Carnivores of Light and Darkness (15 page)
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“I’ve found that in the face of danger, greed is a wonderful motivator, Etjole. I suppose you’re fortunate that you’re immune to it.”
“I did not say that I was immune. It is just that we covet different things, you and I.”
“Fortunate for me, then.” Rising, the swordsman returned to his resting place and once again drew the embroidered blanket up around his body.
His companion was not quite ready for sleep. “Simna, have you ever contemplated a blade of grass?”
Already drifting off, the exhausted swordsman mumbled an indifferent reply. “Look, I’d rather believe that I’m traveling in the company of a sorcerer than a philosopher. You’re not going to philosophize at me now, are you? It’s late, it’s been a tiring time, and we need to get an early start tomorrow morning to cover as much ground as possible before the sun rises too high.”
“You should look forward to walking when the sun is high. It keeps the snakes in their lairs. In the cool of morning and evening is when they like to come out.”
“You’re sure of that, are you?” Something brushed the swordsman’s exposed left arm and he jumped slightly. But it was only, to his relief, a blade of grass being bent by the breeze.
“That is what they tell me.”
“Hares I can accept, but snakes? Not even magicians can talk to snakes. Snakes have no brains.”
He could almost see Ehomba scowling in the darkness. “I am sure there are many in this place, and I hope none of them overheard that.”
“Hoy, right,” Simna snorted softly.
“There is the universe we live in,” the herdsman went on, as if the colloquial conviviality of serpents had never been a question under discussion, “and then there is a blade of grass.” In the deepening shadows Simna saw his companion pluck a young green shoot from the ground and hold it above his reclining head, a tiny sliver of darker blackness against the star-filled sky.
“A wise man of our village, Maumuno Kaudom, once told me that there is a world whole and entire in everything we see, even in each blade of grass, and that if we could just make ourselves small enough we could walk around in it just as we walk around in this world.”
Rolling his eyes, Simna turned over on his side so that his back was facing his suddenly talkative friend. “Just assuming for a minute that your wise man knew what he was talking about and that he wasn’t speaking from the effects of too much homemade beer or garden-raised kif, and that you could ‘walk around’ inside the ‘world’ of a blade of grass, why would anyone want to? Everything there is to see in a grass blade can be seen now.” Reaching out from beneath his blanket, he ripped a small handful of stems from the soil and flung them over his side in the direction of his prone companion.
“Catch, bruther! See—I fling a whole fistful of worlds at you!”
A couple of the uprooted blades came to rest on Ehomba’s face. Idly, keeping his attention focused on the stem that he was holding, the herdsman flicked them aside. “One world at a time is enough to ponder, Simna.”
The swordsman rolled back to his original position. He was weary, and had had about enough learned discourse for the evening. “Good! At last we’re in agreement on something. Concentrate on this one, and forget about grass, except for the leagues of it we must march through tomorrow.”
“But, think a moment, Simna.”
The other man groaned. “Must I? It hurts my head.”
The herdsman refused to be dissuaded. “If Maumuno Kaudom is right, then perhaps this world, the one we inhabit, is to some larger being nothing more than another blade of grass, one among millions and millions, that can be held up to contemplation—or flicked aside in a moment of boredom or indifference.”
“They’d better not try it,” the swordsman growled. “Nobody tosses Simna ibn Sind aside in a moment of anything!”
Gratifyingly, it was the last thing Ehomba had to say. The silence of the night stole in upon them, pressing close on the sputtering embers of the dying campfire until it, too, went silent. In the rising coolness of the hour the enormity of what Ehomba had been saying eased itself unbidden into Simna’s thoughts.
What, just what, if the old village fakir his friend had been talking about was right? He wasn’t, of course, but just—what if? It would mean that a man’s efforts meant nothing, that all his exertions and enthusiasms were of such insignificance as to be less than noticeable to the rest of Creation.
Reaching down, he fingered another blade of grass that was struggling to emerge from the soil just beyond the edge of his blanket. Fingered it, but did not pull it. He could have done so easily, with the least amount of effort imaginable. Curl a finger around the insignificant stem and pull. That was all it would take, and the blade would die. What did that matter in the scheme of things? They were surrounded by uncountable billions of similar blades, many grown to maturity. And if this one was pulled, two more would spring up to claim its place in the sun.
But what if it contained a world, a world unto itself? Insignificant in the design of Creation, yes, meaningless in the context of the greater veldt, but perhaps not so meaningless to whatever unimaginable minuscule lives depended on it for their own continued existence and growth.
Absurd! he admonished himself. Preposterous and comical. His finger contracted around the blade even as his lips tightened slightly. It hung like that, the slightly sharp edge of the blade prominent against the inner skin of his forefinger.
Slowly, he withdrew his hand. The blade remained rooted in the earth. It was nothing more than that: a single finger-length strand of grass. No horse or hare would have been as forgiving, no hungry kudu or mouse would have hesitated before the small strip of nourishing greenery. But Simna ibn Sind did.
He was not sure why. He was only sure of one thing. The next time he and his impassive traveling companion were lying in some empty open place preparing for sleep, he was going to cram his bedsheet, or blanket, or if need be clods of earth, into his ears so as not to have to listen to what the herdsman had to say. It was an evil thing to play with a man’s mind, even if, as it appeared, Ehomba had done so unintentionally.
Blades of grass as individual worlds! This world as nothing more! What lunacy, what folly! Fortunately he, Simna ibn Sind, was immune to such rubbish. Slipping his forearms beneath his head to support it, he turned onto his belly and tried to get comfortable. As he did so, he found himself wondering how many blades of grass he was crushing beneath his chest. His closed eyes tightened as he vented a silent, mental scream.
Tomorrow he would do something to unsettle Ehomba twice as much as the herdsman had unsettled him. That promise gave him something else to think about, to focus on. With visions of cerebral revenge boiling in his thoughts, he finally managed to drift off into an uneasy, unsettled sleep.
When he woke the following morning his good humor had returned, so much so that all thoughts of retaliation had fled from his mind. Sitting up on his blanket, he stretched and let the rising sun warm his face. Ehomba was already up, standing on the other side of the campfire staring into the distance as he leaned leisurely against his long spear. Staring north, where they were headed.
A humble man, the condescending Simna mused. Some would say single-minded, but it was as easy to think of him as highly focused. As he prepared to rise from where he had been sleeping, the swordsman happened to notice the skin of his left forearm. As he did so, his eyes bugged slightly.
A neat line of red spots ran from wrist to elbow. Some were larger than others. All were grouped in twos. The pattern was plain to see. What sort of biting insect would make such marks? He rubbed his hand over the pale splotches that were already beginning to fade. They did not itch, nor had whatever had made them penetrated the skin.
The repeated double pattern reminded him of something, but for a long moment he could not remember what. Then it struck him: They were exactly the kinds of marks the fangs of a snake would make.
Hopping back onto his blanket (as if that would provide any refuge or protection!) he looked around wildly. When he bent low he found that he could make out marks in the grass and the dirt. Many marks, familiar patterns in the ground, as if he had been visited during the night by a host of serpents. A host who had left their signs upon him as a warning, and a commentary.
Straightening, he scrutinized the surrounding grass, but could see nothing moving. Only the tips of the blades disturbed by the occasional morning breeze, and the flitting of hesitant, busy insects.
“All right,” he called out to the open veldt, “I apologize! Snakes
do
have brains! Now leave me be, will you?”
do
have brains! Now leave me be, will you?”
With that he turned to see Ehomba staring back at him.
“Well,” he groused as he snatched up his blanket and shook it free of dirt, grass, litter, and assorted would-be biting fellow travelers no bigger than the motes of dust that swirled in the air, “what are
you
laughing at!”
you
laughing at!”
“I was not laughing,” Ehomba replied quietly.
“Ha!”
Roughly, the swordsman began rolling his blanket into a tight bundle suitable for travel. “Not on the outside, no, but on the inside, I can hear you! You’re not the only one who can hear things, you know.”
Roughly, the swordsman began rolling his blanket into a tight bundle suitable for travel. “Not on the outside, no, but on the inside, I can hear you! You’re not the only one who can hear things, you know.”
“I was not laughing,” Ehomba insisted in the same unchanging monotone. Turning, he gestured with his spear. “That way, I think. More inland than I would like to go, but I think there may be water that way. I see some high rocks.”
Pausing in his packing, Simna squinted and strained. Despite the best efforts of his sharp eyes, the horizon remained as flat as the beer in the last tavern he had visited. But he was not in the mood to dispute his companion. It was too early, and besides, Ehomba had already proven himself more right than wrong about the most extraordinary things. When a man was right about visions of ultimate beauty and terror, much less about snakes, it made no sense to squabble with him over the possible presence of distant rocks.
Shouldering their kits, the two men struck off to the north, heading slightly to the east. As he walked, Simna found himself apologizing to the young shoots of grass on which he unavoidably stepped, and followed each apology with an unvoiced curse in his companion’s direction. The red spots on his arm were nearly gone, but that did not keep him from carefully inspecting any open places in the grass ahead before he strode through them.
XV
“
S
CREAMING
.”
S
CREAMING
.”
“What?” Simna had been watching a small flock of brilliantly colored parrots chattering and cackling in a nearby tree. The unprepossessing tree itself was as worthy of attention as its noisy, joyfully bickering occupants. In the open veldt, it was worth marking the location of anything above the height of a mature weed for use both as a landmark and a possible camping site.
“I hear screaming.”
Maybe his eyesight was not as keen as that of the herdsman, but there was nothing wrong with Simna ibn Sind’s hearing, which was sharp from untold nights of listening intently for the creak of doors or windows being stealthily opened, or for the ominous footsteps of approaching husbands. The instant that his tall companion had drawn the swordsman’s attention away from the tree, he too heard the rising wail.
His brows drew together. “It’s coming at us from the east, but I don’t recognize it. If it’s some kind of beast, it’s a mighty great huge one to make itself heard at such a distance.”
Ehomba nodded solemnly. “I have an idea of what it might be, but this country is strange and new to me, so we will wait and hope it draws near enough for us to make it out.”
His friend spun ’round to face him. “Draws near! We don’t want it to draw near, whatever it is. We want it to go away, far away, so that we don’t hear it anymore, much less set eyes on it.”
The herdsman glanced down at the other man. “Are you not curious to see what it is that makes such a consistent and ferocious noise?”
“No, I am not.” Simna kicked at the grassy ground. “I am perfectly happy to avoid the company of anything that makes consistent and ferocious noises. If I passed the rest of my life without ever seeing anything that made consistent and ferocious noises, I would be well content.”
“I am surprised at you, Simna.” Once more Ehomba turned his attention eastward. “I am always questioning things, wanting to learn, needing to know. I am afraid it made me something of a pest to my mother and an enigma to my father. The other children would taunt me whenever I wanted to know the name of something, or the meaning, or what it was for. ‘Curiosity killed the catechist,’ they would tell me. Yet here I stand, alive and well—but still boundlessly ignorant, I fear.”
“I wouldn’t disagree with that,” Simna muttered under his breath. The roar from the east was growing steadily louder. The problem now was not how to hear it, but how to avoid it. His gaze fell on the kopje. “Unless it’s some harmless but large-throated creature coming toward us, we ought to be prepared to deal with it. For once we have the opportunity of some cover, however slight.” He nodded in the direction of the prominent rock pile. “I suggest we avail ourselves of it.”
“Yes.” Ehomba smiled at him. “A question may be as easily answered from a position of safety as from one of exposure. You are full of good common sense, Simna.”
“And you are full of something too, bruther Etjole.” Putting a hand against the taller man’s back, the swordsman gave him a firm shove in the direction of the granite outcropping. “But I am growing fond of you nevertheless. I suppose there is no accounting for one’s taste.”
“Even if I am not leading you to great treasure?” The herdsman grinned down at him as together they loped toward the looming rocks.
“Save your fibs for later, bruther.” Despite his inability to match Ehomba’s long stride, Simna easily kept pace with his companion.
Several small, yellow-furred rodents scurried for holes in the rocks as the men drew near. From the far side, a large bird rose skyward in a spectacular explosion of iridescent green and blue feathers, two of which trailed from its head and exceeded the rest of its body in length. Though it had the appearance of a songbird, its call was as rough and jagged as that of a magpie.
There were no caves in the rocks, but they found a place between two great sun-blasted whitish gray stones that was large enough to accommodate both of them side by side. While the depression did not conceal them completely, it afforded a good deal more protection than they would have had standing out on the open plain.
“See!” This time it was Simna who reacted first, rising from his crouch and pointing to the east. “It’s coming. At least, something’s coming.” Shielding his eyes from the blazing sun, he squinted into the distance.
“It certainly is.” Ehomba gripped his spear tightly. “And it is not an animal.”
By this time the distant screaming had risen to a level where both men had to raise their voices slightly in order to make themselves understood to one another.
“What do you mean it’s not an animal? What else could it be?”
“Wind,” Ehomba explained simply.
Simna frowned, then listened closely, finally shaking his head. “That’s no wind. I don’t know what it is, but it’s alive. You can hear the anger in it.”
Crouching nearby, using the smooth rock for support, Ehomba leaned his spine against the unyielding stone. “What makes you think, my friend, that the wind is not alive, and that it cannot feel anger?” He gestured. “Not only does this wind sound angry, it
looks
angry.”
looks
angry.”
The screaming grew still louder, rising with its increasing proximity. Then the source of the shrieking came into view, making no attempt to hide itself. It was like nothing Simna ibn Sind had ever seen, not in all his many travels. Frightful and formidable it was to look upon, a veritable frenzy of malice galloping across the veldt toward them. It displayed every iota of the anger the swordsman had heard in its voice, confirming all he had suspected. But to his wonder and chagrin, Ehomba’s explanation proved equally correct.
The fiend that was racing toward them, howling fit to drown out a good-sized thunderstorm, was wind indeed, but it was unlike any wind Simna had ever seen.
That in itself was extraordinary, for the wind rarely manifested itself visually. Usually, it could be felt, or heard. But this wind could also be seen clearly, for it took upon itself a form that was as appalling as it was imposing. Rampaging across the veldt, it ground its way in their general direction even as it wound deliriously inward upon itself. Nor was it alone. Again Simna squinted eastward. No, there could be no mistake. Unlike the winds he knew, this one was advancing purposefully and in a decidedly unerratic manner.
It was chasing something.
“There’s something running from it,” Simna called out as he put up his sword. Of what use was steel against an unchecked force of Nature?
“I see it,” Ehomba avowed. “It looks like some kind of cat.”
“That’s what I thought.” His companion nodded agreement. “But it doesn’t look like any kind of cat I’ve ever seen before.”
“Nor I. It is all the wrong shape. But it is definitely running from the wind, and has not merely been caught out in front of it. See how it swerves to its right and the wind demon turns to follow it?” He turned away briefly as a rising gust sent particles of dust and fragments of dry grass smacking into his face.
“Not again!” Simna pointed over the rocks. “What kind of demonic hunt is this? Whoever heard of wind deliberately chasing a cat—or any other creature, for that matter?”
He expected the ceaselessly surprising herdsman to say, “I have seen . . .” or “In the south I once knew of . . .” but instead the tall spear carrier simply nodded. “Certainly not I, Simna.”
“You mean you haven’t experienced everything, and you don’t know all there is to be known?” the swordsman responded sardonically.
Ehomba looked over at him, now having to shield his eyes from blowing debris. The wind was much closer, and therefore that much more intense. “I have tried to tell you on several occasions, Simna, that I am the most ignorant of men, and that everything I know could fit in the bottom third of a spider’s thimble.”
“I didn’t know spiders used thimbles.”
“Only certain ones.” This was said without a hint of guile. “They have sharp-tipped feet, and it is the only way they can avoid pricking themselves when they are weaving their webs.” Keeping low, he looked back out across the rocks. “The cat is exhausted. You can see it in its face. If something is not done, the wind will catch it soon.”
“Yeah, you can see how its stride is growing slo—What do you mean ‘if something’s not done’?” As warning signs flared in his brain, Simna eyed his friend with sudden wariness.
His worst fears were confirmed when the herdsman rose from his crouching position and moved to abandon the comparative safety of their rocky alcove. “Wait a minute, bruther! What do you think you’re doing?”
Standing atop the bare granite, Ehomba looked back at the other man, that by now familiar, maddening, doleful expression on his long face. “There is something strangely amiss here, my friend, that has led to a most unequal contest. I am by nature a peaceful fellow, but there are a few things that can rouse me to anger. One of these is an unequal fight.” Lowering his spear, he stretched it out in the direction of the advancing wind and its failing prey. “Such as we see before us.”
Simna rose, but made no move to follow the taller man. “What we see before us, bruther, is a contest of unnatural will and unreasoning Nature in which we are fortunate not to be a part. Leave circumstances alone and get back under cover. Or would you think to debate with a thunderstorm?”
“Only if it was a rational thunderstorm,” the herdsman replied unsurprisingly.
“Well, this is no rational wind. I mean, just look at it! What are you going to do—threaten it with harsh language?”
“More than that, I hope.” Gliding easy as a long, tall wraith across the rocks, Ehomba made his way down the slight slope of the kopje toward the onrushing disturbance. Behind him, Simna cupped his hands to his lips in order to make himself heard above the ever-rising howl.
“All right, then! If suicide is your craving, far be it from me to interfere!” As Ehomba bounded off the last rock and down into the grass, the swordsman’s voice became a shout. “But before you die, at least tell me the location of the treasure!”
Perhaps the herdsman did not hear this last. Perhaps he did, and simply chose to ignore it. Looking back, he raised his spear briefly over his head in salute, then turned and jogged out into the grass, heading directly into the path of the onrushing cataclysm.
If the exhausted cat saw him, it gave no sign. Nor did it react by changing its course and heading in his direction. Why should it? What could one mere man do in the face of one of Nature’s most frightening manifestations? Lengthening his stride, Ehomba hurried to intercept the storm’s quarry.
Certainly it was the strangest and yet most magnificent cat the herdsman had ever seen. Jet black in color, with yellow eyes that burned like candles behind the old magnifying lenses of a battered tin lantern, it had the overall look and aspect of an enormous male lion, complete to inky black neck ruff. But the heavy, muscular body was too long and was carried on absurdly elongated legs that surely belonged to some other animal. An unnatural combination of speed and strength, its lineage was a mystery to the curious Ehomba. From having to guard his flocks against them, he knew the nature and countenance of many cats, but he had never seen the like of the great black feline form that came stumbling toward him now.
While its pedigree remained a mystery, there was no mistaking its intent. It was trying to reach the shelter of the kopje. Given the speed at which it was slowing, Ehomba saw that it was not going to make it.
Breaking into a sprint, he raced to insert himself between the faltering cat and the pursuing tempest. Once, he thought he heard Simna’s anxious cry of warning rising above the growling wind, but he could not be sure of it. As he drew near, the great cat stumbled again and nearly fell. It was not quite ready to turn and meet its apocalyptic pursuer, but from studying its face and flanks Ehomba knew it had very little strength left in those extraordinarily long legs.
Spotting the approaching human through its exhaustion, the cat followed him with its eyes, eyes that were strangely piercing and analytical, as Ehomba slowed to a halt between it and the storm. Standing tall as he could, willing himself to plant his sandaled feet immovably in the solid earth, the herdsman confronted the storm and threw up both hands.
The storm did not stop—but it paused. Not intimidated, not daunted, but curious. Curious as to what a single diminutive human was doing placing itself directly in the storm’s unstoppable path.
It towered above him, reaching into the clouds from where it drew its strength, a coiled mass of black air filled with flying grass, bits of trees that had been ripped from their roots, dead animals, soil, fish, and all manner of strange objects that were foreign to Ehomba’s experience. It was wind transformed into a collector, running riot over the landscape gathering into itself whatever was unfortunate enough to cross its path. In shape it most nearly resembled far smaller wind-cousins of itself that the herdsman had seen dancing across the desert. But those were no more dangerous than a momentary sandstorm that nicked a man’s skin and briefly rattled his posture. This was to one of those irritating dust-devils as an anaconda was to a worm.
Not surprisingly, its voice was all breathiness and barely checked thunder.
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