Her eyes scanned the ancient buildings. Just four hundred of the Dianae remained - not enough to survive and grow.
"Why do you see the lions as G.o.ds?" Chreena had asked the old Priest, Men-chor. "They lose the power of speech and become mindless."
"The tale of Elder days," he replied, smiling as he closed his eyes and began to recite the opening of the Book. "First there was the G.o.ddess Marik-sen, who walked under the sun and knew no words, nor ancient stories, nor even the name of her father, nor even that her father had a name. The Law of the One touched her and her name was born. And she knew. Yet in knowing she also realised that she had lost a great gift - something wonderful - and it grieved her. Her son was born, but was no G.o.d. He was a man. He spoke like a man, and walked like a man. He knew his name and the name of his mother, and many more names. But he too sensed a loss: an empty place in the depths of his soul. And he was the father of the Dianae, and the people grew. And they lived in the Great Garden, with the walls of crystal. But one day the Law of the One was a.s.sailed by many enemies. The land was in turmoil, the walls split asunder and great waters destroyed the garden. The Dianae themselves were almost destroyed. Then the waters subsided and the people gazed upon a different world. The Law of the One visited his presence upon Pen-ran, and he became the Prophet. He told us what was lost and what was gained. We had lost the Road to Heaven, we had gained the Path to Knowing. He was the first to lead us here, and the first to leave the Path and find the Road."
The old man opened his eyes. "There is far more, Chreena, but only the Dianae could understand."
"You believe that knowledge prevents you from seeing Heaven?"
"It is the great barrier. The soul can exist only in purity. Knowledge corrupts, it fills us with dreams and desires. Such ambition keeps our eyes from the Law of the One."
"Yet a savage lion knows only hunger and l.u.s.t."
"Perhaps. But he does not slay wantonly, and if his belly is full a young antelope can walk to a pool beside him and drink in safety."
"You will forgive me for not sharing your ... faith?"
"Even as you have forgiven me for not sharing yours. Perhaps we are both correct," said Men-chor. "For do we not have similar origins? Did you not also originate in a Garden, and were you not also cast from it? And did you not also, with the sin of Adam and the crime of Cain, lose the Road to Heaven?"
Chreena had laughed then, and politely conceded the argument. She liked the old man.
But she had one last question.
"What happens when, like the Bears, all the Dianae are lions?"
"We will all be close to G.o.d," he told her simply.
"But there will be no more songs."
"Who knows what songs are heard in the heart of a lion? But can they be more discordant than the songs of death we hear from Beyond the Wall?"
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
Shannow left the stallion at the stock paddocks, paid the hostler to grain-feed and groom the beast, then hitched his saddlebags over his left shoulder and made his way to the Traveller"s Rest, a three-storey building to the west of the town. They had one room vacant but the owner - a thin, sallow-faced individual called Mason - asked Shannow if he could wait for an hour while they "cleaned it up".
Shannow agreed and paid for a three-day stay. He left his saddlebags behind the counter and walked into the next room where a long bar stretched some fifty feet. The barman smiled as he entered.
"Name it, son," he said.
"Beer," ordered Shannow. He paid for the drink and took the br.i.m.m.i.n.g jug to a corner table where he sat with his back to the wall. He was tired and curiously on edge; his thoughts kept drifting to the woman with the wagon. Slowly the bar began to fill with working men - some straight from the mine, their clothes black, their faces streaked with grime and sweat. Shannow cast his eyes swiftly over each newcomer. Few wore pistols, but many carried knives or hatchets. He was ready to move to his room when a young man entered. He was wearing a white cotton shirt, dark trousers and a fitted jacket of tanned leather; and he wore a pistol with a smooth white grip. Watching him move, Shannow felt his anger rise. He pulled his eyes from the newcomer and finished his beer. They always looked the same, bright-eyed and smooth as cats: the mark of the hunter, the killer, the warrior.
Shannow left the bar, collected his belongings and climbed the two flights to his room. It was larger than he had expected, with a bra.s.s-fitted double bed, two easy chairs and a table on which sat an oil light. He dumped his bags behind the door and checked the window. Below it was a drop of around forty feet. Stripping off his clothes, he lay back on the bed and slept for twelve hours. He awoke ravenous, dressed swiftly, strapped on his guns and returned to the ground floor. The owner, Mason, nodded to him as Shannow approached.
"I could do with a hot bath," he said.
"Outside and turn to your left. About thirty paces. You can"t miss it."
The bath-house was a dingy shed in which five metal tubs were separated by curtains hung on bra.s.s rings. Shannow moved to the end and waited while two men filled the bath with steaming water, then he stripped and climbed in. There was a bar of used soap and a hard brush. He lathered himself clean and stepped from the tub; the towel was coa.r.s.e and gritty, but it served its purpose. He dressed, paid the attendants and wandered across the main street, following the aroma of frying bacon.
The eating house was situated in a long cabin under the sign of The Jolly Pilgrim.
Shannow entered and found a table against the wall, where he sat facing the door.
"What will you have?" asked Beth McAdam.
Shannow glanced up and reddened. Then he stood and swept his hat from his head. "Good morning, Frey McAdam."
"The name"s Beth. And I asked what you wanted?"
"Eggs, bacon ... whatever there is."
"They"ve got a hot drink here made from nuts and tree bark; it"s good with sugar."
"Fine. I"ll try some. It did not take you long to find work."
"Needs must," she said and walked away. Shannow"s hunger had evaporated, but he waited for his meal and forced his way through it. The drink was bitter, even with the sugar, and black as the pit, but the after-taste was good. He paid from his dwindling store of Barta coins and walked out into the sunshine. A crowd had garnered, and he saw the young man from the night before standing in the centre of the street.
"h.e.l.l man, it"s easy," he said. "You just stand there and drop the jug any time you"re ready."
"I don"t want to do this, Clem," said the man he was addressing, a portly miner. "You might kill me, G.o.ddammit!"
"Never killed no one yet with this trick," said the pistoleer. "Still, there"s always a first time."
The crowd hooted with laughter. Shannow stood against the wall of the eating house and watched the crowd melt away before the two men, forming a line on either side of them.
The fat miner was standing some ten feet from the pistoleer, holding a clay jug out from his body at arm"s length.
"Come on, Gary. Drop it!" someone shouted.
The miner did so as Shannow"s eyes flicked to the pistoleer. His hand swept down and up and the crack of the shot echoed in the street. The jug exploded into shards and the crowd cheered wildly. Shannow eased himself from the wall and walked around them towards the hotel.
"You don"t seem too impressed," said the young man, as Shannow pa.s.sed.
"Oh, I was impressed," Shannow a.s.sured him, walking on, but the man caught up with him.
"The name"s Clem Steiner," he said, falling into step.
"That was exceptionally skilful," commented Shannow.-"You have fast hands and a good eye."
"Could you have done it?"
"Never in a million years," Shannow replied, mounting the steps to the hotel. Returning to his room, he took the Bible from his saddlebag and flicked through the pages until he came to the words that echoed in his heart.
"And he carried me away in the spirit to a mountain great and high and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of Heaven from G.o.d. It shone with the glory of G.o.d, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal.
It had a great high wall with twelve gates and with twelve angels at the gates... The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it for the glory of G.o.d gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp... Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful... "
Shannow closed the book. A great high wall. Just like the one at the end of the valley. He hoped so. By G.o.d, he hoped so...
Awoken by the sound of gunshots, Shannow rolled from the bed and moved to the side of the window, glancing down into the moonlit street below. Two men lay sprawled in the dust; still standing was Clem Steiner, a pistol in his hand. Men were running from the drinking houses and the sidewalks. Shannow shook his head and returned to his bed.
In the morning he took his breakfast in the Long Bar, a simple bowl of hot oats and a large jug of the black drink, called Baker"s after the man who had introduced it to the area some eight years before.
Boris Haimut approached his table. "Do you mind if I join you, sir?" he asked diffidently.
Shannow shrugged and the small, balding Arcanist pulled up a chair and sat. The barman brought him a Baker"s and Haimut sat in silence for a while sipping it.
"An interesting mixture, Meneer Shannow. Do you know it also cures headaches and rheumatic pain? It is also mildly addictive." Shannow put down his jug. "No, no," said Haimut, smiling. "I mean that one acquires a taste for it. There are no harmful effects. Are you staying long in Pilgrim"s Valley?"
"Two more days. Maybe three."
"It could be a beautiful place, but I fear they will have more trouble here."
"You have finished work on the ship?" Shannow asked.
"We ... Klaus and I... were ordered to leave the site. Meneer Scayse has taken over."
"I am sorry."
Haimut spread his hands. "There was not much more to see. We dug further and found the ship was only a piece -it must have broken up as it sank. But any theory of it being a building was destroyed."
"What will you do now?"
"I will wait here for a wagon convoy and then journey back to the east. There is always an expedition to somewhere. It is my life. Did you hear the shootings last night?"
"Yes," said Shannow.
"Fourteen people have died violently here in the last month. It is worse than the Big Wide."
"There is wealth here," said Shannow. "It draws men of violence, weak men, evil men. I have seen it in other areas. Once the wealth is gone, the boil bursts."
"But there are some men, Meneer Shannow, who have a talent for lancing such boils, are there not?"
Shannow looked into the man"s pale blue eyes. "Indeed there are, Meneer Haimut. But it seems there are none such in Pilgrim"s Valley."
"Oh, I think there is one, sir. But he is disinterested. Do you still seek Jerusalem, Jon Shannow?"
"I do. And I no longer lance boils."
Haimut looked away - and changed the subject. "I met a travelling man two years ago who said he had been south of the Great Wall. He talked of astonishing wonders in the sky - a great sword that hung below the clouds, a crown of crosses above its silver hilt. Less than a hundred miles from it there was a ruined city of incredible size. I would sell my soul to see such a city."
Shannow"s eyes narrowed. "Do not say that - even lightly. You might be taken up on it."
Haimut smiled. "My apologies, sir. I forgot - momentarily - that you are a man of religion.
Do you intend to venture past the Wall?"
"I do."
"It is a land of strange beasts and great danger."
"There is danger everywhere, Meneer. Two men died on the street last night. There is no safe place in all the world."
"That is increasingly true. Since the last full moon there have been - in Pilgrim"s Valley alone - six rapes, eight murders, six fatal shootings and innumerable injuries from knife fights and other brawls."
"Why do you retain such figures?" asked Shannow, finishing his Baker"s.
"Habit, sir." He produced a wad of paper and a pencil from the bulging pocket of his coat.
"Would you do me the kindness, sir, of telling me the whereabouts of the giant ship you saw in your travels?"
For almost half an hour Haimut questioned the Jerusalem Man about the ghost ship and the ruined cities of Atlantis. Finally Shannow rose, paid for his breakfast and strolled on to the street. For most of the morning he toured the town. It was quiet at the western end, where most of the houses betrayed the wealth of the inhabitants, but towards the east where the buildings were more mediocre and flimsy he saw several scuffles outside taverns and drinking-houses. At the end of the town was a vast meadow, filled by tents of various sizes. Even here there were drinking areas, and he saw drunkards sitting or lying on the gra.s.s in various stages of stupor.
The town had sprung up around a silver mine and this had attracted vagrants like ants to a picnic. And with the vagrants came the brigands and the thieves, the dice rollers and the Carnal players. He left the Tent Town and moved back along the main thoroughfare. The sound of children singing came from a long, timber-built hall. He stopped for a while and listened to the tune, trying to place it. It was a pleasant sound, full of youth and hope and innocent joy; at first it lifted him, but this was followed by a sense of melancholy and loss and he walked on.
Outside the Traveller"s Rest a large crowd had gathered and a man"s voice could be heard, deep and stirring. Shannow joined the crowd and looked up at the speaker who was standing on a barrel. The man was tall and broad-shouldered, with thick red hair tightly curled. He wore a black robe belted at the waist with grey rope, and a wooden cross hung from a cord around his neck.
"And I say to you, brothers, that the Lord is waiting for you. All he wants is a sign from you.
To see your eyes lifted from the mud at your feet, lifted towards the glories of Heaven. To hear your voices say, "Lord, I believe." And then, my friends, the joys of the Spirit will flow in your souls."
A man stepped forward. "And then he"ll make us wear pretty black dresses like that one?
Tell me, Parson, do you have to squat to p.i.s.s?"
"Such is the voice of ignorance, my brothers," began the Parson, but the man shouted him down.
"Ignorance? You puking son of a b.i.t.c.h! You can take your puking Jesus and tell him go ..."
The Parson"s booted foot flashed out, catching the man under the chin and catapulting him from his feet. "As I was saying, dear friends," he continued, "the Lord waits with love in His heart for any sinner who repents. But those who persist in evil ways will fall to the Sword of G.o.d, to burn in lakes of h.e.l.lfire. Put aside evil and l.u.s.t and greed. Love your neighbour as yourself. Only then will the Lord smile on you and yours and your rewards will be all the greater."
"Do you love him, Parson?" shouted another man in the crowd, pointing down at the unconscious heckler.
"Like my own son," replied the Parson, grinning. "But children must first learn discipline. I will stand bad language, for that is the way of sinful man. But I will not stand for blasphemy, or any insult to the Lord. Faced with such, I will smite the offender hip and thigh as Samson among the Philistines."
"How do you feel about drinking, Parson?" called a man at the back.
"Nice of you to ask, my son. I"ll have a strong beer." As the laughter began, the Parson raised his arms for silence.
"Tomorrow is the Sabbath, and I will be holding a service beyond the Town of Tents. There will be singing and praise, followed by food and drink. Come with your wives, your sweethearts and your children. We"ll make a day of it in the meadow. Now where"s that beer I was promised?" He stepped down from the barrel and moved to the fallen man.