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 inside. Then, leaving Miss Veronica to lean upon her stick, Miss Celandine skipped forward – clapping her hands in delight and cooing dreamily.
‘It’s been so long since you let us come down here!’ she declared reproachfully. ‘You are a meanie, Ursula – you know how I adored Nirinel so. Why look how shrivelled it has become. We must anoint it with the water like we used to and make it hale again.’
Anxiously, she trotted over to where Edie and her sister were sitting, then checked herself sharply and gazed at the circular dais in consternation.
‘But, the well!’ she gabbled in a flustered whine. ‘Such neglect. Ursula – what has happened? Why is nothing the same? First the loom was broken and now this!’
Clambering up beside them, she feverishly dragged the dead moss away and Edie saw that the stone platform was embellished with a sumptuously moulded frieze overlaid in tarnished silver and small blue gems. But even as she admired the decoration, Miss Celandine’s knobbly hands pulled away a great swathe of mouldering growth and there in the centre of the dais she uncovered a wide and precipitously deep hole.
Over the brink Miss Celandine popped her head, casting handfuls of the dead lichen down into the darkness – waiting and listening for the resulting splashes. But no sound rose into the cavern and a look of comprehension slowly settled over the woman’s wrinkled face.
‘I... I had forgotten,’ she whispered in a small, crestfallen voice. ‘The waters are gone, aren’t they, Ursula? The well is dry, it is, isn’t it?’
Her sister nodded. ‘The sacred spring dried up many, many years ago,’ she said wearily, as if repeating this information was an hourly ritual. ‘And every last drop of the blessed water was drained fifty years ago in order to vanquish Belial.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Miss Celandine sighed in regret. ‘So we can never heal Nirinel’s wounds. It makes me woefully sad to see it shrunken and spoiled. Oh, how lovely it was when we first arrived, how very, very lovely. Veronica, do you recall? Veronica?’
She whirled about to look at the sister she had left by the gate, then gave a little yelp when she saw the expression on Miss Veronica’s face.
Resting heavily upon her cane, Miss Veronica was staring up at the tremendous root with a ferocious intensity that was alarming to witness. It had been an age since she had last been permitted to venture down here and now the sight of it was stirring up the muddied corners of her vague, rambling mind.
‘I see four white stags ahead of us,’ she uttered huskily, wiping a trembling hand over her brow and smearing the beauty cream which covered it.
‘I don’t want to follow them,’ she wept, edging backwards. ‘Let me return, I must... I... there is something I have to do!’
Lurching against the carved wall, Miss Veronica lifted her cane and waved wildly about her head as if trying to ward something away.
‘Urdr!’ she shrieked, staring at Miss Ursula with mounting panic. ‘Do not force me to go with you. I must go back – I am needed!’
‘Veronica!’ Miss Celandine called, hurrying back to her stricken sister. ‘You have nothing to fear. That time has ended. We are safe – you are safe.’
Her sister’s eyes grew round with terror and she threw her arms before her face. ‘Safe!’ she wailed hysterically. ‘We are old, ancient and haggard, accursed and afflicted from that very hour. Won’t someone save me? The mist is rising. I beseech you – before it is too late. Please, I beg you my sister. Release me! Release me...’
Her cries melted into sobs as she buried her anguished face into Miss Celandine’s outstretched arms.
‘Hush,’ her sister comforted. ‘Come back, Veronica, it’s over now – it is, it is.’ But as she soothed the crumpled, whimpering figure she shot a scornful glance at Miss Ursula.
Still seated upon the edge of the well, Edie Dorkins watched the elderly woman at her side and was astonished to see the extent to which her sister’s outburst had distressed her.
Sitting stiff and as still as one of the stone images which swarmed over the walls, Miss Ursula’s small, piercing eyes glistened with tears and Edie could sense her inner struggle as she battled to control her emotions.
Then, mastering herself at last, Miss Ursula rose and, clenching her fists until they turned a horrible, bleached white, said, ‘Celandine, take Veronica back to the museum. This is no place for her, the... the musty atmosphere is injurious to her. You know that neither of you are allowed down here, I shall lock the doorway behind me next time.’
It appeared to Edie that Miss Celandine was on the verge of retaliating with some choice words of her own, but she must have thought better of it for she turned and helped the weeping Miss Veronica to hobble out through the gateway.
‘It was her,’ Miss Veronica’s blubbering voice sniffed and warbled. ‘She made me do it. I didn’t want to come... I didn’t want any of this.’
Rigid