by Ian Irvine
‘You and Thommel? How cosy. It’s a wonder you had the time.’ He couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his voice, though he regretted it instantly.
It wiped the joy off her face. ‘And I wonder why I’ve come all this way for an embittered whiner who can’t think about anyone but himself.’ She took a deep breath, then added coldly, recklessly, ‘Thommel is a decent, honourable man! He’s ten times the man you are, and I know I can trust him with my life. While you – after all we’d been through together, you walked away and left me to die. What a fool I was to believe the lying promises of the Deliverer.’
She was right, though it felt as though he’d been smacked in the face with a shovel. ‘I – I – Monkshart said you were dead. Phrune said he’d seen you surrounded by the soldiers, and they were slaughtering everyone …’ He sounded so weak. So craven.
‘You knew Monkshart was a murdering swine, and Phrune a despicable liar, and yet you believed them?’
‘I –’ She looked so disappointed that Nish couldn’t go on. Couldn’t even try to justify himself, or explain that the soldiers had been coming down the path, that Monkshart and Phrune had stopped him from running up after her. That would sound like an excuse. He couldn’t excuse himself, so why would she?
‘Phrune drugged me,’ said Maelys, ‘and carried me up to the village to die. I woke up just as the attack began, and I could smell his reek on me. He was getting ready to skin me alive, and drool over every minute of my agony.’
‘Skin you? What are you talking about?’
‘You don’t even know!’ she cried. ‘That’s the hold Phrune has over his master, you fool. Phrune knows how to make the body-gloves that ease Monkshart’s torment, and he makes them from human skin, taken from living people – young people with flawless skin. That’s why Phrune said “What a waste” when Monkshart threw the messenger boy into the crater. He’d wasted a beautiful skin. Phrune stalked the villagers of Tifferfyte at night and they couldn’t escape; there was no way for them to get through Monkshart’s halo of protection.’
Nish’s mouth was opening and closing like a stranded fish. He couldn’t think of anything to say. Words were quite inadequate to express his mortification, but he had to try. ‘I – I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t know.’
‘Well, now you do. That’s the kind of master you follow, Nish. But not me. I’ll abandon my duty to my mother and aunts before I help you serve such a monster again.’
‘I’m … sorry I left you behind. Sorry about everything.’ It was the only thing he could think of to say and it wasn’t nearly enough. He couldn’t face her, much less what he had done.
‘I think I’ll step down the cleft a bit,’ said Zham, who looked as though he’d tasted something unpleasant. ‘Coming, Thommel?’
At first Thommel had appeared to be enjoying Nish’s mortification, but now he was gazing at his feet, shaking his head. Zham took him by the arm and they passed around the outcrop and down the cleft out of sight.
Nish and Maelys looked at one another, but each turned aside at the same moment. Maelys was wretched, as if all her expectations had been bitterly dashed, and he felt no better. He’d never wanted to hurt her.
And, Nish ruminated, she’d proven her courage and loyalty many times over. She’d followed him all this way, even through the maze, and he couldn’t imagine how she’d managed that. She’d tended him after the battle, receiving not a word of thanks for it. She’d undoubtedly lit the camp fire which had shown him the way here. She was an astonishingly clever and persistent woman and he owed her more than he could ever repay.
He had to try, even at the risk of encouraging those unwelcome feelings which had so disturbed him previously. ‘Maelys,’ he said, stepping towards her. ‘Can we start again?’
After a long pause she nodded stiffly, then gestured to a rock next to the fire. He sat down. Maelys perched on another rock, well back across the fire.
‘Why don’t you go first?’ said Nish. It seemed easier that way.
Maelys told him what had happened to her in Tifferfyte, of all her hopes and fears for him, and her feelings of abandonment after finding herself all alone.
Nish listened in silence, shaking his head. How could he have been duped so easily, even in the emergency of the attack? His admiration for her only grew when she told, baldly, of the escape through the maze, the attack by Phrune, and how she’d found the Defiance with Tulitine. It shamed him to learn of her faithful service as a healer, despite all he’d done to her. Truly, she was as much a hero as the greatest heroes of the Great Tales, and look how he’d treated her.
He could also see how her courage and inner strength had grown in the past month, and for the first time he wondered, if things had turned out differently, if they might have had a chance together. It was too late now. He knew that as soon as she told him about Thommel saving her from the slurchie. Nish didn’t think she was falling for Thommel, but he’d acted like a real man and it had shown Nish up for the callow fool he was. Her girlish infatuation with him, and surely that was all it had been, was over. He regretted that now.
After she’d finished, Nish ended up telling her the full tale of what had happened to him over the past month. It helped a little, though not enough. The damage had already been done.
FORTY
This cleft, the main one of the four which formed the cloverleaf shape of the plateau, was wider and deeper than the others, a winding, precipitous ravine choked with fractured rocks and fallen trees, though Thommel thought it could be negotiated most of the way to the top. The uppermost hundred spans appeared extremely steep and difficult, but couldn’t be seen clearly due to the cloud.
They began the climb at first light, in a chilly silence. Maelys couldn’t bring herself to patch things up with Nish. How dare he judge her, or imply that she was more than friends with Thommel? She wasn’t, as it happened, though she might have been. Thommel had made one or two oblique suggestions in that regard but she’d turned them aside, not because she didn’t care for him, but because she didn’t want to complicate her life even further just now. However it was none of Nish’s business if she had been Thommel’s lover.
Nish had gone ahead, thankfully, for she could not have borne his eyes on her, judging her. Why was he so upset about her closeness to Thommel? Did Thommel remind Nish of his own failings, or did he think the woodsman was a better and more deserving man, one able to rise above all he’d endured while he, Nish, could not? He was as silent as a spectre. She was grateful for that, too.
The climb proved exhausting and dangerous. The sky was clear now, save for the clouds gathered at the top of the peak. It wasn’t raining as they set out but foaming streams of water flowed down the low points of the ravine, over and under the boulders, constantly splitting and reforming, and becoming little waterfalls at every obstacle.
The shattered rocks were so slippery that Maelys had to test every foot-hold before putting her weight on it. It was already hot and, though the sun did not shine directly into the cleft at this time of year, as the morning heated up it was like climbing in a steam bath.
Above her, Nish stopped to take off his shirt and she wished she could do the same. His pale, scarred back was running with sweat and his knees were wobbly. Several times he caught at Zham’s strong arm, but let go as soon as he’d steadied himself, glancing back as if anxious that his weakness had been noted. Maelys pretended she hadn’t seen. Though inured to steep climbs from the time she’d taken her first steps, she was struggling too.
They laboured up some fifty spans, stopped just long enough for her screaming muscles to relax into a jelly-like state, then moved up another thirty spans. And so it went on, for hours of the most exhausting labour she’d ever undertaken. Please, please stop, she kept thinking, though Maelys was too proud to ask for a rest. If Nish could do it without complaint, so could she.
At last, when she was so tired that she had to talk herself into taking each step, ‘Just one more’ and ‘Just one more’, T
hommel stopped suddenly and threw himself down on a rock.
‘This must be halfway. Let’s take a break.’
Nish lay on his back, gasping, his face scarlet. It was around eleven o’clock. Using dry kindling from his pack and damp wood, Thommel lit a smouldering fire on the steep side of the ravine and boiled water for tea. It tasted like warm, smoky mould.
As they set off, far too soon, it began to drizzle and drip down the back of Maelys’s neck. In the airless conditions that only made things more uncomfortable.
The rain became heavier as they climbed, and shortly a cooling breeze began to drift up the cleft. She pulled out her shirt and allowed the breeze to flow over her wet skin. It made a refreshing change from the unceasing heat and humidity she’d been enduring ever since emerging from the maze.
As they climbed higher the whole sky clouded over and the rain became pleasantly chilly though the wind grew ever stronger. By noon it was a blistering updraught, which gusted one way then another so fiercely that Maelys sometimes had to hunch down, clinging to the rock, until the worst had passed. Once her fingers were torn away from their handhold and she was driven sideways into the sheer wall of the cleft. She got up, rubbing her bruised shoulder. No one had noticed; they were struggling on, backs bent and heads bowed, but the gusts blasted the cold rain into their eyes no matter which way they turned.
After another exhausting couple of hours they stopped for lunch. Neither Zham nor Thommel had hunted in days and all they had to eat was flour and water pancakes cooked in the last of their dripping. They proved as tasteless as everything else she’d eaten lately, and quite as mouldy, though at least they were hot. Maelys licked her fingers and pulled her jacket more tightly around her, for the wind at this altitude cut right through her flimsy lowland clothes, and on her wet skin it was freezing.
‘I don’t like the look of that,’ said Zham, staring upwards. A few minutes’ climb above them an ever-thickening fog whited everything out.
‘How far do we have to go?’ Nish asked exhaustedly.
‘Another couple of hundred spans,’ said Thommel. ‘Two hours in these conditions, I dare say.’
‘I don’t think I can go another minute,’ said Nish.
Maelys didn’t think she could either, but she said nothing. It was after two that afternoon when they set off again, into the fog layer which had steadily crept down until it was just above them. Their progress was even slower now, for every surface was thickly coated with either saturated moss or an algal slime, and though Zham was supporting Nish all the way, they had to stop frequently for him to rest. Consequently it was well after four when they climbed over a steep notch in the rock, the fog thinned temporarily and ahead of them the ravine, while still sloping steeply up, opened out until it was about twenty paces across. They could just see the lower sides, though not the top.
‘What’s that?’ said Zham, listening.
The song of the wind had changed. Overlaying the shrill wailing as it streamed over the rocks was a hissing noise, coming from above.
‘It’s wind rushing through grass or heath,’ said Nish, staring up eagerly. ‘We’re nearly there.’
‘Just as well,’ said Thommel. ‘It’s not long to sunset.’
‘This is a good place to camp,’ said Zham, pulling a fallen branch out of a copse of almost leafless, wind-writhen trees that looked a thousand years old. ‘I’ll make a fire.’
Yes, please, Maelys thought, but Nish said, ‘I’ve come a long way for this. Let’s get to the top and find what we’re looking for.’
He plodded on, up and up with Zham, but after a minute Nish stopped suddenly, looking down at his boot. From somewhere above them came a loud wooden clap.
‘What was that?’ said Thommel.
‘I don’t know.’ Zham sounded worried. ‘Extra careful now.’
‘I thought I caught my foot on something,’ said Nish, ‘but there’s nothing here.’
They moved up into wind-churned cloud so dense that Maelys couldn’t see Nish’s feet above her, nor Thommel’s head below. She felt as though she was climbing all by herself up a mountain that went on forever.
‘I’m at the top,’ came Zham’s rumbling voice.
At last. The final ten steps were so hard on her knees that she thought she was going to topple backwards into Thommel, but the wind kicked her in the back, lifting the weight off her legs just long enough for Maelys to scramble the last few steps up the cleft and stand on the rim of the plateau, more than a thousand spans, or two thousand vertical paces, above the unseen rainforest.
Nish stood an arm’s length away, staring about him into the fog and breathing heavily. He turned and his gaze crossed hers for a moment. Maelys tensed, until she realised that he wasn’t even thinking about her. Their fight last night was trivial compared to his expectations of Thuntunnimoe, Mistmurk Mountain: his goal, vision and dream for the past month, and the repository of all his hopes for the future.
All Maelys could see were curved rocks covered in moss mounds, reed-fringed bogs and still grey pools. A faint track led along the edge of the plateau, though it didn’t look as though it had been made by humans.
‘Where is it?’ Nish said, turning around again. ‘What is it?’
‘Careful,’ Zham laid a restraining hand on Nish’s shoulder. ‘It’d be easy to walk off the edge in the fog.’ Nish shook it off.
‘Should have brought staffs to feel our way,’ muttered Thommel. ‘It’s always like this up here.’
‘How would you know?’ Nish said suspiciously. Thommel knew too much and his appearance seemed just a little to convenient.
‘You can see the cloud hanging over these peaks from twenty leagues away.’
‘Stay here. I’ll go down to that copse and cut some timbers.’ Zham disappeared down the cleft.
Nish wandered off. The top of the plateau was flat here, and saturated. Maelys stepped the other way and her right foot plunged into a knee-deep pool covered by green strands of algae. Jumping backwards, she emptied the cold water from her boot, put it back on and turned left onto what she thought was rock. Her left foot sank into a bog concealed by floating moss; yellow ooze enveloped her to mid-calf. She went backwards to surer ground near the plateau’s rim, swearing under her breath, sat down to clean herself up and decided to wait for Zham.
The fog parted and she saw Nish five or six paces away, treading carefully between the pools. ‘This looks safe enough,’ he said over his shoulder, went forwards and sank to the waist.
He looked so shocked that Maelys couldn’t help herself. All her resentment burst out in a series of giggles that grew louder and more infectious until Thommel began to roar with laughter, and neither of them went to help Nish out.
He pulled himself up onto the edge, scowling and cascading red-brown water. ‘Very funny!’ he said coldly, took a step to the left and went into another pothole.
This time they did help him, for he’d gone in to the neck and the sides were so slippery that he couldn’t climb them.
‘You’ve got to follow those brown streaks,’ said Thommel, waving his hand at a series of barely visible meandering marks. ‘They’re the only places you can be sure to tread safely.’
‘How would you know?’ Nish said sourly.
‘I’ve climbed some of these peaks before,’ Thommel said expressionlessly.
‘Really? How come you’re only telling us now?’
Thommel shrugged. ‘You didn’t ask.’
Nish gave him an even sourer look and set off, following one of the brown streaks.
‘I think I’ll leave you to him,’ said Thommel. ‘I’m going for a walk.’
‘Oh!’ said Maelys, already missing the camaraderie of their journey together, though she could understand why he might want to get away for a while.
Thommel headed in the other direction and soon blurred into the fog. Maelys hunched down in a vain attempt to keep out of the wind and waited for Zham to come back. He was so pleasant and uncomplicated; s
o much easier than Nish.
Shortly he appeared, swinging four wooden staves in one gigantic hand, and whistling. Laying them on the ground, he squatted beside Maelys. She marvelled at his size – he was the biggest man she’d ever seen.
‘Last night didn’t go the way you were hoping,’ he rumbled.
‘You can’t imagine how much I was looking forward to seeing Nish, and it went all wrong. Stupid man! What’s the matter with him?’
‘He’s afraid.’
‘Of me?’
‘Of who’s trying to kill him. Of what he’ll find up here. Or if he’ll find nothing but ghosts …’
He gazed into the drifting fog, which did have a spectral look about it. Maelys sighed. ‘I’m so tired.’ Without thinking, she settled her head against his upper arm. He didn’t move away, or closer. He just allowed her to rest. Of all the men she’d ever met, she knew she was perfectly safe with Zham.
After a few minutes he said, ‘We’d better go and find him.’
She sat up, rubbing her cold arms. ‘Nish went that away,’ she pointed right, ‘and Thommel’s over there, so we can’t go after them both.’
‘I’m not concerned for Thommel. He’s been here before.’
She got up, wearily. ‘What – here on this peak?’
‘Yup.’
‘How do you know?’
‘He knew the way up too well.’ He handed her the smallest staff and led the way, probing the ground ahead as he followed the faint marks left in the moss by Nish’s boots. ‘He knows a lot more than he’s telling, does Thommel. Look out!’
Maelys, intent on where she was putting each foot, did not realise the danger off to her right, even when Zham reached back, caught her by the armpit and shoulder and lifted her, legs kicking, right over his head. As he dropped her on solid ground in front of him, something went snap! Before she could steady herself, he’d whirled and his long sword was snaking out towards the bizarre creature that had nearly taken her.