I heard a shout from seaward. I heard the noise of wings beating overhead.
“Lord Urlik! Now!”
It was the steersman’s voice. He had bundled Shanosfane aboard and had come along the coast to find me.
I sheathed the Black Sword and plunged knee-deep into the water. The stuff clung to my legs, hampering me. Belphig and his men were almost upon us. Behind him, in the way, everything was still in confusion.
I grasped the smooth side of the boat and hauled myself in, gasping. Immediately the steersman turned the herons and we were heading out to sea.
Belphig and the Silver Warriors came to a stop at the edge of the water and were soon swallowed in the gloom.
We raced back for the Scarlet Fjord.
* * *
Bladrak Morningspear had an unusually grim expression on his face as he sat in an amber chair and looked across the room at Shanosfane and myself.
We were in another room of his apartments, as far away from the chamber of death as possible. I had taken off the scabbarded Black Sword and leaned the thing against the wall.
“Well,” said Bladrak quietly, “the Black Sword has earned its price, it seems. You must have killed many Silver Warriors as well as those riders of Belphig’s—and perhaps you showed the folk of Rowernarc that there was some point in defending themselves.”
I nodded.
“And you, my Lord Shanosfane, are you pleased that you have avoided death?”
Bladrak spoke almost sardonically.
Shanosfane looked at him from those deep, detached eyes. “I am not sure what difference there is between life and death, Sir Bladrak.”
Bladrak’s expression seemed to indicate that he had made a point. He got up and began to pace about.
I said to Shanosfane: “Do you know who rules the Silver Warriors?”
Shanosfane looked slightly surprised. “Why, Belphig, of course…”
“He means that he wants to know who commands Belphig,” Bladrak said. “Who is supreme ruler of the Silver Warriors?”
“Why, Belphig. Bishop Belphig. He is their supreme ruler.”
“But he is not of their race!” I exclaimed.
“He has their queen prisoner.” Shanosfane’s gaze wandered around the room and then fixed curiously on the Black Sword. “They are not really warriors, those people. They are peaceful. They have never known war. But Belphig makes them do his will—for if they do not, he will destroy their queen, whom they love above life.”
I was astonished and I could see that Bladrak was equally surprised. “So that is why they are such poor halberdiers,” I murmured.
“They know how to build engines to make ships move through the water,” Shanosfane said. “They have several such mechanical skills. Belphig told me all this.”
“But why is he enslaving our people?” Bladrak demanded. “What use is there in it?”
Shanosfane looked calmly at Bladrak. “I do not know. What use is there in any activity? Perhaps Belphig’s plan is as good as any other.”
“You have no idea of his ultimate ambitions?” I said.
“I told you. None at all. I did not think to enquire.”
“Do you not care that your people are being enslaved—killed!” Bladrak shouted. “Does not that touch you anywhere in that cold soul of yours?”
“They were slaves already,” Shanosfane said reasonably. “And they were dying. How much longer do you think our race could have lived like that?”
Bladrak turned his back on the Lord Temporal.
“Lord Urlik, you wasted your time,” he said.
“Because Lord Shanosfane does not think as we do,” I replied, “it does not follow that he was not worth saving.”
“I was not worth saving.” A peculiar look came into Shanosfane’s eyes. “I do not think I have been saved. Who told you to rescue me?”
“We decided to do it ourselves,” I replied. And then I paused. “No, perhaps not—perhaps it was the Lady of the Chalice who suggested it.”
Shanosfane returned his attention to the Black Sword.
“I think I would like it if you could leave me alone,” he said. “I would meditate.”
Bladrak and I went to the door and walked out into the corridor.
“Well, perhaps he was worth saving after all,” Bladrak admitted reluctantly. “He gave us information we should not have had otherwise. But I have no liking for the fellow and cannot see why you admire him. He is nothing but a—”
We stopped in our tracks as a blood-curdling scream came from the room we had just left. We looked at each other, sharing a certain knowledge.
We ran back towards the door.
* * *
But the Black Sword had done its work. Shanosfane lay spreadeagled on the floor with the blade waving from the middle of his chest like an obscene plant. Whether the sword had attacked him or whether he had managed to kill himself with it we would never know.
Shanosfane was not dead. His lips were moving.
I bent to listen to the words he whispered. “I had not realised it would be so—so chill…”
Those incredibly intelligent eyes closed and he spoke no more.
I tugged the Black Sword from his body and put it back in its sheath.
Bladrak was pale. “Was that why the Lady of the Chalice made you bring him here?” he said.
I did not understand him at first. “What do you mean?”
“Did the sword need the life of a good man—an especially good man—as its price for helping us? The Black Sword’s reward—the soul of the Black King?”
I remembered the words of the chant: If the Black Sword is wakened, it must take its Black Fief… I clenched my hands together as I looked down at the corpse of the scholar king.
“Oh, Bladrak,” I said, “I am afraid of our future.”
And a coldness, colder than the coldest ice, filled the room.
BOOK FOUR
THE BLOOD OF THE SUN
A knife, a cup and a man shall be
The means by which the world’s set free.
— The Chronicle of the Black Sword
1
SIEGE OF THE SCARLET FJORD
DEPRESSION SETTLED OVER us and even the fires of the Scarlet Fjord seemed to fade.
We lived in the shadow of the Black Sword and now I had an inkling of the reasons why I had wanted to rid myself of it.
One could not master the sword. It demanded lives as some greedy Moloch—some fierce, barbaric god of ancient times—demanded sacrifice. And, what was worse, it often chose its own sacrifices from among the friends of the man who bore it.
A jealous sword, indeed.
* * *
I know that Bladrak did not blame me for what had taken place. In fact he claimed that the fault was shared between himself and the Lady of the Chalice—for they had encouraged me, against my will, to awaken the Black Sword and use it.
“It has already aided us,” I pointed out. “Without it, I should not have survived in Rowernarc and we should not have learned from Shanosfane the truth of Belphig’s status and the nature of his hold over the Silver Warriors.”
“It has been well paid for its work…” Bladrak growled.
“If we knew where Belphig hid this queen,” I said, “then we could free her. The Silver Warriors would refuse to serve Belphig and the threat would be over.”
“But we know not where, in the whole world, she is!”
“If the Lady of the Chalice were to be asked…” I began, but Bladrak silenced me.
“I am not sure that the Lady works entirely in our interest,” he said. “I think she uses us in some larger scheme of her own.”
“Aye—you could be right.”
* * *
Now we walked along the quays, staring down at the red-stained water, at the many boats we were preparing for our war against the Silver Warriors. The knowledge that the slender, awkward aliens fought us only because they had been forced to do so by Belphig took some of the savagery o
ut of our feelings and our work had slowed accordingly.
Unable to hate the Silver Warriors, it was harder for us to contemplate killing them. But we should have to kill them or see the whole of Humanity slain or enslaved.
I looked across the fjord to the mysterious source of its heat and light—the honeycomb cliff from which the scarlet radiance issued.
There was a power there but I could not begin to guess at its nature. Something created millennia before which continued to burn at the same constant temperature while the rest of the world grew cold. Once, I thought, the Scarlet Fjord had been something other than a camp for the outlaws who chose not to live in the soft decadence of cities like Rowernarc. Was the Lady of the Chalice the last descendant of the scientists who had dwelt here? Perhaps Shanosfane could have told us. Perhaps that was why the Black Sword had killed him, because we were meant to remain in ignorance…
Suddenly Bladrak put a hand on my shoulder. He cocked his head and listened.
I heard it then. The sound of a horn. It blew louder.
“The guards,” said Bladrak. “Come, Lord Urlik, let’s see why they sound the alarm.” He leapt into a boat which had already been harnessed to a pair of the heronlike flying creatures. They were asleep on the perches built along the quayside. He shook their reins and awakened them as I joined him. The birds squawked and took to the air. We headed towards the narrow opening of the fjord.
Between the tall, black cliffs we moved until the open sea was in sight. And then we saw the reason for the guards’ alarum.
It was Belphig’s fleet.
There were between five hundred and a thousand great ships massing there and the air was full of the drone of their engines. Low, sluggish waves rocked our craft as their wash reached us.
“Belphig brings all his strength against us!” Bladrak rasped. “Our boats could never hope to beat those huge craft…”
“But in one thing their size is against them,” I pointed out. “They can only enter the fjord one at a time. If we mass our warriors on the cliffs above the opening, we might be able to attack them when they try to enter the approach to the Scarlet Fjord.”
He brightened a little. “Aye. It might work. Let’s get back.”
* * *
We were waiting in the heights when the first of the great craft, with its strange pyramidal arrangement of decks, nosed its way between the cliffs. We had arranged boulders on the ledges in readiness.
The ship came directly beneath us and I drew the Black Sword and shouted: “Now!”
The boulders were levered over the ledges and crashed into the decks. Several crunched straight through, while others smashed down the terraces, taking timbers and warriors with them.
A mighty cheer went up from the warriors of the Scarlet Fjord as the ship keeled over and the soldiers in their silver armour were toppled into the viscous sea which sucked them down as they struggled and screamed in their strange high-pitched voices.
As I watched them die, I thought that these poor creatures were as much victims of Belphig’s perfidy as were we. Yet what else could we do but kill them? They fought so that a queen they loved more than life would not perish. We fought for our freedom. What Belphig himself fought for I was yet to learn.
Another ship tried to enter the gulf and again we showered down our boulders. This ship split in twain, both ends rising steeply out of the water like the slowly closing snout of some sea-monster, sandwiching those who had survived and crushing them before there was a burst of white hotness from the centre and the waters bubbled and steam struck our faces. I realised that we had destroyed one of the engines. They seemed unstable things. Perhaps we had found another weakness of the Silver Warriors.
After two more attempts, the ships withdrew, surrounding the entrance to the fjord in a semicircle many craft deep.
The siege of the Scarlet Fjord had begun in earnest.
* * *
Bladrak and I conferred in his apartments again. His spirits had lifted with our victories but now, as the implications dawned on him, he began to frown.
“You are afraid that we cannot sustain a long siege,” I said.
He nodded. “We grow much of what we need in our cavern gardens, but the slaves we have rescued have tripled our numbers and the gardens cannot support so many. Our raids brought us the extra food we needed, but with Belphig’s ships blocking the fjord we can do no more raiding.”
“How long do you think we can last?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Twenty days or so. We have no stores. They all went to feed the newcomers. Crops continue to grow, but not fast enough. Belphig probably knows this.”
“I am sure he does and is counting on it.”
“What are we to do, Lord Urlik? Go and do battle? At least we will die swiftly…”
“That is the last resort. Is there no other way out of the fjord?”
“Not by sea. And the path across the mountains leads only to the ice wastes. We should perish there as quickly as we’d perish here.”
“How long does it take to reach the ice?”
“On foot? Eight days, I think. I have never made the journey.”
“So even if a foraging party was sent out it could not expect to find food and return in time.”
“Exactly.”
I rubbed at my beard, thinking deeply. Eventually I said: “Then there is only one thing to do at this point.”
“What is that?”
“We must seek the advice of the Lady of the Chalice. Whatever her motives, she seems to want Belphig defeated. She must aid us, if she can.”
“Very well,” said Bladrak. “Let us go now to the cavern where the dark staff is.”
* * *
“Lady?”
Bladrak looked around him, his face shadowed in the soft, weird glow from the stalactites.
The strong smell of salt was in my nostrils. While Bladrak called the Lady of the Chalice, I inspected the short staff that was embedded in the basalt of the floor. I touched it and withdrew my fingers with a gasp, for it had burned them. Then I realised that it was not extreme heat that had caused the pain—but extreme cold.
“Lady?”
The thin whine came and it grew to an oscillating shriek. I turned, caught a glimpse of an outline of a great chalice, saw it fade as the shriek died, and then the Lady of the Chalice, clad in golden radiance, her face, as before, completely veiled, stood before us.
“Belphig has almost vanquished you,” she said. “You should have used the Black Sword sooner.”
“And slain more friends?” I asked.
“You are too sentimental for a great Champion,” she said. “The issues for which you fight are vast in scope and implication.”
“I am tired of great issues, madam.”
“Then why did Bladrak summon me?”
“Because there was nothing else to do. We are boxed up and will eventually die. The only solution I can see is to rescue the Queen of the Silver Warriors whom Belphig has captured. If she is freed, then Belphig will lose his main strength.”
“That is true.”
“But we know not where to seek this queen,” Bladrak said.
“Ask me a direct question,” the Lady of the Chalice told him.
“Where is the Queen of the Silver Warriors?” I asked. “Do you know?”
“Aye—I know. She is at Moon, a thousand miles from here across the ice. She is guarded both by Belphig’s men and by enchantments of Belphig’s arrangement. She cannot leave her apartments and neither can she be visited, save by Belphig himself.”
“So she cannot be rescued.”
“She can be by one man—by you, Urlik, with the aid of the Black Sword.”
I looked at her sharply. “This is why you helped Bladrak summon me. This is why you brought the sword here and made me use it. For reasons of your own you wish the Silver Queen freed.”
“A simple judgement, Count Urlik. But it will benefit us all if she is freed, I agree.”
?
??I could not cross a thousand miles of ice on foot. Even if I had not lost my bear chariot, I would not be able to get there in time to free the queen and save the Scarlet Fjord.”
“There is one way,” said the Lady of the Chalice. “A dangerous way.”
“By using a boat as a sled and having the herons drag it?” I said. “They would not last that long and I suspect that the boats are not sturdy enough to—”
“I do not mean that.”
“Then explain quickly, Lady,” I said grimly.
“The people who created the Scarlet Fjord were engineers who experimented with many devices. Many were unsuccessful. Many were partially successful. When they went away from here having found a means of travelling through Time, they left some of their inventions behind them. One of these was sealed in a cave in a mountain on the far side of this range, near the ice wastes. It was an air-chariot, flying under its own power, but it was abandoned because of one defect. The engine used radiated a substance which enfeebled the pilot, blinded him and eventually killed him.”
“And you want me to use such a craft to go to Moon?” I laughed. “And die before I reach the place? What would be accomplished by that?”
“Nothing. I do not know how long the radiation takes to kill. It could be that you would get to Moon before that happened.”
“Are there any permanent effects of these rays, should I survive?”
“None that I know of.”
“Where exactly is this craft hidden?”
“There is a pass that leads through the mountains to the ice. At the end of the pass is a mountain that stands alone. Steps are carved into the mountain and at the top of the steps is a sealed door. You must break the door and enter. There you will find the air-chariot.”
I frowned. I still distrusted the Lady of the Chalice. She, after all, had been the immediate cause of my separation from Ermizhad and my subsequent agony of mind.
“I will do this thing, Lady,” I said, “if you will promise me something.”
“What is that?”
“That you will reveal all that you know of my fate and my place in this universe.”
“If you are successful I promise I shall tell you all I know.”