by Tim Lebbon
Ramus concentrated on Ten's parchments again, turned them, viewing them all at once, staring at one at a time, laying them side by side across his lap, letting the information enter his mind without dwelling upon it too much. He accepted that some of the symbols may be strange lettering, and some of the letters he thought he recognized could be obscure symbols. The illustrations were obvious in places, not so in others, and even these could be glyphs or symbolic representations of words or phrases, rather than simple drawings. He was already certain that whoever had written these pages was at least as advanced as the most literate scholars in Marrakash. If it truly was a language from long ago, it was utterly unique.
And yet . . .
Ramus closed his eyes and let the imagery wash around in his head. His mind's eye opened onto a blank gray slate, and the images from the parchments floated there. He let them arrange themselves at first, then he began shuffling and changing, altering shapes here and there or turning them upside down, left to right. He touched the stone charm resting around his neck, wondering who else had worn it and when.
By the time Lulah returned, Ramus was feeling a closer affinity to the language. It was as though the truth lay a hundred miles away, but he was slowly drawing closer. If he watched, and listened, perhaps he would see it soon.
“All quiet,” Lulah said. She squatted by the fire, hands held out to warm.
“But something still bothers you,” Ramus said.
Lulah laughed, a short bark. “Plenty bothers me about this voyage.”
“But here and now?”
The Serian glanced at him, her eye glittering in the firelight. “Just a niggle,” she said, touching her cheek below her missing eye.
“Seeing something that isn't there?”
“I've learned to trust my intuition. And something around here feels out of step.”
“It's a different land,” Ramus said. “The smells aren't the same, the air is heavier. Perhaps the unknown carries weight.”
“I like strange lands. I thought you would too, Voyager.” She shook her head and reached for a water skin. “Just something odd. But I'm not too worried. Perhaps daylight will tell us more.”
“You can't stay awake all night,” Ramus said.
“Just for tonight. Then tomorrow it can be your turn to lead my horse.”
“I can keep watch, maybe—”
“Have you ever killed anyone, Ramus? Fired an arrow into a man's face? Fought off something come to eat your flesh?”
He shook his head.
“I can look after you, but let me do it my way.”
Ramus watched her leave. She's so strong, he thought. But she doesn't trust me at all.
He revealed the pages again and narrowed his eyes, letting firelight illuminate the unfamiliar language. He picked up the journal and began making marks. Words flowed, old languages combined, his knowledge of writing and past times acted as the filter through which the parchment images were sorted. And soon he began to discern sense in chaos.
WHEN LULAH RETURNED again, the fire had burned down, and Ramus had never felt so awake.
“Some of this is speaking to me!” he said.
“That's good, Ramus. But you need sleep.”
“No. No! This is vital, Lulah. I need to read these pages for us to get where we're going.”
“I know how to get there,” she said. “South till we hit the Divide.”
“And then?” he asked, wide-eyed.
“And then you do your Voyager things, and we go home.”
“No. We reach the Divide, and then up.”
“Up?” He saw realization dawn. “Are you truly mad?”
Ramus shook his head. “There's sense here,” he said. “Sit down, look.”
“I really don't know anything about—”
“Please, Lulah. Let me talk it through with you, and that will illuminate it for me as well.”
Lulah sighed and dragged her saddle closer to the fire. She took one more look around before sitting down, and Ramus noticed that she kept her sword-hand free, her bow and quiver within easy reach.
“See here,” he said, leaning toward her and revealing one of the first parchment pages. “The imagery is so literal that it took a while for me to see. Here's the cliff—the Great Divide. This much I know already. There are images of the sun and moons, and people dancing or paying homage to one or the other or all three.”
“What's that?” Lulah asked. She pointed to the curled image of the Sleeping God, surrounded by a clear space on the page.
Perhaps she knows more than she admits, Ramus thought, panicked. “Sleeping God,” he said, trying to sound casual. “See the space around it on the page? They shun the cult of the Sleeping Gods and worship the heavens.”
Lulah nodded, and glancing sidelong at her Ramus could see that she was scanning elsewhere on the page.
“I thought these were the words of a story,” he said, pointing at some of the lettering surrounding the more literal imagery. “I was searching for a link between the images and the words, but now I think they're more than a story. I think some of them form a spell.”
“A spell?”
“A curse,” Ramus said. “Maybe a warning against . . . something.” “Why do you think that?”
“I recognize some of the words.” It was almost as if he were talking to himself now, and Lulah's questions were what he had been asking himself as he sat by the fire. His concentration focused inward, and speaking through his thoughts gave them more weight. “I was looking backward to older languages, to see whether any of the lettering or glyphs matched any that I've read before. But I should have been searching differently. If this is from the top of the Divide, whoever wrote it is cut off from the rest of Noreela, and their language has developed in isolation. So I took some of the older, dead languages and tried to present them forward, imagining how they could have developed had they survived. And I started to see things.” He pointed to a splay of words halfway down one page, surrounding the image of a tall, thin humanoid figure with hands raised into a cloud above its head. “Old Narumian,” he said. “Except the structure is all turned around, and some of the words don't make sense. And there's a definite Old Cantrassan lilt to some of the spellings. Strange, but that's how it seems. It's like the roots of these languages were the same, and . . .” He shook his head and blinked rapidly a few times, trying to clear his eyes. Then he spoke a few Narumian words similar to those he saw, attempting to incorporate how the alteration would affect their articulation. It felt wrong in his throat and the words hung heavy on the air.
“What was that?” Lulah said.
“I'm not sure.”
“Well, I'm going to walk around a bit more,” the Serian said, but Ramus barely felt her leave. He was there on his own, and those just-uttered words hovering around his head, as though waiting to be unspoken.
He traced his finger across other pages, different lines, until he saw a line of writing that bore resemblance to an old Ventgorian tongue. Nomi may have heard these words, but she would not recognize them written down. The lettering was different— there seemed to be more letters in this alphabet, at least thirty as opposed to the twenty-four in modern Ventgorian—but Ramus whispered his way along the line.
Something touched his cheek. He started, dropping the pages, standing and stumbling back. He scanned the camp quickly and saw that there was no one there. Putting his hand to his face he found a few specks of dust clinging to his stubble, wind-blown grit that had struck him like a soft fingertip.
“And now I'm spooking myself before sleep,” he said, but in truth he was enthused by his breakthrough with the parchments. He would sleep for a while now, let his unconscious work on the problems. And in the morning, while Lulah prepared breakfast, he would peruse the pages once more.
The time would come when he should tell her what they might find at journey's end. But until he could make more sense of the parchments, he would keep such possibilities to himself.
&nbs
p; HE SLEPT WITH the holed stone still around his neck, and that night he dreamed of the Widow. She was younger than she had been when he met her, and there was something almost beautiful about her appearance. But she was still aloof and alone, exuding a haughty indifference when he tried to tell her of things beyond the mountains. He had Ten's pages in his mind, though he did not speak of them, and the Widow came close, fixing him with bright green eyes that would fade to gray with age. Do not fool with curses you do not know, she said. And he smiled, because he did not believe in curses.
But you do believe in charms? the Widow asked. That gave Ramus pause, because even in the dream he felt that weight around his neck.
He awoke to darkness, the dream melted away, and he understood that the Widow's warning and question were really his own.
THE SMELL OF cooking roused Ramus from a light doze, and when he exited his tent he found Lulah stirring a stew of the leftover rabbit. She looked edgy and nervous, and she barely acknowledged him when he sat on his saddle beside the fire.
“Have you slept at all?” he asked.
Lulah shook her head. “You could?”
“A little.”
“Daylight makes me more nervous,” the Serian said. She dished a portion of stew into Ramus's bowl, then stood, strolling slowly around the camp while he ate. “There's no real threat, but my guts ache, and I know there's something wrong.”
“You've seen or heard nothing?”
She shrugged.
“Then we break camp and go on. I'll lead your horse and—”
“I won't be sleeping until I feel better about this.”
“That may be a long time,” Ramus said. “You've not been here before. The Pavissia Steppes is a strange place. Have you heard it called the Land of the Lost?”
Lulah shook her head.
“It's a Voyager name. Foolish, perhaps, but it shows how uncertain people are about traveling this way. Many have vanished here, and not every disappearance is due to marauders. Some have witnessed their traveling companions fade away in a blink, as though passing through a doorway from Noreela to somewhere else. Others have fallen victim to rokarian traps.”
“Rokarians?” Lulah shook her head. “Myth. There are no plants big enough to eat a person whole.”
“True, I've not seen one myself,” Ramus said. “But the Pavissia Steppes hides its secrets well.”
Lulah fixed him with her eye, then shook her head and looked away. “I'd still rather stay awake,” she said. “If the time comes when I have to sleep, I will.”
Ramus thought of the parchment pages he had hoped to work on again that morning. But as they packed up camp and he hoisted his backpack, he did not feel sorry. There would be plenty more nights, many more mornings.
His dream of the Widow's warning sang to him as they rode out.
HE COULD SMELL the blood from a long way off. Lulah glanced back, but he nodded at her before she said anything. Maybe this is the wrongness she was sensing.
The Serian stopped her horse beside an ancient cairn. “I'll go on ahead, on foot. I don't think it's fresh.”
“You can tell that?”
“You stay here,” she said, ignoring him. “Behind the cairn. Keep the horses quiet. And take this.” She unwound her weapon roll and handed him a small crossbow. “You have your own knife, yes?”
Ramus nodded. He felt uneasy holding the crossbow, yet he could see that Lulah would not allow him to return it.
“Going for a look.” She tied the horses' reins to a stone protruding from the cairn and then stood there for a beat, tapping her hand against her thigh.
“Lulah?”
She looked at him, tight-lipped. “There should be at least two of us,” she said. “I can't watch my own back.”
“I'll come and—”
“You'll give us away.” She looked past the cairn, then up at its summit, maybe twenty steps high.
“You said you don't think it's fresh?”
“Doesn't smell fresh.” She climbed carefully, testing each foothold before transferring her weight from stone to stone, higher, pausing twelve steps up and lying flat against the stones.
Ramus wondered briefly which Chieftain or clan leader was buried beneath the stones, but he had already seen the opening where a barrier of sticks and mud had once shut the tomb. Someone had looted the cairn long ago, and he doubted there was anything inside but dank air.
Lulah slid back down to the ground.
“What did you see?” Ramus asked.
“There's a building half a mile away,” she said. “It looks like a small temple of some kind, though I can't tell to what.”
“And?” he prompted, sensing that there was more.
“Bodies,” she said.
It's a temple to the Sleeping Gods, Ramus thought. I know that already. It's inevitable, and I've fooled with curses I cannot know. It's sensing me, it knows I'm coming and its marking my route and giving me warnings I cannot read on these old pages.
Such thoughts shocked him, but they did not feel as foolish as they should.
“We should go around,” he said. “Head east for a while . . .”
“I suppose that would be safest,” Lulah said uncertainly.
They stood in silence, the rising sun reflecting heat from the light stones.
Can I ignore such a message? he thought. Lulah was staring at him, aware of his discomfort.
His head throbbed suddenly, as if something was moving inside his skull, and as he swayed he felt the Serian's strong hands grasping his biceps and changing his collapse into a controlled fall. Sweat ran cool, daylight shimmered, and then he could see clearly again. A brief burst of pain, but a reminder nonetheless. Time, Ramus thought. I have so little. He held on to the stone charm around his neck and craved the moons, but felt foolish doing so.
“No,” he said at last. “No, we must go on. If this was marauders, hopefully they're long gone.”
“I'm not so sure,” Lulah said.
“There's no time to go around! We have Nomi at a disadvantage, but they'll catch up. She won't give in.”
Lulah sighed, then nodded. “You hide in there, I'll check.” She pointed at the tomb.
“You'll not leave me waiting for you in an old tomb, empty or not! I'll come with you. Besides, you can better protect me at your side.”
“But your head, your—”
“I'm fine.”
“I saw lots of bodies, Ramus.”
“I've seen dead people before.” He stood without her help, untethered their horses and was the first to mount. He thought he hid his queasiness well.
HE HAD SEEN dead people before, but never ruined like this. Ramus stopped counting after fifteen. Piled against a wild hedge some distance from the bodies were several dead horses, fleshy gashes gaping pale in the sunlight where rain and dew had washed away dried blood.
Beyond the bodies was the temple. And as he suspected, it bore all the characteristics of an ancient building raised to the Sleeping Gods, even older than the temple they'd visited in the ravine. There were carvings in the stone plinth—words and symbols both known and obscure—and evidence of a gully dug around the outer wall to channel worshippers' prayers downward.
The blood of the dead was splashed up its sides.
It has painted itself red so that I can see it better, Ramus thought. His heart was racing, and his head seemed clearer and more certain than ever.
The temple was set in a stand of trees. The base of its walls was stone, several steps high, and above this the walls and roof rose in roughly hewn timber, bleached by weather. The carvings in the stone were splotched black with dried blood.
The bodies crawled with ants, beetles and flies, and many of them had been chewed by larger things.
It knew I would come this way, Ramus thought, but even then his panic was being countered by something that seemed to bear more sense.
“Definitely marauders,” Lulah said. “The dead wear no jewelry, and there are no children.”
“The marauders trade them as slaves,” Lulah said. “Some marauder clans flay them and eat them alive. Old flesh is tough.”
Their horses had stopped of their own accord, skittish from the sight and smell of the dead.
Marauders, Ramus thought, not the Sleeping God reaching for me . . . His doubts swayed, rising and sinking. “But the militia said there was no marauder activity close by.”
“And what do they know, sitting fat and drunk in their border building?” Lulah said. “Try telling that to him.” She pointed at the closest corpse, a man whose throat had been sliced to the bone. His eyes had been taken, and his death grin was stretched by days of blazing sun and nights of withering cold.
Ramus looked again at the old temple, and the blood smeared across the carvings. He could see no bodies close by—they had all been dragged away from the building to be killed—so whoever had spread the blood must have done so on purpose. No accidental splashes. No dead falling against the stone and leaving their final mark there.
A message from It to me, a warning, a guide, a sign, an acknowledgment—
“Ramus?”
“The temple,” he said. “None of them were killed close to it.”
Lulah shrugged. “So marauders have their superstitions as well.” But she looked warily at the temple, as if it had more to tell.
“We should leave,” he said. “The stench of death and blood is heavy here. It's upsetting the horses.” He kneed his mount and turned away from the slaughter, but as he trotted toward a shallow dip in the land where a small stream found home, pain erupted behind his eyes so powerfully that he thought they had ruptured, his vision scorched away in a blinding light. He cried out and reached for his head, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes. His horse darted to the right. Ramus fell.
HE IS STANDING on a low ridge, from which he can see all around, and he knows that he is alone in all of the Pavissia Steppes. There is no other human here but him, and no signs that there ever have been: no walls, no old hedges, no scars of campfires, buildings, chopped trees, ruins, cairns or trails. He is long before or long after the time of humans in Noreela, and to the south the sky burns a palette of reds, purples and maroons. He feels at once insignificant and the center of attention, but the attention of what, he cannot tell.