Leesha’s hackles rose. “That’s our business. What makes you think you can ask all the questions and never answer any? Who are you? What are you?”
“I am the owner of this house. I am the provider of your dinner. I am an innkeeper who asks no more payment than the designs of his guests.”
Leesha’s eyes locked with the stranger’s. “Leesha Alainya,” he murmured, “you are so like your father.”
Corry thought for a moment she would leap onto the table, but before she could decide to do it, the stranger stood up. He walked to the door—the one they’d not yet entered. “My name is Archemais. I will take you to the prison you speak of in the morning, if you promise not to do anything rash. You are a small army, and the long-tailed fauns are fierce and cruel.”
Leesha’s hackles had settled a little, but she was still fuming. “That name doesn’t mean anything to us! I still want to know—!”
The stranger turned sharply, and Corry caught the glint of his eyes—green as his own in the firelight. “You are in no position to make terms. There’s bedding in the corner. Goodnight.” The door closed behind him, and they heard the lock click into place.
“Insufferable impertinence!” stormed Leesha with no attempt to keep her voice down.
Corry did not speak. Archemais. I’ve heard that name before—somewhere recently.
Tolomy had gone to the corner and was digging in a pile for furs and blankets. Corry helped him sort out the bedding, then settled down to sleep.
* * * *
Lexis dreamed he was back in the pit. He could hear Capricia screaming, and all he could do was pace and growl and jump at the walls. He woke with a roar, on his feet before his eyes could focus. The scream came again—now nothing like Capricia’s. Lexis squinted in the painful brightness. He saw a griffin on the sand perhaps ten paces away.
Eeeah! The creature shrieked again.
Lexis glanced around. Capricia had been lying against him, but as the day grew hot, she’d rolled away. Syrill lay curled in the sand nearby. We came a good distance last night.
Turning east, Lexis saw a line of grassland and beyond it, the sharp ascent of the cliff, deceptively close in the morning air. A fast mount could cover the distance between Iron Mountain and the grasslands in a day. But a weak tiger and two shelts with no water?
Eeeeah! Eeeeah!
Lexis looked back at the griffin, obviously one of those they’d released from Targon’s dungeons. His beak was stained with blood. “You’re far from home, friend.” He tried to decipher the creature’s strange babble—the faint intonations that reminded him of Filinian, the body language that counted for as much as the verbal. “You’re welcome,” Lexis tried to tell him, but the griffin’s excitement seemed well beyond a thank you.
At last, Lexis turned and looked behind him. Iron Mountain dominated the foreground. He scowled at it, then squinted. A haze stood in the shimmering air between themselves and the mountain. Smoke?
Eeeeah!
Lexis caught his breath. Not smoke. Dust.
* * * *
Corry woke well rested. Sitting up on his fur pallet, he saw breakfast laid out on the table, but no sign of Archemais. He rose and dressed, trying not to wake the cubs, then left by the bathing room door and padded down the passage into the pink, frosty dawn. He stopped on the threshold and sniffed. That smell. It’s an Earth smell. What?
Coffee! Corry had not encountered coffee in Panamindorah; the fauns drank tea. Following the smell, he moved around the rock wall of the reinforced hillside until he came to a porch. There sat their host, drinking his coffee and watching the sunrise.
Corry cleared his throat, and the stranger’s head shot round. “You do move quietly, Corellian. You always did.” He took his feet off the other chair. “Have a seat.”
Corry came forward, but didn’t sit down. “Where did you get the coffee?” he asked.
Archemais hesitated. “I don’t remember. It’s nothing special; do you want some?”
Corry shook his head. “I just want to talk to you.”
Archemais motioned to the chair again, and this time Corry sat down. “How did you visit Earth?”
Archemais quirked an eyebrow. “How did you?”
Corry tried again, “How do you know my name? What do you mean ‘I always did move quietly.’”
Archemais sipped his coffee. Corry watched him. In spite of his host’s apparent ease, Corry had an idea he was struggling to suppress some great emotion. Anger? Sorrow? Fear? Corry couldn’t tell, but he was sure it was there, just below the surface.
“Let us say I’ve heard of you,” he said at last. “I promise a better explanation later.”
Corry was not surprised at the non-answer, but he was surprised at the promise. “And the...the world jumping?”
“I’ll explain that, too.”
“When?”
At that moment, Leesha and Tolomy came tearing around the side of the hill, noses to the ground on Corry’s trail. When they saw him, Leesha cried out. “Corry! He hasn’t eaten you!”
Corry smiled. Archemais said, “Don’t be absurd. I never cook an iteration without coriander, and the garden doesn’t have any at this time of year.”
Leesha scowled at him, then at Corry. “Don’t you know a wizard’s true form is a dragon?” she hissed. “Dragons eat shelts and animals, and iterations, too. I think.”
Corry wondered if she’d forgotten how he’d arrived on the cliff. Is my “true form” a dragon? He’d suspected it for some time.
Archemais descended the steps of his porch. “What makes you think I’m a wizard, kitten-cub?”
“I’m not a kitten!”
He started around the side of the hill.
“Why can’t we go in the back door?” asked Leesha. “What are you hiding in there?”
“Living rocks and winged snails and silver feathered dragon’s tails,” he sing-songed over his shoulder. Corry had heard the children’s rhyme on the streets of Laven-lay. It reminded him of something—some dream he’d had recently.
Archemais continued, “Do you want to go to the prison this morning, or not?”
“Yes,” said Tolomy.
“Then you’d best eat breakfast and get ready. Morning’s a better time for spying.”
* * * *
Corry smelled the prison long before he saw it. He didn’t need the cubs to tell him the smell was sinister—a carrion reek, mingled with the odor of seared hair and flesh. Beneath this, he detected a curiously chemical smell.
Archemais led them by no apparent path. “We dare not use the road,” he told them.
Soon they began to hear the prison as well as smell it—a low mutter and mewling and a noise of industry. At last, Corry and Archemais had to stoop to hands and knees, and they all crawled forward through what looked like an animal-made tunnel into dense thorns.
Archemais stopped well before the end of the tunnel and gestured for them to look. Craning their necks to see around each other, Corry and the cubs were able to make out moving forms in the brightness beyond the thorns. Corry saw a complex of low-quality buildings and tents. Shelts were coming and going between them.
Corry felt Tolomy go rigid. He looked around and saw the cub’s eyes dilated so large they looked black. His lips were drawn back from his teeth. When Archemais reached out to calm him, the cub turned and almost bit. Corry looked around at Leesha and found she was no longer at his side. She’d gone all the way up to the edge of the thicket and was peering out with criminal carelessness. Her fur rose in an indignant ridge along her spine.
“Easy,” murmured Archemais in his softest voice, and Corry saw with dismay that he looked worried.
Squinting past Leesha, Corry saw that most of the shelts coming and going around the buildings were not fauns. Their tails were too long even for swamp fauns, and their feet seemed too large. Most were naked.
“Leesha!” he breathed as loudly as he dared. “What are they?”
She whipped her head aro
und. “They’re cat shelts,” she spat. “Fealidae!”
Chapter 11. Fur and Feathers
Rquar, you can stop sending troops down here. The battle is over, and the day is ours.
—Sharon-zool in a dispatch to her general in Port Ory
“Wake up.” Lexis rolled Syrill over with his paw. “Up! Up! Now!”
Syrill was already on his knees, blinking hard in the bright light, hand on the hilt of his centaur dagger.
“Look.” Lexis motioned with his head.
Syrill looked, saw the dust, knew what it meant. “They’re coming.”
EEAAAAH!
Syrill spun toward the griffin. “Where did he come from?”
“The dungeons.” Lexis was prodding Capricia. “He’s offering to carry someone.”
Capricia’s long brown lashes flickered open. Her bloodshot eyes regarded them with uncharacteristic stupor. “Hurts,” she muttered, but tried to stagger to her feet.
Lexis came alongside so that she could lean on him. “Capricia, I think we’ve found you a quick ride home. Do you think you could hang onto a mount?”
“She won’t have to,” said Syrill. He had tied dozens of wounded soldiers to their mounts, and he began immediately slicing his cloak into serviceable strips. While he worked, he asked, “Does the griffin know the way to Laven-lay?”
Lexis relayed his question. He listened to the griffin’s response, then said, “I think so.”
Syrill stopped. “You think so?”
“Does it matter?” snapped Lexis. “Look at her, Syrill. Do you think she’ll survive an all-day race across the desert without water?”
Capricia raised her head. “I’ll go, carry the warning. Any faun town will do.”
“Any faun town with a good healer,” muttered Lexis.
When they had her situated on the griffin, Lexis said, “I think he could carry two.”
Syrill hesitated. He looked at Capricia, drooping against the griffin’s neck. He looked at Lexis and at the billowing curtain of dust in the distance. “Two would slow him.”
Lexis reached up and licked Capricia’s hand. Her fingers closed for a moment in the fur of his nape. Then the griffin turned, ran for a short distance, and took flight. Syrill and Lexis watched him for a moment before beginning their long run towards the edge of the desert.
* * * *
Corry felt a thrill. Cat shelts! Believed extinct since the time of the wizards. He could understand Leesha’s excitement, but not the anger radiating off both she and her brother.
He made out what looked like clotheslines in the center of the compound, all hung with garments. He saw large vats, stirred by fealidae. On the far side of the camp, something was burning, billowing a column of reeking black smoke. Above the general mutter of the place, Corry caught the clink of a chain and saw that the fealidae were manacled. He began to understand. They’re slaves. That’s why they’ve been kept a secret.
Tolomy had planted his feet and was leaning slightly backwards. He looked as though no inducement in Panamindorah would bring him any closer to the prison. Corry was puzzled by the intensity of their reaction. Crawling forward on his elbows, he was able to see the swamp faun overseers, many of them directing labor around the vats. Something about the chemical smell reminded him powerfully of Port Ory’s lower districts. Why?
He tried to figure out what kind of garments were on the clotheslines. Perhaps this is a laundry facility. The longer he looked, the more the idea made sense. He even caught an impression of assembly-line activity in the sequence of movement from building to building. On long tables, some of the slaves were beating the clothing with stones.
A slave passed close, and Corry saw that all the garments were furs. That would account for the chemical smell. Fur probably requires special treatment.
In that moment, three things happened very quickly. Corry remembered that Port Ory’s lower districts housed the tanneries, the slave dropped some of his furs, and Leesha tried to speak to him. As the furs tumbled, Corry saw that they were raw, still bloody in places. Yet even in their unprocessed state, he recognized the dense pelage and exotic patterns of Shayshoo fur—the new swamp faun product he’d seen in Danda-lay. As the slave bent to pick them up, Corry registered the same fur on the shelt’s living legs.
For a moment, he was too sickened to think about what Leesha was doing. “You! Fealidae!” she hissed. “Over here!”
The slave froze. His eyes moved across the empty dirt between himself and the edge of the camp. Even in the shadows, Leesha’s brilliant white fur must have shown. He stared at her.
“We’ll help you,” she whispered, “if you help us. Duck in here, and we’ll run. Quickly!”
The cat shelt’s fur was ash gray with very faint black leopard spots. He had thick, curly black hair. Like all the slaves, he was naked and manacled so that he could only take short steps. He looked healthy, but for his dead eyes. Now something in those eyes stirred. He remained bending over his furs while he stared at Leesha.
“We can protect you,” she continued. “We need information about the fauns. When my father hears of his place, he’ll break it like bird bones and boil the fauns in their own vats; you’ll see. But for now, come and help us!”
The fealidae blinked hard. Behind him, Corry saw one of the swamp fauns staring.
“Leesha!” Corry whispered. “They’re suspicious. Leesha, he may not even know how to speak!”
Abruptly, the fealidae’s eyes focused on Corry, and he knew the creature could understand. “What,” muttered the slave, now looking again at Leesha, “did you call me?”
Leesha seemed confused for a moment, then said, “Fealidae. You’re a cat shelt, my blood-kin. Haven’t you ever seen a cat, fealidae?”
The slave swallowed. “Never. Are you free, cat?”
“Yes, and—”
“Then run away. This is a place where lives end badly.”
Tolomy spoke suddenly in Corry’s ear. “The fauns!”
Looking beyond the slave, Corry saw some of them whispering and pointing. Corry glanced back down the tunnel to see what Archemais thought of this, but their guide had vanished. “Let’s get out of here.” He reached forward and jerked Leesha’s tail.
Tolomy began breathing in a low, unbroken growl. “Something’s coming!”
Corry turned from Leesha just in time to see a pair of fierce-looking dogs sniffing up the tunnel. When they saw Corry and the cubs, they began to bay. Not knowing what else to do, Corry scrambled forward and out of the tunnel. Leesha had already gone. In the glaring light of the tree-less camp, Corry saw a ring of fauns brandishing pikes and swords. Two tossed coils of rope round Leesha’s neck and pulled in opposite directions. They were unable to coordinate their efforts, however, as Leesha kept flashing at first one and then the other with claws and teeth.
One of the fauns struck Corry in the chest with the butt of a spear. Corry staggered, wheezing a thin stream of air into his stunned lungs. Shift! he screamed at himself. Shift, shift, shift! Be a dragon! Then something struck him in the back. He fell flat on his belly, his cheek to the sand. He tried to move and couldn’t. Leesha was choking. Bloody froth dripped from her wide red mouth. Her blue eyes were terribly bright and frantic, every hair on her body erect. The fauns were quiet, now, busy. They’ve done this before, thought Corry. This sort of killing doesn’t damage pelts. Corry saw no sign of Tolomy. The dogs probably killed him in the tunnel.
And then the slave struck. He had been ignored on the perimeter of the circle, but he came to life with a roar. His first bare-fisted blow dropped the faun nearest him like a fishing weight, and he wrenched free the falling sword. The slave clearly didn’t know how to use it, but behind every blow lay a weight of hatred and a lifetime of hard labor. He cut his second faun completely in two from shoulder to groin. The third had the measure of him and danced away. The next fauns came with spears. They were herding him beyond Corry’s line of sight, and all the while, the small group around Leesha continu
ed their work. Corry saw that her eyes were glazing. He felt a tear run across his nose and into the dirt.
Movement from the direction of the thorns made him blink and refocus. Something was coming out of the hole. Corry saw a hound’s head, its bloody jaws oddly slack. Its body jerked, thrust forward, and Tolomy Alainya stood with the dripping corpse between his teeth, its legs dragging in the sticky mud.
The fauns around Leesha faltered. Tolomy wore a cape of blood—his fur saturated from nose to hips. He did not growl. He did not bristle. Without any warning, he dropped the hound and sprang. Corry saw him rip the throat out of one of Leesha’s persecutors and disembowel the next. Leesha collapsed. Corry made an experimental movement and found that he could crawl. Methodically, he worked his way towards her while blood speckled the dirt around him and fauns shouted and screamed. He saw that she was still breathing. Then something connected with the back of his head, and he fainted.
Chapter 12. A King’s Revenge
Traditionally, the palace guards of Danda-lay are administered by the queen, as head of the household, while the king administers the army, as protector. There had been times in Danda-lay’s history when kings and queens contested so hotly that the palace guard was at odds with the army. The past two kings of Danda-lay have made a concerted effort to reduce the guard’s strength and standing. One may make of this what one will.
—Capricia Sor, A Concise History of Panamindorah
Jubal saw little of the battle. After the first fierce fighting around the tunnels, he and his subordinates spent their time trying to organize the terrified civilians who were fleeing to the palace. In the beginning it was only the old, the ladies, and the children. These had to be housed as comfortably as possible, out of the way of soldiers and messengers. As the sun rose higher, groups of wounded began staggering into the charmed circle of the tower sharpshooters. Some collapsed in the plaza, and Jubal had to send shelts with litters to fetch them. Soon the halls and council rooms lay thick with bloody bodies, an inadequate supply of healers scurrying between.
The Prophet of Panamindorah - Complete Trilogy Page 31