by Helen Gosney
“They are gone, too... or almost gone...” Rill said, a little wistfully.
“But... the bridge is still there,” Moss said.
“The bridge is still there, and the little building in the grove, too... but... they are changed, they are of Yaarl now. The nexus is nearly closed...” Rill tried to explain.
Moss gave Rill an odd look, and got up and walked to the bridge. He came back a few minutes later, nodding slightly to himself.
“It is true... the bridge is almost as it should be, and the mist has more or less gone from the island...” he said, frowning in thought. “The… oddness in the centre of the bridge seems duller now, and it is fluctuating a lot…”
“It fades, even as my power fades... in a little time, it will be no more,” Rill sighed.
“Do you wish now that you’d gone with the others?” Rowan asked him curiously.
“Oh, no!” Rill shook his head quickly, “No... I want to stay here, with the rivers. It just feels... strange... that’s all...”
“Well, there are plenty of rivers for you to see here... there’s Moss’s river - we called it the Catspaw River, I hope Moss doesn’t mind - and there’s a very fine river in Gnash, and lots of others,” Rowan said, as he carefully rubbed liniment into his knee. It was very swollen and throbbing fiercely despite a good dose of willowbark tea, and Rowan wasn’t confident of its wellbeing. He’d seen enough injured knees in his time to think that his was going to be a neverending problem to him. And from something so stupid as a couple of falls, too. He couldn’t imagine how he was going to be able to negotiate tunnels and stairs to return to the troll clan’s valley. At least his shoulder seemed to be all right, he thought gratefully. Why did that damned Pleer Bon have to go anywhere near my bloody shoulder, or me for that matter, he wondered. He’d thought he’d feel remorse at having killed him, but no, there was simply nothing. That was as incomprehensible to him as everything else.
“I might be able to help you with that too, Rowan. I am rested now and there is still a little power, it might be enough…” Rill said quietly.
Rowan stared at him in astonishment. He was certainly worried about his knee, but… no, he couldn’t ask Rill to put himself through such pain again. He shook his head.
“I thank you, Rill… but no, it’s too painful for you. It’s not right to hurt yourself that way just to help me,” he said slowly.
“If you had not helped me, I would not have dared to go past Rasa and I certainly could not have found my way through the maze. And even if I had, somehow, I would still be in the middle of that bridge trapped in a closing nexus, or caught in the place in between. I would never have had a chance to be with the rivers…” Rill gabbled. “There is a little power left, enough, I think. Please, let me try to do something to help you while I still can…”
“But I didn’t do anything really. I couldn’t just leave you there,” Rowan said.
Rose moved closer to him and put an arm around him, mindful of the heavy bruising on his back, chest and shoulder. She looked at his pale, weary face and made up her mind.
“Yes, Rill, and thank you,” she said, “Rowan won’t ask you, but I will. If you truly think there’s something you might still be able to do, then please try.” Her opinion of this young man had risen a lot since his efforts of a few days ago. She didn’t understand how he’d helped Rowan any more than Cris or Moss did, but she knew he’d somehow saved her brother’s life and she was thankful. Maybe he could help him again.
Rowan stared at her. He hadn’t even realised that she’d been listening to what he and Rill had been saying. He looked around at Cris and Moss, who both nodded encouragingly at him. They must have been listening too. Bloody Hells, he was slipping, he thought. He’d really have to start paying more attention to what was going on.
“Rill, please don’t do this if it’ll hurt you again,” Rowan began, but Rill simply shook his head and knelt beside Rowan. He closed his eyes and ran his hands over the injured knee.
“Hmm… ah, yes… it is torn here, deep inside. Oh, no, no, that is not right. That is not right at all. No wonder it will not support you. Ah, and there, too…hmm…” he muttered to himself. He concentrated fiercely as he had before, hands suddenly tight around the knee.
Rowan braced himself as best he could for more pain, but felt only a soothing warmth spreading through his knee. He sighed in relief as the ferocious throbbing began to ebb. He bent his knee experimentally and it certainly moved more easily, though it was still as swollen as it had been before… before whatever it was that Rill had done. Still not quite daring to believe it, he stood and walked a few steps. His knee felt as sturdy and reliable as it had always been.
“Rill… I, I don’t know what to say, but… thank you. Thank you for helping me again, I truly don’t know how I’d have got back through the tunnel, let alone down the stairs,” he said simply. “I’m not complaining, truly, but why didn’t it hurt this time?”
Rill’s relieved grin changed to a frown.
“Because this injury did not come from the hand of Pleer Bon,” he said grimly.
He brightened though, pleased that he’d managed to help his new friend again. He’d feared that there really wasn’t enough power left for him to be able to do much at all. And he’d feared that it might be as excruciating as before.
“The swelling will be gone in a day or two, and it will be well now…” he said with a shy smile.
**********
Suddenly Moss got to his feet, calling to the others and pointing towards the bridge.
The oddness there had expanded and contracted erratically as the time passed, and they’d all wondered what might happen. Rill wasn’t sure, but he thought they’d be safe where they were; if not, he told them gloomily, he didn’t know where they truly would be safe. He’d never been on this side of a closing nexus, and they were never reopened to see if any damage had been done as they closed. The others were simply not interested enough to bother to find out.
The nexus suddenly expanded to a shimmering oval shape several manheights tall and about half that in width. It flared brightly, a rainbow of colours chasing each other across its surface, and then it seemed to collapse in on itself. It disappeared with a final flare that was too bright to look at and a soundless ‘pop’ that shook the ground alarmingly.
“What the hell was that?” Cris cried.
Rill looked at him, his face unreadable.
“The nexus is closed,” he said with no expression at all.
“Are you all right, Rill?” Rowan asked.
“Yes… yes, I am,” Rill replied after a moment’s thought. “It is a good thing that the nexus is closed, and the others have gone. Now Yaarl will be as it should, and I… I will be with the rivers…”
**********
42. “They truly will not be back.”
It was a few days before they finally went over the hump-backed bridge to the little island. In spite of their curiosity, nobody wanted to go without Rowan, but it had taken him some time to recover his strength. He’d surprised himself, but no one else, by spending most of the time sleeping. His slumber was still as restless and troubled as before, but finally he did feel much better and certainly strong enough to go to the island. Rill assured them all that it was safe, but even so Rowan strapped his sabre on his back as they set off. He hoped fervently that he wouldn’t have to use it, but use it he would if it became necessary.
There was no sign of the nexus on the bridge, nothing at all to show that it had ever existed. As they stepped off the far end of the bridge Rowan looked at the few odd feathers scattered about and the bits of fur caught here and there on the bushes, but he could see nothing to show that he and Rill had ever walked there. Plenty of animal tracks, but that was all, and nothing that was big enough to be Rasa’s paw prints. He looked up at the tharlen trees above him as they all headed warily for the centre of the island. The round, glossy leaves and stout trunks were nothing like the odd, gangly, limp-looking
things he’d seen last time he was here and he felt himself becoming tense. His uneasiness grew as the maze failed to appear.
Calm down Rowan, you idiot, he thought. Rill says they’ve gone and I believe him. He did believe him too, but still… somehow it seemed that Rowan simply wasn’t listening to himself. He loosened the sabre in its scabbard, but didn’t draw it.
The little domed building was there on its stepped plinth, the pale golden stone gleaming in the sunlight. Its door was blocked open with a good-sized rock.
“It’s beautiful, Rowan,” Rose said quietly. She could see the tension in his face and in the way he’d walked as he and Cris had scouted around the building.
“Aye, it is, but I think we should still be careful.”
“The others have gone, Rowan. They truly will not be back,” Rill said, his voice very certain.
Rowan nodded slowly.
“Aye. I do believe you, Rill, truly it’s not that, but… well, I just have to be sure in my own mind, I suppose.” He shrugged. “Please, indulge me, as my very first Guard Captain once said to me about something else. I thought he was daft at the time, and I’m sure you think I’m daft now, but… please just let me look at it first, no matter how daft it seems.”
The others looked at each other. Rowan was still the only warrior among them after all; if he wanted to look at this building first, they weren’t going to be able to stop him.
“Please be careful, Rowan,” Rose said softly.
“Aye, don’t worry, love… I will be, I promise. And I’ll call you if there are any beasties in there, Cris.”
There in the dust of the steps he finally saw three sets of footprints: his own entering and his and Rill’s leaving. Partly overlaying them, going into the building through the open door but not coming out, were the pawprints of a massive wolf. He caught Moss’s eye for a moment, sighed and shook his head, then quickly scuffed the tracks with his foot before Rose might see them.
“Don’t fret, Moss. I doubt she’s still in there… but even if she is, ‘twill be all right,” he said, relieved to see the troll’s quick nod.
“Rasa? Are you in there still, my lady direwolf?” he said, so quietly that even Moss wasn’t sure he’d heard him properly.
Rowan strained to hear any movement inside, but there was nothing. Taking a deep breath that he hoped the others didn’t notice, he slipped inside the little building. He kicked the rock out of the way and closed the door firmly behind him. It was fairly dark inside, but there was nothing to see: no golden light, no impossibly distant mists, nothing. He knew without knowing how he knew, that there really was nothing and nobody inside with him, but still he searched it as well as he could. In the meagre light the direwolf’s tracks seemed to simply disappear just past the centre of the room and he felt himself relax a bit. No, there truly was nothing, he decided at last. This little building, Great Pavilion or not, was as empty and unused as those in the rest of the crater had been. The ‘others’ were truly gone, and Rasa with them. The thought of the direwolf pursuing them to wherever it was that they’d gone made him smile for a moment.
He heard footsteps and a tentative creak at the door and the smile faded as he spun around.
“Rowan…? Are you all right?” Cris called, trying to see into the gloom of the building.
Rowan stood in the centre of the building, looking ill as he took his hand off the hilt of his sabre.
“Rowan? What’s happened…?”
Rowan swallowed hard and went over to his friend.
“Cris, I’m so sorry, I… I didn’t…” he shook his head wretchedly.
Cris stared at him.
“Rowan, what the hell are you talking about? What’s wrong?” Cris said, completely mystified as to why Rowan should be so upset.
“Cris, I… ’Tis just as well you make a bit of noise when you walk, Cris… just as well that door creaks too. It gave me a bit of time…” Rowan sighed and said carefully, “I once nearly skewered poor Pa like that, after the cursed fever. If I’d had my normal strength and speed, I’d have killed him. ‘Twas near enough as it was, and I frightened him and myself out of twelve months’ growth… Since Messton, the reflex is so strong, so instinctive, ‘tis partly why I don’t carry the sabre much now, but I just thought… coming over here… Cris, I’m sorry, that’s all I can say to you…”
Cris frowned in puzzlement as he thought about what he’d seen as he came through the door. His eyes widened.
“You were going to draw the sabre on me…” he said unsteadily.
Rowan shook his head again.
“No, Cris. I did draw the sabre on you. I was putting it away.”
Cris gulped.
“Bloody good thing your hearing came back all right after that purple plant thing then, wasn’t it?” he said bravely.
“Aye, ‘twas…”
Cris smiled up at him.
“I’m all right, Rowan. Don’t fret yourself,” he said. “Truly, I didn’t even realise until you told me. So I’ve probably only lost two or three months’ growth. And if I’d been Rasa or a horrible beastie we’d all have been damned grateful for you and your sabre.”
“Maybe…”
“Are you really all right though, Rowan? Did you find anything in here?”
Rowan managed a smile for his friend.
“Aye, Cris. I’m fine, there’s nothing here… come and have a look at the Great Pavilion.”
The others came in and suddenly the little building was crowded.
“Are you sure this is the Great Pavilion, Rowan? It seems a bit, er, …” Rose said doubtfully.
“…small!” Cris laughed.
Rowan shrugged.
“Aye, it does, doesn’t it? No, truly I don’t know… but I think it is…”
“What is this, Rowan?” Moss asked, his voice oddly quiet. He’d seen the huge wolf tracks as Rowan had, seen that they hadn’t left the building, and now he was following them as best he could in the dim light, but…
“What is what, Moss…? Where…?”
“Here, on the floor by thy feet… it looks like the floor has been… has been burnt in some way. Burnt recently, too. See there, in the light from the doorway?”
The centre of the floor was blackened in a rough circle, the flagstones cracked and broken. The wolf’s pawprints veered around it and disappeared. Rowan stared at it and tried not to shudder. The memory of Pleer Bon and the terrible pain he’d caused was all too clear in his mind.
Cris came across and stumbled on something.
“What the hell was that…?” he began. He bent down and carefully picked up a bloodstained dagger. Unmistakeably a g’Hakken dagger. Eyes wide, he handed it to Rowan.
“This is your knife, Rowan, isn’t it?” At Rowan’s nod, he continued nervously, “Is that… is that where you were…?”
“Aye… I think so… I think that must be where I was standing when Pleer Bon touched me, but… but I didn’t have the dagger then. Before that Beldar and I fought back and forth over a big area and when my knee gave way and he came at me, I… I threw a knife at him. It got him just below his breastbone. Blood was gushing out, he couldn’t possibly have survived it, but… well, he did. He pulled the dagger out, he said I’d fought well and then he just turned and walked away. I thought he’d taken the dagger with him.” He was sure he remembered Beldar walking away with it in his hand. “Truly, I don’t understand any of it…I don’t know why he didn’t just kill me and be done with it after his wound just… just sealed itself closed. I honestly thought he would, but no. He just turned on his heel and walked back into the mists.” Rowan looked around him. “And then, Pleer Bon… well, I should never have let the bastard near me, but… I don’t know… I did. I don’t think I could have stopped him just then anyway. My knee was useless and I was leaning on the sabre and truly, it was the only thing holding me up.” If he’d known what Pleer Bon would do to him, Rowan would have put a knife into him too.
He shook his head as he look
ed around the tiny building again and decided that he’d seen enough.
“If nobody minds,” he said slowly, “Or even if they do mind, I think I’ll just wait for all of you outside.”
**********
A day or so later they were eating a supper of roasted rabbits that Cris had caught, followed by fresh drizzleberries and the last of the apples that Marna had given them, sitting idly about as the stars began to come out. It seemed an anticlimax after all that had happened, but they planned to go back down the great stairway the next morning and return to the trolls. There was nothing more for them here in the crater, and nobody felt a need to linger for any longer than it took Rowan to recover from his ordeal. He still looked pale and weary, but he truly felt much better now and strong enough to tackle the return trip.
They were chatting and groaning about tomorrow’s scramble through the tunnel and the long trek down the stairs when to everyone’s amazement the cave lion materialised from the gloom and trotted confidently up to Rowan. It dropped a small deer at his feet and licked his face and hands with its rough pink tongue.
Though Moss and Rose and Cris had seen Rowan and the cave lion together before they were taken aback at the great cat’s sudden appearance: they knew nothing of its previous nocturnal visits. Certainly nobody had seen it laying quietly in the shadows of the trees behind the little building where an unconscious Rowan had lain inside. Rill simply stared with his mouth hanging open, completely awestruck. He muttered an unintelligible word that Rowan sincerely hoped didn’t mean anything like ‘Beast Master’. He’d had enough of Gods and Masters to last him a lifetime.
But he was astonished that ‘Puss’ would bring him such a gift. Of course housecats did it all the time with mice and rats and things, even cats that didn’t know him, like Tim Mouser, but cave lions…? No, that was a surprise. He ruffled the cave lion’s thick black mane and stroked its soft fur as he murmured his thanks to it. ‘Puss’ circled for a moment, then settled itself with its head on Rowan’s lap, purring contentedly in the warmth of the fire.
