In the Earth Abides the Flame (43 page)

'So you have travelled this road before.' The tone was conversational, but Leith could sense the hidden menace. Wiusago was clearly aware of it.

'Onlv once, Tua,' he said softly. 'It's not a place we frequent.'

'Now why would anyone come here even once?'

'Reconnaissance, Tua. Some years ago, when things were much worse, my father thought we might attack you from this direction.'

'But your sense of honour held you back.' Te Tuahangata's words hung heavy in the air with sarcasm.

'Something like that.'

'Nothing to do with the fact that no army could survive a retreat.'

'Retreat?' Wiusago bristled.

'Just think of it,' Te Tuahangata continued. 'Dragging your wounded and defeated warriors back through this valley. No opportunity to bury your dead. A task to match your undoubted talents.'

'We wouldn't have attacked you without the proper declarations.'

'Then, fool, you would not have had to worry about a retreat, for none of you would have survived the battle.'

Wiusago bit his lip and said nothing.

'And as for declarations, what about Otane-atua?' Tuahangata halted, turned and stood quietly in front of Wiusago, legs apart, hands on hips.

'Where?' the prince said, momentarily puzzled.

'The place you call Giantwood. Remember? Or are such acts of treachery against defenceless villages so numerous that you forget their names? Because we do not!'

'My brother was severely punished for what he did.'

'So was the Otane village. But at least your brother deserved what he received.'

'My friend, we have rehearsed these grievances many times. It is my fear that one day we will again cross swords rather than words. I do not understand your world, I freely admit that, but I do not wish to destroy it.'

'That is not enough!' Te Tuahangata snapped. 'It is our land! From the sea to the desert; from the plain to the mountain; from the soil to the sky. It is our land! Yet you have destroyed our spirit by making us live in a fenced forest. You want us where you can control us, so we can do nothing unpredictable. You have our land, our riches, in the palm of your hand.' He spat on the ground. 'And still you are unsatisfied. You hunger after our women! Is there nothing you will not take?'

This was too much for Prince Wiusago. His hand flashed to his sword-hilt and, before any of the Arkhimm could interfere, he lunged forward. But this was what Te Tuahangata waited for, had planned for. He sought and found the handle of his warclub, dived to the left and in the one motion sent it whistling towards Wiusago's unprotected head.

Or to where his head had been an instant earlier. Now Wiusago held his sword point mere inches away from Te Tuahangata's chest, while Tua's club hovered just behind Wiusago's ear.

For a long moment all was in stasis, while the Arkhimm gathered its collective wits.

Still neither combatant moved, and it was clear that either man could kill the other with instant swiftness.

The Haufuth moved with exaggerated slowness, stepping up to the two foes.

'You are both men of honour,' he said quietly. 'Put your weapons away.'

Neither man responded.

'It takes greater courage to follow your reason than your passion,' the Haufuth pressed. 'I tell you, for the good of all people everywhere, put your weapons away!'

Prince Wiusago resheathed his gleaming blade. Te Tuahangata made no move.

'Does the son of the paramount chief have no more wisdom than a child?' the Haufuth inquired gently.

'Craven!' Te Tuahangata ground out.

'I will not expend the future of our lands on the passion of the moment,' Wiusago stated flatly.

His eyes were dark with suppressed anger. 'I would not have my affianced brotherless.'

'Coward!' spat Te Tuahangata. 'You are not worthy of Hinerangi. I will oppose this marriage with my life! I swear by the—'

'Do not make any oaths,' said the Haufuth urgently. 'I've heard about the results of oathtaking.

In a generation both your countries would be laid waste. Hear me! Your kings sent you on this mission, so you are both under my authority. Listen to my judgment! I am within my rights to have you both slain for your shameful behaviour. Don't try my patience!'

Leith held his breath. Slay them? The Haufuth was bluffing. Would the two men guess?

Te Tuahangata would not be deterred. 'What makes you think you could match weapons with me, fat man?'

'Review the evidence!' the Haufuth snapped impatiently, as though this were nothing more than a spat between children. 'How else do you explain the deaths of four Bhrudwan warriors, the like of whom you have not seen, nor could you hope to match. Surely this should give even a foolhardy youth such as you some small cause for doubt?'

The dark-skinned warrior was about to reply, when Kurr added: 'Disobey the Haufuth and you disobey your father. Do you think this is wise? With you disgraced, who remains to oppose the marriage of Wiusago and Hinerangi?'

'It is so, old man,' acknowledged Te Tuahangata. He looked on his opponent with narrowed eyes for a moment longer - to Leith a moment too long, suggesting a hatred that was partly habit, partly theatrical - then lowered his warclub. 'This mere calls out for his blood. I will have to give it more powerful reasons than I have yet heard to prevent it satisfying its hunger.'

He stepped away from the prince. A moment later the journey resumed, Wiusago in the lead, Te Tuahangata at the rear, nursing a face like the fall of a great tree.

On the evening of their second day the travellers finally reached the valley bottom, the area where water would flow. Amazingly, even here in the zenith of the valley's heat, vegetation raised tentative fronds, leaves and branches into the shrivelling air. Though virtually rainless for most of the year, it was no true desert. Were it not for the heat borrowed from the east and the uniformly arid, friable volcanic soil, this part of Faltha would have been relatively fertile.

As well as the dissotis flourishing happily under scattered steam spouts, small clumps of all-but-dead tussoci hid from the scorching sun behind the larger rocks, and the occasional thorn bush asserted itself defiantly. Leith once thought he saw a butterfly, a small, yellow-winged thing, but on further thought it was probably a trick of the light, which here reflected from mica and obsidian as though the rocks were too hot for the light itself to come to rest.

Life perseveres even in the valley of death, Leith thought morosely. It doesn't have the sense to let go even when it is obviously going to lose. Sustained by the force of habit alone . . . fust like me, here, one foot placed in front of the other, walking mindlessly to who knows where when all I really want is to be back in Loulea, playing by the Common oak with Hayne and Hermesa and Lonie and Druin and Stella . . .

In his mind, as clearly as if he was there, Leith imagined himself sheltering from the wind and rain under the spreading branches of the Common oak. Around him the North March landscape, the very opposite of the Valley of a Thousand Fires: the greensward of the Common, the great Tree, the bustling sounds of the village - his village - preparing for a long autumn night; and the rain, blessed rain, filtering down from the gentle soft-lit sky, soaking, drenching, preserving ... His heart ached with longing.

Then a changing wind blew through his daydream, sending his peaceful thoughts scurrying for shelter. The rain hardened and began to lean in from the north. The ache in his heart focused, became clearer, attached itself to a name, a face. Stella. She was to meet him here.

And he waited and waited and waited and waited and waited — the words kept time with the regular tread of his boots on the merciless rock — and waited and waited and she did not come. They were laughing at him; everyone laughed at him .. .

He sat in front of the fire in their small house, waiting, whittling away at a slender piece of birch, hardly able to control the shaking in his hands; for the one he loved the most was gone, and the face he tried to carve stayed blank... His father was never coming back; he was abandoned .. .

Now he and Hal and Stella walked in the silence of a Mjolkbridge night, past house after house after house: Hal stopped and sent them on; but fear and frustration constricted his chest

-he couldn't breathe, let alone speak . . . Everything remained unsaid ... Worse, his silences were used against him . ..

Stella and he sat down on the ice, and after a while she began to shiver ... without thinking, he put his arm around her and drew her close, then opened his mouth. The words of eloquence issuing forth were not his. His spirit cried out abjectly while his mouth moved without his volition . . . The inner whimper remained unheard... Meanwhile the ice creaked and groaned as it drifted further away from the Company ...

Was everything that happened to him a metaphor?

She smiled at him in the House of Escaigne, and he knew he would give his whole world for that smile. You are accepted, it said; no longer on the outside, no longer the secret subject of the world's mocking laughter, no longer the one ignored by everyone. His heart was ready to break with happiness - as long as he kept the little voice of protest lodged in the core of his being under control; it's not you she loves, it's the other voice, the other voice, Hal's voice, the voice of the Most High, cruel god, puppeteer ...

Then unseen hands jerk the strings and Escaignians come, separate the Company, take Stella one way and he another, his father one way and he another, Hal one way and he another ...

The ice creaks and groans ... Swords flash in the sun as his father mutters: 'They send me to my death ...' Rough hands grab him, pull him away from the slopes of Steffi... The room reverberates with the crash of unseen figures, and as he struggles he watches them drag his mother out through the door ...

And - oh, cruel god - he follows good, sensible, decent Hal through the cavernous darkness until he stands by the Hermit's crib; watches, uncomprehending, as his brother stretches out an arm ... Blue fire flashes ... The Hermit collapses in the grip of his sickness ... And in such fashion does the Most High treat he who speaks with a voice of his own ...

< Aren't you being a little ridiculous ?> the hated voice inquired of him.

Shut up, Leith snapped, masking his surprise with anger.

The voice obeyed him, as though it was a product of his own tortured mind.

The trail followed by the Arkhimm was not made by humans. Instead, Wiusago explained on the following day, the valley was crisscrossed by a network of game trails made by mostly small -but a few extremely large - animals in search of water. For, here and there in this wasteland, water could be found. In most cases it was foul, brackish stuff oozing up from under the ground, but occasionally, wonderfully pure water bubbled from the dead earth; and here nature congregated: wide-spreading acacia trees, verdant carpets of green, flocks of enthusiastic bird life, swarms of insects feeding feverishly on the flesh of animal herds. The dramas of life played themselves out on small bright patches amidst the valley of death.

But the travellers saw no animals and scant evidence of their existence, other than a little spoor, and the ubiquitous, helpful trails. Having listened to Wiusago's descriptions of them, even allowing a little for the exaggeration of stories retold, Leith found himself pleased about this. Two-headed, fire-breathing lizards; snakes that launched themselves at their prey from trees, stiff like spears; huge cats armed with teeth and claws to tear and to rend; and even the small animals threatened, with bite and sting and itch, to undo the unwary traveller.

As the cruel desert sun set in a rack of fire on the third night out from the Mist, the Arkhimm descended by a narrow path into the head of a deep sandstone gully. Prince Wiusago's face lit up with a smile, and even Te Tuahangata gave him grudging acknowledgement. About what, Leith was unsure. He appeared to have missed a conversation about their route. Whatever, Wiusago was now receiving congratulations. 'The wadi proved to be real,' he said. 'I trust the gueltas will so prove.' The happiness in his face was undeniable.

The sandstone gully, Wiusago's wadi, made almost a straight path southeast. In the few remaining minutes of light - the violent twilight here was so much shorter than the languid evenings the northerners were accustomed to - Leith examined their strange surroundings.

Smooth pale granite-like rock lined the floor of the wadi, and though there were small, regular cracks in the rock, they were filled with sand. The ever-deepening gully floor was perhaps twenty yards wide, framed by sombre cliffs fitted out in subtle shades of tan and ochre, stretching already a hundred feet or more into the swiftly darkening sky. The effect was ominous, forbidding, as though the existence of such a chasm was evidence that this country was home to creatures more powerful than they. In a matter of minutes darkness flowed like a river down the wadi towards them, and the only light came from the narrow star-studded sky far above. A few minutes more and they could go no further.

Later that night a half-moon peeped over the edge of the cliffs and shed pale light down into the wadi; by its light they made good time for perhaps an hour. As the moon dropped behind the other cliff Te Tuahangata said: 'No evidence of this gueltas. Without it we will not survive.'

'At least the cliffs will keep the sun off our backs tomorrow,' Wiusago said, unwilling to concede.

Just before dawn the Arkhimm commenced their weary journey once more, putting on their packs like unshoulderable burdens. Very little was said, as though energy wasted on words could prove to be the difference between death and survival; but weariness rather than prudence dictated the lack of conversation.

Dimly the Haufuth realised that he should make some attempt at promoting friendliness amongst his diverse charges, particularly between the Deruvian and the man from the Mist, but somehow he could not muster the energy. The Escaignians talked seldom, and then almost exclusively between themselves; and the Haufuth wondered on the twist of fate which had sent them on a journey that must be bringing inconceivable experiences for the city man and woman at every turn. Kurr, as ever, was a great comfort. For a moment he had a mental picture of himself and the old farmer sitting together in the corner of a graveyard, and his first reaction to this picture was a wistful longing for the verdancy, the richness, the regularity of his home. But then the vision sharpened; he could see the old man's face, and the grief it held was so great and so transparent he caught his breath. How much had the dear old man given up for him, for them all? The question gave him a moment's pause. Phemanderac, the tall stranger upon whom their quest seemed so much to depend, had withdrawn into himself; his lips moving from time to time as though reciting the riddles and mysteries gleaned from the Instruian Archives. The Haufuth laughed at the incongruity of his own position. A solid, dour man of the land, a conservative without doubt; here trusting a mystic from one fairytale land, chasing this mystic's personal vision into a second land of fireside stories. The big headman could no longer recall the force of the arguments which persuaded him on this course of action. Only one thing reassured him. In all his adventures he had encountered human beings who did familiar things - good, wicked or indifferent - but recognisable at least, even if on a larger scale than he saw in his own village. Apparently the fairy stories were truth intertwined with lies. What made people seek to explain things with reference to the supernatural? He laughed again to himself. All this thinking made him feel very hungry...