The Fickle Winds of Autumn
57. From a Hillside

Ellis slumped from Aldwyn’s shoulder and collapsed onto the turf outside the cave. He shielded his eyes against the overwhelming weight of light; the wet blood oozed down across his torn face and dripped from his stinging arms; his breath came in thick, spasming gasps; his body, his thoughts, his mind was so weak, so drained - he could not remember ever feeling so hopelessly exhausted.

The dazzling softness of the grass unsettled his limbs; the bewildering glare of colour; the purity and freshness of the air; the strange, empty silence of this new world assaulted his dimmed senses.

His heart thudded furiously.

Aldwyn chanted a low, guttural intonation; his dazed ears could not make out the words - perhaps the confusion of his blinded, jaded thoughts - perhaps the strangeness of the language - perhaps the shrill, chilling screech of the haemagiles still drowned and stung into his battered consciousness.

Aldwyn turned away and ran back to the gaping darkness of the cave.

What was he doing?

It was nothing but madness to return to that carnage!

The star-taint had taken his mind!

Ellis squinted into the harsh light which lashed down at him.

Where was Kira?

Why wasn’t she out here too?

A shivering horror stunned through his enfeebled frame.

Kira!

He must save her!

He must get up and help Aldwyn.

His drained, debilitated body floundered and failed.

If she died because of his weakness, his helplessness?

No!

He could never allow it.

He staggered to his feet and wobbled towards the cave. His legs crumbled beneath his tottering frame; he slammed into the craggy rock entrance and clung to its abrasive support; his limbs convulsed in searing pain from the gouges and bites to his flesh; he grimaced and fought - his wounds were nothing compared to the piercing trauma of letting Kira down.

He coughed the breath back into his anguished lungs and strained his eyes into the dim shadows of the cave.

The seething blizzard of tiny black creatures obscured his disjointed glimpses; Aldwyn was kneeling over Kira’s body, gripping at her shoulders.

She was face-down, partly hidden behind a mound of dung; his terrified vision could not tell him if she was still alive.

His master’s words echoed and rumbled louder; the squealing clamour of the haemagiles punctured the fractured air; angrier, more ferocious; malevolent and dismal. A sudden shocking flash of blue light arced up from where Aldwyn clasped Kira’s body; it crashed towards the ceiling; a fierce, crackling cone of violent, unrefined energy blasted a pathway up through the swirling fog of haemagiles.

The blinding, sparking pulse rolled and smashed into the walls of the cavern with a savage, thundering current. Ellis screwed his eyes shut and dug his fingers deep into the rugged stone; the blast roared out past him, tugging at his clothes and hair; the tearful, grasping stench of guano was swept away - disrupted by the rich primacy of the vehement blue discharge.

His confused mind reeled; his stinging arms seemed to tingle with a dark, twisting strangeness; he shuddered, and the explosion died back to silence.

He squinted into the depths of the cave; scouring, searching. The oppressive, screeching din had ceased; the marauding cloud of predators were held for a brief uncertain instant - suspended in the shocked, silent air - then they crashed to the stunned floor in a devastating, collapsing wave.

What had happened?

What was that spell?

Where were Kira and his master?

Perhaps the convulsive blast had killed them both?

Perhaps they were both trapped in there and needed his help?

The dark blood oozed out from his shoulders and arms - but he could heal himself later - the patient always comes first - Aldwyn had taught him that much - he must reserve his strength to help his friends.

He levered himself along the wall and stared into the silent gloom. Aldwyn emerged through the dark shadows, from behind a foetid, lumpy mound; Kira was draped across his arms, pale and lifeless.

Sinister, forbidding doubts stabbed at him.

He tried to run to them - but his legs refused to carry him to where his thoughts had already flown.

Was she alive?

Her fragile body dangled limply.

She obviously wasn’t conscious.

His heart thudded distantly, sweating coldly within his chest.

Had Aldwyn got to her in time?

Was he even trying to save her?

Perhaps the blast from his spell had killed Kira as well as the swarming plague of haemagiles?

But when had his master ever tried to harm anyone?

But that spell?

What was that tone and hue?

Not the purity of sky blue that the Magik that Heals usually produced - but something deeper - a strange violet taint, tinged with yellows and greens around its burning edges.

Surely she would survive?

She could not die - not now - not when there was a chance of happiness, a future.

Aldwyn had not brought him up to pray to the Surrounder - ‘a verbose superstition’ he called it - but Kira seemed to put great store in it.

Perhaps he could try, if only for her sake?

His exhausted mind scrambled for some suitable words - something to help her, to make her safe - but his panicked head did not know how or where to begin.

Aldwyn’s heavy footsteps staggered out; he laid Kira on the grass a little way from him.

Ellis squinted back into the daylight; he fought to focus at the brightness of their arrival.

He crawled to her limp body; his taut ears strained for the reassurance of her breathing.

Aldwyn flopped down nearby.

Perhaps this was a sign of hope?

If Kira’s life had been in any peril, the old man would already be acting to heal her - it was not his custom to leave patients alone if they were still in danger - he had known Aldwyn sit up through the night and refuse to eat if his patient required it.

But perhaps he was still fatigued from the haemagiles and the tunnel? Or perhaps the star-taint had made him forgetful of his duties?

Or perhaps he knew it was already too late?

An insipid, shallow breath rose and fell within her.

A relieved pulse spiked through him.

She was alive!

Aldwyn had saved her - somehow.

Perhaps she was still in danger or pain?

Aldwyn might be too exhausted to heal her properly?

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He examined her frail body for signs of injury, as his master had diligently taught him.

The exposed skin of her face and arms and legs seemed completely unharmed - there were no cuts or bite marks, or any other apparent blemish.

Her hands and feet were filthy from the grime of the haemagiles - but surely she must have sustained countless stinging lesions - together with some heavy bruises from crawling in the tunnels?

He glanced across to Aldwyn - his master’s face was also free from cuts and damage and blood.

Presumably it was something to do with that spell?

But in all his years, the old master had never produced an effect like that before.

And what were those strange guttural words that Aldwyn had chanted as he ran back into the cave?

They did not appear in any of the scrolls that he had read.

True, there were still several tomes on the shelves that he had not yet perused all the way through - but there had already been a number of occasions when it was all too clear that Aldwyn had far more reading in him than the select few books he stored in his cottage.

He kept meaning to ask, but the time just never seemed right. He did not want to pester the old man - he had been nothing but kind since taking him in as his votary - and Aldwyn would tell him if he really wanted him to know.

There was that time on the road back from alderman Blake’s house - but Aldwyn had made it clear that he was in no mood to discuss his past, so things were left at that.

But what was that spell?

Not one that Aldwyn had ever taught him - it was something far deeper and more powerful than he had ever witnessed before - something that touched at the very edges of the Magik that Healed.

Kira’s breathing steadied and strengthened.

The colour tinted slowly back into her face.

She must be safe - or at least out of any immediate danger.

Ellis collapsed back on the soft, green turf and gasped the clean, fresh air into his weary lungs.

An exhaustive relief flooded across his body.

The late afternoon birds had just begun their tender songs - there was still time yet before the sun would disappear.

He should heal himself now - the others were safe and they would need to move before night allowed any surviving haemagiles to emerge for their nocturnal hunt.

He reached deep down into his consciousness and chanted the familiar words. Flashes and fleeting visions of the strange spell kept threatening to interrupt his thoughts; he calmed his mind and pushed them aside while he completed his task.

He opened his eyes and blinked about him; his dazzled senses accustomed themselves to the light. The soft, soothing turf beneath his body was peculiar and spongy after the days spent cramped in a tunnel of unseeing, unfeeling rock; it was unsteady and unreliable and welcoming.

His disjointed thoughts missed the lack of air and space - the dense echoing sound, the deep, blinding darkness - trapped by the suffocating fear of being crushed and entombed forever.

The turbulent, rushing sensation of relief flooded across his grateful body.

And Kira was safe.

They were all safe.

Nearby, a faint beck gurgled down through the grass and mosses; its gentle, life-giving rhythm wove its way into the calmness of his breath.

He crawled over to the stream and drank a little of the refreshing, cool liquid.

Aldwyn was sitting up. He gazed off across the sloping valley below them, toward the far hills.

He looked tired - and small wonder - the master had practically carried both him and then Kira out of the cave.

And all the while, having to deal with the withering attack of the biting haemagiles himself!

The old man must be stronger than he had appeared - perhaps the depth of his magik had sustained him somehow?

Ellis moved back, closer to Kira.

He lay on his side and absorbed the languid golden glow of daylight and the calm of the open air.

The gentle valley rolled away below them; its slowly curled ferns leading down through the rich russet-orange and deciduous reds of the woodlands, to the edged browning-yellow strips of farmland which carpeted the far side of the dale. From the distant, white farmhouse, held snugly in the wide, rolling folds, a careless plume of smoke drifted up and caressed the slow evening sky.

On the far slopes, a solitary shepherd brought down his bleating flocks from the high mountain pastures to the meandering safety of the lowland fields.

From the edge of the woodland, a blackbird sang out its deep praise for the golden evening skies.

When the dense, black rocks had crushed in on him, he had never thought to experience such wonders again.

Aldwyn was still sitting, staring at the scene.

He looked pallid and drawn. Still exhausted no doubt. Perhaps the weary days in the tunnel had taken more out of the master than he and Kira had realised - perhaps it had taken it out of all of them?

But there was something else - he had seen that expression hang across his master’s face before. Sometimes, late in the evenings, when an illness seemed to have him beaten, when a patient was facing danger - he would tug at the books and scrolls on his shelves, searching, scouring for a solution - until he was certain he could perform a cure.

“I saw what you did,” Ellis said. “You risked your life - going back in there for Kira like that. But what was that flash of light? How did you do it? Can you teach me?”

Aldwyn slowly rubbed his hand over his chin; he stared out blankly across to the far hills

The beck splashed and gurgled down into the soft dale below, encouraged by the last warmth of the sun.

“I’ve been looking at the shape of this valley,” Ellis continued, “I’m sure we once passed here on the way to Mrs Doffle’s - you remember, she had problems with her arthritis two summers ago. If I’m right, it seems we’ve somehow managed to cross over the mountains and come down on the other side of the forest - probably somewhere near Higgsby.”

Aldwyn’s eyes gazed along the length of the valley, but did not seem to focus on the distant fields.

The blackbird teased out the warm charm of its melody against the vibrancy of the glowing autumn.

“Aldwyn?” Ellis inquired.

Aldwyn sighed and rubbed his hand across his cheek and neck, then scratched at his chin again. His gaze left the far horizon and settled reluctantly on the quiet turf just in front of him.

“A storm is coming,” he said.

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