Roger Parkinson: Summon Your Dragons

“And you? Do you have a name?”

“A name?” The smile vanished and he looked confused. “I have said the dragon gave me life. Is there more?”

“A name,” repeated Menish. “You must have a name, and kin folk. Were you thrown into the Chasm?” Menish could feel an intensity behind him from Drinagish and Hrangil. What name would he say?

“I… I don't know.”

That was no use at all. If he would outright claim to be Gilish then they could discuss it, argue about it perhaps, although arguing with Gilish himself was perhaps best avoided. Menish pressed him further.

“Your people, your kin folk, where are they? Did they not give you a name?”

“My… people?”

“Parents, wife, children, where are they?”

“There is only myself.”

“Flame of Aton! You must have had a mother!” Menish regretted this as soon as he had spoken, but he was weary and the man raised more questions with every answer. Vorish would get more out of him, but Vorish was not here. He felt Hrangil’s disapproval. A man, even a king, should not shout at a god. He stepped back from the man, wondering for the first time if this was just another dream. He felt so tired. How could he feel tired if he was asleep and dreaming?

“Get him some clothes, Althak. Bring him with us.” He turned and stamped off towards his horse.

Hrangil was at his heels.

“Sire?”

Menish turned to look at him. He realised that it was not disapproval in his old friend’s face, it was awe. It was awe at Menish himself. “How did you know, Sire? How did you know it would be today?”

“You really think he's Gilish?”

“It is written ‘…and I will walk among you again, when I return. Some will know me, some will not.' He walked in fire. It is a sign. But how did you know?” A touch of resentment. Hrangil the faithful had been passed over and the knowledge given to Menish who cared nothing for Gilish.

Menish shrugged and then shivered.

“I dreamed it”

“You dreamed of Gilish?”

“No. I dreamed of… of something else. He came instead.” Menish did not want to tell Hrangil any more than that. He swung himself onto his horse. “Hrangil, he made no claim to be Gilish.”

“He has forgotten. It has been so long.”

“Could Gilish forget who he was?”

Hrangil’s enthusiasm was suddenly checked. His usual reserve returned. “Perhaps not,” he said slowly. “But, again, perhaps.”

“Then before we fall down and worship him we might try and add some certainty to the matter,” said Menish coldly. He did not want to hurt Hrangil but he was so weary the words slipped out. What did it matter? Hrangil was being a fool.

Hrangil’s lips thinned as he suppressed a retort.

“Where are we going now, Sire?”

Menish sighed. Through his weariness came several clouded thoughts.

“Atonir, I suppose. We must go to Atonir.” Hrangil’s old eyes sparkled as if Menish had just declared the man to be Gilish after all. To Atonir, to the city Gilish had built in a day and a night.

But Menish was thinking of something else entirely. He had faced out his dream, and while the reality was different, there had been truth in it. What, then, of the prophecy? How much truth lay there? His answer was Vorish, and Vorish was in Atonir. Vorish would be able to make some sense of this man from the Chasm. But Hrangil was speaking again.

“The fastest way to Atonir from here is to take the old road to Lianar and then sail down the coast. I have been that way long ago, before the Vorthenki came.”

“By sea?”

“I don't like it either, Sire, but by horse would take more than twice as long.”

Menish nodded. “Tell the others then lead us.”

By this time Althak had supplied the man from the Chasm with a spare jerkin and a pair of breeches. They made him look even more Vorthenki, for Althak’s clothing was garishly coloured, unlike the sedate garments of the Anthorians. Althak had no spare boots, so the man went barefoot. They had provided him with one of the spare horses, a quiet mare, and he sat on it as if he had never seen one before. Surely Gilish would not forget horses!

The others had mounted too and Hrangil sat waiting for his signal. Menish nodded and Hrangil spurred his horse, leading them away from the howl of the Chasm and eastwards across the plains of Kelerish. Menish could feel relief in the rhythm of his horse’s stride; it was glad to escape that howling wind and, no doubt, it was still shaken from the dragon’s attack. Hrangil held up his arm and deliberately slowed their pace. It would not do to spend the horses on a mad dash that would last half the distance they should travel today.

In the familiar rhythm of the horse’s canter he let his mind turn to the man's eyes. Anthorian eyes were inevitably dark and almond shaped. Vorthenki eyes were blue, or sometimes green, and always rounder. It was because they were a sea people, obviously. Just sometimes they were violet.

Thalissa was such a one and the Vorthenki considered her beautiful. It was only a matter of time before Sinalth, the Invader, had summoned her to his bed.

At noon they stopped to rest themselves and the horses and to take some food. Bolythak passed around some of the honey cakes and dried fruit he carried in his pack. Menish noticed that Althak was explaining something to the man from the Chasm, but he paid little attention. He was in no mood for riddles. He was more concerned with the way the others looked oddly at the man, they were bothered by what they had seen and their questions were unresolved. Even Hrangil seemed uncertain of what to do with him. All but Althak kept their distance.

There was a partial solution to that problem at least. He beckoned to Hrangil who came and sat beside him on the ground.

“He must be given a name.”

“We know his name, replied Hrangil.

“We do not,” snapped Menish. “There is too much doubt for anyone to insist that he is Gilish. He must be given another. It will ease everyone.”

Hrangil said nothing.

“Did you see him ride? Would Gilish sit on a horse like a tent sack? Watch him ride off with us, then tell me he is Gilish.”

Hrangil paled as if Menish had just damned himself. But the man from the Chasm was clearly no rider. When they had finished their short meal he had to be helped back into the saddle and, although Menish had seen Althak explain its use, he seemed to have no idea what to do with the harness. Fortunately the mare he had been given was the sort of beast that ran with the rest. Althak had seen to that, of course.

In the afternoon the tussock plains gave way to low scrub land and then to small trees which gradually turned to forest. Hrangil found the old road that the imperial retinue had used in the days of the Sons of Gilish and, though it was overgrown, it was still passable.

Just before dusk they halted at a grassy glade beside a small stream. It had once been a camping place for pilgrims on their way to the Tor of Gilish. Many emperors had pitched their pavilions here in days gone by. Hrangil explained all this as Menish dismounted, for he had never been here before himself; his only other visit to the Tor had been via the direct road from Anthor.

Hrangil’s words made him think of those emperors: Telish IV; Telkun VII; Azkun V who was murdered; Gilish III, surnamed the Warrior because he had fought the Men of Gashan long ago; the names stretched back hundreds of years to the first emperor, Gilish himself, who was said to have come from the sun as it rose out of the sea. He had learned the names as a child and had never forgotten.

The man from the Chasm knew nothing of emperors and Gilish. It was as if this was the first day of his life. The discomforts Menish had experienced standing on the edge of the Chasm were as nothing compared to the horror that lay within. The eerie wind howled with nerve shattering force in the blackness, and the creeping terror that Menish had felt a mere shadow of had left his mind numb. It filled every fibre of him until there was nothing more to live for but fear, nothing to gain but another toehold of the cliff face. Above was nothing but grey mist, below lay the blackness that both called and menaced at once.