Orbelon's World (Book 3) (14 page)

   As Leth and Lakewander rode on they passed more and more of the metal statues. The variations in posture became the norm. A handful were mounted upon plinths or pedestals; one had been affixed high atop a tree trunk which had been shorn of leaves, branches and bark, and sawn clean through at its top. The statue stood perhaps forty feet above the ground, sentinel still, a metallic stylite gazing blindly into infinity.      

   Leth assumed the figures to be solid until he noticed that one feature common to them all was a mouth orifice, which suggested that they might in part be hollow. He eyed them somewhat uncomfortably. Their silence and number gave them an eerie presence, and he was bemused as to their purpose in so desolate a place.

   The woodland had begun to thin. Leth and Lakewater emerged now onto a dusty plain, and were confronted by scores of the metal statues spread across the landscape before them. Many were high on up-ended tree-trunks or pinnacles of rock, others stood, sat, knelt, squatted,
sprawled on the earth. Leth pulled up his horse. He had never seen a sight like it. And as he gazed around him, to his shock, the nearest statue spoke.

   Or rather, it uttered a series of sounds.

   Leth wrenched himself around in the saddle, the hairs at the nape of his neck standing on end. His horse shied and he struggled for a moment to control it. He peered at the statue, which stood less than five paces away. The sound came again, a voice so close to human as to be almost a mockery. It moaned, shaping words of a sort, but he could not make them out for they were faint and oddly distorted.

   'She is asking for water,' Lakewander said. She had halted her horse and walked it back to stand beside him.

   'What? She?'

   'She is a Soul.' Lakewander gestured out across the plain, and back to the woodland out of which they had ridden. 'All of them are Souls.'

   The voice spoke again, sibilant and hoarse through the metal mouth orifice, and this time Leth made out the words. 'Waa-terrr. Pllleease, sir. If you ha-ave a hea-arrtt. Waa-terrr….'

   Shaken, he reached reflexively for the flask strapped to his saddle-pack. He dismounted,
then hesitated. He knew nothing of these strange metal beings. Was he being tricked?

   He turned to Lakewander. 'Should I?'

   'You will come to no harm, if that is what you are asking, Lord,' she said, then added with unexpected sarcasm, 'and no doubt it will salve your conscience. But in all truth it will do little else except prolong her suffering.'

   Leth felt his temper rise. 'Listen, what is going on here? Am I to help her or not?'

   'It is as I say. You will relieve her suffering in the short term, but prolong it in the long.'

   'What is she?
She, and all these others? Souls? What do you mean?'

   'They are women, like I, and men--' she hesitated, looking at Leth, then away, '--like other men, whose faith, belief, conviction or, as some would conceive it, madness, has driven them to the extreme of having themselves encased forever inside these metal shells.'

   The voice came again, entreating him from within the figure.

   'You mean--' Leth cast his eyes about him in stark horror. '--these are not fabulous living statues, or some other form of creature? They are human beings?
All of them? Trapped?'

   'Voluntarily,' emphasized Lakewander. She gazed around, her face suddenly haggard. 'And not all of these figures contain people. Not any more. Many have long since perished. You see, they are wholly dependent upon the goodwill of passers-by for sustenance, and there are few passers-by hereabouts.' Lakewander lifted a hand to her face, and Leth realised she was brushing away a tear. 'This is not a good place to be, Swordbearer. We should move on.'

   'Not until I have done what any decent man would do.' Leth strode to the statue that had spoken and put the neck of his flask to the lipless mouth.

   'Are you truly so merciful, Swordbearer?' asked Lakewander. 'This is how the Souls inflict their suffering upon us. They are martyrs, making us pay the price of their devotion, and they know that whatever we do - help them or ignore them - we are wrong. And we are right also. It is we who are trapped, as much as they.'

   From within the hollow figure there came a faint scrabbling sound. A straw of rolled grass appeared through the mouth orifice, probing for the life-giving liquid. Pale bluish lips, cracked and scabbed, were pressed against the inner surface of the mouth, and began to draw greedily upon the straw. Leth recoiled, despite himself.

   'Do you feel better now, Lord,' Lakewander asked, her voice high and laden with emotion. She passed her arm out again across the plain. 'Where will you stop?
How
will you stop?'

   Even as she spoke there came, from a kneeling statue close by, a voice, this time a man's, similarly pleading. Others joined in: one, then another, then more, until the air was alive with their agonized pleas.

   Leth calculated that his flask was now less than one third full. He pulled it away from the Soul's desperate mouth. She gave a wail of distress and begged him for more. Ignoring her he ran to the next metal figure, pressed the flask to the mouth. As before a straw emerged and withered lips began to suck.

   'Help me!' shouted Leth. 'Lakewander, bring your flask!'

   Lakewander was weeping openly. She slid from her horse, her shoulders and head bowed, and took her flask and walked across to a nearby Soul. The awful cacophony continued, tearing into Leth's heart. He yanked his flask from the Soul he was succouring, ran to another, then another. He realized his flask was empty, and dashed it to the floor. He ran to Lakewander, frantic, almost maddened. 'What can we do?'

   Lakewander turned to him. She was shaking, her face gaunt,
the tears streaming down her cheeks. 'We can do nothing. Nothing!'

   She fell against him, her body racked with sobs. Leth threw his arms around her and held her close. He cried out, his voice almost lost beneath the screams of the dying Souls. He knew that she was right. There was nothing they could do. As with the Sufferer back in the woods, it required the skills and workshop of a smithy - of many smithies - to release these people from their metal shells.

   'Why did you bring me here?' he cried.

   'I had no choice. It’s the only way. Please, Swordbearer, take me away from here!'

   He helped her back to her mount. She was still shaking, as, he realized, was he. He climbed onto Swiftwind's back, pressing his hands to his ears. Lakewander turned a stricken face to him, pointing along the road between the Souls. Then she spurred her horse to a gallop and rode, her face pressed to the mount's neck. Leth, the tears streaming from his own eyes, bent his back and rode after her, the howls and moans of those he was leaving behind seeming to grow even louder.

V

   'Can’t we do something? Isn’t there anyone in this region who could help us liberate them?'        

   Free of the plain of imprisoned Souls, both Leth and Lakewander remained deeply affected by their experience. They rode along a stony path, winding upwards into the ridge that Leth had spied earlier, which seemed to have curved around to lie directly in their path. Behind them, faint now on the breeze, the cries of the imprisoned Souls could still be made out.

   'To what end?' asked Lakewander. 'Do you not understand that they choose to subject themselves to this. Free them and they would not thank you. They would drink and eat and have themselves sealed in once more. And they might even charge you with the cost of creating another shell, for those don’t come cheaply.'

  
'But why? Why do they do this to themselves?'

   Lakewander gave a pallid smile, her expression resigned and somewhat cynical. 'They’re fanatics and religious zealots.'

   'No! That’s no explanation!'

   'They experience themselves as souls incarcerated within flesh, extant and conscious but not knowing why. They seal themselves inside bodies of iron as a physical demonstration of this. They’re literally imprisoned within bodies which, paradoxically, will long outlast their own, and which will stand as reminders for all to witness. The Souls consider themselves living works of art, and examples both to others and to their creator. Their suffering becomes both their art and the physical embodiment of their belief, which are perhaps one and the same thing. Ultimately they believe that at some point, when enough have suffered and perished, their creator will show mercy and will come and set them free, both of their metal prison and the prison of their flesh. Is that sufficient for you, Swordbearer?'

   Leth pondered this. 'They await their god?'

   She looked askance at him.

   'Isn’t it possible,' Leth said, 'that with the Sword of the Orb I might cleave their prisons from them?'

   Lakewander gave a sigh. 'You tell us - you insist - that you’re not a god.'

   'That’s not what I asked.'

   She shook her head. 'No, Lord Swordbearer, you are not the one they wait for. Believe me, you are not. And neither can the Orbsword release them.
Even if it could they would, as I have already said, only build themselves new prisons.'

   'You don’t like them, do you?'

   'They are a menace. They force upon us a terrible moral dilemma - as you have just experienced. We wish to help them, yet whatever action we take will only increase their agony. We must live with ourselves in the full knowledge of this. The Souls are martyrs, and through their suffering they needlessly cause others to suffer. Do you see? Such people are a corrosive influence on our society. They do not deserve respect.'

   'That’s a harsh judgement.'

   'You have not had to live your entire life knowing and passing among these people.'

   'This is wilderness, far from society!' exclaimed Leth. 'The Souls have hardly placed themselves in your midst. No one’s forced to look upon them or be witness to their pleas day in and day out.'

   Lakewander bowed her head, shaking it leadenly from side to side. When she looked up again Leth saw that her eyes were wet once more. 'Lord Swordbearer, you know so little. But we are almost at the End of the World. Perhaps then you will see. I will say this, though. I pity the Souls. They are a menace, but they can’t help what they do. It is Ascaria's dreadful influence that makes them torture themselves the way they do. Hence she torments us. When the Orb is rid of her, then, perhaps, will all suffering be done.'

    They had come to the lip of a narrow gorge at the bottom of which a fast flowing river raced, foaming and leaping to more level ground far below. Before them was a bridge formed of a single colossal slab of red-toned rock laid longwise across the gorge. On the other side a cavernous opening let into the towering rock face. Leth let his eyes travel upwards, over the sheer face of the ridge, noting the smooth, glistening surface of the rock and its queer, almost fleshlike form.  

   Lakewander dismounted from her horse and indicated to Leth to do likewise. They tethered both mounts to a nearby tree. Lakewander stepped forward to place herself before the bridge. In a loud voice she called out, 'Bridgekeeper, are you here? We wish to cross.'

   She waited a few moments,
then called out the same words again. Then once more. 'Bridgekeeper, for the third time I hail you. Two persons wish to cross. If you hear me, show yourself now, for I won’t speak again and we will cross without toll.'

   Something stirred in the cavern's dark maw. A shadow shifted and a huge figure trundled from the gloom to confront them. His arms were long and massively
sinewed, his legs squat and wide. A great paunch bulged beneath hirsute and fleshy ribs, and wide, high shoulders supported a head as large as a bull's. Small, dark, deeply sunken eyes were squeezed into a narrow slit between a low, beetling brow and high, prominent wedges of cheekbone. The nose was a huge purple bulb that flopped over a wide mouth with thrusting jaw and large crooked teeth. He wore only a soiled leather codpiece, and dragged an enormous knobbled wood cudgel behind him. He stood before the bridge, blinking at the two.

   'So, you are here, as I thought you would be,' declared Lakewander. 'Did you think you would trick me by lying low? You should know I would not forget.'

   'Lakewander, is it you?' The huge Bridgekeeper, peering across the chasm, raised a heavy arm and scratched his head. 'It has been such a long time.'

   'It has.'

   'You look so different. Where do you go? To the Shore?'

   Lakewander nodded.
'To the Shore.'

   'And who is this who accompanies you?'

   'A warrior, fearless and strong, so do not think to cheat us, Bridgekeeper. Here. Here are two pieces of copper for our passage.' She strode forward and pressed two coins into the Bridgekeeper's vast palm. 'Now, let us pass.'

   The Bridgekeeper stared for a moment at the coins. He lowered his head and sniffed them with his great purple nose, then shuffled aside. Lakewander beckoned to Leth to come forward.