The War Hound and the World's Pain (21 page)

I went about and got hold of his reins, dragging him and his horse after me. But the Tatars were moving with astonishing speed and within minutes we were surrounded, staring at their mounts, which were not creatures of flesh at all, but were fashioned from brass. They had dead, staring eyes and creaked a little as they moved. The Tatars, however, were evidently flesh and blood.

“Those horses are mechanical,” I said. “I have never heard of such a wonder!”

One of the Asiatics pulled at his long moustache and stared at me for several moments before speaking. “Yours is the tongue of Philander Groot.”

“It is German,” I said. “What do you know of Groot?”

“Our friend.” The Tatar chief looked suspiciously at the glaring Sedenko. “Why is your companion so angry?”

“Because you chased us, I suppose,” I told him. “He is also a friend of Philander Groot. We saw him less than a year hence, in the Valley of the Golden Cloud.”

“It was said that he would go there.” The Tatar made a sign to his men. Pressing on either side of us, they began to steer us towards their village. “It was Groot who made our horses for us, when the Plague came, which destroyed all mares and lost us our herds.”

“Is that what burns yonder?” I asked him, pointing back at the pyres.

He shook his head. “Those are not ours.” He would say no more on the subject.

My opinion of Groot was even higher now that I had seen an example of his skill. I found it difficult to understand why the dandy had chosen to live the life of a hermit when he was capable of so much.

The mechanical horses clattered as we moved. Sedenko said to me: “They are not true Tatars, of course, but are creatures of the Mittelmarch, and so I suppose are not necessarily my natural blood-enemies.”

“I think it would be politic, if nothing else, Sedenko,” said I, “if you held to that line of reasoning. At least for the next little while.”

He looked suspiciously at me, but then nodded, as if to say he would bide his time for my sake.

The village was full of dogs, goats, women and children and it stank. The Tatars brought their mechanical mounts to a halt and the creatures stopped, still as statues, where they stood. Fires and cooking pots, half-cured skins, wizened elders: all at odds with the sophistication of Groot’s inventions.

We were led into one of the larger yurts and here the stench was more intense than anything we had experienced outside. I was almost driven out by it, but Sedenko took it for granted. I gathered that his own people had borrowed many Tatar customs and that, to a stranger, Kazaks would not be easily distinguishable from their ancient enemies.

“We are the Guardians of the Genie,” said the Tatar chief as he bade us sit upon piles of exotic but unclean cushions. “You must eat with us, if you are Groot’s friends. We shall kill a dog and a goat.”

“Please,” said I, “your hospitality is too much. A simple bowl of rice is all we need to eat.”

“You must eat meat.” The chief was firm. “We have few guests and would hear your news.”

I was amused, wondering what he would make of our real story. I had teamed in such circumstances to be a little vague, since oftentimes we had not even journeyed from any neighbouring kingdom, and thus could be unfamiliar with geography, customs and politics which might be the only experience of our hosts. We had become used to saying that we were upon a pilgrimage, in quest of a holy thing; that we were vowed not to mention it, nor the name of the Deity we worshipped. This way I, at least, was able to identify this fictitious god of mine with the gods of those we met. Sedenko, being still somewhat more pious than myself, preferred to say nothing.

As best I could, I described some of my adventures in the Mittelmarch and some of our experiences in our journey across Europe. There was quite enough for the Tatar chief to hear, and by the time we were setting to about the dog and the goat (both of which were stewed in the same pot, with a few vegetables) I think we had paid more than amply for our food and it was time for me to ask the chief:

“And what is this Genie which you guard?”

“A powerful creature,” he said soberly, “which resides in a jar. It has been imprisoned there for eons. Philander Groot gave it to us. In return for the gift of horses, we guard the Genie.”

“And what did you do before you became Guardians of the Genie?” I asked.

“We made war on other tribes. We conquered them and took away their horses, their livestock, their women.”

“You no longer make war on them?”

The Tatar shook his head. “We cannot. Even by the time Philander Groot came to us we had destroyed everyone but ourselves.”

“You wiped out every other tribe?”

“The Plague weakened them. We considered attacking Bakinax, but we are too few. Philander Groot said that with the power of the Genie we should not have to fear the Plague. And this seems to be so.”

“And what is Bakinax?” asked Sedenko.

“The City of the Plague,” said the Tatar chief, “It is where the Plague came from in the first place. It is created by a demon the citizens have with them. I have heard that they try to destroy the demon but that it feeds on the souls of men and beasts and that is why it sends the Plague to them. It sits in a sphere at the centre of Bakinax, eating its fill.”

“Yet your souls are untouched.”

“Quite. We have the Genie.”

“Of course.”

After we had eaten, the Tatar chief caused a brand to be lit and he took us to the outskirts of the camp where a little wooden scaffolding had been erected. From it, hanging by plaited horsehair, was a decorated jar of dark yellow glass. The Tatar held the brand close and I thought I saw something stirring within, but it might have been nothing more than reflected light.

“If the jar is broken,” said the chief, “and the Genie is released, it will grow to immense proportions and wreak a horrible destruction throughout Mittelmarch. The demon knows this and the folk of Bakinax know this and that is why we are left untroubled.”

He took a woven blanket and with some reverence draped it over the scaffolding, hiding the jar from our sight. “We cover it at night,” he said. “Now I will show you to our guest yurt. Do you require women?”

I shook my head. I had known no other woman since I had taken the Lady Sabrina’s ring. Sedenko considered the offer a little longer than did I. But then he also decided not to accept. As he murmured to me: “To sleep with a Tatar woman would be tantamount to heresy amongst the Kazak people.”

The yurt in which we were to sleep was relatively clean and had sweet straw upon the floor. We stretched out on mats and were soon asleep, although not before Sedenko had grumbled that he had lost considerable pride by missing the opportunity to kill a Tatar or two. “At very least I should have stolen something from them.”

When I awoke at dawn Sedenko had already been out, to relieve himself, he said. “It’s stopped raining, captain. One of the children said that it is only about a day’s ride to Bakinax, due west. It lies directly on our way. What do you think? We’re low on provisions.”

“Are you anxious to visit a place known as the City of the Plague?”

“I am anxious to eat something other than dog or goat,” he said feelingly.

I laughed at this. “Very well. We shall take the risk.”

I arose and washed myself in the bowl of water provided us, breakfasted off the rice brought by a shy Tatar maiden and stepped out of the yurt. The camp was only just beginning to wake. I strode through it to the yurt of the chieftain. He greeted me civilly.

“Should you come upon our friend Philander Groot,” he said, “tell him that we long to see him again, to do him honour for the honour he does us.”

“It is unlikely,” said I, “but I will remember your message.”

We departed on good terms. Sedenko seemed overeager to reach Bakinax and I suggested, after about half an hour, that he slow his pace. “Do the fleshpots become so attractive to you, my friend?”

“I would feel more comfortable with a city wall between myself and the Tatars,” he admitted.

“They plainly mean us no harm.”

“They might wish us harm now,” he said. He looked back in the direction of the camp. It was no longer visible. Then he reached behind him into a saddlebag and withdrew something which he displayed in his gloved hand.

It was the jar containing the Tatars’ Genie.

“You are a fool, Sedenko,” I said grimly. “That was a treacherous action to perform upon those who treated us so kindly. You must return it.”

“Return it!” He was amazed. “It is a question of honour, captain. No Kazak could leave a Tatar village without something they value!”

“Our friend Philander Groot gave that to them, and they gave us their hospitality in the name of Groot. You must take it back!” I drew rein and reached out for the jar.

Sedenko cursed me and pulled on his horse’s head to move out of range. “It is mine!”

I sprang from my horse and ran towards him. “Take it back or let me!”

“No!”

I jumped for the jar. His horse reared. He tried to control it and the jar slipped from his hand. I flew forward in an effort to save the thing, but it had already fallen to the hard earth. Sedenko was yelling something at me in his own barbaric tongue. I stopped to pick the jar up, noticing that the stopper had come loose, and then Sedenko had struck me from behind with the flat of his sword and I momentarily lost my senses, waking to see him clasping the jar to his chest as he ran back for his horse.

“Sedenko! You have gone mad!”

He turned, glaring at me. “They were Tatars!” he cried, as if reasoning with a fool. “They were Tatars, captain!”

“Take the jar back to them!” I clambered to my feet.

He stood his ground defiantly. Then he shouted wildly, as I came up: “They can have their damned jar, but they shall not have their Genie!” He dragged forth the stopper of the jar.

I stopped in horror, expecting the creature to emerge.

Sedenko began to laugh. He tossed the jar at me. “It’s empty! It was all a deception. Groot tricked them!”

This seemed to please him. “Let them have it, if you wish, captain.” He laughed harder. “What a splendid joke. I knew Philander Groot was a fellow after my own heart.”

Now, as I held the jar, I saw tiny, pale hands clutching at the rim. I looked down into it. There was a small, helpless, fading thing. As the air reached it, it was evidently dying. It was manlike in form, but naked and thin. A tiny, mewling noise escaped its wizened lips and I thought I detected a word or two. Then the miniature hands slipped from the rim and the creature fell to the bottom of the jar where it began to shiver.

There was nothing for it but to replace the stopper. I looked at Sedenko in disgust.

“Empty!” He guffawed. “Empty, captain. Oh, let me take it back to them. I threatened to ruin Groot’s joke.”

I forced the stopper down into the jar and held the thing out to Sedenko. “Empty,” said I. “Take it back then, Kazak.”

He dropped the jar into his saddlebag, mounted his horse and rode away at that breakneck pace he and his kind preferred.

I waited for some forty minutes, then I continued on westward, towards Bakinax, not much caring at that moment if Sedenko survived or not. I had consulted my maps. Bakinax lay not much more than a week’s ride from the Forest at the Edge of Heaven.

My foreboding grew, however, as I came closer to the city.

Sedenko, grinning all over his face, soon caught me up.

“They had not noticed its disappearance,” he said. “Is not Philander Groot a wily fellow, captain?”

“Oh, indeed,” said I. It seemed to me that Groot had had his own reasons for deceiving the Tatars. By means of that Genie, alive or dead, they survived and the people of Bakinax dared not attack them. Groot had given the Tatars life and a reason, of sorts, for living. My admiration for the dandy, as well as my curiosity about him, continued to increase.

The vast plain was behind us at long last when we came to a land of dry grass and hillocks and thousands of tiny streams. It had begun to rain again.

I reflected that the Mittelmarch appeared to have become bleaker in the year of our journey. It was as if less could grow here, as if the soul of the Realm were being sucked from it. I told myself that all I witnessed was a difference of geography, but I was not in my bones content with that at all.

In the evening we saw a city ahead of us and knew that it must be Bakinax.

We rode through the streets in the moonlight. The place seemed very still. We stopped a man who, with a burning torch in each hand, went drunkenly homeward. He spoke a language we could not understand, but by means of signs we got directions from him and found for ourselves a lodging for the night: a small, ill-smelling inn.

In the morning, as we breakfasted from strange cheeses and mysterious meats, we were interrupted by the entrance of five or six men in identical surcoats, bearing halberds, with morion helmets decorated by feathers, their hands and feet both mailed. They made it plain that we were to go with them.

Sedenko was for fighting, but I saw no point. Our horses had been stabled while we slept and we had no knowledge of their exact whereabouts. Moreoever, this whole country was alien to us. I had, as had become my habit, all Lucifer’s gifts about my person and my sword was at my side, so that I did not feel entirely vulnerable as I rose, wiped my lips and bowed to the soldiers as an indication that we were ready to accompany them.

The streets of Bakinax, seen in daylight, were narrow and none too clean. Ragged children with thin, hungry faces stopped to look at us as we passed and old people, in rags for the most part, gaped. It was not an unusually despondent place, this city, compared to many I had seen in Europe, but neither did it seem a cheerful one. There was an atmosphere of gloom hanging over it and I thought it well-named the City of the Plague.

We were escorted through the main square where, upon a great wooden dais, stood a huge globe of dull, unpleasant metal, guarded by soldiers in the same uniform as those who now surrounded us. The square was otherwise empty of citizens.

“That must be the house of the devil the Tatar mentioned,” whispered Sedenko to me. “Do you really think it lives on the souls of the people hereabouts, captain?”