Broken World Book Four - The Staff of Law (32 page)

A belligerent
man demanded, “So if we stay here we die, and if we go in we die.
What choice is that?”

“
Only the unchosen will die in the Lake of Dreams, but any who
don’t enter will certainly perish. The gods will not suffer the
unworthy to live, so it is your hearts that will decide your fate.
Be assured, the Lake of Dreams is not a place to fear.”

The people
murmured and argued amongst themselves, and he waited for them to
settle. Talsy approached him, gazing up at him with excited
eyes.

“
Where is it?”

He smiled and
turned to gesture towards the mountains. “Right there.”

“
All I see is a plain of grass.”

“
Have you as little faith as they?”

“
I believe you, I just can’t see it.”

His smile
widened. “Of course you can’t. It’s here.”

Chanter placed
his hand on empty air and leant against nothing. Talsy circled him,
walking through what he leant upon as if it did not exist. Yet
certainly Chanter rested his weight upon something that was
tangible to him.

She smiled at
his teasing. “Show me.”

Chanter
straightened and took her hand, then turned to the crowd once more.
They quietened, looking uncertain and fearful. “I shall open the
door now,” he said. “Those who would be tested, follow me, one at a
time.”

Facing the
distant mountains, he made a gesture with his free hand and spoke
two guttural words. Shooting a smile at Talsy, he stepped forward,
and she went with him, clinging to his hand. She walked across the
same stretch of grass she had traversed moments before, but within
two steps, the sunlit world vanished.

Chapter Twelve

Talsy entered
a realm stranger than anything she had ever seen before. Mist
shrouded the land, hiding its secrets behind a pale curtain. Huge
flowers, whose petals glowed like mother of pearl, grew out of the
vapour, shimmering in the muted radiance of a pale grey sky. The
flowers reached her knees and brushed against her with fragile
petals that her legs passed through. Each blossom was two paces
broad, with four petals growing from a fluffy golden centre crossed
by black lines that met their edges. The endless covering of
flowers gave off a sweet perfume that hung in the still, warm air.
The mist swirled just beneath their petals, disturbed by their
passage. She clung to Chanter’s hand, afraid that if she let him go
the mist would swallow him and leave her trapped forever in this
ghostly realm. After several minutes, she got the impression that
the pale land stretched away in every direction, clothed in mist
and pearly flowers. She stopped and turned him.

Chanter
smiled. “Like it?”

“
It’s strange,” she murmured, “so utterly peaceful.”

“
Yes, the dead like peace and quiet.”

The silence of
the Lake of Dreams was not oppressive, but rather calming, the sort
of place where you could sit and listen to the hush, be alone with
your thoughts without feeling lonely.

“
It’s all like this, isn’t it? Just mist and flowers and flat
ground,” she said.

“
Yes. A little drab and monotonous, I suppose.”

“
It’s beautiful, in a strange way. Is this an entire world,
with continents and seas? Are the only inhabitants the
dead?”

He smiled
again. “Yes, to both your questions. The dead sea creatures inhabit
calm white seas. In fact, the seas themselves are made up of sea
creatures’ souls, just as the mist that shrouds the land is the
land creatures’ souls. There’s no wind or rain, and the sun only
shines as it does now, through the mist.”

“
Are the plants the only living things?”

“
No, the plants are dead too. Everything here is dead, and even
plants have a form of spirit, especially trees. What we’re walking
through is the departed souls of Kuran. As I told you, they live
forever unless destroyed, and if they do perish, this is where they
come. The ground we’re walking on is made up of the departed souls
of Dargon, the air we’re breathing is...”

“
The souls of dead winds,” she finished for him. “But how can
one kill a wind spirit?”

“
Not easily, but the chaos destroyed many. They were poisoned
by the corruption, just like the Dargon. One day they will be
reborn into the world of the living, just like all the other
souls.”

“
So everything here... is dead?”

He nodded,
unconcerned by how strange this all was. “The Lake of Dreams is the
realm of the dead, nothing living inhabits it. The souls created it
from nothingness, and fleshed it with their essence. Before the
first souls came here, this Lake was just a void. Even now,
everything is incorporeal, a ghost, if you like.”

She shivered.
“Do we have to walk far?”

“
We don’t have to walk anywhere if you don’t want to. We can
step out any time.”

The Lake of
Dreams was beautiful and peaceful, but also a little unnerving.
Unwilling to admit this, she mustered her courage and shot him a
smile.

“
Let’s walk awhile.”

Talsy and
Chanter’s disappearance alarmed Kieran, for there seemed no way to
follow. The people behind him gasped and exclaimed, and he glanced
at the two younger Mujar. Dancer smiled reassuringly, but Kieran
hurried to the spot where Talsy had vanished.

He stood in a
sun dappled forest, surrounded by vast, rough-barked trees. Fallen
leaves clothed the ground, and an occasional clump of greenery or
rotting log. Rich smells of humus and musty earth mingled with the
sweet scent of forest flowers and the dark aroma of lichen and
bark.

“
Hello, Kieran.” A soft voice spoke behind him.

The Prince
spun around, his hand dropping to the hilt of his sword, then
froze, his eyes widening in surprise. Dancer sat on a log, one knee
bent, regarding him with sad eyes. He was not the young Dancer
Talsy had rescued, but the tall, noble featured Mujar he had known
in his childhood. Grey touched Dancer’s jet hair at the temples,
and faint lines aged his handsome face. Kieran released his sword
and straightened.

“
Hello, Dancer.”

The Mujar
tilted his head and studied the warrior Prince with a faint smile.
“You haven’t changed, even after all these years. You always were a
suspicious child, unwilling to trust, quick to judge. You never did
forgive me for leaving you when you hurt yourself, did you?”

Instant denial
sprang to Kieran’s lips, but he quelled it and shook his head. “No,
I didn’t.”

“
You’re not one who forgives easily. You can’t even forgive
your mother for being unable to stop your father giving you
away.”

“
No.”

“
Yet you didn’t hate me,” Dancer said. “A strange combination,
that. A puzzling one, for those who must judge,
doubtless.”

“
Are you dead?”

“
Yes, I died in the Pit two years ago.”

“
I’m sorry.”

“
Are you?” Dancer smiled. “You were so angry with
me.”

“
I thought you were my friend.”

“
I was.”

Kieran
frowned. “A friend wouldn’t have left me to die.”

“
Mujar do. But you know that now, don’t you? I couldn’t help
you, you had no Wish. And when they took me away, you did nothing
to help me, either.”

“
They would have killed me.”

Dancer sighed.
“Would they? Had you pulled out the spear that impaled me, do you
think I would have let them harm you? What do you think the First
Chosen would have done in that situation? Did she not save Chanter
many times, risking her own life to do so? Didn’t she offer to give
her life for his? Yet was she allowed to die? No. You lacked the
courage of your convictions. You would not risk your life for mine.
Things might have been very different had you helped me then. If
you had owned her courage and love for Mujar, you might have been
the First Chosen. Many Truemen had the opportunity to prove their
worth, but they all failed, like you.”

“
Are you angry with me?”

The Mujar
frowned. “No, not with you. You simply lacked the courage to save
me, or perhaps you didn’t love me enough. Maybe it was even because
I had let you down. Whatever your reasons, it wasn’t because you
hated me. But I was angry with your father.”

“
Why?”

“
Because he told them about me. He betrayed me.”

“
No!”

Dancer nodded.
“It was his way of punishing me for not helping you, who were the
son of his king, whom he loved. He learnt to hate me, though he hid
it well. I saw it in his eyes. He was unchosen.”

Kieran slumped
against a tree, remembering that day with startling vividness.
Dancer’s torn and bloody body, the sneering mob that had paraded
him through the village, impaled upon a spear, shorn and smeared
with filth. The way Dancer’s eyes had sought his father and clung
to him.

“
I thought he loved you,” he muttered.

“
He did, at first, but I was a great disappointment to him, in
more ways than one. So he became bitter, and started to hate
me.”

“
Why didn’t you tell them? They’d have believed you; everyone
knows that Mujar never lie. They’d have flung him into the Pit with
you.”

“
Because I forgave him,” Dancer murmured. “That was my
gift.”

Kieran raised
his eyes. “And I never forgave you.”

“
No. You grew bitter. It ate at you like a festering wound, yet
you couldn’t hate me. How that confused you. You longed to hate me
for leaving you in the forest, but you could not. Your bitterness
bred distrust and fear, so you became a warrior to overcome it, and
succeeded well, but never conquered it.” He paused, shifting his
weight. “You never learnt that bitterness cannot be conquered with
courage. To this day you carry it with you.”

Kieran bowed
his head, knowing, as he had done for many years, that his
bitterness was wrong. “I shouldn’t have been angry with you for
leaving me in the forest. I had done nothing to earn your help, at
the time. I wasn’t worthy. I should be asking your forgiveness, for
not trying to save you from the Pit.”

It seemed as
if a great weight lifted from his shoulders as he accepted his
mistake, and years of harbouring a grudge against the man he had
loved so much dissolved in an instant.

“
It’s a wonderful thing, forgiveness,” Dancer said.

“
Yes,” Kieran said, staring at the golden leaves that covered
the forest floor. “I should have done it then. Do you forgive
me?”

Silence
answered him, and he glanced up to find himself alone, the forest
silent and still but for distant bird calls and the faint rustling
of leaves high above. A wave of sadness engulfed him. For years, he
had mourned his friend and mentor, wished that he had saved him,
and tried to hate him for his neglect that day in the forest. Now
the sorrow rushed back in a fresh tide, keener than before, but
tempered by a sense of peace. Dancer had released him from his
guilt, and a hot lance of forgiveness cauterised his festering
bitterness.

Kieran stepped
back, and staggered. He stood upon the heaving back of a food beast
under a blazing sun, the sea stretching away in every direction. A
scream jerked his head around. Talsy lay at the very edge of the
beast, half in the water, clinging to it as she stared down at
something below with wide eyes. Kieran yanked his sword from its
scabbard and leapt to grab her tunic and pull her out of the sea as
his sword rose to meet the threat. He glimpsed a huge, rising shape
beneath the waves, a curved mouth filled with pointed teeth, and
swung the sword in a killing stroke.

Realisation
hit him like a bucket of cold water, and he loosed the blade,
allowing it to spin away into the water. The predator reached the
surface and broke through. Its white teeth fastened onto a frond at
the food beast’s edge and bit it off. It floated nearby, its vast
ray-like fins drifting around it in a glowing veil of many colours.
Kieran stared at it, amazed by its beauty and lack of fear. He
glanced around for Talsy, but he was alone. He turned back to the
predator that languished in the waves. Edging nearer, he knelt and
stretched out a hand to touch skin ridged with tiny patterns. A
sense of well-being and friendship invaded him, a gentle joy amid a
vast wellspring of knowledge. He stroked it.

“
I never meant to hurt you, you know.”

An emanation
of understanding and affection tingled through him, then the
predator slipped away and dived into the inky depths.

Kieran rose to
his feet, stepped back and tripped, falling backwards onto stony
ground. He lay on a rocky shore, tied down hand and foot with stout
ropes to stakes driven into the ground. A few feet away, waves
pounded the golden sand, and a hot sun burnt down on him. Gulls
swooped and mewed, sailing the empty blue skies on slender,
rippling wings. He strained at the ropes, then gave up this futile
endeavour and turned his head to study his surroundings. Far down
the beach, a man wandered, his footprints washed away by the waves.
Kieran licked dry lips and called for help. The man looked up and
approached. The strange Mujar’s face bore the marks of age, and
silver touched his hair. He gazed down at Kieran with sorrowful
eyes.

“
Please help me,” the Prince begged.