The Tritonian Ring and Other Pasudian Tales (14 page)

             
"Beer not good yet."

             
Next day Vakar, now well enough to move around, continued his fraternization with Atse. He encouraged her to talk, stopping her every few words for an explanation. She got bored and went out, but then a rainstorm drove her in again.

             
"What do you do for fun?" he asked, shaving the three days' stubble from his chin with his bronze razor. "I play with the others and I visit the tailed lady.
"

             
"
The what?"

             
"The lady with the tail.
She lives in the hills over that way." Atse" gestured eastward. "I call her with this."

             
She produced a tiny whistle tied around her neck with a string of grass and blew on it. Vakar, hearing no
t
hing, asked:

             
"How can she hear you when that thing makes no noise?"

             
"Oh, but it does!
A magical noise that she alone can hear."

             
Vakar tried blowing on it himself, with no result save that the two dogs who happened to be in the hut both howled. Later, when Atse had gone out again, Vakar asked Juten's wife about the tailed woman.

             
"She told you that?" cried the woman. "I will tan her hide! She knows she should not
...
"

             
"Why? Many children make up imaginary playmates—"

             
"Imaginary! Would that she were! This is a satyr of Atlantis who has settled near here and entices the children into stealing our food and taking it to her secretly. The men have hunted her with dogs, but her magic baffles them."

             
Vakar, who had understood only about half of what the woman had said, dropped the subject of the satyr to take a snooze. That evening, after supper, Juten mumbled something about a village meeting and went out into the sunset. Vakar dozed until aroused by Fual's shaking him.

             
"My lord!" said the valet. "We must flee or they'll murder us!"

             
"Huh? What are you talking about?"

             
"I spied upon the village meeting, which was called to discuss us. Egon, the headman, urged that we be killed and persuaded the others."

             
"Lyr's barnacles!
Why?"

             
"From what I could understand, they seemed to think that all foreigners are evil, and that we have wealth on our persons which the village could use. Moreover their witchdoctor said he could insure a year's prosperity by sacrificing us to their gods. They sacrifice people with torture, and the shaman claimed his gods had appeared to him in a vision to demand our fives. Juten and one or two others wished to spare us, but were outvoted."

             
"What's their scheme?"

             
"They'll wait until we're asleep and rush in. They dare not attack us openly for fear of our swords."

             
Vakar glanced to where Juten's wife sat placidly in the doorway, milling barley with a hand-quern. He thoughtfully twirled his mustache. Feeling sure that she would not have understood the conversation in Lorskan he said:

             
"Is all our gear in the bag?"

             
"Nearly, sir.
I'll pack the rest now."

             
Vakar got up, stretched, and put on his cloak. He bent over the children's beds until he located Atse, whose single garment was wadded up to make a pillow. Vakar explored gently until he found the tiny whistle and withdrew it. He did not like robbing a child, but had little choice. He dropped the whistle into his scrip and said to Juten's wife:

             
"Your pardon, madam, but we are going out for a walk."

             
"Are you strong enough, sir?" she said, rising to make way for the pair of them. "I think so, thank you."

             
Vakar led the way, Fual following with the bag on his back. Vakar walked toward the corner of the hut. Just before he reached it the woman called after him:

             
"Sir, why are you carrying your belongings? Are you leaving us?"

             
Pretending not to hear, Vakar swung rapidly around the corner of the house and headed eastward between it and the next hut. They passed a couple of store-sheds, detoured a pig-pen and a paddock containing horses, and strode through a plowed field, their boots sinking into the mud and coming out with sucking
noises. Vakar felt a l
ittle weak and his arm was sore, but otherwise he seemed to be active again. He asked:

             
"This is the first I've seen of the neighborhood since recovering my senses. Can you lead the way?"

             
"No, sir.
Except for a few glimpses of the main street of the village I know hardly more about it than you. Where are you taking us?"

             
Vakar told about the female satyr, adding: "I know not whether she's real or a peasant superstition, but I brought the child's whistle along to try. She might conceivably help
us, being of the third class of friends.
"

             
"
What's that?"

             
"There's your friend, and your friend's friend, and your enemy's enemy. She seems to be of the last kind."

             
He blew experimentally, whereupon there was an outburst of barking from the village.

             
"For the gods' sake, my lord, don't do that!" said Fual. "There must be some sound emitted by that thing, even though we mortal men can't hear it. You'll have all those devils on our trail." He glared back at the village and muttered Aremorian curses upon the Sendevians.

             
They tramped in silence until they passed out of the fields and entered the zone of wild grass and scrubby forest. The stars came out though the moon, being past full, had not risen. Somewhere in the hills a lion roared. They were stumbling their way up a draw between two of
the smaller foothills of the Atl
antean Mountains when Fual said:

             
"Sir, listen!"

             
Vakar halted and heard, far behind them,
a
murmur of voices and
a
chorus of barking. Looking back he saw
a
tiny glimmer as of
a
swarm of fireflies. That would be the men of the village setting out with dogs and torches to hunt them down.

             
"Oh, hurry!" said Fual, teeth chattering. Vakar hurried. One or two peasants he would have faced, but if all the able-bodied males of Sendeu caught him, emboldened by numbers, stone axes and wooden rakes and pitchforks would do him in as surely if not so quickly as
whetted bronze. He blew on the whis
t
le again. Nothing happened. They stumbled on, pausing betimes for breath. Each time the sounds of pursuit became louder. When the moon rose, Vakar straightened out their course towards the east, where, he hoped, the more rugged terrain would give them a better chance of escape.

             
Fual said: "Sir, why did you bring me on this terrible journey, where we spend all our time fleeing from one dire doom after another? You could have left me to serve your brother—"

             
"Shut up," said Vakar, gasping for breath.

             
He looked back down the valley they were now traversing and plainly saw the swarm of torches at the lower end. He raised the whistle to his lips, but Fual cried:

             
"Oh, pray don't blow that again! It only draws the dogs faster."

             
"They'll track us by smell in any case, and it's our last »

             
Fual sank to his knees, weeping, and kissed Vakar's hand, but Vakar pushed him roughly back.

             
"I shall blow, and if it doesn't work, look to your sword. I'm too tired to run further, and we can at least take
a
few of these sons of sows with us."

             
Ignoring Fual's prayers, Vakar blew. The torches came closer and the barking became louder. Vakar was feeling his edge when a voice spoke in Euskerian:

             
"Who are you, and what do you wish?"

             
Vakar saw nobody, but replied: "We are two travellers whom the villagers of Sendeu seek to murder. We thought you might give us sanctuary."

             
"You do not look or speak like peasants. Could you do me a favor in return?"

             
"What favor?" said Vakar, with a lively memory of legends wherein people offered some petitioner anything he asked and lived to regret then impulsiveness.

             
"I wish help in getting back to my native land."

             
"We will do our best."

             
"Come then; but if this is a trap you shall be sorry."

             
There was a movement in the shrubbery on the hillside, and Vakar started towards the fugitive spot of pallor. His rest had given him strength to pull himself up the hillside. The three of them—Vakar, Fual, and their half-seen guide—crossed the crest of the ridge as the dogs and
torches streamed past below. At the point where the fugitives turned off, the dogs halted and milled.

             
Vakar whispered: "Will
they
not .follow our scent?"

             
"No, for I cast a spell upon them. But come, for these spells are short-lived."

-

             
An hour later Vakar followed the satyr into a cave on a hillside whose mouth was cunningly hidden by vegetation.
The being rummaged in the darkness.
Vakar saw the shower of sparks caused by st
r
iking flint against pyrites, and presently a rush-light glimmered.

             
"I do not use fire myself," said their rescuer, "but when my lovers used to come from the village I found they liked to see what they were doing, so I laid in a store of these things."

             
Vakar looked. The satyr was a young female, naked, about five feet tall and quite human except for the horse-like tail, snub nose, slanting eyes, and pointed ears. He asked:

             
"Have you a name?"

             
"Tiraafa."

             
"I am Vakar and he is Fual, my servant. What is this about human lovers, Tiraafa?" Vakar found the habits of the near-human species fascinating.

             
"With us," said Tiraafa, "one must have
love
, much more than among you cold and passionless humans. Since there are no others of my kind hereabouts I encouraged the lustier young men of the village to visit me. Of course the love of a man is a limp and feeble thing compared to that of a satyr, but it was all I could do."