Carnivores of Light and Darkness

by Alan Dean Foster

  XII

  HIS SUPPOSITION WAS CORRECT. NOT ABOUT SIMNA IBN SIND, but about the lay of the land ahead of them. There were more jungle-clad ridges, but they continued to grow smaller and less difficult to surmount, the rain forest that flourished on their flanks thinning out even as the knife-edged ridge tops became more manageable.

  Then, without warning, there were no more tree-crowned summits to ascend.

  They found themselves standing on the last ridge top looking out upon a sea of grass that stretched, utterly unbroken, to the northern horizon. No rocky knoll poked its stone-crowned head above that perfectly flat green-brown plain. Not a single tree thrust its trunk or lofted its branches over the endless emerald sward. Unobstructed sunlight did not glint off isolated lakes or ponds, or flash from the mirrored surface of some lazily meandering stream. There was nothing, nothing but the grass.

  “The country ahead looks like it’s going to be easy to cross but difficult to hunt in.” Simna held his chin in his hand as he studied the terrain spread out before them.

  “It may not be so easy to cross, either,” Ehomba commented. His eyes glistened. “What wonderful country!”

  His companion gaped at him. “Wonderful?” He stretched out an arm to encompass the endless overgrown meadow. “You call that wonderful? There’s nothing there but Gopuy-bedamned grass!”

  Ehomba looked sideways at Simna. “I am a herdsman from a dry country, my friend. To one responsible for the wellbeing of cattle and sheep, forced to move them from place to place just to keep them from starving, this would be an earthly kind of paradise. Not all people see riches only in gold.”

  The swordsman eyed the tall southerner tolerantly. “You really are a simple guy with simple needs, aren’t you?” Ehomba nodded, and the other man responded with a sly, knowing smile. “I’ve got to hand it to you, Etjole. I’ve crossed paths with some shrewd, closed-mouthed types in my time, but you’re right up there with the best of them! How long do you think you can fool me with this ‘simple herdsman’ routine? Grass my ass! We both know what you’re after, and you’re not going to get rid of me that easily! It’ll take more than cheap, obviously phony claims of ignorance to fool Simna ibn Sind!” He edged nearer.

  “Come on, Etjole—you can tell me now. What is it you’re after, really? A lost city like Damura-sese, only even richer? A bandit’s abandoned cache? Clandestine merchant gold?”

  Ehomba sighed tolerantly. “It is a shame, Simna. Having so narrow a vision, you must miss much of what goes on in the world. You are like a horse with blinders.”

  Annoyed, the swordsman stepped back. “Okay, okay. So don’t tell me. I know you must have your reasons, and that you’ll make everything clear when the time comes.”

  “Yes,” Ehomba assured him candidly, “everything will become clear when the time comes.” He started down the slope. The last slope, for which he was grateful. Clambering over the jungle-wrapped ridges had been as tiring as it was dangerous. Seeking to change the subject, he said, “I would think you would know this country. Did you not come from here?”

  Simna shook his head. Extraordinarily agile, he had an easy time picking his way down through the last trees. Where Ehomba had to step carefully, the stocky swordsman would simply hop or leap to the next clearing.

  As they descended, the grass grew nearer—and taller. And thicker, and taller, until it became clear to both men that the country ahead was no ordinary veldt, and the grass they were approaching almighty unlike its humbler cousins elsewhere. They were unable to appreciate its true dimensions, in fact, until they were standing at the very bottom of the ridge.

  “Nine feet high.” A contrite Simna stood before the wall of solid green. “Maybe ten. How in Gerooja are we going to get through that ?”

  Stolid as ever, Ehomba regarded the seemingly impenetrable barrier. “We have blades. We will cut our way through. Make a path.” He nodded skyward. “I can navigate by the stars. A lone herdsman out in the pasturelands learns early how to do so.”

  “That’s all well and good, it is,” Simna snorted, “but do you recall the panorama from the top of the ridge?” He nodded back at the slope they had just descended. “This extends farther than a man can see.” Taking a couple of steps forward, he felt of the nearest blade of grass. Soft and fibrous, it was as thick and wide as his hand. “You know how long it will take us to cut a league or so deep into this? If the plain reaches beyond the horizon, it could take us months just to cut a path halfway through. And what are we going to eat while we’re doing it? I’m no grazer.”

  “There must be game,” Ehomba commented. “Surely so much rich forage does not go unutilized.”

  A skeptical Simna waved at the wall. “Hunt—in this? How can you hunt something that might be standing right behind you without being visible? And anything that does live in there is bound to travel through it faster than a man.”

  “What would you have us do?” With his spear, Ehomba gestured toward the top of the ridge. Back the way they had come. “Retrace our steps? Over every ridge and canyon? Or go back the way you came, toward the east?”

  “I didn’t say that.” A frustrated Simna slumped down on a moss-covered rock and cupped his head in his hands. “Of course not. An ibn Sind never retreats. But I don’t like our prospects for advancing, either.”

  “We could camp here until inspiration strikes.”

  The swordsman managed a weak grin. “You mean like a rock to the head? If I thought it would do any good, I’d take the blow myself.” He eyed the unbroken, ten-foot-tall rampart of green. “I can resign myself to the necessary cutting. It’s the problem of finding food that worries me.”

  “We will manage.” Reaching back over his shoulder, Ehomba unsheathed the sky-metal sword, the exposed blade gleaming grayly in the muted sunlight and glinting off the strange, sharp, parallel lines etched into the metal. Bringing back his arm, he prepared to begin the arduous task of cutting a lane through the overgrown veldt.

  “Just a moment there, if you please.”

  Pausing with the blade held over his head, the herdsman turned toward the sound of the voice. So did Simna, who had been steeling himself to join in the path-cutting effort.

  Emerging from the towering greensward just to their right was a man—or a close relation. Stepping out from between two ten-foot-high blades, he turned to confront them, sharp-eyed and unafraid despite his small stature. He was maybe three feet tall, slim to the point of emaciation, with high pointed ears, eyes that were small round circles of intensity, a bare snub of a nose, and a cone-shaped head that more than anything else resembled small blades of grass slicked up in the manner of some dandified courtier and glued together to form a perfect point. He wore nothing but a green loincloth that had been braided from strips of grass, and went barefoot. Fastened to his loincloth by a single loop was a comparably sized scythe of sharpened bone.

  Like his loincloth and his surroundings, he was bright green, from pointy head to tiny-toed foot. No wonder they hadn’t seen him until he had elected to emerge from hiding. Looking upon him, Ehomba decided their visitor might be a hundred years old, or two, but certainly no less than fifty. Of course, he was using the only referents he knew, which were human. The small green manikin was surely something else.

  This their unexpected visitor proceeded to confirm, in prompt response to Simna’s diplomatic inquiry of “What the hell are you?”

  The figure drew himself up to his full, if unprepossessing, height. “I am Boruba-Ban-Beylok, sangoma of the Tlach Folk, the People of the Grass.” He glared at Ehomba. “The grass gives life, the grass gives protection, the grass is the carpet on which the world treads. We do not take indifferently to its wanton cutting.”

  Hand on sword hilt, an uneasy Simna studied the impenetrable wall of high green and wondered if the blade might have found itself cutting down something more mobile and less indifferent than grass. There could be a hundred tiny green warriors hiding in there, a thousand, and he would not have know
n it. His senses were acute, but he saw and heard nothing. As near as he could tell, the only intruder that was rustling the grass was the wind. But he was on full alert now, trusting in his unassuming companion to defuse the situation. Simna was smart enough to know when to keep his mouth shut, aware that his chronic intemperance was more likely to exacerbate than ease the confrontation.

  Ehomba lowered his blade but did not put it up. Instead, he let it hang loose from his right hand. “I was not being wanton.” With his other hand he gestured at the green escarpment. “We are traveling to the north. The grass is in the way. If we could fly, we would choose that method of travel. But we are only human, so we must walk. To walk, we must make a path.”

  Boruba-Ban-Beylok shook his head disapprovingly. “Human you are, to think always of going through things. Never around.”

  “Very well.” Ehomba was perfectly agreeable. “We will not cut the grass.” Simna stared at his friend, but continued to keep his opinions and suggestions to himself.

  Approaching the greensward, the herdsman pushed one blade of grass aside. Another was immediately behind it. “Show us how.”

  “You mock me,” the little green sangoma snarled. Or at least tried to snarl. Like the rest of him, his voice was not very deep.

  “Not at all,” Ehomba replied. “I do not know how to go around the grass. If that is what you wish us to do, show us how. We will be glad to comply.” He swung his blade in a short arc. “Cutting grass of any height is hard work. I would be delighted to be able to avoid it.”

  “And so you shall,” the sangoma informed him, “if you can answer for me three riddles.”

  With a heavy sigh, Simna resumed his seat on the rock. “I knew there was a catch in this somewhere. When you’re dealing with sangomas and shamans and witch doctors and spirit women, there’s always a catch.” Resignation underlay his words. “Sometimes it’s deeds that have to be performed, or a magic crystal that needs recovering, or a sacred icon that has to be returned to its altar. Or bridges to be crossed, wells to be plumbed, cliffs to be scaled—but it’s always something.”

  “What happens if we cannot answer your riddles?” Ehomba asked quietly.

  The sangoma took a short hop forward. He was smiling now. “Then you’ll have to go back the way you came, you will. Have to go back, or a fate worse than any you can imagine will spring out at you from between the very blades of grass you seek to pass and rend you to fragments small enough for the beetles to feast upon, rend you with fang and claw and poison stinger.”

  Alarmed by this augury, Simna rose and retreated until he could stand with his back against a solid rock that protruded vertically from the base of the ridge. He held his sword at the ready and redoubled his continuous scrutiny of the green barrier.

  If Ehomba was at all taken aback by the naked threat, he did not show it. “Ask your three riddles, then, Tlach-man.”

  Clearly enjoying himself and his role as ambassador of confrontation, Boruba-Ban-Beylok rubbed tiny green hands together as he primed himself. As they made contact with each other, the sliding palms generated a sound like bark being sanded. The sky did not darken and thunder did not roll—the Tlach sangoma was not a very big sangoma, after all—but the crests of the nearest grass blades tilted forward as if eavesdropping on the proceedings, and the rustling within momentarily grew louder than the slight breeze alone could have inspired.

  “Listen close, listen careful, human.” Trenchant green eyes stared deeply into Ehomba’s. “First riddle: In the morning comes the sun, in the night comes the moon. But what comes at midday and is midwife to both? Riddle second: A fish is to a frog as a heron is to a crow. What is a Tlach to? Third riddle and last: The name of a man is how a man is known to others, but by what other means may he introduce himself?” With a confident smirk, the sangoma rested his hands on skinny green-skinned hips and waited for the tall trespasser to respond.

  Observing scene and byplay, Simna had already resigned himself to finding a way back through the mountains. Sick as he was of climbing and descending, of fording rock-filled jungle streams and fighting off bugs and thorns, he struggled to accommodate them in his mind. Because it was clear that his simple, kindly friend, while a boon companion and pleasant fellow, was no towering intellect. In contrast, Simna was highly conversant with puzzles and conundrums of many kinds and origins. Quick-witted as he was, though, the solution to the three riddles of the Tlach was beyond him.

  He eyed the impossibly lofty wall of grass apprehensively. If as seemed certain Ehomba failed to answer the riddles and they attempted to press on through the high veldt, Boruba-Ban-Beylok had all but promised them encounters with apparitions unpleasant. He studied the green escarpment intently, searching for signs of the brooding monstrosities the sangoma had assured them were lurking within, waiting for the right moment to spring upon unfortunate travelers. Just because he could not see anything did not mean there was nothing there. If it was green, like the sangoma, it could be standing right in front of them while remaining virtually invisible.

  Ehomba stood quietly as he pondered the Tlach’s questions. Then he slowly raised the sky-metal blade he was holding and silently aimed the point at the sangoma’s chest. Simna tensed, while Boruba-Ban-Beylok eyed the much bigger man warily but did not turn and run.

  “You cannot imagine what fate will befall you if you harm me,” he growled darkly.

  “I do not intend to harm you, but to answer your riddles.” The herdsman advanced the tip of the sword ever so slightly nearer the sangoma’s throat. “This blade is forged from metal that fell from the sky. See how strangely the sunlight shines on it? That makes it midwife to both the sun and the moon. As to your second riddle, a Tlach is close to Death, if he should come too close to such a blade. And it answers your last query as well, for with this sword I provide another way of introducing myself than by using my name.” With surgical precision, he touched the sharp point of the weapon to the sangoma’s neck, dimpling the green flesh just above the bulging Adam’s apple.

  “Boruba-Ban-Beylok, sangoma to the Tlach, meet the metal that comes from the stars.”

  The sangoma swallowed—not too hard, lest he awkwardly impact the location of the blade. Behind them both, Simna put a hand on the hilt of his own weapon as he tried to divide his attention between the two figures and the still quiescent wall of grass. At any moment he expected something huge and horrific to spring forth from between the stems. But the greensward remained still.

  “Am I supposed to offer a greeting in return?” Eyes narrowing, the sangoma fixed the contentious interloper with a threatening stare. “I warned you. Now you must accept the consequences.”

  “I am prepared to do that,” Ehomba assured him. “That is why I am still standing here holding this weapon at your throat instead of running away. I have never run from a confrontation in my life, and I do not intend to start now.” He nodded at the grassy escarpment. “I have vowed to travel north until I can find a ship to take me westward across the Semordria, and north I will go in spite of spew, spirits, or spiteful sangomas.”

  Simna stretched as he tried to see over the tops of the grass. “Etjole, something’s coming! I can hear it.” He inhaled sharply. “And smell it.”

  “What is it, Simna?” The herdsman’s blade did not waver. Boruba-Ban-Beylok was starting to smile.

  “Can’t tell. Animal of some kind. No—animals. More than one, less than a dozen. Big.” He drew his sword. “If we’re going to make a stand, we’d do better to find a cave to fight from, or at least higher ground.”

  “No.” Ehomba kept his attention on the small green man standing before him. “I stay here. Climb to safety if you want.”

  Simna stood with his back against the protruding rock, torn among common sense, personal desires, and admiration for the stupidly brave herdsman. The internal conflict found him in an agony of indecision.

  “You know I can’t do that! You saved me from Corruption, not once but twice. I can’t run out on y
ou!”

  Ehomba nodded agreeably. “Good for me. Then stand, and be ready.” He met the sangoma’s stare with an unwavering gaze of his own. Startled by its unexpected depth and intensity, the Tlach stumbled slightly before recovering his balance.

  “A herdsman, you say you are? Are you sure?”

  Ehomba’s tone was rock steady. “In the pastures a man must learn to stare down predators that threaten his herds and flocks. When one is used to doing that, locking eyes with another man-thing is never very intimidating.”

  Something large and heavy was smashing its way through the grass toward them. In spite of himself, Ehomba turned to look in its direction. Boruba-Ban-Beylok sniffed expectantly.

  “Now you will learn the folly of challenging a sangoma of the Tlach! Your death approaches. Prepare yourself, herdsman! And don’t say that I didn’t warn you.”

  “They’re coming!” Leaping from his rock, an agitated but determined Simna took up a defensive position alongside the herdsman’s back, facing the green wall with his sword held firmly in both hands. “Whatever it is, is coming!”

  The grass parted and a glowering brown face glared down at the three bipeds. A second facade, splotched with white, emerged nearby. Two flat-surfaced, sharp incisors protruded downward from the upper jaw, each longer than Simna ibn Sind’s body. Black convex eyes stared down at them while the upthrust ears were each as big as a good-sized steer. The fur that covered each animal was thick and silky, and the round, compact bodies traveled on gigantic, immensely powerful feet.

  Ehomba stared back while a gargling sound emerged from the throat of the startled Simna. They were hares, the herdsman saw immediately.

  Hares as big as elephants.

  XIII

  NEITHER MAN LAUGHED. EXPECTING SOMETHING TOOTHIER, they nonetheless did not lower their guard for a moment. A small hare could bite off a man’s finger, while a larger one like those that inhabited the Naumkib country could knock the wind out of a person with a single kick, or do real damage if such a blow struck a vulnerable area. Hares the impossible size of those they now confronted should be capable of biting a horse in half or kicking down a castle wall. Though not what was expected, they were no less potentially lethal.