by A J Dalton
He opened one eye and squinted up at her. ‘Full of questions today, aren’t we? Don’t you hear all the voices on the wind? If you listen carefully, you’ll hear millions of them, some quieter than others.’
She listened for long moments. ‘All I hear is the wind.’
He shook his head, his shining helmet crunching gently on the road. ‘The wind has no sound of its own. It is made up of all the sounds and movements of the world. Everyone talking and moving about at once creates an awful din and a very powerful draught, as you might imagine, a force that moves the clouds, can create storms, can flatten trees, and so on. If you practise long enough, you can separate out most of the sounds and listen to what everyone is saying.’
She listened again, cupping hands to her small ears. ‘I hear … the rustling of the hedgerows.’
‘And beyond that?’
‘It’s just a rushing noise, like water in a river.’
‘Yes, it’s a river of sound. Do you hear variations in the river, as if the water chatters over rocks in one place or a fish flicks its tail in another to create a plopping noise?’
She twisted her head one way and then another. ‘Yes, it’s slightly different in each direction, but I can’t make out clear voices. It must take a lot of practice or better hearing than I have. I’m better at feeling vibrations in the ground, I think.’
‘Probably. Whereas I hear far too much, partly because I can sometimes sense the energy of people’s thoughts in the same way I can hear voices. All the voices in my head drive me mad sometimes and stop me sleeping. But this helmet helps with blocking a lot of it out.’
‘Then you know nearly everything, friend Anupal? I can’t imagine that. Is it a good thing or do you not like it so much?’
He scratched absently at his cheek. ‘Hmm. You end up knowing everything and nothing really. People talk a lot of rubbish most of the time. One will espouse something with utter conviction and declare it as invaluable knowledge, but then another will espouse the exact opposite with equal conviction. My head is filled with nothing but confusion and conflict most of the time. Sometimes I lose myself and am paralysed by it. Other times I rant and rave. You would think I always knew what was about to happen and that I would then know how to act to bend things to my will, eh? Yet, more often than not, people behave at direct odds with what they have just said or have been thinking. It makes them almost impossible. Occasionally, it does all come together and I achieve exactly what I wish. At those moments I appear godlike and omniscient. That’s how Wayfar of the Warring Winds and the others do it too. But most of the time the actions I take just end up adding to the general confusion and conflict. The gods are frauds in the main, which is probably why the elseworlders found it so easy to displace them.’
The gods are frauds, she pondered as she watched a beetle scrabbling along the sheer cliff of her forearm. She was worried by that, for she did not want to be following the commands of a fraud. And if she were a child of the rock god, did that make her a fraud too? She sometimes felt like one, like when that horrible fat Saint had caught her, bitten her finger off and put her in a cauldron. ‘Is it never quiet and peaceful for you then, friend Anupal?’ she asked, wiping a tear from her eye and dislodging the beetle. The insect fell onto the road on its back and struggled with its legs in the air.
The Peculiar stilled for a second and then one of his feet began to twitch. ‘It’s all relative, I suppose. It’s better when I am in my home and most of the voices are shut out. But the world is never absolutely quiet and at peace, dear one, never! But you’re right – I strive to bring peace and quiet to it, so that I may then have quiet and peace. Sometimes it seems it would be best if everything were dead.’
Suddenly, she feared him. She stilled her tongue at once and quieted her thoughts. She became an unmoving stone. How he must hate her!
They trundled along in silence, silence except for the trundle and rattle of the wagon and the restless rhythm of the two horses’ hooves. Jillan’s mind trundled and rattled and his teeth ground together. His jaw ached. He’d collapsed after the confrontation with Bion and known nothing since. Unconsciousness was a blessing of sorts, until you began to understand you were trapped inside your own thoughts. They could all too quickly become a nightmare, as they had in Linder’s Drop. He desperately wanted to break free, but also feared to do so, for he knew the world he opened his eyes to was a world of ruins, plague, loss and pain.
It’s not that bad! the taint argued. Your parents are probably still alive, as are Hella and Samnir, albeit a bit worse for wear. Plus, you need to wake up to help out poor old Ash and Aspin, who just don’t know what to say to that morose and brooding blacksmith. Look, I’m not going to stop nagging till you wake up, so you may as well get it over with.
Jillan groaned.
‘He’s awake!’
A drinking spout was put to his lips and water trickled into his mouth. He swallowed and felt a refreshing chill spread through him. He let his eyes flicker and fall open. Aspin sat next to him in the back of Thomas’s wagon.
Jillan tried to move, but the mountain warrior pushed him back down with a firm hand. ‘Take a second. Drink some more water. There you go. We’ve made good time, apparently. We’re not far from Hyvan’s Cross by Ash’s reckoning.’
The sky was all dark shadows and bright spots. What was he seeing? The shadows flew past far quicker than clouds usually moved.
‘Where … What …?’ he murmured.
Aspin followed Jillan’s eyes upwards. ‘Oh, we’re in some sort of sunken road. It’s a tunnel of sorts, since bushes and so on have grown over it. Amazing, huh?’
‘I think pagans have maintained it so that they can travel across the land in secret,’ Ash called back, his voice shaking slightly with the movement of the wagon. ‘Is that right, Thomas Ironshoe? No answer again. Anyway, how are you feeling, Jillan? I was quite worried when you passed out, but Aspin said it had happened before. Pretty impressive display back there, I must say. Saved our bacon, and no mistake. That’s another one I owe you.’
Aspin’s eyes went from the direction of Ash’s voice to an adjacent point. Jillan guessed his friend was gazing at Thomas’s back. Aspin gave a sad shake of his head and then looked back down at Jillan. ‘Ready to sit up? You should try and eat something. We probably haven’t eaten in days, remember? I think there wasn’t much substance to what we ate in Linder’s Drop.’ He winced at his own words and his eyes flicked back to Thomas before he helped Jillan prop himself against the side of the wagon.
‘Just dried meat, I’m afraid,’ Ash reported glumly. ‘Although there are creatures aplenty in here with us, we’ve been given the distinct impression by our glowering blacksmith friend here that it’s not at all acceptable to kill anything that’s travelling via the sunken road. You know what these pagans are like, Jillan – nature-worshipping and so forth. I suspect this thoroughfare is sacred to the gods or Geas or something. Still, the wolf was with us a while and passed a musk deer coming the other way. The wolf didn’t even lick his lips, I tell you. He all but nodded respectfully to the creature instead. Strangest thing I’ve ever seen. You know it’s not like him to hold back on his instincts and appetite, eh? If I were to relate such a tale in the inns of Saviours’ Paradise, I would not be believed. They’d think it was one of my jests or that I’d gone mad living out in the woods on my own.’
Jillan accepted a piece of jerky from Aspin and began to chew on it methodically. It was so dry that it was largely tasteless and immediately made him thirsty again. He sipped more water and finally managed to swallow the hard lump. Unpleasant it might be, but he knew it would sustain him. He considered the blacksmith, who stared blankly at the road ahead, the reins loose in his hands.
‘Thomas?’
The giant appeared not to have heard him. Jillan raised a questioning eyebrow at Aspin. ‘What can you read?’ he asked softly.
The mountain warrior looked uncomfortable. ‘Well, I haven’t tried really. It would
have felt a bit like intruding.’
What’s wrong with the pair of them? They’re tiptoeing around him as if they’re scared of him or something. Are they forgetting he wronged them? He knowingly tricked them and would have had them trapped serving an evil sprite for the rest of their lives if it weren’t for you. Now they’re letting him take you all who knows where, with no idea whether they can trust him or not, although past experience would strongly suggest trusting him is the last thing you should be doing. It would probably be safer and kinder all round if you just took one of the blades stowed here in the back of his wagon and drew it across—
‘Aspin, I need to know!’
Aspin jumped but then nodded. He stared at Thomas for a long while, lines and expressions appearing and disappearing so quickly on his face that they could not be followed. He drew a steadying breath, then said awkwardly, ‘Guilt and torment, great torment. He … can be trusted, I believe. He wants to make some amends for his part in what happened at Linder’s Drop. He will do everything he can to keep us safe and help rescue your parents. Beyond that, though, he is lost and there is only darkness.’ Aspin hung his head.
Jillan sighed. He got to his feet, holding onto the side of the wagon and keeping his head low so that he didn’t get caught in the briars of the tunnel’s roof. He edged past Aspin, tapped Ash on the shoulder and signalled that he wanted to swap places with him. The woodsman nodded gratefully and climbed back off the top board.
Jillan sat in silence next to the giant for a while. His eyes had now adjusted to the half-light and he saw movement everywhere. The road was alive! There was a profusion of scuttling, scurrying, scampering, buzzing, swooping and slithering life. Death’s head moths flapped like suffocating dreams while bejewelled butterflies danced around them as moments of joy. Rats forged and burrowed through detritus and humus, opening paths for smaller rodents. A tawny and almost invisible wildcat slunk past them, its glowing eyes a trick of the light and the rest of it the smoke of imagination. Birds dived and flitted, playing an unending game of hide-and-seek and trilling challenges to all. Snakes and slow-worms glided and glistened, ants and spiders hitching rides on their backs. Other creatures Jillan had only heard of in stories of magic and olden times.
They travelled along one of the sacred arteries of the world; they were a part of the Geas hidden just behind and below the cold everyday earth. There was the bleak and harsh reality of the world above, a world drained of life and colour by the Saviours; but then there was this tumult of life energy beneath. Jillan felt his faith in what he was attempting restored. He was not just lost in the wilds with a ragtag group of misfits and exiles; he was on a journey to free his innocent parents and find Haven. He was not simply a murderer and fugitive from justice; he was defending himself from being drained along with the rest of the world by the Saviours. He was not just deluding himself; there was hope for him and those for whom he cared.
‘Thomas, I’m sorry,’ he said quietly.
The rhythm of the horses’ hooves remained unbroken.
‘I’m sorry for what happened back there.’
You’re not really though, are you?
‘You had a family in New Sanctuary, when you knew my parents, didn’t you?’
Thomas’s face remained empty, but he hunched his shoulders slightly, as if to defend himself from being beaten about the head. The dead exterior of the man reminded Jillan of the barren world of the Saviours. There was life beyond that world, though. There was hope within, and a power of sorts, whether it teemed or was merely a dying spark.
‘Three beautiful daughters who still live within you,’ Jillan whispered as gently as a leaf falling. The creatures in the tunnel slowed and there was a lull, as if time had been interrupted by the vision that now hung in the air. ‘And a wife. Sabella, Ausa, Betha and sweet Stara. Dressed in white. Smiling. Welcoming. New Sanctuary fell.’
‘No! Please!’ Thomas suddenly begged. ‘Not again! Don’t make me see it!’
‘The Saint came. Their white dresses were turned red, their red faces were turned white.’
‘Nooo!’ came Thomas’s heart-rending and eviscerating cry, tears burning down his cheeks. The life in the tunnel fled. Ash and Aspin hid their faces.
Jillan hesitated. You must do this. It is a kindness of sorts. A most terrible kindness.
‘You refused to allow it, Thomas, and would not believe it. Then Bion told you that it had not happened, didn’t he? He reassured you that it had just been a bad dream and that all was well. See, here are your daughters, and wife. Still smiling. Still welcoming.’
‘No! Please!’ His voice was ragged and torn as if his throat were being sawn open.
‘You hid them away from the world, in a place that was always bright, but the black wolf finally found their scent and came for them. Nothing has the power to hold back the shadows of time and events forever, Thomas.’
The giant’s shoulders shook and his body shuddered as if he were being dismembered.
‘The white mice were at last consumed by the black wolf.’
His cry was primal: man understanding death truly for the first time; a child realising its parent is not just lost on some long journey; a woman finding that what she creates is not eternal; a suffering and torment that no lie can console; the agony of existence.
Even the taint was without voice.
Could the world ever start again? The nature of being was an all-consuming desire and fear of unbeing, wasn’t it?
‘No!’ Thomas silently mouthed.
From the core of his being Jillan brought a spark and created a brief moment of light within the tunnel. ‘They live within you still, Thomas. Make that the bright place in which you keep them. Otherwise, even your memories of them will be lost and it will be as if they never existed and they were nothing but a dream that fades away with the waking of the sleeper.’
‘I do not want this!’ the blacksmith pleaded.
‘I know, and forgive me that I am cruel. But I need you properly with us if I am to have any chance of freeing and escaping with my parents, those who were once friends of yours. I cannot allow you to remain lost in the past or in your own thoughts.’
Thomas nodded. ‘But after that you will let me rest?’
‘Yes,’ Jillan replied sadly. ‘Then you can rest.’
Ash had lowered his hands from his face. He puffed out his cheeks. ‘That was scary!’
Aspin looked embarrassed. ‘I think I’ve wet myself.’
‘Don’t sit near me!’ complained the woodsman, slowly piecing together a smile. ‘Look, you’ve stained that sack. It smells.’
‘Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to be back at your shack in the woods?’ Jillan asked tiredly, his eyelids heavy again.
‘No, I am not!’ Ash replied. ‘Still, at least I was smart enough to bring a flask of my homebrew with me. Here, Jillan, take a pull on this. Come on, you look like you need it. No, don’t be fussy. As I recall, you have quite a taste for it.’
Jillan sipped at the raw alcohol and pulled a face.
‘Now you, Thomas,’ Ash prompted. ‘Or I’m not sure we can be friends. Might not be as smooth as your best ale, but there’s plenty of fight in it.’
‘Hasn’t he suffered enough punishment already?’ Aspin asked with a straight face.
‘Well, you’re not getting any then,’ Ash sniffed. ‘Especially with that weak bladder of yours.’
‘Again, I am sorry, Thomas,’ Jillan said.
‘Hey, you!’ Ash fumed. ‘Thomas is a man of taste and discernment, and has a more mature palate than you, besides. Let him be the judge. I will not have you besmirching my good name and homebrew, especially when you’re in no fit state to stop me putting you over my knee and tanning your young behind.’
The blacksmith raised Ash’s battered flask to his lips and they all stopped. Thomas took the smallest nip and then he was choking and wheezing worse than ever. Aspin and Jillan couldn’t help smiling as Ash glared at them and slapped the black
smith on the back.
‘The sooner … the sooner we get to Hyvan’s Cross, the better.’ Thomas coughed. ‘Strong as I am, I’m not sure how much more of travelling with you three I can survive.’
The sunken road began to peter out. Thomas steered the horses to the right and then through the hedgerow. The foliage fit so closely together where they left the route that upon visual inspection alone none would have thought there was a way through, particularly for something as large as a wagon. The horses stepped upwards and hauled them onto a chalky compacted surface. The blacksmith made a clicking noise with his tongue, and the untroubled horses set off down the new road.
Interrupting the silent but relaxed reverie the companions had fallen into, Thomas announced, ‘We must follow the normal roads the rest of the way to Hyvan’s Cross, I’m afraid, for the sacred way leading from the city itself was deliberately destroyed long ago, when the people fled the Saviours’ minions.’
‘It is far colder without the shelter of the sunken road,’ Ash said a bit peevishly, blowing on his hands.
‘Yes, I would advise a blanket each. There is a crossroads not far ahead, where we will take the road that leads directly to the city. From the crossroads, it is but half a day’s journey.’
As they approached the crossroads a strange sight greeted them, a statue of a big ugly woman in the centre. There was also a handsome youth wearing a sun-metal helmet who appeared to be waiting for them.
‘Ah, there you are!’ the youth hailed them.
As they came closer, Jillan decided the youth’s eyes implied he was far older than he first appeared. Far, far older. Then he saw the statue move and he realised it was alive. How was it possible? Maybe it had a clever mechanism inside, like some of the puppets old Samuel had used to make back in Godsend.
It’s rock blight, you nitwit. An illness from too much contact with stone. She’s as normal as you are … although that’s not too normal, eh? Hmm. Oh dear. If that’s who I think it is, then we really are in trouble. I—
Taint? Where are you? But the taint had disappeared, or been blocked, just as it had been in Linder’s Drop. More than a little concerned, Jillan whispered to Aspin, ‘Can you read them?’
