Part 18 (2/2)

Ehomba continued to point the radiant sword at the geyser. ”Otjihanja told me that the sky metal can command more than the wind that rushes between worlds, and do more than send small ghosts of itself into battle. It also holds deep within its core the essence of the place where it was born.”

Simna kept an uneasy eye on the advancing horrors. ”So you're telling me it can sp.a.w.n the heat of the fire in which it was forged? Somehow I don't think the ability to command heat is going to do us much good in Skawpane.”

”Not where it was forged,” the herdsman corrected his friend. ”Where it was born.”

Something leaped from the point of the sword to the geyser. A streak of impossibly dark blue, a flash of muted silver-Simna was looking the other way when it happened. There was a loud, violent cracking sound, like stone being shattered, only far more highly pitched.

One and all, the frightful denizens of Skawpane halted their advance. They stared out of eyes that bulged and eyes that were slitted, out of compound eyes and simple eyes that could detect only movement. They halted-and then turned and began to flee.

Simna gaped in disbelief. Then he began to whirl his sword above his head as he charged after them, yelling imprecations and insults. Less inclined to resume the slaughter, his companions heaved a joint sigh of relief and remained where they were. The black litah was more tired than he would have liked to admit, and Hunkapa Aub's oversized hairy feet hurt.

Having satisfied his desire for verbal if not corporeal retaliation, Simna turned and trotted back to rejoin his friends. As he did so he caught sight of what had frightened off their potential attackers, and found himself s.h.i.+vering as he approached. Many remarkable spectacles had been sighted in old Skawpane, the great majority of them horrific in nature. But never before had its infernal residents witnessed anything like this.

Ice. Calling forth the temperature in which it had been birthed, the sky-metal sword had turned the geyser instantly to ice.

The gleaming crystalline pillar radiated a cold that, even at a distance, raised b.u.mps on Ehomba's skin.

Carefully, he sheathed the extraordinary blade, feeling the lingering cold of it against his back through both his s.h.i.+rt and the heavy leather scabbard. Simna and the black litah kept their distance, but Hunkapa Aub, so far from his beloved mountains, all but embraced it.

The herdsman was quick to intercept him. ”Do not touch it, my friend. I know you welcome the cold, but you have never experienced a cold like this. You may stand close, but make no contact, or your skin will freeze tight to it.” Listening, the s.h.a.ggy face nodded understandingly, but even Ehomba's warning could not mitigate the man-beast's delight. He had been uncomfortably warm for a long, long time.

As cold continued to spill in vaporous waves from the sides of the frozen obelisk, it drove the hideous heat-loving inhabitants of Skawpane ever deeper into their holes and hiding places, leaving the travelers with the run of the central plaza and allowing them to relax a little. Already, the unrelenting torridity of the Blasted Lands was beginning to affect the newly forged frigid monolith. Beneath the baleful, remorseless glare of the sun, it started to melt. Immediately, water bags were unlimbered and their spouts carefully positioned to catch the rapidly increasing drip, drip. Ehomba allowed Ahlitah to lap from his bag.

”How is it?”

A thick, fleshy black tongue emerged to lick upper and lower jaws and snout. The big cat did not quite sigh with pleasure. ”It is cold and wet and deliriously delicious, man.” Fierce yellow eyes regarded the weeping shaft longingly. ”Are you sure it's not safe to lick?”

”Not unless you want your tongue frozen to the column,” Ehomba warned him. ”Be patient. It looks as if the cold is keeping away the horrid inhabitants of this dreadful town.” He glanced up. Cold, fresh, mineral-rich water was pouring from the pillar's summit as the sun began to reduce it with a vengeance.

What ran off onto the ground formed small puddles that evaporated before they could grow very large.

”Soon we will have more water than we can carry. Then we must make haste to leave before these detestable creatures have either their hot spring or their courage restored to them.” As the litah lowered its head, Ehomba impulsively reached out to tousle the thick black mane.

”I understand what you are feeling. I could use a bath myself.” Turning together, man and feline gazed longingly at the streams of cool water that cascaded off the frozen geyser, only to vanish as steam or disappear into cracks in the ground. The waste was painful to observe.

When the last of the water bags had been replenished to overflowing, they took turns drinking their fill.

The liquid that was streaming down the icy monolith was already starting to grow warm. Soon the relentless, abiding pressure from below would overwhelm the temporary cold the sword had drawn down from the sky, and the frozen column would once more become a boiling, frothing tower of scalding liquid.

But the abominable inhabitants of Skawpane did not know that. They continued to huddle in their cavities and hiding places, away from the visitors and the terrible cold that had taken possession of the very center of their community. Frustrated and helpless to interfere, they watched as the quartet of edible travelers took their time repacking their gear before heading out of town. Not east, as would have been expected, but westward into country so barren and bleak even the lowliest of the town's denizens shunned it. To the west lay country where not even a renegade beetle could survive. Truly, these mysterious visitors commanded vast powers.

Or else, the more cynical among Skawpane's citizens mused, they were controlled by idiocy on a cosmic scale.

Shouldering his pack, grateful for the weight of cool water against his spine, Simna glanced often back the way they had come as they left the last of Skawpane's twisted, warped buildings and equally skewed inhabitants behind.

”What do you think, bruther? When they get over their fear of your chilling little demonstration, will they come after us?”

Ehomba turned to have a look. Already the ominous outlines of the town were receding, swallowed up by intervening boulders and cliffs. Soon it would recede permanently into memory and nightmare.

”I doubt it, Simna. Many who sprang from the slaughterhouse to beset us died. Those who merely suffered a touch of cold are probably counting themselves fortunate. Behind all those oozing fangs and sharp-edged suckers there must lie intelligence of a sort.”

”Hoy,” the swordsman agreed, ”and they can probably imagine what you'd do to them if they tried to give chase.” He clapped his rangy friend on the back.

”I do not know that I would, or could, do anything.” The herdsman protested mildly. ”Really, if any of them came after us I think I would have to try and run away. I am very tired, my friend. You cannot imagine how these exertions drain me. To use the swords or the gifts in my backpack is difficult. I am not trained in the ways of the necromantic arts as are old Likulu or Maumuno Kaudom.”

”I know, I know.” Hearing only what he wanted to hear, the swordsman grinned broadly. ”You're just a rank amateur, a babe in the brush, a hopeless simpleton when it comes to matters of magic. So you've told me all along. Well, fine. Let it be that way, since you continue to insist it is so. I am satisfied with the consequences of your actions, if not the feeble explanations you offer for them.”

Ehomba took umbrage as much at his companion's tone as his words. ”I did not say that I was any of those things.”

Despite the heat, Simna was enjoying himself. ”But you still insist you are no sorcerer.”

The herdsman drew himself up. ”I am Naumkib. So I am neither a 'hopeless simpleton' nor a 'babe in the brush.'”

”Okay, okay.” Simna chuckled softly. ”Peace on you, bruther. You know, I wouldn't taunt you so much if you didn't take everything I said so literally.”

The herdsman's gaze rose to fix on the high peaks of the Curridgian Range. They were markedly closer now. On the other side, he knew, lay Ehl-Larimar and the opportunity, at last, to fulfill his obligation.

Those snowy crests held the promise of home.

Home, he thought. How much had Daki and Nelecha grown? Would they remember him as their father, or only as a distant, s.h.i.+mmering figure from their past? Many months had pa.s.sed since he had made his farewells and set off northward up the coast. He fingered the cord from which had hung the carved figurine of old Fhastal, smiling to himself at the memory of her cackling laugh and coa.r.s.e but encouraging comments.

He could turn for home even now, he mused. Forget this folly of abducted visionesses and possessed warlocks, of suspicious aristocrats and moribund n.o.blemen. Put aside what, after all, were only words exchanged on a beach in a moment of compa.s.sion, and return to his beloved village and family.

Break a promise given to a dying man.

Lengthening his stride, Ehomba inhaled deeply. Other men might do such a thing, but he could not conceive of it. To do so would be to deny himself, to abjure what made him Naumkib. Even if his companions decided today, or tomorrow, or before the gates of this Hymneth's house, to turn about and return to their own homes, he knew that he would go on. Because he had to. Because it was all bound up inside him with what he was. Because he had given his word.

Mirhanja had understood. She hadn't liked it, but she had understood. That was understandable. She was Naumkib. He wondered if the children did, or if they even missed their father.

Immediately behind lay hesitant horror. Immediately ahead lay-nothing. The ground was as flat as a bad argument, white with splotches of brown and pale red. Scorching heat caused distant objects to waver and ripple like the surface of a pond. Compared to the terrain that stretched out before them, the rocky gulches and boulder-strewn slopes they had crossed to reach Skawpane were a vision of rainforest paradise.

Nothing broke the bleached, sterile surface in front of them: not a weed, not a bush, not a blade of errant gra.s.s. There was only flat, granular whiteness.

It was a dry lake, he was confident. A salt pan where nothing could live. There would be no game, no seeds or berries to gather, no moist and flavorful mushrooms crouched invitingly beneath shading logs.

And most important of all, no water. At present they were well supplied, loaded down with the precious liquid. But the hulking Hunkapa Aub and the ma.s.sive black litah needed far more water each day than any human. Despite their renewed supplies, he knew he would be able to relax only when they were safely across the blasted flats and in the foothills where springs or small streams might be found.

As for food, unless the mountains that towered skyward on the other side of the dry lake bed were closer than they appeared, both he and his companions could look forward in the coming days to dropping a considerable amount of weight. Hopefully, he reflected, that was all they would have to sacrifice.

XVIII.

”What an awful place!” His stride measurably reduced, Simna ibn Sind struggled to keep pace with his long-legged companion. Nearby, the black litah padded silently onward, head drooping low, long black tongue lolling over the left side of its lower jaw like a piece of overlooked meat.

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