Beguilers (16 page)

The shawl caught on a branch and was torn from my shoulders. I lost one of my boots in a crack between two rocks. But there was no going back for either of them. The impetus the beguiler was exerting was just too strong.

And then, all at once, I knew where I was heading and, at the same time, I knew that I had always known. I plummeted out of the forest at the top of the slope of razor-grass and rough weeds which dropped away, almost sheer, to the lip of the drowning pool.

A thousand thoughts ran through my mind, all in an instant. I could have stopped, it still wasn’t too late, but the prospect of release outweighed my fear. I would fall, certainly, but I could swim. The sides of the drowning pool were too steep to climb, but there might be a rope there holding one of the leather buckets. I would be able to get a grip on it and climb up or wait until someone heard my cries. And surely the beguiler wouldn’t be able to influence me once I was in the water. I couldn’t fall, since I would already have fallen.

It was over. It was over. That was all that I could think as I abandoned myself to gravity. My legs went from under me. A fallen branch gave me a crack on the jaw as I fell. Razor-grass whipped at my hands and face, stinging the skin as it scratched and cut, but it was yielding. It gave some cushioning to my fall so that when I reached the lip of the drowning pool and plunged on down, I was, at least, still conscious.

I hit the cold, dark water with a shock like breaking the surface of time. For a moment I forgot everything; who I was and where I had come from. All longing left me, even the desire for life itself, and a white spirit light filled my whole being with a glorious sense of understanding. But as quickly as it had come, the light departed. In its place came panic, as every vein and artery in my body changed gear dramatically and my head filled with a terrible, red roaring. I was still descending, propelled deeper and deeper by the momentum of my fall. Panic gave way to rage as I realised how far I had come and how close I was to losing the battle against the beguiler in this final round.

I began to struggle against the water, paddling with my arms and legs in an effort to reverse direction, but it soon became apparent that I was merely exhausting the supply of air that I was holding in my lungs. With a huge effort of will I stopped fighting and relaxed, praying that I could hold out until the water itself brought me back to the surface again. If that happened I would be all right; I could float for as long as it took to get my breath back, then swim for the rope.

The water rolled me over, turned my face away from the fathomless dark below towards the dim brightness above. The distance seemed infinite, and yet I was still descending. I turned again, then again, and realised that something other than my own weight was causing me to do that. Some current down here in the depths had me in its grip and was pulling me downwards.

I resisted a powerful impulse to open my mouth and pull for air. I had been so sure that I would surface again, but now I knew that I could no longer count on another breath. I may well have taken my last.

The current was buffeting me around, sucking me rapidly towards some unknown outlet at the southern end of the pool. Without even thinking about it, I found myself working at the knot of the bag on my left wrist. It was now or never.

The leather thong had been softened by the water and the knot seemed to have tightened. I tugged at it fruitlessly and then, in desperation, pulled with all my might at the bag itself, hoping to snap the strings. All that happened was that it tightened still further around my wrist.

The air in my lungs had given off all its goodness and was stale and useless like the water that has been used for washing rice. My mind was beginning to crack with the effort of resisting the urge to breathe. I yanked again at the bag, but there was something wrong with it. I could no longer feel the hard shapes of the beguilers’ eyes.

I was still grappling with it when a sudden whirlpool grabbed my body and sucked it sideways like a leaf into a drain. Now there was no light, above or below. I was in some sort of channel, being rushed along by a racing current, almost straight down. There was no longer any use in struggling. I had taken on the greatest challenge my life could offer, and I had failed. There was no fear now, just a strange sense of resignation, almost satisfaction, as I gave up the fight and let go.

I was outside my body, watching as it was buffeted along by the rushing water. It seemed like such an insignificant thing, there in that hole in the mountain; the mountain itself nothing more than a bump on a planet which rotated indifferently in the black vastness of eternity. The death of one small human being seemed to me to be of no significance at all.

I
WAS IN TOTAL
darkness, and for some time my only awareness was of having made an extraordinary journey. I might have been between worlds or beyond worlds. Until I felt stones and gravel shifting beneath me, I wasn’t even aware that I still had a body.

It hurt when I moved. I closed my eyes again and drifted back into that other darkness, where everything was comfortable and warm.

When I next woke the beguiler was dancing in front of my face. Since it cast no light around it, I was no clearer about where I might be. For a single, soul-destroying moment I imagined that I had been thrown into perpetual darkness in some forgotten corner of the universe where I would be doomed to endure the beguiler’s company throughout eternity. But if that was so, why was there a stream there, licking gently at my feet? I listened, and could hear its smooth movement among the stones. My skin stung where the razor-grass had cut it and I felt as if every muscle in my body was swollen and bruised. But I was alive, without a doubt, and for a while I lost awareness of all else but the simple pleasure of drawing breath.

The beguiler swooped and circled in the air above my head, like a moth around a leaf-lantern. From time to time it dropped down in front of my face and hovered there, its golden eyes full of yearning. I watched it, aware that it was trying to get my attention and then, suddenly, joyously aware that it was failing to do so. Something had changed within me; I might not be dead but I had come through death; I had reached the point of no return and I had surrendered to it. The beguiler no longer had power over me. As though it sensed that I had come to this understanding, it swung down before me once more. I met its glorious golden eyes calmly, neither desiring nor fearing it. There was no connection between us any longer and abruptly it gave up, soared away from me, and vanished into the darkness. At that moment, my worn-out spirit began to revive. I turned myself over and carefully sat up, facing the invisible stream. The leather thong was tight around my wrist, and I recalled the struggle to untie it. The bag was soaked through, and when I felt it I realised that I must have succeeded in opening it, because the little balls were gone and all I could feel were the soft, squishy creases of the wet leather. That would, I supposed, account for my survival and my new immunity to the beguiler. Something spectacular must have happened when I opened the bag, but hard as I tried, I couldn’t remember.

I wasn’t hungry but I knew I was weak from lack of food. When I ran my hands over my body to check for injury I could feel bones that I hadn’t known were there, pressing tight against my fleshless skin. That seemed to be the worst of it, though. Nothing hurt more than a bad bruise would; everything seemed to be working.

I dozed off again, clear of the water this time on a patch of smaller, sandy gravel. When I woke, a dreadful anxiety clawed at my gut. I had been sure that light would come, but still it hadn’t. If I hadn’t seen the beguiler, I might have believed that I was as blind as Marik. The thought of him brought a warm glow and a simultaneous sense of loss. I missed him. I wished that he was with me. And not only because he was an expert on the dark.

How did he do it? He saw with his feet and hands, and if he could, then why couldn’t I? Carefully, haunted by visions of yawning abysses, I began to explore the space around me. I stayed on my hands and knees, feeling ahead of me, crawling across the stony floor. Before long I came to a rock wall, and I was following it around, inch by inch, when I heard a noise in the air above my head. I ducked instinctively and kept still. A moment later the sound came again; a sudden rasping growl which grew louder as it approached me, changed tone as it passed, then stopped. I knew that sound, but I hadn’t heard it for some time. The third time it came I raised my head and listened. Buzz-bats. My world expanded, taking in the space around me and moving beyond, because if there was a way for the bats to come into this hollow darkness, there must be a way for me to get out. What was more, if they were coming home now, it must be time for them to sleep. It must be morning.

As if I had to believe in it before it could happen, the first tinge of blue crept into the blackness. The entrance to the cave was out of my sight, but the light was creeping round the walls from the direction of freedom. Another buzz-bat whirred past my head, then another and another. And suddenly I could see them, first one at a time and then a cloud of tiny, leathery shapes which flapped round the curving wall of my prison and disappeared into the darkness above the stream.

My body was weak from want of food, but my spirit sustained me, growing stronger with the light. Long before all the bats had returned, I knew where I was and with a great surge of delight I leapt to my feet. It was the buzz-bat cave where the lepers once lived. I was barely a mile from the village. My heart reached out, everywhere at once. I found myself laughing and profusely thanking the buzz-bats who were arranging themselves in ragged black clumps all over the roof of the cave. I longed to see my family, old Hemmy, even the stuffy old priests with their disparaging expressions; I loved them all without exception. I had caught a beguiler and gone through hell, but now I was free.

As the light strengthened and began to flood into the darkness, I looked around me. At one side of the cave was the circular tunnel through which the rushing waters of the stream had carried me before they washed me on to the shore. I wondered where it led; what kind of route I had taken between the drowning pool and the cave. An idea began to emerge, but before I could examine it I was distracted by a strong smell of peppernut. Breakfast in the village! I began to make my way towards the mouth of the cave, avoiding the occasional late-coming buzz-bat, when it occurred to me that it was impossible for the smell of peppernut to be so strong when the village was a mile away.

I stopped and sniffed again. There was no mistaking the powerful scent, and I began to suspect that my mind was playing tricks on me. I looked around, wondering if there was some cache of food hidden somewhere in the cave, but realised that even if there was it wouldn’t give off that smell. Peppernut only smells like that when it is still on the tree, or when it is being soaked for porridge.

I walked to the mouth of the cave and looked around. The ground dropped away sharply below me and I could see out above the treetops into the next valley. A nightangel was singing. I closed my eyes and listened to it. As I did so I heard Marik’s voice reaching out to me in my isolation, felt his gentle touch on my hand, saw his back as he turned away from me and began to cross the mountain; a blind boy walking alone, into the snow, into the night. For what? The nightangel answered my question and I found that I understood every note, every tone, every sigh and every sob and every exaltation. I would see Marik again. No power on earth could keep us apart. Maybe he was on his way back over the pass already. We would eat fritters at Jeppo’s, or drink a whisker-fruit brew with Hemmy. Soon. We would walk together without fear in the darkness, guided by an inner sight that only we shared.

The nightangel stopped abruptly, silenced by the rising sun. A striped deer and her calf stood still and watched me for a while, then returned to their browsing. A brilliant blue twister winged through the air and the whole forest seemed to swell and vibrate with hidden life. In that delicious moment, as I savoured the return of my senses and the vivid impressions they brought, I would have forgotten about the peppernut mystery if the smell hadn’t hit me again, even more strongly than before. It was close to me, somewhere. I searched the trees, but they were all softwoods; no food trees of any kind. In any case, the smell was so strong that it had to be coming from somewhere even nearer than the trees. I looked down at my feet and the ground all around, and then I began to examine my own clothes. Perhaps there were peppernuts in the pocket of the jumper that Marik had lent me? As I lifted my hand to open the pocket, the smell came even closer and my attention was caught by the leather bag, still tied to my wrist. I noticed for the first time that the tight thong was interfering with my veins, and my hand was red from the pressure of restricted blood.

I searched the ground for a sharp stone and began to cut the thong. Now the smell was maddening. With a shock, I realised that it was coming from the bag itself. As the thong finally broke, I lifted the bag to my nose. There was no doubt about it. I squeezed it between my fingers. There was something squashy in there. Now I knew that the reason I couldn’t remember opening the bag was that I hadn’t. I opened it now and shook the lump of slimy peppernut mush out on to my hand. There was nothing else in there at all.

I sat down on the ground and laughed. I laughed until tears streamed down my face, until my ribs ached, until I remembered what Hemmy had said about Dabbo; about how he had opened the bag and it had made him mad.

There was no magic in there. There never had been. The magic resided in not opening it; in holding out; in battling through. Dabbo’s little bag had taught me that you can’t see magic, or carry it in your hand. It could still live in your heart, though. It could put you in the right place at the right time. It could bring you the help that you needed.

It had done that for me.

I stood up, and was about to set out when the potters and their apprentices from the village came along, on their way to dig clay from the pits a few miles further down. They stopped dead when they saw me, as rigid and fearful as the striped deer. I waved cheerfully and greeted them by name. For a while longer they stood, watching suspiciously. If it had happened the day before I might have seized up, afraid of their scorn, but not any longer. Never again. That certainty must have been transmitted to them because after a while they approached and greeted me with caution but without hostility. I answered their questions as well as I could, but I found it tiring, and asked to take my leave of them to return to the village.