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The travelers supped, laid themselves down around the campfire and were
troubled by no more than soft whistles and trills from the forest, and once,
far in the distance, the mournful call of the night-hounds.
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On the next day they passed across ten miles of violent rapids, during which
Tsutso ten times over earned his fee, in Reith's estimation. Meanwhile the
forest dwindled to clumps of thorn; the banks became barren, and presently a
strange sound made itself heard from ahead: a sibilant all-pervading roar.
"The
Slant," explained Tsutso. The river disappeared at a brink a hundred yards
ahead. Before Reith or the others could protest, the boat had pitched over the
verge.
Tsutso said, "Everyone alert; here is the Slant. Hold to the middle!"
The roar of water almost overwhelmed his voice. The boat was sliding into a
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dark gorge; with amazing velocity the rock walls passed astern. The river
itself was a trembling black surface, lined with foam static in relation to
the boat.
The travelers crouched as low as possible, ignoring Tsutso's condescending
grin.
For minutes they dashed down the race, finally plunged into a field of foam
and froth, then floated smoothly out into still water.
The walls rose sheer a thousand feet: brown sandstone pocked with balls of
black starbush. Tsutso steered the boat to a fringe of shingle. "Here I leave
you."
"Here? At the bottom of this canyon?" Reith asked in wonder.
Tsutso pointed to a trail winding up the slope. "Five miles away is the
village."
"In that case," said Reith, "goodbye and many thanks."
Tsutso made an indulgent gesture. "It is nothing in particular. Hoch Hars are
generous folk, except where the Yao are concerned. Had you been Yao, all might
not have gone so well."
Reith looked toward Helsse, who said nothing. "The Yao are your enemies?"
"Our ancient persecutors, who destroyed the Hoch Har empire. Now they keep to
their side of the mountain, which is well for them, as we can smell out a Yao
like a bad fish." He jumped nimbly ashore. "The swamps lie ahead. Unless you
lose yourselves or arouse the swamp people you are as good as at Kabasas."
With a final wave he started up the path.
The boat drifted through sepia gloom, the sky a watered silk ribbon high
above. The afternoon passed, with the walls of the chasm gradually opening
out.
At sunset the travelers camped on a small beach, to pass a night in eerie
silence.
The next day the river emerged into a wide valley overgrown with tall yellow
grass. The hills retreated; the vegetation along the shore became thick and
dense, and alive with small creatures, half-spider, half-monkey, which whined
and yelped and spurted jets of noxious fluid toward the boat. Other streams
made confluence; the Jinga became broad and placid. On the following day trees
of remarkable stature appeared along the shore, raising a variety of
silhouettes against the smoke-brown sky, and by noon the boat floated with
jungle to either side. The sail hung limp; the air was dank with odors of wet
wood and decay. The hopping tree-creatures kept to the high branches; through
the dimness below drifted gauze-moths, insects hanging on pale bubbles,
bird-like creatures which seemed to swim on four soft wings. Once the
travelers heard heavy groaning and trampling sounds, another time a ferocious
hissing and again a set of strident shrieks, from sources invisible.
By slow degrees the Jinga broadened to become a placid flood, flowing around
dozens of small islands, each overgrown with fronds, plumes, fan-shaped
dendrons. Once, from the corner of his eye, Reith glimpsed what seemed to be a
canoe carrying three youths wearing peacock-tail headdresses, but when he
turned to look he saw only an island, and was never sure what in fact he had
seen.
Later in the day a sinuous twenty-foot beast swam after them, but fifty feet
from the boat it seemed to lose interest and submerged.
At sundown the travelers made camp on the beach of a small island. Half an
hour later Traz became uneasy and, nudging Reith, pointed to the underbrush.
They heard a stealthy rustling and presently sensed a clammy odor. An instant
later the beast which had swum after them lunged forth screaming. Reith fired
one of his explosive pellets into the very maw of the beast; with its head
blown off it careened in a circle, using a peculiar prancing gait, finally
floundering in the water to sink.
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The group gingerly resumed their seats around the campfire. Helsse watched
Reith return the handgun to his pouch, and could no longer restrain his
curiosity. "Where, may I ask, did you obtain your weapon?"
"I have learned," said Reith, "that candor makes problems. Your friend
Dordolio thinks me a lunatic; Anacho the Dirdirman prefers the term
'amnesiac.'
So-think whatever you like."
Helsse murmured, as if for his own ears: "What strange tales we all could
tell, if candor indeed were the rule."
Zarfo guffawed. "Candor? Who needs it? I'll tell strange tales as long as
someone will listen."
"No doubt," said Helsse, "but persons with desperate goals must hold their
secrets close."
Traz, who disliked Helsse, looked sideways with something like a sneer. "Who
could this be? I have neither secrets nor desperate goals."
"It must be the Dirdirman," said Zarfo with a sly wink.
Anacho shook his head. "Secrets? No. Only reticences. Desperate goals? I
travel with Adam Reith since I have nothing better to do. I am an outcast
among the sub-men. I have no goals whatever, except survival."
Zarfo said, "I have a secret: the location of my poor hoard of sequins. My
goals? Equally modest: an acre or two of river meadow south of Smargash, a
cabin under the tayberry trees, a polite maiden to boil my tea. I recommend
them to you."
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