Sherik thrust me forward. “Don’t let him die! He deserves town justice.”
Ay, town justice indeed. Public display, a trial … death was too good for this man. I could not have imagined how massively this would impact me–Lailla, my gentle, kind little girl, tortured for anna at the hands of this monster. Jerom’s words popped back into my head, ‘She thought he loved her’ and ‘when you weren’t around to save her’. Hatred. He cut out her tongue! Shame. I let this happen! And now I was planning to heal him?
At the very instant my hands touched Lenbis, another idea insinuated itself into my mind. Let him live,
and he might do this again to another woman. I knew exactly the fate he deserved. Quicker than rational thought, I exacted a crooked retribution.
Thunder rolled violently in the distance
–but hardly enough to cause the dust showering from the ceiling and the groaning of wooden walls. Sherik’s eyes widened.
“Oh, for Mata’s sake!” I shouted, shaking my fists at the ceiling. “Can you not leave a man be? I will take it back!”
Sherik shook my shoulder. “What have you done?”
“The Wurm
rises! Get Lailla!”
I scooped up the infant. Grandson number
… quick, be strong! Over-hastily, I poured life into him. He, at least, would not die.
Sherik
hacked at Lailla’s chain like a woodcutter possessed of an evil spirit. He broke the sword, but the chain broke too. He slung her over his shoulder, disregarding her struggles. Lailla howled that terrible animal-noise, again and again.
BAROOOM!
The thunder returned, very close this time. The entire building leaped on its foundations. I was aware of a presence that momentarily brushed against my consciousness. The Wurm had missed its mark. It was somewhere up in that warehouse. Dear sweet Mata, was the thunder … the Wurm? Was it bringing a storm?
I whirled; s
hoved the baby into Sherik’s arms. “Get them out of here!”
“What are you
–”
“The girl!”
“East road! Meet you!” he shouted back.
I pounded into the room again. Flung my sword
into a corner. I dove onto my hands and knees beside the bed and seized the little girl by anything I could reach–legs, arms, hair, I cared nought. She came out screaming and biting. “I’m sorry!” I shouted, trying to gather her into my arms. “I’m your grandfather–” she nipped a chunk out of my right bicep, “–you wretched little salcat!”
“Mummy!”
My ear narrowly missed being trimmed as well. I scrambled backwards, fighting to get to my feet, to the door, because any moment now there was going to be a–
BAROOOM!
The wall buckled and splintered, torn apart down the middle. Huge burgundy mandibles ripped it apart as an aged scrolleaf crumbles beneath a careless touch. The Wurm was in no hurry. It paused, giving me a moment to realise that I was seeing less than the lower half of its jaw. The rest of the beast was somewhere above the level of the ceiling. Its mandibles were each the thickness of my torso and their business ends were serrated like Faloxxian daggers, making terrifyingly light work of the building as it devoured three-quarters of the room before my disbelieving eyes.
A second time I felt t
hat majestic sense of presence; the certainty that this was a being rather than an automaton, a being that lived and moved and breathed as I. No, not as I–for this was an enchanted creature, birthed and steeped in magic, perhaps the greatest storehouse of magic the world had ever known. I reeled at an assault upon my mind too, truly told, similar to the Eldrik
gyael-irfa
but a thousand times more immediate and potent. Daggers of lightning flashed behind my eyes. The thunder rolled again, ocean billows buffeting the defences of my mind, then receding again. Was it Janos’ work which had prepared me for this? My mental fortress, that even collective might of the Eldrik Inquisitors had been unable to breach?
The little girl
clung to my neck for dear life now, too terrified to fight. Good, I thought. I would lose less flesh this way.
We watched as the Wurm surged forward and to our left, past us,
cutting off our escape.
Drawing breath, I smelled smoke, burning
… argan oil? Between the Wurm’s body and the wall a gap had opened as it rolled aside. Through that gap a dark wave surged forward, dousing us from head to toe in the aromatic oil. Lenbis must have been storing vast quantities in the warehouse, I thought. This night’s work would be his ruin.
I heaved my granddaughter
out of the lapping oil. I wiped her face clear.
Then I saw a
flicker of flame dancing toward us across the oil’s dark surface.
Back was no option. Contrary to the screaming in my head I surged
into the gap, slipping with the guile of a sea-otter into the warehouse.
Right into the conflagration.
Sweet oil sucked at my knees as I struggled with all my might along the length of the great Wurm–ring after ring, the monstrous length of it still partly buried in the ground beneath the warehouse. I remembered Sathak riding the beast. I wished I could be him. Just for a span. But there was no way we could have scaled its segments, thrice my height and more.
A
s I had feared, the fire leaped eagerly upon our oily bodies, and began to feed with greedy abandon. Hotter. Hotter. I burned. The girl shrieked in terror and pain. Inwardly, I stepped into a rippling pool of peace in my quoph. I reached into the depths of my potency and immersed us in peace, stilling the burning, preserving our skins, not fighting the fire, but merely matching it breath for breath.
I soothed my granddaughter with my touch and my voice. “
You won’t burn. You’re safe now. Your mother’s safe. Mata will keep us, you’ll see.”
I suppose we resembled
human torches as we broke free of the warehouse. The streets beyond were jammed with the curious and the feckless. Hundreds of them must have seen us, I own, bathed in fire, streaking brightly through the streets of Darbis that night.
And so was born the legend.
It was Darbis which named me the Burning One.
No man may equal the Gods. Yet should one be elevated, of what mettle should he prove? Therefore take heed which cup aids your sup. Drink well and deep, friend, of life’s bittersweet chalice–drink while you may!
Soihon
al’Thab kin Tar’ka,
When Gods Walked: Untold Tales of El Shashi
“We must hurry,” I told Sherik, depositing Lyllia at his feet.
Sherik stared frankly at our nakedness, before yanking off his habit and swaddling the girl in it. He had found blanket for the infant. Or stolen it,
more likely. A monk most practical! “What happened?”
“We burned in
argan oil. Find her clothes, will you, and–”
The big man nodded. “I will care for them as my own.
I promise.”
“Near the Lyrn Mountains on the Roymere side is a village called Imbi. Ask there after Rubiny and Tarrak. Can you carry all three?”
“Ay, as Mata gives me strength. I will find shelter and clothes first.” Sherik pressed a coin into my hand. “So you don’t need to steal clothes or food.”
I stared down at the Lortiti Real in my palm. Solid gold. Heavy. As solid as the day Jyla paid me for Janos’ betrayal.
Sherik, mistaking my silence, said curtly, “I swore to guard you. But I cannot run from the Wurm as you can. And surely not with these to care for … where will you go?”
“Roymere. Janos’ home.”
“Ay, a good mark. Beware the mountains. With snow, they’ll be impassable.”
“That means the long way around.” I rubbed my arms
, looking about me with a wildly rolling eye. “That storm is following me, can you see it? It’s the Wurm.”
“There’s no storm, Brother,” Sherik said gently. “It blew off north-east two makh ago.”
I marked compassion in his eyes. He probably thought me mad.
“I must go.”
To hide my emotions, I bent forward and kissed Tyrak, the little boy, then Lailla, and fussed over her for as long as I dared. Earth-tremors, approaching. Thunder from the clear heavens. I had no time to deal with her deeper wounds, especially not her tongue, but I strengthened her for the journey as best I was able. Then I fell to my knees before Lyllia. She gazed at me with huge eyes. Disturbingly akin to mine in their dark depths.
The magic could not have passed down to her gantul, could it? Surely not
… I caught myself shaking my head. I really was going mad!
“Whatever you have learned of men,” I told her, “this man is different. His name is Sherik, and he will take care of you until I come back. I will come back.”
“You need to go,” Sherik urged. He felt, as did I, the ground beginning to quiver beneath our feet.
“Are you really my grandfather?” Lyllia asked in a piping little voice. Her first real words to me, apart from her name in a frightened whisper. “Can you heal mommy?”
“Truly told, I am your grandfather. And I will come back for you and your mother. I promise.”
“El Shashi? Is your name El Shashi?”
“Arlak. Or grandfather …”
I stood up, meaning to back away, but Sherik clasped me in a crushing one-armed hug. “Go with Mata, Brother.”
The freezing wind whipped away my tears as I dashed into the night, as naked as the makh I was born.
* * * *
Fourteen days.
The price of my transgression. I knew it, had counted it, dreaded it, prayed again and again to Mata I would never have to go through with such an extended run
–and nigh a gantul had kept my integrity untroubled. The southern deserts evoked memories of mental and physical extremes, of a failure arrested only by chance. Six nights and seven days nigh killed me. Should I survive fourteen? Tears pricked my eyes.
At your every failure, the cost will be multiplied. Double my power. Double your forfeit. Your deeds shall feed my Wurm!
Well and truly had Jyla named my fate.
Double her power.
I owned there must be oceans of
lillia
at Jyla’s disposal now–what more could she possibly need to break the Banishment? After that day, perchance, could I conceive my life should return to normal and everyone would be happy … ay, and I was smoking a treble dose of yesteranna’s pipe-dreams!
I smiled. Grimly.
“What you so blasted cheerful ‘bout?” grunted my jailor, setting a bowl of steaming stew down in front of me. He settled on the bench opposite and stared at his boots. “A man who’s to be displayed ‘morrow at dioni orison has no right to happiness.”
“Look, I’ve clothes, a bed
–albeit flea-ridden–and warm food. That’s more than I had sunrise last.”
“You can’t
as blame our Watch for taking a man running nikked through the streets of Hollybrook, stranger!”
With hounds, nets
, and clubs? I settled for a mild response. “I was about to buy clothes, friend, truly told.” Ay, I had protested capture violently, but there was no escape. I had many bruises to show for my futile efforts. Where was the Wurm? It had been makh since I saw or felt sign of the creature. Had I truly run that far and that fast, these two days?
“Ha. Pretty boy you are, but nikkid no good.”
“You fancy boys, Tarkis?”
“Don’cha be cheeky to a man Matabound right and proper, you crazy jerlak!”
“Is your house nearby?”
“Other sida town.” He looked at me for the first time. “What’s it to you?”
“Just checking, Tarkis. I wouldn’t want your family to be eaten when the Wurm comes.”
He shook his head and guffawed. “You an’ that crazy El Shashi talk. Well I’ll like as be eaten by the Hounds than by your Wurm, crazy man! Wurm, ha! A dozen fools a season we brings in here swearing blind to Mata ‘n all they’s El Shashi.”
I chewed my food for a space. For jail fare, it was very acceptable. “Friend, did you ever have your leg seen to? Is that an old wound?”
“Don’cha start again. You touching nothing of mine!”
I was watching the fleas and bedbugs springing out of my mattress and bedding. In quick procession, a dozen or so cockroaches and the scampering claws of a lone rat followed them. Tarkis’ eyes jumped. The same was happening in the cell opposite, only that one, being empty, had five rats plus the usual complement of insect life.
I fell to shovelling the food into my mouth as fast as I could. The cell walls
trembled as with the ague. Old lime-mortar crumbled like sand from between the blocks above my head, making the stew gritty and unpalatable. I bolted it anyway. Where would I gain my next meal? I needed every drop of strength I could husband and more.
“I don’t suppose you would consider opening the door and letting us both run away before we get eaten, Tarkis? Got any children
who’d miss you?”
I sounded as though I was m
atching a hoof-split jerlak for mood.
Tarkis blanched. Then he sprang to his feet, grabbing the key-ring dangling from his leather belt, fumbling ham-fingered at the keys. “One, two
… is it this one? This?”
Pathetic fool.
He would kill us both.
A block smashed at my feet. Another. My upraised forearm was beaten against my head and my head battered down to my knees by the ensuing avalanche of debris, from which I surfaced
as if I were a mole excavating a cave-in. I wiped my eyes. Gusty sneezes … screaming at Tarkis “Run!” but here, dear sweet Mata, bright sunlight above me marked a way out and I scrambled toward the daylight with a sense of sobbing gratitude. I threw myself upwards and wriggled out of the hole even as the bottom dropped out of the cell.
I felt the Wurm passing
right beneath me.
To my right, guards
spilled out of the jailhouse door. I was relieved to spy Tarkis amongst their number, but directly he cried, “Catch that prisoner!” and set them upon me like hounds to the hare–ungrateful wretch!
I shook the dust off my feet and pelted down the road. A half-dozen men came shouting after. When a man tried to stand me down, I threw an elbow at his throat and felled him with a satisfying thud. I had learned one or two things during my army service! And my luck
–or Mata’s hand, as Janos would have put it–was strong upon my shoulder this day, for every dance or sidestep of my feet launched me smoothly through the crowd, around corners with the speed of a hawk, at one stage even hurdling me over five fruit-laden marketplace trestles in a row without mishap.
Perhaps I was a hawk, fly
ing through the cobbled streets.
Immediately this thought crossed my mind, my vision jumped. For a short span I
came out of myself. I did not understand. Suddenly I soared above my own body, or my quoph was somehow divorced from its physical vessel, for I had a clear vision of myself careening headlong between the narrow houses, darting here and there beneath the overhanging eaves, able to see several streets ahead and guide my path accordingly. The sensation was disquieting. I began to sense … differently. The scuttling of a rat upon a slate roof drew my attention with an almost irresistible force, so much so that below, my body ricocheted off the wall of a house as it instinctively tried to pursue the rat.
The pain brought me back
to myself. Brutally.
Breath
upon breath, my heart beating in a Qur’lik message drum’s rhythms, feet pounding the stones. I shot through the town gates in straight flight, at my enhanced top speed, right into the midst of a group of traders gathered on the lip of a ravine.
Too late!
I was moving too fast. After an instant’s hesitation, I gathered my body and tried to leap the ravine. I heard shouts. I was soaring on the wind! Airborne!
And
I fell short.
Next I remember lying on my back, staring at a bank of menacing clouds marching across the sky. Rain was imminent, or I was not born in the mountains. The channel I
lay in was gently rounded at the base, but its edges were far too steep to climb, and it was at least four or five men deep. I rolled over. A row of faces peered down at me. My knees and back were full of jagged pain. I felt rock as smooth as river-stones beneath my hands. My eyes swivelled in their sockets as my mind made a leap. Larathi! It was Wurm-shaped! I gagged. Truly told … while I tarried in jail, the Wurm had quarried a trap outside of town?
The beast wanted to get close enough to devour me. Then nought would stand in the way of Jyla and her ambitions. Could she thus be thwarted? Should I lay down and die?
But my feet were already dancing an answer to that question.
Somewhere in this trap must be the place the Wurm had started. The trick would be to find
the exit–or some other means of escape–before the Wurm found me, otherwise I would give Jyla exactly what she wanted. Oh Amal, Eliyan … oh P’dáronï! Would I fail them all?
I sensed the Wurm approaching
, as if a great grey cloud were impinging upon my senses–a cloud, similarly to the weather, laced with fork lightning at its edges. This way? Or that? I stopped to glance back over my shoulder. Which direction should I choose? Either way, my aches and hurts screamed and protested every jolting step, so I dipped into the
lillia’s
balmy depths to soothe my body. So tempting. I never could control the power properly; it was a drug. One taste and I craved nought else.
Striking my fist upon my thigh, I pushed myself into a run.
I dashed along for the better part of a makh, slowly curving my way around to the south side of Hollybrook, before I felt the first shafts of rain thud against my head and shoulders. Oh no. Here was another problem. Sometimes in Hakooi it rains, and sometimes a river pours out of the heavens to drown the unwary. It was soon raining so hard that the fat droplets splashed back up off the ground with the force of each strike, and the roar of it grew until I could no longer hear or sense the Wurm. Water streamed into my eyes. A river formed around my ankles–and suddenly I recalled that I had run uphill out of Hollybrook. The north side was higher. That meant I was about to start swimming, if it was true to my growing suspicion that the Wurm had ringed the entire town with this channel.
But where
had it entered?
As I cast about in alarm, I saw to my dismay through the torrential rain the Wurm’s feelers sliding smoothly around the bend behind me. It was coming fast
… and had grown again by my mark. The head was longer and more streamlined, and its progress was definitely more efficient–even stretching my running-stride to the maximum, I could barely keep ahead of the creature now.
Water dragged
at my knees. I passed a place where a stream poured over the edge of the Wurm’s ravine. I glanced back, but saw no way past the beast, for its bulk filled the channel from wall to wall. I was now running as high up the side as I was able while keeping my balance, and the water at my right hand was rapidly deepening. If only I could buy enough time, I thought, I would be able to swim out of this trap–or perhaps the surge being pushed up by the Wurm would literally wash me out of the gully?