“You didn't wake me?”
“You were tired, I watched all night.”
Menish muttered thanks and checked Althak.
“He's no better and no worse. His breathing is very shallow. Only his size saves him from the poison, but that can't help him for much longer.”
In spite of his rest and recent food, when Menish tried to lift Althak’s litter it was too much for him, and Azkun had to hoist the Vorthenki across his own back, leaving the litter behind. Althak’s swollen arm hung down in front of his chest, he could feel it throbbing with poison.
Azkun walked with his back bent under Althak, his eyes on the flagstones in the road. But from time to time he raised his head to see if the fog was lifting. He could hear Menish walking beside him, stumbling with fatigue. The old man ambled on ahead, they could hear the tap-tap of his stick as he hobbled along.
Azkun was uneasy at following him and said so again to Menish. But Menish was adamant. The man must have a home somewhere with real food. It was likely that he would be able to lead them out of the forest. Besides, they had to follow the causeway. The old man was travelling the same way they were whether they liked it or not.
They had not travelled more than an hour when Azkun became aware that he could now see the trees through the fog. But they were different, they were the wrong shape. Yesterday they had been twisted, claw-like things that hung over the road, today they were tall and straight.
“Have we left the marsh?” asked Menish. “The smell has gone.”
“The trees are different here,” replied Azkun. “Perhaps we have.”
The fog cleared more and more and they found themselves on a road, not a causeway. The lifting curtain of whiteness revealed that they were making their way through a valley whose sides rose in sheer cliffs to snow- covered mountains. Waterfalls tumbled down the cliffs from high above the valley and a wide stream meandered across the valley floor.
“But we couldn't have left Gashan so quickly,” said a puzzled Menish. “We couldn't see mountains yesterday and we haven't walked so far today.”
Azkun said nothing, but he remembered the old man’s fart at the forest. At the time it had seemed no more than a rude gesture. But he could still see faint traces of a painted eye on his forehead. Was this Monnar magic? Had he taken them from the forest to some more subtly evil land of his own?
Chapter 27: Healing
At about noon the old man led them off the road and through the trees, where they found a sod hut thatched with straw in a grassy clearing. It was a crude-looking dwelling, and when the old man pulled back the skins covering the doorway they found it stank of animal dung and old sweat.
The hut was tiny inside, but somehow two yaks and a goat were stabled there, which accounted for the stink. Azkun placed Althak on the rough cot of old hay and dirty rags that was either the old man’s bed or the animals’ hay store. The Vorthenki was heavy and Azkun was weary with carrying him. Menish sank down on the floor, leaning his back against the wall.
Again, while they were not watching him, the old man started a fire. There was a small fireplace, a pile of embers in a ring of stones, in the centre of the room. From an old, wooden chest in a corner he produced a bowl and several earthenware jars. Muttering away to himself, he shook the contents of one of the jars into the bowl. It was powdery stuff and it hung in the air like smoke. The old man coughed and spluttered as he opened the next jar.
Azkun watched him like a hawk. They were safe from the forest now, but they were not safe from this Monnar. And Althak was still in deadly danger from his bite. He lay on the hay as silent as death, but Azkun knew that he had not died. He could still feel the throbbing pain in his arm. He did not want Althak to die. It was not just that he feared that darkness he would feel when Althak passed into oblivion; Althak was his friend. But there was nothing he could do. He had not saved Hrangil, and he could do nothing for Althak.
The old man finished mixing his potion and, as Azkun watched him, he reached into the fire and grasped one of the flames. He pulled it out and it twisted and writhed in his hand like a living thing. Somehow it did not look strange, the old man simply held a tongue of flame in his hand. He muttered something to himself and poured the flame into the bowl where it hissed and bubbled alarmingly.
With sudden swiftness he grabbed Althak’s swollen arm and poured the potion over the two puncture marks where the skin was darkest. It was black and vile-smelling and it hissed virulently as it ran over the Vorthenki’s arm. Althak’s body went suddenly rigid, but he did not regain consciousness. The skin around the bite, where the potion had touched it, turned from black to red and then to a weeping rawness. But the waxy texture of Althak’s skin diminished and the throbbing pulse in his arm grew calmer. Azkun had felt no pain when the potion had touched Althak’s arm.
The old man coughed and went back to his wooden chest to replace his jars. The mixture he had made filled the room with an acrid smell that blended with the animal stink and made Azkun’s eyes water. Their host also appeared irritated by it. He produced another jar from the old chest, scooped out some red powder in his hand and tossed it into the fire.
With a roar the fire exploded in the tiny hut. A ball of fire erupted into the thatching above. Somehow it did not catch on the dry straw there and, when it died away, the acrid smell was replaced by a drowsy sweetness. Azkun took one breath and found himself slipping irresistibly into sleep.
It was a strange sleep. At times he woke, or dreamed he woke, and saw the old man spooning something into Althak’s mouth or binding his arm. Once he saw him feeding Menish. He wanted to warn them, but he saw these things as if he were looking down a long tunnel, as if he were not part of the real world. One thing he dreamed was unlike the others. He saw the old man standing in a field with bundles of greenery in his arms, crushing them and casting them about his feet. The eye on his forehead was freshly painted.
When he finally awoke he had the feeling that several days had passed. The old man was gone and Althak was sitting up on the hay. Menish was asleep near him.
“Althak! You are well? You look much better.”
The Vorthenki grinned and lifted his arm. His wrist was wrapped in a dirty cloth but there was no sign of the swelling.
“I'm much better. My arm's still stiff and I can't bend my fingers properly, but I'm well. Do I remember your carrying me through the forest?”
Azkun nodded.
“Then I thank you. I would've died if you had not brought me here.”
For a moment Azkun said nothing, then he burst out, “I should have been able to heal you! You and Hrangil. Hrangil died and I did nothing. All I could do for you was to carry you. Why could I not heal you?”
Althak shrugged. “Some hurts are greater than others. Hrangil took more than a knife wound, Azkun. He was a dead man before you reached him. And perhaps you're not proof against poisonous bites.”
“The man in the knife fight was as near death as Hrangil, and what is this?” he pointed to the bite on his cheek.
“It's not for us to command the gods. Kopth, Aton, or your dragons, they'll do what they will.”
“But the dragons are compassionate, how could they deny help?”
“You ask me of dragons? I only know of Kopth, and he's not compassionate.”
Azkun would have shouted at him again, but he remembered that Althak was still sick. He had no right to tax him with such questions.
When Menish woke he too was better. But he was concerned about what they had seen in the land of Gashan.
“It was the Duzral Eye, there's no doubt of that. There are things I learned of it long ago, things I thought I'd forgotten. I know what they were doing to the stone.”
“Hrangil said it drove men mad and they killed themselves. Was that what was happening?”
“No, I don't think so. The more I think of the Eye now I wonder about it. I wonder why the Sons of Gilish had
