The Dogtown Tourist Agency (13 page)

“That doesn’t seem too important.”

“There you’re wrong. It’s the critical element in the entire case, or so I believe.” Hetzel examined the chart. “We fly north across the Ubaikh domain, over the Shimkish Mountains, and down across this…what is it called? The Steppe of Long Bones?”

“Because of a great battle a thousand years ago. The Ubaikh, the Kzyk, and the Aqzh fought the Hissau. It was a ‘Hate’ war, because the Hissau are nomads and pariahs who waylay bantlings of other septs while they’re trying to reach their home castles after being born…If burrowing out of a corpse could be called ‘birth’.”

“How do the bantlings find their way home?”

“Telepathy. Only about a third survive the trip.”

“It seems a harsh system,” Hetzel reflected. “And the Gomaz would seem cruel and harsh, at least in human terms.”

“Because we’re not fused telepathically into a single entity.”

“Exactly. They probably consider us strange and cruel too, for reasons equally irrational…There’s the Ubaikh castle, over to the west.”

Janika looked through the binoculars. “Troops are leaving the castle. They’re marching off somewhere—perhaps against the Kzyks. Or the Kaikash, or the Aqzh.”

The Ubaikh castle disappeared astern; ahead loomed the Shimkish Mountains—black shards above a tumble of pale-green and brown velvet. Beyond lay a plain of featureless gray-blue murk—the Steppe of Long Bones, which slowly expanded to fill half the horizon…A sound from the engines attracted Hetzel’s attention. The pulsors had become audible, whirring at the highest level of audibility, then gradually sighing down the scale. Hetzel stared in consternation at the energy gauge.

Janika noticed his expression. “What’s the trouble?”

“No more energy. The batteries are dead.”

“But the gauge shows half a charge!”

“Either it’s broken or somebody disconnected the conduit and then killed the batteries. In either case, we’re going down.”

“But we’re miles away from anywhere!”

“We’ve got the radio.” Hetzel manipulated the dial. “We don’t seem to have a radio, after all.”

“But what could have happened? These cars are supposed to be carefully serviced!”

Hetzel recalled the air-car he had glimpsed the night before. “Someone has decided that we’ve lived long enough. He left us just enough charge to get well away from the inn.”

The air-car floated down upon the wind-scoured pebbles of the Steppe of Long Bones. The two sat in silence. Hetzel studied the chart. “We’re about here. Ubaikh castle is forty miles across the mountains. Kzyk castle is sixty miles northwest. Our best chance would seem to be the Ubaikh transport station on the other side of the mountains. The mountains are harder, but we should find water. There’s no water on the steppe.”

Janika chewed her lip. “The radio can’t be fixed?”

Hetzel removed the case. One glance at the broken plates was enough. “The radio is done. If you like, you can stay with the car while I go for help. It might be easier for you.”

“I’d rather come with you.”

“I’d rather you did too.” Hetzel scowled down at the chart. “If we had flown south from Black Cliff Inn, back toward Axistil, we’d have come down in the middle of the Kykh-Kych Swamp, with no chance whatever.”

“We don’t have much chance out here.”

“Forty miles isn’t all that bad—two or three days’ hike, depending upon the terrain. What kind of wild beasts might we find?”

Janika looked around the sky. “Gargoyles live in the mountains. They prey on baby Gomaz, but if they’re hungry, they’ll attack anything. At night the lalu come out. Last night you could hear them out on the plain. And we might see ixxen—the white foxes of Maz. They’re blind, but they run in packs of two or three hundred. They’re dreadful creatures; they capture baby Gomaz and raise them to be ixxen, so sometimes you’ll look out on the plain and see naked Gomaz running on all fours, and they’re the eyes for the pack until the pack decides to tear them apart. If we meet any Gomaz, they could consider us field prey and kill us.”

Hetzel rummaged through the various storage compartments in hopes of locating a spare power cell, but vainly; he found nothing. Descending to the ground, he searched the horizons. Solitude everywhere. He checked the charts once more, then pointed toward the mountains. “There’s a pass directly under that double-pronged peak. From there we should see a ridge which runs a few miles south of the Ubaikh castle. We won’t get lost. With luck we’ll make forty miles in two days, provided we’re not killed; I’m carrying two pistols, a knife and ten grenades. We’ve got a good chance for survival. I’ll bring the translator in case we encounter any stray Gomaz. Since there’s no point in delay, we might as well get started. If you’ve got spare boots, you’d better bring them. Also your cloak.”

“I’m ready.”

They set out to the south, across a spongy turf of black lichen. Puffs of dark dust rose behind them; their footprints were clearly defined.

“Ixxen will follow if they come on the tracks. It’s said that they sense the warmth even after days.”

Hetzel took her hand; her fingers closed on his. “I’m certain that we’ll reach Axistil safely, and you can be sure that the folk on Varsilla would marvel to see you now—tramping across the Steppe of Long Bones in company with a vagabond like myself.”

“I don’t think I’m fated to die just yet…Who would do such a thing to us?”

“Can’t you guess?”

“No. Gidion Dirby? Unlikely. The Ubaikh? He would never think of such an exploit, and he knows nothing of air-cars.”

“What of Vv. Byrrhis?”

Janika’s mouth fell open. “Why should he bear us malice? Because of me?”

“Perhaps.”

“I can’t believe it. And never forget, the air-car belongs to the tourist agency, which is to say, Vv. Byrrhis, and he loves his SLU.”

“In due course all will be made known. Meanwhile, if you see anything edible, by all means point it out.”

“I’m hardly an authority on such things. I’ve heard that just about everything is poisonous.”

“We can travel two days, or three or four, if necessary, without food.”

Janika said nothing. They walked on in silence. Hetzel reflected that all his residual oddments of suspicion in regard to the girl might be dismissed; she would hardly subject herself to hardship of such magnitude. On the other hand, if she were the accomplice of Vv. Byrrhis, he might well elect to rid himself of her as well as Hetzel.

The sun rose toward the zenith; by insensible degrees the Shimkish peaks and ridges came to dominate the sky. Meanwhile, terrain grew ever more difficult: from pebbles and sand and fields of
black lichen, to low slopes grown with prickle bush and black waxweed, and the outlying spurs of the foothills.

Three hours of climbing brought them to the crest of a ridge, where they rested and looked back the way they had come. Janika leaned against Hetzel; he put his arm around her. “Are you tired?”

“It’s something I’ve decided not to think about.”

“Very sensible. We’ve come a good distance.” He looked through the binoculars northward over the steppe. “I can’t see the air-car anymore.”

Janika pointed off across the distance. “Look over there. Something is moving; I can’t make out what it is.”

“Gomaz—marching in a column with four wagons. They’re heading in our general direction, but to the west.”

“They’d be Kzyks,” said Janika. “Out patrolling, or maybe off to raid the Ubaikh, or one of the septs west of the Ubaikh; I forget what they call themselves. How many do you see?”

“Too many to count. Several hundred, at a guess…We’d better get moving.”

For a period the way was easy, up the ridge, then across a narrow plateau. Beyond rose the main bulk of the Shimkish Mountains, with the landmark crag prominent.

At a freshet of water they drank, then continued to climb, now resting frequently.

“It’ll be easier coming down the other side,” said Hetzel, “and a lot faster.”

“If we ever reach the top. I’m starting to worry about the next ten steps.”

“We’d better go on before our muscles stiffen. Like you, I’m not accustomed to this mountain climbing.”

The sun moved around the sky. Two hours before sunset, Hetzel and Janika toiled up from a vine-choked ravine and out on an upland meadow, watered by a small stream. Gasping, sweating, smarting from scratches, stings, and bites, they sank down upon a flat rock. A sward of small heart-shaped leaves carpeted the meadow. A hundred yards east stood a forest of growths that for the most part Hetzel could not name: a few bloodwoods, with trunks dark red, and clotted black foliage; purple tree ferns; clumps of giant galangal reeds. A quarter-mile west stood an even denser forest of bloodwoods. Certain areas of the meadow had been trampled, and an odd reek hung in the air—an odor musky and foul, which Hetzel associated with organic decay, although nothing dead was immediately visible.

From time to time on their way up the mountainside they had glimpsed wild creatures: bounding black weasels, all eyes, hair and fangs; a long, low creature like a headless armadillo, creeping on a hundred short legs; white grasshopperlike rodents, with heads uncomfortably similar to the crested white skulls of the Gomaz. A torpid reptile twenty feet long had watched them pass with an uncanny semblance of intelligence. In the ravine they had disturbed a shoal of flying snakes—pale, fragile creatures sliding through the air on long lateral frills. They had seen neither ixxen nor bantlings, and nothing but thorns and insects had caused them discomfort. Hetzel now noticed a dozen square-winged shapes wheeling through the air, with heads drooping on long muscular necks—gargoyles. They had glided down from a high crag, to swoop and circle a hundred feet above the eastward forest. Most unpleasant creatures, thought Hetzel. Their flight, so he noted, seemed to be bringing them closer to the meadow.

Hetzel now became aware of a strange strident sound, shrilling up and down, in and out of audibility, to a complex cadence which Hetzel could not quite grasp. He knew at once what the sound portended.

“Gomaz!” whispered Janika. “They’re coming toward us!”

Hetzel leaped to his feet; he looked this way and that for a covert. The ravine from which they had only just emerged would serve; more appealing was a tooth of rock a few yards north, a little crag of rotten basalt, luxuriantly grown over with iron plant. He took Janika’s hand; they scrambled up the crag and threw themselves flat on the crest under the massive black leaves.

At the same instant, the Gomaz emerged from the east forest—a column four abreast, marching to a skew-legged goose step. At the east bank of the stream the Gomaz halted; the ululating whine of their song diminished into inaudibility. They broke ranks and went to wade in the stream.

Janika whispered in Hetzel’s ear, “They’re Ubaikh—a war party.”

Hetzel peered down at the Gomaz. “How do you know they’re Ubaikh?”

“By the helmets. Look! See that one standing off to the side? Isn’t he the one who just returned from Axistil?”

“I don’t know. They all look alike to me.”

“He’s the same one. He’s still wearing that iron collar and carrying a steel sword.”

The Gomaz climbed from the water and reformed ranks, but made no move to proceed. Overhead soared the gargoyles, long necks bent low.

Hetzel pointed to the forest of bloodwoods at the western end of the meadow. “More gargoyles!”

A second band of Gomaz marched into view, singing their own wavering, whining polyphony, followed by a train of four wagons. “The Kzyk,” Janika whispered. “The same band we saw this morning!”

The Kzyk marched forward as if the Ubaikh were invisible. At the edge of the stream they broke ranks, as the Ubaikh had done, and waded into the water. The Ubaikh stood rigid and motionless, and presently the Kzyk returned to the west bank of the stream and reformed ranks; they too stood stiff and stern.

Three minutes passed, during which, so far as Hetzel could see, neither Ubaikh nor Kzyk twitched a muscle. Then from the Kzyk ranks a warrior stepped forth. He paced up and down along the west bank of the stream with an odd strutting motion, raising high a leg, extending and placing it upon the ground with exaggerated delicacy.

From the Ubaikh ranks came a warrior, who strutted in similar fashion along the east bank of the stream.

Three more Kzyk came forth, to perform a set of bizarre postures, of a significance totally incomprehensible to Hetzel. Three Ubaikh performed in similar postures on the east bank. “It must be a kind of war dance,” Hetzel whispered.

“War dance or love dance.”

On each side of the stream, while the white sequin of sun sank down the darkening green sky and the wind sighed through the bloodwood trees, the Gomaz warriors strutted and postured, swayed, dipped and jerked. They began to sing—at first a whisper, then a fluting louder and more intense, then a throbbing wail, which sent chills up and down Hetzel’s skin. Janika shuddered and closed her eyes and pressed close against Hetzel.

The song vibrated up and out of audibility, then stopped short. The silence creaked with tension. The striders and dancers wheeled quietly back to their ranks.

The engagement began. Warriors leaped the stream, their jaws clattering together, to confront an opponent. Each feinted, ducked, dodged, attempting to grip his adversary on the neck, with the mandibles now protruding from his jaw sockets.

Hetzel turned away his eyes; the spectacle was awful and wonderful; screams of passionate woe, wails of exaltation, tore at his brain. Janika lay shuddering; he put his arm around her and kissed her face, then drew away aghast; had he been swept away on a telepathic torrent? He lay stiff, clenching his mind against the tides of murderous erotic fervor.

Victors began to appear—those who had gripped their opponents’ necks, either to cut a nerve or inject a hormone, for suddenly the defeated warrior became submissive, while the victor implanted its spawn into the victim’s thorax, then ate the nubbin at the back of the limp creature’s throat.

The battle ended; from the meadow came a new sound, half-moan, half-sigh. Of the original combatants, half remained alive. Originally there had been more Kzyk than Ubaikh, as was now the case, but the Kzyk showed no disposition to attack the survivors, who included—so Hetzel was pleased to see—the chieftain who had witnessed the assassinations at the Triskelion. Overhead, the gargoyles circled, then one by one wheeled off and flapped away to the crags. “When the war is fought for hate,” said Janika, “there are no survivors among the losers, and the gargoyles carry off the corpses. But the Ubaikh and the Kzyk will leave guards until the infants break out into the air.” She looked at Hetzel in consternation. “What about us? How will we get away?”