The Wanderer's Tale (48 page)

They went by trails that the inexperienced townsman would not have noticed even existed, so invisible were they. Hardly even ranking as pheasant runs, to Gapp’s eyes. He could not seem to stop tripping up on uneven ground and snagging his feet on the concealed roots that strung themselves like snares across their path. Soon he began to lag behind, and was sweating like a Peladane. He was meanwhile astounded at the grace and silence with which the twelve-foot-tall forestman moved through the undergrowth, almost suggesting a total lack of any real physical presence. The hounds too were endowed with an almost ghostly noiselessness.

The woods now seemed very dark and very dense. The sounds of the awakening day were left behind them, to be replaced only by the croaking of bullfrogs, strange furtive whisperings and the sudden scampering of unseen beasts off to either side. Long strands of cobweb hung like dead skin from every tree, some even crisscrossing their path, having been fabricated in the short time since Gyger had passed that way earlier. Once, having unwittingly strayed, Gapp almost walked straight into one such web that blocked the way like a giant flyscreen. He drew to a halt just inches short of it, and found himself facing the biggest, most bulbous spider he had ever encountered in his life. Pink and hairless, it pulsated evilly, then slowly unfolded its great legs before Gapp’s petrified nose. He remained there frozen, until Gyger realized he was no longer following and came back in search of him.

From then on, Gapp kept close to his guide and stumbled on resolutely until, not very long after, they emerged into a clearing. Directly before them was a stockade wall, similar – if a little more rustic and less ambitious – to the one that surrounded Nordwas. Out here the morning sun shone down from a clear blue sky, lighting up Gyger’s stronghold in the bright russet colours of a hundred varieties of wood. Here the only cobwebs to be seen were small, and glistened delicately between the great logs composing the wall.

For an instant Gapp was reminded of home, but he quickly brushed the thought away and followed the giant up to the gate.

Both Gyger and his hounds became visibly more relaxed in the vicinity of this residence. The hounds barked almost as if with laughter and cavorted about in horseplay.

Suddenly there was a furious rattling of locks and chains from within that broke the stillness of the morning, and after a few seconds the huge gate swung outwards to admit them. Gapp looked up questioningly at his large companion, but the giant merely strode on through and into his compound.

Gapp followed the hounds in and gazed about uncertainly. There was a large central structure, several outhouses and a well. Nothing out of the ordinary, except that the dimensions were approximately double those he was used to. The main house was built from huge, carefully fashioned boulders that glistened and sparkled softly in the sunlight with a score of different colours, for they contained seams of crystal and quartz, and had obviously been hauled here by the giant himself. Perhaps, Gapp guessed, all the way from the very mines he himself had recently escaped from.

But the most puzzling thing was, when the boy turned to look behind him at the opened gates, he saw no one nearby. No door-ward nor servant. Nobody.

Again Gapp glanced at the giant quizzically, but his host just smiled, waved a hand vaguely all around and said, by way of explanation, ‘Heldered.’

Heldered, right
, thought Gapp as the giant approached the main house.
That’s supposed to explain everything, i suppose . . . What have i got myself into this time?

He followed the giant, and behind him the door in the stockade wall swung shut and was locked.

Inside the main house, Gapp had to seriously adjust his initial impressions of his host, whatever they had been. He had always thought of giants as being just, well,
giants
; it had never really occurred to him that there might be as many different social divisions within the general scope of ‘giantity’ as there were in humanity itself. What he was stepping into now, the boy realized, was not simply a giant’s home, it was a
bachelor-giant’s
home.

This was going to be a truly enlightening experience.

To begin with, as soon as he entered the porch he almost put his foot directly upon the spring-plate of the most enormous bear-trap he had ever seen in his life. It was purely his newly honed reactions that saved him from having one leg amputated at the thigh. Heart pounding madly, he allowed himself to be led along with the hounds, further into the smoky gloom of the house.

If he had been alarmed at the trap left so carelessly by the threshold, he was doubly so when he gazed around at the cluttered interior. Apart from the fact that everything was twice the size, everything seemed twice as
odd
, too.

For a start, that coffer there on the floor. It was obviously very old, and clearly of great value; its entire surface was covered in beautifully finished snakeskin, banded with well-polished gold, lined with red crushed velvet, and filled with dirty underwear. Gapp could not help feeling that somewhere along the line his host had missed the point.

Also in the room he noticed the hugest bat imaginable hanging from one of the beams. It was cocooned in aged, leathery wings covered in dust, and seemed completely oblivious to their arrival. The boy again looked up at the muttering giant, half-expecting him to say something along the lines of: ‘Who’s been hanging from
my
ceiling, then?’ before swatting the intruder out of the window. But it seemed he had not even noticed it and, when Gapp pointed it out to him, merely replied with a muffled oath, that seemed to say: ‘Ugh! How did that get there?’

Seconds later, the intruder was as forgotten as the strata of bread crusts and dust piled up beneath all the tables and chairs. On top of one side table, nestled between two great earthenware jars of vinegar, was a skull so terrifying to behold that the young Aescal did not even want to know what monster it had come from. The awesome effect of it, however, was somewhat diminished when he noticed that this trophy of the giant’s hunting prowess was currently being used as a paperweight for his book-bound collection of pressed wild herbs.

They pushed their way under a clothesline hung with the most un-giant-like garments and headed over to a side room. The floor of this room had been tiled with wonderfully engraved flagstones – presumably a skilled craft known to Gyger – but it was only half-completed, the rest of the floor being still bare earth. By the look of it, this giant was more apt at starting things than finishing them, for these tiles had been laid down years ago.

Continuing down a short passage lined with an assortment of hooks, cressets, dangling ropes, midge-coils that smelled strongly of soap and pitch, and dozens of roughly cut planks that leant against the wall, they soon came to another place that Gapp guessed must be the utility room.

The giant did a quick mime that indicated this was his own bedroom. Before moving on, Gapp stared in at the pile of old sacks that looked to be the nearest thing to a bed, at the random collection of shelves (some of them still fixed to the wall), and the clutter of jugs, vases, mousetraps, kitchenware and candles strewn everywhere. There was also a large sandpit for the hounds to use whenever they were taken short in the night. Yet the sand therein was probably the cleanest surface in the room.

Good grief
, Gapp thought.
Even the dogs haven’t got it right.

He joined his host in the next room, where the giant seemed ill at ease. He clearly was not accustomed to having guests, and did not remember what one was supposed to do with them once they had entered one’s home. He looked around uncertainly, till his gaze fell upon the teapot on the hob. Gapp studied the teapot adorned with various colourful growths of vegetation, and his anxiety was immediately justified when Gyger offered him a cup of tea.

Desperately he tried to think of any religion he could lay claim to which forbade tea-drinking, but was reluctantly forced to assent to his host’s hospitality with as much grace as he could muster.

‘Tohte!’ The giant beamed as he picked his way dextrously through the clutter and over to the hob, at the same time motioning for his guest to sit down and make himself comfortable. Gapp looked around at the rubbish-strewn floor and wondered if this were at all possible.

While Gyger busied himself with making the tea, Gapp turned to study the rest of his surroundings. On one wall hung a map of some country he could not guess at; there was also a score of spears (some with fishing lines still attached) amid several knives, arrows and a scythe with an eight-foot blade, all mounted on another wall.

Then his attention was caught by a crudely assembled pipe rack resting upon the floor. It must have contained near-on two dozen pipes of varying shapes, colours and styles. Using hand signs, he enquired if the giant smoked, and was strangely not at all surprised when Gyger shook his head with a grimace.

A minute later, Gapp was relieved to hear the ancient teapot split asunder and its contents shoot up to the ceiling in a great hiss of brown steam. The giant cursed under his breath, paused in thought for a moment, then shrugged and bade Gapp follow him into another room, pointing to his mouth and patting his stomach.

Gapp followed reluctantly with a panicky sense of foreboding, dreading what lay therein that he might be forced to behold (or worse still, be forced to eat). However, he was surprised to find it a relatively tidy room, one that smelt unbelievably good.

Food? Real, cooked, edible food! How long had it been? His stomach ached with the thought of it, and he salivated like a rabid dog.

This new chamber was sparsely furnished, but comfortably so. There was none of the filth or haphazard jumbles of neglected paraphernalia that he had encountered in the preceding rooms and passages. Here, the floor was recently bestrewn with sweet-smelling dried rushes, and the furnishings, though simple, were freshly dusted and uncluttered by any discarded equipment. There were beeswax-polished shelves ranged along all the walls too, displaying an impressive collection of neatly stacked crockery and cutlery.

This struck Gapp as odd, that there should be so many plates and things here when he had assumed the giant lived alone. But he could not think how to ask about it.

In any case, he was far more immediately concerned with what was spread upon the table. Before his bulging eyes, upon the expansive board was laid enough breakfast to feed him and his entire family for a week, back in Nordwas. A great bronze pot with ornate handles and a silver ladle sat in the middle of the table, and steam rose from it in serpentine wreaths. It contained a stew that Gapp was soon to discover consisted of venison, edible fungus, sundry herbs, wild barley and even a hint of peppered wine. Three long loaves lay on the table next to it, steaming slightly as if they had just been baked. A freshly opened amphora containing at least a gallon of elderberry wine stood next to this, and all about were bowls and plates of thick cream, raspberry jam and an array of cheeses.

This was clearly breakfast for the giant. But he must have been out hunting for hours. Yet all this had been recently prepared. If this servant of his – who had presumably opened the gate for them – had arranged all this so quickly, then he must be good indeed. For Gapp guessed that the giant had not intended to return home for at least another couple of hours, nor would have done had he not chanced upon the little human under the tree.

There was even a place set at the table for the boy himself.

He glanced up at his host with that now habitual questioning look on his face.

But the giant was already feeding his own face noisily, his guest clearly forgotten, and Gapp decided to do the same.

Gapp was still seated high up on an oversize chair of straw-filled cushions, his stomach churning dangerously and his legs dangling over the edge, when Gyger brought in to him from another room a rather familiar object.

It was a meditation wheel, a small, ornately engraved, thick-rimmed wooden disc with a short handle through the middle and a small brass ball attached to the rim by a fine chain – exactly the same as used by the Lightbearers back home. The giant handed the instrument – tiny in his hands – to the boy, who noticed that it had engraved upon its handle the crest of the Chapter of Missionaries.

Before Gapp had time to wonder further, the giant nodded for him to use it. Decidedly baffled at this completely incongruous item, the lad nonetheless did as he was bid.

Holding the handle firmly, he began spinning the wheel upon it by means of the brass ball, as he had so often watched the Lightbearers in Nordwas doing. He did not know the ritual words they chanted, and in any case was not sure he wanted to. But almost as soon as he had set the wheel in motion, it began to make a strange humming sound. That was something he had never heard from the meditation wheels back home.

No. It was more than just sound, for with the hum came a very peculiar feeling in his head. It felt as though a slight pressure was building up inside the front of his skull, accompanied by a queasy, ‘unbalancing’ sensation.

Behind the strange noise he became aware of the voice of the giant droning on and on in that unintelligible language of his. It sounded like the same word repeated over and over. He glanced up to check, but Gyger motioned him to keep his eyes on the wheel. As he dutifully did so, he saw that in the blur of speed the thick outer rim of the disc had turned white.

Then his eyes widened as he saw letters begin to appear there.

Gapp stared in almost hypnotized fascination. Whether it was something to do with the motion of the wheel – some trick that its spinning played on the mind – or a spell being cast by the droning giant, he had no clue. But there were definitely letters appearing upon the disc, like writing upon a blank page from an invisible quill held in an invisible hand.

Vijneh
: the script of the Aescals! It was in his own people’s writing.

Not only that but, as he squinted closely, he saw that it was in his language, too; he could understand what was written – was
being
written: