Jaldaric listened to his father intently and in silence. ‘I can’t believe this, Father,’ he said when at last Eldric had finished. ‘All these dreadful things.’
Eldric nodded. ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘My mind’s done some scurrying over the past weeks, I can tell you. Waiting to wake up. But it’s all true, believe me. It’s all brutally true. It’s as if some poison has leached into the people and corroded their spirits so that they just crumble helpless before Dan-Tor’s will.’
There was a long silence.
‘And you think this is the… Second Coming?’ Jal-daric said awkwardly. ‘That… Sumeral… has risen in Narsindal and that this is His first step out into the world?’
Eldric held his son’s gaze, aware of his fearful uncer-tainty. ‘Yes,’ he said unequivocally. ‘Beyond all doubt now. But our immediate problem is Dan-Tor. He’s foe enough for us, and whether he’s master or servant is irrelevant. Suffice it that he has all the advantages.’ Looking at the doubt still written on Jaldaric’s face, he smiled. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I don’t mind you thinking your old father’s gone peculiar, I’m sure I would have in similar circumstances, but you’ll be able to form your own conclusion when we’re out of here.’
Despite himself Jaldaric smiled in response. Then he rubbed his face. ‘How strange,’ he said. ‘I haven’t smiled in months. It’s made my face ache.’
Eldric put his arm around his son’s shoulder. ‘You’ve passed your lowest point, son,’ he said. ‘From now on we go upwards and out of here. Dan-Tor’s probably put us together because he thinks he has nothing to fear from us. Judging from the number of Mathidrin I saw when I was brought here I’d say he’s taken the City by force. But he can’t take the whole country by force, and I doubt he can hold even the City for long.’
Jaldaric’s face clouded as he moved away from El-dric. ‘I’m glad of your optimism, Father,’ he said. ‘But how can we get away from here? They open that door twice a day-at least I think it’s twice a day-I haven’t seen the sky since Orthlund. There’s always two of them, and I don’t even know where we are.’
Eldric, however, refused to be downed. He had found his son again. The son he had believed cruelly dead at the hands of Mandrocs. He had good and powerful friends outside, and surely the people weren’t all beyond redemption?
‘We’re in the Westerclave,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘I watched where I was going this time, for all I was groggy.’ Abruptly he clenched his fists. ‘We’ve been no more than a flight of stairs apart all this time.’ He pointed towards the door. ‘Just out there are the stairs that I shouted down when we tricked our way out of our cell.’ His face creased in distress. ‘If only I’d known. The Goraidin could’ve… ’ His voice tailed off. ‘Still. That’s talk through the rafters now. No recalling it.’ He looked thoughtfully round the cell, and his eyes lit on the torch that he had seen when he recovered consciousness. He stood up and walked over to examine it. Running his fingers around its ornate, fluted body, he said, ‘This is old. Very old. I’ve never seen the like except in an old storybook.’ Then his hand moved to the wall by it. ‘And look at these.’ He gestured to Jaldaric and pointed out some faint scratches in the wall by the torch. Taking hold of the torch he shook it violently. It did not move. ‘You try,’ he said brusquely. ‘You’re stronger than I am.’ Jaldaric frowned but took hold of the torch and strained at it until his pale face became red. Still it did not move. ‘It’s well made,’ he said offhandedly.
‘It’s more than well made,’ said Eldric, examining the faint scratches again. ‘This was made by craftsmen the like of which don’t exist any more, nor have for generations.’ He became excited. ‘I’ll wager they’ve tried to remove that to put in one of Dan-Tor’s stinking globes to illuminate his treachery. But this wall’s turned their best chisels. And this torch has withstood every-thing they’ve hit it with.’ He began walking up and down. ‘They say that the Westerclave was built during the Wars of the First Coming. Some kind of an outpost that changed hands repeatedly as the war swept to and fro.’ He came to a conclusion. ‘This room’s held prisoners who could exert a power that’s beyond us and it was built accordingly.’
Jaldaric could not share his father’s enthusiasm. He sat down again and leaned back against the wall. ‘I’m sorry, Father,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen nothing but these walls and that torch for months. Ancient it might be-magic even-but it holds little charm for me. I’ll be glad when I don’t have to see it again.’
Eldric nodded understandingly. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘But just think what that torch means, Jal.’ He sat down beside his son. ‘Outside that door there’s a passage, a long passage, torchlit like this, and lined with exactly similar doors. Who knows how many cells there are down there? And I had no idea it even existed. This place probably hasn’t been used in centuries, but what happens when someone opens it up? That torch,’ he pointed to it emphatically, ‘that torch-like any good old reliable torch would-bursts into life. After all this time. An unimaginable span of years and darkness. It lit when it was needed. And they couldn’t put it out or destroy it.’
He paused thoughtfully. ‘There might be an ancient evil waking again in the world, Jal, but there’ll be other ancient forces stirring as well. Bringing light into the darkness. Even if Fyorlund falls and Riddin, and then Orthlund. Each step will take its toll and the world will know Sumeral for what He is sooner this time. Eventu-ally it’ll be He who finds Himself surrounded by an iron ring. One that will close on Him and seal Him away forever.’
Jaldaric gently mocked his father’s unexpected rhetoric. ‘Father, you sound like an old storyteller… a Keeper of the Festivals.’ But his brief jauntiness vanished abruptly and he wrapped his arms around himself as if for protection. ‘And if you’re right. You talk about the fall of countries as if it were nothing. Whole populations swept aside for the sake of some greater future.’ There was a question mark in the word greater. ‘What are people? Just so many dust motes?’
Eldric reached out to his son. ‘I don’t know, Jal,’ he said. ‘Maybe we are motes floating through this world at the behest of others, but we have our own wills.’
‘But we’ve no freedom to exercise them in action, Father,’ Jaldaric replied. ‘No freedom. What can we do here?’
Eldric chuckled and, as if in response, the torch turned to the colour of spring sunshine. Eldric looked at it and threw it a salute. ‘Thank you, old craftsman, wherever you are. Your gift continues unalloyed.’ Then, turning to his son, ‘What we can do, Jaldaric, Eldric’s son-as motes-is get in Dan-Tor’s eyes.’
Chapter 50
The Mathidrin trooper quailed under Sylvriss’s baleful stare. ‘Brown eyes a man would drown in,’ he had once heard a lustful compatriot wax in a more lyrical moment, but the gaze that held him now took all the moisture from his mouth and throat.
‘Release my bridle,’ she said but, though the words were slow and soft, they held such menace that the hand did as it was bid without any conscious effort on its owner’s part. Two fears met inside him like clashing waves, and from somewhere he found a voice. It was hoarse and nervous, but it would have to do.
‘Majesty,’ he said. ‘It’s the Ffyrst’s orders. You’re not to be allowed out into the City without a full escort. It’s too dangerous.’
It was not in Sylvriss’s nature to confront when she could walk around, nor did she often use the authority which her position allowed and the people bestowed. But she was a Muster woman, and to obstruct the way of a Muster rider was to invoke responses which tran-scended normal social restraints. She swung her riding crop round and placed it accurately under the trooper’s chin. Then, bending forward, her gaze still relentlessly steady, she said, ‘I am not to be allowed?’ in a soft echo of the man’s words. ‘Even the King would not order me thus. Now stand aside or this horse may kill you before I can stop it.’