by James Silke
Gath said quietly, “Bat soldiers.”
They looked at him sharply, and he nodded at some rocks rising above the camp site behind him.
A small detachment of armed men, short and covered with fur, were camped on the rocks, perched there like huge flying rodents. Their horses were tethered below the rocks.
Jakar chuckled cynically and said to Robin, “These guys just can’t resist you, tart.”
“Stop it,” she blurted, terror riding her eyes. Brown John smiled reassuringly at Robin. “No need to be afraid, lass. They can’t possibly be looking for you, not here. We’ll just ride in, buy what we need and ride out.”
He turned to Gath. Both men gave an imperceptible nod of agreement. Gath nudged his stallion with his boots, started down the incline, and Brown John moved the wagon after him. At the bottom, a small group of nomads emerged from their ragged dwellings and warmly greeted the wagon of traveling players, saluting it in the desert style, touching stomach, heart and mind.
They were lean, hard, dark men, with the bearing and pride of those who have bought and sold other men. Most wore heavy cotton robes, others had only their hips wrapped. All had daggers with jewel-crusted hilts hanging from their long necks, and the richest among them had their long dark fingers linked with iron chains attached to silver rings inlaid with red carnelians to ward off the dreaded green-bellied flies that worked the desert. There were Kamascene, Bakar, Nubante, Nalik and two or three tribes Cobra did not recognize. As they crowded up in front of the horses, several took hold of the harnesses and shouted to the bukko to follow them.
The slavers led the wagon to the back of a large stone auction block, the top of which rose nearly to the wagon’s door. The nomads were anxious for the traveling players to use the flat stone block for their stage, and repeatedly asked when the performance might begin.
Brown John thanked the slavers for their thoughtfulness and help, but begged off, telling them that his troupe was too weary from the road to perform. But the slavers insisted, offering provisions in exchange for an opportunity to see the two girls dance. To finalize the arrangement, they brought forth wine and cheese and bread, handing it up to the players, and the bukko had no choice but to agree. He promised that his beauties would delight both their eyes and ears, but pleaded that they needed rest and food first. The slavers reluctantly agreed to this condition and returned to their patches of shade to lie down and wait.
The troupe sat in the wagon’s shade and hurriedly nourished themselves. This done, Gath remounted his stallion and spoke to Jakar.
“Find out why these slavers are here and who uses the black tent.” He turned to Brown John. “I will find the trail.”
The bukko nodded, and Gath rode off toward the huge boulders rimming the west end of the camp, as Jakar casually strolled into it. Brown John turned to Cobra and Robin.
“You’d two better make yourself beautiful, child,” he said, “while Cobra and I see to the horses.”
“There is no time for that,” Cobra said breathlessly. “We must destroy the map.” Brown John started to object, and she added, “I can’t explain out here.” She took Robin by the elbow, saying, “Come, butterfly, we will need your help,” and led her toward the door of the wagon.
Brown John, being linked to the serpent woman by the chain, had no choice but to follow.
When they were inside the lower room of the wagon, Cobra secured the door and shutters. The hard trip had opened cracks in the body of the wagon, and thin shafts of light leaked in, illuminating the room and letting in the faint chatter of the expectant nomads. Finished, she put her eyes on Robin and spoke to her quietly but forcefully.
“Strip to the waist, quickly.” Robin hesitated, glancing at Brown John, and Cobra said to him, “Tell her it’s all right, and give me the doll.”
She extended her hand, and Brown John blustered importantly, “Now just a minute, woman! What are you up to? We can’t destroy the map, we still need it.”
“Shhhhh,” she whispered. “We may be overheard.” He scowled, and she added, “Trust me, friend! The only safe thing to do is destroy the doll. It’s bringing us bad luck.”
“You mean because I touched it?” he said, scoffing at her. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am quite serious. We are on Black Veshta’s sacred ground. She rules here, some even believe the desert to be her body. And we have offended her, so we must destroy the doll.”
“That makes no sense,” said the bukko. “That won’t just offend her, that will make her furious.”
“No doubt,” said Cobra, “but it will also destroy the totem’s magic. Now give it to me.” She removed a small vial of dark stain and a brush from a shelf, adding, “Before we destroy it, I must copy it.” She smiled at Robin. “Go ahead, child, remove your tunic.”
Brown John nodded at Robin to oblige, and she quickly slipped out of her tunic as he, looking from Robin to Cobra, reluctantly removed the doll and handed it to her.
“You’re going to copy it on Robin?” he asked incredulously.
“Exactly,” Cobra said.
She held the doll up to Robin’s body as the girl pushed her ragged garment down on her hips, baring herself from belly to throat.
“See,” Cobra said anxiously, “she is becoming a woman. The proportions are almost identical.”
The bukko, flushing slightly at Robin’s nakedness, said, “She’s grown, all right. But when she dances, everyone will see it.”
“Yes,” Cobra admitted, “but no one will suspect that a few tattoos on a dusty slattern is a map. Besides, the best place to hide something is in plain sight, correct?”
Cobra, without waiting for his reply, uncorked the vial, sat on a stool facing Robin and began to copy a sign on her belly.
Brown John watched, scowling with suspicion, then said, “Well, it’s a dandy place to hide something, there’s no denying that. But just what do those signs mean? She’s not going to start attracting more demons, is she?”
“Trust me, Brown, please,” Cobra pleaded. “They are measurements, distances, that’s all. Now please help me. Get some water and a cloth, and wash the dust and oils off her skin. And hurry! Those slavers are already impatient to see her perform.”
Brown John obliged, giving Robin the cloth to wash herself while Cobra copied the map.
When Cobra was half finished, drawing the sign of a scorpion between Robin’s breasts, the sounds from outside grew louder. They all held still listening. The nomads had begun to gather in front of the stone auction block, and Robin flinched.
“They’re already gathering,” she gasped.
“It’s all right, lass,” Brown John said. “It’s customary on the road to make the audience wait awhile.”
“But where’s Jakar?” Robin asked nervously. “Why isn’t he back? What if he’s found some reason for us not to perform? What if something’s happened to him?”
Robin jerked as she spoke, smearing the mark Cobra was drawing, and Cobra snapped, “Hold still!”
“I’m sorry.” Robin held as still as a stone.
“Good girl,” Cobra purred. “The sooner the map is finished and the doll destroyed, the safer we will all be… including Jakar.”
Cobra winked at Robin to relax her, then dipped her brush in the vial of stain and resumed drawing.
When Cobra finished, the crowd outside had grown and become noisy. It was beating small drums and shouting for the entertainment to start. Cobra and Brown John fanned Robin with a blanket to dry the stain, then Robin got back into her ragged tunic. Brown John tied a yellow sash around her waist, and orange and red sashes to her ankles and wrists. Then he held her shoulders as he spoke.
“When you get out there, don’t flirt or tease this time. Just be yourself in front of this group, and they will adore you. Slaving is ugly work, and it provides all the lusty pleasures a man can stomach, but little laughter. So have fun! Be the cutup, the knockabout. You know the parts. Do the opening dance from ‘Chums’ and
let them accompany you on their own drums. It will flatter them.”
Robin nodded, and Brown John opened the door, letting in bright daylight and a burst of roaring approval from the waiting audience. When the audience whistled and cheered again, the sounds drew her out through the door as if she were on a string. Before her bare feet touched the warm stone of the auction block, she was beaming.
Brown John closed the door behind her and sat down tiredly on a trunk, listening. Outside, the crowd shouted and applauded loudly, and the drums beat out a happy rhythm.
When the noise reached a crescendo, Cobra lifted the hammer she had taken from the bukko’s trunk, held the black doll against the floor boards and brought the hammer down hard. She hit it five more times, timing each blow so that the noise was covered by the crowd. Then she brushed the crumbles of stone and dust through cracks in the floor boards scattering it on the ground beneath the wagon.
Finished, she sat down on the stool facing Brown John, and her chain swung lazily between them. “Feel better?” Brown John asked.
“A great deal better,” she said solemnly. “But you look feverish.” She smiled knowingly. “It bothers you to look upon her naked flesh, doesn’t it?”
“Indeed it does,” he said candidly.
“Youth is always a mystery,” she said lightly, “and from what I have seen, you are easily seduced by mysteries.”
He laughed. “I most surely am. Some are so confounding, I find them irresistible.”
She knew again that he referred to her and smiled. He gathered up the chain between them until it was taut, and gave it a slight tug, asking, “If I remove the chain, will you answer a question… truthfully?”
“It will depend on the question.”
“There is something special about Robin. There always has been, and I am convinced that you know things about her that I don’t.” His tone hardened. “I must know what they are.”
“That is simple enough,” she replied in a casual tone. Then she lied, saying, “Apart from her high spirit and extraordinary beauty, she is not special, not to women. But I understand why you think she is. She makes you feel young again.”
He listened to the drums and slap of Robin’s bare feet on the stone outside, then nodded. “That is true. When I first met her, she did make me feel young. But not now. There’s something else.”
“You don’t feel young now?” she asked behind a skeptical smile.
“Indeed I do. But it’s not Robin. It’s you.”
He pulled on the chain, trying to draw her to him, but she resisted, and their eyes held each other, sober and heated. Then she said slowly, “Don’t flatter me, Brown. It makes me feel strange and weak, and I am not used to such emotions.”
“I am not flattering you,” he said.
“Yes, you are,” she insisted. “I have seen you looking at the growing weight at my hips and the wrinkles appearing on my throat.” She hesitated. “You know I am quickly growing older.”
“I suspected it,” he replied without concern. “But I don’t understand. It’s not natural. It’s happening too fast. When we met, I would have sworn you were no more than twenty-five.”
“Twenty-six,” she said, correcting him. “The Queen of Serpents is twenty-six all her life. It is part of the contract with the Master of Darkness. But when you are no longer queen, and only a woman again, you slowly return to your rightful age.”
“Which is?”
She smiled. “That, Brown, will remain a mystery… but we are not as far apart as you might have thought.”
“I was thinking the same thing myself,” he said, white eyebrows arching dramatically. He tugged on the chain again. She stood slowly, came into his lap, smiling, and put her arms around his neck. He kissed her throat, and she stopped him, scolding him with a regal frown.
“You’re forgetting who I am.”
“No,” he said, with the balls of his ruddy cheeks burning brightly, “but I’m working on it.”
She laughed easily, and her voluptuous body came against his, surrendering in a dozen places. He stroked her throat, then her hair. As he did, the play slowly went out of their eyes, and their lips parted as their breath quickened. With his eyes on hers, he removed the chain and set it aside. Then he reached for her face, and her hands caught his, stopping him.
“Be careful, Brown,” she whispered, “I am not who you think I am.”
“I’m counting on that,” he said.
She hesitated, then let go of his hand, and he placed it at the back of her head, guiding her lips toward his. The trapdoor slammed open in the room above, followed by the sound-of feet dropping heavily to the floor. Cobra and Brown John stood abruptly. The feet descended the enclosed staircase, and Jakar appeared, loading his crossbow. His words were controlled but rapid.
“The slavers have gathered here to begin a search for Robin. The Nymph Queen has offered a huge reward for her, and word is being sent to every slave hunter in every land, as far as the eastern border of the Great Forest Basin. It’s just the beginning of the hunt that could take years.”
“They don’t suspect she’s here?” blurted Cobra. Jakar shook his head. “I doubt if they would believe you if you told them.”
“Thank the Good Goddess for that,” Brown John said, sighing with relief.
“But if they are hunting for her,” Cobra said urgently, “they must have some way of identifying her.”
“Every girl collected will be brought here and inspected.”
“But only Tiyy has the power to identify her.”
“How?” demanded Brown John.
“She knows what I told the Master of Darkness about Robin, about the nature of her spirit, and she can see a spirit as easily as you can see a cloud in the sky.” She turned back to Jakar, and her voice faltered. “She’s… Tiyy’s not here, is she?”
“No!” Jakar said solemnly. “But that bastard sharkman is.”
Brown John glanced with concern at Cobra. “Can he identify you?”
She nodded. “I’ll stay in the wagon.” She hesitated, then added, “But I don’t understand. If he’s here to identify her, he must have some way to do it.”
“I can’t pull her off that stage now,” said the bukko. “They’d become suspicious.”
“I know,” Cobra said. She looked at Jakar. “Is there anything else you should tell us?”
He nodded. “They’re not just hunting for Robin. Rewards are being posted for Gath, for you,” he indicated Cobra, then Brown John, “and for the bukko of the Grillards.”
Cobra had to sit down, and Brown John stared in shock.
Jakar shrugged. “I couldn’t find out why, but it’s getting interesting, isn’t it? I have a feeling this Nymph Queen knows more about us than we know ourselves.” His eyes laughed coldly, and he bounded back up the stairs. “I’ll be on the roof.”
Brown John listened until he heard the trapdoor slam, then looked down at Cobra.
“It’s the doll,” she said. “This is Black Veshta’s work.”
The bukko looked down at his offending hands and forced a lighthearted tone. “She’s really touchy, isn’t she?”
Cobra looked at him angrily, dumbfounded at his levity. But when she saw his smile, its warmth softened her.
“Is this what it means to be human,” she chuckled, “laughing at the face of death?”
He nodded, and said with deliberate profundity, “Laughter is good, but sometimes there are better things.”
He took her head in his hands, kissed her full on the lips, then stepped back smiling. “You can blame Black Veshta for that too.”
She laughed lightly and shook her head. “If that is all you wish of me, then Black Veshta has nothing to do with it.”
He reached for her again, but she pulled away, shaking her head. “Hurry now! Find Gath!”
He hesitated. “You didn’t answer my question about Robin.”
“I know nothing more,” she said, and lowered her voice. “Trust me, Brown. Pleas
e.”
He nodded and went out the rear door.
Twenty-six
BASKT
The huge sharkman paced inside his tent, cursing the heat and his living armor which he could not remove. The desert was already butchering his body and mind after only three days, and there would be hundreds more, perhaps thousands, before some lucky slaver chanced upon the girl and brought her to him.
With a convulsive growl he cursed Tiyy, then the desert sun. As if in reply, a gust of air parted the tent’s flaps allowing a shaft of golden sunlight to cut through the grey gloom and sear the blistered plates of armor at the backs of his legs. He strode to the flaps and whipped them shut. For a moment he stood motionless, helplessly breathing the stench of decay rising from his scabbed armor plates. He smelled like a dead codfish rotting in the sun.
He crossed to a small altar at the back of the tent and stood before it, rubbing his jaw. Lying on the altar was a black doll, an extremely voluptuous version of Black Veshta lolling in supine sexual invitation on a pile of shark teeth. Baskt reached into his mouth, pried out a handful of teeth and tossed their bloody bodies into the box. Then he prostrated himself in front of the altar and prayed to the doll, asking it, as he had five times already that day, for rain.
Finished, he picked up a jar of wine and stood over Schraak, drinking.
The slick little man lay naked and oiled between three shuddering nomad girls chained to his bed. His grey flesh was raw, and his cheeks were a sickly blue. The worm had been drunk or drugged ever since they had ridden into the desert.
Baskt grunted bitterly and moved away. He would have liked to be in the same stupor, but did not dare. He had to keep moving in order to breathe, and the incessant itching would not let him rest anyway.
There was a distant, rolling boom. It had the definite cracking roar of thunder, but he dismissed the notion. He was certain it was the body of the desert bending again under the heat of the sun.
A flash of light again speared through the tent wall, this time using a hole, and a bright whiteness illuminated the deep clefts where his cold death eyes hid. His sharp nose twitched, and the scent of blood reached his brain. A feeding fury instantly leapt through his flesh, and his body spasmodically arched as if it were in shark form. The involuntary movement threw him off balance. He staggered and dropped to all fours, the tip of his pointed helmet aimed at the sandy floor.