Chapter Thirty Nine
They walked for all of the day, their footsteps the only sound on the long road apart from the whisper of the breeze that tugged at Susan's hair, and the occasional cry of a bird. Neither Susan nor Prestur spoke, and Evander, in Susan's thoughts, was equally silent. Images of the reem, bright, happy and excitable, flowed between them. Susan knew that Evander's grief matched hers, indeed, was tinged with a still deeper sadness, for the sorrow he knew his father would suffer at her loss.
The day passed without incident. Twice they stopped at the roadside, once to retreat into the shelter of the houses when the distant shadows of the rukh passed overhead, once to eat doughy bread and cheese, flavoured with some herb unfamiliar to Susan, and to drink deeply from their water skins, parched from the dusty road and the endless dry wind. The fenris paced beside them, keeping close to Prestur's side, her watchful eyes alert for any movement, but there was none, and they walked on in silence.
The sun had begun to sink behind the now distant mountain by the time Susan saw the sparkle of the river a little way off. Her feet were sore now, even in their soft shoes, and she was thirsty. The last of the water had been finished some time ago, and had in any case been warm and a little sour, from the skin. It was a relief to kneel at the side of the cool water and to splash her hands and face.
The boat was moored underneath the bridge. It was a small boat, scarcely big enough for one person, certainly of Prestur's size, but its planks were cleanly sanded and it looked well-maintained. There was no sail, and two oars rested on its polished seat. It had been dragged a little way up on to the shingle to prevent it being tugged by the current, which was quite rapid, pooling and still at the water's edge, but white-topped and racing along towards the centre of the river.
"I will leave you here," Prestur said, unfastening the straps on Susan's pack, and assisting her to scramble out of it. "You will not need to row, I think, the current should carry you as far as the shores of the Great River, with time to spare. It should not take more than tonight and another day."
"I can't bring the boat back to you," Susan said. "I'm sorry."
"Fraya and I will be walking after you," Prestur replied, with a smile. "We will rest tonight, and then set off along the river bank in the morning. It will be a pleasant journey. We will not be far behind you. Leave anything you do not need in the boat. We will use it on our return."
Susan put her hand to her heart.
"Thank you," she said. "I will always be in your debt."
Prestur bowed, smiling, and then touched his fingertips to her forehead.
"All our debts are to the Great One alone," he said. "Perhaps I have cleared a little from my account with Him. Goodbye. Travel with joy. Remember me to Him in your prayers."
Susan stepped into the boat and settled herself on the seat. Then Prestur pushed it out into the water, crunching over the stony shingle as it went. For a moment it drifted, turning this way and that, as if confused about which way it should be going. Then the current caught it, and it was off, bobbing down the river and gathering speed.
It seemed that Prestur was right, and very little effort would be required of her. The river was wide and fast-flowing, and the banks slipped away quickly. Susan felt a little nervous at being carried so powerfully, feeling herself helpless in its inexorable pull.
Evander was reassuring.
"We won't need the oars until we get out to the shore," he said. "Let the river do the work. I don't envy Prestur the return journey."
Susan agreed, and settled down in the bottom of the boat to rest, and to watch the unfamiliar land sliding past. Her feet ached from the day's walking, and after a little while she hit upon the idea of trailing them in the water as they sailed. This turned out to be splendidly cool and refreshing, and after a little while she felt her good spirits beginning to be restored.
"I tell you what," said Evander, after a little while. "When we start getting close tomorrow, I'll go back to my own body and get the barge moving. I can probably bring it quite close to the land, and then you won't have so far to walk. You'll have to moor this by yourself, of course, and you might have to splash a bit to get to the barge, but it should make it easier, and quicker. Vanir's veorldura should be able to see us then as well, and they'll know that everything's all right."
Susan had mixed feelings about this. Now that the journey was over, and she had the rings safely tucked into her waistband, she had been overwhelmed with a longing to return home, as quickly as could be made possible. She was pleased at any idea that might speed this along, and yet the thought of losing Evander's safe and comforting presence in her mind filled her with a hollow unhappiness.
"I know," Evander agreed. "I feel it too."
"I've always been alone," Susan tried to explain, whether to herself or Evander she could not have said. "Always, even when there were people all around me. Now that you're here, I'm not. It's safe. I feel as though I'm not really afraid of anything with you here. Yesterday - with Mr. Lefay - the terrible thing almost wasn't what he was doing. It was that you were gone. I was facing it on my own."
"We aren't ever on our own," Evander said. "The veorldura aren't ever very far away."
"I know, but they don't - they don't do anything," Susan said, bleakly. "We might as well be alone really."
"I can't do anything when I'm inside your thoughts," Evander said, reasonably. "I can only use your hands and feet. It isn't as though I can carry anything heavy for you, or reach up for things that you're too small to get to. I'm no use to you either. Everything you do, you have to do alone, using your own strength."
"But you're there," Susan objected. "I know you can see what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling. Everything, every last little thought. You knew that when the poor reem died there was a little bit that was only thinking I might be next. I wasn't thinking about her at all, just about me and how scared I was, even though she'd been so brave, but I knew you didn't hate me for it. I knew you still - still loved me whatever I was feeling."
"We don't choose what we're feeling," Evander observed. "Feelings just come and go. If we could choose them, we'd just be happy all the time. Nobody chooses their feelings. They just happen. You can't be upset with somebody for feeling something, even if you don't like it."
Susan thought about this.
"How did you manage to get into the mind of that - that rukh?" she asked. "What was it like?"
"It wasn't easy," Evander admitted. "They don't have much in the way of minds. It's all feelings with them. Hunger, mostly. It was pretty grim. She fought me. She could feel those - those things - the kvalara - calling to her, and she wanted to go. They'd promised you to her, and she wanted you. She was hungry." He thought for a moment. "I think maybe they must have parasites or something. She was frantically hungry. Really desperate. It made it easy for them to control her. They kept telling her how good you'd be to eat. I had to fight them all the way to get her to take Lefay instead of waiting for you. And even then I could only do it by telling her that the kvalara were liars, that they were just using you to control her, to get her to obey. She hated that. They're proud creatures, wild and free. I showed Lefay to her, and told her that he was her enemy, that he was using you as bait in their trap. I got her to understand that if she listened she'd be made their servant, harnessed and forced to carry him. That worked, and she went barrelling in to get him. The kvalara knew I'd won then, even before she grabbed him. They felt me taking over her mind. Then I had to get her to drop him, I didn't want her flying off over the wall with him, rings and all. That was the hardest bit of it. I made her think he'd got hot suddenly, that he was about to burst into flame." He paused, reflectively. "That was odd. It was as if I believed it myself. I didn't plan it or think about it. I just knew. For a minute or two I was quite sure that he was about to go up in a sheet of fire, that we'd all be burned alive, and I was as scared as the bird was. Then she dropped him, and I knew she'd had enough. That was when I came back to you. I knew you'd be scared as well. I'd seen Prestur running, and I knew he'd seen what was happening, and that he'd come and help. Good thing he was there. Otherwise we'd have been stuck."
Susan agreed.
"It was clever to think of making him seem hot," she said.
"I don't think that was me," Evander said. "I'm pretty sure the veorldura did that."
They were quiet for a little while, resting in one another's thoughts.
"I don't want to leave you either," Evander said, eventually. "It means the same to me as to you, you know that."
"I know," Susan said, sadly.
They did not talk any more for a while. As the sky began to grow dark, Susan wrapped herself in her cloak and settled in the bottom of the boat, resting her head on her pack. The night was cool and clear, and she stared up at the stars, blazing bright and sharp in the inky-blackness of the sky, remembering the old lady in the garden, and wondering if she could see them.
"I think probably the dead have got other things to do," Evander said. Susan smiled.
"What sort of things, do you think?" she asked.
"I don't know," Evander said, "but I'm sure they have. I think they trust that we can get on with our own lives all right and don't interfere. When I was little I used to think my mother watched me, and maybe she did, for a while. But she doesn't now. I don't suppose I'd want her to. It would feel intrusive. She's gone completely. I don't know where."
"I'd like to know," Susan said, dreamily.
"We'll find out one day," Evander said, sensibly. "We have to leave the dead to get on with their own journeys. We can't keep calling for them to come back. You can't walk hand in hand with a dead person, even if you loved them very much. We have to let them go and get on with living. That's our job. Wouldn't it be awful if they had something glorious to go to, and we wouldn't let them?"
"I suppose that's true," Susan said, thoughtfully.
"I think what hurts, almost as much as losing the person, is the loss of the future with them," Evander said. "There was a future stretching ahead of you and you thought it was yours, and then all of a sudden it isn't. It all gets snatched away. And of course it wasn't ever yours in the first place, you just thought it was."
"Yes, that's how it is," agreed Susan, "It's hard to let go and admit you were wrong about that future, and it was only ever a daydream."
"That's all it ever is anyway, just a daydream," Evander said. "There isn't any future that belongs to us by right. Just the one that comes to us."
They drifted along in companionable silence for a while, until Susan's eyes began to close, lulled into sleepiness by the gentle rocking of the boat. She yawned, and tried to make herself comfortable in the cramped space, grateful for the warmth of the cloak.
"I'll never sleep here," she thought, and knew no more.
The sky was grey and clear when an unexpected spray of water in her face awoke her, many hours later, and she sat up with a start.
The trees that had crowded close to the water's edge for so much of the journey had disappeared, and the river's banks were grassy and gently sloping. The river was wider here, and the little boat was drifting quite close to its edge. As they meandered past, Susan caught sight of holes in the bank which she thought might be the homes of some small creatures, and watched them with interest for some signs of life, but saw nothing. Overhead flocks of birds, smaller, noisy ones, swooped and called, but apart from them the world was quiet.
She was hungry, and tugged the pack open in search of food. There was more of the heavy bread, and the cheese, and several things that looked a little like apples, but which tasted something like a very sweet, sharp onion. She bit into one, and then ate it with relish.
"There's plenty of food on the barge as well," Evander said. "We could leave some in the boat for Prestur when he gets here. And some wine. Although he might find it hard to carry it all the way back along the road."
"He wouldn't have to take it all in one trip," Susan said. "And there are other useful things. He can't possibly make his own pots and pans, and his looked awfully battered. Do you think your father would mind if we left some for him?"
"I'm sure he wouldn't," Evander said. "I wonder where we are. I don't think I can get back to my own body until we're pretty close, not easily at any rate, but I shouldn't think we're all that far away now. I'm going to have to give it a try soon."
Susan sighed.
"Do it soon," she said. "Let's get it over with."
"Just a bit longer," Evander said. "It doesn't have to be just yet. Only I'm going to need a bit of time to bring the barge back down here. I'd like to be there when you get there."
"How close do you think we are?" she asked.
"I don't know. A couple of hours, maybe. This land looks a bit familiar. The mountains look much the way they did when we arrived."
"Perhaps you should do it, then," Susan said, reluctantly. "It feels like - I don't know, like an exam or a dentist appointment. You dread it at first and then you just want to get it over with."
"We'll still be together," Evander said. "For a little while anyway. Look, are you really sure you want to go back? You don't have to."
"I have to," Susan said, and she knew it was true. "I don't belong here."
Evander sighed.
"I know that. I've known it all along really. There are things in your world you have to do. You've got a future there."
"Of some kind," Susan reminded him. "I don't know what it will be."
"Promise me you'll make it a happy one," Evander urged. "I wouldn't mind anything if I thought that, if I thought you were going off to a life where you were joyful and glad. Find the things that make you happiest and do those. I'm sure that's what the Great One wants for us really. Will you promise me?"
Susan hesitated.
"It isn't an easy promise," she said, thoughtfully. "I wasn't very happy, not for a long time. I'm not quite sure how you do it."
"You'll know," Evander said, confidently. "You have to decide that that's what you're going to be, and then do it. Be happy, I mean. You won't forget this - all of this - and you know all sorts of things now that you didn't know before. Promise me you'll find happiness when you get back. Promise."
"I promise," said Susan, and knew he could see that she meant it. "And you. You'll find a happy future, won't you?"
"We don't know what's in our future," he reminded her. "I'll just be glad with whatever the Great One sends to me, that it's what He thinks is right. That's all that matters. Even if we aren't expecting it."
The boat scraped against a sandbank. Susan took one of the oars and pushed it back out into the current again, where it bobbed along, twisting and turning a little in the eddies close to the bank.
"I'm going to have to go," Evander decided. "It can't be far now."
For a moment he hesitated. Susan felt his warm affection twining into her thoughts, golden and liquid and sweet. She felt her own thoughts sliding against his, generous and loving, and then he was gone.
She blinked as if somebody had switched off a light, her thoughts suddenly, shockingly empty, a cavernous space where Evander had been.
For want of something to do, she tipped the oars over the side of the boat and dipped them in the water, paddling herself along. It didn't seem to make much difference to the boat's speed, so after a while she stopped and allowed herself to be carried, staring unthinkingly ahead of her.
There was a sudden, startling burst of light in her head.
"Evander?" she said aloud, startled, although of course she knew that it was.
"I can't get back," he said, bluntly, and she felt the undercurrent of anxiety in his thought. "I can't - can't get there."
"Perhaps we aren't close enough yet," she said, soothingly. "You said we had to be pretty near. Maybe we're further away than we thought."
"Maybe," he said, although she could see he was doubtful. "I'll give it a bit longer and try again."
Susan stared out at the banks. A small creature scurried into one of the holes, something brown-coloured with a furry, curling tail.
Evander sighed impatiently.
"We can't be that far away. The river's as wide as it was when we first saw it from the barge. I'm going to try again."
"Oh!" Susan gasped.
The boat was drifting close to the edge of the river, and was just rounding a wide curve. As it opened out, they both saw quite clearly, in the distance ahead of them, the sparkling brilliance of the great river Stychs, wide and endless, dancing in the sunlight.
Chapter Forty
"We must be close enough," Evander said firmly. "I'm going to try again."
He disappeared, and Susan waited, her heart thudding uncomfortably. He was gone for longer this time, and she had begun to feel that there could be no cause for alarm, and to look for a suitable place to moor the boat.
She had seen a narrow stretch of shingle a little way ahead, and was just beginning to paddle towards it when she felt Evander's explosive return into her thoughts.
This time he sounded alarmed.
"I can't get in," he said again. "It should be easy, but it isn't. I can see the boat, can send my thought right to it, but it's as if the cabin's locked. I can't get in to - to myself at all."
"Why?" Susan asked, suddenly feeling chilled, despite the warmth of the sunshine. "What could it be?"
"I don't know," he said grimly. "It hasn't ever happened before. Something's wrong. It might be - might be because I've been out of my body for such a long time, I suppose, just difficult to get back into it."
"You were out for much longer with the cat," Susan said, reasonably. "You didn't have any trouble getting back then. It happened right away."
She felt Evander's anxiety, and tried to calm him.
"We don't know what it is," she said, "but we'll find out when we get there. We'll just have to walk, that's all. It can't be far."
"About an hour, I should think," Evander said. "We'll go as fast as we can. Leave everything here in the boat. We can come back for it with the barge afterwards."
Susan felt the boat scraping on the ground under her feet. She jumped out, trying not to splash her clothes more than could be helped, and began to drag the boat up the shingle. When they both felt it was safely out of the water, she turned her attention to her clothes. She was still wearing her cloak around her shoulders. The day was beginning to be warm, and she tugged it off and dropped it in the boat. She was about to unfasten the knife from her waist, when Evander stopped her.
"Not that," he said. "We don't know what we're going to. Let's not leave ourselves in trouble we can't get out of."
"There's the gun," said Susan, doubtfully. "The killing thing, I mean. I'm not sure it's right to use it, even in an emergency."
"We can't leave it here anyway," Evander said." Evander said. "Yes, take it, especially if you think you could use it. I don't really think there's anything to worry about, but it's better to be sure."
Susan picked up the gun, doubtfully, and fastened it beside the knife. Then she set off, picking her way carefully along the rocky bank. Soon the shingle was gone, and she was walking on flat, grassy land along the water's edge, dotted here and there with rather stunted, thorny trees.
It was almost an hour before she saw the barge, vividly painted in her blue and gold colours, swaying serenely in the sunshine. It looked so peaceful that Susan was reassured, nothing could have gone wrong on its tranquil decks. She sighed happily.
"We'll be setting off for home soon," she said, and for a moment she was so contented that she felt a smile creeping over her face. Then she sighed. "I wish the reem was with us."
Evander didn't reply. She felt his keen gaze travelling over everything, across the grassy banks and fixing on the barge.
"It seems all right," he said. "Only -"
"Why don't you have another try now we're so close," Susan suggested. "Then you might get an idea if there's really something wrong or if it was just an odd chance."
She felt Evander's agreement before he vanished.
She carried on walking along the water's edge, straining her eyes to try and see if anything was moving on the barge, waiting for the cabin door to swing open, and for Evander to burst out, but the boat remained still and untroubled.
Evander was back in a moment, and she sensed his panic almost as soon as he reached her.
"It isn't all right," he gasped. "Really it isn't. It's as if the cabin door is locked shut and I can't get through it. It isn't like that usually. Usually I can just float through things, as if they weren't there. It isn't even that hard. There's something wrong."
"Well, we'll just have to get onboard and try and see," Susan said, trying to sound braver than she felt. "Can you see anything else? Has anything moved?"
"Nothing," said Evander, sounding grim. "I suppose we have to. Let's get on with it. I can't think of anything else we can do."
It did not take very long before Susan was standing beside the barge. Evander had moored it right beside the shore, where there seemed to be a natural harbour, and she was easily able to scramble over the side. She looked about her cautiously.
"Hello?" she called.
There was no reply.
It was as Evander had said, nothing seemed to have moved. Everything lay on the deck exactly as she remembered it. The reem's straw was a little more scattered, as if it had been spread about by the breeze, but everything else was undisturbed. Puzzled, she ventured across the deck to the door of the cabin.
It opened easily.
Evander's body lay on the bottom bunk, deathly pale and still. Susan shivered, despite the warmth of the day.
"I can't," she felt Evander saying. "I can't get back."
She stared down at the ghost-white figure, biting her lip.
Its eyes sprang open.
Susan was so shocked that she had to fight back a scream. She was half aware of Evander shouting at her to run, to get away, to get out, but she was already stumbling out of the cabin.
It felt as though her hands and feet were too big for her, would not obey her. Every movement seemed ponderous and slow. She was half-aware of the ghost-creature rising from the bunk behind her, that it was a step or two behind her, that it was reaching for her.
It was both like Evander and not like him. Its face seemed oddly expressionless, waxwork-still, and its movements were awkward and heavy, as if something was working hard to haul it deliberately along. It grabbed for her, and missed, almost overbalancing, and she ducked out of its reach.
She staggered to the side of the barge and crawled over, pulling out handfuls of grass in her haste to escape. Then an icy grip closed around her ankle and she was dragged back on to the wooden boards of the deck.
She fought frantically, kicking and wriggling, trying desperately to crawl away, punching at the hand that held her.
"Your knife!" she felt Evander yelling. "Use your knife!"
Frantically, she scrabbled at her waist, trying to draw the knife. It seemed to stick in its sheath, taking an age to pull free, until it came loose in a rush, and she hacked at the creature's forearm, causing bloody welts to appear. It seemed to feel nothing, and she kicked out again, and was suddenly free, scrambling backward along the deck.
Panting, she held her knife in front of her. She was struggling to get to her feet, when the creature laughed.
Blood was dripping from the scarlet gashes on its arm, running down its fingers and pooling on the deck. It did not seem to have noticed them. It stretched the bloody arm towards her and opened its palm.
"Give me the rings," it said.
It was not quite Evander's voice. It spoke in a slow, drawling tone, and the words were deliberate and careful, as if the speaker was inexpert at forming them.
Susan took a step backwards, the knife raised.
"Who are you?" she demanded.
The creature laughed again, this time a high-pitched snigger, quite unlike any sound Susan had ever heard Evander make.
"Don't you know me, Susan Hamilton?" it giggled. "After we've met so often? I'm quite surprised you weren't expecting me, but of course you weren't, were you? You're too arrogant for that. After throwing your reem's life away you've just pranced back here, pleased with yourself because you thought that you'd outwitted the Master. Well, you haven't. It seems that we don't need your friend Mr. Lefay after all. You're going to give me the rings, and we're going to take them back to him together. Then I will be going back to your realm, and you'll be still here, what the rukh leave behind anyway."
Susan took another step backwards. The creature chuckled again.
"Don't waste your strength," it advised. "You know perfectly well that you couldn't outrun me now. What fine long legs your friend has. It's going to be an interesting journey back together, don't you think? What fun we will have. It's quite a long way back to the gate, what a splendid joke it will be. How my brothers will laugh to see you again. Do you want to give me that knife or shall I take it away from you. It's very sharp and I wouldn't want you to have an accident with it. It would be a terrible shame to spill any of your blood before my brothers are with us to enjoy it. Fortunately there are other ways of having fun together, aren't there. Can you think of any?"
"Don't come anywhere near her!" It was Evander, too enraged, Susan thought, to be frightened, and frustrated and furious at being trapped in such a small, helpless body.
The creature stopped.
"Oh dear, how upset we are," it chided. "This is the ugly giant speaking to me now, isn't it? It turns out I quite like your body now I'm in it. I'm going to keep it. It's going to come in very useful for all sorts of lovely games. I'm afraid I can come as near to her as I like, and you can't do a thing about it, apart from watch. I might like to come very near indeed, that would be funny, wouldn't it? Everything you always wanted, and you aren't around to enjoy it. Except you will be. You'll have a ringside seat for her suffering."
It took a step towards Susan. She felt Evander's panic, and wondered wildly if she could get away, to scramble over the side of the boat and swim, but it was futile. There was nowhere to run to. Evander was tall, and muscular. He could outrun her in a few strides, could lift her with no more effort than it took to lift a child. She was trapped.
"How very sensible of you to see things clearly," the creature continued smoothly. "We won't waste any more of our time. Put the knife down now."
"Don't, Susan," she felt Evander breathe. "You have to stop it. You have to,"
"I can't," she thought, silently. "What can I do? It doesn't even seem to be hurt. I don't know how I can."
"Kill it," he said, clearly and coldly. "Kill it. You must."
Susan felt a sudden icy chill as the blood drained from her face.
"Evander, I can't," she begged. "I can't. If it dies, then so do you."
"I'm dead already," he said. "There's no way around this. If you don't then it's going to drag you all the way back to that tower. You have to. You have to kill it. Kill it now."
"We might manage something on the way," Susan pleaded. "We could ambush it, something. Prestur might -"
"Susan, I can't set foot on that land," Evander breathed. "It's narn. Forbidden. The minute that thing steps over the side then I'm finished anyway. Please don't let it. Don't let me die in disobedience. I'd rather die now, cleanly, and know that I'd done the right thing. Please Susan, you must."
"Put the knife down, Susan Hamilton," the creature instructed. "Put it down and come here."
Susan's hands were trembling so badly she could hardly hold the knife anyway, and it clattered to the deck.
"The killing thing, Susan," Evander said, and his voice was icy cold in her thoughts. "Use the killing thing. Use it now."
The creature was grinning, a small stream of drool running from its loose lips. It took another step towards her.
"Come here," it said. "I know everything this body thought it might like to do to yours, shall we see how it enjoys it now it has the chance? We'll have the rest of the afternoon here on this boat getting to know one another, and then we'll set off for the tower again."
Susan felt Evander's humiliated fury.
"Please, Susan," he begged. "Please. Kill it now. Don't let it touch you. I couldn't live after - after that, anyway. Don't shame me. Please don't let it. You've got the killing thing. Use it. Use it now. We must, Susan. If you don't then I'm going to do it for you. Don't make me do that."
Susan reached into her waistband with trembling hands. Her fingers closed around the handle of the gun. It felt heavy, impossible to manage, too much to lift, hard and rigid and strange.
She had never in her life fired a gun. She levelled it at the creature and squeezed the trigger.
Chapter Forty One
It was stiff and unyielding, and for a moment nothing happened. She steadied the gun with her other hand and squeezed.
The explosion of sound left her dazed and deafened. The gun had spun from her hand and clattered on to the deck. Instinctively she dived for it, grabbed it, and then looked up.
The creature had fallen, knocked off its feet by the impact. A great wound had opened in its left shoulder, jagged lumps of flesh gaping indecently open. It kicked and struggled, trying to rise.
Susan's wrists hurt from the impact of the shot. Painfully, with numb fingers, she shot again.
A second wound appeared, this one in its chest. For a hideous second she saw the white of bone, and then dark blood, bubbling and slowly flowering over the grey shirt.
A shriek tore the air, and a coil of black smoke spat from the hole, growing longer and thicker as it rose. It hovered briefly above the still body, and then seemed to turn. It spun away from them, flying away above the sparkling surface of the river at what seemed to be an enormous speed. Susan stood numbly, watching its flight.
Then suddenly the sky seemed to go dark. The sky was cloudless, and yet it was as if the sun had been obscured. A scalding wind blew past her, burning hot and furious, tugging her hair and clothes and making her wince in sudden pain.
It skimmed across the surface of the river, rippling the surface into white points as it flew, the water shivering and dipping before it as if trying to scramble out of its path.
The ugly black cloud seemed to hesitate, to turn. It shot upwards, but to no avail. The hot wind was upon it, and for a moment it seemed that the two writhed together in some hideous dance, as if the air itself was squirming and twisting.
There was a shriek, and a soft hiss, and a shower of what looked like ash, and then silence.
The sun beamed brightly as though nothing had happened.
"Susan?"
It was Evander's voice, faint and strained, but his own.
She fell to her knees beside him and looked helplessly at his chest, now dark with the hot blood still pumping from it. His breaths were laboured, rasping and slow, but he reached for her hand, grasping blindly for her through closing eyes.
"I could - let me find a bandage," she gasped, but his fingers closed over hers.
"You can't. Don't waste these minutes," he whispered, and his voice had an odd, gulping sound to it. "Tell my father I'm sorry. Tell Alwen - tell Alwen it's all up to him now. And you - you promised. Don't forget."
Susan gripped his hand.
"Thank you," she breathed, and she leaned over and laid her cheek against his. It felt cold. "For all of it."
"It was - was everything," he murmured, and his fingers seemed to lose their grasp on hers.
His chest rose and fell twice more. Then there was a hissing sound, and a little gust of air seemed to escape from the blackened wound. He sighed a little, as though he might sleep, and then was still.
Susan did not move for what seemed a very long time. It almost seemed as if by staying she could make time pause, as if her stillness could somehow preserve that moment and save her from the dreadful business of facing the next.
Eventually her legs began to cramp, and her knees to protest about the hardness of the deck, and she rose to her feet. She went into the cabin and took one of the blankets from the narrow bunk. She tucked it around Evander's still body, straightening his limbs and laying his hands gently across his chest, and brought a pillow to put beneath his head.
His head was surprisingly heavy to lift. When she had finished, and the hideous wounds were no longer visible, he looked better, somehow, although no longer like himself. He did not look as though he was sleeping. Evander was gone. The figure stretched on the deck seemed no more than an effigy, a colourless, silent thing, with no more than a faint resemblance to a person that once she had known.
She stood beside him for a while, her head bent. The body on the deck was no longer a part of him, and yet it seemed impossible that he was not still close to her. At any moment his voice might whisper to her. The sense of his presence was so strong as to be almost palpable, and she found herself reaching for him in her thoughts.
There was no answer save the whispering of the wind across the water.
"Guide me," she pleaded, although without any clear idea to whom she spoke. "Help me. I want to do the right thing."
When the reply came, it was so close to her that she jumped.
"We must bear his body back to his father," the veorldur said, gently. "Make the barge ready, lady, and we will carry you across the waters. Unload the things you wish to leave for the guardian of the road. We will see that he finds them. And then we must depart. You are in no more danger. Your enemy is no more. Yet we must leave, for soon these waters will be stirred to tumult, on Vanir's orders. None shall come this way again until the Great One himself is ready to walk the Road."
Susan could not reply, but nodded numbly, and set to the task of unloading everything that she could find that she thought Prestur might find useful. This took a while, because although the boxes had been easily carried by the tall men of Eyja, they proved impossibly heavy for her to manage, and she had to empty several of them and carry their contents across the ramp in several trips.
Finally she was done. She had found a scratchy, stick-like instrument that she could see was intended to be a pen, and a small, stoppered bottle of ink, and once everything was unloaded, she sat down to write to Prestur.
The unfamiliar tool made writing difficult, and she laboured for several sentences, dropping blobs of ink on the grainy, yellow paper.
"To Prestur," she wrote, and then added: "My friend."
She chewed the end of the stick for a moment, uncertain of how to proceed, but then suddenly the words seemed to come, as if released from some quiet place inside her, tumbling over one another in their haste to be on the page.
"The veorldura have said they will help you find these things, and I want you to know that they are not my own, but from Lord Castor, father of Evander who accompanied me on my journey. They were given to me by his kindness, and it is thanks to his generosity that I can give them to you.
"My friend did not live to see the end of our journey. His body was taken by the kvalara, and he begged me to murder it with the killing weapon you took from the body of Mr. Lefay. I did as he wished, and my heart is filled with sadness. I am now returning his body to his father at the bidding of the veorldura.
"Despite my grief, I know that nothing happens that is not under the eye of the Great One. May our footsteps always be sure.We will be obedient to His peace."
She read through the letter, and signed her name at the bottom with a rather scratchy flourish, then folded it carefully and tucked it inside one of the boxes.
She looked about her for a moment, uncertain about what to do next, eyeing the anchor chain and the heavy ramp with some concern. They must be hauled back into the barge before she could depart.
Evander had fastened the ramp in its place with a complicated series of knots that took some unpicking, but in the end they came loose, and she managed to heave the ramp back inside the barge, where it landed with a crash, narrowly missing her bare feet. Then she set herself to winding up the heavy anchor chain, her feet slipping on the deck as she panted and struggled, until finally it was done. She slid the bolt through the hole to hold it fast, and realised that the barge was already beginning to move.
It turned, as though by itself, and above the sound of the rising wind, she thought she could hear the faint shimmering, bell-like voices of the veorldura, and she listened, the sound making her feel a little reassured, because she was not in the least looking forward to her return.
She had abandoned her heavy cloak in the small boat, and regretted it now, because despite the sunshine, the racing wind was chill, and after a while she was shivering uncontrollably. She retreated into the shelter of the cabin, glad to be out of the wind, but the bottom bunk was still hollowed where Evander's body had lain during the whole of their journey over the land, and to look at it filled her with a dumb misery all over again.
In the end she wrapped herself in the blankets from the other bunk and went back on deck, where she curled up in the straw that they had spread for the reem. It was prickly, and not terribly comfortable, but she found that she didn't care very much, and hunched herself into a small ball, lost in her own thoughts, and staring miserably at the brightly-painted sides of the barge.
After a little while she leaned uncomfortably against the side of the barge. The sun seemed too bright, and her head ached, so that she longed for a hat, and rested her head on her knees. Eventually she fell into a fitful sleep, half aware of her surroundings, half dozing and drifting.
She awoke a couple of hours later, feeling sure that the reem had been beside her, nudging her shoulders, and encouraging her to smile. She rubbed her cramped shoulders ruefully.
"I'm sorry," she said aloud, but there was no answer.
The journey seemed endless. Eventually the sun sank below the horizon, and the pale grey twilight eventually faded away. The skies were ink-black, filled with blazing stars, and Susan stared up at them incuriously.
"There is still beauty in a world from which your friends are gone," a voice at her side reminded her.
Susan turned to look. There was nobody there, yet the air beside her seemed to dance and flicker. She knew that she was in the presence of a veorldur, yet it seemed to give her no joy.
"It seems wrong," she said slowly. "It seems wrong to see beautiful things now that their eyes are closed. As if it's unfair."
"Then the beauties of the Great One are to be for ever spilled out for no purpose?" the voice asked, gently. "For always your kind must die, should the living ignore the world's wonders because others are gone?"
"I suppose not," Susan said, reluctantly. Then, with a sudden determination to ask the question which had burned in her chest for so long: "Please, do you know where they have gone? Where they go? After - afterwards?"
"The answer would not mean anything to you if I gave it," the voice said, and its tone was kindly. "You are bound by time and by your body. Your thoughts could not grasp the worlds even as they seem to us, still less understand the infinite beyond, the place that moves through and around these realms as though they were no more than just the memory of clouds. Your mind could not hold the answer, and so I cannot tell you. The Great One has told you to trust, not because he wishes you to hope and guess and imagine, but because you are not made of a substance that can conceive of the answer. You can only hope to trust and to believe Him."
Susan thought about this.
"Thank you," she said. Then after a moment she added: "Will Vanir - will he be angry?"
There was a silence before the voice spoke again.
"Will it ease your mind to learn that we have borne the news to them already?" it said, "We have told them of the creature that tormented you, and of its end, for it is gone now, gone from all the worlds, never to return. They are gravely saddened, but there is no anger in their hearts.
"And I would say this to you, that you have done nothing but the very best that you could. It is easy to long for wisdom once the time for it is passed, and it is a burden that must be borne by your kind. For you live your lives in the briefest of moments, one quickly lost to the next, never to be revisited. In order to live with gladness you must accept that you can never use the knowledge of tomorrow to repair the hurts of yesterday. Live in your time, and be glad of the learning as it comes to you. Accept your pain and your tragedies and your delights and your joys, for they will all pass away."
"I promised Evander that I would," Susan said. "Live with gladness, I mean. I promised I would be happy."
"Then be content," the voice said. "Live this night, and do not fear the day ahead. Be glad in your moment, and do not look to a future that will always remain beyond your sight."
Susan felt a warmth, a small trickle of contentment, beginning to steal around her heart, and she made herself smile.
"I will," she said, and she meant it. "I will."
"Then sleep now," the voice said. "Sleep and be restored. We will wake you when it is needed."
Susan looked out for a minute at the deep, endless blackness above her, brimming to the horizon with the brilliant, crystal-light of the stars, and across the white-topped foamy water racing past them, and then closed her eyes and slept.
Chapter Forty Two
When she awoke she felt warm, and unexpectedly at ease, as if she had somehow opened her eyes in a magnificently comfortable bed. She looked around herself in some surprise, seeing the painted sides of the barge and the straw nest in which she had been half-buried. Then she remembered, and scrambled to her feet, tugging wisps of straw from her hair.
The barge was approaching the harbour at a surprising speed.
As they neared, she could see figures on the riverside, standing still and staring out towards them. For a moment she quailed, her shame threatening to overwhelm her, and then she remembered what the veorldur had said, and straightened her shoulders.
The barge did not head for the boat house, but nudged gently into the dock beside it, and Susan remembered that the mast would have been too tall to fit beneath its roof.
She scanned the figures anxiously, searching for Lord Castor, but he was not there.
The tall figure standing before the small crowd was shaven-headed and slim.
It was Alwen.
As the barge bumped into the dock he sprang over the side of the boat. He glanced across at the body of his twin, lying wrapped in the blankets, and crossed the deck to Susan in two strides.
He put his arms around her shoulders.
Susan gasped for a moment, and then burst into tears.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered. Alwen shook his head.
"The veorldura told us of your pain and distress," he said. "You are not at fault. You could have done no more than you did. Come. Vanir wants to see you. We will bring my brother's shell. My father is waiting."
He helped Susan to scramble over the side of the boat, and led her to the entrance to the tunnel, where a small cart, pulled by two harnessed reem, awaited them.
"We do not usually put them to a cart," he explained, helping Susan to climb up on to the front seat. "The cart is pulled by oxen. The reem wished to do it, to honour Evander."
Numbly, Susan watched as four men transferred Evander's body to a canvas stretcher, and passed it up to men waiting on the shore. They carried it to the cart and laid it gently in the back of it. Then Alwen scrambled up beside Susan, and without a word from him, the reem set off.
The tunnel was deserted. A profound quiet seemed to be hanging over the whole place, so still that nothing could be heard save the gentle thudding of the reem' hooves on the ground. Susan thought as they came through into the daylight that she could hear neither the wind, nor even any birdsong. It was as if the whole realm had paused in its business for a moment, and was watching them as they came steadily onward.
The lawn beside the lake was full of people, waiting in silence.
The air above the lake shimmered and gleamed, seemed to twist and dance, and Susan knew that Vanir was waiting. Beside the lake, tall and upright in the morning sunshine, stood the unmistakeable silver-haired figure of Lord Castor.
"Lord Vanir has come first to honour Evander," Alwen said, seeing her gaze. "Usually we wait for him."
People stepped aside to clear a path for them as they approached, moving gravely and gracefully out of their way. The reem came to a halt directly beside the lake, under Vanir's watchful gaze, and Alwen jumped down.
He bowed to Vanir, and to his father, who dipped his head in acknowledgement. Then Alwen reached up and lifted Susan easily out of the cart, setting her down carefully at its side, where she stood with bowed head, unable to meet anybody's eyes.
Lord Castor stretched out a hand to her.
"Come and stand beside me, my daughter," he said, kindly, and Susan blushed scarlet.
Alwen took her hand and guided her to stand beside his father, taking a place on his other side. Then four men stepped out of the crowd to lift the stretcher.
To Susan's surprise, they did not lay it on the ground but took it to the edge of the lake and pushed it gently until it slid into the water, where it floated, turning and bobbing gently.
Every eye followed it.
"We have come to say farewell," Lord Castor said. "To my son, and to all of our hopes for him in this life. He was brave, and gifted beyond all of us. We wish him well on his journey beyond the realms, and we look to the day when all our times are over. We shall meet one another again, and we will walk together in joy."
There was a murmur from the assembled crowd. Then faintly, as if it was coming from a long way off, she heard the strains of singing.
It was a bell-like, shivering sound, not unlike the sound of the rings, but clarion clear and melodic. as if a hundred voices had slid into perfect, tingling harmony together.
She knew without being told that it was the voices of the veorldura, and as she listened, she realised that Vanir's voice, deep and penetrating, had joined them, was rumbling in her chest and trembling around her as if the air had heard, and was dancing a grave, stately dance, drawing her in and bidding her follow.
She could not have said how long the singing went on. She would have closed her eyes, but she could not, the dancing air and Vanir's gleaming brightness capturing her and holding her, as if she had herself become a part of the great song, until finally, bitterly, the voices faded and there was stillness once again.
"You will walk always at the side of the Great One, Evander, son of Castor," Vanir's voice said, and Susan could not tell if he was speaking, of if she was hearing it inside her thought. "We will remember you and look for you when our own time comes."
Then as if drawn by an invisible string, the stretcher bearing Evander's body turned and began to glide slowly across the lake towards him. It reached the shimmering air where Susan knew Vanir stood, and seemed to hesitate.
There was a ringing sound, a chiming, and a rush of golden flame, and it was gone.
Susan stared.
The assembly was silent for a moment longer, and the Lord Castor put his hand on her shoulder.
"Come, my daughter," he said. "We'll eat together now, and then meet with Vanir. There's a lot we haven't heard from the veorldura. I know it won't be easy, but I'd like to know about my son's last days."
Susan bit her lip.
"It - it isn't easy to tell," she began. She stopped herself and began again.
"Evander saved me," she said. "The memories are painful, but I don't want to forget. I'll tell you everything I can."
She had not eaten since the journey down the river on the little boat, and suddenly realised that she was ravenous. They went to the long house where she had first come with Evander, and she found herself constantly glancing up, scanning the crowd in search of him, before remembering.
They did not speak whilst they ate, yet Susan felt the silence was friendly. They filled their plates with hot, smoked fish, scooped with soft, crusty bread drenched in melting yellow butter. When they had finished, Arwen filled their cups with the sweet, milky drink, and led them back to the lake, where Vanir was waiting.
Once again Susan had the odd sensation that he was changing as they approached, seeming to dwindle in size so that he was hardly taller than Lord Castor, seeming great and imposing without her feeling the need to shout upwards at him.
He gestured to them towards a bench beside the lake, where they sat, facing the water, Susan's feet dangling as if she were a child, between Alwen and his father, and she bowed her head, unable to meet that steady gaze.
"So you have returned to us," Vanir said gently. "I am saddened by our loss of Evander. My brothers told me of the events of his death, but we would wish to hear the story from your own lips. We know nothing of your journey to the mountains, nor of how you reclaimed the rings, although we feel sure that they must be in your possession, for had you been empty-handed, the kvalara would have had no wish to take control of Evander's unoccupied body. Is this so?"
Susan nodded. Then she put her hand into her waistband and dug out the little bundle which contained the rings, feeling them tremble and whisper under her fingers. She unwrapped the cloth and held them out to Vanir.
"They're here, sir," she said, softly. "I can get back to my own realm now."
She looked at Lord Castor.
"I'm so sorry," she said. "Evander wanted to come. To be inside my thoughts. I shouldn't have agreed. I should have gone alone."
"If I'd thought about it, I'd have known he'd make that choice," Lord Castor said "When I told Alwen where you'd gone, he knew it straight away, said at once that's what he'd do. It was none of your doing. Evander chose his own path. Enough of that. Tell us of your journey. It's so close to the surface of your thoughts that it's hard for me not to see, and I don't want to intrude. Tell us, and we won't see those parts of my son's heart that aren't for his father to know."
Susan looked at him.
"Evander didn't betray you in any way," she said, steadily. "He was loyal, and obedient, and faithful. You couldn't have wished for a better son, my lord." She looked at Vanir. "Evander wouldn't go on the land, because of it being narn," she explained, although she felt sure that the great veorldur knew this already. "He suggested that he came with me inside my head, the way he had been in the cat." She bit her lip, trying to suppress the memory of it. "It's hard to explain. It makes you very close."
"We know that," Alwen said, gently. "It was Evander's great gift. When we were children, he visited my thoughts also. We shared a bond as deep as the river."
Susan glanced at him.
"That was why he wanted to die, at the end," she explained. "It wasn't just the - the thing in his body, and what it might do. He wanted to die rather than have it take his body into the forbidden place. He knew it was going to, and he couldn't bear it."
Vanir nodded.
"We have been told of this," he said. "It does him great honour."
Susan looked at Alwen and Lord Castor.
"We had the reem to travel," she began. "She was wonderful,"
She began to recount the story, trying to remember every little detail, to leave nothing out. Vanir was interested to hear of the landscape, of the thorny clusters of trees, which Lord Castor said had probably sprung up around houses and little villages, and all of them were fascinated to hear of the fenris.
"I thought them a story for children" Alwen said. "That such a creature still lives and hunts..."
Susan told them of the poisoned forest, and of the biting insects, and the river. When she came to the road, Vanir stopped her.
"You tell us that it still remains?" he asked, and his voice sounded curious, even surprised. Then he hesitated. "Was it empty of life?"
"No," Susan said, and then, after a moment: "Your priest is there, sir. Prestur. He lives with a fenris he has rescued and tamed."
She paused. Vanir's silence was so profound that it would have seemed wrong to try and speak into it. She waited.
"Prestur," Vanir said, eventually. "So he lives still."
His voice seemed to come from a long distance away, and an odd yearning rang in his tone. Susan could not tell if it was grief or joy.
"He told me - what he used to do," she said slowly. "He talked about - about his love for you."
"And did he - did he send word?" Vanir asked.
Susan closed her eyes.
"No, sir," she said. "He wanted me to remember him to the Great One in my prayers. That was all."
Vanir did not speak for a long moment. Then he lifted his head and spoke loudly, as if making a pronouncement.
"That land is narn to all of my people, and even unto me," he said, and Susan felt as though he was not merely speaking, but laying down a law. "None shall cross that way from these lands to Syon ever again. Yet we will not stir the waters. We will leave the river open, and peaceful. So it shall remain."
The air seemed to brighten around him as he spoke, and Susan felt that she heard the faint, bell-like shimmering of the veorldura. Then he turned back to her.
"Tell us."
Susan described the long journey along the road, and her terrible thirst, and the meeting with Prestur. Then she hesitated. The memories of the meeting with Mr. Lefay were almost too painful to remember. Already they were beginning to swim away from her, sinking into the darkness. She glanced around herself in distress.
"It's hard," she said, simply.
Alwen took her hand.
"Speak it," he said, gently, "for as you shape it into words, its power to wound you will fade. Tell the story, for memories can only harm in the secret dark. Bring it out into the light, and your shame and sorrow will cool and disappear. Have courage."
Susan took a deep breath.
It was as if she had plunged into the memory. The voices behind the gate, and the way she had longed to believe them, and the screams, the begging that had followed.
"Prestur warned me," she said, "and Evander gave me the courage. Prestur said you have to learn not to listen. Then Mr. Lefay came."
Her voice halting, stumbling as she talked, she described their meeting, the shooting of the reem, and everything that had followed. Nobody interrupted her now, and she described the climbing of the tower, Evander's flight into the mind of the rukh, and her eventual release, as if she were seeing it all over again, as if it were happening for a second time before her eyes.
When she got to the point where Prestur had freed her, she realised that her face was wet with tears.
"I'm sorry," she said, miserably, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. She glanced across at Alwen, and realised with surprise that his eyes were also wet. He put his hand on her shoulder, but did not speak.
The story came more easily after that. She told of the reem's last hours, and of the bright images that had filled her thoughts, and of the long walk along the road with Prestur, and the last journey on the boat with Evander.
Eventually she faltered to a stop.
"You know about the rest," she said. "Should I tell it?"
"Tell us," Alwen said, gently. "Your courage is growing with every word. And although it is painful for us to hear, still it is sweet, for your stories give us a little more of Evander to hold in our hearts."
So Susan told them. She described the horror of getting back to the boat, the shock of finding Evander's body occupied, and the terrible, last moments.
Eventually Lord Castor sighed.
"Thank you," he said. "I'm glad we've heard it all. It wasn't easy for you to tell all that, but we're grateful."
"I gave everything of yours to Prestur," Susan said, remembering. "I'm sorry. It wasn't mine to give. I just felt - just felt as though I should. He helped us."
"It was well done," said Lord Castor, with a glance at Vanir. "You could have given him the whole lot for me, barge and all. Good thing."
"And now," said Vanir, after a moment's pause, "now we must see to your departure, Susan Hamilton of the first people. I regret that your stay with us has not been a happier one, it has been a difficult and wearisome time for you. Nevertheless, we are grateful. You have brought me news that I have wished to hear for many years, and it would seem that by your hand a great wickedness has been prevented from coming both to this realm and to your own."
"It was Evander, really," Susan admitted, truthfully. "He did it."
"Nevertheless, without your courage in taking the journey, and in braving the many perils that you faced, with no hand other than your own to defend you, we would have found a great danger at our door," Vanir said, "and for that I am glad. And now we must send you home to your own people."
"I will take her, if you will allow it, sir," Alwen said, unexpectedly, looking at his father. "She has had a long and difficult journey, and she should not be among strangers, nor left alone with nothing but the memory of my brother to sustain her."
Lord Castor nodded.
"We'll get the barge reloaded," he said briefly. "You can go by river. Saves a lot of walking." He looked at Susan. "We can get you off this afternoon if you like. Or would you rather sleep first and go tomorrow?"
"I'd rather go today, sir, if I can," Susan said, after a moment's hesitation. "I don't want to seem ungrateful, but - well - I'd like to be at home."
"So be it," Lord Castor said.
He rose to his feet and strode away, calling to somebody in the long house as he went. Three reem trotted up to him as he walked, and followed him, nudging his shoulders and nibbling at his hair.
Vanir turned his gaze on Susan.
"Can you return and live in your home with the same strength and courage with which you travelled?" he asked, and it seemed to Susan as though he was not speaking, but that the question came from somewhere inside her thoughts, from the silent place where once Evander's joyful presence had warmed her.
"I can," she replied, silently, "and I promised Evander that I would. Thank you."
She felt the warm wave of Vanir's approval, and knew that he was seeing both her pain, and her determination. She met his gaze steadily.
"Then know this. For this service you have done I take you under my protection, Susan Hamilton," he said, and his voice rang clearly and strongly across the valley this time, causing people to stop what they were doing and turn to stare. "Wherever you are in the realms of the Great One, know that I count you among my own people. Call upon me in your time of great trouble, and I will hear. This I promise you."
The swirling light seemed to shimmer for the briefest of moments.
"Remember me to the Great One in your prayers," he said, and he was gone.