Across the Face of the World (9 page)

For a long time the tall Trader struggled for words; and when they finally came, they were brought forth in a low, measured monotone that Leith struggled to hear even in the quiet of Midwinter's Night.

'The fireside stories are true. Bhrudwo is the ancient enemy. I still have to remind myself of that. I was there for a year, I lived among people just like us. Fathers and mothers who love their sons and daughters. Neighbours who do kind things for each other. Villages, cities and even whole countries who try to resist the worst of what the Destroyer seeks to impose on them. Good people, decent people, in the wrong place at the wrong time. They are our enemy not because they are evil, but because a fire is being lit under these good people that will send them surging across Faltha's green fields. The brown-cloaked hordes are set to return, along with the Maghdi killers and, eventually, the Destroyer himself.

'I was taught - you were taught - that the fabled Invasion from the east a thousand years ago could never happen again. I remember my father teaching me that a thousand years of peace bore witness that never again would Bhrudwo rise above its own internal prob¬lems to unite in an invasion of Faltha. That all we had to worry about were the greed and pride of the petty kings and lords of Faltha, and next winter's weather, with the latter far more import¬ant than the former. But my father was wrong.

'We've grown complacent, we provincials living at the west end of the world. While we squabble over problems as weighty as who will hold next year's Midsummer celebrations, Bhrudwo is amassing a mighty army that will be pointed at the heart of Faltha. And I am the only loyal Falthan who knows their plans.

'I journeyed to Bhrudwo in anger, believing it to be a futile and empty mission. Spy out the land, ascertain whether Bhrudwo threatens the peace of Faltha, and report back to the King.

There seemed little hope of completing such a task. I might wander the land for years without seeing such evidence, yet not disprove its existence. Bhrudwo is such a vast land, stretching from ice through desert to jungle, and the paths a Falthan Trader may legally take are few.

Nevertheless, I thought myself relatively safe on my journey, because no matter how ancient the hatred, people must live and Traders are needed. As I made my way into the huge land of Birinjh, I knew I was being watched closely. I expected that, but as long as I was careful, I anticipated no danger.

'I was careful, but not careful enough. A few innocent ques¬tions in a few obscure villages, with no one able to connect them to me - or so I thought. Had anyone been approached about joining the army? Were people making more tradeable weapons? Did the Bhrudwan army need Falthan provisions? Questions of that sort. I made sure I spoke to nobody who might be part of the Bhrudwan spy network.

'Then late one night came a knock at the door and 1 was led away to a damp wooden hut, Trader's Rights or no Trader's Rights. Three men, servants to the Lords of Fear, took turns putting me to the question. What was my mission? Who was my king? I think rhey already knew the answers because they were gentle by Bhrudwan standards. When I didn't tell them, they tied my hands behind my back. Again they asked me questions, and whenever I answered they did things to my hands. I couldn't see what they were doing, and it drove me wild. It didn't seem to matter whether 1 gave them a good answer or just babbled nonsense; they burned or pierced or crushed my hands and asked me again. I can't remember much about it, thankfully. Just pain. I don't know what I told them in the end.'

The fire flickered in the grate as Hal placed another log on the embers.

'I came to in a wooden case with three small airholes in it. I was taken on a long journey -

probably three or four weeks, I lost track of time - and was let out once a day to relieve myself. They gave me just enough food and water to stay alive. I used to sob with the pain from the cramps in my arms and legs. It was worse than being beaten with sticks. I think they were trying to break me down, softening me for what was ahead.

'I know I spent the last two days of my journey at sea. I had no idea where I was going. But when I was finally freed from my tiny prison I found myself on the island called Andratan.'

The silence around them deepened at the mention of that name, as though a dark spell had been invoked. Outside, the falling snow deadened any sound there might have been; inside, the four people sat absolutely still. A name of power, a name of fear. Andratan.

Andratan? Leith shook his head disbelievingly. Andratan was the legendary island home of the Destroyer, the lair of the ancient Enemy of Faltha, the Cruel One, wielder of the blue fire.

From Andratan he would emerge like a fat black spider to ensnare the careless, the lazy, the disobedient, and feed on their souls... No, those were just children's tales to be repeated in the dark, a deli¬cious horror to be savoured as families sat safely around a fire.

But was the Destroyer just a children's tale? Leith tried to remember the Haufuth's teaching. It was written in Domaz Skreud, the Scroll of Doom, that the Destroyer was named Kannwar at his birth, one of the First Men, born at the dawn of history. Like all the First Men, Kannwar was raised in the city of Dona Mihst, the jewelled city of the Vale of Youth. Like them, Kannwar was granted intimate knowledge of and contact with the Most High, who had given the First Men the Fire of Life and separated them from the animals, dedicated to His service.

Like them, Kannwar's gift and his fate was not to die but to be translated, to disappear from the Vale of Youth, to be with the Most High. But unlike other First Men Kannwar rejected the gift, seeking instead immortality on earth and thus control of his own destiny. He used his knowledge of the Way of the Fire, the Fuirfad, to further his own interests. Eventually his scheming led to factions within the First Men, rebel¬lion against the Most High and bloodshed before the Rock of the Fountain in the centre of Dona Mihst.

The Scroll of Doom recounted how the Most High judged the First Men for this bloodshed, banishing them from His city and scattering them throughout Faltha. He then covered the Vale in a vast flood, putting an end to all its glory, and the forsaken land was renamed Dhauria, the Drowned Land. To Kannwar the Most High gave a severe punishment. The curse of immortality was laid upon him, and he would never be translated into the presence of the Most High. He was renamed the Destroyer, and was banished from the west. From his island of Andratan in the eastern sea, so the legends said, the Destroyer is ever occupied plotting revenge against the Most High and the Falthans, direct descendants of the First Men.

Legends, Leith reminded himself. Only legends.

Mahnum drew a deep breath, then continued slowly, as though unwilling for the words to leave his lips. 'For some days I was imprisoned in a dungeon somewhere under the island fortress. I shared a cell with ordinary Bhrudwans, decent people like you and I, most of them, people who worried about their families and what would happen to them now they were gone.

None had any hope of escape. Their crimes—' he faltered for a moment - 'their crimes usually involved asking too many questions of their village coun-cils. For this they were to die, but not immediately. Not until they had been made to betray everyone else who thought as they did.'

The words came even more slowly now, haltingly, as the Trader sought strength to continue in the face of his memories.

'The cells all faced inwards to a true Bhrudwan torture chamber. Most High grant that you never see one. Day and night we were forced to watch men and women taken from their cells and - and questioned. Guards in red robes asked them the same things again and again, sometimes writing down the answers, but mostly not even listening, not even when they were begged. The torturers competed with one another. The loudest scream. The longest -these jailers were not people. They had— there were dogs, trained to - to - oh, Most High, I saw it. I saw it! I felt so ashamed, as though I was one of the guards, as though I pulled the levers, unleashed the dogs, cheered them on. As though I was respon¬sible.'

Mahnum's face looked pinched and small in the firelight, and just as Leith decided to go to his father, to offer him comfort, Hal stretched out his good hand and laid it on the Trader's shaking shoulders. Leith remained where he was.

'Finally my door was opened and I was led out past the eager dogs and the stretched-out figures and the glowing coals, up a winding staircase, and left on the cold stone floor of a lightless room.

'There was a voice in the room, and it asked me questions. The power of it pinned me to the ground, and peeled my mind open like bark off a sapling. It - wanted to know things... I don't remember all of it. There was power and authority behind that voice, a great malice, but also a great weariness. The questions seemed like knives laying my mind open, slicing through my mem¬ories, whittling me down to the nub, searching for a secret I didn't have. It was agony. I couldn't resist. I couldn't even begin to formu¬late the desire to resist. All I could do was feel the pain, and know that the pain was my only future.

'The voice knew all about my mission. It knew the name of my King and my country. It knew everything I knew. It taunted me with the knowledge that an invincible army was being prepared to destroy Faltha utterly. It spread out before me a vast plan, one in which there was no fault. In this plan the power of dark magic and the force of men were embellished by treason and betrayal. Name after name it spoke, names of men and women in places of power, poised to betray Faltha into Bhrudwan hands. The air seemed thick with laughter, with gloating. I was offered a place in this plan if - if I would take a blood-binding oath to seek the "Right Hand". The voice always came back to this. What did I know of the Right Hand? Again and again it asked, as though I could have kept anything from it. Eventually it became convinced that I knew nothing, and gave up in disgust. The moment it released me was the sweetest moment in my life.

'I was taken from the room and brought back to the torture chamber. Then - I can't remember.

I can't remember. Blackness, pain, threats, taunts - then I woke in another room with a man bent over me, dressing these wounds.'

Here Mahnum broke off his narrative, threw off his cloak and unbuttoned his tunic. As he turned around, his family saw a raised mass of angry scars on his back. Indrett cried out, while Hal wept quietly. Leith's mind was numb, in a sort of stasis, and he could not react.

The Trader pulled his cloak back around his shoulders. 'The scars still give a little pain; I cannot sleep facing the sky. I was fortunate, for I escaped before I was introduced to many of the instruments prepared for me.

'By chance, it seemed, a Bhrudwan Trader whom I had befriended earlier on the journey had arranged business on Andratan. He later told me that he was courting the daughter of a soldier who had temporarily been assigned to the island. On his way to a secret tryst with his beloved, he said, he came across my cell. He never told me how he gained admittance to the heavily guarded dungeon, but I suspect his beloved was working as a servant somewhere in the keep.

Whatever his method of entry, he told of happening upon my inert form on the stone floor of an empty room. Immediately (he said) he forgot his beloved and set to work tending my wounds.

'It was a long time before I could stand unaided, but the Trader never left my side save to bring me meals of bread and gruel. As soon as I could walk again, he led me to another room, similar to the first except that the floor was lined with straw. No one ever came into the room except Vaniyo, my Trader friend. My body healed quickly, but it was many days before my mind was clear again and I could talk with him.

'It turned out that my friend was in league with a number of the guards, for he told me that my death had been reported to the Masters, as he called them. He described to me how he had bribed the guards to keep them from revealing my whereabouts. I was tired and did not wonder at that time why he told and retold this story to me, emphasising the heroic part he had played in my escape from death.

"You will be the first ever to escape these walls of no return," he would say to me.

"How can I ever repay you?" I would reply.

'Then he would favour me with a knowing look, and say, "You'll think of a way."

'Late one night Vaniyo led me from my room, past sleeping guards and some who were not asleep but looked the other way. It was a long, slow journey, ever upwards, avoiding areas where my friend's money had not reached, but it ended suddenly when we found ourselves outside the fortress and running down a steep bare slope to the seashore. That moment has remained with me ever since. Out in the real world again, with a moonlit sky above and the breakers booming against the shore, and in the distance the evil silhouette of the fortress rising up rampart upon battle¬ment from a high bare hill. As I looked at that hateful place it seemed that the remembrance of what had happened inside those walls faded into a dream. If it weren't for the scars I carry, and the names burned into my memory, I'd be sure I had dreamed it all.

'We hauled a little scow from its hiding place behind some rocks and launched it into the sea.

Vaniyo rowed out towards the dark

shape of a large sailing ship anchored in the harbour. At any other time the shape of a Bhrudwan galleon would have filled me with dread, but now 1 felt only joy. We pulled alongside and my friend whistled a signal. We were allowed to board and a member of the crew hid me below decks.' Mahnum laughed grimly. 'He did not have to be bribed. It seems that there is little love even in Bhrudwo for what takes place on that island. As Vaniyo parted from me, he assured me we would meet again.

'The ship sailed the next day, and eventually we made land at a city called Malayu. It was here that I was left to fend for myself, with no friend, food, transport or shelter and only a Trader's wits to guide me. I knew that if I was seen by anyone who knew of my arrest I would become a wanted man, for I carried the potential undoing of Bhrudwo's carefully laid plans, and although this seemed highly unlikely, I decided to keep myself hidden. Yet with the knowledge of Faltha's danger locked in my mind I also knew that there was not a moment to spare. I had to return to the Court of Firanes.