Gaspar was not truly sorry for what he was about to do, but he felt a tinge, a small tinge, of regret. It was the same regret a man might feel when he must run a dont through the Voidlands knowing there was no water for the animal, and that the trip would kill it, but dependent on that animal while within the those stinking reaches, and living with it day after day, long enough to form a bond, especially if it were only the two of you against the world. Yes, form a bond, but the man always knowing the water in his belly was the only water there was.
That it, the dont, was a tool-a tool that had been bred a tool and nothing more.
The Farmers of the Valley were no different than a dont or a dak, when you came down to it. The only difference is that they could be clever, and might figure out that here, in these lands, they were mere tools. And they might not be pleased when that realization dawned upon them.
Better to keep them in the dark.
And when he was tempted to think that they were men like him, that there might be some other way, he remembered his family clinging to life in that little defile with its uncertain seep, and the daks clustered in the huts with them, and all of them, the tribe, the last of the Remlaps, waking to the paltry milking, the feeble attempt at cheese-making, the rare quickening and birthing of calves. He remembered the endless hunt the men must engage in with only scrawny beasts to show, and the perpetual scavenging of the children. Yes, the children, the ones that remained untaken, forced by circumstance, by hunger and the inability of their parents to provide, grubbing under rocks for the crawling beasts, the hard-shelled insect that at least provided a dollop of protein and fat. Yet they must always be careful, so careful, for everything in the Redlands cut, burnt, or stung-usually to the pain, but often enough to the death. An adult too, might die of such a hard life, but with a child something much more precious was lost, for the Remlaps were failing, forced into the Voidland, the last stretch of waste that a human being could theoretically live on-but more often than not couldn’t.
Gaspar cursed the fact that he was born into days such as these.
But here he was, and a man had to do what he had to do.
Which was, at the moment, make his way stealthily out of the Farmer’s camp after the setting of the big moon, Churchill.
It was not difficult. These Farmer Scouts were excellent desert travelers for Blacklanders, but they were not of the Redlands in the way he, Gaspar, was. He had escaped Blaskoye pursuers. He was confident he could throw these mere Farmer Scouts off his trail. In fact, they wouldn’t even realize he was gone.
Well, not until they noticed the missing maps.
He’d taken a scroll case with two of them rolled tightly inside. Of course he’d taken Weldletter’s prize, the evolving map of the Redlands. But also within was a far greater treasure. For Weldletter had let drop-casually, in passing, even! — that he carried with him as a matter of course a complete map of Treville District.
A tactical, military map.
And this was the second item Gaspar carried in the map case slung across his back.
Gaspar had had to leave while almost two days out from Awul-alwaha. It would have been impossible to get any closer and still be able to carry out his plan. If they were closer, the Farmers would have seen the oasis and at least have an idea of its location, if not the best way in. He had not dared to steal a dont, but he still considered himself a good runner and did not expect to have any trouble making good time. He would not be eating on the way, but the problem was the water. If he ran through the night, which he intended to, he was going to be thirsty by sunup and delusional by daybreak. He would have to take necessary breaks along the way and rehydrate.
Although the Scouts had been good at making use of the land, they were in many respects amateurs in comparison to him, who’d lived in this environment all of his life. There was a wealth of sustenance hidden in this harsh and arid land for the one who knew how to find it. The pricklebush itself was useful, for its roots could be exhumed, slit open, and the moisture got out. Best of all were the wands of the very plant that had been used to tie the unfortunate Schlusel males to the metallic rocks. These could be skinned and would provide a ropey chewing cud that would also relieve his fatigue and reduce the swellings of his joints from the running. If he were able to find a bayonet plant, he might even have a feast on its fleshy parts. He must keep his eye out, that was all, and he would be all right. After this was over, he could think about eating again.
He checked the stars and set off through the night. His pace was even greater than he had hoped, for he’d received a new pair of sandals from the Farmers, and they were proving most efficacious against the hard ground.
After several hours in the end have a feeling that something was looking over his shoulder, was following him from behind.
It cannot be the Farmers, he thought to himself. They were sound asleep as I left, and they will not have been able to pick up my track in the evening even if they did wake up. But he stopped running and looked back.
It was the moon called Mommsen, quivering on the horizon, about to set.
“Oh you,” he said, shaking a finger at it, “you shouldn’t stare at a man so.”
He turned around and continued onward, still at a jogging pace that would have put many a dont to shame if the creature had to make a similar traverse at night.
He found a pricklebush near dawn and dug it up with his fingers. The slight moisture of the roots on his lips was delicious. He abandoned himself to finding more roots for several minutes and dug up five or six more bushes. Suddenly he stopped and thought.
“They will know I came through here,” he murmured. “They will see the dug-up plants.”
So maybe he couldn’t drink after all. Well, that would be all right, because he thought that he only had another ten or twelve hours to go.
“It ought to be just enough to take me through,” he said to himself.
Onward through the harsh glare of the sun. This was a time of day that every instinct told him was not good to travel in. It was a time for rest, or at least to be in shadows while doing chores. It was not time to run with the bare head through the unforgiving Redlands.
Yet run he did, onward and onward.
And slowly the sun traveled across the sky, and it was afternoon. The visions started near sunset, and they were what he expected. Up ahead a woman beckoning him to keep going, to keep ahead of any who would pursue them. He knew it could not be his wife, because he had buried her in the sand after he pulled the Blaskoye off her and slit his throat. He’d been very angry to discover that his wife was already dead, and that the Blaskoye who had been raping her either didn’t know or didn’t care. He felt cheated, as if his rescue effort had not only been in vain, but had been a sort of joke.
Then the woman stopped appearing, and as he ran on, another form appeared, smaller. This, too, he knew could not be real, but it was closer to reality, and so closer to tricking him, for the boy-it had to be the boy-still lived as far as he knew. In fact, everything he did and thought was a result of believing that the boy still lived and that he was going where the boy was.
In the end he gave in to the boy’s beckoning and even called out once or twice in his weak, parched voice, “I’m coming.”
Then, well into the evening, after the sun set and the first moon rose, he saw the campfires of the oasis ahead of him. They were twinkling in the dark. Now a hard chill had set, and his yellow robes, thin as the scales of a ground-scather and fine for day, were no protection against the bite of the evening.
He ran on.
And that nagging feeling, that there was something behind him, returned. But now he knew that he was as far away from reality as he was ever likely to get and still have a chance to come back. The boy was telling him to come forward with signs and motions, and he was eager to do so. It was only when he got to the first outlying campfire that he realized he must now be careful, that the run was over, and the crawl and the shuffle had begun.