Nightpool

by Murphy, Shirley Rousseau

  “They have come into Nison-Serth,” said the smaller, a young vixen. “The jackals are horrible. Nosing everywhere and snuffling, and flapping . . . disgusting.”

  “I want four messengers,” Pixen said, “to go quickly down into Ratnisbon, to Ebis the Black, to carry a message for his ears alone. Mixet, Brux, Faxel. . . and yes, you may go, Luex. I would not send Faxel without you. Now come, let me give you the message.

  “You are to tell Ebis the Black that Sivich builds a huge trap on the coast of Baylentha, to capture the singing dragon. You will tell him that Sivich means either to hold her captive or to kill her. Sivich must be stopped, and Ebis is the only one who can stop him. You will not say you have seen Tebriel or know where—” He stopped speaking and cocked his ears. They all could hear it. Hoofbeats above their heads, across stone, as searchers rode over the great stone spine of the mountain.

  Chapter 6

  Pixen finished his instructions, and the four foxes slipped away while the hoofbeats still pounded overhead across the mountain.

  “Sivich’s riders,” Pixen said. “Heading for the west portal.”

  Teb shivered. “They’ll come in there, too; they’ll be all over the caves.”

  “They won’t get in here,” Pixen repeated.

  “But can’t they look in through the slits? Can’t they see us?”

  “No man can climb that sheer wall. The slits were meant for arrows once, during the five wars, long-seeking arrows trained on the sea path below, and they could not be reached by invaders. Now they are only for light and air, but still no man can climb to them.”

  “Then—then they’ll wait at both portals,” Teb said, beginning to feel hopeless. “Wait for me to come out.”

  “There is another way out. A way no soldier knows.” Pixen paused to scratch the side of his long, thin face against his leg. Then he looked up at Teb with a bright gleam of mischief. “You are small—you can manage the fox burrow to the south. It comes out far below the west portal and is well hidden among tumbled boulders and brush. Now it is time for rest, Tebriel, for we will travel before evening.” Pixen curled down and wrapped his tail around himself, and settled his nose against his tail.

  Teb tried to rest, but he was nervous with apprehension and thought he could still hear hooves. He made a meal of bread and cheese, and sat watching the slits above. The cave grew brighter and warmer as the sun dropped past noon and shone in. Once he heard men just beyond the cave entrance, heard the shuffle of boots and voices muttering. Twice he heard the jackals come to the hole, snuffling and growling. The fox guards sat steady, watching the hole, knowing the jackals couldn’t get through. These jackals were not like the jackals of the far north, who resembled small wolves. It was no wonder the foxes found their low-bellied, hump-shouldered presence repugnant. Compared with those of the delicate foxes, their broad flat heads and mouths like steel traps were crude and disgusting. Teb held his knife ready, almost wishing he could attack one of them, and was still holding it when Pixen woke. The fox leader stared at it and grinned.

  “That steel blade, together with a fox’s ripping teeth, ought to do those belly-draggers in.” He yawned and shook himself. “But your scent and ours are all over the caves, Tebriel. I don’t think the creatures have sense enough to know which is freshest, even when they come so near.”

  They set out in early afternoon, Teb and Pixen and the seven strong young foxes, to follow the winding passages inside Nison-Serth south to the fox warren. At first the passages were stone; then they turned to earth. Teb went on his belly and began to feel like a mole. But he was not afraid now, with the foxes to help if he got stuck, and by dusk they were in the warrens. They stood in a central gallery with caves opening off in all directions.

  “The warren is new,” Pixen said, “compared to Nison-Serth. Only a few generations have used it. We had no need of dens in the old days, when men and animals shared Tirror equally, for then we were wanderers, and we made the sanctuaries like Nison-Serth and Mund-Ardref and Gardel-Cloor our bases. But now, with the dark raiders on the land, we have taken to staying where we have shelter to hide and raise our cubs. It is not a carefree life, but safer.

  “Once, when the first warren caves were opened and dug out deeper and larger, there were humans often in Nison-Serth. When the first wars began to enslave, humans helped us to dig and clear the caves of fallen stone. The children would crawl into the smaller caves, to dig there—so many children. . . .

  “But come, Tebriel, my den is just here, and Renata will be waiting.”

  Pixen led Teb on through a small ragged opening, then down seven turnings. The low twisting passage grew lighter; then there was brightness ahead. They came into a brightly lighted cave with high ceilings and slits along the top letting in the rays of the sun. Teb could see ferns through the holes and knew the hilltop was there. At the back of the den a waterfall splashed down, frothing over the pale walls, into a deep pool stained green by the ferns that grew around it. And all around the den, the pale, nearly white walls were carved with the pictures of foxes, and of owls and all the speaking animals, as well as deer and rabbits and mice, and with strange signs that Teb could not make out.

  He thought at first that humans must have done the carving, but then he began to see that each line was made of three parallel lines such as might be made by claws.

  “The stone is soft,” Pixen said, watching him. “Limestone. Five generations of my family have carved their dreams into these walls.”

  “They are beautiful.” But they were more than beautiful; they were powerful carvings that lifted Teb and made him think of strange half dreams and grasp at thoughts that eluded him, filled him with desires that he could not sort out. He wanted to look and look, but then a high whimpering sound startled him.

  Opposite the pool against the far wall was a large niche where four fox cubs were waking on a pile of rabbit skins. Renata sat beside them, watching Teb with bright, curious eyes.

  Renata was smaller than Pixen, and so pale a silver she was almost white, so her eyes looked huge and black in her thin little face. Her chest and throat were snow white, like her four feet, and her ears were rimmed with a line of dark gray. Dark gray marked the tip of her silvery tail. She rose and came to Teb and stood up on her hind legs to greet him, touched his hand with her paw. He put out his arm so she could rest her paws there, and she stood looking up into his eyes, sniffing his scent delicately, quietly studying his face.

  “You are Tebriel. You have grown so tall. The first time I saw you, you were only a baby in the arms of your mother. . . . I am so sorry about your mother, and your father, Tebriel.

  “But come, you must be tired. All that crawling and hunching. Will you rest?”

  “No, but I’d like to wash,” Teb said, looking with longing at the pool.

  The two foxes left him, and he stripped down and jumped in, shocking himself with the cold. But in a few minutes he was tingling warm. He scrubbed and splashed and was so enjoying himself he didn’t see the cubs until they were all around the pool, patting and slapping at the water, yipping and laughing at him. Then the bravest one dove in and had a fine swim, and by the time Pixen and Renata returned, Teb had dried himself and the cubs on the soft rabbit skin Renata had left him. The cubs were asleep again in a tangle near the pool, underneath the ferns. Renata licked them lightly, then touched Teb’s hand with her nose.

  “Would you like to see the rest of the den?”

  She led him behind the sleeping alcove and through a small arch, and they were in a dim corridor with six small caves opening from it. “Two are escape entrances,” she said. “They lead to other clusters of dens and out a secret way.”

  There were two storage dens for food. In one, little carcasses of rabbits and mice and squirrels, none of them speaking animals, had been laid to dry, and there were mounds of hazelnuts. In the other were stores of blueberries and bayberries and sweet nettle leaves, and heaps of dried mushrooms and wild apples and plums. Beyond thes
e rooms was a room for curing hides, and then a latrine room, with a pit that could be covered with earth, and another dug. When they returned to the central cave, the cubs were awake and playing again. They raced at Teb and circled him, yapping sharply, nipping at his legs and toes. He knelt and gathered them in, furry and squirming, and in their delight they toppled him so he lay sprawled with them on top.

  Renata drove them off, scolding, and they sat in a row, obedient to her but with sly little grins on their faces. “Go play in the common,” she said at last, shaking her head at them. And then they were gone, flicking their tails. “Now come, Tebriel, we will make a meal, and then we will take you on through the warrens, to the secret portal.”

  She lowered her glance and nosed the chain on his leg. “There is no way we can help you with that. It must be terrible to have a chain on your leg.”

  “It’s better than two chains, the way they did it in my cell. If—when I get to Bleven, to the cottage of Merlther Brish, I expect he can get it off.”

  There were apples and plums and hazelnuts for supper, blueberries and nettle leaves, and a dried pheasant. Teb added his bread and cheese and the rest of the mutton, and the foxes enjoyed the new foods as much as Teb enjoyed the fresh fruits, which he had seen little of in the palace.

  “Will Merlther Brish take good care of you, Tebriel?” Renata’s ears were back, as if she would challenge poor Merlther to do just that. “Will he feed you well, and . . . will he love you?”

  “I expect he will feed me well. And hide me. I don’t know about the love, though,” Teb said, embarrassed. “I think I would settle for just being safe from Sivich for a while.”

  Renata laid her head against Teb’s arm. “It is ugly not to be loved. Your mother loved you very much, as did your father.” Then she looked up at him. “And what of Camery? Where is your sister, Camery?”

  “She is in the tower, and captive,” Teb said, and before he knew it he was telling her about the talk in the hall, all about the sighting of the dragon, though, of course, Pixen had heard it all before, and how Sivich meant to use him as bait to trap the dragon and meant to use Camery to breed children. “Because of the mark,” he said. “Only I don’t understand about the mark. I don’t understand why it is important.”

  Renata looked at him for a long time without saying anything. Then all she said was, “You should keep the mark covered, Tebriel. It might help to save you from Quazelzeg.”

  “Who is Quazelzeg? Why does he seek to enslave all of Tirror?”

  “He is the unliving,” said Pixen.

  “The dead . . . ?” Teb began.

  “No, Tebriel. Not the dead. The unliving. There is a vast difference.”

  Teb waited, not understanding.

  “Death, Tebriel,” said Renata softly, “is not a condition. It is not a permanent state. It is merely a passing through. A journey into another world, and into another self. Death is not an ending.

  “Don’t you remember, when you were small, feeling that there was something you’d forgotten? Something you almost knew, almost remembered—then it was gone?”

  “I still do that,” Teb said.

  “So it will be in the life after this one. Fragments of this life and of all other lives will come to you unclearly—for all are linked, Tebriel. You take from one into the next, though you don’t remember.

  “But to be unliving is very different. It is not like the crossing-over experience of death. It is, precisely, no experience. Precisely unliving. The unliving embrace and feed on the opposite to everything we find warm and joyous and filled with life. They feed on nothingness, on all that turns from life. They hate folk who go about their own pursuits with vigor and joy; they hate the strength one feels in self. They want all creatures massed in sameness, and enslaved. They hate the deep linking of one person’s life with another, the linking of generations, the tales of one’s childhood and one’s parent’s childhood, the memories that link a family, a nation, and so link all of us. Let me show you. . . .”

  The vixen looked deep into Teb’s eyes, and her pale silver face seemed to grow lighter still and her dark eyes larger until Teb could see nothing else, until he swam in that bright darkness. “Remember your mother, Tebriel. See her . . . see her . . . Remember your father, your sister. Remember their faces, their voices, and the things you did together. Remember it all. . . .”

  The memories came flooding, a hundred memories surrounding him. They were galloping over green hills, the four of them, Cannery’s pale hair flying, their mother laughing as her horse plunged up a steep hillside. Then they were at supper in their quiet private chambers, their father was carving roast lamb, the room filled with its sweet gamy scent, and there was a white tureen brimming with onions and mushrooms. His mother wore a pale yellow dress, and was laughing. All the memories came flooding: being tucked into his bed, his first pony, Camery sewing a quilt, his mother’s garden, Camery’s owl. . . .

  And then suddenly the memories vanished. He caught his breath. There was only emptiness.

  There was nothing.

  He could not remember how his mother looked, could not remember the color of her hair, how his father looked. . . . There was a girl. . . .

  His mind was gray and empty.

  The only link he had with himself or anything real was a pair of dark huge eyes in a pale face—what was this creature? Why was he here . . . ?

  “Who am I?

  “My name—I don’t know my name. . . .” He was shaking. . . .

  Then suddenly the world popped back to fill his mind bright and loud . . . alive—alive. . . . The tales of his father’s childhood in Auric, running on the sandy shore . . . the tales his mother told him, his own memories—all of it thronging and churning in his mind singing and alive. . . .

  The little silver vixen was there before him, her dark eyes watching him with concern. “And so, Tebriel, you have seen as the unliving would have it. They would destroy your memory and knowledge, and so destroy your self.

  “So is Quazelzeg,” she said. “He is the unliving. And he would make slaves of us all.”

  *

  They did not leave the cave until nearly nightfall, and again Teb followed blindly as the foxes made their way through the low, narrow tunnels. Renata left an old aunt with the cubs; and three more foxes joined them at the common, so now they were twelve again as they wound and dropped and climbed through the pitch-black holes. Then at last a faint smear of moonlight far ahead, and a smell of the sea, told Teb they were coming to the western portal.

  At the portal they listened, but there was no sound except the far lapping of the water. The moon was thin and its shadows indistinct. Pixen sent a young fox out to look, and he was gone a long time, returning at last with an uneasy frown.

  “No strange scents, nothing stirring. The land seems empty, but I feel something amiss, all the same.”

  “Come back inside,” Pixen said, and he went out himself to have a look.

  Pixen was gone even longer. He returned with his ears back and his tail lashing. “There are still troops at the western portal—nine that I counted—and they have the two jackals with them. Luex was surely right, they do stink. The troops are growing restive—I think we’d better go on before they decide to explore.”

  Teb took up his pack and waterskin, touched the knife at his belt, and followed Pixen out the small hole, with the others crowding behind him. The bushy cover outside scratched his face and caught at his clothes, and he could not seem to go silently as the foxes did. Soon Pixen stopped. “Take off the pack and waterskin, Teb. Reeav and Mux will drag them back inside.”

  Rid of his belongings, Teb was able to move more quietly. He feared for the foxes, though, for even in the thin moonlight they could be easily seen. The tops of the bushes caught light, and the tops of the stones, and when they drew near to the bay, a thin path of light fell across the water. On the other side of the water rose the dark towering mass of Fendreth-Teching, topped by the rocky peaks of the d
ragon lair.

  The little band moved along beneath a mass of bushes, Teb crawling through the leafy tunnel of branches that insisted on snagging his clothes. The foxes slipped through quite untouched. Teb breathed in the scent of the bay, salt and wild. When they came out of the bushes they were on a sheer cliff high above the water, and now the way was rocky and precarious. The foxes skipped along it and, Teb suspected, would have traveled much faster without him. He tried to see where he was by the shape and width of the bay directly below. Yes, here the bay had begun to narrow, but he could not yet see, off ahead, the thin channel linking the Bay of Dubla with the outer, seaward Bay of Fendreth. Once they reached the channel, Bleven would lie less than a mile beyond. He would go on alone then.

  But suddenly heavy flapping filled the sky, and a coughing growl. The jackals were on them, dropping and snarling. Hoofbeats were pounding behind, loud on the stone as if they had just come up from softer ground.

  “Run!” Pixen cried to Teb. “We’ll delay them.”

  But Teb could not; his knife was slashing at a jackal even before he knew he had drawn it, for the creature had little Reeav in its mouth, shaking her. He slashed at its throat, then its face, but it would not let her loose. At last, with three foxes at its throat, it twisted in agony and let her go. Reeav staggered away. Mux tried to get to her, but the riders were all over them, all was confusion. A jackal grabbed Teb’s leg, tearing; then he felt himself snatched up by the shoulder as a horse shied against him and he was lifted and thrown across a saddle, facedown, so the saddle back jammed hard into his ribs and belly, knocking out his breath and searing him with pain. The horse swerved, and Teb revived enough to bite the rider’s arm and kick at him; he got a blow across his back that shoved him into the saddle again and made him go dizzy with pain. Then the horse was whipped to a gallop, and the pain was like fire in his middle.

  *

  The soldiers moved northward all night. Teb hurt so badly he wished he would die, and much of the time he was unconscious. He threw up twice, and the retching made searing stabs of pain. He didn’t know when they stopped, knew nothing very clearly until he woke the next day in broad daylight with someone shoving a waterskin at him.