‘Well I think he recognises me. Perhaps the hair needs a little attention.’
He growled and the sound made Auum start. Doubt crept into his mind.
‘Actually, I recognise him. I never forget a face. Particularly when the owner is one of the finer students of the art.’ In his eyes there was both warmth and wariness. ‘You are Auum.’
Auum’s legs almost gave way beneath him. He sheathed his blade. He felt a wash of relief.
‘Arch Takaar, I am honoured you know me.’
And then cursed himself for his first words.
‘Ha!’ Takaar clapped his hands together. ‘Told you, told you.’
Takaar gripped Auum’s shoulders.
‘Good. It will be good to have someone else to talk to.’
Auum just caught himself before he asked the obvious question. Instead he smiled.
‘The TaiGethen will bless Yniss that you still live,’ he said.
Takaar’s face hardened. ‘I doubt that.’
Again he glanced to one side. He muttered something Auum couldn’t catch before spinning on his heel and striding away into the rainforest. Takaar spoke over his shoulder.
‘A good question. A very good question and you utter few enough of those. Why are you here, Auum? No one invited you. I detest the unannounced. Not that I have had any visitors these past ten years.’
Takaar stopped and turned.
‘Come on, come on, you’re here now.’
And off he went again. Auum trotted after him, breasting through the undergrowth, marvelling at how Takaar moved so quickly and left no mark whatever, not even the briefest of prints in the mud underfoot.
‘This isn’t what I had planned for the day,’ said Takaar. ‘Very funny. Perhaps you could be quiet for a time. We have a guest, after all. I will not be doing that. At least, not today. So you keep saying.’
Auum kept up easily. After setting off with the skill of the finest TaiGethen, Takaar became erratic in both movement and direction as if he was lost and confused. He muttered and shouted by turn and Auum wondered how he had managed to stalk the mage so effectively. Should anyone else be tracking them closely, their job would be rendered simple.
This was not the Takaar he had hoped to find. Not yet anyway. The question of how he would react when Auum told him the reason for his visit was open to serious debate. Too many of the possibilities were distasteful. Too many of them the elves could not afford. This was not an elf who could possibly unite the threads and restore the harmony.
‘Almost there,’ called Takaar. ‘Come, come to my humble palace.’
He chuckled. Above, Gyal’s tears were drying and the sun was edging through the heavy banks of cloud. Auum followed Takaar into his camp and stopped to look at a place that was not the creation of a disturbed mind. A sound mud and thatch hut, a stretched-hide bivouac and what looked to be a peat and stone kiln. Perhaps all was not as bleak as it appeared.
‘Such things do I have to show you. A thousand ways to die. A hundred ways to live. All here. Right here under our noses and within the grasp of our fingers.’
Takaar disappeared inside his hut. He was still talking and pinching his index fingers and thumbs together repeatedly to illustrate his latest point. Auum followed him in and came up short, staring at the shelves of pots, the stained and stretched hammock, the stinking wood bucket of vomit and the long table covered in further jars plus a scattering of leaves, flowers, barks and stems.
‘This isn’t a house, it’s a workshop,’ he breathed then plucked up his courage. ‘I am sorry to disturb your solitude, Takaar.’
Takaar wasn’t listening. His full attention was taken with a knife and a thin strip of polished wood, carving symbols into its surface.
‘A thousand. A thousand ways and-’
He broke off, swung about and marched to the long table. He slapped both hands on it, upsetting a couple of jars and juddering everything else that lay on it.
‘That was never my intent. Always it was for research. My legacy. My…’
The anger left him and he nodded, his expression sad as he returned to his work.
‘That is true. I have never denied it. Indeed, I deserve it. But a failed elf can still do good. Not by way of recompense, just to do good.’
‘Takaar,’ said Auum.
Takaar’s head snapped round, his face full of ire. Only slowly did it clear.
‘Where is my hospitality?’ he said. ‘I’m not really set up for three.’
‘Thr-’
Takaar picked up the knife again. He walked across to his bivouac.
‘I have infusions of piedra and cloves. Also some nutmeg if you have a yearning for it,’ he said, tapping stoppered jars. ‘Cold of course but good, all of them. Nothing to eat. The odd root perhaps. Hunting is at dusk. Care to hunt? It would put his nose out of joint if nothing else.’
Takaar tipped his head at a rough log stool in the corner of the bivouac.
‘And that would please you?’ asked Auum.
‘Enormously,’ said Takaar.
‘Then it would be a pleasure to learn from a master.’
Takaar’s eyes sparkled. He walked to Auum and placed his hands on the young TaiGethen’s shoulders. His face was clear, uncluttered, and for the first time Auum saw the focus he remembered in Takaar’s eyes.
‘And when we are eating our kill, you will tell me why it is you are here and what it is that is about to consume the elven race.’
The clarity and focus disappeared. Takaar rubbed at his face and hair. He jabbed Auum in the chest.
‘Good thing you’re here. I need a shave. And a haircut. Knife over there, sharpening leather over there. No time to lose. Jump to it.’
Chapter 15
Rarely do gods speak. It is a shame that so often we choose not to listen. Ultan-in-Caeyin. A name of the ancient tongue, translating as “Where Gods Are Heard”.
The Ultan was a huge open grass bowl, U-shaped and bounded by sheer cliffs that provided a barrier to the sea, the rainforest and the River Ix. It had remarkable acoustic qualities and, since the founding of Ysundeneth, had been the place where the elves met in times of celebration and strife. It could hold a quarter of a million, iad, ula and child. The entire population of Calaius and more.
For hundreds of years it had been left as Yniss had designed it, but recently work had begun to create a lasting monument to the gods. Great stone slabs and pillars were being cut from the quarries to the west of Ysundeneth and moved by barge to form a stage at the northern end of the Ultan where the cliffs met the sea. Carvings were being made to depict the deeds of god and elf, a charting of the often violent history of Hausolis and the trials of life on Calaius.
Talk was that the whole of the open grass area would eventually be set with benches in concentric arcs around the stage. Some wit had suggested a roof might be in order too. Katyett was still able to feel a passing lightness of mood as she gazed up at the vast open space and imagined the timber span that would be required.
This morning, of course, there was no celebratory mood, nor even a common purpose. There was anger, there was frustration, desperation and confusion. And among those whom the TaiGethen now protected, there was fear too and an intense sadness.
The Ynissul evacuation was an open secret by now, and the TaiGethen guarded the approaches and entrance to the Ultan, a good number of them hoping an attack would be mounted. A disappointing reaction in one regard, utterly elven in another. Katyett had complete sympathy and her memories of the temple piazza held no guilt.
Almost three thousand Ynissul sheltered in the Ultan. They had precious little food, just the clothing on their backs and the few possessions they had managed to grab as they were ushered from their houses, places no longer safe for elves of the immortal thread.
They were secured by thirty TaiGethen. Katyett’s first act had been to dispatch the birds who would carry the muster message into the rainforest. They would fly to the shrines to Yniss scattered about beneath the canopy, there to wait in secured nesting boxes until any Tai cell checked in to read the message, release the bird and pass the word.