'Waterholes, then?'
'I know them,' Mappo said.
Icarium walked over to his gear. 'We have done this before, haven't we?'
Yes. 'Not for a long while, my friend.' Almost eighty years, in fact.
But the last time, we stumbled onto it – you remembered nothing. This time, I fear, it will be different.
Icarium paused, the horn-rimmed bow in his hands, and looked over at Mappo. 'You are so patient with me,' he said, with a faint, sad smile, 'whilst I wander, ever lost.'
Mappo shrugged. 'It is what we do.'
The Path'Apur Mountains rimmed the far horizon to the south. It had been almost a week since they had left the city of Pan'potsun, and with each day the number of villages they passed through had dwindled, whilst the distance between them lengthened. Their pace was torturously slow, but that was to be expected, travelling on foot as they did, and with a man in their company who had seemingly lost his mind.
Sun-darkened skin almost olive beneath the dust, the demon Greyfrog clambered onto the boulder and squatted at Cutter's side.
'Declaration. It is said that the wasps of the desert guard gems and such. Query. Has Cutter heard such tales? Anticipatory pause.'
'Sounds more like someone's bad idea of a joke,' Cutter replied. Below them was a flat clearing surrounded by massive rock outcroppings. It was the place of their camp. Scillara and Felisin Younger sat in view, tending the makeshift hearth. The madman was nowhere to be seen. Off wandering again, Cutter surmised. Holding conversations with ghosts, or, perhaps more likely, the voices in his head. Oh, Heboric carried curses, the barbs of a tiger on his skin, the benediction of a god of war, and those voices in his head might well be real. Even so, break a man's spirit enough times…
'Belated observation. Grubs, there in the dark reaches of the nest.
Nest? Bemused. Hive? Nest.'
Frowning, Cutter glanced over at the demon. Its flat, hairless head and broad, four-eyed face were lumpy and swollen with wasp stings. '
You didn't. You did.'
'Irate is their common state, I now believe. Breaking open their cave made them more so. We clashed in buzzing disagreement. I fared the worse, I think.'
'Black wasps?'
'Tilt head, query. Black? Dreaded reply, why yes, they were. Black.
Rhetorical, was that significant?'
'Be glad you're a demon,' Cutter said. 'Two or three stings from those will kill a grown man. Ten will kill a horse.'
'A horse – we had those – you had them. I was forced to run. Horse.
Large four-legged animal. Succulent meat.'
'People tend to ride them,' Cutter said. 'Until they drop, then we eat them.'
'Multiple uses, excellent and unwasteful. Did we eat yours? Where can we find more such creatures?'
'We have not the money to purchase them, Greyfrog. And we sold ours for food and supplies in Pan'potsun.'
'Obstinate reasonableness. No money. Then we should take, my young friend. And so hasten this journey to its much-awaited conclusion.
Latter tone indicating mild despair.'
'Still no word from L'oric?'
'Worriedly. No. My brother is silent.'
Neither spoke for a time. The demon was picking the serrated edges of its lips, where, Cutter saw upon a closer look, grey flecks and crushed wasps were snagged. Greyfrog had eaten the wasp nest. No wonder the wasps had been irate. Cutter rubbed at his face. He needed a shave. And a bath. And clean, new clothes.
And a purpose in life. Once, long ago, when he had been Crokus Younghand of Darujhistan, his uncle had begun preparing the way for a reformed Crokus. A youth of the noble courts, a figure of promise, a figure inviting to the young, wealthy, pampered women of the city. A shortlived ambition, in every way. His uncle dead, and dead, too, Crokus Younghand. No heap of ashes left to stir.
What I was is not what I am. Two men, identical faces, but different eyes. In what they have seen, in what they reflect upon the world.
'Bitter taste,' Greyfrog said in his mind, long tongue slithering out to collect the last fragments. A heavy, gusty sigh. 'Yet oh so filling. Query. Can one burst from what one has inside?'
I hope not. 'We'd best find Heboric, if we are to make use of this day.'
'Noted earlier. Ghost Hands was exploring the rocks above. The scent of a trail led him onward and upward.'
'A trail?'
'Water. He sought the source of the spring we see pooling below near the fleshy women who, said jealously, so adore you.'
Cutter straightened. 'They don't seem so fleshy to me, Greyfrog.'
