Before I went to sleep I asked him why people would come so far to try to kill us. "They are after the treasures," he said. He had recently outwitted the Pukawatchi, and they were angry. But all he was doing was taking back what they had stolen.
He said we must be alert for snakes. The Pukawatchi were expert snake-handlers and were known to use copperheads and rattlesnakes as weapons. This did not enhance my sense of security. Although not phobic, I have a strong distaste for snakes of any size.
It was not until Ayanawatta's time of watch that I was awakened by thin shouts in the grey, dirty dawn. Our pasture was heavy with dew, making the ground spongy and hard to walk on. There was no sign of our erstwhile enemies, and I began to believe they lacked stomach for their work.
Then I saw the huge copperhead writhing near the fire, moving slowly towards us. I snatched an arrow from Ayanawatta's quiver, nocked and shot in a single fluid, habitual action. One's body rarely forgets as much as one's mind. My arrow pinned the copperhead to the ground. Its tongue scented in and out between those long, deadly fangs, and I felt less conscience in killing it than I had in eating the birds.
They decided to attack at dawn in the north wind's chill, shrieking high-pitched, hideous war cries and swinging stone clubs almost as big as themselves. They fell back well before they reached us. These tactics were designed to put us on our feet and make us more vulnerable to their next strategy, but White Crow had journeyed among these people and anticipated most of their tricks.
When their arrows came pouring into the camp, we were ready for them. Instantly a fine mesh net was thrown up over us all, including Bes. The net caught the arrows and bounced most of them to the ground.
Two more snakes were hurled into our midst. I dispatched one with the same arrow I had used on his fellow. Ayanawatta killed the other with one of his twin war clubs.
White Crow was no longer interested in our attackers. He was roaring his approval of my archery. I had the eye and arm of any man, he said. He was making an observation, not offering a compliment.
The snakes were abnormally large, especially for this climate, and it was easy to see how the Pukawatchi alarmed their enemies. It quickly became clear, however, why they were not in themselves very terrifying.
Not one of them was over three and a half feet high! The Pukawatchi were perfect pygmies.
I had not realized from the conversations I had overheard that the tallest Pukawatchi could scarcely reach my chest. They were conventionally formed little people. Their scrawny bodies were heavily muscled. They showed a tenacity of attack which made you admire them. I assumed they had evolved in similar circumstances to the African bushmen. Unlike Ayanawatta, they were a square-
headed, beetle-browed people, clearly from a different part of the world altogether, yet they dressed in deerskin, with breech-clouts, fur caps, decorated shirts and moccasins. But for their features and diminutive size, they might have been any tribe east of the Mississippi.
The trick with the net gave us a certain advantage over the pygmies.
It did not much surprise me that the man leading them was not dressed like a Pukawatchi. He hung back in the grass, pointing this way and that with his sword, directing the attack. He wore a long black cloak, a tall black hat with black plumes, and his weapon was a slender saber. He looked more like a funeral horse than a man, but there was no mistaking that gloomy skull of a face.
I had seen him recently.
Klosterheim, of course. How long had it taken him to get here? I knew it could not have been an easy path. He seemed older and even more haggard than before. His clothes looked threadbare.
Their attack having failed, the Pukawatchi withdrew around their leader. Either the party had reduced itself since White Crow last saw it, or part of it was elsewhere planning to attack from another angle.
As one of the warriors ran up to him to receive orders I realized with a shock that, like the Pukawatchi who attacked us with
such vigor, Klosterheim was scarcely any taller than a ten-year-old boy! He seemed to have paid a radical price for his obsession with the Grail. A moment later he hailed us, his voice unusually high, and suggested a truce.
At that exact moment Bes decided to utter her outrage. Her huge tusks lifted. She raised her head and pawed at the quivering . ground. A noise struck our ears like the last trump, and a horrible stench filled the air. Klosterheim's speech was completely drowned. He could not control his fury. Equally, we could not control our amusement. Despite the gravity of our situation, the three of us found ourselves weeping with laughter.
The mammoth's answer to Klosterheim had been to utter a massive fart.
CHAPTER FOUR Strange Dimensions
Closterheim thought we were merely mocking him for the failure of his attack. Laying down his sword, he signaled for the Pukawatchi to stay where they were while he approached us. His expression was one of gloomy distaste as he reached a small hillock a few yards from where we stood. Here, perhaps unconsciously seeking to be at eye level with us, he paused. He removed his black hat and wiped the inside band. "Whatever sorcerer has blown you up to such gigantic proportions, madam, I trust the spell is easily reversed."
I was able to remain grave now. "I thank you for your solicitousness, Herr Klosterheim. How long is it since we last met?"
He scowled. "You know that, madam, as well as I do." He expelled an irritated sigh, as if I offered just one more frustration for him to contend with in this world. "You'll recall that it was some four years ago, at that angular house of yours near Englishtown." I said nothing. As anticipated, Klosterheim's route to this realm had been hard. I had a sense of his extraordinary age. How many centuries had he spent crossing from one realm to another in this bleak pursuit? His experiences had changed neither his demeaner nor, presumably, his ambition. I was still not sure exactly what he sought here, but my curiosity was high. Moreover, he was the only link I had to my husband, so I was relieved that we occupied the same realm, if on different scales.
For all his tiny stature, Klosterheim remained entirely solip-istic. His rigid confidence in his own perceptions and understanding was unshaken. He did not doubt himself for a second. He was irritated that I chose not to remember how four years had passed or acknowledge that I had decided to become a giant in the meantime!
I remembered Ulric saying, in the context of Nazi anti-Semitism, that he believed Klosterheim had served the Lutheran Church in some capacity until expelled. The German was clearly of that puritanical disposition uncomfortable with our complicated world's realities. It was a tribute to his great need that he had pursued this goal for centuries. Such minds seek to simplify an existence they cannot understand. All they can do is reduce it to what they believe are fundamentals. Their narrow reasoning demonstrates a complete absence of spiritual imagination. Klosterheim was the apotheosis of Law turned inward and gone sour. Was he aggressively determined to destroy Chaos at its roots and thus achieve absolute control, which is death? Chaos, unchecked, would stimulate all possibility until perception became nullified and intellect died. That was why some of us temperamentally disposed to serve Chaos sometimes worked for Law and vice versa.