Angus Wells - The God Wars 01 (74 page)

 
          
"You
go swamp." The words came sibilant, said slowly, as if with effort in a hard-learned
tongue. "You look for guide ... I hear you talk .. . with ek'Salar ... He
say no ... No guide ... but I take you .. . show you way."

 
          
Calandryll's
face reflected his uncertainty: ek'Salar had told them the halflings served the
hunters; they cleaned and cooked, acted as porters, flensed the dragon
carcasses. Nothing had been said of their use as guides.

 
          
"I
am called Yssym." It sounded like Yssym: he was not sure. "I guide
you ... I know swamp.”

 
          
A
hand pointed to the boats, to the swamps.

 
          
"Can
you trust him?" Tekkan asked.

 
          
"Trust
me ... Yssym guide you," said the creature. "Yssym know swamp ...
Trust Yssym."

 
          
Calandryll
studied his face. It was impossible to read, the shape, the color of the eyes,
too alien; it was not made to express human emotion. He stared into the yellow
orbs, uncertain.

 
          
Then
the halfling said, "I bring you to Tezin-dar ... Yssym know how ... Bring
you to Tezin-dar ... Yssym promise."

 
          
Calandryll
turned to the raftlike boats, looking down to where Bracht and Katya waited.
"A halfling—Yssym— offers his services as guide. Do we accept?"

 
          
The
two exchanged glances,- Katya shrugged, Bracht said, "He may well know the
swamp, and we've no other guide—bring him."

 
          
"Come
then," Calandryll said, hoping he did the right thing.

 
          
Yssym
swung fluidly into the foremost boat, Calandryll close behind, and the husky
Vanu men took up the poles, propelling the flat-bottomed craft smoothly along
the slender ribbon of reed-free water that wound inland toward the distant line
of mangroves. The
halfling
crouched
at the prow, touching the harpoons with a nod of approval. Calandryll realized
he gave off a faintly piscine odor: it was no worse than the stink of the
hunters and he settled beside the creature, taking his copy of Orwen's chart
from the satchel.

 
          
"This
was drawn by a man who came here long ago," he said, speaking slowly in
the Kand tongue, touching the map, "We are here; Tezin-dar is here. You
know the swamp between?"

 
          
Yssym
stared at the map and ducked his strange head, that affirmative accompanied by
a clicking sound.

 
          
"Old
Ones help Orwen," it sounded like
Awhenn,
"make map... No
hunters then ... Swamp belong..." the name was a whistling sound,
Syfalheen,
as best Calandryll could tell. "Swamp cnange ... But Tezin-dar there."

 
          
He
tapped a clawed finger to the chart and raised it to point ahead, indicating a
place invisible beyond the mangrove forest.

 
          
"You—the
Syfalheen—knew Orwen?" Calandryll was surprised, turning to glance at his
companions.

 
          
"Old
Ones know, yes," Yssym said, "Syfalheen know all swamp."

 
          
"The
Syfalheen," Bracht spoke over Calandryll's shoulder, "Are they what
ek'Salar warned us against?"

 
          
Yssym's
smooth-skinned head swung ponderously to face the Kem, his features immobile.
"I am Syfalheen," he hissed, "all swamp people Syfalheen ...
Sometimes hunters kill Syfalheen and Syfalheen fight hunters. But Yssym bring
you to clan elders ... They help you reach Tezin-dar if you the ones Yssym wait
for. Old Ones say men come seeking Tezin-dar ... to find book ... Syfalheen
watch for them."

 
          
"You
were waiting for us?" Calandryll stared, shocked, at the
halfling.
"How could
you—how could the Old Ones—know?"

 
          
"Old
Ones know." Yssym shrugged, an oddly human gesture. "Old Ones good,
wise ... Send watchers."

 
          
Calandryll
heard the plural and asked, "You were not the first?"

 
          
Yssym's
mouth moved in what might have been a smile: he shook his head.

 
          
"Always
watcher. Old Ones say must always be watcher."

 
          
"These
Old Ones?" Calandryll asked. "Who are they? Are they Syfalheen?"

 
          
Again
the halfling's head moved in a negative circle. "Old Ones like you, men
... Friends to Syfalheen."

 
          
"Where
are they, the Old Ones?"

 
          
Calandryll
was aware of Bracht and Katya pressing close, intent on this strange
conversation.

 
          
"Deep
swamp." Yssym pointed ahead again and faced Calandryll. "Tezin-dar
... Old Ones live in Tezin-dar ... Guard book."

 
          
"You
have seen them? Spoken with them?"

 
          
"Syfalheen
not go to Tezin-dar. That holy place ... But Old Ones speak long, long time
past ... Say to my ... father's father, his father ... Before him ... Send
watcher. Yssym watcher now."

 
          
"How
do you know we are the ones?" Calandryll demanded.

 
          
"Old
Ones say three come." A webbed hand rose to angle a claw at Calandryll, at
Bracht, at Katya. "Old Ones say watch for three and bring them to swamp .
.. Elders know ... I t
h
i
n
k you the three ... If not, you die in
swamp."

 
          
"A
test," Bracht murmured, "Varent said the book was guarded."

 
          
Calandryll
nodded, watching the line of grey trees loom larger, his mind racing. That they
must communicate in the tongue of
Kandahar
was a curse: Yssym was able to make himself
understood only with difficulty, his mouth, his tongue not formed to shape the
words, his vocabulary limited whilst what he said held both promise of aid and
threat. "Were we not," he asked, "Not the ones—why should we not
force you to take us there?"

 
          
"You
not know swamp," Yssym answered flatly. "Not even hunters go into
deep swamp where Syfalheen live . . . Men die there, like ek'Salar say. You not
ones, you die."

 
          
"But
we have you," Calandryll insisted.

 
          
"You
not force me," Yssym said simply. "You kill me, but not force me. Not
matter if I die . .. You wrong ones, you die in swamp . . . Dragons eat you . .
. Trees ... I bring you to worms ... No man," Calandryll wondered if the
flat, sibilant voice infused the word with a measure of contempt, "live in
deep swamp ... Not without Syfalheen help."

 
          
"Then
we are in your hands," he said.

 
          
"Yes,"
said Yssym,- bluntly.

 
          
Calandryll
smiled, accepting that finality—it seemed unavoidable—but still there was much
to occupy his mind. Varent had anticipated guardians, but not of
this
kind.
Magic, yes; but not that the inhabitants of the swamps should stand vigil over
the Arcanum—he had said nothing of this test Yssym spoke of, nor that the
mysterious Old Ones employed the Syfalheen as watchers. Who were they, these
ancients who lived in Tezin-dar? For how long had Yssym's people waited? The
halfling
had not been clear, his sense
of time unlike a man's— perhaps generations of the Syfalheen had gone to that
miserable headland, awaiting the coming of die strangers. The Old Ones had, it
now seemed obvious, foreseen that men should come seeking the Arcanum—and
prepared the way But why? If thev guarded the book why did thev not simply
close the approaches' To penetrate the swamps was difficult enough—did the
inhabitants oppose such coming, few could hope to survive—yet it seemed a path
to Tenn-dar was left deliberately open. A trap
^r
He glanced sidelong
at Yssym, the halfling crouching expressionless offering no hint of treachery,
and felt for reasons he could not define that he should trust the creature In
that he had little choice but even so he did not think Yssym intended them
harm. He had followed the stnc- tures of the Old Ones—who were men, be had
said, albeit he had never seen them—and he brought his charge to his clan, who
would test them somehow

 
          
A
design existed here that he could not comprehend. It was a web, hung like the
moss that festooned the trees, fragile as that gossamer drapery, but far harder
to grasp Three would come Yssym had said, that suggesting then arrival was
foreseen though he could not understand how A spaewife, an augur—all the
necromancers and soothsayers of his father’s palace—could do no more than
interpret the immediate future, and that usually only in terms of an individual
s future. Did the Old Ones then cast their net wider? Katya had said the holy
men of Vanu had sened Varent’s attempt to raise the Mad God and sent her forth
seeking the two men seen in that scrying— but that was of the present Yssvm
spoke in terms of some ancient prophecy a thing foreseen long ages past
prepared for—as if the Old Ones sought to bring the three they had foreseen to
the .Arcanum He could not understand why that should be so.

 
          
“I
cannot understand this," he murmured.

           
“There is no need." Katva spoke
for the first time We seek the Arcanum—Yssym brings us to it.”

           
He nodded frowning. But why? How
could they know we should come? Why send us a guide?

 
          
"We
are players in a game," she replied, echoing his own thoughts, "and
the game is larger than we mav understand Our task is to bring the .Arcanum to
Vanu, that it be destroyed forever We need know no more than that.”

           
"But Calandryll is a
scholar," Bracht said, grinning, "and be seeks the reasons for things.”

           
"You do not wonder?"
Calandryll demanded.

           
"I wonder at this test,"
the Kern shrugged. "I wonder at the dangers ahead, and that is enough for
me."

 
          
Calandryll
sighed, absently swatting at a bright green Hying thing that appeared intent on
a detailed investigation of his face despite the layer of ek'Salar's
preventative cream smeared there.

 
          
"Likely
we shall find your answers in Tezin-dar," said Katya

 
          
"Aye,"
Bracht echoed, "and sufficient to occupy you along the way."

 
          
He
nodded, wishing he could share their pragmatism, disturbing thoughts buzzing
like the insects that clouded round about his mind. He did his best to set them
aside, thoughts and insects both, the one, thanks to ek'Salar's ointments,
easier to dismiss, the other less so. He stared at the approaching trees,
closer now, and lit by the sun, massive trunks standing on widespread roots
that thrust from the swamp like the legs of gigantic spiders, the boles all
grey and green, wound with parasitic plants that displayed lurid flowers, the
reek of the brackish water sweetened by their exotic scent. The moss that at a
distance had seemed gossamer fine was now a thick curtain hung from the
intertwining limbs, alive with crawling things, draping the gaps between the
mangroves as if the inner swamp sought to curtain itself, to shut out the
world.

 
          
"Small
dragons here," Yssym warned, hefting a harpoon "We find big dragons
later."

 
          
The
boats pushed through the mossy wall into a place of shifting, subdued light,
all shadowy green and blue and gold like drifting smoke, ethereal as the
panorama of a dream The air was instantly thicker, warmer and moist, loud with
the buzzing and cluttering of insects. The sky was replaced with a canopy of
moss and vines, the domes formed by the mangrove roots hued green, patches of
open water viridescent, others a flickering blue, Hligreed where the sun lanced
occasional shafts of brilliance down through gaps in the overlay of foliage,
painting the turgid water with gold. Dark shapes moved among the shadows,
floating logs at first, inexperienced, glance; revealed as dragons only when
the great tails lashed, frothing the water as the beasts moved dear of the
boats' passage, roaring their disapproval.