Part 28 (1/2)

1.

Sharfy's hand rested on his knife's handle. He watched Anfen's sleeping body though sleeping hardly seemed right: almost dead was more like it. Thin, starved, the rise and fall of his chest hardly perceptible.

Now it was decision time. Part of him made the strong case: knife him. Take that armour, take his weapon. It's the armour that gets us into 'the quiet' or just whatever it really is. I can use that sword every bit as good as he can. Almost as good, anyway ...

It would be like knifing a friend on the battlefield who'd been cut so his guts were in his lap, in too much pain to live for another pointless hour or two. Maybe deep down he'd be thankful. The Sharfy of years past would not have baulked. If he made it to a city if there were any cities still standing and free enough to live in he'd retire off what he could get for that magic gear. Retire? He could probably buy a whole city for himself. Mayors themselves would fork out big for that gear.

Decisions, decisions.

Today they'd continued a long winding march only to stop for a break in the very place they'd left just four days ago. The temptation to kill Anfen had lingered at that moment too. It had been a great uneven circle through bad country with no goat-track, let alone paved road. Loose stone on climbing ground rife with pits and holes. Anfen sick and starved all the while, never once explaining what they were doing or where that d.a.m.ned purple scar of his came from, the scar which still wept blood now and then. It went right the way round, like his whole head had been cut off!

Breaking long silences, Anfen had ranted, raved. Some of it outright crazy-man babble. About how his 'redeemer' would show up again. His redeemer would tell them their task. His redeemer would this, that, the other.

Sharfy crouched, and was a breath away from drawing his knife when Anfen groaned and stirred. s.h.i.+t, he thought, stepping back. He went off road and p.i.s.sed on a tree.

Anfen sat up, hugged his knees, rocked back and forth like someone sick as death. 'I must not take us back there too many more times,' he said, his voice a harsh croak. 'We must not meddle.'

'Back where?' said Sharfy.

'Back into the quiet.'

'Yep. The quiet. I thought maybe that's what you meant.' Sharfy shook his c.o.c.k dry. 'So. How does that armour work anyway? Do you just think about the quiet and you're there? Is that how? Why not just tell me? I won't take it off you or anything.'

'We should not go there at all. We should not be here in this corrupted country.'

Sharfy shut his eyes. 'So. You don't say. We shouldn't be here, huh? You know, I thought that a couple of times. I thought maybe we could be in an inn somewhere. Or something.'

'We can know no purpose until my redeemer comes.'

I'm going to do it, Sharfy realised with a measure of relief to have the matter settled. Next time he sleeps, he's dead.

It didn't take long. Anfen stood up, staggered a few paces then collapsed in a puff of dead leaves. Sharfy drew his knife, crouched by the body, rolled it over, held the blade to Anfen's throat ...

And for a minute or more he looked down at his gaunt face. He willed his hand to do it but it suddenly wouldn't move. s.h.i.+t, he thought again, dropping the knife in the dead leaves.

He dragged Anfen how light he was back away further from the road, laid a pack under his head, cursed his name and then shut his own eyes, not caring that neither of them was taking watch. They had already relied on luck for far too long to do things differently now.

2.

Sharfy woke from nightmares to the sound of something falling to the ground beside his head. Broken there were two stretched pieces of what had once been a man, and still looked like a man, only warped, pulled out of shape as though made of rubber. He touched one piece by accident as he scrambled to his feet. It was light and hard as set clay.

'A near thing,' said Anfen, lordly and triumphant with his weapon drawn. 'It had you. Two of them, Sharfy. Look behind us. That one had you in its time dance. And more of them come. Here in the quiet, they can't hurt us. Draw blade! Draw the blade you yearn to use.' Anfen laughed madly.

Sharfy drew his blade and followed Anfen through the twilight. Looming around them were people twisted out of shape, bent and stretched, far taller than they should be. They moved clumsily, at times seeming not to touch the ground with their feet. One of them turned to regard him, looking into him with eyes horribly conscious, its mouth twisted open and stretched out of shape. Arms stiff and curved up, it moved spastically as though trying to wade through water. Sharfy could not look it in the eyes for long.

Anfen cut it down, cut them all down and left none for Sharfy to kill. Fine by him. The beings did not fight back, did not so much as shuffle away; their eyes just followed the swing of Anfen's sword. He cut the last one apart and crouched by the stiff severed pieces, breathing heavily. 'They serve some purpose, Sharfy, I come to suspect.' He gazed around for more of them.

'Huh! That's crazy. How do you figure? Just monsters.'

'They are changed by something from the foreign side. Whatever it is, it negotiates with our side. Our reality makes half the change. Do you see? They must serve a purpose here, give some benefit.'

'Shut up, Anfen. Just f.u.c.king shut up with that talk.' Tears of anger threatened to come but he held them off, throat burning. He hadn't cried in the slave farm when his friend was beaten to death by guards right in front of him; he wasn't going to cry now.

Anfen did not seem to have heard. He stalked through the woods, back toward the road, seeking more of the beasts, but there were none around. Off through the trees were occasional scattered glowing forms of spells cast long ago, or perhaps yet to be cast, with more still in the sky far above, faintly gleaming. Some were so huge they must have been cast by dragons, and were still waiting for shapers to reach them and weave them into reality.

Sharfy remembered then the Otherworld sky, vast and black, where distant scattered lights gleamed like diamonds falling into a pit of unimaginable size. Around the fire one night Eric had called them 'stars', explaining their presence to Siel in words making less than no sense while Sharfy listened in. He now saw that 'stars' were really spells cast long ago in that place before its magic dried up, like written orders left lying around for smiths, still waiting for hands to hammer them into existence.

An animal shriek pulled him out of his reverie. It was hard to believe the sound came from Anfen, who staggered drunk-enly past Sharfy and back toward the Great Dividing Road, a look on his face ghastly for its sudden happiness. Sharfy pursued him, thinking he had found more Tormentors to slay, and wondering why that grim business should be such a joy to him.

But there were no Tormentors. Ahead of them was a white glow like that of a ghost. Anfen staggered close, dropped his sword and fell to his knees. Only after a minute or more of staring could Sharfy make out a shape in the misty light of a man sitting rigidly on horseback. Both horse and rider were larger than they should have been. The man spoke quiet words. Anfen listened, body shaking as he wept, reaching out to touch the ghostly figure.

Sharfy dared not go closer. Then words carried to him: 'Come and fetch your master's sword, squire, as you wish to do.'

I'm no squire, Sharfy thought. I'm a veteran. Never led an army but seen as much war as him. But he did as told, holding the sword's handle out for Anfen, who did not take it.

'I may go no closer to the castle than here,' said the apparition. 'Even here, I am nervous It is too aware of me. You are to witness for me, Anfen. You are a mortal for whom It neither knows nor cares. Through your eyes shall I see what you witness. A change comes to the new growing power, called Vous. I know not yet what he will truly become.'

Anfen said, 'Shall I cut Vous down, my redeemer, before his power grows?'

'You could not. Not even with the weapon I have fas.h.i.+oned for you. And if it could be done, you should not. We Spirits may need him.'

'May, my redeemer? How can it be that one such as you, who can undo a man's death, cannot see this for certain?'

And with that question Sharfy suddenly understood. Anfen's sword clattered from his hand. Valour did not seem to notice. Said the G.o.d, 'No seer sees his own path winding through the many futures before him. Not even Spirits. To see is to move them; so they are forever s.h.i.+fting out of sight. To your eyes a thousand tunnels they would seem, stretching before you, each as unlikely as the one that is certain. But the past is one path, clear and certain. In it I see the Spirits with me, defeating once-mighty Inferno. Do you know what he was? What the other Spirits are, what I am?'

'Any word you share, my redeemer, shall be treasured.' With no warning Anfen's arm whipped sideways and struck like a hammer blow at the back of Sharfy's knee. 'Kneel!' his voice roared.

Head spinning, Sharfy kneeled and felt Valour's judging gaze fall briefly upon him, then move away.

Valour said, 'We Spirits are pillars, holding up the skies and keeping the brood therein. Inferno it was necessary for us to break. From afar, the brood sent him mad. A pillar has been missing since: our hold upon them weakened. A new pillar is erected soon, named Vous.'

'Will it stand with you, my redeemer?'