Sagaria

by John Dahlgren

  Lamarod’s voice erupted into a whoof as a kick from the Shadow Knight took him in the ribs.

  He’s seen us, Sagandran suddenly realised. Lamarod has seen us! That’s why he’s telling the Shadow Knights that cock-and-bull story all over again – so we’d know he was directing the hunters away from us.

  “Was there anyone else with them?” asked another of the Shadow Knights languidly. He didn’t look up as he spoke, just nonchalantly cleaned under his fingernails with the point of a small dagger, seeming to have little trouble seeing what he was doing in the flickering light from his companions’ torches.

  “N–No,” whined Lamarod, trying but failing to push himself up onto his hands and knees. “Oh, wait a moment.”

  “Yes?” said the Shadow Knight who’d been beating him, and taking a pace forward, he prepared to deliver another of those brutally powerful kicks.

  “They had a horse. A white horse.”

  “That was all?”

  “There was no one else, just those two kids and the horse.”

  At the second attempt, the mayor was able to get himself up to a crouch. To the Shadow Knights, his eyes must have seemed to be roaming aimlessly, but he was staring straight at Perima and Sagandran. Go away from here, his tormented gaze seemed to be imploring them. Get away as quick as your legs will carry you. I’ll hold out as long as I can, but—

  The next kick took him in the stomach, rocketing him back against the wall again.

  The Shadow Knight who’d kicked him turned to the other three. “I think this scumbag has told us everything,” he said in a conversational tone. He had a sunny smile on his face. “We’re not going to get anything more out of him because there’s nothing more to get.”

  “You reckon he’s telling the truth, Tomaq?” said the one with the dagger, not looking up from his fingernails.

  “I’d say so. He’s no hero. He’d betray his grandmother if it’d save his own miserable hide.”

  “Might as well kill him then?”

  “That’d be fun, a pleasant little diversion, but I don’t think the Master would thank us for it. The Master wants every able-bodied person he can muster, so he can suck the life power out of them and then stick them in his slave mines.”

  “The Master need never know?” It was a question anticipating only one answer.

  “The Master finds out everything in the end.” The Shadow Knight named Tomaq tugged a sobbing Lamarod upright. “A pity for you, in a way,” he continued to the mayor, as if the two of them were merely discussing the weather. “Death would have been the easier way out.”

  Sagandran and Perima slunk silently behind a loveboat that was left standing crookedly on its rail. They could see a thin strip of dark floor under the boat, nothing more. Then that strip became erratically lit as the Shadow Knights drew nearer, their torches bringing relief to the gloom. The only sound of their progress was the scrape of Lamarod’s heels along the floor as he was dragged toward the tunnel entrance. Like the Shadow Knights out in the square, these men moved in eerie silence just an inch or so above the ground.

  They paused beside the loveboat, and Perima and Sagandran stared wildly at each other through the shadows, certain that their hiding place had been discovered.

  But the pause was only so that the Shadow Knights could resume their argument.

  “I still say we should kill him.”

  “No,” said Tomaq flatly.

  “But—”

  “Are you willing to risk the wrath of Arkanamon?”

  “I told you, he need never know.”

  “And I told you, he always does know. I think I understand my master’s ways better than most. I’ve been at his right hand long enough.”

  “Hah!”

  Sagandran expected the men to move on, but they tarried a little longer, unspeaking.

  Then Lamarod’s tormentor spoke again. “Our orders were clear: seize the boy. That’s all we’re to do.”

  “He’s long gone.”

  “They can’t have got far. This fat fool says they were here yesterday.”

  “Then we should be searching the forest. A boy, a girl, a white horse – how hard can they be to find?”

  “It worries me that the others are no longer with them. All the reports from our spies say the two brats had a couple of older people with them. The worgs said the same. What could have happened to them?”

  “You believe the reports?”

  “Why not?”

  “They also say one of the fellow travelers was a giant frog. You believe that too?”

  Tomaq’s voice sounded a little hesitant for the first time. “That may have been a transcription error.”

  “Anyway,” resumed the knight with the dagger, “for all we know, the boy and girl could have taken up with the rest as company for the road. When the two we’re after headed for Wonderville, maybe they went their separate ways. Who knows? Who cares? They aren’t important to us.”

  A different voice chipped in. “Maybe the worgs ate ’em.”

  “Could be,” assented the dagger-wielder. “Their instructions were the same as ours: catch the boy. If they killed the other two they wouldn’t have thought it worth mentioning. Then, of course, those idiot creatures let the little swine escape.”

  There was the clank of an armored shrug. “What can you expect with worgs? They’re hardly over-endowed in the brain department, are they?”

  The four Shadow Knights chuckled, a sound like chains being dragged along a long-deserted corridor. Sagandran felt like his spine was trying to tie itself in a knot.

  “We’d better get going,” said Tomaq. “Report back, then get the search underway in the forest.”

  “If I never see that damned forest again, it’ll be too soon,” grumbled the fourth Shadow Knight, the one who’d not spoken before.

  “Too right,” agreed the dagger-wielder. He uttered a string of expletives, only a few of which Sagandran recognized.

  Then the Shadow Knights were moving again. Lamarod’s legs came into view under the loveboat, the heels trailing.

  Perima and Sagandran waited a few minutes longer, not daring to move until they were certain the Knights had really gone. Finally, they unkinked themselves and stood up, peering cautiously over the top of the empty loveboat.

  “Sir Tombin and Samzing are alive,” whispered Sagandran. “Flip must be with them. They’re safe.”

  Perima dampened his spirits. “Unless that Shadow Knight was right and the worgs killed them.”

  “Doubt it. The last we saw of those worgs, they didn’t exactly exude victory, did they?”

  She nodded slowly. “I hope you’re right.”

  They dropped to the floor as one and crawled out from under the loveboat. It felt curiously liberating to be standing out in the open tunnel again, but at the same time unsettling. Should the Shadow Knights for some reason return, Perima and Sagandran would be stuck out here in clear view, defenseless.

  “We’ve got to get as far from Wonderville as we can,” breathed Sagandran.

  “Or maybe we should stay in the city,” said Perima thoughtfully. “If they’re concentrating the search on the Everwoods, Wonderville might be the safest place to be.”

  Sagandran spoke decisively. “No. Wonderville’s a trap, a prison. Once the Shadow Knights fail to find us in the forest, they’ll be back. They may even decide to conduct the hunt in both places simultaneously. Our best chance is to make ourselves scarce.”

  “What about Snowmane?”

  “Let’s leave him where he is. He should be safe in the stables, he’s just one more horse there. Out in the Everwoods, he’ll only draw attention to us.”

  “True.” She looked thoughtful as they crept toward the Tunnel of Love’s entrance, keeping close to the wall as if the shadows might be able to absorb them should anyone come. “We may never see Snowmane again,” she added as the light of the opening came into view.

  “Then we’ll just have to resign ourselves to that,” Sagandra
n whispered with finality. “Remember what you made me promise? Well, that applies to Snowmane as well. Now, you wait here for a moment while I check that the coast is clear.”

  Samzing’s face was slowly recovering its color. Sir Tombin had finally managed to haul him aboard as the Great and Wondrous Ship lurched uncontrollably through the sky. Its course had become far more stable now, but they still had no means of directing it. Wherever the caprice of the winds might take them, that was where they had to go. Finding Sagandran and Perima under these circumstances was an impossibility. Even if they were somehow lucky enough to spot their two friends from above, they had no way of reaching them.

  “I’ve got an idea,” piped Flip.

  The wizard raised a weary eyebrow. “Oh really?”

  “Your robe, you don’t need it; we could rig it up as a sail.”

  “Little chap,” said Samzing, “there are secrets a wizard must never reveal, and you are asking me to reveal to the world some of the most secret of all of them.”

  Sir Tombin, despite their plight, laughed. Flip looked baffled.

  “If you wore undergarments like the ones he does,” explained the Frogly Knight, “you’d rather die too, than take off your robe. I hadn’t realized this until I saved him as this extraordinary vessel rose from its mooring.”

  Flip looked as grim as someone as small as him could look. “Would he rather Perima and Sagandran died too?”

  “That won’t be necessary,” said the wizard lazily. “I have a much better solution.”

  “What?” said Flip and Sir Tombin together, turning toward him.

  “Spill it out, old bean,” added the Frogly Knight.

  “A spell.”

  “Like the last one?” Flip’s voice dripped with cynicism. “You’ll release a host of fire imps so that we crash to the ground in an inferno?”

  “No, nothing like that. This one’s a seeking spell.”

  “A seeking spell?” repeated Sir Tombin dubiously.

  “Yes,” said the wizard, gathering himself as if to rise to his feet, then obviously thinking better of it. “You tell the spell who it is you want to be with, or where you want to be, and it takes you there.”

  “Just like that?” said Flip. “One moment you’re here, the next you’re—?”

  The wizard waved the question away. “No, not like that at all. The spell, well, it sort of pulls you there. If you were on foot, you’d find yourself walking in the right direction, or with a sudden impulse to board a stagecoach, or whatever. In our present situation, the spell will drag this balloon to the place where our two young friends now are, wherever that might be.”

  Flip was impressed.

  “However, there is a drawback,” continued the wizard.

  Flip went back to being unimpressed.

  “Not so much a drawback, really,” said Samzing hastily, “as a wrinkle that has to be sorted out in advance. Not any insuperable problem.”

  Sir Tombin coughed. “Really?”

  “Yes, really. You have to be very precise, you see, in the instructions you give the spell. If you told it to find ‘Perima,’ for example, it would try to go in the direction of each and every Perima in Sagaria at once. It’d literally pull this balloon apart as it tried to obey your orders. What you have to do is spell out exactly who it is you want to be with, making absolutely sure there can be no misunderstanding. I don’t know how many Sagandrans there might be in this world at the moment, and there might even be more than one Sagandran Sacks. But I’m certain, at least I hope I am, that there cannot be more than one ‘Princess Royal of Mattani, Her Excellency the Princess Perima.’ You see what I mean?”

  “Aha!” said Sir Tombin.

  “Hm,” said Flip with lesser confidence. “What happens if the spell goes wrong?”

  “What happens if I don’t try at all?” The wizard’s eyes regarded him intently from under lowered brows.

  That stopped the words Flip was about to speak before he could speak them.

  He nodded slowly. “True. We’ve got to try to save them, even if it means the death of us.”

  “No need for all this gloominess,” said Samzing, suddenly filled with energy and optimism. This time when he tried to get to his feet, he succeeded. His legs were still shaking noticeably under him, but so long as he kept one hand clamped on the rim of the basket, he seemed safe enough. “The searching spell is one of the most reliable known to wizardhood. It’s been tried and tested over the centuries by the fraternity at Qarnapheeran, and its rate of success has been nearly one hundred percent.”

  Flip didn’t like the sound of that “nearly,” but made no comment.

  “Is there anything we should do to assist you?” asked Sir Tombin earnestly.

  “No, my dear old friend, nothing at all. This should be, if you’ll pardon the expression, a breeze for me.”

  The wizard now gripped the edge of the basket tightly with both hands. He stared out toward a flock of inquisitive-looking clouds and proclaimed, as if to them, “Crynassas! Supertuberus! Calabladderonus! Bandreebathwoip!”

  He peeked down at Flip. “Total balderdash, you understand, but it concentrates the mind wonderfully.”

  “But will it work?” Flip squeaked up at him.

  “Of course it will. Probably. We’ll see.”

  All three waited anxiously. Then, slowly at first but with increasing certainty, the balloon turned and began to move against the wind.

  Hours later, Perima and Sagandran were still roaming the streets. Getting out of Wonderville was more difficult than it had seemed when they’d been talking about it in the Tunnel of Love. The Shadow Knights had the town efficiently cordoned off, and plenty were combing the place while the others presumably did the same in the forest. The streets were far emptier than they’d been before. Much of the populace seemed to have been interned in a camp the Shadow Knights had built on Wonderville’s outskirts, while others were cowering either inside their homes or in any of the countless public buildings and entertainment facilities. More than once, Perima and Sagandran had been forced to bolt into a doorway or down an alley or to crouch under a parked cart to avoid the attentions of the armored men who rode the streets. For all the two of them knew, there were others prowling on foot (if the term “on foot” could be applied to that curious floating motion). At least the riders could be heard coming, as their horses’ hooves clattered along the hard surface of the thoroughfares. The Shadow Knights not on horseback could move silently, and almost as quickly.

  The fires had mostly been doused and the streets were largely clear of smoke, though every now and then a billow of it would fly into the faces of the two fugitives. The smoke seemed to affect Perima far more than it did Sagandran, and he watched her worriedly each time she succumbed to a fresh outbreak of coughing and sneezing. As the afternoon wore on, the search within the city seemed to be intensifying. They paused to catch their breath in a long, winding alleyway. The sound of hoofbeats seemed to be coming from all around them, a dire tattoo of threat.

  “It sounds like they’re everywhere,” gasped Perima.

  Sagandran looked frantically around them. The alley was overlooked by windows on either side, but he wasn’t worried about those. The way was so narrow that it would be almost impossible for observers up there to see anything at ground level. There was no visible means of concealment in sight except for the occasional mound of garbage. Even if he and Perima hid among those, it would be easy for any Shadow Knight who came along to trample the larger piles under his horse’s hooves. Sagandran and Perima would be completely exposed if anyone thought to seek them there.

  Not if. When.

  “We’ve got to keep moving. It’s our only hope.”

  Perima shrugged her acquiescence. She heaved off the wall against which she’d been leaning and followed him as, blotting out the protests of his weary legs, he tore along the alley.

  The way was straight for a while, then crooked left just before reaching a broader street, across whic
h they dashed. After another straight stretch, the alley bent left again and they had to cross a street, and the pattern repeated once more.

  “Stop,” panted Sagandran, holding up a hand.

  Perima sank gratefully to her knees beside him.

  “We’re just going round in a circle. No wonder this alleyway seemed so long. It must run in a ring around the center of the city. We’ve got to get off it, even if that means being on one of the main streets for a while.”

  There was a nod of agreement from Perima.

  At the next junction, they turned right toward the outskirts of Wonderville and tried to make themselves as unobtrusive as possible. They ambled along with forced casualness in front of broken shop windows and signs telling them the way to the Thrill-a-Minute Giant Carousel, the Most Terrifying Ghost Train in All the Known World, and other attractions. Most of these, Sagandran thought morosely, were now probably smoldering mounds of rubble. So much for Lamarod’s dream.

  “There’s something wrong here,” said Perima out the corner of her mouth.

  “Too many Shadow Knights, just for starters,” responded Sagandran. Why was she bothering to state the obvious?

  “What’s that up in front of us?” She nodded in the direction they were heading.

  It took him a moment to realize what she meant. Punctuating the shrouded sky was the upright needle of Wonderville’s central peppermint tower.

  “But—” he cried, then clamped his lips together firmly. Keep your voice down. Don’t draw attention to us.

  “Exactly,” said Perima quietly. “When we set off, we were going toward the edge of town. There can be no doubt about it, but still we seem to be heading toward the center.”

  Sagandran thought furiously. Wonderville appeared to be a trap in more ways than one. It must have been constructed so that its streets formed a sort of labyrinth – a four-dimensional labyrinth, knotting in and around and over each other in a way his rational mind rejected as impossible. It was a good thing he’d left his rational mind far behind him not long after he’d entered Sagaria, otherwise he’d have well and truly lost it now. Lamarod must have designed the city so that, once lured into Wonderville, fun-seekers would find it almost impossible to leave. Sagandran found his sympathies for the mayor ebbing slightly.