A Man Of His Word - Perilous Seas Part 10

"Merman?"

"Course."

"And whata""

"Couple o' husbands knifed him the first night."

"It's true, then?"

"Course." Suddenly Shyo cackled. "Did you never hear about the legions' last try at invading the Keriths, back in Emthar's reign? Not the first time, of course, but some bright tribune dreamed up the idea that they might make it stick if they took along enough camp followers, but o' course what happened was exactly the opposite, and. . ."

Rap had heard versions of the story in Durthing, and didn't care to hear any more. It was a standard tale whenever the conversation turned to the irresistible attractions of merfolk. Then he realized that Gathmor was again questioning old Nagg, and arguing at her answers. Growing steadily sleepier and sleepier, he struggled to follow the conversation. The castaways could walk to Puldarn easy, she said. Three days maybe; far enough to get hungry, not far enough to starve. Gathmor inquired cautiously about the sea route. Very dangerous, Nagg a.s.sured him. The tides of the Dragon Sea were notorious. Very rocky coast. No, he and his friends should walk.

Of course they were going to walk, Rap thought drowsily. The cas.e.m.e.nt had said so.

Can't walk on bare feet, Gathmor insisted. Three days in the sun with no food and little water . . . and eventually Nagg promised to provide clothes.

Robes, Rap thought, yawning. Black, green, and brown. They would be plain wear, Nagg said, just gowns of the coa.r.s.e stuff the women made, but they'd keep out sun and wind and thorns.

Rap wondered if the robes, when they appeared, would trigger Jalon's memories of the cas.e.m.e.nta"Jalon's memories of Sagom's memories. He wished Gathmor could sound a little more grateful. These poor fisherfolk had no need to give the strangers as much as a smile. The jotnar would have meant little to them, for they had nothing to lose except their lives, and Rap wasn't sure he would care very much about life if he had to spend it here. Yawn! His mind wandered away to the merwoman and her two fortunate guards. Still at it! . . . He scolded himself for prying and forced his attention back to the negotiations.

At long last Gathmor solemnly thanked Nagg for her offer of the shoes and clothes, and promised that he and his companions would set off at first light, so as not to waste any of the cool hours. And the weather was so fine, they would sleep outdoors here.

Even the outdoors smelled bad enough, Rap thought. Those heaps of drying seaweed over there would make good bedding, the villagers said.

Right now a bank of shingle would make good bedding. The kelp, when he was led to it, proved to be springy and less smelly than he had feared. It crackled and popped in his ears when he moved, but he was not expecting to move much.

He closed his eyes and indulged in one last-long-slowa"yawn. And was asleep.

Gathmor shook him awake in pitch darkness. "Sh!"

"Huh? What time is it?"

"Sh, I said! *Bout midnight."

Rap noted Jalon kneeling, half up, grumpily rubbing his eyes. "What's wrong? Won't be dawn for hours."

"We're going to leave now," Gathmor whispered. "On the tide. "

"But . . . Oh!" Down on the beach lay the village's four dugout canoes, one of which Gathmor had borrowed earlier, and then returned. "Steal . . . ?" Blurred with sleep, Rap tried to imagine the amount of labor involved in making a dugout canoe with stone tools.

"Ride the tide to Puldarn," Gathmor added in a determined whisper. "We'll be there by nightfall."

Rap was not going to steal a canoe.

Rap was not going to Puldarn. Rap was going to Zark.

But to tell Gathmor that would mean a brawl, and he didn't feel like fighting a jotunn right now, in the middle of the night. The seaweed crackled and crunched as he raised his head, although he didn't need to do that to see.

"No we won't."

Now it was Gathmor who made the "Huh?" sound.

"She's posted guards," Rap mumbled. "Six of them, on the beach. They've got spears and axes." He lay back and crackled himself comfortable again. "And they're all awake," he added with sleepy satisfaction. He rolled over and went back to sleep. Gathmor ran off a string of nautical obscenities.

He didn't think to go and see for himself.

4.

The western descent was taking longer than the ascent had, which Inos considered unfair. The food was running out and the nights were cold and there was nothing to see except endlessly winding walls of rock. The valley widened, it brought in tributaries, and it steadily descended; it just would not arrive anywhere.

Wolves lived in those hills and howled after sundown; Azak had reported bear tracks. He chose defensible campsites on principle, being a distrustful man.

On the fourth night of the descent he found a cave that had once been an arched gateway into a small castle, most of which had been swept away or overthrown by old floods. Mud had settled around the rest until little was now visible above the gra.s.s and bushes; but the barrel roof of the adit was there and one end was blocked by rubble. Azak insisted he could hold it singlehanded against an army.

Inos and Kade huddled together through yet another frigid mountain night, wrapped up in their two blankets like a single load of laundry. Azak did not seem to sleep at all, sitting crosslegged by the fire, scowling at the darkness of the valley outside. He said afterward that he saw eyes out there once, but the howling never came really close.

Chilled and stiff, the travelers settled for a quick snack of dates and stale bread at first light, then broke camp. The valley had perversely narrowed again. Its beetling walls still clutched the nighttime chill, holding the sun at bay and filling the air with blue shadow. Even the mules seemed glad to be on their way.

The road they had followed down from the pa.s.s continued, broken here and there where it had been washed away or buried. The scale of it fascinated Azak. He had been speculating on what great king or sorcerer could have attempted such a work, for much of the roadbed was paved with huge slabs, and other parts had been chiseled out of bedrock, and six men could have ridden it abreast. It leaped chasms on rainbows of masonry as graceful as arrows' flights. In its prime it must have been a marvel. He tried to estimate how many had labored for how long to create it, and seemed awed by his answers. It must be more than a thousand years old, he pointed out, and it would obviously last as long again. Yet perhaps he and his companions were the first to travel it in centuries.

Even when buried in soil, the highway had often resisted tree roots. Then it formed a ribbon of turf snaking through the forest. Conifers had dwindled; here the valley was filled with hardwoods. The frothy white stream had become a river of stature, still flowing strangely milky water.

Nothing like a mule ride to shake out the last crumbs of sleep. "These eyes you saw," Inos said. "Were they mundane?"

Azak chuckled throatily. "I'm still here, my love." Not demons.

They had talked the old tales to tatters. Azak believed in the demon hypothesis. Someone in that awful war had released demons, and a few still lingered, preying on hapless travelers, but not so many that they caught everyone who came through. Not much anyone could do about demons except hope to stay out of their way.

Inos did not like the idea of demons. She preferred the invisibility story, which said that Ulien'quith had rendered all pixies invisible, and their descendants lived on like that still, under their own warlock. Azak scoffed at that. If pixies were at all like other men, he said, they would have long since used their invisibility advantage to conquer the whole world.

Now Inos was beginning to fashion a theory of her owna"that the missing travelers were ensnared by curses of nonarrival. This valley, for example, never seemed to be getting to anywhere. Perhaps she and Kade and Azak would ride down it forever, or until they died of old age.

She was just about to mention that cheerful possibility when the travelers rounded a bend and saw their first pixie standing in the middle of the road. The flash of Azak's sword alarmed his mule. The others reacted along with it, and for a moment there was confusion. By the time the animals were calmed, though, their riders could see that the danger had been over for ten centuries.

They rode cautiously forward to inspect the solitary figure. Weathering had pitted the grayish surface and blotched it in white and yellow lichen, but all the details and features were clearly visible stilla"a perfect statue of a youth running; naked because whatever garments he had been wearing had long since rotted away. Silt had washed in around him until now he was buried to the ankles, and the gra.s.s stalks waved around his knees. He could not have been much older than Inos, and the face he raised to the mountains ahead seemed to her to be filled with stern resolution, a determination to conquer no matter what the cost.

Inos reined in the lead mule and dismounted. Kade remained in the saddle, four mules back, and pulled out her breviary so she would not appear to be looking. Inos had seen much worse than mere nudity among the statuary in Rasha's bedroom. Azak had come to stand beside her and would be noting her reaction. She must demonstrate the sophisticated att.i.tude of an Imperial lady. It was only stone, no excuse for prudery. So that's what they look like?

"A messenger," she said sadly. "Running to warn someone?"

"Or a coward running away?"

"No." Sorrow soaked into her bones like the damp of the gloomy valley. The shadows chilled her hearta"a road going nowhere, traveled by no one, a boy turned into a monument to a lost cause.

"That is not the face of a coward," she said. "The eyes are strange . . . pixie eyes?"

"They're sort of elvish," Azak said, "set at an angle. But not big enough. And sort-of-elvish ears, too, but not pointed enough. He's too brawny for an elf. They're skinny. Too much chest for an imp, and not enough for a dwarf. And that stepped-on nose looks faunish. A little bit of everything. I suppose he was a pixie."

Inos saw nothing wrong with the nose. Not every man looked good with the eagle beak of a djinn.

She moved closer, until she was between the figure and the peaks, so the unseeing eyes glared right at her. The gray stone, roughened by centuries of rain and wind, was yet eerily realistic, like a living man coated in mud.

"Turn back, pixie," she said. "They can't hear your message. They won't come to your call." She expected Azak to make fun of her, but he seemed to have caught the same dark mood.

"The Accursed Place may have worse things to show us yet." She shook her head. "Nothing could be sadder than this. Go home, pixie, back to your loved ones. Tell them the war is over."

"They will ask who won," Azak said softly.

"Just tell them you lost."

"They will ask why."

" 'Why' doesn't matter to the dead. Tell them you died in vain." For a moment there was silence. Even the wind dared not speak as it stirred the gra.s.s around the youth's calves.

Azak spoke again: "Remember what the poet saysa"nothing frightens like tomorrow's war, inspires like today's, or saddens like yesterday's."

She glanced up at him in surprise. "You believe that?"

He looked abashed and showed his teeth. "I care nothing for yesterday, and today we must ride. Say good-bye to your pixie, my lady. He will keep his vigil here until long after we are gone."

Once more Inos met the accusing stare of the stone eyes. Then she shivered and headed back to the mules.

But that pixie was only the first. Soon they came to two others, lying facedown. And then more, and more. The forest died away, as if ashamed to conceal such disaster, and the whole width of the valley floor was exposed, all littered with stone corpses. The road itself was completely blocked, compelling the travelers to leave it and pick their way across the turf and rocks, around and between the silent mult.i.tude.

The river, wandering to and fro over the centuries, had swept whole areas clear of the gruesome remains, piling them in shoals and burying them in sand, but it would need many centuries yet before one river could hide so great a slaughter. Creepers and ivy had tried, also, wrapping some of the figures in grotesque green fur.

Many lay flat, especially solitary runners, who would have been off balance, and the fallen had often shattered. In the more crowded areas, and where the ground had been soft, most were still upright, or leaning against their neighbors. Unless broken, though, every statue in that great naked throng was as well preserved as the first: roughened in spots by erosion and splotched with lichen, but exact in every detail of hair and muscle.

Hundreds and thousands of them . . . faceup or facedown or standing in their huddles like mourners . . . all had been going the same way. As Azak had guessed, they had been fleeing from something, and now the intruders must ride their trembling mules into the warning, accusing glares of a myriad stone faces.

Most were young males, a routed army, but there were many civilians also. Inos saw women of all ages, and one whole heap of old men with their knees up, all traces of their wagon long since vanished. She saw family groups: children grasping adults' hands, men bearing toddlers on their shoulders, and one stone infant clutched to a stone nipple. She saw men stooped beneath burdens of earthly possessions that had long since disappeared, leaving only the memory of their weight. She saw helmeted soldiers brandishing rusted swords to clear a way through the mob, with plates of bronze tumbled around their feet because the leather had perished.

Some armored men lay on their backs with their legs bent, nested in the shattered bones of their horses. The weeds must hide not only stirrups and bits and buckles, but also coins and jewels, gold plate and works of art. With a bag and a shovel, Inos thought, she could gather a great fortune here in a few daysa"and lose her wits in the process. Those eyes . . .

She developed a shiver that she could not control. She kept glancing hopefully at Kade, wishing her aunt would insist that they all turn back and find another way over the hills or even flee back to Zark; but Kade said nothing, although her face was pale and drawn with horror. Even Azak looked nauseated. No one spoke as the little caravan wound its way through the grisly mausoleum.

Beyond the last stragglers, the valley was again deserted for a s.p.a.ce and then ended abruptly in blue sky framed by spectacular cliffs.

Once a mighty fortress had stood proud on a high spur, guarding the mouth of the pa.s.s. Some trace of the eastern salient and tower still remained, bent and grotesquely twisted. But the main buildings and much of the spur itself had melted like b.u.t.ter, flowing down to engulf the little town below. All that was left was a great frozen spill of black gla.s.s and a few protruding gables and chimneys, burned red and fractured by the ancient heat, warped and half melted themselves. Here was what the pixies had been fleeing.

Inos did not say so, and neither did the others. They had lost the pavement, and the forest returned. They rode through in single file without a word or a shared glance, all bearing thoughts too somber to profane with speech.

Then daylight showed through the trunks, the land fell away, and the valley had ended. Azak reined in and the others came to a halt at his side, overlooking an open meadow, sloping gently westward. In the far distance silver flashed from a very large river, twisting lazily over the plain. Beyond that the sky and the land went on forever, merging eventually at the limits of human vision in a vague orchid haze. A warm breeze rustled leaves overhead, bringing a faint hint of the sea.

"Thume," Azak said softly. "The Accursed Place!"

"It doesn't look accursed to me," Inos retorted. "It looks peaceful. Welcoming." But anything might look welcome after that petrified army.

She glanced across at her aunt, and was astonished to see an expression of . . . worry? Concern . . . almost an expression of fear. Kade's normally plump and contented face seemed haggard and sickly. True, for an elderly lady accustomed to a life of genteel inactivity, she had endured an incredibly wearying journeya"but she had survived the rigors of the desert and the hardships of the taiga without looking like that. Her scanty silver hair was tousled and tangled, floating like wisps in the breeze. Her wrinkles were scored like scars; her mouth sagged. Why should the petrified army have done this to her?

"What do you think, Aunt?"

Kade shook her head and gnawed her weathered lip. "I don't know, dear. I suppose I'm just being a superst.i.tious old woman, but . . . but I don't like it! "

"Go back, you mean?"

Stiffly Kade glanced over her shoulder, to where the steep western escarpment loomed above the treetops. She shivered. "Oh, no! Not back!"

"Well, we don't exactly have many other choices. Big Man?" Azak studied Kade for a moment, narrowing his eyes as he peered over the bristling red yashmak of his beard. Then he flashed his teeth at Inos. "I see no sign of people. What do you think, my precious one?"

He expected courage in royalty. Inos took another look at that serene idyllic landscape.

"I say we have no choice!" She slammed her heels into her mule's flanks, and the startled little beast seemed to leap forward with all four feet at once. Then it charged off down the slope, and the others came thumping after.

Battles long ago:

Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow,

For old, unhappy, far-off things,

And battles long ago.

a" Wordsworth, The Reaper

FIVE.

Man's worth something