City of the Lost l-1

by Mary H. Herbert

Instead of the familiar translucent images of towers, buildings, and graceful walls overlaying a more solid copy, Varia saw only the real buildings and beyond them where the citizens of the Missing City had not built, the ruins of Gal Tra’kalas lay exposed like the crumbling bones of an ancient grave. The mirage was gone and in its place was a disheveled, storm-battered city, looking undressed and vulnerable and very much in need of help.

  Varia stared across the city rooftops, expecting to see the dragons out, lending their strength to the rescue effort, but she did not see any of them. Something about that deeply disturbed the already worried owl. This absence was not like Iyesta and the others. They were very conscientious about the city and its inhabitants. Unless an emergency or dire threat had arisen, they would have been out to help clean out the rubble and find survivors. Maybe one of them was with Linsha and Sir Morrec.

  But that hope was shattered when the Knights rode into a section of the ancient city where the weathered ruins were all that remained. From her height above the muddy plains Varia saw another centaur and the bodies on the ground. Linsha’s auburn curls were easy to indentify even from the air.

  Varia’s shrill screech of dismay shivered on the morning breeze. She flew to an old scrub holly growing in the slight shelter of a shattered chimney. It was the only cover near the scene she could find. She wanted to fly straight to the bodies, but although she recognized the young horseman who brought Linsha back to the Citadel several days ago, she did not know him and she did not want to risk exposing herself. It was safer to let them think she was only a pet.

  Grief stricken, she scanned the bodies and looked for any sign of life. The corpses remained ominously still, and the flies had begun to gather. She remained silent and motionless, virtually invisible in her shaded hiding place. She watched the Knights arrive and examine the bodies.

  All at once her “ears” popped upright, and she stretched forward on her talons. Linsha moved. She was alive! Varia wanted to sing with delight.

  Then her joy turned to rage. That vile man. Sir Remmik, that self-centered, close-minded, despot who had created his own private army and now had control of it. Just once Varia wished she could change into an eagle and fly out to tear that man’s eyes from his skull. How dare he accuse Linsha.

  Trembling, she watched the Knights load their dead onto a wagon and prepare to leave. Her estimation of the leggy, young centaur rose higher when he offered to carry Linsha back to the castle.

  She trailed the Knights and their prisoner back to the Citadel. There was no chance to talk to Linsha or even signal her in some way, and the owl could only watch in frustrated silence as the Lady Knight was hurried away to the prison cells under the castle. She knew Sir Remmik’s personality well enough to guess what he was trying to do. Without some firm evidence, Linsha would find it very difficult to fight his charges. She would need help.

  The sound of the door closing behind Linsha had barely died before Varia shot out of her watching place and flew like a hawk toward the distant lair of the great brass. Iyesta had to know about this. Iyesta would help.

  When she arrived at the dragon’s lair, Varia winged into the courtyard where the great double doors led into the throne room. Two of the three brass triplets usually stood on either side of the doors, but this morning there were no dragons, neither brass nor gold nor silver, and the great bronze doors hung open to an empty throne room. A large group of city people, militia, and Iyesta’s own guards had gathered to talk to Iyesta. They milled around in confusion, their voices raised in loud questions no one could answer and orders no one could hear. It was total chaos.

  Varia spotted several acquaintances and friends of Linsha’s, considered them, and set them aside. They did not have the authority to deal with Sir Remmik and the Solamnics nor any knowledge of the massacre. She needed the dragon.

  Plagued by uncertainty, she sat in a tree and waited to see if the buckskin centaur would appear. It wasn’t long before she saw him galloping up the road to the palace. He had wasted no time getting there. She watched as the look on his face changed from fiery determination to surprise and dismay when he saw the crowd milling about the courtyard and no sign of the dragons. He finally spotted an older centaur he knew and hurried over. The two began a heated conversation.

  Good. Let the word spread. Sir Morrec was admired in the City, and his murder would not go over well in some circles. A cry would go up for justice, the assassins would be found, and Linsha would be freed.

  Or would she? What if the assassins weren’t found? Linsha’s first trial had taken weeks to put together and eventually fell apart. But that was in Sancrist, the seat of Solamnic power. This was a distant outpost on the edge of the world. What if Sir Remmik rushed a trial through a makeshift council before the real killers were discovered? The Missing City was a long way from Sancrist, and Solamnic law allowed a Knight of Sir Remmik’s rank to convene a council in times of need. Sir Remmik would have no qualms declaring an emergency after a massacre of Knights and the chaos caused by the monstrous storm of the night before. He could have Linsha condemned and hanged before anyone knew what happened.

  Varia launched herself out of the tree. She needed Iyesta, and she needed the brass now. Only the dragonlord could demand that Sir Remmik make a proper investigation of the killing. She would just have to go look for Iyesta herself. Maybe during her search she would be lucky and find a band of murderous-looking brigands who were fleeing the Missing City after ambushing a troop of Solamnic Knights. Bigger coincidences happened.

  The owl began her search on the west side of the city where she remembered Iyesta had one entrance to the labyrinth. She made methodical sweeps east and west, then north and south from the beaches and bluffs of the coast to Scorpion Wadi, from the devastated harbor to Sinking Wells, over the Citadel and beyond to the fields and grasslands that lay between Mirage and the Silvanesti Forest. She flew over the village of Mem-Thon where the tribespeople struggled to rebuild their homes damaged by the storm, and still there was no indication of any metallic dragon, gold, silver, or brass.

  At last, weary and wing-sore, Varia risked the evening wind off the sea and flew across the water back toward Mirage. After the night’s storm, the day’s weather had been delightfully warm and pleasant, and now the sun, setting across the vast southern continent, lit the waters ahead of her with a golden path.

  Because of the sun in her eyes, she did not see at first the distant ship, moving slowly along the coastline where the land rose in high bluffs at the water’s edge. She had nearly passed by it, when a sail flapped loose and fluttered down the mast. The motion of the sail caught the edge of the owl’s broad vision. She swiveled her head sideways and saw the dark ship slip through the shadows cast by the bluffs. She almost disregarded it-ships were not rare in the south Courrain Ocean-until the ship made the turn around a headland and sailed into a small bay.

  Varia followed it out of curiosity. The bay was uninhabited, but it was sometimes used as an anchoring site for ships wishing to stop for the night. There could be ships there in need of assistance after the storm.

  The sun dipped below the horizon, and its light drained from the land. Varia’s sight, good in daylight, improved in the dusky evening. She had no trouble seeing the fleet of ships anchored in the bay.

  She slowed her flight in surprise. No one in this region had that many ships. There had to be nearly sixty of various lengths, most of them long, swift oceangoing vessels with oars and sails. They did not have the black coloration of ships belonging to the Knights of Neraka, and they flew no flags, so whose were they?

  Varia caught a wind current and rode it toward shore to give any observers the impression that she was a mere owl out looking for an evening meal. As she passed over the ships, she carefully studied all she could see.

  Those ships had suffered damage from the storm. Some had lost masts, some listed at their anchors, and two had been towed to shore for repairs. If the fleet had been at sea when the storm struck, it w
as logical to assume some ships had been scattered, some had sunk, and perhaps some were limping to another shore. But damaged as the fleet was, Varia recognized an armed force when she saw one. Thunder had his army to the west and now this fleet approached Mirage from the east. It was easy to assume they were not coming to open trade negotiations. Was there a connection between the blue and this force?

  It would be several days, Varia reasoned, before the fleet made its repairs and reassembled itself. She supposed it was possible the ships would not move on the Missing City, but she did not want to take that chance.

  The moment Varia flew over land and the twilight hid her from view, she turned west toward Mirage and flew as fast as her wings would carry her. Her heart beat like a hummingbird’s. Those ships! She had to warn Linsha. The woman’s premonition of danger had been all too valid. First the storm, the ambush, and now this.

  10

  The Solamnic Jail

  Linsha had been injured before. In her chosen way of life, there were always aching muscles, bumps, bruises, cuts, and scrapes. There had been that incident in Palanthas when the thief broke her arm, the attack in the Crystal Valley that left her battered and bruised, and of course, the duel with Ian Durne in Sanction that nearly killed her. She was familiar with pain. But never had she experienced anything so miserable and painful as this head injury. If she wanted to put words to it, she could have described it as a hangover brought on by dwarf spirits, complicated by a punch between the eyes and a vise clamped around her temples. After the first hour or so, she woke shivering in her damp clothes and lay in a half-doze. Her head still hurt abominably in a persistent thudding ache that refused to ease off or even change. Linsha tried to move, to warm her muscles, and found it was not worth the effort. She had no strength left in her limbs, and any muscle that moved did so stiffly and with complaint.

  She finally gave up and lay still again. Sleep came and went in fitful starts. When she was awake and aware, she could convince herself that she had done nothing to hurt Sir Morrec. Her conscious mind had no recollection of the attack beyond a few vague images of rain and struggling figures. It wasn’t until she slept that her mind slipped into evil dreams and the agony of uncertainty brought images out of the depths of her injured Drain, bits of memory, visions lit by brilliant light, and dark faceless figures that attacked her with swords only to vanish into impenetrable darkness.

  After a long while, heavy footsteps on the stone floor disturbed her restless sleep and the grate of a key in the lock brought her fully awake. She opened one eye to see Sir Remmik glowering down at her. Two guards stood stolidly behind him; a scribe stood close by with a quill and paper in his hand. Linsha did not try to move.

  “Majere,” Sir Remmik said. “You are awake. Good. I have come to hear your report on the events of last evening.”

  Linsha felt surly with misery. “You should have asked me before you accused me in front of half the circle.”

  He lifted a narrow eyebrow. “A slight exaggeration. And you were hardly in any condition to give a coherent report. Now you have had time to sleep, to gather your thoughts. Tell us what happened.”

  Linsha glared at the scribe’s hand and his pen poised to repeat her words. Tell us what happened, she thought bitterly. If only it were that easy. “We left Iyesta’s council at sunset. We were caught in the storm. We were ambushed.” She said it in short, stark sentences. “Did you get all that?”

  Sir Remmik pursed his lips. “I see. You are not going to cooperate. Very well.” He turned to go.

  “No,” she said hoarsely. She held out a hand to him.

  “You don’t understand. I wouldn’t kill Sir Morrec. I just don’t remember what happened.”

  The Solamnic commander gave her a sharp nod. “Of course. Your injuries are worse than I thought. I will have a healer come look at you.” He turned on his heel and was gone as quickly as he came. The key turned in the lock; the footsteps echoed quietly down the corridor.

  Linsha stared at the door for a long time wondering if that whole exchange had been another dream. Eventually, she dozed again.

  The key turned in the lock once again, and this time Sir Hugh walked silently into the cell. He stared down at the sleeping woman for a moment. Although he had never told her, he deeply admired Lady Linsha for her courage and her abilities. He could not believe now that these charges made against her were true. But if there was no basis for the charge, why did the commander put her under arrest? Time would make things clear, he hoped, and meanwhile there was no reason why she should die of chills or lung infection. He laid a warm blanket over her and made his way out.

  When Varia returned to Mirage, night had drawn its pall over the city. Torches burned along the wrecked waterfront where rescue efforts had turned to a hunt for the dead and a cleanup. She scanned the area carefully in the hope of seeing a dragon but was disappointed. The streets and skies were still ominously empty of their presence.

  Gliding on silent wings, Varia circled the Citadel and, hoping against hope that Linsha would be in her room, swooped down and entered the narrow window in the officer’s quarters. Linsha’s room was dark and empty, and there were no signs of the Lady Knight having been there since the day before.

  Varia hooted in dismay. She had to talk to Linsha. How was she going to get into the cells? They were located in a level below ground under the tower of the front gate in the inner ward. They had been built to be inaccessible by any means but a single stairs that led from the guardroom. No windows, no convenient skylight, nothing that would allow an eighteen inch bird to slip unseen into a prison cell to talk with a prisoner. And she doubted the guards would be accommodating enough to take Linsha’s pet owl down there and let it out again.

  Perhaps the guards would bring Linsha out for some reason, and she could snatch a quick word with her friend. As an idea, it was better than nothing.

  The owl left the empty room, made her way silently around the keep, and swooped noiselessly up to a roost on the guard tower she had used before. In the past, she had made a point of choosing several well-positioned roosts around the Citadel that afforded her excellent views of the wards, the walls, and the buildings and allowed her to hear much of what went on. The Knights in the garrison made no complaint of the owl because she helped keep the rodent population down and owls were believed to be good luck. Varia took full advantage of this open-minded opinion.

  She pushed herself into the black shadows of the roofline and waited. She knew she could not be seen, and in a little while, anyone who might have noticed her fly into that spot would probably forget she was there. From this perch she could hear men talk on the parapet above the gate and anyone speaking just outside the guardroom. From here, she might learn what was happening with Linsha. The hour had already passed that Sir Remmik usually made his rounds, and the man was nothing hut punctual, so she would have to wait for the changing of the guards at midnight. Perhaps then she would hear some news, or if luck was with her, the guard room would he empty for a moment and she could slip down the stairs to the cells. Although that would be horribly risky, she wanted to try. Somehow she had to warn Linsha of the approaching fleet.

  The wards and the gates remained quiet for several hours. The guards paced their beat and stood their posts and said nothing to one another. They seemed very tense to the watching owl, as if they knew something was wrong and did not know what to do about it. The gates to both walls remained firmly shut and no one left the castle. The city outside the walls remained something separate and apart, something that could pose a danger to the well-being of the garrison. No matter that torches flared along the ruined waterfront, or a few scattered fires burned in the neighborhoods, or the Legion and the militia were helping the bewildered and stricken citizens, or Iyesta’s guards were holding a massive, frantic search for the brass dragon and her companions. The Knights of Solamnia were safely secured behind their walls and all was well with them.

  At midnight a small bell rang from the inner
gate. The door of the main hall opened and light from within spilled out into the dark yard. Sir Remmik walked out to stand on the step and watch. Varia hissed at the sight of the man. Then she quieted and listened. Men had come out of the guardroom while others marched up to the walls. The changing of the guard was under way. She watched carefully while the squad below her marched toward the main keep to report to the new commander. As soon as they were halfway across the ward, she dropped from her hiding place and floated silently toward the door of the guardroom.

  “Someone get that blasted owl,” she heard Sir Remmik say. Immediately, she stooped to the left away from the door as if she were chasing a mouse across the stone pavings.

  Fortunately, no one moved to obey his order. The other Knights stood and watched as she pounced on something small and carried it back up to her roost.

  Varia pushed back into the safety of shadows again and tossed the horse turd out of her talon to the gutter. Her feelings turned fiery hot. If her thoughts could have been made real, Sir Remmik would have been skinned alive and staked to an ant hill in the middle of the desert.

  “Sir Hugh, I want you to make sure that owl is driven out of here. We do not need pets in this garrison. Kill it if you have to.” Sir Remmik shouted to the officer of the guard loudly enough so everyone could hear him.

  There was a soft but collective gasp from all the watching men.

  “Yes, sir,” Sir Hugh replied. Then he made a friend of one small intelligent owl by adding, “But the owl is no danger to us. In truth she kills her share of rats and mice that eat our corn.”

  “Get a terrier. We do not need that owl flying around here. Once the accused is condemned, we will erase everything of hers from this castle. The owl goes, or it will be destroyed.”

  Varia sensed there were a number of “buts” on the lips of those watching, yet they stood without speaking. Most of the Knights in the circle had learned to respect Sir Remmik, and Varia suspected it would take some time before they found the courage to stand up to him.