Chapter-3-3
——— III ———
Morning had come to Nospherus, and the harsh light of the desert sun burnished the jagged peaks of the mountains.
Guin woke to the sensation of a cold, wet nose thrust hesitantly at his hands. His eyes opened with a start and he jumped to his feet to see the Wolf King standing beside him, his fur shining white like high-mountain snow in the glow of morning. The great wolf stared at him with large, silver eyes.
“I was dreaming.” Guin spoke to the beast with casual familiarity, as though he had been living here on the Dog’s Head, running with the wolf pack, for many years. “I dreamt I was a king. There was a shining crown upon my head, and holy priests draped the purple vestments of royalty on my shoulders in the high temple of Janos. And the people—there were great and joyous crowds, and they were calling for me, calling my name.
“I remember seeing the Dawn Star. I clasped it in my hand, and when it slipped free and sought to escape I chased after it, against the wishes of my people who would have me stay. I threw down my crown and my scepter and my robes, until I was free of all tokens, a simple warrior once more.
“I remember walking on a long, red road, though I know not where it led. Then suddenly a strange wizened fellow appeared before me. He had one eye in the middle of his forehead, long flowing whiskers, and the body of a goat from the waist down. He wore a triangular cloth upon his head, and in his hand he bore a gnarled, crooked staff.
“Even as I looked upon him his single eye flared red. He struck me with the staff, yelling, ‘Fool! Go back! Take back the throne of the dragon…’”
Guin scratched his head, puzzled. “I’m sure the old goat-man was Jarn Fateweaver. But what could it mean—the message, and the dream?”
The wolf gave no answer; instead he silently nuzzled Guin’s arm with his nose, drawing the warrior’s attention to the breakfast he had brought for him. Guin smiled and patted the great wolf on his head. Then he busied himself peeling off the sand lizard’s rough skin. Then, breaking the sweet cactus in two, he began to eat. Despite his incredible adventures of the day before, Guin had rested well, and his limbs felt full of energy. All his fatigue had been wiped away.
The Wolf King stood quietly watching the ravenous warrior devour the wild morsels that made up his breakfast. Occasionally Guin glanced up to marvel at the silvery-white animal before him that seemed to combine the magnificence of a wild beast with an awareness that was somehow human—and yet possessed an aura of power far greater than those of such mortal creatures.
When the leopard-man had finished eating, the Wolf King gazed deliberately into his face as if to ask him if he was satisfied. Then, nuzzling Guin once more with his nose, he turned and began to trot away. Guin sat, watching him go, but when the wolf saw that he was not moving, the great animal promptly returned and with an air of irritation put his jaws on Guin’s hand and tugged, taking care not to bite too hard. Then he trotted away again in the same direction—towards the peak of Dog’s Head Mountain—his white tail swaying back and forth behind him as he went.
“First you’re my savior, now you’re my guide. When will the wonders cease?” Guin asked, rising to follow the retreating wolf. “Maybe old man Jarn sent you? I wonder if you know that I have just two and half days to find the Lagon and bring them back to the Sem? But then, if you’re going to show me the right path to follow, you may well convince me that you’re not sent by Jarn, but are Jarn himself, in one of his hundred forms. Come to think of it, the old man’s whiskers in my dream this morning were white like yours.”
Jarn or no, you and the cyclone that brought me here were both heaven-sent. Someone up there is telling me to do something, here on the slopes of the Dog’s Head, that much is clear.
Guin shook his head. He was forgetting where he was: Nospherus, a land forsaken by the gods. Sandstorms, even cyclones like the one the day before, were not all that uncommon, though certainly most were smaller than the roving cataclysm that had carried him into the mountains. It might just have been a coincidence that the cyclone had been moving in the direction he wished to go, mere chance that it had picked him up and taken him along his path. It may also have been presumptuous of him to assume that the Wolf King had been sent on some divine mission, for that matter. Everything that had happened in the last two days could be no more than the whim of fortune. And the Wolf King’s strange behavior—well, beasts such as he that had grown to an incredible age were known for their wisdom and strange powers of perception. He could be acting entirely on his own, for purposes known only to him.
There was no need, thought Guin, to be overly superstitious about the events of the past day, uncanny though they seemed. It’s the future I need to think about. He followed the Wolf King, while his eyes ceaselessly darted across the slopes and rocky hollows, looking out for danger.
After a short distance the Wolf King stopped and peered back to make sure that Guin was following. Seeing that the leopard-headed warrior was indeed keeping pace a ways behind him, he turned back around and set off more quickly than before, glancing back after every five or six motad to make sure that Guin still followed. Though Guin now found himself walking quite fast, he knew that the wolf was going much slower than he could have, for Guin’s benefit.
The course they took went steadily uphill, toward the mountain’s peak. They seemed to be headed for the narrow pass that crossed directly over the head of the dog, weaving between the high crags that jutted out on either side to form the ears. Guin had come a considerable way up the mountainside while fleeing from the wolf pack the night before. Still, the winding path they now took up the last stretch below the summit was surprisingly long and steep. The two ears appeared almost close enough to touch, yet no matter how long they walked they never seemed to reach the top.
The unlikely companions continued up the mountain in silence. Guin was drawing on his animal endurance now, never stopping as a man might to wipe the sweat from his brow nor pausing to catch his breath. When a boulder-fall blocked his path, he swiftly climbed up and over it. When the path changed to a ledge along a cliff-face, he carefully sidestepped along it, never falling far behind his swift-footed guide.
The scenery was not the kind that made for a pleasurable climb. The Dog’s Head was a rocky, Nospherus peak, and though it was nominally part of the Kanan range, it jutted out alone into the desert, far from the main spine of the mountains. Although it was less tall than many of the lofty Ashgarns to the north, it had no rival in the parched desert nearby, and it could bee seen clearly from a great distance across the dunes.
The mountain looked like nothing so much as a mythic creature, a huge and sharp-faced dog that had sat so long in the stony sand that at last it had changed to rock itself. Though wolves lived in its skirts, and other desert creatures roamed its lower rifts and gullies, there was no green copse of trees to adorn its rugged slopes. In fact, nothing at all grew upon the higher ridges aside from the stone-mimics and a dry, gray lichen. Lower down, where Guin had found himself deposited by the sandstorm, there were thickets of sparse, thorny shrubs and cacti, but above them the mountain was as barren as the sands of the desert floor.
It was a difficult and increasingly tedious climb. The rock surface where the boulders had tumbled and split was the same ashen gray as that of the wolves, and its harsh contours gave no welcome to any grass or flower that might have hoped to catch in a cranny and grow. Once or twice the leopard-man glimpsed gray rock lizards scuttling across the stone; these along with the slender rocksnakes and scurrying alpine insects were the primary food source of the desert wolves that made these heights their home. Guin wondered where all the wolves that had assailed him the night before had now gone. Not a single one crossed the path of the Wolf King and the strange interloper he now led toward the summit.
The sun had already risen quite high in the eastern sky. There was no obstruction of tree or cloud in the Nospherus highlands to block its rays, and the difference between the chilly nights and the blazing days was dramatic—and harshest of all here up the Dog’s Head. The cycle of fiery sun and frozen night had given the rocks a hard sheen and kept even the hardiest of mosses from gaining purchase on the dry crags.
Guin walked, half in a dream, along the monotonous ashen-gray path. The glare off the rocks gradually put him in a sort of trance, and his mind wandered through the bizarre landscape that surrounded him. Up here is the true no-man’s land, he thought. There are many mysteries in the world, half of which man may never see or understand in this age. In Nospherus alone there are numberless places where no man has ever tread, gullies and crannies teeming with strangeness. Guin felt suddenly that he was in the presence of some unearthly will, as invisible and yet as real as the dry wind upon his face. It was almost as if the land had a fierce awareness of its own.
In a sense, the vast desert and rocky hills of Nospherus that stretched from the Kes River seemingly to the very edge of the world formed a single living entity, and the yidoh and bigeaters that dwelt in the wild land and the sandstorms that scoured its surface were nothing more than parasites upon it. This, then— the malevolent life-force of the land itself—was the source of the unnatural aura that hung in the air, indefinable but nonetheless distinctly present for Guin, the twins, and every soldier in the Mongauli expeditionary force. Each of these travelers in Nospherus had a sense that there was always something there, watching them, but look though they might, all they could ever see was sand and rock and sky.
Still, the reality of the place had a way of sinking in. Something about Nospherus was wrong, something more than its strange tangled chain of life, its monstrous flora and fauna, though these were peculiar enough. There was something in the land itself that was twisted. Those who crossed the Kes might not understand it, but they could feel it in their very blood.
Guin knew that it had not always been this way. He knew it the same way he knew the words of the Sem tongue and the history of the realms of the Middle Country. He could not remember learning it; the information was simply there. Nospherus had not always been the cursed home of Doal-spawned monstrosities and wildling tribes, Guin thought to himself now. He paused, gazing out across the ravaged land. The Wolf King shot him a questioning look and came back to him, brushing alongside his leg.
This is where the great Empire of Kanan, built by the Sun King, RaIIah, once laid its long roads. All Nospherus was its glorious domain, a vast empire thriving between sand and rock. The Kananites used the desert and the mountains as natural defenses; they rode in boats that could sail the sands, and great waterworks carried their water from the high mountains so that even in the midst of the desert there was never thirst or drought. The glory of Kanan was greater than that of any kingdom in the Middle Country today…
Then Guin recalled the story told in Alzandross’ History, of how a strange disaster had befallen the Empire of Kanan, a punishment sent down from the heavens that turned the majestic palaces and wide boulevards into dust overnight. Since then the domain of Kanan had been deserted and had lain unclaimed by any lord to the present day.
What happened to Nospherus? What could have destroyed such a mighty empire, and left nothing alive on the sands it once ruled but worms and foul yidoh? What could have taken the good-hearted people of Kanan, whose stories are sung in the tales of old, and left in their place only barbarous wildlings?
It was, to Guin, an utter mystery. Had he known the real reason that the Mongauli court had taken a sudden interest in Nospherus, the terrible secret that had spurred their daring incursion into the desert—the tale that Cal Moru, spellcaster of Kitai, had told of the valley of Gur Nuu that lay deep in the desert’s interior—he might have suspected that the valley and the strange stone it held had played a role in the transformation of Nospherus. But he knew none of this, least of all how the Golden Scorpion Palace now hoped to find in that valley a new and lethal weapon that would aid them in their conquest of the known world.
Yet with his uncanny intuition Guin sensed that there was something hidden in this land that would bring a great change to the currents of history in the world beyond. His thoughts drifted to the twins of Parros, Rinda and Remus, and he found himself hoping that the coming change would be for the better.
Shaking off his thoughtful lethargy, Guin strode forward again, ready to spring into battle should any danger come. But he remained preoccupied, pondering the future that lay before him.
The two tireless travelers made good time up the remainder of the slope, and soon they reached the pass where the two jutting ears pressed in from both sides. The tops of the ears were pointed so sharply that no man, wolf, or even mountain goat could have had a hope of scaling them. Yet though the ear-crags stuck out higher than where the wolf and the leopard-man now stood, it was apparent that for all means and purposes they had reached the summit of the Dog’s Head.
The sun was nearing the zenith, casting its scalding rays down the path on the western slope along which they had climbed. Its burning glare was merciless upon their faces, and Guin and the Wolf King stopped to rest. Guin took the lizard skin that he had hung from his belt and chewed on it. It was as dry and tough as well-smoked jerky, but went well with the juice from the few cactus pods he had saved from his breakfast, which he now broke open between his teeth.
From the jagged peak they had a commanding view of their surroundings. It was not what most men would call a handsome vista; to search for scenery that met human standards of beauty would have been a bleak exercise in futility, for there was nothing to please the eye or lift the spirits in all the cruel miles they could see. It was a grim, inhuman sight that stretched out below them.
To the east, the ears of the Dog’s Head blocked their view of the main ridgeline of the Kanan range. Gazing elsewhere they could see the winding path they had climbed and, below that and beyond on every side, an endless white sea of sand. Not a speck of green was visible, no patch of brush marred the even sands. The sky was free of clouds and vapors, and also of angel hair, for the wispy white ghost tendrils did not fall at this altitude.
It was a sight to which the Wolf King was long accustomed, and already it was becoming familiar to Guin as well. Nor did its sheer emptiness stir fear in the leopard-man’s heart, for such emotions were useless to the wild denizens of the desert, and in the depths of his heart Guin was as wild as any other beast that roamed Nospherus. For a long moment wolf and warrior stood in the cool wind at the peak; then, rapidly, they began their descent.
Guin soon realized that the way down would be, if anything, more difficult than their climb up the mountain. The rock of the eastern slope was fine and loose, devoid of animal trails or other packed soil that could safely be relied upon. Evidently the wolves did not often venture to this side of the Dog’s Head. As the two wound their way down between the rocks, Guin’s feet slid in the scree, and his boots found sharp rocks hidden beneath the dust.
Several times the stone beneath Guin’s feet crumbled away, and each time he slid several motad down the slope before regaining his footing. On other occasions he stepped on a rock that seemed stable, only to have the dirt supporting it give way, loosening a slide of boulders that rolled down the slope to the valley far below with a terrible crashing sound as he scrambled to arrest his own descent.
The wolf seemed to fare better than Guin on the loose gravel, but he too did not move as freely as he had on the way up.
Some of the scree was too unstable to support even him, balanced on four feet though he was, and the valley below echoed repeatedly with the cacophony of boulders, rocks, and sand knocked free by boots and paws.
Indeed the downward journey took much longer than had the ascent, and the two companions were forced to stop frequently to rest their aching muscles. The sun spilled its heat down relentlessly upon them. From the crags far away, they could hear the plaintive howling of wolves on the wind.
Go east, over the Dog’s Head…
Had he not heard Rinda’s voice so clearly as he left the oasis the morning before, the leopard-headed warrior knew, he would have been running blindly now, desperately trying to reach an unknown destination. Nor would he have met the Wolf King who now led him along the secret path they followed and stood by his side against the dangers of the mountain.
The sun was beginning to set on the wearying second day of Guin’s journey. His time was half spent, and he had yet to see a sign of the Lagon for whom he sought. Yet his plight could have been far worse; for had he not met with the cyclone and then the Wolf King, he might now only be starting to climb the western slope of the Dog’s Head, tired from an exhausting trek across the sand. Guin never once doubted that he was heading in the right direction, but navigating the Dog’s Head without the Wolf King’s aid would have cost him dear time—time he would need to convince the Lagon to join him and the Sem in their struggle.
Nor could Guin have asked the Sem for more than four days in which to complete his mission. The wildlings were faced with a threat to their very existence, and he doubted that they could hold out even that long against an army of foes twice their number and twice their size as well. For all he knew, he might already be too late. The Mongauli force might have made its move that very morning. If they found the Sem and made a full-on assault… Then even if Guin did find the Lagon and convince them to come, all his effort would be wasted, too little, too late, a scant smattering of rain drops on the parched desert.
Two more days…
Guin did his best not to let his worry dangerously hasten his careful pace, but his fists clenched with suppressed tension as he thought of the impossibility of his task. The Wolf King looked up inquisitively. The sun was setting.
Carefully now the warrior and the wolf hurried onward. Darkness began to fall, long shadows stretching and joining around them; yet, by the time true night had arrived the two travelers had passed the dangerously steep crags and were walking along a gently sloping path that ran along the top of a cliff on the skirt of the mountain.
The wolf stopped, as if to suggest that they rest for the night where they were, but Guin was unwilling to pause now that he was over the obstacle of the mountain. At the same time, though the grade was gentler here, the ground was still loose and crumbling, and the cliff on their right hand dropped into a deep ravine. Where the path narrowed, a misstep on the shoulder would send rocks tumbling down into the dark abyss. The darker the path got, the more dangerous it would become.
The Wolf King, choosing his footing with utmost care, looked back at Guin, wordlessly requesting him to stop. Guin, however, was engrossed in his own progress, stabilizing himself with a firm grip on the boulders they passed, keeping a sharp eye out for stone-mimics and vampire moss as he made his way along the sloping cliff-edge. Seeing his companion’s determination, the Wolf King faced forward again and continued down, his pace quickening.
Both Guin and the wolf had an advantage over the common traveler in that their eyes could see fairly well in the darkness. But then, they were walking on paths where no common traveler would ever think of venturing. I would like to see Rinda and Remus brave this trail, Guin thought, amusement flashing briefly through his mind. Or even the intrepid Istavan—
Abruptly he stopped, the hair on the back of his neck rising.
“What’s that?” he barked.
The Wolf King did not slow his pace.
There was something ahead of them, something pure white, glimmering in the darkness.
Snow?
Guin squinted to see through the gloom.
Yidoh? Or something worse?
A short distance further on, the path dropped sharply. Beyond the drop he could dimly see faint white shapes that seemed to float in the void. His eyes could detect no movement, but he suspected that something lay ahead which he had not encountered before, so different was this pale gleaming from the monotonous gray of the mountainside that had filled his eyes for the past day and night.
Guin hesitated, his pace faltering. Then he shouted with alarm as the Wolf King sped up and launched himself through the air towards the strange cluster of white objects.
’Wait!”
The leopard warrior knew all too well that there were creatures in Nospherus that were neither plant, nor animal, nor mineral, unnatural entities that used nefarious means to lure in their prey, employing attractive scents or even psychic temptation. It was unwise to leap into the unknown no matter how safe it might look.
But the Wolf King moved like lightning, hopping down over the rocks; in an instant he was among the shapeless white things, stopping right on top of the closest one. To Guin’s amazement, he crouched and began to lick his peculiar perch.
Guin’s eyes flashed. Cautiously, but as quickly as he could manage, he moved down the last stretch of path along the cliff until he, too, was surrounded by the white lumps. He could now see that they were rocks of some sort, ranging from quite small to boulder-sized, lying scattered among the darker stones below the cliff. The area was covered with white dust that appeared to have fallen off the white rocks, making the ground look like a late autumn field after a snow flurry.
Guin stopped, watching the Wolf King in astonishment. The wise elder of Dog’s Head Mountain had gone mad. Like a cat bewitched by catnip, he twisted his face in ecstasy as he rubbed against the pale rocks, and rolled on the ground, stopping from time to time to lick their surfaces again. The rocks were as white as the wolf’s own fur, and they seemed fragile enough for his teeth to leave marks in them, dusting the ground with more pallid powder.
Guin gritted his teeth in dubious anticipation and reached out to touch one of the rocks. Nothing happened. He broke off a chunk and it crumbled easily in his hand; soon his palm was covered with the stuff. He glanced at the Wolf King. On closer inspection, the wolf appeared less crazed than he had seemed before. Rather, he was apparently merely enjoying himself tremendously. After a moment’s hesitation, Guin brought his palm closer to his face, and sticking out his tongue, he lightly licked the powder.
“Ah ha!”
It was tangy, or rather salty—pleasantly so—a welcome treat for the mouth after a long day spent sweating under the dry desert sun.
“Rock salt,” Guin muttered, astounded. He quickly moved to one of the largest rocks and broke off a chunk, testing it. It was as salty as the first. He looked around. As far as he could tell in the dark, the small valley they had entered was filled with white lumps of salt—more than he had ever seen in his life.