John Bowman's Cave

by Erron Adams

  But the two who'd been talking near the horses had already gone, leaping onto the unsaddled creatures and making the best escape they could. Her peripheral vision had earlier picked up one of them grabbing a crossbow and looking frantically for the bolts to load it. Not finding them in time he'd thrown the weapon away with a frustrated roar and followed his disappearing companion. She followed a few paces until the futility of pursuit reined her in. She swore softly and turned back to the one she'd last shot.

  He was still alive, though drowning in blood as the hot torrents unleashed by the broadhead flooded his lungs. He lay on his stomach, convulsing, squirming like a skewered snake around the shaft in his back.

  She stood above him a moment. Then her legs folded and she planted both knees in his back. A boil of blood filled his mouth and flowed from both nostrils.

  As she jerked his head upright by the hair with her left hand, her right drew a flint knife from its sheaf and held it against the far side of his windpipe. She leant close to his pleading eyes and whispered, “Tell the Guardian of the White Lands, Caylen sends you for judgement,” and she slashed the blade across the path of his reply.

  ***

  Chapter 7

  A World Made Whole

  Returning from a grave illness

  is like riding a white horse

  very seriously into sunlight

  - Lynn Strongin

  Bowman rolled under a table in the Feasting Hall and lay there facing back the way he’d come. Fluid fragments of the wall he’d just burst from, reconstituted. He rose and looked around. No one.

  There was no sign of recent human activity: no food or utensils on the tables, no clothing draped along the backs of chairs, no tools or weapons or implements of man. The only reminiscent thing was where Oyen’s splosh of wine still stained the wall.

  It matched the way Bowman felt about his failure. He hadn’t found Caylen back in Dyall’s Ford, and all that remained now of the life he’d lived was rag and bones. It was an empty thing wind blew through; what had once been form hung in sad tatters. Dreaming. Dead. Dreaming. Dead. He couldn’t make it out. What was it Argilan had said? Was he really in some Limbo, a resting place between two deaths? Eyes and other senses told him how to navigate the bloodless world.

  Looking down, he saw he was carrying a broken arm in the sling his other arm made. Recognition of the pain gave it voice, its intensity soared and he slumped onto one of the feasting benches, gasping as shock set in. His eyes closed and his inner vision glinted spears that sliced through eyelids straight into brain. His mind screamed unintelligible things at itself. Doubled over, shaking, his skin sheeted cold sweat.

  In this state Argilan found Bowman and led the man from the place in which he'd twice been broken.

  They came to a room and Bowman lay down. Argilan handed him a twig. “Chew this. Swallow the juice, spit the rest out.” He said.

  Bowman complied, and shortly a warm fog rolled in and muffled the pain. His mind descended into quiet chatter. “Good ole Argilan,” it slurred.

  Evidently Argilan had lots to do, since there were three of him, all engaged in the same mania, rushing about the room so fast they blurred and puffed furry sounds as they passed. Bowman boggled at the performance as the figures chased around. The room filled with flashing Argilan and Bowman had to leave through the ceiling but it was dark up there, still warm and no pain but dark the walls softly moulding I'm pillowed in wall wherever I go there's soft wall shaped exactly like me not blocking not hurting but wherever I go a big pillow space with the shape of me moving inside it no walls really and no edge I can't find the edges wherever I move just soft can't hear anything can't see can't feel even the pillow world now hey really wow my skin stopped working...

  He woke to an old friend throbbing softly in his shattered elbow. Sensation, you're a sensation! Welcome back! He grinned and looked down at the arm.

  Argilan had immobilized the joint in a cast of green clay. Bowman could smell its earthy dampness; it hadn't set completely. The broken limb had been put straight, with the elbow locked. A triangular device of cane strapped into the armpit held the limb at a right angle to his body. Taking a deep breath, he sat up, the trussed arm wavering like a compass needle.

  “Welcome back.” Argilan put a cup of tea in Bowman's good hand. The pungent brew steamed lightly. Bowman saw a lake cradled in the rim of an extinct volcano, mist rising from its morning surface into sun. He shook his head to clear the image.

  “Are you alright?”

  “Yes. Fine. Thanks.” He surveyed his broken arm.

  Argilan spoke. “The cast will need to stay for a while, but the pain will be gone by tomorrow. You’ll get your arm back when the cast is gone, a little weaker perhaps. Slow work will bring it back to health.”

  “Thank you, Argilan.” Bowman held the man’s eyes. “Really, I thank you.”

  Argilan smiled. “I'm glad to have you back. I thought you were lost forever in your old world!”

  Bowman frowned. “Not that I’m ungrateful,” he nodded at the tended arm, “but I might as well have stayed there. I almost found the woman I was looking for, I think. Hard to tell really, what was what, or if what people said was true. But in the end the damned place kicked me out, just as I was getting close.”

  “Yes, I don’t think you can go back safely. The Gate is fast closing. The past has pushed you here, where you’re meant to be.”

  “Hah! Nice try, Argilan. Like I said, I’ve seen what you think’s my future, and I’m not going there. I’ve had enough of being told where to go. Something happened back in Dyall's Ford. I saw I could have a hand in things. I’ve screwed up plenty in the past, and that can’t be changed, but from now on I’m not letting things roll over me. I’m choosing!”

  As Bowman ranted, Argilan wavered like an image in disturbed water, then vanished. Bowman was pleased. It seemed he could at least moderate the madness. He released a deep breath and looked around.

  The room was the very same he’d been given the first time in Animarl. He walked over to the desk beside the bed. There was the journal Caylen – the Rory Caylen - had placed in his hands, God-only-knew how many years ago yesterday. He opened it and read aloud the frontispiece inscription:

  The Book of John Bowman

  who was once so lost

  it took a whole world to find him

  Then he heard footsteps. He turned and faced the entrance.

  “Oyen! God, Oyen, it’s good to see you.” He almost ran at the man, extending his hand in welcome. But the Rory stood immovable in the doorway.

  “Yes.” Oyen ran his eyes up and down the Outlander. “You’re talking to yourself, and I see you need new clothes again. Same old John Bowman.”

  Bowman glanced down at himself. It was true, he always managed to look like a tramp when he showed up in Animarl. He threw his hands out to the side and looked up to explain, but Oyen raised a hand and shook his head.

  “Don’t tell me. Don’t wanna know.” He moved over and picked up Bowman’s doctored arm with the index finger and thumb of one hand. He held it at a distance and scrutinized it, as if something might leap out and bite. His eyes flicked up at Bowman. “Who did this?”

  “Don’t ask, yer don’t wanna know!” Bowman joked.

  Oyen’s eyes narrowed. He looked back at the cast and dropped it. Bowman winced. “Oww, careful!”

  The Rory shrugged and walked away. Bowman looked after him, pained and puzzled by the lack of compassion.

  “Oyen - are you angry?”

  It was a direct question, and it threw the man. He moved across the room, standing alongside Bowman while he squinted at the wall. “No, not angry. The call home’s stronger than most men. I can’t blame you for wanting to go.”

  Bowman moved around in front of him, forcing eye contact.

  “I had no choice, Oyen. Believe me. I didn't intend to leave like that.”

  “If that’s what you say.”

  “It’s the truth, Oyen.”<
br />
  The Rory looked at the wall a while, then turned to Bowman.

  “So what are you going to do now?”

  Bowman thought a minute as it sank in: he would never leave this land. He had nothing to go back to. There was nothing in his future. And here, he was an alien, injured and in rags. It wasn't an auspicious start, but it was the only one available. He took it.

  “Here I am. Here I will live. Here I will die. Beyond that, I don't know.”

  “No one knows what happens in the White Lands, John Bowman!” Oyen said, a small smile on his face.

  “That's not what I meant, Oyen.”

  “I know, I know.” Oyen laughed lightly. “Well, come on, let’s kit you out for travel.”

  “We’re going somewhere?”

  “Yes. My sister’s got trouble.” It was all he said, and he turned to the door so fast Bowman let it go at that.

  After they’d gone a short way down the passage, Oyen stopped and drew his knife.

  “Look!” He reached the blade up to a little ledge. A sharp jab impaled something Bowman couldn't see from where he stood. When Oyen withdrew his arm, the knife blade held a pair of jeans, dirt encrusted, eaten by mould and small animals to an almost unrecognizable state.

  “See!” Oyen allowed himself a big laugh now, “here are your clothes!”

  Bowman smiled at the rotting mess as he strode by Oyen.

  “No, Oyen. Those are my past.”

  ***

  The first thing Oyen did was take Bowman outside. Bowman couldn’t believe it. He’d never even thought of Animarl extending beyond the labyrinth.

  He stood on the lip of the cave, shielding his eyes till they adjusted, and looked down on a green valley. He could smell the deep flesh of its colour, carried to him on a warm breeze that mixed in scent of resin and blossoms. Barely-glimpsed birds fluttered and flashed through its rustling foliage.

  It was Spring here. Everything was in the peak of its living state. The whole of the myriad shapes, colours, scents and sounds blended in one humming continuum; every single thing joined in the one song.

  All that he’d experienced of Animarl before suddenly seemed so very, very long, dark, cold and damp. The stillness and stasis of death.

  He spread his arms and let his head fall back, his face a disk that caught the whole sun. Small currents danced across his palms. His heart sang in its cage.

  “This way,” said Oyen, and they went down to the valley floor.

  Bowman dragged along behind the striding Rory, stopping every few paces to inspect some new Animarl feature. “Wait up Oyen!” he kept calling, but Oyen ignored him. Bowman ran up and opened his mouth to speak, but stopped on hearing quiet voices in the bush ahead. Soon the subtle flickers of people moving about showed through the foliage. As they rounded a small clump of leatherbark saplings Bowman saw they were Rory.

  “So John Bowman, you have returned at last. I for one never doubted that you would.” Yalnita's dark eyes drilled him as he came into camp with Oyen. The Huntress was standing, a quiver of red-fletched arrows slung at her waist, a bow resting by her foot at one end and cradled in her crossed arms at the other. The rest of the Pack looked up from tending gear.

  “Where have you been these four rings?”

  “Four? Four rings, years?!” Bowman was incredulous. He mumbled something about a long time lost, and ran his thumb pad over the black ring Argilan had given him.

  She eyed his face, then the cast. “An accident?”

  “Sort of. Rough trip back.”

  She came up, eyes not leaving the broken limb. She lowered her nose to the cast like a cat bending to a pool of water and sniffed. “Who fixed this?”

  Bowman looked at Oyen, who frowned and walked away. “The one I ran into last time. The old man, Argilan. The one you laughed about when I said his name. Tell me, if he doesn’t exist, who did this?”

  Yalnita looked up. Her face was fierce; he wasn’t sure if she was about to strike him. Instead she smiled.

  “Who indeed. Well, I hope your legs are strong, we don't have time for stragglers. Tomorrow we’ll be walking through a forest of a thousand eyes! Oyen, get the man a blade he can handle with one arm. And you'd better do something about the way this one sticks out.”

  Oyen came over and began dissembling the triangular support.

  “Where are we going tomorrow?” Bowman asked.

  She exchanged a look with Oyen, then spoke to the Pack.

  “Roop, Lowery, all of you, take a look around. Not you Oyen.”

  They were gone before Bowman could blink. “Where... where are they going? What do you mean, look around?”

  Yalnita waved the questions off. “Ah, Kasina. Kasina everywhere! Can’t be too careful.” Then she took a long stick, brushed a patch of dirt flat with her foot, and began to draw.

  “We’re going after Oyen’s sister, Caylen. She’s been taken prisoner.”

  “The Kasina?”

  “Worse, Tohubuho. Mercenaries. Scum, all of them. The Kasina recruit any who’ll do the work – starving farmers, thieves from Melen Darit - and use them against us Rory.”

  Bowman watched as the dirt map she was drawing took form.

  She pointed to a small square. “This is where they’re taking her: Burnt Pines, a Kasina garrison.” The stick moved left. “And here’s where we are now, in Animarl.” The stick moved again and she scratched something like the mathematical symbol for pi. “Lake Mountain,” she explained.

  The image in the cup of tea Argilan had given him flashed in Bowman’s mind. “What’s that?”

  “An old fire spout. It’s cracked all around the bottom, and the cracks lead into paths. Most of them go nowhere, or worse. People fear them, and they’re right to. Many’s the fool gone in after the gold supposed to be there and never seen the sun again. But we Rory know the way through, and the Falling Path leading from it.”

  She quickly traced light lines leading in opposite directions from the dead volcano. One of the lines ended where she’d indicated they were now. She stabbed the place and moved slowly back along the line as she spoke.

  “The walk up to the lake will be hard, the Falling Path slopes down either side. So the path away,” she traced the line leading out the other side of Lake Mountain, “is downhill, though still underground. It, and the journey along Red River to below Burnt Pines, will be quicker. Quick enough, we hope, for us to intercept the Tohubuho escorting Caylen to the fort.”

  “So how do you know where they are now?”

  She shrugged. “We don’t. But we guess somewhere here.” Her toe drew a small circle North of Burnt Pines. “The forest’s thick there, and there’s only one narrow path to the fort, so they’ll be going slow. We should have enough cover, and time, for an ambush. The only problem will be finding them before they stumble on us. We’ll have to lay the trap as close to the fort as possible, without alerting any of its patrols.” Yalnita looked at Bowman. “Satisfied?”

  “Well, sort of. I mean, how did Caylen get mixed up in this? Last I saw her she was still a girl. What do the Kasina want with her?”

  “She’s been waging her own private war with Kasina Nabir, up and down the Dragonspine.” Yalnita’s mouth turned down at one corner. “Think’s she’s too good to be a lowly Pack member.”

  Oyen’s voice was just above a whisper. “That’s not fair, Yalnita. Or true.”

  “Really?” Another shrug. “Whatever, time will tell.” She looked at Bowman. “At any rate, on her own, what was bound to happen, did. They caught her. Now she’s on her way to Burnt Pines. If they get there before we overtake them, she'll stand no trial for what she's done. She'll be killed the same day, once the Kasina finish getting what they want to know out of her.”

  ***

  Oyen took Bowman to a small room in the Origins choked with weapons: bows, knives, swords, shields, cudgels; mounds of the stuff. They chose a small sword, more of a large dagger, that he could manipulate with one arm.

  That night he
slept outside with the Rory. The Pack took turns to keep guard. Bowman watched the campfire flames until they turned into the familiar ball of light, then he closed his eyes and turned away to sleep.

  ***

  Chapter 8

  Rescue

  Sleep had been fitful, with the pain of the healing arm returning in the night. As light grew he rose and dressed. It took several attempts to buckle the short sword on. The Rory were already moving about.

  They ate grain cakes and a sour tea, then set off. Their path took them to a bend in a small river, where the current slowed and swirled into a deep, black pool. Just after the pool, a fallen tree bridged the water. They crossed one at a time. The Rory looked born to such footwork. Bowman fought for balance; both arms flashed and flicked like a mad conductor’s.

  Fifty paces on they stopped. Oyen kindled fire in a piece of the same punk he’d used when he’d shown Bowman the Soul Gate. From the coal, he and Challa lit further, larger pieces. These they placed in stone lanterns, passing one to each member of the group.

  Yalnita glanced at each of them. Satisfied with the preparations, she turned to the mountain wall behind her. Creepers cascaded down its face. She sliced a hand in and stepped to one side, her powerful arm sweeping the tendrils to reveal a cave entrance. Silently they entered the cave of the Falling Path to Lake Mountain.

  As they did, a knot of Rory children tumbled from the entrance and unravelled through their legs, squeaking and squealing as they fled along the river path.

  Yalnita yelled after them, a furious command to stay within the valley's safety. But Bowman noted a shiver of concern as she watched the little legs retreat, and when she’d done shouting, a flicker of warmth in her face.

  In a moment, one room of the mansion of Yalnita had been opened to him: a large room, more like an entire wing, a cobwebbed darkness that had been sealed off and half-forgotten.

  Not a thing to be thrown into sudden light before guests. Her eyes met Bowman's for a moment and mutual recognition flashed like swords. She glowered at him and tried to resurrect the rage that had just died. Failing, and exposed, she growled in his face as she turned back to the cave.