Blackhand (10 page)

Quintel remarked that their ragged clothing and lack of traveling gear might draw the attention of city guards, so Siyer fabricated a tale of highway bandits attacking them in the night that was detailed enough to sound plausible. However, they did not receive the opportunity to recite the story. Although they crossed paths with several constables patrolling the dusty streets, none questioned them, or even offered a lingering glance. They were safe inside the throngs of pedestrians.

Quintel had never visited a city as large as Argoth. It reminded him very much of his trip to Vaer with Aran. Although Argoth lacked the beauty and magnificence of the Vaerian capital, its size and population were far greater. The people crowding the streets, who had only been crawling specks from the hillside, now formed a roaring parade of cultures, races and sects. The air crackled with the excitement of trade and barter. Chanting peddlers enticed buyers to sample their wares from every corner. Rickety stalls, placed in the center of traffic, diverted the flow of humanity like stones in a brook.

For several minutes, the two fugitives followed the surge of buyers and sellers without choice, being carried by the current. Then Siyer turned into a side alley, away from the crowd.

“This way,” he said, darting into the cool shadows between the buildings. As he moved down the side street, Siyer kept talking. “Don't get carried away with the excitement, we cannot stay here for long. We must find clothing, horses and food.”

“Are we to steal all of them or do you have something to trade?” Quintel asked.

“Nothing to trade,” Siyer said, removing two leather purses, heavy with gold, from his tunic. “But I believe gold still spends well in these lands.”

“Ha! I should have known your talents included thievery,” Quintel said.

“My skills are numerous.”

They first found an outfitter who sold them the necessary traveling garments. For a generous tip, the outfitter recommended a horse dealer of good reputation and a store to purchase other supplies. Within two hours they were saddled, loaded and ready to ride.

“Say farewell to the city of Argoth,” Siyer said as they rode past the outer dwellings. “You will not see it again with such favorable aspect.”

Quintel struggled to adjust the colorful, but scratchy, robes Siyer had purchased for them. Neither the fabric nor the design of the garments appealed to him, but under such constraints, they had little room for taste.

They traveled west for almost an hour. When they were sure no other travelers observed them, they altered their course to the north, toward the Desert of Salt. The loping gait of the horses was slow compared to their former pace, but they needed the animals to carry the supplies they required, at least until they reached the rim of the desert.

For a long time, they traveled in silence, absorbing the sounds and sights of the open wilderness. It left Quintel alone with his thoughts.

As the reality of their destination took hold, Quintel began to feel anxious. His mental, physical and spiritual preparation were coming to the test. Was he ready to join the god? A glint of doubt flashed through his mind and found a hold. Had the game accomplished its task? What if the union killed him? What if Siyer had erred in his choice? His Abanshi heritage grappled with his instinct for survival.

Sensing Quintel's doubt, Siyer drew his horse to a stop.

“I feel your spirit stagger,” Siyer said. “What troubles you?”

Quintel halted. He did not want to tell Siyer the truth — that he was afraid, that he feared death — but lying was pointless.

“Now that my joining with the god draws near... I am afraid,” he said with his eyes lowered, locked on the leatherwork patterns of the saddle. “I fear we ride to my death.”

Siyer leaned forward on his mount and stroked its muscular neck. Quintel noticed a strange flicker in his emotions.

“I wish I could tell you there was nothing to fear,” Siyer began. “But that is not the case. You walk into the unknown, Quintel. You travel to an experience never recorded in the history of Man. Countless numbers of humans have lived and died throughout the eons. All of them were mere steppingstones to the approaching moment that is singularly yours. You alone, over all others, were selected to merge with Yuul. It is not the weight of a single life you carry, but the weight of all human lives; living, dead and yet to be born.”

The strange emotion flashed in Siyer again and that time Quintel recognized it. The clutch of want, the emptiness of impossible desire. Envy.

“You wish it were you?” Quintel said.

A smile tugged at the corner of Siyer's lips, but it was not a smile of happiness.

“Yes, my friend, I admit my guilt. I wish it were me.” Siyer stared at the horizon. “I have served Yuul my entire life and will continue to do so until my life ends. I would risk death  simply to touch the god. Uniting with it to create a new life... a new kind of being... to me, that is an honor beyond any imaginable. And it is yours.”

Siyer broke his gaze and looked back at Quintel who was absorbing his words.

“I cannot ask you to be fearless,” Siyer said. “But I can ask you to weigh your fear against the lives of every human being who has ever lived.”

Quintel sat on the horse in silence for several seconds. “And that's supposed to make me feel better?”

Siyer spurred his ride and resumed their journey.

“I am only giving you a different perspective.”

Siyer had actually eased his fear. It helped to think of himself as an instrument of divine fate -- a tool locked upon a single course, striving for a greater cause.

They traveled north for several days. At times, they would divert their route to avoid a village, but for the longest leg of the journey, they moved in a straight line up the map.

The forest thinned to bushy scrub. Bare patches of sandy earth replaced the low grasses. A close heat surrounded them and they cast off their heavier robes. The Desert of Salt grew near.

One night, as they sat before a modest campfire, Siyer explained that the desert had once been the floor of a great ocean. But when the Pastworld died, the ocean disappeared, leaving a vast expanse of white crystals as its corpse. No life could survive upon its flat open surface. All moisture was sucked from the air without a trace.

“It doesn't sound like a hospitable place,” Quintel said. “Why does Yuul choose to live there?”

Siyer stirred the fire with a narrow stick.

“Oh, the god does not live there. That is where it enters the world for brief periods of time. You see, when the god is summoned to this realm, it is vulnerable to physical attack -- Yuul is actually quite a delicate being. The isolation of the desert provides it with a degree of safety. Of course, it has other measures of defense.”

“Such as?”

Siyer thought for a moment. “Let's say they are structural in nature. I want you to see for yourself.”

They came to the edge of the desert early afternoon on the thirty-second day of travel. Its appearance was sudden, with a sharp boundary. There was a line of rugged vegetation, then the world turned white. The air tasted of brine and stung their eyes.

Siyer dismounted and organized packs of food and water across his shoulders. Quintel did the same. They stripped the horses of tack and saddle and set them free. The two men would finish their journey on foot.

When the horses were gone, they continued to places no man ventured. The salt crunched beneath their boots and the wind erased their tracks as quickly as they were made. A harsh glare smothered their sight beyond a few steps ahead.

The night was less kind. The wind thrashed them, tearing at their exposed skin with jagged crystals of salt. It screamed and howled, summoning sudden whirling incarnations of fury that knocked them to the ground and snatched the supplies from their backs. Their only defense was to wrap themselves in their robes and lie flat until the tantrums subsided. When a moment of calm arrived they stood and continued their journey until the next raging fit.

When daylight returned, the air baked around them. Unaltered humans could not have survived the conditions with a caravan of provisions. Even with their heightened stamina, Quintel and Siyer struggled. By their fourth day upon the flat white shingle, they were almost out of water, the single element they could not survive without. Siyer calculated that five more days of walking remained.

“We must conserve the last few drops of our water. Our duel with the desert is but half won.”

Quintel felt no desire to retreat. The desert raged at them as if alive with hate, but its wrath was outside of him, outside of his control. Its might was of no comparison to his determination to push through. He knew if he could keep his feet falling one after another, the battle would be won.

Step after step, they marched. White before them, blue above them, a stinging haze all around. Each direction appeared identical, but they paid the monotony no heed.

They decided to forfeit rest and use the nights for travel, at least when the wind allowed it. The side of Quintel that craved the surrender of sleep was stifled by his preternatural discipline. When his body cried for mercy, his spirit pushed onward. Quintel remembered his banishment years ago. He had been weaker then.

They rationed their water into portions that barely offered a taste. Two days away from their destination, the last droplets trickled down their parched throats.

By then, both men were numb, oblivious to their drained and damaged bodies. They no longer spoke. Quintel limped several paces behind Siyer, who plodded forward with the glazed stare of the dead.

On the smoldering midmorning of their ninth day upon the desert, a faint shape nicked the sky before them. It was a tiny white line, jutting from the flat horizon like a solitary fang.

Siyer stopped. “Do you see it? Do you see it, Quintel?” he said in a raspy whisper.

“What is it?”

Siyer smiled. A renewed strength radiated from his essence.

“That is God's Finger. Our destination,” he said.

Chapter 12

God's Finger thrust a mile above the earth, a tower of salt stabbing the sky with deliberate defiance. Even several miles away, Quintel could tell that it was not a natural structure.  Nor was it manmade.  Men did not have the ability to build a tower so gigantic, and nature would never carve an object so blasphemous to its surroundings.

Behind God's Finger, the northern edge of the world dropped into black oblivion. White clouds boiled from the void like smoke from a cauldron.

With their goal in sight, his spirit caught flame and Quintel broke into a run. Twice he fell sprawling into the grit, his body too weary to answer the demand of his will. A white mask of salt caked his face.

“Pace yourself!”  Siyer called from behind him. “Much effort lies before us. You will need your strength.”

Quintel stopped running, but kept his step brisk. He wanted only to reach the end of his journey.

Although the monolith seemed to be just before them, its proportions deceived him and he soon discovered that it was still many miles away.

As he grew nearer, Quintel noticed that the structure's surface was not smooth, as he had thought from a distance, but etched with millions of elaborate spirals, whirls and zigs of various size and complexity. Although the markings were strange, there was something familiar about them.

“God's Finger is Yuul's fortress in the corporal world,” Siyer said once they reached the base of the structure. “No army can violate its pinnacle and harm the god when it manifests. We will rest here for the night. Tomorrow, we scale the pillar.”

“Scale it?” Quintel coughed in disbelief. “It is a mile high and lacks stairway or ladder.”

“Yes, I know,” Siyer said. “If you can think of another way to get to the top I would be interested in hearing it. Do not fear, the carvings provide more than adequate holds, if one knows how to play them right.”

Quintel did not argue, although the possibility of successfully climbing the enormous pillar seemed impossible even with their extraordinary prowess.

The wind regained its sanity at the tower's base. It seemed the structure tamed the surrounding white desert. A peaceful night settled upon them. They had no materials to build a fire, so they rested their backs against God's Finger and watched the clouds being born from the abyss.

As he observed the white mountains of mist rising from the darkness, Quintel gradually realized that the end of his quest waited but hours away. His meeting with Yuul had arrived. His fear was gone. He had grown beyond that. Relief was also absent. Instead, a sense of accomplishment shaped his feelings. He felt like a carpenter placing the last nail, an artist brushing the final stroke. His work was drawing to an end.

Siyer saw these tides within his thoughts and rose from his seated position. He stood with his back straight and chest pushed out in a very formal and serious posture. Quintel could tell he had rehearsed the words many times before.

“Tonight is the last night you will spend as a human being,” he began. “Before your parents were born, circumstances had been construed to lead you here, to your destiny. Now, the final moment is upon us. By tomorrow evening you will be a creature of flesh, but with the eyes and mind of a god. To ask what this means is futile, for no one knows — not even the gods themselves. Will it be you who holds the power of a god, or Yuul who holds the power of a man?”