Into the thinking kingdoms - Alan Dean Foster [116]
“I’ve seen much of the world in my travelings and met many strange folk, but by Giskret’s Loom, he’s for surely the most peculiar and mysterious of the lot.” Silent for a moment after concluding his explanation, he shrugged and downed the contents of his tumbler. Accompanied by smiles and laughter, it was quickly refilled.
“He didn’t look like much of a sorcerer to me,” declared one of the men.
“You’d far sooner convince me that someone that odd-looking dotes on the droppings of cows!” quipped another. General jollity followed this jest.
Simna knew the not-so-veiled insult to his friend should have bothered him. But he was having too good a time, and the middling attractive woman at the far end of the table was eyeing him with more than casual curiosity. So he thrust the abrasive comment aside and smiled back at her. He’d always been good at ignoring that which distressed him, especially when it came at the ultimate expense of others.
Alongside him, a happy Knucker held out his tumbler to be refilled. Within that sturdy container many things could be drowned—including promises made.
XVIII
Nothing moved in the dark depths of the tavern. The still air stank of stale beer and spilled wine, but it was not silent. Gruntings and snortings that would have been at home in any sty rose from the dozen or so intoxicated bodies that lay sprawled on the floor and, in one case, across a table from which plates and other dinner debris had been solicitously removed. All of the unconscious were male. For a woman to have been left in such circumstances would have gone against the teachings of Tragg. Under the Traggian codex, men and women had clearly defined roles. Public inebriation was not an option available to representatives of the female gender.
When the managers of the inn had finally called a halt to the communal townsparty, the majority of revelers had contentedly tottered or been carried off to their homes. Only the most severe celebrants were left behind to sleep off the aftereffects of the festivities safely. As for the managers themselves, they and their assistants had long since finished cleaning up what they could and had retired to their own rooms.
Amidst the general silence and intermittent snoring, one figure moved. It did not rise from the floor or tables, but instead entered through the front portal. This was not locked and stood open to the outside. No one locked their doors in Netherbrae. There was no need for anyone to do so. The adherents of Traggism had complete faith in one another. They had to; otherwise the entire system would collapse upon the fragility of its own moral underpinnings.
Picking his way among the tables and benches, Ehomba occasionally had to step over or around a somnolent villager. Making less noise than a moth, he approached the motionless cage. It remained where it had been left, in the middle of the tavern, its sole occupant squatting in the center of the caged floor, hunched over and still. Piles of food dimpled the interior and clung stubbornly to the wooden bars.
The herdsman halted a few feet from the rear of the wheeled cage. For several moments he simply stood there, contemplating the massive, hirsute back of the imprisoned creature. Then he said, in a soft but carrying whisper, “Hello.”
The nightmare did not move, did not react.
“I am sorry for the way you were treated. It was a saddening display. It is at such times that I feel closer to the apes. There are people whose sense of self-worth is so poor that the only way they can feel better is to degrade and humiliate something else. Preferably something that cannot fight back. I just wanted to tell you that before I left here, so that you would know there are human beings who do not think that way.” His encouraging smile was a splash of whiteness in the dim light. “It is too bad you cannot understand