When he tried to explain this to Althak he found that his grasp of the symbol was incomplete. A bridge was needed between the corruption and the dragons. A bridge across the chasm. But Althak could see no bridge except the one of stone. In the silence that had followed his question the truth had whispered the answer. It was Azkun himself who was the bridge.
He did not know how, or even why. But this was the purpose of the dragons. He himself was the bridge. In spite of the spectre of corruption that lurked so close he rejoiced. He wanted to sing, but he knew no songs. Surely there were songs of dragons to be sung. He looked at Althak, for he had heard Althak sing before, but Althak’s song was not what he wanted.
On his other side, a little ahead, for he was leading them, Hrangil’s horse plodded through the rain. Hrangil was rigid with his doubts and hopes and weighed down by the water that ran off his cloak. Azkun had not heard him sing, but he told tales. Perhaps he knew a tale of the bridge, and perhaps it would please him to tell it.
He nudged his horse and it trotted obediently up beside Hrangil’s. A spasm of anxiety and alertness from Althak twitched in his mind but his senses were too dulled by the rain for it to register deeply.
“Master Hrangil?” The others called him that. It seemed to be a title of some sort.
The old man jerked up his head as if he were started out of deep thoughts. The eyes he turned towards Azkun were full of contradictions.
“Yes…” he trailed off, as if grasping for a title he should give Azkun but unable to find one.
“You told a tale last night about the Lansheral. Do you know a tale of the bridge?”
“I know the tale of the bridge, yes,” he appeared puzzled to be asked.
“I would like to hear it, if you wish to tell it.”
Hrangil started to object and stopped himself. Azkun could see he was confused for some reason.
“I enjoyed your tale last night. I would like to hear more. I felt as if I had been to the places you spoke of.”
At that Hrangil smiled, as if an unspoken question had been answered.
“Very well. It is a delight to tell you. Perhaps you will remember.
“It was sixteen years after the founding of Relanor that Gilish made his journey north to Kelerish. He and a small company travelled by sea and the journey was long, for it was winter and the north wind blew. For this reason Gilish forbade Sheagil, his wife, from accompanying him and left in secret so that she would not follow.
“But, although he had forbidden her, Sheagil followed Gilish north. When she caught up with Gilish and his company she found that they were separated from each other by a mighty gorge.
“When Gilish saw her he was moved with compassion, for she had travelled many days alone and with great hardship to be with him. He resolved to make a monument to the love that inspired her journey so, using his magic, he constructed the Bridge of Sheagil, which allowed him to cross over the gorge and be reunited with his wife.”
Hrangil stopped there. He seemed on the verge of continuing the story but decided not to say more. Azkun did not press him. He had said enough. This Gilish they had spoken of so much had built the bridge as a kindness to reach someone called Sheagil. It was what Azkun expected of such a structure and the story confirmed his feeling that he, himself, was a bridge.
Chapter 6: Lianar
Dusk was falling by the time they rode into Lianar. The last few miles had been easier because the villagers had kept the way clear of obstacles for their own use. The horses, sensing food and warm stables, changed from their reluctant plodding pace to an enthusiastic trot.
They found themselves moving down a cleft in the hills where the forest had dwindled to low scrub and tussock. A tangy salt wind blew in their faces and, not far ahead, they could see the first of the Vorthenki long houses. The smell of cooking fires drifted in the wind.
Azkun’s panic stirred uneasily with the approach of night. The spectres of the darkness gathered around him. But he knew now that this was only night. After the chasm of night would follow dawn. And he could smell smoke. Fire was not far away. He was weary with pain now. His arm was no longer numb, and it ached.
The houses they approached were made of wood and earth and their roofs were thatched with the scrub that grew around them. A doorway darkened the side of the nearest house, it was hung with a heavy curtain. As they passed the curtain was pulled back and a figure stepped out. Azkun caught a glimpse of fire and shadowy forms inside. It made the night seem suddenly deeper. The man in the doorway called something to his fellows inside and more men came out.
The gathering gloom made them difficult to make out, and the firelight was behind them, but Azkun could see that they were as tall as Althak. Their clothes were roughly made unlike his own, and among them stood some children with blankets wrapped around their shoulders. These were pushed back inside the house as soon as their presence was realised by the others. With their movements Azkun caught a glint of metal, an ornament or a weapon. Several of them were shouting to the other houses now and one of them ran to the nearest house. A horn blew, alerting the whole community.
More people appeared. Glints of metal were everywhere. They seemed tense, not quite afraid, but not at ease either.
He wanted to call to them. He was not to he feared. He was the bridge to the dragons. He would not bring the darkness of the chasm to them. But their anxiety had insinuated itself into his own mind and mingled with his native fear of the growing gloom.
“Say something, Althak. Tell them we are friends.” Menish spoke wearily from behind.
Althak nodded to Menish and called something in the Vorthenki tongue. Azkun did not understand it but it carried a tone of reassurance that eased his fear. The tenseness in the air evaporated to a vague uneasiness. Most of the Vorthenki folk returned to their fire sides and the few that remained were more curious than concerned.
But Azkun had been shaken. The darkness gathered about him, releasing its spectres. He clutched at the reins of his horse and clamped his jaw so that his fear would not be voiced. He must have fire.
Then it happened.
The villagers in their doorways wavered like ghosts. They became suddenly transparent. He could hardly see them. For a heartbeat he thought it was just the darkness, but he could still see the houses. The darkness was not complete. Even the hills behind were still solid to his vision. He had seen two nights now. People did not turn to ghosts at night.
He turned to Althak, hoping for an explanation. But before he could speak he realised that Althak was just the same.
Althak noticed his sudden movement and returned it with a raised eyebrow, an unspoken question. His wavering transparency made the gesture into a mocking death’s head with diamond eyes.
“Azkun, what is it?”
But he could not speak. Terror clutched at his throat, robbing him of speech, robbing him of the gift of the dragons. He could not speak to a spectre. He could not admit that this was happening.
A dog barked and they passed more people, all wavering ghosts, all adding to the paralysing terror. Grath, Bolythak, Hrangil, Menish and Drinagish, they were all ghosts. Was this how they had appeared to the pig?
He thought of running, but he had already rejected that way. Flight was madness unless there were some goal. Besides, how could he ever outrun this horror? If only he could reach a fire. But the fires were in the houses and the ghostly forms of the villagers guarded the houses.
Desperately he scanned the skies for the sight of a dragon. But all he saw was the black sky looming over him like death.
They stopped beside a building that was different from the long houses. It was taller and made of stone blocks. A warm glow came from the open doorway, bringing Azkun some relief. But, clustered on the roadway in front of the building, were more ghostly villagers. They stared at the horsemen, especially at Azkun. He felt as if they were sentencing him to death.
Behind it all he could hear a rushing, hissing sound, like the sighing of los
t souls, but he could not see its source. More insubstantial figures came out of the building and spoke to the ghost of Althak in their harsh tongue. The others dismounted, but Azkun clung to his horse. It was his anchor of sanity. He stared at his own hands, finding a superficial comfort in their solidity, watching them lest they too dissolved in the darkness.
“Come, Azkun. We've arrived.” It was Althak at his side, or the wavering form that had been Althak. It wanted him to dismount.
“No,” he managed to croak back, a refusal of everything.
“Come, we must go inside. Climb down.”
He shook his head and closed his eyes, shutting out reality, or what was left of it.
Menish called something to Althak, a question and an order, and Azkun felt the hands of the Vorthenki as he was lifted from the horse. The shock of the solidity of his grasp was numbing and the movement hurt his sore arm. Althak set him on his feet and the horses were led away by the ghostly shapes of Grath and Bolythak.
But still he could not move. He did not trust his senses. The ghost of Althak loomed beside him, it asked him questions with Althak’s voice but he refused to listen. With the solidity of the rocks that had tried to kill him, Althak’s ghost pushed him forward towards the door. Ghosts that leered at him from their transparency guarded the door. Then he saw the woman.
She stood apart from the cluster of villagers near the door, a strange little figure among these giants. A loose blue robe hung from her shoulders and fluttered in the wind. She stared at him vacantly, just another curious villager.
But she was different. She was solid. No, more than solid. The others were wavering ghosts blown in the wind, but the buildings were solid; he, himself, was solid. She was like a blinding pillar of light, solid as massive granite in the darkness. He felt himself fading in comparison, paling away to nothingness.
When he looked back at Althak’s ghost his eyes had to adjust before he could find him. He seemed less threatening now, an insubstantial, ineffective thing against the solidity of the woman. But it had been Althak, and Althak had been kind to him. He pointed to her. It was impossible that they had not seen her.
“Look!”
“Azkun, this is no time for wenching.”
Althak’s ghost nudged him towards the doorway, but he twisted away from its paradoxically solid grasp. A sharp pain ran the length his injured arm and he thought he had made it worse. But the woman was all that mattered. He crossed the space between them and reached out to her. He had to touch her.
Suddenly another of the ghosts stood between them. An old woman, he could hardy see her insubstantial form against the first woman, barred his way. She wavered and floated in the wind, but wrath was etched in her face as she said something in the Vorthenki tongue that was unmistakably a rebuke. Then both were gone, the old woman and the young, they disappeared into the night.
Althak’s hand grasped him by the shoulder and he turned.
He blinked. The world was normal again. Althak was no longer a ghost, none of them was. The others looked at him curiously, as if they had not noticed the change. The light spilling from the doorway looked friendly, as did the faces of the villagers nearby.
Drinagish had already gone inside and Menish was about to follow, but he was troubled by something. For some reason Azkun could not fathom he was suddenly deeply upset.
“That was ill done,” said Althak as he herded him towards the doorway. “One does not take women in the road as one fancies, whatever you may have heard of my people.”
“I do not know what you mean,” replied Azkun. “Could you not see her?”
“She was comely enough, I suppose, though I've seen better. But that's not the way these things are done.”
“But she was real!”
They stepped through the doorway into a large room with faded frescoes on the walls and heavy wooden rafters. The walls were made of stone and the floor was strewn with rushes. In the centre of the room a great cauldron hung from one of the rafters and a fire below it filled the room with the smell of smoke, which mingled with the other smells of ale, fish and sweat. Lamps hung from the rafters, shedding a smoky light. There were benches and tables scattered around the floor, occupied by big, yellow-haired Vorthenki seamen. Along one wall lay a series of wooden barrels.
An unusually short Vorthenki, who made up for his lack of height by an enormous girth, beamed broadly and bowed incessantly at each and all of the company, speaking quickly in the Vorthenki tongue as he did so, and giggling nervously at the strangers. Althak was the most richly dressed so he received most of the bows. Menish seemed barely interested.
“Have him roast some of our meat, Althak, I don't like the smell of that cauldron. We'll sleep here tonight. Ask him if he can organise a bath.”
Althak nodded and passed Menish’s message to the proprietor who bowed again and beamed even more broadly.
The fat man indicated that they should sit at one of the benches while he scuttled off to another room and began shouting orders. Although Azkun understood nothing of the Vorthenki language it was obvious enough what was happening. Besides he caught hints and snatches of thoughts from everyone in the room. But to Azkun they were dominated by the boiling thoughts of Menish. His mind was racing with confusion and anxiety. Azkun’s own confusion was largely replaced by relief, but Menish’s suddenly troubled thoughts mingled with his own. They were so intense that Azkun began to see what was bothering him.
Menish despised the Vorthenki. As they rode past the first of the houses he had remembered their foul, barbaric ways. Their long houses were a symbol of their brutal society where a strong man would murder his brothers and set himself up with his wives and slaves.
He hoped Azkun had not noticed the dragon post outside the inn, but Menish had seen it. Across the road it stood, streaked with old blood. Sometimes they used animals, Menish knew, but Kopth preferred human flesh. Children or slaves were often killed to adorn the dragon post.
Menish had expected no less, in fact he had not really expected such a fine building as this in which to spend the night. It was obviously an old Relanese structure, for the Vorthenki never built of stone. The frescoes on the walls were illustrations of tales from the Mish-Tal. Of course it had seen better days. The smelly cauldron of fish stew in the centre of the room was a Vorthenki alteration.
But all this was incidental. He had expected to find Vorthenki in a Vorthenki village. The thing that troubled him had sprung from the incident outside when Azkun had approached that woman. Why he had done so did not really concern Menish. If his story was true he had never seen a woman before so it was not unreasonable that he should approach the first one he noticed. It was not the young woman Menish was thinking about anyway. It was the old one.
She had stepped out of the shadows and thrust herself between Azkun and the woman he was reaching out to and told him with all the vehemence of the Vorthenki tongue to leave her daughter alone. Then she had looked beyond Azkun and her eyes had lighted on Menish.
Thalissa.
For a moment his heart had stopped beating. In that moment she had turned and whisked the young woman away into the night. But he had seen her.
Her face was lined with age, as was his own now, and her once golden hair was grey, but even though he could not see the colour of her eyes in the dim light he knew her features only too well.
Inside the inn, in the cheerful light of the lamps, he wondered if it really was her. It was all so long ago. Perhaps he was mistaken. Perhaps he was not mistaken. He needed to know. He did not know what, if anything, he should do if she was still alive. Nevertheless, he had to know.
The fat man returned. His name, he had said, was Astae and he had spoken enthusiastically of his premises as if they rivalled the palace of Atonir. Menish could speak Vorthenki well enough, but he disliked that tongue. He would rather leave Althak to organise things with the man. Now Astae herded several dirty looking women before him, each carrying carved drinking horns.
“This is the best ale north of Deenar, M’Lords. Folk come from as far away as Athim for a mere sip of the ale of Lianar. And our women are said to be the delight of the Dragonseed…” Menish glared at him so ferociously that he trailed off nervously. If there had been an Anthorian woman in their company Astae would not have survived that sentence. Grath loosened his sword overtly and Bolythak’s dagger, which had been cleaning his fingernails, moved in a subtle but menacing way. A bawdy song in the wilderness was one thing, open talk of the Dragonseed festival was quite another.
“We require food, drink and rest,” said Althak, breaking the tense silence. “Your hospitality need extend no further.”
Astae grinned nervously. He had obviously not met Anthorians before or he would know better than to offer his women to them. It was only a mistake, thought Menish, the Vorthenki honoured their guests this way. The women stood in an awkward knot beside their master, wondering what to do with the drinking horns, not quite daring to offer them to these strange folk, though one of them was surreptitiously making eyes at Althak.
Menish dissolved the tension by reaching for one of the horns and Astae sighed with relief.
“You have come a long way then?” It was the cautious question of one who was curious but did not wish to give offence with his curiosity.
Althak looked to Menish who surprised him by answering.
“We are travellers from Anthor on our way to Atonir.” His accent, he knew, was appalling but Astae nodded. “We wanted to see this part of the country.” With a wry grin he added, “the fame of your ale has travelled far.”
At that the innkeeper giggled again. Menish decided he did not like the man. But he was too full of his own thoughts to be much annoyed by a grown man who giggled.
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