CHAPTER EIGHT
A reduced band of travellers reached northern Pakin. It was one of the farthest points of civilised Shalah and blessed with only three major towns, two of which the travellers had carefully avoided. The land was remarkably hostile. An inhospitable vista met their eyes as they reached a plateau. It showed plains stretching to mountains, these plains scoured here and there by ravines that showed little life. It was quite a desolate scene. It made Quon thoughtful but Javen shivered because he felt the sterility and starkness was an omen.
Slowly the group wended their way off the plateau to a shallow valley that offered some respite in the shape of thorny trees. There they all dismounted. Saracen grumbled as his small feet hit the ground. He rode perched up in front of Quon, but the method of travelling didn't suit him and usually made him rather cross by the end of the day.
It was as Saracen begrudgingly thanked Quon that he stopped suddenly to watch Jepaul. The boy, even taller now and still painfully thin, his stick-like limbs gawkier than ever, stood with a perplexed frown, all his concentration on himself.
“Quon!” he whispered in agitation. “Quon!”
The old man hurried across to him as fast as old legs would let him, Quon aware, with each passing day, that the limitations to his mobility increased with each succeeding season. It annoyed him but he recognised the inevitability of extreme old age.
“Lad?”
“Quon,” whispered Jepaul again, his odd eyes wide and scared.
Quon followed the boy's gaze. It showed him that the bracelets glowed with a reddish light that paled to a blush colour before becoming well-nigh transparent.
“Calm yourself, Jepaul,” he instructed gently, an arm immediately out and round the trembling shoulders. “The bracelets speak to you. Have they done this before?” The coppery curls bobbed with the shaken head. “And the anklets, lad - have they gone the same way?”
Shaking, Jepaul crouched so he could see the anklets beneath his boots. He confirmed they were the same. The eyes gave Quon his answer, as did the ornamental choker the boy couldn't see, the latter now almost invisible to the naked eye.
“Do you sense anything, Jepaul?”
Jepaul was about to shake his head when he was caught by a wave of shaking that almost paralysed him. He knew deep fear. Gasping, he shrank back into Quon.
“Lad?” Quon's voice was sharp.
“Such danger,” managed Jepaul. “I sense danger. Someone comes who could cause harm.”
“A warning,” said Saracen with surprised delight. He turned to Quon. “We gave these gifts to the child without knowing whether he has the ability to use them. None have, Quon, for as long as we can recall. They only once responded to a most ancient revered elder.”
“To Mahn,” agreed Quon absently, his free hand twining protectively through rumpled auburn hair. “I remember him.”
“Well and good,” growled Knellen pivoting where he stood, his eyes seeking out anything in the distance.
Javen strode across to Jepaul.
“Little lad,” he began urgently. “Let the feeling flow through you and engulf you.”
“He's not trained to that level,” snapped Quon, his arm about the boy tightening.
“Maybe not,” said Javen dourly, “but this lad of yours seems to teach himself a great deal by instinct alone, and whether that's good or bad is somewhat academic at the moment. It seems the gifts, whatever they are, appear to think him capable of response, else why would they speak so in warning?” This question was so plainly unanswerable, all Quon could do was draw breath and glare. “Maquat Dom,” went on Javen calmly, “I'd no more harm the lad than any other among us. But what he senses could affect our chances of getting him to where we know he'll be safe and able to be properly trained and guided.”
“Yes, yes,” barked Quon, driven against his instincts. To let this child sink to the level demanded was something that made him tremble as well. He cradled Jepaul. “Jepaul, you trust me, don't you?”
“Yes,” came the immediate answer.
“Then touch me as I hold you, child. Do you feel anything?”
“It stings a bit,” whimpered Jepaul.
Quon's grip tightened.
“Hold me tighter,” he instructed. “Now what do you feel?”
But Jepaul, with Quon, was gone. The guiding energy of the very old effortlessly touched that of the young one. Quon coughed. Jepaul blinked. Knellen bent over them with cups of water, Javen rubbed the boy's back and Saracen stood behind the old man in what was clearly a bracing stance. Quon got irritably to his feet.
“If we keep directly north, we come to one who may help you, Knellen.” His voice was a trifle reedy but he suddenly moved with remarkable agility, as if age, at this moment, didn’t affect him at all. “We thought to stop here but it's not advisable. We need to be less exposed.”
Javen helped Jepaul to his feet. The boy swayed a little then he grinned cheerfully at the slaver and obeyed Quon's order to get back on his horse.
“What does he remember?” asked Javen, pulling his horse close to Quon's.
“Little,” replied Quon. “I thought it advisable not to expose the child unnecessarily.”
“And you say he received a warning about Lesul. Could she threaten him?”
“She and the remainder of her kind could threaten all of Shalah,” said Quon with mordant humour. “Mind you,” he added seriously, “I'd no idea she was so close. I thought she was beyond that mountain range.”
“Does she seek us then?” asked Javen, the hair at the nape of his neck rising at such a thought.
“She has monitored us for a while,” was the only rather uncommunicative comment the slaver could get from the old man.
Maquat Dom was now quite silent, his mind clearly preoccupied. Javen was left to puzzle out what he could. He wondered why Quon wasn't surprised that Lesul was so frighteningly close. He shivered again, aware he'd felt the place they were now in was ill-omened. It was a thought he couldn't shake off.
They finally entered a deep valley, almost a ravine, sheer escarpments rising on their left and looser scree slopes to their right. They were well-nigh in a broad tunnel from which there'd be no retreat if Lesul decided to make her appearance now. The group went further and had reached almost to the mouth of the valley, when they heard a bass cry echo up, down and around them, a wail of such depths of sadness, grief and raw anger, all but Quon cowered. Even Saracen, usually fearless and close to reckless, blenched under that cry.
Quon commanded a halt. No one was prepared to gainsay him. He looked suddenly different as he rose majestically in the saddle and sent out what sounded like an unearthly, guttural challenge that hung quivering on the air. Jepaul felt an odd constriction about his chest. Javen felt slightly queasy. Knellen, awed, sat his mount, his eyes riveted to the Maquat Dom whom he scarcely recognised. Quon didn't look a frail old man.
The cry came again, closer now. Jepaul could scarcely breathe. His bracelets weren't even visible and he seemed ever frailer. Quon stayed still. Saracen was almost under Quon's horse, a place he judged as being the safest.
A shadow swept across the valley, light darkened and massive wings hovered over them, before an acid mix from an open beak scorched the ground around them. Saracen flinched. Jepaul stood fascinated with fear. Knellen fell from his horse to try to protect it while Javen, himself shaken, grasped Saracen and shook him, angrily commanding him to pull himself together.
“Who comes near? Who defies me?” came the voice, gravelly with fury.
When Javen turned to grasp Jepaul, he was astonished to see the boy, though clearly scared almost out of his wits, stood his ground, his breath coming in little puffs that spiralled in the cool air. He made no attempt to shield himself. More acid drops showered the ground. A few fell close to Jepaul. Still he didn't move.
“Answer me!”
Quon dismounted and stalked forth, his expression grim and a forbidding look in his usually bland eyes.
“I do,” he
stated uncompromisingly. “And I don't expect you to scorch either me or those who accompany me. Your venom is poisonous and you know it.”
Wings flapped faster and more spots appeared on the ground but Quon didn't flinch. Instead he drew himself up to his full height, which wasn't much because he wasn't a big man, and he actually stamped his foot.
“Look closely at me and see who I am,” he commanded angrily. “I'm Maquat Dom. You must have sensed Earth approached you.”
“Earth?” came the guttural question of surprise. “So it is you!”
“Earth,” agreed Quon, his stance suddenly more relaxed though the alert look in his eyes didn't go.
“You can't be!” exclaimed the voice. “The Maquats have gone from Shalah. Any fool knows that.”
“Just what I said,” murmured Javen, now an interested rather than a frightened spectator.
“We may not have shown ourselves to any,” responded Quon, a tinge of regret in his voice, “but we're very much alive.”
“The bond?”
“It still exists.”
Javen gave Quon a long, speculative look, glanced at Knellen, then looked away when the Varen simply shrugged fatalistically.
“You have a nerve to come seeking me, Earth, when you and yours left us to our fates aeons ago. But for you I might not be confined to these northern wildernesses. But for you-.”
“Not true,” responded Quon, cutting short the increasingly angry oration. “You know why you roam here.”
“The Sabbiths,” hissed the voice. “You always blamed the Sabbiths - didn't you?”
“Who else is there to blame?” asked Quon reasonably. “I never argued or fought with you. None of us did. We defied the Sabbiths, and with good reason. But you? No, never. Why should we?”
“You were the enemy,” came the discontented retort. “The Sabbiths knew that and that's why they decided you had to die. I agreed then and now you reappear I still think so.”
“You believed they’d come for you, didn’t you? And did they?”
“Only you know where they are, Earth, only you.”
“No,” argued Quon, his voice sadly resigned. “Lesul, I saw them, at the last, at the gate. None of us know where they went, only that it was beyond Shalah. Why didn’t you listen to us?”
“You lie!” A hissing spit touched the edge of Quon’s boot. “They’d not go through the gates without us. They promised us. It was you and yours who sent us here to live out long lives on an alien world, separated from our own for eternity.”
“They betrayed you as surely they betrayed all who had the misfortune to trust them and ally themselves with any cause they espoused. Nor did we send you here. We had to believe, reluctantly, that you chose to remain isolated, especially when you repulsed us so many times when we tried to contact you over long aeons. How could we know what you were promised when you were brought to Shalah? We had no idea of Sabbith/Progenitor betrayal, or of Nedru betrayal either.”
“You expect me to believe that?” jeered the snarling voice. The beady eyes flared with choleric despair.
“I’m a Maquat Dom, Lesul. I can only offer the truth. There’s nothing else I can say. We know you believed otherwise nor would you let us approach to speak other than to neutralise the metalans. We know our help was limited because what we’d just experienced drained all of us, you included.”
There was a very long silence, then the voice came again, echoing but less menacing.
“What use are you to Shalah now, old man? You're a spent force.”
“Maybe,” acquiesced Quon, a tired note to his voice. “But times change and Shalah's need of us is again at issue. I have no option but to honour the oath and binding that keeps me tied to Shalah and in service to her until I die, whether that death comes from you or from another source. It doesn't really matter, does it?
You know, as well as I do, that I can't die until the appointed time and neither of us knows if that is now or later. I thought it was come a while ago but it seems not. So go ahead. See if I die. Do you want the ancient challenge to give you your opportunity, or do you just wish to scald me with venom?”
There was an angry roar that faded to a growling mutter before the voice came again, grudgingly.
“You never lacked courage or effrontery, Earth. Why have you taken such a risk to come here? Who are your companions? I see one is a mere boy. What has a Maquat to do with a child?”
“Look closely at him,” invited Quon cordially.
There was a tense prolonged silence but no further spots steamed about the small, vulnerable group. No one spoke. After what seemed an age to all but Quon, the flapping wings created an increased draught as a huge beast hovered lower and lower, until clawed talons of immense proportions scrabbled on the rocks for purchase.
Javen couldn't speak. He'd heard of beasts such as these. Indeed he'd read of Grypans but he'd not believed anything so fantastic or extraordinary in appearance could truly exist. He shook his head. Saracen had regained a measure of control and poise and now stood a little apart, his eyes thoughtfully surveying the creature in front of him. Knellen moved not at all, his expression as always non-committal and stoic.
Jepaul had sunk to his knees. His expression was unreadable as he stared, bewildered but still fascinated, as the beaked head swung ponderously in his direction and bright, large beady eyes settled on him. He gave a faint shiver. Quon crossed calmly to him.
“Courage,” he whispered softly. “With me you should feel comforted. She knows me.”
“I know,” murmured Jepaul hoarsely, his hand catching convulsively at the old man's outstretched one.
“Then stand with dignity,” advised Quon calmly. He was aware Jepaul's jewellery was invisible. The boy simply looked very young, unadorned and fragile.
The enormous head swung down closer. Jepaul had an instinct to back, but Quon's firm grip stayed him so that the breath that blasted across them felt rather hot and decidedly fetid, the acidic smell corrosive. Jepaul felt as if his curls were singed.
He gulped but held. His eyes met those searing ones. And then Jepaul drew himself erect, his shoulders straightened, he threw back his head and his whole stance was a challenge. A raucous laugh echoed about the valley, then another.
“Earth!” boomed the voice, amusement the uppermost emotion. “You bring the demon himself! The hair, the eyes! What does he want?”
“You answered to the Progenitor once,” replied Quon coldly. “Never forget that. We do not.”
“And would again. Is this all that's left of him then?”
“It seems so,” agreed Quon, his tone more amiable.
“A helpless child?” Again the laughter rang out. “Has he anything other than the looks?”
“No,” answered Quon quickly. “Just a child as you see.”
“So why bring him to me? I don't honour a talent-less child!”
“Certainly not,” acquiesced Quon in good humour, a fact that made the others cast him a quick suspicious glance. “He travels to learn, nothing more. It's not for him I seek you. It's for another.”
“Which other?”
“He's a Varen.”
“I know no such thing as a Varen. What is it?” Quon gestured at Knellen. “It's a creature, I suppose,” added Lesul in faint disgust. “It's an unlikely one to support you in any enterprise, spent force you are.”
“As you say.” Quon's voice still sounded entertained. “But he has need of you. You're the only one who can rid him of an unwanted part of himself.”
“I'll kill to oblige of course,” came the cordial response. “Put him apart from the rest of you.”
“He carries a writhling.”
None there expected the reaction that followed, least of all Quon. He was knocked sideways by the roar. The hot blast nearly fried both he and Jepaul and the growl of sheer anguish rattled about in their heads. The others cringed. Both Javen and Knellen had a tussle to get the horses under control and not ready to bolt at the next noise. Sa
racen was flat on the ground, hands over his large sensitive ears.
Quon regained his balance, his steadying due to the quick thinking of Jepaul who was down to him with hands outstretched in an instant.
“Are you all right?” gasped Jepaul, a free hand to his face that felt hot.
“Yes,” answered Quon irascibly, dusting himself down. “I should, perhaps, have phrased that more obliquely.”
He walked forward again so that he stood directly in front of the head now rested curiously on the ground, the large nostrils flared and the tongue, venom on the tip, flicking to and fro. Quon appeared unafraid. Javen and Knellen were impressed. Saracen thought it outright foolhardy.
“How can that be?” The deep voice, still husky with passion, was surprised.
“That I've not thought through,” admitted Quon honestly. “All I know is that one of those ghastly things is planted, deliberately, in the Varen behind me. You may not pity me or wish me well, but you can hardly fail to be moved by such a wickedness done to another. Do you remember how tormented you were? Or have you forgotten? And,” went on Quon deliberately, “who helped you get rid of the wretched thing? Was it your own kind?”
“No,” came the growled answer.
“You forget that act of the Progenitor and his minions to ensure your slavish obedience, don't you? You fought in his defence and against us, but were we the real enemy, or was it that the creature within you such a control that you dared not defy the one who placed it there? You were finely tricked, my friend.”
“How dare you say these things?” A tail thrashed threateningly close to Quon.
“I dare,” said Quon calmly, “because if you and yours hadn't abandoned most of Shalah in your haste to get away from the evil that controlled you, you'd have heard us when we called and tried to speak with you. We wished to tell you the truth, to make you understand that we were never your enemy. You didn't want to know. You preferred, as you still do, to hate us. And that’s despite the release we ensured for you, because with that release went an oath that you'd not harm Shalah again.”
“I haven't,” grated the voice, a tone of real menace in it. “None of us have.”
“No,” agreed Quon placidly. “But you never answered us and I believed, rightly I think, that my searching for you now was a dangerous enterprise.”
“Earth!” mocked the voice bitterly. “Haven't you said your time isn't yet come?”
“But my companions are vulnerable.”
“They don't interest me,” came the irritable response.
Quon was singularly thankful for that. Jepaul's talents were one thing he wished few to know about and he was immensely relieved that the boy's appearance seemed to provoke mirth and ridicule rather than curiosity or any desire to make utmost use of him.
“I still ask for your aid with the Varen. He hasn't long before he's no longer able to control the writhling and we do need him as a guide through this terrain. The Varen,” went on Quon, lying without regard to consequences, “knows the geography of Shalah and therefore he can get us to the other side of the range.”
“From what do you run?” asked the voice wearily. “Can it be that the Maquat Dom finds himself unwelcome on Shalah?”
“I want to go home,” stated Quon bluntly, in a way that Javen thought a mite reckless.
“If it's still there.”
“Yes,” murmured Quon absently. “As you say, if it's there.”
“Does the Varen know that to be released of the writhling carries with it the curse of its implanting as pertains to us?”
“No,” whispered Quon.
“Then tell him!”
“No,” repeated Quon, rather white about the mouth.
“He should know. He may choose to let it stay.”
“To let himself be driven mad?” demanded Quon outraged. “To be used against his instincts? You know what writhlings do. Spare him that!”
“The alternative isn't entirely sweet,” countered the voice.
“I know!” Quon's voice dropped. “I'll do all I can for him, you must believe that.”
“Then let him approach.” The voice stopped, then went on, “Do not come near me again, Earth. You claim I owe you something from aeons past. Maybe that's so, but today the score is even and should you choose to bandy words with me again, I'll not be forbearing.”
“I'll bear that in mind,” promised Quon, his face now rather grey and drawn.
A spit of acid barely missed him. He took several paces back and summoned Knellen. Knellen approached extremely warily, his eyes going from Quon to the huge creature that stared somewhat malevolently at him. He didn't know fear. The creature recognised that in the being that stood in front of him, so he tested the Varen by hurling acid drops at him, some so close they sizzled Knellen's clothes and more than one touched and scalded his skin. The Varen remained still.
“Show me!” barked the voice.
Knellen obediently removed his shirt and turned so the beast had a good view of the writhling still deeply burrowed under his skin. He wasn't prepared for the speed of the attack on him, or the sharp agonising pain as the writhling was hauled from him. It was held in the massive beak that had only seconds before plunged deeply into him.
Knellen howled, just as the beast gave an exultant and ferocious yell. It smashed the writhling to the ground and started to shred it. As the writhling fought against the stabbing beak, so Knellen was in speechless pain, every part of him linked to the dying object that was so viciously torn apart. Knellen felt each and every savage peck. He bled from the gouged area from which the writhling was extracted. Finally, unable to take more, he sank to the ground, his face blanched of colour as the writhling and the beast fought out the last moments of a duel of sheer hatred.
Quon stood helplessly by, aware, as no other could be, that the battle wasn't a foregone conclusion. His instinct was to go to Knellen's aid in some way, but he knew if he did, the writhling, suddenly aware of the Varen's weakness, would surely turn back to him and try to slide within again, anywhere on the debilitated body.
It curled from the beak and tried, torn though it was, to slither closer to Knellen. Once near him, this time it wouldn't rest complacently below the surface where it had what control it needed; instead it would burrow to the marrow of its host and drain the vitals without any mercy whatsoever. Knellen's agony now would be nothing to what it could be.
It was Jepaul who ended it. Javen tried to scream a warning. Saracen blenched. Quon, stunned, tried to marshal his thoughts and give vent to commands that simply wouldn't be spoken. Jepaul flung himself between the murderous beak, that could've skewered him in one neat thrust, and the writhling that still winked invitingly.
For a ghastly moment Quon thought the writhling would enter Jepaul. That was until he saw Jepaul's face. Never had the Maquat seen such an expression of revulsion on a child's face and he hoped he wouldn't again. Jepaul stamped firmly on the winking light of the writhling, his heeled boot not moving though the writhling flailed and shrieked now in a high reedy monotone. The beak did the rest, used with exact precision that left the slight boy unscathed but the writhling soon scattered and bleeding.
The enormous beak nudged the boy. Jepaul stepped back. The writhling still winked, but so faintly only someone close would see it, and it flickered to nothing when acid drops fell and scalded the very last of it. The huge head studied Jepaul interestedly for a moment before wings were spread and the beast was aloft one minute then gone the next. It was as if it had never been there.
Quon recovered from his stupefaction and crossed to Jepaul who stood trembling, his eyes and expression quite dull.
“Lad,” he croaked. “That was most courageous but so foolish. I might have lost you.”
Jepaul smiled at him, his expression a little more animated.
“It seemed the only thing to do,” he answered, with a distinct quaver in his voice. Quon eyed him.
“What made you do it?” he asked softly. His grip was
firm.
“I just had to,” responded Jepaul. A shaking hand went to his head. “I feel so sick,” he mumbled.
Quon guided him to a rock, helped him down and suggested he should just stay there. Jepaul agreed and closed his eyes. Quon walked to where Javen attended to the unconscious Knellen, the blood flowing from the open wound refusing to be staunched.
“Get the medicine bag from the horse,” instructed Quon, his hand down to see if Knellen's heart still beat. It did, but not strongly.
With herbal preparations and bandages to hand Quon stemmed the blood and soon had Javen assisting him with replacing the Varen's shirt and getting Knellen into a sitting position against a rock. Then they waited. Darkness came. Javen set camp. Quon muttered among the pots, Saracen fed the fire and Jepaul came to in a rush, his eyes opening blearily.
“Good lad,” said Quon bracingly. “Do you still feel sick?” Jepaul shook his head but took the cup held out to him. “Drink that and it'll settle any lingering stomach upset.”
“Is Knellen alive?” managed Jepaul, gagging a little on the liquid.
A sharp nod had him tilt the cup again. He shivered and drew closer to the fire. Javen tousled his head affectionately.
“He's alive well enough, little lad.”
“He saved me, didn't he?” asked Jepaul.
“Yes,” said the old man.
“Then it was right for me to do the same for him,” murmured Jepaul to himself. “Where is he?”
Javen pointed to where the Varen sat propped, his eyes still closed and his breathing shallow. Jepaul crept over to crouch in front of the Varen, his eyes intently fixed on the white countenance. He saw the eyelids move and a minute later the eyelashes, such as they were, flicker.
“He's awake,” he called breathlessly.
Javen stopped feeding the fire to cross next to Jepaul.
“So he is,” agreed Javen. “He may be thirsty. Get a cup of water for him, little lad.”
Javen put out his hand to the Varen. Then he watched, in shock, as the eyes opened. They were covered by a milky membrane that gave Knellen the appearance of a blind man. Slowly they cleared. Javen scarcely recognised them because Varen eyes were uniformly grey, whereas these were startlingly green, the yellowish iris dilating and contracting in the sudden camp firelight. Knellen's eyes resembled those of the creature who'd been among them not so long before. Javen pulled back, fearful and wondering.
“Quon!” he called. “Quon!”
Quon, the food ready to eat, ambled across and rather clumsily managed to squat next to the Varen.
“Knellen?”
“Yes?”
The Varen turned his head so those extraordinary eyes met Quon's startled ones.
“How do you feel?” Quon asked gently.
“Rather giddy,” admitted Knellen. He touched Quon. “It's gone, Maquat. You risked all for me. It's not something I'll forget.”
“Jepaul -,” began Javen before he felt a very sharp stab in his ribs and a foot come down hard on his as Quon got to his feet. “And another thing, the eyes -.”
Again he felt an even sharper stab and growled irritably. Then he saw a definite warning in the old man's eyes and decided discretion might be wise.
“Come, Knellen,” suggested Quon kindly. “Food will make you feel better, then a long rest before we move on.”
At that moment Jepaul appeared with a cup of water Knellen tossed off and Saracen, out wandering for berries, returned with a full bag that he thought the others might care to share after meat.
Once all were seated about the fire with food in front of them, individuals had time to take stock. Saracen looked at the Varen. He opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, stared fascinated at Knellen for a few moments, then tactfully applied himself to his food. Javen ate stolidly, no emotion on his face and Quon, abstracted, ate sparingly, no conversation coming from him. And Jepaul, unaccountably tired, didn't seem to be aware anything was either amiss or altered about the Varen though he studied him furtively often enough.
“I'm tired,” he informed Quon after he finished.
“Then go to sleep,” recommended Quon with a vague smile. “It's been a long day.”
He put out his hand, caressed the young head bent to his and noticed that the boy's jewellery glowed with renewed vigour in the light of the flickering flames. In fact it glowed even as the child walked a short distance from the fire and settled himself, the brightness not that noticeable before that day. Quon was extremely thoughtful.