In Green's Jungles (25 page)

"We-" Kupus began, and started over. "The men…" He cleared his throat.

"Sit down," Fava told him. "He doesn't like your standing over him like that." (They were still half a dozen strides away.) "Neither do I. Papa's just the same, and I'm sure he hasn't forgotten all those times you made us sit on the cold ground and yelled down at us."

"No insult was intended," Sfido told her smoothly. "I let you sit as a gesture of respect."

"You made us sit because you were afraid he'd kick you again! He would've, too!"

I rose. "These brave troopers haven't come to quarrel with us, I'm sure."

All three nodded, Sfido vigorously.

Fava declared, "These brave troopers wouldn't have come at all if I hadn't shown them you didn't bite."

Kupus said, "We want to make a bargain. You'll have to trust us-"

Fava snorted.

"And you can. You came during a truce, and no one tried to harm you. You exchanged yourself for a prisoner we held legitimately. You proposed the exchange yourself."

"I came voluntarily too," Fava told him, "and Incanto wanted to exchange for Papa and me."

I motioned her to silence. "At that time, I didn't know you could escape whenever you wanted; thus it made no real difference whether you stayed behind with me or left with Inclito. Let's not argue about that. Captain Kupus, what is your bargain?"

Zepter interposed. "The men are saying you carried us here by magic. Did you?"

"No," I told him.

Fava stamped her foot, "Incanto…!"

"I didn't. Would you want me to lie?"

"You-" Her face was flushed with rage.

I spoke to Kupus. "Now that we have settled that point, what is your bargain?"

"Can you carry us back where we were?"

"To that barren hillside in the snow? I'm surprised you don't prefer this."

Angry as she was, Fava giggled.

"He was an inhumu, wasn't he? The man whose servant knocked down Schreiner."

I nodded.

"Do you know where we are?"

"I believe so," I said. "Do you, Captain? Tell me, what whorl is this?"

Kupus shook his head. "Are you saying we're actually on Green? I don't believe it, magic or not."

After a moment Zepter asked, "Do they really have human servants here? I didn't know."

"They have human servants on our whorl, too," I told him. "You're a mercenary, Captain?"

"Lieutenant." He drew himself up. "Yes. I enjoy that honor."

"You serve Duko Rigoglio for a silver card every-"

"Three," Kupus told me. "Two cards per month for a sergeant and three for a lieutenant."

Fava told him, "Four for you," and he nodded.

I asked Zepter, "How many would it take to persuade you to serve the inhumi?"

"I wouldn't!"

"You insist I'm a strego, a male witch; so let me turn those silver cards to gold. Three cards of gold every month, Lieutenant Zepter. Wouldn't that be sufficient?"

Sfido said, "It would. More than enough. Don't deny it, Zepter. I saw your face." He turned to me. "Do you really believe the inhumi may have human servants on-where we came from?"

I shrugged. "I encountered some once in a place called Pajarocu, and it should be obvious by now that they could have them here if they wanted them and had the gold-still better, real cards enough. Or even silver, I imagine."

Fava asked, "Are you applying for work, Dervis? How much? When we get back, I'll see if I can't raise it."

Zepter said angrily, "You're no inhuma, you dirty little sprat, and-"

"Mora! My name's Mora, and it's a better name than yours!" Fava lifted her gown above her knees and danced, comically at first but soon gracefully. "Look at these legs. They're an inhuma's legs, aren't they? Here." Stopping, she gathered her hair behind her as though she were about to tie it up, and pressed the whole hank into his hand. "It's a wig. Pull hard, and it comes right off."

Rising, I laid my hand upon her shoulder.

"No teeth, see?" She grinned at him, displaying two rows of white and very even teeth. "That's because we don't chew. Just fangs to suck up your blood. Want to see them?" Held to her mouth, her forefingers assumed the role.

To me Kupus said, "We came to talk to you about a serious matter."

I nodded. "What is it?"

"We've already-" He paused and drew breath. "We would like to return to the barren hillside you reproach us with." He looked at Sfido and Zepter, and both nodded. "If you can do that-"

I shook my head, and Fava crowed in triumph.

"You can't."

"No," I said. "Not now, at least."

Sfido stepped nearer me. "Later you might be able to?"

"Conceivably."

"How?" Zepter asked.

"You are trying to bargain with me," I told them, "so you can scarcely blame me if I bargain with you."

Kupus nodded. "Go ahead. Let's hear it."

"If you will return my staff-my own property, taken from me for no good reason-and if all three of you will concede that we are in fact on Green, a whorl that to most of us has never been more than a colored disk of light in the sky, I will tell you how we may be able to return to Blue."

Sfido nodded. "One of the men may have it. I'll ask. For myself, if you assert we've actually been taken to Green I'll accept it. Do you, Rajan?" Seeing my face, he gulped and hurried away.

Kupus said slowly, "It's hot in here. Very warm."

"We inhumas love it," Fava announced.

He ignored her. "But we're in a room in a building, after all. I'm old enough to remember the Long Sun Whorl, Incanto. So are you, as anyone can see. I don't know how it was in your city, but ours had buildings that were kept warm by a big furnace in the cellar."

I nodded. "I think the Prolocutor's Palace in Viron may have been heated in that fashion, although the Calde's was not. The floors of the Prolocutor's Palace were always warm in cool weather."

Grunting, Kupus bent to touch the floor on which I had been sitting earlier, and I assured him that it was cool in comparison to the air of the room.

"Are you saying that it's this warm outside?"

"No."

Zepter asked, "Then why are you insisting that we're on Green?"

"I'm not," I told him, "but I remember this room, and it was on Green. I think it more likely that we are there than that it has been carried to Blue. Don't you?"

Kupus began, "A duplicate-"

I sat down again.

Fava said, "It won't be as hot as this outside because it will be a lot hotter, that's what he means. This's the cellar. Can't you see that?"

"It looks like one," Kupus admitted grudgingly.

"It is. We're underground, and so it's cooler here. It should be very nice outside."

Zepter crouched to speak to me. "I'm sorry about your staff, Dervis. Captain Sfido ordered it, and he represents our patron. The rest of us were merely following orders."

"I understand."

Heavily and rather awkwardly, Kupus sat down beside me. "Do you need it to bring us back?"

I shook my head. "It won't help in that way-a slug gun might be more useful."

Zepter began, "Without Sfido's-" Kupus silenced him.

"I don't actually want one," I told them. "Or at least I don't think I do, and especially not on those terms. I haven't quite made up my mind about it. I was hoping you'd return my staff because I miss Oreb. He likes to perch on it."

Zepter raised his eyebrows. "Your bird?"

"Yes." I closed my eyes. "You chased him away, some of you back there. I think the staff might make it easier." I tried to visual ize the staff and Oreb fluttering down to land with a thump upon its T-shaped handle, as he had so often during the past few days.

Fava said, "Here comes that Soldese officer again, but he hasn't got it."

"Once in a while," I whispered, "when I'm nearly awake…'

At times Sfido had an oily, almost feminine way of speaking that reminded me of one of the augurs at our schola; in it he said, "I'm terribly sorry, but your staff doesn't seem to have come with us, Rajan. I talked to Private Gevaar. He was the one who actually took it from you. He told me where he put it, but it doesn't seem to have been taken when we were."

I was thinking of the sun on Oreb's black wings, of Oreb as he had looked when he flew up in alarm from Scylla's shrine of twisting pillars on the cliffs above Lake Limna, and did not reply.

Fava asked someone, "Where did he put it?" and Patera Grig replied, "What difference does that make?"

A rougher voice with an undertone of cruelty in it: "Is he asleep?"

"No," the girl told him.

"Yes," I said; but I was not sure they heard me-Oreb fluttering up and away over blue water, a hint of blue upon one black wing. For a moment (if only for a moment) he seemed more real to me, the sable-and-scarlet bird flying beneath the slim golden bar of the Long Sun, than the hideous prison-room on Green in which I sat, or the snowy thornbushes under which I huddled with Fava. I may have heard the creaking of the hinges; now that all that horror is over and we have returned to Blue, I cannot be sure.

Certainly I heard the girl Fava's shout of surprise, and Kupus's incredulous "Gods doom!"

Then- "Bird back!"

I opened my eyes. Oreb was about the size of a child of four, with wings that seemed almost feathered arms; but he cocked his head at me as he always has, regarding me through one jet-black eye. "Good bird?"

"Good bird, Oreb. I'm very glad to see you."

"Good Silk!"

"He frequently calls me Silk," I explained to Kupus. "I believe it must have been the name of his former master, the man I set out to bring to my town of New Viron, but failed to bring. Silk is an aspect of Pas now."

Fava began, "He looks so different-"

"So do you," I told her.

Zepter asked, "Is that another inhumi?"

"I'm sure it isn't. Come over here, Oreb. You're too big to perch on my staff at present, I'm afraid. You'll have to walk for yourself, or fly. Can you still fly?"

"Bird fly!"

"I doubt it, but we'll soon see."

"Fish heads?"

Nodding, I stood up. "Certainly we'll need food if we're going to stay here indefinitely, and I doubt very much that the inhumi will feed us."

Fava rubbed her hands. "I'd like to eat right now. A small salad with some of that thick white dressing that Decina makes from eggs and olive oil, and maybe a slice of roast beef and some bread and butter." All that she was, was in her smile-the girl and the artful intelligence behind the girl's, and the torpid inhuma (dressed as dolls of painted wood are) who froze with me beneath leafless branches covered with snow through which there protruded, here and there, needle-sharp points of black.

"Girl thing?" Oreb was clearly puzzled.

"I would take that, too," I told Fava. "But if you're expecting me to conjure it out of the air for you, you'll be disappointed."

"Oh, no. I just wondered what you thought about the roast beef. Not terribly large and not too rare, if you please."

Zepter nodded, the nod of a man who takes food seriously. "I'm with you on that last one, Mora."

"I hope you'll be with her on a good may other things as well," I told him. "She supports Blanko and Inclito-"

"Papa? I certainly do!"

"To begin with. You oppose both, Lieutenant Zepter-or at least you have been opposing them up until now. Sfido, I don't think it's wise for you to let your hand stray to your needler like that."

The burly lieutenant turned on him with a low growl that might have come from the throat of a large and suspicious dog.

"Your own loyalty to Duko Rigoglio does you credit," I told Sfido, "but you cannot keep these troopers loyal to him by force."

I spoke to Kupus. "When we had our meeting yesterday, Captain, there were four of your officers present. Lieutenant Zepter is here with us, which leaves three unaccounted for." I indicated the other side of the room by a gesture. "Are they over there?"

He nodded.

"Then call them. No, call everyone."

Kupus raised his left arm, moving his hand in circles. "On me!"

"We will reconvene that meeting," I told Sfido. "Has it occurred to you yet that this girl and I, and all the mercenaries of Captain Kupus's company might go back to Blue in some fashion, leaving you here?"

He stared at me without speaking, and at last shook his head.

"It will. You have seen nothing of Green yet, Captain. Nothing beyond this room. When you have slept in her swamps and jungles, and seen the City of the Inhumi, it will occur to you at every breath."

"I will not betray Soldo," Sfido declared.

"I would not ask you to," I told him.

Oreb sprang into the air, his clumsy wings flailing. "Men come!"

I waved to them. "Lieutenant Karabin? I don't know the names of your brother officers. Perhaps you could introduce them."

Kupus said, "I should have myself. Go ahead, Karabin."

"Yes, sir." Like Zepter he had a bristling mustache, but he was tall and rather slender, and his was black. "You and I haven't met formally yet, Rajan." He offered his hand, and 1 shook it.

"This is Lieutenant Warren, and this is Lieutenant Wight. They're from the same town. We don't have two officers from the same town very often."

I shook hands with both. "May I ask without offense how a mercenary becomes an officer?"

Wight said, "We're elected by our men, Rajan. We formed my platoon, and then we elected sergeants and a lieutenant."

"You?" Fava asked, and he nodded.

Kupus said, "We elected me captain once the lieutentants had been decided on. After that, the First Platoon had to elect one of the sergeants lieutenant, and choose a new sergeant."

By the time he had finished speaking, the men were all gathered around us, which had been my chief purpose in asking the question. Most were staring at Oreb, and I waited a moment more for them to assuage their curiosity, smiling and nodding to every man who wore a headcloth.

"Watch out!" Oreb muttered, and I nodded. What I planned to do, or at least planned to try to do, was fully as chancy as letting my legs hang over the prow of the Trivigaunti airship; but I needed to understand the extent of my powers in what I still thought of then as a nightmare that I shared with Fava, and this would delineate them as nothing else could have.