by Gray Prince
The gamblers saw him with little side-flicks of vision but paid him no heed; the pot-boy ignored him as if he had not existed. He approached the woman and spoke to her; then, with a soft sad grin on his face, struck her an open-handed blow on the side of the head, creating a sound which caused Elvo’s stomach to churn. The woman fell to the floor; the man kicked her in the neck.
An instantaneous image struck into Elvo’s mind which never would leave him: the pale young woman on the floor, blood oozing from her mouth, face placid, eyes staring; the man looking down in proud delight, heavy foot raised to kick again, like a man performing a grotesque jig; the players at the table showing glittering side-glances but indifferent and remote; himself, Elvo Glissam of Olanje, sitting astounded and horrified. To his amazement he saw himself reach out, catch the foot and pull, so that the man fell sprawling, only to leap up with incredible lightness, and still smiling his soft sad smile, aim a kick for Elvo’s head. Never in his life had Elvo fought with his hands; he hardly knew what to do except jerk back, so that the force of the kick thrust air against his face. In desperation he seized the foot and ran forward. The man, face suddenly contorted in dismay, hopped back with lurching foolish hops, out the door, out across the balcony, over the rail, out into the void.
With nothing better to do, Elvo tottered back to his seat. He sat panting and presently he drank from the mug of beer. The players occupied themselves with their game. The woman hobbled away. The room was quiet except for the sounds at the gaming table. Elvo rubbed his forehead and stared down into the beer. The episode evidently had been a hallucination…For several minutes Elvo sat immobile. An odd thought occurred to him: the man had worn no fiaps, no talismans of protection. Elvo thoughtfully finished the mug of beer, then rose to his feet and went out to his hammock.
Chapter 8
In the morning no reference was made to the episode. The inn-keeper served a breakfast of bread, tea and cold meat, and took coins from Gerd Jemasze in settlement of the account. The three departed Sailmaker’s Inn, crossed the compound to the area behind the workshops. The sky-car rested as they had left it. Jemasze turned his attention to the sail-wagons. At a big eight-wheeled beer-cart, with three masts, a multiplicity of yards, shrouds, sprits and halyards, he merely glanced; the six-wheeled and four-wheeled house-wagons he gave more consideration. Their pneumatic wheels stood eight feet tall; the house hung on spring suspensions with less than two feet of ground clearance; most were rigged as schooners or two-masted brigantines; like the cargo-wagons, they seemed more adapted to passages down the monsoon winds than to speed or maneuverability.
Jemasze turned his attention to a land-yawl about thirty feet long, with four independently sprung wheels, a flat bed with a pair of cuddies fore and aft. The shop foreman had been unobtrusively watching; now he came forward to ascertain Jemasze’s requirements, and the two engaged in negotiations which occupied the better part of an hour. Jemasze finally obtained a rental rate for the land-yawl at a figure he considered tolerable, and the shop foreman went off to find sails for the craft. Jemasze and Kurgech returned to the inn to buy provisions, while Elvo transferred luggage and personal belongings from the sky-car to the land-yawl.
Moffamides the priest sauntered across the yard. “You have selected a good wagon for your journey,” he told Elvo. “Sound and stiff, fast and easy.”
Elvo Glissam politely acquiesced in the priest’s judgment. “What kind of sail-wagon did Uther Madduc use?”
Moffamides’ eyes went blank. “A wagon somewhat similar, so I would suppose.”
Several men came forth from the shop with sails which they proceeded to bind to the masts. Moffamides watched with an air of benign approval. Elvo wondered whether he should refer to the events of the night before, which now seemed totally unreal. Some kind of conversation seemed in order. He counterfeited a tone of ease and lightness. “My home is in Szintarre; at Olanje, actually. I’ve become interested in the erjins. How in the world do you tame such creatures?”
Moffamides slowly turned his head and inspected Elvo through heavy-lidded eyes. “The process is complicated… We start with erjin cubs and train them to our commands.”
“I assumed as much, but how can a ferocious beast become a semi-intelligent domestic servant?”
“Ha ha! The ferocious beasts are semi-intelligent at the start! We convince them that they live better as Uldra mounts than as starvelings running naked across the desert, and better still as Outker house servants.”
“Then you communicate with them?”
Moffamides raised his eyes to the sky. “To some extent.”
“Telepathically?”
Moffamides frowned. “We are not truly adept.”
“Hmm. In Olanje an important society intends to stop the enslavement of erjins. What do you think of this?”
“Foolishness. The erjins are otherwise wasted and we are supplied good wheels and bearings and metal parts for our sail-wagons. The commerce is profitable.”
“Don’t you consider the commerce immoral?”
Moffamides looked at Elvo in what seemed mild perplexity. “It is work approved by Ahariszeio.”
“I would like to visit the laboratories, or camps, whatever they are called. Could such a visit be arranged?”
Moffamides gave a curt laugh. “Impossible. Here are your friends.”
Jemasze and Kurgech returned to the land-yawl. Moffamides gave them a sedate greeting. “Your craft is eager and yearns for the sarai. A fair wind offers; it is time you were away.”
“All very well,” said Jemasze, “but how do we find Poliamides?”
“You would do best to forget Poliamides. He is far away. Like all Outkers you brood too much upon the evanescent.”
“I concede the fault; where is Poliamides?”
Moffamides made an easy gesture. “I cannot say; I do not know.”
Kurgech leaned forward to stare into the priest’s pale buff eyes. Moffamides’ face went lax. Kurgech said softly: “You are lying.”
Moffamides became angry. “Practice none of your Blue magic here on the Palga! We are not without defenses!” He recovered his poise almost instantly. “I only try to protect you. The omens are bad. Uther Madduc came to grief, and now you go forth to repeat his mistake. Is it any wonder that I perceive false winds?”
“Uther Madduc was killed by a Blue,” said Gerd Jemasze. “So far as I know, there was no connection between his death and his trip across the Palga.”
Moffamides smiled. “Perhaps you are wrong.”
“Perhaps. Do you intend to help us or hinder us?”
“I help you best by urging your return to the Alouan.”
“What danger would we encounter? The Palga is famous for its tranquility.”
“Never thwart the Srenki,” said Moffamides. “They work their tragic deeds and so protect us all.”
Enlightenment came to Elvo; the terrible man of the night before had been one of them. Was Moffamides now conveying an oblique warning or reproach?
“They bear their unhappy lot with pain,” intoned Moffamides. “If one is mishandled, the others exact an exaggerated retribution.”
“This is nothing to us,” said Jemasze. “Inform us as to Poliamides and we will be on our way.”
Elvo Glissam frowned off into the sky. Moffamides said: “Fare northeast on a broad reach. Turn into the third track which you will discover on the third day. Follow the track four days to the Aluban, which is a great forest, and at the white pillar ask for Poliamides.”
“Very good. You have prepared our fiaps?”
Moffamides stood silent a moment; then he turned and walked away. Five minutes later he returned with a wicker box. “Here are potent fiaps. The green-yellow guards your land-yawl. The orange-black-whites provide for your personal protection. I wish you the joy of whatever fair winds Ahariszeio sees fit to send you.”
Moffamides stalked from the yard.
Elvo, Kurgech and Gerd Jemasze climbed aboard the land-yawl; J
emasze activated the auxiliary motor and the yawl rolled out upon the sarai. From the south blew the monsoon breeze. Elvo took the wheel while Kurgech and Jemasze hoisted jib, mainsail and mizzen; off across the resilient soum*rolled the land-yawl. Elvo leaned back in the seat, looked up at the sky, surveyed the landscape, where the only contrast came from moving cloud-shadows, and glanced astern at the diminishing No. 2 Depot. Freedom! Out upon the windy sarai with only space around him! Oh for the life of a Wind-runner!
Jemasze trimmed the sails; the land-yawl jerked forward and gained a speed which Elvo estimated to be quite thirty miles an hour.
The yawl needed little attention at the helm; Elvo used a claw-shaped device to engage the wheel and rose to his feet to revel in the motion. Kurgech and Gerd Jemasze were similarly affected. Kurgech stood by the mainmast, the wind ruffling his sparse amber curls; Jemasze stretched out in the cockpit and broached one of the casks of beer with which he had provisioned the yawl. “No question but what there are worse ways to live,” he said.
Methuen rose up the sky. No. 2 Depot had disappeared astern. The sarai looked as before: a dun flatland, relieved here and there by wisps of crisp yellow straw and an occasional low flat flower. Cloud shadows coursed across the soum; the air was fresh, neither cool nor warm, and smelled faintly of straw and a more subtle fragrance from the lichen. There was nothing to be seen, yet Elvo found the landscape anything but monotonous; it changed constantly in a manner he could not easily define: perhaps through clouds and shadows. The wheels, whispering with speed, left a dark track across the soum; occasionally other traces indicated that at some time in the past other sail-wagons had come this way.
Elvo noticed Kurgech and Jemasze talking together and staring astern. Elvo rose to his feet and scanned the southern horizon. He saw nothing and resumed his seat. Since neither Kurgech nor Jemasze saw fit to enlighten him, he asked no questions.
Halfway through the afternoon a group of small humps marked the horizon, which as they approached proved to be sizable hillocks flanked by fields of growing stuff: grain, melons, fruit trees, bread-and-butter plant, pepper plants, elixir vines. The plots were each about an acre in extent; each was watered by a system of tubes radiating from a pond, and each was guarded by a conspicuous fiap.
The time was now late afternoon, and with the pond affording a pleasant place to bathe, Jemasze elected to camp. Elvo looked at the fruit trees, but Jemasze indicated the fiaps. “Beware!”
“The fruit is ripe! In fact some is rotting, going to waste!”
“I advise you to leave it alone.”
“Hmmf. What would happen if I ate, say, one of those tangerines?”
“I only know that your madness or death would inconvenience us all, so please control your appetite.”
“Certainly,” said Elvo stiffly. “By all means.”
The three lowered sails, blocked the wheels, bathed in the pond, prepared a meal over a small campfire, then sat back over cups of tea and watched another magnificent sunset.
Twilight became night; the sky shone with stars beyond number. The constellation Gyrgus looped across the zenith; to the southwest shone the Pentadex; in the east rose the blazing miracle which was Alastor Cluster. The men put down pads loose-packed with aerospore on the deck of the yawl and lay down to sleep.
At midnight Elvo half-awoke and lay drowsily musing over the episode of the night before. Reality? Hallucination?…Out on the Palga sounded a soft eery whistle, followed a few minutes later by another such whistle from a different direction. Elvo quietly rose to his feet and went to stand by the mast. A man loomed above him in the starlight. Elvo’s heart jumped up in his throat; he gave a croak of dismay. The man turned and made a gesture of annoyance; Elvo recognized Kurgech. He whispered: “Did you hear the whistles?”
“Insects.”
“Then why are you standing here?”
“The insects whistle when they are disturbed—perhaps by a night-hawk or a walkinger.”
From a distance of no more than ten yards sounded a clear fluting warble. “Gerd Jemasze is down there,” muttered Kurgech. “He watches against the skyline.”
“For what?”
“For whatever has been following us.”
The two stood quiet in the starlight. Half an hour passed. The yawl quivered; Gerd Jemasze spoke in a soft voice. “Nothing.”
“I felt nothing,” said Kurgech.
“I should have brought a set of sensors,” grumbled Jemasze. “Then we could sleep in peace.”
“The bugle-bugs serve us as well.”
Elvo said: “I thought the Wind-runners molested no one.”
“The Srenki molest as they see fit.”
Jemasze and Kurgech returned to their pads; Elvo Glissam presently followed.
Dawn flooded the east with pink-crimson light. Clouds burned red, and the sun appeared. No breath of air fluttered the silk whisks on the yawl’s shrouds, and the three made no haste over breakfast.
With the wagon becalmed Elvo climbed to the summit of a nearby hill and descended the opposite side, where he discovered a copse of wild pawpaws, apparently unguarded by fiap. The fruit appeared ripe and succulent: round red globes with orange stars at the ends, surrounded by black voluted foliage. Elvo nonetheless eyed the fruit askance and passed it by.
Returning around the base of the hill he met Kurgech with a sack of crayfish he had taken from an irrigation ditch. Elvo mentioned the pawpaws and Kurgech agreed that a good lunch could be made of boiled crayfish and fruit; the two returned to the copse. Kurgech searched for fiaps and found none; the two men picked as much fruit as they could carry and returned around the hill.
Arriving at the land-yawl, they found it looted of all portable gear, equipment and provisions. Gerd Jemasze, coming from a morning plunge in the pond, joined them a moment after they discovered the loss.
Kurgech uttered a set of sibilant Uldra curses directed at Moffamides. “His fiaps were as weak as water; he sent us forth naked.”
Gerd Jemasze gave his characteristic curt nod. “Nothing unexpected, of course. What do you see for tracks?”
Kurgech examined the soum. His nose twitched; he leaned closer to the ground and sighted along the surface. “A single man came and went.” He moved off twenty yards. “Here he climbed on his vehicle and departed yonder.” Kurgech pointed west, around the base of the hills.
Jemasze considered. “There’s still only a trace of wind. He can’t move at any speed—if he’s in a sail-wagon.” He squinted along the trail of the vehicle, a pair of dark marks on the soum. “The trail curves; he’s sailing around the hill. You follow the track; I’ll cut across the hill; we’ll catch him on the other side. Elvo, you stay and guard the yawl before someone steals the whole affair.”
The two men set off, Kurgech trotting after the tracks; Jemasze scrambling up the hillside.
Kurgech came in sight of the thief-wagon first: a small tall-masted skimmer with three spindly wheels and slatting sails, moving no faster than a walk. At the sight of Kurgech the occupant trimmed his sail, scanned the sky and looked around the circle of the horizon, but saw nothing except Gerd Jemasze approaching from the direction in which he was headed.
Jemasze reached the craft first and held up his hand. “Stop.”
The occupant, a middle-aged man of no great stature, turned pale buff eyes up and down Jemasze’s frame, luffed his sail and applied the brake. “Why do you hinder my passage?”
“Because you have stolen our belongings. Turn around.”
The Wind-runner’s face became mulish. “I took only what was available.”
“Did you not see our fiaps?”
“The fiap is dead; it spent its magic last year. You have no right to transfer fiaps; such an act is the paltry play of children.”
“Last year’s fiaps, eh?” mused Jemasze. “How do you know?”
“Isn’t it evident? Do you not see the pink strand on the orange? Stand aside; I am not a man for idle conversation.”
; “Nor are we,” said Jemasze. “Turn your craft and sail back to our yawl.”
“By no means. I do as I please and you cannot protest; my fiap is fresh and strong.”
Jemasze approached the hull of the skimmer. He pointed to the hillside. “See those stones yonder? What if we pile them in front of you and astern? Will your fiap carry you over two piles of rocks?”
“I will sail on before you pile the rocks.”
“Then you will sail over my body.”
“What of that? Your personal fiap is a joke. Who do you think to befuddle? The fiap was hung on a beer vat to guard the malt from going sour.”
Jemasze laughed and pulling the fiap from his head threw it to the ground. “Kurgech, bring stones. We’ll wall in this thief so that he’ll never depart.”
The Wind-runner gave a passionate cry of outrage. “You are morphotes in disguise! Must I always lose my gains to plunderers? Is justice gone from the Palga?”
“We will talk philosophy after we regain our belongings.”
Cursing and muttering, the Wind-runner came about and sailed back the way he had come, with Kurgech and Jemasze walking behind. Halting beside the land-yawl the Wind-runner ill-naturedly passed across the goods he had taken.
Jemasze asked: “Where are you bound?”
“To the depot; where else?”
“Seek out Moffamides the priest; tell him you have met us; tell him what occurred, and tell him that if the fiaps guarding the sky-car are as false as those he gave us, we’ll take him down to the Alouan and lock him in a cage forever. He’ll never escape us; we’ll follow his track wherever he goes. Take him that message, and be certain that he hears you out!”
The Wind-runner, clench-mouthed with rage, tacked off into the south on a freshening breeze.
Elvo and Jemasze loaded the yawl while Kurgech boiled the crayfish for lunch to be consumed on the way. The sails were hoisted; the yawl rolled briskly into the northeast.