Chapter Thirty Two
It was arched and narrow, with several of its feet solidly planted into the water, spanning the whole of the wide expanse of the river.
Susan felt Evander's gasp of surprise mirror her own. She would have liked to dig her heels into the reem's sides, encouraging her to hurry, but she knew that such an instruction would be considered deeply offensive, and had to contain her curiosity.
"Steady," she felt Evander advise. "We don't know what might be hiding there. Keep your hand on your knife, just in case."
Obediently, and a little clumsily, Susan clutched the knife-hilt. The reem felt her flash of anxiety, and slowed her pace a little. Susan gazed ahead, scanning for any signs of movement. Then a sound caught her attention, and she glanced upwards. High above them the two great birds were circling, their unearthly cries reaching them even over the sounds of the wind and the river. She shivered uneasily.
"I wish they'd go somewhere else," she said. "It feels as though they're watching us."
"They probably are," Evander said, reasonably. "We're probably the most interesting thing that's happened here for hundreds of years. I think these buildings must have been houses. I suppose Vanir's people lived here once. The river would have made it easy to travel, to ferry goods in and out.
Susan nodded absently, still staring at the houses. They were almost upon them now. She could see their gaping windows, and the lines of low walls stretching behind them, marking out tangles of plants where once there must have been gardens.
"It's as if no time at all has gone past," she whispered. "You could quite easily believe that people lived here as little as twenty years ago."
"Time goes differently in some of these places," Evander said, cautiously. "I've heard stories of people travelling between the realms and staying there for years and years, but getting back to find that no time had passed at all whilst they'd been gone. Hardly any time passed here whilst I was in your realm. I was there for ages, but Alwen hadn't even realised that I'd left. I suppose nobody is still living here,"
"Well, we have to go this way anyway," Susan said, reasonably. "This is the road. Mr. Lefay's going to be around here somewhere. We'll have to keep going. Let's just hope - if there is anybody around - that they're friendly. They've probably seen me by now anyway, there's no point in trying to hide. I'll just keep going. If Mr. Lefay's here I want him to see me in any case. I need to find him."
Gently, she steered the reem around the end of the houses to the point where the bridge met the road, and looked around her.
There were no signs of life.
The reem shifted uncomfortably, and Susan felt her muscles tense beneath her. She scratched the creature's neck reassuringly.
"It'll be all right," she said, wondering if that were true. "We can't back out now. Let's see if there's anybody around."
Collecting her courage, she lifted her voice.
"Hello? Is there anybody here?"
She was met with silence, apart from the sound of the river, and the gentle breeze, and the sounds of the birds, crying far above them.
Emboldened, she encouraged the reem to set off, and slowly they moved forward down the long road towards the forbidding mountains ahead.
It was a wide, straight road, stretching as far as she could see, with the mountains rearing up at its distant end. Now that there were no trees around her, Susan could see them clearly for the first time. Dark red in colour, they rose in front of her, filling the sky, their steep slopes almost bare of vegetation. She had seen them from the barge, and knew that what she was seeing were the foothills, the smallest of the mountains, but now that she was so much closer, they seemed to tower impossibly far above her, steep and unconquerable.
"I can't see how Mr. Lefay could possibly hope to get up there," she said, craning her neck to see them.
"Let's hope he won't be able to," Evander replied, and she heard the shudder in his voice. "Once he gets there we've lost him. The veorldura said not to cross the walls. We can't go any further than the end of this road."
"I can't see him," Susan said, bleakly, gazing into the distance. "Just empty road. It must go on for miles."
"We might see him when we get a bit nearer," Evander said. "If he's only an hour in front of us we wouldn't see him from this far away. Let's get moving."
The reem, who had been glancing about her anxiously, felt his thought and took a few uncertain steps forward. Susan rubbed her shoulders encouragingly, and her pace picked up a little, until a few moments later she was trotting bravely along the silent road.
Susan tried to see into some of the houses as they passed, but the sun was too bright for her eyes to be able to penetrate into the dark shadows beyond their windows. The doorways were tall, tall enough for a man of Evander's size, and much too tall for her. She tried to imagine women standing on the doorsteps, talking to neighbours and calling to children, but she could not. Despite the golden stone, the houses yawned empty and grim, giving them a forbidding feeling, as though unseen watchers might lurk behind their open doorways, and after a little while she tried not to look.
It was an eerie, unpleasant sensation, riding down that silent, endless aisle, and Susan had to grit her teeth and make an effort to hold her head up. She felt small and frightened, dwarfed by the huge, empty houses, soundless but for the wind, and the cry of the birds, and the quiet thudding of the reem's hooves. She clutched her bow tightly, the arrow still nocked on its string, and stared about her, alert for the smallest sign of movement, but there was none.
After they had been travelling in this way for almost an hour, she realised that the pattern of houses, still far ahead of them, had changed a little.
In the middle of the road there stood a tall, rounded structure.
She blinked, and stared hard at it. As they came a little closer, she could see that it was a small tower, no more than three storeys high, built, for no reason that she could see, in the middle of the road. The road curved round on either side of it, meeting again to form a single way on its other side.
She peered at it curiously.
As the reem approached, she could see that it was built of a much darker stone than the houses. The tower was built of the deep, red-coloured stone of the mountains behind, which was partly what had made it so hard to see. It was a circular tower, with no walls around its topmost floor, and a tall, arched doorway cut into its side. Long, flat stones protruded from the walls, creating a narrow stairway which wound around the girth of the tower, reaching the top just above the archway.
"I wonder what it was," she said aloud, as they reached it, her words sounding unexpectedly loud in that quiet place.
"There are more of them. Look," said Evander, and as Susan lifted her head, she saw a line of towers, regularly spaced, stretching along the road as far as the mountains.
"How odd," she said.
"If you climb the steps to the top, we should be able to see quite a bit further," Evander suggested. "We might be able to see if Lefay's anywhere ahead of us."
Susan did not at all like the idea of climbing the perilous-looking stones, all of which were set rather further apart than she would have found comfortable to climb, but nevertheless she agreed, and slid off the reem, who instantly ambled to the side of the road and began to graze. Susan found this reassuring, reasoning that if the reem had sensed danger she would not have been so calm, and collecting her courage, cautiously clambered up the stone steps.
It was not an easy climb, and Susan needed both hands and knees to cross the wide spaces between the steps, but Evander had been right, and when she reached the top, she found that she had a clear view across the landscape.
The road stretched for as far as she could see, towards the great mountains in one direction, and down to the distant shore in the other. It was arrow-straight, dipping out of sight into valleys at some points, and rising out of them at exactly the same point, so that it was difficult to see that a valley was there at all. Houses lined it for as far as she could see, and behind them, the woods.
She stared along the road in both directions until her eyes hurt, but could see no movement.
"He must have come this way," she said, half to herself. "His boat was on the shore at the end of it, he must be here somewhere. Oh, I do hope we aren't too late."
"If he was trying to climb those mountains we might be able to see him," Evander suggested, but Susan shook her head.
"What if he doesn't need to climb them at all. What if once he's over the wall then that's it, and he can - I don't know - invite the kvalara to join him and just come back."
"In which case we'd see him coming back," Evander said, reasonably. "He's probably still too far ahead of us. Let's see if the reem will go a bit faster. I'm sure we'll see him soon."
Susan shaded her eyes against the sunshine, but could see no movement in either direction. She sighed and dropped her hand, feeling suddenly weary.
"Look at all this. It's a bit strange," Evander observed. Susan looked around her.
She was standing on the very top of the tower, having scrambled on to a large stone block which was set into its centre with a smaller block on each side. When she looked down, she saw that rusting iron rings had been set into each corner of the block, from each of which dangled a few links of equally rusty chain.
She shivered.
"What do you think they were?" she whispered. "No. I know what you think they were, I can see it in your thought. How horrible."
"It may not have been," Evander insisted, although she could feel that he did not think so. "It could have been - I don't know, for lifting things. Like at the docks."
"So many of them," Susan breathed, gazing at the long line of towers. "I don't want to think about it."
She ran her hand over the stone surface, trying to pretend to herself that she was not looking for the stain of spilled blood, but none remained in any case. The stone was gritty beneath her fingers, worn and weathered.
She wrapped her arms about herself, suddenly cold despite the sunshine, trying to push Evander's silent horror to the back of her thoughts, and suddenly feeling very exposed on the tall tower. No wall marked its edges, it would be perilously easy simply to step off and fall more than sixty feet to almost certain death below. The wind, more noticeable here, tugged at her hair and her shirt, and she had to smother an uneasy feeling that it was trying to propel her off the edge.
She sat down suddenly on one of the smaller stones.
"I need to get down," she said, simply.
She knew that Evander was struck by her sudden fear, and felt his warm rush of sympathy.
"It won't be so bad," he said, gently. "We'll go slowly."
"What happens to you, if - if I fall?" Susan asked suddenly. "Do we both die, or do you go back to your body?"
"I don't know," he said. "I don't know what would happen. Let's not find out. Come on. We'll be careful."
Slowly, miserably, Susan began to crawl down the stone steps, dropping to her knees on each one before carefully swinging her legs round and lowering herself to the step below. There were no handholds, and she was painfully conscious of the yawning gulf between each stair, making her head swim and nausea rise in her stomach.
She had not gone very far when an unexpected gust of wind caught her from behind. For a fraction of a moment she lost her balance, and scrabbled desperately for a handhold. For a dreadful heartbeat she knew she must fall, and flung herself backwards against the tower wall, where somehow, feet scrabbling for a foothold, hands clinging to the one above, she swung, her body perilously suspended over the dreadful space below her.
She felt Evander's shock, quickly fading to a gentle encouragement. He said nothing, but her feet kicked further backwards than she had thought possible, unexpectedly landing on the reassuring solidity of the stone below her, and her hands began to move unbidden. Surely and deftly they slid across the crumbling stone to push her upright. She shifted her weight until she was balanced, rose first to her feet, and then slid painfully down the wall into a safe sitting position.
She leaned against the wall of the tower, her head spinning and her stomach churning. She wanted to be sick, but hardly dared lean away from the wall.
"I - I can't do it," she breathed.
"Don't try for a minute," she felt Evander's response. "Sit here until you've got your breath back. Then let me do it."
She bit her lip.
"How - how would you do that?"
"I can do it. You just have to let me manage. I could probably make your hands and feet work even if you didn't want me to, but it'll be a lot easier if you just calm down and let me."
Susan shook her head.
"I can't. Really I can't."
To her surprise, she felt his gentle amusement.
"But I can. In any case, we have to. You can't stay up here all night. Look, the reem's worrying about you."
Susan dared, for a moment, to snatch a downwards glance, and then looked back at her hands quickly.
"Think about something else," Evander urged. "Anything. Just not about how frightened you are."
Susan shook her head. Her breath was coming in shallow gasps, and she knew her heart was thudding frantically.
"I can't. Really I can't. Please, just leave me alone for a minute," she gasped.
Evander hesitated. Susan felt herself swaying giddily, and let out a tiny moan. Then she felt his attention caught.
Some sound, she knew, had startled him. She listened, and then she heard it as well.
The distant crying of the birds had become a lot louder. The noise had been a distant wail, and was now a shriek.
"They're coming closer," Evander said. "Where are they?"
Susan had not intended to open her eyes and raise her head, but the movement happened without her wishing it. For a second she fought him, and then gave way, allowing herself to scan the dizzying sky that seemed to be whirling above her head.
She caught her breath. Gliding lazily just above the tops of the trees, scarcely a hundred yards away, were the two biggest birds she had ever seen.
They were colossal, difficult for her to judge quite how big at this distance, but she knew their wingspan must be at least thirty feet across, maybe more, and she shrank back against the tower wall. They were calling to one another, shrieking, haunting calls, almost conversational in their tone, as they swooped over the bright river, their flight seeming effortless as they sailed above the road towards them.
"Stay still," Evander murmured, but Susan felt she could not have moved had he called for her to run. She was frozen and numb, as if her hands and feet did not belong to her, would not have obeyed an instruction no matter how urgent. She felt the reem's sudden fear in the shadow of the tower below them, and Evander's reassurance of her too, his determined insistence that she not move. She longed to close her eyes, but her gaze was fixed on the great creatures that soared above her.
She could hear the beating of their wings now, and for a moment the day darkened as the great shadow fell over them, and then passed as the great birds rose upwards and away towards the mountain.
Chapter Thirty Three
Susan closed her eyes, conscious of nothing but her thundering heartbeat and the sickly, giddy sensation.
"It's all right," she felt Evander promising her. "It's all right. They're going. They haven't seen us."
It took several long breaths before she could respond.
"What - what were they?" she felt herself asking. "Would they have - could they..?"
She saw the answer in Evander's thought before he could frame it into words.
"They're hunters," he said simply. "Did you see their talons? They're like hawks, but I've never seen hawks that size. Their eyes are drawn to movement, if you stay very still you've got a chance they might not notice you.
"They could have hunted us," he added, grimly. "They're big enough even to have a go at the reem, although probably they wouldn't, she'd be a bit of a fight. But you - well."
He did not go on. Susan sat very still, her mouth dry and her breath coming in little rasping gasps. He waited for a few moments.
"We have to get down," he reminded her. "You have to try and relax, Susan. I'll do the climbing, but I can't do it if you're fighting me all the way. You can trust me. I don't like the idea of a very fast trip to the ground any more than you do."
Susan smiled weakly.
"Think of something else," he said firmly. "Something difficult. Something you've got to concentrate on."
A few moments later, Susan, still trembling and panting a little, but firmly reciting her twelve-times table in her head, slowly lowered herself between the steps, rhythmically stretching her legs from one step to the next, twisting, and then lowering herself with a little jump.
It took a little while, but in the end she had reached the foot of the tower once again, and stood upright on the bottom step in order to hoist herself on to the reem's broad back.
The reem had been watching her with anxious brown eyes, and pushed her whiskery nose approvingly into Susan's shoulder before turning sideways so that Susan could scramble on to her back. It took several attempts, but in the end she managed it, and sank down against the reem's glossy neck with a sob of relief.
"You're hungry as well," said Evander practically. "That's partly why you're feeling so faint. We're going to have to find something to eat soon. If you do meet Lefay you aren't even going to be able to find enough strength to argue with him, never mind rush after him and wrestle him to the ground. Let's just keep going. Those birds must be finding things to eat. There might be rabbits. There might even still be things in these gardens. Let's keep our eyes open."
"I don't think I was going to try and wrestle him to the ground," Susan demurred, as they set off, the reem's hoofs clattering on the dusty road.
"So what were you going to do?" Evander asked. "You haven't thought about that yet. How are you going to stop him getting to the wall and just climbing over it? Asking nicely isn't going to work. You've got to stop him somehow."
Susan knew what Evander was trying to tell her, and she turned her mind against it.
"I don't know," she insisted. "I'm going to try to make him listen, of course I am. After that, if he doesn't, I don't know."
"You do know," Evander insisted, sounding so like Alwen for a moment that Susan frowned.
"I don't want to think about it," she said.
"You have to think about it," Evander said. "There won't be time to think, or a chance for a second go. When we find him - if we find him - you have to know what you're going to do. Steel yourself to it in advance. You won't be able to hesitate."
Susan stared at the road ahead of them.
"You don't want to find him, do you?" she asked suddenly, realisation dawning on her. "You're hoping that we won't, so that I can't go home."
She felt his sudden shock of pain.
"Don't," he said, unhappily. "I'm trying not to hope it. I'll do everything I can to get you home, of course I will. But I can't help hoping. A part of you is hoping for that as well. You know it is."
Susan was silent.
"I have to go home," she said, steadily. "I know I do. It's - it's right. It's where I belong. "
They carried on wordlessly for a little way before she continued.
"I'm going to try and talk to him," she insisted. "I have to. I can't just try and rob him, like a - a pickpocket or a sneak thief. First I have to ask him. The rings are mine after all. He shouldn't have taken them in the first place."
"And when he says no?" Evander persisted. "What then?"
"I don't know," Susan said. "Let's wait and see what happens."
She rode onwards, gazing around her at the silent houses, and wondering if somehow Mr. Lefay had taken refuge in one of them. Most of them were clearly unoccupied, their paths overgrown with tall weeds and tangles of bramble, but occasionally they passed one which was accessible, the path not clear, but visible, and the doorway gaping open. Evander followed her gaze.
"I should think animals are using them," he suggested. "Those birds must be eating something, there may be wild goats or sheep here, and they'd be ideal places for hiding cubs."
Susan, remembering the fenris, did not like the sound of this at all, and watched the crumbling houses with a renewed interest after that, straining her eyes for signs of movement as they passed the yawning doorways.
In this manner the day passed slowly. Susan scanned the road in front and behind them for any signs of movement, but for as far as she could see there was nothing, save the distant trees rustling as an occasional gust of wind caught them.
Eventually she felt Evander's thought shift excitedly, and glanced about her.
"It's a gate," he said, without preamble. "There. Right at the end of the road. At the foot of the mountain. It's a gate. I'm sure it is, and it's enormous."
Susan stared ahead of her, shading her eyes from the sunshine. It was difficult to make out the shapes at the end of the road, shadowed as they were by the dark slopes of the mountain, but she thought she could see something. It was hard to be sure at this distance, not least because the last of the line of towers seemed to have been built right in front of it. She screwed up her eyes and blinked, but it was some time before the tiny shape ahead of them finally swam into focus.
There, rising black and solid at the foot of the mountain, was the long, snaking curve of the wall they had seen from the barge, now rising clearly above the houses and the treetops. Directly in front of them, at the end of the long road, dividing the wall clearly, there was a huge, steely-grey gate. A heavy archway stretched above it, and a rounded pillar stood at either side of it, taller than the houses, taller than the trees, windowless and bleak as colossal tombstones.
Susan fixed her eyes on them as they travelled slowly closer, trying to quell the uncomfortable sensation that she was becoming smaller as she approached, and blinking in the afternoon sunlight. In fact she was trying not to think about her hunger, and as the day had worn on she had become uncomfortably aware of a growing thirst.
There seemed no means of slaking this. They had passed no more streams, and although twice they passed roughly-hewn stone water troughs set beside the road, the first was empty and the second contained no more than a dribble of water so filthy that thirsty as she was, Susan could not bring herself to drink it, and the reem glanced down at it with disdain.
By the time the sun was beginning to sink behind the mountains the wall had become clearly visible, towering high above her head even at a distance. It was obvious now that it would be impossible to attempt to climb it, for it reared above her into the evening gloom like an endlessly wide, abandoned skyscraper, utterly forbidding and impenetrable. Susan watched it looming ever-larger above her with a weary sense of failure. If Mr Lefay had somehow managed to climb that, she thought drearily, then she could never hope to follow.
She was tired, and thirsty, and beginning to feel anxious now. The sun had been warm. Little gusts of a dry wind had whipped around her until she could feel her lips beginning to blister and crack, her face dry and hot and sore. Her head was throbbing painfully, and she was longing for a drink so much that several times she had reached towards the open bag at her side, vaguely hoping to find a water skin, before remembering, yet again, that the skins were gone.
Her gaze was drawn to the slopes of the mountain now, craggy and barren against the pale sky. Surely there must be water somewhere, and if not, if not then what could she do? She knew people could survive no more than a couple of days without water, and they had come so far that even if she was to set off back now, the river was a day's journey behind them. Was this to be the end of everything, that she would perish here, in this silent, deserted place, of nothing more than the lack of water?
She set her teeth. There would be something ahead, there must be water somewhere. Trees covered the foot of the mountain, thick and dark behind the houses and reaching to the very foot of the wall. There must be water. Trees could not survive without water.
She remembered the stinking, muddy water through which they had trudged when they had come through the forest. Would she drink that if that were all that there was? She knew that she would, and wondered if its foulness would poison her, and if that death would be better or worse than thirst.
She was lost in these unpleasant thoughts, swaying gently to the reem's gentle rhythm, when she was startled to life by a warning shock of fear from Evander.
"The birds!"
She felt the reem leap beneath her, felt her jolt of fright, and glanced upwards.
Far above them, the two great birds were circling, gliding slowly downwards. Then as if at some signal, one of them began to dive, plummeting towards them at enormous speed.
"Run!" she heard her own hoarse voice shouting, and felt a stab of pain as her cracked lips tore, but there was no need for her words, for the reem was already galloping headlong along the empty road so fast that Susan could hardly keep her balance. She leaned over the reem's neck, her fingers entwined in the flowing mane, urging her forward.
A few hundred yards ahead of them the last tower stood in the centre of the road, black and grim in front of the huge gate, shadowy in the fading light. Susan knew that the reem was heading for it, and hoped desperately that its arched doorway might be open, that they could reach shelter, that its walls would shield them from the terror hurtling from the skies. Unearthly screams filled her ears, and she felt rather than saw the great shadow plunging towards her. The air filled with a sudden stench of carrion, of blood and feathers. She threw her arms above her head as if somehow she might fend off the great, savage claws. She heard her own shriek, and then in an instant everything was dark.
They had passed beneath the archway. They were inside the tower.
Behind them, furious shrieks echoed around the valley.
Sobbing, panting for breath, Susan leaned over the reem's neck to clutch her, to hug her reassuring warmth. The animal's sides were heaving and she was trembling so badly that after a moment, Susan swung her leg over the wide back and slid down to the ground.
She threw her arms around the reem's shoulders and buried her face in the sweating, slippery neck.
Then she felt the reem start. With a sudden shock of renewed terror, the creature stepped backwards, and threw up her head.
From the shadows at the far side of the tower came a low growl.
Susan took a step backwards.
Her eyes had not had time to adjust from the brightness of the day, and she could not make out the dark shape that was moving stealthily towards them, but a pair of eyes, almost on a level with her own, glinted bright with the last of the daylight.
The reem shook her head from side to side and levelled her horn, stamping threateningly with her front hoof as she turned to face the creature.
The growl came again, deep and wild and savage.
Susan would have turned and run, would have braved the terror of the birds rather than this unknown enemy, but her feet would not obey her. Petrified, she stood frozen, unable to heed Evander's urging to run, to get out.
The creature was pacing steadily towards them. Another moment and it would be upon them. Its head was lowered, it was taller than she, and she felt Evander's horror as he breathed: Fenris.
Then from the shadows behind it came a voice.
"Enough, Fraya," it said, gently. "We will not do them harm just yet. Let them be."
Chapter Thirty Four
Susan stared.
In the darkness behind the animal, something moved, impossible to make out in the shadows. Then there was a flash of light by the ground, as if someone had struck a match, and sparks flew, glowing brightly in the gloom. A shape leaned forwards and blew gently, and one of the sparks flared into a small, wavering flame. The shadow of the fenris retreated a little, moving behind the tiny, flickering glow.
"It is important to keep one's tinder dry," the voice said, conversationally. "Please, do not be afraid. Fraya will not harm you unless I give the word, which I shall not do unless you force my hand. Come in. You are safe from the rukh in here."
"The rukh?" Susan heard herself ask, and her voice grated painfully in her dry throat. She swallowed heavily.
"The raptors who would have invited you to dine tonight," the voice continued drily. "They are gone now. I advise, if you are to continue any further tonight, that you carry a lighted torch. They fear fire."
Susan blinked and stared, trying to make out the speaker's features. He was crouched over the tiny fire, adding small splinters of wood, his head bent. As the fire began to spring into life he looked up at her.
"You are safe. They are gone," he said, almost conversationally. "And you need not fear me. I am not hiding a kvalara behind my words."
Susan was not sure how to respond to this. She was still hesitating when unexpectedly, the reem took a few steps further into the room. A bucket stood beside the tower wall, and she dipped her head and drank noisily.
Susan gasped, and yet felt a little reassured by this. If the reem felt comfortable enough to drink, then perhaps there might be no reason to be afraid of this odd, unexpected stranger.
"Oh, I'm sorry," she said, her voice coming thickly from her own dry mouth. "It's just - we've come a long way. We're - she's very thirsty.
The man laughed.
"It is a long dry road," he said. "Are you also thirsty?"
Unable to speak, Susan nodded. The man rose and paced across the room. Even in the growing firelight, Susan could see very little, but she heard the sound of water being poured, and thought her heart would burst with relief.
He handed her the cup. Now he was close, she could see him more clearly. He was tall, even taller than Evander, and his head, like Alwen's, was closely shaven. It was impossible in the firelight to tell how old he might be, but he was old. He stood straight and tall, and his eyes shone brightly, yet his face was creased into deep lines, and his hands trembled a little.
Susan drained the cup and handed it back. Wordlessly he refilled it and passed it back.
"Drink more slowly this time," he advised. "You would not wish to upset your stomach."
"Thank you," Susan said, gratefully. "The water skins were - were lost, and I thought perhaps there would be a stream, but there wasn't. Thank you very much."
"There is one a little way from here," the stranger said. "Please, sit down," and Susan saw for the first time that an assortment of furniture was scattered about the dark chamber.
The fire, becoming brighter by the minute, was in the centre, raised on a tall hearth with what looked like a long, iron spit leaning above it. A pot hung from one end of the spit, suspended a little way above the growing flames, and a small stack of firewood stood beside it. On the other side of the fireplace stood a small, three-legged stool, and three or four large boxes, about the size of packing cases, and beyond those a solid-looking table. A long mat, covered with rough-looking blankets, stretched along the far wall, and it was to this that the fenris had now retreated, turning round and round before settling herself with a thump and a sigh, her steady gaze now fixed on Susan.
Susan glanced about herself uncertainly. The tall man saw her confusion, and picked up a cushion, which he laid on the ground in front of one of the boxes.
"Sit here. You will be as comfortable as anywhere in my house. And I would like to hear the story of how you have come to be here. We are not often troubled with visitors. Are you hungry? Fraya and I will eat soon. There is plenty, and we will be glad to share. Please -" as he saw Susan look anxiously across at the reem "- do not be afraid. You are safe for the moment."
"Sit down," she felt Evander murmur. "Let's find out who this is. It could be helpful. He might know where Lefay has gone. Be on your guard, though. I never heard that anyone lived here. Don't tell him about me. I'll watch and listen and warn you if I think anything seems wrong."
Susan assented silently, trying not to nod. She crossed around the fire to the cushion by the fireside and sat down, cross-legged. From her position she could see through the wide archway, out into the now silent road. Stars were beginning to appear in the darkening sky.
"I would be glad to eat," she said, truthfully. "Thank you."
The man nodded.
"I think your reem would prefer not to leave you," he said, looking over at the animal, who had drained the bucket, and who was watching them with curious brown eyes, "and I will bring hay for her if she prefers that to grazing outside. The rukh are gone now, but I think she wishes to remain at your side."
Susan, glancing at the reem, knew that she would very much prefer fresh grass, but that she did not have the smallest intention of leaving Susan alone in this place, and would not consider moving.
"I can bring it," she said, scrambling to her feet, "if they're really gone. Where is it?"
The hay was stacked outside at the back of the tower. With an anxious glance upwards, Susan scurried around the tower walls, and soon returned with her arms full of sweet-smelling hay. She deposited it in front of the reem, who immediately buried her nose in it.
"I keep it for my goats," the man said. An iron tripod now stood over the fire, and a blackened pot squatted on it. Several tall candles had been lit, standing in little niches set into the walls, the backs of which had been inlaid with something reflective, and gleamed brightly. Something large and solid lay upon the table, and the man was carving hunks from it with a long, cruel-looking knife.
Susan watched as he pierced several of the cut pieces of meat with sharp hooks, and suspended them above the fire. He lifted the lid on the pot and stirred it with a wooden spoon.
"It will take a little while," he said. "You are hungry. Here."
He went to the back of the room, where he poured something from a tall jug and handed the cup to Susan. She sniffed it cautiously, not wishing to give offence.
It was milk, fresh and thick with cream. Susan took a hesitant mouthful and then gulped it down, unable to stop herself, finally setting the empty cup beside her with a small sigh of pleasure.
"Thank you," she said, and then, curiously, "I didn't know there was anybody here. Vanir seemed to think the place was empty."
"Ah, Vanir," the man said, smiling a little, as if the name had stirred some half-forgotten memory. "Yes, Vanir would not know that I still lived. Yet surely Vanir could not have sent you here?"
"Not exactly," Susan said, wondering what she should tell this stranger about her journey. He seemed to be waiting for her to continue, and she knew that some explanation would be courteous, at the very least. She could not think what to say, and in the end said nothing, whilst the stranger wiped the table clean and seated himself beside her at the fireside.
"These lands are forbidden to Vanir and his people," he said, almost conversationally, "and so I imagine you are not under his obedience. We will eat first, perhaps, and then you can tell me how you have come to be here. You will forgive my curiosity. It is many years since I have heard any voice other than my own, and I am very interested to hear what has brought you to this place, in the shadow of the mountains, with no companion but your magnificent reem. She is very beautiful. I could quite envy you her company."
There was no malice in the voice, just a mild admiration, and Susan felt the reem's attention sparked. She took a step closer to the fire, her jaws still rumbling on a mouthful of hay, and the man laughed.
"You could easily win my heart, my dear," he said to the reem, running an appreciative hand over her side. "You are very fine indeed."
Susan felt the reem's pride and pleasure, and although she did not laugh, she warmed a little to the strange tall man beside her.
"My name is Prestur," he said, turning back to Susan. "This is my home. And you?"
"Susan," said Susan, and then feeling that she should add more, but not knowing quite what, said, "and I'm not from anywhere you might know."
The man laughed.
"You are wise to be cautious, Susan," he said. "Eat first. I give you my word that it is not poison, and then we will tell one another our stories. You will feel less afraid, perhaps, when we have shared our meal. Already your reem is at peace."
It was true. The reem seemed to have eaten her fill of the hay for the moment. Her eyes had closed and she was swaying gently, lulled, perhaps, by the soporific warmth of the fire.
"Your - your fenris," Susan said, trying the unfamiliar word. "I didn't know they lived with people. I saw some on the way. They seemed wild.
"They are," Prestur agreed, kneeling up to stir the pot again. "Fraya's mother was taken by the rukh when she was a tiny cub, and her pack went on without her. Perhaps I should not have interfered with the plans of the Great One, but I brought her here and fed her on the milk from my goats until she grew strong. She never wished to return to her pack, and they would not have welcomed her, smelling of man and goats as she did, and so we stayed together. She has been my dearest companion," he finished placidly, and then added: "and who knows, perhaps that was the wish of the Great One all along. If so then it has been a great kindness, and I have been forever grateful."
The fenris had looked up at the mention of her name, and Prestur rose to his feet. He carried several of the fat slices of meat, now beginning to brown and sizzle hopefully, and laid them in front of her. She sniffed at them, but did not eat.
"She will wait for us," Prestur said. He laid slices of the meat into wooden bowls and then dipped the spoon into the blackened pot. A smell so delicious rose from the meat that Susan felt almost dizzy. She accepted the bowl gratefully.
She could not identify the meat, which was strong-tasting and tender, covered with liberal spoonfuls of some kind of root vegetable, cooked in a salty milk which had a strong taste of cheese. She ate hungrily, and was pleased when Prestur, who was eating more sparingly, filled her bowl for a second time.
At last they were done, and Susan laid her bowl down and sighed with relief.
"Thank you," she said, and then, feeling she should offer some kind of explanation for her ill-preparedness, "I had supplies, but the fenris took them."
"That would have been disaster," Prestur agreed placidly. "Will you tell me your story? How did you come to be pursued by the fenris in the first place?"
"Should I?" Susan asked Evander silently. She felt him hesitate, and then agree. If Prestur wished to harm her, he had already had plenty of chances, and telling her story would probably not make any difference.
"In any case," he added, "we need to know if he has seen Lefay. It would be very helpful to find out if he's here somewhere."
Susan agreed.
"I'm looking for somebody," she began, and started to explain about the rings, and the way they had been brought through the pool into the wood. Prestur did not seem surprised by any of it, although he asked several questions when she floundered a little, redirecting the story when she became side tracked. Halfway through he rose, and whilst she talked, filled two round, fat glasses with a red liquid, and handed one to Susan. He stirred his with the poker, its end heated in the fire, although Susan, remembering Evander's dislike of the result, did not do the same.
She did not mention Evander's presence, partly from an uncomfortable feeling that it might make her sound ridiculous, and partly because she felt that there was no need to explain it to an unknown stranger. Eventually she reached the story of the fenris, and the woods, and their final arrival on the road, and faltered to a halt, not knowing quite how to end.
There was a silence.
Prestur sighed.
"Your quarry has not yet reached here," he said, considering his words slowly. "Yet I think he will come soon. If he is on this land then there is no other way to the mountain. None. Beyond the points where you and he have landed, eventually the mountains reach right down to the river. Their feet become cliffs, rising out of the water, and cannot be climbed. There is no way across the wall but from this road. Unless he is riding on the rukh then he must come this way. You have travelled quickly."
"It didn't feel like it," Susan said. "I mean, I suppose he couldn't be riding on the rukh, could he?"
"They are wild and pitiless," the man said, shaking his head. "I do not believe they would voluntarily bear a man on their backs. This Lefay would not be the first one to try it, if indeed he had been so foolish. But he has not. If they have even seen him then he may have suffered a grave misfortune."
Susan was silent for a moment. The idea that Mr. Lefay might have suffered some kind of mishap had not occurred to her, nor, she realised, to Evander.
"Perhaps I should go back and look," she wondered. The man shrugged, and reached across to pile more sticks on to the fire.
"If you wait here then it is most likely that he will come to you," he suggested. "It is easier to lie in wait for a quarry than to hunt for one. If what you say is true, then he must come this way, and very soon. You would do better to rest, and to wait."
Susan could see the reason in this.
"And you?" she asked, eventually. "Why are you here? How did you get here? Haven't you ever wanted to go across the river Stychs to Eyja? It must be a lonely life."
"I am not lonely now that I have Fraya," Prestur assured her. "Before that day, it was a long and solitary time, but now I am content. I have my goats, and my land to be tended, and I am never idle. The Great One has given me a good life, far more than I have deserved."
Susan watched him curiously, hoping that he would continue. For a few moments he was silent, stirring the fire, eventually rising to his feet to fill their glasses.
"I have lived here alone since the days of the Great War," he said, and he handed a glass to Susan. "I will never leave now."
Susan's eyes grew round with surprise.
"Do you mean - I thought that ended hundreds of years ago," she said in astonishment.
The man nodded.
"Indeed it did, and I have remained here ever since," he said, and there was no regret in his tone. "I have a task, you see, which is not yet complete. Until it is done then I will stay as I am, quietly feeding my goats and growing beans and corn for us all."
"What sort of task?" Susan asked, unable to help herself. "What are you doing?"
Prestur exhaled with a long, quiet sigh. He sipped his drink and smiled at Susan.
"I am watching the road," he said eventually. "I keep it open for the day when the Great One will pass along it to come to the mountains."
Chapter Thirty Five
Prestur's eyes were bright in the firelight, and for a long moment he stared at it, the orange glow of the flames dancing in his pupils
"Forgive me," he said at last. "It is so long since I have spoken to another of my own kind that I can hardly find the words. And it is a hard thing to tell."
"You don't have to," Susan said, politely, although by now her curiosity was bubbling almost uncontrollably. "You have already been very kind. I just appeared from nowhere, and you've been very hospitable. I can't thank you enough. I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't been here. I might not have - might not -"
Her voice trailed off.
The man nodded.
"I am glad I was able to help," he said, gravely. "It is a duty laid upon me rather than a simple kindness, but I have been pleased to have your company. New stories are as treasure when a person has been alone for so long. You have given me far more than I have given to you.You will have to be patient with my telling, for words do not come easily, and it is a hard story to tell."
He turned back to the firelight and began to speak, slowly at first, as if the words were reluctant to be unearthed, as if he was struggling to dig them from some long-lost place.
"Years ago, before the Great War, the world was very different from the world that you see today," he began. "The great River was far smaller then, and these lands were all one. To reach this place now you can only have come by boat, but once it was not so. Once a man could walk from Dalar to the very foot of the mountains, and once there, find wealth and happiness and glad company. They were good times and merry, for in those days the veorldura walked alongside us in bodies like our own. They did not live amongst us in our houses," he continued, in answer to Susan's unspoken question. "The veorldura have always been separate. They lived in their own country, in Syon itself, in the deepest heart of the mountains, and watched us when the fancy took them. They were our neighbours and our masters and our guardians and our friends, and they were both feared and beloved." He sighed again. "It is not this way in any of the realms any more, so perhaps I should explain. The veorldura were not of us. They took an interest in our affairs, sometimes even in our women. Many a child was born to our people who could count an veorldur as sire or dam, and such children were greeted with joy, and pride. Each of the veorldura had his - or her - own people, the ones who worshipped at his temple, the ones who venerated him and brought him gifts, and he in his turn cared for them, brought them success and good fortune. Yet they had their own lives separate from ours, their country in the mountains into which we could never hope to enter."
He paused for a moment.
"Even then Vanir was one of the greatest of the veorldura," he said, and Susan heard a gentle regret in his tone. "I was his priest."
Susan felt Evander's gasp of surprise. Perhaps Prestur felt it as well, because he turned back to her again.
"Vanir was not then what he has now become. The veorldura were not bound to their bodies as we are, and he could ride the wind or plunge beneath the waters when the wish took him, but also he could love a woman or become sated on wine. Theirs were the joys both of the body and the spirit. I loved him with my whole soul. I sought nothing more than to serve him, to bind myself to him, and there - there was my error."
He lapsed into silence, staring at his hands in the glow of the firelight. He sat for so long that Susan wondered if he had finished talking, and wanted to prod him to go on, when eventually he looked up again, and reached for more firewood to add to the fire.
"The veorldura were not then as they are now," he repeated, carefully piling sticks on to the blaze. "We, their people, fed them on our own blood."
Susan frowned.
"I don't think I understand," she said slowly. "How could you - I mean, surely they didn't - Vanir -"
"Vanir and his brethren demanded sacrifice," Prestur said softly. "The veorldura are made stronger by the deliberate spilling of blood. It is sweet to them, and feeds them with a fierce strength. Vanir was proud, and mighty, and I loved him with a terrible passion.
"Some sacrifices were extorted from the people, as the price demanded for favour and protection, yet mine were given freely, from my great love of Vanir. Still others were given as spoils of holy war, when the veorldura fought, and we, their people, fought at their sides. They delighted in the murder of each other's followers. As Vanir's people, we hunted and killed the followers of Azrel, of Hanell, of many others, and offered their blood to Vanir as a delicacy. In return, Vanir promised that any warrior who shed his own blood in such battles would join him in the Halls of the Gods in the heart of the mountains, would be rewarded with women and pleasures such as he could not imagine on these plains, and many, many believed him. Many died, and who knows what was the fate of their souls. Others - others were bound on the great altars. There was not a family in the land who had not surrendered children - young women - beautiful young men - none knew where the finger of the veorldura would point next." He paused. "I was their butcher."
There was a long silence before he continued. When he spoke again it was as if the words were being drawn reluctantly from his mouth, dragged from years of silence.
"There is an altar upon this road for every month of the year," he said. "Thirteen in all. Each one demanded feeding, on the holy day in every month, the holiest day of the year being at the foot of the mountain, Vanir's altar, where the veorldura would gather to see the finest and best of our gifts. On that day I brought them the loveliest that I could find. Some came willingly, proud to become the feast for the veorldur. Others had to be dragged, but still they came anyway. None could deny the call of the veorldur."
Susan felt slightly sick. She felt Evander's stunned horror.
"It can't be," he breathed. "It's a lie, it must be a lie. It must be."
"It is no lie," the man continued, as if Evander had somehow spoken aloud. "It was the way of our people. The favour of the veorldura meant good harvests, long summers, honey and wine and plenty and victories, and Vanir the Most Beautiful was generous to us. In return we spilled the blood of our finest and best, and left their bodies to feed the rukh. I cut their throats. That hand was my own."
Susan shuddered.
"How - how could you?" she said, horror chilling her voice. "How could Vanir do such a thing?"
"All life feeds on other life, lady," Prestur said. "We have ourselves dined on flesh this very evening. Who am I to condemn the veorldura?"
Susan could not deny this.
"What happened?" she whispered. "What changed?"
"The Great One," he replied, simply. "He saw, and he called all the veorldura to himself, from this realm, and from all the realms of Yggdrasil, and he forbade it. From that time, he decreed, no veorldur was permitted to accept blood from his people. What protection he gave to them must be given from love alone.
"This crushed the veorldura, for they knew that without the blood sacrifices they would fade. They would become what they are now, without solid form and shape, and they fought amongst themselves. Some chose to defy the Great One, and they joined their forces and threw down their very refusal as a challenge. Others chose the fierce joy of that dreadful obedience, of setting aside their selves at the wish of the Greatest of All, and Vanir was amongst those. He met with me one last time, and we hugged even as brothers at the end, before he left to defeat the rebels, to stand against those for whom blood and pain was their greatest joy. Still, to this day, the memory of his love has been all that I have needed, even in the darkest times."
"And you?" Susan asked. "What happened then?"
"The Great War was long and terrible, and even Yggdrasil itself suffered great harm," Prestur said. "Yet the Living Tree survived, and it became the mighty force that it is today. I think it likely that the rings you describe are made from its ashes, and if so, then with them it will have made a promise. If a wearer casts themselves into the water which pools at its feet, it will draw them upwards, through its own veins, and allow them to travel into its other realms."
He paused for a minute, reflecting.
"The rebel veorldura were defeated and imprisoned in their own realms, where they became the kvalara. Some, as you know, are still bound in these mountains, awaiting the day when the Great One returns, and they can beg forgiveness or be judged.
"I saw Vanir but once more after the war was ended, and already he was beginning to fade from my sight. He was hungry and weary, wounded and scarred from long years of battle, yet already he was beginning to draw upon the new strength which his obedience to the Law had bestowed upon him, and it was as if a great Light was beginning to shine through his very pores. I fell to my knees, and would have worshipped him then as never before, but he lifted me to my feet.
" 'Do not kneel before me, dearest of my brothers,' he said, 'for we are all as one in the sight of our Master, none greater than any other. He has laid it upon me to guard and guide my people anew, away from this place, and I have come to ask that you come with me, to be by my side as I strive to complete His will. Rule with me, and we will atone for the harm we have caused.'
"This filled my heart with grief, for even as he spoke I knew that it could never be. My whole soul longed to follow him, to accompany him and fulfil his work together, but in that moment I heard the voice of the Great One, and I knew that I had my own path of obedience.
" 'My lord and my friend,' I said to him, 'I cannot. For I too have bloodstained hands, and the Great One has shown me my path. The Way to the mountains must remain open until the day when He returns to walk upon it, and this is to be my task. Take our people, and teach them to become wise and courageous in their new world, but I cannot come with you. I will remain here, in the shadow of the mountain, in the ruins of what was once our home, and hold it until the day when He should wish to pass along it, or until my life should depart from me, whichever happens first.'
"Vanir did not seek to persuade me, and perhaps he too heard the voice of the Great One in my words. We embraced for a last time, and he turned his back upon me and taking our people, walked away into the rising waters, and never have I seen him, nor any of our kind, since that day.
"And then I began my life of solitude. Indeed, I had believed it would be a short one, for even then I was not young, and I had thought that in a very few more winters the Great One would demand it of me, yet he did not. One year followed another, and another, until scores of them had passed and faded, and still I was here, tending the Way at the foot of the mountains. Here I live still, alone save for the rukh, and the cries of desolation from those who still shriek and howl their despair amongst the mountains."
"You mean the kvalara?" Susan said, in surprise. "Do you mean you can still hear them? I hadn't heard anything."
Prestur gave her a small smile.
"You will," he assured her. "Once they have heard your voice they will begin their torment. At first it is no more than a whisper on the wind, and you must ignore it and make yourself deaf, for if you listen then their cries will quickly become beyond endurance. I suffered for many years before I learned how to close my mind to them."
Susan shivered.
"I've heard the voices of the kvalara," she said reluctantly. "They aren't nice."
"You will hear them again," Prestur said with conviction.