by Ian Irvine
She sat in the crook of her tree, wondering what to do. She wanted to link to Llian, to be sure he was safe, but even if she could reach him from here, she did not dare with Rulke so close.
There was really only one option—hide in the woods until they gave up or her food ran out. She headed back into the forest. It was a still, beautiful place after the snow. Karan drank up the smell of the wood, the feel of it, the calm, solitude and renewal. But it did not ease her own conflict: the rights and wrongs of what she had done in Carcharon, and what Llian must think of her for doing it.
At the most northerly extent of the Forest of Gothryme there was an old stone hut, a one-roomed dwelling sometimes used by hunters or gleaners, though seldom in the winter. It had the forest at its back and looked over the escarpment across Faidon Forest to Elludore, and east toward the Sea of Thurkad. From where she was now, near Black Lake, it was three or four leagues away; a couple of days’ hard walking, in these conditions. No one would ever know she was there, if it snowed enough to cover her trail. No one would think of looking there for her.
When darkness fell Karan was still a good day from her destination, so she continued on, knowing that the moon would rise before too long. Over the past days she had grown used to walking and working in the darkness, and this was an easier, less dangerous trek than the others had been. There was a path of sorts, an old forest trail, now seldom used except by animals. But after walking in the darkness for about an hour she lost the path, or it petered out. She found herself struggling across a succession of steep gullies and ridges and could not work out where she was. Had she wandered down toward the escarpment, or up to the base of the mountain slope? There was no way of telling. It was now overcast, pitch dark.
As she floundered through the snow, the edge of a steep bank collapsed under her, precipitating her into a gully floored with rocks. A broken branch end jagged her lip. She tasted blood.
Karan stopped abruptly, feeling the gash with her fingers. It wasn’t serious. She forced her way through a thicket of saplings, then without warning found herself sliding down a greasy slope. She lost her footing and crashed through ice into water. Plates of ice bumped at her knees. The water filled her boots and burned like a cold flame.
Karan was furious with herself. Now she’d have to make camp and a fire, and damn quick, else she would get frostbite. All other dangers must be ignored. Not daring to wade across in case there were deep holes, she found that where she’d fallen in was too steep to climb out. Part of the bank had collapsed, leaving a sheer overhang. Skidding along the edge for an agonizing minute, she ran into the roots of a tree hanging down into the water. They were slippery with ice but she made it up and sat down on a root to empty her boots.
The wood on the ground would be wet; she didn’t even try there. Karan felt around for dead branches whose twiggy ends might be dry enough. Her labor resulted in only a handful, as the trees branched high over her head. Twice she lost her camp and once went close to going in the river again. She made a platform with wet wood to raise her pathetic pile of kindling above the snow.
Her feet were numb. Karan took off her boots and turned them upside down to drain. Ice cracked from her socks as she peeled them off. She had other socks but only the one pair of boots. She dried her feet carefully and put another pair of socks on, the best she could do.
Karan had tinder in her pack; she always carried some for such eventualities. She struck sparks into it but it would not catch. She felt around in her pack, hoping that there might be a scrap of paper. There wasn’t. Her fingers encountered the round shape of a marrim, a fruit like an orange only smaller, more oval and with red flesh. Like the orange, its rind contained oil. She remembered how, as a child, she had squeezed the oil into the fire, making little flares.
Peeling the marrim with her teeth, Karan ate the mushy, half-frozen pulp. She struck sparks into her tinder, blew on it gently until she had a little patch of red, folded over the marrim skin, pointed it at the glowing patch and squeezed the skin. The tinder went out.
She tried again, holding the skin further back. This time she was rewarded by a spurt of flame that leapt up through the tinder to the nest of twigs above. A tiny, timid flame, but how welcome! It warmed her hands and her heart. But not her feet, unfortunately, and now she had to find bigger wood quickly. The light made it easier.
Soon the fire was blazing and she had enough fuel for the rest of the night. Now, hot drink and lots of it. She went in her socks down to the stream, and while the water heated, Karan put her poor feet out to the fire and at last brought some life back to them.
All she had to drink was chard, but nothing to sweeten it with. Unsweetened chard was barely palatable. She dug out the remains of the dried fruit, tore them into little pieces with her teeth and dropped them into the brew, one by one. Her lips began to tingle.
Karan toasted a hunk of bread, threw an onion into the coals, made a platform above the fire and put a large piece of eel on it. The mug of chard went down in one gulp. It burned all the way and the ginger hotness lit a fire in her belly. She finished the fish and the bread, dipped another mug of chard and sat back feeling better. Picking out a piece of the Ghâshâd fruit (as she thought of it) she sucked at it, though again the sickly aftertaste made her spit it out. One boot was beginning to smoke; she turned them hastily. They were still soaking inside. Then something very strange happened.
All of a sudden she felt dizzy and nauseous. Her head spun, her stomach churned and the forest trees seemed to be hanging upside down. Karan stood up and promptly fell over. Her whole head now glowed with warmth—a tingling, burning feeling. Instantly that disappeared, the trees and the fire too. The whole world vanished and her identity with it.
What had happened? Where was she? The ground—no, the floor—seemed to be jerking up and down beneath her. How could it be floor? Where was the snow? Her feet thudded nerveless on hard tiles. Her head felt awful, a dizzy, whirling sensation, like too much wine. The back of her neck prickled as if someone was standing right behind her. She tried to spin around but her body would not obey. The prickling grew—there was definitely someone there—it felt as if someone was inside her!
She was not alone. She—they—were walking along together and the other person was just as confused as she was. Karan became aware of a terrible wailing and shrieking behind her. It was a very familiar noise.
Opening her eyes, she knew where she was at once. The wailing was the sound of a gale howling through wires and around slender towers. There were engravings and thread paintings on the walls—the walls of a vast empty city. She was walking down a long hall and into a meeting room. She was in Shazmak. At least, her consciousness was.
Now she felt something rise up, as to the surface of a murky pond. Something clutched at her, trying to pull her under, trying to climb up her body to air, life and liberation. Something that was horrified and horrifying. With a shudder of realization she understood what had happened—the reverse of that night at the campsite above Name. Her sending, her whole psyche, had leapt across space into the mind of one of the Ghâshâd, and it did not like it any more than she did. She thought of the Ghâshâd as alien, yet this mind was revealed to be a human being like herself, perhaps cruel and terrible, perhaps noble in its own way, but now uncomprehending and terrified (or perhaps comprehending too well). Certainly it was as frightened as she was.
Its mind was very strange. It seemed to think in broken sentences mixed with images, like reading a book where many of the words had been replaced with pictures that were warped, barely recognizable.
Then it began to understand that what had happened was an accident. That Karan had no idea what she’d done. That she was not trained to the control of others nor even had any knowledge of how it might be done. The other mind was no longer frightened. It calculated what to do and with ferocious intensity began to assert itself.
Other Ghâshâd appeared in front of her, giving her strange looks. She heard words forced out of her mouth—Fl
iox vurnggh hwoe!—but the language was unknown to her. Karan struggled desperately to hold on to her identity.
Suddenly the room spun, everything went blank and the next she knew she was looking up at the ceiling. A gaggle of Ghâshâd stared down at her, helping her back up. Now they were speaking at her, saying encouraging things, and slowly the Ghâshâd that was trying to get back into her mind began to force her back against a wall, giving her no way to escape. Then their voices blew away like feathers on the wind, replaced by another face; another mind. This one she could do nothing about. It was Rulke.
He roared with laughter. My little friend, you must be very hungry if you have to eat hrux to keep alive. I thought it was you the other night, but nothing more happened. Perhaps you didn’t like the taste. No matter—it grows on you. How much did you eat this time? Be careful, my dear Karan. Too much can kill you. One whole piece would end you, I think. You’re such a little thing. Even a bit the size of a pea will give you bad dreams. Half a piece and you will not be able to keep away from it. You’ll keep coming back for more, and every time you come back you’ll end up here. Soon you won’t want to go away again.
Don’t look at me in that reproachful way. It’s none of my doing. This is Ghâshâd work, and no one made you take the fruit. No one will force you to have more. That will be as you will. See, I warn you freely.
Karan’s mind was boiling with terror. What had she done to herself? The one whose mind she occupied advanced on her again. She could no longer resist him. She could feel him compressing her into a tiny space up against the wall of his mind. She was losing her identity, being submerged completely, soon to become a creature under the control of the Ghâshâd.
Llian, she cried out. Llian, help me! There was no answer, could not be any, for she was not linking, just sending, and he was too far away. But just the thought of him helped her, and perhaps the effects of the small piece of hrux were wearing off.
Karan kicked out with all her strength and will, and the Ghâshâd whose mind and body she occupied kicked just as hard. She felt an awful pain as he broke his toes on the stone wall. Suddenly she found herself back in the forest, screaming. She had kicked the fire, scattering logs and coals across the campsite. There was a ragged gash on the end of her big toe, from which blood poured out onto the snow.
Shaking with horror, Karan hurled the contents of the pot and the mug down the bank. For good measure she washed them out with clean water, three times. Then she rebuilt the fire, gathered huge quantities of wood and built another fire nearby. She burned the remainder of the hrux and searched her pack in case there was more.
Another piece was trapped in one of the side seams, down near the bottom. Karan fished it out and put it to her lips, only realizing what she was doing at the last minute. Even then it was hard to put it down, not to eat it, and the longer she held it the harder it became, until with a great effort of will and revulsion she hurled it into the hottest part of the fire and watched it shrivel away to nothing.
Karan fixed her bleeding, throbbing toe and made another pot of chard—plain, ordinary, bitter old chard. She sat between the two fires, revelling in the unpleasant flavor until all the hrux aftertaste left her mouth, the last semblance of warmth was gone from her lips and belly, and the inside of her head no longer glowed.
I will not come! she said to herself. You underestimate me, Rulke. I will fight you to the end.
Suddenly he was back in her mind, as horribly near as if he whispered in her ear. He seemed amused. You are clever, little Karan, and I respect you for it. Enjoy your triumph while you may. One day I won’t need to hide in Shazmak, and then I’ll call for you again. Nothing will stop me then.
“Get out!” she shrieked aloud. “Get out of my mind. You’ll never find me.”
I don’t need to, he chuckled. You will come of your own accord, when the time is right. Then he was gone.
She sank to her knees beside the fire, thanking her luck that most of the hrux had fallen out in the snow at Carcharon and been lost; and that she found the taste so unpleasant. Otherwise by now she would be in Shazmak, or on her way there, prisoner and addict. Or dead from it. And she had learned something useful too. Rulke had fled to Shazmak with his construct. Llian was safe for the moment; perhaps they both were. She could sleep easier for that. Unless he was lying. Unless he was hunting her now.
The snow began to fall heavily, enough to cover her tracks. Karan slipped into her sleeping pouch, pulled it up around her shoulders and sat sipping her chard. Finally she fell into a sleep tormented by nightmares even more strange and hallucinatory than her previous one.
14
A Feast in the Forest
In the morning Karan continued. Several more times she sensed those strange, fractured, word-and-picture sentences, and knew that the Ghâshâd were still looking for her. She finally reached the cottage in the late afternoon. It was snowing again but the wind had swung around to the east and over in that direction, toward Thurkad, the cloud was beginning to break up. The morrow promised good weather, not what she wanted at all.
She had been to the hut as a child. It had seemed much larger then. Now she saw that it was small, rustic and in need of repair. It was just a one-roomed cottage built of stone gathered nearby, roughly shaped slabs of schist laid flat like brickwork and held together with burnt limestone mortar. The roof, which overhung two tiny window holes, was clad in green slate crusted with lichen. Many of the slates were slipping. The roof overhung the windows. A scrap of veranda faced the escarpment.
To the east the forest thinned. She could see grass and heath through the trees. In front of her the escarpment curved around to run east-west. Below and beyond was the endless expanse of Faidon Forest butting up against the mountains. Not far west the mountains rose up sheer and bare, for here the plateau was only a few hundred paces wide.
Karan took her pack inside. The earth floor was pitted where the roof had leaked. There was a rude bench and stool, and a small supply of dry wood stacked on the hearth. It must have been there for ages because as soon as she struck sparks to tinder it blazed up. There was nothing to eat of course, and her own supplies were almost gone now.
In a minute, smoke began to belch out into the room. None seemed to be going up the chimney at all. It must be blocked. Just what I need, Karan thought wearily.
She climbed onto the roof, clambered up the chimney and peered inside. It was completely clogged with old bird nests and leaves. Karan got down again, searching for a long stick to poke the mess through into the fireplace. Before she found one there came a furious roar and flames leapt out the top of the chimney. The accumulated rubbish was on fire.
Nothing she could do about it. She had experienced chimney fires before, and knew that they weren’t dangerous as long as the chimney was properly built. On the other hand, the clouds of smoke made an unmistakable signal, should anyone come this way looking for her. Going inside, she stood by the warmth.
Putting water on to boil, she watched the fire gloomily, munching a lump of cheese. She’d have to go looking for food in the morning. Karan contemplated that prospect without enthusiasm. Precious little to find at this time of year, up here.
After her tea, Karan busied herself gathering wood and stacking it on the veranda until there was enough for a week of bad weather, always a risk in the mountains. Making a broom by binding dry reeds to a stick, she swept the earthen floor and removed the accumulated cobwebs. She carried water from a trickle issuing out of a gully below her, until the cauldron on the fire was full. By then it was dark. Food she could do nothing about until the morning. Tomorrow she would repair the roof, if the weather allowed.
She sat down by the fire. The room stank of burnt soot. Everything that could be done to occupy her mind had been done. She felt neither sleepy nor hungry. All she could think of was what she had done back in Carcharon, and wonder what would be the consequences of it.
She dozed, only to be woken by a sharp crack. Karan sprang up, s
earching for the source of the noise. Crack, crack, crack came from the chimney, then one whole side fell out into the snow. The chimney blaze must have weakened the mortar.
Wind howled in the gap, sending sparks, ash and smoke billowing through the room. Karan ran outside to see if she could plug the opening, but the stones proved too hot to handle. Going back inside she skimmed floating ash and charcoal off the top of her pot and made chard. It tasted like sooty mud. The hut was frigid now. Curling up in her sleeping pouch in the most sheltered corner, she closed her eyes.
She could not get to sleep. Was the Forbidding still the same now that Rulke had punctured it? What about the creatures that had escaped? One man was dead, at the least. If she’d not helped Rulke, he would still be alive. What other tragedies had resulted from her betrayal?
A little short-tailed mouse crept out of a crevice beside the fireplace, its pointed snout questing this way and that. Sitting up on its hind legs, it twitched its nose. Intelligent eyes watched her.
Karan flicked a scrap of cheese at it. The mouse scurried back to its hole, displaying a fluffy white flag of tail. After peeping out of the crack for some time, it darted out, seized the morsel in its front paws and sat up, eating it delicately. Karan tossed it another piece and went back to her deliberations.
The revelations about her father were another puzzle. Had Basunez discovered some great secret up there? No doubt that Galliad thought he had, and had lost his life trying to find out. Karan couldn’t help but feel that there was more to it, though—that somehow everything was connected, including her, the triune!
Hunger woke her at dawn. It was a fine day and she spent all morning searching for food but found absolutely nothing. After lunch, eel and onion and not much of either, she attempted to repair the chimney. More had collapsed after the fire cooled, and now she was faced with a hole larger than a door.
With no mortar to stick it together again, the best she could do was attempt a dry-stone wall, but that would take more stone than she had. It turned out to be an incredibly slow process and her fingers were raw by the time darkness put an end to the work. The job was not even half done.