The Wanderer's Tale (13 page)

‘Good,’ Bolldhe interrupted, stretching himself out on his bed again. ‘So don’t.’

Finwald continued, ‘We all know where we stand on that point, and Appa seems to be content to leave the whole problem in your capable hands.’ He paused for the traveller to reply, but Bolldhe continued to stare up at the ceiling.

‘Only I’ve asked him several times now,’ Finwald went on, perching uncomfortably on his hard stool, ‘what exactly this other method is, involving you, and why he puts such great faith in it. Do you really know how to do the job?’

Bolldhe turned to him and said simply, ‘No. Why? Should I?’

Finwald was, to say the least, a little surprised, and more than a little irked, by Bolldhe’s apparent unconcern. ‘Well, yes, to be quite honest, I think you
should
know.’

‘
You
know,’ replied Bolldhe. ‘You said so at the council. So what’s your problem? Starting to have doubts already?’

‘
I
know, yes, but I’m very concerned about Appa. His mind isn’t as sharp as it used to be, and his ideas are getting more and more fanciful with each year that passes.’

‘How old is he, then?’

‘Seventy, I’m told.’

‘Really? He looks older.’

‘I agree. And I also agree with Nibulus that it’s far too old to be setting off on quests. Especially to the Far North. He’s got twenty-two sheep to think about, and that cow of his that he dotes on so much. He ought to content himself with looking after his flock . . . I’m seriously worried for him, you know.’

‘He seemed happy enough to come along,’ Bolldhe replied blandly.

‘But why should he?’ Finwald persisted. ‘It’s ridiculous! I tell you, Bolldhe, he’s sinking into his dotage, and . . . And if we’re to go trolling off into the worst of the wildlands, the last thing we need is a millstone like Appa around our necks. All because he has this mad idea that he alone can guide you in killing Drauglir . . . Look, I’m not putting him down or anything. What I’m saying is he means well, but anyone can see that concepts like goodwill and truth aren’t going to be enough on this quest.’

‘Aren’t those the same things your cult is all about?’

‘I think you’re missing the point—’

‘I think
you’re
missing the point.’ Bolldhe said. ‘Your friend Appa thinks he must come and that without him, or me, this whole adventure is in vain. There’s not any telling him otherwise.’

Finwald rose stiffly and paced around the room. He gazed momentarily out of the window, then turned back to Bolldhe.

‘How
did
you come to meet Appa?’ he asked.

Get lost
, Bolldhe thought, for the manner of their meeting was still a sore point with him.

A few days ago Bolldhe had ridden into town from the southeast. It was a dark and windy night, heavy with the threat of a storm, and Bolldhe was feeling in a dark and dangerous mood himself. As he crested the hill that looked down on the warm, orange lights of Nordwas, that old disdain for ‘civilians’ began to stir in him again. He coaxed his horse into a canter, just fast enough to cause his cloak to billow, yet slow enough to make him look menacing in his approach. Despite the weather, there was a crowd of revellers in the market place as he rode through, but no one much seemed to notice his intimidating arrival.

So he stabled his horse and went into the nearby inn. Any attempt to play the part of the cloaked and hooded stranger who sat smoking a pipe by himself in a dark corner was thwarted because all the dark corners were already occupied by other enigmatic strangers. So he had to content himself with sitting at a brightly lit table in the middle of the room, being chatted to by a group of hop-farmers from Ottra, who did not find him particularly unnerving.

It was then that Appa arrived, as if somehow expecting him. Once he spotted Bolldhe, he walked straight over to him as though he knew him, and sat down at the table. That was how it happened.

Bolldhe now looked away from Finwald and replied, ‘Oh, I just came into town a few days ago, and Appa got talking to me at that inn down Pump Street.’

‘The Chase, you mean?’ Finwald looked puzzled. ‘Appa doesn’t normally go into places like that.’

‘Ask him yourself if you don’t believe me.’

‘No, I don’t doubt you . . .’ The priest was still frowning. ‘So, what happened next?’

‘He bought me a pint, then asked me if I could help him.’

‘You two had met previously?’

‘Never seen him before in my life. As I said, I’m new in town.’

‘So what did he say to you, exactly.’

‘Something mad about him having a dream in which his god told him that unless I go with him to Melhus Island the whole world will come to an end. That sort of thing.’

‘Oh, is that all?’ Finwald replied. ‘And what did you think about that?’

‘Sounded fair enough to me.’

‘Really. So you decided to come along with us?’

‘Looks like it,’ Bolldhe finished, yawning languidly. Normally he hated people asking him questions, but on this occasion he was partly enjoying it.

‘I don’t believe it!’ Finwald exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air. ‘Some old priest – a total stranger – just comes up to you in a tavern and demands that you accompany him to one of the worst hell-holes in all Lindormyn, and all because he’s had some crazy dream, and you
believe
him?’

‘I don’t know why,’ Bolldhe confessed, ‘but I just do.’

That much was true, because Bolldhe never went along with anyone unless he had some reason of his own for doing so. His only vocation was himself, therefore it was an essential part of his nature that he would do things purely on whim. Nearly every journey he had taken, he had done so on a whim. He was a wanderer.
So why not?
he had thought at the time; he had never seen the Far North and it might be exciting and different. It was a hard land, of course, but who better than he to explore such a place? And it was not as if he expected any real danger there. Just as well, as Bolldhe was no warrior.

But there had also been something about Appa himself that had helped persuade him. There was definitely something about the old priest and
beyond
him, some urge, a feeling, that called out to Bolldhe.

This feeling was not new, either. For the past few years Bolldhe had been wending his meandering way westwards again, through the Kro Steppes, Tabernacle Plains and Vregh-Nahov, as if guided by Fate. He had no particular desire to return to his native Pendonium, lying further in the west, he assured himself, yet somehow his feet seemed, by ways however circuitous, to inexorably draw him back there. Now in this room, this tiny dorter above the chapter house of Wintus Hall, he sensed his thoughts being tugged back once more to the land of his childhood.

Whether he liked to admit it or not, Bolldhe was coming home. Already he was close enough, back in a country where at long last they spoke a language related to his native tongue. But he did not tell Finwald any of this. He had not even told Appa. They were his private thoughts, and were going to remain so.

Finwald sat back down and inquired, ‘You must have a great deal of faith in Cuna, so are you a Lightbearer?’

Bolldhe snorted. ‘No, I am bloody not!’

‘Then what are you?’

‘Nothing,’ Bolldhe said sullenly. ‘I don’t worship any of your deities.’

’But you do believe in gods?’ Finwald persisted.

‘Oh, I believe in them, yes,’ Bolldhe answered. ‘I seen too much sign of the gods to believe other: temples, villages, whole towns razed; nations enslaved; countries going to war over some petty god squabble . . . Some gods exist, some don’t; but it make no difference to me, because if they exist or not, no way they’re getting any worship out of
me
.’

Another of Bolldhe’s unique characteristics of independence was that he did not possess that singular mental quality of humans that enables them to deny utterly in their minds that which they must secretly realize to be true, or conversely. He could not therefore make a choice of his beliefs depending on whether they might advantage him or not.

‘I was brought up Peladane,’ he continued reflectively, almost to himself. ‘But I soon recognized
that
creed for what it is . . .’

Bolldhe broke off and silently rebuked himself. He had not meant to give anything at all away about his past.

Finwald was having much difficulty in taking in the enormity of what Bolldhe was telling him: that a man, any man, could exist without faith or creed seemed simply too abhorrent to believe. Bolldhe, however, was used to this reaction, having encountered similar all over the world, and it often amused him to witness such exasperation.

Realizing that he had come up against a brick wall, Finwald decided to leave it at that. He tried another approach: ‘Well, why are you here in Nordwas?’

Bolldhe smirked mischievously. ‘I’m an oracle,’ he replied.

In a way it was true. Bolldhe was indeed an oracle. He told people’s fortunes for a living. If you could call it a living.

It was an odd career for someone brought up to become a warrior. In the small town of Moel-Bryn, in the country of Pendonium far to the west, he was the son of a Peladane, therefore he and his brothers had been brought up as such. His earliest memories were dim, but he did remember always hating the strictures and indoctrination he had been subjected to from an early age. At some time during Bolldhe’s childhood, his father had been killed in a far-off land, and later still, when he was about fourteen, something in the boy had just snapped. Without any warning, he had snatched up his sword, grabbed a few provisions and left home, never to return. He still to this day did not know what had prompted this move; it had just happened without warning, like a bough breaking suddenly under too much snow.

It was fortunate for the youth that Moel-Bryn lay at a crossroads located along an important trade route. He gained employ at first as aide to a mercenary guarding a caravan on its way to the Crimson Sea. But the company was not to his liking, and after six months Bolldhe had struck out on his own. At first, rather naively, he had wandered from village to village in search of work as a casual labourer, but the sort of money he made from such toil hardly enabled him to survive, let alone put something aside for his continuing travels. What he needed was a trade, something that would earn him plenty of money over a short period of time.

But what sort of trade, he wondered. Armourer? Certainly he knew the rudiments of that from his military upbringing; but it might prove a little impractical carrying a forge around on his back wherever he travelled. And, in any case, he was trying to leave all that sort of thing behind him.

Healer, then? People would pay good money for that skill; and again he knew a fair bit about it, and could pick up the rest as he went along. But, no, healers frequently had to deal with amputations and open wounds, and for some reason Bolldhe went nauseous at the sight of too much blood.

Then, one day, he was struck with the idea of becoming a fortune-teller – an oracle. It sounded easy: all he had to do was to buy a few cheap charms as props, then in distant lands, with his foreign appearance, the punters, especially women, would readily believe he could tell them the future. And just to make sure they paid him well, he would always make sure to tell them what they wanted to hear.

‘Yes,’ Bolldhe smiled, ‘so we’re not that different after all, us. The main difference is that people pay for my predictions.’

Finwald was speechless.

‘That’s the trouble with you religious oracles,’ Bolldhe went on. ‘You’re always forecasting terrible times ahead.’

‘But it’s the truth!’ Finwald blurted out.

‘I thought you yourself said earlier that truth and goodwill aren’t going to be enough on this quest?’ Bolldhe scoffed. ‘Anyway, no difference; most people despise the truth. You be a lot more successful if you told a few lies; people much prefer being deceived.’

Finwald’s black eyes burned even blacker. ‘Bolldhe,’ he said in a voice quivering with ire, ‘nobody here in Nordwas even knows who you are, so you’ll forgive me if we question your motives for joining us on this venture.’

‘There
is
the money to consider,’ Bolldhe pointed out. ‘And you
are
taking on mercenaries, right?’

Finwald shook his head wistfully. ‘It’s not
just
the money,’ he stated, ‘We’re going to Melhus, remember. It’s quite likely the journey alone will kill us, and surely no money is worth that risk.’

‘Oh, come off it,’ Bolldhe sneered. ‘How dangerous can it be?’

‘Do you have any idea how terrible that land can be?’ the priest demanded, looming over Bolldhe on his bed.

‘Not a clue,’ the wanderer replied lackadaisically, ‘What do you think I am, some kind of oracle?
You’re
the one should . . .’

He trailed off. He had quite enjoyed the banter up till now, but now the look in Finwald’s burning, coal-black eyes made him wonder if the mage-priest was about to turn him into a pillar of salt.

The tense moment passed, however, and Finwald simply stormed out of the room.

Bolldhe got up and closed the door, then went over to the window to breathe in the bouquet of raw fish, dung and spicy aromas on offer.

No holy man is going to get to me
, he told himself with a forced smile.

‘There’s someone waiting outside to see you.’

Appa was roused with a start from his concentration. Even in the graveyard quiet of the dark temple he had not heard the approach of the Lightbearer who now stood at his side. While the stone amulet of Cuna hanging from a cord around his neck dangled forgotten in mid-air, the old cleric had been praying fervently to his red-eyed god. He did not speak his words aloud, as others did; the thoughts he passed to his god were secret and could be revealed to no one. He had been immersed in a meditation of such profundity that when his fellow Lightbearer approached and shook him roughly by the shoulder, it was a shock to be catapulted from the depths of his reverie into the daylight world of man.

‘Who’s that?’ he spluttered, his weak eyes blinking rapidly as he tried to focus them on the grey-robed figure who stood looking down at him.