Paul Kearney - The Mark of Ran

As they entered the naked gateway of the tower the sun was cut off and they sighed with relief at the blessed shade. The stone of the ruin was cool to the touch despite the heat of the day, and they laid their hands upon it, forgetting their qualms. Gallico led them up a surviving stairway and they found that half of one upper floor had survived more or less intact. Here he bade them stretch out and rest. The company collapsed like a puppet show whose strings have been cut, too tired even to bicker amongst themselves. There were five or six hours until dark, and they fell asleep almost at once, sprawled on the stone, but Rol sat looking out of the perfect archway of one huge empty window, his gaze traveling across the sunblasted Flats to the blue heights of the mountains beyond, pale against an empty sky. Gallico sat with him, blotting the fresh blood from his wounds and studying his face.

“You should sleep. We’ll walk all night.”

“I’m all right.”

They shared a few swallows of tepid water from one of the skins and Rol helped the halftroll bind up his dressings again. The scraped skin was already closing beneath them, and the deep gashes made by the coastal rocks had closed like brown-lipped mouths.

“You heal quickly.”

“You and I both, and all who partake of the Blood.”

Irritated without knowing why, Rol slumped back down again. “ The Blood. I wish I had never heard of it. I was a fisherman once, living a small life on a small island.”

“Dennifrey. I hear a touch of it in your voice. But you were never going to be a fisherman, Rol; I sense that in you at least. You are here for a reason. It is why I suggested Ganesh Ka. Do you think I would lead these others to it, were it not for you?”

“It’s such a special place, then?”

“It is a haven, one of the last for folk such as you and I. My village was another such place, and they burned it. They will not be happy until we are consigned to legend, and the Lesser Men have the world to themselves. Man has always feared what he cannot understand. You can try to bury yourself among them, but you will never succeed.”

“I succeeded well enough, these last seven years.”

“Is it so long since we drank beer together in Ascari?”

Firelit good fellowship in a smoke-filled tavern. The laughter of men. “Yes. It seems like a whole lifetime.”

“You have seen something of the world since then.”

“I am-I was-a mariner, nothing more. That is all I wanted out of life.”

“But no longer? Well, who knows-you may find something else to occupy you in Ganesh Ka. It, too, is old, and there are folk there who know much of the world past and present.”

“A city of pirates and scholars, no less.”

“If you like. Now I’m for sleep if you are not. Wake me if you begin to nod-someone must stay alert.” And with that Gallico’s massive head sank forward on his breast. Within moments he was snoring gently.

The sound of the sleepers’ breathing was the only thing Rol could hear. The Flats were concave, though over miles it was hard to realize. The wind might be blowing somewhere up in the washed-out sky but here it was dead and still as the air in a cellar.

Rol wiped sweat from his face, fought the urge to drink more water, and cursed himself for not letting Gallico take the watch. He was exhausted-more than that, he was worn, so that the very workings of his mind seemed dulled and leaden. He occupied himself with cleaning the grit and dust out of Riparian’s pistol. Retrieving a coil of match from his pocket, he found that it was almost dry despite its submersion that morning. He loaded the weapon-he had but four lead rounds to his name-and, finding his tinder wet, spread the filaments of wool and bark out on the stone to dry. Then he drew Fleam and checked the lustrous blade. It was, had he known it, the exact same storm-shade as his eyes, and there was no speck of rust upon it. He ran his finger down the hollow of the blood channel with something like affection, and then leaned forward slightly and kissed the metal. It was refreshingly cold, and he felt that shiver in his loins as it met his lips, the sort a boy might feel upon glimpsing the nakedness of a beautiful woman for the first time.

“What are you?” he murmured, but the sword was silent, cold. He slid her back in her sheath and felt the hungry disappointment through the hilt.

Something in his brain left off working, however, and when he opened his eyes again it was fully dark. The air was chill and blue about him but the stone of the tower had retained the warmth it had absorbed during the day and was pleasant to the touch. Everyone else was still asleep. But something else was moving, somewhere.

Again-a tiny scrape on the stairs, like someone’s foot shifting. Rol rose to his feet with all the stealth he could muster from the rags of Psellos’s training, and padded noiselessly to the top of the stairway. It was pitch-black now, though if he looked out of the tall surviving window of the place he could see the paleness of the earth below and, raising his eyes, the hard glitter of the stars. A lighter patch on the world’s rim spoke of the rise of the moon to come; it would be a mere sliver, a new moon. There was no breath of air to stir the dust in his throat and when he swallowed it felt as though he had sand coating his tongue.

He looked down the stairway, his night vision soaking up the blackness and making sense of it. There was someone standing at the foot of the stairs. Even his preternatural sight could make out only that it was a man or manlike, short in the legs and long in the arms, the limbs very fine. A shapeless lump of a torso, and a head oddly sunk into the shoulders, almost domelike. No neck to speak of, or any feature where the face should be. But he knew it was watching him. He was not afraid; in fact, he felt the strangest sense of pity.

“Who are you?” he asked.

The thing disappeared so quickly he almost lost track of it. He drew Fleam, the moment of calm broken, and pelted down the stairs. Out of the ruined gateway he ran until the vast bright arch of the night sky was all above him, the welkin ablaze with more light than he had thought stars could make, mare’s tails and filigrees of diamond in the black. The Gorthor Flats ran out all around him in a featureless blank, and closer to, the broken fragments of the tower lay in skewed lines and mounds. There was no sign of the visitor and the night air was icy and still.

Gallico appeared at his shoulder, fast and quiet despite his size. “What was it?”

“I don’t know. An Ur-man perhaps. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The halftroll sniffed the air and it came out of his gaping nostrils again in two gray spumes. “Yes, they have been here. Time to go. They may be a while gathering yet.”

“Gallico, it was not threatening. And it ran from me.”

“To fetch its pack-brothers, you may be sure. They never hunt alone. Come-let’s get the others on their feet. The tower is no longer safe.”

The party set off across the Flats, cursing the brevity of their interrupted rest and shivering in the cold of the desert night. All but Rol and Gallico found themselves tripping and stubbing toes on the deep cracks of the Flats as they set a fearsome pace northward. It was bitterly cold, and hunger had begun to bite into their strength despite a hurried meal of dried fish, wolfed down on the move. They had a mouthful each of water, gulped down as they half jogged in Gallico’s wake.

“What’s the rush?” Bartolomew complained. “Is this some kind of race?”

“Yes,” Gallico said shortly. “Keep your wits awake and your weapons to hand.”

“Who’s to attack us out here?” Rusaf complained. “Lizards? Beetles?”

“There,” Rol said, pointing. Gallico followed his arm. The flicker of movement was so brief as to be dismissed as a trick of the eye, but he nodded.