The Prophet of Panamindorah - Complete Trilogy

by Abigail Hilton

  “Remembering is not the same as being,” said Archemais. “When a weaker being merges with an older and stronger one, the weaker is swallowed up. You barely exist, Targon. He has almost devoured you. Almost. But he still fears you just a little, or this one would not be alive.” He jerked a finger at Mercurion. “He’s not the sort of advisor my brother keeps around.”

  Targon’s face twisted. He danced backwards, reared, and sent his whip flashing at Archemais, who dodged again. “There’s another thing my brother would not do,” he said. “Try to fight me, as a paltry centaur.”

  “You!” The centaur ground his teeth. “You’re nothing. Not even the Firebird wants you anymore. Disinherited prophet! Who would fear such a creature—fallen dragon that goes upon its belly. Ha!”

  He raised his hand, and Archemais let out a hiss of pain. He put his hands to his head, and then suddenly his form sprang out, and in his place lay the giant cobra. He spread his hood.

  Gabalon smiled. “I’m still stronger than you.” He stroked his chin. “I should lock you in true form forever, Archemais. I’ll take your power of speech and banish you—a monster to be hunted wherever you go. You were always the cultured one, brother. How does the prospect of never seeing another book, painting, fork, or instrument ring in your ears? To never again converse with a living thing, to be loathed and hated and feared? What would you give to avoid that? My little golden flute is a small price. Come, Archemais, I might even let you live.”

  At that moment a tremor ran through the building, and from somewhere deep below came the faint sound of grinding stone. A frown flickered across Gabalon’s face, and for a moment his attention wavered.

  Archemais’s form shifted back to human. He cocked an eyebrow. “You were saying?”

  * * * *

  Corry was falling, falling. He wasn’t sure whether he was in water or air. Confused images flashed through his mind—a Panamindorah that was gone forever, growing up in Canisaria, his mother, his mother, and she was dead, and it hurt, and everything was so dark, and he’d been stupid, stupid, and now he would have nothing to do but think about it forever. When he finally opened his eyes, he was lying on some sort of ground, and he might have been lying there a moment or an age.

  Golden light was falling all around him, and he thought for a moment he had the flute, and it would be alright, but then he remembered that they’d left it in Laven-lay. He raised his head. Someone was looking down at him—a huge bird with wings that seemed to cradle a nascent sun. He was almost too bright to look at. The only thing Corry could see clearly were his eyes—golden as the purest flame. “Corellian,” said the Firebird, “what are you doing here?”

  “He pushed me!” Corry babbled. “I didn’t go through the door. Gabalon pushed me.”

  The Firebird said nothing, and at last Corry petered into silence. Then he said, “But I let him push me. I wanted to go through the door. I wanted to remember, and now I do, and most of it’s bad. I’m sorry. I’m not any better than my father or Syrill, am I?”

  He let his head fall until his forehead was resting on the ground. “When I came to Selbis to rescue Telsar I didn’t really come for him. I came because I wanted shelts to know me as someone besides the son of the failed prophet. I wanted the glory, and I tried to steal the flute for the same reason.” He stopped talking, and the quiet of that place seeped through him like cold water.

  “Peace,” said the Firebird, and Corry felt the word in his very bones. He raised his head and heard music—wonderfully familiar, yet he couldn’t remember where he’d heard it before. Corry thought that if he could have heard that song every day, he would never have been sad or lost or lonely. “Gabalon does not give true gifts,” said the Firebird. “He has given you back the worst of your memories, but I will give you back the best. Be whole.”

  He breathed on Corry, and he remembered laughter, the smell of his mother and his father’s jokes and that he really had loved Telsar and wanted to save him, and at the same time, he knew that the bad things were also true, but they had no more power over him than a dead leaf has over the tree that shed it. While his head was still ringing with the music that had sung the worlds, he heard the Firebird say, “I offer you the position that your father once held. Will you be my prophet in this world?”

  Corry staggered to his feet. He glanced around and was startled to see, some distance away to his left, the throne room beyond the glass, and his father and the red centaur talking. “Then you really have abandoned my father?” asked Corry.

  “Not at all,” said the Firebird. “The Good that is cannot be the same as the Good that might have been, but that does not mean that it is not still Good.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  The Firebird shook his head. “He is no longer my prophet, but that does not mean that he is not mine. I need your answer, Corellian. Speak your mind.”

  Corry hesitated. “If I say no, will I survive this battle? Will we win?”

  “If you say no, you will survive the battle. Whether you will win is a decision for another. If you say no, you will have a long, uneventful life. You will be much loved and surrounded by family and friends. You will be happy.”

  “And the feathered dragon?”

  “You will never find that shape again, but you will find your mother’s shape, and you will bring it out when in need or when you wish to startle or amuse.”

  “And if I say yes?”

  “If you say yes, you will be the feathered dragon—the living Monument. You will visit Panamindorah in many ages, but I cannot promise a long life as it will seem to you. You will be often alone. You will be both loved and hated. You will know great sorrow and great joy. You will change this world and make it better.”

  “Will shelts and animals suffer if I say no?”

  “Perhaps. They will suffer more if you say yes and do as your father did. Think well, Corellian. This is a real choice. You can say no, and you will not be punished for it.”

  Corry thought a moment. “So my choice is this: a short, unpleasant life that means something or a long, happy life than means little?”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes.”

  Corry looked at the shadow wolves pacing around him. He looked at Gabalon, leering at his father beyond the glass. He thought of the wide world and all there was to love and want and need there. Then he gave his answer.

  * * * *

  Fenrah rounded on Laylan. “You certainly will not stay! You promised to help the wolflings, and that isn’t finished.”

  “Well, you can’t stay,” he said, “although I know you’ll try.”

  “They don’t need me anymore,” she said.

  “They do, and so do I.”

  Hualien was chittering, but the Architects shook their heads. “We need one, little friend, not hundreds of thousands. You are many more than you appear.”

  “Let me stay.” It was Sevn. He looked at Fenrah. “I’m the only one you can spare. Besides, Fenny, I want to read those books in the maze. I want to see how this place works. Panamindorah doesn’t need thunder powder anyway.”

  A tear rolled down Fenrah’s cheek. “Sevn—”

  “You know I’m right,” he said and hugged her.

  “It is done then,” crooned Gaspar. “One life for three, and one of you is legion. The trade is more than fair. Come, we must return you to the river.”

  As they turned to leave, Laylan looked back. Sevn had reached out and broken the ice lock on the glass case full of wolves. He turned to Laylan and winked. Then he walked away into the library of the Architects.

  Chapter 16. Water in the Dark

  The agony of battle is not wondering whether you will lose friends, but which friends.

  —Archemais, journal

  Charon poled Fenrah, Laylan, and Hualien back up a river that was clearly rising. “How will we get out of the maze without the dagger?” asked Fenrah.

  “Go straight away from the door you came in by,” said Charon. “Do not turn a
side or look back. You will arrive at the front entrance.”

  “But the front entrance is high in the wall,” objected Fenrah. “We can’t reach it.”

  “That is not my concern,” said Charon.

  “Is there any other way out?” asked Fenrah.

  “Not anymore.”

  By the time they reached the door to the maze, the wharf had completely disappeared, and water was churning under the door. They stepped from the boat, and Charon shot away with the current. Fenrah, Laylan, and Hualien lit their lamps and splashed into the place that Charon called the Three Headed Beast. They walked in silence through the rectangular rooms, their candles reflecting off the water on the floor. Somehow the books had all gone away, but the candles were still there, and the ominous mosaic of a monster. As they walked, they thought they heard voices, and once Laylan felt certain that someone else was trapped in the maze and calling for help. Fenrah thought she heard Sevn’s voice, and Hualien kept grinding his teeth and whining. “Don’t look back,” said Fenrah over and over. “He said we mustn’t look back.”

  By the time they reached their entrance, the water was up to their hocks. They looked at the door for a moment in silence. Something shifted deep below, and the whole room shuddered. The water was rising fast now, and it was very cold. “I can only think of one way to get up there,” said Laylan.

  Fenrah nodded. “We can tread water, wait until it carries us high enough.”

  “Our lamps will go out,” said Laylan.

  “Hualien is good at finding his way in the dark,” said Fenrah.

  Laylan looked at her broken arm, still bound against her side. Neither one of them said anything. There was nothing to say. Quickly, they divested themselves of all their equipment, anything that was heavy. Then there was nothing to do but wait for the water and the darkness.

  * * * *

  Syrill joined the first wave of fauns who attacked the breach made by the Raiders’ thunder powder. He was among the first to climb the half crumbled wall amid a shower of centaur arrows and start across the deadly space between the outer wall and the inner. Syrill had every intention of dying in this battle. He had always expected to die with a sword in his hand, and it would save Meuril the pain and embarrassment of executing him. He wasn’t about to go cheaply, though. You’ll have to shoot better than that, you sons of burros.

  Syrill saw a gate in the second wall, but it looked very strong, and the fauns who’d crossed the breach now seemed uncertain, trapped between two lines of enemy fire, dying fast and losing their momentum. Syrill called to them, tried to rally them. He saw that Ounce had come over the wall as well. He wasn’t sure why the cat had elected to come at all, since nearly all the others had stayed in Laven-lay, exhausted.

  Ounce caught up with him as they approached the gate. “What are you going to do?” he shouted.

  “I don’t know,” called Syrill. He was holding his shield over his head, and, at that moment, a javelin thumped down into it so hard that it knocked him to the ground. They were near the gate now. Syrill struggled to his feet, and Ounce slid to a stop beside him. The cat must have heard something, smelled something, because all at once he grabbed Syrill around the middle and shot away from the gate, ignoring Syrill’s angry protests. A moment later, the gate erupted in a roar of flame and falling masonry. The Raiders were doing their job well.

  * * * *

  The water in the maze became too deep for Hualien before the wolflings had to start swimming. Fenrah dropped her lamp and picked up the little rat shelt. Laylan held his lamp up for as long as he could, but at last Fenrah turned Hualien loose in the water, Laylan dropped his lamp, and then they were all swimming in the dark.

  They spoke seldom, saving their strength. Laylan reached out occasionally to touch the wall as they rose, feeling for the door. He strained his ears for the small sounds of the other two breathing and the lap of water as they moved. Already he was shivering, and he was particularly worried about Fenrah with her broken arm. He would have asked her to hang onto his back, had he not been certain she would refuse.

  Disaster came with little warning. There was a groan from deep underground, and something in the maze fell with a crash, followed by a gurgle as of some enormous drain. The water in the room surged. Laylan heard Fenrah shout, and then a wave walloped them. Laylan reached for the wall and couldn’t find it. Water was suddenly pouring into the room much too fast. He bumped his head, realized it was the ceiling. We’re going to drown.

  At the same time, his foot brushed against wood. The door! I found the door! “Fenrah! Hualien!”

  He heard a faint chitter, but nothing else.

  “Fenrah!”

  He bumped his head again. They had to leave now. “Hualien,” called Laylan desperately, “I’ve found the door. Please speak something I can understand!”

  There was a pause, then Hualien’s high hissing voice spoke in the language of Middle Panamindorah. “She here. Hurt. Can’t swim.”

  Laylan plunged towards him, his head now only a hand’s breadth from the ceiling. His reaching fingers closed on fabric, a deadweight. Then he realized it was Fenrah, and Hualien was holding her up. She must have been bashed against the wall when the wave came. Laylan took her, and grabbed Hualien’s hand. “This way,” he said and fervently hoped he was right.

  * * * *

  Dance had not stayed with the wolves in the wood. He circled back around, caught the trail, and followed Fenrah’s party. He waited until Corry and Archemais slipped into the city. Their entrance provided him with the distraction he needed—black as night, a shadow of a shadow, he slipped past the guards, following sometimes by sight and sometimes by scent as Archemais and Corry went to Mercurion. He waited while they talked, becoming more worried as dawn neared. It would be harder to hide at dawn.

  At last they left the underling’s quarters, but it was more difficult to hide in the palace, and his progress along their trail was slow. It took him the better part of a quarter watch to follow them to the throne-room-courtyard. The wolf who had been Telsar remembered this place, remembered the iron muzzle, the loss of his speech, the years in the mirrors, watching his enemy win victory after victory, laugh at him, forget him.

  Telsar flung himself at the door, his black lips already peeling back from his white teeth in a snarl. He saw the tree, the mirrors, the startled faces of the centaurs. He saw the red centaur and for all his guise, he knew him. Dance howled.

  He was as surprised as anyone else when, from behind the tree, another wolf answered.

  * * * *

  Laylan found the door with his feet, and they dove to it, pushed it open, and were immediately sucked through with a wall of water. Seconds later, Laylan and Hualien stood up, waist-deep. Hualien started away, chittering as he went, and Laylan stumbled after the sound, carrying Fenrah. He couldn’t tell whether she was breathing. He knew she must have swallowed water. He wanted to stop and try to wake her, but there was no time.

  She’s unconscious, he kept saying to himself. Not dead, not dead, not dead...

  She twitched. Laylan let out a long breath. He was slogging through the water, and soon they were climbing stairs. Hualien was muttering in the tunnel ahead when Fenrah twitched again, gagged, coughed up water. “Laylan?” she whispered.

  “Hmmm?” He was listening for Hualien.

  “I can’t breathe.”

  “What? Oh.” He realized then how tightly he was holding her. “Sorry.”

  “Are we out of the maze?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think I can stand now.”

  Laylan set her on her feet, but she immediately began retching more water. She seemed wobbly, and Hualien was walking very fast. “I think I’d better carry you a little farther.” She didn’t argue, and when he picked her up, she relaxed against him.

  Laylan felt curiously light. I hunted you. I set traps for you all over the wood. I tried to kill you, but now...you trust me. It seemed like a gift too great for words.

&n
bsp; Up more stairs and along more tunnels. Sometimes there was water on the floor, and sometimes they were ahead of it. Quakes came more and more frequently—rumblings and shiftings that brought showers of mortar down around their ears. After a while Fenrah asked to be put down again, and this time she was steady.

  Hualien’s chittering in the passage ahead grew almost desperate. Several times he stopped and did not seem certain how to proceed. They were in subbasements now, broader tunnels and open places. They were crossing one such room when a rolling motion brought them to the floor, and they felt the whole room drop several feet. The deafening crack subsided, but the creaking and groaning continued. In the blackness they could hear the walls shifting.

  Hualien was making a whining that sounded nothing at all like language. “I think he wants us to wait here,” said Fenrah, so they sat in the dark, holding hands to keep from being separated if the room shifted again.

  At length, Hualien came back and spoke for a few moments to Fenrah. She listened and then said, “The way that normally leads out of here is gone. He’s found another way, but.... Laylan, do you remember how Shyshax told us he got away from those cats in Selbis? The rotating fireplaces?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, that’s the way out. Only, they rotate in a circle, like buckets on a water wheel, and we’re on the downswing of the circle. To get out, we’ll have to go all the way to the bottom and back up again.”

  Laylan thought a moment. “And the rooms below this are flooded.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he certain the mechanism still works?”

  “No.”

  “How large is the wheel?”

  “He thinks there’s maybe six rooms between us and the surface, but he’s not sure.”

  Laylan drew a deep breath. “Well, where is it?”

  Hualien led them across the uneven floor to an alcove in the wall. A brief exploration with his hands told Laylan that it was a large fireplace. All three of them crawled in and sat down. They spent a few moments breathing in and out very rapidly. Then Hualien chirped. “Ready?” asked Fenrah, but before Laylan could respond, the fireplace dropped through the floor and into cold, black water.