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do. She saw my indecision, said: "Come, they're waiting for us."
'She took me to one of the nodding, lolling creatures. It had been Corlis's, I
thought, for upon its back, where the neck stuck out, a cage of metal was
bound in position.
"Climb up and get in," Karen told me, but I couldn't. I backed away, shook my
head. My fear seemed to give her a lot more confidence - not that I thought
she needed any!
'She laughed: "Then ride with me."
'We went to the next unoccupied beast. Beneath its harness it wore a purple
blanket huge as a carpet; the harness itself was of black leather with golden
trappings, and the saddle at the base of the flyer's neck was huge, soft and
sumptuous. The thing lowered its neck and Karen grasped nodules and harness,
drew herself easily aloft and into the saddle. I could scarcely bring myself
to touch that alien flesh. She reached down, grasped my fevered hand in her
own cool one, and with her help I mounted-up behind her.
'"If you get dizzy, cling to me," she said. And then we flew to her aerie. I
can't say more than that about the flight for my eyes were closed most of the
way. And I did cling to her, for there was nothing else to cling to.
'The aerie was a horrible place. It ... Jazz?' Zek leaned across and looked at
him. In his mouth, the cork tip of a cigarette stuck straight up in the air.
Even as she smiled her soft, slow smile, a puff of wind blew half an inch of
cold ash loose onto his chest, which began to rise and fall in a steady
rhythm. And he had said he wouldn't be able to sleep! Well, it was better that
he get his rest. Better that she get some, too.
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But she wondered how much of what she'd said had gone in.
As it happened, most of it had. And Jazz's opinion of her hadn't changed. She
was a hell of a woman . . .
The next fifteen miles weren't so easy and Jazz began to understand what Zek
had meant by 'back-breaking'. After what he'd been through prior to and since
leaving
Perchorsk (and his own world) far behind, something a little less than three
hours of sleep hadn't seemed a great deal. Not in the way of preparation for
this, anyway. The trail had been rough, winding up into higher foothills where
tumbled scree made the going a veritable obstacle course; it had soon started
to rain, a deluge which eventually petered out just as Lardis called for the
second break. Here there were dry, shallow caves under broken ledges of rock,
into which most of the Travellers dispersed themselves. Jazz and Zek likewise,
peering out from their cramped refuge while the sky cleared and the low,
unshakable sun began to aim its wan but still warming rays into their faces
again.
From this vantage point, as the air cleared and the sun sucked up and steamed
away a swirling ground mist, Jazz was able to see why Lardis had chosen such a
difficult route. Down below a forest stretched deep and wide, away out onto
the Sunside plain. Criss-crossed with rivers tumbling from the mountains, the
deep, dark green of the woods told of an almost impenetrable rankness. Up here
the rivers were still streams, easily forded, but down below they tumbled
through gulleys, joined up, finally broadened into wide watercourses winding
through the forest. Good for hunting and fishing, certainly, but no good at
all for trekking. The choice had been as easy as that:
a difficult route or an impossible one. And of course the foothills did
command a view of all the land around, a factor much to Lardis's liking.
'This time,' Jazz told Zek, 'I believe I'll sleep.'
'You did last time,' she reminded him. 'Are you beginning to feel the strain?'
'Beginning to feel it?' He managed a grin. 'I'm looking for a muscle that
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doesn't ache! And yet the Travellers have these damned cumbersome travois to
lug around, and I
don't hear them complaining. I suppose it's like you said: I'll get used to
it. But I'd hate to think what it would be like for anyone who was unfit, or
maybe an older person, stranded here.'
'I wasn't so fit,' she reflected. 'But I've had more time to get myself broken
in. I suppose in a way I was lucky that the Lady Karen got me first. And then
that she was . . .
well, a "Lady", or as much of a one as her condition would allow her to be.'
'Her condition?'
'She has Dramal Doombody's egg,' Zek nodded. The Wamphyri Lord Dramal was
doomed from the day he took a leper - which was how he came to be named that
way.
I'll explain:
'Leprosy is also part of the Travellers' lot. They are prone to it. Passed on,
inherited or simply contracted from another leper - don't ask me. I don't know
anything about the disease. But when its symptoms start to show in a
Traveller, then he's kicked out. It happens now and then: his tribe simply
abandons him. Or her. Dramal, in his youth five hundred years ago, took a
female leper. She had the disease but it hadn't started to show yet. The
vampire Lord found her comely; he cohabited with her in his aerie;
too late he discovered her curse.'
Jazz was puzzled yet again. 'You mean she passed it on to him? But I'm amazed
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