Angus Wells - The Kingdoms 03 (60 page)

 
          
“Likely
those gave you protection, too,” Kedryn smiled. “Estrevan and the stone
together ward you against the poison.”

 
          
“There
is a further test,” said Tepshen. “Look to the river and wash yourself.”

 
          
Brannoc
frowned, but some little glimmer of hope sparked in his dark eyes, and he
hauled himself stiffly to the thwarts, leaning over the dory’s side to cup
hands in the water and
splash
his face.

 
          
“Last
night the touch of water gave you pain,” Kedryn informed him. “We need
not.
. . ,” he bit off “fear you,” saying instead, “worry so
long as the sun is high.”

 
          
“And
when night falls?” grunted Brannoc, his voice bitter again. “What then?”

 
          
“Before
sunset we bind you,” Tepshen answered.

 
          
“Will
you bind me each night?” asked Brannoc mournfully. “Will you fear me each
night?”

 
          
“Mayhap
the curse will lift when we depart this realm,” Kedryn said. “Or the
talisman cure
you.”

 
          
“Mayhap,”
Brannoc responded, his voice low. “But if not— Tepshen, I hold you to your
word.”

 
          
“My
oath on it,” the kyo
promised,
his face solemn.

 
          
“Now
eat,” suggested Kedryn.

 
          
Brannoc
nodded, accepting the food handed him, his eyes somber as he chewed. Kedryn
sought to cheer him but he remained
sunk
in misery,
slumping in his place as the dory continued its gentle passage down the river,
all three eventually falling into silence as the day moved steadily toward
twilight.

 
          
When
the sun touched the uppermost branches of the forest Brannoc presented his
wrists to Tepshen and the kyo bound him securely. Kedryn spread the folded
tapestry on the scuppers and the half-breed curled on the makeshift blanket.

 
          
“Should
I break free,” he said to Tepshen.

 
          
“Aye,”
said the kyo, and Brannoc nodded, clenching his teeth as he waited for night to
fall.

 
          
The
first cries of the therianthropes elicted an answering wail, and Kedryn found
himself
unable to quell the rush of horror as he saw Brannoc
transformed again. Tepshen sat poised in the prow, hand on dirk as the
half-breed began to struggle against his bonds, his spine arching as he fought
to burst them, his head craning back, lips stretched over snarling fangs.
Kedryn wondered if the change was more marked this night, for it seemed that
Brannoc’s features altered more drastically, the prognathous extension of his
jaw more closely resembling that of a hound or a wolf, thicker, darker hair
sprouting on his arms and chest. He looked away after a while, no longer able
to bear the pain of seeing so stalwart a comrade brought so low, and as he
turned his head he saw again the red glow outlined against the sky.

 
          
It
was stronger now, fiercer, filling
all the
forward
horizon with a crimson light that seemed to flicker along its lower margins, as
if fueled by inconceivable fires. He pointed, raising his voice to shout over
the howling of the changelings and Brannoc’s furious growling.

 
          
“Do
you see it? Those must surely be Taziel’s mountains of fire.”

 
          
Tepshen
turned, peering briefly ahead before swinging back to fix apprehensive eyes on
the wriggling half-breed.

 
          
“Aye.”
Like Kedryn, he shouted. “So do the fire mountains of
my homeland look, though less fierce.”

 
          
“How
long, think you, before we reach them?” Kedryn yelled.

 
          
Tepshen
shrugged. “Be they great as they seem, no more than a day or two.”

 
          
Kedryn
nodded, looking once more to Brannoc, wondering if he must be bound each night
of the journey, a further, uglier, doubt instilling itself in his mind. Should
the half-breed continue this metamorphosis would he be opened to Ashar’s fell
influence? Might it be that the closer they came to the god, the more danger
the transformed half-breed would offer? Might Brannoc become a hazard by day as
well as night? If that should prove to be the case . . . His mind sheered from
the thought, for it had only one logical conclusion: Tepshen must make good his
promise.

 
          
He
fastened a hand about the talisman, voicing a silent prayer that the Lady
grant
his comrade salvation, that she lift the curse imposed
by the succuba’s venom and return Brannoc to his normal state.

 
          
He
prayed fervently, aware as he did so that an overwhelming purpose filled him.
He had felt anger before, a great rage that Ashar should meddle so foully in
the affairs of men, a fury that the god should steal his beloved Wynett; that
and a loathing, a contempt, for the malign deity. Now those emotions became
something more and he felt a pure wrath flood the very fibers of his soul, a
massive outrage that Ashar should taint his comrade. It filled him, burning
bright and fierce as the fires blazing along the horizon, reverberating within
him so that Brannoc’s cries, the yammering of the changelings, all became
drowned out and he stared to where the fires burned, his lips moving as he
spoke aloud a vow that was equally a part of his prayer:

 
          
“I
will slay him! On my life I will destroy him.”

 
          
The
threnody of the changelings seemed to increase in volume at his words, and
Brannoc’s struggles grew fiercer. Tepshen stirred in the prow, leaning toward
the half-breed, who strained up at his approach, fangs snapping viciously. The
kyo drew back, his face expressionless, and Kedryn thrust the talisman toward
Brannoc, seeing the bound man recoil from the blue light, moaning at first, but
then becoming still. It seemed the stone brought him some measure of peace, for
his struggles decreased and he ceased his snarling, mouthing a low whimper and
then falling silent.

 
          
“Sleep
if you can,” urged Tepshen.

 
          
Kedryn
nodded and closed his eyes.

 
          
He
was not sure if he slept and dreamed, or if the talisman—or some other
agency—set images in his mind, but he saw Wynett cowering in a place of
darkness, threatened by a shadowy creature whose form he could not discern, but
whose very presence radiated evil. He woke to the prodding of Tepshen’s
sheathed sword, the kyo’s face frowning in the light of a new sun.

 
          
“You
cried out,” the easterner said.

 
          
Kedryn
nodded, the aftermath of the images still vivid in his mind, his mouth dry with
fear. “I saw Wynett,” he said slowly. “She is in mortal peril.”

 
          
“She
has the talisman,” Tepshen responded.

 
          
Kedryn
touched his own half of the stone and felt his fear magnified. There was a
difference that he could not define. The jewel still vibrated beneath his
fingers but its pulsation was somehow changed and he looked to his comrade with
frightened eyes.

 
          
“We
do all we can,” said Tepshen, recognizing panic in Kedryn’s gaze. “Soon we
shall reach Taziel’s smithy. Look yonder. ”

 
          
He
gestured over his shoulder and Kedryn looked to the horizon, seeing the day’s
new sky not blue, but pink, glowing with
a rubescence
other than the blush of dawn. Shadow hung beneath the rubrication as if stone
bulked there, and Kedryn fought the panic, his grip hard about the talisman.

 
          
“Aye,”
he said, his voice ringing hollow.
“Soon.”

 
          
“Mayhap
Ashar sends phantoms to confuse us,” Tepshen suggested.

 
          
“Mayhap.”

 
          
There
was scant enthusiasm in the response and the kyo pointed to Brannoc, seeking to
cheer Kedryn.

 
          
“At
least our half-breed friend is whole again.”

 
          
Kedryn
nodded, moving to release Brannoc from his bonds. The former wolf”s-head grunted,
raising a face become gaunt. As if to confirm he was man once more he leaned
over the dory’s side, splashing water on his face, his enthusiasm threatening
to spill them all.

 
          
“I
am hungry,” he muttered, reluctant to meet their eyes.

 
          
They
ate and composed themselves for another day of travel that passed without
incident, fading into a twilight that again saw Brannoc bound, thrashing in the
scuppers until Kedryn held the talisman close once more. The light on the
horizon was brighter now, a fierce crimson that remained visible when the sun
rose,
no
longer pink in day’s light but a fiery red
that colored the sky, merging reluctantly with the blue. The woodlands thinned,
the therianthropes became fewer, and the meadows along the banks grew sere. The
air was warmer and acrid with the mounting scent of ash, and the ensuing dawn
saw an end to the pastoral landscape.

 
          
The
dory rocked precariously down a mild cascade as the current increased its pace,
running between banks of naked stone that gave way not to further timberland,
but to an ashen terrain reminiscent of the Desolate Plain. The ground was
barren, cinereous with the emanations of the peaks that were now clearly
visible, no longer a dark line on the farther limits of sight, but a massive,
jagged range that thrust angry pinnacles toward a no less angry sky. No blue
showed there, only the furious red that shimmered, incandescent above the
hills. Warmth became heat, the air heavy with ash that drifted down like rain,
layering the banks, floating ugly on the water. The air was tainted with the
reek of sulfur and soon they heard a sonorous booming. As the dory brought them
closer they saw that the sound was accompanied by great gusts of flame that
spouted heavenward, spewing fire and ash like dragon’s breath. Brannoc rose
from his depression to stare at the spectacle and Kedryn began to fear for
their vessel, for as night approached sparks became visible, fluttering down to
scorch hair and exposed skin.

 
          
Brannoc’s
transformation was less vigorous that night, as if the absence of the
changelings lessened his mutation, and he lay quiescent in the scuppers,
whimpering like a dog terrified by a storm.

 
          
It
was, indeed, a frightening night. Fire burned along the sky, a great curtain of
red hanging above them, bright sparks cascading down, the river loud with the
splashing of hilling stone that sizzled as it struck the water when such minor
sounds could be heard through the thunder of the mountains. Proximity increased
the terrifying grandeur of the peaks, the rock dark under their overlay of
flame, massive jets of fire roaring upward to set the night ablaze. Several
times Kedryn and Tepshen moved to stamp out small fires started by the hellish
rain, or splashed water over clothing that scorched and threatened to burn,
ignoring Brannoc’s awful moans as the liquid touched him, and they were
fatigued as the darkness brightened into day.

 
          
There
was little change from night, for the sky merely became a more candescent
crimson, the falling ash thicker, the heat fiercer, the river itself steaming
now, the air they breathed noxious. The current grew stronger and the dory was
buffeted as it rode the flow, all three clutching the gunwales as the little
craft was carried relentlessly deeper into the forbidding foothills. Around
noon
they saw a narrow isthmus of ashy rock
across their path, the stream splashing furiously against the barrier stone, a
beach of fire-bleached pebbles to the side. The dory drove fast toward the
promontory,
spinning wild as eddies took it, striking rock
that pushed them landward. Then the force of the water flung the stern onto the
strand.