Julian May - The Many-Coloured Land

“All you travelers! It’s nearly time to move out of here. I’m your caravan leader, Captal Waldemar. We’re gonna get to know each other pretty good in the next week or so. I know you’ve had a hard time, some of you, staying in this hot compound while you waited for the contingent to be complete. But things will be better soon. We’re on our way north to the city of Finiah, where you’ll be making your home. It’s a good place. A lot cooler than here. The journey is about four hundred kilometers and it will take us about six days. We’ll go by night for two days here in the hot country, then switch to day travel when we hit the Hercynian Forest.

“Now, you travelers, Listen! Don’t give me any trouble and you’ll get good food at stations along the way. Fuck up and you’ll be short-rationed. Make me really unhappy and you won’t eat at all. Any of you travelers who think you’d like to escape, just think about the fossil zoo waiting bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for stragglers on foot. We got sabertooth cats like superlions and hyenas the size of grizzly bears. We got wild boars bigger’n oxen that take a human leg off with one bite. We got rhinos and mastodons that’ll stomp you to death if they even catch sight of you. And the deinotheriums, the hoe-tusker elephants, they like to use people for cute tug-o’-war games and then dance on the pieces! They only stand four or five meters at the shoulder, by the way. You escape the big buggers and you can get nailed by the small fry. The creeks are full of pythons and crocs. The woods have poisonous spiders with bodies like peaches and fangs like gaboon vipers. You get away from the animals and the Firvulag will track you down and play devil-tunes on your mind until you go mad or die from the horrors.

“It’s bad out there, travelers! It’s not the pretty Eden world they told you about in A.D. 2110. But nobody has to worry if they stick with the caravan. You’re gonna ride those critters that you been looking at in the pen next door. They’re chalicotheres, kind of a distant relative of the horse, and we call ’em chalikos. They’re smart and they like people, and with those claws they have, nothing messes with ’em much. Be nice to your chaliko. He’s transportation and a bodyguard in one package…

“Now, in case any of you travelers feel like riding off into the tall timber, forget it. These torcs, these necklets that us soldiers wear, they let us keep complete control of the chalikos. You leave the driving to us. And we’ll have trained amphicyons ranging along the flanks of the caravan. Those bear-dogs know that any rider who tries to light out is fair meat. So live cool and we’ll all have a good ride. Right! Now I want you to get your stuff together. You can either transfer your things from packs into saddlebags or just lash your rig behind the cantle of the saddle. I understand two of you have pet animals with you. We’ll have pannier baskets that they can ride in. The guy that brought the pregnant goat… your animal will have to stay here until the weekly trade and supply caravan brings it on. Most of your proscribed tools and weapons and the bulky stuff taken from you when you first arrived will be carried on our pack animals. You may get most of the things back eventually, if you behave.

“Everything clear? Right! I want all of you lined up here, two by two and ready to ride, in half an hour. When you hear a big bell ring you know you got five minutes to line up or it’s your ass. That’s all! ”

He turned on his heel and marched out with his detail following. They didn’t even bother to bar the gate.

Murmuring, the prisoners began shuffling back inside to gather their belongings. Claude reflected that night travel was another demoralizing factor calculated to stifle notions of escape, as were the inflated descriptions of Pliocene fauna. Spiders as big as peaches for sooth! Next it would be the Giant Rat of Sumatra! On the other hand, the amphicyons were a real enough menace. He wondered how fast they could run on those primitive digitigrade feet. And what in the world were the horrendous Firvulag?

Across the yard another party under guard was emerging from the gatehouse. Hostlers cut out six animals from the main remuda and led them to a mounting platform. Claude saw one slim figure in gold lamé being helped aboard a saddled chaliko, and there was another standing by in a scarlet jumpsuit and a third…

“Aiken!” the old man shouted. “Elizabeth! It’s me! Claude!”

The figure in red began to remonstrate with another blue-caped captal of the guard. The arguing got louder and louder and finally Elizabeth stamped her foot and the man shrugged. She broke from the group and ran across the courtyard, the officer following at leisure. She pulled open the people-pen gate and threw herself into the white-haired paleontologist’s arms. “Kiss me,” she whispered breathlessly. “You’re supposed to be my lover.”

He folded her to his breast while the soldier eyed him with interested speculation. Elizabeth said, “They’re sending us to the capital, Muriah. My metafunctions are returning, Claude! I’m going to do my best to get away. If I do, I’ll try to help you all, somehow.”

“That’s enough now, Lady,” said the soldier. “I don’t care what Lord Creyn told you. You’ve got to get ready to ride.”

“Goodbye, Claude.” She gave him a real kiss, full on the lips, before she was hurried back across the courtyard and helped onto her mount. One of the soldiers fastened the slender chains about her ankles.

Claude raised one hand. “Goodbye, Elizabeth.”

From a covered area beyond the main animal pen came a majestic figure riding a snow-white chaliko with scarlet and silver trappings. The captal saluted. Then he and two soldiers swung into their saddles. A command rang out.

“All ready! Portcullis up!”

The file of ten riders went slowly into the arched passage of the barbican. There was a distant excited howling from the bear-dogs. The last prisoner in line turned to wave at Claude before he disappeared into the shadowed opening.

And goodbye to you, Bryan, thought the old man. I hope you find your Mercy. One way or another.

He went back into the dormitory to help with Richard, feeling old and weary and not at all pleased with himself any more.

The party of ten formed up to ride two by two as soon as they had quit Castle Gateway. Creyn and his captal led and the two soldiers followed behind the small group of prisoners. The sun was just down and they traveled eastward into the dusk, down the gradual slope of the plateau toward the twilit Rhône-Saône Valley. Elizabeth sat easily in her saddle, eyes closed and hands clasped on the pommel while the reins lay free. It was fortunate that the chaliko did not require guidance from its rider, because Elizabeth was fully occupied in listening.

Listen… but be unaware of the sounds made by the mounts plodding over soft earth. Do not hear the crickets, the frogs tuning up in the misty swales scattered in the hollows of the tableland. Be deaf to the birds’ evensong, the distant yelping of hyaenid emerging for the night’s hunt, the murmuring voices of companion riders. Listen not with the ears but with the newly recovered metapsychic farsensing faculty.

Reach out afar, afar. Search for other minds like your own, other speakers, other please-God truepeople . (Shame on you for that, arrogant sickee, but be forgiven just this once.)

Listen, listen! The reborn ultrasense is not yet fully operant, and yet there are things to be heard. Here in the party: the guarded exotic consciousness of Creyn in converse with his captal, dark-minded Zdenko, the two concealed behind a torc-generated screen easily breached; but forebear, since they would be aware of the penetration. Pass over Aiken and the other silver-torc prisoners, the man Raimo and the woman Sukey, their infantile mental babblings as grating as the efforts of fledgling violinists importuning the ears of a cranky virtuoso. Ignore the gray-torced guards and poor unconscious Stein, and Bryan with his brain still unfettered except by chains of his own forging. Leave them all and journey afar.