“Well?” called Varkon, his voice warm with pride. “This is my home, boy. The Klinha Mountains. If you were look north-east from here on a clear day, I am sure it would be possible to see the ruins of Ornick-hor. My home is few leagues further north than that. However, we are heading due east, towards that peak, Mount Natsa.” Varkon raised a stubby finger to indicate its direction. It was obvious that Varkon enjoyed talking about his home, perhaps because it was the first familiar place he had seen for so very long. “We will rest here tonight. Tomorrow we will begin our ascent.”
It took much longer than Varkon had anticipated. As they approached the mountains, the ground became increasingly punctuated by rocky passes that had to be scaled, and the snow grew deeper and less safe. Soon the vegetation simply vanished so that only the whirling wind and yawning white landscape remained.
It was another three days of painstakingly slow progress that saw them to the sharply sloped base of Mount Natsa, where their climb began in earnest. Frostbite had taken its unfortunate toll on Haranio’s foot, bruising it into a cadaverous, plum-like colour. It was agreed that he should transform into a more suitable shape for the journey, although this meant Varkon was forever casting a suspicious eye towards the shamif. Tyler wondered how easily Haranio could lose himself again.
And so they continued, with Varkon ahead, Tyler following closely, and Haranio in his snow lion form trailing effortlessly behind. The higher they climbed, the colder it became. Ice crystals threaded through Tyler’s hair, and his cheeks stung red as hot blood rose through his frosted veins.
Varkon led them up the spine of an arched ridge, which enabled the company to avoid the brunt of the roaring wind as it dashed against a conveniently sloped bank that ran edgeways to their right. Soon the view was lost to the quick-moving mist as they trespassed into the clouds. Static plumes of grey and white thrashed together violently, and Haranio’s skulking form was almost impossible to spot against the barren wasteland of the mountain. As evening approached, Varkon led the way around the side of an enormous V-shaped cleft that widened into a cave.
Varkon and Haranio piled together some dry sticks that they had foreseen to gather from the bottom of the mountain, and a small fire was soon spluttering away. Tyler pushed his hands close to the blaze and bore witness to Haranio performing another grizzly transformation back to his human form. Then the man sat back comfortably with Tyler’s jacket draped across his lap.
“How much c-colder is it going to get?” asked Tyler, his teeth clicking in sync with his shuddering body.
“Much colder,” said Varkon, eyeing him with concern. “Stay strong, boy. We have nothing more to keep you warm.”
They did not talk much that night. Instead the company sat watching the small flame crackle and fight against the wind.
“Here, I have some food,” said Varkon, “Finish it all. There is no other sustenance in this barren place.”
The mushroom he handed out was sweet, and Tyler savoured every bite. It was certainly a change from the dry krus. Afterwards the trio sat in silence until the meagre flame finally faded away with a last, apologetic flicker.
“Right,” said Haranio, his first word in several hours. “I think we should all get some rest. No need for a guard tonight – we will not be troubled here.”
Tyler lay awake in the darkness long after he was supposed to have fallen asleep. He watched the hurtling snow outside, afraid to fall victim to his dreams, and he fought back his heavy eyelids. Then, just when he knew he could not hold back his exhaustion anymore there was a quiet noise, and the silence after it seemed unnatural. It was the sound made by someone who didn’t want to make a sound. Tyler pinched his eyelids into two tight slits and peered through the dark.
It was Varkon. The ghatu rose carefully to his feet and, after glancing about him, disappeared like a flitting bat into the night and snow. Tyler sat upright immediately after he had left. What was Varkon doing, sneaking around in middle of the night halfway up a desolate mountainside?
Haranio remained peacefully asleep to Tyler’s right. Somehow he had managed to cover himself from head to toe with only Tyler’s jacket and half of Varkon’s torn shirt; this lent him the appearance of a caterpillar wrapped in a long cocoon. Every so often his sides heaved deeply with sleep. For a long while Tyler considered waking the old man and warning him of Varkon’s disappearance, but could he be trusted? If Haranio was the betrayer from his dreams, he might use this opportunity to carry out his murderous intent.
It was only after most of the night had passed that Varkon finally slipped back into the cave and settled into his corner. Tyler saw him do this, which was surprising because he had drifted off more than a couple of times during the night. Not long after, the cave began to collect the early morning light, and Varkon rose yet again, this time, to wake everybody.
“Come on, get up!” the ghatu called in high spirits. “First breakfast, and then we must push on. We have a long day ahead of us.”
Tyler observed the ghatu suspiciously from under the guise of his black-ringed eyes as he nibbled on his mushroom.
Once more they ventured into the strange and frozen realm of the mountainside. Although the snowstorm from last night had eased, flakes still drifted limply from the mist. Tyler struggled through the snow, which was much deeper than the day before.
Varkon led the way with a definite spring to his step. Tyler had at first thought this behaviour suspicious, but as the day wore on, he began to doubt his initial concerns. The ghatu had told him that he felt far more at ease in the dark. Perhaps Varkon had only been scouting the way ahead last night, checking for avalanches and other dangers that lay hidden on the mountain path. Tyler shook his head. Varkon had saved his life so often. It was Haranio whom Tyler should be watching.
They travelled until noon, Tyler pondering all the while, until they heard it. Loud and harsh, the scream echoed for a long while off the mountains. Tyler dropped forward onto his stomach so that the ice crunched underneath him; he had long since learnt he was far less vulnerable when pressed flat against the ground. He peered upwards, his chin tipped with snow. They had reached a gentle incline on the mountain, a straight cut into its natural slope, and on either side of this sat a twin set of colossal rocks.
Three spears thudded into the ground not too far away, and then the screaming was taken up by a hundred voices or more. Ghatu crawled over the tops of the rock on either side of them like cockroaches, some on all fours, and some with fifth or even sixth limbs to help them hang against the vertical walls of stone. More appeared, streaming from behind the pair of goliath rocks in countless numbers to trap the companions. Haranio roared in his snow lion form and swirled about his tail, as though he could not decide who to attack first. Tyler craned his head behind to search for an escape route, but a solid wall of ghatu approached from the rear. Those that did have recognisable features twisted them with malice.
They pushed down the passage between the rocks, eager to advance, sandwiching Tyler, Varkon, and Haranio between them. Closer they came, and closer still … Then suddenly and apparently without command, each one of them came to a simultaneous halt. Their grinning faces were so close to them that it was possible to smell their stench. There was no place to run.
Then the most horrible thing Tyler could imagine happened. Varkon stepped forward and then turned to face the same direction as the hordes of his brothers and sisters crowding behind him. A snake smile slid over his spiked teeth, and his eyes widened with glee.
Tyler rose slowly to his feet. Varkon had deceived him. He had ignored every clue that had pointed to this treachery: his dream, the ghatu’s disappearance last night, Varkon’s unreasonable dislike of Haranio – all overlooked because his trust in Hargill’s judgement had outweighed his doubt. Now he would pay the price, just as Glivin had predicted.
The fattest, most vile ghatu Tyler had ever seen shoved through the ranks of his ki
nd, pushing them aside as he moved. His gluttonous body was blotched with tattoos that had long ago lost their form and now appeared to be grubby, shapeless pools of ink; only his cheek remained bare except for a crescent and red line to mark it. A nail pierced his forehead, which was puffed with infection, and dozens of short and furry feelers, like those found around the mouth of a river-shrimp, emitted from his lips and brushed at the air like waving fingers.
The monstrosity halted just ahead of Tyler and Haranio, seemingly unafraid of the snow lion, although given the number of jagged weapons pointing towards them, Haranio was one aggressive movement away from becoming a pincushion of spears and darts.
His heart dead in his chest, Tyler’s eyes fixed on Varkon. What else had Hargill been wrong about?
“Never trust a ghatu,” Haranio said. He had transformed back into a human and had stepped to stand shoulder to shoulder with Tyler. It was quite a sight: a young boy and an unclothed old man standing before the most fearsome hordes of their enemies.
The large ghatu grinned with considerable amusement, exposing a forest of rotting teeth. “Vaz urit ama? Vuri-a-nanga!”
The encircling ghatu burst into laughter. Tyler saw Varkon smile. Tyler only saw Varkon; his hate did not allow him to focus on anything else.
As the ghatu leader laughed, black spittle leaked from his mouth. After licking this drool away with a long tongue, he rotated his enormous form and smacked a hand against Varkon’s shoulder in congratulations. He then shouldered his way back though the crowd of ghatu and disappeared among them.
“That was Yuguth Rut, son of Ti-Fuza and high Sa-Tsu of Mount Natsa. You owe him your respect, for he has decided to spare your lives,” said Varkon through his smirk. “This is far more than you deserve. Know that I begged for him to do otherwise. Instead, he sees fit to give you as homage to the Dhimori.”
Tyler’s lips twisted with hate. “Traitor.” Varkon slapped him across the face with the back of his powerful hand. The taste of blood only made Tyler more resilient. “What about your high and mighty Ruilk, O noble ghatu?” he continued, stubbornly. “You have broken your oath, corrupted your soul.”
Varkon stepped forward so that his foul breath burnt like mustard against Tyler’s face and eyes. “You have spirit, boy! That was hard to miss during our short journey, but we will crush that here. We will break you, Tyler. By the end you will be a miserable creature indeed. Starved and crippled by abuse and hunger, you will cringe at my feet like a dog.” With that Varkon turned on his heel and made as if to stroll through the ghatu ranks, but then he paused and spoke with his back towards them. “As for my Ruilk, Hargill was a fool. I swore to protect you until your journey’s end when I sealed my oath. How could Hargill not have noticed my play on words? Well, your journey has ended now, and with it my oath. What happens to you now is up to the Dhimori.”
Varkon pushed into the crowd of dark-faced ghatu, and their ranks pulsed outwards to make space. The ghatu massed around Tyler and Haranio began to howl incoherently.
Tyler remembered shaping small figures of clay from a muddy patch by the river when he was a child. The ghatu reminded Tyler of those clay people: each of their bodies was twisted and warped in different proportions and incredible angles. There was no “normal” figure; each was unique in some way. Skin colours varied from cloud-greys to lime-greens and even pinks; teeth bulged out of the mouths of those who did not have lips; ears spread like palm leaves or sunk into their heads; backs were hunched, pointed, or even shaped to bear sets of misshapen wings; some bore more similarity to fish than humans, and all were covered in great arcs of detailed tattoos.
They were forced to march before the jeering crowd. As they climbed higher, the snow took on a dirty-brown taint. They passed several small burrows and caves, their entrances black with muck that looked as though it had been belched from the mountain. Eyes watched them from the gloom, and at one time a thin ghatu child with a pale face came rushing at them yelling, his infant lungs with bloodlust. Thankfully his gangly mother had hurried out of the burrow and restrained him. Finally they entered one of the caves as the sun was setting behind them.
Half a dozen guards remained with Tyler and Haranio, goading them on with spears and insults. For a while they stumbled through a series of dim, dank caverns. In one of them a group of stupefied ghatu sat around a small fire, drool hanging from their slackened lips. Above the flames a pot was boiling, its base warming the room with a metallic red while steam gushed from the liquid. Tyler’s head turned light, and his thoughts drifted more than they should have.
Finally they came to an enormous cavern. Tyler couldn’t see that it was enormous, but he could sense it with some unknown instinct. A flight of stairs trailed downwards against the cavern wall, and to their right lay a profound emptiness, occupied only by an insufferable breeze of hot air that extruded from below. Initially Tyler moved with caution, because each step was barely wide enough to fit one foot at a time. Then one of the ghatu smacked him unkindly with his spear butt.
“Vavi raz!” the monster growled. “Vavi raz, nout!”
His words echoed hollowly into a distance, to mingle with sharp scrapes and bangs of metalwork and digging. Tyler traced his hand loosely against the wall to his left as he stepped down the spiralling stairway. He was thankful that Haranio was ahead of him; the old man appeared far more confident in his step.
On and on the stairs unwound from the gloom as they descended towards hell. Tyler rubbed his steaming brow. He guessed it must be towards the early hours of the morning.
Still they walked downwards. The dark seemed to permeate Tyler’s eyelids, swelling them with heaviness as the long trek continued. The very stairs began to move before his eyes, bending and sliding ahead of him, and he came close to losing his balance more than once. Not even a sharp crack of a spear butt to his back woke him fully.
“Vavi raz!” the ghatu droned madly. “Trakav!”
Just when Tyler could not endure another moment, they reached the bottom. The path met with what Tyler thought was an expansive, flat piece of ground, though it was hard to be sure in the dark.
A few paces across this space, and a crouching figure drew into view. Its shape was dreadfully deformed, and as they came closer, they bore witness to its decrepit face. The old ghatu’s upper lip was pierced back with long bones, as though it were a loose flap that had to be secured, and red warts had blistered its eyes almost entirely shut. With its two remaining fingers, the fiend stroked Tyler’s arm and pressed at his stomach as though examining a melon for bruises. “Kou! Kou!” he hacked, pointing at Haranio and then Tyler. “ThiKz my … Vraka! Prizion. Kou owbey ve – Knowone elv!” Then he turned with a grunt and motioned that they should follow.
They passed several long pools of silent water, their inky nature masking the fathoms that swirled beneath. Every so often a line of silver would slink onto some unnatural wave. Tyler shuddered. Surely no living thing could be finning or sliding its way through the depths?
The ghatu stepped up to an iron gate, which was sunk deep into the stone. It inserted a key and then dragged the heavy door open with a tired metal screech. “BeKwar tah hol,” the old one rasped ominously, gesturing through the open gate. “Atk ta bottom, a wyloth Klivz.”
The companions were then shoved through the gate, which was slammed and locked after them with a high-pitched clang.
CHAPTER TEN
SHADES OF NIGHT
“Haranio?” Tyler whispered. “Are you there?”
Haranio answered him with a pair of limpid eyes. The shamif had changed into his snow lion form. Tyler waited until he had examined the area, and then there was a pause mixed with a couple of crunching bones and clicks. At least the blackness meant Tyler did not have to witness another grisly transformation.
“Even as a lion, I can barely see in this wretched place,” said Haranio. “What I can make out is a large hole bored through t
he centre this prison. Tyler, I hope you are a still sleeper, because one turn …”
Tyler flayed out his hand tentatively to feel for the ground he had assumed was ahead of him. His fingers swiped on empty air, and orientation awry, he pressed up against the slimy wall behind him that so he felt cool juice secrete from the moss and run down his back.
“I was a foot from the edge!” he yelped. His voice rang down the unseen hole ahead of him and then leapt back up with a disembodied echo. “Haranio, I’m so sorry I trusted Varkon.”
“The fault is as much yours as it is my own. In the end we both trusted in him enough to lead us though the mountains.”
“Yes, but his betrayal wasn’t as unexpected as you might think.” Tyler told Haranio of the dream which had revealed the murderous intent of one of his companions and of Varkon’s disappearance from their cave. “I didn’t know who to trust,” said Tyler, who felt the burden of his secret lift as he spoke. “In my dream I could feel how all-consuming Varkon’s hatred was for me. It was so powerful that I’m surprised he did not kill me himself.”
Haranio did not comment immediately. Instead, he paused for a long time, his expression obscured by the gloom. “So,” he said eventually, “you think that your dreams allow you snippets of real thoughts? You should have told me all this long ago. Avalon’s Blessing is not something that may be taken lightly, Tyler. Remember what happened when you neglected to tell Varkon about your dreams? Your body has had a jab of something new shot right into its heart. How do you expect me to help if I never know what’s wrong? From now on, promise me you will tell me everything.”
Tyler's Dream Page 10
