The Heretic

thing in present circumstances.

“You don’t understand,” Abel said to the man in his South-waste tongue. “You are here as a guest.”

The chieftain stopped cursing then, and gazed at Abel in complete, amazed silence for a moment. Then he let out a huge laugh. “A guest? And I know that you are a Trevilleman, speak as you will. I know what it is you do with guests.”

“What’s that?”

“I hope you gag on my balls when you eat them,” the chief answered.

Abel allowed himself a smile. “I see. We are cannibals.” Abel nodded his head. “Yes, I can understand that belief.”

“Get on with it, then,” said the chief. He set his teeth and let his arms fall to his side in angry surrender to fate.

“Sit down,” Abel said. “With me.”

He allowed himself to sink in front of the chief, and sat on his haunches. After another moment of amazement that he had lived another sensible stretch of time, the chief did so as well.

“My name is Dashian,” Abel said.

“Dasahn,” the chief said, attempting to pronounce a sound for which there was no equivalent in his own tongue.

“Close enough,” said Abel.

“I am Gaspar,” the chief said.

“Chief of the Remlaps?”

“That’s right.”

“What will you drink?”

The chief, Gaspar, smiled wickedly. “Beer?”

“Wine,” said Abel. He motioned for someone to bring the stoppered clay bottle. When he got it, he uncorked it, took a swig, and passed it to the South-waster.

Gaspar was a thin man. Underfed, thought Abel. And how would anyone feed well, or even adequately, out here? The Redlands were a land of meager resources, but the four-league-wide depression they presently occupied seemed particularly barren. Gaspar also seemed older, but then, after they passed the age of twenty, most Redlanders took on a wizened appearance that could be anywhere from thirty to sixty years old and kept it until they died. The chief wore the customary robes of a nomad, but these were a faded yellow, and not the white of the Blaskoye. He wore no sandals, and his feet were a mass of calluses that might be thicker than the actual foot that sat atop them.

Remlap swallowed the wine, sighed. “It has been a while since I have tasted such.”

“Why don’t you ask your friends the Blaskoye to give you wine?” Abel asked.

“That would be like asking a bushfang to give you his venom,” the chief answered. “He might be very willing to give it to you, but perhaps in a manner that makes you wish you hadn’t asked in the first place.”

“You are not on good terms with your neighbors?”

“We would like to be, though we have seen what happened to others who thought they were on good terms with the Blaskoye. Suddenly, even though they were there, in the same huts, in the same camp, they weren’t themselves anymore. Instead, they became harsh in manner, and told us that our lands and our flocks were not actually ours, that they didn’t belong to us, but to ‘Greater Redland,’ even though it seemed like our land was ours, and even though it had seemed like it was ours for many, many years. In fact, what we thought was ours was theirs. But they were not themselves anymore. And when we asked them who they were, they told us they were Redlanders, and their leaders were the Blaskoye, who understood what this Greater Redland meant.”

The chief relaxed a bit, sat back on his own haunches, and took another long drink from the wine jug.

“Isn’t that both marvelous and strange?” he continued. “That some people can completely transform into other people so easily? Hartzmans to Redlanders. Mbunga to Redlanders. And all of them somehow Blaskoye at the same time. It is very confusing. We Remlaps are not very good at doing that sort of thing. This is our fate in the world, I fear, to be very good at being only ourselves, however poor selves we are, and not very good at being someone else. So when the Blaskoye asked us if we would like to be Redlanders and be ruled by them, they did not take it well when we declined the great honor that they wish to bestow upon us. Perhaps this was ungrateful, I admit, but what can one do? We are only poor Remlaps, after all.”

“Maybe that’s too bad,” said Abel. “It might’ve made things a lot easier, like you say.”

“And now here I sit captured by-oh, I’m sorry, I mean the guest of-people from the Land itself. These people would like to hear me tell tales of the wonderful and generous Blaskoye, where they are gathering, where they will strike next, only I cannot on account of my own tribe’s stubborn and troublesome inability to be pliable and flexible, not to mention all those other words that the Blaskoye employ when they might have adopted the single command: ‘Bow down and do as we say.’ It is very tiresome to be the leader of such a truculent group of misfits as the Remlaps.”

“I feel for you,” Abel replied. “But maybe you can answer one question.”

“Certainly,” said Remlap. “I would be very gratified if I could be of at least some use to you.”

Abel looked the man straight in the eyes. “Tell me where to find the Blaskoye with the silver knife that shines like water.”

It was as if the brushfang the Redlander had spoken of before had actually bit him. He recoiled from the question in a physical way, as if he were flinching from a real blow. “Oh, you don’t want him,” said the chief.

“So you know who I’m talking about?”

“Most assuredly. That is not the same thing as knowing where he might be found. In fact, there is no one place he will ever be found. That is part of his charm, they say.”

“What’s his name?”

“He goes by several.”

“What do you call him?”

Gaspar broke Abel’s gaze, looked away.

“It’s better not to speak of such things, such people, lest one call them down upon oneself.”

“And you do not think I am dangerous?”

“I think you are dangerous.”

“But not as dangerous.”

“No.”

“Should I kill some of your children? Take a woman or two and give her to my men? Would that convince you?”

“Perhaps,” said the other with a thin smile. “But you might have trouble finding the children, as we have hidden the remaining ones rather better than we have hidden ourselves. Even I do not know where they have been taken, and you might find our women a bit…used. For the Blaskoye have visited us, you see. Our camp was in better country, closer to the oasis, in former days.”

“The oasis,” said Abel. “I would like to go there.”

“I do not think you would enjoy it very much,” the chief answered with a dry chuckle. “Unless you particularly like the taste of your own gonads. But then, there’s no accounting for taste among you people of the Land.”

“I’m sorry, let me correct myself. I would like to go near there,” Abel replied. “You know how the saying goes-”

How does the saying go, Center?

I have several possibilities that might be appropriate. Try: “missed the target, but slew the dak,” Center replied.

Abel repeated the aphorism. Evidently, it was the right one, for the Remlap chief nodded in agreement. “True words, true words,” he murmured.

“I can pay you to guide me. A dont and a dak. One to ride now. One later.”

“Two, a dont and a dak?” The man said, suddenly taken aback, but just as suddenly seeking to cover it up so that his bargaining position wouldn’t be compromised. “Such an amount may seem a generous present to one from the Land, where they are used to pull a pointy stick through the ground, or are yoked, the poor things, to teams of others to pull an overloaded wagon. But here in the Redlands, we are shepherds of a flock and not farmers. We require more for existence, in the same way that you require a large harvest of rice or barley for yours. By the way,