him, as is portrayed.”

He paused. When he resumed speaking his voice shook slightly. “An assassin was concealed in the crowds, waiting for a chance to kill the High King. He thought he saw his moment, when the King laid down his weapons to pick up the child. The assassin attacked the High King with his sword, but the child bore the brunt of the blow. One side of Borgun’s face was cut off, and part of his left arm.”

Durba made a single noise of horror and disgust.

“Yes,” said the priest. “Borgun was not expected to survive. But against the odds, he did. Along with much of his arm, he had lost an eye and an ear: yet his family cared for him diligently, and in time he grew to manhood.” He indicated the central statue.

Yaret studied the worn, cracked wooden face. It was easy to see why Huldarion, with his burns to his face and his left side, might be associated with Borgun. Even though Huldarion had lost neither an eye nor a hand, the parallel was plain.

“Why is there a temple to him here?” she asked.

“Wait. Many years later, once Borgun had grown to manhood, he was walking one day in his courtyard when he beheld a vision. He witnessed a great shining sphere, like a golden sun, that fell from the sky and stopped before him, filling the courtyard with its light. This he saw with his eye that was gone. With his ear that was gone he heard the sphere sing, like the pure ringing of a bell. He put out his hand that was gone and touched the sphere. He was filled with its light. In that moment he understood the meaning of the sphere’s song: he knew his mission and his purpose. He would seek out and save the damaged citizens of Kelvha.”

“Commendable,” said Yaret. She noticed that Durba, beside her, was listening enraptured, with her lips slightly parted.

“You think so?” said the priest, a little sadly. “You are not of Kelvha. Many in this land believe, even now, in these so-called enlightened days, that those born imperfect should be killed at birth.”

“If no imperfect people were allowed to live,” said Yaret wryly, “it would not leave many of us. What can Borgun do for us less than perfect people?”

“Contemplate upon your imperfections, and you may be told,” the priest said. “For now, excuse me. You may remain here.” There had been a low knocking at the door behind them, and he left them and went back to answer it.

“We had better contemplate,” whispered Yaret to Durba, who immediately slid onto the nearest bench and closed her eyes. Yaret sat down next to her and contemplated her own affliction. Her missing foot was an impairment, certainly, but nothing like the loss of her home town. Obandiro... All those lives destroyed had made a deeper wound than any to her body.

There lies my lack, she thought. It is their lack of life. That emptiness. They may stand at my shoulders, but unseen, unheard, felt only by me. Or imagined only by me.

However, the dead who seemed at times to stand behind her shoulders were not noticeable here. This temple did not know of them nor they of it. So she stopped contemplating her own wounds and instead surveyed the statues. They gave her no information beyond what she had already learned from the priest; except that they had obviously been nurtured lovingly for many years.

Just like the infant Borgun. She felt pity for him – for the dreadful pain that poor, long-ago child would have felt. His family must have loved him well for him to survive and grow to manhood. It was fortunate that they were noble-born. She hoped the king had offered help.

And that impulse that Borgun must have felt, to find some reason for his pain, some purpose growing out of it: she sympathised with that. Perhaps his family’s care had taught Borgun to offer care. That too she understood. The urge to make good out of evil, to replicate the love he had been shown.

Then there was that strange yearning impulse of others to make a god out of the injured man. Well. People in desperation would always look for hope where none was to be found, except in their own minds.

Do I believe in gods? she thought, staring past the statues into the gloom. When I fell from the cliff by the river Thore, and lay bruised and bleeding, was there a god there? I don’t remember. I remember seeing the sky rush down to me. The stars, so close. Yet they did not rescue me. I was rescued, but not by a god. Unless Rothir is a god. It might be tempting to make him one. No, avoid that. Perhaps the Farwth is nearer to a god, with its power over green growing things and its long reach, its vast, deep knowledge of the earth.

She held out her mind to the Farwth now, visualising the great mass of trees so close-entangled that they might have been one tree; feeling for it as she had in Farwithiel, but sensing no response. Although the Farwth’s reach was long, she was probably too far away. And there were probably not enough growing things in the city with which the Farwth could communicate.

In any case the Farwth would not claim to be a god. A better claim to such divinity might be laid down by Veron’s wife, were she so to choose. Yaret gazed again at the statues, towards which the priest was now leading an old man who hobbled painfully towards the infant Borgun. Then he lay down, stiffly and awkwardly, upon the floor. Well. It takes some people that way.

But Veron’s wife. The huntress. Maybe a goddess. She was worshipped, certainly; even by Veron. Yaret felt a sudden longing to see the huntress once again. To behold that wondrous, terrifying transformation from woman to great cat: the snow leopard on the mountain. To look into those ice-blue eyes. To witness her existence. Her name filled Yaret’s mind.

A name that was not to be spoken; yet right now, here, without warning, it demanded to be said. A sudden huge insistent urgency roared through Yaret. She could not stop herself. Looking into the shadowed void beyond the statues, she heard herself breathe out the forbidden name.

Unsaryun.

And the void was filled. Something grew there, swift and huge and without form, without sound, nothing to see, yet it was there and leaping at her with its white rippling muscled power. The snow leopard. More. The moon. More. The tall silver figure striding down the hill…

Yaret slid helplessly from her seat onto her knees, one hand pressed to her face, one hand on the bench in front of her trying to steady herself, as she felt the power of the presence that swept past her and in its sweeping brushed her with an ice-cold gaze, with a breath as slow and chilly as a glacier, with a soft faint touch of fur against her cheek. An acknowledgement.

Then it was gone, and she was trembling. She could not get up but had to stay kneeling while she recovered her strength. Her mind was whirling.

The huntress, she thought. It was the huntress. What was she doing here? Did I call her? Was that me?

A temple is the place for her. But the huntress would not come merely because I called. Not unless the need were very great. Not even then. I felt her because she was already close. But why?

Veron… She must be here for Veron. She is here, in the city, because of him.

But Veron said she did not often leave the north. Her lands are there amidst the ice and mountains. So why has she come here? Perhaps Veron called her. Perhaps he needs her help.

Or perhaps the huntress sensed that he’s in danger. Where is he now?

At the castle joust, with all the other Vonn…

She managed to get to her feet. Her legs felt weak. Durba had opened her eyes and was looking round at her in some surprise.

The priest came up to them. “You felt him,” he said with an assurance that bordered on exultation.

Yaret, trying to speak, failed at the first attempt. At last she said, “I felt someone.”

“I saw that. Borgun is merciful. Come.” He beckoned her. Feeling almost unable to walk, she followed him on shaky legs down to the statues. The old man was still lying prostrate in front of the wooden infant in the arms of the king. It dawned on her that nobody had noticed the swift passage of the huntress except herself.

And maybe I imagined it, she thought. Except that I did not imagine it.

The priest stationed her in front of the third statue.

“Borgun still lives,” he said, in a murmur, as if it were not for anyone else to hear. “The sun entered into him and on his death he gave back his light to the sun. This is what you see here: Borgun returning back his light. And that light may enter into those who have seen Borgun, so that they become as one with him themselves.”

He paused and studied her intently in the candlelight.

“I believe that you have seen Borgun,” he said.

“I saw nothing. I… felt something. I do not think it was the light from any sun.” A moon, maybe, she thought.

He bowed his head. “It does not happen often. But when it does…”

“Has anyone in this city become as Borgun?”

“Not lately; except for one, a recent visitor, like yourself,” the priest murmured. “He bears the marks of Borgun down his left hand side. I have seen him. He is a leader, full worthy of Borgun’s great light.”

“And if he were to receive that light?” she asked in some alarm. “What then? What would it mean?”

“Some who have felt that light have devoted themselves to good works amongst the afflicted.”

Yaret felt a faint surge of relief at the answer. Good works were harmless, surely.

“They have offered solace to the poor,” the priest went on. “They have paid for treatment.”

“I see.” That didn’t sound too controversial. She trusted that an association with such compassion would not hurt Huldarion, even in this hierarchical society.

“And others have done more. They have fought for justice for our people.”

“Fought? In what way?” The alarm returned.

His voice lowered yet further. She could barely hear him. “They have taken up arms against the rulers who despise us. Not successfully as yet, but one may come who will succeed.”

The alarm returned with double force. Huldarion would not want any expectation of that sort to blight his prospects of an alliance here.

But it was possible that after all the priest did not mean Huldarion. She needed to check. So she asked,

“The visitor you saw – where was that? Who was he?”

“He was the leader of the people called the Vonn – the same people, I believe, as your young companion there. Are you of the Vonn?”

Yaret glanced round at Durba, still sitting on her bench. “No. I am merely a groom, from near Gostard in the north. So you saw this man as the Vonn entered the city?”

“Yes. And then a second time, that evening,” the priest went on. “I saw him here.”

“Here? Are you sure? The same man?”

“How could one mistake such a face? I was here, just in this spot, attending to my duties, when I looked up and saw him standing up there, by the door. He raised his hand to me in salutation. Then the candles flickered and guttered. I turned to relight one, and when I turned back, he had gone. But it was the man. I believe his name is Lord Huldarion.”

Yaret was dumbfounded. Could Huldarion have been here, that first evening? She had assumed him to have been inside the castle. Her mind was racing. Could he have slipped out after the feasting? Why would he come here? Had he made inquiries and come to see the place? But would he take such a risk?

She assessed what she knew of Huldarion. Not enough. But no, he was a careful man. He would not take such a risk. Perhaps the priest’s own longing had made him see Huldarion in another man’s face.

“You did not speak to him?” she asked.

“No, I had no opportunity. But it was he.”

“What time was this?”

“Late. Two full hours after sunset.”

Although he sounded utterly convinced, Yaret was doubtful. How could he be so sure of who he’d seen, in guttering candlelight? His imagination had supplied the man’s identity.

Or maybe somebody had sought to assume Huldarion’s identity. Somebody taking advantage of that same candlelight: an imposter who had not lingered, in case the priest should come too close.

She felt sick. Not so much with the idea of such imposture, as with the responsibility that it now laid on her. What if the man came back, claiming to be Huldarion – or Borgun – and offering to take up arms against the rulers here? What could she do to prevent it?

But what if it had been Huldarion after all? The priest was eyeing her curiously, and she could not tell him with certainty that he had been mistaken.

She tried to think. “My companion over there, the young knight of the Vonn, is close to Lord Huldarion,” she said. “They are related. Let me consult him for a moment.” As she turned towards Durba an idea was forming in her mind.

Sitting down next to Durba, she spoke in an undertone.

“Do you think it possible that Huldarion visited this temple on the night we arrived, two hours after sunset?”

Durba’s expression was bewildered. She shook her head uneasily.

“Somebody did, who looked like Huldarion – enough to make the priest think it was him. Tell me. Is there any code word amongst the Vonn? Any private word you use to signal to each other?”

Durba looked blank and slightly scared. It occurred to Yaret that if there were such a word, Durba would not be able to divulge it. It would have to stay as hidden as the Ulthared, the secret lore of her own people.

“Never mind,” she said. “But now talk to me with your hands as if you’re telling me something important.”

Durba’s hands began to move, fingers flickering, making shapes. It might have been some real language she was using – one that Yaret did not understand. But she pretended that she did. She watched and nodded, and then bowed before returning to the priest who stood there waiting.

“The young lord tells me that he does not know whether the man you saw was an imposter,” she said gravely to him. “Huldarion, like every great leader, has his enemies. But if the man comes again, there is a secret word that you may ask him for. Only the true Huldarion will know it. I have been given permission to tell you this word on condition that you impart it to nobody else. Can you promise that?”

“I can,” said the priest. “I swear on the lost eye of Borgun.”

“Very well. The word is this.” She had been running through various words in her head as she spoke, trying to think of one that would sound likely and yet not be guessable. Even as she put her mouth close to his ear she had not yet decided what the word would be.

Then she knew. “The sea,” she murmured, and wondered where that had come from. She had never even seen the sea. But it was not far from Caervonn, apparently; so maybe that was why it came into her mind. Now she began to worry that it could be guessed. Such a simple word for such a massive thing. But it was too late. The sea would have to do.

She stepped back.

“I will remember,” said the priest, “although I pray that the true Huldarion may visit us again, and soon.”

“I shall make sure that your wish is conveyed to him,” said Yaret. “Meanwhile, please be wary. We had better leave now.”

“You will come back,” the priest said with certainty. “Those whom Borgun has touched are called back here. I pray for healing for both you and the young knight of the Vonn.”

“Thank you.” She bowed to him, and went to collect Durba before leaving. The priest walked over to help up the old man who was now struggling to his feet, no sign of his lameness diminishing.

At the door she looked back. Here someone else had stood to show a scarred, burnt face.

And over there, behind the statues, she had felt that powerful, huge presence. The name of the huntress crept to the edges of her mind but she dared not say it.

Outside, it was far too bright. Tiburé, thankfully, was waiting for them. So was Zan: there was no time to wonder why. For Tiburé at once said,

“We found the darkburn. It’s imprisoned in the disused bath-house underneath the walls, less than half a mile away. We didn’t see the thing itself. But the place is locked and guarded, and you can feel it’s there.”

Yaret merely nodded. She had forgotten all about the darkburn for the moment.

Tiburé raised her eyebrows. “Don’t you want to see where it’s being kept?”

“Later. Right now I need to go straight back to the castle. You have to get a message to Huldarion for me – can you go inside the castle to do that?”

“I can. But they’ll all be at the tournament. Why the urgency?”

“I’ll explain as we ride back,” said Yaret, already limping towards the horses. “Let’s hurry, please. It’s not just the message for Huldarion – there’s another reason. I think that something might be happening at that tournament.”

“What do you mean?” Tiburé asked sharply.

“I don’t know.” Mounting Helba, Yaret gazed towards the looming castle walls, so imperious, so formidable. “But something dangerous,” she said. “Something dangerous to Veron.”