'Where is Aviti now?' Wist asked Tyla as they entered a downward sloping section of caves. Tyla shrugged and pointed towards one of the walls.
'Tyla?' Wist said.
'Who could live here?' he replied. 'So far from the sun? I can see why Nikka refused this journey.'
Wist looked at the Lyrat. He could just make out his friend's face. It appeared different somehow, as if the lines on it had deepened. Tyla said no more.
The lower they went, the firmer the footing became. The bedrock was still hidden from view, but now it wasn't muddy. The jarring impact of Brathoir's wooden leg hitting the ground took its toll on him and, although he said nothing about it, his pace dropped.
Wist removed his extra cloak when they stopped for a break. After gulping down water from the skins that Tyla had filled from the underground lake, he took a quick look inside to check that the water did not glow.
Brathoir seated himself beside Wist. He was an imposing figure, even with a leg missing. Wist looked around for Oinoir, but he must have moved ahead, up at the front of the line. Suddenly, Brathoir offered one of his bandaged hands to Wist. Unsure what to do, Wist extended his and the giant clasped it. His arm looked tiny as it protruded from the Giant's fist.
'Thank you. I said so before, and I do so sincerely now,' the Giant said with a grin. 'But if you try and remove any other parts of my body I will have to kill you.' The Giant paused for a heartbeat and then roared with laughter, thoroughly pleased with himself.
'Maybe it will bring me luck with the Giantesses,' he said, then he roared once more and patted Wist, causing him to wince.
'There is no-one... Special for you then?' asked Wist.
'Special? I have a wife and she is special indeed. If you had tried to cut her leg off she would have relieved your body of the burden of its head.'
'Your wife, she is a warrior, like you?'
'Decheal, she is a warrior, but not like me. She is in the north. A leader of us mere warriors. It is her we rush to aid, in part, although what good we shall accomplish the World only knows.'
'Do you have any...?' Wist began.
'Children? No,' he chuckled. 'I did try, but that too is something I am incapable of achieving.' Brathoir snorted and took a gulp of water.
A moment later the shout came up from ahead that they were to move on, so set off again. The path continued on, just as wide as before and it allowed the Giants to progress without any trouble. The ceiling of this tunnel was higher and smoother and it would be a perfect sphere if not for the flattened surface on which the walked. It was as if a huge worm had burrowed through the stone.
As they descended, the walls lightened. Patches of blackened stone spoiled the marbled façade though. Wist traced the lines that ran through the stone. It reminded him of Mashesh; it reminded him of the sand whale. He was about to say so to Tyla when he was forced to wipe away the stinging moisture from his eyes and the moment was lost.
When he opened his eyes, they had come to a split in the path, to which there were three exits. Oinoir had left a Giant at the central passage to indicate that the correct direction. A mile or so further on, this was repeated again at another junction. Wist wondered how Oinoir had made his choice, which he had done at speed. Wist gasped and the air stung his lips. He drank as he walked and hoped for a chance to rest.
Down and down they went, and thanks to Brathoir, they were losing ground on the main body of Giants, so Wist bullied them on.
Just as he considered stopping Tyla, they passed through a vast archway and into a huge chamber. Its ceiling was lost in darkness. An orange glow lit the space and it had nothing to do with the torches they still clutched. Through holes that peppered the far wall of the chamber, blazing orange light poured in. Most were the size of a clenched fist, but the largest was big enough for the Giants to pass through one at a time. With the light came a devastating heat.
And behind it all, lurking beyond those gaps in the wall, was a maelstrom of emotions. Each one burned like a spike in Wist's mind.
'Tyla,' said Wist. The Lyrat turned to face him. 'There's something beyond there. Something massive. I can feel it.'
Tyla waited for Wist to continue, but he could not explain his sudden unease. Another wave of heat from the wall made up his mind. He nodded to Tyla and they headed through one of the larger gaps that the Giants used as a doorway.
They were greeted by an intense blast of heat and a familiar view. The cavern they entered looked so similar to the one they had left miles above. There was no water in its central void though. Instead, in the middle of the chamber, there was a lake of lava, black, orange and red in colour and it widened in the middle to reach both walls. But that wasn't the source of Wist's unease. The holes in the ceiling where the fumes from the lava exited the cavern opened spirals in Wist's mind.
14 - Beneath The Tides
They had managed to get a glimpse of their destination when it had grown too dark for Aviti and Sevika to continue, so they made their camp in the moss under one of the thousands of trees.
The Intoli had said nothing since revealing that Aviti's father had spoken to her through his daughter. So they moved towards the grey castle in silence. Aviti must get this creature, this Intoli to talk. She needed to connect with Sevika on some level before they reached their destination. So as she ate another paltry meal around a fire, Aviti began to talk. She started to tell of her journey from the southern arid continent of Tapasya to Pyrite.
'It had taken me longer than Nikka, the Cerni dwarf who travelled with us, to adjust to the rolling waves, but less than the others, apart from Tyla.'
'Do you know the Cerni, the dark-skinned dwarves of Sordir in Tapasya?' Aviti asked. Sevika did not reply so she continued.
'Anyway, we had been aboard the vessel for a month, which was far longer than we had been told.' That had not concerned Aviti. Leaving the ship would mean facing her future and her problems.
'The small party with which I had boarded the vessel were still there. I could … I could feel them somehow.' Aviti should not have given this away, but she had to risk something if she wanted to prise open the Intoli's rigid defences, so she continued. 'On the night we sank, Nikka was with me on the deck, but he was at the far end. I could feel him there; his solid fortitude sitting amongst us. Dregan, the mage, was below deck.'
She had felt him there beneath her feet, a mass of obfuscations and purposes; a cynosure of intentions. She should have asked the Intoli about Dregan, but she could not face what the answer might be.
'Then there was Tyla and Wist.' In her mind, she had sometimes confused the two men, and at other times, the impressions she had of them could not have been more different. 'Both of these men had been instrumental in destroying my old life.' Tyla had shown her glimpses of a future, something that she could have grasped, but after his severing from Faric, he had retreated from her. And when the Lyrat had begun to emerge from the stasis that had gripped him, Aviti had been pulled from him with her own struggles. 'Yes, Wist. I remember thinking that had I been given my father's gift for foresight then I would have left him to die at the gates of Mashesh.'
'Then I remember the spray from the side of the boat catching me in the face, filling my mouth with saltwater.' She also remembered spitting the bitter liquid back into the sea and admonishing herself. Even then, after the loss of her brother, her father, her life on the farm in Mashesh she knew that she could never have left Wist to die. The tale of Wist's suicide had confused her at first. How could one man's actions affect an entire land? After she had heard the story, a little of Wist's passivity had made sense. She had watched as Eliscius' murder had swept the doubt from him, but it had cemented his isolation.
'I felt Nikka approaching me as I spat the seawater out.' Even before she heard his dense footsteps, she had sensed him coming.
'Wild night the Cerni said to me and I shrugged. I remember feeling my plait stuck to my back.' Her hand went to her hair, which was now a disgusting mass of knots and dirt.
'He said that he never thought he would see the Sun rise on board a ship. It reminded him of the sand-whale we had ridden through the northern Desert, or so he said.'
'I told him it reminded me more of the Waren,' Aviti studied the Intoli for a reaction when she mentioned the Waren and she caught her subtle grimace.
'Then he asked me about what happened in the tower. You were there, I told him. And you know what happened.'
'I faltered then as I had not intended to shame Nikka, for he had been unable to help us. He tripped when...' Aviti paused, then started again
'He told me that he had failed, and I tried to remonstrate with him but he ignored my protestations. He told me not to pretend. That it was a failure and he was not proud, but neither was he shamed.'
'Sometimes we fail so that others may succeed in our place,' he had said. Then he joked about developing an overly generous streak.'
Most of this tale would be meaningless to the Intoli, Aviti knew. To even make it understandable to Sevika, Aviti would need to explain all about Wist, how he had failed them all and how she had saved him, but pointless or not, she was committed to the tale now.
'I smiled in spite of myself, for Nikka had lifted my mood. I looked back out to the moon reflected on the turbulent surface of the sea. Not so long ago I would have been terrified by the thought of all that water; to be able to look in all directions and see nothing but water. But my immersion in the Corb, the river near Mashesh, had changed me. When I surrendered to the power of the river, it had... It opened me up to what I could be.'
'But Nikka, the Cerni, persisted, accusing me of avoiding his question. He insisted that it was me that had saved us from Tilden that day, and he wanted to know how I had done it.'
'I had told him before that it was Wist that had saved us, for he had thrown that black liquid into Tilden's face, but the Cerni would not be dissuaded from his course.'
'But you broke his mastery over you,' he said to me. Tyla had said him that the power that Tilden exerted over us all was unmatchable. And so it was. I remember it well, that suffocating pressure.'
'But I bristled at the implications of Nikka's words. I accused him of gathering his evidence behind my back and demanded to know what it was he accused me of.’ She had normally found his manner put her at ease, but that night he drew too close to something. ‘Perhaps he felt my unease, or simply lost interest, but he backed down. He told me that he accused me of nothing. That he merely attempted to gain some understanding. I knew that my annoyance with him was misplaced, but nothing I could say was going to make any difference.'
'Then he told me that the voyage had given him too much time to think.' If only he had known how she spent her time on board that ship, Aviti thought to herself and she held back a tear.
'I remember him saying that all the darkness should put him in mind of the Volni and his years of enslavement under the mountain. But the moon calms me, as does the motion of the sea – he had said.'
'I think I may have found my new home.'
He laughed then and Nikka's rich voice joined with the wind and the waves.'
'Then I recall Tyla, slipping from the darkness beside him,'
'Nikka had called him, Another wonder. One of the desert brethren abroad on the sea.'
'Tyla walked a few yards beyond us, to stand at the foremast and look out over the prow. Nikka reckoned that we should be able to see land soon, and that perhaps before sunrise we might be landed. The Cerni made another quip about it being good to stand on firm land and then apologised to Tyla, but he just continued to stare at our destination.'
'It was then that Tyla spotted something. At first, Nikka thought that it might be land. Her heart had quickened then. The thought of leaving the vessel had filled her with dread.
'I pushed past Tyla to stand in front of him.' She also remembered her skin brushing his exposed arms, but she said nothing of this to the Intoli.
'I peered out as far as I could, but there was nothing to see in the pale moonlight, so I asked Tyla what he could see. He said that it was a ship. Then he turned away from Nikka and I, and sped along the deck and disappeared into the darkness. Nikka loosed his hammer from his back and left it swinging at his side.'
'Tyla knew it was a threat. He had never been on board a ship, and had never even seen the sea until that voyage, but he knew danger.'
'I asked Nikka if he could see what Tyla had, but it was the Cerni's turn to ignore me. So I closed my eyes and tried to reach out to sense what Tyla had seen with his preternatural sight, but the ship beneath me was coming to life. A mass of tension built from below, like a ripple marking Tyla's passing as he spread his warning.'
'Then I caught a glimpse of something in the distance; a mast and then the outline of another. And then another. Three ships and all of them pointed like arrows, straight at our vessel. Voices erupted on the deck as the sailors that manned our ship emerged from beneath us. The captain bellowed at them all to steer them out the way of the oncoming vessels, but as soon as we shifted our course, the other ships followed suit. Now they spread apart, two of the vessels intended to flank us whilst the third would block our path.'
'Tyla reappeared beside Nikka and me, along with Dregan and Wist.' Wist had been withdrawn for the previous month and since they had left the green isle that they had been forced to sojourn on, he had been silent. When Wist stood beside her, she felt the intensity that had gripped him after Eliscius' death. His permanent scowl was as pronounced as Tyla's scarred mien.
'The captain gave the order to drop the sails,' Aviti continued. 'He could not outrun this threat, but he could prepare. So the few, small, fixed weapons were made ready, although they had insufficient crew to man them. The other men and women made sure their personal weapons were close at hand.'
''Tilden,' Wist said as he glowered at the ship approaching nearest to the side on which he stood. He obtained a short bow and a quiver full of black shafted arrows from somewhere and it trembled in his hands.'
'I saw Tyla's scarred forehead crease at Wist's assumption, but he remained poised and balanced, despite the sea's best effort to move him. Nikka grabbed a sailor as he scuttled by and demanded to know what was happening, but the sailor shrugged and slipped from Nikka's fingers and ran off below the deck. Nikka agreed that hiding might be the best idea as he ran his hands along his hammer's head.' The sailor had looked little more than a boy to Aviti's eyes, but she must have looked little more than a girl to everyone else.
'Then the lead ship lowered its sail,' Aviti said, 'and dropped its speed. The two other vessels, glistening as they cut through the dark waters, proceeded at pace. They would be alongside us in moments.'
'Then Dregan asked Wist if he thought it might be Tilden on the ships. Wist told him he hoped it was. Then Wist pulled an arrow from the quiver at his feet and nocked it to the bow-string in one fluid motion. Nikka stopped him with a hand on his arm.
'The ship nearest our side of the ship drew closer and I could make out shapes on the deck. Glints of metal and menace were all I could see, but the intent was clear. Then I caught the vaguest impression of hills on the horizon.'
'Come peaceably,' a voice called from the dark vessel. 'You shall be well treated.' The voice was full of strange lilting inflections, like a voice that was more suited to a flowing gentle tongue.
'A sailor near to us groaned and told me that it was Island slavers and that he would not be taken alive. To me, his words sounded more like a plea than a declaration of defiance. The captain told the men to hold to their course.
'Land!' I shouted, 'Land, Land!' The captain must have grasped my intention immediately as he got his men to drop their weapons and get back to the sails, which hung immobile in the rigging.'
'There was a loud crack and something whistled through the air. My shout must have carried to the other ship, or they could see the crew at the sail. A huge boulder-sized object landed a ship's length from us, as our vessel began to heave forward under the pull of the wind. The sai
lors on our ship were now busy with the task of attempting to out-run their would-be captors, so there was no-one to man the weapons.'
'Nikka saw the need and ran to the single fixed crossbow. He fired a single bolt to measure the range of the weapon and he cursed as it fell into the sea half of the distance to the pursuing vessel. The second ship began to come about in a tight arc. Similarly, the third began to turn, but more slowly than the second. It sought to prevent us reaching the coast. If we were trapped at sea, we would not escape.'
'A second crack erupted from the pursuing ship, this time the missile flew far over our heads. It clipped a spar on the foremast and sent one of the crew into the black waters.'
'Nikka, returning from the useless crossbow, shouted that they were aiming for the sails. So Wist launched arrows at the pursuing vessel in a futile attempt to strike back at them.'
'I turned to Dregan only to find him staring at Nikka. 'Do something,' I shouted at him. The Mage nodded after a moment and walked to the rail nearest to the pursuing ship. He held out his hand towards me inviting me to join with him.' Just as he had done with Eliscius when they faced an army of the Damned. 'But I shook my head and shied from him. This was a ship full of people he proposed to attack.' In the silence of her own thoughts, she admitted the lie to herself. The loss of life had not stopped her. She had been terrified that she would founder on temptation and power.
Aviti forced a breath, and then continued. 'Dregan pulled his hand. Then we all staggered as the latest ballista found its mark and smashed the huge aft mast from its place. Our ship pitched as the mast crashed through the rail on the far side of the ship. The topmost spar crushed men and threw more to meet their doom at the bottom of the sea.'
'The ship bucked and thrashed on the water as it tried to find its new point of balance. Tyla was up before any of us. He ran to the nearest sailor and offered him what aid he could. Once Dregan recovered, he moved again to side of the ship. Then he pushed his hands out before him.
'Amongst the chaos and death, Wist ran from Dregan's side of the ship to the other, where the second ship now closed alongside us. I watched as Wist screamed into the night' launching a fresh barrage of arrows. As each one flew, he bellowed out a fresh cry and each time he cried out, the arrow flew further.'
The Redemption of Wist Boxed Set: Books 1 - 3: The complete collection Page 46