Again the beast howled its three simple words, and then threw back its arms yelling even louder this time. But the two in their russet fortress just crouched and watched. Again it screamed, and this time the words were much more guttural and luring, permeated with an implication of evil. It continued with this deeper tone, and it grew as it did so. It was indistinct, but the creature grew larger, or appeared to, and as it did, it became darker. The mass that had once resembled him began to arch over, its back hunching and starting to shine, as if polished. There was now a mass of something solid resembling a face, topped off by two blacker than black eyes underneath its heavy brow. The creature hulked around the lake, finally revealing its true form, and all the while it bellowed that simple message up at the rocks.
The message was simple, but it made them both want to stand, to also reveal themselves. They knew it was wrong, but they knew they had to comply. As the creature finished yelling, they looked at each other and then down at the creature, and called back, 'I love you.'
The creature stopped, and stared right at them. It seemed to hulk over, as if getting larger, and the rushing of air that was its breathing seemed to get louder. “I love you,” it growled back threateningly, as if those three words were all it could say. But this time, it said it with nothing less than an air of menace. They looked at each other, instantly knowing that replying had been a fatal mistake. The creature roared and charged at them, barely pausing as it scrambled over the rock walls that separated them. They had no choice; they had to run, and they had to run now.
Turning, they fled their hiding place and sped into the rocky terrain. But this time something was different. The creature caught them in two easy strides and seemed to be everywhere at once, barging into them and knocking them around. They refused to let go of each other though, no matter what the creature did. It reached for them, grabbing at clothes, and there was no easy way they could elude it.
A small spark of hope kindled within him as he saw a low building some distance across the plain, and so he made for it, pulling her screaming behind him. The creature never relented, not until they had made it inside the squat house. They sprinted through its doors and backed up against a wall. Silence. The creature was completely silent. Relaxing, he turned, only to see the creature's snarling face was level with his own. He screamed.
* * *
Ju jumped as the fisherman laid his hand on his shoulder, awakening him, and for a second he had no idea where he was. His eyes slowly focused, and he recognised the familiar comfort of the ice-house, where they had rested for the night.
“You all right?” asked the concerned voice of Lorn. “You were moaning as you slept, and as I came over, you screamed something.” Ju shuddered, remembering clearly everything he had dreamt. It had seemed so real, as if he had actually been there. His hands were still trembling slightly as he took a bowl of steaming broth from Lorn, and as he ate, his nerves seemed to quieten some, and he eventually calmed down. Lorn noticed the change in him, noting that something had disturbed him greatly. When they had finished, they tidied away the bowls and sat back against huge skin of fur that served as bolsters. “So what was the problem? Bad dreams?”
Ju nodded wistfully. “Yes, bad dreams.”
* * *
Zya sat bolt upright, and for a second she could not understand why she was screaming. They were in trouble, the thing was after them, but was it? She looked around, her eyes picking out every detail from the tent she had almost come to regard as her home. The feathers, the hanging objects. All were clear to her, and she understood the reasons they were there. She closed her eyes again, seeking the calm within her that was the centre of every living being. The fear and desperation that had filled her with feelings of dread evaporated, like a pool of water in the midsummer sun, and she opened her eyes again to survey the room.
It was the musty smell that had somehow taken over her senses. If she ever wanted to describe her time here, the smell would sum it all up for her. Everything she had learnt here had been underwritten with the aroma of spices mixed with the dust of ancient objects, and the cured pelts of animals she had never before heard of. Herself once again, Zya relaxed. Looking back at her was her instructor. The old woman had never told her what her name was, and Zya knew better than to ask.
“Something troubles you?”
Zya smiled shyly in answer. Nothing could be hidden from her teacher at the best of times, but the fact that she had been screaming would have betrayed her sleeping emotions to anybody. “I had a bad dream. Nothing more.”
The old woman arched one of her eyebrows, leaning forward intently. “Tell me what you learned from it.”
Zya thought on the matter, knowing she would not be pushed into an answer until she had given it proper thought. Finally she answered. “There is a creature stuck in one form that wishes to be in another. It is filled with rage, but the rage that fills it is not of its own making. It is powerful beyond the human capacity to understand, but it has one immense weakness, which is the root of its anger.”
Her teacher considered this for a time, her face unmoving, ever probing in its expression. “Go on.”
Zya tried to think what else there was, and then remembered the mirror. “There is something powerful in a place that looks unlike it did in a time long past. The creature hunts that place, because it was formed there, or because this place had a great deal to do with its current form.”
Again her teacher paused to consider what she had heard. “What you have just experienced is something more than a dream, child. It is a vision of your subconscious mind mixed with visions of the future. It is a sign that you are so balanced with the forces of the world, that you can use them to guide your steps.”
Zya was astonished. “I can see in to the future?” she asked.
“Perhaps, though it is better to think of such things only as possibility. It may be that the place you imagined was entirely of your own creation, or, it may be that the place exists in this world or the next. But it is not always the future that your mind dwells upon. Some visions may come to you of the past, and these are just as important as any others, for they teach you many things if you are wise enough to learn.” The thought of such experiences left Zya chilled.
The old woman continued. “It was just a matter of time before you came to have such an experience. With all that you have learnt, I foresee that you could become an equal amongst the seers of the steppes, should you choose to remain. But should your destiny lie along another path, you will still have the dreams, and should learn to glean every hidden meaning from them; every precious drop of knowledge.”
Zya remembered that Ju had been part of the dream, but for some reason did not yet want to tell her teacher. She had learnt long ago that there was not much she could hide from her all seeing mistress, but she asked the question as obliquely as she could. “The dreams pull on another's consciousness, do they not?”
The old woman nodded once. That is often the case. Any character in a dream is incidental, put there by the power of the dreamer's mind. It is the same as any other thing. Should you dream a rock, or a tree, they will appear. The conscious and the unconscious minds are two completely different things. While the conscious mind attempts to show you the everyday obviousness of life, so the unconscious mind is looking at things in a completely different way, perhaps in a completely different reality.
“Were somebody to be dreamed about, they would not know it. It is just an echo of reality.” Zya did not necessarily agree with this theory, but unlike most other times, when she had contested her opinion to its fullest extent, she remained subdued and quiet. There was only one answer to the questions of her dream, and they could come from one person. Male seers were rare, and in some places unheard of, but Zya knew she was not entirely responsible for that vision. There was something that connected her with another.
* * *
Ju studied the ground intently. The tell-tale tracks of the deer were east to spot after weeks
of tracking, and the exposed heather an even more obvious sign that deer had grazed here. All tracks led back to the sheltered grove, which had long since been stripped of its easy pickings. This forced the grazers of the steppes to either attack the hard-packed snow in an effort to reach the sustenance underneath, or to seek food elsewhere. Fortunately for Ju, his quarry was one of the more stubborn creatures of the region, and had repeatedly come back to scuff at the ice with its sharp hooves in increasingly desperate attempts to uncover the heather.
The deer's movements had allowed him to pick up the most basic skills of a tracker, and although he would never be called a master tracker, Lorn was proud that Ju was picking up such knowledge quickly. The boy was not as young as some, but he seemed to have a massive capacity for learning.
A rustle the other side of the bushes caused them both to drop to the ground. Without looking to Lorn for guidance, Ju scampered almost silently around behind a tree on the far side of the grove. The fact that he did it almost completely without sound had startled Lorn. The boy had picked it up almost immediately.
Ju readied an arrow up against his wondrous bow, which he had already unlimbered, and looked over at Lorn, hidden behind another tree. Lorn nodded his approval; the boy had done everything required in such an ambush. Time passed, and there was no sign of any further movement. This did not surprise Lorn. Deer were such flighty creatures, with senses more acute than most, that one had to at least treat them with respect if they ever intended to capture one. That is why they made such good hunting targets for apprentices. If the hunter was slow, or gave himself away, the deer escaped. If the hunter followed all the rules, the deer was dead before it knew it, with a minimum of pain.
Lorn fondly remembered his first kill in the hunt, for it was a long time in coming. He had been several seasons older than Ju before he had skill enough to bring down a stag whose antlers now made up part of his own bow.
A slight movement brought Lorn back to his senses. Ju had notched an arrow, and had hold of the bow as if he meant to fire it. There was nothing in the grove though. Before Lorn could get his attention, Ju let fly, the twang of the bow string a clearly audible 'thump' in the clear Northern air. The arrow shot through the grove and into the bushes. There was a large amount of rustling, as if something was crashing through the bushes, and then silence. Lorn looked sternly across at the boy.
“Reckless. That is not what I have taught you. A wasted arrow, and a wasted chance.”
“I disagree,” Ju replied in an assuring tone, uncommon from one so young. Without waiting another second, Ju jumped forward, and was through the bushes in an instant. Lorn approached cautiously, his tracker's training making him a lot more careful than the boy. He expected Ju to return disappointed, as his actions would have clearly startled the deer, and ruined any chance of a kill for the remainder of the day. Instead he heard a whoop of joy come from the other side of the bushes. Following the trail around he came upon a scene of macabre celebration. Ju was dancing around in a state of glee, and the deer, so elusive for the past few weeks lay at his feet, an arrow three quarters of the way through its throat. A crimson stain spread along the floor where the arrow had punctured an artery, and Lorn was quick to spread an oilskin about the wound, grunting with effort as he lifted the creature's head.
“Why do that?” Ju asked. “The blood will only weigh it down.”
“Nothing goes to waste, especially the blood,” was all Lorn said in reply. Fortunately, it did not require much effort to shift the carcass. Blood drained steadily out of the punctured artery and onto the oilskins, and as they filled, Lorn would take them and bind them.
After a while, Lorn began to look around. He handed Ju a dagger with a saw edge on it. “Go over to the trees and select some long, fairly stout branches. Then cut a couple.” Ju looked crestfallen at the fact that he had to do some manual labour. Lorn grinned inwardly, remembering the surprises that had lain in wait for him. When Ju returned with the poles, they trussed up the deer by its legs and began to drag it. This proved to be a hard lesson for Ju, for although he was growing quickly, he did not have a man's strength, no matter how hard he tried to act it.
The days it took to drag the carcass to one of the tribal gathering points were mind-numbingly exhausting for him. He endured though, and if nothing else he had a lot more respect for the hunters who congratulated him when they dragged the half-frozen deer carcass into the centre of the few standing tents. Ju barely had time to get a few words of thanks out to the gathered people before he fell asleep. Lorn saw him safely a bed before dropping beside him. The extra weight he had had to carry because of the boy's size was of no concern. They had reached the camp, and all that Lorn could think about as he drifted quickly to sleep was the arrow that disappeared into the bushes to claim a nearly invisible prize.
“I just saw it, there through the bushes. Its head moved, and I saw its dark eye looking around. It didn't know that I was there as it was too busy looking for food, Ju explained to the hunters gathered about him as he watched them work over the carcass so that nothing was spared. From the instant he had woken and gone in search of some food, he had been the centre of attention in the snowy camp. The hunters who inhabited the enclave had gone over every detail with him, several times. The attention had been good for him, even making him forget the chilling wind that blew constantly, and seemed to actively find every bit of exposed skin on his body. Even that could not get him down as he basked in the glow of what he had achieved.
They looked over at Lorn, yet again. He shook his head in resignation and raised his hands. “I did not believe he had shot anything but a wasted arrow. When I went over to where he had been standing when he shot the deer, I could see nothing beyond the bushes. It was either luck beyond any seen on this world, or some kind of magic.”
Ju looked down at his bow, feeling a sense of pride about the weapon. It still gleamed dark, and the bowstring was as taut as ever, its great amount of use. Ju had seen Lorn restring his bow several times during their sojourn into the icy wastelands North of their current position, but despite repeated checking of his own, it never needed any maintenance. Dismissing it as coincidence, Ju put it back in its oilskin, more than one of the other hunters watching him as he did so. Ju had earned the right to call himself a hunter by the fact that he had made a kill, but he was still very young. Still, he had made the kill, and that was what mattered. Lorn knew that he could have never pulled off a shot like that. He had some suspicions about the bow, and the effect it was having on the boy, but he thought it best to leave it until he could have a word with Tarim.
“So what do we do now? Are we going to hunt?” Ju appeared eager to try his skills again, and unconsciously had a hold of his bow.
“No, we take parts of the kill back to the tribe. Well, most of it actually. Some of it will be stored here to be cured and made more useful, and the meat will be divided between the hunters and the rest of the tribe.” Ju looked crestfallen.
“Do not fret, young hunter,” Lorn said consolingly. “It is the way of things. We go back to the camp to present you as a hunter, albeit a somewhat diminutive one.” Lorn grinned as he said this, and Ju's face betrayed the fact that he was being made sport of. He had some way to go yet. “And then do we come back?”
“Maybe. There are always others requiring an education in the hunt, and most do not make a kill as quickly as you have. You may return, or they may find something else for you to do back at the camp. Tarim might have an opinion about you coming up here again, and it has been a fair while since you have seen any of them.” Ju had been independent of people for as long as he could remember, but the names that Lorn threw at him reminded him that there were finally people in his life that he did miss when away. Suddenly he did want to return.
“When do we leave?”
Lorn was surprised by his sudden acceptance, and it was plain for all to see on his face. “As soon as the carcass has been disposed of and the meat packaged.”
&nbs
p; Ju looked hesitant. “We… won't have to carry everything between us on poles all the way back will we?”
Remembering the sight of Ju, totally exhausted, several of the hunters chuckled as they continued at their grisly task of butchering the corpse. But it was a general feeling of camaraderie that everybody had, and even Ju had begun to feel it. “Nothing like that. Just enough to eat on the return trip and then whatever we can reasonably manage to carry. The tribe has different ways of bringing the bulk of the hunt back to the tribe.” Lorn indicated at what looked to be a cart of types, but there were long narrow contraptions where the wheels should have been.
“What is it?” questioned Ju; his young face afire with curiosity.
“A sled. It is pulled by a team of hounds who are hitched to the front.”
“Surely it would be easier and quicker to ride one of those back to the tribe,” said Ju; looking forward all of a sudden to a snug ride back.
“Unfortunately, there are no hounds to pull it. They are all back at the tribe with the last shipment of meat. Besides, would you miss the opportunity to explore every single crevice along the way?”
This brought open laughter from the surrounding men, which turned into a bellyful of laughter when Ju calmly replied. “No, but I don't want to have to wait for you to catch up all the time.” Lorn once again reassessed the boy, as he laughed as hard as anyone there, he was a lot cleverer than he was given credit for. Lorn surmised that if there was a way for the boy to have seen the deer, he was beginning to believe that Ju could make the shot any time he wanted.
The Focus Stone (The Tome of Law Book 1) Page 45