‘Whose turn is it to do the cooking?’ Kalten asked him absently.
‘Yours,’ Ulath replied promptly.
‘You’re not paying attention, Kalten,’ Tynian laughed. ‘You know better than to ask that question.’
Kalten grumbled and started to stir up the fire.
‘I think we’d better get back to the coast today, sparhawk,’ Vanion said gravely. The weather’s held off so far, but I don’t think we’ll be able to count on that much longer.’
Sparhawk nodded.
The thunder grew louder, and the fire-red clouds overhead blanched with shuddering flickers of lightning.
Then there was a sudden, rhythmic booming sound.
‘Is it another earthquake?’ Kring cried out in alarm.
‘No,’ Khalad replied. ‘It’s too regular. It sounds almost like somebody beating a very big drum.’ He stared at the top of Bhelliom’s wall. ‘What’s that?’ he asked, pointing.
It was like a hilltop rearing up out of the forest beyond the knife-like edge of the top of the cliff – very much like a hilltop, except that it was moving.
The sun was behind it, so they could not see any details, but as it rose higher and higher they could make out the fact that it was a kind of flattened dome with two pointed protuberances flaring out from either side like huge wings. And still it swelled upward. As they could see more of it, they realized that it was not a dome. It seemed to be some enormous, inverted triangle instead, wide at the top, pointed at the bottom and with those odd winglike protuberances jutting out from its sides. The pointed bottom seemed to be set in some massive column. Since the light was behind it, it was as black as night, and it rose and swelled like some vast darkness.
Then it stopped.
And then its eyes opened.
Like two thin, fiery gashes at first, the blazing eyes opened wider and wider, cruelly slanted like cats’ eyes and all ablaze with fire more incandescent than the sun itself. The imagination shuddered back from the realization of the enormity of the thing. What had appeared to be huge wings were the creature’s ears.
And then it opened its mouth and roared, and they knew that what they had heard before had not been thunder.
It roared again, and its fangs were flickers of lightning that dripped flame like blood.
‘Klæl!’ Aphrael shrieked.
And then, like two rounded, bulky mountains, the shoulders rose above the sharp line of the cliff, and, fanning out from the shoulders like black sails, two jointed, batlike wings.
‘What is it?’ Talen cried.
‘It’s Klæl!’ Aphrael shrieked again.
‘What’s a Klæl?’
‘Not what, you dolt! Who! Azash and the other Elder Gods cast him out! Some idiot has returned him!’
The enormity atop the escarpment continued to rise, revealing vast arms with many-fingered hands. The trunk was huge, and flashes of lightning seethed beneath its skin, illuminating ghastly details with their surging flickers.
And then that monstrous presence rose to its full height, towering eighty, a hundred feet above the top of the escarpment.
Sparhawk’s spirit shrivelled. How could they possibly – ? ‘Blue Rose!’ he said sharply. ‘Do something!’
‘There is no need, Anakha.’ Vanion’s usurped voice was very calm as Bhelliom once again spoke through his lips. ‘Klæl hath but momentarily escaped Cyrgon’s grasp. Cyrgon will not risk his creature in a direct confrontation with me.’
‘That thing belongs to Cyrgon?’
‘For the moment. In time that will change, and Cyrgon will belong to Klæl.’
‘What is it doing?’ Betuana cried.
The monstrosity atop the cliff had raised one huge fist and was striking at the ground with incandescent fire, hammering at the earth with lightning. The face of the escarpment shuddered and began to crack away, falling, tumbling, roaring down to smash into the forest at the foot of the cliff. More and more of the sheer face crumbled and sheared away and fell in a huge thundering landslide.
‘Klæl was ever uncertain of the strength of his wings,’ Bhelliom observed calmly. ‘He would come to join battle with me, but he fears the height of the wall. Thus he prepares a stair for himself.’
Then with a booming like that of the earthquake which had spawned it, a mile or more of the escarpment toppled ponderously outward and crashed into the forest, piling rubble higher and higher against the foot of the cliff.
The enormous being continued to savage the top of the cliff, spilling more and more rubble down to form a steep causeway reaching up and up to the top of the wall.
And then the thing called Klæl vanished, and a shrieking wind swept the face of the escarpment, whipping away the boiling clouds of dust the landslide had raised.
There was another sound as well. Sparhawk turned quickly. The Trolls had fallen to their faces, moaning in terror.
‘We’ve always known about him,’ Aphrael said pensively. ‘We used to frighten ourselves by telling stories about him. There’s a certain perverse pleasure in making one’s own flesh crawl. I don’t think I ever really admitted to myself that he actually existed.’
‘Exactly what is he?’ Bevier asked her.
‘Evil.’ She shrugged. ‘We’re supposed to be the essence of good – at least that’s what we tell ourselves. Klæl is the opposite. He’s our way of explaining the existence of evil. If we didn’t have Klæl, we’d have to accept the responsibility for evil ourselves, and we’re a little too fond of ourselves to do that.’
Then this Klæl is the King of Hell?’ Bevier asked.
‘Well, sort of. Hell isn’t a place, though. It’s a state of mind. The story has it that when the Elder Gods – Azash and the others – emerged, they found Klæl already here. They wanted the world for themselves, and he was in their way. After several of them had tried individually to get rid of him and got themselves obliterated, they banded together and cast him out.’
‘Where did he come from? Originally, I mean?’ Bevier pressed. Bevier was very much caught up in first causes.
‘How in the world should I know? I wasn’t there. Ask Bhelliom.’
‘I’m not so much interested in where this Klæl came from as I am in what kinds of things it can do,’ Sparhawk said. He took Bhelliom out of the pouch at his waist. ‘Blue Rose,’ he said, I do think we must talk concerning Klæl.’
‘It might be well, Anakha,’ the jewel responded, once again taking control of Vanion.
‘Where did he – or it – originate?’
‘Klæl did not originate, Anakha. Even as I, Klæl hath always been.’
‘What is it – he?’
‘Necessary. I would not offend thee, Anakha, but the necessity of Klæl is beyond thine ability to comprehend. The Child Goddess hath explained Klæl sufficiently -within her capabilities.’
‘Well, really!’ Aphrael spluttered.
A faint smile touched Vanion’s lips. ‘Be not wroth with me, Aphrael. I do love thee still – despite thy limitations. Thou art young, and age shall bring thee wisdom and understanding.’
This is not going well, Blue Rose,’ Sephrenia warned the stone.