City of the Chasch Read online

  Someone came into the shed. Reith backed into the shadows, then the firelight shone on the face of Traz Onmale. He seemed somber, dejected. “Reith Vaduz, where are you?”

  Reith came forth. Traz Onmale looked at him, gave his head a glum shake. “Since you have been with the tribe, everything has gone wrong! Dissension, anger, death. The scouts return with news only of empty steppe. Piluna has been tainted. The magicians are at odds with the Onmale. Who are you, why do you bring us such woe?”

  “I am what I told you I am,” said Reith: “a man from Earth.”

  “Heresy,” said Traz Onmale, without heat. “Emblem Men are the spill of Az. So say the magicians, at least.”

  Reith pondered a moment, then said, “When ideas are in contradiction, as here, the more powerful ideas usually win. Sometimes this is bad, sometimes good. The society of the Emblems seems bad to me. A change would be for the better. You are ruled by priests who—”

  “No,” said the boy decisively. “Onmale rules the tribe. I carry that emblem; it speaks through my mouth.”

  “To some extent. The priests are clever enough to have their own way.”

  “What do you intend? Do you wish to destroy us?”

  “Of course not. I want to destroy no one-unless it becomes necessary to my own survival.”

  The boy heaved a heavy sigh. “I am confused. You are wrong-or the magicians are wrong.”

  “The magicians are wrong. Human history on Earth goes back ten thousand years.”

  Traz Onmale laughed. “Once, before I carried Onmale, the tribe entered the ruins of old Carcegus and there captured a Pnumekin. The magicians tortured him to gain knowledge, but he spoke only to curse each minute of the fifty-two thousand years that men had lived on Tschai ... Fifty-two thousand years against your ten thousand years. It is all very strange.”

  “Very strange indeed.”

  Traz Onmale rose to his feet, looked up into the sky, where wind-driven wrack flew across the night sky. “I have been watching the moons,” he said in a thin voice. “The magicians are watching likewise. The portents are poor; I believe that there is about to be a conjunction. If Az covers Braz, all is well. If Braz covers Az, then someone new will carry Onmale.”

  “And you?”

  “I must carry aloft the wisdom of Onmale, and set matters right.” And Traz Onmale departed the shed.

  The tempest roared across the steppe: a night, a day, a second night. On the morning of the second day the sun rose into a clear windy sky. The scouts rode forth as usual, to return pellmell at noon. There was an instant explosion of activity. Tarpaulins were folded, sheds were struck, packed into bundles. Women loaded the drays; warriors rubbed their leap-horses with oil, threw on saddles, attached reins to the sensitive frontal palps. Reith approached Traz Onmale. “What goes on?”

  “A caravan from the east has been sighted at long last. We shall attack along the Ioba River. As Vaduz you may ride with us and take a share of plunder.”

  He ordered a leap-horse; Reith mounted the ill-smelling beast with trepidation. It jerked to the unfamiliar weight, thrashing up its knob of a tail. Reith yanked at the reins; the leap-horse crouched and sprang off across the steppe while Reith held on for dear life. From behind came a roar of laughter: the hooting and jeering of experts for the tribulations of a tenderfoot.

  Reith finally brought the leap-horse under control and came plunging back. A few moments later the group swept off to the northeast, the black long-necked brutes lunging and foaming, the warriors leaning forward on the saddleplats, knees drawn up, black leather hats flapping; Reith could not help but feel an archaic thrill at riding in the savage cavalcade.

  For an hour the Emblem Men pounded across the steppe, bending low when they crossed over skylines. The rolling hills flattened; ahead lay a vast expanse streaked with shadows and dull colors. The troop halted on a hill while the warriors pointed here and there. Traz Onmale now gave orders. Reith pulled his mount up close and strained to listen. “—the south track to the ford. We wait in Bellbird Covert. The Ilanths will make the ford first; they will scout Zad Woods and White Hill. Then we sweep upon the center and make off with the treasure vans. Is all clear? So onward, to Bellbird Covert!”

  Down the long slope rushed the Emblems, toward a far line of tall trees and a group of isolated bluffs overlooking Ioba River. In the shelter of a deep forest the Emblem warriors concealed themselves.

  Time passed. From afar sounded a faint rumble, and the caravan appeared. Several hundred yards in advance rode three splendid yellow-skinned warriors, wearing black caps surmounted by jawless human skulls. Their beasts were similar to, but larger and rather more bland than the leap-horses; they carried sidearms and short swords, with short rifles laid across their laps.

  Now, from the standpoint of the Emblems, everything went awry. The Ilanths failed to plunge across the river but waited watchfully for the caravan. To the river-bank lumbered motordrays with six-foot wheels, piled to astonishing heights with bales, parcels and in certain cases, cages in which huddled men and women.

  The caravan commander was a cautious man. Before the drays attempted the ford, he stationed gun-carts to command all the approaches, then sent Ilanths to scout the opposite bank.

  In Bellbird Covert the Emblem warriors cursed and fumed. “Wealth, wealth! Goods galore! Sixty prime wagons! But suicide to attempt an attack.”

  “True. The sand-blasts would strike us down like birds!”

  “Is it this for which we waited three tedious months in the Walgram Rolls? Is our luck then so vile?”

  “The omens were wrong; last night I looked up at blessed Az; I saw it jib and careen through the clouds: a definite admonition.”

  “Nothing goes right, all our ventures are thwarted! We are under the influence of Braz.”

  “Braz-or the work of the black-haired sorcerer who slew Jad Piluna.”

  “True! And he has come to scathe the raid, where we have always enjoyed success!”

  And sour looks began to be turned toward Reith, who made himself inconspicuous.

  The war leaders conferred. “We can achieve nothing; we would strew the field with dead warriors and drown our Emblems in Ioba River.”

  “Well, then-shall we follow and attack at night?”

  “No. They are too well-guarded. The commander is Baojian; he takes no risks! His soul to Braz!”

  “So, then-three months dawdling for naught!”

  “Better for naught than for disaster! Back to camp. The women will have all packed, and so east to Meraghan.”

  “East, more destitute than when we came west! What abominable luck.”

  “The omens, the omens! All are at odds!”

  “Back to camp, then; nothing for us here.”

  The warriors swung about and without a backward look sent the leap-horses plunging south across the steppe.

  During the early evening, surly and glum, the troop arrived back at the campsite. The women, who had all packed, were cursed for neglect; why were not cauldrons bubbling? pots of beer ready to hand?

  The women bawled and cursed in return, only to be drubbed. All hands finally pulled gear and food helter-skelter from the drays.

  Traz Onmale stood brooding apart, while Reith was pointedly ignored. The warriors ate hugely, grumbling all the while, then, seated and exhausted, lay back beside the fire.

  Az had already risen, but now up into the sky sailed the blue moon Braz, angling athwart the course of Az. The magicians were first to notice and stood with arms pointing in awe and premonition.

  The moons converged; it seemed as if they would collide. The warriors gave guttural sounds of dread. But Braz moved before the pink disc, eclipsing it utterly. The Chief Magician gave a wild bellow to the sky: “So be it! So be it!”

  Traz Onmale turned and went slowly off to the shadows where by chance stood Reith. “What is all the tumult?” Reith asked.

  “Did you not see? Braz overpowered Az. Tomorrow night I must go to Az to expiate our
wrongs. No doubt you will go as well to Braz.”

  “You mean, by way of fire and catapult?”

  “Yes. I am lucky to have carried Omnale as long as I have. The bearer before me was not much more than half my age when he was sent to Az.”

  “Do you think this ritual has any practical value?”

  Traz Onmale hesitated. Then: “It is what they expect; they will demand that I cut my throat into the fire. So I must obey.”

  “Better that we leave now,” said Reith. “They will sleep like logs. When they awake we will be far from here.”

  “What? The two of us? Where would we fare?”

  “I don’t know. Is there no land where folk live without murder?”

  “Perhaps such places exist. But not on Aman Steppe.”

  “If we could take possession of the scout-boat, and if I were given time to repair it, we could leave Tschai and return to Earth.”

  “Impossible. The Chasch took the ship. It is lost to you forever.”

  “So I fear. In any case, we’d do better to depart now than wait to be killed tomorrow.”

  Traz Onmale stood staring up at the moons. “Onmale orders me to stay. I cannot pervert the Onmale. It has never fled; it has always pursued duty to the death.”

  “Duty doesn’t include futile suicide,” said Reith. He made a sudden motion, seized Traz Onmale’s hat, wrenched loose the emblem. Traz gave a croak of almost physical pain, then stood staring at Reith. “What do you do? It is death to touch the Onmale!”

  “You are no longer Traz Onmale; you are Traz.”

  The boy seemed to shrink, to lessen in stature. “Very well,” he said in a subdued voice. “I do not care to die.” He looked around the camp. “We must go afoot. If we try to harness leap-horses they will scream and gnash their horns. You wait here. I will fetch cloaks and a parcel of food.” He departed, leaving Reith with the emblem of Onmale.

  In the light of the moons he looked at it and it seemed to stare back at him, issuing orders of baleful import. Reith dug a hole in the ground, dropped in Onmale. It seemed to shiver, give a soundless shriek of anguish; he covered the gleaming emblem, feeling haunted and guilty, and when he rose to his feet his hands were shaking and clammy, and sweat trickled down his back.

  Time passed: an hour? Two hours? Reith was unable to estimate. Since arriving on Tschai his time sense had gone awry.

  The moons slid down the sky; midnight approached, passed; night sounds came in off the steppe; a faint high-pitched yelping of nighthounds, a great muffled belch. In the camp the fires dwindled to embers; the mutter of voices ceased.

  The boy came silently up behind him. “I’m ready. Here is your cloak and a pack of food.”

  Reith was aware that he spoke in a new voice, less certain, less brusque. His black hat seemed strangely plain. He looked at Reith’s hands and briefly around the shed, but made no inquiry concerning the Onmale.

  They slipped off to the north, climbed the hillside so as to walk along the ridge. “We’ll be easier for the night-hounds to see,” muttered Traz, “but the. attanders keep to the shadows of the swales.”

  “If we can reach the forest, and the tree where I hope my harness still hangs, we’ll be considerably safer. Then...” He paused. The future was a blank expanse.

  They gained the crest of the hill and halted a moment to rest. The high moons cast a wan light across the steppes, filling the hollows with darkness. From not too far to the north came a series of low wails. “Down,” hissed Traz. “Lie flat. The hounds are running.”

  They lay without moving for fifteen minutes. The eerie cries sounded again, toward the east. “Come,” said Traz. “They’re circling the camp, hoping for a staked child.”

  They struck off to the south, up and down, avoiding the dark swales as much as possible. “The night is old,” said Traz. “When light comes the Emblems will trail us. If we reach the river we can lose them. If the marshmen take us, we’ll fare as badly, or worse.”

  For two hours they walked. The eastern sky began to show a watery yellow light, barred by streaks of black cloud, and ahead rose the loom of the forest. Traz looked back the way they had come. “The camp will be astir. The women will be fire-building. Presently the magicians will come to seek out the Onmale. That would have been me. Since I am gone the camp will be in turmoil. There will be curses and shouts: high anger. The Emblems will run to their leap-horses, and be off pellmell!” Once more Traz searched the horizons. “They’ll be along soon.”

  The two walked, and reached the edge of the forest, still dark and dank and pooled with night shadows. Traz hesitated, looking into the forest, then back across the steppes.

  “How far to the bog?” asked Reith.

  “Not far. A mile or two. But I smell a berl.”

  Reith tested the air and detected an acrid fetor.

  “It might be only the spoor,” said Traz in a husky voice. “The Emblems will be here in a very few minutes. We’d best try to reach the river.”

  “First the ejection harness!”

  Traz gave a fatalistic shrug, plunged into the forest. Reith turned a last look over his shoulder. At the far dim edge of vision a set of hurrying black specks had appeared. He hurried after Traz, who moved with great care, stopping to listen and smell the air. In a fever of impatience Reith pressed at his back. Traz speeded his pace, and presently they were almost running over the sodden leaf-mold. From far behind Reith thought to hear a set of savage boots.

  Traz stopped short. “Here is the tree.” He pointed up. “Is that what you want?”

  “Yes,” said Reith with heartfelt relief. “I was afraid it might be gone.”

  Traz climbed the tree, lowered the seat. Reith snapped open the flap, with drew his hand-gun, kissed it in rapture, thrust it in his belt.

  “Hurry,” said Traz anxiously. “I hear the Emblems; they’re not far behind.”

  Reith pulled forth the survival pack, buckled it on his back. “Let’s go. Now they follow at their own risk.”

  Traz led the way around the bog, taking pains to conceal the signs of their passage, doubling back, swinging across a twenty-foot finger of black muck on a hanging branch, climbing another tree, letting it bend beneath his weight to carry him sixty feet away to the opposite side of a dense clump of reeds. Reith followed each of his ploys. The voices of the Emblem warriors were now clearly audible.

  Traz and Reith reached the edge of the river, a slow-flowing flood of black-brown water. Traz found a raft of driftwood, dead lianas, humus, held together by living reeds. He pushed it off into the stream. Then he and Reith hid in a nearby clump of reeds. Five minutes passed; four of the Emblem Men came crashing through the bog along their trail, followed by a dozen more, with catapults at the ready. They ran to the river’s edge, pointed to the marks where Traz had dislodged the raft, searched the face of the river. The mass of floating vegetation had drifted almost two hundred yards downstream and was being carried by a swirl in the current to the other bank. The Emblems gave cries of fury, turned and raced at top speed through the murk and tangle, along the bank toward the drifting raft.

  “Quick,” whispered Traz. “They won’t be fooled long. We’ll go back along their tracks.”

  Back away from the river, across the bog and once more into the forest, Traz and Reith ran, the calls and shouts at first receding to the side, then becoming silent, then once again raised in a sound of furious exultation. “They’ve picked up our trail once again,” gasped Traz. “They’ll be coming on leap-horses; we’ll never—” He stopped short, held up his hand, and Reith became aware of the acrid half-sweet fetor once again. “The berl,” whispered Traz. “Through here ... Up this tree.”

  With the survival pack dangling at his back Reith followed the boy up the oily green branches of a tree. “Higher,” said Traz. “The beast can lunge high.”

  The berl appeared: a lithe brown monster with a wicked boar’s-head split by a vast mouth. From its neck protruded a pair of long arms terminating in great hor
ny hands which it held above its head. It seemed to be intent on the calls of the warriors and paid no heed to Traz and Reith other than a single swift glance up toward them. Reith thought he had never seen such evil in a face before. “Ridiculous. It’s only a beast...”

  The creature disappeared through the forest; a moment later the sound of pursuit halted abruptly. “They smell the berl,” said Traz. “Let’s be off.”

  They climbed down from the tree, fled to the north. From behind them came yells of horror, a guttural gnashing roar.

  “We’re safe from the Emblems,” said Traz in a hollow voice. “Those who live will depart.” He turned Reith a troubled glance. “When they go back to the camp there will be no Onmale. What will happen? Will the tribe die?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Reith. “The magicians will see to that.”

  Presently they emerged from the forest. The steppe spread flat and empty, drenched in an aromatic honey-colored light. Reith asked, “What is to the west of us?”

  “The West Aman and the country of the Old Chasch. Then the Jang Pinnacles. Beyond are the Blue Chasch and the Aesedra Bight.”

  “To the south?”

  “The marshes. The marsh men live there, on rafts. They are different from us: little yellow people with white eyes. Cruel and cunning as Blue Chasch.”

  “They have no cities?”

  “No. There are cities there”—Traz made a gesture generally toward the north—”all ruined. There are old cities everywhere along the steppes. They are haunted, and there are Phung, as well, who live among the ruins.”

  Reith asked further questions regarding the geography and life of Tschai, to find Traz’s knowledge spotty. The Dirdir and Dirdirmen lived beyond the sea; where, he was uncertain. There were three types of Chasch: the Old Chasch, a decadent remnant of a once-powerful race, now concentrated around the Jang Pinnacles; the Green Chasch, nomads of the Dead Steppe; and the Blue Chasch. Traz detested all the Chasch indiscriminately, though he had never seen Old Chasch. “The Green are terrible: demons! They keep to the Dead Steppe. The Emblems stay to the south, except for raids and caravan pillage. The caravan we failed to loot skirted far south to avoid the Greens.”