Chapter 31
They did not argue about their direction, though neither knew where Hadur had gone. There was only the mountain behind them and the distant glow of flame ahead. It looked as if nothing else were left in the world. Keram was disturbed, but he hoped they might reach Hadur before their food and strength gave out. He thought only of stopping the beast, of destroying its army and he knew his days would not reach past that. He wished he could speak with Ganit beyond simple signals. Ganit at least, could speak his mind and know that Keram would read it from his mouth. Keram was not afraid of dying, nor even of leaving nothing of his own behind, though his heart had given him a pain when he left his paints upon the mountain. It was this lonely time before, this time of knowing death was upon him, yet waited to strike. There would have been some comfort in telling Ganit this, of seeing sympathy and friendliness upon his face, but Keram had now no way to speak to him beyond the simple signs Ganit had managed to remember. All the ways of language were fading and Keram wondered sadly how much difference there would be between himself and the mad men of Hadur in the end.
Ganit was calm as he hobbled along beside the cow, his heart was filled with green. The buffalo's low waddle had made him shamed to ride upon it and once they had reached the plain he walked almost as quickly as Keram with the help of the crutch. Again, he wondered if his child had yet been born. His heart had no room for Hadur and he did not notice the barren dust they wandered through, nor Keram's anxious face. Ganit dreamed only of Brone, of the living green she left behind her. Somewhere, deep in his secret heart, Ganit knew there were no happy endings left, not here at the end. But this did not touch his mind, not yet.
Hour upon hour, they wandered west, the gray dust puffing up in their footsteps, coating them until they were bleak as stone, stumbling statues. Ganit was desperate to reach the green fields he had seen atop the mountain that was now just a small lump on the horizon. A madness crept over him, and though the crutch bruised his side and his missing leg ached as if it were frozen, as if it were a rotted old tooth, still he kept on. But the borders of that still, green land did not appear. Keram tried to stop Ganit, to slow him, fearing that they would collapse and be swallowed by the dull grit of the world. He could see the panic growing on Ganit and it made a living fire of worry in Keram's chest. The grit scratched their skin, got into the whites of the buffalo's large eye, it stuck like rain upon its hide. Keram thought he might go mad with itching but Ganit seemed to notice less and less and it seemed he had less and less control as the heat of his skin, as the light gradually grew brilliant and blinding. Farther and farther Keram and the animals drifted from Ganit, for Keram could not gain his attention. Keram could not call out, nor Ganit hear, so Keram led the water buffalo in Ganit's wake, until they could no longer see his shape, but followed the light only. At last, the cow refused to go further, but stood still no matter how Keram pulled. And though he would have left it behind to return to Ganit, he found himself too exhausted. So, lying in the stifling, cloying dust, he covered his mouth with the thin cloth of his shirt and slept.
Ganit saw it at last, like a hem of green mist against the dull, dead gray of the horizon and it broke the madness that had overtaken him. Ganit turned, his mouth full of joy to tell Keram, but found himself alone. Panic washed over him, and he turned looking in each direction but saw neither Keram nor the cow, nor any beast that had so long trailed him. How long had they been gone? Had the silver horse come upon them somehow?
The crutch crumpled and Ganit fell. He stared a moment at the blackened, split shards of it not understanding. Dazed, he picked up a large chunk of the crutch and soot spread over his hand. The chunk glowed with interior flame and Ganit realized the heat that rose from his skin. He was overcome with remorse. Turning his back upon that distant promise of green, Ganit crawled through the dust to find Keram. Had he killed them? Had he burned them alive? It was not long before he collapsed with grief and exhaustion and slept in drifts of stony grit.
Chapter 32
Keram felt the soft thuds in his sleep and he woke with a start. The ground shuddered under his back and his heart fell away from him. He thought the horde of Hadur was upon him and leapt up. Around him though, came not mindless starving men he expected, nor even a panicked huddle of survivors. Instead the scattered pack of beasts Ganit had carried with him these many miles had caught up to Keram. They returned now, falteringly, looking for forage, spreading across the west. They were hungry and even as he watched, a ring of wild dogs circled him and the buffalo. Keram grabbed for his pack as the cow spun uncertainly. He agonized for a moment and then scattered what little food they had left and the animals drew off, scrambling among themselves to get the scraps. Keram led the cow quickly off, knowing the next night there would be neither food nor fire to drive them off. He hoped Ganit had not been caught and wondered if the light would go out again. He panicked then, thinking he would be utterly alone and in the dark. He ran, senseless, first dragging the cow, and then releasing it in his fear. It wandered behind him, but slowly, its nose caked in dust, its great eyes rolling. Keram thought of it no more, but fled into the growing light. He came upon Ganit before his panic faded, almost stumbling over him, for Ganit was only a clump of luminous gray dust on the bright ground. Keram shook him awake.
Ganit was flooded with relief to see Keram's face, but he quickly became concerned with the fear that spread over the silent man. Keram's hand flew between them, a staccato flash against the gray and for a time Ganit couldn't understand what he was trying to say. Ganit looked up shaking his head in confusion and was startled to see tears make bright tracks of flesh against the dust of Keram's face. Ganit grabbed Keram's hands to stop them. "Slow," he said, " I can't understand that fast."
Keram sighed and the flutter of his hands died away. One long minute they waited for Keram to find the courage to say what he wished Ganit could understand.
"I don't want to die in the dark."
Even as he watched Ganit's face unfold and uncrease in understanding Keram knew that a man who had swallowed the sun could never realize the depth of the darkness that the world had died in. Keram was ashamed. It was a child's fear. But he knew he could not have been the only one to feel it in those cold, lonely hours before Ganit had risen over the peak of the mountain. The dark swallowed everyone, everything, even the jungles and valleys and stone. He sighed and tried to wipe the tears from his face. His hands were smeared with black damp dust. He held them up to look at them.
"I don't want to die in the dark," he thought. Ganit gripped his shoulder and Keram looked up.
His face was gentle and filled with warm June light. Keram could almost smell the long grasses in the summer fields of his home. "I'm here," said Ganit, "You're in no danger of the dark." He did not smile and Keram knew that Ganit would not ridicule him. "I've got something to show- "Ganit began again, but broke off, startled and looked past Keram. Keram turned and saw the beasts headed toward them, the heavy cow leading. Keram touched Ganit's shoulder. "They are just hungry," he signed. But Ganit's face was still startled. Ganit raised a hand to his ear. A flake of candle wax was raveled through the edge of his beard. It hadn't been the footpads or flutters that hit him, for hadn't Keram made the same shufflings as he shook him awake? It was the voice of the cow. After the toneless noise of movement, it was as a bell. The bleats and howls, chirps and grunts that followed filled Ganit with wonder. How long had they walked in a colorless, changeless, noiseless world? He wished Keram could hear it and turned to tell him of the green horizon, the new spring ahead. Something beyond the weary blank world they walked in. But the panic on Keram's face stopped Ganit.
"You can hear?" Keram asked.
"I'm sorry, it must have melted away."
"What will we do?"
Ganit shrugged. "What can we do? We must go on. There is only one road left, my friend. You cannot save me from it forever. Nor can I save you from what comes. I can only promise you will die neither in the dark, nor dust
, and if I can help it, you'll not be alone."
"How shall we go on? Where is your crutch?"
"I burned the crutch accidentally. It is gone. I will need your shoulder again Keram. Will you help me?"
At last Keram smiled and helped Ganit up.
"We better catch the cow, just in case," said Ganit after he steadied himself. So, three legged, they started after it. Though the water buffalo moved slowly, overcome with hunger and the weight of its calf, it had almost reached the first tuft of green and spreading grass before the men caught it. Ganit watched the weariness drop from Keram as the light unrolled over the deep spring green. It flowed like cool, smooth water and began to smell sweetly as the warmth of Ganit's light washed over it. It was an ocean of emerald against a stone shore and Keram sank into the grass only a few paces in, dragging Ganit down with him. "Can we just sit? Just for a moment?" Keram signed.
Ganit smiled, "We wouldn't get the cow to move anyhow."
The beast buried its nose in the grass and wandered to and fro without lifting its head. Ganit could smell the fresh, sharp scent of newly bruised grass. He watched the other beasts spread out across the plain, birds fluttering into saplings, rodents burrowing as they plucked seeds from the grasses. Keram brushed the tips of the grass with his hand and then lay back and shut his eyes. The green was too vibrant, too rich after all the dust and Keram could look no more. He wished he had known, when he had his brush and paints, how color could be flood after drought, could smell like his best memories, could be warm like swimming in the sun. Ganit too, was tired but he felt an itch in his limbs knowing he must be close behind Brone. The air drifted heavily with the sweetness of her breath and when Ganit closed his eyes he could feel the slip of her skin and dreamed she slept beside him. She would have been happy to see the life she trailed behind her, the new spring, the rising dawn that followed upon her heels. But Brone walked with Arvakir now, her pains beginning, and when she thought of Ganit between pains, it was to wish him nearby, to wish the dawn upon her face. It was only with growing fear that she thought of the green jungles and plains unrolling behind her, as the vines about her chest thickened and leafed grotesquely.
Keram saw the Midnight Tree first, its limbs piercing even Ganit's brilliant light. He had woken while Ganit still dreamed and rose, suddenly hungry. He wandered a little way farther west seeing the pockets of chewed grass where the cow had been. He came upon a bramble patch already heavy with berries in the warm summer light. Keram plucked berries, first popping them like bursts of cool stars into his mouth and then gathering them gently in the hem of his shirt for Ganit. He followed the bramble patch for many minutes without glancing up. When his shirt was too full to hold any more, Keram looked around for where he had left Ganit sleeping. He saw the water buffalo a short distance from him and he went to grab its head. He was about to turn back, one hand holding the small weight of berries, the other leading the cow. But a cold violet flicker caught him and he felt all the gasping dread of the past days fall again upon him. He was still for a moment, a small animal caught in terror, but the violet pricked his eye again and he turned his face slowly toward it.
It was a tree, a violet star standing against all the green. But the trunk had grown twisted, half bent and its terrible light made it seem to Keram as if it were the dark itself become real. It was as if all the dark that had swallowed the world gathered itself into a sentinel on the last road, in the last living place. It scraped the horizon, infected it with violet so that Keram could no longer see the glow of the fires beyond and the warm, lingering gold of Ganit's light could not touch it. The tree was a patch of night inside the endless day that covered now the western world. Though Keram longed to turn and run from it, to turn and believe it had been only nightmare amid a green and sunlit garden, his legs were frozen with fear a moment longer. He realized at last that the darkness around the tree was moving, writhing, but Keram could not see how. His paralysis broke with this fresh shock and he ran stumbling back the way he came. At first the buffalo resisted this sudden flight and Keram stumbled a little as he strained against the beast. He dropped the berries, forgotten. He pulled with both hands on the lead, all the while looking down so that the violet star would not pierce his eyes anew. But the cow ambled slowly back toward camp no matter how Keram pulled. All the while the seething dark grew in Keram's mind, overtaking it like a frenzied madness. Almost he let the cow go and fled, but just as he dropped the rope in despair, the cow bolted past him, its great eyes rolling with terror. Keram didn't wait to see what finally frightened the beast but ran behind it, back toward the warm center of the light. Still that moving mass of night crept over his thoughts and Keram was convinced it was over taking him. He looked back, but instead of deep shadow whipping across the green land, he saw a flash of cold silver, like moonlight or frost flickering toward him. Stunned, he turned to look upon it fully. There, not much more than a few dozen paces away, Hadur walked, stomping his terrible tune into the earth. The buffalo had heard it and fled in terror. Keram glanced in the direction that Ganit lay. He was still out of sight, but had he heard? Was he even now succumbing to madness, a star about to scorch whatever life remained in a single flash? Keram knew he could not let Hadur get further. He felt slow anger and grief overtake him as he remembered why they had traveled so far, as he remembered his village and the wild man he had killed.
"So," he thought, "All this worry and waiting. Here am I now, unclothed, unarmed and my revenge comes."
Chapter 33
Ganit did not see Keram when he woke, but his pack lay next to him in the grass where Keram had dropped it hours before. Ganit looked around for something to aid him in standing. He could see thick twists of wood in the distance but they looked thin, like saplings or brush and he doubted he could find a crutch as comfortable as the one Keram had made him. He waited a few moments, but he thirsted greatly. When he did not see the buffalo or Keram appear, he decided to try to reach the wood and hope he would pass them on the way. Dragging the pack was easier than he expected it to be and he worried for the first time about their supplies. It took him several minutes to reach the brambles and he was parched as old bones when he reached it. The sweet smell of berries and growing hay made him slightly dizzy and Ganit looked desperately for a sturdy branch to hold him. He took the hatchet from the pack and crawled beneath the overhanging brush. None of the brambles were tall enough and their limbs were spindly and brittle. But after a few moments of scraping along the ground, Ganit found a thick root and praying silently that Brone would forgive him, began chopping it free.
He was dragging himself back out of the bramble, a crooked length of smooth wood in his hand when he heard quick hoof beats. He clenched his eyes closed as panic hit him and waited to feel a bloom of madness opening in his mind. But it never came. He slid again into the open air and saw the buffalo running , it's low belly brushing the grass. Though Ganit wanted to be relieved, a new fear grew upon him. Where was Keram? He used his new crutch to rise, but it was twisted and short, it took Ganit a few moments to steady himself enough to comfortably turn and look around him. But Keram's small figure did not appear in any direction and Ganit's chest squeezed his breath from him and an empty ache took its place. Then a flash of silver and violet struck him and Ganit saw the Midnight Tree and he grew cold as stone. Even his light dimmed, a sun in evening sinking gold into the grasses. He could see Hadur in that shadow of the violet horizon, and though he heard them not, Ganit knew the darkness there must be filled with mad men. He knew suddenly, where Keram was. He hobbled roughly upon his broken root as quickly as he could toward the violet star in the west, his heart willing him both to be there before Keram and hoping he would not be able to ever reach the writhing darkness there. For in that deep green spring, this violet tree of winter, this barren, scarred thing that rose from its center, was rotten, but it was Brone's. And for the first time his mind told him she might be dead there, that he might already be far too late. Hadur's hide flickered and fla
shed as if it were scales instead of flesh, a fish flailing into the sun. The beast fought hard, dragging toward the moving shadows beneath the tree. Ever it was drawn back and forth, never quite reaching the pool of shadow. Ganit struggled to quicken his pace and desperately began to plan for the dreadful creeping madness that he feared would overcome him. "At least," he thought, "I can scour this place back to a clean barren waste. A great blaze to fill the east, to eat up all the dead world and clear it of madness. When it happens, when I hear that tuneless song again." He shuddered, remembering the fear and pleading on Brone's face as he scrambled against a wall of yew branches so very long ago. "No one left to stop me now." He stumbled grimly on.
Ganit couldn't see Keram's small figure clinging to Hadur's back until he drew almost close enough to hear the hoof beats of the beast. He had thought Keram stood in its path and was fighting to keep the tall horse from rejoining its army in the dark canopy of the violet tree. As Hadur's form grew clear upon the horizon, Ganit saw the small shadow upon Hadur's bright flesh. Keram clutched the great horse about its neck, half lying across its back, for if he sat up, he would be flung off. The beast flung itself back and forth, twisting and bunching, as if its flesh covered great, writhing serpents, and Keram rattled like a dry pod in autumn, but he held on. Ganit knew the beast would never tire, but Keram must. He was approaching them now, brightening, a walking star. Already the other animals fled from his light and the grass around him sparked and shriveled. The stick in his hand smoldered but did not catch. The brilliant flash caught Hadur's eye too soon, though, and a moment only the beast looked upon him and then fled toward the shadow of the tree where his wolf men waited.
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