Part way there, one of them remembered the tin plate, which would certainly bear the scent of one or both of them. He spent the rest of the journey trying to convince himself that the thing would not come back to sniff it out.
Discipline at the guard post above Ogre’s Gap had long been lax. Though considerable traffic had once passed that way, now there was so little movement on the road that the four guards, changed at the beginning of each span and assigned to watch two and two, night and day, had fallen into the habit of having one man watch the road during the day, while the rest of them slept, and having no man watch the road during the night while they all played cards and drank. Since the daytime watcher had also been up all night, he was usually asleep at his post. That is, during those times when he hadn’t taken off to go fishing or hunting for his own amusement.
Thus it was an unusual state of affairs to find all four men awake and watchful late one night, a state of affairs resulting from the fact that one of them had allowed a wagon to pass that afternoon driven by two demons, a male and a female. None of the guards had ever seen a demon before, and the junior man, the one who had seen them this afternoon had been asked to repeat his description of them until he was heartily sick of it.
“Look, they din’t spit fire or spout smoke; they din’t turn me into a frog; they din’t look like nothing weird. They looked just like people only they had horns. That’s it.”
“Was they real horns?” the sergeant asked, for the tenth time. “That’s what I want to know. I mean, what’s to stop some rebel from getting some horns off a cow and sticking them to his head and claiming to be a demon? To get out of Bastion? He could, you know he could.”
“Why would anybody do that?” the junior man demanded. “When anybody could just walk up over the top of the hill ’thout any trouble at all. Anybody can walk out of Bastion anytime, you know that as well as I do.”
“He’d do that to get a wagon out,” said the sergeant, to the sycophantic nods of his two cronies. “That’s why he’d do that. To get the wagon out and the woman out and whatever was in the wagon.”
“They stopped and got out so’s I could look in the wagon,” asserted the youthful guardsman, very red in the face. “There was a couple mattresses with blankets, and some bags with clothes in, and some books, and some food stores, and that’s all.”
“Contraband,” muttered the sergeant into his moustache. “They was probably carrying contraband. I should report that.”
“Well, you go right ahead,” said the guard, losing his temper altogether. “And I should report you wan’t even here, ’cause you were off fishing, and the other two of you wan’t anywhere around, ’cause you’d gone with him and the three of you was prob’ly having yourselfs a nice swim whilst I had two demons to deal with!”
This statement so far leveled the grounds of accusation that the sergeant wisely decided to let that aspect of the matter drop. “It might be the first of a bunch,” he said, flatly. “Or, it might be headquarters, making a test shipment or even checking up on us. For the next few days, we’d better look sharp at whatever comes along.”
All four agreed that this would be prudent. Or, as they put it, “A pain in the ass what those wine-drinking bastards in Bastion get up to.”
So it was that all four of them were more or less awake when, just before dawn, the man assigned to the watchtower, the junior man, the same one who had seen the demons that afternoon, came creeping in the back door of the watch-house, leaving it open, and shook the sergeant to alertness in utter silence, with a hand over his mouth.
“What the…” demanded the sergeant, before he saw his man’s face, which was white and stark eyed and frightened.
“Something coming up the road,” that man said. “Never saw nothing like it. A beast maybe, a big one. Not nothing we can handle, Sarge. Too big, moving too fast, and I think what we ought to do is turn out the lights and get out of here.”
The sergeant was braver than most, and stupider—the two qualities often going hand in hand. Already fully dressed he stalked to the door, tossed his quiver over one shoulder, took his spear in one hand and his bow in the other, opened the door with a crash, and strode out into the moonlight.
By this time the other two were reaching for their boots. The man who had reported gave his two fellows a frightened look and went out the door he had come in by, leaving it open behind him. In the wan light of predawn, the other two saw him running full tilt for the hillside and the cover of the trees.
That was about when the sergeant yelled, which brought the two to their feet. Then they heard a panicky shout, which made them turn in confusion, first toward their weapons, then away, toward the door. Then the sergeant screamed, a sound which went on interminably without any stop to draw breath, rising in pitch in a tortured shriek which neither of the men had ever heard or wished ever to hear again. They both made for the door their fellow had left by, but by that time they had delayed far, far too long.
39
laying a false trail
When the doctor awoke on the morning of fiveday, he found Dismé seated on the ground beside the wagon, fully dressed, holding the dishpan and a considerable bouquet of herbs which she was shredding into a mush in the dishpan. As he watched, amazed, she applied that mush to her hair and body, which she had in the meantime stripped of all clothing. When green from head to toe, she dunked herself in the stream that ran down from the pass, not even noticing its iciness. When she came out of the water, she donned clean clothing and set aside the clothing she had worn.
“I’d love to know what you’re doing,” said the doctor, from the wagon seat.
She started and flushed. “How long have you been there?”
“I’m a physician,” he said. “The human form is not a mystery to me, old or young, lean or fat, male or female.”
“Well, being looked at is a novelty to me, and I wish you wouldn’t,” she said, somewhat angrily. “I seem to be changing the smell of myself. I got the idea in the middle of the night, Dezmai, Dantisfan, dobsi, or demon. Something’s following us by smell, and we need to change the smell.”
“How about the rest of us?” he asked, in an interested voice. “Should we adopt a new scent?”
“I’d recommend it,” she said firmly.
“The thing in your head…the whatsit?”
“Dobsi.”
“If the Dantisfan can receive from the dobsi and talk to the demons, then I should imagine you can perhaps listen in on the conversation? Especially when you’re asleep?”
“It’s possible,” she admitted. “In which case the Dantisfan have been passing on to the thing in my head that something dangerous is about, which makes me even more nervous. If something evil comes, it will have grown used to the smell of the rest of you as well. Michael, you, Bobly, and Bab. And the wagon. And the horses.”
“Should we use those same herbs?”
She shook her head. “No. Those herbs were for me, particularly, to disguise some particular attribute which some creatures can find by smell. Or so I am led to believe. In addition to this, we must all eat summerhay after our breakfast. And rub some on our shoes, on the wagon, on the horse’s feet. If we can get them to eat some summerhay…”
He made a face. “Summerhay? Even cows won’t eat it.”
“You can make pills of it, if you like. If that would be easier.”
“How much for each?”
She shrugged. “Enough to make us stink, including the horses.”
He set about gathering summerhay from along the stream, making a face at the smell. So far as he knew, summerhay was used only to keep moths out of woolens, though odiferous things were usually ascribed virtues even when they had none. When he had the summerhay gathered, he put it in a pan and began drying it over the fire, then setting it aside to cool before crushing it with mortar and pestle. Finally he combined the powdered herb with some substance scooped out of a jar that bound the herb dust together.
“What??
?s that?” asked Dismé.
“Paste. With some sugar in it.” He rolled the resulting substance into pills, smaller ones for people, larger ones for horses, leaving a mass of the stuff as it was, for rubbing on the outsides of things. He had barely finished by the time Michael, Bobly, and Bab returned to the camp bearing a dozen good sized fish.
“Phew,” said Bobly. “What have you been up to?”
“Dismé has had an intimation,” said the doctor. “One I think we’d be wise to heed.”
“It smells as though she’s had something worse than an intimation,” said Bab. “That’s summerhay.”
“The doctor has made some pills,” said Dismé, her eyes vague and glassy as she gazed up the peak they had climbed the day before. “Something up there is following us. Following the trail we made over the rock. It knows our smell. It knows the wagon smell, and the smell of our horses. It is very near us now, but it does not move by day.”
Michael had brought a pile of wood for the campfire. He laid it down and asked Dismé, “Do you sense that the thing is after you, personally? Or after all of us?”
Dismé nodded, dismally. “Oh, Michael, it’s after me, only me, and the rest of you only because you’re with me. And the reason it’s after me has something to do with Dezmai, but she comes and goes so quickly, I can’t grasp what she knows of it.”
Michael frowned in concentration. “Well, if it’s following you personally, we need to make a false trail. I’ll take your clothes, the ones you’ve worn, and I’ll take the doctor’s horse—forgive me, doctor, but I’ve seen you on a horse, and I can make far better time—and lead the creature away from whatever route we are taking.”
“It won’t come after me until dark,” she said firmly. “The thing travels in the dark. It’s made of darkness.”
“We’ll still need to change our smell,” said Bobly, taking a proffered pill from the doctor’s hand. “And I have no doubt this will do it. Our Uncle Titus was given some once, for a bellyache, and he stank of the stuff for days!”
Michael and the doctor put their heads together while Dismé sorted her clothing, using a long stick to separate the things she didn’t mind losing, and drawing the rest into a pile to be washed in the herb mixture which also had a strong smell, though one that was spicy and resinous rather than sickening.
Michael made himself a sandwich of bread and meat for his breakfast, packed up enough food for another few meals, rolled his blankets, bundled Dismé’s discarded clothes together, and tied them into a bundle at the end of a length of rope. The doctor, meantime, brought out a hand-drawn map and laid it on the tailgate of the wagon.
“Here,” said the doctor, pointing at a painstakingly inked line upon the map. “This is where we are. We went west from Bastion, into the mountains to the pass, then southward, down this road. The road forks just below us, one southeast, one southwest, both of them headed toward the rim of the east–west canyon you can see there, almost a day’s ride away. We’ll take the southwest fork—it’s better for the wagon. You take the southeast one that goes all the way to this bridge crossing the canyon. It’s been there since before the Happening. Across the bridge the road runs both ways, up the canyon and down, east and west. The east way goes uphill, past some old quarries and over a pass by a waterfall and eventually ends up in Comador. It’s a bad road. The west road is better. It lies between the canyon wall and the river, and it works its way down to a river ford in a wide valley. If you cross the river there, the road climbs north to rejoin this road, and the Seeress we’re going to see will be just a few miles west. I figure, two days.”
Michael nodded. “I’ll drag the clothing across the bridge, throw it over, then dose me and the horse with summerhay and follow the west fork to the ford, cross the river and rejoin you at the Seeress.”
“We won’t throw them,” said Dismé in a worried voice, putting her hand on his arm. “We’ll dangle the clothes down the side of the canyon on the rope, to leave a scent trail down the stone, then drop them at the bottom. And we’ll rub the rope with summerhay as soon as we’ve done, or it will still smell of my clothing.”
“We?” he cried.
“I’m going with you, Michael. If the herbs don’t work, I don’t want the thing going after Bobly or Bab or the doctor. Let it come after me if it will.”
Michael shook his head firmly. “You’re not coming.”
“Dezmai says I am,” she said with equal firmness. “Dezmai says I am because Tamlar says so, and neither of them are anyone I can argue with.”
Michael turned to the doctor for help, but he only shrugged helplessly. “I can’t argue with members of the Guardian Council or Rebel Angels or whatever they are, Michael. If any force can outwit whatever’s after us, it’s more likely to be them than it is us!”
A few moments later, with Dismé’s cast-off clothing at the end of a rope, his face set in frozen disapproval, Michael mounted the doctor’s horse and pulled Dismé up behind him. He rode off in a mood of considerable confusion, for he had been hugged by women, many a time, but he had never really been touched by Dismé until now. Her arms were tight around him, her body was pressed against his back. He found the experience unsettling and chose to deal with it by picturing her as Dezmai, huge and powerful, not at all girlish, not at all someone to be…lusted after. This vision, once well summoned, was slightly terrifying and worked almost too well for comfort.
The doctor looked after them, shaking his head. “I wish she wasn’t going off alone like that.”
“She isn’t alone. Besides, Michael’s fond of her,” Bobly offered tentatively. “She’s fond of him, too.”
“The question is, can he be fond of Dezmai? Or she of him?”
“I don’t know,” Bobly whispered. “I haven’t any idea. Don’t plague me with questions like that.”
Bab summoned them to breakfast. They took their pills, gave some to the horses, then smeared summerhay on everything in sight, including the wagon and everything in it. When they left shortly thereafter, they moved in a traveling stink. At noon, they did not want to eat. When thirsty, they could barely stand the taste of water.
Meantime, on the road to the bridge, Michael broke his silence to ask, “Where did you learn this use of summerhay?”
“I dreamed it,” Dismé said into his ear, her lips brushing his neck with each stride of the horse. “Perhaps Dezmai of the Drums leaves messages for me while I am asleep. I get them at times when I know she is away, otherwise occupied.”
“Away from you?” he asked, trying to keep the question merely interested and impersonal.
Dismé shook her head. “Michael, I don’t know. I can only guess. I’ve always been curious about birds and small creatures. Sometimes I’ve wished I could inhabit one, to learn how it thinks and what moves it and whether it hopes or not. This being treats me like a…a house she is visiting. She comes in and looks around, very curious, turning things over, opening the cupboards, but remaining aware the house cannot be my house if she fills it with herself. So, most of the time, Dezmai goes elsewhere, perhaps leaving some tiny part of her alert within me, to warn her if something goes awry. She is close enough to intervene if I am in danger, but she does nothing to stop my fear, and I am deathly afraid of that thing the dobsi senses.”
“You think it is stronger than Dezmai?” he asked in dismay.
She tried to come up with an answer, saying finally, “I think she feels it may be someday if it isn’t yet.”
In the wagon which was now some distance to the west of them, Bobly broke a long silence to ask, “Where are we going?”
“To see a woman named Allipto Gomator,” said the doctor. “She’s a seeress. A good one.”
“And where does she live?”
“In a cavern, some distance along this road. It was she who told me years ago where a large cache of medical books and equipment was, a discovery that secured me a place in the Regime. This time I had planned to ask her about the Guardian Council.”
“Why not ask Dezmai?” Bobly asked.
“I would do so happily. Do you think she’d answer me?”
“It’s no sure thing,” said the little woman. “She seems to come and go, doesn’t she.”
They came to the top of a rise where the world opened out, the road falling before them, then rising again, though not again to the height they had just surmounted. Beyond the hills lay a vast stretch of prairie with cloud shadows moving upon it, including one such shadow that moved against the wind.
Bab pointed southward. “What’s out there?”
The doctor stared at the horizon, his face set. “South across this prairie, in the hills, is an enormous canyon, miles deep, and in that canyon Chasm has its buried city. The demons keep its exact location a secret so the Mohmidi, among others, won’t find them…”
“The Mohmidi?”
“The shadow you see is their tribe, a prairie people who are fierce and violent to other tribes and scarcely less so to the people within their own. They travel in wagons, following the pasture with the seasons. They leave girl children to starve on the prairie, or to be eaten by wolves, and when they need wives to bear their sons, they raid other people to obtain them. Another people, the Laispos, send out bands to follow the Mohmidi and rescue the girls who are left behind. They live in secure towns at the far, southern edge of the prairie, and in that tribe, the women are warriors, sworn to enmity against the Mohmidi, and they suffer no man to ride with them.”
“And this seeress is where?”
He pointed to a notch in the skyline, where the road lay like an ashen thread between black mountains. “There, at that lower pass, in a cavern. She says she lives behind it, in a stone house built for her by those who have come with questions.”