‘Actually, it was, rather,’ Gapp muttered to himself, but did not look up.
‘. . . It was given 2 me by a man from the South, a U-man like yourself, my glazen-eyed little friend – ’
Either the translation is a bit off, Gapp thought tersely, or giants are a cheeky bunch; ‘glazen-eyed’ indeed!
‘. . . So let me introduce myself. My name is Yulfric, and I am a Gyger.’
‘Gyger!’ Gapp repeated in a cry of revelation, chiding himself for his erstwhile stupidity. He should have guessed the moment he set eyes on the fellow. He had heard that word after all. It was not one often used in his country, as there, with typically Aescalandian lack of imagination, the term ‘forest giant’ was preferred.
He knew little of this race, though he had heard tell they were a civilized people who lived together in small, close-knit settlements not unlike those of humans. Though distantly related to the Gjoeger, they lacked the magical abilities of their aquatic cousins. Gapp had heard of only one Gyger homeland, and that lay many months travel south-west of Wyda-Aescaland, in the deep and unexplored forest of Crouagh in far-off Grendalin.
Grendalin. Of course. That was probably the country depicted in the map hung on the wall in the other room. But what was Yulfric doing here in Fron-Wudu? All alone, with only his hounds and that as yet unseen servant for company? This did not seem to fit at all the description of the gregarious forest giants he had heard of.
The humming of the meditation wheel altered in pitch slightly, now developing an unpleasant whine to it. He looked back at the instrument:
‘. . . dzon’t nmind dhe hounz, zey wn’t hrm yoo ff n yoo lijvm erlone . . .’
Something was wrong; his head began to throb, and the spelling had become even worse than Nibulus’s. He peered closer at the spinning object, inclining as he did so.
‘. . . dd#jntu*guss dn gfun!m fjhe?wps f’uxv@axh . . .’
The whine rose to a scream that lanced through Gapp’s brain like a red-hot skewer, and he felt horribly sick. Yulfric grasped him by the wrist, and gently eased his hand back so the wheel was upright again.
‘. . . U have 2 keep it verTcal or the magic doesn’t work. Sorry, I should have said earlier, but as U can imagine I haven’t had much oppor2nity 2 use it, out here in the wilds and all.’
‘So what are you doing out here,’ Gapp asked, ‘and who gave you that thing? I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.’
Yulfric shook his head, and took the wheel from Gapp’s grasp. He began spinning it himself, and indicated that the boy should speak.
‘. . . Uh . . . Hello . . . That is . . . My name is Gapp, Gapp Radnar . . . Uh, I’m from . . . I say, can you understand what I’m saying?’
Yulfric nodded enthusiastically, a wide grin spreading across his face as he continued to stare at the wheel. He was clearly enjoying every second of this.
It was without doubt the most bizarre conversation Gapp had ever had in his life. As the humming and the spinning went on, both human and Gyger gradually introduced themselves. Yulfric would talk in his strange tongue while Gapp read his words being printed out in translation on the meditation wheel. Then they would swap over, and Gapp would do the talking.
He noticed that the hum was always deeper while Yulfric was reading, and that he could see a deep red light reflected in the Gyger’s eyes, as opposed to the white light that must be reflected in his own; presumably, different languages produced different colour effects. It was a fascinating toy, and neither was in any hurry to stop communicating.
It had been a present, so the boy learned, given to Yulfric by a passing Lightbearer missionary from Wyda-Aescaland, in gratitude for Yulfric’s hospitality. It was the ideal ‘tool of the trade’ for anyone requiring the necessary translation skills for converting the heathen of distant foreign lands, but Gapp wondered just how keen the Lightbearer in question had been to simply give away such a marvellous treasure, or had the twelve-foot forest giant with the pack of ravening hell hounds perhaps been a little more assertive in this matter than he was letting on? He also vaguely wondered why Yulfric set such store by it, living alone out here in the forest with nobody else to use it on. The poor giant had probably been waiting all this time for the opportunity to try it out.
But perhaps the real magic was altogether simpler, for how else could two quiet, rather withdrawn individuals such as Gapp and the Gyger be suddenly transformed into the world’s most enthusiastic conversationalists?
There had been one incident, however, which had intruded upon their congenial chinwag. Gapp, ever the inquisitive one, had at one point decided to spin the wheel in the opposite direction, just to see what happened. The white ‘page’ had all of a sudden turned black, and as a deep, horribly demonic GROWL replaced the humming, he saw glowing red letters in an ancient and occult script:
‘Skin the giant alive! Go on, you know U want 2 . . .’
Gapp rapidly reverted to spinning it in the right direction, and did his best to ignore the red steam that curled briefly from the wheel.
Yulfric was a natural recluse. He said little about his reasons for leaving his own folk and settling here in these strange and reputedly terrible woods, so many thousands of miles away. He preferred to talk about his current life rather than his past, and sensing this reluctance, Gapp did not press the matter. The only company Yulfric saw were his devoted hounds, and his only visitors (apart from the Lightbearer missionary of two years ago) the occasional band of ‘forest-hoppers’ that might happen to pass through once in a blue moon.
These forest-hoppers, Gapp was fascinated to discover, were like the legendary trapper-barons of Grendalin, who were the heroes of some of the boy’s favourite adventure stories. Usually Polg, but occasionally human, Tusse or even Hauger, they were a phenomenally hardy – not to say brutally mercenary – amalgamation of explorer, soldier, furrier and prospector, who would penetrate deep into the wildlands by river as far as they could, hauling their boats overland whenever necessary from stream to stream, and sleep outdoors at all times, even during winter. Exactly what relations Yulfric had with them, the Gyger would not say, but from what Gapp could gather about them, if the giant could hold his own with such people, he must be a pretty formidable sort himself.
The boy felt extremely small in comparison. In fact was extremely small. As he perched there on the edge of the gigantic chair, he reflected how fortunate it was that studying the meditation wheel meant he did not have to make eye contact with this giant while they were conversing.
‘So, the meal we ate back then?’ Gapp asked, as the two of them sipped the tea that had suddenly appeared behind them on the low table. ‘Was that Heldered?’
He had been longing to ask about the unseen servant who had opened the gate in the stockade wall earlier . . . then laid on the meal that had probably saved Gapp’s life. He now almost snatched the wheel back from Yulfric in his eagerness to read the reply.
‘. . . No, that was breakfast. We don’t eat Heldered . . .’
Gapp studied Yulfric through narrowed eyes. Again he wondered if this was a fault in the translation, or merely the Gyger’s somewhat provocative sense of humour.
‘. . . Heldered is here if you want him. He is all around, but you will never see him . . .’
That did not really answer his question, but before he had a chance to persist regarding Heldered, Yulfric demanded that Gapp tell the whole story of how he came to be here like this.
Gapp waited for Yulfric to start spinning the wheel. But no sooner had he started his narration, than he paused.
What was he to say?
Up until now, his thoughts had been focused entirely upon survival: hunting down the basics of life – light, heat, food, drink and avoiding being torn limb from limb by subterranean creatures of chaos. It was only now as he sat here warm, dry and well fed within two-foot-thick walls of stone in the cluttered domestication of the forest giant’s home, that he even thought about his former companions and the quest they
had been pursuing.
Where were they now? Had they all fallen victim to the huldre and her horrendous henchmen? Or had they by some miracle contrived to escape? And if so, what had become of them subsequently? This was, after all, the wilderness . . .
A terrible weight of loneliness and isolation bore down upon him; everything had gone wrong after he had become separated from the company. Great tears, as unexpected as they were unwelcome, flooded his eyes. He lowered his head, pretending to adjust his sitting position, before commencing his story; at all costs he must not let this wild woodsman detect any weakness in him.
Gapp’s head reeled all of a sudden. He felt sick to the marrow, light-headed and trembling.
It was obviously the fever, the exhaustion, and the huge meal after so long without any food, all brought to a head by thoughts of his fellow questers. The forest giant was regarding him strangely, expecting a stirring tale but seeing only this puny little creature swaying lackadaisically atop his armchair.
But it was no good; Gapp was beyond any thoughts of bravado or even self-preservation. With his world humming and spinning more vertiginously than the meditation wheel, he lay back on his chair and was gone.
Though he did not know it, Gapp slept solidly for two whole days. He lay curled up on that same chair exactly where he had slumped, sleeping off his remaining sickness and exhaustion undisturbed, for in all that time the Gyger did not look in on him once. He was left alone, and eventually forgotten, as completely as the bat hanging in the other room.
On awaking, he found that he was clean – actually clean – for the first time in heaven knew how long. Even his clothes had been laundered, dried and slipped back on him while he had slept, though there was a distinct mustiness and a sprinkling of dog hairs on them from where Shlepp had used him as a cushion earlier.
There was also a bowl of some dark purple, medicinal-smelling, steaming hot broth waiting for him on the nearby table.
‘Heldered!’ he breathed, and almost plunged headfirst into the bowl.
When he finally met up with Yulfric again, the forest giant at first just stared at him in utter perplexity, as if he had no idea what this little human was doing here in his house. Then he appeared to remember, gradually, and spent the next few moments dithering about while he decided what he was supposed to do with him.
Eventually they were seated together once more, and Gapp, under pressure, got back to telling his story, though he did not want to. Everything in him wanted to forget about the whole thing and just get back home, somehow. The countless miles between this place and there made him feel sick, and talking about it could only make things worse.
But he felt an obligation to this strange creature who had saved his life; and in any case, it did not look as if he had much choice. Yulfric seemed to lead an uncompromising life, and did not look the sort to tolerate any weakness. Payment would be expected, and Gapp, just like any wandering minstrel back home, had to sing for his supper.
Don’t tell him about the quest, he told himself as the giant began rotating the wheel. Finwald would kill me – if he were still alive.
So he began, but he immediately realized it was difficult to say anything at all about his reasons for being here without referring to the quest. He would rather have avoided the subject entirely, but he just could not dream up any plausible reason why an Aescal youth should be travelling alone in these wild woods. In the end, after much vacillation and several false starts (causing a furrow-browed Yulfric to shake the wheel impatiently and rap it sharply upon his armrest), he decided to tell it exactly as it was. Besides, Gapp did not relish the thought of lying to someone who had just saved his life.
But when it came down to it, the truth sounded so completely absurd. Here he was, telling tales of portents, priests and Peladanes, and a Rawgr-Lord of whom the giant seemed never to have heard, and a quest undertaken to destroy it when it was already dead. And the incident at Nym-Cadog’s, well, that was just about believable, but it did not even begin to explain how it had led him here, all these miles away in the forest of Fron-Wudu. How could it, when Gapp himself did not know how all that had come to pass?
By the time he had finished this part of the story – a tale of such epic proportions that it would have shamed the greatest of the skalds back in Nordwas (mainly because it was all true) – Gapp felt that he might as well have stuck to lying in the first place. At least then he might have been believed.
People, when they bothered to listen to Gapp Radnar at all – which was not often – always assumed the boy was either telling tall tales or simply wittering on without a clue what he was talking about. In his more vexed moments, he had often wondered what would happen if he stood up in front of an audience of the world’s greatest doctors of mathematics, and declared that ‘1 + 1 = 2’. It would probably result in a furore, with said doctors scrambling around in panic trying to understand why the very basis of mathematics had been swiped out from under their feet.
But to his surprise, Yulfric apparently did not disbelieve a word of his account. He simply sat there in his armchair, reading the wheel as casually as if reading a novel, and nodding now and then. In fact, he seemed at times almost bored by it all, and would occasionally glance about himself distractedly.
The only bit which appeared to galvanize his interest was mention of the mine-shaft deep in the forest. Clearly Yulfric knew of it, and was interested by the boy’s description of its contents. When Gapp got as far as his encounter with the animated pool of slime, Yulfric nodded sagely and handed him back the wheel.
‘. . . The Nycra . . .’ explained the giant, staring into space. ‘. . . A living eczema . . . a coagulation of liquefied, dead tissues . . . an evil discharge of hell-spawned mucoid waste from the dark places of the Evil one herself . . .’
‘Yes, I suppose it was, really,’ Gapp continued hesitantly, rather taken aback. He was not too sure which impressed him most, the giant or the wheel. He handed the device back to Yulfric, only to have it pushed towards him again.
‘. . . A Nightmare of Nausea . . .’ he went on, really getting into his stride now, ‘. . . A Feast of Foulness . . . A Veritable Vesicle of Venomous Vitriol . . . indeed, a glistening, dripping puddle of pus . . .’
Yulfric sat back and smiled in satisfaction – only the second time Gapp had seen him do so – and allowed his guest to continue. The handle of the wheel felt rather hot now, Gapp noticed, as he handed it back and went on with his story.
He now told of how he had escaped the mines, how he ran through the forest, his fever, his blindness, his hunger, right up until he had met up with the Gyger himself.
The wheel spun to a stop. Yulfric said nothing. Gapp shifted awkwardly in his seat, and lowered his eyes. It was a worthy tale, to be sure, and one that he could see had entertained his host. But if the boy had expected any commendation, he was to be disappointed; Yulfric looked pensive, but clearly was not so easily impressed.
The Gyger scratched the crisp, wiry hairs of his left armpit, and again proffered the wheel. He came straight to the point.
‘. . . So. You are now alone, hopelessly lost, and don’t know what to do, yes? And you want me to help, yes? . . .’
Two nods from Gapp. This giant certainly did not mince his words.
‘. . . The question is, do you want to try to find your friends, carry on with your business alone, or go back home?’
Gapp stared blankly ahead of him. His head, he now noticed, was feeling blocked and numb, and his insides starting to feel the return of fever. But he did not let any of this show. All he could see now were those final words of the Gyger, those scribbly little Vijneh characters appearing in the white blur of the meditation wheel. They filled his vision like a testament written across the sky.
What the hell was he supposed to do now?
Until now he had not concentrated on anything other than staying alive. In truth, he had not wanted to. But the giant was not going to let him off: he wanted a decision now.
Continue the quest on his own? Ha bloody ha! Maybe Yulfric could manage that, but Gapp? And find his friends? For Jug’s sake, they were dead, surely . . . And even if not, how could he hope to meet up with them? He had never been privy to details of the route they were going to take. All he had known was that they were headed for Myst-Hakel – a town in the Rainflats – and from his very limited knowledge of the lands they had been travelling through, he realized that, here in Fron-Wudu, he must be somewhere north of the Rainflats. But north-east? North-west? Due north? Even if he could somehow contrive to make his way to that little town from here, would they still be there?
No, they were dead, Gapp had decided. Even if they were not, they must have gone on without him. The quest had gone on without him. The decision was now made: he would go home.
Relief coursed through him, and an almost overwhelming sweetness of euphoria buzzed in his head. He was free of it! At last, he could go home. Gapp’s renewed fever quickly subsided, and he felt happier now than at any other time during this whole sorry misadventure.
But, what to do next? Despite this sudden freedom, he still had to get home somehow. Had to regain his strength, had to find the best route, had to stock up on rations. This would take planning, and time.
Clearly he could not stay with the Gyger for too long. Yulfric might allow him to tarry long enough to fully recover his health, and might even send him on his way with a pack of rations, but even then he might expect some sort of payment, that was clear.
‘Problem,’ he admitted to himself sheepishly.
Yulfric, guessing from his tone what he was thinking, agreed; he sat back and began chewing the dirt under his thumbnail, thoughtfully studying the little human.
After a while, he spoke:
‘. . . Well, this isn’t the first time such a thing has happened to me; a human wanderer stumbling through the forest, scaring the game away and drawing off my hounds. Hungry, sick, needing guidance. And only Yulfric there to guide him . . . So . . . these things happen . . .’
Gapp flushed and nodded. But he did not meet the giant’s gaze.
The Wanderer's Tale Page 37