The Path of Dreams (The Tome of Law Book 2)

by Matthew W. Harrill

  “No, that is not necessarily the case and not necessarily what is happening,” Lorn said pointedly to Darrow, leaving the man crestfallen. “Like I said, we are not sure of the society of the tribal seers. They do not allow information to escape their society willingly, as they value privacy above all else. Outside interference distracts them from what they believe to be their prime calling, using their seer's gift to aid the tribes. One thing we have learned from seeing tribal daughters that have gone on to become seers in later life is the initial reaction to a vision: They drop into a trance, seen to the unskilled as the deepest of sleep, grow cold, and can remain this way for an indefinite period.”

  “What do you mean indefinite?” asked Tarim. I don't want Zya to lie comatose for the God's only knew how long until she recovers from her affliction. Jettiba grant that my only daughter will be up and about in a few days, rather than miss out on the prime season of her life because of something that may or may not happen.”

  “Again, I do not know,” Lorn replied, aware of all the gazes settled on him. “It is only a rough guess, but most of those that have been recorded outside of the society of the wise women have been seen up and about sometimes ten days or more after the wise women take them. They seem to be able to sense when one of their blood is undergoing the change, and are there almost as soon as it happens. This of course does not mean that it always takes that amount of time for them to wake, but again I can say no more on the matter because I do not know it.”

  “I never knew that you nomads had such a complex society,” said Darrow, who was just about taking it all on board. “To me, it seemed like you were just following the herds, hunting and existing, but this is a whole level more.”

  “It might run deeper.” Lorn said with a hint of mystery in his voice. “It is said that the wise women are also adept at magic in various forms, but there has never been a sighting, there has never been any proof of this. It is all just rumour.”

  “Well there are certain advantages to a society run by women, whatever you may think.” Said Yneris from the chair in which she was so ill suited to sit because of its size; she looked like a child's doll. “You will never go hungry, and all the decisions made are wise and well thought out.” If she was expecting any argument, she got none, and the men all burst out laughing.

  “You will get no argument from me there, my love,” said Darrow fondly. “Nor any of the crew.”

  “Me either.” Tarim agreed. “You know about the travellers and how they are led by a woman. I would have it no other way.”

  “So how is the boy involved in this?” It was Yneris who asked Lorn, Tarim and Darrow ready to reminisce over tales of the past.

  “That is where I can only guess, ma'am.” Lorn replied evasively but politely. He was hiding something, but Tarim suspected that he would never tell Darrow and his wife. “The boy is suffering exactly the same symptoms as Zya. He has the deep sleep, the cold touch of the skin, and the same pallid demeanour. If I were in a wager, as I believe is the custom, I would say that the boy is in the same pre-seer trance as I think Zya is falling into. Though why he would do that at exactly the same time as her is beyond my comprehension. One thing more. I think that this is a first. Either that or they have kept any rumours extremely quiet to the point that tribal chiefs have never heard about any case. This worries me, but I believe that all we can do is wait until they both wake up, and see what they have to say.”

  “The weapons. They link us.” Zya felt herself being drawn deeper and deeper, despite everything she could do to fight.

  Outside the bell toll echoed across the late afternoon from within the Ducal Palace. It was the last bell of the day watch, and soon a quieter, softer bell would be heard as the night watch took over at the Southern Gate, the impenetrable defence against the rest of the Nine Duchies.

  “Well, all we can do then is wait,” Darrow decided out loud. “I offer you all the hospitality of my house, while the girl and the child sleep on. It seems the most prudent course, as moving them would surely not be good.”

  Tarim offered his hand, receiving a hearty shake and a comradely slap on the back.

  “What say you to getting drunk together?” Darrow asked, receiving a groan of dismay from his wife.

  “I would,” Tarim replied, “but I do not feel in the mood for it presently. I would rather wait by my daughter's bedside if you will excuse me.”

  Darrow nodded. “You care for her greatly.”

  “She is the centre of my life, there is no doubt. There is something special about her, but what it is I don't know. Mayhap this is the beginning of the unravelling process for us all.” Zya stared across the room as Darrow rambled on, her eyes lost in the picture of a painting about a ship, its prow breaching the crest of a wave, as if it were alive and dancing of its own free will on the surface of the ocean.

  Chapter Five

  She swayed with the momentum, swinging gently from side to side with the rhythmic movements as the ship quartered, waves hitting it from an angle, and forcing it to endure a subtle impact. The waves were not big, not any more than a leg's length from crest to trough. They were just little things that decorated the surface of the sea, driving monotony away, and brought the ship to life in a gentle manner as opposed to the lurching panic of wood strained while forced to endure a storm surge. The sky was blue, that light blue that spoke a promise of distant cloud that never intruded on the horizon any more than it dared. The wisps that did pass them by were accompanied by small gulls for the most part, and the very rare sighting of an albatross if one was lucky. The wind was a tentative touch on her face, as if it feared to intrude, but it was enough to catch the sails higher up, and make them crack and boom as the helmsman attempted to squeeze every drop of speed out of the ship on this sunny day. Everything was quiet. Even if the ship was not becalmed, it seemed as if the crew were. They stared out from their posts, transfixed by their surroundings. Crewmen hung from ropes, leaning out, with the taut sinews of their arms the only things holding them from falling to a watery grave. They were all completely silent, even their breathing did not intrude on the slow creak of the hull and the masts as they yielded to the feathery presence of the breeze.

  The only noise was the rumbling curse of the pirate captain, called Halitosis by his crew in mock affection of his habit for eating the foulest of foods and as a result having the worst breath in history, or so it seemed when the crew told their stories. The tales she had heard of the man eating meats so spicy one could not actually describe what animal the flesh had originally come from, and foul vegetables from far-away cities that had the one redeeming feature that they did not smell as bad as they looked, were countless. His breath was safely out of range up on the wheel deck, where he was inflicting its aroma on the poor helmsman, who could do no more about the wind than anybody could.

  Behind her and to her left, her young companion lounged on a pile of ropes as he enjoyed the quiet and the warmth of the sun. Something intruded upon her consciousness as she looked up to the cerulean ceiling of the world and felt warmth but saw no sun, but she disregarded it and concentrated on becoming as relaxed as her companion. The wood was warm at her back, as only wood heated by half a day's exposure could be. It had been scrubbed clean, and the lack of polish meant that it absorbed heat as readily as it absorbed water in a storm. It had that smooth grainy feeling that only worn wood could give, catching slightly upon the skin of her hands as she moved her palms up and down the imperfections in the wooden floorboards. No splinters here. Everything had been scrubbed with sand, and was as smooth as could be. She tapped her fingernails as she closed her eyes, enjoying the mellow tones of dull wood containing musical tendencies that only made the feeling more right. She rested as she would as if asleep, but no sleep came. The birds cried overhead as they circled. Some even dared to land on the rigging, but kept well away from the crewmen. Not that it would have mattered. They all stared out into the ocean as if expecting something to happen, but events were m
oving too slowly for anything of significance to occur. Something nagged at her. The entire situation was not right. The gentle rocking of the ship seemed surreal, as if it existed, and yet was only a figment of her imagination. Climbing the steps of the ship to the aft deck, she gained a better view of the surroundings. Her companions now were the helmsman and captain. The helmsman, his calloused hands a solid grip of iron on a wheel that needed barely a touch to turn it in the quiet breeze, was nothing out of the ordinary on a ship such as this. He wore a black bandanna and a flaring white shirt that tapered to his waist. The black trousers that he wore were cut short at the knee as was the style, and she looked down at her own legs, noting the frayed edges where she had cut her own breeches in order to fit in. Looking back up, she saw her companion drop down lightly beside her from the rigging. He had taken to the rigging like a squirrel to a tree, and was as at home in the ropes as he was on the deck, or in the bilges, or in any part of the ship for that matter. His rapidly growing hair was tied back pirate fashion, and he looked quite the part, in a brown waistcoat and matching short trousers. Even her hands had become calloused from work; though he had worked much harder on this trip, so agile was he. The pirate captain stared at them from the other side of the helmsman. Halitosis had one of those faces that made him look decidedly feline. His nose was too small for the size of his face, and his eyes were big and round, but also had that piercing gaze that spoke of intelligence, as if he had a way of seeing through everything around him. His demeanour had earned him the title of 'Halitosis, captain cat face' amongst the land-based, but amongst the community of pirates, he was well respected. He stared slyly at her, with not a word, as if he was expecting something to happen. She ignored him, and gazed off into the distance, searching for whatever it was that was worrying her. She glanced off to the starboard side of the ship, and there it was. An inky smudge on the distant horizon, different in aspect to the wispy clouds that seemed too frightfully polite to intrude upon them. This band of cloud was a bullyboy in contrast. It ploughed its way North at a terrific pace, too fast for normal cloud. It was a great angry black blob of turmoil, there was no other word for it, as it was bulbous in countenance. It seethed as it moved, and was soon joined by what could have passed as its twin. It looked to be passing the ship far off in the distance, but she looked back behind her, and the same distance behind, another bulbous band of cloud seethed up from the south. The strangest thing was that the sailors were still immobile, aside from the helmsman, who continued to struggle against a non-existent wind, and the captain who continued to growl and snarl at nothing in particular.

  The cloud, so very black, and pierced with the occasional spark that had to be lightning, swept on, oblivious of their tiny bobbing presence on the sea. Ahead of them and to the right, the cloud merged with the distant hilltops to become one angry mass of cloud and land. The rain was so dense that it was possible for one to observe sheets of it drenching down on the distant hills, rendering them dark and barely visible. All that was left to see was darkness, where the smudge in front was maintaining its assault on the land. Behind, the cloud had passed on, leaving nothing but a sense of foreboding in its wake. From the distance, guttural rumbles were the obvious signs that the weather was as abrasive as it looked. From the cloud there issued white streaks, where the rain was so dense and sudden that it had become visible from this distance. Once more, a streak of cloud passed by them to the stern, and she felt as if she were the only one watching it. It growled from close behind the ship, and the density of the cloud seemed to push the wind out in front and to the sides of the cloud mass. A rush of wind became a gale, and then a roar as the cloud touched the sea, sending waterspouts spinning off in all directions as the vortices from the cloud drew up anything they touched. The wind pushed the ship into a hurtling race with waves that had erupted out of nowhere, heading straight towards the distant shore that was now not so distant. The storm in front was a mirror of the storm behind, and was ravaging the headlands with such savage, naked force that the cliffs were beginning to crumble from the onslaught of the waves. This should not have been obvious to her, for they were still too far away, but nevertheless, she could see all that was happening, from the way the trees bent under the desolation of the wind, right down to how small creatures buried deeper into the ground as if to escape what was happening at the surface. The landmass was shrouded by the storm, enduring it as only it could. She was not so sure that she could endure such animosity from the natural elements, but it looked like she was the only one that cared about what was happening. Her companion still smiled amiably, leaning on the rail as if nothing were amiss. The helmsman looked more in his place now, as if he were truly attempting to strain against the wind and waves that were now pushing them ever faster, ever closer to land. This was of course a mixed blessing. Land meant safety, and she had no desire to drown, but at the speed they were moving, they would crash into the rocks before they had a chance to disembark. The captain stared around him, grumbling at everything, seeing nothing. The crew were still at ease in the rigging, seemingly oblivious to everything going on around them. The ship turned as it was caught by a wave that approached them at an angle that should not have been possible, and it went dark and she knew no more.

  He stared out at the ocean, with his companion by his side. How they had reached this place he did not know, but he felt the memory of climbing rigging as strong as an aftershock to the turmoil that was his mind. He knew that he should fear for something had happened to him, but he was safe on land, with the ebbing wind pulling at his clothes. Evidence of a storm lay all around him. On the rocks out in front lay the carcass of a ship, split asunder by constant pounding of the stormy sea. The mast was rent in two, and lay in defeat almost to his feet, which were dry when he was sure that they should have been wet. His companion stared out into the distance, and he did not know what held her attention. She was absorbed by some distant spectacle. Flickers of light as remote as the memory of his mother were in the direction that she stared, but it was something only she could see. Boxes and barrels floated in the shallow pools that were almost an afterthought of the storm. The sand under his feet was strewn with weeds and other flotsam that had been washed as far as he could see. He found himself suddenly knee-deep in the pools, dragging the crates and barrels out of the way of another rising tide. His companion was at his side, and together, they made short work of the barrels, all of them watertight but varying in weight. He did not pause to consider what was within. His only thought was to get them as far away from the ever-hungry yawning maw of the ocean, that would reclaim them too readily given favourable winds and the merest sliver of time. The rest of the wreckage they ignored, even though it shrieked and groaned at them as it protested at its manhandling by its twin captors, the sea and the rocks. The great spikes thrust out of the water in such a fashion that the ship seemed impaled upon them, as if it had been lifted by an immense wave, and thrust to lie hanging limply on its death bed of stone. The word 'impaled' stuck in his mind as he paused to look. If the ship had been a person, it would have been in agony, but it was an empty husk, its contents already spilled. Torn sails fluttered in the breeze from the West, like the heartbeat of a man who had given up on any hope of survival, and lay in his deathbed awaiting the inevitable. They were the only tenuous link to the life of the ship, the only defiant movement it had left to make. They seemed to stick out at the wind, daring it to tear them from their fastenings and settle them on the small but persistent waves that caused the ship to settle further. He looked around the cove. There were similar outcroppings all around, and if he was not mistaken, and he so seldom was, at least one more wreck, abandoned to the elements, and already covered with barnacles where it was submerged. Time had ravaged that, so that all that was left of another wooden behemoth were the ribs of its underbelly, and the rusting metal that stained the blackened wood with a shade of bloody red, as if there were a wound that could never be closed. This cove was a death trap for ships.


  Not long after his thoughts, they completed the rescue of all of the barrels. It had still not occurred to them to take a look inside one. His only thought was to get them to a town and sell them as salvage that he could make a little money from, enough to survive. The light was not good, as the clouds from the storm still weighed heavy overhead, boiling and seething in their surge towards the North. The light that there was came as a dark grey, as if there was a concealing mist all around them. It was obvious that it was morning, but the almost total lack of clear visibility made it seem as if it were about to be extinguished for good. The moisture hung heavy in the air, ready to erupt into rain at a moment's notice, but none ever came. The two of them loaded the barrels and crates up onto the back of the cart, straining in an effort to raise the bulky objects almost as high as their heads at times. It never occurred to him to question the origin of the cart, or the horse that stood dutifully in front, attached to the harness. He knew that they would be there, and here they were. His companion showed a total lack of surprise as events unfolded, and therefore he was not in the least bit concerned. With a regretful last glance for the ship that had landed so badly in the cove, they set off on the track that led away from it, and on towards the village that lay half way to the city. As they climbed the hill to the cliffs that overlooked the bay to the North, they saw the real extent of what had happened. Trees were blown flat, and the grass had yielded in an effort to stay rooted in the ground. It looked as if something had tried to suck the very marrow out of the earth. Waves still rushed up the bay towards its terminus, cresting and plunging every so often. Where there should be seabirds, there were none. The gulls and other flying inhabitants had long since departed ahead of the winds that must have done all of the damage to the coast. The lack of avian forms was somewhat disconcerting, but it did not bother him as much as it should. Normally a coast without birds was as bad as meat without gravy, or a merchant without gold. All he felt was apathy, as if his goal was more important to him. The cart trundled along, but he did not notice, as his eyes were on his companion. She sat there placid and content, unaware of the extensive damage done by the storm, rocking slightly as if she were aboard a ship, floating along on the waves that now battered the cliffs and sent spray much further. He could taste the finest salt crystals in the air as he breathed deeply in the gale. By all rights, he should have been cowering in the shelter of rocks or trees, not riding along a coastal path towards the village in the face of a full gale. This fact concerned him just as little as all the other things that were wrong with his situation. He could still not remember how he had got there, and the missing link of his memory seemed important, but still, he did not care. Neither did his companion, and if she had any fear of getting blown off of the cart, for by all rights they should have ended flat on their backs several times already, she did not show it. His attention turned back to the track in front of them. The horse, a white stallion with bunching muscles that belied its apparent career as a draught horse, plodded placidly along in front of them paying little heed to the bushes that bounced around elastically in the wind, or the grass that showed streaks of colour as it yielded en masse to any direction the wind chose to take it. The horse knew its path, and it plodded forward resolutely. At length, the track swerved perilously close to the headland, and they came in full view of the bay, and more importantly, the cove that they had climbed up from. The track was pure rock where the soil had been eroded away, and it was difficult going for both horse and cart. That concerned him less than the group of people already on the headland. Several turned at their approach. One in particular he thought that he recognised. The man was dressed as a corsair, and had the strangest feline face, with large eyes, and a button-tiny nose. The man walked up to them as the horse heaved the cart over a rut in the stony track, and walked right past them to look at their cargo. The man paused as he eyed every barrel, and every crate with great detail. Then with not a word or a glance, the man walked back to the edge of the cliff, and resumed his vigil with the others. Sat motionless on the cart, for he knew not what was going on, he looked at his companion. She was still at ease, apparently finding nothing unusual about their situation. He looked instead at the others on the cliff's edge. There were a group of them that looked extremely relaxed, as if they were enjoying something that only they could see. One of their kind stood there, blood dripping from his hands as he clenched at the remnants of something wooden. Huge spokes stuck out from between his fingers, forcing them apart, but he seemed not to notice, caught as he was in his own private torment. He climbed down from the cart, running his hands over the horse and feeling the surge of blood in the creature's veins, despite its appearance of apparent lassitude. He approached the edge to behold the massive seascape beneath. It felt as if they were on a pinpoint on the top of the world, so sharply did the cliff fall away. If a thousand men stood on each other's shoulders, they could not reach this height, and yet he could see down to the sea floor, as the sea was transparent to his young eyes. This did not concern him overmuch, for he was looking at the ship. The tide had risen, and the ship was bucking on its deathbed as bigger waves threatened to move it. Barrels that had until now had remained unseen were afloat in the shallow cove that they had emerged from, and this was what interested the others. A look of glee rose from every man there, and without a word, they turned to trudge back to the cove in euphoric hope of finding something more there. Very suddenly he found himself alone, except for his companion and the horse, which was chewing contentedly on a mouthful of lush grass that had escaped the teeth of the wind. Alone in his contemplation of this unimaginable vista, he watched the ship free itself of the stone spikes that had held it prisoner. He watched in disbelief as the ship turned and floated out of the cove, and into the West. Water did not enter the gaping wounds that bled cargo, and the scraps of sails that had escaped the beating the ship had taken were catching a breeze that seemed from the waves to be blowing in the opposite direction. He swore that if the scenery did not feel so real, he could have been dreaming. Watching the ship disappear off over the horizon, he climbed back into his seat at the front of the cart. His companion set the horse into hesitant motion as it was still enjoying the grass, and was reluctant to move on.