The Prophet of Panamindorah - Complete Trilogy

by Abigail Hilton

  “Now,” said Lexis, “we wait. I suggest in the griffin cage.”

  Syrill nodded. They moved into the shadows of the cage, where Lexis found a water trough. Before either of them had finished drinking, the shouts began. Hooves pounded on stone overhead. A huge silhouette obscured their entrance, and Syrill thought they’d been spotted, but the centaur only examined the body of the guard. A moment later, the silhouette was gone.

  Syrill counted between each passage of hooves, and when sixty counts had passed since the last hoof beat, Lexis stood up. “Now’s as good a time as any.”

  Syrill started towards the light. “How many guards are usually down here?”

  “Not more than three.”

  “And you think we can find Capricia quickly?”

  “I think so. I have an idea the king’s private dungeon isn’t large.”

  It wasn’t. They found her not far from the pits, the only occupant in a row of cells off a darkened hallway. Syrill unlocked the door with a key from the guard’s belt. The princess lay curled on a bed, knees pulled up to her chin. Her only response when Syrill opened the door was to curl more tightly.

  “Capricia?” whispered Syrill. In the gloom, he could see little, though there was no mistaking the ripple of her hair, its shine caught even by the dim light of distant torches.

  “Go away.” Her voice was so guttural he hardly recognized it. “I’ll kill you this time; I swear I will.”

  “Capricia?” Lexis padded into the cell and bent over her.

  Capricia uncovered her face, her eyes huge and frantic. She rubbed them hard. “Not him,” she muttered. “You can’t be him.”

  “I think she’s been drugged,” said Syrill.

  “Yes, she’s been drugged,” trilled Capricia in a sing-song. Then she started to laugh—a keening hysterical sound that dissolved into sobs.

  Syrill could hear Lexis grinding his teeth. The tiger was bristling all over. “Put her on my back. Quickly.” He lay down on his belly to make the task easier.

  Syrill thought at first Capricia might fight him, but when he lifted her, she only whimpered and locked her hands in the fabric of his tunic. He had difficulty making her let go. “She’s wet,” he said with a frown, and then, “I think her dress is soaked with—”

  “Blood,” said Lexis. “Let’s get her out of here.”

  Syrill’s mouth opened in an O of horror. “Did he give her to his slaves?” he choked. “I’ll kill him! I’ll cut out his living heart!”

  Capricia had traded her grip on Syrill’s shirt for two handfuls of Lexis’s fur. Lexis ducked out the door of the cell with the princess slumped on his back. “Just now, I’m worried less about his dying than about her living.”

  * * * *

  The messenger was trembling when he approached his king. “Sire?”

  “Yes?”

  “Your griffins have escaped.”

  One eyebrow rose. “They should be weak. They haven’t been fed this moon.”

  The messenger nodded. “Yes, Sire, only they ate one of their guards.”

  “Ah.”

  “Also,” he took a deep breath, “somewhere in the confusion, the tiger escaped.”

  Targon grew very still. It was enough to make the messenger break out in a cold sweat. “The surviving guards are being held for questioning. They say—”

  “Was there a faun with him?”

  “I don’t know, Sire. The guards—”

  “Find out. Check to see if there were any pieces that might be interpreted as a faun in his pit. Also, set new guards on the fauness.”

  “Yes, Sire.”

  “Question the guards on duty thoroughly.”

  “And then, Sire?”

  “Hamstring them.”

  The messenger shuddered. “Yes, Sire.”

  Chapter 9. Dark Secret

  Where are you going, wandering wind—

  lost in the night, lost in the night?

  I go to the desert, far and away—

  child of the light, child of the light.

  Why are you crying, wandering wind—

  alone in the night, alone in the night?

  I cry for a home, never to leave—

  child of the light, child of the light.

  You cannot stay here, wandering wind—

  go back to your desert tonight.

  —rhyme sung to cliff faun children

  Mercurion the centaur came down the corridor at a trot. He had news that his majesty would particularly dislike, and after what had been done to Lexis’s guards, Mercurion thought best to deliver the news himself. He had known Targon a long time and could deflect his wrath, could even argue with him—one of the only creatures who still could. And yet, thought Mercurion, he’ll strike me down one day. He had known it for some time. He just didn’t know what to do about it.

  If I could only make him rest properly, he might be in a better temper. When was the last time he could be certain Targon had slept a night through? Not since he came back from the desert. Mercurion shuddered.

  When they were colts, they had used to take long runs together into the desert—flattering themselves with their ability to find water and shelter. They had ranged all the way to the grasslands in the far north and hunted the wild dogs, gazelle, peccaries, and beautiful birds on the edge of the jungle. Targon had even taken a pegasus once, though it was forbidden. He’d skinned it and worn the feathered pelt like a cape—rich purple, a kingly color. Mercurion had relished those days of freedom. He had not, however, relished the deep desert—the profound silence, the wandering wind, the days of crushing heat and the nights of bone-shattering cold.

  Targon had been drawn to the deadly beauty. Even after they were adults and following their families into politics, Targon had gone back periodically—alone now—into the arid silence. Mercurion knew of a stone forest Targon frequented—pillars of twisted bedrock rising out of the sand, the wind growing them ever taller as it ate away the dust around their bases. Legends said a great battle had been fought there in the long ago, and one occasionally found bits of armor and bone. Mercurion disliked the stone forest, and he never went there except to draw Targon away. The place reminded him of a charnel field, the wind like the voices of troubled ghosts.

  The last time he went to that haunted place is the last time he slept. This had been shortly before Lupricasia, yet the changes in his friend had begun years ago. The killing of King Concain had only been the culmination. Mercurion was sure Targon had killed him, though they never spoke of it. It is natural for a capable centaur to crave the leadership of his herd, Mercurion told himself. Targon is nothing if not capable. Yet why could he not have waited? Why not challenge Concain in the traditional manner? The assembly would have backed him, and he surely would have won. Why this furious haste?

  Mercurion had made excuses for his friend so often they sang like a litany in his head. The fauns persist in barring us from colonies either in their country or the newly opened Canisaria. What do they expect but a war, with our populations expanding in such limited space? Yet he could no longer repress the answering arguments. Is it wise to impose such a war on a new centaur administration barely accustomed to one another? Targon would gain much by giving his officers a few years to adjust to him, and he has everything to lose.

  “Mercurion.”

  “My lord.” Mercurion pranced to a guilty stop as Targon appeared from a side passage. Never until recently had he felt compelled to use formal address to his friend.

  “What news?”

  “All but four of the griffins have been caught or killed. The princess, however, has escaped.” A long, heavy silence. Mercurion raised his head. He’d never been a coward. “Released by someone who could use keys, my lord. The dead guard’s set was missing.”

  Targon drew a deep breath. “I should have never left Syrill alone with Lexis.”

  You said it, not me. “We think Syrill released the griffins as a decoy.”

  Targon nodded and began
a thoughtful clop, clop down the passage. “Any idea where they’ve gone?”

  “All the passages are guarded, and soldiers are everywhere. They can’t be moving about. They must be hiding, and someone will stumble over them soon.”

  Targon stopped suddenly. “You are dismissed. See to the rest of those griffins.”

  Mercurion’s eyes followed his king’s. Targon was looking at the entrance to a ventilation shaft.

  * * * *

  The shafts had been Capricia’s idea. “The centaurs have enormous furnaces for their smithies,” she said, “and all that fire must have air from the outside.”

  Syrill and Lexis glanced at one another in surprise. They’d thought her insensible with drugs, but although her voice came thick and low, it sounded lucid. As it turned out, she was right. The ventilation shafts provided circulation and fresh air for the entire mountain. Most of the larger shafts opened high in the ceiling, so that Lexis had to jump first with Capricia, then with Syrill. Many had been drilled and were far too small for centaurs to enter. Some were too small even for Lexis, especially with Capricia on his back. She pointed this out herself as soon as they reached the smaller passages. She could walk unaided, though she tired easily.

  Syrill suggested that he and Lexis scout ahead in order to avoid exhausting Capricia with endless backtracking. When the trio came to a major intersection, Capricia would wait while Lexis and Syrill examined the alternatives. It was while waiting at one of these intersections that she fell asleep.

  * * * *

  Capricia woke with a stifled scream. She’d been having nightmares again. She set her teeth and tried to relax. Her dress felt stiff with blood, and she tried not to touch it. Rutting season, she reminded herself. It’s only that; the rest was poisoned nightmare.

  Someone is looking at me. Raising her head, she saw a shadowy figure crouching in the threshold of the right-hand tunnel. The shape moved forward, and in the dimness Capricia recognized Syrill. She had not spoken to him except by necessity, and although she understood that he had helped to rescue her, she could not suppress a dull loathing for him.

  “Where is Lexis?” asked Syrill.

  “Still gone.” Capricia tested her legs.

  “I think I found a way out!”

  “How far?”

  “Not very. Come and see. The air is sweet out there.”

  The promise of fresh air made her feel almost gracious. “That’s wonderful!”

  “I’ll take you out and come back for Lexis. It’s not far.”

  Capricia’s brow furrowed as they moved into the tunnel. “It smells like smoke.”

  “We have to cross a fire pit.” They passed a branching tunnel where the air smelled fresh, but Syrill shook his head. “That way goes out, but the hole isn’t big enough to crawl through.”

  Now the air was so thick with smoke that they went to their hands and knees.

  Capricia coughed. “Syrill, are you sure about this?”

  “Trust me.”

  That sounds perverse, coming from you, but she said nothing. The way Syrill was acting bothered her. Neither he nor Lexis had yet taken her down a passage without consulting each other. If we’re so close to the surface, Lexis might have found a better way out.

  A red-orange glow filled the passage. She could clearly see Syrill’s brown cloak and belt. He had a centaur dagger. Where’s it gone? She opened her mouth to ask, but the words were drowned in a fit of coughing. Why did he ask where Lexis is? He knows where Lexis is.

  Capricia caught sight of a rectangular hole in the floor ahead. Smoke and orange light poured through, and she could hear hammer blows in the workroom below. An idiotic panic rose in her, but she mastered it.

  When they reached the edge of the hole, Syrill turned to look at her in the unearthly light. He smiled in a way that should have been reassuring, but Capricia only noticed the flash of his teeth. She didn’t remember Syrill’s eyes being so green.

  He stood and motioned for her to do the same. Capricia saw a narrow ledge between the wall and the mouth of the pit. The gap was about two strides across—not wide, but wide enough to be dangerous. “We have to get beyond this,” shouted Syrill over the roar of the flames and the banging of the hammers. “Then we’re free!”

  Lexis could jump it without danger, thought Capricia. Does Syrill mean to leave him behind?

  Syrill inched out onto the ledge and got one foot solidly onto the path beyond it. “Take my hand. I’ll help you.”

  Capricia stared at him. Then, very slowly, she reached for his hand. The updraft from the furnace made his hair writhe about his head. Clean hair, she thought. How is that possible? Something flashed in Capricia’s mind, and suddenly she understood. It was all real. All of it. I was never drugged.

  She felt sweat running between her shoulder blades, but when his hand touched hers it was dry and strong. Capricia slid a hoof towards the ledge, willing her heartbeat under control. She saw Syrill begin to shift his position to draw her forward.

  Now! Capricia tugged with all her might. Syrill let out a cry as he plunged forward, just catching himself on the lip of the hole in front of Capricia. She was on her knees now, and she stared into his face as he struggled on the edge of the opening. He snarled at her, piercing eyes glittering terribly in the orange light.

  Capricia didn’t scream. With a swiftness that surprised even herself, she rocked back and kicked him. Her hooves struck his face with a satisfying crunch of breaking nose. With a final snarl, he plummeted into the abyss.

  Almost at the same moment, Capricia sensed movement in the passage behind. Then Lexis’s warm breath and soft fur were all around her. “Capricia, what are you doing here?”

  She twisted her fingers in the fur of his chest and buried her face against him. Her shoulders heaved. “It was him!”

  “Capricia?” Her gaze shot up to meet Syrill’s astonished brown eyes. His dark hair lay lank against his neck, sticky with sweat. He knelt beside her. “Why did you go off alone? This passage isn’t safe. Look, we’re right over a fire pit.”

  Almost, she hugged him. “We have to get out of here,” she whispered. “We have a warning to deliver.”

  “The getting out part, we can manage,” said Lexis. “My tunnel leads to the surface.”

  “By now,” said Syrill, “Meuril probably already knows that the centaurs—”

  Capricia shook her head. “Targon isn’t a centaur. He’s a shape-shifter, a wizard.”

  * * * *

  A centaur smith stood sweating over a glowing spear. Stopping to wipe his brow, he was astonished by the largest bat he’d ever seen, winging out of the flames. He might have followed it into the passage for a closer look, had he not been at such a delicate point in his work.

  If the smith had stepped into the hall, he would not have seen the bat. Instead, he would have seen his king, glaring through the open doorway into the furnace. Targon shook himself. “Very well, my dear. It would have been something of a shame after all, and I have more important chores. We’ll meet again soon.”

  Chapter 10. Rescues

  Shayshoo fur—I laugh every time I see a wood or cliff faun wearing it. How horrified they would be if they knew our little joke.

  —Daren of Anroth, in a letter to his cousin, Rquar

  Corry and Leesha returned to their host’s study to find a meal laid out for them. He had provided extra cushions for the cubs’ chairs, so that they sat at just the height Filinians preferred at table, and he’d set out the wide-mouthed bowls considered appropriate for entertaining cats. Hermit he may be, thought Corry, but he hasn’t always been.

  Corry and the stranger ate stew with bread. The cats’ portions had been prepared raw with only a few herbs. At the end of the meal, Corry and his host ate candied nuts and fruits, while the cubs licked at small savory meat morsels glazed with fresh blood and sprinkled with catmint. It soon became clear, however, that it would take more than savory morsels to gain the trust of Lexis’s cubs. The stranger was s
till wearing his pants and boots. Tolomy kept darting glances at them, and Leesha stared openly, as if hoping to pierce the leather with her blue glare.

  To Corry’s consternation, she also insisted upon sniffing every item he consumed and declaring it nonpoisonous. Tolomy interrupted her inspection of Corry’s soup with a muttered, “Doesn’t matter. Liquid poisons don’t smell.”

  “They do so,” hissed Leesha. “Loop told me—”

  “Loop was talking about poisons that come from Filinia. Shelts make their poisons differently. They have odorless—”

  “Offal! I remember that lecture, and Loop had us smell all the classes of liquid poisons.”

  They continued, growing ever louder.

  Corry glanced at their host, but his face was expressionless. Finally, he leaned forward, laced his hands beneath his chin, and said, “Actually, if I was going to poison you, I think I’d use something topical. The jungles of the northern mountains have a frog that answers well. It releases a toxin through its skin, and a colorless preparation of inoffensive scent can be applied to floors. The pads of a cat’s feet are one of the few places susceptible to topical poisons.”

  The cubs had gone completely silent. Leesha was staring suspiciously at the floor.

  The stranger drummed his fingers. “And if I had done so, you’d already be feeling the effects. Please eat your dinner before it congeals.”

  They finished the meal in uncomfortable silence. That symbol on the stranger’s cape still bothered Corry. He kept turning it over in his mind, trying to remember where he’d seen it.

  As their host was clearing away the dishes, Tolomy spoke. “Yesterday we saw swamp fauns herding prisoners along their plank road. Do you know where those prisoners were taken?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Will you guide us there?”

  He considered. “On one condition.”

  “What condition?”

  “I need to know what you intend to do.”