The Prophet Of Lamath

by Hughes, Robert Don

  Heinox yawned, again dangerously. "He said there were two heads." "I thought you were going to help me!" Vicia snarled. "Instead you insult my integrity!" Tahli-Damen's eyes grew wide, and he cleared his throat and tried to explain. "No-oh no, your Dragonship! You don't understand! That's not an insult, it's just-" "It is an insult! It has always been so, ever since that first smirking merchant called me a two before I was fully grown! I don't know what a two is, but I can tell from your face it is not complimentary!" "But it is! I mean-it's not- Wait! Wait!" Tahli-Damen pleaded as he caught sight of Heinox, drooling hungrily. "It has to do with counting! Can't you count?" "Shall I swallow him now?" Heinox asked calmly.

  "In a moment," Vicia muttered. "You say this two means something in counting?" Tahli-Damen was a brave man, but he felt himself weaving in the saddle. The blood had all drained from his face. His dream of a seat on the Council had been vaporized by Heinox' casual comment. It mattered little what he said now, and he replied almost absently. "Yes-counting. When I say two, I mean- It's as if you and-and you are each a different dragon." "That's it!" Vicia trumpeted in sudden understanding, and he shot straight into the sky. It was fortunate for Tahli-Damen that he did, for Heinox was at that moment swooping down to chomp the rider off at the waist. Vicia's reaction jerked him up short. Razor teeth crashed together two feet above the man's head, and Tahli-Damen froze in the saddle.

  "That's what?" screamed a frustrated Heinox, as he watched the ground recede below him.

  "The answer to our problem!" "Our problem?" Heinox puzzled, not at all happy at being dragged hither and yon by the excited swoops and dives and back flips of his Vicia-controlled body.

  "Yes! Our problem!" Vicia sneered, then laughed. It was Vicia's first good laugh since the encounter with Pelman, and he enjoyed it. Heinox seized the opportunity and took control of their wings, and the dragon settled back to the ground.

  "Now," Heinox asked, a little dizzy, "what is this I'm blithering about?" "I've no idea what you are blithering about," Vicia laughed wickedly, "but I've found the answer to the question that has been plaguing us!" "Which is?" Heinox roared. He was in a terribly foul temper by this time. He hated to be made to feel foolish.

  "That you, Heinox, are you, and that I, Vicia, am I!" Heinox reeled back, then shot down to Tahli-Damen. "What is this? What's going on! Tell me or I'll swallow you!" "No, you won't," Vicia snarled, wiggling between Heinox and the rider, "for I intend to protect him!" Of course it didn't happen-it is questionable if such a thing was even possible-but Heinox screwed up those movable elements of his face and appeared to shed a tear or two. It was shocking enough to jolt Tahli-Damen out of his trance. "What's happening?" Heinox bellowed.

  "Please excuse my partner's incredible dullness," Vicia cackled to Tahli-Damen, "but his skull is terribly thick, you know-" "No! I will not be torn in half!" Heinox roared, and now he leapt into flight, and it was Vicia's turn to be dragged about. The dragon bounced from here to there off the canyon walls, very much like an inflated balloon when released. Heinox' control of the dragon's body was so chaotic that Vicia was only beginning to realize their awful predicament. No longer did their body respond only to coordinated commands from both heads. Suddenly it could be directed by either head alone-but only through overpowering the impulses of the other. It dawned on Vicia, as his rival's erratic flight pattern bounced him off a jagged cliff edge, that he now faced his most formidable adversary ever-himself.

  Tahli-Damen watched in amazement. The noise passed as suddenly as it had begun-the dragon cleared the high cliffs, and was into the open sky beyond, no longer visible to the caravan. The merchant gradually became aware of the babbling voices behind him. At last one particular voice got through to him.

  "Sir? Couldn't we-perhaps-move on? Maybe?" It was a slave who was speaking, one who obviously preferred the idea of bondage in Lamath to digestion in the dragon's belly.

  Saying nothing, Tahli-Damen urged his mount forward. Within a few minutes they all reached the level plateau that was the center of Dragonsgate. Then they heard a subtle whir of wings, and once again Vicia-Heinox stood before them.

  "Where do you think you are going?" Vicia scolded.

  Heinox said nothing, holding back and eyeing the rider angrily. Tahli-Damen hoped Vicia would not turn his back on Heinox-so to speak. It wouldn't take that other head more than a second or two to swallow the merchant.

  "I-thought you-had-" he began lamely.

  "We've settled our differences," Vida announced. "That fast?" the rider answered, neglecting to hide the disappointment in his voice. Heinox growled, and Tahli-Damen's horse backed up three paces, nearly treading on a bewildered slave's toe.

  "Yes," Heinox snarled. "That fast. I have been forced to admit that an alien presence occupies my body, and that I and it are not the same." "There will be trouble when the Lamathians hear this," Tahli-Damen muttered under his breath. "Very well," he spoke out, "what kind of deal do you wish to.

  make?" "We'll take all of these slaves-" Heinox began.

  "All! But you never take all! How can I make a profit if you-" "You forget," snorted Vicia. "Now we have two mouths to feed." "But you only have one belly!" Tahli-Damen argued.

  "It's the principle!" Heinox snarled. "We get equal shares in everything-until I can figure out how to divest myself of him." "It is I who shall get rid of you, Heinox," Vicia chuckled. "But it may take some time. Until then we share." "But-" the merchant started to protest. "As for you," said Vicia, "I wish to enlist the aid of your house in dealing with this menace I'm carrying around with me." "No!" Heinox snorted, moving in so close behind Tahli-Damen's back that the merchant could feel the warm breath through his robes. "I must have the aid of Uda! It's a matter of life and death!" "You aid him and I'll eat you," Vicia said flatly. "You help him and I'll eat you!" Heinox retorted. Tahli-Damen gulped. "And if I refuse to help either one of you-" "We'll tear you in half." Heinox smiled.

  Tahli-Damen gulped once more. "I hope it doesn't anger you for me to point this out, but-" "But what?" Vicia demanded.

  "But if you should manage to kill him, you'll die too." The merchant looked over his shoulder at Heinox and nodded. "Yes, it works the same the other way around." Both heads jerked up and away, and they conversed together in low tones. The merchant looked around. The slaves seemed to have come to terms with their fears of being eaten. The biggest threat now was that the dragon would talk them to death.

  "All right," Vicia said finally after both heads had returned to Tahli-Damen's side. "We've agreed we can't do anything to one another-yet." "But it's going to be difficult for us-" Heinox interrupted.

  "-since we will constantly-" "-be fighting--" "-for-" "-control!" Heinox had gritted his teeth and forced the word in ahead of Vicia. They growled at one another.

  "What about business?" the merchant pleaded.

  "We have agreed on one thing," Vicia began. "We hate Pelman the Player!" Heinox snarled. "Bring him to us!" Vicia roared. "We want him soon!" Heinox screamed. "He's the one who caused all this!" Vicia bellowed, then cleared his throat and dropped his voice. "Bring Pelman to us, and we'll give your house a monopoly on all trade through Dragonsgate." Tahli-Damen's eyes flew wide open. "I'll get on it immediately!" he blurted, and he turned his horse to ride back down to the south, to tell Jagd the news. Already he could see it: Tahli-Damen, Elder of Uda, engraved on a mother-of-pearl nameplate- "Of course," Heinox whispered, coming alongside him again, "if you can think of a way to rid me of this aggravating growth on my shoulder-" "I am not a growth!" Vicia shouted. "And you remember, merchant of Uda, it was I who kept you from a terminal case of being swallowed!" Tahli-Damen could see another argument brewing, and he kicked his horse to urge it more quickly down the mountainside and out of the line of fire. Then it struck him. He was abandoning his caravan. He slowed his steed and twisted around to shout at the dragon heads above him. "But what about my slaves? My goods?" "You just worry about Pelman," Vicia said, smacking his jaws together hungrily.

&
nbsp; "Yes, do," Heinox urged. "We can guarantee-these slaves will be well taken care of."

  Chapter Five

  THE DAY THAT BEGAN so cold warmed considerably as the sun climbed in the sky. Dorlyth's castle lay far to the north when Pelman finally yielded to Bronwynn's plea for a rest. They stopped in a grove of trees, and the girl doffed the heavy coat she'd been wearing, carefully moving the falcon from one arm to the other and back again to avoid disturbing it.

  "Why are we going south?" she asked.

  "To fool Tohn mod Neelis," Pelman answered firmly. He was in no mood for conversation. Surely the girl knew that; he had ignored her questions all the way from Dorlyth's castle. But she was Talith's daughter, to be sure. Stubbornness ran in her blood.

  "Who's that, and how will it fool him?" she persisted. "Tohn mod Neelis is the Elder of Ognadzu in Ngandib-Mar. We're trying to make him believe we are riding south, to take you back to your father." "Why don't we just fool ourselves instead and go back to my father? If you think he'd imprison you again after rescuing me, then you don't know him. He'd welcome you as a son!" Pelman made a face, and Rosha chuckled. By the time Bronwynn twisted around to glower at the lad, he had taken a deep interest in something on his saddle horn, he wouldn't look at her.

  "We're going to Lamath, my Lady, in spite of your persistence," Pelman said. "It's the safest place for all of us, it appears." "Then why are we wasting time going south? Shouldn't we be headed north as quickly as possible?" Pelman sighed, and peered out through the trees. He pointed at a small stream that divided a meadow that 95 was yellow with buttercups. "I'll show you a little illusion when we cross the stream, the same illusion Tohn will see when he follows us here. Perhaps you'll understand then why Tohn may become a bit confused. Let's ride." "Not again!" Bronwynn complained. "We just stopped!" "Bronwynn," Pelman began sharply, then stopped himself. Maybe Dorlyth was right. Maybe the girl was more than he could manage.

  "Yes?" she asked innocently, eyes wide.

  "Let's ride." He spoke softly to Minaliss, and the horse carried him out of the trees with a crash of breaking brush. There was nothing to do but follow him, so Bronwynn urged her horse into pursuit. She had stopped paying any attention to Rosha, since he seemed determined to ride behind her. They all crossed the meadow at a trot, stopping at the water's edge.

  Pelman turned to look at Rosha. "Ride through, lad." Rosha was quick to obey. He urged his horse down into the stream, feeling a strange chill from the water, as if he crossed ice instead. Riding up the opposite bank, he turned to Pelman to await further instructions, and gasped in surprise. His hand went to the pommel of his greatsword; it was out of its scabbard and into the air more quickly than a sneeze. Pelman and Bronwynn were gone! He kicked his mount and was back into the water. As suddenly as they had disappeared, they were there again.

  Pelman was smiling, but Bronwynn's face wore an expression of shock Rosha knew mirrored his own.

  "Where did he go?" the girl was shouting. Then she saw him reappear. "How did you do that?" The powershaper grinned. "I told you, my Lady. The powers." "But how-" "It's a little trick done with light and wind." Pelman shrugged. "A very useful illusion. Watch now." Both young people followed his pointing finger with their eyes; they sat in breathless amazement as four invisible sets of hooves tore the turf beyond the stream, making a trail that exactly matched the tracks the little troop had left behind them.

  "But-" Bronwynn began again, in obvious dismay.

  "Another trick." Pelman chuckled.

  Though there was no sound, the tracks appeared so regularly, receding from them across the clearing, that Bronwynn's imagination supplied the rhythmical hoofbeats. "Who's making them?" she pleaded, tugging at Pelman's sleeve.

  "I told you, my Lady. The wind. Tohn will surely follow us here and, crossing the stream, will follow those tracks yonder. A mile, maybe two, and those winds you see will spin away, once more their own masters. As for us-we will be gone, far to the northwest. Come now." "But where did Rosha go? Where will we go, when we cross the stream?" Bronwynn begged, tugging so hard on her pony's reins that it began to back away.

  Pelman shrugged. "Across the stream," he said simply, and turned the head of his extraordinary horse to guide Minaliss into the water.

  "P-p-Pelman?" Rosha cried. It was his first word since leaving the castle, and Pelman looked up at him. "My m-m-mount seems un-sh-sure-" Indeed, Rosha's powerful black horse was almost skipping with anxiety, and the young man was having to fight to keep control of it.

  Pelman leaned across the horse's neck and spoke softly in its ear. That calmed the anxious animal immediately, and it raised its head to look at Pelman. Was that a look of recognition? Bronwynn wondered.

  "Now, together," Pelman commanded firmly, and they all three splashed into the water, pulling the packhorse behind them. Bronwynn had fixed her eyes on those phenomenal tracks before them; but as she experienced that same chill Rosha had felt, the tracks winked out like a snuffed flame. The earth was renewed-torn flowers blossomed again. Once more Bronwynn's pretty mouth fell open. Pelman, watching her reaction, chuckled low in his throat. Though each act of shaping cost him dearly in energy and attention, there were times when it was all great fun.

  "Look behind you," he said quietly, and the girl tore her gaze away from the reconstituted grass and looked back where they had come. The far side of the meadow now looked as virgin and untouched as did this side.

  Bronwynn shook her head to clear it, and looked at him questioningly. "Where did they go? Where did they all go?" Pelman urged Minaliss into a trot along the stream toward the west. "Think of it this way, my Lady. Imagine that we arrived at the stream today-but are departing yesterday!" Minaliss broke into a gallop, and Bronwynn had to kick her pony to catch up with him. She could hear Rosha's laughter behind her, and decided the sorcerer was teasing her. A black mood settled onto her again. Though it was a gorgeous spring morning in a breathtaking land, she longed for the hot, noisy avenues of Chaomonous. No one ever laughed at her there.

  A few hundred yards from their point of crossing, the stream ran into an evergreen wood, a spur of the Great South Fir. They continued some three miles along the south bank, ducking pine needles and picking their way through stretches of rock. The two young people soon grew accustomed to the whirling wind that followed in their wake, erasing every trace of their passage. Neither spoke, leaving Pelman free to concentrate on guiding that unruly power that trailed them. He chose finally to turn north, and they crossed the stream once more. He maintained the wind until midaftemoon, when they were twenty miles farther north. Then it seemed that a burden lifted from his shoulders, and he settled back in his saddle and began to enjoy the day.

  "I really don't know where the ability comes from," he was saying, "or how it settled on me. I only know that I am aware of forces-we call them the powers- and that if I can rightly focus my thoughts, these powers will do as I ask them." "Bu-but how did you d-d-discover this ability?" Rosha asked. He was riding close beside Pelman now, trailing the packhorse behind him. Farther back came Bronwynn, who was in deep conversation with her falcon about how mistreated she had been.

  "It was just there, my friend. I tried to do something, and I did it. It was as much a surprise to me as to anyone." "How did it happen? I mean, what f-feat did you p-perform?" "It was in the Great North Fir, late one wintry night. The ground was covered with snow, and my fellows and I were freezing. We were all without flints for some reason, and were trying to summon a fire from the friction of sticks. But the wood was all so wet and our hands so numb we had no success at all. I was so angry I grabbed up a handful of fir needles I had dug from under the white blanket. As I held them up before my face, I screamed, 'Light!' They did. Burned my hand, they lit so quickly. I dropped the flaming needles into the fire pit we had wrested from the snow, and watched as the fire blossomed into a wanning blaze. No one spoke of it then, but later each one asked me privately, 'Pelman, how did you do that?' " Rosha leaned closer to the powershap
er to hear the tale's conclusion. "And what did you s-s-say?" "I told them I'd frightened that fire into starting." Pelman chuckled, then more reflectively added, "And that may well have been the truth. I really don't know myself. But it seems to me now so familiar, so easy to summon the powers, that I sometimes forget that others are unable to." "Then why did you never reveal them in my father's court?" Bronwynn challenged from behind them.

  Pelman slowed Minaliss so that the girl could catch up to them. "You've finally decided to join the party?" "Some party," Bronwynn snorted. "I asked a question." "I never revealed the power there because I don't seem to have it there. Only while in the Mar am I able to shape the powers-and especially so the closer I come to the Great North Fir." "Then your power is growing?" Bronwynn asked. Pelman wore a smile different from any smile she had seen. It was not the cynical smile so common to her father's court, or the joyful smile she had watched dance across Pelman's face so frequently in his conversations with Dorlyth. This smile spoke of a keen, proud confidence. Pelman's smile seemed the involuntary overflow of a power that energized him from within. Her memory flashed back to crown performances in the court of her father, when a thin, pasty-faced actor would strut and posture and speak his lines before them. Could this man who sat so confidently in the saddle beside her bear any relation to that pale, skinny player? "Growing is not the word. Waxing is better. As the moon sometimes is full of light and other times is empty, so my ability fills me, then passes from me. And somehow it centers in the Great North Fir-somehow ..." Pelman's voice trailed off, and his eyes narrowed as if to pierce through the very mountains themselves to see that fabled forest beyond them.