The Spirit Well be-3 Page 6

  Kit had never heard the word before. “Karka,” he repeated.

  Dardok uttered a grunt of satisfaction and pointed to the line of tracks-first one, then the next. Then, with the tip of his spear, the Big Hunter indicated a long slash between two of the tracks and made a flourish with the flat of his hand. The action was so expressive Kit could not fail to understand: a beast walking, its tail sweeping the snow now and then.

  Again Dardok pointed to the tracks. “Kar-ka.”

  Into Kit’s mind came the image of a great shaggy animal the size of a small cow, but with a huge head supported by a huge neck and muscular shoulders. It had a short mane that wreathed its jaws and ran down its sloping back in the form of a ridge of spiky dark fur. Kit knew instantly what it was; he had seen one before: in another time, in another place, at the end of a chain. It was a cave cat, older brother to the beast the Burley Men called “Baby.”

  “Karka,” breathed Kit.

  With his broad hand Dardok swept the print away, then rose and resumed the trek. They soon came to a place where the river gorge made a wide, arcing curve, bending around to the north. The valley below widened and flattened out, and the cliff top on which they walked began to descend to meet it, falling to within thirty metres or so of the riverbank. A little farther on, Dardok found a trail and led the party down to the valley floor; he halted there to take a good sniff of the wind and, satisfied there were no predators lurking about, led them around the arc of the river to a massive wall of pale limestone. He stopped again and gazed around, scanning the rocks and cliffs above as well as the riverbanks, then moved cautiously towards the wall.

  It was only as they neared this curtain of stone rising sheer from the valley floor that Kit saw the hole-an empty oval a few metres in radius and not more than three metres off the valley floor: the entrance to a cave. A tumble of rocks lined the base of the wall, and Dardok moved towards them, slowing as he came to stand below the hole in the wall. Kit felt a shiver of awareness, and the party instantly contracted into a tight knot. Scanning the area, he saw what had drawn the others’ attention. On the rocks below the hole were more tracks, identical to those they had seen on the bluffs above. Kit stared at the tracks in the snow and then smelled the sharp animal pong. An image came into his mind: a great slab-sided dark beast with massive forequarters, powerful haunches, and a shaggy, brindled coat: karka.

  The wooden vessel containing the embers was pressed into Kit’s hands, and Dardok turned to the others. In his head Kit heard the brief flutter of thoughts as they passed among the hunters and, though he could not understand what he heard, he glanced up to where they were looking and saw the big cat standing in the entrance to the hole; it was watching them, its huge yellow eyes narrowed, its ears flattened to its enormous head.

  Instinctively Kit stepped backwards.

  Then everything seemed to happen all at once. The great cat sprang from the mouth of the cave, forelegs outstretched, scimitar claws extended. The hunters scattered, darting away in every direction.

  Kit turned to flee, slipped in the snow, and went down, losing his grip on the ember-bearing vessel. The cave lion landed on the rocks below the cave mouth, its head whipping first one way and then the other as it determined which of the many victims provided the nearest, easiest kill. It saw Kit floundering in the snow and crouched, gathering itself to pounce. The huge head lowered as the immense body contracted, muscles bulging-a coil tightening before release-and Kit swam backwards through the snow, kicking his legs, his arms windmilling.

  The cave lion leapt. A slight lift of its chest, and the creature was in the air. In the same moment Dardok darted to Kit’s side. With a grace born of endless practise, Big Hunter’s massive arm drew back. The spear point came up and, with only the merest pause, flashed forward. Dardok’s shoulders and torso followed as he delivered the full weight of his body behind the throw. The rude weapon sliced the air in a tight arc and struck home.

  With the sound of an open-fisted slap, the shaft buried its razor-sharp flinthead between the ribs of the enormous cat just behind the front legs. Ears flat, baleful eyes glaring, its great mouth open in a snarl of pain and rage, karka spun to confront the attack. A second missile was already in the air-a blur of motion that ended as the spear sprouted from the beast’s thick neck.

  The lion swiped at the missile and succeeded in dislodging the shaft. It gathered itself to pounce, but Dardok gave out a cry, and hunters advanced on the run, darting in behind their spears to stab and jab before darting away again-first one side and then the other, keeping the angry animal off balance and confused.

  Dardok turned and swooped on Kit, picking him up and setting him on his feet in one swift motion. Pressing a big hand to Kit’s chest, he pushed him back, then with a mighty shout ran to join the fray. The lion, bleeding now from several wounds, roared to shake the stones from the earth. With great slashes of its claws, the cat tried to catch its tormenters as one at a time they darted nearer. Big Hunter dared the claws and, in an act of courage that took Kit’s breath away, snatched his spear from the beast’s side.

  Growling, spitting, the great cat spun and raked the air with its claws. Dardok dodged just out of reach and then plunged the spear point into the creature’s side. The cat loosed a scream of pure hatred and rage and turned-not toward Dardok this time, but away-just as another of the band leapt in to retrieve his weapon. Karka’s huge paw met the oncoming clansman and ripped through his side, opening a four-fold wound across his belly.

  The hapless hunter staggered from the blow and looked down, his fur clothing in shreds. And then the muscle cords severed, and a gout of blood and bowels gushed from the wound. The man crumpled as if made of paper.

  Dardok gave a cry of rage and drove in again, stabbing down into the cave lion’s huge muscled neck. He buried the stone blade deep and leapt away again. The other hunters continued their feinting attack, careful to remain just out of reach of those killing claws. Every thrust, nick, and stab drew blood, staining the snow in a wide circle as the beast thrashed and gyrated, trying to capture another of its tormentors.

  Meanwhile, Dardok ran to the injured hunter and seized him by the arm. Kit ran to help him, and together they dragged him out of the way. Blood welled from his injury; the man’s face was white and his lips were blue and trembling; his body shook. Kit bent over him, gripping his hand. The hunter, his eyes wide, gave out a sighing groan as a spasm seized him, then abruptly relaxed, leaving Kit holding the hand of a dead man.

  Behind them the cave cat gave out a bone-rattling yowl. The creature reared up on its hind legs, towering over its attackers. It made another ineffectual swipe with a mighty paw, then turned to retreat.

  The hunters were ready. As the big cat spun around to scramble back up the rocks and into the shelter of the cave behind it, the nearest hunter lunged, driving the stone point of his spear deep into the lion’s side just behind the forelegs. The cat screamed and turned, half rising up on its haunches. The clansman held firm to the shaft of the spear, forcing it deeper. The lion raked at the hateful weapon, and a second hunter dashed in from the other side. He was followed by a third, and the three held the writhing beast pinioned as a fourth hunter took careful aim and plunged his spear into the lion’s massive chest.

  The last wound was fatal. The lion gave a final roar, and its legs collapsed beneath it. The great body rolled onto its side, and the creature subsided with a long, gurgling sigh. Even dead, the animal presented an aspect of tremendous power and fearsome grace. Dardok pulled his spear from the carcass and wiped the stone point on its bloody pelt. He then knelt and placed his hand on the big cat’s head. One by one, the other hunters followed his example. They remained in this attitude for a long moment, and then rose and, taking up their spears once more, walked away without a backward glance. Kit hesitated. What about their dead comrade, he wondered. They had shown a moment’s respect for the dead lion, why not their clansman?

  “Wait!” Kit called after them. His shou
t was not understood, but it produced the desired effect of halting them. Stepping to the poor, mangled corpse of the hunter, Kit fought down a queasy sickness at the horrendous gaping wound; he knelt and began pulling together the bloody bits of fur, straightening the man’s limbs, and wiping the blood from his face.

  As he worked, Kit became aware that the others had gathered close and were watching him. When he finished arranging the body, he rose and, searching along the base of the limestone wall, gathered stones and placed them around the body. Once the corpse was outlined, he proceeded to cover it. Dardok was first to catch hold of the idea. Imitating Kit’s example, he joined in building the burial mound. The others were quick to follow Big Hunter’s lead; soon all were busy adding stone to stone until the body of the hunter was completely subsumed beneath a neat oblong heap of stone.

  Kit stood and, feeling that he should say or do something to mark the occasion, stretched his hand over the grave, and after a moment’s contemplation said, “Creator of all that is and will be, we give you back one of your creations. His life in this world was taken from him, but we ask that you receive him into the life of the world that has no end.”

  This impromptu prayer shocked Kit fully as much as it surprised his companions. What they made of it, he could not guess. The sentiment and words to express it had simply materialised on his tongue as he spoke. Still, now that they were said he felt there was a rightness about them; both words and sentiment seemed good and proper. He raised his head and gave a grunt of satisfaction the hunters could not mistake. Then, picking up the dead hunter’s spear, he stepped away from the mound. He had gone but a few steps when he felt Dardok’s hand on his shoulder; the gesture stopped him in his tracks and held him there for a few moments before releasing him again. No other communication took place, but Kit understood. A profound connection had been made, a link forged in the minds of all who had witnessed Kit’s improvised burial rite. A new thing had come to pass, and it was now acknowledged. Nothing else was needed.

  CHAPTER 7

  In Which Subversion Is Plotted

  Lady Haven Fayth was accustomed to skating on thin ice where her relationship with the vile Lord Burleigh was concerned. But cracks of doubt were beginning to show beneath her blades, and she was having to skate faster and faster to stay ahead of his racing suspicions. She could sense that a parting of the ways loomed. She would like to have learned more from him about ley leaping-at least sounded the depths of his knowledge to find out how extensive it was. But time was against her now, and the best she could hope for was to make sure that the inevitable separation happened on her terms, not his.

  The Black Earl’s present distraction might be, she reasoned, the perfect opportunity to make good her own escape. Her captor and erstwhile co-conspirator was at the present moment wholly consumed by the Kit Livingstone affair-and not without good reason. Secure in the knowledge that Kit-along with Cosimo, Sir Henry, and Giles- had met his ultimate end and been entombed in the sepulchre of High Priest Anen, Burleigh had come to Prague to collect the latest version of his ley-hunting device hot off the workbench of the emperor’s chief alchemist, Bazalgette. The cunning little instrument was made of brass and was about the size and shape of a cobblestone, but that was about all she knew of it; Haven had only glimpsed it fleetingly and furtively, because his lordship kept it, like much else, entirely to himself. Haven suppressed a laugh, recalling the look of disbelief on Burleigh’s face when he was informed that the presumed-to-bedeceased Kit Livingstone was… surprise!.. alive and well and loose in the streets of Prague.

  The resulting chase succeeded only in wounding the coachman, Giles; Kit had escaped and the Burley Men were held to blame for the debacle. For the last four days the Black Earl and his louts had been combing the countryside for Kit. At first they merely searched the physical geography of the area-the hedgerows, villages, barns, and even the river-and when that failed to raise any material evidence the search was expanded to include any ley lines within reach of the fleeing man. They had found a likely ley in the vicinity of their initial chase, but a thoroughgoing search of the destination on the other side failed to raise a trail.

  As day gave way to day and reports from the Burley Men brought them no closer to finding the fugitive, his lordship’s temper darkened the more. He was angry at everyone and everything: angry at being lied to-though the Burley Men denied this vehemently-angry at the lack of results, angry that his plans were being stymied by a mere know-nothing nobody, angry at his own failure to get his hands on the one piece of the Skin Map he knew where to find. None of this was Haven’s fault, a fact she was not hesitant to point out. She most strenuously distanced herself from the current disaster, hoping to remain aloof from the steadily mounting storm of his lordship’s wrath.

  “There is some deception here that I have yet to penetrate,” Burleigh declared on his return to the inn. It was the evening of the fifth night of the futile search, and his mood was toxic. “Livingstone has been aided and abetted in his escape. That is the only explanation-at least, it is the only explanation that makes sense.”

  The weather had turned cold and wet with a foretaste of the winter to come; Lady Fayth was sewing new buttons onto a coat she had bought in the market, replacing the wooden ones with silver. Lord Burleigh sank into a chair by the fireplace and summoned one of the inn’s serving boys to come and remove his muddy boots.

  “Clean them and bring them back when you are finished,” he commanded, his German lumpy but understandable. “Have the landlord fetch me something to drink-a jar of mulled ale will suffice for now. Get on with you. And be quick about it!”

  The lad scurried off. He had learned to obey swiftly and without question when the earl spoke.

  “You say Kit is a know-nothing,” Haven ventured, “and by all indications it would seem that you are correct in your assessment. If that be so, then what can it possibly matter that he has escaped?”

  “Because he is a thorn in the flesh,” snarled Burleigh. “He is an increasingly troublesome obstruction to the ongoing search for the map. He is a rival and a threat.”

  Haven did not raise her eyes from her work. “Hardly that, I think.”

  “Do you doubt it?”

  “I doubt it very much indeed, sir,” she replied. “He is as you have painted him-a nothing, a nobody. His only attachment to this enterprise was through his great-grandfather, Cosimo. That tether has been severed, and Kit has no idea what to do or where to go next. In the brief time I was with him he showed no volition and demonstrated no extraordinary understanding of the enterprise in which he was involved.”

  “My impression too,” affirmed Burleigh. “Entirely.”

  “Why not simply put him out of your mind? Kit Livingstone is of no consequence. Whatever his understanding may be, it can have no bearing on your designs.”

  “How is his presence in Prague to be explained?”

  “Just coincidence, surely,” she suggested, passing the needle through the button and into the cloth in a single smooth stroke. “Everyone must be somewhere, after all.”

  “But why here?” Burleigh growled, watching her. “I think he was here for a reason, and I want to know what it was. That woman at the coffeehouse is mixed up in this-I know it.”

  “Who?” Haven raised an eyebrow. “One of the serving girls?”

  “No-not a servant, blind you. The other one.”

  Haven stared at him blankly. “I cannot for the life of me think who you must mean.”

  “The tall one,” he snarled. “The English manageress or owner or whatever-I’m telling you she knows more than she lets on.”

  “You are chary by nature,” Lady Fayth suggested, returning to her work. “It does you no good. Here we are, flailing about uselessly when we could be getting on with the hunt. That is surely more important than running down Kit Livingstone.”

  “She was poking around the palace, trying to ingratiate herself at court. That’s where I met her, you know-the first time I c
ame here. A right Miss Busybody.”

  Haven drew the needle up through the button. “Are we talking about the woman from the coffeehouse again?”

  “She implied she knew about my travels, or something of the sort,” Burleigh continued. “I warned the wench in no uncertain terms to keep her nose out of my affairs.”

  “Then I am certain she has taken your good advice to heart,” concluded Haven sweetly. “Anyway, she can have no idea about any of this. Living here in Prague and running a coffeehouse-one is hardly liable to stumble across anything of value to our cause.”

  “Perhaps we should go talk to her,” he said. “Find out what she knows.”

  Haven lowered her work into her lap and gave the exhausted earl a look of sharp appraisal. “The woman is hardly going to cooperate after your heavy-handed intimidation. If she does know anything, you would be the last person in whom she would confide.”

  Burleigh frowned, then brightened as a new thought came to him. “ You could go.”

  “Me?” Lady Fayth feigned disapproval. “I cannot see what good that would do. I can think of nothing worthwhile to say to her.”

  “You could come alongside her-woman-to-woman, be her friend, gain her confidence.”

  “Do you honestly imagine that will achieve some positive result?” Haven asked, still shaking her head.

  “She would talk to you,” insisted Burleigh. “Get her to confide in you.”

  “A manageress?” Haven made a wry face. “What could she possibly know that would be of the most remote interest to us, or to the success of our venture?”

  “ That,” declared Burleigh decisively, “is what you must discover.” He thought for a moment. “No… no,” he said slowly. “Better still, gain her confidence and invite her to dinner tomorrow. Lure her here, and I will take care of the rest. Once we get her upstairs, alone, we’ll find out what she knows soon enough.”