in the bay
Breathe the words like sleeping beasts; “Where?” the
brambles say.
Trees whisper “Where are you going?”, “Where?”
chirps the lonely jay.
A cursed soul, I wander lost, in exile, old and fey.
The accompanying lute mimicked the sound of wind. Tashnark stirred restlessly in the cooling water as, again, something monstrous formed in the empty spaces of sleep. He felt it coming and groaned, tossing about in sudden terror.
Words burst from his lips. “Hanin! Hanin!” There was an intense red glow that blinded him and stunned his mind into dullness. He squeezed his eyes shut.
* * * *
When he opened his eyes, a vague uneasiness came upon him, making him feel displaced and lonely.
He was called Bellarroth. He remembered that.
He remembered the name ‘Tashnark’, too. But who was Tashnark? Bellarroth had no idea.
What was he doing then? Bellarroth couldn’t remember that either.
He looked around at the near-dormant serpent-trees and the grainy haze of the sky beyond, and another name came to him. Hanin! He was searching for Hanin—that was what he was doing.
The first signs of the Fire-beast Lucishnor had appeared on the few scraps of horizon visible to him. Lucishnor’s imminent arrival heralded a new day—and the possible awakening of the trees. A touch of fire in the sky silhouetted their still forms. Bellarroth began to run, his awareness of Hanin’s call renewed and strengthened. But the sky flared suddenly as the monster Lucishnor sped into view. The heat of its closeness battered him.
Movement made him glance up. A shadowy mass towered above—a mountain moving with life. He was close to the base of Koroom, so close the monster-head lost appreciable detail and was simply a solid, incomprehensible hugeness. Hanin’s call hounded him on. <Hurry, hurry!>
Bellarroth’s breath came in gasps and his chest heaved against the rough, hair-woven garment he wore, while the heat of Lucishnor burned across the back of his neck like a swung fire-brand. Sweat rolled off him and thirst tore at his throat, but he didn’t stop beneath the shade of denser forest nor when he came to water leaking out of Tammenallor into a gentle rivulet. The water began to steam.
And then the winds grew fierce. There was movement among the serpent-trees that was not a product of their perpetual squirming. It threw them into a simultaneous swing to one side and their hissing swept into Bellarroth’s ears as though they cried out in alarm. Hair-grass whipped about his feet, making him stumble as a blast of wind hit and scalded his already-reddened skin. He fell to his knees.
Now the sky was on fire. As he glanced up, Bellarroth’s flame-blurred eyes discerned in that instant the shape of Lucishnor’s fiery wings even through the forest of serpent-silhouettes between him and the sky-beast. He turned away, praying that the monster would fly around behind the enormous head of Tammenallor, so that Bellarroth would be running in shadow. Battle between the monsters seemed inevitable and this perception fueled the panic already barely under control in him. If the monsters were to fight, there would be no possibility of survival for him on Tammenallor. Gigantomachy would annihilate the delicate balance of existence, his life consumed in the holocaust.
He knew instinctively that time was shortening. Yet it was not despair that rose in him, but determination and heightened awareness of the urgency sent from Hanin. Fatalistically, he stumbled on through the mounting chaos, crouching low to reduce the push of the winds. Heat ate at him like a predator.
How long it was before he reached the limit of his endurance he didn’t know, but reach it he did. And acknowledging that limit brought a swift and unwelcome end to his flight. The call speared into his mind with a sharp, almost hysterical intensity. He saw ahead a tangle of shapes materializing in the stark glare—his mind grasped to that tangle as though linked by some ethereal bond. Momentarily the haze on his eyes cleared, showing him a thick mesh of smaller, vine-like serpents and clinging, fibrous strands. In the midst of this, held and shredded by insensate fingers, lay Hanin—a bloody corpse being shorn of its flesh. A moan escaped from Bellarroth’s lips and his limbs stiffened with sudden fear. Darkness overwhelmed him.
* * * *
Tashnark awoke to the sound of dim voices, chattering frenziedly in dark. A hand gripped his arm, pulling him up. “Hanin!” he cried, weak with ghostly terror, “I saw you dead.”
“Dead, no.” The thin, wrinkled lips released words as though they were precious jewels, “but you find me dying. Tammenallor has broken my defenses and Its body takes me to Its own. Soon I will be dead. You, Bellarroth, have been born to save. Act now! Awaken!”
His skeletal finger bent to Bellarroth’s forehead and touched him there.
The contact jolted him, filling his bones with fire.
“I’m not Bellarroth!” he yelled.
Tashnark’s voice echoed in the small bathroom, rebounding like a shattered vase from the tiled walls. The water, cool now, lapped against his chest, spilling over onto the floor. His fingers gripped the smooth-beaten metal of the bath rim. Someone was pounding on the door. “Tashnark! Are you all right?”
The door creaked open and the smooth, ascetic face of his brother, Ishwarin, squeezed into the gap. “What the hell are you yelling about, brother?”
“Nothing. Sorry. I fell asleep and had a nightmare.”
Ishwarin opened the door fully and came in. He was dressed in the formal purple and gray coat he always wore when attending the Courts. “You yelled something about Bellarroth.”
“Did I? I’ve never heard of him.”
“The thing is.…” Ishwarin leaned down, full of his usual earnestness—a peculiar stance that always accompanied displays of erudition. His plucked eyebrows curved into a questioning frown. “Bellarroth is a rather esoteric name. Where did you come across it?”
Tashnark shrugged. “This water’s cold. Do you mind?” He stood in the bath, letting the water slough off him.
His brother stepped back to let him get at his towel. “It’s part of an ancient tale.”
“Tale?”
“About the end of the world. Do you know it?”
Tashnark dried himself, shoving Ishwarin aside whenever he got in the way of his elbows. The floor tiles felt cold and unpleasant under his feet.
“It’s a very obscure thing. Legendary. Bellarroth was said to have undertaken a great journey to confront the world’s tormentor. No, wait, I’m wrong. It was not something done, but an action foretold. A prophecy—”
“Brother!” Tashnark gestured in front of Ishwarin’s face to silence him, sensing danger. “I don’t want to know this, thanks. Save it for your better educated cronies.” He strode out, heading for his bedroom. “I don’t know anything about it and I’m quite happy to leave it that way.”
“It’s interesting.”
“I’m sure it is. But I don’t care.”
Ishwarin didn’t follow him, taking his frustrated attempt to further Tashnark’s education through into the hearth-room. Tashnark dressed quickly. His mind was numb, still disturbed by fragmented images of serpent-headed trees, a roaring mountain and a fiery monster that lit up the sky. He tried not to think about it.
Then striped light falling from outside across the crumpled surface of his bed invoked the specter of a bloodied corpse cut by vines.
“Ishwarin!” he yelled.
“What is it?” came his brother’s distant voice.
“What about the name Hanin? Does that mean anything