by Ian Whates
"Tom," the Thaistess said, stumbling to a halt, "I can't go on." She held her sides and bent forward, doubling over and gasping for breath. "Sorry. You keep running… maybe they'll ignore me."
Maybe, but he wasn't about to take that chance.
A clatter of running footsteps behind them heralded the arrival of two of the youths; while at the same moment a shout came from ahead, where the stick-bearing Jed had appeared, effectively cutting them off. Naturally they'd know these streets better than Tom; their turf, not his.
Tom grabbed hold of his exhausted companion's hand and urged her forward. "Come on, Mildra, just a few more steps, you can do it." He dragged her in his wake as he ran towards Jed.
Tom had taken on plenty of bigger kids in his time and would far rather face one opponent than two or three, irrespective of size. He didn't look back, didn't want to know where the other two were. His attention was focused on this one, the leader, the kid with the stick, Jed, who was charging towards them even as they stumbled towards him, so that the gap closed in no time.
Tom eased Mildra down into a sitting position, in the process palming a couple of small stones from the ground. Then he stood, drew his knife and waited as the lummox came forward. His hand still throbbed but he didn't care. He felt a whole lot more comfortable now than he ever had when holding the sword.
No, not his turf, not the streets he knew, but for once on this trip it was his kind of fight.
Jed closed in, grinning, confident. Tom waited until he was almost in range of that staff before hurling the first stone. Too close for Jed to avoid, the missile struck him on the left temple, causing him to flinch, turn his head and pull his chin to his chest, while his free hand and shoulder rose instinctively to provide protection. Tom closed in, stepping within the arc of that stick, flicking out with his knife and cutting the bigger lad's raised forearm to add to the pain and confusion before punching him hard in the gonads, the second stone still clenched in his fist. The stick clattered to the floor and, with a strangled howl of pain, Jed followed, sinking to his knees, both hands covering his abused groin.
Tom was immediately behind him, grabbing Jed's hair and pulling his head back, knife pressed to the bigger youth's exposed throat.
As he'd hoped, the other two kids were ignoring Mildra, their attention focused on the unfolding drama. Both were flushed with either anger or fear and neither seemed inclined to snigger anymore.
"Now, as we said, we don't want any trouble." He tried to put as much menace in his voice as possible. "If that means I have to kill Jed here or even all three of you to ensure that we don't get any, I'll do it. Understood?"
The pair nodded. Mildra climbed to her feet but made no move to intervene.
"Drop your weapons."
After the briefest hesitation both tossed their knives to the ground, close to Jed's fallen stick. Mildra did move then, collecting the two knives and the stick before coming to stand at Tom's shoulder.
"Right. I'm going to let Jed here go and then count to five. By the time I reach five, I don't want to be looking at any of you. If I am, I'll assume you want to continue the fight, except this time we'll be the ones with the weapons."
He whipped his own blade away from Jed's throat and pushed the larger boy in the back, so that he landed on all fours.
"One…"
The other two came forward, helping Jed to his feet.
"Two…"
The trio scurried away, Jed stumbling in the wake of the others, managing a lurching bandy-legged gait and needing their help to keep up.
By the time he reached five, Tom's shoulders were shaking and he couldn't control the laughter, nor could Mildra beside him.
"Well done," the Thaistess said, and kissed him on the cheek.
The laughter drained out of him and visions of her naked breasts and her impassioned face flashed through his thoughts. She looked suddenly embarrassed, as if the kiss had been instinctive, something she now regretted and wouldn't have done had she thought things through.
"Are you… feeling all right now?" he asked in an effort to breach the awkward silence.
"Yes, thanks. Sorry about your sword."
He shrugged. "No real loss. I was never any good with it in any case."
She grinned. "True."
That easily, they put the awkwardness behind them and walked back to the café they'd visited earlier, if not arm in arm, then at least still side by side.
With evening drawing in the place was busier, and seemed to be slipping smoothly into a new identity; that of bar rather than café. A few of the patrons looked to be locals, but they were in the minority. Most were clearly visitors, pilgrims such as they'd encountered at the temple; nor were all human. Three Kayjele clustered around a table on chairs clearly designed to accommodate beings of their size. Tom stared. These were the first of their race he'd seen apart from Kohn, and he was fascinated to note both the similarities and the differences to his fallen friend.
Mildra seemed delighted to see the trio of giants here, and rummaged in her pack to pull something out; Kohn's heart stone, which she held up to show Tom, smiling triumphantly.
"Do you really think–" But before he could say any more, she was up out of her seat and darting the short distance across the floor to the Kayjeles' table.
Tom watched with interest as the three giants – their faces as different as any similar group of humans might be – stopped what they were doing and stared at the Thaistess. All were male, Tom noted. Presumably they were talking in the fashion of Kayjele. What must that be like? Could Mildra hear all three of their mental voices at once, and did they sound different? Or did she have to talk to them one at a time? There was nothing in their facial expressions or movements to give anything away.
After a few moments Tom saw Mildra hand the heart stone to one of the trio and she then came back to join him. "There," she said, obviously pleased with herself. "They promised to make sure the pendant gets back to Kohn's family."
"But can they be trusted?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I was just thinking, imagine a man, any man, just a traveller, in a strange place – the land of another race or tribe – and one of this race comes up and hands him a precious jewel, saying that it belonged to a friend of his who was human but has died, and asking the man to make sure this jewel reaches his family. I just wonder how many men would even bother trying."
"Oh." She looked crestfallen. "I hadn't even thought of that."
No, of course she hadn't – not until he went and opened his big mouth. He could have kicked himself. "Mind you, that's to judge the Kayjele by human standards," he said quickly, making it up as he went along. "I'm sure they're nothing like us and our friends over there will deliver the pendent as promised. They're pilgrims, after all."
"Yes," she gave an uncertain smile, "I'm sure you're right." But she wasn't, not any more, he could see that in her eyes. And that was his fault. Tom swore silently. Surely by now he should have learnt to keep his thoughts to himself, or at least to be a little more selective when voicing them.
"What was it like?" he said, both to change the subject and because he genuinely wanted to know. "Talking with three of them at once, I mean."
"Actually, that was a bit strange, especially to begin with…"
Before Mildra could go any further, the gold-toothed waiter from earlier that afternoon appeared to ask for their drinks order. The pair exchanged a knowing grin and both scrupulously avoided ordering the doolhd.
"Did you visit our wondrous temple?" the obsequious man asked, glinting gold at every word.
"Yes, it's very beautiful," Mildra temporised.
"Ah, I'm so happy your pilgrimage has reached such a fulfilling conclusion." He again clasped his hands, as if to bless their joyous journey.
"Actually," Tom replied, "we're not so sure it has reached a conclusion. We'd still like to explore the river higher up, above the town."
"But why?" The man looked horrified.
"There's nothing up there but snow and rocks and cold and slipperiness. It's dangerous, and you're both so young!"
Eventually, once convinced of their seriousness and determination, Gold Tooth admitted that the town had a few hunters who ventured that way and knew the trails as well as anyone. By happy coincidence, one such was his brother, whom he'd be delighted to introduce them to.
Within the hour they were talking to a man who looked much like Gold Tooth – swarthy skinned, with a flat, broad nose and heavy eyebrows – but lacking the golden dental enhancement and also the bushy moustache. In place of the latter, Ky, the hunter, sported salt and pepper stubble around his chin, as if to emphasise that here was a rugged man who courted the wilderness and lacked the time for such niceties as regular shaving. There was something behind the man's eyes that made Tom uneasy. A cunning calculation that caused him to doubt the wisdom of entertaining the hunter at all.
"I can take you further up, for sure," he told them. "It's not an easy climb though. No real path up there any more, just game trails at best."
"You say 'any more'…?" Mildra cut in.
"There is an old temple, half a day from here. Abandoned now because of the severe conditions, but there used to be a trail leading to it. We'll follow that to begin with, as far as we can at least."
And so it was settled; they would leave first thing the following morning.
TWENTY
The tingling in the prime master's arm was growing progressively worse. There were techniques at his disposal that could dull the feeling if not tackle the actual cause. He used them without hesitation. Not because he was afraid, although he very much was, nor because he was attempting to deny the truth or avoid the inevitable, but because the sensation could be a distraction. If, as he presumed, there was only a very limited time left to him, then he intended to maximise that time. There were things he needed to do, arrangements to be made and events to set in motion while he still could.
The prime master didn't tell anyone about the tingling. What would be the point? He was in constant touch with Jeanette and knew that she was still a long way from finding a cure, so what could anyone else do? Nothing, except look worried while they pitied him, make a fuss and tell him to take things easy, and generally get in the way and slow him down; all things he could do without. So he determined to keep quiet until the last possible moment.
In the meantime he had something new to worry about, as if such were needed.
A ridiculous number of documents crossed his desk each day – far more than any one person could be expected to consider in detail, though he tried to look at as many as possible, if only briefly. Most were reports of things done and action taken, things which protocol insisted he be notified of though they didn't really merit his attention, but not all. Among all this mass of triviality and routine, one caught his attention. Perhaps it was pure luck or the machinations of some predestined fate that brought this particular sheet of paper to his attention, though the prime master liked to think that after all these years he had a knack for such things. One name caught his eye, that of a man he had seen a lot of in the past few days: the Kite Guard, Tylus.
During the recent unrest in the under-City, one of the sun globes had come down, visiting death and devastation on the people and buildings below. To the best of the prime master's knowledge, this was an event unprecedented in Thaiburley's history, though it was difficult to be certain since the damage inflicted on the core during the war. In a commendable display of initiative, the local Watch officer had evidently prevailed upon Tylus to investigate the incident. The Kite Guard had discovered a small partially crushed mechanism which he couldn't explain and had sent it for analysis.
Doubtless Tylus himself had since forgotten all about this, but as a result of his keen eye for detail, a document had eventually been produced, to find its ways – one of so many – onto the prime master's desk. The significance of the report was enough to momentarily eclipse even his concerns about bone flu. The prime master read it again, to make certain he'd not misinterpreted the conclusions. But no, there they were, recorded in a box with such apparent innocence.
How could somebody have written this without immediately flagging it for more senior attention? Without shouting the findings from the rooftops for Thaiss's sake!
This seemingly mundane piece of paper contained news that threatened the security of all Thaiburley. For, according to this, the war, which everyone thought had ended generations ago, was still continuing. The report threw a whole new light on the recent unrest in the City Below, on the schemes of the Dog Master and the subversion of the street-nicks. The prime master had sensed at the time that there was a hidden hand behind those events, and now, at last, he felt sure he'd unmasked the true villain.
According to this report, the mechanism Tylus had sent for analysis was part of an Insint – an Instability and Intelligence Unit – one of the enemy's most successful weapons during the war. It would seem that somewhere – presumably in the Stain or it would surely have been discovered long before now – one of these lethal organicmechanical hybrids still operated, patiently plotting the city's downfall.
If the prime master had time to do just one thing before his body calcified and his heart was stilled forever by a fist of encroaching bone, then let it be this. He refused to die before Thaiburley was safe from this insidious machine stubbornly fighting a war that the rest of the world had been trying to forget for generations. And he believed he'd hit upon a means of doing exactly that.
• • • •
Ky was waiting for them the next morning as promised. Tom trusted this brother of Gold Tooth's about as far as he could see with both his eyes closed, but he and Mildra had discussed matters the previous night, after they had been left alone, and both accepted that the huntsman wasn't just their best chance of finding the Thair's true source, he was probably their only chance.
At least he seemed to be taking the expedition seriously, insisting they were kitted out with appropriate clothes and providing both of them with stout staffs. The clothing included gloves, which Tom had never worn in his life and instantly hated. They made his hands feel trapped and far too hot. The knuckles on his right hand had stiffened up in the night and were badly bruised from where Jed's stick had caught them during the previous day's fight, so he transferred the staff to his left. On reflection, he should probably have asked Mildra to do something about the bruising before now, but he was reluctant to keep running to her with every minor gripe.
"You'll need those for when we get further up, into the snow," Ky explained, indicating the staffs.
Tom couldn't argue about it being cold. Breath formed plumes of vapour as they spoke, and every inhalation brought a chill to his mouth and throat. They walked through the town, drawing the odd curious glance from the locals, and then past the temple at the northern tip of habitation. The golden doors were firmly shut and the place looked altogether less impressive in the absence of priests and worshippers.
"In another month or so you won't be able to walk through here like this," Ky told them. "The place will be packed with people even at this hour, all patiently queuing, waiting for their chance to pray to the goddess and leave their tributes at the temple."
This was said with a hint of disdain which Tom found curious in a man who made his home here, even though a large part of Tom felt much the same way, but Mildra stepped in, saying, "Yes, I often feel humbled by the dedication of the faithful," which struck Tom as the perfect rejoinder.
Ky led them between two imposing boulders, following a narrow track which barely merited the name. Without him their progress would have been far slower, assuming they could even have found the way forward. He moved with calm assurance, leading them ever higher, until they were able to look back at the brightly coloured roofs of Pilgrimage End – a scattering of children's sweets cast upon the landscape, red, yellow and blue.
As they walked it started to snow; not heavily, just large flakes drifting on th
e breeze, but this was yet another first for Tom, and he watched fascinated as a fat fleck of whiteness landed on his gloved hand, melting slowly because of the insulation locking in his body's heat. He'd seen snow on the peaks of the mountains for the past few days, but this was the first time he'd seen it close up and felt the icy kiss of flakes striking his cheeks.
Their way was constantly intersected by streams and trickles feeding into the river, and twice they saw spectacular waterfalls on the opposite side hurling torrents down into the Thair, but they'd yet to see a fracturing of the main river's course as Gold Tooth had predicted.
Their first real hurdle came not long after the roofs of Pilgrimage End had disappeared from sight. A wider stream, which over the years had carved out its own small canyon. At the bottom of the treacherous looking crack water frothed, tumbling over and around rocks and boulders in a broiling surge of white spume, all the while hissing like a room full of over-excited serpents. Ky didn't pause, nonchalantly leaping across without even bothering to warn his two companions to be careful, as if challenging them to cope as readily as he had.
