The Prophet Of Lamath

by Hughes, Robert Don

  The Seachief looked at Pelman and asked, "Was that your aim?" The Prophet nodded, and the Chieftain rushed on, "Then can we change this course and make for safety?" He sounded annoyed. The man chafed at being directed by a Prophet.

  "We're not in danger yet, are we? Why not ship your oars and just wait until he beats you to the bay?" The Seachief considered that, then nodded, and gave the order to ship oars. The vessel coasted through the water, slowing steadily, even as the golden fleet made more swiftly for the shallows. Pelman turned back to look east.

  "Now," he said at length. "Turn hard to port . . .

  and row for that storm." So intent had he been on the course of the enemy flagship, the Seachief had not noticed until that moment the sudden eastern squall. The southwester was dying away. Abruptly he realized what Pelman had planned, and shouted with joy.

  "You've done it! A Prophet in wartime does belong on the sea! Helmsmen, hard to port! Oarmaster?" "Here, sir!" came the cry from below.

  "Hard to port and full speed, now!" The ship shuddered and creaked, then began pulling slowly around to the east. Signals flashed from ship to ship throughout the Lamathian fleet, and all made the same slow turn. Some distance away, the Chaon war boats struggled to respond to this new movement of the enemy, but their wind was gone and already the innermost battleships were floundering in the shoals. The squall hit the golden fleet broadside, driving ship after ship into the rocks.

  The Lamathians fought hard against the wind, oars working madly to meet its force. Sea warriors went below to spell tired slaves at the benches, and to keep from being blown into the swirling sea. The waves grew, and at times the ship seemed to run across a washboard, not an ocean. But the storm was brief. It passed swiftly over them and into the Lamathian coastal plains, where it dumped much-needed rain on some very thirsty crops. The Lamathian fleet rejoiced.

  But the men of Chaomonous found nothing to cheer. Broken vessels littered the beach alongside the bodies of drowned sailors and slaves. How fitting it would have been had the Admiral's body been among them, but his ship had weathered the storm, and now led the flight for home.

  Pelman stood on the deck, leaning against the mizzenmast. Something dropped onto the boards beside him, making him jump. It was Erri.

  "What is it you think I'm afraid of?" Erri demanded, and it took Pelman a moment to realize that, once again, the sailor had resumed their conversation without thought to the interruption.

  "Not of storms, evidently." "Storms are part of life. This religion business, though. That's something else." "Yes," Pelman agreed with a smile. "Most of the tune, I'm afraid it is!" Bronwynn and Rosha didn't speak as they walked back through the cavern to the ladder. They had haggled incessantly since Pelman had left them, and had just left a terrible argument behind them in the alcove. Rosha stamped along pouting, so angry with Bronwynn that he had forgotten to pull his sword from his scabbard. But as they neared the ladder, he slowed. Something seemed very wrong. He reached out to grab Bronwynn by the arm to stop her.

  "Let go, you stubborn buffalo!" she managed to snap before he clapped a hand over her mouth.

  "Look," he whispered, after she realized he wasn't trying to tease her into forgiving him. She turned her eyes upward where he pointed and drew a surprised gasp. The hole through the floor was closed. The stone slab that concealed this underground cavern had been put in place for some reason. Rosha drew his sword quietly and mounted the ladder. Bronwynn mouthed Careful to him, and he nodded. He climbed to the slab and tilted his head to listen, ear pressed to its underside. He looked down at Bronwynn and saw her mouth Anything? He nodded, and she covered her mouth with both hands. He heard voices above. Then there was a scuffle, and his eyes jerked wide open. He would have thrown all his weight against the stone and pushed his way up into the library, but Bronwynn caught his eye. Her face was fierce, and she shook her head violently from side to side. He nodded, and she panted for breath, her tension heightened by her inability to give expression to it. Rosha's muscles ached for action as well, due to his cramped position on the ladder. Suddenly something fell onto the slab, nearly knocking the ladder loose from its tenuous perch against the lip of the hole. Then there was silence.

  Rosha waited a long time, it seemed; then he nodded and sheathed his sword. He thrust both palms upward against the heavy slab, grunting as he struggled to push it up. At last it began to budge, then abruptly felt much lighter as something heavy rolled off of it.

  Rosha peeked cautiously into the library and saw nothing. He pushed all the way through and started to shove the slab backward when he saw a hand dangle over the edge of the stone, and he started with horror. He recognized that hand.

  He was out of the hole in a minute and had lifted the form of the Elder from the floor, then scampered back down the ladder and stretched the little man's body on the cavern floor. Bronwynn gasped in hurt surprise and bent to examine him as Rosha rushed back up the ladder to reseat the concealing slab. He had not been in the library more than a minute, but that was long enough to see what had taken place. Serphimera's army had come-and from the sounds that came through the library windows, they were still at work. .

  The Elder's head lay in Bronwynn's lap, and she stroked his bald pate in shock. He smiled at that, but it was a pained smile. He was bleeding freely from a wound in his chest. The girl was sobbing.

  "It wasn't Serphimera's people, really," the little man murmured rapidly. "It was an ugly fellow out of your master's past." He was almost babbling, smiling a strange, excited smile as he struggled to impart this last bit of information and advice. "You need to go. The fellow-someone called him Admon something-is hunting you too, little lady. And though I wouldn't tell him of the caverns, some of the other brothers may not be so bullheaded as I. Please," he asked, shuddering with pain. "Go now, quickly." "Admon . . ." Bronwynn murmured, dazedly. Then the name sprang up at her and gripped her attention. "Admon Faye! Admon Faye!" she yelped, and Rosha realized she was edging toward hysteria. He grabbed her chin tightly and turned her face to look him in the eyes. Quickly, she regained control of herself. "Admon Faye has killed the Elder!" she cried, her heart breaking at the thought.

  "He's n-not d-dead!" Rosha snarled, but the little man between them chuckled, and interrupted them.

  "Oh, but I am, lad," he mumbled. "I am. But don't look so horrified. I think I might like it." Tears filled his eyes, and he continued, "They've taken all my books . . . they're going to scatter my brothers." He muttered again, through the tears. "What business do I have staying in this life?" He would have wept then, as the senseless tragedy of it closed around him, but he would not let himself. His instincts as a teacher went . too deep. As he looked up into the crying face of this proud young lady, and watched her curly-haired warrior fight to control his own feelings, he could not resist the opportunity for a lesson that might truly stick. "Why weep then, my children? You've read the Prophet's book. You know there's a Power, you've watched it work! Now . . . I'll get a chance to know that Power." The old man's eyes seemed to lose contact with this world and gazed elsewhere. Rosha thought he had passed from them. He lifted the body from the floor of the cave, and began to mount the ladder again.

  The aged eyes focused again. "No, no, leave me here. You run . . . run . . ." Rosha looked down at those lined cheeks, and wracked his mind for something Pelman would say. Then it came to him, and he forced a smile onto his severe young face. "What? And leave you to the b-bbears?" The old man smiled thinly in appreciation . . . then the life was gone. Rosha carried him into the library with great tenderness, and stretched his body along one of those shelves that had held his treasured books. Then he glanced around, as if to be sure no one was watching-though he knew no one would be-and kissed the old man on the cheek, as he remembered his mother kissing him, long ago.

  Bronwynn waited for him at the foot of the ladder, her eyes red and swollen but her tears now dried. That was good, Rosha thought to himself. They would both need to be fully alert now. They woul
d be traveling in a region that belonged to the cavern bears. Better that, he reasoned, than to meet with Admon Faye. For the first time in his life, Rosha knew what his father meant by fear.

  General Asher stood on the King's Dock. It was named so because it was where the King of Lamath embarked when he traveled anywhere along the Lamathian waterways. It was an ornately decorated mooring, with reviewing stands and thick carpets standing under a vast canvas canopy. Usually the stands were empty and the canopy frame bare, but today the place was alive with color, and the victory celebration had drawn a large crowd.

  The Seachief stepped first from the boat, and was greeted by thunderous applause. He was being touted as the newest in a long line of naval geniuses, and Asher greeted him with the dragon salute and an affectionate, if awkward, embrace.

  "Well done, my friend," he murmured in the Seachief s ear. He was startled by the Seachief's uncharacteristically modest reply.

  "Thank you. General Asher," the Seachief whispered back, "but I really cannot claim the credit. You were right about the Prophet. It was he who set up the victory!" "You are very modest, Seachieftain," Asher said as he stepped back. "I'm certain that your contribution was far greater than you insist." "Well . . . I did follow the man's suggestions." The Seachief smiled, his vanity getting the better of him. He certainly didn't refuse it when Asher hung a diamond studded pendant around his neck and proclaimed him the Dragon's Friend. It was the highest honor any commander in Lamath could hope to attain, save of course the title of Chieftain of Defense and Expansion. But Asher had a stranglehold on that position, and the General was a relatively young man. If the Seachief chose to bask in the crowd's adulation for a time, it was because he realized how fleeting that love could be.

  The crowd reacted differently, however, when Pelman appeared. There were those who cheered, of •course, for the story of his advice and the wind he had summoned had been shared a hundred times by sailors calling to friends on the shore. But most muttered curses and raised their crossed arms in an angry gesture usually considered obscene by Lamathian society. In different comers of the assembled crowd chants arose, one group shouting, "Proph-et, Proph-et!" while another group answered, "Doom, doom, doom!" The noise grew so loud that few people witnessed the exchange that now took place, or marked how unusual was Asher's greeting of the Prophet. Soon the lesser leaders of the victorious navy stepped off the boat to receive their own accolades, and the Prophet was forgotten.

  A carriage was ready to carry Pelman directly to the palace of the King. He was thrust in, to sit between two stony-faced guards who spoke neither to him nor to each other. Only one person in the great crowd seemed really to grasp what was taking place, and he ran alongside the carriage for several yards, trying to understand.

  "Prophet, ho. Prophet! Where are they taking you?" Erri the sailor stopped and listened, but if Pelman answered him he didn't hear it. All he heard was the clatter of hooves on the cobblestones and the bouncing of the carriage springs. Then Pelman was gone.

  Talith was talking and eating at the same time. This was not unusual for the King, and General Joss had trained himself to understand the garbled words regardless of what chewed foods they had been forced to struggle past on the way out of Talith's mouth.

  "Do yoummsupposemmwemwon?" "I don't know what the naval situation is, my Lord. As I said, I've not had any decent intelligence since we left the golden city." "I got a letter today," the King observed, none too precisely. What he had received was a tiny blue-flyer scroll that simply reassured him of Ligne's continued love and support.

  "From your mistress, of course." "Of course! You don't think my wife would write me, do you?" "She would not be capable, my Lord, locked as she is in her apartments." "Her own fault," the King muttered, chomping into a chicken leg. "Why haven't you heard anything from the navy?" Joss interpreted the question from among the grunts and smacks of the King at table. "I am concerned, my Lord. I fear some change has taken place in the palace that has altered the national political situation. I fear..." Here Joss paused for emphasis. ". . . that you have been overthrown." Talith stopped chewing and stared. Then he closed his mouth and chomped angrily. He took a long draught of wine to wash it all down, his menacing eye never leaving those of his Chief of Security. Then he stood, and leaned across the table. "I said I received a letter from Ligne this morning!" "Yes, my Lord." Talith paced around the table. "You never have trusted Ligne, have you?" Joss thought a moment, not about his reply, for he knew exactly what he thought of Ligne. Rather, about its consequences. "No, my Lord," he answered.

  "You thought it was she who kidnapped Bronwynn, and now you think she is plotting my overthrow, don't you?" "I don't think she's plotting it any longer, my Lord," Joss answered matter-of-factly. "I think she has accomplished it." Talith smiled cruelly. "Then you shall ride back to Chaomonous tonight and see if your suspicions are correct. You certainly won't be missed, since we're doing nothing but sitting here." "If that is my Lord's will, certainly I will obey it," Joss replied.

  "It is. General Joss. And my instructions to the troop that travels with you will be to conduct you to the dungeon once they are sure that all is well in the palace. How does that strike you?" "As my Lord chooses . . ." Joss began.

  "So I choose! Go pick your troop and get out of my camp." Joss turned smartly and started out. "Joss," the King called after him, "I'll visit you in the dungeon when I arrive home." The former Chief of Security turned at the door and bowed slightly to his King. "I will certainly be there, my Lord. Should you arrive home." "Get out!" Joss obeyed. He bumped into Tahli-Damen as he emerged into the moonlight, and the young merchant begged to be pardoned.

  "Do you think he would see me?" the merchant went on.

  "I'm certain he would." Joss snorted. "Just leave your self-regard at the door as you enter," the General muttered as he moved off into the night. Tahli-Damen thought about that, but it made no sense. He made his way through a series of veils and entered Talmin's presence.

  "What do you want, merchant?" the King demanded.

  "I came to make a suggestion . . ." "Then make it. There's still plenty of room in my dungeon." Tahli-Damen hesitated. "Well go on, boy," the King bellowed. "Say it or get out!" "I suggest you approach the dragon again . . ." "And get swallowed, I suppose. Guard!" "No, sir, please listen!" Tahli-Damen dropped instinctively to his knees as two guards fought their way through the veils to enter the tent.

  "Get out," the King muttered, and the guards fought their way back outside again. "Go on." "I suggest you ask the dragon to let you pass, not to Lamath, but to Ngandib-Mar!" "Why should I want to go there?" Talith mumbled, examining the wine that remained in his cup.

  "The dragon would permit you to go there, for one thing. It is to Ngandib-Mar that the man Pelman escaped, the day Pezi the merchant attempted to carry your daughter to Lamath." Talith turned purple. Then he exploded. "Ngandib-Mar!" He seized Tahli-Damen by the throat, and once again the merchant found himself crawling most humbly on his knees. "You told me Pelman was in Lamath!" "No, my Lord, please!" Tahli-Damen implored. "We did not know! We have only lately discovered this from other merchants!" "How have you discovered it?" Talith demanded. "I have had you watched, merchant, ever since we left Chaomonous. You've received no messages that I do not know about!" "My Lord," Tahli-Damen pleaded, "I assure you we have ways of contact that no one knows ... I just heard this from Jagd in the capital!" "Jagd, hmm? And how go things in the capital, hmm? Answer, merchant!" "All is well, my Lord!" Tahli-Damen yelped. "The country awaits news of your victory!" "As I thought!" Talith growled, throwing the merchant from him and striding back to the table. Tahli-Damen lay on the canvas floor of the tent, watching the King's face. "Joss was lying." "Joss, my Lord?" "Get up, merchant, and tell me what you've learned about Pelman and my daughter. Then I want to know everything Jagd's told you since we left the palace." Tahli-Damen lied that night as be had never lied before, and when he finally made his 'way back to his tent he collapsed in exhaustion acros
s his cot. Before he slipped into deep sleep, he thought he heard Jagd complimenting him. "Well done, my boy," the dream Jagd told him. "You'll make a merchant yet." Rosha held the lamp in one hand and his sword in the other, while Bronwynn kept close behind him as they shuffled through the silent hallways of stone. She gripped the book in both hands and argued with herself about bears. At last she decided to bring Rosha into the conversation.

  "What do cavern bears eat?" she whispered. "P-people," the young warrior answered frankly. "Where do they find enough people to eat?" "In Ngandib-Mar they d-dwell mostly in the c-ccaves near the mines. There they feed off of the Dimmers." "But there are no mines here. Why would bears want to live in this region?" "How d-do you know there are n-no mines here?" "I've never heard of any," she answered. "I n-never heard of the ocean either." They turned a blind comer very cautiously, then continued.

  "Are there mines here?" she asked, her voice hushed to dampen the dreadful echo.

  "I've n-never heard of any." He shrugged, peering into the darkness ahead of him. Bronwynn frowned at his back.

  "Then how do you know there are bears here?" she asked. "The s-smell." "I don't smell anything." "That's because you've b-been smelling bears too long." "Just because-" A sudden snarl came from the nightmare black. Then what seemed to be two eyes with teeth leapt at their throats. The only thing that saved either of them was the fact that Rosha dropped the lamp as the explosion of his fright blew him backward. The oil spilled across the stone and flared, and the beast stopped on the other side of it. The spreading oil burned out quickly, but by then Rosha was back on his feet, greatsword clasped in both hands and pointed at the memory of those burning eyes. Nothing happened for a moment, as the three of them stood silently in the darkness.