The Gist Hunter (24 page)

Concentrate
, he told himself.
And get clear of that sow while you're still more man than pig
. He made a great effort and turned his head away from her delightful scent then deliberately followed his nose toward less freighted air. He found the path down which the Nymph had herded her victim and followed it.
No pig would willingly take this course
, he told himself, and felt better for it.

The path led him uphill through woods for a short while then leveled off in a long, broad meadow of short grass grazed by sheep. Bandar wondered if all the four-legged inhabitants of the island had been transformed from human idiomats and if the kind of animals they became were determined by the Enchantress's whims or by their own natures. He couldn't account for anything in his own make-up that would qualify him for pigdom, unless it was his penchant for rooting about in academic puzzles and turning up exquisite little truffles like the Lorelei song. These were decidedly unpiglike musings, a thought which encouraged him further.

He was finding that four limbs and strong hooves made for rapid locomotion. He was almost across the meadow now, following a path of beaten earth. Ahead was a stand of stately trees. Between the boles and branches he could make out an imposing building faced in marble, ornamented with columns and pilasters and set about with statuary. As he neared the trees he veered off the path and approached by a roundabout route. He came upon a garden with a pool and fountain beyond which a paved walkway sloped down to a grotto.

He followed it, his hooves clicking softly on the stones. It led him to a sunken lawn, shaded by a rocky outcrop beneath which a bower of fragrant grasses had been heaped up and covered with carpets of soft wool. On this reclined a stocky man of middle years, red of hair and beard, who idly contemplated the gold beaker in his hand before he raised it to his lips. A driblet of purple wine ran from the corner of his mouth to lose itself in his beard, but he paid it no heed, his bright blue eyes gazing at nothing.

A beguiled Hero
, Guth Bandar thought. He regarded the idiomat closely, saw neither great thews nor features so striking as to indicate divine parentage, although there were scars on the man's arms and naked chest.
A very old type
, he concluded,
a swordster when necessary, yet more inclined to the craftiness of a trickster
.

Bandar was pressing his mind to remember what he'd learned of this variant of the Hero archetype. There might be some way to play upon its known characteristics to create a strategy that would lead to his being reconstituted as a human being. After which, he would forthwith intone a thran to shield him from the view of Hero and Nymph long enough to put some distance between him and them. A quick chant of a particular seven-tone sequence would open an emergency gate. He would leap through and return to his inert body in the meditation room.

In a crisis—if, for example, the Nymph came for him with the knife—he might try to conjure the gate while still in pig form. The risk would be that he might arrive back in his body to find that parts of his psyche were still more swine than human. There were already too many people like that on Old Earth—Didrick Gabbris merely the first that came to mind.

A voice broke into his thoughts and he realized that the figure on the bower was speaking to him. "I said, 'What are you looking at, pig?'" Now the idiomat shrugged and drank more wine. "Though even a pig might look at a king."

Bandar contrived as intelligent a face as his porcine features would allow. "Hmm?" he said, and though the arrangement of his huge nasal cavity gave the wordless sound a certain honk, he thought it sounded reasonably human for a pig.

"I have pigs of my own," the Hero said. "I'm king of an island, you know."

Bandar made the same sound, but altered the tone so that it sounded like, "Really?"

"Yes," said the idiomat, "but you know I'd be happy just to be a swineherd if I could see once more my wife and son."

"Hmm," said Bandar, with a nod and a note of sympathy.

"I really must do something about getting home," the Hero said. "Build another ship or something."

This time Bandar's "Hmm" offered encouragement, a spur to action.

There ensued a conversation, largely one-sided, in which the Hero King issued observations and Bandar replied with combinations of nods, wags and hums. The noönaut was surprised how much information could be exchanged even when one interlocutor's vocabulary could not rise above the barest minimum.

"You are decidedly insightful for a pig," said the Hero. "Indeed, I have known princes who could learn from you." He drank the lees of his cup and reached for a gold pitcher that stood on a nearby table. "If they weren't too busy sulking in their tents or stealing concubines."

The idiomat poured more wine and hefted the goblet, then paused with it halfway to his stained lips. "I like a good palaver," he said. "It seems to me I have not had a conversation of any depth since . . ." He appeared to be consulting a mental time line that would not hold its shape. "Since a long time," he finished.

"Hmm," said Bandar. Engaging in conversation, even under his present disadvantages, was helping to keep pigness at a distance. He was wondering how he could turn this encounter further to his profit. Perhaps the Hero could persuade the Nymph to undo the spell. Focusing on the matter with a pig's brain was not easy, however. He missed the Hero's next question.

Fortunately the idiomat seemed to be accustomed to repeating himself. "I said, 'It seems to me I arrived here with several companions.' You haven't seen any of them, have you?"

An agonized squeal from not far off claimed their attention. Moments later, the Nymph came tripping down the walkway, carrying a gold plate on which lay two fair-sized morsels of raw flesh. She went to where a brazier stood on a tripod and poked at its coals with a knife, blowing them into a glowing heat. Bandar backed into the undergrowth while she was laying the plate on the embers. His sharp ears heard a faint sizzle while his pig's nose caught a whiff of cooking meat. It smelled delicious.

"I've brought you a little treat, my dear," the Nymph said, over her shoulder. "Something to restore your vigor."

Bandar realized what the two frying objects were and where they had come from. Not far away must be a most despondent boar. He also had no doubt as to the fate of the king's erstwhile shipmates. He could not repress a gasp and a shudder.

Unfortunately, a gasping, shuddering pig could not fail to attract a Nymph's attention. She turned to regard him. The brows knitted above her sharp nose and the green eyes flashed then narrowed. Bandar was reminded that idiomats, even the Principals of Locations, tended toward simplicity. They were not real people, only rudimentary personas—much like the characters in myth and fiction to which they had given rise. Where people would pause and consider, idiomats invariably acted.

"Have you met this remarkable pig?" the king was saying, even as his consort crossed the lawn, knife in hand and unmistakable motivation in her face. Bandar turned and fled.

He had been a healthy young man in his virtual self, therefore he was a healthy young pig. He soon discovered how to go from a rapid trot to a fast gallop, although he wasn't entirely sure that pigs were built for the latter gait. He did not stop to ponder the question, however; he made his best speed with the sound of thudding Nymph footsteps closing on his tail. And on what flopped below them.

He ran up a slope, breaking through a shrubbery of artfully trimmed bushes, then onto another open meadow—this one with donkeys. They scattered as he burst through their midst, heading for a thick growth of trees that climbed toward what looked to be either a high hill or a low mountain at the island's center.

His pursuer's footsteps grew louder. He put on more speed but soon he heard her drawing near again. And now it became apparent that pig lungs and legs were designed more for the sprint than the marathon, whereas Nymphs were apparently tireless.

He could hear not only her footfalls but her breathing as he reached the trees and raced between the boles. Not far in he found thickets of thorn and bramble and into these he plunged without slowing. The sharp protrusions tore at his hide, but pigskin was thick and the scratches caused him far less discomfort than he would have experienced as a man. His long, low and relatively streamlined shape was also ideal for snaking through brush at good speed.

He soon left the Nymph behind. He could hear her cursing him, her voice receding as he went deeper into the woods. Fortunately, it seemed that her maledictions were not effective unless she was wielding the olive staff.

Bandar ran a little farther into the greenery then stopped in a small open space roofed over with prickly vines. He elevated his ear flaps and moved his head from side to side, but heard nothing to alarm him. He let his wide nostrils sample the air and scented no immediate danger.

He bent his forelimbs then let his hindquarters settle to the forest floor. He had to think. There was no point in seeking to enlist the Hero King's aid. The red-haired idiomat was the Enchantress's prize—her control of him was almost certainly what this Situation was all about. She would guard him closely.

Nor could Bandar hide out on the island and attempt to reshape his virtual flesh. For one thing, the technique required leisure to concentrate; he doubted the Nymph would afford him such. For another, the only time he had attempted the procedure he had distorted himself in freakish ways. Getting from swinehood to humanness was almost certainly beyond him.

Bandar's best recourse was to find a gate and pass through to somewhere less lethal. Then he might plot a course through to some Location where the Principal was a wielder of benign magic who would lift the Nymph's curse and restore the noönaut to his true proportions. There were relatively few such places and personas—the Commons dealt out more horror than happy fun times—but they were there to be found.

And Guth Bandar had the means to find them. He concentrated and summoned the map of the noösphere into virtual existence. He found it difficult to see deeply into the complex webwork of points and lines—his pig's eyes were not so placed as to enable stereoscopic vision of near objects. Finally, he cocked his head to bring one eye to bear and began to plot a route to salvation.

He found that there were two nodes on the island that connected the Nymph's Location to others. One was a single-direction gate that would take him into a nightmarish cityscape, an urban dystopia rife with crime and infamy where the only semblance of order was a brotherhood of bounty hunters. It was no place for an innocent pig; those that might not see him as food on the hoof would likely use him for target practice.

The other gate was a multi-destination node: depending on the sequence of tones employed by an approaching noönaut, it might open to any of five places. One was a mellow kingdom of strolling troubadours and itinerant tale-spinners. Better yet, a short jog across that Location would bring him to a gate into a children's Situation—luckily, not one of the many nasty ones, but a winter fantasia whose magical, merry Principal enjoyed bestowing gifts and bonbons on good little boys and girls. He would surely grant the wish of a good little pig.

The multifarious node waited in the meadow of the donkeys. That was a dangerously wide space to cross, especially if an angry Enchantress lurked nearby. It might take pig-Bandar more than one trial to find the right notes to activate the exit.

But he resolved to hazard the meadow, though he would wait for nightfall. In the meantime, he would practice producing tones from a pig's throat.

The moon rode full and high across a dark blue heaven, flooding the field with silvery light. Bandar stood beneath the last of the trees and surveyed the open space. Pig night vision was no better than the human version, but his ears and nose added a wealth of sensory impressions. The meadow's inhabitants stood clumped not far away, making donkey murmurs to each other. Of the Nymph there was no sign.

Bandar crept out onto the cropped grass, advanced a few steps and paused. He heard nothing. He felt the slight tingle in the back of his mind that told him he was near to a node and went in the direction that made the sensation increase. A few more steps and again he paused, again hearing and seeing nothing.

The gate was not too far now. He trotted forward, mentally rehearsing the sequence of tones he must sing to activate it.

Midway across the meadow, he heard a rustle of motion among the donkeys. He turned to look their way. A slim figure rose from amongst them. It was the Nymph and in her hand was the olive wood staff.

Swiftly she laid its leering tip to the backs of the donkeys. With each contact the touched beast changed shape, became longer and lower. Their excited braying became a baying, the deep bell of a hunting pack underlaid by slavering growls.

She touched the last of the herd then pointed with the staff. "After him!" she cried. "Rend him!"

Bandar had not waited for the transformations to be completed. He burst toward the place where the right combination of sounds would call up safety from empty air. But the pack moved faster than even a well-motivated pig. They swept across the meadow toward him.

He could feel the nearness of the node and he did not break stride before chanting the tones that should open it.

Nothing happened. He realized that running and chanting at the same time, especially with his less than expert control of porcine vocal equipment, were affecting his pitch and intonation.

He skidded to a halt before the spot where a ripple should be wavering in the moonlight. The air was undisturbed.

The pack came on. He could see them, long ears and dark muzzles, black lips drawn back from foam-flecked fangs. The collective sound they made, of appetite and blood lust, sent a shiver through Bandar's meat.

He took a short settling breath and sang the tones again. The beasts were almost on him. The lead hound gathered its hindquarters beneath it and sprang, stretching its lean body through an arc that would bring its jaws to Bandar's soft throat.