To Corry’s surprise, Capricia left the doorway and came to sit across the table from him. “No, of course not. You remember that I told our archers not to shoot at you.”
“It would have seemed odd to everyone if you hadn’t. Capricia, why don’t you want me here? I know that you say the flute could have given me the language, but you don’t really believe that.” He leaned closer. “Here’s something the flute won’t explain: Fenrah’s wolf recognized me! After I escaped, I ran into him in the forest. He was friendly to me. He never said a word, but I know he can talk. I remember him. Or something about him.”
Capricia looked skeptical.
“I thought,” continued Corry, “that I’d skipped forward in time. I left Panamindorah and came to Earth, and only a year passed on Earth, but hundreds of years passed here. That would explain why I know your language, and yet it sounds a little strange to me. Languages change. It would explain why everyone says my speech is old fashioned, why I think cowries ought to be money.”
Capricia nodded wearily. “I understand what you think, Corellian, but—”
“But,” he continued, “that doesn’t explain Dance. How could he know me? How could Dance possibly have been alive long enough for the language to change?”
“By all reports, Dance is just a wolf like any other. No faun has ever heard him speak. He’s large, and that’s what started the rumor that he’s a durian wolf, but Chance and Laylan don’t think so. There are many reasons why he might have seemed friendly towards you. Perhaps your scent reminded him of the wolflings. You had been with them recently, after all. Perhaps you unwittingly gave him a signal that he recognized—a hand sign or a gesture that the Raiders use.”
Corry looked out the window, annoyed. “You’re wrong.”
Capricia started to speak again, but he cut her off. “I know the Raiders had something to do with your getting the flute. Did you really ‘find’ it, Capricia? Or did you steal it?”
She stared at him. “How did you—?”
“Syrill told me you began your study of the wizards after becoming ‘lost’ in the forest during a Raider attack. He thought it was me you’d found, but I’m sure it was the flute. I want to know how you got it. I’ll tell Meuril if you don’t—”
“You’ll find I don’t respond well to threats,” snapped Capricia.
“Alright. Don’t try to force me, and I won’t try to force you.”
A heavy silence. Then Capricia laughed. “There’s not much to tell. You’ll be disappointed.”
“I’m never disappointed with the truth.”
“When the Raiders attacked our caravan, my doe bolted. We were in unfamiliar country, and by the time I stopped her, we were lost. As we were finding our way back to the road, someone dropped out of a tree and tried to pull me to the ground. It was the smallest member of the pack, the one that doesn’t speak.”
“Huali?” guessed Corry.
“Hualien, yes. In the struggle, I caught hold of something hanging around his neck. I tried to strangle him with it. In the end, he broke free and fled, leaving the thing in my fist. It was the flute. I took a day finding my scattered traveling party. You see? Not a very revealing story.”
“But it’s worth knowing.” Corry thought a moment. “Is Hualien really one of the eight? I saw him in the forest, but I thought he was only one of their children.”
Capricia shook her head. “There are only eight Raiders. Lyli and Xerous are mates, but they have no living offspring. Hualien is an orphan, thought to be about seven years old. Chance and Laylan have copious dossiers on all of them. The Raiders don’t have many secrets, except their den, of course. I’ve read everything available on them and come up with nothing to explain the flute. I concluded that Hualien found it or stole it, so I turned my attention to the wizards.”
“Do you think your father would have complied with their ransom demands?”
Capricia arched her brows. “Lift the bounty laws? Of course not. The wood fauns would revolt.”
Corry pursed his lips. “Fenrah makes these demands for her nation? There’s nothing she stands to gain, other than freedom to live in wood faun territory?”
Capricia sighed. “Fenrah Ausla is of royal blood. Chance believes she would be heir to the throne...if there was a Canid throne to claim, which of course there isn’t since the Filinian conquest.”
“I can see why Syrill seemed sympathetic to the Raiders.”
“Syrill lives for the present. He’s too young to have been involved in any of the wars with Canisaria before it fell. Wolflings and fauns have always been uneasy neighbors. My mother was killed by wolflings, but that is beside the point.”
Capricia stood and circled the table. “I spent last night looking at my books about the flute, and you will be gratified to know that there is some mention of...of stopping time, or—I don’t quite understand it—of traveling in time.”
“Then you believe me?”
“The manuscripts speak of moving forward, but never of moving back. Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps you are an iteration or even a wizard from Panamindorah. You certainly have a wizard’s way of meddling. Perhaps you have known fauns and wolflings and other shelts in a time when shelts and wizards still knew the ancient script. Perhaps you lost your memories in the process of changing worlds. However, you cannot reclaim your lost place in Panamindorah. You cannot solve the riddles you want to solve, because they would have happened hundreds of years ago to people who are all dead.”
Corry’s eyes dropped. He traced an aimless design on the table top. “Capricia—”
“Hundreds of years dead,” she reiterated, “and you can’t ever go back.”
“And your point is?”
“You can’t get back your lost place, but you can make a new one. My father is impressed with you. So is Syrill. You are a hero to the citizens of Laven-lay. You’ve drawn so much public attention to yourself that it would be difficult now to explain your disappearance. Very well. Stay in Panamindorah. Make a life for yourself.” She paused. “Of course, I would like your help to translate the old script.”
Corry’s eyes brightened. “I would very much like to—”
“However, the books are mine, and you will handle them only as I allow. Is that clear?”
“Naturally. What about the flute?”
“The flute is no longer your concern.” Capricia moved towards the door. “I will help you acclimate. Money, by the way, is still called cowries, even though we use coins. Try not to appear totally ignorant. Along those lines, the public and royal libraries here in Laven-lay may be of interest to you. First, though, I’ll send someone to take your measurements. You’ve been invited to the king’s table for dinner, and the...uh...garments you’re wearing will not do.”
* * * *
When Capricia left Corry’s room, she went straight to her own chambers and shut the door. Her attendants came running, but she ordered them all away and went out to her private garden. Her hands were trembling. I had to let him stay. There’s nothing else I could do, except have him assassinated. If that’s even possible.
She’d noticed uncharacteristic vagaries in Syrill’s narrative of their escape. There’s more to that story. I need to get Syrill alone.
Capricia glanced at the Monument in the center of her garden—a white pillar about waist-high, crowned with golden wings arched in a protective shield around a kneeling fauness. Flames licked at the wings, kept alight by an invisible feed of oil from beneath. She had specifically requested that it remain unadorned with words. The servants said that she did so because she was pious, and she let them say it. In reality, Capricia disliked inscriptions about the Creator. She’d never felt safe since her mother died, and the protective wings of the statue seemed like a mockery to her.
Capricia turned away from the Monument. Probably the name in the old text is not Corellian’s. Likely he is just the son of some wizard that Gabalon deposed. In that case, I think I can handle him. I think.
C
hapter 11. Aspects of a Dinner Conversation
This is a bright day for my enemy and for me one of the blackest.
—journal of Syrill of Undrun, Summer, 1700
Corry woke to see late afternoon sunshine streaming through his window. Capricia had sent an army of tailors, who’d measured him and taken away his clothes. He hoped they planned to bring more by the time he was expected at supper. Corry’s eyes strayed to a leather-bound book beside his bed.
“A Concise History of Panamindorah by Capricia Sor.” He reached for it and began flipping through the pages. The characters were not the same as that of the old book in Capricia’s study, yet he found he could read them.
A Note on Terminology
Presently, the sentient beings of Panamindorah are divided into three groups: beasts, shelts, and iterations. These terms are more-or-less universal and require no explanation. More problematic are the terms for the three groups of shelts: fauns, nauns, and panauns. These are known by various slang throughout Middle Panamindorah. For this text, I will define a faun as a hoofed shelt, a panaun as a pawed shelt, and a naun as a shelt with neither hoof nor paw.
At the date of this writing, the only common panauns in Middle Panamindorah are wolflings. Fox shelts have grown uncommon, and cat shelts (known as fealidae) are extinct. In Kazar, one may still find alligator shelts, but they rarely venture out of the swamp. For practical purposes, the word “panaun” has become nearly synonymous with wolfling and has fallen out of use. However, when writing of times when other types of pawed shelts were in abundance, it is necessary to use the word in its original meaning.
Likewise, naun has become redundant with manatee shelt, because these are the only non-hoofed, non-pawed shelts living in Middle Panamindorah, and even they are an import. However, in the past, there was a greater variety. Even today, merchants from the western sea talk of selkies—seal shelts—living on the far beaches.
The term faun is still in common circulation, since three types of hoofed shelt are in abundance—the deer shelts (wood fauns), the sheep shelts (cliff fauns), and the goat shelts (swamp fauns). Centaurs are a source of dispute among taxonomists, but are generally classified with the fauns, as they do have hooves.
The Beginning of Things
Unfortunately, the age of accurate scholarship in the middle kingdoms begins around the year 1440, after the great fire in Danda-lay. Stories of our history before this are based largely on oral tradition and grow more uncertain the further back one goes.
The reason is simple. The knowledge of the ancient picture language has been lost. It is said that this language was old even in the time of the wizards. The more wieldy phonetic letters were replacing it in both common and scholarly use in Gabalon’s day. Sometime after his defeat, scholars in Danda-lay grew concerned that the knowledge of the old script was fading, and they translated large portions of important texts into the phonetic script. However, the great fire in Danda-lay destroyed the library in 1438.
Some of the originals of the very old texts were kept here, in Laven-lay. However, all of the translations burned. I have a few partially legible commentaries salvaged from the fire, but they are badly damaged, and no shelt whom I have been able to contact has a full knowledge of the ancient characters.
Corry drew a deep breath. “Yes, a picture language. What I was reading in Capricia’s study had only partial clues to pronunciation. The rest was memorized.” He glanced at the front of the book and found the year, 1695. “The library burned two hundred and fifty-seven years before she wrote this book, and I must have lived before that.”
He had just settled down to read again, when there came a knock at the door. Corry found a servant on the threshold with something made of brown cloth over one arm. The servant bowed. “King Meuril requests your presence at dinner.” He pressed the clothes into Corry’s hands. “The tailors have made you fresh garments. I will show you to the banquet hall when you are ready.”
Corry was impressed. He’d been dreading the arrival of the kind of long tunic the fauns wore, but instead he’d been sent linen trousers and shirt. There were no shoes, but it was warm enough to go without. “It’s the kind of clothes wizards were said to have worn,” explained the servant.
In the dining hall, smells of bread and spices mingled with the scent of flowers. Harpers were making music in one corner. Long, low windows looked out onto a garden winking with fireflies. Half a dozen fauns already sat near the head of the long table, and servants were coming and going, setting out the food. Corry’s escort ushered him to the seated group. He recognized Syrill and was relieved when the servant directed him to a seat at the general’s side. Capricia sat opposite Corry, although he didn’t recognize her for a moment with her hair piled on top of her head, braided with tiny pink flowers and two enormous lilies. Her ivory robes were sleeveless, exposing her flawless mocha skin to perfection. He wondered if he would have dared to argue with her if she’d come into his room this morning looking like that.
Syrill was deep in conversation with Laylan, who appeared to be building something from his eating utensils. On Corry’s left sat Chance, the pale, golden-haired cliff faun prince who had exchanged angry words with Sham yesterday in Meuril’s antechamber. Looking at him more closely, Corry realized that Chance was younger than he’d first thought, surely not much over twenty. He was talking to Meuril at the head of the table. Capricia appeared to be listening to their conversation, though a faun to her left kept attempting politely to attract her attention.
“Shadock believes it might have been an assassination,” Corry heard Chance say to Meuril. “The centaurs have never been democratic.”
Meuril shook his head. “You speak as though it were a coup.”
“But that’s just it! Targon was elected based on military prowess. He—”
Meuril held up his hand. “Hush now; here they come.”
Centaurs were coming through the doorway. They were so tall they had to bend their human waists and stoop to enter. Their glossy bodies shone in the torchlight, muscled like draft horses, with heavily furred fetlocks. Their human bodies were dark olive, their ears small and round like Corry’s. Unlike the fauns, the males had facial hair, which they wore in pointed beards. The mares wore a garment of a single piece of cloth, rather like a large scarf, brightly colored and tied in elaborate twists round their bodies. The stallions wore leather vests or nothing at all. Stallions and mares alike wore a variety of jewelry and practical items—gem-studded collars, bracelets on their fetlocks and wrists, belts with jeweled daggers and scimitars.
As the centaurs entered the room, the faun servants directed them to a section of the table without chairs, where they first knelt. This brought them low enough to eat from the table, though they were still head and shoulders above the fauns.
Servants began setting food before the diners. Syrill, who seemed to have finally noticed Corry’s presence, leaned over and spoke in his ear. “See their battle whips?” Corry did, although he hadn’t understood until now what he was looking at—long leather coils, with elaborately carved handles. “Good for bringing a cat to the ground,” continued Syrill, “before you put a spear in him. I’m trying to negotiate for mercenaries. The centaurs have been in conference all day with Meuril. There’s a new king in Iron Mountain, and he—”
“Eh-hummm!” The faun on the other side of Capricia cleared his throat loudly. “Your highness, I realize that the matter with the centaurs has kept you out of court this morning, but I have been waiting for some days to bring this item to your attention—”
Capricia turned away from Chance and Meuril’s conversation with a bored expression. “Minister Erser, if this has anything to do with the furrier’s guild, then you needn’t bother. I’ve already ruled against the proposed tariff.”
“But your Highness! Do you know how many cowries our furriers lost last year alone because of the swamp fauns?”
“I do. I also know what kind of fur I choose to have my own capes trimmed wit
h. Two years ago, you were demanding royal guards for merchant caravans entering Kazar because of their swamp monster.”
The minister reddened. “Only because that one incident threatened to strangle important trade routes with—”
“I would think,” continued Capricia, “that contending with a swamp monster would prove more than enough handicap for merchants attempting to trade furs out of Kazar.”
“But your Highness!”
“If our furriers want better business, tell them to work more in their tanneries and less in my courtroom. I will not pass a tariff to protect a vastly inferior product. However, I am working on a deal with the furriers guild in Danda-lay that would remove the embargo on cat pelts. That should please you.”
Syrill had stopped to listen to their conversation. “What are they talking about?” whispered Corry.
Syrill shrugged. “A few years ago, the swamp fauns began exporting the fur of some small creature—a shayshoo—from Kazar. It’s lovely stuff, nearly as good as lynx or leopard pelts. The cats had agreements with all the fauns at one time that forbade the trade of cat pelts, and those concessions have died hard, even after the war started.” Syrill’s expression turned bitter. “No one wants to make an enemy of the cats if they’re going to win. Shayshoo fur sold so well, the swamp fauns established breeding colonies to increase their pelt yield. The wood fauns’ guild used to have almost a monopoly on furs, and they’ve been complaining loudly. They have cat furs by the cartload right now, but so far no one’s buying.”
Corry shook his head. “No, I meant the part about Capricia in court.”
Syrill raised his eyebrows. “Didn’t you know? As civil regent, Capricia has handled all of the internal affairs of the realm since the war with Filinia began. These days, I don’t think Meuril does anything except work with me as we attempt to drive out Lexis and his cats.”
The Prophet of Panamindorah - Complete Trilogy Page 7