Descent of Angels (14 page)

Trying to defuse the tension, Zahariel smiled at Nemiel to show he was only joking, but his cousin was unwilling to soften his stance. Still annoyed, Nemiel stared back at him in frustration. Attias and Eliath sat in silence, seeing that to intrude on the cousins’ discussion would not be prudent.

‘I
T
’
S NO LAUGHING
matter, Zahariel. This beast could kill you. Remember, I was there when the winged monster attacked us. It’s easy to think you’re immortal when you’re wearing armour and armed with a fine pistol and motorised sword, but our weapons and our artifice mean nothing in the face of such creatures. This isn’t something to be treated lightly. It’s a serious business.’

‘I know it is,’ replied Zahariel. ‘Don’t misunderstand me. I realise the dangers of the quest ahead of me. I know the weight of it. But what you see as a terrible problem, I see as an advantage. You know the Order’s teachings as well as I do. In all our lessons with our masters, in all the combat drills and practice sessions, in all the mock duels and tourneys we have experienced since we came here, we have been striving for one thing: excellence. It is the only quality that gives any meaning to a man’s life. It is the only thing that makes us worthy of knighthood. It is the Order’s founding ideal. You know the words, “The life of mankind should be devoted to the pursuit of excellence in all its forms, both as a species and as individuals”.’

‘You don’t need to quote the
Verbatim
to me,’ snapped Nemiel. ‘Master Ramiel drummed it into both our heads. I know it by heart as well as you.’

‘Then you’ll remember something else that is written in it. “To help achieve and demonstrate this excellence, we will test ourselves to our limits. Only through the sternest challenges can we know the true shape of our character.” That’s what the Order’s teachings say: to our limits, the sternest challenges. I’d hardly be following those lessons if I had refused this quest because I was afraid I might find it too hard.’

‘Those are our ideals, yes,’ agreed Nemiel, ‘but we have to be realistic. If the stories about this beast are true, it’s the kind of creature that only a party of experienced knights could bring down. Even Lord Jonson was badly wounded before he brought his Calibanite lion down. It’s not a suitable challenge for a supplicant.’

‘You may be right,’ admitted Zahariel, ‘but when Amadis gave me his pistol I had to accept the quest. If we start trying to choose our quests on the basis of how easy we’d like them to be, we will be on the slippery slope to ruin. Anyway, let’s not argue. The decision is made, and it’s too late to change it. I’ve committed myself to this quest. The most we can do is share a drink and hope we both live to see each other again.’

Zahariel stood and lifted the goblet in his hand.

‘To the life tomorrow, cousin,’ he said, raising the goblet in a toast.

In response, Nemiel smiled in resignation and raised his own goblet.

‘To the life tomorrow,’ replied Nemiel, his eyes glistening with tears.

SEVEN

‘Y
OU TAKE THE
trail eastwards,’ said the woodsman.

He led the way on foot down the forest path while Zahariel followed behind him on his destrier. ‘You keep going ’til you reach a piece of clearing just past an old tree that’s hit by lightning. It’s fire-black and split in two down the middle, you can’t miss it. That’s where the gathering party was heading. Course, it could be they never reached it. If they did, you should be able to pick up their tracks from there.’

The man’s name was Narel. Lord Domiel of Endriago had introduced Zahariel to him as he prepared to leave the frightened town through the splintered and heavily barricaded main gates.

Narel was one of the woodsmen who lived in the castle and worked the lands surrounding its walls. Braver than his fellows, he had agreed to lead Zahariel into the forest in search of the beast. Specifically, he had promised to show Zahariel the trail taken by a party of men and women who had failed to return after daring to venture into the forest yesterday to gather much needed firewood and foodstuffs.

‘People told them they was being foolhardy,’ Narel said. ‘They told them they’d likely run into the beast, but what was they to do? They all had youngsters, and plenty of mouths to feed back home. Winter’s coming, and if you want to stay alive you’ve got to gather food and fuel. It’s just the way things are out here. Besides, they was well-armed, and there was a dozen of them all together, so you’d think there’d be safety in numbers. There ain’t no safety in these woods now though, I guess, not from the beast.’

Narel was nearly half the age of Lord Domiel of Endriago, but it had swiftly become clear that the woodsman was as garrulous as his lord and master. All the way along the trail, as he guided Zahariel through the forest, Narel had yattered on incessantly. He had a tendency to talk quietly while constantly casting anxious glances at the trees and the undergrowth around them. The woodsman was clearly nervous, as though he expected the beast to leap out at them at any moment.

‘Course, those youngsters won’t get no food now,’ said Narel, checking for the twentieth time that there was a round in the breech of his bolt-action rifle and the trigger safety was off. ‘Could be they’ll starve, unless someone takes them in. Not me, though. I got sympathies, but me and the wife have got our own pack of hungry mouths. That’s the real tragedy of it, you ask me. Every time the beast kills, it makes another band of orphans. Killed more than a hundred and eighty people all told. That’s a lot of children having to go without mothers or fathers.’

Zahariel could understand the man’s nervousness. From what Narel had told him, he had known most of the beast’s victims, at least the ones that had come from Endriago. A number of them had even been his relatives. Given the size of the community and the extended kinship relationships that operated in Caliban’s more isolated regions, such a situation was not unusual.

Everyone in Endriago had lost neighbours, friends and family members to the beast that stalked the forests. In his short time in the castle, it had been obvious to Zahariel that fear of the beast was a palpable force within its walls. He would have been hard pressed to find a man, woman or child who was not terrified of the creature.

The people of Endriago no longer ventured outside their settlement unless it was absolutely necessary, and having seen the fury and depth of the claw marks on the castle gate, Zahariel was inclined to feel that such fear was entirely justified.

The beast had turned them into virtual prisoners behind the castle’s battlements, and this combined with Brother Amadis’s death, made Zahariel more determined than ever to kill the foul monster.

The current situation could not last forever. As Narel had said, the seasons were changing. Winter was on its way. Soon, the inhabitants of Endriago would be given a hard choice. Their food stocks would need to be replenished if they were to get through the bitterly cold months ahead.

Either they faced a slow lingering death through starvation, or they would have to enter the forest and risk the wrath of the beast.

The party of men and women that had gone out yesterday had already made their decision. It had ended badly for them, but there was an entire settlement whose further existence hung in the balance.

If the beast was allowed to continue unchecked, if no one hunted it down and killed it, there would be more tragedies in the forests around Endriago.

There would be more grief. There would be more orphans.

Many lives had already been taken, and no community could afford to suffer such losses indefinitely.

The weight of responsibility on Zahariel’s shoulders was enormous.

If he failed to kill the beast it was not just his own life at stake, it was the life of Endriago and all the families that dwelt within it.

‘Anyway, this is it,’ said Narel. He had halted partway along the trail, and looked at Zahariel with an expression of acute discomfort. ‘You remember I said I couldn’t take you the whole way. I mean, I would, but I got a wife and youngsters myself. You understand, right? I got people to look after.’

‘I understand,’ replied Zahariel. ‘I should be able to find my way from here.’

‘All right, then,’ nodded Narel.

The woodsman turned to begin the journey back to Endriago, glancing briefly over his shoulder at Zahariel before he left. ‘I wish you safe passage through the dark, Zahariel of the Order. May the Watchers guide you and comfort you. Be sure I will make an offering on your behalf tonight. It has been good to know you.’

With that, he walked away and did not turn back again.

O
NCE THE WOODSMAN
was gone and Zahariel had continued a little way ahead on the trail, he found his mind dwelling at length on the words Narel had said to him before he left.

It was obvious that Narel did not expect him to survive.

The woodsman had not used any of the standard expressions of farewell. There had been no mention of the ‘life tomorrow’ or similar phrases. In their place, he had made a curious decision in his choice of words. He had wished safe passage to Zahariel in the dark.

He had asked for the Watchers to guide and comfort him.

He had even gone so far as to promise to make an offering on his behalf. On Caliban, these were not the words that anyone would say to someone they expected see again. They were words of benediction, not of farewell.

According to one of the more commonly held beliefs about death on Caliban, once a person died his soul journeyed to the underworld where it would be made to walk a spiral path, which – depending on the deceased’s actions in life – would lead him either to hell or to rebirth. This was the source of the words Narel had said to him. They were from a well-known funeral rite, where, in the context of the ceremony, they were intended as a plea, asking for the guardians of the spirit world to intervene on behalf of the dead.

Zahariel took no offence at Narel’s words. He did not suspect they were anything but well intentioned. There were no great cities on Caliban, but even by those standards the settlements of the Northwilds were comparative backwaters.

The old ways held considerable sway in places like Endriago.

By his own beliefs, Narel had probably thought he was paying Zahariel a great honour in attempting to ease his journey through the underworld, a prospect he no doubt saw as inevitable once Zahariel came face-to-face with the beast.

To Zahariel’s mind, though, the woodsman had been wasting his breath.

It was not a matter that was much discussed, at least not openly, but there were many interpretations of religion at the heart of Calibanite culture. On the one hand there was the planet’s traditional religion, still popular with much of the common population as well as with a few diehards among the nobility, which incorporated elements of both ancestor worship and an animistic folk belief said to be derived from the ancient wisdoms of the planet’s first human settlers. Its adherents believed that the forests of Caliban were alive with guardian spirits.

Of special significance to their beliefs were a class of shadowy unseen watchers who would sometimes choose to intervene in human affairs for their own mysterious and unknown purposes.

These ‘Watchers in the Dark’ were not said to be the only kind of supernatural creatures at large on Caliban. Among those of the traditionalist faith, it was claimed that the great beasts were evil spirits that had taken on physical form in order to create suffering and hardship among mankind.

With this in mind, it was not uncommon for individuals and families to make votive offerings to the Watchers in the Dark in the hope of persuading them to intercede in keeping the beasts away.

In contrast to such folk beliefs, however, the knightly orders of Caliban tended to follow a more agnostic creed. They rejected the influence of the supernatural altogether. If such entities as gods and spirits existed, it was argued they would be unlikely to intervene directly in human affairs.

It was said that such creatures would be so alien in their desires and perceptions they could never share mankind’s understanding of the world, much less be able to recognise when their help might be needed.

Instead, the philosophy of the knightly orders held that the real impetus that shaped a man’s life was the strength of his character, not the supposed actions of otherworldly forces. Accordingly, the different orders had committed themselves to developing the minds and bodies of their knights in keeping with ideals of human excellence that were particular to each individual order.

During his years as a supplicant in the Order, Zahariel had absorbed his masters’ prejudices in such matters, and had made them his own. He had no particular axe to grind with men like Narel, but he had little time for their beliefs. He did not believe in life after death or journeys into the underworld.

The great beasts of Caliban were extraordinary creatures, but he did not believe they were supernatural in origin. The Watchers in the Dark were a myth, and he did not believe in guardian spirits keeping benign watch on humanity from the shadows.

In their place, he believed in the powers of human wisdom. The actions of men like Lion El’Jonson and Luther, and their campaign against the great beasts, had convinced him that humanity was free to choose its own destiny. The human mind could make sense of the world and of the cosmos and, given a fair and equal choice, most men would choose to help their fellows.

Zahariel reasoned that men were intrinsically good, and, granted the opportunity, they would choose the best and brightest path from among the roads on offer. No man would ever willingly perform an evil act unless forced to it by circumstance.

Perhaps a man could be provoked to evil by hunger, fear or ignorance, but no one would willingly choose to act maliciously when presented with another, viable option.

No one would willingly have the darkness when they could have light.

Putting to one side his disquiet at the curiously bleak nature of Narel’s farewell and his ruminations on the nature of man, he concentrated his mind on the quest before him.