by Tim Stead
There was no reply. The fire continued to burn but Avatar did not speak.
“What are you waiting for?” Narak demanded.
“I am not permitted to touch you,” it said.
Its words raised a host of questions in Narak’s mind. Not permitted by whom? Why? Under what penalty? There was no time, however.
“I will sit on the sled. You can drag it. Is that permitted?”
“Perhaps for a short distance.” Avatar sounded uncertain, as though he was attempting to interpret some rule. He had heard the same tone a million times from courtiers, officers, politicians in the six kingdoms when they were seeking a way to bend a rule, to exceed their authority. Narak pushed.
“Then let us move.” He stood, sheathed his blades and edged forwards. He knew where the sled was, and in a few moments his foot kicked it. He stooped and found the straps, already thinking of where he would sit, which straps he would hold. He settled on top, his weight towards the back, well away from anything breakable, and he hooked his wrists under two straps, curling his fingers around them to hold them tight. “I am ready,” he said.
He wasn’t.
The sled took off as though pulled by two pairs of thoroughbreds. The wind in his face suggested that they were moving very fast indeed. The sled bumped and skidded. At times he was sure that it left the ground altogether, thumping back down into the snow and leaping forwards again. It took all his strength to hang on, and the rest of it to stop the sled tipping. He used his feet as outriggers, shifting his body weight to and fro to counteract the wildness of the ride. He enjoyed it, though. The experience had a raw intensity, an unpredictability that he rarely encountered.
After a while he began to worry about the sled. How much more of this buffeting could it take? If the runners broke it would be the gods own task to fashion a new one from the broken pieces.
Just as he was about to shout his concerns to Avatar they stopped. Snow sprayed over Narak as the nose of the sled buried itself in a drift, and silence fell. The excitement had lasted little more than two minutes, but he could not guess how far they had come. A mile perhaps.
“Avatar?”
“I am here.” It didn’t even sound out of breath.
“Have we come far enough?”
“They cannot sense us here.”
“Can they follow our tracks?”
“I do not know. Perhaps. When will you see again?”
“I cannot say.” Narak had kept his eyes closed through the ride, determined to protect them from the wind and flying snow, and now he opened them again and looked about. After a fashion he could already see. There was the whiteness of the snow, the patches of bare rock in darker patterns, and he could make out the sled, a rough oblong of grey and brown slightly tilted in the snow. Dawn had come, he guessed. “Soon, though,” he said. The healing seemed to be progressing quickly, even by his own standards.
As he watched the sky he could feel his vision clearing, a mist evaporating with the dawn. He loosed the straps on the sled and pulled out a broad piece of leather that he had packed to patch the straps if one broke. He took the dagger from his belt and, leaning the leather against a rock, cut a slot no more than an eighth of an inch wide across two thirds of its length. He then cut cords from a leather thong and punched holes in each corner of the mask, tying a thong to each. He tied the finished thing, crude as it was, about his head and adjusted it so that he could see through the slit.
It reduced his field of vision, but that was a necessary compromise.
“We can travel again,” he said. He looked for the route, for the shapes and patterns from his dreams, but there was nothing. He was no longer on his path. Avatar had taken them away from it. He was lost. “Which direction did you take us?” he asked.
Avatar did not speak, but pointed to the snow. Sure enough he could see the sled’s tracks, more like gouges in the snow, but easy enough to follow. Looking at the mountain that lay between them hand where he guessed his trail lay there was only one choice.
“We have to go back,” he said. “Perhaps the snow wraiths will ignore us once the sun is up.” Even he could not compare to the sun. Surely they would be more distracted by that than the small fire Avatar had somehow made. He tightened the straps on the sled and donned the harness once more.
Avatar said nothing, but walked at his side, matching his pace once more.
There were only six hours of daylight now, and it took the best part of an hour to retrace the wild path that Avatar had carved through the snow. Narak was amazed. There were places where the sled had not touched the ground for twenty feet, and places where it had cut two feet into the snow, exposing the rock beneath. It was a miracle that it had not been smashed to pieces. It had been dragged a fair bit faster than a horse could gallop, by his calculations.
The curious thing, though, was that he could not make out any sign that Avatar had run ahead of it. There were no footprints that he could attribute to his mysterious companion. It was as though the thing had flown. He added that to his list of questions.
The sun was scraping the rim of the hills to the south-east by the time they came to last night’s camp. The first thing he saw was the remains of Avatar’s fire. There had been a rock close to their camp, a piece of granite that stuck through the snow to half the height of a man. It was gone. In its place was a circle of bare rock, blackened, and entirely free from snow. Somehow Avatar had set granite on fire. Now that had to be a rare talent.
At first he didn’t see the snow wraiths, but he could feel them, even in the watery sunlight. He closed his eyes. There were more of them. Forty five or fifty cold spots dotted about the rocks, and it was to the rocks that they clung, to places where the dark stone was bare and absorbed the warmth of the sun.
He opened his eyes again. He looked at where he knew one to be, and he saw it.
Lace is delicate. Afaeli lace more delicate still where it has been raised to an art form, but even that was nothing compared to a snow wraith. It was as though the world’s smallest spiders had collaborated to lay dozens of webs on top of each other, agreeing to a design and executing it to perfection. The wraith was so fine it looked like mist.
It moved, too. It moved like water, defiant of gravity, flowing above the rock and pulsing as though somewhere within that mist of impossible spider lace there was a beating heart.
“They’re beautiful,” Narak said.
Avatar remained mute. Perhaps beauty was something it did not recognise. Narak watched the wraith move over the rock, and he could feel it sucking the heat from it, fee the cold where it had been. He stayed too long, looked too close. The wraith noticed him. It began to drift in his direction.
“How fast are they?” he asked, backing away.
“As fast as they need to be,” Avatar replied.
Narak continued to retreat, and the wraith continued to follow him. The distance remained constant as though it was more curious than aggressive. He drew one of his blades and held it out in front of him. Strangely he did not feel afraid. Avatar had told him that these things could kill him, suck the heat from his body, but he didn’t feel threatened. He slowed and allowed the thing to touch his blade.
He could feel it through the steel. The hilt became cold in his hand, but it was more than that. Where before he could see the thing pulsing, now he could feel it, a cold, rhythmic breath on his fingers. It was tugging at him, drawing his body heat down through the blade. He pulled back.
The hilt of the sword warmed. The wraith acted as though he’d stung it, whipping back from the tip of the sword and wrapping itself against the rock again, its fabric beating wild as a racing heart.
“I didn’t know you could do that,” Avatar said.
“Neither did I.”
“You didn’t fear it.”
Narak shrugged. “No, I didn’t.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. It’s the way Pelion changed me, I think. It’s like all the magic we do – the Benetheon
, I mean. We just do it. There’s no theory, no thought. It’s just there.”
“Yet you were afraid before.”
“I was blind. You said there was danger. It’s natural that I should believe you, I suppose.”
Avatar was silent again. Narak looked once more at the wraiths, silken ghosts on the rocks. He didn’t think there was any intelligence there – just animals, like wolves, quite innocent in their own way. He picked up the harness and looked north. The shape of the mountains was familiar again, and he could see the saddle that called him to it. He began to walk.
Avatar followed.
* * * *
It was after dark that he felt the familiar sensation of someone trying to contact him. He had just finished eating his meagre, cold rations and was wrapping himself in blankets in preparation for sleep when he felt it. Somewhere, someone was talking to a wolf. He closed his eyes and drifted into the Sirash. He followed the faint tugging until he settled behind the eyes of a wolf.
The first thing he saw was Prince Havil of Berash, leaning forwards earnestly. Most people were a little self conscious talking to a wolf, but not Havil. He was in full flow. Narak caused the wolf to raise one foot and place it on the prince’s knee. As he hoped, it stopped Havil in mid sentence.
“Start again?” Havil said. Narak had long ago formed the opinion that Havil wasn’t stupid, the young prince just needed to spend more time thinking and less time doing. His problem was that he loved to act, and hated the prudent precursor.
“It’s the prisoner, the one called Marik. The one you questioned about the papers. It seems he changed his mind. He wants to talk to you again.” Havil went on to recount his conversation with the Seth Yarra in some detail. That was another thing Narak had noticed about Havil, he was thorough, and his eye for detail was excellent. He trusted Havil’s reports completely.
As always Narak regretted that his wolves could not speak. He could translocate back to Tor Silas and speak to Havil. He could go back to Wolfguard and fetch the papers first and then question Marik again, but he did not wish to do so. He felt quite strongly that Avatar required his presence here, that it was important he should make the journey complete and unbroken. It was some kind of test. Apart from that he was far enough north now for any extended absence to be a death sentence for the wolf he exchanged places with. It was bitterly cold, there was only the food in the sled, and there were snow wraiths to worry about. If the wolf died he would have to begin the journey all over again, and he didn’t think he had time for that.
When Havil finished his tale Narak remained in the Sirash. Someone else would have to do what was required, and there he had a problem. His first choice would have been Pascha, but clearly that was impossible. She was still walled off from the world in her unbreakable sleep. That just left Jidian and Sithmaree. Nobody else had the mobility to do what must be done. He would have preferred to send Jidian. He trusted the eagle with his life, but he had to admit that was as far as it went. Anything more subtle and the big lummox was likely to mess it up, perhaps without even noticing that he had.
But could he trust Sithmaree?
Perhaps send them both? No, that wouldn’t work. Sithmaree would just watch Jidian make an ass of himself. She wasn’t one to take the lead.
But she would if she was alone among mortal men. There was no way that the snake would allow anyone at all to tell her what to do, let alone the Berashis. Narak didn’t like the idea of unleashing Sithmaree on his allies, but she was the best choice. She was arrogant and self serving, but she was also capable of subtlety and in this one instance her interests coincided with Narak’s.
He found her easily. It was always easy to pick a fellow god out of the oily constellation of the Sirash. He just thought of her, her face, the animal that she was bound to, and she was before him, her particular glow quite recognisable. He reached out.
Narak?
Yes. Pascha still sleeps?
Yes. But she remains well.
There is something that needs to be done.
Me? You want me to do something? She seemed surprised. He couldn’t detect anything else, if she was pleased or worried. There was just surprise.
I want you to take some papers to Tor Silas, to question a prisoner.
What papers? What prisoner?
There is a Seth Yarra there by the name of Marik – Havil will show him to you. The papers are written in the Seth Yarra tongue. He will translate them.
He has agreed to this?
Yes. But he needs watching.
You don’t trust him.
Not entirely. Can you do this?
I can. Why do you not ask Jidian to do this?
Narak hesitated. But there was only really one thing he could do. He lacks the subtlety. The Seth Yarra may need to be managed.
He sensed amusement. So the snake has her value after all.
You always did, Sithmaree, but it never aligned with my own before.
Very well. I will do this.
Be kind to the Berashis, Sithmaree, especially Havil. He is a friend. Be careful, too. Stay with people when you are out of Wolfguard. You may be hunted if you are careless.
You do not need to tell me this, she snapped back. He shed my blood, not yours.
He withdrew from contact and from the Sirash. Sithmaree would manage well enough, and Jidian would be safe in Wolfguard with Caster and the rest. He opened his eyes again and saw that Avatar’s blue flame eyes were bent in his direction, watching him in that unsettling, unblinking way it had. He rolled over so he could not see and waited for sleep to come.
Six – The Duke
Tilian had never met the duke. In fact the sum of his experience of nobility was restricted to Lord Skal and the general, and now he was in a tent where the noble outnumbered the common three to one. He’d never seen such fine clothing, so much gold, so many precious stones.
Duke Quinnial was seated. Tilian knew he was the duke because everyone deferred to him, and because he was twisted in his chair so that as few people as possible could see his crippled arm. Tilian knew about the arm. Everyone did. He’d been crushed by a horse as a child, so the story went.
Quinnial had been talking with the general, and Cain Arbak now stood close to his chair. The duke didn’t look happy. He seemed to have accepted the general in his new, young self, and with two hands. Tilian wondered if Quinnial was jealous, and what he would have given to have his own arm restored as the general’s had been.
“Captain Henn?”
He almost didn’t recognise his own name with the rank stuck to the front of it. The rather splendid officer speaking to him - the general had said he was an equerry, a sort of fancy horse master – looked mildly affronted at his slow response. The equerry’s uniform looked grander than the general’s.
“Yes,” he said. He struggled not to address the man as ‘sir’, but the general had warned him that, despite appearances, his captain’s rank made him the senior man. This prince among grooms should call him sir.
“Please follow me, Captain.”
He followed the man and was led the twenty or so steps across the great tent to the space directly in front of the duke. Nobility did things in strange ways, he thought. The duke could just have called his name and he would have rushed to stand before him.
Quinnial looked him up and down. It was not an unkind scrutiny, but an interested one.
“You’re younger than your colonel, captain Henn,” the duke said. There was a touch of something in his voice. It was not exactly exasperation, but the sort of tone that suggested he was no longer surprised to be surprised.
“Eighteen next month, my lord.” It was the only response he could think of.
“And you’re Lord Skal’s man, Cain tells me, captain of his guard.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Did you run into any trouble the other side of the Dragon’s Back?” he asked.
“One patrol,” Tilian replied. “We killed them.” It sounded very bald, very m
atter of fact, but Tilian had killed men on the wall at Fal Verdan. He was a soldier.
“Any losses?”
“Two men didn’t come back, my lord. We don’t know what happened to them.”
The duke nodded. “Well, you’ve done us a great service, Captain Henn. Cain speaks highly of you. He says we need more young men like you.”
Tilian bobbed his head, something between a nod and a bow. He shot a glance at the general, and found him smiling. Cain was pleased.
“Your sword, Cain,” the duke held out his hand, and Cain passed over his blade, a workmanlike piece of sharp steel with a worn leather grip. He tapped Tilian once on each shoulder, and when he spoke he raised his voice so that all could hear. “Tilian Henn, Captain of the Seventh Friend, I raise you up a Knight of Avilian. Let all here bear witness to the service rendered and the rewards received.” He gave the blade back to the general.