‘The trail ends there.’
A river twisted and turned from one end of the horizon to the other. In the middle it split to form around a large island. Something tiny hung above it, gleaming whitely.
‘I hope it’s where he lives and that he’s not just resting,’ Vana said.
It took them two sleep-times to get to the foot of the mountain but a short time to reach the river. They made another raft with a rudder and floated down, using a sweep to give them more control. The river was about a mile across until they came to the roughly diamond-shaped island. Here the right branch was only half a mile across. It was unusually heavily populated with athaksum. These came close to the raft, regarding its passengers with cold blue eyes though making no attack. A swimmer would not have lasted long.
The object hanging above the island was larger. It was still so far away, however, that it could not be identified.
Evidently the island had no paths through the jungle, which meant that there were few if any people here. Sloosh waded into a swamp, following the impressions visible only to him. The others followed, putting each foot down with dread. Snakes hissed at them and slid off branches or rocks into the stinking bubbling dark-green water. Swarms of insects attacked them. Frog-like amphibians weighing perhaps fifty pounds leaped out from hummocks of mud and belly-crashed resoundingly. Then they dived, only to reappear close to the legs of the travellers. Their tongues flicked out and lacerated legs with tiny sharp barbs.
Sloosh said, ‘They may hurt, but they can’t be fatal. If they were, the Yawtl wouldn’t have passed this way.’
The water grew deeper, Aejip and Jum started swimming. Abruptly, the bottom sloped upward, and they were soon on higher land. Now they were beneath colossal trees under which little brush grew. They stopped to smear mud over their insect-bitten bodies and to rest. There was a strange silence under the branches, no buzz, hiss, caw, scream, chitter. A greenish-grey fungus clothed the lower trunks of the trees, a fluffy ill-smelling stuff two to three feet thick.
Nobody spoke. Sloosh held a finger to the end of his beak to indicate quiet. After a while he gestured, and he started walking. They rose wearily, since it was past bedtime, and followed. In a short time they’d passed through the forest and emerged on the rim of a shallow valley. Its surface seemed to be covered mostly with sand and gigantic dark-blue boulders. Here and there were some lone trees or small copses.
Abount a mile away, above the centre of the valley, hovered the white object. It was restrained from floating away by a massive cable of some sort in its centre and slimmer cables on its edges.
Deyv spoke softly. ‘Three tharakorm. Tied together side by side.’
Sloosh’s gaze circled the area. ‘The Yawtl has been up on them. But he came down without the benefit of a ladder.’
‘What do you mean?’ Vana said.
‘He either jumped or was thrown off.’ He pointed. ‘He’s out there now, somewhere behind that extraordinarily large rock.’
They went down the slope and onto the soft very warm sand. They had not gone more than forty feet when Sloosh stopped, holding up a hand. They wondered why he’d done so, but his manner indicated that they should keep silent.
Presently, the sand began boiling. A little pit appeared and two long tentacles, bilious green with narrow yellow stripes, slid out. They snaked around as if feeling for something. Sloosh gestured them to retreat. After about twenty paces, he stopped. They waited while the tentacles slid out to a length of fifteen feet.
Then, so suddenly that it caused them to jump back, a long curved barbed pole like a giant scorpion’s sting shot out of the sand not ten feet ahead of them.
A minute passed. As swiftly as it had appeared, the sting-pole slid back beneath the sand.
‘That’s strange,’ Sloosh buzzed softly. ‘It shouldn’t be there. It’s right in the Yawtl’s trail.’
‘What do you mean?’ Deyv whispered.
‘I can see the impressions of many creatures I’ve never encountered before. It’s evident that they are under the ground. I suspected that they’ve been set there to catch the unwelcome. But the Yawtl’s path curved here and there so much that it was evident he knew where they were. I followed his path so we, too, could avoid those sand-beasts.
‘But then I perceived one directly under the trail over which the Yawtl had gone. I also see the impressions of three humans around here. They’ve moved around freely. And it looks to me as if they’ve led the sand-beasts to other places.’
‘Why didn’t you tell us this?’ Deyv asked fiercely.
‘I would have. In time. It wasn’t necessary as long as we were on the safe path.’
Sloosh looked at the side-by-side tharakorm. ‘Let’s hope that their sleep-times correspond to ours. And that they don’t keep a watch then. Otherwise, they’ve seen us. We will proceed as if they haven’t. There is nothing else to do.’
He closed his eyes for a while. When he opened them, he said, ‘The Yawtl’s impressions are still strong. I can’t see their end, so I don’t know if he’s still living.’
Deyv understood this. He’d been told that when a creature died, it emitted a large yellow ball. No matter what colours its living impressions made, its decease was marked by yellow. Some time later, the yellow ball would fade and eventually disappear.
‘A good thing, too,’ Sloosh had said. ‘If the impressions didn’t fade out, my vision would be so full of them, I’d never be able to untangle them. The world, to me, would be a nightmare of complexities.’
Sloosh emitted a long rising and falling buzz, for him a sigh. ‘As before, single file. Step softly. And don’t stray from the path.’
It took a long time. Sloosh zig-zagged and even circled and once took them back to only a hundred yards from their starting point. When they finally came close to a tremendous boulder, he stopped.
‘Now be especially careful. There is a sand-beast on each side. If you panic and move too far to one side to avoid one, the other will get you.’
Aejip was directly in front of Vana, and Jum was just ahead of Deyv. Though extremely nervous, the two animals did just as Deyv ordered. The cat slunk along, looking quickly to each side. The dog’s hair was bristling, but his bushy tail was high in the air. Every now and then he growled softly.
Now the sand boiled at either hand, whirlpools formed, and tentacles shot out. They slid like snakes towards the ankles of the trespassers, stopping only a few inches from them. It was terrifying to walk between the two pairs of waving seeking tips, each ending in a long hooked claw. Deyv whispered soft encouragement to Jum, and Vana urged Aejip to stay immediately behind the Archkerri.
Deyv sweated more in a minute than he had in most hours.
Then they were out of danger.
Sloosh veered away from the boulder and approached it in a wide arc. When they reached its other side, they saw that a copse of trees was beyond it, about twenty yards away. Deyv thought that the Yawtl might be hiding in it. Sloosh, however, turned towards the base of the boulder. As Deyv neared it, he saw the rim of a large pit.
The Archkerri stopped short of the edge and pointed downward.
‘There is the thief.’
17
At first, Deyv thought that the Yawtl had been seized by a sand-beast and dragged into the pit. There was no evidence of a struggle, though. It was also doubtful that the Yawtl could have resisted for very long anything so monstrous. Whatever had happened, he was injured and in pain. Nevertheless, the reddish eyes glared challengingly at them. He tried to raise himself and to lift the rock gripped in one of his hands. He grimaced and fell back.
Though he was naked, his loincloth having somehow been lost, he had managed to retain the bone whistle. Sloosh pointed his beak down at him and said in Archkerri, ‘We are not here to kill you, Hoozisst. All we want is the recovery of the eggs and my crystal.’
Once more, Sloosh had flabbergasted Deyv. Deyv said, ‘You know him?’
‘Yes. I met him a long t
ime ago when he visited us with some others of his kind. How else would he know our language?’
‘You knew it was him all the time? Why didn’t you say so?’
‘It was his theft, not his identity, that concerned me.’
Vana, her face twisted, said, ‘I swear, I swear, I’m going to kick you so hard all your leaves will fall off!’
‘If it will help your infantile emotional state, go ahead. However, you’ll only hurt your foot.’
The Yawtl said, ‘If you don’t mean to kill me or torture me, then stop standing there talking. Get down here and get me out. I have a broken arm, my pelvis feels as if it’s fractured, I’ve bled a lot, and I’m very thirsty and hungry.’
‘Where are the eggs?’ Deyv whistled.
‘Tell me, or I’ll tear your heart out!’ Vana whistled.
The Yawtl’s thin lips opened in a very malicious smile, revealing the teeth of a carnivore. Then he closed his mouth and put the whistle to it. ‘They’re up there. On the ship-creatures. Feersh the Blind has them. Help me, and I’ll help you. I want my own egg, and even more I want revenge.’
The two humans went down into the pit and carried him back up between them. When he was let down on the edge, he said, ‘They’re all sleeping now, or should be. Let’s hope so, otherwise we’re done for. Get me back to the forest, and I’ll tell you my story. You can’t do anything without knowing it.’
‘That seems sensible,’ Sloosh said. ‘Put him on my back.’
They had to endure the ordeal of the tentacles again, but otherwise the return was much less frightening than the original venture. Once within the shelter of the trees, they gave Hoozisst what he wanted. They set his arm and put it in a splint. Vana brought water to bathe the bruises and lacerations. Deyv threw his spear up among the tree branches and knocked off many of the large purplish pear-shaped fruit. The Yawtl devoured a dozen of these with such pleasure that the others decided to eat some with him. Deyv thought they were the most delicious fruit he’d ever tasted.
When the Yawtl’s needs had been supplied, he closed his eyes. No one bothered him until he opened them a long time later. They understood that he had to probe his body with his mind to locate every cell that needed repair. Having done this, he could then direct the healing substances to those parts. He could also fix the speed at which the healing would be done. There was an upper limit to this, but the procedure was considerably faster than the natural process. However, the degree of speed depended upon the amount of food and water ingested. Which meant that since Hoozisst had to get well soon, he would require much sustenance. Which meant that his captors were going to be busy providing him with all his belly could hold.
The probing and directions would take about half an hour if he was as skilful in technique as the two humans, and he was. Then he would sleep for a while and wake up ravenous.
The animals curled up and went to sleep. Sloosh and the humans would have liked to join them, but they had to find fuel for the Yawtl’s racing metabolism. Deyv and Vana speared two of the froggish beasts. The Archkerri tore out a young tree, trimmed it with Vana’s tomahawk and used its end to knock off more fruit. Then the vehicle was opened, and they carried Hoozisst into it.
Between eating and sleeping, the Yawtl talked.
‘Feersh the Blind is a wicked old witch.’
Sloosh, interrupting, said, ‘By “witch” he doesn’t mean one who practises magic. Such a being exists only in the minds of the ignorant and superstitious. He means one who has found artifacts of the ancients and has discovered how to use them.’
Hoozisst looked annoyed. ‘Like most of her kind, she is tribeless. She lives with her family, some human-slaves and some beezee (or khratikl) whom she’s raised from cubhood.
‘My tribe has had some contact with her, since her sons and daughters occasionally visit our village. We give them smoked meat and other goods. In return, she doesn’t use her powers to do us evil. This burns us, but we can do nothing about it. Anyway, when one of her sons, Skibroziy, came to our village, he drew me aside and ordered me to come with him to see his mother. I asked him why she wanted me. He replied, in that sneering imperious manner we Yawtl have to endure, that she would tell me why when she saw me.
‘I was afraid. I’ve no shame admitting that. But I went. Besides, I thought there might be some profit in it for me. After all, I’d done nothing to offend Feersh. Skibroziy and I travelled through the jungle – our village is only three sleep-times away – and he guided me through the sand trap, and we climbed the ladder which hangs down from the central part of the three ship-creatures.
‘Feersh sat me down and gave me the best food and drink. Then she said she’d picked me to run an errand for her. Some errand! She had heard that I was the bravest, most cunning and stealthiest thief of all the six tribes of this area. Thus, I was the best candidate to do what she wanted.
‘She demanded that I go out, no matter how far or how long it took me, and steal soul eggs. Not just anybody’s. They had to indicate a certain type of character. She described the character of the owners, and she also described, in minute detail, how the eggs would indicate this.
‘I didn’t like leaving my tribe for a long time nor did I care for the unknown dangers I might run into. On the other hand, I was flattered because she’d chosen me. I wasn’t going to do it for nothing, though. So I asked her what reward I would get for my time and perilous labours. To my surprise, she replied that I could have whatever I wanted from a group of rare or unique treasures of the ancients. She took me to where they lay on the deck and asked me to pick one. I finally did so after some agonizing and chose the Emerald of Anticipation. I’ll tell you what it is later.
‘I was somewhat suspicious and didn’t really believe her promise. But I thought that if she went back on it I’d steal the Emerald from her. That shows you how valuable it was, that I would think of doing that when I was so scared of her powers. Though I must admit that there isn’t a Yawtl around here who hasn’t dreamed of stealing from Feersh. We all lacked the guts to try it, though.
‘So I went out, and the first egg I stole was from the Riverpig Tribe. I wouldn’t steal from my own tribe unless it was absolutely necessary. Anyway, mine had no eggs like those she wanted. Except for my own egg. Which, as you see, she now has. I found two more in other Yawtl tribes, and then I had to go to the human and Tsimmanbul villages and Houses.’
Deyv asked, ‘What’s a Tsimmanbul?’
‘A sapient species descended from an animal that once lived in the ocean,’ Sloosh said. ‘They didn’t evolve naturally from their flippered state into land-dwelling bipeds. The ancients used their powers to change them into these. But their intelligence was equal to that of humans.’
‘I think I must sleep now,’ Hoozisst said.
This irritated and frustrated his listeners, and he probably enjoyed their reactions.
When Deyv relieved Vana from guard duty, he stationed himself on the edge of the forest. Standing there facing the sand traps, he thought that if it had not been for his missing egg and the nearness of Feersh the Blind, he could enjoy being there. For some reason which the Yawtl did not know, this thin circle of woods was free of insects. Moreover, the animals, safe or dangerous, avoided it. If this was because Feersh had cast a spell on it, the magic had not influenced Jum and Aejip. They seemed at ease. The hunting in the swamp and the fishing in the river beyond the forest were as good as could be asked for.
He imagined the Earth as a place where such forests were interspersed among the jungles he knew. After the necessary hunting, a man could retreat to such a forest and enjoy life without the dangers of predators and the vexatious and sometimes painful or fatal insect and snake bites.
Deyv was, however, a realist. Into his thoughts of the paradise of such forests crawled visions of humans. There would be bachelors who could sneak in and kill, or a raid by warriors fixed on wiping out Deyv and his tribe. And there would be bothersome and sometimes infuriating interference by
parents and other relatives, not to mention the shaman and his wife or friends. And there would be a wife who would too often want her own way. And…
But this was normal human life and, whatever its vexations, it was overall enjoyable, rewarding and fulfilling. This was the only way open to a man if he was to be a completely rounded human.
So, counting all the advantages and disadvantages, there would be no better place than a forest like this.
Deyv could not see the humans aboard the tharakorm. But at least fifty leathery-winged rat-like khratikl were out feeding the sand monsters. They flew in couples which carried between each member a large chunk of raw meat. When they came above the places where the beasts hid, they dropped the flesh and flapped off towards the jungle beyond the ship-creatures. The Yawtl had said that there were corrals there where cattle were kept. These were tended by khratikl supervised by human slaves. They provided food for the sand things, the slaves, the khratikl, Feersh’s family and the captive tharakorm.
Deyv, watching the tentacles crawl out to seize the meat or giant stings readying to pierce it, thought that the feeding was a flaw in the idea of the sand traps. An observer in the forest could note the location of the shishvenomi, as Hoozisst called the sand-beasts, and then avoid the traps. But he’d have to have a good memory.
Hoozisst had also told them that the shishvenomi did not need food very often. They went into a semi-hibernation until their sensors detected vibrations on the surface. Then they became fully awake, only to fall back into their sleep after eating or if their prey eluded them.
Deyv had asked why the slaves did not try to escape.
‘They have a fairly good life,’ Hoozisst had said. ‘And they’re descendants of slaves. Feersh’s great-great-grandmother captured their ancestors. In fact, they worship Feersh as a goddess. They also sacrifice to her. When the population gets too large, they reduce it by killing the useless old people and the babies who don’t have matching soul eggs.’
The Lovers * Dark Is the Sun * Riders of the Purple Wage Page 31