The batlike flying things fluttered close as they descended, the proximity revealing human faces set between the ragged wings, tiny eyes filled with tears, little hands extending from the gray membranes. “Go back,” their shrill voices called, “go back before you are lost.”
It was hard to ignore them, for there was an imperative in their warnings that struck deep into the soul, but as the slope flattened, the two intruders in this land of the dead touched the talismans again and found fresh strength, blocking their ears to the shrieking cries and ignoring, as best they could, the unpleasant closeness of the winged beings.
They reached the shore of the lake and saw wavelets lap turgidly against the limitless extent of that doleful strand, each one leaving a foul gray froth on the dripping stone. Things moved beneath the surface, glutinous bubbles rising and bursting to release sharp gasses that stung their nostrils, threatening to cramp their bellies with nausea. There appeared no way across and Kedryn was loath to enter the colloidal liquid so he began to walk along the shore, still plagued by the bats that fluttered about then- heads, maintaining their fluting warnings like some horrible airborne chorus. How long they walked he did not know, for time had no meaning here and there was no way in that depressing uniformity to estimate distance or duration, but finally they saw a difference in the shore and the surface of the mucous lake. A slab of stone intruded on the mere, and beyond it others, extending out into the mist-shrouded distance, precarious stepping stones. They were rugged and uneven, like ill-formed teeth, offering at best a dangerous footing, and lapped by the viscous, bubbling stuff. Kedryn studied them dubiously, unsure whether to risk a crossing or continue along the doleful strand.
“We might march forever,” Wynett suggested, “and these at least offer a way forward. I think we must cross.”
“Or try,” he nodded, remembering the warning of the guardian.
She smiled encouragingly and he touched her cheek, wondering if he could have found the courage to attempt this awful quest without her.
“Go on,” she urged, and he stepped up onto the first extrusion of stone, taking a deep breath as he trod across to the next, his arms thrust out to the sides, the blocks beneath his feet uneven, threatening to spill him into the menacing fluid.
Wynett followed close behind and they moved warily out over the lake. The spacing of the stones was irregular as their surfaces and they proceeded in steps and hops and jumps, often teetering on the verge of falling, aware that whenever they seemed poised to plunge into the reeking brew the moaning grew louder, anticipatory, the bubbles rising faster, as if creatures breathed below, eager to drag them down. The shoreline was lost to sight when something huge rose to the right. A massive, crenellated back humped from the surface, then a triangular head that dripped tentacular whiskers that waved, questing of their own accord, about a wide lipless mouth in which rows of saw-edged teeth glinted. Eyes the color of smoldering coals turned toward the travelers and a sigh, more awful for its longing than its loudness hissed from the gaping maw. The monster’s neck undulated as it dived, and wide-spreading ripples marked its passage toward the stepping stones.
“Quickly!” Wynett called. “Mayhap we can escape it.”
“No!” Kedryn’s answer was firm. “It will reach us ere we reach the far shore. We must face it.”
He smiled at her, more confidently than he felt, bracing his legs on the bumpy surface, studying the advancing crest of ripples.
This time the head appeared first, the long neck serpentine, writhing up until the jaws hung above him, the red eyes glaring down, liquid cascading from between the ghastly teeth as the feelers fluttered toward him. Kedryn clutched the talisman in his left hand, raising the right as though to command the leviathan.
“You defy me?”
It was not possible for jaws so shaped to speak, but words came out, sibilant, menacing.
“We seek to cross,” Kedryn answered, not knowing what else to say. “We offer you no harm.”
“Nothing can offer me harm,” the creature boasted, breath redolent of rotted fish gusting about Kedryn’s face. “I destroy all.”
“We are not of your realm,” Kedryn shouted into the piscine stink. “You have no right to take us. The guardian at the gate gave us entry. ”
“That suit of stinking armor?” Fishy contempt sprayed Kedryn. “That is nothing! I am everything.”
The neck thrust higher, the jaws opening, poised to descend, wide enough to swallow Kedryn whole. He opened his left hand, extending the talisman to the length of its retaining cord.
“Can you swallow this?”
The great head snatched back, turning from side to side that each eye in turn might study the faintly pulsating jewel, and angry breath hissed from the craggy nostrils.
“What are you?” it demanded.
“I am a man,” Kedryn said. “I am Kedryn Caitin. I am the hef-Alador. And I would pass with my companion.”
“So,” the thing hissed slowly, “you are the one. I know of you, and I know that you are awaited. There is one has greater claim on you than I—so I shall let you pass. You and yours. But I hunger, so you had best go swiftly.”
Kedryn nodded, unsure of the creature’s meaning, but unwilling to risk questions or delay longer. If something waited for him, it would appear in time, and for now the imperative was to cross the lake and leave this thing behind. He turned to Wynett, seeing that she, too, held her talisman out toward the monster.
“Come,” he called. “Come quickly.”
Wynett needed no further bidding and followed him as he leapt from stone to stone across the mere, not turning to see the leviathan sink slowly back beneath the surface, not seeing the smile that decorated its impossible mouth.
Their legs ached from the jumping before they saw the farther shore and sprang gratefully to drier ground, hard, gray gravel that was hot to the touch beneath them. They halted, throwing themselves panting down, at last daring to look back over the sullen gray lake. It still bubbled, but now there was no sign of the monster, and they felt almost relieved, happy to have escaped its threat.
“I have awaited your coming,” said a husky voice behind them. “It will be good to have companions in this place.”
Their breath caught then and they drew back from what stood before them, for it was recognizably human and that rendered it, somehow, more awful than the nightmare creations they had so far encountered. It stood on two blood-streaked legs, its loins wrapped in gore-soaked furs, bones visible through the wounds that gashed its sides and chest, its arms lacerated, tendons showing. Maggots crawled in the wounds, blind and white and fat. Around the neck was a gash lipped with old, still-oozing blood, the head set at a curious angle, as though barely connected. The lips were dried and curled back from yellowing teeth, the nostrils gone to ugly holes either side of a rotted jut of bone, the cheeks hollow, stretched like ancient leather between the thrust of the jaws, from which hung the mangy remnants of a beard. Worst of all were the eyes, for they were no longer there, only sockets in which worms crawled, and more maggots, falling loose as the apparition spoke. It plucked one absently from its ravaged chest and popped the wriggling obscenity between its fleshless lips, gulping it down casually as if it were a sweetmeat.
“Do you find me so distasteful?” The carrion creature laughed, spewing maggots. “There are worse than I here. And it was your father did this to me. Your father and the one called Brannoc.”
It touched its neck, fingering the wound there, and its head tilted, more crawling things dropping from the opened wound, “You are Borsus,” Kedryn said softly, his gaze transfixed in horrible fascination on the vermiculate face.
“I am,” the creature nodded, the movement threatening to topple the skull from its fragile connection, “and you are Kedryn Caitin.”
Kedryn saw then that the shade of Borsus was not alone, for across the graveled shore, where the stones seemed hotter, steam rising to form a reddish mist, shapes moved, shuffling within the fog. T
hey were unclear, and he was thankful for that mercy, for they had the delineaments of madness and they emanated a terrible lust, as if they waited for some sign, the giving of which would propel them forward to slake the ghastly hunger he felt in them.
“You took my sight,” he said.
“The sword that Taws gave me took your sight,” Borsus responded, and there was an echo of grief in his voice. “It took the life of the woman I loved—as you love her. ”
A hand rose to point at Wynett, standing slightly behind Kedryn, to his right.
“That was how Taws put the glamour in it,” the worm-eaten cadaver continued. “He took the blade and drove it through her heart; through mine in the doing. I was his man, yet he condemned me to this.”
His gesture encompassed the seething mere and the steaming beach, grubs falling like tears from the sockets of his skull.
“I would end such things,” Kedryn said. “Give me back my sight and I shall give you a revenge.”
“Revenge?” Borsus shook his head. “How can you revenge me? Taws is the Messenger; Ashar’s creature.”
“He deserted the Horde,” Kedryn said urgently, seeing the things that skirted the edges of the mist creep closer, sensing that all depended on this argument. “I slew Niloc Yarrum and Taws’s magics failed against me. You took my sight, but not my life, and the Horde was defeated. The Messenger fled and has not been seen again. Your people hail me as the hef-Alador. I have the support of Cord, Ulan of the Drott. The shamans of your people brought me to this place, that I might find you and gain back my sight.”
“Such doings,” husked Borsus, “belong to the world of men. The world of the living. We are the dead here.”
“You do not find peace here,” Kedryn said, “and in the world of men the power of Ashar is weakened. There is peace between the forest folk and the Kingdoms. Give me back my sight and I shall seek out Taws and slay him, and you will be revenged.”
“You promise much,” the cadaver murmured drily, “and I lost much. Perhaps I will make a bargain with you.”
“What?” asked Kedryn.
Beyond the ghastly mummy the advancing figures halted, closer now, but momentarily unmoving.
“I lost my woman,” Borsus said. “Give me yours and I will give you back your sight.”
“No,” Kedryn replied without hesitation.
“Then you shall remain here,” said Borsus. “Give her to me and you shall return, sighted again.”
“I will not,” Kedryn said.
Wynett stepped past him then, her face pale in the opalescent light of the cavern, set in grave lines, a hand clasped firmly about her talisman.
“If I remain, you will return his sight?” she demanded. “And send him safely back to the world of the living?”
“I will,” Borsus promised.
“No!” Kedryn shouted.
Woman and corpse ignored him. Borsus said, “If you will stay and be my woman, I will do this.”
Kedryn reached out, fastening firm hands on Wynett’s shoulders, thrusting her back. “This cannot be!” he yelled. “/ will not agree to this! I had rather remain blind than condemn you to this place.”
Wynett struggled in his grip, tears in her eyes, though her jaw was set firm and fierce determination blazed in her blue eyes, hot as the light that pulsed, unnoticed, from the two talismans.
“You are the Chosen One,” she said, fighting to break loose, “and you have a duty, a destiny that you must fulfill. You must regain your sight.”
“It is too great a price,” he gasped, fighting a fear greater than any he had known. “Your life for my sight? No! If my destiny demands that, I spurn it. I will not bargain you away. I love you!”
“And I love you,” she said, the tears welling now, spilling over her cheeks, though her voice remained firm. “I love you with all my heart, and if I must, I will sacrifice myself, I am not important—you are.”
“I am nothing without you,” he groaned. “Without you there is nothing for me. I had sooner remain here with you than live without you.”
He clutched her to him, pressing her to his chest, his arms protective about her, his face haggard as he saw the unacceptable enormity of the bargain offered. She clung to him, weeping and shaking her head as he pressed his lips to her hair, her cheeks, her mouth, turning so that he faced the wormy figure of Borsus again.
“I will not accept this bargain,” he said. “Return Wynett to the living and keep me here.”
“No!” Wynett fought free of his encircling arms, turning herself that she, too, might appeal to the shade of the warrior. “Do not listen to him! I will remain if you will send him back.”
“Do you love him so much?” Borsus asked, wonder in his grating tone.
“I do,” she said.
“And you,” the cadaver asked of Kedryn, “would you truly condemn yourself to this netherworld for her sake?”
“Aye,” Kedryn answered, unhesitating, “I would.”
“Such love,” Borsus murmured. “Taws gave Sulya to me with a glamour, but I loved her for all of that. Would that I had her now; whole. Would that we could love as do you.”
He paused, head lowered, so that the rear of his neck split open, tumbling writhing grubs to the gravel at his feet. Then, slowly, he raised his awful visage to fasten the wormy sockets on the two before him.
“Go back,” he said hoarsely. “Such a love deserves to live. Go back sighted, Kedryn Caitin, and take this woman to you.”
He reached out then, savaged arm extended toward Kedryn’s face, something that might have been a smile stretching his withered lips as he touched fingers to Kedryn’s eyes.
As he did so the light of the talismans pulsed fiercer, the blue radiance growing until it encompassed the three figures standing on that bleak shore, surrounding them with its effulgence. Kedryn held Wynett close, feeling something change within him, conscious of the watching shades retreating into the fog even as a sense of well-being filled him. The light grew brighter, driving back the gray shadows until the three of them stood alone in an enclave of peace. Borsus lowered his head, a rasping sigh escaping his cankered mouth, and for an instant Kedryn saw him whole, full-fleshed and smiling through a thicket of beard. Then he was gone and there was only the light, blue-bright as a summer sky, glad as Wynett’s eyes.
It pulsed faster, filling his vision until he was blind again and he blinked, aware of tears on his cheeks, aware of a dully glowing brazier that was red, and of five masked figures hunched within the confines of a smelly lodge. Aware of Wynett stirring beside him, lifting her head from where it had fallen against his thigh, raising her face toward him. Aware that he held her about the shoulders, their hands not touching. And that he saw her. “Kedryn?” she asked wonderingly.
He raised his hands, deliberately breaking the contact between them. And still he saw her.
“I see you,” he said. “I see you and I love you.”
“And I,” she answered, almost fearfully. “I love you. I cannot gainsay it—I love you, Kedryn.”
He took her face between his hands then, staring into eyes blue as the radiance that still burned in his memory, but lovelier, for in them he saw the confirmation of her words, the undeniable promise, and that filled him with a soaring joy greater even than the regaining of his vision.
He bent his head toward her and she put her hands about his neck, drawing him closer, her lips parting as he kissed her, the response of her mouth the final testament, and a promise of the future.
Chapter Eleven
The mehdri dispatched to bring word to Caitin Hold was not privy to King Darr’s wish for procrastination and so pressed on, as was the custom of his guild, with all speed. Nonetheless, he found his going slowed by the rigors of winter, the more so the farther he traveled from Andurel, He proceeded, at first, by river craft, embarking from the city on a sleek brigantine christened the Vallanna. She tacked into a howling north wind that by the time they reached Rostyth, a mere five days from Andurel, wa
s threatening to shred the brigantine’s sails. The mehdri stayed on the Idre another three days and then opted to take his chances traveling overland, disembarking at Lams, where he collected a horse from the guild stables and struck out for Amtyl. There he exchanged his near-exhausted animal for a fresh mount and continued on in stages to Kryst, Borwyth, Cadula and Norren. In the latter town he waited out a blizzard that gusted down from the Geffyn, closing the roads for five days. Then, fresh-mounted and equipped with a pack animal, he began the journey to the foot of the plateau. He was almost frozen by the time he reached Ganthyl, and spent two days easing the black threat of frostbite from his fingers and toes before attempting the ascent of the Geffyn. He was gratified to find sunlight awaiting him when he crested the massif and changed his mount and packhorse in Wyrren. Four days later he reached Caitin Hold.
The Lord Bedyr and the Lady Yrla were not there. They had received word, the mehdri learned, that their son, Kedryn, had likely fallen victim to an avalanche while attempting entry into the Beltrevan through the Fedyn Pass, and had gone to High Fort to seek information, and the help of the Forest Warden. The mehdri changed animals once more and started east to High Fort. At least, he thought, as he crossed the snow-shrouded plain, he would be able to take ship from the fort.
As he rode, Bedyr and Yrla were ensconced with Rycol, chatelain of High Fort, and his wife, the Lady Marga Cador na Rycol, in a chamber high above the great canyon of the Idre. It was dark and the shutters were closed over the windows, rattling as the wind blowing out of the Beltrevan gusted eerily about the tower. A fire blazed in the hearth, lending the wood-paneled room a cosy air that was not reflected in the faces of the occupants. Two rangy hunting dogs dozed restlessly by the flames, the mood of the humans communicating so that the heavy-jawed heads rose periodically to study them, the thick tails flicking. They were ignored, as was the wine and sweetmeats the Lady Marga had brought in.
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