Tales of the Zodiac - The Goat's Tale

by PJ Hetherhouse

  I thrust his scrawny face, barely awake, so close to the dead Artume that he must be touching her. He begins to whimper.

  “Let go of me. You’re hurting me. You’re scaring me.”

  “No. I want you to look. I want you to stare death in the face. You must see what you’ve done.”

  By this time, the boy is hysterical, crying and screaming, almost senseless as to the point I’m trying to make. It is enough noise to bring Shara gliding towards us to hush us. Her scornful ‘shhh’ scuttles through the darkening skies like a roach. The sound is enough to bring me to my senses and I throw the boy to the ground like a rag. I storm away, spitting with disgust.

  Thirty-nine

  The grand library at Tallakarn is full of work dedicated to the heroism of chivalric life. Almost countless songs and poems have been written to celebrate the brilliance of knights from bygone eras. Personally, I have always suspected that every single one of these works is lie. It is, after all, human nature to exaggerate - no one can possibly be as perfect as the songs that are sung about them.

  I also believe that these works deliberately overplay the emotional capacity of women, that female portrayals are often exaggerations, written to make them seem ridiculous and, by doing so, aid in their oppression. For instance, women like Lady Vesta and Shara are nothing like the damsels in distress that one might read about in song.

  In reality though, not having known my own mother has given me little opportunity to know the truth of the matter. For all I understand of women, it could all be true; they could be, as the stories tell us, entirely different to men. What I do know is that Selene’s emotions following her friend’s death, and her own survival, could never be overstated.

  It took her several days to completely recover and, with the realisation that I was right, she ripped the turtle badge from her chest and burst into wild tears. She screamed all the curses under the sun at herself for being so stupid. I have never seen anyone cry quite so much and, even then, with so much anger.

  The source of her anger? That she had set out to do good but had, ultimately, been manipulated into participating in an unforgivable evil. The realisation of the true purpose of the wine had been the final straw in her realisation; she had been living a lie.

  These emotional tempests continue even now. Perversely, the only person with whom she ever seems truly angry is herself. Other people are mentioned in her tear-stricken rages but I have begun to notice that she has an uncanny ability to bring the blame rolling back to herself. Why did she not notice? Why could she not be stronger? This trait, this deep sense of personal responsibility, was the first thing that I noticed about her, as her personality emerged following her recovery. Almost straight away, it was something I hugely admired. This was clearly a person who shared my sense of right and wrong, someone who would look to their own faults before blaming something on another.

  The one person that she refuses to admonish is the boy himself. The twelve Mother’s Maidens chosen to provide care and companionship to him had spent almost all their time around him. She knows better than anyone that the boy himself had been lied to, flattered, spoilt and groomed into nothing more than an idiot puppet. If anything, this realisation only makes her dote on him more as the days of our journey pass.

  Furthermore, as her strength returns, I began to realise what a remarkable strength it is that we have been missing. Beneath the barriers of language, of her meekness, of the boy’s all-eclipsing ability to steal the stage, I had, to begin with, failed to notice the quiet pride and determination with which she set herself to our cause. Only a few days into our postponed journey, I am surprised to realise that she seems to have usurped my position as the ‘home-maker’ to Shara’s ‘hunter’. As the days move along, I find myself more and more being forced into a jack-of-all-trades role, doing whatever is required of me by the changing needs of the group.

  Of all things though, Selene’s most remarkable characteristic is her patience. For however much she herself is beginning to impress me, the boy remains as insufferable as the sum total of all the nightmarish, attention-seeking fools that I have ever had the misfortune to meet.

  It is true that, as time passes, he is beginning to develop a slightly thicker skin. He has even shown an above-average propensity to learn the skills required of him. But none of this is able to mitigate against the abomination that is his personality. Not a day goes by where he doesn’t prove to be selfish, fickle, petulant, unable to understand anything except through its immediate relationship to himself.

  For instance, he might decide that he prefers the look of Selene’s food to his own; Selene will gladly swap it with him. Or he might decide that he is not going to help set up camp for the evening; Selene will compensate for him by working twice as hard. There was even one occasion where he simply point blank refused to walk. If I had not grabbed him by his hood and dragged him, Selene would have quite simply waited until his mind changed. It is only on reflection, and as the days pass, that I realise never before have two people entered my affections on such opposite ends of the spectrum.

  As I continue to walk for days and days, surrounded by these two women, both equally impressive forces of nature, my mind naturally begins to turn to love. I have never really had cause to think of love as something that could happen to a boy like me. My life before the quest was not exactly conducive to the idea. At home, my father was effectively a pariah, clinging alongside his goats to the bottom rung of society, whilst my school was not only an exclusively male environment, it was also an exclusively exclusive one. The idea of meeting a woman who would meet the high standards I expected whilst simultaneously accepting me for my low birth had always seemed, as an idea, more abstract than real.

  Now, however, I find myself in the presence of two women of whom, as time moves on, I am becoming very fond. Selene, with her kind moon face, gentle pride and the fierce maternalism she shows towards the boy, is the kind of woman that any man would surely be proud to have as his wife.

  Shara, meanwhile, is more akin to an untameable storm, wild and ravaging, formidable and beyond comprehension. I am not sure that someone like me could ever find comfort in someone like her. As for her own feelings, I couldn’t even begin to guess. Nevertheless, her intense fixation on working towards our final goal, the white towers of Tallakarn, seems to exceed even my own and, for this, I find myself growing ever more thankful.

  It is most certainly because of her that we have been able to move so far through the snow without trouble; she hunts quickly and accurately, knowing more of the terrain than it would seem possible for one person to have learned, even if she had devoted her life to the task. At the first sign of any other savages, we err on the side of caution, even taking detours to avoid conflict. This strategy, Shara tells me, is the first rule of the snow. As we approach the frozen sea, I am fitter, fatter and warmer than I was at any point on the opposite journey. In the last few days, I have even begun to feel fairly confident about my prospects of seeing home once more.

  It is because of the success of Shara’s canny guidance that I accept her advice of not travelling across the sea. It is, she warns, no accident that Morrigan and myself were almost mauled to death by a bear last time; only the ‘ice people’ dare make the journey regularly. Even to save a month of extra walking, the gamble is too much.

  Forty

  As we head further south, the snow becomes deeper and more treacherous. It is almost up to our knees and there is a layered quality to it, powder soft snow segregated by harder, jagged seams of ice. Its density also masks the terrains on which it lies. This creates hazardous hidden pitfalls that only Shara’s eye is trained to spot. But even she is beginning to struggle now; we left her people’s range several days ago.

  And it is quite clear to see why her people do not venture out here. As the tree cover thins, so does everything else. Everything except the snow. Where it had previously been guaranteed that she would hunt enough food to comfortably feed the four of us,
the last couple of days have been meagre to say the least. We are no longer even accompanied by the smatterings of birdsong that we had all become so used to.

  This lack of stimulation could be the reason why we are all stopped in our tracks by the sound of a high-pitched mewling sweeping across the snow. My instincts immediately tell me that it is a baby animal. Shara, leading at the front, holds her hand up as an instruction for us all to stop. This instruction is promptly ignored by Leo, who begins striding immediately to the source of the sound. Shara looks back towards Selene and I, both stationary, and raises her hand once more.

  “Be very careful. Many holes here,” she hisses across the snow in her trademark ‘quiet but loud’ fashion. I translate this to Selene, who is still struggling to understand my language. Selene shouts for Leo to stop but, in his typical pig-ignorant fashion, the boy just carries on ploughing ahead. The depth of the snow here means that, although the distance between Shara and Leo is not that great, she will struggle to reach him quickly. This fact grows much clearer when it becomes evident that Shara is watching where she puts her feet. Leo, meanwhile, holding true to his hard-held principles of reckless idiocy, is only bothered about finding the animal. The result is agonising frustration, the sensation of watching a footrace between a tortoise and a snail. I watch, helpless, as Leo eventually reaches his destination.

  “Aww! What is this?!” he cries, holding aloft an animal that looks like a rather stocky white cat. At this distance, I can’t be sure what it is but my immediate thought is that it can only be a baby bear. A flush of hot blood passes through me as I realise the implications.

  “Put down!” hisses Shara. “Put down, stupid boy.” As she makes this plea, lost between their languages, she is probably at least ten large steps away. Selene and I are probably another twenty or so away from her.

  Without warning, the sky is ruptured by a blood-curdling roar. From over the brow of a hill emerges the most terrifying creature I have ever seen. It is not a bear but instead a giant cat, perhaps bigger than the bear that Morrigan and I met with on the snow. It is completely white in colour except for an imperious blue mane and the blood red of its open mouth. The sound that it emits seems to shake the ground beneath me. Selene screams. Shara draws her bow.

  Instinct drives me towards the boy and the crying kitten. The cat itself is closer to Shara than Leo but isn’t interested in her. It only takes one glance in its monstrous eyes to understand that it is heading straight for its kitten. I, however, have made a mistake. I only take four steps before my right foot, my good leg, plunges deep into the ice.

  “Help!” I scream, turning to look at Selene, who stands, for a moment, frozen in shock. Leo, meanwhile, hurls the kitten to the ground and begins scrambling away from the approaching cat. A searing pain creeps up my leg as I realise it is firmly trapped in place.

  The cat, rather inevitably, is moving towards Leo at a much quicker pace than he is able to escape. Leo, realising this, and in his infinite wisdom, changes his course towards me and my planted leg. The only consolation, and it is hardly much of one, is that there are, by now, at least three of Shara’s arrows protruding from the creature. I am less consoled when I notice that, roaring and furious, it continues to move as though its wounds are nothing more than a slight annoyance. Selene, meanwhile, has just about reached me. As her hand touches mine, my attention is again stolen by another terrifying yowl. At the edge of my vision, I am reasonably certain that another cat has joined the fray.

  Selene’s hand is firm and sure and, using what must be the combined total of our strength, I am able to wrench myself free, minus boot, seconds before Leo succeeds in putting me between himself and the rapidly approaching cat. He is certainly turning out to be a rather special kind of ‘saviour’.

  I am only just back on my feet with my sword drawn before the cat is upon me, knocking me down as though I am a leaf in the wind. The strength in a swipe of its padded paw is incomparable to any sword blow I have ever received. It is as though the full power of nature has been distilled into a single, devastating movement, smashing across my face, stealing my breath, my skin and, I think, a few teeth.

  Fortunately, if anything about this situation can be said to be fortunate, I hold my sword strong and true as he pounces. As much as there is to be commended about this incredible animal, its decision to dive onto an open blade doesn’t speak highly for its intellect. For, from the satisfying feeling of my sword through its flesh, I know instinctively that I have gravely wounded it. Now, with the full weight of the beast upon me, the only question seems to be whether it will kill me before it dies. My entire body is almost immediately drenched with warm blood.

  Whatever happens from this point is nothing but a blur. I do everything I can to use my arms to cover my face and to hunch into as small a space as possible. Above me, I am vaguely aware that Leo and Selene must also be upon the animal. Screaming and shouting and rumbling fills the air. How long the scrambling and struggling lasts for, I have no idea. It is certain that the beast must be inflicting some terrible injuries upon me but the pain that accompanies them struggles to make it through the terrible numbness that is cast over my entire body.

  Forty-one

  As my eyes flutter open for the first time, various parts of my body scream out in agony, each desperate to report to me the terrible injuries I have suffered, each eager to begin chasing me for the debt of pain that I owe. They play together like a musical ensemble, each contributing their own individual piece, to create a whole even greater than the sum of their parts.

  The loudest and most constant pain seems to be emanating from my face, raw and sharp. I know instantly that it is the deepest, most hideous flesh wound I have ever experienced. My left shoulder also throbs in a similar manner. However, whenever I attempt to move even slightly, these sensations are eclipsed by a terrifying and severe pain shooting from the base of my back to the top of my neck. With every stab of this sensation, some dark fear rises from inside me, whispering that this is how its feels to be crippled.

  All the while, a duller pain rumbles on in my foot, a burning, tingling sensation akin to numbness. Then, deeper than all of these combined, is an even duller pain, one that I am scarcely able to locate; it is perhaps best described as an aching fatigue washing over my entire body. To top it off, it feels as though the alarm bells of Brightstone are alive once again, pounding away inside my head.

  “Selene!” I shout, without so much as a thought. It is only as I shout it that I wonder why I have shouted for her instead of Shara. She arrives almost immediately, as if, perhaps, she has been watching. We are in a snow den.

  “Thank the God that you are awake,” she smiles. “I had thought… I thought….” Without a moment’s warning, her smile shatters and gives way to tears. In her hands is a steaming bowl of Shara’s rabbit broth. It is only now that I notice that the air is infused with the smell and that, once again, I am nestled within furs. It takes my rusty mind a moment to translate her Bright-tongue.

  “Where am I? What’s happened?” I ask, grasping the bowl, my mouth filling instantly with saliva.

  “It is all right. We are in a snow house. Everyone is all right,” she coos reassuringly, stroking my head. Her tears seem to have disappeared as quickly as they arrived. As she strokes me, some of the agony begins to dissipate. It is probably the broth.

  “Where is Shara?”

  “She is gone to hunt,” comes the gentle reply. Before she can continue, the boy interrupts, running across the snow den from somewhere hitherto unseen. He looks as glowing and healthy as ever. Even after a month in the snow, his tan hasn’t faded.

  “Uncle Gruff, Uncle Gruff! Did you see me kill the lion?! Did you see me save your life?” he jabbers, almost incoherent with excitement.

  “I am not your uncle and, no, I did not. I saw quite the opposite,” I spit, attempting to transfer some of my pain in his direction.

  “Bu.. but… bu…” he blusters, caught awkwardly between indignatio
n and disappointment.

  “Don’t worry, Leo, Uncle Gruff has just woken up. He doesn’t feel well. I’m sure he will thank you when he feels better.”

  “I most certainly won’t,” I reply. “It was your stupidity that put us there in the first place. And since when have I been ‘Uncle Gruff’?! Never call me that again.”

  “Bu… but… but… it was my destiny to kill that lion… I was named for him… Leo means ‘Lion’… No man has ever even seen a lion before me. And I killed him,” he crows, chuntering childishly, desperate to impress me.

  Before I became so intimately familiar with the beast, I was not even aware that such a thing existed. There is no word, no concept, to describe such a creature in the kingdom of Tallakarn. For this, I am glad. In comparison to that, the creatures that haunt our kingdom – wolves, wolverines, foxes – are about as formidable as baby rabbits.

  “Why would you be named for a creature that no man has seen?”

  “The lion is from history. They are magical creatures, borne from the sun,” explains Selene.

  “Nonsense. That creature was no more borne from the sun than you or I,” I reply, finishing off the last of my broth. The warm glow inside me is, given my mood, scant consolation.

  “Leo, why don’t you go and skin some more rabbits?” Selene suggests diplomatically. The boy ignores her with characteristic selfishness.

  “How are you going to walk without your toes, Uncle Gruff?!”

  “What?!” I reply, my head involuntarily twitching to my feet. The pain that this sudden movement causes in my neck and back is so great that I can’t even sustain it; I am denied the opportunity to even check.

  “Shara told me that the frost took your toes when your boot came off. I’ve been thinking about it and I can’t imagine how you are going to be able to walk? What do you think? Do you think you’ll be able to walk? If you can’t, does that mean you’re going to be stuck here? I don’t think you could live somewhere like this for very long, could you? Especially if you can’t walk.”