His face an unreadable mask, Ehomba rose from the bench. “We do not know how to thank you enough for this wonderful evening, and for the hospitality all of you have shown us. But we are tired from our long walk today, and must be on our way tomorrow. So I think we will turn in.”
“Tired?” Raising his recently refilled tumbler, a gleeful Simna saluted their new friends and surroundings. “Who’s tired?”
Glaring down, the herdsman put a hand on his companion’s shoulder. A surprisingly heavy hand. “Tomorrow we must start across the Hrugar Mountains. We will need our rest.”
“Hoy, bruther, and I’ll get mine.” The terse-voiced swordsman brusquely shook off the long-fingered hand. “I’m your friend and confidant, Etjole. Not one of your village adolescents.”
Next to him, a determined Knucker raised his own drinking utensil. “I’m not tired, either. I can’t remember the last night I had such a good time!” Hesitantly, he sipped from his cup. When no one objected, he sipped harder.
“Same here.” Simna smiled up at the dour-faced herdsman. “You’re so concerned, bruther, use some of your sorceral skills. Sleep for the three of us!”
“Perhaps I will.” Disappointed in his companions, Ehomba rose and headed for the entrance to the tavern that led to the inn’s outer office and the front door, leaving his friends to their elective dissolution.
Across the table, two men leaned forward, inquisitive uncertainty on their faces. “Is your traveling companion truly a sorcerer?”
Simna took a slug from his tumbler, ignoring the fact that Knucker was once more imbibing steadily. Furthermore, the little man gave no indication of stopping or slowing down. But the swordsman was feeling too content to notice, or to object.
“I’m convinced of it, but if so he’s the strangest one imaginable. Insists he’s nothing but a herder of cattle and sheep, refuses to use magic even to save his own life. Depends on alchemy he insists arises not from any skills of his own, but from that bequeathed to him by old women and such of his village.” The swordsman looked in the direction of the main portal but Ehomba had already disappeared, on his way to rejoin the fourth member of their party in the stables around back.
“I’ve seen much of the world in my travelings and met many strange folk, but by Giskret’s Loom, he’s for surely the most peculiar and mysterious of the lot.” Silent for a moment after concluding his explanation, he shrugged and downed the contents of his tumbler. Accompanied by smiles and laughter, it was quickly refilled.
“He didn’t look like much of a sorcerer to me,” declared one of the men.
“You’d far sooner convince me that someone that odd-looking dotes on the droppings of cows!” quipped another. General jollity followed this jest.
Simna knew the not-so-veiled insult to his friend should have bothered him. But he was having too good a time, and the middling attractive woman at the far end of the table was eyeing him with more than casual curiosity. So he thrust the abrasive comment aside and smiled back at her. He’d always been good at ignoring that which distressed him, especially when it came at the ultimate expense of others.
Alongside him, a happy Knucker held out his tumbler to be refilled. Within that sturdy container many things could be drowned—including promises made.
XVIII
N
othing moved in the dark depths of the tavern. The still air stank of stale beer and spilled wine, but it was not silent. Gruntings and snortings that would have been at home in any sty rose from the dozen or so intoxicated bodies that lay sprawled on the floor and, in one case, across a table from which plates and other dinner debris had been solicitously removed. All of the unconscious were male. For a woman to have been left in such circumstances would have gone against the teachings of Tragg. Under the Traggian codex, men and women had clearly defined roles. Public inebriation was not an option available to representatives of the female gender.
When the managers of the inn had finally called a halt to the communal townsparty, the majority of revelers had contentedly tottered or been carried off to their homes. Only the most severe celebrants were left behind to sleep off the aftereffects of the festivities safely. As for the managers themselves, they and their assistants had long since finished cleaning up what they could and had retired to their own rooms.
Amidst the general silence and intermittent snoring, one figure moved. It did not rise from the floor or tables, but instead entered through the front portal. This was not locked and stood open to the outside. No one locked their doors in Netherbrae. There was no need for anyone to do so. The adherents of Traggism had complete faith in one another. They had to; otherwise the entire system would collapse upon the fragility of its own moral underpinnings.
Picking his way among the tables and benches, Ehomba occasionally had to step over or around a somnolent villager. Making less noise than a moth, he approached the motionless cage. It remained where it had been left, in the middle of the tavern, its sole occupant squatting in the center of the caged floor, hunched over and still. Piles of food dimpled the interior and clung stubbornly to the wooden bars.
The herdsman halted a few feet from the rear of the wheeled cage. For several moments he simply stood there, contemplating the massive, hirsute back of the imprisoned creature. Then he said, in a soft but carrying whisper, “Hello.”
The nightmare did not move, did not react.
“I am sorry for the way you were treated. It was a saddening display. It is at such times that I feel closer to the apes. There are people whose sense of self-worth is so poor that the only way they can feel better is to degrade and humiliate something else. Preferably something that cannot fight back. I just wanted to tell you that before I left here, so that you would know there are human beings who do not think that way.” His encouraging smile was a splash of whiteness in the dim light. “It is too bad you cannot understand what I am saying, but I wanted to say it anyway. I had to say it.” His business in Netherbrae concluded, he turned to leave.
A voice, deep and hesitant, halted him in the darkness. “I can understand.”
Turning back to the cage, Ehomba walked rapidly but silently around to the other side. From beneath the jutting escarpment of bone that was the creature’s brow, dark eyes peered out at the herdsman. One finger traced tiny, idle circles in the pile of slowly decaying food that littered the floor of the cage.
“I had a feeling. I was not sure, but the feeling was there.” The herdsman nodded ever so slightly. “It was something in your eyes.”
A soft grunt emerged from between the bars. “You not from this place.”
“No.” Taking a chance, trusting his instincts, Ehomba moved a little closer to the enclosure. “I am from the south. Farther to the south than you can probably imagine.”
“I from north. Not so far north.”
“We were told how you came to be here.” With little else to offer the caged creature, the herdsman proffered another smile. “I did not enjoy the telling of it, just as I do not enjoy seeing anyone being forced to endure such conditions. But there was nothing I could do. My friends and I are strangers here. We are few; the villagers are many.”
“Understand.” The terse reply was devoid of accusation.
“I am a shepherd of cattle and sheep. My name is Etjole Ehomba.”
“I am Hunkapa Aub.”
Fresh silence ensued. After several moments of shared contemplation, the herdsman looked up. “Would you like to get out of that cage, Hunkapa Aub?”
Large, sensitive eyes opened a little wider. The hunch in the creature’s back straightened slightly. “Hunkapa like.” Then the humanoid expression fell once again. “Cage locked.”
“Where is the key?”
“No good.” The great hairy skull shook slowly from side to side. “Village teacher got.”
Ehomba chewed his lower lip as he considered the situation. “It does not matter. I have something with me that I think can open the lock.”
The creature that called itself Hunkapa Aub did not dare to show any enthusiasm, but he could not keep it entirely out of his voice. “A tool?” When the herdsman nodded once, the hulking arthropoid rose slightly and approached the bars. “Ehomba go get tool!”
By way of reply the herdsman turned and made his way back out of the tavern as silently as he had entered. In the ensuing interval, the caged creature sat unmoving, its eyes never leaving the doorway through which the visiting human had vanished.
Hope was high beneath all that thick gray hair when Ehomba returned. He was not alone. A muscular jet-black shape was with him, gliding wraithlike across the floor despite its bulk. Together, they approached the rear of the cage. Hunkapa turned to scrutinize the herdsman’s companion. Dark eyes met yellow ones. Silent understanding was exchanged.
With a comradely hand Ehomba brushed the bushy black mane. “My tool. Ahlitah, meet Hunkapa Aub.”
The big cat’s growl was barely audible. “Charmed. Can we get out of here now?”
Extending an arm, the herdsman pointed. “Lock.”
Padding forward, the litah contemplated the heavy clasp. It was made of ironwood, umber with black streaks. Opening its massive jaws, the cat bit down hard and chewed. The crunching sound of wood being pulverized resounded through the room. It was not a particularly alarming sound. Nevertheless, Ehomba wished there was less of it.
A few querulous grunts rose from the scattered bodies, but none rose to seek the source of the gnawing. Several moments of concerted feline orthodontic activity resulted in a pile of sawdust and splinters accumulating on the floor. Stepping back, Ahlitah spat out bits and pieces of ironwood. All that was left of the lock was a curved section of latch that Ehomba promptly removed. Lifting the arm that barred the cage door, he retreated to stand alongside the impatient Ahlitah.
Tentatively, Hunkapa Aub reached out with one huge hand and pushed. The barred wooden door swung wide. Lumbering silently forward, he checked first to the right and then to the left, his hands holding on to either side of the opening. Then he stepped down onto the tavern floor. His arms were proportionately longer than his legs, but his knuckles did not quite scrape the ground. How much of him was ape, how much man, and how much something else, Ehomba was not prepared to say. But there was no mistaking the meaning of the tears that welled up in the erstwhile nightmare’s eyes.
“No time for that.” With a soft snarl, Ahlitah started back toward the entrance. “I’ll take him to the stable and we’ll wait for you there. You’ll be wanting to go upstairs and drag those two worthless humans you insist on calling your friends out of bed.”
“I will be quick,” Ehomba assured the big cat.
Marking the room numbers as he made his way down the narrow passage, Ehomba halted outside number five. As was customary in Netherbrae, the door was not locked. Lifting the latch as quietly as he could, he pushed open the door and stepped inside. The room was in total darkness, the curtains having been pulled across the window.
A sharp blade nicked his throat and a hand clutched at his left wrist, pulling it back behind him.
“It’s too late for maid service and too early for breakfast, so what the Gojorworn are . . . ?” The fingers around his unresisting wrist relaxed and the knife blade was withdrawn. “Etjole?”
Turning in the darkness, Ehomba saw the subdued glint of moonlight on metal as the swordsman resheathed his knife. “Having trouble sleeping, Simna?”
“I always sleep light, long bruther. Especially in a strange bed. That way I feel more confident about waking up in the morning.” Weapon secured, the shorter man stepped away from the wall. “You jested that I might be having trouble sleeping. I might ask you the same question.”
“Get your clothes on and your things together. We are leaving.”
“What, now? In the middle of the night? After that meal?” To underline his feelings the swordsman belched meaningfully. The sound echoed around the room.
“Yes, now. After that meal. Ahlitah is waiting for us in the stables—with another. His name is Hunkapa Aub.”
Grumbling pointedly, Simna began slipping into his clothes. “You pick up companions in the oddest times and places, bruther. Where’s this one from?”
“From a cage.”
“Hoy, from a—” In the darkness of the room the swordsman’s voice came to a halt as sharply as his movements. When he spoke again, it was with a measure of uncertainty as well as disbelief. “You broke that oversized lump of animated fur out of its box?”
“He is more than that. Hunkapa Aub is intelligent. Not very intelligent, perhaps, but no mindless animal, either.”
“Bruther, no matter where we go you seem to have this wonderful knack for endearing yourself to the locals. I wish you’d learn to repress it.” Darkness blocked the faint light from the single curtained window as the swordsman slipped upraised arms through a shirt. “When they discover their favorite subject for culinary target practice has gone missing they’re very likely to connect it to this late-night leave-taking of ours.”
“Let them,” Ehomba replied curtly. “I have little use for people like this, who would treat any animal the way they have, much less an intelligent creature like Hunkapa Aub.”
Simna stepped into his pants. “Maybe they don’t know that he’s intelligent.”
“He talks.” Anger boiled in the herdsman’s tone as he looked past his friend. “Where is Knucker?”
“Knucker?” In the dusky predawn Simna quickly assembled his belongings. “You know, bruther, I don’t believe the little fella ever came upstairs. Near as I can recall, when I left the townsparty traveling two steps forward, one step back, he was still drinking and carousing with the locals.”
“Are you ready yet?”
“Coming, coming!” the swordsman hissed as he struggled to don his pack. “Ghobrone knows you’re an impatient man. You’d think it was this Visioness Themaryl who was waiting for you downstairs.”
“If only she was.” Ehomba’s tone turned from curt to wistful. “I could make an end to this, and start back home.”
They found Knucker not far from where the three of them had originally been seated, sprawled on the floor with limbs flopped loosely about him. The stench of alcohol rose from his gaping, open mouth and his once clean attire was soiled with food, liquor, and coagulated vomit. His face was thick with grime, as if he had done some serious forehead-first pushing along the floor.
“Giela,” Simna muttered. “What a mess!”
Kneeling by the little man’s side, Ehomba searched until he found a wooden serving bowl. Tossing out the last of its rapidly hardening contents, he inverted it and placed it beneath Knucker’s greasy hair. It was not a soft pillow, but it would have to do. This accomplished, he set about trying to rouse the other man from his stupor.
Simna looked on for a while before disappearing, only to return moments later with a jug three-quarters full. Watering Knucker’s face as if it were a particularly parched houseplant, he kept tilting the jug until the contents were entirely gone. The last splashes did the trick, and the little man came around, sputtering slightly.
“What—who’s there?” Espying the basics of a friendly face in the darkness, he smiled beatifically. “Oh, it’s you, Etjole Ehomba. Welcome back to the party.” Frowning abruptly, he tried to sit up and failed. “Why is it so quiet?”
Disgust permeated the herdsman’s whispered reply. “You are drunk again, Knucker.”
“What, me? No, Ehomba, not me! I had a little to drink, surely. It was a party. But I am not drunk.”
The herdsman was implacable. “You told us many times that if we helped you, you would not let this happen to you again.”
“Nothing’s happened to me. I’m still me.”
“Are you?” Staring down at the prostrate, flaccid form, Ehomba chose his next words carefully. “What are the names of my children?”
“Daki and Nelecha.” A wan smile creased the grubby face. “I know everything, remember?”
“Only when you are drunk.” Rising, the herdsman turned and started past Simna. “Paradox is the fool at the court of Fate.”
Simna reached out to restrain him. “Hoy, Etjole, we can’t just leave him here like this.”
In the dark room, hard green eyes gazed unblinkingly back at the swordsman’s. “Everyone chooses what to do with their life, Simna. I chose to honor a dying man’s request. You chose to accompany me.” He glanced down at the frail figure on the floor. Knucker had begun to sing softly to himself. “He chooses this. It is time to go.”