Part 31 (1/2)

Helsse slowly turned his head; Reith looked into eyes like lenses of black gla.s.s.

”Speak to me,” urged Reith. ”Helsse! Speak!”

Helsse opened his mouth, uttered a mournful croak. Reith drew back.

Helsse watched him incuriously, then returned to his inspection of the dancing field and the dim hills beyond.

Reith joined his comrades to the side where Zarfo poured him a pot of ale. ”What of the Yao? Is he mad?”

”I don't know. He might be feigning. Or under hypnotic control. Or drugged.”

Zarfo took a long draft from his pot, wiped the foam from his nose. ”The Yao might think it a favor were we to cure him.”

”No doubt,” said Reith, ”but how?”

”Why not call in a Dugbo pract.i.tioner?”

”What might that be?”

Zarfo jerked his thumb to the east. ”The Dugbo have a camp back of town: s.h.i.+ftless folk in rags and tatters, given to thieving and vice, and musicians to boot. They wors.h.i.+p demons, and their pract.i.tioners perform miracles.””So you think the Dugbo can cure Helsse?”

Zarfo drained his pot. ”If he is feigning, I a.s.sure you he won't feign long.”

Reith shrugged. ”We have no better occupation for a day or two.

”Exactly my way of thinking,” said Zarfo.

The Dugbo pract.i.tioner was a spindly little man dressed in brown rags and boots of uncured leather. His eyes were a luminous hazel, his russet hair was confined in three greasy k.n.o.bs. On his cheek pale cicatrices worked and jumped as he spoke. He did not appear to consider Reith's requirements surprising and with clinical curiosity studied Helsse, who sat sardonically indifferent in one of the wicker chairs.

The pract.i.tioner approached Helsse, looked into his eyes, inspected his ears, and nodded as if a suspicion had been verified. He signaled the fat youth who a.s.sisted him, then ducking behind Helsse touched him here and there while the youth held a bottle of black essence under Helsse's nose.

Helsse presently became pa.s.sive and relaxed into the chair. The pract.i.tioner set heaps of incense alight and fanned the fumes into Helsse's face. Then, while the youth played a nose flute the pract.i.tioner sang: secret words, close to Helsse's ears. He put a wad of clay into Helsse's hand; Helsse furiously began to mold the clay and presently set up a mutter.

The pract.i.tioner signaled to Reith. ”A simple case of possession. Notice: the evil flows from the fingers into the clay. Talk to him if you like. Be gentle but command, and he will answer you.” ”Helsse,” said Reith, ”describe your a.s.sociation with Adam Reith.”

In a clear voice Helsse spoke. ”Adam Reith came to Settra. There had been rumor and speculation, but when he arrived, all was different. By strange chance he came to Blue Jade, my personal vantage, and there I saw him first. Dordolio came after and in his rage maligned Reith as one of the 'cult': a man who fancied himself from the far world Home. I spoke with Adam Reith but learned only confusion. To clarify by acquiescence, third of the Ten Techniques, I took him to the headquarters of the 'cult' and received contradictions. A courier new to Settra followed us. I could not dramatically divert, sixth of the Techniques. Adam Reith killed the courier and took a message of unknown importance; he would not allow me inspection; I could not comfortably insist. I referred him to a Lokhar, again 'clarifying by acquiescence': as it eventuated, the wrong technique. The Lokhar read far into the message. I ordered Reith a.s.sa.s.sinated. The attempt was bungled. Reith and his band fled south. I received instructions to accompany him and penetrate his motivations. We journeyed east to the Jinga River and downstream by boat. On an island-” Helsse gave a gasping cry and sank back, rigid and trembling.

The pract.i.tioner waved smoke into Helsse's face and pinched his nose.

”Return to the 'calm' state, and henceforth, when your nose is pinched,return; this shall be an absolute injunction. Now then, answer such questions as are put to you.”

Reith asked, ”Why do you spy on Adam Reith?”

”I am obligated to do so; furthermore I enjoy such work.”

”Why are you obligated?”

”All w.a.n.khmen must serve Destiny.”

”Oho. You are a w.a.n.khman?”

”Yes.”

And Reith wondered how he could ever have thought otherwise. Tsutso and the Hoch Hars had not been deceived: ”Had you been Yao, all would not have gone so well,” so had said Tsutso.

Reith glanced ruefully at his comrades, then turned back to Helsse.

”Why do the w.a.n.khmen keep spies in Cath?”

”They watch the turn of the 'round'; they guard against a renascence of the 'cult.' ”

”Why?”

”It is a matter of stasis. Conditions now are optimum. Any change can only be for the worse.”

”You accompanied Adam Reith from Settra to an island in the swamps.

What happened there?”

Helsse once more croaked and became catatonic. The pract.i.tioner tweaked his nose.

Reith asked, ”How did you travel to Kabasas?”

Again Helsse became inert. Reith tweaked his nose. ”Tell us why you cannot answer the questions?”

Helsse said nothing. He appeared to be conscious. The pract.i.tioner fanned smoke in his face; Reith tweaked his nose and, doing so, saw that Helsse's eyes looked in separate directions. The pract.i.tioner rose to his feet, and began to put away his equipment. ”That's all. He's dead.”

Reith stared from the pract.i.tioner to Helsse and back. ”Because of the questioning?”

”The smoke permeates the head. Sometimes the subjects live: often, in fact. This one died swiftly; your questions ruptured his sensorium.”

The following evening was clear and windy with puffs of dust racing over the vacant dancing field. Through the dusk men in gray cloaks came to the rented cottage. Within, lamps were low and windows shrouded; conversations were conducted in quiet voices. Zarfo spread an old map out on the table, and pointed with a thick black finger. ”We can travel to the coast and down, but this is all Niss country. We can fare east around the Sharf to Lake Falas: a long route. Or we can move south, through the Lost Counties, over the Infnets and down to Ao Hidis: the direct and logical route.”

Reith asked, ”Sky-rafts aren't available?”Belje, the least enthusiastic of the adventurers, shook his head.

”Conditions are no longer as they were when I was a youth. Then you might have selected among half a dozen. Now there are none. Sequins and sky- rafts are both hard to come by. So now, in pursuit of the one, we lack the use of the other.”

”How will we travel?”

”To Blalag we ride by power wagon, where perhaps we can hire some sort of conveyance as far as the Infnets. Thereafter, we must go afoot; the old roads south have been destroyed and forgotten.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

FROM SMARGASH TO the old Lokhar capital, Blalag, was a three-day journey across a windy wasteland. At Blalag the adventurers took shelter at a dingy inn, where they were able to arrange transportation by motorcart to the mountain-settlement Derduk, far into the Infnets. The journey occupied the better part of two days under uncomfortable conditions. At Derduk the only accommodation was a ramshackle cabin which provoked grumbling among the Lokhars. But the owner, a garrulous old man, stewed a great cauldron of game and wild berries, and the peevishness subsided.

At Derduk the road south became a disused track. At dawn the now somewhat cheerless group of adventurers set forth on foot. All day they traveled through a land of rock pinnacles, fields of rubble and scree. At sundown with a chill wind sighing through the rocks they came upon a small black tam where they pa.s.sed the night. The next day brought them to the brink of a vast chasm and another day was spent finding a route to the bottom. On the sandy floor beside the river Desidea, on its way east to Lake Falas, the group camped, to be disturbed for much of the night by uncanny hoots and near-human yells, echoing and reechoing through the rocks.