"I did not have to walk far to find him. It was near the water hold. The lion was an old male, very big, but he had been caught by the leg in a trap poachers had set to take eland. Close to him lay a dead impala which had been killed by another trap. Only the chance at such an easy meal had drawn such an old, wise male so close to the village. Now he had trapped himself alongside his chosen prey.
"All I could see when I looked at him was the glory that would accrue to me and my clan. I saw myself wearing the warrior's headdress which is fashioned from the lion's mane. So I killed him. He was still dangerous and he fought hard, but I had three spears with me. Trapped by the leg like that, he didn't have a chance." The senior warrior's sides were shaking now and tears were running down his cheeks. "I will never forget the way he looked at me."
He took a deep, unsteady breath. "When he was dead I released his leg and threw the trap far out into the water. Then I cut the leg several times with my knife to make it look as though the injury had been caused by a spear. Returning to the village I boasted of what I had done. The senior warriors and elders did not believe until they saw the corpse. I was awarded the tail and the mane as a sign of my prowess. Everyone acclaimed me a great warrior and hunter. To my surprise I soon found that the more they praised me, the smaller I felt. But I did not have the courage to admit to the deception. To this day I have told no one about this. Now, I have told you.
"That night no one slept in the village because of the lions. They moaned and cried until dawn and then they went away. I lay awake like everyone else, frightened in my bed—I the great warrior! When I asked the village elder about it he told me the cries came from the dead lion's pride, his harem of females. They had stayed one night to mourn his death."
The moaning was loud on two sides now. They could advance or retreat, but Oak suspected the moment they broke and ran the lionesses would close in on them.
"The next day I went back to the water hole to make sure no sign of the trap remained. I happened to look up at a kopje, a pile of big boulders, which stood on the far side of the water. There were six females, all mature and healthy. Some sat on the rocks, others lay sprawled across the stones. They did not look at me but at the deep part of the water hole, where I had thrown the trap. I knew they were the wives of the old male I'd killed. They had not gone away like the elder said they would.
"I was too fascinated to move. Finally they looked up from the water, one by one, until all six were staring at me. There is no feeling on earth like that, friend Oak. Lions have two distinct stares. One is of disinterest. The other is the one they use when they are stalking prey. It is as cold as the stare of a snake and as single-minded as that of a machine.
"We stayed like that for a long time, myself and the six. Then they got up in ones and twos and wandered away. I never saw them again, but I never stopped looking for them, either." He gripped his spear and turned a slow circle, watching the trees. "Now they have come for me, with as many of their sisters as will be necessary. I must stand and meet them. At least this time it will be a fair fight."
"Listen to me, you crazy African! There's no such thing as a fair fight between a man without a gun and a lion, and I don't give a damn what Maasai tradition says. All the advantage is with the lion. So maybe one time the odds evened out a little. That lion, any lion, would've jumped you if you'd been bent over weaponless and taking a drink from that water hole. Besides, you said that lion was old and caught in a trap. If you'd gone off and left him he would've died there anyway; from infection, from starvation, or at the hands of the poachers who'd set the traps in the first place. Even if you'd been able to free him, with his age and the addition of a crippled leg a younger male would've take his pride away from him anyway. Hell, he was probably thanking you for the quick death. To me it sounds like it was mercy killing straight down the line."
"I should have tried to free him, yes. Then we could have met on even terms. But killing him while he was trapped like that was wrong. That is the way the ilmeet kill, with their high-powered rifles and telescopic sights. That is not hunting, not a fair fight. One might as well drop bombs from a plane."
Even as he finished, another one charged them. It exploded out of the brush on their right, where it had crawled while Kakombe had been talking. Oak saw massive white teeth coming straight for his throat.
This time two spears pierced the attacker. She blew up before she struck the ground, filling the air with drifting fur and the rapidly dissipating odor Oak would remember forever after as Essence of Cat.
"These aren't real lions. They're just air, fur, and stink. They're ghost lions, Kakombe. They can't be your pride. This is your nightmare, your old fears coming back to haunt you. The real lionesses, if they're even still alive, are back in the real world. None of my old enemies were real and neither are yours."
"Spirits they may be, but they can still kill. Go on, Joshua. Go after Merry and I will hold them here until I die."
"Like hell you will. You're feeling guilty for nothing. When you put that crippled old lion out of his misery you were doing him a favor. Not to mention protecting your people. Don't crippled lions become man-eaters?"
Kakombe seemed to hesitate. "Sometimes."
The bushes on their left began rustling. There was no more time for talk. Individuals having twice failed to bring down the prey, the lion spirits had decided on a shift in tactics. Four, a dozen, at least twenty of the powerful, lean bodies were stalking the two men. As they walked, their massive heads swayed from side to side in time to the secret lion music. Oak thought he could hear the pad-pad of heavy paws. A cloud of fur floated above them, as if they were molting. The effect made the relentlessly advancing pride look like it was on fire.
They were not roaring now, not even moaning. Save for the tread of dozens of paws they made no sound at all. Even his pistol would be useless against so many, Oak knew. You'd need a full-size machine gun at least, or…
He had to fumble through both pockets before his fingers closed around the cigarette lighter. The lighter which his buddies at the Bureau had given him on his birthday and which he'd been too polite to refuse. It was a handsome thing, gold-plated, smooth and slick and sophisticated. Charles Boyer or Louis Jourdan might have used it to light a cigarette for Bette Davis. Oak found it handy to have around on camping trips and at barbecues. How well was it made? Well enough so that all the butane hadn't evaporated?
He flipped it open and flicked the switch. The result was an inch-long flame that burned steadily in the unwholesome light. By rotating the tiny, hidden wheel he was able to coax a tongue of fire nearly a foot long from the lighter. At that rate of consumption the butane would give out quickly.
Would the diseased vegetation burn? He passed the flame over the grass and fungi underfoot. Most of it felt greasy rather than wet.
It caught slowly at first. The fire that leaped upward was blue and indigo instead of red-orange. Bitter cold came from the vicinity of the intensifying blaze as he built a wall of flame between himself and the advancing lionesses while Kakombe guarded his back. His nose wrinkled at the aroma that rose from the burning vegetation: it smelled like rotting flesh. Where the indigo-blue blaze touched, it left behind grass and brush that had been frozen solid.
He'd gauged the slight breeze correctly; it blew the fire toward the lionesses and away from him and Kakombe. Fascinated, he touched a tall reed that had been kissed by the blue flame and quickly drew back his burned finger. The skin had frozen on contact while the reed crumbled like powder. It was the cold of absolute zero.
Frustrated by the indigo-blue barrier one of the lionesses took a run and leaped. Kakombe raised his spear but the apparition never cleared the flames. As they struck her she exploded, showering the retreating Oak and senior warrior with blue and yellow ice crystals.
Kakombe slowed and Oak grabbed his arm, trying to pull him along. It was like trying to pull a bus. The warrior was staring back toward the wall of flame. On the other side the lionesses
snarled and spat, nipping at one another in their frustration.
"Come on, man, move it! You want to stay here and wait for the fire to die down?"
"But they came for me," he mumbled dazedly, "to revenge the old one I killed."
"If the old boy were here he'd be grateful. Use your head!"
"It is… destined." A hopeful Oak thought it sounded reluctant.
"Nothing's destined, damnit, except we're all going to die if you don't move your ass."
Kakombe blinked at him. "Maybe—yes. Maybe it is time for entomito ilmoran tooengejek." He replaced his trancelike look with a wide grin. "That means it is time to save the warriors with their feet." He increased his stride rapidly. Oak had to strain to keep up with him, but he didn't mind. He didn't mind a bit.
Behind them the lionesses roared furiously at having been defeated by the simple magic of an ilmeet.
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27
The disappointed moaning of the lions had long since faded behind them when Kakombe bent low and called a halt. He wore a look of uncertainty.
"I hear moaning again, ahead of us this time."
Oak frowned. "Another pack, or could the others have circled around in front of us already? I don't hear anything."
The warrior led them cautiously forward, whispering as he walked. "It does not sound like the roar of a lion. It seems I should recognize it, and yet I do not. The shriek of a leopard is higher and this is not the sort of country favored by cheetahs. It could almost be a herd of hippo."
Oak conjured up an image of a herd of the big, lazy animals clustered along the shore of a river. "That's no problem, then."
"Speak only of what you know, my friend. Hippos kill more people each year in Africa than any other animal. Ignorant ilmeet think that because they look fat and friendly, they can approach closely and even pet them. Hippos are fat, but they are anything but friendly, and their teeth put a lion's to shame." He was straining to hear. "Certainly there are more than one of whatever they are."
As they moved through the sickly woods Oak picked up the sound too. Rumbles and growls, sometimes sharp and distinct, other times overlapping. He listened until he was positive.
"I know what it is." Kakombe glanced over at him in surprise. "Those aren't animals roaring. They're motorcycles; big ones. Probably at lot bigger than you're used to seeing which is why you didn't recognize the sound right away."
When the noise had increased to the point where they knew they were very near, they dropped and proceeded on hands and knees. They crawled beneath a series of bushes whose leaves had been eaten away by some kind of rust-colored spiderwort and almost fell over a sharp incline. The roar of the big cycles was almost deafening now.
Merry had been staked out in the center of the depression below. Straps secured her hands and wrists to pins buried in the ground. Her clothing was in tatters. The bikers were riding around her like so many movie Indians circling the proverbial settlers' wagon. Occasionally one of them would break from the circle and rush straight at her only to turn sharply just at the last instant, his rear wheel showering her pinioned form with fresh dirt.
The cycles were all Harleys, of course, most of them chopped too radically for any human being to ride in comfort. Which didn't matter because the only human in the depression happened to be Merry. The demons and gargoyles atop the bikes looked like they had descended en masse from the battlements of Notre Dame Cathedral.
There were banshees with twisted, leering faces; homunculi with bat wings for ears and long forked tongues. Some had no noses and others glared out at the world through pupils that were vertical instead of round. All wore standard outlaw biker attire: denim jackets cut off at the shoulder and emblazoned with swastikas and death's heads, vests with fur-lined armholes, heavily scuffed boots decorated with hobnails and spikes. Some went hatless, others boasted Nazi helmets and leather caps. Heavy chains dangled from belts and shoulders.
One bowlegged yellow-faced parody of humanity abandoned his chopper to paw at Merry's body. His cackling companions chased him off with their bikes. One of them ran over her right leg and Oak heard her scream. He had to bite his lip until he tasted blood to keep from calling out to her. If he and Kakombe went charging wildly down the slope, Merry's nightmare would finish them as surely as it threatened to ruin her.
One swarthy demon took a run at Merry. His bike hit a rock and he flew one way, his machine another, much to the amusement of the others.
Suddenly Oak felt something stronger than fear for himself or concern for Merry: embarrassment. This was her nightmare. He felt like an intruder, a Peeping Tom spying on her deepest emotions.
"We've got to get her out of there," he rasped at Kakombe. "The next time one of those things rides over her she could lose an arm or a couple of ribs." He started to rise. Kakombe held him back.
"Now it is my turn to say use your head, my friend. There are too many. I see no guns, but there are many knives, not to mention claws and teeth."
"So what do we do? I'd rather take a chance than lie here and watch them cut her up."
Kakombe looked thoughtful. When he spoke again he sounded almost mischievous. "Do you think you can run as fast as a Maasai moran?"
"Depends on the circumstances. I'm faster than I look."
"Suppose you are being chased and are running for your life?"
Oak nodded. "Yeah, I think that would help me maintain a pretty fair pace. What've you got in mind?"
Kakombe turned. "We must return to an earlier place, an earlier nightmare. We must go back to where we were."
"Back?" Oak's expression reflected his confusion. "You mean the lions? The fire will be dying down. What if they're still around there?"
"That is what I am counting on."
Oak grasped what the senior warrior had in mind. It just didn't strike him as very promising. "Are you sure you want to try this? This is your nightmare we're returning to. The last thing most people want to do once they've shaken a bad dream is live it over again."
"It's the only way, my friend. Yes, it frightens me, but I cannot think of anything else to do. And we have no time." He gestured back toward the depression. Several of the demonic bikers were parking their machines. Those who had already dismounted were fighting and joking among themselves while pointing toward the helpless Merry.
Probably there was a better way, but Oak didn't manage to think of it as he followed Kakombe back into the woods, retracing their earlier headlong flight. Finding the place was easy; a broad swath of jungle had been reduced to icy powder. Indigo-blue flames flickered here and there, isolated cold hot spots. The air above the bur was arctic.
There was despair in the giant's voice. "They've gone."
"No, over there!" Oak pointed with the tip of his spear toward a still standing clump of high grass. Tawny outlines were visible within. He started jumping up and down and yelling. "Hey, you, lions! Over here! Come on and eat me if you can!"
This is without question the craziest thing I have ever done in my life, he thought. But he kept bouncing around and screaming. Next to him Kakombe was doing likewise, making loud whooping noises and whistling shrilly.
The heads of the two lionesses lifted simultaneously. The instant they settled on the source of the disturbance the curiosity in their eyes was replaced by a look as cold as the flames that still licked at the vegetation surrounding them. As they rolled onto their feet Oak saw other yellow shadows beginning to emerge from the woods behind them. One particular lioness was staring straight at him, her gaze shifting neither to right nor left as she advanced, like a bombardier locking on to her target.
Something rapped him hard on the shoulder: Kakombe's hand. The giant had begun to back up. Oak joined him, keeping his spear ready. As soon as the standing vegetation had closed in between them and the pride, they turned and took off.
Just pretend you're back in school running the 400, he told himself. Don't look back for the other runners and you won't lose you
r nerve. Nobody thought you were fast back then until you showed 'em otherwise, just like nobody thought you were smart until you proved it in class.
So if you're so smart, why are you doing this?
Kakombe ran alongside him, his huge strides eating up the ground like those of a giraffe. Oak knew the giant could outdistance him, was glad he chose not to. They would fight together, they would run together, and they would bring this off together. He prayed.
They slipped through brush and around trees. In the denser growth Oak had the advantage. Kakombe simply bulled his way through obstacles, but every time he had to run over something it took a little out of him.
Out of him, Oak thought. His own heart was beating against his chest, trying to force its way to freedom. His throat was dry and his lungs threatened to burst. A rawness was growing in his throat but he didn't slow down, nothing to it, just keep lifting those knees and planting those feet and hope that Kakombe doesn't take a wrong turn because if he did they'd run out of steam and vanish beneath a wave of big cats.
It was eerily quiet in the woods with the only sound the painful panting of the two running men. The pursuing lions made no noise. They were conserving their energy for the forthcoming kill. Only occasionally was the silence broken by the sound of brush being smashed down and heavy masses striking the ground.
They leaped together over the edge of the slope, arms windmilling to maintain their balance, and actually picked up speed as they half ran, half fell downhill. So sudden was their arrival and so intent were the demons on their amusement that the two men were in among the cloud of dust before anyone noticed their presence. One gargoyle whose belly hung down over his belt was just about to bestow his attentions on Merry when Oak slammed the butt end of his spear into its mouth. Splintered teeth and blood went flying. The obese monstrosity staggered backward and dragged two of its companions down into the dirt with it.
Merry tried to say something but her throat was gagged by dust and tears. All she could do was sob and try to choke out a few words as Oak slashed at her restraints with Nafasi's wondrous razor-edged knife while Kakombe stood prepared to fend off any assailants. Most of the demons were so drunk and occupied with their choppers they still hadn't noticed the intruders in their midst.
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