Ehomba pondered the feline reply, then nodded slowly. “You are right. I was being selfish. Forgive me.”
“Not necessary,” rumbled the big cat. “The impulse to selfishness is a natural impulse, one we are all heir to.” The great black-maned head turned to look at him. “I wish you would lose your temper more often. It would make you more catlike.”
“I am not sure I want to be more catlike. I—” The herdsman broke off. On his other side and slightly behind him, Simna ibn Sind was struggling to suppress his laughter. “What are you sniggering about?”
“You. You’re discussing philosophy with a cat.” The swordsman was grinning broadly.
Ehomba did not smile back. “What could be more natural? Cats are by their very nature deeply philosophical.”
The litah nodded agreement. “When we’re not sleeping or killing something.”
“You mistake babble for profundity.” Raising an arm, Simna pointed. “Better to concentrate on how we’re going to get through that.”
Just ahead, the hills gave way to broad, flat marshland of interminable width. It extended as far to east and west as they could see. On the northern horizon, a second range of hills lifted rounded knolls toward the sky, but they were quite distant.
Rushes and reeds rose in profusion from the marsh, and throngs of songbirds darted from tree to occasional tree like clouds of iridescent midges. Wading birds stalked subsurface prey while flightless, toothed cousins darted and dove through the murky water. Water dragonets with webbed feet and vestigial wings competed for food with their feathered relatives. Ehomba could see miniature jets of flame spurt from hidden hunting sites as the leathery blue and green predators brought down large insect prey.
That there was plenty of that to go around he did not doubt. The nearer they drew to the water’s edge, the more they found themselves executing the informal marshland salute, which consisted of waving a hand back and forth in front of their faces with ever-increasing frequency. Against the irritating insects Ahlitah could only blink rapidly and attempt to defend his rear with rapid switches of his tufted tail.
Simna was first to the water. He knelt and stirred it with a hand. Decaying vegetation bunched up against the shore, its steady decomposition creating a rich soup for those small creatures that dwelled within. Rising, he shook drops from his fingers.
“It’s shallow here, but that doesn’t mean we can count on walking all the way across.” He nodded toward the distant hills, partially obscured behind a rose-hued pastel haze. “Better to paddle.”
“Another boat.” Ehomba sighed. “It seems we are always to be looking for boats.”
They found one with surprising ease, but in addition to paddles, storage lockers, rudder, and a small anchor, it came equipped with an admonition. The orangutan who rented it to them wore a tattered shirt, short pants, and a rag of a mariner’s cap. As he advised them, he was continually reigniting the small-bowled, long-stemmed pipe that was clamped between his substantial lips.
“This is a one-way trip for us.” A reluctant Simna was counting out some of the last of his Chlengguu gold. “How will we get your boat back to you?”
“Oh, I ain’t worried about that, I ain’t.” In the haze-diffused sunlight, the blond in the reddish gold hair gleamed more golden than usual. “You’ll be bringin’ it back yourselves, you see.” He sat in the rocking chair on the porch outside his small wooden shack and bobbed contentedly back and forth.
Swordsman and herdsman exchanged a look. Indifferent to matters of commerce, the black litah sat by the water’s edge and amused himself catching shallow-loving minnows with casual flicks of one paw.
“Why would we be doing that?” Simna asked him straightforwardly.
Removing the attenuated pipe from his mouth, the orang gestured at the marsh with a long finger. “Because you’ll never get across, that’s why. You can try, but sooner or later you’ll have to turn back.”
Simna bristled at the ape’s conviction but held his temper. “You don’t know us, friend. I am an adventurer and swordsman of some note, my tall friend here is an eminent wizard, and that cat that plays so quietly by your little pier can, when roused, be terrible to behold. We have come a long way through many difficulties. No reed-choked, smelly slough is going to stop us.”
“It won’t be the fen that turns you back,” the orang informed him. “It’ll be the horses.”
“Horses?” Ehomba made a face. “What is a horse?”
“By Gleronto’s green gaze!” Simna gaped at his friend. “You don’t know what a horse is?”
Ehomba eyed him impassively. “I have never seen one.”
The swordsman did not try to disguise his disbelief. “Tall at the shoulder, like a big antelope. Leaner than a buffalo. Like a zebra, only without stripes.”
“Ah! That I can envision.” Confident once more, the herdsman turned his attention back to their host. “Why should a few horses keep us from crossing the marsh?”
The old ape squinted, staring past them at the concealing reeds and enshrouding bullrushes. “Because they’re mad, that’s why.”
“Mad?” Turning his head to his right, Simna spat, just missing the porch. “What are they mad at?”
With his softly smoking pipe, the orang made stabbing gestures at the swordsman. “Not angry-mad. Insane-mad. Crazy as loons. Deranged, the whole great gallumphing lot of ’em.” He stuck the pipe back in his mouth and puffed a little harder. “Always been that way, always will be. They’re why nobody can get across the marsh. Have to follow the coast for weeks in either direction to get around, it, but can’t get across. Horses. Lunatics on four legs. And a couple of ’em have eight.” He nodded meaningfully, seconding his own wisdom.
“That’s impossible.” Simna found himself starting to wonder about their hirsute host’s sanity.
“It’s more than impossible, no-lips. It’s crazy.” The orange-haired ape fluttered an indifferent hand at the endless reach of rush and reed. “But you three go on. You’ll see. You’ve got my little flat-bottom there. Paddle and pole to your hearts’ content. Who knows? Maybe you’ll get lucky. Maybe you’ll be the first to make it across. But me, I don’t think so. Them horses are thorough, and they’ve got big ears.”
For the moment, Ehomba chose to accept the old man of the forest’s narrative as truth. As a youth he had learned not to disparage even the most outrageous tale, lest it turn out, to his embarrassment and detriment, to be true. As they had already learned on their journey, the world was full to overflowing with the unexpected. Perhaps it was even home to insane horses.
“I do not understand. Sane or otherwise, why should a herd of horses care whether anyone crosses this marshland or not?”
Thick lips concaved in a simian smile. “Why ask me? I’m only a semiretired fisherman. If you want to know, ask the horses.”
“We will.” Rising from his crouch, Ehomba turned and stepped off the porch. “Let us go, Simna.”
“Hoy.” Favoring the ape with a last look of skepticism, the swordsman pivoted to follow his friend.
The boat wasn’t much, but the edge of the marsh was not the grand harbor of Lybondai. It was all they had been able to find. There had been other fisherfolk, with other boats, but none willing to rent their craft to the travelers. Without exception all had declined sans an explanation. Now the reason for their reluctance was clear. They were afraid of losing their craft to the horses.
With its flat, sturdy bottom and simple low wooden sides, the boat more nearly resembled a loose plank with seats. There was a rudder, which helped them to locate the stern, and the prow was undercut to allow the occupants to propel it over obstructing water plants. There were no paddles, only poles.
“Shallow all the way across, then.” Simna hefted one of the tough, unyielding wooden shafts.
“So it would seem.” Ehomba had selected a slightly longer rod and was similarly sampling its heft.
“Sadly,” declared Ahlitah as he hopped lithely into the un
lovely craft, “I have no hands, and can therefore not help.” Curling up in the center of the floor, he promptly went to sleep.
“Cats.” Shaking his head, the swordsman eyed the litah with digust. “First cats and now, it would seem, maybe horses.” Placing one end of his pole in the water, he strained as he and Ehomba shoved hard against the sodden shore. “I don’t like animals that much. Except when they’re well done, and served up in a proper sauce.”
“Then you and the litah have something in common,” the herdsman pointed out. “He feels the same way about people.”
The marshland might have been a paradise if not for the mosquitoes and black flies and no-see-ums. To his companions’ surprise, Simna voiced little in the way of complaint. When a curious Ehomba finally inquired as to the reason for his uncharacteristic stoicism, the swordsman explained that based on the insect life they had encounterd on shore, he had expected it to be much worse out in the middle of the slough.
“Birds and frogs.” Ehomba’s pole rose and dipped steadily, rhythmically, as he ignored the rushes and reeds that brushed against his arms and torso. “They keep the population of small biting things down.” He watched as a pair of lilac-breasted rollers went bulleting through the bushes off to their left. “If not for such as them, we would have no blood left by the time we reached the other side of this quagmire.”
Simna nodded, then frowned as he glanced down at the litah dozing peacefully in the middle of the boat. “For once I envy you your black fur.”
A single tawny eye popped open halfway. “Don’t. It’s hot, and I still get bitten on both ends if not in between.”
Ehomba tilted back his head to watch a flock of a hundred or more turquoise flamingos glide past overhead, their coloration rendering them almost invisible against the sky. Unlike much of what he was seeing and hearing, they were a familiar bird. They acquired their brilliant sky hue, he knew, as a consequence of eating the bright blue shrimp that thrived in warm, shallow lakes.
Disturbed by their passing, a covey of will-o’-the-wisps broke cover and drifted off in all directions, their ghostly white phosphorescence difficult to track in the bright light of day. A herd of sitatunga went splashing past, their splayed feet allowing the downsized antelope to walk on a surface of lily pads, flowering hyacinth, and other water plants. Capybara gamboled in the tall grass, and the guttural honking of hippos, like a convocation of fat men enjoying a good joke, reverberated in the distance.
Yellow-and-gray-spotted coats dripping, giant ground sloths shuffled lugubriously through the water, their long prehensile tongues curling around and snapping off the succulent buds of flowering plants. Web-footed wombats competed for living space with families of pink-nosed nutria. The marshland was a fertile and thriving place, catalyzed with life large and small.
But no horses, mentally unbalanced or otherwise. Not yet.
“Maybe old Red-hair was right and wrong.” Simna poled a little faster, forcing Ehomba to increase his own efforts to keep up. “Maybe there are a few crazy horses living in here, but they can’t be everywhere at once. In a swamp this big they could easily overlook us.” He paused briefly to wipe perspiration from his brow. The interior of the marshland was not particularly hot, but the humidity was as bad as one would expect.
“It is possible.” The herdsman was scanning their immediate surroundings. All around the boat there was motion, and noise, and small splashings, but no sign of the equine impediment the ape had warned them against. “If this morass is as extensive as he said, then we certainly have a chance to slip across unnoticed. It is not as if we represent the forerunners of a noisy, invading army.”
“That’s right.” The farther they traveled without confrontation, the more confident Simna allowed himself to feel. “There’s just the three of us in this little boat. It has no profile to speak of, and neither do we.”
“We will try to find some land to camp on tonight. If not, we will have to sleep in the boat.”
Simna grimaced. “Better a hard dry bed than a soft wet one. I know—in my time I’ve had to sleep in both.”
It was not exactly a rocky pinnacle thrusting its head above the surrounding reeds, but the accumulation of dirt had small trees with trunks of real wood growing from it and soil dry enough to suit the swordsman. Ehomba was especially appreciative of the discovery. The damp climate was harder on him than on his companions, since of them all he hailed from the driest country. But he was a very adaptable man, and rarely gave voice to his complaints.
As was to be expected, all manner of marsh dwellers sought out the unique opportunities created by dry land, whose highest point rose less than a foot above the water. Birds nested in every one of the small-boled trees, and water-loving lizards and terrapins came ashore to lay their eggs. Boomerang-headed diplocauls kept their young close to shore for protection while on the far side of the little island juvenile black caimans and phytosaurs slumbered on, indifferent to their bipedal mammalian visitors.
Night brought with it a cacophony of insect and amphibian songs, far fewer mosquitoes than feared, and still no horses.
“There are meat-eaters here.” Simna lay on his back on the sandy soil, listening to the nocturnal symphony and watching the stars through the clouds that had begun to gather above the marsh. “We haven’t seen any really big ones, but with this much game there would have to be some around.”
“You’d think so.” Nearby, the black litah dug his bloodied muzzle deep into the still warm belly of the young water buffalo he had killed. Its eyes were closed, its fins stilled. “Easy meat.”
“That is one thing about Ahlitah.” Ehomba rested nearby, his hands forming a pillow beneath his braided blond hair. “He sleeps lightly and would wake us if any danger came near.”
“Hoy, I’m not worried about being trampled in my sleep. Bitten maybe, but not trampled.” Simna turned away from his friend, onto his side, struggling to find the most comfortable position. “I’m even beginning to think that our only concern here might be the tall tales of one crazy old ape, instead of crazy horses.”
“He did not seem to me to be mad. A little senile perhaps, but not mad.”
“I don’t care, so long as we make it safely through this stinking slough.” A sharp report punctuated the smaller man’s words as he slapped at a marauding hungry bug. His swordsman’s instincts and reactions served him well: His clothes were already covered with the splattered trophies of his many mini conquests.
Their slumber was not disturbed, and they slept better than they had any right to expect. Save for the unavoidable bites of night-flying insects that prudently waited until Simna was unconscious before striking, they emerged unscathed from their fine rest.
Rising last, the swordsman stretched and yawned. For sheer degree of fetidness, his untreated morning breath matched any odor rising from the surrounding bog. That was soon mended by a leisurely breakfast of dried meat, fruit, and tepid tea.
Throughout the meal Ehomba repeatedly scanned the reed-wracked horizons, occasionally urging his friends to hurry. Ahlitah was naturally slow to wake, while Simna was clearly relishing the opportunity to dine on dry land.
“Those wise old women and men of your tribe seem to have filled your pack with all manner of useful potions and powders.” The swordsman gestured with a strip of dried beef. “Didn’t they give you anything to make you relax?”
Ehomba’s black eyes tried to penetrate the froth of surrounding vegetation. “I do not think any such elixir exists. If it did, I promise you I would take it.” He glanced back at his friend. “I know I worry too much, Simna. And when I am not worrying about things I should be worrying about, I find myself worrying about things I should not be worrying about.”
“Hoy now, that makes you a bit of a worrier, wouldn’t you say?” The swordsman tore off a strip of dark brown, white-edged, fibrous protein.
“Yes,” the herdsman agreed. “Or perhaps I am just exceedingly conscientious.”
“I know another word
for that.” His friend gestured with the remaining piece of jerked meat. “It’s ‘fool.’”
“That may be.” Ehomba did not dispute the other man’s definition. “Certainly it is one reason why I am here, patiently tolerating your prattle and the grunts of that cat, instead of at home lying with my wife and listening to the laughter of my children.”
Simna’s words rattled around a mouthful of meat that required more mastication than most. “Just confirms what I said. Geeprax knows it’s true.” A look of mild curiosity swept down his face as he folded the last of the jerky into his mouth. “What’s up? You see something?” Immediately he rose to peer anxiously in the direction in which his tall companion was staring.
“No.” The litah spoke without looking up from its kill. But it began to eat a little faster. “Heard something.”
“The cat is right.” Wishing he were taller still, Ehomba was straining to see off to the west. Nothing unusual crossed his field of vision. But several large wading birds tucked their long legs beneath them and unfurled imposing wings as they took to the saturated sky. “I cannot see anything, but I can hear it.”
Simna had always believed he possessed senses far sharper than those of the average man, and in this he was in fact correct. But as he had learned over the past weeks, he was blind and deaf when compared to both his human and feline companions. It was all that time spent herding cattle, Ehomba had explained to him. Alone in the wilderness, one’s senses naturally sharpened. Simna had listened to the explanation, and had nodded understanding, because it made sense. But it did not explain everything. Nothing that he had heard or seen since they had first met quite explained everything about Etjole Ehomba.
With a grunt of contentment, the satiated Ahlitah rose from the neatly butchered remnants of his kill and began to clean himself, massive paws taking the place of towels, saliva substituting for soap and water. Ignoring him, Ehomba continued to stare stolidly westward.
“I still don’t hear anything.” Simna strained to listen, knowing that with his shorter stature there was no way he would see something before the beanpole of a herdsman did. “By Gyiemot, what are you two hearing, anyway?”