by W.S. Lacey
“Oh no, not again.” A tree towered over him and, just past it, two more had appeared at the very moment of sundown. He looked into the distance and noticed that the first trees had again started coming up near him. It was, in more ways than one, a very unnatural forest.
He did not hesitate for an instant but began moving towards the sunset, half loping in his hurry and keeping his eyes ahead. He could hear sudden bursts of moving air as, all around him, trees came into existence. He looked back over his shoulder, which turned out to be a bad mistake as he nearly ran into a tree; the whole forest had sprung up the instant he glanced away. With a sick, fearful resignation, Spender again saw the twisting path and heard the heavy ponderous shuffling of the Thing as it sought him.
As he was harried and pursued that second night, he was tempted, several times, to risk being found and caught just to get a glimpse of the Thing that stalked him. All he could tell from the sound of it was that it seemed to go on all fours and that it was much, much larger than the largest bear he had ever heard of.
Once that night it very nearly caught him and he was forced to slowly inch round a tree as it circled around. Why it had not yet tracked him down he did not know; he had begun to despair at the possibility that he would make it out alive. By the time dawn had begun to wash the sky in pale light, he had thrown away everything except his own shoes and North’s watch. He was quite certain that it could very well be the last day of his life.
#
Spender put his jacket over his head and slept through the heat of the third day. His eyes burned and his tongue would no longer wet his lips. He was too tired to be afraid, too tired to think. He drifted into consciousness out of a deep black oblivion and sat up, closing his eyes and breathing in the cool of the evening.
He staggered to his feet, leaning against a tree that had not been there before. He was miserable and weak but he resolved to face his fate. He was not sure that meeting the Thing would be much worse than succumbing under the hot sun.
#
The Thing seemed more cunning than ever and there was hardly a time when he could not hear it just behind him, swinging its head and moving through the trees. Spender tripped over something and quailed as the Thing gave a loud guttural snort. It stayed perfectly still as it waited for him to move and make a noise. He looked down and saw that he had tripped over a shoe.
With dull incomprehension he looked around and saw, scattered through the wood in a wide swath, shoes and sandals and crude metal bands. Giddy hope welled up in him and he quickly tossed the shoe as far as he could. The Thing didn’t charge off as it had before and, after a moment of willing himself forward, he broke out in a run. The Thing bayed and leapt after him with such ferocity that it sounded as if it had uprooted several trees.
He was exhausted, hungry, and thirsty and running soon became excruciatingly painful. His breath was ragged and he had an unforgiving stitch in his side but the Thing was right at his heels, plowing into trees and chuffing menacingly. Through a haze, Spender heard a series of thumps and cracks as the trees around him began to disappear. He dared to look back and saw, for a brief instant, a gigantic furry creature the size of a rhinoceros with wide flung scuttling legs like a crab, a long protuberant snout that ended in a circle of gnashing teeth, and no discernible eyes. He gasped, ran straight into a tall rocky outcrop, and was sent sprawling. The beast thundered towards him, howling in a low, stentorian fashion. As he scrambled in the dirt and cringed, the howl was cut off. He looked up, face streaked in dirt and bleeding from the nose.
The Thing and the forest were gone and the sun was creeping into the sky. He rolled over onto his back and cackled the way one would if one were alone in the wilderness and had just escaped being eaten by something that had no right to exist. His surprise was profound when a young woman’s face appeared over the top of the rock.
“Thu a dèanamh dè tha,” she said. Spender was completely unmanned.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Wyt ti’n dod.” She was pale, with dark eyes and flyaway black hair.
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand you. Do you have any water? Water.” He stood up and did a passable pantomime of pouring a drink into a glass. She looked at him for a moment before sliding down off the rock and thrusting a leather skin into his hands.
As he drank (a moment so glorious that the memory of it would stay with him for a long time), she rattled off a long string of incomprehensible language and waited expectantly.
“I really don’t know. I wish I did.” He smiled foolishly at her and she pointed back the way he came.
“Aghlich,” she said emphatically.
“Yes, yes.” He nodded. “Listen, could you take me to other people? Where you live? Food?” He rubbed his stomach and pointed to his mouth. Without a word, she turned and strode off. Spender hastened after her.
As they walked through a rough hilly country covered in grim shrubs and bare weathered rock, Spender looked sidelong at his companion. She would periodically chat in an amiable tone to which he would respond by shrugging or nodding as seemed fit. What he found odd (though most oddities had lost their relative significance in this bizarre place) was that she appeared to be wearing rough sackcloth cinched at the waist with a bit of old rope.
They passed several far flung cottages at which Spender rejoiced though the girl hardly gave them a second look. They had come to a rolling scrubby plain dotted with low stone fences.
“Oh look, sheep!” Spender said. The girl furrowed her brow and nodded slowly at him. “I mean, I’ve seen sheep before; it’s just that they’re something- normal.” He gave up and put his hands in his pockets.
By midmorning, they had come to a cluster of two and three storey buildings. Washing hung on lines over the street and dark haired women and children pointed and shouted at them as they walked. Spender was growing more and more unsure as they filed through narrow alleyways and down uneven stone steps. The girl turned and beckoned him forward and, with some trepidation, he followed her into a wide square.
The square was surrounded by columned buildings and filled with stalls and flocks of arguing people. Spender was left to goggle as the girl went to a large central fountain and unconcernedly began flicking water onto her arms and legs. He wandered to the foot of a wide flight of stairs and looked across the square. Gradually, the busy racket of the marketplace died down as, one by one, groups of people stopped to stare at him. They huddled and murmured, pointing behind him. A bearded man in a red robe, a stole, and a black pointed cap pattered down the stairs and flung drops of what seemed to be oil at him.
“Who are you?” the old man asked. “Why did you bring her back?”
“You speak English!” Spender’s enthusiasm was immediate. The old man looked taken aback. He inspected Spender and tucked his hands in his sleeves.
“What do you mean?”
“The English language, you speak it.” The old man smiled sagely.
“I speak the language of the King.” The girl had wandered over and stood beside Spender, glaring at the old man. “From where do you travel, heathen clod?”
“I beg your pardon?” The old man continued to smile and Spender decided that he was probably senile. “I came through a door,” he gestured vaguely behind himself, “beyond the desert.” A rumble spread through the crowd that had gathered. The old man leaned towards him.
“And the forest?”
“-Is only there at night. It has a big nasty Thing prowling around in it.” Another rumble as the crowd conferred with itself. Spender heard them repeating “Aghlich”. The girl stepped forward, gesticulating and stomping at the hem of the old man’s robes. “She brought me here,” Spender said somewhat lamely. “Could I possibly have something to eat?”
The old man looked to the top of the stairs and accosted a younger man (who had white robes and a much less impressive beard).
“You there, have the eunuchs prepare a table.” He declined his head graciously at Spender. “
If you will follow me, clod.”
#
At a long table in front of a dais, Spender enjoyed a prodigious meal. There was fresh warm bread with a tough, floury crust and large hunks of smooth, pale cheese. He had a sizzling bit of what he was gravely told was bear meat and something else that he was told, even more gravely, that he would enjoy more if he did not know what it was. He tried to drink something that tasted like it could clean paintbrushes and was nearly sick. The old man, who had been standing beside the dais, took a chair beside him.
“I am High Priest Gladbiscuit.” Spender choked and the high priest frowned. “This,” he waved at an earnest young man with a tonsure, “is Simon the Chronicler.” He looked with distaste at the girl, who was standing beside the chronicler. “You have already met Branwen.” She sneered at him and said something that made the chronicler chuckle.
“She seems to know you,” Spender said, trying not to smile.
“She was meant for the Aghlich,” Gladbiscuit said. “As the repository for the sins of the people, she was to be cast into the wilderness. In devouring her, The Aghlich would devour our iniquities.”
“I see.” Spender was a bit shocked but tried to be diplomatic. “She’s some sort of vestal virgin?” Simon the Chronicler snorted.
“Mostly because she bit the High Priest.”
“Simon!” Gladbiscuit glowered. “Chroniclers are to be rarely seen and never heard.” Simon ducked his head, looking chastened. Spender’s face suddenly fell.
“High priest, sir, I lost my friend in the wilderness.”
“Taken by the Aghlich, no doubt.”
“He was swallowed up by the earth.” The high priest pulled at his beard.
“The King, in his wisdom and glory, enchanted the wilderness to guard a great treasure. Many have tried to traverse it and failed.” Spender remembered the scattered shoes and sandals.
“So, if I wanted to know what had become of him, I would speak to the king?” Gladbiscuit cocked his head and regarded him for a long moment. As he was about to answer, a white robed man (who Spender assumed was a not-quite-as-high priest) rushed into the chamber and whispered in his ear.
“I must beg your leave, clod.” He rose and strode away, his priestling trailing in his wake. When he had gone, Branwen folded her arms and said something to the chronicler, nodding at Spender.
“She says that she waited three days on the rock while you kept The Aghlich busy.” Simon said.
“You can understand her?”
“For the most part. She speaks a language that we had ages ago. I’ve read it here and there but I don’t see how anyone could have taught it to her. It’s a dead tongue.” Spender poked at a dish with a flaky crust, a layer of whipped egg and cream, and what he thought might be blueberries.
“Were you really going to send her out to be eaten?”
“Yes, we were. It’s actually problematic that she’s come back. See, part of the ritual is that everyone goes and tells their sins to the she-goat. We don’t think Branwen understands the King’s but if she did-” He looked over at Branwen, who smiled innocently.
“Did you call her a she-goat?”
“We used to use a she-goat for the ritual. When we switched to young women the name just stuck.”
“Why on earth would you start sacrificing young women?”
“I’m Simon the Chronicler, not Simon the Theologian. If you want to know why we started sending our high spirited or ambitious girls to the Aghlich, you’ll just have to ask the High Priest. Here he is now.” Gladbiscuit sailed through the door, flinging droplets of oil ahead of him.
“There was a small business requiring my-” The door burst open behind him and a scrawny wizened man wearing nothing but two turtle shells ran in. Branwen tittered and the chronicler began furiously scribbling on a piece of parchment that he had produced from his sleeve. The priestling, who had dashed in after the man, withered under Gladbiscuit’s gaze. “Excrescence! What are you doing?”
“Forgive me, your Grace. He confused the eunuchs terribly.” Meanwhile, the holy man (for that was what he was) had knelt beside Spender’s chair, his turtle shells swaying precariously.
“He has returned to us! King Balth, who went beyond the wilderness to sleep, who vowed to return to raise his people up, comes now in our darkest hour.” He patted Spender’s knee. Spender, caught with a bit of galette on his lip, did not feel very kingly. “He will raise up his ancient armies and march on our oppressors. He will bring glory and riches. He will cry tears of solid gold!” The holy man clasped his hands together and looked at Spender like a proud mother. Spender swiped at his face with a napkin. Branwen tugged on the chronicler’s sleeve. He translated her absentmindedly as he wrote.
“She says that she doesn’t know what the holy man is excited about. The man she found in the wilderness is like an overgrown child. He didn’t even know what sheep were.” He squinted up at Spender. “Is this true? Do you not know what sheep are?”
“No! I mean, yes, I know what sheep are.” A gleam had come into Gladbiscuit’s eye.
“Of course the poor misguided girl would make that mistake. This is clearly the only explanation. King Balth himself said that he came from beyond the wilderness and tamed the Aghlich with a word. You have done well, holy man. Gaspar,” he looked at the priestling beatifically, “have the eunuchs prepare a bed for King Balth.” After tearfully making obeisances to Spender, the holy man sat at the table and quaffed the turpentine. Simon the Chronicler mumbled as he wrote.
“And Balth the Mighty, having been long gone from the world, found the sight of sheep strange to his eyes.”
Chapter Four
Gaspar had escorted Spender through a verdant courtyard and up a flight of stairs to his room, where he showed him a bell rope and enthused about the high priest, Spender, and life in general. After he had left, Spender pulled aside the grossly luxurious drapes and found that the window had bars on it. He sat on the bed and picked at the tassels on his pillow.
“These are exciting times, King Balth.” Spender started and, looking out the window, saw Simon the Chronicler’s face.
“How did you get up there?”
“I had to climb a quince tree and, from there, it’s a short leap onto this trellis.” He looked down. “Well worth the effort, as I see it. This isn’t the first time High Priest Gladbiscuit has locked an interesting guest up here.”
“’Guest’ here having the meaning ‘prisoner’,” Spender said ruefully.
“Don’t worry, your unconquerable majesty; as the high priest sees it, if you are Balth, you will raise your deathless armies and march on the King. If you aren’t Balth, he can sacrifice you as an unrepentant fraud. He does well because he has a way of dealing with someone as strange and unexpected as you, and we” he flung his arm out and teetered on the trellis “get several feast days.”
“But I’m not King Balth, I’m Lewis Spender.” He was getting very worried with all the talk of sacrifice.
“As you say.” Simon said carelessly, picking leaves off the vines and dropping them.
“Why would the high priest want me to make war on the king anyway? He said he was wise and glorious.” Simon held on to the bars.
“You really don’t know about the King, do you? I suppose you’ll find out as long as you’re not dead in two days. I’ve got to go; there’ll be a eunuch around to check on you in a moment.” And with that, the chronicler slipped out of view. Spender jabbed experimentally at his pillow and leaned back with a sigh. The door opened and a bulky, soft spoken man with small feet stepped into the room.
“Are you quite comfortable, your majesty?”
“I’m really not- Yes, thank you.” The eunuch bowed and backed out of the room. A breeze that smelled faintly of honeysuckle billowed the draperies, bringing with it the sound of distant bells. Spender sank further into the bed and dozed off, lulled by the muffled din of far off celebration.
#
The next day, Spender sat
with Gladbiscuit and the Lord Mayor of the city, while Simon the Chronicler skulked by the door. The lord mayor was a round, tired man who told Spender that he would find a nice cape for him to wear on his campaign. For the most part, he seemed content to close his eyes and sit in deep thought as the high priest spoke.
“Tomorrow,” Gladbiscuit said, “we will begin the conjuration ceremony in which you will play a crucial role. From sun up, we will begin sacrificing goats and flinging their blood around the altar.”
“I’m sorry but I’m not clear on why you do that; sacrifice the goats, I mean.” The high priest looked annoyed.
“We sacrifice them as an expression of humility and devotion to the all-knowing Gods.”
“But if they’re all knowing then wouldn’t they know about your devotion? One would think that the Gods would be happy with just a willingness to sacrifice goats.”
“If your eunuchs only display a willingness to bring you your meals, do you think that it would be a proper substitute for actually eating?”
“I don’t have eunuchs- Look, I need to eat. Are you saying the Gods need goat blood?”
“Yes,” Gladbiscuit snapped, “now may we please move on? In the evening, when the setting sun hits the black plinth, we will sacrifice our best goat and you will speak the incantation.”
“And that’s all?”
“Ideally there will be a hail of fire and destruction, your armies will march out of the underworld, and you will bring lasting power and prosperity to Tyre.”
“This city is called Tyre?” Spender asked.
“Formerly Ytref, which was formerly called Balth.” Simon the Chronicler said.
“Be quiet!” Gladbiscuit hissed.
“I had been meaning to ask you, high priest, sir, why everyone is so keen on my smiting the King?” Spender asked. “I was under the impression that he was noble and just.” Gladbiscuit sat ramrod straight with a sour expression on his face. The Lord Mayor looked with intense interest at a spot on the wall.