Sunk in this self-critical inner dialogue, he hardly even noticed Snatcher’s return with his carryall–but he did catch sight of the immense ironbound club the Lurk had hefted over his left shoulder, the shaft of which was as thick as his thigh. It had a knob at the business end
which was furnished with a dozen six-inch spikes of bright metal, several of which were encrusted with dried blood and other nasty remnants of whatever creature the Lurk had recently brained. The sight of it turned his stomach. Kevin dolefully dropped to his knees in the mud to expel the remains of his breakfast.
* * * *
Having spent the remainder of that afternoon trailing after Snatcher, with two X’gäthi on hand to guard against misstep or arrest any incipient desire to wander from the path, Kevin had strength remaining only to wrap himself in his cloak and collapse in the general direction of his bedroll. A thousand fire ants crawled over the exposed skin of his arms, neck and ankles. But he had been too proud–or too stubborn–to request any help. He had inconvenienced them enough for one lighttime. Just leave him to his misery.
It was Zephyr who discovered him lying there, semiconscious, when they passed around a simple dinner of waycrust and fruit. Snatcher had already downed five flatfish that he had foraged for on the way. An offer of several more to Zephyr and Alliathiune–both vegetarians–
was refused with shudders, but the X’gäthi bared their sharp-pointed teeth in glee. Snatcher had been instructing several of their number en route and they had developed between them the kind of acceptance and rapport of highly experienced and knowledgeable individuals.
The Unicorn nudged him gently with his muzzle.
“Kevin?”
The words
came to his ears as from a great distance
“What’s wrong?” growled the Lurk, looking up. His bulk and shape made him look exactly like a huge boulder in the dim twilight. “Is the outlander not eating?”
“Worse, he’s not moving!”
Alliathiune made a clucking noise in the back of her throat. “Again?”
“Perhaps he’s ill,” said Zephyr, touching his horn to Kevin’s head. “Nay–ah, there’s a fever! Good Lurk, know you of some affliction common to Humans in Mistral Bog?”
The sound of his movement was as shadows cast by moonlight, and then the Lurk
crouched beside Kevin. An immense paw engulfed his head, but without the faint distaste that had accompanied the Unicorn’s ministrations.
“Hmm
… odd.” Snatcher’s luminous eyes lidded over. “His kind are prone to such fevers, yet I sense no sickness–kê! I lie. He suffers an ill reaction to the sap of the glüalla plant.”
T
hick digits tugged Kevin’s cloak aside; he saw Zephyr’s eyes bulge.
“
By the Hills!”
“Indeed. Why did he not complain before?”
Struck by the same thought, they both glanced at Alliathiune.
“Right, blame me!
Who stumbled into the glüalla? Who endangered all our lives this lighttime? Who cannot be trusted, even for an instant, to follow a safe path?”
“Who saved us from the
Black Wolves?”
Answering back to her was like blowing pure oxygen on a flame. Alliathiune flared, “That was an
accident!
He would be the first to admit it. It’s just another pathetic excuse not to aid us against the Blight! Well, I’m not having any of it. He’s got what he deserved, the lying little toad!”
Kevin
groaned and tried to roll over, but the Lurk’s palm covered his torso. Something unspeakably vile poured down his throat.
In tones of starchy reproof, Zephyr commented, “You have been riding him roughshod from the first
, good Dryad! What have you against him?”
“Ask yourself who had the outlander chained like a beast in his own dwelling, noble Zephyr?”
“That was an order–”
“Orders nothing!” she stormed back at once. “
If you hadn’t dragged him along on this journey, he would still have been languishing back in Thaharria-brin-Tomal bleating that he hadn’t moved from the same room in the same house for over twenty years, and couldn’t possibly totter five steps on his scrawny legs when he has patently walked all lighttime! He’s the most unconvincing excuse for an intelligent creature I have ever met, bar none. If he whines about his imaginary allergies one more time I’ll slap his other cheek so hard his teeth will rattle in his head!”
Kevin
’s stomach made a sound like a drainpipe emptying, cutting off further argument.
“What are you doing to him?”
The Lurk spread his vast paws. “Administering a restorative dear to my people,” said he, with a peaceable grin. “Indeed, the outlander is already much recovered.”
On the contrary,
Kevin felt as though Snatcher had fed him a burning snake. His eyes bulged and hot beads of sweat popped out on his forehead, running in rivulets down his flushed face. His throat convulsed as though seeking to part company with the rest of his neck, and when he spoke his voice was an incredulous rasp.
“What was
that stuff?
”
“A simple curative, a–”
“For creatures ten times his size, no doubt!” shrilled Zephyr, rushing to Kevin’s side like an anxious parent to a fallen child. “If you have damaged him …”
“
Peace, noble Unicorn!”
Kevin
gasped, “Only a potion that revolting could cure–the itching is gone!”
“What was it?” Alliathiune and Zephyr chorused.
“A curative derived from the oily liver of the giant spiny toad,” replied Snatcher. “The toad is regarded as a great delicacy by my people, and has many medicinal applications useful to Lurks and other creatures. The liver is rendered in a cauldron over a slow fire for three lighttimes and three darktimes, before being decanted and treated by a secret process to concentrate it tenfold. It is particularly efficacious as an antidote to bites and stings.”
This story, to
Kevin’s mind, explained a few things–particularly if it was derived from a toad’s liver! But he could barely even remember now how his arms had been itching. They were still red and puffy, but the urge to strip the skin off with his fingernails was no longer overpowering. He, at least, was grateful.
Zephyr was not. Drawing himself up to his fullest height, he
neighed, “And you gave him toad oil
undiluted?
”
“You’d rather he died?”
Kevin wiped his mouth. “Excuse me, but–”
“Shush,
Kevin! Good Snatcher, I would rather you consulted me before applying such drastic remedies to a mere Human. They are notoriously frail creatures!”
Something indefinably sad flickered across the Lurk’s eyes. “As you command, noble one-horn. I shall obey.”
And a strained silence descended upon their gathering.
Kevin
broke it by vomiting so violently that an X’gäthi three feet away had to dodge.
“Oh, perfect,” sniffed the Unicorn. “I despise swa
mps, and you just added to this one.”
S
natcher, moving with uncanny
precision and subtlety on his great splayed pads across the ever-treacherous muck of Mistral Bog, had by late afternoon three lighttimes later brought the travellers safely to the eastern border of his homeland. Safely, that is, save for poor Kevin, who once again had the misfortune to tangle with the local wildlife, this time in the form of a seven-foot eel that mistook his booted foot for dinner and tried to make off with it. But he was rescued once more by the brave X’gäthi, who leapt in with flashing blades to decapitate the eel. It was shared between the nine remaining warriors and the delighted Lurk, who slid a five-foot portion the thickness of Kevin’s thigh down his throat with evident delight, and then proceeded to suck the eyeballs out of the head and consume those too–at which point Kevin stopped watching for fear he would throw up again.
The other thing that turned his stomach was the anaconda the Dryad had just let go. How did she do it? One moment a Lurk and three X’gäthi were leaping in with weapons whirring through the air, when tiny Alliathiune stopped them all with a shout and then cradled–yes, cradled–a monster anaconda’s blunt head in her hands and started talking to it! Even Snatcher appeared perplexed by this development.
When the snake moseyed off, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief, Alliathiune said, “She had a medical problem. She’s off to lay her eggs now. Wasn’t she a beauty?”
“Beauty that’ll eat you for breakfast is the less to be admired,” said Zephyr.
“A small specimen,” added the Lurk. “You should see the greater anacondas in the Deep Bogs. Those would eat a Lurk for breakfast.”
A Lurk! Kevin willed his eyeballs to stay in their sockets.
But then his foot caught on a hard patch of ground, and he would have fallen flat on his face but for the swift reactions of the X’gäthi nearest him. They had reached the edge of Mistral Bog.
“Well done, all!” cried Zephyr, pawing the solid ground with instinctive relief. “We have successfully navigated Mistral Bog and completed
a goodly portion of our journey to Elliadora’s Well.”
“Is Thaharria-brin-Tomal quite near the edge of the Forest, then
? I’ve been bitten to smithereens by those pesky–buzz off!”
“
Those are called
nisk
flies, good Kevin.”
“Blasted irritating blood-sucking swarming pestiferous whining sleep deprivers!” he muttered, causing Alliathiune and Zephyr to exchange grins. “I didn’t get a wink of sleep, what with all those frogs croaking nineteen to the dozen–”
“What is a ‘frog’?” asked Snatcher.
“Never mind.
” Kevin whined, “Honestly, having to sleep upon a spiky reed-bed has left holes the size of walnuts in my back! How anyone ever lives in a swamp is beyond me. I was freezing cold and shivering all night–uh, darktime, as you Forest creatures would have it. Is anyone listening to me?”
“Snatcher thinks swamps are
delightful,” Alliathiune needled him, drawing a low thunder of approval from the Lurk.
“My good Human,” said Zephyr, struggling to control his laughter, “to reach the outermost settlements of Driadorn is easily
six times the distance we are travelling, and from there a further moon’s travel before one reaches the first Human lands. Thaharria-brin-Tomal is considered part of the Old Forest.”
Kevin
gasped. Good grief, he had completely misunderstood the maps his tutor had shown him. The Forest must be continent-sized!
“So what’s this part called?” he asked. “The
really, really Old Forest?”
“This is Fau
n country,” Zephyr informed him, ignoring his joke.
As they climbed steadily up and away from the swamp
, Kevin could look back upon the swirling mists of Mistral Bog, and wonder that he had passed largely unscathed through such a forbidding territory. He was covered in muck from head to toe! Eastward lay a line of hills, rising steeply from this initial elevation toward a jumbled and broken crest, where the land had been formed in aeons past by a colossal case of geological hiccups. Amongst the jumbled boulders and jagged ravines even the trees were twisted and stunted, as though the thin earth were insufficient to support greater growth and the weather too inclement to allow any green thing to grow strong and tall. The grass, which Zephyr had paused to investigate, sheltered in tan tufts between the boulders and stones. The trail ahead was a grim and forbidding prospect.
But beyond that–well, if Elliadora’s Well were a mountain he should have been able to see it, save for a canopy of cloud covering that part of the Forest.
“Zephyr–you’re clean again!” he blurted out. The Unicorn was a pristine vision against the dark boulders. “How do you do that?”
“Pah, this fodder is disgusting!” said he, curling his lips apart over a mouthful of anaemic grass. “Barely fit for equine consumption! Good
Kevin, cleanliness is a matter of personal taste and some small magic innate to Unicorns. Useful, don’t you think?”
“Er–yes. Could you
…?”
“
Hrr-ibrrali!
I’ve never tried,” he admitted. “I thought you Humans preferred to wash in streams. You are a
touch
pungent.”
“He doesn’t have your sense of smell,” Alliathiune chipped in. “I imagine bathing in freezing mountain streams isn’t entirely to your taste, good
Kevin?”
“Goodness no! Don’t you feel the cold, Alliathiune?”
“Me? Not like you, evidently.” She compared her thin dress and bare legs to Kevin’s fair swaddling of warm clothing, cold-chapped lips, and streaming nose, with an unfavourable gleam in her eye. “You poor thing. You really suffer, don’t you? Your lips are turning blue.”
“It’s because I am unwell.”
“It’s not just for decoration?”
Kevin
flushed at her tone. “You can talk!” he muttered.
“What’s wrong with
… oh, you mean these!” said the Dryad, making the patterns on her arms undulate as though caught in an invisible breeze. Kevin blanched. “You don’t like my magic very much, do you, good outlander?”
“Well, I–”
She said waspishly, “You don’t like what you don’t understand. I wish you’d get over it, because while teasing you provides a degree of entertainment, you might react inappropriately at a crucial moment. By the Hills, you’re turning the same colour as your hair! How queer–red face, red hair, and blue lips. I couldn’t paint it more vividly in oils!”
He cringed. This jesting
was abuse of a different kind, comparable to what Father had dished out over the years. It cut him to the quick, and he half-turned from her accusing presence. Nothing in the world could have convinced him to stand up for himself at that moment. The lessons of acquiescence and silence had been thoroughly instilled, accompanied by the cruellest beatings that belts, fists, feet, cricket bats and the dreaded mahogany cane could apply to human flesh and spirit. There must be a reason people vented their indignation upon him, Kevin thought dully. He must deserve it somehow. He was a feeble and craven sort, a bad person, irredeemable. He was a millstone hanging from Father’s neck.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Alliathiune start to reach out, but then she snatched her hand back
as though she would rather pet a fire, and marched off a short ways. She made an angry gesture and beat her fist on her thigh. It struck Kevin that she must regret her words. He stared after her, running this unprecedented idea through his head. Ugly words, but soon spent and even more quickly regretted.
“Come,”
said Snatcher, his huge paw suddenly covering Kevin’s shoulders, “Lyredin’s Way is hard upon us, but a short turn to the north. Good outlander, here is a place to bathe and gather your strength for the trials ahead. Hot springs–such luxury as is unheard of in all of Mistral Bog. Even I shall give the good Unicorn’s nostrils their peace.”
Zephyr
said, “Hot springs? There are none known in these parts.”
“Few know this secret, good Unicorn, and I would ask that it remains so–or the Fauns would despoil them for the simple pleasure of ruinous work.”
“Very well, resourceful Lurk. Lead on.”
Snatcher said, “Come, my lord, your steaming bathtub awaits
. It is bathtubs that Humans use, isn’t it? I have read about them.”
A slow, silly grin spread across
Kevin’s face. Nothing in the world had
ever
sounded so good! “You’re having me on, Snatcher!”
“More to your left, good
Kevin, the going is easier.” Snatcher steered him by a gentle but irresistible pressure on his shoulder. “On my dubious and widely maligned honour as a Lurk, I swear this is the whole truth. Nought more than a gentle stroll shall lead us hence, whereupon you may bathe your weary feet in fragrant, steaming pools, and cleanse your lamentably soft hide in the finest–admittedly slightly sulphurous–water this side of the Well itself.”
And he chattered on, as naturally as if strolling along the rough shores of Mistral Bog was something gigantic Lurks did with Humans every day
. Kevin glanced back to see Zephyr following with a wistful air. Quietly, he recalled what the Unicorn had begun to hint at around a campfire two evenings before: his outcast status amongst the Unicorns, the grief he still felt at his parents’ loss, the loneliness he welcomed when his long journeys removed him for moons at a time from the scorn of his fellow Unicorns–how Zephyr must long for simple friendship and fellowship.
Kevin
knew that emptiness only too well.
Snatcher led them by a faint track northwards, sticking near the murky expanse of Mistral Bog where the ground was less broken. At length they entered a patch of jumbled boulders, and by a cunning route
, picked their way to the entrance of a cave superbly hidden beneath the skirts of a round rock thrice the height of the Lurk. Here they paused for Zephyr to ignite several special wands of wood called ‘
illumithär’
in the Unicorn tongue, which glowed steadily in the hand without burning or smoke. Kevin accepted his wand a trifle glumly, wondering why the Unicorn once again eschewed his magic. Fear of the Fauns, this time? What use was magic if it could not be used?
“Now,” he heard Zephyr mutter to Alliathiune, “remember your decency, good Dryad! Humans are shy and private creatures by nature, not given to communal bathing
as is commonplace amongst other creatures–especially your kin.”
“They have a nudity taboo?”
“I haven’t asked
specifically
,” the Unicorn said sententiously, “but I shouldn’t be surprised. Recall how he offered you his cloak whilst you repaired your apparel after the attack of the Black Wolves?”
“A civilised gesture, indeed.”
“It was intended to preserve your modesty.”
“I assure you there is modes
ty amongst Dryads, noble Zephyr!”
“What, a loincloth to cover the essentials?”
“Ha, says he who wears no clothing whatsoever!”
“What a
preposterous notion. A covering for Unicorns? Please, only for ceremonial occasions, for such would conceal our inherent magnificence.”
“What’s
preposterous is your ego! Anyhow, I’ll grant the outlander has redeeming qualities. It’s a shame he won’t admit his wizardly powers and use them directly to aid our cause. Has he some private agenda?”
“This I too have marked, noble Dryad. It challenges our earlier assessment,
wouldn’t you agree?”
“Elliadora’s Well will furnish a modicum of proof, if my vision is true.”
“May our Mother Forest be healed.”
Kevin
’s ears burned. They thought their whispered conversation was private, but the narrow entrance to the caves transmitted their words clearly.
He found the
air within warm and humid, with a strong but not unpleasant mineral tang. Snatcher pushed ahead, his tough skin scraping both sides of the narrow entrance, for which Kevin was grateful. Any creature hiding within would first encounter the Lurk!
“As for a private agenda,”
he heard Zephyr muse, “I doubt it. His actions do not appear premeditated. He lacks not the ability, but the belief in his ability.”
“
He’s surpassingly selfish and lacks the most basic tact!”
“And your attitude is guaranteed to bring out the very worst in him!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Kevin
coughed pointedly. He could no longer pretend not to be listening.
“Here we are, noble ones,” said the Lurk, stepping into a long, winding chamber. He held up his illumithär stick. “We call this place
ur-malläk tyak
, the ‘waters of bubbling reprieve’ in your tongue. To your left the waters become hotter, such as would please our X’gäthi friends, where ones of soft paws should be wary of the searing stones. Good outlander, there is ahead a yellow outcropping–do you see it? That is soapstone. Simply break off a piece and gently scrub your hide to cleanse it. Nobles, your steaming pools await.”