“Was that really necessary?” Colt said. Sharol paid him no mind. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.
“Where are we going?”
“We need to find some mud,” Sharol said.
“Mud?”
“And we need,” Sharol said, and grinned again as he swung the head back and forth, back and forth with his good hand, “to find ourselves a witch.”
2.
THE MUD STANK. IT REEKED OF FETID WATER AND DECOMPOSING plant and animal matter. Colt and Sharol were nestling in the shallow of the swamp. Their clothes lay in an untidy heap on the bank nearby, though Colt kept his gun near. The dead man’s head was in a sack drawn with a string. Overhead the sky was a violent shade of purple and lightning flashed in the distance, heralding the coming of yet another storm.
They were two days away from Port Smith, deep into the Venusian jungles. The mud itched where it covered Colt’s burns. It was healing them. Sharol, beside him, was peacefully puffing on a cigar, his arm entirely encased in thick, grey mud. Colt’s toes stuck out of the water. Beyond them he could see the reeds of the swamp, and, here and there, the water predators circling, unseen. Sometimes a tentacle broke the surface, thick and veined, before dropping into the depths again. “If you don’t bother them, they won’t bother you,” Sharol said. His naked chest was scarred with old wounds, much like Colt’s. His nipples were small and hard. Colt looked away. When he peeled the mud off, new skin was forming over the burns. “Remarkable.”
“Venus,” Sharol said, “has many depths.” Colt eyed the swamp as another tentacle rose to the surface. It was immense, and he did not like the thought of the underwater creature it belonged to. “I’m sure,” he said.
“Relax!” Sharol replied. “Here, give me your back.” Colt turned, and Sharol began to apply mud to Colt’s skin. The water was as warm as a bath, and Sharol’s fingers dug deep into Colt’s skin, releasing a pressure Colt hadn’t even realized was there. He sighed in satisfaction. “Don’t stop,” he said.
They remained in the water for some time. When they were done, they washed off the mud and dried themselves on the banks of the swamp. The sun was setting, the sky awash with blood-red hues. In the swamp, a majestic creature was rising to the surface, as large as a ship. Its domelike head had a beak and enormous red eyes. Around the creature, tentacles rose up to the surface, moving sinuously, creating waves. The beak opened and a forlorn cry sounded, piercing the night. “It is the cry of the Dwellers,” Sharol said. There was a sadness, as well as love, in his voice. “Listen.” Colt did, and became aware of other, distant cries rising into the air in answer. “They are calling to each other, as they do, each night, across the world. But each year there are fewer and fewer to answer the call.”
Colt stared ahead. The creature, this Dweller, raised its massive bulbous head toward the unseen stars, crying in a language Colt could not understand. He cleared his throat, embarrassed, perhaps, at the Venusian’s naked display of emotion. “Earth’s colonial policy is not my prerogative …” he began, awkwardly.
“I know, Earthman,” Sharol said, and there was bitter mockery in his voice. “You mean well, you all do, children of Earth, reaching for the stars. So enthusiastic, so sure of yourselves. Like overgrown toddlers, you mean us well … and yet, you continue to come.”
Colt flexed his arm. His new skin tingled. There was a fortune to be made in Venusian mud, if it could be exported off-world. There were other places like Port Smith all around the continents of Venus, now. New Earth colonies on this once-grand world, existing on the sufferance of Venus’s ancient, decaying civilization. One day the swamps would be drained, their Dwellers processed into dried-up delicacies for the enjoyment of the off-world rich, their mud packaged and sold in minute quantities for those who could afford its healing properties … He clapped Sharol on the back, for those days were not yet, and perhaps, he thought, would never come to be. “Believe me,” he said, “I have no desire to stay on this stinking mudball of a planet any more than I have to. I’m light of funds, I’ve been shot at and nearly killed and I don’t even know why, and we’re carrying a dead man’s head in a pouch. Where is this damned witch?”
Sharol laughed. Overhead, the sky darkened as the unseen sun sank beyond the clouds. “Oh, Earthman,” he said, but not without genuine fondness. “Like a toddler, you look, but you do not see.”
“See what?” Colt said.
Sharol, wordlessly, pointed.
Colt squinted. In the dim light, the Dweller seemed to grow more immense, rising higher, like a lotus flower opening at night. And then he saw her—a lighter shade against the monster’s own. A female figure, nude and lithe, hairless and smooth, her skin the same shade of violet as Sharol’s own. She was perched on the Dweller’s mantle, and her long, reddish-violet hair caught the rays of dying sunlight through the clouds and momentarily shone. For a moment, Colt forgot to breathe. With a graceful movement, the female Venusian dove, headfirst, into the water of the swamp. With strong, economical strokes, she swam toward them and soon climbed on shore, her body shining with droplets of water like tiny diamonds. He had expected a witch—he had not expected to be bewitched instead! The swampwoman smiled, revealing small, sharp teeth. “Welcome back, Sharol,” she said. “You bring strange friends.”
The Venusian inched his head in reply. “An empty head, and a dead one,” he said, grinning. “This is Colt, the Earthman. Who our companion is, I do not yet know.”
“And so you came seeking me.” She turned her attention away from him, abruptly, transferring her gaze to Colt’s. Her eyes were fever-bright; her scrutiny discomfited Colt. “I would have come to you earlier,” she said, “but I was observing your proclivities in the shallows, and, well … I thought it best to wait.”
Colt found himself blushing. Sharol grinned harder. “This,” he said, “is my sister, Yaro.”
“A pleasure,” Colt said. “Ma’am.”
But again her attention snapped away, this time to the sack in Sharol’s hand. “A dead man walking, who yet did not know it …” she said. “Who of us, walking around, alive under the scarlet skies, can ever truly name the time of our demise?”
“We were hoping,” Sharol said, “to find out where he came from.”
“Still hunting for treasure, brother?”
“Sure,” Sharol said, easily. “Only this time, I have a partner.”
Again, she cast that quick, mayfly glance at Colt, and away. She turned abruptly. “Come,” she said. She led them through a narrow trail, away from the swamp, into the jungle.
There was nothing for them to do but follow.
3.
THE WITCH’S HOUSE SAT DEEP IN THE WOODS. BEYOND THE forest, far in the distance, rose a range of volcanic mountains. At their base stood Earth’s last settlement on this Venusian continent, which the Earthmen had called Lucille Town, perhaps named by its founder for some long bygone sweetheart. Beyond it lay only the unknown of the primeval Venusian wildlands.
“There is no Sunday west of Lucille Town,” so the colonists said, “and no God west of Port Smith.”