Into the thinking kingdoms - Alan Dean Foster [22]
“Look upon the fate that has unfolded before you, herdsman. I have but to give the word and they will rend you from head to foot. They’ll rip out your organs and feast on them raw. Have you no fear? Or are you too ignorant to know when death is staring you in the face?”
Ignoring the conglomeration of anticipative vileness, Ehomba reached slowly over his back. Not for either of the two swords slung there, but for something small concealed within his pack. Nor did he thrust forward his walking stick–spear with the dark, enchanted fossil tooth that was lashed to its tip. While the merchant watched curiously to see what he was about and Simna ibn Sind hovered anxiously by his side, the herdsman uncurled his fingers to reveal . . .
“A piece of string?” Ibn Sind’s lower jaw dropped.
Ehomba nodded once. “Yes. Though my people would say twine, and not string.”
Haramos bin Grue sighed regretfully. “It all makes sense now. You have the fearlessness of the mad. Only the completely crazy can be truly brave, because they really never comprehend the dangers before them.” He started to turn away. “That won’t stop me from having you killed, of course.” He proceeded to wave his hand in a certain way, and finished by snapping his fingers three times.
Spriest of all the cunning executioners, the mass murderer Lohem En-Qaun leaped forward, all four eyes ablaze, eager to be the first to draw blood. Matching the leaping wraith’s agility, Simna raised his sword preparatory to fending off the attack. As he did so, Ehomba brought his right arm down and up, flinging his short length of twine at the bounding assailant.
A light enveloped the strand, an eerie radiance that seemed to course along its individual fibers. It was not a fiery glow, not in any way especially dazzling or brilliant. The thin cord simply metamorphosed into a kind of coruscating brownness that transcended its lowly origins.
Like a snake emerging from its hole, it lengthened and grew. It whipped around Lohem En-Qaun and snapped all four of his arms to his sides, pinning them to multiple ribs and freezing the would-be slayer in his tracks. Bin Grue gaped, but wore the mask of disbelief for only a moment. He was a hardened man, was the merchant, and in his time had seen much that had toughened him against surprise.
“Kill them.” Raising a hand that did not shake, he pointed straight at the two intruders. “Kill them now!”
Unintimidated by their compeer’s consternation, the rest of the murderous throng rushed forward—only to be met by the darting, writhing, sinuous length of twine. It caught the ankles of Brorunous the Destroyer and brought the hulking body crashing to the floor, as if binding a mountain. Singing through the night air, loops of glowing strands enveloped and secured Yoloth the Assassin, preventing him from wielding so much as a single knife or throwing star. It fettered the hands and constrained the claws and locked the feet and shuttered the jaws of a dozen of the most vile, proficient killers who had ever lived, and bound them all up together in a single howling, raving mass of impotent destruction.
And then, having done this, it looped and twisted and coiled and curled until it had squeezed them right back down into a strangely imprinted and inscribed box small enough to fit in the palm of a man’s hand. Around the box was fitted, snugly and with no room to slip a querulous finger beneath, the original length of string Etjole Ehomba had removed from his pack. No insult was intended, no dry humor contrived, but the little bow with which the binding was finished was far more suggestive than any knot could have been.
Haramos bin Grue was gone. Having finally acknowledged the reality of what he was seeing, he had fled through the back door before the graceful compacting of his terrors could be completed. Simna approached the box and, with gathering boldness, picked it up. Marveling at the simple, six-sided wonder,