by Hugh Cook
Hearst made no answer, doubting that he would dare it himself.
Alish counted heads. There were two hundred and sixty-two survivors. They had, as far as he could determine in the dark, a hundred and seventy packs. This meant there was a shortage of blankets, but the system of sleeping in shifts would compensate for that. Alish had spare clothing divvied up so everyone had enough to keep warm in this cool underground air.
Now all they could do was wait.
They could hear the water racing against the rock walls, sometimes foaming against rock outcrops, but they could see nothing. There was no way to keep track
of passing time. It was like being in the belly of a worm. 'Alish,' said Miphon. 'I'm here.' 'Where?' 'Here.'
'Good. Is Hearst around?' 'You're standing on him,' said Hearst. 'Sorry,' said Miphon, shifting his foot. 'What about Blackwood?' 'What do you want with me?' 'It's not me who wants you. It's Phyphor. He's dying.' 'Does he want someone to hold his hand?' said Alish. Silence. Then:
T think you should see him,' said Miphon. 'We'll see him,' said Hearst. 'This way, then.' 'Which way is that?' 'Link hands and I'll lead you.' They went from raft to raft, occasionally stepping on men in the dark, till Miphon brought them to a halt. 'They're here,' said Miphon. 'Let them identify themselves.' 'You know who we are,' said Alish. 'So you're here, Elkor Alish. And Morgan Hearst?' 'I'm here,' said Hearst. 'So am I,' said Blackwood.
'Then listen,' said Phyphor. 'Miphon's given me a potion. I have a short time - then pain again. But I'll be dead before the pain comes back.'
'What do you want from us?' said Alish.
'Your oath.'
'I've already sworn to go questing after Heenmor. Are you asking me to reaffirm my oath? Do you think I'm an oath-breaker? No man of Rovac ever breaks an oath - though not so much can be said for wizards.'
'Elkor Alish, I trust your oath, but now I want you to take on a further burden.'
'And what might that be?'
'To kill Garash!' hissed Phyphor. 'We can't,' said Alish. 'Weil need him to help us kill Heenmor.'
'I've thought of that,' said Phyphor, an edge of pain already in his voice. 'So you must swear that when Heenmor is dead, you will kill Garash.'
'Why should we do you that favour?'
'Listen,' said Phyphor, urgently, it's true what Miphon says. The death-stone does have the power to tamper with the very fabric of the world. If you survive to see the daylight, you must hunt Heenmor down before he has time to experiment and perfect control of that power.'
'We know that,' said Alish, irritated.
'Yes, but listen,' said Phyphor. 'By now, Garash believes Miphon's claims, too. He's had time to think through the truth of it. He'll find such temptation irresistible. So when Heenmor's dead, you must kill Garash. Otherwise he'll kill you for the death-stone.'
i know why you want Garash dead,' said Alish. iil take no vows of murder to secure a wizard's revenge.'
'Elkor Alish . . . these injuries will kill me, but I have three thousand years left to me. Three thousand years left to dispose of as I choose. I've paid for them.'
'What do you mean?'
i earned those years in the Shackle Mountains. A bargain with powers beyond your imagining. Believe me. Take the oath, and I will give you a thousand years of life. Think on it, Rovac warrior.'
'Sorcerers can be expert liars. What proof do you offer?'
'Elkor Alish,' said Phyphor, his old man's voice pale from bloodloss. 'You will have the power to enter the tower of Arl. And you will understand the High Speech, the reading of it, the writing of it, the speaking of it.'
That meant: that meant Alish would be able to read what was written on the death-stone.
i will take your oath.'
'Let me hear it then.'
i, Elkor Alish, son of Teramont the Defender, warrior of Rovac, blood of the clan of the eagle, swear by my heart's blood and by the powers of the fire-flood hell that when the days of the wizard Heenmor are ended, Garash will die as soon as my sword can find him.'
'And you, Morgan Hearst?'
i, Morgan Gestrel Hearst, son of Avor the Hawk, song-singer, sword-master, warrior of Rovac, swear by my sword Hast and the hand that holds it that I will see Garash dead as soon as Heenmor falls.'
'Good. And you, Blackwood?'
There was no answer.
'Blackwood?'
'I'm no wizard,' said Blackwood. 'I'm no warrior. Why choose me?'
'Because you have the best motive for murder,' said Phyphor. 'Because it was Garash who told Prince Comedo to leave a mad-jewel in Castle Vaunting. It was Garash who caused your wife's death. There... so now you know. So now you must kill him.'
'Mister,' said Blackwood, 'I'd be simple to think the truth's that simple. In any case, I don't want any part in any killing - or your thousand years of life, either.'
Phyphor sighed.
'As you wish,' said Phyphor. 'But will you .. . will you do this one thing for me . . . hold my hand before I die?'
'Mister,' said Blackwood, i can't refuse a dying man. Here's my hand.'
'Good,' said the dying wizard. 'Good. It's good to have a touch of life in my right hand. Miphon . . .'
And Miphon, needing no instructions more explicit than that, silently urged the others into a circle. Phyphor, Alish, Hearst and -
'What's this?' said Blackwood, as Hearst grabbed his free hand. 'Let go!'
Realising he had been tricked just as a child might have been tricked, Blackwood tried to break away. But it was too late, because -
Their bodies were locked rigid by crushing weight and pressure. He heard the sullen double-drum of a labouring heart, cried out as light seared his eyes, and then -
Darkness, and then -
Sunlight, and a young boy running along a wild open beach, laughing, his arms outstretched, rain and sunlight falling together as he raced the wind, and then -
A canyon ablaze with flame. He named it: Drangsturm. And then: a castle which probed for the sky, huge wings against the sun, a Word and a blast of power -
A small room smelling of burnt flesh and acrid smoke, voices raised in fear and anger, the harsh commands -
A ruined fortress on the border, wind, the evening light failing, surf breaking on the shore, and, as Saba Yavendar said, where wind may walk but men no longer -
Again darkness, the crushing pressure, a heart at first loud and then lisping, soft, slow, soft. . .
'Blackwood,' hissed Phyphor, dying. 'You will find your wife's corpse, and then ...'
His voice faltered into silence. The last strength left his hands. It was over.
'He's dead,' said Miphon.
At that moment, there was a shout of triumph from the leading raft. They could see daylight ahead. Everyone cheered as they swept toward the light, but elation turned to despair when they got closer and saw the daylight was from a gap high up in the rock roof. It gave them one brief glimpse of blue sky capping a sheer rockfall shaft, then darkness claimed them again.
Soon daylight was only a memory. Now any of a thousand dooms might write them out of history. The rock roof might draw right down to the water, drowning
them. An underground waterfall might shatter rafts and bodies. They might sail out onto a vast underground lake, where the river's current would become lost, allowing them to drift and starve with nothing to guide them to the outlet.
As they drifted onward, hunger came, and was fed; returned, and was fed again.
* * *
Downstream they floated.
The flow of the river slowed, grew sluggish, offering them less hope of early escape from the darkness. The hollow roar of running water diminished to a muttering churgling; men, no longer compelled to shout, spoke with muted voices, and as the days went by they spoke less and less.
They caught fish. They scragged wet flesh from fine-comb bones with knives that were going rusty in the darkness. The rafts knocked together in the darkness, and, as men lay dreaming, that sound translated itself
into the restless trunfling of nameless monsters. Men developed sores from lying damp on damp rafts; Gorn complained that his gums were bleeding, but he could have been imagining it.
Downstream they floated.
Blackwood listened to the steady chutter-gutter of water, to the thonk-clonk of rafts knocking against each other. He felt as if they were being mumbled down a long dark throat. He imagined them being digested in the darkness, becoming first blind then toothless then hairless, sores eating through to the bones, until after weeks of hunger and damp there were only twisted bones and gristle on these waterlogged rafts going downstream through the darkness.
Gorn came to Blackwood one day.
'Have you got a tinder box?' he said.
'I have,' said Blackwood. 'And it's dry. But every-
thing is damp. There's nothing dry to burn.'
'No,' said Gorn, 'I've been carrying things we could burn. They've been next to my skin for a long time now. Bits of bamboo, small strips of wood. They're dry now.'
'That was a good idea.'
i thought so too,' said Gorn. 'Light the fire for me. We'll build it right here, on the raft. The logs are too thick and sodden to catch fire.'
'Then what are you scared of?'
'What?'
'Sorry,' said Blackwood, who had spoken without thinking, i must have been imagining things.'
'No,' said Gorn. 'You're right. I'm afraid. I'm afraid ... I may have gone blind in the dark.'
Til light the fire,' said Blackwood.
The first sparks from the tinder box delighted Gorn, for he could see them. But it was hard work lighting the fire. Blackwood persisted till the moment brighter than magic when the spark caught, twisted into flame, flared, hissed, crackled, then burst into a conflagration that set light and shadow leaping in the gloom. Gorn whooped. Men stirred, woke and staggered to their feet. And what a crew they were: sunken eyes, unkempt hair, faces marked by bad dreams and despair. But now, seeing the fire, they cheered.
'Hah!' shouted Gorn. 'Light! Light!'
Then something screamed.
High overhead in the darkness it screamed. It screamed with malevolence in the bowels of the earth. It screamed with pain, with rage, with hatred.
'Out!' yelled Hearst. 'Put the fire out!'
Gorn dashed his arms into the water. With his wet arms he swept the fire over the side of the raft. Men filled their helmets with water and flung it on the burning remnants. There was the hiss of fire relapsing into char. Then everyone waited and listened to the darkness.
There was the sound of wings beating overhead. One 231
set of wings. Two sets of wings. A dozen sets of wings. They were huge. They circled. The rafts bumped and nuzzled each other. Men sat rigid as if skewered. Fingers tightened on weapons. The wings circled, circled, and then ceased to be heard.
After they had no longer heard the wings for a long time, someone ventured to speak . . .
* * *
In the darkness the men began to die. They did not cease breathing straight away, but they slept more than they stayed awake. They ceased to talk. Few of them bothered to fish. Those who did fish caught flesh which tasted strange; exploring fingers found these fish had no eyes. Some were reluctant to eat them, and ate only siege dust and the occasional handful of mouldy food from their packs.
'They'll all be corpses if this goes on,' said Alish. 'We've seen it before.'
'We have indeed,' said Hearst.
They had seen it happen often enough in the Cold West. There, in the snows, a man who gave up the will to live would be dead overnight. Here underground it was not really cold, but if the men did not eat they would die all the same.
Garash and Miphon stayed sane. They settled into a pattern of meditation which absorbed most of their waking moments. If asked what their mumbled chanting was for, they would say they were maintaining the Balance and building their powers. Blackwood, Hearst, Alish and Gorn moved to the raft the wizards were on; the chanting was better than the unbroken ripplerush of the water.
Every so often, Alish and Hearst would rouse themselves to make a tour of the rafts. Alish would try to encourage the men, and Hearst would curse them and kick them, and warn them the Melski would come
and cut their throats. Both tried to get the men to talk, sing, move, fish, eat. When Alish and Hearst were on their rounds, Gorn and Blackwood talked to each other. The wizards hardly spoke at all, but did not seem to be disturbed by the men talking.
'Are you enjoying our holiday?' said Gorn one day, when most other subjects of conversation were exhausted.
'I'd rather work than be idle,' said Blackwood. 'And I don't like this dark wet hole.'
'I used to be a great one for dark wet holes myself,' said Gorn. 'The smaller and warmer the better. How about yourself?'
Blackwood said nothing.
i knew a man who liked them old,' said Gorn. 'Hard to believe, isn't it? But that was his fancy. We were together the night we sacked a city in the Cold West. It was a city by a river of ice. He had an old one and I had the youngest. I'll always remember that night, you know. He got rich. He found it was always the old women who had treasure hidden in the safest place. They didn't think anyone would touch them, you see. But they were never safe with him. That's something to remember, isn't it? Look for the oldest face, if you want to get rich. Me, I just wanted to ride them.
'So my friend got rich. Then he fell into a crevasse in a glacier, a crevasse being a crack and a glacier being a river of ice, if you know what I mean. He always said he'd like to die wedged tight in a crack, but I don't think that was the sort he meant. There were those who wondered why I risked my life to climb down to his body, but I knew there was more than one set of jewels hidden in his clothing.
'So I went back to Rovac rich. But I could never settle down. I always wanted . . . the excitement. The moment just before it all starts, when the blood boils, when it sings in your ears. And afterwards . . . afterwards . . . the way their mouths gape. When there's a knife at their
throats. I wanted another campaign, not a dangerous one, but just something to give us some fun. So I came to Estar with Alish and Hearst.' 'As a bodyguard.'
'Yes,' said Gorn. 'But Hearst was with us, so I knew there'd be action sooner or later. Soon Hearst was planning a war for the prince. It would have been good.'
Gorn sat in silence, reflecting on how good it had been. Images swam in Blackwood's head, roused by the tales Gorn had told him. White flesh on red velvet. Blood staining satin sheets. Hands of mud fingering, mauling, repressing, while screams thrashed and floundered under smothering weight.
He made himself think of other things.
He thought of Estar. Estar in sunlight, and the blue flowers of spring that bell as bright as the sky. He thought of green grass and baked potatoes, bees and birds on the wing, leaves budding and hot roast meat. If only he could have escaped, if only he could have rescued Mystrel and led her away from the madness at Castle Vaunting into the safety of the Penvash Peninsular in the north . . .
Mystrel. . .
It was no use thinking of the past. And, his eyes hot, he told himself that revenge could not alter the past. He wept.
Later, falling asleep on the rocking, rocking raft, he dreamt of thighs, breasts, buttocks, dugs, damp hair, a woman's heat...
He woke to the raft, to the sound of water, to the sound of rafts bumping against rafts; he woke to the damp of a skin of leather against his skin; he woke to a night darker than blindness.
Cold leather.
Cold metal.
What had woken him?
A wave slapped against the side of the raft and spattered his face with spray.
'What is it?' he said. 'Hush,' said Gorn.
Blackwood peered into the darkness. He felt that he had been living in darkness for a lifetime: eating and drinking and dreaming the darkness. Their stomachs were bloated with congealed shadows.
There was another wave. And a smell, a stench like the stink of bl
ack mud and rotting vegetation. There was something in the water, and it was huge.
'What is it?'
'Pray to your god if your god can hear you in this place,' said a voice, Miphon's voice. 'Otherwise be silent.'
They were silent.
They listened.
There was a surge of body bulk and a splash. A wave rocked the raft again. Listening, they heard furtive scrabblings and small splashes. They realised those Melski who still survived were coming out of the water.
The raft heaved up.
The ropes securing raft to raft burst. They were thrown up and over to the shock of cold water. Blackwood grappled current in the darkness. He swam, then realised he could as easily be swimming down as up. He was breathless, but let himself float. He began to drift up. So that way was up. He struck out for the surface. Air slapped his face. Breath burst into his lungs. A wave slopped up his nose and a raft clouted him. He grabbed for the raft. Somewhere a scream cried for mother then shrilled into agony.
There was the sound of rending timbers. Then another scream. Snapped off short and bloody. Blackwood hauled himself onto the raft, crawled towards the centre, then bumped full-face into alien skin. He realised there was a Melski on the raft. The next moment, the Melski grappled with him.
His knife was out and in faster than a scream could escape.
