Kingdoms of the Wall (30 page)

And if something was beckoning, we were responding. We were in a steep land now, heavily wooded, where the hills were of a grayish-white stone deeply pockmarked by caves, and though the path was difficult, we made our way up the ever more rugged incline with such frantic zeal that we outstripped our own strength, and from time to time had to halt and drop to the ground, laughing and gasping, until we could catch our breath. And then we were onward again, furiously slashing through brambles, scrambling over boulders, clawing our way upward, upward, upward, moving faster than we would have thought possible. The higher we went, the more urgent became the call.
Come to me! Come! Come!

Traiben spoke to me and expressed his concern. I shared it. "We're starting to lose control of ourselves," I said uneasily to Thrance. "You said that you would guard us against the Kavnalla's song."

"And so I will."

"Shouldn't we be taking some precautions by this time, then?"

"Soon. Soon. There's no need at this point." Nor would he say more than that, however hard I pressed him.

And upward we sped, willy-nilly. We were all but running up the slope now. The thought came to me once again that despite his protestations Thrance might indeed be the creature of the Kavnalla, and was merrily leading us toward our doom.

Others now were beginning to wonder, not just Traiben. Our ever swifter pace was taking its toll on their bodies and stirring troublesome questions in their minds. Where were we going in such a hurry? they asked. What is this thing that speaks in our heads? Is there danger? Tell us, tell us, tell us, Poilar!

But there was nothing I could say. I knew no more than they did.

I felt that it was my responsibility to take some action. But what? Thrance was elusive. Often he walked ahead, moving with remarkable swiftness for one whose body was so transformed into twistedness and deformity. Watching him striding so swiftly, I was reminded again of the shining young Thrance of years ago, bursting from Pilgrim Lodge and running ahead of all his Forty up the road that led to Kosa Saag. So there is still some of Thrance within that ruined body, I thought. I pushed myself to catch up with him. He moved serenely, his breathing utterly normal, as though this pace were nothing for him.

I said, "We can't go on like this. The voice grows louder and louder, and people are speaking out. We have to know what we're getting into, Thrance."

"Wait. There's time yet for you to learn."

"No. Now."

"No, not now. The time will come." And with a new burst of speed he streaked ahead. I followed him, but it was hard for me to match his pace, and my bad leg began to ache. How did he do it? There
had
to be a demon in him. Again I caught up with him, and again I pressed him, and again he eluded me with grinning evasions, putting me off, telling me the time was not yet.

I felt a burst of rage. I should kill him, I thought. And take us all away from this place. Unless he is killed he will never let us alone, and ultimately he will destroy us. For he is a demon, or else he has one in him.

But the thought of killing Thrance appalled me. I tried to sweep it from my mind. Another day, I told myself, or two or three, and then I would confront him once again, and this time I wouldn't let him wriggle from my grasp. It was a weak decision, and I had no illusions about that. But Thrance baffled me. I had never had to deal with anyone like him before.

My companions were growing even more restless now. After dark one night a delegation came to me, troubled and angry, when we had halted after a day of wild climbing that left us all exhausted: Galli, and Naxa, and Talbol, and Jaif. The pull was so strong now that we were climbing virtually from dawn to dusk; but finally we had stopped from sheer weariness, despite the insistent booming in our minds, and were camped in a place of little shallow caverns against the pitted and eroded Wall.

Hendy was with me in the small dank cavern I had chosen. Galli said, very brusquely, "Send her out."

"What is this?" I asked. "Am I to be murdered?"

"We want to speak with you. What we have to say is between you and the four of us, and no one else."

"Hendy shares my sleeping-place, and much else of mine besides. Whatever you have to say you can say in front of her."

"It makes no difference to me," said Hendy softly, and began to get up to go.

"Stay," I said, catching her by the wrist.

"No," Galli said. She seemed gigantic, standing there in the mouth of my shallow little cave. Her face was fierce. I had never seen her with such a look as she had now. "Send her outside, Poilar."

I was eager for sleep, and I suppose I had the doing of the Changes on my mind also, and the voice of the Kavnalla was louder than ever, like the beating of a drum in my brain,
Come, come, come,
making me short-tempered and impatient. I turned my back and said, "Let me be, will you? I'm in no mood for discussing anything with any of you now. Talk to me about it in the morning, Galli."

"We'll talk now," Galli replied.

Then Talbol said to her, "What difference does it make if Hendy hears this or not? Let her stay while we speak."

Galli grunted and shrugged, but offered no objection.

"Will you hear us?" Talbol asked.

"Go ahead," I said grudgingly.

Talbol swung around toward me. I remembered that he had been Muurmut's man. Just as well Muurmut was gone, I thought: I could imagine how much difficulty Muurmut would be making for me if he had been a member of this delegation too. I studied Taibol's broad flat face, brown as the leather that is the trade of his House. This was a strange alliance, I thought, my friends Galli and Jaif with Talbol and Naxa, who never had had much love for me.

He said, "What we want to know is simply this, Poilar: Why are we rushing forward in this lunatic way, when we don't know where we're going or what we're heading toward?"

"We're going into the Kingdom of the Kavnalla," I replied. "And through it, and beyond."

"Into it, yes," said Naxa, stepping forward to stand at Taibol's side. "But beyond it? How do you know? What if Thrance means only to deliver us up to this unknown thing that we hear speaking in our minds?"

"Not so," I said, looking away from Naxa in discomfort, for the fear that Naxa had voiced was of course one that I shared. But I couldn't say that to him. "He has a way of protecting us against it."

"Ah, and what may that be?" Galli asked.

"I don't know."

"But he intends to teach it to us, sooner or later?"

"When the time comes, is what he told me."

"And when is that?" she asked me. "What is he waiting for? It seems to us that the time is very close. He protected his own Forty so well that of them all he's the only one who still survives. My brother was a member of his Forty, Poilar. And now we fly toward your Kavnalla day by day, and its voice grows stronger and stronger within us, and Thrance tells us nothing."

"He will. I know he will."

"You know? You think? You believe? You hope? Which is it, Poilar?" Great heavy-set Galli rose up before me like a tower, her eyes ablaze in the dimness of the little cave. "Why don't you demand that he tell you right now? Are you our leader, or is he? When will he teach us what we need to know in order to defend ourselves?"

"He will," I said again, with less conviction than before. "In the proper time."

"Why do you trust him, Poilar?" Galli asked.

I had no answer for that.

"What I think is that we should throw him over the cliff," said Talbol abruptly. "And make our way down from this place and take some other route upward, before we discover that there's no longer any turning back for us. There is change-fire here, somewhere nearby. We are in great danger. And he brings us ever closer to it."

"Just so," said Jaif, who had hung back until this moment, saying nothing. "Kill him now, while we still can."

"Kill him?" I said, astounded. This from Jaif, the kindest of men?

"Kill him, yes," Jaif said again. He looked a little stunned at his own audacity. But then Galli nodded vehemently and said, "There's something to the idea, Poilar. I took Thrance's side when he first came to us, but also I said then that we should kill him if he made problems for us. I didn't really mean it then, but now I do. He's rotten through and through. He's nothing but trouble, don't you see?" Naxa too spoke up in favor of our ridding ourselves of Thrance, and Talbol also, and suddenly they were all talking at once, crying out for an end to him and an immediate descent from this hill of voices, while beneath all their hubbub I heard the Kavnalla's urging louder than ever, pounding like the beating of a drum in my brain,
Come, come, come.

My head was whirling. There was a great roaring in my ears.

"Quiet, all of you!" I cried out over the turmoil, and there must have been such madness in my tone that it awed them all into silence. They stood in the opening of the cave, gaping at me. Then in a quieter voice I said, "There'll be no talk of killing Thrance, or anyone else, unless it comes from me. I'll speak again with him tomorrow, and tell him that the time has arrived for him to teach us how to ward off the song of the Kavnalla. And he will give me the answer we need to have him give, or he'll regret it, I promise you that. And now good night to you all. Go. Go."

They looked at me and went, without another word.

My skull throbbed as though someone had been drumming on it. My thoughts raced in circles.

Hendy said, after a long while, "What if they're right, Poilar? What if Thrance is really our enemy?"

"If that is so, then I'll deal with him as he needs to be dealt with."

"But if we're already caught in the snare of the Kav—"

"You too?" I asked. "Gods! I see there's to be no peace for me tonight." I lay stiff and trembling. Her fingers crept along my shoulders, trying to give me some ease. But my every muscle was tight and my forehead ached dismally. The voice behind it seemed louder and louder.
Come to me. Come to me. Come to me.
The Kavnalla wasn't merely beckoning any longer, but commanding. Despair engulfed me. How could we ever resist that urgent pull? I have led us all into the serpent's jaws, I told myself. We will be swept up in the change-fire that blazes in its lair, and our forms will be lost and we will become as monsters. And why have I brought us to this dire place? Because Thrance had once been a glorious hero whom I revered; because I had allowed myself to be deceived for the sake of the Thrance that once had been, when I was a boy. I should have thrust him away when he first approached us in the land of the red spires. Instead I had taken him into our Forty, and this was how he had repaid us. In that moment I could have killed Thrance with my own hands.

Hendy rubbed against me and I felt the soft swelling of a breast. She had begun to enter the Changes. But pleasure now was far from my mind, or even the higher unity that the Changes give us. I murmured an apology to her and got up, and went out into the night.

A light rain was falling, more of a mist. The blurred light of several moons glimmered faintly through it. I saw a figure moving about not far away, and thought at first it was one of the sentries of the watch, Gazin or Jekka; but a moment later, when my eyes were better adjusted to the darkness, I recognized the grotesque elongated form of Thrance, outlined like a bizarre nightmare wraith against the darkness.

He waved to me. "You want to kill me?" he said. He sounded almost cheerful. "Well, then, here I am. How do you want to do it? A knife? A cudgel? Or with your bare hands, Poilar? Do it and be done with it, if you like."

"What are you talking about?" I asked him. My voice was like a rasp in my own ears. Thrance made no immediate reply, but sauntered toward me in his lopsided way, his head bobbing and weaving and lurching about with every awkward step he took.

I squared myself away, in case he had some thought of striking first. But when he came closer I saw that he was unarmed, and his stance was not that of a man who was expecting combat.

He said, "I have many enemies in this camp, I see. Well, all right. What do you want to do?"

"You were listening?"

"I was out and about. Voices carry." He seemed utterly indifferent to anything that had been said. "That Galli—I remember her. Her brother was my friend, once. A lively girl, Galli, but a great deal too fat for my taste, is what I thought back then. And of course still too young for the Changes when I left Jespodar. I had my pick of them, back then. But that was when I was beautiful." He bent himself over into a sort of crooked arch, so that his eyes were on a level with mine. "What do you say, Poilar? Am I really as despicable as they say, your Galli and her friends? Kill me, then. And then deal with the Kavnalla whatever way you can."

"There'll be no killing. But this thing called the Kavnalla frightens us."

"You need only sing to it," Thrance said coolly. "That's the whole secret. I was going to tell you tomorrow. But now you know it. Sing. Sing. Open your mouths and sing. There, the secret's out. You can kill me, if you like. But why bother?" And he laughed in my face.

* * *

It was as he said, nothing more. The way to counteract the lure of the Kavnalla was simply to sing. Anything, the more discordant the better.