The Stone of Farewell (10 page)

Selfish!
he chided himself.

With Binabik imprisoned, who knew what Qantaqa had done? Her friend and master had been taken from her, just as Doctor Morgenes had been taken from Simon. The night seemed suddenly colder and emptier, full of the world's heedless cruelty.

“Qantaqa? Are you hungry?” He took a step toward her and the wolf shied back. She growled again, but it sounded more like excitement than anger. She took a few prancing steps, the shimmer of her gray coat almost invisible, then growled again before bounding away. Simon followed her.

It occurred to him as he went, stepping carefully on the wet stone pathways, that he was doing a foolish thing. The twisting roadways of high Mintahoq were no place for a midnight walk, especially without a torch. Even the native trolls knew better: the cave-mouths were lightless and silent, the paths empty. It was as if he had wakened from one dream to enter another, this shadowy pilgrimage beneath the distant and uncaring moon.

Qantaqa seemed to know where she was going. When Simon lagged too far behind she trotted back, stopping just out of reach until he caught up, her hot breath pluming the air. As soon as he drew within an arm's length she was off again. Thus, like a spirit of the afterworld, she led him away from the fires of his own kind.

It was only when they had walked for some time, traveling well around the curve of the mountain from the sleeping-cave, that Qantaqa bounded all the way back to Simon. She did not pull up short this time. Her great frame struck him so suddenly that even though she had merely bumped against him, he fell back onto his seat. She stood over him for a moment, her face buried in his neck, cold nose rooting ticklingly near his ear. Simon reached up to scratch her ears and felt her tremble even through her thick fur. A moment later, as if her need for comfort had been satisfied, she leaped away again and stood whining quietly until he rose, rubbing his tailbone, and followed.

 

It seemed that Qantaqa had led him halfway around Mintahoq. She stood now at the edge of a great blackness, yipping in excitement. Simon walked forward cautiously, feeling the raw stone face of the mountain with his right hand as he went. Qantaqa paced in seeming impatience.

The wolf was standing at the rim of a great pit, which burrowed away from the side of the path into the very mountain. The moon, sailing low in the sky like an overloaded carrack, could only silver the stone around the hole's mouth. Qantaqa barked again with barely contained enthusiasm.

To Simon's staggering surprise, a voice echoed thinly from below.

“Go away, wolf! Even sleep is taken from me, Aedon curse it!”

Simon threw himself to the cold gravel and crawled forward on elbows and knees, stopping at last with his head hanging over blind nothingness.

“Who's there?” he cried. His words reverberated as though they journeyed a great distance. “Sludig?”

There was a pause.

“Simon? Is that you who calls?”

“Yes! Yes, it's me! Qantaqa brought me! Is Binabik with you? Binabik! It's me, Simon!”

A silent moment passed, then Sludig spoke again. Now Simon could hear the strain in the Rimmersman's voice. “The troll will not speak. He is here, but he will not speak to me, to Jiriki when he came, to anyone.”

“Is he sick? Binabik, it's Simon! Why don't you answer me?”

“He is sick in his heart, I think,” Sludig said. “He looks as he always did—thinner, perhaps, but so I am, too—but he acts like one already dead.” There was a scraping noise as Sludig, or someone, moved in the depths. “Jiriki says they will kill us,” the Rimmersman said a moment later, his voice flat with resignation. “The Sitha spoke for us—not with heat or anger, as far as I could tell, but he spoke for us all the same. He said the troll people did not agree with his arguments and were determined to have their justice.” He laughed bitterly. “Some justice, to kill a man who never did them harm, and kill one of their own as well, both of whom have suffered much for the good of all folk—even the trolls. Einskaldir was right. But for this silent fellow beside me, they are all hell-wights.”

Simon sat up, holding his head in his hands. The wind blew uncaringly about the heights. Helplessness spread through him.

“Binabik!” he cried, leaning over once more. “Qantaqa waits for you! Sludig suffers at your side! No one can help if you don't help yourself! Why won't you speak to me?!”

Only Sludig answered. “It's no good, I tell you. His eyes are closed. He does not hear you, will not speak at all.”

Simon slapped his hand against the rock and cursed. He felt tears start in his eyes.

“I will help you, Sludig,” he said at last. “I do not know how, but I will.” He sat up. Qantaqa nosed him and whimpered. “Can I bring you something? Food? Water?”

Sludig laughed dully. “No. They feed us, although not to bursting. I would ask for wine, but I do not know when they come for me. I will not go with my head foggy from drink. Only pray for me, please. And for the troll, too.”

“I will do more than that, Sludig, I swear.” He stood up.

“You were very brave on the mountain, Simon,” Sludig called quietly. “I am glad that I knew you.”

The stars glittered coldly above the pit as Simon walked away, fighting to stand straight and cry no more.

He walked a while beneath the moon, lost in the swirl of his distracted thoughts, before he realized that he was again following Qantaqa. The wolf, who had paced anxiously beside the edge of the pit while Simon talked to Sludig, now trotted purposefully along the path before him. She did not allow him a chance to catch up as she had on their outward journey, and he was hard pressed to keep to her pace.

The moonlight was just bright enough for Simon to see where he was going, the trail just wide enough to allow for recovery from the occasional misstep. Still, he was feeling decidedly weak. He wondered more than once whether he should just sit down and wait until dawn came, when someone would find him and return him safely to his cave, but Qantaqa trotted on, full of lupine determination. Feeling that he owed her a sort of loyalty, Simon did his best to follow.

He soon noted with more than a little alarm that they seemed to be climbing above the main trail, angling up Mintahoq's face along a steeper, narrower pathway. As the wolf led him ever upward, and as they cut across more than a few horizontal paths, the air began to seem thinner. Simon knew he had not climbed so far, that the sensation was due instead to his own flagging wind, but he nevertheless felt himself to be passing out of the realms of safety into the upper heights. The stars seemed very close.

He wondered for a moment if those cold stars might somehow be the airless peaks of other, incredibly distant mountains, vast bodies lost in darkness, snow-capped heads gleaming with reflected moonlight. But no, that was foolishness. Where could they be standing, that they would not be visible in daylight beneath the bright sun?

In truth, the air might have been no scarcer, but the cold was certainly growing, undeniable and intrusive despite his heavy cloak. Shivering, he decided he should turn around and make his way back down to the main roadway, no matter what moonlight pastime Qantaqa found so enticing. A moment later, he was surprised to find himself stepping up off the path and following the wolf onto a narrow shelf in the mountainside.

The rocky porch, dotted with patches of dimly gleaming snow, stood before a large, black crevice. Qantaqa jogged forward and stopped before it, sniffing. She turned to regard Simon, her shaggy head tipped at an angle, then barked once inquiringly and slipped into blackness. Simon decided there must be a cave hidden in the shadows. He was wondering whether he should follow her—letting a wolf lead him on a foolish hike along the mountainside was one thing, but letting her lead him into a lightless cavern in the middle of the night was another thing entirely—when a trio of small dark shapes appeared out of the blackness of the cliff face before him, startling Simon so badly that he almost stepped backward off the stone porch.

Diggers!
he thought wildly, scrabbling on the barren ground for some weapon. One of the shapes stepped forward, raising a slender spear toward him as if in warning. It was a troll, of course—they were quite a bit larger than the subterranean Bukken, when calmly examined—but still he was frightened. These Qanuc were small but well-armed; Simon was a stranger wandering about at night, perhaps in some sacred place.

The nearest troll pushed back a fur-ringed hood. Pallid moonlight shone on the face of a young woman. Simon could see little of her features but the whites of her eyes, but he was sure her expression was fierce and dangerous. Her two companions moved up beside her, muttering in what seemed like angry voices. He took a step backward down the pathway, feeling carefully for a safe foothold.

“I'm sorry. I'm just going,” he said, realizing even as he spoke that they could not understand him. Simon cursed himself for not having Binabik or Jiriki teach him some words of troll speech. Always regretting, always too late! Would he be a mooncalf forever? He was tired of the position. Let someone else take it on.

“I'm just going,” he repeated. “I was following the wolf. Following ... the ... wolf.” He spoke slowly, trying to make his voice sound friendly despite his tightened throat. One misunderstanding and he might be plucking one of those wicked-looking spears out of his midsection.

The troll woman watched him. She said something to one of her companions. The one addressed took a few steps toward the shadowed cave-mouth. Qantaqa growled menacingly from somewhere within the echoing depths and the troll quickly scuttled away again.

Simon took another step back down the path. The trolls watched him in silence, their small dark forms poised and watchful, but they made no move to hinder him. He turned his back on them slowly and helped himself down the trail, picking his way among the silvered rocks. After a moment the three trolls, Qantaqa, and the mysterious cave were all out of sight behind him.

He made his way downslope alone in dreaming moonlight. Halfway back to the main trail he had to stop and sit, elbows on trembling knees. He knew that his exhaustion and even his fear would eventually recede, but he could imagine no cure for such loneliness.

“I am truly sorry, Seoman, but there is nothing to be done. Last night Reniku, the star we call Summer-Lantern, appeared above the horizon at sundown. I have stayed too long. I can remain no longer.”

Jiriki sat cross-legged atop a rock on the cave's vast porch, staring down into the mist-carpeted valley. Unlike Simon and Haestan, he wore no heavy clothing. The wind plucked at the sleeves of his glossy shirt.

“But what will we do about Binabik and Sludig?” Simon flung a stone into the depths, half-hoping it would wound some fog-hidden troll below. “They'll be killed if you don't do something!”

“There is nothing I could do, in any circumstance,” Jiriki said quietly. “The Qanuc have a right to their justice. I cannot honorably interfere.” “Honor? Hang honor, Binabik won't even speak! How can he defend himself?”

The Sitha sighed, but his hawkish face remained impassive. “Perhaps there is no defense. Perhaps Binabik knows he has wronged his people.”

Haestan snorted his disgust. “We dunna even know th' little man's crime.”

“Oath-breaking, I am told,” Jiriki said mildly. He turned to Simon. “I must go, Seoman. The news of the Norn Queen's Huntsman attacking the Zida‘ya has upset my people very much. They wish me home. There is much to discuss.” Jiriki brushed a strand of hair from his eye. “Also, when my kinsman An'nai died and was buried on Urmsheim, a responsibility fell upon me. His name must now be entered with full ceremony in the Book of Year-Dancing. I, of all my people, can least shirk that responsibility. It was, after all, Jiriki i-Sa‘onserei and no other who brought him to the place of his death—and it was much to do with me and my willfulness that he went.” The Sitha's voice hardened as he clenched his brown fingers into a fist. “Do you not see? I cannot turn my back on An'nai's sacrifice.”