Beneath The High Place

CHAPTER 8

The summit of the High Place was an irregular plateau of rock, more-or‑less on two levels. The higher level was further back and cut through in places from the lower level by a series of shoulder‑high crevices that had been. From this side, the whole place gave the impression that it had been constructed from stone blocks and left unfinished. The Bellmaster was on his feet and striding off again before Barney could reply. Angelina started to get up to join them, but the Beachcomber placed a restraining hand lightly on her shoulder.

‘Let the Bellmaster have him to his self for a while. I dare say they’ve things to talk about, Princess,’ he smiled.

Barney, revived by the bellherb ale, sprang after the Bellmaster. The incredible man had already leaped onto the upper plateau of rock ahead of Barney, and was bending down to give him a heave up.

‘There you are!’ he announced, ‘This is where you’ve come to!’ Barney looked about him. ‘Not too close to the edge,’ the Bellmaster warned. But what interested Barney was not at the edge: at one side of the higher level, there was an ancient round, stone wall, like a roofless cottage, but low, and without doors or windows. The floor in the middle a shell of fused rock.

‘What’s that?’ Barney asked.

‘An old chimney.’

‘A chimney? That size? But it’s filled in. And what’s it doing up here?’

‘I’ll show you later,’ the Bellmaster said. ‘Meanwhile, let’s enjoy the view: It will be useful to you.’

On all sides, the land dipped away from the foot of the High Place, rolling gently down to the shores of the great sea that surrounded them. The wide sweep of the Silver River uncoiled its way beneath them, pouring its waters into the ocean at Cape Bay, under the watchful gaze of the walls of Seth Haven. Elsewhere on the Island, small clusters of farm buildings could be seen, and an occasional shepherd’s hut nestled among the hills. But the main island settlement was obviously within the city walls. The quayside and harbour were beyond their view, but the passing of broad‑beamed sailing ships in and out of the bay was proof of the prosperity had returned to the Merchants of Seth.

‘Well, Barney Gulliver,’ the Bellmaster said quietly, ‘what do you think of our fair island?’

‘Amazing!’ Barney breathed in wonder.

‘And there’s even more beneath our feet!’

Beneath their feet? Barney eyed the Bellmaster. ‘Here? You mean under the ground?’

‘Follow me,’ the Bellmaster said, reading the look on Barney’s face; ‘Follow me and all will become clear.’ He leaped down from the rocky plateau and called across for Kirlmann Wader and the Princess to join them. He then led the way down a steep and grassless path onto a narrow back that wound down the far side of the High Place to the foot of a sheer escarpment that fell away from the summit. The others slipped and slithered down after the Bellmaster and found themselves on a wide and gently sloping ledge with its steep wall of rock on one side and a tangle of undergrowth on the other.

‘If the worse happens,’ the Bellmaster directed, ‘see that you lead as many of the citizens of Seth Haven as possible to this place.’

Kirlmann looked about him. ‘I’m sure you know what you’re doing,’ he began doubtfully, ‘but I don’t see how it’s going to be any safer here than behind the walls of Seth Haven.’

‘You will,’ the Bellmaster replied and, while the others watched with interest, he strode over to a hazel bush, drew a knife from his belt and neatly pruned off and stripped a forked twig. He handed the twig to Barney, who took the forks in either hand.

‘There, Barney. Tell me what you feel.’

Barney felt the twig, wooden and lifeless in his hand. Then, as he looked at the thing, a tingle of energy seemed to move from the heart of it, through his fingers and hands and up his arms. Barney was so surprised that he tried to drop it. But he found that he couldn’t: instead, the thing twisted in his grip and forced his hands to point it to a place in the rocky escarpment.

‘It’s alive!’ he cried. ‘What do I do now?’

‘Follow where it leads you,’ the Bellmaster replied. So Barney did just that while the others watched. The forked hazel twig tugged in Barney’s hand until its pointed end lodged itself in a recess in the rock face.

‘What on earth’s happening?’ Angelina asked in astonish­ment.

Kirlmann laughed. ‘Well, bless my beard’’ he beamed. ‘If our Barney hasn’t got the Dowsing! What other talents are you hiding my boy?’

Barney laughed too - in disbelief! ‘I’ve no idea!’ he exclaimed. ‘How do I let go of the thing?’

‘Just close your eyes and count to five,’ the Bellmaster continued.
Before Barney had reached three, his grip had relaxed and he opened his hands again, quite easily.

‘Now keep it safe,’ the Bellmaster instructed; ‘You may well need it again.’

Barney tucked the dowsing stick into his belt.

‘What I need now, is fire.’ The Bellmaster reached into his cloak and drew out the wooden box. Close up, Barney could see that it was dark and polished like a freshly hatched chestnut, and carved with strange flame‑like devices. Set in a one side of the box was a brass trigger. The Bellmaster took it and opened the lid. He squeezed the trigger and immediately a cascade of sparks leaped from flint and steel, setting the little pile of tinder and wadding wonder­fully ablaze. It was a tinderbox.

The Bellmaster inserted the blazing box into the niche. ‘Now let’s see…,’ he murmured.
The flames leaped from the tinderbox and disappeared behind the top of the recess, into the back of the rock face. ‘Just watch this.’ And, as the flames did their work, there came a grating and grinding as a section of the cliff face pivoted upwards into the depths of the High Place to reveal an entrance the size of a church door. The others gaped in astonishment.

The Bellmaster retrieved the tinderbox, which was still, inexplicably, burning bright. Holding the box carefully ahead of him as he walked through the doorway. The light from the tinderbox cut unsteadily through the darkness. Barney, Angelina and Kirlmann followed behind. They were stood on a rocky landing at the top of a flight of steps, cut into the inner wall of a great cavern, which seemed to take up the entire shell of the High Place.

‘Wow!’ Barney gasped, his voice echoing back to him. ‘Just how do you build a place like this?’
‘Lots of time and big shovels,’ the Beachcomber suggested. The others laughing, followed him into the vast depths of the High Place.

At last they all stood of the floor of the great cavern. The Bellmaster set the burning tinderbox down on a stone pillar and turned to his companions.

‘This cavern was fashioned in the Days of the Ancients, the Master Craftsmen who ruled here long before the arrival of the Lords Merchant of Seth. In those times the Island was mined for its iron. It had qualities of strength and purity that made it highly prized. The Island was a warren of mineshafts and tunnels and this great place was hollowed out; at first for its ore, but in the course of time the space left behind was fashioned out for smiths, ironworkers and armourers.
Below this level you can see the pure waters of the Earth, rise up at the source of the Silver River.

In those times it was an ‘Iron River’, running red with rust from the main lode. That was what the river bore down to the edge of the Great Yonder Sea. Rock falls and undergrowth around the High Place have now all-but swallowed up the exit to the waters, apart from a lip of rock below the water line. It provides an interesting way out; I’ve often used it myself.’ He eyed the Princess … ‘If perhaps I’ve wanted to avoid being followed.’

Angelina looked him straight in the eye and smiled.

‘Why did it all stop?’ Barney asked.

The Bellmaster gazed longingly around the dimly‑lit hall. ‘Many reasons;’ he sighed. ‘In the first place, the ore was becoming worked out and people began moving away from the Island. Then, in the lowest reaches of the mines, a strange vein of highly magnetic ore was uncovered. It was smelted and forged, tempered and reworked by the most skilled of all craftsmen: the Master Craftsmen, also known as The Ancients. The forging removed most of the magnetism, but this new metal could be worked into weapons and tools of the most exquisite lightness and strength. Men came from beyond the Westerling Sea, greedy to know its secret but only the Master Craftsmen knew; and they would say nothing.

'It was they who had the secrets and the skills that rewove the magnetic qualities of the ore into other arts and other forces. The metal they worked acquired whatever qualities the Ancients saw fit to work into it; such was the nature of the ore and such was the Art of the Ancients. Outsiders came and tried bribery and brigandry to win their secrets, but they all failed and the secrets of the Ancients remained intact.

'Then the disappearances started. First there were brigands and spies who had managed to slip into the mines; they were never seen again. Then the Ancients, the Master Craftsmen themselves began to disappear.’
‘

Whatever happened to them?’ asked Angelina.

‘They had discovered the Light Portals.’

‘Like the one that brought me here?’ asked Barney

‘The very same, Barney. Something in the very nature of the ore could distort time and space, so that anything, or any­one passing near the focus of its energy was drawn into it and lost from this world to a world beyond.’

‘Well, it’s all beyond me,’ Kirlmann interrupted.

‘But not beyond the Ancients! They discovered how to direct the forces of the mother lode of the ore. There were those who returned from the worlds beyond with new knowledge and understanding. Soon they closed down the Island. The mines were declared exhausted and the lesser artisans and labourers were sent back to their homelands. The Ancients were left in sole residence on the Island and they saw to it that all traces of the past industry on the Island were removed. No harbours or jetties, no buildings or roads. And they brought their arts and skills back to this place here, within the bowels of the High Place.
'‘Here, they worked and studied: they explored the forces that cause the time distortions and they learned to control them. They used their alchemy to create crystals from the ore: crystals which eventually found their way into the portal generator.

'Eventually, when they had fully mastered the forces, the Ancients gained control of the Portals. They used them as avenues to other times and dimensions. At last the time came when they decided to take their leave of the Island: to take leave of the whole of this world, in fact. The Ancients shut down the furnaces and the forges, sealed the main flue, at the top of The High Place, and prepared to leave.'
‘

'They each chose their own Portal and departed this world, on the Inner Plain, for wider worlds on the Outer Plain, to their own chosen time and chosen world.’

The Bellmaster looked hard at his companions through the lapping light of the tinderbox. ‘The Ancients were great men, but they were mostly concerned with fulfilling their own dreams. Five‑and‑twenty of them there were, and four‑and‑twenty departed.’

‘You mean,’ Kirlmann Wader said, ‘that one remained!’

‘Only one chose to stay and serve his own kind.’
‘And that,’ suggested Angelina, gleefully, ‘was the Ancient of Ancients!’

‘Exactly, Princess. And it is his portal generator and his portal key that I still have. The Lord High Craftsman watched as his brothers conjured up their own Portals and departed the Inner Plain forever. He alone chose to remain. At first he used the Portals solely to carry him from Fa’Lacree, across the northern waters of the Great Yonder Sea, to the growing kingdom of the Lords Merchant of Seth. He came to know the wisest of their number; he guided their ways and made them great. He still returned to this place when need forced him. Who knows,’ he added with a smile, ‘perhaps he still does.’ The others looked uneasily at the Bellmaster, not knowing what to say next.

The Bellmaster looked around at them and broke the silence. ‘There’s a lot about this place to restore ebbed strength and build new heart,’ he said. ‘I’m sure the Ancient of Ancients often came here, like an owl returning to his oak, or a tiger to his lair. Or even,’ he added, ‘like a smith to his forge: it was here that the Bell was forged.’

‘What;’ asked the Princess, ‘In this very place?’

‘Follow me, Princess, and I’ll show you the very place where it was cast, using an alloy of the fine iron mined from beneath our very feet! And other things besides.’

So the Bellmaster took up, once more, the still‑blazing tinderbox and led them to a far corner of the great cavern to the now‑cold forges of the Ancients. And there among them were the two halves of a cast: the mould for the Bell of the Ancients.

Angelina ran he hand across the pitted insides of the mould. ‘Have you ever seen the Ancient of Ancients in this place?’ she asked the Bellmaster.

‘Do you know;’ came the reply, ‘apart from yourselves, the only person that I’ve ever seen down here is myself,’ he replied.

‘Did any of the Ancients find their way to my world,’ Barney asked, as they walked on down towards the great source of the Silver River.

The Bellmaster tousled his hair. ‘Who knows, young Barney,’ he smiled. ‘Look!’ The Bellmaster pointed and Barney’s eye was caught by the reflection of light on water. They had arrived. There beneath them, rose the springhead of the Silver River.

They had descended from the forges of the Ancients, by a flight of steps cut into the rocky floor, to a lower level. And there ahead of them lapped the living waters of the earth, forced up from who‑knows what depths. The Bellmaster’s light cast its flickering rays across the cavern walls and sent dappled waves shimmering over the surface. The waters spread out before them to form a small subterranean lake.

‘If you enter the waters to your left,’ the Bellmaster said, pointing, ‘and you stay close to the wall, where it is shallow, then you’ll reach the place where the waters spring out at the foot of the High Place. You’ll feel the rush of the water about you. Hold your nose and plunge under the lake. The force of the waters will do the rest. You’ll be out in the open again almost before you’ve had time to get your hair wet.’

Barney frowned. He didn’t particularly like the idea of putting his head under water. ‘You don’t really think we’re going to need a rear exit?’ he asked.

‘You never can tell, young Barney,’ the Bellmaster replied; ‘Better safe than sorry, huh?’

But, instead of plunging into the waters of the Silver River, the Bellmaster led them, to Barney’s relief; back out by the same way they had entered.

At the top of the steps the Bellmaster paused while the others walked, blinking, into the daylight, to heave downwards on the overhanging slab of rock that was the door into the cavern. The slab closed slowly behind htem, leaving no trace at all of the doorway save the recess through which the tinderbox had fired the opening mechanism. And, from several paces away, that too became barely distinguishable from all the other nooks and crannies that pockmarked the rock face.

The lid of the tinderbox was snapped shut. The flame extinguished, the Beachcomber handed the box back to the Beachcomber.

‘Here, Kirlmann,’ he said, ‘look after this, my friend. You’ll likely need it again before our mission is out.’ Kirlmann put the ornate box safely into the depths of his own pocket, and marvelled that there was no hint of warmth to suggest the blaze that it had held. The Beachcomber shook his head in puzzled wonder.

The Bellmaster smiled. ‘There will be more devices awaiting you back in my apartments, Kirlmann Wader. They will help provide delivery across the waters and concealment from unfriendly eyes. But first we must return to Seth Haven and try to discover what lies ahead.’

The Bellmaster swept off around the bluff to the steep grassy slopes on the far side of the High Place. There he paused and gazed down across the Island to the distant white walls of the City. The others, following on behind, stopped and followed his gaze. Even as they stood, the Bell rang out from high above the palace and sent three deep chimes rolling across the hills of Fa’Lacree and out across the endless oceans.
There was a sudden sadness in the eyes of the Bellmaster and he uttered a long, sad, sigh. ‘Should danger befall us, and I'm not around’ he said, ‘remember to make for this place. If the very worst happens and the City falls to the might of Zedd the Mystic, then make for the banks of the Silver River and follow the route we have taken today; only keep to the valley for as long as possible. When you come near, Barney, use the hazel fork to point the way to the cavern entrance. Now come along; it’s time to return.’

And so they retraced their steps and made their way across the Island, back to the entrance to the tunnel into the palace. When they finally re‑entered the Bellmaster’s chamber, the log fire had died away to a weary wisp of smoke that coiled lazily up the chimney. The Princess said her goodbyes and, squeezing Barney’s hand, slipped back to the Royal Apartments. Barney smiled weakly and looked to see if The Bellmaster or Kirlmann Wader had noticed. But Kirlmann was examining the tinder box, and the Bellmaster was ringing a service bell.

Servants soon ­arrived with plates and beakers, knives and spoons, and Barney and Kirlmann sat down with their host to a meal of broth, meat, bread, milk and fruits. Barney was having the time of his life.