Forty Thousand in Gehenna

So their isolation was ended. Two months cut off in this relative desolation, two months of fishing and the stink of water and rot and mud and Parm all prickly with having outsiders in his hall. The lord Jin had deigned to come recover them.

Genley did not go ru

“You know the way you have to be with him,” he warned them. “Firm and no backing up. No eagerness either. If we ask about that com equipment right off it’ll likely end up at the bottom of the Styx. You know his ways. And then he’ll be sorry tomorrow. Don’t bring that up. Hear?”

A surly nod from Kim. Ma

“Listen,” said Ma

“We’ll send you back on r and r when we get the leisure,” Genley said. “You just don’t foul it up, you hear? You don’t do it. You muddle this up, I’ll let you get out of it any way you can.”

Ma

“Come on,” Genley said, and went off ahead of them.

Your problem, Jin had said once. These men of yours. Your problem.

They went, the three of them, where every other person of status in the community was going, to the Tower, to see what the news was.

xliv

205 CR, day 35

Parm Tower

The hall rustled with caliban movements, nervous movements. Thorn had made himself a place. Parm’s own Claw had moved aside, compelled by something it could not bluff, and below it, other calibans, of those which had come in, sorted themselves into an order of dominances. These had been fighting where they came from: violence was in their mood, and in the mood of their riders, and it was not a good time to have come in. Genley saw that now, but there was no way out. They stood there, against the wall, last to have come in; no caliban defended them. Scaly bodies locked and writhed and tails whipped in sweeps on the peripheries.

“Let’s get out of here,” Ma

“Stay still,” Genley said, jerked at his arm. Ma

“Use yours,” Kim said, at his other side. Kim left. Walked out.

Ma

So Jin noticed him finally, from across the room where, heedless of it all, he was stripping off his leather shirt. Women of Parm’s band had brought water in a basin. Other men stood muddy as they were, attending the calibans. A scattering of Weirds insinuated themselves and brought some quiet, putting their hands on the calibans, getting matters sorted out.

Jin lifted his chin slightly, staring straight at him while the women washed his hands. Come here, that meant.

Genley crossed the recent battleground, weaving carefully around calibans who had settled into sullen watching of each other. It was a dangerous thing to do. But the Weirds were there. A man knew just how close to come. He did that, and stood facing Jin, who looked him up and down with seeming satisfaction. “Gen‑ley.” The eyes had their old force. But there was a new scar added to the others that were white and pink on Jin’s body. This was on the shoulder, near the neck, an ugly scabbed streak. There were others, already gone to red new flesh. He always forgot how small Jin was. The memory of him was large. Now the eyes held him, dark and trying to overawe him, trying him whether he could go on looking back, the way he tried every man he met.

Genley said nothing. Chatter got nowhere with Jin. It was not the hunters’ style. A lot passed with handsigns, with subtle moves, a shrug of the shoulders, the fix of eyes. There was silence round them now. He was only one of the number that waited on Jin, and some of those were mudspattered and shortfused.

One was Parm; and Parm’s band; one was Blue, mad‑eyed Blue, who was, if Jin had a band, chiefest of that motley group, excepting Jin. A big man, Blue, with half an ear gone, beneath the white‑streaked hair that came down past his shoulders. The hair was strings of mud now.

“How many more?” Parm asked, not signing: Jin’s shoulder was to him.

“I’ll talk to you about that.” Jin never looked at Parm. He gave a small jerk of his head at Blue. “Go on. Clean up–” The eyes came back to Genley. “You I’ll talk to. My father.”

“How did it go?” Genley asked.

“Got him,” Jin said, meaning a man was dead. Maybe more than one. A band would have gone with him. The women. Jin unlaced his breeches, sat down on the earthen ledge to strip off his muddy boots. Women helped him, took the boots away. He stood up and stripped off the breeches, gave them to the women too, and dipped up water in the offered basin, carrying it to his face. It ran down in muddy rivulets. He dipped up a second and a third double handful. The water pooled about his feet. More women brought another basin, and cloths, and dipped up water in cups while he stood there letting them wash the mud off, starting with his hair. It became a lake.

“You here for a while?” Genley asked.

Jin waved off further washing, reached for a blanket a woman held and wound it about himself.

“A bath’s ready,” Parm’s sister said.

He waved them off again. Held out his hand from beneath the blanket. A cup arrived in it; he never looked to see, but carried it to his lips and drank, looking up at Genley the while. He was not easy. Gen‑ley read that mood. Beyond him Thorn rested, only half relaxed.

“Like Parm Tower?” Jin asked him.

“It’s wet here.”

Jin failed to laugh. Just stared at him.

“Didn’t think it would take this long,” Genley ventured, still pushing, judging he had to push. And pay the young bastard a compliment, if he took it that way.

It halfway pleased Jin. Genley saw the blink. The mouth never changed. Jin gestured with the cup. Sit. Jin took the ledge. The floor was damp from what had not run down the slant to the drain. Genley ignored the invitation, not liking looking up, but stood easier, and that was all right: it had not been an order. Jin puffed his cheeks, let out a long, slow breath.

“The Styx is cold,” Jin said.

“Cold here too. No women here.”

Jin looked up, nonplussed.

“Didn’t have that matter taken care of here,” Genley said.

Jin blinked, blinked again, and a small wicked smile started at the corners of his mouth. “Forgot that. That old sod Parm.” It became a laugh, a silent shaking of the shoulders. “O my father, all this time. Poor Genley.” He wiped his eyes. “No women.” He laughed again, gestured with the cup. “We fix that.”

Genley regarded him with touchy humor. There were other things about Parm he would have wished to say, but a list seemed risky. He folded his arms and looked down at Jin. “Mostly,” he said, “I fished. Hunted a bit along the banks. In the bog. Didn’t hear anything, didn’t get any news. So you settled with that Mes bastard.”

“Yes.”

“Want to talk to you when you’ve got time.”

“About what?”

“When you’ve got time.”

The brows came down, instant frown. “But I always have time,” Jin said, “if its news.”

“Told you I had none of that. That’s what about. There’s a point past which the Base is going to be asking questions.”

“Let them ask.”