As the swamp fauns began to consolidate their hold on the city, the streams of refugees diminished. Trotting down an upstairs hallway, listening to a half-hysterical report from a subordinate, Jubal caught sight of flames on the city skyline. Over the tumult of the battle rose a many-throated wail.
He snatched at the other faun’s shoulder. “Stop.” He walked to the window, looked, listened.
“What is it?” whispered the other.
“They’re burning the library,” said Jubal, “the scribes, too, by the sound of it.”
Running hoof beats made them turn. Jubal saw a faun still dressed in his nightshirt. Only a ragged bit of purple tied round his arm marked him as a king’s messenger. “His majesty wishes to see you.”
Jubal trotted after him. He had not seen Shadock since yesterday and was anxious for news. As he had expected, the king had set up council in the protected lower rooms, well below the bedrock of the palace. He had half a dozen counselors with him—two of them ancient uncles, all of them noble, their houses linked to the royal family by blood or marriage. None of them loved Jubal.
Shadock raised his head from a map as Jubal entered, and all talking ceased. Jubal was not reassured by the king’s expression. His eyes looked hollow and hunted.
Jubal stood awkwardly in the door for a moment, then bowed. “You sent for me, Sire?”
Shadock stood and moved around the table. “A glass of wine, Captain?”
Jubal inclined his head. “Gratefully, my lord.”
Shadock poured the wine himself—a gesture that made Jubal profoundly uneasy. He’d never seen Shadock serve anyone, not even his queen. Has he poisoned it?
The other counselors had resumed their conversations around the map, but Jubal knew they were watching, listening. Shadock gave Jubal the choice of glasses, took the remaining one, and downed half of it in one gulp. Jubal did not feel reassured and continued to hold his drink. “Sire, you are kind to offer me refreshment, but I am needed in—”
“I won’t keep you long, Captain.” He paused. “If I told you that we have an option of retreat from the city, would you council me to take it?”
Jubal studied his king. Is he trying to find out whether Istra told me about the secret tunnel? “I’ve been occupied with palace matters, your majesty, and I don’t know enough about the state of the city to guess whether such a move is advisable.”
Shadock nodded slowly. “The state of the city...” He leaned against the table, swirled his wine a few times. “The city is lost. The largest part of the army—what army we could gather on such short notice—broke up about half a watch ago. The survivors attempted to rally in the city library. The position seemed defensible for a time, but their lines were breached and the building set on fire. At present, I can be sure of only the area commanded by the tower sharpshooters.”
Jubal remembered the wailing and felt ill. He cleared his throat. “Under these circumstances, I would advise your majesty to retreat. If such a retreat were possible.”
Shadock nodded. “It is possible. You may have heard rumors about a certain door discovered in the palace library last season?” The disgust with which he said the word “rumors” assured Jubal that Shadock had no doubt his queen had divulged the secret to her lover. “We will use it, go to Laven-lay, and seek Meuril’s aid to recover our city.”
Jubal said nothing. For the proud, cultured cliff fauns to come trailing into parochial Laven-lay, begging asylum and assistance—that must be a bitter pill to swallow. He’s very calm to be considering such a thing, thought Jubal. Does he have some consolation he’s not mentioning?
“The court is already in motion,” continued Shadock. “About half have left and the rest will be gone within the watch. I have arranged for the civilians to travel in our train.”
Jubal nodded. “I’ll tell my officers to prepare for evacuation. What shall we do with the wounded who do not have families to move them?”
Shadock fixed Jubal with an expression of such undisguised hatred that Jubal took a step back. “You will tell your officers no such thing. You are the palace guard. You took an oath to protect this place. Are you an oath-breaker, Captain?”
The room had gone completely silent. They were all watching him. A cold hand clenched around Jubal’s throat. “We will cover your retreat, of course. After that—”
“After that, you will do your duty. Those are my orders, Captain. As for the wounded, I’m sure the civilians will take all they can carry.”
Jubal’s eyes flicked to the councilors behind their king. None of them would meet his. Jubal searched his king’s face. Shadock’s usual calm had closed over the flash of hatred, but a hint of smugness remained. So, thought Jubal, this is your revenge. If I leave, I will be hanged for treason. If I stay, the swamp fauns will cut me down. Jubal knew in a flash of intuition that Istra had not been told, that she was already well down the Triangle Road and would not know until she arrived in Laven-lay. We’ll all be dead by then.
Shadock was watching him keenly. Does he want to hear me beg? Would that move him?
Jubal spoke carefully. “Sire, my life is in your hands and always has been. If you order me to die here, I will not question you. But, I beg you, do not punish my subordinates for my sake! They have served you faithfully, and they do not deserve this.”
Jubal sank to one knee and reached for the hem of Shadock’s robe, but Shadock jerked away. “Get up, soldier; you’re a disgrace. Your subordinates took the same oath you did, and now you ask that in time of greatest crisis they be allowed to foreswear it?”
“Only that they be allowed to live! Let them cover your retreat and then—”
“I’ve no time for this.” Shadock walked back around the table and sat down. “You have your orders, Captain. You are dismissed.”
The whole counsel was looking at him now, some leering openly.
“One more thing,” murmured Shadock. “My youngest son has gone missing. Some fear he was cut down in the fighting. A pity.”
More than you know. Jubal stood up, seething. A dozen poisonous remarks rose to his lips. The temptation to be reckless now was almost overpowering. With an enormous force of will, he walked wordlessly to the door and down the hall.
Jubal’s heart sank as he saw one of his youngest subordinates running towards him—a faun of only eight years, his voice still high and lilting. “Sir, sir! We’re evacuating! The civilians are collecting their wounded. There’s talk of a secret tunnel! Is it true, sir?” Before Jubal could answer, he dashed on, “And Master Tavaris wants me to ask what shall we do with the dead? Shall we try to make a funeral pyre? What about the unclaimed wounded?”
Jubal looked at his tousle-haired charge, the youngster’s blood and tear-streaked face now lit with hope. How am I going to tell them?
Chapter 13. Reflections in a Glass
Most legends have a seed of truth.
—Lasa, “Travel in the Middle Kingdoms”
Corry woke to a gentle rocking. He could feel a rope cutting into his wrists, and his back ached from his hunched position. He saw that he was sitting in a cart with benches on either side. Leesha and Tolomy lay on the flour, bound and muzzled. Tolomy was still gory with blood, but Corry had no idea whether any of it was his own. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the cat shelt who had tried to help them. His hands were also tied. His long, black-furred tail rested on the bench between them.
“Who are you?” whispered Corry.
“Char,” said the slave, and then, as though to answer Corry’s question, “No one.”
“Where are they taking us?”
“Silence.” Two swamp faun guards came to life on the benches opposite. “Enjoy your last hours in an unbroken body quietly.”
The wagon bounced over an uneven plank in the road, and Tolomy stirred. The swamp fauns watched him uneasily. They’re afraid of him, thought Corry, even now.
Looking ahead, he saw another swamp faun in the driver’s seat and two goats pulling. The goats w
ere nearly as tall as deer, with delicately boned faces and long, spiraling horns. A fourth faun on goat-back rode in front.
They will discover who we are, and then they’ll want to know everything we can tell about Lexis, Capricia, and that flute. Corry felt a lance of terror. He shifted position and felt a soft bump against his chest. At least they haven’t taken it yet.
A darker thought lurked in the back of his mind. Did Archemais betray us to the fauns? He certainly disappeared when things got ugly.
Can you blame him? asked another voice. He told you not to do anything rash. Leesha disregarded him. Why should he stay around to get killed?
An enormous blue butterfly danced across the cart. It capered around their heads for a moment before tracing a shaft of sunlight upwards into the twisted branches. The light spun and fluttered with the butterfly’s shadow, dappling the planks. The cart made a rhythmic creaking, the goats hooves a lazy clop. Against all odds, Corry dozed.
One of the goats snorted, and Corry sat up straight. He heard a few muttered words from one of the fauns and saw that the Fealidae, Char, had begun to bristle beside him. Following their gaze, Corry saw a lone figure in the path ahead. The shape looked familiar. Archemais. Corry waited, anxiety building in him with every clop of the goat’s hooves. Whose side are you on?
Archemais showed no sign of flight, but neither did he hail the wagon. His body remained oddly still, though a breath of unsteady wind toyed with his garments. He was not wearing his cloak this time. The high-collared cape came up around his head. He’d pushed the edges of the cape back over his shoulders, leaving his weaponless arms plainly visible. He did not move, even when the lead faun stopped directly in front of him. The cart pulled up a few paces behind.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” asked the first faun.
“That depends on your intentions. Where are you taking these prisoners?”
The faun dismounted and drew his sword. “You’re on Anroth land for half a league and more. Answer my question: what are you doing here?”
Leesha was struggling to see what was happening, and Tolomy had sat up a little.
Archemais looked at the faun. “I don’t want to kill you. You’re nothing to me. Run away.”
At this, the two fauns in the wagon hopped down and drew their weapons. “You’re under arrest,” said the leader and reached out to clamp his hand around Archemais’s arm.
Archemais seemed to swell slightly, and the faun drew back. “Tell your superiors you met the swamp monster on the road. Tell them he killed your prisoners. Or find a better story. It matters naught to me; just go.”
For a moment, the faun hesitated. Then he seemed ashamed of himself and brought up his sword. “Hands behind your back, or I’ll have them off at the elbow!” He glanced at Archemais’s boots. “If you have paws under there, you’d better pray his grace is in a mood for quick killing.”
Archemais moved. Only his head turned—one lightening quick motion to give the swamp faun the full benefit of his stare. His mouth opened in a peculiar grimace, and Corry heard a sharp exhalation of air. His form shimmered. At that moment Corry remembered where he had seen the symbol on Archemais’s cape. It was the mark on the hood of a king cobra.
* * * *
By the time the palace had half-emptied, Jubal’s anger had cooled, and for the first time in his life, he felt profoundly afraid. More than that, he felt guilty.
With the soldiers gone and the armed nobility departed, many poorer commoners chose to do some last minute looting. The palace guards scampered through the labyrinth of rooms, trying to stop shelts from prying ruby eyes out of statues, cutting swathes of rich fabric from tapestries, or even breaking into private apartments to rummage for jewelry. Some of the looters had swords and were not impressed by over-dressed, overfed guards.
This is madness, thought Jubal. We’re risking our lives to protect the property of the shelts who are abandoning us, property the swamp fauns will seize within the watch. But he could not think what else to tell his subordinates to do, and the activity kept their minds off what was coming.
Jubal chased one street urchin into the Hall of the Kings and stopped there while the thief dashed away towards the royal library and the secret tunnel. Like rats, he thought, leaving a sinking ship.
He looked at himself in the vast mirror that ran the length of one wall. He was soiled with blood and sweat, pale with fatigue, dark half-moons under his eyes. On the opposite wall hung larger-than-life paintings of the kings of Danda-lay, all the way back to the time before the Wizards ruled in Selbis.
Jubal had difficulty meeting their eyes, even in the glass. What have I done?
He had made sacrifices for what he thought was right, and if other shelts believed ill of him, the Creator could judge between them. He knew what the soldiers would be saying to each other, “What did Jubal expect, making a cuckold of his king? He got what he had coming.”
And maybe I did have it coming, thought Jubal. He had always felt badly for Chance. He’d wanted to speak to him, but Istra had objected. “He’s so angry, Jubal. If you told him the truth, he would only fling it back in your teeth. He would destroy everything we’ve built.”
“Shadock has made his life a misery for my sake,” Jubal had said. “I might at least explain why—”
But she only shook her head. “Chance’s problem is half his own and half his father’s. He must resolve at least his end of it before he will make a reasonable ally.” Her steely eyes had softened for a moment. “I’ve raised eight children, but only my youngest hates me.” Those words had stung, but even then Jubal had told himself it was Shadock’s fault, Shadock’s cruelty.
But whose fault is it that a hundred innocent palace guards are going to die today? Jubal ran over them in his mind—a hundred and ten, all told, but eight had been wounded and one was dead. Two kinds of shelts entered the palace guard—old soldiers and young commoners. For the commoners, the guard represented an opportunity to enter the regular army as an officer—five years, and they might put on their blue cap with the sons of nobles. The old soldiers had many reasons for joining the guard, ranging from quarrels with their peers to senility.
Everyone had assumed when Jubal entered the guard that he intended to do his usual five years and then move into the army. After the rumors began about him and the queen, everyone assumed he’d stayed to be with his mistress. Istra had promoted him quickly, and he was not without real merit. Jubal cared about his subordinates, and they returned his care with their own versions of affection.
I brought this on them. Until now, Chance was the only casualty he’d ever counted, the only person whose situation had ever troubled his sleep at night. Now he had over a hundred, and they were friends. Does anything I’ve accomplished justify this?
We could leave, he thought. I could take them all into the woods. We could become outlaws. I have friends who would help.
Folly, sneered some other part of his mind. He thought of Fat Minston trying to eke out a living in the wilderness, of Leil, who loved jeweled armor and had never been outside the city in his life, of Old Rat-Face Nil who was so forgetful that he had to be reminded a dozen times a day what door he was guarding, of little Olly, whose grandmother was always coming up to the guard house to check on him.
They would all be rounded up and hanged as deserters. I might survive, but only if I abandoned them. Shadock knew that, too. He knew they would be a tether to me, a chain that would keep me here to die.
Jubal saw a brightness out of the corner of his eye and turned towards it. In the center of the hall stood a smallish Monument, only about waist-high. It was very old, made of some black metal. The workmanship was crude by the standards of modern Danda-lay, but Monuments were rarely taken down. Looking at it now in the mirror, Jubal was surprised to see it aflame. Monuments often housed a candle or lamp or even a mechanism to bathe them in fire, but he’d never seen this one lit. He turned away from the reflection towards the real thing.
<
br /> No fire.
Jubal blinked. He looked back in the mirror and saw the wings dark and still. Slowly, Jubal crossed the room to the Monument. He put his hand on it. Warm. The metal was warm!
It must have an oil well in the base. But a quick inspection showed only a very simple Monument. Jubal looked at the black wings as though for the first time. It represented the two aspects of the Creator—the feather and the flame, mercy and justice, protection and vengeance, shield and sword. He’d heard the words a thousand times, but for some reason the Monuments’ brooding wings had always impressed him more than the little candle flames. Even the expensive Monuments bathed in flame had seemed to him only an image of wings softened by fire—a comfort for mothers and children and soldiers far from their families.
I am grown stupid with desperation, thought Jubal, but he put his hands on the warm metal and whispered, “Oh Protector of my city, innocent children and old shelts will die today because of me. I want to save them, but Shadock has ordered me to defend this place.”
And Jubal could have sworn he heard a voice speak clearly in his ear, “Then defend it.”
Chapter 14. Smoke and Mirrors
The best way may be the easiest, but not always the obvious.
—Archemais, private reflections
Jubal’s hooves beat a furious tattoo against the stone as he ran. How long until they realize we have no archers in the towers?
He spotted Olly and Tat at the end of a hallway and shouted for them. The two youngsters came, both talking at once. Jubal silenced them with an impatient gesture. “Do you know where to find Tavaris?”
Olly’s head bobbed. “Yes, sir, but a faun just tried to take—”
“Never mind what he tried to take. Run tell Tavaris to leave off chasing looters. He’s to report to me at once, along with Margo, Merion, and Elsa. I want everyone else to start collecting tables, chairs, statues, any furniture they can carry. Bring it all to the plaza in front of the basin.”
The Prophet of Panamindorah - Complete Trilogy Page 32