They were descending steps now, into what Gaspar had called the Old City. Every now and then, they saw an Unibus, easily recognizable with their dark skin and silver hair, but the city was, for the most part, deserted. It was made all of ice, much of it colored and elaborately fashioned into vines, trees, houses, towers, all the trappings of a city. In spite of his unease, Laylan could not help admiring the skill it had taken to create this place.
They walked in silence for a time and came at last to the library. Inside, they found real books and shelves of strange curios and knickknacks. Melchior spread his hands. “Well, my children, this is what most who find us come to see—the truth of every life that lived and died.”
“We did not come to look at other people’s stories,” said Fenrah. “We came for the river.”
“We cannot give it to you,” said Melchior sorrowfully, “we cannot even let you keep the knowledge of these books, but you may read and understand, and later you will know that you understood. You will be content, though you will not remember what you read.”
“We need the river,” said Fenrah stubbornly.
“He wants you to make an offer,” whispered Bal.
Gaspar shot him a withering look. “Be silent, boy!”
Melchior sighed. “We cannot give you anything, lady. However, we do sometimes trade.”
Fenrah and Laylan looked at each other. What have we got that they’d want? They glanced around for Sevn, but he’d wandered over to the bookcases.
“What is all this other stuff?” He was looking at the knickknacks on some of the shelves—in particular, a little ice sculpture of a golden cowry.
“Ah,” said Melchior, “these are the in-between things and places, which do not fit comfortably in the rest of the city.”
“The flute,” muttered Laylan, looking at the ice sculpture. “I suppose they would have taken that in trade.”
“But we don’t have it,” said Fenrah
Beside the cowry was a glass case, full of tiny figures of wolves. It was locked. Beside that stood another glass case and, in it, a city. Sevn squinted, then drew in his breath. “This is your city,” he whispered.
“Of course,” said Gaspar. “It is the City Out of Time.”
“And I suppose inside it is another Glacia,” said Sevn, “and another, and another—”
“It will not do to look too hard at things in this room,” interrupted Melchior. “The last shelts who visited us here went mad.”
“We don’t know what to give you for the river,” said Fenrah. “We didn’t bring anything of value.”
Bal grinned and clapped his hands. “Silly shelts, you have all sorts of lovely dreams.”
Melchior stroked his chin. “Yes, dreams are very fine things.”
“One dream from each, I think,” said Gaspar critically.
“Dreams?” echoed Fenrah, bewildered.
“Your greatest wish,” said Melchior patiently, “whatever you long for most, whatever keeps you awake at night. We will take it. You will not remember it.”
“Troublesome things, dreams,” said Gaspar. “Most shelts do better without them.”
Laylan recoiled. “Is there nothing else you would take?”
“Memories,” said Gaspar, rubbing his hands. “You have some very nice memories.”
“Yes,” agreed Melchior. “A single day from each—the finest memory you have. That would be a good trade.”
Fenrah grimaced. “Couldn’t you take a bad memory instead?”
Melchior smiled. “I’m afraid not. Of course, there’s always your names.”
“Names are powerful,” said Gaspar.
“You can take our names?” asked Sevn.
“Yes,” said Bal. “You will not remember them, and neither will anyone else.”
“But the living can make new names,” said Gaspar. He smiled again in a way that made Laylan’s hair prickle. “Or, I suppose you could owe us—a debt to be collected at the time and place of our choosing.”
“I don’t think we want to owe you,” said Laylan quickly.
“Then what will it be?” asked Melchior. “Your dreams, your memories, or your names?”
Hualien gave a desultory little chitter. It was not a happy sound. “Can we each give you something different?” asked Laylan at last, “just so you get something from each of us?”
“That is acceptable,” said Melchior.
“Then,” said Laylan, “I suppose I’ll give you my—”
“Wait.” Fenrah was looking hard at the Architects. “You said you paid a fair price for the river.”
“Yes,” said Melchior.
Laylan’s head shot up. “And Charon said that we had something of yours or we wouldn’t have gotten through the maze.”
Fenrah unsheathed the dagger at her belt. In the cold air the blade had become a perfect translucent gold. “This is what you gave Gabalon in exchange for the river, isn’t it?”
The Architects looked a little disappointed. “Ah, yes.”
Fenrah held it out. “Take it back, and give us the river. You said yourselves the trade is fair.”
Melchior frowned. “If we return the river, it will flood Selbis. Gabalon built foundations over that dam long ago.”
Fenrah nodded. “That’s exactly what we want.”
“Very well, then,” hissed Gaspar and he snatched the dagger from Fenrah’s hands.
She sagged visibly. “Good. Now may we go back quickly? We’d like to get out before the water rises.”
Gaspar’s little black eyes narrowed. “You’ve paid for the river, lady, but not your passage home. We do not give gifts. That is not our function.”
“One of your company must stay behind,” said Melchior. “That is the price of the ferry.”
Laylan felt a little sick. In his mind, he saw a thousand maybe’s and might-have-been’s, and he pushed them all away. “I’ll stay,” he said.
* * * *
Chance watched as yet another cautious group of wolflings came through the small gate that had been erected to replace the Wizard’s Gate. Fenrah had sent ravens and rats before she left. The message was simple: a treaty had been arranged with the wood fauns and the cats. If the wolflings wanted a say in its terms, they would come to Laven-lay.
They were coming to the Wizard’s Gate because it was closest to the palace, and many of the common fauns were still hostile. Meuril had already left for Selbis when they began to arrive, but Capricia declared that since her father had made Chance responsible for the Raiders, he was also responsible for any stray wolflings coming into Laven-lay. Chance thought this slightly unfair, as the wolflings neither liked nor trusted him. They would listen to Sham, so it was he who met them as they came, made note of their grievances, and told them where they could camp. They’d been offered rooms in the castle, but enclosed spaces made the outlaws nervous, and the smell of fauns made them frantic, so they camped in the open, against the wall where they’d come in. There were perhaps thirty altogether now.
Chance watched two newcomers at the gate, representatives from different packs. They were dressed in poorly cured skins, and they moved with exquisite caution, their ears flicking nervously at any noise or rapid movement. One walked with a staff. He was missing a foot.
When Sham finished speaking with them, he came over to Chance. “Looks like one of them paid Laylan’s ransom,” he commented. Wolflings who’d cut their own feet off to escape from traps had become so common in recent years that the phenomena had acquired a name. “They say there’s a sick child in one of their packs. They want me to come see her.”
Chance shrugged. “Go if you wish.”
Sham shook his head. “I’m not sure they’d let me come back.”
Chance looked surprised. “You mean, they’d—?”
“Kidnap me? Maybe. Maybe kill me because they think I’m cooperating with the fauns. Maybe hold me for ransom if they think I’m valuable. I don’t know either of the supposed packs these two are representing, and I don’t trust the
m.”
Chance frowned. “And we’re letting such shelts into Laven-lay?”
Sham shrugged. “We’ve got to start somewhere. Chance, these are the dregs of a nation. The gentle, the thinkers, the far-sighted are mostly gone, and it will take a generation to rebuild them. The survivors—that’s what’s left—and many of them think only as far ahead as the next day, the next meal, the next opportunity. They’ve been cruelly treated, and that hasn’t made them into nice—” He stopped. “What’s that smell?”
Chance sniffed the air. “Wood smoke? Campfires?”
Sham cocked his head. “I don’t think so. It’s almost like—”
And then they saw Shyshax running towards them across the meadow from the castle. “Swamp fauns,” he called. “They’re setting fire to the city!”
Chapter 15. Choices
There is only one crime: the overestimation of one’s authority.
—Archemais, Treason and Truth
The centaurs took Archemais and Corry deeper into the inner keep, down corridors glistening with marble and burnished bronze. Mercurion gestured at the centaur, Sandarin, now walking well ahead of them. “This one thinks he wants my job. It would be an act of pure cruelty to give it to him, but I am sometimes tempted.”
Archemais gestured at the walls and floor. “Were these things here when you came?”
“No,” said Mercurion uneasily, “we made repairs.”
“Repairs?” Archemais raised an eyebrow. “With such materials?”
“Centaurs are craftsmen. There are many work crews, and they have found a great deal of materials in the palace. It’s—” He stopped with a hiss of breath. Even Sandarin seemed momentarily at a loss. They’d entered a throne-room-courtyard with its roof open to the sky. An enormous fig tree crouched at the far end. Its trunk and tortured roots had been shaped or carved—it was hard to tell which—into an elaborate throne. Statues carved in jet lined the aisle as one approached—disturbing images in various attitudes of agony and ecstasy. The walls of the room were made entirely of mirrors.
“This was not here yesterday,” said Mercurion weakly.
“The tree,” whispered Sandarin. “It was a blackened stump. How—?”
The centaurs wandered around the courtyard, at a loss. “His majesty must have gone to oversee the defense of the southern gate,” said Sandarin at last. “We will wait for him.” Archemais stayed in the center of the room, but after a time Corry’s curiosity overcame him, and he wandered over to have a look at the tree. It was monstrous, with roots that seemed to be devouring some of the nearer statues. Around back of it, he found a little rectangular pool of white marble, its water perfectly clear. Corry sat down beside it in the shade of the tree, feeling weary after having been up most of the night.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
Corry looked up. He thought he might have been dozing. He saw a ragged boy sitting in the branches of the tree. “Are you thirsty?” asked the boy.
Corry rubbed his eyes. “Who are you?”
“Nobody. A servant.”
Corry frowned, looked back down at the pool.
“It’s called the Water of Forgetting,” said the boy, “or, sometimes, of Remembrance. Is there anything you wish you could remember, Corellian?”
Corry’s eyes shot up. It was hard to see clearly in the shifting shadows of the tree. The boy looked no older than himself. “How do you know my name?”
“I heard it when you came in,” said the boy. “You were all making enough noise to wake the wolves in the walls. You don’t want to do that. They get very unpleasant when they wake.”
Corry glanced at the pool again and started. The reflection that looked back at him was not his own, but the face of his mother as he’d seen her in pictures in his father’s house. Is there anything you wish you could remember, Corellian?
“Yes,” he whispered. “I wish I could remember everything.”
And then, the world seemed to shift on its axis, and the pool was not a pool, but a door, and it was not lying on the ground, but standing upright. All the rest of the world seemed askew, and only the door stood straight—the door of white marble, of white light, of remembrance.
Corry saw all this as a double image, for he also saw clearly that the boy had jumped out of the tree, and his hair was black as starless night, and his eyes were green as poison. “I know who you are,” whispered Corry, but his voice was so small he could barely hear it.
“Do you?” smiled the boy. “And do you know who you are, Corellian?” Then he pushed Corry through the door, into the pool.
* * * *
Daren watched with approval as his fauns galloped through the streets of Laven-lay, tossing burning brands onto thatched roofs and wooden buildings. The green city, the garden city... “City of kindling,” quipped Daren. Laven-lay had insulted him, shot at him, harbored his enemies and taken his prey from between his teeth, but he would have his revenge.
Of course, the centaurs would be angry that he’d not been in Selbis, making the city into a base. But that was an insane plan from the beginning, thought Daren. Targon will thank me when he sees what I have done instead. After his humiliating retreat from the walls of Laven-lay, Daren had returned in haste to Selbis, collected his full force, and marched back towards the wood faun capital. He’d hidden along the Triangle Road and waited.
He did not have to wait long. As Daren had suspected, a hastily assembled wood and cliff faun army soon came marching up the road at speed. It was not a large army, but it was probably every able-bodied soldier in Laven-lay. Daren wasn’t sure whether they were marching to Selbis to find him or whether they knew about the centaurs. He didn’t care. He gave them a day to get well away from Laven-lay, then proceeded to attack the city.
As expected, he met little resistance. His mounted fauns were fresh and eager for action. They torched the wooden buildings and great trees, shot the deer, and rode down any wood fauns who challenged them in the streets—nearly all of them females and children. When Meuril returns, he’ll find nothing but ashes.
The fauns guarding the doors of the castle were ancients and cripples and they died quickly on swamp faun spears. More wood fauns were running to help, but they were not warriors. Daren and some dozen of his personal guard fought their way easily into the central palace complex. Daren had a wish to see the city aflame, and he thought he might climb one of the towers. His personal guard were keen to make sport of the royal ladies, and Daren dismissed them. He wandered at leisure until he found a suitable tower and ascended alone.
The room at the top appeared to be a study, and he paused for a moment to appreciate this person’s taste in rare books. Perhaps I’ll take a few before I burn it. The view from the window was as breathtaking as he’d expected. The fire was spreading rapidly through Laven-lay’s myriad green spaces, aided by a fortuitous wind. Little figures of wood fauns ran about like frantic insects in a kicked ant hill. Some of those buildings must be four hundred years old. Some of these books are even older, but old books burn as easily as old buildings.
Someone spoke behind him. “I was extremely disappointed not to have found you in Danda-lay, your lordship. But I have found you now.”
* * * *
Archemais was watching the mirrors, the throne, the statues. He felt alive for the first time in years. He was doing what he had been made to do. He was fighting the battle he’d been born to fight. He was watching so closely for his enemy that he did not notice for some minutes that Corellian was no longer with him. The boy moved as soundlessly as his mother. Sometimes Archemais wondered if he could fold.
Still, he was not too worried until he heard the soft sound of voices near the tree. He walked towards them. Then he started to run.
“Lost him again, have you?” The centaur Targon came strolling out from behind the tree, an expression of cat-like smugness on his face. “Really, Archemais, you’d lose your own head if it wasn’t attached to your shoulders. You may lose it anyway.”
>
Archemais blanched. A mist was rolling in the mirrors now. Wolves were wandering in that mist, and far away he thought he saw a boy—lost, stumbling—and beyond him...something else. Archemais tore his eyes away from the mirrors.
“Yes,” purred Gabalon, “I would not make the mistake of sending him away again. He’ll stay here in the mirrors and watch. Perhaps in three or four hundred years he’ll be ready to become one of my wizards. It can get very dull behind that glass, or so I’m told.” He paced around Archemais, loosening his battle whip. Archemais turned with him, said nothing.
“Targon?” It was Mercurion. He had a hunted expression. “Do you know this person?”
The centaur glanced at Mercurion. “Why, yes. I’m told you spoke to him without me. That was foolish. He’s a dangerous wizard. They’ll say anything when cornered.”
Mercurion looked around at the room, the tree, the wolves in the mirrors. “Who are you?” he whispered.
“I am Targon,” smiled the other, “the friend you grew up with, the friend you followed to the throne.”
Mercurion shook his head. “My friend was no lover of illusions. He would kill, but never torture. He was overeager, but he was not insane. You are not him.”
Targon smiled and spread his hands. “Ah, Archemais has been talking to you. Very well, then, you may say that I have acquired a new perspective, a new weapon.”
“A new personality,” muttered Archemais.
Targon sent a huge hoof flying at his head, which Archemais dodged with reptilian swiftness. They glared at each other. “Has it occurred to you, Targon,” said Archemais, “that this new personality of yours is doing most of the thinking, making nearly all the decisions?”
“We are not two personalities,” barked Targon. “I chose to merge with a wizard. When that happened, all my memories became his memories, and all his memories also became mine! I can remember growing up on Iron Mountain, but I can also remember ruling Panamindorah for a thousand years. I built Panamindorah, wrote its history, made it interesting—better than anything your pale Firebird could have done. I can remember all that! But of course I also remember my days as a centaur colt.”
The Prophet of Panamindorah - Complete Trilogy Page 46