Authors: Matthew Butler
“Is this the best time to do this, Varkon?” asked Tyler as he watched the scarlet horizon, the first sign before the impending night.
“Another miserable word, and I’ll drown us both.”
And with that Varkon fell forward into the water.
Varkon turned out to be a
far
worse swimmer than he had claimed, and Tyler was forced to let go of him immediately for fear of drowning them both. He cursed the ghatu and half considered turning back before quickly deciding against it. To retreat to the bank and risk being found by a search party was nothing more than suicide.
After blowing out air from his cheeks, Tyler kicked as hard as he could with the intention of swimming straight ahead, but the river had other ideas and pitched him along mercilessly, just as he had predicted. His arms were beginning to tire; already he must have travelled further down the stream than he had walked all afternoon. Hopefully Varkon could swim better than he had at first demonstrated.
As Tyler kept his face up from the water, he realised the opposite bank was looming surprisingly close ahead. He gave one last, fantastic effort. The tug of the current lessened, and the pebbly bank rose up under his feet.
He coughed up a lungful of water, dragged his half-drowned body onto the shore, and collapsed onto his back, his chest heaving. As soon as he could, he rose onto his elbow, teeth clattering, to look for Varkon.
The ghatu was striding along the bank while dripping wet, a huge grin plastered across his face. “
Ha
, we made it! You see, child? I told you we would.”
“What h-h-happened t-to your
grand p-plan
of carrying me on y-y-your back?” Tyler said through chattering teeth.
“I confess it was only to get you into the water. But it worked, didn’t it?
It worked
.” Varkon bellowed this last comment loudly like a conquering giant as he strode the last few paces to where Tyler lay in a dejected heap. He reached out one shovel-sized hand to help him up.
The stream had pulled them a long way downstream. Varkon thought that more than made up for any distance they did not travel during the night and set about making a fire not far from the water. Tyler had worried about the light, but Varkon was in too good a mood to care. “Anyway, you’ll need the heat,” the ghatu said, and he was probably right. Tyler had been shuddering violently and had turned a worrisome shade of blue. Varkon had forced him to strip off his wet clothes, so he sat quivering and naked in the dark. The ghatu too had thrown off many of his own garments, but he didn’t seem as affected by the cold. Instead, he explored the nearby darkness for firewood and soon had a large fire blazing merrily. Tyler lay out his clothes to dry beside the flames and began to feel much better; he even asked for another
krus
. Once he was fully clothed again and warmed, he realised that the success of the day had caused Varkon to become far more talkative.
“And that one?” Tyler asked, pointing to a part of Varkon’s tattoos that curved across the left side of his chest. It was an image of a many-leaved tree engulfed with dark flame. The great number of birds that had been roosting within the shelter of its branches had taken to the sky.
“My first kill,” said Varkon with pride. “I lit a fire at the base of the tree, and as the birds scattered, I shot an arrow straight through the neck of one.” He tapped an image of one of the flying birds. An arrow was sticking through its neck, spraying many black drops of blood. “It was a perfect shot. I still have this here …” Varkon rummaged through the ornaments on his neck until he found the cherished object. It was a beak, twine laced through its nostrils to form a simple necklace. “Another ghatu would have known all this without asking. See how the birds change form as they move away?”
Tyler looked: the further the birds were from the tree, the more their shapes distorted until they entirely transformed into thin and tortured ghosts. “Spirits,” said Varkon. “The first kill in my culture is of great importance, my rite of passage. The spirits of my ancestors entered me that day.”
“And behind them, is that a sun in the background?”
“Nothing on my body is without meaning. It is an eye – my father’s, a tribute to the watchfulness and care he took in raising me. The clues in the artwork should tell you this. See that the pupil of the eye is a baby still coiled within my mother’s belly, as though unborn.”
Fascinated, Tyler bent forward to take a better look. As he did so, he noticed a flash of white out in the middle of the stream. Before he could say anything, an arrow slapped into the trunk of the tree under which they were sheltered, vibrating the branches so that wayward clumps of snow rained about them.
“Ghatu!” cried Varkon, leaping to his feet. “On the other side of the river.”
Sure enough, the shadowy shapes of a party of ghatu could be seen dancing themselves into frenzy on the other bank. There were two more whistling sounds. One of the arrows whizzed over their heads and disappeared; the other thudded into the ground not a yard from Tyler’s foot.
“Tyler,
move
!” Varkon roared.
They raced away as fast as they could, taking care not to lose sight of one another among the trees. Only once the cries of the ghatu became too faint to hear did the companions come to a panting halt in the pine needles, their icy breath puffing into luminous clouds of moonlight.
“There will be no rest tonight, then,” said Varkon wearily.
Tyler groaned. He was exhausted.
“I doubt those ghatu will risk a river crossing now,” speculated Varkon.
“But I’m guessing they will not hesitate to alert somebody – some
thing
– on our side of the riverbank?” Tyler ventured.
“So we dare not tarry. We must travel east from here until we cross the Klinha Mountains and reach the sea. Look on the bright side, boy: for the first time we are travelling in the right direction!”
Considering how tired they were, their progress through the night was good. Tyler mentioned the white flash that he had seen earlier.
“And you think it was your snow lion? Perhaps it is what guided the ghatu to us. It is rumoured She can speak the tongues of beasts.”
Tyler quickened his pace and flitted his eyes more attentively about the shadows. The full moon had eroded a little since the winter feast, but the stars were bright tonight, emblazoning the sky like a billion fireflies perched on the dark dome of the world.
They continued up a shallow slope and then along a segment of flat ground for some time. The trees bunched together, and the wind blowing through their leaves fuelled Tyler’s paranoia.
Perhaps they are whispering the location of a certain human and ghatu to each other
–
and rumours of this are right now rippling to the very edges of the forest,
he thought. Who knew what was possible anymore.
Rocks and boulders of varying sizes sometimes forced the companions to divert substantially from their path. They had just navigated their way past a particularly enormous one when there was a sharp movement alongside them, behind a row of trees.
“Varkon!” Tyler yelled.
The snow lion pounced. Its body stretched through the air with the grace of a bird, razor claws extended. And what speed! Tyler could do little more than stand dumb with his hands clasped feebly ahead of his face.
His legs were kicked out violently from beneath him. Abruptly he crashed onto his back. The lion sailed over him with a swish of wind, landed neatly on the snow, and then with one leap bounded away again into the darkness, leaving behind only a deep snarl of frustration.
Tyler realised he was yelling. One of his ankles was roaring with pain, and the rest of his body prickled with shock. Varkon crouched and hauled him to his feet.
“We must go on. Can you walk?”
Tyler winced. “I guess so, but it’s going to hurt.”
“Pain fades with time. Death will be a little more permanent. Let’s move – there’s no telling when that creature will return.”
They pushed onwards, Tyler limping badly as he tried not to inch any weight onto the ball of his foot. Varkon lagged behind so that he could see his charge at all times and better protect him. The ghatu showed no sympathy.
The slavish march continued as the moon drifted across the sky. Tyler’s agony endured. On one brief rest he crammed snow into his boot to ice his heel. It blocked the pain for a time, but eventually the ice melted, and he was left with a flood of cold water churning horribly around his foot. Pain gnawed at his strength. This nightmare had lasted for too long. The world tilted.
With a groan he crashed to the snow, falling to his knees. “I can’t anymore, Varkon.
I just c
an’t
.”
For a long moment Varkon paused, seemingly considering his options. His great figure loomed from above like one of the tall pines. Finally he bent and scooped Tyler into his colossal grasp.
“Rest …” whispered Tyler with relief as his fingers fumbled for the warmth of the spider-stone.
Araus stood on the beach. The sun whipped at her flaxen hair, and the breeze played with the ribbons on her dress. He was there. They ki
ssed.
The hawk flew by again, slowly this time. She withdrew deeply into the leaves, ruffling her feathers nervously and darting her
head.
Six ravens
–
that was bad luck. He thumbed his tongue into his cheek and scratched his nose. Perhaps not the most attractive action, but he couldn’t care less anymore. One last time he went over the options. Somehow he had always known it would come to t
his …
Low. Fast. Whipping along the trunk. Must find light. Light? Maybe higher? Yes. Yes. He rested, his scaly body drawing in the heat. He licked out a long, forked tongue.
Good.
He was in the darkness; it was infinite. Tyler was immersed in it, drowning in the remains of his courage. The darkness began to pulse, to squeeze, pushing against him and compacting. He struggled, but there was no hope of escape. It crushed harder, pressing against his temples and shutting out his air. He could not scream. His eyes lolled madly in their soc
kets.
“
DIE!
”
The voice pierced Tyler’s head like a hot bit of
iron.
“Derek!” Tyler shouted as he woke. “My home!”
He was feverish. Sweat drenched his body, and his breathing was ragged, but worst of all he was completely disorientated. He had no idea where he was. A hand gripped his shoulder. It was a compassionless, heavy hand, but it helped all the same. “Tyler!
Tyler
! What’s wrong?”
The fever eased at the sound of Varkon’s voice, and Tyler found it surprisingly cheering. He opened his eyes and struggled to sit up, but Varkon pushed him down. “Rest child. You must be still.”
“I’m all right now, Varkon. I feel better. I can sit.”
Varkon ignored these assurances. “Go back to sleep. Please.”
“Varkon,
let go
!” Tyler cried, pushing roughly upwards as he sat. His face felt cool. He reached up to touch it, and it was wet. He drew his hand away – blood. “Varkon? What happened? Where did this come from?”
The ghatu’s hand fell back onto Tyler’s shoulder.
“Child, lie down. Please, if you could only …” He sighed. “Blood is running from your nose, your ears.”
Tyler touched his ears unbelievingly. Sure enough they were coated with blood, which was already beginning to dry and harden. Perhaps it was the sight of his own blood, but all of a sudden he felt faint, and he sat back heavily. For Varkon to be worried, he must look awful.
“You must sleep. I’ve been pushing too hard.”
“
No
! I never want to sleep again.” It was an odd thing to say, and they both knew it. Varkon frowned and waited for an explanation. “Varkon, this is going to sound strange.”
“I’m listening.”
“I have been having dreams lately. Some of them are beautiful, happy even. Some are horrible. So
horrible.”
Tyler shuddered. “I dream as though I am another person or animal. It feels so real. Twice now the Dhimori has been in one of these dreams, in the darkness.” Tyler covered his face with sudden reproach. He had promised not to appear weak in front of Varkon. “This is stupid. They’re only nightmares.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”
“They are just dreams.”
“Perhaps. When did they begin?”
“The first one was when I passed out, after falling into the river that first night.”
“Nothing like this has ever happened to you before?”
“No. It feels as though I actually
am
the person, nymph, or animal. I see, smell, feel, and taste everything they do.”
“I thought you knew nothing about nÿmphs.”
“But I’ve dreamt of one. Or at least I think so.”
Varkon’s eyes narrowed. “I won’t pretend I understand what this could mean, but you should’ve told me of this long before. You have strength, Tyler, but don’t let this be you downfall by confusing it with your pride. We must
both
find our way to Ithrim, and thus we must share the burden equally if we are to make it.”
Tyler nodded, emotion in his eyes at his companion’s unexpected compassion.
“Now,” said Varkon. “The spider-bite could be the cause, or you may simply be suffering from shock. How do you feel?”
Tyler stretched his back experimentally. “Much improved, actually.” Varkon eyed him severely. There was an awkward pause before Tyler realised what the ghatu was reluctant to ask. “Don’t worry, Varkon, I can walk.”
“We can stay here longer, otherwise.”
“No, I feel better.” It was true, although he was hardly back to his old self.
Varkon gave him a nod, which looked strangely like approval. “Well, Tyler.” So the ghatu
did
know his name. “The sun has been up a while now, and I am concerned. My brothers and sisters cannot be far behind. Even so, the pace will be easier. Tiredness may be the cause of these dreams … and the blood. Wipe that muck from your face. You will feel much better for it.”