The Wanderer's Tale (58 page)

They were heading towards a giant tree that protruded through the platform’s western edge. One of its massive branches sloped up and away from the platform and a stairway, with handrails fitted, was carved into the bark of its upper side, leading to some place that he could not yet see.

By now they were so high up that Gapp had the impression he was walking out into space. As he leaned over the railing to take a look down, his stomach heaved when he saw just how high up they were. Gleds and gyrs glided above the treetops underneath, yet so far below that they appeared as mere specks. Even further beneath them the leaves of the forest roof shimmered constantly in the late evening breeze like an unquiet sea.

It was only the railing that kept him safe, and he thrust himself away from it in panic. This whole place suddenly seemed insane, impossible, ready to topple at any minute. Every creak and scrape of ancient wood seemed to presage imminent disaster.

On his hands and knees now, his fingers gripped the wood of the stairway like the toepads of a gecko. It felt firm, and had the smoothness of antiquity. Breathing deeply, he slowly got a grip on himself and forced down his panic.

The hunters halted and stood regarding him quizzically, unable to understand what ailed him.

Unimaginative beggars!
He thought resentfully, and rose to his feet again.

Now that they were near the end of the branch, he saw there was a kind of pavilion up here. Another of the huge Gyger-Stags stood guarding the door, but it let them through with only a slight glimmer of hostility in its eyes.

Inside, though hardly palatial, the pavilion gave the undeniable impression that here lived some kind of royalty. The extensive variety of furs and pelts hanging from every wall, door and furnishing demonstrated without doubt that this was the abode of, as Gapp put it, ‘someone very high up’.

They passed through to a large room at the back of the structure. Here light streamed in from the open balcony, silhouetting the shape of a solitary Vetter leaning against the balustrade. It was staring out at the magnificent view, as a red sun cast its last light over the great forest of Fron-Wudu. With reluctance, it tore itself away from this vista of unimaginable beauty and turned to face its guests.

Gapp was surprised to discover that this important Vetter looked just like any other. It was slightly taller than most, with a relaxed and confident bearing, but it did not differ in any drastic way from the rank and file. There was no sign of disdain or arrogance, none of the irony or superciliousness that the young esquire had come to associate with social leaders. Neither were there any outward indications of exceptional wisdom or intellect. The thing Gapp noticed most was the eyes: there was an openness, even friendliness in them that he instantly warmed to.

‘R’rrahdh-Kyinne, aanyo!’ it gurgled at the leader of the hunters, then turned to Gapp. ‘Hal, Mycel-Haug!’ it rasped, extending its hand in greeting, ‘Hal dhu Vetterheime ut Cyne-Tregva!’

It enunciated the words carefully, in a way that made Gapp wonder; either it was not sure the boy would understand, or itself did not speak this language fluently. But it was clear to him that this was a greeting of sorts, so he held his hand out in a similar fashion and, smiling broadly, replied:

‘Hal Vetter. Me Gapp Radnar. This Shlepp.’ He next pointed to his mouth, then to the Vetter, and shook his head as if to say:
I don’t speak the language.

A high-pitched laugh escaped the Vetter’s lips, and this was echoed by the hunters (a little more gutturally). The leader repeated Gapp’s gestures in reverse in a resigned way, as though saying,
Neither do I very well
. He stepped forward and clasped Gapp’s hand warmly. Clearly the boy had made a favourable first impression.

It seemed that this was not the Vetters’ tongue after all. Gapp thought it sounded vaguely familiar, though he could not think where he had heard it before. Some trading language employed by the Vetterym, perhaps?

The leader, still clasping Gapp’s hand, dragged him out of the pavilion and back down the length of the branch stairway to the platform below. The hunters followed, and Shlepp kept close. Gapp was hoping that after this initial friendly encounter he and his companion would receive some hospitality in the form of food and drink. But clearly there were more pressing matters at hand. Gapp could only wonder.

Across the platform they went, and soon arrived at a belvedere positioned on the north-west curve of the platform’s outer rim. It was guarded by four sentinels, lightly armoured but heavily armed, who were currently relaxing at a foot of the short ladder that led up to an open doorway. They beamed at the company approaching, then stood aside to let them ascend.

Seated at a table all alone was someone that the leader seemed very eager Gapp should meet.

Dressed in soiled white rags and covered in bandages, the stranger slowly, stiffly, turned around. Hands bedecked with antique golden rings reached up and pulled the hood away from his face.

‘Hello, Radnar,’ he said in cool surprise. ‘I thought you were dead . . .’

It was Methuselech Xilvafloese.

‘Y
OU
. . .’ G
APP BREATHED.

Gapp’s hazy vision swayed, and with it his equilibrium. The entire platform seemed to be moving beneath his feet, lurching as though being tipped over slowly by a relentless gust of wind.

No! Not that!

A small hand gripped him by the arm, held him steady, and slowly Gapp’s world regained some stability.

He looked into the big, green eyes of the Vetter hunter – R’rrahdh-Kyinne, his name was – and saw no alarm there, only concern for his new charge.

What had happened just then? Had there been a gust of wind? Had the platform really lurched?

A lightness filled Gapp’s head. None of this felt real any more. He could not even be sure what he was seeing now. If only he could
focus
properly again . . .

Xilvafloese? He did not yet believe it, but . . . it was true. Methuselech Xilvafloese was sitting in front of him, as large as life. A little battered and torn, and all the lustre gone out of his raiment, as though he had been used as a rag to slop out a latrine, but alive, and by the look of it, kicking.

‘You’re here . . .’ the boy said with a congested croak to his voice and an asinine gape to his mouth.

In that one moment, all that had gone before – all those tortured miles of suffering, abandonment and fear, all the tribulation that had befallen him along the way, indeed the entire memory of his separation from the company – all was forgotten. He staggered over to his comrade and, to the clear delight of the Vetter chief (and applause from the hunters) embraced him closely.

It was as if he and his former companions had never been sundered.

Methuselech, however, winced in discomfort, and gently eased the boy away from him.

‘Oh, Shogg, your injuries . . . i forgot,’ Gapp apologized.

Methuselech merely forced a smile, with hooded eyes. ‘Take a seat,’ he ordered, gesturing towards one of the nearby stools and sounding surprisingly calm.

Gapp did as he was told. The Vetter and his hunters did likewise, and watched the scene with undisguised fascination.

Gapp paused a second to appraise his quest mate. The man looked far worse, now he came to think of it, than when he had last seen him. That beautiful head of hair now looked as though he had spiked it with horse dung, as the barbarians did, and most of the braids once decorating his hood had come off. In all, he resembled a half-plucked, hedge-dragged buzzard.

‘But, Methuselech,’ he said, his voice as small again as it had been before the separation, ‘i don’t understand this at all . . . How is it you come to be here? Have you been tracking me all this way? That is—’

‘—Have
I
been tracking
you
? You sure you got that the right way round?’

‘What? But that horrible place in the mountains . . .’ Gapp was completely at a loss. He half-expected to wake up any moment and discover this was all a dream. ‘And the others, did you find them? Are they here too?’

Methuselech rose stiffly to his feet – followed by the boy and the Vetters – and laid an untidily bandaged hand upon Gapp’s shoulder. ‘Boy,’ he said, ‘I am in as much perplexity on that subject as are you, but our stories will have to wait. There is someone here who would like an explanation.’

He pointed to the Vetter chief, who all this time had said not a word. ‘For the past week now, I have been under the care of Cynen Englarielle Rampunculus,’ he explained. ‘As you too are now, and I’d guess he would like a little chat about us.’

Gapp had temporarily forgotten that the Vetter and his world existed.

‘i’m sorry,’ he stammered, turning to the chief, and bowing quickly.

Then the leader moved over and joined them. Gapp glanced doubtfully at Englarielle, then whispered, ‘Xilva, i don’t speak his language, i doubt i can make myself understood.’

‘That is exactly why he brought you to me,’ the mercenary replied. ‘I
do
speak his language. Or at least, we share a common tongue. The Vetters’ language is unique, unknown to the rest of the world. Not that you could expect otherwise, really, since this is a rather isolated spot. But they do seem to have had some minimal contact with the outside world . . . The Polgrim? It appears those adventurous little wayfarers have paid a few visits to Cyne-Tregva over the centuries, and there is still a certain tie between the two races, albeit a somewhat tenuous one nowadays. The Vetter-chiefs – the Cynen – are brought up to speak an elementary form of the Polg’s Rainflat dialect. It’s a sort of trading language, if you like, but “court language” might be more accurate . . .’

As Methuselech talked on, Gapp began to feel the agitation tighten within him. He had gone almost past the limits of his mind and body today. Why was Methuselech going on about all this stuff when he could just as easily be telling him how he came to be here? The boy was not expecting a detailed account; just one sentence would suffice.

A slight sigh of irritation and impatience escaped him. Why didn’t
any
one tell him
any
thing,
ever
? Was he still that unimportant to them? He saw the look in Methuselech’s eyes as the mercenary prattled on about what
he
wanted to talk about – oblique, offhand, not even looking at Gapp directly – and realized that in spite of
all
he had gone through to be here, he was still just the esquire . . .

Images of his siblings’ mocking smiles came back to him. A silly little boy. A complete prat. Of course, how could he be so stupid as to think it would ever be otherwise?

‘. . . Anyway,’ Methuselech was saying, ‘it seems I’m to act as your translator. I don’t suppose Englarielle even realized that we knew each other, up till now . . . But then I doubt he has any idea how many humans there are in the world out there, or even the slightest inkling of just how big the world is, for that matter—’

‘You don’t speak Polgrim,’ the boy cut in irately.

Methuselech regarded him indignantly. ‘I speak Aescalandian, do I not? Remember, boy, I am from Qaladmir, the city of a thousand tribes. We speak many tongues.’

But Rainflat-Polgrim . . . ?

‘Anyway,’ the mercenary declared, obviously impatient with the lad’s wittering, ‘we mustn’t waste time like this. I think the Cynen’s getting a little impatient.’

So, with the help of Methuselech, Gapp related his story to the royal Vetter. And in doing so, enlightened his old companion. He began at first to tell tales of a mission to Wrythe, then switched to the truth after Methuselech informed him that he had already disclosed their real mission earlier. (This alarmed Gapp, but he assumed the mercenary must know what he was doing.) He told of Nym, of his fall down the well, and of his subsequent ordeal in the subterranean tunnels, until finally emerging and befriending the forest giant Yulfric. At this, Englarielle smiled and nodded – the Gyger was clearly known to him and his people. Then Gapp went on to describe how he had been waylaid by the Jordiske and how he finally escaped, only to fall into the hands of the Vetterim. The Cynen showed particular interest in Gapp’s description of the lair of the Jordiske, and questioned him at length, wanting to know every detail.

But as the air grew frigid and the night sky rolled over, he seemed satisfied. Making a rasping noise between his fingers, he summoned a flunky and issued orders for a sleeping pad to be made up for their new guest, and for food and wine to be fetched.

At blinking last
, thought Gapp. He was famished.

After finishing a large meal of some shredded, pale, pulpy stuff that smelt like peppery flowers, Gapp washed himself in the wooden basin provided for him and then begged leave to rest. His sleeping pad was in the same place as his companion’s: the wide, roofed veranda of that same belvedere. Several Vetters had been posted in the adjoining room ‘just in case they needed anything’, and Shlepp took up his position in the doorway between these two rooms. For the first time since he had left Yulfric’s house, the boy felt he could sleep safely.