| |
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 were 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.
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.”
