The Great Fetish

5

When Marko caught up with Boert Halran, the Oasis of Siwa was but a smudge of green in the distance. A few robbers had ridden after him, but then they all went back towards the oasis. Marko surmised that they feared to miss the division of the loot and the selection of a new chief. Boert Halran called down: . “I am overjoyed to see you, Marko. For a moment, I believed they had slain you and that you were one of them pursuing me. Now let us get organized. Which way shall we proceed?”

Marko said: “If we go west, we’re bound to reach the Medranian in a few days. We shall then at least be fixed for water. So turn your beasts to the left.”

“What shall we do for water meanwhile?”

“Watch for green spots indicating water holes. If we find none, we may be in trouble. Also, there’s a spiny plant with thick leaves. When you cut off the spines, you can get moisture from the leaves.”

Halran said: “Slim Qadir told me camels can endure several days without water.”

“We’re not camels. People like Slim know where all the oases are. They leap from one to the next like a man crossing a sea from island to island.”

“That was a noteworthy feat, Marko. I never expected a schoolteacher to be so handy with weapons. One—two—three—and three Arabistanis lying dead.”

Marko made a deprecatory gesture and looked away with an embarrassed grin. “That was nothing. I’m so much bigger than they that it was like swatting spider-bugs.”

“Still, I think you were the only man in the caravan actually to send any of them to Earth.”

Marko shrugged. “More luck than skill. If Slim had had his archers under control, those robbers would never have attacked. They fight for loot, not for honor, and they hold off if they think there’s any serious risk.”

They pulled out the arrow that had struck the riding camel and jogged on. In midafternoon the sunlight became uncomfortably warm, so they shed their jackets. Marko’s horse began to droop, stumbling along with hanging head, until Marko gave him a rest and asked Halran to change places with Him.

“These little Arabistani rabbits aren’t built for a man of my size,” he said.

With the setting of Muphrid, the moons Gallic and Kopern appeared. Arcturus rose. Swiftly, the temperature fell. Marko made camp. He was handier in such matters than his companion, who Was given to absent-minded streaks.

Marko was sweeping the camping area to drive out the bloodsucking arachnids when he looked at Hal-ran. He shouted, “Hey!” and grabbed his companion’s arm.

“What?” said Halran.

“I thought you knew those were poison!”

“Oh.” Halran dropped the onion-mushroom from which he had been about to take a bite. “I do recall Slim’s saying something …”

“Well, recall a little sooner next time!”

“Oh, go to space!” said Halran.

The next day, they plodded westward without sighting water. Vegetation became scarcer, until there was nothing to be seen save occasional small spears of phosphor grass, which the animals would not eat. They also found one of the spiny thick-leaved plants, peeled several leaves, and cut them up into slices to eat despite their bitter taste. But they saw no more of these plants. Other travelers must have swept the country along the caravan route clean of them.

Marko asked Halran: “Doctor, you know the story of my trial for teaching Descensionism. Which belief do you adhere to?”

“Well, the sciences of life are out of my line, but from what I have heard and read, I should say that the arguments for Descensionism were quite strong. My colleagues have confirmed the evolutionary hypothesis to some extent as regards to non-mammals of Kforri. They have done this by finding fossils, which they have pieced together. In some cases, these do seem to be the more primitive ancestors of forms now living. But no such fossils have been found for mammals, including men. Of course, that may be merely the result of mammals being more intelligent and so not getting caught in swamps and similar places where they are likely to be fossilized.”

“The question is not really settled, then?”

“Not in the sense that the sphericity of Kforri may be taken as settled, although I think the odds are at least ten to one in favor of Descensionism.”

“Then who were the Ancient Ones?”

Halran shrugged. “There are as many interpretations of those myths as there are mythographers. One plausible interpretation is that they were the leaders of a band of settlers who somehow came from Earth and who died or were killed off after the landing. Do you know the story of Hasn the Smith, who, denied an honorable place at the Feast of the Ancient Ones, stood in the doorway and slew them all with his magical arrows?”

“Yes.”

“That no doubt refers to some real event, although we do not know what.”

Marko asked: “How about the myths of the gods on Earth, such as the one about the rivalry of the sea god Nelson and the war god Napoleon for the favor of the love goddess Cleopatra?”

“I do not know, though there are the usual speculations. There is a story that the key to these mysteries lies on the Isle of Mnaenn, but the witches do not let outsiders go poking around their sacred island.”

The following day, there was still no sign of water. Suffering from thirst, Marko watched for the main caravan route. When he failed to sight it, he could only suppose that they had crossed it without noticing it. It had no permanent marking, and a good breeze soon obliterated the tracks of the animals with blown sand. Halran complained incessantly. Marko twice lost his temper and roared at the older man, feeling ashamed of himself afterwards.

The next day, Halran began to reel in his saddle. They choked down their food as best they could. Marko, rolling a pebble about his mouth to lessen his thirst, looked longingly at a distant herd of dromsors. If he could kill one, its blood would relieve their thirst. But he had no more arrows, and the beasts could easily outrun even a fresh horse.

The day after that, Marko was nodding, half-asleep atop his camel, when a violent jerk of the saddle caused him to open his bloodshot eyes. He blinked, then croaked down to Halran:

“Look! Water! The sea!”

Halran looked. “Huh? Where?”

“There! I suppose you can’t see it because I’m higher than you.”

Halran wiped his glasses. “Curse my weak eyesight.”

Marko shaded his eyes as he gazed towards the faint line of blue, which showed along the horizon between the humps in the barren gray and buff landscape. The animals’ nostrils dilated, and their pace quickened.

As he neared the sea, Marko saw that the Saar extended out to the edge of a slope, which ran gently down to a sandy beach. Before he reached the beach, however, a small bay appeared on his right. He angled towards it. The basin in which the bay lay supported a sparse growth of onion-mushrooms and bat-veiled fungi, in contrast to the almost complete lifelessness of the Saar during the last day’s ride.

The margins of the bay, however, did not form a beach. A mat of seaweedlike vines made a green strip ten to twenty paces wide around the marge, converting it into a kind of swamp.

Halran kicked and beat the horse into a semblance of a trot. When he reached the vines, he turned left and rode parallel with the shoreline, until he came to where the vine thinned out. Then he flung himself off his mount and ran to the edge of the water, stepping over the few vines.

The horse followed. Sap-sucking arachnids, like large land crabs covered with long red hair, scuttled rustling away. The horse buried its muzzle in the water and drank noisily, while Halran flopped on his belly beside it to drink too.

The camels also showed signs of eagerness. Marko hit Mutasim over the head with the butt of his whip to quiet him and clucked to him to kneel.

When the camels had both knelt, Marko got off. He set about staking down Mutasim’s halter to keep the animal from running away, keeping a wary eye on the creature’s head lest it bite him. Then a yell from Boert Halran attracted his attention.

The philosopher was wrestling with a length of acceleratum vine. While he had been drinking, a tendril of the vine, half buried in the sand, had looped itself about one of his legs and had begun to root through the boot. In thrashing about, he had touched another tendril with his arm; this seized him too. He shrieked as the rootlets penetrated his skin.

Marko caught Halran’s free hand and tugged, but the effort merely pulled lengths of the vine out of the sand for a few feet until the really thick trunks were exposed, without breaking the hold of the tendrils. Another tendril fastened itself to Halran’s other leg. Halran yelled:

“You are pulling my arm off!”

Marko relaxed his grip and got out his ax. Three slashes chopped off the tendrils that had fastened to Halran. The stumps, dripping greenish-white fluid, fell to the ground and lay limply, looking like ordinary harmless vines.

Halran staggered back from the margin of the bay and sat down to cut loose the tendrils still clinging to his arm and legs. First the main tendril had to be cut loose from the rootlets that it had sent through his clothing. Then he had to work off his boots and jacket, leaving the rootlets in his skin. Finally the rootlets had to be pulled out one by one, each leaving a puckery little hole, which bled freely.

“I am a dead man!” said Halran. “I shall bleed to death, or at least be rendered unable to travel!”

“It doesn’t look that serious,” said Marko. “I had heard of this stuff, but had never seen it. I didn’t believe it would root so fast.”

“I knew about it,” said Halran, “but I erroneously supposed there was not enough at this spot to be dangerous. Or perhaps I was so thirsty I did not think. I am no good at roughing it, no good whatever. There is one individual who got captured.” He pointed westward along the shore of the bay to the bones of a dromsor, lying scattered among the cables of the vine.

When he saw that Halran was all right save for minor punctures, Marko walked over to where Halran had been drinking. He severed all the vines that he could see with his ax and kicked the sand to uncover any others beneath the surface. Then he drank, making a face at the taste of the water. Drinking sea water on Kforri might not kill a man, but too much of it would upset his digestion.

After that, Marko led the camels down through the path that he had cut so that they could drink. Halran chased the horse, which had run away when he dropped its reins. The beast was, however, so exhausted that it did not try very hard to escape.

When they were eating, Halran said: “You are an odd fellow, Marko. You have saved my life twice on this trip, yet you have no more compunction about slicing off the head of this fellow who eloped with your wife, and hers too, then you would have about killing one of those.” He pointed to one of the hairy arachnids.

“I see nothing odd about it,” said Marko. “You’re my friend, while Mongamri wronged me in a malevolent and perfidious manner. So it’s only right that I should kill him. But I agreed to drop the plan out of deference to you.”

“So you did, so you did. I had forgotten.”

They marched north along the eastern shore of the Medranian Sea, sometimes seeing the white tooth of a sail or the black plume of a steamer’s smoke on the horizon. One of Marko’s burning ambitions was to ride a steamship, despite the fact that their bronzen boilers sometimes blew up with grisly results. But then, Halran explained, they had been invented only a half century earlier and were not yet perfected. During his sabbatical, Marko had admired a couple of the craft tied up to the piers at Chef. He would have liked to go aboard to look around, but his timid shyness had prevented his asking permission.

Marko continued to ply Halran with questions, partly because it seemed like a good opportunity to enlarge his knowledge and partly to practice his Anglonian. The only trouble was that, once opened up, Halran talked so much that Marko got little chance to speak any language.

The day after they reached the seashore, they picked up the main caravan trail. They were running low on food. That presented no pressing difficulty, because the onion-mushrooms here were edible. One could live for a while on these. To go for long without other foods, however, caused tooth decay and other ills.

They also encountered a couple of caravans headed the other way. Each time, the people were so interested in the story of Zaki Riadhi’s raid that they entertained Marko and Halran with all the food and drink they could hold.

As they turned the northeast corner of the Medranian Sea, the terrain became greener. Sometimes there was a spatter of rain. Cultivation appeared, then villages inhabited by folk of mixed Arabi-Anglonian descent. They crossed the guarded border from Arabistan into the Republic of Anglonia. Marko had worried about his lack of passport, which he knew to be needed in Anglonia and Eropia. But Halran assured him that he could get him in on his own, by a simple endorsement, as his assistant. So it proved.

Marko knew little of Anglonia, save what the Vizantian geography textbooks said: “… mostly flat, but hilly in the northern parts … the people are friendly and gay, but shamless, frivolous, and unreliable … their children are spoiled … the principal exports are wheat, bron fiber, iron ore, pure-bred livestock, and ingenious mechanical devices… .” Therefore he looked about him with interest.

The Anglonians, he found, were a tall, handsome people. Many had blond hair and blue eyes. They also had a widespread tendency towards obesity. Most of them over twenty (Kforrian years) were fat and paunchy.

They did not seem exactly frivolous. At least they were not lazy. They worked and played with furious intensity. They loved speed, and their light carriages tore through crowded towns at full gallop. They were not merely friendly; they were impudently and insatiably curious. Every time Marko and Halran sat down in an eating place, the Anglonians crowded ~ around, introducing themselves. They asked the details of Marko’s past history, present occupation, and future prospects. They asked about his love life until he turned purple with embarrassment and pretended not to understand them.

When the Anglonians were not inquiring, they talked about themselves. Marko had never met such garrulous people. As far as he could tell, their main topics were food and sex, mostly loud boasts of their own prowess in both lines. Both sexes dressed gaudily, used perfume, and were given to public drunkenness and quarreling. Thinking them decadent, Marko at times preferred the dour dignity and cold reserve of his native land.

Halran suggested that Marko could avoid this friendly persecution by looking more like an Anglonian. Accordingly, Marko bought a pair of knitted trunk-hose like those of his comrade and retired his baggy trousers to his bag. The new pants embarrassed him by then” tightness, but the Anglonians paid less attention to him. He kept his boots, because he was used to them. Anyway, they looked much like Anglonian riding boots.

The hair had grown on Marko’s scalp and jaw during his journey. Instead of having his pate shaven but for the scalp lock, he had that lock cut off and left the rest as it was, in a short blond bristle like that of the Anglonians. He also began cultivating one of the mustaches affected by these folk. He bought a tobacco pipe and learned, with much coughing and spitting, to smoke it, instead of chewing plug like a Vizantian.

On the fourteenth of Newton, they stopped at an eating place in Kambra. Marko was just getting well into his meal when Halran squeezed his wrist and said:

“Do not look around, Marko, but get ready to pay your bill and go.”

“Huh?”

“Do as I say. I shall explain subsequently.”

Grumbling, Marko did as he was told. When they were on the road again, he asked Halran what had happened. Halran said:

“Did you not notice that trio of youths at the bar, staring at us?”

“I did in a vague sort of way. Why?”

“I could tell by their actions they were contemplating an assault upon us.”

“Oh? If they had, I should have simply knocked their heads together hard enough to crack them.”

“That is what I feared. If, in defending us, you had injured one of them, we should have at least been mobbed. If we survived, the law would have dealt severely with us.”

“Napoin! Why?”

“They were minors, and nobody is allowed to injure a minor in Anglonia.”

“So what?” snorted Marko. “All the more reason to knock their heads together, to teach them respect for their elders.”

“Do not let anybody hear you say that. Minors are sacred in Anglonia. They are not held responsible for their actions, but any harm done them is severely punished.”

“Sometimes,” said Marko, “Anglonians almost act like reasonable people, and at others like a race of lunatics. What’s the reasoning behind this worship of minors?”

“Why, you see, we believe that if a child or young person is thwarted or curbed hi any way, he will grow up into a sour, frustrated, mentally diseased adult. So they are allowed to do pretty much as they please, on the theory that they will thus work off all their anti social impulses before reaching their majority. That is why all adult Anglonians are so well adjusted.”

Marko spat in the dust.

On the eighteenth of Newton, Marko and his companion came to the seaport of Niok, which rose in graceful spires and crude blocks from the estuary of the Mizzipa River.