Part 3 (1/2)
The man did not move.
”Come here! I would speak with you!” He motioned.
The farmer looked about, as if to see if the overman meant someone else, though there was no other living being in sight, only the man's own twenty acres and the empty road stretching away in either direction. Then he shrugged and came, dragging his hoe casually, to stand a dozen yards away.
”Farmer, is that Dusarra?” Garth pointed at the spot where he had seen the dome.
The farmer followed the direction of the pointing finger and said, ”I suppose it is.” His accent was strange to Garth, harsh and guttural, but his words were plain enough.
”How far is it?”
The farmer shrugged. ”Couldn't say. You're an overman, I know, but what is that you're riding?” He studied Koros closely, from the glittering three-inch fangs in its jaw to the tip of its las.h.i.+ng tail, and from its glossy black-furred shoulder to its huge padded paws. A good eighteen feet long, the monster resembled nothing so much as an overgrown panther, though proportioned differently in order to support its greater bulk. It had a cat's golden slit eyes and triangular ears, stubby black whiskers on its muzzle, and a long slender tail. No panther had such fangs, though, and both legs and face seemed oddly elongated; it stood nearly as tall as the farmer himself. Pure black throughout, with no touch of color nor single gray hair, its muscles rippled smoothly under its fur; it clearly had no trouble at all in carrying the full weight of the armored overman and his supplies.
”It is a warbeast.”
Koros growled.
The farmer suddenly seemed less sure of himself. He had a.s.sumed that any animal that served as a beast of burden, however formidable it might appear, must be docile and harmless-but no peaceful ox nor temperamental cart-goat ever made a noise like that. He thought better of previous actions, and said, ”Dusarra is ten leagues distant, my lord, along this same road, three leagues past the crossroads at Weideth.”
”Crossroads?”
”Yes. It's of no importance, though; for Dusarra you ride straight through on this same road, making no turn.”
”What is Weideth?”
”The village at the crossroads; a small town, with no wall. You'll have no trouble there.”
Garth was less certain of that than his informant seemed to be. This man seemed to accept an overman and warbeast calmly enough, but would an entire village?
”Is there no way around it? I do not wish to be seen.”
”Around? No, my lord, not that I know of; the terrain thereabouts is very rough, and Weideth lies in a narrow pa.s.s, astride the road. It's a wonder they don't charge a toll, in truth.”
”I see. My thanks, man.”
The man bowed and stepped back, and when Garth made no further comment nor move to stop him, he turned and departed at a brisk pace.
This village, Garth thought as he urged Koros forward once again, was a nuisance. He did not dare risk losing his way at this point; he would have to ride through and hope he did not create too much of a commotion. Ten leagues to Dusarra, and that three leagues past Weideth, the man had said; that meant he was seven leagues from the village. Seven leagues was two or three hours ride, perhaps a trifle more if the terrain was bad; if he kept riding he would pa.s.s through the village well after full dark, and reach Dusarra in the middle of the night, while if he stopped and made camp he would arrive at midday tomorrow. Midday was scarcely a good time to try and slip un.o.btrusively through a village, nor was it a good time for reconnaissance in Dusarra. He was not tired, and Koros was well-fed; he should have no trouble in completing his journey without further delay. If he were to be a thief, then he would arrive as a thief in the night; he spoke the command for a trot and the warbeast strode on, the only sound the soft crunching of cinders.
The moon was near full, making it easy to follow the road even after the sun was well down, though it was not actually necessary to see it since straying to either side would mean pa.s.sing through the tall gra.s.s of late summer, easily two feet in height, that flanked the way. Besides the pale light of the moon, Garth noticed as well a dim red glow flickering about the mountaintops that grew as he approached-volcanic fires, of course. He began to share Koros' dislike for this country; such eerie lights seemed threatening. A volcano active enough to light the clouds at night could well be active enough to bury its surroundings in ash and lava, yet here he was riding ever closer.
It was more than two hours after he spoke to the farmer, well after the last trace of daylight had faded in the west, with only the white moonlight and the red glow of the volcano to see by, that he was first spotted by one of the sentries. Garth did not see the young woman, nor would he have paid her much heed if he had, but she saw him, and studied him closely before slipping from her hilltop post and running back to Weideth with her report.
The Seer of Weideth was finis.h.i.+ng his final cup of wine and seriously considering retiring for the night when the sentry burst into the village's single nameless inn-which also served as the public meeting house and in rainy weather as a makes.h.i.+ft marketplace-with her news. She looked about wildly for someone to report her discovery to, but the village elders were all long abed; for want of a better audience, she directed her shout at the Seer.
”There is an overman on the East Road, riding upon a creature like none I have ever seen!”
The Seer smiled at her melodramatics. ”Have you, then, seen every sort of beast there is? There are frequently overmen on the north and west roads, and they do not all make do with horses and oxen.”
”Yes, but this one is on the East Road, and wearing armor!”
The Seer started to dismiss her with a wave. ”Overmen do not use the East Road,” he began.
”This one does! If you will not listen to me, I'll find someone who will!”
His hand fell, and for the first time the Seer looked directly at the girl's face. He realized that she spoke the truth; a part of his talent was knowing the truth when it was spoken, and this young woman-she could have seen no more than eighteen years-was not merely excited or mistaken. There was an overman on the East Road, which no overman had ridden in three hundred years; an overman had come out of the east.
”The prophecies say that death and destruction lie in the east,” he said.
”So I have heard,” replied the girl sarcastically, her hands on her hips.
”We must wake the elders.”
The sentry nodded. ”They will know what to do.”
”Yes. We cannot let an eastern overman reach Dusarra.”
It was several minutes later when Garth turned a corner in the winding road, which for the last three leagues had twisted its way through the foothills and now led along the bottom of a narrow defile, and caught a glimpse of Weideth. It was only a very brief glimpse, however, for the village he had thought he saw vanished almost instantly, leaving only another few hundred yards of highway that stretched out from his warbeast's feet and turned right out of sight behind a hill up ahead.
He blinked. There was no village. There was no sign of a village; there was only the road.
He stopped his mount with a word and studied the road. There was nothing there. After a moment's consideration, he arrived at a few possible explanations for what he thought he'd seen-a neat row of cottages on either side of the highway, a widening of the gorge into a respectable valley. It could have been a trick of the moonlight, though it had seemed too detailed for that. It could have been a mirage caused by some unknown effect of the volcano, letting him see a village that in fact lay somewhere else. It could have been a hallucination caused by volcanic gases; he had heard of such things. It could be that he was more tired than he had known, and his mind or his eyes were playing tricks in consequence.
Or it could have been magic.
This last possibility seemed actually the most likely, and it did not bode well; still, there was nothing he could do about it sitting where he was. He signaled to Koros, and the warbeast strode forward. Nothing unusual happened; the barren hills continued on either side. When they had traversed halfway to the next turn without incident, Garth relaxed. There seemed to be no danger.
If it were magic, Garth mused, what sort of magic had it been? Had an entire village been transported away in an instant? That seemed unlikely. Perhaps the village had been a mere illusion. If so, had it been intended for him, or for someone else?
As it neared the bend in the road, Koros hesitated; it seemed unsure whether to follow the road around to the right, or to proceed straight ahead up the side of the defile. Garth turned its head right, and it resumed its steady forward progress.
This served to distract Garth momentarily; it was not typical of the beast's behavior. It usually knew to follow the road unless directed otherwise. Ah, he told himself, it meant nothing; the creature was tired. Perhaps he had just imagined the village in his own fatigue. As he had just been thinking, perhaps the village had been an illusion.
Or perhaps this deserted gorge was an illusion, and it was the village that was real.
That thought had a disturbing plausibility, and Garth stopped his mount. The village of Weideth was supposed to be around here somewhere, yet he had seen no trace of it except perhaps that single fleeting glimpse. It was at a crossroads, and Koros had hesitated as if uncertain of the correct path-as if at a fork or crossroads.
But why, a.s.suming that he was in fact in the middle of Weideth, was such an illusion created? He looked down at his mount, and at himself; the warbeast's fangs gleamed in the moonlight, and his sword slapped his thigh as he moved.
He was not, he admitted to himself, the sort of character whose appearance inspired confidence in strangers. No doubt the villagers had some sort of magician amongst them who used illusions of this sort to render the town invisible to any travelers who looked dangerous.
If it were an illusion, he reminded himself.
That could be tested, he decided; he ordered Koros to stand and guard, and dismounted cautiously.
He still seemed to be in a rocky, empty pa.s.sage through the hills, not a village-but there was no reason the illusion should be less effective on an unmounted overman than upon one riding a warbeast. He stepped carefully off the road; and reached out to touch a convenient boulder.
It was there, all right, and felt very much like stone. He ran his fingers across it. Yes, it was smooth stone. He flattened his palm against it, and slid it downward a few inches.