The Reluctant Champion

Interlude: Lidah

She walked carefully, placing each foot exactly so as not to step even a little off the path. It was black dark, and the ground was invisible in the darkness. It took care and attention to make sure she didn't wander. What would happen if she did step off, she didn't know; but the blackness around her was unquiet with presences. She couldn't see them but she could feel them, feel their malevolence and hunger. While she stayed to the path, she was safe.

Ahead of her walked a dark shape, following the path or perhaps forming it from his footsteps. She had never gotten a clear view of him, for it had been dark under the trees where he had cast his cloak over her. She had struck at him with the dagger she concealed in her sleeve. That dagger had defended her before, but this time its blade had found only air and shadows. He hadn't even bothered to take it from her.

She could only just make out his form now. Her eyes, longing after light, formed phantasmal starbursts and swirling shapes as eyes will in the pitch dark. She searched through them to find the shape of her abductor.

How long this lasted she didn't know, but eventually there was a change. She started to hear a soft murmuring, a continual shushing noise just audible through the quiet. Then the shape before her halted, and she came up level with him.

Before their feet flowed a vast dark river, edged with pallid reeds. It swirled thickly about the reeds, pulling at them and sucking away. She looked for the farther shore but it was invisible in the gloom. Instead, she saw a pale spot growing out on the water. When it came nearer it revealed itself to be a boat made of bone, a ragged figure in the stern holding an oar. The boat was wide and shallow, and its broad flat bow projected out over the water. When the boatman guided it nose-first against the bank they stood on, the bow grounded almost against their feet.

"Pay the ferryman." The voice came out of the darkness, hollow and disembodied like wind around the corner of a barn. It took a moment for her to realize the shape at her side had spoken. She looked directly at him, but still could make out no features.

"I will not," she said.

"Pay the ferryman," the voice repeated. "Or he will not carry you across."

"I have no wish to cross."

"Do you wish to stay when I have gone? This is not a friendly shore."

"I wish to return to my proper place."

"That road is closed behind us. The only way is over the river."

"Then you pay the ferryman. I will not consent to my own abduction."

The dark shape was still for a moment, then stepped onto the boat before them. He walked to the stern, black against the pale deck, and handed something to the ragged oarsman. Then he turned and beckoned.

"Come!" he said.

She hesitated, and looked back into the darkness. It gibbered at her. With a shudder, she too stepped onto the boat. As she did so, it slid smoothly away from the bank and out onto the swirling water.