Day by day, he tested his strength and resilience. It was a great day when he first managed to walk, haltingly, all the way around the encampment. The Lords seemed impressed by the speed of his recovery as well and took it as a further sign of his superior status.
Jon did not lose his hatred of them, however. He knew that he lived purely by a seemingly impossible chance; the chance that a single word, a single name, had somehow had the power to save him. He longed to see no more of these flint-like faces, the staring vermillion eyes, the spiny limbs, the cold whispers that were their voices.
And so the day came.
The bandages were removed and Jon looked down on his healed body. The salves had worked well and instead of red gashes he saw thin, spidery lines of white scar tissue. crossing his flesh in all directions. He ran his finger along one and was relieved to find that there was no pain.
All pain had gone and he felt invigorated, powerful.
For an instant, he toyed with the thought that perhaps he could now kill them all while they trusted him and were unprepared. But he put that thought away as unworthy: not that they did not deserve to die, but he was unwilling to be the agent of their destruction. He had killed several times under their tutelage and discovered that he did not enjoy it.
And so the day came when he was strong enough to leave the Lords of the Sands. They showed no emotion when he announced his departure – but then they never had. Even in killing they had seemed entirely dispassionate. They gave him a short sword of their terrible black substance to replace his primitive throwing stick, for which he showed gratitude (but he was not too grateful; superiors do not show much of that feeling to inferiors).
But there was one last ceremony: they escorted him some distance from the camp and then, as one, they all bowed to him and said, ‘Good Fortune, warrior of The Great Lord.’
And then they were gone and he was alone again.
He stood for a moment staring in the direction of their village. He had learned much from them but it had all been negative: how to thrust, how to parry, how to deliver the killing stroke. He hoped that those new skills would not be needed in whatever lay ahead of him.
He thrust the Lords of the Sands from his mind and turned away from their direction, seeking to find the hill again. He found it without much difficulty as it was the only elevation of any size in the entire region and immediately set off towards it.
He travelled for many periods of light and darkness; encountered many obstacles, faced and overcame many dangers – none of which shall be recounted here.
And so it was that eventually he came to the foot of the hill that had dominated his thoughts for so long and gazed up at its mysterious summit.
And then he began the arduous climb to the top.
Five
Shana could not quite remember when she had first begun to wonder if there was something wrong with The Universe. It was like trying to recall the crazy events of a dream; trying to hook meaning out of the befuddled illogic of sleep. Try as she might, the reason for that thought would not stay in her grasp but slipped out like a quicksilver fish.
But there was such a doubt even if she could not express her reasoning in a chain of syllogisms.
She lay on the soft bank of the river looking up at the bright viridian sky, recently awakened from a light doze. Small puffy clouds moved lazily in that sky as if they knew they had somewhere to go but were in absolutely no hurry to get there. She moved her strong brown arms out behind her and stretched, cat-like, before getting to her feet.
She had somewhere to go but could not quite remember why.
Shading blue-grey eyes from the bright ceiling of iridescent green which comprised the sky she looked around. Things appeared to be as she recalled them: the great shining glaucous band of the river snaked nearby; beyond it she could see the sparkling facets of the crystalline grazing creatures, moving slowly and heavily in the coppery expanses of the varma plants that were their only form of sustenance.
No – no clues here: everything was as it should be.
Her long legs carried her to the riverbank and she looked down at her reflection; as usual somewhat blurred by the whirls and swirls of the currents. Yes – she looked the same; the same smooth, oval face topped with a tumbling mass of amber-gold hair; the same faintly wistful expression as if somewhere she nursed a sad secret.
No – no clues there either.
Why did she feel that she had realised some tremendous truth in her half-sleep as she had lain there on the soothing vegetation and let it escape? Why?
She saw something dart in the water and instinctively she bent down and caught it between her slim fingers, bringing it up into the light.
It was a common glassfish, completely transparent and sparkling in the green light. She held it up to the sky, rejoicing as the cool viridian light streamed through its body, completely uninterrupted by any organs or internal structure.
Although she had seen glassfish many times, she felt puzzled: how could it dart here and there in the shallows when it seemed to be carved out of a single sparkling gemstone? She knew she had an internal structure, she could feel the bone of her skull beneath its coating of flesh; see the tendons move in her wrist when she flexed her hand; feel the hard core in the centre of her breasts on the occasions that she had caressed herself but the glassfish had none of these. How was it that she had not noticed these things before?
She shook her head as if somehow that would clear it and drive these mysterious doubts away. Of course, nothing of the kind happened. She looked around: were there any clues in the landscape?
All looked as it should do; everything was sparklingly clear in the bright skyshine; everything was that rich, riotous medley of greens she loved so much. The skyshine wasn’t simply pure green of course, it was merely brightest in the green part of its spectrum. (How did she know that?) Hence, everything looked peaceful and restful in its various multitudes of green – dark green, light green, aquamarine, turquoise, viridian, emerald and many more which only an experienced eye like Shana’s could distinguish.
But because there were other colours in the skyshine there were occasional breaks in the otherwise endless carpet of greens. Take that distant ridge of low hills for instance; it was not aquamarine; it was a definite shade of dark blue. Some of the flowers as well, there were colours that could only be described as yellow and red; although the red was very dark due to that colour being the weakest part of the skyshine spectrum.
Shana decided that there was no more she could do to drive this troublesome notion that something was amiss and was about to turn from the river when she heard something moving behind her. She spun around alert and wary. (Why wary? – she had never been concerned about noises around her before.)
She relaxed and smiled – it was only one of the crystalline grazing beasts. It was about hip height and four-legged with a shell-like covering over its back. It was translucent rather than transparent like a glassfish, and there were shadowy shapes within its sparkling carapace that pulsed slowly and rhythmically. As usual it showed no signs of recognising Shana’s existence and ploughed steadily on past her, looking for varma plants. It was strange to find one of this side of the river for there were few varma on this bank.
She walked alongside it for a while watching it snuffle around in the ordinary vegetation, looking for varma.
‘You’re a bit like me, aren’t you?’ Shana murmured. Her voice was clear and melodious, but not soft – there was steel under the smooth surface of her words, ‘lost, looking for something that you’re not sure you’ll find. Off you go, old friend.’