Twenty-Six

Sandon felt tired, exhausted, but still the storm battered him. More than once, he had almost dropped the lantern, not that it was doing much to pierce the strobing darkness. No sign. No sign at all of the Principal and Kovaar, though he’d been out here for what seemed like hours. They couldn’t have gone too far, he kept telling himself, but with Men Darnak’s frame of mind, that wasn’t a certainty either. Pretty soon now, he’d have to give up and return to the lodge, as much for his own self-preservation as anything, although he seemed to be spending half his life in the rain these days.

“Principal Men Darnak!” he called, and though he knew it was futile, he called again.

Something made him look over to his right, narrow his eyes and peer through the sheeting curtain. A flash of light and a rumble, and there, a clump of deeper darkness against the dark. He started in that direction. Twice he slipped, and once he almost lost hold of the lantern again. As he neared, he saw he had been right. The dark patch was a pair of figures huddled against the sodden hillside. Another flash illuminated the scene, and Sandon gritted his teeth at what he saw. The gaunt frame of Witness Kovaar was hunched over the old man, vainly attempting to cover him with a robe. Men Darnak pushed away from him, flailing against the sodden fabric and rolling on the muddy ground. As he got nearer still, Sandon understood what the priest was trying to do. Men Darnak had slipped out of his clothing, and lay naked, his emaciated frame completely exposed to the elements. Sandon swallowed back the shock of what he was seeing. It was as if the flesh had slewed from the Principal’s bones. The strong wiry frame looked strong no longer. It was all angles and joints, looking nothing more than brittle. How could such deterioration have happened so quickly?

He was about twenty paces away when he felt the first rumble beneath his feet. Witness Kovaar had noticed him, was beckoning him over, shouting something, but the wind whipped the words away. It didn’t matter; the man’s meaning was clear. Again came the feeling, and then the world lost solidity. It began slowly, shaking, trembling, subtly growing. Sandon’s feet went from beneath him, and he lost the lantern. It tumbled back down the hill, and he was left clutching at the scant vegetation, gripping with his hands at something that gave no purchase but sodden liquid earth running through his fingers. He pressed his face flat, hugging at ground that was suddenly trying desperately to buck him off. He had to ride it. There was nowhere else to go. He scrabbled forward, half crawling, half sliding, heading toward the Principal. With the old man in the state he was, Kovaar might need help. Sandon spat mud from his mouth, and scrambled forward again. And then the ground was still.

He struggled to a crouching position, crawled rapidly forward. He was almost on top of them when it came again. With one mighty heave, the ground tossed him up and away. Despite the violent shaking, he struggled forward again. Kovaar was trying to hold Men Darnak down, and it looked like he needed help. The ground was bucking and writhing beneath them, denying them purchase, denying them anything they could clutch on to.

Men Darnak was shouting, oblivious to the huge drops spattering against his face and body. Finally, Sandon was close enough to hear.

“Let me go, Priest! Leave me! The world wants to throw me off now. Let it. My son, my daughter. All gone. They cast me off. And now the world would do it too. Let me be! I have no place here. We should have known! Why didn’t we see it?”

“Principal, stay — ” Another shaking pounded the priest’s words from his mouth. “ — still! You have to stop moving!”

Sandon slithered desperately forward, fighting against the slope, fighting against the water, fighting against the heaving earth.

“Help me!” cried Kovaar.

Sandon thrust himself along the ground, stretched out one arm and clutched at Men Darnak’s shoulder, pinning him on one side. The old man tried to struggle from beneath his grip, but he was effectively pinned on the other side by Witness Kovaar. Still the ground tried to shake them off. Another violent spasm, and they were sent slithering down the slope that Sandon had just fought so hard to cross. Sandon could only think of what might be happening to Men Darnak’s naked skin as they slid across spines and rocks beneath the soggy ground surface. He felt behind him, trying to dig his free hand beneath the mud to find something solid to anchor them.

“Kovaar, we have to stop this slide,” he shouted across Men Darnak’s body.

Kovaar flung out an arm as well, trying to slow their descent. Somewhere below them lay the shards of a broken lantern, and Sandon was expecting at any moment to feel the razor edges sliding through skin. And still the ground bucked and heaved, trying to throw them free.

Men Darnak was laughing, his mouth open wide to the rain. The laughs were punctuated by coughing, but still he laughed.

“Do it now!” he screamed into the air. “Throw us away. Now you can. Now you can! Send us back to where we came from!” He subsided into spluttering laughter.

And just as suddenly, the ground was still, but the rain still beat down upon them, making pools and rivers on their exposed flesh. Sandon wiped his free hand on his robe, trying to get rid of some of the mud, so he could wipe the rain and hair out of his eyes. The other hand he kept firmly on Men Darnak’s shoulder.

“We have to get him back to the lodge,” he yelled at Kovaar.

The priest looked almost in as bad a state as the old man. He looked gray. He nodded again, water sluicing from his smooth head, and then, still holding one of the Principal’s shoulders, he managed to get his feet under him and stand in a semi-crouch. Sandon followed suit. Together, they lifted the old man to his feet.

Men Darnak’s head swung this way and that, his eyes round and dark like a terrified padder. “Who are you?” he said, making as if to push Sandon away, but apparently not having the strength. Sandon held tight to the old man’s shoulder.

“You!” shouted Men Darnak into Sandon’s face, above the noise of the wind, through the sluicing rain. “You will be cast off too! The Prophet knows your sins, like he knows the sins of all of us.” He pushed his face forward, looming white in the darkness, strings of soaking ice-colored hair hanging around his cheeks. “You will be judged just as I have been judged. The Prophet will strike you down!”

Sandon tried to ignore him. They had to get back to the lodge before the ground lost solidity beneath them. He didn’t believe they’d seen the last of it yet.

“Kovaar,” he yelled. “Help me get him back.”

The Priest nodded.

“But first we have to try and cover him.” Sandon, still trying to maintain a grip on Men Darnak’s shoulder, struggled out of the raincoat, releasing his grip once just to change hands. The Priest helped him pull the coat over Men Darnak’s head. This presented them with a new problem, for the material was slippery with the rain, and it made keeping a grip on the Principal’s shoulders all the more difficult. Holding as tightly as he could, Sandon tried to steer Men Darnak in the direction of the lodge. Kovaar appeared to understand his intention and moved to help.

“I am cold,” said the Principal. “Aren’t you cold, Priest?” Still his head swung slowly from side to side. “We can’t have you getting cold, now can we?” The old man’s feet shuffled through the mud. He laughed, and then his face became serious again. “The Prophet knows you have enough to suffer with. We need to get you warm. Where are we going? What are you doing out here? This is no sort of night to be out.”

Sandon frowned. The old man had no concern for himself at all apparently. All he seemed worried about was the priest’s well being. There were echoes there of the man who had once been, the patriarch of their entire world. Men Darnak cared about others, not himself. Sandon grimaced. He couldn’t afford to think about that now. The sooner they got the old man out of the rain and wind the better. Then, at least, Sandon might be able to talk to him and get some sense. He tried to pierce the gloom to make sure they were heading in the right direction, yet still maintaining his grip on the old man’s arm. Any explanation could wait, at least until they were inside the lodge.

Struggling against the wind and rain, wary that at any moment, the ground might start to shift beneath them, they finally made it back to the lodge, sodden and dripping mud as they stepped through the doorway.

“What is this, Kovaar?” hissed Sandon. “How could you let this happen?”

The priest waved his hand, forestalling discussion as they maneuvered Men Darnak to a chair and stripped off the raincoat. The old man sat huddled, naked and shivering, his pale flesh with a slightly blue-white tinge to it. Deep scratches marked his skin in places where the inhospitable ground had done its work. Fran leapt up from his place to join them, a horrified look on his face.

“Witness Kovaar, what can I do?” said the boy.

“You attend to the fire,” said Sandon. “Here, Kovaar, help me shift him closer.”

They struggled and managed to scrape the chair over to the fire. Sandon motioned to one of the other men. “Get some towels. Now, man! What are you waiting for?”

The man scurried across the room to do as he was bid. And yet, Witness Kovaar had still not said anything since they’d emerged from the storm.

As the men worked on getting Men Darnak dry and warm — someone had found some clean robes — Sandon turned to the priest with narrowed eye and set jaw.

“What’s happening, Kovaar?”

The priest looked at him impassively. “The world turns as the Prophet wills.”

“Do you not see the state he’s in?” hissed Sandon.

“There is a cycle within the world and outside of it. The Prophet’s will dictates our place in that cycle. The Church of the Prophet has waited a long time.” The priest’s voice was low and quiet.

“You’re not making sense.” Sandon glanced at the Principal. A touch of color was coming back to the old man’s features. Sandon grunted his satisfaction. He turned back to the priest. He could not have this conversation here. He gripped Kovaar by the arm and drew him to one side, out of earshot of the others.

“I don’t know what game you’re playing, Kovaar, but the Principal’s condition is not anything I would expect from a man like him. I warn you, if I think you have any part in the way he is, you’ll pay for it.”

“As the Prophet wills,” he said impassively, apparently unmoved by Sandon’s threat.

Sandon growled in frustration. “Damn you. You will talk to me. You can’t hide behind your blessed Church any more.”

“We all have our place. As the seasons change, so does the order of things. The season has changed.” Kovaar shrugged, turned and simply walked away to the other side of the room.

Sandon ground his teeth and closed his eyes, struggling hard to resist the urge to grab the man and shake him. He couldn’t afford a confrontation now. The priest would wait. His priority was Men Darnak and making certain he was all right. He crossed back to the fire and crouched in front of Men Darnak’s chair.

“Principal?”

The old man tore his gaze away from the fire, where he seemed lost in thought. “Ahh, my children around me.” He reached out a hand on either side, taking Sandon’s hand in one, and Fran’s in the other on the opposite side. “But you’re not my children. I know you. Where are my children now?” he asked, looking blankly, pleadingly, into Sandon’s face.

“Principal, you know. We have lost Roge. Tarlain has gone. Karin is who knows where. Probably at her estates with Yosset.”

“Lost.” He nodded slowly. “Yes, lost. Everything. They are gone, all of them.” He leaned forward. “And you. You have left me too.”

Sandon frowned. What he was saying didn’t seem to be getting through to the old man. He shifted position. His robe was still dripping water on to the floor beneath him, but that didn’t matter now. The fire’s warmth would soon have him dry. He looked across at Fran, clearly uncomfortable with his hand gripped firmly by the man he knew as his Principal. Sandon gave him a slight shake of his head, but the young man just returned the gesture with a confused look. Trying not to let the gesture be seen, he motioned Fran to rest still.

“Principal, you need to listen to me. We need to get you somewhere safe. Your estates. We will have to stay here tonight, because of the storm, but we will have to move as soon as we are able.”

Men Darnak frowned. “I have no place. Those that have everything become those that have nothing. Everything gone. Roge. Tarlain. Everything. Karin is not my daughter. How can she be, eh? What did I do? No, I will stay here. There is nothing for me anywhere else.”

Sandon tried to keep his voice calm. “Principal, this is no place for you.”

“There is no place for me,” he spat in response. “The Prophet has shown me. He would cast me from the world. I have failed. I don’t care. I don’t care.” He withdrew his hands, closed his eyes and shook his head. “No. There is nothing left to hear.”

Sandon stood and looked down at a frail, confused old man. Kovaar sat on a couch at the other side of the room, watching Sandon. Fran still crouched beside the old man’s chair. Sandon sighed, a deep emptiness welling up within him. How could this be the man to whom he had devoted his life? He had to try and make this right. He ran his hand across his forehead, through his hair and then rubbed the back of his neck. There had to be something he could do, something to alleviate the Principal’s condition. The hollow within him was a weakness he couldn’t afford. The old man needed him, needed him to be strong.

He ran the possibilities through his head, and the only answer he could come up with was Tarlain. With Roge gone, Karin being Karin, and all other support having faded away like the light of the Major Twin, there was no other choice. Briefly, he toyed with the idea of the Atavist community, but that was no real answer. No, it had to be Tarlain. Tarlain, young, impetuous, and hiding out somewhere near the mines. It wasn’t much of a choice. He glanced at Fran. The boy would leave in the morning and try and find him, depending on whether the storm had broken by then. That, at least, was a start. Perhaps with Sandon’s help, the Men Darnak boy might be able to do something to help his father. And meanwhile, the storm still howled and grumbled around them. He glanced across at Kovaar, and the priest was still watching him. He looked away again. Just for a moment, he wondered, was it Kovaar or the Church that had the agenda?

An insistent pounding on the door cut Sandon’s thoughts short. Without waiting for an answer, the door was flung wide with a sudden blast of moisture and cold air. In the doorway stood a figure, covered in wet weather gear and holding a lantern. The man stepped inside, leaving the door open behind him, oblivious to the weather that followed him into the small space.

“Where is the Principal? I come from Guildmaster Ka Vail.”

Fran got to his feet. “Bilard! What are you doing here?”

The man lowered his lantern, taking in the scene in front of him. “The Guildmaster sent me and a couple of others out to look. He was worried about Principal Men Darnak.”

Here perhaps was Sandon’s answer. “Come in, man. Close the door behind you.

Bilard gestured behind him. “But what about the others?”

“They’ll be fine for a minute or two. Just come in and close the door.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven