Chapter-2-4

⁠—⁠—⁠— IV ⁠—⁠—⁠—

The wind that coursed along Guin’s bared skin was cool and pleasant. To one lately accustomed to the dry inferno that reigned in the desert, the wind felt as refreshing as a plunge into cold water after a long day in the sun. A low, satisfied growl came unbidden from his lips, and he stretched his curled limbs. Then his right hand brushed against something hard and he felt the sting of an open cut across his fingers. The pain dragged him out of his half-sleep to full wakefulness. Reflexively, Guin sprang to his feet with a warrior’s speed, then sank into a fighting crouch. His eyes darted, scanning the surroundings.

“What in Doal’s name?”

When the sandstorm lifted him, he had surrendered his body to the forceful winds’ assault and his fate to the gods. He had known that if and when he woke again there was no telling where he would find himself. Even so, this place defied all his expectations.

“Is this Nospherus?” Guin’s voice dropped to a dubious whisper. Even in the darkness that surrounded him he could see that, Nospherus or not, he was certainly nowhere near the desert where he had begun the day.

“And what is this?” he muttered, reaching down a hand to touch the ground upon which he had lain. It was hard and cold, and slightly damp—a sandless, rocky terrain. He had wakened himself when his hand struck one of the giant boulders that lay all around him. The cold stone was slick with nighttime dew, and in its shade a damp moss was growing thickly. Even without close inspection, Guin could tell that the moss was entirely different from the desiccated lichens of the desert.

“My horse…” He looked around. His mount was nowhere to be seen. Slowly, he straightened and began a careful self-inspection to make sure he was in one piece. He seemed to have suffered innumerable abrasions over his entire body, and his pitted skin tingled with the pain, as if he had taken a long bath in a steaming tub of hot peppers. Yet he was relieved to find that he had suffered no serious injuries, no fracture or sprain that might slow him down.

My sword… Guin put his hand to his waist. Gone.

He looked around with shining eyes, but the heavy blade that he had worn was nowhere to be seen. Was I carried here while I slept by some sandflow pushed by the storm? Here, to these rocky hills?

He thought it entirely impossible. Other than the tortuous crags in the northeast where the Sem made their home, and perhaps some other outcrops in the unknown depths of Nospherus, all of the land between the Kes and the Kanan Mountains was a sea of sand. Furthermore, the place where Guin had encountered the sandstorm was right in the middle of that barren sea, only a half-day out of the oasis. Yet by the dampness of the air these mountains would have to be deep in Nospherus indeed; and, no matter how fast the sand had been flowing, or how violently the cyclone had snatched him from the earth, he did not think either sand or wind was capable of carrying his giant body so far.

Yet, the rocks around him and the cold stars that twinkled in the night sky above him were real enough; indeed, the rocks’ solid presence made the earlier storm seem, in contrast, like a dream.

Guin gave a wordless growl, and, choosing the highest of the boulders around him, he scrambled to its top, wary of hidden dangers as he went. Standing atop the great stone, he looked around in all directions. He growled again. Far below him he could see a wide, flat land, as smooth and flat as the calm sea.

Nospherus.

Then he lifted his head. Countless stars hung shining in the sky, so close it seemed as though he could reach up and touch them.

The Eye of Jarn…

Guin clenched a fist unconsciously as he scanned the sky for the Dawn Star, known as Jarn’s Eye, which hung forever like a guiding lantern in the eastern sky. There it was: near the peak of the rocky mountain that rose directly before him.

I’m well to the east of where I was. Could this actually be the Dog’s Head I’m standing on?

The mountain, with its peculiar canine silhouette, was one of the few clear landmarks in Nospherus, the highest peak in the Kanan range. On the near side of the featureless desert, the Sem used the Dog’s Head for all navigation. Places were spoken of as being so many days’ walk from Dog’s Head, or to lie on the left or right hand of the mountain. It was their surest point of reference, anchored in the solid bedrock beneath the shifting sands of the desert. If the peak towering over him really was the Dog’s Head, it meant that he had made it to the first waypoint of his journey.

But to be carried by the cyclone and wake up here, at the Dog’s Head…

Guin clenched his fist again. Unsettling though it was, he had to admit that he felt the workings of a conscious mind, as if something more vast and powerful than any human will had chosen his destination for him and then called on unearthly forces to bring him there.

Something manipulates me—determines my every move! I am merely taking the steps proscribed for me…

The leopard-man’s scarred body shivered. Fleetingly he recalled the bizarre dream that had come to him while he was lost in the storm. It was the kind of dream that seemed to be woven of the fabric of destiny itself—a dream that foretold change not just for Guin, but for the entire world. Yet this vague sense, of dire importance, was all that he could remember. All other details of the dream had been wiped clean from his mind.

He sighed and leapt down from the boulder. There were too many questions demanding answers that would never come, and he was more of a mind to make some progress in his journey than to sit in the wilderness contemplating the will of the heavens. To him and to those who cast their fate with him, the gods were very real, and very sacred. Trying in vain to understand their workings would have been an act of sacrilege.

In any case, he could sense that some higher power now desired him to seize the chance that was laid before him. Whether it was Janos Highgod, Jarn Fateweaver, or even Doal Demonlord himself, he did not know; but he felt that the gaze of a great being was upon him, and he was certain that this divine force was manipulating the events of his life, guiding him toward the fulfillment of his chosen role. The sandstorm, his miraculous transportation to the east, even his notion to seek the aid of the Lagon—all of these things could be but pieces of some higher being’s plan.

If so, then what? Then all men are merely spiders, weaving a predetermined web of life… moving and spinning out their days as something else sees fit.

Guin looked up at the mountain, considering his options. If he could not divine the meaning of the journey laid out before him, he could at least speed it to its finish. He seemed to be positioned in a scree field on the western skirts of the peak. The silhouette of the summit above him was dark as a square of black silk against the starry sky. Like a flea on a dog’s neck, he was too close to see whether he was perched upon the snout or the nape of the Dog’s Head he had seen from the desert. But it was clear from the considerable elevation and the cool damp of the night air that he was high upon the mountain. The desert floor of Nospherus had looked impossibly far below when he had climbed the boulder to scout out his position, but if it were daytime, and if the winds were blowing favorably, he might have been able to see the far-off Kes, or even the sprawling green of Gohra beyond it.

East—Rinda had said “go east.”

The revelations of the farseer echoed in his mind.

“Where the white stones dance upon the black mountain… Beware the death-wind…”

At night, the mountain on which he stood was black enough. Perhaps he would find white rocks ahead, and perhaps the death-wind was the cyclone that had deposited him here. Though in retrospect the cyclone seemed more of a lifesaver than a death-wind for having carried him so far.

Sifting these thoughts, Guin began to wend his way through the field of boulders. Losing his sword was an unfortunate blow, and though he still could rely on his great strength, his body ached from the battering it had taken. The storm had also stolen his supply of food and water. All that remained to him was a sharp, slender dagger tucked into his waistband which had somehow avoided being torn away, and some small strips of dried fruit he had carried in his pocket. These were meager possessions for defending himself from attack or starvation.

Still, he thought, scrambling up rocks and jumping down into hollows, making his way where there was no path, the horse would not have been much good in this terrain. And I’ve gotten through much worse before.

Suddenly he stiffened, startled by his own thought. For a moment he had a peculiar sensation that his memory had returned. But when he focused, trying to recollect anything—an emotion, a face—that might belong to the years he must have lived before appearing by the pool in the Roodwood, he was confronted once again by an empty, answerless abyss.

Try as he might to reach back to his past, everything but his own name was a blank. All he had left from the earlier days of his life was a conviction that, no matter what difficulty afflicted him or what mighty foe stood against him, in the end he would prevail. Whether it was with his sword or with his two strong arms, leading a massive army or a small company of elites, he knew that he would overcome any obstacle, he would cut through to his destiny. He did not know this as one knows facts that are learned or stories that are told; rather, he felt it to be true. It was clear to Guin that he had experienced much in his life. But what possible chain of events could have led to his sudden appearance before the twins—and in such a strange guise?

This question had lingered as a deep unease at the back of his mind since he had first joined Rinda and Remus after his uncanny rebirth in the forest. The unease had stuck with him, despite his confidence in the survival instincts that had seen him through any number of difficulties already. This was the basic question at the axis of his existence.

What could be down there in the depths of my memory? What fearful, terrible secret? Am I better off not knowing?

Guin rubbed the short, dense fur on his forehead with his hand. His skull was rounded, with an arched nose, while many short whiskers surrounded a maw set with vicious fangs. I have the head of a beast, he reminded himself for the thousandth time.

Was this indeed the head with which he had been born, or had a mask been set over his true human face, or was this a transformation brought about by some curse, some weird power of magic? Even this he did not know—he had not even a hint as to the true reason. Yet he had a strange feeling that, despite all the bizarre tricks that fate had played upon him, there were some aspects of his life that had not been bound, that his role in the world was not completely decided.

As he remembered it now, when he first appeared in the Roodwood he had truly been like an infant. Not only had he been unable to talk, he could not even drink or eat, and when he had tried to do these things he had found it horribly difficult; even such simple actions had brought him much pain. But now he felt as though he had lived long years with this leopard head, and that with it he was a wholly natural being. He drank, ate, and spoke with no difficulty, and even knew the tongue of the Sem wildlings. It was almost as if the deity that watched over him was fixing his progress, making adjustments as it saw fit.

How else could he have known the weakness of the yidoh, the tactics of Alzandross, the basics of war and politics in the Middle Country? How else could he have been so highly skilled with the longsword, the spear, and the crossbow?

What am I? What is my purpose? Does something use me as its puppet, its avatar in this world, moving me according to its desires?

Surely something does… but what?

His thoughts had spun back to that central unanswerable question.

Do I have no limits? If something in heaven controls me, and I am only moving along a predetermined path, do I have no limits as a man? With my strength, my endurance, my power, my skill in battle, what can I do? What was I meant to achieve? Or perhaps I was meant to be nothing at all. Perhaps I was not supposed to be. Perhaps I would be better off dead.

Guin trembled. His thoughts now roamed into domains where the minds of men are unwise to stray. He knew well enough that he could answer that last question if he so wished. It would be as simple as drawing the dagger at his waist, or flinging himself from one of the many ledges around him. Then he would soon know if he was an immortal puppet or a living thing with freakish form fated to die. But the cruel irony was that, if indeed he was a mortal man with a will of his own, he would have to die to be certain of it, and his death would render the knowledge useless to him.

Guin shivered once more, tore his eyes away from his dagger, and uttered the name of Janos.

Testing the gods, testing one’s own destiny, is the greatest of all sacrileges.

He shook his head like an animal shaking off water and put his frustrated introspections aside for another time. He had not stopped while he thought, his feet beating a steady, slow progress through the rocky terrain, and already he had covered a considerable distance. Hunger began to nip at his stomach, and thirst itched in his throat, but he feared eating what little he had too soon; and he felt no need for rest.

The cyclone had considerably reduced the length of his urgent journey. Still, there was no proof that the place of which Rinda had spoken, where the white rock danced with the black mountain, was where he expected to find it, on the other side of the Dog’s Head. There was also the chance that, even should he find the Lagon, his pleas would go unheard. If he did manage to persuade them, there was no guarantee that the Sem would be able to hold out long enough for their arrival to make any difference.

With the odds as they were, an ordinary man might not have sought to undertake the journey at all. It was crazy—an unrealistic dream. But Guin spat even as this thought came to him. He was through with thinking, he decided. He would cross into the land beyond the Dog’s Head and see what he could see. That was all he need think about.

His path now sloped upwards, continuing through terrain similar to that through which he had already traveled, damp shelves of stone strewn with loose boulders and rocks. The star-filled sky was close above his head. Even though this, too, was a part of Nospherus, its plants and animals were a world apart from those of the low-lying desert. No yidoh, no sand leeches, no bigmouths were here. All such beasts hid in the swells and lulls of the sandy sea below, making the white, dry, wind-blown desert their home, eking their bizarre lives out in its merciless hot climate. Many of them, from the bulbous yidoh to the tiny vampire flies and sprawling bloodmoss, specialized in sucking the blood and vital fluids of their prey. It was the easiest way to secure both water and nutrition in such a parched environment.

But, here in these rocks, the animals and plants lived lives that were much colder, although no less outwardly violent.

The moon came up and lit the ground at Guin’s feet, making his way somewhat easier to find. He pressed on up the steepening slope at a rapid pace, still with breath to spare. For a while, nothing hindered his progress. Jarn’s Eye shone high in the eastern sky, dozing far beyond Guin on his lone journey across Nospherus. In the endless sand-waves behind him were hidden the Sem camp at the oasis, and the night camp of the Mongauli. The desert was dark and silent, its calm face now showing no trace of so recently having been ravaged by the giant storm.

The gathering boulders closed in on either side of Guin’s path. They were now close enough together that he decided he could move faster by jumping from boulder to boulder—a strategy that would also allow him to see more of the surrounding landscape. Eyeing a handhold on the rock face to his right, he reached out with his hand and stepped up—

Immediately Guin gave a short howl and jumped back down.

The boulder before him, which had seemed as cold and life-less as all the others he had passed, had trembled warmly under his touch, and then come to life, reaching aggressively with stony pseudopods to grab at his outstretched hand.

His honed reflexes saved the leopard-man. He felt the warmth of the thing just as his hand was touching its surface, and leapt back, drawing the dagger from his waistband. A mouth opened in the rock-shape and lunged for him. Guin dodged aside, keeping his body well away from the reaching jaws, and plunged his dagger into the living boulder.

His blade hit something rubbery and unpleasant. But though the dagger cut deep, he could not tell whether the creature felt any pain at all.

For a third time, it came at him. This time he awaited its attack and, the very instant before it took him, lashed out with his right leg in a swift powerful kick to its underside. A stab of pain shot through his foot, but the living rock went flying upwards, split into two.

The bottom part rose only a few handspans before falling back to the ground with a hard thud. Guin eyed it warily, but it appeared to be no more than a normal rock. Meanwhile the upper half of the thing quickly lost its rounded shape, flattening into a sheet and spreading wide as it lifted higher in the air, then began to fall.

Guin’s foot kicked the descending creature just before it hit the ground, flipping it up and over. It tried to wrap around his leg, but it was too slow, and it ended up falling to the ground upside down. There it lay spread out, its underbelly squirming with countless white thread-like pseudopods. They grasped at the air, undulating in nauseating pulses. Without hesitation Guin knelt and used his dagger to cut the revolting creature into strips.

As he cut, he grunted under his breath: “A stone-mimic.” These were predators that used shapeshifting as camouflage. They lived by clinging motionless to the tops of boulders, looking just like their stony perches, until a hapless animal passed them by. Then they would seize and wrap around their prey, suffocating them even as they began to feed.

Guin muttered, “I don’t suppose these are edible.” He moved to put away his dagger, then suddenly tensed, ready for action. Some sixth sense was screaming danger.

His yellow eyes narrowed with suspicion, giving off a bestial light in the darkness. The hair rose on the back of his head and his feline nostrils flared. His upper lip drew back, baring long gleaming fangs, and an angry growl of warning sounded in his throat.

It was as though he had suddenly lost the half of him that was human and become, in an instant, a perfect and complete beast. Had some travelers come across him at just that moment, they would not have seen a man with the head of a great cat waiting there in the shadow. Rather they would have believed that they had stumbled across a giant, man-eating leopard, and the shock would have frozen them where they stood.

All the humanity had vanished from Guin’s eyes. He growled, low and threatening, and an eerie wild howl answered him, followed by the ragged breathing of some creature.

Then through the gap between two boulders he saw a pair of eyes shining, burning red as ghost-fires. As he watched, they multiplied, two pairs, three pairs, until suddenly they were everywhere, in the shadows throughout the boulders, in the countless dips and hollows of the slope. It was as though he had blundered into a convocation of will o’ the wisps.

Each pair of flames burned with a bloodlust that was unmistakable in its violence, savagely brightened by the cruel joy of the hunt. Ragged animal panting filled the night air, punctuated by short threatening growls. Then the musky stench of matted fur and bloody jaws assaulted Guin’s senses. The creatures’ voices closed in around him, changing now to short, excited breaths, filled with anticipation of the kill.

Guin moved swiftly to put a large boulder at his back. Then he stood without moving a muscle. His eyes flared with rage, as though he thought to defy all those demon-flames with his lone pair of fierce golden orbs.

His hand gripped his slender dagger tightly. For a moment he felt an acute chagrin at the loss of his sword, but soon even this thought faded from his mind to be replaced by the blank tension of battle-readiness, as vast and alert as the night. Slowly shifting his feet across the ground to find the best footing, he kept his eyes on the scrawny, voracious demons that had begun to slip into the clearing around him. Desert wolves!

Though they were named for the dunes of the desert, the wolves’ territory lay chiefly among the rocky crags that rose high above the sands. Now it seemed to Guin as if every wolf in all of Nospherus had come to assail him. He could hear the sound of the spittle dripping the fangs in their slavering maws as they lusted after the rare treat of fresh flesh that stood unsubdued before them. Their foul breath was chokingly thick in the air.

Defiantly Guin roared. As if responding to a signal, the first wolf leapt for his throat!