The Legend of El Shashi (46 page)

Each time I looked out to the bay that blue line
had moved closer; swelling, growing deeper of hue. The clouds above, to my perception seeming bloated with a load Nethe’s darkest malice, bellied upward into the vaulting heavens as if seeking to storm the very bastions of Mata Herself. A chill, ill wind stirred dead leaves through the empty town–empty, truly told, save of those too foolish to flee, or those who tarried to loot the shops and homes of their neighbours and friends. The Eldrik ship was making tremendous headway out into the bay, swinging north along the coast toward the Straits of Nxthu and thereafter, Eldoran. I assumed that it was Jyla who filled her sails with wind–Mata consign her soul to eternal torment. Surely no oceangoing vessel could otherwise skim across the waters like a great sea bird?

But as I herded people
up into the hills I could only gnash my teeth at the sight of the hated Sorceress slipping away once more. Into every face and every cart and every knot of people I cast my gaze, anxious for a glimpse of fair hair amongst the endless bobbing browns and blacks, but P’dáronï was nowhere to be found. We had not made arrangements to meet up. All had happened too quickly. Last I had seen her she had transported a group of ten people, including the Qur’lik drummer, away from the town square. Now I must find her. My grephe burned! I knew something was wrong … we had to keep running from the Wurm!

Next I looked back over my shoulder it was to see the
area abutting the harbour area strangely bare. Truly told, the area covered by seawater but moments before was now transformed into a vast mud flat where fish and eels flopped about, gasping for air, and crabs looked stupidly at each other is if discussing what had happened. My eyes rose. And widened. The sea had risen to meet the clouds.

“Run for your lives!” I bellowed. “Run!”

Now, with a rumbling that shook the world, the stormtide swept toward Gethamadi in a single, majestic wall. Such a thing should not be. The mind could scarce credit it–the people before me began to shriek like lyoms rattling in a cage. I dodged them, leaped bodies trampled in the rush, broke away from the trail to dash up toward the wooded brow of the hill. Branches whipped past my face, but I cared nought.

As I ran I screamed, over and over again, “Grab a tree! Hold your children!”

I burst over the brow where a great mass of townspeople huddled; stunned, weeping, bleating their fright to the heavens. I pitied them. I cursed the fool who had brought his Wurm straight across the bay; an arrow of ultimate doom pointed at their town.

“P’dáronï! P’dáronï of Armittal!”

The thunder grew so loud it drowned out my cries. I looked, and saw the wave dwarf the ships left stranded upon the mud of the harbour bottom. It swept over them as though they did not exist, and swept over the pretty houses of Gethamadi with awesome force. The stormtide was many times the height of the houses. Stone and wood and tile gave it no pause. I saw a few small dots that had to be looters bursting out of a house. In an eye blink they were swallowed up. The water surged up the hillside toward us, eating up rocks and trees and bushes as though it were a beast more ravenous than the Wurm itself. It pulverised trees and pushed the splinters before it as though a child pushed toys about the floor of her house. I saw a fishing skiff riding atop the wave toward me.

But as the stormtide dashed its fury against the hills, as though it wished to demolish them
, too, the waters slowed and eventually came to a foaming halt around my ankles. Reluctantly, the wave began to suck and slurp away down the hill.

I wandered through that mass of sodden, pitiful humanity for what seemed a m
akh crying, “P’dáronï, P’dáronï,” until my throat was hoarse and I thought my quoph would break from the hopelessness of it. At some level I realised that the Wurm had vanished. It had never appeared in Gethamadi. But its wake had struck front and centre. Where people reached out or I noticed their need I touched them and healed what I could–several broken limbs, a fractured skull, a baby which had been accidentally dropped and kicked in the mad scramble.

But suddenly a muddied man tapped my shoulder. I recognised the drummer. “Come,” he said, and led me a short ways to where a huddle of people lay upon the ground. “Can you see to these? The sick and the infirm of health.”

“Where’s P’dáronï?”

“The blind Sorceress? Just yonder,” said he, pointing. “Alive, I hope.”

Ah, how my quoph soared!

I
sensed her from where I stood–faintly, but she was there. I worked my way steadily in her direction, giving what little I was able. I did not wish to seem self-serving. But when I drew close enough to see how P’dáronï lay crumpled upon the uncaring stone in a foetal position, and how there was vomit splattered on her clothes and around her, I gave a low cry and rushed to her side. Her skin was pallid and cold.

Uncaring of my own tears I sobbed over her, “You gave too much, P’dáronï
-
nishka!
You could have killed yourself!”

She was far gone. Her pulse was slow and weak, her breathing almost undetectable, her ashen lips tinged with a deathly blue I have often observed in those struggling with severe heart problems. Had she strained her heart exerting herself so mightily, I wondered?
Pensively, I worked the pathways of her being. What was this creature, this Armittalese, I sought to inveigle back from the white of death? Was I restoring her merely to grant her the opportunity and means to carry out Eliyan’s command? Should I spare her the trouble?

Yet still I felt bound by Mata, heart, hand and hearth. Bound to Her will, bound to my fate, bound to walk until the road no longer stretched out before me. Had I not walked
roads enough for many a lifetime?

El Shashi
bowed his head and shed bitter tears for the victims of his Stormtide over Gethamadi.

*  *  *  *

With P’dáronï clutched close to my heart I walked the day it took, northward up the coast of Hakooi, to reach a village substantial enough to boast an inn. Here, I rented a room for us for the ridiculous price of two ukals. I lied about my wife being taken in a faint by the heat and travel. And I slept two days, save to wake for meals, and P’dáronï three. The first day, I could barely move for the soreness of my muscles. I spent the makh feeding her bowls of the innkeeper’s lyom and vegetable soup and massaging her throat to force her to swallow it. When my power revived I assuaged her hurts–at least, those I could fathom.

At dawn on the third day, I felt her hand touch my
cheek. She whispered, “Is the Wurm gone?”

“P’dáronï-
nevsêsh
, it is over.”

I thought I was done with weeping, but her fingertip found the wetness upon my cheek. “Ay, Arlak-
nevsê
, it is over. You are well?”

“Much rested.
Much saddened. Concerned about you.”

“You take too much note–”

“–of the affairs of my cherished slave? Great clods of steaming jatha droppings be heaped upon that untruth!”

P’dáronï’s lips curved upward in a way I had grown preposterously fond of. “You are grown
very forceful of late, my Arlak. Now tell me of this Shalima before the jealousy eats me like some potent caustic from the inside out.”

“
I’m not convinced this is wise,” I said, but opened my mind to share the memories with her nevertheless.

It was passing strange showing another person such deeply personal, long-buried things; she was a voyeur walking the halls of remembrance, and I had to force myself not to bristle in defence
or hide anything. Had she not withheld from helping herself to my memories? Even if she could slip around my mental defences with quicksilver ease? I found I could monitor her response too–our connection was open in both directions. I wondered if P’dáronï allowed this deliberately.

For a time after that she was silent
in reflection.

“And
…?”

“You handled the Benka with great wisdom,” she said. “You
gifted dignity to them.”

“I am miserable
… P’dáronï, please!”

“I have to confess
I’m not fond of the idea of a bodacious desert maiden bouncing her breasts around in your memory, Arlak-
nih
,” she smiled sweetly at me, “but you were also Matabound before and I have to accept that too. You had little choice and I noted your guilt-feelings surfaced often during that time. I will survive the pangs of jealousy. Will you show me some of those things you taught Shalima?”

I am afraid my eyes almost popped out of my head.
In Mata’s name, at my anna of life I could still be made to blush like a shy young buck?

“I, er
…” I coughed indelicately. “Very well, P’dáronï-
nevsêsh
.” In my most lecherous manner, I leaned over her until my lips brushed her earlobe and panted, “It will be my immense and prolonged
pleasure
to instruct a slave of Armittal in every last detail of these matters carnal.”

She laughed with such glee it made my colour deepen. “I hope so!”
Placing her arms around my neck, she added, “Starting right now, you incorrigible rogue.”

Ay, these were strange days indeed. Grief, hope, fear, and
ardour inextricably bound together, as though these emotions were an inseparable ball we were asked to simply kick along the dusty byways of the Fiefdoms until Mata told us otherwise. It made us feel strangely isolated from every Umarite around us, and our dependence on each other therefore became the greater.

Later,
I helped P’dáronï rise. She said, “I would appreciate a wash after these days abed. After that …”

“On to Eldoran.”

“On to Eldoran,” she echoed. “On to Eldoran, where it must end.”

The Faloxx, irredeemable eaters of flesh, are neither Umarite nor Eldrik, but rather a subhuman kind of beast fit for nought but torture eternal in the fiery pits of Nethe.

Soriam al’Fay’d kin Thanen,
All That is Holy

Ever northward we travelled along the remote, wild coastline of Hakooi, pausing briefly where we could to spend our coin upon much needed food. I ate like a ravenous jatha, and P’dáronï too, as our bodies sought to account for much sore abuse. Rugged and beautiful was our way, salty and fresh, and little inhabited. We swam freely in the peaceful ocean and rested upon the sands, but never for long. Always, destiny tugged at our grephe-sense.

P’dáronï and I
passed the days getting to know every detail of each other’s’ life and beliefs, hopes and fears and dreams, and recounting Janos’ memories as we searched for a way to defeat Jyla.

Briefly we did tarry in Herliki Free Fiefdom on the way. There we were grandly received by the Hassutl Erkiban, together with his three fine sons and
his daughter who I mistook for the Hassia K’huylia.

“My dear departed wife,” said the Hassutl. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask why she had never
again sent for me, when he added, “She was once restored by you, El Shashi. She lived a short but full life and gave me these fine children–well, who are children no longer. It is through faith I believe she did not seek healing again, when the canker returned. She said, ‘It is Mataboon I was granted a second chance at life, a gift I grasped with both hands. Yet should I summon El Shashi hence I shall selfishly deny others access to his services. This I cannot allow.’ Ay, truly told. Such were her words.”

I burshingled
deeply and signed the full buskal of Mata’s mercy. I had to pause to force words past my choked-up throat. “Her faith was greater than mine,” I managed. “It was a pearl of beauty unquenchable.”

I believe we all cried
then.

After dinner I quietly checked and treated the Hassutl and his children and every member of his palace staff down to the ninety-anna drudge who did little more than push a broom across flagstones a couple of makh a day.

“You were so moved today,” P’dáronï said, stroking my arm in the darkness of our bedchamber. She had no need of light. “Why?”

“I lived here over two anna,” I replied. “I grew to know and love K’huylia well.”

“Love?”

“As a dear friend,”
said I, regretting my choice of words. “I’m happy to share my memories if you wish, P’dáronï. I’ve nothing to hide … er, if you discount my antics with a few noblewomen. Which I’m not proud of.”

“Pretty ones?”

“Not one of whom could hold a candle to you,” I said stoutly, showing her I spoke truth. She had been teasing, but only partly …

<
Pulse: commitment-thanks-honours-me>

But I noticed she held me especially close that night.

Ay, I reflected quietly. I had not excelled at commitment in my lifetime. Far from it. Those ghosts haunted me now. Perhaps I should treat P’dáronï of Armittal as I meant to go on–as she deserved, truly told. A germ of an idea took root in my mind.

*  *  *  *

By a swift sloop, hired by the Hassutl’s palace staff, we zipped along the coast of Herliki in comfort. The captain promised to take us as far as the monastery of Arrakbon, the very last settlement before the Faloxxian territories. After Arrakbon the waters became treacherous, the start of the Straits of Nxthu that culminated in a three-ocean melting pot at the northerly tip of Faloxxir–the famed passage of which my father knew the secret, and was described in a scroll secreted somewhere amongst Orik’s writings back in Roymere. No use in picking up lost jatha droppings. We would enter Faloxxir on foot, and trust to P’dáronï’s Warlock skills if the worst happened. No doubt the fierce Faloxx would be keeping their cooking pots warm!

The weather was fine and the breeze beneficent, filling our sails day after day as we traversed the enormous Gulf of Erbon.
To our right hand the shore turned to mountains. I for one was glad not to have to cross the broken-toothed Loibrak Range, which protected southern and middle Hakooi from the Faloxx to the north.

After all these anna
, I rocked upon these placid waters with a woman I loved! What a change from when I had been forced to flee Eldoran before. History had turned full circle.

The crew was warm and friendly toward us, especially after I healed their ship’s boy of a terrible
affliction: perhaps the severest case of eczema I have ever encountered. P’dáronï and I whiled away the makh aboard ship discussing what we might possibly achieve against Jyla. Our plan was to return undetected to Eldoran, if at all possible, and speak first of all to Eliyan. We discussed the amulet Amal had gifted me those twenty anna before, but decided against trying to use it, even if only to detect where she might be. We could hardly hope to wrest her from Jyla. We did not want to disclose our position. She might indeed have been converted by force or trickery to Jyla’s side. The less Jyla knew of us, the better–and now that the Wurm was no longer chasing us, we hoped she could no longer track us either. We trawled through Janos’ memories at enormous length. Although we discovered much arcane knowledge of use and interest, it was the structure and undoing of the Banishment that was our primary goal–and we were no nearer to grasping that than we might have sought to grasp the sun Belion from the deck of our ship.

“
Perfectly disgusting genius!” P’dáronï declared, after another warm afternoon spent, shipboard, in fruitless examination of the Banishment’s elements. “Could Janos not have left us just one little chink in the armour to work with?”

“Jyla escaped the Banishment.”

“Oh, yes, we should just ask her how it’s done. Even she was unable to break the Banishment, and not for want of trying!”

“Fastidious, obsessive
, brilliant Janos.” I shook my head despondently. “Do we simply accept Talan’s interference sounds the death-knell for all those Banished Eldrik?”

“Do we just get the Wurm to eat Jyla?”

“I’d prefer to turn her
into
a Wurm.”

“A small one that could get eaten by a porker,” suggested P’dáronï.

I chuckled. “She’d still infect the meat like a tapeworm.”

She made a face.
“We Armittalese don’t eat pork anyway. It’s unclean. Disgusting. If only we could get through you to tap the power of the Wurm!”

“Ay. But Eliyan said that ability is limited to Jyla herself.
We know the Portal is the only way to cross the Banishment spell. The only way into Birial. Unless we break the never-ending storm, those Eldrik will never get home.”

“Maybe the Wurm can break the Banishment.”

But that would involve me getting to Birial first, I almost started to say. It solved nothing to do with Jyla. The Wurm’s power would still be hers to misuse as she wished.

Perhaps misunderstanding my silence, P’dáronï added, “Anyway, tomorrow we need to discuss subverting or destroying the
gyael-irfa
one more time. If that’s the way she controls her Sorcerers, that might be the tactic to use against her.”

I had other plans for the morrow. But I kept those
thoughts hidden beneath the inmost layers of my Dissembling.

*  *  *  *

Arrakbon Monastery was an ancient fortress set a few hundred paces back from the edge of a towering cliff-face that caught Suthauk’s early rays as though it were a palace wall of staggering dimensions spanning the spaces between gigantic, glistening columns of mauve fromite. P’dáronï instinctively clasped my hand and through me, gazed wordless at this wonder.

In the golden late afternoon of that wind-still day we walked hand-in-hand through the monastery vineyards with Father Sohirik and five of the Arrakbon Brothers to a small garden set right upon the cliff’s edge. I own we made for a handsome couple, but there was no-one else present to remark upon it save for the beatifically smiling monks who would witness our troth, pledge
, and vow.

Here,
the Father would read the Holy Matabond over us.

I felt as nervous as a dragonfly skating over a pond full of frogs.

P’dáronï wore an antique bridal gown of Sulmian silk the same colour as the Gulf of Erbon, which soughed against the cliff’s base half a league below us. The train alone was twenty paces long, and every last dyndigit of material was hand-sewn in the finest lace of Herliki. Upon her brow she wore a Hassutla’s nuptial coronet, and her hair had been dressed by one of the monks in a fanciful swirl about her head, held in place by clips shaped to resemble miniature starfish, which were encrusted with aquamarine diamonds from the famed mines of Hallidoon. Even with my background in trading I would have been unable to estimate the value of her raiment; but to me, it was the person within that outshone all.

I wore simple blue bruke-trousers cut mid-calf and a flowing shirt of Sulmian silk which perfectly matched P’dáronï’s outfit, except it was unexpectedly heavy as according Hakooi tradition, the groom wears five layers upon his upper body–for fidelity, honour, praise to Mata, thanks, and love
for his beloved. Also in the Hakooi tradition, we were both barefoot, as benefitted our position as suppliants to Mata’s good favour upon our union.

This was my surprise to P’dáronï.
At the makh of daimi orison the day before, I had surprised her. Truly told, she had almost swooned when I presented her the bridal gown in the traditional way upon bended knee, begging her to consent to wear it just once.

She looked radiant.

“I call upon these witnesses five, and the witness of Holy Mata,” Father Arrakbon intoned, taking our left hands in his, before bringing them together before him. “I bind these two persons wrist to wrist, pulse to pulse, life to life, with a cord of Gethamadi silk. This symbolises the troth of handfasting, and the desire of two persons to join their lives; quath, quatl and quoph; heart and eternal soul; that their spirits shall nevermore rove restless upon the winds of life.”

P’dáronï and I had decided to incorporate elements of the Umarik, Eldrik
, and Armittalese traditions into our ceremony. The good Father had not even raised an eyebrow at this request, but accepted our scroll with a nod and a smile. He said, ‘Do you happen to know a Father Yatak of the Solburn Brothers?’ It so happened a Solburn brother had visited recently to initiate the process of building a hospital which would serve even the Faloxx, funded by our family’s bequest.

Ay, life is full of wonders.

Having tied our wrists together with a ceremonial knot, Father Sohirik began to sign the buskals of matrimony. “The buskal of Mata’s peace protect your quophs. May this buskal symbolise Her mercy upon your lives and all your endeavours together. Here is the buskal of love unending upon you Arlak, and upon you, P’dáronï. May the knot I form in this cord symbolise the strength of your union, which shall never be broken.”

And so we spoke even as the Father spoke, exchanging vows deeper than words.

A scroll rustled briefly as Father Sohirik referred to the wording of the Eldrik vows. Through our link, I knew that P’dáronï was following my responses as closely as I was watching her face, to the exclusion of all else.

The Father cleared his thr
oat slightly. “Repeat after me:

Soul to soul
as sun to sun,

Two eternal beings become as one,

Unite us in the vows of love,

I with thee: P’dáronï of Armittal,

I with thee: Arlak of Yarabi Vale,

Our souls entwine with bonds, o Mata, of love divine.
”

I reached up to unpin P’dáronï’s hair. “Let what we loose this day be loosed forever. Let what we vow be bound forever, thrice-fold, before Mata and before Man. This is my vow.
P’dáronï of Armittal, my gift to you is this necklace of Mataflower. Let it symbolise my vow and pledge. I place it around your neck, where it shall rest upon the pulse of your life. From this day on you will be my life. This is my vow.”

Her white-blonde hair, unbound, fell in a glorious cascade of ringlets about her shoulders and down her back. If anything, it had grown since that day I first fell headlong–literally, I chuckled, letting her see that picture in my mind’s eye–for her.
My fingers trembled over the clasp of the necklace but I finally managed to clip it securely.

“Clasp your right hands above the left,” whispered Father Sohirik. I did wonder if he was as taken with the occasion as we were. “Here, P’dáronï.”

With a ring clasped in her fingers, she touched my hand to find my right thumb. She said, “Let what we encircle this day be ours forever. Let what we vow be bound forever, thrice-fold, before Mata and before Women. This is my vow.”

There was a rustle as one of the monks stepped forward to present her with a square of cloth, in which was wrapped her gift. Drawing forth a
Matabond bracelet, P’dáronï said, “Arlak Sorlakson of Yarabi Vale, my gift for you is this Mata-torc of linnite crystal. Let it symbolise my vow and pledge. I place it around your right wrist, where it shall rest upon the pulse of your life. From this day on you will be my life. This is my vow.”