The Wanderer's Tale (12 page)

It was not much, but to get past the Skela, of course, it could not be much. Dreams and visions could be misread, often with disastrous consequences, even by one such as Wodeman, who had dealt in them all his life. But it was all they had, and that just might be enough to tip the balance . . .

Wodeman the wolf-man, Wodeman the Torca, Wodeman the Dream-Sorcerer, was to accompany this poor, confused traveller on his quest – and through his servant Erce would pass on to the man his moon-knowledge.

Wodeman leapt high in the air, like an insane frog, in a sudden burst of energy. Armed only with his Spirit’s dreams, he was to be the guardian of the entire world of Lindormyn.

Not wanting to waste any time, he set off immediately for Wintus Hall. He bounded through the trees, chattering excitedly to himself, running as swiftly as a deer. On crude sheepskin boots he made hardly a sound, and his wolfskin flapped behind him with a wildness that was mirrored in his eyes. Before long he had left behind the sanctuary of the wood and relinquished its dark whispering depths to all those that dwelt in it.

And watching him go, its black, emotionless eyes blinking in the sunlight, was the raven perched high on a branch, a sprig of hazel in its beak.

T
HERE WAS STILL MUCH
open country between Wodeman and the town. A dirt track raised high on an ancient dyke ran through rolling meadows of rich green grass thick with wild flowers; on and on until open pasture became fields protected by hedgerows blossoming with the fresh light hues of late spring. Fields gave way to livestock enclosures, then a muddy cattle-market, and finally the untidy, smoky straggle of wattle-and-daub hovels that huddled against the stockade wall. Beyond this protective barrier awaited the pungent and colourful streets of the town proper, Nordwas itself.

Pungent was how the few cultured visitors described this frontier town. And it was as if, during the last couple of weeks, it had positively embraced this reputation, growing more pungent with each passing day as more and more travellers arrived.

This always happened when word of the Peladanes’ latest campaign got out. The town would fill up with all sorts: mercenaries and merchants, actors and acrobats, artisans and partisans, souvenir-sellers, storytellers, oracles and seers, purveyors of beers, dodgy puppeteers, slavers and freemen, jongleurs and gleemen; freaks, quacks, tregetours and preachers, bear-wards and showmen with all sorts of creatures . . .

And any other sort of money-maker one could think of. The town would become gripped by a kind of gold-rush excitement that was self-propagating and very hard not to get caught up in. Wherever one went one would encounter ordinarily decent and shrewd townsfolk walking around with that faintly glazed look of the terminally beguiled, pink of face and open of mouth, desperately trying to sell anything from a chair leg to their grandmother, then tearing around trying to spend their newly acquired coppers on the sort of things too worthless even for a Yuletide cracker.

Here in Nordwas every kind of currency became legal tender, everything from zlats to zibelines and all in between. There were other coins, of course, which were essentially thin off-cuts of the embossed copper, silver or gold cylinders used elsewhere in Lindormyn, but these were rare in such northerly parts. Here, being more practically inclined, the folk of Nordwas preferred zlats: squares of copper or silver or gold cut from a single large sheet: much easier to make, and no waste. Merchants from far countries would bring rare stones of enormous value, but in this region sardonyx, topaz and amethyst were still preferred as currency, being more abundant in the local geology, and their value easier to gauge.

But perhaps the most unusual form of currency in Nordwas was the zibeline. Made from the fine but tough leather of the sable, these ‘bills’ were branded with an ornate crest that was difficult to counterfeit, and the higher denominations were even signed by all six officers of the mint. In Lower Kettle Bazaar today, the zibelines were passing from hand to hand so quickly one might be forgiven for thinking they were red-hot embers.

The smells of badly cooked meat and onions, and the stupefying array of unknown spices; the braying of pack animals, the clanging of hammer on iron, the shrill histrionics of the medicine vendors, the shrieking laughter of the children watching puppet shows, and everywhere a dizzying furore of voices, music, chimes, rattles, whistles and any other means of attracting customers’ attention, all of this drifted up from Lower Kettle Bazaar, up, up and up, and in through the ivy-grown window of the little room at the top of the tower at Wintus Hall.

And was completely ignored by the man who lodged within.

Bolldhe lay upon the bed, staring up at the ceiling. It was not that he was tired, but this was what he always preferred when he found himself in the temporary haven of civilization. It was impossible to recall all the towns and settlements he had visited in his eighteen long years of travelling around the world. But whenever he arrived in such a place, and allowed himself the luxury of a cheap boarding house, he would lie on his bed for several hours, making the most of whatever privacy was afforded him and staring up at the ceiling.

One hand idly picked at the notches along the haft of his broadaxe as he thought back over time. Exactly how many ceilings he had stared up at these past eighteen years, Bolldhe did not care to contemplate. But each time he did so, he was reminded of past ceilings, past beds, past hostelries . . . Past towns, past realms, past
continents
. Pel-Adan’s holy self, he must have stared up at more ceilings than . . . well, how depressing.

Most of Bolldhe’s nights were spent sleeping rough, which he had long since grown used to. On backstreets that smelt of rubbish and sour milk; in filthy cattle byres; in wet, leafy hop fields; on crowded decks of river-boats; in cemeteries and refuse tips that stank of rotting carcasses; on needle-covered forest floors; high in the trees of rank, mosquito-infested jungles; in the deep cool sands of sighing deserts; on horse-wagons jolting their way through the night; upon precarious rock ledges; in ruined temples; under stone bridges – he sought anywhere in fact where he could avoid the relentless, merciless attention of curious but unwelcoming people.

Those were the worst thing he had to face. Rain, though dismal, he had little problem with after all this time on the road. Night-borne insects, though annoying, he could put up with. Even the danger of predators he could sleep through. But people, they were something else again: ‘Eh, mister! Where from? Why here? What want? Bed? Guide? Weed? Other men here not good, but I from mountains – I honest. Eh friend! Where go? Why not talk? Why you like this? Yeah, well, to hell with you, then!’

Always prying, pestering, grinning, fawning, trotting out the same old lines, same old lies, same old tricks; hanging around seaports, ferry docks, horse-dealers’, lounging about trying to make a fast one; thieves, guides, creeps, black-marketeers, cultists, never leaving him alone, following him, asking, asking, asking, until he thought he would go
mad
. . .

Faces staring, teeth grinning, beggars begging; surly looks, sidelong glances, blades loosed in their scabbards, furtive hands beneath cloaks with knuckles whitening around hilts. Bolldhe seethed in silent bitterness, still staring at the ceiling, his body stiff with remembered injustices. Sometimes he would carry on right through such a town and not stop till he had left it and its diminishing ranks of inquisitive inhabitants behind him, denying himself the temporary surcease from hunger and hardship that such a place could offer. Anything rather than face that leering throng.

Why could they not just all shove off and leave him alone?

In his more paranoid moments he would allow himself to believe that they were punishing him on purpose because they were jealous of his freedom. But deep down he knew it was a hard, merciless world, and those who dwelt in it had to be just as hard and merciless. He was no different himself.

Sometimes he would become so ill he did not even have the strength to be angry – and he would be pushed to his very limits just to stay alive.

‘Why do I carry on?’ he suddenly blurted out from his bed, only now realizing how he had been muttering to himself all this time.

It was not even as if he enjoyed the travelling. After just a year or so of it, he had found that one place – no matter how exotic – began to look much the same as any other. Once you’ve seen one mountain or desert, you’ve seen them all. The lure and romance of the road he had felt so strongly as a boy, living at home with his mother in far-off Moel-Bryn, had long since vanished. And the freedom he had craved all those long years ago now felt more like a cage than his dull little boyhood home had ever done.

At least in those days he could still dream . . .

Bolldhe turned onto his side and his eyes fell on the cloth pouch he used to keep his charms and baubles in. And that was another thing, he reflected bitterly; it was not even as if all his travels amounted to anything. What had he achieved in all these years? That little purple and blue bag contained almost the sum total of his years on the road. Trinkets of little intrinsic value, ones that had simply caught his eye here and there in some bazaar. Shiny, quirky, dangly novelties he had taken a fancy to. Nothing more to show for a lifetime of great adventure.

He let out a long sigh. Many a time he had been tempted to give it all up and settle down to a normal life. But he had never found anywhere in all his wanderings that really appealed to him; not one single place with enough attraction to keep him from the endless road that ever beckoned him, leading out the other side of town. The open road he hated but could not relinquish.

‘Not one place,’ he reflected, ‘and not one . . .’

He broke off the sentence, but could not so easily break off the thought:
Not one place, not one person
. There, he had admitted it.

Bolldhe knew he possessed unique qualities; his self-reliance and fierce independence could not be equalled. But for all his uniqueness, he still lacked many of the attributes that would make him more ‘human’. For one, he lacked the basic capacity to love. It simply was not there and, whether it ever had been, in his youth perhaps, he was unsure. But if it had, he had somehow been cut off from that warm sun of affection at such an early stage in his emotional growth that the seeds of love had simply withered.

Bolldhe might occasionally tell himself that it was his travelling lifestyle that denied him the opportunity of finding that special person who might give him peace, but it was not just that. He reached over to the pack he always kept close at hand, and drew out a small mirror made from glass laid over a square of highly polished silver. In its perfect surface he now studied his not-so-perfect visage. True, he had never been a looker by anyone’s standards.

There had been moments in his earlier travels when he had found some kind of friendship. While travelling over vast stretches of uninhabited desert or steppe, he had been forced to team up with others, usually merchants or drovers with their accompanying guards, who were undertaking year-long journeys along the overland trade routes with hundreds of camels, horses and bison. At first he would remain aloof, for he was Bolldhe the Wanderer and knew more than they did about travelling. But as the journey progressed there would invariably be times when everyone, including himself, would have to pull together – call it teamwork if not friendship. It did at least free him from the shackles of his loneliness for a while, and allow him once again to feel the thrill of adventure, to enjoy the sun and wind on his face, to enjoy in company the romance of watching the pinky-orange sun go down over some strange, exotic horizon.

Though he could never admit it, those were the best times he had ever known. But for the rest of the time he was like a ghost drifting amongst humanity but unable to join in. Like an outside observer at some festival or wedding, he could only watch and listen, knowing it was nothing to do with him.

‘Loneliness,’ he pronounced aloud, ‘the Great Soul-Eater.’

A sudden knock at the door aroused Bolldhe from his daydreaming. Irritated at this invasion of privacy, he swung his legs to the floor, walked briskly to the door and yanked it open.

‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said. ‘What you want?’

Finwald, taken aback both by Bolldhe’s unfamiliar accent and his brevity, replied, ‘I just wondered if I could have a word. It won’t take long.’

Bolldhe sighed. ‘We already are,’ he said. He could still do with more time to sort out his thoughts on his permanent loneliness; the last thing he needed right now was company.

‘I have to talk with you,’ his unwanted guest persisted.

Bolldhe held the door open for him, and let him make his way to a seat.

‘Well, what is it you want to say to me?’

Finwald realized that small talk was not the order of the day here, so he cleared his throat and began.

‘I know there exists a great difference of opinion on how to slay the Rawgr, so I don’t want to go over the same ground again.’