Chapter 33 The Ride to the Snow
In the dawn of October sixteenth Metuza the Dog walked among Farjan foot soldiers descending Grug Pass into the plain of Trans-Titan. She was taking a turn outside of the two-seated litter that held the Smoke Hag, for she wanted space to think, away from that suffocating box. She had never felt comfortable sitting next to something that had been spell-burnt from head to foot but had never died. And besides, she had something to gnaw on and wanted to do it privately.
It was that neither Zavira nor Pyrus understood what was best when they talked of capturing the young man Clay. They talked of how, as a prisoner, he could be used to lure his wretched sister, who had disappeared into the Hule Skoteine in July. And once Simone was secured, slay them both. Very plain and practical, the Hag’s plan, and just what Metuza would have approved if she had not met the Pretender face to face, if she had not seen him enter and leave the Great Midraeum without being shriveled to a spot on the floor.
It was that he was—not a Pretender. Metuza shivered beneath her dark cloak and thick veil. What she had seen in the Great Midraeum was an Emperor. He had laughed at the high god Midras, mocked the sacred bones of Zeel, and gleefully destroyed the four Powers of the Black Hall. Their dread had not been upon him; he had sung merrily and recited poetry as he shattered them. Many a mighty flis, she was sure, had accompanied him into the Midraeum, and many a mighty god unknown to the ineffectual witches.
Yes, his power was unguessable. None of the witches could explain, for instance, how he had gotten from Crow Wood to Lucilla’s ruins so quickly. For it now appeared that he was the same boy that Zavira had chased up the Olympus and that the hunt for him had been given up too soon.
When thwarted by great spiritual power, the cult had always employed the knife, the sword, poison, a push off a steep place. But even against material methods Clay had proved slipperier than a Skoteine wizard. Despite his brief enslavement, one might almost guess that he had been toying with the witches, leading them a merry chase. Witness that the great General Pyrus had failed with his net. Just the previous evening a message had arrived borne by a racing korfy rider, last in a chain of riders that had sped the scroll all the way from Droljel in less than twenty-four hours. When the contents had been read aloud, Metuza had laughed openly at the wretched Pyrus.
While attempting to cross a saddle near the end of the range, some of his riders had been attacked by Ulrigs. Aided by a sudden thunderstorm, the wolf folk had driven the humans back with loss. This had left the way into Trans-Titan open, and there the Emperor and his few Mangars must have gone.
So Clay had traveled all the way from Quintusia to the East, as impervious to capture as that rat-tailed Fijata Imalda, with whose name he had once taunted Metuza. Now Pyrus was trying to save his rank, and possibly his life, with this move across the pass; abandoning his supply train, ordering his troops to plunder the land ahead for their rations. Every soldier was alerted to watch for the blonde haired boy with a strange accent. She herself, as the only one who had seen him close up, was to make the final identification.
But Metuza knew the boy would not be caught. Only she knew how to deal with him, but she dared not say it, dared not offend her superiors. She mumbled the answer to herself as she walked, “Corrupt him, deceive him, tempt him to doubt.” If the sister were to make an appearance, do the same. She would not try to kill either one of them, not if she had the cursed Lila-mes bound side by side on an altar of sacrifice. Fowroz had taught her the true way, the way that had succeeded from the Beginning. It was the way that had driven Adam and Eve from the garden and had driven Lila to meet the arrow at Icarus Pass. “Deceive them, corrupt them....”
Old One Eye and the Hag; why, they were stupid and blind. Furthermore, she now knew that they could die; she had seen and felt Immortals die in the Black Hall of Purgos. So might it be for Monophthalmos and Zavira also, she prayed to Fowroz, as soon as she was ready to take their place. She would then be the lone Immortal in the Fold, the unrivaled Power over Farja and over the covens of all the other Silent Cities. Add to this that her impending marriage to Solomon’s son would make her Empress of the East, and who could match her political power? Eventually, all the Fold would turn to her with humble faces of fear and worship.
Yes, these siblings from the Old World were powerful, too. But given the chance, she would dissolve their power by cutting them off from their Source. Trick them, lie to them, drive them to despair. Then possess them.
Oh, the sweet day when Clay would bow down to her! The first thing she would make him do would be to produce Ven’s bones and beg her for forgiveness concerning her brother’s death. That was the way.
Her eyebrows came together in a scowl as her daydream evaporated. How would she gain the power?
That same morning and more than two hundred miles north of Grug Pass, Clay and the Mangars were seated in a circular white tent on the wooded plain. Nashpa had steered them northward two evenings before, and all of the previous day had been spent moving slowly in the same direction; slowly, because the humans seemed to have lost their trail and because the korfies were tired and in need of grazing.
Now Nashpa sat among them in the diminished light of the tent’s interior and waited for their reaction to his just announced plan—a reaction slow in coming.
Ripel spoke at last. “But we can make it home, Nashpa, I know we can. There’s no need to test legends, throw our lives away.”
“We might make it back if we try,” Nashpa said, nodding. “But the Farjan riders will be watching for us. Our chances are not good. And Ripel, if we come safely to the Rull Semu, what then? For two reasons our people have survived so many centuries since the humans came: because we roam free in our tents and because we possess so little. As to the first reason, Emperor Clay, if the humans try to besiege one of our towns, they find it’s gone in the morning. We are the Wind People.”
“And you the windiest of all, Nashpa,” said Bafrel, and led in the laughter.
“I don’t deny it! But you’ll agree it’s more than wind when I say that our possessing so little has also saved us. What have we ever had that the humans value? Pelts? They can have them from us in trade. Money? Very little. Possessions? Only what we can carry on a korfy. The inheritance of a Mangar is a song, a bow, and the freedom of the plains.
“But now, noble fellows—” Nashpa’s large face looked a terrible warning “—now you ask me to bring among our people what the humans want most of all, what they have shown they will fight and kill for, what they’ll march into the North to get; that is, the Emperor’s person. When they come for him, as they certainly will—these things can’t be hushed up, you know—far more Mangars will die than our puny seven.”
“You speak of the Emperor,” said a Mangar, “as if he were a burden. No, our people will gladly die for him. Take him to them and let the chieftains decide.”
“That’s right,” said another. “If the Emperor is a burden, his presence is also the greatest honor. All of the Mangars should share in both.”
Whether due to homesickness or a sense of the fitness of it, the others Mangars agreed that Clay should go west. Out of respect for Nashpa, none made mention of his mad sounding alternative.
In the end Nashpa could say nothing to them. He looked to Clay. “Your Eminence, a wise leader does not command the unwilling unless he’s more sure of himself than I am. They’ll follow me if they must, but I’m not ready to give the order unless it’s your command as well.”
Clay had questions. “You say you’re not sure how far it is to these Ice Caves? Or where they are exactly?”
Nashpa explained that no Mangar had ever gone there, and that probably no one at all had visited the Caves in hundreds of years.
“Long ago the Blue Ulrigs lived there. They fished and hunted as we do, so we have hope of such a food supply. The Caves themselves will provide shelter. As for the korfies, they’ll be h
ungry in that snowy waste, but perhaps no worse than in bad winters at home when our hay has run out. They may perhaps swallow some fish if we coax them. At any rate, if we can’t leave the Caves with them, we can fashion a small boat, come spring, and ride it down the coast to the Broken Realm.”
“Wait a minute,” said Clay. “What about these Blue Ulrigs? What’ll they have to say about this?”
“They probably died out long ago,” said Nashpa. “The histories say they were dying of a plague.”
“Not all of them!” Ripel hissed in alarm. “There could be hundreds of them yet, even thousands, to slay us. And do you hear what our leader is saying? Our korfies die! Of starvation! Is this a fine plan?”
“Wait a minute, we can’t face both Ulrigs and starvation,” said Clay smiling, “only one or the other. Because if the Ulrigs are there in force, the korfies won’t have the chance to starve.”
“No, exactly. They’ll be eaten,” agreed Ripel, “and so will we.”
A long silence followed while the wind rippled the walls of the tent. At last one of the Mangars said, “You must decide, Your Eminence.”
Clay was not used to deciding anything involving others. Both plans seemed very bad.
“Can’t we just camp on the plains?”
“We could,” said Nashpa, “but only if we stay far enough south to graze the korfies, and then one of Pyrus’ patrols would spot us sooner or later.”
“Well, these Blue Ulrigs, why should they hate us so? I mean, if they still exist. Couldn’t they be peaceful?”
“They’ve always hated every living thing but themselves,” Ripel said. “They were bred to it by the wizard Doron, he that invented the burning machines which the Blue Ulrigs used against the East. Those were—”
“You mean the same Doron I killed at Purgos? The one on canes? Yeah, I remember that he said he was forced to do those things, but I didn’t believe his innocent act.”
The Mangars stared at him. “You did what?” Ripel said. “Your Eminence was at Purgos?”
Clay told them the whole story. When he had finished, the Mangars appeared stunned.
Nashpa pounced on the opportunity. “Someone who could do that,” he said, “need have no fear of Ulrigs, whether few or many. What will the Emperor command?”
“Well....” Clay tried to consider what Raspberry would have advised, and the answer came too quickly, an answer both simple and frightening. “Well, I can’t have these witches and soldiers following me in among your people. It’s just like Nashpa said, a lot of good Sarrs would die for nothing. I make trouble wherever I go, so I’d best go where nobody else is, or at least where Nashpa hopes no one is. I’ll go to the Ice Caves. But look, none of you has to go with me. You go home. Just point me in the general direction.”
Ripel made a high pitched yowling in his throat. “What’s this? Have we found the Emperor indeed? I only half believed until now. Your Eminence, I’m the most chicken livered Mangar that ever had the misfortune to be named ‘great heart.’ I thought until now that I’d take any way out of this that I could, even if it were shameful. But—” He sighed. “—you have won me. I’ll go with you.”
What Clay always remembered best about the weeks that followed was not the nights in the tent, nor the long pauses to graze the korfies, nor even the hunts for elk or deer in which he began to learn the use of lance and bow; but rather the rides of the tabra.
He never grew tired of it. Each morning they packed up their korfies and formed their diamond, spreading out in pairs that rode side by side. Bafrel and Misbal rode on the north, the brothers Rosif and Razasif on the west, Ripel and Omulglas on the south, Nashpa and Clay on the east. The diamond’s orientation never changed even if the tabra changed direction. If they tended east, then Clay and Nashpa were in front; if more northerly, then it was Bafrel and Misbal. This saved the riders the trouble of riding around to get behind the leader, for their leader changed with their direction, all eight riders turning in place. Clay learned that four riders were the minimum but that sometimes a tabra consisted of hundreds.
Shortly after leaving Dowerkass, the Mangars had shed most of the goods they had traded for there. Now, reluctantly, they threw aside the remainder and rode light, each with his saddle pack and his weapons. And as they rode, they sang, sang in their booming Mangar voices that carried like foghorns. They sang about themselves, about the roaming life, the hunt, and the battle. Or sometimes they grew humorous and sang of the ridiculous, such as the tale of a fuzzy brained Mangar repeatedly outwitted by a fast talking human trader. (The refrain goes: “‘My friend, I’ll give you three of these for only two of those.’ And the Mangar scratched his head and thought, and stretched his hairy toes.”)
Clay liked best the song called ‘Kuley’s Ride’ in which the Prince and a few companions came riding (improbably) on korfies to the relief of the besieged Mangars who were holding Neapolis. Kuley was surrounded and slain by evil humans. And “when his tabra was broken, the lance in his hand he placed in the chest of a captain of men, as he fell (as he fell) to a traitor’s sharp arrow; but his tabra sweeps on in the wind of the night. In the wind of the evening his tabra sweeps on.”
After some questioning of the Mangars, Clay found that this half brother of his own ancestress Lila had accomplished great—if vague—exploits in the Old World; that is, Clay gathered, in Europe; but had done seemingly little in the Fold except to die (or disappear) young. Some Sarrs held that Kuley had never died and would return in martial glory just when he would be least expected. But Clay noted that the Mangars, at least, were always expecting him, thus making the prophecy unfulfillable in its full wording.
As they sang they roared. The Mangar’s trumpets were their own vocal cords, and sometimes they roared by turns while on the ride. First, the northern pair of riders would blare forth, then the southern would answer them; then the western, and finally Nashpa alone, for Clay could not roar. Once, however, when the turn of the East came, Clay treated the Mangars to a twenty second dose of Moldy Socks, played at full blast on his tape player. He never explained this, and they were too awed and confused to ask.
At times the Mangars varied this by causing their mounts to roar by twos, and the korfies’ mixture of the sounds of lion and snake was even louder than the roar of their riders. Clay was pleased that Velprew’s roar was judged loudest of all.
So for weeks they thundered in a northeasterly direction while the only change around them was the lessening and shortening of the conifers. The bad weather delayed; even the rains came seldom. But the clouds built up over them in fantastic mountains, like the palaces of giants. They rode below, and nothing changed, and Clay was deliriously happy.
He was happy because he was no longer hunted. Also because he had learned to ride; and he liked the Mangars now; and he was on an adventure. Tired out every night, he lay down happy, slept like the dead, and rose up happy.
Also because he loved the Fold. Though he had experienced little here besides slavery, persecution, and fear, still he loved the Fold, loved all of it, more than he had ever loved anything in his life. He detested tyrants and witches, but they, after all, were such a little bit of the whole, a mere aftertaste. He loved the big rivers and the ancient, crumbling cities; the mountains and the plains; the ships and wagons; the beggars, the slaves, the sailors, and the tradesmen; the Pidemoi and the Sarrs.
He loved them all so much that he wished he were not riding away from them, but rather riding to them, riding to their aid as had Prince Kuley in the legend.
One afternoon in late October, he began to sing English songs, as he often did when the tabra was riding, though his thin human voice was unheard by the Mangars, except perhaps for Nashpa. As their diamond covered the miles in a land with unchanging horizon, he tried this and that to suit his mood and settled on ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’ as being martial and stirring enough to suit a tabra.
He had memorized the words in junior high just because he liked them, not really because he was reading Civil War books at the time.
The clouds were in keeping with the song, massive and wind torn and rushing along as if to holy battle. He sang with enthusiasm every verse, then switched to ‘John Brown’s Body’ to the same tune and even, with equal gusto, the elementary school version that begins, ‘Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school.’ Then he started over.
“Glory, glory, hallelujah.”
He wished that the tabra were rushing to battle instead of fleeing from it. But what could he do if they did fight? Something that Sharalda had said to him and which had surfaced again and again in his memory stood out now in his mind as if it were written across the sky: ‘Against the witch cult of Farja cleverness won’t stand.’ And yet cleverness was all Clay had ever had. Bookish and scientific, he had been known as a nerd in school. Yes, and had been proud of it. He had always avoided fights. Except over a game board, he had never fought hard for anything.
Ever since he had reached the Fold, he had been running, and under the circumstances that had been sensible. But now he was going someplace where he might, just might, stop—and plan. What would he plan if he could? Would he try to do something for the Fold? Try to stop the Dragons as Raspberry had wanted? If he had an army with the ‘hundred circling camps’ his song described, would he have the fortitude to use it?
Sharalda had challenged him as to whether he cared about anyone but himself.... Well, it was true, he did not. He had the brains but not the guts to fight, and no amount of song singing would change that.
“He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before the judgement seat.”
Clay’s sifted heart felt like a worm’s. Where would he get the courage? Bekah had said that he did not believe. She had been brave that morning, going back to face Kulismos with its secret police on the watch for her everywhere. But Bekah had Thoz and he did not. (Ulrumman these Mangars called him.) How could he become like her, a Pidemos, and have a lion’s heart? His Psalm did not tell him anything about how to walk the righteous path except “he maketh me” to do it.
“Only He doesn’t maketh me,” Clay said aloud. “Where are You? If You want to maketh me, I’m ready, I think.”
The response came as if he had ridden through an invisible wall. Wham! He knew. And what he knew was not facts but a Person, a Person talking to him in more than words, using the clouds, using the land, saying—saying what? Nothing fully expressible, but suddenly Clay realized he was being asked to become a slave again and to remain so the rest of his life. He did not even feel sure of receiving any courage or insight in return, but one did not bargain with one’s Creator. His sole choice was to drift in uncertainty or to surrender in blind trust.
The Emperor presented himself before the Throne of Heaven and received his chains. Then he laughed, thinking that for this sort of bondage his lock picks would be neither effective nor necessary.