Across the Face of the World (65 page)

He talked too of the politics of his homeland, describing how Dhauria had remained hidden from Faltha, taking advantage of its location on the far side of Dessica, the Great Desert, because of the fear of being contaminated by the secular Falthans, heathens who had rejected the memory of the Most High. He spoke of the difficulties this isolationism brought to his home, the hardening of habits into rigid traditions, where freedoms were imposed as laws, and his abiding frustration with them.

In truth, he conversed with himself rather than with Leith, reassembling his thoughts, contrasting what he had seen in Faltha with the way his own people lived, trying to sort out what things he should reject and what things he should take back to Dhauria.

His voice returned to them as a great echo; apparently they had entered another chamber, larger even than Wambakalven if the echoes were to be believed. Leith and Phemanderac stepped out of the water, their exertions having warmed them in spite of the coldness of the river.

'I'm the only Dhaurian ever to cross the Great Desert, do you know?'

Leith was not able to read into this remark the significance its speaker demanded, and grunted some noncommittal acknow¬ledgement.

'Imagine if Firanes was isolated from the rest of the world.' Phemanderac pressed on with his thoughts, obviously trying to make a point. 'How many years would it take for the culture to freeze into a collection of meaningless rituals?'

Leith shook his head, then realised that Phemanderac could not see him. 'I don't know what you mean.'

'All my life I've argued with the scholars and the leaders of my country, trying to convince them that it is time to be drawn once again into the affairs of Faltha. We have lost something, I tell them, by hiding away on our island. But no, the leaders are afraid of losing their mandate, their so-called anointing from the Most High as prophets of His word; they remain separate and so ensure their purity - and their uselessness. Whenever I spoke to them of this they reminded me of Dhaur Bitan, the story of the Destroyer - are you familiar with it? - who sought his own paths, travelling beyond the Vale and so becoming corrupt. "You will suffer the same fate as he," they warned me. "But we are called to be the prophets of Faltha," I said.

"How can we prophesy to Faltha if we never go there?" Yet this logic could not overcome their fear of the unknown. I asked permission to travel across Dessica, the Great Desert; they would not give it. I begged for their leave and their blessing; I was sent away with a curse.

They pronounced judge¬ment on me, accusing me of the heresy of evangelism, seeking to risk contamination for the sake of telling others. Yet you are a prophet, the voice within said to me; that is your mandate. So I said goodbye to my teacher and my family, and followed the voice.

'Leith, I don't mean to belittle my countrymen and women. I wish I could describe their inner beauty, fragile like the purest crystal. They have much that Faltha needs, yet they withhold it for fear of losing it. And now I have travelled across Faltha, from Sarista to Sna Vaztha, from Nemohaim to Straux, and have seen that the descendants of the First Men have not entirely forgotten He who called them into being. From the highest to the lowest the faint aroma of holiness can still be discerned, though it has been many generations since He came to you Falthans with fire.

'And on you, my friend, there is more than a faint aroma. It is all over you. You have been marked out for some great purpose; your falling in with me is proof that the Most High orders both our lives, and that I have not fallen prey to the same temptations that assailed the Destroyer, as my leaders feared. If only I could take you back to Dhauria with me, show you to the Assembly of Scholars, and tell them that of such as you will arise the Hand of God -

how could they fail to be convinced?'

Leith had no chance to reply, though questions left unanswered since his meeting with the Hermit seemed about to spill out of him. Phemanderac continued with rising vehemence.

'Yet they would not see us! I have been sent into exile, no longer welcome in my own country because of the heresy I believe. To have befriended you would be to them proof of my decadence. Oh Most High, what are we to do? The Hand of God is about to be revealed, just as Arminia prophesied all those years ago. What will he find when he comes? A people asleep, a people afraid, an enemy poised and ready to invade!' His anguished voice echoed from the cavern walls.

'Leith,' he said as the echoes died down, 'what do you think we should do?'

The youth from Loulea sat down on the sandy floor of the cavern, struggling towards an answer.

'I have no choice,' he said finally. 'My Company was charged with two tasks. We were to rescue my parents from the Bhrudwans;

well, we've done that. Then we were to go on to Instruere and tell the Council of Leaders of the threatened Bhrudwan invasion.

I need to get out of these endless caves, find my friends and complete the task.'

'But what about the Hand of God?'

'I know only what you have said, and what my father told us about Andratan and the questions he was asked there. There was no Hand of God in Loulea when we left. We're a simple village, farmers and artisans. Not a famous warrior among us.'

'Yet you tell me a group of "simple villagers", as you call your¬selves, set out after four dread Bhrudwan warriors, servants of the Lords of Fear or maybe even Lords themselves, and succeeded in defeating them. From where I come that would be seen as proof that the Most High has indeed chosen you and equipped you beyond your knowledge for some great purpose. Tell me: would you believe a group of people from your village if they told you they had won a great victory over the most feared fighters in the world?'

'No.'

'Then perhaps you are not what you think you are. Perhaps others in your village are not what they seem. Perhaps the Hand of God has already risen; perhaps he has left Loulea already.

Perhaps he is here.'

Leith could do nothing but laugh bitterly in the face of the hollow feeling that rose within him. 'Phemanderac, you don't know me. You're right; things are not what they seem. I'm not even a normal villager. The boys laugh at me; they mock my fears, my worries, my tears. I'm a crybaby. They tell me that I have to do things for them if I want to be their friend. None of the girls will be seen with me, because the others would tease them. I'm too weak, too small, I speak too much, I have a cripple for a brother.

'Then I come on this journey, and you say things about "great¬ness" and "purpose". Not only you. We met a hermit, a religious man, who said similar things. What am I supposed to think?

I would give everything, everything, just to be like the others, to be one of them. I don't want to be great! I don't want to be different! I - want - to - be - left -

alone!'

The inner dam burst, and Leith cried bitter tears. Phemanderac stood close by, not knowing what to do.

'Listen to me,' he said finally. 'You remind me of a boy I used to know back in my homeland, one who struggled with his calling. I remember him crying out in the night, when he thought no one else could hear: "I want to be like the others!" But in His mercy the Most High did not grant his prayer.' The voice coming from the close darkness seemed strangely flat after the animation of a few moments earlier.

'One day he told his teacher about these things. I remember it clearly. "You are fighting with yourself," the teacher said, "and you cannot win. Every unique thing you succeed in locking away, out of reach of the ridicule of others, is a defeat for you and for everyone else. Your only hope is to abandon all hope of being like them, and learn who you are."

'This boy learned that his friends ridiculed what they did not understand. He learned to value his gifts. He learned to put them in the hands of the Most High. Now his life is free of that constant inner battle. Mind you,' he added with a laugh, 'his feet still get cold!'

Through his misery Leith heard Phemanderac sit down. A moment later, the soft sound of notes like liquid fire began to dance around them.

'I thought you lost that!' Leith cried, amazed.

'My friend,' came the reply, 'if I had not been able to get my harp through the underground river, I would still be under water now, trying to free it. Now be silent, and listen.'

The music that unfolded was a series of low notes with no apparent rhythm or melody, played softly; a sound that spoke of solidity, of the unchanging earth, of the undergirding arms that held them close throughout the summers and the winters. Leith was reminded somehow of a little boy lying awake in bed and listening to his father humming tunelessly as he worked late into the night; of the comfort and security that the unfailing presence of his father had brought to him; of the love his family shared, a love that he had locked himself away from as a sense of betrayal had taken hold deep within him, fuelled by the absence of his father...

Memories came tumbling out with the music: the laughter of the children as crippled Hal walked past; his father riding away with the messengers of the King; his mother crying at night when she thought the children were asleep; a boy taunting him until he could stand it no longer and rushed him, arms flailing wildly, but was knocked down by a single blow; standing under the Common Oak waiting for a girl who never came; Stella and Wira, hand in hand; her voice as they huddled together on the ice; the voice of his father. The tears continued to come, there in the unknowing dark, beyond the gaze of those who saw fit to ridicule a boy who reacted to things differently, bittersweet tears of remorse and release that flowed as the music lanced the darkness within.

Leith awoke hours later to the sound of tranquil music. He and Phemanderac spoke little, concentrating on their downward journey following the never-ending stream. Their footfalls shusshed in the sand or echoed dully on stone. Time and again they took to the stream itself as their passage was blocked by unseen pillars or walls. I'll never again ridicule poor Augon of Spindlewood, Leith resolved, thinking of the blind farmer who lived north of Loulea. The cavern narrowed about them until once again it was a mere tunnel the width of the stream.

The roof lowered until they were forced to stoop, and Leith soon added to his collection of bruises. Smooth walls indicated that the tunnel would be submerged in times of flood. To the left it swung, then to the right, water surging around their waists as the two men struggled onwards. Another, gentler curve to the right, with a dim glow ahead, a glow that made Leith's eyes water. Steadily it increased, shining on the green walls, dappling the surface of the water, making a silhouette of Phemanderac and his harp as he forged through the stream slightly ahead of Leith. Then suddenly they were out of the tunnel into the overwhelming light of day, the cave disgorging the stream and the two travellers, blinking owl-like, into the bottom of a bush-clad, steep-sided gorge under the morning sun.

Footsteps faded away into cold silence. Apart from two dead bodies, Mahnum was now alone in Wambakalven. He grimaced as he examined what was left of the fat man he had taken hostage. In their panic, the guards had hacked the man into a mangled, sodden mess, then had run off. What had scared them? The man had obvi¬ously been a leader, a man of importance, of some stature in the fastness of Adunlok.

He spent fruitless time in that ill-fated chamber looking for any sign that might indicate what had happened to his son. For a while he searched silently, but as his desperation increased, so his caution diminished, and near the end he found himself shouting for Leith with no regard for his own safety. However, no one came to inves¬tigate the source of the noise, or to find the dead guard and the fat man, perhaps because of the battle that no doubt still raged far above.

Finally frustration and sorrow mastered him, and he sank tiredly to his knees by the path.

Leith was not in the cavern, that was obvious, so what were the logical alternatives? He forced himself to think, pushing his mind through the blackness of his despair and self-doubt.

The most likely alternative seemed to be that he and his companion had escaped up one of the dark tunnels near the pool, at the lower end of the cave. Less likely, but still possible, was that they had retraced their steps and taken the wider path back up to Adunlok, pursued by the guards. Less likely because surely Mahnum would have seen them.

He would have to do something, and a desperate plan began to form in his mind. But did he remember enough of the Widuz tongue to carry it off? He doubted it, but since there seemed to be no other course of action, he shed his cloak and breeches, took the uniform from the guard he had slain and dressed himself in it, then disposed of his own clothes by throwing them on to the horri¬fying mound at the bottom of Helig Holth. Take heart, he told himself, you've done this before, you can do it again. People don't like to ask questions. Just remain inconspicuous. IfLeith has escaped up to Adunlok, you'll find him. If not. . .

In less than thirty minutes, he stood on the far side of the hidden door. He straightened the uniform, slightly too large for him and blood-stained near his left armpit, and hoped he was presentable.

A solitary figure stood in this, the lowest passage, staring out of one of the small, round windows, but did not turn to see who had come through the door. Perhaps he did not hear the door's soft click. Mahnum brushed past him, trying to look as though he was in a hurry to go somewhere, breath held, his back prickling with nervousness.

'What are you doing here? Go down to Numen Scou and help bury our dead!' The figure turned towards Mahnum, impatience written on his face. The keys at his side rattled as he slapped his side angrily. 'I want. Adunlok emptied. I want every Widuz gath¬ered at the pyre within the hour. Go!'

Little of this was intelligible to Mahnum, but he could read the look on the face of this Widuz, and could understand the impa¬tient gesture. He nodded noncommittally, then turned and made his way up the passage to the stairs.

The second level was empty. Mahnum hurried up the narrow stone stairway to the uppermost level. He turned to the right, hurried down the passage lit only by a flickering torch, and tried the first door. Locked. One after another proved to be locked, with thick bolts drawn across what were clearly cell doors. There was no way of ascertaining if any cells contained prisoners, let alone whether Leith was held here, without making a dangerous amount of noise. The passage ended abruptly at a cold stone wall, the final end of all hopes.