Night Amongst Whispers - Part IX

he mountains looked quite a bit different when Nemgas awoke shortly before noon. With the sun shining down from the South, the crystals that lined the road no longer glowed a silverly blue but a brilliant yellow. The carvings that graced the walls like tapestries in a castle were also brighter, and images that had leapt out at him the night before were now subdued and seemingly inconsequential against everything else that he now saw. Where before he saw figure dancing, he now saw them toiling, tilling the earth, gathering a harvest, tending to herds of rams and other wild beasts. It gave Nemgas the impression that whoever had built all of these wonders up in the mountains were a people who worked by day, but celebrated by night.

Gamran, who shared the seat with him atop their wagon, had seen it as well, but did not share Nemgas’s intrigue. “The walls hath eyes,” he whispered at one point, keeping his own gaze fixedly upon the road ahead. He even went so far as to shift himself about, keeping Nemgas between himself and the golden crystals.

“Who couldst be watching?” Nemgas asked incredulously, though he did not stop the little thief from using him as a shield.

“They who dost dwell in Hanlo o Bavol-engro,” Gamran whispered again, his eyes furtive. “‘Tis their road we dost travel upon, and to their city we dost go.”

The legend of Pelain’s death had said he’d taken the road from Barchumba to that old forgotten city in Vysehrad. And now, as they continued on their way, there could be no mistaking the road for what it was. No longer was it merely smoothed rock, but several lines of different stone had been laid into it, marking it like a wide thoroughfare to be found in the greatest of cities. Marble blocks had been placed in long narrow strips along the entire course of the road, each smoothed so perfectly that the wheels did not even jar when they passed across them.

“But all that wast in Hanlo o Bavol-engro hast passed into death,” Nemgas pointed out gently. “Surely none couldst be watching. What couldst there be for thee to fear?”

“‘Tis the dead I fear,” Gamran said, looking up at Nemgas with a half-grin upon his face. “Thou hath no need to fear. Thou hath faced far worse than distraught spirits. But I hath not, and so I shalt fear.”

There was little that Nemgas could think to say after that, so he let the matter rest. Instead he allowed himself to take note of where the road led. Where yesterday it had been angling steadily downwards, now it seemed to be heading back up. Most of the time, when they were not travelling through one of the numerous tunnels, the sun would be before them, so he knew that they were headed southwards. The inclines were gradual enough that the Assingh had no trouble upon the roads, although they worried constantly that one would get a split hoof. They would stop every few hours whenever they found a bit of the road that was level enough and attend to the animals.

Thankfully though, there was never anything wrong with them aside from their rampant hunger. This made them irritable, and a few of the Magyars had to jump aside quickly as a hoof testily came their way. Nemgas himself was nearly clipped, but after a bit of grain and water, the ill-tempered beast was sated.

All the while as they travelled, Nemgas knew there was something that he ought to have realized a long time ago. What it was he was not certain, but it was there like a thorn in his mind. He had already dismissed the knights themselves as the source of his conundrum, for their motivations were easy to understand. They merely wished to kill that part of him that had died on Cenziga. Nor was it solely Cenziga that troubled him, though as in all of his pondering, the mysteries that terrible mountain possessed evaded him.

Instead, it seemed as if everything Nemgas could think of was being drawn together, as if every thought was meshed into the last, connected through some strand that was always hidden, but was nevertheless still there. It frustrated him that he could not discern what that single truth might be, so much so that he tried to think of Kisaiya, a woman he found to be only slightly less frustrating. But that did not help, and his mood soured to the point that even Gamran noticed.

“Art thee well?” Gamran asked, ducking behind him to avoid the golden light form one of the crystals. They had just come out from another one of the tunnels, and were about to enter a ravine between two mountains. The crystals stood upon one side of the road, but Nemgas could see that up through the ravine they were suspended from the slender arches once again.

“I wast thinking of Kisaiya,” Nemgas admitted with a heavy sigh.

“Ah, that lovely lass that taunts thy heart?” Gamran smiled affectionately.

“Aye,” Nemgas said, nodding his head, able to smile slightly then. “‘Tis the one.”

Gamran patted him on one shoulder then. “Thou wilt win her o’er in time, my good Nemgas. Metihnks thou dost frighten her.”

Nemgas’s smile turned to a scowl then. “I doth not understand why she fears me so. I hath ne’er tried to hurt her. I wish to watch o’er her.”

The little thief was silent for a moment, and his voice, when he finally did speak, took on a cautioned tone. “Perhaps ‘tis not thee she dost fear. Perhaps what thee hast done, and where thee hast been.”

Nemgas pondered that a moment, but found himself drawn back to that strange focus he could not identify. That single thread uniting all others. He shook it form his mind, putting the walls on either side of the road in his mind instead. They were tall and extended some five times the height of the wagons themselves before sloping away towards the snow topped peaks above. The sun was hidden behind the peaks, and so they only had the golden light of the gems to guide them.

“None of the others hath run from me. They hath thrown themselves at my feet when I didst return from that mountain,” Nemgas pointed out. Mentioning the mountain of course made Gamran flinch slightly, but the little thief did his best to hide it.

“Ah, but thou dost not want them,” Gamran replied once he regained his composure. “Women art the world’s truest thieves. They steal the hearts of men so that they canst ne’er find them again apart from the woman’s sufferance. Kisaiya hath stolen thy heart, and when thou dost come to retrieve it she flees. One day, if thou dost keep up the pursuit, thou shalt catch her at last.” He winked to the larger Magyar then, his smile mischievous. “Methinks thou wilt always be chasing her, though you shalt catch her from time to time. She dost like to run.”

Nemgas favoured his friend with a sour grin. “Thou dost fill me with confidence, Gamran. Dost Thelia run from you?”

The little thief smiled. “She hast made me breathless.”

He very nearly laughed then. In fact, he’d begun to do so, but something ahead caught his eye, chilling the sound within his throat. The walls on either side of the road opened up ahead, and showed several mountains flanking the road ahead. But it was not the mountains themselves that caught his eye, but what lay beyond them. Rising up like ghostly masts at a fog-filled dock were several tall towers all clustered behind the next range. Nemgas stared, his grip upon the reins tightening as he took what details he could see of them. There was little he could discern at that distance though, they appeared as nothing more than glimmering spires of white, with a golden crystal set into their top. They reminded him of slender candles used to mark the holy days, just waiting for a strong enough wind to snuff them out.

Gamran too stared mouth agape at those towers, his whole body trembling anew as the road opened out again. Earlier, the other drivers had also been talking quietly, but now all was silence. Though the sky was clear to their east and west, it was suddenly occluded to the south, above those ancient towers. Nemgas felt his skin crawl, as if some slight bit of silk had just brushed against it.

“Hanlo o Bavol-engro,” Nemgas murmured, the words nearly swallowed by a sudden draft of wind. “Carethedor.”

The clouds to the south rumbled in reply.

It was noon by the time they returned to the top of the defile, where the fissure had led them up to the path. Sir Poznan stared angrily out at the long shallow decline of stone that spread out into the Steppe far below. He spat at the ground, shifting about once in is saddle. Skowicz offered him the wineskin and he snatched it from the hands of his squire, drinking his fill. When he handed it back to the surprised boy, he’d nearly finished it.

“The path turns,” Sir Ignacz reported, lowering the farseeing device and handing it back to the priest Athfisk.

“Into the mountains?” Sir Poznan asked, his mailed glove gripping the horn of his saddle.

“Yes. You can see the path has turned southward through that cleft there.” With an outstretched arm, Sir Ignacz pointed to a small jagged scar in the rock, through which distant eastern mountains were visible. There did appear to be a path that followed along their middle, Sir Poznan admitted after a few moments of squinting.

“Hmmmm, but will it lead us to the damnable pagans?”

Sir Ignacz shrugged, but his mouth was set in a tight line. “I don’t know, Knight Commander. But what else can we do?”

“Hah!” Sir Poznan shouted angrily. “Nothing! We can do nothing else but pray that this path will lead us to the pagans. Sir Czestadt will receive our message in a fortnight and will no doubt keep the Southern passes blocked.” He snorted and spat again, the taste of wine still hot in his mouth. It felt as foul as ash. Blood would have been so much better. He bit his lip hard, feeling it flow between his teeth and across his tongue. He spat again, licking at his lip in annoyance. How unsatisfying.

“Let us waste no more time then. We ride hard.” Sir Lech Poznan of Bydbrüszin, Knight Commander of the Driheli, did not wait to see if his men were following him as he set his charger at a full gallop along the mountain road.

Their view of the towers was quickly obscured by the mountains before them as the path turned abruptly downwards. It zigzagged back and forth along the slope until it finally set out between the two nearest peaks, the peaks that now blocked their view of the ancient city. The clouds still churned overhead, a veritable mass of grey laced with black silk like cobwebs. By the time they began to pass between those two mountains, the middle of the afternoon had arrived, and the sun shone from one side, making the snow shine atop the right peak.

Neither Nemgas nor Gamran spoke as their wagons passed through the passage between those two giants. The carvings had grown more and more elaborate as they neared the towers. Where before they had been contained in the wall, now it appeared that the walls of rock themselves had been chiselled away to reveal various dancers and labourers. The rock itself was simply the substance that held them all together, as those strange figures with the pointed ears ventured out into the road, some inviting the Magyars to enter, others warning them with stern glances and drawn blades. The warriors bore armour gleaming with imbedded gem stones, their eyes brilliant sapphires that glowed in the golden crystal’s light. But not even the little thief looked like he wished to weasel those gems loose. They were not gems but eyes after all.

Though the road itself was still wide enough for four wagons to fit facing side to side, the arches returned again about halfway between the mountains. The mountains themselves were growing closer together, their walls of rock beginning to bend towards each other. The arches themselves began to extend upwards with the stone, as if they were vast buttresses for some unseen structure. As he stared, Nemgas could see a sheet of rock chiselled so thin that it actually moved with the wind, a gossamer silk of stone that stood like a sail above each arch. And in it, he could almost catch the glint of faces, smiles and frowns, laughs of joy and tears of sadness.

But as they neared the city, the arches continued to grow upwards, that thin sheet of rock becoming a vast opaque wall. It was clear that the two mountains they had seen from afar were actually one mountain joined only from one side. Perhaps a massive earth slide had cleared out this ravine through the middle. Whatever the reason, soon, their path became a tunnel once more. The lanes of marbles that had begun in the road now crisscrossed along the vaulted ceiling of the tunnel, an intricate web that wound in on itself in patterns that could only be achieved through a life time’s worth of sculpting. Not one Magyar who could see it did not gape.

The lines seemed to have some deliberate purpose, or so Nemgas thought. What that purpose could be, he could not fathom, but it was clear that the lines seemed to be taking something from the middle of the tunnel and funnelling it into the city themselves. Travellers perhaps? Nemgas shook his head, still amazed by the sight, and almost forlorn when he saw the tunnel’s end. A strange haze had settled upon the road just at the edge of the tunnel, so he could not see beyond. He leaned forward, straining to peer through the obscuring mist.

And then he had to abruptly tug on the reins of the Assingh, drawing them to a stop. The wagons ahead of him had all stopped, just as the first had passed out from beneath the tunnel. Nemgas blinked, and watched as the Magyars ahead of him jumped from their perches, running forward to see what had shocked the leaders so. Nemgas did as well, eve as Chamag and Pelgan stuck their heads out of the door to see what was amiss. Without a word, they and all the rest followed after their fellow Magyars in a rush of unclean feet.

Nemgas nearly collided with Adlemas as he pressed out from that tunnel. The older man grunted and took another step forward, but he never turned to look back behind him to see who had run into him. Nor did Nemgas have the words to apologize, for his eyes had spied the same thing Adlemas’s had. Before him, rising up out of that mist were the towers he had seen before, but now closer, so close he felt he could reach out and touch them. Where the towers he had seen in so many other places had been made from stone or wood, these were different. With quiet pause, they scintillated the light that shone from the afternoon sun, scattering it, and bringing a fullness of illumination to the enclosed valley. For these were spires of crystal, standing like vast fingers reaching into the sky. Their faces were faceted thousands of times, each inch of their surface filled with minute cuts. Nemgas stared, gawking like a farmboy seeing his first city.

And in that he was. He was a Magyar, a traveller of the Steppe. And here before him was a city unlike no other, a city out of time, built by the greatest craftsman the world could ever know. This was Hanlo o Bavol-engro. This was Carethedor. He could not count the towers, those spires of light too numerous and lost in fog. Beneath them he could now make out other buildings, some also fashioned from the crystal, others from more conventional means. But each of them was still so spectacular that he could hardly keep his breath. Mountains flanked them on all sides, but there was the smell of fresh earth and loam from somewhere, and that of water. Behind them, the wall of the mountains ascended vertically, reaching two twin peaks that were so close together, he probably could have set one foot on each without any strain.

Nemgas heard Hanaman’s voice from somewhere, he couldn’t tell where. “I hath seen grass and water to the west. We shouldst make camp there.” Yet none of them moved. How could they, Nemgas thought. This was a place that none had seen since the days of Pelain, and perhaps then he’d been the only one to venture in this alien land, this secret demesnes of Vysehrad. “Bring the wagons,” Hanaman called out, a bit louder this time. The fog seemed to lift slightly as he spoke, but Nemgas still could see little through it.

He felt a touch on his shoulder, a very strong one that pulled him about. Nemgas blinked a few times until he recognized his friend and leader, Hanaman. “I hath told thee to bring the wagons,” he said, voice firm.

“Aye,” Nemgas said at last, the enchantment broken. Stumbling on his feet, he walked back down the length of the tunnel until he reached his wagon. Gamran had not come with him, but it was just as well. Hanaman was busy shaking the drivers from their gawking, not worrying about anybody else just then. Nemgas wondered how Hanaman himself could have woken from that dream, that view of Carethedor, but decided it was merely the weight of responsibility that kept him from being swept away by it.

It took several minutes before the wagons could start again. Hanaman took over from Adlemas in leading the first wagon, and soon, they had all emerged from the tunnel, following along the wall of rock to the west. There, the smooth paved stone gave way to a flowering field of knee-high grasses, and at last a small lake. The city itself seemed set inside a hollow of the mountains. Most of the walls on any side were nearly vertical, though towards the west and south they sloped away. The lake itself was fed by streams that flowed down from the city. A small dam had been erected at its western edge, and from that water spilled out over a vast escarpment overlooking several smaller peaks.

After they’d brought the wagons to rest, the Assingh gratefully began to graze upon the high grasses, quite ignoring their human ostlers who removed their harnesses. As always, the wagons formed a semicircle, this time with their backs near the northwestern wall. They cut down the grasses in the middle, clearing them out as best as they could, ripping them up by the roots when necessary. Once satisfied that it was safe, Hanaman ordered them to begin building the cookfires for the night.

Nemgas was helping place wood on one of the fires near Hanaman when some of the older Magyars accosted him. “Dost thou think it wise to spend te night here?” Adlemas asked, his voice choked with both fear and awe. “‘Tis a haunted place, cursed ‘tis said.”

“Aye,” Hanaman said, nodding. “We hath been cursed already by those foul knights. ‘Tis too late in the day to continue. We shalt leave here soon. I wilt send scouts to find a path out after we hath eaten. On the morn we wilt leave. Tonight we pray the gods protect us from the Bavol-engro.”

“But,” another interjected, “what if they dost strike ere the fall of night?”

Hanaman grunted. “Then we shouldst pray now.”

“Thou art risking all our lives needlessly, Hanaman,” one of the venerable said acidly.

“Nay,” Hanaman shot back, obviously upset that any would so openly question his decisions. “‘Tis not needless. Those knights wouldst have slain many before we couldst hath driven them back. And thou art forgetting the Assingh. ‘Tis the first place in two days that we hath seen grass or water. We canst not push them any father. We must stop, or they wilt not be able to take us much further.”

When none of them spoke, Hanaman went on. “‘Tis a risk, I know. I shalt accept the responsibility for it. I hath made my decision. Now get thee to thy meals and thy prayers. We shalt need both.”

The whole conversation made Nemgas feel uneasy. He had heard tales of this place in his youth, that is, the youth he could remember living as a Magyar. Many a nights he could recall clustered with the other brightly dressed children about the fire as Taboras or another frightened them with tales of spectral beings wandering amongst the ruins of this ancient city, waiting for a hapless wanderer to venture within. Those stories had always made him shiver and clutch to his friends for comfort as they never ended well for the poor traveller, who was always a lost Magyar. All heroes were Magyars in those tales of old he reflected with a sudden grin.

Even as he ruminated on his childhood as a Magyar, he saw Pelurji running up to him. Nemgas set the last log down and took a few steps to meet the boy. Pelurji’s face was bright and wide-eyed, staring at those massive spires of crystal. “Master Nemgas! Master Nemgas!” he shouted, waving one finger at the fog-cloaked city. “Be that? Be that?”

“Aye,” Nemgas said, hoisting the boy up to his hip. Pelurji wrapped one arm about his strong neck then, staring fixedly at the city. “‘Tis Hanlo o Bavol-engro. I ne’er thought I wouldst see it myself.” Strangely, now that he had been able to look away, the spires no longer held him as before.

“Wast this the city that Pelain didst come to fight te dragon?” Pelurji asked then, his grip tightening on Nemgas’s neck.

“Aye, ‘tis the city.”

“I want to see the dragon’s bones!” Pelurji declared then, his voice flush with excitement.

Nemgas found himself laughing. “I wouldst as well. Perhaps Hanaman wilt let us wander the city together after we’ve eaten.”

“Please!” Pelurji begged suddenly. “Please let me come.”

“I hath said that I shalt take thee, if Hanaman allows,” Nemgas assured him, smiling to the boy. “‘Tis said to be a cursed city, thou hast heard.”

The boy nodded, but still, there was a plea in his eyes that Nemgas knew could not be ignored. Pelurji had snuck out from Cheskych to join the Magyars. No edict from Hanaman or even Nemgas could keep him from exploring that city to find the bones of the dragon that Pelain did slay at his own death. In truth, Nemgas wanted to see them himself. There was something strange about that story he’d heard in exchange for the tale of Akabaieth’s death. It was just one more mystery that surrounded Pelain, a man who had accomplished so much in life, yet one that he’d never heard of before. Somebody so great that children would even suggest he’d climbed Cenziga himself, though Nemgas knew that was impossible. After all, he’d died here in Carethedor, not upon that ash mountain.

“I shalt speak with Hanaman,” Nemgas finally said, unable not to smile at the boy. Pelurji’s eyes were wide with breathless anticipation. He wondered if he’d be able to keep the boy here at the camp long enough to eat his dinner. Well, he’d just have to make sure that the child stayed with him then. “Let us go together and speak with him,” Nemgas suggested then, and Pelurji nodded his head, grinning widely.

Nemgas, still clutching Pelurji at his side with one arm, walked over to where Hanaman was overseeing the erection of the cookpot over one of the unlit fires. Hanaman did not turn until Nemgas called his name, but when he did, he had to hold back a smile at seeing Pelurji clutched around Nemgas’s neck much like a monkey. “What dost thee want, my good Nemgas?”

“I dost wish to explore the city with Pelurji here after we hath eaten,” Nemgas said, smiling confidently. “He hath heard many tales of this city, and dost wish to see it for himself. I doubt we e’er come this way again, so thought to accompany him to keep him safe.”

Hanaman’s expression did not change, but from the look in his hard grey eyes, Nemgas knew that he was not pleased by the prospect of a child going into the city. “I wilt be sending several into the city,” he said slowly, eyeing them both. “If thou dost be careful, thou mayest go. Pelurji art thy responsibility, Nemgas.”

“He hath always been,” Nemgas said, with a smile. Pelurji was beaming excitedly, scrambling to get back down.

“We canst go! We canst go!” Pelurji declared excitedly after Nemgas set him down upon the cleared grass. “I shalt get my things.”

“Not until after dinner,” Nemgas told him, quickly seizing the boy’s wrist and holding it firmly between two fingers. “And until dinner, I shalt help thee with thy juggling. Come now, let us practice.” Though Pelurji was disappointed that he’d have to wait, at least he did get to learn more juggling, and that cheered the boy up quickly. Nemgas smiled as he watched Pelurji keep three balls in the air at once. Before long, they would be able to add a fourth.

For the first time in nearly a day, Sir Poznan smiled. “It seems,” he said, gesturing to the carvings along the walls of the ravine they were riding through. He’d slowed his pace to a mere canter, riding alongside his most trusted knight, Sir Ignacz. “It seems that we have found another way.”

Sir Ignacz nodded, grinning beneath his helm as well, looking at the obsidian towers with their crystal globes of golden light. “It is a hopeful sign.” He paused a moment, as if steeling himself. “We should rest the horses for a bit before we continue though. They are beginning to tire.”

Sir Poznan’s smile faded quickly from his lips. “When we pass this mountain we shall rest. But not for long. Not for long.”

With a deep breath, Sir Ignacz could only nod.