The Girl and the Guardian

  They emerged into the brilliant daylight and smelt the green herbs and aromatic trees, whose leaves glistened as they rustled in the gentle breeze blowing through the valley. It seemed to them that they had found their way into paradise. The sunshine, illuminating everything, warming their bodies after the darkness and cold of the caves, felt miraculous to them. Even Bootnip came blinking out of his lair in Korman’s pack where he had sulked almost the entire time they were in the caves. For the children, it was also a wonderful relief to be able to talk again after their silence in the sacred cave of Rastavana, hearing only the sighing of the divine draught. They began to run and talk loudly to each other, and listen to their echoes in the hills. But Korman warned them to keep quiet and stay hidden, pointing to the form of the mountain looming above the valley walls. ‘Walls have ears, mountains have eyes,’ he said grimly, nodding at the tall shape of Baldrock, its crags sharp-shadowed in the morning sun.

  There he hoped to find his brother, or at least a remnant of the Keepers of the Mountain, but he was not certain of the welcome they would receive. He had heard word of the re-fortification of Baldrock, from the Traders in the Canyon as well as from Rastapin, but they knew very little about the occupants, as they were never allowed inside the gates.

  ‘We have emerged well clear of the Southern Gate, which we must assume the Aghmaath now hold,’ said Korman in a low voice. ‘But there is a long climb ahead of us if we are to reach the gates of Baldrock before nightfall.’

  ‘More climbing!’ Rilke groaned, and flopped down under one of the aromatic trees. Korman looked down at Rilke in pity.

  ‘I had forgotten!’ he said suddenly. ‘Perhaps this will cheer you up.’ He pulled out from a deep pocket a large diamond, expertly facetted by the famous gemcutters of the Canyon so that it sparkled like pale blue fire. Handing it to Rilke, he said, ‘This is from Goldheart. Her father was a gemcutter, one of the best. Keep it safe – one day you may need to trade it,’ said Korman, restraining Bootnip’s paws as he scrabbled greedily for the bright gem.

  ‘Never!’ exclaimed Rilke, pocketing it carefully. ‘I will keep it always.’ Bootnip growled at him, and sank back into Korman’s pack to sulk – and bide his time. Anklebiters never forget a jewel.

  ‘Can we follow the old Pilgrims’ Path up to the gates?’ asked Shelley, dubiously.

  ‘Perhaps we could find the path, though it will be overgrown,’ replied Korman, ‘but it would still not be safe: it could be watched by the enemy. We must take a hidden way through the rocky wasteland.’ Both the children groaned. Korman promised them that there should be a welcome for them when they got to the top, and rest in the safety of the ancient fortress. ‘For this is the land which once belonged to the Order of the Keeper. The Darkened ones will not come here easily.’

  ‘Neither will we!’ grumbled Rilke. Worriette copied his grimace, exaggerating it until all three humans laughed, and she chattered happily, and the weariness lifted from their shoulders.

  They began to pick their way up the broken and fissured volcanic slopes, mostly overgrown with a cover of thick scrubby bushes that lay beneath the massif of Baldrock. It loomed above them now like some weathered fortress carved at the beginning of time by a race of giants. There was enough cover to feel hidden from unfriendly eyes, but it was rough going. There was no wind under the bushes, and as the day wore on it began to get hot. The rocks which stood above the cover began to shimmer in the heat. Exotic-looking lizards basked on their surfaces, and Korman warned Rilke, ‘Do not touch the lizards. Some may bite.’

  One that Shelley noticed had a little ruff around its neck and an eye on the top of its head. It looked as if it was carved out of the rock it lay on. ‘It looks so wise and thoughtful. I wonder what it’s thinking about right now? It’s just like a Tuatara, with its third eye.’ A thought struck her. ‘I hope it’s not a relative of the Aghmaath!’

  But Korman said, ‘Look! An Irkkara, a sungazer lizard! There was a family of them near my cave at the Portal. They would sun themselves all day on the rock ledges.’ The lizard blinked its third eye slowly as they passed.

  The slope became steeper, and the bushes in the fissures of the huge rocks began to thin out, and were replaced by a tall plumed grass like pampas, dropping fluffy seeds onto the travellers as they struggled on, winding their way up the side of the mountain.

  ‘It is good to see no sign of thorns growing here,’ said Korman when they took a brief rest on a shady rock shelf below a great overhanging boulder. ‘It is the power of the Keepers, perhaps.’

  ‘Or the Zagonamara,’ said Shelley.

  Looking back over the boulder-strewn slope of dark green below them, they could see in the distance the whole line of Baz Apédnapath, snaking back toward the Northeast Arm, the High Pass and the artists’ colony. But a dark haze of smoke lay over it, reminding them of the threat of the enemy in the wild lands about them, seemingly so empty.

  Gazing west across the bright gulf of blue air, Korman squinted at the fortresses of the Tor Enyása, the five tall outcrops on the cliffs ringing the plateau, and the five inner outcrops higher up, like smaller teeth ringing a circular mouth which opened skywards where, in days long gone, the renewing lightning would strike the Tree of Life, and the Arcra would out its subtle energy beams to link the Nine Worlds. Atop each of these outcrops were hidden watchers, Korman knew, Dreamcasters who never slept. And in between were the lance-spiked thorn thickets, home to fierce Aghmaath warriors.

  ‘How will we ever enter there to replace the Arcra-Nama, even if Shelley does find it?’ he wondered, but long mental practice reasserted itself and he visualised a happy outcome, trusting that there would be a way. He looked over at Shelley, and thought, ‘There is my sign of hope. She has been sent. It is she who will find the way, when the time is right.’ Encouraged, and filled with love for the Lady who had brought them safely out of the Bottomless Canyon, he stood up again to lead them on.

  As the day wore on, they found the going rougher. Thick wiry bracken, over the children’s heads, blocked their way. Korman had to go in front, parting the bracken with his arms and trampling a path for them. The air was hot and still, flies were buzzing, and the children were grumbling, when suddenly they stumbled onto a clear path that wound across the mountainside.

  ‘The Pilgrim Path!’ said Korman.

  ‘Let’s follow it!’ begged Rilke. Korman was dubious, but Shelley pointed out that whatever might be following them would see their tracks through the bracken a mile off.

  Korman reluctantly agreed.

  ‘But we must be on our guard at all times.’

  They set off up the Pilgrim Path, grateful for the paving-stones under their feet and a cool breeze on their hot faces. The path snaked up the mountainside, with smooth black standing stones at intervals, carved with the serpent signs of the Zagonamara, and low stone benches at their feet, polished by countless hands and knees, where prayers used to be said and rest taken. ‘See, the little piles of pebbles, offerings to the aspect of the Zagonamara each stone represented!’ said Korman as they rested in the shade of one of the standing stones. ‘How long have they lain here, I wonder? Since before the Tree was planted on the Tor Enyása, perhaps.’

  ‘There’s some pretty stones here, under the moss!’ said Rilke, digging with Worriette looking on, curious, until Bootnip waddled over, shoved her aside and began to dig with his powerful paws next to Rilke.

  ‘Do not take any of the pebbles!’ said Korman. ‘We must respect the offerings of the pilgrims.’ He took Bootnip by the scruff of the neck and put him firmly back into his pack.

  The children complained about their packs, which had been feeling heavier and heavier in the heat. ‘Eat something out of them,’ suggested Korman, smiling. ‘They will grow lighter, and you will grow stronger.’ They ate a little food and drank a good deal of water, then hoisted their very slightly lighter packs onto their tired backs and, following Korman with groans, set off once more.

  They w
ere approaching a sharp bend where the path went under some high overhanging rocks on either side, when Worriette began shivering and piping her warning call. ‘What’s the matter…’ began Rilke, but before he could say ‘Worriette’ there were sudden sounds from the rocks behind and ahead. Shaggy, moss-camouflaged figures leapt down onto the path with drawn bows, sharp hunting arrows pointed at the travellers’ hearts.

  Shelley, after her initial shock, almost cried out, ‘Quickblade!’ The ambushers were just like Boy Raiders. Most looked to be fourteen or so. They were staring at the strangers. Rilke stared back at the boys defiantly, but edged closer to Shelley. Korman recognised them by their clothing as Tímathians, from the Guardian World, but with an unfamiliar device embroidered on the breast: a lighthouse shining in a black background studded with stars. ‘The Order of the Keeper! Hillgard!’ he thought, and joy filled his heart. He held out his hands to the boys and took a step forward. ‘We come in peace, seeking Hillgard…’

  ‘Halt!’ cried the boy at the front, older than the others, a tall, stern young man with dark hair and dark glittering eyes deep-set in a long face. He was clearly their leader. ‘You are trespassing in the realm of the Keeper. What is your business here?’ he asked.

  ‘We are glad to meet you, if you truly are what you seem, warriors of the Guardian World, folk who honour the Keeper!’ said Korman, as the children held close to him and stared back at their ambushers. One of the smaller boys poked out his tongue at Shelley, and she poked hers back. But one of the other boys gave him a whack, and he went back to glaring at the trespassers.

  ‘We are warriors of the Guardian World,’ said the leader, proudly. ‘But who are you?’

  ‘I am Korman the Outcast, a Tidak Guardian, and this is Shelley of Kor-Edartha, and this is Rilke of Pebblebrook, and his pet, an orphaned gagavala from the land of Applegate. We seek refuge from the Aghmaath, and safe conduct through this land. Also, I seek my brother, one Hillgard the Lionhearted, of the Guardian World.’

  ‘How can we know what you say is true? Do you have a token that you are truly a Guardian?

  ‘Show him your sword, Korman!’ cried Rilke, but Korman had already drawn it, the crystal blade glowing as he held it up. ‘Behold Arcratíne, firesword of the last Tintazürash of the Tree of Life.’

  The boys all looked at him in fear and wonder. Some began to back away into the bushes. Korman sheathed Arcratíne, and said, ‘Fear not! I am true to the Concept. Hethür, Krithür, Shaktha!

  ‘Then you are a friend and a brother!’ cried the leader of the Guardian boys, laughing out loud. ‘And Shelley of Edartha and Rilke – and his wurrier – are welcome too. I am Kernan the Orphan.’ He bowed to Korman, then to Shelley, and now the whole band was thronging around them, jumping off the rocks and eagerly beckoning them on up the path.

  ‘You will meet your blood brother very soon!’ said the boy. ‘He has been waiting for you for a very long time. We were told to watch for you, and bring you to him in safety! Come, follow us!’

  They set off up the path at a fast pace, until they realized the travellers were weary, and some of the boys offered to carry their packs. Shelley and Rilke gladly accepted, but Korman kept his. Coming around the final bend, they found themselves beneath the huge monolith of Baldrock. Forty or so yards from its foot there rose a high stone wall of massive shaped stones, perfectly fitted. ‘Like the Inca stones in Peru,’ thought Shelley. There was a great gate of iron-bound wood, set in a heavy stone arch, with a tall keystone carved with the emblem of the lighthouse and stars.

  ‘Behold, the fortress of Baldrock!’ said Kernan proudly. ‘Our home will be your refuge. No Aghmaath will come through this gate while there is breath in our bodies!’

  The gates swung open, and they went up a broad path leading to an outcrop at the foot of the massif, surrounded by short grass grazed by sheep. Shelley almost laughed to see the familiar woolly animals bouncing nervously away from them as if it was the first time they had ever seen humans.

  There was a stair cut into the rock, just wide enough to walk in single file. Shelley and Rilke both looked up and felt giddy. Rilke steadied himself against Shelley and gazed up in awe. The steps went up and up, crisscrossing the side of Baldrock, angling across its imposing cliffs until they disappeared over a shoulder near the summit. Not wanting to appear afraid, the two children steadied their nerves and began to climb, following Kernan, with Korman right behind. ‘In case one of you stumbles,’ he said. Shelley wondered what would happen if they both stumbled at once, but she said nothing.

  When they finally reached the place where the stair had curved out of sight, they saw that the shoulder was quite broad. Behind it rose the final impassable peak, hundreds of feet up, where only the nimble mountain goats climbed. But in the sheer sides of the mountain were openings with wooden doors opening onto lofty balconies. It made the Shelley giddy just to think of standing on them.

  All along the terraced shoulder of the mountain, there were huts and cottages of stone and gnarled mountain wood, quaint dwellings which Shelley fell in love with immediately.

  ‘Oh, this is lovely!’ she exclaimed, as she recovered her breath after the steep climb. ‘Is that your village?’

  ‘Yes, we live there now, though we did not build most of it, just rebuilt the ruins we found,’ said Kernan, modestly, but Shelley saw that he was very proud of it. ‘I can show you around later; but first we have been ordered to take you straight to the Top, where Lord Hillgard is waiting.’

  The final ascent was through a dark stairway winding up through the living rock. It reminded Shelley of Barachthad’s cave, smoothly carved, glassy, as if melted through the rock by some technique unknown to Earth. But the rock was very different here: black granite, sparkling with dark red flecks and shiny flakes of mica.

  As they approached the top of the long stairway they heard the eerie sound of wind funnelling through narrow gaps. Deep blue sky showed bright beyond an arched doorway, carved on either side with serpents coiled about tree trunks. Kernan led them out into a wide circular courtyard, unroofed but walled with great close-fitting stones, Korman’s height or a little more. They were very high up; the air felt colder.

  ‘The Top of Baldrock!’ said Kernan. They looked around in wonder. There was a wrought-iron railing (or copper, Shelley thought from the green tinge) on the outer edge of the wall. The uprights were tipped with ball-and-spike decorations, making the wall look like a circlet or crown. Beyond was nothing but blue sky, which felt so near they could reach up and touch it. A little stairway went up onto the perimeter wall, and Rilke wanted to climb it, to look over the edge at the whole world below.

  But something else attracted him even more: in the centre of the courtyard there was a circular pool of dark water, perhaps twenty paces across, reflecting the blue of the sky, almost level with the polished black flagstones of the pavement that surrounded it. There were many white lotuses floating in it, tinged with pale yellow, and the eddying wind wafted their perfume about the courtyard.

  In the middle of the pool was a pillar of black rock, carved in the likeness of a great tree-trunk wound about with two glistening dragon-snakes, whose wings bore the engraved image of the Lady. There were carved steps leading up to a higher pool in the top of the pillar, from which water spilled over four golden lily leaves.

  They all stared at the fountain in wonder, not for the pond or the carved pillar, but the shining object which floated in the pool atop the pillar: a massive sphere of pure crystal, higher than a man, glistening in the late afternoon sun. There was a hint of curved lines on its surface like tightly overlapping petals, and rainbow colours gleamed from its depths.

  ‘The Crystal Lotus of Baldrock! So it still exists!’ exclaimed Korman. There was a feeling of great power in the air. The very stone under their feet seemed to pulsate with it.

  ‘Like the Zagonamara lake, yet unlike,’ thought Shelley. ‘The Head of the Zagonamara, and the Eye of mystic seeing, with the crown that catche
s the lightning,’ she murmured. ‘Just as Rastapin described it!’

  The old monk had told them that if they found their way to the sacred head of Baldrock they would (he hoped) find it there still, floating on the sacred waters. ‘Inside the Lotus,’ he had said, ‘one may have visions of many things, past, present and future, if one dares to open it and sit within.’

  The place was silent, except for the tinkling of the water and the faint hiss of the wind in the railings. From far below came the occasional bleating of a sheep in the lower pastures of Baldrock, and higher up the mountain goats were calling to one another across the ravines as the shadows lengthened.

  Rilke ran to the edge of the lower pond, and was testing the depth of the water, when there came a sharp cracking sound. He looked up at the crystal. Something was happening to it.

  Shelley grabbed Korman’s arm, but Kernan said, ‘Do not fear! Watch!’ They stared in wonder as the crystal began to open like a giant lotus bud, its petals slowly unfolding until they lay almost level, resting on the top of the pillar. A figure rose up from the midst, tall and sombre in the dark robes of the Order of the Keeper. But his face shone with joy as he looked on Korman.

  ‘O my brother! Is it really you? It has been a long, long time! Your beard – it is going white!’

  ‘And yours is fuller, but not so red as it once was!’ cried Korman.

  The lost brother of Korman, Hillgard the Lionhearted, hurried down the steps of the pillar. Jumping into a little boat at its foot, he pushed off and glided across the pond to greet the visitors. Korman and Hillgard embraced a long time. Then Hillgard said, through tears, ‘My brother, for very many years after the fall of the Tor Enyása, I thought you were dead, by the decree of the Tidak Guardians, until one day I heard a rumour, of one crazy outcast Guardian who now served the Lady of the Lake, and had disappeared into the wilderness to await the coming of the Kortan. Is this madness true? Tell me of it!’

  ‘There is much to tell, if I am to persuade you that I am not mad, my brother. And yes, it is true that the Lady appeared to me as I lay dying, after giving up the breath of life by order of the council, having failed in my charge to protect the Arcra. She asked me to await the coming of the Kortana, and to learn from her things that would be needful in the days ahead.’

  ‘Is she, then, above the Guardian Council?’

  ‘No, but she does not answer to them, but to a higher – or deeper – power. And the Guardian Council is no more.’

  ‘Well, my brother, do not think me mad if I say to you that I too answer to a Higher Power: that of the Keeper. After the downfall of our Order in the battle of Tor Enyása, I made for this mountain, having heard that it was not only an ancient fortress but also a place of power for seeing things that are afar off. I burned to gain some power, any power, to wreak vengeance upon the Aghmaath.

  'And I took Baldrock single-handed, for it was said to be haunted, and the people of Baz Apédnapath feared the monks of the Zagonamara who made pilgrimage to this summit at the solstices. But none lived here except the mountain goats, which provided me with meat and wool.

  ‘Long years I meditated here on the Summit. I dared to open the Crystal Lotus and sit in it. Also I laboured to reopen the vaults and secret passages of the mountain, interrupted only by the visits of the monks and priestesses of the outlandish Zagonamara cult, until I forbade them to come here, and locked the gates against them. They were threatening the security of my stronghold.

  ‘Then I returned to the teachings of my first foster-father, Taniar of the Order of the Keeper, and sought to contact the Keeper for myself, through dreams and trance in the Lotus. Here it was that I at last contacted the Keeper. And he told me to seek for the lost technologies of the Makers, and to fashion weapons against the Aghmaath. He promised to send me help from the Guardian World, children whom I should train in a new Way: the Way of the Tower! And with them I would wreak vengeance on the accursed Aghmaath!’

  Korman did not reply, but shook his head, dubiously.

  ‘You were always timid!’ said Hillgard, his blue eyes flashing. ‘Embrace your hatred! Let it motivate you to such acts of valour and vengeance upon our enemies that the world of Aeden will never forget, though it last for a thousand ages!’

  The children were getting restless by now, and asked Kernan (who had been standing to attention all this time awaiting his master’s orders) if they could walk on top of the wall. Kernan motioned to them to follow him in silence. They tip-toed off while the two old Guardians, oblivious to all else, disputed and discussed the truths of the Keeper and of the Lady, and whether these new truths might be reconciled within the Concept, to which both still held above all.

  Meanwhile the children inched out onto the top wall, which was only about one pace wide. They shuffled slowly around it, bracing against the wind which blew fresh from the sea, cooling their bodies and sharpening their minds. Shelley was not dizzy as long as she looked at the horizon, where the island of Aeden slipped down into the distant sea, hazy, blue and dim; but when she looked straight down and saw the little huts on the shoulder of the massif and (even further down) the winding snake-path of the Pilgrims, she felt the ground move under her, and her head spun. She held onto Rilke, and they both swayed a little and gripped the railings. The little wurrier, sensibly, had not ventured up with them, but peeped out from Rilke’s pack, which he had put on the pavement at the foot of the stairs.

  Kernan walked lightly without fear in front of them, holding his arms out to feel the wind. When they reached the side of the wall facing away from the sun, which was now sinking towards the western sea, he pointed out the Northeast Arm, ending at the peninsula of the Guardian World, with its own Tor Enyása like the central one, but smaller.

  ‘That is the ruined fortress of the Guardians, now being garrisoned again by our people, at Lord Hillgard’s command. All the land between here and there we have claimed for the Guardians and the Order of the Keeper. One day we will go forth and do battle with the Dark Invaders, and win back all of Aeden.’

  ‘Where did you all come from, you boys I mean?’ asked Shelley.

  ‘We come from the Guardian World, Tímathia. This is how I came here: One day as I walked alone, meditating on the beauty that was in Aeden, where dwelt those fortunate Guardians who had been chosen to protect the blessed jeweltree grove on the magical Plateau, and the Tree of Life in the midst of it, with its golden crystal, the Arcra-Nama, a crack opened up before me in the air of the desert. I looked into the miraculous crack, convinced that through it lay the lost world of Aeden, closed off from ours for seventy-three years. I saw this peak of Baldrock shining in the distance, and heard in my mind the call of Lord Hillgard, urging me to come to him. And I took courage to step into the crack.

  ‘At once I found myself treading the fearful vastness of the Abyss between Worlds, but only for a moment. Then I landed safely in a certain place between the Guardian mountain and here. Some of the brothers were waiting for me: the place was known to Hillgard as one of the hidden Portals between the worlds, open only to children, it seems. For the Great Paths were closed when the Arcra-Nama was stolen.’

  ‘That’s what happened to me, sort of! Except Korman was waiting for me – and of course the Aghmaath! We’ve been on the run from them ever since. We took Rilke with us when his parents’ town was going over to the Aghmaath. It was horrible. They started eating those drugged apples and chanting to the Void.’

  ‘I know of their ways. We have been taught about the enemy. But where are you making for, if not here to join us in the coming war?’

  ‘I… um… we’re going to a place called Ürak Tara so I can be initiated and…’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And then, they say, I will know how to find the Arcra-Achrha, the Lost Jewel.’

  ‘So, are you the one they call the Kortan?’ Kernan’s eyes were wide, yet doubt was in them.

  ‘The Kortana. So they tell me. I don’t know what to believe. But I do want to do so
mething for Aeden. It feels like home, somehow – the lost Paradise that Earth – I mean Kor-Edartha – once belonged to. The Heartland. So many of our legends are about this place, and we are all homesick for it, and yet we don’t know where it is.’

  Kernan looked at her, awestruck. ‘So the legends about Kor-Edartha are true: there is such a world!’

  ‘Of course there is!’ said Shelley, but as she thought about motorways and cars and cities and TV and the whole world she grew up taking for granted, thinking it was the only world, she felt a strange change of perspective, as if things had been turned inside out, and her old life and Earth seemed alien and improbable – almost unbelievable. She felt ashamed of it, too, and wanted to forget it.

  ‘Tell me about Edartha,’ said Kernan.

  But Shelley didn’t hear him. She was far away, imagining a new life in Aeden, glorious and free. ‘I’d be Shelley the Braveheart, Restorer of Aeden,’ she thought dreamily. She looked out over the Guardian Arm, the Badlands, and beyond, to the plains of the Boy Raiders, and she felt she was looking into her future. But there was haze over the plains. ‘Quickblade,’ she whispered into the wind, ‘where you are now? Will I see you again? I’ll need your help before the end. I’m not really that brave on my own.’

  Worriette, meanwhile, had climbed out of Rilke’s pack and was tentatively trying the steps that led up to the top of the wall, whimpering and sniffing the air. Rilke was getting cold, so he went back down the steps and picked up the shivering wurrier. He had taken over their shared pet, but Shelley didn’t mind. He was the youngest of the group, and she felt sorry for him, so far from home, not knowing if his parents were prisoners of the enemy – or dead.

  Shelley was getting cold too, so she came back down with Kernan. It was much warmer in the shelter of the wall, where the long-separated brothers were still disputing.

  ‘No, we cannot trust in any power of this world, whether it be this Lady of yours or the so-called Zagonamara,’ Hillgard was saying. ‘We must look beyond, to the Power that our ancestors met in the far regions of space: the Keeper. My Tímathian children have been called across the chasm between the worlds by his power. I tell you, we will overcome the Aghmaath! The future of Aeden is with the New Guardians, not some mumbling monks from the underworld!’

  Korman looked at his brother with alarm. ‘You would be a fool, if you keep out the pilgrims of the Zagonamara, and deny the Lady of the Lake! It is they who hold the key to the defence of the land, until the Jewel has been restored and the power of the Zagonamara flows once more beneath the Tor Enyása into the Tree. And as for the Lady, since she was taken and thrown into the thorns, she is now deep in the mindfields of the enemy, in the Dreamweb, where she can help us overcome their deceptions. For we cannot win by force of arms, no matter how powerful. It is a battle for the mind and heart, my brother.’

  ‘The pilgrims would threaten the integrity of this fortress,’ replied Hillgard. ‘Call me a fool, my brother, but I will not risk having them here. Look! We are building weapons here which may be able to destroy the thorn nests, more powerful even than the old fireswords: reflectors which focus the light of the sun into lightcrystals then release it in a beam powerful enough to set fire to the thorns!’ He pointed triumphantly to a kind of large optical machine on a tripod which Korman had not noticed, standing on a platform which made it level with the top of the wall. Its bright silver reflector and diamond lenses glittered in the golden-red light of the setting sun.

  ‘So, that is what you are using the diamonds for!’ said Korman. ‘Did you know that the monks risked their own safety by letting the smugglers pass through their caves? They hope that in time you will come to trust them, and re-open the pilgrim path of the Zagonamara.’

  ‘I have told them that when the enemy is banished or destroyed, then we will allow them to make pilgrimage here. Until then, let them lead their own simple life in the deeps, if that is their choice: not to join with us in the great war of liberation. But I have disputed long with them. I know that they are stubborn, and will not join us.’

  They fell silent. The sun was now setting, and the air was charged with power. The sky, seen from that lofty place, was a vast hemisphere of flaming red and fiery orange clouds, slowly deepening to crimson. The children fidgeted, but Kernan motioned for them to be silent.

  Korman spoke at last. ‘Here Arcratíne, the Jewel-Guardian, feels the power of its ancient home, the Crystal World, and the Fire World where it was forged.’

  The golden hilt-gem glowed in the last light as he drew Arcratíne and raised it aloft, and the sunset colours ran up and down the gleaming crystal blade. There was a crackling of electricity in the air about the blade. ‘Hethür, Krithür, Shaktha!’ Korman chanted, and Hillgard joined in, his deep voice full of passion.

  But Korman re-sheathed the sword.

  ‘Alas, I have sworn not to use it in battle until the Lady commands, for I must learn a deep wisdom, the wisdom of Faery, which she knows and you do not, and which I only glimpse – though on this sacred mountaintop, I begin to see the way that the heavenly wisdom and the earthly are reconciled. Here where the lightning leaps from sky to earth, and from earth to sky.’

  ‘Ha! Long years in the desert waiting in vain for the Kortan have driven you mad,’ said Hillgard, but he smiled inwardly to see that the passion for battle was still strong in Korman. He longed to persuade him to stay, and help train the army of New Guardians that would vanquish the Aghmaath. Secretly he began to think about holding Korman at Baldrock by force until he did change his mind.

  ‘But I believe that I did not wait in vain,’ said Korman, seeing Shelley approach (ignoring Kernan’s protests). ‘You have not enquired as to my fellow-traveller. Behold, Shelley of Kor-Edartha!’

  ‘A girl?’ said Hillgard. ‘Meaning no offence, young lady,’ he added, and bowed slightly. But Shelley looked at him defiantly and said to Korman, ‘I think it’s time we went back down to the village now, don’t you? Some of us like to eat, you know.’

  Korman and Hillgard apologised for making the children wait so long, and Shelley said it was all right. Then Hillgard told Kernan, ‘Take our other guests down to the village of Hope and entertain them well. Korman and I still have much to discuss.’

  So they left the two old warriors on the summit and went down the dark winding stairway to Kernan’s village on the shoulder of the mountain. As they descended the seemingly endless stairs, Shelley ventured a question to their guide, who had become quite silent. ‘Do you boys live alone in the village, or are there… girls?’

  He seemed relieved to be asked a question. ‘Yes, that is why it is called the village of Hope. When we are deemed worthy, some of us will marry, and the women will bear the new hope for Aeden’s liberation. And others of us will become warrior monks, and poets and seers.’

  ‘Which will you be?’ she asked. But he would not say.

  When they emerged from the tunnel the sun was gone and the first brilliant stars were out, green and red points of light in the blackening sky.

  It seemed that there was good gardening on the slopes of Baldrock, and plentiful supplies were stored in the fortress. The boys were joined by girls who came out of other cottages at the far end of the village, and together they prepared a feast under the stars, with long tables placed by the boys in a circle around a big campfire, and mutton was roasted, and Tímathian dishes were prepared by the girls. When the meal was ready, they all lined up and faced towards the Enyása of the world of Tímathia, the Guardian world. Then they brought out their singing bowls – some large as soup-bowls, some small and delicate as teacups – and tapped them in unison, the high notes blending with the low, until a single harmony emerged. It reverberated about the silent company, seeming to Shelley to vibrate in the depths of her body, from low in her stomach to the top of her head, healing and unifying her mind and body. It was the Music of the Spheres, the sound of creation. Shelley remembered Korman describing it that first day when they stood before
the cliffs of the Padmaddim.

  The company was chanting to the music:

  Hethür, Krithür, Shaktha!

  ‘The One, the Concept, the Soul of the World!’ That Guardian mantra seemed to answer for a prayer to open most occasions, Shelley reflected – from a meal to a battle.

  When the mutton was passed around, Rilke asked for fish. ‘I’m a vegetarian,’ he explained. But there was no fish, so he munched n carrots and fruit. And there were plenty of nuts.

  After the feast, songs of the Guardian World were sung, songs of dragons, great exploits and deeds of heroism and endurance. The Tímathian music, accompanied by their singing bowls and flutes, was more like chanting, like the Gregorian chants Shelley had heard her father listen to in his little dome in the back garden, in another world, far, far away.

  Rilke was entertaining some of the other children, showing off the tricks he had taught Worriette. She begged, rolled over, and balanced pieces of apple on her little nose until he gave her the word to eat them. Then with one snap they were in her mouth, and she smacked her lips in triumph.

  Then Kernan called, ‘What about a song about Edartha, for our guest?’ One of the older girls got up, smiling self-consciously. Her name was Magrethána, which means Shepherdess. She wore a long dress of white woven wool, fastened with a blue diamond that reflected the flame colours of the firelight. She stood on the rough-hewn wooden dais at one end of the rectangle of tables, under a curved rockface of the mountain which focussed the sound.

  Magrethána raised her hand for silence, and her manner changed. Now she was a leader, an inspirer of men, beautiful, tall and willowy, a shepherdess and poet in training, of the Order of the Keeper. She began to speak, in soft rhythmic speech, magnified by the cliff behind, silver-voiced like a moonbird.

  First she looked at Shelley and welcomed her graciously, then she told of the Tímathian legends about Kor-Edartha, the Silver World, and the Templar ancestors who came from Edartha, and how they became Guardians in the Order of the Makers.

  Then she told a legend of the dolphins who swam the paths between the seas of all the Nine Worlds, by means of the undersea Trees which still survived, and brought with them the wisdom of the great whales of the Blue World, and the talking Cuttlefish and the giant Nautiluses of Aeden which came to Kor-Edartha in its hour of need.

  After that Magrethána invited Shelley to tell a story from Edartha, and she got up on the dais and told them some of the Earth legends about Aeden, about the Garden of Eden (or Aeden, as it is properly spelt) and the Tower of Babel, of King Arthur and Guinevere, the Lady of the Lake, Merlin, and the Knights of the Round Table. The boys loved that story and kept interrupting and asking questions like, ‘How did the knights settle a dispute?’ and ‘Did they have duels?’ and ‘How did they win the hand of a lady?’ and ‘Which world did Merlin come from, and what was his Training?’

  But the girls asked about Guinevere and the mysterious Lady of the Lake. They had not yet heard, it seemed, about their own Lake Avalon and the Lady of Aeden. When she began to tell them, they were enthralled, but the boys were doubtful, and some said, ‘We should ask Lord Hillgard about this. The Concept and the Order of the Keeper say nothing about a woman priest. Only poets. Was she a poet?’

  Shelley felt very tired, and just said, ‘Don’t be such bigots! You obviously need to meet the Lady for yourself. If only Hillgard would let the pilgrims up onto the mountain, maybe she’d appear to you…’

  Then Kernan rose up and said, ‘These are deep matters. We must consult Lord Hillgard about them in the morning. It is time for sleep now.’

  Shelley was annoyed, but let it pass, vowing to talk to him in private when she got a chance.

  The visitors were shown to their cottage, a beautiful thatched stone dwelling with (to Shelley’s surprise and delight) hot and cold running water. It seemed that the technology of Barachthad’s cave was not unique on Aeden; the village of Hope even had the same glowing amber spheres for light.

  So Shelley had one of the few things she had really been missing on Aeden: a hot bath. She reflected as she luxuriated in the bubbly water, ‘There’s so much to learn about here, so much to do! I could really be happy, somewhere here on Aeden. Somewhere romantic. I could have children… After the Aghmaath are gone, of course. I could be a queen, with Quickblade if we fell in love – and later, when we were really grown up – we could have children…’

  But always her thoughts returned to her parents, and friends back on Earth, and she felt she would have to return, if only to say goodbye. But could she return? The Portal did not seem to be at all reliable: Korman had waited beside it for seventy-three years and nothing had happened.

  Rilke and Worriette were very tired, and went straight to bed. They curled up together and were asleep almost before their heads touched the downy pillow.

  Korman and Hillgard came out of the mountain late at night when all was quiet, and broke bread together and had a little red wine. They talked together softly by the light of the campfire as it gradually died to a few glowing coals, then by starlight, looking out north-east at the deserted mountain of the Guardian Arm, now being reclaimed by Hillgard. They spoke of their youth together – and apart – on the Red Planet, of loves and heartbreaks, of their different early trainings and later their shared training as Guardians under their adopted father, Hillcrest the Wise.

  Then they crossed in memory to Aeden, and the fateful events that led to the fall of the Tor Enyása, and their different paths in the seventy-three years since. So they came back yet again to the matter of their differences. But finally, as the night grew colder and the winds began to stir, they retired for the night. Before sleeping, each in his way meditated, and each prayed for the salvation of Aeden.

  In the night it clouded over, and the mountaintop was overhung with dark thunderclouds. Then the lightning leaped from cloud to cloud, and from the clouds to the spiked crown of Baldrock, and the thunderclaps boomed through the village below. Shelley woke and stared out the little window, and listened to the huge sound of the thunder, then to the gentle sound of windblown rain on the panes. ‘The power of the Zagonamara!’ she smiled, and went back to sleep.