Later, Gomo sought him out again, this time to offer congratulations. “Except for the eromakadi creature, which only you saw, it went much as you said it would, Ehomba.”
“No,” he replied reflectively, “not as I said it would. I thought they would be blinded. I did not expect them to be enraptured.”
“Well, you expected them to be dead, and that is what they are.” A spidery hand reached up to clap him on the side. “The People of the Trees are in your debt ’til the end of time!”
The herdsman smiled politely down at the troop leader. “Until I reach Kora Keri will be sufficient.”
“It was something we would not have thought of. When we chose to remain in the trees while humans and apes went down to the ground, we forswore the use of fire.” Gomo shook his head and stuck out his lower lip. “Fire and trees make a poor mix. Fire in trees is much worse.” Using the tip of his spear, he tapped his friend on the shoulder. “That is the trade you humans made when you came down out of the trees. Freedom for fire.”
“I suppose. I was not there at the time the decision was made so I was not given the choice.”
“Oh-ho! A mastery of drollery as well as strategy. I will miss you, friend Ehomba.”
“Perhaps, but your troop will not.” He indicated the trees where males who had been prepared to die had joyfully reunited with their mates and offspring. The shapes and sizes and gruntings and chatterings of the reunion differed from what he would have encountered back in the village, but the tender domestic scene still left him feeling homesick. “They will be glad to see me gone.”
Gomo turned to follow the herdsman’s gaze and sniffed. “Yes, it’s true. Humans make them uncomfortable. Especially tall, fighting humans like yourself.” He looked back up at his newfound friend. “Where are you bound?”
“Finally? Truth to tell, I’m not sure of the exact location. For now, to the north. Hopefully to find someone to carry me across the Semordria to a land I have never heard of before—a place called Ehl-Larimar.”
The troop leader frowned. “I’ve never heard of the place, either.”
“A dying foreigner charged me with trying to save a beautiful woman from the embrace of a man she does not love or want.”
Gomo considered the man’s words, rubbing his chin with an index finger longer than that which could be found on any human. “Let me see if I understand: You have left behind your country and your family to go to a place you do not know, for a man you never knew, to fight an enemy you have never seen, on behalf of a woman you have never met.”
“That is a very good summation, Gomo.”
The monkey leader grunted. “And humans say we monkeys are stupid.” He shook his head slowly. “Why are you doing this? If the fellow is dead, he no longer can trouble you.”
“I am doing it because I have to. Because it is the kind of person I am,” Ehomba explained frankly.
“You could turn around right now.” Like hovering dragonflies, Gomo’s fingers fluttered toward the south. “Say to anyone who asks why you are returning that you tried but could not get through. The dry lands stopped you, a river stopped you, an angry crocodile stopped you. No one need know otherwise.”
“I would.”
“Twaddle. An answer worthy of a hero. Or a fool.” Hairy brows tried to mate as the troop leader leaned close and peered up into his friend’s face. “I wonder. Which are you, Etjole Ehomba?”
“I don’t know. Maybe both. Of one thing I am certain, though. It is in my nature to ask many questions. Before I am finished with this, that is one whose answer I will have.”
Gomo nodded. “I hope you are not a fool. Fools die quickly and easily, with none to mourn them, and after what you have done for us this night it would grieve me to see you dead.” Drawing back slightly, he straightened and smiled. “But in the end we are all dead. Tonight we live.” He pointed to where other members of the troop were piling fruits, nuts, edible shoots and bugs in a delectable heap. “There will be a celebration. See? Preparations have already begun. If you think you humans know how to have a good time, then you have never partied with the People of the Trees! Come, Etjole Ehomba. Come and relax and forget your burden for one night! Tomorrow we will start upriver toward Kora Keri. Tonight, maybe we can help you forget who you are.”
Ehomba rose from where he had been sitting and staring out at the river and the piles of incinerated slelves. What had the delicate flying creatures left on the other side of the river when they had flocked to attack the People of the Trees? Females and infants, now huddled in futile wait for their fighters to return? He strained, but could hear no sounds of wailing, no distant echoes of lamentation. It was as well. Too much death could cling to a man, like a bad odor no amount of soap could wash away. Turning to follow Gomo, he glanced down at a blackened corpse from which the wings had been singed and found himself wondering idly if it would be good to eat.
Gomo had not been bragging. The celebration began much as expected. What he had failed to mention was the monkeys’ talent for seeking out fermented honey and fruit juices and combining them in ways no human had ever considered.
* * * *
Ehomba awoke the following morning with a head that throbbed as if he had spent the night in the midst of a cattle stampede with the occasional steer using his skull for a football. His sorry condition engendered much good-natured jesting among the members of the troop. These chittering jibes and sallies he bore with his usual good humor.
The entire troop escorted him north. When Gomo had mentioned the location of Kora Keri, Ehomba had imagined he could find it himself simply by following the river north. But as he soon saw, it was not so easy as that. Numerous islands thick with jungle split the river into dozens of channels, not all of which flowed north. A wrong choice would send a traveler meandering in the wrong direction or, even worse, back the way he had come.
But the troop knew exactly where they were going. Following a road through the treetops that was invisible to him but wide and obvious to his companions, they pushed on past deceptive forks and mendacious tributaries, forging as straight a line as possible given the preponderance of dense vegetation and the occasional swamp. Without his active, agile guides Ehomba knew he might well have become hopelessly lost.
Of course, he could have continued as he had originally planned, turning west until he struck the coast again and then following it north. That would have kept him going in the right direction. But he would have missed Kora Keri and its amenities entirely.
River serpents broke the surface in the deeper channels. They posed no danger to the arboreal troop. Of more concern were the dragondines that skimmed low over the river. Whenever one of these swooped too near, the monkeys retreated into the trees where the leathery-winged fliers could not go and waited there until it had glided past. Yellow eyes glared balefully at the unreachable prey that taunted from the cover of entwined branches.
Before very many days had passed they reached a place where the river became a broad, slow, single channel. Descending from the branches, Gomo strode proudly to the grassy riverbank and dipped a finger in the murky liquid. Straightening, he turned proudly to Ehomba and pointed westward.
“We have reached the confluence of the Aurisbub and the Kohoboth. From here, the water flows west into the Semordria.” Pivoting, he gestured in the opposite direction. “On the far bank a day’s journey from here lies Kora Keri. You will have to find a way to cross the river. This is where we must leave you now to begin our journey back home. To a home that is safe now, where even children may feel free to play in the treetops and scamper along the water’s edge.”
Hands held high over his head, he waddled up to the herdsman and wrapped long arms around the human’s waist. The powerful, slim arms gave a sharp, quick hug. “Good-bye, Etjole Ehomba. I will always think of you as a hero, because to believe you a fool would cause me too much pain.”
Reaching down, Ehomba gave the troop leader’s shoulder a friendly squeeze. “Believe me,
it does my digestion no good to think of it either.”
Raising his spear over his head with the shaft held parallel to the ground, he made sure his pack and weapons were secure against his back. Then, to the surprise and delight of the troop, especially the young ones, he plunged into the Aurisbub, showing Gomo that it was not necessary for him to find a way across.
Behind him, the female monkeys set up a lilting ululation that followed him as far as the middle of the river, where the coppery tonal palette of their combined voices became lost amid the swirling babble of running water. Here where the river was broad, the current was very weak. He was a strong swimmer, and the far shore was already looming near.
He grew gradually aware that he had company.
The frog was the biggest he had ever seen. Between its extended legs and its body it was at least as long as his arm. Dark green with black spots, it swam parallel to him on the surface, kicking once for every three strokes of his while tracking his progress with great bulging eyes. These were covered by some kind of transparent mask or goggles to which was attached an upward curving tube manufactured from some exotic, bright blue material. In addition, strange webbed footwear of the same matching blue substance covered the frog’s feet, and it was clad in a false skin of some shiny turquoise-hued fabric.
“You swim well,” the frog commented as it kicked along.
“What are you wearing?” Ehomba’s arms pulled him through the water even as his legs pushed him forward.
“Mask, snorkel, fins, wet suit. I’m a great believer in redundancy, man. When others of my kind must turn away and flee, these let me get by in those places where the water turns to liquid methane.” Behind the mask, one bulging eye winked knowingly. “There’s good hunting in liquid methane, if you know where to look and don’t let the cold get to you.”
Ehomba rolled onto his back and continued kicking. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“There are many extraordinary places in the world where most folks fear to go, man. But not me.” It grinned at him, but then it was always grinning. Like most frogs, this one couldn’t help it. “A friend of mine is an eagle with no taste for amphibians. You ought to see his jet backpack.”
“What manner of magic might that be?” Ehomba inquired. But there was no reply, for the outlandishly equipped batrachian had already arched its limber spine and dived, to be seen no more. The herdsman did not dwell on the strangeness of what he had seen or what the frog had said. There was indeed much that was odd in life, and a man who allowed it to trouble his mind would find his time on Earth forever dominated by nagging second thoughts about the stability of his cosmos.
His right foot struck something hard and unyielding, and for a moment he tensed. But it was only the bottom of the river, coming up to greet him. Emerging from the shallows, he looked back the way he had come. Though he could see clearly to the far bank, there was no sign of the troop. Having made their farewells, they had, as Gomo indicated they would, started on the way back to their southern forest.
Water dripped from him, drying as it fell, while he checked his gear to make sure nothing had been lost in the crossing. Assured that all was intact, he turned to the east and resumed walking. In the warm, humid atmosphere that clung to the river, the breeze created by his fast pace swept across his sodden clothes and helped to cool him.
He made a solitary camp that night by the river’s edge. In the absence of the chattering, hyperactive monkeys, the silence that engulfed him was stupendous. The stars seemed to edge closer, as if interested in inspecting the lone man crouched next to the small fire, eating by himself in the darkness.
He thought he felt something brush against him. A chill like a thin stream of ice water ran down his back and he whirled, but if there was anything prowling the night, it was no more palpable than darkness itself. He saw nothing. Taking a deep breath, he lay down and wrapped himself in his blanket. If something wanted to take him while he slept, there was nothing he could do about it. A man must sleep. He would rely, as always, on his tracker’s intuition and alertness to awaken him if anything approached too near. Even an eromakadi, though he was not too worried about that.
After all, there was clinging to him no exceptional brightness, no radiant happiness, and therefore nothing to make him particularly attractive to those malevolent ephemera that haunted the margins of what most men falsely believed to be an immutable reality.
V
MORNING BROUGHT RENEWED DETERMINATION TO PRESS ON. Just as Gomo had promised, the cultivated fields that marked the outskirts of the city by encircling Kora Keri like a verdant necklace soon came into view.
To say that the town was a colossal disappointment might have been too strong a conclusion, but at first glance it certainly was not what Ehomba had either expected or hoped for. In fairness to Gomo, the troop leader had never ventured an actual description of the municipality. He had only said that Ehomba might find useful directions or assistance there. It was good, the herdsman reflected as he walked toward the gate in the defensive mud wall that encircled the community proper, that he had hoped for nothing more.
From what he could see, Kora Keri had little to boast of but size. There were no towering temples, no marble palaces, no architectural marvels rendered in stone and brick. Though clearly a much poorer place than he had expected, the town was also far more populous. Plenty of activity was visible beyond the gate, through which a line of horse- and camel-drawn wagons, buffalo carts, giant cargo-carrying sloths, and pedestrians was slowly filing. A brace of husky guards checked bundles and packages, though for what manner of contraband Ehomba did not know. Fetching up against the back of the line, he patiently awaited his turn to enter.
“Well, a stranger stranger than usual.” The guard rubbed at an itch beneath the brim of his tightly wound, bright blue turban and gawked at the tall herdsman standing before him.
“From the south, I would think.” Approaching Ehomba, one of the other guards sniffed ostentatiously at the visitor. “This one stinks of sheep and cattle—and something else.” He inhaled again and made a show of analyzing the aroma, like some degenerate oenophile pondering a particularly pungent vintage. “I’ve got it. Monkey! He stinks of monkey.”
All five of the sentries on duty laughed while offering their own crude comments. One stepped up to poke the herdsman ungently in the ribs. “Tell me, herdsman: What are the hidden meanings of this distinctive perfume? Does it mean that when you are not consorting with sheep, you like to screw in the treetops?”
“You’d better watch your step in Kora Keri,” another advised gleefully. “The whores here prefer hard coin, not bananas.” Once more the mirth was general.
In response to this widespread jollity Ehomba offered no comment; he simply stood and waited patiently for a remark worth responding to. Wiping at his eyes as the laughter finally began to fade, the officer in charge confronted the traveler with something resembling formality. Behind him, the line waiting to enter the inner city was growing longer, and murmurs of impatience could be heard rising from drivers and tradesfolk.
“So then, monkey lover, what is your business here?”
“I am only passing through.” Ehomba maintained a straight-ahead gaze and did not look at the guard.
“Passing through, eh?” The officer winked at his men, who were thoroughly enjoying themselves at the stranger’s expense. “Passing through to where?”
“To the north,” Ehomba explained candidly.
“Really? You’d best not go too far north. It is said there is big trouble brewing there.” He took a step back and fingered the hilt of the sword scabbarded at his waist. “One gold piece entrance fee.”
Ehomba frowned slightly. “I did not see anyone else paying an entrance fee.”
The officer’s expression darkened. “You need to look closer, then. Maybe there’s something wrong with your eyes.” His voice darkened. “If not, a little partial blindness can be arranged.” Reaching down, he drew the sword partway
from its scabbard.
The herdsman turned to meet the threatening gaze. “I do not want any trouble.”
“Then don’t go looking for it.” With his other hand the officer extended an open palm. Nearby, his men tensed.
“I am a simple herdsman. I have mostly cattle and some sheep, but no coin. My village is a poor one.”
The officer shrugged. “Not a problem. Turn around and go back to it.”
Ehomba eyed the other side of the gate longingly. He could hear the sounds of a bustling bazaar, smell meat and vegetables being cooked in oil with exotic spices, understand many of the come-ons of unseen hawkers and barkers. “I have come a long way and am very tired. I need food and rest.”
“Go ask your friends the monkeys to feed you!” suggested one of the sentries. His companions chuckled, but did not let down their guard.
“Maybe you have something you can trade.” Not wishing to appear entirely unreasonable, the officer eyed the pack on the traveler’s back. Even unprepossessing southerners, it was said, sometimes carried interesting goods and artifacts with them.
“I am traveling light as it is. I need everything I have,” the herdsman protested softly.
“That spear, for instance.” The officer gestured at the slender weapon in question. “Barbaric design and decoration, pretty useless in a fight, but perhaps worth something in the marketplace as a curio.”
“As I said, I need everything I have.”
“Oh, surely not everything.” The officer winked at his men a second time, then took a step forward. His mouth twisted. “That point, for instance. What kind of stone is that?”
“It is not a stone.” Lowering the spear, Ehomba indicated the dark brown, serrated seven-inch-long spearpoint. “It is a tooth that has been turned to stone. It comes from a creature that no longer walks the Earth. The wise people of my tribe believe that the spirit of its owner still inhabits the stone.”