The Woad to Wuin

by Peter David

  “Well, thank you for sharing that with me,” I said in irritation.

  “Any thoughts as to what we should do?”

  “You’re looking to me for advice?”

  “Well, I’m feeling a bit tapped out at the moment.” She was clearly annoyed as she looked up toward the tops of the cliffs. Beliquose’s people were already spreading out, seeking some sort of quick way down. I hoped the damned cliff collapsed under them. That’d be bloody quick enough.

  My mind raced, picturing the area where we were. I looked out at the sea, studying it, looked up at the sun.

  “What are you up to?” she demanded.

  “Checking what time it is. I think it’s approaching low tide. All right. Come on.”

  “What difference does that make … ?”

  “The difference between life and death. Come … walk this way.”

  I started heading northwest, along the edge of the beach. Then I stopped, turned, and saw that Sharee was limping behind me, favoring her right leg as I tend to do, especially when I’m tired. “What the hell are you doing?” I asked.

  With a smirk, she reminded me, “You said ‘Walk this way.’ “

  I stared at her blankly. “Is that supposed to be funny?”

  “It was just a joke, Apropos,” she said, sounding a bit defensive. “You said, ‘Walk this way,’ and started walking in an odd manner, so I thought it might be droll if I imitated it.”

  “Well, don’t.” Now even more conscious of my game leg than I usually was, I continued on my path. “Jokes are humorous things which bear repeating. Having someone who walks oddly saying ‘Walk this way’ and someone else then imitating that gait is not remotely humorous, and certainly no one could possibly find it amusing enough to repeat to someone else.”

  “You are much too sensitive.” She followed me, making no more efforts to copy my manner of stride. “You still haven’t told me. Where are we going?”

  “The Middle Finger.”

  Although I was moving as quickly as I could, she easily drew alongside me, and now she thumped herself on the forehead with the base of her hand. “Of course! The Middle Finger. You realize, of course,” she said in a cautionary tone, “that even if we make it across, we could wind up in worse shape than we are now. That puts us directly into the desert known as the Tragic Waste. I don’t know that any has ever survived it.”

  “Beliquose, I suspect, means to kill us by this point. I doubt very much we will survive being killed.”

  “How do you know that’s what he intends to do?” She stumbled, almost fell, but then righted herself.

  “Because he’s invested a lot of time and energy tracking us down. If I were him, I’d certainly kill us.”

  “If I were you, I’d kill myself,” she retorted.

  I could see that Beliquose’s troops had spotted our movement. They were pacing us, up high in the cliffs. Suddenly very, very distant, I heard a twang, and then a single arrow cut through the air in a graceful arc, heading straight at us.

  Now, I’m no warrior, certainly, even though I was given a knighthood. But I had training, and I’d learned a few things. And although I was hardly a gladiator, my mind was sharp enough to judge trajectory quite accurately. So when I saw the arrow aloft, I stayed exactly where I was, unflinching, while Sharee (I was pleased to see) ducked several feet back, right to the water’s edge.

  It plunged into the ground about thirty feet shy of us and just sat there, upright and quivering (which, by startling coincidence, happened to be my typical defensive posture).

  “It wasn’t an attack,” I said coolly. “One of their archers wanted to see if we were within distance.”

  “And you knew we weren’t?”

  “Not even close,” I assured her, disdainfully turning my back to the cliffs even as I heard another shot being launched. “As you can see, he doesn’t have remotely enough range to …”

  Then I staggered slightly, craned my neck around, and saw to my horror that an arrow had just thudded into the pack on my back.

  “Oh, pus bucket,” I muttered. I quickly unslung the pack, yanked the arrow out, threw it down, and then said, “Hurry. A moving target is harder to hit.”

  “Is that another lesson from your vast storehouse of military knowledge?” she asked sarcastically as we set off as quickly as my lame leg would let us.

  I heard much whooping and hollering from the cliff as they pursued us. The unfortunate thing was that time was on their side. I wasn’t sure how long it would take us to get to the Middle Finger. I was certain enough that we were heading in the right direction, but I didn’t know how close we were. On the other hand, my familiarity with the cliff was extremely limited, and I was concerned that there might be a pathway down at practically any point. If that happened, and they managed to get down to our level, they’d cross the beach in no time and be upon us.

  Sharee and I stopped talking, which was something of a blessing in and of itself. As occasionally happened in periods of stress, I tended to forget the lameness of my leg. The usual result is extreme pain and exhaustion after the crisis has passed, but for the duration of the emergency I can move quite quickly. I had been pursued by a herd of unicorns once, for instance, and was almost like the bloody wind on that occasion. Having a group of cutthroats and ruffians after me, led by a she-bitch from hell, wasn’t quite as dire as a unicorn stampede, but it was damned close.

  The sun moved across the sky in its reliable way. It was nice to know that there were two things I could count on at any given moment: that the sun would rise and set, and that my life would be spiraling down the crap hole.

  “We’re getting close,” Sharee said abruptly.

  I seized the occasion to stop briefly, leaning on my staff and gasping heavily. “How can you tell?”

  “The sound of the ocean. Farther up ahead I can hear breakers crashing up against rock. The seas can get rather fierce around the Middle Finger.”

  “Have you crossed it?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “No. But I’ve done a bit of sailing in my time, and the sailors taught me a great many things.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Before I could respond, there was a sudden war whoop. I looked in concern in the direction of the cliffs, seeing what I already knew I was going to see.

  Beliquose and his men had found a path.

  It wasn’t immediately evident to me, but I saw them disappearing one by one from sight. There were crevices and crannies along the way down, and one of them there must have formed a sort of natural stairway. I saw the horses being left behind, tethered up. Well, that made sense. There was no way the creatures would be able to make such a descent, and Beliquose probably felt that it wouldn’t take long for him and his crew to attend to us and return for their beasts. And if someone was foolish enough to happen along and steal them, well … the tracking and scenting powers of Bicce would certainly more than make up for that.

  The increasing urgency of our situation prodded us forward even more hastily. The sounds of the crashing surf were audible to me as well, and suddenly it just seemed to come out of nowhere.

  “There, there!” cried out Sharee, pointing and jumping up and down just ahead of me. And she was right.

  The thing was, the Middle Finger was so low down in the water that it wasn’t easy to spot at first. The Middle Finger was one of five stony reefs which extended from the shore. Because of the way they were positioned, they bore a passing resemblance to the fingers of an outstretched human hand. The outer fingers (or, if you will, three fingers and thumb) extended relatively short distances and then came to an end. The Middle Finger, however, stretched off into the distance several miles. Standing on the shoreline, it was easy enough to see the distant shore to which the Middle Finger adjoined, serving as a natural bridge between the two.

  The span, however, was not one that was easily crossed. As the tides ebbed and flowed, certain sections of it wou
ld become totally submerged. One minute you would be walking the Finger, and the next you’d find yourself up to your knees in choppy water, and then higher still, and a wave would knock you off your perch.

  Farther out to sea the Middle Finger rose to a significantly higher level, well above the waterline so that—if one was able to reach that point—the rest of the journey could be made without being thrown into the unforgiving waves. The problem was, getting to that point. The pitfalls involved in a crossing, the endless hammering of the water, the high winds … these were more than enough to keep the bravest and most daring of men far off the Finger.

  But foolhardy men will tread where the bravest of men will hesitate to go. And men who will cut and run rather than fight will go even farther if it means they have a chance of keeping their heads squarely upon their necks.

  I glanced behind us and saw that Beliquose’s men had almost gained access to the shore. Within minutes they would be hard after us and upon us. If they got to us before we got to the Finger, they could surround us, cut us off. Our only chance was to make it to the Middle Finger before they made it to us.

  Desperation gave us speed that we would ordinarily not have possessed, and so it was that we were upon the Middle Finger well before Beliquose and his troops could reach us. The one other advantage we had, once upon the rocky extension, was that it was so narrow that Beliquose and his people would have had to come after us single file. That meant that, if heavens forbid it did come to a fight, it would be a succession of one-upon-one, rather than simply being overwhelmed by strength of numbers.

  On the other hand, perhaps they didn’t require strength of numbers. For as Sharee and I sprinted (but carefully, watching our footing) along the Middle Finger, arrows whispered through the air around us, like bees with vast amounts of attitude. I quickly realized, though, how curious the circumstance; they were not killing us. The arrows were falling around us, coming so close as to trim my beard, but not one of them thudded home. Considering the horrifying accuracy with which Beliquose’s archers fired their bolts before, this sudden inability to strike a target seemed a touch suspicious to me.

  Sure enough, the explanation came moments later when the very distinctive voice of Beliquose bellowed over to me.

  “IT NEEDN’T BE THIS WAY, POE,” he informed me.

  It might be useful to illustrate for you, as a reminder, just what “this way” entailed at that moment.

  Sharee and I were standing on a strip of rock barely wide enough for one person at a time. We were a good two hundred feet, perhaps more, from the shoreline, where Beliquose and his people were standing. The sun was shining, which was nice enough, and the day was cloudless. But one wouldn’t have been able to tell it from where we were standing, for it was as if we were in the midst of a gathering storm. Although the water level itself was about, oh, three feet beneath us (albeit rising rapidly), that would have only mattered if the sea was calm. Instead waves were leaping up on either side of us, crashing high, surging about with such ferocity that it almost seemed to be a thing alive. The tide appeared to be rising, and the fierce seas were wasting no time in announcing their intentions to sweep us into the depths which lay dauntingly on either side of us.

  So the prospect of matters being some “other way” was, I admit, an alluring one, however briefly. Not to mention the fact that Beliquose was somewhat difficult to ignore. Despite the hammering of the surf, I could hear him perfectly. The man’s volume was unmatched by any phenomenon I’d ever experienced, and I’m someone who’s been pursued by avalanches, so I know something about the matter. I thought that when I’d encountered him back at Bugger Hall, he’d been loud, but that apparently was as nothing compared to his true capabilities. I was beginning to suspect that, were he so inclined, at close range he could have made someone’s eyes explode with little difficulty.

  I stopped where I was and carefully turned to face him, not wanting to turn too quickly lest I send myself tumbling into the water. Sharee, who was just ahead of me, saw my hesitation and plucked at my sleeve. “Stop fooling around,” she demanded.

  I ignored her, cupped my hands around my mouth, and shouted, “How could it be different?”

  “WHAT?” Beliquose called.

  “How could it be different?”

  “WHAT?”

  I waved my arms in frustration over the fact that I obviously couldn’t come close to projecting with his degree of amplification.

  “This is nonsense!” raged Sharee, and now she was pulling me with even more insistence. “He’s trying to trick you!”

  “He is, or perhaps you are,” I shot back.

  “LISTEN TO ME, POE. ULTIMATELY, WE DON’T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT YOU,” Beliquose was calling. “ALL WE WANT IS THE GEM! THE GEM, AND THE WEAVER, SO WE CAN PUNISH HER FOR HER THIEVERY! GIVE THOSE OVER TO US, AND YOU CAN WALK AWAY FROM THIS!”

  “We can walk away from this now, Apropos!” she said insistently. “We just head in the opposite direction from them—”

  “Shut up!” My thoughts were racing. Now that I was out of the darkness and the constant, oppressive feeling of despair that accompanied my stay in that labyrinth, my mind was emerging from a distant haze. I reached into my cloak and pulled out the gem. Her eyes widened and she reflexively checked her own person for it as it glittered mockingly in the sunlight. I noticed that the water seemed to be getting higher, and the safepoint above the waterline was still an uncomfortable distance. The wind buffeted me, and only my staff prevented me from tumbling into the water.

  “You bastard!” she snarled at me upon realizing that it was no longer in her possession.

  “THAT’S A LAD!” Beliquose called. I couldn’t help but notice, though, that his archers were inching closer, and they were nocking arrows. They weren’t going to fire yet, but they weren’t taking for granted that I was about to have a change of heart.

  I waved it in her face. “What’s unique about this?” I demanded.

  “What are you talking about?”

  She covered it well, but I saw the slightest flicker in her eyes. Over the roar of the waves I said, “You said there were more like this! A mountain full!”

  “Yes!”

  “Then why this particular one?” I demanded. “Why do you care about this one gem? Why does he care about it? You said earlier that you were afraid for the world of what would happen if he got his hands on it. Why? What would happen?”

  “You said you didn’t want to hear it!”

  “Well, I want to hear it now!”

  She tore her gaze away from me, looked down, and suddenly started to move away from me, farther along the Finger. I followed her, holding up the gem, waving it angrily. “Tell me, Sharee! This isn’t making a good deal of sense to me! If there’s an abundance of these, then you shouldn’t care about this single one! You wouldn’t have had to steal it from him in the first place!”

  “You need it to enter the mountain!” she said, speaking with what sounded like desperation. Except I couldn’t tell whether that desperation resulted from the specific circumstances of our being out in the middle of the sea with drowning as a distinct possibility, or if she was foraging for whatever explanation seemed reasonable without dallying with the truth.

  “How? How does it get us into the mountain? And how will getting into the mountain have any sort of impact on the world?”

  “We don’t have time for this—!”

  “We’re making the time, Sharee!” I informed her, doing my best to make myself heard over the surging water. The sun was starting to vanish behind thick cloud cover. That was all we needed: Huge gusts of wind to come blasting through, stirring things up even more and making traction upon the already slippery rock even more treacherous. “Because it was one thing when Beliquose wanted both our skins! But now you’re asking me to put my neck on the line for you when there’s another way out, and I don’t do that! Ever! I put my neck on the line for me, and even then I avoid it whenever I can! Beliquose says he’ll let me go!�
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  “He’s lying!”

  “Perhaps! But I don’t know that you’re any more truthful! But one thing I do know: If he has you and the gem, he has no reason to harass me further! It’s bad enough that I let myself get in this far!”

  She looked appalled. “You’d turn me over to him just to save your own miserable hide!”

  “Of course! Where the hell have you been?”

  And because things simply were not remotely frantic enough at that moment, that was when Beliquose chose to bellow, “YOU’RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME, POE! IF YOU MAKE ME COME OUT AND GET YOU, MY GENEROUS OFFER WILL NO LONGER BE AVAILABLE TO YOU! AND IN CASE YOU THINK I JEST …”

  I never heard the twang of the bow, but the arrow sliced past my arm just as I turned to face in Beliquose’s direction. It went right past, and Sharee threw herself to one side to get out of its way. Unfortunately, she moved so quickly and with such vehemence that she threw herself right off the Middle Finger.

  Another woman would have let out a shriek of alarm. Not Sharee. Her arms pinwheeled a moment and she tumbled off, but not once did she cry out. I froze in my spot, wrestling with the notion that if she died, my problems were over, versus … well, versus nothing, actually. If she died, my problems were over. But my brain desperately sought some rationalization to rescue her, some reason that it would be to my advantage. None readily volunteered itself, although I did find it intriguing in an analytical sort of way that I was actually trying to find some cause to come to her aid. I wondered what it said about me.

  Sharee, meantime, wisely wasn’t staking her continued existence to my generosity of spirit. With a Herculean display of strength, while in midair, she twisted herself about and her hand snaked out toward the rocks. She caught herself, bent into a “V” shape, the toes of her boots barely finding purchase on the rocky face of the Finger. She clung there, pulling herself together, but unable to gain sufficient leverage to haul herself to safety. She looked up at me accusingly.

  “Oh, hell,” I muttered, and started toward her, reaching out to pull her up.