Even if the sun had been shining through the drizzle, most of the river would have been shaded by the great timber that walled its banks. “Why?” I demanded again. “Who says so?”
“Ayasseshas.”
“Who is Ayasseshas?”
A curious dreaminess danced in the darkness of his eyes. “She is our queen. Our goddess. She is Ayasseshas.”
“A spinster?”
“Of course.” He produced a rope and leaned forward to tie one end around my waist. “Ayasseshas expects us to deliver you, wetlander. Every one of us would die for her. You will not escape.”
I did not know what might live in those gloomy waters, and we were a long way from the banks. I could swim, of course, but not as fast as a canoe traveled and probably not while wearing a tent. The sort of escape he was talking about was suicide.
And suddenly suicide seemed like a very good idea. The thought of losing Misi was unbearable, and the notion that she had betrayed me unthinkable. Had my guard not tied that noose on me and fastened the other end to a thwart behind him where I could not reach, then likely I would have tried to kill myself. Hrarrh had warned me once that a trader would sell his grandsons, but I still would not believe that Misi had sold me. Despite the evidence, my mind rejected the possibility. There had been some horrible misunderstanding. Or it was a trick? Was she planning to rescue me…? I slumped over in a heap of misery and stayed like that for a long time.
The three canoes headed upstream, eastward. The current was sluggish, the still waters moving without a ripple, dark with the reflections of the undersides of branches arching overhead. Paddles flashed in a murderously swift rhythm, but the canoes were large and we made slow progress along that serpentine tree canyon. Later the sun came out, with patches of blue showing high above us. Then came thick clouds of insects to torture the paddlers. I alone was well protected in my voluminous burnoose, although I soon began to feel like a steamed fish.
Eventually I recovered enough from my shock to twist around and talk to my guard. He was quite willing to be friendly, as long as I behaved myself. His name, he told me, was Shisisannis, and he was of the snakefolk. When the other canoes happened to be close, I noticed that two or three of the men were obviously of another race, more like the lanky black angel I had met earlier. Those, Shisisannis said in a contemptuous tone, were swampmen. Swampers were cowardly types who fought with bows, he explained, while real men used spears.
How did snakefolk gain their name? I asked. He grinned and reached behind him for a bulging sack, weighty enough to test even his brawny shoulders. Already I had begun to regret the question, but he untied the neck and peered inside. Then he shot a powerful walnut-colored hand in and pulled out the head of a snake, a snake so large that his hand could not close around its neck. I bleated in fear, seeing yellow crystal eyes staring at me and a forked tongue flicker.
“This is Silent Lover,” Shisisannis said fondly. “Do not be alarmed. As long as I keep my thumb hard just here, she cannot move.”
I believed him, but I was very glad when he closed the bag again. He explained, at length and eagerly, how he hunted with his scaly friend, hanging her on a branch above a game trail. Then he would circle around through the jungle, seeking to drive some unsuspecting victim underneath. His snake would fall onto the victim and crush it. The trick was to get to her before she began to swallow and then to use that secret grip again to immobilize her. He bragged a lot about the things she had caught for him, most of them creatures I had never heard of.
Despite my shock, my fear, and my bereavement, I rather liked Shisisannis. Only much later did I learn that no other race ever trusts the snakefolk. I had no need to trust him, though. I had no choices to make.
We paused briefly to eat. The canoes were beached, but the men ate where they had been kneeling. Then they set off again. I was impressed. Except for Shisisannis, who was both my guard and the overall leader, every man was working at his utmost. They poured sweat, they were tormented by insects that they could not brush off, and their endurance was astonishing. I said so.
Shisisannis gleamed his teeth at me again. “Ayasseshas told us to hurry back. Nothing else matters. She is eager to meet you, wetlander.” He sighed. “Ah, how I envy you.”
“Why?”
He looked surprised. “You do not know?”
I shook my head, and then decided he might not be able to see that gesture inside my shroud. “No.”
“Then I say only that you are about to have the most glorious experience that any man can hope for in his lifetime. Few are ever so favored. You are fortunate beyond imagining.”
This was not what the angel had said. Or Hrarrh. But it might just possibly explain Misi. Had she parted with me out of love, so that I could enjoy this promised paradise? Of course that was a ridiculous idea, but it was all I had, and I clung to it.
“You speak from experience?” I asked.
“Indeed I do!” Shisisannis rolled his eyes in rapture.
“Describe it.”
“It is beyond words.”
I gave up.
A man in one of the other canoes signaled that it was time to stop. He did so by collapsing. His companions tried to keep up for a while, until another of them did the same. Shisisannis called a halt. The paddlers beached their canoes and prepared to make camp, every one of them staggering from total exhaustion. Even in the mine, I had never seen a group of men more weary. Some needed help even to stand. However this Ayasseshas did it, she inspired a devotion that went beyond pain to the very limits of endurance. Shisisannis had said they would die for her, and now I believed him.
Shisisannis himself lifted me ashore and told me to walk. I set off with my absurd skirt held high, but the ground was tangled with lush undergrowth and I fell repeatedly. Each time I raised myself again, buttocks first, walking my hands backward and keeping my throbbing furnace knees straight. I heard chuckles of amusement, but I persevered until I took a worse than average tumble and Shisisannis s voice behind me said that was enough. I lay on my belly and panted, groaning at my weakness and humiliation. Eventually I recovered enough to roll over and sit up. I had covered about fifty paces, yet I felt as exhausted as the paddlers.
Food was passed, but half of the men were asleep before it even reached them. Soon they all were, stretched out on crumpled bushes or wet moss. Only Shisisannis remained awake. He sat on his heels, alert and watching, a darker shape of menace in a deep gloom, staring at me without a blink.
Back from the water’s edge, the undergrowth was not as thick as it had been on the bank. All around us, giant pillars of trees rose up ten times higher than any I had ever seen on the grasslands, seeming as solid as rocks nearby, but fading away with distance into murky wraiths. The close-packed jungle trees grew almost vertical, with little twist. Only rare speckles of blue showed through the canopy roof and the thick tresses of creepers suspended from every twig. The air was cool and damp, reeking of mold and rain, and so laden with water that it was visible, a dark mist hanging in all the vacant spaces. I was grateful for my all-enveloping garment, wondering how my near-naked companions could bear the chill. Bright-hued birds flashed past sometimes, and their calls echoed eerily among the continual faint dripping sounds. It was creepy and oppressive.
“Food?” Shisisannis inquired.
“I’m not hungry.”
He shrugged and continued to stare.
Nor was I sleepy. One thing was certain, however: I was not going to escape. I might be capable of launching one of the canoes, if I could reach them, although they had been pulled well clear of the water, but Shisisannis was not going to take his eyes off me. He could apparently squat there in the undergrowth forever, watching me, unblinking, with hunters’ patience. He was not even bothering to swat at the bugs and flies that walked on him.