"Wait! Can you do nothing?" I cried as the last life in the stone snake fled and the heavy thing weighed now upon my arm, increasing the burden upon my poor scalp. And, making matters worse than ever, the smoke accompanying the djinn"s exit from the creature"s mouth and nostrils tickled my nose and caused me to sneeze. I almost swooned again from the pain.
Aster"s torso twisted out the window again and she looked up at me sympathetically. "Heavens, you poor thing. You look like your skin is going to pull off your neck any moment now and drop the rest of you into the river." One needs such sympathy in times of peril. "I"m certainly glad we didn"t agree to marry them. Not only are they wicked but they lied about who they are. Probably aren"t princes either. Oh well, at least it"s comforting to know they can"t do anything really awful."
"To you, Aster," Amollia"s scratchy voice reminded her. "They"re killing us us."
"Ummm. You may be right. So they are," she replied, and she did sound sorry.
"Go tell them you"ll give them the cork," Amollia croaked.
"What? And lose all my bargaining power? Then we"ll all all be in the same pretty fix." be in the same pretty fix."
"Don"t give it to them. Just tell them you will. Keep them occupied for a while."
"I don"t see how. If I say I will give it to them and I do, that will take very little time, and if I don"t, that will be obvious too and they"ll just come back up here and hurt you some more."
That happy thought provided me with inspiration. "Say you... hid it magically. Make up some long ritual by which you must retrieve it. It can last all night if necessary." I doubted that I would have been capable of manufacturing such an act, but Aster was a professional actress-and charlatan as well, no doubt. She ought to be good for something.
"Well, I"m not sure-" she began.
"Go," Amollia said. "Or our deaths will be on your head and there"s no no telling what you"ll be in your next life." telling what you"ll be in your next life."
Aster left and below we heard her voice, loud and fast, selling our captors her story. Meanwhile Amollia"s hands raised out of my line of vision.
"Be still," she said. "I"ll have myself loose now-"
I heard the clank of her bracelets on the iron ring above the patter of the rain into the river below. The storm no longer came in gusts, as it had previously, but drizzled gently.
"Ahhh," she said at last, and her body shifted upward. After a moment she said, "Rasa, I"ve untied my hair from the ring. I"m holding it with my hands now. Try to hold still, for I am going to climb into the window long enough to unwind my sash and bind it around you to tie you by the waist to my ring. That way, when I unfasten your braids, you won"t fall into the river before I can catch you."
Disinclined to nod, I groaned instead. I still did not understand how, even if she freed me this time, the two of us would be safe from the magic that had put us there initially. Our enemies had only to snap their fingers again, or whatever it was they had done before. Still, with a respite from the blinding pain, perhaps I would think of something. Or perhaps Amollia had more of a plan.
She began swinging back and forth from the ring, kicking to try to reach the window ledge. I was glad she had warned me ahead of time, for it saved me painful flinching. She succeeded on the third try. From within the room came the sound of rustling cloth and jingling jewelry. "Courage, barbarian. When we are free of this place I shall teach you the tricks of hairdressing known only to my people." She was silent for a moment before I felt her reaching toward me, her fingers brushing my waist. Even that slight movement stirred the stone snake on my shoulder and I spun slightly, dangling, half-swooning from the fire radiating from my head down to my deepest self. I thought then the roaring rush was in my head, and the heavy, deep, drumlike beat also. So pervasive was the noise I barely heard Amollia"s scream, though her mouth was close to my ear.
I heard enough of it to open my eyes, which suddenly were filled with feathers, each the size of a spear and colored with a brilliant green brighter than new gra.s.s and a yellow sunnier than the sun itself. Unfortunately the gale wind generated by the beating wings made up of these feathers rocked me back and forth so painfully that I could not really appreciate their beauty. I was almost relieved when the giant foot-like a chicken"s if a chicken had talons as long as a man"s legs-wrapped itself around my waist, for it served to anchor me for a moment and ease the anguish of being buffeted about.
Somewhere inside my tortured scalp I understood the low chucklings emitting from the great bird belonging to both foot and feathers. They meant, roughly translated, "Aha! I was right to hunt here again. Yet another morsel ripe for my plucking. My young will be well-fed."
A curved orange beak rushed toward my face and I felt only one more flash of fire as it snapped shut before the awful pressure on my head released and I felt myself carried upward. The wind and rain cooling my poor head relieved me so that I pa.s.sed once more from waking, heedless of my new danger.
I awoke with the divine ancestor of all headaches. The scenery did nothing to improve it. Feeling my poor tender scalp with small pats of my finger tips, I learned that my braids had loosened. The ends had been chopped a good foot shorter and the bound end hacked away. Even so, the weight of it hanging hurt my scalp and I coiled up each length and laid it most gingerly atop my crown.
I lay slumped in a hut-sized structure composed of twigs and gra.s.s, containing several eggs that would come to my waist when I stood-which I had no intention of doing. For beyond the low, ragged edge of the nest a cliffside plummeted in jagged jumps into purple haze and dark-green jungle glistening with rain. Above me was a leaden sky with a range of icy crags biting into it. For the first time since I left my home country, bothered by the heat, I was not.
From the extreme dinginess of the sky and the soaked condition of my clothing, I guessed I had been in the nest for some time. My skin was warm however, probably because the mother bird, while sitting on her nest, had had to sit on me as well. I was fortunate that she preferred to save me to be fresh, live food for her young instead of snacking upon me herself.
How much time had pa.s.sed since she left the nest I knew not, but she had done her work well while she brooded, for now, in her absence, the eggs began to hatch.
The noise was almost more than my poor tortured head could bear. When at last the first sh.e.l.l split down the middle and pieces broke away with a crack louder than thunder, I would have screamed except, of course, to do so would only have made matters worse.
As it was they deteriorated rapidly. A hideous creature with the puckered pink skin of a stewed chicken dotted with a spa.r.s.e sprinkling of down poked its bald, pop-eyed head out of the crack in the sh.e.l.l and opened its yellow beak, showing a pointed rosy tongue. "GARAK!" it said. I wept, cringing from it, covering my ears and my vibrating scalp with my hands as best I could.
I thought it meant to eat me as it shoved its face toward me, but when I uncovered my head enough to look into its watery pop eyes, it c.o.c.ked its head rather forlornly and seemed piteous right up until the time it rent my brain again by repeating its squawk. "GARAK!"
Still, the noise had a questioning, helpless quality to it. Not that I cared. It was, under the circ.u.mstances, no more helpless than I. But if I could only make it stop that horrible squawking before my head came off, I thought I might make my own last moments somewhat happier. Under the headcloth tucked in my sash the remnants of Fatima"s food dangled in their net bag. The creature watched me avidly as I untied the bag, and when I extracted a bit of dried bread it went wild.
"GARAK! GARAK! GARAK!" it cried, its cries increasingly loud until I was ready to jump from the nest to a mercifully quick death. Instead, I flung caution aside and risked my hand by using it to stuff the bread into the fledgling"s craw.
I was rewarded with a moment of blissful silence, nothing but a shadow of the former pain pounding my pate. When the creature once more opened its mouth, I popped in a rice ball. In this fashion I continued to deliver myself from its noise-first the bread, then the rice b.a.l.l.s, and finally the dates, the pomegranates, the bananas, the oranges and the nuts until all were gone. Blessedly, by then so was the young creature"s appet.i.te until at last it kicked aside the remainder of its sh.e.l.l, hopped out upon the shards, and relaxed, its head resting fastidiously against the headcloth on my lap, as if using it for a pillow. The bird made small, bearable, chirping sounds. These lulled me into another short nap myself, from which I was awakened by the beating of wings.
I thought then that perhaps the time had finally come to jump. The food was gone and when the small bird"s hunger returned, it would add its din to the present cacophony and my head would crack open like its egg.
The chick twitched to alertness as its mother"s shadow folded over us.
My hand on the headcloth of Selima, I once more understood the mind of this bird as I had done, though too distracted to wonder at the matter, while dangling from the temple wall.
"HAAATCHED, precocious one?" she asked. "You were supposed to eat that morsel, not sleep upon it." By this she meant me. "I see I must chew it for you if you are to have some before your siblings hatch."
Once more her monstrous beak swung down, casting the shadow of doom upon my countenance. But before she could do her worst, her child all but finished me off with its protests. "GARAK! GARAK!" it cried, pecking and beating at its mother with its well-formed though yet small and featherless wings. This time I understood, to my astonishment, that the garaks addressed to the giant bird meant, "Away, monster! Leave my mother alone!"
The mother bird emitted a confused squawk and flew off, landing a few soaring circles later with some odoriferous carrion with which she tried to pacify her offspring. The baby bird, full of my provisions, would have none of hers and defended me staunchly.
The mother bird glared at me, a glare I returned, and for the first time she seemed to notice that I was alive in the sense that she was. "Why, you yellow-crested, puff-chested, featherless wall-clinger!" she shrieked. Her name for me was so complex I admit its meaning might have eluded me even given the understanding imparted by the headcloth, except that she repeated it with each shriek and hence I became well aware of my image in her great green eyes. "You have stolen from me the love of my first-hatched! I would tear you into worm strips except that I would have to kill my child to do so!"
When she had squawked herself hoa.r.s.e and me into a throbbing recurrence of my headache, I said reasonably and very very quietly, using the politest language I had heard among these people-for I had great respect for that beak and those talons, "It grieves me to have caused my esteemed hostess so much pain, mighty-er, jade-crested, golden-feathered, emerald-winged gem-among-birds." I had not become the wife of a consummate flatterer without learning something.
"Do you really think so?" she asked. "That is a very pretty name, but I am, of course, the Simurg."
"I am-er-the Rasa," I replied. "And as I was saying, O Simurg, most beauteous and beneficent of birds, when your charming offspring awoke from its sh.e.l.l and cried out to me for food, my pity was aroused and as you were away, I fed it in your stead, for am I not a mother too?"
"You are?"
"Oh, yes. I have sixteen children at home and the eldest yet a toddler." Consorting with Aster had also left its impression upon me.
"The poor things! Why were you not with them instead of hanging around on walls?"
"Oh. That. You see, it is-er-this way," I stammered. I could not imagine the bird would believe or be interested in the truth-she seemed a simple, home-bound creature, if you discounted her more murderous attributes-so I told her something within her understanding. "My kind gathers food thus. We wait hanging there upon that building, looking like part of the wall, until-um-until snakes writhe past on the statues or a fish swims by, whereupon we pounce."
"Is that why I"ve so often found tidbits hanging there?" she asked, obviously pleased at the new information. "My dear, your instincts are leading you astray, I must warn you. Your kind has such terrible camouflage I think you will soon die out if you don"t find new modes of food gathering soon."
"Ah, you are wise as well as beautiful, " I said. "And do you know, we don"t seem to catch much that way either."
Another "garak!" interrupted our conversation as a new chick emerged from the sh.e.l.l. The Simurg"s expression of interest in me changed to one of covetousness but "my" hatchling glared at her and flapped its small wings menacingly.
"I believe you are a well-intentioned creature," the Simurg said reluctantly. "But I simply cannot have this. I need to be gathering food for my young and I cannot be bothered about you staying here and having them all think I"m nothing but some sort of delivery pigeon. Come, back to the ground with you. And remember what I"ve said about hanging around walls."
"Hearing and obeying, mighty Simurg," I said, adding the djinn to my list of impersonations. I surrendered my person to her talons whereupon she scooped me up, and flew almost straight down, barely braking with her wings in her haste to be rid of me, depositing me at the foot of the cliff. From high above I heard a last mournful squawk which now sounded less like "garak!" and more like, "Maaa!" But it died away as the Simurg set me free, my feet again touched solid ground, and the bird"s beating wings overcame all other sounds.
Ah, safety. Now all I had to do was traverse the miles of tangled jungle between me and Aster and Amollia-if they still lived. At least I had the headcloth, and had only to ask the animals to find my way back to the temple.
Evening was rapidly approaching, however, so I sat down against a tree at the foot of the cliff. I wished I had not given the baby Simurg all of my food. I wished my scalp did not ache so much and wished the rain would stop or that I had the means of building a fire. What I did not wish for was to meet another snake, but that was what I got, nevertheless. I was not distressed for I had had good luck getting information from snakes previously, if one counted the djinn. Therefore, as the serpent descended the tree, its head weaving before my eyes as it investigated what manner of creature I was, I matter-of-factly raised the cloth to its snout and asked it in the name of G.o.d and Saint Selima how I might return to the "hunting lodge" in the jungle.
The snake gave me to understand that it was not at all religious and that if I did not desist shoving the rag in its face I would receive a richly deserved venomous reward. But at least the snake didn"t bite me immediately. Heartened by this concession, I ventured to ask further where I might find food.
"I haven"t the faintest idea," the snake replied. "I"m not even entirely sure what something like you would eat. I don"t see why you must molest me when there are others of your sort in yonder cave. Why not ask them?"
To hear of the presence of other humans from the lips of a snake (if indeed snakes may be said to have lips) struck me as faintly ominous. Any human of which it spoke did not seem to me to be one whose acquaintance I particularly wished to make, but who was I to be picky under the circ.u.mstances? True, I had rather liked the idea of using the magic device in my possession. Conversation with another person seemed commonplace when I might converse with lions or elephants instead. However, as the snake had very properly pointed out, other humans would be better qualified to help me meet my own requirements for survival.
But it was not so much the snake"s excellent advice as his warning that convinced me to immediately withdraw and investigate the cave.
Besides, other people, even if only poor peasants or fellow travelers, might provide me with food and fire for the night. Of course, I expected when the snake said they were in the cave that they would be immediately within the cave, so when I entered the little room just beyond the cave mouth and found it dark and empty, I almost decided I had the wrong cave. But as I moved toward the front again, I stumbled and looked back, and saw faintly from a corner I had not bothered to investigate a glimmer of light.
No doubt I was only in the entryway and the lodgers dwelt in a more commodious room deeper within the cavern. The leather curtain that parted beneath my hand, bathing me in the faintly greenish light, seemed to confirm that notion and I almost called out to my hosts. But my father had taught me the wisdom of learning the lay of the land before announcing oneself, and this caution saved my life.
At first the room appeared deserted, but it is true that I could not see very well in the sickly lime-colored light shining off the very walls of the cavern. Ma.s.sive shapes huddled around the walls, and in particular one huge lump crouched in the middle of the room, toward the back, but though they seemed solid and menacing, I simply could not form any other impression of their nature except that they were inanimate.
Even that impression was rapidly dispelled, however, as from the central ma.s.s came a scratching, and a click. I saw something jerk against the green-lit stone behind it. I fell back two steps and heard the thump of eight bounding steps apiece taken by a plethora of feet-a pack of camp dogs belonging to travelers?
What faced me heart-stilled moments later was nothing anywhere near so ordinary. Far from being many dogs, it appeared to be, at first glance, one tiger.
Chapter 10.
For only one pair of lamping russet eyes, each larger than my fist, stared up at me. And only one voice grumbled in a deep growl that threatened at any moment to erupt into a roar. I barely took in its other tigerish attributes-the stripes, broad cat face and rounded ears. I was busy noticing the other important detail-the gleaming ivory teeth, a full set. So hard did I stare at those teeth that I was almost unaware of the disorientation I experienced concerning the remaining portion of the tiger. Without realizing it, I kept expecting to see another head.
For though I was not acquainted with tigers specifically, Amollia had described them to me and I knew they were large cats similar to those who preyed upon Yahtzeni sheep and to the leopard Kalimba. Fatima had also spoken frequently of tigers. From her I had also formed the picture of another species of ordinary ferocious feral cat differing from its fellows essentially in matters of coloring. Neither Fatima nor Amollia had ever mentioned anything to indicate that the beast"s head would be as large as one of the silver platters upon which meals were served to whole companies of people, or that it would have two clubbed and angrily jerking tails and no fewer than eight legs, eight paws and forty wickedly gleaming claws. I did not pause to count each of them, for I was engaged in counting teeth instead, but the general impression was indelibly inscribed upon my mind. And though I had no desire to observe the rest of the beast at closer quarters, I had no choice, for the monster pounced forward again, all eight feet in perfect coordination, as if it were a team of exquisitely matched horses.
While my eyes were wholly occupied with the fearsome aspect of the beast, my hands were serving me better, for they had freed the headcloth and one of them, of its own will, tremblingly shook the rag before the tiger"s very nose. My other hand flew up to cover my face so I wouldn"t see when the monster took off the first arm, headcloth and all, and also so that when it attacked me it wouldn"t mutilate my face first. I dislike seeming vain, but I wanted what was left of my corpse to be recognizable. Perhaps word would someday reach my mother and she would light a fire in my honor. I waited for an eternity and when nothing happened, peeked out. The beast had stretched forth its neck, which would have done a bullock credit, and was sniffing. The noise I had been interpreting as a growl had changed to an equally loud and ferocious purring. Then without warning it sprang again-onto its back, where it rolled and writhed with all eight paws in the air.
"Greetings, beast," I said. My voice refused to rise above a whisper.
The cat jumped to its feet and b.u.mped against me, sending me sprawling. "Greetings, bearer of the sweet smell. Greetings and welcome."
"Welcome?" That was not the sort of att.i.tude I expected from a guardian beast.
"Welcome. What a treat to have you here. The King didn"t tell me you were coming, but I"m sure he wanted to surprise me. So seldom does anyone really interesting come while I"m left alone to guard the palace. I thought at first you had come to steal the treasure, or perhaps one of the lemons from the orchard of experience, and I was going to eat you. Can you imagine that?"
I hoped he took my generalized trembling for a negative shake of my head.
"But having smelled that lovely smell, I can tell you are a splendid sort of person-though I don"t suppose you came to visit just with me?"
"Actually, I-"
"No, naturally, you did not, a person with an important smell like that. You have no doubt come visiting at the harem. Perhaps you are even to become one of the Div"s wives. Oh, are are you?" The idea sent the beast into spasms of eight-pawed leaps and rolls. you?" The idea sent the beast into spasms of eight-pawed leaps and rolls.
I tried to look noncommittal as I said, "We"ll see. Can you show me the way?"
"Certainly I can. Do you think I would guard something without knowing where it is?"
I followed it, walking behind and between the bodies. It turned its head to gaze at me, its big eyes slitted with pleasure, and in its purr another question was forming.
Quickly I asked one of my own. "Why two bodies? Did you start out as twins, perhaps?"
The purring halted for a moment and the tiger turned to face me. "All bitigers have two bodies." bitigers have two bodies."
"Truly? Forgive my ignorance. I didn"t know." I was most sincerely contrite for the bitiger"s purr had stilled and the teeth gleamed under the eyes. "I had only heard of the other kind."
I held out the rag to sniff again and the beast"s purr resumed, as did its forward eight-pawed prance. "That is understandable. Bitigers are are rare. And superior. We are a new magical improvement on the other sort, you see, and since we are a new species, there are but few of us." rare. And superior. We are a new magical improvement on the other sort, you see, and since we are a new species, there are but few of us."
"In that case, I am honored," I said. "But tell me, how is having two bodies an advantage?"
"That should be easy for one with such a wise smell to understand," the bitiger replied. "Why, we are far more efficient than ordinary tigers, for we have twice the capacity for disposing of enemies, since we have two stomachs, twice the speed, since we have eight paws. But, unlike two-headed beasts, we have only one leader for both sections and therefore no dissent or question, when there"s a decision to be made, who is in authority."
"And who are the enemies of bitigers?" I asked.
"Prey mostly. Water buffalo and gazelles and deer. And ordinary tigers-who are jealous of us. Then there are the enemies of the King of Divs-" But at that point the bitiger turned a corner and stopped, so that I all but ran between the bodies and into its neck. I stepped back and the beast roared "to let them know we are without." In a moment the stone slab before which we stood creaked and thumped aside, opening upon light and music and the smell of incense.
I entered slowly, still bemused by the strange beast growling encouragingly behind me. Selima"s headcloth had worked extraordinarily well on the animal, who had behaved as if intoxicated by the saint"s odor of understanding and benevolence. Could it be that bitigers, enemies of ordinary tigers and of most animals or folk that they met, were so rare, with so few of their own kind, that they were glad of companionship? One might think the two bodies would provide it for each other, but then, there was no second head to confer with or to comfort.
When I was beyond the stone slab that served as a door, it slid shut and I ceased musing about the tiger, and turned to wondering, now that I had managed to enter this place, how I would leave it. Furthermore, my headache, all but forgotten, began to throb again as my eyes adjusted to the brighter light in this room. It was a large room, a sort of gathering hall, with the usual deep richly colored rugs and opulent gold-ta.s.sled cushions and bolsters lying about. The walls of the cave were fretted and carved into beautiful patterns and soft rosy light rippled upon silken banners draped across the cavern ceiling. These banners did not quite conceal that which caused my pate to throb: the iron rings suspended from the ceiling, one for each of the ten or fifteen women in the room save one. These women were all gorgeously dressed, very beautiful of face and form, varied widely as to complexion and hair color. But their tresses were all similarly styled; amazingly long and worn loose except for the ends, which were bound to the rings.
Only one, a young girl, was without fetters. She sat in the middle of the room upon a beautiful cushion of apricot hue embroidered with gold and silver atop an ankle-deep silken carpet of lapis lazuli, aqua and palest topaz. Her slender fingers wore tiny silver cymbals. Her body was frozen in mid-undulation, her mouth still partially open. The music I heard at the door had come from her.
The other women sat or lounged upon cushions while doing needlework, brushing the portion of their hair they could reach (which must have resulted in frightful snarls), applying cosmetics, or chatting. They paid no attention to me at all but went ahead with their activities, seemingly oblivious.
"Do make sure the door is really closed," the girl said, a slight tremor in her voice. "The bitiger is supposed to be a man-eater but one never knows." I turned and shoved against where I judged the opening had been, but now the wall was as if it had never been anything but solid. The girl sighed an exaggerated, childish sigh, a not inappropriate gesture since she looked to be little more than just past the shedding of her first woman"s blood. She flipped her raven curls and beetled her heavy black brows so that they met across the bridge of her nose. I thought the expression made her look rather like one of Saint Selima"s sacred monkeys, but I have been told that to have a browline such as hers is to possess a feature of great beauty second only to a deep navel in erotic appeal. "Very well, then," she said briskly. "You can change yourself now into what you really are. Never mind them," she flipped a wrist negligently in the direction of the other women. "The rings deprive them, after a while, of all interest in anything outside of themselves. The King says it makes life more peaceful that way, though I find it rather tiresome at times to have no one but his former first wife, who isn"t yet affected by her ring, to show the jewels and gowns and other presents he gives me. She"s not very appreciative." She paused for breath and blinked her wide dark eyes several times before continuing. "I must say that is the most hideously horrid guise I have ever seen any of King Sani"s folk a.s.sume but I suppose I"ll have to get used to it. Only give me a hint. Are you truly female or are you some cute boy come to ravish me?" She giggled a little and hugged herself as she asked.
"I"m sorry to disappoint you, your-uh-Your Radiance," I began, keeping to the formula of following Aster"s example with dangerous and potentially dangerous beings. If it worked with birds, why should it not work with females with the brains of birds? "But I am afraid this is my true guise."
"That?" she asked, her hand going to her mouth.
"This," I agreed.
"But it can"t be. Look!" And she held up a hand mirror of silver and mother-of-pearl for me to behold my visage. I immediately saw her point. With a patch of hair missing above my right temple, the rest of it strewed about in a matted, spiky structure similar to the Simurg"s nest, my face streaked with blood and scratched and dirtied and streaked again by the rains, my clothing torn and my face and arms scratched, reddened and swollen, I looked very much as if I had been flayed, buried for several days, and disinterred.
"I"m afraid it is," I said, wincing and handing back the mirror, reflective side toward her. "I have met with disaster today, you see, and stopped here to ask for directions and perhaps shelter for the night, for I have become separated from my companions. But before I continue, would you be so kind as to tell me why these women are tied by their hair?"