The Quest of Kadji (8 page)

THE DARK TIME

And what if death be dark and near,

And we be toys wherewith Cods play?

Though night be cold and filled with fear,

A man can die but once, they say!

—
Road Song of the Kozanga Nomads

THE DARKNESS was deep and numb and thick, and in it there were no sounds or sights or feelings. Not even memories could penetrate the numb black womb which cradled him. It was like what a tree must feel in the blind and tongueless silence, in the deep slow half-sleep of vegetable existence.

After a time there were visions, or dreams, but they were confused and scattered and meant nothing to him. There were faces that bent over him through a red blur, the white face of a girl with frightened eyes, and an old man’s face, long-jawed and knobby and remarkably unhandsome, with yellow skin and sad, slant black eyes.

And voices, too, dim whispers, like the echoes of far converse. It seemed that people were arguing, something about whether or not to move him or to let him lie. The girl was saying that they must get him under shelter or he would freeze to death on the cold ground; the little old man said that be was nine-tenths dead as it was, for the point of the sword had nipped the lungs, and with every breath he was drowning in his own blood, and that to move him even a little would be to kill him on the spot; no, no, they would have to drag a tent over him, and leave him lying where he was . . . and then the voices faded away and although he could blurrily see the lips moving he could bear nothing, nothing at all.

THEN, A LONG while later, after he had spent a measureless eternity of frozen cold, there was warmth, slow golden warmth, baking deep into the chill that bound him. He basked in it thankfully, feeling the cold seep out of his body, drop by drop and he drowsily let his eyelids flutter and fall open and he could see warm red firelight dancing against the roof of a tent and painting huge monstrous black moving shadows. And there was someone by him, someone near, and he looked up at a long grey-furred muzzle, a wet black nose, and an open mouth with white fangs a-glisten and a long pink tongue.

The grey-furred face looked down at him with mute, questioning eyes, and sniffed at his face, and then the rasping pink tongue licked his face and he laughed a little weakly . . . but that started the coughing again, the slow horrible racking coughing that he had lived with so long and had forgotten between sleeps, and a dirty, thin-faced girl with unkempt red hair came quickly to shoo away the dog—or was it a wolf ?—and to hold the wet cloth at his nostrils so that he breathed again the good, clean, astringent spicy smell that seemed to dull the red pain in his lungs and to sooth the slow, racking fit of coughs. . . .

THEY WERE very strange, the dreams, each one different from the one he remembered before, and somehow he could not seem to summon the wits to piece them together into a fabric of meaning. It was like one of those painted puzzles sawn in many small segments that children piece together in play: but he could not seem to fit the pieces together. They remained bright, meaningless scraps.

There was another dream, filled with pain. He could not breathe; it was as if a hill was mounded upon his chest, and the pain of it, the heavy crushing weight, the close, stifling warmth, forced him to struggle up from the black sleep into the light again. And there was a girl bending over him, the same girl from before, he thought, although much thinner, with great dark hollows beneath the eyes, and a thin, pinched, colorless mouth. She held a bright thing in her hands, cradled it, like a glowing coal. And behind her was the thin sallow-faced little man, mere skin and bones he was now, and there was fear written on his face. He was saying that it could not be done—whatever it was—and the girl, grim and tight around the mouth, kept repeating that it could and that it must, for he was drowning in his own blood . . . she kept muttering that strange phrase over and over again, like a curse, or a prayer.

The old man was trying to stop her, to seize her wrists, but she turned a fierce bright intolerable gaze on him that; made him shrink away into a huddle.

“I am guilty,” the girl said in a hard voice. “If he dies, I have killed him. For I was stupid and wrong and stubborn, and he was right—we should have left the camp at once, not lingered arguing until that black rogue of a Perushka dog struck him treacherously from behind with a knife.”

And then she bent over him and did the thing she meant to do, and he felt a pain beyond all of the other intervals of pain, bright, blinding, incredible . . . and the blackness came again, and the deep sleep, and there were no dreams for a long time thereafter.

HE FELT like a drowning man must: the sleep that engulfed him was like a black, lightless sea, from which he emerged at intervals into the dim light of day, to gulp a breath or two of air before sinking below the suffocating waves again.

Once again he came swimming slowly up out of the black sea of sleep into the daylight, they were arguing.

“This person must remind the young woman that she has not slept in two days. She cannot long continue in this manner, or old Akthoob will have two invalids on his hands. . . .”

“I am fine; this is the crisis; if he comes through this night safely, then he may yet mend . . . but it takes great concentration . . . I must guide his sleeping body to repair itself, for flesh can heal, and bone can mend, but the lung . . .”

The girl, he saw fuzzily, was kneeling beside him, her face blank and dead, her gaze turned inwardly. A small spiral of green smoke crept from a pot clasped between her knees and as she breathed in this spicy smoke it seemed to him that her spirit departed from its house of flesh and left only—vacancy.

Over her thin shoulder he saw the long bony face of the old man. Slitted black eyes were narrowed thoughtfully, and his mouth was pursed as in distaste.

The old man said, in a low muttering voice: “Zoromesh . . . Zoromesh . . . it must be that . . . but why did the girl lie to us?”

None of this made any sense to him, so he let go and sank effortlessly once again down into the black sea of sleep whose smothering waves rose hungrily about him to suck him down to silence and restful ease.

And after this there were no more dreams at all.

HE OPENED his eyes and gazed incuriously upon strangeness.

There was a rough rocky roof above him, and stalactites dangled therefrom like pendent spears of stone.

Curled up against his side, the great grey wolf slept, its nose buried in its tail, like a huge friendly dog. Bazan, that was the brute’s name, he remembered.

He lay quite comfortably on folded blankets, and saddlebags were heaped behind him, and be felt warm and cozy. A great lassitude enveloped him. There was no urgency in anything, no importance, and no hurry. He did not even feel curious, although nothing of what he saw around him did he at once understand.

Somewhere behind him, further back in the cave, a horse blew out its breath and stamped restlessly. He remembered that he had owned a horse once, a black Feridoon pony, but he could not recall its name or what had become of it.

The air about him was pleasantly cool and fresh, although it did savor somewhat of unwashed wolf, horse, and man-sweat. A fire was crackling off to his left, and he turned his head to look at it. Someone with patient labor had scooped out a hollow place in the hard-packed, rocky, earthen floor of the cave, lined it carefully with smooth flat stones, and a small neat fire of spicy wood and dry leaves crackled merrily thereupon. The blue smoke that rose from the flames smelled deliciously of pungent herbs.

A bracket of tough black wood was built above the flames, and a thick earthenware pot was suspended just above the fire. Within it some fluid seethed and bubbled. It was a good sound; a pleasant, homey sound. He remembered his mother’s cookfire, that time the sword-brethren had wintered in the black mountains of Maroosh, where the Kozanga clans held a permanent settlement for the womenfolk and the younger children. Her hearth had been like this: warm, clean-swept, good-smelling.

Then a girl, bent over, came through the low opening of the cave, which was covered by a hanging fur. She came into the cave, glanced at him, saw that his eyes were open but made no comment, bent over the fire and examined the contents of the earthen pot.

She was thin and gaunt, as if she had not eaten well in some time, and there were dark hollows and circles under her eyes as if she had gone long without sleep. Her thin body was muffled in heavy glossy furs, but the crudely made jacket was open, so it was not very cold outside. Beneath the furs she wore a threadbare man’s tunic, much too large for her, and very patched.

Using her fur mittens for pot-holders she took the earthen container from its hook above the fire and brought it over to where he lay. She muttered a curt word, and the grey wolf stirred, got up, and slunk out of the cave, nosing its way through the flap of the fur covering that shielded the entrance. Then the thin, worn girl knelt at his side and held the pot to his lips.

“Drink,” she said, and he drank. The fluid was steaming hot and had a rich, spicy taste, and green flakes of some herb were thickly scattered over the surface of the fluid. He drank in slow, deep gulps, and the drink was pungent and volatile. It seemed to explode to hot piney vapor the instant it touched his tongue, and the steaming vapor filled his head—he could feel it clear back in his sinuses—and then expanded through his brain until it seemed that his skull was a tight-stretched balloon filled with hot, pungent smoky flavor. His mind, which had been sleepy and blurred, cleared magically. His eyes brightened; blood pulsed through his body, carrying the influence of the magic herbal tea through every portion of his being, until from head to toe he felt tinglingly alive.

She took the pot away, wiped his lips on a scrap of rag; and he looked up into her face and said, “Thyra.”

She gasped—it was almost a cry—and all but dropped the earthen pot. A rustle came from behind him, and the old man came shuffling out, wrapped in a blanket His queue was disarranged, his eyes puffy, and he looked as if he had been asleep.

“What is it?” the old man demanded querulously. “Is he dead?”

The girl looked down at Kadji, immense eyes shadowed with a wondrous, heartbreaking relief.

“He is well . . . well . . . he knew me, and called my name . . .”

Kadji was about to say something then, but just at that moment he fell asleep again.

WHEN HE next awoke it seemed to be evening, for no light seeped through the fur across the cave mouth to paint the rocky roof with radiance. Kadji found himself stripped to the waist and the old man—Akthoob, he remembered his name now—was sponging his torso with hot soapy water. He blinked at the Easterling and essayed a sketchy grin. It was a feeble excuse for a smile, and it stretched the skin of his cheeks in such a. manner that he guessed it had been rather a long time since he had last smiled, but it delighted Akthoob. The long bony yellow face split in an enormous toothy grin and the slitted black eyes almost vanished.

“This person assumes you are feeling much better, yes?” the old man asked, bobbing and ducking his head happily. Kadji said that he felt fine.

They talked for a little, in a lazy fashion, while Akthoob carefully washed and dried his body and then covered him with soft blankets again. Kadji mentioned something about his dreams, knowing now that they must have been lucid wakeful intervals between coma and fever-spasms.

“I remember one dream,” he said vaguely. “Thyra was performing a sort of ritual or prayer over me, and you were shaking your head in a disapproving fashion.”

“Ah, yes?”

“Umm. You kept saying something, Zoromesh, that’s it; Zoromesh, Zbromesh. I couldn’t understand what you meant, nor why the name of Thyra’s province should disturb you so . . . it puzzled me for the longest while, in a dim sort of way.”

“Ah. Hem. This person suggests that if you are very careful you might roll over upon your honorable face so that your back might be cleansed,” murmured Akthoob politely, as if he had not heard. His eyes were evasive, and he seemed distinctly uncomfortable.

“Where are we, anyway, old man?” the boy warrior asked dreamily, while Akthoob sponged his back clean.

“A small cave in the Thirty Hills, ten leagues east of the Perushka encampment This person and the lady Thyra carried you here in one of the gypsy wains, when you were well enough to travel. The cold, you see. We feared to expose you to it for long . . .”

“I would have thought the Perushka dogs would have slain us all, after I fell,” Kadji mumbled sleepily. Akthoob giggled.

“That would have been a very great miracle—this person thinks! The honorable Kadji does not remember, but ere he succumbed to his wounds he slew no fewer than thirty Perushka men . . . the few that were left bundled up their wives and children into the wains and rode off screaming a demon was among them armed with an awful glittering axe!” Akthoob giggled at the memory.

“Did I . . . really slay . . . thirty men?” Kadji mumbled, half asleep. But before hearing the answer he dozed off again, made sleepy by the snug warmth of the cave and the hypnotic rhythm of the old Easterling’s rubbing hands upon his, back.

But he remembered the word:
Zoromesh;
and he intended to pursue the mystery when next he awoke.

THE NEXT week or so he mended slowly. He did not sleep as much, and they gave him much rare meat to eat, and even a little wine, and he was permitted, after a while, to sit up, to stand, and even to walk a bit, though walking tired him rapidly.

Kadji understood that he had been terribly ill for a long time; so ill that for fifteen straight days he had hovered on the brink of the Dark Kingdom of Death, and the two had labored night and day, sleeping in shifts, fighting to keep him alive.

He assumed it had been Akthoob who had saved him, for he thought a wizard would have knowledge of the healing arts; but no, it had been Thyra. The girl had nursed him with endless solicitude, to the peril of her own health. He felt vaguely surprised that a gently reared Princess of the Blood had such mastery of healing, but he remembered that Zoromesh was famous for its witches—White Witches they were, thinkers and healers, not worshippers of evil—and perchance the girl had learned somewhat of their art in her childhood. Akthoob became very unhappy whenever he raised the question, or mentioned Zoromesh, and when once he let fall a casual word about the White Witches, the old man went pale as parchment and changed the subject so abruptly as to be rude.

Kadji filed this small puzzle away, too, under the heading of Mysteries To Be Explored Later.

He had been ill for two full months. His mouth tightened grimly at the news, and he frowned. Shamad was gone now beyond all hope of finding. There were ten thousand places in the wide-wayed world in which the Impostor could have hidden himself, so the Quest, if not actually ended, was at least made futile now. . . .

In those two months the worst of winter had passed, and when Kadji was permitted out of the cave he saw that spring was near. Gnarled old treees and withered black shrubs grew near the mouth of the snug little cave, and bright green buds stirred upon them. And here and there upon the rounded low hummocks of the old hills, where patches of dirty snow were slowly shrinking, green young blades of grass were thrusting up through the bare, scabrous soil. Grey skies and lowering clouds were giving way to clear blue skies and the gusty wind brought the smell of fresh grass and sunshine.

Further east by some leagues was a city and to it they intended, when Kadji was strong enough to ride. They had lived through the winter in the cave, Akthoob and Thyra taking turns at hunting, and the great wolf, Bazan, proving himself the finest huntsman of them all. It had been hard—grim and desperate at times—that winter, but it was almost over.

Every day now Kadji exercised in the sun. He had emerged from the darkness of his long sleep as pale as a sickly child; but weeks, of exercise in the sunshine and fresh air put meat on his bones, toughened his weak sinews, and bronzed him with his usual tan.

A tenderness had grown up between the boy and girl. Their eyes met often, and they laughed together much, although they, did not speak to one another for the curious shyness that grew between them. Kadji had no experience with women; Thyra was virtually the first woman since his long-dead mother whom he had known on any terms of intimacy. At times Thyra was gay and laughing with him, her face no longer thin and worn, but flushed and bright-cheeked; at times she seemed sad, moody and withdrawn and even abrupt. It was as if she expected something from him, a word, a look, a touch, that would prove the overture to affection. If so, the gesture was not forthcoming, and at times she seemed puzzled and hurt by his lack of response.

Kadji did not understand her feelings at first; he was baffled by her changeful moods, and grew angry sometimes when she was silent with him. He wanted her always to be laughing, always gay and happy. When it dawned on him that she was waiting for him to make an overture, he became most unhappy. It was not that she did not excite and stimulate him, for she did. But he was sworn to a sacred Quest, and a vow of chastity was upon him. In Kadji’s zealous and perhaps over-strict interpretation of the meaning of that vow, even a gesture or token of affection was forbidden. For it seemed to him that there was no very great difference between the physical act of love and a tender word or gesture of love: hence his vow forbade him from either.

He grew puzzled that she could not understand this, for surely she knew he bore with him the sacred honor of his people and could not act as he wished. He was not a free agent, but a bound man. Why could the stubborn girl not see this and stop mooning at him one moment and snapping rudely at him the next?

From feeling puzzled he came to feel hurt and from thence to feeling angry with her, and he exhibited a bit of rudeness himself, from time to time. Old Akthoob sighed dismally, seeing the growing gulf of silence and misunderstanding between the young people, and reflected sadly that to be young is to be terribly vulnerable; it was better, he thought, on the whole, to be old and be past such storms and furies.

But the wise old wizard said nothing to either of them. He had his reasons. He suspected a terrible truth about the girl but it was not his secret to divulge. Besides, although he did not think so, he might be wrong.

The next morning they awoke to find Thyra gone.