The Pleasure of Memory (21 page)

“Goddamn yourself! These woods will be swarming with warriors tonight.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“It's not safe out here.”

Beam laughed at that. “You think not? You must be a seer as well as a monk, eh?”

The man flinched at that. “What did you call me?”

Beam started walking. Quickly.

The man jogged up alongside him. “Did you call me a monk?”

Beam stepped into a run.

“There’s no place out here to hide,” the man said, running behind him, “They’re superior trackers and they never quit.”

“Yeah, there’s a revelation,” Beam muttered to himself.

“I know a safe place to escape the night. If we hurry, we can put some distance toward it before they find our trail. They’ll have trouble following us in the dark.”

Beam stopped and turned on him. “Darkness won’t help!” he said exactly as harshly as he’d intended, “The best savages can track our vibrations from a half mile out. They’ll hear every footstep, every scrape of a bush.”

“I understand their taer-cael. I also know how to confuse it.”

“No offense, Brother, but you don’t look like a man who’s had a lot of experience rangering. Maybe if I needed a flock of sheep shepherded, I’d—”

“What’s your strategy, then?” the monk barked, “Keep running? Pray you’ll stumble into someone who’ll protect you? Your mother, perhaps?”

That one caught meat. Beam resisted the urge to slap that condescending look off the monk’s dirty face. Instead, he decided to let the insult go and consider the facts. It was nearly dark already. He was running through an alien forest with a hoard of warriors trailing him, warriors who’d likely draw lots to see who got to cut him first. And in truth, the monk was right; he didn’t have a clue which way to run except generally north by northeast.

Besides, whatever kind of a weapon that staff was, it’d be a hell of an asset in a fight. It all added up for a compelling argument to listen. Once the monk led him safely out of harm’s way, he could abandon the fool and light out on his own again.

“Well?” the man pressed, “How do you consider it?”

Beam unbuckled his weapons belt and dropped to his knees. He wrapped an arm around his chest and willed back the pain. His ribs were killing him. Every breath felt like someone cracking a shovel against his side. He’d been running all day. How much more could he take?

“Well?” the monk pressed.

“All right, already!” Beam snapped up at him, “Fine! I expect there’s some strength in numbers, given the proper circumstance. What do you have in mind?”

“I have a sanctuary.”

“A sanctuary?” Beam said, “Isn’t that just another word for asylum?”

“It’s a place of refuge. It's secure. It’s well concealed and well stocked.”

Beam disarmed his bow and began securing it and the sword to the weapons belt. “How far?”

“Nine miles or so northeast. If we hurry, we can make it by midnight.”

Beam dragged the weapons up to his lap. He tried not to cry out as he forced himself up to one knee. As he waited for his breath to return, he looked back at the trampled grass following them. “What about that?” he snapped up at the monk, “They won’t need their horns; you’re leaving them a bloody trail.”

“Does that mean you’ll come with me?”

“Not sure I have a choice. But we’ll need a better path. Is there a rock face or boulder deposit or maybe a creek or stream along the way?”

“There's a narrow stone bottom creek not two miles ahead. It travels easterly. It might add another hour or so to the trip, though.”

“That’s good. The water should confuse our vibrations,” Beam said as he prepared for the agony of standing, “Maybe you’re of some use after all.”

∞

Hours later, they waded along a shallow streambed. Beam’s boots were full of the frigid water. He couldn’t remember when he’d last felt his toes. On the positive side, it was a lovely distraction from his aching ribs and throbbing head.

They’d been struggling against the icy current for nearly three miles now. They eventually reached an area where the bank was paved with wide, flat stones gleaming ghostly white in the moonlight. He heard the monk splash up and stop just behind him.

“This is it,” the man whispered between pants, “This is where we turn. If we go much farther we’ll end up back in the forest.” He stepped past Beam for the shore.

Beam pulled him roughly back, saying, “Damn me, you wait! I’ll go first.”

The monk relented without argument. He leaned wearily into his staff.

Beam watched him for a moment as the stream gurgled noisily around them. When he was certain the man sincerely meant to comply, he turned and stepped up onto a broad rock braced tightly into the bank. Then he reached a leg carefully over the dense snake reeds growing along the water’s edge and gingerly climbed from the water, taking great care to keep his feet on the flat stones and out of the mud. Once secure, he turned and pointed to the rocks. The imprints of his footsteps glistened clearly in the moonlight. “There,” he said over the sound of the water, “Step exactly where I did. And mind the plants! It only takes one broken reed to betray us.”

The monk nodded and began to climb from the water, but Beam blocked him with a firm hand against his chest. “I mean it, Brother,” he said firmly, “I want you walking as softly as a princess sneaking into her lover’s bedchamber. You understand?”

The monk knocked Beam’s hand away and said, “Well, I can barely feel my feet, but I'll try to avoid knocking over any trees.”

Beam felt the cool slap of guilt. Why was he being so short? He shouldn’t be so hard on the man, not after all the poor devil had been through. As an act of redemption, he held out his hand. The monk considered the proffered assistance as if he weren’t sure what to make of it, but then relented and locked wrists with him.

“Sorry, Brother,” Beam said when they faced each other on shore, “I’m a little on edge. Guess the lifestyle's finally catching up with me.”

The monk pointed north, out beyond the clearing. “The cave's a few miles that way.”

Beam winced. “Cave?” he said, “What do you mean, cave?”

“Cave,” the monk said, “Something akin to a large hole in a mountainside? Perhaps you’ve seen one before?”

Beam felt sick to his stomach. He thought about the elixir stashed in his quiver. There wasn’t much left, maybe two or three days’ worth. At most. This trip just kept getting better and better.

“Is there a problem?” the monk asked. He didn’t sound like he cared.

Beam growled a curse and then started walking. “Nah,” he said, “No problem. Just another perfect hour in an already idyllic day.”

A few miles later, they stood at the precipice of a hill that swooped smartly down into the dusty plains. Beyond their perch, the land was flat for miles out, shimmering under the heavy moon like a white sea that swelled away until it met the star swept ebony of the night sky. The only break in the vast emptiness was a squat, brick-shaped butte that floated like an island above the sheen of dirt a half mile out from them. It looked to be a few hundred feet tall and maybe three times as wide.

The monk stopped at Beam's side and again leaned into his staff as he again struggled to catch his breath. Beam didn’t understand how a man of the forest could be so out of shape. Then again, it’d taken him years of training to get in condition for an all-night run like this. Short of an arrow in the back, he figured he could press on for days, even with a broken rib and no sleep.

The man pointed down the hill at the butte. “There it is,” he said, “Sanctuary.”

The top of the butte glowed softly against the radiant starlight, but darkness fully cloaked the foot. Beam could see no sign of a cave. “Where is it?”

“It’s hidden.”

“Hidden? How do you mean?”

“Hidden,” the monk said sarcastically, “Obscured from view. Out of sight. You understand the concept, yes?”

“No need to get pissy on me, Brother. I’m just saying—”

“Perhaps you were expecting a sign?” the monk pressed, “Sanctuary this way? Come on in?”

What the hell are you talking about? I just said—”

The man was already on his way down the hill.

Beam watched the man’s form descend into the night below and fought back his aggravation. “Damn me,” he whispered, “That is one irritable monk.”

They soon arrived at a row of barb-cedars lining the base of the butte like a wall. The shrubs rose fifteen feet above them. Scrubbier than standard cedar shrubs, barb-cedars boasted angry, gnarled, intertwined branches generously covered in two and three inch long thorns. These thorns could penetrate flesh with the slightest contact, often lodging themselves so deep in the meat of the unfortunate recipient’s body that nothing short of a sharp knife could dig them out.

Beam followed the monk as the man felt his way along the thick, spiny foliage. Eventually he stopped, bent down low, paused for a beat or two, and then disappeared into the hedge. Straight into the hedge.

Beam leaned closer. There was no opening in the barbs that he could see. He brushed his hand across the surface of the foliage with the greatest of care, but still found no vacancy. He was trying to make sense of what had happened when an arm erupted from the firs and grabbed his sleeve. He braced himself for the slaughter, but instead of stumbling face-first into a nest of thorns, he arrived unscathed in a narrow space between the cliff wall and the hedge. He was about to throw a sling of profanities at the monk, but the lunatic was already walking away, feeling his way along the solid cliff face with an open hand against the rock.

Beam looked up at the black ribbon of stars shining down through the crack between the cliff and the tall cedars, and he cursed the gods that must surely be laughing down at him right now. His irritation at full flame, he grabbed the wall and followed the man along it.

They stopped at an odd boulder protruding from the wall just at chest level. It was a perfect half sphere the size of a respectable pumpkin, and looked as completely out of place against the silky, moonlit surface of the stone as a goiter on a saloon girl. The monk placed his hands on both sides of the rock, dipped his head a bit, and began to mutter softly.

Beam knotted his fists. Damned monks were always praying. A horde of savages were ready to swarm in from the plains, and this idiot was offering his thanks to Calina or Geryn’Yag or whatever pagan deity nuts like him prayed to out here in the wilds. It was exasperating to the ninth!

It took several minutes of teeth gnashing, but the man eventually stood up. The odor of hot metal suddenly filled the air, the same smell Beam remembered back at the house just before the queer lightning battle started. He was considering the wisdom of putting some distance between himself and this particular spot when the surface of the rock just right of the boulder shifted. Two parallel seams of greenish light sparked the wall at ground level. They were a yard apart and snaked their way up through the face of the cliff wall like parallel rips in a midday curtain.

Beam blocked the light with his hand. “What the hell is this?” he said.

The two lines of light slowed just above the level of the monk’s head, and then curved inward toward each other until they joined into one. The result was a single door-shaped line glowing against the rock. An instant later, the outlined slab of rock took on a kind of fuzziness, like it had fallen out of focus. Then, without so much as a whisper, the rock began sliding down into the floor at their feet. As it lowered into the earth, the light pouring out at them from the door fractured the night like a beacon. When all was done, they were left with an entrance large enough to accommodate even the monk, who stood an easy half-head taller than he did.

Beam looked down at the door’s sill. There were no obvious seams, no evidence of a gap or chamber where a door of such size could recede. The door appeared to have simply melted into air. “You have got to be kidding,” he whispered, pointing at the sill, “What the hell is this?”

The monk gestured into what was now clearly a room, and said, “I give you Sanctuary. Enter in peace, leave in friendship.”

Beam threw him a glare. “You’re damned fond of quoting the savages, Brother.”

“And that apparently irritates you, does it not?”

“Nah. Just seems a bit odd. I mean, considering your relationship with them and all.”

“Seems odder that you recognize it as Vaemysh,” the man said as he passed into the light, “Considering your relationship with them and all.”

Beam wanted to throw back a stinging retort, but he was simply too tired to come up with one. Instead, he simply glared into the glowing entrance and kindled his annoyance.

Another. Bloody. Cave.

What was it with all the caves lately anyway? Another joke played by the gods at his expense? Well, he was good and greatly sick of it, and he had a mind to just make camp out here in the night and take his goddamned chances.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t camp outside. He had no supplies. His blankets and food were rotting in the road with Gerd and his gold back in the Nolands, and the temperature was dropping fast as the heat of the dry plains evaporated into the evening air. And clearly, a fire was ill advised. At best.