Angus Wells - The Kingdoms 03 (53 page)

 
          
“Mayhap
you take first watch,” Tepshen said.

 
          
“Why?”
Brannoc demanded. “There is nothing to watch for.”

 
          
“You
grow lax,” snapped the kyo.

 
          
“We
all grow irritable,” Kedryn said, once more playing the peacemaker, for he
heard anger in both voices. “I shall take first watch.”

 
          
Brannoc
stared for a moment at Tepshen, then snorted and rolled himself into his
blanket, turning his back on his companions.

 
          
“This
place acts upon us,” Kedryn murmured.

 
          
“It
is a foul place,” Tepshen agreed. “I find my temper rising without reason.”

 
          
“Should
we fall to argument we are lost.” Kedryn clasped the talisman. “We must hold
our minds to our purpose.”

 
          
“Aye.”
The kyo nodded.
Then, “Brannoc?
Forgive my shortness.”

 
          
“It
is nothing,”
came
the blanket-muffled response.

 
          
The
hours of the watch were worse that “night.” Kedryn found himself filled with a
melancholy longing for Wynett that was interspersed with memories of
Ashrivelle, in particular that of the kiss she had bestowed on his departure
from Gennyf. Try as he might, he could not drive them from his mind, but found
they grew stronger, and soon he was experiencing guilt at what he considered a
betrayal of his love. Tepshen, to whom Kedryn gave the second watch, occupied
himself with further exercises at first, but then settled to an unwelcome
contemplation of his past, memories of his homeland in the east filling him
with sorrow that threatened to curdle into resentment of the peace now enjoyed
by the Three Kingdoms. Brannoc, when it came his turn, found himself wondering
what he was doing on so hopeless a quest. He had been happy as an outlaw and he
recalled the carefree days of trading in the Beltrevan, thinking that he had
been better off then than now, committed to a cause he doubted they could win.
By the time he woke his companions he was thoroughly miserable.

 
          
Indeed,
neither Kedryn nor Tepshen Lahl were in much better spirits and the silence
that fell as they continued their trek was pregnant with pent-up
dissatisfaction.

 
          
The
scissures that mazed their path were wider and deeper, and when they halted
again none spoke. Their watches seemed longer, each one falling into unhappy
contemplation of their situation, and their departure was marked by the same
sullen silence that had accompanied their halt.

 
          
The
cracks were now so wide they needed to extend their strides, so deep they
threatened to break ankles should an unwary step place a foot within the
shadowy depths.

 
          
The
next “day” they were wider still and the three found themselves jumping across
fissures like drainage dykes, half a man’s height in depth.

 
          
“Blood of the Lady!”
Brannoc snapped as he teetered on an
edge, his jump ill-judged. “Should this continue we shall be climbing chasms
before we find an
end.
”

 
          
“You
grow careless,” Tepshen retorted.

 
          
“I
grow angry.” Brannoc glowered at the kyo. “And I have had sufficient of your
insults.”

 
          
“Do
you then seek redress?”

 
          
Tepshen’s
hand dropped to his sword hilt. Brannoc stared at him, his mouth a narrow line.
His own hand lifted to the saber sheathed across his back.

 
          
...
Kedryn watched them, despondency dulling him, an ugly stirring in the
nethermost depths of his mind suggesting that the spectacle of armed combat
would provide a welcome diversion from the endless boredom of the march. He
shook off the lassitude with effort, realizing that he, like his comrades, fell
into the grim trap of the awful plain and sprang between them, arms extended as
though to hold them apart. “You succumb to Ashar!” he said urgently.

 
          
“Stand
aside,” Tepshen warned grimly, “lest you come between my blade and this
whiner’s skull.”

 
          
“Whiner?”
Brannoc’s saber hissed loose. “Give way, Kedryn,
for I would teach this braggart a lesson.”

 
          
“No!”
Kedryn shouted. “Do you not see that Ashar seeks to divide us? He sets us to
odds, that we slay one another. Do not give in to his foul magics!”

 
          
Both
men stared at him, swords in hands, their bodies tensed for combat. Kedryn
looked to Tepshen, then at Brannoc. “Sheath your blades,” he urged. “Would two
friends fight? In the name of the Lady, put up your weapons and give me your
hands.”

 
          
Reluctantly,
Tepshen slid his blade into the scabbard. Kedryn fixed Brannoc with a demanding
stare until the half-breed followed suit.

 
          
“Now
give me your hands.” He took them both and directed them to the blue stone hung
about his neck. “What do you feel?”

 
          
“Foolish,”
Brannoc said. “Tepshen, I am sorry.”

 
          
“And
I,” murmured the kyo. “Ashar put words in my mouth.”

 
          
Kedryn
held their hands to the talisman a while longer, letting the jewel work its
calming influence upon them. When he at last released his grip both men stood
shame-faced, embarrassed smiles twitching their lips. Tepshen extended a hand,
clasping Brannoc’s. "Kedryn is right,” he declared, “Ashar would set us to
fighting one another.”

 
          
“Aye,”
Brannoc nodded, his smile growing wider.
“Perchance because
he fears to fight us himself.”

 
          
Tepshen
laughed at that and Brannoc added, “We are, after all, formidable.”

 
          
Their
march became a little more cheerful then, and when they halted again Kedryn
persuaded them both to touch the talisman once more, for it appeared that the
jewel had the ability to dispel the glamour that clearly possessed the desolate
plain. He saw that the fissures had grown no wider and it occurred to him that
the strange cracks represented a visible physical manifestation of their
spiritual condition, broadening and deepening in measure of the differences
between them. The next “morning” they repeated the ritual, and again during the
“day” whenever tempers frayed, and the cracks remained static. Concomitantly
they began to experience hunger and thirst again, consuming the last of their
provisions when next they halted.

 
          
It
was a further problem but preferable, they felt, to the sullen animosity that
had festered, and they ignored it, marching resolutely across the ashen plain,
where the interstices now seemed to decrease in size, the ground once more
resembling the bed of a dried-out river. Their halts, however, became more
frequent as hunger took its toll, bodies inevitably weakening under the
constant demand of the trek.

 
          
After
three “days” they grew lightheaded, their steps slowing, their tongues furred,
lips parched for want of water. The chill that pervaded the plain became
noticeable, a discomfort now as they burned stored body fat, and they wrapped
their blankets around their shoulders as they progressed. In time they began to
stagger, supporting one another as they stumbled forward, ignoring the
scissures that cut the plain beneath their feet, growing ever smaller as
hardship brought them closer together, relying on each other more than ever.

 
          
Then
the plain ended as abruptly as it had begun.

 
          
At
first Kedryn could not credit the evidence of his eyes, for what he saw had the
aspect of a mirage, or some fantasy conjured by his hunger. He halted, swaying,
and raised a hand to point ahead, his mouth at first too dry to form the words
he sought, wondering if Ashar did, indeed, raise a phantasm to damn his hopes.

 
          
“Is
it real?”

 
          
Brannoc’s
voice was harsh, the question slurred as he forced it out. Tepshen stood beside
him, his slanted eyes narrowed. “Can it be?” he husked.

 
          
Kedryn
stared, almost afraid to believe the reality, so hopeful was
it.

 
          
They
stood at the edge of the dreary plain, the gray ground falling away before them
as if cut with an adze. For twice a man’s height it dropped vertically, the
scissures dark cuts against the scarp, then it gentled, descending in a
gradually angled slope that was at first cinereous, but then shaded into the
brown of healthy soil, becoming verdant with the bushes that grew lower down.
Farther still below their vantage point the bushes gave way to trees, not the
lofty timberland of the Beltrevan, but gentler growths, oak and ash and beech
mingling to sweep onto level ground where meadows shone green beneath a golden
sun, a winding river sparkling in the light, the sky ahead blue and rafted with
billows of wind-blown cumulus. Close to the slope’s foot was a clearing,
verdant among the darker shades of the woodland, and at its center stood a hold
of pale sandstone, walled and turreted, smoke rising lazy from its chimneys,
orchards and vegetable gardens running up to the walls, watered by the stream
that spanned the clearing.

 
          
“I
do not know,” Kedryn
mouthed,
the words barely
audible. “Let us find out.”

 
          
Tepshen
and Brannoc lowered him from the plain’s edge and he helped them both down,
then all three stumbled and slid over the slant of the upper level, across the
good, brown soil to the bushes. They halted there, stretched on the ground,
panting,
hope
overcoming their exhaustion so that they
rose and began a staggering descent to the trees.

 
          
The
air was warm, balmy, a zephyr stirring the foliage as they entered the
timberline and heard birds singing, looking up to see the canescent sky of the
plain merge with the blue that covered this haven of normality. A thrush stared
down at them, head cocked to one side, beak trilling a warning that sounded to
them like a welcome. They breathed in the smells of grass and woodland,
laughing now, the morbid depression of the gray plain forgotten, heady with
thoughts of water and food. A squirrel chattered from the bole of an oak and
Kedryn chuckled at its protest, leading the way down through the trees toward
the clearing.

 
          
The
stream curved along the rim of the woodlands, grass and thickets of
blackberries marking its banks. The water was clear, splashing over stones that
shone blue and gray and yellow in the sunlight, and they halted, staring
longingly at the freshet. Then Kedryn threw himself down and began to drink.

 
          
“Have
care
!” cautioned Tepshen throatily. “It may not be as
it seems.”

 
          
His
warning was too late, for Kedryn was already swallowing, turning to smile and
say, “It tastes as water should. And by the Lady, it is good!”

 
          
Brannoc
fell beside him, dunking his head before he drank, and then Tepshen, too, knelt
and slaked his thirst.

 
          
The
water refreshed them, going some way also to filling their bellies, and they
rose, moving to the edge of the tree line to study the hold.

 
          
It
seemed innocent enough. Indeed, it seemed out of place in the netherworld, for
it bore a great resemblance to the holds of Tamur, the walls foursquare and set
between the four solid towers that marked the comers, the merlons cut with
large embrasures, the towers roofed with wood. A postern faced them, open onto
a courtyard shadowed by the walls and they moved along the line of the trees,
not yet quite ready to approach the place. No guards were visible between the
crenellations of the ramparts and when they looked to the frontage of the keep
they saw wide gates of solid timber banded with great metal bars standing open
like the postern. Through the gates the courtyard was clearly visible, a wide,
flagged area where figures in colorful costumes moved.