The Many-Coloured Land Read online

  "All that meat on the hoof," Felice marveled. "And only a few big cats and hyenas and bear-dogs for natural enemies. A hunter would never starve in this world."

  "Starving," the nun said dourly, "hardly seems to be the problem." She hoisted her skirt and began to massage her thighs by pounding them with the sides of her hands.

  "Poor Amerie. Of course I know what the problem is. I've been working on it. Watch this."

  As the nun stared, puzzled, Felice's chalicothere drifted casually toward her own until the sides of the two animals touched lightly. Then Felice's mount moved away, maintaining its steady pace as it trotted a good arm's length to the left of its proper position in line. After just half a minute of this aberrant movement, the beast slipped back into its normal caravan slot. It moved sedately for a few moments, then broke stride so that it decreased the distance between it and the animal ahead by a meter and a half. The chaliko continued tailgating while Amerie began to comprehend what was happening. It fell back into its usual place just as a suspicious bear-dog let out a howl.

  "Mamma mia," murmured the nun. "Can the soldiers tell you're doing it?"

  "Nobody's fighting my override of their control. There probably is no feedback at all, just the preset command for the entire train that keeps them moving at speed in the selected intervals. You remember when those blue partridges spooked the chalikos early last evening? The guards came back to see that we were all properly lined up again. They wouldn't have had to do that if they had feedback from our mounts."

  "True. But . . ."

  "Hang onto your wimple. Now it's your turn."

  Amerie's pain and spiritual malaise were swept away in a sudden wash of hope, for her own chalicothere was now duplicating the earlier motions of Felice's animal. When the eerie solo dance had been completed, both of the creatures performed identical maneuvers in concert.

  "Te deum laudamus," Amerie whispered. "You just might pull it off, child. But can you reach them?" She nodded in the direction of the nearest amphicyon.

  "It's going to be hard. Harder than anything I ever did back in the arena on Acadie. But I'm older now." At least four months older. And it isn't a stupid game anymore with me hoping that they'd learn to care instead of only being afraid. But here she is now trusting and even the others would if only they knew. They would trust and admire. But how to test? Must not give the thing away. So hard. Which way would be best?

  The bear-dog running twenty meters off Felice's left flank came slowly closer, lolling tongue dripping saliva. The brute was nearly exhausted after its long trek. Its wits were slowed and its willpower diminished. The pricking within its mind that urged it onward and kept it alert was being callused round with fatigue and hunger. The call to duty was now weak in comparison to the promise of high meat in the trough and a bed of dry grass in a shady place.

  The amphicyon ranged closer and closer to Felice's chaliko. It whimpered and snorted when it realized that it had lost control of itself, shaking its ugly head as though trying to dislodge pesky insects. The heavy jaws clashed, scattering slobber; but still it came closer, pacing together with the chaliko in the dust cloud that swirled about the mount's clawed feet. The amphicyon glared in helpless rage at the small human sitting high above it, the human that was forcing, bending, compelling. It growled its fury, curling its lip above discolored teeth almost the size of Felice's fingers.

  She let it go.

  The effort had dimmed her vision, and her head ached abominably from the resistance of the stubborn carnivore mind. But . . .!

  "You did that, didn't you," Amerie said.

  Felice nodded. "Damn hard, though. The things aren't on light auto-pilot like the chalikos. It was fighting me every minute. Bear-dogs must work by training-conditioning. That's harder to crack because it's well bedded in the subconscious mind. But I think I've got it figured. Best to go after them when they're worn out, at the end of the day's travel. If I can hang onto two, or even more . . ."

  Amerie gave a helpless gesture. It was incomprehensible to the nun, this direct impact of mind upon mind, this operation of a power beyond her own mental capability. What would it be like to be a metapsychic, even an imperfect one such as Felice? To manipulate other living things? To move and reform inanimate matter? What would it be like to really create, not merely the ghost of a hiking boot, as she had done with the aid of Epone's device, but a substantial illusion, or even matter and energy themselves? What would it be like to link in Unity with other minds? To probe brains? To enjoy angelic powers?

  A bright planet shone in the east near the rising sun. Venus . . . no, call it by its other, more ancient name: Lucifer, bright angel of morning. Amerie felt a tiny frisson of fear.

  Lead her not into temptation, but forgive us as we warm ourselves at Felice's fire, even as she burns . . .

  The caravan marched down into the lowland, off the plateau into another river valley that opened westward through the Monts du Charolais. The scattered dwarf palmettos, pines, and locust trees of the heights gave way to maples and poplars, walnuts and oaks, and finally to a deep humid forest with sour-gum, bald cypress, thickets of bamboo, and huge old tulip trees more than four meters in diameter. Lush shrubbery abounded, making the landscape seem the very exemplar of a primeval jungle. Amerie kept expecting dinosaurs or winged reptiles to appear, knowing at the same time that the notion was idiotic. The Pliocene fauna, when you came down to it, was very similar to that of the replenished Earth six million years in the future.

  The riders caught glimpses of small deer with bifurcated horns, a porcupine, and a gigantic sow followed by cunning striped piglets. A troop of medium-sized monkeys swung through the upper storey of the woods, following the caravan and shrieking but never coming close enough to be seen clearly. In some places shrubs and small trees had been uprooted and stripped of green. Piles of droppings smelling of elephant identified this as the work of mastodons. A feline roar of uncanny power caused the bear-dogs to howl back defiantly. Was it machairodus, one of the leonine sabertooth cats that were the commonest large predators of the Pliocene?

  After the prison-like environment of the castle and the numbing transition of the night journey, the time-travelers now became aware of a new feeling that overcame even their fatigue and soreness and the memory of broken hopes. This forest, pierced by the slanting rays of morning sunlight, was unmistakably another world, another Earth. Here in vivid reality was the unspoiled wilderness they had all dreamed of. Blot out the soldiers and the chains and the exotic slave mistress, and this Miocene woodland could still be apprehended as paradise.

  Dew-strung giant spider webs, incredible masses of flowers, fruits and berries shining like baroque jewels in settings of many-hued green . . . cliffs with thin waterfalls dropping into pools in front of mossy grottoes . . . throngs of fearless animals . . . the beauty was real! In spite of themselves, the prisoners discovered that they were scanning the jungle for more marvels as eagerly as any pack of thrill-seeking tourists. Amerie's pain faded before visions of scarlet-and-black butterflies and gaudy tree-frogs chiming like elfin bells. Even in August the birds sang their mating songs, for in a world without true winter they had not yet begun to migrate and could raise more than one brood a year. An improbable squirrel with tufted ears and patches of greenish-and-orange fur scolded from a low tree limb. Another tree was draped with a motionless python, its body as thick as a beer barrel and as gorgeously colored as a Kennanshah rug. There went a tiny hornless antelope with legs like twigs and a body no larger than a rabbit's! There flew a bird with a raucous crow voice, feathered in a splendor of violet and pink and darkest blue! By a stream stood a huge otter, poised on hind limbs and seeming to smile amiably at the prisoners riding by. Farther down the creek-bed were wild chalicotheres somewhat smaller and darker than their domesticated cousins, ripping up bulrushes for breakfast and managing to look dignified in spite of their mouthfuls of dripping greenery. In the short grass beside the trail grew crowds of mushrooms, coral, red with whi
te spots, sky-blue with magenta gills and stems. Creeping amongst them was a many-legged millipede the size of a salami, looking as though it were freshly enameled in oxblood-red with cream racing stripes . . .

  The horn sounded its three notes.

  Amerie sighed. The echoing reply set off the wild things farther along the trail, so that the caravan met its escort in a tangled voluntary of bird and animal voices. The forest thinned and they came into a parklike area beside a slow-flowing river, some western tributary of the Saône. The trail led over a lawn beneath venerable cypresses and through the gate of a large palisaded fort almost identical to the one they had stopped at during the night.

  "All you travelers!" Captal Waldemar bellowed, when the last of the caravan had entered the gate and the wooden doors were swung shut. "This is our sleeping stop. We'll rest here until sunset. I know you're feeling pretty used up. But take my advice and soak in the big hot-tub in your bathhouse before you fall into the sack. And eat, even if you think you're too tired to be hungry! Take your packs with you when you dismount. Anybody sick or gotta complaint, see me. Be ready to remount this evening after supper when you hear the horn. You feel like trying to escape, remember that the amphicyons are outside and so are the sabertooth cats and a really trick orange salamander the size of a collie dog with venom like a king cobra Have a nice rest. That's all"

  A white-clad hostler helped Amerie from her saddle when she was unable to get down on her own.

  "You want to give yourself a good soak, Sister," the man said solicitously. "It's the best thing in the world for trail soreness. We heat the water with a solar setup on the roof, so there's plenty."

  "Thank you," she murmured. "I'll do that."

  "You could do something for us here at the fort, too, Sister. If you're not too tired and stiff, that is." He was a short, coffee-colored man with graying kinky hair and the preoccupied air of a minor civil servant.

  Amerie felt that she could fall asleep standing up if only there were something to lean against. But she heard herself saying, "Of course I'll do anything I can." Her racked leg muscles spasmed in protest.

  "We don't often get a priest here. Just a circuit-rider every three or four months, old Brother Anatoly out of Finiah or Sister Ruth from Goriah, way over to the west. We have maybe fifteen Catholics among the men here. We'd really appreciate it if . . ."

  "Yes. Certainly. I suppose you'd prefer the votive Mass of St. John the Beloved Disciple."

  "First your nice bath and supper." He picked up her pack, draped her arm over his shoulders, and helped her away.

  As soon as Felice had dismounted, she rushed over to Richard and said, "Well? Did you get it?"

  "Dead easy. And there's a second-magnitude sparkler sitting right on top of it." He looked down at her from the high back of his chaliko. "Since you're in such good shape, gimme a hand down off this brute."

  "Easiest thing in the world," she said. Stepping onto the dismounting block, she put her little hands under his armpits and swung him off in one motion.

  "Sweet Jesus!" exclaimed the pirate.

  "I could use a little of that, too, Felice," came Claude's dry voice. The ring-hockey player went to the next chaliko and plucked the old man out of the saddle as though he were a child.

  "What kinda gravity you have on Acadie, anyhow?" Richard growled.

  She bestowed a condescending smile. "Point eight-eight Earth normal. Nice try, Captain Blood, but no joy."

  "You mustn't try anything rash here, Felice." Claude was anxious. "I should think they'd be very alert in a place like this."

  "Don't worry. I've . . ."

  Richard hissed, "She's coming, watch it! Her nibs!"

  The white chaliko bearing Epone paced majestically through the clutter of weary prisoners and their baggage.

  "No dust or sweat on that one," remarked Felice bitterly, slapping at the filthy green skirts of her hockey uniform. "Looks like she's ready for the fuckin' beaux-arts ball. Must be ionized fabric in the cloak."

  A few of the travelers were still astride their mounts, among them the sturdy ginger-bearded man with the lion emblazoned on his knightly surtout. He had both elbows resting on the pommel of his saddle. His hands covered his face.

  "Dougal." Epone's voice was at once wheedling and commanding.

  The knight leapt in his seat and stared at her wildly. "Not again. Please."

  But she only signaled for hostlers to take the bridle of the knight's chaliko. "O thou belle dame sans merci," he groaned. "Aslan. Aslan."

  Epone rode away across the fort compound toward a small structure with pots of flowers hanging from its veranda roof. The hostlers led tall Dougal after her.

  Claude watched them go and said, "Well, now you know, Richard. It's a good thing you're out of it. She looks like mighty rough trade."

  The ex-spacer swallowed the bile that had risen in his throat at memory's slow return. "Who . . . who the hell is Aslan?" he managed to ask.

  "A kind of Christ figure in an old fairy tale," the old man replied. "A magical lion who saved children from supernatural enemies in a Never-Never Land called Narnia."

  Felice laughed. "I don't think his franchise extends to the Pliocene. Would either of you gentlemen care to join me in a hot tub?"

  She marched off to the bathhouse, dusty feathers awave, leaving the others to limp slowly after.

  Chapter Twelve

  Oh, what a night it had been!

  Aiken Drum lay sprawled on snowy sheets and let his silver torc give him a replay of the high. Fizzy exotic booze. Delicious exotic food. Fun and games and music and dance and romping and stomping and flying and galloping those exotic broads with their crazy boobs down to there. Sweet houghmagandy. Hadn't he shown them that he was big enough! And hadn't he found his heart's home at last . . . Here in Exile, among these people who loved to laugh and venture as he did, he would thrive and grow and shine.

  "Gonna be Sir Boss!" he giggled. "Gonna roj this whole fewkin' world until it yells quits! Gonna fly!"

  Oh, yes. That, too.

  Slowly, his naked body rose from the bed. He spread his arms wide and soared toward the ceiling where the morning sunlight shining through the drapes made ripple-bars of greeny gold. The bedroom was an aquarium and he was a swimmer in the air. Zoom! Bank! Roll! Dive! Let go and fall bouncing back to the bed shouting with delight, for it was a rare gift even among the talented Tanu, and the ladies, especially, had greeted his discovery of it with great excitement.

  Wonderful silver torc!

  He scrambled off-the bed and went to the window. Roniah down below was awake and going about its business, human figures strolling or bustling, stately Tanu mounted on gaily caparisoned chalikos, and everywhere the little ramas at work, sweeping, gardening, fetching and carrying. Kaleidoscopic!

  . . . Hey, Aik. Where you be, buddy?

  The mental hail came to him hesitantly and garbled at first, then with increasing confidence. Raimo, of course. The surly woodsman had undergone a remarkable change of attitude as Aiken's new metafunctions became manifest at the party. Raimo left off his shit-kicking and got friendly. And why not? He could sense a winner, that one!

  You there, Ray? You talking at me, Woodchopper?

  Who the hell else? Hey, Aik, if this is a dream, don't wake me up.

  No dream. It's realio-trulio and we are in for one helluva good time. Hey! What say we bust out and do a little sightseeing in the town?

  They got me locked in, Aik.

  You forgot what we learned at the party? Hang on a nano-sec while I put my clothes on and I'll be right there.

  Aiken threw on his golden costume, checked to be sure that no Tanu was watching, then launched himself out of his bedroom window. Hovering above the mansion like a great gleaming insect, he sent his seekersense homing in on Raimo's querulous thought pattern, then dived at the open window of his buddy and popped into the room crowing, "Ta-dah!"

  "Damn, you really do know how, don't you?" Raimo said with some envy. "Seems I
'm only good for pickin' up furniture." By way of demonstration, he caused the bed to dance and sent tables and chairs flying about the room.

  "Everybody's different. Chopper. You got your talents, I got mine. You could have diddled the mechanism of the lock to escape, you know."

  "Shit. Never thought of it."

  Aiken grinned. "You'll be thinking of a lot of things from now on, Ray, and so will I. Last night was some kinda eye-opener, no?"

  The former woodsman laughed out loud and the two of them wallowed in a mutual replay, chortling over the discomfiture of the scandalized Sukey and Elizabeth, who had retired abruptly when the members of the Hunt joined the festivities. Poor straity-ladies! No sense of humour and probably fridgies to boot. It had been good riddance when they left, and the party had gone on until dawn, featuring entertainments increasingly delightful that the two men could savor to the full, strengthened by their silver torcs. Good old meta-boodly psychokinoodly!

  Aiken gestured out of the window. "Come on. Let's see how the human half lives. I'm curious about the way the normals operate in this Exile setup. Don't sweat the flying bit, Ray. I can hold up the both of us."

  "They'll spot us."

  "I've got another metafunction. The illusion thing. Check this!"

  There was a soundless snap and the small golden man disappeared. A tiger swallowtail butterfly flapped up and landed square on Raimo's nose. "Keep those paws down or I go hornet," said Aiken's voice. The butterfly vanished, and there was the practical joker again, standing in front of Raimo with one finger resting on the forester's nose.