The Grail of Sir Thomas

Chapter 39

  The sun had hidden below the edge of the earth long before, the dusk thickened. The heads of silver nails, that the Lord nailed the firmament with, were growing brighter the darkening sky. The waning moon gave an evil glint, and Thomas recalled inopportunely, with a shudder of shoulders, that it was the sun to dead men who rise from their graves at night and roam the roads, to vampires and other unchristian things.

  They walked along a narrow path winding under the steep bank. A thundering tide, as though of the sea, rolled in to shore. Far in the river, there was a glimpse of a bare back, a laughing face, then the splash of a big fish tail and the strange creature vanished.

  They came to a broad moorage made of thick logs driven into the river bottom and thinner logs atop them: glittering, tightly fitted, with trimmed sides. Those were new, good moorings.

  Oleg nodded at a house of logs that stood on a steep hill. “The house of the ferryman… The ferry comes from the other bank at dawn tomorrow. You’ll cross for Kiev. That means Britain at your hand; across Czech, Germany, and France.”

  “And you?”

  The wonderer gave no reply, made his way slowly up the slope to the house. Thomas shrugged. His belly was rumbling; he ate nothing all the way they made on dragon’s back, and then the serpent took away on his back the remaining thirty-eight sacks of meat – the gift of the savage steppe dwellers. The ropes will burst in a narrow cave, sacks drop down. Enough for the dragon to eat for a long time. The wonderer thought out everything; only he shouldn’t have judged some of the peculiarities of the Christian faith. We could have earned eighty sacks of meat instead of forty…

  There was a loud croak within his belly, a stir of guts demanding meat. Hastily, Thomas drove away thoughts of food and young Polovtsian maidens, came up to the house of logs. It looked blind, the windows covered not with shutters, but thick planks from inside.

  Oleg walked along the wall, holding on to the logs, feeling and patting them. His face looked strange. They heard a big dog in his kennel barking loudly, the menacing clang of his chain.

  “Let’s go,” Thomas said. “Want to spend a night here? It is warm. We can rest on the moorings.”

  “Wait…” Oleg groped about the windowsill, found something and brought a parcel hastily to his eyes, sank down on the ground with a happy sob, leaning his back on the wall. “Home! Great Rod, I’m at home!”

  Thomas caught him, helped him up to his feet, as the dog started creeping out of his warm kennel, snarling. They went back to the moorage, Oleg sat down on the logs, unfolded the parcel. Thomas swallowed; on wide burdock leaves, there was a dark round loaf of rye bread, two slices of meat, half a dozen onions. “Your charms told you that?” he asked with great respect.

  Oleg broke the bread, offered some to Thomas. “They did.”

  Thomas shook his head. “I need no stolen food.”

  “Fool. It was left to us.”

  “Sir wonderer… who except for the Secret Seven could know we are here?”

  “Rus’ knows. We’re in Rus’ already, see? The surest sign is the bread on the windowsills. We have a custom of leaving food to beggars, outcasts, travelers, pilgrims. At daytime a host would give it himself, and when they go to sleep they leave it on the windowsills.”

  Thomas all but snatched the bread from him, dug his teeth in it, growling. The hunk of bread was dry. It would have been fed to pigs or goats and the prospering hosts would bake a new one, but to the travelers even that dry bread tasted better than a king’s meal. “Wonderful custom,” he agreed with his mouth full. “What’s the name of this country, you say?”

  Big fish splashed in the water, a broad path of moonlight silver led from the moorings to the other bank. They sat on the end of the moorage, their feet dangling. The wonderer swayed his foot, Thomas looked with disapproval – swaying your feet is swaying demons on it – but said nothing. The wonderer’s face was strangely grim, though he was back in his city!

  Thomas stripped off his armor; his body was itching all over. The dark water, warmed up during the day, welcomed him. He washed sweat and dust off joyfully, scratched his skin with strong nails, groaned through gritted teeth. As the dark dirt came off, a white spot became visible on his right shoulder.

  “You love water, descendant of Pelop…” Oleg muttered with a strange note in his voice.

  “What is Pelop?” Thomas grumbled. “I’m worn out with your impious hints! And you keep dropping more and more of them.”

  “Pelop,” Oleg spoke in a pompous drawl, definitely imitating someone, “was a hero, a son of Tantalus who killed his son and served him to gods as the best of all courses. That was the time of such customs and such gods. But the gods suddenly got angry; they stopped eating human flesh a day before. The father of Zeus would eat it but Zeus himself would not, only the flesh of animals. So the gods told Hermes to bring poor Pelop back to life. Hermes collected the meat and boiled it again in the same pot. And Pelop came out, even more beautiful, that’s the way of it… but one of his shoulders was missing. It was gobbled by Demeter, in her noble brooding and grief for her lost daughter. But Hephaestus was also a guest there, so he made a new shoulder of ivory bone. Since that, all descendants to Pelop have this white spot on their shoulder.”

  Thomas stopped, waist-deep in the water, listened but frowned, just in case. The wonderer was speaking of some Pagan. A Pagan – but a hero too. “I saw some other man having this spot,” he said warily. “In the Holy Land… I’m afraid that was a leader of Saracen!”

  “So what?” Oleg wondered. “Pelop has traveled a lot over the world.”

  “Did Polovtsians live among Saracen in those times?” Thomas asked sarcastically. “I will never forget those Kumans…”

  “Hardly, but good customs live everywhere.”

  Thomas frowned, feeling hurt. “Paganism!” he grumbled. “Some Pelop… I am Malton, no Pelop. What else did he do?”

  “What life made him,” Oleg said composedly. “Became a king, but then Il, the king of Troy, all but captured him in his kingdom, Pelop had to flee him by sea. In Greece, he wooed Hippodameia, but her father made it a condition that her husband must outdistance him in chariot racing. The father either had a man’s interest in her or was foretold to die of his son-in-law. In a word, Pelop incited the king’s driver to replace by stealth the bronze linchpin with a wax one. When the chariots rushed on, the king gave a head start to his rival, as he always did, and started to come up to spear his back… To put it shorter, his chariot overturned and the king was a bulky and very heavy man, so he got hurt. To his very death! The driver came asking Pelop for what he’d promised him, including the wedding night of his bride, but Pelop pushed the fool off into the sea. While falling down, that man cursed all the posterity of Pelop.”

  Thomas scratched the dirt off all the slower, listening. “I can believe in the curse. That may be why the two of us got into such scrapes. But one of my own ancestors killing a man treacherously? Even a fool? No. I am a Malton.”

  “As you like,” the wonderer said indifferently. “The curse haunted all of his posterity, especially Atreus and Thyestes… Haven’t you heard of them? By the way, Pelop spread his rule over all the southern Greece, or Apia, so it was re-named after him – Pelop’s Isle. Or Peloponnesus.”

  Thomas pricked up his ears. “Well,” he said warily, “maybe he was a distant ancestor of Malton family.”

  “He was also the founder of Olympic games,” the wonderer added.

  “What is that?”

  “A sort of games.”

  “Pagan games? No. Pelop was not one of my ancestors.”

  “A sort of knightly jousting. And he also was the first champion.”

  The knight’s honest, half-washed face displayed an inward struggle. Oleg put the remaining onions down for Thomas, got up. His voice was heavy. “You have enough gold coin to buy a horse in Kiev. The road ahead is relatively safe. Across countries not so wild as those we passed.”

  Thomas got out ha
stily, pulled his knitted clothing onto his wet body, climbed into his armor. Only then he looked in the wonderer’s green eyes, which now were dark like two forest lakes. “And you?”

  Oleg shook his head. “I need nothing in Kiev. I’m a hermit, a cave dweller, and all the caves are on this bank.”

  They embraced, then the wonderer turned round and walked away hastily. In silence, Thomas watched his tall figure wear thin gradually in the moonlight. A last flash of sparkles on the polished sword hilt, and he vanished in the dark.

  Thomas felt miserable, though in his nomadic life of knight errant he had parted with more than one fine friend. Some died, others settled in bestowed lands, someone came back to his native castle, another left in the same way; after a short embrace and a wish of good luck, to recall his old friend and far lands briefly some day when he is old.

  With a sigh, Thomas sat down on the edge of the moorings again. He had no more hunger, so he sighed again, put the remnants of bread and meat down on the broad soft leaves, which looked like elephant’s ears. He needed to take a ferry to the city, buy a horse, or better two, and hurry across civilized countries to come back by Saint Boromir’s Day. Due to the dragon serpent, he’d made half the way in two days and nights and now he had at least a week of time left!

  The night was leaving slowly, the eastern edge of the sky went slightly red. The knight’s eyes, accustomed to the dark, discerned the most delicate hues.

  He seemed to hear a creak of logs behind him. Glad of the wonderer’s coming back for some forgotten thing, he wheeled round abruptly. A flash of eyes, then a tight loop fell down on his shoulders. Thomas seized his sword, felt a pound on his head, dropped the blade and collapsed prone on the wet logs.

  He came to all but at once, tried to jump up but managed only a twitch, as he was tied up firmly into the likeness of caterpillar. Dim shapes moved over Thomas in the twilight of dawn. He discerned voices. “I’d rather kill him. Knife in back, that’s for his sort!” – “You afraid?” – “An’ you? I wouldn’t face such man for all the gold on earth!”

  The sound of steps got closer. Thomas jerked up his head with effort, twisted with the sharp pain in the back of it. Before his face there were high hunting boots, a dim glitter of spurs. He turned his head, clenching his teeth so as not to let a moan out.

  A familiar voice, strangely hissing, came from above. “Well, Sir Thomas… what would you say now?” A strange man stood over him, resting on one leg. The sight of him made Thomas tremble all over and froze his blood. The man had a hump, his left shoulder higher than the right one, both arms covered in fresh scars. Instead of a left hand, he had a small red stump with white protruding bone. His clothes were baggy, his head hidden beneath a helmet completely.

  “God keeps patient for long,” Thomas rasped, “but he does strike, Sir Gorvel!”

  “He strikes best who strikes last,” Gorvel’s husky voice rustled from behind his iron mask.

  “Let’s kill him now!” a different man said anxiously. “I’m afraid.”

  “A member of the Counsel of the Secret Seven is to come,” Gorvel hissed. “To see whether he has some magic powers.”

  “But it was the one who went away who had magic!”

  “I can hear the steps of her!” Gorvel snapped in a husky angry voice. “You may kill him straight after.”

  The warrior gave Thomas a kick. “At last you parted with your friend!” he said maliciously, twisting his mouth. “You, iron-bound scarecrow, don’t know he was the only match for me, Black Warrior. Once he injured me, left this scar on my face, but it was just because my foot slipped. He destroyed the Khazarian host I was leading against King Rumal. Killed ten of my brothers, lords of eastern lands. Only I and my elder brother Karganlyk survived. You were a fool to part with him!”

  Through the lapping of Dnieper waves, he heard the patting of feet. A small woman in a man’s cloak emerged on the moorings. The hood was pulled over her eyes, but she moved it back on her shoulders at once. She was fragile, her face pale and innocent, her eyebrows raised in surprise, an offended look in her big brown eyes. Thomas wished to shield her from danger immediately, even to save her from the morning chill and river dampness.

  She cast a brief glance at him, spoke in a low husky voice, which made Thomas’s heart ache sweetly. “No need of it… but thank you, all the same. Where’s the cup, Gorvel?”

  Groaning, Gorvel stooped to pick up Thomas’s bag. “Here it is!”

  She took the bag with no look within, made a nod to the side at Thomas. “Why is he here?”

  “For you to see,” Gorvel replied in a very respectful tone. “He is too viable, strangely viable. Does he have any magic?”

  The small woman looked closely at Thomas. He felt invisible fingers running over his chest, shivered in fright when those fingers reached under his heavy armor, froze in fear while her fingertips examined his heart and brain quickly… Her eyes went dark, she spoke out in a restrained voice. “No magic. But immense courage and will!”

  Clasping the bag tightly, she started a walk on the moorings back. “Your Might,” Gorvel said respectfully but with a well-hidden mockery in his voice, “we could leave together.”

  She glanced over at him coldly. Her voice was razor-sharp. “Gorvel, you are not even a grandmaster! You are still closer to a plain hangman than to the members of the Secret Seven!”

  Gorvel trembled, fell down on his knees. The woman left. Thomas caught a last glimpse of her straight back, removed hood – and his own bag with the cup lost forever.

  Gorvel turned his head slowly to the witness of his humiliation, his eye, blazing with fury, flashed in the slit of his helmet. Thomas felt disgusted. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Black Warrior taking a knife out of his belt. Thomas froze. The Black would knife him like a sheep, like a chicken, killing a man is the same to him as adjusting his belt. A civilizer. A champion of progress.

  The Black smiled maliciously. He spotted the fear in the knight’s eyes, his desperate attempts to release his hands or at least to jerk his head away from the knife. The Black brought the blade to Thomas’s throat, his grin became broader. “Finish him!” Gorvel rasped. “Finish him now!”

  Thomas’s lips moved silently, as he made prayers. His eyes were fixed on the gleaming blade. The sun finally came out, the tip of the knife blazed with a terrible orange glare, as though burning hot.

  Suddenly the fingers faltered. The knife blade made a wary swing, like the head of a snake about to jump. Then the fingers unclenched, dropping the knife. With a dull thud, it went into the log before Thomas’s face, all but cutting the tip of his nose. Perplexed, Thomas wrenched his head; the Black Warrior was falling on his back, his mouth gasping. In his left eye socket, a feathered arrow end trembled.

  Gorvel started, with either astonishment or the strong blow heard clearly to Thomas; a long arrow cut through his mail, went deep into the left side of his chest. The Black Warrior collapsed with a thunder that made the moorings shake, sprawled like a tall tree. Gorvel sank down slowly on his corpse, sobbing with fury, grasping at the arrow with his stump.

  That was when Thomas heard the shouts of fright. He felt the speed and mortal accuracy of the deathly arrows cutting through the air. Guards darted about, hit against each other, tried to escape, but almost each of them got an arrow stuck in him with a light click. Thomas heard the soft swishing, barely audible in the thunder of waves, even the muffled strikes of shafts piercing through the light armor, crushing and splintering bones.

  He waited till the arrows stopped swishing overhead, crawled away from the mooring edge, moving like a worm. Dying men writhed around, uttered awful screams, feeling the torments of hell close.

  He saw the wonderer emerging from the riverside rocks, rushing, like a furious elk, to the moorings. Thomas shouted a warning. “More of them!”

  Running, the wonderer drew out his huge sword. At the same moment, dark squatting shadows started to leap onto the logs from the water. The firs
t three advanced their curved swords, the rest were climbing on the moorings behind them.

  The wonderer came like an avalanche, with a broad sway of his sword. The Hazars, taken aback, had time neither to dodge nor to defend; the menacing blade reached some in the chest, others in the throat. Cut-away hands fell down on the damp logs, with sabers still clenched in their fists.

  The wonderer made two leaps up to Thomas, swayed his sword. Thomas felt a strike, and his limbs were spread sideways. Stunned, he got up on all fours, shook his head. His body had no time to go numb from the tight bindings, so he groped around, feeling Hazar sabers one by one, crawled up to his sword that lay under the dying Gorvel. With a strong jerk, Thomas tore his masking helmet off and recoiled with disgust. Who had made the poor man that ugly? “Sir Gorvel, if God is for us, who is against us?”

  Gorvel had no lips, only wrinkled gums with two last teeth in the right end of his lower jaw. His only eye blazed with hate. Gorvel tried to say something but only gave a rattle, dark blood gushed out of his throat. He coughed, splashing the blood around, tossed his head back, his eye died out.

  “May you get lazy devils,” Thomas wished. He tugged his sword out from beneath the corpse, roared, forcing his fury, jumped into the battle. “Death to Pagans!”

  The wonderer said nothing, his sword whirling like mad over him and around; he seemed surrounded by a wall of glittering steel. Someone threw a sword, it bounced back with a tinkle, all but hit Thomas.

  The knight slashed into the fighting. With beastly fury he brought his first blow down on a Hazar who sprung ahead. The foe advanced his shield deftly overhead, grinned and bent a little, his saber pointed at Thomas’s belly. Thomas’s sword, as heavy as an anvil, thundered down and smashed everything; the shield, the Hazar and the saber. For a moment, the enemy looked like a giant turtle, but the sword went on till the blade touched the moorage logs, then the iron turtle broke into halves and the log gave a nasty squirt of foul water.

  Thomas raised his sword, jumped aside from the falling body; a broad-chested Hazar was coming down on him, sprinkling blood out of his nose, ears, eyes, throat, even from under his shoulder blades, as though hammered by a giant. The wonderer lowered his sword. For a moment he and Thomas stood face to face, breathing heavily and baring their teeth, like two wolves in a flock of killed sheep, then the wonderer blurted hoarsely, “Follow me! Quick!”

  Thomas rushed after his friend. They ran up the steep bank, like two hot horses, dashed across the ridge. On the go, Oleg pointed with his hand at the entrance to the cave, a black gap in the brightly lit mountain wall. Thomas nodded silently, saving his breath.

  They were within half a hundred steps of the gaping hole when the ground started trembling. From behind a rock an animal, which Thomas at first glance mistook for another rock, dashed in heavy leaps. He was grey, human-shaped but three times as tall as a man, the bottom part of his body the broadest, each leg twice as thick as a human body, a roundish head straight on the shoulders, with no neck, his chest as large as a barn; his long arms, each as thick as an old oak, reached to the ground.

  The beastly man bellowed, blocking the entrance. The eyes on his grey face flashed with red fire, his sharp hairy ears pricked up. The beast opened his monstrous jaws, showing his teeth, started to walk toward the people, his arms spread wide apart, each finger the size of a billet, with a glittering sickle-like claw.

  Thomas backed up. With horror, he felt that the animal, despite his clumsy looks, would come up to them within two or three lips, crush and make mincemeat. “Our Lady,” he whispered in terror, “save and have mercy… Sir wonderer, that’s our death!”

  “It is,” Oleg said hoarsely. He backed away, his mad goggled eyes were fixed on the animal coming upon them. “I didn’t expect this!”

  The beast’s red mouth puffed out clouds of smoke, sprinkled with yellow saliva. Where a drop of it fell, stones broke with a crash, smoke rose. Thomas looked at his scary sword; it would not do to cut even the monster’s finger. “Our Lady, is this the end? Help, as I bear the cup with the blood of your son…”

  He bit his tongue as he recalled the cup’s being in hands of the Secret Seven. The enemies won in the end, got the cup! Why didn’t they leave the two of them be? Only Gorvel craved for revenge, and to the Seven Thomas was like a fly to a dog.

  The beast leapt, not allowing them to burst away to the cave, spreading his huge paws, his iron claws ground together, his jaws opened wider. His blazing eyes were looking down, straight at Thomas. The knight’s soul froze with terror, shrank into the farthest corner and stayed there trembling, shielding its eyes with its paws. He felt the burning heat of the beast’s breath. The wonderer stood pale, gripping his twig of a sword in both hands.

  Suddenly they heard a clatter of horseshoes approaching. A shining knight on a snow-white stallion darted out from behind the mountain crest. Both the knight and his horse were radiant, the light growing brighter with every moment. The knight bent down to the mane, a lance advanced menacingly in his right hand, a gleaming triangle shield on his left elbow, with a sigil strange to Thomas. The knight had his visor lowered, his destrier galloped, the shining lance head pointed straight at the monster’s side.

  The beast uttered a scary roar, turned to the rider. The monster was as huge, squat, and indestructible as the pyramid of Egypt. The knight and his horse looked tiny. The sun dazzled Thomas, he seemed to catch a glimpse of a young face under the lowered visor. The shine moved swiftly together with the rider, while the beast was surrounded by darkness. Above him, black crows darted in circles, cawing ominously, flapping their wings, and impossibly big bats and flying hounds moved silently in the air.

  The beast leaned forward, catching the galloping rider with its giant paws. Thomas bit his lip and the wonderer swore loudly; the mysterious knight was dashing as straight as an arrow flies… The beast gave a triumphant roar, but the rider got through a moment before the huge palms came together with a stone crash, his lance went with a terrible force into the left side of its chest.

  For a moment it seemed to Thomas that the lance would shatter, as used to happen in jousting; the beast’s chest was a real stone, but the lance broke through the bones, went in almost up to the handle. A fountain of dark, almost black blood spurted out of the wound, hissed, steaming with poison. The beast jerked his head up, uttered such a terrible roar that Thomas dropped to his knees and pressed his palms to his ears.

  The mysterious knight should have left his lance to escape the giant paws cutting through the air blindly. The stallion bent his hind legs, backed up, wheezed in fear. The knight, however, tugged his lance out with force, while his horse backed away, stunned with the roar, so the lance came out with a squelch, blooded and smoking as though just from hell’s fire.

  Being skillful with reins and spurs, the knight made his stallion back up till they were three score steps away from the reeling beast, whose bellowing made both the ground and the sky tremble. Blood gushed out of his wound in a spurt as thick as a log. The stones below were black and smoking, dark red flames flared up. Finally, the monster stiffened, half-hidden by the smoke, and collapsed with a crash, his outstretched paws all but reached the stranger’s horse.

  The cloud swallowed the dying beastly god. They only heard a fading roar, groans, grinding of claws on the stone. When a gust of wind swept the smoky cloud away, tearing it to scraps, there were only black burnt stones on the ground.

  The rider raised his lance to salute Thomas. His visor was lowered still but a pure unearthly light was coming through the thick grating; so pure that it made Thomas’s heart beat fast, with hysterical sobs. He barely kept from sinking down to his knees reverently. Instead, he jerked up his sword and, holding it vertical, put the handle to his forehead, then to his shoulders – left first, right second – and finally to his belly.

  The mysterious rider turned his horse and galloped away. Oleg looked on with great astonishment, still feeling stunned at the stranger’s sudden arriv
al and their miraculous rescue from the beastly god. The knight and his mount, as Oleg saw clearly, vanished into thin air on their fourth jump.

  Thomas sheathed his sword, crossed himself piously – with his fingertips that time. “I was honored! Like Sir Aragorn.”

  Oleg stared in confusion at the spot where the Virgin had vanished. Who was babysitting for her? Nicolas is the one to nurse a baby till it stops squeaking. Other saints are not too good at nursing either, it’s written on their faces. “She has no more faithful knights than one or two,” he said understandingly. “If she comes running to the aid of each!”

  “Stupid you,” Thomas told him with superiority. “When the sovereign accepts the oaths of his vassals, he in turn swears to protect them!”

  “Oh, foxy you… Why is your sword in? Let’s run, or we’ll be late!”

  Their feet rang on the melted ground crusted with hot stone. In one place at the edge of a dark spot there was a crunch, Thomas all but fell sprawled; his foot went in, breaking the crust through like thin ice. Oleg ran into the gap with his sword ready, Thomas rushed after him with bare steel; the hope of returning the cup flashed in his soul. If the Secret One has not carried it to her treasury yet. That must be somewhere in Hell.

  The cleft narrowed, vaulted overhead. The floor beneath their feet was even, scattered with stones sized from a fist to a ram, that had rolled down from the walls. It darkened fast. When Thomas glanced back there was a slit with the sun shining in, while the way ahead reeked of decay, mold, rotten leaves, and also the sweetish smell of decomposing flesh.

  Oleg glanced back and yelled, “Quick! Move your ass!”

  Offended, Thomas rushed ahead like an elk, hitting stones off the walls with his iron shoulders, jumping over rocks, but still lagging behind the wonderer who dashed like an arrow shot from a compound bow by a strong hand. Thomas was hot and puffing, gasping for air, choking with heat, when the passage made a turn. Bones, animal and human alike, crunched beneath his feet.

  They burst into a big cave with a high vault, where long icicles hung down, dismal and deathly pale, and there was a dark lake in the middle. The place smelled of mustiness, there were long grey manes of moss creeping down the walls, a glisten of mold, smooth slime covering the walls.

  Thomas heard the wonderer’s breath rattling and whistling, as though they were bellows blown in, but the wonderer caught his sympathetic look and replied in a sullen grunt. “Listen to yourself! I can hear dogs barking in you.”

  Thomas breathed fast and deep, trying to shake a faint feeling off. His hands were trembling, the wet sword hilt slipping out of his numb fingers. Oleg wheeled round to the dark passage from where they came; voices were heard from there, footfalls, a clang of steel, the nasty smell grew stronger. Thomas saw his friend shaking his fists in fury, then Oleg calmed down suddenly and was alert.

  The ground gave a shake, they heard a dull distant stroke. There was a strong waft of stink, the crash subsided; they heard stones rolling from above settling. “A collapse?” Thomas asked, feeling creepy.

  “Buried,” Oleg replied with strange satisfaction. His chest rose fast, the look in his bloodshot eyes sharp and furious. “No one will get out!”

  “And us?” Thomas whispered.

  “By chance, Sir Thomas… He whom God helps nobody can harm.” He spat a grey clot of dust down on the stone floor, rubbed it with his boot sole. His face was twisted. Suddenly Thomas grasped in fright that it was the first time he saw the wonderer, so humble and apparently drowsy, in a rage.

  “I’m tired of fighting,” Thomas said. “I want my home…”

  “Are you? And I’ve just begun to rage! A Russian man harnesses the horse slowly.” He shot a sudden glance above, seized Thomas by his arm and yanked him away. Thomas fell down, felt himself dragged. There was a crash, stone splinters flew at his eyes. A huge stone icicle, the size of a warhorse, had fallen from the ceiling and lay where he stood a moment before.

  Oleg helped him up to his feet quickly, dragged him between the curving wall and the brim of the lake. Strange round heads looked out of the dark water. Their droopy whitish hair was dismal; they followed the running man with round frog eyes, unblinking. Once Thomas saw wet hands reaching for him, fingers webbed, like goose toes, but topped with sinister curves of long claws. He screamed and overran Oleg.