In the far corner of the cellar he stopped, lifting rocks, scrabbling silently with his fingers in the intense darkness, looking for something. There! His fingers found the edge of the cloth and gently pulled the package up out of the soft dust. Kim shivered, knowing already what was inside. These were Baxi's. His treasures. He was not meant to know of them. Baxi would have killed him had he known.
Kim tugged at the knot and freed it, then unwrapped the cloth, ignoring the fear he felt. Another Kim—another self-had taken over.
Straightening up, he knelt there, staring down sightlessly at the items hidden in the cloth, a feeling of strangeness rippling through him like a sickness. For a moment he closed his eyes against the sudden, unexpected giddiness, then felt it ebb from him and opened them again, feeling somehow different— somehow . . . changed.
Spreading the objects out with his fingers, he picked up each object in turn, feeling and smelling them, letting the newly woken part of him consider each thing before he set it down again.
A tarnished mirror, bigger than his hand, cracked from top to bottom. A narrow tube that contained a strange sweet-smelling liquid. Another tube, but this of wood, long as his lower arm, small holes punctuating its length. One end was open, hollow, the other tapered, split.
There was a small globe of glass, heavy and cold in his palm. Beside that was a glove, too large for his hand, its fingers heavily padded at the back, as if each joint had swollen up.
Two strings of polished beads lay tangled in a heap. Kim's clever fingers untangled them and laid them out flat on the threadbare cloth.
There were other things, but those he set aside. His other self already saw. Saw as if the thing had already happened and he had been outside himself, looking on. The thought made him feel strange again; made his head swim, his body feel light, almost feverish. Then, once more, it passed.
Quickly, as if he had done all this before, he laid the things out around him, then placed the cloth over his head. Unsighted, he worked as if he saw himself from above, letting some other part of him manipulate his hands, his body, moving quickly, surely, until the thing was done. Then, ready, he turned toward the doorway and, by touch and scent, made his way out into the open.
He heard a gasp and then a shout, high-pitched and nervous. Three voices babbled and then fell silent. That silence was his signal. Lifting the globe high, he squeezed the button on the side of the tube.
Some gift, unguessed until that moment, made him see~ himself as they saw him. He seemed split, one self standing there before them, the cloth shrouding his face and neck, the cracked mirror tied in a loop before his face; the other stood beyond the men, looking back past them at the awesome, hideous figure who had appeared so suddenly, flames leaping from one hand, fire glinting in the center of the other, giant fist, flickering in the hollow where his face should have been, while from the neck of the figure a long tongue of wood hung stiffly down.
The figure hopped and sang—a strange high-pitched wail that seemed to come in broken, anguished breaths. And all the while the fire flickered in the center of the empty face.
As one, the strangers screamed and ran.
Kim let the pipe fall from his lips. His finger released the button on the tube. It was done. He had sent them off. But from the darkness of the slopes came an intense apelike chattering. Others had seen the sudden, astonishing brightness.
He set down the glass sphere, unfastened the mirror, and laid it down, then sat there on the broken ground, wondering at himself. It had worked. He had seen it in his head, and then. . . He laughed softly, strangely. And then he'd done it. He'd actually done it.
And it had worked. ...
He tore the cloth from his head and bared his sharp teeth in a feral grin of triumph. Tilting his head back, he let out a howl; a double whoop of delight at his own cleverness. Then, so sudden that the sound still echoed from the ceiling high above, he shuddered, gripped by a paralyzing fear, a black, still coldness flooding his limbs.
It was not triumph, merely reprieve. He was still here, trapped, smothered by the darkness. He coughed, then felt the warm corruption of the darkness fill his lungs, like a liquid, choking him. He stood up, gulping at the fetid air as if for something sweeter, cleaner. But there was nothing—only this.
He whimpered, then, glancing furtively about him, began to wrap the treasures as he'd found them. Only when they were safely stored did he stop, his jaw aching from fear, his muscles trembling violently. Then, like some mad thing, he rushed about the settlement on all fours, growling furiously, partly to keep up his faded courage, partly to keep away the prowlers on the hillside below.
It was then that he found the knife. It had fallen on its edge,
the handle jutting up at an angle where one of the strangers had dropped it. The handle was cold and smooth and did not give to Kim's sharp teeth when he tested it. Not wood, nor flint, but something far better than those. Something made. He drew it slowly from the tiny crevice in which it had lodged and marveled at its length, its perfect shape. It was as long as his arm and its blade was so sharp, it made his testicles contract in fear. A wartha, it was. From Above.
When they came back he was squatting on the sill of Baxi's house, the long, two-edged blade laid carefully across his knees, the handle clenched firmly in his left hand.
Baxi looked about him, his body tensed, alarm twitching in his face. The stockade was down, the women gone. A few of the bodies lay where they had fallen. Some—those on the edges of the settlement—had been carried off. Behind Baxi his two lieutenants, Rotfoot and Ebor, made low, grunting noises of fear. He turned and silenced them, then faced Kim again.
"Pandra vyth gwres?" What is this?
Baxi glared at Kim, then saw the knife. His eyes widened, filled with fear and a greedy desire for the weapon. There was a fierce, almost sexual urgency in his broad, squat face as he hopped from foot to foot, making small noises, as if in pain.
Kim knew he would kill to have the knife.
"Lagasek!" Baxi barked angrily, edging closer. "Pandra vyth gwres?" His hands made small grasping movements.
Lagasek. It was the name they had given him. Starer.
Kim stood, then raised the knife high over his head. There was a gasp from the other members of the hunting party as they saw the weapon, then an excited chattering. Kim saw Baxi crouch, his muscles tensing, as if he suspected treachery.
Slowly, careful not to alarm Baxi, Kim lowered the blade and placed it on the ground between them. Then he crouched, making himself smaller than he was, and made a gesture with his hands, the palms open, denoting a gift.
Baxi stared at him a moment longer, the hairs bristling on his arms and at the back of his neck. Then he, too, crouched, a broad, toothless grin settling on his face. The chief was pleased. He reached out, taking Kim's gift gingerly by the handle, respecting the obvious sharpness of the blade.
Baxi lifted the weapon and held it high above his head. He glanced briefly at Kim, smiling broadly, generous now, then turned, looking back at his hunters, thrusting the knife time and again into the air, tilting his head back with each thrust and baying at the ceiling high above.
All about him in the almost-dark the hunters bayed and yelled. And from the hillsides and the valley below other groups took up the unearthly sound and echoed it back.
KIM SQUATTED at Ebor's side in the inner circle of the hunters, chewing a long, pale-fleshed lugworm and listening to the grunts, the moist, slopping sounds the men made as they ate, realizing he had never really noticed them before. He glanced about him, his eyes moving swiftly from face to face around the circle, looking for some outward sign of the change that had come to him, but there was nothing. Rotfoot had lost his woman in the raid, but now he sat there, on the low stone wall, contentedly chewing part of her thighbone, stripping it bare with his sharply pointed teeth. Others, too, were gnawing at the meat that Baxi had provided. A small heap of it lay there in the center of the circle, hacked into manageable pieces. Hands and feet were recognizable in the pile, but little else. The sharp knife had worked its magic of disguise. Besides, meat was meat, what-evet the source.