The beasts of Barakhai bob-1

by Mickey Zucker Reichert

  The door opened onto a common room strewn with clothes, bits of food, and half-finished games of chess and dice. Crude, mismatched furniture, mostly constructed from crates and barrels, interrupted the vast chaos. If not for the lanterns instead of overhead lights and the lack of a television, it could have passed for the recreation room of most men's dormitories. Smaller doors led off in several directions. Crossing the room, Mabix knocked on one of the doors before opening it.

  Through the portal, Collins saw a square, windowless room the size of a large bathroom. Three rolled up pallets leaned in one corner, a pile of chamber pots in the other. A chair crafted from a quarter-cut barrel stood pushed against a wall. A cushion affixed to a circular piece of wood lay on the floor beside it, apparently the seat.

  Mabix squeezed past Lyra and Collins in the doorway, picked up the cushion, and pointed into the seat. "You can store your gear here."

  Where? Collins followed Mabix and examined the chair. He saw a hole where his backside would usually go, creating a good-sized hollow that ended with a thick wooden bottom. Clearly, it served as a neat storage area as well as a piece of furniture once the cushion was balanced on top of the opening. About to say something about the cleverness of its inventor, Collins held his tongue instead. For all he knew, everyone had these in their homes.

  Mabix noticed Collins studying the arrangement. "Convenient, huh?"

  "Very." Collins let a bit of his respect seep into his tone.

  Lyra added, "Craftsman who came up with that design won himself a permanent place on the king's staff.

  Mabix bobbed his head. "A Random, too. On the king's staff. Can you believe it?"

  "Wow," Collins replied, holding back a storm of questions he could never ask his Random companions. He swung the pack to the floor, feeling trapped. He had to leave it so Falima would have clothes and access to the makeup, but he hated to risk losing it. Suddenly, he realized he had no reason to hide that piece of information. "You know, I think I'd better put it back on…"He caught himself about to say "Falima." "… on Marlys. She gets cold easily and likes to dress as soon as possible." He had originally planned to say she felt uncomfortable naked among strangers but liked what came out of his mouth better. How do you like that? I can think on my feet. A less wholesome thought followed, Or am I just becoming a better liar? Winning over Korfius and Vernon had certainly given him plenty of practice.

  Collins looked at the pack, as if noticing it for the first time. "She's due to switch pretty soon." He wondered if he had just made a crucial blunder. As partners, they ought to know one another's habits well enough that he would never have removed the pack in the first place.

  But, if Lyra or Mabix thought the same way, neither revealed it. They headed back outside without another word or anything Collins would consider knowing glances. Falima grazed placidly among a small group of horses and one mule. As he reattached the pack, Collins found himself wondering about the long-earred animal. In his world, they came from breeding a donkey with a horse and were always sterile. He wondered how that applied here and how it affected the creature's human form.

  Stop it! Collins blamed nervousness for his thoughts taking off in a trained but unhelpful direction. Focus! Casually, he poked a hand into his pocket, seized his watch, and glanced surreptitiously at it around folds of fabric. It now read 5:50 p.m., only ten minutes before Falima's switch. He needed to draw the guards away from her so she could have the privacy necessary to affect her disguise. "Now, about that tree I plan to eat…"

  Mabix laughed, taking the hint. "I'll walk you to the dining hall. It's getting on toward dinner anyway, so you'll have a chance to meet a good bunch of the guards and staff."

  Lyra made a throwaway gesture, and Mabix nodded. "She needs to return to her post." He took Collins' elbow, steering him toward the castle as Lyra headed back toward the gatehouses. "I'll have to get back myself, as soon as I've got you settled in. Can you do all right on your own?"

  Still stuck on the realization that he would share the dining hall with a crowd, Collins forced a nod. "I'll do fine." He hoped he spoke truth. He was hungry, but he would have to feign starvation. So long as he had his mouth full, he would not have to answer questions. He only hoped dinner would not consist of a plateful of bugs as large as puppies. His mind conjured images of enormous beetles, crisply browned, legs stretched upward with turkey caps on all six drumsticks.

  Mabix stopped suddenly, halfway down the courtyard path to the castle. "Didn't you say your partner would switch soon?"

  The query put Collins on his guard, though it seemed foolish to lie. "Yes. Yes, I did."

  "Won't she want to join us for dinner?"

  Collins thought it best to leave Falima alone, at least for the change. "No," he said, fighting down an edge of terror. "No, she… she doesn't like to eat right after. The combination of rich food piled on a bellyful of grass." He wrinkled his features. "Bothers her."

  "Interesting," Mabix said with the air of one who has found himself in the same situation many times but never had a similar experience. "But maybe it's different for us daytime humans. That's never bothered me."

  "Me either," Collins agreed. "But it bothers her."

  Mabix accepted that explanation, and Collins hoped he would not have to make up many more. The more implausibilities he forced them to consider, the more suspicious they would likely become. Though he enjoyed having a reasonably kindred soul, he was just as happy that Mabix would have to leave. Spreading his stories farther apart might make them harder to penetrate.

  Mabix led Collins up the castle stairs, muddy with shoe and boot tracks, to the open door. Voices wafted through, a disharmonious hum of myriad conversations. Suspended by chains, a wooden cross-hatching hung overhead like the sword of Damocles. Collins' new knowledge of languages allowed him to give it a name, a raised portcullis. He had seen them before, in every swashbuckling movie that required a castle. Always, the heroes, from the Three Musketeers to Robin Hood dived beneath the closing grate at the last possible second, while guards' swords rattled futilely on the portcullis behind them. The very object meant to trap them saved them instead.

  The door opened onto a spiral staircase that wound clockwise upward and also went downward. Cold funneled from the lower areas where Collins knew the dungeons and storerooms lay. Mabix took him up, past one landing with a set of doors opening on either side. Collins knew the right one led to the kitchens, the left to workshops. The noises grew louder as they continued their ascent, and Mabix stopped at the next set of doors. He opened the right one, revealing a vast dining hall, its grandeur surpassing Zylas' description. At the far end of the room, a smaller table stood on a dais. At it sat ten people in splendid silks and satins, their robes trimmed with gold lace-work or embroidery. The women wore nappy dresses and capes, the men fine tunics and sashes, doublets, and robes.

  Three massive tables stretched between the door and the occupants of the dais, filled with people whose dress, demeanor, and appearance spanned a gamut that would once have seemed to Collins beyond possibility. Dogs of varying shapes and sizes wound freely around the diners or hovered beneath the tables. Tapestries and banners hung from every wall, their colors a rainbow mix of pattern and picture. Above them, cathedral-cut open windows revealed a balcony blocked by waist-high handrails. Men and women in matching aqua-and-white plaid looked down over the diners, clutching oddly shaped instruments and conferring with one another. "Impressive, isn't it?"

  Mabix's description jarred Collins from his daze. He made no apology for staring. He was supposed to be an awestruck bumpkin. "Wow." It finally occurred to him to evaluate the food he had trapped himself into eating with gusto. He could not see what occupied the gold and silver platters of the head table, but the regular folk scooped a gloppy substance, with hands and spoons, from what appeared to be stale slices of bread that served as plates. Servants wove between the tables, refilling goblets, and plopping down fresh bowls of stew for the guests to ladle onto their bread
plates.

  "That's King Terrin at the head table," Mabix said, gesturing toward the central figure, a burly man with wheaten ringlets and a full beard." In order, that's the constable, the pantler, an adviser, the butler, the queen's steward, the prince, the queen, the king again, a princess, another princess, the king's steward, another adviser, the children's steward, the ewerer, and one more adviser."

  The list came too fast for Collins to follow, but that did not matter. He did not intend to remain here long enough to care who he had seen and met.

  "Find a seat on one of the benches at any trestle table. Whoever's next to you can help you with the proper procedures."

  Collins nodded. "Thanks." He suspected he could teach them a thing or two about manners. Unlike those at the head table, the commoners lacked forks. They all used spoons and fingers, even in the communal bowls holding the only course. They shared goblets as well. Though he had no intention of eating a bite of what he imagined was a worm stew drenched in spider guts, he did take a seat for the sake of appearances. He chose the place between a demure woman in a stained white apron and a thin man animatedly engaged in conversation with the guard on his other side.

  Mabix stepped around to a cluster of uniformed guards sitting at the center table. He chatted with them briefly, then they turned toward Collins. Pinned by their stares, he froze, abruptly afraid; but Mabix's cheerful wave dispelled his tension almost as soon as it arose. Of course, he would have to tell someone about Falima's and my arrival.

  A boy rushed in to place a slice of bread in front of Collins. Dark and stiff with blue-green mold along one edge of crust, it did nothing to stimulate his appetite. The same boy laid out a spoon beside it.

  "Thank you," Collins said.

  Blushing, the boy bowed, then hurried to assist another diner.

  Mabix trotted from the room, back onto the staircase, then disappeared.

  The musicians launched into an upbeat song, and the conversations died to a hum. Harp, lute, and fiddle braided into a sweet harmony filled with riffs and runs. Collins looked at the bread plate, then at the woman beside him. "Excuse me," he whispered. "Where would I find a rest room?"

  Silently, the woman lifted a hand to point beyond the royal diners. Only then, Collins noticed a door in the far wall that surely led to one of the garderobes Zylas had described. She hissed back, "If you don't want to walk past the royals, there's another one in the library. Just go out the main door, across the landing, and through the cross door. The only other exit from the library is the garderobe."

  "Thank you." Collins rose and headed back the way he had come. Once in the staircase, he crossed to the library door. He had his hand on the ring before he remembered his interest in the rest room was only diversionary. What better time for exploring than when most of the staff and royals are gathered in the dining room?

  Quickly, Collins scurried up the stairs. He reached the next landing, heart pounding, and paused to regroup. A tall window overlooked the castle grounds, a ledge jutting from it. He perched on it, glancing down at the courtyards. Horses sprawled, bathing in the sunshine while others quietly grazed. A gardener pulled weeds, feeding them to a spotted goat as he worked. A pair of dogs frolicked with a young colt, barking at its heels. It charged them, as if to crush them beneath its hooves, then turned aside at the last moment, leaving the dogs to whirl and charge after it again. Collins tore his gaze from the scene to turn his attention inward. The doors on either side should open onto the servants' sleeping chambers, which meant he had one more floor till he came to the first warded area. He resumed his climb.

  The next landing also held a window overlooking a slightly different view of the courtyards. A calico cat curled on the ledge, the resemblance to Collins' first pet uncanny. Like Fluffy, this cat had one black ear and one white, its body covered with blotches on a chalky background, tail and paws darkly tipped. The memory brought a smile to his lips. "Here kitty, kitty," he said softly. "Here girl." The scientist in him came out to wonder whether the same rules of genetics applied here. He knew cats carried color genes on their X-chromosomes and, at most, two different hues on each X. Since males only had one X and females two, and calicoes had three colors by definition, all calicoes were either female or the uncommon XXY, a usually sterile male mutation.

  The cat lifted its head.

  Collins approached gently, fingers extended. The cat sniffed curiously. He lowered his hand to its back, making a broad stroke. The cat arched, a purr rumbling from it. It jammed its head into his cupped hand.

  Smiling, Collins stroked the entire length of the cat, enjoying the soft rush of fur beneath his palm. He missed having a cat terribly. Studies showed that petting an animal naturally lowered blood pressure and relieved stress. He could scarcely recall a time when he needed a natural tranquilizer more. He scratched around the animal's ears, ruffling its fur into a mane. Its purr deepened to a roar.

  Only then did Collins realize what he was doing. Oh, my God, I'm stroking a human woman! He cursed his lack of caution. Caught up in his memory of Fluffy, he had completely forgotten that no creature here was what it seemed. He withdrew his hands, and the purr died immediately. The cat bounded down from its perch with a thud that made him cringe, then twined itself against and through his legs.

  Collins back-stepped. "That's it for now, kitty. I've got work to do." Reaching for the door ring, he pushed it open. Every cat he had ever owned had to run through any newly opened door no matter where it led, but this one did not attempt to enter the royal bedchambers. Warded against switchers, it would not allow her entry. Seeing no movement inside, Collins headed in, pulling the door shut behind him. His heart rate quickened again, and any stress-easing that petting the cat might have achieved disappeared. His pulse pounded in his temples, and sweat slicked his back. He had just reached the point of no return. No logical explanation could cover him now.

  Much smaller than the great dining hall, the room contained a curtained bed with a shelved frame, a chest, a stool, and a chandelier with a dozen white candles. A massive tapestry depicting a hunt covered most of one wall. Collins dredged up the description of the crystal: a smooth oblong rock the size of a peach with five, smooth edges of different sizes, milky blue in color. The room held few enough furnishings that it would not take long to search.

  Collins walked first to the bed, suddenly struck by something that had gotten only his passing notice when he had glanced at it. A hunting scene? It seemed an impossible thing for a society that considered the killing of animals murder. He jerked his attention back to the tapestry. It was clearly old, a museum piece faded nearly beyond recognition. Washed to shades of gray, its figures blurred into the background. Yet Collins had managed to take away a solid impression, and he struggled now to find the details that had previously caught his eye. Men on horseback raised spears, while a pack of dogs harried some huge, indiscernible animal.

  You don't have time for this, Collins reminded himself. Tearing his gaze from the tapestry, he opened one of the drawers. Stacks of neatly folded tunics in a variety of colors met his gaze. He felt under and between them for a hard lump, glad for its size. Anything smaller might require him to rifle the room, which would definitely cast suspicion. If possible, he wanted to get the stone without anyone noticing it, or him, missing.

  Drawer by drawer, Collins checked through the king's clothing, intensely aware of every passing second. He had no more than an hour to search before he either had to furtively withdraw or find a hiding place and hope he had a chance to look again, perhaps at another meal. A better thought came to him. While they're sleeping. He shoved the last drawer shut and cast his gaze around the room again. It seemed worth losing a few minutes of trying to find the magical stone in order to locate a haven. The drawer-base meant no room beneath the bed, and its position flat against one corner gave him no space to squeeze beyond the curtains. Even if the chest did not surely contain something, it would prove a tight squeeze even for his skinny frame. Two other doo
rs led out of the king's chamber.

  Footsteps thundered on the staircase, growing louder. They're coming. Terror scattered Collins' wits, and he bolted for the far doors in a desperate scramble. Seizing one at random, he shoved it opened and hurled himself through. He skidded across a polished clay floor. His shoulder slammed into a low shelf. He sprang to his feet, braining himself on an overhanging lip. He bit off a scream, teeth sinking into his tongue. Dizziness washed over him in a blaze of black-and-gray spots. He caught a blurry glimpse of what he had hit, a wooden board atop a bench with a hole cut into the wood. Bathroom. He whirled to face four men with drawn swords.

  Collins' skin seemed to turn to ice. His head throbbed, and he tasted blood. He retreated, raising his hands to indicate surrender. Wood pressed into the backs of his calves, and he stopped, forced into a sitting position on the bench. "I won't fight. Don't hurt me." His vision cleared enough to reveal faces familiar from the dining hall, including the goldenrod hair and beard of Barakhai's king.

  Chapter 15

  COLLINS froze, pressed against the garderobe, with three swords hovering in front of him. His mind raced. He braced himself for the rush of panic that had assailed him just before his near-hanging, but his thoughts remained strikingly clear. The world seemed to move in slow motion, while he mulled the situation. If I go with them, they'll execute me. If I fight, they'll kill me. There appeared no choice at all, but memory assisted him. Falima had claimed only the king's guards could use weapons, which meant, in most situations, they only had to raise them in a threatening manner. Since they had come through the door, these three had to be royalty, even less likely to possess true combat knowledge.

  Based on this train of thought, Collins took a chance. Hands up, features displaying honest terror, he begged. "Please, don't hurt me."