The snow had stopped and the wind had fallen at sunset. The fire roared and sizzled and threw back a warm glow from the rock wall Grant's stomach ground contentedly. He pulled a piece of gristle from between his teeth with a grimy forefinger, surprised he could actually be feeling so well. His body was exhausted, but he enjoyed the pleasure of relaxation after continued exertion. He took a long drag of sour wine from the musty animal-skin container.
He had the salamander box open and teased the little animal with a twig. The indignant lizard blew out a little cloud of red flame, but he jerked his fingers away in time. He fed it, some tender splinters to soothe its ruffled feelings. It chewed the wood contentedly and let a little trickle of smoke out of; its nostrils.
The tiny lizard symbolized all his troubles. By the laws of reality it couldn't exist. Neither could these strange people with their impossible customs, nor the Berl-Cat, nor the spelt that Aker had used on the arrow. Either he was insane and this world was all a part of his tortured mind; or, if he were sane, he had been transported here from his own world in some unthinkable manner. Wherever here was.
"Aker, what country is this?"
"Ter-Klosskrass, Independent Free State of the Tyrant Helbida, Na'tunland. What's the matter, you lost or something?"
"Something." Grant went back to tugging at the gristle between his teeth. The names meant nothing to him. The names—they weren't English, yet Aker spoke perfect English. Well, maybe not perfect — but crude English. This must be the key to the whole mess.
"Aker, how is it that you speak perfect Xtylporf… I mean Hiiopmert. ." Grant stopped and rubbed the sudden perspiration from his forehead. Aker looked up from his sword-sharpening operation, slightly startled,
"How come I speak what?"
Grant knew what he wanted to say; the concept was perfectly clear. The English language, tongue of our fathers, Shakespeare, literature courses at Columbia. The English language. He'd say it slowly this time. . ENGLISH!
"UZQINNP!"
"You better give me the wine skin. I think you need some sleep."
"No, no. Aker, you must listen! Haven't you ever heard of… my country? The capital city is Rtyydbx, I live in. ." Grant didn't say it, he didn't want to hear it. He knew he would say something horrible that didn't sound in the slightest like New York. He could visualize the ideas so clearly, but he didn't have the words to express himself.
Was it amnesia? Or was it, the thought struck him suddenly, that he was no longer speaking English?
"What language are we speaking?"
"Why, High Na'tunlish of course. Are you stupid — or trying to kid me that you don't know the name of your own language? I can tell you were born here — no accent like me." He gave his chest a thumping blow. "I'm pure Thin tribesman. Slave traders stole me when I was a boy. I killed them later and became a Free Soldier. That's when I first learned Na'tunlish, so I still got an accent. Not like you."
Grant O'Reilly knew he had not been born here. He was sure now that here was not even his own world. This must be another world altogether, separate from his own in time and space. He wasn't sure about the details — it had been a long time since he had read H. P. Lovecraft — but this theory seemed the most tenable.
It also explained the language difficulties — or lack of difficulty. He spoke the language of this world, or this part of the world. Sort of like turning a radio to a different station. Same tubes and parts, but a different frequency going in, so different words came out. It was as if he had been tuned out of his own world into this one. The words for English and New York did not exist here; only their abstract concepts existed in his brain. It was all very confusing.
The wine and the warmth of the fire were making his head heavy. He pulled what looked like a moth-eaten bearskin rug out of the pack and wrapped it around himself There was another question he wanted to ask. He raised his head and opened his eyes.
"Aker, who were those men in the forest?"
The soldier growled deep in his throat like a big cat and spat into the fire. "Arkahar ghouls! They're the curse of these filthy woods. They test all the travellers they can lay their hands on and eat all the ones who fail the test. Something to do with their religion." He spat again, as if to rid his mouth of an unpleasant taste. "There are more of them in the valley, but we'll be out of their territory in the morning."
By heroic effort of will, Grant kept himself awake long enough to arrange the bearskin comfortably so that only his nose was sticking out; then, muffled and warm: he fell into dreamless sleep.
VII
In the morning it was raining: Rain dripped steadily from the mouth of the shallow cave, making long soggy looking icicles that fell off with a crash, leaving the dripping rock bare for the formation of more icicles.
The fire had gone out and the warmth long departed from the rock. The damp reached up from the sodden ground through the worn animal skin that covered Grant and drew the warmth from his body. He pried open gummy eyes and stared at the dawn sky, grey and dripping. He tried to go back to sleep, but Aker must have heard his movements. A prehensil toe reached out and gouged him in the most sensitive part of his chilled anatomy.
"Get up and start the fire." The voice was muffled, but the meaning was clear. Grant groaned as he hauled his stiff form out of the covers.
The salamander burnt his finger instead of lighting the fire, and he pinched its tail in retaliation. He found a small log, back in a crevice of the cave, and dropped it on his toe and cursed with a growing fluency for at least ten minutes. In spite of this the fire was finally started, and Aker Amen pulled himself next to it and heated up a slab of ham. Grant followed suit, then turned back into his blanket and shivered with comfort, glad that it was raining. There was no going out into the icy rain and Grant wondered, if there had been no rain, could he have picked up the pack and continued? He answered himself. No!
After breakfast, Aker hummed a war song as he cleaned the matted blood and hair from the spikes of his mace, and told a few reminiscent tales of the skulls the mace had crushed. The rain continued, so he went on with each of his weapons and pieces of armour in turn, telling the stories they reminded him of as he cleaned them. The life of a free soldier was close to the life of a bandit, Grant decided as he listened. It was a carefree sort of telling, but incredibly villainous by civilized standards.
He crawled closer to the fire and wrapped himself more tightly in the blanket. Every joint creaked with the motion, and though he was almost as hot as a toasting ham slab, he continued shivering in spasms.
"You sick?” Aker eyed him sharply.
Grant came out with an excusing lie he had thought of to explain his faults, a lie that he considered more than half true. "No, just out of condition. Weak. I was. . a prisoner a long time and I've got soft." He paused, ashamed but pleased by the respectful attention visible in Aker Amen's face, then added with a burst of worried truth, "I can't see why I keep shivering. I'm not cold."
"Stiffening up," Aker said casually. "If you don't keep moving around you'll be as stiff as a timber brace by morning." He chuckled, and reached a long arm for a branch from the depleted fire stack. "When you come back from collecting firewood, we'll have a little sword practice."
With every muscle creaking in protest like a rusting puppet, Grant dragged himself out of his blanket to look for firewood in the cold rain. When he came back, drenched and shivering, Aker greeted him with a blow of a light stick he had fashioned from a branch, and handed Grant another to defend himself with. Aker amused himself by swinging slow motion blows at Grant and watching him scramble clumsily to parry or duck.