Dear sweet Mata she
…
The Honoria’s outraged bray resounded throughout the courtyard as she kicked me as hard as she could, right in the ribs, down the steps and away from her daughter.
* * * *
“Rubiny!” I whispered hotly, “what are you doing here? In Mata’s name
–”
“Finding you,” she shot back.
I slumped back on my pallet. “Ulim’s scabrous scullions, woman! Do you often scare people in night’s dead-time? In the male quarters, moreover?” In the shadows by the doorway, the large salcat which had been curled up by my feet gave me a slit-eyed stare of utter disdain, before stalking out of the door with a dismissive flick of its tail.
“You didn’t bed down at the Lodge.”
“And have your mother’s servants beat me raw for good measure? I hid here for good reason!”
“So you didn’t mean it?”
The intense rumiaflower scent of her perfume set my head a-spin. “Oh, be reasonable, woman!” But my growl failed to achieve an iota of menace. “What would the Honoria say?”
“Don’t you mean, what hasn’t she
already said about my reputation? If you only knew what I’ve endured this day, for your sake!”
I fumbled for my sparkstone, cursing the darkness. “Worse than grovelling in the fore
court like some numbwit, and being kicked down the stairs? I think my ribs are broken.”
There came that
playful giggle again, the one that punctured my ire with sweet ease. I could not believe Rubiny had come. Did I dare hope …? “I must confess,” she whispered back, “I have never had a man declare himself a fool for my sake. Truly told, a day to remember.”
“Fool I was,” I muttered, trimming the wick to the lowest glow I could elicit. At least the wretched woman had the sense to wear a travelling burnoose and not some fancy frock! “Fool I am. The world’s greatest fool! Your mother will
kill me. Please, for the sake of all that is good in this world, you must return to Telmak Lodge.”
Rubiny’s titian hair ensnare
d and winked back the small flame. In the intimate lamplight, her eyes were solemn, dark emeralds, and I wished for nought but to lose myself in them forever. In a low, steady voice she said, “Take heed, Arlak. I do not wish to speak of the Honoria, or Telmak Lodge, ever again. I’ve made my choice.”
Truly told, my heart leaped
as at the very joys of Springtide. I searched her face. “Rubiny?”
“Arlak.” Her forefinger touched my lips.
Her touch was at once fire and balm to my quoph. “Hush now. Let us speak anon. Truly told, I’ve run away without my parents blessing or knowledge, and a thousand wild jerlak would not convince me to return. Don’t frown.”
“
You’re crazy.”
“Mayhap I am, but so are you.
” Her lips quirked upward. “Fancy kissing my slipper’s toe? What in all the Fiefdoms made you dredge up that quaint custom?”
I chuckled. It was starting to make sense now.
“The person we are not talking about, Rubiny. Was it not you who–”
“Not I!”
“Gods, I wanted to strangle you!”
“Shh.”
I glanced at the door. “Sorry. But what happened was, the Honoria stopped me at a roadside near Elaki Fountain–anna ago, now. Made a huge kafuffle in front of a family of six. Said you were upset and I had to beg you for the slipper’s toe. The girls teased me about it for three makh solid over evensup.” I drew her hand to my chin. “Look, you wretched, wretched beauty–you left me this beastly scar.”
Rubiny’s eyes sparkled. “My poor Arlak,” she murmured, moving her fingers aside to kiss the scar. “Ormetal is so heavy.” She nibbled her way from my chin to the corner of my lips. “I wanted
nought more than to knock your daft head off. Fancy, mmm, telling me to leave you be? In front of all those people?”
I was enjoying her sweet kisses far too much to make any rational reply.
“I’m sure it won’t be the last time either.”
Truly told again! I twined my fingers into her hair and
set about kissing the daughter Telmak as thoroughly as she deserved. Half a span of breathless passion later, sallow lamplight spilled abruptly across our trysting-place.
“Ha! What have we here?”
Rubiny and I jerked apart as though burned. I, squinting, made out the housemaster and his two sons. The housemaster waved an old sword, pitted with rust, in a manner that suggested he was more familiar with a hoe. The sons held a quarterstaff each. They gaped at the dishevelled pair of us as if they had just seen Ulim’s Hunt ride past in the full panoply of its demonic glory.
“It’s the daughter Telmak! Back, you striploose vagabond!”
I made a habit of sleeping fully clothed on the road, using my pack for a pillow. It is harder to steal things off a man when he wears them. I had no weapons, however, save the belt-knife that every Roymerian carries. I drawled:
“Put the sword away, old man. I’ve no desire to see you hurt.”
“Get your hand off the knife!”
I drew Rubiny behind me
–not without protest–and added, “As a trained soldier, I can tell you have no real idea how to use that.”
“You’re no soldier.”
“It’s the athocary’s robe, isn’t it?” I sighed. Rubiny kept bumping my back as she rearranged her apparel. “I have just returned from the border war, truly told, and have little patience for sword-waving simpletons.”
“The border war?”
“Hush.”
“
Hush?” snorted the housemaster. “I’ll have your hide! Stealing away the daughter Telmak indeed! Why–”
“You cannot steal what wants to be stolen,” I pointed out, and heard Rubiny giggle behind me. Trust a woman to be overexcited by my kisses. Kissing her again, soon, was my most pressing concern
–right after seeing off the housemaster and his boys.
Waving the sword at my midriff, he scowled. “Don’t you play your fancy words with me, sonny! Now, hand her over.”
I grabbed for my belt-knife. The housemaster belatedly lunged, missed, and stumbled to his knees. One of the boys swung wildly with his staff. He managed to strike only the overhead roof-beams, lose his balance, and fall upon his father.
The father clutched his neck. As Rubiny gasped, I saw blood spurt upon the floor. The other son stood petrified in idiotic tableaux, holding the lantern aloft in one hand and his staff in the other.
“Father!” they cried.
The wound was jagged, ugly, probably ripped
by the man’s own sword-tip. The son tried with terrified fingertips to press the flaps of flesh shut. Blood kept jetting out. It splattered upon his burnoose and up to his elbows in no time. I reached out with my free hand. Touching the old man, I dove into him, found the rent vein, and willed the tissue whole. The crimson spurting slowed at once to a trickle.
“Hold still.” I
smoothed the wound with my fingertips.
When I was done, he sank weakly to the floor, cradled in his son’s arms. Father and sons, they stared at me as though I were a two-headed snake.
“You’ll need to rest,” I told him. “Be grateful to Mata you live.”
“
By the Gods, who are you?”
Turning, I read the same question in R
ubiny’s eyes. “We’ll be leaving now,” I muttered. “Do not attempt to follow us. I’ll explain it all, beloved …”
I took up my pack and
reached out to clasp Rubiny’s hand in mine. How little of each other we truly knew. Yet it was a beginning.
Together, we stepped though the door
way and into the night.
Beware the honeypot of pleasure, and be content in every trial. For pleasure is fleeting, but trials strengthen the quoph.
Phari al’Mahi kin Saymik,
My Father the Yammarik
Lorami Fountain, on the east side of Hakooi near the Roymere and Elbarath borders, is the kind of town that many pass through, but only those who linger get to know each other well. One or two thousands dwelt within the thick sandstone walls, built to keep out the marauding Faloxx. The houses were typically Hakooi in design–blocky stone units, with sloped slate roofs to shed the snows of Alldark Week, and the ubiquitous music chamber-come-reception area that marked them apart from Roymerian designs. How the Hakooi adore their music!
This was where Rubiny and I settled as
the Glooming season turned to Rains. She was pregnant with our first child. I refused to stay on the road.
With the proceeds of my work we
purchased a tiny but cosy house behind an athocarium, not far from the gate called ‘Love Gate’ by the locals. We chuckled at this. Every time we passed through the archway, we paused for a kiss–oftentimes long enough to make some trader chuckle at us, or a matron whisper to her friend about ‘shameless youngsters’. Here we lacked for nought but real wealth. Rubiny never questioned why I charged a standard rate no matter the ailment or the labour to cure it–but I understood, deep within, the seductive power of my greed and selfishness. I mistrusted my quoph. How I wished I could have given the daughter Telmak more, much more, but she declared her contentment.
Indeed, we were more than content. I took to fatherhood with baffling ease. Sherya, our first daughter, was the very image and temperament of Rubiny.
At the time the Wurm returned, Sherya was four anna old. Rubiny and I had been together for five anna. My wanderings might have belonged to another lifetime.
* * * *
“I can’t believe I won,” said my wife, beaming at me.
“I’ll have to behave myself now,” I teased. “Local justice! If only they knew you as I do.”
Rubiny pressed her side. “Ooh.”
“Kicking you in the ribs again?”
“This child of yours is all knees and elbows,” she grimaced, and paused to mop her brow. The season was unbearably hot and humid. Step outside, and the noontide heat had us bathed in sweat before we had turned a corner. “Must be a boy. Are you hoping for a boy this time, Arlak?”
“Truly told, I would be grateful for either,” I said, fondly watching her rolling walk. Rubiny had miscarried twice since Sherya was born. Tough on us both, but on her especially. To resist the temptation to meddle
–unbearable! But Rubiny was adamant about her beliefs and wanted no intervention. Now she had a nine-months waddle. “I couldn’t imagine having a boy as well. Sherya’s such a handful …”
Sherya
skipped ahead of us, a mop of red curls and endless energy. We watched her for a span, darting between the sparse holitaph holiday crowds. All the women wore canary-yellow headscarves and long sardi-dresses, with their wide fluffed and flounced skirts, trimmed with tiny silver bells that tinkled merrily as they walked. The men wore their best kabari tunics, a veritable riot of colours. Ay, the town would liven up later, in the cool of eventide, I thought–the street vendors would appear, selling their brith buns and spicy jatha-meat kebabs, and hordes of musicians and entertainers would arrive from the surrounding villages, and there would be dancing and merriment late into the night. I did love this holiday.
“Odd thing about that carbuncle on her nose, wasn’t it?” said Rubiny, referring to her opponent in the election. “Wasn’t there when we saw her Sayth last.”
“Nasty,” I agreed.
“The kind you could heal in a snap, couldn’t you, love?”
Or create with equal facility, I thought guiltily. A harmless bit of foolery. After all, I wanted Rubiny to win, didn’t I? Mister Dutiful Husband. The title fit like a yammarik’s hair shirt. Mark my words, I was jealous of Rubiny’s successes even as I cheered from the sidelines. Why begrudge her this trifle? I could not understand myself sometimes.
What would Jyla have made of my happy state? Did she even know where I was? Did she care that I had a family now? The Wurm had been dormant these five anna. I hope
d she could not touch my family here. ‘Oh please … Mata protect us, protect our children …’
“Where are your thoughts, my husband?”
“Drifting,” I admitted. “Deep in the past.”
“You should let those things go.”
“My heart, what I wouldn’t give for the power to forget.”
“
You’re too melancholy–”
“I’m afraid,” I said,
pulling out my honesty to wave it as a peace-offering. “Sometimes I suspect I’m too happy. I’m terrified Jyla will tear it all away.”
Rubiny linked her elbow
with mine. “I know. That isn’t Mata’s way, but … I know. I wonder sometimes that my parents will not find a way to spoil it for us too. Have they not looked for us? Do they not worry about me?”
“Maybe you’d
want to show them their grandchildren?”
“I’
m afraid they’d disapprove.”
“Sherya is beautiful.” I squinted against Doublesun’s glare. “
Belion is blazing today. Feels like a thunderstorm brewing, doesn’t it? Where is–”
“There, beside the bragazzar tree.”
“Ah. I wish she wouldn’t run off like that.”
“Her father’s daughter, truly told.”
“Huh!” I snorted, and then stiffened. “See that?”
“What?”
My voice rose an octave. “That!”
The bragazzar tree, which stood in the centre of a small square,
quivered noticeably, as though the warm sifadoon buffeted it with a vengeance–only, there was not a breath of wind this noontide. I narrowed my eyes. Felt a horrible sensation beneath my skin as if ten shadworms had laid their eggs there.
Oh, Larathi!
“How odd …”
But my sandals were already pounding the flag
stones, full gallop. Of all these people, I alone knew what was coming. I shouted, “Clear the square! Get back! Everyone get back!”
Sherya was turning to look at me, her apple-green eyes full of innocent questions, when the stones beneath her feet began to rise.
I took the last five paces at a headlong dive. The rough-cut granite flagstones shredded my thin burnoose and the skin beneath. I snatched Sherya up one handed, cradling my little girl to my bosom as the ground rocked and pitched violently. As toys are cast aside by an artless child, so were we tossed off the side of the mountain that was the Wurm rising.
I crashed to my knees. Rocky soil showered my bowed head. Dust
danced crazy patterns upon the flagstones as I curled my body over Sherya’s, feeling the terrified drumbeat of her heart against my breastbone, wincing at the sharp
crack!
of rocks split asunder by the Wurm’s vertical ascent. The ancient bragazzar gave vent to a great, dying groan as it toppled sideways, crushing a nearby house. Later, the sound of its untimely-terminated life would plague my dreams.
Please let her be unhurt
…
I peered past my shielding arm.
Larathi! This beast was a chest-high mole-run-maker no more! How could I have forgotten? It tore the earth’s fabric rudely, emerging segment after smooth segmen
t as though squeezed forth by Mata’s own hand.
When it towered to twice the height of the nearest house
, the Wurm’s ascent slowed, and its long, jointed feelers began to scent the air. I smelled burnt cinnamon, mingled with smoke from a fire hungrily sniffing around the stricken bragazzar. It would seek me out. Me alone. Nothing could stand in the Wurm’s way–not walls, nor houses, nor even the very foundation stone of Mata’s creation. It came to me in a flash what I must do.
I staggered to my feet. My left arm, broken
without my knowing it in the fall, flopped at my side as though pinned to my shoulder by ribbons. I deposited Sherya at my feet. “Wait here for mommy.”
She was too petrified even to wail.
Go! The gate! I sprinted across the square, deliberately closing with the Wurm, daring it to scent and follow me. I would head for the countryside. Just one hundred and fifty paces and I could be through Love Gate. Lead the Wurm into the fields where no-one lived … lead it away from my family. Dear Mata protect!
A backward glance.
I saw the sightless Wurm withdrawing into its giant pit. Grey smoke curled into an almost translucent Doublesun sky. My forehead tried to make a dent in the back of a cart.
Spitting dirt. Shaking my head to clear it. The Wurm
… gone. Looking this way, that–people were starting to gather, to gawk. My legs would not obey. I saw a large crack appear in the middle of the road. It snaked toward my feet.
“Clear the road! Clear the road!” I cried, waving my good arm. I must ha
ve looked like a madman. Somebody’s grandfather thwacked me with his cane. I dodged a fat dog, picked up my knees, and hared for the gate. The rows of neat houses either side of the road were shaking. Roof tiles slid down, shattering amongst the milling crowd in a deadly hailstorm of flying shards.
Quick! I healed my arm
.
A waggoner with a whole train of jatha was just passing through the gate when I arrived in a pressing haste to escape. No mind. I sprang for the traces, swung onto his seat, and from there scrambled headlong across the load and jumped down again. Just as he turned to curse me, the ground shifted beneath his cart. The terrified jatha surged forward, pulling him to safety as a substantial section of the town wall crumpled dramatically.
I put my head down, and dashed out into the fields.
The Wurm rumbled after
me like a faithful hound; only, a hound would have spent eventide napping by a warm fireplace at my feet. This creature wanted Arlak for evensup. The trees to either side of the track juddered visibly. I sensed the vibration of the Wurm’s progress even through my pounding feet. There was a pressure in my mind–the Wurm’s presence, churning up the hideous darkness in my quoph.
I increased my pace up the long incline out of town, surprised at how out of breath I
became. Arlak had enjoyed too much of the quiet life. Dear Gods, what would Rubiny say? She had never seen the Wurm before. But I could explain. Ay, it was simple. Silly. She would understand … surely? We were too long Matabound for this to come between us. No-one had been hurt. Despite the Wurm’s taste for flesh, this time, I had cheated it. No need for people to die. With luck no-one would even notice my absence.
How many makh? I tried to calculate in my head. Every chase was longer than the last.
Last I recalled, I had summoned the Wurm in the early makh of dawn, run it through the Lymarian encampment, and kept fleeing the beast until eventide. That meant–larathi! I could expect almost a day and a half’s terror. My muscles burned already. I slowed to a walk, glancing several times over my shoulder for signs of the Wurm. Did it already rest in the earth’s bowels?
‘
Hush, Arlak! Play not the fool!’ I rebuked my errant thoughts.
As I paused
to look back over Lorami Fountain, basking in the golden rays of first sundown, the town appeared serene, untouched by the day’s events. Cooking smoke clung to the tall square chimneys, unmoving on a wind-still eventide. A few hands trudged home from a day’s labour in the thorrick-fields. But my heart hammered in my throat as I completed a slow survey of my surroundings. It was quiet. Ay, too quiet. Doublesun’s heat made my head pound. Walking on briskly, I pulled off my outer burnoose. Maybe once Suthauk set in the late eventide makh the day would cool down, but right now I was wearing far too much for any serious running.
Best keep moving. I broke into a trot again.
I had to rub my arm. How many thousands of breaks had I set, only to botch my own? I pressed in with my senses, trying to establish the point of failure. Janos would have tut-tutted, ‘Haste is the enemy of excellence, Arlak!’ I smiled at the memory. Animals, dealt with in haste, become fearful and fretful. Indeed, I remembered my father’s gentle way with animals … when last had I remembered him?
My nostrils twitched. What an odd smell
–something burning out here? Umber? Cinnamon?
“Oh Larathi!” I howled as the ground gave way beneath my feet.
I threw myself backward, twisting my body so violently that every vertebra in my back popped. The soil crumbled to nothingness beneath my frantic, flailing hands. I slipped deeper into the hole, already down to my chest, when my fingers suddenly closed about a sturdy tree-root. For less than a heartbeat, I was breathless with sweet relief.
Then a vast snort boomed through the c
averns beneath me.
SHWWEEEESH!
To this makh I know not with what manner of strength I hoisted my body free, but it was as though I had sprouted an eagle’s wings
and taken to the great thermals of my native Roymere. I next remember collapsing at the bole of a spreading lurmint tree. But before my astonished eyes the tree’s roots, gnarled anchors as thick as my waist, began to ping loose of soil they had held firm for five hundred anna and more. The whole tree shuddered. It began to sag. And the Wurm, thundering upward from the black depths, attempted to swallow the lurmint whole–root, branch, and leaf.