Path of Revenge

by Russell Kirkpatrick

  Her gaze was at once tender and confused. ‘But the birds fall in love here, like we have,’ she said, and with her words Torve’s traitorous heart leaped. ‘They…they mate and have chicks. Are we not just like them?’

  ‘You are no animal,’ he said.

  ‘Lenares Lackwit,’ she said in a singsong voice, as though mimicking the voice of another. ‘Fit for living with the pigs, a smelly, silly swine.’ Her face screwed up in misery and silent tears ran down her cheeks. ‘Don’t touch me.’

  ‘Why not?’ Torve asked, though he let her hand go. ‘Because I am an animal, or because you are?’

  ‘Because everyone thinks we are. The cosmographers would shun me if they found out. The Emperor…’

  ‘He would send me to the surgeon. He doesn’t want to breed from me. But, Lenares, why do you care what the cosmographers think? They were willing to hand you over to the Elborans. And how can the Emperor command me to forsake you when he is hundreds of leagues away? Until we are once again in the place where our betters command us, can’t we do as we please?’

  She bit her lip and sniffed, her tears drying on her face. ‘Mahudia put up with me because of what I could do. The others, even Nehane, didn’t really like me. Rouza and Palain and Vinaru hated me. Everyone, even Mahudia, treated me like a pet with a poisonous sting. But you…’ She choked back a sob. ‘From the first you liked me, loved me, for what I am. And I…’

  ‘Yes?’ he prompted.

  ‘I am in love with an Omeran,’ she said, and buried herself in his arms and wept.

  In the course of the next few days Torve and Lenares walked through the many rooms of the house of the gods. They drank liberally from the numerous pools and were harmed by none; partook of the bright red berries from small trees growing in crevices in the rock, and felt no need for other sustenance. They wandered into a beautiful playroom one evening, a bowl of shining blue stone surrounding an orange pool, water-sculpted shelves arranged like seating for an audience. As the sun set they watched a chill mist rise from the lake, to be formed by a gentle breeze into an endless variety of fantastic shapes. Torve imagined he could hear children’s laughter echo faintly around the bowl as the misty grotesqueries cavorted before them.

  The next morning they bathed in a warm, steamy pool with a faint rotten-egg smell and watched the play of rippled light on the red rock walls above them, then went on to discover a long hall in which both walls towered over them like breaking waves, smooth-sided curves with vertical fissures completing the illusion. A reminder, perhaps, that there was a more mundane world beyond the beautiful desert. Torve and Lenares walked through the hall quietly, hand in hand, so as not to shatter the illusion and cause the waves to break over them.

  Whenever they walked together they held hands, but seldom did they kiss. It was as though they teetered on the brink of a depthless precipice, and the merest step forward would plunge them both into a chasm of cascading events neither could escape. Battered and broken by those who should have loved them, it was no surprise they were themselves cautious, Torve reflected. Their constant touching seemed as much for reassurance as anything: was she still there? Did he still feel the same?

  They spent a frustrating morning clambering through and over an enormous tangle of odd-shaped rocks, which Torve eventually concluded was a nursery for a colossal child. An evening’s camp was made at the base of a gossamer waterfall trickling from a spring high in the sonwards wall, the late sunlight creating the illusion of blood seeping from a wound. Another spring, this one emerging from a slot at ground level, they found to be icy cold and provided them a great deal of splashing and dunking fun. A hall between rooms featured a series of visually jarring carvings, most of which were beyond their comprehension. The occasional animal was recognisable, as were two desert scenes, but was that an enormous snake winding between the dunes, or perhaps an improbable river in the desert? A final room, truly unearthly, featured no less than nine perfectly circular pools arranged in three rows, each pool shaded by a tall plant with broad leaves. Neither Torve nor Lenares could work out what the room might have been used for, but he guessed from the foot-polished stone floor that this chamber had seen more use than all of the others.

  In all this time there had been no side corridors, no alternative routes, no lessening of the steepness of the canyon walls. So it came as a distinctly unpleasant surprise when the final room came to a dead end, a vertical cliff-face surrounding it on all sides except the narrow notch through which they had entered it. Torve sat on a rock with his head in his hands, while beside him Lenares whimpered in frustration.

  A frenzied desperation took hold of Torve, forcing him to his feet. He ran to the nearest wall and grabbed at the rock, looking for handholds. Abandoning his usual caution he threw himself against the rock and worked his way up from the rocky floor.

  What use is this? a voice in his mind asked tartly. Even if you scale the wall, Lenares can’t. Do you plan to leave her here?

  Never!

  The rocks in this wall were compressed, squat, brick-like shapes, some sticking out further than others, providing plenty of handholds. He managed to climb past the smoother outcrops, rounded by the action of water over centuries, and to reach the more angular rocks, which gave him an easier passage. But the wall tilted above his head, and he found himself climbing under and then across an overhang. The rocks were more angular, yes, but were also much more brittle and began breaking off in his hands. Somewhere below him—he would not look down—came a splash from one of the pools, and a concerned cry from Lenares. Perhaps I can steal a rope from the expedition, or plead with someone for help, if I make it up this wall.

  He came to the end of his desperate energy, and found himself hanging from the cliff, toes and hands dug in just to hold him in place. He reached for another handhold, tested it, put his weight on it—and it came loose in his hand. He clutched at the rock-face, failed to find a handhold, and a foot slipped. He closed his eyes in defeated acquiescence as the rock in his other hand came away from the cliff.

  He landed in one of the pools, though from the agony searing up and down his back as he sank into the pool’s depths, he might as well have landed on the stone floor. A rock bubbled past him, disappearing into the blackness below. He tried to move his arms and legs, to swim back to the surface, but they would not respond.

  A new agony seized him, a fire across the top of his head. He could not even struggle as his scalp seemed to lift off; then, as Lenares pulled him to the surface and to the edge of the pool by his hair, he gave thanks that he had not been able to fight her.

  Despite Lenares’ increasingly manic anxiety they stayed in the last room the rest of the day, allowing Torve to recover feeling in his arms and legs. His back was a mass of bruises, and the cold water Lenares continually applied to it eased the growing pain as feeling returned. He had heard of people crippled by similar falls—had seen one, the result of one of the Emperor’s more spectacular experiments—and acknowledged his good fortune.

  Although Lenares lay beside him that night, sleeping deeply, Torve could find no rest. Too many actions contrary to his nature combined to trouble him. The realisation that finding their way out of this enchanted place might be difficult—or impossible, if the enchantment was real—fought with his desire to have Lenares here to himself for as long as possible. We could live here forever, feasting on berries and drinking the magical water of this place. What need do either of us have for masters if we have each other?

  But Lenares was compelled. He understood such compulsions. She had to find the hole in the world, had to confront the being she sensed behind it. It was what she believed she was made to do. And the only way to the hole was out of this place and back to the tent of Captain Duon.

  He worried at it until dawn, then groaned as Lenares pushed away from him. ‘Torve,’ she said, excitement edging her voice, ‘was that light there yesterday?’

  He squinted in the direction she pointed, into a narrow shaft of sun
light that came from the base of the cliff directly opposite the notch that had admitted them to this last room. A shiny stone? He scrambled after her, clutching his lower back. No—a way out. The smallest of holes, almost completely covered by sand; it would have been—was—invisible except when the dawn light shone through it.

  They both dug at the sand with frantic hands, and for a time their hopes were dented as more and more sand came cascading in through the hole. But gradually the flow lessened, and at last they managed to uncover a threadlike tunnel under the cliff, stretching straight towards the sun. Torve took a last regretful look at the room of the gods, then plunged into the tunnel, Lenares at his heels.

  The Omeran and the cosmographer found the expedition’s campsite easily enough. The tunnel leading from the house of the gods brought them back to the wide river valley, a day’s journey upvalley from the fatherwards path on which the expedition had camped. They did not know this, of course, when they chose the direction they would walk, and argued for both choices before deciding to head sonwards down the valley. It seemed the logical decision, given it was the opposite direction to the canyon they had just spent four days in, but Torve felt uneasy trusting his perceptions and memories of that place. He even scaled the cliff at a low point and walked half an hour fatherback across the stone plain, but did not find the canyon. This did nothing to ease his concerns, though Lenares seemed undisturbed when he returned with the puzzling news. He breathed a relieved sigh when familiar landmarks came into view, edged by the afternoon sun.

  Lenares, however, was distraught. The expedition had moved on and there was no sign of where Captain Duon’s tent might have been.

  There remained plenty of evidence to fix the boundaries of the vast camp: the informal paths that had been beaten down by hundreds of boots, the latrines, dumps and burial grounds that defined any temporary site. But neither Torve nor Lenares could identify anything amongst the sand and stone that looked like a clearing in front of a tent site—or, more accurately, they could identify many such sites.

  Torve trailed his foot through another site, marking it as having been examined. Endless days of similar inspections loomed ahead, an impossibility given their lack of food. Water they had in plenty from the well, the reason the camp had been located here in the first place; but for food they would have to find the expedition or go back to the house of the gods. For a moment he let his mind dwell on that cheerful thought, while something nagged at him…

  The well.

  ‘Lenares, you told me you spoke to the Elborans by the well. Is that right?’

  ‘Why would I lie to you about it?’ Lack of food and the loss of the expedition had made her somewhat bad-tempered.

  ‘No, I’m asking to refresh my own memory. We know where the well is. Can you remember the number of steps you had counted when you stopped at the well?’

  ‘Oh!’ She clapped her hands together. ‘Of course I can!’

  She hitched up her dress and ran in the direction of the well, heels kicking high like a little girl. When Torve arrived at the well, having walked at a more sedate pace—in truth, because he was exhausted—she hailed him with ‘Clever Torve!’. He tried not to feel as though he were a dog being patted for an especially smart trick.

  He could see a clear difference in her face. Some of the hard lines around her cheekbones had softened, a relaxation of the tension that had developed since her seizure. Her eyes burned with their familiar intensity, and when she spoke her words rattled out as though she needed to make room for more.

  Had a mask come off, or had one just been put on?

  He went to touch her—seeking reassurance her feelings had not changed, that they were part of her centre—but she held up a hand. He froze.

  ‘I need time,’ she said, breathing heavily. ‘So many things—I have to fit everything into…Please, I cannot deal with distractions.’

  Torve understood what she meant, he knew she was not calling him a distraction, but the comment hurt him unbearably. ‘I will go and wait on the other side of the well,’ he said. ‘While you fit things together, I will think about how we might find food to survive.’

  He looked at Lenares hopefully, but her eyes were half-closed and she waved him away.

  He busied himself, finding a discarded gourd amongst the detritus scattered around the camp, then some cloth to stuff in the cracks. The sun was touching the desert’s rim when Torve successfully raised his water pouch from the well, detached the ancient rope and offered it to his cosmographer. She took it from him and downed the contents with a murmur of thanks; wearily he returned to the well and drew himself water.

  ‘It worked,’ she said, immense satisfaction suffusing her words.

  ‘You have recovered your numbers?’

  ‘Oh yes, and much more. Please, Torve, we need to go back to the place in the canyon with the chairs. With what I know now, I think I could solve the whole mystery.’

  ‘Lenares, we cannot go back. Our only hope of survival is to make contact with the expedition. Where else can we get food? And how can we do anything about the hole you see if we remain on our own?’

  ‘Oh, we don’t have to worry about the expedition any longer,’ Lenares said, and gave a strange giggle. ‘They are all going to die.’

  ‘What? They are all going to what?’ Torve staggered a step backwards; he had come to believe Lenares’ pronouncements, accept them, make plans based on them. ‘Are you sure?’

  She cocked her head at him. ‘The hole in the world has returned. Last time it sent the lions to kill three people; this time it sends something else to swallow the whole expedition.’

  ‘But why? What has been sent this time? Can’t we warn them?’

  ‘Why?’ She thought a moment. ‘Because it thinks we are with the expedition, and wants to be certain of being rid of us. And no, we can’t warn anyone. They’ve been gone for a long time; whatever was going to happen to them probably has already. I don’t know what it is. I can’t imagine what would be large enough to devour so many people.’

  Torve was appalled. Her callousness reminded him of the Emperor. ‘Lenares, how can you talk of thirty thousand deaths as though they are of no account? What of the cosmographers? I know they’ve not been good to you lately, but you grew up with many of them. Will you just abandon your friends?’

  ‘But if I cannot do anything, what good does it do me to worry?’

  ‘It makes you human!’ he snapped, regretting the words even as they came out of his mouth. Lenares seemed to take no offence. ‘Anyway, I intend to follow the expedition and warn them.’

  Lenares stared at him. ‘And I want to go back to the canyon and learn as much as I can about the missing god,’ she said. ‘I remember…I am sure I had a dream about the three gods, just after my fit. If I can explore the circular room again, perhaps sit on one of the chairs, I’m sure I will understand much more—’

  ‘But for what purpose? What is the point of understanding the hole in the world if by the time you have finished studying it, everyone else has been consumed by it? Surely we should alert the expedition first, then conduct our studies?’

  The two of them began talking at each other, faster and faster, their words crashing together, until Lenares put her hands to her ears and screamed. The sound echoed from the valley sides, startling a large carrion bird some distance away, which rose lazily into the rapidly darkening sky. Torve put his hands over his own ears, blocking out the inhuman sound.

  ‘Lenares, you are stubborn, I know that,’ he said in answer to her distressed look. ‘But I cannot follow you. I am bound by breeding to return to Captain Duon and warn him of the hole in the world, or, if I am too late, to bury his body and take news of him back to the Emperor.’

  ‘I thought…You said…’ She stopped in obvious confusion.

  ‘I did say,’ he replied in a gentle voice. ‘But I am what I am, Lenares. I am an Omeran, the Emperor’s pet, and I must serve the Emperor. Your task is much more important than min
e, but I cannot help you. Please believe me: I can no more turn aside from the Emperor’s will than stop breathing.’

  Her face crumpled into tears. ‘Wouldn’t the Emperor’s will be to find out everything about the hole in the world?’ she asked between sobs.

  Torve sighed. ‘I rather think the Emperor would order me to try to save the expedition, but it does not matter. He has given me orders, the last of which was to keep secret the orders he has given me. I am required to obey him.’

  There being nothing more to say, no way to break the impasse, Torve and Lenares made themselves comfortable against the coming night chill and watched the swift desert sunset.

  Just another sunset, but to Torve it seemed to signal the end of much more than merely another day.

  Dawn came, waking a reluctant Torve from a dream in which he discovered further rooms in the house of the gods. With upturned faces he and Lenares dream-walked through a room filled with gentle rain, soft and warm. In the manner of dreams the room changed around them, narrowing and deepening, and the water turned to a burbling cascade. Running water, an extravagance worthy of the Garden of Angels. With the thought, Torve saw the Emperor standing on a rock near the head of the cascade, looking down on them. I know my duty, Torve said to the golden mask, which twitched up and down in response. Dazzling sunlight filled a third open area, and the Emperor stood in the centre of the room and turned his mask to face Lenares and Torve, their hands still guiltily clasped together. The sun streamed from the golden face in blazing admonition…

  Completely awake, the sun full in his face, the Omeran found himself fervently wishing himself back into his dream. Yesterday already seemed like a dream-country, the harsh, angry words as yet unsaid, her smile a reality rather than an ache in his heart. He turned, scanned her sleeping place, but she was not there. Nor, he noted with increasing concern, was she at the well, twenty or so paces away.