The Black Tower

by Phlip Jose Farmer

  CHAPTER 8

  Bagomoyo

  Something in Clive told him that if he remained in the jungle he would die. He would surely die. He would collapse, and the spider would reach him and inflict upon him a second and fatal dose of its venom.

  The two of them, mammal and arachnid, would lie together on the jungle floor, prey for whatever carrion eater first arrived.

  Whose spear was it that impaled the spider? Clive had no way of knowing, but whoever had hurled the shaft with such magnificent aim and force showed no inclination to reveal himself or offer further assistance.

  Folliot was on his own.

  He managed to stagger the few score yards that it took him to clear the undergrowth and find himself on the sandy shore once again. He put some distance between himself and the jungle.

  He could hear the scratching of the spider's eight clawlike limbs against jungle growth, the scrape of the spear, and added to those another sound, a weird chirruping ululation such as he had never heard before.

  Had the spider a voice?

  Was this its hunting cry?

  Folliot shuddered.

  Brine foamed around his ankles.

  He turned back to see the jungle, and at its edge two rows of angry eyes blazed ruby-red at him.

  The spider advanced from the shade of the last row of trees onto the sand.

  Folliot backed away. He reached for his walking stick and realized with a wave of black despair that he no longer had it—he had dropped it in the jungle and it lay there still, far from his hand, useless to him.

  The spider uttered its weird chirruping sound, its fangs raised like twin sabers.

  Folliot staggered back a step, another. His boot slipped on something flat and smooth, covered with a shallow layer of sand. He felt his balance sliding away. He toppled backward, landing with a thud at the edge of the surf.

  The spider sounded its chirruping again. Folliot saw the arachnid dragging itself painfully forward, the spear extending before it, gore coating its fire- hardened tip. Some dim recess of Folliot's mind pitied the spider the agonies it must be suffering, and admired the courage and determination that drove it to drag itself after its prey even though it must surely be near death itself.

  The spider reached Folliot's leg. A drop of venom fell from one fang and splattered against the Englishman's bare flesh where his khaki trouser had been torn away.

  It was as if fire played upon Clive's naked nerve endings. Galvanized by the searing pain caused by the venom, his hand reached instinctively for the buried object, whatever it was, over which Clive had fallen.

  With a rush of energy he leaped to his feet, the object in hand held before his wondering eyes. It was a scimitar! It's metal blade was shining and free of rust. It must have been carried by a sailor aboard Azazel.

  What irony of fate had brought the sailor to the shore, then swept his cadaver back to sea while leaving behind his weapon?

  Clive stood over the spider. The sun cast his shadow blackly over its gory, spear-impaled form. Like the angel of death Folliot swung the scimitar, splitting the spider in half.

  The killing had been an act of mercy, not of cruelty.

  Folliot took the spear by its haft. He walked to the water's edge and carefully wiped the spider's gore and venom from both the spear and scimitar. He did the same for the wound on his face and the burned patch on his leg.

  He rubbed the scimitar gently with soft sand until it was completely dry, then wiped it clean and stuck it through the stout belt that held up his tattered trousers.

  Spear in hand, he strode back to the edge of the jungle and resumed his march to Bagomoyo.

  His head was beginning to swim once more but he kept his wits about him until he reached the edge of the jungle clearing that meant he had got safely to Bagomoyo after all.

  At that point he lost his awareness of his whereabouts and of himself. Vague images of the earth and the sky, of great eyes and dark visages and words spoken in an unfamiliar tongue, took the place of sensible recollections.

  Then even those faded into darkness and for a time he knew nothing.

  There were only flickering lights and dancing shadows and the low sound of distant chanting and drumming and a strange sensation as if a cool breeze was playing intermittently over hot, sweat-coated skin.

  Clive Folliot blinked and tried to make out his surroundings. A black face loomed over him, a black face that was attached to a naked form.

  He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then opened them again to see if the strange vision had disappeared. It had not. The woman squatted patiently beside him, slowly waving a palm-leaf fan. That was the source of the breeze he had felt.

  He raised a hand to his face. His skin was fevered but a poultice of leaves covered the wound that the spider's venomous fang had gouged.

  He tried to sit up but the woman placed her hand on his shoulder and pressed him back. His eyes kept straying from her serious face to her magnificent torso. Her breasts were uncovered and hung gracefully before him, swaying with every movement she made. Her waist was slender and her hips generous.

  She wore a necklace of wooden hoops painted in reds and yellows and browns. Her hair was daubed with something, possibly mud, that had dried into a high peak.

  "Who are you?" Folliot demanded. "Is this Bagomoyo?"

  The woman smiled happily. "Bagomoyo," she repeated. Than a string of syllables meaningless to Folliot.

  "Don't you speak English?" he demanded.

  Her reply was incomprehensible.

  "How about French? German? Arabic?" If she spoke Arabic he was hardly better off than if she did not, but perhaps there would be an Arab in the vicinity who spoke one of the civilized European tongues. Many of them did so in Zanzibar.

  She shook her head helplessly.

  "Aren't there any white men around?" he tried. "Have you ever seen a white man before? A doctor? A trader? A missionary?"

  She recognized the last word, or seemed to. Clive was having trouble concentrating on their attempts at dialogue, with her nudity displayed as it was. But she was nodding her head now and smiling happily.

  "White father," she said.

  "Yes! Is there a white father in Bagomoyo?"

  "Bagomoyo! White father, Bagomoyo!" She jabbered at him in her own language, but the words white father and Bagomoyo kept recurring.

  "Fetch him, then," Folliot urged her. "Get me the white father. Bring the white father to me, please."

  How much of his speech the black woman understood, Clive could not even guess. But obviously she caught the drift of his words, for she laid aside her palm-leaf fan and left the hut.

  Clive lay staring at the roof of woven sticks and thatch, watching shadows dance and listening to chanting and the rhythmic thudding of drums. He felt for his watch, then remembered that he had thrown it away on the beach. He wondered what time it was, how long he had lain unconscious in the hut, and how long he would lie now waiting for the arrival of the white father.

  He heard a bustling outside the hut and opened his eyes. The face he saw illuminated by the oil lamp that cast those dancing shadows was round and cheerful and pink, and the fringe of hair surrounding it might once have been red but was now almost entirely gray.

  The faded eyes might once have been a vivid blue, but now they peered through thick, wire-rimmed spectacles and they were pale and as gray as the fringe of hair.

  "It's true, then," the newcomer said. "T'nembi spoke the truth!"

  Clive tried to sit up, and a pair of old hands, work- roughened and strong, helped him to do so. His head swayed, spots danced before his eyes, and a million demons played tympani inside his skull.

  The newcomer pressed him back onto the crude pallet where he lay. "A bit too fast, young fellow. You're not ready to leap about yet, that's a sure fact."

  "You speak English," Clive stammered.

  "There are those who think I do so poorly," the other replied. "But English it is that I speak. Not that I get a
chance to use my mother tongue very often hereabouts."

  The man leaned over Clive, and Folliot thought he detected a hint of alcohol in the other's breath. The man shook his head. "Perhaps you'll be so kind as to tell us who you are, my fine young hero. You come stumblin' into camp—or so T'nembi tells me—wavin' a scimitar like some wild Turk, shakin' a spear like a native, and ravin' about a spider as big as a house."

  He leaned closer, to examine the bandaged wound on Clive's face. The whiff of spirits on his breath was stronger. He peeled some of the leaves away from the wound, nodded gravely, then pressed them back against Clive's skin.

  "I can almost believe it about that spider. Dear T'nembi, she's a good girl. Tryin' to learn English, but she's only got a few words as yet. I didn't think she knew spider, but from the looks of your face, young hero, I guess she does."

  He sat back on his haunches.

  Clive pushed himself upright, leaning on one elbow. Again the other reached to help. This time Clive was able to sit facing his visitor without growing faint. He said, "Am I in Bagomoyo?"

  "That you truly are." The other nodded.

  "And—and who are you?" Clive asked.

  "Father O'Hara. My mother called me Timothy F. X. after her dear lost brother and her favorite saint. And the good Lord called me into the service of these poor benighted heathens." He made a gesture that might have included the interior of the hut or the whole of Africa, for all that Clive could tell.

  Behind the priest Clive could see the open entryway to the thatch hut. Dawn had broken, the blazing tropical sun rising over the Strait of Zanzibar and vaulting into the sparkling sky above Bagomoyo.

  "Do you think you can handle some nourishment, young fellow?" the priest asked.

  Clive grunted an affirmative.

  Father O'Hara shot a stream of syllables over his shoulder. The black woman T'nembi rose and left the hut. Clive had not even seen her crouching against the wall.

  She was back almost before she departed, carrying a bowl of hot mush and a clay jug that she set down beside Father O'Hara.

  The priest lifted the jug and downed a long swig. "The native beer," he said. "I do miss the good Irish whiskey, but this beer is better than any I've tasted in the world."

  He spoke again to T'nembi, who knelt beside Clive's pallet and fed him mush. It had a bland, woody taste, but as soon as he'd swallowed his first mouthful Clive felt himself starting to regain his strength.

  The woman was feeding Clive with her fingers. Apparently dining implements were unknown in Bagomoyo. T'nembi was still nude; to Father O'Hara the sight of the woman seemed as natural and unremarkable as that of a tree, but Clive became uncomfortably aware that T'nembi was not only unclothed but was one of the most exciting females he had ever chanced to behold.

  "Well, you know who I am now, my lad," Father O'Hara was saying, "but I've not the remotest idea of who you may be. Nor of how you came to be wandering this dangerous countryside with nary a companion and hardly a stitch of clothing."

  Clive looked down at himself and realized just how tattered his costume was.

  "I am—I am Major Folliot," he managed.

  The priest peered into his face. "That I find hard to believe, young fellow."

  Clive started to shake his head, then thought better of it. "But I am. I am Clive Folliot, major of Her Majesty's Fifth Imperial Horse Guards Regiment."

  "Oho!" The priest nodded. He took another long swig from his jug, wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his loose-fitting robe. "That I can believe. I thought you were claiming to be Major Neville Folliot, and Neville I've met, and I can tell you that you are surely not he. Although," and the priest paused to study Clive's face, "I'll admit there's a mighty strong resemblance between the two of you."

  "You know Neville?" Clive grasped the priest's sleeve in a trembling hand, almost causing him to spill his jug.

  "Careful, careful, young man. All will be made clear to you. Just ask your questions and you'll have the answers. Ask and ye shall receive, our Lord tells us."

  "Neville Folliot is my brother," Clive told him.

  "I'm seeking him now. I was aboard a dhow sailing from Zanzibar when—" He stopped, the full horror of the past hours returning to him.

  "You were caught in the waterspout, were you?" the priest furnished.

  Clive bowed his head. "I believe—that I am the sole survivor of Azazel. That was how I came into possession of the scimitar." He gazed around the hut once more and for the first time discovered his weapon—both his weapons—carefully placed against the wall, along with his pith helmet and boots.

  "These storms are wicked," Father O'Hara said. "Heaven knows how many souls the Lord has called home as a result of them." He gazed piously toward the thatched roof of the hut. "But—are you certain that no others survived?"

  Clive said he couldn't be sure, that he had seen no others once he found himself lying on the beach.

  "Then there could be others," O'Hara persisted. "There could be others." He gazed into the distance for a moment, swigged at his jug, then spoke again. "You walked all the way from the site of the wreck, did you? All the way here?"

  "Not exactly," Clive demurred.

  The priest looked questioningly at him, and Clive told the story of his encounter with the crocodiles in the Wami River, and the attack of the giant arachnid in the jungle.

  When Clive finished speaking, the priest nodded. "The spider attacked you, you say?"

  Clive said it had.

  "Well, that is odd," the priest said. "And thus you came into possession of a fine Arab scimitar and a good spear as well."

  Clive nodded. He accepted another bit of mush from T'nembi. His eyes lingered on her lush body until she looked away.

  "But you never told me," the priest was saying, "who it was flung that spear and saved you from the spider's attack. You owe someone your life."

  "I don't know who it was," Clive answered. "He just—I don't know, that's all."

  "Well, what's to be learned will in due course be learned. But another oddity of your tale, young Folliot—now I don't question your honesty, understand, but you've been through an ordeal, and at such times one may grow confused, even jumble reality with illusion—but you spoke of those fireworks before the storm broke."

  "Those lights were no illusion, Father! I saw them! They were dancing in the sky. They were beautiful, beautiful yet awesome, even frightening. And then the storm broke. There was a connection, Father O'Hara, there had to be."

  "There was no connection, Major!" O'Hara's voice had a new edge, on his face an expression that Clive had not seen before. "There was no connection because there were no lights, do you understand me? There are no such lights in the sky."

  The priest raised his jug and held it tilted to his mouth for a very long time. Clive could see his hand trembling as it held the jug, and when he lowered it at last, his eyes looked first left, then right, then down, but not at Clive's.

  Not at Clive's.

  Clive slept and ate and regained his strength. T'nembi came and fed him, and Father O'Hara came and talked with him, but never about the lights.

  The priest had indeed met Neville. Clive's brother had passed through Bagomoyo on his own ill-fated expedition, and O'Hara had got to know him before he moved along.

  O'Hara admitted that he had helped Neville to hire bearers from among the local populace. Some of them had returned from their expedition with Neville Folliot. Some had not. The wives and children of the men who had failed to return had been adopted by other families, as was the habit of the Africans. The survivors of the lost wept and mourned, as did survivors of the lost the world around, but there were no forlorn widows or orphans in this country.

  Clive asked to speak with those who had returned, and O'Hara volunteered to act as interpreter. But the interrogations yielded only sketchy information. Neville had headed inland, then turned in a northerly direction, toward Lake Victoria and the Sudan. That much was no surprise to Clive.

&nb
sp; Neville's party had reached a dreadful region known as the Sudd, apparently avoiding an encounter with the fratricidal Mutesa. The Sudd was an area marked by treacherous swamps, dangerous wildlife, and uncertain geography. Some of Neville's bearers had refused to enter the Sudd and had turned back to Bagomoyo. Those were the men Clive now questioned. Others, Neville had bribed or browbeaten into continuing with him—and they had disappeared with him as well.

  Once the questioning was over, Clive sat in conference with Father O'Hara. The women of the village had stitched together an outfit for Clive, a strange- looking set of breeches and a shirt of colorful cloth that he wore with his boots and pith helmet. He examined himself in a small, precious mirror owned by Father O'Hara and found himself a ludicrous sight. At least he was able to shave, with a razor loaned him by the priest, and O'Hara had hacked off the Englishman's hair, which had begun to grow long and shaggy.

  O'Hara asked Clive if he wished assistance in returning to England via Zanzibar.

  "By no means!" Clive snapped.

  "But surely you do not intend—"

  "Surely I do!" Clive cut him off.

  "But, Folliot. You have no party. You have no equipment. And you have no tunas with which to hire bearers or to buy equipment. You can't possibly hope to trek hundreds of miles alone, armed only with a blade and a spear. How will you survive?"

  "I don't know," Clive muttered. He dropped his chin into his hands. He was strong and healthy again, and in one part of his mind was as determined as ever to find his brother.

  But a more practical part of him had to admit that the priest was right. He couldn't possibly carry out his expedition alone, he had no helpers, and he had no money.

  There was a stir at the far side of the village.

  Clive and the priest looked up, then rose to their feet and stood side by side staring at the apparition that advanced across the packed dirt toward them.

  Clive cast a sidelong glance at Father O'Hara. Clearly the priest was dumbfounded by what he saw.

  But Clive recognized in a flash the silken-clad mandarin who had played Mendelssohn so beautifully aboard the Empress Philippa.

  The mandarin was garbed in a dark red and green costume embroidered with gold. He was mounted on the back of a camel, the camel in turn decorated with fine cloth and polished metal. Villagers ran in excited circles around the beast and its exotic rider. Their chief, a man whom Folliot had met through the agency of Father O'Hara, had come out of his hut and stood now staring up at the mandarin.