Shadow Games

Chapter Twelve: THE SHAGGY HILLS

To reach One-Eye's jungle we had to pass through several miles of woods, then climb over a range of decidedly odd hills. The hills were very round, very steep, and completely treeless, though not especially high. They were covered with a short brown grass that caught fire easily, so that many bore black scars. From a distance they looked like a herd of giant, tawny, humped beasts sleeping.

I was in a state of high nerves. That sleeping-beast image haunted me. I kept half expecting those hills to waken and shrug us off. I caught up with One-Eye. "Is there something weird about these hills that you accidentally forgot to tell me about on purpose?"

He gave me a funny look. "No. Though the ignorant believe them to be burial mounds from a time when giants walked the earth. But they aren't. They're just hills. All dirt and rock inside."

"Then why do they make me feel funny?"

He glanced back the way we had come, puzzled. "It's not the hills, Croaker. It's something back there. I feel it, too. Like we just dodged an arrow."

I did not ask him what it was. He would have told me if he had known.

As the day wore on I realized the others were as jumpy as I was.

Worrying about it did as much good as worrying ever does.

Next morning we ran into two wizened little men of One-Eye's race. They both looked a hundred years old. One of them kept hacking and coughing like he was about to croak. Goblin cackled. "Must be old Lizard Lips's illegitimate grandchildren."

There was a resemblance. I suppose that was to be expected. We were just accustomed to One-Eye being unique.

One-Eye scowled at Goblin. "Keep it up, Barf Bag. You'll be grocery shopping with the turtles."

What the hell did that mean? Some kind of obscure shop talk? But Goblin was as croggled as the rest of us.

Grinning, One-Eye resumed gabbling with his relatives.

Lady said, "I presume these are the guides the monks sent for?"

They had done us that favor on learning our intentions. We would need guides. We were near the end of any road we could call familiar. Once past One-Eye's jungle we would need somebody to translate for One-Eye, too.

Goblin let out a sudden aggrieved squawk.

"What's your problem?" I demanded.

"He's feeding them a pack of lies!"

So what was new about that? "How do you know? You don't talk that lingo."

"I don't have to. I've known him since before your dad was whelped. Look at him. He's doing his classic mighty-sorcerer-from-a-faraway-land act. In about twenty seconds he's going to... " A wicked grin spread his mouth around his face. He muttered something under his breath.

One-Eye raised a hand. A ball of light formed within his curled fingers.

There was a pop like that of a cork coming out of a wine bottle.

One-Eye held a hand full of swamp bottom. It oozed between his fingers and ran down his arm. He lowered his hand and stared in disbelief.

He let out a shriek and whirled.

Innocent Goblin was faking a conversation with Murgen. But Murgen was not up to the deceit. His shifty eyes gave Goblin away.

One-Eye puffed up like a toady frog, ready to explode. Then a miracle occurred. He invented self-restraint. A nasty little smile pranced across his lips and he turned back to the guides.

That was the second time in my experience that he had controlled himself when provoked. But, then, it was one of those rare times when Goblin had initiated the process of provocation. I told Otto, "This could get interesting."

Otto grunted an affirmative. He was not thrilled.

Of One-Eye, I asked, "Have you finished telling them you're the necromancer Voice of the North Wind come to ease the pain in their hearts brought on by worry about their wealth?" He'd actually tried to sell that once, to a tribe of savages coincidentally in possession of an eye-popping cache of emeralds. He found out the hard way that primitive does not mean stupid. They were fixing to burn him at the stake when Goblin decided to bail him out. Against his better judgment, he always insisted afterward.

"It ain't like that this time, Croaker. I wouldn't do it to my own people."

One-Eye does not have an ounce of shame. Nor even the sense not to lie to those who know him well. Of course he would do it to his own people. He would do it to anybody if he thought he could get away with it. And he has so little trouble conning himself on that.

"See that you don't. We're too few and too far from safety to let you indulge yourself in your usual line of shit."

I got enough menace into my voice to make him gulp.

His tone was markedly different when he resumed gobbling at our prospective guides.

Even so, I decided I would pick up a smatter of the language. Just to keep an ear on him. His often misplaced self-confidence has a way of asserting itself at the most unpropitious moments.

Straight for a time, One-Eye negotiated a deal that pleased everyone. We had ourselves guides for the passage through the jungle and intermediary interpreters for the land that lay beyond.

Relying on his usual moronic sense of humor, Goblin dubbed them Baldo and Wheezer, for reasons that were self-evident To my embarrassment, the names stuck. Those two old boys probably deserved better. But then again...

We wended our way belween the shaggy, hump-backed hills the rest of that day, and as darkness approached we topped the cleavage between the pair that flanked the summit of our passage. From there we could see the sunset, reflecting bloody wounds of a broad river, and the rich green of the jungle beyond. Behind us lay the tawny humps, and beyond them a hazy sprawl of indigo.

My mood was reflective, flat, almost down. It seemed we might have reached a watershed in more than a geographical sense.

Much later, unable to sleep for thoughts that questioned what I was doing here in an alien land, thoughts that replied that I had nothing else to do and nowhere else to go, I left my bedroll and the remaining warmth of our campfire. I headed for one of the flanking hills, moved by some vague notion of going up where I could get a better view of the stars.

Wheezer, who had the watch, gave me a gap-toothed leer before spitting a wad of brown juice into the coals. I heard him start wheezing before I was halfway up the hill.

A lunger I got, yet.

The moon threatened to rise soon. It would be fat and bright. I picked me a spot and stood looking at the horizon, waiting for that fat orange globe to roll over the lip of the world. The faintest of cool, moist breezes stirred my hair. It was so damned peaceful it hurt.

"You couldn't sleep, either?"

I jerked around.

She was a dark glob on the hillside just ten feet away. If I had noted her at all, it was as a rock. I stepped closer. She was seated, her arms wrapped around her knees. Her gaze was fixed on the north.

"Sit down."

I sat. "What are you looking at so hard?"

"The Reaper. The Archer. Vargo's Ship." And yesterdays, no doubt.

Those were constellations. I considered them, too. They were very low, seen from here. This time of year they would be quite high in the sky up north. What she meant began to sink in.

We had come a far piece, indeed. With many a mile to go. She said, "It's intimidating when you think about it. It's a lot of walking."

It was.

The moon clambered over the horizon, monstrous in size and almost red. She whispered "Wow!" and slipped her hand into mine. She was shivering, so after a minute I slid over and put my arm around her. She leaned her head against my shoulder.

That old moon was working its magic. That sucker can do it to anybody.

Now I knew what made Wheezer grin.

The moment seemed right. I turned my head-and her lips were rising to meet mine. When they touched mine I forgot who and what she had been. Her arms surrounded me, pulled me down... .

She shivered in my grasp like a captive mouse. "What is it?" I whispered.

"Shh," she said. And that was the best thing she could have said. But she could not leave it there. She had to add, "I never... I never did this... "

Well, shit. She sure knew how to distract a man, and put a thousand reservations into his mind.

That moon climbed the sky. We began to relax with each other. Somehow, there were fewer rags separating us.

She stiffened. The mist went out of her eyes. She lifted her head and stared past me, face slack.

If one of those clowns had sneaked up to watch I was going to break his kneecaps. I turned.

We did not have company. She was watching the flash of a distant storm. "Heat lightning," I said.

"You think so? It doesn't seem much farther off than the Temple. And we never saw a storm the whole time we were crossing that country."

Jagged lightning bolts ripped down like a fall of javelins.

That feeling I had discussed with One-Eye redoubled.

"I don't know, Croaker." She began gathering her clothing. "The pattern seems familiar."

I followed her lead, relieved. I am not sure I would have been able to finish what we started. I was distracted now.

"Another time will be better, I think," she said, still staring at that lightning. "That is too distracting."

We returned to camp to find everyone awake yet totally uninterested in the fact that we had been away together. The view was not as good from below, but flashes could be seen. They did not let up.

"There's sorcery out there, Croaker," One-Eye said.

Goblin nodded. "The heavy stuff. You can feel the screaming edges of it from here."

"How far away?" I asked.

"About two days. Close to that place we stopped."

I shivered. "Can you tell what it's about?"

Goblin said nothing. One-Eye shook his head. "All I can tell you is I'm glad I'm here and not there." I agreed, even in my ignorance of what was happening.

Murgen blanched. He pointed over the book he was studying, which he held out like a protective fetish. "Did you see that?"

I was looking at Lady and brooding about my luck. The others could sweat the little stuff, like some bloody sorcerers' duel fifty miles away. I had troubles of my own.

"What?" I grumbled, knowing he wanted a response.

"It looked like a giant bird. I mean, like one with a twenty-mile wingspan. That you could see through."

I looked up. Goblin nodded. He had seen it, too. I looked to the north. The lightning ended, but some pretty fierce fires had to be burning up there. "One-Eye. Your new buddies there got any idea what's going on?"

The little black man shook his head. He had the brim of his hat pulled forward, cutting his line of sight. That business up there—whatever it was—had him rattled. By his own admission he is the greatest wizard ever produced by his part of the world. With the possible exception of his dead brother, Tom-Tom. Whatever that was out there, it was alien. It did not belong.

"Times change," I suggested.

"Not around here, they don't. And if they did, these guys would know about it." Wheezer nodded vigorous agreement although he could not have understood a word. He hawked and spat a brown glob into the fire.

I had a feeling I was going to have as much fun with him as I did with One-Eye. "What is that crap he's all the time chewing? It's disgusting."

"Qat," One-Eye said. "A mild narcotic. Doesn't do his lungs any good, but when he's chewing it he doesn't care how much they hurt him." He said it lightly, but he meant it.

I nodded uncomfortably, looked away. "Quieting down up there."

No one had anything to say to that.

"We're all awake," I said. "So get packing. I want to move out as soon as we can see to walk."

I did not get a bit of argument. Wheezer nodded and spat. Goblin grunted and started getting his things together. The others followed his example, Murgen putting the book away with a care that I approved. The boy might make an Annalist after all. We all kept sneaking looks at the north when we thought our uneasiness would go unnoticed.

When I was not looking that way, or tormenting myself with glances at Lady, I tried to get an estimate of the reactions of the newer men. We had encountered no sorcery directly yet, but the Company has a way of stumbling into its path. They seemed no more uncomfortable than the old hands.

Glances at Lady. I wondered if what seemed inevitable on the one hand and foredoomed on the other would ever cease crackling between us. So long as it did it would distort everything else in our relationship. Hell. I liked her fine as a friend.

There is nothing so unreasonable and irrational and blind—and just plain silly-looking—as a man who works himself into an obsessive passion.

Women do not look as foolish. They are expected to be weak. But they are also expected to become savage bitches when they are frustrated.