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Novels - |
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Stories & Studies - |
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The gate was huge
- a round-topped arch and, as he had suspected, a portcullis.
Crenulations peered down at the approaching visitor and Dale
felt as if there were a thousand eyes staring at them.
The dragons, one on
each side of the gateway, were three times the height of a man,
even lying as they were on broad flat pedestals of white stone.
The scales and the great leathery wings were carved with intricate
precision. They were more like great lizards than the dragons
he'd seen in the books on heraldry that had fascinated him as
a boy. He'd loved heraldry, and the great beasts in front of
him stirred his imagination. But these dragons were real. They
looked more active - less artistic. He wondered for the first
time if there really had been great flesh-eating fighting reptiles
left over from the time of the dinosaurs that the old people
had called dragons.
His mind was blank
of ideas, but suddenly he felt buoyed up with confidence. He'd
got so far. He'd solve this one too. 'Ho there dragons,' he
shouted. 'Open the gate, we are on urgent business.'
He'd been expecting
the slow stony response of Mago and Dago, but the heads of these
great stone reptiles, which had been gazing into the middle
distance, swung down and towards him with a frightening speed
and fluidity. The closer they got to the centre of this universe,
the more intelligent and dangerous were the guards. The change
from stone to flesh was instantaneous and Dale had to suppress
the instinct to jump back. He felt Yalva's hand clutch his arm.
'Password?' hissed
the nearer dragon. It rocked forwards and stood, towering above
them, its snake-like neck weaving down at them. He could smell
the foul breath, a mixture of reptile and rotting carcasses.
The second dragon
rose and gave a bellow, half hiss and half a bull's roar. He
saw a flash of brilliant red, like flame, as the beast opened
its mouth. Not flame, Dale realised. The flesh inside its mouth
was a brilliant scarlet. 'Password?'
Dale's mind was a
blank, all his earlier moment of confidence evaporated. The
last two gates had been easy he realised, like children's toys,
but this was real and he had just walked his friends into a
situation where they were all going to get killed.
'I, I take the contest.
Test me by the rules, dragon.' If they noticed the moment's
hesitation in his voice he couldn't tell. These were proud beasts
and he felt he must show his own pride and courage here.
The eyes of the beast
went slate-grey and opaque. Then slowly it drew back its head
until both dragons were looking down from high overhead.
There was a splitting
sound and a rumble and the square stones of the ground in front
of them sank until there was a deep chasm starting just in front
of their feet and reaching to the closed portcullis. There was
a roaring blast of hot air and suddenly the chasm was full of
flames, licking smoky red and orange.
The chasm was a full
thirty feet wide, but just in front of them projected a narrow
pathway, no more than a foot wide, which led out across the
abyss but stopped after about eight feet.
'Walk, arrogant yuman,
and your followers too. Enter the pathway if you dare.'
For a moment Dale
paused.
'I go first,' he said
quietly, 'you next Sasha and then you Yalva.'
Without waiting for
a reply he stepped out onto the narrow line of square stones.
Immediately he felt the heat and the flames licked at the skirt
of his habit. His lower legs began to redden.
He walked slowly forwards,
rigidly resisting the impulse to waver to the left or right.
The hot air was curling this way and that and adding to the
feeling of vertigo from the abyss so close on either side. He
felt he was going to be sucked in, over and down, to fall forever
into the flames. He felt Sasha clasp her hands to his waist
to steady herself. For a moment he thought they would both fall,
but then she steadied and it steadied him too.
Carefully, they all
shuffled forwards.
He heard Yalva whimper
behind him. 'My wings,' she whispered.
'Don't fly, Yalva.
I'm sure that would be wrong. Can you bear it?'
'Yes I think so. There
is nowhere for me to land on the other side anyway.'
'You all right Sasha?'
'Yes.' Her voice was
scared but stoical. 'I'll live - so far.'
They came to the end
of the long thin pier of stones.
'I am here, dragon,'
he called. 'Now what?'
There was a rumbling
grating sound and he heard Yalva squeak. He felt the pier trembling
under his feet but he didn't dare look back.
'What's happened Yalva?'
'The stones behind
me have vanished, gone down into the pit. We're stuck here on
just this tiny platform in the middle of the flames.' Her voice
had a shrill waver at the end.
'Stay cool, Yalva,'
he called in as firm a voice as he could manage. 'Stay cool.'
Cool, the thought, we're burning up. He had an insane desire
to giggle.
'Now, yuman,' the
great voice of the dragon called down to him, 'let us start.
If you have the courage, you shall walk the path of fire - the
path of the serpent.'
'What is this path
of the serpent? Show me and I shall walk.'
'Who is the Master
and what is his device?'
Dale's mind went blank.
What was the beast talking about? He looked up and could see
the great heads of the infernal beasts staring down at him dispassionately,
wavering slightly in the heated air. He blinked. The fumes were
getting in his eyes and making them water.
'The Master is,' he
fumbled, 'the master is Eorl - er, and…'
' - and His was the
first name,' intoned Sasha from behind him. He could feel her
trembling as she clung to him.
'Yes,' continued Dale,
'and, and his device…' His voice trailed away.
'Say about the serpents,'
Havoc's voice hissed from just over his head. 'Say about the
serpents.'
'Serpents?' said Dale
desperately.
Then another thin
clear voice seemed to come winging towards him from far away,
Dr Gabriel's voice, talking as if in a maths class. 'Cant the
arms, you foolish boy, cant the arms.'
Dale hesitated and
then, 'Gules, a serpent azure crowned or, overall a bar sable.'
The words jerked out of his mouth without him thinking, but
the voice was both his and Dr Gabriel's. Dale had seen the device
on many doors and walls in this place called Castle. Without
thinking he'd interpreted it into the ancient language of the
heralds, recalled from the time last summer when heraldry had
so absorbed his time and energy. Canting - saying, the arms.
Start with the background - red, called 'gules', then the device,
a serpent - azure or blue, with a gold crown - 'or' was gold
- then the disfigurement - a black horizontal bar, or 'bar sable'
indicating a first son.
He stood and shouted
it again at the great heads above him.
'Hey dragons, the
answer is Eorl Aedan of Darkmere, and his device is gules, a
serpent azure crowned or, overall a bar sable. Now let us in.'
'Not so fast - we
but begin, small impatient Yuman. Now you must walk the path
of the serpent, the path of fire and courage.'
In front of Dale sprang
a short crosspiece of blue stones like a T-junction before his
feet. He could step one pace forwards and then he must turn
either right or left. He could not see what supported the stones.
They were just plain blue flagstones suspended in the air above
the flames, and they had come into existence in a silent blink.
Nervously Dale stepped forwards.
Which way? He hesitated.
Why were these stones
blue, he wondered? The bright blue stood out sharply against
the red of the flames. With the glimmerings of an idea he turned
left and led his small party forward until the path ended. He
could feel the flagstones shifting slightly under his feet as
the hot winds buffeted them. Sasha's hands were tight on his
waist and he hoped Yalva was holding on too.
At the end of the
path he stopped.
'Well?' He pitched
his voice up to the watching dragons, feeling his ankles burning
and the hem of his habit beginning to smoke.
'Continue, yuman,'
came the impassive voice from above him.
The voice seemed to
echo off the great ceiling in a mocking cadence - 'yuman, yuman-man-nnnnnnnnn'.
He knew the shape.
He was sure. He hoped…
Swallowing Dale reached
out his right foot and stepped over the chasm, forward and just
a trace to his right. He heard Sasha cry out 'No, Dale,' and
try to pull him back by his rope belt, but she was too late.
Just as his balance was committed and he must fall, another
blue flagstone appeared under his foot, supporting him. He stepped
onto it and paused.
'What is happening
behind us Yalva?' he called.
'The path the other
way has grown by one flagstone too.'
'Is it curving to
the left and getting narrower?'
'Yes, I think so.'
'Good. Thank you.
Now follow me.'
Dale stepped forward
again into nothingness, and again a blue flagstone appeared
under his foot just in time. The path was beginning to curve
to the right. Holding his feelings battened down tight, and
trying to visualise the pattern in his mind, Dale started walking.
No hesitations now. He walked forward in a curve that got steadily
steeper, and at each pace another flagstone materialised just
under his feet, until eventually they were almost at the centre
of the chasm and facing sideways on to the portcullis.
At that point the
stones changed to black and Dale slowed but didn't stop, keeping
his momentum, eyes half closed. 'I have to come out at the right
point,' he whispered, 'careful now.'
The path was wider
while the black stones were under their feet.
Dale had walked almost
half the width to the portcullis and was now at the absolute
centre of the chasm, the flagstones marking a clear line behind
them as they floated wavering above the flames. Cautiously Dale
began to swing to his left, back towards the portcullis.
Suddenly the stone
under his feet was blue again and too far to his left. The worn
edge of the flagstone was just under his sandal but his weight
was too far over. His leg began to slide down into the heat
as he desperately lurched backwards, cannoning into Sasha close
behind him.
'No, Dale.' She grabbed
him and stepped back, hauling his weight upwards and backwards.
For a moment they stood there swaying.
'Shoot, shoot, shoot,'
gasped Dale, the backs of his hands prickling with sudden sweat.
'That was altogether too close. Thank you Sasha.'
The blue flagstone
had vanished again, but he knew where it had been. Gritting
his teeth he stepped out into the void again.
Obediently the blue
stone appeared and supported him and he continued to walk. The
path curved back to the left now, turning until they were facing
the other way with the portcullis on their right. Every now
and then Dale's foot would be close to one side or the other
of the flagstone as the curve got steeper and then straightened
again and Dale would adjust his next step to keep on the centre
of the curve.
At last there was
a wider stone with curved edges and a single small black boss.
Dale looked back and
smiled. He could see the path behind them now, hanging suspended
above the flames, and the pattern was clear. He turned right,
facing the portcullis. They were about one third of the way
from the left hand end and the remaining distance was about
six feet.
'The crown,' he shouted,
and jumped with both feet.
The air under his
feet glinted and flashed as a large plate of burnished gold
in the shape of a flat crown blinked into existence and he landed
with a thump.
There was a ringing
whisper and, spreading out like a wave from where he was standing,
came a ripple of stone, blotting out the heat of the flames.
The tenuous path on which they stood trembled and, with a noise
of grinding rocks, the missing stones rose up again from the
depths and locked into their original position. They could feel
solid ground under their feet again.
They turned and looked
back.
The chasm had vanished
and they were standing on a stone floor paved with flagstones
polished to a hard gloss. There, build into the arrangement
of the coloured flags was the armorial device - gules, a serpent
azure, crowned or - overall a bar sable. Dale was standing on
the golden crown. The other two were grouped on the blue head
beside the small black eye. They had walked the path of the
serpent from its tail to its head, crossing the central bar
of black and ending off at the crown.
'The red background
was the fire,' Dale gasped, 'and when the flagstones were blue
I thought of the serpent.' He shivered, despite the heat, and
turned back to the portcullis. 'Open the gate, gatekeepers.'
The heads of the two
watching dragons withdrew, upwards and back to gaze unseeingly
at the far wall. With a metallic grinding sound the great portcullis
drew up into the ceiling.
'Now, run,' said Dale.
The stones were hot
as though from a great oven and their feet burned as they ran.
Above them Dale saw a flicker of white as Havoc slipped through
behind them. The moment they were inside the great portcullis
fell with a crash as several tons of iron and wood met the stone
floor.
They were into Cloister.
- from 'Fractured Light'
- Copyright © David Caldo 2007
All Rights Reserved
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