He pulled his own robe over his head, and dropped it to the ground. Stooping over, he picked up the dry robe and put it on. He stood by the fire until the chill left his bones, then he picked up his own robe, wrung it out, then began drying it by waving it over the fire.
"Ah, yes, here is No One: bullhand, fortune teller, and laundry man." He laughed, picked up the jug, and took another swallow. He lowered the jug and looked into the flames. "Thief. Exile." He heard the splashes of approaching footsteps. He looked not toward the sound, but continued drying his robe. "I see you have returned, Tarzaka."
The splashing stopped. He turned and looked into the rain.
Tarzaka's trembling voice spoke out of the deluge. "How do you know these things, No One? You cannot see me."
He shrugged and turned back to the fire. "I am a great teller of fortunes."
She walked out of the rain, pushing the hood back from her face. She studied him for a moment, then squatted by the fire, still looking at his face. "You are wearing my robe, bullhand."
He laughed. "It's a dirty job, Tarzaka, but someone must do it." He laughed again as he took his steaming robe from the fire and felt it with his fingers. He looked down at Tarzaka then felt the blood rushing to his cheeks. "I... I apologize. I will return your robe at once."
Tarzaka shook her head. "No."
"No?"
She pushed herself to her feet, walked over to her pack, and squatted down again. From the pack she pulled a red blouse, black skirt, and multi-colored shawl. "This is my performing costume." She whirled her hand at him. "Turn around."
He turned his back to her and hung his head as he remembered the severely depleted jug of sapwine. "How can I repay you, Tarzaka? I meant no—"
"To begin, Johnjay, you can keep still."
His flush deepened as he listened to the fortune teller change. "How do you know my name?"
"Last night I fled toward Miira. On the road I met the Great Goofy Joe and his two apprentice newstellers fresh from Miira. It will not be long before your deed is known all over the face of Momus." She paused. "You may turn back now."
He turned and saw her dressed in her costume. She was bent over, squeezing what water she could from her long black hair. She stood and looked at him. "You are the son of Little Will."
He stared at her for a moment, then looked back at the fire. "If I am?"
"Then you know things that I do not. Things that I want to know."
"I am No One. You may call me No One." He squatted next to the flames. "Since you know who I am, why do you associate with me?"
She squatted across the fire from him. "I want you to teach me to read minds and to see the future."
Johnjay laughed. "Tarzaka, you are older than I am! You would make a strange apprentice."
The fortune teller's eyes narrowed. "I still want you to teach me."
He sat on the ground, picked up the sapwine jug, and took another deep swallow. The jug lowered to his lap, he raised his eyebrows. "What if I cannot teach you? It is said that those who can speak to minds are born with this ability. I do not know if it can be learned."
"You must try. That is my price for the robe and the wine."
Johnjay tried to push himself to his feet, but fell back upon the ground. He looked at Tarzaka. "Anything else?"
Her face went pale. "I want... I want to know what fortune you saw for me in your mudball."
Johnjay stretched out on the ground and laughed until the wine darkened his mind and put his demons to sleep.
Before it happened, Johnjay saw what was to be. The bulls curling their trunks under, the wild-eyed charge, May crushed—
"May!" He stood at the kraal fence watching his sister put the finishing touches on a drawing. He leaped from the fence and ran toward her. "May!" She turned and looked at him.
Was it the vibration of the soil? Gonzo reared her head, then curled under her trunk. The others followed, ponderous legs thundering against the ground, tusks scything at the grass...
His right sandal caught on a half-buried root, sending him sprawling on his face. "May!"
She disappeared in a cloud of dust, her brief scream cut short. Without thinking, Johnjay's mind attacked the bulls with images of legendary Earth beasts: lions, tigers, panthers, leopards. The images panicked the bulls away from May's broken body. The bulls trumpeted and ran around the fence as Johnjay looked down at his sister. He covered his face and sank to his knees. "Oh, oh. She... she hasn't any head!"
He lowered his hands, and looked at the bulls. They were quieting down. The sky and landscape turned red before his eyes as he sent the images of big cats once more against the bulls. The elephants screamed, fled this way and that, each time seeing the path filled with slathering, fanged fury. But there was one path open, and they took it. They came to the cliff. But to them it was a stretch of open grass.
Five plunged over the edge before Little Will's thoughts caused him to black out—
"No One. Wake up." He felt a hand roughly shaking his shoulder. "Wake up."
He opened his eyes and saw Tarzaka's frowning face framed by the ornate edges of her shawl. "What?" He looked at the opposite wall of the cut and saw the sunlight upon it. "Afternoon, the rain's stopped." He looked back at the fortune teller, then sat up, rubbing his temples. "Why did you wake me?"
Tarzaka pointed down the road toward Miira. "Listen."
He listened. Footsteps. Voices. He pushed himself to his feet. "Who is it?" He looked at the fortune teller. "Who is it?"
She gathered her things and stuffed them into her pack. "Goofy Joe, his apprentices, and those who travel with them." She shook the sapwine jug, glared at No One, then tossed the jug aside. She stood and pointed at a bundle she had made out of the gray and maroon bullhand's robe. "Your things are there. Come. We must leave."
"Leave?" He frowned at the fortune teller. "Why should I leave, Tarzaka?" He pointed at his chest. "I have as much right to the road as anyone."
She looked down for a moment, then elevated her gaze until her dark eyes fixed him with a hateful look. "Do you want to hear the news from Miira, bull killer? Goofy Joe was with the old show. Do you really want to hear what he has to say?"
He looked down the road toward Miira, his stomach heaving. Far down the road, from around a turn, walked a figure wearing the clown's orange. Then came two in newsletter's black supporting a third in similar garb. "What will he say?"
Her eyebrows went up. "Is that future blind to you? Can you not see that future, bull killer?"
He stared at the figures on the road for a moment, then turned, picked up his bundle, and began walking rapidly down the road toward Dirak. Tarzaka shouldered her pack and followed.
TWENTY-THREE
They walked in silence until the sunlight left the Snake Mountain Gap. As the road darkened and the sky paled to gray, the fortune teller touched No One's arm. He stopped and looked at her as though a trance had been broken. "What is it?"
Tarzaka pointed at a smoke-blackened circle of flat rocks by the roadside. "It is time to stop for the night."
No One looked back at the stretch of road they had just traveled.
The fortune teller laughed. "Be brave, No One. The news of your shame is far behind us. Goofy Joe will not travel at night." She walked to the circle of rocks, lowered her pack, and lowered herself to the ground. "Gather some wood."
He frowned at her. "I don't want to stop here."
She opened her pack and withdrew her leaf-wrapped package of cobit dough. "But here is where we shall stop, No one. Gather some wood."
He paused for a moment, then tossed his bundle next to the rocks and began picking up the dead wood that the storm had shaken from the trees above the gap. When his arms were full, he carried the wood to the ring of stones and dropped it. Squatting next to the stones, he felt the bed of the last fire. "It is cold. We must start our own fire."