West of January (37 page)

“They may have joined up with other wagons, Goddess. There were eight men there.”

“No matter. Bring this Pula to me as fast as you can.”

I sighed with relief. My instincts had been correct.

Shisisannis looked me over as though planning how best to skin me, and then he smiled. “There will be a fight, of course. Angels may hear of it… I shall slay all the witnesses.”

“No!”

He chuckled. “The fat one is the one you want, Majesty. He cried out to her, and she said he was a great lover.”

“Ah, Shisisannis, my joy!” Ayasseshas leaned across me to touch her tongue to his cheek. “You are wise as well as courageous, crafty as well as loyal, valiant and virile, also. When you return, you shall replace poor Ah-uhu as my guard.”

“Majesty!”

“And since you will have a fight anyway, why not have a good one? Take all the canoes and as many men as they will hold. Return my silk and anything else of value that catches your eye. You bring the fat woman here at once. The others can follow later, when they are loaded.”

“It will be a joy to me, my Queen. We shall burn the wagons and slaughter the beasts, of course.” He rubbed a tattoo thoughtfully. “What about the men? Trader men are small, but quite pale.”

Ayasseshas laughed and patted his thigh. The two of them were obviously enjoying planning their massacre, as excited as children. I rattled my fuddled brains in vain, searching for some way to save Misi or to distract the spinster.

“Trader men are small,” the spinster agreed, “but very fast! Of course, if you manage to trap any that look healthy, bring them, but I expect that they will all be off over the hills as soon as they see you. Do not pursue. You could never catch them.”

“As you command, my Goddess, my Queen.”

She clasped his big hand. “Be careful, lover, and hurry back. You will then be with me always.”

“Lady!” I wailed. “Do not do this, I beg!” My throat burned with every word. “Spare the traders and I will do whatever you ask of me.”

“Will you indeed?” Ayasseshas shook her head. “You will do what I want, yes, but only if I hold this trader sow as hostage.”

“No!” I forced myself to sit up, although my belly squirmed with nausea. “I swear I will obey you, and be loyal, and serve you.”

“But you don’t know what I require of my followers, do you, Knobil? You said you did not know.”

“No, but whatever it is, I will do it, if only you will leave the traders alone.”

“Quetti!”

Men backed away uneasily. Shisisannis rose and stepped aside as the brown-shrouded figure floated forward.

“Lady?”

“Show him your babies, Quetti, my dear. Show him the little ones you bear for me. Teach this ignorant herdman how silk is made.”

In silence Quetti opened his hood and threw it back to reveal his face. He stared wanly at me, and I thought that the shadow of pain around his pale blue eyes was even darker than before. There was a lump of white jelly adhering to his cheek, an ugly slug shape as big as a man’s finger.

Seeing that I still did not understand, he smiled lopsidedly, unfastened his robe, and held it wide. Some of the other twelve silkworms he was pasturing were not visible, but I saw enough of them, and enough of what they were doing to him, to understand at last.

Had my throat permitted, then, I am sure I should have screamed. As it was, I made a terrible scene, blubbering and pleading in a frantic whisper that changed nothing. My weeping continued even after Shisisannis and most of the other men had departed on their mission of death and pillage.

Returning from her farewells at the door, Ayasseshas scowled at me in disgust. “Um-oao?” she said. “Othisosish said he should rest. Take him over to the pens and tether him. He is of no use here.”

“And seed him, Majesty?”

“Why not? Yes! He is pale enough to get started. And hurry back, big bull. I am much in need of loving.”

—10—
RED-YELLOW-GREEN

A
CIRCLE OF HUTS
,
A HALF-COMPLETED STOCKADE
, a forest beyond—these denned the compound. As Um-oao jogged across the mud with my limp form draped over his shoulder, I realized that there were no pens in sight, only huts and more huts. The noises I had thought to be made by livestock were coming from the huts to which I was being taken—and now I knew what made those noises. A human throat can scream only so long before it stops sounding human.

The journey was so short that Um-oao had not bothered to cover me again, and the sun was warm on my bare skin. He reached his objective, pulled aside a drape, and ducked through into hot darkness. Then he expertly flipped me onto my back. I yelled, expecting to crash onto the ground, but I landed instead on a tightly stretched sheet of black silk. I bounced and came to rest, whimpering about my knees.

Um-oao grabbed my right ankle and began to tie it. I sat up and he cuffed me back like a child. In moments he had skillfully trussed me, spread-eagled and quite helpless. Ignoring my questions, he vanished out the door, returning to his mistress. Gloom became darkness as the curtain fell over the opening, and I was alone with the pounding of my heart.

My wrists and ankles had been bound with twine leading to the corners of the frame, but loosely enough that I could raise my head and peer around. There seemed to be four of these beds or stalls or sties or whatever I wished to call them. I could see, and smell, the stinking bucket under each, and I could feel the hole in the silk below my buttocks. Then I sensed that I was not alone.

“Who’s that?”

“Ing-aa,” said a voice from my left, a deep voice.

I tried to see him, but a naked black man on black silk was not very conspicuous in near darkness. And another—I could hear something on the bed across from me. Each breath was a bubbling whimper.

“Who’s that?”

“Don’t know his name.” Ing-aa’s tone showed little interest. “They call him Old Faithful. He’s been here a long time. Longer than any, I think.”

“He can’t talk?”

“No one can talk after being here a long time, wetlander. We endure until we can endure no more. Then we go mad, and then we die. Old Faithful just hasn’t died, that’s all. She takes crop after crop off him, and he just won’t die.”

I shuddered. The heat and stench were making my stomach heave again.

“You must have displeased my lady?” Like Shisisannis, Ing-aa seemed quite willing to be friendly, although either of them would joyfully have eaten me raw, had Ayasseshas suggested it.

“I have used that love potion before, so it did not work on me this time.”

“You are to be pitied. It is the memory of that glorious loving that makes all this worthwhile.”

“Worthwhile?
Have you been…seeded?”

“Yes.”

“Does it hurt?”

“They haven’t hatched yet. They only tickle at first anyway—so I’m told.”

My bonds cut into me if I pulled at them. They were silk, I supposed; thin but strong. “You’ve got muscles, swampman. Can’t you break loose?”

“I’m not tied.”

“What! Then…you’re just lying there, with…with whatever those things are…crawling on you?”

“I told you—they haven’t hatched yet. I have to lie flat until they’re big enough to hang on.”

Then light flared bright again, painfully bright, as an elderly man pulled open the drape. White hair gleamed above me as he inspected my bonds.

“I’ve brought a present for you, wetlander.” He wheezed a sort of chuckle and spread a large leaf on my chest. It felt cool and damp, but its coolness was not the cause of the shiver that convulsed me then. I looked over at Ing-aa. In the light from the doorway, I could see that there was a leaf lying on him also.

“Eggs?”

“Silkworm eggs,” the old man agreed. “Thirty of them. Try to rear as many as you can and please the lady. The more you carry to the end, the longer you get to heal afterward.”

I think I would have cursed him and Ayasseshas most roundly then, but another shadow blocked the light for a moment. It dropped its garment, and I recognized Quetti. His pale skin was scrolled with dark lines of raw flesh, as if his slender frame was wrapped in a giant fishnet. He moved to the one vacant bed.

“Help me, please?” His young voice quavered more noticeably than it had earlier. Assisted by the old man, Quetti managed to stretch out on the silk without damage to any of the vile parasites clinging to him.

He raised his head to look across at me. “Us wetlanders have to stick together, Knobil.” If that was humor, there was no joy in it; it might have been an appeal for comfort. He was holding three fingers over one eye. The silkworm slug had almost reached it. An oozing red stripe on his neck and cheek showed where it had grazed his skin on the way there. Another was progressing along his forearm, and there were two in his armpit. I retched and looked away without speaking. I had no sympathy to spare for Quetti.

He lay back with a sigh. “Othisosish? You’ll come and tie me soon, when it’s gone by?”

“That I will, lad,” the old man replied gently. The drape fell back behind him.

For a moment there was dark silence, broken by the mindless whimpers from the
thing
on the bed across from me and the animal-like wailing from the other huts nearby.

“How can you do that?” I yelled at Quetti. “Just lie there and be eaten alive?”

“They only take the top layer. It grows back. Hardly a scar. Except for things like nipples, of course.”

“But it hurts?”

“Oh yes, it hurts. Indeed it hurts. Especially when they get big like this…but they’ll start spinning soon, and then it’ll be all over.”

“Until the next time?”

“Until my lady asks me to pasture another crop,” he agreed.

I was drenched with sweat from the heat in that foul place, and yet my insides felt cold as death.

“The big ones are the worst?” Ing-aa asked in his deep voice.

There was no reply for a moment, while Quetti battled agony. Then he released one of the gasping sighs I had heard before and said, “No. The little ones. They burrow.”

“Burrow?” I wailed.

“Ears…and things. I couldn’t save this eye if this was a little one. It would get under my fingers. I’ve been lucky. I haven’t lost anything important yet.”

“But how can you just lie there and be eaten?”

There was a longer silence then, until he said sadly, “You still don’t understand? I love Ayasseshas. We all do.”

“But…”

“Who is this fat woman that Shisisannis has gone to fetch?”

“Her name is Misi.”

“So when Misi gets here, Ayasseshas will untie you. It’s best to be untied and walking around…healthier. Force-feeding is a lot of work, and dangerous. The mad ones usually die from choking while they’re being fed. They often manage to rub the babies off against the silk, too. It’s better to be up and free…and willing. Except for sleep. That’s why I asked Othisosish to come back and tie me. I might pull them off in my sleep.”

“Sleep? You can sleep?”

“I haven’t slept in so long… Yes, I think I’ll sleep.”

His voice choked off in a whimper of pain, but he had said enough. I could see how Ayasseshas would give me a choice: I must nourish her crop of slugs, or she would pasture Misi instead. Misi was huge and would be capable of feeding many silkworms, but her skin was darker than mine. Only wetlanders made water silk.

And when I went mad, then Misi would be trussed and cropped anyway. Even knowing that, I would not be able to refuse the spinster. I would try…but yet I was a coward. I did not think I could endure as Quetti was doing. Oh, Misi! I must not fail you!

“And it’s that potion that does it, isn’t it?” I said bitterly. “She gives you that and you copulate insanely, and after that you can refuse her nothing?”

“We worship her,” Ing-aa said softly. “We will do even this to please her. I only wish I were white like you, wetlander. The worms I shall feed will make black silk, of very little value, so I must try to endure much and give her many crops. But I am strong. I will bear anything to make her happy. Double-cropping—anything! She is my queen, my love.”

“Your love!” How could these deluded fools serve such a monster? I could guess now that Misi had trapped me in the same way as Ayasseshas had ensnared her army. I had not realized earlier that my feelings for Misi had sprung from that diabolic potion. And yet, even knowing it, I loved her just as much. Love, it is said, is blind.

My companions’ mindless obedience to the spinster seemed like inexplicable insanity to me. My love for Misi was a holy, joyous, precious thing.

Spread out helpless in the fetid dark, I lay for a long time, sorrowing for Misi, listening to occasional stifled sobs from Quetti and the rising, falling chorus of agony from other huts.

Hrarrh had known, of course. Ants knew more of Vernier than most races did, and his original tribe might even have dwelt within a forest. This was the vengeance he had wanted. Eventually some trader would come, offering water silk. Hrarrh would buy it for his wife, so she could have a bright-dyed gown to cover her squat ugliness. Every time he saw it he would savor his memories of me.

Hrarrh knew how my screams sounded. He could imagine the rest.

He would have his revenge in full.

Yet it was not the thought of Hrarrh that troubled me most. The blackness that choked me then was worse than anything he had done to me, worse than anything I had known in the ants’ nest. There, in the spinster’s pen, in the darkest moment of my life, I was faced with the terrible knowledge that my entire life was a failure. I had failed the mother I had sworn to avenge, failed to follow through on my promise to become an angel, failed the seawoman I had married, failed to escape from the traders when that had been my intention, and now I had failed to protect Misi. I had betrayed the woman I loved. Yes, I knew her faults—but no woman is perfect, and men must follow where their hearts lead them. I had betrayed Misi to the spinster. I had been unworthy of my beloved, and that is a man’s ultimate failure.

I wept for Misi…only for Misi.

My chest had begun to itch.