by A Van Wyck
The truth was the wetland grasses agreed with the herds. They had grown fat and strong, making the tribe wealthy. And though the old men would never admit it, he guessed their sore joints and gnarled backs were glad the tribe had surrendered their nomadic ways.
The foothills of the Riser Mountains had been good to the tribe. Some of the tribal wives, no longer burdened with packing and moving their homes every few days, had even started small farms. Their husbands spoke of this as they would of some illness or lunacy sweeping the tribe, though never within the hearing of their wives.
Of course, some muttered, they’d simply snatched their liberty from the clutches of the Heli empire to hand it over to the Renali. There might be some truth in that but, as long as they paid the taxes demanded by the lord whose land they’d settled, the lord seemed happy enough to let them be. Ribi’s father suspected this was because the soil was too hard for the soft Renali farmers who lived under the lord’s heel. Not so for them. The Mali tribe’s spirits were the spirits of the earth and the earth welcomed them wherever they went.
Not many gods made their home here in the Kingdom. The Renali prayed for the intervention of fate, though they did not worship it. As opposed to the solitary, hungry goddess of the Heli empire.
The elders had made some effort, back in the beginning, to teach the Renali of the spirits of earth revered by the Mali. More often than not, this resulted in the recipients of such wisdom running for the hills – or, more accurately, away from them.
The single priest who had chosen to stay among the Mali was, therefore, something of an aberration. The young man’s goddess, Stena, (he advocated) did not rule over nature but simply resided in it. After long talks held with the elders, they’d finally agreed to allow the priest to stay and learn. The tribe continued to tolerate his presence because he was useful. He always accompanied them on trading missions now. He knew the ways of the kingdom people and often offered Ribi’s father valuable advice.
The priest was deceptively sharp and had suggested they travel nearer the capital rather than sell their cattle off to one of the surrounding lords. Even with the cost of paying to cross half a dozen lords’ lands with their two hundred head of cattle, the profit from selling at city prices would more than make up for the expense.
He was excited. He’d never seen the Renali capital. The tall towers and spires had peeked from the treed skyline just this morning. He couldn’t stop peppering the poor priest with questions, despite his father’s admonition to stop pestering the man.
He knew Darom didn’t mind.
He reined in his horse, reveling at its superb responsiveness, and waited as the trek passed. Darom rode beside the rear two wagons, at the head of the drove of cattle. Ribi fell in beside him.
“Spirits’ blessing, Darom.”
The young priest didn’t return the greeting. “What do you make of this, Ribi?” the man invited instead.
He craned his neck to see what had captured the man’s attention. They were riding abreast of the dung wains. By day, the Mali driving the herd collected the cattle’s droppings in sacks. At the end of the day, it was added to the dung wain, later to be sold to farmers. It also made good fuel for campfires when properly dried. He saw what the preacher referred to.
The tarp covering the foremost wain had been pulled to one side. The priest reined back, allowing Ribi a closer inspection. He wrinkled his nose. On the whole, cow crap didn’t stink (exactly). But gather a wagon-full of it in one place and it was liable to pick up a distinct odor. He leaned in closer. A narrow space had been hollowed out in the manure, next to the sideboard. Dung-smeared fingerprints smudged the wood where hands had gripped the side.
“Someone’s been stealing dung?” he wondered aloud. They sometimes had trouble with local farmers trying to make off with Mali steers in the middle of the night. A dangerous practice, since the Mali were deadly with their slings. But as they’d found out, killing farmers – even thieving ones – got them in trouble with the local lords. So now they used clay clods instead of stones. Getting hit with one felt like taking two hooves to the chest but they weren’t fatal… most times. They’d gotten smart enough to hide the bodies now. But why go to all the trouble of sneaking past the sentries only to steal shit?
“I don’t think,” Darom mused, “they were stealing it.”
He looked around at the man, confused. “What then?”
“See how the hollow is just about big enough to fit a man?”
It took a moment for him to take the priest’s meaning. The image of someone lying in the wain, their nose pressed to the crack in the sideboard and the dung combed over them to stave off discovery, rose like mould in his mind. “Ugh!” He spat. “What would someone do that for?”
The priest shrugged. “Maybe they needed a ride to the city.”
Ribi reflected on this as he righted the thick canvas covering the wain, working comfortably from the saddle.
“They could just have asked,” he mused, horrified.
“And would you have robbed them,” the priest laughed, “before or after you agreed to take them there?”
“Not robbed,” he corrected the priest, frowning at the slanderous suggestion, “traded.”
Laughing at his severe expression, the young man moved off toward the head of the caravan. Ribi followed. He still had some questions about the city.
Phelamy Mop had no trouble making his way through the afternoon crowd waiting to get into the city. Merchants, farmers, travelers, sightseers… The city drew anyone and everyone. And they all stepped quickly from his path. If he’d been inclined, he could have made a bee line for the enormous gate, visible over the tops of the massed wagons and carts. But he trekked a peculiar zigzag path through the masses, leaving behind a swathe of people pinching their noses and cursing after him in nasal tones.
He broke through to the front of the queue, where the two guards on duty were lazily nodding everyone through, sparing no one more than a cursory, disinterested glance.
“You there!” One of them bellowed at Mop, halting him in his tracks. “We have enough beggars in this city! Get you gone!”
“Beggars? Buggers? Well, if I see any bears, I’ll be sure to let them know!” But the guard lowered a long pike, blocking his path as he made to continue on his way.
“I mean you, you daft bear– bugger!” the guard stammered, “I mean bugger! You get the hell out of here!”
“Me? But I’m not a bear! I’m an ear! No! An earl! You hear!”
“Earl?” the guard laughed. “You got flies buzzing round your head.”
Mop squinted upward.
“My noble entourage!” he rallied magnificently. “I tell you, I’m an earl. No wait! Not an ear, the other thing. What’s it called again…” he wondered aloud, snapping his fingers while waiting for the word to arrive. “’s got to do with numbers… an integer, no, an even! An odd! Am I odd? Don’t answer that!” he forestalled as the guard opened an angry mouth.
“Count!” he crowed triumphantly. “Yes! I’m a count! At least a seven, maybe a seven and a half,” he beamed. His earnest gaze failed in the face of the guard’s obvious disbelief. “Fine! You’ve got me, I’m an even six. So there. Here. Ear! Earl. No, wait!”
“A count, are ya now?” the guard scoffed, grounding his pike butt and winking at the guard opposite. The foremost people in the queue were all ears, nudging each other and paying rapt attention. Seeing a beggar beaten to death would liven an otherwise uneventful day.
“No. I tell a lie,” Mop corrected. “The other thing. The singing one. Soprano. No! Alto. No, that’s not it. Bass! Fish? No, thank you, I’m allergic. Baritone. Baron. Baron! Yes,” he regally told the guard, whose eyes were growing glassy, the way most people’s did when talked at by Mop for any length of time. “You guessed correctly my good man,” Mop complemented, adding a courtly bow and grasping at an imaginary lapel. “I am, in fact, a barren.”
A moment of silence.
“Baron ain
’t higher than count,” the guard finally managed a bit uncertainly. Someone in the crowd sniggered.
“Count? How high did you count? Altitude sickness! Very, very bad for you. Yes! I see the signs! Drowsiness! Fatigue! Have you experienced any rectal hemorrhaging or noticed any abnormally large butterflies? How long have you had that peripheral edema?”
The guard blinked at him.
“Feral… what?”
There was a chuckle from the crowd.
“That fat face,” he clarified in concern.
A handful of smothered laughs sounded from behind him. A frown slowly drew down the guard’s brow.
“Why you little…!” The man stepped forward, grabbing a handful of Mop’s tattered shirt. The raised fist halted mid swing as the guard’s nose took a direct hit. The hand holding him sprung open and the guard staggered back, gagging.
“Ugh!” the man coughed.
One of Mop’s flying entourage trailed the stumbling guard in innocent curiosity and sadly disappeared, sucked down the coughing man’s throat with a pitifully drawn out buzz.
The man hiccupped his surprise.
There was a series of pained “oooh’s” and disgusted “aaaagh’s” from the crowd.
The unfortunate guard stilled, frowning in disbelief, all his attention focused inward. One eye twitched. The helmeted head turned to one side. An experimental throat-clearing sounded, followed by a high-pitched cough. Then another and another, quickly devolving into a choking gurgle. This was followed by a wet-sounding swallow.
There was silence as the crowd held its collective breath.
The gate guard reeled into panicked motion, pike falling with a clatter as gauntleted hands clutched at a constricted throat. The guard whirled, eyes bulging apoplectically. The stricken man stumbled in a circle, desperately beating at an emblazoned chest. The guard’s comrade took an uncertain step forward.
“Oh, no!” Mop cried, yanking at his hair and dancing from foot to foot. “He’s choking!” He shot a panicked glance at the other, uncertain, guard. “Do something!” he screamed. Another pike dropped as the man hurried to pound on the choking guard’s back.
“You have to releviate him!” he offered urgently. “Put your arms around him from behind, like this…” The guard took one look at the rapidly bluing, gasping face and did as directed, casting panicky glances at Mop. “Good! Now place your fist inside your hand and bear up on his panorama like this.
A powerful fist was duly pumped into the choking guard’s stomach, eliciting a grunt.
“Harder!” Mop ordered. The breathless man grunted, arms flapping in a useless scrabble against this manhandling. “Again!”
“Ugcht!”
“Again!”
The purpling guard reached back to grab the back of the mandhandler’s neck in a desperate vice.
“Again!”
The crowd was voicing their own support, taking over Mop’s count and screaming helpful advice.
“Hold him upside down!”
“Jump on his back!”
“Tell him to hold his breath!”
“He’s already doing that…”
“Scare him! You have to scare him!”
“That’s for sneezing…”
“No, hiccups!”
The choking guard was hanging limp from the other’s death grip, flopping around to ever more violent ministrations. Finally, with a monumental heave, the two were wrenched off their feet together and toppled backwards. The impact proved sufficient.
A single fly, hale and unharmed, if a little dazed, shot from the unfortunate guard’s mouth.
The crowd, those close enough to see, drew a collective gasp of disgust.
The hapless guard drew a great, life-giving breath.
The crowd cheered.
The confused fly, unseen by any and rattled by its brush with death, righted itself and drunkenly flew off into the city, hot in pursuit of its fellows.
Now, Mop thought, scrambling along the city streets, to find a hat…
CHAPTER 16 – DEEP
“What?” Neever regarded him quizzically.
“Nothing,” he sighed, holding the dun, priestly robe at arm’s length. “It just seems as though you’re converting me, despite my best efforts.”
“At least it’s not a dress,” the monk pointed out hopefully. “And,” he added a moment later, “it’s got a hood.”
Appealing to the thief in him.
“I suppose,” he admitted dejectedly, pushing his arms through the voluminous sleeves. “At least there’s plenty of room for my knives.”
“Jiminy…” the monk warned.
“I know,” he forestalled another round of pointless argument.
They’d been adamant – no violence. The guards would try to capture him if discovered, not kill him. But since these assurances were unlikely to turn a sword, he was taking his knives.
“Rather have them and not need them than the other way around.” He tied his rope belt.
“You would be safer without them.”
“It’s that kind of crazy talk that make people leery of religion.”
“Do you want to go over the plan again?” the monk asked.
“No need,” he shook his head. For one thing, he’d supplied most of the plan anyway. Smart though they were, the priests’ original plan had been a superbly choreographed disaster. For another, he could feel the familiar fever building behind his eyes. His facility with words was fast diminishing.
“Something funny?” the priest enquired with a smile.
“No.”
He sounded terse, bouncing on the balls of his feet. His skin was tingling.
A deep brass note tolled to announce the turn past midnight. Neever rose. “It’s time.”
Drawing on a green healer’s sash and satchel he followed suit. He doubted any healer had ever carried such an odd assortment of tools as this.
“I hope,” the monk said, hand on the door latch, “you will not take offense, Master Jiminy, if I said a quick prayer for you?”
He pulled his hood up. “Suit yourself.”
“Well then,” the monk swallowed whatever prayer he’d been about to voice, “I’ll just say good luck.”
“Every little bit helps,” he muttered, the droning in his ears threatening to drown out the words. Then he was through the door and out in the hallway, headed towards the infirmary with long, confident strides.
To his eyes, the world bloomed into sudden, sharp focus. His jangling nerves of a moment before drew into taut strings with not a note out of place. With a thought, he muted the spring in his step. It wouldn’t do for a healer to be seen skipping through the infirmary.
He slowed as he entered. People moved between the neat rows of grey curtained beds. He noted them only absently – diminished to grey silhouettes, they bled into the breath and pulse of the infirmary. A breath he rode, coasting easily through the hubbub. Amid the muted voices, labored breathing and dull groaning, he went unremarked even by those he passed shoulder to shoulder.
The unpolluted air beyond the infirmary welcomed him.
His feet counted twelve more paces. The stairwell on his left was where it should be. Hoisting a handful of robes, he flashed up them.
General living quarters on all sides now, he continued his sedate stroll. With any luck, no one would be roaming about. His senses drank in his surroundings as though he were a sinkhole for every sight, sound, smell and sensation that came near. Neever had told it true: thousands lived here. But a Purli face was still exceedingly rare. Knowing what he did of his countrymen, he was surprised any were in residence at all.
First right, his feet said, walking the tabletop map of his memory. Third left…
He rounded the corner to find he was no longer alone. Distance, soft slippers and carpeted halls had conspired to hide the priestess’s approach. With hands clasped in the small of her back and pensive eyes on her feet, she strolled with the determined listlessness of the true insomniac.
Possibilities whirred through his fevered head in frenzied profusion, each realized in minutest detail. A faint sound slithered beneath a nearby door to pluck at his sleeve. He stepped up to the portal, every line of his body proclaiming that this was his door. Just see how it unlocked for him... Inside, he put his back to it. A stranger snored lazy coils into the pitch black. Outside, the insomniac passed.
His feet drew him back into the hall.
Three more flights of stairs brought him within view of a grand looking junction and a careful peek around the corner showed...
“A what?” he’d asked.
“A lift,” Neever had said.
“…what does it lift?”
“People.”
It was a round room manned by a single guard, lit from within by a steady white light.
Glow globes, Neever had called them. The man had even brought one to show him. He’d refused to touch it. Especially after being told it drew its power from people.
Even as he watched, the tinkling of a small bell sounded from within the odd room. The guard reached out to draw a gold filigreed gate shut across the doorway and pulled back on an enormous brass lever. With a clunk and a metallic groan, the entire room crawled its way up and out of sight, taking the guard with it.
How was it that a little light inside a glass globe was magic but a room that crawled around a building like a spider wasn’t? He felt the muscles of his cheeks strain against the absurdity of it.