Limits Larry Niven (audio ebook reader TXT) 📖

the accompaniment of an incredible cacophony of hoots, whistles, and brays.

Sparthera clapped her hands over her ears and yelled. “That’s no wild ass! What on earth is it? Some sort of magic beast?”

Bruk was busily fitting his halter on their uncooperative captive. “I don’t know,” he panted. “I think it’s half ass and half nightmare. If a sorcerer dreamed it up, he must have been drunk.”

He stood back and let it scramble to its feet. It lowered its head, pawed the ground savagely, lifted its tail, and jumped with all four feet. The maneuver carried it forward perhaps two paces, its little wings flapping frantically.

Sparthera burst out laughing, doubled over with mirth. When she recovered enough she stared at their captive and shook her head. “Do you think it can be broken to carry a pack?”

“Let’s get it down to the barn and we’ll try it with a pack saddle.”

Getting the wingbeast down the hill was a production in its own right. It bolted, tried to roll, then dug its feet in like the most obstinate of jackasses. Finally, tired, irritated, and covered with grime, the three of them made it to the barnyard.

They managed to get the saddle on its back—after Sparthera had been butted and trampled and her brother had been dumped in the watering trough—and stood back to watch.

The small animal bucked. It turned, twisted, flapped its ridiculous little wings, and rolled in the dust. It tried to bite the saddle girth and scrape the saddle off against the fence. It kicked its heels and brayed. Just when they thought it would never quit, it stopped, sides heaving, and glared at them.

The next day it accepted a ripe apple from Sparthera, bit Bruk in the buttocks, and managed to bolt into the house, where Sparthera’s mother hit it on the nose with a crock of pickled cabbage.

Sparthera was losing patience. It was all taking too long. Had Sung Ko Ja discovered her trick? Was he searching Tarseny’s Rest for the woman who had stolen his pointer? She had told Bayram Ali that she was visiting her parents. Someone would come to warn her, surely.

But nobody came, that day or the next; and a horrid thought came to her. Sung Ko Ja must have followed the pointer far indeed. Even without the pointer, he must have a good idea where the treasure lay. He might have continued on. At this moment he could be unearthing Sparthera’s treasure!

It was three days before the winged beast gave up the fight, trotted docilely at the end of a rope, and accepted the weight of a loaded pack saddle. It even gave up trying to bite, as long as they kept out of its reach. Sparthera named it “Eagle.”

“It would be better called ‘Vulture!’” Bruk said, rubbing at a healing wound. “It’s smart, though, I’ll grant you that. Only took the beast three days to realize it couldn’t get rid of that saddle.”

“Three days,” Sparthera said wearily. “Bruk, for once you were right. I should have stolen a horse.”

She rode back to town leading the wingbeast along behind. It took her half a day to buy provisions and pack her clothing. In late afternoon she set out on the King’s Way, holding the bronze pointer like the relic of some ancient and holy demigod.

She was expecting to ride into the wilderness, into some wild, unpopulated area where a treasure could lie hidden for eighty years. But the pointer was tugging her along the King’s Way, straight toward Rynildissen, the ruling city of the biggest state around. That didn’t bother her at first. Rynildissen was four days’ hard riding for a King’s messenger, a week for a traveler on horseback, two for a caravan. And Gar’s band had done their raiding around Rynildissen.

The King’s Way was a military road. It ran wide as a siege engine and straight as an arrow’s flight. It made for easy traveling, but Sparthera worried about sharing her quest with too much traffic. She found extensive litter beside the road: burnt-out campfires, horse droppings, garbage that attracted lynxes. It grew ever fresher. On her third afternoon she was not surprised to spy an extensive dust plume ahead of her. By noon of the next day she had caught up with a large merchant caravan.

She was about to ride up alongside the trailing wagon when she caught a glimpse of an odd shaggy horse with a tail like an ass. There was a figure in bulky Eastern robes on its back. Sung!

Sparthera pulled her horse hard to the side and rode far out over the rolling hill and away from the road. She had no desire to trade words with the smooth-faced magician. But what was he doing here? The caravan was protection from beasts and minor thieves; but the caravan was slow. He could have been well ahead of Sparthera by now.

He didn’t know the pointers had been switched! That must be it. The seeking-spell had been nearly dead already. Sung had followed it from far to the east; now he was following his memory, with no idea that anyone was behind him.

Then the important thing was to delay him. She must find the treasure, take it, and be miles away before Sung Ko Ja reached the site.

All day she paced the caravan. At dusk they camped round a spring. Leaving her horse, Sparthera moved down among the wagons, tents, oxen and camels. She avoided the campfires. Sung Ko Ja had pitched a small red and white striped tent. His unicorn was feeding placidly out of a nosebag.

Stealing a roll of rich brocade was easy. The merchant should have kept a dog. It was heavy stuff, and she might well be spotted moving it out of camp, but she didn’t have to do that. After studying Sung’s tent for some time, watching how soundly Sung slept, she crept around to the back of the tent and rolled the brocade under the edge. Then away, hugging the shadows, and