Along with the hares, the grass too had been reduced in size until the tops of the highest blades rose no higher than his waist, with a few isolated, more productive patches reaching to his shoulders. The taller Ehomba could see easily over even these.
Bending, the herdsman made unintelligible sibilant sounds to the two hares, who listened attentively. Following a light pat on the head of each, they turned and scurried back into the grass from whence they had all come.
Simna watched them go. “What will happen now? As they travel south will they start to return to their former extravagant size?”
“I believe so.” Ehomba was trying to follow the progress of their mounts, but his efforts were defeated by the dense growth that closed in behind them. When not in their exaggerated state, small hares needed to be ever vigilant. Once back in the veldt of the giants, he reflected, they would be safe once again. Tilting back his head slightly, he glanced at the sky. Unless, of course, there soared among the clouds in the region they had just fled hawks and eagles that reached proportionate size. Such a winged monster would put all the tales of rocs and fire-breathing dragons to shame. What a wonder it would be, though, to see such a creature! An eagle with the wingspan of a nobleman’s house!
He was glad they had been spared that particular marvel, however, because it would have meant that the monster would surely also have seen them.
Walking north, it was not long before they came upon a kopje, a rocky outcropping rising from the surrounding veldt. At its base was a small pool, not so shallow as to be too hot, not so stagnant as to prove distasteful. By mutual agreement it was decided to make camp there for the night.
When Ehomba announced that he would build the fire, Simna waited and watched eagerly for the herdsman to generate sparks with the tips of his fingers, or blow flame from his nostrils, or conjure it out of the thin dry air with closed eyes and staccato chant. He was sorely disappointed. The fire was started with flint and dry grass and much careful blowing on the tiny wisp of smoke that resulted.
Perhaps the tall herdsman was nothing more than he claimed to be: a simple master of cattle and sheep with an unusually adept skill at multispecies linguistics. One who would maintain that assertion even under torture or threat of death. He would have to, Simna knew.
Otherwise others might find out about the treasure he was after.
Smiling to himself, knowing that he knew the truth no matter what the disarmingly personable southerner might claim, Simna prepared for the coming night. Let the “herdsman” think that his traveling companion believed his fictions. Simna knew better, and that was enough for now. When the time came, he would confront his laconic companion more forcefully.
As forcefully as was necessary to ensure that he got his full share of what they were after. Whatever that was.
XIV
WITH THE BLACKNESS THAT FOLLOWS THE DAY PULLED OVER them like a speckled silk veil, the two men crouched around the fire taking turns trying to identify the sounds of the night. Occasionally, they argued. More often, they agreed. Ehomba was impressed by his well-traveled companion’s range of knowledge, while Simna appreciated the acuity of his tall friend’s hearing.
Not that it was always necessary to strain to hear the murmurings of the night creatures. A well-spaced assortment of screeches, yowls, roars, bellows, hisses, and whistlings surrounded them. A few they were able to identify, while the perpetrators of the majority remained as unknown as if they had come down from the dark side of the moon.
Once, the clear, still air resounded to the sounds of horrific conflict between unseen combatants. The noise of battle died away without any concluding scream, suggesting that the fighters had resolved their nocturnal dispute in nonfatal fashion. Not long thereafter, a high-pitched, lilting song that tinkled like running water made melody drifted across the grass, beguiling all within range, man and beast alike. And as they were about to retire, a small blue serpent whose back sported a pattern of pink diamonds slithered silently through the lonely encampment, passing directly and disinterestedly beneath Ehomba’s ankles before disappearing back into the grass.
Simna rose abruptly at the sight of it and started to reach for his sword. When he saw that his companion was not only not afraid of the scaly intruder but actually indifferent to it, he slowly resumed his cross-legged seat on the ground.
“Do you talk to snakes, too, bruther?”
“Occasionally.” The herdsman sipped from a leather water bag. “They have much to say.”
“Really? It’s been my experience they just bite, kill you, and go on their way.”
“They should be forgiven the random burst of temperament. How would you like to go through life without legs or arms? Considering how unfairly Fate has dealt with them, limb-wise, I have to say that I find them admirably restrained.” Finishing his drink, he recorked the container and set it aside. “Under the circumstances, I think I would find myself wanting to bite everything in sight, too.”
“You know what your talent is, Etjole? In case you didn’t know, I’ve just decided for you.” Simna was preparing to turn in. “You sympathize with everything. You know what your problem is?”
“No. You tell me, Simna ibn Sind. What is my problem?”
The itinerant swordsman pulled the thin blanket up over his legs and torso. Upon it, a grieving maid had embroidered her feelings for him in certain and graphic terms.
“You sympathize with everything.” With that he rolled onto his back and opened his eyes to the dark heavens. Everyone knew that the grains of sandy material that filled one’s eyes and induced sleep were actually made of star-stuff. While lying beneath an open sky, this material would gradually sift downward to fill the corners of a man’s eyes and gift him with a sound and healthful night’s rest. Knowing this, Simna had never been able to understand how people were able to sleep indoors. No wonder so many of them tossed and turned uneasily in their beds.
The fire was burning low. A single distant but penetrating roar of particular resonance briefly jarred him, but he was too contented to let anything disturb him for long. They had crossed the seemingly impossible high veldt without injury or difficulty, saving weeks of difficult walking through dangerous country. He was traveling in the company of a mysterious but pleasant and unthreatening foreigner who was going to lead him to a trove of untold riches. True, this individual possessed abilities he refused to acknowledge until the time came to make use of them, but Simna had seen fakirs and magicians at work before, and was not intimidated by their ruses. Not even by those of one who could talk to animals. He was certain he was ready for whatever surprise his traveling companion might choose to spring next.
No he wasn’t.
It was the light that woke him. Stealing in under his eyelids, prying at them with insistent photons, raising both his lids and his attention. The explanation was simple and natural: The sky had become lit by a rising full moon. Smacking dry lips, he prepared to roll over, away from the light in the sky. As he did so, he opened one eye to check on the position of the night’s light. At the same time it occurred to him that there had been only a sliver of moon the night before, and that it was usual for the moon to move with stately and regular procession through its phases and not to jump from one-eighth full to wholly rounded.
He was wrong. The light did not come from the moon. He sat up, the thin but warm blanket sliding down to his thighs, his eyes now fully open and alert.
The campfire had been reduced to a pile of coals from which curls of smoke continued to rise, taking flight into the night and making good their escape from the company of man. Ehomba sat cross-legged on the other side, staring not at the sky nor at his companion but at the intense glimmering that was drifting, will-o’-the-wisp-like, in front of him. No random, irregularly shaped glob of luminance, the light had form and shape.
What a form, an enchanted Simna thought dreamily, and what a shape.
It hovered in the air before the herdsman, draped in tight folds of silk in ma
ny shades of blue flecked with silver stars and laced with pearls and aquamarines. Though long of sleeve and skirt, the binding of the royal raiment was such that he could see the curves that folded upon curves. It was at once entirely modest and unrelievedly arousing.
The young woman who was thus encased, like a spectacular butterfly about to be born from a glistening cocoon, had skin the color of love and smooth as fresh poured cream. Her eyes were bluer than the silks she wore, and they sparkled more brightly than any diamond sewn to her gown. In striking contrast to the color of her skin, her hair was impossibly black, wavy filaments of polished onyx that spilled down her back and around her shoulders, as if a portion of the night itself had attached itself to her being.
She was staring not at the unmoving, attentive Ehomba, but off into the distance. Her expression was resigned, determined, wistful. What she was looking at Simna could not imagine. He knew only that he would, without hesitation, have given his very life to be the subject of that stare.
Something made her frown, and as she did so the light in which she was enveloped curdled like souring milk. A second presence stepped into the ragged splotch of efflorescence. It was huge, monstrous, and overbearing.
You could not see the eyes, concealed as they were within the depths of the horned helmet. Spikes and scythes protruded from the rough-surfaced black metal. Below the helmet began the body of a wrestler and a giant, immensely powerful, the muscles themselves occasionally visible beneath flowing garments of purple, gold, and crimson. The cape that trailed behind the figure, which Simna estimated to be close to eight feet tall, was decorated with the most horrible visions of hell, of bodies being torn limb from limb by demons and devils, all of whom were performing their dreadful activities under the supervision and command of that same towering, helmeted figure.
As both men looked on, there in the night in the middle of the veldt, the giant put a massive, mailed hand on one flawless bare shoulder. Instantly the woman whirled, her far-off look abruptly replaced with one of utter loathing and revulsion. Her reaction did not seem to trouble the giant. Though she did her utmost to remove his clinging hand, at first shaking and then grabbing at it, she was unable to dislodge the mailed grip even when pressing both hands and all her weight upon it.
Until now Simna had sat motionless, enthralled by the vision and the distant drama of what he was seeing. But suddenly, the giant was looking past the woman held in his bruising, unyielding grasp. Looking beyond the room in which he and his prize stood, beyond even the building where his prisoner was bound in unwilling consort.
He was looking straight at Etjole Ehomba, a herdsman from the dry, desiccated lands to the south.
With a bellow of outrage that dwarfed anything that the veldt had produced, the figure brought its other hand forward. Something that was the consequence of an unholy union between fire and lightning sprang from the mailed palm, leaping toward the seated southerner. Ehomba ducked instinctively and the blast of luminescent diablerie passed over his left shoulder to strike the center of the dying campfire.
Those flames that remained within fled in terror of a greater fire than they could know. As the air screamed, the very molecules of which it was composed were torn and rent. The image of giant and entrapped beauty collapsed in upon itself, twisting and crumpling like a sheet of paper in the trembling fingers of a scandalized warlord. And then it was gone: giant, empyreal prisoner, and the light that had framed them, leaving behind only the veldt and the scandalized night.
Not a sound emanated from the surrounding leagues of grass. It was as if the earth itself lay stunned by the apparition. Then, somewhere, a cricket resumed its violining. A frog croaked from within its prized puddle. Night birds and insects resumed their timeless chorus.
Aware that he had neglected to breathe for a while, Simna ibn Sind inhaled deeply. The perspiration in which he was drenched began to dry and cool on his body, causing him to shiver slightly. Shunting aside his blanket, he crawled over until he was beside his companion. It took a moment, because he had to avoid the foot-deep, smoking ditch of scorched earth that occupied the place where their campfire had been and that now drew a line in the soil between them. It stank of carbonized malignance and inhuman venality.
“Pray tell, bruther, what that was all about? And in the same breath, deny to me one more time that you are a sorcerer.”
Ehomba looked over at him and smiled tiredly. “I have told you, friend Simna, that I am but a simple herdsman. Believe me, I would rather be lying with my wife than with you, listening to my children instead of the growls and complaints of strange animals, and in my own bed than here in this alien land. But through no wish or desire of my own, I have become involved in something bigger than myself.” Turning away, he looked at the patch of sky where the phantasm had appeared and subsequently burned itself out.
“I did not conjure up what we just saw. I did not call out to it, or beckon it hither, or ask it to appear before me. I recited no litany, cast no spells, burnt no effigies. I was having trouble going to sleep and, having trouble, thought to sit a while and contemplate the majesty of the sky.” He shrugged so lackadaisically that Simna almost believed him.
“So that just ‘happened’?” The swordsman waved at the space in the sky where the figures had appeared. The air there still shimmered and smoldered like distant pavement on a scorching hot afternoon. “You did nothing to make it happen?”
“Nothing.” With a heavy sigh Ehomba lay back down on the comforting earth. “I was sitting, and it appeared before me. The auguries of a dead man, Simna. The burden of Tarin Beckwith of Laconda, North.” He nodded at the disturbed patch of atmosphere.
“I believe that the woman we saw was the Visioness Themaryl, and the frightful figure that appeared behind her must perforce be her abductor, Hymneth the Possessed. She fits the allusion of comeliness the dying Beckwith described to me, and he no less the likeness of concentrated animus. How or why they should appear to me now, here, in this isolated and unpretentious place, I cannot tell you.”
Simna nodded and was silent for several moments. Then he commented, “You really don’t know what you’re getting into, do you?”
“I never worry about such things. We are all fallen leaves drifting on the river of life, and we go where the current takes us.” The herdsman looked up at his friend. “Do you worry?”
The swordsman let his gaze rove out across the veldt. “I try to. I like to have some idea what I’m in for.” Pulling his gaze away from the veldt and whatever was out there, he looked back over at the herdsman. “That must be some treasure he’s guarding.”
Frustrated, Ehomba rolled over onto his side. “If what you just saw and experienced is not enough to convince you that I am not doing this for treasure, then it is certain nothing I can say will convince you otherwise.”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” Simna declared. “The woman is certainly worth saving.” He whistled softly. “There are all kinds of treasure, even some that come wrapped in silk. Speaking of which, did you happen to notice that—”
“You are an impossible person, Simna ibn Sind.”
“I prefer incorrigible. All right, so my intentions are base. But my objectives are noble. I’ll help you rescue this Visioness Themaryl, if you’re bound and determined to return her to her family as you say you’ve sworn to do. But as my reward, or payment, or whatever you wish to call it, I claim for myself any gold or jewels we can plunder along the way.”
In the darkness, Ehomba smiled in spite of himself. “You would pit yourself against the figure we saw, against this Hymneth the Possessed, for mere wealth?”
“Take it from me, Etjole—there’s no such thing as ‘mere wealth.’ So he’s big and ugly and can throw sky fire from his fingertips. So what? I’ll bet he bleeds like any man.”
“I would not count on that. But I admire your bravery.”
“I’ve found that in the face of danger, greed is a wonderful motivator, Etjole. I suppose you’re fortunate
that you’re immune to it.”
“I did not say that I was immune. It is just that we covet different things, you and I.”
“Fortunate for me, then.” Rising, the swordsman returned to his resting place and once again drew the embroidered blanket up around his body.
His companion was not quite ready for sleep. “Simna, have you ever contemplated a blade of grass?”
Already drifting off, the exhausted swordsman mumbled an indifferent reply. “Look, I’d rather believe that I’m traveling in the company of a sorcerer than a philosopher. You’re not going to philosophize at me now, are you? It’s late, it’s been a tiring time, and we need to get an early start tomorrow morning to cover as much ground as possible before the sun rises too high.”
“You should look forward to walking when the sun is high. It keeps the snakes in their lairs. In the cool of morning and evening is when they like to come out.”
“You’re sure of that, are you?” Something brushed the swordsman’s exposed left arm and he jumped slightly. But it was only, to his relief, a blade of grass being bent by the breeze.
“That is what they tell me.”
“Hares I can accept, but snakes? Not even magicians can talk to snakes. Snakes have no brains.”
He could almost see Ehomba scowling in the darkness. “I am sure there are many in this place, and I hope none of them overheard that.”
“Hoy, right,” Simna snorted softly.
“There is the universe we live in,” the herdsman went on, as if the colloquial conviviality of serpents had never been a question under discussion, “and then there is a blade of grass.” In the deepening shadows Simna saw his companion pluck a young green shoot from the ground and hold it above his reclining head, a tiny sliver of darker blackness against the star-filled sky.
“A wise man of our village, Maumuno Kaudom, once told me that there is a world whole and entire in everything we see, even in each blade of grass, and that if we could just make ourselves small enough we could walk around in it just as we walk around in this world.”
Carnivores of Darkness and Light: Journeys of the Catechist, Book 1 Page 14