Hegira (4 page)

“Does the Bey wish me to follow, or does he wish me to go alone?”

“You are free to choose.”

“I'm not used to that.”

“You're free to come with us if you want.”

“I'm no longer your servant?”

“You haven't been for a day or so, maybe longer.”

“I would like to go with you then.”

“Good.”

Barthel brought bis horse up even with theirs, and they marched abreast in the dark.

Bar-Woten was the next to call a halt. He perked his head up and listened intently. “Engines,” he said. Kiril could hear nothing but insects humming. Barthel kept silent, knowing Bar-Woten's senses were sharper than his own.

“They're about a kilometer back, near the village. Steam buggies. And I think horses, too. We'll have to ride hard to reach the next hills before them.” He spurred his horse, and the group galloped off. Kiril groaned aloud with each lurch. They reached the hills and heard the clear hiss-chug of a steam buggy just as lights appeared on the road behind them. Shadows of horses prancing across the light-beams gave Bar-Woten a rough idea how many were following them. It was a large group, maybe twenty men. He looked around desperately and saw a ravine angling away from the road, not too deep to climb out of, but deep enough to hide them if the horses could be kept quiet. It pointed to a dense copse of trees where they'd have a better chance in a fight.

“Your horse,” he called back to Kiril. “To keep it quiet, pull both its ears back gently and tug with every sound it makes — but not too hard!” They left the road and slid into the ravine one by one, rocks and clods rattling behind. The soft sandy bottom muffled the pounding hooves. Water splashed and clouds of insects rose to feather them and cling.

Trees grew above the ravine after a hundred meters of winding run. Bar-Woten found the way ahead blocked, brought his horse up short, and urged it to clamber up the side of the ravine into the copse. It hesitated and reeled but finally dug its hooves into the soft dirt and hauled itself up the slope. Barthel and Kiril followed. A bag of supplies dropped from Kiril's horse, and he turned instinctively to retrieve it. “No!” Barthel stage-whispered. “Leave it!”

Already the chugging and clop of hooves was clearly audible. The pursuers were no more than a hundred meters from where the ravine began. The buggy wouldn't be able to follow, but the horses could give them a dangerous chase.

Branches whipped by as they plunged through the trees. Bar-Woten held up his hand to push them aside and gritted his teeth at the sting. A stem slapped Kiril across the mouth, and he felt blood on his lips, but he didn't dare stop. “This is mad,” he whispered to himself, licking his lips.

Barthel's horse seemed to lose its footing. It teetered, whinnied sharply, and vanished like a ghost. Kiril shouted for Bar-Woten to stop and pulled his horse around to go back. “Hey!” he called in a harsh whisper. “Hey! What's happened?”

He couldn't see anything. The fire doves were nearly down now. It would be a few minutes before other bright ones rose to replace them. He heard the shouts of approaching men and the distant chatter and rumble of the idling steam buggy. But Barthel was not to be seen or heard. Kiril cursed Bar-Woten. He ground his teeth and slapped his horse's flank in frustration. The animal jumped, then stood its ground shivering and champing on its bit. “He's ridden away, damn him!”

The forest was now completely dark. Lanterns gleamed from the road, and some bobbed closer, carried by men on horseback. A bright spot came on at the back of the steam buggy, and a whining generator matched the chug, chug, hiss. The light scoured the forest, formed a blinding band on a tree over Kuril's head, passed by, then circled back on the ground. He moved his horse to one side. The upper arc of the circle passed within inches of the horse's hooves. He didn't dare speak or call out names, so he guided his horse between two oaks and dismounted. Should he grab the animal's ears to keep it quiet? He decided not to. He patted its neck and whispered to it, not audible above the wind in the trees. He held his hand up and moved his fingers to see what he could detect — nothing. The pitchy woods were full of odd sounds now that he was blind — sighs of tree limbs, leaves rustling, water groaning over rocks someplace near.

He couldn't see the lanterns from behind the tree, but he could see their backwash. He heard the voices plainly.

“Tracks! Dirt gouged up here.”

“Yes, but which way? Did they double back?”

“How many are there?”

“Too many! Damned Ibisians would sooner cut a throat than eat dinner.”

“Many would say one leads to the other.”

“Quiet! What's that?”

Kiril listened and tried to stop his own breathing. His horse was cooperating and he felt a great affection for it. Wonderful beast!

“Nothing. Leaves.”

"Don't be too sure, dammit.''

“Where's Reynot?”

“He was behind me.”

“Reynot, Reynot!”

“Quiet!”

The lamps came into Kiril's line of sight, and he ducked closer to the trunk. There was nothing he could do about the horse. He could see their beams dodging back and forth steadily. One lamp fell and winked out. It didn't reappear. There was little sound now but the nickering of the animals.

“Where is Hispan?” The voice creaked with fear. Somewhere a bird twittered. Again the searchlight passed through the woods. It swept over someone hugging a tree like a lizard.

Who? Kiril couldn't tell. He began to tremble uncontrollably, and sweat stung his eyes. His teeth chattered and he bit his thumb to quiet them.

“We're losing ourselves here. Back off— is that a horse?”

Kiril jumped.

“It's Reynot's horse. Somebody got him!”

“Get together in a circle until the next fire dove rises. Quickly!”

“Hispan is gone. What's that?”

“Where?”

Kiril decided the best thing would be to leave. But which way? Away from the road he might run into what had swallowed Barthel. He had no judgment for distances at all. But he decided leading his horse out would be better than waiting for the next light. He tugged at the reins and urged the animal to follow. “Not a sound!” his lips said.

His feet felt their way in the dark with tiny crunches. His back prickled — at any moment he expected a light and a bullet. But they were still talking among themselves, about twenty meters back. A dim twinkle was starting to the north — another fire dove was rising, a bright one.

“Quiet — and step this way!” he heard Barthel say. “To your left.”

They were waiting for him behind a thrust of granite. Bar-Woten had a green-smeared face and was smiling like the Lotus Contemplative, without showing his teeth. They were barely visible in the dark, standing next to a streak of phosphorescent fungus.

“I've found the way out,” Bar-Woten said. “Due north. No troops surrounding the forest, no one to block our way.”

Kiril said he felt ashamed the soldiers of Mediweva were so incompetent. Bar-Woten laughed softly and guided him by the shoulder to a narrow natural path.

“Where did Barthel go? I saw him drop,” Kiril said.

“Into a ditch,” Barthel said. “Tumbled me about, put the horse on its back and spilled the supplies. But I gathered them up, pulled the horse to its side and kept it quiet until I could hear what was going on. The Bey came to tell me all was clear but to be quiet.”

“Orders still stand,” Bar-Woten said.

They left the forest in a few minutes and rode across fields of wild oats. When morning caught them they were riding hard for the north and the borders of Mundus Lucifa.

The countryside of Mediweva was slowly changing its character. Lowlands and plains gave way to high, craggy peaks and green river courses. Forests became thinner and scrubby; green turned sere. The air grew cool. And still they were pursued.

The parties trailing them had given up steam vehicles. Now the chase was mounted and on foot. Bar-Woten figured it wouldn't end with the border of Mundus Lucifa, either — Ibisians, rumored or otherwise, were not popular in any land. So he stripped off all signs of his past twenty years and gathered together the accouterments of a mountain traveler — animal-skin clothes from the game they shot, rough bark fabric sewn together with the fibers of spear-tipped succulents, a collection of furs over his shoulder. Barthel put aside his Ibisian clothes and went nearly naked like an aborigine from Pashkesh — a role he could mimic well enough by simply down-grading his Arbuck tongue to grunts and slides. Kiril remained a penitent and replaced his cat with the remnants of a hide Bar-Woten had tossed aside.

The trio moved rapidly and efficiently, never so fast as to wear their horses down. They were in generally unpopulated countryside. Replacing good mounts would be difficult.

Because they frequently took cuts across rivers and over fields of smoothed rock and sand, they threw off their searchers for hours at a stretch, and thus moved faster. The border of Mundus Lucifa grew close — a hundred kilometers, fifty, ten. Then they crossed it — a low barbed wire strand posted with wood and stone markers.

As they prepared to stop and hide for the night, Barthel's horse went lame. He examined the beast's foreleg and found a splintered river stone had wedged into the hoof, splitting it to the quick. Left alone, the beast could hobble about and feed off the grassland well enough — but it couldn't be ridden. And it wouldn't be able to move fast enough to keep up with them.

Their supplies were low. There was little to transfer from horse to horse. They buried the saddle in a wadi as the sky was graying. Rain would fall before darkness came — and the wadi would fill with water, likely to cover their traces.

They found a pile of rocks firmly mounted against the floods and higher than the water was likely to rise. After checking it out for vermin, they rigged a hidden shelter and rested, waiting for the storm to break.

The front of rain hit with the impact of a spilled bucket. Rivers grew in minutes, carried away whole landscapes as mud and scum, and rushed into the wadi. The search party below faced serious danger of drowning unless they could find high ground and wait out the storm.

When daylight came the land was still as death. The grass had been pounded, into a thick yellow mud. Water dripped from the rocks. No wind blew, no animals called, nothing moved.

The land dropped away ahead of them. Kiril had a dizzying premonition — where night was a river? — and looked into the canyon. It was a sheer drop of at least a kilometer to a series of declines and gorges running helter-skelter into the grandest chasm he had ever seen. It seemed to plunge forever into a murky, mist-filled shadow that complained from far away with a tinny grumble. This was the natural border of Mundus Lucifa. But Kiril had heard of a way across. They rode and walked gingerly along the canyon's rim for the rest of the day trying to spot the formation he described. Night gloomed up again, and with it came mists and fogs which filled the canyon and wafted at the brim like a ghost ocean.

It was well into the afternoon of the next day before the vapors burned off. Then they saw what Kiril had told them to look for — a monumental rock bridge. It was at least three days away, but they could see its four arches in the distance like the doors to a Mediwevan church. Bar-Woten nodded grimly, satisfied he was seeing a true wonder. Barthel took it in stride. “Allah never surprises me,” he said tersely.

Bar-Woten declared they had thrown their pursuers off. “The flood probably convinced them we weren't worth the effort. Either that or it killed them.”

“Did you kill any?” Kiril asked. Barthel looked at him sharply, sensing trouble.

“No,” Bar-Woten said. “I didn't. I doubt if Barthel did — he was too busy keeping his horse quiet. Did you?”

“No,” Kiril said. “I'm not sure I could have.”

“The Bey is ashamed that I didn't kill?” Barthel asked grudgingly.

“Not at all. It accomplishes nothing. A skillful hunter kills only for food — and we weren't in the circumstances to enjoy tall pig.”

Kiril trudged across the hard-baked stone and mud of the canyon edge. Barthel took his turn on the horse.

“The Ibisians must have thought differently about killing at one time,” Kiril said.

“They did,” Bar-Woten said. “I did, too.”

They switched, and Bar-Woten walked in silence. Birds wheeled over the canyon, wings wide and dark. Their cries counterpointed grumbling from the chasm. To the south the white line of Obelisk Tara still gave a point of reference. It would be thousands of kilometers away before they lost sight of it, and by that time they'd have another Obelisk to follow. There would be the usual region where the sky was darker and the air cooler, then another land with its own spire. But they'd have to cross Mundus Lucifa first, and it had no Obelisk. Bar-Woten asked Kiril what he knew about Mundus Lucifa.

“There are two parts, north and south. I only know about the south. It's a monarchy, fairly backward. A series of fortresses, usually with towns inside, with high mountains and many bridges. They're friendly with Mediweva, but not too friendly. Reluctant to advance their thought. They won't allow anyone to read Obelisk texts, so any knowledge they have is from the past — over two thousand years ago — or rediscovered independently. I've only met a few, none from this far east. They're a handsome, stubborn people.”

“Momad?” Barthel asked.

“No. Not Kristian, either. They worship a pantheon not mentioned on the Obelisk — not so far as we've read, anyway.”

“Well and good,” Bar-Woten said. “Perhaps we can learn something from them — how much the Obelisks make us what we are. Sulay would have enjoyed the opportunity to investigate that. All the lands we passed through believed in the Obelisks. We had to make our own atlases as we traveled. No books were allowed that did not faithfully reprint the Obelisk texts or conservatively comment on what they said. And there are no maps of Hegira on the Obelisks.”

“Can I see a map?” Kiril asked. “And an atlas?” He snapped his fingers. “I once read a book that mentions them. Atlas was a god — he held up Earth on his shoulders before Newton and Kopernick destroyed him.”