‘Tell us about slashers,’ she said, ‘tell us what we need to know.’
Eln-Tika spent a few moments gathering her thoughts. She had given the psychology of slashers some thought. She had put some of these thoughts into words, but much she had kept to herself because, though she had made many observations, she had not formed the conclusion; nor did she understand the reasons behind their behaviour.
‘They are different from other animals, including us. We kill in order to eat. We never kill to destroy. Neither do the other hunting animals. I have never seen a speed-dragon kill something which it did not eat. The little ground lizards kill to eat insects. The birds kill to eat other birds or insects. The sky-dragons kill to eat fish. But the slashers kill in order to destroy. Oh yes, they kill to eat. They eat young flatheads, but they also hunt us, but they never eat us. It seems they want to rid themselves of a competitor. That would seem logical, except that there is enough food for all. We could live together easily, but they don’t want that.’
‘You said they were clever,’ Tenni-Vill said.
‘Yes, they are clever. They can change their hunting tactics. Our octet was destroyed because the slashers used a novel tactic, one we weren’t expecting.’
‘Are they clever enough to get across the ditch?’ Tenni-Vill asked quietly.
‘I've been wondering about that. It would take a very high level of cleverness to cross the ditch. The only way to find out would be to wait by the ditch until they came. You probably wouldn’t have to wait too long. They need to eat every four days or so. Once they have found a way of crossing the ditch they would do so regularly, I am sure.’
‘It's a long ditch to watch. You probably wouldn’t be in the right place.’
‘I could sense a fair stretch of it. I'm a telepath, don’t forget, and I'm particularly sensitive to slashers. Wath-Moll and I could camp out near the ditch in an area which I think might be most suitable and wait.’
Tenni-Vill liked the idea, but had an improvement. ‘Two of you wouldn’t be enough. You would need others with you. We may not be the skilful hunters that you are, but we could be useful.’
Eln-Tika gestured. ‘No. We would need to be alone. You are not hunters and you would be in danger. We could get away if we had to. Anyway, a crowd of us might be sensed by the slashers.’
Bro-Bak was not happy. It seemed far too dangerous. ‘You two would be alone by the ditch for as long as it takes?’
‘Yes.’
‘You're sure you'll be safe?’
‘Yes.’
Bro-Bak relented. After all, these two were the professionals.
‘All right, but be careful.’ Unnecessary advice, he knew, but he gave it anyway.
‘We will be careful. We'll start tomorrow.’
The farmer laughed. ‘Not tomorrow. Tomorrow we go to town.’
‘What?’
Bro-bak explained. ‘Every ten days we go to town. A few of us stay to make sure the flatheads are all right, but most of us go to town in the evening. We need the break, and it helps us to work better.’
‘But what is there in the town?’
‘Hassek.’
Wath-Moll was about to ask the inevitable question when Eln-Tika answered it for him. ‘It's a drink that makes you feel good. I can sense the thought in Bro-Bak's mind. It's a very strong thought.’
The others laughed.
‘It's a very strong drink,’ one of the herdsmen said.
‘What are you sensing?’ Wath-Moll asked Eln-Tika, ‘and why don’t you like it?’
‘How do you know she doesn’t like it?’ Bro-Bak asked. ‘Are you a telepath too?’
Eln-Tika said impatiently, ‘Of course he isn’t. But we've known each other for a long time and he can tell from the tone of my voice, or the way I gesture, or a hundred other things. It's nothing mysterious.’
Bro-Bak was slightly abashed. ‘All right, Eln-Tika, but why do you instinctively not like the thought of hassek?’
‘You lose control. You drink it in order to lose control. That's not right. If we lost control we wouldn’t survive.’
‘That's true, I suppose. But if we didn’t lose control once in a while we wouldn’t survive either, although in a different way.’
‘I wish I knew what you were all talking about,’ Wath-Moll said sadly.
One of the herdsmen, Larri-Vo, explained. ‘We drink hassek because it's good. The world becomes a little brighter, a little better. You feel better yourself. It does no harm if you only drink it on the tenth day. If you drink it all the time, as some do, then it can do you a great deal of harm. You begin to dream in the day and you can’t do your work and in the end you go mad. But once in a while is all right. The silents have something a bit like it which they make from honey, but that's much milder. You could drink that by the bucket-full without any harm coming to you.’
‘It sounds all right to me,’ Wath-Moll said, ‘I'll give it a try.’
The others laughed, but Eln-Tika remained silent. There was a very faint sense of danger, not enough to worry Wath-Moll with, but enough to worry herself. She was undecided between accompanying Wath-Moll and the others, or going to the silent-house, where she knew she would be welcome. In the end she decided to accompany Wath-Moll, who had not realised there was any choice.
They finished work early and ate their meal while it was still daylight. The ten riders rode along the track to town throwing up dust that glowed in the setting sun. As they rode, the herdsmen sang. Eln-Tika and Wath-Moll listened in wonder as their companions sang a series of songs that matched the rhythm of the ride.
‘You’re not singing,’ Tenni-Vil remarked. ‘Join in - we don’t mind.’
‘We don’t know the words,’ Wath-Moll said.
‘That doesn’t matter. Just hum.’
So the two hunters hummed their way into town. It was strange and rather comforting to be able to sing. Hunters did not sing because it was too dangerous - there were always enemies listening. The natural tendency of children to sing was eradicated early in their education. Music was yet another new facet of life in the town.
As the first buildings appeared, the riders accelerated down the main street, making the evening strollers glance at this show of bravado. They stopped in another cloud of dust outside one of the larger buildings, dismounted and tied their blenjis to the rail provided for the purpose.
‘This is where we spend our money,’ Ci-Nam, a young but boisterous herdsman said. ‘This is where we drink hassek.’
They swaggered into a large, low room, Wath-Moll and Eln-Tika bringing up the rear. One wall was lined with rows of bottles, hundreds and hundreds of them. They were labelled with the writing that the two hunters could not read. Circular tables with chairs were scattered around, the majority occupied by groups of lively chanits. It was the noisiest place they had ever encountered.
Eln-Tika looked round in amazement. ‘There are so many people. What do they all do?’
Ci-Nam answered, ‘Work in the mine mostly. There's a copper mine just outside the town - on the opposite side from the farm. They dig out the ore, extract the metal and send it to other towns. They make bronze from it, of course.’
‘Ah,’ Wath-Moll said, understanding at last. They had never heard of copper, but knew of bronze, a fabled metal from which you could fashion superior arrowheads. It was considerably better than the hardened wood arrowheads they made, but, of course, bronze was hard to get.
‘Anyway, enough of this. What will you drink?’ Ci-Nam asked above the noise. ‘Hassek?’
‘As you wish,’ they replied.
They watched the exchange of money for glasses of liquid with interest. So this was how you used money. You swapped it for things you wanted. Except that whether they really wanted hassek was open to question. The first taste was so vile that Eln-Tika nearly threw up. Ci-Nam laughed.
‘It's always like that the first time you drink it. The second sip is easier, and after that it is like flavoured water.’
<
br /> He was right, but the effect was strange. Eln-Tika was beginning to see things she knew were not there - discs of alternating colours, exploding stars. And music. Soft cascading music.
‘How do you feel?’ a voice asked from far away.
‘Strange.’
‘Me, too.’
She thought the voice was Wath-Moll's, but it sounded strange too. Then she wondered no more for she was lost in another world. Through the shifting colours and shapes and the soft music, she could sense thoughts, very sharp, very clear, the thoughts of her companions. They too were wandering in this strange world, in a happy almost disembodied state. It was strange how she could sense them so clearly, so much clearer than usual.
She seemed to have been wandering in this world for ever but it must have been no time at all for suddenly she was back in the real world.
‘How did you enjoy that?’ Ci-Nam asked, grinning.
‘I don’t think I enjoyed it. It was interesting but unnerving. I don’t think I want to do it again.’
‘You must. There's the rest of the glass. Nothing bad happens, you know. You lose yourself for a few moments, then you come out of it and life goes on.’
Eln-Tika turned to Wath-Moll, who was standing beside her with a blank expression. ‘How do you feel?’ she asked.
‘I think I'm all right. It was odd, wasn’t it? All those leaping shapes.’
‘Leaping shapes? What leaping shapes?’
‘Things like slashers, only orange and blue and white leaping about all over the place.’
‘Really? I didn’t get that.’
‘Every person is different.’ Ci-Nam explained. ‘Every brain is different so every effect is different. It's different for the same person every time, too.’
‘But is that all you got, Wath-Moll? Leaping shapes?’
‘Yes, I think so. That was quite enough, believe me.’
‘You couldn’t sense anything?’
‘Not beyond the shapes, no. Why do you ask?’
Eln-Tika hesitated. She was not sure about telling the world. Her telepathy was such a personal thing, and so unique, that she was unsure how Wath-Moll would take it - or Ci-Nam, who was listening intently. Then she decided. If she could not tell Wath-Moll, who could she tell?
‘I could sense you all so clearly. I could almost read your thoughts, they were so clear. It was much clearer than usual.’
‘What do you mean? You're talking about telepathy?’ Ci-Nam asked in excitement. ‘You were reading our thoughts?’
‘Nearly. I can sense emotions, but I usually can’t read the actual thoughts - until just now. I could almost tell what everyone was thinking. It was amazingly clear.’
Tenni-Vill heard the remark above the hubbub. She said, ‘Then shouldn’t you have more hassek? It would be interesting to find the limits.’
‘No, no more hassek. I think it is dangerous.’
‘But you could read thoughts! Think of that.’
‘No. I don’t want to. It isn’t right.’
Wath-Moll gave Eln-Tika an anxious look, then turned to Tenni-Vill. ‘If Eln-Tika doesn’t want to drink, then she doesn’t drink. And that's all there's to it.’
‘Ah, the protector. I wondered when it would show.’
Wath-Moll gazed bleakly at Tenni-Vill before answering. ‘If you think Eln-Tika needs protecting then you must still be under the hassek. She's saved my life more times than I can remember.’
In the silence that followed this remark, Ci-nam asked a question.. His lively mind had had an idea.
‘You say you can read emotions?’ he asked Eln-Tika.
‘Oh yes.’
‘This is rather interesting, because it kind of makes cards impossible to play. You can’t bluff a telepath.’
Eln-Tika felt a sudden interest among her companions.
Tenni-Vill said slowly, ‘I see what you mean.’ She glanced at her friends with a meaning that Wath-Moll saw but could not understand, and Eln-Tika sensed was accompanied by a gleeful excitement whose cause was far from obvious. ‘Let's put it to the test. We'll use pretend money because, if you're right, Eln-Tika will clean us out.’
The group found an empty table in a corner, and Ci-Nam produced a well-used pack of cards.
‘Not those again,’ a voice groaned.
‘We deal a fair deck,’ Ci-Nam said, grinning, as he rapidly distributed the cards to the players. ‘No cheating at this table.’
The herdsmen explained the rules carefully to Eln-Tika and Wath-Moll, who picked up the nuances quickly enough. It was, as they immediately realised, a game of bluff and counter-bluff. You could win even if you had poor cards provided your nerve held.
After the first deal of cards, when each player had three cards each, it was obvious to Eln-Tika how each player felt about those cards. Some were quietly optimistic, others were disappointed. It was also obvious that Ci-Nam was going to bluff, even though he had not seen the other two cards due to him. When the second round of cards was dealt, and after the first bets were placed, Eln-Tika knew exactly what to do. Her cards were only average, but she was sure they were better than Ci-Nam’s. She would simply keep raising him until his nerve failed.
The resulting débâcle for Ci-Nam was greeted with some amazement.
Tenni-Vill said, ‘We need to play a few more games before we can unleash Eln-Tika onto the Ennari. Eln-Tika needs a bit more practice - stronger and weaker hands, different opponents.’
They played four more games, at the end of which the pile of money in front of Eln-Tika had grown considerably. While the money was being redistributed back to its original owners, Ci-Nam and Tenni-Vill explained what their excitement was all about.
‘Look at those playing at the table in the far corner. That lot are the Ennari. They work in the town, in the shops and money-lenders, that sort of thing. They don’t like us from the farms, or the miners, for that matter. They think we're stupid because we have to work hard outside in all weathers while they are warm and dry and comfortable. They challenge us at cards, now and then, and we've played them, but it's no fun. They're arrogant and unfriendly. Cards should only be played among friends, when winning and losing doesn’t matter very much, so we don’t play with them any more. They think it's because we're scared, but it isn’t. It just isn’t pleasant.’
‘So you want to use Eln-Tika to teach them a lesson,’ Wath-Moll said.
‘Yes.’
Eln-Tika was troubled. ‘Won’t that cause difficulties? If I beat them, they will be unhappy. When they find out that I'm a telepath they will be very unhappy. They may ask for their money back.’
‘They won’t get it,’ Tenni-Vill said grimly. ‘There's nothing in the rules about telepaths. Eln-Tika may have an unfair advantage, but it's a legal one. Ma-Sek won’t do anything.’
‘Ma-Sek? What's he to do with it?’ Wath-Moll asked.
‘He's the sheriff, the law-enforcer. If there's any cheating at cards, he sorts any trouble out before it gets out of hand. He's at that table over there with one of his deputies,’ Ci-Nam said indicating an unobtrusive table along the far wall. He's there most nights. That's one reason why this place is so peaceful.’
It did not sound very peaceful to Eln-Tika. It was noisy with shouted conversations, loud laughter, and so many thoughts. She wondered if she could concentrate on the thoughts of the players with so much going on. It had not occurred to her friends that she had this problem, but then it would not. They knew nothing of this world of thoughts and emotions that was now permanently around her.
Tenni-Vill looked at Eln-Tika quizzically. ‘Are you game? Do you want to play the Ennari for the honour of the herdsmen?’ The tone was only slightly mocking.
‘But do I have enough money? If I lose a few hands at the beginning, it could be all over very quickly.’
‘We'll all contribute. You share out your winnings amongst us.’
Eln-Tika looked at the expectant faces around her and realised she could not refuse them. But she was tr
oubled. It did not seem right.
After her acceptance, Ci-Nam gleefully strode across the room to the far table. Eln-Tika watched the conversation from the width of the room, but could not catch the emotions for the jumble of thoughts in between. Ci-Nam came back even faster than he had gone.
‘You're in,’ he said briefly. ‘Now we'll see some action.’
Eln-Tika was suddenly apprehensive. Her new friends were gambling their hard-earned money on her ability to play a game she had never played. It was all very well for them to rely on her telepathy, but surely there was more to the game than that? It was also unfair on her opponents, whom she did not know, and whose villainy she only knew from the words of her friends. She and Ci-Nam approached the table under the curious and slightly hostile gaze of the players. Eln-Tika could sense their feelings even more clearly than usual; perhaps this was the effect of the hassek. They were curious, slightly contemptuous, slightly unfriendly, confident. Eln-Tika's sense of mischief, a usually dormant emotion, unexpectedly took over. This could be fun. As she took her place at the table, she gazed around at the players, connecting the faces to the emotions. The dealer, who sat opposite her, dealt the cards. Immediately there was excitement on her left, but when she looked the face was impassive. The others showed resignation, disappointment, and guarded optimism. She swapped two cards to give her a hand of stunning mediocrity. She folded immediately.
The next hand was much better and she decided to take it to the limit. The player on the left, who had shown instant disappointment on receipt of his cards, and not much difference when he swapped one of them, took up the challenge. After three rounds they were the only two players left, and Eln-Tika relentlessly kept upping the stakes. A silence had descended on their part of the room as the drinkers realised that a drama was happening at the Ennari's table. After the stakes had quadrupled, Eln-Tika's opponent’s nerve gave out. Ci-Nam punched Wath-Moll on the back while the others grinned into their drinks. The losing player saw the gestures and began to wonder. He had never seen this herdsman with the nerves of steel before. He was beginning to suspect a setup.
The First Riders Page 6