To say that Themaryl’s family was not pleased by her pronouncement was to understate the matter rather severely. Their vociferous objections to her announced departure manifested themselves in the form of clutching hands and the subsequent arrival of alarmed troops. Bearing in mind that these were her own people, Ehomba and his friends perpetrated as little violence as possible in the course of fleeing from her homeland. Despite the destruction of the sky-metal sword, the herdsman still had its oceanic counterpart and his walking spear to scatter the hostile. Where those uncommon weapons proved inappropriate to the task, he commanded the contents of his seemingly bottomless backpack.
The Grömsketter was unavailable to take them back, having embarked on an expedition up the Eynharrowk from Hamacassar, but they eventually managed to make contact with the crew of the legendary oceangoing three-master Warebeth. News and stories travel fast on a river, and her captain had heard of the exploits of Ehomba and his companions. For a few of the remaining pebbles in the herdsman’s possession, he agreed to carry them westward back across the Semordria, a body of water with which Simna, at least, was becoming all too familiar.
The pall that had hung over the fortress of Ehl-Larimar’s supreme ruler vanished at the announcement of her return. A downcast, disbelieving Hymneth greeted them in his private quarters. Unarmored, trembling so violently he could hardly rise, he embraced the woman he had never expected to see again. Smiling reassuringly, she rested her head against his and gently stroked the side of his misshapen, elongated face.
In the course of his difficult and less than exemplary life there had been much that had intrigued Hymneth the Possessed, and even more that had infuriated him, but he had rarely, if ever, been as bewildered as he was now.
“You brought her back. You crossed half a world to take her away from me, and then you brought her back.” From beneath inhuman, bony ridges he stared at Ehomba, his confusion palpable. “Why?”
“I fulfilled my obligation to a dying man. Once I had done that, I was free.” The herdsman nodded at Themaryl. “She has a good heart, and became less overbearing during the course of our return to her homeland. Though under no formal obligation, I felt obliged by circumstance to grant her one request. That request was to return here.”
Hymneth pulled slightly away from his restored consort. “This will not change me, you know. I am still Hymneth the Possessed, lord of the central coast and of all Ehl-Larimar. Supreme ruler of this part of the world.”
“I know.” Ehomba smiled enigmatically. “I can only hope that you will now do a better job of it.”
With that, Etjole Ehomba and his friends departed that naturally blessed but ill-governed province and once more made the difficult trek back to Doroune and the eastern coast. There they waited until they made contact with an especially bold captain and crew who agreed to attempt a crossing of the Semordria to the southeast, in hopes of landing their well-paying passengers not in the delta of the Eynharrowk, but somewhere nearer a certain small southern coastal village.
When Hunkapa Aub announced that he was remaining behind, regretful farewells were exchanged. While Simna delivered himself of effusive praise and a few obligatory coarse jokes, and the black litah growled diffidently and offered up a sociable paw, no words were exchanged between the shaggy sorcerer and his dark, lean counterpart. Simna knew that much passed between them, even if only by glance and gesture, that he was not a party to. Nor, frankly, did he want to be. As for himself, he chose to remain with Ehomba, reminding him yet again of his promise to reward a certain itinerant herdsman with wealth and fortune.
And so it was that after adventures too many and tortuous to mention, the three remaining travelers found themselves put ashore at the trading town of Askaskos, from which it was but a moderate and easy journey north to the last, small village on the southern coast. To Ehomba, the look on the face of his wife as he appeared outside their house was worth more than all the knowledge he had accumulated in the course of his travels, and all the riches he might have claimed. His children, grown since last he’d seen them, clustered close, Nelecha gripping his waist so tightly that it impacted his breathing.
Mirhanja and the other villagers extended a ready and grateful country welcome to the comrades of their wandering son. There followed several days of celebration and feasting, during which Simna ibn Sind in particular proved highly voluble on the subject of their many extraordinary exploits.
It was during one such evening feast, while Simna grandiosely held forth on the difficulties of crossing the wide and perilous Semordria, that Ehomba confronted the black litah. Belly full, half asleep, the big cat ignored the attentions of the young children who giggled into his mane and toyed with his tufted tail.
“What will you do now?” Ehomba asked him. “Compared to the distances we have covered together, it is not so very far to the veldt where first we met.”
“Not so very far, no,” Ahlitah responded. “But far enough. Haven’t thought much about it. I have trouble thinking when my stomach is full.”
Nodding, the herdsman sat down beside the noble head. “The domesticated herds of the Naumkib are extensive and require constant vigilance. This is because the hills where they graze are full of predators. One such as yourself would be a welcome ally to those who must spend long hours watching over them.”
The litah considered. “You saved my life, but I no longer owe you. The debt is repaid in full.”
“More than in full,” Ehomba admitted readily. They sat in silence for a while, listening to the sounds of happy feasting and tolerating the children’s antics, until the litah spoke again.
“Among these predators that trouble you, are there cats? Cats like me?”
Ehomba’s expression was grave. “Too many to count. Lionesses and she-cheetahs, leopards sleek of flank and smilodons long of tooth.”
“It is a long way to the veldt.” Ahlitah growled uncertainly. “You would trust me to guard your flocks and not devour them?”
His chin resting on folded hands as he watched the nearby celebration, the herdsman shrugged. “I have trusted you with more than a cow these past many months. Besides, those who stand watch over the herds also share in their bounty.”
“And I would still be free to leave at any time, to run when the need overcame me?”
Ehomba glanced over at his massive, clawed companion. They had been through much together. “I would not ask of another that which I could never ask of myself.”
The litah snorted. It was his way of saying little while saying much. There came a morning when Simna ibn Sind confronted the other companion of his journeys well to the north of the last house. While admiring the supple play of cloth against the bodies of the young women who came to draw water for the day’s activities, the swordsman hesitated at first to speak his mind.
* * *
“Come, my friend,” Ehomba told him. “Something is troubling you.”
“Hoy, I don’t want to insult you, bruther, or the hospitality of your friends, which has been all that a man could ask for.”
“And yet you are not content,” Ehomba observed sagely.
“It’s not that the food isn’t good, or the accommodations unsuitable.” The swordsman struggled to find the right words, then finally decided to plunge ahead. “It’s just that I’ve spent my life trying to avoid places like this, Etjole.” He made a sweeping gesture. “Maybe this is enough to satisfy a cat, but I don’t belong here.” He took a deep breath. “Also, there’s the little matter of some treasure you’ve kept promising me. I knew when I first met you that you had access to some. I thought you were searching for it yourself. Then I believed you when you told me that it could be found in Ehl-Larimar. The only reason I’m here now is because I’ve kept on believing you.” His tone and expression hardened.
“I’ve put myself in death’s way for you more times than I care to count, bruther. Now I expect some reward.”
Ehomba gestured at the sharp-edged mountains, the quiet vil
lage, the pristine air and peaceful surroundings. “Is this not reward enough for you? Were not the adventures we had treasure enough?”
The swordsman did not reply directly, but instead grinned while briskly rubbing the thumb and forefinger of his right hand against one another. Ehomba sighed. “There is no treasure here, Simna.” He squinted up at the cloudless, impossibly blue sky. “Would you not like to go for a walk on the beach instead?”
“Listen to me, Etjole! You promised me that—“ The shorter man halted his nascent tirade. A wide, sly grin spread across his weatherbeaten, sun-scoured face. “A walk on the beach? By Goulouris, long bruther, I’d be happy to take a walk on the beach. I’d nearly forgotten about the beauty of the beaches above your village.”
There were children playing at the water’s edge when they arrived. Ehomba’s daughter was among them, and he tried his best to explain to her the reason behind the comical antics of the funny man from the far north who threw himself on the shore and rolled about wildly, laughing at the top of his lungs while throwing fistfuls of pebbles up in the air and letting them land on his face and body. Eventually, the teary-eyed swordsman rose and began to gather some of those pebbles. Laughing Naumkib children helped him, delighting in his joy and praise when they handed him a particularly large or bright pebble.
Simna ibn Sind spent a pleasant and gratifying morning at the seashore, collecting pebbles until his backpack was half full.
“I’m not a greedy man,” he told Ehomba when he was sated. He hefted his pack higher on his shoulders, and the weight of diamonds within clinked as they shifted and settled. “This little is enough for me. I’m going to go home and buy myself a small kingdom.”
Ehomba regarded his friend gravely. “Are you sure that is what you really want, Simna? To own a small kingdom?”
The swordsman hesitated, his smile fading. For a long moment he stood there, listening to the waves roll in to rustle the beach of diamonds, to the music of children playing, the chatter of merapes on the rocks offshore and the cries of seabirds and dragonets. Then he looked up at his tall friend and grinned anew.
“No, long bruther, I’m not sure that’s what I want—but I am going to give it a try.”
Ehomba nodded sadly. “Come into the village with me and we will arrange for the supplies you will need. I can give you some directions, and an introduction to a certain helpful monkey you may meet.”
Simna left the following morning, the herdsman escorting him as far as the fifth beach north of the village, where the fog began.
“If you’re ever in the far northeast,” the swordsman told his friend, “seek out the khanate of Mizar-lohne. That’s my homeland, and I’ll settle myself somewhere nearby.” He grinned one more time. “There are always kingdoms for sale thereabouts.” He sighed ruefully. “Who knows? Perhaps I might make another journey to find Damurasese.”
“You have been a good friend, Simna ibn Sind, and a boon companion.” One last time, Ehomba put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Travel well, keep alert, and watch where you put your feet. Keep looking, keep searching, and perhaps one day, with luck, fortune might smile upon you and you might find Damura-sese.”
The swordsman nodded, started to turn to go, and then paused. The sun was not yet high and it fell in his eyes, making him squint. “One last thing, Etjole. One thing I must ask.” He moved closer so he would not have to squint as hard. “Are you, or are you not, a sorcerer?”
Turning away, the herdsman gazed off into the distance and smiled: that same familiar, enigmatic smile Simna had come to know so infuriatingly and so well in the course of their long journeying together.
“I have told you and told you, Simna. I am only a student, an asker of questions, who knows barely enough to make use of what the wise ones of the Naumkib provide me.”
“By Gunkad, long bruther, answer the question!” Not to be denied or put off any longer by clever evasions, the swordsman fumed silently and stood his ground, both physical and forensic.
Ehomba looked down at him. “Simna, my friend, I swear to you by the blue of the sky and the green of the sea that I am no more a ‘sorcerer’ than any man or woman of my village, be they herder of cattle, hewer of wood, thresher of grain, or scraper of hides.”
The swordsman met his gaze evenly and looked long and hard into the eyes of his friend. Then he nodded. “What will you do now?”
“Watch over the cattle and the sheep. Be with my wife and children. In the time I was gone, my son reached the age when all Naumkib are initiated into the lore of adults. That is a task I must begin tomorrow.”
“Hoy, I wish I could stay, and I don’t want to offend you, but I’m really not interested in sitting through some quaint ceremony where a boy learns how to castrate cattle or dock sheep or paint his face with vegetable dyes.” With a last regretful grin, he spun on his sandals and headed north, pausing once at the top of a ridge to turn and wave. then he vanished, welcomed and swallowed up by the sea fog that hung perpetually over the coast north of the village, and Ehomba saw him no more.
On the morning of the following day the herdsman took his son Daki out of the village, heading inland. Mirhanja packed them a lunch and bade them good-bye, but not after extracting from her husband a promise to be back well before nightfall.
The trail father and son trod was narrow and overgrown in many places with weeds and vines, so that it was difficult to see. It wound its obscure way into the grassy hills behind the village until it terminated next to a plain rock face at the end of a shallow canyon that looked exactly like a hundred other similar heavily eroded canyons. Clearing away some brush and dead twigs, Ehomba exposed a narrow, dark opening in the weathered granite. Preparing torches from the ample supply of dead wood that lay scattered about, the two men entered.
The downward-sloping floor of the tunnel had been worn smooth by centuries of running water and sandaled feet. They walked for an indeterminate time before their torches were no longer necessary. Daylight filtered in through cracks in a ceiling that was now high overhead. A little farther on, the tunnel widened and became a chamber. Very soon thereafter it widened a great deal more, and became something else entirely.
The slim but well-built Daki, wearing a solemn expression others would have immediately recognized as being derived from his sire, contemplated the sight before him with respectful reverence but without awe.
“What is this place, Father?”
“This is where the Naumkib come from, Daki.” Raising an arm, Ehomba swept it before him in an expansive gesture to take in all that there was to be seen. “Too long ago to remember, our people settled here and built this place. They accumulated boundless knowledge and untold riches.”
The youth looked up at him. “What happened to them?”
Ehomba patted his son on the shoulder. “When one feels one has no more to accomplish, the next thing one attains is boredom. The Naumkib abandoned this place. In ones and twos, in groups and in families, they scattered to the far corners of the world. Gradually they mingled with other peoples, and became one with them, and were content. Only a few remained behind.”
“Us,” the boy realized. “The people of the village.”
“Yes. To not forget is a great responsibility. A legacy must be looked after, Daki. Not necessarily expanded upon, or exploited, but looked after.” He started forward. “Now come, and I will show you more of yours.”
They spent the remainder of the day exploring the deserted towers, and the great library, and the majestic arenas of knowledge. Daki marveled at the walls of solid gold, and the gemstone utensils the vanished inhabitants had left behind in their silent kitchens. Together, father and son turned the pages of ancient tomes bound in sheets of solid ruby, chosen not for its beauty but for its strength and ability to protect the far more valuable paper pages that lay between those crimson covers. They visited the observatory, with its telescopes still pointed at an especially large crack in the roof of the enormous cavern, and its congruent cupo
la with the ceiling that showed innumerable constellations fashioned from all manner of precious stones.
A captivated Daki did not want to leave, but Ehomba had to insist. “Your mother will be angry at us both if we are late,” he reminded his son as they began the long hike back to the tunnel.
“Is this where you found the answers to all the questions you keep asking, Father?” the boy asked as they ascended wide stairs of marble and agate and sparkling goldenstone.
“No, Daki. This is where I find only more questions. I promise you: Someday, when you are a little older, we will come back here, as all men and women of Naumkib must, and you will find, whether you want to or not, many questions of your own.”
The youth considered this reply as they ascended. Then he nodded slowly, hoping that he understood. “Does it have a name, this place? Or is it just called Naumkib?”
“We call ourselves the Naumkib,” his father replied. “The ancient city and place of learning is, and always has been, known as Damura-sese.” He smiled as they neared the entrance to the tunnel. Mirhanja would have supper ready, and he was hungry. “The rest of the world knows it as a story, a rumor, hearsay. We keep it that way.”
Daki picked up one of the torches they had left behind. “Part of our legacy?”
“Yes, son. Part of our legacy. A little secret of the Naumkib.”
“But not the only one,” the boy observed, displaying the wisdom for which his family was noted.
“No, Daki. Not the only one.”
Etjole Ehomba, who was an honorable man, made his way with his son back out of the celebrated lost city, whose riches lay not in its fabulous trappings but in the learning it held, and back to the modest house by the sea, where as he had sworn to his friend Simna ibn Sind he was no more a renowned sorcerer than any man or woman of his village, be they herder of cattle, hewer of wood, thresher of grain or scraper of hides.
A Triumph of Souls Page 34
