The pleasure of memory, p.16
The Pleasure of Memory, page 16
Beam disarmed his bow and began securing it and the sword to the weapons belt. “How far?”
“Nine miles or so northeast. If we hurry, we can make it by midnight.”
Beam dragged the weapons up to his lap. He tried not to cry out as he forced himself up to one knee. As he waited for his breath to return, he looked back at the trampled grass following them. “What about that?” he snapped up at the monk, “They won’t need their horns; you’re leaving them a bloody trail.”
“Does that mean you’ll come with me?”
“Not sure I have a choice. But we’ll need a better path. Is there a rock face or boulder deposit or maybe a creek or stream along the way?”
“There's a narrow stone bottom creek not two miles ahead. It travels easterly. It might add another hour or so to the trip, though.”
“That’s good. The water should confuse our vibrations,” Beam said as he prepared for the agony of standing, “Maybe you’re of some use after all.”
∞
Hours later, they waded along a shallow streambed. Beam’s boots were full of the frigid water. He couldn’t remember when he’d last felt his toes. On the positive side, it was a lovely distraction from his aching ribs and throbbing head.
They’d been struggling against the icy current for nearly three miles now. They eventually reached an area where the bank was paved with wide, flat stones gleaming ghostly white in the moonlight. He heard the monk splash up and stop just behind him.
“This is it,” the man whispered between pants, “This is where we turn. If we go much farther we’ll end up back in the forest.” He stepped past Beam for the shore.
Beam pulled him roughly back, saying, “Damn me, you wait! I’ll go first.”
The monk relented without argument. He leaned wearily into his staff.
Beam watched him for a moment as the stream gurgled noisily around them. When he was certain the man sincerely meant to comply, he turned and stepped up onto a broad rock braced tightly into the bank. Then he reached a leg carefully over the dense snake reeds growing along the water’s edge and gingerly climbed from the water, taking great care to keep his feet on the flat stones and out of the mud. Once secure, he turned and pointed to the rocks. The imprints of his footsteps glistened clearly in the moonlight. “There,” he said over the sound of the water, “Step exactly where I did. And mind the plants! It only takes one broken reed to betray us.”
The monk nodded and began to climb from the water, but Beam blocked him with a firm hand against his chest. “I mean it, Brother,” he said firmly, “I want you walking as softly as a princess sneaking into her lover’s bedchamber. You understand?”
The monk knocked Beam’s hand away and said, “Well, I can barely feel my feet, but I'll try to avoid knocking over any trees.”
Beam felt the cool slap of guilt. Why was he being so short? He shouldn’t be so hard on the man, not after all the poor devil had been through. As an act of redemption, he held out his hand. The monk considered the proffered assistance as if he weren’t sure what to make of it, but then relented and locked wrists with him.
“Sorry, Brother,” Beam said when they faced each other on shore, “I’m a little on edge. Guess the lifestyle's finally catching up with me.”
The monk pointed north, out beyond the clearing. “The cave's a few miles that way.”
Beam winced. “Cave?” he said, “What do you mean, cave?”
“Cave,” the monk said, “Something akin to a large hole in a mountainside? Perhaps you’ve seen one before?”
Beam felt sick to his stomach. He thought about the elixir stashed in his quiver. There wasn’t much left, maybe two or three days’ worth. At most. This trip just kept getting better and better.
“Is there a problem?” the monk asked. He didn’t sound like he cared.
Beam growled a curse and then started walking. “Nah,” he said, “No problem. Just another perfect hour in an already idyllic day.”
A few miles later, they stood at the precipice of a hill that swooped smartly down into the dusty plains. Beyond their perch, the land was flat for miles out, shimmering under the heavy moon like a white sea that swelled away until it met the star swept ebony of the night sky. The only break in the vast emptiness was a squat, brick-shaped butte that floated like an island above the sheen of dirt a half mile out from them. It looked to be a few hundred feet tall and maybe three times as wide.
The monk stopped at Beam's side and again leaned into his staff as he again struggled to catch his breath. Beam didn’t understand how a man of the forest could be so out of shape. Then again, it’d taken him years of training to get in condition for an all-night run like this. Short of an arrow in the back, he figured he could press on for days, even with a broken rib and no sleep.
The man pointed down the hill at the butte. “There it is,” he said, “Sanctuary.”
The top of the butte glowed softly against the radiant starlight, but darkness fully cloaked the foot. Beam could see no sign of a cave. “Where is it?”
“It’s hidden.”
“Hidden? How do you mean?”
“Hidden,” the monk said sarcastically, “Obscured from view. Out of sight. You understand the concept, yes?”
“No need to get pissy on me, Brother. I’m just saying—”
“Perhaps you were expecting a sign?” the monk pressed, “Sanctuary this way? Come on in?”
What the hell are you talking about? I just said—”
The man was already on his way down the hill.
Beam watched the man’s form descend into the night below and fought back his aggravation. “Damn me,” he whispered, “That is one irritable monk.”
They soon arrived at a row of barb-cedars lining the base of the butte like a wall. The shrubs rose fifteen feet above them. Scrubbier than standard cedar shrubs, barb-cedars boasted angry, gnarled, intertwined branches generously covered in two and three inch long thorns. These thorns could penetrate flesh with the slightest contact, often lodging themselves so deep in the meat of the unfortunate recipient’s body that nothing short of a sharp knife could dig them out.
Beam followed the monk as the man felt his way along the thick, spiny foliage. Eventually he stopped, bent down low, paused for a beat or two, and then disappeared into the hedge. Straight into the hedge.
Beam leaned closer. There was no opening in the barbs that he could see. He brushed his hand across the surface of the foliage with the greatest of care, but still found no vacancy. He was trying to make sense of what had happened when an arm erupted from the firs and grabbed his sleeve. He braced himself for the slaughter, but instead of stumbling face-first into a nest of thorns, he arrived unscathed in a narrow space between the cliff wall and the hedge. He was about to throw a sling of profanities at the monk, but the lunatic was already walking away, feeling his way along the solid cliff face with an open hand against the rock.
Beam looked up at the black ribbon of stars shining down through the crack between the cliff and the tall cedars, and he cursed the gods that must surely be laughing down at him right now. His irritation at full flame, he grabbed the wall and followed the man along it.
They stopped at an odd boulder protruding from the wall just at chest level. It was a perfect half sphere the size of a respectable pumpkin, and looked as completely out of place against the silky, moonlit surface of the stone as a goiter on a saloon girl. The monk placed his hands on both sides of the rock, dipped his head a bit, and began to mutter softly.
Beam knotted his fists. Damned monks were always praying. A horde of savages were ready to swarm in from the plains, and this idiot was offering his thanks to Calina or Geryn’Yag or whatever pagan deity nuts like him prayed to out here in the wilds. It was exasperating to the ninth!
It took several minutes of teeth gnashing, but the man eventually stood up. The odor of hot metal suddenly filled the air, the same smell Beam remembered back at the house just before the queer lightning battle started. He was considering the wisdom of putting some distance between himself and this particular spot when the surface of the rock just right of the boulder shifted. Two parallel seams of greenish light sparked the wall at ground level. They were a yard apart and snaked their way up through the face of the cliff wall like parallel rips in a midday curtain.
Beam blocked the light with his hand. “What the hell is this?” he said.
The two lines of light slowed just above the level of the monk’s head, and then curved inward toward each other until they joined into one. The result was a single door-shaped line glowing against the rock. An instant later, the outlined slab of rock took on a kind of fuzziness, like it had fallen out of focus. Then, without so much as a whisper, the rock began sliding down into the floor at their feet. As it lowered into the earth, the light pouring out at them from the door fractured the night like a beacon. When all was done, they were left with an entrance large enough to accommodate even the monk, who stood an easy half-head taller than he did.
Beam looked down at the door’s sill. There were no obvious seams, no evidence of a gap or chamber where a door of such size could recede. The door appeared to have simply melted into air. “You have got to be kidding,” he whispered, pointing at the sill, “What the hell is this?”
The monk gestured into what was now clearly a room, and said, “I give you Sanctuary. Enter in peace, leave in friendship.”
Beam threw him a glare. “You’re damned fond of quoting the savages, Brother.”
“And that apparently irritates you, does it not?”
“Nah. Just seems a bit odd. I mean, considering your relationship with them and all.”
“Seems odder that you recognize it as Vaemysh,” the man said as he passed into the light, “Considering your relationship with them and all.”
Beam wanted to throw back a stinging retort, but he was simply too tired to come up with one. Instead, he simply glared into the glowing entrance and kindled his annoyance.
Another. Bloody. Cave.
What was it with all the caves lately anyway? Another joke played by the gods at his expense? Well, he was good and greatly sick of it, and he had a mind to just make camp out here in the night and take his goddamned chances.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t camp outside. He had no supplies. His blankets and food were rotting in the road with Gerd and his gold back in the Nolands, and the temperature was dropping fast as the heat of the dry plains evaporated into the evening air. And clearly, a fire was ill advised. At best.
The door bridged a nearly two feet deep passage through the rock. Bracing a hand against the outer wall, he leaned cautiously forward and peered into the room. A dozen firebrands were spaced at even intervals along the walls so that the cave was actually quite well illuminated. In fact, it wasn’t even a cave at all, not in the traditional sense. The room was square and spacious, easily thirty feet long and nearly as wide. The walls were smooth as the surface of a maiden’s bedroom and painted sky blue. The floor was polished marble with a grand carpet at its center, and it was warmer than the outside air, probably due to the torches.
“How did you light all these so quickly?” he called to the monk. When he got no response, he readjusted his grip on the cliff face and eased his head in further. “Hello?”
The monk was loitering at the far wall, a dozen paces to his left. He stood with his back to Beam before a long wooden table covered with a multitude of colorful glass jars full of equally colorful powders and liquids. Shelves lined the wall above the table, each crowded with candles, wine bottles, and tin canisters. The room’s air was heady and aromatic with the scent of incense and herbs.
“I won’t be long,” the man said as he ran his finger along a series of smaller clay vials sitting on the first shelf above the table. He took one from the middle, removed the lid, and tapped the green powder into a clay mortar.
Beam’s mouth dried up just thinking about going inside. It wasn’t that he lacked experience with the terrors of his flesh. In truth, it was quite the opposite. As a matter of record, he’d fought this selfsame fear a thousand times in environments far more treacherous than this one. In those cases, however, he’d been alone and less vulnerable.
He willed himself a half-pace deeper into the cave, but even that miserly distance brought the room collapsing down on him. He couldn’t get his breath. He fell back against the jamb with his arm anchored safely outside the cave, half in and half out of the door. He was dismayed to note how vigorously his legs were shaking.
He closed his eyes. The cool night air whispering through the door felt like freedom. He needed to take his elixir if he was going in, but the thought of enduring the vomiting ritual again was simply unbearable. He didn’t think he could do it, not after the day he’d just suffered, not with his ribs in such a state. Maybe it’d be best to camp outside after all. He could sleep behind the barb-cedar hedge and take his chances. Nothing mortal could ever get through them. With their thousands of lethal barbs, they were as secure as a cell wall.
“What are you doing out there?” the monk called.
Beam dragged a sleeve across his mouth, steadied himself, and then leaned bravely into the room to look back at the monk. A torch was mounted on the wall slightly above eye level just inside the door. It rested in an iron brace that was older than the hills. He was surprised to see that the flambeau wasn’t even wood, but a thick rod of iron capped with a few inches of some reddish colored metal. More than that, the flame had a peculiar green tint to it.
Curiosity pulled rank on fear. With his back still pressed securely against the doorframe, he slid a half step further into the room and held an open hand up toward the flame. He’d never seen a torch like this before. There was no bundling on it. If he hadn’t known better, he’d have sworn the reddish metal at the end was itself burning. He eased a half step closer, his hand still locked tightly on the doorjamb. The flambeau had to be a lamp of some sort. The shaft was likely a kind of tube filled with oil. He tapped a nail against the metal taper. It didn’t sound hollow.
The granite floor suddenly shimmied beneath him.
He seized the wall. A rush of cool air washed over his damp legs. He’d ventured too far in! He was having a seizure!
He threw himself back at the door, but instead of an opening he found only rock. At first, he thought he’d made a turn somewhere in the two steps he’d taken, that maybe the door was still there, but around a corner he couldn’t see. However, a quick inspection told him that idea was bullshit. The door was simply gone! There was no door!
He threw himself against the blue wall and beat his fists on the stone as if he could open it by sheer force of will. “Goddamn it!” he cried, “What the hell is this?”
Horror tightened like a noose. While he’d been distracted by the torch, the exit had sealed on him. Worse, there was no evidence that a door had ever existed there at all. There were no cracks, no outlines, no latch or hinges. There was nothing but cold and unyielding rock.
He slapped at the wall. “What is this?” he yelled at the monk, “Let me out of here!”
His stomach surged into his throat. He couldn’t breathe. He turned and fell back against the stone. The walls were sliding toward him. The ceiling was spinning downward in slow, dream-like motion. The monk was miles away.
“Treachery!” Beam yelled as he slid along the wall to the ground, “What’ve you done, you bastard?”
Maybe the monk couldn’t hear him. The man hadn’t even looked back. Maybe he was too far away. Maybe the monk wasn’t there at all!
He felt the floor gather up around him. He landed hard on his rear, biting his tongue on impact. He fumbled at the buckle on his chest, but his fingers were thick as clay. He had to get to his quiver. He needed the elixir! He needed it now!
To his shock, the weapons belt miraculously fell free. He dragged the quiver around to his lap. His hands were shaking like a dry drunk. The stitching ripped as he clawed at the side pocket for the vial.
There it was! The elixir. It was in his hands.
He pawed at the stopper, but his hands were slick with sweat, his fingers numb and unresponsive. The vial slipped through his hands. He watched in horror as it clattered to the marble floor. It stopped rolling several feet out in the middle of the carpet, but it might just as well have been a mile. Fear had him paralyzed. He couldn’t call out, couldn’t even blink the sweat from his eyes. Bile washed against the back of his throat. He was going to be sick.
The monk appeared above him. He was looking down at him from a mile up in the cave. Then his form cascaded downward like a stream of water suddenly cut from the pitcher. The man’s face swelled into view, blocking the world behind him. He was attacking! He had to be!
Beam tried to warn him off, but his voice was useless. The monk could take everything he owned and there wasn’t a goddamned thing he could do to prevent it. He never should’ve trusted the man. He should’ve let the stinking savages have him back at the house. He never should have intervened!
The monk came at him and Beam could do nothing to resist. The bastard grabbed his face with both hands. He turned his head from one side to the other. What the hell was he doing? Was he a blood drinker? He wanted to yell out, to demand the monk leave him be, but his voice was lost.
The monk’s fingers probed his skull. He felt them skulking around in the flesh behind his ears, first one and then the other. The man was touching his stumps, goddamn him! The pressure of his fingers there were intense and unbearable, like the dull end of nails driving into his skull!
“I apologize for the drama of the door,” the man said, his voice as loud as a hammer beating a pan, “I suspected a half-breed Vaemyn would share the same terror common to full bloods, but I couldn’t be sure.”
The realization of what had happened landed like a thunderclap. The son of a bitch knew his secret!
The monk still had his head. His face again swelled into view before Beam. “Yes, I know what you are,” the man said, “I suspected it when you first appeared. You were too fast to be Parhronii, and then you were far too reluctant to enter the cave. But I wasn’t certain until I felt the stubs where you amputated your oteuryns.”
