Julian May - The Many-Coloured Land

Richard tried to pull his feet up and discovered that his ankles were fastened somehow to the stirrups. And he wasn’t wearing his seaboots, and someone had exchanged his opera costume for the spacer’s coverall with the four stripes on the sleeves that he had stuffed into the bottom of his pack, and he had an imperial grand champion hangover.

“Claude,” he groaned. “You got any booze?”

“You can’t have any, boy. Not until the drug Amerie shot into you wears off. Here. Take the water.”

Richard had to lean far out to grasp the canteen and the starry sky lurched. If his ankles had not been fastened, he would have fallen from the saddle.

“Jesus, I been chewed up and spit out, Claude. Where the hell are we? And what’s this thing I’m riding?”

“We’re about four hours out from the castle, riding due north and parallel to the Saône River. As near as I can judge, you’re riding a nice large specimen of Chalicotherium gold-fussi, which the locals call a chaliko, not a calico. The beasts travel a pretty fair clip here on the plateau, maybe fifteen or sixteen kloms an hour. But we lost time fording creeks around a little swamp, so I guess we might be thirty kloms above Lyon. If there was a Lyon.”

Richard cursed. “Bound where, for God’s sake?”

“Some Pliocene metropolis called Finiah. From what they told us, it’s on the Proto-Rhine about in the position of Freiburg. We get there in six days.”

Richard drank some of the water and discovered he was very thirsty. He could remember nothing beyond the welcoming smile on Epone’s face as he followed her into the dazzling inner chamber of the castle. He tried to marshal his wits, but all he could rake up were tattered dreams in which his brother and sister seemed to urge him to get up or he’d be late for school. And the penalty for that would be cruising the gray limbo forever and ever, searching for a lost planet where Epone would be waiting.

After a while, he asked, “What happened to me?”

“We aren’t sure,” Claude temporized. “You know, don’t you, that there were exotics in the castle?”

“I remember a tall woman,” Richard muttered. “I think she did something to me.”

“Whatever it was, you were out for hours. Amerie got you semiconscious so that you’d be able to move out with the rest of us in the caravan. We thought you’d prefer that to being left behind alone.”

“Christ, yes.” Richard took slow swallows of water, leaned back, and watched the sky for a long time. There were a hell of a lot of stars, and pearly streaks of luminescent cloud toward the zenith. As the caravan began descending a long downhill slope, he could see that he and the old man were near the tail end of a long double file of riders. Now that his eyes worked properly again, he discerned other dark shapes coursing along both sides of the column with awkward humping strides.

“What the devil are those out there?”

“Amphicyons riding herd on us. We have a guard of five soldiers, too, but they hardly ever bother to check up. There are two bringing up the rear and three in front with the Exalted Lady.”

“The who? ”

“Epone herself. She comes from Finiah. These exotics, they’re called Tanu, by the way, seem to have widely scattered settlements, each with a central urban area and satellite supporting plantations. My guess is that humans function as slaves or serfs, with some exceptional types enjoying special privileges. Evidently the Tanu cities take turns collecting a week’s worth of time-travelers at Castle Gateway, minus the specials who get siphoned off to the capital and the unlucky ones who are killed trying to escape.”

“We aren’t special, I take it.”

“Just part of the grunt-pack. Amerie and Felice are in the caravan, too. But the four other Greenies were sifted out and sent south to the big time. Group Green seems to have been unusual in having so many taken. There were only two other people sent to the capital from the rest of the week’s contingent.”

As they rode along, the old man told Richard as much as he could about the day’s events and the presumed fate of Aiken, Elizabeth, Bryan, and Stein. He also summarized Waldemar’s little speech and reluctantly told of the future in store for the women of the party.

The ex-spacer ventured a few questions, then fell silent. Too bad about the nun going to an exotic harem. She’d been decent to him. On the other hand, that stuck-up Ice Queen of an Elizabeth needed a good stoking. And Felice, that sly little bitch. Richard had offered her a harmless little suggestion back at the auberge and she’d sent him up like a holiday firework. Damn teasing little snatch! He hoped the exotics had peckers like baseball bats. It would serve her right. Might even make a real woman out of her.

The caravan moved steadily down the incline, heading a little east of north now and coming closer to the river. The beacon fire was their landmark. Claude had told him that similar fires were spaced about two kloms apart all the way from the castle. A scouting party must be riding in advance of the caravan along the track, torching the waiting piles of brush if all was well.

“I think I see a building down there,” Claude said. “Maybe it’s the place where we stop for a break.”

Richard sure as hell hoped so. He had drunk too much water.

From the head of the column came the silvery notes of a horn sounding a three-toned call. This was echoed distantly. After a few minutes had passed, a dozen or so tiny pinpricks of fire emerged from the vicinity of the downslope bonfire and approached the caravan in a sinuous line: riders carrying torches, coming to escort them.

By the time that the groups converged, Claude and Richard could see that the last beacon fire burned outside of a walled enclosure resembling an ancient American plains fort. It stood on a bluff above a tree-crowded watercourse that must drain into the Saône. The caravan halted momentarily, and Lady Epone and Waldemar went forward to greet the escort party. In the torchlight, Richard unconcernedly admired the stately Tanu woman, who was riding a white chalicothere of exceptional size and wearing a dark-blue hooded cloak that floated behind her.

After a moment’s conference, two of the soldiers from the fort rode off to one side and in some manner called in the pack of amphicyons. The bear-dogs were led away on a side path while the rest of the escort fell in beside the caravan for the last part of the journey. A gate in the palisade opened and they rode inside, two by two. Then, in what was to become a familiar procedure, the prisoners had their mounts tethered to posts in front of double troughs of feed and water. At the left of each chaliko was a dismounting block. After the soldiers unlocked their chains, the muscle-sore travelers descended and gathered in an untidy group while Waldemar addressed them once again.

“All you travelers! We’ll rest here for one hour, then go on until early morning, another eight hours.” Everybody groaned. “Latrines in the small building behind you, get your food and drink in the bigger building next door. Anybody sick or gotta complaint, see me. Be ready to remount when you hear the horn. Nobody comes into the area beyond the hitching rail. That’s all .”

Epone, who was still on chalikoback, guided her beast delicately through the throng until she loomed over Richard.

“I’m glad to see you’re recovering.”

He gave her a quizzical look. “I’m just dandy. And it’s nice to know you’re a lady who cares about the health of her livestock.”

She threw her head back and laughed, cascades of sound like the deep strumming of a harp. Her partially hidden hair gleamed in the torchlight. “It really is too bad about you,” she said. “You’ve certainly got more spirit than that silly medievalist.”