The Dogtown Tourist Agency Read online

  “A rather frightening speculation.” Janika looked uneasily up and down the terrace.

  Hetzel put away the tape. “Tomorrow we’ll visit the Kzyk, or at least look them over. But now let’s talk of something more interesting. Lljiano Reyes of Varsilla, for instance.”

  “I don’t want to talk about me…Though, for a fact…well, I’d better not say it.”

  “You’ve aroused my curiosity.”

  “It’s not all that interesting. When I wanted to leave Palestria, everyone said I was foolish and perverse, which may be true. But tonight at the Black Cliff Inn is what I wanted to find.” She made an exasperated gesture. “I know I’m not making myself clear. But look, up there hangs the green moon, and here we sit looking out over the Place of Wandering Dreams, waiting for ghosts and drinking pomegranate punch. At home I’d be doing something ordinary. No green moon, no pomegranate punch, no ghosts.”

  Hetzel had no comment to make; for a period they sat in silence.

  Across the moon floated a gaunt black shape on slow-beating wings. “There’s a ghost now,” said Hetzel.

  “I don’t think so. Ghosts don’t fly like that…It’s too long and frail for a gargoyle…It’s probably a black angel.”

  “And what’s a black angel?”

  “If I’m right, it’s the thing we just saw.”

  Hetzel rose to his feet. “Hunger is confusing both of us. I suggest that we have our dinner.”

  Within the ruins of the central tower, six iron legs supported a stone disk forty feet in diameter—the adjunct to some ancient Gomaz rite. At the center a post of twisted black iron rose twelve feet, to fracture into several black iron branches tipped with small clusters of yellow flames—luminous fruits on a grotesque tree. Hetzel and Janika mounted iron steps; a steward in green-and-black livery conducted them to a table spread with white linen, laid with silver and crystal.

  Hetzel looked up to see open sky, with wan moonlight slanting in against the northern wall. “And in bad weather, what then?”

  “In the rainy season we send people south to the Andantinai Desert, where they can see volcanoes and carrier kites and the Great Cairn. Vv. Byrrhis has thought of everything.”

  “Vv. Byrrhis is a very resourceful man, and no doubt very stimulating to work with.”

  Janika laughed. “He wanted to take me out to Golgath Inn on the Plain of Skulls, but I thought better of it, and he hasn’t been stimulating since. If he knew I were here with you, he’d be furious. Or so I suppose. Even on so innocent an occasion.”

  Vv. Byrrhis’ emotional problems seemed remote and inconsequential. “Whom does he think you’re here with?”

  “He didn’t ask. I didn’t specify.”

  The steward served a salad of native herbs, which Hetzel found pleasantly tart; a ragoût of ingredients beyond conjecture; thin cakes of crisp bread; two flasks of imported Zenc wine, the first yellow, the second dark amber swimming with an oily violet luster.

  Janika performed the conventional Zenc wine ceremony, pouring half a goblet of dark, wiping away the luster with a square of soft fabric, and immediately filling the goblet with yellow.

  “Except for the wine, everything is Maz produce,” Janika said. “When I first arrived, I thought everything tasted of moss and hardly ate anything; now I’m much more tolerant. But I still think of Varsilla sea bakes and pepper pots and yams stuffed with mulberries…Let’s take our dessert out on the terrace and look for ghosts.”

  The dessert, a pale-green sherbet, was served with goblets of a pungent hot brew steeped from the bark of a desert shrub. For an hour they stood on the terrace over the plain. They heard far wistful calls and soft secret hooting, but saw no ghosts. Janika presently went off to bed. Hetzel drank another cup of tea, and once more considered the translator tape.

  A most complicated situation, he reflected, with the parts not merely contradictory but apparently unrelated. High stakes were obviously involved; no one would go to such lengths to motivate Gidion Dirby for trivial reasons. And how strange that Casimir Wuldfache, whom he had traced to Twisselbane on Tamar for Madame X, should now play a role in the Dirby-Istagam affair. Coincidence? Hetzel gave his head a dubious shake. The unmistakable reek of danger hung in the air; persons who had evolved such elaborate schemes would hardly balk at a life or two; perhaps they had already killed a Liss, an Olefract, and two Ubaikh Gomaz. Double vigilance was necessary; he must guard Janika as well as himself.

  During the night Hetzel was aroused by the muted whine of an energy converter. He went to the window and looked out through the night. Across the sky, dim in the light of the low green moon, drifted the shape of a receding air-car. Odd, thought Hetzel. Odd indeed.

  In the pale light of morning, Hetzel and Janika breakfasted on the terrace. Janika seemed wan and thoughtful, and Hetzel wondered at her somber face. He asked, “Did you sleep well?”

  “Well enough.”

  “You seem very pensive this morning.”

  “I don’t want to go back to Dogtown and the tourist agency.”

  “We’ve got to go back to Dogtown,” said Hetzel. “But you don’t have to go back to the tourist agency.”

  “I signed a six-month contract. I’d lose half of what I’ve got coming if I quit now.”

  Hetzel sipped his tea. “Since you don’t like Dogtown, where do you want to go?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Varsilla?”

  “Oh…sooner or later. But not just now. I don’t know what I want to do. I guess I’m just in a bad mood.”

  Hetzel thought a few moments. “Vv. Byrrhis might let you break the contract.”

  “I don’t think so. He’s made jocular remarks which weren’t really funny. But maybe I’ll quit anyway.”

  “Vv. Byrrhis might be more cooperative than you expect. He’d get no benefit from a sulky or apathetic receptionist. In the second place…But why anticipate events?”

  Janika took Hetzel’s hand and squeezed it. “I feel more cheerful already.”

  Hetzel settled the account. Janika made a tentative effort to pay half of the bill, which Hetzel refused to allow, citing the generosity of his client, Sir Ivon Hacaway. They went out to the landing stage and climbed into the Hemus Cloudhopper. “Good-bye, Black Cliff Inn,” said Hetzel. He looked at Janika. “Why the long face?”

  “I don’t like to say good-bye to anything.”

  “You’re as sentimental as Gidion Dirby,” said Hetzel. He took the air-car aloft. “Now to Axistil by way of Kzyk castle. If we’re lucky, we’ll catch a glimpse of Istagam.”

  Janika showed no enthusiasm for the detour. “There won’t be much to see from the air, and it’s worth our lives to land.”

  “We won’t take chances, especially since a visit to the Triskelion will probably clear things up.”

  “Oh? What will you find there?”

  “The agenda, or the calendar, whatever it’s called, of the Triarchs. I want to learn how long ago the Ubaikh scheduled their visit.”

  “That doesn’t seem too important.”

  “There you’re wrong. It’s the critical element in the entire case, or so I believe.” Hetzel examined the chart. “We fly north across the Ubaikh domain, over the Shimkish Mountains, and down across this…what is it called? The Steppe of Long Bones?”

  “Because of a great battle a thousand years ago. The Ubaikh, the Kzyk, and the Aqzh fought the Hissau. It was a ‘Hate’ war, because the Hissau are nomads and pariahs who waylay bantlings of other septs while they’re trying to reach their home castles after being born…If burrowing out of a corpse could be called ‘birth’.”

  “How do the bantlings find their way home?”

  “Telepathy. Only about a third survive the trip.”

  “It seems a harsh system,” Hetzel reflected. “And the Gomaz would seem cruel and harsh, at least in human terms.”

  “Because we’re not fused telepathically into a single entity.”

  “Exactly. They probably consider us
strange and cruel too, for reasons equally irrational…There’s the Ubaikh castle, over to the west.”

  Janika looked through the binoculars. “Troops are leaving the castle. They’re marching off somewhere—perhaps against the Kzyks. Or the Kaikash, or the Aqzh.”

  The Ubaikh castle disappeared astern; ahead loomed the Shimkish Mountains—black shards above a tumble of pale-green and brown velvet. Beyond lay a plain of featureless gray-blue murk—the Steppe of Long Bones, which slowly expanded to fill half the horizon…A sound from the engines attracted Hetzel’s attention. The pulsors had become audible, whirring at the highest level of audibility, then gradually sighing down the scale. Hetzel stared in consternation at the energy gauge.

  Janika noticed his expression. “What’s the trouble?”

  “No more energy. The batteries are dead.”

  “But the gauge shows half a charge!”

  “Either it’s broken or somebody disconnected the conduit and then killed the batteries. In either case, we’re going down.”

  “But we’re miles away from anywhere!”

  “We’ve got the radio.” Hetzel manipulated the dial. “We don’t seem to have a radio, after all.”

  “But what could have happened? These cars are supposed to be carefully serviced!”

  Hetzel recalled the air-car he had glimpsed the night before. “Someone has decided that we’ve lived long enough. He left us just enough charge to get well away from the inn.”

  The air-car floated down upon the wind-scoured pebbles of the Steppe of Long Bones. The two sat in silence. Hetzel studied the chart. “We’re about here. Ubaikh castle is forty miles across the mountains. Kzyk castle is sixty miles northwest. Our best chance would seem to be the Ubaikh transport station on the other side of the mountains. The mountains are harder, but we should find water. There’s no water on the steppe.”

  Janika chewed her lip. “The radio can’t be fixed?”

  Hetzel removed the case. One glance at the broken plates was enough. “The radio is done. If you like, you can stay with the car while I go for help. It might be easier for you.”

  “I’d rather come with you.”

  “I’d rather you did too.” Hetzel scowled down at the chart. “If we had flown south from Black Cliff Inn, back toward Axistil, we’d have come down in the middle of the Kykh-Kych Swamp, with no chance whatever.”

  “We don’t have much chance out here.”

  “Forty miles isn’t all that bad—two or three days’ hike, depending upon the terrain. What kind of wild beasts might we find?”

  Janika looked around the sky. “Gargoyles live in the mountains. They prey on baby Gomaz, but if they’re hungry, they’ll attack anything. At night the lalu come out. Last night you could hear them out on the plain. And we might see ixxen—the white foxes of Maz. They’re blind, but they run in packs of two or three hundred. They’re dreadful creatures; they capture baby Gomaz and raise them to be ixxen, so sometimes you’ll look out on the plain and see naked Gomaz running on all fours, and they’re the eyes for the pack until the pack decides to tear them apart. If we meet any Gomaz, they could consider us field prey and kill us.”

  Hetzel rummaged through the various storage compartments in hopes of locating a spare power cell, but vainly; he found nothing. Descending to the ground, he searched the horizons. Solitude everywhere. He checked the charts once more, then pointed toward the mountains. “There’s a pass directly under that double-pronged peak. From there we should see a ridge which runs a few miles south of the Ubaikh castle. We won’t get lost. With luck we’ll make forty miles in two days, provided we’re not killed; I’m carrying two pistols, a knife and ten grenades. We’ve got a good chance for survival. I’ll bring the translator in case we encounter any stray Gomaz. Since there’s no point in delay, we might as well get started. If you’ve got spare boots, you’d better bring them. Also your cloak.”

  “I’m ready.”

  They set out to the south, across a spongy turf of black lichen. Puffs of dark dust rose behind them; their footprints were clearly defined.

  “Ixxen will follow if they come on the tracks. It’s said that they sense the warmth even after days.”

  Hetzel took her hand; her fingers closed on his. “I’m certain that we’ll reach Axistil safely, and you can be sure that the folk on Varsilla would marvel to see you now—tramping across the Steppe of Long Bones in company with a vagabond like myself.”

  “I don’t think I’m fated to die just yet…Who would do such a thing to us?”

  “Can’t you guess?”

  “No. Gidion Dirby? Unlikely. The Ubaikh? He would never think of such an exploit, and he knows nothing of air-cars.”

  “What of Vv. Byrrhis?”

  Janika’s mouth fell open. “Why should he bear us malice? Because of me?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “I can’t believe it. And never forget, the air-car belongs to the tourist agency, which is to say, Vv. Byrrhis, and he loves his SLU.”

  “In due course all will be made known. Meanwhile, if you see anything edible, by all means point it out.”

  “I’m hardly an authority on such things. I’ve heard that just about everything is poisonous.”

  “We can travel two days, or three or four, if necessary, without food.”

  Janika said nothing. They walked on in silence. Hetzel reflected that all his residual oddments of suspicion in regard to the girl might be dismissed; she would hardly subject herself to hardship of such magnitude. On the other hand, if she were the accomplice of Vv. Byrrhis, he might well elect to rid himself of her as well as Hetzel.

  The sun rose toward the zenith; by insensible degrees the Shimkish peaks and ridges came to dominate the sky. Meanwhile, terrain grew ever more difficult: from pebbles and sand and fields of black lichen, to low slopes grown with prickle bush and black waxweed, and the outlying spurs of the foothills.

  Three hours of climbing brought them to the crest of a ridge, where they rested and looked back the way they had come. Janika leaned against Hetzel; he put his arm around her. “Are you tired?”

  “It’s something I’ve decided not to think about.”

  “Very sensible. We’ve come a good distance.” He looked through the binoculars northward over the steppe. “I can’t see the air-car anymore.”

  Janika pointed off across the distance. “Look over there. Something is moving; I can’t make out what it is.”

  “Gomaz—marching in a column with four wagons. They’re heading in our general direction, but to the west.”

  “They’d be Kzyks,” said Janika. “Out patrolling, or maybe off to raid the Ubaikh, or one of the septs west of the Ubaikh; I forget what they call themselves. How many do you see?”

  “Too many to count. Several hundred, at a guess…We’d better get moving.”

  For a period the way was easy, up the ridge, then across a narrow plateau. Beyond rose the main bulk of the Shimkish Mountains, with the landmark crag prominent.

  At a freshet of water they drank, then continued to climb, now resting frequently.

  “It’ll be easier coming down the other side,” said Hetzel, “and a lot faster.”

  “If we ever reach the top. I’m starting to worry about the next ten steps.”

  “We’d better go on before our muscles stiffen. Like you, I’m not accustomed to this mountain climbing.”

  The sun moved around the sky. Two hours before sunset, Hetzel and Janika toiled up from a vine-choked ravine and out on an upland meadow, watered by a small stream. Gasping, sweating, smarting from scratches, stings, and bites, they sank down upon a flat rock. A sward of small heart-shaped leaves carpeted the meadow. A hundred yards east stood a forest of growths that for the most part Hetzel could not name: a few bloodwoods, with trunks dark red, and clotted black foliage; purple tree ferns; clumps of giant galangal reeds. A quarter-mile west stood an even denser forest of bloodwoods. Certain areas of the meadow had been trampled, and an odd reek hung in the air�
�an odor musky and foul, which Hetzel associated with organic decay, although nothing dead was immediately visible.

  From time to time on their way up the mountainside they had glimpsed wild creatures: bounding black weasels, all eyes, hair and fangs; a long, low creature like a headless armadillo, creeping on a hundred short legs; white grasshopperlike rodents, with heads uncomfortably similar to the crested white skulls of the Gomaz. A torpid reptile twenty feet long had watched them pass with an uncanny semblance of intelligence. In the ravine they had disturbed a shoal of flying snakes—pale, fragile creatures sliding through the air on long lateral frills. They had seen neither ixxen nor bantlings, and nothing but thorns and insects had caused them discomfort. Hetzel now noticed a dozen square-winged shapes wheeling through the air, with heads drooping on long muscular necks—gargoyles. They had glided down from a high crag, to swoop and circle a hundred feet above the eastward forest. Most unpleasant creatures, thought Hetzel. Their flight, so he noted, seemed to be bringing them closer to the meadow.

  Hetzel now became aware of a strange strident sound, shrilling up and down, in and out of audibility, to a complex cadence which Hetzel could not quite grasp. He knew at once what the sound portended.

  “Gomaz!” whispered Janika. “They’re coming toward us!”

  Hetzel leaped to his feet; he looked this way and that for a covert. The ravine from which they had only just emerged would serve; more appealing was a tooth of rock a few yards north, a little crag of rotten basalt, luxuriantly grown over with iron plant. He took Janika’s hand; they scrambled up the crag and threw themselves flat on the crest under the massive black leaves.

  At the same instant, the Gomaz emerged from the east forest—a column four abreast, marching to a skew-legged goose step. At the east bank of the stream the Gomaz halted; the ululating whine of their song diminished into inaudibility. They broke ranks and went to wade in the stream.

  Janika whispered in Hetzel’s ear, “They’re Ubaikh—a war party.”