Harry Turtledove - Down in The Bottomlands (and Other Places)

“You mean Stones of Doom ?” Radnal’s opinion of Toglo’s taste fell. Trying to stay polite, he said, “It wasn’t as accurate as it might have been.”

“I thought it was trash,” Toglo said. “But I went to school with Hicag zev and we’ve been friends ever since, so I had to read it. And she certainly makes the Night Demons’ Retreat sound exotic, whether there’s a breeze of truth in what she writes or not.”

“Maybe a breeze — a mild breeze,” Radnal said.

“I read it, too. I thought it was very exciting,” Nocso zev Martois said.

“The tour guide thinks it’s garbage,” her husband told her.

“I didn’t say that ,” Radnal said. Neither Martois listened to him; they enjoyed yelling at each other more.

“Enough of your own breeze. If we must do this, let’s do it, at least,” Benter vez Maprab said.

“As you say, freeman.” Radnal wished the Night Demons’ Retreat really held night demons. With any luck, they’d drag Benter into the stones and no one in the tour group would ever see — or have to listen to — him again. But such convenient things happened only in codices.

The tourists were getting better with the donkeys. Even Peggol seemed less obviously out of place on donkeyback than he had yesterday. As the group rode away from the lodge, Radnal looked back and saw park militiamen and Eyes and Ears advancing on the stables to go over them again.

He made himself forget the murder investigation and remember he was a tour guide. “Because we’re off earlier this morning, we’re more likely to see small reptiles and mammals that shelter against the worst heat,” he said.

“Many of them-”

A sudden little flip of sandy dirt a few cubits ahead made him stop. “By the gods, there’s one now.” He dismounted. “I think that’s a shoveler skink.”

“A what?” By now, Radnal was used to the chorus that followed whenever he pointed out one of the more unusual denizens of the Bottomlands.

“A shoveler skink,” he repeated. He crouched down. Yes, sure enough, there was the lure. He knew he had an even-money chance. If he grabbed the tail end, the lizard would shed the appendage and flee. But if he got it by the neck-

He did. The skink twisted like a piece of demented rubber, trying to wriggle free. It also voided. Lofosa made a disgusted noise. Radnal took such things in stride.

After thirty or forty heartbeats, the skink gave up and lay still. Radnal had been waiting for that. He carried the palm-sized lizard into the midst of the tourists. “Skinks are common all over the world, but the shoveler is the most curious variety. It’s a terrestrial equivalent of the anglerfish. Look-”

He tapped the orange fleshy lump that grew on the end of a spine about two digits long. “The skink buries itself under sand, with just this lure and the tip of its nose sticking out. See how its ribs extend to either side, so it looks more like a gliding animal than one that lives underground? It has specialized musculature, to make those long rib ends bend what we’d think of as the wrong way. When an insect comes along, the lizard tosses dirt on it, then twists around and snaps it up. It’s a beautiful creature.”

“It’s the ugliest thing I ever saw,” Moblay Sopsirk’s son declared.

The lizard didn’t care one way or the other. It peered at him through little beady black eyes. If the variety survived another few million years — if the Bottomlands survived another couple of moons, Radnal thought nervously — future specimens might lose their sight altogether, as had already happened with other subterranean skinks.

Radnal walked out of the path, put the lizard back on the ground. It scurried away, surprisingly fast on its short legs. After six or eight cubits, it seemed to melt into the ground. Within moments, only the bright orange lure betrayed its presence.

Evillia asked, “Do any bigger creatures go around looking for lures to catch the skinks?”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” Radnal said. “Koprit birds can see color; you’ll often see shoveler skinks impaled in their hoards. Big-eared nightfoxes eat them, too, but they track by scent, not sight.”

“I hope no koprit birds come after me,” Evillia said, laughing. She and Lofosa wore matching red-orange tunics — almost the same shade as the shoveler skink’s lure — with two rows of big gold buttons, and red plastic necklaces with gold clasps.

Radnal smiled. “I think you’re safe enough. And now that the lizard is safe, for the time being, shall we go-? No, wait, where’s freeman vez Maprab?”

The old Strongbrow emerged from behind a big, wide-spreading thornbush a few heartbeats later, still refastening the belt to his robe. “Sorry for the delay, but I thought I’d answer nature’s call while we paused here.”

“I just didn’t want to lose you, freeman.” Radnal stared at Benter as he got back onto his donkey. This was the first apology he’d heard from him. He wondered if the tourist was well.

The group rode slowly eastward. Before long, people began to complain. “Every piece of Trench Park looks like every other piece,” Lofosa said.

“Yes, when will we see something different?” Moblay Sopsirk’s son agreed. Radnal suspected he would have agreed if Lofosa said the sky were pink; he slavered after her. He went on, “It’s all hot and flat and dry; even the thornbushes are boring.”

“Freeman, if you wanted to climb mountains and roll in snow, you should have gone someplace else,” Radnal said. “That’s not what the Bottomlands have to offer. But there are mountains and snow all over the world; there’s nothing like Trench Park anywhere. And if you tell me this terrain is like what we saw yesterday around the Bitter Lake, freeman, freelady”-he glanced over at Lofosa-“I think you’re both mistaken.”

“They certainly are,” Benter vez Maprab chimed in. “This area has very different flora from the other one. Note the broader-leafed spurges, the oleanders-”

“They’re just plants,” Lofosa said. Benter clapped a hand to his head in shock and dismay. Radnal waited for him to have another bad-tempered fit, but he just muttered to himself and subsided.

About a quarter of a daytenth later, Radnal pointed toward a gray smudge on the eastern horizon. “There’s the Night Demons’ Retreat. I promise it’s like nothing you’ve yet seen in Trench Park.”

“I hope it shall be interesting, oh yes,” Golobol said.

“I loved the scene where the demons came out at sunset, claws dripping blood,” Nocso zev Martois said. Her voice rose in shivery excitement.

Radnal sighed. “ Stones of Doom is only a frightener, freelady. No demons live inside the Retreat, or come out at sunset or any other time. I’ve passed the night in a sleepsack not fifty cubits from the stonepile, and I’m still here, with my blood inside me where it belongs.”

Nocso made a face. No doubt she preferred melodrama to reality. Since she was married to Eltsac, reality couldn’t seem too attractive to her.

The Night Demons’ Retreat was a pile of gray granite, about a hundred cubits high, looming over the flat floor of the Bottomlands. Holes of all sizes pitted the granite. Under the merciless sun, the black openings reminded Radnal of skulls’ eyes looking at him.

“Some holes look big enough for a person to crawl into,” Peggol vez Menk remarked. “Has anybody ever explored them?”

“Yes, many people,” Radnal answered. “We discourage it, though, because although no one’s ever found a night demon, they’re a prime denning place for vipers and scorpions. They also often hold bats’ nests. Seeing the bats fly out at dusk to hunt bugs doubtless helped start the legend about the place.”