But she could see that he"d planted his feet. She groaned inwardly. He shook his head.
"f.u.c.king sharp-ears," muttered Garan.
Leeth snapped. He was shorter and slighter than Garan but that did not make him any the less threatening. That much he knew. He spoke in the tongue of the northern continent.
"What"s it to you, blink-life?" Leeth stood a pace away from Garan. s.p.a.ce to strike and kill with his bare hands. "This is not your fight. This is not your land. You"ll get your dues whether you raise a blade or stand in the rain where we choose. We own you. Your lives are in our hands right now. We could disappear into our forest and you would never get out.
"So I will stand and talk with my sister at the temple of my G.o.d for as long as I need. And should you choose to insult me again, I will kill you. Do you understand?"
"I understand," said Garan, speaking fluently in elvish. "I understand that standing here is wasting time you don"t have. I know that Sildaan is right and that those who refuse to see what is coming risk bringing disaster on the Ynissul."
"I have no need to debate this with you," said Leeth. "You are nothing. Hired muscle."
"You are driving me spare, Leeth," said Sildaan. "Why must you do this?"
"Because we must do this right or we are betraying every elf and leaving sc.u.m like this to march unhindered into Yniss"s blessed country."
Sildaan beckoned him away from Garan.
"What is it that you want, Leeth?"
"I want you to promise me you will not strike down another Ynissul. TaiGethen or otherwise. I want you to accept you are not the arbiter of the fate of any of our people. You nor those above you. Sildaan?"
"I cannot do that," said Sildaan, speaking quietly, voice barely audible over new rain falling in a torrent. "And I am desolate that I cannot make you understand why."
"Then I cannot walk with you," said Leeth, and there were tears in his eyes. "We cannot return to a rule by fear. It is you who must move with the times. We must command respect to be obeyed."
Sildaan walked up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. He felt a surge of sadness. Almost grief.
"I know. But we cannot achieve that goal without conflict. No elf will bend the knee simply because we ask them. Why won"t you see that?"
"If they will not then we are not fit to rule again."
"Oh, Leeth. We cannot miss this chance because if we do we will be in thrall to Tualis or Beethans. They will not be so timid as you."
"Takaar has taught us that conflict is not the way forward. Whatever his failings, he was the one who ended the War of Bloods. This path will lead to disaster."
"Then you must follow a different one."
Sildaan pulled him into an embrace. After the briefest pause, he clung to her and began to weep. Not for a moment did he expect the knife which slid up under his ribs and pierced his heart. He gasped and clung on tighter.
"Safe journey to the ancients. One day you will bless my way and we will walk again together."
Leeth felt no pain. His legs gave way and Sildaan knelt with him. He stared at her while she wiped blood from his mouth and nose.
"Your way will see us all to death," managed Leeth.
"Quiet now. Leave your hate here. Travel free."
Leeth"s eyes closed. He could not stop his body sliding to the ground. The stone was chill on his cheek. He prayed to Shorth to embrace his soul. Dimly, he felt Sildaan withdraw her knife. He could not muster any anger, just an overwhelming sadness.
Leeth breathed in but blood was filling his lungs, drowning him. He tried to open his eyes but he had not the strength. He heard voices echoing around him.
"Shorth, take your soul to the blessed embrace of Yniss. Let Tual"s denizens use your body. Let the forest reclaim you. Let your sacrifice not be in vain," said Sildaan.
"It was the only option you had," said Garan.
"I loved him. But what we face is greater than any love for one ula. You, I detest. Work out how much I value your life."
Leeth shed a single tear.
Chapter 4.
Belief in your body is the root of survival.
"Look at you, beautiful beast."
And look at you crawling on your belly like the reptile you love so well. Appropriate.
Takaar twitched in anger, his legs rattling undergrowth. The snake turned in his direction, lifted and flattened its head. Its body curled in under it. It stared at him, deep brown iris surrounding a black pupil. Takaar stilled completely, ignoring the entreaties of his tormentor to reach out a hand and embrace his death at the bite of this stunning creature.
Instead, he continued his study. Around him and across him, insects crawled and leeches clung. The taipan"s tongue sampled the air. It was better than eight feet long and a reddish dark brown in colour on its back and sides. Underneath, the scales were a yellower colour. It had a round, snouted head and its neck was quite dark, an almost glossy black.
It could kill him if it so chose. Or it thought it could.
"So shy," he whispered. "So powerful."
The most venomous in the forest, he thought, but that was still to be determined for sure.
"Will you help me, I wonder? I will not hurt you, I promise."
The taipan relaxed its posture; its head moved back to the forest floor. It nosed into the leaf litter. Takaar came very slowly to a crouched position. The snake ignored him for the moment, intent on some prey or other.
"But that will have to wait, deadly friend." Takaar chuckled. "First a test for you."
Takaar rustled a handful of leaves. The taipan was poised in an instant, no more than four feet from him. The pair stared at each other, the taipan"s body moving slowly beneath it. Takaar moved his body gently from side to side, noting the mirror movement of the snake"s raised neck.
"Good," said Takaar. "Now then . . ."
Takaar twitched his body. The taipan struck, head moving up and forward with astonishing speed. Takaar"s right hand shot out. His fist closed around the snake"s neck, right behind its head. Its jaws opened and shut, scant inches from Takaar"s face. Its body coiled and jerked, furious at its capture. Takaar held on. The snake coiled hard around his arm, squeezing.
Takaar pressed his fingers against the hinges of the snake"s jaws, forcing them open. The taipan"s fangs were not long, less than an inch. Not hinged like some vipers he had examined. The inside of the mouth was pink and soft. So much death contained within. Takaar smiled.
"You"re a fierce one, aren"t you? I"ve been wanting one of you for a long, long time, you know that? Hmm."
Takaar turned and walked back to his shelter, which lay a short distance inside the edge of the rainforest where the trees met the cliffs overlooking the glory of the delta at Verendii Tual. The air was fresher here, beyond the suffocating humidity deep under the canopy. His shelter had become a sprawling affair. Part skin bivouac, part thatch and mud building. He headed for the building, next to which stood his third and best attempt at a kiln. A few trial pots rested on a rack next to it.
The taipan had relaxed, its struggles ceasing. Takaar could feel its weight on his arm. A fascinating creature. He glanced down at it. Those eyes stared where he determined, his grip on its head as firm as in that first moment. Takaar ducked his head and entered the building. It was dark inside but his eyes adjusted very quickly.
Shame you didn"t choose to let it bite you. Why do you continue this pathetic charade?
"If it was any of your business, which it isn"t, I would explain in greater detail. But suffice to say that the mind must be active or the inevitable descent to madness begins."
Begins? For you that journey is a fading memory.
"Madness is subjective. All of us exhibit the signs to a greater or lesser extent. I have some. So do you. It is the way of things. At least I am building something useful. What is it that you will leave behind you?"
Your corpse being devoured by the beasts you worship.
"I will leave truth."
And you have been so diligent in constructing your own truth, haven"t you?
"Can we talk about this later? I"m a little busy."
I just fail to see why you pursue this folly. How can you leave a legacy in a place where no one will ever find it? That is why you"re here, right? To make sure no one ever finds you, alive or dead.
"You miss the point of my penance."
I miss the point of your continued existence entirely.
Takaar focused back on his task. There was a table along one wall of the building, the result of a number of experiments in binding legs to tabletops. The surface was a little rough and uneven, cut from a fallen hardwood tree, similarly the legs. They were notched and grooved to slot together and then bound with liana and some young strangler vine. The table rocked a little but it served.
The tabletop was tidy. Obsessively so, said his tormentor, but it did not do to be confused about what lay in each of the small, wood-stoppered clay pots. They stood in rows down the left- and right-hand sides, leaving s.p.a.ce in the centre for new work. He had etched a symbol into each stopper representing a particular herb or animal extract. He recorded the code, carving into pieces of hardwood he"d polished for the purpose.
A single clay pot half the size of Takaar"s hand sat in the middle of the table. Across it was stretched and tied a circle of cloth from Takaar"s dwindling supply of fine fabric. He picked up the pot, forced open the jaws of the taipan and hooked its fangs over the lip of the vessel. The cloth triggered the bite reflex and the taipan released its venom against the side of the jar. Impossible to see exactly how much, but he carried on milking until the snake tried to withdraw.
"There, my friend. No pain. You are one of Tual"s denizens and I have no wish for you to come to harm."
I doubt it feels the same way about you.
Takaar ignored the comment. He ducked outside the hut, walked away forty or so yards and released the reptile back into the forest, watching it slide quickly and effortlessly away, disappearing beneath the deep undergrowth and leaf fall.
"Now then. To work."
Takaar had eaten well that morning. Fish from the tributary of the River Shorth that ran not three hundred yards from him, spouting into a fabulous waterfall down the cliffs a little way to the south. He would need all the strength of that last meal in the hours to come, if his suppositions were correct.
Going back into his hut, Takaar glanced around at the walls and table as he always did.
"Should I die today, what will be the judgement of the elves when my work is found?"
That you are a filthy coward who has researched a thousand ways to die and yet has not the courage to use any of them on purpose. The fact that your death was an accident would be the final insult.
"Why do I listen to you?"
Because deep down in the dying embers of your sanity and morality, you know that I am right.
Three hundred pots sat on rough shelves around the walls. Each one marked and named on the carved wood hanging at the right-hand end of each shelf. Too few had detailed descriptions of properties, effects and the more complex notes on mixing and various cooking methods, but even if he did die today, if was a start. A bright TaiGethen or Silent priest could take it on.
Takaar pulled his fine knife from his boot. He"d spent day upon day honing the blade to little more than a spike with a needle tip. He took the cloth lid from the venom pot and looked inside. The taipan had yielded a decent amount of the toxin. More than enough to kill him a hundred times over.
Takaar dipped his knife point into the pot and withdrew it, a.s.sessing the small teardrop glistening on it. It was mid-sized in his terms. A gamble given what he"d seen out in the wild. He did his last equipment check. Saw the food, the water, the cloths and the hollowed-out log bucket. They sat next to a hammock raised three feet from the ground between the two tree trunks around which he"d built the hut.
Takaar p.r.i.c.ked his skin with the blade point, just on the underside of his wrist. He breathed very deeply. This was the time when he felt exhilaration and empowerment. The time to join with nature in a way no TaiGethen, no elf, had ever done. To survive was to understand more. And to find another weapon to use against the Garonin.
Are you really so deluded? Actually, I suppose you are. The Garonin are gone. You ran away from them and slammed the door in their faces, remember? Or does that not fit with your convenient truth?
"Now there you really are wrong. You never escape the Garonin. Trust me. They"ll be back."
Trust is not something anyone will have in you ever again.
"That is part of my penance. Now shush. I have symptoms and reactions to feel."
The world will be a richer place if you have overdosed this time.
Takaar ignored his tormentor. He stood tall and breathed deeply, trying to speed the venom around his body. He ran on the spot, pumping his arms, feeling his heart rate increase. Nothing. Nothing while the sun crept around the forest a notch and the rain began to fall from the clouds that moved to cover it.
"Too slow," he said. "Too slow."
The poisonous secretions of the yellow-backed tree frog were far quicker to act on the elven body. Indeed, he"d have been unable to stand already and he"d be fighting to breathe. The taipan"s venom was slow and that was a disappointment. So far, all he could note was a slight blurring of his vision and an unsteadiness in his step. Still, everything had its uses.
Takaar moved towards his hammock. His head felt thick and there was an ache beginning to grow at the back of his skull. He swallowed. Or he tried to. There was difficulty there. Takaar raised his eyebrows.
"Better."
Takaar put a hand on the left tree trunk, ready to lever himself into the hammock. He felt hot. Sweat was beading on his brow and under his arms. A pain in his stomach added to that in his head. His eyes misted over and he swayed. The symptoms may be slow to appear but they were comprehensive when they arrived.
Takaar found he had his whole arm wrapped around the tree trunk to keep himself upright. He didn"t remember making the move. He lifted a leg to get himself in-
Sildaan was screaming at someone. Words that Silent Priest Sikaant could not make out had disturbed his meditation. The priest broke the seal on the chamber of relics in which he had spent the last three days and pushed open the door. From his left, grief and anger was coming from the worker village set behind the temple. To his right, across the dome and out onto the ap.r.o.n, the air smelled wrong. Sildaan"s voice echoed against the walls of Aryndeneth, ugly and discordant.
Sikaant shivered. There was a deeper chill in the temple than the blessed cool imparted by the ancient stones. He crossed soundlessly beneath the dome, his eyes fixed on the bright square of the open doors. Two priests stared out from the shadow. They stood shoulder to shoulder and just to the left of the opening.
Sildaan"s words began to reach him with a clarity he regretted when he heard them. No longer shouted but strident and terrible. Heretic.