Journey To Light: Part I of the High Duties of Pacia Read online

CHAPTER 24

  Two Men by the Highway

  Although the Eastway Road ran in a straight line, the Great River did not. From Anglio, the Grandis Fluve flowed southwest between Ostenland and Hibbria and then made an arc so that it ran northwestward as it approached Torae. There the River went around a bend and headed west to Matik. When the highway left Anglio, however, it ran due west, crossed the Fallal River at Iteneris and then the Great one at the Torae bend, and thus arrived at Matik on the south side of the River.

  The area between Torae and Iteneris was not as densely populated as the Matik-to-Torae segment, but villages and small towns still dotted the landscape in plenty of places along the Eastway Road. One such hamlet, a small unpretentious place named Tock, lay beside the highway just south of the Veridis Hills. Some residents owned small shops beside the road which sold the customary goods to travelers and one citizen was the proprietor of an inexpensive eatery. Many others farmed the fields which lay behind their houses.

  One night the café owner, an unimpressive man named Tellmon, stayed at work until after dark because a carriage-load of men headed for Iteneris had arrived late demanding dinner and offering to pay extra. When they finished, Tellmon suggested that he find lodging for the men. The village had no inn but local people, including Tellmon, often made a little extra money by renting bedrooms. The travelers, however, were in such an inexplicable rush that they hung lanterns from the carriage and continued their journey in the dark. While Tellmon was walking home afterwards, he passed a neighbor’s house and saw his friend Zake sitting with a lamp on the front porch.

  “Hello, Tellmon,” Zake called out. “Come up and sit for a while. I got a new keg of home-brew.”

  “Thanks. I’d like that.” Tellmon walked to the porch and accepted the chair and the cup his neighbor offered. They began to chat and the conversation soon turned to the unusual event of the previous night. “I was talkin’ to Nehlan,” Tellmon said, referring to another neighbor. “And he said some kind of critter came around last night. That’s what set off all the dogs.”

  “You should’a talked to me sooner. I saw the thing when I came out to see what all the barkin’ was about.”

  “Well what was it?”

  “A lupun,” Zake replied.

  “What? They ain’t supposed to be here. Rippers got no business crossing the River, let alone gettin’ this far north of Hinterland.”

  “I know.”

  “Then why din’t you do sumthin?” Tellmon demanded.

  “Do what?”

  “Chased it off to start with.”

  “Din’t have to,” said Zake. “He was movin’ pretty fast goin’ north.”

  “If you’d’ve got some of us together, we could’ve arrested it.”

  “Didn’t do nuttin wrong. Just crossed the highway and kept going.”

  “But . . .”

  “Don’t ‘but’ me, Tellmon. You know the edict. You cain’t grab ’em ’less they do sumthin wrong. Not any of them types. Gotta treat ’em like people.”

  “Well, damn. Edict’s hunderds of years old. No reason to pay ’tention to it now.”

  “You remember where it come from,” Zake said. “Ever’ power this side of the Sea’s been treatin’ it like hard law so long they ain’t gonna change just because of what happened.”

  “Ain’t right, I tell ya. Damn rippers should stay in their own place.”

  “Not arguin’ wid ya bout that.”

  “If we got us a posse, we could still chase it now,” insisted Tellmon.

  “Din’t you hear what I jus’ said? Besides, how’d we catch a lupun after he got a head start like this?”

  “We could ride horses.”

  “Ride plow-horses? Even if we stayed on without sattles, horse won’t get close to no lupun.” As Zake spoke, his three dogs crept out from under the porch and peeked around the corner of the house. One growled nervously and then all three began barking wildly.

  “Damn. Not another’n,” Tellmon complained as the two men got up to see what the ruckus was about. Zake’s bean field lay behind the house and on the other side of it stood a thick tangle of brush and trees. Something heavy was shaking the trees and rattling the ground.

  What crashed out into the dim light of the star-dazzle was no lupun, however. Neither man had ever seen anything like it. In fact, neither would be able to accurately describe it later. Big – no, huge. Many legs, bent up and then down. The body sat up high. And four more just like it followed. The unknown and un-nameable things reached Zake’s barn and began smashing it with forelegs that ended in sharp pointed claws rather than feet. Soon the barn was a wreck of shattered lumber. Two of the things walked onto the highway and stood facing menacingly in opposite directions. Two more began carrying rubble from the barn to make a barrier across the road and the last one crossed the highway and kept going north. When the two which were building the barrier finished dismantling the remnants of the barn, they turned toward the house.

  Zake and Tellmon ran faster than they possibly could in the opposite direction. Neither noticed that the dogs had stopped barking and had a long lead on the men.