“We have our orders, Ethrem. Here’s no place to discuss them.” My worrier’s companion was only slightly older, but wore a complex insignia of rank high on one shoulder. I spared an instant to memorize its design. He attacked his breakfast with zeal—yet his tablemate sat staring at his plate, turning his implement in small circles.
The other diners seemed to be ignoring them a bit too obviously.
Fascinating.
I made myself as small as possible and, as Cradoc and his group left with a convenient dispute over their bill, I crept closer to the pair.
“Orders,” Ethrem echoed with disgust. The food abandoned on his plate somehow caught my eye; camouflage tended to become a habit after six hundred days. He felt my stare and pointed at me with his fork. “Rather than follow such madness, I’d change places with that miserable excuse for a serlet.”
Huh,
I thought to myself.
“You’ll have the chance soon enough if we don’t report back on time.”
Ethrem’s hands shook visibly. “But I can’t go back. You must cover for me, old friend; find some excuse. I can’t face those creatures—not again—”
“Get hold of yourself.” What was close to a parade ground snap shook the hunch from Ethrem’s shoulders if not the wildness from his eyes. Seeing this, his companion took a quick intense glance around, scowling at anyone he caught looking at them. As his eyes fell on me, I let my own gaze idly trace the course of a small insect past my nose.
The officer continued in a low, hurried voice, like someone driven to reveal a secret. I had to strain my ears to pick up his whisper. “There are plans beyond what you know, Ethrem. The Protark can handle the situation.”
“How? What plan has he? Openhanded hospitality to those devils?” A sneer. “Next, he’ll offer them summer quartering with the Royal Caste—or perhaps a few days at the seaside to enjoy the cool ocean breezes.”
The officer glanced about again. “Do you think our current Commander shares strategy with the ranks? He’s a close one, this Theerlic, close and fond of power. But I have my sources, Ethrem.” He hesitated, then leaned closer. “This is not the first ship Protark Theerlic has handled. These latest invaders were expected—and none of them will leave Kraos. Not if
we
do our job. Know this for the truth, Ethrem. You and I—we’ll be among those who save the world.”
Leave Kraos? Save the world? Invaders?
I bolted down the meat, ignoring both the taste and the burning in my mouth.
What in Ersh’s name did he mean by ships?
For a moment, I numbly thought about paddleboats and steamers, although there was no open water within several days’ travel unless one included the unnavigable torrent moating the city perimeter. Then, I actually looked up, as if watching for a passing air vehicle, though I already knew Kraosians were oddly disinterested in airborne travel, despite a technology that included solar power and the generation of electricity.
My mind fumbled its way to the only possible interpretation—an interpretation which collided violently with the unchewed sausage in my stomach.
Offworlders. Damn.
This was not going to impress Ersh.
I felt my shape threatening to explode and held it with all I had. My duty was quite clear, made so by explicit and firm standing orders. There were worse penalties for failure to follow the Web’s First Rules than losing seniority or rank—much worse.
Fighting a tendency to snarl to myself, I dodged a kick from an alert waitress and walked out boldly behind the two soldiers when they left—judging correctly that they were too preoccupied to notice a small tagalong, especially one that appeared to be a miserable excuse for a serlet.
Following at the Kraosians’ heels like a well-trained hunting beast suited me; in a way, I felt almost grateful for something easy to do while my thoughts whirled. I found myself totally self-absorbed for the second time since I arrived.
This couldn’t be my fault,
I concluded at last, as if that would help. Skalet had checked this planet. Kraos was supposed to be an untouched world, with the requisite native belief that they were unique in space, a world blissfully secure in its ignorance. Ideal for my first post—or so Ersh had agreed.
Obviously, Skalet’s report was old news. I swore to myself.
What was I supposed to do with an impacted culture?
I had no training. At best, I could hope for another and likely bleaker posting. At worst—well, I wouldn’t worry about that yet.
Of course, almost immediately things grew worse. The two I trailed paused before a rack of sisni drivers. It would be impossible to keep track of them if they rented one of the small and maneuverable cars. The pause lengthened, punctuated by conversation I couldn’t hear over the din of the marketplace. Finally, the officer patted his wallet pouch and shook his head. I breathed again only when they moved away.
They were leaving the market area. I dropped farther back, keeping them in sight with quick glances, and concentrated on weaving a path through the hodgepodge of containers and litter edging the road.
Two irregular blocks passed in this way, putting the boundaries of the market behind us. Just as well it wasn’t the midwinter holiday season when merchants outnumbered local citizens and the entire city was paralyzed with shoppers.
Gradually, I grew convinced that Ethrem and his companion were heading for the outskirts of the city, close, in fact, to where I had entered myself two planet years ago. As the current area of pavement where they walked was inconveniently tidy, I took a chance and, turning down a familiar alleyway, began to run with all the fleetness of my long legs.
Athletics was not my strong point. I took a corner too quickly and a twist of pain thrilled through an overstressed tendon. With a grunt, I dismissed it, aware if I lost the chance to intercept my quarry before they reached the multiple city gates, I might never find them again. It was a tempting excuse, however.
Pure luck sent me skittering clear of the wheels of a clattering hand truck, although close enough to feel the air of its movement. I flicked one embarrassed ear at the language flung after me. Fortunately, the rotten fruit missed.
Puffing, I slid to a halt at the alley’s end, in view of the second great open area of the city, the elaborately paved and fountained square which gave access to the seven city gates piercing the old city wall. The gates were a particularly Kraosian absurdity.
I’d already noticed that Kraosians seemed to delight in any distinction they could make between themselves, from clothing style to subtleties of accent. It took on the proportions of a cultural need. So, for a Kraosian, it doubtless made sense that each caste of Kraosian society entered and left Suddmusal by its own gate. No one seemed to care that this had meant punching seven huge holes into the city wall and funneling traffic into seven often snarled streams through the city square, just to end up crossing the Jesrith River over one and the same bridge.
I used the claws on my left hind foot to dig at an itch behind my ear, scanning for my quarry. At least I knew they’d have to join the traffic aimed at the second to west-most gate, the one designated for the military. I breathed easier at the sight of the two soldiers walking briskly toward me, their steps unconsciously matched in parade rhythm. I watched, expecting them to wait for their opportunity to cross the line of merchant trucks, but instead they turned in the opposite direction. I soon realized their destination was the series of doors dark-edged into the shadowed east wall.
With a sigh, I selected a parked truck with a crate handily placed at its side and bounded up to its roof in two easy leaps. On this vantage point, curled in a ball, I prepared to wait. I knew where they were going. Another Kraosian custom. Ethrem had undoubtedly convinced his companion to let him seek the services of a licensed soothsayer. The Kraosians were as mystically inclined as they were stubborn about caste. With my luck, the troubled Ethrem would have enough money for a full spirit consultation—the better soothsayers could stretch one of those for hours.
4:
Mountain Afternoon
THE soothsayer must have had a virtual treasure trove of wisdom to pass along. As a consequence, or due to other arrangements I wasn’t consulted about, we were climbing the road from Suddmusal to the mountain range beyond at a truly ridiculous time of day. Not for the first time, I glared down with disgust at Ethrem and his new companions. He was now an indistinguishable part of a tight, purposeful group of thirty-two, built gradually and with suspicious casualness from other pairs of returning soldiers as they left the city.
As behooved a being of superior intelligence, I was sensibly traveling in the shade of the bordering low shrubs and trees, cutting across the road’s ceaseless switchbacks to keep ahead of the troops constrained to its course. Even so, Ethrem and his companions were moving quickly, far too quickly for midsummer at the sun’s zenith. There was an urgency to their passage, and no complaints, despite the sweat glistening on every brow.
I had plenty of complaints, but no one to share them with on this planet. My tongue wouldn’t fit in my mouth anymore and hung out one side like laundry on a line, too dry to help cool my body despite the hot pulses of air sliding up the mountain from the baking plain below. My footpads and knuckles were already tender from running on rough hookgrass, sand, and rock.
Oh, well,
I thought to myself, waiting for the Kraosians to march around the next switchback, my front feet wide-spaced to hold against the slope,
I’m no longer bored.
I’d expected to feel excitement. After all, this was becoming an adventure, just like those I’d read when I was too young to appreciate that literature was an ephemeral’s way of remembering. What I felt instead was a sense of pressure, as if I were putty being forced into a very small and uncomfortable mold. Problem was, I was an observer, not an action taker. Had things proceeded normally, nothing in my assignment would have required me to actively do anything—in fact, a large portion of my training had dealt with eliminating the urge to react, to participate. I was uneasy, anxious—emotional responses I rather glumly realized were trying to make me cautious—a virtue Ersh had long ago failed to find in me.
I reached the crest of the first mountain ridge well ahead of the Kraosians. I knew this place; up the next rise was the cave where I’d spent weeks building my courage—and exploding. This far slope tumbled to the depths of the jagged gorge still being cut from bedrock by the frothing madness of the Jesrith.
A delicate web of a bridge tossed the road from my feet up to the next ridge, where its pavement disappeared into haze. It was a beautiful, uncanny structure, completely inexplicable by anything I’d learned so far about Kraosians. Only foot traffic could use it; suggesting a short journey to a worthwhile destination. Yet to the best of my knowledge, the road and its air-spanning bridge led to nowhere of significance.
The sound of heavy footsteps snapped the spell of the incredible view. I pressed myself under a berry bush, curling up in its deliciously damp shade. The Kraosians sensibly chose this same moment to rest themselves, wandering off the hot pavement and stretching out wearily wherever they could find level ground among the stones.
An instant later, biting, wingless insects scurried into my fur from what seemed every leaf of my shelter. Frozen, not daring to even twitch, I felt innumerable small pricks as the beasts enjoyed their unexpected feast. I catalogued the species, licking one up to test its molecular structure.
Adventure. Glory.
I added to my mental list:
worry and bugs.
Ethrem, his companion, and one other officer had remained standing, looking out over the bridge, air, and tumbled rock with eyes that perhaps saw beauty, or perhaps merely an obstacle. It was tricky working out the aesthetics of other species.
“Come,” the new officer said, turning with an impatient wave of a hand missing several fingers. He had a beard, the first I’d seen on a Kraosian, currently matted into three sweat-darkened ringlets. “They’ll be waiting for us at the Commons House in Grangel. If we’re late, the Protark will likely serve our heads as the first course.” With understandable alacrity, the men re-formed their column and headed single file across the bridge.
The bridge was narrow, solid despite its fragile appearance, and completely devoid of cover. I could only trust in a trick that had worked before. As they marched, I stepped quietly into the shadow of the endmost soldier, my nose almost on his knee. He blinked down at me wearily and my legs tightened in preparation for a leap away, but then his hand dropped down to scratch behind my ears. I gave him my best tongue-hanging grin and a slow flutter of my tail. “‘None of our business what’s ahead, friend,” he muttered more to himself than to me. “But there’s good ale in Grangel’s Commons House, and not as dear as some.” I nodded wisely, a wasted gesture as my chosen partner returned his attention to the march.
Crossing the great bridge was an experience worth the discomfort of its sunbaked pavement on my unprotected toes. I took delicate mincing steps and savored the fragrant breeze lifting the scents of the mountain forest below up to my nostrils. The same breeze kept the bridge swaying gently from side to side—a movement that the soldiers adjusted to in unison, as if rehearsed, and I had to anticipate in order to avoid falling off. The Jesrith roared far beneath us, a voice of thunder and foreboding. As if in echo, real thunder sounded off to the north where darkening clouds hung against distant white-tipped peaks. I forgot my sore feet and hands.
The farthest reach of the bridge was terraced in huge flexible steps, easing the climb to the greater height of its landing. Five of these: easy steps for the soldiers and comfortably small leaps up for me. After the fifth, we stood on solid rock again. I took a last regretful look back at familiar ground, swallowing my doubts.