The Girl and the Guardian

  Shelley and Korman stumbled on, lashed from behind by the rain and relentless wind. At first they followed the path that had brought them to Sanmara, riding the white Ürxura. Tumbleweeds from the dunes, picked up by the storm, raced past them hissing eerily, hardly touching the ground. Korman and Shelley both thought of the Aghmaath they had encountered on the Portal Plains riding in giant tumbling wheels, and hoped none were on board the ships. In this wind, they would be very fast.

  As the roar of the surf faded behind them, the hissing of the gale in the long grass grew all around, and when they passed clumps of trees the wind in the treetops sounded just like the roaring of the sea.

  Soon they came to a track which led off to the left, west towards the lake country, the heart of the Ürxura lands. ‘This is where we turn off,’ said Korman. ‘I am afraid the wind will be in our left eyes now. Tie your hood down well.’

  They set off along the sandy track which led down the tree-and-tussock-clad dunes of the coast and onto the open grassy plains of the interior.

  ‘I can’t see a thing in this rain,’ complained Shelley miserably after they had struggled on for what seemed like hours, but it was really only minutes. ‘Will the… black ships have landed by now?’ She had to shout above the noise of the storm.

  ‘No, I do not think so. The wind was speeding them on like birds of prey, but there is no place to beach a boat in this weather except up the other end, at the lagoon,’ he replied, without turning. The drips from his hood were being whipped past his face, and he squinted his eyes to see ahead through the driving rain.

  ‘Will they follow after us?’

  ‘Yes, if they suspect we have fled this way. But we are fortunate: this storm will obscure our tracks and make our scent very hard for any tracker dogs to follow.’

  ‘That’s cold comfort, Korman, if we drown or freeze to death on this plain!’

  ‘Fear not, Shelley! I have called for… Hush! Do you hear that?’ said Korman. Carried towards them on the howling wind came sounds he had dreaded to hear: gongs, chanting, and the guttural baying of Dagraath.

  ‘The black ships have landed. At least one captain must have braved the stormy beach, sacrificing his ship. They are indeed keen to meet us,’ said Korman grimly. They turned and ran for their lives, though Shelley felt it was hopeless. It sounded as though the enemy was almost at their heels, and she felt the mindprobes reaching for her, willing her to stop. Her legs, weighed down by the wet, felt like lead, and her knees bumped into each other.

  Moments later, looking back into the eye of the wind, Korman saw a line of huge tumblewheels, careering over the dune hills towards them. Already the leaders were rolling down onto the grassy plain, so fast that some of the Dagraath themselves were tumbling as they followed them down the dunes, baying ferociously, each wanting to be the first to attack.

  ‘Quick, we must hide!’ he yelled to Shelley, who tottered in the gale like a shrub being torn from the ground.

  ‘Where?’ she yelled back. There was nowhere to hide, and the dogs would sniff them out wherever they were.

  ‘Faery, walk in Faery!’ cried Korman, but his heart sank. Shelley was soaked through, and all that was real to her was the storm and the tumbling enemy approaching, and the snarling Dagraath. She sheltered behind his flapping form, waiting for the end.

  ‘Lady, now will you speak? Let me draw my sword, I beg you!’ Korman prayed, but the wind seemed to pull the words from his mouth and carry them away in tatters. He began to curse as the tumblewheels converged on them. They had been spotted.

  Just then the sound of madly galloping hoofbeats made his heart leap. Three figures raced towards them from behind the approaching enemy.

  ‘It’s Quickblade!’ yelled Shelley. But the enemy had seen them too, and were wheeling around to meet the Boy Raiders, ignoring the arrows they were shooting. One Dagraath rolled over, shot through the neck, but the rest were almost upon them.

  ‘The young fools! They’ll never fight that many!’ cried Korman. It was soon over: the three boys had been surrounded, their horses rearing in panic at the baying Dagraath. The leading wheelrider emerged from his thorny chariot. Raising his hands, he threw something invisible at the boys. Shelley and Korman watched in horror as they all fell from their mounts and were pounced on by other Aghmaath and bound.

  You have to use your sword, Korman! You have to save them!’ moaned Shelley. ‘You can’t let them take Quickblade!’

  But Korman replied sadly, ‘We must use this chance to escape. I cannot use the sword. My duty is to take you to Ürak Tara. Now, try to walk with me in Faery.’

  ‘Never! I can’t leave him. I won’t!’

  Shelley began to walk, or stumble, towards the enemy, who were now regrouping and about to come after them.

  ‘Wait, Shelley!’ called Korman in anguish. He knew he must choose swiftly. He had to either draw the sword and break his Guardian vow, violating the sacred Concept, or walk with her into the arms of the enemy, hoping for a miracle from the Lady.

  Shelley turned to face him and tearfully screamed the Guardian chant she had heard him utter three times before:

  Hethür, Krithür, Shaktha!

  ‘Do it!’ she begged, weeping. Then, through her tears she saw a wonderful sight, behind Korman on the grey horizon. ‘Look!’ she whispered, pointing to a rise in the windswept plain. Korman turned to look, and saw a white spot on the skyline which grew bigger by the second. To either side of it was a line of grey, brown and black spots, moving rapidly their way. Korman threw his hands in the air. ‘Praise the Lady! She has sent the Ürxura! Behold, their horns are clearly showing. As the saying goes, “When the unicorn’s horns are seen, it is either very bad news, or very good!” I think, very good for us, and bad for the Aghmaath! But what are those cries?’

  Eerie voices rang out over the thunder of the approaching hoofbeats.

  ‘It’s the Evergirls!’ cried Shelley.

  The enemy was terribly close now. The thorny wheels had now stopped and were opening. Out of them stepped Aghmaath warriors. The Dagraath gathered behind them, baying and howling, waiting for the signal.

  The line of Ürxura drew nearer, and their hoofs shook the ground. Their long spiral horns gleamed. When they reached the top of the ridge overlooking the approaching enemy they stopped. On each one – Shelley’s heart leapt at the sight – sat a wild girl, long haired, without armour or saddle, clad in a tunic of shining white Ürxura hair. They were armed with a sickle-shaped sword at their sides and either a bow or a blowpipe in their hands, and were fiercer of face than any girls Shelley had seen before on Earth or Aeden. Only the great white Ürxura in the centre had no rider.

  The wind had dropped. The dogs stopped their baying. The mindbolts Shelley had been expecting did not appear. Instead, she felt a silent menace coming from the line of Ürxura that made her head spin – not directed at her, she realised with relief, but at the enemy.

  Then a great wind came from the plains behind the Ürxura and swept down onto the Aghmaath. Shelley and Korman had to brace themselves to keep their feet. The Aghmaath warriors unfolded their giant tumble-wheels again and jumped in, pulling the three Boy Raiders in with them. Then they sped back the way they had come, their Dagraath yelping behind them. The Evergirls let out bloodcurdling cries and followed the enemy, shooting arrows at the Dagraath, and many stumbled to a halt, poisoned darts sticking in their tough hides, then toppled over, dead.

  As Shelley and Korman watched the retreat of their enemies (Shelley was cheering, but felt sorry for the dogs), a thudding of heavy hooves approached from behind. Turning in alarm, they saw the white Ürxura, huge as a plow-horse, but graceful as a thoroughbred. Shelley thought, ‘It’s the same one that saved us from the hermits! We’re going to get another ride!’ Half joyfully, half grief-stricken at what had just happened, she wiped the rain and tears out of her eyes and gazed up at the beautiful creature as he approached, towering over her. A love and warmth radiated from him and flow
ed through her cold limbs, and she somehow knew that it was he who had come into her world and brought her to Aeden.

  Then in her mind, with a tingling of her forehead (where Ürxura communicate with those who are open, through the hidden third eye), he told her that he had come to take them to a safe place to wait out the storm. A very special place, she felt he was saying, which only she would recognise. He told her that the captured boys would be all right, that it was all part of the Unfolding, the Great Dance.

  In her mind she protested, ‘But I should be worrying about them!’

  ‘Would worry help them more than faith in the Unfolding?’ he asked.

  She tried to stay sad, but her heart was now full of a deep joy.

  Korman greeted the Ürxura joyfully, and it whinnied and tossed its head, and the razor-sharp central horn towered over them. Shelley was very glad the Ürxura was on their side. Korman now helped her onto its strong back, which felt warm in spite of the rain. The thick silky hair was quite long, and she stroked it and warmed her hands in it. Korman jumped up after her, and they sped off into the grey expanse of wet, rain-swept grass. By now the Evergirls had broken off the pursuit, and on either side of them the other Ürxura were galloping wildly, horns tossing, the girls letting out their eerie cries. But none of them spoke to Shelley and Korman. After a short while, but many miles, the sound of hooves seemed to decrease. Looking back, Shelley noticed that most of the girls on ponies were falling behind as they thundered on into the enchanted plains. The white Ürxura slowed to a trot. Shelley could feel him and the others silently communicating. Then with neighing and rearing the other Ürxura and their girls peeled off to left and right. They were returning to patrol the borders of their land, to intercept any more Aghmaath who might dare to venture in, while the white Ürxura was taking them on alone into his enchanted heartland.

  Shelley watched them galloping away over the plain towards the grey hills to the north. One of the girls raised an arm in farewell. Then they were gone. Shelley felt a tug at her heart, a yearning to follow after them and live always with the Evergirls, free and wild like them.

  ‘Why didn’t they talk to us?’ she asked Korman.

  ‘It is not their way. Their Code (as I have told you) forbids them to speak with strangers.’

  What Shelley was really wondering was why they had not invited her to join them. ‘Not that I would have, but I wish they had asked me,’ she thought.

  The white Ürxura spoke into her mind: ‘They would have invited you, for they liked the look of you. But we have told them that you have a different destiny, and that all Aeden needs you.’ Shelley felt warm in her heart where a moment before she had felt hurt. But the thought that she was expected to save Aeden made her shiver with apprehension.

  They broke into a canter again, and soon afterwards Shelley saw a sheet of water coming up ahead. It was a lake, with tall forests looming up on either side on the near shore, but no sign of the far shore. They did not slow down. Shelley shut her eyes. There was a great splash and shock of spray on her face. She opened her eyes. They were surging on into the shallows of the lake until they were swimming, surrounded by rain-dimpled, grey water merging with the grey of the sky above. The water felt almost warm on Shelley’s legs compared to the wind and rain on her upper body.

  ‘We are in the land of lakes already!’ said Korman as they moved steadily through the water, though seemingly within the same grey circle of visibility. ‘He is taking us deep into Ürxura country, where no Aghmaath will dare to come.’ Bootnip’s head appeared at the opening of Korman’s pack, looking gloomily at the water surrounding them.

  ‘I hope we’re not going in circles,’ said Shelley. A dragonfly appeared out of the mist and disappeared into it again, darting off in another direction.

  At last the further shore loomed up, and their tireless mount heaved up the bank and was off again, horn pointing forward to find the way through the enchantments the Ürxura had laid over the land to thwart invaders. The wind sprang up again, and with it a driving rain. They were cantering easily now, weaving between stands of cedars and tall fir trees, their tops almost invisible in the rain, their lower branches tossing in the wind. Shelley felt a wild thrill. They were riding a magical unicorn over empty grasslands, wide lakes and dark forests, speeding towards a mysterious wilderness refuge, far from the enemy.

  Then she remembered the brave charge of the Boy Raiders and their capture. ‘Quickblade was coming for me, and now this has happened, and Korman let it happen!’ she thought bitterly. ‘Maybe Quickblade was right. Maybe I should have gone with him when I had the chance.’ Regret and sadness tugged at her, pulling her heart back to the fateful plain where he was captured.

  She was sick at heart too, when she remembered the friends – more than friends, her tribe – that she had left behind on the beach. She wondered if they were even now being led off to the Dark Labyrinth, or thrown into the thorns. She also began to wonder, uneasily, whose minds had been probed, or who in the village could have been a collaborator with the enemy, since the Dagraath had been set on them so soon.

  The land was rising and falling, and the wind and rain lessened a little after each hill. They were following a long, winding ridge when off to their right Shelley saw a vista which made her forget everything else. Golden sunlight was shafting down into a misty emerald green valley which wound away into a mountainous land. She longed to follow the winding valley into those mountains. The yearning took her breath away. She felt a sense of recognition, a flash of deja vu.

  But they were passing it by while she dreamed. ‘Please, stop! Can we go down there?’ she called to the Ürxura.

  ‘Why?’ called Korman over his shoulder.

  ‘I don’t know, I’ve just got a feeling,’ Shelley called back.

  ‘You cannot follow the Evergirls! It is not your destiny.’

  But the Ürxura neighed and, descending the ridge, galloped away towards the green valley. Soon they were following its winding course over springy turf by a pebbly stream overhung with willows. A vivid rainbow appeared over the heights above and followed them as they sped towards the place where the valley had disappeared into the mountains.

  As they approached the last bend, the valley opened out into a fertile lowland surrounded by steep mountains with outcrops of vertical rock, dramatic, sublime, like a background in a Renaissance painting. The Ürxura stopped. They looked down into that secret land, and at the bottom they saw a beautiful lake, deep and dark, calm as it reflected the stormy sky. Again the sense of recognition overcame Shelley, and her heart leapt as her eyes fell on a tall craggy island at the far end of the lake, almost as high as the mountains around the valley, its forested top wreathed in mist and rain.

  Her whole heart and soul went out to the place; she felt a sudden homesickness at the sight of it. She had often imagined somewhere just like this in her daydreams: her ideal mountain retreat, with that lake and that island, the perfect place to build her dream home. ‘Or a castle like Camelot,’ she smiled to herself. Her eyes shone as she gazed down. ‘Or maybe this is where the Evergirls live. But then, they wouldn’t have any boys here…’ She felt torn, now, between the desire to grow up in order to have true love with a man, and the desire to remain always free and wild like the Evergirls.

  Korman was affected too. He looked in wonder at the hidden valley, then at Shelley. ‘You have led us to a place of legend, hidden for uncounted years behind a veil of mindwebs. Not even the Evergirls, I think, will have found this place. How beautiful it is! Come, let us explore, if it is permitted, and see if we may find somewhere dry by the lake to make camp for the night.’

  To himself he said softly, ‘It is another sign!’

  The Ürxura also seemed pleased, and carried them down into the secret land, and they vanished from sight behind the ancient mindwebs. Then, to an outsider it was as if they and the valley had ceased to exist.

  Soon they were dismounting by the lake. Shelley thanked the Ü
rxura for bringing them. It was still raining, so they began to look around for shelter.

  ‘Over there! I think it’s a cave!’ Shelley pointed to a gap between steep wooded spurs that ran down towards the lake. She ran excitedly to look, and Korman hurried after her. He did not want her to surprise a big cat or brood of dragon-snakes.

  But there was nothing in the cave but a sandy floor, almost dry, and a few fallen rocks which would do nicely for a fireplace. They took off their heavy packs with great relief, shook out their cloaks and spread them to dry on some rocks.

  The Ürxura had followed them, and was standing patiently at the cave mouth. They both sensed his presence, and turned and saw him there. He was about to leave, and was wishing them well. They said a grateful goodbye, knowing that he would surely return for them when the time was right. He stamped a great hoof, reared and neighed so that the cave seemed to shake, and the echoes sounded in the mountains all around the lake. Then he galloped off into the rain.

  Korman got out his tinderbox and lit a fire with twigs and dry leaves from under an overhang where it was still dry, feeding the little fire with fallen branches they found in a sheltered gully near the cave until they had a real blaze going. Shelley felt her spirits rise as the hot fire dried her clothes and warmed her hands. Bootnip clambered cautiously out of Korman’s pack and shook himself, fluffing up his steaming fur in front of the fire. ‘Not yet,’ thought Korman as he remembered the letter addressed to Shelley he still had in his pack.

  All that night the wind sighed in the cedars and firs of the hills and swayed the weeping willows by the lakeside to and fro. They slept well, huddled close to the embers of the fire. The Waveriders had provided them with warm clothes and equipment for camping out in the wild, including excellent sleeping bags made from silk lined with down from the nests of the seabirds that came to breed high up in the cliffs of the Crystal Mountain.

  The next morning it was still wet, and they stayed in the cave and talked of many things over a leisurely breakfast. At last Korman said, ‘Shelley, I have a letter for you here. It arrived just before the Blue Moon festival, and I…’ He took it out of his robes.

  ‘What? Who is it from?’ asked Shelley, too shocked at getting a letter to complain about Korman’s delay in handing it over.

  ‘I don’t know, I have not opened it. But by the seal I would say…’

  ‘I should think not!’ She pulled at the beeswax that held it shut, noticing the seal impressed into it: two children riding a big horse rearing up with its mouth open and its mane flying. There were eight stars – or worlds – in a semicircle above them. ‘The Boy Raiders! Quickblade!’ she squealed, pulling out the rough, stained piece of papyrus paper inside. ‘Oh, damn! I can’t read it. It’s in some kind of hieroglyphics! Quick, tell me what it says!’

  ‘Let me see… if Quickblade had any sense he would have written it in a code he knows I can read but the Aghmaath cannot,’ said Korman with what seemed to Shelley deliberate slowness. ‘Ah, yes, this looks like the hieroglyphs of the Stone-People. He is not just a head-strong youth after all – perhaps! I will translate it for you:

  “Esteemed Lady Shelley, I apologise for our last meeting.”

  ‘I should think so!’ Korman commented.

  ‘Go on!’ urged Shelley, breathlessly.

  “The war goes badly. I will send three of my fastest horsemen to get you, in case you change your mind. If this arrives first, please go with them! They say you are She Who Walks in Faery. If they speak the truth, come to us! We need you, to open a way through their defences!

  Until then,

  Quickblade

  PS. Tell Korman to come if he wants to keep on guarding you. Can you persuade him to use that old sword of his before it rusts away?”

  PPS. Do not join the Jilters or I will never speak to you again.

  ‘Hmm. That is Quickblade all right!’ concluded Korman.

  Shelley was looking out of the cave entrance at the mountains beyond, a dreamy look in her eyes. She was no longer thinking about the Evergirls.

  ‘He will be grieved to hear that his messengers have been captured,’ said Korman.

  Still Shelley did not speak. ‘Well, I will go for a little walk now,’ Korman announced. He put the letter in her hands, got up and walked outside, knowing she needed to be alone.

  ‘So Quickblade wasn’t captured after all! He’s still out there somewhere!’ Shelley thought. She sat in a daze, going over and over the letter in her mind, wondering what to do, torn between loyalty to Korman and the Lady, and the wild desire to somehow find Quickblade and tell him sorry, sorry, for not going with him the first time, and for the messengers who were captured so that she could have another chance to come to him.

  When Korman returned after what he hoped was a sufficient interval, wet from the drizzle that was still falling, she was pacing the floor.

  ‘I need to go for a walk now,’ she announced as he sat back down on the rock where he had read out the letter, rubbing his hands for warmth, watching her restless pacing. He could see the signs only too well. She was in love – or thought she was.

  ‘Perhaps you could talk with me first?’ he ventured.

  ‘No, I need to be alone.’

  ‘I understand. But be careful out there! If you do not return by midday I will come looking for you.’

  She didn’t hear him. She was already out of the cave, heading off down to the lake, making for the far end where the tall island rose sheer from the deep water.

  There was something that drew her to that island, a feeling that it was the symbolic centre of her own soul, where everything would crystallise and become clear. She had to admit to herself that she felt a burning within, a fiery energy of love that both frightened and excited her. She wondered if it was already beginning, and her feelings for Quickblade were turning her into a woman, even though she had hardly got to know him, let alone kissed him. She asked herself, ‘Am I just in love with love? Am I going to make a total fool of myself, turning into a woman in front of Korman, and he’ll know I’m in love with Quickblade, who probably doesn’t even love me, and Korman totally disapproves of him anyway?’

  But then she calmed down and looked up at the soaring peak of the island, cloaked in tall trees and shrouded in mists which lay in its hollows and made its steep wooded ridges stand out sharp and clear. At the foot of the island mountain was a narrow line of white pebbly beach under sheer rock walls, mossy and green with fine lacy ferns in the crevices, little cataracts of white water from the heavy rain tumbling down them to meet the lake.

  ‘I really want to get over there,’ she thought, and she cast around for a way. The channel was at least a hundred yards across at the narrowest point. ‘I wonder if there’s a log or something I could float over on,’ she muttered to herself, feeling vaguely guilty that she was going so far away from Korman in this unknown land. But, drawn irresistibly to the island, she walked the shore, searching for a way across, rounding point after point which opened up into little bays and inlets, scrambling over driftwood and great mossy boulders.

  In one of these bays she saw, dragged up over the driftwood line, a little boat. It was narrow and pointed at both ends like a canoe. It looked very old, made of dark, moss-grown clinker planks, but seemed to her optimistic eyes to be still sound. She turned it right side up, sandhoppers jumping about in the bottom, startled by the light. She tried to brush them away. She noticed there was a paddle under the middle seat. Looking at its high prow and stern she thought, ‘It’s just like the boats of the Zagonamara monks in the Bottomless Canyon, only smaller. I wonder whose it was? It doesn’t look like it’s been used for years.’

  Shelley’s heart was beating fast as she dragged the little craft down the pebbly beach and into the still, crystal-clear shallows. She stepped lightly in and sat to paddle. The little boat wobbled and water trickled in between the planks, but she pulled hard with the paddle, first on the right side and then on the left, and the boat surged forward
s, making a fair bow-wave that fanned out into the still lake. ‘I hope I can make it across before it sinks,’ she worried, feeling the cold water inching up her feet. She kept her eyes fixed on the shore as if her gaze would pull her across, and the dark water bubbled under the clinker sides. She tried not to think of eels.

  Soon she knew it was all right; she would make it. The keel crunched on gravel, and she scrambled out into the shallows of the island, pulling the boat a little way up the deserted beach.

  There was a calm, solemn feeling about the island, and she felt the dizzying height of the mountain above her, like a bridge into the sky. ‘It’s like Baldrock but white,’ she thought, as she gazed up from the narrow beach to the sheer pinnacle of limestone above her, low watery clouds passing by, almost brushing it, making it seem to speed towards them, tilting slowly, dizzily. Birds wheeled above and around the high peak, and their distant cries were faint but clear.

  ‘I wonder if there’s anything up there, a hidden tunnel up to the summit, like at Baldrock, and a crystal sphere in a lotus pond?’ she wondered. Then she remembered how she had felt up on that summit, locked into the Crystal Lotus, the seat of seeing, where she first knew the power of the Zagonamara which flows through the earth and joins with the sky. She sat down on the beach, running the wet marble gravel through her hands. The rain had held off, but the air was beginning to feel cold. Then a few heavy drops fell and she decided to take shelter in case it poured. She found a deep overhang in the cliff, arched over her head like a gothic doorway lined with ferns. Water trickled down the outside and fell in foamy spray over the entrance, but inside it was almost dry. There was a convenient rock to sit on, and she sat, feeling the immensity of the living rock around and over her, and looking out at the rain beginning to fall, and her thoughts returned to Quickblade.

  She shut her eyes to dream, and wish, but a joy and a lightness came over her, and she felt that if she opened her eyes again she would see something wonderful, perhaps the Lady in shining white on the lakeshore, or dancing Fairies, or Quickblade coming to her across the water as a knight in shining armour, and the cave filled with light and heavenly music. The magical power of Aeden throbbed silently all around her, deeper than she had yet felt it, resonating in the cave and the depths of the lake and the sky above where the pinnacle rose, defying gravity, linking heaven and earth in one harmonious whole. Tears were in her eyes as she let herself sense it, not looking with her natural sight but with the inner eye. And she knew that while all this was immense and powerful, within her lay a growing power that was of the same kind, yet growing apart from it, then returning to act within it as in some great mystery play, the Great Dance of which Korman had spoken to her. ‘And I thought it was just a metaphor!’ she laughed, as the vision of the beauty of the world grew in detailed harmonies of movement, and still she kept her eyes closed, though she felt she would have to get up soon and dance for joy along the beach.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Shelley and Quickblade