Jack Vance - Gaean Reach 01 (16 page)

Moffamides drew a deep breath and looked from face to face. His eyes were glazed; the pupils had constricted, perhaps under the influence of Kurgech’s drug.

Kurgech asked: “Do you see your friends?”

“Yes, they are here.”

“Of course! You are now one with your friends, and you want to help them in everything they do. The old ways were bad; your friends want to learn about the old ways so that you can rest at ease. There are no secrets among friends. What is your cult name?”

“Inver Elgol.”

“And your private name, known only to yourself, which knowledge you now want to provide your friends?”

“Totulis Amedio Falle.”

“How pleasant to share secrets with friends. It eases the soul. Where did Poliamides take the Outker?”

“To the Place of Rose-and-Gold.”

“Ah, indeed! And what is this ‘Place of Rose-and-Gold’?”

“It is where the erjins are trained.”

“It must be an interesting place to visit. Where is it?”

“At Al Fador in the mountains west of Depot No. 2.”

“And this is where Poliamides took the Outker Uther Madduc?”

“Yes.”

“Is there danger there?”

“Yes, much danger.”

“How could we go and be safe?”

“We could not go safely to Al Fador.”

“Uther Madduc and Poliamides went to Al Fador and returned safely. Could we not do the same?”

“They saw Al Fador but made no close approach.”

“We will do the same, if it is still safe to do so. How shall we steer?”

“Southwest, hard on the wind.”

The land-yawl careened across the sarai. Moffamides sat hunched in a corner of the cockpit, apathetic, morose, silent. Elvo watched him in fascination. What went on in the priest’s mind? Elvo attempted conversation to no avail; Moffamides merely stared at him.

Five days the yawl sailed, from dawn until dark, and later yet when the sarai lay flat and the stars provided guidance for the helmsman. The two trails were crossed; the yawl sailed a region to the north of the hill where they had made their first camp, then entered a hot and dreary tract where dust lay on the soum and lifted under the wheels as they passed. The Volwodes came into view: a far shadow across the south which became a cluster of steel-gray crags high against the sky.

Elvo was now as apathetic as Moffamides. He had lost all interest in the enslavement of the erjins, which at any rate could most expeditiously be attacked from the forums of Olanje. Only a day’s run to the south lay No. 2 Depot but he dared not suggest any truncation of the journey. As always, he found Gerd Jemasze’s moods impenetrable. As for Kurgech, Elvo had reverted to his earlier opinions. The man was cunning and wise, competent in his own milieu, which was not necessarily the environment where Elvo himself cared to excel. All things considered, he would be pleased to return to Olanje. Schaine Madduc? A girl delicious to look at, with a head full of charming notions: by now she also must be bored with Uaia and might well choose to accompany him back to Szintarre.

If he survived the visit to Al Fador…Elvo examined Moffamides, wondering as to his mental condition. Hypnotic suggestion, so he had been given to understand, could not be relied upon to persist. A clever ill-intentioned man like Moffamides might feign subservience, the more effectively to work an act of treachery. He voiced none of his suspicions to Jemasze or Kurgech who presumably knew as much about the matter as he did.

The Volwodes reached high into the pink-blue sky: barren crags marked with black thorn-bush and a few stunted sere-trees. When the yawl halted for the night, an erjin came to watch from a distance of about fifty yards. It slowly raised its massive arms and extended its talons to attack position; the ruff at its neck began to bristle. Jemasze brought forth his gun, but the erjin suddenly abandoned its aggressive posture. Its ruff subsided and after watching another minute it trotted off to the west.

“Curious conduct,” mused Jemasze. Through his binoculars he watched the creature lope away. Elvo turned to find Moffamides staring after the erjin, and his posture was not that of a man dazed and subservient.

A few minutes later Elvo voiced his apprehensions to Gerd Jemasze.

“So far he’s still under control,” said Jemasze. “Kurgech has tested him. What may happen I don’t know. If he wants to live he won’t betray us.”

“What of erjins? Won’t they attack us tonight?”

“Erjins don’t see well in the dark. They’re not likely to attack by night.”

Elvo nevertheless went to his bed in a state of uneasiness. Far into the night he lay awake listening to the sounds of the sarai: a low moaning from the direction of the foothills which presently faded into silence; a chittering close at hand; an angry whirring at various pitches; from far away a throbbing gong-like sound so exquisite that something strange rose up within Elvo’s mind to terrify him. Kurgech had tied a steel cord from Moffamides’ ankle to his own, then had rubbed it with a dry rag until it squeaked and set Elvo’s nerves on edge; whether for this reason or from the effect of the crazy-box, Moffamides lay inert the whole of the night.

Elvo awoke to find dawn-light burning the upper crags of the Volwodes.

Breakfast was brief and meager. Moffamides seemed more glum than ever and sat to the edge of the deck staring north, away from the mountains.

Jemasze went to squat beside him. “How far now to the training area?”

Moffamides looked up with a start, and the expressions of his face underwent a set of quicksilver changes: from abstraction to surly contempt, to affability and candor, to something swift and wild, like desperation. Elvo, watching, suspected that Kurgech’s suggestions had ceased to exert an absolute influence over Moffamides.

Jemasze patiently repeated his question. Moffamides rose to his feet and pointed. “It lies somewhere beyond that ridge, toward the grim Volwodes. I have never been there. I can guide you no further.”

Kurgech spoke in a mild voice: “I notice tracks yonder: perhaps they were laid by Uther Madduc.”

Jemasze asked Moffamides, “Is this the case?”

“I suppose it is possible.”

Hard on a breeze from the west, the yawl followed the tracks presumably laid by Uther Madduc’s skimmer. A second set of tracks joined those which guided them, to Elvo’s mystification. “It looks as if Uther Madduc had been followed!”

“More probably they are the tracks of Uther Madduc coming and Uther Madduc going,” said Jemasze.

“I suppose you’re right.”

Below a bluff of red and gray sandstone Uther Madduc’s trail came to an end. Jemasze dropped the sails and secured the brakes. Moffamides climbed laboriously to the ground and stood with shoulders hunched. “You need me no more,” said Moffamides. “I have done my best for you; I will now take my leave.”

“Here?” asked Jemasze. “In the wilderness? How will you survive?”

“I can reach the Depot in three or four days. There is food and water to be had along the way.”

“What of the erjins? They infest the region.”

“I fear no erjins; I am a priest of Ahariszeio.”

Kurgech came forward and touched Moffamides on the shoulder; Moffamides leaned away quivering but seemed unable to detach himself. Kurgech said: “Totulis Amedio Falle, you may now forget your worries; you are with your friends whom you wish to help and protect.”

The priest’s head jerked back; his eyes took on a flinty glaze. “You are my friends,” he declared without conviction. “This I know; hence, by corollary, I would grieve to see your corpses. So I must state that even now an erjin prince watches you. He has been talking to my mind; he wonders if he should attack.”

“Tell him no,” said Kurgech. “Explain that we are your friends.”

“Yes, I have already done so, although my thoughts are somewhat confused.”

Jemasze asked, “Where is the erjin?”

“He stands among the rocks.”

“Invite him to come forth,” said Jemasze. “I prefer erjins in full view to those skulking among the rocks.”

“He is fearful of your guns.”

“We will do him no harm if he restrains his own hostility.”

Moffamides looked toward the rocks, and the erjin came forward: a magnificent creature as large as any Jemasze had ever seen; mustard-yellow on chest and belly, brown-black on back and legs. A russet ruff, starting between the ridges of cartilage shielding the optical processes, hung down across the bone-plated shoulders. It approached without haste, apparently neither fearful nor hostile, and halted at a distance of fifty feet.

Moffamides spoke to Jemasze: “It wants to know why we are here, instead of elsewhere.”

“Explain that we are travelers from the Alouan, interested in the scenery.”

Facing the erjin, Moffamides flourished his arms and uttered a set of hissing vocables. The erjin stood immobile except for a jerking of its ruff.

Kurgech instructed the priest: “Inquire the easiest route to the training station.”

Moffamides performed new flourishes and uttered another set of sounds. The erjin responded as a man might, by turning and raising one of its massive arms, to indicate the southwest.

“Ask how far,” said Jemasze.

Moffamides put the question; the erjin responded with a set of soft sibilants. “No great distance,” said Moffamides. “Two hours more or less.”

Jemasze looked skeptically sidewise at the erjin. “Why is it here to meet us?”

Kurgech interposed a gentle remark: “Perhaps our friend Moffamides sent a mind-message ahead.”

Moffamides said weakly: “Sheer chance, undoubtedly.”

“Does it plan to attack us?”

“I can declare nothing with assurance.”

Jemasze grunted. “I have never before seen a wild erjin so mild.”

“The Volwode erjin is different from the wild erjin of the Alouan,” said Moffamides. “It is a different race, so to speak.”

Kurgech walked off in the direction the erjin had indicated and scrutinized the ground. He called back to Jemasze: “The trail is here.”

Jemasze looked at the yawl, then glanced at Elvo, who divined that Jemasze was about to require that he remain to guard the vehicle. Jemasze however turned to Moffamides. “We need a fiap to guard the wagon: of better quality than you provided before.”

“The vehicle is safe,” said Moffamides bluffly, “unless a band of Srenki pass by, which is hardly likely.”

“Nevertheless, I would prefer to hang a strong fiap on the yawl.”

With poor grace Moffamides took bangles and ribbons from the previous fiaps and contrived a new device. “It lacks magic; it is only an admonitory fiap but it will serve adequately.”

The four men set forth up a barren gully, with Kurgech leading the way. Moffamides walked second, then Elvo, and Gerd Jemasze brought up the rear. The erjin followed at a discreet distance.

The way became steep; the gully caught and reflected the sun’s pink heat; when the group reached the ridge they stood panting and sweating. The erjin came up to join them, standing so close to Elvo that his skin prickled. From the corner of his eye he glanced along the creature’s arm, with its curious black talons and the finger-like palps sprouting from the base of the talons. With a single quick motion, thought Elvo, the erjin could rip him to ribbons. Elvo gingerly sidled two or three steps away. He asked Moffamides: “Why is this creature so different from the Alouan erjins?”

Moffamides showed no interest in the subject. “There is no great difference.”

“I notice considerable difference,” said Elvo. “This creature is docile. Has it been tamed or trained?”

Moffamides put a question to the erjin, then replied to Elvo: “Kurgech is what it calls the ‘ancient enemy’ who displays a ‘green soul’ and hence the erjin’s kill-fury*<> is not aroused. You and Gerd Jemasze are Outkers, and inconsequential.”

Jemasze asked: “So why does it follow us?”

Moffamides replied in a dispirited voice: “It has nothing better to do; perhaps it intends to be of help.”

Jemasze gave a snort of skepticism and studied the landscape through binoculars, while Kurgech cast about the wind-scoured barrens for the trail of Uther Madduc, without immediate success.

The erjin moved forward past Elvo to attract the attention of Moffamides; a half-telepathic colloquy ensued. Moffamides called to Jemasze: “It says Uther Madduc crossed the plateau and traversed that middle ridge.”

The erjin loped across the flat and stood waiting; when the men failed to respond briskly, it made urgent signals.

Kurgech went to investigate; the others followed more slowly. Kurgech scanned the seared rubble and somewhere saw signs to reassure him. “This is the trail.”

The erjin led the way up a tumble of granite boulders, jumping from surface to surface without effort. At the ridge it paused and seemed almost to strike a conscious pose.

The men reached the ridge and again halted to rest. Beyond, a slope supporting a sparse growth of brown scutch and wire-weed descended to the lip of a great gorge. The erjin started off again, on a long slantwise course, across a field of loose pebbles.

Elvo marveled at the trust Jemasze and Kurgech allowed the creature, which must by any sane reckoning be considered baleful. He put a tentative question to Jemasze: “Where do you think it’s taking us?”

“Along Uther Madduc’s trail.”

“Aren’t you suspicious of its good intentions? Suppose it’s taking us on a wild goose chase?”

“Kurgech isn’t worried. He’s the tracker.”

Elvo went to walk beside Kurgech. “Is this the way Uther Madduc came?”

Kurgech signified assent.

“How can you be sure? These rocks don’t take tracks.”

“The trail is evident. Notice: there a pebble has been disturbed. It shows a side which is not sunburned. See there: the web of dust has been broken. The erjin leads us accurately.”

For a period the course led down-slope; then, where a gully seemed to afford a route to the bottom of the gorge, the erjin veered away. Kurgech stopped short. Jemasze asked: “What’s the trouble?”

“Madduc and Poliamides went down that gully. The trail does not go where he wants to lead us.”