In the Earth Abides the Flame (22 page)

'Granted,' Kurr acknowledged. 'But if that was all we had to do, I might already be home enjoying the delights of a Firanese spring.'

The Haufuth joined the debate. 'Let's be precise about this. Exactly what was the second of the two tasks the Company was given?'

'To save Faltha,' came the blunt reply. 'At the moment we can't even save ourselves.'

'As I remember it, our task was a little less lofty. We set ourselves to present our knowledge to the Council of Faltha.'

'Which has been done,' the Hermit said quickly.

'This was to be linked to the presentation to the Council of a captured Bhrudwan, who would convince them of the Bhrudwan threat.'

'Whose idea was that?' pressed the Hermit.

There was a pause as the Company thought about this. It had been such a long time ago. So much had happened since the night in the Haufuth's house when they had decided to leave . ..

'It was my idea,' said Hal evenly.

Leith started; he thought his brother had been asleep. He should be asleep, harbouring his strength. Leith had seen how much their long journey had taken out of him.

'Your idea?' the Hermit said, the measured politeness in his voice belying his intent. 'Why am I not surprised?'

Hal frowned, but said nothing. Indrett made to speak, but Mahnum put a hand on her shoulder and a finger to his lips.

'No matter the idea's origins, it was a good thought. But it failed because of Falthan politics and the treachery of ambassadors and kings.' The Haufuth spoke with a heavy voice. 'We never had a chance.' He sighed.

'But does Faltha?' Mahnum inquired of them all. 'Will Faltha be able to defend herself against the army that even now may stand on her borders? Because if not...'

'If the people had sufficient warning ...' said Perdu.

'If the army could be readied in time ...' added Farr.

'If they had any sort of leadership ...' the Haufuth said.

'If, if, if!' Phemanderac lost patience. 'Of course Faltha could match the Bhrudwans if they could raise an army now, and had the leaders to direct them. But the problem is that they do not! Faltha has Bhrudwans for leaders! They will ensure you are defenceless and unaware, and will simply invite the Brown Army in to occupy your cities! There will be no defence.

There will be no battle. Instead there will be slaughter! If you imagine you have carried out your task to its completion, perhaps you will give me leave to return to my own country now, because I will not remain to watch Faltha's fair rivers run red with blood!'

'Please don't leave,' said Leith, rising to his feet, not wanting his friend to be misunderstood.

Phemanderac was, after a fashion, his responsibility. He had befriended the strange foreigner, and told him the Company's secrets. 'We can't sit back now, thinking of our own safety, not when we know things vital to the survival of Faltha. Not when we've been given a path to tread which might lead us to our goal.' Sit down! his timorous inner voice shrieked at him.

You're only a boy! Be quiet and learn from your betters! Far from taking heed of the voice, Leith rejoiced to hear its desperation, and took heart. 'Phemanderac says the Jugom Ark is a symbol of unity. Maybe he's right. Maybe the Jugom Ark will join Faltha under our leadership. I don't know. But we won't find out by remaining hidden until hauled out by cruel hands! I don't want to spend however much time we have left before the Bhrudwans come wondering whether I might have still been some use to Faltha, whether my friends and I might have saved her from destruction!' He clenched his fists, arms held rigid by his sides, and his voice filled the chamber, giving the others nowhere to hide from it. 'I don't care about prophecies or swords. I don't care whether I'm young or old. I've been given the chance to do something good, and I want to do it. All my life I've wanted to do the right thing, and I've never quite managed to do it.' His voice cracked, but he was heedless of it. 'Something always gets me by the heel, and holds me back so I fall short, never quite measuring up. Well, I've had enough!' He took a deep breath. 'I choose to do the right thing, just this once. Whether I succeed or fail, live or die, I will have chosen rightly! And if others choose as I do, maybe Faltha will not be totally lost, even if Bhrudwo should overrun her. Do you hear me? Are you listening? Are you?'

No one spoke.

Doubts echoed in his head as he spoke: braggart . . . attention seeker . . . Hal might be able to get away with this sort of talk, he always had, but on Leith's tongue it sounded fatuous, almost offensive . . . fool. . .

'Phemanderac calls us the Right Hand. He says that a hand is made up of five fingers. I see more than five fingers here. Maybe we are two hands. I don't know. But I do know fingers are no use on their own. We will fail again without each other.' He turned his gaze on them all in turn. His mother and father, faithful Perdu, the inscrutable face of the Hermit, the Haufuth and Kurr, Achtal the Bhrudwan Acolyte, Hal, whom nothing surprised, Phemanderac, with a wide smile and a wider love, Foiizie, who nodded her head to him; and Stella, oh Stella, who brought a catch to his throat, whose eyes shone so brightly they threatened to burn him away.

'I love you,' he said gently. 'I love you. I love you all. I cannot tell you - I cannot...' he faltered, and sat down.

Someone pushed past him, knocking him to the floor. By the time he regained his place, the Hermit stood amongst them, eyes closed, face uplifted.

'Your journey is not yet finished!' he cried in a resonant tone. 'You will travel through madness and mist, through the depths and to the heights, though a thousand fires assail you and the mountains shake under your feet. You shall pierce the veil of illusion and bend the root of magic to your will. Though scattered, you will gather; though divided, you will unite.

And when the chance comes to take the fire into your hands, your grasp must be full of faith, unwavering and without doubt.' The Hermit smiled then, and opened his eyes.

Though Leith expected something to follow such a speech, what happened next still shocked him. Eyebrows raised provocatively, the blue-robed man ran his eyes over the Company until they locked with Hal's. Anything to say about that, cripple?'

Even Hal was surprised, Leith could tell, though he maintained a mild expression. Kurr leapt to his feet, followed by Farr and Perdu, all shouting at once. The Haufuth cried out for silence, but it was slow in coming.

'So discourtesy is repaid in kind.' The village headman shook his head. 'How can you expect us to take your words seriously when they are delivered in such a churlish manner?'

'You'll take them seriously when they start to come true. Don't expect me to apologise for the prophetic words I receive. I have reflected on events since first I met you northerners, and I realise

I permitted myself to be influenced by your views. I must weigh my own humility against the incontrovertible words of the Most High. For the sake of Faltha, I shall speak out what I have been given.'

'That's no excuse for rudeness,' Stella snapped.

'Perhaps my comment was ill-advised,' the Hermit allowed. 'But I trust you find what I say more important than how I say it.'

'That may be,' said the Haufuth. 'Tell me, Hermit; your prediction suggested we have more journeying to do. Fine, I can accept that. In his own way, Leith has already made a similar argument. But what was the rest of your prophecy about? If the Most High wishes to speak to us, why are his words not more helpful? Why not say: "Travel east through Straux until you reach the Aleinus River, then turn north and walk for thirty days until you trip over a golden arrow",' or some such thing? Why wrap plain words so tightly in mystery that nothing can be unravelled from them?'

'Words, words. I say we ignore them,' Farr said, with his characteristic bluntness.

'Phemanderac offers us a path to travel. I say we travel it. I'll go to this country of Nemohaim, this place called Kantara, and try to find the Jugom Ark. It would be good to have some companions on the road. Anyone coming?'

'I'll come,' a steady voice said. Stella, proud Stella, chin upraised, eyes wide and so alive.

'Things can't have finished for us, just like that. We can't be going home yet.'

'Oh my,' said the Haufuth. 'Herza would eat me alive if anything happened to her daughter. I'd better come with you.'

'I'll come too,' Leith added in haste, fearing he'd be left out.

And I,' came the gruff voice of the farmer. 'No telling what mess you fools will get yourselves into without my help.' He laughed, a clear, pure sound, with that hint of mischief Leith had mistaken for evil the day he'd been afraid of being locked in Kurr's barn.

'We will all be coming, I'm sure,' Mahnum said. 'There's no safety in this city for us now.'

Leith glanced at his brother. There it was on his face, that superior look he always wore when he knew something no one else did.

'Hal? Will you come?' Asking Hal for a commitment was so unnerving it made Leith giddy.

He remembered a similar conversation months ago in the house of the Haufuth, before they had even left Loulea, when it had been Hal confronting the adults afraid to make a decision, paralysed as they were by the weight of responsibility. But it was typical of Hal that he was not discomfited in any way by the turn of events. Look at the smile on his face! It was as though he had been made happy by Leith assuming his role. Curse him! Can he never show some humility?

'If everyone's convinced by Phemanderac's theory of the Five of the Hand, then it seems I'm needed. Of course I'll come.'

'Do you have doubts about Phemanderac's idea?' Leith bored in.

'No doubts at all,' Hal replied sincerely, but Leith heard something evasive in his brother's answer.

Phemanderac stood, and the moment passed. 'So all five of those who left Loulea together will continue to the end, along with the rest of the Company. It is fitting.'

'I will not accompany you,' the Hermit said. 'The Most High has another mission for me. I am called to minister his word to the people of Instruere. Careless of the risks, heedless of the danger, I am to prepare the Great City for the coming of the Most High and his glorious Fire.'

He seemed to be building to a declamation of some self-importance, and there had been enough wearying talk for one day. It was really a question of who would interrupt him first.

'We must leave with all speed,' the Haufuth noted.

'We have a great number of things to prepare,' added Kurr.

'And what about the Bhrudwan? What are we to do with him?' Leith was puzzled by the status of the warrior-wizard, who supposedly could kill them all. He was still bound, but since The Pinion it had been largely ceremonial. Given Hal was going to Nemohaim, wherever that was, would not Achtal want to accompany him? Could they stop him?

'Surely tomorrow morning will be early enough for thinking about all these things,' the Haufuth moaned. 'I still have much work ahead in order to fix my tiredness and hunger.'

'Tomorrow morning it is,' Kurr said, laughing. 'My, how we missed you these last few weeks.

Without you, it's so hard to keep things in proper perspective!' He nodded to the big headman, then addressed them all. 'We need to communicate our desire to our hosts, and ask for any assistance they can give us in escaping the Arkhos's net. Let us rest tonight, then be on our way tomorrow.'

There was a tomorrow in Escaigne, but no sunrise. Perdu, the first of the Company to emerge from sleep, spent his waking moments, as he always did, thinking about his family - most likely camped somewhere in northern Myrvidda - then unwrapped the breakfast that had been left for them and roused the others.

'Rise and shine!' the adopted Fenni said. 'Sorry I haven't opened any windows, but it's morning about a hundred yards from here, in another land. Come on, Haufuth. You're not really asleep: you snore a lot louder than that when you are.' On he went, until a pillow to the back of the head shut him up.

Their host, the bald friend of Foilzie, returned as they finished breakfast. In answer to their inquiry, he told them the day was well under way, then casually informed his guests a gathering of Escaigne - a Collocation, he called it - had been called immediately in order to meet the Company. 'It may be many days before you are able to return to Instruere,' he said. 'I thought, therefore, that you might like to be introduced to our people.'

'I thought you said the people of Escaigne did not travel through Instruere,' Kurr said, instantly suspicious.

'Indeed,' came his reply. 'So most will remain in Escaigne. But enough will come that we can have a Collocation.'

'Why do we need this gathering?' Kurr pressed him. 'We were anxious to try to sneak a small number of us past the guard on the Straux Bridge, the sooner the better. Why the delay?'

'There are some who would like to cast an eye over you,' the bald man said. Leith detected a note of caution in his voice, something the others apparently missed, for no one offered any comment; so he stood, seeking to pursue it further.

'Are there leaders of Escaigne we have yet to meet?' Leith asked the bald man. 'We would like the opportunity to reassure them of our trustworthiness and peaceful intent.'

Their host pursed his lips. 'I understand you were one of the warriors who raided The Pinion.'

Now everyone could hear the doubt in his voice. 'A few of those who escaped made their way to Escaigne and told us of your endeavours. My leaders wish to be assured such bold warriors pose no threat to our security. As you can imagine, security is crucial underground. Seeing you, perhaps I could offer them the assurance they seek.'

Leith laughed. 'It would be well to remember that appearances are deceiving. Although, in my case at least, they are not. Where the skilful fail, the lucky may survive. I am no warrior.'

'Yet the tales of your deeds, and those of your companions, have spread through Escaigne faster than fire. Whether they are exaggerated or not, I do not know, though I believe Foilzie; however, my leaders intend to find out the substance behind the rumour.'

Now other members of the Company began to take an interest in the conversation, and both Kurr and the Haufuth stood. 'There may be matters which it would not be wise to raise at a public meeting - or even in private,' Leith said, as the two men came to stand beside him.