Page 46

‘I wouldn’t think so. It’s happening as it was prophesied. The people will suffer, and there’s nothing we can do to help. Not from here. The Longest Night of all will come. No one will be prepared. All will perish. It’s been my torment throughout these long rotations, enclosed here, with no chance of escape.’

The significance of his father’s words took moments to sink in, and then anger flared.

‘And you’ve always known of this? Why didn’t you make it common knowledge? Why didn’t you ask the Librarian to speak on your behalf? He could have done so, at the Full Council Meeting, and then we could be prepared. What if the Longest Night is the coming Long Night? What then?’

‘I didn’t know I’d be exiled, Erann, you have to understand. Neither did I know the prophecy would become reality, but the words you speak are true. I shouldn’t have hoarded the knowledge to myself. Now all will suffer, and most will die. We’ll be lucky if, when the sun rises again after the Longest Night, there are any of us left alive. Don’t hate me, Erann, please. I’ve hated myself enough as it is for not sharing what I knew. You have to understand, I was coming home. I was coming to the steading. Then I could have shared all that I knew. Only,’ and Ramon stopped abruptly.

Erann turned away from his father’s voice. He wanted to stay angry with him, but there seemed little point. If they were trapped and doomed to be here together, they may as well get along. What was he to do with this knowledge, stuck as he was, in a seemingly endless tunnel?

‘So how did you come to be here? You told me you were looking for markers on your journey home. Did you make it home and help us during the Long Day?’

‘Ah, my son, the markers, they were a curse. I was so obsessed, I journeyed wherever I thought I could remember seeing them. Finally, as I neared Vatna Jokull, I came across a marker more exposed than all the others. The patterns on it could be clearly seen. I resolved to decipher their meaning.’

‘I shouldn’t have let the mystery consume me, but I did. In my loss and loneliness the enigma of them enticed me. That was where I met my fate. After a day or two of study, I believed I understood what they were. A way of travelling, or a way of calling some other creature I’d never seen before. It was intoxicating to understand something no one did. You must forgive me, but in my mind, I made connections where none existed. In the Library, there’s a beautifully carved chair. On it is a painstakingly depicted scaled, winged beast. A drekki.’ Ramon’s voice was filled with his remembered enthusiasm for the project he’d set himself.

Erann grimaced. Was it possible the knowledge of Skaldi’s kind had driven his father in his obsession? He wanted to tell his father, and yet it felt so cruel. So very, very cruel.

‘I traced the swirls with my fingers, endeavouring to call forth whatever it was, hopeful if it was the giant drekki, I could use it to intimidate Rankil into speaking the truth. Only, I must have done something wrong. Instead of summoning anything, I fell, and I fell, and finally landed in blackness and alone. Here I’ve been ever since.’ His voice trailed off as there was a rustle of movement. Erann wondered if he was perhaps drying tears falling down his cheeks.

Erann closed his eyes, even though it made no difference. Had his father come undone because of the same thing as him? A desire to discover the drekki, the dragon, and a need to understand the marker stones. The bloody things. He hoped to never see one ever again.

Eventually, Erann felt he could speak again, and knew he had to tell his father the truth, even though Skaldi had cautioned him to never tell anyone. ‘Your story’s very similar to mine. I met a marker and ended up falling too but there’s the prospect of escaping, Father, for I’ve met one of your mythical beasts. He’s called Skaldi. He’s the Speaker for his kind, for the drekkis, for the dragons.’

‘I fear I may have touched the same marker. Although, it doesn’t make sense. I thought I’d touched it before, when I first saw it. What I do know is that Skaldi exists. What I don’t know is what the marker stones do.’

‘I met someone,’ he spoke quickly, before his father could put words to the shock, his gasped response assured Erann was happening. ‘And she’s special to me. You might remember her, it’s Hagon’s daughter, Sereh. Well, she thought me quite mad, and I needed to win her trust and so I took her to the shield. Did you see the shield?’

He paused now, almost breathlessly.

‘What shield?’ his father queried.

‘That’s not as important,’ Erann quickly rejected. ‘The shield was by the marker, and so I went to the marker. I needed to ensure Sereh could see Skaldi. I think her wolf-dog could see Skaldi too, but not Sereh. All three of us share a bond. It was important she see Skaldi, and she did, and it was astonishing. But then this happened, yet sometimes when I sleep I see Sereh and I hope she’ll find me with Skaldi’s help.’

In the dark tunnel he couldn’t see his father’s face. Nor did Ramon immediately speak. Erann began to worry his father might think him touched with snow blindness.

‘Well, if you’re correct, Erann, and there’s someone out there who might be able to rescue us, I think we need to journey to where I suspect the dark grows a little less intense. It’s not far from here, I think. Every time I visit, I torment myself that somehow there’s light there and it’s closer to the surface because I believe we’re in a long underground cavern.

‘Every time I drive myself halfway to snow blindness madness with my belief I’ll be able to break my way through, even though I never have. There’ve even been times I think I can hear the wind. We’ll rest now, and when we wake, we’ll go there. Are you in agreement?’ His father’s voice contained a small kernel of hope after the bleakness of his confession. Erann gladly seized it.

‘Yes, yes, we’ll do that, and then we can see if I can dream of Sereh. I’m sure Skaldi will be able to find me. Our bond was great on the surface but, I can’t reach him here. I hope he’s working with Sereh to find me. I know he won’t abandon her. I wouldn’t want to think of her back with Rankil!’

‘Then that’s agreed,’ Ramon spoke confidently. ‘Now, get some sleep. We’ll have a busy time of it when we next wake.’

Staying close together, feet touching as they spread out along the side of the tunnel, and far away from the gentle sound of the stream, Erann allowed his eyes to close. When they next opened, it would still be dark, but with the promise of light to come.

PART IV

21

SKALD DREKKI

Skaldi had never felt the emotion of frustration before. It was infuriating and made him irritable. He’d searched for Erann in all the places he could be. He’d scanned glaciers. He’d searched huge black peaks. He’d flown high into the black-topped mountains to the south. They were difficult to access locations where previous Speakers may have banished those too inquisitive for their own good. In none of those places had he felt Erann or seen any sign others had been there recently. He’d bugled for Erann, sure he would hear his cry, but the only response had been from some wolves, far to the north, who looked half-starved. They’d watched him with fear and resentment. He’d come to understand the creatures after using Arrow, in the past, to help him.

He knew touching one of the markers could cause Erann’s kind to disappear. He’d found mention of it in images from the Archive, and Naer-vera had shown him, when he’d asked the presence. He’s not understood Erann would fall victim to it, considering his green eyes and ability to see the dragons. Evidently, he’d been wrong.

With further research in the Archive, and having demanded more and more information from Naer-vera, he’d felt the presence had most unwillingly shared a diagram showing the placement of the markers over the land. Only now did he appreciate Erann had touched a prime marker, saturated with the magic of his ancestors, and implicitly placed close to Vatna Jokull and the shield that protected his kind from the men and women of Biklander.

Unhappily, Skaldi was starting to think such magic served only to protect his own kind. There’d been no thought for the harm it may cause to Erann’s people. He couldn’t help worrying about how many others had touched a prime marker and simply disappeared. Where they went, he didn’t know, but from what Naer-vera had indirectly stated, there was always a punishment for making use of the special markers.