The Legend of Broken (44 page)

“River?” Arnem is confused. “But, Gerolf, you said the rivers are—”

“We speak of another river, Sixt,” Gledgesa replies, in an uncharacteristically gentle way. “Another river altogether. Visimar knows it … And I thank you, old man. Sixt—put my daughter’s hand in mine, and put me on my feet. Then
go,
old friend.”

“Damn it, Gerolf! There may yet be something Visimar can do, I have seen his healing skills—”

“There is naught, Sixt—no help of
that
sort, I mean …” Arnem helps Gledgesa up and Visimar guides the girl Weda to his side, again making certain her bandaging is sound as Arnem puts the girl’s hand into her father’s. “I trust those are your horsemen I hear,” Gledgesa continues. “We ate all but a few of our mounts long ago. So—let me return without your life upon my conscience.” The blind man reaches into the air, not expecting Visimar to touch him, but signaling his contentment, and urging the cripple, too, to go. “And thank you again, old man, for removing our part in your torment from my shoulders, where it has weighed heavily for so long …”

All that happens next happens too quickly for the grief-stricken Arnem to comprehend fully; unable to watch Gerolf Gledgesa attempting to mount his horse on his own, he helps his comrade, while Visimar does the same for the almost weightless Weda. Father and daughter begin to walk their horses to what must be their ends in Daurawah, the city’s commander calling out as best he can to his own troops, ordering them to halt. Akillus and Niksar arrive with their determined horsemen to guard the sentek as he mounts the Ox, and to help Visimar get astride his mare. Then the ride back begins, Arnem’s face a mask, not only of terrible sorrow, but of contrition.

“I am as ashamed as I can ever remember being, old man,” Arnem says. “I pray your judgment was correct.”

“About this moment, it was, Sentek, although your shame is understandable,” Visimar replies. “But for now, you must steel yourself—bend that shame to other purposes. For, when you fully understand the injustices that lie beneath these ugly circumstances—then, Sentek, you will find answers, and true justice.” He pauses, seemingly awed by the magnitude of the task he himself has described. “Let us only hope,” he murmurs in conclusion, “that we survive to witness it …”

{
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Heldo-Bah stands before an ancient ash tree, the bark of which is so deeply wrinkled and roughly surfaced as to remind him of the dried, grey skin of a hag seeress, to whom he once traded a fine
seksent
knife for what proved to be the woman’s utterly worthless assurance that a half-marauder whore with whom he had passed a recent night near Daurawah was clean of disease, and that his chafed loins had actually been caused by riding a stolen Broken warhorse back to the Cat’s Paw. He allows his rigid body to fall into the bark of the ash’s trunk in such a way that his head strikes first: such has been the effect on his mind and spirit of an argument between Keera and Veloc that has raged since he himself ran back into their camp the day before to relate the news of his rediscovery of Caliphestros’s place of exile. Keera is convinced that she must go to meet this all-important character on her own, worrying that Veloc and Heldo-Bah will bungle the matter if they accompany her. For his part, Veloc is concerned, not only for his sister’s safety, but for her soundness of mind, as well; while Heldo-Bah has by now reached the simple hope that someone—a noble, merciful tree, if needs must—will knock him unconscious and end the wretchedness of listening to his friends debate again and again the same points.

“You have never in your life shown true respect for the tenets of the Moon, Veloc,” Keera snaps at her brother, her voice having grown hoarse. “Why, then, do you now show such sudden deference?”

“I’ve told you twenty times, sister!” Veloc protests.

“… closer to fifty …,” Heldo-Bah murmurs, quietly and uselessly, as his head slams into the trunk of the ash again.

“It is one thing to question the faith among men and women,” Veloc declares, paying Heldo-Bah no mind. “I will grant you that I have sometimes done so, often for the pure and idiotic amusement of it. But by Kafra’s rotting bunghole, Keera, when you introduce the white panther
herself
into this discussion—”

“Fool—you make my argument
for
me!” Keera shouts, her round face now blazing red. “If, in fact, we are contending with the animal who possesses the noblest and most powerful spirit in all the Wood, then she will not be fooled by your momentary airs of devotion and solemnity—indeed, she will only kill us all the more quickly, when you assume them! You may lie as you wish to the women in the towns and villages you visit, Veloc, you may even, on occasion, persuade the Groba to believe your tales; but if you think for an instant that this panther will not sense your untrue voice and words—I tell you, you must not even attempt it!”

“What, then?” Veloc demands, his own voice exhausted.

“… suicide …,” Heldo-Bah mutters, after which comes the dull thud
†
of his head striking the tree once more.

“But do you
seriously
propose that we allow you to go into that place alone, Keera?” Veloc presses once more. “It’s madness! We are faced with the greatest sorcerer ever known to the Tall—so great that he has created, in the worst part of this Wood, a garden that Heldo-Bah says has grown to rival, in beauty as well as bounty, any in the glades about Okot, or even in the Meloderna valley—”

“… far superior, in fact …” Heldo-Bah agrees, now clinging to consciousness, as well as to the ash trunk, by the barest of threads, yet unconcerned with his condition.

“—and in this miraculous place,” continues Veloc, “this place that is plainly governed by sorcerous arts of a kind at which we cannot even guess, this master of black arts lives with this—this wild
creature
! All this, I might add, only
after
he survived the
Halap-stahla
—which neither man
nor
demon has ever done! How will you stand up to such a being, I should like to know?”

“I will not, you idiot.”
Keera bitterly pushes her face close to her brother’s. “I will have no need to. Both panther and sorcerer will sense my sincerity, and deal with me fairly: such great spirits do not demean themselves with the sort of petty viciousness you describe, Veloc. And later, after I have explained to them the—the
peculiarities
exhibited by you and our touched friend, over there, who—” Glancing at the last member of their party, Keera stops shouting for a moment. “Heldo-Bah—what in the Moon’s name are you doing to yourself?”

“If death will free me from this squabble …,” Heldo-Bah says, through lips that are crushed into deep grooves of the ash tree’s bark, “Then I swear to you, I almost welcome it … Blood of the Moon, Veloc! When, tell me, please,
when
have you
ever
judged a predicament more wisely than Keera?” Seeing that Veloc has no answer, Heldo-Bah moves away from the tree at last and bellows, “And so why, in the name of all that is unholy, are we still
talking
about this?”

“Quiet, fool!” Veloc whispers. “They may hear you—if they really are but two rises away, the sound will certainly—”

“They will hear
me
, cuckolder?” Heldo-Bah interrupts. “Oh, that is a new depth of dishonesty and dim-wittedness, even for you—the pair of you have been shouting at each other throughout the night. There’s nary a creature in Davon Wood that hasn’t heard you!
Heard me
 … I
hope
the sorcerer hears me, that he may come and put an end to all this idiocy—that is, if he’s not somewhere around us right now! In fact, he likely is—indeed, he’s probably been here the entire time—” Without turning, Heldo-Bah points accusingly at the tree beneath which the three made their camp the night before: a broad, sheltering oak that stands nearby, protected by the coming together of two relatively small but sharp ridges in the slope of the mountain. “Yes—probably right in that damned tree, having himself a fine old laugh at how petty and imbecilic the Bane can be—”

Heldo-Bah stops suddenly, his arm still in the air.
“Ahhh,”
he noises, just as a man might release his final breath. “Your cursèd, endless talk, Veloc … 
Ficksel …
” The word is less a curse, on this occasion, than a statement of submission, even a kind of obscene prayer; and, blood-speckled as the upper part of his face may be, it quickly loses all inner color, while his lower jaw falls open ever wider.

“Heldo-Bah,” Keera says. “What is it—have you done yourself actual harm, you foolish—” She moves toward him, producing a small, clean kerchief, ready to mop the blood from his forehead and face. “You look as though you’ve seen a vision of your own death—”

“As I may well have,” Heldo-Bah says. “But—I
was
wrong concerning one detail. They are not in the oak.” Keeping his arm high, he points all the more urgently, now, just to the left of the oak, where, another ten feet along, stands a beautiful elm. Its delicately laced branches are markedly undamaged, for its being so high on the windswept mountain. “Death and his handmaiden—or is it the other way round? No matter, for there they are—in that elm …”

Keera and Veloc turn to follow their friend’s indication, and when they catch sight of the cause of his gaping shock, their faces and jaws, too, droop open.

Along the crotch of two long, low limbs of the elm lies a pale, glowing form, draped as one might a luxuriant white cloth upon a table, if one were expecting honored guests, or perhaps as one would bedeck an altar. But the folds of this drape are undulating: because, apparently, whatever is beneath it breathes, and the many lines of its surface are not, in fact, ripples of fabric, but the folds of powerful muscles. Toward the left extreme, two brilliant green orbs shine out, lit as if by the sun—despite the fact that the sun is not shining directly upon the spot. Finally, at each end, two long, lazy legs stretch and steady the apparition, while toward its rear, a tail flicks gently, very gently, its languorous movements speaking not of carelessness but of the near-effortless speed with which the creature itself could deliver death, if such a fancy should strike her.

Above this sight, the three foragers can just make out another form; and, once the cloud that has in fact been momentarily blocking the sun passes, this figure is clarified. Two human arms rest casually on elm branches as if they were arms of a chair, while the half-legs lie atop the haunches of the lounging creature below. Greyed hair streaked by patches of snowy white is scarcely contained by a faded black skullcap, while the long, hanging beard would seem to have been washed and combed, recently—or perhaps, given its rich fullness, even groomed with a boar-bristle brush. But the eyes, like those of the beast, catch the light of the day in such a way that they seem
not
to do so at all, but rather to radiate their own inner fire: an effect that is increased by the seeming smiles that fill the features of both forms, in the rather disconcerting manner of hungry hunters toying with their next meal.

“Let your arm drop, Bane,” the man says quietly, indicating Heldo-Bah with a nod of his chin. Then he pauses thoughtfully, contemplating his own words. “Well—that
is
odd. The first words I have spoken to another human in …” He quickly sharpens his wits and fastens his attention on the foragers once more. “Allow the wise young female among you to see to your head. You may indeed have done yourself some small injury, although I blame you not for it. It really was a most inscrutable conversation. Amusing, however …”

Keera is the first to recover herself: she thrusts the kerchief into Veloc’s hands, and says, “Get him cleaned up.” She then begins to walk, slowly and deliberately, toward the elm tree, wanting to examine the visitors but forcing herself to turn her gaze respectfully toward the ground.

“Health and long life to you,” she murmurs quietly, angry that she cannot keep her voice from trembling. “Lord Caliphestros …”

“I thank you, young Keera,” Caliphestros answers, in all sincerity and with a nod of appreciation. “Though the first of your wishes, regrettably, is no longer possible, while the second holds only limited interest for me. But why do you avert your eyes?”

“Is it not done?” Keera asks with some concern. “Upon encountering such
superior
creatures as yourselves?”

“Tetch,”
noises Caliphestros. “I am no such thing. Although I cannot offer any similar assurance, so far as my companion is concerned. She cares precious little for humans, I know that much—but as for her being entirely of this world, well … Though a man of science, I have often had my doubts. But why do you all exhibit such surprise? Certainly, it was you yourselves who, some years ago, came upon our home, after you had received the packet of documents from my friend here.”

Her body quivering with sudden realization, Keera turns to Veloc and Heldo-Bah quickly. “The letters …”

“So it
was
him,” Veloc answers quietly. “Just as you suspected, Keera.”

Heldo-Bah closes his eyes. “Thank Kafra’s golden stones and the Moon itself that we bothered to deliver the damned things …”

“I don’t understand,” Caliphestros says. “Surely, when you saw who my messenger was, and then followed her to our dwelling—”

“But we never
did
see her, my lord,” Keera replies. “We found the leather pouch in the center of our camp, when we awoke one morning. And, while it is true that we followed the tracks of a panther that we thought might be the white legend to what we supposed to be your camp, we never saw either of you. Indeed, Heldo-Bah, there—”

Heldo-Bah looks at Keera as if identifying him with her mere finger has been little short of signing his death warrant; but he feebly raises a hand and bows his head. “My lord,” he mumbles, not knowing what else
to
say.

“—he thought that the panther we had tracked had likely killed and consumed you, and that such explained why, although your camp seemed perfectly tended, we did not see any signs of life.”

“Ha!” Caliphestros laughs, plainly pleased by every aspect of this story. He looks down at the panther, who turns her head up to him and slowly closes and opens her eyes several times in deep affection, seemingly knowing that she is at least one of the causes of her companion’s merriment. The old man reaches down to scratch the top of the head that rises, atop the animal’s extending, powerful neck, to meet his fingers. “There truly is no end to this one’s cleverness …”

Bringing his hand back up, Caliphestros indicates the foragers once more. “When she returned so soon, I knew that you, or other Bane as capable as yourselves, were about, and that, being members of a curious and intrepid race, you would not be able to resist at least an attempt to find the lair of what you might well think to be the fabled white panther of Davon Wood, whose tracks would have been near the pouch when you discovered it. And so, we withdrew into our cave, and left you to wonder at all the mysterious circumstances you had encountered. And, let me only say that I owe you great gratitude, for had you not so decently taken the pouch to my acolytes, I could not have survived these many years.”

Heldo-Bah thrusts an elbow into Veloc’s side. “There, you see? I told you, did I not, that delivering those things without informing the Groba would be both profitable and decent, just as he says?”

Returning his friend’s sharp blow in kind, Veloc whispers, “Save that the word ‘decent’ never crossed your lying lips!”

Caliphestros sees Keera lift her head for but an instant to steal a peek at the panther, then lower her eyes again in deference; and the old man nods in true appreciation, which is augmented when he hears that Stasi has begun to purr. “It would seem that my companion also recognizes her debt to you: she has remembered your scent, and particularly wishes
you
to feel at your ease, Keera—you should feel honored, for she not only does not trust humans, as a rule, but nearly always sets out to kill any with whom she crosses paths.”