The Wanderer's Tale (68 page)

‘I don’t think we should stay any longer,’ Nibulus announced, unfastening his armour from Zhang’s back and putting it on. ‘I think there is a guardian down here.’

Just then they were distracted by a shout from Paulus. He was holding something shiny in his hand. It appeared to be a kind of punch-dagger, the sort used by foot soldiers or assassins for piercing armour, and more especially the spinal column that lay beneath. Its squat, V-shaped blade glinted sharply in the torchlight.

‘Diamond-tipped katar,’ the mercenary proclaimed with elation. ‘That’ll do nicely.’

Nibulus cursed to himself as he tried to fasten the straps on his plastron. ‘Some secret tunnel!’ he swore under his breath. ‘I’d wager every thief in Lindormyn knows about it.’

Bolldhe was not listening to any of this. He was studying Wodeman, whose bearing had gone suddenly taut and poised. Something in the way he sniffed the air told Bolldhe that they were not alone here in the chamber.

Then all of a sudden there was a terrific beating of wings, and a piercing squawk shivered the air to pieces. Immediately both mage-priests dropped their torches and went for their weapons, while someone backing into Paulus knocked the torch from his grasp. There was a brief flare of orange light as the burning brand arced through the air, trailing a streamer of acrid smoke behind it. Then the chamber was plunged into near darkness, lit only by the diminishing glow of the torches dropped on the floor.

For the next minute the whole place rang with the din of battle. Everybody was shouting in confusion and swinging about wildly, not knowing what it was they were fighting against, or where or how many there were. Above the metallic clash of arms, the dull thuds, the cries of pain and the curses, rose the furious flapping of feathered wings and that terrible squawking cry.

A blade hummed through the air and imbedded itself into something soft. ‘Uurghh! Get off me! That’s my arm –
aargh
!’

Something was hurled across the room to shatter against the far wall. ‘It’s over there!’

‘What is it? Bolldhe, is that you?’

‘Stay back! I’ve got it by the –
Ocht, my leg! My bloody leg!
’

‘Where are those stupid priests? Finwald! Appa! Someone, just grab those torches!’

From somewhere nearby Bolldhe heard Zhang neighing in alarm. He dived over to where the horse was, sweeping up a torch from the floor just before it went out. Then he tripped over somebody lying on the floor and went plummeting. The last thing he saw in the light of the brand as it went spinning from his grasp was the frightened, staring face of Zhang. Then his head somersaulted in a chaos of bilious colours, and Bolldhe knew no more.

When he came to, Bolldhe felt as if his head had split open and spilt its viscous contents upon the ground for all to tread in and slip on, then poured back in and the skull repaired with rusty nails. All around him he could hear the shuffling of booted feet upon stone, and voices mumbling in hushed tones. Tentatively he lifted his head and risked opening his eyes.

Straight away the light from a thousand suns penetrated his fragile corneas and the jellied brain that cowered behind them. He shut his eyes instantly and groaned. His head swam in the deepest throes of nausea, and he clutched it tightly in his hands as if to hold it in one piece.

‘Whatappn’d?’ he croaked, ‘Wherem’I?’

Nearby, one of the disembodied voices hesitated, then snorted contemptuously. ‘Too much Hauger-ale,’ it chided. ‘Typical Pendonians – never could hold their drink.’

Bolldhe gingerly re-opened his eyes, then propped himself up on his elbow. ‘Do be quiet, Wintus,’ he moaned. ‘I’m not in the mood for your weak attempts at humour. Anyway, what
did
happen? What attacked us, and where is it now? Is it dead?’

Nibulus did not answer at once. But when he did, his voice sounded sick. ‘It’s not here any more. It flew away. And we’d better be off too if we’re to—’

‘Flew away? You mean you drove it off? The Guardian?’

‘Not exactly. We – that is, Wodeman – let it go. He said it wasn’t right for a creature of the air to be imprisoned here in the earth.’

Bolldhe was already in too much pain to raise either his voice or his blood pressure, so he simply repeated: ‘Let it go? The Guardian of the Tunnel that slew those two thieves there, and nearly destroyed us too, and you let it go?’

‘That’s just the point. It wasn’t the Guardian, and it didn’t kill the thieves. It was just a crow.’

‘. . . A crow.’

‘Yes. It must have got trapped down here when the portal was last opened. It didn’t almost destroy us . . . we did that to ourselves.’

Still clutching his head, Bolldhe lurched to his feet and stared around in disbelief. The Peladane stood in front of him, and Bolldhe could now see that look of utter failure and bitter self-recrimination on his face that he had worn that day in the Rainflats. He decided not to press the point.

Behind Nibulus stood Finwald; both appeared relatively unharmed, though the priest was bleeding from a light cut across the forehead. Appa, however, was on the ground clasping his head and shaking violently. Blood seeped between the fingers pressing a wad of cloth against his temple, and his grey face looked even more haggard than usual. He was muttering to himself in a worryingly slurred manner, and did not appear to be at all aware of what was going on around him. Their chief healer, it seemed, would not be doing much healing for quite some time.

Paulus too was upon the floor, sporting a deep gash across his thigh that was bleeding badly. Bolldhe watched him as with trembling hands the mercenary prepared a brand with which to cauterize his wound. Not one of the company made any attempt to aid him, but the hard line of his mouth suggested to Bolldhe that he had already savagely refused their help.

Wodeman also was counted amongst the wounded. His arm was bandaged tightly and hung limply at his side. He must have been in some pain, but none showed in his ruddy face.

A crow! A bloody crow! What hope do we stand when – if – we reach the Maw?
Bolldhe shook his head in dumbfounded silence.

Of all of them, only Kuthy was completely unhurt. Bolldhe watched him closely as the adventurer walked about offering token assistance. He was obviously impatient to get on, and was masking this only thinly. Bolldhe seethed inside. Kuthy had known there was something down here; this was probably the reason he had persuaded them to come this way. Yet they were the ones who had overreacted, and brought about their own injuries.

Bolldhe glared at the man with a contempt that bordered on loathing. He wished passionately to have any excuse to kick him in the ribs. He felt as if he had been used, manipulated, and if there was one thing Bolldhe hated more than anything else in the world, it was being manipulated. More than lies, treachery and double-dealing, being used was the very worst.

Just then a sizzling sound could be heard, followed immediately by an anguished grunting. The sickening smell of burning skin rose into the air. Bolldhe whipped around, only to see Paulus clutching his leg as if trying to squeeze the very life out of it. The brand lay by his side, sputtering out its last breaths on the floor. He had finally succeeded in cauterizing the wound. Shaking with spasmodic agony, the Nahovian looked as though he might be suffering another of his fits. Even now there was blood on his lips. As Bolldhe stared, Paulus slowly rocked back and forth in his suffering, uttering not a sound. His cowled head turned up to stare glassy-eyed at the wall and, as he did, so Bolldhe caught the expression on his face. It was one of torment and pride and hate, all at the same time. And there was also a hint of pleading . . .

Bolldhe did him the courtesy of averting his gaze, and turned it instead on Kuthy.
I just hope that before we leave this tunnel
, he swore to himself,
you taste the suffering that you so casually bring on others.

Wearily he turned away and prepared to set off again.

Guardedly, but with a sense of grim determination, the company trod the next dark highway that their quest had brought them to. As Kuthy had promised, this new section of the tunnel did indeed run fairly level, but it was also narrower and lower and, now that the portal was closed, the chill wind from ahead had nowhere to escape. The result was that the tunnel now seemed utterly claustrophobic, it forced everyone (bar Appa) to stoop, yet was even colder than before.

The air was as dank as air could be without actually becoming water, and after just a few minutes of breathing it their lungs felt saturated, icy and rattling. And it was
freezing
. It felt as if they were a troop of dead souls marching along the endless underworld corridor of eternal night.

The going was anything but easy. The floor surface was slick and uneven, and frequently the explorers would curse sharply as their feet trod on jags of icy, diamond-hard rock that jutted up painfully into the soles of their boots, or land ankle-deep in pools of icy water. To make matters worse, their progress was hampered further by the sorry condition of Paulus and Appa. Neither could manage more than a painfully protracted stagger or limp.

Paulus’s maimed leg was causing him agony, and it was only his hate that drove him on. He would reach Eotunlandt no matter what – the thought of plunging his weapon in the soft bodies of those lovely little huldres was so delicious he salivated at the thought.

But for Appa, this journey was no less than a waking nightmare. Though, with Finwald’s support, he was somehow managing to keep up with the others, his strength, already sapped by the previous punishing weeks of journeying, was almost at its uttermost end. He was no longer fully aware of where he was or what he was doing. Neither food nor rest could render him the sustenance and healing he so badly needed, and everyone knew that it was only a matter of time before he simply collapsed and never got up again. The hardships of Melhus were irrelevant now; even with his innate old man’s stubbornness, he would be lucky to reach the other side of Eotunlandt.

Wodeman, whose thoughts were usually hidden behind that bramble-hedge of inscrutability, was for once manifesting clear signs of unease. Bolldhe sensed this early on, and immediately felt better himself.

‘What’s the matter, Wodeman?’ he chided. ‘Arm giving you gyp?’

The shaman glanced down at his bandaged arm, but shook his head. ‘It hurts, if that’s what you mean, but that is not my problem. My arm is nothing compared with this . . .’ He regarded the torch-lit tunnel walls around him – mere inches from his face on either side – with dread. ‘This closeness, this . . . unnaturalness – have you ever felt anything so terrible before, Bolldhe? It feels like I’m buried alive. Cut off from the universal whole!’

Bolldhe bit his lip and inwardly smirked. After that dream the sorcerer had given him the previous night, he was not going to feel any sympathy for the old sod.

‘Really?’ he answered. ‘I quite like it – it’s exciting. And I’d have thought this is a great opportunity for you too, a man like yourself.’

‘Eh? How’s that, then?’

‘Always you’re saying to me how close to the earth you are. Well, you don’t get much closer than this – you’re practically buried in it.’

Wodeman looked away. ‘Get lost, Bolldhe,’ he replied caustically. ‘You’re not funny.’

Ha!
Bolldhe thought. ‘
Cut off from the universal whole
’
? I’ll have to remember that one.

The wanderer, despite his splitting headache, felt elevated once more, and marched on with a new spring in his step.

Hour after hour passed, with no change in the tunnel. The company plodded on like automatons. No one talked, each one of them preoccupied with his own thoughts, until eventually even those were numbed out of them by the unending, unchanging march. Time lost all meaning.

Eventually, Nibulus called a halt. No one, not even Wodeman, had any idea how long they had been down here, or what time it was in the world above. The passage of time was now measured only by the increasing exhaustion of their bodies. And now their bodies told them it was time to stop.

‘Right, that’ll do for today,’ he suddenly announced. ‘This will do as night-time. We’re stopping here.’

Nobody argued. At least the tunnel floor was smoother here, and there were no puddles. Within minutes a fire had been lit, and the weary travellers collapsed upon the ground for the ‘night’. The crackling and popping of dry pine cones greeted their ears, and they crowded around the welcome fire as best they could, trying to warm some life back into their aching bodies. Rations were devoured and, not long after, the fire burnt itself out. Appa and Paulus fell immediately asleep, and the others soon followed.

As it happened, Kuthy’s claim that it would take them but half a day to get through the tunnel did not prove quite as ludicrously exaggerated as the company assumed. In fact, had it not been for the wounded members of the party, they might have left the tunnel the previous night. For now, within an hour of setting off for the second day’s march, they finally saw daylight ahead, and with it the heaven-sent fragrance of warm, loamy soil, sweet rain and cherry blossom greeted their senses.

Moments later, far too suddenly for them to adjust, they emerged from the foul blackness of the pit to stand blinking in the sunlight, shielding their eyes against the blinding glare, dizzy with the cornucopia of colours, sounds and smells that was suddenly poured over them to assault their senses. They could only stand there transfixed at the mouth of the tunnel, swaying in the breeze, and then, when their eyes finally adjusted, stare in wonderment at this fabled land before them.

What had they emerged into? How was it possible? For this was no less than a land of dreams that they had entered; never in all their lives had the men from the South beheld a vista of such unearthly beauty. Great mountains of the most brilliant sapphire and lapis lazuli reached up to staggeringly unreal heights all around them. High cascades, fed by countless rillets from sun-melted glaciers far above or from springs bubbling up from sources deep within the mountains, fell like a billion diamonds in the morning light. They fountained along stony flumes; they filled the air with the finest spray of heavenly coolness; and through the rainbows with which they were festooned bluebirds swooped madly. Forests of pine, spruce, and never-before-seen varieties of conifer clung to the lofty slopes above, plummeting down steeply towards the terrain below wherein lay woodlands of deodar, tamarind and oak. From these trees came the constant drone of insect life, the shrill call of large birds flapping noisily amongst the branches, and the susurration of a million leafy voices whispering in hidden sylvan tongues.