The howl of that infernal wind made it hard to even think. Menish, king of Anthor, hero of a dozen battles and many more songs, stood at the edge of the Chasm of Kelerish and shuddered.
The cold was slowly eating into his aging bones. It never snowed on the high plains of Kelerish but winter here was more severe than in the lowlands. White clad mountains frowned down at the plains and the wind carried their chill.
Sometime in ages past these plains had been snapped in two leaving a dark, misty pit whose depths raged and echoed with an insane wind. It was a sound that chewed at one's soul. He clutched his fur cloak tightly around himself in an effort to find comfort in what little warmth it gave in this hellish place.
Hellish. The Vorthenki believed that Hell itself lay in the Chasm of Kelerish. The noise of the wind was the crying of imprisoned souls. It made him shudder again; the wind did sometimes sound like a cry of agony.
He glanced over his shoulder at the pile of boulders that formed the ancient Tor of Gilish. It must have taken some days for his distant forebears to place those boulders there. He wondered how they had retained their sanity while they worked. For it was not just the eerie howling, nor the cold. There was something about the Chasm itself that made the skin crawl. One felt instinctively that there was some menace down there that would emerge if one did not watch.
That was ridiculous, Menish chided himself. He did not believe in goblins and ghosts like the Vorthenki. That was why he was here.
Deliberately he turned towards the Tor, placing the Chasm behind him. Beyond the Tor he could see his men, waiting patiently at a discreet distance. Hrangil stood by the horses looking towards him, but the other four simply huddled in their cloaks with their heads down. Althak had planted Menish’s standard in the ground near the Tor and it twisted in the wind, making the white horse device look as if it were galloping madly. Someone had tried to start a fire but the wind blew away any spark they made. The pile of sticks lay on the ground like a tiny replica of the Tor of Gilish that stood beside it. The wind would scatter it by evening.
The morning sun rose in the sky, the wind continued to howl, and Menish continued to stand at the edge of the Chasm of Kelerish.
No doubt his men were wondering what possessed him to stand here after he had impatiently led them through the mountains of Ristalshuz at a gallop. Several times he had made them ride all night. Hrangil, he knew, assumed he had turned to religion late in life. He had ventured to suggest as much to Menish but had received no answer. The Tor of Gilish was a holy place, so it was a natural assumption, if surprising. Menish was not given to religious display.
He remembered how years before he had stood here with Hrangil surrounded by chanting priests. He had been just eighteen years old. The Emperor of Relanor himself had displayed the Eye of Duzral and initiated them into the ranks of the Sons of Gilish. It had been so mysterious, so impressive, so wonderful, and a few weeks later the Emperor was dead, the empire was in ashes and Menish knew it had all been foolishness. No one ever came here now.
The other men, younger men than he and Hrangil, had never been near the place before.
And what was Althak thinking? Althak was the only Vorthenki member of his escort. It must be disconcerting to believe oneself waiting at the edge of Hell.
But they could all wait. Menish had not turned to religion. He had lost the faith of his fathers a weary number of years ago and he had no stomach for the ways of the Vorthenki. No. It was nothing like that.
He had to sleep, and those accursed dreams had finally driven him here. It was against his instincts, against what he had lived by for so long, yet he had come. The weariness of the past weeks was like a weight across his shoulders.
He had tried everything else; avoiding heavy foods in the evening, brisk rides every day, engrossing himself in work, even reading the Mish-Tal, but all to no avail. A sleeping potion had prolonged his sleep, but it made his nightmares worse, for he could not escape from them. The dreams haunted him until he was afraid of sleep itself.
He could not discuss it with anyone, not even Adhara, especially not Adhara. But night after night he either lay awake in fear or woke screaming and reaching for his sword.
For night after night he stood here at this very place.
And night after night the skeleton clawed its way over the lip of the Chasm to face him with its empty eye sockets and its tattered rags. The strange violet eyes were no longer there, but he did not even need the ragged remains of the court gown to know her.
Thalissa.
Her name was a byword for treachery and malice. For nearly twenty years he had slept easy in the knowledge that she was dead, but no longer.
The skeleton spoke with her voice, blaming him for her death and prophesying his own in lurid detail. Another battle with the men of Gashan, the ones who had killed the Emperor forty years before, and Menish would fall with fire in his flesh just like the Emperor had. They were coming, they would attack in the spring.
He had hardly slept for five weeks now.
But Menish was determined. He was no ignorant Vorthenki who saw goblins in the woods and gods in the dragons. He was Menish, King of Anthor, and he did not believe in ghosts and premonitions. That was what had brought him here at last, in spite of the cold and the howling wind and the creeping terror of this place. He would see for himself that this was no more than a wind-blown hole in the ground with a pile of rocks beside it, and nothing would climb from those shadowy depths. Just a few hours and he would convince the dream to go away. There was no skeleton, there was no prophesy and there would be no attack from Gashan. Then he would be able to sleep in peace.
But no matter how he denied it he could not shake off the creeping terror of the Chasm. The feeling that something was down there, lurking evilly, was intense. He thought of the hundreds who, like Thalissa, had been hurled from this edge. The Vorthenki were not above helping their enemies into Hell, lest their bloodthirsty dragon gods misjudge them. The unseen bottom of the chasm must be cluttered with bones. His dream stirred in his mind and he wished he had not thought about that.
A piercing scream sliced through the howl of the wind. Menish turned, looking for the source of the cry. It sounded again. His nerves were on edge and it seemed to come from all around him. He saw the horses jerk their reins in fright and his men leap to hold them. One of them, Drinagish, pointed towards the sky.
A dragon was swooping down towards them. It let out another cry, sounding like chalk scratching on a board. Menish winced. Even as he yelled to his men to arm themselves Althak was lifting his great spear towards the sky over the horses.
Only then did Menish realise that the dragon was not hunting the horses, it plunged straight towards himself, talons outstretched.
He ran. The Tor was not far away, if he could reach it he could find cover. The dragon cried again, a bellow this time. It sounded angry, it sounded close. Breathless, he slid to a halt at the edge of the Tor. There was a space between two adjoining boulders. He wriggled into it. Like a rat in a hole, he thought, but one does not argue with a dragon when one only has a sword.
He peered out from his hiding place, but the boulders blocked most of his view. All he could see from here was the Chasm edge where he had been standing moments before. The dragon screeched as it back-winged to land.
Then something made his blood freeze. A gnarled hand reached over the lip of the Chasm and felt for a handhold. The dragon bellowed again. It was just above him. Slowly a dusty head raised itself above the edge of the Chasm. Menish held his breath and stared. The dragon must be on top of the Tor now, he could tell from that last bellow. The figure from the Chasm lifted itself over the rim and sat on the edge.
Menish found his senses as soon as he saw that it was not a skeleton.
“Get down, you idiot!” he bawled, but his call was lost in another bellow from the dragon. The figure stood up and walked towards Menish, the Tor, and the dragon. Menish swore.
Sure enough, the great head of the dragon thrust into view above him, its jaws darting towards the man from the Chasm. The warrior in Menish was stirred. He had drawn his sword instinctively when he had run to the Tor and now he gripped it and searched for a weak spot in the neck of the beast. It was just possible…
But before he could act the dragon let out a gurgling hiss and a torrent of blue flame erupted from its open jaws. The heat stung Menish’s eyes; he threw his hands over his face and retreated into his hiding place. The acrid smell of scorched earth drifted to his nostrils. Shielding his face with one arm he ventured a look to see if the man had somehow escaped.
What he saw he did not believe. The man stood in the flame with his arms raised, facing the dragon. A look of wonder sparkled in his eyes. For a fleeting moment Menish supposed that he, too, would feel wonder if such a thing happened to him. But this simply could not be. He looked again; the heat was intense, especially when followed by the biting cold of Kelerish. It was true. It was impossible, but it was true.
Above the noise of the dragon and the howl from the chasm Menish heard a war cry from his men. They must be attacking the dragon from behind. He wondered how Althak felt about that. The dragons were gods to the Vorthenki.
As quickly as it began the dragon’s fire flickered out, its roar and heat replaced by the shouts of his men and the chill of the wind. The dragon sprang aloft and bellowed again as it beat the air with its huge wings. Menish looked helplessly from the man to the dragon as the latter climbed higher and higher.
The dragon flew on, eastward towards the sea following the Chasm. The high plains of Kelerish spread out below it, blotched and brown with the straggled tussock and lichens that grew there. The jagged line of the Chasm lay black across it.
It flew over the coast close to the roaring mouth of the Chasm where the howling wind blasted out from a great crack in the tall cliffs. Water churned and foamed in and out of the gap, waves ever battling the wind. It was a place men feared and shunned, but today there was a small boat near the Chasm mouth.
Curious, the dragon wheeled to look longer. Its sharp eyes made out a man picking his way over the rocks at the base of the cliffs towards a splash of blue. When the dragon dipped lower the blue shape resolved into clothing on a body.
It was not interesting enough. The dragon was anxious to return home to the Isle of Kishalkuz, which lay far beyond the horizon in the great sea. It wheeled once more then resumed its journey.