Zollocco: A Novel of Another Universe (24 page)

"Put this lotion on your skin. It will protect you from the sun. You will have to put on some more in half an hour to get the full protection."

I opened up the tube and started smearing the stuff on my arms as I looked at the people surrounding me. All of the people who had spoken up against the Troubadour were there, as well as several others. A very ancient woman with eyes as black as jet and sharp as knives watched me closely. She had been propped up with pillows in a large over-stuffed chair. She was as spare and weathered looking as a stick of driftwood. Apparently, the chair had been carried out especially for her---none of the other Spring Room furniture was as padded or as ornate as that chair. She wore a green Holy robe. Diamond pins shaped like stars were set in the left shoulder.

"Amokku sends me a friend from Elsewhere. I greet with pleasure the light that penetrates the Forest Deep," the ancient woman rasped; "Saemunsil, like the dawn, heralds many blessings."

Then the old woman smiled and nodded at a young woman, who looked to be the ancient one reincarnated in youth and health. The waist--length, straight hair of the young woman was as black as her eyes.

"My great- grandmother has asked me to be the one to speak. Time is of the essence. The Toelakhan are near. Those of age to know the mysteries of the desert have concurred that they will tell you the secret ways that lead to the underground ocean. I have not undergone the rite of womanhood, but I have dreamed of the rite and of the ordeal, and so I am allowed to be among those of age. My dreaming of the rite and the ordeal before I experienced it proved to my great-grandmother that it is right that I be her apprentice. You see, my great-grandmother is not just a priestess. She is a sorceress of our planet." The great-grand daughter continued, "Since such haste is necessary, the sorceress has decided she will give you the magic of gaining entrance to the ocean so that you can reach the ocean faster than you would crossing the savannah."

I had a terribly important question to ask, but because of my vow, I could not ask it. If I was to use a magic means, I must have the talent, and if I didn't have the talent, I wouldn't be able to do it. If I couldn't find out what to do in case of failure... Was my vow going to demand my life?

"Don't look so worried," the young woman said, "the sorceress believes a priestess of your order should have the requisite talent. If you don't, you'll still have the maps.

I nodded, relieved.
The wiry woman who led the girls in their rite of passage said in her high, thin voice, "Truly we are blessed; the sorcery will be passed on to a new generation. The apprentice speaks to the mute priestess as though she knows the thoughts of the priestess. The apprentice, like the sorceress, is a telepath."
The apprentice and I exchanged smiles. The apprentice had merely read the look on my face and surmised what my misgiving must be. There was no telepathy in this, but because of my vow, I could not explain that to the woman and by the glint of merriment in the apprentice's eye, she was not going to explain.
"Get on with it. The Toelakhan come," the sorceress urged, her voice like a wind full of sand.
"There is a trap door spider in the sand, at this point," the young woman pointed at a place on the map. "You must rattle the sand with this staff. Be careful, the trap door is only detectable as a slight depression in the sand, and the spider is as large as I am."
I was thinking that I would rather take the long way.
"You must spray this," she held up a large, ornate atomizer, "directly at the spider and use this staff to wedge the door open. The spider is very, very fast in raising the door, pouncing on its prey, and closing the door, and so you will have only a few seconds. Once you have got the door wedged open, and have paralyzed the spider by spraying the sorceress's potion, you can enter the trap door. You must take the staff, but you must not let the spider be crushed by the closing door. If the spider dies, this access to the ocean will be gone forever. Be sure to keep the staff in case you need it as weapon against the spider. The spider may come out of paralysis too soon and stalk you."
My confidence seemed to be like ill-fitting socks, sliding off my feet in a very uncomfortable manner.
"At this time of year the spider is pregnant, so you won't have to worry about eggs hatching, but the spider's poison will be more virulent. We have given you triple the amount of spray that you should need."
My feet were sweating. The young woman hung a pouch around my neck.
"This is an antidote to the spider's poison. If she bites you, you have thirty-five seconds to take the antidote. Of course, this is all assuming that you have the magical ability to find the spider's trap. Even though its position is marked clearly on the map, once you are out in the Great Sand with no point of reference there is little chance of your finding it unless you have the gift, or have been called by the spider. Those called by the spider don't live to tell the location.
My stomach felt very unsettled.
A woman close to my own age unfolded a large paper on the table before me, "Here is the first of the maps. As you can see, it shows you how to reach and stay in the border area between the Great Sand and the Cactus Reach. Remember that the Great Sand is not courteous to guests it has not invited."
I swallowed.
"When you must cross the Great Sand, chant something or sing a song. The Great Sand likes the company of troubadours and ollaves, and if your song or story pleases it, it will welcome you. Don't even try to enter the Cactus Reach. Only sorceresses and the Wild Rain Sect are welcome there. The Cactus Reach creatures have a hard time surviving and jealously guard their homes. The moisture of a fresh animal is always a coveted part of their diet." The woman folded up the map and handed it to me.
An old man with a face beautifully carved by time and kindness spread open another map. "This is the second of the maps. If you aren't able to get past the spider, this map shows you how to get from the Great Sand to the Savannah. The trap door spider is located here, in the Great Sand. We are to the south, the Cactus Reach is east, southeast, and northeast, and the Savannah is north. Don't cross the Great Sand until you reach the border with the Cactus Reach in the northeast. Follow the border until it gives way to the Savannah. When you reach the Savannah, follow the border between the Great Sand and the Savannah until you reach this place. This is a safe trail through the Savannah to the caves that lead down to the ocean."
The old man put the map in my basket.
"This is the third of the maps. It shows the cave system," said one of the old ladies who had taken part in leading the womanhood ritual; "This is the way through the caves from the spider's trap door to the ocean. As you can see, it is nice and short. This is the way from the caves in the Savannah to the ocean. It is much longer than going by way of the spider's door. When you get to the ocean, some friends of ours are going to collect you. The ocean has a spaceport. You'll be able to make your escape from there." The old woman put her map into my basket. "Don't lose your way in the caves. Parts of the caves are still uncharted they are so extensive."
The apprentice spoke again, "Since the Toelakhan have managed to track you here, they are intercepting all transporter projections from our planet. We're sorry to send you out into the desert, but if we tried to transport you, we'd be sending you straight to the cells of the Toelakhan. By the way, you must remember to concentrate when you are transporting. You know that you may not reach your destination if you do not. If our sorceress had not been keeping an eye on you in her crystal, no one here would have known of your need of help. If we had not concentrated on you arriving in Oasis, you might not have arrived. Transporters work on sub-atomic levels, so the rules of quantum mechanics apply. The observer affects the phenomenon, so you must remember to suitably affect your transport. If you don't your personality may be separated from your body."
So that was the principle the thing worked under. Now that it was explained, it all seemed like a dubious proposition to me. Besides, I had been concentrating on a destination. I always concentrated on Zollocco. If transporters really worked as she said, how come I never got there?
Lifting her stiff hand the ancient sorceress said, "Now that you have everything you need in that basket, you must be going. My apprentice, my great-grand daughter, will escort you to the desert side of the northeast wall. These others will go as far as the town-side of that wall if they so wish. I shall wait here. The Toelakhan shall be arriving soon to question and threaten us. We cannot be cowed, but they can. I look forward to frightening Toelakhan dullards with innuendo. Soft winds priestess of the Blue Dawn."
With my hand touching my head, my lips, and my heart, I saluted the ancient sorceress. The young man who had escorted me before picked up the basket again, and he, the apprentice, and a few others accompanied me to the northeast wall. The old sorceress had not given me her name. This meant she didn't foresee our ever meeting again. Would any of these people give me their names? Considering the deserts I was to travel, and who I was running from, I didn't expect anyone to give me their names, and of course, I couldn't give them mine, bound as I was to an oath of silence. Sometimes that vow was a real nuisance.
At the town-side foot of the northeast wall the escort and I halted. The young man looked at me sadly and withheld the basket from me for a moment. He was a handsome fellow. I returned his gaze, both of us lost in a nostalgia that had never been, a nostalgia of what would never be.
"Come on, Priestess, the desert is hot, but the Toelakhan are hot on your track." The apprentice took the basket from the young man, took my arm, and guided me up the steps.
None of the people who stood below us as we climbed upward had given me their names. This meant they didn't expect me to survive, for the people of Aridia held the superstition that only poets and sorceresses could safely cross the Great Sand without accompaniment. To give one's name to someone who foolishly attempted to cross the Great Sand alone meant the one who had given the name, would also be doomed to die in the scorching desolation of the Great Sand. The apprentice and I climbed down the desert side of the wall.
"Soft winds, Priestess of the Blue Dawn. I think I will see you in the Realm of Circle," she said as she fitted the handles of the basket through my arms so I could carry the basket on my back.
I smiled at her.
"I Seyinnas, apprentice to the Sorceress of Oasis, give you my name for your journey."
I grinned, much relieved. Someone, at least, expected me to survive this trek, and trusted me with her name.
Seyinnas pulled out her hip flask, "Drink this sweet water of Oasis before you venture into the desert. Drink this and you may be sure of returning to us."
I drank from the flask and handed it back to her. Seyinnas took the flask, stepped onto the first rise of the stairs and disappeared. That was startling. Yes, she was definitely gone, like a dream, like a mirage.
I studied my map and proceeded into the vast desert. I trudged along all day. Occasionally, I had to stop to reapply the sun block lotion and eat of the juicy fruit the townspeople had packed in my basket. The Cactus Reach was a beautiful place. Cactuses of all sizes and shapes were set like thorns in the landscape clear to the eastern horizon. Every so often, I saw creatures flying in zigzag patterns high in the hot air. At one point, a foot-long, armored, fanged, and drooling creature leaped from the cracked soil of the Cactus Reach into the sand of the border area where I walked. I instinctively reached to my waist for my knife. As my hand groped at the empty air at my side a purple snake shot like lightning at the armored creature. If I had blinked, I would have missed seeing the long sharp teeth darting into the unprotected nose of the creature which had threatened me. The snake began to feast on the eyes of its fallen prey. Thanking the snake mentally, I hurried ahead, feeling other dangerous life would soon join the snake in its meal. I decided to keep a little closer to the Great Sand side of the border area than the Cactus Reach side.
I halted again and rummaged in my basket. Hidden in the folds of my neatly packed robe was the belt I use to carry my knife. I put the belt and knife on. Sweat trickled down my back and down my belly. I consulted briefly with one of the maps to gauge how far I had come. I thought of the people who had given me these maps. How far away in time this morning seemed! I continued on. Soon the heat was too oppressive to continue. Again I stepped closer to the Great Sand side of the border and stopped. This time I pulled out the reed umbrella. I opened the umbrella and lengthened its handle. I stuck the handle in the sand. Then I shook out my robe and tied it around the umbrella. Now I had a tent. The only problem was, it kept falling over. Finally, I hazarded breaching the Cactus Reach side of the border enough to get some sizeable rocks. With the rocks, I was able to anchor the ends of the robe, and so stabilized my tent. At last I could enter, eat a bit, and sleep.
When I awoke sometime later, my tent was oppressively hot, and my sweat dampened hair and clothes clung to my skin. My chest felt tight, suffocated from the lack of oxygen in the confined space. I burst out of the tent before my lungs burst with pain. Sweet cool winds flowed over me. Twilight had settled upon the Great Sand and upon the Cactus Reach. I took down my tent, took out a piece of fruit, and marched purposefully onward. In this comfortable temperature I must cover as much ground as possible before it got too dark to see and too cold to continue.
How far behind me were the Toelakhan
, I wondered. This was not a useful thought, for it kept me looking over my shoulder in anxious paranoia, slowing me up. I resolved not to look back, and hurried. Long, tiring hours marched on as I strode. It got to the point I had to struggle to keep my legs moving. My back and shoulders ached from the weight of the basket. My eyes blinked and blinked with weariness. When I knew I could not continue I forced myself to go just a bit farther. In just a dozen yards more, I would be at the point where I was to cross through the Great Sand to get to the trap door spider. When at last I came to this juncture, the night was cold and dark. I dropped my basket onto the sand, and sank to my knees. Since it was too dark to see and I was to fatigued to bother with it, I did not make a tent. I wrapped myself up in my robe cocoon fashion, ate some bread, drank some water, and fell asleep.
Dawn stalked me and so did the Toelakhan. Both disturbed my sleep and so I awoke, tired, uncomfortable, hungry, and uneasy. I staggered to my feet. My robe was knotted around my legs and one arm, but slipping off me otherwise. I scanned the horizon in all directions. The morning light crept silently and slowly touching cactuses and sand warmly. Mutely I folded my robe then cracked the stillness by rummaging in my basket. I eyed my flask after I had drunk some water from it. There was not enough water to spare to wash my face. Uncomfortably grimy, I hoisted my basket onto my back and hurried into the Great Sand. My feet felt slick in my boots. Drops of sweat would suddenly streak down my midriff. The moistened blue scarf I wore protectively on my head dried quickly making me feel even hotter. For the most part, I was able to ignore my discomfort by visualizing the coolness of the ocean's caves which were my destination. Frequently I had to prod myself to rub more lotion onto my face to prevent it from burning.
I managed eventually to set up a rhythm; swinging the staff under my arm, swinging the basket off my back onto the other arm, extracting the lotion or fruit I needed in another deft movement, squeezing lotion onto my hands or sucking fruit with my teeth, then swinging the basket back onto my back and returning the staff to my grip. Once I became adept at this little choreography, my pace was no longer impeded. Since I was traveling along at quite a good clip, I almost walked straight into the spider's trap. What was it that kept me from marching straight down into the depression of the sand which was the only clue of the spider's presence? Only a brief pang of hunger. The jab of stomach pain was just sharp enough to jolt my glance downwards.
I stopped, nearly stumbled, gasped. I clearly had the talent to find the spider's trap for here I was, but oh my, I did not want to do what I had been told was necessary. I did not want to tap on the depression in the sand with the staff and meet that unimaginable horror. After all, I didn't have to; I could just turn around and find the way to the Savannah. Now that I was actually faced with the depression in the sand, I thought that the other route was a much safer and therefore more practical alternative. I turned to go.
Not sixty yards away was a semi-circle of men and women approaching me. They wore the gray uniforms of the Toelakhan. My senses on the moment diametrically increased in acuity. I could hear the crunch of the soles of their boots on the sand, the panting of their breath, the click of a weapon. My emotional reaction had in that same moment switched off. All data flowed into my mind in swift accumulation; the count of six women, five men, the color of their hair, the intent looks on their burnt faces, the bulges which meant concealed weapons at each waist, and the black shoulder straps which all eleven grabbed simultaneously to pull the dart guns into their hands. One woman wore red nail polish.
As I saw all this my body yanked around to the sand's depression, my arms waved the staff into the air and down with a resounding crack upon the door. The sand heaved into the air as my arms swung the staff up and to the side. The spider's eight legs were tan, and each one was as long as I was tall. The monstrous legs, the cream-colored clawed pincers the length of my arms, the tan, furry body, and the eight enormous eyes were climbing out of the cave and rattling towards me at an incredible speed, yet it seemed to take place in slow motion. Quicker than thought, the basket slid down my arm in the accustomed move. Each lift of a great armored leg towards me stretched in slow time while I, contrarily in a blur of rapid motion, tucked my staff beneath my arm and darted my hand into the basket. In slow motion, the great tan arachnid widened its pincers in anticipation, and placed another leg still closer to me while my racing hand yanked the bottle of spray from the basket. The jumble of giant stiff legs, spinnerets, pincers, and all of those huge eyes, froze in time, as my hand aimed the bottle and sprayed. The spray was still traveling across the distance to its target as my momentum carried me to the side of the arachnid and down. The huge, tan menace turned toward me and reared with infinite slowness. The spray wafted down like a cloud of sand upon it. The tan giant thing followed me two steps as the trap door shut. The scraping of the stiff legs, the suck of the air as the door slammed, and the reverberations of the slam pummeled my super sensitive perceptions. I ducked away from the fall of the door before the door sealed off the light. I ducked in the dark from the extending pinchers. I ducked down boulders which I saw with preternatural clarity. The speed of my movement was such that all of this I did in less than a moment. Deftly I slid and jumped down rocks and sand, away and free and clear of the crisis behind me. Gradually I slowed. Gradually time passed, and I had to hold my eyes wide open to see in the dimness. The clarity with which I had seen my way faded to a more normal nocturnal vision. My chest finally agreed to pant for air. Still, I hurried. Tired now, I had to force my self not to stumble, not to tremble, not to stop until I was really safe and clear.
At last, well away from the threat of the arachnid, I stopped to breathe and to tremble. I would have cried, but there was no point in crying now. I was safe. I laughed a small, rueful, thankful laugh.