by Lionel Fenn
Right, he thought.
"Sores. On your feet. Like, from walking too much."
She considered it and shook her head. "Never."
He looked at the ground, at the cold-burn marks that blackened the trail, and didn't argue.
"Are you ready now?" she asked, with a look he dared not label mild concern.
"Five minutes," he pleaded. "Just five more minutes."
"It is not possible," she said emphatically. "Night will soon be here, as you can see, and we should not be away from camp when it comes."
Gideon didn't like the sound of that, and wondered what could possibly make a woman like her nervous. "How much further? To the camp, I mean, or wherever it is you're taking me."
"Farther," she said with a one-sided, superior smile.
"What?"
"Farther. How much farther?"
"I don't know. I'm asking you."
Steam rippled furiously along the length of her dress. The rock he was sitting on groaned, and he jumped off just before it cracked into several sharp-edged pieces.
"Farther," she said.
"Right."
"Not further."
He began to sway.
"Further indicates degree. Farther is distance, as in what we are traveling—or would be if you weren't so humanly lazy. You wish to know, in your ignorance, how much farther we have to go before we reach our destination. How much further that takes you depends upon your cooperation."
"Do you have an uncle in Rayn?" he said sourly.
A tilt of her head as she moved off. "No. I do not think so. All my relations have died. Except for my sister, I am an orphan."
"Sorry to hear it," he muttered, and gripped the back of his left leg, daring it to continue building the cramp that had made him walk stiff-legged for the last dozen yards.
The twilight deepened, and in the distance he could hear the volcano clearing its throat.
And as the light faded increasingly rapidly, Chou-Li doubled her pace, forcing him into a near trot he dared not complain of because it was obvious she had fallen into a mood best described as unsettled—bushes withered at her passing, branches jerked away from her with audible shudders, and trembling leaves as large as a queen-sized bed curled into tight balls whenever she checked to be sure he was not lagging behind.
Gideon fell once, and felt a breath of cold air sweep over him. On his feet again, he waved her on. It's all right, his expression said, don't worry about me. If I get lost, I can always catch up with you in the morning.
She waited.
He sighed and moved on; so much for tactics.
Amazingly, she fell once as well, tripping over a vine that had snaked down from its tree and had carelessly coiled in shadow beneath an overhanging leaf. Gideon instantly hobbled to her side and took her arm, held it while she cursed the offender and shriveled it black, then pulled her gently to her feet. He tried to dust her off, but she stayed him with a hand. Yet, as she carried on, there had been a look... a definite look that suggested she was no longer completely ill-disposed toward him.
That his hand had turned faintly blue from their contact he ignored as a hazard of the trade. What he needed to do now was think of a way to turn this revelation to his advantage.
Later.
When he wasn't so tired that he was stumbling over his own wavering shadow.
The trail twisted left then, twisted right, followed a knoll or two, crossed a shallow stream whose water slowed perceptibly when Chou-Li leapt over it, and finally ended in a clearing twice as large as the one he had stumbled on after leaving the Khaleque.
"We have arrived," she said.
"God bless you," he said, and dropped immediately to the ground.
—|—
It was an ordinary jungle clearing, he noted as he struggled to stay awake and note things for future reference and possible, though highly unlikely, salvation. In the middle was a large, stone-rimmed pit over which an arrangement of stout branches had been erected to, he figured, cook meat or one's enemies over the fire that burned brightly below; on the left, just under the trees, was a tall empty cage made of sullen red wood, and on the right a similar construction in which something large and dark paced. He was tempted to look more closely, but successfully stifled the urge when the large dark thing spat a tongue of fire between the bars. He remembered Jimm's talk about dragons, and wished he could be struck with sudden and violent amnesia.
And at the clearing's far edge, shadowed and barely touched by the glow from the firepit, were three grass huts whose roofs reminded him of the tent that kept falling down on him whenever he rolled over in his sleep.
Chou-Li, after scanning the area with a cursory gaze, told him to wait where he was.
He objected. "Wait a minute. You're not going to leave me out here alone, are you?"
Her smile was lovely. "There is nothing to fear as long as I am here."
"But you aren't going to be here. You're going to be over there."
The smile turned to the dark thing's cage, and drifted back. "Nothing can harm you... until I say so. Trust me." And she strode to the righthand structure, pulled aside a lorra-hide covering, and ducked in, poked her head back out to be sure he hadn't moved, and vanished again.
He was alone.
The thing in the cage knew he was alone and thumped against the bars.
Biting down on a groan, he used the bat to support himself as he swayed to his feet.
The thing in the cage thumped a little harder, and sparks danced about its as yet unseen head.
He decided, when the cage began to rock, that recklessness should not be an integral part of his character this evening, and stayed obediently where he was, sinking back onto the ground, for which decision his legs, lungs, and arms praised him by promptly falling asleep.
Damn, he thought; god damn.
He held out no hope for timely rescue. Whale was back in Rayn, Ivy was at home, and his friends were god knew where in some other part of this godforsaken jungle, the odds being that they had troubles of their own.
Trust me, she had said.
Like hell, he thought.
Trust me.
He shook his head when he caught himself thinking that it was just remotely possible she had been sincere. Yet, while it was true she appeared to be softening in her attitude toward him, it was also true she kept a large creature in a cage that didn't like the cage and also didn't like him. How could he trust her? On the other hand, she was rather attractive in an evil sort of way, and he was aware that his own attraction for women was of a limited kind and therefore not to be ignored when encountered. But... how could he trust her? It was a problem he would have to work on, and work on soon.
Trust me.
He worked on it.
And: "Shit," he said finally, and stuck out his tongue when the dark thing rattled its cage once again. Not for more than a foolish, fleeting second could he believe it, or, for that matter, believe that he would be able to use his bat against Chou-Li and Thong. By the time he had taken two steps toward one or the other, one or the other of them would have either fried him to a cinder or turned him into an ice sculpture.
Waiting for Tarzan was out of the question.
At that moment, the pacch-hide covering on the entrance to the lefthand hut stirred.
And from somewhere deep in the gathering lightless night, far from camp but not far enough, he heard the unmistakable rhythm of throbbing, native drums.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Remembering his solemn and undoubtedly wise vow to avoid reckless behavior and thus spare himself untold amounts of pain possibly leading to demise, he concentrated as best he could on the hut where he had seen the slight movement a few moments ago, thinking that perhaps it was only the jungle wind that had stirred the thick, pachydermic hide. The wind, he noted, which had not blown a breath in the past hour or so.
The drums continued, deep and throbbing, their song bleak and incomprehensible, though he imagined they weren't exactly sending invitatio
ns to a wedding.
The fire rose once above the lip of the pit with a brief, unnerving roar, and sent the night's shadows writhing for cover under the trees.
The covering of the hut shifted a second time, and he brought the bat to his lap, holding it tightly as he stared through the forked flames and saw, to his dismay, a flash of red in the hut's dark entrance.
I am a good boy, he thought; I do not deserve this.
The drums grew louder.
The fire subsided.
The scaly hide was at long last brushed completely aside, and a woman stepped out into the clearing.
Gideon silently demanded to know what the hell was so wrong with his life that visitations such as this were constantly sprung on him, like surprise birthday parties for a man who thought turning forty was only a shade worse than losing his hair.
A worried glance at Chou-Li's hut showed him no indication she was ready to return. He wasn't sure, but he thought he was grateful.
Then the woman moved away from the hut, and he swallowed a pellet of bile that had tried to reach his mouth.
She was, by any man's unprejudiced eye, a stunning vision wrapped snugly if not caressingly in a crimson sarong that was not much lower than the middle of her shapely thighs and not much higher than the prominent round of her chest. Her hair was black enough to produce glints and hints of blue, and her face was Oriental perfection, not a feature out of harmony, not a blemish to disappoint, unless one counted the sullen dark blue of her disturbing almond eyes.
"Thong," he whispered as she skirted the firepit to stand in front of him.
The drums quieted.
The flames rose again.
She smiled, hands on her hips, one leg forward to stretch the material of her clothing to the whimpering point. "I am pleased to see you have survived," she said.
A shrug of modesty. "I managed, I think."
"My sister has treated you well?"
Careful, he thought; there's something going on here I wish I didn't know.
"Very well, thank you," he answered politely after clearing his throat, though he did not release his grip on the bat. "Forgive me for not standing, but I'm awfully tired. It's a hell of a walk here, you know."
She nodded sympathetically.
He looked around the clearing, not knowing what to say, only remembering the way she had made his blood boil during their last, one-sided encounter. He had thought at the time he was going to end up as some Moglar's barbecue supper, and only her innate sense of fair play and the intervention of her husband had spared him the humiliation of dying on his knees. A droplet of perspiration slithered down his spine. He looked up at her again and smiled inanely.
"So," he said.
"Yes, I agree," she said.
I hate small talk, he thought, but said nothing more. It was a time to listen, not to chat; a time to learn, not to give information; a time to think of a way out of here without getting a permanent tan.
"You are happy?" she asked.
"I've been happier," he admitted.
She pouted. "We are not, how would you foreigners say it, treating you properly?"
He considered all the possible, truthful answers, and parried them with all the possible ways either one of them could kill him; there was nothing left over, and he tried not to damn a miracle's absence.
"As well as can be expected," he finally said.
"I am pleased we have not lost our touch," she told him as her blue eyes lightened. Then she looked over her shoulder, nodded to herself, and hiked her sarong indecently higher, in one smooth motion squatting in front of him and presenting him with a view of such sleek and powerful knees that he wanted instantly to cross his legs. "And I would imagine my dear sister has told you why we are here in this miserable excuse of a land, in Chey? Instead of staying home where I would imagine further you think we both belong?"
"Well, she did say something about being bored, yes," he said, thinking that was as uncontroversial as he could get without mentioning Chou-Li's ultimate plan.
"Ah." She lowered herself the rest of the way to the ground, crossing her legs and adjusting the sarong, though not before he noted the sparks rising from the ground where her feet had been. "I would not say bored, however. My sister has a limited span of attention."
"I understand," he said diplomatically, doing his best to ignore the sudden resurgence of activity in the dark thing's cage.
"Do you?" she said, suddenly angry. "Do you really, hero?"
"Well, to be honest, I only meant that—"
She grabbed up a handful of grass and watched with a devilish grin as it flared into a short-lived torch. Her lips pursed, and the ashes blew away in a spiral of faint fire.
"That is to say," he amended, "I am aware that—"
"You are aware of nothing, you insignificant little man," she snapped, turning her gaze on him so strongly that the perspiration forming colonies of beads on his brow grew almost unbearably warm. She saw her distress and closed those eyes briefly, until the effect had passed. "I am sorry. I have a terrible habit of losing my temper at the wrong people."
"Think nothing of it," he said graciously, drying his face with a sleeve. "I do it all the time, if you want to know the truth. My mother always said—"
"But it is him, you see," she continued, one hand clenched in a fist that slammed on the ground. "He thinks—when he does think, and that is not very often—that I am nothing but a toy he can use at his pleasure to do his ridiculous work for him. He has never taken a good look at me, not in all the years I have known him. Can you believe it? Not once has that man done this to see what he has."
Gideon, momentarily shelving the unease that had afflicted him from the moment she'd appeared, thought that Wamchu really ought to change his ways if he wanted to wake up one morning and still be alive. Divorce, he figured, was not only unknown in this land, it was also, in that man's case, completely superfluous.
"I am wasted," she said heatedly. "I am a woman of talent, and he refuses to use me save in the most menial of tasks." The fist rose and fell again. The volcano thundered. The dark thing in the cage cowered in a corner. "And I will not have it, hero! I will not be taken for granted one moment longer."
"Ah," he said. "So that's it!"
An eyebrow arched. "What are you talking about?"
He considered carefully before speaking. One false word, one misplaced innuendo, and he was going to wish he had met one of Horrn's dragons.
"You are here," he told her earnestly, "to prove to the Wamchu that you are capable of much greater things than frying heroes and creating earthquakes. You want him to understand that his successes, whatever and how many they may be, cannot be truly and accurately measured on an historical scale without taking into account your assuredly vital role in each and every one of them. And you want him to know that you're mad as hell and you are not powerless to do something about it."
Her expression made him pause, and think that perhaps he had gone too far.
"Do... do you think so?" she asked, inching forward slightly and pulling a lock of her ebony hair over her shoulder to brush it across one cheek.
Oh, boy, he thought.
"Yes. Yes, I do. And I think it's shameful."
She searched his face for signs of mockery, of insincerity, of a thirst for malicious gossip that he might later use against her in traitorous fashion. When she apparently decided he was in fact speaking the truth without attempting to deceive, she moved closer still, her sarong rippling pleasantly over the cascades of her figure.
"You are a wise man, hero."
"I only call them as I see them."
She smiled, beautifully, and moved yet again, until their knees touched and he found himself listening to tiny, shrill alarms clanging and screaming in his head. Could it be, he thought, that she too was attempting to vamp him, to flatter his facile diagnosis of her marital position so that he would eagerly fall into her camp and become her companion in whatever vile scheme she had up her me
taphoric sleeve? Could it be that she only wanted to use him as she claimed the Wamchu had so callously used her? It wasn't very comforting to his ego; on the other hand, neither was he fool enough to believe that this woman, this evil and satanic demon of Choy, this vicious and unprincipled vixen worthy of the name, would pick him of all men to receive her diabolical and perverse affections.
There was also the matter of his trousers.
Where their knees had met he could now feel his pants beginning to warm up; and when he shifted carefully in order to break the feverish connection, he noted with a passing glance the charring that had begun there. Without raising his head he looked at her, looked back at the scorch marks, and hastily slapped at them when there was no doubt that only seconds separated him from imminent torchhood.
Thong laughed gaily and clapped her hands.
Gideon ducked the resulting fireballs and tried to laugh with her.
Thong pushed herself gracefully to her feet, smoothed the sarong seductively down her sides, and walked over to the dark thing's cage. She whistled softly. Something stirred in the darkness. She giggled and whistled once again. Then one hand gripped a bar, the other crooking a finger until he holstered his bat reluctantly and joined her.
"You have perhaps noticed our pet?" she said.
He didn't want to look, but he nodded when she repeated the question, a bit more peevishly than his delay warranted.
The cage was much deeper and higher than he had first thought, and when she took his arm and brought him close to the bars, he was able to see, there in the far corner, something rather large and of unfamiliar outline crouching in the shadows. As best he could tell, it was the classic figure of a dragon, from the gleaming scales of its massive body to the leathery wings that were partially folded over its back. If there was a tail, he couldn't see it; if its feet had claws and other ugly things, he couldn't see them either.
What he did see, however, were the curls of smoke that slipped out of its decidedly reptilian snout and the winking spits of orange fire that escaped between its teeth.
Thong ran a long-nailed finger along his back, mistook his shudder for passion, and did it again.