Angus Wells - The Kingdoms 03 (46 page)

 
          
Kedryn
held the talisman high as the chain permitted and blocked his ears to threats
and blandishments alike, not pausing in his advance, aware of Tepshen and
Brannoc hard behind. He walked on gravel for some untold time, relying on
Kyrie’s stone to guide him, for he could not tell in that sightless vapor
whether he walked a straight line or marked a circle that would bring him back
to the shore of the lake; or worse, lose them all within the hellish brume.
After a while he felt the hot crunching of the gravel replaced by the hardness
of stone, and the heat diminished. His ears rang with the cries of the damned
and it was some time before he realized that they faded, dropping back, and
that the fog thinned. He marched on, seeing faint light ahead.

 
          
In
time it strengthened the talisman’s radiance lessening in response, and they
emerged from the mist, blinking and shading their eyes as brightness replaced
the gray. Tendrils of fog still clung to them as if to draw them back and they
paced on with downcast eyes until the last vestiges broke reluctantly loose,
coiling back into the thick bank that now lay behind them.

 
          
Ahead
they saw a panorama to distort the senses, simultaneously alien as the vistas
of nightmare and weirdly akin to the landscapes of the world they had left.

 
          
A
vermilion sky spread overhead, a viridescent disk several times larger than
their own sun directly above, a line of majestic purple clouds stretching
across the far horizon. The stone on which they stood was a bilious yellow, a
great sweep that appeared to mark the edge of a mountain range, for when they
looked back they saw tall, fulvous peaks rising above them, jagged as broken
teeth, the fog roiling about the lower levels. Moving to the edge of the stone,
which appeared to be a plateau, they looked down upon a plain of copper-colored
grass, where strange trees grew in the distance, leprous white, with thin
branches that held clusters of spikey, cyanic leaves. Across the plain
meandered a carmine river, like an opened artery coursing the strange land, and
here and there along its banks they saw groups of long-legged, angular beasts,
too distant to identify, even were such classification possible. The
perspective was awkward, for the sun cast no shadows, and at first it seemed
that the plateau was inescapable, its scarp vertical, the jaundiced surfaces
offering no more handholds than would a sheet of smooth-blown glass.

 
          
They
patrolled the rim at last, close against the mountains’ flank, found a
stairway, narrow and slippery-looking. It descended at first through the rim of
the plateau, the rock forming walls that rapidly rose above their heads, the
steps steep and
thin,
forcing them to move in single
file, wary of tumbling, for their boots overlapped the stairs. Then it turned
abruptly to the left, leaving the declivity so that they climbed with open air
on their right hands and the prospect of falling to the coppery grass far
below. Whatever feet normally trod the lithic ladder
were
not human, for the descent between each step was more than a man would take,
rendering the climb all the more treacherous, and rapidly causing their calves
and thighs to ache. Down and down it went, traversing to right and left in a
zigzag pattern, with no places where they might halt to rest save the steps
themselves, so that they clambered without respite as a hot, dry wind buffeted
their feces, carrying a sweet, cloying odor redolent of rotting fruit.

 
          
Kedryn
found Drul’s glaive an encumbrance, for it was too long to sheath and heavier
than his own blade, and he was forced to carry it rested on his shoulder,
transferring its weight each time the stairway turned for fear it would
unbalance him and send him spinning to the ground below.

 
          
That
goal seemed no closer when he glanced up to see the wall of the plateau looming
above than when they had commenced their descent, and he wondered if the
deceptive perspectives tricked his eyes, or if the physical laws he understood
no longer applied, allowing the stairway to descend without ending, condemning
them to clamber its length forever. He gave up any attempt to calculate how
much longer they must remain on the treacherous ladder and concentrated solely
on the way ahead, trusting that eventually they would reach the plain below.

 
          
Finally
they did, the stairway devolving on the coppery grass, the wall above them
blocking out sight of the mountains so that only the reddish orange sky and
bilious cliff were visible. They halted there, panting and easing muscles
wearied by the descent, slumping against the unnaturally smooth stone as they
drank from their canteens and nibbled on the provisions brought from the
satchels they carried.

 
          
Before them, the plain appeared absolutely flat, the river
invisible now, and the expanse of ocher grass interrupted only by the curious
trees.
It felt as though they had spent the better part of a day
climbing down from the plateau, but the green sun still stood overhead,
seemingly fixed at its zenith: it occurred to Kedryn that time was a
meaningless concept here in the netherworld.

 
          
“Well,”
BrannocNremarked with a somewhat forced cheerfulness, staring at the
near-featureless landscape, “we have passed by Drul and crossed the lake; we
have penetrated the fog of limbo and descended a stairway I dread climbing;
which direction do we take now?”

 
          
“I
am not sure,” answered Kedryn.

 
          
“Does
the talisman not tell you?” asked Tepshen.

 
          
Kedryn
set a hand upon the stone, but it only tingled against his palm, offering that
reassurance that Wynett still lived but no other guidance- He shook his head.

 
          
“Hattim’s
shade said Taziel occupies a cave in a place of fire,” the kyo said,
thoughtfully.

 
          
“That
seems of little help here,” Brannoc gestured at the flat terrain.
“Unless the cave exists in this wall.”

 
          
He
patted the yellow stone against which he rested, but Kedryn made a negative
gesture, saying, “I do not believe it can be so close. Darr spoke of the
netherworld as though it were a series of overlapping territories: I suspect
the cave lies farther into this strange land.”

 
          
‘There
are mountains of fire in my country,” Tepshen offered. “The priests say they
are the portals of hell, and to enter is to forfeit life. Others say they are
holes into the heart of the world, which burns eternally. They are great peaks
that spit fire and brimstone, and great clouds hang above them.”

 
          
“There
was cloud along the horizon,” Kedryn said.
“If that purple
stuff was cloud.”

 
          
“It
wore the delineaments of cloud,” nodded Brannoc, “if not the color.” He
grinned, tugging a handful of copper grass loose. “But what does bear the color
of normality here?”

 
          
“Nothing,”
Kedryn answered, glancing up, “but ahead is as good a direction as any, so let
us go that way.”

 
          
The
others agreed and they prepared to leave, repacking their satchels. Kedryn
unlatched his scabbard and used his swordbelt to fashion a carrying sling for
Drul’s blade that allowed him to stow the glaive across his back, where the
weight was less cumbersome, the hilt projecting above his left shoulder. He
settled the sword as comfortably as was possible and began to trudge in what he
chose to call a northward direction. No tracks showed in the grass, which was
tough and springy beneath their boots, giving off a slightly acrid scent as it
was crushed that combined with the fruity odor of the breeze to increase the
sense of abnormality permeating the landscape. The huge viridescent disk
remained unmoving overhead, a seemingly static beacon that allowed them to fix
their direction and they marched until the trees took clear shape ahead.

 
          
Close
to, the growths were even stranger than they had seemed from the vantage point
of the plateau. Hie trunks were waxy, pale as diseased flesh, and each one was
surrounded by a series of absolutely horizontal branches commencing at
precisely the same distance from the ground, approximately twice the height of
a tall man. They grew in rings of six, alternating their positions on the
perpendicular trunks so that each succeeding layer stood above the gaps left by
its predecessor. The leaves grew in dense bunches at the tips of each branch,
long and thin and straight as knife blades, unmoving in the breeze even though
a metallic rustling emanated from each cluster. Each tree was equally distanced
from its neighbor, and they thrust from the plain in groups of six, forming
circles.

 
          
“I
do not like them,” Brannoc said nervously as they approached the first stand.
“There is something threatening about them.”

 
          
Kedryn
halted, staring at the odd growths.

 
          
“Six
and six and six,” murmured Tepshen, pointing. “Six branches in a circle and six
trees also in a circle, as if they were planted thus.”

 
          
Kedryn
saw that the kyo was right: their way was crossed by six rings of six trees,
beyond them more, all weirdly regular, a barrier across their path. The obvious
direction was to pass between the closest
group
, the
clusters being each so wide that to detour around them would take some time.
Nonetheless, he shared Brannoc’s antipathy, for it seemed the trees waited,
anticipating their arrival. He studied them, attempting to define exactly what
quality it was that afforded that sense of menace. The trees, however, gave no
clue and finally he took a step closer, motioning the others back. Nothing
happened and he walked closer still. It seemed then that the trees moved, a
faint rippling stirring the trunks, the branches wavering as though seen
through Jheat haze. Guided more by instinct than any conscious warning>\he
threw himself back, rolling as he landed to put more distance between his body
and the leprous timber.

 
          
Where
he had stood blue leaves quivered in the ocher grass, driven deep as
arrowheads, their edges exuding an oily, cyanic liquid that steamed faintly in
the reddish light. He ran back farther still as the boughfs of the nearest
trees trembled visibly and turned toward/him, fluid as tentacles, their leaves
bristling now, flying like darts to thud into the ground closer to his
position.    /

 
          
“Back!”
he shouted/ and he turned, running, as a volley of leaves whistled through the
air, thrown by the whiplash motion of the branches.

 
          
It
seemed there was a limit to their range, for the movement ceased as he reached
his comrades and the trees stood still again, tall and unmoving.

 
          
“I
think,”
he
remarked ruefully, “that we must regard everything
here as dangerous.”

 
          
“A
sound policy,” Tepshen nodded.

 
          
“And
a longer march,” muttered Brannoc, eyeing the waxen trunks resentfully.

 
          
They
turned to what they defined as the east and proceeded to walk along the line of
the trees, maintaining a respectful distance from the lethal blue leaves. The
first row of six circles ended, revealing further plantations beyond, spreading
back over the plain so that their detour became a wide-circling trek around the
hostile forest.

 
          
The
sun had not yet shifted as they reached the limit of the timber rings and
skirted warily around the stands, finally leaving them behind. Further clusters
showed ahead and they realized that their way to the horizon would be far from
straight. Kedryn touched the
talisman,
seeking that
reassurance that Wynett lived as he wondered how long it would take to reach
her. That he might not, he refused to contemplate, even though the plain
stretched out before him without sign of end, the line of purple cloud seeming
an infinite distance away, farther now that he traversed a flat terrain than
when he had studied it from the plateau.

 
          
The
immobility of the green disk allowed for no judgment of time save that inherent
in muscles and bellies. There was
no indication of twilight
nor
any hint that the sun might set and it was when his hunger grew too
avid to ignore and his legs began to ache afresh with the effort of walking
that Kedryn called a halt. Tepshen and Brannoc agreed readily enough and they
dropped their satchels on the ocher sward midway between two of the leprous
copses. The air was warm so there was no call for a fire, and they spread their
blankets, eating cold venison and the dwindling supply of journeycakes provided
by Rycol. It was agreed that a watch should be kept and Kedryn take the first
turn. He squatted on the grass, Drul’s sword at his side as his companions drew
their blankets over their heads to shut out the unrelenting light, and studied
the landscape. That rapidly became a boring pursuit, for it was unchanging,
monotonously regular. The grass and the sky were so similar in coloration that
the horizon appeared oppressively dose. There were no clouds save the band of
purple and when he looked back toward the mountains he saw only a vague
yellowish blur, overhung by the unmoving green sun. The wind blew steadily from
the north, but seemed not to touch either the grass or the trees, for neither
growths moved. Indeed, nothing moved. There were no signs of insect or animal
life, the creatures they had marked along the riverbank too far away to see,
and no birds flew in the vermilion sky. The only sounds were those made by
Tepshen and Brannoc, or the rustle of his own clothing as he shifted position.
It was a place, a vista, to leech the senses of reason, and it filled him with
a deep loathing.