To Rescue Tanelorn (52 page)

There was no time to consider any of these questions as the men pressed closer. For one of Rackhir’s subtle skills this was butcher’s work. He sheathed his slender sword as he fought, snatching up a well-balanced claymore and using it one handed. Axe in the other fist, he swung them together and two more barbarians died, yelling their terror as death engulfed them. To his horror, eerie green blood spattered his skin, drenching his archer’s clothing, making the turf slippery beneath his feet. His terrified disgust gave him still greater strength. He ducked and swung, severing limbs and slicing into necks and thighs until the attackers had become little more than a pile of green, writhing meat. But, however many of them Rackhir slew, more kept coming at him. Weariness, if nothing else, must eventually defeat him. Still his heavy axe and sword rose and fell. Streams of blood gushed and glittered in the yellow light of the full moon. His heavy sword swung in an arc, first before him, then behind him, and every time more warriors dropped before that deadly arc. He leapt this way and that. For a moment it seemed he walked up the trunk of a tree to stand on a limb before leaping again into the thick of his enemies. He had no time to pause to think, no time to wonder how he had reached this forest or how the men had known where to find him.

Gradually, they began to press in on him, blue painted faces grinning with triumphant expectation, green eyes glaring in the moonlight, full of fierce blood-lust; glowing green bodies tensed to spring at him. He cursed the bad luck which had brought him to this alien land, to die without benefit of his own deities, the grim gods of Phum, without ever knowing where he was or whether he might ever have found the city he sought. And he called out to Krim, Lord of the Seven Spheres, to aid him. But Krim, as was conventional, sent no aid. Indeed, he might not have existed in this sphere at all.

His sword arm was painful now, increasingly less able to swing the great two-handed blade. The pile of disgusting meat grew, but so, it seemed, did the numbers of his attackers.

Then, suddenly, the moonlight disappeared and glancing up he saw that clouds spread across it. It would be even harder to fight in darkness, but he was determined to take as many with him as he could.

To his astonishment, they began to fall back, muttering amongst themselves. They were conferring in a language he had never heard before. Not the now-familiar tongues of Eerin. Taking advantage of this lull, Rackhir stepped back and saw his bow where he had dropped it. Quickly, he bent to snatch it up and string it. From the quiver that never left his belt he drew four arrows, sending one after another, with unerring speed into their ranks. This seemed to be enough to cause them to fall back, slinking into the darkness of the trees.

“Stand, you painted cowards!” he cried in his own language, letting fly another brace of arrows. “Stand!” (In truth, this was pure braggartism, for he could barely stand himself.) But as the two men fell, their companions grunted, yelled, then stumbled off into the undergrowth. He heard them crashing through the wood. Then there was sudden silence. He waited, keeping his guard as best he could. In the darkness, he heard the rasping breath of the dying, the thump of his own heart and—something else…

It was a woman’s voice, sweet, almost a whisper. “I admire you for your courage, stranger. What are you called?”

“I am Rackhir, the Red Archer, Warrior Priest of Phum.” Without thinking, he had answered in his own language. Realizing this, he added, “Men call me in these parts Ronan the Red.”

“Ah, Phum,” murmured the unseen woman in a third tongue altogether. “Such redness there is in Phum. They say it’s a city built of blood, do they not?”

“Those who do not know us, aye.” Rackhir was suspicious. He understood her words perfectly.

The woman’s voice was mellow, slightly mocking. “It’s centuries since I last saw her rust-coloured towers rising from the desert like a mirage. Do her terraces still drip with crimson orchids? Do the ruby fountains still play in her squares, and do her scarlet-maned maidens still bathe themselves there on the Night of the Nomad Nuptials?”

“You know Phum?” He turned, seeking the source of the voice.

“I know all the lands called by my kin the Young Kingdoms. But it is nigh on a millennium since I last saw them. For I am O’Indura of Imrryr, the Dreaming City, and it is my doom to dream for ever, trapped in this place which the folk of Eerin call the Roaming Forest.”

Now he recalled the language she spoke. It was High Melnibonéan, the common speech of all educated dwellers in his own sphere. It had been years since he had used it but the tongue came surprisingly easily to him. “Who were those men?”

“They belong to a tribe called the Nishut, which means “No tribe.” They are slaves, unwilling miners of emeralds, and some say their skins take on the hue of the jewels with which they pay their mistress not to take their souls. They are the milkers of blood, who feed she who guards the Original Seed. They belong to this forest defending her and doing her bidding.”

“And you are their mistress? Guardian of that seed?”

She laughed then. Her voice was sweet silver. “If only I were, Red Archer. I am sustained by what the forest herself grows. For centuries now I have lived on bloodberries, sap and dew. But those warriors are kept alive by moonlight and when the moon is dark, they must seek the comfort of the great barrow. For they are not truly alive as you are alive. Like me, they are vitalized by dreams. But where their fellows dream of them, I dream only of myself.” Her voice was wistful, self-mocking. “I am kept from complete annihilation by the power of my own mind.”

An almost primeval growl rose in Rackhir’s throat. Though trained in the mystic arts, he yet felt deep suspicion of unexplained supernatural things. “Show yourself, madam,” he demanded. “Show yourself or, by Krim, I’ll…” But his voice trailed off, for he knew there was no threat he could offer her while she remained invisible to him.

And then it seemed sudden silver blossomed on the edge of the glade; a silver light which all but blinded him. With an oath, he covered his eyes. Then she stepped out of the light and he gasped at her beauty. She was tall, slender and her hair was the colour of polished brass. Her blue-grey eyes were slightly slanted and she had the finest cheekbones he had ever seen. Almost too beautiful to be real, she stepped towards him, her white garments drifting in a faint breeze, and he could easily believe that she was the figment of a dream. At her side, however, was a scabbarded longsword and matching it on her other hip, a thin dagger in a silver filigree sheath. Both looked real, and useful, weapons.

Keeping his eyes on her, the archer instinctively bowed, a tribute to her beauty as much as to her femininity.

“My lady.”

“Well, Sir Rackhir of Phum, what mischance brings you to the Roaming Forest? Or do you, as I once did, travel the dream-roads, seeking a return to your homeland?”

“I assume this is not the sphere where Melniboné yet rules the world?”

“By your answer, I understand that you traveled to Eerin unwillingly. I cannot say the same for myself. I was foolish enough to take a dream quest. Melniboné never existed here and maybe never will. My corporeal body is as real, if not more real, than this one. It still lies on the dream couches of the Dreaming City. We have a skill, unknown to you humans, which allows us to send a form, as real in blood, bones and flesh as our own, into other spheres. One hour might pass on the dream couches, but centuries go by elsewhere. That is how we learn so much and why our sorcerers are so powerful, for they carry the knowledge of a hundred lifetimes. As a cousin to Melniboné’s empress, I was allowed access to the dream couches. I longed to explore all the realms of what our wise men call ‘the multiverse’ and which an adept can investigate only by traveling the moonbeam roads, the roads
between
the worlds. But in my multiplicity of dreams, I became confused and lost the secrets of how to gain those paths. I made the mistake of trusting a local minor deity who said she would help me. Instead, she stole much of my memory and trapped me here in the Roaming Forest. Where I move, the forest moves. If I seek the sanctuary of a temple, the forest engulfs that temple. If I try to find safety in a village, that village is—is eaten. Her inhabitants are slain or made into slave-warriors serving the semi-sentient creature which lives in the deep barrow. So, if I do not wish to destroy those whose help I need, I can only move when the Roaming Forest moves. Moreover, even when I have been able to escape its confines by some trick of my magic, I grow less and less substantial. The closer I stay within the forest, the more my flesh feels like real flesh, the more alive I am.”

As an adept of Phum, Rackhir understood more of this than most men would. “And what of these?” he asked, pointing at the heaps of green bodies which still surrounded him. “Why have they not killed you?”

“They dare not. Their superstitions have made me their goddess. They believe that if I die, so will the forest die. And if the forest dies, so will they.”

Rackhir wondered privately if there was more to what she said. What if the forest could only move when she moved? What if she herself sought villages whose inhabitants would feed these unholy trees.

She moved a step or two closer. “We are all of a supernatural piece, you see, Sir Rackhir.”

When she used his true name, the archer’s suspicion of her increased. He had heard of the wiles of these humanlike, alien people who ruled over the so-called Young Kingdoms of the West. He had been taught not to trust them, that reptilian blood, the blood of the ancient dragon folk called the Ph’oorn, ran in their veins, that they had the power to converse with serpents. Yet she was very beautiful and he wanted very much to believe her. He looked hard into her blue-grey eyes. She stared back frankly. He could do nothing, he realized, but believe her.

“Lady, I would rescue you from this if I could,” he said.

“And I would be rescued. We both belong to the same realm. Believe me, I have waited for centuries in the hope that such a one as you would come to the Roaming Forest and save me, make me real again.”

“How may I do that, lady?”

“There is only one way I know. You must find the Original Seed and destroy it. That will have the effect of destroying both the forest and its natives and opening up the moonbeam path which, with my guidance, we can cross back to our own realm again.”

“And have you tried yourself to find and destroy this seed?”

“Of course. And you are not the only man—or, indeed, woman—whose help I have sought. All died or were otherwise destroyed in pursuit of the Original Seed.”

“And why should I have any better chance of succeeding?”

“Because you are a Warrior Priest of Phum and I am an Imperial Princess of Melniboné.”

Rackhir had discovered the corpse of his horse. What kind of barbarians slew a horse for no good reason? A valuable horse? He stood over the beast, frowning. His saddle bags were untouched. There had been no attempt to rob him. What had they wanted? He turned, putting this question to O’Indura.

“They wanted your blood,” she said. “They wanted your blood to feed the Seed. That was why they fought so cautiously and why you defeated so many with such relative ease. They killed the horse to hamper your escape.”

This made sense to Rackhir. Then another question came to him. “Do you live amongst these people?”

“I do not. I have to maintain their superstition, their fear of me, or they would use my blood, too, to feed the Seed. Yet they believe I am the spirit of the Seed. Its personification, if you like. With a variety of allies I have made many attempts to get close to it, but it lies deep underground, in a chamber I have never been able to negotiate and it is guarded by the creature who lured me here in the first place, whose language I spoke, a monstrous three-eyed serpent, one bite from which entails an agonized death. She claimed to be the forest’s victim, but now I understand she is its life.”

“You do not make the prospect attractive,” he declared.

“I have no intention of doing so. You are still able to leave this forest and you would best leave while the moon is hidden. I, however, cannot do so, as I’ve explained. Unless I can make a moonbeam road to lead us out of here, I am trapped for ever. If you go, go soon. For you can be sure that, while the moon stays high, the forest will follow you now that it has your scent.”

Rackhir sighed. Thinking deeply, he went from corpse to corpse, skillfully removing his arrows, wiping them and replacing them in his quiver. How he longed for home. And he knew he must believe most of her story, since she spoke the common tongue of his world. For some odd reason his spirits were lifting. He turned to the silver princess, a strange battle-humour playing over his handsome features.

“Very well, lady. I am mightily tired of this island and would continue on my way to Tana Lorn. If you know a way to escape and return to our own sphere, we have a mutual motive. Let’s rest in the shelter of the trees for a short while and then we’ll seek this seed of yours or die in the attempt.”

The Original Seed

Later that morning Ronan awoke to a rustling in the trees and reached for his bow, but then he realized the sound was made by birds, a black flock with strange, golden eyes, which hopped along the lower branches, heads to one side as they regarded him, he thought, with a certain hunger.

The forest had not moved. Waking, the silver woman, O’Indura, stretched and wiped her hands in the dew. She yawned, pushing back her long hair to expose the slightly pointed, delicate ears of her race. Rackhir-called-Ronan knew the appearance of Melnibonéans. They appeared on bas-reliefs in the temples of Phum. In the daylight her almost translucent skin seemed to shine and he drew a sharp breath when he saw her full beauty. She turned and smiled at him, as if she knew she had entranced him.

From his purse the archer-priest took a packet of dried sheep meat and offered some to her, but she shook her head, patiently waiting for him to chew the tough stuff before she stepped closer to him across the dark green turf.