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somberly measured the circumference of my head.
They picked at my harness, and weapons, and hair. A haggard old woman pinched
my nose.
One simpleton hefted my short-sword and proceeded to lop off his own toe.
No one paid any attention to his screams, except a man who picked up the stub
and flung it into the trees. A mangy calot, half-starved, bounded after the
morsel.
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A Princess of Jasoom: Klego-na-ay's Crazy Cousins
They bustled me into a hut, heaving me to the ground. I lay there, testing the
strength of the rope that bound me. I could not break free.
As my eyes became accustomed to the dim interior, I saw that I was not alone.
The girl of the woods lay in a corner, similarly bound. I maneuvered close to
her, and saw that she was barely conscious.
In fact, she was quite ill, drenched in sweat. She gasped for breath in quick
gulps. An area of her chest was enflamed -- and I recalled the
plant-creature's darting thistle.
"Poison," I thought.
Recognizing me, she made no effort to keep her distance. The ropes bound her
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quite as securely as I; she couldn't have moved far had she wanted to.
It was also clear that the sickness made her too miserable to care whether I
was near.
"I know you think of me as an enemy," I said. "I assure you again that I am a
friend. It matters not that you believe me. But know, red woman, that I will
do whatever I can to make your lot easier. We will escape this asylum. Tardos
Mors, Prince of Helium, swears it."
There was a weak sound in her throat. The girl burned with fever. I wasn't
sure that she'd even heard my pledge.
As darkness fell upon the village, the howling of predators sounded all about
us. A zitidar squeeled, quite distant and eerie. I thought that it had perhaps
become mired in some marshy swamp of this evil wood.
The scream of a banth seemed close, though, which caused a commotion among our
captors for a short time. One entered the hut and asked if it had been I that
growled. I told him that it was my stomach.
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A Princess of Jasoom: Klego-na-ay's Crazy Cousins
"I am hungry," I said.
"Stop it immediately," ordered the lunatic. "Tur demands it."
I recognized him as the one who'd originally discovered me. He backed slowly
from the hut, watching me warily.
The intervals of silence were as unnerving as the great roars of the night-
stalkers. During those lulls, the lunatics wept and cried, shouted and sang,
laughed and screamed in terror. The sounds within the village were more
terrible than those without.
A fire was built in the village center. The light that reached us cast dancing
shadows upon the walls of the hut.
My heart went out to the girl, who listened keenly to the macabre chorus when
she wasn't in the clutches of delirium. I wrestled with guilt for being unable
to comfort her in any way.
So what that she had tried to kill me? I was a prince of Helium, and this was
a red girl -- alone, and feverish, in a land of enemies.
She strained a bit to reach the pouch at her side, but was unsuccessful. I
crept closer, gently so as not to frighten her, and managed to work it free
from its thong. I placed the pouch in her hand, which seemed to soothe her,
somehow.
Rocking back and forth, she tossed puffs of white powder from the pouch toward
north, south, east and west. In low tones she chanted strange words:
"Gun-ju-le, chil-jilt; si-chi-zi, gun-ju-le; inzayu, ijanale!"
She was quiet then, very still. After a time, I worried that she had
succumbed.
I leaned close. To my relief, her breathing seemed more regular, though
shallow.
"I still live," she whispered.
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A Princess of Jasoom: Klego-na-ay's Crazy Cousins
Then she rested.
At some point during the night, Tur brought us water and a half-roasted piece
of meat. He eyed me suspiciously, not without a little apprehension. We
remained bound, however, and availing ourselves of the fare proved difficult.
In my case, it must have proved comical. I heard the girl chuckle weakly as I
attempted to drink from the roughly molded bowl, face down, lying in the dirt.
I smiled, exaggerating my efforts to drink. It was a spectacle quite
unbecoming a prince. But if it helped ease her suffering, no matter how
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briefly, my coutiers in Helium, at least, would be none the wiser.
With dripping chin, I propped myself up against a wall.
"You spoke earlier in a tongue I did not understand," I said to the girl.
"What did it mean?"
She looked at me as if I was some unfathomable creature, distant and unheard
of. Then she shrugged, as if realizing something she had forgotten.
"I asked Night to be good to me," she said in a tone that sounded of
resignation. "To not let me die."
I looked around, listening to the jungle sounds and the murmurings of the
villagers outside our hut. It seemed they planned not to sleep at all. I
wondered if it was because they were mad, or afraid.
Sometimes they banged drums and blew primitive horns, presumably to keep the
beasts at bay -- and I realized that fear alone kept them alert.
They, too, were asking the night to protect them.
"Your prayer must have been answered," I said. "You will not die."
"Perhaps. But I am still weak. Raven is not afraid of Night."
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A Princess of Jasoom: Klego-na-ay's Crazy Cousins
The comment made little more sense than the actions of our captors.
"Are your people near?" I asked.
She was quiet a long time.
"No," she finally said.
"Where are they?" I pressed. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]