‘Those are our ideals, yes,’ agreed Nemiel, ‘but we have to be realistic. If the stories about this beast are true, it’s the kind of creature that only a party of experienced knights could bring down. Even Lord Jonson was badly wounded before he brought his Calibanite lion down. It’s not a suitable challenge for a supplicant.’
‘You may be right,’ admitted Zahariel, ‘but when Amadis gave me his pistol I had to accept the quest. If we start trying to choose our quests on the basis of how easy we’d like them to be, we will be on the slippery slope to ruin. Anyway, let’s not argue. The decision is made, and it’s too late to change it. I’ve committed myself to this quest. The most we can do is share a drink and hope we both live to see each other again.’
Zahariel stood and lifted the goblet in his hand.
‘To the life tomorrow, cousin,’ he said, raising the goblet in a toast.
In response, Nemiel smiled in resignation and raised his own goblet.
‘To the life tomorrow,’ replied Nemiel, his eyes glistening with tears.
SEVEN
‘YOU TAKE THE trail eastwards,’ said the woodsman.
He led the way on foot down the forest path while Zahariel followed behind him on his destrier. ‘You keep going ’til you reach a piece of clearing just past an old tree that’s hit by lightning. It’s fire-black and split in two down the middle, you can’t miss it. That’s where the gathering party was heading. Course, it could be they never reached it. If they did, you should be able to pick up their tracks from there.’
The man’s name was Narel. Lord Domiel of Endriago had introduced Zahariel to him as he prepared to leave the frightened town through the splintered and heavily barricaded main gates.
Narel was one of the woodsmen who lived in the castle and worked the lands surrounding its walls. Braver than his fellows, he had agreed to lead Zahariel into the forest in search of the beast. Specifically, he had promised to show Zahariel the trail taken by a party of men and women who had failed to return after daring to venture into the forest yesterday to gather much needed firewood and foodstuffs.
‘People told them they was being foolhardy,’ Narel said. ‘They told them they’d likely run into the beast, but what was they to do? They all had youngsters, and plenty of mouths to feed back home. Winter’s coming, and if you want to stay alive you’ve got to gather food and fuel. It’s just the way things are out here. Besides, they was well-armed, and there was a dozen of them all together, so you’d think there’d be safety in numbers. There ain’t no safety in these woods now though, I guess, not from the beast.’
Narel was nearly half the age of Lord Domiel of Endriago, but it had swiftly become clear that the woodsman was as garrulous as his lord and master. All the way along the trail, as he guided Zahariel through the forest, Narel had yattered on incessantly. He had a tendency to talk quietly while constantly casting anxious glances at the trees and the undergrowth around them. The woodsman was clearly nervous, as though he expected the beast to leap out at them at any moment.
‘Course, those youngsters won’t get no food now,’ said Narel, checking for the twentieth time that there was a round in the breech of his bolt-action rifle and the trigger safety was off. ‘Could be they’ll starve, unless someone takes them in. Not me, though. I got sympathies, but me and the wife have got our own pack of hungry mouths. That’s the real tragedy of it, you ask me. Every time the beast kills, it makes another band of orphans. Killed more than a hundred and eighty people all told. That’s a lot of children having to go without mothers or fathers.’
Zahariel could understand the man’s nervousness. From what Narel had told him, he had known most of the beast’s victims, at least the ones that had come from Endriago. A number of them had even been his relatives. Given the size of the community and the extended kinship relationships that operated in Caliban’s more isolated regions, such a situation was not unusual.
Everyone in Endriago had lost neighbours, friends and family members to the beast that stalked the forests. In his short time in the castle, it had been obvious to Zahariel that fear of the beast was a palpable force within its walls. He would have been hard pressed to find a man, woman or child who was not terrified of the creature.
The people of Endriago no longer ventured outside their settlement unless it was absolutely necessary, and having seen the fury and depth of the claw marks on the castle gate, Zahariel was inclined to feel that such fear was entirely justified.
The beast had turned them into virtual prisoners behind the castle’s battlements, and this combined with Brother Amadis’s death, made Zahariel more determined than ever to kill the foul monster.
The current situation could not last forever. As Narel had said, the seasons were changing. Winter was on its way. Soon, the inhabitants of Endriago would be given a hard choice. Their food stocks would need to be replenished if they were to get through the bitterly cold months ahead.
Either they faced a slow lingering death through starvation, or they would have to enter the forest and risk the wrath of the beast.
The party of men and women that had gone out yesterday had already made their decision. It had ended badly for them, but there was an entire settlement whose further existence hung in the balance.
If the beast was allowed to continue unchecked, if no one hunted it down and killed it, there would be more tragedies in the forests around Endriago.
There would be more grief. There would be more orphans.
Many lives had already been taken, and no community could afford to suffer such losses indefinitely.
The weight of responsibility on Zahariel’s shoulders was enormous.
If he failed to kill the beast it was not just his own life at stake, it was the life of Endriago and all the families that dwelt within it.
‘Anyway, this is it,’ said Narel. He had halted partway along the trail, and looked at Zahariel with an expression of acute discomfort. ‘You remember I said I couldn’t take you the whole way. I mean, I would, but I got a wife and youngsters myself. You understand, right? I got people to look after.’
‘I understand,’ replied Zahariel. ‘I should be able to find my way from here.’
‘All right, then,’ nodded Narel.
The woodsman turned to begin the journey back to Endriago, glancing briefly over his shoulder at Zahariel before he left. ‘I wish you safe passage through the dark, Zahariel of the Order. May the Watchers guide you and comfort you. Be sure I will make an offering on your behalf tonight. It has been good to know you.’
With that, he walked away and did not turn back again.
ONCE THE WOODSMAN was gone and Zahariel had continued a little way ahead on the trail, he found his mind dwelling at length on the words Narel had said to him before he left.
It was obvious that Narel did not expect him to survive.
The woodsman had not used any of the standard expressions of farewell. There had been no mention of the ‘life tomorrow’ or similar phrases. In their place, he had made a curious decision in his choice of words. He had wished safe passage to Zahariel in the dark.
He had asked for the Watchers to guide and comfort him.
He had even gone so far as to promise to make an offering on his behalf. On Caliban, these were not the words that anyone would say to someone they expected see again. They were words of benediction, not of farewell.
According to one of the more commonly held beliefs about death on Caliban, once a person died his soul journeyed to the underworld where it would be made to walk a spiral path, which – depending on the deceased’s actions in life – would lead him either to hell or to rebirth. This was the source of the words Narel had said to him. They were from a well-known funeral rite, where, in the context of the ceremony, they were intended as a plea, asking for the guardians of the spirit world to intervene on behalf of the dead.
Zahariel took no offence at Narel’s words. He did not suspect they were anything but well intentioned. There were no great citie
s on Caliban, but even by those standards the settlements of the Northwilds were comparative backwaters.
The old ways held considerable sway in places like Endriago.
By his own beliefs, Narel had probably thought he was paying Zahariel a great honour in attempting to ease his journey through the underworld, a prospect he no doubt saw as inevitable once Zahariel came face-to-face with the beast.
To Zahariel’s mind, though, the woodsman had been wasting his breath.
It was not a matter that was much discussed, at least not openly, but there were many interpretations of religion at the heart of Calibanite culture. On the one hand there was the planet’s traditional religion, still popular with much of the common population as well as with a few diehards among the nobility, which incorporated elements of both ancestor worship and an animistic folk belief said to be derived from the ancient wisdoms of the planet’s first human settlers. Its adherents believed that the forests of Caliban were alive with guardian spirits.
Of special significance to their beliefs were a class of shadowy unseen watchers who would sometimes choose to intervene in human affairs for their own mysterious and unknown purposes.
These ‘Watchers in the Dark’ were not said to be the only kind of supernatural creatures at large on Caliban. Among those of the traditionalist faith, it was claimed that the great beasts were evil spirits that had taken on physical form in order to create suffering and hardship among mankind.
With this in mind, it was not uncommon for individuals and families to make votive offerings to the Watchers in the Dark in the hope of persuading them to intercede in keeping the beasts away.
In contrast to such folk beliefs, however, the knightly orders of Caliban tended to follow a more agnostic creed. They rejected the influence of the supernatural altogether. If such entities as gods and spirits existed, it was argued they would be unlikely to intervene directly in human affairs.
It was said that such creatures would be so alien in their desires and perceptions they could never share mankind’s understanding of the world, much less be able to recognise when their help might be needed.
Instead, the philosophy of the knightly orders held that the real impetus that shaped a man’s life was the strength of his character, not the supposed actions of otherworldly forces. Accordingly, the different orders had committed themselves to developing the minds and bodies of their knights in keeping with ideals of human excellence that were particular to each individual order.
During his years as a supplicant in the Order, Zahariel had absorbed his masters’ prejudices in such matters, and had made them his own. He had no particular axe to grind with men like Narel, but he had little time for their beliefs. He did not believe in life after death or journeys into the underworld.
The great beasts of Caliban were extraordinary creatures, but he did not believe they were supernatural in origin. The Watchers in the Dark were a myth, and he did not believe in guardian spirits keeping benign watch on humanity from the shadows.
In their place, he believed in the powers of human wisdom. The actions of men like Lion El’Jonson and Luther, and their campaign against the great beasts, had convinced him that humanity was free to choose its own destiny. The human mind could make sense of the world and of the cosmos and, given a fair and equal choice, most men would choose to help their fellows.
Zahariel reasoned that men were intrinsically good, and, granted the opportunity, they would choose the best and brightest path from among the roads on offer. No man would ever willingly perform an evil act unless forced to it by circumstance.
Perhaps a man could be provoked to evil by hunger, fear or ignorance, but no one would willingly choose to act maliciously when presented with another, viable option.
No one would willingly have the darkness when they could have light.
Putting to one side his disquiet at the curiously bleak nature of Narel’s farewell and his ruminations on the nature of man, he concentrated his mind on the quest before him.
At that instant, he was more mindful of Narel’s directions than he was of any wider issues of fate or destiny. The woodsman had told him to head eastward along the trail in search of a clearing and a lightning blasted tree. Zahariel followed those directions, using the methods his masters had taught him to clarify his mind and turn his full mental resources to the task ahead. He urged his horse to quicken its pace down the trail.
Spurring his mount on, he rode towards his future.
ZAHARIEL FOUND THE lightning blasted tree easily enough, the path leading him directly to its dead mass. Beyond the tree, a forest of mossy trunks spread out like a march of weathered menhirs. Darkness and shadows haunted the forest, and Zahariel began to understand a measure of the local superstitions.
The Northwilds had long been considered a forsaken place, too close to the mountain lairs of many beasts, too thin of soil to be tilled for much reward, and the forest was too dense to move through in safety. More than that, it had acquired a reputation for unexplained phenomena, strange lights in the forest, disappearances where people lost in the woods for days would return home decades older than when their loved ones had last seen them.
Yes, the Northwilds region was a place of mystery, but as Zahariel steeled himself for venturing into its depths, he felt the first stirrings of fear. Though he had claimed not to be afraid, he realised that his fear had been submerged beneath a layer of contempt for the beast and anger at the death of Brother Amadis.
How easy it was to scoff at the superstitions of the rustics dwelling in Endriago when surrounded by your fellows and the comforting shield of illumination. How easy it was to have that complacency and certainty stripped away by darkness and isolation.
Swallowing his fear, Zahariel urged his mount onwards, sensing that it too felt fear in this place. The trees were gnarled and old, older than any others he had seen, and apparently infected with some creeping sickness that caused them to weep a viscous sap that scented the air with a rank, bitter odour like spoiled fruit mash.
The trees passed by him as he rode into the shadowy depths of the Northwilds, and Zahariel felt a breath whisper past him like the last exhalation of a dying man. The ground under his horse’s hooves was spongy and noxious, toadstools and flaring weeds tangling the roots of the forest.
Zahariel rode deeper and deeper into the forest, feeling the emptiness of the place in the depths of his soul, an aching void that chilled him from the very centre of his heart to the height of his reason.
Suddenly, Zahariel felt utterly alone, and a crushing sense of isolation enveloped him.
More than simply the absence of people, this was a loneliness of the soul, an utter absence of any contact or connection with the world around him. In the face of this horrid feeling, Zahariel almost cried out at his insignificance.
How arrogant of him to believe that he was at the centre of the spiral. How conceited to believe that he could ever make a difference to the way the world turned.
His eyes filled with tears as the horse bore him onwards, the beast oblivious to the long, dark night of the soul he endured upon its back.
‘I am not nothing,’ he whispered to the darkness. ‘I am Zahariel of the Order’
The darkness swallowed his words with a mocking silence, the words snatched from his throat as if by an unseen wind before they could breach the bubble of stagnant emptiness around him.
‘I am Zahariel of the Order!’ he yelled against the darkness.
Again his words were stolen from him, but his violent exclamation had, for a brief moment, turned the darkness assailing his soul away. Again he shouted, briefly recognising the danger of shouting while on the hunt for a dangerous predator, but more afraid of what might happen should this soul-deep numbness claim him.
His ride through the trees continued as he repeated his name over and over again. With every metre his horse bore him, he could sense an unseen malice and elemental power seeping from the ground, as though some barely suppressed sour
ce of malignant energy lurked deep, deep beneath the surface of Caliban. Like trickles of water that leaked from the caked mud of an animal’s dam, was there something that lay far beneath the surface of the world that exerted some dread influence on the life above?
No sooner had he formed the thought than he realised that he was not alone.
A gentle pull on the reins halted his destrier, and Zahariel took a long, cold breath of frigid air as he sensed the presence of a number of creatures observing him from the shadows of the trees.
He knows… he senses it…
He could not see them clearly, so completely were they cloaked in the darkness, yet he knew with utter certainty they were there, watching him from the dark.
Watching him from the dark…
He could see them from the corners of his eyes, little more than flitting shadows that vanished as soon as he turned his head to look directly upon them. How many there were, he could not say. He glimpsed at least five, but whether that represented the entire complement was a mystery.
Kill him… he is touched by it…
Whispers flitted between the trees, but Zahariel knew they were not whispers given voice by any human throat, or, truth be told, extant in a realm detectable by any of his five senses. He had the distinct impression of a conversation going on around him, and though the words, if such things had meaning in a discourse held without speech, were unknown to him, he understood their meaning perfectly.
‘Who are you?’ he shouted, striving to keep his voice steady. ‘Stop whispering and show yourselves!’
The shadowy watchers retreated further into the darkness at the sound of his voice, perhaps surprised that he was aware of them or that he had heard their wordless mutterings.
He carries the taint within him. Better to kill him now…
Zahariel’s hand slipped towards his sword at the threat, but a ghostly touch upon his thoughts warned him against such hostile action.
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