Only survive! No matter where they’re taking you, I’ll find you.
Alan was still standing there at full daybreak when Qwenqwo returned with a flask of liquor.
“My friend,” he said, his voice hushed. “A man’s drink.”
Alan was too grief-stricken to face Qwenqwo. His feet were frozen to the rampart of stone, his mind still locked in the direction of the Eastern Ocean. Qwenqwo squeezed the flask into his fingers. The dwarf mage spoke gently, insistently. “Yet still there is Mo who needs your help—though darkness appears to have taken hold of her very spirit.”
Communion
During the long night, Alan had done what he could to help Mo, but no probing of her body or mind using the power of his oraculum made any difference. The confrontation with the Legun had destroyed something subtle and personal in her, in her soul spirit perhaps, that Alan could neither understand nor restore. Milish had kept her going physically with regular sips of healwell, but mentally she remained unresponsive. Meanwhile, the people rested before beginning the descent to the causeway at first light the following morning. There were so many injured and sick among them that all able hands, including Siam’s and Kehloke’s, were put to carrying and stretcher-bearing.
Alan and Milish took the stretcher carrying Mo, though she appeared to weigh no more than a feather, and her face was wasted almost to a skull. Much easier going downhill than it had been in the ascent, they made good progress following their own trail through the dense forest, hacked out only days earlier. The Fir Bolg heads were still and brooding again, while the mist-wreathed grandeur of the valley appeared to weep in its desolation about them. Alan was silent throughout the journey and, from time to time, Milish glanced at him, as if fearful of the anguish she already sensed there and uncertain of his additional reaction when they reached the shore. When finally Alan saw the wreck of the Temple Ship coming into view, its great masts reduced to stumps, and its timbers and decks reduced to charcoal and ash, her fears proved justified. A heart-wrenching sob shuddered through him, a grief that was suddenly unbearable, as much through remorse at having abandoned the ship as at the implications of that abandonment.
The stench of burning was acrid in their nostrils as they laid Mo down among the many wounded on the shore. Meanwhile Alan left Milish and headed into the shallows beside the wreck.
As he got closer to the shore, he wept openly and silently. The ship had given them its protection throughout their journey, but nobody had protected it from the Legun as it vented its hate over every inch of her flame-raddled superstructure. From behind him he heard the empathic voice of Turkeya, their new young shaman, in a piping hymn of woe so reminiscent in its cadences of Kemtuk on the frozen lake, as he went down on his knees and lifted a handful of embers. Ash spilled from his fist, forming a sorrowful plume in the gusting air, drifting down and around the pebbled shore and the river’s edge.
The ruined ship lay unnaturally low in the water, as if in its suffering it had sought some small comfort from burrowing into the river bottom. Siam’s voice, joining them in offering his respect, was breaking with emotion. “Surely we may attempt to rebuild her. Is this not the greatest forest in all the land?”
“I don’t think so, Siam,” Alan spoke. “Nantosueta has been woken from her sleep. She guards her forests again, and long may she do so!”
“But if the ship cannot be made sail-worthy, all is lost. With so many sick and wounded we cannot travel overland.”
Alan turned to Siam, noticing his left arm and shoulder bloody with wounds, and still that old hat was twirling about in his hands. Minute by minute, the survivors began to gather around them, the exhausted Olhyiu and even the Shee. Bowing his head, Alan scratched at the wispy dark beard that sprouted over his cheeks and chin, and then, taking a deep breath, spoke hesitantly, awkwardly. “I want to thank you all. Heck, I don’t even know how to begin—how to say how much we owe you.” He shook his head.
Siam replaced his battered pilgrim hat and with a defiant stance he turned to face his people.
“In his modesty, we see the brave heart of our friend, the Mage Lord, clearer than he sees it himself. What if we had stayed among the Whitestar Mountains—what then would have become of us? Had we not sacrificed all dignity and hope when we surrendered our fleet to that desolate place? What else but a slow and bitter humiliation confronted us? The Mage Lord came from another world, yet he took the burden of leading us out of winter. He battled the malice of a Legun incarnate. Would we not follow this man, the Chosen One of the De Danaan, to the gates of Ghork Mega itself?”
Alan was embarrassed then by Siam’s lofting of his hat and by the strained cheer that sounded from these brave and injured people.
“Though our sacrifice has been great, we thank you and your brave friends, three of whom have suffered in our cause. What greater purpose might befall the Olhyiu people than to help you in such a quest? And that quest has not ended. It still leads us to Carfon by the Eastern Ocean. And there, if I have to drag this hulk by its keel along the bed of the great river, is where we shall take you.”
Taking heart from the chief’s words, Alan addressed them all in reply. “Siam is right. We’ve got to do the best we can—use whatever presents itself to us. His courage should be our guide.”
They prepared a meal from what was left of the dried fish and ate it together on the riverside, in the shadow of the hulk. Over this frugal fare, they debated what best to do. In the situation that faced them there really wasn’t much alternative: their only hope, no matter how desperate, remained with the Temple Ship.
They resolved to find out if it could be made to float, even if it was rudderless, like a raft. Ropes were passed about the trunks of the trees on the bank so that using this leverage, they could attempt to drag the hulk into the deep water of the central stream. A party of Olhyiu went out into the forest and returned with long poles, taken only from trees already fallen. If it was a hope at all, it was a very slender one. Even if they succeeded in refloating the ship, a Herculean task awaited them, since they would still have to pole their way all the hundreds of leagues to Carfon.
Some of the fitter men took up key positions, a leg clinging to a beam or inside a crumbling porthole. Shouts of encouragement willed on the tired limbs and sweat-drenched brows. They strained and pulled with every ounce of strength until the muscles of their brawny arms and shoulders bunched like the gnarled roots of the encroaching trees, and the veins on their brows swelled like hawsers. The labor continued until the midday sun broke through the wintry mists that still bathed the valley. Alan, who had climbed onto the fire-ravaged deck, was watching out for the slightest response.
“One more time!” He waved to the chief in the thick of the struggling figures on the aft deck.
But the enormous ruin would not budge an inch: it was stuck fast, resistant to every effort.
“It’s no good!” Siam shook his head. “She’s dead in the water.”
Alan flopped down onto the charred deck. He didn’t notice Milish climb onto the deck, but now her hand found his arm, and she sat down beside him as they gazed around them at the demoralized Olhyiu.
“I have to do something, Milish.” His eyes met hers. “I know it’s going to look kind of desperate—but the situation is desperate.”
He climbed to his feet, then called out to Turkeya to throw up the Spear of Lug. Turkeya did as he asked, casting the great spear so high it went through a parabolic arc and impaled its head in the center of the middle deck. Alan went over to stare at the spear.
But Milish clutched at his arm, as if to stop him. “What is it? Tell me what you’re planning.”
“Remember when Valéra was dying? Do you recall the cure for the poison that threatened her unborn daughter?”
“Mage Lord, no! It is much too risky.”
“I have to try, Milish. Please don’t try to stop me.”
Milish stared at him as he fell to his knees on the deck before the spear, running the flesh
of his forearms against the cutting edges until blood welled out of the cut veins and ran onto the spearhead, where he clasped it with his hands.
Milish called out to Siam, “You must stop him!”
The chief ran forward from the aft deck, arriving by the kneeling youth, whose head had fallen onto his chest. The oraculum was throbbing powerfully in Alan’s brow as the blood ran over the Ogham-glowing blade and seeped out into the ruined timbers.
Siam put his arm around Alan’s shoulders. “My friend, have there not been deaths enough in this accursed place?”
“She isn’t dead, Siam. She can’t be.” Alan took his blood-soaked hands away from the blade and spread them, with splayed fingers, on the charcoal-grimed wood. He implored the ship, through the oraculum, “Show us there’s even a spark of life left in you!”
Siam exclaimed, “What’s dead is dead! Come, let the Aides bind your wounds. Then let us attempt the long and perilous way on foot. I cannot promise deliverance, but we must take whatever measures are available to us, no matter what the risk.”
Alan allowed himself to be helped to his feet. He turned around through half a circle, facing the bulk of the ship, as if wishing his final farewell through the oraculum. Then he sensed the faintest tremor.
“Siam, did you feel that?”
“What is it?” Siam still kept a firm hold of Alan’s shoulders, as if to make sure he didn’t bleed himself again.
Alan probed again, this time more purposefully directing his oraculum into the depths of the ship. He felt it again: a weak response.
He tried harder. The oraculum flared, throwing Siam backward so he almost fell. Alan poured all of his concentration into the hulk. He maintained the pressure of force until his head felt giddy. Suddenly, there was a muffled implosion as part of the superstructure fell in, showering them in charcoal and ash. Siam gaped, as if fearful the remaining structure was about to collapse.
On the shore below people started to back away from the ship. But Alan stood fast.
Siam, reading Alan’s mood, looked over the remains of the rail toward the milling crowds and bellowed, “What has become of the proud Olhyiu, who respond to every groan and shiver with startled eyes! Is the Mage Lord not here among us? Above all we must keep faith.”
But it wasn’t easy to keep faith against the groans of resettlement that were now taking place. All eyes were fixed on the region in the foredeck where the superstructure had collapsed. Yawning there into the dusty light was a gaping hole. Probing it with the oraculum, Alan sensed a responding shudder, like a moan issuing from deep below. Cautiously approaching the hole, he peered inside. He could make out little at first beyond the immediate opening, yet he sensed that a natural passage lay there, as irregular in its lining as a mountain cave.
“A torch—somebody!”
Siam got hold of a brand, lit it and then joined Alan by the opening. “I shall be your torchbearer!”
Alan shook his head, trying to take the torch from Siam’s hand. “Go back to the shore. Get everybody else to stay clear of the ship. It could be dangerous.”
“I am no stranger to danger.”
Alan shrugged. “Okay. But stay behind me.”
He was barely a step inside the portal when he recoiled from the odor of rot and decay. He was glad of the breeze that entered with him, fresh air rushing in as if to fill a vacuum, fluttering the torch as he held it aloft before him. Taking a second step into the tunnel, which led away into darkness, he descended, spiraling down ten or twelve feet, to a level where the lowermost hold of a normal ship might be. But clearly this was no ordinary ship. Here a cobweb-encrusted portal led into a new passage. As Siam probed it with the torch, wraiths of darkness appeared to swallow the light, as if darkness had become a force here, born out of misery. Caution ignited the oraculum so that it added the rubicund glow of its light to that of the torch as, with tentative steps, they continued their passage onward.
An eerie silence pervaded the gloom. Side tunnels confronted them as Siam held the torch aloft to inspect their organic walls.
“By the great Akoli, we have entered the throat of a dragon!”
Alan understood what Siam meant. They might be exploring the internal passages of some vast creature, with ridges at intervals like the rings of cartilage supporting a gigantic windpipe, but one that had long since ceased its expansion and contraction with the act of breathing the primal air.
The main throat—for throat was how Alan also thought of this passage—twisted and turned on itself, with many diverging branches, often multiple, opening to either side, or above and below, so that he had to be careful to circumvent the pitfalls. He grasped what he could of the wall or the ceiling with his free hand. Yet though he had wandered a hundred paces into this labyrinth, still nothing looked familiar. The inner spaces seemed to defy reality. He counted his paces from that point and soon registered another hundred, yet, as he could determine from the absence of footprints in the grimy floor, he had never once retraced his steps. Stumbling to his knees over a protruding rib, he sensed how darkness closed about him, as if to devour him.
Panic yawned around him, an inchoate fear that caught his breath, yet, gaining his feet again, he asked Siam to loft the torch so that its glow reassured him, and then he paused in order to regain his composure. He was certain now of that answering tremor.
The ship is answering me, as if reading my innermost thoughts, my innermost feelings.
Now and then he detected new odors, sometimes pleasant—the scents of flowers—and at other times unpleasant, bog-tars and sulphur. And he heard the clashing sounds of distant upheaval, as if he were close to the embryonic forces of creation. He felt a shudder in the heart of the ship, if “ship” was an appropriate word for the real nature of this mystery. There was a feeling of being watched, and he almost shouted aloud, so overwhelming was it. Yet there could be no need to shout, even to whisper, only to think.
Then immediately, as if it had sensed his thrill of communication, he sensed a change. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, he was aware of the metamorphosis of its elements, although, from moment to moment, there was little visible change. “Siam—if what I’m sensing is true, it’s wonderful beyond belief. Maybe I just want to believe it. If only the ship would give me a sign so I know I’m not mistaken.”
“What you feel is true!” Siam’s growl sounded out from somewhere very close to him, yet lost in the dark.
“Then you sense it too?”
“I feel it.”
My God! He hardly dared to think what it meant.
Question after question thrilled his mind. But there was one he hardly dared to articulate. Then he made himself ask it, excitedly, falteringly, through the window in his brow, “Are you alive?”
There was silence for several charged moments, and then there could be no doubting that he had his reply. Although he hadn’t moved a step, he found himself within a chamber with walls that glittered faintly as if made of gold. But their surface was too soft for metal. When he reached out to touch them they had a heavy liquid feel, as if he were pressing into a lake of mercury. There was no clear reflection in this dully glittering substance, not even when he shone the torch’s light against it. It absorbed light as, presumably, any energy that was directed toward it—yet still it glowed with a soft and ancient light, like a heart of liquid gold.
“Siam, what do you make of it?”
Siam stared back at him, a mixture of terror and wonder in his eyes. “Mage Lord, do we not sense it, even if we have nothing else to go on other than our feelings?”
Alan’s eyes widened. He ran his fingers over the giving surface of the walls—the liquid softness of organic being—uncertain if they were changing even as he looked at them, while observing for the first time that in cross-section they formed a pentagon. The ceiling was faceted also, the natural drawing together of the lines of the pentagon.
“She’s grieving with us, Siam. I know it, absolutely, though I can’t explain how I know it.�
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Siam nodded.
Alan’s heart beat too fast for comfort and he struggled to catch his breath. “We’ve got to find a way to help her.”
“She is beyond any help that I might conceive.”
Alan stood at the dead center of the golden heart of the ship. He called out, “Show me what to do. Guide me!”
Siam’s eyes were wide and staring as he held back in the entrance, the torch trembling in his hand. Alan stood with his feet wide apart as if to give his giddy head balance, then placed a blood-covered hand on each of two opposing walls. The oraculum pulsated.
He maintained his position, the oraculum throbbing powerfully and insistently. Then he thought he saw something, a faint flickering in the walls of the chamber. His heart pounded as he realized what he was seeing. However faintly, the walls had taken on a background ultramarine, through which a rippling of stars, as complex and beautiful as a clear night sky, came and went from view. The pulsation of stars suggested an answering heartbeat. The heart of the Temple Ship was beating again, however feebly.
Alan’s face was a mixture of exhilaration and exhaustion. His lips moved, as if attempting to speak the words that were entering his mind from his communion with the ship. . . . Remember the frozen lake . . . the lightning!
How could Alan forget their escape from the Storm Wolves? He recalled looking up into the thunderheads, seeing the lightning, his left arm tensing against the sky and his white-knuckled fist bringing it down and directing the lightning at the ice . . . No—not directly at the ice, but first directly through the ship!
“I used the First Power to revive the ship.”
The Snowmelt River (The Three Powers) Page 49