Stories by R. A. Lafferty Vol 2 Part 25

"Treorai, why do you Rogha not simply annihilate the Oganta?"

Garamask asked the excellent Rogha in World-English.

"No, Garamask, I have not so much of the idiom as I thought," said Treorai. "Your question is simply incomprehensible in whatever language it is put. Ah, your guide has peeped out to see if you are ready. Grab him quickly, or he will go in and be back to sleep again. The Oganta are not morning types. And the sun should not find you still at Mountain-Foot. It should find you at least two hundred meters aloft. See that ledge there! It is a wonderful place to catch first sun."

"I see that it will be," said Garamask. "And it will take some inspired climbing to get there in time. If I live I will see you again, excellent one."

"High hunting, Garamask! A very strong hunter with a very good guide may kill the first three creatures. To kill the fourth, the hunter must transcend himself."

Garamask started up the Mountain Domba (the first mountain of the three-mountain complex) with Chavo his booming Oganta guide. The Oganta are rangy and solid creatures, and strength and endurance is their birth-right.

Say what you will about the loud oafs, they are strong climbers! And Garamask was a very strong man who had climbed on heavier-than-World worlds before. And ah, there is sometimes an advantage in knowing the Paravathlanguage imperfectly. Garamask could tune Chavo out. It took all his attention to follow the language, and his attention was mercifully on many other things as they went up. And yet Chavo laughed and boomed incessantly, like boulders clas.h.i.+ng together.

A queer and unfinished looking creature was this tuned out. The Oganta climbed, clawed and daggered and fanged and armored. That was the best way then. Garamask did likewise. He didn't envy the Oganta his youth and towering strength. Garamask had his own strength and he enjoyed testing it. But he envied the Oganta, a little, his fangs. Garamask had no such giant canine teeth to support the giant saber-fangs. He had no such bull-bowed neck, nor skull-ma.s.sif, nor b.u.t.tressed and ridged upper jaw to support such sabers. But he had donned a pretty good set of fangs himself and he believed he would know how to use them.

From one jagged turning, Garamask caught a dizzy view of Daingean City far away. The excellent Rogha had been builders at least equal to men.

Now their cities were almost emptied of them, and the oafish Oganta lived in them like animals denning. Then the jagged turning became even more jagged, and Garamask could not afford another glance at the city.

They ate aran-moss and cobble-moss, and pods of tiger gra.s.s. They chewed green coill-nuts for water. They climbed high and hard. Then Garamask caught the whiff and the spoor of the spook animals, and he knew it out of the cellar of his mind.

"Ah, this is the world you live on," he breathed, "and you are not imaginary at all. Animal who is no animal, I know what you are." Garamask slavered when he called out because of the great fangs capped to his dog teeth. "The old Creeks called you the all-animal, and pictured you as made out of parts of many. And men said you were the Asian lion, or leopard, or tiger, or rock-lion, or American puma. And all the time you were yourself, the legend animal."

"Who do you talk to, Papa Garamask?" Chavo asked in some alarm. "Do you talk to the grandfather of Sinek?"

"To the great-great-grandfather of Sinek, oaf. In the rain forests, they told poor men that your name was jaguar, but the poor men knew better.

In the old South of the Conglomerate States on World, they told that your name was puma or cougar, but the poor cracker-men always knew your real species. Spook animal, I come after you!"

"Papa Garamask throw but a rock into the thicket and it will slink off. It is only one of the sineks, it is not Sinek himself. He seldom hunts so low or so early. And do not talk to the grandfather of Sinek, or he will come in your dreams and eat through your live throat and kill you."

"d.a.m.n you, oaf, it is Sinek himself! He hunts low and early today.

Grandfather of all the animals, I fight you now! Panther!"

And Garamask charged upward, across a slide of moss-covered rocks, into a tall thicket of tiger-gra.s.s and coill-bush, to fight panther, the animal who exists only in legend and misnomer. On Paravath he used the name Sinek.

It was a long black male. This was no sinek who would bound away, who would not stand. This was Sinek himself, and now Garamask understood why there could be only one of him at a time. The spook, the spirit filled this animal completely, with nothing left over for any other.

Garamask drew first blood, clawing the black panther half blind, getting his elbow dagger inside the panther's mouth, trying always to stay inside the animal's forepaws. Panther got one side of Garamask's head, above the throat armor, inside his mouth, failed to hold, slid bloodily along it, popped it out, and took an ear off neatly. The animal would weigh a hundred and fifty kilograms here, a hundred on Earth, just about Garamask's own weight. Panther, Sinek, knocked Garamask loose, and he slid on the loose rocks and moss, very nearly off the mountain to his death. Then they were in confrontation.

Sinek was upground of Garamask on the edge of the firm rock; andGaramask was on the loose-rock fringe that slipped and cascaded and was now flowing over the edge like water. Chavo, the Oganta oaf, was chewing a blade of tiger-gra.s.s and laughing.

It was with amazement that Garamask saw intelligence, almost total intelligence, in the eyes of Sinek the panther. This was a person and a personage, whatever the species. The intelligent look was almost friendly to Garamask, and the two understood each other. They would fight to the death, but they recognized each other for what they were, excellent ones, superior ones, Panther, Man, Rogha, firstlings, not to be compared to Oganta or Swine or Sloths.

Garamask made the attempt to break out of his sliding strip. He exchanged terrific clawing blows with Sinek, got the worse of it, and came much nearer to going off the mountain as he slid reeling back.

"Fear you nothing, Papa Garamask," the Oganta Chavo called from where he had scrambled higher. "I will roll boulders down on Sinek and kill him." And Chavo did roll boulders, badly, inaccurately, dangerously. Then Garamask understood from the oafish laughter that Chavo was trying to kill him and not Sinek; trying to knock the man off the mountain with the rolling boulders, or to induce a rockslide that would carry him irrevocably down.

With a mixture of stark terror and upsurging courage that was peculiar to himself in moments of deep crisis, Garamask battled up the sliding rocks, greatly impeded by his arms, and closed with Sinek the panther again.

"I am as large, I am as strong, I am as armed, dammit, I am as animal!" Garamask gibbered. "We close together, good comrade. If I go off the mountain, you go off it too."

But Garamask was wrong. The panther was more animal than he. It was doing him to death in the close fighting, though puzzled by the throat and crotch armor. "Who waits below to eat out my skull, Chavo?" Garamask howled out furiously. "who waits below to crack my skull and eat my brains? That is not Sinek here. It is scavengers below me, and a scavenger above me, you!"

"Papa Garamask," Chavo chortled in a booming giggle from above, "fear you nothing. I will roll boulders down on Sinek and kill him." And Chavo was rolling boulders down on them both, grappled together, to kill them both.

Garamask was losing, slipping. He broke off his capping fangs and his own canine teeth under them tried to slash through the sinews of panther; and he was choked on his own sudden blood. He raked the animal with elbow, knee, toe, and heel daggers, and was nearly disemboweled by a back foot of Sinek that equaled all the dagger functions. For the last time he broke free from the slas.h.i.+ng, smas.h.i.+ng panther and rolled in a stream of scree, trying to keep himself on the mountain.

Chavo set a large boulder at him to help him over the edge. Sinek the panther came lithely for the kill, and caught the boulder amids.h.i.+ps as he flicked himself sly-footed along the edge of firm rock. And Sinek could not halt himself when he was knocked heavily into the sliding rock stream.

Sinek the panther flowed off the mountain and fell into gaping s.p.a.ce.

"Papa Garamask, I save your life," Chavo the Oganta chortled from above. "Now I must make certain that Sinek is really dead where he has fallen so far below. I will roll yet more boulders down on him, and down on him till I am sure that he is dead." And Chavo rolled boulders down at Garamask to knock him off the mountain; and the man scrambled in the sliding scree to avoid them. Three, six, nine boulders Chavo rolled down at Garamask, and then he had trouble in getting a fine boulder loose from its embedment. Garamask found a hidden spur of solid rock and went up quickly.

Chavo turned, and they were on a level face to face: Garamask b.l.o.o.d.y and crippled and earless, and full of muskiness and ghostliness, for part of the spook of Sinek, falling to death, had pa.s.sed into Garamask. And Chavo, what can you say of the oaf Chavo of the species Oganta? Could he meet Gararnask's eyes? No, but he never could have; all Oganta are wall-eyed. Didhe blanch at the encounter? How can you tell with an Oganta? But the light blue bloom that was his complexion had lost a little of its sheen.

"Why do you pause, guide Chavo?" Garamask asked as a waiting volcano might ask. "We go up, we go up! We have not yet reached the top of the first mountain of Three-Mountain. We have killed only one of the four prey. We go up, we go up!"

They went up. They wore out the day with their climbing. They saw sineks and sineks who bounded away from them and would not stand. But they did not meet Sinek himself again that day. Sinek was dead for the while.

Garamask took off his weapons and armor pieces and hooked them into his belt. Thereafter he climbed more easily. And just at last sun they came to the top of Domba Mountain, the first mountain of Three-Mountain.

It was a high plateau; it was another mountain-foot, for out of it rose the Mountain Giri, the second mountain of Three-Mountain. They ate bitter mountain rations and chewed green coill-nuts for water. They bedded down for the night, so Garamask thought.

But Chavo brought a stringed instrument from his pack and began some of the tw.a.n.gingest and most nauseating noise ever heard. He mixed his b.u.mptious; booming voice with it in a curdling cry, and Garamask; understood that he would not be able to sleep with this.

"You have convinced me, pup," he growled. "You have established one of the universal ultimates -- the most raucous noise ever. But is it necessary that you belabor the point?"

"You do not like it?" Chavo was surprised. "I pride myself on my music and my singing. We consider such to be dynamic perfection and cosmic looseness of sound..

"I consider it something else. The Rogha are said to be the most musical creatures in the universes. How could their co-dwellers here, you Oganta, be the least?"

"I had hoped you would like my music," Chavo sorrowed. "I still hope that you will like me. Reaily, we are likable creatures. Even some of the Rogha have said so, with a certain exasperation, it is true."

"You are crude unlicked calves, Chavo, and I understand your world less and less. Why, and how, are you killing the Rogha? For I believe that to be the case."

"But there are so few of them left, Papa Garamask! And they become fewer and fewer. So is it not imperative that we kill them, much as we respect and love them?"

"If there were millions of them left, would you kill them?"

"No, certainly not. That would be an abomination. Why should we kill them if there were many of them? They are so greatly above us that we will do anything or them."

"Even kill them, Chavo, to show how much you love them? And why did you try to kill me during my battle with Sinek?"

"For mixed reasons. First, you have a dignity of aspect, and you seemed almost like a Rogha to me as you were embattled there. I respect and love you almost as much as I do any of the Rogha. And then, it has been discovered that World-men will do as well as the Rogha for us, and companions of mine were waiting below the crag to tear you apart if you should fall there. And we Oganta have an impulse to kill those whom we find in a position to be killed. Very often we kill other Oganta simply because we find them in a vulnerable position. And this, I believe, is irrational of us."

"I think so too, Chavo. Several small rocks are dancing there on the slope. Do my eyes deceive me? Are they small animals frisking that look so much like rocks?"

"No, they are rocks dancing, Papa Garamask. Your eyes do not deceive you. Here, I will play my hittur again and they dance to it Hear! See! Is that not nimble music, Papa Garamask?"

"I'd call it something else. Dammit, Chavo, must I ask the obviousquestion? What makes the rocks dance?"

"I make the rocks dance, Papa Garamask, or my dark companion does.

Why are you surprised? The same thing is done on World?"

"If it is, I have not heard of it."

"But it is. On World, so I have been told, one young person in ten has a dark companion, and a World-German name is given to this. But in both cases, the dark companion is a satellite of self. On World, I am told, the fact is often hidden or denied. But here, where tile majority of us are capable of projecting the dark satellite, there is no way to hide it.

Besides, it is fun. Watch me rock and sway that bush as if I were a wind.

See!"

"Weird oaf, you have a poltergeist!" Garamask was interested in this thing.

"Yes, that is your World-word. No, I am a poltergeist. And I am also a visible creature. It used to be that, with time, we would give up one form or the other: stand clear of the dark body and be visible creatures only; or decay the body and be spook only. But now, in the time of waiting of the Oganta, we have both forms, and we are not able to go beyond these forms."

"This is a time of waiting for you, Chavo? What do you wait for?"

"To see what will happen to us. It is a very uneasy time of waiting.

It's so narrow a ladder, and so few of us can climb it at one time. And at the top, it is not, what it once was, not what it should be."

"I am going to sleep now, Chavo, and I do not want to hear your d.a.m.nable instrument or your voice again this night," Garamask said evenly.

"But how do I know that you will not kill me while I sleep?"

"Papa Garamask, would an Oganta violate the night!"

"h.e.l.l, I don't know what you'd do! I'm going to sleep." And he did sleep, angrily and rapidly and deeply. And in the deepest part of Garamask's sleep, Allyn loomed up there, standing a slight distance up on Giri Mountain. "Watch the raw cub Chavo," the looming Allyn called down to Garamask; "He is not so clever as was Ocras, but you are not so clever as was I." "I am every bit as clever as you, Allyn," Garamask told the appearance. "Now tell me what it was that you were so close to finding out when you died. Give me something to go on." But Allyn did not hear Garamask.

He had come to speak and not to listen. "I was so very close to it then, Allyn called again. "Avenge me on Ocras, Garamask, whatever he is now. I'd do as much for you." "I will continue my sleep, Allyn," Garamask told him, "and I do not want to hear any more dead-man talk from you tonight unless you have something new to tell me." And Garamask continued his sleep.

He woke eagerly and easily at first gray light. "First sun should not find me at this mountain-foot either," Garamask told himself silently.

"I see the ledge where I should catch first sun. There is always the ledge above; mountaining would not be mountaining without it. Treorai the Rogha told me that the Oganta are not morning types. Let me see."

Garamask hooted and hollered at Chavo, then kicked him awake.

Amused, he, watched the oaf fall back to sleep again, then kicked him awake the second time. "It must be my dark companion, it could not be myself who does this." Garamask laughed. "But it is fun." He finally roused the sleepy Chavo. They ate bitter mountain rations.

Clawed and taloned and spiked and armored, they climbed up the Mountain Giri. They took first sun at that ledge above. They rested. Then they climbed again.

Not entirely unpleasant, not so to a man with a strong and traveled nose, not really repugnant; but stark, tall, penetrating, slavering, rampant, murderous, challenging, of a grave-like putridity, of a life-terminal gagging, was the odor, the strong stench that began to pervade the climb on Giri Mountain. There was a person here making himself known. It was Riksino, the cave-bear, the musk~bear, the lord of this middle-mountain.

He was at home and he had his flag out.

"No need for me to ask what it is," Garamask said. "He's declaredhimself. Did I not already know it, I believe that I could guess his very name from his coded stench. He'll be easily found, and I didn't come on a bunt to bypa.s.s such a prey. How is the best way? To go to him directly as he waits, and attack him?"

"Papa Garamask, there isn't any best way to fight Riksino," Chavo quaked. "I, am afraid of this person and have always been. He is much rougher and stronger than Sinek or Shasos, or even than Bater-Jeno. He can be killed, he has been killed, I have had a piece of his killing before. But each time it is a great wonder that he can be killed at all, and each time I go in fear and trembling."

"It's catching, oaf," said Garamask. "I feel, a little fear and trembling myself. We'll skirt above, and we'll hunt down on him from above."

But Garamask was very uneasy himself, and his excitement for this part of the hunt was of a sinking sort. He was sick and fevered today. The breaking off of his fang-sheathed eyeteeth in his yesterday's battle with Sinek had swollen his face from eyes to throat. His whole face and head ached, his throat was sore, and he was s...o...b..ring through the unaccustomed gaps. Moreover, his shredded ear was bothering him. Even a very strong man suffers under heavy gravity if he is sick.

And they would have difficulty skirting above Riksino, and hunting down on him from above. Riksino was shuffling upward, keeping pace with them. His personal stench rose higher and higher. They had his location from it pretty well, though they could not yet see him. So they wore out a few tiring hours and ascended most of the mountain.

"This will have to be the Big Riksino, the King Riksino," said Chavo. "None other ever dens so high, and no Riksino will fight except in the mouth of his den. This is the first time that the Big Riksino has returned since he was last killed more than two equivalent years ago."

"You really believe that the same animals return to life?" Garamask asked him.

"The Rogha do not believe it, Papa Garamask, but we Oganta believe it And yet, it may be that when a Riksino grows larger and stronger than any of the others, he will go up and occupy the old den of the Big Riksino as a sign that he is now the king. I have fought with riksinos before, but never with the Big Riksino, and I am afraid. Be a.s.sured that he will be very large and fierce."

"I see him," said Garamask when they had climbed a while further, "and he is big. I'll go after him, since he doesn't seem to make up his mind."

"What you see is not Big Riksino," said Chavo, "and none other will fight while the big one is on the mountain. Besides, as you notice, he has not the full stench."

"1t's full enough for me," Garamask gawked out of his sore throat "I'll have him."

Garamask rushed the animal. It reared up roaring, half again the man's height. It batted big paws around in the air and opened a big mouth.

Garamask went in low, knifing the back legs of the animal with toes and knees knives, ripping its belly with his skull saber, delivering terrible blows on its loins with his hand claws. The animal toppled over backward, rolled, scrambled up, and ran away howling. And Garamask shambled after it, not at all able to catch it unless it should slow.

"It is no good that you chase it, Papa Garamask," Chavo called.

"That is not Big Riksino. It is only a pup that runs away like a pup. Do not waste the day chasing a callow pup."

"I seem to spend several days climbing the mountains with one,"

Garamask panted. He was tired, and he had been a fool. The real stench, the king stench was still high above him, and he had only blooded a whimpering whelp. He climbed, he climbed. Then the stench stood and prevailed. The riksino person was waiting, quite near.

"We are almost to the top of Giri Mountain" said Garamask, "and hisden cannot be any higher. We will reach that ridge, and we will follow it to the left till we are above him. It's all clear rock above. His den will have to be in that jumble somewhere just below the ridge."

They were onto a fearful and crumbling ledge, crawling along it, Garamask in the lead. It is an awkward sort of crawl with toe and knee sabers in place. Garamask began to sight in on the very large animal. He could hear it panting and gnas.h.i.+ng now, and he smelled it overpoweringly. He could hear it scratching big claws on the rocks; he could even hear the blood pounding in it, the strong pulse. But when he first saw it, paralyzingly close, it was the inside of it that he saw.

He was looking into the open mouth of it, a meter across, two meters below him. Then, in a flick, half of Garamask's nose was gone as he peered, fascinated, too close. The animal was in a strain with its forepaws extended as high as he could reach; and one of its high traveling claws had caught the leaning~over Garamask in the face.

Garamask had claws of his own. Angrily he raked the backs of Riksino's paws with his own hand talons when the big bear was extended on the rock as high as he could reach. Using his own b.l.o.o.d.y face for bait, Garamask counter-clawed every time the bear struck up at him. He found the animal slow and witless. The animal closed its gaping mouth once, drew back its great front limbs, and licked its bleeding paws. Garamask let himself half over the ledge and raked the animal's muzzle terribly with his heel saber. He half-blinded it with the slash, either cutting one of its eyes out or filling it so full of blood that the animal could not use it. And Garamask was back on the ledge before Riksino could slash out at him again.

The riksino bear crouched low on four feet, gathered himself, and leaped up toward the ledge. He got his great forepaws over it and hung on.

Garamask slashed the big paws pulpy with his foot sabers, and then gashed the animal full in the face again and again and again as it hung there. The paws slipped off, and the animal slipped back to the lower level. And yet it was of such great, size, had so much blood and meat in it, that this little whittling that Garamask had done could have very little effect on it.

"Bear, you're a stumble-b.u.m, but a big stumble-b.u.m," Garamask talked. "What? What? You're turning something else on? Have you more exudations than your stench? What do you do, bear?"

The riksino bear had reared up again and opened its great mouth. And now it reeked with an influence on another level from its stench.