Collected Short Fiction, page 1019
Valentine could understand why these trees were gods to the forest-brethren. They were vegetable monarchs, imperious, commanding. He was quite willing to sink to his knees before them himself.
Deliamber said, “The fruit is tasty. Intoxicating, in fact, to the human metabolism and to some others.”
“To Skandars?” asked Zalzan Gibor.
“To Skandars, yes.”
Zalzan Gibor laughed. “We’ll try it. Erfon! Thelkar! Gather pieces of the fruit for us!”
Nervously Deliamber said, “The talismans of the forest-brethren are embedded in the ground before each tree. They’ve been here recently and might return, and if they find us desecrating the grove, they will attack, and their darts can kill.”
“Sleet, Carabella, stand guard to the left. Valentine, Shanamir, over there. Cry out if you see even one of the little apes.” Zalzan Gibor gestured at his brothers. “Collect the fruits for us,” he ordered. “Haem, you and I will defend the situation from here. Wizard, remain with us.” Zalzan Gibor took two energy-throwers from a rack and gave one to his brother Haem.
Deliamber clucked and muttered in disapproval. “They move like ghosts, they come out of nowhere—”
“Enough.” said Zalzan Gibor.
Valentine, with Shanamir, took up a lookout position ahead of the wagon, and peered warily beyond the last of the dwikka-trees into the dark forest. He expected to have a fatal dart come winging toward him at any moment, and it was an uncomfortable feeling. Erfon Gibor and Thelkar, carrying a big wicker basket between them, made their way apprehensively toward the fallen fruit, pausing every few steps to look in all directions. When they reached it, they began cautiously to edge around to the far side of it, perhaps to see what might be hidden there.
“What if a bunch of forest-brethren are sitting behind that thing right now,” Shanamir asked, “having a little feast? Suppose Thelkar stumbles over them and—”
A tremendous and terrifying whoop and a roar, such as might come from an outraged bull-bidlak interrupted in its mating, erupted from the vicinity of the dwikka-fruit. Erfon Gibor, looking panic-stricken, came galloping back into view and rushed toward the wagon, followed a moment later by an equally daunted Thelkar.
“Beasts!” cried a ferocious voice. “Pigs and fathers of pigs! Rape a woman enjoying her lunch, will you? I’ll teach you to rape! I’ll fix you so you’ll never rape again! Stand your ground, hairy animals! Stand, I say, stand!”
Out from behind the dwikka-fruit came the largest human woman Valentine had ever seen, a creature so vast she was a proper companion to these trees and seemed perfectly in scale with them. She stood close to seven feet tall, perhaps more, and her gigantic body was a mountain of flesh rising on legs as sturdy as pillars. A close-fitting shirt and gray leather trousers were her garments, and the shirt was open nearly to the waist, revealing huge jouncing globes of breasts the size of a man’s head. Her hair was a mop of wild orange curls; her blazing eyes were pale piercing blue. She carried a vibration-sword of imposing length, which she swung about her with such force that Valentine could feel the breeze it stirred, even from a hundred feet away. Her cheeks and breasts were smeared with the scarlet juice of the dwikka-fruit’s meat.
In weighty strides she thundered toward the wagon, crying rape and demanding vengeance.
“What is this?” Zalzan Gibor asked, looking as bemused as Valentine had ever seen him. He glared at his brothers. “What did you do to her?”
“We never touched her,” said Erfon Gibor. “We were looking for forest-brethren back there, and Thelkar came upon her unexpectedly, and stumbled, and caught her arm to steady himself—”
“You said you never touched her,” Zalzan Gibor snapped.
“Not that way. It was only an accident, a stumble.”
“Do something,” Zalzan Gibor said hastily to Deliamber, for the giant woman was almost upon them now.
The Vroon, looking pale and cheerless, stepped in front of the wagon and lifted many tentacles toward the apparition that towered, almost Skandar-high, above him.
“Peace,” Deliamber said mildly to the onrushing giantess. “We mean you no harm.” As he spoke he gestured with manic purposefulness, casting some sort of pacifying spell that manifested itself as a faint bluish glow in the air before him. The huge woman appeared to respond to it, for she slowed her advance and managed to come to a halt a few feet from the wagon.
There she stood, sullenly whipping the vibration-sword back and forth at her side. After a moment she pulled her shirt together in front, fastening it inadequately. Glowering at the Skandars, she indicated Erfon and Thelkar and said in a deep booming voice, “What were those two planning to do to me?”
Deliamber replied, “They had simply gone to collect pieces of the dwikka-fruit. See the basket they were carrying?”
“We had no idea you were there,” Thelkar murmured. “We walked around behind the fruit to check for hidden forest-brethren, is all.”
“And fell upon me like the oaf you are and would have violated me if I hadn’t been armed, eh?”
“I lost my footing,” Thelkar insisted. “There was no intention of molesting you. I was on guard for forest-brethren, and when instead I encountered someone of your size—”
“What? More insults?”
Thelkar took a deep breath. “That is to say—it was unexpected when I—when you—”
Erfon Gibor said, “We had no thought—”
Valentine, who had been observing all of this in gathering amusement, but who also found his post at the edge of the forest distressingly exposed, now came over and said, “If they were minded for rape, would they have attempted it in front of so large an audience? We are of your kind here. We wouldn’t have tolerated it.” He indicated Carabella. “That woman is as fierce in her way as you are in yours, my lady. Be assured that if these Skandars had tried to do you any injury, she alone would have prevented it. It was a simple misunderstanding, nothing more. Put down your weapon and feel no peril among us.”
The giantess looked somewhat soothed by the courtliness and charm of Valentine’s speech. Slowly she lowered the vibration-sword, allowing it to go inert, and fastened it at her hip.
“Who are you?” she asked querulously. “What is all this procession traveling here?”
“My name is Valentine, and we are traveling jugglers, and this Skandar is Zalzan Gibor, the master of our troupe.”
“And I am Lisamon Hultin,” the giantess responded, “who hires as bodyguard and warrior, though there’s been little of that lately.”
“And we are wasting time,” said Zalzan Gibor, “and should be on our way, if we are properly forgiven for having intruded on your repose.”
Lisamon Hultin nodded brusquely. “Yes, be on your way. But are you aware this is dangerous territory?”
“Forest-brethren?” Valentine asked.
“All over the place. The woods are thick with them, just ahead.”
“And yet you feel no fear of them?” Deliamber remarked.
“I speak their language,” Lisamon Hultin said. “I have negotiated a private treaty with them. Do you think I’d dare be munching on dwikka-fruit otherwise? I may be fat, but not between the ears, little sorcerer.” She stared at Zalzan Gibor. “Where are you bound?”
“Mazadone,” replied the Skandar.
“Mazadone? Is there work for you in Mazadone?”
“We hope to learn that,” Zalzan Gibor said.
“There’s nothing for you there. I come from Mazadone just now. The duke is lately dead and three weeks of mourning have been decreed in the entire province. Or do you jugglers perform at funerals?”
Zalzan Gibor’s face darkened. “No work in Mazadone? No work in the whole province? We have expenses to meet! We have already gone unpaid since Dulorn! What will we do?”
Lisamon Hultin spat out a chunk of dwikka-fruit pulp. “That’s no sorrow of mine. Anyway, you can’t get to Mazadone.”
“What?”
“Forest-brethren. They’ve blocked the road a few miles ahead. Asking tributes of wayfarers, I think, something absurd like that. They won’t let you through. Lucky if they don’t fill you with their darts.”
“They’ll let us through!” Zalzan Gibor exclaimed.
The warrior-woman shrugged. “Not without me, they won’t.”
“You?”
“I told you, I speak their language. I can buy you a way through, with a little haggling. Are you interested? Five royals ought to do it.”
“What use do forest-brethren have for money?” the Skandar asked.
“Oh, not for them,” she said airily. “Five for me. I’ll offer other things to them. Deal?”
“Absurd. Five royals is a fortune!”
“I don’t bargain,” she said evenly. “There is honor in my profession. Good luck on the road ahead.” She favored Thelkar and Gibor Haem with a frigid stare. “If you wish, you may have some of the dwikka-fruit before you go. But better not be munching on it when you meet the brethren!”
She turned with massive dignity and walked to the great fruit beneath the tree. Drawing her sword, she hacked off three large chunks and shoved them disdainfully toward the two Skandars, who somewhat uneasily nudged them into the wicker basket.
Zalzan Gibor said, “Into the wagon, all of you! We have a long way to Mazadone!”
“You won’t travel far today,” said Lisamon Hultin, and released a gale of derisive laughter. “You’ll be back here soon enough—if you survive!”
5.
The poisoned darts of the forest-brethren preoccupied Valentine for the next few miles. Sudden horrible death held no appeal for him, and the woods here were thick and mysterious, with vegetation of a primordial sort, no leafy flowering plants whatever but only fern trees with silvery spore-sheaths and glassy-textured horsetails a dozen feet high and thickets of bunch-fungus, pale and pocked with brown craters. In a place of such strangeness anything might happen, and probably would.
But the juice of the dwikka-fruit eased tensions mightily. Sleet sliced up one huge chunk and passed cubes of it around: it was piercingly sweet of flavor and granular in texture, dissolving quickly against the tongue, and whatever alkaloids it contained went swiftly through the blood to the brain, faster than the strongest wine. Valentine felt warm and cheerful. He slouched back in the passenger cabin, one arm around Carabella, the other around Shanamir. Up front, Zalzan Gibor evidently was more relaxed as well, for he stepped up the pace of the wagon, pushing it to a rollicking speed not much in keeping with his dour, cautious practices. The usually self-contained Sleet, slicing up more dwikka-fruit, began to sing a rowdy song:
Lord Barhold came to Belka Strand
With crown and chain and pail.
He meant to force old Gomup’s hand
And make him eat his.
The wagon pulled suddenly to a halt, so suddenly that Sleet lurched forward and came close to falling into Valentine’s lap, and a slab of soft wet dwikka-fruit smacked into Valentine’s face. Laughing and blinking, he wiped himself clean. When he could see again, he found that everyone was gathered at the front of the wagon, peering out between the Skandars on the driver’s seat.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Birdnet vine,” said Sleet, sounding quite sober now. “Blocking the road. The giantess told the truth.”
Indeed. The sticky, tough red vine had been laced from fern tree to fern tree at a dozen angles, forming a sturdy and resilient chain both broad and thick. The forest flanking the road was altogether impenetrable here; the bird-net vine sealed the highway. There was no way the wagon could proceed.
“How hard is it to cut?” Valentine asked.
Zalzan Gibor said, “We could do it in five minutes with energy-throwers. But look there.”
“Forest-brethren,” Carabella said softly.
They were everywhere, swarming in the woods, hanging from every tree although getting no closer to the wagon than a hundred yards or so. They seemed less like apes at close range, more like savages of an intelligent species. They were small, naked beings with smooth blue-gray skin and thin limbs. Their hairless heads were narrow and long, with sloping flat foreheads, and their elongated necks were flimsy and fragile. Their chests were shallow, their frames meatless and bony. All of them, both men and women, wore dart-blowers of reeds strapped to their hips. They pointed at the wagon, chattered to one another, made little hissing whistling sounds.
“What do we do?” Zalzan Gibor asked Deliamber.
“Hire the warrior woman, I would think.”
“Never!”
“In that case,” said the Vroon; “let us prepare to camp in the wagon until the end of our days or else go back toward Dulorn and find some other road to travel.”
“We could parley with them,” the Skandar said. “Go out there, wizard. Speak to them in dream-language, monkey-language, Vroon-language, any words that will work. Tell them we have urgent business in Mazadone, that we must perform at the funeral of the duke and they will be severely punished if they delay us.”
Deliamber said calmly to Zalzan Gibor, “You tell them.”
“I?”
“Whichever of us steps out of the wagon first is apt to be skewered by their darts. I prefer to yield the honor. Perhaps they will be intimidated by your great size and hail you as their king. Or perhaps not.”
Zalzan Gibor’s eyes blazed. “You refuse?”
“A dead sorcerer,” Deliamber said, “will not guide you very far on this planet. I know something of these creatures. They are unpredictable and very dangerous. Pick another messenger, Zalzan Gibor. Our contract doesn’t require me to risk my life for you.”
Zalzan Gibor made his growling sound of displeasure, but he let the issue drop.
Stymied, they sat tight for long minutes. The forest-brethren began to descend from the trees, remaining at a considerable distance from the wagon. Some of them danced and cavorted now in the roadway, setting up a ragged, tuneless chanting, formless and atonal, like the droning of huge insects.
Erfon Gibor said, “A blast from the energy-thrower would scatter them. It wouldn’t take long for us to incinerate the birdnet vine. And then—”
“And then they’d follow us through the forest, pumping darts at us whenever we showed our faces,” said Zalzan Gibor. “No. There may be thousands of them all around us. They see us: we can’t see them. We can’t hope to win by using force against them.” Moodily the big Skandar wolfed down the last of the dwikka-fruit. Again he sat in silence for a few moments, scowling, occasionally shaking fists at the tiny folk blocking the path. At length he said in a bitter rumble, “Mazadone is still some days’ journey away, and that woman said there was no work to be had there anyway. So we’ll have to go on to Borgax or maybe even Thagobar, eh, Deliamber? Weeks more before we earn another crown. And here we sit, trapped in the forest by little apes with poisoned darts. Valentine?”
Startled, Valentine said, “Yes?”
“I want you to slip out of the wagon the back way and return to that warrior-woman. Offer her three royals to get us out of this.”
“Are you serious?” Valentine asked.
Carabella, with a little gasp, said, “No! I’ll go instead!”
“What’s this!” said Zalzan Gibor in irritation.
“Valentine is—he is—he gets lost easily, he becomes distracted, he—he might not be able to find—”
“Foolishness,” the Skandar said, waving his hands impatiently. “The road is straight. Valentine is strong and quick. And this is dangerous work. You have skills too valuable to risk, Carabella. Valentine will have to go.”
“Don’t do it,” Shanamir whispered.
Valentine hesitated. He had not much liking for the idea of leaving the relative safety of the wagon to travel on foot alone in a forest infested with deadly creatures. But someone had to do it, and not one of the slow, ponderous Skandars. To Zalzan Gibor he was the most expendable member of the troupe; perhaps he was. Perhaps he was expendable even to himself.
He said, “The warrior-woman told us her price was five royals.”
“Offer her three.”
“And if she refuses? She said it was against her honor to bargain.”
“Three,” Zalzan Gibor said. “Five royals is an immense fortune. Three is an absurd enough price to pay.”
“You want me to run miles through a dangerous forest to offer someone an inadequate price for a job that absolutely must be done?”
“Are you refusing?”
“Pointing out folly,” said Valentine. “If I’m to risk my life, there must be the hope of achievement. Give me five royals for her.”
“Bring her back here,” the Skandar said, “and I’ll negotiate with her.”
“Bring her back yourself,” said Valentine.
Zalzan Gibor considered that. Carabella, tense and pale, sat shaking her head. Sleet warned Valentine with his eyes to hold his position. Shanamir, red-faced, trembling, seemed about ready to burst forth with anger. Valentine wondered if this time he had pushed the Skandar’s always volatile temper too far.
Zalzan Gibor’s fur stirred as though spasms of rage were contorting his mighty muscles. He seemed to be holding himself in check by furious effort. Doubtless Valentine’s latest show of independence had enraged him almost to the boiling point; but there was a glint of calculation in the Skandar’s eyes, as though he were weighing the impact of Valentine’s open defiance against the need he had for Valentine to do this service. Perhaps he was even asking himself whether his thrift might be foolishness here.
After a long tense pause Zalzan Gibor let out his breath in an explosive hiss and, scowling, reached for his purse. Sourly he counted out the five gleaming one-royal pieces.
“Here,” he grunted. “And hurry.”
“I’ll go as fast as I can.”
“If running is too great a burden,” said Zalzan Gibor, “go out the front way and ask the forest-brethren if you may have leave to unhitch one of our mounts and ride back to her in comfort. But do it quickly, whichever you choose.”
