Perilous Seas (15 page)

Gathmor
shook him awake in pitch darkness. “Sh!”

“Huh?
What time is it?”

“Sh,
I said! ‘Bout midnight.”

Rap
noted Jalon kneeling, half up, grumpily rubbing his eyes. “What’s
wrong? Won’t be dawn for hours.”

“We’re
going to leave now,” Gathmor whispered. “On the tide. “

“But
... Oh!” Down on the beach lay the village’s four dugout canoes,
one of which Gathmor had borrowed earlier, and then returned. “Steal ...
?” Blurred with sleep, Rap tried to imagine the amount of labor involved
in making a dugout canoe with stone tools.

“Ride
the tide to Puldarn,” Gathmor added in a determined whisper. “We’ll
be there by nightfall.”

Rap
was not going to steal a canoe.

Rap
was not going to Puldarn. Rap was going to Zark.

But
to tell Gathmor that would mean a brawl, and he didn’t feel like fighting
a jotunn right now, in the middle of the night. The seaweed crackled and
crunched as he raised his head, although he didn’t need to do that to
see.

“No
we won’t.”

Now
it was Gathmor who made the “Huh?” sound.

“She’s
posted guards,” Rap mumbled. “Six of them, on the beach. They’ve
got spears ‘nd axes.” He lay back and crackled himself comfortable
again. “And they’re all awake,” he added with sleepy
satisfaction. He rolled over and went back to sleep. Gathmor ran off a string
of nautical obscenities.

He
didn’t think to go and see for himself.

The
western descent was taking longer than the ascent had, which Inos considered
unfair. The food was running out and the nights were cold and there was nothing
to see except endlessly winding walls of rock. The valley widened, it brought
in tributaries, and it steadily descended; it just would not arrive anywhere.

Wolves
lived in those hills and howled after sundown; Azak had reported bear tracks.
He chose defensible campsites on principle, being a distrustful man.

On
the fourth night of the descent he found a cave that had once been an arched
gateway into a small castle, most of which had been swept away or overthrown by
old floods. Mud had settled around the rest until little was now visible above
the grass and bushes; but the barrel roof of the adit was there and one end was
blocked by rubble. Azak insisted he could hold it singlehanded against an army.

Inos
and Kade huddled together through yet another frigid mountain night, wrapped up
in their two blankets like a single load of laundry. Azak did not seem to sleep
at all, sitting crosslegged by the fire, scowling at the darkness of the valley
outside. He said afterward that he saw eyes out there once, but the howling
never came really close.

Chilled
and stiff, the travelers settled for a quick snack of dates and stale bread at
first light, then broke camp. The valley had perversely narrowed again. Its
beetling walls still clutched the nighttime chill, holding the sun at bay and
filling the air with blue shadow. Even the mules seemed glad to be on their
way.

The
road they had followed down from the pass continued, broken here and there
where it had been washed away or buried. The scale of it fascinated Azak. He
had been speculating on what great king or sorcerer could have attempted such a
work, for much of the roadbed was paved with huge slabs, and other parts had
been chiseled out of bedrock, and six men could have ridden it abreast. It
leaped chasms on rainbows of masonry as graceful as arrows’ flights. In
its prime it must have been a marvel. He tried to estimate how many had labored
for how long to create it, and seemed awed by his answers. It must be more than
a thousand years old, he pointed out, and it would obviously last as long
again. Yet perhaps he and his companions were the first to travel it in
centuries.

Even
when buried in soil, the highway had often resisted tree roots. Then it formed
a ribbon of turf snaking through the forest. Conifers had dwindled; here the
valley was filled with hardwoods. The frothy white stream had become a river of
stature, still flowing strangely milky water.

Nothing
like a mule ride to shake out the last crumbs of sleep. “These eyes you
saw,” Inos said. “Were they mundane?”

Azak
chuckled throatily. “I ‘m still here, my love.” Not demons.

They
had talked the old tales to tatters. Azak believed in the demon hypothesis.
Someone in that awful war had released demons, and a few still lingered,
preying on hapless travelers, but not so many that they caught everyone who
came through. Not much anyone could do about demons except hope to stay out of
their way.

Inos
did not like the idea of demons. She preferred the invisibility story, which
said that Ulien’quith had rendered all pixies invisible, and their
descendants lived on like that still, under their own warlock. Azak scoffed at
that. If pixies were at all like other men, he said, they would have long since
used their invisibility advantage to conquer the whole world.

Now
Inos was beginning to fashion a theory of her own-that the missing travelers
were ensnared by curses of nonarrival. This valley, for example, never seemed
to be getting to anywhere. Perhaps she and Kade and Azak would ride down it
forever, or until they died of old age.

She
was just about to mention that cheerful possibility when the travelers rounded
a bend and saw their first pixie standing in the middle of the road. The flash
of Azak’s sword alarmed his mule. The others reacted along with it, and
for a moment there was confusion. By the time the animals were calmed, though,
their riders could see that the danger had been over for ten centuries.

They
rode cautiously forward to inspect the solitary figure. Weathering had pitted
the grayish surface and blotched it in white and yellow lichen, but all the
details and features were clearly visible still-a perfect statue of a youth
running; naked because whatever garments he had been wearing had long since
rotted away. Silt had washed in around him until now he was buried to the
ankles, and the grass stalks waved around his knees. He could not have been
much older than Inos, and the face he raised to the mountains ahead seemed to
her to be filled with stern resolution, a determination to conquer no matter
what the cost.

Inos
reined in the lead mule and dismounted. Kade remained in the saddle, four mules
back, and pulled out her breviary so she would not appear to be looking. Inos
had seen much worse than mere nudity among the statuary in Rasha’s
bedroom. Azak had come to stand beside her and would be noting her reaction.
She must demonstrate the sophisticated attitude of an Imperial lady. It was
only stone, no excuse for prudery. So that’s what they look like?

“A
messenger,” she said sadly. “Running to warn someone?”

“Or
a coward running away?”

“No.”
Sorrow soaked into her bones like the damp of the gloomy valley. The shadows
chilled her heart-a road going nowhere, traveled by no one, a boy turned into a
monument to a lost cause.

“That
is not the face of a coward,” she said. “The eyes are strange . . .
pixie eyes?”

“They’re
sort of elvish,” Azak said, “set at an angle. But not big enough.
And sort-of-elvish ears, too, but not pointed enough. He’s too brawny for
an elf. They’re skinny. Too much chest for an imp, and not enough for a
dwarf. And that steppedon nose looks faunish. A little bit of everything. I
suppose he was a pixie. “

Inos
saw nothing wrong with the nose. Not every man looked good with the eagle beak
of a djinn.

She
moved closer, until she was between the figure and the peaks, so the unseeing
eyes glared right at her. The gray stone, roughened by centuries of rain and
wind, was yet eerily realistic, like a living man coated in mud.

“Turn
back, pixie,” she said. “They can’t hear your message. They
won’t come to your call.” She expected Azak to make fun of her, but
he seemed to have caught the same dark mood.

“The
Accursed Place may have worse things to show us yet. “ She shook her
head. “Nothing could be sadder than this. Go home, pixie, back to your
loved ones. Tell them the war is over. “

“They
will ask who won,” Azak said softly.

“Just
tell them you lost. “

“They
will ask why.”

“
`Why’ doesn’t matter to the dead. Tell them you died in vain. “
For a moment there was silence. Even the wind dared not speak as it stirred the
grass around the youth’s calves.

Azak
spoke again: “Remember what the poet says-nothing frightens like tomorrow’s
war, inspires like today’s, or saddens like yesterday’s. “

She
glanced up at him in surprise. “You believe that?”

He
looked abashed and showed his teeth. “I care nothing for yesterday, and
today we must ride. Say good-bye to your pixie, my lady. He will keep his vigil
here until long after we are gone.”

Once
more Inos met the accusing stare of the stone eyes. Then she shivered and
headed back to the mules.

But
that pixie was only the first. Soon they came to two others, lying facedown.
And then more, and more. The forest died away, as if ashamed to conceal such
disaster, and the whole width of the valley floor was exposed, all littered
with stone corpses. The road itself was completely blocked, compelling the
travelers to leave it and pick their way across the turf and rocks, around and
between the silent multitude.

The
river, wandering to and fro over the centuries, had swept whole areas clear of
the gruesome remains, piling them in shoals and burying them in sand, but it
would need many centuries yet before one river could hide so great a slaughter.
Creepers and ivy had tried, also, wrapping some of the figures in grotesque
green fur.

Many
lay flat, especially solitary runners, who would have been off balance, and the
fallen had often shattered. In the more crowded areas, and where the ground had
been soft, most were still upright, or leaning against their neighbors. Unless
broken, though, every statue in that great naked throng was as well preserved
as the first: roughened in spots by erosion and splotched with lichen, but
exact in every detail of hair and muscle.

Hundreds
and thousands of them ... faceup or facedown or standing in their huddles like
mourners ... all had been going the same way. As Azak had guessed, they had
been fleeing from something, and now the intruders must ride their trembling
mules into the warning, accusing glares of a myriad stone faces.

Most
were young males, a routed army, but there were many civilians also. Inos saw
women of all ages, and one whole heap of old men with their knees up, all
traces of their wagon long since vanished. She saw family groups: children
grasping adults’ hands, men bearing toddlers on their shoulders, and one
stone infant clutched to a stone nipple. She saw men stooped beneath burdens of
earthly possessions that had long since disappeared, leaving only the memory of
their weight. She saw helmeted soldiers brandishing rusted swords to clear a
way through the mob, with plates of bronze tumbled around their feet because
the leather had perished.

Some
armored men lay on their backs with their legs bent, nested in the shattered
bones of their horses. The weeds must hide not only stirrups and bits and
buckles, but also coins and jewels, gold plate and works of art. With a bag and
a shovel, Inos thought, she could gather a great fortune here in a few days-and
lose her wits in the process. Those eyes ...

She
developed a shiver that she could not control. She kept glancing hopefully at
Kade, wishing her aunt would insist that they all turn back and find another
way over the hills or even flee back to Zark; but Kade said nothing, although
her face was pale and drawn with horror. Even Azak looked nauseated. No one
spoke as the little caravan wound its way through the grisly mausoleum.

Beyond
the last stragglers, the valley was again deserted for a space and then ended
abruptly in blue sky framed by spectacular cliffs.

Once
a mighty fortress had stood proud on a high spur, guarding the mouth of the
pass. Some trace of the eastern salient and tower still remained, bent and grotesquely
twisted. But the main buildings and much of the spur itself had melted like
butter, flowing down to engulf the little town below. All that was left was a
great frozen spill of black glass and a few protruding gables and chimneys,
burned red and fractured by the ancient heat, warped and half melted
themselves. Here was what the pixies had been fleeing.

Inos
did not say so, and neither did the others. They had lost the pavement, and the
forest returned. They rode through in single file without a word or a shared
glance, all bearing thoughts too somber to profane with speech.

Then
daylight showed through the trunks, the land fell away, and the valley had
ended. Azak reined in and the others came to a halt at his side, overlooking an
open meadow, sloping gently westward. In the far distance silver flashed from a
very large river, twisting lazily over the plain. Beyond that the sky and the
land went on forever, merging eventually at the limits of human vision in a
vague orchid haze. A warm breeze rustled leaves overhead, bringing a faint hint
of the sea.

“Thume,”
Azak said softly. “The Accursed Place!”

“It
doesn’t look accursed to me,” Inos retorted. “It looks
peaceful. Welcoming.” But anything might look welcome after that
petrified army.

She
glanced across at her aunt, and was astonished to see an expression of ...
worry? Concern ... almost an expression of fear. Kade’s normally plump
and contented face seemed haggard and sickly. True, for an elderly lady
accustomed to a life of genteel inactivity, she had endured an incredibly
wearying journey-but she had survived the rigors of the desert and the
hardships of the taiga without looking like that. Her scanty silver hair was
tousled and tangled, floating like wisps in the breeze. Her wrinkles were scored
like scars; her mouth sagged. Why should the petrified army have done this to
her?