Beyond the Burning Lands

by John Christopher

  It was not that I was any more at ease in her presence than I ever was with girls. I could not think of things to say and stumbled in my replies when she put questions to me. It was Edmund now who kept up conversation with her while I, for the most part, stayed silent. And yet I was entirely happy to be with her. Not just because of her beauty, though the sidelong glances I snatched dazzled me. There was something else in her—a quality that I seemed never to have encountered before, made up of warmth and liveliness and gentle goodness.

  She wore a black costume as Wilsh ladies did to the Hunt—the men, even the flamboyant King, were dressed alike in scarlet jackets—but her jennet was pure white. She carried a small whip, for ornament only I guessed. These ladies did not sit astride their horses but sideways, with both stirrups against the beast’s left flank. It looked a poor way of controlling even a pony, but she handled hers well. Her small hands were firm on the reins.

  In my concern with watching her I did not realize she had addressed a remark to me until she reached across, laughing, and tapped my shoulder with the whip.

  “Woolgathering, Luke!” I looked at her directly. “Or brooding on some great project, from the fierceness of your gaze.”

  “I am sorry, my Lady. What was it you said?”

  She gently chided: “Not ‘my Lady.’ Edmund must address me so, not being of royal blood, but to you I shall be Cousin. Or Blodwen. Since you are son of a Prince and a Prince’s heir.” She looked from one to the other of us. “You are very different. How did you come to be friends?”

  “Through fighting,” Edmund said.

  Her brow creased in bewilderment. “Fighting?”

  Edmund grinned. “Yes, my Lady. I insulted him and we rolled in the gutter together. And he beat me and after that we were friends. It is very simple.”

  “But how could you fight when he was your Prince’s son? And how dared you insult him?”

  “Our customs are different from yours. Rougher, perhaps.”

  “True,” I put in. “But he has not told you he was a Prince’s son himself.”

  Her eyes opened wider. “I do not understand.”

  “Prince of the city before my father killed him in a duel and took his place.”

  “Oh, no! Is that what happens in the south? Surely no one dare raise a hand against a Prince?”

  “It is not usual,” Edmund said, “but it happens.”

  “And after all this you are friends?”

  “As you see.”

  “I see,” she said, “but do not understand. It would not be so in our country. When a man makes an enemy it is forever.”

  And what of friendship in this country, I wondered: was that as eternal as enmity? She had spoken seriously and I realized that many complexities must lie behind the masks of smiling faces which one saw all round one in King Cymru’s court. But she herself was different in this also. I was sure there was no duplicity in those bright and candid eyes.

  She laughed suddenly, a lovely sound.

  “But I am glad you are friends! And since your father was a Prince, Edmund, it is proper that you too should call me Cousin.”

  “Thank you, my Lady.” She laughed again and Edmund joined in. “I beg your pardon, Cousin!”

  • • •

  We rode ten miles at an ambling pace to a spot where the valley widened at the junction of two rivers. There was none of the discipline of our southern hunts, and none, I thought, of the excitement either. The King from time to time called people up to ride with him, and the whole procession seemed more concerned with conversation than anything else. I already knew what great talkers the Wilsh were. Gossip which in Winchester might have passed a few idle minutes was here mulled over, sifted again and again to discover new subtleties.

  At the river fork we halted. We had been followed at a discreet distance by a caravan of servants, and now they came up and erected a tent for the royal party and trestle tables on which food and drink were set out. It made a fine show. The tent was lined with blue and yellow silks and surmounted by King Cymru’s pennant, showing a golden eagle with outstretched wings against a field of azure. The tables were piled with a vast weight of dainties, or what the Wilsh called dainties. I allowed Blodwen to guide me through them but jibbed at some, particularly at what were plainly, by their shells, cooked snails. Edmund had some at her persuasion; he said afterward that they tasted of nothing much but required some munching.

  Later there was entertainment from musicians. They had lutes not unlike the ones we knew but also instruments which were strange to me: some in which a stick was rubbed over strings fastened to a long curved box with a handle, and others which were blown. Their sounds were unfamiliar but sweet; and the singers, I was bound to admit, were better than ours. The Wilsh loved music, as they loved color and paintings and talking nonsense.

  Then, with no hurry, the hunt was prepared. The valley was wooded, but for a stretch beside the river the land was clear of all but grass—so clear that I suspected men had done this and kept it so. From one of the carts which had followed the procession, contraptions of wood were brought and set up. They formed barriers, a little less than a man’s height, covering front and sides. There were slits in them providing a field of vision and also a means of firing arrows from the crossbows which were placed two or three to a cover.

  I was granted the honor of sharing the King’s cover. To my astonishment rugs were laid on the ground and a soft quilted affair placed over them, to lie on while we aimed our crossbows. It seemed we must not dirty our knees by contact with the earth!

  With the preliminaries completed the hunt began, though it was beyond me how such a term could be used to describe what happened. Beaters were sent into the woods, some on the far left and others on the right. Eventually, beyond our range of vision, the lines joined to form one that moved back toward us through the trees. On the way they created a great din to drive the boars out into the open space before us.

  There was a shout as the first beast broke cover, followed by several more. At my side there was the clonk of the King’s weapon being fired and the hiss of arrows through the air. I had my own aimed at a point close to a patch of thorn, and saw the thorn shake and a beast crash out from it. I had it in my sights with my thumb on the trigger ready to squeeze when I noticed something else: it was a sow heavy with young.

  I took my hand away and the animal rushed on. King Cymru shouted something. His own crossbow fired again and I saw it score a hit. The sow was running across our front and it took her in the flank. She crumpled and fell, gushing blood. For a moment I thought I would be sick.

  Within five minutes all was over, with half a dozen beasts lying dead and perhaps as many more having made their escape, some pierced with arrows, past the covers and along the river bank. The king stood to stretch his legs and I did the same. He asked:

  “Did you see the one I got?”

  I nodded. “Yes, sire.”

  “I did not notice you fire at all, Luke.”

  “I was—taken by surprise.”

  He clapped me on the shoulder. “You look white. It requires a little time to get used to the sight of a charging boar.”

  Especially, I thought, when the charging boar is a gravid sow, desperately running for safety. I said, trying to make conversation that would not be offensive:

  “The beaters were lucky to find so many. I suppose they must often draw blank.”

  “Not on my hunts!” He winked at me. “There is an earlier chase. The beasts are taken in nets and brought here. There are delicacies that keep them from roaming for a day or two. The Master of the Hunt sees to it, but the notion was Snake’s. It is well arranged, do you not think?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Very well.”

  The beaters were dragging in the carcasses, the King’s kill first. The sow was not only pregnant but polybeast, with an extra rudimentary pair of legs dangling uselessly from its sides.

  “A fine specimen,” said King Cymru.

  •
• •

  We moved on up the valley, heading for another thicket where we could ambush more beasts. I had a brief opportunity to speak alone to Edmund. He was as shocked as I, but warned me to be cautious.

  “You show too much of your feelings, Luke. As always.”

  “I cannot help it.”

  “The King will notice.”

  “He has done. And thinks it due to fear.”

  “Do you not . . . ?”

  “Let him think what he likes,” I said. “He is a butcher, not a huntsman.”

  Blodwen rode up to us and I held my peace. The road had parted from the riverside and climbed over high ground. We reached a crest and saw a village in the dip a few hundred yards ahead.

  It was very small, no more than a score of huts clustered round the road, and approaching we saw an oddness in it. Many of the huts had collapsed. An earthquake? But we would have felt it also. There was no sign of life. Then from close by a man rushed out of the cover of the trees. He was in panic fear and gabbling. What with that and his accent I did not take his meaning until others repeated the cry:

  “Bayemot . . . Bayemot!”

  I had heard tales of these things, which were said to live in the sea and swallow whole the boats of men foolish enough to venture out from the shore. It was also said that at times they emerged onto land, and then destroyed and devoured every living thing in their path, leaving a trail of stinking slime.

  I was with the King. I said:

  “It cannot be true. You have told me—there is no sea-coast within thirty miles. The man has imagined it.”

  “I think not,” King Cymru said. “The sea is a long way off but less than a mile up the valley there is a lake. There were rumors that a Bayemot had its lair there. It seems they were true.” He spoke to the man, who trembled in front of him. “Where is the beast?”

  “Gone, your Majesty.” His whole body shook. “It came . . . and killed . . . and went.”

  The King nodded. He said to Snake, who was close by:

  “It will be interesting to see what a Bayemot leaves behind it. Let us go and look.”

  So we advanced again. A whiff of filth and corruption came from the ruined village and then the stench was all round us. The sun’s rays struck through the clouds, showing more clearly the shattered cabins ahead, and I saw that they were coated with a slime which, though transparent, gleamed in the sunlight. Something wet dropped with a squelch from a jutting plank. I was glad that Blodwen and the ladies had stayed on the crest of the hill.

  At close quarters both smell and sight were more hideous. The slime was everywhere and in places frothed with a nauseous bubbling sound. Nothing moved. The villagers had presumably fled up into the woods: those that had escaped. We reined our horses, even the Wilsh nobles brought to silence.

  Then someone cried: “Up there!”

  I looked over the ruins to the next rise of ground, and saw the Bayemot.

  Except in size it was something like the bubbles of jelly that make up frog spawn. But it was almost as high as three men, one above the other, and being flattened from a true sphere by the earth’s pull was even greater in breadth. It was motionless but quivered, although the wind had dropped, and though it was nearly transparent there were darker shapes within. Were they eyes, I wondered? Was it regarding us now? Or did it move blindly, swallowing everything in its path as legend told? And the reality was more terrible than the legend. It was hard to see how anything could withstand such a monster.

  It moved. With a small lurch it began to roll down the hill in our direction; slowly at first but fast gathering speed. There were cries, and with the rest I spurred my horse back up the slope. We halted on the higher ground and saw that the Bayemot too had stopped in the midst of the slimed ruins.

  Snake said: “We are safe here. They travel fast downhill, as a ball does, but uphill a man, let alone a horse, can easily outdistance them.”

  The King said: “Look! That fool . . .”

  A man, a beater probably since he was on foot, had run up the side slope of the valley. He too was safe there if what Snake said was true, but he came down again and took the road toward us, perhaps from fear of being alone. As he moved, so did the Bayemot. Things like tentacles grew from its side, gripping the ground to pull it forward. I no longer doubted that it could see, and was seeking prey.

  The man was in no danger until he fell, looking back as he ran. His foot must have gone into a pothole because he went down heavily. Someone cried: “Get up, man!” He tried and cried out in pain; he must have sprained his leg or even broken it. He made a second effort but no more. The Bayemot reached and rolled over him and his cry of fear died on that instant.

  For a moment there was silence. Then I said:

  “We must save him.”

  “No good,” Snake said. “He is a dead man already.”

  “He moves!”

  I saw, or thought I saw, an arm feebly press against the jellied horror which bore it down. Snake said:

  “He has no hope.”

  “We cannot leave him there,” I said.

  “We can do nothing else,” King Cymru said. “We know the courage of you southern warriors, young though you are, but that is the Bayemot. It cannot be killed.”

  It may be I was mistaken in finding a sneer in his tone. The Wilsh were given to banter and I was not used to their subtleties. But I had thought he read my whiteness at the sow-killing as fear, and guessed this to be sarcasm. My anger rose and would not be controlled. It was through that more than out of compassion for the man that I suddenly pressed my horse forward. There were cries but they could not stop me, and none was fool enough to follow.

  Yet although I had made the move on impulse, a part of my mind worked hard and clearly. I had noticed something about the Bayemot. It resembled a frog’s egg also in having a smaller black sphere within, not in the center but high up toward the top. This must surely be the brain, or what passed for brain in such a thing.

  From the ground it would be unreachable. I remembered a skill we had learned when the horses were taken out into the meadows in the spring and we boys rode them without saddles. I unfastened and dropped my sword belt, freed my feet from the stirrups and pulled up my legs until I was kneeling on Garance’s back. She did not jib at this but I wondered if she would face the Bayemot at close quarters. I guided her away and then, with a quick pull on the reins, back onto a course that would take her past the beast, a few feet from it.

  I drew my dagger and stood up, balancing. Then I saw the full abomination of what faced me and thought I could not make the leap. The darker shapes lower down were parts of men, limbs half dissolved. I saw the roundness of a head, with hair still on it but the face melted to the whiteness of bone. Fear and nausea overcame anger and I hesitated. But pride was stronger still: I could not face a return, defeated and unscathed, to those who watched. I tensed my legs and sprang.

  The very feel of it was hideous—soft and resistant at the same time, glutinously wet. It was as though my body were pressed against a giant slug. But disgust quickly gave way to pain. Where my naked flesh touched the surface of the creature it burned like liquid fire. My one reaction was to free myself. I tried to push clear; and if I had succeeded would have fled, with no more thought of pride or anger or the poor wretch whom it had been my purpose to save.

  But this I could not do. The Bayemot’s surface not only burned but clung. I managed to free one leg and found the other more firmly caught. It was like quicksand, but quicksand which was alive, and hungry.

  My left arm was fast but the right was free and had the dagger. I looked for the small black sphere. It was deeper inside the beast than I had thought. The burning in my leg and arm spread and deepened and I wanted to cry out. But to cry would be an expense of energy, and I could spare none.

  My only hope was to jab with the dagger. A single thrust might not reach the target, and if I failed that arm too would be gripped and I would be helpless. So I stabbed, hard, but in
stantly withdrawing. Even so it was like pulling one’s hand out of a treacle jar, and treacle which stung like a thousand wasps. The flesh of the Bayemot parted but closed up as the blade came clear. But wetness had run from the wound down the monster’s side, and the skin was dimpled there. I jabbed a second and third time, and went on jabbing.

  The burning in my leg and arm was making me feel faint. The dimple had become a hollow but the black thing seemed as far as ever from my reach. Could it be that it was moving farther back inside the Bayemot as I stabbed? If so, I was lost: a dead man already, as Snake had said.

  Darkness falling on my mind sealed off the fiery agony as well. I struggled up through it, to consciousness and the lick of flame along my flesh. It would be easy, it seemed, to drop back, let go. What did death matter if only the pain would end?

  But not a death in the maw of this creature of slime and filth! Rousing myself I knew that now I must thrust hard and deep, staking everything on one last blow. I punched my hand, with the knife clenched in it, with all my force into the hollow. The wetness yielded but also clung. I was straining to see if my blade’s point had reached its target. It was not easy to make out through this viscous jelly but with a sickness of despair I thought that I had failed. The darkness was falling again and I knew I could no longer withstand it. I closed my eyes because it made no difference.

  Then beneath and around me there was a vast shivering which drew me back to consciousness. Once again I thought of earthquakes and in my mind’s eye saw the pinnacles and domes of Klan Gothlen falling shattered to the ground. I was glad that Blodwen was in open country. The shivering became a ripple, a throb. Whatever was happening was taking place in the heart of the monster to which I was pinned. I pulled my dagger arm and with no more than a small sucking resistance it came free. As it did everything turned liquid, a vast bubble of water which, collapsing, dragged me down with it.