At first light, four days later, Gath left his root house wearing the mended suit of chain mail. It was now blackened except for scattered glitters of raw metal. Two jars of wine, a blanket roll, sword, two daggers, a satchel and a leather fire pouch rode his back and belt, and he carried Red Helmet’s axe in his right hand. His clean-shaven face wore the color of good health, and he was bareheaded, moving west with a hurried stride.
By the time he reached Trail’s End, at the farthest edge of the Shades, he slowed to a reasonable pace. His face was flushed, and the wounds on his shoulder and thighs were hot and chafed under the chain mail.
A crowd of bleached skulls mounted on sticks marked Trail’s End. Beyond it was Toofar, and beyond that the Land of Smoking Skies.
Gath picked his way through the skulls, weaved through the tangled vines beyond, and found a dusty path apparently formed by big-footed, wide-shouldered beasts. It took him to Noga Swamp, a seemingly endless spread of mangroves whose mammoth roots rose out of murky green slime to form house-sized structures roofed by leafy trees. Amid the shadows, a scarlet dragon-lizard sunned itself in a scrap of sunlight.
It was sprawled on a bald rock about a foot from the spot where Gath’s boot landed with a crunch. The lizard popped an eye open, spread its toothy jaws in a silent scream, and fled leaping and dashing over a highway of branches into the swamp.
Gath grinned at this show of comical flattery, then splashed to a stop. The cacophony of insect sounds that swarmed over the swamps was swelling in volume. Then all about him there was a multitude of slithering movements, as if the enormous swamp were a single living creature. A pandemonium of splashing and bubbling followed, then silence. The sudden void of sound gave the wet land a strange compelling aspect, and a thrill shot through Gath, as if he were a boy again feeling that first hunger to see the other side of the mountain.
He high stepped his way along the edge of the swamp, and as Cobra had said he would, came to an ancient, raised dirt road that wound its way through the mangroves. At irregular intervals along its battered broken body, vine-covered bridges rose above the water to pass over deep ponds and the tallest roots. He followed it and moved west deep into the swamp.
As he passed over the murky ponds the sounds and movements slowly returned. They started behind him, then came rolling around him, waves of tiny, clacking voices washing him forward.
Large, slime-coated eyes watched him from the root shadows. He felt a thousand others on his back. But the road in front of him seemed strangely lifeless. He shortened his grip on his axe.
At a bridge spanning a wide canal that linked two lake-sized ponds, Gath stopped warily. At the center of the ponds the green slime dissipated and feathered out in webs of yellowish foam, then gave way to patches of blue-green water. Splashes of sunlight, finding passage through the thinning tree cover, made them glitter, and graced the skeleton of a man dangling from a high tree branch. He hung by his own chain neckpiece. His legs were missing, but he still looked as tall as Gath. An ancient giant who had had his stature severely reduced by some enterprising swamp creature.
Gath’s eyes hunted through the murky wetness, stopped and turned cold. A mammoth crocodile floated on its belly in the shade below the skeleton. Its scaly hide was the color of the swamp and crusted with warts, scars, sores. Its blinking eyes, dense with thick yellowish cataracts, had obviously seen centuries of the primordial world’s suffering. The creature’s teeth, rotted to sharp jagged stumps, had no doubt contributed a large portion to that agony. Its best days were long gone, but with jaws big enough for three men to wrestle in, it was still Lord of the Swamp.
Gath rolled his shoulders and moved arrogantly across the bridge giving the mammoth reptile his back.
At the western side of the swamp the road consisted of rotting wooden planks mounted on wooden stilts as tall as trees. A floating bridge that passed narrowly over giant Tubb plants, spined cannibal flowers shaped like pitchers with rounded lids that poured forth beckoning tongues.
Beyond the swamp was more forest, then Panga Pass, a narrow dirt trail through brown foothills of stacked boulders of uncanny sizes and shapes. It was as barren of plant life as the swamp was dense. Beyond the boulders the pass twisted between two mountains. The yellow-orange ball of the sun dipped below their rugged horizon in glowing invitation.
Gath traveled west until the light was gone, then made camp under an overhanging rock and ate. When night came threats came with it; the vicious roars of strange, prowling demons, the hiss of everything that slithered. He did not try to sleep.
The next day he was on the march again.
Deep within the rising pass he found a swinging bridge, another landmark. It was built of ropes as thick as tree trunks with wooden planks serving as the roadbed. A few hundred feet beneath the bridge, the turbulent Nualna River crashed over the huge, blunt boulders of the gorge. Here the trail turned north while the river cascaded down steep waterfalls flowing east. Beyond the falls to the west he could see only blue sky.
He left the trail and moved west to a cool shaded area near a waterfall. He had heard, but not seen any living creature for a day and a night, no bird, insect or beast. Here the river water was no haven for fish, frog or dragonfly, and the sky looked as if it had never served as a highway for bird or butterfly.
He peered into a still pond at the base of the waterfall, expecting to see his own reflection. But refractions of sunlight distorted his image so he could not tell who or what he saw. He started to kneel and drink the water, but stood instead and urinated on his rippling reflection.
It was dusk when he reached the top of the falls. Rain started drizzling down through thick mists. It was impossible to tell direction. Mists lay low, enveloping the ground. All he could see were thick, grey places of moving mysteries.
Gath found a dry perch under a shelf of overhanging rock. When night came clouds of moving blackness swirled over him. Moon and star were invisible. He could not see the axe in his own hand. The sounds of the unseen crashing water blotted out all other sounds and dominated his senses. Again he did not sleep.
Morning arrived as a pale grey glow behind swirling fog. But the rain had stopped.
With burning red-rimmed eyes, Gath stalked out from under his shelf wearing an expression as temperate as a flung spear. He could not see trail or landmark. He growled, groped for his belongings and started off into the mists blindly. Ten feet of this, and he stopped short. An emerald and gold lizard poised on a black rock was staring at him audaciously.
Gath took a stride toward it and his eyes widened with curiosity. The arrogant lizard was wearing a thin gold collar. He grabbed for it, but it scooted off and vanished among the rocks, only to reappear on a flat bare area a short way off. An escort? Why not? He, more politely, moved after the lizard and it turned, led the way skittering forward.
Gradually the mists burnt off, and the midday sun spilled light down through blue sky to grace distant black clouds with crowns of dusty gold. The clouds clustered over the flaming mouths of several volcanic craters, the largest of which rose directly in front of him. The Land of Smoking Skies.
As he advanced, Gath spotted guards standing at the mouths of caves on the sides of the volcano. Coming closer, he saw a small troop of soldiers carrying game into one cave as another troop moved out. They saw Gath and seemed to hesitate and consult each other. But then they went on about their business.
He reached a rock staircase leading up to the two enormous golden doors Cobra had described. Upon arriving at the landing he found the golden doors slightly open and two soldiers in green leather waiting for him. Music and the scents of jasmine and strong, sweet liquor drifted out of the dark corridor behind them. The soldiers were heavy boned, with jewels on their fingers and in their ears. They welcomed Gath using the common language of barter, and told him that the Queen of Serpents awaited him in her quarters. Their tone was one of hardy warmth, but Gath found it difficult to trust. Their tongues were forked.