The Wanderer's Tale (14 page)

‘Oh, it’s you, Tommas . . .’ He quickly fumbled the amulet back into its hiding place beneath his robe, then Appa glanced around.

The temple was so quiet, dark and cold. As if seeing them for the first time, he took in the great wooden columns supporting the lofty roof, the bulrush-strewn flagstones, the simple altar bedecked with a clutter of cobweb-hung icons and artefacts and the untidy ranks of ewe’s butter candles that glimmered palely. For a moment, the familiarity of this sanctuary in which he had prayed so frequently over the years was gone. It felt as if he were in another world altogether.

‘Whatever is the time, Tommas?’ he muttered. ‘I must have been here for hours.’

‘It’s only two hours after midday,’ Tommas replied, studying the ancient mage-priest’s face with uncertain interest, though unwilling to be drawn into a lengthy conversation with him.

‘Oh, right . . . What’s that you said before?’ Appa asked.

‘Someone to see you,’ Tommas repeated. ‘A man is waiting outside.’

Despite his confused state of mind, Appa was still sharp enough to notice a hint of awkwardness in the voice of his brother-in-faith.

‘Someone to see me?’ he asked, perplexed. ‘Why didn’t you bring him in, then?’

‘He refuses to enter the temple, Appa. It’s Wodeman.’

‘Wodeman? To see
me
? Whatever for?’

‘He . . . would not say. He just told me to fetch you. He seemed a little agitated.’

‘That’s strange. I wonder what he wants me for. Well, you’d better tell him I’ll be out in a minute. Thank you . . . er, Tommas.’

The Lightbearer was already making a rapid exit as Appa straightened his robe, then followed.

Wodeman?
he thought.
What’s going on here?

Though a distinctive figure and well known about in the town, the Torca was rarely seen in Nordwas itself. He would occasionally put in an unexpected appearance on some business of his own said to involve hidden mysteries, and which invariably concluded with a lengthy ale-drinking session at The Chase. But for the most part he appeared to spend his time wandering about in the woods outside.

Appa did not need to wonder why his visitor would not enter the temple. As a ‘priest’ of that pagan nature-cult that embodied all the local superstitions and fears that Cunaism had tried to erase, Wodeman would not even consider entering the sacred house of Cuna, a god whom the old sorcerer inevitably considered to be a knife in the back of the old ways.

As Appa approached the open doorway of the temple, he could see Wodeman waiting for him as a black silhouette against the bright daylight outside. With that great, bristling wolfskin around his broad shoulders, the sorcerer appeared more like a were-creature than a man. Appa shuddered inside his own fleece-hemmed cloak and, despite his contempt for the old religion, he could not suppress a shiver that crept up his spine.

He stepped out into the daylight, leaving the door open behind him. The first thing Appa noticed was the smell of the man: it was worse than cattle’s business. Beneath the wolfskin he wore a filthy tunic of some unidentifiable animal skin which fell almost to his knees; it was tied around his waist with a length of hemp rope that was hung with an assortment of bone amulets. For Appa it was quite hard to discern where the garments stopped and the man began.

Their eyes met: the beady, watery eyes of the cleric, blurred by temple darkness and smoke, and the sharp, feral eyes of the man-of-the-woods. Both priests regarded each other in silence, the defiance and hostility of their bearing tempered only by mutual curiosity.

‘The f-first time we have met, I believe,’ Appa began, unsure how to address the sorcerer.

Wodeman stared back at his rival and wondered how these pathetic grey little men could possibly have won over the hearts and minds of the stalwart people of the North. He sighed deeply, a curiously sad note of inevitability lingering on his breath.

‘Greetings, southerner,’ he replied at last. ‘I am the medium of the Earth-Spirit in these parts. My name is hidden – my real name, at least – but you may call me Wodeman. No doubt you’ll have heard of me by many other names, too.’

‘Oh, indeed.’ Appa laughed uncertainly, remembering some of the less than complimentary ones invented by the townsfolk.

Wodeman did not share his mirth, and Appa cleared his throat.

‘So, Wodeman, what can I do for you?’

‘You seem, southerner, to assume that I would only come to you if I needed your help,’ Wodeman replied. ‘On the contrary, I am here to help
you
.’

‘Really,’ Appa replied doubtfully.

‘I have read the runes—’ Wodeman began, only to be cut short by the cleric.

‘Ah, no thank you, no rune-reading here today, thank you very much. Perhaps you might try next door.’

‘Priest!’ Wodeman growled. ‘I come to offer my help. I ask for nothing in return.’

‘Sorry,’ Appa condescended. ‘Please continue.’

‘Earlier today,’ Wodeman began, ‘I received a message from my god, a message . . . What are you staring at?’

Appa’s eyes snapped back up to meet those of the shaman.

‘Sorry,’ he said awkwardly. ‘Do go on.’ In truth he had been peering at the man’s ankles, trying to see through the gaps in his thong-bound leggings in order to find out if it really was true that the Torca shamans’ feet were furry and clawed.

‘A message,’ Wodeman continued, ‘that instructed me to go and seek out the man whom I now know to be called Bolldhe.’

‘Bolldhe?’ repeated Appa suspiciously. ‘What have
you
got to do with Bolldhe?’

Wodeman grinned. ‘A great deal, it would seem. In this instruction I was told how, during the next few weeks, this man is to become the decider of all that will befall. How he shall embark upon a quest that will determine the fate of the whole world.’

Appa relaxed a little.
The little tinker!
he thought.
Probably overheard one of those mercenaries bragging about the quest in some tavern, and now he’s trying to cash in.
But all he actually said was, ‘This is common knowledge.’

‘Indeed,’ Wodeman continued, ‘but as I was saying to Bolldhe himself earlier today—’

‘You’ve been to see Bolldhe?’ Appa snapped, his bulging eyes and jutting jaw making him look more terrier-like than ever. ‘What gives you the right to go interfering in matters that don’t concern you?’

‘Don’t
concern
me?’ Wodeman burst out. ‘The fate of the world does not concern me?
Of all the arrogance . . .
It concerns us all, cleric, not only those who hunger for power.’

‘I don’t know what you mean!’

‘No, you don’t, do you? There’s a great deal you don’t know. Perhaps if you left your stony barrows now and then . . .’ Wodeman sneered. Then a curious look narrowed his eyes, and he craned his neck, trying to see around Appa and into the temple.

‘What is it you do in these places, anyway?’ he asked, genuine curiosity in his voice. ‘Is this where you breed your moths?’

‘Moths?’ replied Appa. ‘I breed only sheep, but certainly not in here.’

‘My ex-wife told me you breed moths,’ the shaman affirmed.

Appa shifted uncomfortably, smoothing down his holey robes. ‘Well – not intentionally,’ he answered.

Wodeman shrugged, and went back to the conversation. ‘I don’t suppose you know about the Skela, do you?’

Appa paused. ‘Skela?’ he echoed, and thought:
So, the Skela, is it? This forest person could have his uses after all . . .

Wodeman chuckled. ‘Indeed. I have read the runes; it is the Skela that are denying Bolldhe the knowledge he needs.’

‘And this knowledge?’ Appa pried, hardly daring to hope, yet trembling with anticipation nonetheless.

‘Don’t know for sure yet, sorry, but we will. So, you see, I have been delegated to be Bolldhe’s . . . guide and companion. I shall be the Giver of Dreams to him and, as the journey progresses and we near our goal, that which he seeks will be revealed to him through
me
.’

‘Now, wait, hold on a minute! Let me get this straight . . . are you seriously suggesting that
you
are to be his counsellor?
You?
’

‘Not counsellor – but his dream-giver.’

Appa laughed openly. ‘Absolutely not! Do you honestly think I’m going to let the superstitious lies of your hedge-cult poison Bolldhe’s mind? Pervert him from the one true path that is our only hope? It is in
me
, if anyone, that he will find guidance.’

Wodeman’s eyes suddenly flared with cold green malice. Appa backed away, afraid now, and his hand unconsciously groped for the reassuring iron handle of the temple door behind him. The wolfman’s eyes bore into his, and he saw in them a challenge, the challenge of a forest-creature whose right of territory has been violated.

And in Appa’s own eyes, there was a vague hint of guilt; for the first time in his life, he began to understand the primeval instinct of this strange pagan cult which had been dealt a near-fatal blow by the arrival of foreign religions such as he represented.

‘Sorry,’ he managed. ‘Do go on.’

Wodeman grunted. ‘As I said, I’m offering my help. Remember, you are heading up into lands you know little of, the ancient lands of my forefathers as we are told.
Wild
lands where a man such as me would be invaluable. Also, I ask for no payment, nor any reward; only the chance to accompany you. I have already seen Bolldhe about this, and the Peladane Wintus – and they have no objection. All I need now is the consent of at least one of the Lightbearers in the party.’

Appa was carefully turning over the possibilities in his head.
Dream-giver, eh?
Maybe he ought to take the risk. If Wodeman had any way of securing information that he himself was not privy to, that could only work to his eventual advantage.

Despite Wodeman’s aggressive tone, Appa realized how galling it must be for the sorcerer to humble himself thus to an invader. He had shown great strength in this, and it was Appa’s turn to do likewise.

He was also increasingly aware of Wodeman’s potential usefulness.

‘Well,’ he said tentatively, ‘As long as you don’t mind the company of us southerners, I suppose you could tag along.’

As he returned to re-enter the temple, he added, ‘We leave in three days.’

Cheers of proud jubilation and approval almost drowned out the complex vocal melodies and subtle, intertwining harmonies of lyre and flute, as from the dais the troubadours sang their lays of triumph to the enthusiastic Peladanes gathered in Wintus Hall.

The air was rank with smoke that hung in dirty brown clouds above the head of each man there, sweet and vinegary with the reek of the spilled ale that stiffened the rugs on the floor. Mead flowed freely down the gullets and chins of the ‘Defenders of Virtue’. Servant-girls bounced gaily upon the laps of those ‘Gallants of Goodness, Protectors of Probity, and Warriors of Worth, ev’ry one, ev’ry one . . .’ Heroes from the illustrious past of Pel-Adan glared from woodcut and arras, down upon the present generation of his Holy Knights; and one could only speculate what they might have thought of the scene below.

‘Boy!’ Bhormann bawled, his face red with passionate self-indulgence as he berated the esquire. ‘Your master’s cup runneth dry. What d’you think he pays you for?’

Gapp Radnar’s lips thinned in indignation, but he dutifully served up the beverage demanded, and Nibulus slapped him hard on the shoulder by way of thanks.

How Gapp longed for the off. He had been counting down the days, hours and minutes to their departure ever since he had been informed he was to accompany his master on this noble quest, so he was now almost hopping from one leg to the other in ill-suppressed impatience. He had no problem with his master, but he just could not stand his friends. On a clear sunny day like this he would much rather have been in the company of his own friends, joining in their near-obsessive pastime of stone-skimming. Gapp
loved
stone-skimming.

‘Now, Gwyllch,’ Bhormann spluttered between mouthfuls, ‘there’s a man you could do with on your quest.’

Yes, right
, Gapp thought as he resumed his place standing behind his master,
only one problem there: he’s been dead for five hundred years. Mind you, even dead he’d be more use than you, you sweaty tub of lard.

‘But we’ve got him,’ Nibulus informed his crony, ‘at least in spirit. I’m taking along
The Chronicle of Gwyllch
as our guide. It contains lots of useful tips on the terrain between here and there, and it’ll provide good storytelling for the civilians amongst us, too.’

‘Why not just bring along these troubadours?’ Stufi pushed in, ‘They know those lays word for word, and have better voices than you.’

Nibulus became suddenly serious and perhaps slightly pompous amid the revelry. ‘We do not pay for the services of mere minstrels upon our holy errantry.’

Gapp reflected on what Finwald had told him the previous day. ‘If you would learn about Peladanes,’ he had complained, after the treatment he had received at the council, ‘you have only to look at the stalwarts of Wintus Hall. They are given, and fully embrace, a whole set of rules on what is right and what is wrong, but above all else, how to criticize others, how to see fault in everyone and anyone. Their world is submerged in ten thousand petty, picky censures of the common man, yet they have not the slightest ability to recognize their own transgressions of the laws they so fervently preach at all around them. They are for the most part fat, drunken and immoral, but for them these are failings found among civilians rather than themselves. The trouble is, it would never,
could
never, even occur to them that their rules might actually apply to themselves too. It’s as if each Peladane considers himself to be the hub of the universe, so the rest of the world are a mere corollary of “Not-Me” that surrounds them and follows them dutifully wherever they go. They are the centre of all things, and anything else in the world only pops into existence whenever they encounter it.’