"As you say."
And they found nets and cast them. We cut three of them apart before they tangled us in the fourth. They drew them tight and moved in.
I felt my blade wrenched from my grasp, and someone kicked me. It was Moreby.
"Now you will die as very few die," said he.
"Did the others escape?"
"Only for the moment," he said. "We will track them, find them, and bring them back."
I laughed.
"You lose," I said. "They'll make it."
He kicked me again.
"This is how your rule applies?" I asked. "Hasan conquered the Dead Man."
"He cheated. The woman threw a flare."
Procrustes came up beside him as they bound us within the nets.
"Let us take them to the Valley of Sleep," said Moreby, "and there work our wills with them and leave them to be preserved against future feasting."
"It is good," said Procrustes. "Yes, it shall be done."
Hasan must have been working his left arm through the netting all that while, because it shot out a short distance and his nails raked Procrustes' leg.
Procrustes kicked him several times, and me once for good measure. He rubbed at the scratches on his calf.
"Why did you do that, Hasan?" I asked, after Procrustes turned away and ordered us bound to barbecue stakes for carrying.
"There may still be some meta-cyanide left on my fingernails," he explained.
"How did it get there?"
"From the bullets in my belt, Karagee, which they did not take from me. I coated my nails after I sharpened them today."
"Ah! You scratched the Dead Man at the beginning of your bout…"
"Yes, Karagee. Then it was simply a matter of my staying alive until he fell over."
"You are an exemplary assassin, Hasan."
"Thank you, Karagee."
We were bound to the stakes, still netted. Four men, at the order of Procrustes, raised us.
Moreby and Procrustes leading the way, we were borne off through the night.
As we moved along an uneven trail the world changed about us. It's always that way when you approach a Hot Spot. It's like hiking backward through geological eras.
The trees along the way began to vary, more and more. Finally, we were passing up a moist aisle between dark towers with fern-like leaves; and things peered out through them with slitted, yellow eyes. High overhead, the night was a tarp, stretched tent-wise across the treetops, pricked with faint starmarks, torn with a jagged yellow crescent of a tear. Birdlike cries, ending in snorts, emerged from the great wood. Up further ahead a dark shape crossed the pathway.
As we advanced along the way the trees grew smaller, the spaces between them wider. But they were not like the trees we had left beyond the village. There were twisted (and twisting!) forms, with seaweed swirls of branches, gnarled trunks, and exposed roots which crept, slowly, about the surface of the ground. Tiny invisible things made scratching noises as they scurried from the light of Moreby's electric lantern.
By turning my head I could detect a faint, pulsating glow, just at the border of the visible spectrum. It was coming from up ahead.
A profusion of dark vines appeared underfoot. They writhed whenever one of our bearers stepped on them.
The trees became simple ferns. Then these, too, vanished. Great quantities of shaggy, blood-colored lichens replaced them. They grew over all the rocks. They were faintly luminous.
There were no more animal sounds. There were no sounds at all, save for the panting of our four bearers, the footfalls, and the occasional muffled click as Procrustes' automatic rifle struck a padded rock.
Our bearers wore blades in their belts. Moreby carried several blades, we well as a small pistol.
The trail turned sharply upward. One of our bearers swore. The night-tent was jerked downward at its corners then; it met with the horizon, and it was filled with the hint of a purple haze, fainter than exhaled cigarette-smoke. Slow, very high, and slapping the air like a devilfish coasting on water, the dark form of a spiderbat crossed over the face of the moon.
Procrustes fell.
Moreby helped him to his feet, but Procrustes swayed and leaned upon him.
"What ails you, lord?"
"A sudden dizziness, numbness in my members… Take thou my rifle. It grows heavy."
Hasan chuckled.
Procrustes turned toward Hasan, his puppet-jaw dropping open.
Then he dropped, too.
Moreby had just taken the rifle and his hands were full. The guards set us down, rather urgently, and rushed to Procrustes' side.
"Hast thou any water?" he asked, and he closed his eyes.
He did not open them again.
Moreby listened to his chest, held the feathery part of his wand beneath his nostrils.
"He is dead," he finally announced.
"Dead?"
The bearer who was covered with scales began to weep.
"He wiss good," he sobbed. "He wiss a great war shief. What will we do now?"
"He is dead," Moreby repeated, "and I am your leader until a new war chief is declared. Wrap him in your cloaks. Leave him on that flat rock up ahead. No animals come here, so he will not be molested. We will recover him on the way back. Now, though, we must have our vengeance on these two." He gestured with his wand. "The Valley of Sleep is near at hand. You have taken the pills I gave you?"
"Yes."
"Yes."
"Yes."
"Yiss."
"Very good. Take your cloaks now and wrap him."
They did this, and soon we were raised again and borne to the top of a ridge from which a trail ran down into a fluorescent, pock-blasted pit. The great rocks of the place seemed almost to be burning.
"This," I said to Hasan, "was described to me by my son as the place where the thread of my life lies across a burning stone. He saw me as threatened by the Dead Man, but the fates thought twice and gave that menace onto you. Back when I was but a dream in the mind of Death, this site was appointed as one of the places where I might die."
"To fall from Shinvat is to roast," said Hasan.
They carried us down into the fissure, dropped us on the rocks.
Moreby released the safety catch on the rifle and stepped back.
"Release the Greek and tie him to that column." He gestured with the weapon.
They did this, binding my hands and feet securely. The rock was smooth, damp, killing without indication.
They did the same to Hasan, about eight feet to my right.
Moreby had set down the lantern so that it cast a yellow semicircle about us. The four Kouretes were demon statues at his side.
He smiled. He leaned the rifle against the rocky wall behind him.
"This is the Valley of Sleep," he told us. "Those who sleep here do not awaken. It keeps the meat preserved, however, providing us against the lean years. Before we leave you, though-" His eyes turned to me. "Do you see where I have set the rifle?"
I did not answer him.
"I believe your entrails will stretch that far, Commissioner. At any rate, I intend to find out." He drew a dagger from his belt and advanced upon me. The four half-men moved with him. "Who do you think has more guts?" he asked. "You or the Arab?"
Neither of us replied.
"You shall both get to see for yourselves," he said through his teeth. "First you!"
He jerked my shirt free and cut it down the front.
He rotated the blade in a slow significant circle about two inches away from my stomach, all the while studying my face.
"You are afraid," he said. "Your face does not show it yet, but it will."
Then: "Look at me! I am going to put the blade in very slowly. I am going to dine on you one day. What do you think of that?"
I laughed. It was suddenly worth laughing at.
His face twisted, then it straightened into a momentary look of puzzlement.
"Has the fear driven you mad, Commissioner?"
"Feathers or lead?" I asked him.
He knew what it meant. He started to say something, and then he heard a pebble click about twelve feet away. His head snapped in that direction.