Carnivores of Light and Darkness (11 page)
Pustules and boils covered the heretofore smooth skin while the great mane of hair was in reality a compact herd of composting worms that writhed and twisted slowly around and through the stolid skull. A palpable fetidness that oozed from every pore made the herdsman glad he had not eaten since morning, and then very little. Yet for all the quiet horror of his revealed self, Corruption exhibited no excitement at his new guest’s realization, belched no bellow of putrefying triumph. He remained quiet and courteous. Ehomba found this only natural, patience being an important component of the nature of corruption.
“What do you want from us?” he inquired of their host.
Eyes that seethed like the sewage system of a great city turned to him, and maggots spilled from cracked lips. “What your friend said: for you to rot. Don’t feel singled out or put upon. It is what I want everything to do.” Around him, the hut moaned as the molecules of which it was made slowly collapsed.
“I am afraid I do not have time for it,” Ehomba responded. “I have an obligation to fulfill and responsibilities to others.”
Cackling laughter bubbled up from noisome depths and the rankness of the room pressed close around him. On his left, Simna turned his head away from their host and gagged. He did not throw up only because he had done so earlier. Repeatedly.
“You have no choice in the matter.” Corruption was insistent. “You are rotten. All men are rotten. So is the rest of the world. It is true that I am spread thin, so it is a particular pleasure when I can give personal attention to individuals. I must say that I admire your calm. You will make a fine and entertaining guest until your tongue rots in your mouth and your lungs begin to putrefy.”
“I think not.”
Reaching back over his shoulder, Ehomba unsheathed the sky-metal blade and drew it across the tendrils that were growing into his sandals, feet, and legs. Normal steel they would have resisted, but against an edge drawn from the absolute purity of space they had no resistance. Corruption’s dull eyes were incapable of registering surprise, but they focused more intently on the tall man who now straightened atop the pile of dung.
“Hey bruther, don’t forget me!” Simna ibn Sind struggled against his own fungal bonds. Bending over, Ehomba rapidly and efficiently cut him loose. The garrulous traveler rose gratefully and removed one of a pair of swords from a single scabbard slung across his back. Corruption looked on, unperturbed.
“Right now, that’s for you, you pile of shit!” As an opprobrium to Corruption, it was not very effective, but the apoplectic Simna was too excited and angry to hazard a more effective imprecation. Bringing his sword around and down in a swift arc, he swung at their host’s head.
The blade struck the neck and stuck there. Teeth clenched, Simna tried to pull it free, to no avail. As the two men looked on, rust bled from Corruption’s neck, crawling up the flat of the fine blade like water through a straw, turning the gleaming steel a dull red-brown right up to the bone haft. Bone and metal disintegrated simultaneously.
Taken aback but still full of fight, the emancipated traveler drew his second weapon and crouched warily. “Clever it is then, but I warn you: I’m not going to rot quietly.”
“Everything rots quietly.” Corruption placed the tips of moldering, sausagelike fingers together. “Whatever you do will only put off the inevitable.”
“That is true,” observed Ehomba.
Simna turned on him quickly, eyes a little wider, stance more tense than a moment before. “Hoy, what’s that? You agree with this perversion? Whose side are you on, anyway?”
“The side of life,” Ehomba assured him, “but that does not mean I cannot see things as others see them.” He met the putrid gaze of their host without flinching. “Even Corruption.”
“You are a man of the Earth.” The thickset figure was bloating before their eyes, swelling with gas and putrescence, threatening to explode all over them. “I will miss your company.”
“And I will not miss yours.” Reaching into a pocket of his kilt, Ehomba felt of the beach pebbles there. They were not all he had brought along to remind him of home. What he wanted, he remembered, was in his other pocket.
He came out with a handful of . . . dirt. Simna stared at it in disbelief. “What are you gonna do with that? Offer to plant some mushrooms? This is a helluva time to be thinking about gardening!” He clutched the handle of his blade tightly in both hands, knuckles whitening.
Eyes that had become pools of scummed-over sewer seepage focused on the handful. “Even small contributions to the state of decomposition are always welcome. But it will not buy you your freedom.”
“The Naumkib do not pay bribes.” So saying, Ehomba threw the dirt at their implacably malodorous host.
It struck where the ballooning chest had been—with no apparent effect. The crouching, poised Simna was openly contemptuous. “Well now, that was useful! What was that you were trying to do, force him to take a bath? It’s done nothing at all.”
The herdsman did not comment, just stood and watched as Corruption continued to swell. And swell, and swell, until he filled half the hut. Now it was Simna’s eyes that widened.
“I think—I think maybe we ought to get out of here and reflect on the situation from a distance, bruther.” He turned to run. Though curious, Ehomba recognized the sense of the other man’s aside and turned to join him. Within the room, the stench of rotten eggs had become overpowering.
They reached the door just as Corruption exploded, spewing every imaginable kind and variety of filth and muck in all directions. This mephitic fusillade struck them from behind as they threw themselves out the door and onto the porch. The discharge would have swallowed them up had not the wood of the porch been rotted through. It collapsed beneath their weight and they tumbled onto the heavily vegetated slope below. Decaying bushes broke under their fall, cushioning their descent. Healthy growths would have cut and torn at them. Corruption, Ehomba mused as he rolled to a halt, really did have its uses.
Simna was up and on his feet, sword in hand, with commendable speed. He stared up at the hut through the gap their bodies had made in the rotted porch. Very little was left of the building, most of the walls and all of the roof having been blown away by the explosion. What was left was encased in a coating of solid—well, corruption. Above them, nothing moved.
Breathing hard, Simna turned to look at his taller companion. Ehomba had picked himself up and was wiping distastefully at the mire with which he was covered. When he saw Simna staring at him, panting slowly and evenly, he smiled.
Simna grimaced huffily. “What in Gorath are you squinting at, traveler?”
“You are a mess.” Ehomba’s smile widened.
The other man looked down at his coat of exceptional filth. When his gaze rose again, he too was grinning. “S’truth, I am, aren’t I? And you—if you sought refuge in a pig sty, the hogs would throw you out and hold their noses while doing it!” He started to chuckle.
“I have no doubt,” Ehomba admitted.
The swordsman nodded upward. “That wasn’t dirt you threw at our late unlamented host, was it?” Eager curiosity burned in his expression. “It was some kind of magic grit, or powdered thrall. Are you a sorcerer?”
Ehomba shook his head dolefully. “I am only a herdsman, from the south.”
“Yeah, yeah, so you said. But what was that stuff?”
“Just as I explained: dirt.” Ehomba eyed the obliterated hut speculatively. “But it was clean dirt, free of corruption, from my home village. In a desert country, soil that is good enough to grow food in is revered. It is a precious thing, and looked after with care. For what is more magical than the ability to bring forth food from the bare earth?” He nodded up the slope. “I kept it with me as a remembrance of my home. It came from a small plot that my wife tended that had been many times blessed by Oura, the mother of Asab, our chief. She is a wise woman, and skilled in the ways of the earth. I did not think its purity would suit Corruption.”
“Suit him? By Girun, it gave him a damned bellyache, it did!” Simna started upward, fighting the slippery slope with renewed energy. “Now let’s get after it.”
“Get after it?” The herdsman frowned. “Get after what?”
“Why, his treasure, of course.” Simna eyed him as if he had suddenly gone daft. “Everyone knows that wherever Corruption lingers for very long there is treasure. There are all kinds of corruption, you know. Somewhere up there should be a hoard of riches amassed from the morally corrupt, from crooked magistrates and bent politicians and backdoor guards.”
Ehomba wanted nothing to do with any treasure that had been gathered by Corruption. But as always, his curiosity tugged at him more powerfully than common sense. “I thought you were traveling in search of inner peace?”
Using broken stems and branches to pull himself up the steep slope, Simna ibn Sind smirked back at him. “Gold pieces first, my friend. Inner peace later.”
“I do not agree with your priorities,” Ehomba grumbled as he followed behind.
The shorter man leaped slightly to grab a thick root protruding from the hillside. With the agility of a gibbon, he pulled himself up and continued ascending. “You saved my life, Etjole. So I’m not going to argue with you. But I give you fair warning right now: Whatever happens, don’t ever try to get between me and treasure.”
“I have no interest in treasure,” the herdsman replied softly.
“Hoy, right, that’s what they all say.”
But as he continued to climb, the compact swordsman was less sure of himself, just as he was less than certain of his quiet-voiced companion. An odd duck for sure, he thought. The concern did not linger. There was treasure to be unearthed and he was going to find it—even if it meant digging through untold layers of exploded, accumulated foulness.
XI
T
HEY FOUND NOTHING IN THE HUT
,
BUT THERE WAS A SLANTING
cave behind it that was high enough for a man to enter, if he bent slightly. Remarking that corruption burned well, Simna fashioned torches for them both and started in. Ehomba was content to follow. If anything, the stench in the enclosed tunnel was even worse than that without, but nothing could compare with the odor that had momentarily filled the air during the detonation of Corruption himself.
HEY FOUND NOTHING IN THE HUT
,
BUT THERE WAS A SLANTING
cave behind it that was high enough for a man to enter, if he bent slightly. Remarking that corruption burned well, Simna fashioned torches for them both and started in. Ehomba was content to follow. If anything, the stench in the enclosed tunnel was even worse than that without, but nothing could compare with the odor that had momentarily filled the air during the detonation of Corruption himself.
“Who told you there would be treasure here?” Ehomba kept his attention on the well-slimed floor instead of his eager companion.
“You hear things.” Simna kept flashing his torch from side to side to ensure nothing was overlooked. “Besides, doesn’t money always follow corruption?”
“I would not know,” the herdsman replied frankly. “There is none of it in my village, nor among my tribe.”
“‘Tribe,’” Simna muttered. “Hoy, that figures. You’re not exactly a sophisticate from the big city, are you, bruther?”
“Kora Keri is the biggest town I have ever seen, and that only recently.”
“Well, lemme tell you, Etjole—I can call you by your friendly name, can’t I?”
“You just did,” Ehomba pointed out pragmatically.
“Etjole, if there’s one thing I know, it’s corruption.” If it occurred to Simna that admitting to this body of knowledge might reflect less than favorably upon him personally he gave no sign that he realized it. “And believe me, money follows it the way a honey badger tracks bees.” His torch swept back and forth, the swinging flame leaving behind a wake of flickering light. “It’s got to be here somewhere. It’s got to!”
“Perhaps that is what you are looking for up ahead.” “What?” Simna had been gazing back at his companion. Now his attention shifted forward. Raising his torch as high as the tunnel would allow, he saw what he had hoped to find glittering back at him.
The gold was piled higher than a man, higher even than one as tall as the rangy herdsman. Coins, bracelets, rings, chokers, tiaras, bullion, slabbed bars, goblets, plates, and all manner of other devices lay in a single imposing heap, as if casually discarded during a trash pickup. Peering from the small mountain of gold like iridescent insects were jeweled earrings and buttons, rings and wristlets, and all manner of elaborately carved lapidary decorations.
Eyes wild as a mad kudu, Simna ibn Sind had prepared to take a flying leap onto the golden hillside when he felt a hand restraining him. Attempting to shake it off, he was startled by the strength of the grip. Tough and well built himself, he quickly became frustrated at his inability to loosen that unyielding grasp.
Cobalt blue eyes flashed at Ehomba. “What’s the idea, bruther? Let me go! Or are you going to stand there like a disapproving priest and tell me you have no love for gold yourself?”
“Actually, I do not,” Ehomba told him, quite honestly. “It is you I am concerned for.”
Licking his lips in anticipation, Simna’s gaze darted between his eccentric friend and the kingdom’s ransom that dominated the chamber. “Don’t worry about me. This will fix anything that’s wrong with me.”
“When I was young,” the herdsman went on, still keeping a firm grip on the other man, “I learned that many delicious-looking fruits are safe from grazing animals despite their enticing appearance because they contain one form or another of deadly poison.” He nodded at the hoard. “Here is the treasure of Corruption. Think a moment, my friend, on what we have just seen. Corruption corrupts everything it comes in contact with. The instant our eyes and minds cleared we saw that his house was corrupted, the furniture within was corrupted, everything that grew inside and nearby was corrupted. What makes you think this is any different? The fact that it is shiny?”
“C’mon, Etjole! This is gold, and jewels! Not plants or wood.”
“It is the provenance of Corruption.”
“Let go of me.” The swordsman struggled furiously in the other man’s grasp. Eventually, one flailing hand encountered the knife sheathed at his waist. “Let me go or by Gwetour . . . !”
Ehomba released him. Simna staggered a moment before regaining his balance. “Take it if you will, then,” the herdsman said, “but do me one favor first. Pick only one piece, one coin, and examine it closely before you hurl yourself upon the rest.”
Simna squinted at the tall southerner. “That’ll shut you up?”
Ehomba nodded, just once. “That will shut me up.”
“More than worth it, then.” Pivoting, the slim swordsman bent and chose a coin from the bottom edge of the pile. It was a fine coin, lustrous as the day it was minted, with the silhouette of some obscure emperor stamped on one side and an obelisk surrounded by cryptic symbols on the other. Simna turned it over and over between his fingers, flipped it into the air, and caught it with the insouciance of an experienced juggler.
“There! Satisfied?”
“Let me see.” Ehomba leaned forward and the other man held the golden disk out for him to inspect. “Yes, it is a large coin, and based on what little I know about such things, real gold.”
“Of course it is!” Simna did nothing to try to hide his contempt and impatience. “What else did you expect?”
“I was not sure. Something like what is happening to your hand, I think.”
“Something . . . ?” The swordsman blinked and looked down at the coin in his palm. “What are you babbling about?”
“Beneath the coin. See?”
Simna squinted, and then his eyes widened. With a yelp as if he had been stung by a hornet, he flung the coin away from him with a spasmodic twitch of his arm. Holding his wrist, he gaped open-mouthed at his hand.
A neat hole the exact diameter of the coin had appeared in the flesh. The edges of the quarter-inch-deep wound were black and festering. White pus oozed from the center and a mephitic miasma arose from the rotting meat. It was a stink with which both men were by now all too familiar.
“Ghontoh!” Simna exclaimed. Still tightly clutching his wrist, he started to tremble as he looked back over his shoulder at the gleaming, beckoning golden hillock. “If I’d gone and jumped onto that, buried myself in it like I wanted to . . .” He left the rest of the thought unvoiced even as he tried to expel the synchronal vision from his mind.
Ehomba had slid his pack off his back and was rummaging through it. When he rose from the inspection, he had a small piece of sealed bamboo in one hand.
“Here,” he said gently, “let me see it.”
Shakily, the swordsman held out his ulcerated palm. The herdsman examined it thoughtfully for a moment, then unsealed the bamboo. Pushing a finger inside, he smeared it thoroughly with the milky sap the container held and proceeded to rub this across the injured man’s open palm. After repeating the treatment several times until the wound was thoroughly invested with the sap, he resealed the bamboo vial and replaced it in his pack.
“Give me your other arm,” he directed Simna. The swordsman obeyed without question. Ehomba promptly tore a long, winding strip from the sleeve of the other man’s shirt.
“Hoy, that’s Bakhari silk! Do you know what that costs in a Thalussian marketplace?”
Ehomba eyed him darkly. “Which is more important to you, Simna—your shirt, or your hand?” Wordlessly, he began to bandage the circular lesion with the silken strip. The swordsman did not comment further.
Satisfied, Ehomba stepped back and examined his handiwork. “The dressing should be changed every three days. If you keep the wound clean, it should be healed in a week or two.”
“A hole like that? Are you crazy? Even if that goo you smeared on it is worth anything, it’ll take at least a month for the flesh to replace itself.”
“Oura is mistress of many unguents and salves. I have seen her reduced sap from the leaves of the kokerboom tree save a child from a mamba bite.” He offered the other man a thin smile. “Of course, if you think you can do better, you are welcome to do so. Perhaps immersing it in gold bullion would be more to your liking.”
“I never met a herdsman with a sense of humor,” Simna grumbled. His tone changed quickly. “That’s the second time you’ve saved my life. How am I ever supposed to repay you?”
With a shrug, Ehomba turned. He was more than ready to leave the tunnel. He had been ready to leave before he had entered it. “I know that had our situations been reversed, you would have done as much for me.”
“Oh, sure, hoy, absolutely.” The swordsman nodded too vigorously. “I would’ve done so without a thought, bruther!” Holding his torch in his good hand, he followed Ehomba as they started out of the stench-filled cavity. “I guess you’re not as green as you look. For a start, I expect you know more about certain kinds of corruption than me. Organic corruption, anyway. Meself, I’m more conversant with the societal variety. I just didn’t think there’d be that much difference between the two. Urban corruption wouldn’t have rotted a hole in my hand.”
Ehomba glanced back at him, only half his face visible in the enveloping darkness. “Perhaps not, but presented with such a circumstance I would have a worry for my soul.”
Simna trailed behind in silence for a while before venturing to inquire uncertainly, “Are you sure you’re just a herdsman?”
“Cattle and sheep, with the occasional moa,” Ehomba assured him. “I miss them even as we speak.”
“Hoy, well, better you than me, bruther. Meself, I prefer the companions of my days and nights slimmer, smoother, and better smelling. Watch your step,” he added solicitously. “Remember that big rock that sticks out of the floor near the entrance.”
They emerged into sunlight that, mist-shrouded and dimmed as it was, seemed brighter than any either man had ever encountered before. Without a word, Ehomba turned to his right and began to make his way along the flank of the mountain, keeping to the open spaces in the rain forest while heading north.
“Hoy, wait a minute!” Surprised by the abruptness of the other man’s departure, Simna ibn Sind hurried to catch up to him. “Where are you going?”
Without slowing or looking back at the swordsman, who continued to pace him, Ehomba replied succinctly, “North.”
“North?” Simna echoed. “That’s it? Just ‘north’? North to where? North for what?” Somewhere nearby a flock of very large and throaty birds trilled in chorus like a carillon of silver bells.
“Just north.” The herdsman stepped over a root that hugged the ground like a petrified snake. “You would not believe my purpose if I told it to you.”
Licking his lips, Simna pressed close on the other man’s heels. “Okay, okay, look—I’ll tell you what I was really doing here, and then you tell me, okay? We’ll each tell the other the truth.” He eyed the tall herdsman eagerly. When no response was forthcoming to his offer, he added enthusiastically, “I’ll go first.
“You say that you’re going north? Well, I was heading south. Way south. Further south than a sensible man might be expected to want to go.” He took a deep breath, framing his imminent revelation. “I’m looking for Damura-sese.”
Surrounded by steep jungle, Ehomba halted and peered over at the swordsman. “That is too bad. I happen to be from the south, and as a southerner I can tell you that there is no such place as Damura-sese. All that exists of it is the name. I have heard about it all my life, and I can tell you with complete confidence that no such place exists on the face of this Earth.”
Simna’s expression turned sly. “Ah, but that’s what they all say. I figure it’s because anyone who knows anything about the place wants to keep it a secret until they can mount an expedition to find it for themselves.” He slammed his closed fist against his chest. “Well, I’m an expedition! I’m going to find it, and all the riches the old legends say it holds, and buy myself a khanate or a kingdom. And then when the norics who’ve been hounding my heart come looking for me, I’ll send a battalion of my household cavalry to harry them into the nearest river.”
Ehomba listened to all this in silence. “Better to secure yourself an honest and stable position with some noble courtier, or learn a distinguished trade. You might even consider farming.” His eyes seemed to change focus, to see far off into the mist-murky distance. “There is much to be said for working in close contact with the earth.”
“You keep close to it.” Simna tersely jerked a thumb back the way they had come. “Didn’t you get close enough to the earth back there?”
“That was not the earth, but its dross.” Again he looked over at his companion. “I tell you there is no Damura-sese, Simna ibn Sind. There are only stories that mothers use to amuse their children and see them off to sleep. That too is a sort of magic, but not the kind you seek. If you think you will make your fortune by finding it, you might as well try to market your dreams.”
“Don’t try to talk me out of it, because you can’t.” The swordsman pushed through a line of leafy branches, keeping a careful eye out for stinging insects as he bashed his way through. “Okay, now I’ve done my part and told you of my intentions. Now it’s your turn. And since I’ve been pretty forthcoming, I think you owe me more in the way of detail than ‘I’m going north.’”
Ehomba sighed heavily. Good-natured though he might be, the swordsman was tenacious as a leech. Clearly he was not going to let the matter rest until he heard something that would satisfy him. So the herdsman explained his purpose, and his intentions, in making his way northward, eventually to take ship to the unknown west.
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