Into the thinking kingdoms - Alan Dean Foster [53]
Simna lay slumped in the chair, quite unconscious and smelling strongly of the fruit of the vine. The earth could have opened beneath the cottage and the swordsman would have slept until he hit bottom.
A second rumble rattled the room, leaving the herdsman more awake than ever. Rain tiptoed on the thatch and spilled in a succession of channeled bells off the roof to strike the compacted ground outside. Sleeping in the awkward position had left him with a cramp in his thighs. Grimacing, he swung his legs off the arm of the couch and onto the floor. He would walk off the cramp and then try to go back to sleep in a different position.
In the dwindling firelight he paced back and forth between the couch and the kitchen, feeling the sensation return to his legs. It was on one such turn that he happened to glance out a window precisely when distant lightning flared. What he saw, or thought he saw, momentarily frozen in the stark dazzle, gave him pause.
An uncertain frown on his face, he walked to the door and unlatched the top half. Cool, wet wind greeted him and blowing rain assailed his bare skin. He blinked it away, trying to penetrate the darkness. His eyes were sharp, his night vision acute, but he was no owl. Another flash of light, a boom of thunder close at hand, and his eyes finally confirmed what he had seen through the window a moment before. There could be no question about it.
Yapping and barking excitedly with the strength of a much younger animal, darting back and forth with impossible swiftness, leaping higher into the air than any impala, Lamidy Coubert’s dog was herding the lightning.
IX
Wonderment writ large on his face, Ehomba stood in the half-open doorway, watching the implausible. It was enthralling to see the little long-haired dog cut off a bolt before it struck the ground, turning it with a stentorian yelp, cutting back and forth in front of the shimmering flash until it was penned back among the rocks with several others. They hovered there, flickering wildly, apparently unable to decide whether to strike the ground beneath them or recoil back up into the clouds. Like cornered livestock, they were waiting for directions from the supernal sheepdog.
A fresh bolt attempted to slash at one of the garden fence posts. Anticipating its arrival, the dog flashed through the air faster than even Ehomba’s trained eye could follow. With a clashing of its jaws it snapped at the descending tip of the thunderbolt, sending it whipping sideways to slam harmlessly into an open, empty patch of ground.
Tongue lolling, eyes bright and alert, the dog stood stolidly next to the garden awaiting the next lashing from the heavens. Then something made her turn, and she saw Ehomba standing in the doorway, staring. Sneezing once, she shook her head dog-style and trotted over to the pen of boulders to yap boisterously at the lightning trapped within. With a great concerted crash and roll the cornered bolts were sucked back up into the roiling clouds from whence they had come, to crackle and threaten no more.
Satisfied, the old dog pivoted and came loping back toward the house. Halting beneath the overhanging lip of the thatched roof, she shook violently, sending water flying in every direction. Her long fur fluffed out, but only partway. It would take more than a shake or two to dry out that thick mop of black and white. Slurping up her tongue, she considered the tall stranger watching her from the other side of the door.
“Well,” she exclaimed in words of perfect inflection, “are you going to let me in so I can dry off, or do you mean to make me stand out here until I catch my death of cold?”
“No.” Taking a step back, Ehomba opened the lower half of the door. “I would not want that.”
She trotted past him and headed straight for the fire. Seeing that the somnolent Ahlitah occupied nearly all of the space before the glowing embers, she sighed and managed to find an unoccupied bit