Wolf In Shadow (9 page)

 ’I am sorry, my friend. It was thoughtless and rude of me.’

 ’It is not important, Mr Shannow. Let us resume our walk.’

 They continued in silence, which Shannow found uncomfortable.

  The day was warm, a bright sun in a blue sky, with only occasional white scudding clouds bringing shade and relief. Shannow felt stronger than he had in weeks. Karitas stopped at a rock pile and hefted a fist-sized stone.

 ’Take that in your left hand,’ he said.

 Shannow obeyed.

 ’Now carry it for a second circuit.’

 ’I'll never make it all the way,’ said Shannow.

 ’We won’t know until we make the attempt,’ snapped Karitas. They set off and within a few paces Shannow’s left arm began to tremble. Sweat stood out on his forehead, and on the seventeenth step the rock tumbled from his twitching fingers. Karitas took a stick and thrust it into the ground. ‘That is your first mark, Mr Shannow. Tomorrow you will go beyond it.’

 Shannow rubbed at his arm. ‘I have made you angry,’ he said.

 Karitas turned to him, his eyes gleaming. ‘Mr Shannow, you are right. I have lived too long and seen too much, and you have no idea how galling it is to be disbelieved. I’ll tell you something else that you will not be able to understand, nor comprehend: I was a computer expert, and I wrote books on programming. That makes me the world’s greatest living author, and an expert on a subject that is so totally valueless here as to be obscene. I lived in a world of greed, violence, lust and terror. That world died, yet what do I see around me? Exactly the same thing, only on a mercifully smaller scale. Your disbelief hurts me harder than I can say.’

 Then let us start afresh, Karitas,’ said Shannow, laying his hand on the old man’s shoulder. ‘You are my friend. I trust you, and no matter what you tell me I swear I will believe it.’

 ’That is a noble gesture, Mr Shannow. And it will suffice.’

 ’So tell me about the dangers in the east.’

 ’Tonight we will sit by the fire and talk, but for now I have things to do. Walk around the village twice more, Mr Shannow, and when you have your hut in sight, try to run.’

 As the old man walked away Curopet approached Shannow, averting her eyes. ‘Are you well, Thunder-maker?’

 ’Better every day, Lady.’

 ’May I fetch you some water?’

 ’No. Karitas says I must walk and run.’

 ’May I walk with you?’ Shannow gazed down at her and saw she was blushing.

 ’Of course; it would be my pleasure.’ She was taller than most young women of the village, and her hair was dark and gleamed as if oiled. Her figure was coltish, and she moved with grace and innocent sensuality.

 ’How long have you known Karitas?’ he asked, making conversation.

 ’He has always been with us. My grandfather told me that Karitas taught him to hunt when he was a boy.’

 Shannow stopped. ‘Your grandfather? But Karitas himself could not have been very old at that time.’

 ’Karitas has always been old. He is a god. My grandfather said that Karitas also trained his grandfather; it is a very special honour to be taught by Karitas.’

 ’Perhaps there has been more than one Karitas,’ suggested Shannow.

 ’Perhaps,’ agreed Curopet. ‘Tell me, Lord Thunder-maker, are you allowed to have women?’

 ’Allowed? No,’ said Shannow, reddening. ‘It is not permitted.’

 ’That is sad,’ said Curopet. ‘Yes.’

 ’Are you being punished for something?’

 ’No. I am married, you see. I have a wife.’

 ’Only one?’

 ’Yes.’

 ’But she is not here.’ ‘No.’

 ’I am here.’

 ’I am well aware of that. And I thank you for your . . . kindness,’ said Shannow at last. ‘Excuse me, I am very tired. I think I will sleep now.’

 ’But you have not run.’

 ’Another time.’ Shannow stepped into the hut and sat down, feeling both foolish and pleased. He removed his pistols from the saddlebags and cleaned them, checking the caps and replacing them. The guns were the most reliable he had ever known, misfiring only once in twenty. They were well-balanced and reasonably true, if one compensated for the kick on the left-hand pistol. He checked his store of brass caps and counted them; one hundred and seventy remained. He had enough fulminates for twice that, and black powder to match. Karitas entered as he was replacing his weapons in the saddlebags.

 ’Black powder was a good propellant,’ said the old man. ‘But not enough of it burns, and that’s why there is so much smoke.’

 ’I make my own,’ said Shannow, ‘but the saltpetre is the hardest to find. Sulphur and charcoal are plentiful.’

 ’How are you faring?’

 ’Better today. Tomorrow I will run.’

 ’Curopet told me of your conversation. Do you find it hard to talk to women?’

 ’Yes,’ admitted Shannow.

 ’Then try to forget that they are women.’

 ’That is very hard. Curopet is breathtakingly attractive.’

 ’You should have accepted her offer.’

 ’Fornication is a sin, Karitas. I carry enough sins already.’

 Karitas shrugged. ‘I will not try to dissuade you. You asked about the east and the dangers there. Strangely, the Bible figures in the story.’

 ’A religious tribe, you mean?’

 ’Precisely - although they view matters somewhat differently from you, Mr Shannow. They call themselves the Hellborn. They maintain that since Armageddon is now a proved reality, and since there is no new Jerusalem, Lucifer must have overpowered Jehovah. Therefore they pay him homage as the Lord of this world.’

 ’That is vile,’ whispered Shannow.

 ’They practice the worship of Molech, and give the firstborn child to the fire. Human sacrifice takes place in their temples and their rites are truly extraordinary. All strangers are considered enemies and either enslaved or burnt alive. They also have pistols and rifles, Mr Shannow - and they have rediscovered the rimless cartridge.’

 ’I do not understand.’

 ’Think of the difference between the percussion pistols you own and the flintlocks you have come across. Well, the cartridge is as far ahead of the percussion cap as that.’

 ’Explain it to me.’

 ’I can do better than that, Mr Shannow. I will show you.’ Karitas opened his sheepskin jerkin and there, nestling in a black shoulder holster, was a pistol the like of which Shannow had never seen. It had a rectangular black grip and when Karitas pulled it clear he saw that the body of the gun was also a rectangle. Karitas passed it to Shannow.

 ’How does it load?’

 ’Press the button to the left of the butt.’

 Shannow did so and a clip slid clear of the butt. Shannow placed the gun in his lap and examined the clip. He could see a glint of brass at the top and he slid the shell into his hand; holding it up against the light from the fire.

 ’That,’ said Karitas, ‘is a cartridge. The oval shape at the point is the lead bullet. The brass section replaces the percussion cap; it contains its own propellant and, when struck by the firing pin, explodes, propelling the shell from the barrel.’

 ’But how does the … bullet get from the clip to the breech?’

 Karitas took up the automatic and pulled back the casing, exposing the breech. ‘A spring in the clip forces the shell up, and releasing the block like so . . .’ the casing snapped back into position ‘. . . pushes the shell into the breech. Now this is the beauty of the weapon, Mr Shannow: when the trigger is pulled the firing pin explodes the propellant and sends the shell on its way, but the blow-back from the explosion forces the casing backwards. A hook pulls clear the cartridge case, which is then struck from beneath by another cartridge and thrown from the pistol. As the casing springs back, it pushes the next shell into the breech. Simple and superb!’

 ’What is it called?’

 ’This, my dear fellow, is the Browning of 1911, with the single-link locking system. It is also the reason why the Carns will not raid where I am.’

 ’You mean it works?’

 ’Of course it works. It’s not a patch on their later models, but it was considered a great weapon in its day.’

 ’I am still to be convinced,’ said Shannow. ‘It looks clumsy and altogether too complicated.’

 ’Tomorrow, Mr Shannow, I shall give you a demonstration.’

  ’Where did you come by these weapons?’

 ’I took them from the Ark, Mr Shannow. That is one of the surprises I have in store for you. Would you like to see Noah’s Ark?’

 Shannow could not sleep; his mind was full of pictures of Donna Taybard. He recalled her as he had first seen her, standing before her farmhouse with a crossbow in her hand, looking both defiant and delicate. And then at the dinner-table, sad and wistful. And he remembered her in the wide bed - her face flushed, her eyes bright, her body soft.

 Images of Curopet crept into his mind, blurring with Donna, and he groaned and rolled over.

 Dawn found him irritable and tired and he dressed swiftly, having first exercised with the leather ball. His left hand was stronger now, yet still a shadow of what it had been.

 The wind was chill and Shannow wished he had put on his leather top-coat, but he saw Karitas waiting for him by the rock pile.

 ’We will put this exhibition to good use,’ said Karitas. Tick up a good-sized rock with your left hand and carry it to the fiat ground yonder, about thirty paces.’ Shannow did as he was bid, and his arm was aching as he returned.

 ’Now take another,’ said Karitas. Six times he ordered Shannow to pick up rocks and then he told him to watch. The rocks were now in a line, each of them the size of a man’s fist. Karitas drew the Browning and cocked it, his arm levelled and the gun fired with a sharp crack. There was little smoke and one of the rocks splintered. On the ground by Karitas’ feet lay a brass shell, and the weapon in his hand was cocked and ready.

 ’Now you try, my dear fellow.’ He reversed the gun and handed it to Shannow. The balance was good, the weight nestling back into his palm rather than forward like the percussion pistols.

 He lined the weapon and squeezed the trigger and a spurt of dust leapt up a foot behind the rock. Shannow fired once more and the rock split apart. He was impressed, though he tried not to show it.

 ’My own pistols could duplicate the accuracy.’

 ’I don’t doubt it, but the Browning can be loaded with nine shells in less than ten seconds.’

 ’And you say the Hellborn have these?’

 ’No, thank God. They have revolvers, copies of the Adams and some Remington replicas. But their craftsmen have evolved the weapons; their level of technology is fairly high.’

 ’Well, they are a problem for another day,’ said Shannow. ‘But tell me of Noah’s Ark - or is that another joke?’

 ’Not at all. We will see it in the Spring, with the Guardians’ permission.’ ‘I will not be here in the Spring, Karitas.’ The old man moved forward and retrieved his pistol. He uncocked it and slid it back into his shoulder holster. ‘You are recovering well, but you are not yet strong enough to ride any distance. And there is something else you should know.’ Karitas’ voice was grave.

 ’What is it?’

 ’Let us go to your hut, and I will explain.’

 Once inside beside a warm fire, Karitas opened the leather pouch at his hip and produced a round stone which he passed to Shannow. Warm to the touch and gleaming softly gold in the firelight, it was veined with black streaks and highlighted by tiny specks of silver.

 ’It is a pretty piece,’ said Shannow. ‘But what do you have to tell me?’

 ’You are holding your life in your hand, Mr Shannow, for that is a healing Stone and on you it has worked a miracle.’

 ’I have heard of such. The Daniel Stone?’

 ’Indeed it is. But its significance to you is very great. You see, Mr Shannow, you are in fact dead. When Selah brought you to me your skull was smashed. I don’t know how you lived as long as you did. But the Stone held you . . . as it still holds you. If you travel out of its influence, you will die.’

 Shannow tossed the Stone to Karitas. ‘Dead? Then why does my heart beat? Why can I still think and speak?’

 ’Tell me, Mr Shannow, when you lay in the Fever Hole and your heart stopped, what did you feel?’

 ’I felt nothing. I dreamed I sat outside the gates of Jerusalem, and they would not let me enter. It was but a dream. I do not believe that I am trapped in this village for ever.’

 ’Nor are you. But you must trust me, and my knowledge. I will know when you have broken the thread, when you can exist without the Stone. Have faith in me, Jon.’

 ’But my wife . . .’

 ’If she loves you she will wait. And you say she has power to see great distances. Build your strength.’

 Day by dreary day Shannow worked - chopping wood, carrying water, scything grass for winter feed. And the Autumn passed before the freezing northerly winds piled snow against the huts. Night after night Shannow sat with Karitas, listening to his tales of the New World’s birthing. He no longer knew nor cared if Karitas was telling the truth; the images were too many and too kaleidoscopic to contain. He listened much as he had when his father told stories, his disbelief suspended only for the telling time.

 Yet though Karitas maintained he had lived long before the Fall of the world, he would not speak of his society, its laws or its history, refusing to answer any of Shannow’s questions. Strangely, Shannow felt, this gave the old man credibility.

 ’I would like to tell you, Jon, for it is so long since I spoke of the old world. But I have a fear, you see, that one day Man will recreate the horrors of those days. I shall not be a willing party to it. We were so arrogant. We thought the world was ours, and then one day Nature put us in our place. The world toppled on its axis. Tidal waves consumed vast areas. Cities, countries, vanished beneath the water. Volcanoes erupted, earthquakes tore the world. It’s a wonder anyone survived.

 ’And yet, now I look back, all the clues were there to see -to warn us of impending disaster. All we needed was to be humble enough to look at it without subjectivity. Our own legends told us that the earth had toppled before. The Bible talks of the sun rising in the west, and of the seas tipping from their bowls. And it did. My God, it did!’

 The old man lapsed into silence. ‘How did you survive?’ asked Shannow.

 Karitas blinked and grinned suddenly. ‘I was in a magical metal bird, flying high above the waves.’

 ’It was a serious question.’

 ’I know. But I don’t want to talk any more about those days.’

 ’Just one small question,’ said Shannow. ‘It is important to me.’

 ’Just the one,’ agreed the old man.

 ’Would there have been a black road with diamonds at the centre, shining in the night?’

 ’Diamonds? Ah yes, all the roads had them. Why do you ask?’

 ’Would they have been at Jerusalem?’

 ’Yes. Why?’

 ’It is the city I am seeking. And if Noah’s Ark is on a mountain near here, Jerusalem cannot be far away.’

 ’Are you mocking me, Shannow?’

 ’No. I seek the Holy City.’

 Karitas held his hands out to the fire, staring thoughtfully into the flames. All men needed a dream, he knew. Shannow more than most.

 ’What will you do when you find it?’

 ’I will ask questions and receive answers.’

 ’And then what?’

 ’I shall die happy, Karitas.’

 ’You’re a good man, Shannow. I hope you make it.’

 ’You doubt I will?’

 ’Not at all. If Jerusalem exists, you will find it. And if it doesn’t you’ll never know, for you’ll look until you die. That’s how it should be. I feel that way about Heaven; it’s far more important that Heaven should exist than that I should ever see it.’

 ’In my dream, they would not let me enter. They told me to come back when the wolf sits down with the lamb, and the lion eats grass like the cattle do.’

 ’Get some sleep, Jon. Dream of it again. I went there once, you know. To Jerusalem. Long before the Fall.’

 ’Was it beautiful?’

 Karitas remembered the chokingly narrow streets in the old quarter, the stink of bazaars . . . the tourist areas, the tall hotels, the pickpockets and the car bombs.

 ’Yes,’ he said. ‘It was beautiful. Good night, Jon.’

 Karitas sat in his long cabin, his mood heavy and dark. He knew that Shannow would never believe the truth, but then why should he? Even in his own age of technological miracles there had still been those who believed that the earth was flat, or that Man was made by a benevolent bearded immortal out of a lump of clay. At least Shannow had a solid fact to back his theory of Armageddon. The world had come close to death.

 There had been a lot of speculation in the last years about the possibility of a nuclear holocaust. But next to no one had considered Nature herself dwarfing the might of the superpowers. What was it that scientist had told him five years after the Fall?

 The Chandler Theory? Karitas had a note somewhere from the days when he had studiously kept a diary. The old man moved into the back room and began to rummage through oak chests covered in beaver pelts. Underneath a rust-dark and brittle copy of the London Times he found the faded blue jackets of his diary collection, and below those the scraps of paper he had used for close to forty years. Useless, he thought, remembering the day when his last pencil had grown too small to sharpen. He pushed aside the scraps and searched through his diaries, coming at last to an entry for May 16. It was six years after the Fall. Strange how the memory fades after only a few centuries, he told himself with a grin. He read the entry and leaned back, remembering old Webster and his moth-eaten wig.

 It was the ice at the poles, Webster had told him, increasing at the rate of 95, 000 tons a day, slowly changing the shape of the earth from spheroid to ovoid. This made the spin unstable. Then came the day when mighty Jupiter and all the other major planets drew into a deadly line to exert their gravitational pull on the earth, along with that of the sun. The earth - already wobbling on its axis - toppled, bringing tidal waves and death and a new Ice Age for much of the hemisphere.

 Armageddon? God the father moving from homilies to homicide?

 Perhaps. But somehow Karitas preferred the wondrous anarchy of Nature.

 That night Jon Shannow dreamed of war: strange riders wearing horned helms bore down on a village of tents. They carried swords and pistols and, as they stormed into the village in their hundreds, the noise of gunfire was deafening. The people of the tents fought back with bow and lance, but they were overpowered; the men brutally slain. Young women were dragged out on to the plain and repeatedly raped, and their throats were cut by saw-toothed daggers. Then they were hoisted into the air by their feet and their blood ran into jugs which were passed around amongst the riders, who drank and laughed, their faces stained red.

 Shannow awoke in a cold sweat, his left hand twitching as if to curl around the butt of his pistol. The dream had sickened him and he cursed his mind for summoning such a vision. He prayed then, giving thanks for life and for love, and asking that the Lord of Hosts watch over Donna Taybard until Shannow could reach her.

 The night was dark and snow swirled around the village. Shannow rose and wrapped himself in a blanket. Moving to the hearth he raked the coals until a tiny flame appeared, then added timber and fresh wood and blew the fire to life.

 The dream had been so real, so brutally real.

 Shannow’s head ached and he wandered to the window where, in a pottery jug, were the coca leaves given him by Curopet. As ever, they dealt with the pain. He pushed open the window and leaned out, watching the snow. He could still see the riders - their curious helms adorned with curved horns of polished black, and their breastplates embossed with a goat’s head. He shivered and shut the window.

 ’Where are you tonight, Donna, my love?’ he whispered.

  Con Griffin had been many things in his life, but no one had ever taken him for a fool. Yet the riders with the horned helms and the casually arrogant manner obviously thought him as green as the grass of the valley.

 The convoy, having survived three Carn attacks and a heartstopping moment when an avalanche narrowly missed a wagon on the high trail, had come at last to a green valley flanked by great mountains whose snow-covered peaks reached up into the clouds.

 At a full meeting the wagoners had voted to put their roots into the soil of the valley, and Con Griffin had ridden with Madden and Burke to stake out plots for all the families. With the land allocated and the first timber felled, the wagoners had woken on a chill Autumn day to find three strange riders approaching the settlement. Each wore a curious helm embossed in black and sporting goats’ horns, and by their sides hung pistols the like of which Griffin had never seen.

 Griffin strode to meet them while Madden sat on a nearby wagon, his long rifle cradled across his arm. Jimmy Burke knelt beside a felled log idly polishing a double-barrelled flintlock.

 ’Good morning to you,’ said Griffin. The leader of the trio, a young man with dark eyes, forced a smile that was at best wintry.

 ’You are settling here?’

 ’Why not? It is virgin land.’

 The man nodded. ‘We are seeking a rider named Shannow.’

 ’He is dead,’ said Griffin.

 ’He is alive,’ stated the man, with a certainty Griffin could not ignore.

 ’If he is, then I am surprised. He was attacked by a cannibal tribe to the south and never rejoined his wagon.’

 ’How many of you are there?’ asked the rider.

 ’Enough,’ said Griffin.

 ’Yes,’ agreed the man. ‘We will be on our way - we are just passing through these lands.’

 The riders turned their horses and galloped towards the east.

 Madden joined Griffin.

 ’I didn’t like the look of them,’ volunteered Madden. ‘You think we are in for trouble?’

 ’Could be,’ admitted Griffin.

 ’They set my flesh crawling,’ said Burke, coming up to join them. ‘They reminded me of the cannibals, ‘cepting they had proper teeth.’

 ’What do you advise, Griff?’ asked Madden.

 ’If they are Brigands, they’ll be back.’

 ’What did they talk about?’ inquired Burke.

 They were asking about a man named Shannow.’

 ’Who’s he?’ asked Madden.

 ’He’s the Jerusalem Man,’ said Griffin, avoiding a direct lie. He had told none of his wagoners of Jon Taybard’s true name.

 ’In that case,’ said Burke, ‘they’d better hope they don’t find him. He’s not a man to mess with, by God! He’s the one that shot up the Brigands in Allion. And he gave Daniel Cade his limp - shot him in the knee.’