He was not content to die now. Not content to be killed by the lieutenants if they thought him involved with Dathka’s plotting. And not content either to die of the bone fever, contracted from these two wretches they were carrying away from the city. It was still three miles to the old tower he had in mind.
He paused. The phagors and Goija Hin trudged on automatically with their vile burdens. Here he was again, once more meekly doing what was asked of him. There was no reason for it. His stupid habit of obedience had to be broken.
He shouted to the phagors. They halted. They stood where they were, without moving. Only the burdens on their shoulders creaked slightly.
The group was standing on a narrow track with thickets of dog-thrush on either side. A child had been eaten near here a few days earlier; evidence suggested a sabre-tongue had been the killer — the predators came in close to settlements now that wild hoxneys were scarce. So there were few people about.
Laintal Ay struck in among the bushes. He got the phagors to carry their sick masters into the thicket and set them down. The monsters did so carelessly, so that the men rolled on the ground, still in locked positions.
Their lips were blue, peeled back to reveal yellow teeth and gums. Their limbs were distorted, their bones creaked. They were in some way aware of their position, yet unable to cease a constant motor movement, making their eyeballs roll horribly in their stretched facial skin.
‘You know what’s the matter with these men?’ Laintal Ay asked.
Goija Hin nodded his head and smiled evilly to demonstrate his mastery over human knowledge. ‘They’re ill,’ he said.
Nor did Laintal Ay forget the fever he had once caught off a phagor.
‘Kill the men. Make the phagors scrape out graves with their hands. As fast as you can.’
‘I understand.’ The slave master came heavily forward.
Laintal Ay stood with a branch pressing in his back, watching the fat old man do as he was bid, as Goija Hin had always done. At each step in the proceedings, Laintal Ay gave an order and it was executed. He felt himself fully implicated in everything and would not let himself look away. Goija Hin drew a short sword and stabbed it twice through the hearts of the sick men. The phagors scraped graves with their horny hands — two white phagors, and Myk, as obese as his master, prickled with the black hairs of age and working very slowly.
All the phagors had shackles on their legs. They rolled the corpses into their graves and kicked dirt over them, then stood without movement, as was their fashion, awaiting the next order. They were commanded to scrape three more graves under the bushes. This they did, working like mute animals. Goija Hin ran his sword between the ribs of the two strange phagors, afterwards smearing the yellow ichor on their coats as they lay face down, in order to clean his blade.
Myk was made to push them in their graves and cover them with dirt.
As he stood up, he faced Laintal Ay, sliding his pale milt up the slot of his right nostril.
‘Not kill now Myk, master. Strike off my chains and allow me to go away to die.’
‘What, let you loose, you old scumble, after all these years?’ Goija Hin said angrily, raising the sword.
Laintal Ay stopped him, staring at the ancient phagor. The creature had given him rides on his back when he was a boy. It touched him that Myk did not attempt to remind him of the fact. There was no feeble appeal to sentiment. Instead, he stood without movement, awaiting whatever would befall.
‘How old are you, Myk?’ Sentiment, he thought, my sentiment. You couldn’t face giving the necessary order to kill, could you?
‘I prisoner, don’t count years.’ The s’s were dragged like bees from his throat. ‘Once, we ancipitals ruled Embruddock, and you Sons of Freyr were our slaves. Ask Mother Shay Tal — she knew.’
‘She told me. And you killed us as we kill you.’
The crimson eyes blinked once. The creature growled, ‘We kept you alive through the centuries when Freyr was sick. Much foolish. Now you Sons will all die. You strike away my chains, leave me go to die in tether.’
Laintal Ay gestured to the open grave. ‘Kill him,’ he ordered Goija Hin.
Myk put up no struggle. Goija Hin kicked the huge body into the depression and piled dirt about it with his boot. Then he stood among the tanglewood, facing Laintal Ay, moistening his lips and looking uneasy.
‘I knew you when you was a little boy, sir. I was good to you. Myself, I always said you should be Lord of Embruddock — you ask my mates if I didn’t.’
He made no attempt to defend himself with his sword. It fell from his hands and he went down on his knees, blubbering, bowing his hoary head.
‘Myk’s probably right,’ Laintal Ay said. ‘We’ve probably got the plague in us. We’re probably too late.’ Without another glance, he left Goija Hin where he was and strode back to the crowded city, angry with himself for not striking the fatal blow.
It was late when he entered his room. He stared round it without relaxing his black expression. Horizontal rays of Freyr-light lit the far corner, flaring up brightly, casting the rest of the room into unlikely shade.
He rinsed his face and hands in the basin, scooping up the cool water, letting it run over his brow, his eyelids, his cheeks, and drip from his jaw. He did it repeatedly, breathing deeply, feeling the heat leave him and the self-anger remain. As he smoothed his face, he noted with satisfaction that his hands had ceased to tremble.
The light in the corner slid to one wall and faded to a smouldering yellow, making a square no bigger than a box in which the world’s gold decayed. He went round the room, collecting a few items to take with him, scarcely giving a thought to the task.
There was a knock on the door. Oyre looked in. As if sensing immediately the tension in the room, she paused on the threshold.
‘Laintal Ay — where have you been? I’ve been waiting for you.’
‘There was something I had to do.’
She paused with her hand still on the latch, watching, breathing a sigh. With the light behind him, she could not decipher his expression through the thick dusk gathering in the room, but she caught the abruptness in his voice.
‘Is anything the matter, Laintal Ay?’
He stuffed his old hunter’s blanket into a pack, punching it down.
‘I’m leaving Oldorando.’
‘Leaving…? Where are you going?’
‘Oh… let’s say I’m going to look for Aoz Roon.’ He spoke bitterly. ‘I’ve lost interest in — in everything here.’
‘Don’t be silly.’ She moved a step forward as she spoke, to see him better, thinking how large he seemed in the low-ceilinged room. ‘How will you seek him in the wilderness?’
He turned to face her, slinging the pack over one shoulder. ‘Do you think it’s sillier to seek him in the real world or to go down in pauk among the gossies to find him, as you do? You were always telling me I had to do something great. Nothing satisfied you… Well, now I’m off, to do or die. Isn’t that something great?’
She laughed feebly, and said, ‘I don’t want you to go. I want—’
‘I know what you want. You think Dathka is mature and I’m not. Well, to hell with that. I’ve had enough. I’m going, as I always longed to do. Try your luck with Dathka.’
‘I love you, Laintal Ay. Now you’re acting like Aoz Roon.’
He took hold of her. ‘Stop comparing me with other people. Perhaps you’re not as clever as I thought, or you’d know when you were hurting me. I love you too, but I’m going…’