by Clive Ousley
‘I don’t know the man. He wanted my husband.’
‘You need not want for anything, you can still have children, help develop their highsenses and live a fruitful life. Yet still you defy me.’
He came to a decision, slamming his hands flat on the table top.
‘Finish your food and reflect on what I have said. I’ll return in ten minutes to receive your information.’
Gamlyn strode to the door and Cabryce heard him talking quietly to someone. She finished the food and drink and waited. There was little else she could say without breaking the dead man’s trust. Intuitively she believed the rebel man’s sincerity, and Gamlyn’s falseness.
The door opened and another man strode in. A change of tactics, she thought in alarm. This man scared her. He was unshaven, stunk of sweat with a healed scar across his left cheek. His hands were large and hardened with calluses; he rubbed them together as if relishing some act to follow. He ran his eyes up and down her entire body as if assessing her for a certain size coffin or length of rope for the gallows. There was no sexuality in his stare, just coldness. Her skin crawled as she recognised cruelty written in his face and hands.
‘The name of the intruder and what he told you?’ The scarred man demanded in an icy tone.
‘Who are you to ask?’ Cabryce returned defiantly.
She saw his hand coming but it was too fast for her to avoid it. The slap sent her crashing against the desk. She stood up and wiped blood away from a cut cheek.
‘I don’t know; he never had a chance to say a thing.’
Seconds later she was on the floor with her other cheek stinging. She decided not to move, hoping he would think her unconscious. A kick winded her and distantly she felt his hot breath on her face. A malicious laugh echoed in her ringing ears.
‘I love playing this game woman – tell, or I’ll enjoy myself further.’
Cabryce rose unsteadily to her knees and focused. She stared into cold eyes and held them silently – for her love of Malkrin, the memory of her parents and for the truth the dead rebel had convinced her of.
He slowly gathered her hair in a fist and wrenched it. Her head made contact with the desk leg and she involuntarily screamed.
‘Wonderful, now I’m going to really . . .’
‘Enough Janna,’ a commanding but distant voice shouted.
Gamlyn bent over her. ‘Are you ready to tell me?’
She spat blood into his face.
‘Throw her in the dampest, deepest cell. We’ll see what a few days there will do to her defiance.’
The room spun, but Cabryce managed to get to her feet. A brutal hand propelled her from the room. She was pushed and shoved along endless corridors dimly lit by flaming oil lamps. Then the burning oil smell was replaced by dank mildew and decay as she stumbled down endless flights of echoing, faintly lit stone steps. She had descended into the bowels of the earth. Another short corridor and the gloom closed in. A heavy sounding door creaked open before her. She was thrust through and the door slammed with echoing finality.
It was pitch black. The unknown was laced with sounds of dripping water and with the boom of a river in full flood. A terrible damp stench filled the cell and she wrapped her arm around her mouth.
And then very close she heard heavy wheezing breath.
CHAPTER TEN
Malkrin stood and gestured to Bulwan and his elders to thank them for their hospitality, then indicated he must leave before his pursuers returned. The Skatheln elder looked confused; he appeared to have lost the rapport that Jadde’s scriptures had initiated.
‘Explain to him Halle,’ Malkrin ordered tersely.
After a short time in unspoken explanation Halle spoke with an undercurrent of tension. ‘I have explained our situation to Bulwan as best I can, and he has promised not to mention our meeting if the searchers return.
Seara looked at her father then to Malkrin and then back to her father as she assessed the gravity of their predicament.
‘Come daughter we must leave immediately.’
Seara wished her new friends a reluctant farewell. They gathered their backpacks and the Skatheln danced a farewell. After the short ceremony the tribe retreated to the tree line to watch the three companions leave. Bulwan alone stood on the path in the open. With his hand he gestured what looked like a bird flying away.
‘He wishes us a safe journey,’ Halle said, and they raised hands in parting.
Malkrin and his companions travelled in silence for some time along the cliff edge, each deep in their thoughts. Malkrin tried to guess the identity of the mysterious searchers. He concluded they had to be Brenna: the only people with access to Jadde’s symbols of highsense recognition.
They used the rest of the daylight to look for a crossing point.
‘Keep up Seara,’ Malkrin snapped in frustration after two hourglasses of travelling the rim of the watery chasm.
‘We’ll never get across – what’s the point in hurrying,’ she moaned.
‘Quiet daughter, and keep up, you don’t look tired.’
Like me, she’s just frustrated and irritable with lack of progress, Malkrin thought.
The cliff dipped down to the water’s edge several times but was always either non-fordable or the opposite cliff face too shear. They stopped often to examine the ground for spoor, but it was too rocky to reveal foot, paw or hoof imprints. Recent rain had washed any prints from patches of mud and sand. Intermittently, faint paths disappeared into scrub, but were not frequently used. Malkrin’s highsense was not detecting any danger, but there was no way of telling whether the mysterious searchers had passed this way.
‘A path must lead to something,’ he snarled, thinking aloud. ‘It doesn’t matter which side of the river we are. I’m still hoping the end of this path will be at a Wolf Clan village.’
‘If they’re hostile we can retreat back along a path we now know,’ Halle added.
‘Back to the Skatheln,’ Seara added hopefully.
They camped that night sheltered in a large circular walled enclosure covered in ivy and scrub. The bowl shaped depression opened at one side to a gap in the cliff leading down a narrow and treacherous path to a small pebble strewn beach. The foaming torrent was too deep to wade and too wild to swim.
They’d allowed Seara first watch again. Malkrin could see her now just above him carefully scanning the surrounding countryside from amongst high grass. She had concealed herself well with just head and shoulders protruding. He trusted her. She was being forced by circumstance to mature quickly. But still Malkrin couldn’t sleep, the revelation that they were being sought by mystery high-people was a real concern to him. He knew of no one else who currently had any highsense recognised amongst the Seconchane’s ordinary folk. There was only one conclusion he could reach – the Brenna, or the priesthood had kept people with three highsense talents secret from the ordinary folk for some unknown purpose. He dismissed an earlier idea that the Brenna had raided Jadde’s sacred chest of sun symbols merely to make themselves appear important.
What was he being sought for? Or could Halle and Seara be the ones sought – to be forced back to Cyprusnia to admit their hidden highsenses. The strangers must have hidden highsense gifts, but what were they? Malkrin felt weighed down with unanswered questions, adding to the aches from the journey.
He propped himself on an elbow, and noticed Halle sitting watching over his daughter as she guarded them.
‘I see you too are alert. We must be increasingly wary, lest our pursuers use a highsense to detect us.’
‘Perhaps if we come across more people they will have information on the searchers whereabouts,’ Halle suggested.
‘Or they may take the searchers side and hold us until the strangers come to collect us. There may be a reward on our heads.’
Malkrin finally sunk into a restless sleep until Seara woke him for his watch. The position of the moon told him she had done more than her allotted period.
‘Get some slee
p girl,’ he ordered softly.
Later Halle took over from him and he only awoke at the smell of cooking. Seara was roasting slices of venison in the resurrected fire and Halle was pouring hot nettle tea into three clay bowls.
Today he hoped to find evidence of the Wolf people and track them to their settlement. But would the three companions be welcomed? If the Wolf Tribe were friendly then would the meeting follow their experience with the Skatheln and be an exchange of folklore and tribal legend containing clues to further mysteries.
He hoped the three of them would pass as destitute traders from the outskirts of Cyprusnia. They were obviously too poor to barter anything the Wolf men would want – apart from Palerin and that was out of the question. Halle’s spear, bow and flint dagger were not for exchange either.
After a meal they followed the cliff-top along the huge flooded rend in the earth. A barrier of rocks meant they detoured away from the cliff. Eventually they found a way back to the cliff by forging through long grass.
After two days of frustration they rested on rocks at the river edge to debate whether to strike inland along the next animal path they found. An hourglass of debate later they carried on following the cliff-top path.
The third day found them climbing a particularly steep slope after their latest failure to cross the torrent. The hill rose to a high crest and they quietly approached the summit not knowing if Wolf men or their pursuers would be beyond. Malkrin’s highsense again detected no danger so they continued to climb. The view began to enlarge; a sharp right-hand bend in the river concealed the opposite bank. By the diminishing height of the opposite bank Malkrin hoped the cliff also lowered further on their side.
Out of breath they reached the summit and a totally unexpected vista opened out. There before them they had the crossing they sought. Not gentle slopes leading to a stepping stone strewn river, but before them stood a huge artificial bridge. Its construction so unusual that they stood and stared open mouthed.
Two giant trees had tunnels bored through them the height of a tall man. Thick trunks had been laid horizontally and scoured flat to provide a walkway wide enough for four horses. Other giant angled trunks supported a spectacular suspension over the gorge. These boles were braced at an angle from either riverbank and acted as piers locking into the bottom of the horizontal span. Ornate carvings of stars combined with horizontal lines to decorate the exact centre of the span. Faces of gods or warriors had been chiselled into the wood all along the suspended trunks. Beneath the bridge the river raged unobstructed.
Malkrin stared in awe, running his eyes up the enormous hollowed trees. As well as supporting the structure they grew naturally from either side of the gorge. Their upright trunks led far above the bridge span to where tree tops would have been. But the leafy canopies had been replaced with glowing domes of curving wood with an infill of yellow glass. The sun concentrated within the glass to charge the globular structures with a translucent yellow glow. He guessed the glow remained at night, and knew the sight would be incredible.
Surely the work of Jadde on her journey through this world, Malkrin marvelled. He noticed his awe mirrored on his companion’s faces.
On the far side, the grass bank expanded to form a rolling meadow. In this wide area a large number of dwellings rose from the grass looking like artificial hillocks. They also contained glass windows and doors lit internally by the same yellow glow.
Halle gestured to the nearside edge of the bridge where the path expanded to form a track to the first tree buttress. It was guarded by two warriors who stood staring at the three with hands on sword scabbards in readiness. They wore cloth headdresses of identical yellow colour with orange and green leggings and matching tunics. One stepped to a structure at the foot of the bridge and withdrew a long fluted horn. Placing it to his mouth he blasted an eerie note. The sound echoed around the cliffs disproportionally louder to the effort the man put in.
Instantly a crowd of people began to spill from the dwellings. Children ran to the bridge waving coloured banners that streamed behind them in the same fluttering exuberance as their shrill greeting. Adults followed at a more sedate pace, waving a welcoming greeting as they stared at the distant figures of Malkrin and his companions. More men emerged from beyond the hilltop, leaving scythes and harvesting knives at their workplaces and approaching the bridge curiously. The guards continued to stand before the bridge as Malkrin and his friends approached. The children halted behind the guards but kept up an excited cacophony as if Malkrin’s small band were returning heroes.
‘Stay here,’ Malkrin ordered, ‘I will ensure the guards are as welcoming.’
‘I’m sure they are Sire, the children have not been ushered away.’ Seara smiled her friendly innocence.
Malkrin agreed, but he advanced with his highsense fully alert just in case.
He caught the children’s excited chatter as he approached. Strangely, their tongue was similar to their own but with a heavy accent. He stopped half way to concentrate his inner ear. His highsense picked out snatches of conversation.
‘Hess noowt thy same as thee last visitors . . .’
‘Nowt a god, more a galthern . . .’
‘Naaw, hess a honoured une . . .’
Malkrin could follow the comments now. There was no threat, merely strong curiosity. He approached the guards who moved their weight from foot to foot in expectation. Malkrin stopped ten paces before them and gave the Seconchane sign of greeting and peace. He extended his hands to his face for longer than etiquette normally allowed. Then he spoke quietly to confirm his intentions.
‘I wish to meet your people in peace and harmony, and seek only information not hurt.’
‘Whoo arth thou?’ one guard enquired.
‘I am Malkrin Owlear, once two sun holder. I am now merely a trader with my two companions.’
‘Trader?’ The man looked hard at Malkrin, concentrating on his dialect, ‘Trade wot?’ he asked.
‘We trade information, tales and the love of the great Goddess. We would speak with your village elders.’
‘Elders?’ the guard looked confused then realisation penetrated. ‘Thy Senate, thou wish ta speak with thy Senate?’
‘Yes, if we may.’
‘I will tak yoo.’
Malkrin was tuning in to the strange version of Seconchane. He was surprised at how easy it was to adapt to the strange tongue. The guard waited while Malkrin gestured Halle and Seara forward. The throng of children closed around them with excited voices as the guard led them through. Seara took the youngsters hands in quick greeting as she passed and the children screamed in delight. Seara beamed. Her pleasure spread to Malkrin and Halle, inducing them to extend the hand-touching greeting to adults as they passed. Gestures and smiles of welcome were given in return. It was as if this were a traditional greeting for valuable and infrequent visitors.
As they walked Malkrin peered down below the bridge to the surging torrent, then to grassy banks as they walked from the bridge. He relaxed, and felt as if they’d accomplished something to be finally across the river. The guard led them along a well kept road to a huge segmented building like a five pointed star. Each angled extension was roofed in living grass. The green blanket led to a strange turret in the centre where each section of the building converged. Golden light filled glass windows dotted through each joining wing and the turret walls. The frontage of the extension nearest them had an ornate door carved with an eagle with stars in its claws.
Another guard stood before the door. This man was bedecked in a triangular cloak of yellow cloth embroidered with an edge of stars. His arms were folded over a black staff with a vicious half moon blade on the upper end. As they drew close Malkrin’s sudden unease evaporated as he realised the moon-blade was wood painted in gold with the cutting ability of lead.
Again Malkrin, Halle and Seara gave the welcome sign. The man mirrored it and Malkrin repeated his request to meet their Senate.
‘Travellers, you are welc
ome to the lands of the Brightwater people, for these are bad times. News from strangers will be well received as we prepare plans to combat the dark scourge.’
‘Thank you,’ Malkrin said. His thoughts raced. He had become accustomed to the accent, and the tribes name was familiar, but the memory refused to surface. Then he had it – another reference to Jadde’s scripture. ‘Jadde was the saviour of the Brightwater tribe.’ Already he knew more than the Seconchane’s most learned scholars.
‘The Senate are gathering. Will you take refreshment while they prepare?’
‘That would be welcome, we have journeyed far.’
Malkrin glanced at his companions; they were still puzzling out the strange drawl and the scripture references.
‘Enter,’ the man said simply. He lowered the gold blade and indicated the now open door with a sweep of his arm.
Malkrin tramped down worn steps into a room tinted with yellow light. Large dark-wood doors ahead were closed. He assumed they led to a hall in the centre of the star building where the Senate were preparing to receive them.
Turning a corner they entered a room lined with wooden benches along three whitewashed walls. The fourth wall was bare apart from its centre where a huge embossed emblem in gold depicted an eagle clutching prey in its talons. A servant in a plain blue uniform handed them china bowls with handles, full of steaming aromatic liquid. Malkrin grasped his with reverence, because the only items like this were owned by the Brenna, and they kept all delicate china in locked cabinets. Halle gingerly lifted his bowl to sip the contents and Seara looked around as if she would be scolded for touching her bowl.
They had just finished the drink when the inner doors opened and a figure in multilayered yellow cloaks emerged. He pounded a mace of woven withies on the wood boarded floor. Malkrin assumed it was a ritual start to a welcome ceremony.
‘The Senate will see you now,’ the man thundered.
Halle and Seara followed Malkrin through the doors.
He had experienced so many unusual events since leaving Cyprusnia that Malkrin expected nothing to faze him. He stepped down tapestry covered steps with confidence and into a huge room excavated below ground and soaring far above. The roof was held up by great interlaced wooden beams fashioned into a twist ascending to a domed ceiling. Malkrin realised he was indeed at the centre of the star building. The interior of the hall was lit by the usual pale yellow light splashing from enchanting yellow glassed windows.