Snare (72 page)

Jezro turned his hands palm up. ‘Inshallah.’

The sorrel gelding seemed resigned to its fate, this time, and gave Zayn no trouble as the carts trundled and clacked through the tunnels. He could give his full attention to thwarting his memory. If he studied both the territory and the ChaMeech – or the Chof, as he reminded himself – and memorized every detail he learned,
then perhaps his accursed mind would be too busy in the present to keep taking him back to the past. He forced himself to memorize the shape of the carts, to organize his muddled information about the tunnels. Since he’d ridden back west after leaving the khan and Warkannan, he was retracing part of the route they’d all taken, but now he could notice details that had escaped him when panic had filled his mind.

At times they passed the mouths of what seemed to be cross-tunnels, though in the darkness he couldn’t even estimate how far they ran. He kept track of the air quality and noticed that it freshened considerably whenever they approached one of these openings. At other times they passed Vransic messages, moulded directly into the flexstone. None of them made much sense, and they might have been construction marks. They took the general form of a letter followed by a number or some directional word, such as ‘A27 Up’, nothing evocative, but he memorized them as possible clues to a general plan.

Soon, though, the tunnels stopped holding his interest. He wished he could hear what the Chof were saying; he would have liked to have learned their language, assuming of course that his throat and mouth could make the full set of their sounds. Now and then the males called out in a high enough register for him to hear their thrumming, which seemed to be patterned like speech. Maybe they were relaying messages to other Chof farther up the line, or perhaps warning Water Woman’s rivals to stay away. At other times, he could see their throat sacs inflate, then empty in puffs and bursts that seemed to measure out words and phrases.

Water Woman confirmed Zayn’s guess when they stopped at sunset to rest and eat. They climbed out of the tunnel to find themselves back beside the N’Dosha road. Not far away a pair of pillars gleamed in the red-stained light.

‘I’ve been here before,’ Zayn told Ammadin. ‘This is where Warkannan got his bright idea, and I played sick.’

Before Ammadin could answer, Water Woman came hurrying up, waving her pseudo-arms in excitement. When she first began to speak, Zayn could barely hear her, but she glanced his way and saw his confusion.

‘I speak-now in high voice,’ Water Woman did so. ‘You hear not hear, Zayn?’

‘I can hear you, yes,’ Zayn said. ‘Thank you.’

‘Friends tell-now me that Great Mother come-soon-next to meet us. We have need-not travel in hills. She bring-now her spear males, her servants, her people all of them, they come-soon to curse-stone station.’

‘Where’s that?’ Ammadin said.

‘At end of secret road tunnels. Where Zayn friends be-now.’ Water Woman glanced Zayn’s way. ‘So, you see-soon them. See-tomorrow most likely.’

‘Good,’ Zayn said. ‘How do you say thank you in your own language? Could I learn how?’

‘I see-not why not. Watch.’

Water Woman lowered her head and swung her pseudo-arms behind her. At the same time, she let out a hissing sound. When Zayn imitated her, she stamped a forefoot.

‘Very good,’ she said. ‘We make-soon you into real Chur.’

‘Well, I’d really like to learn your language, but I don’t think I can. I can’t hear any of your men.’

‘Ah. You be-not a witchman.’

‘No, I’m a Recaller.’ The moment he spoke Zayn wondered why he’d used the word, but Water Woman seemed to understand.

‘Very good,’ she said. ‘We find you Chiri Van or Chur An, because you have power to hear a squeaky young voice, and you learnsoon.’

In that moment Zayn realized two disparate things. The Chof language was heavily gendered; and he was no longer afraid. He also realized that while other men would consider the lack of fear the more important of the two, to him they held equal weight.

Just at sunset, the little lavender female brought Warkannan and Jezro greasy rounds of cracker bread and chunks of fatty meat on sticks. They picked at the meat for a few minutes, then handed it through the window to the grateful guards. Wiping their hands on their trousers, they came back to their chess game and sat down.

‘I get the general impression,’ Jezro said, ‘that the ChaMeech fry everything in old grease.’

‘At least it wasn’t raw,’ Warkannan said. ‘And there’s the bread. They must have learned how to grow wheatian from the settlers out here.’

‘Sounds likely, yes. Hmm, I wonder if we’ll end up deep fried or just tossed with a little oil in a shallow pan?’

‘You’ve learned too much about cooking lately, haven’t you?’

‘Living in the Cantons will do that to you. We might as well get back to playing chess. Only the Lord knows what recipe will mark our passing.’

They were just finishing the second game when they heard some sort of commotion beyond the door.

‘Sounds like our gracious hosts,’ Jezro remarked. ‘Let’s see what’s up. Maybe the banquet guests have arrived.’

‘I wish you’d stop talking about cannibalism,’ Warkannan said.

‘It isn’t cannibalism. They’re a different species. So if they eat us, at least they won’t be breaking any moral laws.’

‘How very reassuring.’

‘I thought moral questions mattered to you.’

‘Not when they concern what someone’s going to do with my corpse.’

From the windows they saw the lavender female standing in the midst of some twenty armed males, who were also carrying an assortment of sacks and bundles tied to their wide backs. The female, unburdened, was leading the horses. Warkannan watched her throat inflate and her lips move; sure enough, the door slid open.

‘Out,’ she said. ‘Ride.’ She pointed to their scatter of gear on the floor. ‘Bring.’

By the time they got everything into their saddlebags and bedrolls, and their horses saddled and bridled, the sun hung low in the sky. Warkannan took one last look around their temporary quarters and noticed a piece of rushi lying in a corner.

‘Leave it,’ Jezro whispered in Kazraki.

Warkannan could guess that it would indicate their presence, should anyone come looking for them. ‘Very well, young lady. We’re ready.’

‘Good,’ the ChaMeech said. ‘Ride.’

‘Where are we going?’ Jezro said. ‘If you don’t mind telling us, of course.’

She stamped a foot in amusement. ‘Lastunnabrilchiri next.’

‘Is that a place?’

‘No. It be her, big power woman. I be-only messenger.’

‘A power woman? You mean a leader of some sort?’

She turned away without answering and pointed to the horses.

They mounted up and rode out at a walk, surrounded by ChaMeech warriors, spears at the ready. With their long shadows leading the way, they headed east, but once they reached the cliffs, the lavender female turned north. She raised her pseudo-arms and boomed a signal to the males, who turned to follow, menacing the two H’mai with their spears to ensure they did the same.

The level ground of the valley gave way to a trail that threaded its way through tan boulders and broken, rust-coloured pillars, tumbled this way and that on the ground. Some long time past they must have eroded free of the cliff and fallen, most likely in an earthquake. Above them loomed the cliffs, gashed with fissures and pitted with caves, the slits and punctures so black with shadows in the sunset light that they looked like writing in some alien script. Along the rim stood tall striped pillars and piles of rock, carved by wind and water until they looked like sentries turned to stone by evil magic.

Up close Warkannan could at last grasp the scale of the hills. They stood a good thousand feet at the high points and stretched north and south as far as he could see. It was going to be impossible to take the horses up their jagged sides. He considered trying to tell this to the female, but she strode along fast and steadily at the head of the line.

Night had fallen by the time she turned east again, leading her men into a long narrow cul-de-sac between two slab-sided cliffs. Once the last ChaMeech had entered, she thrummed for the halt. Everyone rested while she rummaged through a pair of sacks tied to a male’s back and brought out lightwands, two for her, one for Jezro. By their light Warkannan could see their destination, a series of broad switchbacks much like the ones in the Rift, cut deep into the living rock.

Ahead, Jezro turned in the saddle to call back to him. ‘This road has to be Settlers’ work.’

‘Oh, definitely,’ Warkannan said. ‘I just hope it’s in better shape than the cliffs are.’

Riding at night on a road that hugs a steep cliff is not the most pleasant of experiences, even with lightwands for guidance. Jezro, riding directly ahead of Warkannan, let his dangle from his hand, pointing down to illuminate the trail on a setting low enough to avoid blinding those coming after. At the front of the line, the
little female turned the pair she carried to high. She tended to keep hers aimed uselessly at the cliff face above, except for the times when she’d turn and send the beams straight back. No doubt she was making sure that her hostages hadn’t escaped, but by blinding everyone she very nearly killed the pair of them and some of her men as well. Every time, the males would boom at a high pitch, and Jezro would yell and swear, but she paid attention to none of them, apparently, since in another few minutes she’d do it again.

Just as the galaxy was rising, they reached a cave mouth, such a perfect half-circle that only Settler tools could have cut it out of the living rock. With the wave of one pseudo-arm and a chirp of ‘careful, careful!’ the female navigated a tricky corner and led her expedition inside. They found themselves in a domed room whose walls and floor were as smooth and level as those underground but constructed of a pale grey substance that lacked the slickness of flexstone. On the opposite side, a tunnel ran into the cliff farther than the light from the wands could follow. Near the entrance, arcs of grey metal loomed, far taller than a ChaMeech, and beside them on the ground lay huge gears, half-covered with dirt but still in places gleaming white.

By then the horses were tiring, but when Jezro called to the little female, she ignored him. By shouting and swearing loudly enough Jezro and Warkannan did manage to stop the males behind them. The pause allowed them to dismount and sling their saddlebags over their own shoulders to spare the horses their weight. Up ahead the little female suddenly thrummed in alarm. The males behind them gestured with their spears, and the two H’mai started walking, leading their horses and hurrying to catch up. In only a few yards the khan began limping badly, despite his walking stick.

‘Jezro!’ Warkannan called. ‘Let me take those saddlebags for you.’

‘No. You’re as tired as I am.’

Stubborn bastard! Warkannan thought. Arguing would be useless, but he could feel rather than hear one of the males behind him booming. He must have been speaking to the female about Jezro’s bad leg, because she called a halt, then came trotting back along the line, swinging her lightwands into everyone’s cursing faces. She considered Jezro for a moment, then filled her throat
sac and – as far as Warkannan could tell – began giving orders. One of the males first haunched, then bent his front legs and knelt.

‘Sit,’ the female said, pointing to the khan. ‘Ride.’

‘Daccor,’ Jezro said. ‘I’m tired enough to take you up on that.’

Jezro handed Warkannan the reins of his horse, then studied the ChaMeech’s ample back. Once he found some sort of seat among the sacks and bundles, the male lumbered to his feet, and their strange caravan travelled on. The tunnel was leading them north-east, as closely as Warkannan could reckon, but he soon lost track of distances. He only knew that he was stumbling weary from walking on rock and determined not to show it.

After some hours the view ahead brightened. Dawn was breaking, and the tunnel suddenly debouched onto a long slope down. Loose gravel marked a path, but to either side maroon shrubs and brushy red grasses covered the hill. As the light turned silver, Warkannan could see what lay at the bottom of the gentle slope. A vast uneven plateau stretched north and south beyond the limits of his sight. To the east, however, the mesa seemed to drop away after a few miles. Beyond, at the eastern horizon, mountains rose, capped with white, shadowy in the dawn haze.

Up at the head of the line, the lavender female waved, pointed, and called back. ‘Not long now! Water here soon.’

They made their way down the gravelled slope to the flat, where scrub plants gave way to lush purple grass on a plain dotted with boulders and broken rock. Water gleamed in a precisely straight canal, running west to east across the plateau. At first Warkannan thought the water filthy and spoiled, because it appeared black; then he realized that the canal had been lined with aggregate, pebbles bound together by some black material. After everyone had drunk their fill, the lavender female trotted up to them. ‘See.’ She pointed straight east. ‘Village. We go-now.’ About half a mile away stood irregular domes of grey and reddish brown. From his distance Warkannan thought them boulders, but as they came closer, he realized that they were structures made out of sticks, rushes, and vines, about twenty of them arranged in a rough circle.

Once they reached the village, Warkannan could get a good look at them. They were about forty feet in diameter, roughly so thanks to their irregular shapes. The builders had stuffed the cracks
between their various components with leaves and dead grass, which hung loose by the handful where they weren’t plastered over with a strange greyish substance – either paint or mud, Warkannan wasn’t sure which. As they passed the domes, heading for another canal, other ChaMeech came hurrying out to take a look at them. Their throat sacs pulsed, and their lips moved in seeming silence – everyone’s talking at once, Warkannan thought. We’re the latest nine days’ wonder around here.

Yet no one followed them as they left the village behind. Down near the canal stood one last dome, about half the size of those in the village. When they reached it, the female called for the halt. She walked back to Warkannan and Jezro, then pointed at the door.