Free Into the Thinking Kingdoms by Alan Dean Foster Page B

Semordria.
    In the hilly suburb of Colioroi they did find several local greengrocers who had heard of bin Grue. He was known to them only by reputation, as an influential trafficker in specialty goods whose wealth placed him somewhere in the upper third of the merchant class, but who was by no means as celebrated or affluent or powerful as the famed Bouleshias family or Vinmar the Profuse.
    Given the choice, Ahlitah would have scoured the city in search of the man who had briefly reduced him to the status of merchandise. “He not only stole my freedom, he pocketed my dignity and put a price on it.” Yellow eyes gleamed as the big cat’s words were subsumed in snarl. “I want to eat him. I want to hear his bones break between my teeth and feel the warm flow of his blood running down my throat.”
    “Maybe another time.” Marking step and hour with his walking stick–spear, Ehomba led the way along the narrow road that wound through the low forested hills. With each stride the milling masses of Lybondai fell farther behind, and distant, fabled Hamacassar came a step nearer. “First I must fulfill my obligation.”
    The black cat paced him, the top of its mane even with the tall herdsman’s face. “What of my dignity?”
    It was always a shock when Ehomba lost his composure. Usually soft-spoken to the point of occasional inaudibility, it was doubly startling on those rare occasions when he did raise his voice. He whirled sharply on the litah.
    “To Hell with your dignity! I am unlucky enough to be beholden to a dead man. That is a real thing, not an abstraction of self.” He tapped his sternum. “Do you think you are the only one with such worries? The only creature with personal concerns?” Making a grand gesture with his free hand, he took in the sloping seacoast valley behind them and the glistening blue sea against which it snuggled like a sleeping dog by its master’s side.
    “My wife, my mate, lies uncounted leagues to the south, and my two children, and my friends, and none of them know at this moment if I live or am food for worms. That is a real thing, too. I would just as soon not be here as fervently as you!” Aware that he was shouting, he lowered his voice. “When we reached the southern shore of the Aboqua I was happy, because I thought we could find a ship in the trading towns of the Maliin to carry us across the Semordria. When we reached this place I was happy, because I thought the same thing.” His attention shifted back to the path ahead.
    “Now I find that we must once again travel an uncertain distance overland to this place called Hamacassar before that will be possible. And who knows what we will find when we get there? More frightened seamen, more reluctant captains? Will we have to cross the river where this city lies and keep marching, keep walking, because in spite of what we have been told its ships, too, will not dare the ocean reaches? I do not want to have to walk across the top of the world.”
    They strode on in silence for a while, ignoring the stares of farmers tending to their crops or children with sticks herding pigs and fowl, armadillos and small hoofed things with fluttering trunks and feathery tails.
    Having inititated the silence, it was Ahlitah who broke it. “You have a mate and cubs. I have nothing but my dignity. So it is more important to me than to you.”
    Ehomba pondered the feline reply, then nodded slowly. “You are right. I was being selfish. Forgive me.”
    “Not necessary,” rumbled the big cat. “The impulse to selfishness is a natural impulse, one we are all heir to.” The great black-maned head turned to look at him. “I wish you would lose your temper more often. It would make you more catlike.”
    “I am not sure I want to be more catlike. I—” The herdsman broke off. On his other side and slightly behind him, Simna ibn Sind was struggling to suppress his laughter. “What are you sniggering about?”
    “You. You’re discussing