by Laurence Yep
“If I didn’t believe you were thieves before, I would now,” the captain gloated.
“Nice going,” Tute snapped at the badger.
“What’s wrong with a few souvenirs?” Koko said unrepentantly.
During all this, Kles had barely stirred as Scirye cradled the fragile body tight against her. She held out his limp body so Chin could probe the griffin’s fur and feathers, finding only Pele’s charm, which she took.
When he had put all the confiscated items into a sack slung over his shoulder, the captain turned at last to Leech. “And now we’ll have those armbands of yours.”
You can’t let this scum take them, the Voice protested.
Even if his armbands weren’t their last hope, he wasn’t about to give them up. “You can have the charm for warmth,” Leech pleaded, “but the armbands are all I have of my parents.”
The captain aimed his pistol at Leech’s forehead. “I’m tired of these games, boy. Lady Scirye is of noble blood, but you are simply gutter trash. It will be even easier to take the armbands from your corpse.”
Fight! Fight! the Voice shrieked. The words pounded in his head so that Leech could barely think. He began to reach for the weapon armband.
“Don’t shoot! Let me talk to him.” Koko threw himself at the captain’s arm, pulling it down so that a second bullet went into the floor.
The badger wasn’t nearly as nimble as Tute. The captain’s gauntleted hand caught him full across the muzzle.
Koko was as much upset at losing his hard-won privileges as his loot, so that the blow was the last straw. The badger, normally cautious to the point of cowardice, lunged forward. “They haven’t built a hoosegow that can hold me.” With a snarl, he bit the captain’s wrist.
“Koko, let go,” Scirye said.
His mouth full of Nanayor, Koko mumbled an indistinguishable reply but his tone was defiant.
Leech couldn’t be sure if it was him or the Voice that took advantage of the distraction and began the spell to change the armband into a weapon. All he knew was this overwhelming desire to smash their enemies.
But one Wolf Guard had the presence of mind to put his gun against Scirye’s head. “Stop whatever you’re doing, or I’ll kill her.”
Scirye’s spirit was as bold as ever even if her voice shook with fear. “Fight them, Leech,” she urged. “Don’t lose the armbands.”
Leech struggled with the blind rage, the hate. It wasn’t just these petty tyrants, but everyone who had ever bullied him. The toughs in San Francisco’s streets. The bigger kids in the orphanage. The dragons … Was that him or the Voice?
But Scirye’s life was at stake.
The spell died on his lips. His hand grew still, no longer making the magical passes. Instead, he forced his hands to take off the armbands and handed them over with Pele’s charm.
As the captain added them to the sack, the Voice shrieked, No, no.
We have to for Scirye’s sake, Leech replied and was relieved when the guard let his friend go.
“Ptoo.” Koko spat out the scrap of uniform that he had torn from the captain’s sleeve. “You taste lousy anyway.” He jeered at the man. “Time for your annual bath, stinky.”
Despite the strong grip of his jaws, Koko’s fangs hadn’t been long or sharp enough to make more than two small puncture marks in the captain’s wrist. But the sight of the twin drops of blood incensed the leader of the guards. “I’ll show you how we deal with a wild beast.”
26
Scirye
Captain Nanayor had no more than swung his pistol halfway toward Koko when Scirye flung herself forward, bumping the captain so that he staggered backward into the arms of his men.
“Enough!” Lord Tsirauñe thundered from the doorway. He looked worried at Scirye who had fallen to the floor. “Are you all right?” When she nodded, he said, “If you resist, you’ll give them an excuse to really hurt you.”
Lady Sudarshane helped her daughter to her feet. “Yes, don’t make any more trouble, dear. We’ll clear up the misunderstanding so just leave it to us.”
“This isn’t a ‘misunderstanding,’” Leech protested. “It’s a frame job.”
Koko spat as if still trying to cleanse his mouth of the captain’s taste. “Yeah, the fix is in.” Sticking out a tongue, he swabbed it vigorously with a paw as if trying to wipe away any taste of the officer.
“Her Highness has already gone to object to the emperor. You won’t be in the vizier’s hands for long.” Lady Sudarshane held out her hand. “So, Scirye, please return what you took from the captain?”
Confused and annoyed, Captain Nanayor began to search the sack. “What…?”
“My daughter is prone to playing pranks,” Lady Sudarshane explained, “and has developed a pickpocket’s skills as a result.”
Scirye looked at her mother, shocked by the betrayal. “While we’re twiddling our thumbs here, Bayang could be killed.”
“And Roland could be getting the arrows,” Māka added.
“Please, do what your mother says,” her father coaxed.
Scirye might have argued with her mother, but it was hard to refuse her father.
Reluctantly, Scirye handed the pouch with the otter charm to her mother. “Don’t you believe us about the danger?”
“Of course, we do,” Lady Sudarshane assured her as she gave the pouch to the captain. “That’s why you have to leave it in our hands.”
Scirye saw the glance that her parents exchanged. They were thinking, Whatever happens to the dragon, at least our daughter will be safe.
“It’s … it’s not Tumarg,” Scirye said, upset by the injustice.
Her mother spoke in a conciliatory voice. “I know, but sometimes politics holds sway at the citadel rather than Tumarg.”
Scirye was shocked. “But you always said—.”
“You’re old enough now to face facts,” her mother said firmly.
“But not old enough for you to believe my warnings,” Scirye said bitterly.
Her mother spread her hands. “Her Highness is already working on getting you back into her custody. Don’t do anything to upset the negotiations.”
“Trust us,” her father said simply. “We’ll make sure you’re safe. I wouldn’t let anything bad happen to our lare.”
Scirye looked down at Kles who always gave her such good advice. She felt so frustrated and helpless as he stared back at her silently. The sight of her dazed friend helped firm up her own resolve.
If her parents, blinded by their love for her, would not keep Tumarg, she would. She would escape with her friends at the first opportunity, find Bayang, and then stop Roland herself. And if that meant upsetting things at court and defying her parents, so be it.
When the captain ordered them from the room, she walked with her friends, refusing to look at her mother and father.
“Don’t worry,” her mother called after her. “We won’t rest until we have our lare back with us.”
Scirye knew that would be true, but she also knew that it was the City of Death and not the citadel that lay in her future from now on.
27
Scirye
The front of the vizier’s palace was decorated with murals of scenes from the life of Hercules—of the Greek demi-god wrestling with the Nemean lion, and then of him newly clothed in the lion’s pelt as he clubbed a hydra to death in its swampy home, and other inspiring scenes.
The foyer of the vizier’s palace was tiled with cool blue and green tiles in a rectangle and star pattern. Servants were industriously sweeping at the base of a five-foot-high statue of a plump, bearded, long-haired man in a Hercules-like lion pelt pointing his club symbolically at the the future, but what in reality was the cloakroom.
“Whoa,” Koko said, gazing up in lust and awe at the statue. “Is that eighteen karat or just gold leaf?”
“Show more respect for the vizier.” A guard used the pistol barrel to strike Koko in the back.
The badger gave a grunt as he l
urched forward. He would have fallen if Leech hadn’t caught him, which brought him a blow of his own.
“Keep apart,” the same guard snapped.
Koko scowled at him. “Do you get paid by the hour or by the bruise?”
“This is just a perk, beast.” The guard sneered and hit Koko again.
Koko retreated out of reach before he jeered, “Your boss looks like a pawnbroker with a bellyache.”
“Lady Scirye?” one of the servants asked. Like many of the Kushans, the red-headed woman was a blend of races, with dark skin and violet eyes but with the Asian fold at the corner of her eyes.
“Katkauñe?” Scirye gasped. She had been her sister’s friend and one of the elite female guards called the Pippalanta by the empire and Amazons by the American newspapers. But when Scirye had last seen her at the museum in San Francisco, she’d been in an antique costume of armor and helmet, not in a servant’s coarse brown wool robe and trousers. Even so, the garments couldn’t hide her warrior’s bearing.
“We heard you were alive,” said a small woman with black hair and dark skin. Scirye remembered her name was Wali.
Scirye stared at them puzzled. “What’re you doing cleaning the floor, Wali?”
The third Pippal was blond Oko, who had a barrel-shaped body and could lift a yearling war griffin. “This is our punishment for letting the treasure be stolen,” she explained bitterly. “We’ve been given every lousy job in the citadel.”
“But it wasn’t your fault, Oko,” Scirye protested.
“No more than you’re a thief and a vandal,” Katkauñe said. “And what are you doing here? You’re supposed to be with Princess Maimie.” That was what most folk fondly called the princess.
The captain shoved the pistol barrel into Scirye’s back. “Get moving.”
Oko took a step forward. “How dare you touch a hero of the empire.”
“Get back to work, scum.” The captain aimed his machine pistol at the Pippalanta.
The woman froze, glaring as the captain prodded his captives down a corridor into a private shrine. But the altar and the statue of Oesho with the club and lion pelt of Hercules had been moved aside. From the doorway below came warm, moist, stagnant air.
Every inch the daughter of the House of Rapaññe, Scirye turned to the captain. “What are we going to do in the shrine?”
“My lady, you do not get to ask the questions. I do,” said a brawny man in a leather vest as he rose from a chair in a corner and strolled toward them.
Māka whipped around, her eyes wide with terror. “Run, lady, run!” she said to Scirye before the captain cuffed her hard enough to send her to her knees. With a snarl, Tute crouched, only to confront a gun muzzle pointed straight at his forehead.
When Scirye put her arms around her friend, she felt how the other girl was shivering. “The screams. They swirl around him like flies. And the blood. He’s covered in blood,” Māka murmured in a daze as Scirye helped her to her feet again. Worried, Tute rose clumsily on his hind legs on Māka’s other side to support her as well.
Captain Nanayor sneered. “He should. He’s the Questioner.”
Koko looked at him skeptically. “He runs a quiz show?”
“He tortures people,” Māka said in a small, frightened voice.
The Questioner seemed to swell even larger when he saw her fear. “I call it gathering information. I’ve had to ply my trade in makeshift rooms for the vizier, but he has decided to re-open the Chamber of Truth in your honor.”
“The Chamber of Truth was declared illegal and shut down forty years ago,” Scirye protested. Though she didn’t know much Kushan history, that had been a major triumph for the reformers.
“The Chamber of Truth?” Koko asked.
Scirye stared at the Questioner angrily. “That’s where viziers in the past tortured prisoners.”
“Rather, the vizier has revived a fine old tradition and re-opened the place where I may pierce the veil of falsehood and deceit,” the Questioner said.
Suddenly Scirye realized how wrong her parents had been. They’d been so confident of their place in court and the power of the princess that they had misread the situation completely. It had been a mistake to trust them to fix everything as if she were still three years old and their predicament was simply some broken toy.
“The vizier wants us to sign confessions that we helped Bayang,” Scirye replied as she analyzed the situation, “and once we’ve done that, you’ll kill us and claim that we escaped somewhere.”
The Questioner regarded Scirye approvingly. “Fear brings such clarity and enlightenment sometimes.”
“Everyone will know the confessions are false,” Leech insisted.
“The vizier must be confident that he’ll soon be so strong no one will challenge them,” Scirye explained, suddenly feeling cold.
“Let me show you to your new accommodations, lady.” Captain Nanayor prodded Scirye forward.
Silently, Kles flapped out of her arms and spread his wings like a small avenging angel.
As one of the guards pointed his machine pistol at the griffin, Scirye snapped. “Klestetstse, to me!”
Kles faltered in midair at the command and Scirye swept him back up in her arms, holding him tight and whispering to him, “As long as we’re still alive, there’s still hope.”
But she felt precious little of that as she marched through the dark doorway.
28
Leech
He had thought the orphanage had been a grim place, but it was nothing compared to the lower level of the vizier’s palace. The passage was lit by fire imps of the lowest class. Barely larger than a match flame, they squatted dully within the iron lanterns, casting a dim, guttering light.
Water seeped through the cracks of the stones of the walls, dripping down through the patches of moss that looked like fuzzy green pancakes. Their footsteps echoed sibilantly on the dull flagstones as if a host of snakes were at their heels.
Tute was trying his best to support the faint Māka, but it was awkward for the lynx to move on just his hind legs. They would have both stumbled and fallen if Scirye hadn’t held them both up.
The corridor turned at right angles and when they rounded the corner, Leech saw the iron door. As the Questioner took out a ring of keys, a woman behind them called out something in Kushan.
It was Katkauñe with Oko and Wali, and looking far more dangerous with their brooms than the Wolf Guards did with their guns.
One of the Wolf Guards snarled something back at them and began to raise his machine pistol, but Katkauñe was quicker, striking the guard with the broom handle as she cried, “Tabiti! Tabiti!”
Kles had told Leech more about Lady Tabiti, also known as the Jade Lady. She had once led a nation of warriors and it was to her that a Kushan emperor had entrusted Yi’s ring. She was so respected that Amazons now used her name as a war cry.
Even as the Wolf Guard dropped to the floor, Katkauñe had twirled the broom and sent the Questioner sprawling.
Captain Nanayor shouted angrily and began to draw his gun while the remaining guard jerked his machine pistol up to aim. Immediately Oko’s broom handle shot out. There was a sharp crack of the captain’s wrist bones breaking and his gun clattered on the floor. Wali used her broom to knock the pistol out of the second guard’s hands, but not before he fired. The noise sounded like a cannon had exploded as the bullet ricocheted off the stones.
Then, with two almost simultaneous thrusts to the stomachs, the Amazons knocked the two Wolf Guards to their knees.
Throwing away her broom, Katkauñe snatched up the guard captain’s pistol and aimed it at its former owner.
“Katkauñe, don’t kill him,” Scirye commanded. She swung her gaze to the quivering Questioner. “But feel free to shoot this fat worm if he doesn’t tell us where Bayang is.”
Apparently, the Questioner preferred to threaten rather than be threatened, and he began to blubber, “Don’t hurt me. She’s at the vizier’s summer villa.”
“You’re going to repeat that to Princess Maimie.” The red-headed Amazon spoke English with a thick accent.
From behind them in the corridor came the clatter of numerous boots. “Who fired that shot?” a man shouted to them.
The captain took advantage of the distraction to scramble to his feet. “The prisoners are loose!” And he bolted for his approaching comrades, the sack bouncing against his hip.
“He’s got my armbands,” Leech said as he started after him.
“You’re blocking my shot,” Katkauñe said.
Leech hadn’t gone more than three steps before Tute darted in front of him. It was like tripping over a mobile hassock and the boy sprawled face forward. The next moment the lynx had pounced on his back. “You’re running straight to the enemy and presenting them with a hostage.”
“Well, my original plan was to make the Questioner testify to the princess, but that’s not going to work.” Katkauñe rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly. “No one ever said I was ever officer material.”
“Yes, we always left the thinking to Nishke.” Wali chuckled as she picked up one of the pistols.
Oko had gotten the third pistol. It looked much more natural in her hands than a broom. “So what do we do now?”
“We can’t go back because of the guards.” Scirye bit her lip. “So we’ll have to go forward.”
Even the battle-hardened Amazons hesitated. “Go into the Chamber of Truth?” Oko asked wide-eyed.
Scirye shrugged. “I don’t like it anymore than you do, but Nishke used to say that when you have only one choice, you take it—no matter how awful it is.” She nodded above them. “If the citadel’s like any embassy I’ve lived in, gossip will spread like lightning. I’m sure the vizier’s servants will spread the news to the servants of the other palaces. Eventually, the princess will come for us. We just have to hold them off until then.” She rapped a knuckle on the iron door. “So wouldn’t you rather have this between them and us?”
“See?” Katkauñe nudged Oko. “We’ve got Lady Scirye to figure things out for us now.” Then she said to Scirye, “And please, my friends call me Kat, and I hope you’ll consider yourself one of them.”