The Wanderer's Tale (59 page)

It felt so good to recline upon clean furs, to be free from clinging dirt, and to be back with his own kind – and, moreover, one of the company – again. He looked about himself through drowsy eyes.

A single, sard-flamed oil-lamp sat on the floor planking, and sent up its thread-line of herbal smoke to curl amongst the sprigs of dried grasses and ericaceous flowers that hung from the crossbeam above. The ocean of trees moaned far below, and a soft wind sighed through the gently creaking frame of the hut. Methuselech was leaning on the railing of the veranda, either gazing out over the lands below or staring up at the stars. The light of the full moon bathed the whole room in a clean white light, laved the visage of the mercenary in a wash of death-white and struck sharp shadows that shrouded his eyes.

Come to think of it, Gapp considered, here he felt as safe as he had even in the loft of his family’s house. Safer, perhaps, for he did not believe the desert-warrior would get up in the middle of the night and sprinkle him with urine or put stag beetles in his socks, as his brothers often did. He looked up at his companion and studied him.

‘Xilva,’ he said eventually, stifling a yawn, ‘you still haven’t told me anything about the others – why are you here on your own?’

Methuselech was still gazing out at the stars above. He turned away from the balcony and sat down cross-legged upon his sleeping pad, but remained silent.

‘In fact,’ Gapp persisted, ‘how are you even here at all? We thought you’d died back there, in that –
what did Paulus call it?
– that Sluagh place or something. That sound, that scream, and the awful—’

‘I won’t talk about it.’

Gapp stared at the man in surprise. Methuselech’s voice sounded so strange all of a sudden; muted somehow, or veiled, in a way that passed a cloud over Gapp’s soul, though he did not know why. Old Xilva had certainly changed, that was for sure.

But he had to know. ‘Xilva – what
happened
back there?’

‘Are you deaf?’ Methuselech cried out shrilly, ‘I said I won’t talk about it, d’you hear? How
dare
you?’

His voice stung Gapp like an acid whiplash of vituperation, and the boy instantly lowered his eyes. He had overstepped the mark, forgotten his rank. But, beneath his shame, Gapp also shuddered, for he recognized something in his companion’s voice that had never been there before:
hysteria
. It was a tone he had heard previously among certain war veterans of the Wintus household. Nibulus had referred to such individuals as ‘half-men’, in that they were no longer wholly of this world, but somewhere between this one and the next. Just like Paulus’s description of the amphibians in the marshes.

Then, as suddenly as he had flared up, Methuselech was back to normal again, and began relating his story at a point that suited him:

‘I followed along the cliff path as soon as there was light enough to see by. But by the time I reached your camp, you had departed. I tried to catch up, but my wounds . . . And with each day that passed, the cooler grew your trail. I stumbled on in a daze, trying to find you, any sign at all. I tried for days to find Myst-Hakel, but in the end I found I had come instead to the marches of Fron-Wudu.’

‘So you
entered
?’ Gapp asked dubiously, ‘You didn’t turn back?’

‘By then I’d given up all real hope of finding our companions, alive or dead. So I continued through the forest. I continued because I
had
to, if I were ever to get to Melhus.’

‘What, you went on to Melhus on your
own
?’ Gapp exclaimed, not bothering to disguise his incredulity, ‘In your condition, with no horse or rations?’ His head felt light once more, and there was that lurching feeling beneath him again. In the silver light of the full moon, his old companion appeared still and colourless, like those effigies carved on the sarcophagus-lids in the vaults of Wintus Hall.

Methuselech paused for a second, as if reading the esquire’s thoughts. Then he said, ‘I am not you, young man, remember. I was – still am – driven by great need. Our Quest does not die just because its leaders fall . . . And, in any case, there was always the chance of meeting up with the others once again. If I could reach Wrythe, I might find them there, or be able to wait . . . or go on after them. There is always
some
hope. I knew how difficult it would be trying to get through these lands on my own—’

Oh no you didn’t
, Gapp thought.

‘But what choice did I have? Anyway, I stumbled on for several days, the thought of reaching Wrythe the only thing keeping me going. I travelled along forest trails guided by instinct alone . . . and of course became hopelessly lost. Then I met up with a band of hunting Vetters, and the rest you can see for yourself.’

With that, he finished his story, got back to his feet and went to stare out at the moonlit forest below.

You gave up trying to find the company at Myst-Hakel
, Gapp considered,
to try to meet up with them at Wrythe? No, I don’t think so, Xilva . . . You’re an adventurer, not a zealot – even Wintus told me that, once. The only difference between you and Paulus Flatulus is your loyalty to Nibulus . . .

‘Hmn, perhaps that’s it. Maybe it is just loyalty . . .’ he muttered to himself. But still he was troubled.

He looked over to the figure of Methuselech again, skull-pale in the cold light of the moon, staring out into the night. The mercenary was gazing northwards, and there was a hunger in his eyes.

Despite the overwhelming exhaustion he felt after this longest and most taxing of days, it took Gapp some time to finally drift off. A thousand thoughts and images were still pirouetting around his brain, fizzing and popping like a tubful of wine-mulch, and they just would not leave him alone.

Chief among these were his plans. Now that he had become separated from Yulfric, how exactly was he going to get
home
? In some rather weak way, once he had been reunited with his former quest-mate he had felt that these matters were no longer in his hands; Nibulus’s friend would be making all the decisions from now. Just as it had been in the beginning. But what the man had been saying about going on to Melhus to complete the quest had troubled Gapp in no small way. He had cast off
that
particular burden during his time with the Gyger, and was not about to take it on again.

Now, however, he did not know what to think.

During the night Gapp awoke suddenly. He did not know why. There was just some strange presentiment that had jolted him from his slumber. Without getting out of bed he rummaged about in the dark for his spectacles – forgetting they were lost – and had frozen rigid when his searching hand had fallen upon someone’s knee, right there by his side. A strange animal gasp had wheezed from his throat, and as he looked up he made out the unmistakable silhouette of the mercenary, kneeling down over him. The faintest glimmer of moonlight was reflected off the man’s sparkling eyes, and they were looking right at him.

Just staring. Without a word.

The following morning Gapp awoke with only the faintest memory of this strange nocturnal occurrence. To be honest, he was no longer sure it had actually happened.

Methuselech was already up by the time Gapp awoke. He was out on the veranda, checking his bandages and chafing his limbs. There was also a rather unpleasant smell in the air, a bit like burnt meat. As soon as Methuselech realized that the boy was no longer asleep, he spun around and walked towards him.

‘Come on you,’ he said brusquely. ‘It’s late, and we’ve got plans to make. Come on,
up
!’

Bossy bell-head!
the esquire cursed, but dutifully did as he was told.

As they made their way back to the pavilion, they were met by a messenger who seemed anxious that they follow him.

‘Ah, Radkin,’ Methuselech greeted. ‘
Hail!
’

It was R’rrahdh-Kyinne, the same Vetter whom Gapp had first encountered on escaping from the Jordiske caves. He recognized him instantly.

Following Radkin, they went, not to the pavilion this time, but to the central pinnacle of rock, and an external stairway that appeared to lead up to the very top of it.

At last!
Gapp thought; it looked as if today he would finally reach the very highest point of Cyne-Tregva!

It would be an observatory, he assumed, like the ones Finwald had told him of which stood on the topmost level of Qaladmir: a Chamber of Devices for the augury of the heavens . . . Or a throne room in which he would meet the
real
king of Vetterhome, a sinister leper with spells of undreamed-of potency to control the whole of Fron-Wudu . . . Or then again, it might be the cage of a giant bird . . . The cell of a seer . . . The altar to an inhuman, multi-limbed deity . . . Was he really ready for this?

Winding around the outer wall of rock, Gapp realized that the burnt-meat stink that he had noticed earlier was stronger here. They continued up, almost to the top, and then came to a wide arch. Through this they passed, and entered a hollowed-out chamber that occupied the top of the pinnacle; they had finally reached the peak of the karst. There was no roof, just walls all around, walls of rock breached by four wide arches, each facing one of the four points of the compass. Here the reek was almost overpowering, and now smelt strongly of rose petals being burnt on a charcoal fire. It made both the travellers’ eyes smart.

Inside the light was poor, despite the open roof, and the low visibility was helped little by the smoke billowing out of the burner by the table. There were many Vetters within, all dressed in long robes made entirely from white bird-feathers, and all engaged in some activity around the stone table . . .

. . . Oh.

Gapp halted exactly where he was and went cold, hot and numb, all at the same time. For the Vetters seemed to be cutting up and cooking one of their own.

On the slab it lay, an aged Vetter slit open from throat to groin, its skin pulled right back off the bones and its sternum split in two and wrenched open like the doors of a bird-cage. Much of its insides had already been removed, and stood about the place deposited in little pots. The knotted rope that had been used to strangle it still dangled limply from its neck.

There was a sickening, crunching sound as one of the butchers began splitting the victim’s skull with a stone knife. Very carefully and with great precision he worked, as did his fellows. There was almost a reverence in the way they moved. One slowly popped the limb bones out of their gristly sockets, while another was efficiently scraping all the flesh from them and placing it also in the pots. Two were involved in the cooking, while an entire team were extracting the marrow. The whole spectacle resembled a production line: a Vetter-processing plant.

A word used by the Gyger now came back to Gapp’s semi-paralysed mind:
cannibals.

‘Ah! Hal, Seelva – Hal, R’rrahdnar!’ came a familiar voice, and Englarielle stepped out from the midst of the pall of stinking smoke. He too was arrayed in a long feathered robe, as were the group of sullen-faced Vetters with whom he had been conversing. Each held one of the little pots, and was dunking into it what looked like a finger of toast. The Cynen offered a similar pot to each of his guests and gestured towards a small side table, upon which rested baskets of these toasted ‘soldiers’, together with jars of relish, beakers of fruit juice, and a kind of tree-frog kedgeree.

‘Hope you’ve got an appetite, young Greyboots,’ Methuselech murmured at Gapp’s side. ‘Looks like breakfast’s ready . . .’

It was their way, Gapp kept reminding himself. Just their way. The Vetter victim had been old, not far from death anyway, and out here only the strong survived. In Fron-Wudu, you pulled your own weight or you dropped out – or were dropped.

‘. . . normally killed by members of his own family,’ Methuselech was translating as he and Gapp partook of the feast. ‘It’s not the most agreeable of deaths, but at least it’s better to die like this, at the hands of your loved ones, than to be carried off by some wild creature.’

The words of the mercenary, though reassuring in some ways, did little for Gapp’s appetite as he dunked the toast soldiers into the salty, beetroot-hued slurry in his bowl.

The repast eventually came to an end, and most of the Vetters gradually filed out of the chamber, nodding respectfully to the Cynen as they went. One of them – the eldest son of the deceased, Gapp was told – was presented with the flayed skin of his father as he departed, either to hang upon his wall at home or to wear during the ritual dance that would be held that night. As he pleased.

It had not been the easiest of killings, it seemed, for the victim had taken some persuading before reluctantly agreeing to be sacrificed. But there was to be a feast of great importance upon this day, and such a sacrifice was vital to propitiate the spirits.

All things considered, both victim and son had taken it quite well, really.

Now only Englarielle and a handful of Vetters – his ‘higher-ups’ – remained with the humans, and they all took their places around the table that moments ago had held the gradually disappearing remains of the sacrifice.

The Cynen now placed upon his own head some kind of helmet. It was at least a size too big for the Vetter; this was compensated for by skilled padding, but still it looked absurdly incongruous. To Gapp it had the basic look of a sallet helm of the style used by Peladanes over a century ago, but it had been elaborated to suit the Vetter’s taste, for it now bore the head and upper jaw of a large, crested reptile (with slits for the eyes when the visor was down) and the neck-guard was covered over with snakeskin.

Then Englarielle solemnly brought out an axe and placed it ceremoniously upon the table.

Oh dear
, Gapp thought with trepidation,
this doesn’t look good.

The weapon had clearly travelled far across both time and distance. From an unknowable culture, this hefty axe of some metal that looked more like lead than anything else, was smelted into the shape of a
gyag
’s jawbone, teeth and all. Like the helm, it was antiquated, but it glistened with a fresh coating of bear’s fat.