Shadowheart s-4 Page 23

  He had become something that had never been before, he realized, and he was returning to a home that was no longer his, if it ever had been. They were all doomed, but darkness was only the thing that gave light shape. He was going home, and the Mother of All was singing beneath the rising moon, a song that went on and on and round and round… "I am all my mothers. I am perilous! I am beautiful! I am all my daughters too…"

  PART TWO

  THE TORTOISE

  15

  Heresies Aristas showed him kindness and taught him of the true gods, the Three Brothers, and they became fast friends. When the ship on which they were both prisoners sank during a storm in Lake Strivothos, the Orphan helped Aristas to reach safety.

  -from "A Child's Book of the Orphan, and His Life and Death and Reward in Heaven"

  The village looked as though it had been abandoned at least a year earlier, but as Theron the Pilgrimer soon learned, that was not entirely true.

  It stood by itself in a bend of the river he had been following because the roads were faint and overgrown here, as though they hadn't been used in a very long time. Perhaps a few dozen people had once lived in the small settlement but they were clearly long gone: brambles had grown up the sides of the houses, most of which were only collections of cut branches and mud daubing. The grasses had moved in across the paths and animal trails that had once led to the village's main road, so that the ramshackle cottages seemed to have grown directly out of the ground without human intervention, like mushrooms.

  The weather had been gray and oppressive all day, with spatters of rain, but it was the horizon that worried Theron. The wind was rising-already the trees were beginning to bend-and in the north clouds had piled up in purple-black mounds, ready to roll down across the hills and drench the valley through which they had been traveling since they crossed the Southmarch border two days earlier.

  "Boy," he said to Lorgan, "go and see if any of these huts would shelter us. It's been raining, so if you find one with a dry floor that should do for us."

  The boy looked to his hooded master, but the man with the bandaged hands was sitting on a stump, taking the opportunity to rest. Theron thought it nearly a miracle that a fellow so weak and unwell could walk so far each day, but something was clearly driving the bandaged stranger to reach Southmarch-not that Theron thought for a moment they would get anywhere near that far. In fact, the increasing strangeness and emptiness of these lands had nearly convinced him that their journey would have to come to an end in one of the towns along the coast of Brenn's Bay, which they should reach in another few days. If he truly wanted to enter a castle at war, Theron's odd companion would have to manage that himself.

  "Go on, then," Theron said to the boy. "Find us a place to shelter."

  Lorgan still hesitated. "What are those lumpy things under the eaves?"

  Theron squinted at the nearest of the deserted houses. "That? Wasps' nests, perhaps, but I see no wasps, do you? In any case, if you don't poke at them they'll do you no harm-that is well known. Now go and turn up something dry enough to give us shelter."

  The child went forward on tiptoe, which irritated Theron. It was bad enough traveling through such empty, godsforsaken territories with the disturbing evidence of human desertion all around; the boy skulking as if some terrible beast or ogre might step out of the trees at any moment only made things worse. Now Theron was feeling unsettled, too. "For the love of the oracles, would you get on with it?"

  Lorgan leaned into the nearest house without touching anything, as though the very wood might be poisonous. He straightened up quickly and shook his head, then went on to the next, stopping only to peer anxiously up at the odd, grayish shapes hanging like curds beneath the eaves on either side of the open doorway. Again the boy did his best to avoid any contact with the house itself, and again he quickly withdrew, shaking his head.

  "Muddy," Lorgan said quietly, but with an air of defiance, as though Theron seemed about to argue, which he wasn't-the pilgrimer was only weary and hoping they could stop here for the day and build a proper fire to chase the damp cold out of his bones. All he had to do was deliver this hooded fool to someplace as near Southmarch as possible, then take his money and go home. Never again would he have to spend a night in the rainy woods. Never again would he have to hear the sound of a wolf howling and wonder whether he dared to sleep or not. He had an entire sack full of the madman's money, enough to buy livestock and a fine manor house in south Summerfield along the Brennish border. In fact, with all that gold he could maybe purchase a magistracy-or even a minor title! Theron, Baron of the Stefanian Hills-that was worth a little discomfort, surely…!

  His musings were interrupted by a sudden shriek from the boy, who danced back from the door of one of the houses waving his hands, and then to Theron's utter astonishment began to rise into the air. The pilgrim-master had only an instant to stare, then he felt a sudden sting on his own cheek, another at the back of his head, a third on his arm.

  Wasps…! was his confused thought-confused because he knew even as he reeled back, flailing his arms and trying to drive the invisible creatures away, that no wasps in the gods' creation had the power to jerk a boy several handbreadths into the air. After that he scarcely had any time to think of anything.

  Something wrapped around his arm as he tried to drive the stinging insects away. Could it be spiders that had attacked them? But the strands were tougher than any cobweb Theron had ever felt. As he snapped one, he felt another wrap around him, then another and another. Still, there was no sign of whatever had attacked him except more stings blossoming painfully on his legs and arms. Theron roared in pain, trying desperately to break free from whatever was binding him. He could hear the boy screeching only a short distance away, and it encouraged him to fight harder. He managed to break through several of the clinging strands long enough to stumble out into the middle of the clearing, away from any of the houses. His employer, the hooded pilgrim, was nowhere to be seen. Theron swiped at his own stinging, aching face and wasted a moment cursing the fellow's cowardice. Something came off in his hand as he rubbed at himself. He looked down to see, not a dying insect, but a tiny arrow or an even tinier spear, its sharp tip still bloodied, lying broken in his palm.

  Theron looked up in wonderment and saw the eaves beneath the nearest house boiling with tiny manlike creatures. The boy had managed to snap the cords that had caught him and had fallen to the ground, but from his shrieking and writhing he was still clearly badly beset. Theron could not even curse now-his superstitious terror was too great. He hesitated for a moment, knowing that this might be his only chance to run and make his own escape from the demonic little creatures that were even now swarming by the dozens down tiny ropes, climbing over the boy to wind him with heavier cords and bind him for good. Only the gods could guess what they would do with the poor child when they had him…!

  Theron glimpsed the depths of his own cowardice but could not go there, could not leave the boy to such a fate. Shouting, he ran barehanded toward Lorgan and tried to pick him up. Tiny men stabbed at his hands as he rolled the boy over, flinging many of them off and crushing others. An attack of sudden pinpricks up and down his neck and the side of his face made Theron shriek in pain. As he slapped at the wounds, several of the invisible strands wrapped around him, binding his hand to the side of his head so that the sudden imbalance made him wobble and then fall across the boy. For a moment, as he lay helpless in the grass, he could see the tiny men come leaping through the undergrowth toward him, little horrors with grotesque faces like festival masks, squealing and buzzing in a tongue almost too high-pitched to hear. Then they were on him, dozens at first, then hundreds. He tried to swat them away as they swarmed over him, but he had only one hand free, and a moment later they had wrapped his other wrist with their bindings as well. Lorgan whimpered and squirmed helplessly beneath him.

  Then something smashed into him, knocking him off the boy and sending him rolling through the undergrowth and up aga
inst the nearest cottage. At first Theron could see only the eaves above him and the monstrous little men swarming down from their strange nests. One of his hands was still tied to his face, and he had a sudden horror that the tiny creatures would fall into his mouth and choke him. He rolled over and climbed awkwardly to his knees just in time to see the nameless pilgrim swinging a tree branch almost as long as he himself was tall, smashing the hanging nests under the eaves so that the pulpy, barklike material dropped to the ground in great chunks, along with dozens of little, kicking bodies.

  The hooded man now began to use the massive branch as a hammer, pounding at the tiny shapes as they darted through the grass, macerating the pieces of the creatures' nests, crushing as many of the little men as he could reach. Theron could sense rather than hear the change of tone in the little men's shrill voices, aggression and anger now taking a sharp upward turn into terror as the nameless pilgrim began to attack all the nests in earnest.

  Theron finally tore his hand free of the binding strings-he could see them now, dangling from his fingers, miniature ropes not much thicker than spiderwebs-and got back onto his feet, grunting as he continued to be struck by the occasional invisible dart. He kept himself as low as he could and made his way to the boy Lorgan, then lifted him up and carried him away from the cursed village as quickly as he could go. He stepped on several of the tiny men as he went and did not regret it.

  Theron grabbed as much of their baggage as he could hold, dragging it behind him as he stumbled back down the path and away from the houses. Only when he had put the bend in the river behind him and could no longer see any of the cottages did he finally set the boy down and let himself slump to the ground as well, gasping for breath.

  By the time the hooded man returned, Theron had found a slightly more sheltered spot and had dug out his flints to start a fire. The nameless pilgrim did not speak, but only settled down beside the blaze so gingerly that Theron could never have guessed less than an hour earlier the man had been slaughtering the tiny little goblins by the dozens. The strange figure accepted a bit of dried meat, taking it in his bandaged hands, which were now stained with new blood. Theron did not think much of it was the man's own.

  Lorgan was feverish during the evening, and Theron feared some of the minuscule arrows might have been poisoned, but he himself felt nothing worse than the great lethargy that follows a fight for one's safety. Lorgan moaned and thrashed a long time, but near middle-night seemed to pass through the worst, and from that point on slept quietly.

  The boy appeared much better in the morning light, to Theron's great relief. Lorgan's face and hands and arms were covered with welts and pinpoint wounds, many with part or even all of the doll-sized arrows still in them, and Theron had to spend a good part of the early light cleaning the boy's injuries as best he could before he saw to his own. It was clear to him that the time to turn back had come earlier than he had previously thought, but there was no way he was going to risk himself or the boy traveling any deeper into a land that was clearly overrun with madness and the worst sorts of black magic.

  As Theron put the last bits of the evening's camp back into his pack, the boy finished talking in whispers with the hooded man and turned toward Theron.

  "He wants to know when we will reach Southmarch. He thinks we must be close."

  "We?" Theron snorted. "We? We are not going to reach Southmarch. We are turning back."

  The boy looked at him strangely, but turned obediently to hear what his master had to say. "He says it is not far-a few days' walk at most, he feels sure. And the gods do not truly oppose our journey, or they would have sent worse than that."

  Now Theron laughed, astounded. "Ah! So if we continue we may be allowed to discover what the gods consider worse than being stabbed by a thousand needles and likely roasted and eaten by little goblins? A shame to miss it, but still, I think I will pass."

  After another near-silent colloquy the boy asked, "Will you leave us, then?"

  "If you mean will I leave you, child, no. I am not the best man who ever lived, and often I have forgotten that it is love of the gods itself which has given me my livelihood, but no, I will not leave you to follow this madman into danger and death. Either he lets you go with me or he will have to fight me." But he had seen the hooded man fight now, if only for a few moments, and it was daunting to think of going against him.

  Now the boy stared at him for a long time before turning to hear the words of the hooded man. As the child listened, Theron dug into his jerkin and pulled out his purse. A strange feeling was on him, but he felt as though the time had come to do what was right and do nothing else. Strange things were afoot, both in the wide world and right here between himself and this mysterious man. By nearly taking his life the gods had reminded Theron that they were always present. He would not forget again.

  "Here, boy," he said. "Come and take the purse."

  "He says to you…" Lorgan began.

  "I do not care. I've not done all that I promised-I haven't taken him as far as Southmarch-town-so I do not deserve his money. It does not matter. He paid me more than generously with the first gold coin, back when he joined the pilgrimage. If he permits it, I will take one more for the trouble and expense of bringing him so far, and if he is mad enough to continue without us, I will swear to find a good home for you, boy, if I do not give you one myself. But we go no farther."

  Lorgan's eyes were wide. The boy looked as though he might cry, but it was hard to tell with a face that had already been so dirt-streaked, and was now swollen and blood-smeared as well. He took the purse and conveyed it slowly, as in some ritual, to the hooded man, who accepted it with equal solemnity.

  The three of them stood that way for a long succession of heartbeats. The silence was breached at last by the ratcheting call of a jay, which seemed to break the spell.

  The nameless man rose, still looking down at the ground as he generally did. After a month of traveling together, Theron had still never properly seen his face, or any of his skin. He murmured something that Theron could not hear, but the boy did.

  "He says it does not matter," Lorgan repeated. "He does not need living companions any longer. He thanks you for your honesty. When you die and are judged, as he was, he thinks the judgment will be a merciful one."

  Then the man in the battered, dirty robe dropped the purse to the ground and turned away, walking north along the track, back toward the village where they had all nearly died, headed toward Southmarch where it must lie beyond the valley and the hills.

  The boy was crying quietly. After the man had vanished into the trees, Theron shook his head and took a few steps forward. He hesitated, then picked up the purse and tucked its jingling weight into his jerkin again. It did not seem important now-nothing much seemed important just at this moment-but the day would come when he would be glad of it again. And at least he could be certain that the boy Lorgan no longer had to live as a beggar on the streets of Oscastle or anywhere else.

  Still, it wasn't until the jay squawked again and something answered it from the depths of the trees-some bird or other creature he didn't recognize-that Theron the Pilgrimer shook off his strange lethargy and he and the boy turned south, back toward lands where things made sense.

  "No, you fool, put your hand flat against the wood. Now spread your fingers."

  Tinwright did as he was told, but it was hard with his arm trembling so.

  "Open your eyes, poet." Hendon Tolly made it clear this was not a request. "It takes all the joy out of the thing if your eyes are squeezed shut and teary like a little boy waiting for the clyster pipe." He drew the knife back by his ear.

  Other than the lord protector's guards, they were alone in the room known as the King's Counting House, which had for years been the office of the royal exchequer. The walls, paneled in golden fir, were stained with food that the lord protector had thrown against them and pock-marked with ominous, dagger-blade holes.

  "Now, watch," Tolly said, and flicked the k
nife. Despite a slight flinch from Tinwright, it did not harm him, but buried itself nearly two inches deep between the tips of his right index and middle fingers.

  Hendon Tolly drew another knife, seemingly out of thin air. "Stay…!"

  This blade smacked into the wood only a few inches away from the first and stood quivering, almost touching the web of Matt Tinwright's thumb.

  Tolly smirked. "By the Knot of Kernios, look at you! Pale as death and shaking like a leaf! What does a poet need all his fingers for, anyway?"

  Tinwright swallowed. Hendon Tolly expected to be answered. "For writing…? Remember, you wanted me to write about… about your triumph, my lord."

  "Triumph, yes. Except that crocodile-swiving autarch is trying to steal it out from under me." A third dagger suddenly flashed through the air so close to Matt Tinwright's face that he could feel the breath of its passage. As it shuddered in the wall beside the poet's head, Hendon Tolly stood up. "He believed I had this… what was it called? This 'Godstone.' So perhaps it truly is necessary to the whole enterprise." He pointed at Tinwright. "You… you will find it for me."

  Matt Tinwright was completely muddled. His hand stung where he had brushed the skin of his thumb against the blade of the lord protector's knife. "Me, Lord? I don't understand."

  Tolly looked at the guards along the far wall, who were grimly doing their best to seem attentive to their duty while never looking directly at Hendon Tolly for fear he would notice them; bad things happened to people the lord protector noticed. "You will examine Okros' books and scrolls and find out about this Godstone the autarch needs. You will get it for me."