CHAPTER III
'ISIS & JUNO'
Clytemnestra's sources, whoever they were, had been accurate. Within an hour of leaving the forest our path meets a real road. A wide, straight, flagged road on a raised dyke that shoots arrow-straight in both directions across the open green farmland to vanishing point in the east. It terminates in the west in a dark smudge of city nestling amongst the foothills of the imposing, muscular mountains which had loomed over our shoulder throughout our woodland journey.
Here and there little blurs of other traffic can be seen on the road, but far less than so broad an artery deserves. People work the fields either side of the road, growing the food the city needs to prosper.
"Think we'll make it by nightfall?" I ask, pessimistically.
"I could, you won't."
I've wondered before about the protocol and politics of asking her to carry me. I have no intention of actually asking, especially not when she already has a lot of weight to carry from Lecto's house, but the thought does cross my mind from time to time.
So we walk. Clytemnestra's unshod hooves clop cheerfully along the worn flagstones and I tinker with spell elements in my mind. It's altogether a pleasant walk for perhaps an hour until another sound reaches us: gunfire. We both turn as one and shading my eyes against the sun I can make out a big wagon perhaps half a mile behind us. Little figures scamper about it and there's another gunshot.
Immediately Clytemnestra is thundering towards the scene and I hare after her as best I can. She outpaces me easily, but even at full gallop she can load and fire that colossal gun. She fires twice and the figures, five or six I think, scatter. I guess they must have spell-shields because I cannot imagine Clytemnestra missing, even at the gallop. Desultory return fire patters back at her... And me!
I skid to a halt, not daring to go any closer unprotected. I drop to my knee, working the lever of my rifle to chamber a round and sighting along the barrel as Clytemnestra crashes into the scattering figures, sword drawn. She hews down two before I can do more than that and the rest flee as I let fly, aiming wide despite Clytemnestra's shield. My shots have no effect save perhaps chasing the fleeing figures of a little more emphatically.
Hands shaking I sling my rifle and trot the good distance to the wagon, where Clytemnestra waits, blood-slicked sword in hand. Two corpses, both cleaved almost in two lay haloed in blood on the road and I note academically that the sight does not affect me nearly so strongly as Lecto's body did.
A pretty, brown-skinned woman clutches the reins of the wagon and stammers her thanks to Clytemnestra, who callously wipes her blade clean on a scrap of her foe's clothing and sheaths it.
"Think nothing of it, lady. Bandits are the enemy of all."
"If you hadn't been there... I just don't know what I would've done!" she cries, standing on the running board and clutching at Clytemnestra's hand.
She is in fact a startlingly pretty woman, with very fine, elfin features, deep, clear brown eyes like a gazelle and long, lustrous black hair, not only on her head, but distinctly peeking out from under her arms. Her bust is nearly flat under a cream-coloured linen blouse trimmed with lace.
"They would have robbed you of everything you carry," Clytemnestra sniffs dismissively, "what is it you carry?"
The wagon is open-topped and filled with big barrels, at least a dozen of them.
"Spirits, exotic spirits."
That's torn it. Clytemnestra has mentioned, more than once, her love of a good drink and I can almost see the wheels turning in her head.
"You were lucky we were here. They would have taken every drop. Wicked women they were, maybe would have had their way with you first."
"I really cannot thank you enough!"
"Perhaps there's some more solid way to show your appreciation... Or liquid way," Clytemnestra smiles hopefully, "It's just a shame those bastards ran away so soon. My companion here is a sorceress, you know."
I nod dumbly when the woman looks at me and wonder how deep Clytemnestra can dig.
The woman looks between us for a moment and then nods, "Of course! My sister and I run an ordinary in the city, the Cross Staves. You are most welcome! Both of you!"
"You are too kind," replies Clytemnestra as though she's not planning to drink the place dry.
"Would... would you travel with me? You are going to Pyre Silver?"
"We'd be delighted."
That's that. The woman invites me to sit by her on the wagon and she whips up her four oxen. She introduces herself as Isis and I introduce myself and Clytemnestra, who walks companionably alongside.
"You're really a sorceress, Mistress?" she asks, not quite looking me in the eye.
I think fast and have no choice but to allow that it is so, "I am."
Well, I am in a very very technical sense. I've cast three different spells in my life and own two spellbooks. It's not a lie, just a massive exaggeration.
Isis asks why we're going to the city – to Pyre Silver – and I have to think for a moment before replying.
I settle on, "We're simple wanderers. We travel the world for its own sake."
"That sounds nice," she sighs.
"It has its moments."
"Ah, but then, I couldn't do that. I've too much to leave behind, and besides, seven days' journey from Pyre Huntingbird nearly did for me, had you not been there."
"Clytemnestra saved you, not me," I point out truthfully. Not that I really want to disabuse her of any goodwill she might have for me, she's a most attractive woman.
"You'd have done the same if your legs were less short," Clytemnestra lies, smiling.
Part of me wonders how willingly she'd run into a fusillade without magical protection, but honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if she would act just the same. I unsling my rifle and start sliding fresh cartages into the tube magazine. It seems a suitably martial, 'woman of action' sort of thing to do at that moment and it has the desired effect on Isis, who looks at me with something not a hundred miles away from awe.
It's a look she gives me again that evening when we halt a little way off the road. Clytemnestra cut some firewood before we left the forest and has been carrying it ever since. I never even thought to. She arranges it in a little pile and hands one of the stouter pieces to me. I hold it in my hand and mentally tell it that it's twenty times as hot as it was. It starts to smoulder, and within thirty seconds, is alight. I've kindled fire with a thought, just as I did last night.
I've almost no idea how I might create fire from nothing, creating anything from nothing seems to me very very complicated, but altering a single property of something that already exists, temperature, for example, is almost too easy.
Isis gasps when smoke appears, and leaps almost to her feet when flame overtakes the end of the stick. I wriggle it into the middle of the firewood and tell her that everything is okay. She does settle down, but keeps eyeing me warily. I've cemented my reputation in her mind as a sorceress of great power, I think. Clytemnestra seems to think it's all very funny, to judge from her broad, pretty smile.
We reach Pyre Silver around midday. Clytemnestra has been walking lighter with her luggage on the cart and I think Isis was driving a little faster than she normally would in her excitement to get home. The road ends at the walled city's broad gates where soldiers in mail quiz us about our business. Isis tells them that we've been to Pyre Huntingbird, apparently another northern city, to buy rare spirits for her business and that satisfies them.
We roll into the city along a wide cobbled road that leads all the way from this eastern gate to what I judge a palace in the centre of the city. Grand gabbled houses line both sides and multitudes of people bustle around us.
Oh! The people! Women and men of all ages hurrying everywhere, else standing and talking, or shouting or laughing or kissing. Every one of them looks fit and healthy and slim and strong. Everyone has the same attractive brown skin as Isis, varying by only a few shades lighter or darker.
All of the women are narrow-wasted, with breasts ranging from small to entirely flat. Most of them wear abbreviated tops which show off their toned tummies and, as often as not, dark trails of hair from the navel on down under their waistbands.
I had feared that Clytemnestra might attract a lot of attention, and she does. I see no other centaur anywhere. What I had not anticipated is how much attention I attract. I've never felt so obvious, so distinct, pale and blue eyed in a city where everyone has rich dark skin and brown eyes. Clytemnestra and I could not more obviously be strangers here if we tried.
"Ah, homecoming is good for the heart" Isis smiles happily.
"I wouldn't know," admits Clytemnestra, equally happily.
