Authors: George Bryan Polivka
“They're havin' fun over there,” Mutter noted back, pointing across the deck to the one other ship at anchor here, a small topsail schooner with a Nearing Vast flag. It was named the
Flying Ringby
. Her crew did seem to be enjoying themselves immensely, swimming in the water, swinging wide over it on halyards and then letting loose with a great bellowing, turning somersaults and landing, usually, on their backs or bellies with an enormous splash and a horrendous slap, much to the delight of all onlookers.
“Just stopped to refill some water barrels, I reckon.” And Delaney wished that was the only reason the
Shalamon
was here as well.
There was plenty of fresh water, for Sule City sat at the mouth of the River Lambent, which the locals called
Arbetoh
, “The Path.” This river was called that, they quickly learned, because it was the only road that led anywhere. No man or group of men could manage to trek through these forests, thick and tangled as they were.
“Get the skiff and the shallop ready!” Belisar ordered. “Mr. Garvey, you'll come along with me. I want Spinner Sleeve, Lemmer Harps, and Smith Delaney as well. Load up ten days' rations.”
“What about the prisoners?” Blue asked.
“They're coming with us,” Belisar answered. He ignored the slavering grin of his first mate, Blue, wiped beaded sweat from his own forehead with an already wet handkerchief, and then turned his great bulk toward the shore. “I'll need to make a deal with one or two of these natives to guide us. Mr. Sleeve, you come with me for protection.”
“Aye, sir!”
Most of the crew were quite content to stay aboard, and so they were extra-eager to help load the two boats for the journey upriver. Belisar returned from shore in less than an hour, reporting success, though he did not bring the guides back with him. After inspecting the boats, he ordered them away.
The shallop was little more than a rowboat, and was lowered with the Captain and the two prisoners in it. Belisar, drenched in sweat, sat with a wineskin on his lap, taking frequent drinks. The skiff was even smaller than the shallop, and though it was winched down from the davit arms, too, when empty it was light enough that two men could lower it with almost any weight of line, hand over hand.
The other men in the party climbed down the mooring lines and into the boats. With the Captain in the stern of the shallop, Delaney sat beside Blue Garvey, and each took an oar. The two prisoners sat in the prow. Lemmer and Sleeve took the skiff.
Their two guides joined them on the water, paddling up in little one-man pods that skimmed around the surface like dragonflies. They used ingenious paddles, a single shaft with a blade at each end. Delaney was amazed at their skill with these boats, but even more amazed that one of them managed this at a very advanced age. Old and withered, he looked like he wouldn't last another day. But he could paddle that little pod like nobody's business, just as well as the other native, who was young and fit.
Even with the lightest boats they had, it was slow going up the river. They made good progress while the river was wide, but before nightfall they had faced a catalog of difficulties: unruly bugs of various unpleasant descriptions, piranha, snakes, rapids, and of course, heat. Once they even had to shoot a big cat out of a tree. The thing roamed back and forth up in the branches overhead, just daring anyone to paddle underneath. Blue took it down with one shot, and then they all watched as the piranha turned it into a boiling feeding frenzy. They'd have stripped it down to bones, too, except that a big croc came along and snapped it up, as though the fish had been just so many gnats.
“I'd like to seen how that cat planned to kill us without gettin' et herself,” Delaney said aloud. No one responded; they just kept paddling upstream.
That silent pause was unusual because for most of the trip, little Autumn kept up a steady stream of questions and comments. “That's a really big bird, Mama. What's it called?” “Why is the water so brown?” “Is that the mosquito's nose?” “Why do those men have such little boats?” “Look at that tree, Mama. It's all bent over. Is it an old man tree?” And of course, “Where are we going?” and “How long till we get there?”
Jenta did her best to answer all the questions, and to keep her daughter
calm. This wasn't too difficult; it was all an adventure to Autumn. Jenta didn't once seem afraid, and Delaney watched her closely. Now and then her sadness came through, though, in a sigh or a longing look. Then Autumn would ask, “What's the matter, Mama?” And she'd put a little hand on her mother's cheek.
“It's all right, baby,” Jenta would say with a smile. “The world is a hard place sometimes.”
“Not for me,” Autumn would say cheerfully. And then she'd sing. It wasn't always the same song. She had several songs. But all of them were haunting to Delaney. All were young and innocent, and all out of place here, echoing through canyon walls or absorbed into the rain and mist, or just rolling out over the gurgling river.
They slept in the boats, the crewmen taking turns guarding the prisoners and their own lives. The guides didn't seem too worried about anything, stretching out on shore with a rock for a pillow and a long knife by their sides.
On the second night, though, Delaney was on watch when Jenta stirred. He was looking at her face, pale in the starlight and the small sliver of moon overhead. In the rippling shadows she could have been any woman, and he thought of Maybelle Cuddy. Her little boy would be what, ten or eleven by now? He had lost count. Maybe older.
Then Jenta spoke. “Save my girl, Delaney.”
Delaney whipped around, looked at Captain Whatney. But the Whale was sound asleep in the stern, sawing away peacefully. He turned back to Jenta. “I wish I could, ma'am.”
“Then do.”
“I cain't.”
“Why not?”
“Well, lots a' reasons. But mostly, I'm a pirate now.” He didn't know why he added that final word.
She was silent. “Damrick saved me.” She waited a while, then said, “I didn't even want to be saved. I didn't think it was possible. But it was. He loved me when I didn't love him. When I didn't love myself. When I'd given up on everything, that's when he redeemed me.”
Delaney was miserable. “Ma'am, why are ye telling me all this?”
“I know you can't save my life, Mr. Delaney. If I die, I will be with Damrick. But she's so young. Save her. Protect her. Please.”
Delaney just looked up into the sky. Then he looked back down. “You go back to sleep, ma'am.”
“If you can't save her,” she said after a pause, “â¦please be sure she dies quickly, and without pain.”
Delaney was sure that a more sorrowful sentence had never been spoken on earth.
After three nights and four days, they arrived. The place where the guides stopped looked no different from any other stretch of the
Arbetoh
, the Path, as far as Delaney could tell. He wondered how on earth these guides could pick it out. But they were utterly confident, and so everyone pulled their boats up onto shore. The younger guide stayed with the boats, while the old man led them through the dense, wet forest.
“If this is a path,” Delaney said to Sleeve, “it's doing a good job of disguisin' itself as a forest.” They had to hack through vines and thick-stemmed, scaly plants that Delaney was sure were growing fast enough he could see them coming back soon as they were chopped. But after a few hundred yards, they arrived at the camp just as night was falling.
“H
UMMA COM NOOMDUM
,” the man who was certainly the leader of the tribe said. He had the painted skull permanently tattooed on his face, though it looked so fresh it almost glistened. And he had so many sticks and briars poking out of his backpack, or what looked like a backpack, he might well have been mistaken for a hedgehog.
“You not welcome here,” the old man translated.
“Coulda interpreted that myself,” Spinner Sleeve said under his breath.
The visitors, all but Jenta and Autumn, were seated in a rough semicircle around a fire pit, facing the chieftain. The Hants had taken away all of their weapons before a word had been spoken or a gesture made, except for the shaking of, and prodding by, pointed sticks, rough iron knives, and the large, flat-bladed swords that looked more like paddles or oars. Mother and daughter were placed off to one side, seated on the ground and surrounded by warriors. These spent more time examining the confiscated weapons than they did watching their prisoners.
The Hants wore few clothes, but much paint. Human bones seemed to be the style of the day, as all the men and women had them painted on their skin. But the chieftain was the only one whose face was blackened and then whitened again in the image of a grinning skull.
“Tell him we come in peace, and we bring gifts,” the Whale offered in answer.
The old man translated. Then the chief responded with, “Com hoob ano gooblee dom.”
The translator shook his head. “He say he not want gifts from strangers of the dark world.”
Belisar turned to smirk at his men, slinging sweat as he did. “We're the dark world. That's a good one.” Then to the translator, “Tell him, these are gifts for your dead.”
When that was translated, the chieftain's interest level noticeably improved. “Oom com say noss rum,” he offered quickly.
Belisar looked to the drawn old man.
He shrugged. “He says, let's see what you have.”
The Whale then snapped his fingers, and Blue Garvey handed him the squared-off leather pouch he wore on a lash around his neck. It looked like it might have been half of a set of old, weathered saddlebags. Belisar opened the flap and brought out a vial of liquid, a covered jar, and a cylinder wrapped in a soft cloth. He held out the vial first.
“These are the tears of the wronged.”
The chieftain clapped his hands even as the words were translated. A young man, a warrior by the look of him, took the vial from Belisar and handed it to his chief. The Hant held it up to the light, and looked at it carefully. He took out the stopper and smelled it. He closed his eyes. He opened them, put the stopper back in. “Kanna com toom.”
“What else do you have?” the old man asked.
Belisar held up the jar. “The ashes of the innocent.”
“What does that mean, Mama?” Autumn asked. She was paying little attention to anything but her rag doll.
“Hush,” Jenta told her. “Hush now.”
After another inspection, the chieftain seemed equally accepting of the jar.
Belisar unrolled the cloth, revealing a single bone, broken in two. “The bones of the faithful.”
The chieftain examined this one for a long time. Then he looked up. “Goo ha benna deem oh rah. Doo hamma id, com ben day ho.”
“The gifts are good,” the old man said. “He asks what you seek from the Hants.”
“Tell him that the woman hides a secret known but to the dead. I am her chieftain. I want to know that secret.”
After the translation, the chieftain nodded. “Hoobatoon,” he said.
Delaney didn't know what this meant, but he figured it out soon
enough when the warriors behind them produced several long pipes, each about as big around as a man's forearm, and lit them. They gave the first to Belisar, who smoked, and handed it back. Then they passed the others around to the men. The smoke was strong and harsh and tasted of pinecones. Several, including Delaney, coughed at the first puff. Lemmer gagged and clamped his mouth shut, looking like he might vomit.
“Andowinnie,” the chieftain said.
“Drink of the marsh yew,” the translator said, motioning toward a particularly scraggly bush that grew in the underbrush. It had long needles like a pine tree, but they drooped and swayed like willow leaves. The warriors passed out the smallest cups Delaney had ever seen, not much bigger than the cap of an acorn. Everyone got one of these. They drank it together. It had the same piney taste, and left a flavor of pine tar in his mouth. It also left a sticky residue on his tongue. Lemmer's face turned white, then red, and then he broke out in a sweat. But he kept it down.
That accomplished, the chieftain grew serious. He looked directly at Belisar. “Noo blay honto emssay kwy dendaroos.”
The translator spoke. “The doorway to the other world opens tomorrow night. You bring
dendaroos
. The doomed.”
Belisar nodded his understanding, and pointed at the woman. The others looked at one another quizzically. All but Jenta, who seemed to understand exactly what was being discussed. She watched in silence as she let Autumn spin around in circles while holding onto her finger, held above Autumn's head.
“You know of this,” the chieftain said through the old man. It was not a question.
Belisar acknowledged that he did.
The translator listened, then said, “It is required tomorow night. The Rippers of the Bone must be satisfied.”