The Dream Compass [Book 1 of The Merquan Chronicle] (14 page)

Tha’Enton leaped to a crouch on the balls of his feet, and in the same motion he slipped the Sounder sticks into the quiver on his back and drew out a twenty-inch blade. In the left hand, as a precaution, he cupped a tosser disk with its dozen deadly spines. The Defender back-paced to the rear of the van roof, never taking his eyes off of the man in the road. He tapped the metal roof, hoping the gray-head would pull over before coming too close to the roadblock. When there was no response—the gray-head probably thought he was making more music—Tha’Enton uttered a mild Rafer curse and flipped backward onto the gravel, hoping that young idiot Fungus Man following in his jeep would not run over him.

The risk had to be taken: A Defender cruising into danger atop a vehicle like a hood ornament was no Defender at all. When he hit the gravel, he immediately frog-leaped into the air again, using the compression against his leg muscles for added spring. The timing was almost right. The young Fungus Man’s jeep passed just under him, and Tha’Enton’s heels scraped the canvas top. He landed awkwardly and hard, but pleased at having avoided a thorough trouncing by the knobby wheels.

As the Fungus People pulled their vehicles to a stop, he cautiously edged to the right, making sure the autos blocked sight of his approach. He leaned forward into a salamander run—his body at a low incline of about thirty degrees to the ground. The momentum and an occasional knock on the ground with his left hand kept him from falling face first into the red sand. His waist-skin parted around the legs and flared silently behind. It was a Hunter’s run, more intended for dashing low and unseen through wooded underbrush, but it was also serviceable among the rocks and wash gulleys of the Redlands.

Tha’Enton sailed down the road bank, zigzagging in the lowland until he had passed all of the vehicles. The fool gray-head was approaching the stranger in the road, while the younger Fungus Man was looking back down the highway, apparently thinking he would find an injured Rafer writhing in the gravel. Come to think of it, Tha’Enton told himself, his right ankle was starting to burn and stiffen up a bit.

He mounted the roadbed again, still at full tilt, and ran back soundlessly across the gravel until he stopped at the stranger’s tailgate. He would search the stranger’s auto first, and perhaps have some clue about what the man intended. There were six large fuel cans, and five of them rang full when Tha’Enton knuckled them softly. There were flashlights, a rolled tent, cartons of food. Much of the personal belongings, apparently, were in the three canvas saddlebags—which meant that the stranger intended to use pack animals, probably into a remote part of the mountains.

But when he unsnapped the first of the saddlebags, his heart tightened into a fist of fear and hate. He pulled out a grotesque hunk of black metal that he recognized as a pistol—and only a Government man of the Fungus People would own such a thing. He had to take the unholy object, for it was a powerful weapon that had killed many Defenders. He would find a way to destroy it. The gun was an awkward fit for his quiver, but he jammed it in anyway, creating a vile imbalance on his back.

The three Fungus People were staring strangely at each other when Tha’Enton crept up behind the Government man, blade ready, feeling confident that no other weapons were in sight. There was only one thing to be done with a Government man, and Tha’Enton noted with amusement that this one had a particularly large and oddly shaped skull. What sound would it make, once hollowed and dried?

The gray-head’s jaw dropped at the sight of the Defender, and the old Fungus Man stepped around the stranger with his hands up. With his stuttery knowledge of the civilized tongue, the gray-head managed to say: “No kill yet. This Fungus Man harmless.”

The Defender snarled and spat at the old man’s foot. The spittle raised a poof of red dust near his boot, but the grayhead would not back off. It would be easy work to end this foolish mission now, Tha’Enton told himself. He envisioned lopping through the gray-head’s wrists, a disk-toss at the young one’s throat, and perhaps a whirl-kick to snap the Government stranger’s spine. But that was against the instructions of the Wise, and if they entered Tha’Enton’s mind and found the truth he could end up on a pyre, alive maybe. He sheathed the blade, which scraped sickeningly against the pistol in his quiver.

He pulled at the stranger’s shoulder and the man turned cooperatively. It was another of the Fungus People with the peculiar habit of scraping the hair from his face—often the sign of a Southlander or a city man—although this one had not done so for days. His tunic was of flimsy machine-skin, and Tha’Enton wrinkled his nose at its filthy odor.

The stranger’s eyes were unfocused, the sockets cavelike, and his right iris was split vertically like a feline’s. A string of phlegm dangled from a nostril. His shoulders drooped and his hands hung limply to his thighs. It was a shocking sight, for he had seen the same posture, the same vacant face, the cat’s eye, only on the handful of Walking Dead among his own village—and only the Wise, or a powerful Ligkh Priest, could do such a thing to a man.

He remembered from early schooling the words of the ancient god Rutherford Cross: “The Walking Dead are child spirits I have set free. Once men, they are now my children, forever. Do them no harm.”

Instinctively, Tha’Enton studied the landscape to the far horizon in all directions. It seemed empty, but the Defender was not so sure. And his right foot was beginning to swell.

[Back to Table of Contents]

The indignities and absurdities were mounting. Gregory had been staring at his knuckles over a steering wheel for two months now, and they were turning a grotesque white and red from chapping and incidental nicks and scratches. They had adopted as compatriots on this dubious mission a foul-smelling primitive preoccupied with weaponry and rhythms and an unaccountably mindless New Chicagoan—harnessed now in Gregory’s passenger seat—who was equally malodorous for his lack of bladder control.

And Rosenthal Webb, the legendary revolutionary in charge of this sad menagerie, was obviously operating with one wheel in the sand. Not only was he inclined to obtain fuel, auto parts, or entire engines through despicable means, but he seemed to have more confidence in the grunts and howls of that Rafer drum-beater than his own assistant. It was rare that Gregory found Webb navigating scientifically, by standard compass-and-map calculations. Maps of this region may not be the most reliable, but they have, supposedly, some foundation in logic. But the old man—the old man seemed to make his directional decisions now based on the nonsensical blitherings of their two new companions, one a murderous witch doctor or something, the other literally an idiot. Because of the New Chicagoan’s mental state, Gregory had come to think of this as “dead reckoning.” It was a joke he kept to himself.

They were pushing farther and farther past the edge of carefully charted territory without a clear destination in mind. There could be no more fuel depots out here, even those with perilously rusting tanks and hand pumps. For food now they had only dried goods and any of the odd beasts they dared kill and eat. In the middle of the glowing Redlands, they had arrowed a large rabbit-looking creature with antlers. Tha’Enton and Webb devoured it, while Gregory had an extra ration of jerky.

The entire mission was going contrary to orders, and surely they all faced censure when they reported back to the Committee—if they returned alive at all. They were ordered to find Anton Takk and help him hide (“Ya, ya, soon,” Webb kept saying.) Before even leaving the eastern mountains, Webb had stocked up on hand bombs and blades and all manner of destructive gear forbidden by the Committee—a Committee intent on an age of peace.

Hah. Webb was a lunatic.

The Redlands had abruptly given way to this range of Rocky Mountains, a ruined and simmering prairie void of people and rising suddenly into awesome walls of rock. Early this morning Webb had insisted that they leave the main road, which was crumbling but perfectly navigable. Gregory had the jeep today. And now, to Gregory’s amusement, Webb’s van up ahead was scrabbling awkwardly up the fading trail that wound among the firs and aspens. Although the van’s huge fuel tank was now less than half full, its sloshing back and forth presented further stability problems.

Branches battered the sides of their autos, and Gregory speculated morbidly that it would not be long before the van overstepped its gravitational limitations and crashed onto its side, perhaps sliding down the mountain. Gregory smirked at the sight of the Rafer clinging desperately to the van’s roof. As a native of the eastern mountains, Gregory enjoyed the sight of a flatlander panicking in the hill country.

He plowed a sweaty hand through his blond locks and glanced at the man strapped into the jeep seat beside him, hoping that the Inspector, as Webb called him, would not have to urinate again soon. Even when Gregory anticipated the need, it was a messy and demeaning chore. And bouncing along this rocky terrain, he knew, could torture a bladder.

The Inspector was awake now, and he watched the trail ahead like an eager child, leaning forward and tugging at the straps holding him in the seat. He seemed to be mumbling a nursery rhyme, and Gregory hoped that he would not break out into another full-voiced, incomprehensible song, as he was wont to do.

These were cruel mountains, Gregory told himself, so much more threatening than the gentle slopes of the Blue Ridge in his home district. He thought of the hillside bunkers in which he had grown up, and he sighed—it was an odd upbringing, he knew, but the remote revolutionary compound was home, and he longed for the comfort of those earthy chambers of cool and dark.

Webb’s van stopped abruptly, and the barbarian backflipped off its top and melted into the underbrush. Gregory stopped, too, set the parking brake, and only then noticed the sorry little ramshack tucked amid the boulders and aspens. It was an unreliable structure, Gregory noted, and in the next breeze it could easily become a lean-to shouldering the mountainside, or just a pile of rotted timbers and shingles.

Beyond the cabin was an equally dilapidated truck, its sides decorated with thick rooster tails of mud and its bed dubiously sheltered by plank-and-post framing. There were several llamas wandering about freely, munching scattered hay. They had presented the new arrivals with a frieze of lackadaisical stares, and already appeared bored again.

Webb appeared at Gregory’s jeep door and opened it. He looked immensely pleased with himself and said, “We take pack animals from here—llamas, they’re the best in these parts. This is the way the Inspector had mapped out, apparently, before he … well, before his brain cracked a cylinder. His presence might help us some right now.”

Gregory asked himself sardonically just how many among them had “cracked cylinders.” He squinted at the low sun and hoped that they would sleep here before turning the mission over to a train of glorified goats.

A wide board functioning as a door clattered away from the little cabin, and a wiry man emerged cautiously, glancing about and finally striding toward Webb and Gregory. He was garbed in a loose arrangement of stitched skins, and his flesh was a barky gray-brown.

Webb cupped his hands around his mouth: “We’re here to buy llamas. We’re ganging on—deep in.” Webb jabbed a thumb westward.

The mountain man spat, pressed his nostrils together, and released them again. “I got no llamas.”

Gregory frowned and swept his hand across the landscape. “You’ve got”—he paused to count—”seven, eight.”

“No llamas for sale. Maybe now you carry your trucks. Yeh-heh. Carry your trucks yourselves so deep into the bumpers. They carried you this far.”

Webb interjected. “We’ve got any kind of trade, by plumb. Government chits that’ll pass anywhere…. “This drew a blank stare from the mountain man. “We have Rafer bronze disks,” Webb continued, “gasoline, good steel tools—we might even give up one of the trucks. Not just for a few animals, but we could work something out.”

The shack dweller was unswayed. He stepped up to Gregory and thumped the young man’s chest and squeezed his biceps as if he were selecting market melons. “You give me this boy,” the mountain man said flatly, “and you may have one llama.”

Gregory’s jaw dropped, and he backed away. “What!”

Webb laughed, and scratched his head. To his surprise he found a tick at the base of his neck. He yanked it free and studied it casually, not wanting to seem desperate in the negotiation. He mashed the tick between the tips of two fingernails.

“Gregory is not for sale,” Webb replied. “I had to hire him—temporarily. Humans, among us, are not for sale.”

The slender mountain man’s face brightened. “Ha-ho!” he cried. “Now you understand! Llamas, among us, are not for sale. You will all come inside and we will discuss how to go about hiring llamas—temporarily. And you must meet my partner. We have been waiting days for you.”

Webb’s and Gregory’s eyes met. At that moment a chatter of woody rhythms wafted through the aspens, and the mountain man glanced up into the dimming sky as if to find the source. “And you have the forethought to bring a good bonesman with you,” the mountain man told his guests. “Listen to that! Very cultured of you. Do you know what his song says? He is talking to me, but modesty prohibits a full translation. He says, ‘Hello, god-man Pec-Pec.’” The dark man grinned. “He really is so excited that he is embarrassing himself. He says, ‘You may sleep without fear as long as I am in the trees this evening.’”

Pec-Pec snorted. “I will teach him some humility. And perhaps he will teach me the bone-sounding.”

[Back to Table of Contents]

Rosenthal Webb was twenty-three years old, clothed in rotting cotton and leaning against a brick wall. Before him on the sidewalk hummed the bankers and restaurateurs and bureaucrats of downtown New Chicago. At his right hand was a paper-wrapped bottle. He stared forward blankly at the scuffling of feet, a promenade made more frenetic by the prospect of the holiday parade: In forty minutes the papery dragons would dance by, followed by the Werewistles in their elaborately plumed costumes, then the Belbugs in their whirling pedal carts and silly tasseled berets, and finally the procession of open-back Transport trucks bearing New Chicago’s Government elite in their holiday finery.