Chapter 10 : A Meeting with Kark

"That's it. The Temple," Cerylia said, reining Sirius to a halt.

"Eryndra is in there," Peter confirmed. "I know she is."

They'd been riding for three hours and the sun had already begun its afternoon descent of the sky. At first they'd been cautious, leaving the camp and fording a wide river with the horse at walking pace. Cerylia needed time to get used to Sirius and the white horse in turn had to become accustomed to her style of riding and to taking the weight of two. At least she had a saddle. Peter was forced to ride bareback behind her, clinging to her waist to keep his balance. When she'd told him she was going to steal Sirius he'd suggested that perhaps they could steal Nebula as well. One look at the temperamental stallion rapidly changed his mind. He remembered Harry saying that no one but Tarragon was able to ride Nebula and he could well believe it. Since that applied to experienced horsemen and he had only ever ridden a Kestervaal before, there was no way he was going to be able to handle Nebula. Cerylia wasn't willing to ride the black horse either so this was the only solution.

After the larch trees, there came a region of silver birch and rowan which stretched for several miles and here Cerylia urged Sirius to adopt a faster pace, cantering steadily up a gentle incline and eating the distance with admirable stamina.

Are you alright, back there?" she'd said as Peter gripped her tightly.

"A seat belt would be nice," he managed. Moving from the Kestervaals to the horse was like changing from riding in the cab of a juggernaut to being put on the back of a Suzuki motorbike. It might be fast but it was relatively close to the road and it was scary, not to mention uncomfortable. He'd been saddle sore before but that was when he had a saddle. This was going to be a lot worse.

Before noon the trees gradually began to thin out until with very little warning they'd broken out onto an open moor. Bracken, heather and bilberry bushes completed for space, the latter putting forth a profusion of sweet black little berries, but it was the heather which eventually won out. It was a lot colder on the moor than it had been in the trees but visibility improved and the rolling road stretched ahead of them, cut clearly in orange sandstone across the lilac and purple moors. Cerylia let Sirius walk again to recover some energy after the fast climb though the woods, but this was better ground for galloping. The road went up and down but they had reached a sort of plateau and it did not ascend continuously. So once Sirius seemed happy, Cerylia pushed him harder and Peter was hanging on again and suppressing a curse.

And now they had crested a rise to see a small stand of bare trees ahead of them and atop a gritstone crag, the clear form of a classical temple. There was no doubt about it. If they could find the way to the top of the crag they were less than half an hour from the Temple of November.

"I think it's about time you told me what you had in mind for when we finally confront these Agents," Peter said.

"The first thing is to get off the skyline," Cerylia answered and quickly wheeled round and guided Sirius back below the ridge until the Temple was out of sight again.

"If anyone was watching the road we've already given ourselves away," she admitted. "This is very exposed ground. I'd like to circle across the moor and approach from the back where they are least likely to be keeping a look out. Then we can close on the crag, weave through the trees and we only have the final ascent to worry about. We'll probably have to rejoin the road for that, unless we can find a way to climb the rocks."

They dismounted and struck out across the heather, leading the horse towards a tumbled tor of irregularly piled grit stone. Biting cold gusts of wind cut across the moor and Peter felt his fingers and face gradually whiten and deaden. He rubbed his hands together to warm them.

"It might be best to tether Sirius by those rocks and to continue on foot now," Cerylia said.

"OK. But you still haven’t answered my question."

"I have to do a diagnosis first," Cerylia said. "I have to find the nature and strength of the Glamour. I have my token for that."

---

Peter knew all about that token now and he had to admit that he was impressed. Cerylia was full of surprises. As soon as he'd agreed to go with her she'd revealed her plan to steal the Count's horse. When he'd questioned how she was going to take Sirius away from an armed guard, she'd dug into the bottom of her pack and produced the token. It came in the form of a golden ring about the size of a bracelet but connected to a white faceted stone in the centre by a number of fine sliver wire spokes.

"This is a Heryllion Dream Ring," she'd said. "It's rather a fancy example of a common type of token called a spellbinder or a glamour weaver. Their use is strictly forbidden on the Stable Worlds but they aren't all that difficult to get hold of. I've borrowed this from a friend. It's why I had to make my trip to the Last Lantern Bridge.

"A spellbinder token can be used to change the course of a person's thoughts into channels chosen by the director. It's usually only a temporary effect but there are various different mechanisms and some are more permanent than others. You can think of it as a form of hypnosis if you like but it's much more powerful and subtle than the hypnosis you are used to on Earth. This is what Eryndra's done to Sunanon. Fortunately a Glamour can also be detected and removed with a glamour weaver and that's what I've brought the token for.

"I don’t like using the Dream Ring on an unsuspecting individual. It's unethical and the Stability Council wouldn’t approve. But the Stability Council aren't here to help me now and on this occasion I'm going to bend the rules a tiny bit. Come with me."

So Peter had followed her and witnessed the effect of the spellbinder first hand. The soldier guarding the horses stood no chance. As soon as he was presented with the token, the spokes began to spin about the central gem, flickering rapidly and holding his attention. Cerylia simply informed him that he was to saddle up the horse, that the Count had authorised it and that he was to let them ride away. And he had. None of the other men saw fit to question what was self evidently an authorised arrangement.

"He'll recover in an hour or so and wonder what happened," she'd said to Peter as they left the camp. "I do feel a bit sorry for him. The Count won’t be pleased!"

They picked their way over to the tor, being careful not to put their feet in the irregular pot holes of the rough moor land and they found a way around the stones in silence.

A small patch of grass grew in the lee of the rocks and a solitary hawthorn with bare branches and a flattened, wind sculptured crown. Next to the tree was a shallow pool of rather acidic looking water surrounded by reeds. A thin layer of ice had begun to grow around the edges. They tethered Sirius to the tree and Cerylia fed him with a bag of oats she had liberated from the Count's supplies and covered him with a blanket which had been carried in the saddle bags.

"He should be OK here until we come back," she said.

So they started out from behind the rocks, walking swiftly across open ground where the temple again came into view and angling towards a shallow natural gully which would give them some cover.

"Once I understand the Glamour, we will need to separate Sunanon and Eryndra so that it can be broken," Cerylia continued.

"Are you thinking of using the glamour weaver token on the Agents to subdue them?" Peter asked.

"Nice idea but it wouldn’t work. You have to have a moment of appropriate attention to let the token take hold. The Count's soldier was as easy as it gets. He wasn't prepared for anything, he'd never seen a Dream Ring and he didn’t understand the nature of spellbinder tokens. Sunanon does know about spellbinders but it's still possible to be tricked into a glamour if you get caught off guard. Eryndra, Kark and company know all about spellbinder tokens as well and they will be very much on their guard. They won’t even give me half a chance to unleash the token on them. No. It's strictly for Sunanon.

"We may have to try something less subtle. I don’t know what. We'll have to see what happens. Remember, they might be ready for trouble but they aren't expecting us. We should have the element of surprise."

Peter wasn't happy with this 'plan', or rather lack of a plan as he saw it, but he couldn’t think of one himself. This whole rescue mission was looking somewhat foolhardy.

It's your own fault, he told himself. You didn't have to come along. You could have stayed with the Count. Cerylia hadn't needed to use any glamour weaver to persuade him to follow her. He'd done it of his own free will. Cerylia was the kind of woman who could change the free will of most men without a glamour weaver.

And what if the mission were a success and Cerylia was reunited with Sunanon? He'd be happy for her of course, but then again there was a part of him that wasn't looking forward to that eventuality either. This wasn't the time to worry about that kind of nonsense, he chided himself. First they had to confront a band of desperate armed Agents engaged on some ill defined by almost certainly nefarious scheme and accompanied by a psychopathic murderer. He could worry about his feelings afterwards - always assuming there was an afterwards. Just try and keep this in perspective, Pete!

For her own part, Cerylia was feeling a tiny bit guilty about dragging Peter into this situation with her. She liked him and she was grateful for the moral support but was it fair to involve him to this extent? He wasn't an experienced Agent. If he'd stayed with the Count he would have been safer and she had rather forced his hand when she'd decided to cut free. She was confused about her own motives and a little ashamed of the thought that maybe she'd just brought him along to make sure that she could still refer to the vital trace to Eryndra. Above all, she feared that her enemies would step out of the Realm before she could reach them.

The gully quickly deepened to become a rough stream bed flowing away to the north west. By keeping to the top of the steep slope Cerylia and Peter were able to negotiate more than half of the distance they wanted to travel but eventually they knew that they would have to leave it and cross the moors again. They came to a tangled area of scree and broken rocky towers and chose a spot to cautiously poke their heads above the edge the gully.

"Look," Peter whispered. "In the trees. I saw something move."

Now that they were closer to the little copse at the base of the crag they could see that the trees were completely bare and covered in a thin white coating of rime. From a distance Peter had seen this colour and taken them for silver birches, but from here it was obvious that they were actually sessile oak trees decorated with frost.

They waited and watched for a few moments, peering through the dense branches and then an angular pale blue figure emerged onto the moor to be followed immediately by another. At first they looked like very tall men but their arms and legs were too long and their silver heads too thin and pointed. Soon they could make out a whole host of the strange beings, striding silently through the stand of trees and all around the base of the crag.

"What are they?"

"Ice warriors," Cerylia said. "They don’t belong in this Realm. There's something very wrong going on here!"

At that moment they heard a faint thundering of hooves in the distance and looking back at the road they saw a black horse galloping towards the Temple.

"That's Nebula! It must be Tarragon. There's no time to warn him!"

"Keep down! Hmmm… He's in an awful hurry…"

They kept their heads low as they watched the councillor ride up to the Temple without any obvious sign of caution. The horse disappeared between the trees and was soon visible climbing the steep track up the crag.

"You wouldn't think he'd be going through that little nest and into the Temple by the front door without an invitation would you?" Cerylia said.

"So what do we do now? If Tarragon's in league with our enemies he'll tell them we're coming to call."

"If Tarragon's in league with our enemies I expect he's already told them we're coming to call. You don’t get to be an 'academic advisor' without certain powers and Eryndra has those powers too. If he's a traitor, I expect they've been in regular contact."

"So what do we do?"

"We'll have to go back," Cerylia said sadly at last. "I can’t see any alternative. The Count must be warned about Tarragon. Those trees are full of ice warriors and there's no way we can make it through undetected and sneak into the Temple now. I hadn't bargained for this. We'll just have to rely on Azbyc and his men to force their way in, but it looks as though they'll meet with some pretty stiff resistance. I hope they're up to it."

Peter couldn’t deny that he felt a sense of relief when Cerylia said these words. Caution did seem to be in order now.

They made there way back up the gully and hurried across the open ground to where Sirius was waiting. Unfortunately the horse wasn't the only one waiting.

"What's this then? Two little sheep gone astray on the moors?" Cerylia and Peter looked up, startled, to see a black silhouette striding on top of the tor. It was Kark.

"Bring them in, my shepherds! Bring them in!"

Three pale blue figures emerged from between the rocks and barred their way to the horse. Sirius whinnied uneasily. The ice warriors walked inexorably towards them.

Panic set in and Cerylia turned for the open moor.

"Run!" she shouted, taking to her heels. Peter nearly stumbled over his cloak and sword as he followed her, Kark's laughter spattering round his ears on the blustery wind. It was a long minute of mindless exertion, heart beating a bass rhythm that seemed to blister the inside of his chest, feet dodging holes in the heather; stumbling and falling, breath ragged and gasping and limbs shaking. They almost reached the road but the ice warriors were quicker. On long stilt like legs they found the rough ground easy going. Their motions had the jerky periodicity of insects and the same terrible swift sureness. When the hunted humans turned to face their alien pursuers, Peter knew that they had made a horrible mistake even attempting to flee from these pitiless frozen automata. All they'd done was to exhaust themselves for the coming fight. It would have been better if they'd attacked, then and there. Too late to think of that now. They were well and truly on the defensive, like foxes at bay before these dreadful shepherds of the moor.

Peter fumbled for his sword but his unresponsive fingers couldn't even remove Wilkinson from the sheath before a long foot lashed out to kick his left leg. He felt a blast of unbelievably cold bone cracking pain and dropped to the ground in agony. Cerylia had managed to throw a dagger at one of the warriors but it simply bounced harmlessly off the armoured chest and then she too had to suffer the cell rupturing touch of the invader. He watched her scream and fall beside him, then he passed out with a final thought ringing like a bell around his head.

"If it hurts it must be real," A'lekim had said once. Then this was very real indeed.