by Ian Irvine
Creature or plant? It was like a gigantic green mantrap sprouting from the bog, so broad that she could have lain inside. The edges of its upper and lower jaws, now closed, were covered in overlapping yellow teeth – no, flexible spines – and through the gape she saw a scarlet, ovoid interior coated with glistening mucilage. Yellow vapour seeped from pores on top of the upper jaw. The air took on a disgusting, sulphurous reek that stung her eyes. It smelled as though something had rotted away to hair and bones.
‘What is it?’ she quavered, scanning the fog in case there were more of them, and spotting another one not ten paces away. She wondered how far it could reach out on its rubbery stalk.
‘It’s a stink-snapper, a plant that eats animals. It feeds on fish, frogs, birds, insects, and even people if it can catch them. You often see little stink-snappers,’ he opened his fingers to form a circle the size of a saucer, ‘around the edges of the upland swamps. I’ve never seen one as big as that, though. Have you got a knife?’
She offered him the little blunt blade Phrune had given her. He tested it, snorted and drew a knife, large enough to butcher a boar and wickedly sharp, from a sheath inside his long boot. ‘They lurk just under the water, and all you can see is the tips of the yellow spines. When they sense your footsteps, they shoot up and snap. Hold the knife ready and if one gets you, hack your way out, damn quick, and jump in the water! Once that goo starts to work on you, it’s too late.’
‘Thanks, Zham.’ She stowed her old knife in her pack, held out his blade in her right hand and began to prod the ground with the stick.
Shortly they encountered Nish, shivering as he tried to peer through the swirling fog, and together they began to criss-cross this lobe of the plateau. The plateau was less than a league across, but their progress was so slow that by sunset they hadn’t covered a fifth of it.
Nish wouldn’t stop even then; he just kept squelching back and forth. Maelys felt for him.
Thommel came tramping back. ‘Did you find anything?’ Nish asked hopefully.
‘I wasn’t looking! However I did catch our dinner.’ Thommel held up what appeared to be an enormous black slug, the size of his thigh.
‘I’m not eating that,’ Maelys said, revolted. It brought back memories of the slurchie. Her empty stomach rumbled. ‘Er, what is it?’
‘All the more for me.’ He grinned. ‘It’s a giant swamp creeper and they’re the best eating you’ll find up here. Very healthy too. Good for the organs.’
‘It looks like an organ from something I wouldn’t want to go near,’ said Nish.
Thommel glanced at Zham. Zham smacked his lips. ‘I haven’t tasted one in years. Let’s find a camp site.’
‘There’s no firewood up here,’ said Thommel. ‘We’ll have to go back down the cleft.’
It was really cold now. ‘What about the other clefts?’ asked Maelys, for they weren’t far from the north-western one and the light was fading.
‘You’d have to be a mountain climber to get down any of them. Or up.’
They tramped across to the south-eastern cleft, Maelys keeping a careful eye out for stink-snappers. Once or twice she caught a sulphurous whiff and thought one must have been lurking nearby, though she could not see any yellow spines. She clutched her knife more tightly and followed closely on Zham’s heels.
They reached the cleft in near darkness and felt their way down the steep pinch to the copse of twisted, aged trees. Between it and the right-hand cliff Zham found a patch of mossy, sloping ground, partially sheltered from the howling updraught. He dragged out dead branches. All the wood was wet but he also carried tinder in his pocket and soon had a cheerful fire going.
‘Hurrah!’ Thommel said, holding his hands out to the little blaze. ‘And we don’t have to worry about being seen. There’s not an eye on Santhenar that could pierce this fog.’
‘Not even the eye in the tears?’ Nish said, shivering fitfully. However he collected fallen wood and fed it to the flames until they blazed as high as his shoulders. They gathered around, rubbing their frozen hands.
Thommel got busy skinning and gutting the giant swamp creeper, and ended up with a heavy length of dark brown meat the size of a buffalo fillet. He sliced it lengthways so it would cook more quickly, wrapped it in a cocoon of algae strands, covered that in moss and, once the flames had died down, placed the package in a hole excavated in the coals.
By the time it had cooked Maelys was so hungry, and the roasting smells arising from it were so delicious, that she quite forgot its origins and what it reminded her of. It was a rich, dense meat with a fine texture like liver, though much tastier, and by the time her belly was full she’d put aside the fight of the previous night, and the exhausting day. Thommel was laughing at something Zham had said, and Nish was bright-eyed again. It made her feel good to see him cheerful for once.
‘Tomorrow we’ll find it,’ he said softly. ‘Tomorrow pays for everything, Maelys.’
He was up at first light and didn’t wait for breakfast. While Maelys was still rubbing the sleep out of her eyes Nish was scrambling up the crevice, the ferocious wind at his back, to disappear into the churning fog. She followed hastily with Zham. ‘Coming, Thommel?’
Thommel opened one eye, closed it again and pulled his cloak around him more tightly. ‘I’ll see you later, Maelys.’
‘Thanks for your help!’ snapped Nish.
Thommel sat up. ‘Your quest is not mine, Deliverer,’ he said mildly. ‘Would you go out of your way to aid me if I asked it of you?’
Nish hesitated fractionally too long before he said, ‘Yes, of course I would.’
Thommel gave him an ironic smile, lay down and closed his eyes again. Nish turned away, looking as though he’d just been shown up.
The fog, oddly, was thinner at the top today and she could see at least thirty paces, though the plateau was a dismal prospect – a series of bogs and ponds, oozes releasing greenish mists, and patches of bare black rock interspersed with circular clusters of brilliantly green moss mounds as much as five or six spans across and waist high to Maelys. At the limit of her vision a stink-snapper, even larger than yesterday’s attacker, was sinking into the mire with a small wriggling creature protruding from its jaws.
Nish was following one of the wavering brown streaks, probing ahead with his staff. Zham took up position to Nish’s right, and Maelys went beyond him. With the big knife in her right hand and her probing staff in her left, she began the search. Thommel appeared around nine in the morning but didn’t join them. He went softly through the mires, head down, hunting with a rude spear made from a knife bound to a short stave.
The fog closed in again, reducing visibility to the length of Maelys’s staff. Now every step posed a risk, for she could barely see the ground she was standing on and never knew if the next step would take her into a pool, a mire or the maw of a stink-snapper.
The breeze became a hissing wind which churned the fog but did not blow it away. She was freezing in her damp clothes. This was madness. Whatever Nish was looking for, it could be just paces away and they’d never find it.
‘Nish?’ she called. Her voice was whipped away by the wind. ‘Zham?’
Neither of them answered. With Zham’s long legs he could have been at the other side of the plateau by now. Maelys pulled her thin coat around her and stared vainly into the fog. Was that a movement off to her right? ‘Zham?’ No answer. She heard a splash not far away but had no idea which direction it had come from. ‘Thommel? Nish?’
She headed on a few steps. Or was she going back? Everywhere looked the same. Her legs still ached from yesterday’s climb and her right thigh was particularly painful. It felt as if she’d strained a muscle. Maelys wanted to lie down and sleep for another ten hours but she couldn’t rest here.
She kept on, just walking wherever the brown streaks took her, looking over her shoulder every few steps, for she couldn’t escape the feeling that there was someone, or something, behind her. She kept seeing human-
sized shapes in the fog but nothing answered her repeated calls.
She must have been walking for hours. She should have reached the other side of the plateau ages ago, even at this slow pace. Or had she been walking in circles all the time? It didn’t seem possible that she could be lost – the wretched plateau wasn’t a tenth the size of the clan’s estate at Nifferlin, and she’d known every part of that.
Something loomed up ahead, taller and broader than a man, though she couldn’t make out any definite shape.
‘Hello?’ she said, trying not to sound afraid.
No reply. The fog swirled and she lost sight of the object. She reached out with her staff but couldn’t feel anything. She took a step forwards. Her legs were shaking. The ground squelched and subsided underfoot. She leapt backwards, saw the dark shape again momentarily, then lost it.
Maelys stood still, heart pounding. She couldn’t even see the ground now, but she knew something big was in front of her, for she could hear the way the wind shrilled around it. She became aware of how cold she was. Her toes were freezing and her nose felt as if icicles were growing inside it. She could hardly draw breath.
She probed the ground to left and right, found a solid patch and stepped that way. The shrilling faded. She strained her eyes, as if she could penetrate the fog through will alone, but saw nothing. She couldn’t find a path to the object either – there was no solid ground that way, just brown-scummed pools and sludgy mires.
‘Maelys?’
‘Zham!’ she cried. ‘Where are you?’
‘Stay where you are. I’ll come to you.’
He kept calling, and she kept answering, and shortly his tree trunk figure loomed up out of the fog.
‘Where did you get to?’ he said cheerfully, though she could tell he’d been anxious. He put a steadying arm around her and her fears felt silly.
‘Walking in circles, I think.’
‘Come on. Nish is this way.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I just do.’
‘Have you found anything?’
‘Not a sausage.’ He chuckled. ‘But you have, Maelys?’
‘I was sure I saw something, much taller than you, a few minutes ago. It was over there but I couldn’t get to it …’
He reached out with his staff, which was far longer than hers, probing forwards and around. ‘Stay here.’
He disappeared into the fog, swinging the staff in front of him. Shortly she heard a splash, a curse. Had he fallen in; had a stink-snapper caught him? Or something worse? ‘Zham?’
Zham appeared suddenly from her left, dripping. ‘Cursed place.’
‘Did you find anything?’
‘Nope. Come on.’
Maelys followed him to Nish, who was just five minutes away. Whatever the object had been, she was sure she hadn’t imagined it. Nish looked up hopefully as they approached. ‘Did you find anything?’
‘I didn’t,’ said Zham, ‘though Maelys thinks she saw something –’
‘What?’ cried Nish so eagerly that she felt for him.
Maelys told him what she’d seen and heard. It sounded flimsy but his face lit up. ‘Can you find the place again?’
‘I dare say Zham can.’
It didn’t turn out to be that easy; even Zham became confused as he tried to retrace his steps to the point where he’d found Maelys.
‘Shh!’ she said. ‘Can you hear that?’
It was the high, unnerving shrilling she’d heard before.
‘Definitely something there,’ said Zham.
But they couldn’t find it – they couldn’t tell which direction the sound was coming from.
‘It’s as if it doesn’t want to be found,’ Zham said, squelching back and forth over ground they’d covered a dozen times, but there was always water where they wanted to go. ‘Look, here’s where you were standing before, Maelys.’ He indicated two small, foot-shaped depressions in the brilliantly green moss.
‘Can’t you use clearsight, Nish?’ she wondered.
‘I’ve been trying all day but it’s not working, as usual. It’s never been very reliable, but this time it feels as though something is blocking it.’
Maelys recalled a recent conversation with Thommel. ‘Could it be blocked by red amber-wood?’
‘Perhaps. I don’t know.’
‘Well, if something is blocking it, that’s good, in a way. At least it confirms that there’s something hidden up here.’
Nish scowled. ‘Doesn’t help if we can’t find it.’
Zham had been going back and forth, prodding the ground. He gave an irritated grunt and without warning plunged into a scummy pool up to his chest and began to wade through it, swinging his staff.
‘Be careful, Zham,’ Maelys cried. ‘There could be anything in there –’
The water swirled. Zham let out a muffled cry then stabbed his staff down with full force and held it there. Bubbles burst up all around him; plumes of mud stained the dark water. He swung himself up and over whatever he’d pinned to the bottom, pivoting on the staff, then went on and faded into the fog.
The shrilling resumed, though now it made a lower, more melancholy note. Maelys moved closer to Nish. ‘I don’t like this plateau,’ she said quietly.
‘It’s not what I imagined either.’ He reached out, tentatively, to take her cold hand. ‘And yet, I still think there’s something up here.’
She held his hand for a while, stiffly, then let it go. ‘I hope so.’
‘He’s been a long time,’ Nish said a while later.
‘Zham?’ Maelys called. Her voice made no impression on the wind. ‘Zham!’
‘Here!’ His shout could have come from anywhere. ‘Come on.’ There was a note of excitement in his voice.
‘He’s found it!’ Nish cried, plunging recklessly into the water, which came up to his chin. He churned his way across, stumbled on something halfway and his head went under.
Maelys, thinking that some creature had got him, felt for Zham’s big knife, though there was little she could do. Nish burst out of the water, turned towards her, eyes staring, then turned the other way and flailed across into the fog.
The windsong dropped to a sobbing moan. She held the knife out, looking this way and that. She didn’t like it here, but didn’t want to go into the pool either, which was now a muddy brown and looked as thick as soup. Smelly bubbles were popping all over its surface.
She called Nish a couple of times but evidently he couldn’t hear her. What if they were both in trouble? If they were it was unlikely she could make any difference, though they had acted recklessly. If she were careful …
She didn’t want to go into the pool, but she couldn’t stand by either. Taking a deep breath, and holding the blade out low, she stepped into the water. It came up to her nose, her eyes; she had to stand on tiptoes to breathe and her boots sank into a deep sludge on the bottom that made it difficult to move. She took one step, then another, feeling an overwhelming urge to shriek, but her mouth was underwater.
Maelys trod on something that gave underfoot, then heaved. She jumped, lost her footing and went under. She tried not to panic but couldn’t stop herself. She’d always been afraid of deep water, and even more afraid of creatures that dwelt in dark places where they couldn’t be seen. The water was so dark and cold, and she had to close her eyes to keep the mud out.
She went all the way to the bottom and something slapped against her thigh. Flailing madly, she tried to whack it away with the knife but failed to connect. She rolled over, not knowing which way was up and which was down. Her foot slid through the ooze and she felt hard mud underneath.
Maelys fought the panic. The water wasn’t that deep. She should be able to stand up in it. She got her other foot down, propelled herself upright and half waded, half swam until her head popped out of the water and she saw a reedy bank. Sheathing the knife, she caught hold of some bladed reeds with both hands and dragged herself out onto relatively solid ground.
&nbs
p; Her hands were bleeding from the sharp edges of the reeds. She wiped them on moss, tore up handfuls of it to clean the mud out of her eyes and stood up. She couldn’t see Nish or Zham, though their footprints were clearly visible in the moss, leading straight on.
The sobbing wind was louder now, and more unnerving. This place didn’t feel lucky at all. It felt as though something terrible had happened here. She kept going, the feelings growing stronger all the time. And then she saw them.
Nish and Zham stood side by side, staring at something she couldn’t make out from here. It wasn’t good news, though. Nish’s shoulders were slumped; even from behind he looked defeated.
As Maelys came up beside him, the shape she’d seen earlier resolved out of the fog. It was a standing stone – no, a monument, an obelisk cut from a single slab of grey rock. It was at least twice Zham’s height, though the top could not be seen, and she saw the blurred outline of writing running up the facing surface. The glyphs weren’t clear, since the surface was covered in moss at the bottom and grey-green lichen further up. Feathers of lichen wavered in the wind and a faint mist or steam was rising off the top of the rock. Her scalp prickled.
‘That’s not it, Nish?’
‘No,’ Nish said dully. ‘It doesn’t speak to me at all. The whole journey has been a waste of time.’
It spoke to Maelys, though. It was the monument to a terrible tragedy, though why here where no one would see it? She scraped some of the moss off. The glyphs were clearer in the raw stone. It looked like a script from long ago; one she’d seen in a book of the Histories of ancient times, before her mother had burnt it to keep warm. Unfortunately Maelys hadn’t read those Histories first, so the glyphs told her nothing. And, just as curious, the rock was warm.
‘Why would it be warm, when everything else up here is cold?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Zham.
‘It’s a wonder Thommel didn’t mention it,’ said Nish, ‘since he’s been here before.’
‘It’s not easy to find,’ rumbled Zham. ‘Do you want to go on, Deliverer? There’s plenty of plateau left to search. And Maelys needs to get out of the wind.’