Carnivores of Darkness and Light: Journeys of the Catechist, Book 1

by Alan Dean Foster

  With sinking heart, he saw a familiar sight looming up in front of them. The Wall. They had lost all the distance they had gained during their flight of the night before.

  They were paraded past several large and elaborately decorated tents until the officer in charge halted outside one that was a veritable villa of cloth and canvas. Multiple standards of red and gold flew from its poles. Ehomba was sickened to see the flayed skins of human bodies alternating with the silken pennants, the grisly trophies snapping noisomely in the wind.

  The periphery of the ornate shelter was embellished with threads drawn from precious metals. Two unusually large Chlengguu flanked the twin support posts of an imposing rain flap. Silk drapery provided privacy to those within. Each pole, the herdsman noted expressionlessly, was grounded in the bleached skull of a great ape.

  One of the few among their captors who was not clad in silver leather paused to speak to the guards. Conversation was brief, whereupon a bony hand jammed hard into Ehomba’s back, sending him stumbling forward. He heard Simna curse behind him as his companion was subjected to similar indelicate treatment. As for Ahlitah, the cat had been quiet for some time. Biding it, the herdsman decided.

  If the outside of the tent had been designed to impress, the interior was calculated to overwhelm. Peaks of fabric soared overhead. Sewn into the material, fine jewels simulated the constellations of the night sky. There was richly carved furniture whose lines reflected the slenderness of its owners: tables, chairs, lounges, comfortable but not luxurious. The tent was located in an arena of war. While impressive, its furnishings were anything but dysfunctional.

  A quartet of aged Chlengguu seated at an oval table looked on with interest as the prisoners were marched inside. Customarily slight of build, these withered specimens looked positively skeletal. But their sharp, inquisitive eyes belied their physical appearance. They muttered and mumbled among themselves while making cryptic gestures in the direction of the prisoners.

  Ahlitah’s cortege did not depart until the big cat had been securely staked to the floor. Without even room in which to struggle, the muscular black specter lay still, with only the steady, infuriated heaving of his chest to show that he was alert and unharmed except in dignity.

  Three Chlengguu rose from a table groaning under the weight of food, drink, maps, and assorted alien accouterments whose functions the provincial Ehomba did not recognize. One of them was female, though the extraordinary lankiness of the Chlengguu form made it difficult to sex them at first glance. Spidery fingers resting on all but nonexistent hips, the nearest of the trio cocked his head sideways to peer up into Ehomba’s face. The sharply angled eyes were unsettling. The herdsman had encountered eyes vertical and eyes horizontal, eyes round and eyes oval, but never before had he gazed back into angular oculi that were anything like those of the Chlengguu.

  “Sirash coza mehroosh?”

  Ehomba kept his face blank. “I do not understand you.”

  The Chlengguu noble tested the same phrase on the silent Simna, who to his credit had sense enough to keep his extensive farrago of ready retorts locked away in a corner of his brain where they would, hopefully for the duration of the foreseeable future, not get him killed.

  Retracing his steps to confront the much taller herdsman the noble asked, in the common voice of men, “Who are you and where do you come from?” His voice was as soft and prickly as hot grease. Gesturing at Simna, he added, “This one could be Queppa, but you—you are different. You have the look about you of someplace else.”

  “We are both from the south,” Ehomba replied. “As is our pet.” Behind him he thought he heard the litah stir, but he did not turn to look. From the noble’s manner he surmised that turning away from him while he was engaged in his interrogation might be construed as an unforgivable insult. Judging from their extravagant surroundings and the carriage and posture of their interrogators, he and his companions would have to be careful not to give even the slightest offense.

  “The south.” Daintily, the noble tapped the tip of a painted fingernail against one excessively long canine. “Why should I believe you?”

  “Why should we lie?” Ehomba imperceptibly shifted his weight from one foot to the other, an instinctive herdsman’s adjustment. “The Queppa hate the south. Who of them would claim to come from where you are driving them?”

  The corners of the nobleman’s tiny mouth twitched slightly upwards. “If you are not Queppa, how do you know what they hate or where we are driving them?”

  “They told us.” Ehomba chanced a nod in the direction of his homeland. “Coming up from the south, we had to pass through them to get here.”

  “You had to pass through more than the stupid Queppa to get here.” The female fairly spat the accusation. “The only way from south to north is over the Wall. That is not possible.”

  “We did not go over the Wall,” Ehomba corrected her. “We came under it.”

  This claim set the quartet of oldsters to arguing agitatedly over their table. It also prompted the third member of the interrogating trio to speak up. “No one is half-witted enough to try digging under the Wall.”

  “Who said anything about digging?” Simna was smirking now, virtually strutting in place. “We just waited for it to make ready to step, and when it rose up, we ran under.”

  The initial questioner dropped his finger from his lips. “Such a thing is possible, of course.” He nodded once, curtly. “Very well. I, Setsealer Agrath, accept your explanation. You are courageous half-wits.”

  “This is not our fight,” Ehomba told him somberly. “I personally have no quarrel with the Chlengguu and no affection for the Queppa. This lasting strife is your own. Let us go.”

  Turning slightly away, Agrath chose a long, thin knife, very much an oversized stiletto, from the assortment of cutlery lying on the table behind him. “Why should we?”

  “I have business in the west.”

  “The west?” Agrath snickered slightly to his associates. “I thought you told us your destination lies to the north.”

  “I have to go north,” Ehomba informed him, patient as he would have been with a child, “in order to find a ship willing to take me west.”

  “Across the Semordria?” The Chlengg did not laugh so much as hiss breathily. “Now you try my intelligence.”

  “It’s true.” Simna jerked his head sharply in his friend’s direction. “He’s deranged, he is.”

  “Yet you follow him?”

  The swordsman dropped his gaze and his voice. “What can I say? I have perverse tastes. Who can explain it?”

  “Who indeed? When we are finished here we will remand you to the custody of specialists whose work is famed even among the Chlengguu. Perhaps they will get the real explanation out of you.”

  “Hoy, now wait a minute, you—”

  The mace that descended struck only a glancing blow to the back of the swordsman’s skull or he surely would have died on the spot. As it was, he only crumpled to the carpeted floor, where he lay motionless and bleeding. Ehomba glanced wordlessly in the direction of his friend’s unmoving body, then returned his attention to the three Chlengguu nobles. They were watching him expectantly.

  “You are not angry at this treatment meted out to your friend?”

  Ehomba’s voice was entirely unchanged. “Of what use would it be? You want to test us. You might as well have struck me to provoke him. It makes no difference.”

  “None whatsoever,” Agrath agreed, “except that you are standing and he is unconscious.” The noble shrugged. “As you say, it could as easily have been done the other way. But I am more curious about you than him. Contrariety is a welcome diversion from the boredom of our inexorable advance.”

  “We were told it was not always so.”

  “No.” The other male’s voice darkened. “Before the Wall it was very different. Now”—he did not grin so much as sneer—“after the Wall, it will be more different still.”

  “I really don’t care
whether our specialists work on you or not.” Agrath ran the edge of the stiletto along his elongated palm, drawing a thin line of his own blood. His expression never changed. “But I do so enjoy the occasional uncommon curiosity.” Removing the blade from his skin, he flicked the point to indicate something behind Ehomba.

  Moments later, two soldiers came forward. They were carrying the weapons confiscated from the travelers. These they placed on the already crowded table. After genuflecting twice to the nobles, they carefully backed away and rejoined their comrades.

  While the skeletal oldsters continued to bicker and squabble in the background, the nobles proceeded to inspect the outwardly unimpressive weapons. The woman hefted Ehomba’s spear, sniffed contemptuously, and dumped it back on the table. Agrath picked up the tooth-studded bone sword, having to use both hands to finesse the weight, and whipped it back and forth a few times. One swipe passed very close to the herdsman’s face, but Ehomba did not flinch. If his captors were struck by his stoicism, none of them remarked upon it.

  “Bone and teeth.” Agrath was singularly unimpressed. “A suitable device for a primitive tribesman.”

  Sliding the pale white weapon back into its goatskin sheath, Agrath then drew the sky-metal blade from its protective covering. His angled eyes could not widen, but he nodded appreciatively. As he had with its weighty predecessor, he required the use of both strong but thin wrists to support the weapon parallel to the floor. Maintaining this grip, he swung it slowly back and forth. Diffuse sunlight filtering through the fine material of the tent glinted off the exotically forged iron.

  “This is more like it.” Bringing the flat side of the blade up to his face, he eyed the peculiar lines etched into the metal. “Whoever worked this design into the blade is a master armorer.”

  “The design was not worked,” Ehomba told him. “The lines are inherent in the metal, but must be brought out by dipping the finished blade in acid.”

  The noble’s face squinched up tight as a snake trying to slip into a too-small hole in pursuit of prey. “Nonsense. No such metal shows such lines naturally.” Using both hands, he held the sword high, admiring the play of light on the internal crystalline structure. “Perhaps when we have conquered the south I will bring this marvelous armorer into my own service.” Lowering the point abruptly, he swung it around until it was dimpling the reawakened Simna’s chest. The swordsman tensed, but held his ground.

  “Tell me, southerner. How sharp is the edge? How strong the alloy? What could one do with such a blade?”

  Ehomba deliberately avoided his companion’s face lest the look frozen there cause him to hurry his response. “It can cut through any bone, even that of an elephant or mastodon. The point will penetrate most armors, be they metal or fabric. Striking it with a flint will make a quick fire. And,” he concluded, “if held high enough for long enough, I am told by the old women of the Naumkib that it will draw down the moon.”

  XXX

  THE SOFTLY CONVULSED MODULATED EXHALATION THAT PASSED for laughter among the Chlengguu filled the tent. “Does he take us for idiots?” the other male declared sharply. “Or does he think to play with our minds and thereby somehow deflect his unavoidable fate?”

  “If he says it’s so, then you’d better watch out.” Simna struggled with his restraints. “He’s a mighty sorcerer.”

  Plainly amused, Agrath turned back to the stolid herdsman. “Well, southerner? Does your friend speak true? Are you a ‘mighty sorcerer’?”

  “Note his clothing,” opined the female disdainfully. “He doesn’t even look like a mighty breeder of rabbits.”

  Keeping an eye on Ehomba, Agrath raised the sword high, as high as he could manage, aiming the point at the ceiling. Straining with the effort it required, he let go with one palm and maintained the difficult pose, balancing the weapon in a one-handed grip. A couple of the guards commented approvingly.

  “There!” The wicked slash of a mouth parted to reveal white teeth. “What now, southerner?” Still holding the blade aloft, he turned toward the command tent’s entrance. “It is early enough and the sky clear enough that I can still see a bit of the moon. Though it is more difficult to tell during the day, it looks unchanged to me, and certainly unmoved. Behgron! Please be so good as to check on the position of the moon for me.”

  One of the officers among the company that had brought in the three prisoners executed a quick, sharp half bow, whirled, and darted outside. His voice came back to those inside clear and crisp.

  “It looks the same to me, Your Overlordship. The same color, and it surely has not moved.”

  “There now.” Still holding the weapon aloft, greatly pleased with himself, Agrath eyed his tallest prisoner coldly. “What have you say to that, ‘sorcerer’?”

  “I did not say that it would bring down the moon,” Ehomba responded humbly. “I repeat only what the old women of the village have told me.”

  The Chlengguu noble gave a curt nod. “Well then, it would appear that we have proof that the old women of your village are a bunch of prating, ignorant whores.” He waited for the herdsman to say something, but Ehomba kept silent.

  “Your pardon, Overlordship.” It was the voice of the officer who had gone to stand just outside the entrance to the tent.

  “Yes, what is it?” Agrath snapped off the response impatiently. The officer was interrupting his fun.

  “It is true that the moon is unchanged, noble Agrath—but there is something else.”

  “Something else?” The Chlengg’s expression twisted uncertainly. “What ‘something else’? Explain yourself, soldier.”

  “I can’t, Overlordship. Perhaps you should come and see for yourself.”

  “We’ll do that, and if there is no good reason for this interruption ...” He left the promise of unpleasantness hanging in the air.

  Accompanied by Ehomba and the groaning, recently awakened Simna, the three Chlengguu nobles strode to the entrance of the tent. The senior officer Behgron proceeded to indicate a point in the sky. An irritated Agrath followed the line formed by the slim arm.

  “What ails you? I see nothing.”

  “There, Overlordship.” The officer pointed again. “To the left and below the curve of the moon.”

  “I see a bright star.” His anger was growing. “You called us out here for that? As the sun rises it will soon be gone.”

  “Watch the star, noble Agrath. It’s not fading with the rising sun. It is getting bigger.”

  “Don’t be a noukin! Stars do not—”

  The female noble stepped forward, her head tilted back, her narrow, slanted gaze inclined upward. “Behgron is right. Look at it!”

  Not only was the glowing spot in the sky growing steadily larger even as they stared in its direction, but a small streak of light had begun to appear in its wake, like the feathery tail of the splendid white macaw.

  “The sword!” Taking a step away from Agrath, the other male pointed a shaky finger in the direction of the weapon. Natural physiological constraints aside, it was possible that his eyes did widen slightly. “Look at the sword.”

  An ethereal blue-black light now bathed the weapon, engulfing it in an unearthly halo. This put forth no heat. In fact, if anything, the startled Agrath found the sword suddenly ice cold to the touch. Dropping it as quickly as if he had found himself clutching a cobra, he retreated backwards, pressing up against a knot of nervous, wide-eyed guards.

  As soon as the blade struck the ground it sprang upward. As everyone present watched in awe and amazement, it rose slowly until it was hovering at chest level above the ground. Still interred in the stunning steely effulgence, it adjusted its position slightly until the sharp terminus was pointing directly at the dilating orb overhead.

  By now that fierce ghostly globe had swollen to dominate the sky, having grown larger even than the sun. The tail that trailed behind it was a streak of stark incandescence against the cobalt blue of the heavens. Among the assembled Chlengguu, troops and nobles alike, the
first traces of panic had begun to surface.

  “What is this, southerner?” Droplets of brown sweat had begun to bead on the noble Agrath’s forehead. “I can still see the rim of the moon, so that is not the moon. What is happening?”

  Squinting at the sky, Ehomba contemplated the onrushing orb. “I do not know,” he informed his interrogator candidly. “I am only a simple herdsman.” Lowering his gaze deferentially, he turned back to gaze down at the now highly agitated Chlengg. “To know the answer you would have to ask the prating, ignorant whores of the Naumkib.”

  The atmosphere was infused with a dull thunder. Unlike ordinary thunder, it did not announce itself and then steal away into the clouds in a series of gradually diminishing echoes. Despite the efforts of their officers to maintain discipline, a number of the guards had broken ranks and were running wildly in several directions. A number of their superiors looked as if they wanted to follow them.

  Overhead, the steady thunder had become a screaming, a piercing shrillness that sounded as if the sky itself was coming apart. Hovering in midair, the sky-metal blade continued to emit the same spectral shine, a deep blue light that was almost black. As he eyed it interestedly, Ehomba found himself wondering how something could glow black.

  Alarm was now endemic among the Chlengguu. Not only were the guards panicking in the face of the collapsing firmament, so was the rest of the army. Kicked aside in the mad rush to escape, cook fires latched on to tents. Soon, flames from numerous blazes were licking at the sky as if eager to greet their falling sibling. Soldiers clutched and clawed at one another in mad panic, and their massed screaming nearly rose above that of the descending colossus.

  Watching the flawlessly organized bivouac plunge into madness and chaos, Ehomba wondered what the reaction was among the Queppa. Powerless to stop what Agrath had set in motion, he could only hope the thousands of refugees were managing their hysteria better than their tormentors.

  “Do something!” A trembling Agrath had finally sunk to the level of his terrorized troops. “Turn it from us, make it go away!”