The Black Beast (16 page)

We headed north, toward the Chardri and the bridge of Serriade that would take us across into Tiela. Once more Shamarra and her white mare and the beast frolicked at their whim, and once more Frain watched, as the other men watched—who could help it? But there was a different quality to Frain's gaze those days. I do not think his devotion to her had lessened, and his anger had long since abated, for he was not one to hold onto wrath. But he seemed older, with a guarded, waiting air that was new. I doubt if Tirell noticed. Sometimes I wondered if he saw Frain, or Shamarra, or even the road before us very clearly.

It is useless to speak much of that journey, for it lasted only three days. On the morning of the fourth day we awoke to find ourselves consigned to our own familiar company. Sethym's men had deserted us during the night. They had taken nothing that was not theirs; they had simply made shift to quietly depart. I could not blame them too severely. The Serriade was manned with twice their force, if report ran true.

“That's what comes of meat and roots and no women,” Tirell grumbled. “Well, let us turn around.”

“Back to Gyotte?” I inquired with sinking heart.

“Aftalun, no! I don't want to see Sethym again for as many moons as I can possibly avoid him. But we cannot cross the Chardri, it seems, so we shall have to go around it, beyond the Coire Adalis. We must take to the mountains.” His eyes sparkled as if he had said we must take to the skies. And indeed, to my way of thinking, the one was as outlandish as the other.

“Can you be serious?” I squeaked.

“Surely,” Tirell remarked in mild rebuke. “I'll warrant you the Boda will not follow us there.”

Chapter Five

I had to admit that the Boda were our greatest fear for the time. We mounted in haste to be away before they found us. We left the main road and took to the countryside, riding as quickly and furtively as we could. None of us was in condition to fight even a few Boda. So once more we fled, riding late into the night and the night after and the night after that. More than once Tirell led us on a queer sort of dogleg without saying why. I could only conclude that he was seeing red shirts swim before his visionary eyes, as before.

We skirted Gyotte to the east, hoping our enemies would be searching for us more toward Melior, and rode on through parching heat. That summer's drought was the worst yet. I scanned the distant Perin Tyr constantly for a sign of rain, but not a wisp of cloud appeared on that horizon. The sky was always blue, a bright, hard blue one learned to curse. The land seemed made of ashes and old bones. The dust always found its way to our mouths and eyes, even when we rode abreast. By the time we finally reached the mountains I was too weary to be very much afraid of them anymore, especially since we found pools of water hidden in the hollows of their flanks.

The Lorc Tutosel were not much like the hulks of Acheron I had first approached with Frain. But they were just as deadly in their way—death and danger are in all the mountains that encircle Vale, but such lovely peril in those southern mountains! Slender trees sprang up all around their feet, swaying like dancing maidens in lacy, fluttering clothing of green and gold jeweled here and there by bright, bold-throated birds. There were no birds in Acheron, but I was not much comforted by the ones I heard in Lorc Tutosel. I wondered which of them might be the night bird of the song.

The night bird sings

Of asphodel;

The day bird wakes

And flaps his wings

And cannot fly

And lifts the cry

O Tutosel, Ai Tutosel!

The night bird sings

Of Vieyra's spell
,

Of Aftalun's

Sweet hydromel

And dark chimes of

The wild bluebell

In reaches of high Tutosel
.

The dawn bird wakes

And lifts his wings

And cannot fly

And sadly sings

O Philomel
,

O mortal's knell
,

O Tutosel, Ai Tutosel!

All very mysterious and rather melancholy. The ringing of a bluebell signifies death. I took some surreptitious and superstitious comfort in the fact that it was not the season for those flowers. I sensed even then that the Lorc Tutosel were as seductive and treacherous as that strange bird of their name. Still, we rode gently on their cool, tree-shaded slopes; we slept soundly in their heather—and even though they cozened me to my death, years later, I look back on them with longing and delight.

We made our way eastward toward the Coire Adalis, the Deep of Adalis, where the river Chardri plunged back to the flood beneath. The mountains grew wilder and steeper by the day, and we edged upward on their slopes, for we hoped to pass well above the horrible chasm at the foot of Aftalun, tallest peak in all the encircling ranges of Vale. Frain looked daily for Aftalun, and he longed to climb to the very top of Lorc Tutosel to see what lay beyond. But we never came near those awesome heights. We traveled just above the tree line, scrambling along crazily tilted slopes of shale between thickets and patches of heather, leading the horses most of the time. Cliffs soared above us, and sometimes a nasty drop yawned below as well. Tirell nearly came to grief on such terrain.

We were all walking separately because we were nearly out of food and each of us was on the lookout for game. Frain was down among the trees, hunting rabbits or whatever came his way, and I had an arrow at the ready for grouse. Where Shamarra was, perhaps Eala knows. She wandered off every day and returned to us at night with nothing to show for it, calm and aloof, seemingly quite careless of our company. Even the black beast was friendlier. It slept curled close to Tirell each night, except when Tirell was wakeful and skulking about, when it would nestle next to Frain. It never came to me for comfort, or to the lady.

But on this day, as I was saying, a grouse went up with a sudden clap of wings, as they always do, and I shot my arrow and missed. I watched the bird go, muttering. Just as it reached a cliff far above me I saw it falter in the air, and a stone rattled down. The bird flopped and fluttered at the edge of the cliff, and Tirell ran toward it with reckless speed, stooping for another stone. He must have been very hungry, or else lusting for the kill. As he reached his prey he slipped and sped neatly over the edge of the cliff, sending the shale flying, shouting hoarsely. He caught hold of the treacherous rock with both hands, and there he hung.

I don't know how long it took me to get to him. It seemed forever, and I know I climbed as I had never climbed before. I was gasping for breath and streaming sweat when I reached him at last, and his straining face looked white as death. He had not cried out after that first scream.

I got him by one wrist and hauled him up until he could lie on his gut with his long legs flailing the air. He rolled and wriggled his way to safety, and we both lay panting.

“Where is that accursed bird?” he wheezed.

It was gone, of course, and I never found my arrow either. I gave no reply. I was too old to find my wind so quickly.

After a little while Tirell sat up and looked at me with no expression at all on his pale, handsome face. I lay back and met his stare, still puffing, hoping for thanks but not really expecting as much—not from him.

“So, Fabron,” he said slowly, “you no longer entirely hate me.”

I had almost forgotten by then how I had hated him at first, when my wife was newly dead and my son newly found and dreams of revenge and glory floated like a mist at the back of my mind. His perception startled me, since I had not judged that he knew, he who seemed to go through his days in his own haze of dreams. Shock and guilt stabbed me, but I did not bother to turn away from his gaze. Let him see.

“No, I no longer hate you,” I replied equably. “Though Eala alone knows why not. You are cold and bitter enough to turn spring back to winter, Tirell.” He had not titled me, and I returned him no title.

He grunted in reply, got to his feet, and reached down to help me to mine. I took his hand gladly. It was not thanks, but it was a gesture of friendship such as I had never known from him, and well worth the sore back I suffered for days afterward. We took a while to catch our horses and then went on our way. But we had no supper that night. Frain had lost arrows too.

“Such cunning hunters,” Shamarra remarked cattily.

We went hungry the next day also. But the third day, when still nothing had seen fit to blunder into our clutches, she met us at dusk and gave us marvelous fruits to eat. Each was as round as a sun, ruddy as a westward sun, firm and filling as bread but juicy and sweet.

“Red fruits! The food of the gods!” Frain exclaimed, only half joking. He ate greedily, and I did the same, ecstatically gulping as many as I could hold. But I noticed that Tirell ate only a few, and those grudgingly. I wondered what ailed him.

For the next several days when we bagged no birds or rabbits we had fruit, which was better anyway, to my way of thinking. Even the horses and the beast had some, for we were finding no water on these high slopes. Within a few days we left the trees and even the thickets far below us. We could look out over them to where the Chardri made a great silver flow and a green corridor across the sere land, where slaves worked hard pouring water from the river on the crops. No freeman would set foot in the river for fear of death, but slaves could be driven.… We sighted Aftalun at last, a great peak, and we could see where the Chardri roared into a gaping blackness below sheer cliffs.

“Aftalun has two faces,” Frain said, studying the mountain.

It did indeed. A rugged line divided two vast stony surfaces, one in light and one in shadow. The peak resembled the jutting edge of a blunt and massive axe.

“They both frown,” Tirell complained. “We can see water, even hear water, and yet we can get none.”

We listened. It was true; we could hear the distant thunder of the deep.

“It is a strange world,” said Tirell. “Well, let us go on.”

It was rough going. We walked along ledges or slopes scarcely level enough for footing, leading the horses, and often we had to twist and turn and retrace our steps to find a way forward. After a few days of this, Shamarra had no more fruit to give us. We were all plagued by hunger and thirst. But the worst trial, I think, was not the thirst or even the fear of falling, but the Luoni. Like great, dirty-colored birds they clung to the rocks with their wrinkled claws, turning toward us the heads of emaciated women. Long, drab hair streamed down around their stubby wings. Wherever we went they sat above our path and watched us with their rolling, sunken eyes. They did not threaten us; they did not even cry out or speak. They only watched us, but I have never felt so tormented. Once I came upon one clinging to a rock scarcely a spear's length away, staring at me sideways out of her craterous face. I stared back defiantly because I was afraid, and I longed to kill the foul thing, but her human head prevented me.

We spent the nights on slopes and ledges, scarcely sleeping for fear of falling and for unreasoning fear of the Luoni. Even Tirell did not stir during those nights. Finally we came to the edge of the shadowed face of Aftalun, where the roar of Coire Adalis sounded directly below us and the Chardri ran at us like a glistening road out of the west—and we could not go on.

We cast about for a whole day trying to find a way. Aftalun would not let us pass. Sunset came, its bloody rays streaming down the Chardri, and we stood confronting a blank, curving wall of rock, standing on a ledge scarcely wide enough for the horses. Frain and I stared hopelessly at each other. We had found ourselves on that same ledge half a dozen times before in the course of the day, to no avail. Those accursed Luoni watched us silently from above.

“It's a cave,” Tirell said suddenly from behind me—we had got out of order on the jumbling slopes. “Go on in.”

For the first time I seriously doubted his ability to lead us. “It's only the shadow of the rock in this harsh light, Tirell,” I explained patiently. “The sun strikes across it slantwise—”

“Exactly,” he roared, “and it won't last another minute. Get on in, I say!”

I opened my mouth to protest again, but Frain simply walked into the shadow and disappeared, leading his horse. I must have blinked ten times before I followed him. He stood waiting for me just within, and he spoke to me as I entered to encourage me. The cave seemed bigger on the inside than the outside. I stood comfortably beside him, and I heard Shamarra stop beside me.

“Go on!” Tirell grumbled from the rear.

“Likely it will drop us into the deep in a step or two,” I whispered. I was trembling with the strangeness of the place. Utter darkness surrounded us, even though there should have been sunlight just behind. I did not dare to turn and look. “Make a light, Shamarra,” I begged.

“I can't,” she said flatly, with no trace of self-pity in her voice. I don't think any of us realized how exhausted she was.

“Let me pass,” said Tirell scornfully, and I felt his hard hand move me out of his way. We all walked along, following each other's sounds. The floor did not seem to slope.

“We'll go off the edge in a minute,” I pleaded. “Can't we stop here, light a fire, and maybe sleep? There seems to be room enough.”

Tirell barked out a laugh. “In this hole? I'd as soon sleep on the ledge!” He pressed on. But soon, to my astonishment, I realized that I could see in a dim way. We were all walking through a kind of featureless gray expanse. After a while it occurred to me that there was nothing to prevent us from riding—no walls, no roof—so I got on my horse. Frain and Shamarra did likewise. Tirell continued to stalk afoot.

I saw more clearly every moment. By some marvel we were not inside a mountain at all. Or if we were, the mountain was as big as the world inside. We rode across a broad countryside lit with a muted, pearly glow that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, showing no roof, no dome of sky, no encircling mountain wall—I felt as if I could float away into the misty light. Still, I grew less afraid of going off an edge into the deep; falling seemed likely to be of no consequence in this country. The land looked soft and gentle, like down pillows on a tufted bed. The trees and grass seemed fluffy as fur. I saw comfortable-looking thatched houses and people and cattle and everything necessary for prosperity, but all hazy to my eyes, like a dream. I do not remember sounds, or any colors at all.