Part 58 (1/2)

Something touched his leg and Simon reached out, thinking that Guthwulf in his misery was looking for a hand to hold. Instead, Simon's fingers trailed across something warm and covered with fur. He let out a shout of surprise and scrabbled back, expecting momentarily to feel rats or something worse swarming over him. When there was no further contact he crouched, huddled into himself, for a long time. Then his feelings of responsibility for Guthwulf won out and he edged back toward the earl. A squeamish exploration found the furry thing again. It shrank back as he had, but did not go far. It was a cat.

Simon laughed breathlessly, then reached out and stroked the creature. It arched beneath his hand, but would not come to him. Instead it settled against the blind man and Guthwulf's movements became less agitated, his breathing quieter. The cat's presence seemed to soothe him. Simon, too, felt a little less alone, and resolved to be careful not to frighten the animal away. He fetched some of the remaining heel of bread and offered a pinch to the cat, who sniffed it but did not take any. Simon ate a few small pieces himself, then tried to find a comfortable position to sleep in.

Simon awakened, abruptly conscious that something had happened. In the darkness it was impossible to discern any changes, but he had the inescapable feeling that things had s.h.i.+fted somehow, that he was suddenly in an unfamiliar place with no knowledge of how he had come there. But the rags around him were the same, and Guthwulf's labored breathing, though quieter, still rasped away nearby. Simon crawled over to the earl, gently pushed aside the warm and purring cat, and was heartened to feel much of the cramping tension gone from the blind man's limbs. Perhaps he was recovering from the fever. Perhaps the cat had been his companion and its presence had restored a little of his sanity. In any case, Guthwulf had stopped raving. Simon let the cat clamber back into the crook of the earl's arm. It felt strange not to hear Guthwulf's voice.

During the earliest hours of his fever, the earl had been almost lucid for short stretches, although he was so plagued by his voices and former solitude that it was difficult to separate truth from terrifying dream. He talked about crawling through darkness, desperate to find Bright-Nail-although, strangely, he did not seem to think of it as a sword at all, but as something alive that summoned him. Simon remembered Thorn's disturbing vitality and thought he understood a little of what the earl meant.

It was hard to make sense out of the impressions of a half-mad blind man, but as Guthwulf spoke, Simon pictured the earl walking through the tunnels, lured by something that called to him in a voice he could not ignore. Guthwulf had gone far beyond his usual range, it seemed, and had heard and felt many terrible things. At last he had crawled, and when even those narrow ways were blocked, he had dug, fighting his way through the last cubits of earth that had separated him from the object of his obsession.

He dug into John's barrow, Simon realized, shuddering. Simon realized, shuddering. Like a blind mole after a carrot sc.r.a.ping, sc.r.a.ping Like a blind mole after a carrot sc.r.a.ping, sc.r.a.ping ... ...

Guthwulf had taken his prize and had somehow found his way back to his nest, but apparently even the joy of possessing the thing he had sought had not been enough to keep him in hiding. For some reason he had ventured out, perhaps to steal food from the forge-where else had the bread and water come from?-but perhaps for some deeper, more complicated reason.

Why did he come to me? Simon wondered. Why would he risk being caught by Inch? He thought again of Thorn, of how it had seemed almost to choose where it wished to go. Maybe Bright-Nail wanted to find find ... me. ... me.

The thought was a frighteningly seductive one. If Bright-Nail was being drawn to the great conflict that was coming, then maybe it somehow knew that Guthwulf would never willingly go up into the light again. As Thorn had chosen Simon and his fellows to bring it down from Urmsheim and back to Camaris, maybe Bright-Nail had chosen Simon to carry it up to Green Angel Tower to fight the Storm King.

Another dim recollection surfaced. In my dream, Leleth said that the sword was part of my story. Is that what she meant? In my dream, Leleth said that the sword was part of my story. Is that what she meant? The details were strangely misty, but he remembered the sad-faced man who had held the blade across his lap as he waited for something. The details were strangely misty, but he remembered the sad-faced man who had held the blade across his lap as he waited for something. The dragon? The dragon?

Simon let his fingers trail away from the cat's back and down Guthwulf's arm until they reached Bright-Nail. The earl moaned, but did not resist as Simon gently pried his fingers away. His finger reverently traced the rough shape of the Nail, bound just below the guard. A nail from the Execution Tree of holy Usires! And some sacred relic of Saint Eahlstan was sealed inside the hollow hilt, he remembered. Prester John's sword. It was astonis.h.i.+ng that a onetime scullion should ever touch such a thing!

Simon curled his hand around the hilt. It seemed to ... fit. It lay in his hand as comfortably as though it had been made for him. All other thoughts about the blade, about Guthwulf, slid away. He sat in the dark and felt the sword to be an extension of his own arm, of himself. He stood, ignoring his aching muscles, and slashed at the lightless void before him. A moment later, horrified at the thought that he might accidentally strike Bright-Nail against the rock wall of the cavern and blunt its edge, he sat down again, then crawled away to his corner of the cavern and stretched out on the stone, clutching the sword to him as though it were a child. The metal was cold where it touched his skin, and the blade was sharp, but he did not want to let it go. Across the chamber, Guthwulf murmured uncomfortably.

Some time had pa.s.sed, although Simon did not know whether he had slept or not, when he suddenly became aware that something was missing: he could no longer hear the earl breathing. For a moment, as he scrambled across the uneven floor, he clung to the wild hope that Guthwulf had grown well enough to leave the cavern, but the presence of Bright-Nail still gripped in his own fingers made that seem very unlikely: the blind man would not for a moment allow someone else to have his blade.

When Simon reached Guthwulf, the earl's skin was cool as river clay.

He did not weep, but his feeling of loss was great. His sorrow was not for Guthwulf the man, who except for these last dreamlike hours or days he had only known as a fearsome figure, but for himself, left alone once more.

Almost alone. Something b.u.mped against his s.h.i.+n. The cat seemed to be trying to get his attention. It missed its companion, Simon felt sure. Perhaps it thought that somehow he could wake Guthwulf where it had failed.

”Sorry,” he whispered, running his fingers down its back and gently tugging its tail. ”He's gone somewhere else. I'm lonely, too.”

Feeling empty, he sat for a moment and took stock of things. Now he had no choice but to brave the mazy, lightless tunnels, even though he doubted he would find his way out again without a guide. Two times he had stumbled through this haunted labyrinth, each time followed so closely by death that he heard its patient footsteps behind him; it was too much to hope that he would be lucky again. Still, there was little else he could do. Green Angel Tower stood somewhere above, and Bright-Nail must be carried there. If Josua and the others had not brought Thorn, he would do what he could, although it would doubtless end in failure. He owed that much to all those who had sold their dear lives for his freedom.

It was difficult to put Bright-Nail down-he already felt a little of Guthwulf's possessiveness, although there was nothing in the small cavern that might endanger the sword-but he could accomplish little with it clutched in his hand. He leaned it against one of the walls, then proceeded to the unpleasant task of undressing the dead earl. When he had removed Guthwulf's tattered clothing he took some of the rags scattered about the cavern and, in poor imitation of the priestly labors in the House of Preparing, wrapped the body. A part of him felt ridiculous for going to such lengths for a man who had, by all repute, been little-loved in his life, and who would lie here alone and undiscovered regardless, but Simon felt a stubborn urge to pay the blind man back. Morgenes and Maegwin had given their lives for him, and they had been given no memorial, no rites, except those in Simon's own heart. Guthwulf should not go to the Fields Beyond unheralded.

When he had finished, he stood.

”Our Lord protect you, ”

he began, struggling to remember the words to the Prayer for the Dead, ”And Usires His only Son lift you up.

May you be carried to the green valleys Of His domains, Where the souls of the good and righteous sing from the hilltops, And angels are in the trees, Speaking joy with G.o.d's own voice....

”Thank you, Guthwulf,” he said when the prayer was done. ”I'm sorry to take the sword away from you, but I'll try to do what should be done.”

He made the sign of the Tree-hoping that, despite the darkness, G.o.d would see and so take note of Guthwulf when at last the earl came before Him-then he pulled on Guthwulf's clothing and boots. A year before, he might have thought twice before donning a dead man's garb, but Simon had walked so close to death himself that he was now all practicality. It was warm and safe in the cavern, but who knew what cold winds, what sharp stones, awaited him?

As he drank off the last drops in the water bowl, the cat nudged his leg once more. ”You can come with me or stay here,” he told it. ”Your choice.” He took up Bright-Nail, then wrapped a rag around the blade just below the hilt and tied the earl's buckleless belt around the sword and his waist so his hands would be free. It was more than a slight relief to feel it against him once more.

As he felt his way toward the mouth of the cavern the cat was at his feet, twining in and out between his ankles. ”You'll trip me,” he said. ”Stop that.”

He edged a little distance along the pa.s.sageway, but the creature was between his legs again and made him stumble. He reached down for it, then laughed hollowly at the stupidity of trying to catch a cat in blind darkness. The cat moved under his hand and then slipped away in the opposite direction. Simon paused.

”That way, not this way?” he said aloud. After a moment, he shrugged, then laughed again. Despite all the horror behind him and before him, he felt curiously free. ”Very well, then, I'll follow you for a while. Which means I'll probably wind up sitting next to the largest rat hole in Osten Ard.”

The cat b.u.mped him, then slipped away up the corridor. Feeling along the walls, entirely surrounded by darkness, Simon trailed after it.

Yis-hadra stopped at the base of the stairs and chimed anxiously to her husband. Yis-fidri replied. They bent to examine the cracked stone bal.u.s.ter.

”This place,” Yis-fidri said. ”If you follow these steps upward, you will come at last to the mortal castle built atop this one.”

”Where?” asked Miriamele. She dropped her bow and pack to the tunnel floor and slumped against the stone. ”Where in the castle?”

”We know not,” Yis-hadra said. ”All has been built since our day. No Tinukeda'ya touched those stones.”

”And you? Where will you go?” She looked up the stairwell. It spiraled up far beyond the weak light of the dwarrow's batons, twisting into darkness.

”We will find another place.” Yis-fidri looked at his wife. ”There are few of us left, but there are still places that will welcome our hands and eyes.”

”It is time for our going,” Binabik said urgently. ”Who is knowing how far away the Norns are?”

Miriamele asked the dwarrows: ”Why don't you come with us? You are strong, and we can use your strength. You should know by now that our fight is yours, too.”

Yis-fidri shuddered and raised his long hands as though to fend her off. ”Do you not understand? We do not belong in the light, in the world of Sudhoda'ya. We have already been changed by you, done things that Tinukeda'ya do not do. We have ... we have killed some of those who were once our masters.” He murmured something in the dwarrow-tongue and Yis-hadra and his other remaining folk chorused unhappily. ”It will take us long to learn to live with that. We do not belong in the world above. Let us go to find the darkness and deep places we crave.”

Binabik, who had spoken much to Yis-fidri during the last part of their flight, stepped forward and extended his small hand. ”May you find safety.”

The dwarrow looked at him for a moment as if he did not understand, then slowly put out his own spidery fingers and wrapped them around the troll's. ”And you. I will not tell you my thoughts, for they are fearful and unhappy.”

Miriamele bit back words of argument. The dwarrows wished to go. They had fulfilled the promise that she had forced out of them. They were already frightened and miserable; aboveground they might be less than useless, more a responsibility than an a.s.set. ”Farewell, Yis-fidri,” she said, then turned to his wife. ”Yis-hadra, thank you for showing me how you tend the stone.”

The dwarrow bobbed her head. ”May you also fare well.”

Even as she spoke, the lights of the batons flickered and the underground chamber seemed to s.h.i.+ft, another convulsion without movement; a moment later, when things were again as they had been, the remaining dwarrows began to whisper.

”We must go now,” Yis-hadra said, her dark eyes wide with fear. She and her husband turned and led their troop of shuffling, spindle-legged kin away into the shadows. Within moments the corridor was as empty as if they had never existed. Miriamele blinked.

”We must go also.” Binabik started up the stairs, then turned. ”Where is the monk?”

Miriamele looked back. Cadrach, who had been at the rear of the a.s.sembled dwarrows, was sitting on the ground, his eyes half-closed. The flicker of Binabik's torch made him seem to sway.

”He's useless.” She bent to pick up her belongings. ”We should leave him here. Let him follow if he wants to.”