“No, wait. Wait just a second.” Bending anxiously over the chanting intoxicant, Simna grabbed one unwashed hand and tugged firmly. “Come on, Knucker. You’ve got to get up. We’re leaving.”
Watery eyes tried to focus on the swordsman’s. “Your father abandoned your mother when you were nine. You have no sisters or brothers and you have always held this against your mother, who died six years ago. You have one false tooth.” Raising his head from the floor, the little man turned to grin at the silent, stolid Ehomba. “There are 1,865,466,345,993,429 grains of sand on the beach directly below your village. That’s to the waterline with the tide in. Tomorrow it will be different.” Letting go of the dirty hand, Simna straightened slowly.
“The axis of the universe is tilted fourteen point three-seven degrees to the plane of its ecliptic. Matter has twenty-eight basic component parts, which cannot be further subdivided. A horkle is a grank. Three pretty women in a room together suck up more energy than they give off.” He began to giggle softly. “Why a bee when it stings? If you mix sugar cane and roses with the right seeds, you get raspberries that smell as good as they taste. King Ephour of Noul-ud-Sheraym will die at eight-twenty in the evening of a moa bone stuck in his throat. I know everything.”
A grim-faced Simna was watching Ehomba carefully. Finally the herdsman bent low over the prone body and forestalled the little man’s litany of answers with an actual question.
“Tell me one thing, Knucker.”
“One thing?” The giggling grew louder, until it turned into a cough. “I’ll tell you anything!”
Eyes that could pick out a potential herd predator lurking at a great distance bored into the other man’s. “Can you stop drinking whenever you want to?”
Several choking coughs brought up the answer. “Yes. Whenever I want to.”
Ehomba straightened. “That is what I needed to know.” Without another word, he stepped around the querulous Simna and started for the door. With a last glance down at the giggling, coughing Knucker, the swordsman hurried to catch up to his friend.
“Ahlitah and Hunkapa will be growing anxious. We will pick up my pack and leave this place.” As they reached the open entrance to the inn, Ehomba nodded in the direction of the still dusky horizon. “With luck and effort we will put good distance between ourselves and Netherbrae before its citizens connect Hunkapa’s disappearance with our departure.”
A troubled Simna kept looking back in the direction of the tavern. “But he answered your question! You said yourself that he told you what he needed to know.”
“That is so.” Exiting the inn, they started down the entryway steps. “You were right all along, Simna ibn Sind. When he is drunk he believes that he knows everything. And it is true that when he is drunk he knows a great deal. Perhaps more than anyone else who has ever lived. But he does not know everything.” Exiting the building, they turned rightward and strode briskly toward the stables. “His answer to my question proves that there is at least one thing he does not know.”
Anxiously watching the shadows for signs of early-rising Netherbraeans, the swordsman wondered aloud, “What’s that, bruther?”
Ehomba’s tone never varied. “Himself.”
XIX
S
imna quickly recovered from the shock of hearing their new companion hold up his end of a conversation, albeit with a severely limited vocabulary. As Ehomba had hoped, they succeeded in putting many miles between themselves and the picture-perfect village of Netherbrae before the sun began to show over the surrounding treetops. Exhausted from what had become a predawn run, they settled down in the shade of a towering gingko tree. Even Ahlitah was tired from having not only to hurry, but also to spend much of the time scrambling uphill.
While his companions rested down and had something to eat, Ehomba stood looking back the way they had come. It was impossible to see very far in the dense deciduous forest, so closely packed were the big trees, but as near as was able to tell, there was no sign of pursuit from Netherbrae. Nor could he hear any rustling of leaf litter or the breaking of more than the occasional branch.
“How’s it look, bruther?” Simna ibn Sind glanced up from his unappetizing but nourishing breakfast of dried meat and fruit.
“Nothing. No noise, either. And the forest creatures are chattering and chirping normally. That says to me that nothing is disturbing their morning activities, as would be the case if there was even a small party of pursuers nearby.” He turned back to his friends. “Perhaps they do not think Hunkapa worth pursuing.”
“Or too dangerous,” Simna suggested. “Or maybe there’s a convenient proscription in the teachings of Tragg against hunting down and trying to recapture a prisoner who’s already escaped.” After gulping from his water bag, he splashed a little on his face. In these high mountains, with sparkling streams all around, there was no need to conserve. “There’s just one problem.”
“What is that?” Ehomba asked patiently.
The swordsman gestured toward the lofty peaks that broke the northern horizon. “Knucker was our guide. How the Garamam are we going to find our way through to this Hamacassar? Without a guide we could wander around in these forests and mountains for years.”
Ehomba did not appear to be overly concerned. “Knucker needs to find himself before he goes looking for someplace like Hamacassar. Easier to find a city than oneself.” He nodded at the beckoning peaks. “All we have to do is continue on a northward track and eventually we will come out of these mountains. Then we can ask directions of local people to the city.”
“That’s all well and good, bruther. But scrambling over a couple of snow-capped peaks takes a lot more time than walking along a well-known trail. We could try following a river, but first we have to find one that flows northward instead of south, and then hope it doesn’t turn away to west or east, or loop back on itself. A guide would probably cut weeks or months off our walking and save us from having to negotiate some rough country.” He stoppered his water bag. “I’ve been lost in mountains like these before and, let me tell you, I’d rather take a whipping from a dozen amazons.”
“You would rather take a whipping from a dozen amazons even if you were not lost,” the herdsman retorted. “All we can do is do our best. Between the two of us I am confident we will not find ourselves wandering about aimlessly for very long.”
“Hunkapa see Hamacassar.”
“What’s that?” Startled, Simna looked up from the last of his dried biscuit. Ehomba too had turned to stare at the newest member of the group. Dozing against a great arching root, the black litah ignored them all.
Ehomba proceeded to question their hulking companion. Seated, Hunkapa Aub was nearly at eye level with the tall southerner. “Hunkapa see Hamacassar,” he repeated convincingly.
“You mean you’ve been in the port city?” Simna didn’t know whether to laugh or sneer. Though the shaggy brute was slow, he was not entirely dumb. The swordsman decided to do neither. “How did you find it? Accommodations to your liking?”
“Not visit Hamacassar.” Hunkapa Aub spoke slowly and carefully so as to keep both his simple words and even simpler thoughts straight, in his own mind as well as in those of his new friends. “I see.” An enormous hairy arm rose and pointed. “From slopes of Scathe Mountain. First mountains go down. Then flat places where men grow foods. Beyond that, way beyond, is river Eynharrmawk—Eynharrowk. On this side Eynharrowk is city Hamacassar.” Reaching up, he touched one thick finger to an ear almost entirely obscured by dark gray hair. “See river, go Hamacassar.”
Ehomba pondered the creature’s words silently. Simna was not as reticent to comment. “Hoy, that were quite a speech, Aub. Why should we believe the least of it?”
“Why would he lie?” Tapping a finger against his lips, Ehomba studied the guileless, open-hearted brute.
“He’s not lying.” Both men turned to look at the supine Ahlitah. The big cat had rolled over and was lying on its spine with all four feet in the air, scratching itself against the rough-edged woody debris that littered the forest floor.
“How do you know?” Simna’s disdain was plain to see.
Concluding its scratching, the litah tumbled contentedly onto its side. “I can smell it. Certain things have strong smells. Females in heat, fresh scat, week-old kills, false promises, and outright lies.” He sneezed resoundingly. “The new beast may be slow and ignorant, but he is not a liar. Not in this matter, at least.”
Dropping his hand from his lips, Ehomba tried to see into the depths of Hunkapa Aub’s being. He was unable to penetrate very far. There was a veil over the creature’s soul. Aware that Simna was watching the both of them expectantly, he tried to reassure them all with another question.
“You say that you have seen Hamacassar but have not been there. Have you ever been out of the Hrugar Mountains?”
“No. But been to edge. Stop there.” He shook his head and shag went flying in all directions. “Don’t like. Humans say and do bad things to Hunkapa Aub.”
“But you know the way through the high mountains and down into the foothills on the other side?”
The brute rose sharply to tower over Ehomba. Simna and Ahlitah both tensed—but the hulking creature was only showing his eagerness and enthusiasm. “Hunkapa know! You want Hunkapa take you?”
“We want very much.” Ehomba smiled reassuringly.
“Hunkapa not like people cities, but—you save Hunkapa from cage. Hunkapa owe you. So—Start now!” Without another word, their humongous friend turned and headed off in the direction of Mount Scathe, eating up distance with inhumanly long strides.
“Hoy, wait a minute there!” Simna struggled to get his kit together. Ahlitah was already padding off in the brute’s wake, with Ehomba not far behind. It took the swordsman some awkward running to catch up to the rest of them.
He hoped they would not run into any free-living, isolated mountain dwellers like old Coubert. Not with Hunkapa Aub and the black litah in the lead. Simna did not want to be responsible for inducing heart failure in some poor, unsuspecting hermit.
Like all high mountain ranges everywhere, the peaks of the Hrugars were loftier than they appeared from a distance. Towering over them all was Mount Scathe, a ragged, soaring complex of crags whose uppermost pinnacle clawed at any cloud passing below sixteen thousand feet. Gashed by deep valleys through which angry, rushing streams commuted to the lowlands, they presented a formidable barrier to anyone advancing from the south.
True to his word, Hunkapa Aub seemed to know exactly where he was going. When Simna complained about having to scramble up a particularly difficult incline, Aub remarked in his own subdued, laconic fashion that the slopes to either side of their ascent were far more difficult. When Ehomba wondered one afternoon why the river valley they were following was curving back southward, their shaggy companion implored him to be patient. Sure enough, by evening the stream and its valley had turned north once again.
They climbed until the air grew thin in their lungs, hardly fit for breathing. In this rarefied clime Ehomba and Simna moved more slowly, and the black litah padded on with head down instead of held high. But their guide was in his element. In the chill, dilute air he seemed to stand taller. His stride became more fluid. His confidence expanded even as his companions began to suffer from second thoughts.
Wearing every piece of clothing he had brought with him and as a consequence looking not unlike one of the unfortunates who haunted the back alleys of Bondressey, Simna kept slapping his hands against his sides to keep warm.
“Are you sure this is the way, o bushy one? We’ve been walking for many days now.”
Hunkapa looked back at the swordsman, who was huffing and puffing to keep up. Actually, Simna welcomed the fast pace. It helped to keep his body temperature elevated. “Right way, Simna.
Only
way.” A thick, woolly arm rose to indicate the soaring rock walls that hemmed them in on both sides. “Go up that way, or over there, and you die. Hunkapa okay, but not you, not Etjole.” A guileless grin split the bewhiskered face. “You not got hair enough.”
“I not got a lot of things,” replied the swordsman peevishly. “Right now, patience happens to be one of them.”
Though equally as cold and uncomfortable as his shorter companion, Ehomba did not manifest his discomfort as visibly or as vocally. “The mountains lie between where we were and where we are going, Simna. I am as sorry as you that there is no easier way. But we are making good progress.” He turned to their pathfinder. “We
are
making good progress, yes?”
“Oh very good, very good!” Back in his beloved mountains, their great, lumbering guide was full of high spirits. His enthusiasm was infectious, and some of it could not help but be imparted to his companions. This lasted for another couple of days.
Then it began to snow.
Only once before had Ehomba seen it snow, during a hunting journey to the far distant mountains that lay to the northeast of his home. It had taken many days to get there, during the coldest time of the year. He remembered marveling at the wet white splotches that fell from the air and melted in his hand, remembered the soft, silent beauty of the sky turning from blue to gray and then to white. It was an experience that had stayed with him all his life.
That snow had melted quickly upon striking the warm ground. This snow remained, to be greeted by that which had preceded it. Instead of melting, it accumulated in piles. In places it reached higher than a man’s head, just like drifting sand in the desert. That was what the big, fluffy patches were, he decided. Cold white dunes, rising on the mountain slopes all around them.
Familiar with snow and all its chill, damp manifestations from his homeland and many wanderings, Simna was less than overwhelmed with wonder. What he was, was uncomfortable and increasingly nervous.
“What are you gaping at, Etjole?” Shivering, he did his best to match his stride to that of the tall southerner. “If we don’t start down from this place pretty quickly we could freeze to death up here.”
“I was just admiring the beauty of it,” the herdsman replied. “The land of the Naumkib is all earth colors: yellow and orange, gray and brown. To be surrounded by white is an entirely new sensation for me.”
“Is dying a new sensation for you?” Simna indicated their guide, striding along blissfully in front of them. “This is his country. What if he decides to abandon us up here some night, or in the middle of a storm like this? We’d never find our way out. Treasure’s no good to a man frozen stiff as an icicle.”
“Then think of the treasure, friend Simna. Maybe thinking of it will warm you.”
The swordsman’s eyes widened slightly. “Then there is a treasure?”
“Oh yes. Greater than any an ordinary king or emperor can dream of. Mountains of gold in all its many manifestations, natural and crystalline, refined and fashioned. Gold as bullion and jewelry, gold that was coined by forgotten ancients, gold so pure you can work it with your bare hands. And the jewels! Such treasures of the earth, in every cut and color imaginable. There is silver too, and platinum in bricks piled high, and precious coral in shades of pink and red and black. More treasure than one man could count in a hundred lifetimes, let alone spend.”
Simna eyed his friend reprovingly. “And all this time you’ve been denying its existence to me. I knew it, I knew it!” One hand clenched into a triumphant fist. “Why tell me now, in this place?”
“As I said. To warm you.”
“Well, it’s done that.” Straightening slightly, the swordsman forcefully kicked his way through the steadily accumulating snow. “Let it blizzard if it wants to! Nothing’s going to stop us now. I will not allow it.” Tilting back his head, he shouted at the sky. “Do you hear me, clouds? I, Simna ibn Sind, will not permit it!”
By the following morning, with the snow still falling, his energy had flagged. In this the swordsman knew he need not be ashamed, because none of his companions were doing well. Lowlanders all, the unrelenting cold had begun to pick at their remaining reserves of strength, stealing their body heat like vultures biting off mouth-sized bits of flesh from a fresh corpse.
Seated around the morning fire they had managed to build in a snow cave, the two men and one litah huddled as close to the flickering flames as they could without actually catching themselves or their clothing on fire. Seemingly immune to the cold, their good-natured guide had left the cave early to go in search of wood for the blaze. Locating sufficient tinder dry enough to burn had taken him several hours. By the time he had finally returned, it was snowing harder than ever.