with them on the back of a Wagarondit brave, his bandy legs wrapped around the thick furry neck.
'My payment!' he said, waving his hand airily. 'Oh, I am fed and lodged and a few other of my needs are taken care of. I am a simple person. I only want to talk to many different peoples, to converse, to satisfy my curiosity and theirs, to be of service. I derive my greatest joy from being of service.'
'That is all you ask?'
'Oh, sometimes I accept a few baubles, some gemstones or excellently carved figurines or objects like that. But my main item of trade is information,'
Ulysses did not comment, but he felt that there was more to Ghlikh's business than he said.
On the way back to the first Wagarondit village, the chief, Djiidaumokh, asked him what he meant to do about the Old Being With The Long Hand.
'The people of Nisheymanakh, the third village we visited, have sent a messenger saying that The Old Being has ravaged one of their fields again. He killed two warriors who went after him.'
Ulysses sighed. Noblesse oblige could not be put off.
He said, 'Let us go after this creature at once.'
He called Ghlikh to him and said, 'Have the Wagarondit ever used you to locate The Old Being With The Long Hand?'
'Never,' Ghlikh said.
'Why not?'
'They never thought of it, I suppose.'
'And you never thought of telling them how valuable you could be?'
'No. I suppose that The Old Being is more valuable to me alive than dead. If he is dead, then I have just that much less exciting news.'
'You will locate The Old Being,' Ulysses said.
Ghlikh's eyes narrowed, and his thin lips became a thread. But he said, 'Of course, my Lord.'
Ulysses knew from conversations he had overheard that at least four generations of Wagarondit had known The Old Being. But he was not always in Wagarondit territory. Sometimes he disappeared for years, and he must then be ravaging the unknown peoples to the north, the west and perhaps in the great forest to the east. He was a huge animal and he had a big territory to cover.
From the description he had pieced together, Ulysses knew that The Old Being had to be an elephant of some sort. But what an elephant! He must be twenty feet high at the shoulder and he had four tusks! The upper tusks curved upward and the lower tusks curved down and back. The Long Hand was the proboscis.
The Old Being's wiliness, his avoidance of traps, his deadly ambushes, his ability to disappear, were legendary.
'He has far more intelligence than you would expect from a nonsentient,' Ulysses said to Ghlikh. Awina stood near them.
'Who said he was one who had no speech?' Ghlikh said.
Ulysses was surprised. 'You mean, hecan talk?'
Ghlikh's eyelids lowered. He said, 'I would not know, of course. I was merely pointing out that no one actually knows whether or not he can talk.'
'Is he the only one of his kind?' Ulysses said.
'I would not know. There are those who say that there are many of his kind many marches to the north. I do not know.'
'You should,' Ulysses said. 'You get around a lot. You fly far, and even if you do not go north, surely there are others of your people who do.'
'I do not know,' Ghlikh said, but Ulysses thought he detected a barely repressed amusement on his face.
He shoved down his anger, however, and said, 'Tell me, Ghlikh, have you ever seen.?' and then he halted. There was no word for metal in the Wufea speech. Not as far as he knew, anyway. He proceeded to describe metal. Then, remembering his knife, he brought it out and unfolded it. Ghlikh, his eyes wide, breathing harder than he should, asked permission to handle the blade. Ulysses watched him while the long skinny fingers felt the steel, gently ran the edge of his thumb over the edge, tasted it with his warty tongue, and held it flat against the vellum cheek. Finally, Ghlikh handed the knife back.
The Neshgai, he continued in response to Ulysses' questioning, were a race of giants who lived in a giant village of giant houses made of some strange material. Their city was on the southern coast of this land. On the other side of Wurutana. The Neshgai walked on two legs, and their tusks were only two and very tiny compared to those of The Old Being. But they had big ears and a long nose that fell to their waists. They looked as if they were descended from a creature something like The Old Being.
Ulysses was so full of questions he did not know which to ask first.
'What is your idea of Wurutana?' he said.
His question was phrased thus because he did not want Ghlikh to know how ignorant he was of his ancient enemy.
Ghlikh, startled, said, 'What do you mean? My idea?'
'What is Wurutana to you?'
'Tome?'
'Yes. What would you call him?'
'The Great Devourer. The All-Powerful. He Who Grows.'
'Yes, I know, but what does he look like? To you?'
Ghikh must have guessed that Ulysses was trying to get a description of something which he did not know. Ghlikh smiled so sarcastically that Ulysses wanted to smash that thin skull.
'Wurutana is so vast that I cannot find words to describe him.'
'You chatterbox!' Ulysses said. 'You runner-off-at-the-mouth! Winged monkey-face! You cannot find words?'
Ghlikh looked sullen but did not say anything. Ulysses then said, 'Very well! Tell me! Are there beings like me anywhere on this land?'
Ghlikh said, 'Oh, yes, some!'
'Well, where are they?'
'On the other side of Wurutana. On the seacoast, many marches west of the Neshgai.'
'Why didn't you tell me about them?' Ulysses cried.
Ghlikh looked astonished. He said, 'Why should I? You did not ask me about them. It is true that they look much like you, but they are no gods. They are just another race of sentients to me.'
So now he had the most urgent of reasons to go south. He would have to confront Wurutana, whether he wanted to or not. If the Wufea and Ghlikh were to be believed, Wurutana covered the land except on the north and south seacoasts.
Ghlikh drew a rough map of the land's outlines in the mud of a creek bank.
North was land marked Unknown. Below that was a crude triangle with the northern part forming the broad base. There was ocean or sea on all parts except the northern unknown. Ghlikh said rumours were that the sea was there too.
Ulysses wondered if the land was all that was left of the eastern part of the United States. The level of the ocean could be much higher. Thus, the Midwest and the Atlantic coastal plain would be submerged. This land might be all of what was left of the former Appalachian Mountain Range. Of course, while he was in his 'petrified' state, he could have been taken to other continents and this might be all that was left of a certain part of Eurasia. Or he could be on another planet of another star. He did not think so, but it was possible.
If only he could find something that would identify this place. But after many millions of years, everything would be gone. The bones of men would have perished, except for a few fossilised skeletons, and how many humans had a chance to become fossilised? The steel would have rusted away, the plastic would have deteriorated, the cement would have crumbled, the stone of the pyramids and the Sphinx, of the marble statues of the Greeks and the Americans, all would have been eroded to dust long ago. Nothing of man's would remain, except possibly for some flint tools made by Stone Age men. These might survive long after man's history had perished with his books, machines, cities and bones.
Mountain ranges had been born, lifted up and fallen again. Continents had split and the islands drifted away
