by Paula Volsky
We’re going to crash; we’re going to die. Fear choked her, and her hands clamped on the edge of the basket. Her gaze anchored on the spinning rocks, and she did not want to look, but seemed somehow powerless to turn away or to shut her eyes. She was cold, dreadfully cold despite the layers of clothing and the extra blanket in which she had wrapped herself to ward off the bitter chill of the upper air; despite even the proximity of the fire that heated the atmosphere filling the great, gaily colored envelope of waterproofed linen. Curious that she could think of nothing more important at such a moment, but she was cold to the core.
“There is no cause for alarm, I think,” said Karsler.
His voice cracked the spell, and she was able to turn her head and look up at him, but still she could not speak. He smiled almost imperceptibly at her, more a smile of the eyes than the lips, but his look was so reassuring, so serenely certain, that her terror subsided and she found her voice.
“I’m not afraid,” she said, and the lie was suddenly the truth, because of him.
He reached out as if unconsciously to press her hand briefly, and his own hand was warm enough to set the vital currents pulsing through her again.
His hand withdrew too soon. She tore her eyes from his face, and saw Girays v’Alisante expostulating with their pilot, the Traveler Meemo Echmeemi, owner-operator of The Traveler Echmeemi’s Astonishing Flights, whose task it was to carry the three racers east out of Zuleekistan, over the Ramparts of Forever and down into the North Ygahro Territory, next designated stop along the Grand Ellipse. Girays was speaking emphatically, but she did not really note his words, and probably neither did the pilot, for the Traveler Echmeemi’s Vonahrish was rudimentary at best. A blindingly white smile split the balloonist’s bearded brown face. He shrugged, responded in blithely unintelligible Zuleeki dialect, and tossed a couple of sandbags out of the basket.
Instantly the teeth of Ohnyi Heznyi receded. The view altered, and the broad yellow-brown plain lying southeast of the mountains swung into sight.
She was not about to die quite yet. Her breathing eased by degrees. And only to think, she had imagined this aerial hop over the Lesser Crescent Range a splendid shortcut, likely to place her hours or days ahead of rival racers electing to sail east from Zuleekistan across the Bay of Zif. The discovery among her few surviving maps and timetables of a brief reference to the independent commercial balloonists of eastern Zuleekistan, an area swept in springtime by consistently northwesterly winds, had caught her interest and fired her hopes of finally taking the lead over all competitors other than the Festinettes. (And where in the world were the twins?) Of course she had meant to keep the scheme to herself, and would have managed it, had she not committed the error of questioning that Vonahrish-speaking native guide at the Navoyza Pass. The guide must have reported the conversation back to Girays, Karsler had presumably overheard, and after that all hope of aeronautical exclusivity died. The two of them, as taken with the idea as she, had insisted on accompanying her to Echmeemi’s and she had been unable to elude them, despite considerable effort. She supposed she ought to be glad that Tchornoi, Jil Liskjil, Zavune, and the others had not caught wind of the plan as well, but gratitude was hard to muster in the face of cosmic injustice. It was so unfair—the balloon idea had been hers.
Strange to find herself so glad of their company now, Luzelle reflected. She had not anticipated her own fear of hitherto unimaginable heights. She simply had not expected the icy qualms, the cold sweats, the inner tremors. Had she traveled alone, she would have fled at first sight of the vast crimson-and-yellow inflated sack looming above the mountain shack that housed The Traveler Echmeemi’s Astonishing Flights. Fortunately for her hope of future victory, shame had triumphed over terror, and in the presence of two male observers she had suppressed all outward manifestations of alarm, or at least she had tried. She had forced herself to climb into the rickety, pitifully flimsy excuse for a basket. She had endured the ghastly swift ascent, she had suppressed all shrieks, squeaks, and gasps, she had controlled her inclination to vomit, she had even contrived to engage in conversation of sorts. In short, she had carried on as a reasonable, competent adult.
Girays had been taken in. He might view her as short tempered and sharp tongued, but probably did not recognize the underlying incipient panic. Karsler Stornzof was another matter, however. Perhaps his observation of soldiers on the eve of battle had heightened his perceptions. Whatever the reason, she knew beyond question that he saw her weakness, but neither pitied nor despised it.
Yes, all things considered, she was very happy to have them with her. And she would leave them both behind at the very first opportunity.
The hours passed, the mountains spun by, and her fears subsided. Her belly gradually unclenched itself, and around noon, when the Traveler Echmeemi opened up his sack of provisions, she was able to lunch on bread, goat cheese, and rough red wine without ill effect. Presently she even found herself awakening to the wonders of the scenery below. The Lesser Crescents deserved attention, for they were spectacular, with their glassy ice caps flashing in the sun, their chiseled crags, their knife-edged gorges and ravines filled with violet shadow. The air at these altitudes was clear as it was cold, and every detail of the landscape retained a sharpness that permitted the eye no rest. Luzelle found herself blinking, half dazzled by the sunlight glancing off the icy peaks, but reluctant to look away for fear of missing some marvel. Her persistence was rewarded when she glimpsed a soaring, pure white, broad-winged form that she recognized as a snow eagle.
She was almost tranquil by the time the Lesser Crescents had dwindled to rugged foothills sparsely studded with villages and lush with high pastures roamed by curly-horned goats pied red and black.
The foothills gave way to the wide expanse known as the Phreta’ah that rolled in featureless yellow-brown waves between the Ramparts of Forever and the Forests of Oorex.
But the Phreta’ah was not truly featureless. An aerial view revealed the plenitude of streams and rivulets rushing down from the mountains and across the wide grasslands, converging south of the Lesser Crescent Range to form the headwaters of the immense River Ygah that flowed thirty-five hundred miles south to the Nether Ocean. The river, fed by countless tributaries, widened as it went, curving its leisurely way through a vast depression shaped like a shallow salad bowl filled with greenery—the legendary Forests of Oorex, largely unexplored and untamed to this very day. She could just make out the great smudge of dark green in the far distance. With any luck the winds would bear them toward it.
For some hours the winds obliged. Endless yellow-brown billows rolled by below, their monotony relieved only by the glint of sun on silvery running water, the narrow dark ribbon of a dirt road, the occasional rounded protuberance of a thatch-roofed roadside prayer-hut. Once Luzelle spotted a cart drawn by oxen trudging toward the Ohnyi Heznyi, and the air was still so limpid that she could make out the details of the driver’s costume—loose white tunic, green neckerchief, broad hat. His face was upturned to the sky, and as the balloon passed over, he stood up in the cart, waving both arms with abandon. Luzelle returned the salute, but already the cart, oxen, and driver were behind her and receding.
The balloon sailed on, and the Forests of Oorex expanded greenly before it, while the undulations of the Phreta’ah below changed character at last, the long yellow-brown waves darkening with new and richer vegetation watered by the burgeoning River Ygah.
The river was an assertive presence now, its great serpent length winding on forever, its shadowy mane of forest dominating the landscape. At the edge of the jungle, at a wide and tranquil bend in the river, rose the town of Xoxo, capital of the North Ygahro Territory and next stop along the Grand Ellipse.
Luzelle could make out low buildings of brown brick with brown tile roofs, wooden leaf-thatched houses built on piles, and crooked unpaved streets. Not an impressive sight. Of greater interest were the sizable ships of modern design moored at the Xoxo wharfs. Grewzian, she
realized. That infamous Grewzian advance upon Jumo had launched itself from the North Ygahro Territory.
Involuntarily she glanced over at Karsler. He was studying the scene and his profile told her nothing, but the strong light emphasized the contrast between the red mark on his forehead and the surrounding fair skin; that mark a souvenir, he had explained without visible concern, of an encounter with a group of citizens in Aeshno. The mental image of an enraged Aennorvi mob stoning this man to death in the streets made her shudder, and for a moment she felt the cold again as she hadn’t in hours. Girays v’Alisante’s intervention upon that occasion had at the very least spared him serious injury and quite probably saved his life, Karsler had also informed her; a detail that Girays himself had neglected to mention.
Her regard shifted to her countryman. The unforgiving sunlight picked out the threads of grey at his temples, and the faint lines etching the skin around his eyes. He looked dark and small beside the Grewzian overcommander, but who wouldn’t?
Xoxo was drawing closer by the moment. The Traveler Echmeemi twitched the valve line, releasing heated atmosphere, and the ground appeared to rise. Now Luzelle could distinguish the wagons in the narrow dirt streets, the native pedestrians in their outsized hats, the wandering dogs, and the numerous grey figures recognizable as Grewzian soldiers.
Back in the Imperium, again. Her gorge rose.
Perhaps before long the Imperium would be everywhere.
The wind veered and the town of Xoxo wheeled westward. At once the Traveler Echmeemi plied the valve line, and the balloon descended swiftly, too swiftly. It seemed to be dropping freely out of the sky, and all of Luzelle’s fears reawakened. Her stomach lurched. One hand flew to her mouth to contain a scream.
The Traveler Echmeemi was not dismayed. Nonchalantly he loosed one of the sandbags dangling from the rail of the basket, and the precipitous descent slowed. Another bag went and the balloon sank smoothly, struck the ground without violence, bounced and struck again, scraped along for several yards, then came to rest. The Traveler Echmeemi pulled wide the rip panel, and the great linen envelope began to deflate. The passengers debarked.
They stood ankle deep in vigorous coarse grass cropped by fat dekwoaties, the potbellied striped ruminant of the region. A skinny little Ygahri boy clad in a large hat and nothing else sat watching the animals. A few hundred yards behind him squatted a low farmhouse with awnings of woven grasses. As the balloon came down, the dekwoaties scattered, while the native boy leapt to his feet and fled shrieking for the house.
“He think he see evil spirit,” the Traveler Echmeemi explained, and roared with laughter.
It was midafternoon, and the shadows were pointing the way east toward Xoxo. The town, some five or six miles distant, squatted mud-brown and drab before the intense green backdrop of the jungle. A haze of smoke and heat hovered above the rooftops. The air was very warm, Luzelle noticed for the first time; humid, heavy, and uncomfortable. Already her forehead was moist with sweat. At once she rid herself of the blanket, but remained too heavily wrapped in multiple Bizaqhi layers.
“Xoxo.” The Traveler Echmeemi extended a triumphant finger, then proceeded to explain in his execrable Vonahrish that the respectable Ygahro businessman Grh’fixi, his brother-in-soul, a most excellent fellow with whom he shared a pleasant and mutually convenient little arrangement, would soon arrive in a splendid buffalo-drawn cart equipped to bear passengers in reasonably priced luxury all the way to Xoxo. And if by chance the admirable Grh’fixi should fail to appear before sunset, then the nearby farmhouse would doubtless offer comfortable overnight shelter.
Luzelle studied the landscape and reported, “I see no cart. No buffaloes, either.”
“It come, it come,” the Traveler Echmeemi insisted.
“When?”
“Soon.”
“How soon?”
“Maybe half hour. Two, three hour, no more. Grh’fixi come before dark, for sure. Or tomorrow morning early, this is certain. You wait here.”
“I do not wait here. I haven’t the time.”
“What, then?” The Traveler Echmeemi permitted himself an indulgent smile. “You walk whole way Xoxo?”
“That’s right.”
“No. Too dirty. Dekwoati crap all over. And big hairy spiders. They eat you.”
“I don’t care about the dirt, and I’m not afraid of spiders.”
“Scorpions too. Poison.”
“I don’t believe that.”
The Traveler Echmeemi turned to the men and appealed, “You tell your woman she must wait for Grh’fixi.”
“She won’t obey,” Girays explained, straight-faced. “The jade’s ill trained.”
“Then you should beat her.”
“You are probably right, my friend.”
Venting a disgusted snort, Luzelle snatched up her carpetbag and marched off across the fields. Loud Zuleeki remonstration erupted in her wake, but she did not trouble to turn her head. On she went and soon heard the thud of quick footsteps behind her, but still did not deign to look back. A moment later they caught up with her.
“It is not a place for you to walk unaccompanied,” observed Karsler.
“Nor would I wish to allow a rival Ellipsoid to leave me behind,” Girays declared.
“You’d better prepare yourself; it’s only a matter of time,” she warned Girays tartly, then turned to offer Karsler a warm smile. She would never have confessed to either of them, particularly not to Girays, how relieved she was that they had not allowed her to face the terrors of spiders, scorpions, and dekwoati droppings all alone.
For the next two hours or more they hiked across fields heavily blanketed with coarse, damp, yellow-green grasses that sometimes grew waist high. Most of the time Karsler led the way, the passage of his tall form forcing a path for his followers through the vegetation. Luzelle perceived that she could not have managed on her own, at least not without sacrifice of the carpetbag. Even as it was, the burden dragged on her arm, its weight increasing with every hard-won quarter mile. The humid air pressed with a weight all its own, and the sweat was streaming down her face. Clouds of gnats hovered about her head, and slapping at them simply wasted energy.
From time to time they came upon wide, clear expanses where the grazing dekwoaties had cropped the grass down to the ground, and there the droppings were all that the Traveler Echmeemi had promised, and more. Ripe yellow mounds alive with flies clustered underfoot, and there was no avoiding them. Luzelle’s feet sank deep with every step. A stench filled the air, and she gagged on it. Pinching her nostrils between two fingers, she breathed through her mouth and her nausea receded. Her shoes would have to be discarded, after this. The wide legs of her divided skirt were plastered with filth, but the gauzy fabric would wash well and dry quickly. She pictured herself attempting such a trek in conventional western garb—voluminous long skirts, petticoats, whalebone stays, and all the rest—and smiled at the ludicrous image.
She saw no scorpions, but several times spied saucer-sized plots of short, yellow-green grass that seemed indefinably anomalous, and once she thought that one of them moved. A trick of the light, she supposed, but closer inspection revealed the presence of a gigantic spider soft with yellow-green fur. Big hairy spiders, just as the Traveler Echmeemi had promised; but none of them tried to eat her.
At the end of a strenuous and sweaty span, they stumbled forth from the high grasses to find themselves at the side of the rutted dirt road that carried on into the town of Xoxo, now some three miles distant and imperfectly visible through the trees that grew along the river. Here they rested for a while upon a flat rock free of droppings, but slimy with green mold or moss of some sort. The vegetation flourished everywhere; eager weeds thrust up in the middle of the road, algae coated the puddles filling ruts worn by wagon wheels, and the wooden ruins of a public prayer-hut were smothered in white fungi. There was something distasteful in such immoderate vitality; something almost threatening.
They could not af
ford to linger there, were they to reach Xoxo before dark. It was late afternoon, and the sun was well past its zenith. The trek resumed and soon they were slogging along a roadway deep in mud and droppings. Luzelle’s filthy wet skirts slapped at her ankles with every step. She was soaked in sweat, the gnats were everywhere, and the carpetbag was heavy as an anvil. Both Girays and Karsler had volunteered more than once to carry the bag for her, and it had taken all the willpower she possessed to decline such offers. Decline them she had, however; pride no less than a simple sense of justice demanded as much.
Perhaps she should have waited for Grh’fixi.
But no. She thought of the Festinette twins, somewhere up ahead along the Grand Ellipse. She thought of Jil Liskjil, Tchornoi, Zavune, Phineska, Hay-Frinl, and the others, so determined and resourceful, so close upon her heels. No, she couldn’t possibly have waited.
The sun, now startlingly red, was stooping to the horizon by the time they reached Xoxo. An unappetizing place, Luzelle decided at once, with its dreary mud-colored buildings, its narrow streets that served as public sewers, its wandering packs of gaunt stray dogs, its rat-riddled refuse heaps, its stink of rancid oil and ordure, its unsmiling copper-faced citizens, and its large population of Grewzian soldiers. The spruce grey figures were much in evidence, knots of them loitering about the new watch-stations marked with the symbol of the Endless Fire, bands of them striding the streets with an air of ownership. Where the Grewzians walked, the native Ygahris gave way with a kind of whipped servility that was sickening to behold. Luzelle boiled inwardly, but dared no criticism.
Welcome to the Imperium, she thought.
Had she found herself alone, with the recollection of the attack in Glozh still fresh in her mind, she would have been afraid. But now she walked beside a Grewzian officer whose uniform and insignia, travel stained though they were, garnered instant respect that extended to his companions. Karsler Stornzof’s compatriots saluted smartly as he passed, and there were several courteous inclinations of the head in Luzelle’s direction. Some of the grey soldiers, she fancied, recognized the celebrated overcommander by sight and wanted to say so, but Grewzian military discipline precluded such familiarity. Karsler himself only once availed himself of his officer’s privilege of initiating conversation, and that was to ask the way to the city hall.