While grappling with her, he smelled a faint perfume, very pleasant. Her body was covered with some oil, which made it difficult for him to keep hold of her. It was this oil that exuded the perfume, which, the longer he wrestled with her, made him the more excited. Unfortunately, the oil also made her slippery.
Eventually, she got loose and ran away. Then, just as he rounded a bend in the path, he was seized by her relatives. They tied him up with leather ropes and stuck the ends of sharpened bamboos all over his body until he bristled with them. Then the shaman danced in front of him and waved a sword. Deyv cried out with fear, though he didn't want to. The shaman grinned, and the woman Deyv had grabbed came close to him and dumped a gourd full of the perfume all over him.
The shaman's sword lashed out, and its tip raked Deyv's chest. He cried out with pain.
His eyes opened, and he knew that he'd been dreaming. But he still smelled the heavy perfume. His body felt as if it had been penetrated by a hundred bamboo ends. And his chest felt as if it had indeed been sliced across with a sword tip.
Aejip's snarling face was above him. Her paw raised and flashed down, and it struck him on the stomach.
Deyv thought that the cat had gone insane. He tried to call out for Jum to help him, but his voice was only a croak. His mouth and lips were very dry; his tongue seemed to be swollen.
Aejip struck him again, this time on the leg. Deyv tried to reach for his sword, but his arm seemed heavy. The perfume clogged his nostrils, and its heaviness suggested to him that he should go back to sleep.
The cat, still snarling, bit down on Deyv's foot. It wasn't a hard enough bite to wound his foot, but it was certainly not the love bite Aejip often gave him. It hurt, and it made him sit up.
His legs and belly were covered with things. They were about the size of his fist, if the long thin legs were included. They had small heads with long beaks, and these were inserted into his skin. A number of their dead bodies lay around on the fungus; their smashed bodies had squirted blood.
Jum lay beneath the window, at least twenty of the things, like huge wingless mosquitoes, feeding off him.
Deyv, still somewhat stupefied, looked down. His chest was bleeding where the cat had raked it. But she had done it to awaken him before he had been sucked dry of blood.
One of the things raced up his arm and leaped, landing on his cheek. Its beak stung him, and he slapped it. Its body spread out under the slap, and when Deyv removed his hand, the thing fell off. Meanwhile,
Aejip was rolling over and over, crushing the frail creatures attached to her body.
After that Deyv got to his feet and began striking the things on his body. Some of them were so swollen with his blood that they popped when their shells broke. Having gotten rid of them, though not those which were swarming on the floor and dropping from the ceiling, he ran to the window. He opened it all the way to help dilute the perfume. Then he pounded on Jum's body until his attackers were dead and the dog had been roused. Jum stood there, swaying and blinking for some time, watching Aejip and his master striking or stomping on the insects. Finally, he became fully conscious and joined in the battle.
He didn't help much; the things were agile and darted out of the way of his snapping teeth.
Eventually, the battle was over. Deyv stood panting, looking at the smashed bodies of at least a hundred of the things. There might have been more at the beginning, but these had gone out the window or into the next room. The perfume seemed to be fading away. His body was covered with itching swellings.
Though their fur hid them, the two animals must also have been thickly spotted with welts.
Deyv went out the window and covered himself with mud to relieve the itching. Jum scratched vigorously until ordered to stop. Then Deyv came back and poked around the thick woolly stuff of the fungus with his sword until he uncovered more fragments of bone. These lay deep under the growth, though he suspected that they had once lain on top. They looked as if some kind of weak acid had eaten them away.
All the nodules just under the surface of the growth had burst open. It was obvious to Deyv that these had contained the insects. They had been curled up within them, waiting for whatever signal the growth sent out to awaken them. They would descend upon the unlucky victim, sleeping heavily with the aid of the perfume emitted by the fungus. Then the things, their bodies expanded with blood, would return to the nodules. The growth would dissolve the flesh of the dead victim with some sort of acid. It would open its body to allow the bones to drift downward, where they too would finally be dissolved. Deyv didn't know for certain that this was the way events went. It did seem a likely explanation, however.
When he saw a half-eaten rodent in a corner near the window, he knew why Aejip had not been overcome by the perfume. Some time during the sleep-time, before the plant had emitted its perfume, the cat had gotten hungry. She'd gone ahunting, and she had returned with the remnant of the carcass to devour it at leisure. She'd arrived just as the insects were starting to feed.
Deyv patted the cat's head. "Good girl. You saved us."
Jum was too miserable from his bites to growl with jealousy.
There was no sense in staying even if all the symbionts of the plant had been killed. It would be impossible to sleep. He picked up his weapons and ordered the animals to jump out of the window. The cat picked the rodent up by her teeth and obeyed. But Jum acted strangely. He trotted over to Deyv and looked up, whining.
"What's the matter, boy?"
Jum fixed his eyes at a point below Deyv's.
Deyv looked down. Was he bleeding through the mud he'd plastered over his chest? Suddenly he knew why the dog was so disturbed.
His soul egg was gone!
6
LATER, Deyv figured out that the thief had come in after he and the dog had fallen into a semidmgged sleep and before the cat had returned. Jum hadn't smelled the thief because of the perfume's overpowering odor. It had taken excellent timing and great daring, but the deed had been done.
At the moment, and for a long time after, Deyv was too distressed to reconstruct the situation. Nor did he wonder then why the soul egg had been stolen.
Since he'd been a baby, he'd only removed the egg a few times, when a new cord had to be strung through the carved opening at one end. No person ever willingly let his egg out of his sight. When he was buried, the egg still lay on his chest.
To be without an egg was to be without a soul.
Deyv was a living ghost unless he somehow got his soul egg back. His own tribe would drive him back into the jungle if he appeared without his egg. He'd be doomed to wander alone, shunned by all, friend or enemy, until he died. A foe wouldn't even boast about killing Deyv or hang his head up as a trophy, since the head of a man without a soul was worthless. His killer would bury the body so that Deyv's ghost wouldn't haunt him.
Deyv had heard some horror tales about people whose eggs had been stolen by fellow tribesmen or women who hated them. This hadn't happened very often, and only a great hatred would bring a person to do such an evil deed. If the culprit was found out, he'd suffer a terrible death, and he'd be buried without his egg. According to the stories, the persons from whom the egg had been stolen left the House.
And they sat down in the jungle and grieved themselves to death within a few sleeps.
Stunned, Deyv squatted within a corner of the room and moaned. Jum whimpered and nuzzled him.
Aejip had returned to the room after eating the rodent, and she too was puzzled and distressed.