The Wanderer's Tale (5 page)

But in most people’s eyes, old Appa was himself rather strange. He had to be, to struggle up the steep hillside at his age, alone in the middle of the night, with only a staff to protect him. Many times he had cursed under his laboured breath as he stumbled over the rocks and stones strewn about the desolate slope, remnants of an ancient temple destroyed long before Drauglir’s time. The breath wheezed and rattled in Appa’s elderly windpipe as he perservered upwards, but his resolve never wavered. Such was the great need that drove him.

However strange he might seem, he was not weird or dangerous, though he managed to discomfit almost everyone he came in contact with. Usually harmless enough when silent and alone with his inscrutable thoughts, whenever he did give voice it was always with a shrill and fiery
rat-a-tat-tat
making little or no sense to most people.

His face was small and lean, like his body, and scored with the deep lines of age and hardship. But, unlike most folk his age, his small, bright eyes showed no hint of sorrow or regret for times past.

Tonight, as ever, Appa was alone, for no one else ever frequented this place, by night or even by day. It was a place of ill omen, shunned by the local people, and avoided even by beasts and birds. But when Appa had finally reached the hilltop and paused to gaze down into the shallow depression where once the temple had stood, he felt no fear, only relief. There in front of him rose the last stones still intact of the crumbled shrine, pointing like black fingers towards the heavens.

Appa had stood and shivered for a minute before drawing tightly about him his grey, woollen robe, then he picked his way carefully down the treacherous side of the gorse-covered depression.

In the shelter of the hollow it suddenly became quiet, and Appa dropped to his knees upon a low, flat prayer stone the size of a hearthrug. The stars were obscured by gigantic, louring stormclouds that now blew steadily from the North, and the cool night air was soon filled with the familiar smell of moist turf.

Whenever he had something important to brood on, Appa would come here to this ancient holy place of his cult. Alone and undisturbed in the cold, quiet night, he found he could always think much more clearly. And on this night, in particular, he knew he would need both the strength of his own conviction and the wisdom of his deity to guide him through the momentous days to come.

Lord
, he prayed,
I am old and I am weak. The vigour of my youth has departed me, not just of my body but also of my mind, and doubts gnaw at my resolve like some rotting disease. For seventy years have I dwelt upon this world, seventy long years of toil in your service. I know that whatever days are left to me are few, yet I also know that those soon to come will determine the fate of many, perhaps the whole of Lindormyn! But yet I am confused, for what Finwald is now preaching has troubled me greatly. He serves our cult well, but surely this campaign he advocates against the forces of Evil will jeopardize the future of us all. Please, I beg of you, Lord, tell me more.

He did not even notice the figure now standing on the rim of the hollow, looking down at him. It was tall and broad-backed, and from a powerful pair of shoulders hung a long sleeveless tunic of yak skin. In one hand it gripped a staff with an unlit lantern atop it, and from this hung a string of glistening orbs. Stretched over its head was a coif of satin-soft hide so silvery-white it seemed to absorb the moonglow, while upon his forehead rested a chaplet of translucent stones, lending the appearance of some kind of wizard.

Although the wind up on the height raced past him like a frenzied beast, clawing at his coat and at the long black hair emerging from under the coif, he himself did not move a muscle. As motionless as the standing stones all around, he stared at the kneeling figure below with eyes burning red as glowing embers.

Though the figure stood in full view, silhouetted against the silver-black of the lunar sky, the old priest remained unaware of his presence. Finally, Appa did sense something and looked up sharply. Though the figure remained, all the old man could see were the clouds, the half-moon and the sky.

‘Well, you heard him,’ intoned the stranger. ‘Is that too much to ask?’

All Appa could hear was the wind in the rushes, and the shrill call of a distant night bird.

The stranger continued: ‘All he asks for is a clue, a mere hint of what is afoot. That isn’t much, surely?’ This time there was a hint of pleading in his voice, but it was devoid of any subservience.

There was no answer from the night, save for the sound of the waxing wind. Though these words were directed to a ridge on the other side of the hollow, even if Appa had turned to look behind him, in the same direction, he would have seen nothing. But there they were, all of them.

Standing in a line, facing back over the ruined temple, were several figures where moments earlier only the ancient standing stones had been. It was difficult to tell exactly how many of them there were, as they manifested as shadows that shifted in form between megalith and man, merging amongst each other and also with the shifting shapes of the night. Their robes were grey, a vapid neutral grey, the colour of ash that has long forgotten the heat of fire. These garments covered their figures so completely that not even the red-eyed one opposite could guess what lay beneath those enveloping hoods.

Like him, they stood motionless except for their wind-whipped raiment, which flew about them in tatters like a mad frenzy of bats. The whole night now seemed to join in a frantic, violent dance as the wind increased to gale force, bending the long grasses first one way then another, and sending spirals of dead leaves flying through the darkness in vortices of madness. The stormclouds raced on across the sky, a rolling mass of turbulence gathering momentum with each minute that passed. Appa peered about himself in alarm, and futilely drew his woollen cloak tighter about his stick-like frame.

All the while, the grey-robed watchers stood silent and unmoving.

Then the middle one spoke at last.

Its voice was hollow, without a trace of emotion, like the slam of a judge’s hammer when sentence has been passed.

‘You are playing a game with us, lord. When Finwald first announced his intention of essaying this quest, we were well within our bounds in letting you suggest to Appa here that he should go too. And when you then insisted he take Bolldhe along with him, again we made no objection. Even when you pleaded with us to give Appa a hint that there was some treachery afoot, yet again we found it in our hearts to comply. But what we cannot do is to continue with this game any further, for perhaps you will only be satisfied when we have revealed each and every secret of your enemy. Have we not already conceded you enough?’

‘No you haven’t, as well you know! These fragments of hints are like mere needles in a pine forest. How can any mortal be expected to make sense out of them?’ The lantern-holder’s eyes glowed even hotter, as he protested.

‘But,’ the other argued, ‘that is more than I have allowed to your enemy. For I have given him leave to grant no information at all; not even the sliver of a needle in a pine forest.’

‘That is because my enemy has no need to learn more! The dice were loaded in his favour from the start, so he has almost won the game before it begins. I was under the impression that you and your brothers are here to ensure that neither of us gains an unfair advantage.’ His voice rankled with the unfairness of it all, and he ground the tip of his staff into the turf, rattling the lantern and the string of orbs attached to it.

But the hooded ones remained unmoving, unmoved. ‘Let us not be naive,’ their leader replied. ‘We all know that the game does not start here. It began five hundred years ago, when Scathur ended his master’s life. And even that game began long before the construction of Vaagenfjord Maw. These battles between you and your enemy have been going on ever since the world began. Whoever wins one round passes on the advantage to the other for the next round. And thus will it go on forever, if we have anything to do with it.’

Though there was still no feeling in the words of the hooded one, the tone was a little more relaxed. Perhaps coloured by a tiny hint of ironic intimacy, as though the speaker had become well accustomed to the persuasive machinations of his opponent? They had clearly had this argument before.

The red-eyed entity began again. ‘You and I are old combatants, Time. Always I seek to build, but always you have the final say, and thwart me. You and your fellows stand there like statues, as if imagining that by your rigidity you can keep the world just as you like it. Yes, we are old combatants; and I know which, out of myself and my enemy, you lean towards. But think not of politics or power games; just look at the man now before us . . .’

They dropped their gaze to where Appa knelt shivering in the cold, his aged frame bent under the burdens of a lifetime. Here, all alone and praying so earnestly, he was a pathetic sight, his face shrivelled up like an old potato left to go bad at the bottom of a sack, all screwed up with such anxiety.

‘Are you without pity?’ The tall one’s burning eyes tried to bore through the heavy grey cloth of Time’s hood, tried to catch any glimpse of an expression. But, as usual, he was wasting his time, for the hood was completely impenetrable.

He went on: ‘It is but a simple request. He does not ask for secret powers, or vast armies. All he asks for is a little knowledge . . . call it an omen, if you like.

‘Omen, indeed.’ His opponent laughed. ‘Omens are games, baits, illusions set to trap the simple-minded. Omens can be misread, with disastrous results. Would you risk the life of your old servant here in such deceptions?’

‘Well, yes, frankly,’ the other replied with a shrug.

‘Then who is without pity now?’

‘Do not dare to speak to me that way! Remember that you too are a servant, though I must yield to you sometimes.’

More deferential now, but still unwavering, the grey figure replied, ‘Well, such things as pity are not for me or my brothers to discuss. Besides, it is you and your adversary who play the games, not us. We merely ensure that the rules are kept, leaning towards neither side. The rules have been set, the pieces are now in play, and the game is in your hands. We shall involve ourselves no further.’

And on that final note the audience was over.

Appa was unaware of the strangers, even though they had been standing within yards of him, but his old prescience told him he would get no answer tonight. With bent shoulders and a deeply furrowed brow, the old priest rose wearily to his feet and brushed the clinging lichen from his robe. As he shuffled away, deeply troubled, he resigned his fate, and indeed that of the whole world, to the whim of Chance in the days to come. Perhaps he and this man Bolldhe would find the answers in time.

The silent figures watched the old man depart. The gale still blew, tearing at the ragged robes of Time and his brothers, as the red-eyed one addressed them.

‘So, he is leaving the outcome to you, Time – you and the fellow by your side,’ he sneered. ‘Not much of a pair to put your faith in: Time and Chance?’

The second figure in grey said not a word at this mention of his name, but there was a third figure standing on Chance’s other side. It was this one, wearing an engraved stone tablet suspended on a heavy chain around its neck, which responded with a small sound. Red-Eye wondered if it was a laugh.

‘And only
you
will have any idea of the outcome, eh, Fate?’

Only when Appa was finally swallowed up by the dark forest below did Time speak: ‘They are bound for the Far North, the realm of Fate, it is true. Though he puts his faith not in us but in you. Or rather in this Bolldhe of yours – though why in such a faithless, unreliable, wandering old rogue is beyond me.’

‘He is not “my” Bolldhe,’ the lantern-bearer retorted. ‘He has no allegiance to me at all. Not yet, anyway.’

‘Quite,’ Time replied.

‘Or to you either, come to that,’ Red-Eye snarled.

Time continued his needling: ‘And it is a mortal so unreliable that you expect to thwart your enemy, by following yon priest into hardship and darkness, maybe even laying down his life for something he does not believe in? Is that not a little optimistic?’

The lantern-bearer turned his gaze directly on his questioner. ‘That is all you have allowed me, as you have been at pains to point out.’

There was a pause, then Time persisted: ‘True, but we did not specify Bolldhe. He was
your
choice, though you could have chosen anyone: an elder, a high priest, even a warrior hero . . . What is it about this vagrant that makes you select him, above all others, as the one to now champion your cause?’

Red-Eye gave a smile: cunning and without joy, but a smile nevertheless, for clearly he knew something he was not about to reveal. Yet it was a smile without substance, for if the fate of the world did indeed rest upon a ‘faithless, unreliable, wandering old rogue’, Red-Eye did not rate their chances too highly.

‘I know his past, his mettle and his mind. He is unique. He may betray my will as often as he likes on the journey, but I believe he can be guided and moulded, so that by the end he
will
know exactly what to do. That is why I send my devoted servant along with him. And as for the outcome, only time will tell.’

‘Don’t count on it,’ Time murmured.

No one else knew of their presence there, and nor did anyone care. The night held secret terrors enough for the good folk of Nordwas without their venturing up into the dark hills. The rumours circulating throughout the region were beginning to trouble people, till sleep became the only sure escape from night-time’s shadow of fear. For the Darktime has claws, and they can reach out even from your dreams to grasp your soul and wrench it from you in peals of quivering laughter . . .

But as the pale gleam of early dawn began to wax in the eastern sky, the birds one by one began their song while night began to fade, yielding inevitably to the bright warmth of another day. And finally, as the birdsong had grown from that single voice to a tumultuous chorus of delight, the tired, lonely figure of a little grey man at last reached the wooden gates breaching the stockade wall of Nordwas.