A Triumph of Souls (32 page)

Or else, the more cynical among Skawpane’s citizens mused, they were controlled by idiocy on a cosmic scale.
Shouldering his pack, grateful for the weight of cool water against his spine, Simna glanced often back the way they had come
as they left the last of Skawpane’s twisted, warped buildings and equally skewed inhabitants behind.

* * *

“What do you think, bruther? When they get over their fear of your chilling little demonstration, will they come after us?”

Ehomba turned to have a look. Already the ominous outlines of the town were receding, swallowed up by intervening boulders
and cliffs. Soon it would recede permanently into memory and nightmare.

“I doubt it, Simna. Many who sprang from the slaughterhouse to beset us died. Those who merely suffered a touch of cold are
probably counting themselves fortunate. Behind all those oozing fangs and sharp-edged suckers there must lie intelligence
of a sort.”

“Hoy,” the swordsman agreed, “and they can probably imagine what you’d do to them if they tried to give chase.” He clapped
his rangy friend on the back.

“I do not know that I would, or could, do anything.” The herdsman protested mildly. “Really, if any of them came after us
I think I would have to try and run away. I am very tired, my friend. You cannot imagine how these exertions drain me. To
use the swords or the gifts in my backpack is difficult. I am not trained in the ways of the necromantic arts as are old Likulu
or Maumuno Kaudom.”

“I know, I know.” Hearing only what he wanted to hear, the swordsman grinned broadly. “You’re just a rank amateur, a babe
in the brush, a hopeless simpleton when it comes to matters of magic. So you’ve told me all along. Well, fine. Let it be that
way, since you continue to insist
it is so. I am satisfied with the consequences of your actions, if not the feeble explanations you offer for them.”

Ehomba took umbrage as much at his companion’s tone as his words. “I did not say that I was any of those things.”

Despite the heat, Simna was enjoying himself. “But you still insist you are no sorcerer.”

The herdsman drew himself up. “I am Naumkib. So I am neither a ‘hopeless simpleton’ nor a ‘babe in the brush.’”

“Okay, okay.” Simna chuckled softly. “Peace on you, bruther. You know, I wouldn’t taunt you so much if you didn’t take everything
I said so literally.”

The herdsman’s gaze rose to fix on the high peaks of the Curridgian Range. They were markedly closer now. On the other side,
he knew, lay Ehl-Larimar and the opportunity, at last, to fulfill his obligation. Those snowy crests held the promise of home.

Home, he thought. How much had Daki and Nelecha grown? Would they remember him as their father, or only as a distant, shimmering
figure from their past? Many months had passed since he had made his farewells and set off northward up the coast. He fingered
the cord from which had hung the carved figurine of old Fhastal, smiling to himself at the memory of her cackling laugh and
coarse but encouraging comments.

He could turn for home even now, he mused. Forget this folly of abducted visionesses and possessed warlocks, of suspicious
aristocrats and moribund noblemen. Put aside what, after all, were only words exchanged on a beach in a moment of compassion,
and return to his beloved village and family.

Break a promise given to a dying man.

Lengthening his stride, Ehomba inhaled deeply. Other
men might do such a thing, but he could not conceive of it. To do so would be to deny himself, to abjure what made him Naumkib.
Even if his companions decided today, or tomorrow, or before the gates of this Hymneth’s house, to turn about and return to
their own homes, he knew that he would go on. Because he had to. Because it was all bound up inside him with what he was.
Because he had given his word.

Mirhanja had understood. She hadn’t liked it, but she had understood. That was understandable. She was Naumkib. He wondered
if the children did, or if they even missed their father.

Immediately behind lay hesitant horror. Immediately ahead lay—nothing. The ground was as flat as a bad argument, white with
splotches of brown and pale red. Scorching heat caused distant objects to waver and ripple like the surface of a pond. Compared
to the terrain that stretched out before them, the rocky gulches and boulder-strewn slopes they had crossed to reach Skawpane
were a vision of rain-forest paradise.

Nothing broke the bleached, sterile surface in front of them: not a weed, not a bush, not a blade of errant grass. There was
only flat, granular whiteness.

It was a dry lake, he was confident. A salt pan where nothing could live. There would be no game, no seeds or berries to gather,
no moist and flavorful mushrooms crouched invitingly beneath shading logs. And most important of all, no water. At present
they were well supplied, loaded down with the precious liquid. But the hulking Hunkapa Aub and the massive black litah needed
far more water each day than any human. Despite their renewed supplies, he knew he would be able to relax only
when they were safely across the blasted flats and in the foothills where springs or small streams might be found.

As for food, unless the mountains that towered skyward on the other side of the dry lake bed were closer than they appeared,
both he and his companions could look forward in the coming days to dropping a considerable amount of weight. Hopefully, he
reflected, that was all they would have to sacrifice.

W
hat an awful place!” His stride measurably reduced, Simna ibn Sind struggled to keep pace with his long-legged companion.
Nearby, the black litah padded silently onward, head drooping low, long black tongue lolling over the left side of its lower
jaw like a piece of overlooked meat.

“Hunkapa not like.” Though the big hulk was suffering visibly beneath his thick coat of silver-gray hair, he plodded along
determinedly, his head hung down and his arms almost dragging the ground.

Ehomba was in better shape than any of them, but took no credit for it. He was used to spending long days standing out in
the merciless sun, watching over the village herds. Now he squinted at the sky. They had awakened early from the day-sleep
and had been marching for more than two hours westward into the advancing evening.

“Take heart. The sun will be down soon.” He nodded toward the mountains. They loomed massively before the weary travelers,
but the foothills still lay more than a day’s hike distant. Or rather, a night’s. To avoid the worst of the
heat, they had opted to sleep during the day and trek after dark. “It will grow cooler, and walking will become easier.”

“Hoy, you mean it will become less hot.” The swordsman wiped perspiration from his brow and neck. “Not in any way, shape,
or form does the word ‘cool’ apply to this place.”

In the course of their travels they had encountered many strange life-forms surviving in equally strange environments. From
the blizzard-cocooned crests of mountains to the high dunes of the desert, from swamps shallow and deep to the vast open reaches
of the Semordria itself, there had always been life, be it nothing more than a limpet or a leaf. Until now, until this tormented,
perfectly flat plain of desiccated salts. There was not even, a panting Ahlitah pointed out, a warm worm to tickle a cat’s
taste buds.

With the onset of evening the heat fell, but not as fast as the sun. Even after dark, parching temperatures persisted. Mentally,
walking was easier without the brilliant bright bloodshot eye of the sun staring you ruthlessly in the face. Physically, it
was only a little less difficult.

Their meals, such as they were, had been necessarily skewed by their topsy-turvy schedule. Supper became breakfast, lunch
a midnight snack, and breakfast, supper. Not that it mattered. Their stores were limited in quantity and consequently offered
little in the way of variety. What one ate was often the same, meal after meal. Such victuals kept them alive, but their bellies
were not entertained.

At least the moon was on their side, Ehomba reflected as they trudged along. Nearly full, bright as stibnite crystals and
almost as hard of aspect, it allowed them to stride forth with some idea not only of where they were going, but also of what
lay in their immediate path. By its providential
brightness obviating the need for torches, it allowed them to advance with a modicum of comfort.

By midnight the air had cooled sufficiently to raise their spirits. Water was still in plentiful supply. In light of the other
hardships they were enduring, Ehomba had not had the heart to propose rationing. When he finally did venture to broach the
subject, he was shouted down by all three of his companions. They might not have much else, but at least they could drink
their fill. Furthermore, the more they drank, the less weight they had to carry. And as Ahlitah pointed out, he was confident
he would be able to smell water as soon as they reached the mountains. It might not seem like much, but even the herdsman
had to admit that a long, cool drink compensated for much of what they did not have.

Resuming the march rejuvenated and refreshed but acutely conscious of the ominous presence of the sun lurking just over the
eastern horizon, they entered an area of the salt pan that was not flat. Merged as it was with its identically tinted surroundings,
it was not surprising they had missed seeing it from a distance. Though equally devoid of food or water, it at least gave
them something new to look at and comment upon.

Towers of salt rose around them, not numerous enough to impede their progress but sufficient to alter it from time to time.
Worn by the wind and the occasional infrequent storm, they had been weathered into a fantastic array of shapes. Amusing themselves
by assigning names to the formations, the travelers competed to see who could identify the most outrageous or exceptional.

Pointing sharply to a column of whitened, translucent halite that had been undercut by the wind, Hunkapa Aub
conveyed childlike excitement in his voice. “See that, see there! An ape bowing to us, acknowledging our passage.”

Simna cast a critical eye on the structure. “Looks more like a pile of rubbish to me.”

“No, no!” Moving close and nearly knocking the swordsman down in the process, Hunkapa jabbed a thick, hirsute finger in the
column’s direction. “It an ape. See—the eye is there, those are the hands, down at the bottom are the—”

“Ask it if it can show us a shortcut out of here,” Simna grunted. Nodding to his left, he singled out a ridge of distorted,
eroded salt crystals. “Now that looks like something. The jade wall of the Grand Norin’s palace, complete with open gates
and war turrets.” He gestured with a hand. “If you squint a little you can even see the floating gardens that front the palace
over by…”

But Hunkapa Aub was not listening. Elated by one discovery of the imagination after another, he was prancing from the nearest
formation to the next, gleefully assigning a name to each and every one as proudly as if his fanciful appellations were destined
to appear on some future gilded traveler’s map of the territory. Ehomba looked on tolerantly. Of them all, their hulking companion
was suffering the most from the heat. Simna obviously thought the brute was making a fool of himself, but Ehomba knew that
no one is a fool who can find humor in desolation.

He found himself playing the naming game. It was irresistible, the first harmless diversion they had enjoyed in many days.
Not only was it gently amusing, especially when made-up names for the same formation were compared side by side, but it helped
greatly to pass an otherwise disagreeable time. He and Simna wordlessly agreed
to compete to find the most suitable cognomen for certain structures. The game was left to them in any case, since the black
litah found it repetitive and Hunkapa Aub was quite lost, happily adrift on a sea of a thousand multitudinous namings of his
own.

“That column there,” the swordsman was saying, “see how it sparkles and dances in the moonlight?” He singled out a formation
spotted with many small crystals of gypsum. “I once knew a dancer like that. She would glue pearls and precious gems all over
herself. Then when at the end of her dance she removed the last of her veils it was revealed that the jewels were glued not
to the fabric of her costume but to her naked skin, and that all along they had only been glistening through the sheer material
she had been wearing.” He turned to his companion. “What does it look like to you?”

“I would not think of disputing such a deeply felt description.” The herdsman stepped over a series of inch-high rills that
ran across the surface in a straight line. Deposited eons ago by water action, they looked fragile, but were in fact hard
as rock and sharp enough to slice open a man’s flesh where it lay exposed between the protective straps of his sandals.

“Over there I see a fisherman’s hut by the ocean,” he declared. “Not the ocean below my village, but another ocean.”

“How can you see a difference?” Simna squinted in the indicated direction.

“Because this sea is calm. It is rarely calm beneath my village. There are always waves, even on clear, windless days. And
no Naumkib would build a fishing hut so close
to the water. Too much effort for too little reward, as the first storm would wash it away.”

“I see the sea,” the swordsman admitted, “and the hut, but what makes it a fishing hut?”

Ehomba pointed. “Those long blades of crystal salt there near the bottom. Those are the fisherman’s poles, set aside while
he rests within.”

“I could use a rest myself, and something to eat that isn’t dried and preserved.” The swordsman turned slightly in the direction
of the formation and wandered away for a moment before rejoining the others on their chosen course. In response to the herdsman’s
slightly stern, questioning look, he shrugged diffidently. “Hoy, I know it’s made of salt—but it doesn’t hurt to dream for
a few seconds.”

“That’s a sentiment I’ll confess to sharing.” Ahlitah had come up behind them. As usual, so silent was his approach that even
the reactive Ehomba was unaware of his presence until he spoke. With his head, the big cat nodded leftward. “For example,
over that way I can see a large herd of saiga standing one behind the other, fat and plump and slow of foot, just waiting
to be run down and disemboweled.”