The Crystal Empire (34 page)

A good day to be alive in.

Nearby, Fireclaw half-sat against a weather-rotted stone thrusting through the thin, acidic soil. Great Ursi lolled panting at his moccasined feet.

Young Hraytis was not alone in using this resting time to good pu
r
pose, both men observed with approval. Not far away, Mochamet al Rotshild ran a stiff brush and a cleaning patch down the barrels of the four pistols he carried with him, finishing with the tiny fifth weapon he kept hidden somewhere on his person.

Beside him, his girl companion followed his example with her rifle. Knife Thrower found it interesting—if somewhat scandalous—to watch her labor at this manly task, the many rings she wore upon her fingers glittering as she moved her hands, the bangles in her dainty earlobes chiming softly, flashing in the sunlight.

For a dozenth time, Knife Thrower frowned, turning the little hand-forged blade in his fingers. The Helvetian grinned at his brother-in-law, prouder than if he himself had fashioned the weapon he was displaying to the Comanche.

Setting aside the puzzling yet undeniable fact that a woman had transcended her natural limitations to create it—Fireclaw had that ma
n
ner with everyone he met, stirring remarkable ideas into their brains as if they were so much porridge boiling over a cooking fire—the little knife was not without other distinctions. Even its handle was unique, spun as it was from lye-washed bear-dog combings, impregnated with hardening resin. When they returned again to the yellow plains, Fireclaw told him, he would inve
s
tigate other uses for this clever substance. Might not war-shields or lon
g
bows be fashioned from the stuff? Even Knife Thrower found himself in this wise wondering.

At that, it was better than wondering what his own wives might be learning in his absence from the kinswoman he had given to this strange-thinking outlander long ago.

Heavy caps at each end of the handle were of needle-filed and po
l
ished trade-brass, that between the blade and handle cunningly fitted from three soldered pieces—Fireclaw pointed out the hair-fine dull si
l
ver-colored lines—supporting the blade, that the pommel cap upon the end of the handle might be twisted off to reveal a hidden compartment for small n
e
cessities such as tinder, fishing line, or hooks.

“At present, as you see, ’tis filled with the dried petals of the flower your sister takes her name from.”

It was time for Knife Thrower to laugh. “As if her husband required any such reminder of the secret, loving manner in which she forged this clever implement to surprise him.”

Fireclaw shook his head. “She thought it her parting gift, ne’er thin
k
ing how another, spoke in casual words, might o’ershadow such a pridesome thing as a present of one’s first-forged—”

“Sedrich!”

It was the filthy oldster, Oln Woeck, shouting across the clearing as if the great Helvetian warrior were his bondservant. Knowing something of what had passed between the two Helvetians years ago, Knife Thrower wondered why the younger of them didn’t simply stake the older over an anthill and be done with him. Looking over his shoulder, Fireclaw took the last, wistful sight of the prairie he would enjoy until they were higher in the mountains. He inserted the gift-knife into its wet-fitted scabbard, tucked it into the rough-spun shirt he wore, where it hung by a thong about his neck.

“I mean to put yon unwashed murderous cur-spawn down for good ere this journey’s o’er,” he told Knife Thrower. “Today I’ll be content to give him another painful and humiliating lesson in deportment.”

He tapped the knife concealed at his bosom.

“Though I’d ne’er consider telling Dove Blossom, I don’t hold the idea of a hollow-handled knife too practical. Weakens the tool at the very place it should be stoutest. I’ll leave her blossoms there. In this wise, she’ll travel with us.”

Knife Thrower grunted. “You are sentimental for a blooded warrior.”

Fireclaw laughed. “Only such can sentiment afford. I go now, with a different sentiment, to render Oln Woeck’s day less pleasant.”

“Thou art not responsible for guiding them; but God guides whomsoever
He will.”—
The
Koran,
Sura II

Nodding, Knife Thrower remained where he was, turning his back toward the prairie. At another time, he might have enjoyed watching whate
v
er it was Fireclaw planned doing to the old Helvetian shaman.

Instead, he watched the others lying about the clearing. The foreig
n
ers were exhausted. Soon they would have to rest for more than just the few minutes Fireclaw had thus far allowed them.

Ah, well, the war chief thought, the journey would harden them by stages. His brother Fireclaw would be a bit more demanding of them every day until they were accustomed to the trail. He himself would aid in that. It would not take—

“They are a soft lot, these,” came a gruff, rasping voice, echoing yet interrupting his thoughts, “but for the most part determined of mind and, in their spirit, courageous.”

Knife Thrower looked up into the broad, flat-nosed face of Traveling Short Bear, no Comanche, this one, but a Ute, upon whose tribal territ
o
ry the party of Fireclaw were now trespassing. He had big ears. And thinning hair, which was unusual among his people.

Knife Thrower nodded.

“For a company of only nine to cross the world entire requires mind and spirit, courage and determination—or extreme stupidity.”

Traveling Short Bear rested his ample fundament upon the same rock where Fireclaw had sat.

“Stupid, my Comanche brother, is one thing they most certainly are not. Nor with one exception, slovenly.” He indicated Oln Woeck, tra
d
ing sharp words in the eastern tongue with Fireclaw—it seemed mostly a one-sided exchange, favoring the warrior. For a time they watched Mochamet al Rotshild and his companion dabbing at their weapons. “I confess,” he sighed at last, “I know not what else they may be.”

He lifted a short-fingered hand toward one of the Saracens.

“Tell me, Knife Thrower, what is this little girl, this Princess Ayesha they coddle so, like a baby? Among my people, the daughter of a chief is distinguished, if in anything, by the fact that she works somewhat harder than the other women.”

Knife Thrower shook his head.

“Gift-bride-to-be or not, to this rumored ‘Sun King’ of the western gods, she is a dream-seer.”

Observing the Ute’s surprised expression—an alteration of his cu
s
tomary facial repose which few Europeans or Helvetians would even have noticed—he nodded, adding, “No one had told me this before I guessed it, but I have been well educated to recognize the look.”

The Ute grunted understanding. It was, indeed, the wise in which shamans were chosen, the duty of war chiefs being to do the choosing. In turn, successors to Knife Thrower and Traveling Short Bear would be ch
o
sen by the next shamans of their tribes. Although they knew it not, each wondered to himself what sort of leader Oln Woeck had chosen over Sedrich Fir
e
claw.

“Trance-roots and other herbs are all well enough,” the Comanche went on, “but they are wasted upon the untalented.”

“Meaning the sane?” the Ute chuckled.

Knife Thrower laughed but did not answer. That his own tribe lacked a spirit guide at present owed to the fact no one among them had the haun
t
ed aspect this Saracen girl carried in her eyes.

“I confronted Fireclaw with my surmise, which he confirmed, saying that, the night before we left his place, the girl dreamed of voyagers like us, who, having started late, and trapped upon a mountain pass in winter, were reduced to eating one another before spring came. The odd thing is that she did not dream of the happening itself, but of being told as a trave
l
er-for-pleasure, generations afterward, by guardians of a shrine where this had transpired. Nonetheless, her awakening screams aroused the ranch and all else for a mile round.”

“Of what use is such a dream?” Traveling Short Bear frowned. “It does not foretell the future, neither does it reveal the past—except, pe
r
haps, a past which never happened.”

Knife Thrower shook his head.

“Let me tell you, then, of what she dreamed last night—according to my marriage-brother, who had it from Mochamet al Rotshild.

“A great spirit wagon filled her dream, possessing neither wheels nor sails, like the monster-headed Saracen land-ship I have spoken of, and fas
h
ioned all of metal, dashing up the side of a mountain with its tail afire. From her words, I knew this mountain—although she could not—it is vi
s
ible from the prairie, a great peak, for a mounted warrior a full day’s tra
v
el south of here. At the peak, this spirit wagon left the mountain and soared into the sky, headed, she said she somehow knew, for a village u
p
on the moon!”

Traveling Short Bear shivered, making a sign to ward off evil.

“Perhaps the gods are calling her to come be one of them, and your party will fare well enough through the forbidden lands. But will the rest of you be permitted to return?”

Both men shrugged.

“Well, friend Knife Thrower, I have my own education. Some of th
e
se foreign strangers are beyond me, but beware. I know the look of Marya, the female attendant of this girl-shaman.”

“Yes,” Knife Thrower answered, “her leg will bear some watching after, if she is not to slow us upon our journey.”

Traveling Short Bear snorted.

“The gods take her leg! I tell you, friend Knife Thrower, that she is an hysteric, liable to do anything at any time to anyone in any situation, as long as it is unpredictable and destructive. This is something you and your strangeling brother Fireclaw can but little afford, do you continue trespassing, not only against your neighbors, but against the gods the
m
selves.”

The Ute allowed himself to slide down the rock until he was seated upon the ground, closer to Knife Thrower. From his beaded pouch he took a handful of jerked antelope meat, tore it in half to share with the Coma
n
che. Chewing his own portion, he rested his fat arms upon his fatter knees and lowered his voice.

“We of the tribes owe a responsibility to the gods and have reason to remember the consequences of not fulfilling it.”

Knife Thrower nodded.

“Consumed by the Breath of God, an old shaman told me once, like the Dog-Eaters.”

“Yes, the Dog-Eaters—and others—obliterated by powerful and a
n
gry beings dissatisfied with their devotion and obedience. This lens-eyed David Shulieman is another matter. ‘Rabbi,’ your Saracens call him, whatever that is. Some sort of holy man, I gather, but not of the dream-seeing kind. Is it this one who has arranged the dispensation by which you have not yet been obliterated?”

Knife Thrower grunted.

“When pressed to it, he can acquit himself with some skill in a fight.”

He began tearing little strips from the jerky to nibble upon.

“He is the teacher of the girl, and nothing more, her amanuensis. Women fashioning weapons! Men attending them as servants! What in the name of the gods is the world coming to?”

Traveling Short Bear stopped chewing, assumed a puzzled expre
s
sion which Knife Thrower offered nothing to dispel.

Instead, the Comanche changed the subject.

“In the Commodore Mochamet al Rotshild, a diplomat much like yourself, friend Ute—and, my brother says, a brigand—I recognize the sp
i
rit of a fellow warrior. He is the real leader of this expedition, for all that, as long as we trudge through unknown wilderness, they take their orders from Fireclaw.”

He accepted another bit of meat from his companion.

“The young ear-bangled woman Lishabha is a female ‘companion’ to Mochamet, whose name—if not her fighting temperament—I have just this morning discovered.”

Looking past the food in his hands, Traveling Short Bear nodded in sudden understanding.

“Another unconventional soul to turn the safe, familiar world upside down? Unlike their Sergeant Kabeer, a stolid, unimaginative dog-soldier, no threat to the gods, a fellow who would be quite at home upon any side in any fight.”

“Yes,” Knife Thrower answered. Having finished with his portion of the snack, he drew a small knife from his waistband, selected a pine twig from the ground. With one angled cut, he sliced the twig to a sharp point. “And he seems to be recovering more rapidly, from a far worse wound, than the woman Marya.”

They were quiet for a time. Knife Thrower used the twig to pick his teeth.

“Ali, their loutish retainer”—Knife Thrower shook his head—”I do not much care for, never having clearly understood which of the ou
t
landers he serves.”