by Mel Dunay
Delna’s father had a motorcycle, and was willing to lend it to them on condition that they bring it back after the festival. Vipin drove-he was good at it, though a bit too aggressive for Rina’s taste, especially since the road got so narrow after Barleyfields.
There was not a lot of conversation initially; she just clung to the grab-bars on either side of her seat, and held on for dear life.
This was the first time they’d gone this fast since they had to leave the bus, and Rina found her nerves on edge. She spent most of the early part of the ride staring at Vipin’s muscular shoulders, trying to enjoy the view.
“How close is Stayout to Thundermouth?” Vipin asked, when they paused in the early afternoon to have a tiffin of food that the Bardeks had sent with them. “Could we reach your hometown in one day?”
Rina shook her head. “Even with the way you drive, we won’t reached Stayout much before seven o’clock, and Thundermouth is another four hours from there.”
“We would be driving in the dark,” Vipin said. “Not a great idea from the point of view of safety on any mountain, let alone this one during a greater masting.”
“Honestly, I wish we could get home sooner,” Rina lamented.
She had just tried every contact she had who lived on the mountain, trying to warn them about what was going on in a way they wouldn’t totally reject.
She’d gotten through to a few of them, and indicated that there was some kind of man-eating panther on the loose, and pointed out that the young people involved in the “wedding night” portion of the ritual might be at risk, since they would be sleeping away from the main town. She still had not managed to raise anyone in Thundermouth.
“And I'm really not looking forward to spending the night in Stayout.” She said. “But if Bhana's out stalking the roads between the towns at night, we’d be in deep trouble.”
“Agreed,” said Vipin. After a pause he asked. “You said that Stayout was into drugs...is that why you don’t want to spend the night?”
“Well, theoretically, they’re mostly barley farmers, like the people we just left behind. The difference is that a lot of them are more interested with barley with fungus on it. You're familiar with ergotism, right?”
“I’d be a pretty bad anthropologist if I weren’t,” Vipin smiled at her.
They hadn’t had much to smile about since that dance, which felt like it was years ago, instead of just last night. It occurred to her that she would miss his smile, when all this was over and he had moved onto another “case” or “research project.”
“Well, instead of getting themselves accidentally high on fungus-infected grains, the Stayouters do it on purpose. They try to sell it to the other villages too, although usually the constables run them off.”
“Are they addicts?” Vipin asked. “It doesn’t seem like that would be conducive to actually growing the crops.”
“There’s a few who know how to control their intake,” Rina said.
“But the average household in Stayout looks kind of like the local drunkard’s household in Barleyfields or Goatsfart: two or three women and some children doing all the work to support one or two useless men determined to kill their brain cells ahead of schedule.”
“Is it safe to buy food from them?” Vipin asked.
“If the seller is a middle-aged woman who can string together coherent sentences, and the food does not include barley, then yes. Or maybe, at least.”
There was another silence while Vipin mulled that over. “Do you feel up to skipping dinner and breakfast?” He asked.
“We may have to.”
“Just one more question...”
“What?” She asked.
“Do they call it Stayout, or is this going to be like Goatsfart all over again?”
“Stayout is their name for it. But believe me, in most other ways Goatsfart is a huge improvement.”
Chapter Five
“Stayout, as the name implies, is wary of outsiders. As in Barleyfields, the locals are primarily farmers of barley, with some secondary crops and supplementary animal husbandry.
The preference is for barley infected with the ergot fungus; the locals harvest it and distill it into a powerful hallucinogen. This may only be legally consumed by residents of the town, but there is an illegal trade in ergot-dust which extends all the way down to Rivertown.
Paradoxically, the town is also noted for its religious conservatism. As in The Town, electricity is rare, usually pirated, and modern plumbing is unknown.”
(Excerpt from The Tourist’s Guide to The Blue Smoke Mountains.)
It was around sunset when they reached Stayout. From a distance it looked a little like Barleyfields-a cluster of stone houses perched on the mountain road, overlooking a series of terraced fields where most people who had a job worked.
The poles bearing the power lines continued through the town and up the road, but the only power junctures in town were jerry-rigged and clumsy-looking.
“Looks like a few people are pirating electricity and nobody else has any,” Vipin said, above the roar of the motorcycle’s engine.
“Yeah, that’s pretty much how it goes here,” said Rina. They entered the town and slowed down.
Unlike Barleyfields, there was no sign of any festivities, no lamps lit, no singing, no decorations on the houses.
They only saw one man, sitting in a chair outside his house, who stared at them with the dead, burnt out eyes of someone who’d been on one trip too many and never came back.
He was probably harmless, but Rina still found him disturbing. Instinctively, she hugged Vipin. Something about the deadness of this place and the people always got to her.
“I have the feeling one of us has to sleep with the bike to keep it from getting stolen,” Vipin said, even more quietly.
“That’s going to be your job,” Rina said.
“Any recommendations about who to talk to?”
“The mayor has a large house in the middle of town. He’s a drug dealer, but he doesn’t sample his own goods, and he at least tries to act respectable, since he has to interact with politicians from other towns sometimes.”
“You want us to stay with him?” Vipin asked incredulously.
“I want us to tell him about the Old Ones,” Rina said. “Someone has to be warned, and he’s probably the person most likely to do something about it if he knows. He might also be able to tell us about a place to stay.”
They pulled up in front of the mayor’s house. Vipin made it a point to park as close to the front door as he could, and very ostentatiously pulled the keys out of the motorcycle’s ignition.
“It would take most people about ten minutes to hotwire that thing,” He said to Rina. “I suggest we make it quick.”
“No one’s going to steal a bike from in front of the mayor’s house,” Rina said. “He would take it personally, and they don’t need their supplier mad at them.”
Vipin looked skeptical but followed her lead in marching up to the front door. Rina knocked on it.
A tall, tough-looking man came to the door. He would not have been impressive down in Rivertown: the average politician’s bodyguards would have had this guy for lunch. Still, he was impressive compared to most of the burned-out wrecks in Stayout.
The bodyguard glanced at Rina, but favored Vipin with a long assessing stare.
“What do you want?” The bodyguard addressed Rina, either because he could tell she was from Mount Snarl or as a way of putting Vipin in his place.
“There’s a problem on the mountain that might affect this town, and I wanted to tell the mayor about it,” Rina said. “I’d also like his advice about something, if he’s willing to give it, but that’s more by way of trade for the information I have.”
The bodyguard let them in without a word.
He steered them to a well-furnished but somewhat grubby front parlor and told them to wait. Rina sat down in a chair next to the window, and Vipin positioned himself in front of the
window, and between her and the door into the parlor, and proceeded to keep watch over the motorcycle.
“I’d really like to be able to return that to the owner,” Was his comment when Rina asked him what he was doing.
About half an hour later, the world outside the window had gotten thoroughly dark, and Rina found herself very very glad of the mayor’s pirated electricity and the lights it powered.
And then the mayor came in. He had gotten even heavier than Rina remembered, and he wore only a monogrammed linen cloth wrapped around his waist several times. Rina wondered what they had interrupted, and then decided she didn’t really want to know.
“I know you-you’re that fashion designer from Thundermouth,” The mayor said as he plunked down on a massive throne of a chair in the opposite corner. “You said you have information for me?”
Rina nodded. “There’s some kind of creature or creatures loose on the mountain,” She said. “A big panther gone man-eater maybe. This man saved a child from it last night in Barleyfields.”
Vipin spoke up. “We also saw and heard things that made us think it was hanging around Goatsfart a day or two before that.”
Rina shot him a warning look, and said: “I wanted to make sure someone here knew about it-someone smart enough to figure out what to do about it.”
The mayor laughed. “That’s old news, and it’s no panther neither. It’s been dogging us since the smokeflowers bloomed. But thank you for stopping in to acknowledge who’s boss around here. Now, you said you wanted advice.”
“Is there someplace in town where we could rent a room?”
Rina blushed the moment the words were out of her mouth, when she realized how that sounded. But Vipin had volunteered to stay with her as often as he could, and in this town, she couldn’t help feeling like she wanted backup.
The mayor smirked.
“Most people here are not in a renting mood right now. But, at the end of the town you’ll find a house with a red oil lamp hanging over the door. She might be able to find you some space.”
Vipin crossed his arms.
“That would be fine,” Rina said quickly, before he could object. “Thank you for your time, sir.”
The Mayor bobbed his head in a nod of dismissal, and soon they were outside again. At least one local was hanging around the motorbike with an “I’m not touching it, just looking at it” expression that might possibly have fooled a vision-impaired five year old, but he moved off at a glare from Vipin.
It was something that rarely failed to surprise Rina: to her and to other women and children he was always gentle and courteous, but most men seemed to figure out quickly that this was not someone to trifle with.
“Please tell me that place he recommended is not what I think it is,” Vipin growled, once they were driving again.
“Yes, it’s the house of a woman in a certain line of work. Her name is Utiva, if I remember rightly. But there’s no man controlling her, she’s just an independent operator, and she’s not into drugs.”
“I thought I heard someone mention that name in Barleyfields,” Vipin said. “But maybe it wasn’t the same woman.”
“Utiva is a somewhat famous scandal on the mountain. She had affairs with both the mayor and his right hand man, which got the right hand man killed. This happened not long before the last Mountain King Wedding, which she was expected to participate in.” Rina said.
“What happened to her after the ritual?” Vipin asked.
“The priest here in Stayout is normally pretty easy-going about the ‘shunning’ part, where old-fashioned people pretend that the Mountain King’s brides really are gone. With women putting food on the table and getting the raw materials for their men to cook up drugs, he can’t afford to be harsh about it.”
“But for her he made an exception?”
“The dead man was his brother, and the priest blamed her for it, because he didn’t have the nerve to face off against the mayor. So, he dropped the hammer on her, hard.”
“How does she, erm, stay in business?”
“Everybody pretends that she doesn’t exist, but the men go to her place anyway, bring her food and clothes and wood for her fire.”
“If her...clients give us any trouble...” Vipin began.
“I have my pepper spray and you have your martial arts. It will be fine.” Rina didn’t want him going overboard about this.
The house with the red lamp was on the left side of the road. Actually it was off the main road, built in a field on the slopes below it, with a low stone fence to keep a couple of goats penned in. A wooden gate opened onto the main road, with a path beyond it leading to the house.
The red lamp above the door was only just barely visible from the road. Rina unlatched the gate and then the two of them walked the motorcycle down to the front door.
Utiva opened up when they knocked, and didn’t seem terribly surprised by their request.
“Not a lot of people you would want to share a house with around here,” She said, and named a price, more reasonable than Rina expected.
“That’s for you to stay in the house, dearie, and your friend to stay in the barn.”
Rina blinked.
“What? It’s not like you don’t entertain male visitors overnight here. Besides, I’ve traveled with him for several days without having any trouble from him.”
Utiva looked past her at Vipin.
“I allow male visitors that I know. Male visitors who answer to the mayor. I don’t have to take in some stranger from Down Below, on the say-so of a soft little girl from Thundermouth.”
“Considering that I don’t know these male visitors of yours, I don’t see why I should leave Miss Rina alone with you and them," Vipin said severely.
“How much would you charge us to both stay in the barn?” Rina asked.
Utiva looked panicked, probably about losing the extra money.
“Let me talk to your friend in private,” She said. “Maybe we can work something out.”
Rina moved reluctantly away while they talked in low tones. A yearling goat butted her leg for attention and she patted it on the head.
In the dim light, she had only a vague impression of what Vipin and Utiva were saying, but she had the impression that Vipin was perhaps taking all this more seriously than he needed to.
Finally, Vipin called her back over.
“She’s agreed to turn away all her usual customers and just put you up for the night, while I stay with the animals,” He said. “If you’re all right with that, then I am, too.”
Rina weighed up what she’d heard about the woman. Kajjal had stayed with her one time in a similar situation, but that had been several years back, which was why Rina wasn’t sure that she was still the go-to person for guest lodging.
Kajjal hadn’t had any trouble with Utiva stealing things or making trouble, so it should be all right.
“I would like to see the guest room,” she said.
It turned out that there wasn’t one, exactly, just a small storage room full of odds and ends. Utiva offered to give her blankets and so forth, but Rina decided to turn her purse into a pillow again, and use some of the spare clothes from her bag as blankets.
“Suit yourself, dearie,” Utiva said with a shrug.
Rina did not care for the fact that the door could not be locked from the inside, but at least it couldn’t be locked from outside either.
Whatever Utiva had said to Vipin seemed to have convinced him that this was a good idea, because he didn’t object to any part of this.
He did tell Rina: “If anything happens, anything at all, just scream. I will hear you, and I will come.”
“Even if I lock the door?” Utiva joked.
Vipin just gave her one of those remote looks. “Especially if you lock the door,” He said firmly.
Everyone said their good nights, and went off their separate ways. Rina heard the prostitute throw the bolt on first her front door, then her back door, and tried to snuggle mo
re deeply into the makeshift pile of clothes she was using for a bed.
It was a nuisance that the buttons from the blouses she was lying on kept jabbing her in uncomfortable spots, and she could feel the dirt floor even through her bedding. This should have felt the same as that night in the goat shed, but somehow it didn’t.
There had been a curious edge to that night in Goatsfart, sleeping in the straw, with a strong, attractive man she barely knew lying only a few feet from her.
She had felt exposed and vulnerable, because the shed was so open to the elements, but at the same time she was reasonably sure that the locals would not have bothered her, and that Vipin would have defended her if they had.
But this was a sturdy house; she shared it another woman who was not in a nice line of work but who was more or less honest. She was worried somewhat for Vipin, but the small barn for Utiva’s goats was made of stone as well, and looked sturdy enough, so he would probably be safe.
But no matter how she reassured herself, Rina found it hard to sleep. Since that night on the bus out of Rivertown, this was the first time she wasn’t under the same roof with someone she more or less trusted. It shouldn’t have mattered but somehow it did.
She was too tense to drift off to sleep, but she managed to reach a state of tense drowsiness, where she was not awake but somehow felt like she was waiting for something to happen.
And then the scream jolted her fully awake. It was the same sound that woke her up in the goat shed, two days ago. It seemed to becoming from the side nearest to the barn.
Her room had a window on that side but it was shuttered, with only a few bars of blue-gray moonlight showing through the slats.
Rina groped her way to it and fumbled with the disused latch. It stuck at first, but finally she forced it open. She could not believe what she was seeing out there in the moonlight.
There was a good sized stone block in the prostitute's yard of a kind Rina had seen often enough elsewhere on the mountain-about three feet tall by seven feet wide, studded with metal rings along the sides.
People tied goats to the ring, when they wanted to milk them or shear them, if they were the long haired kind. But now...Vipin lay on his back on the stone, in the almost sacrificial pose Rina remembered from her dream.