Angus Wells - The God Wars 01 (80 page)

 
          
Sunlight
woke him and he rose to find the vista unchanged, save that it was now day and
the city walls clear. He hid his nakedness beneath a sheet and went to the
bathhouse, where Bracht already splashed, busily scrubbing.

 
          
"I
saw horses again," the Kem remarked, "a herd of the finest
beasts."

 
          
"And
I Secca," he returned. "At least, it seemed it was Secca."

 
          
"Do
you miss your home?"

 
          
"No,"
he said. "Do you?"

 
          
"A
little—aye," Bracht nodded; then grinned, "But then I think of our
quest—and Katya—and I am compensated."

 
          
"Where
is she?"

 
          
"Abed
still," Bracht said. "I advised her to sleep on, for modesty's
sake."

 
          
"You
become the gentleman."

 
          
Bracht
laughed hugely. "A woman's influence," he declared, and climbed from
the pool to plunge headlong into the cold water. Calandryll joined him and they
toweled themselves dry, going back to the sleeping chambers to inform Katya
that she might bathe without embarrassment as they dressed.

 
          
All
three refreshed and kitted ready to proceed, they went to the dining chamber:
the debris of the last night's meal was gone, replaced with hot bread, a bowl
of fruit, and cuts of cold meat, three mugs of tisane.

 
          
"I
also become less apprehensive of magic," Bracht smiled, "when it
provides fare such as this."

 
          
"Also?"
asked Katya, curious.

 
          
"Calandryll
remarked that I become a gentleman," Bracht explained. "I told him
that is your good influence." Katya's tan cheeks darkened a little at that
and she busied herself cutting bread.

 
          
"Were
you ever else?"

           
"Oh, yes," said the Kem
solemnly, blue eyes fixed on her face. "I was much else."

 
          
"And
I would be elsewhere," said Calandryll, "Such as the road to
Tezin-dar."

 
          
"Aye,"
Bracht nodded, smiling again. "Do you but finish, Katya, and we'll
depart."

 
          
Before
they quit that odd hostel Calandryll went to the windows, looking back down
the way they had come. Night reigned there now, the reeds silver under a full
moon, the road a golden ribbon running out into blackness. He turned to the
second door and dragged it open on day's light, the air instantly hot, steamy
with swamp stink, a massive dragon rising to bellow a challenge that started
him back, hand on sword. Bracht was at his side on the instant, falchion drawn,
and Katya close behind, her saber raised defensively.

 
          
"I
doubt," Bracht shouted over the dragon's roaring, "that swords will
have much effect on that."

 
          
Calandryll
paused within the shelter of the door, staring at the beast. It dwarfed all he
had seen, rising up on tree-trunk legs, towering over the road, its red hide
glistening, hung with streamers of slime. The jaws were spread wide, lined with
fangs more sword- than daggerlike, its fetid breath gusting noisome in his face
as the great tail lashed furiously, stirring the surface of the water to
reeking foam.

 
          
"We
must pass it," said Katya, anxiously. "Though how, I know not."

 
          
"Yssym
said the road was safe." Calandryll returned his blade to the scabbard,
pointing. "And see, it does not touch the road."

 
          
"It
need not," said Bracht. "It need only reach down to swallow us all,
whole."

 
          
"I
think not," Calandryll said. And stepped out, onto the road.

 
          
He
heard Bracht shout, "No!" and evaded the Kem's clutching hand,
striding defiantly toward the monster. It stared at him from jade green eyes,
implacable, still roaring its challenge. A second, no smaller, lifted from the
swamp, and then a third, all lining the way he sought to pass with cavernous
jaws, menacing fangs. He sensed, rather than heard, the steps behind him and
glanced backward over his shoulder to find Bracht and Katya advancing fast with
swords still drawn.

 
          
"Ahrd
grant you right," the Kem muttered.

 
          
Calandryll
saw the door that was their only refuge close unbidden, like its mate devoid of
means to open once passed through.

 
          
"Shall
you use the stone?" asked Bracht.

 
          
Calandryll
had all but forgotten the red stone still hung about his neck and shmgged, not
knowing how to utilize that power; nor thinking that it would be needed: Yssym
had said the road was safe so long as they remained upon it. "Have
faith," he urged.

 
          
Bracht's
reply was lost beneath the dragons' thunder. Calandryll walked on.

 
          
Foul
breath rendered the already unfresh air noxious. His head dinned with the
roaring; he saw the jaws spread wide,
hinging
toward him. And halt as if
some barrier, invisible, interposed between swamp and road's edge. The great
fangs clattered together, snapping closed on nothing. Blunt noses probed. The
tails lashed angrily, churning waves of swamp water that he saw did not—could
not!—reach the road. That remained dry, the flags untouched, stretching onward
between the trees that closed above, hiding the sky. Still he could not help
but quicken his pace as he passed beneath the dragons. He sought to walk
leisurely, but for all his belief, near panic gripped his limbs and he began to
trot, looking nervously about as the beasts bellowed and struggled uselessly to
reach him. Then he was among the trees and the dragons too large to venture
there, their own massive bulk denying them access: he halted, panting and
laughing, together.

 
          
"Have
faith," he repeated, "Yssym spoke true."

 
          
Bracht
and Katya sheathed their blades, their faces both pale. "It calls for
faith to risk those," the Kem said hoarsely. He looked back to where the
dragons stood, grumbling like distant thunder, jaws snapping irritably.
"Faith or madness. Ahrd! One wrong-placed step ..."

 
          
"I
suspect this road safe passage and test, both," Calandryll said. "On
it, we cannot be harmed; but do we allow these creatures to panic us ... as you
say—one wrong-placed step."

           
"Are they then the creations of
magic?" wondered Katya. "Or living beasts?"

 
          
"Those
jaws look real enough to me," Bracht grunted. "But wait—I'll put it
to the test."

 
          
He
rummaged in his pack, bringing out a piece of dried meat that he flung out over
the swamp. A dragon turned its head, attracted by the movement, snout darting
toward the morsel, that disappearing between the jaws. "I vouch them
real," he declared.

 
          
"Then
is all this real?" Katya gestured at the looming mangroves. "Do we
traverse Gessyth? And if we do, might this road not be found by means other
than the gate?"

 
          
"Those
dragons have substance," Bracht said, "and teeth, and so I deem this
Gessyth. As for the road—I know not."

 
          
"I
think we cross Gessyth," Calandryll suggested, "but by some way found
only through the gate—and that entered only with the aid of the syfaba, who in
turn show only those judged true by the Old One. I think we pass along some
magical dimension."

 
          
"Or
stand idling," said Bracht. "How far, think you, to Tezin-dar?"

 
          
Calandryll
fetched out the map, kneeling to spread it on the smooth, dry stone of the
road, remembering the elders' laughter. "I think," he said, touching
the parchment. "that the Syfalheen village stood here. A day's march would
bring us here." His finger tapped an area designated by Orwen 'Dyre swampe,
where monstyres be an alle maimer of foule creationnes moste peryllousse to
menne.' "Tezin-dar is here."

 
          
Bracht
looked to where he indicated and grunted. "Winter will be on us ere we
walk that far."

 
          
"Save
that we tread a magical path," Calandryll replied, "which I believe
will bring us to the city swifter than we know."

 
          
"Grant
that you guess it aright," said the Kem.

 
          
"In
time we shall know," he nodded, folding the map.

 
          
They
went on, down a tunnel overhung with moss- draped limbs, the light become an
insubstantial haze of bluish-green, the water that boundaried the road black,
the trees huge columns of grey. The lesser menaces of the swamp were here, like
the dragons, magnified: they saw
gnshas
large as a man's hand scuttling
over the moss, and
yennym
like serpents writhing among the spiderlegged
roots, great shoals of
shivim
rippled the water, and where the lovely,
deadly flowers of the
feshyn
bloomed, they were the size of platters.
But none breached the safety of the road and the three strode on, holding to
the center, marching steadily until hunger called a halt.

 
          
They
partook of the food the Syfalheen had provided and rested a while before
continuing, still among the mangroves, still traversing a tunnel that denied
sight of the sky, the sun lost and all sense of time with it so that they could
judge the hour only by the weariness that assailed their limbs and the growing
pangs of hunger in their bellies. Calandryll had hoped to encounter another
hostel before they were forced to halt, but of such refuge there was no sign
and they finally succumbed to aching muscles, settling at the road's center to
eat and sleep.

 
          
There
was no indication that night harbored intention of falling, the blue-green haze
remaining constant, a depressing twilight poised, eternally it seemed, between
night and day, the air busy with the sounds of the giant insects, the tidelike
rippling of the predator fish and the far-off bellowing of dragons. Near
exhaustion granted them respite from that clamor, but still they woke more
than
a little stiff, and less
rested than before, rising to massage knotted muscles before starting off again
through the trees.

 
          
They
could tell no better here than before how long they marched, allowing their
bodies to dictate their halts and counting it a day between waking and sleeping
for want of better calendar. By that reckoning it was five days before they
came to the second building.

 
          
Like
its predecessor this stood across the road as though a single block of stone
were set in their way, and it possessed the same impossible dimensions, larger
within than without. They entered with no hesitation to find themselves in the
twin of the first refuge, crossing immediately to the farther windows to
inspect the path ahead. They saw a water meadow filled with lilies and dragons,
spread out as far as their eyes could see, the road a fragile-seeming ribbon of
stone still straight across the water, lit red-gold by a sun that fell toward
its setting.

 
          
"What
time has passed?" Calandryll wondered aloud.

 
          
"The
sun was new risen when we came on the road and sets now—a day? No more than
that?"

 
          
"My
legs claim longer," Bracht murmured.

 
          
"You
said it yourself—we traverse the dimensions of magic," Katya said.
"Though the dirt I feel is real enough—I'm to the bathhouse."

 
          
She
left them to explore, finding all as before, and when they, too, had rid
themselves of the sweaty detritus of their journey they ate, and drank good
wine before retiring, thankful for beds softer than the unyielding stone of the
road.