Hunting Gods, page 37
part #2 of Fate and the Wheel Series
‘What do you want?’ Oliént barked. ‘You useless bladder of flesh – you’re not even meant to be in here.’
‘It’s the Bridges,’ Dareíl wheezed, looking worried and confused as he wobbled to a halt a judicious distance from the throne. ‘Something’s going on behind the gate.’
‘What do you mean, “going on”? Speak!’
The strawman swallowed, his face paling so that the scars of his facial reconstruction were visible as faint pink lines. ‘I do not understand it, Oliént. I mean Holi … – ah, Voseínte.’ He coughed, and studied his fingers, which writhed around each other like pasty grubs. ‘There were lights. And sounds. The most terrible sounds. The Physicks claim that their instruments are telling them the Bridges are going mad.’
‘Be precise, you fool.’
Dareíl just flapped his hands, opening and closing his mouth like a fish. Oliént rolled his eyes, with differing success in each case.
‘Must I do everything myself? The Physick from Orlin!’ he barked. ‘Get him here. And his wife. Bring the chief inquisitor as well.’
Dareíl summoned a messenger from the back of the temple. As he began issuing instructions, there was the sound of running feet. The imposing form of Ennién came virtually sprinting into the chamber, closely followed by one of his own messengers.
The tall general ran up to Dareíl, and delivered to him a stiff bow. Looking thoroughly confused as his messenger scurried away, casting a shifty glance at Oliént, Dareíl raised a hand for the Ennién to speak.
‘Voseínte,’ the general began, with a trace of breathlessness. ‘The army is marshalled south of Fiskleín, as you ordered, although I understand that three battalions were requisitioned by General Nils in response to reports of a disturbance at the Gate. I am also sent word that six battalions of reserves await at the barracks at Doriteín, and a similar number at Fels. However, the occupation forces are late back from the new kingdom, Haaljoek. The …’ here, the general took a visible breath. ‘The Physicks are saying they may be trapped there.’
‘Address me!’ Oliént screeched, lurching once more to his feet. ‘Enough of this sham – I am the voseínte. From now on, you shall address me as such.’
Ennién’s lips peeled back from his teeth as he appraised the monstrous figure. He snapped his gaze back to Dareíl. Dareíl shrugged sheepishly. For a moment, it seemed that a fierce battle was going on behind the general’s stone-grey eyes.
‘Sire,’ he began, not quite managing to keep disgust from his voice as he turned his full attention to Oliént. ‘Your Holiness. We may have to accept, for now at least, that they are lost.’
‘It is of minor concern at present,’ Oliént sniffed. His good eye blazed. ‘I want the army to march in double time for the northern town of Tranésk Faleínt. Leave the minimum reserve you can spare to guarantee the security of the palace and Fiskleín.’
Ennién frowned cautiously. ‘Holiness … Why there? Tranésk Faleínt is a small town, surrounded by nothing but heath and wind-blasted pastures.’
In answer, Oliént took a small scroll from under his cloak and tossed it to the man, who unrolled it reluctantly and stared at it in puzzlement.
‘These are co-ordinates?’
‘Yes,’ barked the voseínte. ‘The co-ordinates of a stable Bridge. And beyond it, another Bridge – leading to a world, according to a transcript prepared for me by a reliable source, of endless, bountiful seas. Enough to feed our armies in perpetuity.’
The voseínte smiled horribly.
‘I have already sent runners to the co-ordinates. They confirm the existence of a concealed Bridge. By now they should have set a line of fire beacons to guide you there. Use compasses, maps from the ordnance rooms, and the old triangulation stations built for the first Teleísian survey. Then follow the beacons.’
‘Master.’ Droolias spoke quietly. His concern at his master’s behaviour was mounting. ‘What guarantee do we have that this world is the one the blue woman is from? There may be many.’
‘The transcript speaks of one such world,’ he said. ‘And besides – if this is not the one, then we shall conquer it anyway. Then we shall move on to conquer the next. Until we find it!’
Ri-ight, thought Droolias. He and Ennién exchanged pregnant glances. He found himself fingering his knives.
No, he decided. Not yet.
Ennién spoke briefly to his messenger. As the little man sprinted away, there was the sound of yet more feet. ‘Sire!’ cried a voice from up the hall. ‘Sire!’
The origin of the interruption turned out to be two breathless and very worried-looking low-ranking officers from the palace guard. A lieutenant and a captain, from their insignia, they ran up to Dareíl and bowed. Dareíl nervously pointed them towards Oliént, but with their downturned eyes, they didn’t see the gesture.
‘Address me!’ Oliént tottered forward and hit the nearest round the ear with his re-sheathed sword-staff, with a resounding crack. ‘I’m your voseínte – not this … effete lard-bag!’
Dareíl nodded hastily in agreement. Clutching his ear, the captain regarded Oliént with undisguised suspicion. Broken teeth bared, Oliént drew his sword and ran it through the man’s chest.
‘Your message,’ he said, addressing the other guard as the startled-looking captain slid off his sword to the ground. Suddenly everyone in the chamber was very still. The lieutenant swallowed.
‘Voseínte. There are two worrying reports. The first is that … the gate to the Bridge looks strange.’
‘Strange?’ Oliént advanced menacingly.
‘Yes, Sire.’ The guard fingered his collar. ‘It was after the lights and the noise. The Physicks say the Bridges have been going crazy …’
‘Yes, I know this!’ Something seemed to retract into Oliént as he forced himself to be calmer. ‘Proceed. Strange in what way?’
‘Lines in it. Dark lines, sire. Or discolourations – I don’t know what. They are spreading, into the square. It’s almost like … like something is growing in it. And now the stone as well.’
Now everyone in the room was frowning. ‘Most strange,’ said Oliént, clearly having no idea whatsoever what to make of this. ‘I take it the phenomenon is being investigated?’
‘Yes, your Holiness … I mean, Voseínte. Ah. And the Bridges have stopped now. There is no activity.’
‘And the second report?’
‘The sea, Voseínte. There have been reports of things moving out to sea. Dark shapes. And lights.’
CHAPTER 35
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Floating
COLL FELL.
What had drawn him to step up on to the bank of snow had been no more than idiot curiosity. He had known even before his second foot was on it that he was making a terrible mistake.
By then it was already too late.
He heard himself scream. Air erupted from his lungs in the strangest way as he plummeted in a confusion of white powder, his face and his eyes already burning with a cold beyond any he could have previously imagined. Stomach lurching, he pushed instinctively out with his arms and forced his heels backwards and out, spread-eagling his limbs against the buffeting with all his might, feeling them drag through the loose snow and then, finally, bite into it.
He stopped.
His lungs were on fire. He tore for breath, his vision pulsing with each hammering heartbeat. Despite working like a forge bellows, his chest seemed unable to fill itself. He paddled his legs in terror, but that only started him slipping downwards again.
It did not feel like he was on a slope. It felt like he was on a cliff.
Around him was only uniform grey-white. There was nothing to offer any clue as to where he was, nor how he might escape. He could not even tell which way was up, or where the sky began. The wind was a fury. Howling, it drove needles of snow into his frost-dimmed eyes. He might as well have been blind.
Fool! He might have screamed the word if there had been anything in his lungs to scream with. So many enemies and dangers, and you had to kill yourself pointlessly. Worse, he had let Murrin down. Well, he told himself. The others were capable. Surely the old man would manage?
But then he thought of Homollon. And Ahiel.
Squinting, he looked upwards relative to his body, and for a paralysing moment began sliding again.
He could see nothing. He was quite alone.
Stay calm, he told himself. They will know where you fell from. They will come for you.
But how? Even if the others had been watching, they would have no idea how far he had fallen, nor any way to reach him. He was dying, he realised. It was as Murrin had said. There was simply not enough air here for a man to live. He was surprised to find that the thought filled him with sadness.
Dark blotches were forming at the edges of his vision.
Oh, Ahiel. Stupid timing.
SOME TIME LATER, he became aware of something happening near his head. Something he could associate with neither the storm nor the snow. His eyelashes had frozen together. He managed to pull one eye open a crack.
It had felt like tiny feet padding against his hood.
He wondered absently whether some small animal could have hitched a ride in his coat. You picked the wrong coat to stow yourself in, little friend.
But no. That wasn’t it. Above the storm’s scream, he became aware of a noise. A faint abrasive sound, from somewhere above.
He risked tilting his face upwards for a look.
Above him was a dark line. Vanishing into the murk, it seemed to twitch like a snake, sending coils wriggling towards his head.
It took his failing brain a few moments to work out that someone was lowering a rope.
Even as hope surged, he knew he had a problem. The strength to hang on to it was simply no longer in him. Snow creaked as he stirred. His arms were the only thing holding him to the slope. If he reached for the rope, he was going to start sliding again.
Panting uselessly, he tried to flex his fingers. It was impossible to tell whether he had succeeded or not – his arms were hidden in the snow, and everything beyond his knuckles was numb. Even at full strength, he doubted he could have held his fall in his clumsy mittens. His head felt like a sack of clay.
Think! Do not let your miserable life end like this.
Rope was piling up on his shoulder. His heart gave a leap as the snow supporting his arms sagged beneath the extra weight. Through a kind of contracting tunnel, he watched a loop extend jerkily down his body until it was dangling below his feet.
Something akin to an idea was filtering through the thickening fog. Without being able to use his fingers, he would need to tie the fastest hitch of his life around his own arm.
He just hoped the others were holding on tightly.
Can’t do this! Can’t feel anything. Oh shit, oh shit!
Feeling sick, he jerked both arms towards him …
… And fell into the grey-white abyss.
SNOW RUSHED PAST. The rope was still draped over his shoulder. Mouthing a silent scream, he lunged for the free end. Somehow, he managed to twist it around his mitten. The rope was now the only solid thing he could feel. His legs paddled empty air as he fumbled it into opposing loops.
He couldn’t manipulate the loops into a knot.
Oh shit, please, gods, someone – help me!
He was weightless. His stomach heaved. The rope was zipping from its pile on his shoulder up into the clouds. The end of the rope raced up towards him.
Abandoning any attempt to complete the knot, he just tangled as much of the rope as he could around both arms, and braced himself.
THE IMPACT, when it came, almost tore his arms from his shoulders.
A groan whispered out of him as he realised he was no longer falling. He opened his less frozen eye. He was dangling from his forearms with an ice-filled gale howling on all sides.
He flailed his legs. He could find no purchase on anything, even snow. Above his head, he could see the rope sliding like a snake over one of the mittens it had snagged itself around. He didn’t have the strength or feeling to increase his grip.
No, no, no!
The rope was jerking. He felt something pushing against his chest. Something colder than death scraped down his face. The snow and the sky grew darker. His furs were making rhythmical sliding noises. He couldn’t tell if he was holding on any more, or if he cared.
And then a shape was bending over him, and his face was being thawed by immense, wet, foul-smelling breaths. He pushed whatever was producing them away with a mitten. Something familiar coiled around it. Big hands slid under his armpits.
‘Homollon,’ he croaked ‘Murrin.’
‘You brainless idiot.’ Murrin’s voice. He felt himself squeezed in a way he thought might break his ribs. Then he was laid gently down, and felt water trickling between his lips. His lips hurt. He took the gourd and drank greedily. Looking up, he saw a circle of anxious faces.
‘Coll.’ Ahiel’s voice. ‘Please be more careful.’
Tankentaer was shaking his head. His normally deep-set eyes were round and protruding. ‘You had us worried shitless. It looked like a cliff.’
‘It was.’ Urgent hands helped him to sit. Wheezing and coughing, he found himself looking at blood in his palm. ‘I don’t remember a cliff when we looked at the mountains from below.’
‘Perhaps we came out somewhere else?’ Efué’s voice, sounding hopeful. Coll spat on the ground and probed cracked lips with his tongue. His vision was returning.
‘Who can I thank for the rope?’
Murrin nodded at Mashino, who was bending the frozen rope back into a coil. The librarian gave a curt nod.
‘To be honest,’ Murrin said, ‘I thought we’d already lost you. Mashino just fetched out the rope and threw it down. Ahiel was all for going down to look for you. But then …’
He shook his head.
‘By the gods, boy, you gave us a fright!’
‘I thought we were about to join you, for a moment,’ said Tilmesh, with a crazed grin. His mitten was off. He was rubbing snow into a red slash across his palm. ‘You’re heavier than you look.’
Coll could feel his face burning, and not just because feeling was returning to his skin. ‘You have my thanks,’ he mumbled. ‘All of you.’ Looking up, he found Ahiel’s face above his own. There was a half-accusing look in her eyes which made something inside him dissolve.
Grasping his head, she pressed her lips hard against his. This triggered a couple of whistles, and words which were muffled by the fur of Ahiel’s mittens. He could imagine their source.
For a while he was falling again.
THE PATH CONTINUED RISING, at much the same angle as the tunnel. They had not followed it far when they came to the first bend. Jammed into the mountainside, the area of clear stone was barely wide enough for Homollon to wheel himself round.
After that, within a short while there was another, and then another, all as mysteriously clear of snow as the rest of the path. Through the blizzard silently raging beyond its mysterious borders, previous hairpins could be faintly made out looping into the distance below. No one had mentioned followers, but Coll was relieved to see no sign of them.
The path was smooth but endless, and the climbing without pity. Trailing behind, unable to fly because his wings were wider than the path, Orlis soon began to complain. ‘My faith in the Mathmax is sorely tested,’ panted Murrin, waddling beside Mashino. That his feet were still troubling him was painfully clear. ‘Things are at work here which I cannot begin to explain.’
‘Then wait and observe,’ Mashino suggested. ‘When enough facts are apparent, your system of thought may yet prevail.’
Coll turned in time to see Tankentaer rolling his eyes.
They pushed on, monotony reducing their ascent to dream-like loops through an eerie void. As light began to wane, the dull white beyond the path became speckled with dark patches. The cold increased as the patches grew and coalesced.
Soon they were wearing every scrap of clothing in their supplies, even using some smaller sacks that could be spared as scarves, hoods, and extra gloves. As the snow disappeared entirely, replaced by wastes of grey, shattered rock without vegetation or apparent moisture, it became obvious that they really were climbing a cliff.
This puzzled Coll greatly. There had been a good view of the mountains from the escarpment overlooking the temple. While their slopes had been vast and remorselessly steep, nothing he had seen of them had suggested a sheer cliff. Let alone one taller than the mountains of Tys.
Perhaps Efué was right.
Night fell. They decided to rest, sharing warmth as they huddled beneath blankets laid against Homollon’s flank.
Homollon was used to freezing nights on the plains, and Murrin had insisted that his fur and great store of heat made him more resistant to cold than his smaller companions. Even so, Coll was worried. While Homollon was the only one of them not regularly shivering, it was not in his nature to complain. Every so often his huge body would shake as he sneezed or coughed.
Coll fell asleep against Murrin’s wall-like back with an arm around Ahiel’s shoulders, dreaming that he was falling.
CHAPTER 36
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The Storming of the Castle of the Four Winds
THE BOAT DRIFTED with the current. Other boats were faint presences in the dark and the lashing rain. Ahead, the cliffs below the castle were a looming void.
Despite the rain, the cloud had risen. It now brushed the castle’s topmost turrets, visible as regular shapes along the edge of the deeper darkness. Windows in the sea wall were pricks of yellow light. Every now and again the bottom fifth of the cliff was completely obscured by spray from the unpredictable waves lashing the western coast of the peninsula.
