The click of the barrels connecting echoed. Somewhere Fhord detected a drip-drip-drip.
The door was flung open by their host and he stepped back.
Within, it was pitch black.
Then, imperceptibly at first, the darkness receded, and a vague light-source originated from the cell’s centre.
Fhord looked up: some kind of movement above – and in the shadows she could see there was no ceiling to the cell: storm clouds scudded across stars.
Now the light tended to pulse: she felt a little weak at the knees and fearfully looked towards Ulran by her side in the doorway. The innman also had sensed something and though he didn’t show it Fhord believed he too was affected by the ever brightening mesmerising pulsations of light.
At length the cell lightened sufficiently and they beheld a black and white sekor.
An aura surrounded it as the large octagonal petals slowly opened.
Seeing this, Fhord reeled with disbelief and would have fallen to the earth cell floor, but Ulran caught her in time.
The innman turned to their host: “I didn’t know such a sekor existed, Alomar. Myth, only in myth has the black-white been whispered about. I think we’d better leave, before it drains Fhord’s life-force completely.”
Courdour nodded and made to shut the door while Ulran backed out with the unconscious Fhord. “You know the sekor was draining you, then?”
“Yes, it’s a sensation I’ve had to experience before now. There are ways and means of achieving a balance, though, which I’m afraid Fhord will never master. These special sekors of the gods must have life, but only in measured doses, else they will extinguish their hosts and die themselves. But this is the first time I’ve experienced the sensation from a black-white.”
As they ascended another set of stairs, Courdour said, “In some way I’m sure that sekor has the answer I’m seeking. As Daqsekor in His magnanimity placed me in this limbo it seems fitting that His flower should–”
“But the Overlord’s sekor is white,” countered Ulran.
“Aye, but each god has his own coloured sekor and all gods are answerable to Daqsekor in the final analysis, are they not?”
“Except Nikkonslor and his minions.”
The warrior scowled. “Gods? I was only stating a generalisation, pointing to the irony – I don’t believe in them, I’m above all that!”
“Don’t tempt the Overlord too greatly, my friend. I know His mercy’s tempered with untold agonies: but at least He deigns to bestow mercy occasionally!”
“Mercy? You call this – this life an act of a benign god?”
“Rumours and guesses are all I know of you, Courdour Alomar. Either cease speaking in riddles, as Fhord here would say, or quieten your irritable mewling. If you require sympathy or help, then tell us.”
The warrior swung open a door and Ulran carried the slowly reviving Fhord through into the dining hall.
“Well, I had planned to relate some of my tale,” confessed Courdour Alomar. He eyed Fhord suspiciously.
“She’ll stay and listen as well,” said Ulran coldly, brooking no argument.
“Aye, why not? Maybe then she’ll appreciate my bad humour!”
“Perhaps she will.”
At that instant the dinner gong echoed throughout the toran and, outside, the storm broke.
CHAPTER NINE
JARYAR
In life we meet strangers,
in death we meet friends.
– The Tanlin, 139.6
As the succulent warm flesh of duckling melted in her mouth, Fhord once again studied the transformed dining hall.
How Laorge and other retainers had accomplished it she was at a loss to fathom. Surely, she was seeing things?
The ironwood and oak walls and doors were polished to a degree that cast reflections, lightening the place in addition to the wall-sconces of shagunblend and other, more aromatic lamps. The floor was terracotta and spotless, the beams above without smoke-blemish or cobweb. In the central hearth roared a log-fire, warming the place. Colourful arrases adorned some walls.
And the table fare was so varied and delicious!
Courdour Alomar removed a bone from his mouth and picked at his teeth with the point of his knife. “Do you like the duck, Fhord?” he enquired.
“Yes, it’s melting in my mouth! Your cook must be greatly gifted.”
“Oh, yes, he is – but the duck helped. You see, before the battle this marsh used to be famous for its duck.”
“And since?”
“You’ll be lucky to catch even one over a period of fifty quarters!”
Fhord leaned back, replete for the moment. The golden coloured brandy from the long-dead city of Kclenand had mellowed her, sorrow at Slane’s loss temporarily receding as did her usual reticence. “Sounds like you’ve got a story there,” she said, grinning.
“I daresay the tale would be of interest, yes, I daresay it would.” Their host swallowed more brandy, refilled his silver goblet. “But I think it is about time I related some of my past.” He leaned forward, brows beetling, eyes threatening and black. “Understand me now, what I am to tell you must not go beyond these walls.”
Nodding, Fhord looked at Ulran opposite.
The innman had not moved; though she thought she detected an acknowledging glint in his eyes.
“Right. Here, refill your goblets first. It may take a while in the telling.” Courdour Alomar chuckled. “Aye, it took a while in the living of it, as well!”
*
His travels with his father had trodden the mercenaries’ trail ever since the loss of Alomar’s mother in a horrific raid on their housestead. But now young Alomar was becoming travel-weary and desired to settle down, recalling the warmth and security he had enjoyed in his parents’ home.
Becoming lost in a tremendous quarter-long storm, they had accidentally crossed the Tanalume Mountains and – near starvation and suffering from exposure – they had collapsed upon soft juicy turf at the foothills.
When Alomar awoke, his mouth was parched, his thick swollen tongue extended and almost choking him.
Dizzily, he crawled under the high treacherous sun to his father.
But his father was no more: where he had lain was only an incomplete skeleton, the flesh pared from most of the bones. He wanted to cry bitterly and lie down and die; but he seemed devoid of moisture and had no strength even for sorrow, and some instinctive force within him would not let him renounce his life without a struggle.
Only as he stood unsteadily did he realise the carrion birds had tasted of him as well; his left thigh was a fleshy mess, blood blackened round the deep gashes, and there, the knee bone shone whitely in a couple of places.
The sight turned his stomach and on incredibly weak legs he collapsed.
Yet he felt no pain; he was beyond feeling, it seemed. He was sure that his life was ebbing fast. The last chasm to cross was near. Then the Overlord would claim him as He claimed all mortals who had completed their allotted span on His world.
“He’ll never walk again, if he lives...”
The words swam round in his unconscious time and again.
Eventually he opened his eyes.
But the sight was not of carrion birds pecking at his limbs, nor of the endless grassland, nor of the sheer Tanalume Mountains.
He was in a room built of wood. It seemed to benefit from the ministrations of a woman; clean curtains covered the single window; on one side stood a pot of strange globular flowers; the cool sheets of his bed smelled fresh.
He elbowed himself up and the shooting agony of his nightmare exploded in his brain.
His legs, they were on fire!
Sweat of panic gushed out of his pores as he heaved himself up and out of the bed.
His head swam giddily, but he inwardly quietened, seeing his legs were there, though heavily bandaged.
The floor was of highly polished wood, he remembered thinking as it came up to meet him.
“You’re coming
out of the fever,” said a soothing voice. “Hold on to my hand when the pain gets too much.”
Later, he was dimly aware of having lain for a long time, of having been spoon-fed like a baby, of having cried in his sleeping hours. He had seen only this same room through hazy eyes, as though he had spent all his life within these four walls. Smells occasionally evoked other memories, sometimes unbearable remembrances, of his loved ones being eaten alive and him incapable of preventing it.
Then, all of a sudden, the past and the present came into sharp focus and he hauled himself up in bed.
A girl was sitting at the foot of the bed, studying him, concern in her wide green eyes that were framed within a long trailing cluster of chestnut-brown hair.
She took in a sharp breath between full red lips and seemed to be holding herself back, anxious to reach forward and help him raise himself.
As he winced with the continual pain, her eyes showed compassion. She bit her lips but didn’t move.
At last he was able to lean against the bed’s headrest. “Where–?” He found his voice was deeper, croaked.
Tongue wetting cracked lips, he began again, “Begetter? My father?”
Her eyes clouded over and he remembered.
After a while, he asked, “Where am I?”
A fleeting smile then she was serious, concerned again. “In Fullantran, near Janoven,” she said simply.
He had never heard of these places. “What’s that?” he queried, hearing for the first time a lapping sound. His nose twitched as a strange smell wafted through the open window.
“The sea – you can probably smell the brine. It’s quite choppy at the moment.”
Alomar shook his head. “I’m afraid I don’t understand. Everything about you and this place seems alien to me – yet you speak my tongue!”
The girl rose and came closer. “We have one god, like you, if your speaking-dreams are true – the Overlord. It was He who created us and gave us all the same language in His infinite wisdom.” She described the sign of the Overlord in the air in front of her with a fingertip.
But Alomar just growled, dissatisfied with her explanation. “Religion is for the weak!” he snapped. “What god could sanction the horrible death of my father, tell me that? Was that a merciful act?” He looked down at his sheet-covered legs. “Was it His infinite wisdom that made me a cripple?”
At this the girl stepped back, shocked. “Then, you know?” She trembled.
“Aye, I don’t recall much in my delirium, but I well remember that – I’ll not walk again!” But the reality of such a prospect had not hit him fully yet; he was still a little groggy. “But tell me, how long have I been here?”
“Four moons.” She bowed her head and blushed.
He was aghast. “So long?” Then he realised his youthful bluster had hurt her; she was evading his eyes.
He said, tenderly, “Please look up. You have eyes to behold, not to be cast onto mere floorboards!”
She faltered.
“Please.”
As she looked at him, she said, “I understand how you feel, Alomar– I–”
He smiled, patted the bed covers at his side. As she came over to sit there, he grinned. “You have me at a disadvantage. What is your name?”
“You spoke your name in your dreams. My name is Jaryar.”
“And you’ve nursed me all these moons?”
“My mother and father did most,” she hastened to explain. “But they’re busy people – we have a large family to keep fed and clothed – so I’ve sat with you most of the time since you were brought in.”
Only now, as he grew accustomed to her natural beauty, did he observe that she was in need of sleep, the skin below her eyes a faint purple. Finally, he asked, “My father’s body?”
“You were found crawling into the village outside Janoven. It was some days before your ramblings made sense to anyone, then they sent an expedition and brought your father’s remains back. He was interred in our cemetery, oh, over three moons ago–”
“Can I visit the grave?”
“When you’re well enough, yes,” she said unsteadily. She cast a furtive glance to the far corner in shadow.
There stood a chair with what appeared to be wheels on either side of it.
“The haemoleaf has worked well on you – your strength’s returning rapidly; soon I’ll wheel you outside and it won’t be long before we can visit your father’s resting place.”
“Wheel me?” Realisation was seeping into him. Never to walk, to run, to ride – condemned to a sedentary existence in a wheelchair contraption! “I’ll not–”
“Plenty of people have these chairs in Fullantran,” she interposed. “We’ve had many accidents at sea where mastheads have fallen on our sailors.”
He shook his head, hands to ears, and grimaced. “I won’t listen! I don’t know what mastheads or sailors are – and I don’t care! Those contraptions may suit them, but you’ll never get me in one!”
And he grabbed at a carafe of water by his side and flung it into the corner. It smashed into fragments and splashed the wooden walls, hangings and chair.
“Oh, no!” Close to tears, Jaryar jumped up and rushed to collect the shards of glass. “My mother’s best–”
“I’ll not be wheeled in any chair!” Alomar cut in harshly and flung off the sheets. At sight of his unbandaged legs, mottled, covered in ugly bedsores and suppurating blisters, he nearly retched and the strength seemed to desert his frame.
Only with the greatest effort of will-power was he able to swing those ugly limbs round and rest his bare feet on the fur bedside mat. “I’ll walk, do you hear?” he yelled.
Jaryar suddenly saw he meant every word and rushed forward, discarding the broken glass. “No! Alomar, please!”
But she was too late: he had put his weight on his legs and they immediately buckled under him.
With a tremendous crash, he hit the floorboards.
She was by his side an instant later, cradling his bruised and sweat beaded head in her lap. Tears were in her eyes and she was sobbing: “Why, Overlord, why?”
He looked up through a numbing haze. “I must learn to walk again, Jaryar,” he croaked. “Please help me.”
Her heart was surely breaking. She burst into a racking flood of tears.
Over the last four moons she had grown to identify with this young man and his implacable will to live. Now, as he called for her aid she could not refuse him. The cleansing tears washed away any surface hurt his earlier outbursts may have unwittingly inflicted.
She held him close to her and knew that for this man she could refuse him nought. From the moment he had been carried into her life, she was a part of him. “Yes,” she sobbed. “Yes, I’ll help you walk, Alomar.”
To begin with they moved his bed beneath the window so he could look out upon what he termed the Salt-taal and they called the sea. So near to the breakers crashing upon the shores in white-flecked agitation, so unlike the moon-led ripples of the taals he knew. And, further up the coast, the grey-green rock of Janoven, quite unlike any citadel he had ever seen. Apparently, all the walls sloped against the threat of a flood, though the last sea encroachment had not been in living memory.
He learned a great deal about the fishing community of Fullantran and though drawn to the majesty of the Janoven edifice, he preferred to watch the fishermen readying their nets and vessels alongside the scintillating semicircle of the breakwater. Jaryar said they had used shells to build the mole and the same type of shells also served them in their boatbuilding.
She spent many orms by his bedside, telling him of the village history, of her childhood.
It took what seemed to Alomar endless moons for him to progress from the bed to the reviled wheelchair. Until this time, Jaryar had walked him across the room daily, to prevent his limbs atrophying altogether.
As she helped him into the wheelchair, he joked about it and remarked on her mother’s water-jug.
Jaryar smi
led, as the memories flooded back. “It was a little like you, Alomar – a vessel capable of being emptied or filled. And when you broke it, it was as though I was picking up the broken pieces of you.”
And for the first time she wheeled him out into the bright village, where the sun made their eyes water.
Most of the time he liked to be wheeled along the top of the mole; wooden walkways had been nailed into the top surface of the shell-constructed arm. Here, the salt-breeze was strongest and he could catch the flavour of fresh-caught fish, the glint of sun on mollusc-festooned boats.
At length he progressed to crutches and finally to a walking stick as one leg had been slightly less severely damaged.
So finally he got his wish and Jaryar took him to sea one fine day in a small pleasure-boat, the breeze cracking into the canvas sail. As he had never been in a seaboat before, he felt both awkward and a little afraid, but his long familiarity with the craft by the mole lessened the fear and soon he was able to enjoy the exhilarating experience.
Jaryar was an accomplished handler and though the hull was formed with numerous shells, the boat cleaved through the waves with the greatest of ease.
Because Renjhoriskand’s dwarf trees were unsuitable for large construction, only small boats were built using the wood for the craft’s skeleton only; then countless large shells were nailed together and to the ribs, the inside of the boat was then covered with a thick layer of othenal which caked hard and water-resistant when dried. Reeds were then spread on the othenal and twined to form seats. The sail-mast went through the bottom of the hull and acted as a stabiliser, hence the additional need for the mole as the boats could not normally be beached.
As they joined a small fishing fleet with Janoven just on the horizon he watched the fishermen circle their combined nets, drawing them in closer and closer, and then set sail for the village: their craft were incapable of holding the mighty weight of so many fish. They followed the procession with its catch of silver-glistening fish, expectant, for tonight there would be a beach-feast.
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