Night was falling and unearthly sunset colours lit up the sky when Shelley awoke to a sound she had almost forgotten: falling water. Korman had put her down in the comfortable curve of a rain-sculpted, mossy limestone outcrop, in a gully high up in the Badlands, overlooking a rugged, forbidding land of thorny ridges, bush-filled gullies, crags and sheer cliffs. Stretching, she looked around sleepily for the water. There below her was a trickle of a stream, tinkling away into dark pools between mossy boulders on the floor of the gully. She saw that it issued from a bigger pool by the rock she was sitting on, right at the foot of the high cliff which formed one wall of the gully.
Korman was standing very still on a huge flat-topped boulder nearby, facing the setting sun. In the triple crystal on his staff three glittering reflections of the golden sunset flashed. There were just a few flecks of distant cloud, lit up like precious metals; otherwise the sky was clear, with a star or two already appearing. A gentle breeze smelling of wet leaves and moss was flowing up the gully. Shelley climbed down into the stream, filled her hands with cold clear water and drank, then washed the dust off her face and arms. She felt peaceful and awed, knowing she had her very own Guardian knight who was sworn to protect her. He looked in perfect harmony with nature, calm as the hills or the deep sky above, she thought. He was holding something in the palm of his hand. It glittered faintly as he struck its edge gently with his staff. It rang out with a surprisingly low tone, mixed with higher vibrations reaching right up, it seemed to Shelley, beyond the range of hearing. ‘What’s that?’ she called. She was starting to wake up again, and felt strangely energised. Back on Earth, she speculated, she would have been absolutely exhausted.
‘It is my singing bowl. Guardians use them to re-tune their minds to the Music of the Spheres, the sound of Creation.’ Shelley felt she wanted to listen close up, and feel the subtle resonance again.
Then a gong rang out, deep-toned, distant but still shocking in that quiet, wild place, intruding upon the primeval silence which had followed the ringing of Korman’s bowl. It boomed three times, echoing in the valleys and dying away. Shelley called nervously to Korman, ‘What was that? A giant singing bowl?’ He came down from the flat rock, lightly bounding from boulder to boulder, his weather-beaten cloak flying out behind him, and stood beside her at the edge of the pool beneath the cliff.
‘It is the sound of the gong calling the people to worship at the black stone,’ he replied. ‘It is the law of the Aghmaath that all must bow every evening to the black rock, the image of their god, which is the Void.’
‘Ugh, how freaky! Anyway, it’s getting dark, hadn’t we better look for one of those caves you said you knew? And I’m starving, have we got any food?’
‘Yes, and yes. I was bringing back to memory former times when I wandered here, happier times when some of the Padmaddim still lived here. The land has changed, and many thorn thickets have sprung up, but I am sure there should be a cave right here. It was the dwelling of an order of wise men of the Padmaddim who sought to recover the old knowledge of the Makers and of the Crystalline Entities.’
‘Where has it gone then? Have the Thornmen blocked it up?’
Korman raised his hand for silence. He waded into the pool until the water came right up to the top of his boots, and surveyed the cliff. Shelley marvelled to see that the crystal in his staff was beginning to glow in the gathering dark as he swept it this way and that across the cliff-face. It looked like a little tree-shaped lantern, and without her glasses it had a fuzzy halo around it. Now part of the rock appeared to swirl a little, as if a mist was passing over it, and slowly a dark cave-mouth was revealed, arching above the still water of the pool, which she now saw did not end at the cliff but extended into the cave, the calm ripples from Korman’s movements reflecting thousands of stars – but then Shelley realised, they were not stars at all but glow-worms, like the ones she had seen in a little cave her father had shown her on the way north one time, at a limestone reserve, where the land was full of limestone formations and deep fissures with trees and peculiar-smelling weeds growing in them. But these glow worms were not just the pale blue ones she knew; there were emerald green ones, and twinkling red, diamond white, and topaz yellow. Shelley had read that the glow worms of Earth imitate the stars, to trick little gnats into flying up into their glowing embrace, a deadly false night sky full of sticky threads. She looked up at the real sky above the cave mouth, and gasped. There high above was a mirror of what she had just seen – unfamiliar stars, yellow and red and green, brighter than terrestrial stars and planets, she thought, (though without glasses all lights looked big and fuzzy). There were whole constellations of them, twinkling away.
‘So I really am on a different planet, somewhere out in space,’ she thought with a thrill, head upturned to take in the sight until it made her giddy. Korman looked up too. ‘Another mindweb – a very cunning one,’ he whispered. ‘Somebody still lives here. But who? The Padmaddim did not know the art of mindwebs. Unless another Guardian lives still, and came this way.’
Shelley was beginning to wonder whether they would ever find a safe place to rest (and eat) and this water-filled cave definitely didn’t look like it. But Korman seemed determined to go in. ‘This could be an enemy trap, but I think not. If some of the Padmaddim still live here, that would be good news. They will be able, and I think willing, to help us. Come, be brave. Enter with me! I will protect you if there is an enemy within.’
There were no ledges to walk on, and Shelley had to wade into the cold dark pool. She decided to keep her shoes on and get them wet rather than step barefoot on something slimy that might bite. Following close behind Korman as he waded on into the darkness, she tried not to think of eels – or worse things. The reflection of the glow-worm constellations rippled and broke up as they waded in, a gentle current of cold air in their faces, flowing out of the depths. The triple crystal on Korman’s staff was brighter now they were in darkness, and by its faint glow (a cluster of three tiny lights) she saw a bat or two flit past on its way to hunt in the night air and, peering this way and that so she could get close enough to see them, she admired the glistening cave walls with their calcite flows and stalagmites and stalactites in the hollows and overhangs. She had been very young when her parents took her to the famous caves where the tour boats glide through long passages lit only by glow-worms, but the memory came back to her now, and it comforted her. ‘This planet may be light-years from Earth,’ she thought, ‘but some things are just the same.’ Except, she knew of no crystals on Earth like the one that was lighting their way right now… She decided to break the silence and ask him, partly to distract herself from the cold dark water they were still wading through (and it was getting deeper).
‘Korman, what is the crystal on your staff? What makes it shine like that? Is it… magic?’ Korman did not turn around, but answered in a slow thoughtful voice that echoed in the dark recesses,
‘It depends what you mean by magic. All things have a cause, most from inside the Magisphere, the great Bubble we call the World, a few from outside. But those are rare. All that is repeatable is natural; what is unrepeatable is what we call chance – or a miracle. This lightcrystal is natural, but also magic, in that it relies on the natural laws of the mind to activate its subtle energies, which, on Aeden, are bound up with the energies at the Centre, where the Tree of Life grows. Or… grew. Its light is dim now, very dim, compared to what it would have been in the old days, before…’ He broke off, and Shelley waited for him to go on. There was no sound but the steady swish as he waded ahead of her, and Shelley’s own lighter swish, and her sharp intake of breath as she stumbled on sharp rocks and slipped on slimy ones. Now, at last, it was getting shallower. ‘Thank goodness,’ she sighed.
At that moment rhythmic splashes echoed in the passage ahead, and Korman pressed her against the cave wall. Over the stones in the shallows in front of them slithered a snaky something, coming straight at them. Then it hesitated, stopped, and reared
its swaying head a moment. Shelley screamed. For a split second she saw big eyes and needle teeth glinting in the light. Suddenly the creature darted past them, wriggling off down the pool, skimming the surface with its waddling, webbed feet, and was gone. ‘Wha… what on earth was that?’ she gasped. A chill went up her back. She found she was shaking, clutching Korman’s sleeve. She let go, trying to look brave. Although she didn’t mind the bats, eels and snakes gave her the shudders.
‘Harmless little – how would you call it – dragon-snake,’ replied Korman.
‘Really harmless?’ asked Shelley dubiously.
‘Certainly – if you do not get between him and the water, or between him and his hole, or between a mother and her young. Did you see the pretty coloured wings with the pattern of the Lady upon them?’
‘No, how could I? It moved like greased lightning. Anyway, I’ve lost my glasses. I can’t see properly.’
‘You will learn to observe in the moment, and see things that move faster than that dragon-snake – and fight them if need be.’
‘Well, I hope I won’t have to tonight, not in here!’ said Shelley with a shudder.
‘The Aghmaath brought with them many creatures that live in the thorns: mostly harmless insects, like the giant stick insects. But some animals also. I do not want to frighten you, but there is one kind like this dragon-snake. They are rare, but not harmless. They live in caves. The Boy Raiders call them the Rog-tanax.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means big-bad-mouth. They bite. You must be prepared for them.’
Shelley found she had lost her nerve. She blurted out, ‘I’m scared. How can there be anywhere safe to sleep the night in this horrible place? Let’s go back!’
‘What, and be out in the open when the Kiraglim come?’ replied Korman. ‘It is, I hope, not all cold water and hard rock down here. There used to be a stronghold in here deep inside and high up above the hills of the badlands. If it exists still, there will be warm beds and food – and maybe help in our quest. It was a comfortable place, like the cave dwellings in the cliffs of my native world. Trust me to lead you, and save your strength.’
Shelley found it hard to imagine any comfortable place in the cold wet caves, but she replied, ‘Lead on, then.’
They went on past another bend or two without incident, wading in the stream, which was now shallow and tinkled down little rapids between glistening ivory-coloured slopes of flowstone into smooth-lipped basins and rippled clear as crystal over colourful gravel. This wonderland was all made of crystallised rock, Shelley knew, deposited over the ages out of the seeping calcite-laden water. ‘At least, that’s how it happens back on Earth,’ she thought. It comforted her to think that caves too were the same here as back home. ‘Good old laws of the Universe,’ Shelley thought, ‘I can count on them, wherever I am. Well, I suppose I can…’ She shivered at the slight uncertainty, and splashed on after her untiring guide who, being taller, often had to duck or go around a low-hanging stalactite or a whole formation – upside-down ‘organ pipes’ or flowing ‘Dwarf’s beards.’ She tried not to get too far behind, and he occasionally stopped to let her catch up. They passed a tributary that poured into the main tunnel from a little side-passage halfway up the wall, and she wondered where it led. Once they had to climb a steep place beside a long waterfall that churned into a basin that was too deep to see the bottom of. Chimings and tinklings of the water were all around, but gradually she realised these sounds were coming more from behind than ahead.
Rounding another bend, they came upon a parting of the ways. On their left the water became still and deep, and the cave roof sloped down to meet it. There was no way forward there, except by swimming. Looking to the right, Shelley almost thought they had come to another entrance: the cave floor rose in great steps of rock and there were myriads of stars again. Then she realised they were in a huge hall, and the stars were only glow-worms. The walls glittered with fine crystals like frost in the faint light, and the roof rose up in starry canyons high above them, the glow-worms like constellations and milky ways of diamond, emerald, topaz, ruby and sapphire.
Under this starry sky of the underworld they climbed up and up, over vast tumbled sections of fallen roof, until they stood high up in the echoing hall. Their shadows were faint but enormous on the walls. There was a narrowing of the hall a little way further up, which then turned into another passage like the one they had come through, but dry and utterly silent, with a nearly level floor. They pressed on into this new passage. Korman was looking around carefully.
After a few more minutes of this, when the floor had begun to slope up again, and Shelley was lagging behind and her feet – still wet – were getting very sore, Korman suddenly exclaimed, ‘Aha!’ He strode towards a side passage, a glittering dead end, where a magnificent glistening pale rose-coloured stalagmite almost met a stalactite hanging above them, and he knocked loudly on the stalactite with the end of his staff, with a peculiar rhythm. It chimed as he struck it. Shelley came running and stood behind him, puzzled. Nothing happened for a while, and the silence grew. She began to get nervous. What sort of creature would be living way in here, behind a stalagmite? Shelley heard the tinkling of the stream echoing far below them in the dark. Then from above there was an answering knock, to which Korman replied, in a peculiar series of taps like Morse code.
From above came the sound of stone grating on stone. A golden light (dim in fact but seeming bright as daylight to their light-starved eyes) shone down on them, and a rope ladder tumbled down. It was as if a trapdoor into a summer’s day had been flung open. Shelley was speechless with surprise.
A man’s voice, a bit cranky-sounding to Shelley, called out a question in the same foreign language that the Boy Raider spoke, which was starting to sound almost familiar to her. Korman was visibly relieved as he replied. He told Shelley, ‘It is my old friend, the learned teacher Barachthad, which means “Blessed Head.” All is well. We have come to a safe haven.’ He smiled, remembering. ‘His students used to call him Padrathad, which means “Marblehead,” on account of his round, bald head. But don’t you go calling him that!’ Korman indicated to her to climb the ladder. It was not as easy as it looked, as rope ladders bend and sway as soon as you try to climb them. But Korman steadied the bottom of the ladder with his foot, and soon Barachthad was helping her over the threshold. She stood blinking in the light as Korman nimbly climbed after her and pulled the ladder up.
What struck Shelley first was the cheeriness of the little old man standing before her, bowing and welcoming her in several languages, none of which she understood. In the light of the golden lamp he held (a beautiful sphere of amber in a cage of twisted silver wire, glowing softly from within) the greens and golds of his coat and waistcoat sparkled, contrasting with the dirty brown of his trousers, which had huge pockets full of objects, some of which dangled out: pens, various tools, some wire, string, and a lensed tube which Shelley thought looked like a periscope. She noticed the extreme shininess of his large bald head, framed by wisps of white hair sticking out the sides. He reminded Shelley of a ‘nutty professor,’ and she tried not to grin at the oddness of being met by such a caricature deep in the bowels of an alien planet. ‘I wonder what “odd” portal he popped through?’ she wondered, and suppressed a giggle.
Korman bowed to him, and introduced Shelley. She tried to bow too, but then stuck out her hand, and said, ‘I’m Shelley Arkle, from Earth. This is how we do it.’ The teacher imitated her gesture, and she took his extended hand and shook it. They both laughed, and Korman said something wryly, at which the teacher laughed again, but kindly. Shelley hoped she had made a good impression, as she liked the old man already. They then followed him up a polished winding stairway, carved or rather (it seemed to Shelley) melted out of the living rock, with a smooth arched ceiling, wide enough for two or three to walk abreast, as they did now. They had come out of the wild places underground into a place obviously built by very skilled miners –
‘The Padmaddim, I suppose,’ said Shelley to herself.
After several flights of stairs they came to a landing, with a solid arched wooden door, which was open. ‘After you’ said Barachthad, ushering them in with another of his bows. They entered a large room that looked like a lounge with several arched doorways opening off it. It was comfortable-looking, roughly oval with many bookshelves and alcoves carved into the sparkling rock, lit by more of the golden amber orbs like the one Barachthad held, in brackets on the walls. Shelley felt like going up to the amber and gazing into it, as if there was some miniature world, sparkling, half-hidden in its transparent yet variegated golden depths.
In the middle of the lounge was a semicircular couch around a big low round table, and towards the far end, a rugged kitchen table and chairs in an alcove. There was some kind of woven matting on the floor, springy to walk on. The white ceiling was low, but not too low, and it was arched. Several paintings adorned the polished walls of living stone. They were scenes of that alien world, with some odd-looking folk in them, but they were beautiful, and somehow reminded Shelley of the illustrations from some of her favourite fairy tales.
Overall it was very homely, especially after the wildness of the cave and the lands they had journeyed through. The only odd feature of the room was the assortment of bizarre technical gear on the big round table in the centre of the room, jumbled together with loose papers and books, dominated by a huge crystal mounted on an ornate wooden and copper tripod. It was amber-coloured, with some rainbow-gleaming flaws. It, like the amber orbs, appeared to be glowing with an inner light. Shelley was drawn to it, and as she approached she was conscious of a faint high-pitched humming, musical and variable, as if many subtle harmonies were weaving in and out.
Barachthad gently motioned to her not to touch it, then ushered them into the kitchen alcove to sit down. Shelley felt dizzy with tiredness – and hunger. Promising smells of cooking wafted in through a nearby doorway, and soon the old man was serving them up a hearty meal, a kind of vegetable and mushroom stew with dark sauce and lots of greens, served on big polished wooden platters. He said something, and Korman laughed. ‘He says I timed my visit well, as usual.’
There were knives and forks just like on Earth, which surprised and pleased Shelley. Korman and Barachthad talked and nodded and passed things to each another, chatting merrily in their incomprehensible language. Shelley was happy not to have to talk, just to be warm and safe and eating at last.
After the stew Barachthad brought crisp fragrant apples in a bowl, and a jug of clear cold water to drink, which had a wonderfully refreshing, almost intoxicating, effect.
But the apples were better still. There seemed to be some special significance to them, and the two men bowed their heads, intoning a short chant which sounded like a sort of grace. Then Barachthad took a sharp knife and cut one of the apples across the core – something Shelley had never even thought of doing – and placed the halves on the plate. She looked at the beautiful star pattern in the cross-section of the seed cavity and the seeds, but wondered what the point of the ritual was. Barachthad, seeing Shelley’s puzzlement, pointed to the star shape and said, ‘Aeden,’ then waved his arms madly around, reeling off an explanation that was mostly in his own language, leaving her more puzzled than before. She was too tired to pursue it, so she just nodded politely.
The rest of the apples he carefully cored, and placed the cores in a small bowl with exquisitely painted pink apple blossoms edged with gold. When they finally ate the cut pieces, they were delicious, like nothing Shelley had tasted; fruity, with an aroma like roses, yet substantial like bread, while at the same time ethereal, as if she was eating the essence of sunlight and moonlight mingled. She wondered if she was hallucinating, when the pieces began to look almost as if they really were shining with a silvery-golden light, and her body began to feel weightless. Korman looked at her, and smiled. ‘The apples will be good for your eyes, I think.’
Shelley looked at him, and wondered what magic might be in those apples from another world. She could almost imagine that her eyesight was improving. But she dismissed the thought as wishful thinking. ‘I guess if I stayed I could get some crystal or glass from Barachthad and try to grind some lenses and make myself some new glasses,’ she mused. ‘But I don’t even know my prescription…’
After a while she started to yawn as the two men talked on, laughing and raising their mugs often in salutes to each other and to imaginary persons in various other directions. Presumably, Shelley thought sleepily, they were toasting the Fairies and who knows, maybe the Lady of her dream. This thought brought up the memory of the Deathwagon, and she tried not to think about it and the dark void and the Lady stuck in the thorns. Images began swirling up in front of her eyes, bats that turned into Thornmen, horrible faces, birds with witches’ faces that dived and pecked at her. She felt herself falling, and woke with a jolt. Korman caught her as she slid sideways off the chair.
‘You are tired. I should have thought… Now it is bedtime for you.’
‘What about a bath? I’m filthy!’ Shelley replied, trying to keep her eyes open.
‘A bath can wait until morning,’ he said kindly. ‘Bed-time now!’ She was about to say that she wasn’t a baby, but was too tired to protest and just nodded.
He lifted her without effort and carried her to a little bedroom through one of the doorways, laid her gently on a soft bed, and went out. She had already taken off her muddy shoes and socks and jumper, so she just pulled the downy blankets over her, snuggled down, and glanced around the room contentedly. It was similar to the main room, with a low curved ceiling, carved-out shelves in the walls, and simple wooden furniture. She noticed there was fresh air coming into the room from somewhere. She closed her eyes.
Her parents came into her mind at first, but this was too painful. Then she turned in her mind to the Boy Raiders, especially their leader, the dashing Quickblade, who had rescued her and rode with her. That was a better subject… She wondered if she would ever see him again. ‘I liked him. But he’s probably much older than me. Doesn’t seem to have a girlfriend though.’ So thinking, she fell asleep on the night of her thirteenth birthday on a different planet, to the exquisitely peaceful sound of someone else doing the dishes in the kitchen.