‘Oh.’ He stood
motionless and his outline, even in the light from the ley, blurred
away into the background. ‘I’m stupid, I suppose.’
She didn’t
know what to say, so she remained silent while he thought things
through. He roused himself after a while with an odd smile.
‘Ironic, isn’t it? When Carasma changed me, and other Unbound, with
his wretched ley, he brought into being instruments that might
bring about his downfall. Scow with his great strength, other men
who have the claws or senses of animals… A man who wears the
perfect camouflage. In the end we’re the ones who will bring him
down. Not Chantry.’ He turned his sad eyes towards her without
moving his head. ‘What else is left to me, Keris? I cannot enter a
stab. I have to take what Meldor offers; it’s all I’ll ever
have.’
Sweet
Creation,
she thought.
Is there no end to his tragedy?
She gave one last glance back at Davron and Meldor, where they
stood oblivious to her gaze as they drank in forbidden power, and
then she and the Chameleon turned to walk back towards the
camp.
~~~~~~~
Watch for the
Knight who sees the night but not the stars, for he shall show thee
another way to make the sighted of Chantry stumble in the dark,
even as his gait is smooth.
—Predictions
II: 5: 17
They stayed two
days in the camp beside the Wide. The trader, having sold another
mule to Corrian, moved on, but Davron Storre needed rest so the
fellowship stayed. Keris spent half the time trying not to think
about him, and the other half trying not to think about the Snarled
Fist. She succeeded in neither endeavour.
Once, seeing
her eyes follow Davron as he limped about the camp, Corrian jabbed
her in the ribs. ‘Come on, love, why don’t you bed the hunk ’stead
of lapping ’im up with your eyes? You’re not so innocent that you
don’t know how you would enjoy it!’
‘He’d only
take me because his wife’s not around,’ she said and then blushed
because she sounded like a sulky child.
Corrian
laughed. ‘So? So? What does it matter? Enjoy!’ Then, seeing the
grief in her, she lowered her voice. ‘Listen, love, don’t you hold
with all this crap that Chantry doles out ’bout the pleasures of
the body being a sin, and all. Sex is an urge, like wanting a drink
of water when you’re thirsty, or wanting a bite to eat when you’re
hungry. ’Tis Creator given, just like the thirst and the hunger.
You slake one and assuage t’other—then Chantry tells us not to
scratch the third itch we’ve got because that one’s a sin for the
unwed? Makes no sense now, does it?’
She could not
help smiling. ‘Corrian, I thought you were supposed to be on this
pilgrimage as atonement for your sins. You’ll not earn many points
if you sleep with anyone who’ll have you along the way, and try to
urge others to do so as well.’
Corrian
grinned at her wickedly. ‘Ah lass, ’tis not bedding men that was my
sin. It was the thieving. And a few other sundry, er, blunders over
the years. Chantry can rave all it likes about fornication, but
I’ll not believe that anything so sweet, that gives pleasure to
both sides of the bed, can be a sin!’ She puffed at her pipe, her
face suddenly pensive. ‘Mayhap there’s summat not so good about
living off the earnings of the girls, though, I’ll grant you that.
If I live through this damn trek, I’ll not do that again. At least,
I’ll
try
not to do that again, but believe me, I’ll still be
humping between the sheets on my own account till the day I die.
Listen lass, if it brings pleasure to you and him—’ she jerked a
head at Davron ‘— there can’t be aught wrong with it.’
‘He’s
married.’
‘So? She’s not
here, is she? If she wanted ’im to be faithful, then she ought to
be at his side when he needs her. Anyways, she’ll never know. He’s
not so daft he’d tell her.’
She sighed.
Perhaps Corrian was right. Perhaps it was better to have a moment’s
pleasure and a sweet memory, than to have nothing at all. But I’ll
be damned if I’ll seduce him. If he asks, I’ll…think about it.
Her spirits
felt no lighter once she had made the decision, partly because in
her heart she recognised an empty jug when she saw one. She wanted
more than just pleasure. She sighed again. What was the point
anyhow? She did not believe he would ask. Why should he? He was
married to a beautiful, lovely woman and in another few days he
would be seeing her. She had borne him children. He had loved her
so much that he had bonded himself to the Unmaker in order to save
her.
What
wouldn’t I give to be loved like that
…
But she was
freckled and skinny and rather plain, and few men gave her more
than a passing glance. If he wanted her at all, and perhaps he did
a little, it was just because she was there and there was no one
else.
~~~~~~~
The days they
spent in camp went slowly. Meldor took Scow back into the Sponge to
retrieve Corrian’s packs. He and Davron had come across them on the
way out and were able to find them again. Her mule had been killed
and eaten, but the Wild hadn’t been interested in her packs.
On the second
night, Keris found her tent pegs were being obliterated by the
Unstable, and her tent was almost blown away as a consequence. The
others hastily loosened and moved their pegs to prevent the same
thing happening to them, while Scow whittled some new ones out of
the Sponge for her.
‘I hope that
darn blue thing is not alive,’ she muttered, ‘or it may just decide
to roll over in revenge one dark night and flatten us all to
paste.’ Scow found that idea hugely amusing, but then, there was
little that Scow could not find worthy of laughter or a smile.
Portron came
over to help her repitch her tent. ‘Just in time, I think,’ he said
as he hammered in the last of the new pegs. ‘It’s going to rain.
Keris, could I talk to you for a moment?’
She hid a
sigh. ‘All right.’ She waved him inside the canvas just as the
first raindrops fell. ‘But I should warn you that I think I know
everything you’re about to tell me. If you want me to change my
mind, then you’ll have to come up with something new.’
‘New?’ he
asked in despair. ‘What else can I tell you? There is nothing more
important than your immortal soul, and you endanger it just by
being here, in the company of—’
She cut him
short. ‘Chantor, what is it you know about Meldor that I don’t
know? You recognized him, didn’t you?’
He looked at
her in an agony of feeling. It was now raining in earnest and the
sound of the water on the canvas almost drowned out his stifled
reply. ‘Yes. Finally. I remembered where I’d seen him before. It
was in the Chantery of Kt Ladma. He was there for a few nights, oh,
about twenty years ago. He led the kinesis devotions and preached
the sermon at Prostration one night, I recall.’
‘And—?’
‘He wasn’t
called Meldor then,’ he said bitterly. ‘He was Knight Edion of
Galman. Of the Knighten Ordering, the holiest and wisest of them
all.’ Tears welled up in his eyes. ‘How could he be deserting
Chantry, Keris? We revered him. Above all others, we revered him.
When he spoke, our hearts were swelling up like puff-pigeons just
to be hearing him. He was preaching such ideas: brotherhood,
understanding… People strewed flower petals under his feet when he
walked in the town, in recognition of his learning and piety. And
then one day he disappeared.’
Her mind
reeled. A man so saintly it was said that even the Sanhedrin knelt
when he entered a room. A man who had led a life of wandering
austerity, owning nothing, relying eternally on charity to feed and
shelter him. A Chantry Knight who had chosen a life of teaching,
Edion had embarked on journeys to all stabilities, dispensing the
word of the Holy Books, expounding, explaining and enlightening.
Even she had heard of him. He had brought a message of hope, rather
than obedience, and the people had loved him, loved him more
perhaps than his fellow chantors had.
‘He didn’t
desert Chantry, Chantry deserted him. They excluded him,’ she said,
‘because of his blindness. Or maybe because he spoke too much
truth. They threw him out, removed him from the Knighten Ordering
and excluded him. After the kind of life he had led, the kind of
man he had been? It was unjust!’
‘Such a
knightly man should have been able to accept the burden,’ he said.
‘He could have preached in the Unstable. Maker knows, there’s
enough work to be done here among the tainted and the Unstablers.
Instead he turned to the forbidden. To ley.’
‘You’d like to
denounce him, wouldn’t you?’
He ducked his
head to avoid her gaze. ‘What’s the point? He’ll stop me if I try.
Let him go his own evil way without you. I don’t care what he
does.’
She stared at
him in surprise. ‘You should care.’
He caught her
look of surprise and reddened. ‘I—er—right now I’m just a
traveller. Like anybody else.’
Why
,
she thought,
all he cares about is getting himself to the Eighth
so he can bed his chantora.
Portron did not want to involve
himself in Chantry controversy along the way. She felt a sharp
disappointment, which was irrational seeing that she really did not
want Meldor to face Chantry wrath.
Portron shook
his head sadly. ‘He wasn’t really a Trician, you know. The “of
Galman” was honorific, bestowed on him by Chantry because of his
saintly character. I can’t believe it of him…that he would come to
this.’ He was still shaking his head in disbelief as he left
her.
~~~~~~~
The
ley-crossing of the Wide, long dreaded by Keris, passed without
incident. The colours of the line remained pale and dormant around
their feet with no hint of Lord Carasma or his Minions.
The fording of
the Flow, which she had not feared at all, was much worse. A thick
yellowish cloud of vapour resembling teased wool hung over the
river that morning. When she entered it, her throat rasped, her
eyes stung and her ears rang with sound. Quirk doubled over,
coughing. Worse, it was impossible to see further than a horse’s
length ahead. Blinking back tears, she failed to keep a watch on
the person in front—Corrian—and the next time she looked, there was
no one there. No Corrian, no horses or mules, no fellowship.
She called
out, but the sound of her voice was muffled and thin, suffocated in
the mist-smoke. Nervously she urged Ygraine on, hoping the horse
would find its own way through. Beneath its feet, the water of the
river was sluggish and shallow. The horror was in being closed off
from the rest of the world, in being out of touch with the others,
in hearing that keening sound in her ears.
She tried to
convince herself that a fog could not sing, but the dirge went on,
whispering its melody intimately into her head with each tendril of
vapour. There were no words, just a tuneless song, a lament that
faded in and out as the vapour thickened and thinned.
Once or twice
she thought she caught glimpses of shapes wading through the water,
shapes that were too small to be mounted riders, but then the fog
would close in and whatever they were would vanish. She kept
swinging around, trying to find the others, but there was no sign
of them. She was no longer sure she was heading the right way, and
was forced to halt Ygraine. She looked down at the water, trying to
decide the direction of its flow so that she could orient herself,
but the river seemed stagnant, lifeless.
Is this
also part of the disintegration of our world?
she wondered. A
river that does not flow. That has no sea to flow to
anymore
…
She gave
Ygraine her head once more and gripped Tousson’s lead-rein tighter.
Over to her left there was a violent splashing, but she could see
nothing. The water reached Ygraine’s belly and the horses slowed.
Then, out of the yellowish fug ahead, something dark loomed: rocks.
A low huddle of rocks barely breaking the river surface, and
someone crouched on them. A naked youth.
She halted,
uncertain. Through the smudge of the mist, the boy grinned at her,
a mischievous grin of glee. Even partially obscured, he seemed
beautiful, golden, lithe, all slim muscle and youthful strength.
Water glistened across his skin, slid down the midline of his chest
to be lost in golden curls. Keris looked for the Unmaker’s sigil,
but there was none. He stood and turned his back. For a brief
second he looked over his shoulder and smiled, then he dived into
the water—and vanished. She drew a sharp breath at what she had
seen as he unfolded himself from his crouch and turned his back:
the triple set of swollen nipples on his chest, the grotesquely
elongated penis below, an animal’s appendage rather than a human’s,
surely, the viciously taloned feet and spurred calves, the furred
and ridged back ending in a tail…
She dug in her
heels and slapped Ygraine across the rump, not knowing why fear
clawed at her insides, urging her to run. Wasn’t he just an Unbound
man, to be pitied?
But something
told her otherwise. The face and arms and thighs had seemed human,
but the rest had been more than just a distortion of a human form.
The rest had been pure animal, corrupted animal. A half-forgotten
tale heard in the mapmaker’s shop slid into her mind: they say
Minions breed with their Wild sometimes and the offspring are…
Are what?
Vile?
She had forgotten. She was not sure she wanted to
remember.
The water
shallowed, Ygraine heaved her way out of the river on to the sand
of the bank—and balked, startled as more figures loomed in the fog.
It was the animal-youth again, and this time he was not alone. A
man stood with his arm draped casually across the naked golden
shoulders. He was immaculately dressed in a Trician’s costume, yet
with additional gold chains and brooches and other ornaments
forbidden to the unencoloured. His shirt was unhooked to the waist
to show the sigil fused to his skin, as if the owner was proud of
his allegiance.