Sanctuary ee-1

by Paul B. Thompson

  “Arrow’s got to come out,” she said immediately. Planchet nodded once, face grim. “I’ll do it.”

  “Someone must hold him still. If he moves too much, he could rupture an artery.”

  Hakkam, nearest, knelt behind the Speaker and gripped his shoulders. “I’ve got him.”

  The elves were nonplussed, but the Speaker murmured, “Thank you, General.” Eyes flickering to Planchet’s pale face, he whispered, “Proceed, my friend.”

  The valet wrapped his fingers around the blood-slick arrow shaft and whispered, “Forgive me.”

  With a single, mighty pull, he freed the arrow. The Kagonesti healer immediately sprinkled the wound with clotting powder and bound it tightly with linen. Too late, she realized she’d not offered the Speaker a leather pad to bite. She apologized, but he didn’t respond.

  “He’s passed out,” she said.

  Gilthas raised his head. “Not yet.” He smiled weakly at Planchet. “Wouldn’t she be proud of me? I didn’t faint.”

  Planchet understood who “she” was. He managed to return the brave smile. “Yes, sire. Yes, she would.”

  A litter was improvised, and the Speaker of the Sun and Stars carefully laid upon it. Four warriors hoisted the corners and headed back to Khurinost, leaving Planchet and Hakkam where they were.

  “Taranath, disperse the warriors,” Planchet said. The general began to protest, but Planchet cut him off. “Maintain your patrols, but stand down the cavalry!” Taranath saluted and rode away.

  As the elves’ cavalry began to disperse, Planchet handed Hakkam the bloody arrow. “This archer is Khur’s enemy as much as ours,” the elf said.

  Hakkam gripped the arrow tightly. “Never fear. I’ll see this returned to its owner.” His meaning was abundantly clear; the arrow would likely be “returned” point first.

  On a rooftop three miles away, Prince Shobbat lowered his bow. He could hardly believe his miraculous aim. No one could loft an arrow from so far, much less hit their intended target.

  “Impossible,” he whispered.

  “Magic is the art of the impossible,” replied the ragged, hooded figure behind him.

  * * * * *

  The Lioness withdrew her shrinking command across the creek Favaronas had given her name, and they camped for the night. Tomorrow they would depart Inath-Wakenti, forever, she hoped. There were too many unknowns here- no animals (except those that seemed to vanish in front of them), strangely powerful lights, and unaccountable disappearances. This valley was no sanctuary for their exiled people. Gilthas would have to understand that.

  The ride back to the creek, under a milky canopy of stars and clouds, was an eerie one. No crickets whirred in the underbrush; no whippoorwills or nightjars called from the trees; no frogs galumphed from the creeks. There was only the soft clop-clop of their horses’ hooves. The more nervous among the warriors were for going on, not camping, but it was well past midnight and both horses and riders were tired. Better to start at dawn, especially if they might have to fight their way out through Khurish nomads.

  Kerian felt it was safe enough to camp once they were beyond the stream. The massive stone ruins halted well short of the creek, and the weird phenomena had occurred only after they’d crossed the creek coming in.

  They pitched a bivouac on the south bank, picketing the horses and dropping down to sleep on bedrolls, without putting up tents. Before turning in, Kerian toured the camp. She saw Favaronas had built a small fire (the only one in camp) and sat hunched before it. On his lap was one of the stone cylinders he and Glanthon had found in the tunnel.

  Glanthon had told her of that strange expedition, but learning what Favaronas was doing with his prize could wait till morning. She was asleep on her feet. After a few words with the elves who’d drawn first watch, she unrolled her blanket beneath a juniper tree and lay down. In moments she was asleep.

  Kerianseray did not dream much. At least, she didn’t usually remember any dreams she might have. Her nights usually were battles between uneasy alertness and total exhaustion, with exhaustion often the victor. She’d once told Gilthas that living on the run from the Order had taught her to sleep with one eye open. He thought she was joking, but her old comrades could attest that the Lioness slept with one eyelid cracked open, balanced on the dagger’s edge between sleep and wakefulness.

  This was not the case tonight. Kerian fell deeply asleep. Then she began to dream. Vividly.

  She was in a forest, a dense woodland, green and cool. Moss was thick underfoot, and gentle sunlight filtered through the canopy of leaves. The air was wondrous, full of the scents of growing things. A faint breeze teased her face. Reaching out, she felt the suppleness of the leaves. They were ash leaves, slender and pointed. Kerian was in a forest of ash, like the wild land along the Silvanesti border.

  Into this idyllic setting came two figures. One was a goblin with along, beaky nose, pointed chin, and sallow, gray-green complexion. The other she glimpsed only briefly through the foliage, but he appeared to be a Silvanesti elf, dressed in a silky green robe more suited to a city street than the deep forest.

  The goblin said, “They’s a nest in this one.”

  “Are you sure?” asked his companion.

  “Oh, aye. I seen it come out last ev’ning.”

  With the illogical logic of dreams, Kerian was no longer standing in the forest, but was tucked into a hollow tree. She didn’t mind the tight confines. This was home. Its walls were smooth and smelled strongly of musk. An opening overhead led outside, as did the hole in front of her.

  Home trembled. The goblin’s face appeared in the hole. He grinned, showing crooked yellow teeth.

  “Careful,” said the elf, below him. “I don’t want it damaged.”

  The goblin’s face went away from the hole and he reached one arm in, long, spidery fingers coming for Kerian’s throat.

  She didn’t wait to be caught. Swift as a striking viper, she uncoiled and sprang at the intruder. She was slender, no more than two feet long, but her claws and teeth were sharp.

  They tore into the goblin’s cheek and left eye. With a shriek, he fell backward, taking Kerian with him.

  They crashed to the ground. He jerked her loose and flung her hard against the trunk of her pine tree home. She lay on her back, stunned, four paws in the air.

  The goblin would have killed her then, while she was helpless to defend herself. He lifted his hatchet high, but a hand grabbed his wrist from behind.

  “That’s not what I’m paying you for.”

  It was the elf. He had a long face, a sharp chin, and hazel eyes. A robe of pale green silk hung in pleated folds from his narrow shoulders. His blond hair was cut in an antique bowl-shaped style. His hands were large for an elf, with long fingers and knobby knuckles.

  “Look what it did to me!” screeched the goblin. Blood ran from his ruined eye and cheek.

  The elf merely took a small bag from his waist and shook it. The jangle of coins was unmistakable. He counted thirty steel pieces into the goblin’s hand.

  The goblin seized Kerian by the throat and thrust her into a dirty burlap bag. The effects of the blow were wearing off and she might have chewed her way out of the sack, but she didn’t. The elf and goblin were talking about her, and the elf gave her a name: marten. With the word came a rush of memories.

  Covered in brown fur, with a white neck and chest, she was more agile than a squirrel, swifter than lightning. She leaped from branch to branch, climbed up and down rough- barked trees, lay in wait among green boughs for an unwary squirrel. A dash, a pounce, teeth sinking into the rodent’s throat. Blood. Delicious. Warm. She prowled the treetops, despoiling nests for eggs or hatchlings, and venturing to the ground to penetrate burrows in search of rabbits. She was mistress of the twilight woods. Not even the panther or the bear could compete with her in ferocity, in kills.

  Kerianseray knew she was dreaming, but it was all so rich and real, her own memories seemed to melt into those of the marten.
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br />   In the strange way of dreams, time began to telescope, passing rapidly yet with no sensation of speed. The Silvanesti was a mage. He’d been slaving for decades on a procedure that would transform a wild marten into a semblance of himself. He took the marten bitch to his hut on the edge of the forest and began the lengthy, laborious process. It seemed to go well. The marten became a young girl, flawlessly elven in appearance, with hazel eyes and sable hair. He taught her civilized ways, but she never quite lost her predatory instincts or animal appetites. These he indulged. He learned much from her associations with naturally-born elves and humans.

  In her twentieth year, she began to change. Her pure Silvanesti features softened and thickened, giving her the look of a half-elf. When fur reappeared on her legs, the mage knew the transformation had failed again. So many times he had performed the spell, trying to find the perfect conjuration, but every one had failed, sooner or later.

  One night soldiers from House Protector came and arrested the mage. Kerian found herself chained in a deep dungeon in the heart of Silvanost. There she met others like herself, creatures whose elven veneer had decayed. But although the mage’s conjuration didn’t make them fully elven, it kept them from returning fully to their animal state.

  Such creatures could not be allowed to remain in Silvanesti, so they were exiled. Closed wagons transported them far from the land of their birth to the Silent Vale, where the half-creatures were turned loose to fend for themselves.

  The night sky above Kerian’s new home contained three moons-one white, one blood red, and a third, black moon she knew Two-Footers couldn’t see with their feeble eyes. But she could see it.

  She also could see something falling from the dark moon. Just as she recognized it as an arrow, it struck the base of her neck. She was knocked to the ground. Blood welled from her throat.

  What treachery is this? cried a far-off voice. Then a multitude shouted, The Speaker! The Speaker has been attacked!

  She jerked awake. She was lying on her bedroll, and the night sky above her was the one she recognized. She was Kerianseray, Wilder elf, warrior, wife of Gilthas, not some half-animal abomination.

  Rolling to her feet, she caught sight of Favaronas. His back to her, he squatted at the water’s edge a few yards away, sipping from his cupped hands. She rose and called his name.

  He almost fell head-first into the creek. She covered the distance between them in two long strides, snagged the back of his robe, and pulled him to his feet.

  “Favaronas, I had a terrible dream!” she said. “More than that! A premonition.”

  He was taken aback. The ever-sensible Lioness, talking of premonitions?

  The earlier part of her dream, of being an animal made to look like an elf, was fading into a confusing jumble of sensations. Kerian skipped that part, describing only the end, the terrifyingly clear vision she’d had of Gilthas being hit with an arrow.

  Favaronas, who had read much about historical presentiments of disaster, didn’t think such things occurred nowadays. Doubt was plain on his face.

  “It happened!” she insisted. “Or will happen. I don’t know which. But I felt it!”

  “So, what will you do?”

  She raked her fingers through her matted, sweat-soaked hair. What could she do? Gilthas was her beloved husband. Even more than that, he was her Speaker, the king she had pledged to serve and defend. She wanted to fly to him, to make certain he was all right.

  Fly!

  “Eagle Eye! He can get me to Khurinost in half a day!”

  The griffon was tethered twenty yards from the horses, further along on the path back to the mouth of the valley. Kerian turned to race off in that direction. Favaronas caught her arm.

  “General, you can’t abandon your warriors in the middle of the night because of a dream!”

  She jerked her arm free and glared at him, but she knew he was right. Equally right was her conviction that Gilthas was grievously wounded, perhaps even dying while they stood here debating. A difficult quandary, but the Lioness was not known for being indecisive.

  “Rouse the camp,” she said. “Wake everyone!”

  Favaronas hurried away, calling out to sleeping warriors, shaking their shoulders. Kerian did likewise. In minutes the entire band was awake, if not completely alert.

  Glanthon, hair askew, rubbed his eyes and asked, “Has something happened?”

  “Yes, I must return to Khurinost at once!”

  “I’ll have the riders mount up-”

  “There’s no time.” Struggling for calm, she said, “I go alone, on Eagle Eye. The rest of you will proceed to Khurinost without me.”

  She explained her dream to them as she had to Favaronas. Her warriors knew her to be pragmatic, not given to flights of fancy. If the Lioness believed she’d been granted a premonition about the Speaker, they didn’t question her conviction. They were, however, plainly disconcerted by the content of her dream and that she was leaving them.

  She gripped Glanthon’s shoulder. “I have no choice. You’ll be fine. Avoid the High Plateau. Take the easier route down the caravan trail from Kortal.” On the return journey, they had less to fear from spies. Still, she cautioned, “Tell no one where you’ve been.”

  To Favaronas, she said, “If I could, I would take you with me, but Eagle Eye won’t tolerate anyone else on his back.”

  He assured her he was not offended at being left behind.

  It was vital that he get his manuscripts, notes, and the odd stone cylinders home intact. He certainly couldn’t have carried them all while hurtling across the sky on griffonback.

  Kerian was not one to waste time. She filled two water- skins in the creek, took up a haversack with a bit of food, and said good-bye to all. The dazed warriors drew themselves up and saluted their leader.

  Before jogging up the trail to Eagle Eye, she repeated her injunction to Glanthon that he and the rest were to get themselves home safely. If they were confronted by nomads, they were to try to slip away without fighting.

  “And when you get back, I’ll buy nectar for everyone!” she called, and then she was gone.

  Favaronas and Glanthon stood side by side, watching long after she was swallowed by the darkness. The warrior was muttering to himself, speculating about the possibility of a nomad trick or weird dreams generated by the forces at work in the valley.

  “This feels wrong,” he said.

  Favaronas was thinking the same thing, but they heard the cry of the airborne griffon and knew it was too late for misgivings.

  * * * * *

  Word raced through the streets of Khuri-Khan that the laddad king had been wounded, some said killed. The elves had withdrawn their soldiers, but for how long? Blood was sure to flow. Opinion was divided as to who should bear the blame. Many Khurs believed the Sons of the Crimson Vulture had tried to assassinate the Speaker. Others thought Sahim-Khan was involved.

  Sahim had his own theory. The city gates, cleared by his soldiers, were kept open by entire companies of royal guards. The Khuri yl Nor was sealed tight as a tomb. Alarm flags were hoisted all over the city, recalling all soldiers to duty. General Hakkam brought the arrow, still stained with the Speaker’s blood, to the palace, and every bowyer and fletcher in the city was summoned. If the arrow’s maker could be found, its owner soon would be known.

  In the Nor-Khan, behind the thickest walls in Khur, Sahim-Khan raged. How had this come about? Who was trying to foment war with the laddad? His favorite suspects were the Torghanists, whom he castigated as insolent, ignorant savages.

  His captains kept close around him. His current wife sat in her place behind the Sapphire Throne. Huddled around her were the Khan’s seven youngest children, frightened but silent. Off to one side, Prince Shobbat leaned one hip on a sideboard, idly eating grapes from a silver bowl.

  Zunda, who in moments of stress could speak as succinctly as any man, said, “An emissary must go to the laddad. With assurances of the Mighty Khan’s goodwill.”

 
; “I’ll show them goodwill! I’ll decorate the city battlements with the corpse of every man who bears a red tattoo!”

  “Mighty Khan, the situation may not call for such measures.”

  “You go to the laddad, Zunda! Take Sa’ida and all priestesses of Elir-Sana. If the Speaker can be saved, Holy Sa’ida can do it.”

  The old vizier bowed and obeyed. Any other action just now likely would cost him his head.

  Once the vizier had departed, Sahim summoned one of his captains, a lean and wolfish fellow named Vatan.

  “Collect a hundred men and go to the Temple of Torghan,” Sahim said. “Arrest everyone-priests, acolytes, servants, all of them. If you find Minok, slay the wretch where he stands.”

  He turned away, then paused, a better idea coming to him. “No, Vatan. Bring Minok to me. Alive. His people might behave better if I hold their leader. I’ll question him personally, and we’ll learn who else is part of this conspiracy.”

  Vatan departed. For the first time since summoning this emergency assembly, Sahim sat, dropping heavily onto the throne. His sun-yellow robes billowed around him. He spied Hengriff on the periphery of the crowd and waved the knight forward.

  Hengriff’s natural impassivity had been perfected by his time in Khur. When Sahim asked his opinion of the orders just given, Hengriff did not say, I think you a crude and brutal fool, but replied blandly, “The Mighty Khan thinks swiftly and acts even faster.”

  Sahim smiled. “I had good teachers. What does your Order do with rebels?”

  “Hang the unrepentant and subvert the rest is our custom.”

  “The better policy would be to hang them all!”

  Hengriff took Sahim’s bloodthirsty admonition with outward good grace. The time had come for him to put into action a bold plan. He lifted the leather dispatch case in his hand and announced he had a confidential message from his Order.

  In a better mood for having set Zunda and Vatan to their respective tasks, Sahim dismissed his frightened family, his captains, and his fawning courtiers. Only a handful of his personal guard remained. Prince Shobbat was among the. last to leave, tossing aside an empty grape stem before going out the double doors.