Agent of Prophecy

by M. A. Rothman

As she slid from the lip of the wagon bed, Grisham breathed, “Don’t…”

  Arabelle slipped into the darkness, pulling her mother’s daggers from their sheaths, and stalked toward her target. She concentrated on all of the things she’d practiced. She kept the tension in her legs so she could spring in any direction. She crept on the balls of her feet to minimize the sounds she made on the hard, dry surface. She approached the guard from downwind so he wouldn’t detect any scents. Though she certainly detected his. He stunk.

  One of the drugged slaves grunted in his sleep, and the guard turned his head toward the noise. She saw a glaring malevolence in the man’s eyes and knew that this was a person who cared nothing for others. As no slaver ever really could.

  Before she attacked, she watched the guard’s movements. He shifted his weight back and forth, favoring his right leg and putting more weight on his left.

  Left leg it is.

  She lunged forward and used both daggers at once. With one, she slashed a deep cut across the back of his left knee. With the other, she stabbed at the base of the man’s back.

  The slash across the knee felt almost like slicing through several ropes. The stab in the man’s back felt like skewering a piece of meat, with two bony plates guiding her strike.

  The guard’s leg collapsed beneath him, and he screamed in agony, flailing his arms about, though his legs moved not at all.

  Arabelle stepped back and looked at her handiwork with growing nausea.

  She’d expected a lot of bleeding from the wound to the back, but saw none; instead a clear liquid oozed out of the knife wound. When the liquid’s flow slowed and then stopped, so did the man’s spasms and screams.

  A moment later, his breathing stopped.

  For a moment, Arabelle just stood there, stunned and horrified by the realization.

  I killed a man.

  She ripped off her headwrap and heaved uncontrollably all over the ground.

  What have I done?

  But then she remembered her mission. What she’d done, she’d done for a reason. If she didn’t free these slaves, she wouldn’t even have that small justification. She had only an hour or two left before dawn. There wasn’t enough time to return to the caravan and bring back help before the other slavers returned. It was up to her alone to free these poor souls.

  None of the captives around her had so much as stirred; clearly they were heavily drugged. She looked back at the wagon and saw the swamp cat pacing about, but the soldier still lay motionless. Unconscious, then.

  There were no other sounds out here in the darkness.

  She held her breath and searched the body of the slaver. She carefully patted and explored every inch, much to her disgust, looking for the keys that she knew had to be in his possession.

  She found none.

  Arabelle shivered uncontrollably, took a deep shuddering breath, and sobbed.

  Behind her, Grisham cried out in pain. Arabelle shook off her tears and ran to her friend.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s… it’s nothing,” said the little dwarf. “I suffered a blow to my head, and the pain… it comes and it goes.”

  Even as he spoke, he continued to clutch at his forehead. Clearly the pain was much worse than he was willing to let on.

  “I can help,” said Arabelle.

  She put her headwrap back on, then found the straw filled with powdered willow bark. “I will blow this powder in your face. Inhale it. It should lessen your pain.”

  Grisham stretched as far as the chain of his collar allowed and presented his face. Arabelle lifted her headwrap slightly with the straw, placed her lips tightly around the end, and blew as hard as she could.

  The cotton plug flew from the end of the straw along with a cloud of billowing powder. Grisham inhaled deeply, then coughed.

  “That tastes horrible.”

  Despite the seriousness of the situation, Arabelle laughed. “I didn’t promise it would be tasty.”

  “How quickly does it work?”

  “I don’t actually know. Soon, I hope. Now rest. I’m going to try to break you out of there.”

  Lacking a key, there was only one alternative she could think of: breaking the lock on the cage. It was a faint hope, but she had to pursue it. She began searching the area for a large rock with a sharp end. If she could find something heavy enough, and connect with just the right spot on the lock, then maybe…

  “It worked, Arabelle. The pain has lessened. I can reach my power now.”

  She returned to the side of the wagon. “Your power?”

  “Arabelle, please don’t be angry with me for keeping this from you. And don’t be frightened, either. I’m going to get out of this cage now. Please step back from the wagon just in case. And if I don’t come back to myself… say my name.”

  “Say your name?”

  But Grisham was already doing whatever he was about to do. He closed his eyes, and a glow formed around him. As it brightened, Arabelle stepped back, watching with ever-widening eyes.

  When Grisham’s body was glowing a bright white, Arabelle heard the cracking and popping of bones.

  And Grisham changed.

  His body elongated. His face grew ferocious claw-like jaws. A hundred insectile legs burst from his torso. Grisham the tiny dwarf had become Grisham the half-beetle, half-centipede.

  For a moment he was smaller, and wriggled easily out of his collar. And then he grew. His body became too large for the cage, and his head was pressed between the bars. His jaws snapped madly—and bit down on the bars of the adjoining cage, tearing them apart as if he’d taken a bite of crusty bread.

  As Grisham thrashed, trying to use his jaws on his own cage, the giant swamp cat took advantage of the new opening in its prison. It stepped out of the cage, launched itself off the wagon—landing with a noticeable limp—and glared at Arabelle with fevered eyes. She backed away slowly, unsheathing her daggers.

  Up on the wagon, the Grisham beast finally managed to bite his way out of his cage. The bright glow returned as he changed shape once more, the sounds of cracking and popping bones returning.

  But he didn’t turn back into a dwarf.

  As the bright light faded, a second swamp cat stood upon the wagon. Grisham, in cat form, leaped between Arabelle and the injured cat.

  The injured swamp cat sniffed at Grisham and let out a growl that Arabelle felt reverberating deep within her chest. Grisham returned the growl, and then the injured cat swished its tail and limped away.

  “Grisham?” Arabelle said hesitantly.

  Grisham Cat sat back on his haunches and the glow surrounded him once again. Moments later, he was a naked young dwarf.

  Arabelle blinked with surprise. She tried to stifle an inappropriate laugh, but succeeded only in making an obscene-sounding snort.

  Grisham looked down at himself, gasped, and ran back to the wagon to collect what was left of his shredded clothing.

  When he was mostly decent, they tried to wake the other captives, but with no success. The soldier in the third cage was still unconscious. And neither Arabelle nor Grisham was strong enough to carry even one man.

  They needed to get help, and quickly, or all that Arabelle had done here tonight would have been wasted. Dawn was rapidly approaching.

  “How fast can you run?” Arabelle asked.

  “As fast as I have to,” Grisham replied.

  “How long have you been able to change into different animals?” Arabelle asked as they ran.

  He looked her up and down. “How long have you been secretly stalking the nights, rescuing dwarves and killing slavers?”

  Killing.

  The word stirred an unexpected emotional response, and tears blurred Arabelle’s vision. “I couldn’t leave my friend in a moment of need.”

  He kept pace with her, his bare feet plodding through the grassland. “Thank you, Arabelle. I’ll never be able to repay you.”

  “Just continue to be my taste-tester,” Arabelle joked. />
  The dwarf laughed. “Gladly. But Arabelle… about my ability. Can we keep that knowledge just between us?”

  “You keep my secrets, and I’ll keep yours.”

  “Your secrets are safe with me. But what are we going to say to the guards when we arrive at the caravan? We can’t possibly tell the truth.”

  Arabelle saw the first lights of the caravan on the horizon. “I don’t know, but we have about thirty minutes to come up with something.”

  Talking with a Swamp Cat

  Grisham couldn’t believe his fortune in having escaped a lifetime of enslavement not once, but twice. He gazed at the wondrous girl who ran effortlessly ahead of him. He’d have to find some way to repay her for the unbelievable kindness she’d shown him.

  The eastern horizon was just beginning to lighten when he heard a warning growl in the tall grass behind them.

  “Arabelle,” he said, “stop!”

  She halted, daggers appearing in her hands.

  “It’s okay,” Grisham said. “It’s not a threat. Just a swamp cat growling an alert, as if to say, ‘I am here.’”

  “The injured one you freed?”

  “No. This one is a female. I can see her aura in the grass.”

  “Aura?”

  Grisham shrugged. If I can’t tell Arabelle everything, then who can I ever tell?

  “Yes, I can see an aura around all living creatures. They convey moods and attitudes.”

  “You can read minds?”

  He chuckled. “No, I can’t read minds. I can just see the kinds of things you might read from body language. Like if someone is angry, or being deceitful.”

  “And what does this cat’s aura tell you?”

  “That she’s curious.”

  A giant cat’s whiskered face broke through the grasses. She sniffed deeply, sneezed, then made a rapid coughing noise followed by deep growling vocalizations.

  Grisham translated for Arabelle’s benefit. “Well, that’s interesting. This cat thinks I’m a cat in a dwarf’s disguise.”

  “You understand her? Did the other cat talk to you too?”

  “Yes, but the other cat was fevered, probably dying, and didn’t make much sense. I think his infection had affected him so much that he was acting purely on instinct.”

  “So…” Arabelle said, nodding toward the she-cat. “Are you going to talk to her?”

  Grisham grinned. “How do you propose I make those sounds?”

  “Well… you could change shape again.”

  Grisham knew they didn’t have a lot of time, but he was curious how this creature had identified him as a swamp cat. When he changed shapes, did some… essence of the forms he took remain with him?

  He dug within himself and found that pool of power that he now knew well. He felt the familiar pain of transformation, the disorientation of changing senses, and then the process was complete. He was the fevered cat from the slaver wagon.

  The female cat eyed him curiously. “Your scent is… confusing. You smell like a swamp cat… and a no-tail. You look like Midnight… but you are not Midnight.”

  “Midnight?”

  “He is my mate.”

  “I’m able to look how I choose.” It was all the explanation Grisham could come up with. And it was, mostly, the truth.

  “Why would you choose to disguise yourself as a no-tail?”

  Grisham was amused, and decided to humor the cat. “There is much to learn from the no-tails. I have been studying with them.”

  “How do you do this thing? Can I do it as well?”

  “No, only those of my kind can.”

  Grisham wondered if that was even true. Was this a Ta’ah ability? But he’d never heard of such a skill before. Maybe he had this ability only due to Seder’s intervention.

  “Your kind?” asked the cat. “Do you mean your family?”

  Grisham’s tail swished nervously. “Actually… I have no family. They are all dead.”

  The female swamp cat made a noise that sounded almost like chirping, and her aura filled with sadness. “I feel such pain. No-tails captured my mate and killed all my cubs. I found their broken bodies. I have not seen Midnight again.”

  “I have seen him. He lives.”

  The cat’s aura brightened with hope. “You must tell me where to find him.”

  “He is heading north. I was captured by the same no-tails who captured Midnight, but with the help of this female no-tail, we released your mate. He is injured, however. The wound smells bad. I would go to him quickly.”

  The giant cat gave a quiet purr. “Thank you, strange one. When you are done with the no-tails, come to the swamp. My mate and I would welcome one such as you in our family.”

  She stood, turned, and sprinted away.

  Grisham and Arabelle had decided there was no way to explain the princess’s involvement in the night’s events, but that one dwarf alone could present a plausible story. So they split up. Arabelle ran ahead, sneaking back into the caravan unseen, and Grisham lagged behind, doing his best to look injured and bedraggled—an easy thing to do in his condition.

  As soon as he staggered into sight of the caravan’s guards, their whistles blew an alert. A cloud of dust rose from the caravan gate, and horses galloped forward. The eyes of the riders widened when they slowed at took in his appearance.

  His clothes were covered with blood, mostly from his head wound, and the clothes themselves were so tattered he thought more of him was showing than was hidden. He had no idea where his shoes had gone.

  The last set of hooves to pound the dusty plain belonged to Oda’s pony.

  “By Seder’s long white beard, boy, we thought you be captured or dead!”

  Arabelle’s powder was wearing off, and Grisham’s head throbbed. Now that he was back to the safety of the caravan, the exhaustion of the night’s events suddenly caught up to him all at once.

  “I escaped,” he said.

  “I don’t remember anything after that,” Grisham explained to Nicholas.

  The two of them lay on adjoining cots in the soldiers’ infirmary. Nicholas had splints on one arm and one leg, but was in good spirits. Khalid had taken a party to the slaver camp to rescue the injured soldier and free the other slaves.

  “Now it’s your turn,” Grisham said. “How did you avoid capture? What happened to your arm and leg?”

  Nicholas shrugged. “Lucky I guess. I got thrown by my horse when the nets fell, and he broke my leg when he landed on it. I must have passed out when that happened. Apparently I suffered a bleeding head wound too. Evidently the slavers thought I was dead, or soon would be. When I awoke, I was right where I had fallen, the horse still on my leg.”

  “What about your arm?”

  “Not sure about that. I feel like I remember being run over by a wagon. The slavers, I guess. They have no more respect for the presumed dead than they do for the living. Anyway, a search party found me and poor Robert. He didn’t make it. He broke his neck when he fell from his horse.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I am too. He was a good man.”

  They were both silent for a long moment, then Grisham said. “So… did anyone ever find the sheep?”

  Nicholas chuckled wryly. “You know, I asked the same question. Wouldn’t you know it, those damned sheep found their own way back at feeding time.”

  Grisham groaned. “Figures.”

  Visions of the Past

  Arabelle had long ago gotten her sleeping routine down pat, and her internal clock reliably woke her every two hours, without fail. But sometimes that didn’t seem to be enough. She would wake, and her limbs would feel sluggish, as if the poison were already taking hold.

  This morning when she awoke, her condition was even worse. Her limbs wouldn’t respond at all.

  She panicked.

  Did I oversleep?

  She was sure she hadn’t. She tried again, concentrating, struggling to move her arms and legs.

  Finally she felt the cracking of
muscle fibers. Overcoming the stiffness of her limbs, she slowly lifted herself to a sitting position. Her breathing was coming in short pulls of air, and she had to strain to take in deeper breaths.

  She was still alive. But these symptoms grew worse with each incident.

  She began her stretching exercises. Her muscles screamed in protest at first, but soon they loosened, and by the time she was done and soaking in the bath that Maggie had already prepared, the morning’s panic was behind her.

  The prior night’s events, however, were still on her mind.

  I killed a man.

  A snake of guilt coiled tightly around her stomach. She knew she’d never forget the moment when, at her hand, the light in a man’s eyes faded to darkness.

  She tried to push the image away and focus on the positive instead. She had rescued her friend from slavers. After returning to camp, she’d kept watch to make sure he made it back safely, and she saw the rescue party go out after the others. Hopefully they could be freed too. No one should be subjected to a life like that. No one.

  Maggie poked her head in at the tent flap. “Milady, are you finished soaking?”

  “I suppose I should be.”

  Arabelle stood, stretching her arms and legs until they popped. The sound reminded her of the Grisham’s shape-changing ability. Maggie handed her a towel, and Arabelle rubbed herself from head to toe.

  She noticed Maggie looking at her strangely. “What?”

  Maggie smiled fondly. “You aren’t a little girl anymore, Princess.”

  “Of course I’m not! I’m now eighteen.”

  “I know. But I still remember when your arms and legs looked like sticks and you kept tripping over your own feet. Now you move gracefully like a cat, and your curves… well, they’re going to be catching everyone’s attention.”

  Arabelle blushed at that last remark. She, too, had noticed that her hips were wider than they used to be, and her waist tapered nicely inward. But she wasn’t sure how comfortable she was at the idea of drawing that kind of attention.

  “Well, Maggie, it’s either have curves or lose weight, and you already yelled at me for being too skinny.”