The Stone of Farewell (41 page)

“How could God let people die for no reason?” Simon demanded, hugging himself as though trying to keep something inside. “If God can do that, then He is cruel. If He isn't cruel, well ... well, then, He just can't do anything. Like an old man who sits at the window, but can't go out. He's old and stupid.”

“Do not talk against God the Father,” Sludig said, his voice chilly. “God will not be mocked by an ungrateful boy. He has given you all the gifts of life ...”

“It's a lie!” Simon shouted. The soldier's eyes widened in surprise. Heads turned from the campfire, looking to the sudden noise. “It's a lie, a lie! What gifts? To crawl around like a bug, here and there, trying to find something to eat, somewhere to sleep—and then without warning something smashes you? What kind of gift is that!? To do the right thing, and ... and fight against evil, like the Book of the Aedon says—if you do that you get killed! Just like Haestan! Just like Morgenes! The bad ones live on—live on and grow rich and laugh at the good ones! It's a stupid lie!” “That is terrible, Simon!” Sludig said, his voice also rising. “You speak from madness and grief . . .”

“It's a lie—and you are an idiot to believe it!” Simon yelled, throwing his wood down at Sludig's feet. He turned and ran down the mountain path with a great, grieving pain in his middle that almost took his breath away, following the twisting course until the camp had disappeared from view. Qantaqa's bark wafted after him, faint and percussive as someone clapping in another room.

At last he sank down on a stone beside the path, rubbing his hands back and forth over the worn cloth of his breeches. There was moss growing on the stone, burnt brown by frost and wind, but still somehow vital and alive. He stared at it, wondering why he could not cry and whether he even wanted to.

After some time he heard a clicking noise and looked up to see Qantaqa pacing toward him over the sloping rocks above the path. The wolf nose hovered low, sniffing close to the stone. She hopped down onto the path, and regarded him quizzically for a moment with her head cocked to one side, then walked past, brushing against his leg. Simon trailed his fingers along the thick pelt of her flank as she went by. Qantaqa continued on down the path, a dim gray shape in the growing darkness.

“Simon-friend.” Binabik appeared around the bend in the track. “Qantaqa is off to hunt,” he said, watching her disappearing form. “It is hard for a wolf to be walking all day where I ask her. She is a good companion to make such sacrifice for my sake.”

When Simon did not respond, the troll came forward and squatted at his side, his walking stick balanced on his knees.

“You are much upset,” he said.

Simon took a deep breath, then let it out. “Everything is a lie,” he sighed.

Binabik raised an eyebrow. “What is ‘everything'? And what is making it a lie?”

“I don't think we can do anything at all. Anything to make things better. We're going to die.”

“At some time,” the troll nodded.

“We're going to die fighting the Storm King. It's a lie if we say we're not. God's not going to save us, or even help us.” Simon picked up a loose stone and flung it across the path, where it went rattling into darkness. “Binabik, I couldn't even pick up Thorn. What good is the sword going to be if we can't even use it? How is a sword—even three Great Swords or whatever they're called—going to kill an enemy like him? Kill someone who's already dead?”

“These are questions that need answering,” the little man replied. “I do not know. How do you know that the sword is for killing? And if it is for that, what makes you think any of us is to be the killer?”

Simon chose another rock and threw it. “I don't know anything, either. I'm just a kitchen boy, Binabik.” He felt immensely sorry for himself. “I just want to go home.” The word caught in his throat.

The troll stood, brushing off his seat. “You are not a boy, Simon. You are a man in all the ways for measuring. A young man, true, but a man—or with great nearness. ”

Simon shook his head. “It doesn't matter, anyway. I thought ... I don't know. I thought that it would be like a story. That we would find the sword and it would be a powerful weapon, that we would destroy our enemies and things would be right again. I didn't think any more people would die! How could there be a God who would let good people die, no matter what they do?”

“Another question I cannot be answering.” Binabik smiled, but gently, mindful of Simon's pain. “And I cannot be telling you what is right for belief. The truths that became our stories of gods are far away in the past. Even the Sithi, who live for eons, do not know how the world began or what began it—at least not for certain, I am thinking. But
I
can tell you something important ...”

The troll leaned forward, touching Simon's arm, waiting until his young friend had raised his eyes from the moss once more. “Gods in the heaven or in the stone are distant, and we can guess only at what they intend.” He squeezed Simon's forearm. “But you and I, we are living in a time when a god walks the earth once more. He is not a god who intends kindness. Men may fight and die, they may build walls and break stone, but Ineluki has died and come back: that is something no one else has ever been doing, not even your Usires Aedon. Forgive me, because I am not meaning blasphemy, but is not what Ineluki has done a thing like a god can do?” Binabik gave Simon a little shake, staring into his eyes. “He is jealous and terrible, and the world he can make will be a terrible place. We are having a task of great fear and very great difficulty, Simon—it may even be that there is no possibility of succeeding—but it is not a task we can be fleeing.”

Simon tore his gaze from Binabik's. “That's what I said. How do you fight a god? We'll be crushed like ants.” Another stone went flying out into darkness.

“Perhaps. But if we are not trying, then there is no chance of anything but this antlike crushing, so we must try. There is always something beyond even the worst of bad times. We may die, but the dying of some may mean living for others. That is not much to cling to, but it is a true thing in any case.”

The troll moved a little way down the path and took a seat on another stone. The sky was darkening swiftly. “Also,” Binabik said gravely, “it may or may not be foolishness to pray to the gods, but there is certainly being no wisdom in cursing them.”

Simon said nothing. They passed some time in silence. At last Binabik twisted loose the knife end of his walking stick, allowing the bone flute inside the hollow stick to slide free. He blew a few experimental notes, then began to play a slow, melancholy air. The dissonant music, echoing down the mountainside in darkness, seemed to sing with the voice of Simon's own loneliness. He shivered, feeling the wind through his tattered cloak. His dragon-scar stung fiercely.

“Are you still my friend, Binabik?” he said at last.

The troll took the flute from his lips. “To death and beyond, Simon-friend.” He began to play once more.

When the flutesong was finished, Binabik whistled for Qantaqa and walked back up the path toward camp. Simon followed him.

 

The fire had burned low and the wineskin was making the last of many trips around the circle when Simon finally worked up the courage to approach Sludig. The Rimmersman was sharpening the head of his Qanuc spear with a whetstone; he continued for some while as Simon stood before him. At last he looked up.

“Yes?” His voice was gruff.

“I'm sorry, Sludig. I should not have said what I did. You were only being kind.”

The Rimmersman stared at him for a moment, a certain cold look in his eyes. At last his expression softened. “You may think as you like, Simon, but do not speak such blasphemy of the One God before me.”

“I'm sorry. I'm only a kitchen boy.”

“Kitchen boy!” Sludig's laugh was harsh. He looked searchingly into Simon's eyes, then laughed again with better humor. “You really think so, don't you! You're a fool, Simon.” He stood up, chuckling and shaking his head. “A kitchen boy! A kitchen boy who swords dragons and slays giants. Look at you! You are taller than I am, and Sludig is not small!”

Simon stared at the Rimmersman, surprised. It was true, of course: he stood half a hand taller than Sludig. “But you're strong!” Simon protested. “You're a grown man.”

“As you are fast becoming. And you are stronger than you know. You must see the truth, Simon. You are a boy no more. You cannot act as though you are one still.” The Rimmersman contemplated him for a long moment. “As a matter of fact, it is dangerous not to train you better. You have been lucky to survive several bad fights, but luck is fickle. You need sword and spear teaching; I will give them to you. Haestan would have wanted it, and it will give us something to work at on our long trip to your Stone of Farewell.”

“Then you forgive me?” Simon was embarrassed by this talk of manhood.

“If I must.” The Rimmersman sat down again. “Now go and sleep. We have a long walk again tomorrow, then you and I will drill for some time after we make camp.”

Simon felt more than a little resentful about being sent to bed, but did not want to risk another argument. As it was, it had been difficult for him to come back to the campfire and eat with the others. He knew they had all been watching him, wondering if he would have another outburst.

He retreated to the bed he had made of springy branches and leaves and wrapped himself tightly in his cloak. He would be happy to be in a cave, or down off the mountain entirely, where they would not be exposed so nakedly to the wind.

The bright, cold stars seemed to quiver in the sky overhead. Simon stared up at them through unfathomable distances, letting thoughts chase themselves through his head until sleep came at last.

 

The sound of the trolls singing to their rams woke Simon from a dream. He dimly remembered a little gray cat and a feeling of being trapped by someone or something, but the dream was fading fast. He opened his eyes to the thin morning light, then closed them quickly. He did not want to get up and face the day.

The singing went on, accompanied by the clinking of harnesses. He had seen this ritual so many times since leaving Mintahoq that he could picture it in his head as vividly as if he was watching. The trolls were cinching up the straps and filling the saddlebags, guttural yet high-pitched voices busy with their seemingly endless chant. From time to time they would pause, stroking their mounts, currying the rams' thick fleeces, leaning in close to sing softly and intimately while the sheep blinked their yellow, slotted eyes. Soon it would be time for salty tea and dried meat and quiet, laughing conversation.

Except, of course, there would not be as much laughter today, the third morning since the hillside battle with the giants. Binabik's folk were a cheerful people, but a little bit of the frost lodged in Simon's heart seemed to have touched them, too. A folk that laughed at cold and at dizzying, breakneck falls at every turning of every trail had been chilled by a shadow they could not understand—not that Simon understood much himself.

He had spoken truly to Binabik: somehow, he had thought things would get better once they found the great sword Thorn. The blade's power and strangeness was so palpable it seemed impossible that it would not make a change in the struggle against King Elias and his dark ally. But perhaps the sword by itself was not enough. Perhaps whatever the rhyme had spoken of would not happen until all three swords had been brought together.

Simon groaned. Even worse, perhaps the queer rhyme from Nisses' book meant nothing at all. Didn't people say Nisses was a madman? Even Morgenes had not known what the rhyme truly meant.

Well, Bukken had certainly crept from the earth, but the memory of the squealing diggers was not one he wanted to pursue. Ever since the night of their attack on Isgrimnur's camp near St. Hoderund's, Simon had never felt the same way about the solid earth beneath his feet. That was the only advantage he could think of to traveling over Sikkihoq's unforgiving stone.

As for the rhyme's mention of giants, with Haestan's death so fresh in his mind that seemed like a cruel joke. The monsters hadn't even needed to descend from the heights, because Simon and his friends had been foolish enough to venture into their mountain territory. But the Hunën
had
left their high refuges, which Simon knew as well as anybody. He and Miriamele—the thought of her brought a sudden yearning—had faced one in Aldheorte Forest, only a week's ride from the very gates of Erchester.

The rest did not make much sense to him, but none of it seemed impossible: Simon did not know who Claves was, or where his bell might be, but it seemed that soon there would be frost everywhere. Even so, what could the three swords do?

I wielded Thorn,
he thought. For a moment he felt the power of it once more.
In that instant, I was a great knight ... wasn't I?

But had it been Thorn, or had it only been that he had stood up and put fear aside? If he had done the same with a less mighty sword, would he have been any less brave? He would have been dead, of course ... just like Haestan, just like An'nai, Morgenes, Grimmric ... but did that matter? Didn't great heroes die? Hadn't Camaris, Thorn's true master, died in the angry seas... ?