Angus Wells - The God Wars 01 (76 page)

 
          
"Not
help," Yssym said urgently. "We stay, we die, too ... Must reach
trees fast."

 
          
Bracht
said, "He speaks the truth. Ahrd forgive us, but we have no other
choice."

 
          
Calandryll
saw tears in Katya's eyes. A woman began to wade toward them: went under
screaming as a dragon took her. Katya nodded, barking orders in the Vanu
tongue. The oarsmen dropped their harpoons and snatched up the poles.

 
          
They
reached the shelter of the mangroves and halted, looking back. The meadow was
quiet now. A few pieces of jagged timber floated among the lily pads, but of
the Vanu folk and their supplies there was no sign.

 
          
"Big
dragons not come here," Yssym said softly.

 
          
Katya
looked at him and shook her head, her eyes dark grey, stormy with grief. Quara
touched her shoulder, murmuring something in their own language, and she
answered in kind, slumping forlornly between the thwarts.

 
          
"Yssym
sorry," the halfling said.

 
          
"How
many more?" Katya whispered. "How many more must die?"

 
          
"Easier
now," Yssym offered. "We find Syfalheen soon ... I bring you safe to
clan."

 
          
"Too
late for them."

 
          
Katya
stared back across the meadow. Bracht said, "We must go on. Night
comes," and she nodded, not speaking, her eyes still intent on the spot
where her companions had died.

 
          
"Safe
place near," Yssym offered. "Find safe place ... You mourn
there."

 
          
Katya
nodded again, wiping her eyes, and spoke to the oarsmen. They gathered their
poles and sent the boat deeper in among the trees, leaving the meadow behind,
the shadows lengthening as the sun went down and the mangroves gathered thicker
about them, funereal, cloaked in grey moss like silent mourners.

 
          
More
than the loss of brave comrades afflicted them in the days that followed:
the bulk of their supplies had gone with the destruction of the boat and what
remained lasted onhr a short while. Yssym showed them edible plants, and caught
some fish, but it was poor fare, and eaten raw for want of combustible wood.
They lived in misery, never dry, only the gear purchased of ek'Salar resisting
the destructive atmosphere, while all else mildewed and began to rot.
Verdigris
colored buckles and fungus grew on
leather,- bowstrings softened and stretched; they oiled then weapons nightly;
and tempers frayed. Calandryll wondered that Tezin-dar should need more
guardians than the swamps provided, for it seemed they wandered trapped in a
limbo of gloomy trees and threatening meadows, where a myriad dangers lay in
wait, and that likely they would wander there forever.

 
          
Only
Yssym retained his optimism—and that a source of some irritation, for it seemed
the halfling shrugged off their losses urging them steadily onward with
promises that soon they should encounter his people and find food, shelter and
welcome. Their sole consolation was that no more died: they learned from the
mistakes of others and all avoided contact with the poisonous flowers and the
lethal insects, and when they crossed the paths of dragons they went slowly,
and with infinite caution. They detoured around the stands of leprous trees
Yssym said ate all living flesh that came within reach of the tentacular limbs,
and in time the mangroves thinned. The lily-filled water meadows became smaller
and less frequent, gradually giving way to reeds and rushes, the islands
growing larger and more numerous, spreading before them until they must abandon
the boats and move on foot, the surface shifting alarmingly beneath their feet.

 
          
"No
more dragons," Yssym promised. "Worst over now . . . Soon find
Syfalheen."

 
          
They
grunted dubious acceptance, shouldering what little was left to carry as the
halfling led them through a monotonous landscape of high reeds that rustled
softly in the slight, hot breeze, the path a winding thing of uncertain
footing, awash with brackish water for most of its length, the realization that
they finally trod land almost dry startling them.

 
          
Calandryll
had simply plodded, miserable, not noticing that the path climbed slightly
until he found the reeds no longer at eye level, but below him. He halted,
staring around, and saw Yssym point ahead, to where a low ridge of greyish
brown traversed the landscape.

 
          
"Syfalheen
there," the halfling declared confidently. "Come."

 
          
They
followed him down off the rise, losing sight of the ridge, then finding it
again, suddenly before them, a bank of muddy earth, not natural in origin, but
shaped, a barrier against the all-encroaching swamp. It was a dike, they saw,
when they climbed it, a long, low hummock that stretched between the reed beds
and the dry land beyond. Strange, stunted trees grew there, with avenues
between suggesting organization, a measure of order that prompted Calandryll to
think of the orchards of his homeland, that impression confirmed by the fruit
Yssym plucked, handing them each a purplish globe that, when peeled, offered a
succulent, sweet core. They ate greedily, the fruit the more delicious after
the long days of raw fish and fibrous swamp plants, their spirits lifting.

           
"Come, we find clan now,"
Yssym said. "Food there."

           
He set off at a brisk pace between
the trees, anxious, it seemed, to bring them swiftly to the promised comforts,
and in a while the orchards gave way to fenced fields where animals such as
none of the outlanders had seen before grazed on viridescent grass. Water was
still much in evidence, but channeled here, directed along conduits of ancient
stone to pools and troughs, spanned by small, arched bridges of antique design.
The track became a roadway, paved with zreat slabs, and Calandryll lengthened
his stride to catch the halfling.

 
          
"This
road," he asked, "the channels—who built them?"

 
          
"Old
Ones," Yssym said. "Long, long ago Old Ones build."

 
          
Calandryll
studied their surroundings, eyes opened by Yssym's casual words, seeing now
evidence of some forgotten civilization. The stone beside the road was no
random boulder, but a megalith, time-worn and mossy, but dressed for all it
tilted, and set there for some forgotten purpose,- the hummock in the field
beyond was a dolmen; and beyond—did the walls of some tumbled hall jut from the
grass? He was not sure, but he saw around him antiquities beyond the dreams of
such historians as Medith or Samium, the remnants of a lost civilization. He
trod, he realized, a road forgotten by time, hidden by Gessyth's swamps. He
touched the halfling's arm.

 
          
"Is
this Tezin-dar?"

 
          
Yssym
barked his harsh laughter and shook his head.

           
"This Syfalheen place, my clan
home ... not Tezin- dar. This my home ... You meet syfaba ... elders ... they
show you way to Tezin-dar."

 
          
"How
far?" Calandryll asked.

 
          
"We
find by dark." Yssym glanced up, gesturing at the lowering sun. "Sim
go down, we there."

 
          
"And
face the elders' test," said Bracht.

 
          
"Face
test, yes," Yssym agreed. "But rest first... Eat, bathe ... dry
clothes."

 
          
"Luxury,"
the Kern smiled. "And ale, Yssym? Shall there be ale?"

 
          
"Not
ale," the halfling replied, "Drink
chrysse
... You like, I
think."

 
          
Bracht
chuckled and slapped him companionably on the shoulder. "After that
stinking swamp, my friend, I'd like anything." His humor was restored by the
prospect and he turned, smiling, to Katya. "Food, do you hear? And something
to drink; dry clothes. Could we ask for more?"

           
"I'd have others share those
things," she said, moodily.

 
          
Bracht
fell into step beside her, studying her face, his own solicitous. "Leave
the dead behind," he said gently. "You've mourned them, but you
cannot bring them back. Let them go—we go on, and our success shall be their
monument."

 
          
Katya
glanced at him, dour for a moment, as though his pragmatism irked her, then her
smile returned, broader as he grinned, and she ducked her head.

 
          
"I
think I leam from you, Bracht of Cuan na'For. You are right—we go on to
Tezin-dar."

 
          
"If
we pass whatever test the elders set us," Calandryll murmured.

 
          
"We
shall," Bracht declared confidently. "We must! We've come too far to
fail now."

 
          
His
good humor was difficult to resist and Calandryll found himself grinning.
Bracht was right—Reba's augury, Ellhyn's scrying, even Varent's treacherous
machinations, all led them to this place; the mysterious Old Ones had sent
Yssym to await their coming and now they were close: how could they fail? They
would pass this test and go on to Tezin-dar; and if the Old Ones had anticipated
their arrival, then surely they must give up the Arcanum to be destroyed—why
else send watchers? He laughed, staring up at a sky no longer hung with moss
and vines, but blue, bright as hope, the air, for all it carried a memory of
the encircling swamp, clean. They would succeed! It was, now, only a matter of
time.

 
          
They
marched on, past fields and ponds, the sun sinking in the west, and came, as
the disk touched the horizon, to Yssym's home.

 
          
A
wall of tumbled stones, suggestive of ramparts, stood in their way, the road
passing between the columns of a long-fallen arch, beyond a wide swath of the
bright grass and bushes heavy with brilliant blossoms, scarlet and azure and
purple mingling in cheerful profusion, filling the air with pleasant perfumes
that masked the odors of the swamp. On the far side of that garden stood
buildings, ramshackle as the hide hunters' miserable settlement, but here
blending with the surroundings in harmonious confusion, one with the land.
Calandryll guessed, from the outlines of the place, that some keep had once
stood sentinel over the vale, its walls mostly collapsed now, though some still
remained, hung with climbing vines, those thick with flowers, the buildings
that replaced those once- great halls smaller, stone and wood and hides
following the contours of the mins, the floors streets now, those filling with
halfling folk come out to greet their visitors.

 
          
They
were no less strange than Yssym, but his odd physiognomy was familiar now and
consequently his people were less shocking to eyes grown accustomed to halfling
form. And they seemed a gentle folk, staring shyly from doorways, holding
children up to observe the newcomers—and they, Calandryll thought, likely as
strange to these inhabitants of the deep swamp as the halflings had at first
been to him. He smiled as they passed, following Yssym down a narrow street of
sumptuous tiles toward a circular structure larger than the rest, a rotunda of
wood and hides hung with gay blossoms, set at the center of what had once been
a vast courtyard.

 
          
Five
halflings awaited them there. Old as best he could judge, their green-hued skin
darker than Yssym's and seemingly drier, exhibiting hint of wrinkles, their
yellow eyes expressionless as they examined the visitors. They were dressed in
long robes of white and crimson, and each held a tall staff of dark wood,
tipped at both ends with silver. These, he decided, were the elders—the syfaba.
Yssym halted before them, bowing his head, and spoke in his own language,
gesturing at his companions.

 
          
The
elders listened in silence, the other folk of that strange place gathering in a
half-circle, some little distance off, all quiet, as if all were anxious to
hear what news the watcher brought. When he was done the elders spoke, briefly,
and Yssym bowed again, and turned to speak.