Chapter 14: “Aha! Vengeance!”

So he knelt there, the slight edge of the stone already well folded into the flesh of his neck. He was overcome with such a stupor as the sights remembered dallied before his eyes again, though the spell had ended. And his arm was unsteady amongst his daze and his sobs and tears. But the cutting must happen. The day had come. He knew who he was. He knew what ought to happen to such a man. He was not afraid and he did not hesitate, but his hand trembled so and his thoughts crashed together like many flocks of swallows in a crosswind. He gripped the stone yet tighter and conquered the fray of his mind, and it was then he had such purpose he could draw the implement at the line of his lifeblood, and all evil would end. So he thought.

A body on four legs swirled through the grass, past the border of the columns, past the terror-stricken brother and sister who watched their master go to slay himself by his own hand at the feet of the graven image. The dog flew underneath the burly man, bent low though he was. The dog’s teeth nipped the stone from his hand, stealing it.

Cayntuk sat backward onto his hind, stunned to see the beast there, and like a wind it had come between him and death, and now that death was in its mouth.

The dog ground the rock between its teeth. It champed the stone as a cow might crush corn in repast. The jagged shard would be seen not again, for rather than vomit it up, the dog swallowed what powder to which it had reduced the would-be knife.

This sudden and strange scene was watched by Shar-Acul and his company with unsettled eyes.

“Stonebone,” called the Shar. “This man is wretched and unfit for life. Bring his head and put it in my hand.”

Pypak Stonebone drew his blade and went forward. Cayntuk was yet seated in the grass, wiping the wet from his face and blinking fearfully at the dog. But Pypak thought nothing of the dog, save that it was an odd beast and would choke on its unnatural meal. The stout warrior went to claim his thousand-and-one life for his lord. As he came near, the dog leapt upon him. Down fell Pypak Stonebone. Whether his bones were like unto stone or not, it made no matter to the dog. For the dog had just proved that it could devour stones as well as bones.

The godborn warrior died easily, and so it seemed he was manborn in the end. But half a scream served as his final words, and then the dog had shaken the life and the voice out of him. So died Pypak Stonebone.

Shar-Acul and Benbeleel raised their hands in wonder, then reached for their blades. Salsidan the witch blurted powerful curses and clutched at the horns in his cap. The phangen moaned reverently, and the other men looked at one another to learn if their fellows had seen the same brutality as they.

But the dog turned away and trotted to Cayntuk.

Cayntuk, seated, hands in the grass, spittle in his beard, looked at the beast. The dog seemed to sprawl in length. Its red face came near. Its eyes were a mystery.

He heard its voice.

“You have not remembered all,” spoke the dog. Its mouth did not move. It sounded within Cayntuk’s mind, and his thoughts fell flat and groveling to the voice.

The dog spoke again, “You have not remembered our meeting.”

And the world fell away from him, and he saw a new vision of elder sights.

---

He was walking as though drunken, and he surely may have been. He staggered down a sandy path whilst weeping. For every tear he shed he plucked a ring from his finger and cast it into the grit of the earth. The path he followed sunk between a pair of volcanic stones. He wrenched a necklace of sapphires and silver from his neck and flung it to rest on the igneous crest as he past it. And down went the path, until he crouched and passed into darkness.

He had come to a cave. Dim light revealed something of its extent, yielding to sheer black the further on it went. But he did not need to go far. In the center of the cave lay the flat, bloated body of a striding serpent. From snout to tail it was armored, its hands offered grey talons which curved in high arcs. It lifted its head and groaned gluttonously as it regarded him. He fell to both knees, weeping all the while. The awful lizard became narrow as it crawled toward him, its scales jingling as it came. Its head, almost deer-like, but many-horned, and its mouth as wide and merry as a toad’s, filled with fangs and sabers.

And again, or as before, for the first time, something rushed past Cayntuk, stealing as a gust from behind, entering the cave and pushing him aside. It stood between him and the leviathan. He saw it but briefly in one way. Its legs were like pillars of cloud, and its head like the sun veiled in cloud. Its hands were each shaped as a sword of polished bronze. On its back was a whirlwind from which light shot like light off the many faces of a jewel, all aglitter, driving many pocks into the sides of the cave in such straggling form, as though winged, or stormy bolts which crackled and clawed.

But at the sight of the marvel his head felt wounded and he shut his eyes. When he looked again, there was a red dog as large as a mule of Bavbiium. The reptile had recoiled. The dog bayed and gnashed is maw, and the reptile faded tail to haunch to shoulder to neck while it went backward into the depths of the cavern, disappearing as though it slipped into a midnight pool.

He shut his eyes. When he opened them, he saw that the dog, smaller now, was dragging him up the sandy path into daylight again. Nor was it soft of mouth, for his hand hurt where its teeth were set. When it released him and he lay upon ashen ground, he saw that much blood leaked from his palm and wrist.

He sat up, impatient and expectant that the dog should began to eat him.

But the dog sat down as well, looking at the man with only the curious eye of a hound.

“What is your name?” it spoke.

“Talafin Gorehand,” he replied. “Lord of Temman Plain. Talafin the Axe. Talafin the Evil.”

“So it is.”

“What is yours, great monster?” asked the man.

“The Wind,” said the dog. “The Wing. The Teeth. Paerkilgos Ruok.”

“Thou art a god,” said Talafin.

“You would reason rightly,” said the dog.

“Take my life, then,” said Talafin.

“I will,” said the dog.

Talafin offered his throat for the animal’s mouth.

“A corpse serves no use,” said the dog.

“I am only a corpse,” said Talafin.

“You have not earned death, yet,” said the dog.

“Then when shall you give it to me?”

“When you need it,” said the dog.

“I am a wicked man,” said Talafin. “Should not the wicked perish?”

“Were they wicked who perished at your hand?” spoke the dog.

Talafin hung his head and wept anew.

“Yes, you are evil,” said the dog. It raised its head, then lowered it, its eyes rolling and its vision raking him up and down like a farmer tilling a field. It bared its teeth and growled in a low voice. “A hateful thing to behold. I could eat you now and the slain would cry, ‘Aha! Vengeance!’”

Talafin only sat staring at the earth turning red from the blood proceeding from his hand wound.

“But there are others like you,” said the dog. “Who do not and will not ever weep for their hateful deeds. And they are strong, strong and ugly and bestial and full of hunger. Who shall stop them?”

“I do not know.”

“You will die, evil man,” said the dog. “That wound in thy hand is staunchless. You will die and go to a place you cannot leave. The worm in the cave would happily have taken you there without a word. But I would trade words with you first. This need not be your end. This need not be despair and vanity. I can give you strength. I can give you such life and might as you never knew in your evil days.”

“Why?” asked Talafin. “I would only work more evil than before.”

“I would snuff you like a candle if you did,” said the dog, growling or chuckling, or both. “You do evil because you are alone. You men walk the length of your days alone. It is no good. In your solitude you work from your weak, vulgar wants. You, strong man, knowing no reason nor purpose, crushed the small with your strength, growing weaker all the while. But I offer you a gift. My strength. And my company. I would be your friend and your guide, little wretch. To where would I guide you?”

“I do not know.”

“Guess.”

“To some good purpose, I suppose.”

“I would take you to the poor, when the mighty come to slay!” said the dog. “I would take you to the butcher, and meat you would make of him before he lays one knife more to the innocent! I would take you to the lost and you would lead them to refuge! To the drowning man you would be a hand reaching down. To the starving you would be a comb of honey. To the slaves you would be a freeman who frees. To the free and wicked you would be jailor and hangman.”

“I should die now,” Talafin shook his head. “It is enough. It is as I merit.”

“Then you are evil, through and through,” said the dog shaking its head like a mirror. “And I will watch you here, bleeding slowly to death. Do you think you weep now? You will never cease to weep, even after death. There is no rest for your soul. Or be restless for a lifetime more, and follow me abroad the earth, as we silence the enemies of the children of men. Then you may rest.”

“I do not trust myself with any power,” said Talafin.

“Good,” said the dog. “It is my power and I would take it from you should you miswork it. Trust in my bay, in my howl, in my paws where they go. Then shall you do much good for the slaughtered sheep everywhere in this forsaken sphere. Stand and cinch your belt! I have much for you to do.”

Talafin found he obeyed, and had stood, weeping, yet, his breast was lighter, for he felt hope. And he found he stood taller than before. As tall as the trees. He felt he was on fire, burning, as though his body were burning away to crust and ash. Yet he stood as tall as the trees. And the dog was ever before him.

“Come. Talafin has died. Come, Cayntuk! I go!”

And he followed.

He was Cayntuk. The dog brought him to a village where raiders ran at play. Children and women screaming, men falling like wheat at the blades of the invaders. And Cayntuk ran among the raiders, and some of them saw him and smiled, seeing another great man of great height and brawn. Here was one of their captains. Here was a lord of the warpath. And down he cut them. Down dropped the murderers and the thieves as Cayntuk passed them by. Fallen were the bloody swords, lost were the cruel hooks and the devilish arrows of the conquering kind. They were conquered and forgotten. The children cried and the women held them close, and the fathers and grandfathers who had not been slain gathered to their fled families, watching the Ezeershee and the god who attended him stride away into the forest, leaving their village.

He and the dog slogged through a river, casting fish upon the land for the starving fishermen who cast broken nets.

He and the dog stood with their backs to the wind and hail at a midnight, while a party of migrants huddled and built a fire. They did not see the wall which had gathered about them, but only knew they were dry and unharmed, and they thanked what gods they knew for this respite.

He knocked fruit from a tree into the laps of orphans sleeping there.

He put a cloak over the shivering man who lay lost in the wilderness, and took the fever from his body and burned it in his hand.

He waded into the sea and steadied a merchant ship bearing wheat, wine, and herbs for a port where famine had held its people captive.

He doused the torches and blinded the war party which stole by night along a path in the mountains to seize the city in the valley below. And their plans to plunder and ravish were laid waste, for they would find no path but that which led them into the air, and down to the floor of the gorge, where none would hear of them or ever know what might they have done in the morning.

He clapped his hands and the dog howled, and the band of killers heard warhorns and thunder, so they mounted their horses and rode far into another land, despairing of their designs to make slaves and wives of the folk who lived near the lake.

He was glad-hearted and knew himself to be Cayntuk. And knew the dog to be Ruok, his friend. He was never alone. He was never hungry. Ruok brought honeycomb, fruit, and pheasant. They spake of beauty and what might be. And he was never alone.

Then he walked down an old road out of some wasteland, come from some good deed. The dog had gone ahead, hunting out breakfast. The stones of the road became cleaner as he went, less sunken into the earth.

He saw a stranger drift in from the wild fields. He bid the hooded fellow good morning.

“Good morning, Talafin,” spoke the stranger.

And Cayntuk froze as if slain. Beneath the hood of the traveler he glimpsed many teeth, and diamond eyes, and skin like scales and horn.

“I have unfinished business with thee,” said the stranger, who was not so strange the longer it spoke.

Cayntuk looked again, and the face wore a kind smile. Its skin was smooth and white as ivory. Sweet breath of clove and cardamom blew from its mouth.

“You have forgotten, have you?” asked the stranger.

Though he did not know why, Cayntuk groped at his own face, searching for some lost truth about himself.

“Where do you come from, o man?’ said the stranger. “And where are you going?”

“Where goeth the dog,” said Cayntuk.

“Thou submits to a dog and a beast?” said the stranger. “Thou art gaunt. Weak and hungry.”

“I—only a little hungry, yes.”

“Shriveled by the sun, Talafin,” said the stranger. “Shrunken from years in the wilderness.” It tutted its tongue. “What have you done? Do you not know?”

“What do you mean?”

“Shame, for shame that you could simply flee those who had known you,” said the stranger. “Can you remember anything? Anyone at all?”

“Anyone?”

“I see you have abandoned your life,” said the stranger. It put a soft hand on Cayntuk’s breast. “You left them. As though they were nothing. And any man can abandon in body. But have you abandoned them in mind also? That is a selfish jot of magic. It benefits you, surely. How else could you wander thus, so free and careless in this middle-place?”

“Who did I leave?” asked Cayntuk.

“Who indeed,” said the stranger bowing its head sorrowfully.

“What have I done?”

“Don’t you know?”

Cayntuk looked about him. There was nothing to the south but field and far mountain. Nothing to the west but thorn trees. Nothing to the east but stale, muddy waters.

“This illness can be ridden of,” said the stranger. “Though it will take courageous deeds. It may cost you your life.”

“Where am I?” Cayntuk wondered.

“You have forgotten,” said the stranger. “Yourself. And your shame. How dare you?”

“I do not know.”

“But I speak meanly,” said the stranger. “Ill and starving loon. I will tell you how to make this right.”

And it spoke of Ezpuru, of the bones of the hill demon. It spoke of Eshpar’s censer in the grove. It charted the course to the hill of pillars. It held its hands out in a span and showed Cayntuk’s empty mind the wayposts and the pathways to these places. It whispered the order of the rite into Cayntuk’s ear. Before it turned and slithered away in the dust, it spoke one final word to the man, “Go, remember, and pay what you owe.”

Then he wandered more, and could hardly hear the dog howling for him. For days he walked, thinking of nothing but the bones, the burner, and the monoliths. Somewhere miles behind him, a dog bayed.

And ceaselessly he felt nervous. His heart fluttered and he sweat great drops.

“Who am I? What have I done?”

He wandered into the midst of a raid, where people screamed and were slain, but most were corded like goats and led away. Then something struck him and he fell. There were ropes on his own arms and neck. He marched with the other captives. Someone staked his bindings into the soil. And then did he think of the dog.

---

“But I knew you would come for me. You always come for me, no matter how I go my own way.”

He spoke then to the dog, whose face he could see. The dog licked his face.

He looked about.

There stood Shar-Acul, and Benbeleel, and their servants. In Shar-Acul’s hand was his sword, and it was laid across the necks of Brate and Dotha. The sister and brother were on their hands and knees at the feet of the Shar. They trembled as though the world were breaking apart.

Click here for Chapter 15: Some Good Purpose

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