by Jack Vance
Traz and Reith reached the edge of the river, a slow-flowing flood of black-brown water. Traz found a raft of driftwood, dead lianas, humus, held together by living reeds. He pushed it off into the stream. Then he and Reith hid in a nearby clump of reeds. Five minutes passed; four of the Emblem Men came crashing through the bog along their trail, followed by a dozen more, with catapults at the ready. They ran to the river’s edge, pointed to the marks where Traz had dislodged the raft, searched the face of the river. The mass of floating vegetation had drifted almost two hundred yards downstream and was being carried by a swirl in the current to the other bank. The Emblems gave cries of fury, turned and raced at top speed through the murk and tangle, along the bank toward the drifting raft.
“Quick,” whispered Traz. “They won’t be fooled long. We’ll go back along their tracks.”
Back away from the river, across the bog and once more into the forest Traz and Reith ran, the calls and shouts at first receding to the side, then becoming silent, then once again raised in a sound of furious exultation. “They’ve picked up our trail once again,” gasped Traz. “They’ll be coming on leap-horses; we’ll never —” He stopped short, held up his hand, and Reith became aware of the acrid half-sweet fetor once again. “The berl,” whispered Traz. “Through here … Up this tree.”
With the survival pack dangling at his back Reith followed the boy up the oily green branches of a tree. “Higher,” said Traz. “The beast can lunge high.”
The berl appeared: a lithe brown monster with a wicked boar’s-head split by a vast mouth. From its neck protruded a pair of long arms terminating in great horny hands which it held above its head. It seemed to be intent on the calls of the warriors and paid no heed to Traz and Reith other than a single swift glance up toward them. Reith thought he had never seen such evil in a face before. “Ridiculous. It’s only a beast …”
The creature disappeared through the forest; a moment later the sound of pursuit halted abruptly. “They smell the berl,” said Traz. “Let’s be off.”
They climbed down from the tree, fled to the north. From behind them came yells of horror, a guttural gnashing roar.
“We’re safe from the Emblems,” said Traz in a hollow voice. “Those who live will depart.” He turned Reith a troubled glance. “When they go back to camp there will be no Onmale. What will happen? Will the tribe die?”
“I don’t think so,” said Reith. “The magicians will see to that.”
Presently they emerged from the forest. The steppe spread flat and empty, drenched in an aromatic honey-colored light. Reith asked, “What is to the west of us?”
“The West Aman and the country of the Old Chasch. Then the Jang Pinnacles. Beyond are the Blue Chasch and the Aesedra Bight.”
“To the south?”
“The marshes. The marshmen live there, on rafts. They are different from us: little yellow people with white eyes. Cruel and cunning as Blue Chasch.”
“They have no cities?”
“No. There are cities there —” Traz made a gesture generally toward the north “— all ruined. There are old cities everywhere along the steppes. They are haunted, and there are Phung, as well, who live among the ruins.”
Reith asked further questions regarding the geography and life of Tschai, to find Traz’s knowledge spotty. The Dirdir and Dirdirmen lived beyond the sea; where, he was uncertain. There were three types of Chasch: the Old Chasch, a decadent remnant of a once-powerful race, now concentrated around the Jang Pinnacles; the Green Chasch, nomads of the Dead Steppe; and the Blue Chasch. Traz detested all the Chasch indiscriminately, though he had never seen Old Chasch. “The Green are terrible: demons! They keep to the Dead Steppe. The Emblems stay to the south, except for raids and caravan pillage. The caravan we failed to loot skirted far south to avoid the Greens.”
“Where was it bound?”
“Probably Pera, or maybe to Jalkh on the Lesmatic Sea. Most likely Pera. North-South caravans trade between Jalkh and Mazuún. East-West caravans move between Pera and Coad.”
“These are cities where men live?”
Traz shrugged. “Hardly cities. Settled places. But I know little, only what I have heard the magicians say. Are you hungry? I am. Let us eat.”
On a fallen log they sat and ate chunks of caked porridge and drank from leather flasks of beer. Traz pointed to a low weed on which grew small white globules. “We’ll never starve so long as pilgrim plant grows … And see yonder black clump? That is watak. The roots store a gallon of sap. If you drink nothing but watak you become deaf, but for short periods there is no harm.”
Reith opened his survival pack: “I can draw water from the ground with this sheet of film, or convert sea-water with this purifier … These are food pills, enough for a month … This is an energy cell … A medical kit … Knife, compass, scanscope … Transcom …” Reith examined the transcom with a sudden thrill of interest.
“What is that device?” asked Traz.
“Half of a communication system. There was another in Paul Waunder’s pack, which went with the space-boat. I can broadcast a signal which will bring an automatic response from the other set and give the other set’s location.” Reith pushed the Find button. A compass arrow swung to the northwest; a counter flashed a white 6.2 and a red 2. “The other set — and presumably the space-boat — is 6.2 times 10 to the second, or 620 miles northwest.”
“That would be in the country of the Blue Chasch. We knew that already.”
Reith looked off to the northwest, ruminating. “We don’t want to go south into the marshes, or back into the forest. What lies to the east, beyond the steppes?”
“I don’t know. I think the Draschade Ocean. It is far away.”
“Is that where the caravans come from?”
“Coad is on a gulf which connects to the Draschade. Between is all of Aman Steppe, the Emblem Men and other tribes as well: the Kite-fighters, the Mad Axes, the Berl Totems, the Yellow-Blacks and others beyond my knowledge.”
Reith considered. His space-boat had been taken by the Blue Chasch into the northwest. Northwest therefore seemed the most reasonable direction in which to fare.
Traz sat dozing, chin on his chest. Wearing Onmale he had demonstrated a bleak unrelenting nature; now, with the soul of the emblem lifted from his own, he had become forlorn and wistful, though still far more reserved than Reith thought natural.
Reith’s own eyelids were drooping with fatigue: the sunlight was warm; the spot seemed secure … What if the berl should return? Reith forced himself to wakefulness. While Traz slept he repacked his gear.
Chapter III
Traz awoke. He turned Reith a sheepish look and rose quickly to his feet.
Reith arose; they set forth: by some unspoken understanding into the northwest. The time was middle morning, the sun a tarnished brass disk in the slate sky. The air was pleasantly cool, and for the first time since his arrival on Tschai Reith felt a lifting of the spirits. His body was mended, he had recovered his equipment, he knew the general location of the scout-boat: immeasurable improvement over his previous case.
They trudged steadily across the steppe. The forest became a dark blur behind them; elsewhere the horizons were empty. After their midday meal they slept for a period; then, awakening in the late afternoon they went on into the northwest.
The sun dropped into a bank of low clouds, casting an embroidery of dull copper over the top. There was no shelter on the open steppe; with nothing better to do they walked on.
The night was quiet and still; far to the east they heard the wailing of night-hounds but were not molested.
The following day they finished the food and water from the packs which Traz had supplied and began to subsist on the pods of pilgrim plant and sap from watak roots: the first bland, the second acrid.
On the morning of the third day they saw a fleck of white drifting across the western sky. Traz flung himself flat behind a low shrub and motioned Reith to do likewise. “Dirdir! They hunt!�
�
Reith brought forth his scanscope, sighted on the object. With elbows on the ground he zoomed the magnification to fifty diameters, when air vibration began to confuse the image. He saw a long flat boat-like hull, riding the air on rakish cusps and odd half-crescents: an aesthetic style, apparently, rather than utilitarian design. Crouched on the hull were four pale shapes, unidentifiable as Dirdir or Dirdirmen. The flyer traveled a course roughly parallel to their own, passing several miles to the west. Reith wondered at Traz’s tension. He asked, “What do they hunt?”
“Men.”
“For sport?”
“For sport. For food, as well. They eat man-meat.”
“I’d like to have that flyer,” mused Reith. He rose to his feet, ignoring Traz’s frantic protests. But the Dirdir flyer disappeared into the north. Traz relaxed, but searched the sky. “Sometimes they fly high and look down until they spot a lone warrior. Then they drop like perriaults, to noose the man, or engage him with electric swords.”
They walked on, always north and west. Toward sunset Traz once again became uneasy, for reasons Reith could not discern, though there was a particularly eery quality to the landscape. The sun, obscured by a mist, was small and dim and cast a light as wan as lymph over the vastness of the steppe. There was nothing to be seen save their own long shadows behind them, but as Traz walked he looked this way and that, pausing at times to search the way they had come. Reith finally asked, “What are you looking for?”
“Something is following us.”
“Oh?” Reith turned to look back across the steppe. “How do you know?”
“It is a feeling I have.”
“What would it be?”
“Pnumekin, who travel unseen. Or it might be night-hounds.”
“Pnumekin: they are men, are they not?”
“Men, in a sense. They are the spies, the couriers, of the Pnume. Some say that tunnels run beneath the steppe, with secret entrance traps — perhaps under that very bush!”
Reith examined the bush toward which Traz had directed his attention, but it seemed ordinary enough. “Would they harm us?”
“Not unless the Pnume wanted us dead. Who knows what the Pnume want? … More likely the night-hounds are out early.”
Reith brought forth his scanscope. He searched the steppe, but discovered nothing.
“Tonight,” said Traz, “we had best build a fire.”
The sun sank in a sad display of purple and mauve and brown. Traz and Reith collected a pile of brush and set a fire.
Traz’s instinct had been accurate. As dusk deepened to dark a soft wailing sounded to the east, to be answered by a cry to the north and another to the south. Traz cocked his catapult. “They’re not afraid of fire,” he told Reith. “But they avoid the light, from cleverness … Some say they are a kind of animal Pnume.”
The night-hounds surrounded them, moving just beyond range of the firelight, showing as dark shapes, with an occasional flash of lambent white eye-disks.
Traz kept his catapult ready. Reith brought forth his gun and his energy cell. The first fired tiny explosive needles, and was accurate to a distance of fifty yards. The cell was a multiple-purpose device. At one end a crystal emitted either a beam or a flood of light at the touch of a switch. A socket allowed the recharging of the scanscope and the transcom. At the other end a trigger released a gush of raw energy, but seriously depleted the energy available for future use, and Reith regarded the energy cell as an emergency weapon only.
With night-hounds circling the fire he kept both weapons ready, determined not to waste a charge unless it were absolutely necessary. A shape came close; Traz fired his catapult. The bolt struck home; the black shape bounded high, giving a contralto call of woe.
Traz re-cocked the catapult, and put more brush on the fire. The shapes moved uneasily, then began to run in circles.
Traz said gloomily, “Soon they will lunge. We are as good as dead. A troop of six men can hold off night-hounds; five men are almost always killed.”
Reith reluctantly took up his energy-cell. He waited. Closer, in from the shadows danced and spun the night-hounds. Reith aimed, pulled the trigger, turned the beam halfway around the circle. The surviving night-hounds screamed in horror. Reith stepped around the fire to complete the job, but the night-hounds were gone and presently could be heard grieving in the distance.
Traz and Reith took turns sleeping. Each thought he kept sharp lookout, but in the morning, when they went to look for corpses, all had been dragged away. “Crafty creatures!” said Traz in a marveling voice. “Some say they talk to the Pnume, and report all the events of the steppe.”
“What then? Do the Pnume act on the information?”
Traz shrugged doubtfully. “When something terrible happens it is safe to assume that the Pnume have been at work.”
Reith looked all around, wondering where Pnume or Pnumekin, or even night-hounds, could hide. In all directions: the open steppe, dim in the sepia dawn gloom.
For breakfast they ate pilgrim pod and drank watak sap. Then once more they began their march northwest.
Late in the afternoon they saw ahead an extensive tumble of gray rubble which Traz identified as a ruined city, where safety from the night-hounds could be had at the risk of encountering bandits, Green Chasch or Phung. At Reith’s question, Traz described these latter: a weird solitary species similar to the Pnume, only larger and characterized by an insane craft which made them terrible even to the Green Chasch.
As they approached the ruins Traz told gloomy tales of the Phung and their macabre habits. “Still, the ruins may be empty. We must approach with caution.”
“Who built these old cities?” asked Reith.
Traz shrugged. “No one knows. Perhaps the Old Chasch; perhaps the Blue Chasch. Perhaps the Gray Men, though no one really believes this.”
Reith sorted over what he knew of the Tschai races and their human associates. There were Dirdir and Dirdirmen; Old Chasch, Green Chasch, Blue Chasch and Chaschmen; Pnume and the human-derived Pnumekin; the yellow marshmen, the various tribes of nomads, the fabulous ‘Golds’, and now the ‘Gray Men’.
“There are Wankh and Wankhmen as well,” said Traz. “On the other side of Tschai.”
“What brought all these races to Tschai?” Reith asked — a rhetorical question, for he knew that Traz would have no answer; and Traz gave only a shrug in reply.
They came to mounds of silted-over rubble, slabs of tip-tilted concrete, shards of glass: the outskirts of the city.
Traz stopped short, listened, craned his neck uneasily, brought his catapult to the ready. Reith, looking about, could see nothing threatening; slowly they moved on, into the heart of the ruins. The old structures, once lofty halls and grand palaces, were toppled, decayed, with only a few white pillars, posts, pedestals lifting into the dark Tschai sky. Between were platforms and piazzas of wind-scoured stone and concrete.
In the central plaza a fountain bubbled up from an underground spring or aquifer. Traz approached with great circumspection. “How can there fail to be Phung?” he muttered. “Even now —” and he scrutinized the tumbled masonry around the plaza with great care. Reith tasted the water, then drank. Traz however hung back. “A Phung has been here.”
Reith could see no evidence of the fact. “How do you know?”
Traz gave a half-diffident shrug, reluctant to expatiate upon a matter so obvious. His attention was diverted to another more urgent matter; he looked apprehensively around the sky, sensing something below the threshold of Reith’s perceptions. Suddenly he pointed. “The Dirdir boat!” They took shelter under an overhanging slab of concrete; a moment later the flyer skimmed so close above that they could hear the swish of the air from the repulsors.
The flyer swung in a great circle, returned to hover over the plaza at a height of two hundred yards.
“Strange,” whispered Traz. “It’s almost as if they know we’re here.”
“They may be searching the ground with an
infrared screen,” whispered Reith. “On Earth we can track a man by the warmth of his footprints.”
The flyer floated off to the west, then gathered speed and disappeared. Traz and Reith went back out upon the plaza. Reith drank more water, relishing the cold clarity after three days of watak sap. Traz preferred to hunt the large roach-like insects which lived among the rubble. These he skinned with a quick jerk of the fingers and ate with relish. Reith was not sufficiently hungry to join him.
The sun sank behind broken columns and shattered arches; a peach-colored haze hung over the steppe which Traz thought to be a portent of changing weather. For fear of rain, Reith wished to take shelter under a slab but Traz would not hear of it. “The Phung! They would sniff us out!” He selected a pedestal rising thirty feet above a crumbled staircase as a secure place to pass the night. Reith looked glumly at a bank of clouds coming up from the south but made no further protest. The two carried up armloads of twigs and fronds for a bed.
The sun sank; the ancient city became dim. Into the plaza wandered a man, reeling with fatigue. He rushed to the fountain and drank greedily.
Reith brought out his scanscope. The man was tall, slender, with long legs and arms, a long sallow head quite bald, round eyes, a small button nose, minute ears. He wore the tatters of a once-elegant garment of pink and blue and black; on his head was an extravagant confection of pink puffs and black ribbons. “Dirdirman,” whispered Traz, and bringing forth his catapult, took aim.
“Wait!” protested Reith. “What do you do?”
“Kill him, of course.”
“He is not harming us! Why not give the poor devil his life?”
“He only lacks the opportunity,” grumbled Traz, but he put aside his catapult. The Dirdirman, turning away from the fountain, looked carefully around the plaza.
“He seems to be lost,” muttered Reith. “I wonder if the Dirdir boat were seeking him. Could he be a fugitive?”
