A Triumph of Souls (29 page)

“What is this Skawpane?” Ehomba asked.

The demon sniggered at some private joke. “Only decent place in the Blasted Lands. There’s other flyspecks claim to be, but
Skawpane’s the only real town.” Oculi that reflected righteously hellish origins stared into the herdsman’s. “Go there if
you dare. If you seek water that’s unboiled and nonpoisonous, that’s the only place you might find it. I guarantee you one
thing.” It nodded knowingly.
“You and your familiars will be a novelty. Don’t get many mortals in Skawpane.”

With that, the apparition tipped its hat politely, set it neatly back over the protruding horns, and ambled off down a side
gully. In its wake the stink of masticated sulfur and burning brimstone corrupted the air, and boot-prints fused the sand
where they had trod into dungy glass.

Smiling pallidly, Simna was quick to offer a suggestion. “If we ration our remaining water carefully, we might well make it
to the base of the mountains.”

Ehomba considered. “That is what I wanted to believe. But I think now that I was allowing my common sense to be swept aside
by optimism and hope. Hunkapa Aub in particular needs a lot of water.” He sighed. “We must make our way to this Skawpane and
refill our water bags there.”

The swordsman was reluctant to concede the point. “How about we just let our common sense be swept, and hope that we find
a spring as soon as we strike the foothills?”

Ehomba pursed his lips disapprovingly. “You are more afraid of what we may encounter in this town than you are of dying of
thirst?”

Simna jerked a thumb toward the gully where the prospecting demon had disappeared. “If that thing was representative of the
general citizenry of this particular metropolis, then my answer is yes.”

It did not matter. He was outvoted. Having followed Etjole Ehomba this far, neither Hunkapa Aub nor the black litah was about
to dispute his judgment. That was because both of them were dumb animals, Simna knew,
though he was loath to point it out. Grumbling, he hoisted his pack and water bags and followed along.

Maybe he was worrying needlessly, he told himself. Maybe the demon had been having a little fun at their expense. Skawpane
might prove to be a quaint, if isolated, little oasis of a community, its dusty streets shaded by palm trees, its inhabitants
serene and content with their lot. Believing this, wanting to believe it, he marched along beside his tall companion with
a renewed feeling of confidence. Even if he was wrong and his hopes were to prove unrealized, how bad could it be? A town
was a town, with all the familiar urban baggage that implied.

When they finally reached the municipal outskirts, he saw that he was only partially correct. Skawpane was a community, all
right.

But it was no oasis.

D
o we have to go in there?” Simna stood atop the smooth-surfaced, rounded boulder of yellow-white sandstone looking across
the flat, hardscrabble plain that separated the travelers from the first outlying structures.

Ehomba did not squint as he contemplated their imminent destination. He was used to the sun. “Unless you want to chance running
out of water before we reach the mountains. I have seen men who tried to reach the coast of Naumkib from the interior but
ran out of water before they found a stream or village. Even those who had not yet been located by scavengers were unpleasant
to look upon.”

“A fine choice,” the swordsman grumbled. Resigned, he started down the gentle slope. “Hoy, maybe they’ll have cold beer.”

After a last, speculative glance, Ehomba followed and caught up to him. “Do you really believe that?”

“No,” Simna confessed, “but here lately I find that I prefer refreshing delusions to the reality of our actual surroundings.”

Skawpane turned out to be less appalling from a distance. From the disgusting state of the dirt streets that ran with dull
green putrescence to the sewer grates designed to carry off flash floods of mucus, the act of merely walking quickly degenerated
into a detestable activity. No edifice rose to a height of more than three stories, perhaps because of the lack of suitable
building materials. Storefronts were fashioned of skin tanned to woody toughness by the repeated application of hot blood
and salt water. The origin of these skins was a question the travelers by mutual unspoken consent decided not to ask.

Sidewalks rose a foot or more above the abominable streets. Instead of wooden slats, their planks were fashioned of split
bones with the rounded side facing downward. Larger bones such as scapulae had been made into gleaming white shutters that
flanked windows of thinly stretched corneas. Occasionally a poorly fashioned pane would blink desperately, reflecting its
organic origin.

There were tall, narrow chimneys made of interlocking vertebrae, though what a home or shop would need with a chimney and
fireplace in such a hellish climate Ehomba could not imagine. Troughs of liquid sulfur stood outside several of the establishments.
Standing patiently at their hitching rails and nuzzling the noxious, toxic brew they contained were a diversity of infernal
steeds. The herdsman saw desiccated horses whose pointed ribs protruded from their sides and whose lower incisors pierced
their upper jaws like the tusks of bastard babirusas. All had prominent, protuberant eyes that shone with the madness that
resided within.

Nor were they the only mounts secured or occasionally spiked to the railings. One storefront they passed had a
pair of enormous, hirsute hogs roped to a trough at which they rooted ferociously. When these glanced up to espy the travelers,
they strove hard to break their bonds. In so doing they exposed mouthfuls of long, sharp teeth that seemed to belong to some
other animal. The saddles fastened to their backs were small and narrow, with disproportionately high pommels. What their
riders looked like the visitors could only imagine.

Across the street three elephantine orange-green slugs lay melting in the sun. Their glutinous bodies renewed themselves as
they liquefied and they emitted an odor so foul that it rose above all the other myriad stinks that afflicted the noisome
concourse. In place of saddles they wore simple handgrips that were buried deep within the slimy flesh itself. Once more,
their riders were thankfully conspicuous by their absence.

That did not mean that the streets were devoid of denizens. While Skawpane would never pass for a bustling metropolis, neither
was it a ghost town—though ghosts shared the streets and fronting establishments with the rest of their fellow citizens. In
addition to reddish demons who might have been related to the prospector they had encountered out in the layered hills, there
were demonic folk of every stripe and color. Some were dressed in styles that would have been considered shocking in cities
as far apart as Lybondai or Askaskos, but which in their current surroundings seemed perfectly appropriate. Others were content
with plainer attire.

The population was a mélange of all that was disturbing and horrific, a veritable melting pot of the diabolical. Besides demons
and ghosts there were less familiar phantasms, from towering, spindly brown creatures with
bulging pop eyes to winged horrors boasting circular mouths that covered their entire black faces. The crows that haunted
the tops of buildings and pecked at offal in the streets had membranous wings like bats, and sickly toothed beaks that looked
fragile enough to crumble at a touch. A flower-crowned, tentacled horror lazing in a rocking chair made of human bones tracked
their progress down this boulevard of horrors with organs that were not eyes. Next to where its feet would have been if it
had had feet, a dog-sized lump of multilegged one-eyed phlegm lifted its rostrum and sniveled threateningly.

Wherever they went and whatever they passed, they attracted attention. Exactly as the prospector had predicted, the arrival
of mortals in town was cause for comment. When a tubby yellow blob whose midsection was lined with gaping multiple mouths
came bumbling off the sidewalk toward them with self-evident mayhem on whatever it possessed for a mind and both Ehomba and
Simna drew swords and proceeded to cut it to pieces, none of the fiendish onlookers voiced a warning or raised an objection.
In fact, several evinced what appeared to be evidence of macabre amusement. A few interested horrors that had been considering
participating in the anticipated butchery changed their minds at this exhibition of formidable resistance on the part of the
visiting quartet.

“I need to stop and clean myself.” Repeatedly licking one forepaw, the black litah applied it to his eyes and snout. “I don’t
think I’ve ever felt so filthy.”

“It is not the street here that makes one feel unclean.” Striding along, the always curious Ehomba tried to identify the composition
of the slimed, slaglike substance beneath his sandals. “It is the atmosphere.”

“Hunkapa no like,” declared the hairy mass that lumbered along in his wake.

“We agree on something.” Holding his sword like a long gray flag of warning, Simna put all the confidence and cockiness he
could muster into his stride. At the first sign of weakness here, he suspected, the four of them would go down beneath a horde
of horrors, torn apart for a midday snack—and that was if they were lucky. It was vital to maintain an appearance of invincibility.

In this Ehomba was of no help. Ever since they had entered the town, the soft-voiced herdsman had altered nothing. His expression,
his posture, the loose, casual manner in which he held his spear: all were unchanged. Whether this seeming indifference was
perceived by the ghastly inhabitants of Skawpane as an invitation to feast or supreme confidence in powers they could not
descry remained to be seen.

At least they were not immune to the effects of a well-honed blade, skillfully wielded, the swordsman reflected. He gripped
his sword a little tighter.

“Hoy, bruther, where’s the water you promised us?”

“Promised?” Ehomba glanced down at his friend. “If you would put food in my mouth with as much ease as you do words, I would
never grow hungry again.” Simna might think him detached, but his cool dark eyes missed nothing. “We need to ask someone.”

“Don’t you mean some
thing?
” The swordsman skipped agilely to one side as a crow soaring past overhead relieved itself. The dark red dropping sizzled
where it struck the moist, mephitic street.

“I wonder why someone—or some
thing
—chose to put a town here, in the worst place imaginable?” Ehomba mused
as they walked on. The buildings were moving slightly apart as the street widened. They were coming to some kind of central
square or plaza.

Simna’s retort was tense and edgy. “Maybe it’s a summer resort, where the residents can come to escape the heat of their customary
surroundings. Who knows what monstrosities like these consider attractive in the way of climate or countryside?”

“For one thing, we like it beautifully barren and destitute, visitor. To most of us this is splendid country.”

Thus hailed, they halted. The figure that had spoken had paused in its stroll down the osseous promenade. It was a lizard,
but while both Ehomba and Simna were familiar with the four-legged reptiles from their respective travels and homelands, neither
man had ever encountered a lizard like the one they confronted now.

Standing on its severely bowed hind legs, the reptile was a good three feet tall. It wore a military-style cap, maroon vest
with gold stripes, long, tattered brown pants, and no shoes. Stretching another three feet behind it, a brown-and-green tail
whipped nervously back and forth as it spoke. Completing the unexpected costume were a pair of pince-nez glasses that rode
comfortably halfway down its snout.

Inclining its head slightly downward so it could peer out over these at the visitors, the lizard tut-tutted softly. “I declare,
you lot are the most peculiar collection I’ve seen in some time. If you don’t like it here, I suggest you move on.”

“That is exactly what we are planning to do,” Ehomba responded politely. “Just as soon as we are able to top off our water
supply.”

“So it’s water you want, is it? In Skawpane.” The head bobbed rapidly up and down. “Interesting. We don’t get many calls for
water here. Sulfur now, or antimony, or cinnabar; those the general store stocks in bulk. But water—your options are mighty
restricted.” Slitted eyes blinked as they stared up the street. “So’s your time.”

“Why?” In the face of danger, it was typical for Simna’s tone to turn belligerent. “Don’t the locals like company? Who are
you, anyway?”

“I’m the town monitor. As for my fellow citizens, they’re an intemperate lot at best. Never know how the individual members
of such a mixed bunch are likely to react in any given situation. There’s folks here who’d like to talk to you, some who might
invite you in for a game of cards or bowls, but most would probably prefer just to tear you limb from limb.”

“Hungry?” Hunkapa Aub asked.

The lizard nodded. “Or just surly. Or wanting the exercise. Even established locals have to watch their step. The fiends among
us are no respecters of residency. Skawpane’s a popular place among the damned and doomed.”

“Which are you?” Hunkapa inquired innocently.

“The downtrodden. In fact, things have been so bad hereabouts lately that I’m thinking of taking off for open country. You
get tired of looking over your shoulder every minute. Trying to make a living in the midst of unrelenting demoniac anarchy
takes a toll on one’s health.”

Holding firmly to his spear, Ehomba watched as a pair of blue demons with four legs and long, warty snouts crossed the street
in front of them. They were trailed by three magnificently ugly but well-dressed miniature versions of themselves. Much to
their parents’ satisfaction, the young
demons fought continuously among themselves. Darting in and among the impish offspring was a small, yapping bundle of thorns
that had feet but no legs. Or head.

“You said that our options were restricted. That implies that options exist. What are ours?”