It is only now, after reams of purple prose, that I realize what I was trying to say of Yez Tok: simply, it is city as botany—stems and trunks, boles and bracts, root and branch!
And out there, in the city-that-is-a-forest, is the man who will guide me farther in my brother’s footsteps: Mr. Daniel Okiring.
Plate 4: V crescite dolium: the Gourd of Plenty. A ubiquitous climbing plant of the Ishtari littoral, the Gourd of Plenty is so well adapted to urban environments that it would be considered a weed, but for the gourds, which contains a nectar prized as a delicacy among the coastal Thents. It is toxic to both Krid and humans.
The papercut bears a note on the true scale, written in gold ink.
THE HUNTER’S TALE
HAVE YOU SEEN A JANTHAR? REALLY SEEN A JANTHAR? BLOODY magnificent, in the same way that a hurricane or an exploding volcano is magnificent. Magnificent and appalling. The films can never capture the sense of scale. Imagine a house, with fangs. And tusks. And spines. A house that can hit forty miles per hour. The films can never get the sheer sense of mass and speed—or the elegance and grace—that something so huge can be so nimble, so agile! And what the films can never, ever capture is the smell. They smell of curry. Vindaloo curry. Venerian body chemistry. But that’s why you never, ever eat curry on asjan. Out in the Stalva, the grass is tall enough to hide even a janthar. The smell is the only warning you get. You catch a whiff of vindaloo, you run.
You always run. When you hunt janthar, there will always be a moment when it turns, and the janthar hunts you. You run. If you’re lucky, you’ll draw it on to the gun line. If not … The ’thones of the Stalva have been hunting them this way for centuries. Coming-of-age thing. Like my own Maasai people. They give you a spear and point you in the general direction of a lion. Yes, I’ve killed a lion. I’ve also killed janthar—and run from even more.
The ’thones have a word for it: the pnem. The fool who runs.
That’s how I met your brother. He applied to be a pnem for Okiring Asjans. Claimed experience over at Hunderewe with Costa’s hunting company. I didn’t need to call Costa to know he was a bullshitter. But I liked the fellow—he had charm and didn’t take himself too seriously. I knew he’d never last five minutes as a pnem. Took him on as a camp steward. They like the personal service, the hunting types. If you can afford to fly yourself and your friends on a jolly to Venus, you expect to have someone to wipe your arse for you. Charm works on these bastards. He’d wheedle his way into their affections and get them drinking. They’d invite him and before you knew it he was getting their life-stories—and a lot more beside—out of them. He was a careful cove too—he’d always stay one drink behind them and be up early and sharp-eyed as a hawk the next morning. Bring them their bed tea. Fluff up their pillows. Always came back with the fattest tip. I knew what he was doing, but he did it so well—I’d taken him on, hadn’t I? So, an aristocrat. Why am I not surprised? Within three trips, I’d made him Maître de la Chasse. Heard he’d made and lost one fortune already … is that true? A jewel thief? Why am I not surprised by that either?
The Thirtieth Earl of Mar fancied himself as a sporting type. Booked a three-month Grand Asjan; he and five friends, shooting their way up the Great Littoral to the Stalva. Wives, husbands, lovers, personal servants, twenty Thent asjanis and a caravan of forty graapa to carry their bags and baggage. They had one graap just for the champagne—they’d shipped every last drop of it from Earth. Made so much noise we cleared the forest for ten miles around. Bloody brutes—we’d set up hides at water holes so they could blast away from point-blank range. That’s not hunting. Every day they’d send a dozen bearers back with hides and trophies. I’m surprised there was anything left, the amount of metal they pumped into those poor beasts. The stench of rot … God! The sky was black with carrion avios.
Your brother excelled himself: suave, in control, charming, witty, the soul of attention. Oh, most attentive. Especially to the Lady Mar … She was no kack-hand with the guns, but I think she tired of the boys-club antics of the gents. Or maybe it was just the sheer relentless slaughter. Either way, she increasingly remained in camp. Where your brother attended to her. Aristocrats—they sniff each other out.
So Arthur poled the Lady Mar while we blasted our bloody, brutal, bestial way up onto the High Stalva. Nothing would do the thirtieth earl but to go after janthar. Three out of five asjanis never even come across a janthar. Ten percent of hunters who go for janthar don’t come back. Only ten percent! He liked those odds.
Twenty-five sleeps we were up there, while Great Day turned to Great Evening. I wasn’t staying for night on the Stalva. It’s not just a different season, it’s a different world. Things come out of sleep, out of dens, out of the ground. No, not for all the fortune of the earls of Mar would I spend night on the Stalva.
By then, we had abandoned the main camp. We carried bare rations, sleeping out beside our mounts with one ear tuned to the radio. Then the call came: Janthar sign! An asjani had seen a fresh path through a speargrass meadow five miles to the north of us. In a moment, we were mounted and tearing through the High Stalva. The earl rode like a madman, whipping his graap to reckless speed. Damn fooclass="underline" of all the Stalva’s many grasslands, the tall pike-grass meadows were the most dangerous. A janthar could be right next to you and you wouldn’t see it. And the pike grass disorients, reflects sounds, turns you around. There was no advising the Earl of Mar and his chums, though. His wife hung back—she claimed her mount had picked up a little lameness. Why did I not say something when Arthur went back to accompany the Lady Mar! But my concern was how to get everyone out of the pike grass alive.
Then the earl stabbed his shock goad into the flank of his graap, and before I could do anything he was off. My radio crackled—form a gun line! The mad fool was going to run the janthar himself. Aristocrats! Your pardon, ma’am. Moments later, his graap came crashing back through the pike grass to find its herd mates. My only hope was to form a gun line and hope—and pray—that he would lead the janthar right into our cross fire. It takes a lot of ordnance to stop a janthar. And in this kind of tall-grass terrain, where you can hardly see your hand in front of your face, I had to set the firing positions just right so the idiots wouldn’t blow each other to bits.
I got them into some semblance of position. I held the center—the lakoo. Your brother and the Lady Mar I ordered to take jeft and garoon—the last two positions of the left wing of the gun line. Finally, I got them all to radio silence. The ’thones teach you how to be still, and how to listen, and how to know what is safe and what is death. Silence, then a sustained crashing. My spotter called me, but I did not need her to tell me: that was the sound of death. I could only hope that the earl remembered to run in a straight line, and not to trip over anything, and that the gun line would fire in time … a hundred hopes. A hundred ways to die.