The Storm - eARC

by David Drake

 

  Sam and I walked out on the Road. I was holding the bowl of gruel and milk with a spoon in it, and ale in a pewter tankard with a lid. The legend cast onto the side read Greetings from the Holy City of Koms, in a circle around an image of what I supposed was the great temple there. I’d never been to Koms, so I couldn’t say whether it was a good likeness.

  “I have news of Master Guntram!” I called loudly as I walked along. “I’d like to talk about Master Guntram with a friend.”

  I didn’t think there was anybody to hear unless the Beast could, but I still wanted to keep my words neutral. I was going to walk to the hole in the cyst. The cyst would be mostly closed by now, but there’d be enough to show me where I was. If that didn’t work, I’d walk to Skiria again and then try again tomorrow, I suppose. I didn’t want to leave the Beast unfed, and besides—I wanted to talk with him about what had happened.

  The Beast’s dark, supple form appeared on the Road in front of me before I’d come twenty feet from Skiria. How is our friend Guntram? the voice asked.

  “He’s in good hands,” I said. “I hope that after he’s had rest and solid food, he’ll be all right. I don’t know anything better to do.”

  You are his friend, the voice said. We will hope for a good result. After a pause, the voice added, In terms you would put it, I will pray.

  I felt my lips smiling, though my head wasn’t in a good place right now. I said, “I’ll hope your god does more than I’ve ever seen from mine.”

  I will hope that also, Lord Pal, the voice said. Guntram entered the cyst attempting to aid me in my quest. I am glad he will recover—I hadn’t said that, but I wasn’t going to argue with the Beast’s statement—even though he was unable to find what he was looking for on my behalf.

  I swallowed and said, “Sir? The Envoy sacrificed herself to get me and Guntram out. When Guntram gets back in shape, I’m pretty sure that he’s going to want to free her again. I sure do.”

  I think my friend Guntram has learned by his own experience, the voice said. I could have prevented your female from reentering the cyst, but I did not. Kindness is not a virtue among my people, but by your example, friend Pal, you have taught me to be kind.

  “I don’t see how she could want to stay in that horrible prison!” I said. “It trapped her and killed everyone else in her village. I saw the bodies.”

  They are dead regardless of where she is, the voice said. They would be dead in any case: what you call the cyst formed five hundred and eighty years ago. Your race does not live so long.

  I swallowed again. “I brought some food for you,” I said, holding out the gruel and tankard. The Beast moved closer to me and blackness touched the containers. They were removed from my hands, though I don’t think I felt the Beast’s flesh. The containers vanished.

  Thank you, friend Pal, the voice said.

  “Sir,” I said, looking toward the Waste instead of at the Beast. “Master Guntram was searching for something for you in the cyst but he didn’t find it. If you tell me what it is, I can go look for it myself.”

  I heard what I took for the creature’s laughter. The thing is not present in this cyst, the voice in my mind explained. You would have seen it and I would see it in your mind.

  Then the voice said, Courage is a great thing among my people as well as yours. Friend Guntram was very brave to risk entering the cyst for my sake. And you, who know the danger better and have less skill, are very brave.

  “Guntram would want me to help if I could,” I said. “If I can’t, I can’t.”

  I took a deep breath and forced myself to look squarely at the Beast, or as squarely as I could look at something that wasn’t completely Here. “I have nothing more to say at the moment,” I said. “I’ll see about Master Guntram now. I’ll come back here at this time in the evening every day with food and any news there is.”

  I will wait nearby, friend Pal, the voice said.

  Sam and I returned to Skiria. Sam was always sharply alert in the Beast’s presence, but he didn’t react to the Beast as an enemy after he’d realized that I didn’t. I was lucky to have found as good a dog as Sam.

 

  When I got back to Skiria, Addis was out in the field plowing. We waved to one another.

  Inside, half a dozen neighbors had arrived to view the visitors from Dun Add. They watched me with wide-eyed respect. It made me feel like a monster from the Waste. As a kid I’d always thought that it’d be neat to be famous and have everybody impressed with you. The truth of it was like having sand in your boots: uncomfortable and a constant irritation.

  When I arrived, Addis’s wife Inna was at the separate kitchen in back of the house. It was really just a shed for safety in case it caught fire, and it was also cooler in the summer. The older of the girls ran to fetch her. I bent over Guntram in the bed and put my hand on his forearm.

  “Hey, Guntram,” I said softly. “How are you doing, buddy?”

  He opened his eyes but his lips didn’t move. At least his eyes seemed to focus on my face. I was about to move away when Guntram reached over with his free hand and pressed mine firmly against his arm.

  He relaxed; his hand fell away and his eyes closed. I took a deep breath and muttered, “So far, so good.”

  Also I prayed under my breath. I’ve never been much of a god-botherer, as my father had put it, but there wasn’t anything better I could do for my friend. I was willing to be wrong; I’ve been wrong about lots of stuff.

  “The chicken will be ready in half an hour,” Inna called as she bustled in. “There’ll be broth for Master Guntram, and do you think he can try some slivers of white meat?”

  “Ma’am, we can surely try him on meat,” I said. “If he can keep it down, great. If not, well, we’ll hope he gets stronger in a day or two.”

  I went outside and watched Addis while I settled my mind. “Sir?” a little voice said at my elbow. “Lord Pal, sir?”

  All three of the family’s children were looking up at me. Egon had spoken.

  “Sorry if I jumped,” I said. “I didn’t know anybody was there.”

  “Sir,” Egon said. “Will Master Guntram be leaving soon?”

  “Well, I sure hope he will,” I said smiling. “He’s pretty worn out, but I think he recognized me and he’s coming around.”

  “But what about Arthur?” the older girl said. “Will he take Arthur?”

  “The hedgehog,” Egon said.

  Ah. “Well, I don’t know,” I said. Guntram would be going with me so he could use Sam’s eyes, but I figured there was a reason that Guntram preferred to travel with a hedgehog rather than a dog. “I suppose so, but I’ll have to ask—”

  The toddler wailed and ran back into the house with her hands over her face. The older children stared at me with stricken expressions.

  “Well, maybe something can be worked out,” I said. “We’ll manage something, I’m sure.”

  I didn’t think Guntram was as close to his hedgehog as I was to Sam, but I sure wasn’t going to give another man’s travelling companion away. At least I thought I’d be able to find a litter-mate or a puppy and bring him out here.

  What do you call a baby hedgehog?

 

  Guntram did manage a little meat along with the broth, but he fell asleep immediately thereafter. The next morning I went out with Addis and took over the plowing while he did various other chores, including splitting shakes for the roof of a new shed. I wasn’t a great plowman, but I could do well enough. That freed Addis for work that would’ve taken more explaining for me to be sure I understood what he had in mind.

  When we came in at midday, Guntram was doing a lot better. He sat up when he saw me and said, “Pal, thank you. I’m still not myself after the experience, but I’m aware enough to be amazed that you were able to release me.”

  His voice was rusty as though he’d had a bad sore throat. I walked over to him, feeling happier than I had in a long time. �
��A lot of people were looking for you, sir,” I said. “I was just lucky to get to you first.”

  “I wonder, Pal…?” Guntram said. “With a little help I think I could even walk some. Do you suppose that after your lunch, you could—”

  “Lord Pal!” Inna said. “You do just as you please and I’ll send Egon out with your lunch. Ah, that is—what would you like me to fix you?”

  “Bread and cheese, same as Addis is having,” I said, smiling. I crooked my left elbow out for Guntram to take it. If he wanted more help or different help, he’d tell me.

  My hands tingled. It’d been a while since I’d last plowed, and my calluses from using my weapon and shield weren’t in the right places for the plow handles.

  Guntram hauled himself upright and we shuffled out into the yard. There was a low fence made of plowed-up stones. It was in the sunlight, so I guided us to it.

  I was well aware that the children’s eyes were all focused on us. It wasn’t what I most wanted to talk about, but first things first.

  “Guntram,” I said. “Do you think you could get along on the Road using Sam’s eyes? Or are you going to need the hedgehog?”

  “I hadn’t thought about the hedgehog,” Guntram said. “Has he been a problem? Oh, dear. You see, I’m aware of the entire Road now, but out of decency I have to find something to do with the poor animal, don’t I?”

  “I think that’s been taken care of,” I said, feeling almost as relieved as I had the night before when Guntram reached over and squeezed my hand. “The kids want to keep it. They’ve named it Arthur.”

  I saw the children on the way over. The older pair carried a basket between them; the toddler followed behind with a serious expression. “If you’d like them to continue taking care of Arthur,” I said quietly to Guntram, “tell them so now.”

  “Master Guntram, sir?” the older girl said as she and Egon set the basket down at our feet. “Are you going to take your hedgehog away with you?”

  “No, Clara,” Guntram said. “I’m going to leave Arthur with you, Egon, and Belle. I think he’ll be happier with you than he was in Dun Add.”

  The children wanted to hug him, but after a moment I murmured that Master Guntram was still sick. They went off in varied delight. I said, “Sir, I didn’t know the girls’ names. You did.”

  “I stayed with Addis and Inna when I came to find the cyst,” Guntram explained. “I met the children then.”

  “Your time in the cyst hasn’t hurt your memory, then,” I said. That was something I’d wondered about, but I wouldn’t have been willing to ask until I was able to form the question in a positive fashion.

  “No,” said Guntram with a slight smile. He was sipping from the jar of broth which had been in the basket.

  “Sir,” I said. “I need to tell you that the Envoy, the woman you freed from the cyst, returned to it. The Beast says that she wanted to go back and she said that too. But—well, sir, if you want to free her again, I’ll help you. I think with you back in condition and me helping, we can get her out.”

  “No,” said Guntram. “Well, we could get her out as I did before, but that would be pointlessly cruel. And we wouldn’t be able to escape either, at least not both of us.”

  “Then it’s true she really doesn’t want to leave?” I said. Then I hadn’t really sacrificed the woman to save my own life, which is sure how it looked to me.

  “The cyst is her home,” Guntram said. “It is more of a home than anything she knew when she was human, and she is no longer that.”

  I nodded sadly. “I’d figured that out,” I said. “But I thought that in time she might be cured. Well, I hoped that.”

  “I don’t think it’s really a matter of being cured,” Guntram said, putting the broth container back into the basket. “If I’d been there much longer, I might not have been willing to come back myself. Although…”

  He turned to me and smiled. “You see, Pal—I was never very interested in a home. I was interested in knowledge, though, and while I was part of the cyst I had knowledge that I could never have gained otherwise.”

  He smiled faintly. He said, “I still see things. I know things.”

  I munched my bread and cheese. Inna’s oven had been a trifle too hot so the bread, though tasty, had a lot of crust. The cheese was from cow’s milk and delicious.

  “Will you be able to take me to the Beast?” Guntram said.

  I nodded. “Yes,” I said. “Whenever you’re able to travel a little. He’s waiting just up the Road.”

  “This evening, then,” Guntram said. “You’ll have to help me walk, but I seem to be feeling better by the hour.”

  “This evening it is,” I said. We carried the basket back into the house, and I asked Inna to prepare gruel for when we went out.

  CHAPTER 28

  The Treasure

  Guntram and I set out in the evening. He kept a hand on my arm as we started up the Road but I never felt him put real weight on it. Addis and his family watched in concerned silence. Belle waved her bonnet furiously, but her mother must’ve told her not to say anything that might disturb us.

  “I am impressed that you were able to open the cyst by yourself,” Guntram said. “You’ve become more skilled than I’d realized.”

  There was no reason we couldn’t have discussed the Maker’s art in front of the family, but we didn’t. For my part, I thought it might make the layfolk uncomfortable.

  “Well, I was just undoing what I saw you’d done, sir,” I said. “If I hadn’t had your example to go by, it would have been very difficult. Though I’ve gotten a little experience since you’d vanished. At Severin, a Maker named Master Croft had cut the core out of a cyst from behind.”

  “Behind…?” Guntram said. “How do you mean?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “The cyst had an entrance on the Road, but Croft found a way to enter it from the node of Histance which was nearby on the Road to where the cyst opened. And from the node, he’d taken out the Beast who was the core. Anyway, I’d been able to enter a cyst that was dying, and that had given me experience.”

  I cleared my throat, not sure whether to go on. When I decided I would, I said, “It was pretty unpleasant. I went in with two squires. One of them ran away with a diamond we found, but the other one stayed to pull me out. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”

  A diamond, friend Pal? the Beast said as he stepped onto the Road with us.

  “It’s not a real diamond,” I said. “I don’t know what it is really, but it looked like a diamond and Master Andreas certainly planned to sell it for one.”

  “Oh, my goodness,” Guntram said.

  Yes, said the Beast. I can see it in his mind.

  I looked from one to the other, wondering what was going on. “What can you see, sirs?”

  Lord Pal, do you know where the diamond which you saw has gone? said the Beast’s voice. This is a thing that I have been searching for and which our friend Guntram risked his life to find for me and failed.

  I swallowed. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know where Andreas took it. I didn’t think I could’ve caught him at the time and by now he’s gotten as far away as he wants to be. He might’ve gone to Dun Add, even. He’d get the most money there. That’d be risky if I got back, but he maybe didn’t think I would.”

  It’d been bloody close. It surely had that.

  “I know where he went,” Guntram said.

  “Where, then?” I said. “If you can tell me, I’ll go fetch him. I wasn’t interested in the diamond when I thought it was just money, but I’ll get it back if it’s important to you.”

  Even if it’d been sold. I figure Lord Osbourn would back me up if I said it’d been stolen from me, but I wasn’t going to let the law stand in the way of anything that Guntram was willing to take that risk for.

  “I cannot tell you,” Guntram said. “I can take you there, I think, if you can wait until I’m able to travel. That will take me a few days, I think; maybe as much as a week
.”

  Friend Guntram, said the Beast’s voice. I would wait the rest of my life if there was a chance of success at the end.

  “Master?” I said. “I’ll do whatever you want, when you want it. But how can you find Andreas?”

  Guntram looked at me. I couldn’t read his expression. At last he said, “While I was with the cyst, I learned different ways of seeing things, Pal. I can see the Road, now; and I can see where the thing our friend is searching for has gone.”

  “Then when you’re ready, we’ll go there,” I said.

  “I learned a great deal during that time,” Guntram said. I think he was talking to himself. “But there is much more to learn, so very much more.”

  I thought of the Envoy and swallowed. I wondered what I would do if Guntram decided to hide himself away in a cyst.

  “Sir?” I said to the Beast. I gave him the containers of food that I was still holding. “We’ll go back now. I’ll keep visiting you every day. And when Guntram’s ready to travel, we’ll set out.”

  May your gods be with you, friends, said the voice. As mine has been with me, thanks to you.

 

  We were disrupting Addis and his family pretty badly, even with me and Sam in a shakedown in a shed. They seemed glad to have us, though. Skiria didn’t have any government—any more than Beune did—but our visit had sure raised the family’s stock with their neighbors.

  The second night after we got back with Guntram, there was a feast for fifty or sixty people out in the yard on puncheon tables knocked together for the occasion. Addis and Inna sat with me at the high table at the end, and Guntram made an appearance. The various households in the hamlet brought the food.

  I didn’t need that and Guntram sure didn’t need it, but it was a better way to pay Addis and Inna than the cash I was going to leave with them. A rural hamlet doesn’t have much call for money, but everybody likes their neighbors to think well of them.

  The next morning, after I’d checked on Guntram—sleeping like a log. If you’re not used to it, socializing takes as much out of you as heavy work does—Sam and I went a little way down the Road and started prospecting for Ancient artifacts.