Norton, Andre - Chapbook 04 (2 page)

"It
is true!"
 
There was a sharp note in
the man's voice as if
Rentam
had openly questioned
that fact.

"
Lonscraft
lies awaiting us."

"That
is a death place,"
Rentam
replied evenly.

"He
who rashly adventures into one of those gathers to him an ill for which there
is no treatment.
 
His skin rots upon his
body, pain wrings him to death.
 
There is
nothing worth such a death ... all the
Betweeners
know that."

Modic
laughed, "Guide, you and your kind have been content to
exist for years on the border of this demon-haunted land with no reason for it.
Every illness runs its course and then disappears.

Have
you not heard of the burning fever which may strike out of nowhere for a season
and then be utterly gone ... or the Great Cough which has devastated whole
cities, such as
Quaadad
, yet men may, live there in comfort
now.
 
There is no death which lingers
forever ... especially in a desert city where there is naught to feed its
hunger.
 
Long ago
Lonscraft
must have been deserted even by demons.
 
Yet there still lies within its walls secrets...."
 
The fingers of his hand clenched over the map
as if he would pluck what he wished from the surface.

"Riches
beyond richness.
 
Guide think on
it!"

Riches,
of course, were what had drawn this Seeker and his following of ragged men
(who, nevertheless, carried well-kept arms) into the desert. How many such maps
had been shown briefly to the
Betweeners
in the generations
since they had begun their very cautious ventures into the parched land?
 
Rentam
knew that it
was not in the inner walls of
Lonscraft
which he
himself feared, but perhaps the fact that he knew too much now.
 
He guessed that
Modic
,
on the threshold of what he thought an exciting and profitable discovery, would
not parade and plume himself before his rag-tag crew.
 
No, but he might talk freely before one who
was destined never to come out of the Forgotten land. That sword which the
Seeker held so tightly would put an end to any chance of another's
betrayal.
 
Not that
Rentam
would fare better than any one of the men clinging to the shadows about them,
seeking for some small answer to the burning of the sun.
 
Murder was the practical move for
Modic
, and the
Betweener
already
accepted the drastic end before him.

The
Seeker would use him (in spite of that map) to follow the ancient way.... He
might even test the authenticity of legends by dispatching
Rentam
alone into the midst of a dead city perhaps as bait to spring a trap.

One
slight figure, cloaked against the heat, stood alone here.

However,
the death blow had not yet been openly delivered.

Though
every breath
Rentam
drew brought him closer to that
time of challenge.

Warnings
known to his own kind worked in him.
 
With those a small spark of excitement flashed into life, turning his
thoughts in another direction.
 
If this
Modic
was right and he could win through to return with
such knowledge for his own clan ... I Their own perilous situation

might
cease to be.
 
There were other
"cities" each reported to the Seeker..
 
. and the information was shared with two
other villages within a three days' walking.
 
No longer would they have to point these arrogant and cruel Seekers to
the Dry Land, instead they would venture inward for their own loot and trade
their findings openly at the
Mus
-fair, year's
end.
 
As long as
Modic
made no outward attack
Rentam
would serve his own
people, forcing into his memory a picture of here in relation to the hill
point.
 
However he must also watch for a
chance of escape.
 
It would indeed be
strange ... even without belief... that one of the guides could be tracked and
captured traveling a country he knew well.
 
Though he had kept his advance with
Modic
to a
shambling trot which matched the pace of the bone rack of a horse ... he could summon
the speed of his far, far kin, tailed and going four footed here. Let him but
get
Modic
thoroughly interested in something other than
himself..
 
. say, a forgotten treasure
house .. . and
Rentam
could slip away before anyone
here could use lance or sword.
 
The one
thing he had to fear (bow bolts) was lacking among the troops.

He
must play a perilous game.
 
His thought,
as well as his body, was intentionally slow.

"You
seek a great treasure?"
 
he asked,
apparently taking no interest in the Seeker's hand upon the sword hilt.

Modic
showed his yellow stained teeth in a wider grin.

"Treasure?
 
Yes, but not perhaps quite as you and those
..."
 
he gestured to his men with
his chin, "would so see it."
 
Then he snapped his jaws shut and scowled at
Rentam
and the others with narrow measurement, as if, of a sudden he regretted the
revelation of even so little.

"You
are a guide."
 
He changed the
subject abruptly.

"Let
us now see that vaunted power of such talent beyond the boundaries.

Get
me to
Lonscraft
or within sight of it before that sun
is gone.

He
gave a quick glance over his shoulder as if to measure where in the sky the
light-giving ball now rode.

"There
are many cities .. ."
 
Rentam
said quietly.

"It
can well be that this trail," once more he patted the sand about that
pocket in which lay the traces of the very ancient way, "could lead
somewhere else than
Lonscraft
."

There
came a sharp bark of laughter from the other.

"No,
it is here!"
 
He had picked up his
bit of engraved metal and thrust it back into hiding.

"I
have been long at this game, Guide, but not so long as to become weary and make
such an error.
 
Ten times over have I
come across the Between lands... and more times than that have I listened to
the tales told at
Mus
-fair.
 
First, that hillock which you have found for
us is

pointing
to
Lonscraft
."

Rentam
blinked, he had indeed believed that the Seeker was an old hand
at the game of invading the
uninvadable
.
 
But what could keep one of a sane mind so
long at searching?
 
It was true that the
hill behind them was relatively unknown.
 
He, himself, had chanced upon it only last

season...
it had been his first addition to the clan lore.
 
However there were signs of others who
visited there .. . horse dung dried into powder where the wind rolled it here
and there, some scrapes on one of the upstanding stones which were too regular
to be of natural fashioning and which
Modic
had
studied with care as long as there was light enough to see both last night and
again early this morning. Messages?

The
clan no longer wrote such notes.
 
He
would report again what he had seen so that mention was made of it in the
training of the young.
 
Who needed
scratches set on rocks when he could summon into memory ... full and vivid as
any picture ... what he had seen over
Modic's
hunched

shoulder?

The
Seeker made no protest against
Rentam's
watching.

Though
when one of his own men came near he had lashed out at him with a barbed tongue
and an order which was to be obeyed.

Another
reason for
Rentam
to nourish his own belief that to
find
Lonscraft
would mean his death.
 
In fact he had wondered why that had not yet
come.
 
Modic
had his road well ready to follow.

What
more did he want from
Rentam
?

The
Seeker swung around to give a hoarse, rallying cry which brought up the heads
of his men, summoned their attention.
 
He
loped towards them at a curious one-sided, limping walk which was his pace when
dismounted, meeting them part way.
 
His
own mount stood head hanging as others were saddled and made ready to ride.

Modic
still bestrode the poorest of the lot,
Rentam
noted, his eyes more than half shaded by wrinkled, greenish lids.
 
Why such a choice, and why was
Modic
waving his men on that straight line which was the work
of the ancients?
 
Why would
Modic
share a treasure find with those

ragged
and brutish riders at all?
 
Rentam
did not doubt in the least that
Modic
could have found some other track for them to follow.
 
Yet he stood there, watching them ride on, as
Rentam
rose to his feet behind him.
 
They were indeed swinging into the trail
Modic
indicated.

One,
at least, had wit enough to be suspicious.
 
He called out something in one of the complicated river languages,
reining back his horse, his closest comrades drawing in about him.

"Na
... Na ..."
 
Modic
raised bare hands in a gesture meant to reassure, following his denial with a
stream of speech, each word gliding close to the one before it so that
Rentam
could not begin to pick out the few he knew .. .
except one "treasure" ... perhaps that was akin in meaning in every
speech, because it was a universal cry to action.
 
Though for a moment or two it looked as if
this one rider was not easily convinced, though those who had gathered about
him fell into eager talk with much gesturing of hands and licking of lips.
 
At length he, too, grunted, the bush of
filthy hair on his cheeks and chin stretching as he made a spitting motion into
the sand.
 
Though it was plain he had no
excess liquid to so void.

Modic
lingered, fussing with his horse's gear as if making sure all
was in good order... in the mean time giving quick glances at the men riding,
two together, down that defile which marked the road.
 
As the last one passed another dune some
distance away, he spoke again to

Rentam
.

"What
is the threat which keeps you and your kind from such places open for
looting?
 
I have seen pieces of ancient
metal, gems, and even bits of carvings offered for sale.
 
Yet upon the asking they will always say that
such was found in some miserable small ruin.

Have
you never tried for
Pospfer
or
Wejn
or perhaps
Slasta
?"

Rentam
hoped he controlled his surprise well.
 
Why did this Seeker mark down the three worst
cities of the old tales, places where in lay death in waiting?