The Statue Maker

  Chapter 7

  So Falk set off towards the south and the city of Everfar. As he went he came to realise that his worries regarding provisions were needless, since time had stopped so it seemed had his need to sustain himself through the consumption of food and water, not a morsel nor a drop had passed his lips since the day of the trial and yet he felt no weariness, indeed even without sleep his body did not seem to tire in this place where time meant little.

  Onwards from Albury and its silent faces did Falk go, through Blessard and Dowden, through any number of unnamed villages and towns that he did not know existed until the moment he crested a hill and saw them. Many strange sights met Falk as he journeyed. Birds in flight, tongues of fire that consumed nothing and never died. Faces locked in a thousand expressions of pain and joy and exertion and sloth. Falk came to know his countryman as he moved south, he saw their homes, their possessions, the emotions that were painted on them for eternity. Falk saw beasts he could not categorise, the blood, he saw the hunt in all its glory, he saw violence. All of it encapsulated in a single moment.

  One of the most interesting sights that he encountered was outside the town of Kellan where it had evidently been snowing at the point when time had frozen. A million snowflakes hung in the air, stopped solid in their lazy descent to the ground. Falk found that if he pushed them then they would move and rebound off others and break into many more pieces creating a domino effect of shattering snowflakes through the air. Falk could not say how long he'd been travelling, many days by his count, for though the rivers he passed had ceased to flow his blood flowed steadily all the while and it seemed to his mind that much of his own time was passing by as he wondered south through the kingdom he never really knew. It was not until he was nearly at his destination that Falk saw one of the more magnificent sights of his travel. For the permanent light which bathed the lad had begun to dim the further south he went, Falk assumed that this was because the sun set earlier down south.

  Now as the statue maker said Falk had never heard of this place called Everfar, but down south was where the old fiend indicated it was and so Falk assumed that by steadily marching this way he might come across it soon if it were as important as the statue maker made out. Of king Eldellin Falk had heard, even in the small villages of the north they were aware of their liege, but a Silver Queen, this was new to Falk.

  So as he went south things got darker and darker still and Falk continued to assume it was a fallen night that he was walking under, but then a sight met his eyes that proved it not to be so, for framed clearly out in the darkness Falk could see the lightning. This was no nightfall he'd found, but a mighty storm, tall and wide enough to make it fill the skies across the horizon. Falk approached the static lightning in awe. The brightness of it stung his eyes. Some of the forks were fully formed reaching high up into the clouds, others were only just lifting off the ground, they were like brilliant bright thorn bushes. Falk laid his hand upon one fully formed fork, it was cold to the touch, and sharp, surprising so for Falk had thought it would have been smooth.

  Without a reasoning why as he passed one particular lighting bush he struck at one of its protruding forks for some minutes until the end of it broke off, he picked up the piece, it was thin and sharp. Falk was wondering into truly unknown territory and thought it would be wise to carry a weapon of some kind, despite not having seen any sign of a threat for weeks.

  Reaching the top of a nearby hill Falk looked down and saw the largest congregation of human gathering that he'd ever seen. Had he been a student of such things he would have known that this was in fact the largest in city in all the world. Soaring towers connected by straight and winding bridges, large monuments, temples, parks and grand boulevards. This was the city of Everfar and it was truly the grandest achievement of man that Falk thought possible. A million lights glowed in the city for people had sheltered from the storm in lamp-lit houses. Falk could see the lights reflecting on the sheets of rain around the city.

  As he stared at this marvel a sensation came over Falk, so long had it been since he felt such a thing that it took his lonely mind some time to place until eventually he realised that he could hear music. Very faintly, darting in and out of his perception Falk heard mysterious melodies whispered on the absent wind. This was the first sound aside from the ones he made himself that Falk had heard since time was frozen, if there was music in the city, then were there people also? Like him stuck in this timeless bubble of an existence.

  Falk decided to find out. At first Falk had felt overwhelmed at the size of the task ahead of him, to have found the city itself was miracle enough, but to find one single abode within a dwelling of this size might have taken him longer than it would take his own despair to win victory over his soul. Now though he had a mission, he would follow the music and hope that at its source he might find some way to locate the house of the silver queen.

  Falk struggled down the hillside batting aside the raindrops as he went, where they struck his head they were hard and sharp but fortunately once he was within throwing distance of the city walls they gave him less trouble. The walls were an impressive sight, being a city of such riches it was obvious that whoever ruled here went to great lengths to protect it, they were fifty foot tall from base to top and most likely went far into the ground. At regular intervals there were huge towers with flat roofs on which sat weapons the likes of which Falk had never seen, cylindrical metal tubes which pointed outwards into the countryside.

  Stationed regularly along the crenelated battlements were guards as well, despite the storm |Falk could see them staring out with frozen raindrops half dripped from their conical helms. Had time been in in full flow Falk had no doubt that he would have been spotted by now, the alarm raised. After circling for some time Falk found a gateway, to his blessing the gates were open, several figures stood in the entry way, and a wagon too, a hurrying trader who wished to be underway despite the storm, they were all silent, all still without time to help them on their way.

  Given the storm the streets were considerably emptier than they would have normally been, even so Falk was surprised at the number of figures he saw loitering in doorways and sheltering under porches. Falk stared in through shuttered tavern windows. The people inside looked happy, some were in mid drink, some were in mid-roll of the dice, others stared into unmoving flames or laughed silently with their friends. Falk soon became lost in the maze of alleys. Albury had been the largest settlement that Falk had seen prior to today, even then most of it was built around one main street, here there were dozens, some were grand walkways others were winding corridors. The initial architecture that Falk encountered on the outer rim of the city was a grey cracked affair, sturdily built but with little character. As he went deeper and deeper into Everfar he encountered grander structures of marble and quartz.

  Had it not been for the music then Falks quest would have been hopeless but to his blessing it continued the whole time, the gentle melodic chant summoning him through the streets. As he moved it became obvious where he was being led. A huge residence sat atop one of the cities many small hills. The area around the pillared structure was bare, the sign that this must belong to somebody of considerable influence within the city. As Falk reached the gate at the foot of the hill he saw something else that had been absent from his experiences for some time, as well as the music coming from the house there were lights as well, the flickering firelight of many lanterns could be seen from the dozens of windows in the multi-storey building.

  Falk staggered up the winding path to the entry of the house. Caution stayed his immediate desire to rush headlong in. This 'silver queen' was evidently the enemy of the statue maker, so powerful a being as he would not brook weak enemies. Falk could hear the music coming clearly now down the front corridor of the building beyond the white pillars of the entryway, he would see the shadows dancing on the walls.

  “Hello” the boy called hesitantly. “Is there anybody there?”. No answer
came the reply. Falk decided to go in, just as he reached the top step something caught his attention. Buried within the step were stones, around a hand width in diameter, coloured half white and half black, tiny runes could be seen etched into them. Falks eyes followed the line of stones and he saw that they wound their way all along that step and around the sides of the building. They were precisely the same as the stones which were buried along the edge of the western wood, and though he knew not exactly how, they went some way to explaining how it was that time seemed to exist freely in this place when it was absent elsewhere.

  Falk looked up at the lintel above the columns of the entry way. There were words carved there, they read 'Halda Sal Quelin'. Had Falk been able to understand the language then he would have read the words as 'The House of the Silver Queen'.

  Falk stepped over the final step and beyond the threshold of the dwelling. The moment he did so several things happened all at once. The first was that an enormous pain erupted in his right hand, the hand with which he'd struck the guardsman in Alesven who killed Aldwyn. The second thing was that a fire seemed to erupt under his cloak, in the pocket where he'd stored the lightning knife he got outside the city, this itself also cause a searing pain in Falks side, the third and most inconvenient thing at the time was that someone threw a black bag over his head, after several seconds of vain pain-filled struggling he was struck with something and not for the first time in recent months Falks consciousness gave up and he faded into darkness.