by Glenda Larke
Portron noticed her watching the guide and said with a twinkle, ‘Ah lass, why don’t you ride with him a-ways? I’m sure he can be telling you more interesting tales than I.’
Her instinct was to reject the idea immediately, but Davron had turned his mount towards the ley line, and her interest overrode her distaste for being in his company. She urged Ygraine up beside him as he approached the ley. ‘I’d like to learn about ley lines,’ she said without preamble. ‘Would you teach me what the different hues and the movements signify?’
She thought for a moment he was going to refuse. Knowing his reluctance to explain anything, she wouldn’t have been surprised. Instead he stared for a moment, shrugged and said, ‘Why not?’ He waved a hand at the line. ‘The colour is toning down now, but it’s still not suitable for a crossing. We’ll ride on a bit further and I’ll tell you what you are looking at.’
The lesson was not an easy one. To someone with experience each subtle variation of colour meant something, and the flow of forces through the air could be read like a handbill, but it was hard to be literate when there were thousands of variations to be learned. ‘You see that spiralling swirl there?’ he asked. ‘When the spiral is tightening like that, all energy is being trapped. The areas around are then safe, but the problem with such spirals is you never know when they will become too tight. Then they uncoil with horrendous force. As they lash free, the ground heaves and anybody nearby is likely to be killed.’
‘Have you seen it happen?’
‘Once, when I was much, much younger. I was in an escort party. The guide misjudged and we were caught too close when a spiral unravelled. Luckily no one was hurt.’ He gave a reminiscent smile. ‘I was closest and was caught in the backlash. It stripped the clothes off me. I suddenly found myself without a stitch of clothing, in full view of a party of giggling young women. I was seventeen years old and totally humiliated. I had to scrabble around bare-arsed trying to retrieve my trousers and shirt while the ley whisked them around in a whirlwind. Some of my fellow guides still bring up that incident when they want to take me down a peg or two, the bastards.’ The smile broke out into a grin and she was amazed at the difference it made. The hard-eyed guide was gone, and in his place was someone she wanted to know.
He waved a hand at another patch in the ley. ‘See that deep purple colour there? It signifies a basic instability where anything can happen. It’s to be avoided at all costs, unless there are force lines in a figure of eight above it. A figure of eight is highly restricting to ley energy...’
Having made the decision to teach her, he was relentless. When she complained she could not tell the difference between subtle gradations of colour, he remarked that it took years of study to be competent at ley line crossings. ‘You won’t learn one hundredth of what there is to know today. And even someone with your father’s experience could be wrong from time to time. The ley is Lord Carasma’s realm, not ours.’
She shivered slightly.
‘Scared, Kaylen?’
‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘Aren’t you?’
She looked at him as she spoke. The flare of pain in his eyes caught her unawares—aching, rending pain, as if his soul had been torn. His answer when it came seemed prosaic by comparison, even as the words shocked her. ‘For myself? No, not in the least. Ley is...seductive. I look forward to being in contact with it.’ He glanced across at her. ‘Is that too honest for you, Keris?’
She didn’t answer. All her fear of him came flooding back.
‘Well,’ he continued, ‘if it makes you any happier, I do fear ley for those I escort. My job is to get everyone where they want to go, untainted, unhurt, and as quickly as possible. One trip in every four, I fail. Either someone gets tainted, I lose someone to the Wild or a Minion or a whirlstorm or the unpredictability of ley, or even just a stupid accident like a fall from a horse. One trip in every four, Keris, I lose someone in my care. Yes, I fear ley lines.’
She felt compelled to offer him some comfort. ‘Could anyone else do better?’ she asked.
‘I can answer that,’ Meldor said, who had ridden up behind them, unnoticed. ‘The reply is an unequivocal no.’
‘And quite pointless to the dead or tainted who were in my care,’ Davron said evenly.
They rode on, in silence this time. She glanced nervously at the ley line, and wished they could get the crossing over and done with. Yet she felt no evil from it. Danger, yes, but no wrongness, not like the area around the bilee. The ley line bubbled with strength, rather than evil, she was sure of it. But didn’t Chantry say that the lines were cracks in Creation, through which the Unmaker’s wickedness entered the world?
Davron said suddenly, ‘Kereven is the first name of a talented mapmaker; did you know that when you took on the name?’
She jumped and answered too quickly. ‘I’ve never heard of him.’
‘Kereven Deverli. He’s dead now,’ he said. ‘He mapped the southern Unstable. He was even better than your father, I think.’ He reined in his horse to study the ley line, and dropped the subject, much to her relief. ‘I think this might be it,’ he said. ‘See, the tint all along here is a soft blue. The ground colours appear flat, their movement is smooth. The patterns are definitely unaggressive. The flow of energy in the air is sluggish. I don’t think we’ll get a better place than this to cross.’ He turned to Meldor who halted his horse beside him without prompting. ‘What do you think?’
Meldor sat still, sightless eyes staring upwards, sensing the line in other ways. His lips parted slightly, his head cocked to listen; every now and then he took a deep breath. ‘It’s a bad line,’ he said to Davron in his rich, aristocratic voice. ‘A lot of localised turbulence and pent up angers, as if Carasma has been around lately. I don’t like it. But it seems quiet enough here and this part may well be the best of a bad choice. There’s a lot of suppression though. Stay alert.’
‘Let’s check it out. Stay here, Keris. You and the others.’ He and Meldor swung their mounts into the line without the slightest hesitation, leaving their pack animals behind.
‘What’s happening?’ Quirk asked a moment later. ‘Can you see Davron and Meldor?’
‘Can’t you?’ Keris asked.
He shook his head. ‘The mist is too thick.’
‘They are riding slowly. Picking their way. Davron’s leading; he keeps looking down, up, around, at the colours of the line, I suppose.’
Quirk stared hard, and fidgeted. The others had joined them but nobody spoke much. Tension ached in the air around them. They all knew someone could die in the next hour or so. It was useless to remind themselves that most fellowships came safely through crossings. Useless to remember that only a few pilgrims were ever tainted, fewer still were ever killed. They were standing there, facing the ley, feeling its magic, knowing the Maker probably could not answer their prayers. Fear saturated them to the bone.
I’m ley-lit, Keris thought. I can’t be tainted, yet I’m frightened. How much worse it must be for the ley-unlit.
‘Let us perform kineses,’ Portron said, and dismounted to kneel on the ground. ‘Reverence, I think,’ he added, referring to the second of the four daily devotions.
‘What’s the point? The Holy Books say the Maker can’t see us when we’re in the Unstable,’ Baraine grumbled, but as the others dismounted one by one and went down on left knee, right hand to the heart, he joined them. Even Scow participated in the rituals, although Keris noticed that his gaze never left the line for a moment. It was worse for him, she realised. Davron was his friend. Meldor too perhaps, but he couldn’t see what was happening to them any more than Quirk, Corrian or Graval could.
Hand from heart to forehead, signifying the sincerity of one’s thoughts; both hands to right knee, showing piety; forehead to knee, indicating reverence; fingers curling in submission... ‘So far, so good,’ she whispered to Scow. Right forefinger to earlobe, signifying willingness to listen to the word of the Maker... ‘They’ve reached the other side and n
othing changed that I could see.’
He smiled gratefully.
A few minutes later Davron was back, without Meldor. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘let’s get moving. Corrian, you first. Lead your animals. You can’t ride through a ley line unless you’ve got a mount that’s trained to it.’
Corrian dismounted, groaning. ‘Middendamn,’ she said, ‘in the past when I’ve felt this stiff, at least I’d been riding the right sort of animal.’ She leered at Davron. ‘Lead on, laddie.’
They set off, Corrian stumbling on the unevenness of the ground, yet doing her best to hurry. Her pipe was clamped tight in her mouth, but the pipeweed had gone out, an indication of how flustered she was.
The minutes dragged on as Portron continued his devotions and the rest dropped out one by one to watch the ley line. Quirk started biting his hangnails. Baraine snorted contemptuously in his direction. When Corrian was safe, Davron returned and took Graval. Still there appeared to be nothing unusual happening within the line, and if Davron was tense, he allowed none of it to show on his face. Portron followed Graval, then it was Scow’s turn.
Baraine looked relaxed; Quirk was almost turning himself inside out with worry. Davron should have taken him first, Keris thought. He can’t realise just how scared the man is.
‘Quirk reminds me of what I once was,’ Scow had said. Scow the farm boy, so unsure of his worth that he had been unable to believe that the woman he loved could possibly love him back. And Quirk was an ineffectual man with no innate sense of his own value. Piers had once remarked that such men easily fell prey to the Unmaker’s tainting. There was nothing inside them to give them the strength to resist ley when it attacked. She was pierced by a feeling of tragic inevitability. Quirk was going to be tainted and there was nothing any of them could do to stop it.
Baraine grinned as Davron chose Quirk next. ‘Careful you don’t foul yourself, boy,’ he said.
She doubted Quirk heard him. As he walked into the line, pulling his mount and one of Baraine’s mules, his face was a picture of utter misery. She made a kinesis against bad luck.
When Davron and Quirk were halfway across the line, the ground erupted beneath their feet. ‘Back!’ Davron shouted. ‘Leave the animals!’ He himself was still mounted, and he swung his horse through a spray of earth and rock, reaching out to grab Quirk with the intention of hauling him up on to the front of his saddle. Quirk dodged him and ignored his shouts. He’d dropped the reins of his own mount, but he was still struggling to calm the pack-mule.
‘Leave it!’ Davron roared.
Still Quirk would not leave the beast.
Damn you, Baraine, Keris thought, dry-mouthed. This is your doing.
Something was being pushed up out of the soil in front of the two men. Rocks. Boulders, like huge mushrooms. Earth cascaded off them, knocking Quirk to the ground and unseating Davron. The crossings-horse took off towards Baraine and Keris; Davron fell badly. A wave of colour swirled through the air. Purple, a deep rich purple, billowed through the indigo. It engulfed Quirk momentarily, then dissipated like steam from a boiling pot.
Davron lay unmoving.
Without thinking, Keris grabbed Baraine by the arm. ‘Come on, we’re closer than the others. We have to help.’
Baraine resisted her. ‘You’re mad! I’m not risking my neck for someone so stupid he’d die for a pack animal! That—that tainted brain!’
She released him to pluck her bow from her back and tighten the string. ‘Who’s the coward now?’ she asked savagely as she dived into the ley line. She felt the evil then. It engulfed her, soaked into her pores. Stench and power and danger were inseparable. The ground was still heaving. Fingers of rock thrust further upwards. They were as yellow as the fyrcat that had attacked them. She staggered as she ran, vaguely aware that Baraine, goaded by her accusation of cowardice, had indeed followed her.
She reached Quirk first, half-stooped towards him, and halted in horror. He wasn’t Quirk. He was already changed. Tainted. She had an impression of flickering colour, of a skin that was no longer skin, of a smooth greenness, of patterns like painted eyes, of an almost saurian face on a still human head. He was half-covered with earth and his body was twisted, knotted—like rope. He was changing before her eyes, and the transformation was hideous. He screamed, endlessly, with pain.
She staggered on to Davron. He was half up, pushing himself away from the ground. A shower of earth caught them both, and she dipped her head to shield her eyes.
‘You damned fool,’ he said, the words wrenched out of him, full of pain. She wasn’t sure whether he was referring to her or to Quirk.
She turned back to ask Baraine to help her support Davron, expecting to find him right behind her. Instead he was some way back, standing still, pooled in yellowish light. Bands of ochre played around him, twining across his body, between his legs. Yet he did not seem afraid. There was a cynical half-smile on his face as if he was listening to something he knew was only partially true but which amused him nonetheless. It was a look that froze her to the bone.
Turning back to Davron, she found he was staring past her to Baraine. ‘Oh midden,’ he whispered. ‘The Unmaker.’ He stood up, leaning against her. ‘Kaylen, in the next few minutes you’re going to pay for being foolish enough to follow us into the line.’ He took her by the shoulders, facing her now, fingers digging in hard, his voice intense with urgency. She felt an unpleasant tingling through the cloth of her shirt where he touched her but had no time to think about it. The eyes that looked into hers were not angry, as she had expected them to be. They were filled with fear, no, something more than fear. Something more stark. And his concern was for her, not himself. He had to take a deep breath before he could even speak again. ‘Get out of here if you can. If you can’t, then prove yourself worthy of your father. I cannot help you. Now move.’ He pushed her away, back towards her horses and safety, while he turned to Baraine.
‘Valmair,’ he shouted. ‘He has no hold over you unless you grant it to him!’
She tried to run, but tripped on moving ground and fell flat. Baraine turned, smiling towards them both. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘He has just explained that.’
Keris struggled to rise as Davron answered, but the ground would not stay still.
‘The price is your soul.’
‘I know that too,’ Baraine said. ‘But what use is a soul if one has eternal life? He offers me nothing that I have not already yearned for, Storre—nothing.’
‘Minions can always die from wounds or accidents, Baraine. Immortality is a myth, no more than immunity from disease and old age.’
She’d never seen anything more chilling than the smile Baraine gave the guide, so completely without humanity. Davron reached out to her, hauling her to her feet by the yoke of her jerkin without taking his eyes off the Trician. ‘Keris, please try,’ he whispered, begging her to move, pushing her away from him, still without looking at her.
She tried to move, but never finished the first step. Something came ploughing towards them both, churning its way down the length of the ley line. It was huge, vaguely insect-like, and heart-stoppingly awful. It rushed at them so fast there was no time for Keris to grab for her knife. She dropped her staff and bow and dived through the air to the right; Davron broke to the left.
He moved faster than anyone she had ever seen, even her father. He had a throwing knife in each hand long before she’d even managed to get to her feet; one hit the creature in the eye, the second thudded home deep into its throat.
Then a sweeping antenna whipped across to hit him full in the chest. It was studded with thorns the size of a man’s hand and it ripped the shirt from him, to score scratches deep into his flesh. She was dimly aware he was wearing an amulet that had been hidden under his shirt. She glimpsed the symbol on it and felt the shock of recognition, but there was no time to think about its implications.
By this time she had managed to get a hand to her own knife. She didn’t have any trouble with the distance
this time, the animal was looming over her like a cliffside. She whipped the blade one and a half turns into the other side of its throat.
It collapsed then, although it was probably Davron’s knives that had done the trick. Hers was just an extra. Davron grabbed at her as she tried to make up her mind which way to run to avoid the toppling body.
‘Typical bloody woman,’ he said, yanking her to safety. ‘Can’t ever make up her mind.’
‘Typical bloody man,’ she snapped back, ‘always so damn sure he knows what’s best for a woman.’ She was grateful though, and if he’d been anyone else she probably would have fallen into his arms in tears. Instead she just glared and tried not to think about the amulet he wore. It had grown into his flesh, was part of him, melded into his skin. It had a cross on it. The cross of wrongness, within a diamond. A parody of the plus sign of chantry symbolism.
The cross of wrongness—the symbol of the Unmaker and his Minions.
She looked around for Baraine, but he seemed to have disappeared.
‘Oh midden,’ Davron said again, dabbing ineffectually at the blood welling up from the scratch marks on his chest. ‘I think the beast has fallen on poor Quirk. Let’s have a look.’ They skirted the body trying not to think of what they might find on the other side. ‘A cross-country tramp just to get around the thing,’ he muttered.
She resisted an impulse to touch him, to tend his bleeding, to seek support for herself just by contact with another human being. Remember the sigil, you fool!
Quirk had not been flattened after all. He appeared untouched. If it was Quirk. Keris had a hard time trying to convince herself that this ... person was indeed the nervy youth from Drumlin. He was only semiconscious, which was probably just as well. He would need time to get acquainted with himself again and she doubted if he was in any fit state to start. He was naked, lying on his side. What had been done to him had been carefully thought out. Whatever was responsible for his tainting had known of his diffidence and had taken the indefinite nature of his personality and made it his bodily reality. He was still human, yet he was a chameleon, fated to be always attuned to the background behind him, always fading away into his surroundings, of indefinite colour, blurred edges and partial invisibility.