by Paula Volsky
Why not? Are they mentally defective? Luzelle wondered, but nodded dutifully.
“And if a Quiet-fellow is ill, or hurts himself, what then?” she wanted to know.
“This is not a concern.”
Why not? she wondered again, but the astromage’s smooth gesture invited them to board, and it seemed the wrong time to press for an explanation.
As she approached her palanquin, she passed close by one of the Quiet-fellows and her nostrils flared. A powerful fragrance of aromatic spices wafted from his garments, and underlying the spice was something rank and repellent. Not like the body odor of the night guard in Jumo Towne; more like rancid food, bad meat. She slanted a very quick glance up into his face, and caught the milky sheen of pale eyes glinting through the holes in the mask; not typically Aveshquian eyes at all. A faint qualm chilled her, and she hesitated.
Bad time to be losing her nerve. Karsler and Girays were guilty of no such weakness, they had already boarded. She took a deep breath, climbed into the palanquin, and closed the door firmly behind her. Dark as a closet. She groped at the nearest set of shutters, found the catch, and opened a window. Weak light straggled in, and she saw her valise and umbrella on the floor, and beside them a wicker hamper, presumably filled with provisions. She stuck her head out in time to see HeeshNuri-in-Wings throw wide a pair of big wooden doors. Wind and water swept into the carriage house, and Luzelle pulled her head in. The astromage clapped his hands sharply, rapped out an unintelligible Aveshquian command, and the Quiet-fellows took up their burdens.
HeeshNuri spoke again and the Quiet-fellows strode forth into the rain, their pace an unvarying mechanical plod.
Rain drummed the palanquin roof. Droplets sprayed in through the window, and Luzelle closed the shutters again, leaving only a crack to peep through. For a while she surveyed the dim and drowning landscape on one side, then switched to the opposite window, from which she could see the other palanquin moving along at a pace that matched her own. One of its windows was ajar, and she glimpsed Girays’s face at the opening. She waved to him once, but he did not acknowledge the gesture. Either he had not seen it, or else he was ignoring her. She closed the shutters with an irritable bang. The rain poured down and the Quiet-fellows marched on.
HOURS PASSED, the miles swam by, and presently the dull grey skies darkened. There came a rare lull in the rain, and when her bearers attained the relatively mud-free summit of a stony rise, Luzelle took the opportunity to order a necessary rest stop.
The Quiet-fellows stopped dead on command. They set their load down brusquely. Luzelle looked out one window, and then the other. Mist and gathering darkness obscured her vision. There was no sign of the other palanquin. She scanned the ground, but spied no snakes. Alighting gingerly, she set her foot on solid ground and advanced a few paces, then glanced back at the bearers to see if they were watching, or perhaps even following her.
Nothing of the sort. The two cloaked figures stood motionless and seemingly blind to her existence, masked faces aimed straight ahead. She retired briefly behind a cluster of rocks, then came back and, as she drew near, saw a brown worm crawling across the lead Quiet-fellow’s foot. She squinted. Not a worm; a small snake, almost certainly one of the venomous hyuuls of which she had been warned. A spontaneous cry of alarm escaped her; not the best response, she realized too late. The noise would startle the native bearer, he would jerk or jump, and the frightened snake would strike. The man would sicken or even die, and it would be her own stupid fault.
She might have spared herself the worry. The Quiet-fellow neither jerked nor jumped. Nor did he look down at the creature slithering across his sandaled foot. He never stirred at all.
His self-control was almost superhuman. Of course he was right in standing perfectly still, but how did he endure it? She held her breath, held her peace, and watched. Seconds later the snake crawled away and the spell broke.
“Are you all right?” She hurried straight to him. He remained motionless, masked gaze fixed on the mists, and she remembered that he spoke no Vonahrish; neither bearer did, but surely she could make herself understood. She pointed at his foot. “The snake did not bite? You are not hurt?”
No sign of awareness, much less comprehension. She looked down at his foot, which displayed no puncture wounds, but the mud-caked flesh visible between the straps of his sandals was puffy and livid, almost green in color. So he had been bitten, then. But no, the other foot was exactly the same, and surely the hyuul could not have struck both, and they would not have puffed up and turned green so quickly, anyway. They probably weren’t even really green, it was just a trick of the failing light.
Then she caught another whiff of that putrid meat stench coming off the Quiet-fellow, and an unreasoning sort of fear boiled up inside her. Quite irrational, and she was not about to let it show. The bearer was uninjured, the incident was closed. She reentered the palanquin and shut the door behind her.
“Go,” she commanded, and the journey continued.
She ate cold rice salad and drank fruit juice from one of the bottles in the wicker hamper while enough light remained to distinguish the contents. Then the rain started up again, and the light failed altogether. The Quiet-fellows bore their burden east through intense darkness, and never for a moment did their pace falter.
There was no lamp or candle. When she peered out through the window she could see nothing, and so she listened intently, but heard only the rain, the wind, the creak of wooden joints, and the squelch of the Quiet-fellows’ feet in the mud. The other palanquin could not have been far off, but the blackness had swallowed it whole; the blackness had swallowed all the world.
The squelching was rhythmic and almost soporific; the patter of the rain on the roof insidiously relaxing. The dank darkness pressed her eyelids shut, and she slept.
IT WAS STILL DARK AND RAINY when she awoke. Neither the rhythm nor tempo of squelching had altered perceptibly. She opened one of the windows, and leaden light pushed in. Morning, then. Yawning, she knuckled her eyes, and stuck her head out to let the rain wash her face. When she was thoroughly awake, she surveyed her surroundings.
Not much to see. An endless plain, probably a desert of dust in the dry weather, presently a sea of yellowish mud. Mist and cloud veiled the landscape, but she could discern the clustering low rooftops of some small village squatting in the middle distance. Not JaiGhul, not yet. She drew back inside and checked the view through the other window. More mud, and, not far away, the other palanquin following a course parallel to her own.
She drank a little fruit juice, ate some flatbread, and settled back with a book. When she judged the terrain favorable she ordered another rest stop, with reluctance; for the thought of the rival palanquin taking the lead, even by a matter of yards, was intolerable.
Lifting her skirts immodestly high to clear the muck, she slogged on back to her conveyance, but paused before entering to check the bearers’ feet for snakes. She saw none, but noted for the first time that the rear Quiet-fellow’s right foot lacked its large toe. His left foot was missing its large and small toes. Both feet were caked with mud, and it was impossible to judge the age or recency of the amputations. The front Quiet-fellow’s left foot was also four toed. Curious that she had not noticed it yesterday. The presence of a venomous snake must have blinded her to all else. Unfortunate for the bearers, but at least their losses were not slowing them down.
The journey continued and the wet, dull day wore on. The Quiet-fellows never rested, never ate, never slept, never slackened, never faltered. Obviously their master had fortified them in some arcane way, but she could not fathom how he had done it, and something told her that she did not really want to know.
In the late afternoon they came to a region of gently rolling hillocks and hollows, through which flowed some nameless stream fringed with heavy growths of waist-high reeds. Undeterred, the Quiet-fellows plowed their way through the vegetation and marched straight on into the water, which quickly rose to chest
level.
Luzelle looked out the window to see the turbulent tan waters almost lapping the bottom of the palanquin. She could reach down and touch them, and did so in the idle manner of a picnicker in a rowboat upon a quiet Vonahrish pond. The sensation was agreeable, and she allowed her hand to trail along until she saw an elongated snout cleaving a swift approach and glimpsed a pair of lidless reptilian eyes coming toward her. Then she snatched her hand away and shouted an urgent warning to the bearers, who did not alter their pace.
The snout and eyes preceded a long form that she recognized too readily. As she drew her hand from the water, the crocodile changed course, veering for the front Quiet-fellow. Leaning out the window, she yelled at the bearer, “Come inside—get out of the water!”
He did not so much as glance in her direction. She waved her arm frantically and screamed, but he seemed deaf. The crocodile submerged, disappearing from view, and then the Quiet-fellow appeared to rock under the impact of some giant invisible blow. He teetered and the palanquin tipped, throwing Luzelle heavily against the door. The latch gave way, the door swung wide, and she slid out into the stream.
For a moment she splashed and sputtered, then her feet found soft bottom and she righted herself. She stood neck deep in muddy, moderately warm water, and even as she shook the sopping hair out of her eyes, she saw a second crocodile emerge from the shelter of the reeds to slip into the water and launch itself at her.
The Quiet-fellows righted the palanquin and trudged on without her.
“Halt!” she yelled wildly, and they stopped. “Wait for me, wait for me,” she muttered as she floundered toward them. They stood motionless, staring straight ahead.
She reached the palanquin. Grasping the door frame, she jumped up, struggled desperately, and managed to drag herself aboard. The door gaped. As she leaned forward to grab it, a crocodile surfaced, its jaws yawning inches below her outstretched arm. She slammed the door in the reptile’s face, latched it securely, and likewise fastened both sets of window shutters.
“Go,” she croaked.
The Quiet-fellows strode imperturbably on. Moments later they reached the far bank and emerged from the stream.
For a time Luzelle sat trembling and dripping in the darkness. When her tremors subsided, she took a deep breath, changed her wet garments for dry ones, then cracked the shutters open and warily peeked out.
She saw muddy plains, dim grey skies, and falling rain. When she looked down at the ground, she saw that the big puddles filling every dip and hollow swarmed with little brown snakes, through which the Quiet-fellows walked without hesitation or mishap.
They had displayed a similar indifference to the crocodiles, and that confidence had justified itself. Following the initial assault on the front bearer, the crocodiles had left the Quiet-fellows alone.
When next she ventured to order a brief rest stop, Luzelle took the opportunity to scrutinize her companions. The right leg of the front bearer’s baggy trousers had been shredded from knee to ankle, baring a length of livid shank. The flesh bore deep puncture marks. A chunk of meat had been ripped out of the calf, and Luzelle glimpsed a white flash of bone. But the wound that should have crippled the victim seemed to go unnoticed. The Quiet-fellow displayed neither pain nor awareness. And there was not a single drop of blood to be seen.
She did not let herself think about it.
RAINY GREY DAY DARKENED to rainy black night. The muffled tread of marching feet lulled Luzelle to sleep, and was with her when she woke in the morning. The rain had ceased, no doubt temporarily, and for once she could afford to open both windows. She checked the vistas right and left. More mud, more puddles and snakes, but the terrain was no longer quite so flat. An expanse of shallow, rolling hills relieved the monotony. Off to the left, not far away, the other palanquin kept pace with her own. Evidently Girays and Karsler had won safely past the crocodiles.
Time passed, the rain resumed, they bypassed another village, and Luzelle’s spirits began to rise, for the journey was surely nearing its end. Forty-eight hours, HeeshNuri-in-Wings had promised, and those two days were almost spent. Heedless of the rain, she stuck her head out the window, straining her eyes for a glimpse of JaiGhul, where the railroad service resumed, but saw only mud and mist. She drew back with a sigh.
Railroad. Normal conveyance, filled with normal human beings. Modern transportation into the city of ZuLaysa, where her depleted wallet would receive a transfusion, and then north to the port city of Rifzir, where she could book normal ferry passage across the Straits of Aisuu to the Emirate of Mekzaes. Railroad. Normality. Soon.
The palanquin wobbled. One of the Quiet-fellows, unbelievably, had missed a step. The march regained its rhythm briefly, then the palanquin lurched again and its rear end dropped abruptly, tipping Luzelle backward against the cushions. The poles hit the ground, and the impact jarred through her. For some reason the back bearer had lost or relinquished his burden, but the lead Quiet-fellow tramped on, indifferent or unaware. The palanquin, inclined at a sharp angle, scraped and dragged along at a teeth-rattling crawl.
Righting herself with an effort, Luzelle poked her head out and looked back to behold the rear Quiet-fellow knee-deep in mud, immobilized, and unconscious of his own plight. While his trapped legs strained to move, his torso swung forward, precipitating the overbalanced figure face-first into the mire. Even then his efforts to advance continued until Luzelle thought to order a halt. The front bearer stopped on command. The mired figure lay still.
Now what? She needed both bearers. She would have to lift the fallen Quiet-fellow and steer him back to his post, but he was larger than she, and it was not certain that she possessed the strength. Perhaps she could find a way, but she needed to reach him first, and a single glance told her that the wet ground lying between herself and the bearer swarmed with little brown snakes. Hundreds of hyuuls, perhaps thousands, and every one of them poisonous. She glanced from the snakes to the Quiet-fellow and back again. Her mind spun. Seat cushions? Improvise a movable elevated path? Tie them to her feet?
A flash of motion caught her eye. She looked up and saw the rival palanquin drawing level with her own. The shutters stood ajar. Girays’s face appeared at the window, and she waved urgently.
He saw her, there could be no doubt, and her predicament was self-explanatory. M. the Marquis would know what to do.
He did indeed. The shutters closed and Girays’s face vanished. The palanquin moved on and she stared after it, open-mouthed.
How could he? Did he want her to die out here in the middle of muddy nowhere? The tears rose to her eyes and she dashed them away. That self-satisfied, supercilious swine wasn’t about to make her cry. He wouldn’t get the better of her, either. She would show him. She would show them all.
Back to practical matters. She willed her mind into action. Cushions. They would lift and support her safely above the mud and the serpents. Clumsy but probably effective, if only she could find a way of attaching them to her feet. Tie them in place with strips of cloth torn from one of her new muslin nightgowns? Not impossible. Nightgowns and penknife lay in her valise. She retrieved both and went to work.
The strips she tore off were long but flimsy. She tried twisting a couple together to form a cord, but they would not stay twisted, not even when she wet them. Braiding worked better, but took some time. For the next several minutes her fingers flew.
When the braids were done, she tried tying the cushions to her feet. The task was trickier than she expected, and several efforts failed, but soon she hit upon a winding configuration of braids that seemed to hold the cushions securely. They had better be secure, at least secure enough to carry her across several yards of snake-infested mud. How many yards? She glanced back to gauge the distance and, through the pouring rain, discerned a tall grey figure dragging the fallen Quiet-fellow free of the mire.
“Karsler?” she breathed, entranced. His high boots, she noted at once, were certainly serpentproof.
The trapped
feet emerged with an audible plop, and Karsler hauled the Quiet-fellow upright. The bearer swayed dangerously, then regained his balance and stood motionless. Karsler issued a quiet command and together they advanced. As they drew near, Luzelle saw before she could look away that the Quiet-fellow’s mask had slipped, revealing most of a milky-eyed, greenly distended countenance. She thought she glimpsed a jagged palisade of rotting teeth, but only upper teeth, for the lower jaw was entirely gone. But the rain might have confused her sight, and in any case, she promptly pushed the vision from her mind.
They reached the palanquin, and the bearer took up the rear poles. Karsler stepped around to the window.
“Luzelle, you are unhurt?” he inquired.
“Yes, I’m fine.” She opened the door. “Please, come on in out of the rain.”
He complied and she shut the door behind him. He was soaked, his uniform plastered to him, the water dripping from his hat, and Luzelle thought she had never seen anyone more beautiful.
“Thank you—oh, thank you, Karsler!” she exclaimed. “If you hadn’t helped me, I don’t know what I would have done.”
“I think I can see what you would have done.” His eyes dropped to the cushions tied to her feet, and he smiled slightly. “This is most imaginative. I do not know that it is quite practical, but I must commend your ingenuity.”
“Yes, you’re right, it’s ridiculous.”
“I do not say so. Comical appearance notwithstanding, this unorthodox method you have devised might perhaps have proved successful.”
“And might not. I’m glad I needn’t put it to the test, thanks to you. You’re extraordinarily generous to stop for me this way. I’m surprised you got Girays to agree to it.”
“He did not agree. He did not see the necessity, but professed great confidence in your ability to overcome all obstacles. Perhaps he was right about that, but I did not wish to take the chance. Therefore v’Alisante and I have parted company, and he has continued on his way.”