They had so little current that she had not noticed. There was no perceptible wind. The moon was almost set: it had been be-hind her and still was. There was nothing else to rely on.
She could only go on towards what she must hope were the right woods.
She could not tell how long she had been walking, or how far, but tension and fear had already tired her when suddenly she realized that she had come to the border of the woods--or of some woods, anyway.
There was no fence or ditch, and this surprised her--were the cattle, then, free to wander into the forest?--but the edge of the trees was unexpectedly regular; as far as she could see, a more or less straight fine stretching away into the gloom on either hand. Not far to the river, Zenka had said. If that was right, then perhaps she was now quite close to it. She stopped, listening, but could hear no sound like that of the torrent which she had crossed with the Subans. Not knowing what else to do, she pushed her way in among the trees.
At once she realized why there was no need of any ditch or fence to keep back the cattle. The wood itself was the fence. The Subans, when they cleared the ground for their meadows--however long ago that might have been--must have felled as much as they could of the primitive woodland and simply left the rest. What she found herself in was an almost impenetrable thicket. There was no least glimmer of light. The thin, spindly trees stood close, crowded one against another, their branches interlacing; and below the branches lay a mass of thick undergrowth full of creepers, thorns and briars. There was no telling right from left or, if she were to go any distance into this place, forward from back.
Maia began to weep. She did not sob or whimper: these were not tears of lamentation or protest, but the silent weeping of despair. Despite her terror upon setting out, she had at least possessed resolution: she had been determined not to give up. But there could be no finding a way onward through this.
For what seemed a long time she sat hunched on the ground, so still that the minute, nocturnal sounds of the wood resumed about her. As her weeping abated, she became aware of faint rustlings of roosting birds above. Then, with a clutch of fear, she realized that quite close to her some fairly large creature was moving.
She sat motionless, holding her breath. The animal, whatever it was, passed within a few yards of her, crackling its way among the bushes. Then, with unnatural sudden-ness, the sound vanished. A few moments later it resumed below her, yet somehow altered; in some odd way louder, though more distant than before. After a few moments the explanation came to her. The ground immediately ahead must be sloping downward, and the animal was making its way down some sort of cleft or gully, where such noise as it made would be magnified between the tunneling sides. And surely it could only be towards the river that the wood sloped.
Drawing her dagger, she began to crawl forward on hands and knees, cutting her way foot by foot through the undergrowth. It was desperately slow work, and soon both her hands were bleeding, so that it was all she could do to reach out for another tangle and sever it strand by strand. But she had been right--the ground was indeed falling away in front of her.
She had heard tell of tracts of poisonous growth in forests such as this--ivies and nightshades which inflicted horrible pain and illness upon any creature wandering into them unawares. She could feel and smell leaves and trailing plants all around her as she crawled on, her hands always lower than her knees, her head lower than her body as the descent grew steeper. The whole forest seemed to have fallen silent: her own pain, her own breathing enveloped her. As often as she stopped, she listened with the tension and fear of an animal; and at these moments it seemed as though Shakkarn himself must be following, pit-pat, pit-pat over the fallen leaves.
Now, as though under closed eyelids, she seemed to see, swimming before her, ahead and below, an indistinct, faintly-shining swirl; a glimpse of silvery-gray in ghostly, silent motion, as though the ground itself--or perhaps the air-- were actually sliding away. This, she knew, could only be some kind of illusion. Fear must have affected her eyesight. Yet still she went onward and downward, reaching out her arms and clumsily sliding her bruised knees one before the other.
Suddenly she found herself groping in a thick, muddy pool. On each side of her were others. The trees were fewer, bigger, further apart. Above she could make out faint light--a patch of open sky.
Cautiously, she stood up. With a kind of slow dissolving of unbelief she grasped-- what else could it be?--that she must have reached the swamp bordering the Valderra. The spectral, silvery flow was the river itself, gliding away towards her right.
Sinking at every step into the swampy, rushy ground, she struggled through the trees. As at the ford, there seemed on this side of the river no distinct bank; only the marsh, interspersed, further out, by channels of flowing water. Now it was growing deeper, the water, and there was no longer any firm ground between the pools merging one into another, becoming the river's edge under the faint starlight.
She was up to her knees. If she tried to wade on she would sink in and stick fast: yet if she tried to swim there would be submerged roots and sunken branches to rip an arm or a thigh. Lying down in the water, she thrust warily forward, sometimes braving a few strokes, hands always in front to feel for danger.
At length she reached a little island overgrown with reeds, and crawled across it. On the further side was disclosed the river itself, open to the sky, broader than she could have imagined, revealing itself at last like an enemy ready and waiting. There was no guessing the depth; and peering, she could make out no trace of the opposite bank.
Never a sound it made; very black where the dim light did not strike the surface, and terrifyingly swift, racing down out of darkness and disappearing into darkness again. Suddenly, out of that darkness, like the sneering taunt of a giant--let me just show you, dear!--the river displayed, a few yards out on the current, the body of a goat, swollen and distorted; a sodden, bobbing bundle with bared teeth and pecked-out eyes. Swiftly it was gone, remaining no longer than the river needed to make plain to her what it was.
"Lespa, you sent me here. I've obeyed you, mistress of stars and dreams. Guard and save me now!"
Quickly Maia stripped, retaining only her sandals and the knife-belt round her waist. Her clothes she flung into the water: they floated a moment and were swept away. Then, with a last glance upward towards the clouds covering the stars, she plunged into the Valderra.
52: ORDEAL BY WATER
The moment that Maia had dived into the river she felt certain of her own death. She had never known any water like this. She was powerless in it. This was not water as she had always known and understood it. It was as though she had put a taper to a fire laid on a hearth, to see it instantly leap out and blaze about the room. In panic she tried to struggle back to the bank; but in this current there could be no reaching it. In the moment that she desisted she was spun round, her body vertical in the water, arms flailing as she tried to raise herself sufficiently to breathe, to swim at all, anywhere, in any direction.
She was, she now realized, no more than a fragment in a torrent like a vast mill-race. If only she had been able to see it clearly, by day, she would never have attempted to cross it; would have turned tail and made the best of her way back to Melvda. But now there could be no going back. She was fighting for her life--or for a few more minutes of life-- in a current malignant as a demon. This was a demon's domain: Lespa herself was powerless here.
Always, before, she had thought of water as her own, kindly element. The tutelary spirits moving in water had known and loved her, their infant splashing about the shallows, their pretty lass half a mile from shore, lazing home-ward under a red sky. And yet she had intuitively known-had known three hours ago, when Lespa first spoke in her heart--that to try to swim the lower Valderra would most likely prove her death. If it were not so, Karnat would have found some way to cross it long before this.
The swirling, broken current changed to a strong, steady flow. It seemed now that she
was being carried down a great pool in the dark. The river had not yet succeeded in killing her: she had a respite while it prepared for a second attempt. A particle of courage returned to her. She was Maia of Serrelind, not a drowning goat. If Lespa had lost sight of her, if the water had betrayed her, if the demon was going to kill her, at least she would make it as hard for him as she could. In her first panic she had thought of nothing but keeping afloat. Now, in this breathing space, she was able to recall that however dark and wide the river, the opposite bank must lie somewhere to her left.
She turned on her belly and as best she could began to swim in that direction.
Yet in such a current her strongest efforts were puny and futile. Each stroke with her left hand seemed all-consumingly arduous, like trying to hoist herself up a rope with one arm. Each stroke with her right hand instantly swung her downstream, struggling to turn and commence the whole weary task again.
She felt herself beginning to fail. Already in the forest and the swamp she had been tired, before ever she began this losing fight with the water; and even had she not been tired it would still have been beyond her.
As the force of the current strengthened again she abandoned all attempt to swim steadily across it, merely drifting passively and then suddenly snatching a quick stroke or two, for all the world as though hoping that the demon might not catch sight of her in time. She must be in midstream--now--of that much she felt sure--but still her half-blinded, water-filled eyes could make out no trace of the opposite bank.
Suddenly pain ripped down the length of her right thigh. Something jagged had pierced her, torn her.
Clutching at the place, she was instantly pulled under, mouth and throat full of water, choking; kicking to get her head above the surface. She came up to find herself drifting backwards, and as her eyes cleared saw flash past her in the gloom a glistening, humped, irregular shape, solid amid spatterings of gray foam.
An instant later it was followed by another. She was among rocks. It must have been a sharp rock which had gashed her.
Even as she realized her danger the shape of another rock as big as herself came rushing towards her out of the blackness of the river. There was turbulent noise all around her now--a jagged expanse of broken water, roaring and booming. It was like being among a herd of stampeding beasts.
Thrusting out both hands, she clutched at a pointed, uneven projection of rock and clung to it amid the tumult, seeking no more than to hold herself where she was. Now that the demon had driven her into a trap from which all her strength and skill as a swimmer could not save her, now that her death was certain, her only thought was simply to survive the next moment. Soon she would not have the strength even to retain her hold on the smooth, wet stone. There was no pain along her thigh now, but the water, in the gash, felt very cold: she must be losing blood fast.
It was then, as she hung swaying to and fro at the end of her clenched fingers, that she suddenly glimpsed a glow of fire in the dark. Far off--what did "far off" mean, in this welter where she could move no way but deathward?-- yet it was real, it was not her fancy. It was downstream of her and on her right. It was not a lamp or torch, but the redness of a burning fire; and for an instant--or so it seemed to her--she could hear voices. With all her remaining strength she shouted; listened, then shouted again.
There was no reply. Yet the fire burned on. And if she could reach it she would live and not die.
She let go of the rock, giving a strong push with her legs, lunging away, thrusting herself as hard as she could across the current in the direction of the fire. Instantly there appeared another rock, low in the stream, almost level with the surface, split and fissured. The water poured over and through it. Trying to cling to it, she could find no hold and was swept onward.
Then began a nightmare of scraping and jarring, of grabbing, of seizing and losing hold, of gasping and choking and an endless succession of heavy, horribly painful blows, as though she were being beaten with stone hammers. Sometimes she clung, sometimes she knelt, sometimes she fell. Once, in struggling, she kicked a rock and screamed with pain, sure that she must have broken her toes. Yet surely the fire was nearer?
As often as her head went under the water resounded far and near with the chattering of stones. She was bemused now, no longer capable of thought, mindless of past or future or of where she had come from. She had never done anything in her life but struggle and writhe in this howling, rock-strewn darkness, the fanged mouth of the water demon, to be bitten small and gulped down into the Valderra.
A voice was shouting: her own voice or another's? In her own mind, or the voice of some bygone victim, some water-ghost wailing in the cataract? Why must she go on suffering, why could she not submit herself to the river and drown? Yet she could not, but still gulped and fought for air, no longer swimming, becoming nothing but flotsam tossed and battered from rock to rock. Looking up suddenly, she saw the fire quite plainly. It was level with her; and it must be close, for she could actually make out the shape of a blazing log. There were--O Lespa!--there were men beside it; men standing secure on dry land, not thirty yards away!
Next moment her head struck heavily against a rock. For a moment she felt a dizzy, sickening pain, and then nothing more.
At first she was aware of nothing but pain. She did not wonder whether she was dead or alive, whether she was on dry land or still in the river, whether she was alone or with others. Pain, lying over her body like thick mist, blotted out all else. She knew only that she was covered in pain from head to foot. She could feel, like a kind of spring from which one particular pain was welling up and flowing out, a great contusion, tender and throbbing, across her right temple. One forearm, too, was horribly painful, as though it had been scraped and torn up and down with a grater. She could feel the wound in her thigh throbbing and as she moved that leg, a sudden agony from her toes shot up it, making her cry out.
There were voices near-by, but it was as though she were hearing them through the thickness of a wall.
They were Tonildan voices, but she could not make out what they were saying. How could she be in Tonilda? A voice spoke close to her ear, and as it did so she remembered the river, the rocks, the fire. A moist finger was rubbing her lips with something bitter and strong. She recognized it: it was djebbah, the raw spirit the peasants distilled from corn. Tharrin had once given her some, and had laughed when she choked on it.
She opened her eyes. She was beside a fire--that very fire--yes, it could only be--which she had seen from the river. She was wrapped in a cloak and lying on a rough blanket. Her thigh was tightly bound up--rather too tightly. A soldier was kneeling beside her, supporting her head on his arm. Three or four more soldiers were looking down at her.
So she had crossed the river! An enormous sense of achievement and satisfaction rose up in her. The pain was still very bad--the worst she had ever known--but now she could endure it. She was among friends: she was not going to die in the river.
"Lespa be praised!" she whispered aloud.
The soldier supporting her, a big, burly fellow, said, "How you feeling, lass?"
"Bad," she moaned. "Reckon I'm bad!"
"Have a drop more of this. It'll kill the pain--deaden it, like."
Little by little Maia's circle of awareness was growing. The light of the fire made it difficult to see much beyond, but she could hear the river close by, while on her other side stood two or three huts, one with a stack' of spears piled against the wall. The man supporting her head was wearing the badges of a tryzatt.
"All right, lass," said the tryzatt. "Just try'n take it easy, now."
"What--what happened?" she asked, "You pulled me out?"
"Jolan here got you out," he said. "We heard you shouting in the river, and he went in after you. It was a miracle you weren't swept away, only you were jammed in between two rocks out there, see?"
"Thank you," she said, trying to smile at the man towards whom the tryzatt was pointing. "I can't say n'more. Hope you're
not hurt." The man grinned and shook his head. His forehead was bleeding.
"How did you come to be in the river?" asked the tryzatt. " 'Twasn't no accident, was it? You in trouble? Tryin' to make away with yourself, were you?"
Now, and only now, Maia remembered everything-- Zenka, the Terekenalt night attack, her own desperate resolve. She tried to stand up, but at once fell back with an appalling spasm of pain up her leg.
The tryzatt caught her.
"Easy, now, girl! Nothing's that bad. You're not the first and you won't be the last." Suddenly he paused, looking at her sharply as a fresh thought struck him. "Did you throw yourself in--or did someone push you? Come on, now--what happened? Just tell us the truth of it."
"Easy, tryze," said one of the men. "The poor banzi's all in. Why not leave it till morning?"
"Ay, maybe you're right," answered the tryzatt. "Then we can--"
Maia clutched his arm. "Tryzatt, listen! You must take me to Rallur at once--"
"No, not tonight!" he said. "You just forget your troubles for a bit, lass, and go to sleep. We'll look after you, don't worry."
"No! No!" She was frantic. "They're your troubles! Lis-ten--"
"She's off her head," said the man called Man. " Tain't surprisin', considerin'--"
"Listen! You must listen to me!" But now her head and every part of her was hurting so badly that she could not even collect her thoughts, let alone talk. At last she managed to say, "I've swum the river from Suba." And then "King Karnat--"
"Steady, girl," said the tryzatt again. "No use tellin' us a lot of old nonsense, now. That's not goin' to make your troubles any lighter."
"Oh, please listen to me! I tell you, the Beklan army's in terrible danger! Those Tonildans south of Rallur--"
"Why, what do you know about Tonildans south of Rallur?" asked the tryzatt sharply.
Maia was trying to gather strength to reply when suddenly Jolan came forward, stooped and looked closely into her face.