Skeen's Leap (3 page)

“I might be owing you a lot, old man. Mmm. With all that songbird mixing with all that chigger you're going to be sicker than a wert after beyrasco half-night. Food.” She dug into her limp purse and pulled out a few coins. She looked at them a moment, then shrugged. “Not enough to do much outfitting—you might as well have it.” She dropped the coins beside him. “You're going to be sick, nothing I can do about that, but food in the belly cuts the shakes. Food,” she said firmly, making her voice soft as honey on velvet, something Tibo that baster said to her once when she coaxed him into doing something he called insane (right about that too, Djabo send him boils on his jutty little butt). “Food, sweet food, lovely food, comforting food, food to make the world look bright. When you wake, old Yoech, my Yoech, you're going to be hungry. Very hungry, my Yoech. Soon as you're awake, your belly says fill me. There's money in your blankets. Hunt it out and go eat yourself a fine hot meal. That's an order, Old Yoech, your Sessi orders you to eat. So what will you do when you wake?”

His mouth worked, he looked marginally more alert, rheumy eyes peering up at her, blinking slowly as he struggled to make out her face through nightshadows that were too thick for him. “Eat,” he managed. “Eat b'fa. Sessi.”

“And you're going to forget all this, old Yoech. It's only a dream, a dream that fades like mist in sunlight, only a dream.”

“Duhreeem.”

“Forget.”

“Faagaa.”

“Sleep now, old Yoech. Sleep calm and wake rested. Sleeeep.…”

A snore.

She looked down at him with wry affection. Tough old buzzard. Didn't I think it'd hurt more than help, I'd try conditioning you to stop drinking. By Djabo's ivory overbite, I am tempted. Better not. You're getting along all right the way you are and sure wouldn't thank me for interfering. She got to her feet and strolled to the other end of the warehouse where she had her nest. She climbed wall beams and swung onto the slab, stretched out on a scavenged blanket and began making mental lists of what she'd need to go take a look at Tol Chorok. Fantasy maybe, but what the hell, what else did she have to do.

PRESENT TIME. DO OR DIE IN TOL CHOROK.

No rain. The clouds hung lower and lower but didn't let go.

The trick with the hijjiks and the creek didn't puzzle the saayungkas much. Not long after noon, when what shadow she had was puddled about her feet, she heard the howling behind her; the pack was closing fast.

She'd run out of hope and almost out of will but kept moving, drowning in that euphoric confusion that comes before collapse. Weaving, stumbling, sweat blinding her, she got down the last slope and moved onto the stony floor of a dessicated valley. No grass, no water, only dead rock with a thin layer of dust, dust that lifted at the lightest touch and hung about her. Looming over the valley (she kept seeing it through dust and sweat, losing it again as if it were a mirage teasing her) was a mountain peak, a peak that was leaner, more jagged, higher than the others, its point twisted sideways like a crumpled horn.

When she stumbled over the remnant of a wall and crashed onto hands and knees, she stayed down, dazed. Wall? She shook her head, trying to clear out some of the fatigue-trash clogging it, lifted it and saw the crumpled horn of Chol Dachay. Wall? She pushed up and back until she was sitting on her heels, rubbed at her eyes, stared at the lacerated palms of her hands, wiped them on her tunic.

Howling. Close. She looked over her shoulder and saw low dark beasts running at her. Minutes away. In a last desperate effort which she knew meant nothing but a little more time gained before the inevitable capture, she drove her body up and into a ragged run toward the center of that dry ghost of a city, toward a cluster of taller ruins where she could hole up and make them hurt before they got her.

Dust rose and circled about her. She thought it was her feet kicking it up, but it wheeled too high, whipped too vigorously about her. She thought it was the wind. But she couldn't feel any wind. The air was thin, dry, still.

She staggered through street-traces, her mind floating away from the beasts closing on her as she left the direct line to the center and began weaving a complex pattern through the ruins, body moving now at the hest of something else, the dust thickening and swirling closer, leaving a circle of clean air about her. Muffled by that enveloping dust she could hear snuffling and foot thuds of the saayungkas, the rattle of their harness; she thought she could feel the heat of their breath on her back; she caught glimpses of the dark forms circling her. For some reason they didn't seem able to get at her, couldn't break through the bubble. She couldn't make sense of any of this, she didn't want to try.

Pattern, Yoech said, there is a pattern. Her feet traced it until she reached a sketch of a doorway, two posts and a lintel, the lintel carved, the carving sand-scrubbed into anonymity. Gate. Subliminal humming. Other sounds muted, distanced.

Her ensorcelled feet danced her through the Gate.

SKEEN'S LEAP

or

I'M STANDING ON COOL GREEN GRASS THAT CAN'T POSSIBLY EXIST.

Skeen stepped into greenness and calm. Into humidity and hush. The thing that gripped her body lost most of its hold on her. Lost it suddenly. She staggered, crashed onto her knees, stayed there grasping in great gulps of the thick wet air, air that acted on her body like food and drink, recharging her. The thing that had yanked her through the Gate started tugging at her, felt as if it'd tied monofilament line about her arm and was trying to lead her about like a family pet. She ignored it and passed her tongue over her lips, like rubbing leather over leather. “Djabo's claws,” she croaked. “He wasn't crazy after all.”

She got slowly to her feet and moved closer to the Gate. On this side the posts and lintel were fresher, the carving was clearer—recognizable shapes—kites or flying squirrels, something like that. Some weathering, the shapes partly obscured by patches of dry lichen and damp moss. Dust swirled between the posts. She waited for it to settle so she could see what was happening on the other side. Why hadn't the saayungkas come through with her?

The dust didn't settle. It kept billowing and eddying, filling the space between the posts.

She listened, couldn't hear a thing.

“That's that, then.” She used the tip of her knife to mark the stone of one of the posts. Djabo only knew how many of these things were scattered about, no point in taking chances, losing the way back. Nah nah, Tibo, you don't get away that easy. The SKA for Skeen, the PI for Picarefy. Neat not flashy, but quick ID when needed. Satisfied, she turned to inspect the glade. What was this place? Some kind of cemetery? The air hung still and silent, not a leaf was moving. No insect or bird noises. Trees like painted images. Short thick grass, not a blade moving. Weird. She moved her arm impatiently as the tugging on it increased in fervor and frequency. She turned, glared along the line of the pull. A short distance off, behind a thin screen of trees, she saw a shining white wall. For some reason that had nothing to do with logic she shivered as she scowled at it. Silly looking thing, a lot like a white-tiled bathroom wall, ridiculous out here in the middle of nowhere. The Wall or Something behind it reached out and tried to get a firmer hold on her; she began hearing music in her head, a soft summoning siren's song. Not fuckin' likely, she told the thing and swung around, fighting against the pull. One step. Another. Tiny change in the glade: a breath of air moved against her face, leaves rustled, small branches creaked. Through these small sounds she heard another, water falling, a liquid lovely music that drowned out the summons from the Wall. She tried swallowing but her throat was too dry, then she started walking toward the sound, tautly alert. She distrusted all this tranquility; life had taught her it was bound to change suddenly and violently. She pulled clear the holster flap and loosened her darter, engaged the lanyard that would keep the weapon tied to her even through spills and tumbles, moved on, laughing a little at herself, prowling through an embroidered garden. Dark feral figure, pale topaz eyes shifting, shifting, seeking, predator in Eden. She played with the idea but didn't lose her alertness even when she stepped into another sun-dappled glade and saw the fountain playing in the middle of it.

Water went up through a central pipe, rose a short distance beyond the pipe and fell in crystal showers into a cylindrical basin; the basin's wall stood knee-high covered with randomly shaped black and white tiles laid in a swirling abstract pattern; the outthrust lip was a solid black.

Cautiously she looked about her. The sky overhead was clear and cloudless, no sun visible. It felt more like late afternoon than morning, time would tell about that. Her throat felt like something with lots of quills had died there; the watermusic was cruelly lovely, enticing, but she didn't move. Nothing happened. She waited several breaths then moved a short way into the glade. There was neither dust nor moss on that shining tile. Hmm, who was the local char? Tongue between her teeth she frowned at the water, then she shrugged and walked to the fountain.

She touched the lip-tiles with a fingertip (little finger on her left hand, her least useful digit). No burn. Nothing jumped out at her. She straightened, touched that expendable finger to the falling water. Cool. Wet. Hah! of course wet. Touched her finger to her tongue. A hint of that wild green flavor that mountain water often had. She shrugged again. If it was poison, well, it'd be a quicker death than dessication.

After pulling off her boots, discarding toolbelt and backpack, with a joyful whoop she let herself fall back into the pool. A marvelous splash. Heavenly coolness. She pulled herself up so she could breathe, braced her head against the pipe, and lay languidly moving her hands in the crystalline water. After a moment she pushed away from the pipe, sat with her head tilted back so she could catch the falling water. She drank and drank until she was near foundering.

The clear blue of the sky acquired a faint violet tinge as she splashed happily about, stripping off her tunic and trousers, peeling off the filthy underpants and undershirt, scrubbing at them, getting the tough translucent cloth as clean as she could without soap. There was soap in her backpack but she was caught in the grip of an immense lethargy. She didn't want to get out of the basin. She tossed the underwear onto the grass beside the tunic and trousers and went back to paddling about in the water.

The darkening sky brought a cool wind with it and she started to shiver. Reluctantly she pulled herself out of the basin and stood dripping, her stomach cramping a little, the grass very soft under her bare feet. She wrung out her hair (short and straight, like a cat's fur), ran her fingers through it. Euphoria still bubbling in her blood, she kicked her clothing onto a dry patch of grass, stretched and laughed, danced wheeling about the glade, the exercise warming away the chills. She couldn't quite believe all this was true, but peeling off those underpants brought the realness close. She stopped dancing. So did hungerpains.

She dug a tube of hiprots out of her pack, about as tasty as eating rope, but adequate in providing energy and sustenance. After eating she got dressed again, feeling too vulnerable to stay naked though the underwear wasn't close to dry, then she curled up in what was left of the sunlight, intending only to doze a while as her head dried. But that lingering warmth was seductive and the drain from the stimtabs overwhelmed her and she plummeted into a heavy sleep.

DAY ONE ON THE FAR SIDE OF FANTASY.

Skeen woke stiff and sore with nausea threatening at the back of her throat. Creaky as an old board, she thought, and groaned up onto her feet. She hobbled to the fountain and eased down on the basin's lip. Blinking slowly she wiggled her toes, pushed her feet back and forth in the dew-wet grass. Here I am. Where's here? Good question. No good answers. She yawned, blinked some more. Where do I go from here? No answer to that either. Pick a direction. She lifted a foot, bent her leg, rested her ankle on her knee and scratched lazily at her instep and between her toes. She stopped thinking about much of anything and sat slumped, relaxed, soaking up the fine morning.

After luxuriating in laziness a while longer, she sighed and reached for her boots.

She moved through the mountains all morning, going up around down, up around down, until she was dizzy with it, eating more of the hiprots paste as she moved so she wouldn't have to stop or think about what she ate; she was heartily sick of the glop and about at the end of her ability to choke it down. Up around down, up around down, glimpses of quick brown movement across a meadow, uparounddown, raptors riding the thermals in lazy loops, uparounddown, a stream with fish in it, looked much like fish on any world she visited, circumstances dictating form here as elsewhere, uparounddown, Sessi, Yoech's lost love, whatever, native? What would natives be like?

Late that afternoon, the violet haze darkening the sky, she came around a curve on a mountain and looked out across waves of foothills at a broad valley that vanished into haze on the far horizon. A wide river lazed along the length of the valley, a smaller one joined it a short distance south of where she was standing, a walled city sat in the curve near where the rivers joined. Boats on both rivers, their sails brilliant patches of crimson, emerald and gold, spread like butterfly wings to catch the wind. The plain was a patchwork of fields, with groves, orchards, vineyards, pastures with grazing beasts of several sorts too far to identify, dirt roads, dust clouds kicked up by riders, wagons pulled by oxen, smaller puffs from walkers, a long packtrain. Definitely pre-industrial. That meant handwork; lots of artisans making objects that would be uniques once she got them to the other side of the Gate. Yoech knows his treasure, that's sure. Scattered about in the middle of the fields were large walled houses, little huts snugging against the walls. Intensive cultivation but people seemed fairly thin on the ground. The groves interested her, some of them out by themselves, actually in the middle of row-crops, some of them in clusters like freckles on the back of a hand. Two or three giant conifers amid thick stands of shorter, broader trees, occasional glades, perhaps where a conifer had died, been cut down, something. Placid scene. She wrinkled her nose and slipped her darter from the snap-flap holster, checked the charge and the paralevel, slipped it back, hesitated a moment before snapping down the flap, but did it because she didn't have anything immediate to worry about. A small shy rustle behind her. She chuckled. Unless a rabid mouse.