Terse but heartfelt good-byes given, the dolphins turned and, as one, began their return journey southward, heading for the heart of the land of suspended lakes. The travelers watched them go until the last pink, curving back had arched out of sight.
Simna gestured at the dripping length of thin, tough vine Ehomba had been utilizing as a rein for days. It was wrapped in coils around the southerner’s shoulder. “What do you plan to do with that? Rope us a couple of frogs to ride the rest of the way?”
“No. But I have a feeling we may eventually have to use it to rope something.” With that he started off, heading due north. Simna marveled at the herdsman’s ability to tell direction from an empty sky the way a thief senses a heavy purse concealed within many folds of garment. He followed without question while Ahlitah splashed primly alongside, occupying himself with scanning the languid shallows for edible mollusks and crustaceans.
By the morning of the next day they had reached a place where the vast, shallow river bay that underlay the hovering ponds had been reduced to streaks of fading dampness in the sand. Behind them, glittering and glistening like pearls hung on invisible cords, the floating ponds and lakes stretched south to the main body of the river and the veldt beyond.
Ahead lay gravel plains dotted with low scrub and clusters of bizarrely shaped succulents. Half a day’s march later found them confronting a desert. The first dunes lifted smooth-sided yellow-brown flanks toward the deep blue sky.
“More fine country!” Simna spat and watched as the dry grains rapidly soaked up his spit. “I long for the green fields and leafy forests of home.” The disgruntled swordsman looked up at Ehomba. “At least you’ll be comfortable.”
“What, in this?” The herdsman indicated the desiccated terrain that lay before them.
“Hoy, haven’t you told me that you come from a desert land?”
“No, I have not. Dry, yes. Desert—well, to some I suppose it is. But where I come from there are mountains crowned with trees, and valleys that fill with grass and clover and flowers, and springs that nourish small lakes and give rise to flowing streams.” He nodded northward. “I see none of that here. Right now, the only thing about this place that reminds me of home is the temperature.” He looked to his right.
“Are you suffering, my four-legged friend?”
“Not at all. Not yet, anyway.” Ahlitah was panting, the splotched dark pink of the heavy, thick tongue shockingly bright against his black lips. “I know that when the sun is up I get hotter than my kin because of my color, but I have grown used to it.”
“We’re going to need plenty of water.” Grim-faced, Simna surveyed the ground ahead. “No telling what we’ll find out there.”
“That is what I kept this for.”
Turning, Ehomba retraced their steps until he halted before a very small pond. Floating a yard or so above the ground, it contained no central island, no visible soil of any kind. Reflecting its diminutive size, only minnows darted in its depths.
Unlimbering the coil of vine from his shoulder, he turned to his companions. “Come and help me secure this.”
“Secure it?” Simna started toward the other man. “Secure it to what? And why? You’re not thinking of somehow bringing it with us?”
“And why not?” Ehomba challenged him as he began to measure out the length of vine around the circumference of the pond. “Can you think of a more reliable source of water, or a better container?”
“I know it’s small compared to many we’ve seen.” The swordsman bent to help with the vine. “But it’s still a lot bulkier and heavier than a couple of gourds slung over the shoulder. What makes you think we can move it, anyway?”
“It will move,” Ehomba assured him. “Now when I tell you, pick up that side of the vine and press it tight against the water wall.”
It took work and a while—the vine kept slipping against the smooth exterior of the pond—but eventually they had it snugged tight. The green rope dug slightly into the sides of the drifting pond but did not break through. Strange to think of water having skin, Simna mused. With his knife they split the free end of the vine in half. He took one end and Ehomba the other, and together they put their weight into it and pulled.
The pond did not budge until Ahlitah, with a snort of disdain, grabbed the vine in his teeth and tugged. Once set in motion, the pond moved easily, traveling as if on an invisible greased pad. As soon as it had acquired some momentum, one man could drag it behind him. It glided through the air more freely than they had any right to expect.
“We will drink our fill until it is half empty,” Ehomba declared, “and that will make it even easier to pull. Meanwhile we will be able to sip more lavishly than any desert would normally allow.”
Putting out a hand, Simna pushed against the side of the pond. He was careful not to poke it with a finger. The cool, transparent epidermis dimpled at his touch before springing back to its original shape. It took several seconds to complete the process and return to normal, the marvelous container reacting not unlike an old man’s skin.
“Drink our fill? By Ghothua, we can have a bath!”
Ehomba regarded him with distaste. “You would swim in your drinking water?”
The swordsman blinked ingenuously. “Sure, why not?”
“Why not indeed,” added Ahlitah supportively. It was the first time he had agreed with Simna on anything.
Ehomba simply shook his head. “It is true what the migrating traders say. Civilization and civilized behavior are matters of perspective.”
“Aw, our customs are just different, Etjole.” Simna gave the herdsman an amiable slap on the back, marveling as always at the dryness of the southerner’s attire. No matter the time of day or the temperature, he never seemed to sweat. “If it’ll ease your mind, I promise not to swim in your drinking water.”
“I would appreciate that.” Like his companions, Ehomba was enjoying the easy walking. For the first time in many days, the ground underfoot crunched instead of sloshed.
They kept to the dry, dusty washes that ran like rocky rivulets between the dunes. Soon these were towering overhead, their sandy peaks rising to heights of a thousand feet and more. Yet between them, in shadowed and sheltered places, desert plants thrived on subsurface sources of moisture.
Besides the more familiar bushes and small trees with their desert-adapted miniaturized leaves and green bark, they encountered the most extraordinary miscellany of cacti and other dry-country plants. Some had spines that were curved like fishhooks, while others boasted spikes fine as hair, rust-red in color and threatening. Towing their floating water supply behind them, the travelers were careful not to brush up against any of these. In Ehomba’s experience, such plants not only stung, but many also carried poison in their quills. Overhead, small, fringed dragonets soared and circled like tatters of torn tent, their outstretched membranous wings keeping them effortlessly aloft as they watched the progress of the trekkers below. Enamored of carrion, they would track isolated wayfarers of any species for days, hopeful and expectant.
Ehomba’s companions trudged along, sometimes locked in their own private silence, sometimes chattering briskly either to him or to one another. What an odd trio of travelers we make, he meditated on more than one occasion. None of us really wants to be here. I would rather be home with my wife and children, Ahlitah would surely prefer the company of other great cats, and Simna doubtless misses the fleshpots and garish excitements of more populous surroundings.
Yet here we are: I because I made a promise to a man now long dead, whom until he lay dying in my arms I did not even know. Simna because he thinks I am a sorcerer on the trail of treasure. And the litah because I had the audacity to save his life.
I should go home. Abandon this foolishness. Calving season is over and the cows and ewes have dropped their young, but summer does not last forever. There is much to be done before the cold winds come ashore.
Yet Mirhanja would not want for help, he knew. The Naumkib looked
after their own. And his friends and fellow villagers understood the nature of his obligation. None of them would complain at having to help the family of an absent husband. Not for the first time, he was glad he was Naumkib. In other tribes, he knew, an extended absence such as his would water the flowers of resentment.
How he missed the sea! Its heavy perfume, the rolling chorus of the waves fondling the shore, the uncompromising purity of its rejuvenating embrace. He even missed its taste, blunt and salty and steadfast in its distillation of every part of the world. Around him desiccation had reduced the good earth to powder, useful for taking the hair off a hide preparatory to tanning but little else. Unlatching the flap that covered the right-hand pocket of his kilt, he kneaded the sackful of beach pebbles between his fingers, listened to them grind against one another, hearing the sounds of the ocean at night resonate between his fingers.
Days that could have been hotter and gratefully were not were broken by chilly nights during which distant creatures howled and screamed at the moon. Twice it rained lightly, not only cooling the travelers but also partially replenishing their drifting bubble of water. All things considered, the journey through the dunes was proving difficult but not harsh. No one had succumbed to the heat, no one had been bitten or stung or acquired an armful of cactus stickers.
The days would have passed more rapidly, however, if they had had some idea how far they still had to go before emerging from such desolate country. Though not overtly hostile, the land through which they were traveling rapidly grew dull and uninteresting. Even the appearance of a spectacular new succulent no longer drew more than a casual comment or mumbled observation.
“I saw something.”
Head down, tongue hanging out, Ahlitah growled testily. “None of us are blind. We all see many somethings. It is hardly reason for excitement.”
“No.” Simna had halted in the middle of the wadi and was shading his eyes as he peered ahead. “This was moving.”
Ehomba was more charitable. Stopping alongside the swordsman, he leaned on his spear and tried to follow his friend’s line of sight. “What did you see, Simna? A rabbit, perhaps? Roast rabbit would be good.”
“Rabbit or rat, I’d thank you for either.” Drawing in its tongue, the litah licked dry lips. “I’m hungry.”
“You are always hungry.” Ehomba spoke without looking over at the great cat. He was striving to see whatever Simna had seen.
“As Gwyull is my witness,” the swordsman insisted tersely, “it was no rabbit. No rat, either.”
“Then what?” the herdsman prompted him.
Lowering his shading palm, Simna looked uncertain. “I don’t know. It was there for an instant, and then it was gone.”
“Like any story.” With a snort, Ahlitah resumed padding forward, his big feet kicking up dust at every step.
Camp that night was uninviting, but in the absence of any kind of shelter it was the best they could do. Ruddy dunes towered all around them as they spread themselves out on the floor of the dry ravine. Ahlitah was less grumpy than usual, thanks to the den of rodents he had sniffed out and promptly consumed. For a veldt master used to bringing down and killing much larger prey, this hunting of rats and mice was demeaning, but an empty stomach in need of meat does not discriminate against the nature of whatever the throat elects to provide.
As they unrolled their blankets on the hard, unforgiving ground, they were more grateful than ever for the floating pond Ehomba had thought to bring along. Half empty now, it was easier to tow. Everyone drank from it, so everyone shared in the pulling.
Overhead, a swelling moon promised good night walking should they chose to exercise that option. It was something to consider if the heat grew intolerable. Lying on his back, listening to the cautious scurrying of nocturnal insects and those rodents who had escaped Ahlitah’s attentions, Ehomba put his hands behind his head and tried to envision what Mirhanja was doing at that same moment. Lying in their bed, most likely, in the posture she usually favored for sleeping: on her left side, with her back toward him, her knees bent up toward her smooth belly, the knuckles of one hand resting just below her slightly parted mouth giving her an incongruously childlike appearance.
Except there was nothing behind her in the bed now except cool night air. The body, the man, who should have been there, was lying on the rocky floor of a dry ravine far to the north, dreaming of her as he hoped she was dreaming of him.
Soon, he promised himself. We will reach a large town with a harbor, and I will travel on a boat across the sea to deal with this Hymneth person on behalf of the man who died in my arms. And then I will come back to you, covered if not in glory, which I do not seek, but in the satisfaction and the inner contentment no crown or generalship can match. Soon.
Pursing his lips, he blew a silent kiss at the moon, turned over, and went to sleep with an ease no king or soldier could equal.
XXI
IT WAS COLD WHEN SIMNA IBN SIND AWOKE. BLINKING, HE yawned silently at the polished bowl of night that filled the sky between the dune crests. While it was beginning to set, the nearly full moon still threw enough light for a man to see clearly by, if not enough to enable him to read. Simna had never been much for reading and was glad he was traveling in the company of individuals of similar mind. Certainly Ahlitah, despite his exceptional if acerbic linguistic talents, was no peruser of books and scrolls. He was less certain about Ehomba, but the untutored, unsophisticated herdsman did not strike him as much of a scholar. A master of magics perhaps, but no great reader. Certainly in the time they had spent together thus far he had never expressed any great longing for the printed page.
He grinned at the thought of Etjole standing watch over his cattle and sheep, balancing himself with his spear as he alternated standing first on one leg and then on the other, with weighty tome in hand. The spear fit the image; the book did not. He comforted himself with that thought. Simna had little use for scholars. They tended to look down on an honest, hardworking man, and whisper about him behind his back.
Something nudged his right thigh, and he froze. Probably some harmless creature of the dunes come exploring under cover of night. A large desert beetle, black and preoccupied, or one of Ahlitah’s scurrying snacks unwittingly tempting fate. But the drylands of his native country were home to their share of less benign nocturnal creatures, and in terrain as harsh as this there were bound to be hunters of the dark that used poison and fang and sting.
So he moved only his neck and head as he rose slightly to see what was repeatedly thumping his thigh through the blanket. Even with the slight movement he expected whatever it was to react: either by turning and racing off or pausing in its activity or skittering away from the movement and retreating in the direction of his feet.
He did not expect it to look back at him.
The warrior’s diminutive form was clad in rough brown fabric woven from sisal or some similar plant. From fringed pants that reached to just below the knobby knees, short legs protruded, terminating in disproportionately large, splayed feet that were bare of any covering. The correspondingly undersized arms were gnarled and muscled. In his right hand the tiny fighter held a slim spear or lance. Bits of carved bone gleamed whitely against cuirass and shirt, serving to decorate as well as armor the upper body.
The head was a slightly squashed oval instead of round. Commensurate with the rest of the squat body, it gave the warrior the appearance of one who had been stepped on and had his whole self compressed and flattened out. The mouth was inordinately wide, the lips thin to the point of nonexistence, the eyes deep-set and intelligent. An oversized cap of finely woven natural fiber flopped down over the forehead. As a wide-eyed, motionless Simna watched in fascination, the soldier pushed the thick front of the cap farther back on his head, revealing the first tight curls of red-gold hair beneath.
His ears were remarkable: oversized, protuberant organs that stuck out from underneath the cap and rose to points higher than the head. They were also immoderatel
y hairy. Unlike the curls that emerged from beneath the rim of the heavy cap, these hairs were straight as needles. But they were equally red.
Softly snapping something in a tongue Simna had never heard before, the warrior gestured brusquely with the lance. Taken in concert, the meaning of his tone and movement were unmistakable. Slowly, Simna sat up and raised his hands. He was wary, but far from intimidated.
After all, the fearless fighter was only five inches tall.
As soon as Simna complied with the order, his captor advanced toward him on his mount. This was a running bird of a kind that was also new to the swordsman. A mottled, spotted brown with flecks of white, it had a very long, broad tail, a slim bill, a tall topknot, and a highly intelligent gaze. Whenever it moved forward, its head dipped, the long tail stretched out behind it, and the topknot flared upward like a weathervane taking the mood of the wind.
Seated on the bird’s back, the diminutive soldier rode on a perfectly miniaturized saddle. From bridle to stirrup, every fragment of avian tack was downsized to the point of airiness. An intrigued Simna noted that the arrangement would preclude any possibility of flight. Apparently the warrior’s mount was a bird that preferred running to flying.
“I give up.” He raised his hands even higher. “You’ve got me.”
“Soh,” the wee fighter responded curtly, “you speak that language.” His voice was not as high and thin as Simna would have expected. Raising his six-inch-long lance over his head, he stood up in the stirrups, turned in the saddle, and ululated loudly.
Ehomba awoke to find the camp invaded by forty or so of the bantam night riders. The intruders darted back and forth in the quick, short bursts of speed that characterized their mounts’ natural agility. They looked and acted quite confident—until Ahlitah yawned and stood up. Eyes drooping and tired, the great cat frowned at the intrusion, sniffed once, and opened oculi that were two yellow moons flanking the night.
Carnivores of Darkness and Light: Journeys of the Catechist, Book 1 Page 21