The Pleasure of Memory (48 page)

“I tell you this to ask you a question,” the Vaemyn said as if reading his mind.

“Well, it’s a hell of a long way around a question.”

The Vaemyn leaned forward and re-planted his elbows on his knees. His white hair cascaded down past his shoulders and poured over his thighs. “The question is this,” he said, looking up at Beam, “This new life form, this conglomeration of animal and plant, of beech and pig. What is it now? Is this melded life form now a pig? Or is it still a tree?”

The question disappointed Beam. It was obviously a trick; there was no right answer. “You’re joking,” he said.

“Is this new life form a beech or a pig, Be’ahm?”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Stop calling you by your name?” The Vaemyn smiled impishly.

“Stop calling me by that name.”

“Oh, I see. You prefer the Parhronii version of your name, do you?”

“I do.”

“Very well. Which is it, Be’ahm?”

Beam slapped his thigh. “Goddamn you, I told you to stop calling—”

“Which is it, my dear boy? A beech or a pig? A pig or a beech?”

“It’s...damn me, I don’t know. It’s both, I expect.”

The Vaemyn pounded the armrests and threw his arms wide, shouting joyously, “Precisely right! You’re exactly and perfectly right! It is indeed both!”

Beam didn’t know how to react. The Vaemyn was laughing as if he’d found the pearl in the heart of an oyster, but Beam still couldn’t fathom the point. Despite his victory, he disliked being the object of amusement, benevolent or not.

“I’ll ask you again,” he said carefully, “Why are you telling me this?”

The Vaemyn leaned back in the chair. He was still laughing. “I give you this image to help you understand, to give you insight.”

Beam suddenly found himself sitting in the great chair. He bristled in surprise, seizing the armrests for support. The chair was as cold as ice, or maybe it was the disorientation of suddenly finding himself sitting in it. The Vaemyn now stood where he’d just been, immediately in front of the bench.

“How in the hell did you do that?” Beam asked.

“I am the beech, Be’ahm. You are the pig.”

“What?”

“You give me sentience and I give you immortality. I will give your life the purpose you’ve so desperately sought. I will guide you to your destiny.”

“Damn me if you’re not just insulting me now.” Beam wanted to stand up, but couldn’t make it happen. His heart was working so hard he felt dizzy. “I...I need to go. I have to get out of the tunnels! Chance needs me.”

The warrior stepped up to the chair and braced himself on the armrests, leaning down so that he was face to face with Beam. “Chance is safe,” he whispered, “And you have so very much to learn.”

“No!” Beam suddenly broke free of the chair, shoving his way up and past the warrior. He leapt over the steps and landed on the polished floor. “I have to get the hell out of here!”

When he looked back, the Vaemyn was exactly as Beam had first seen him, sitting cockeyed in the chair with a leg hanging over the armrest, elbow on knee, and chin in hand. Was this a dream within a dream? Had he been really sitting in that chair listening to the warrior’s story? Maybe he’d never been standing at all until now.

He felt an overpowering urge to run, to get far away from this madness, but he didn’t know which way to go. “I have to leave,” he again told the Vaemyn.

“Of course you do.”

“I mean now!” Beam yelled, “I have to leave! Now!”

“I know you do,” the Vaemyn said, laughing.

“I don’t want this! I want out of here! I want to leave!”

“Then that is exactly what you should do. You’ll stay when you’re ready.”

Beam studied the room. The crystal walls were melting, disintegrating into silvery, smoky vapor. “I…I don’t know how,” he said, looking back at the Vaemyn, “I don’t know where to go!”

The Vaemyn smiled wistfully and then waved his hand as casually as dismissing a servant. “It’s really most simple, Be’ahm. You merely wake up. Wake up and walk toward the sun.”

Someone nearby was groaning.

Beam looked up into the morning sun rising dramatically before him, an engorged red disk slowly levitating into the heavens. He tried to walk toward it, but couldn’t will himself move.

There it was again! Someone groaning. It was so close. Was it Chance? Was he hurt? He couldn’t open his eyes. He felt a sharp sting on his face. Then another, harder this time.

He awoke to find Chance’s face nearly nose-to-nose with his own. He rolled his head to the side and looked around. He felt confused, uncertain. It was dark. The walls were coarse and dirty. A stack of ugly Baeldons glared at him from across the corridor.

The tunnels. They were still in the bloody tunnels.

He rolled his face back to find Chance still hovering too close to him.

“What the hell are you doing?” he whispered to the man, “Maybe you wouldn’t mind giving me a little air.” His voice felt thick and coarse.

“Your nose is bleeding.”

“Bleeding?” Beam wiped a sleeve across his nose. The leather came away with a dark streak. “What the hell is this?” He looked at the Caeyllth Blade lying across his lap. His palm was covering the warm stone. When he pulled it away, the caeyl was dimly glowing. He looked over at Chance. “What’s going on? Is it my watch already?”

“Already?”

“What? I took the first watch, remember?”

“No,” Chance replied, “I don’t believe you did.”

Beam tried to process the words. He couldn’t remember waking the mage for his watch. Had he actually fallen asleep?

“You were buried in the light of the sword again this morning,” Chance said.

Beam wiped the sweaty locks back from his face. He remembered watching Chance make up his bed, remembered they argued. After that, there was nothing.

Chance leaned into him again, this time with the torch held up beside him. “You look like hell,” he said as he inspected Beam.

Beam pushed the arm and greenish flame away. “Thanks,” he said, “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

Beam dragged a hand across his nose. Fresh blood glistened against his knuckle. “I can’t believe I fell asleep,” he said as he inspected the dark smear.

“Well, perhaps you didn’t. I mean, perhaps you hadn’t a choice.” Chance held up a flask. “Here’s the elixir. I believe you should take a sip.”

Beam pushed it away and let his head drift back against the stone. “I don’t want any,” he said, closing his eyes.

“You haven’t taken any in some time. You don’t want—”

“I said no!”

Chance flinched. Then he re-corked the vial. “Suit yourself,” he whispered as he withdrew.

Beam thought about the dream. He thought of Dael and the Vaemyn, thought of the strange story about pigs and beeches, and he suddenly felt afraid. The dream lingered in the back of his mind like a memory of darker times that won’t set you free.

As he struggled to distance himself from the lingering angst of the memory, he closed his eyes and thought about the feeling of the sun on his face, and the wind and the rain on his back. He needed something familiar, something to ground him, something to wash away this sense of impending doom.

“Are you all right?” Chance asked.

“Damn me, no,” Beam said without opening his eyes, “I don’t think I’ll ever be all right again.”

XXIV

THE SWAMP

OONTA TRUDGED SLOWLY THROUGH THIGH-DEEP WATER.

The swamp water was thick and as hot as fresh blood. The reek of rot and decay hung so heavily over this place that the simple act of breathing was nearly unbearable. Dense emerald algae wholly covered the surface of the water, making every step forward an exercise in hope. Beneath the algae, the water was the color of rust, and was nearly opaque.

More than once, she’d nearly lost a boot to the powerful suction of the sludge festering deep below the surface, an event she found fully terrifying. The thought of walking through this putrid water without her boots was nearly more than she could bear.

Scattered relics of trees haunted the nightmarish vista, their skeletal forms twisted and disfigured, their failing branches laden with clumps of gray moss that dangled over the stagnant water like great cobwebs. Dead and dying vines bound their insect ravaged trunks like chained prisoners being dragged slowly down to their cells.

The sun was already settling behind the murky brown gases of the swamp. Dark clouds were rolling in from the northwest. Night was coming on fast and with it the disagreeable possibility of rain.

They waded to the rhythm of slapping flesh as the warriors fought off the hordes of biting, sucking insects provided for their discomfort. The splash of some unseen creature escaping into the water periodically fractured the silence, and the yelp of the nearest warrior invariably punctuated the sound. Only six other warriors were selected to make this unsavory journey to the hatchway in Sken te’Fau, and she knew none considered themselves lucky for the honor. The rest she sent east around the swamp to the remaining hatches near the mountains of their enemy, the Baeldons.

She’d only sent those eastbound warriors out as a formality. She was confident the fugitives would surface here in the swamp. The mage needed to send word to the Allies as soon as possible, and Boardtown was the closest outpost. It was exactly what she’d do were she in his place. She was also certain the mage would capitalize on her people’s cultural fear of this loathsome swamp. He’d be a fool not to, and despite what other Vaemyn thought, she understood full well that he was no fool.

Now, as the sun quickly deserted them, she harbored doubts about her plan. The hatch was probably still hours away, and they were likely to be the worst hours she could imagine. They’d be walking by torchlight through a quagmire of unseen dangers, wading through this fetid nightmare in a state of utter terror. The swamp was nearly unbearable in daylight; she didn’t even want to imagine what it’d be like at night.

This place was legend among her people. The swamp was said to be the result of a leak in the earth, an unholy rift leading to the very gates of the Wyr Realm. The rusty water beneath the algae was said to be the blood of the earth herself.

It was believed by many that the spirits of those who died tragically and unexpectedly were drawn to this wretched place in their confusion. They were cursed to wander these waters until such a time as those who knew them in life bought them passage to the Cities of Pentyrfal, whether through mortal acts of contrition, extraordinary heroism, or simple kindness. It was said if their memories were lost to time as all who knew them in life died away, their ethereal link to this swamp would be severed, that their souls would be drawn through the portal beneath the swamp and into the Wyr, damned for all time.

She had her doubts regarding the veracity of such claims. She simply could not believe that her goddess, a virtuous and benevolent goddess, would allow such a place to exist, a place of eternal suffering delivered to those whose only crime was the simple misfortune of suffering a tragic death. It was a tough nut to chew.

Still, she prayed daily that Pa’ana wasn’t lost here, wandering through his quagmire in search of a path home.

“Kad’r! Over there, the hatch!”

Koonta nearly jumped out of her skin.

Mawby sloshed forward along the line of warriors, slapping the head of the offending warrior as he passed. When he reached Koonta’ar, he pointed off to the east, saying, “There it is, Kad’r.”

At first, she couldn’t see anything but a haze of brown gas flamed brighter by the settling sun. Then an unnatural knoll materialized above the waterline like the hunched back of a drowned beast. It was the first sign of dry land they’d seen since late morning.

“This isn’t right,” she whispered to Mawby, “It should be another two hours north.”

“Ay’a, I thought the same. But those old maps...well, who knows how accurate they are, jh’ven?”

“My gods, what if we’d missed it completely?” she said as she studied the hill, “We could’ve wandered this damned hellhole until—”

“We didn’t miss it, Koo.”

Koonta looked up at him. Even through the beads of sweat and flecks of algae scattered along his jawline, his face was so assuring, so wonderfully positive, it was all she could do to contain the urge to laugh. “You’re right, Maw,” she said, “You’re right. We didn’t miss it.”

“And thank the gods for it. It promised to be a long night.”

Someone was splashing through the water behind her. They turned back in tandem. Maeryc had broken rank and was already wading toward the hatch, and he was doing so in a hurry.

Koonta couldn’t believe it. “Maeryc!” she called.

Maeryc kept jogging toward the hatch with his arms flailing for balance, though the water and muck dragged his flight down to little more than a frantic, sloppy walk.

“Maeryc!” she called again, “Halt!”

Her brother staggered to a stop, nearly falling as he did. Flecks of green algae spattered the back of his head and arms. The nearly solid green surface of the water quickly settled around him. He didn’t turn around.

“It begins,” Mawby whispered behind her.

Koonta didn’t take her eyes from Maeryc, but only nodded. Then she started wading toward her brother. She could hear Mawby following. When she splashed to a stop beside him, Maeryc still didn’t turn to face her. His blatant defiance made her angry enough to spit.

“Maeryc!” she said, “Just what the devil are you doing?”

Maeryc didn’t turn. He was panting harder than he should have been.