The Way to Babylon Read online

  Ratagan, the bluff red-bearded giant. The drinker—the storyteller. Riven knew him already. Oh, yes.

  ‘Well, I will begin at the start.

  ‘It was last year, in the height of summer. I was wandering in the north of the land, beyond Talisker—’ He waved away Riven’s attempt to interrupt. ‘It was a fine day, a day of haze and buttercups, and the barley ripening. It came upon me that I thought I would climb the Red Mountain and look out on the land, for I was a scout then, in the pay of a lord named Quirinus, though I had little to do. It had been a quiet spring, a summer of plenty. The weather was so fair that the passage of the mountains was but little trouble, though in the winter that is another tale. I was a long way up on the western face, and the sun was hot. I found a ledge that was out of the wind and difficult to approach. And there I sat. And before an hour had passed, I had fallen asleep.’ He stopped talking for a long moment, his sharp face unreadable.

  ‘It was a scream woke me up; someone falling. Then I heard another shout, someone in pain. But I could see no one, though it seemed close by. I looked about me, and what was it I did not see? I saw a small valley below, no place in Minginish; and houses such as I had not seen before sitting there. And before me, wrapped round the rock, was a bright rope and when I drew it up the end was severed.

  ‘Michael, the woman’s voice had screamed as it fell. That I remembered afterwards. At the time I thought the sun had turned my head, but I could not forget that.

  ‘I closed my eyes, and when I opened them I was on the Red Mountain in my own land again. But there was a great stillness in the air. The wind had died and the land was hushed. Not a bird or a bee stirred, and the people in the valley below had stopped their work in the fields and were looking at the sky, for there was a light in it like the shine of blood, and the sun was dimmed. I scrambled down from my high perch with the silence deafening me, and made the best time I could through the mountain passes—but before that first day had gone into night, a cloud that was black as pitch had covered the sky and the wind had taken up again, waxing into a storm the like of which no one had ever seen. Some called it the end of the world. The barley was flattened in the fields, and the lightning struck cattle and people dead where they stood. And then the rain came lashing down like ice, roaring the rivers into flooding the land.’ Bicker’s eyes were far away, narrowed with memory. His hand touched the sword hilt at his side.

  ‘And that was the beginning of it, the start of the Bad Time when the summer died and the snows stalked the land before autumn had even rightly begun; and the beasts came ravening out of the mountains. And the Giants that no man had seen for a score of years—they came down from the snows to spread terror through the Rorims. And the wolves bayed at the very gates of Talisker itself. Minginish began to die.

  ‘I went south, to my home—to Ralarth Rorim, and found the Dales under siege and swamped with snow. A bitter winter had come upon the land and none could find any reason for it.’ He paused again. ‘Except me. I thought I knew. I told my father—the Warbutt—and took the northern road again, and Murtach joined me. We fought our way through the hills and followed the Great River north, and then had a lean time forcing the passage of the mountains. And we went through the door. We found ourselves on the mountain you name Sgurr Dearg, in the Isle of Mists, and we breathed for the first time the tainted air of your world...’

  He trailed off, looking suddenly weary.

  ‘A thin time of it we had, at first. Strange to say, we spoke the same tongue as the folk of the Isle—the same you write in your books. We sounded different, but we could make ourselves understood. Murtach was better than I at aping the accents of the people there.

  ‘We lived like beggars or thieves, stealing enough to live on, finding ourselves more fitting clothes. Murtach’s little pets were a problem. Much of the time they had to remain hidden.’

  ‘Pets?’ Riven asked.

  ‘Wolves, Michael Riven. Murtach has a pair of wolves for his constant companions—Fife and Drum.’

  ‘Wait a minute—’

  But Bicker shook his head. ‘Let me finish this in one go, or it will never be told.

  ‘At any rate, we frequented a string of drinking houses on the Isle, and after a long, weary time, we found out what had occurred that summer’s day on the slopes of the Red Mountain. A woman had died, and a man had been crippled. We learned your name. The trail was easier to follow, then. Murtach did that: with Minginish gold, he pawned his way south. I remained in the north searching for another door to take us home whilst he was looking for you.’

  ‘He found me.’ A vision of wolves crouched under the willows in the night. He had not been imagining them.

  ‘Yes. When he was sure you would be returning to the Isle, he returned himself. It is a long tale, that of his journey: part on foot, part in the machines your people use to move in. And Fife and Drum complicating matters all the way.’ Bicker chuckled. ‘Fine scrapes they got in and out of, I can tell you. But they did it. They came back with the news that you would be returning within weeks or days.

  ‘And Murtach brought two other things north with him, Michael Riven. He brought your books, which we could read as easily as we could speak your tongue. And when we read them, we were dumbfounded. We knew then that your accident, your loss, was somehow tied up with the happenings in our own land. Somehow you are connected with Minginish. Somehow—and this is much worse—you may even be directing what is happening here. That is something which must be thought about.’

  Riven started angrily, but yet again Bicker halted him.

  ‘There is more. I found the door that would take us into Minginish down by the sea not far from Sgurr Dearg in your world.’

  ‘How?’ Riven asked curtly. He was sure the answer was important. Bicker did not look at him.

  ‘I stumbled upon a dark-haired girl wandering in the mountains of the Isle. I followed her, and watched her disappear through the door. It may be she is here now, in Minginish.’

  ‘You bastard!’ Riven spat, his gaze swimming with anger. ‘You knew about her all the time. You knew who she must be.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ Bicker said stiffly. ‘I had little choice.’

  ‘She’s my wife! She’s supposed to be dead.’

  ‘I know. I know how this must be paining you. You must try to accept it. It will make it easier. There may be many lives hanging on your deeds, my friend—perhaps the fate of a whole world.’

  ‘Spare me the sermon, Bicker.’

  So Jenny was here, also. Wandering these hills, perhaps, alone with the beasts.

  Grief and bitterness rose in his throat like vomit. But why had she run away from him? And how could she have gone through the door before the night she had been in the bothy?

  He spat into the fresh grass as he walked. It was mad—crazy and insane. He was treading a nonexistent world with a character from one of his own books. And his dead wife was somehow alive again.

  Jesus Christ!

  He had to stop. His legs were quivering like reeds.

  ‘I can’t—can’t take it. Bicker, this is too much. It is wrong.’

  ‘It is,’ the dark man agreed. ‘But it is nonetheless real.’

  ‘It’s not right. She died. My God, is nothing sacred? She was my wife.’

  ‘And this is my country.’

  Riven blinked furiously. ‘Where’s the snow and ice, then? Where are the Giants and the wolves? It looks pretty much fine here to me—or am I missing something?’

  For the first time Bicker seemed at a loss. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘That I cannot explain. When I last was here the whole land was in the grip of a savage winter. But you like this place, do you not, Michael Riven? You have enjoyed walking through it?’

  ‘Yes. So?’

  ‘Then perhaps that is something to do with it. Perhaps.’

  ‘Bloody hell! What am I then—some sort of weatherman?’

  ‘Maybe you are,’ Bicker said mildly, and continued walking. After a mo
ment Riven followed, swearing silently.

  ‘Where are we going?’ he asked at last.

  ‘To Ralarth Rorim—where else? And it is still a good two days from here. So walk on, Michael Riven, and pray this weather holds. We want a way yet under our belts before dark.’

  So Riven kept walking, because there was nothing else for him to do.

  THERE WAS A soft rain that night, like a whisper at a funeral. It lay like a silver mist in their hair as the light went and they sat beside another fire. Bicker had lit this one with flint and steel, and it took a long time to catch in the moist air. They ate some of Riven’s tinned food and buried their litter, then sat cloak-wrapped staring into the fire in silence. The rain continued. A soft night, Riven thought, and the mourning rose in him to clench his throat as he wondered whether this land was mourning with him.

  ‘Bicker,’ he said, the quiet patter of the rain in his words. ‘Tell me a story.’

  His companion looked up, his face a maze of shadows and beard, but the eyes reflected the firelight. ‘You are the storyteller,’ he said. Riven shook his head helplessly, and buried his stare in the embers. There was a fantail of sparks as Bicker threw another faggot on the fire, then he leaned back into the heavy folds of his cloak.

  ‘I can’t tell you many tales; we have few here in Minginish. I know an old story that concerns the Myrcans, though.’

  ‘The Myrcans?’ Riven remembered. ‘They’re soldiers, fighting men.’

  Bicker made a face. ‘No other word can be used about them. They are soldiers, and they are nothing else.’ He frowned, and sucked his teeth.

  ‘I was a soldier once.’

  ‘You said. But Myrcans, they are born soldiers and die so. I will tell you the tale, so that you may know, for you will meet them soon.’ He built up the fire, edging a larger log into its bright heart. Then he began.

  ‘There were Giants in the north of the land once, tall as hills.

  ‘Some were good, some were not, for that is the way of things. But, being Giants, when they were good they were very good, and when they were bad—’ He shrugged. ‘At any rate, there was one of them who lived in the mountains beyond Dun Drinan, and he was bad, bad right through. He enslaved the people of the valley and made them pay tribute. He took their cattle and their women for his amusement, he razed the walls that they had built, he slew their menfolk for sport. And the long and short of it was that the people beyond Dun Drinan were not happy. But who argues with Giants?

  ‘Well, this Giant—Myrca was the name he called himself by, though he was called by many another—grew so full of pride and arrogance that he wanted to have his face stamped for ever into the faces of the folk in the valley. So he made them build a statue of him, and it was the same size as himself. The Dwarves of the mountains he forced into labour as well, for they were handier with stone, and hardier—but he forgot that they are also stronger in heart than most folk, and most likely to avenge an insult. So they built the statue, and a wondrous sight it was, towering over the Dale and darkening the houses of the people with its shadow—but what do you think, when he looked at it closer, did he see? He saw that the stone was shaped in his likeness, down to the very club he carried, and he was well pleased by that; but when he looked at the face he saw that it was hewn in the likeness of a great pig, with little eyes and drooling chops and a long snout. Then he was not pleased, and his roars flew down the valley to terrify the people. And what did he do? Well, he raised his club, long as a fair-sized tree, and he smote the statue so it crumbled into fragments—but did the fragments not then stand up and start to move around his feet? And did he not see then that everyone was a stern-eyed soldier with hands of stone? And they slew him there and then, and his bones enriched the soil, so that the Dale was ever afterwards one of the richest in the land. But the soldiers who slew him: they called themselves the Myrcans, and their great host split up among all the Dales of Minginish to guard the folk of the world from Giants. And so it is today that the Myrcans, a few to every people in the land, hold the Dales safe from the beasts that come out of the mountains.’

  The fire rustled, and Bicker yawned. ‘Not much of a story, but it passes the time.’ He looked at the sky. ‘We’ll be wetter before the morning. Get some sleep, and I’ll do the watching for a while.’

  But Riven woke up in the dead hour before dawn to find Bicker standing beside him with a drawn sword, and his head up like a hound’s on a scent.

  ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing, I think. An odd smell on the wind. Nothing.’ He sheathed his sword. ‘But we’ll move out now, nonetheless, break our fast in some other place.’ And he helped Riven’s chilled fingers to pack in the pre-dawn gloom.

  THE SUN ROSE in a clear sky, drying out their damp clothes and warming Riven’s aching legs.

  I’ll get metal fatigue if this goes on much longer.

  He wondered how far they had walked in the past couple of days, and preferred to give up calculating when he found he was adding together miles walked on Skye and here, in this place, Minginish.

  Just take it as it comes.

  ‘There’s smoke ahead,’ he said, noticing. He glanced at Bicker, who seemed pleased.

  ‘I see it. But don’t worry. We are expected.’ One raised finger halted his companion’s questions. Riven threw a few choice words around in his head, but held his peace.

  Another mile, and they had reached a small camp fire with a group of figures gathered around it. Two were animals, built like large grey dogs, who sat on their haunches and eyed the newcomers warily, sniffing the wind. The other two were human. They stood up as Bicker and Riven approached, one huge and broad, the other slight—smaller than Bicker. They both wore grins on their faces as the travellers reached them.

  ‘Out of the misty island and looking twice as ugly as the day he was born,’ the smaller one said. He was dressed in a linen shirt with a coat of sheepskin and breeches of leather. A sword hilt rose up behind one shoulder, and in his brown face gleamed eyes blue as a lochan under a clear sky. The two wolves took their place at his side.

  Riven frowned as he saw him.

  ‘Murtach, you smell like a dead sheep in high summer,’ Bicker rejoined, slapping him on the shoulder and sparing a hand for the two wolves to lick. They sidled round him and Riven, sniffing at the strange smells, their yellow eyes deep and eager. Riven froze as a wet nose was pushed into the palm of his hand.

  ‘And what about me, you spawn of a hill fox? Have you no word for Ratagan?’ The big man was also clad in sheepskins, but he wore a blue sash around his waist with the haft of an axe tucked through it. His face was blunt as a crag, written over with lines of mirth, and a red beard jutted out from it, the sunshine setting it alight. He picked Bicker up as though he were a child and shook him until his teeth rattled.

  ‘Hair of the dog!’ Bicker cried. ‘I would have spoken sooner if I’d known you were sober—’ and he was flung on the ground. He landed catlike, and the attention of the other two fell on Riven, so that he wondered if he were to be thrown around like a rag as well.

  ‘And you have brought the Teller of Tales with you,’ Murtach said. ‘He looks a mite healthier than when I last saw him.’ The small man came forward and bent in a low bow. ‘Murtach Mole at your service, Michael Riven. It is a while I have waited to see you in Minginish.’

  ‘Molesy!’ Riven cried.

  Murtach grinned, showing teeth startlingly white against his brown face. ‘The very same.’ Then he bent like an old man, and said in a Highland accent: ‘So how are ye today, Mister Riven?’

  Riven could only gape, astonished.

  ‘Are you on your own, or are there others out?’ Bicker asked Murtach.

  ‘Two Myrcans watch over us even as we speak,’ he replied. ‘Their woodcraft is woeful, but they are roving the hills around us to discourage pursuit.’

  Bicker raised his eyebrows. ‘Myrcans. You must have had a well-oiled tongue to persuade them to join a party such as th
is.’

  Murtach sobered. ‘Much has changed while you were away, Bicker. The snows have gone for the moment, but even so few venture into the hills at any time now. The easing of the weather has not lessened the attacks of the mountain creatures.’

  Bicker grimaced. ‘We’ll talk of it later when we have a roof over our heads. I have much to tell the Warbutt.’

  ‘That will be no one-sided talk, I fear,’ Ratagan said, kicking out the fire. ‘He’s not been holding his toes since you left. There are changes at the Rorim, also.’

  ‘That can wait, though,’ Murtach put in. ‘We’d best be moving; there are miles ahead of us yet, though the day is not old.’

  Bicker nodded. Ratagan and Murtach slung their packs, and the company set off briskly, the two wolves loping ahead. They made great speed, for the ground was good and the morning was still cool. Riven stumbled along in their midst, his mind reeling with questions which he knew better than to ask.

  It’s Thursday. And yesterday it was Wednesday, and the day before that I was on Skye. I had bacon and eggs for breakfast. It was a nice morning. A nice morning.

  These are the labours of your imagining.

  But what is going on here? How can this happen?

  What is happening to me?

  SEVEN

  THEY WALKED ALL day at a pace that was punishing for Riven, and he began to feel like a hounded prisoner. He was glad to see the approach of dusk, but with it came the sight of a dark line across the horizon ahead.

  ‘Scarall Wood,’ said Bicker. ‘We have made good time. We will camp there tonight and be in Ralarth Rorim by evening tomorrow.’ He looked at Murtach. ‘What of the Myrcans?’

  ‘They rejoin us at dusk. If we camp on the southern edge of the wood, they should find us easily enough.’