Fetch

Malsarry does not stir as I gaze upon her prone form. There is not a mark upon her, and yet she is grievously injured. I know this much, but beyond that my mind is in fog. She may as well be a statue of marble atop a sarcophagus. I clench my fists and ride out the storm of anger that has gripped me as I stand by my love. I will not allow this! There is something to be done, and I will be the one to do it. First I will save her, and then I will make the man responsible pay for this evil.

“She does not breath,” I say to the attendant healer.

She does not respond and I find her unwillingness to look at me insolent.

The mage sees this and places a warning hand on my forearm, an action few men would dare undertake, “she does not hear you, and she could not answer if she did.”

I nod my understanding.

“How long does she have?” I ask the mage.

“Until the serpent moon breaches the horizon once again,” he tells me.

“That is but three days!” I cry.

The mage nods a confirmation, this is as it is, “unless she tastes the Waters of Irion, she will pass beyond the veil.”

“Then she will drink of those waters,” I state with utter conviction.

The mage laughs at this conviction of mine, “that is a bold claim, even for you Lord Darg!”

I turn to face the mage. I am making my point, but we both know that my display of strength is only that. The mage is the closest to a father that I have, and I could not raise my hand to him under any circumstance. The bond of father and child is a sacred one and any that goes against it is lost in their own ignorance and failure. A child that raises a hand to a father has forgotten all that she is and all that she could be. 

The mage lowers his head and sighs, “I see that you are intent on this. Nothing I say will dissuade you from this suicidal pursuit?”

“No,” I tell him.

His hands move in one of the many dances they are well versed in, and he conjures a scrap of parchment and hands it to me. There is but one word on the paper.

Ghallack

I raise an eyebrow and the mage supplies me with all the information he has on this man, Ghallack.

Before I leave the room, I take Malsarry’s cold and lifeless hand and I make my pledge, then I tear the lace from her sleeve and pocket it. 

*

It is a day’s ride to the place that Ghallack is known to reside. A day that Malsarry does not have. I take two horses and leave one by the wayside when it is found lacking. The other finds a reserve of strength when it is tested. When we return, it will sire the next generation of my steeds.

The mage told me of the cave that Ghallack lived in. What he did not tell me was that Ghallack was no hermit grubbing around in a damp, dank and dimly lit hovel. The cave was carved ornately across the entirety of its faces and lamps lit the voluminous place and its treasures and adornments. I entered the cave and found Ghallack lounging across a throne as though he were the jester revelling in the king’s absence.

“You are late,” he called to me as I crossed the space between us.

I did not answer. The man had not stood to greet me and he deserved no further words from me until he showed the necessary respect.

Ghallack chuckled and shook his head, “warrior, you would do well to remember that you are here under sufferance and that I do indulge you.”

I came to a halt before his faux throne and looked upon the self-aggrandising braggard. 

“The rules that you live by have served you well, Lord Darg. Until now. I am a mage not dissimilar to your own, but you seek the dark realms and my magic comes from that place. I show deference to no one and you are here by virtue of a debt I owed.”

His meaning was clear. I lowered my head, “for that I am grateful, ser mage. I come seeking…”

“I know what you seek Lord Darg, and you can call me Ghallack, we are well met and although I dabble in the dark arts I live my life in the light, so I have no designs on you. In fact, I am fascinated by your latest endeavour. Should you return, I would ask that, after you have done what you must, you return and tell me every detail of your time down in the realms.”

“I will,” I told him. It was a small price to pay, but I did wonder what a man like him could learn from a warrior like me. Mages and people of learning are queer folk, they seem to ask the common people to tell them what they surely already know.

“Make sure you do,” he said this in a voice that was much changed and although there was no obvious warning in it I marked it well.

He sat up and leaned forward, beckoning me forward with the curling of a long, thin index finger, then he told me what I needed to know before leading me to a hidden room behind his throne and sending me through the portal to the dark realms, or the realms as he liked to call them.

“They are not all dark, you know,” he called after me as I left him.

*

No one, not even the gods, can visit the site of the Waters of Irion. This is how it always has been and how it always will be. I do not presume that I will be the first. That would be to defy the nature of everything and that is a sign of madness that goes even beyond the bounds of evil. I may as well stride into the belly of the fire mountains and allow them to consume my hubris and folly along with the rest of me.

Besides, the Waters of Irion are guarded by Shick, and no one has visited with Shick and lived to tell the tale. This is presumably why Ghallack requires my account of this place upon my successful return.

Fortunately, there is another player in this game of mine and that is Haught. Haught is the Water Bearer. If I can convince Haught that my need is great and that it is pure, and that I am worthy of her service, then she will bring me the Waters of Irion.

I did not allow myself to introduce complacency to this quest. As simple as it seems, this place is fraught with danger and the chances that I will return are slim. I know that. I may appear blunt and brutish, but I do have heart and brain. A warrior requires a heart in order to have something to fight for, and she needs a brain to fight with. A fight is won in the mind before it is ever won on the battlefield.

My journey through the dark realms was necessarily on foot and I had no way of measuring the passage of time. Ghallack had warned me not to tarry, not for the sake of Malsarry, but for mine own. Exposure to the dark realms was to drink of a goblet of poison little and often. A person would not see their end coming and would not observe its passing. Life leaks out of the living in this place, and I would need my sword arm at all times.

I was in the belly of the beast and nothing was familiar to me. I was battle hardened and questing was my life, I was as ready as anyone could be, but nothing prepared me for my foray into this realm. Nothing was as it seemed and it would take me a long time to make sense of what it was that I was seeing and experiencing. My audience with Ghallack after this quest would be a strange one, perhaps he could put words to my travels. I wondered whether I would be of any use to him, and if not, would he seek to exact retribution for my shortcomings?

Eventually I came to a fork in the path. Ghallack had told me of this and I was relieved to hear that this was as far as I was to go. That there was no choice to be made here, only that I was to call for Haught and she would come.

Once she arrived, that was when the fun would begin. I was to convince her to bring me the Waters of Irion. My quest pivoted on this moment and I steadied myself before proceeding.

“Hai! Haught! I call upon thee!” I bellowed first out across one fork of the path, and then along the second for good measure.

Now I was to wait.

I stood, alert and listening for the approach of Haught. Conscious that my shout may have summoned other denizens of the realm I looked about me frequently and kept my wits about me.

Then I heard a distant rumbling. 

Now, I have heard the rumblings that an approaching hoard on horseback make and this was nothing of the sort. I had been urged to keep my mind open to all possibilities by the mage and Ghallack had said similar, all the same I expected Haught to be a person. The sound of this approach did not preclude this, but if there was a person on the way then they were riding something large and fearsome to our meeting place.

I raised my shield arm, but I stilled my sword. In my experience, drawing a sword in case of trouble always leads to the trouble you seek to avoid. Waving a blade is an invitation and that invitation is seldom useful, more so when you want someone to do you a favour of their own volition.

I was about to learn a lesson here. I knew that. Each new interaction is an education. The first thing I learned was that sound behaved differently here and the distant rumble wrong footed me and as a result, I was not as prepared as I could have been. With the rumblings still distant, a huge beast appeared as though from nowhere. One moment it was not there, the next it was bearing down upon me. 

I pride myself on a mind that is both as sharp and agile as my blade, but it proved dull and sloth-like as I stared at the sight before me, and I have no way of knowing whether the beast would have ended me before my quest had really begun, its momentum was such that had it not stopped when it did it could have ended me with that alone.

Somehow the beast dug into the ground and it came to a halt before me.

It stood stock still, saliva dripping from its jowls, some of which landed on me. I did not flinch, hoping that the creature’s saliva would do me no harm, my assessment being that this was the least of my worries right now. I lowered my shield and stepped back two paces, the better to look the beast in the face. This proved difficult as there were two faces with two pairs of eyes observing me intently.

“You called for us?” it said.

I nodded and kept my features as still as was possible despite my having never encountered a talking dog, let alone one the size of a chapel, and with not one, but two powerful and menacing heads. I felt a momentary surge of anger towards Ghallack for not warning me that Haught was a two headed dog, but then I remembered that he had never seen Haught, and this was why he wanted a fireside chat after my trials and tribulations were over.

“I called for Haught,” I replied, the reference to us was a disconcerting development and I gained no solace from the educated guess I had made as to who else was granting me an audience, but it stood to reason that the other player in our game was here before me, “which of you is Shick?”

This question was greeted with an ominous growl that originated deep within the animal but did not exit via either mouth, “state your business with us,” said the dog’s head on the right.

“My Lady Malsarry has been laid low by the Cursed One. He struck even as I went out to meet him in battle. I seek to right that wrong and to restore balance in both our realms,” I told them.

“He is a god!”

“You dare to defy a god!?”

“He is from this realm and yet you seek our help?”

The heads took it in turn to speak and nothing they said gave away which was which. They guarded their names and their nature closely and my heart sank as I understood that none of this was going to be straightforward.

“It must be done,” I told them.

“Why?” they said in unison.

I nodded, I had already told them, but I had not said it all, “Malsarry is my one true love,” I told them, “the Cursed One hurt an innocent in order to get to me. That I cannot allow. Besides, the code will not allow it, so I am duty bound to defend her even in circumstances such as these.”

I withdrew the lace cuff I had taken from my love and raised it aloft. First one nose sniffed at the material and then the other.

“You would rather die than defend your kingdom against the Cursed One?”

I shook my head, “I do not intend to die this day. I will have my day and I will face the Cursed One and in the end, I will prevail. He is an interloper and he belongs not in the kingdom’s of men.”

“You show hubris, Lord Darg.”

I laughed a mirthless laugh, “no, hubris is a weakness. You mistake my certainty for pride.”

The dogs heads turned to each other, I did not mistake this as a positive.

They turned back towards me and regarded me with their golden eyes. Each of the two heads were identical and there was no telling them apart, “even if you are adjudged worthy of the services of Haught the Water Bearer you will have to fight…”

I did not tarry. Ghallack had advised me not to do so and I had already done what I needed to do here. I had done everything apart from one final act.

They were light of foot and quick and I had not expected anything other than that. To underestimate an opponent is to offer him your throat. I doubt they underestimated me. In the end I had to make a choice and that was all there was to it.

SWOOSH!

I freed my blade and drove it home even as the dog’s muscles flexed in readiness to lunge.

I had silenced the left head with my blade. Not a killing blow, I had sent my blade up through the lower jaw and into his snout. I did not doubt that Shick would fully recover from the injury. I had made my choice though and that was what I was required to do. Shick regarded me with wounded golden eyes and whimpered pathetically.

“How?” asked Haught, “how did you know?”

Haught sounded curious, and that was disarming. She wanted to know how I had arrived at my decision because everything was riding on it. If I had made a lucky, thoughtless guess, that would not be enough and my quest would be at an end. I would be at an end.

“You attended to my lady’s scent first,” I told Haught.

Haught responded by sniffing me, “you are brave Darg, and you are not a fool. The Cursed One has a worthy opponent in you.”

With that Haught turned tail and returned from whence she had come. I sat on the path and awaited her return. 

I did not have to wait long.

This time there was no rumbling as a precursor to her arrival, and she appeared as she had before. In her mouth was a small vial containing the waters she was bound to bring to me. Shick, already back to himself, bore my sword like my hunting dogs carry sticks.

I took both and nodded thanks as I sheathed my sword and placed the vial under my tunic for safe keeping.

“Know this, Lord Darg,” said Shick, “if you ever return here, I will be duty bound to kill you.”

“I smiled and bowed, never taking my eyes from either of the heads, “know this Shick, if I return, it will be to end you.”

There was a low, ominous growl as I turned and took my leave of them at the fork of the path.