The Raven’s Knot. Robin Jarvis

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ she went, absorbing every detail of the scene before her.

      Fixed to the vast, encircling walls a hundred torches burned, casting their splendour over the richly carved rock where, between the graven pillars and sculpted leaf patterns, countless stone faces flickered and glowed. All manner of creatures were depicted there and the untutored Edie Dorkins could only recognise a fraction of them.

      Edie gurgled in amusement and hugged herself as the dancing flames made this chiselled bestiary appear to peep down at her with curious stares – even the monstrous serpents seemed to be astonished at her arrival.

      ‘And why shouldn’t they?’ Miss Ursula’s voice broke in, reading her thoughts. ‘The poor brutes have had an eternity of looking at me.’

      Edie laughed, then curtseyed to the silent, stone audience, craning her head back to see just how high the carvings reached up the walls.

      It was then that she saw it, the titanic presence which dominated that cathedral-like place. Her mouth fell open at the sight and the giggles died in her throat.

      From the moment she had entered the chamber, Edie had been aware of a great shadow which towered over the cavern but not till now did she realise its nature and she froze with shock.

      Rising from the bare earthen floor and rearing in a massive arc into the dark heights above, where not even the radiance of so many bright torches could reach, was what appeared to be the trunk of a gigantic tree.

      Up into the impenetrable gloom its colossal girth soared, vanishing into the utter blackness of the chamber’s immeasurable height where it straddled the entire length of the cavern before plunging downwards once more, to drive through the furthest wall.

      So monumental were its proportions that Edie could only shake her head, yet she noticed that no branches grew from that mighty tree. Only gnarled, knotted bulges protruded from the blighted, blackened bark, like clusters of ulcerous decay, and in places the wood had split to form festering and diseased wounds.

      Slowly, Edie rose from her crouching curtsey. That withered giant was the source of the deliciously sickly scent and she took a great lungful before tossing her head and considering the forlorn marvel more closely.

      ‘What killed it?’ she asked bluntly.

      Miss Ursula put her arm about the girl’s shoulders.

      ‘You are mistaken, Edith,’ she said softly. ‘Nirinel is not dead – not yet. A trickle of sap still oozes deep within the core of its being and, while it does, so there is hope.’

      Leaping forward, Edie ran over the mossy soil until the gargantuan arch of putrefying bark loomed far above her. Shouting gleefully, she began to twirl and dance with joy.

      ‘The tree’s alive,’ her high voice rang within the cavern. ‘It lives, it lives!’

      ‘Again, I must correct you,’ Miss Ursula told her. ‘This is no tree. It is but the last remaining root of the mother of all forests. We are in the presence of the last vestige of the legendary World Tree – Yggdrasill, which flourished in the dawn of time and from which all things of worth and merit sprang.’

      The child ceased her dancing and stared up at the immense, rearing shadow.

      ‘This is a sacred site,’ Miss Ursula breathed. ‘But come, Edith, I will explain.’

      Where the massive root thrust up out of the ground, a circular dais of stone jutted from the floor. Upon this wide ring, which was covered in a growth of dry moss and rotting lichen, the elderly woman sat and patted the space at her side for the girl to join her.

      ‘I shall not begin at the beginning of things,’ she said. ‘For that time was filled with darkness. My tale commences when Yggdrasill first bloomed and the early rays of the new sun smiled upon its leaves.

      ‘In that glorious dawn, the World Tree flourished and it was the fairest and most wondrous sight that ever was, or shall ever be. In appearance it was like a tremendous and majestic ash, but many miles was the circumference of its trunk; its three main roots stretched about the globe and its branches seemed to hold heaven aloft. Like a living mountain it rose above the landscape but its great magnitude cast no despairing shade upon the ground below, for Yggdrasill’s foliage shone with an emerald light and in its cradling boughs the first ancestors of mankind were nurtured.’

      Edie gazed up at the vast root, vainly trying to imagine the unbounded size of Yggdrasill.

      ‘The first civilisation was founded about the eastern side of the World Tree,’ Miss Ursula continued, ‘and Askar was it named. In that early time there was no sickness and its people knew no death. All were content and Askar flourished and thrived.’

      Miss Webster’s voice trailed off as she stared into the flames of the torches.

      ‘Was you there then?’ Edie asked. ‘Is that where you’re from?’

      The elderly woman smiled gravely. ‘Yes,’ she murmured. ‘My sisters and I were born in that silvan shade.

      ‘Yet there were other beings who roamed the globe,’ she continued, shivering slightly. ‘Before the first blossom opened upon Yggdrasill, unclean voices bellowed and resounded in the barren wastes of the ice-locked north.’

      Edie grinned and leaned forward, eager to learn more. ‘Was they monsters?’ she demanded. ‘Is that where Belial came crawling out?’

      ‘No,’ came the patient reply. ‘Belial was much, much later and compared to them his evil deeds are like those of a mischievous schoolboy. Although he will one day pour fire upon the world – they shall come after. They were here before and they will be here at the utmost end.’

      Relishing every word, Edie squirmed and rested her dirty chin upon her hands. ‘Who are they then?’ she urged.

      ‘Spirits of cold and darkness,’ Miss Ursula breathed. ‘Drawn from the freezing waters when the world was formed, who clad themselves in chill flesh as giants terrible to behold. In a desolate, forsaken country where none of the World Tree’s roots had delved, they dwelt. A great gulf and chasm which stretched down to the very marrow of the earth, separated their unhallowed realm from the main continent and over the never-ending darkness they reigned absolutely.’

      Miss Ursula paused to gaze up at the huge, decaying root and clicked her tongue with irritation.

      ‘You and I can only suspect the extent of their fury when the first light burst forth to herald Yggdrasill’s unfurling,’ she said. ‘They had considered themselves to be lords of an echoing darkness and now their dominion was threatened by this unlooked for challenge.’

      ‘What did they do?’

      ‘Sought for ways to destroy it,’ Miss Ursula told her. ‘For it was prophesied that as long as there was sap within the smallest leaf of the World Tree, their previous lordship and tyranny would be denied them. So began the building of the ice bridge to span the great chasm. Malice and loathing seethed in their frozen hearts but the people of Askar were unaware of the peril which awaited them...’

      ‘Oh, Ursula!’ cried another voice suddenly and, with a jolt, Edie turned to see Miss Celandine and Miss Veronica standing by the gate.

      Their gaze fixed upon the withered root, the two sisters shambled СКАЧАТЬ