The Way to Babylon

by Paul Kearney

  Bicker grinned back. ‘Indeed! And this time he was sober.’

  ‘You whelp, Dunan!’ Ratagan roared. ‘While your backside has been warming a chair, we’ve been battling the beasts of the hills and brought a Teller from the Isle of Mists.’

  The Hearthware’s eyes widened. ‘That is news. Do you need help to the Rorim?’

  Bicker shook his head. ‘Our feet will serve us, even Ratagan here. But tell the household of our arrival.’

  Dunan threw up his hand again. ‘That I will. My sister Mira will be more than a little glad to see your face again, I’m thinking, Bicker.’ Then the pair were off, thundering away across the hillside.

  They had their first sight of the Rorim almost an hour later, when they made their way over the last rise before the Dale of Ralarth and the valley spread like a cloak under their eyes.

  A seven-foot drystone wall ran like a snake across the undulating floor of the Dale. There were several gates set in its length, each guarded by a tall tower and an accompanying longhouse. It must have enclosed nearly three square miles, Riven reckoned. He could see herds of cattle grazing within, and scattered clumps of houses.

  In the centre of the enclosed pastures there was a circle, a rampart of turf with an accompanying ditch, and on the rampart another circular wall higher than the outer. Inside its confines was a cluster of large buildings: longhouses and smaller structures, built out of wood and stone, some roofed with turf. They were built so close together that their walls touched, and indeed Riven could make out connecting corridors and annexes. The biggest structure was a stone building with three storeys, and glass shining in its windows. Even it had only slits for windows on the ground floor, however, and a stout double door. At its rear was a square tower with larger windows that overlooked the whole Rorim, and from whose pinnacle a blue pennant flew. Smoke drifted up from half a dozen smoke holes and chimneys. The place seemed sleepy, though someone was leading horses across the open yard before the biggest building.

  ‘The Warbutt will no doubt be watching our approach,’ Bicker said, and waved at the Rorim with his free hand.

  ‘As long as they have some beer foaming in the Manse, he could be sucking his toes, for all I care,’ said Ratagan, too tired now to keep the pain out of his voice. He was leaning heavily on Bicker, a scowl biting his brow.

  ‘It gets worse?’ Bicker asked him, concerned.

  ‘It gets no better, dark one, but I’d not have me carried into our Circle like a woman in labour, so save your breath and let’s be on our merry way.’

  Dunan awaited them at a gate in the outer wall. He wore his shining metal armour, and there was a sash the twin of Ratagan’s around his waist. The big man finally consented to ride a horse, and they made better time as they marched on through the Circle to the Rorim itself.

  They forded a stream that had its source in the ramparted fort, the water clear as dew, and drew up to the Rorim’s gates. The heavy portals were open, though other armoured and blue-sashed figures watched them from the catwalk, and there was the glitter of spear points in the sun. Their weapons were surrendered at the barbican, two squat stone towers and their accompanying longhouses, though Riven noticed that the Myrcans kept their staves. He handed over the knife that Bicker had given him to the Hearthware, and looked around.

  They were in the courtyard before the biggest of the Rorim’s buildings—the one Ratagan had named the Manse. It was cobbled, and there was a well near the middle. A group of women in dun clothes were drawing water from it in wooden buckets, but they stopped their work to stare at the company—and especially at Riven. He felt out of place in his hiking clothes and with his rucksack on one shoulder. He was also, to his immense surprise and chagrin, absurdly conscious of the scars on his face, and he turned away from the inquiring eyes with a silent curse.

  The doors of the Manse opened soundlessly and two men came out together, closely followed by two Myrcans. One was armoured and sashed like the Hearthwares and was broad as a door, with a golden beard spilling down his chest. The other was slighter, with grey hair, beardless, and with electric blue eyes. He wore a nondescript robe and breeches, but there was a torc of gold about his neck. The Myrcans, unsurprisingly, were Ord and Unish’s twins.

  Ratagan dismounted with a grunt of pain and steadied himself on Murtach’s shoulder. ‘Greetings, my father,’ he said.

  The gold-bearded man gripped his sash with both large hands.

  ‘Trouble, eh? Your mother has been worrying as always, Ratagan. With good cause, this time, it seems.’ He smiled almost apologetically, but Ratagan only grimaced in reply.

  The company moved towards the Manse, and the newcomers walked with them. Riven seemed to pass unnoticed, but then he caught the keen eyes of the greyer man upon him, and had to look away.

  ‘The Warbutt is awaiting you all,’ the grey man said, in a voice dry as an autumn leaf. ‘I can ease your hurts as you talk to him, for he is impatient for news. Especially from you, Bicker.’

  Bicker sighed. ‘I guessed that, Guillamon. I have been overlong away.’

  ‘But you have accomplished what you set out to do.’ It was a statement.

  ‘Yes.’ Bicker jerked his head towards Riven, and again those sea-blue eyes were on him for a moment before flickering away.

  They entered a small hall that was all dark wood and flagged floor. Here the Myrcans left them. Then they followed Guillamon and Ratagan’s father through a double door, and found themselves in a vast hall whose massive roof beams crossed high above their heads. Light dropped in broad yellow shafts from high windows set in the walls. Dust danced in the sunbeams, which shone off old weapons hung near the ceiling and glinted on the gilt thread of tapestries along the walls. The firepit was empty, but a solitary brazier glowed at the end of the hall near a pair of high-backed chairs that were not unlike thrones. There was a figure seated quietly on the right-hand chair. He stood up as they approached, their footsteps raising echoes around them.

  ‘Bicker. My son is back.’

  He was old, very old, but with a shock of white hair and an aquiline profile. He looked like an eagle perching alone in moult.

  ‘Father.’ Bicker embraced the old man, and he sat down again.

  ‘I see Ratagan has had some misfortune. You must have much to tell me. Guillamon, would you see that basins of water and food and drink are brought in? I would call an attendant, but the fewer ears around here, the better.’

  Guillamon nodded wordlessly and left via a small door to the left of the high seats.

  There was a silence, during which Riven fidgeted uneasily and Bicker occupied himself with unbinding Ratagan’s leg. Murtach frowned at the stone floor, where his wolves stretched themselves with a sigh of contentment.

  After a few minutes, attendants came in with laden trays, and left quickly, ushered out by Guillamon. He bowed deeply to the Warbutt and then took a seat on the platform beside the fire pit, next to the company. There was a basin of faintly steaming water, silver sand and a thick towel for each of them, as well as mugs of cold beer, cheese, apples, beef, honey and bread. They washed, scrubbing themselves with the silver sand, and ate as the Warbutt regarded them, his face expressionless. Fife and Drum cracked at marrow bones, loud in the quiet. Riven could hear voices outside, far laughter and the lowing of distant cattle. Ratagan put down his empty mug and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘That’s better medicine than any the leeches hand out.’ Guillamon chuckled, but Udairn, Ratagan’s father, looked serious.

  ‘What did this?’ he asked, peering at his son’s lower leg.

  Ratagan shrugged. ‘Gogwolf, in Scarall Wood.’ The two older men looked at one another, but the Warbutt raised his hands.

  ‘All in its proper place,’ he said, seemingly unperturbed, but his eyes flashed.

  When Ratagan’s leg had been rebound, the Warbutt asked Bicker to begin with an account of his sojourn in the Isle of Mists. The dark man glanced at Riven, who felt
much better for the wash and the beer, and began.

  ‘It seems a long time I have been away. Eight months, since Murtach and I set out on the road to the Staer, through the blizzards that were destroying the land in the middle of the summer. Eight long months—and most of it spent in a strange land, a strange world. And on my own, too, much of the time. There were occasions when I thought that the Warbutt’s son had been too clever for his own good.’

  He grinned weakly. ‘Murtach will have told you of the events that chanced from when he left the south, to where he had tracked Michael Riven, until he went through the door after meeting me to tell me of what had befallen. All I knew was that I was still on the Isle, for good or ill, and there I was bound to remain until the Teller of Tales came back north. I knew where he lived—this, and much more, we had gleaned in many drinking sessions with the natives of the Isle. I stayed in a rough hut to the back of his house, and a long, tiresome time I had of it. I still had some of the gold Murtach and I had been pawning for the money of the other world, but for the most part I lived by hunting and stealing from gardens like a wild animal.’ Bicker paused and swigged at his beer thoughtfully.

  ‘I had first discovered this other door by following a dark girl whom I had seen wandering the Isle. I watched her disappear through it. She was not one of the folk of that world—of that I am sure. She was as wild as a seal, and would not let me approach. I thought perhaps she was one of our people who had stumbled into the world of the Isle by accident and had lost her wits, but there was something about her that left me undecided. She seemed to be seeking something—or someone, maybe. Her eyebrows met in the middle.

  ‘The strange thing is that I saw her again, soon after. Scant days after she had gone, she appeared once more. I glimpsed her hovering near an old, derelict dwelling place in a valley of the Isle the inhabitants call Glenbrittle. She could not have walked from the one door to the other in Minginish in that time, so either she knows of other doors or she can traverse them both ways—not just in the one direction, as we can. That was the last time I saw her.

  ‘From then, it was not in truth such a long wait until Michael Riven returned to his home, and when he did I lured him here by guile, and so he is as you see him now—not totally unwilling, I hope.’ Bicker stopped and looked at Riven, but Riven never saw him.

  Glenbrittle. She was at her old home, where she first met me. But there’s no one there to recognise her any more.

  Guillamon nodded. ‘You did right, Bicker, if half of what you and Murtach have hinted at concerning this man is true. But tell us: what happened on your return to Minginish? What of the wounds of Unish and Ratagan?’

  ‘That I can tell, and more besides,’ said Murtach suddenly, his blue eyes mirrors of his father’s. ‘Ratagan and I, along with Ord and Unish, set out two weeks ago to make our way to the door and be there ready to meet Bicker when he came through. I had thought to be at the site of the door itself, but Bicker had prevailed upon me before I left to meet him one day’s journey away, so that he might have some time to talk to Michael Riven and apprise him of what had happened to him before the Teller was introduced to us and his head made to swim with faces.’ Here he smiled crookedly, but Riven only scowled.

  ‘You see, to Riven I am both a stranger and known to him. He has met me in the south as an old man low on wits; such was the shape I took to allow me to linger around the place of healing where he dwelt. But Michael Riven knows me from another source also—as he knows of all of us, perhaps, and all of Minginish.’

  ‘Enough of that for now,’ Guillamon said, and his son gave a small bow.

  ‘The story of the rest of my sojourn in the Other Place you know,’ he said. ‘It was not pleasant. There the air is tainted and the water stale, and the very earth fettered with tar and moulded stone. Over the cities hang clouds of filth, and the rivers are choked with it. It is not a place I would visit again. Fife and Drum and I—’ The two wolves lifted their heads and regarded their master quizzically. ‘We had a hard time of it surviving, despite the gold I took with me. Even hospitality has a price in that world, and travellers are regarded with mistrust. Several times I was almost apprehended by what passes for that world’s Hearthwares. Each time I changed my looks and slipped away. There is no magic in the world beyond the door, it would seem. Only in the stories that are told there.

  ‘And that is my brief tale.’ He shrugged and gulped at his beer, nudging Ratagan, who seemed to be in a light doze.

  The big man woke with a start. ‘I suppose it is on me to tell you of our latest adventures.’ He blinked and eyed his empty flagon with a moment’s regret. ‘There is little enough to tell, except that we were right to have the company of Ord and Unish. On our way into the hills, we saw many wolves, but were not approached. And there were grypesh also, though not in large numbers. We slew half of one small pack that trailed us through the snows from the first heights of the hills. The rest fled. With the thaw that then came, we made better progress. We could have used horses. We waited at the appointed place for Bicker, and for once in his idle life the wretch was more or less on time. We headed north again—easy travelling in fine weather—but encountered a gogwolf in Scarall; it gave me my limp and cracked Unish’s arm for him before we saw it off. The rest you know.’

  Udairn shook his head. ‘Gogwolves so close to Ralarth! That’s new. I do not like it. The Hearthwares will have to be alerted.’

  ‘What has been happening while I have been away?’ Bicker asked. He looked at his father, but there was no response.

  ‘Nothing good,’ said Guillamon lightly. ‘As Ratagan has noted, there are grypesh in Ralarth; flocks are no longer safe on their own. The Hearthwares are under a tide of problems.’ He nodded to Udairn, who sighed heavily.

  ‘Twenty-six men and eight Myrcans, most of whom are stationed at the Rorim itself, cannot police the whole Dale and the hills beyond. This weird winter has destroyed every crop we have. The thaw came too late. The people are being trained in the use of weapons, since they have no fields to tend. Dunan sees to it. I intend to increase the numbers of the Hearthwares, and I have put both Luib and Druim of the Myrcans on to the training now, but we will not reap the results of that for another season at least. Trained fighters do not spring out of the ground, though these things that are closing in on the Dale seem to.’

  Then the Warbutt spoke, addressing Bicker. ‘While you have been away, dozens of our people have lost their lives to the beasts, and their herds have been scattered. And shepherd has fought farmer within the Dale, bickering over the use of the land. Wolves have roamed up to the very walls of the Circle. We are becoming an island. We face famine in a few months. This place needs you more than any place beyond the door.’

  Bicker flushed at once. ‘Do you doubt the importance of my errand?’

  ‘I have yet to see its value,’ the old man responded mildly, looking at Riven.

  It was Riven’s turn to flush. He glared at the elderly figure on the high seat. Up to now, he had been transfixed by the narratives of Bicker, Murtach and Ratagan, lost in pondering imponderables, and with horror slowly dawning on him as he saw more clearly what kind of situation Bicker had brought him into—and what his own role in it might be. And gnawing under it was the knowledge that Jenny was alive, and more than likely here in Minginish. That knowledge made him want to run out of the hall, out of the Rorim and into the wolf-ridden hills to find his wife. And then he saw her eyes on him at the bothy again—empty and afraid. He could have howled with despair.

  And now an elderly man whom he had created in his own book to be a pompous reactionary was regarding him with disdain.

  ‘Well that just fucking tears it,’ he barked. ‘Who the hell do you think you people are? You take me from my world, my own life, and you haul me into some kind of rural Disneyland, spinning tales of death and destruction—then you nearly get me killed by a dog made of wood, for Christ’s sake, and you sit down in front of me and talk about me as though I weren’t t
here. Well, I am here—here in your marvellous bloody world—and if I’m supposed to help you then that’s well and good, but before I do, by God, you’re going to stop treating me like a bloody child who can’t understand what’s going on. I created you people!’ He stopped.

  ‘I created you...’ he repeated hoarsely.

  There was silence. Fife and Drum pricked up their ears attentively. Finally the Warbutt broke the silence.

  ‘So,’ he said, still in the same mild tone, ‘he has a tongue in his head, after all. I am glad to see it.’ The old, bright eyes met Riven’s. ‘If we have offended, you then we apologise, truly. Welcomes and courtesy are not what they used to be in Ralarth Rorim, I fear. I see you are a man, even if you are not of Minginish. Our counsels are open to you; our home is yours.’

  Riven nodded, slightly.

  ‘But your words confirm what Bicker and Murtach have already told us.’

  ‘And what is that?’ Riven snapped, not yet appeased. The Warbutt inclined his head towards Bicker, and the dark man drained his flagon.

  ‘I’m going to talk about you as though you weren’t here again,’ Bicker said with a wry smile. Then he turned from Riven and stared at the floor, toying with his empty flagon.

  ‘As all here know, Riven is a Teller of Tales. In his world, he writes down stories that he has made up so that others can read them. There are so many people in his world that he cannot travel as our Tellers do, reciting their tales for a meal or a night’s lodging, or for the favour of the lord. He writes them on paper, and they travel about the land in that form—for paper is common and cheap over there—so that all can learn them whilst he stays where he would, making up more tales.’

  Bicker looked up at his father. ‘Murtach and I have read these two volumes of tales, and they are about Minginish. He describes the land—the mountains and the Dales, the cities and the sea. He knows of Rime Giants and grypesh, Hearthwares and Myrcans. And he knows the people, also. We sitting here are in Riven’s stories. He tells of Murtach’s shapechanging, Ratagan’s drunken debauches—’ Here the big man bellowed with laughter and everyone smiled.