Talus and the Frozen King (15 page)

'I am sure he will,' said Talus before Tharn could object. 'Perhaps Lethriel will remain to keep him company. She proved helpful to me earlier when I was shaping my thoughts. If she speaks further with the king-to-be, she may find there is more yet to be learned. I will be interested to learn what truths they may uncover between them.'

Tharn nodded.

'When you are finished,' Talus concluded, 'will you send your brothers to me? I would like to speak with each of them in turn, alone.'

'Will this help?' said Tharn.

'It might.'

As he helped Mishina out into the fog (the shaman's limp seemed quite bad that morning), Talus wondered if Lethriel had understood the message he'd been trying to send her. If she really wanted to help with the investigation, he'd just presented her with the perfect opportunity. Tharn might say things to her that he didn't want to say in front of a stranger—nor even his own medicine man. With luck, Lethriel would listen to Tharn had to say and report back to Talus what she'd learned.

And if Tharn let slip something that connected him to the murders? What would she do then? Would Lethriel protect the man she loved today, or seek justice for those she'd loved before?

Which was stronger: the love of now, or the love of ago?

Unlike the other dwellings Talus had seen, Mishina's house had no door-stone. Instead, the entrance was concealed by an extra length of corridor that doubled back on itself, and split twice into short dead-ends. This tiny maze was far too small to get lost in, but it was a reminder that visiting the shaman was a ritual in itself. It also explained why Talus hadn't identified on his travels around Creyak so far.

The interior delivered quite a surprise. Talus had expected it to be sombre and moody; instead it was a riot of colour. The walls and ceiling were painted with intricate swirls and patterns.

Carved wooden animals—also brightly painted—swung on cords from the rafters. There were hanging chains of beads, and hollow gourds that gave out low chimes as they jostled against each other. Decorated masks and bone-white skulls stared from the corners.

There was light here too, and lots of it, both orange from the fire blazing in the hearth and white from cunning vents in the roof, which somehow captured the foggy daylight from outside and channelled it in narrow beams into the building's interior.

Mishina removed the antlers from his head and busied himself in a corner. Talus warmed himself by the fire. There was something scratched into the dirt floor by the hearth; he crouched to study it. It was an angular figure made up of one straight line and two jagged ones. Beside it were dozens of tiny marks that might have represented people. If they were, the angular shape was enormous in proportion.

Talus recognised it at once.

'I was remembering something I saw once, in a far-off land,' said Mishina.

Talus looked up to see the shaman standing over him. He held a bowl that Talus assumed must contain food; when Mishina sat down, he saw it was full of a thick black liquid.

'If this is meant to be a building,' said Talus, pointing to the shape, 'then I have seen such things too. They build structures like this in the deserts of the southern continent. Tombs for the dead. The sides of the structure slope and the stone is cut with deep steps so that a man may climb to the top.'

He couldn't take his eyes off the image of the desert tomb. How strange that Mishina should have drawn it when, only a few moments before, Talus had been thinking about his own travels in that distant land. And about the woman he'd met there.

'They are cairns,' said Mishina, 'just like the cairn of Creyak and all the settlements of this land. Only, in the desert, the cairns are much bigger. The people of the desert believe their king is also the spirit of the sun. And so they build their cairns ...'

'... to reach for the sun. I know of this belief.'

'So you too have crossed the world, Talus. Have you also seen the cairns of the jungle realms that lie far to the west, over the sea? They are like those of the desert, but their sides have many steps.'

Jungles over the sea? This was news to Talus.

'It is a dangerous land,' Mishina went on. 'Once, I was attacked by a big cat with fur as black as midnight.' He pulled up his robe to expose a leg ruined by scars. 'That is why I limp.'

'I have never heard of such a place.'

'Well, at least you have seen the desert. Perhaps we have more in common than we imagined.'

'Perhaps.'

Mishina dipped the first two fingers of each hand into his bowl. When he brought them out, they were black. He started smearing the paint methodically across his forehead.

'So tell me, bard. What is it that you wish to discuss?'

Talus regarded the little drawing scratched into the floor. 'Spirits and kings. I am interested to know, Mishina, what you think of such things.'

'In the desert, men believe in the sun,' said Mishina, daubing the black paint over the blue that was already there. 'In other places beliefs are different. If you have travelled, you will know this.

In the high mountain lands of ...'

'I am not interested in mountains. I would rather hear about Creyak.'

'Very well. In Creyak, men believe their king is like the trunk of a tree. His living subjects are the branches, and his ancestral spirits are the roots. When a king dies, another must take his place, or else all communication must end between those who live in the air and those who are dead in the ground.'

'Is it what all the people here believe?'

Now the entire top half of Mishina's face was black. His old eyes stared deep into the fire.

'I do not understand what you mean.'

'To kill a king, a man must first rid himself of fear. Fear of the ancestors. Fear of the spirit world and all the power it holds over him. This is a very difficult thing to do.'

'Difficult indeed.'

'But not if that man does not believe in the spirit world to begin with.'

Mishina looked up from the flames and into Talus's eyes. His half-painted face made him look like two men. The illusion made Talus feel momentarily dizzy.

Then Mishina's mouth split wide open and he let out a great guffaw of laughter. 'A man who does not believe in the spirits? Who has ever heard of such a thing? You joke with me ... ah, but I should expect nothing less from a wandering bard! Tell me, what other tales of fancy do you carry in your motley travelling robes?'

Talus traced the sloping sides of the desert-cairn Mishina had drawn. 'I carry many tales. But I had rather hoped to hear one of yours.'

Mishina wiped his hands clean on a scrap of paint-clotted rabbit-skin. Then he dipped one fingertip back in the paint and began to dab black spots on to the blue paint covering the bottom half of his face. 'What would you have me tell you?'

'Tell me about Farrum. There is a feud going on here, I think. That interests me.'

Mishina nodded. 'A feud, yes, you are right. It began many years ago, when Hashath and Farrum were children together in Creyak. At that time, Sleeth was an empty island, far out to sea.

Farrum was the son of a warrior—this was a time when the people of Creyak fought often against their neighbours, you understand. They were violent years.'

'Creyak seems peaceful enough now,' said Talus.

'When he became king, Hashath brought calm and order. He made truces with his neighbours. He turned Creyak in on itself, and made it a haven for all those who lived there.'

'What about Farrum?'

'Farrum became frustrated. His father died in a fierce fight with a rival warlord and he swore to avenge him. But Hashath forbade it. So Farrum did the only thing he could think of. He challenged Hashath himself.'

'He fought the king?' In Talus's experience such challenges were rare, though not unheard of.

'The fight was brief. Hashath was a powerful man and his strength and skill made Farrum look a fool. Farrum fled in shame, taking his supporters with him. Most were his dead father's friends and their women.'

'That was when Farrum made his home instead on the island of Sleeth?'

Mishina closed his eyes. The black paint around them was already dry. 'Yes. And has lived there ever since. Others have joined him over the years—outcasts from many of the settlements along this part of the coast.'

'Outcasts,' said Talus. 'Tell me—do these outcasts include other people from Creyak? People Hashath did not ... approve of?'

Mishina shrugged. 'Hashath was strict. If there were people in Creyak he did not care for, he did not encourage them to stay.'

Talus could feel his thoughts buzzing again. He pressed his hand against the top of his head to stop them spilling out. 'If Farrum had beaten Hashath in that fight, he would have become king of Creyak and the history of this place would have been very different.'

Mishina opened his eyes again. 'For many years now, the people of Creyak have feared attack from the sea by Farrum. He is brutal and ambitious, and his people are clever boatmen. But the attack has never come.'

The shaman reached behind him and brought out another bowl. This one was filled with blue pigment. He picked up a little of the colour on a clean fingertip and pressed blue dots into the new black. Soon his new face was completed. The design reminded Talus of the scarred faces of the visitors from across the sea.

'You know much about the history of this place, Mishina,' he said, 'considering you are not a native.'

'How do you know that?'

Talus pointed to the drawing. 'Like me, you are a wanderer.'

'It is my duty to seek out truth wherever it is to be found.' The shaman's eyes seemed to glow inside their rings of black paint. 'The spirits guide me in this. They take me where I need to go in order to see the things I need to see.' He rose to his feet. 'Now please, forgive me. There are rituals I must attend to.'

'May I ask one more question before I leave?'

'If you must.' 

'Where do you keep your supply of greycaps?'

Mishina frowned, cracking his newly-applied mask a little. 'An odd question for a bard.'

'Indulge me.'

The shaman considered for a moment, then crossed to the far side of the room. Talus followed close behind. Mishina lifted a lid of stone to reveal a shallow pit in the floor. The bottom of the pit was covered in fine grey dust.

Mishina delved first down, then sideways. His hand came up holding a pale leather pouch.

Mishina felt inside it. Even through the paint on his face, Talus could see his expression change to one of shock.

'Gone!' said Mishina. 'How did you know?'

'Who can say? Perhaps the spirits are guiding me too.'

As soon as he reached the king's house, Bran rolled the doorstone aside and entered. The heat of the fire struck him an almost physical blow. Someone had piled the hearth high with peat and the flames were licking halfway to the ceiling. The whole interior was thick with smoke and aglow with dancing light.

The meeting was over. Talus and Mishina were nowhere to be seen. But Tharn and Lethriel were still here. They were lying together on a bed of grey furs, their naked bodies locked together.

The flickering firelight painted their movements orange. The red of Lethriel's hair was a flame all its own.

Bran couldn't move his feet. He knew it was wrong to watch, but he couldn't look away. Had he wondered what Lethriel looked like underneath her winter wraps? Well, now he knew. Countless tiny moments suddenly made sense: shared glances between her and Tharn; and what she'd said to Bran in the passage about love coming again. So this was what she'd meant.

Lethriel's head came up. Her eyes—each holding a bright point of vivid light—found Bran and widened in surprise. Tharn didn't see him at all. Lethriel's hands stroked the skin of Tharn's back.

Holding Bran's gaze, she shook her head. Her expression pleaded.

Bran left, rolling the doorstone back into place as quietly as he could. His notion of remaining in Creyak with Lethriel had been nothing more than a fantasy. He was trapped on the path after all, facing the same two choices he'd always faced: go on, or turn back.

The fog enveloped him, sucking at his thoughts. After the heat he'd felt inside the house of the king, it was very cold. He felt foolish. But he was also relieved. If his brief dream of being with Lethriel had come true, what would Keyli have thought? Would she not want him to be happy? If only he could see her one more time, he could ask her for himself.

But Keyli was dead.

Back at their temporary home, Bran was relieved to find the hearth alive with a fire almost as vigorous as the one he'd just left. Even better, a deer haunch was roasting on a stick. Fat dripped sizzling into the flames. The smell of cooked meat was overwhelming. Bran's stomach let out a bellow. It was as much as he could do not to grab the meat right out of the hearth.

'A gift from Mishina,' said Talus. He was standing by the open doorway with his arms clasped over his chest: a meditative stance.

'Are you sure it's not poisoned?' said Bran. Even so, he squatted by the fire and judged the venison was cooked to perfection. With his good hand, he tore off a hunk.

'You do not like the shaman.'

'I just don't think he likes us.' Bran took a sank his teeth into the juicy meat. At that moment he didn't care if it was poisoned or not. 'Oh, this is delicious! Talus, you've got to try it.'

Like a bird taking flight, Talus unfolded himself from his position of rest and started dancing round the fire. 'And now,' he said as he pranced, 'you must tell me what you learned on the beach!'

'Slow down. Sit down. Let me fill my belly.' Bran was tired of Talus's lightning changes of mood.

'Never mind your belly, Bran. We do not have much time.'

Bran carried on eating. 'What's the rush?'

'I have asked Tharn to send his brothers here to us, each in their turn. This is our only chance to speak with them all before the final rituals begin to send Hashath to the afterdream. Once they start, days will pass before we can do any more useful work. By then, it may be too late.'