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flecked with silver stars and laced with pearls and aquamarines. Though long
of sleeve and skirt, the binding of the royal raiment was such that he could
see the curves that folded upon curves. It was at once entirely modest and
unrelievedly arousing. The young woman who was thus encased, like a
spectacular butterfly about to be born from a glistening cocoon, had skin the
color of love and smooth as fresh poured cream.
Her eyes were bluer than the silks she wore, and they sparkled more brightly
than any diamond sewn to her gown. In striking contrast to the color of her
skin, her hair was impossibly black, wavy filaments of polished onyx that
spilled down her back and around her shoulders, as if a portion of the night
itself had attached itself to her being. She was staring not at the unmoving,
attentive Ehomba, but off into the distance. Her expression was resigned,
determined, wistful. What she was looking at Simna could not imagine. He knew
only that he would, without hesitation, have given his very life to be the
subject of that stare. Something made her frown, and as she did so the light
in which she was enveloped curdled like souring milk. A second presence
stepped into the ragged splotch of efflorescence. It was huge, monstrous, and
overbearing. You could not see the eyes, concealed as they were within the
depths of the horned helmet. Spikes and scythes protruded from the
rough-surfaced black metal. Below the helmet began the body of a wrestler and
a giant, immensely powerful, the muscles themselves occasionally visible
beneath flowing garments of purple, gold, and crimson. The cape that trailed
behind the figure, which Simna estimated to be close to eight feet tall, was
decorated with the most horrible visions of hell, of bodies being torn limb
from limb by demons and devils, all of whom were performing their dreadful
activities under the supervision and command of that same towering, helmeted
figure. As both men looked on, there in the night in the middle of the veldt,
the giant put a massive, mailed hand on one flawless bare shoulder. Instantly
the woman whirled, her far-off look abruptly replaced with one of utter
loathing and revulsion. Her reaction did not seem to trouble the giant. Though
she did her utmost to remove his clinging hand, at first shaking and then
grabbing at it, she was unable to dislodge the mailed grip even when pressing
both hands and all her weight upon it. Until now Simna had sat motionless,
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enthralled by the vision and the distant drama of what he was seeing. But
suddenly, the giant was looking past the woman held in his bruising,
unyielding grasp. Looking beyond the room in which he and his prize stood,
beyond even the building where his prisoner was bound in unwilling consort. He
was looking straight at Etjole Ehomba, a herdsman from the dry, desiccated
lands to the south. With a bellow of outrage that dwarfed anything that the
veldt had produced, the figure brought its other hand forward. Something that
was the consequence of an unholy union between fire and lightning sprang from
the mailed palm, leaping toward the seated southerner. Ehomba ducked
instinctively and the blast of luminescent diablerie passed over his left
shoulder to strike the center of the dying campfire. Those flames that
remained within fled in terror of a greater fire than they could know. As the
air screamed, the very molecules of which it was composed were torn and rent.
The image of giant and entrapped beauty collapsed in upon itself, twisting and
crumpling like a sheet of paper in the trembling fingers of a scandalized
warlord. And then it was gone: giant, empyreal prisoner, and the light that
had framed them, leaving behind only the veldt and the scandalized night. Not
a sound emanated from the surrounding
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...01%20-%20Carnivores%20Of
%20Darkness%20&%20Light.txt (58 of 143)19-2-2006 17:31:31
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruiswijk/Mijn%20d...20Catechist
%201%20-%20Carnivores%20Of%20Darkness%20&%20Light.txt leagues of grass. It was
as if the earth itself lay stunned by the apparition. Then, somewhere, a
cricket resumed its violining. A frog croaked from within its prized puddle.
Night birds and insects resumed their timeless chorus. Aware that he had
neglected to breathe for a while, Simna ibn Sind inhaled deeply.
The perspiration in which he was drenched began to dry and cool on his body,
causing him to shiver slightly. Shunting aside his blanket, he crawled over
until he was beside his companion. It took a moment, because he had to avoid
the foot-deep, smoking ditch of scorched earth that occupied the place where
their campfire had been and that now drew a line in the soil between them. It
stank of carbonized malignance and inhuman venality. "Pray tell, bruther, what
that was all about? And in the same breath, deny to me one more time that you
are a sorcerer." Ehomba looked over at him and smiled tiredly. "I
have told you, friend Simna, that I am but a simple herdsman. Believe me, I
would rather be lying with my wife than with you, listening to my children
instead of the growls and complaints of strange animals, and in my own bed
than here in this alien land. But through no wish or desire of my own, I have
become involved in something bigger than myself." Turning away, he looked at
the patch of sky where the phantasm had appeared and subsequently burned
itself out. "I did not conjure up what we just saw. I did not call out to it,
or beckon it hither, or ask it to appear before me. I recited no litany, cast
no spells, burnt no effigies. I was having trouble going to sleep and, having
trouble, thought to sit a while and contemplate the majesty of the sky." He
shrugged so lackadaisically that Simna almost believed him.
"So that just 'happened'?" The swordsman waved at the space in the sky where
the figures had appeared.
The air there still shimmered and smoldered like distant pavement on a
scorching hot afternoon. "You did nothing to make it happen?" "Nothing." With
a heavy sigh Ehomba lay back down on the comforting earth. "I was sitting, and
it appeared before me. The auguries of a dead man, Simna. The burden of Tarin
Beckwith of Laconda, North." He nodded at the disturbed patch of atmosphere.
"I believe that the woman we saw was the Visioness Themaryl, and the frightful
figure that appeared behind her must perforce be her abductor, Hymneth the
Possessed. She fits the allusion of comeliness the dying Beckwith described to
me, and he no less the likeness of concentrated animus. How or why they should
appear to me now, here, in this isolated and unpretentious place, I cannot
tell you." Simna nodded and was silent for several moments. Then he commented,
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"You really don't know what you're getting into, do you?" "I
never worry about such things. We are all fallen leaves drifting on the river
of life, and we go where the current takes us." The herdsman looked up at his
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