“Do you have any money?”
“No, just meat and water, both of which are running low.”
“What’s in your packages?”
“Towels and fine jackets for the queen.”
“How did you come to be traveling with these people?”
“My friend and I didn’t want to leave alone. Perhaps it would’ve been better, since we faced no real dangers.”
“We haven’t all day,” he snapped. “What is your name?”
“Mariska Ba Mirada.”
“What are your allegiances?”
I hesitated again, and I saw suddenly that the man’s eyes were warm, kind even. My mind searched for a proper response. “My allegiances are to the queen.”
“Do you have any money?”
“No.”
“Good, and don’t forget it.”
He waved for the next person in line.
When the questioning ended, the man directed us into a building for inoculations. During the inoculation I felt only the smallest pressure on the inside of my arm, and I had a hard time believing the small pressure would protect me from disease. Because the medicine didn’t take effect right away, the Soom Kali told us we would have to spend the night at the compound. But we could leave first thing in the morning.
The man in charge posted no guard at our section of the compound and simply told us we were confined to our rooms. But I could tell from his arrogant smile that he dared us to try to escape.
Just as Bakshami was a culture of glass, Soom Kali was a culture of stone and metal. Stone made up the furniture, beds, walls, and floors. All utensils were metal, and I watched out my window as dully shining metallic vehicles came and went across the sand. Occasionally one took off into the sky. Unlike the plain Forman ships, these vehicles possessed a majestic, birdlike quality. I remembered what everyone always said, that the Formans were simple barbarians, and the Soom Kali were barbarians with style. I admired their splendid barbarism. I also liked the way they complimented Artie. Some of them even made a special trip to my room to see the dog they said looked as if he should have been from Soom Kali.
At one point after dark the dog-faced man came into my room. He exclaimed admiringly over Artie, then sat himself on a chest.
“I am visiting some of you tonight to let you know that several soldiers and I will escort you through Soom Kali and to the Mallarr border. What do you and your friend plan to do next?”
“I’m going to Forma to save my parents.”
“By yourself?”
“Maybe with my brother. He came to Soom Kali with his wife. He may be integrated by now for all I know.”
The man nodded. “I thought you said you didn’t know where your brother was. Let me give you advice about my sector. Although we don’t care anything for your money, we do not care for liars. Do not lie to me again, or I may not be so lenient next time.” With that, he got up and left the room.
The next day I left with the queen’s entourage and a contingent of Soom Kali soldiers. The terrain, though harsh, wasn’t as unmerciful as the terrain of Bakshami. The ground was harder and less sandy, therefore easier to walk on, and the sun didn’t seem to be constantly on the verge of defeating me. Trees sprang up here and there, moister and taller than the trees of my sector. At night, the rising moons brightened the looming animal shapes behind us.
One of the queen’s dogs got sick, so I combed the dog and massaged her limbs. The queen’s deputies wanted to throw the dog away; instead, I gave her extra water and food, and she became my dog. She was one of the entourage’s ornamental dogs who’d fallen out of favor and become a working dog, and because she was sick she became useless to them. She slept between me and Artie nightly, a slender black dog, big yet dwarfed by mine. Every night she slept close, often with her jaws resting on my shoulder.
One night she licked me face, and I awoke to see a deputy killed, exactly the way one of the other deputies had warned me about—his insides turned outside while he screamed. All because he had stolen from a Soom Kali soldier. She licked me again, as if to say, Don’t worry.
The stars had never seemed so bright, so full of the same life that pulses in a tree or an animal. I saw the familiar stars upon which I’d gazed all my life, but there was nothing in them to tell me I was special. I felt certain that my grandfather had erred, and that I would never find guidance. I kissed my poor sick black dog. I don’t know how the queen’s deputies chose such a graceful but susceptible dog to haul heavy loads. This dog might be capable of getting across the sand with no load, but she didn’t have the stamina to work hard in the desert. I was surprised she’d made it this far. I kissed her again, on her soft ears. In Bakshami we didn’t consider ourselves elevated above our dogs. Without humans, the dogs would survive easily, but without dogs, our life would become harder still. We felt the dogs helped us out of generosity, and we felt indebted to them.
Everything in the world was so far away at that moment. My destination, my home, my family, the stars, my future, my birth, and even my death. Nothing was close to me except the dogs and the wretched ground on which I slept. I felt like a child floating out in space, surrounded by warmth and brightness but not close enough to touch any of it. Toward the Bakshami horizon I saw the long sweeping clouds like the blades of knives. I felt for my own knife under the sand near my head. I planned to sleep with it within easy reach for the rest of my trip. I could feel in the air that outside of Bakshami it was best to keep a knife nearby.
We set off each morning before sunrise. The Soom Kali were excellent walkers. For the first time in my life, I could see sky at a horizon instead of the dust clouds that encircled Bakshami. After a while I saw only traces, almost like ghosts, of the same type of clouds at the horizon behind me.
I called the new dog Shami, or “fire,” for the flame-shaped orange-tan spot on her chest. Other than the flame and touches of white on one paw, her fur was black. Still sick, she moved unsteadily when she walked, but her natural grace soon took over, and she kept up with Artie and me if we walked a little slower than usual. She didn’t carry anything, so even in the heat of midday she still had energy to walk. As she improved, I saw how willful she was and why she’d ended up getting the whippings that had no doubt contributed to her sickness. When I called her to me she ran away, and when I wanted to be left alone, she pranced like a flame around me, playfully kicking loose dirt at my feet to entice me to chase her. Dirt increasingly comprised the ground. I’d been waiting eagerly for this to happen, but now that the moment of solid earth had come my feet seemed to hit the dirt with a jarring thud, and I began to see the advantage of soft sand under one’s feet. Still, there was something to be said for solid earth. It made me feel that I was really somewhere, instead of in the middle of nowhere, in the desert.
When we set up camp at night, I felt pleased with the progress we’d made. Perhaps we would get to the Soom Kali-Mallarr border sooner than I’d expected. Rather than getting weaker, Shami became invigorated by our swift progress. She barked at Artie, begging him to play, and he looked happy. His happiness made me realize that he’d been unhappy for quite some time now. When she felt especially good, she tormented the deputies by stealing their packages when they weren’t watching.
As for the dog-faced man, he made pets of Tarkahna and me. Tarkahna had never liked talking, but now she and the dog-faced man carried on long conversations throughout the night. With the Soom Kali in charge, Tarkahna tried to befriend me again, but I would have none of it.
As soon as I got ready for bed, both dogs pawed and scraped at the ground, and then immediately lay down and fell asleep. Shami, a delicate-looking dog, groaned long, deep-throated extremely indelicate groans in her sleep. She’d been groaning this way for as long as she’d been sick, and I figured it had to do either with a pain she felt from her illness, or a pain she remembered from her whippings.
I ate liberally most days, and fed the dogs liberally as well. Several times I’d caught sight of furr
tos running in groups, and a couple of times I’d seen larger animals I didn’t recognize. So there was plenty of food for our trip. The landscape would never be better than rigorous—that’s one reason the area remained underpopulated—but compared to parts of Bakshami a rigorous landscape was a blessing. Most of Soom Kali was said to be as lush as the whole of Artroro, so few cared to settle an area like this. In fact, Soom Kali had once tried to sell this strip of land to my country. I wished we’d bought it. But the elders had refused, saying we shouldn’t give profit to warmongers like the Soom Kali. My people feared the Soom Kali and their warrior ways.
The different landscape affected me, made me see that the determined character of my people was brought to the fore by the land. Now I felt that same determination, but something else too, an alertness that I rarely needed traveling in my country. During the nights the alertness turned to fierceness as I dreamed of plunging my knife into a faceless Forman’s chest and exulting in the feel and sound of the plunge, and in the smell of Forman blood. In my dreams the Forman flesh offered only slight resistance, like an overcooked root. I awoke after these dreams in triumph, invigorated, eager for another day of walking.
Except for a mild dust storm, the land didn’t change for days at a time, and when it did change, it was only to rise a bit, then fall a bit. We eagerly noted the rising and falling, happy for any change. I liked this new feeling of alertness. It was a new taste on my tongue, something tart and fresh, like the taste of junyi leaves we used for spice, a touch sweet, but it sent fire through my veins. If even just this small change in the landscape could affect me so, I wondered how I would feel surrounded by greenery and waterfalls. When we stopped for a lunch break the dogs frisked like puppies. Shami, agile and calculating, darted in and out to bite Artie’s legs. Artie, on the other hand, was fast and muscular but perfectly straightforward. Shami always knew in advance what he would do.
We walked in high spirits. I’d never traveled over such amenable land before, land where I might find a lake or at least a creek even in the driest-looking area, and where dinner could be caught almost nightly. The Soom Kali loved Artie and the speedy Shami, and because they liked my dogs they liked me, too. And I think they admired the two young Bakshami girls who had set out on their own. They didn’t say so, but I felt it. On the other hand, the queen’s stuffy entourage bored them.
Rather than try to preserve the meat, we ate fresh whatever we caught. I’d never lived so luxuriously, with a steady supply of fresh food and water.
There were problems. My legs, built for sand, sometimes felt strained on the harder ground. And around the lakes mosquitoes buzzed in such numbers that from far away the air looked gray. Watching one gray cloud fly toward me, dampening the sun, I feared for my life. From close up the mosquitoes’ noise made a constant even drone, not like millions of tiny insects, but like a single large one. They descended upon the dogs’ eyes until the dogs screamed, and I, myself beset, could do nothing to help. I started leaving the dogs behind while I went to the lakes alone, my face and head covered with my gown as I peeked out. Apparently the mosquitoes fed on the furrtos, which seemed particularly skittish and red-eyed around the lakes.
Because of the mosquitoes, I never bathed at the lakes, just filled my water containers and hurried away. For a while I entertained a notion that I would find a way to make use of the mosquitoes, cook them or something and sprinkle them like seasoning on my meat. My mind, with nothing else to keep it busy, devised plans to overcome the mosquitoes. I fantasized about setting fire to the forest around the lakes, and burning all those insects. Or of constructing a sticky trap out of tree sap. Maybe I could dig a huge hole and throw furrto meat down below, and when the mosquitoes flew in, I’d bury them in dirt and sand. It was all fantasy. I realized that like the sand and heat of Bakshami, the mosquitoes could best be overcome by accepting them.
When we neared the Mallarr-Soom Kali border, the dog-faced man—named Panyor—and Tarkahna spoke ever more earnestly and urgently each night. I expected to see more magnificent stone buildings, but instead, one night shortly before we stopped I saw in the distance a section of wall. It was a tall straight stone wall, unadorned, worn only a little in places, and pausing at a forest before stretching into the distance. There were a few buildings as well, maybe to house border soldiers.
We stayed near some bushes, the dogs sleeping touching me as they always did now. During each day they frequently looked up at me with adoring faces, and I adored them back. I wanted more dogs. Still, I was glad Shami hadn’t gone into heat during our trip—puppies were the last thing I needed.
The ground now was nearly hard, and I could see that in one direction there was a village. I couldn’t stop myself from wandering over to stare. I protectively dragged my things closer to the village while the soldiers who’d accompanied us watched curiously. I’d never seen electric lights before; they were only a rumor in Bakshami. There hadn’t been any at the outpost on the Bakshami border. Each house was like a miniature fortress or castle, the huge ornate doors covered with carvings. At each door, a lamp hung to the side. The sight was so beautiful that I couldn’t believe people slept inside at night, instead of outside where they could see their intricate doors and their amazing lamps swinging in the wind, throwing shadows on the ground, on the steps and on the watching stone faces. Those lights and their shadows made me feel that everything in the world that I could possibly want existed in this tiny village.
I ached to knock at one of those doors, to talk to another person, even to one who would wish me dead. Watching the dogs prance together, seeing how the company of another dog had lifted the glumness from Artie—an invisible gloom, the kind I never realized he felt until it was gone—had filled me simultaneously with joy and loneliness. I envied Tarkahna’s new friendship and even envied the queen’s entourage.
I became aware that I was being watched as I sat alone, admiring the village. Far in the distance, the dogs played silently, capering beneath the stars.
“Nice dogs,” said a bored voice.
A young man sat next to me, not handsome exactly but of such confidence as to seem almost insolent. This confidence took my breath away. In Bakshami he might seem immoral. He smiled, not at me but at the dogs.
“Have you bred them? I’d like a good puppy.”
I looked around, scarcely believing he talked to me. “I don’t speak Artroran so well like you,” I said uneasily. I worried he might be trifling before he harmed me.
“Your accent isn’t very good,” he agreed.
“Have you been watching me?”
“It took you a long time to realize.”
“Why didn’t you show yourself?”
“To anyone else, I would have been showing myself. Your eyes and ears are as weak as an old woman’s. The whole camp sees us.” I looked back, saw the soldiers smiling with amusement at us. One of them said something to him in Soom Kali and all the soldiers laughed. He laughed, too, suddenly warm. “Look, I don’t mean to insult you. What are you doing out here? You’re so small. You’re like a doll.”
“In Bakshami I’m rather tall. Not terribly so, but rather.”
“You’re in Soom Kali now, little doll.”
“You, on the other hand, would be the tallest person in my old village.”
“Me? I’m only average.” He stretched like an animal. He looked wistfully toward the wall. “Where are you going?”
“To Artroro first.”
“Artroro,” he said scornfully.
“They’re the most powerful sector on the planet. Why not go there?”
“They’re not so powerful,” he said.
Such insolence! “I’ve heard, anyway, but I’ve never been outside Bakshami before.”
“Are you going with your dogs and your packages? You should keep a better watch on your things.”
“What do you mean?” I noticed suddenly that one of my bags was gone.
“Relax. I’m going to return it. I just wanted to l
earn more about you. I don’t want your precious jewels. Of course if you wanted to give me some jewels, I might help you get to Artroro.”
“Why not just steal from me?”
He genuinely seemed to be thinking that over, then he smiled brightly. “Because I like you.”
I felt quite taken aback. First I wanted to hit him, then I felt drawn to him.
“What are you thinking?” he said. “You have a funny look on your face.”
I spoke shyly. “You could have a puppy if you wanted.”
“Is she pregnant?”
“No, I meant when and if she has puppies.”
“I don’t accept promises from strangers.” He picked up a lock of my hair. “So this is the fabled Bakshami hair. It’s dirty, but otherwise it’s very nice. I like strong things.”
Artie and Shami finally had noticed the young man and ran over growling. The man put out his hand so they could smell him.
“They like you,” I said. “Usually I would have to restrain Artie.”
“I’m good with animals ... What are you going to do in Artroro?”
“I’m going to hire a muscleman to take me to Forma, where my parents are in trouble.”
His eyes flashed hatefully for a moment. “The Artrorans have been attacking us once a generation for as long as anyone can remember.”
“That’s because you don’t pay them freedom fees. Why not just pay them and have a little peace?”
“Our freedom can’t be paid for.”
“Do you live in the town?”
He nodded. “I work at the border with them—” he nodded at the other soldiers—”but I’m on leave now.”
“The town is so inviting.”
“How can a town like this seem inviting? All the towns on the edge of the desert are barren like this. But I have to stay. I’m an only child and my father has been dying for three years.”
“Where’s your mother?”
“Dead. Murdered by an Artroran.”
“I’m sorry. Many of my people were murdered by Formans.”
“If it’s any comfort, the Formans take many prisoners for servants. I have heard that many Bakshami refugees have become servants to Formans.”