Norton, Andre - Chapbook 04 (4 page)

So
the guide waited, as they lay together under an overhang of an ancient building
which was like a cave, for that which would also seek them out.

There
was no more screaming from the horses.
 
Once they heard a clatter of hooves showing that one of the mounts was
less panicked, able to flee.
 
There was
instead a whimpering which tore at
Rentam's
mind with
the hurt and fear that it bore.
 
Even
that was done in time and yet they lay still.
 
The colors no longer swept over the stone which was all
Rentam
could watch.
 
And humming, which he had not been really aware of until then, was
gone.
 
It was quiet enough so that he
could hear the two deep breaths... almost like sobs... which
Modic
uttered as he took away his
prisioning
hand.

Rentam
edged as far as he could out of range of the Seeker's reach and
sat up.
 
There was still light overhead,
but that was drawing together into the single beam which had first sent it
forth.

About
them the full night was drawing in.

Modic
raised up, not to his feet but instead crawled on hands and
knees to an aperture through which he could see to where the men of his party had
gathered.
 
There he squatted while
Rentam
leaned back against the wall, satisfying what had
become a weakening hunger with a portion of journey rations he twisted off the
tight cone of the stuff which he carried.
 
He had no desire to view what must have been a battlefield of sorts.
 
Now with his right hand he stroked the empty
knife sheath at his belt.
 
If he were to
come through this venture ... alive ... he would need a weapon of sorts.

Perhaps
Modic
was saving him for a secondary sacrifice ...
Rentam
squared his shoulders back against the wall.
 
The Seeker had now no followers, the guide
was sure of that even though he had not looked beyond as
Modic
was doing.
 
Certainly he had no armament
which could stand against a circle of killing light.
 
Modic
was but a man
without a following, no threat to
Rentam's
clan.
 
The guide's hand crept out of his cloak and
he began to feel about him in the growing darkness.
 
One finger suddenly smarted and instantly he
was feeling along something which had a knife's shape right enough, but lacked
the smoothness of metal, even though it was edged, as more delicate touch
suggested.
 
He still dared not look at what
he had found, but continued to tug the object loose from where it had been
planted almost straight up with only a finger's breadth or so of blade already
uncovered.
 
Wriggling it with care
Rentam
kept his gaze on the Seeker, freeing the find by
touch alone.

Modic
, in this gloom, resembled a headless body for the bag mask covered
his full head.
 
He was breathing noisily
... as might a man who had been running quite a distance.
 
Then he spoke, in a very low voice, which was
so muffled by the bag,
Rentam
barely heard.

"The
poor devils..."

Strange
that he would mourn men he had sent to whatever frightening death the whirling
colors had cloaked.
 
Rentam
could never understand this man.
 
If one
of his own kind made an enemy, and that was seldom, for their barren life was
precious to the
Betweeners
, none worked out

such
elaborate plot as this.
 
Instead either
of the two took their quarrel to the Speaker.
 
There they talked, each telling what was in his mind and heart.
 
Sometime it did lead to a battle with the
hands and there would be hurts to tend.
 
But death never entered in ... that was too familiar a visitor on its
own to be deliberately summoned.

Now
Modic
had stripped himself of his main threat, the
men who rode in this train.
 
There was
certainly that between him and
Rentam
which sooner or
later would lead to open confrontation.

The
guide was not afraid but he accepted wariness to be a part of his thinking and
planning from this time forth.
 
He had
freed the thing in the earth.
 
Glancing
up now and then to make sure that

Modic
was paying no attention, he brought it forth, holding it under one
of the flaps of his cloak to examine it more clearly.

It
was, he believed, made of stone ... but not the same as that which formed the
buildings moldering around them.
 
As long
as his thin forearm it was a blade with a butt end surely intended for a hilt
and a sharp point.
 
The tip of that had
been broken off, but the remained

possessed
a cutting edge.
 
This was a shimmer of
color.

As
the defense of the city had been red and blue interweaving, so this was a
gray-white, in the depths of which showed gem beauty, red, golden, green,
blue.
 
Those colors moved when one turned
the blade from side to side.
 
Had
Rentam
seen this cut into gem size, he would have believed he
had a fortune in his hand.
 
As it was he
shoved it quickly back into full hiding.
 
Hoping to have escaped
Modic's
eyes he slipped
the blade into an inner loop of his cloak.

However,
as
Rentam
dropped his fingers from the hilt, he was
still aware of a tingling, a prickling.
 
Modic
had not moved.
 
He had thrust head and shoulders as far as he could through the spy hole
he had chosen.
 
For a space there was
quiet between them.
 
Rentam
viewed the ruins about him, trying to guess what had been the original use of
this now vanished building.
 
At the same
time, with the patience of a
Xole
caught waiting to
make a
heo
prey he began a new search with his long prehensile
toes trying to discover if any more treasure lay beneath the scum of
wind-driven sand.
 
His claws raked across
the rock which appeared to be a flooring but each piece of that he so located
was firm set and could not be lifted out.
 
If another one of these gem-bladed knives awaited discovery it would
take more time and perhaps a lot of extra digging to uncover it.

As
Modic
moved
Rentam
ended such exploration.
 
The Seeker drew back from his hole and untied
his bag mask, signaling
Rentam
to do likewise.

"There
is naught to fear ... for now!"
 
Sweat had plastered his greasy hair flat to
the skull, and small trickles of moisture made their way down, to drip from his
square chin.

"You
have been here before...."
 
Rentam
spoke aloud the suspicion which had been growing in
him ever since the Seeker had waved on his men and taken a slower pace.

"No!"
 
Modic
sounded
overly emphatic in that.

"No!"
 
His hand went to the breast of his
thigh-length over robe where he had put the map stone for safe keeping.

"No
..."

Rentam's
tongue flicked out from between his jaws and in again.
 
Once it was said that those of his blood
could test the very air to sift truth from falsehood.
 
If that gift had been lost they had other
small ways of dealing with any double talk from strangers.

Oddly
enough
Rentam
had to believe that
Modic
was now speaking the truth.
 
Yet he was
not ready to allow the Seeker to believe he had satisfied his unwilling
companion by so much as that.
 
And
perhaps there was a frayed feeling of right within the man which brought out of
him an explanation
Rentam
was sure he had never meant
to give.

Modic
once more caressed his chin under the crust of sweat and
plaster of sand, studying the guide narrowly.

"The
Old Ones, those who lived here," he made a gesture indicating the ruins,
"had many secrets.
 
Is not that the
reason for both Seeker and Guide to come hither?"

Rentam
shook his head.

"We
wrest no secrets from the dead...."

"The
more fools you."
 
Modic
got to his feet, stretching arms and legs as if the
time he spent at the spy hole had rendered him stiff.

"If
you seek not for treasures, why do you venture into this sin-damned land year
after year?
 
What brings you here?"

Rentam
once more flicked his tongue over his lower lip taking the grit
of sand into his mouth.
 
With it there
seemed to come that sickening flavor with which the mask was imbued.
 
He plucked that off and shook head and
shoulder much as the Seeker had stretched.

Then
he deliberately wet a forefinger against his lips, used it to gather up some
grains of sand from a nearby wall stone and licked that up.
 
A moment later he spewed it forth.

"Now
what do you do?"
 
Modic
wanted to know.

"There
is salt in this earth...."
 
In turn
Rentam
got to his feet and looked about the jumble of wall
and piles of fallen stone.

"Salt!"
 
Modic
hooted with
what he must consider laughter, still
Rentam
slowly
surveyed each standing wall, seeking something which was not there.

"I
asked you, Guide," the Seeker returned to the question, "what seek you
within this desert if you come not to plunder the towns?
 
Do the demons walk only in those so you feel
safe in the open ... ?"

Rentam's
two strides took him even with and then past
Modic
.

Now
he needs must kneel to look upon what had so engrossed the Seeker.

"We
seek," his voice was absent in tone, for what he told was not secret...
neither was it ever believed, "water."

"Water!"
 
Modic's
voice arose
to a whoop.

"Here
in the dead sands you seek water?
 
Be
like you follow some old tale where some ancient evil one struck stone and it
enclosed your precious water."

Rentam
did not turn his head, he found that he must crouch even lower to
look through
Modic's
vantage point.

"You
have the truth of it, Seeker," he answered still absently.
 
Then even forgot the man by his side when he
looked out to where the horse and men had waited.
 
Sun was gone, shadows were heavy.
 
In his nostrils was the raw, sweet smell of
blood, and he saw enough to near bring the scanty contents of his stomach up
into his mouth.
 
Bones... goblets of torn
flesh.
 
But the bones were the worst, for
from the way they lay twisted and piled against each other he could believe
that something might have stripped their bodies of flesh while yet they
lived.
 
There was a head which had rolled
closer to his viewpoint and was exposing bone to chin and cheek and a mass
tattered of flesh above.
 
Yet by
Hyqur
, the Keeper of the Gates of Darkness, the flesh had
not been devoured or even carried far.
 
The still dripping chunks and strips lay within what once must have been
a fountain, pulled into a pile as if laid out for a feast.