The pleasure of memory, p.25
The Pleasure of Memory, page 25
The braces were identical to the hundreds of others he’d seen shoring up the bowels of the tunnel, each carved with the detailed faces of impressively ugly Baeldons stacked one atop the other from the pillar’s foundation all the way to the ceiling. The faces scowled down on him as he rested, and he scowled right back up at them. He didn’t understand the meanings of the vulgar totems, and he couldn’t have cared less. They were simply testimony to his long held belief that the Baeldons were a race of giant, stupid, ugly thugs.
The tunnel was an endless parade of pitch black, a place of perpetual midnight only barely disrupted by the relatively feeble light of their torches. It was the very definition of gloom and despair. He wondered how long he dared remain down here before the risk of suicide would become too savory an option to refuse.
His torch lay in the sand before him, flickering erratically in a breeze wafting from points unknown deeper back in the tunnel. These torches still intrigued him, the way their intensity never wavered, the way the metal wick never lost any of its substance. He’d originally thought them metal tubes full of oil, but the slender rods could never hold enough liquid to keep the fires burning this long. No, it had to be some kind of chemical reaction within the reddish metal at the top end where the fire originated. That would likely also explain the flame’s greenish hue. In another time and another place, he would consider taking one of the torches to an alchemist in Parhron for further investigation.
Still, where the torches boasted endurance, they failed in passion. The light cast from the torch barely parted the dark, though his eyes had adjusted well enough to make out the nuances of approaching shadows and shapes as they walked. The stink delivered by the unending breeze, however, would still take some getting used to.
Chance sat across the corridor, leaning back against the coarse earth wall with his elbows on his knees and his face buried dramatically in his hands. Sitting there in such a state of despair, or despondency, or whatever useless emotion had taken possession of the man, he presented the perfect target for a taunt. And yet, Beam resisted the urge to throw an irritating remark his way. Instead, he grabbed the torch, climbed to his feet, and walked a few paces deeper into the tunnel. Streamers of ancient cobwebs sizzled and vanished as the fire passed through them. It was growing more and more difficult to tell where they were going from where they’d come.
“What time to you think it is?” he asked Chance, “Outside, I mean.” His mouth felt too dry. The wine hadn’t helped at all. He felt angry and edgy, even edgier than usual.
“I couldn’t tell you,” Chance said without looking up
“Well, how about hazarding a guess, then?” Gods, the man was useless.
Chance shrugged, but still didn’t look up. “Perhaps a few hours past midnight,” he said into his palms, “Why don’t you run up and take a look?”
Beam again resisted his baser urges. Instead, he turned away and studied the insufferable night. “We could be fifty yards from where we started and I’d never know it.”
“I once spent three months down here doing some studies,” Chance said behind him.
Beam looked back. The man had finally released his eyes, though he was only using them to stare uselessly into the torch burning at his feet.
“Oh, do tell,” Beam said, “And what exactly was it you were doing down here by yourself? Evading the hordes of aroused females combing through your woods after you?”
“I was doing some archeological research,” the man responded as matter-of-factly as if he hadn’t heard a word, “I was down here nearly ten weeks. When I finally returned to the surface, I learned I’d been passing better than twenty-four hours cycles without sleeping. Bless me if it didn’t take me the prouder length of a week to get back on schedule.”
Beam rolled his eyes. “Great story,” he said, “Really. Thanks for sharing that.” The monk was a study in annoyance.
A familiar howl echoed from somewhere back in the bowels of the tunnel. Beam turned and held his torch out toward it. Nothing presented itself for his inspection. In the day the thing had been trailing them, it'd grown neither closer nor more distant.
“If not for that bloody yowl, I’d never know which way we came from,” he said, more to himself than for point of conversation.
“You needn’t worry. I know where we are.”
Beam threw him a scowl. “That’s exactly the problem!” he snapped, “You see that, right? You know exactly where we are and yet I don’t have a clue. I’m dependent on you, do you see that? I’m dependent on some crazy old monk, and I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit!”
“You need to calm down,” Chance said, looking up at him, “Perhaps you should take some more of the elixir.”
“Oh, really?” Beam said, “Is that what you think? Another slug of Old Hermit Monk’s Happy Health Tonic and everything will be just fine and dandy?”
“Beam, seriously. Try to calm down.”
“You go to hell! I wouldn’t be here if not for you! You pulled one pretty trick of manipulation on me back there in the cave. You got me to come down here against my better judgment. You knew this was the worst possible place a man of my affliction could flee to, so you drugged me. You did something to my mind. You deceived me into coming down here against my best judgment.”
“Blood of the gods,” Chance said with a slap to his knee, “You know perfectly well it’s not—”
“It’s not what?” Beam said as he marched back into their camp, “It’s not what, exactly?”
Chance stood up. They faced each other from across the corridor. “It’s not like that,” the man said, “I would never have drugged you, nor would I have tricked you into joining me. You’re confusing my ethics with those of your brethren smugglers and thieves. No, you made the decision to follow me of your own volition and free will. I’m not your mother.”
“You’re not my mother?” Beam said, snorting, “Are you trying to make me angry?”
“You need to take a deep breath.”
“Oh, is that right? A deep breath? Maybe you just need to shut your goddamned mouth!”
Even as he threw the words, Beam knew the monk was right. His hands were shaking like he suffered the palsy, and he was sweating like a pig. His heart was rattling his ribs like a prisoner trying to break through the bars.
He swiped the cold moisture streaming down his face. He watched Chance pick a torch up from the dirt. He watched Chance stand up, watched Chance watching him as the monk moved cautiously across the corridor.
“Want to know what I think?” Beam said as he watched the man stop before his gear, “I think I should’ve let that tarry bastard take your stinking head back there at your house. You’ve been lying to me since you first opened your mouth!”
Chance knelt before Beam’s weapons belt. He began digging through the quiver’s pocket.
“What the hell are you doing now?” Beam barked.
He winced as his own words reverberated through his head.
“You planning on robbing me now?” he said more carefully, “Is that it? Drugging me and tricking me into this hellhole wasn’t enough? Now you’re stealing from me?”
He swiped his hair back from his face; it felt as wet and cold as if he’d just taken a swim in a mountain stream. He was fully dripping in sweat now. His stomach churned enthusiastically. His knees threatened to revolt.
He watched the monk stand up again, watched him turn to face him with the vial held out, watched him floating threateningly closer with his arms outstretched like he was going to attack him.
“Beam, you need to take a drink,” the monk said. His words echoed wildly around the darkness. “Your affliction is returning. This will help subdue it.”
“See, there’s another thing!” Beam said with a finger leveled threateningly at the man, “You’re always telling me what to do! Always pushing me around! Always trying to get me to do something I don’t want to do!”
Beam looked down at his pointing hand. It was trembling hard enough to break a wrist. He reeled it back in and locked it under his other arm. He looked up to see the ceiling hovering just inches above his head. In the same instance, the walls shuddered strangely, like metal sheets wavering before an infernal heat. The space was condensing around him. The tunnel was collapsing! It was going to crush him! He was going to die down here, just him and that miserable monk. They’d be trapped here for all eternity!
“Take a drink,” Chance said as he floated closer with the tonic still held out.
Poison, Beam thought. The man drugged him to get him down here and now he was going to kill him with some arcane poison! Panic fully seized him. He charged at Chance. He grabbed the man by the mail and shoved him roughly back against the wall with his forearm buried in the man’s neck. “I should’ve killed you back on the trail!” he yelled into the monk’s face, “I should’ve slit your throat when I had the stinking chance!”
Chance dug his thumbs into the soft flesh under Beam’s elbow. Beam suffered a shock of pain that screamed into his back and down his spine. He cried out and fell back away from him.
“It’s going to be all right,” Chance said as he rubbed his throat.
Beam couldn’t move. He could only stand there in the middle of the corridor and pray to the gods he didn’t piss himself. Again!
“You’ll be fine, Beam. Just take a sip of the medicine.”
“Fine?” Beam heard someone shriek, “Are you serious? Fine? I’m losing my mind down here! The ceiling’s moving! I can see it! It’s unstable, don’t you see that? It’s going to collapse on us. Look at those timbers there! Damn me if they’re not rotted straight through. We’re going to die down here! We’re going to die down here and it’s your bloody fault!”
The man’s form blurred in and out of focus. Beam watched him as he bit the cork loose, watched him as he swam closer.
“This will ease your pain,” the monk said from a mile away. His voice sounded low and ominous like distant thunder.
Beam’s teeth were chattering so hard now he couldn’t speak. The proffered elixir shuffled into two, then three, then one vial. The walls were swelling in on him. He couldn’t breathe.
An arm slid around his shoulders. Something hard pressed against his mouth. A warm fluid flowed over his tongue, sweet and tingling. He’d barely swallowed it when the anger loosened its grip and his knees disappeared beneath him. The walls slid past as he drifted toward the dirt. His anger, his fear, even his doubt melted away until there was nothing left but warmth and the sweet pressure of sleep.
∞
Chance stood over Beam, watching the man snore. He should’ve seen this little episode coming by the fit the man had thrown when they passed the collapsed hatch a few hours earlier. The man could be histrionic as a little girl, but he’d practically had a seizure when he learned the exit was unfit for passage.
And yet, who could have guessed the elixir would wear off so quickly? It should’ve lasted at least thirty-six hours if not a full forty-eight, but it’d dissipated in less than a day. He’d somehow miscalculated something, whether the measurements for the potion or his assessment of the man’s affliction, he wasn’t certain. Another error in judgment that had nearly led to calamity. Another error in judgment in a long line of them.
Chance sighed and wiped at his eyes. Self-abuse won’t help Beam, he told himself. It won’t help him find Luren. It won’t build him a new house and it won’t help him inform the Allies. It won’t help anyone. It was little more than an indulgent episode of self-flagellation whose only outcome would be to kindle the fire of his guilt. And what a fire it was.
He studied the stoneware vial in his hand. Perhaps the half-breed had developed some kind of tolerance to the medication after so many years of using it. It was something he’d have to explore.
Definitely, just as soon as life returned to normal.
He stepped over Beam’s sleeping form and knelt down before the half-breed’s weapons. He lifted the empty quiver and began replacing the arrows that’d spilled out in his haste to free the vial. He stopped at that thought and shook his head. No. Not arrows, he reminded himself. Bolts. The half-breed had been very clear about that.
When he’d replaced all the bolts, he lifted the flask to his ear and shook it. It was about three quarters full. It’d probably be best to tend to it himself, administering it to Beam on regular intervals before the man needed it. As he knelt there before the half-breed’s weapons, he noticed the sword leaning against the wall before him. The eye looked down on the half-breed from its perch in the talon grip of the pommel. It looked strangely purposeful, as if it were protecting Beam, standing guard over him as he slept.
He leaned closer and peered into the crimson eye. He studied it carefully, probing past the surface and into its heart. There was an unmistakable light glimmering from deep inside it, a kind of ethereal fire very much like his blue caeyl, though more corporeal, more animalistic in nature. The light swirled beneath the glassy surface like a lightning storm in a pillbox. This was indeed a caeyl, he was certain of it. It was a Blood Caeyl, and if all the lore he knew about this weapon were true, that tiny storm was a harbinger of very bad times ahead.
He slipped back onto his heels and pressed his palms to his eyes. His mind was swimming in exhaustion, and thinking about the Caeyllth Blade was only fouling the chaos further. It was critical that he put it behind him, that he forget about the nightmare that was this past day, at least for the night. He walked back to his pack and stowed the flask there. Once he’d secured the pack, he rolled his blanket out along the wall. Beam had cleared a patch of dirt for him there, removing the stones and rocks he said would feel like someone sticking a knife in his back as he slept.
The man was an enigma. He was as crude and selfish a rogue as Chance had ever met. And he had a much harder side, a bloodier side that Chance prayed he’d never have to face. Yet, when he’d spoken of his lost benefactor, Brother Dael, his emotions were so clear, so intense they were nearly physical. The simple fact that he’d even stopped to help Chance back at the house spoke volumes. He’d thrown in his assistance when he could’ve easily slipped past the melee and been miles away before the Vaemyn finished. He was a perfect study in contradictions.
A wrenching yawn seized Chance. Gods, it was late. He needed to clear his mind. He needed sleep. It felt like weeks since he last slept. He lay down on half his blanket and then pulled the rest over him. It was a terrible time to think of such things, in the final moments before sleep when the mind is most vulnerable to fear and despair. He needed to meditate, to escape this harsh reality before it ate him alive.
The ground beneath him was obstinate. He twisted around in search of a comfortable pose, but it was a wasted effort. There was no good position for sleeping on such hard scrabble in the cold damp of a tunnel. He opted at last to roll onto his back and try to lie as still as he could manage as he waited for sleep to take him away.
∞
Koonta’ar walked in from a night as dark as her mood.
A small fire shimmered against the dark plains a hundred feet ahead. A few tents hunkered down around it in protest of the night. Shadowy figures moved in the shadows beyond the sparse flames, though the usual enthusiasm felt at the end of a routine day’s march was missing. No sound came from the camp, no laughter, no banter, none of the usual noises of settling troops.
She’d had doubts about allowing the fire, fearing the smoke could alert the fugitives below to their presence. In the end, however, she was certain they’d never make their exit here anyway, not so far south. It would be a strategically illogical move, one the caeyl mage would never consider. Besides, her warriors were utterly exhausted. They desperately needed a hot meal and a distraction from their exhaustion, and so she’d allowed them the luxury of a fire on the condition they build it at least a hundred feet downwind of the small hill the hatch sat atop, and they’d keep it going only as long as necessary to prepare their food.
She entered the camp and stopped before the small campfire. Warriors lay scattered about the camp. Some had already retired to their tents. Some had thrown out a blanket, eaten and gone directly to sleep. Others had simply dropped where they stood and slept in the grass, blankets be damned. The only members of the party not sleeping or preparing for sleep were the three unlucky warriors who had drawn the short straws. They were stationed in a triad around the hatch for the first two-hour watch.
A big warrior rested across the fire from her, sitting cross-legged on a red and blue striped wool blanket and smoking a slender white pipe. He was a giant among her people, cresting six and a half feet and weighing in at nearly three hundred pounds of sound muscle. His hair was a couple shades closer to brown-blonde than was typical for the Vaemysh, who normally boasted hair the color of white sand, and he wore it loose over his shoulders now as he wound down from their day. His complexion was also duskier than normal for his race, putting him in the category of ‘dark skinned’ among their people, though she’d always considered the term vulgar. His armor was piled to the side, leaving him to relax in his soft, tawny buckskins and bare feet.
He was watching her and smiling familiarly.
“Evening, Mawby,” she said, “How’s your trail?”
The burly Vaemyn grinned and nodded and waved his pipe in salute. “Trail’s good, Kad’r. Having the time of my life. Wouldn’t have missed this outing for the world, by gods.”
She felt a chill at his use of the word ‘Kadeer’. It felt foreign, and uninvited. Still, she forced a smile back at him. “Well, if you’ve enjoyed yourself so far, you just wait’ll we reach Sken te’Fau.”
“The swamp?” he said, squinting through the pipe smoke, “Nothing more than dirty water and a few flies.” He drew in a toke, turned his face up toward the stars, and puffed out a string of smoke rings.
