The Isk Rider of Bazuur

by Chris Turner

  The gambit had proven successful. Suffering only minor injuries, they tallied their losses and gathered their resources. One didor had been killed. Jurna’s where-back had been lamed, but otherwise no casualties. Risgan put down the where-back and replaced it with the Xumanthians’ extra packbeast. On closer inspection, Risgan noticed the curious rattle seemed to be woven with thick cypress and the handle was crafted of polished stone, ringed with a scrolled, dagbar wood. An endless depth to its contours entranced his eye. A rumble of dark thunder came from the sky, even now as Risgan shook the rattle for confirmatory purposes. There was a brisk flurry and the sounds departed, though not a cloud appeared in the sky.

  Risgan arched his brows and gave a sceptical nod; carefully, nevertheless, he replaced the rattle back into his pouch.

  * * *

  Risgan’s band had scoured two stone temples, courtesy of Balael’s information, sacred to the Negir tribes of the high plains. Not surprisingly, they had acquired not immodest spoils.

  The next afternoon he stumbled across a mound which his practiced eyes had discovered on a low ridge not far from the last oasis where they had lain over. Digging with picks and staves, they uncovered an ancient vat of rare coins, a nest of costly bracelets, an impressive shield of waxed hide, and even a nobleman’s death mask, likely buried at some later time.

  Word travelled fast. Soon two rival nomadic bands came riding in force, having learned of the discovery of the famed ceremonial rattle. It was purported to confer great power to the wielder. The rumour had likely travelled down from the raiders who fled three nights before. The two bands stormed the plain, one riding from the east, one from the west. They confronted Risgan and his band on the open steppe—each thirty warriors strong, armed with spears, slingshots and bows. They stood facing each other with blank hostility and sharp spears gripped, poised on their horned turlyns like executioners. Each tribal chief and spokesman approached the outnumbered crew. Risgan conferred ashen-facedly with his men. He was implicitly drawn to act as leader. Reluctantly he descended from his where-back and greeted his host, rattle in hand.

  The first chief gave a thundering accusation: “You walk the lands of our ancestors, sacred to the tribes of the Negir and dig in our soil. What have you to say for that, infidel?”

  “Yes, uncovering and stealing our sacred relics,” accused the second.

  The first, an Imthus didor-stalker, stood tall and thin, wearing a grizzled beard matted with mud and beads. His lips formed a natural upward curve of a perpetual smile. The tall headdress he wore was neither turban nor scarf, but a mixture of both, with woven feathers baked with clay and coloured with red pigments. His costume was short, a skirt of cypress leaves and a heavy cloak of isk hide. The other chief, an Ayachi rebel, proved the Imthus’ opposite—short, corpulent and bald, wearing no headgear or scarf. He showcased a round, brownish face curled into a masked leer. The tribesman wore little clothing, only enough to cover his sizeable loins. He clutched a notched crooked staff of grey-painted bone with a jewelled tip. Directly opposite him crouched the Imthus medicine mage, gripping a larger stave, strung with baby sloth skulls and with hide painted yellow and orange.

  Risgan took in these strange fellows with mixed appraisal. Balael had wandered down to accompany Risgan, if only to act as an interpreter should the need arise.

  “We are peaceful traders here,” emphasized Risgan, “not the defilers which you say. We are bound for the legendary site of Lim-Lalyn. Forsooth, we resent this delay and breach of etiquette in a foreign land.”

  The chiefs looked back at each other with comic perplexity, if not wonder, astounded at the outlander’s brazenness. “We come to retrieve our rattle. We know nothing of this land Lim-Lalyn.”

  Risgan scratched his cheek in doubtful reflection. Odd that so widely travelled a people should harbour no knowledge of Lim-Lalyn and its legend.

  Balael, sensing Risgan’s confusion, gave a feeble laugh and took him aside. “They are ignorant savages and know nothing of magical ruins or the like of Lim-Lalyn.” He tapped his nose. “I am adept in matters of such history and lore!”

  Risgan muttered. He turned his attention back to the chiefs.

  Negotiations were proceeding with slow formal bluster. The chiefs would not let the outlanders pass unless they relinquished the rattle. Risgan elicited ominous rumbles from the ceremonial object from the otherwise clear sky, sending ripples of fear into the tribesmen. He told them to go home and consider the rattle lost to them, reminding all sides that they would suffer the consequences if the adjunct continued to be used.

  The opposing chiefs mumbled harsh gibbers and conferred amongst themselves regarding the hateful ultimatum but emphasized that it was a risk they were prepared to take.

  So the impasse stood.

  The Imthus chief gave a pompous snort: “Hesgau, my medicine mage, has confirmed the presence of authentic magic.”

  The medicine mage corroborated his master’s claim: “’Twas wrought by Civin the tribeswoman, an unusual mystic who spent nineteen of her years crafting it, as testament of the dagbar scrollwork you see etched on its edges.” He motioned peremptorily to the designs. “She was obsessed with the ability to control all aspects of the universe, including weather, and the lengthy entombment of the talisman has likely hardened the dagbar, making the relic a formidable force.”

  Risgan raised the rattle high. All sixty eyes of the tribesmen gazed with reverent awe at its primitive splendour. The relic hunter verified the magic with a brisk flourish. The chiefs instinctively ducked, looking waywardly to the sky as it reverberated with thunder.

  Glimpsing Risgan’s slightly restrained hand, Hesgau asked him a crafty question: “Can you do no more than prompt Civin’s talisman to disgorge grumbles from the clouds?”

  Risgan held the rattle aloft. “Do you wish to bring fatality upon your heads? Cease your blasphemous queries!”

  Hesgau clamped lips and cast stern looks from the chiefs and tribesmen.

  Risgan took a sharp breath. To continue this charade was risky, yet how could he profit, without knowing more about how to wield the charm’s powers? The wish bone or the youth talisman could hardly give him aid at this time.

  “Give one of us the fetish and go!” cried the Ayachi chief rebelliously.

  “No,” refused Risgan.

  “The moment we relinquish the rattle,” called Balael, “you jackals would cut us down and use our hides for your saddle-bags.”

  Neither chief could deny the truth of it and Risgan pressed lips in a resentful scowl. Balael offered a conciliatory suggestion, proposing that all parties conduct a peaceful transfer: namely, the chiefs would retreat to a distance of five hundred yards, and Risgan and company would dutifully place the rattle on the nearby hill. The tribal chiefs could retrieve the object at their leisure.

  The first chief voiced a strident outcry. “We Negir shall then have to fight over the adjunct and kill each other. Give me the rattle!”

  Risgan rejected the idea. “The rattle is a valuable item and will not to be given away for free.”

  Balael threw down his hands in annoyance.

  The talks had stalled; everyone was stymied. The chiefs set up their respectful pavilions on the plain: tents, gazebos, turlyn paddock, ceremonial cook fires, pales of spears, hides and potions, delineating each group’s territory. Until new negotiations could be made, both tribesmen and the outlanders, would sequester here. None would leave.

  * * *

  During the night came great ceremony, dancing and merrymaking round the roaring fires and spits, each clan trying to outdo his rival. Roast didor and smoked herbs wafted throughout the compound, causing the relic hunters’ stomachs to growl. Coconut cups of cactus cider were passed around with lavish hand. There came a ribald chatter in foreign tongues and much drunken swaying.

  Risgan peered resentfully out of his own tent. None of his band could sleep; the din would keep them awake all night. Thankfully it died down in the late hours of the
night, followed by a screech of an isk. Risgan appointed guards to watch their tent; he did not trust the tribesmen.

  As expected, a lean wiry Ayachi came crouching at the door, fumbling underneath the flaps. It was an intrusion thwarted easily by Kahel’s fist and Risgan’s knotted club.

  A similar ploy was repeated in the early hours nearing dawn by an Imthus stalker. The intruder was rebuffed by Jurna’s lariat and Hape’s knives sent him shamefacedly back to his tribesmen.

  Morning came and the chiefs pretended innocence of the affair. Feigning bonhomie, the Imthus and Ayachi chiefs invited Risgan and his peers to enjoy morning libations to boot in their own personal tents. Risgan saw no risk in the engagement. He agreed to bring gifts of his own. He took rattle and his peers with him to the Imthus pavilion.

  Rugs had been spread over the hard-packed ground; a cloying incense burned from a brazier and several lamps were lit. Seats were arranged on both sides of the tent covered with leather hides, didor and isk. Standing aside the chief were his two ghoulmen, slaves or some peculiar thralls Risgan believed, who stared disquietingly with flattened noses and bloodless lips. The yellowed teeth had been filed and their skin was a harsh fish-grey, waxy and dead-looking. But a vivid, sinister green gleam shone in their eyes.

  Risgan was unnerved by the presence of such primitive mutants. If he had his way, he would have cut the creatures limb from limb. Yet they were mementos, favoured by the chief, some sort of ghoulish ‘mascots’, or ‘charm-men’ as they called them, noted by the obtrusive nose-rings clipped in their splayed nostrils.

  The chief explained: “The ghoulmen do not molest us. We have frequent encounters with them on the steppes on the Khastas borderlands. Upon sight of these creatures under our control, the brothers take heed. We do not wish our necks ripped open in the middle of the night; so, Hesgau, our medicine mage, has charmed them with a spell.”

  The mage verified the account. “These ghouls are crafty. They will sneak up on an unsuspecting man and maul him where he stands. ’Tis only by the power of my talisman wrapped in their noses, the ring of singular thaumaturgy, that they remain docile and observant of our welfare.”

  Risgan acknowledged the information with care. He observed that the rings were anchored solidly and gave an involuntary shiver. He recalled, painfully, some of Afrid the witch’s, ghastly girdles.

  Seeing the outlander’s look, the medicine mage gave a benign laugh. “Ah, you marvel, outlander. How is it possible to render a ghoulmen so easily susceptible to the yolk of the ring? ’Tis not overly arduous—one merely takes two gills of slaybush beads, boils them for five days, adds three pints of tree-bee wax and sap from the black wormwood tree and the concoction is complete. He puts it in the ear of the sleeping ghoulman, and after two days, ’tis possible to sing a melodious cantrap that will bring the mutants to passivity. But then, the stalker must hold the beast under water for an hour. Surely, you must be cognizant of this lore, as the holder of the ceremonial rattle?”

  “Not in every aspect,” admitted Risgan.

  “What? And you claim to be a shaman wielding a magic rattle? Did you not know that continued rattling will also bring about a similar, quicker effect?”

  Risgan nodded with certainty. “Do you think me a simpleton? Go away, and do not insinuate such artlessness.” Yet the relic hunter pondered the new information with unease. The medicine mage was a tricky individual who must be handled with care. “Suppose for argument’s sake,” Risgan suggested, “twenty ghoulmen were to take down the rattle-bearer who was no longer able to shake the talisman?”

  The mage gave an indifferent shrug. “The scenario is outlandish. Who would allow such a lapse of security? Certainly not I. Let us move on to more important topics. Give me the rattle so that I may test it out. If not, be ready to feel our spears!”

  Risgan gave a spiteful laugh. “That is impossible. The rattle remains in my safekeeping.” He stood up to leave.

  “Wait!” cried the chief. “At least share tea with us, so that we may arrive at a reconciliation.”

  Risgan reluctantly settled back in his seat. The adventurer motioned for a clay pot of tea which the medicine mage graciously poured, drawing a thick stream of amber liquid from the tall black tureen. Just as he was about to take a sip, Balael shot up without warning and cried out a shrill exclamation. Whispering something in Risgan’s ear, he ran out to their tent to snatch something up. Returning in a flurry of loose robes, he opened his cupped palms to reveal a small vole that had been hidden back in his saddlebag for just such purposes. The scout let the animal sniff the vapours before the tribesmen could object.

  The creature did a sudden dance and fell over dead.

  There was an awkward pause, after which Risgan stood up and motioned stiffly to his peers. Out of the chief’s tent they stormed without a backward glance.

  * * *

  A short time later, the Ayachi chief, the short, plump Imthus enemy, thought to approach Risgan and his circle with exaggerated humility. He came offering fine fox furs, desert grog and women. The furs were out of the question, as was the grog but Risgan and the others were curious of the quality of the women the chief promised to shower them with and so they were invited to his tent, if only to sample some of the talents of these maids of his entourage.

  Kahel, suspecting treachery, refused to go—as did Moeze and Hape, who harboured prudish streaks.

  Gilmin the jovial chief motioned Risgan, Jurna and Balael into seats and settled onto a fur-padded stool. “How went negotiations with Ampfu?”

  “As could be expected.” Risgan waved a brisk hand. “Ampfu is a dullard. He sought to trick us with his laced tea.” He proceeded to regale the chief with repudiations of the treachery of poison and the shallowness of his barefaced threats.

  The chief laughed and shook his head. “The Imthus chiefs are known for their deceit; also their callous disregard for human life. Speaking of which, why don’t you try some of my homebrewed coffee? ’Tis blessed with a unique flavour, spiced with herbs and brewed by a recipe which only we Ayachi know about.”

  Risgan declined the offer. “I need give no reason other than that I fast until noon.”

  “A pity!” cried the chief in wonder. “I must resort to my three daughters then, whose beauty is unparalleled!”

  “No doubt, no doubt,” mused Risgan.

  The chief, noting a certain disbelief, gazed sidelong at Risgan. “Are you a monastic man then?”

  Risgan twisted irritably in his seat. “Hardly! I am merely a man of prudence with high ethical standards. As Diocrases said, ‘A man who is cautious when approaching trade, is the one who ends up sealing the most salubrious deal’.”

  “A splendid axiom!” agreed the chief, whistling out a commendation.

  “As sententious as it sounds, it has its pearls of wisdom.”

  From the back section came a flutter of fabric. In strode three women of remarkable distinction. Risgan and Jurna, stiffening, stared hungrily at each of them as they paraded cat-like into the tent—unveiled, showing silky curves, kohl-lashed eyes, sultry hips and playful temperaments, if not, a promising vigour in the arts of night play.

  The chief nodded, seeing Risgan’s rapt gaze linger long one of the girls. “Ah, you like Ptava?” winked the chief at him. “She’s a sultry kitten, full of moist pleasures, artful promise, and warm vitality.”

  Risgan made a suave agreement. Clearing his throat, he thought to feign an indifference as to the sensuousness of the maids. “Your daughters, as provocative as they look, serve only as vaporous distractions for the issue at hand. We know it to be the rattle. So, we must politely resist.”

  “Come, come, let us not be prigs!” murmured the chief. Nettled by the abstemiousness, he uttered a flurry of words in Ayachi.

  Balael translated the outburst as a formal insult. “He says he will trade these three most beautiful daughters for the shield of Ignanion which he saw in your collection, and the ceremonial rattle, which he asserts rightfully b
elongs to his tribe, not Ampfu’s. It was lost centuries ago in battle. If you do not comply, he will cut your throats before the moon rises this evening.”

  Risgan sat back, his eyes gleaming. “The threat is serious and comprises a breach of the geniality of our negotiations. Tell the chief that he oversteps—and that we will have to consider his offer.”

  Balael nodded grimly and complied, if only in the interests of ceremony.

  The three left Gilmin’s tent in a mood of detachment. Upon hearing their report, Kahel stamped his feet in impatience. “You fools! You declined the women? Why? You could have given them to me. Let them take the rattle for all I care and let me take the women.”

  Risgan primly ignored Kahel’s outburst. Moeze was reluctant to endorse such a trade, or relinquish the ceremonial piece to a horde of barbarians. The rattle, he claimed, could only augment his own thaumaturgical collection to best advantage.

  The concept was given short attention.

  Kahel gave vent to more livid protests. “We might even score some entertainment, a necessary diversion that is sorely lacking these days.”

  “’Tis a crude rationale,” objected Risgan. “Loutish and ill-bred, as I expect no less from you. Are you suggesting we stoop to the level of animals to appease fleeting desires?”

  Kahel gave a facetious grimace. “In a word, yes.”

  “Then you’re the fool,” snapped Risgan. “The moment we take Gilmin’s women and hand over the rattle, they’ll despatch us to Douran. Besides, it’s all some harmless fun until an innocent gets his throat cut for insulting a tribal leader. These heathens are sensitive. Particularly about their daughters, despite all the preamble and ceremonial pretence that goes on. I am highly suspicious that general wantonness is actually permissible—or so I’ve gathered from certain sources.”

  Kahel gave a flippant snort. “And what are these sources? I’ve not heard them. What does Balael say? He’s a supposed expert on the region.”

  Balael opened palms in an air of diplomatic neutrality. “I remain impartial and open to possibility, but if I had my guess, I would say we could have chosen at will of the women and remained none the worse.”