Tyler's Dream (4 page)

Beyond was utter darkness. A tall figure stepped forward and carried the night with him. It was the spiked demon Tyler had seen on the street, but now he bore a wide metal sword of teeth, and at his heels came the fiends of hell.

“
DIE
,” a voice said, but Tyler did not
hear
it. The voice originated from within his head like a sudden pain.

As Varkon pushed him out the door, Tyler caught one last glimpse of Hargill with both legs planted firmly astride, his sword raised above his glowing mane of hair. “Forgive me, Tyler!” he said sadly before turning to face the evil swarm.

Tyler fell through the door and into the night and cold.

“
Run
! His sacrifice will buy us time,” said Varkon.

If there was one instruction that Tyler had been given tonight that he understood, this was it. He ran. A streak of white shot past them and through the door that they had just left; it was an animal of some sort, and Tyler was glad they did not stay around long enough to find out more than that.

For a while they could see by the great triangle of flame that was the burning roof of the village hall, but as the trees around them grew more numerous, dull moonlight took precedence. There was only one bridge that spanned the river to the east, and Tyler led the way towards it, not knowing what else to do. With any luck they could make it across and then destroy it to hinder any pursuit.

They barely made it halfway. His ability to concentrate was hindered by his shock and heartache, and so Tyler ran directly into a group ghatu. There was a surprising variety, from small and runt-like to colossal giants, even in this party of eight. All were covered with twisting tattoos like Varkon’s. One particularly yellowed, hunched one jabbed a finger at Tyler and cried out, but the group made no move towards him. Instead they laughed and pointed.

One terribly confused moment later, Tyler realised why: they thought that Varkon was
chasing
him. Thankful for the lucky chance, he diverted around the nasty gathering and out of sight into the trees. Once he was sure he was safe, Tyler turned to give Varkon a look of relief – but Varkon was not behind him. Tyler stopped. He was alone. Had Varkon already betrayed his oath? Had he rejoined his ghatuan friends? Tyler knew he could not survive long without his companion, and so with a curse he turned back the way that he had come.

He did not have to travel far. Varkon was standing a small clearing, still and calm. He was facing a man in tattered, bloody clothes; Tyler could not see the man’s face. The stranger was crouching ahead of the ghatu, blood-stained sword raised threateningly.

“Right, ghatu,” the man rasped. “The time for honouring yourself has arrived.”

Tyler frowned. the voice was so familiar … “Glivin?”

Glivin jumped with surprise and half-turned, suddenly unsure of where to look. His forehead was cut deeply, and the blood from it dripped down his cheek. “Tyler? Tyler, what are you doing here?
Run
! Save yourself! I will hold this foul creature back.”

“The ghatu is sworn to me. Glivin, he is going to help me,” Tyler took a cautious step forward, fighting the frustration of the moment.

“
Help you
? He is a
beast,
Tyler. Don’t you understand that?”

The crosshatching of shadows concealed Varkon well, but Tyler could see the ghatu was coiled, ready to pounce at the right moment. It would not be long before they were discovered, given the din Glivin was making. The slow howl of a wolf sounded from nearby.

“Glivin, you must be quiet – there are ghatu all around! Hargill made Varkon swear an oath. Please trust me!” Tyler begged.

“You would put your trust in the devil?” questioned Glivin. “
Fool
,” he spat the word in a spray of blood.

“Remember what Hargill—”

Tyler’s plea was cut off by a sharp whistle. The spear struck Glivin through his chest, pinning him like a fly and sweeping him from his feet.

“Glivin!
No
!”

In two giant bounds, Varkon grabbed Tyler and flung him to the ground. From where he lay, shielded by his companion, Tyler could see where Glivin was sprawled, his handsome face staring with surprise from where it had been driven into the snow.

A second spear shrilled over their heads, and then Tyler was up and running, aware of the vulnerable width of his back. He glanced over his shoulder; the ghatu moved like salmon through the trees, screaming as they went because they realised Varkon had betrayed them.

A hidden root caught Tyler’s foot, and he staggered. It was hopeless – his legs were already numb, and the bridge was still a distance away. He had to take a risk, an act bred in the desperation of the moment. “Varkon, turn right now. The river!” Tyler suddenly changed direction, and he hoped Varkon understood. There could be no turning back.

They burst from the dense wood. A river raged not far ahead. Its speed was too quick for ice, and over the centuries it had cut down sharply into the earth to create a steep bank of fifty feet that ended in unknown depths and hidden rocks.

All is lost
.
I have failed Hargill already
. Tyler launched himself over the edge with that thought. The snarls of the ghatu were behind him and immediately forgotten – not so with the screaming wind and swiftly approaching water. He slapped into the jet-black stream. The air ripped from his lungs, and the current yanked him with surprising savageness to the bottom of the river.

He clumsily thrashed his arms towards where he guessed up must be.
I have remained here too long
. The cold numbed his skin, thickening it to become senseless around his nerves. His struggling became less wild, and then his body went entirely slack so that he hung suspended, a ragged ghost in the darkening deep.

His hand broke the surface.
Hope
. One kick of his legs, and he burst to the surface with a spray of inky droplets and a giant intake of air. For a moment he flailed above the crashing stream, and then something hard bumped across his hand. He gripped at it and pulled with the last of his strength, until his body was clear of the water and he lay upon a low, wet rock. He was half slumped into the stream, but he could do no more.

CHAPTER FIVE
THE GHATU’S TALE

A fevered sun sank into the evening’s puffy clouds. Tyron’s boat dipped to the tune of the beating sea. After sitting back more comfortably in his little boat, he chuckled to himself at happy memories and fisherman’s tales. Once more his eyes flashed upwards to the sky, and then Tyron Re heaved his last, contented br
eath.

The darkness was absolute and dense. There was a movement, and then a tall form melted slowly into existence from the surrounding black. Its clothes were ripped with spikes. Only the impenetrable dome of its iron mask held any light all, a tired, metallic s
heen.

“
YOU HAVE RETURNED
,” a voice cried suddenly from inside Tyler’s head, as though it were being shouted into the back of his s
kull.

“
BUT WEAK. PITIFUL
,” the voice laughed. Tyler bent to his knees and clamped his hands over his ears. Still the laughter echoed in his burning
mind.

He woke. It felt as though he had been asleep for an eternity, lost to ceaseless streams of nightmares. Grey granite hung close overhead, its face hard with veins of quartz and mica. This was not his bed. His most terrible nightmare had not been a dream. For a while he wept, and then he slowly gathered a little strength and took in his surroundings.

The cave was about a dozen feet long. A small fire burned with unexpected savageness at its centre, and the entrance had been covered with several large branches. Tyler was naked. He realised this and was suddenly shy about it, but soon he spotted his clothes draped over a long stick propped close to the fire. After slipping them on, he felt decidedly better. Whoever had rescued him had saved his life and had bandaged his wounded shoulder with several strips of dirty cloth.

The branches covering the entrance were pulled away. It was Varkon. The ghatu crawled across the floor on his hands and feet to the opposite side of the cave, looking more comfortable moving in this way than he did walking upright. “You live after all,” he growled as though he did not care either way.

“Yes.” Tyler paused before deciding not to let the conversation end there. “Thank you for bandaging my cut.”

“Lucky for you I found some healing medicines.” Varkon gestured to where several bushels of leaves and herbs were strewn across the floor. Another pause. This time Varkon broke it. “We will eat rabbit tonight.”

“Good,” Tyler said uncertainly, wondering how Varkon had managed to catch a rabbit without a weapon. “How long have I been unconscious?”

Varkon crouched beside the fire and began to slice the rabbit with his claws and teeth into strips of meat. He was quite efficient at it. “Since the night before last.”

“
What
?
” exclaimed Tyler. “I’ve been unconscious for two days?” Varkon seemed too busy to reply. Tyler realised he had probably answered his own question. “Where are we now?” he wondered, looking about the cave for a second time. In truth he was also trying to distract himself from the heartless butchery of the rabbit.

“Twelve leagues downriver from where your village used to be.”

Where it used to be
, Tyler repeated angrily in his mind as his heartache rose to the surface of his thoughts again.
Dumb ghatu.
He ignored the snub as successfully as he had so far managed to ignore the rabbit. “I think this might be the furthest I’ve ever been from home.”

Varkon glanced momentarily up from his bloody business. “Twelve leagues?
This
is the furthest you’ve ever travelled?”

“Yes.”

There was a grunt of bewilderment from the ghatu. “Well, it was no miracle that brought you this far today.”

“How …?” started Tyler.

“I found you by chance, washed up on a rock,” interrupted Varkon, anticipating Tyler’s question. “You were close to death, so I carried you to cover.” He picked up the stick on which Tyler’s clothes had been drying and began to skewer it with slabs of meat. “Your face was blue and your pulse faint, so I risked a fire. By morning you seemed to have regained some of your … pinkness.” Varkon narrowed his large eyes amusedly. “I have carried you since, running with you slung over my back. The speed was necessary because we – or rather,
you
are being chased.”

“By the Dhimori? Me? You mean both of us,” Tyler corrected.

The ghatu surveyed him darkly as he began to cook the meat. “
You
,” he growled definitively. “It makes me wonder, boy. I hope you are not hiding something from me that I should know.”

“I’m not hiding anything. Isn’t it more likely that your desertion or—”

Varkon dropped the meat. In a flash he had crossed the cave and grabbed Tyler’s throat, squeezing it so tightly that there was no chance of him being able to draw a breath. “I did
not
betray my kind. I will return to them as soon as I have finished with
you
.” The ghatu’s eyes deepened into chasms of fury, his nostrils flared with hate. “It may be that I am required to see you through to your journey’s end, but I certainly have no cause to make the trip a pleasant one. Don’t tempt me.”

Tyler’s vision whirled with drifting black spots, and the crackle of the fire became painfully loud and apparent. He flailed his hand weakly against Varkon.
He will kill me now
, thought Tyler.

But Varkon unclamped his hand with a grunt and skulked off to dust the charcoal from the meat. His point was proven. There was only one person –
thing
– in charge here. For minutes Tyler could do nothing but lie prone and gasp. He had to remember that not even his own companion was on his side; from now on he would have to watch what he said more carefully. Red blood slipped slowly down his arm to mark where the cut on his shoulder had burst afresh.

“As I was saying,” Varkon continued calmly, as if the incident had not occurred. “Last night while I was searching for herbs, I caught myself a wandering ghatu-naith, a smaller type of ghatu. I questioned the little rat, and let’s just say I was extremely persuasive. He spilled his little brains out to me; indeed, in the end the trick was to get him to stop talking,” Varkon smirked quite wickedly and then looked up at Tyler to emphasise the next point. “He said they were looking for a boy, a
mukwa
, from the conquered village. They knew he was still alive. I don’t know how, but the ghatu-naith was convinced.”

“You think the person they are looking for is me?”

“I know it is. Through his screams the ghatu-naith kept repeating that they were searching for the ‘boy with the spider on his skin’. I had no idea what he meant and thought the rat was delirious – until I decided to strip you of your wet clothes to dry them. That was when I saw your tattoos on your wrist and at the back of your neck.”

“I don’t …” Tyler turned over the inside of his arm. In the centre of his wrist was an engraved black spider. The design was beautiful: the spider’s eight legs were painted with such finesse that the tip of each narrowed into a line thinner than a single hair before trailing off into the wrinkles of his fingerprint. Three perfect circles were etched close to the spider’s front leg. Tyler stared, open-mouthed. “The same tattoo is on the back of my neck as well?”

“You seem surprised.”

Tyler could only shake his head speechlessly. Varkon glared at him for a moment longer, as if judging how much he could trust in Tyler’s honesty. “It is the same. Except it is as though the spider is resting on the
inside
of your skin, as if your skin was a window and the spider is trapped beneath it. You’ve seen neither of these markings before?”

“No,” breathed Tyler. “The spider must have caused this – the one from the hall. But how could it have?” He reached his curious fingers up to the back of his neck. His skin there felt perhaps a touch cool, but this could have been an imagined malady. It was frustrating there was no way to see the design at present.

“What did your
mukwa
friend, Hargill, call you on his knees? Avalon-Qwa?”

Hargill had seemed so apologetic as he had performed his strange ceremony. Was something terrible at this very moment growing, festering inside his body? Tyler forced back an image of a large black spider curled up in his stomach, its long, furry legs brushing against his throat, waiting for the moment that it would finally decide to leave its host and crawl up into his mouth to escape.

Calm down. T
hink
.

How did the ghatu-naith know about his tattoos? The Dhimori must be aware of something that he was not. He considered the events of that night, pondering over the details …

Of course
! He thrust his hand into his pocket and drew out the spider-stone. It had not been lost in the river, and it was still warm.

“I have spent hours trying to break it,” said Varkon when he saw what Tyler was holding. “I crushed it in between two rocks so often that they both crumbled apart, and yet it bears not even a scratch to mark my efforts.”

Tyler conducted his own far less violent investigation of stone for a time, but he was equally unsuccessful. Its surface was indeed featureless, giving no hint as to its purpose or design. Varkon passed him a piece of rabbit meat, which had been burnt to charcoal in parts and kept raw in others. Tyler wondered if Varkon had ever cooked before; the ghatu was probably only trying to please his human companion. Despite this he tore at the meat ravenously; it had been two days since he had last eaten, and he was very hungry indeed.

Once they were finished, Varkon snuffed the fire with several shovels of dirt, thus forcing Tyler to end his examination off the mysterious spider-stone. They both lay back against the stone floor in the darkness. Tyler could hear Varkon breathing from a short distance away, but the night was so complete that he could barely see his own hand, let alone the ghatu all the way across the cave.

“I want you to tell me what you know about the world, boy,” said Varkon. “I’m intrigued by how little you understand.”

“The world?” repeated Tyler. “I thought the world was my village, and the White Wood was the edge of it. Until now it seemed perfectly natural to think like that.”

“That’s all you know?”

“All I was ever told.”

“You have never even
heard
of magic?”

“I may have seen some. Back in the hall, was Agatha she casting a spell?”

“A healing charm. I have never seen it performed as well, or as quickly. Your elders certainly knew more about the world than you do.”

“I know. I don’t understand why they lied to me. Hargill, my uncle …” Tyler’s voice broke a little with the sudden hurt that welled within him. An image of his family sprang uncalled for, and he spoke again to distract himself.“What do you know about where we are going, about Ithrim?”

“It used to be the largest city in the world. Long ago it was the heart of the empire of men, nÿmphs, huun, dwarves, and gronts. Now it has all but been destroyed, the races divided by their differences. The city still stands, but I am told it is a wretched place.”

“And how long before we reach it?”

“Months, or maybe years if we travel by foot. Mountains cage us to the east, and the sea encloses us all around. Only a small passage to the north prevents this place from being an island; we cannot walk the easy ways, for they will be watched. For now we will travel due east across the peninsula, and then we’ll try to cross the mountains to the sea.”

“How will we reach Ithrim from there?”

“We probably won’t reach Ithrim at all. I think we will die here,” said Varkon casually. “The peninsula we find ourselves on, Vlak-Ran, is like a termite mound riddled with millions of tunnels and hiding holes infested with my kind and worse.”

“Worse?”

“You think that there could be nothing worse than the ghatu? I promise we are not the only ones you should fear.” Varkon sighed. “I realise that your ignorance is not your fault. Let me tell you the history of my people in the hope that you will stop asking questions.” Varkon’s voice grew deeper, and the cave resonated to his every word.

“The ghatu used to live only in the Grey Lands to the north, where the sun is always low and the night, at times, lasts for weeks. Centuries ago there was a great drought that pillaged our crops, and tides of sickness drifted with the wind and locusts. Most were forced to move further south, abandoning their natural homes and venturing into the lands where the sun was higher and crueller. None who stayed in the open survived for very long; the light would burn out their eyes or boil their skin. Like cockroaches we were forced beneath the ground, under the canopies of the forests or any other place that would harbour the night. Of course I would not have to explain this to you if you knew how to read my tattoos, for through them my life and history are symbolised in a tapestry of meaning all across my body. In this way each ghatu’s markings are unique. We must not risk who we are to memory; we must be reminded of our choices by carrying them with us all our living days. You are lucky that your spider tattoo appeared suddenly. Mine did not come about so painlessly.”