Solem

by Clive S. Johnson

  She hardly seemed to breathe for a while, but then slowly drew the guard away from her face.

  “Any pain?” Craith quietly asked against her neck, looking over her shoulder at the inner side of the guard in her hand. He could see the shape of her eyes tear-stained into its pigskin.

  “N—No…not yet.”

  Craith noticed Slobber now held his head to one side, his eyes intent on Janeen’s own, an almost inaudible whine coming from deep within his throat. Craith bent forward as she leant away and twisted to face him.

  He breathed-in a truncated gasp.

  “What’s wrong, Craith?” she asked in a small voice, shifting around to face him fully as Slobber slunk back.

  On her face was a mask of blanched-skin, the shape of the pain-guard. Between eyelids that looked startled wide, her eyes were like marble, a pure and sightless white. She groaned and quickly replaced the guard, soon retying it.

  “Pain,” she said. “I could feel it coming back, but…but not nearly as bad. Do you think that’s a good sign, Craith? That it’s lessened,” but he had no answer to give, neither to Janeen nor himself. For the first time, Slobber came to sit close beside Craith.

  As they’d already come some way down the ridge, Craith eventually decided they were best carrying on and heading towards the noon-high once they’d gained lower ground. Janeen offered no opinion, clearly still lost in thoughts of her childhood and her parents. She remained quiet as they descended the easier going ridge top, its thinner tree cover affording regular views across the forest canopy below.

  At one point, Craith stopped and pointed out a blemish that cut through the canopy. He reckoned it was the road to Fonschore, although it and Fonder Lake lay obscured beyond the fall of the land. “Somewhere along that road,” he told Janeen, “is the junction for Gryff.” Try as he might, though, he couldn’t see the two stone pillars that marked it.

  Come late in the afternoon, they finally reached the bottom of the ridge and once more set out towards the noon-high. They soon came to a river, steep banks keeping it to a deep and meandering cut. Too treacherous to cross, they were forced to follow it for quite a way before it broadened out and became shallow and slow enough to ford.

  On the far bank they rested, Janeen producing a muslin sack of prepared roots from her shoulder bag. Slobber slipped away, off into the darker depths of the forest, as though in search of his own repast. Janeen remained quiet, seemingly sullen, and Craith continued to worry.

  He wanted to comfort her but knew it would likely lead to mention of her parents again; probably not a good idea. He couldn’t imagine what she must have been feeling, seeing her own guilt in her mother’s death—but was she right to believe this? Before he realised what he was doing, he’d already spoken his thoughts: “But you must’ve only been a kid when your mum…” He mentally kicked himself.

  “Come on then,” Janeen said, pointedly repacking her shoulder bag and getting to her feet. “If you’re rested?”

  And on they went, silently, trying to keep towards the noon-high through the denser undergrowth. Craith secretly reckoned they were making far too little headway. He was just about to ask what she thought they should do for cover for the night, and where best to sleep, when he noticed a bright patch away to one side. He held back and peered through the gloom between the trees. After a moment, his eyes adjusted to the glare and he realised he could see the camber of a road, its light ballast gleaming in the sunlight.

  “Janeen?” he called after her, and she stopped and turned, glancing to where he looked. She ran back towards him. “Keep your voice down,” she tried to call in a whisper.

  “I think it’s the road,” he said as she drew near. “If we can get a look at which way it heads, we’ll know if we’re going in the right direction or not.”

  “But there’s someone there.”

  “Well, we’ll just have to wait ‘til they’ve passed.”

  “But they’re not moving. They’re just sitting there, at the edge of the forest.”

  “In which case, can you see anyone else along the road?”

  Janeen peered both ways through the trees. “No, not that I can spot.”

  “Well, one person on their own’s not much of a threat. Let’s go have a look anyway, eh? Maybe we can ask where we are, and find out how far we’ve to go.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Craith.”

  “Aw, come on. Take a peek at least,” by which time he was already pushing his way through the ferns towards the road.

  When he came to the edge of the forest, he peeped out from behind a tree and saw a man sitting on a wooden box beside the road, quietly witling a stick. Even sitting down with his back to Craith it was quite evident how stocky he was. Having second thoughts and about to slip silently back into the forest, Craith noticed the man turn and peer along the road.

  “Josiah Bradman!” Craith said in surprise, a little too loudly, and the man swung round and stared into the trees. Craith turned to explain to Janeen that it was a friend from Crook’s Fold: his Hunt the Lady card game partner from the Penny Barb Inn, when he realised she wasn’t there.

  When he looked back, though, Josiah Bradman was already only strides away, frowning as he approached Craith’s hiding place. Craith grinned as he came out from behind the tree and stepped forward.

  “What you doing up ‘ere, Josiah? Bit out o’ your way, ain’t ya?” but then Craith realised Josiah still held the knife, blade levelled at Craith. The look on Josiah’s face only confirmed Craith’s worst fears, but as he backed away, he tripped and sprawled at the base of the tree.

  The big man fell upon him, the knife soon at Craith’s throat, his arm jammed up his back. Then Josiah’s eyes lit up. “By Solem,” he growled, “straight into m’ hands, and on t’first day, an’ all.” He roughly pulled Craith to his feet, the knife never wavering at his throat.

  “What a fine n’ dandy hand you’ve dealt me this time, mate,” and he pushed Craith ahead of him, out towards the road. “Punchy?” Josiah yelled, and a man popped up from beyond the road, buttoning his flies.

  “What’s goin’ on? Can’t a man have a piss in peace?” he called back, then started in surprise before haring across the road towards them.

  “Nah then; I caught ‘im single-handed, you hear? Me alone; so t’bounty’s all mine,” Josiah warned, painfully pushing Craith’s arm further up his back.

  Skidding to a halt at their side of the road, Punchy now stared wide-eyed and white-faced towards them, or so Craith at first thought. Then he realised he stared past them, to something at their backs.

  Craith felt Josiah turn. “Oh, shit!” he yelped, and Craith’s arm came free, along with the knife at his throat. Suddenly knocked to the ground, Craith looked up in time to see Josiah’s surprisingly sprightly bulk pelt off down the road, racing after Punchy’s fast receding figure.

  Puzzled, Craith began to get to his feet, but was sent sprawling this time by a tide of wolves that flooded past. A silent surge of grey fur had sluiced from the forest, hot on the heels of Craith’s onetime best card playing friend. Josiah and his new partner now ran for their lives along the road, having clearly been dealt, Craith wryly noted, a losing hand in this, their very last Hunt the Lady game of the day.

  33 Thoughts to Higher Places

  “I told you it wasn’t a good idea,” Janeen said as she stared off down the road and as Craith got to his feet.

  “Yeah, I know that now.” He stretched his arm, grimacing. “What is it about this arm, Janeen? First a gash, now—”

  “Why did they attack you?”

  “Ah, well, from what little that bastard Josiah let slip, looks like they’ve put a bounty on my head.”

  “A bounty?”

  “Mind you, Gryff have been quick, I’ll give ‘em that. I’ve only been gone a couple o’ days and they’ve already got people out and about who can recognise me.” He followed Janeen’s stare. “Do you think they’ll be all right? Josiah might be a bast
ard, but I’d hate to think of him getting hurt.”

  “I can’t be sure, but I think they’re just being chased. They’re getting too far away to tell properly. So…you knew them then?”

  “One of ‘em,” and Craith explained who Josiah Bradman was, finally saying in disgust, “Known ‘im for years; play cards with ‘im most weeks, and now this. Money, eh? I wonder how much—”

  “So, do you now accept we have to keep away from the roads then? Stay in the forest? Well away from… Ah, seems at least the wolves have taken my advice to heart; they’re slipping back into the forest.”

  The road curved away into the distance, so Janeen had clearly been mind-staring through the trees, for nothing but an empty road lay before Craith.

  “I did mean to ask earlier, but how come you can see people through trees? Surely, being alive, they’d get in the way.”

  Janeen at last turned to him. “People shine more solidly, Craith, the same as other animals, like the wolves. The trees are dimmer, you see, less solid, more like smoke through which I can see. Grass and moss are thinner still, and I can only just make out lichen. Anyway,” and she hurried Craith from the road and back into the forest, “we’d best not stand around out in the open.”

  They headed deeper into the forest until the ground began to climb, then Janeen stopped and pointed across the incline. “Noon-high’s that way.”

  “I reckon we’re not yet far enough from the road to be safe, Janeen.” He peered through the close press of trees and at what he could see of the slope. “We’d be better off on high ground, cutting across the heads of these valleys, avoiding the ridges.”

  They carried on in silence for a while, the valley steadily lifting them well away from the road and towards the winter-rise. The light had already begun to fade when Craith finally asked Janeen where she thought they should sleep for the night. She’d looked surprised, clearly not having noticed the encroaching twilight.

  She led Craith a little way up the side of the valley until they came across a steep stretch from which jutted moss-covered rocks. After a short search she found an overhung hollow, dry, thinly-grassed earth at its floor.

  “This’ll do nicely,” she said, throwing her shoulder bag down. “Plenty of good sized ferns here,” which she took to cutting down and gathering. Before long, she’d woven them into lush mats which she then lay on top of each other within the hollow, to form a mattress.

  Craith had sat on a fallen tree trunk, marvelling at the way she moved about with such ease in the failing light. He felt his unaccustomed wondering once again rear its head, and this time he speculated, as best he could, on what drove Janeen. He could understand her wish to save the dwelgefa, and even himself, but at such cost? And what had she really meant by ‘It’s more than that’?

  He could see how she’d now feel responsible for her mother’s death if she really had bewitched her, but could she have? Was such a thing possible? Then he realised it didn’t matter. What mattered to Janeen was that she believed it, believed it so wholeheartedly she was now prepared to… To what? To throw her life away to save others from succumbing? Did she really see herself as that kind of threat?

  He couldn’t believe it. How could a seventeen-year-old girl be such a risk to others? She was… She was too beautiful for that, and Craith cursed the darkness that had now descended, hiding that beauty from what he now had to admit was his longing heart.

  What was he doing? helping her to end her life. No, he couldn’t let it happen. But how to prevent it? He was to be the trader, she the traded goods, so surely, that should put him in a good position to do something. But what? Instead of an answer, Craith’s toiling brain delivered nothing more than a headache.

  After they’d eaten the remains of Janeen’s store of roots, she removed her cloak and spread it over them as they lay within the hollow. Only as Craith soon tipped into sleep did the fleeting thought cross his mind that he could just refuse to lead her to Gryff. But she’d only find her own way to the road and hand herself in, he was sure of that. No, better they followed her plan, and hopefully by the time they got to Gryff he’d have found some way to intervene.

  When he awoke in the growing dawn light, Janeen was nowhere to be seen. He felt even grubbier. Groggily, he slipped out from under Janeen’s cloak and wandered down to the river at the valley floor. He spotted her, clearly rinsing yet more chopped roots, and his stomach again grumbled.

  “You’re up early,” he called. She froze and glanced his way, then relaxed.

  “We need breakfast,” she called back. “The roots are at their sweetest before dawn.”

  “You warm enough?” he said as he joined her. “You left your cloak behind.”

  “Couldn’t…couldn’t leave you without some warmth,” and she quickly turned back to washing roots.

  Craith sat beside her on the bank, his feet dangling over the metal-blue water of the river. Something wet hit him on his brow and he looked up. “Is it raining?”

  “I think so, but unless it gets really heavy, we’ll not notice down here.” She now wrapped the roots in her skirt, patting them dry, showing a shapely leg. It looked so pristinely white considering how dirty they’d both got, but then his stomach rumbled once more.

  “Sounds like it’s about time we ate,” she said, smiling up at him.

  When they’d later left the hollow behind, Craith suggested they move up the valley side and onto its ridge. He reckoned the going would be better and maybe they’d get a chance to view the way ahead.

  They spent most of the morning climbing what steadily became a narrow edge, the forest slowly thinning as their way became more rocky. A light rain now reached through, enough for Janeen to offer him space beneath her cloak when they stopped for a rest. It brought them close, as close as they’d slept, but now they were both fully awake. Craith could feel her heat against him, the remembered whiteness of her leg pressed to his. Although, like him, she smelled unwashed, it seemed as sweet as their breakfast roots had indeed turned out to be.

  Shortly after they’d moved on, they lost the tree cover entirely, their path now more rock than grassed earth. Janeen had to rely more on Craith, for although she could mind-see the grass, she told him the moss-free rock appeared as nothing more than utter blackness. Craith was then so busy making sure of her footing, he didn’t notice a steep rocky rise coming into view at the top of the ridge. When he did, he groaned.

  It marched not only across the top of the valleys, reaching deep down into their heads, but also across the widening ridge they were both following, seemingly barring their way.

  Craith stopped and stared. “Bugger,” and his shoulders slumped. “I didn’t expect there to be such a wall o’ rock to climb.”

  Janeen frowned. “Wall of rock?”

  “That,” and he pointed.

  “All I can see in my mind is the grass petering out to blackness. Above that, there’s just writhing sunbeams lacing the sky. I take it that black gap’s your wall of rock, then?”

  “‘Appen,” and now another problem rose in Craith’s mind.

  “Happen?”

  “Eh? Oh. More than likely so.”

  For the first time that day her face cracked into a grin, then she laughed. “You don’t half have a funny way of speaking sometimes, Craith. Do you know that?”

  He smiled. “Aye, ‘appen I do,” and they both broke into laughter until his quickly subsided. “Trouble is, Janeen: we ‘ave to go that way to get above the valley heads, before we can strike out towards the noon-high.”

  “Ah,” and her face lost its merriment. “How am I supposed to climb what I can’t see?”

  “Exactly.”

  Now her shoulders slumped, and she bit her lip. “Well,” she forcibly breezed, “you’ll just have to lead me…won’t you?”

  “Lead you?” He looked up at the wall again. “We’ll see…once we get close and I can tell if there’s an easy way up. Otherwise, Janeen, I think you ought to think seriously about—”


  “I’m not going to change my mind, Craith, whatever you may hope. It’s going to take more than a wall I can’t see to stop me from going to Gryff.”

  “But, Janeen—”

  She turned on her heels and marched off up the ridge, soon tripping over a rock and falling to her knees. Craith slowly shook his head and closed his eyes for a moment before he reluctantly went to her aid.

  34 A Daunting Prospect

  The rock face turned out to be more a severe slope than a wall. Craith spent a while surveying it, looking for an unimpeded climb. Eventually, he reckoned it could be done and led Janeen by the hand onto a large expanse of sloping rock.

  She cursed after only a few steps. “I can’t do this standing, Craith; I’ve already jarred my foot. Here,” and she slipped her hand from his, “let me try it on all fours. At least that way I can feel ahead.”

  Craith now followed her up the angled slab, directing her by voice. Although slow going, in this way they made steady progress. Where clefts had to be straddled, he’d stop her and guide her limb-by-limb until safely across. Often, he’d suggest a rest whilst he planned the next stage of their climb. He was doing this when Janeen tugged at the leg of his pants.

  “I wonder if that’s Slobber?” she said, pointing down to the frayed edge of the forest they’d now left well behind. Craith turned to look.

  “I can’t see anything… Oh, you mean there?” and he too pointed.

  “No, but you’re right, and there’s another there…and over there.” Her arm swung towards the higher reaches of the valley side, but Craith couldn’t see through the trees.

  “There are others coming out below us,” Craith soon said when he noticed more grey shapes slipping through the thinning undergrowth, climbing towards them. Before long, the rock and bare earth below had become beaded by wolves, drawing together into a long grey snake that slithered up the path they’d so far forged on the steep rock slope.

  It gave their climb, though, a sense of urgency, as though the wolves were intent on the scent of prey. Incautiously, and without Craith’s direction, Janeen reached for what she must have thought was a handhold, only to find herself overbalancing, grasping at thin air. She yelped and fell forward, her arm scraping past the actual position of the rock before she thumped down hard onto the edge of the sloping outcrop they’d been standing on.