The Rebels of Aeden

By Peter Harris

In Volume One, "The Girl and the Guardian", Shelley Arkle ended up alone in the terrible Valley of Thorns, with only a half-crazed Third-lifer, the serpent Thornfoot, to help her. Now Thornfoot seems to be her only hope. But his idea for escape looks more like suicide to her...

The stakes have been raised much, much higher for Shelley; Korman the Guardian who was her faithful companion and guide has been captured by the Aghmaath and enthorned beside the Lady Ainenia, the representative of the Goddess on Aeden. Shelley, it seems, is now Aeden's only hope. She must find the magical school of Ürak Tara, deep underground, lost in the mists and mindwebs of the forests of the Northern Arm. Only there can she be initiated as the Kortana. But will Noestes the Master welcome as a student a strange girl who thinks she is the Chosen One, the Jewel Caller who will find the lost Heartstone? And if he does, what is his real agenda? The sinister Tenth-Worlders have been active even in this last refuge of the faithful to the ancient Order of the Makers... Yet at this school Shelley will meet new allies and friends who still hope for the coming of the Kortana, and are willing to believe in her.

Meanwhile Quickblade the leader of the Boy Raiders has sworn to meet her at Ürak Tara, no matter what stands between them. And he is about to pay a terrible price as the Raiders' campaign goes horribly wrong. The two star-crossed lovers are determined to seek the lost Jewel together. But are they ready for a challenge even more deadly than the mindbolts and scythes of the Dark Travellers - a challenge to their faith in each other, and love itself?

As the thorn spores and mindwebs cover Aeden, the Tree of Life is compromised and hope turns into despair, is there any place of refuge left? Can love overcome even death? Shelley and Quickblade - and the friends they have led into mortal danger - are about to find out. Prepare for a rollercoaster ride into depths and heights Shelley - and Quickblade - could not have imagined until now.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peter Harris
• Release date: Dec 9, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301217519

Peter Harris

I joined GRID-Arendal as Managing Director in 2014. I am a native of the USA, citizen of Australia and resident of Norway; I describe myself as a “professional foreigner”. I am a graduate of the University of Washington (Seattle USA), completed a PhD at the University of Wales (Swansea UK), married an Australian and have 3 children. I have worked in the field of marine geology and science management for over 30 years and published over 100 scientific papers. I taught marine geology at the University of Sydney and conducted research on UK estuaries, the Great Barrier Reef, the Fly River Delta (Papua New Guinea) and Antarctica. I worked for 20 years for Australia’s national geoscience agency as a scientist and manager. In 2009 I was appointed a member of the group of experts for the United Nations World Ocean Assessment. Apart from managing all of GRID-Arendal’s amazing activities, my interests include new methods for the conduct of environmental assessments (the expert elicitation method) and the use of multivariate statistics and geomorphology to provide tools to manage the global ocean environment. I also enjoy sailing and playing the bagpipes.

Book preview

Narrator’s Preface

In the first volume I described how Shelley first came to the World of Aeden, to the central hub of that World, the Island of Namaglimmë, the Starfish Isle. There she met Korman the Outcast, the last Guardian. Pursued by the Aghmaath, they fled towards the hidden Faery refuge of Ürak Tara, where she was to learn the wisdom of the ancient Order of the Makers, and so be empowered to follow her destiny: to become the Kortana, the Jewel-caller, who would find the Lost Jewel, the Arcra of Aeden. Then she would lead the Nine Worlds into a new Golden Age. But in the Valley of Thorns Korman was captured, and Shelley was left to find Ürak Tara alone. Fleeing Phagrapag, the Inquisitor of the Dark Labyrinth, into the dark waters of Lake Deadwater she met the serpent Thornfoot, who bore her away from the terrible valley.

This volume is the continuation of Shelley’s story, which I learned directly from her, with the help of a Mindstone. So I am hopeful that my tale will have the ring of truth, and inspire you to join in the fight for the return of the Golden Age, when all the Nine Worlds, including Earth, will once again be truly free, and full of a joyful magic. The magic of Faery - of Rathvala, the Unfolding.

In the first book I hinted that the enemy is at work here on Earth. I have since learned more of this secret war, and have actually been pursued by enemy agents. These are shadowy figures, like the Ninja assassins of medieval Japan — elusive hunters, unseen, unheard — until they strike. And then it is too late.

But we have allies, just as invisible until they are needed. With their help I have today managed to find a safe house where I will now hopefully be able to complete the story of Shelley, and warn the Earth of what is to come. Where we will all end up I do not know; powers are being unleashed on both sides which will change Aeden — and our own Edartha — forever. The present order is passing away. We are fated to live (as the old Chinese curse puts it), in ‘interesting times.’ May we be worthy of them! Remember, no matter how dark the hour, by our thoughts and deeds we can affect the Unfolding for the better.

2

A Stranger in Silverwood

I should now fill you in on my end of the story. Almost nine months after Shelley Arkle’s disappearance from the roadside just north of Silverwood one stormy spring morning, I arrived by magic at the strange primeval wood which grows just above the spot where she had disappeared.

But I knew nothing of Shelley then. How did I, an history student living in Oxford, come to be materialising in this southern land on the other side of the world? It happened like this: buried beneath an old yew tree in a churchyard in England I had found the skeleton of a Templar knight. In his hand was a silver medallion, which I identified from an ancient manuscript as an Ouvron. I learned that this object (under the right circumstances) links places of high subtle energy – sacred places — allowing instantaneous travel between them. Though not without peril, as I also learned. Following certain clues, I had gone to Chartres cathedral to seek, by means of this Ouvron, for the mythical land of Eden which was spoken of by my Templar knight before he died. From the centre of the Labyrinth in the cathedral, I had been transported to the antipodean wood. But I still had no idea where I was. After holding up the Ouvron again and seeing a vision of the Tree of Life in the Golden Age, I stepped through the pathway it opened up towards a very different Eden – one that was covered in thorns with the Aghmaath lurking inside. Turning back in terror, I almost fell into the Void before jumping through the closing gap, back into the glade in the woods.

Now at last I will tell you what happened next.

Setting off through the strange wood, I soon came to its edge, where there was a fence. I found I was high up, looking down onto a green sunlit hillside. As I admired the peaceful view, I was startled by sudden guttural cry. It sounded for a split-second almost like an old man yelling ‘Bah.’ Then I realised the exclamation came from a very large, very woolly, sheep. There was a scattered flock of the strange creatures (as they seemed to my eyes in that alien context), peacefully grazing except for the one that had bleated. It was staring up at me indignantly. It stamped its foot, then turned to busily nibble the emerald-green grass, keeping one eye on me.

Further down the valley, I saw a sealed road, cars, and the main street of a small town, with the usual modern assortment of shops, factories and warehouses, many with large signs on the roofs advertising their wares to the motorway in the distance. This made me pretty sure I had not travelled back in time, at least. Seen from the back as I was seeing it, the town was anything but romantic. I felt relief but also a sense of disappointment, since I am a passionate student of ancient and medieval history. The primeval quality of the wood had given me hope that I had somehow emerged into an earlier epoch. I am not a scientist, so I have no idea whether such a thing is physically possible; though I have read in a popular physics book that it may be theoretically possible, through black holes: if one could somehow pass through a black hole and survive, which, the writer informed me, was probably practically impossible, one could find oneself in another time and place — or universe. Still, I reasoned, the author would probably have also said that instantaneous transportation by means of a hand-held medallion was both theoretically and practically impossible, and I had just experienced that!

I climbed the fence. The sheep scattered, most of them nervously following the one that had bleated. I stumbled down the green slope (which was cropped short as a bowling green by the sheep) until I came to a second fence, where I had my first direct experience of barbed wire, snagging both trouser legs. After a short struggle with the wires, I scrambled through thistles and blackberry onto the tar-sealed road which wound up from the township. The air was warm, and the tar-seal was hot. The late afternoon light was now slowly fading. It felt like the end of a long summer’s day; yet minutes before I had been in Chartres, France, and it had been a cold morning in early winter. This gave a feeling of oddness to all the sights and smells around me.

Walking through the little township, somewhat dazed, as if jetlagged, I passed a fish-and-chip shop. The name ‘White Horse Takeaways’ was written in gold leaf on the window, over the image of a white, galloping horse. This romantic picture, and a sudden awareness of hunger, inspired me to enter. After I had ordered a scoop of chips I asked the Chinese man behind the counter, ‘Excuse me, but would you mind telling me what town I’m in?’

‘Silverwood,’ he replied, in a heavy Asian accent. He pointed to the galloping white horse logo on the paper bags, and the address printed under it: Main Street, Silverwood. But what country?

Before I realised how odd it would seem, I asked, ‘And what country?’

But the man, staring inscrutably (to my western eyes), just replied, ‘New Zealand. Two dollar please.’

‘What?’ I replied, stupidly, reeling inwardly at the news.

‘Two dollar.’

I realised I didn’t have anything but Euros on me, and offered him those. He peered inscrutably at the coins, then beamed up at me and said, ‘Ah, English toulist!’

Now he had me placed, the inscrutability seemed to vanish. We both knew where we were. He put my foreign money on a shelf and put the chips in the deep fryer. I asked him the time. When he told me ‘Nine o’clock,’ I stupidly asked, ‘At night?’ He nodded inscrutable once more, as if giving me up as a hopeless case, and turned away to jiggle the chips in the boiling fat.

My brain reeled again as it sank in: so I was in a completely different time zone; I was, in fact, actually, on the other side of the globe, in what we English like to call the Antipodes, in a little country that I had only seen in tourist advertisements. From these I had had the impression that it consisted mostly of fjords and was populated almost entirely by sheep. ‘Well, they certainly have the sheep,’ I thought.

The sunset was already glowing red behind the dark hills when I came out of the White Horse holding a warm newspaper-wrapped package. I dug a hole through the newspaper to pick out the hot chips as I wandered down the main street, feeling like some weird kind of tourist, dissociated, wondering at everything I saw. The orange street-lights came on. They looked strange to me – not quite the right shade of orange — and I blinked at them. There was hardly a soul anywhere, just the odd car or farm vehicle passing through.

Before I had finished the chips I had come to a tavern: The Wade, it said over the old wooden doorway. There were a few mud-spattered farm vehicles parked outside, and one particularly immaculate bright red sports car. I looked at the newspaper the chips came in: a local rag, the Silverwood Bugle. I find that some of the most interesting articles are wrapped around fish and chips. This paper was no exception: there was a fascinating little report on the continuing absence of a girl named Shelley Arkle, who had disappeared from Silverwood nearly nine months before. A local named Albert Potter was claiming she had been abducted by aliens. ‘I’ve seen some funny goings on round the north side, men that aren’t actually men, as proved by the fact that they disappear when you look at them,’ he was quoted as saying. But others apparently blamed a mysterious white horse which was sometimes seen by night in the hills of the north side; a ghost horse. Mrs Spedding of the Silverwood Historical Preservation Society was quoted as correcting this theory. She said, ‘No, if anything it would have been the White Bullock. According to local legend it was responsible for at least one man wandering off and drowning in the marshes of the Wade valley. But of course, I don’t believe such tales.’

I finished the last salty remnants of the chips and pocketed the wrapping with the article. I wiped my hands on my jacket, and went inside. There were three men leaning at the bar drinking beer. They looked like farmers to me: all were deeply tanned; one was wearing a black woollen singlet, rough trousers and gumboots; and the others, younger men, wore muddy boots, shorts that revealed lean muscular legs, and checked shirts rolled up to the elbow. They turned to look at me as I approached the bar. I smiled and raised my hand to them, waving half-heartedly. ‘I’ve got no idea how to talk to these fellows,’ I thought. But I decided to try, realising that they were my chance to casually glean some information about this place, which though definitely present-day Earth, still felt bizarre to me. To be wrenched from early morning in a northern winter to early evening in summer on the other side of the world is surprisingly disorientating. The barman, wiping the bench with a rag, joined the others in staring.

‘Look, I feel a bit weird, but I’m actually English, a tourist, sort of, and I’m actually a bit jetlagged – anyway, I was just wondering, before I popped back, I mean, carried on, could you tell me a bit about your village?’

‘Wad are ya, mate?’ said one of the farmers, squinting at me dubiously.

I looked back, unsure how to proceed.

‘Waddya do for a crust’?’ he added by way of explanation.

‘Ah, well I’m sort of a... an historian. Ancient, mostly.’

The men roared with laughter, and I smiled brightly. At least I had caught them in a good mood.

‘Yer don’t look that ancient t’mooey,’ offered another of them in a strange accent, similar to Australian, which I had heard on television.

When I had explained that I studied ancient and medieval times, and was actually only thirty-one, thereby causing more mirth, I ordered a beer myself, managing to pay in Euros, the last of the money in my pockets. Then the men began to volunteer some information about ‘the old dump.’

‘Yeah, nah, as far as ’istry goes, we don’t go back that far round ’ere, mate. Jist back to the settlers in the haiteen-sixties — apart from the Maoris, who didn’t live round ere ‘cos they said it was tarpoo. That means, you know… say-crid, off-limits.’

‘You mean, tabu?’

‘That’s wot I said! Tar-poo. Anyway, this pub ’ere, it was started by an ex-con from England. But he brewed a good drop out the back, they say.’

‘Now it all comes from the big breweries in Auckland.’

‘And Dunedin, mate, and Dunedin!’

‘Yeah, yeah, if you can call that Southland stuff real beer. Anyway, the place wasn’t always called Silverwood, it was called The Wade, back then. Cosuv the river I s’pose, that they hadda wade across all the time, to get to th’pub.’ The speaker fixed me with a bleary stare. I didn’t know whether he was joking.

‘Oh really?’ I said.

‘Yeah, some Pommie bastards like you came one day and settled here, got the name changed t’Silverwood, reckoned it sounded fancier or somethin’. But call it what ya like, it’s still a deadend dump.’

‘Yeah, ya can’t make a silk purse outava sow’s ear!’

I was beginning to wonder why the Ouvron had brought me here, to the middle of nowhere. There was the strange wood and the mossy stone, and the alleged abduction of the girl, but…

‘Yeah, but lately it’s been intristing, eh? That girl, whats ’er name, Shelley Arkles, disappearing into thin air, choppers searching and everything, not a trace of ’er.’

‘Yeah, nah, its weird all right. They reckon the mother was raving about a white horse taking her daughter away when the cops and the towtruck arrived to get their car outa the ditch! Only changed her story later, the papers said. The father said she was unstable, not to listen to ‘er. He couldn’t explain where ’is daughter had got to, though. They didn’t charge ’em, no evidence. But I reckon something fishy’s goin’ on.’

‘Yeah, I’ve seen ’er since then, the mother, parked off the old north road, up where the girl disappeared, wandering over the paddocks, like she was looking f’somethink.’

‘Poor bugger. He’s prob’ly gone off his rocker.’

‘I always said there’s somethin’ — diffrint – about the old north road. Gives me the willies sometimes at night, goin’ past the settler’s graveyard, and the Fairyhill Reserve up the top.’

‘Yeah, before the bloody Crown got hold of it, the Maoris said it was tapu. Wouldn’t go near the place. No one’d log it, either. That’s why it’s still got those giant kauris on it.’

‘Then there’s the story about the white bullock that led settlers off into the swamp and then it’d just disappear.’

‘Oh, mate, you don’t believe that old story, do ya? The poor guys were probably blind drunk like you, and just fell into the swamp and drowned, end of story.’

‘It wasn’t the swamp, it was the bush above the old north road, is what I heard.’

‘It’s jist an old settler’s tale the bloody istorical preservashun sussiety dug up.’

‘Bloody wasta time that is, the Silverwood historical preservation society! Ha! What’s here ta preserve, except old Mike over there, and he’s so pickled he wont need preserving when he goes!’

They all laughed heartily at this, noisily ordered another round, and pressed an ice-cold beer into my already slightly unsteady hand. I have thin blood, and the chips were not enough to dilute the effect of a full pint of beer on a man who has just been teleported to the antipodes by an ancient medallion he prised from the fingers of a Templar knight who had been dead for seven hundred years.

As the beer took effect, it began to seem perfectly likely that there had been a genuine disappearance from Silverwood nine months ago, and that it had something to do with Ouvrons and Templars. After all, I remembered — and a chill went up my spine — the old knight of the Yew tree had spoken before he died of a place in the far south that he said was the gateway to Eden. Could this little town of Silverwood, or rather the Fairyhill Reserve just to the north, be that sacred place? If so, it was one of history’s best kept secrets. But, I reflected, it wasn’t so long ago that the city of Troy was confidently believed to be only a legend, a figment of Homer’s imagination. Until ‘crazy’ Schliemann dug it up…

As I drained my second glass of big-brewery beer (it tasted a little watery compared to traditional English beer, but it nevertheless had a wonderful effect on my morale) I resolved to return to Silverwood as soon as I possibly could, and try to do a little discreet ‘digging’ of my own, with the help of the medallion. Perhaps I would even find that lost girl, and become a hero, on top of discovering the gateway to another world…

I smiled benignly at the three men as they continued talking, now mostly about the weather and the prospects for haymaking (they thought rain was on the way), and I thought hard, by this time leaning heavily on the bar. I decided I had to test the site further, and seek any clues as to its history. For example, were there any hollow trees with buried Templar knights or perhaps hidden treasures, even documents, the most precious treasure of all to an historian? Meanwhile I would have to go back by Ouvron, assuming I could, and then get a legitimate passport and air ticket back to Silverwood, New Zealand. After the warnings from father Prebble (the priest in whose graveyard I had found the Yew tree and the buried medallion) about a sinister brotherhood which might try to steal the Ouvron, and my own sighting of the men in the black car outside the graveyard where I had found the medallion, I did not want to attract any publicity. I imagined the headlines: ‘Deranged Englishman found fossicking in Silverwood Reserve without passport.’ That would certainly give the show away to any enemy.

I was farewelling my new drinking mates with a fervour and sociability due partly to the beer and partly to my elation at the thought of the discoveries awaiting me in the woods of Silverwood, when I noticed, or rather felt, someone staring at me from the depths of the bar-room. I had a strange prickling in the middle of my forehead, and a cold shiver down my back. I wiped my brow with the back of my hand as I turned to look. There was a solid, clean-shaven man in a suit sitting at a table in the corner, staring straight at me. He looked respectable enough. But from that distance his eyes looked nasty somehow, and black — pitch black. He was not smiling, and seemed to be staring right through me; or, more specifically, right into me. Another shiver ran down my spine, and I turned away. I felt the man’s eyes boring into the back of my head as I went out into the night. I intensely hoped he would not get up and follow me, but horribly, as in a nightmare, sensed that he would.

I walked, my spine still tingling, as briskly as I could without seeming to be scared or in a hurry. I headed back up the main street, intending to return to the wood where I had emerged into the antipodes. ‘Or, perhaps the Ouvron would work just as well here,’ I reasoned, not liking the idea of being followed by a stranger into the now pitch-dark wood.

But no one emerged from the tavern, or pub as the farmers had called it, as I made my way to the top of the little town and began to walk up the old north road. I tried to relax in the cool night air. My body clock, however, was still telling me it was mid-morning, and the adrenalin seemed to increase rapidly and wind me up to a fever pitch of alertness, where every crackling twig and rustle in the grass on the roadside made me jump. The beer, meanwhile, was making my head swim, and I had trouble walking steadily. The white sheep in the dark fields loomed larger than life, and I tried not to think of ghostly horses or white bullocks. I came to the fence where I had crossed over onto the road, and began to climb it, clumsily trying to avoid the barbs on the rusty top wire, but failing. I wobbled in midair, snagged by my trousers again.

Just then I heard a car coming slowly up the hill towards me. Its headlights were probing over the brow of the hill. I pulled hard at my trousers and they tore away from the fence. I laboured up the slope towards the reserve, looking behind me irritably: why should a car be coming just now? It bothered me that it was. I realized that I was not only irritated; I was afraid. I heard the car slow down and stop, the roadside gravel crunching beneath its tyres. I stopped and looked back down the hill. It was the red sports car. Somehow I knew it would belong to the dark-eyed man in the pub. There had been something odd about him, in spite of his clean-cut look, something downright creepy … As soon as I said that word to myself, I knew I really was spooked.

The man with the jet-black eyes got quietly out of the car. The door shut quietly, with a well-engineered click. I heard his slow, deliberate footsteps crunching on the gravel. I turned with wildly beating heart and pressed painfully on up the steep hill, panting as quietly as I could, forcing myself not to panic and start running.

The Fairy Reserve loomed up before me as I scrambled over the fence and felt my way into the darkness beneath interlaced branches, my fear of the rustling shadows overcome by a greater fear: the man with the pitch-black eyes. I ran blindly through the undergrowth, bumping into tree-ferns and tripping over tangled vines, not knowing if I was going in the right direction or not. Suddenly I burst through into a clearing and the sudden lack of resistance from undergrowth made me lurch forward. I fell headlong, almost hitting a dark object which loomed out of the leafmould. I raised my head to look. It was the mossy stone. By luck or instinctive memory, I had found my way back to the very spot where I had first emerged from Chartres.

I got up onto my knees and looked up at the Milky Way glowing brightly in the clear space overhead, with constellations which were strange to me. Through my fear I remembered the rhyme:

Where is the door to the Garden of Aeden?

What is the way to the Tree?

Sail south to a land where the stars are strange

Then you must use the Key.

‘The stars certainly are strange here,’ I thought, suddenly awe-struck as I took out the gleaming Ouvron and cupped it in trembling hands.

For a long second, nothing happened. I strained my ears for sounds of pursuit, but there was only the sigh of a night breeze in the branches high above. Still, I felt the approach of something I did not want to meet, and my heart had a will of its own, racing on though I was no longer running. There was a sudden rustling and a rhythmic swish behind me as someone walked into the clearing.

‘Is this a magic ritual? Mind if I join you?’ came a smooth voice, outwardly polite but cold as a gun barrel in the back of the neck. A jolt went through me, and I froze like a rabbit, half-turning but not looking directly at the intruder for fear of those eyes.

‘Ah, no, actually it’s a private… thing,’ I stammered, and continued to hunch over the Ouvron, frantically willing it to open as the footsteps approached.

Then suddenly, as before, the magical pathways shone out, and in the distance I saw the peaceful, soaring pillars of Chartres cathedral and the stained glass windows beaming multicoloured splendour into its ancient Gothic vault. Without hesitation, I stepped in. I fancied I heard the stranger lunging at me with a snarl. Then magically, wonderfully, he and the antipodean forest disappeared. I was surrounded by the dark, crackling void for a second, suspended in nothingness, and I panicked - I even tried to turn back. But suddenly I felt the flagstones beneath my feet and heard echoes running along the dim pillared walls of Chartres cathedral. I had landed safely, in the centre of the labyrinth! I swayed, gasping for breath, heart pounding. I pocketed the Ouvron and looked around sheepishly, suddenly aware of being stared at and pointed at by a crowd of people behind a white-haired tour guide, who was staring at me wide-eyed as if I was a ghost – a ghost of which he definitely disapproved. I was muddy, my hair was tousled, and my trousers were torn. ‘I must look like a tramp,’ I muttered, forcing a smile in the general direction of the tourists.

But I put a brave face on it, helped by the lingering effect of the two beers. I smoothed my hair with fingers still cold from the night air of Silverwood, made a show of piously crossing myself, and walked (a little unsteadily), back out from the centre, as if I had just walked in there and was now keen to make my way out and get on with the next thing.

Which I was, in spite of the encounter with the man with the jet-black eyes. I thought of comforting hypotheses as I packed ready to fly back to Oxford, after a last look around the cathedral. ‘Maybe it was just the chap who thought that that girl was abducted by aliens. Or her poor father, still wandering the hills looking for her, maybe trying magic to get her back. Or maybe it was just some nutter from the Silverwood Historical Preservation Society.’ And I smiled at the thought of what my friends at the pub would have to say about that.

3

The Pit of Zaghrabnah

Shelley sped on through the night on the back of the serpent Thornfoot, her head down, tucked under his short leathery wings for protection from the deadly thorns whipping by. Her mood of elation after they had escaped from the alcove was starting to dissolve. She was still wet from the crossing of lake Deadwater, and it was getting colder.

Now she was also starting to feel very lonely. Korman, her Guardian and loyal friend, was no longer her guide. It did help to remember that she had seen, in a flash of goddess insight, that through him and the Lady, the Wouivre energy of Aeden, the Zagonamara, was now flowing strongly, so that Shelley could fulfil her mission. But Korman and the Lady were held prisoner in the grip of the Mother Thorn, while the sword of Korman, which was fused into the rock at his feet, and was vital to that magical Wouivre flow, would soon be dug or blasted out by the Aghmaath. She knew that before that happened she had to find the Arcra and replace it in the Tree of Life on the Tor Enyása. Then the energy would flow as before the fall of Aeden, and they would have the power to finally defeat the Aghmaath. But she felt a sinking, cold dread now at the thought of even attempting it. She remembered, too, the chilling words of Phagrapag, master inquisitor of the Dark Labyrinth:

‘You cannot escape! Look for my appearing on every dark night! Not even your World is safe from me now!’

He had somehow materialised in front of her on the island earlier that night, and they had fought, and she had managed to beat him – that time. She felt a smarting on her ankle where he had tried to hamstring her, and realised she didn’t even know how deep the cut was. Everything had happened so fast, since she had met Thornfoot. She hoped Phagrapag would not appear out of thin air when they finally camped for the night, and this time cut her throat…

Suddenly Thornfoot slowed and stopped dead, as if turned into a polished obsidian statue. A great gate of woven Mother Thorns barred the way. ‘Thiss — is — new!’ he hissed, panting from the vast exertion, a combination of sheer speed and mindwebbing, which had left Hithrax and his Kiraglim behind, confused for the time being, far below in the Valley of Thorns.

‘Oh, no, we’re trapped! It’s worse than Applegate – there’s thorn walls on three sides!’ groaned Shelley.

There was a terrible silence, broken only by Thornfoot’s wheezing.

‘There iss another way,’ whispered Thornfoot at last, when he had got his breath back. ‘It leadsss through a little valley into a deep hole. The Pit of Zaghrabnah, they call it. Ssurrounded by her thorny branches. No one’ss seen the bottom of it. Ssometimess they throw ‘subjectsss’ down there, if they will not turn to the Void. To teach the otherss a lessson.’

‘What’s the use of going that way? It sounds ghastly!’ whispered Shelley hoarsely.

‘Into the hole poursss water, and that meanss, maybe there’ss a way through.’

‘You mean, you want us to jump into a deep pit with water in the bottom, deliberately?’ she almost shouted.

‘Sssshhh!’ he replied, glancing up at the thorny battlements, menacing in the moonlight. ‘I can jump a long way, put my wingsss out, land on my tail to break the fall. You can ride me.’

Shelley was turning pale, staring at the ground, and Thornfoot noticed.

‘Iss the goddesss not well?’ he purred, and Shelley felt his concern, and looked up.

‘I... I’m not feeling very brave now,’ she admitted.

‘You missss the man — Korman?’

‘Yes, and Quickblade, and my mother and father - stepfather. Oh, why does it have to be so hard?’

‘To be a goddesss?’

‘To be a hero.’ She smiled. While they talked she could forget everything. It seemed she had never met anyone as compassionate and as familiar with suffering and fear — besides Korman.

‘Herosss can’t afford to wonder too long. Musst get going. Look!’

They had been spotted. Aghmaath warriors had appeared on the woven ramparts of the gate, and were looking down at them.

‘Who goes there? Speak the password!’ one croaked.

‘Now we musst fly, to the Pit, now or never,’ hissed Thornfoot to Shelley as he stared back at the challenger.

‘Surely there’s something else we can do?’ whispered Shelley, almost in despair.

‘We could return to the lake, hide out together, ssee how long we can lasst!’ The idea of a last stand somewhere in the Valley of Thorns felt even worse than Thornfoot’s do-or-die idea, and she replied, with a sigh she hoped didn’t sound too shaky, ‘No, we’ve come this far, let’s do it! If you think we can.’

‘Ssso be it!’

Now Thornfoot raised his head high, like a snake about to strike, and Shelley had to cling on. His third eye blazed, and the challenger cried out, snapping closed the folding petals of his face and clutching his head. Thornfoot sank down again. ‘Take that, you kill-joy goddesss-haterss!’ he spat, then turned and slithered off back the way they had come, Shelley clinging on, ducking as thorn-spears came whistling down, striking and rattling on the stones of the road where they had just been. One glanced off Thornfoot’s shiny black body with a thud, right behind Shelley.

‘Did you have to provoke them like that?’ she asked, but he was heedless of all caution now, careering down the dark road on his smooth scales like a drunken ice-skater, peering this way and that for the entrance of the path to the Pit.

‘Yess, yess, it’sss part of my plan!’ he replied excitedly. ‘I want them to follow! Did you think you’d get far with all the folk of the Valley and the Tor Enyása after you? No, no! You have to die! Then they’ll leave you in peaccce!’

‘Great!’ said Shelley. ‘Very reassuring! Just don’t let us get caught before we get to the Pit.’

They slowed down suddenly, slipping sideways. Hithrax was coming up the road towards them, followed by his Kiraglim. She screamed as Thornfoot veered off the road and slithered wildly into the side-tunnel through the thorns, which opened up just as she thought they would crash into its bristling branches.

‘Is this the right track?’ she called over the crackling of dry thorn twigs under Thornfoot’s scale-armoured belly.

‘Don’t know!’ he replied. ‘Keep your head under my wingsss, in cassse…’

‘In case what?’

The tunnel narrowed, and thorn points brushed past them at speed.

‘In case it getsss narrower!’

Now they could hear the baying of the Dagraath behind them. ‘It’sss working!’ cried Thornfoot.

‘Great!’ said Shelley, weakly.

She noticed that the thorns all over the tunnel walls and roof were all pointing forward, the way they were going, easing their entry, but making it dangerous, perhaps impossible, to turn back. ‘Like an eel trap,’ she thought, with a sick feeling. ‘Like it knows we’re coming, and wants us to go this way.’

‘Fear not, goddesss! We’re nearly there!’ called Thornfoot. Shelley peered over the top of his wings for a second, and thorn-points raked over her tangled hair as they rushed overhead. She saw a glimpse of silvery-grey light through the twists and turns of the tunnel, which was now definitely getting narrower.

But the light was not the light at the end of the tunnels of Zaghrabnah the First Mother, only the overhead shaft of one of her many node-chambers, the meeting-places of the grid of tunnels in the thorny hedges of her slave fields. And at all the nodes were sentries. Suddenly out of nowhere they appeared, barring the way with their bodies, arms and legs spread to grip the walls and ceiling of the tunnels, like funnelweb spiders trapping their prey.

‘Has he betrayed me? thought Shelley in sudden sick panic. But Thornfoot was speaking.

‘Hide under my wings, quick!’ he hissed. Shelley needed no prompting; she was already lying down, pressed low against his sleek scales, and his wings slid protectingly over the barely noticeable outline of her body.

‘Halt!’ cried a big thornman who stood in the middle of the node-chamber, pointing a thorn spear at Thornfoot’s face. Pale moonlight from the overhead shaft lit up the trampled floor and bathed them in its eerie glow. All the tunnels behind the thornman were blocked with the glaring spread-eagled guards, their third eyes hooded but ready to flick open at his command.

‘Hithrax is driving me to the Pit, offering me to her, to Zaghrabnah! Have pity on an old Traveller, don’t send me that way, pleassse! Let me passt!’ hissed Thornfoot in a thin wheezing whimper, panting.

‘I have no message…’ began the guard, but then he heard the sounds of pursuit, and a smile spread over his bristling face. ‘Ah, I hear the grim baying of his Dagraath now! Perhaps I will take pity on you. Life is short enough, and yours has been bad enough without ending it there! Go!’ He jabbed his spear at one of the tunnel guards. ‘Tinrak! Let him past, in the name of pity!’

Tinrak leapt off the walls as if electrocuted, bristling and clucking menacingly as Thornfoot slid past into the tunnel he had been guarding. After Thornfoot had disappeared he shot a questioning look at his superior, who only smiled. Tinrak grinned horribly. Seconds later Hithrax’s dogs came straining and slavering around the bend, across the node-chamber and into Tinrak’s tunnel without a glance at the guards.

‘That was close!’ said Shelley as she came up gasping for air. Thornfoot was clean-smelling, just a little muddy perhaps, but the air under his wings was hot and close, and the tunnels themselves smelled musty and made her feel claustrophobic.

‘Yesss, if he had waited for Hithrax, we would have been taken sstraight back to the Valley, to be brought before Phagrapag in the Dark lab…’

‘Ugh, don’t talk about it! So, he was a kind guard, wasn’t he?’

‘Of coursse not! I only tricked him into being more cruel. He let uss go this way because it iss the way to the Pit of Zag..’

‘What!’ groaned Shelley.

‘Of coursse! He knowss Hithrax will have uss trapped, at the edge of the Pit. Remember, this is the plan, to jump into the Pit of…’

But Shelley was past talking. She felt ill with horror and fear. ‘This isn’t happening. I’m going to wake up and find myself back home, safe in bed,’ she thought, gritting her teeth, willing herself to wake up. But the walls of the tunnel slid past as they wriggled on into the grey spiny darkness, which would end only in the horrible pit. She imagined long cruel spikes sticking up from foul water at the bottom. She imagined what it would be like being impaled on them, and wondered how long it would take to die. The Dagraath were baying behind them. They sounded closer now. ‘He’s mad, suicidal! And I trusted him! Idiot!’ Shelley groaned to herself as they sped on, sometimes going up, sometimes down, sometimes twisting to one side or the other. There was no hope in jumping off Thornfoot into the horrible tunnel, not with Hithrax and his Dagraath closing in. The thought of being dragged back to the Valley and down the Avenue of Despair, into the blackness of the Dark Labyrinth beneath the Hill of the Skull was more than she could bear. She began to wonder if suicide by freefalling into a deep pit might be bearable, even a welcome escape. But her stomach flipped at the thought and she felt cold sweat on her hands. She gripped on harder, hoping her sweaty hands would not slip. She tried to close her mind off from the fear and to trust her destiny. ‘If I am the Chosen One, it’ll be all right — somehow I must survive this,’ the comforting thought flashed through her fevered mind. But another part of her flashed back ‘But what if I’m not the Chosen One? Or what if there’s really no such thing, and Korman was just a crazy delusional dreamer, and I just got sucked in?’ The fear returned in a cold flood, drowning any scrap of comfort.

Her thoughts seemed to speed up, or rather the world seemed to slow down, as the air got less close and the tunnel widened a little. It was all about to happen. The unthinkable. Death by falling into a pit of thorns. ‘Please let it be quick, let me faint and never wake up,’ she prayed. Everything swayed and tipped around her, but she did not faint. She felt as though the thorns were pushing her, in pulsating waves, towards a horrible parody of birth, where instead of coming out into a friendly world, a loving mother and a warm soft bed, she was going to be spewed out into a black pit, to hurtle down and die at the bottom, broken and suffocating in thorns and water...

‘Yippee! Yess, yess!’ Thornfoot’s loud hisses split her thoughts. They had burst out into the open, and the air was fresh, and stars were overhead. Now they were winding their way through scattered moonlit boulders and scrubby bushes, steeply downwards. In front of them was a huge hole, a chasm, surrounded by high thorn walls. Thornfoot stopped.

‘The Pit of Zaghrabnah!’ he cried triumphantly. It was black as a starless night, but not, somehow, as bad as her fevered imagination had made it. For a start, there was a beautiful white pencil of a waterfall on the far side, cascading down into its mysterious depths. ‘Maybe there is a lake down there, and kind monks like in the Bottomless Canyon,’ she thought. ‘Maybe we can find a path down the sides. If only there were parachutes!’

But Thornfoot was speaking.

‘Of coursse, we can’t climb down, but now this iss where you musst trusst me. I’ve jumped down cliffsss before, not thisss far, no, but nearly…’

‘How far have you jumped?’ Shelley interrupted, getting off his back and standing, a little shakily. Her heart was now beating very fast. It was a different fear, more adrenalin than the sick horror of her imaginings. There was still hope. ‘Please let me trust him,’ she prayed.

‘About three lengths of me, sstretched very straight,’ he hissed, looking sideways at her.

‘What, is that all?’ she exclaimed, putting all her tension into the yell. Her voice, echoing back at her from the Pit, sounded thin and shrill, strangely reverberating: ‘Whattt, is thatttt allll?’

‘Well, we musst try something…’ began Thornfoot, but just then the Dagraath came bursting out of the tunnel behind them, and without thinking Shelley leaped back on Thornfoot. He started accelerating with the strange snake-like sweeps of his smooth body towards the gaping blackness of the Pit.

‘Stop, in the name of the Void,’ came the voice of Hithrax, harsh, spitting in a concentrated passion of hate more powerful than any human’s. And with the voice came the mindbolt, which nearly knocked Shelley to the ground. He was on home territory now, freshly fed, and very angry. His Dagraath growled and swayed their big heads from side to side, menacingly eyeing them, judging the distance to their throats. The other Kiraglim stood silent, thornwood bows at the ready.

‘The so-called Chosen One must be brought back alive,’ he had been told by his master, but he needed no command; he longed to see her punished alongside the traitor Guardian and the traitorous witch. He had felt her love for life and for Korman and the Lady, and also for another human he hated with a passion, the murdering rebel Quickblade, and it seared, enraged him to feel it, there in the Valley of Thorns where all false, tormenting hopes were meant to be extinguished forever. Once he too had loved… But no more.

‘Stop, fools! You can, even now, be enlightened!’ he called as, with a fierce effort of will, Thornfoot disobeyed the command and came to the brink. There a plank was fixed, like a diving board but with embedded thorns like daggers which pointed to the end, which hung over the abyss, where death waited. Somehow the ghastly plank made the dizzying fall seem far worse; it was a measure of the Pit’s hugeness, jutting out over the terrible empty space. Stick insects lazily circled in the air above the pit, their wings whirring. One blundered into the plank, then took off again with a metallic rustle.

‘Do you like the plank?’ asked Hithrax in mock earnestness. ‘My son Gareth designed it. In your World it is called a gangplank, he tells me. A shortcut to death. But you do not need to use it; you do not want to use it. It is only for those who stubbornly refuse to embrace the Void. You know better, Shelley! Step away from the renegade, the accursed serpent. Let him jump; he is under sentence of death; he should never have lived; he is Tararalakke.. But you, you can come to the Truth…’

His voice, though not loud, punched into her head like hammer-blows. Her head and her whole insides reeled with giddiness, and her limbs shook. ‘I must hold onto Thornfoot, he’s going to jump, I mustn’t leave him, he’s...’ and then they were moving again, as they tore themselves away from the pull of Hithrax’s command, and made their minds a mirror, reflecting back all he tried to say to them as they inched onto the plank. Shelley heard his leaden voice in her head as she tried not to look at the sickening flight of the stick insects over the chasm.

‘Miserable girl, that way is the inevitable end of a pitiful life seeking more life! See what it did to Thornfoot, the miserable Third-lifer , the Taralak, creeping around like a worm! Give up your false hope, come to us and feel the true nothingness, true rest for your troubled, tormented will to live! Hear me now, before it is too late!’

‘I hear you — and it’s water off a duck’s back!’ she thought defiantly. ‘A duck that wants to live!’ she added giddily as they got to the very end of the plank. It was bending under their combined weight. They were offerings to the Void, looking for a way to live through it, hoping, living on to the end. Shelley’s palms were sweating and her heart was hammering, but she hung on as Thornfoot’s wings opened. ‘They’re not very big,’ she thought, in a frightened daze.

‘Ha Ha! Ssshe choosssess DEATH rather than your nothingnessss! And sso do I!’ spat Thornfoot.

With a flick of his tail, he jumped. Shelley screamed and clung on as she felt him falling beneath her, tipping head-first into the darkness. Arrows sped over their heads and clattered against the far wall, rebounding into the abyss.

‘Die then, you fools, and be born again to the nightmare that is the future!’ came the hate-filled voice of Hithrax, faint above them as they plummeted away from him. The wind whistled past Shelley’s ears and the chasm tumbled around her, its jagged rocks darkening to black echoing nothingness as they fell into the depths. Thornfoot arched his body to make his head rise and his tail sink. Shelley hung onto his strong wings, as they began spiralling, faster and faster, head up, tail down. The cold subterranean air whistled past Thornfoot’s wingtips as he spoke into the rushing darkness, ‘Thank you for trusssting… Hold on tight. I… will… try… to land on my tail, like a ssspring. If we land on water, I will live. If not — I don’t mind, as long asss you ssurvive. May the Lady guide you to sssafety.’

Shelley gripped harder, hugging his neck. They were spinning like the winged sycamore seeds she used to play with in the school grounds, and time, she thought, seemed to be slowing like the twirling of the ballet dancers on the polished floor of the gym.

‘Thank you! But don’t you dare die on me! How would I ever…’ Images of Aeden flashed before her, then she was two years old, struggling in the water, and her mother was reproaching her:

‘Always wanting to dive in the deep end, Shelley! You need to learn patience!’ That was another life, another world… too late now... She heard a sound rushing up to meet them. It was the waterfall hissing and churning as it hit the bottom.

With a huge impact, they were plunging like a demented corkscrew into cold, deep water. The coils of Thornfoot’s body pressed hard beneath her for a second, then it was over. They had landed and were still alive! Now shock and the fierce instinct to breathe took over. She felt Thornfoot’s body release her, and she was kicking, swimming up and up, following the bubbles to the surface and AIR! She gasped it in, her chest heaving, her limbs shaking as she trod water, holding her chin up to keep from choking in the waves caused by their impact in the pool. Glistening in the dim light from above, the waterfall streamed like a white wedding-veil from the small patch of moonlight far above.

Suddenly something gripped her body from below. She was being dragged under! Fear rose again to engulf her. She managed one quick gulp of air before she was swept along under the water at such a speed that her clothes, which had had air trapped in them, let out a stream of bubbles. Her hair pulled at her scalp, and water stung in her nose and pressed on her eardrums. Suddenly she was being propelled up to the surface again, and she realised it was Thornfoot who had grabbed her. ‘Had to get out of the light… The Tracker... musst think we are dead,’ he was saying. He seemed shaken but unhurt, like Shelley. There was a patch of moonlight on the water where they had fallen, the broken surface already smoothing into an oily calm. The faint sound of baying Dagraath came from above, but it seemed remote, of no concern to them now. They were in another world. It reminded Shelley of Baz Apédnapath.

‘It’s cold down here!’ she gasped above the hissing of the waterfall, and she noticed she was shivering all over. She grinned and marvelled to herself, ‘To think that only yesterday my worst nightmare would have been to be pulled under the water by him like that, and now it’s fine. He’s my friend. My rescuer!’ She found herself laughing, and in her heart thanking the Lady for her amazing help, beyond anything she could have imagined. Moonlight from above the chasm where they had fallen in sparkled on the rippling water, the waterfall glowed white, and all magic seemed possible.

‘Yess, we are far down, maybe to ssea level. Now we musst find a way out! — If you are ready?’ he added.

‘Yes, it’s just, I don’t usually go in for high diving, especially in the dark!’ she giggled, treading water, arms outstretched as if she was flying, the horror and tension of the pursuit seeming to dissolve into the pure water, making her body tingle with life again. The water of the underground lake – it was bigger than she had thought — was bubble-filled from the waterfall and warmer than it had felt at first. She felt weightless, as if they were still in free-fall. She noticed constellations of glow-worms around the walls of the chasm, multi-hued like the stars of Aeden, so that it felt as if they were in another World with its own sky — a World free of thorns and Thornmen, peaceful and quiet. After a while, though, she began to wonder if there was a way out that didn’t involve trying to climb those slippery-looking, glow-worm-covered sides, which curved to become the roof over where they were swimming..

Thornfoot glided around her in the dark water, hissing and humming, sounding happy, relaxed, as if this sort of thing happened to him all the time.

‘My tongue feelsss ssomething: a breezzze! Over there!’ he pointed with his nose. ‘There iss a way out!’

4

Out of the Depths

Thornfoot’s desperate measures had worked. They had escaped from the clutches of the Mother Thorn and the Thornmen. Even better, they were now (hopefully) presumed dead and would no longer be hunted. But Shelley began to worry that they would never find a way back up to ground level, that magical meeting-place between the elements of Earth and Air, where almost all creatures love to live. The magic of the underworld, she knew, was not for humans. Or not for long. She guessed that she would soon begin to hunger for light as much as for food, and she was already light-headed with hunger.

Now the breeze, too faint for Shelley to detect over the stirring of the air caused by the waterfall, was their lifeline, a thread of Ariadne to guide them out of the dark labyrinth into the world of light. Thornfoot towed her through the cool water towards the breeze only he could sense, towards the eternally dark shore of the lake. The rubble and rock-shelves felt hard and knobbly under her feet as she waded stiffly up into the shallows, her hands in front of her, feeling for the walls. As she clambered out of the water, gravity suddenly reasserted itself, and her knees almost buckled under her own weight. ‘So the dive did affect me!’ she thought. ‘It’s like I’ve been sort of pummelled all over. My legs are like rubber!’

‘Thiss way,’ Thornfoot hissed in a sort of serpent-whisper, and his voice seemed to bounce straight back at them.

‘The wall sounds very close,’ Shelley whispered back. It seemed wrong to talk loudly in that place; the silence, behind the thin veil of the waterfall’s gentle raining onto the lake, felt sacred, not to be disturbed with discussions about how to do this or that. The horrible pit she had feared as part of the menace of the Mother thorn, was really part of the Mother Aeden. Like the Bottomless Canyon, Baz Apédnapath, it was pregnant with life-giving waters, energised with the Zagonamara. It was a world apart, lit with its own stars.

‘Yesss, and there’sss a hole in it!’ Thornfoot whispered back.

Now Shelley could feel it too: a gentle breeze flowing out of the darkness, not quite enough to move her hair, but a slight freshness of the air, with a different smell to it, perhaps with a hint of some distant herb or flower, or perhaps... ‘Apples! That’s what it’s like,’ she thought. ‘Or maybe oranges.’ Her wet clothes began to feel cold.

‘You can ride on my back now, if you like,’ whispered Thornfoot.

‘Are you sure?’

‘No, but darknesss is not hard for me, as it iss for you. And I have my kiragh; the brothersss think we Third-lifer sss don’t have a real third eye, but we do. And we can ssee with our tonguessss!’

‘Really?’

‘Well, ssort of. I feel the air, the vibrationss and the smellss, the cold of the rockss, the heat of bodiess – I can ssee yourss in the dark, it glowss!’

Shelley blushed, remembering her naked swim in the well on the sacred island, and thinking suddenly of Quickblade, imagining him swimming with her here, under the misty waterfall. She climbed onto Thornfoot’s body, which, she noticed for the first time, was not cold like a snake’s or fish’s, but quite warm, and she clung to it to warm herself.

So they left the lake. Shelley felt sad somehow, wondering if she would ever see that magical place again, or swim in anything quite like that water. She reflected that she hadn’t once thought of eels; but if she had turned to look she might have seen the swirl in the water and the dark shape that slithered up the bank after them.

The passage was not steep, but it ended suddenly in another rock wall, to Shelley’s dismay. But the sound of water trickling down and the same faint breeze showed them the way they must take: straight up. Shelley insisted on getting off and climbing the steep rock-face herself; she couldn’t bear the thought of trusting herself to Thornfoot, since after all, he had no legs.

‘All right, I will go firsst,’ he said, ‘To check, in cassse there’ss no way through.’

‘There’s got to be!’ Shelley felt a sudden fear at the thought that there might be no exit big enough to crawl through.

Just then she heard a hiss in the dark.

‘Is that you?’ she called to Thornfoot, who was already out of sight. But the hiss was repeated, closer this time. She backed into the rock face, and yelled, ‘Thornfoot!’

A slithering from above ended in a thump as Thornfoot landed in front of her, his third eye blazing. He swung to meet her attacker just as it lunged forward. She saw the huge mouth and rows of needle teeth, and huge flashing eyes. It was all over before she could move or look for a weapon. With a leathery scrambling the creature turned and half ran, half tumbled down the slope and dived into the lake. ‘Rog-tanaxsss! Zarkor-Zürkabaz!’ gasped Thornfoot, using a curse-word Shelley hadn’t heard before (Korman rarely swore, and Rilke had other terms).

‘Did you say, Rog-tanax?’

‘Well of coursse it wassn’t an ordinary dragon-ssnake - no dragon-ssnake would have attacked you like that. But it wassn’t exsspecting me!’ Shelley was shaking now the danger was over, as quickly as it had come. Her teeth were chattering.

‘It…it’s mouth was so big, but its body wasn’t that