The Crystal Empire (35 page)

“But certain,” Traveling Short Bear finished for the Comanche, “that he serves that person with hidden reservations. This, too, is a look I know, my Comanche friend. Were he one of my own tribe, I would send him many times into the forefront of the bloodiest battle, to purge hi
m
self of future treachery, or to perish.”

Both men took a small handful of the dry, sandy soil, rubbed their hands clean of the oil of the meat. Later, they would wash at the stream. Another brief silence followed, broken, this time, by the Ute.

“A strange party, indeed, you travel with, Knife Thrower. And, if he should be numbered among it, tell me of the talking bird of Mochamet al Rotshild. I heard the old man this morning teaching it Comanche words!”

Knife Thrower dug into his own pouch, extracted a small container and another object.

He shook his head.

“I know nothing, except he is called ‘Po,’ which, in the Saracen tongue, Fireclaw tells me, means ‘mouth.’”

“A fitting name.” Traveling Short Bear watched the hands of the war chief. “And ‘Sagheer’?”

“The humbly fleshed spirit of some ancestor, my own people spec
u
late, who serves out a penitence perched upon the shoulder of the Pri
n
cess, whispering sagacities in her ear.”

From the container he took shreds of vegetable matter, stuffed them into the crooked ceramic tube—of Fireclaw’s fashioning, a gift—he also held. From another he tapped a few grains of the fire-powder which his brother manufactured, struck flint to steel.

The powder flared. The smoke-weed caught. Knife Thrower inhaled through the pipe before passing it to the Ute.

Traveling Short Bear inhaled.

“Yes, my Comanche friend, I suppose they might well be counted. One can never tell whom the gods will favor or why. Of your own group, I ce
r
tainly would count Ursi, the great bear-dog of your brother Fireclaw.”

Knife Thrower accepted the pipe back again. It was a strange weed these Saracens had brought with them, different from
kinikinik.
It made one dizzy, at first, sick to the stomach—although the visitors reported the same symptoms from Comanche weed. Fireclaw’s powder did the flavor little good.

He puffed blue, aromatic smoke into the mountain air.

Voyaging with them also, of course, was this old, seasoned war chief of the Utes, Traveling Short Bear. While the Helvetian had been supe
r
vising preparations for the journey, Knife Thrower had been arranging for its safe passage through neighboring lands, at last deciding to escort the travelers himself.

Those arrangements had required they meet, at the ill-defined verge of Comanche territory, with Traveling Short Bear, not merely a chieftain but the ultimate link in a long line of individuals and tribes who passed along the bounty of the gods—items such as
kinikinik,
or the trade-brass his sister Dove Blossom had made use of—to the prairie tribes who guarded their ancient borders.

Such a diplomatic meeting, by long custom, had to be an “accident,” and thus was delicate to contrive. Traveling Short Bear, “wandering for pleasure” upon his own tribal lands, had met the Saracen-Comanche party by “chance” this very morning. Now the group would make a p
o
lite show of accompanying him homeward. A matter of tricky protocol, this unpre
c
edented passing through the dwelling grounds of those who had been, u
p
on occasion, the part-time enemies of the Comanche. Such intertribal wars had become fewer within Knife Thrower’s memory, peace easier to mai
n
tain. Still, it called for chiefly authority upon both sides.

Whatever the reason, Fireclaw had, within the hearing of others, d
e
clared himself to be well pleased with the presence of Knife Thrower, a
l
lowing to the dubious Saracens that he enjoyed the company of his brot
h
er-in-law, always valued his counsel. In many respects, however, the exp
e
dition was not to the personal preferences of Knife Thrower: too many they were to be inconspicuous, too few—even had all been such warriors as the girl companion of Mochamet—for an effective fighting force. He knew Fireclaw, too, had had to suppress feelings of forebo
d
ing.

This, of course, he would not tell Traveling Short Bear.

“Among their own,” the Ute observed, watching the face of Knife Thrower through the smoke they both exhaled, “neither Comanche, nor yet Fireclaw his countryman, willingly number this Oln Woeck.”

Knife Thrower nodded but did not reply. Among other irritations, the old tattooed Helvetian shaman had grown more openly, more vocally, di
s
gusted at the marriage of Fireclaw to the sister of Knife Thrower with each passing day of preparation. The rasping, sneering, whining of his dotard’s voice had become one with the soughing of the pines, the pra
i
rie birds, the crickets, almost a natural feature of the air—albeit in its irritation-value it was more like unto hailstones bouncing off the resined hides of one’s lodgehome. By the time Fireclaw had given his final i
n
structions to Dove Blossom upon maintaining their freehold, spoken his goodbyes with mi
s
givings he expressed to no one but his brother, it was her placid, cautious temperament—and that alone—which kept Fireclaw from throttling the filthy ancient where he stood, or splitting him like a game hen with that great sword of his.

Thus had begun their march, afoot, through roadless hills toward a pass negotiable in high summer.

“Too many shamans.” Passing the pipe back, Traveling Short Bear pe
r
sisted. “Nor do the Saracens who brought the oldster here with them seem much anxious to claim him, any more than they lay close claim to the spear-throwing youngster and his squat, combative companion who you say accompanied them to the ranch of Fireclaw.”

“You are a fine peace-speaker, Traveling Short Bear,” Knife Thrower answered with a frown which was half jesting. He took a deep draft from the pipe, found the embers bitter, knocked them out upon the ground, where he stirred them into the sand with his fingers. “But an unsubtle spy. Mochamet al Rotshild told Fireclaw the moustached strangers are sailors, rescued last year from a wreck off a place called ‘Island Continent.’” This last he rendered in memorized Arabic. “They had, hopping from one chance vessel to another, worked their way back as far as the east coast of this, our New World, where the Commodore hired them—”

“Upon the suspicion,” the Ute interrupted, “denied by them, that they are from somewhere within—or at least near neighbors to—the hidden region which this Saracen party now intends to penetrate.”

Traveling Short Bear laughed.

“I am perhaps indeed unsubtle, Knife Thrower, but, since you have answered my questions, not yet ineffective. If the surmise of the Sar
a
cens be true, these men are kinsmen to the gods, for all that they rese
m
ble starv
e
ling castaways.”

Knife Thrower found a yellow strand of well-dried grass, forced it i
n
to the mouthpiece of the pipe to clean it.

He shook his head.

“I have never seen their like before. They somewhat resemble normal people. See, their red-brown faces are flattish, like our own—unlike those of white-faced Fireclaw or of the Saracens. But with noses like the beaks of birds.”

“Birds of prey.” Traveling Short Bear peered over at the strangers they discussed. The pair sat, resting in the sun, sharing some morsel of food. “Their eyes are shaped like our own, lacking the lid-folds Fireclaw posses
s
es.”

Knife Thrower put his pipe away.

“They groom their hair grotesquely!”

Traveling Short Bear looked at his companion.

“Perhaps they think we do.”

Commanding but little Arabic, the sailors spoke between themselves a tongue unknown to the well-traveled Saracen captain, to Fireclaw, or to Knife Thrower, who was familiar with the dialects of several dozen tribes, although from time to time he imagined he recognized a word.

“The youngster they call ‘Hraytis,’” offered Knife Thrower, “mea
n
ing a small, many-legged creature somewhat like the gray-green cra
w
fish our vi
l
lage children sometimes tease out of stream-bottoms to roast or eat raw.” Well could he remember doing this himself before he had been gifted with his first longbow.

Traveling Short Bear smiled at a similar memory.

“This name perhaps he has earned by being fished from the sea.”

“Perhaps. In any case, the Saracens also call his companion ‘H
a
purya,’ which Fireclaw reports is a similar creature, unknown to those of us dwel
l
ing inland, but which he himself calls by the name ‘crab.’”

Traveling Short Bear folded his arms across his chest.

“Whatever their names, they carry fascinating weapons. The young one has a pair of knives the like of which I have never seen before. Their handles are set across the axis of the blade. With shank protruding b
e
tween his second and third fingers, he knife-fights with exactly the same motions he would use to fight with empty hands. Fascinating.”

The Comanche nodded.

“Yes, I watched him sharpening them just now. He fights also with his feet. I have seen him practice as we travel, kicking overhanging tree-limbs higher than his head, while the Saracens sweated and panted to place one foot before another.”

He paused a moment.

“I watched him eating yesterday with one of those knives. A clumsy meat-cutter, with that spadelike handle, but both edges are supplied with teeth, like those of a saw, making quick work of whatever task they are put to. I would not care to be considered such a task!”

Traveling Short Bear laughed agreement.

Knife Thrower did not share the humorous outlook of the Ute. At the same time he cursed Fireclaw for the curiosity which now infected him, he burned to know more about these sailors, kinsmen of the gods or not.

He glanced westward.

High above the mountains, faint up-blown fringes of a cloud-line had appeared to darken his spirit, if not the remainder of the day.

“We have been sent unto a people of sinners, excepting the folk of Lot; them we shall deliver all together, excepting his wife...she shall surely be of those that ta
r
ry.”—
The
K
o
ran,
Sura XV

Fireclaw’s dread—and Knife Thrower’s—was soon mirrored by real events.

The storm-clouds, poking up just above the serried western horizon, covered but little of the sky as yet; still, they grew blacker by the hour, and more menacing.

He’d long since chastened Oln Woeck. When called to account for his words and manner, the old man had subsided uncharacteristically but had not, Fireclaw thought, judging from the veins standing out upon his blue-marked temples, taken it in good grace, being informed in front of the ot
h
ers—and in Arabic rehearsed for the occasion—that he was never again to shout after Fireclaw nor think to order him about. The younger man had turned upon his heel and walked away without waiting for r
e
ply.

Oln Woeck still sulked at the base of a tree as gnarled and ugly as he was.

Fireclaw had gone to inspect the blisters upon Saracen feet, the bruises upon pack-carrying shoulders. Afterwards, he saw to the rea
r
rangement of the packs themselves, the contents of which had to be r
e
distributed occ
a
sionally as supplies were used. From where he worked, he watched Knife Thrower and Traveling Short Bear arise, perhaps grown weary of just si
t
ting while there was light enough to travel by.

They ambled toward the pair of alien sailors Mochamet al Rotshild had hired. The Saracen guardsman Kabeer was already speaking with them, as was Ali. Fireclaw had meant to keep an eye upon this group, who’d taken, in the past few days, to gambling together before sleep. He’d heard the money clinking, palm to palm, listened for the rattle of the throwing-cubes, heard what he assumed to be their heated exclam
a
tions over wins and los
s
es. An innocent enough diversion, he thought, provided it remained innocent. Still, he wondered where Oln Woeck was, with his m
o
ralizing, upon the one occasion when it was, perhaps, called for.

Before the Comanche and the Ute reached “Shrimp” and “Crab,” they passed by the Princess Ayesha, lying half-propped upon her elbows upon a blanket next to her maidservant, both women idly staring out over the mountain lip onto the prairie. David Shulieman sat not far away, writing something in a book he carried with him.