"Will I catch up with them soon?" Bemish asked the hostess.
"No," the hostess said, "You need to take a detour via the White Pass and they rode straight. You will reach the castle by the evening."
"And what will happen to them?"
"Hmm," the woman hesitated, "If snow melts a bit in the daytime and an avalanche comes down, you, of course, will get their first but if no avalanche happens they, of course, will get there before you."
"Is the straight path hard?"
"I don't know. Since old Shun broke his neck there ten years ago, nobody has taken it."
The mountain road winded like a pumpkin vine. Heavy rain shredded with snow started suddenly. The wipers were not able to handle it. Bemish was horrified for Kissur — he was not old Shun, of course, but he still could break his neck.
This mountainous area was wild to the utmost. Trade had flourished in the coastal regions and three dozens years ago local cities such as Lamass or Kudum could brag about their good communities and abundant traders. The civil war in the Empire turned everything around — the castles' inhabitants straightened up, the traders' sons left for the castles' regiments and their daughters became concubines. The demand for warlike Alom nobility was such that an average knight could rob more in two month in the Empire than an average trader could make in two years. By the war's end, trading paid off so little that Lamass traders became extinct and it was the land of bandits and robbers that welcomed the people from the stars.
The hands of the Empire could barely reach this strange region; formally a castle owner was responsible for upholding order in the local lands but he usually happened to be the biggest bandit. Nobody even considered mine development here because horsemen with rocket launchers under their armpits invariably approached mine engineers to demand a tribute.
No passerby was safe here. The most disgusting accident happened three years ago when a World Bank vice president, an amateur mountaineer, and two friends of his decided, damn it, to conquer a local mountain Aych-Akhal.
While approaching the peak, he was taken prisoner by a local pedigreed bandit and escorted to his castle. Next day the bank received a fax with a picture of the vice president sitting chained in a real underground pit and a one trillion dinars ransom demand. The World Bank stock capital was five trillion dinars.
The media howled.
The Galaxy demanded the Empire to take decisive actions. The Galaxy demanded to locate the castle the prisoner was in. "Whatever," the Empire envoy shrugged his shoulders, "Whoever caught him keeps him." The Galaxy demanded the decisive actions to be taken at this region.
The castle owner announced that if anybody resorts to decisive actions, the prisoner would have his throat cut. Kissur helped the World Bank out. He flew to his castle immediately and called the local lords in for a feast and counsel. They arrived. Kissur imperturbably arrested the three dozens guests that came to visit him and announced that he would shoot all these folks if the vice president was not released.
The landowner who took the vice president prisoner was not present among Kissur's guests. However, his brother and his father-in-law were there. The same night, the vice president was released without any ransom. Afterwards, Kissur didn't even bother meeting the man he had saved.
By the evening, Bemish reached the main and the only one street in Black Village; faraway on the mountain amidst the clouds, the castle and its wall, jagged like an EEG, showed up for a moment.
Right at this moment, a goose appeared on the wet road.
Bemish expected the goose to move aside and let the car pass since, in the Earthman's opinion, roads were created for cars not geese. In the goose's opinion however, roads were created for geese and accordingly to his views the goose stared at the car with curiosity and then turned its back to it and lowered its head.
They explained to Bemish afterwards that he should have lowered speed and driven over the goose and the goose would have been unharmed and the car would have been fine. But Bemish wasn't familiar with local geese' customs.
He turned the steering wheel to the right and floored the brake. The car spun like a feather. Bemish flew into boysenberry bushes that the locals used for fences and he almost split his head apart over the steering wheel. The car shuddered and froze. Bemish slammed the door and stepped out to take a look. The front wheels sat deep in the rut and one of them fell off. Bemish looked around. The gosling, glancing sideways, desperately ran away from the road. "Son of a bitch!" Bemish said loudly.
It was getting dark quickly. There was no way to fix the car. A dog behind the boysenberry fence tried to compensate for a lacking fire alarm. More and more dogs were joining it. As for the people — the village seemed to be dead.
"Hei," Bemish shouted, "is anybody there?"
He had to shout for a while. Finally a house door opened and somebody asked from a doorstep,
"What's this shouting in the dark?"
Something was gleaming behind the door but Bemish was not able to see the man.
"Do you have a phone?" Bemish asked.
"I don't have a phone. I have a fan laser," the answer was.
Bemish bared his teeth.
"I have a fan laser myself."
The guy shut the door. Bemish kicked the car thoughtfully. He threw the fan emitter on his left shoulder, a daypack on his right shoulder and took the small bike off the rack. "Fan laser," he thought, thinking about the gleam in the opened door, "No way, it's a fan laser, damn it — it's at least a plasma rocket launcher."
X X X
The guards let Bemish into the castle without any surprise; bike or no bike — who can understand these Earthmen? "Yes," Bemish thought, "people here are very different from the plains' dwellers, they hugged their swords in silence for a thousand years and now they silently hug their rocket launchers, every trial verdict starts a vendetta here…"
It was slippery and wet in the castle yard, like in a defrosted refrigerator. Kissur hadn't arrived yet. Old Elda was napping in an armchair in the upper hall. She looked at the nervous Earthman as she would look at a frog and said that the Earthman's iron cart would fall apart on the Earthmen's roads smooth like a eunuch's cheek before her son falls from a steep slope in the local mountains.
Bemish took off together with his nerves.
The young castle owner Ashidan, a Cambridge student, was passed out in the main hall having dropped his golden curls into a plate with leftovers. A bull mask with torches in place of horns bared its teeth above him and something smoldering in the fireplace under the mask produced a horrible smell; at a closer view it, appeared to be a hand phone remnants.
"What is it?" Bemish asked the majordomo.
"Lady Elda," he answered, "said that she didn't want any witchcraft objects in her house. She just found it in the morning having gone over the rooms."
Bemish looked Ashidan over more carefully. He slept shuddering nervously and he didn't appear to Bemish to be drunk.
"Aren't there any communication devices in the castle?"
"Oh," the servant said, "what communication are you talking about?! Look — even the cloth is homespun. She would burn anything else." And he pointed at his dress. Bemish felt his sleeve — it really was burlap. He hadn't understood that at first and thought in surprise that the servant had a very luxurious jacket — thick knotted cloth like this was fashionable this year.
Bemish didn't sleep at night and tossed; old pines squeaked behind a narrow window, designed to shoot out from not to look out of, and their squeaking branches made sounds like a hanged man's rope. Bemish pulled an antenna out of a small radio and started listening. Suddenly while he was searching for a station, he heard his name and a long string of words spitted out in Alom — Bemish didn't make them out through the noise. Bemish turned the dial again but the conversation had ended. "Hmm," Bemish thought, "Somebody in this castle hid a transmitter away from old Elda."
X X X
In the morning Bemish left for the village. He didn't really
want to complain to old Elda that his iron cart fell apart on the road that even a ram would pass through in a snowstorm and he was also sure that the castle inhabitants knew as much about cars as he knew about divination on oil. Bemish walked down a fresh road passing boysenberry fences and curious chicken, thinking about this strange area where a phone in a house was a luxury and an assault rifle was a necessary tool.
He reached the car and stopped in surprise.
The car stood at the same place and the busted wheel still hunched in the rut. The other three wheels had disappeared in an unknown direction — the lonesome car sank on its axles. The wipers were gone off the windshield and the windshield was also gone. Bemish's eyes traveled into the car — radio, head supports, rugs, handles and all five windows beside the windshield had carefully packed up and left. An untouched first aid kit sat in the back seat.
Bemish walked around the car and opened the trunk. There was nothing inside except for a pair of old worn out bark sandals. Bemish was surprised at first because he didn't have a habit of wearing bark sandals but then he realized that the thief probably put Bemish's leather boots on and left the bark sandals there. With gloomy anticipation, Bemish raised the hood and gazed at the engine. Bemish was quite familiar with the car's design. He immediately realized that the night thieves were much more familiar with this design.
Bemish looked around — geese and turkey with red snot surrounded him and the same rocket launcher old guy was digging cabbage in his garden. He didn't have the rocket launcher next to him, probably thanks to the daylight.
"Hey," Bemish said.
The old guy turned around. He wore a shirt that used to be white in its youth and the pants that nobody would be able to say anything about.
"Come here," Bemish said. The old guy approached. Further into the garden, his son hoed the ground mechanically without looking around. Bemish waved the bark sandals and extended them over the fence.
"Do you know," Bemish said, "Who owns these?"
The old man took the sandals and fished out a ten dinar note that Bemish had pushed down the toe earlier. He rolled the note and stuck it behind his ear and handed the sandals back to Bemish.
"I don't know," he said.
Bemish lost his speech.
He looked at himself suddenly with the peasant's eyes. He looked at a well dressed alien coming out of the world that all the people, who worked well and obeyed the authorities, would go to after death — and he looked at this half bare destitute village where no phones existed but news about a car that could be stripped spread quickly without the phone, where no toilets existed but mortars were available, and everybody knew everything but would say nothing about his neighbors — and he realized with utter clarity that even if the night adepts had stripped the car in the view of the whole village and it probably had happened this way, not all the police in the world would be able to find out who had done this.
Wheels rustled on the road.
"What's the problem?"
Bemish turned around. Behind him in a sport car, turquoise and narrow like an orchid petal, Kissur's brother, Ashidan sat. A perfect shirt, a precise hairdo, the smell of cologne — a starting manager and a Cambridge graduate — Bemish felt his world pleasantly coming back to him.
Terence Bemish sardonically raised the bark footwear.
"Here," he said, "somebody decided to exchange transportation means with me."
But Ashidan had figured it out already. He got out of the car, opened the passenger's door and bowed to Bemish inviting him into the car. Bemish got in. The peasant watched them with frightened eyes.
"Hey," Ashidan shouted to the guy in the garden, "come here!" The peasant approached.
"Get in the car," Ashidan told the guy.
Bemish stretched to open a door.
"Get in the trunk," Ashidan added, looking in disgust at the guy's bare and dirty feet. "Ah, well, you may change your clothing."
The guy ran to the house. Bemish regained his speech.
"Why do you think," Bemish asked, "that he stripped the car? It could be anybody…"
"If," Ashidan said in an even voice, "a crime is committed in a village and the criminal is not apprehended, the lord should arrest several village inhabitants and keep them as hostages till they die or till the others deliver the guilty party."
Bemish stared at Ashidan with wide opened eyes. The charming boy — and he was a very beautiful lad — looked very much like a successful manager. "In this voice his ancestors spoke generation after generation," Bemish thought, "It looks like progress here is characterized by the lord putting a peasant in a car's trunk instead of tying him to a horse's tail."
"This man," Ashidan said, pointing at Bemish, "is a named brother of my brother and a guest of my ancestors. My brother is coming today — the servants brought news that he got stuck at the Trekking Pass and took a detour via Lokh."
The peasant dropped to his knees.
"Master!" it was unclear whether he addressed Ashidan or the alien.
The peasant's son walked out of the house in clean white clothing with a satchel in his hand. A ten-year-old boy accompanied him.
"Master," the oldster continued, "take the younger one, we have so much work now!"
Ashidan thoughtfully tapped the leather steering wheel.
"Our ancestor's guest," he said, "had a bad dream that somebody robbed his car. I had this dream, too, and I hurried here. But now it seems to me that it was a false dream and that the car, complete and unharmed, will return to the castle by the evening."
Having said this, Ashinik floored the accelerator and the car sprayed the white peasant's dress with a load of mud and rushed away.
X X X
Kissur reached the castle only by noon. The rumors appeared to be correct — an avalanche had descended off the Trekking Pass and it had brushed by the people and the horses. Everybody was alive but Kissur's horse, Stargazer, with a white arrow on his forehead and wide hooves, was dragged down and only a red spot blinked in the snow for a moment. They took the same road that Bemish had used; Kissur's eyes swelled with blood like ripe cherries because of the horse. Kissur glanced at Bemish and snapped,
"You won the bet. We will hunt tomorrow." And he ran upstairs.
Bemish didn't pursue him. Something scary suddenly hung in the air, the stone gods' masks grimaced with their mouths at the Earthman and clanged their teeth. Bemish turned around — pale Ashidan stood next to him rubbing his temples.
Kissur locked himself in a corner tower and didn't let anybody in. Khanadar explained that he was mourning the horse following the customs.
When Bemish's car drove into the castle's yard in the evening, Bemish was sitting on a guard tower looking at the dragon-like clouds. Bemish ran downstairs.
A well-built flaxen guy stepped out of the car and, bowing, handed the keys to him. Everything was fixed including the broken wheel. Bemish looked the guy over and said,
"Thanks. How many auto repair shops are in the village?"
"One," the guy answered without blushing.
Bemish looked at the guy's feet — he stood in a pool wiggling his bare toes. The Earthman walked around the car and unlocked the trunk — the case bristled there self-importantly. Bemish opened the case — underwear and clothing was there, only two shirts were wet — clearly, they had been washed and ironed. Bemish extracted leather boots out of the case.
"Hold it," Bemish said, "That's a gift for you. The guy gasped and took the boots. Bemish stuck his hand in his pocket, took three hundred local "unicorns" out and handed them to the guy.
"It's for your work."
"Mister," the guy said, "we just fixed the wheel. It costs twenty "unicorns."
"Where are you going now?" Bemish asked.
"I am going to the Blue Ravine, to the village's left end."
"Get in," Bemish said, "I'll give you a ride." The village stretched along the road, between the mountain and the canyon. It was rarely more than hundred meters wide and abo
ut eight kilometers long. The guy squeezed himself in a corner almost under the seat and kept silent. One could think that he sat in the car first time in his life. "Hmm," Bemish thought, "on the other hand, a master and an alien is giving him a ride for the first time… I hope I am not compromising White Falcon clan's honor."
"How long has Ashidan been living in the castle?" Bemish asked.
"It's been two months, master."
"Does he drink?"
"No, master," the guy said nervously.
Bemish dropped the guy off at a field where girls in blue and red skirts were already starting to dance and came closer to see what it was that they grew in this field. He was going to ask for how long the peasants had been growing this stuff but the bailiff rushed towards him. Bemish turned around and drove away.
It was just before the sunset — he drove down a forest till he found a nice lawn to the road's left. He drove into the lawn, turned the ignition off, lifted the hood and gazed at the engine.
The carburetor was assembled like a bird's nest from many different parts and the air filter was also taken from another car. The night thieves from the only auto repair shop in the village had installed everything else where they had taken it from.
Bemish turned around and drove back.
Kissur had already descended to the yard and they explored the castle together. It was huge, the walls rose one after another like cabbage leaves.
The castle sat on the very mountaintop and only one road led to it from the west. The outer wall hovered above an abyss on all the other sides and the abyss had been hewed off for better defense, forming a wall smooth like glass.
Kissur showed his guest a yard where Kanut the Falcon had been killed and a small castle garden where Kissur's great grandmother had sinned with a winged two-headed bull under an apple tree. Bemish told Kissur that tourists from the whole Galaxy could visit the castle.
"This castle is not fit for tourists," Kissur smirked, "It does not have disabled access." And he squeezed himself nimbly onto a narrow and incredibly steep staircase spiraling along one of the outside walls.
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