The Fugitive Prince (Bell Mountain)

by Lee Duigon

  Three days into his journey, in the middle of the day, Ryons saw black smoke rising ahead of him; but whatever was burning was hidden behind a stand of gnarled, twisted waxbushes. The sun glinted off their shiny leaves, and above them fluttered a multitude of sparrows, feeding on the various insects attracted to the waxbushes’ scent. The presence of the birds suggested there was nothing to fear. Ryons advanced—cautiously, with a hand on the nape of Cavall’s neck. Cavall would warn him if there was any danger.

  The boy and the dog crept up close to the waxbushes. Ryons dropped to his hands and knees and crawled in among the stunted tress, Cavall behind him. The sparrows didn’t like it, and chirped a protest. It was shadowy under all that foliage, with a lot of tiny bugs that persistently flew into your face. Ryons felt the hairs standing up on Cavall’s neck; but the great hound had too much sense to give away their position by growling.

  They reached a point where they could see what lay on the other side of the trees, and there they froze.

  It was a wagon that was burning. Its wheels were broken, and there was no sign of any horses, mules, or oxen that might have pulled it. Black smoke billowed up from it.

  Sitting beside it, roasting something on a stick, was a tall man in dusty buckskin clothes, with a shapeless cloth cap on his head. Standing beside him—towering over him, in fact—was a gigantic bird with long, strong legs, tiny wings, plumage more like filthy hair than feathers, a long, powerful neck, a head as big as a horse’s head, bright yellow eyes like wicked jewels, and a massive beak with a cruel hook at the end of it.

  Ryons had seen such birds before, but at a healthy distance. Up close, it was a sight to take your breath away. But this killer stood peacefully beside the man, and the man seemed to take no notice of it.

  “Whoever you are in there,” the man sang out, without bothering to look in Ryons’ direction, “you can come on out. We won’t hurt you.”

  Come out—with that murdering great bird standing there? But was it still possible to escape? Ryons didn’t think so.

  “Don’t make us come in after you,” the man said. “It’s too nice a day for that.”

  Ryons crawled out from under the waxbushes and stood up, with one hand holding on to Cavall’s fur. The great bird swiveled its head to look at them, but made no other movement. The man looked at them and smiled.

  “Well, well—a boy and a dog,” he said. “And what might you be doing out here, all alone in bandit country? You could wind up like the folks who owned this wagon.”

  “You’re not a bandit?” Ryons couldn’t help asking.

  “No, not me. I just wander, seeing what’s what. My name is Perkin.” He jerked his head at the bird. “And this is Baby—my baby, actually.”

  Ryons didn’t know how to answer that, and the man laughed at him.

  “It’s true,” he said. “I raised him from a little chick no bigger than my hand. Boy, howdy, did he grow fast! But he’s attached to me, and he won’t go anywhere without me. Don’t be afraid of him. He won’t hurt you unless you try to hurt me. Come and sit down, and have a bite to eat.”

  Cavall didn’t seem to be too much put off by the bird or the man, so Ryons decided to sit down.

  “What’s your name, boy?”

  “Ryons.”

  “Just like the king, eh? Ever seen him?”

  “No.” Ryons shook his head. Maybe he should have lied about his name, but it was too late now.

  “Never been in Obann City, myself,” Perkin said. “I don’t think they’d let me in with Baby, and I won’t go without him.” He looked up at the bird. “Sit down, Baby.” And the killer sat down next to him. “Where are you headed, Ryons—if you don’t mind my asking?”

  Ryons shrugged. “Lintum Forest,” he answered.

  “That’s a long way off. And the country’s full of bandits. It’s dangerous. Maybe I’d better go with you for a ways.”

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  “I can do anything I please,” Perkin said. “I want to protect you from the bandits. You see this wagon? There were people in it. The bandits took them to sell them into slavery, or else just kill them for the fun of it. They took the animals, too, and everything that was in the wagon. They didn’t want the wagon, so they broke it up and burned it. I saw the whole business from a hilltop. But there were an even dozen of them, all on horseback, so Baby and I didn’t interfere. When the bandits left, I came down to cook my dinner on the fire.”

  He withdrew the stick from the flames, sniffed it, and took a little taste. He tore off a piece and tossed it into the air. Baby caught it and swallowed it.

  “Roast rabbit,” he said. “Have some.”

  It was delicious, and finished all too soon. Cavall got a share, too. Perkin yawned and stood up.

  “Let’s move on,” he said. “It’s a nice day for a walk, and it’s a long way to Lintum Forest.” Ryons noticed, then, that he wore a short sword in a leather sheath and had a sling tucked into his belt.

  Why would the stranger want to protect him? Maybe it was a trick. Maybe he and Cavall could quietly leave him during the night, Ryons thought. But he said, “It’s good of you to travel with me, sir. Thank you.”

  Perkin had a lean, tired, weather-beaten face; but when he grinned at Ryons, he looked full of life and ready for anything.

  “It’s my pleasure to do it,” he said. “Anyhow, I wouldn’t like to trip over your skeleton someday and think it was my fault you were killed. Besides, you’ll be someone to talk to for a few days.”

  Ryons walked off with the wanderer, with the enormous killer bird stalking ahead of them and Cavall sticking close to Ryons’ side. He hadn’t entirely made up his mind about these strangers. But Ryons reminded himself that he was under God’s protection, and silently prayed it would continue to be so.

  Chapter 13

  How Dakl Came to the Palace

  Gurun was not really queen of anything, although everybody called her one and she’d given up trying to make them stop. The people of the city cheered her whenever they saw her (which she didn’t understand), and the chiefs accepted her because she, like Obst, had the gift of understanding tongues.

  But now or never, she supposed, she would have to play the queen. If the chiefs decided to cast her out of the city, so be it.

  She went to see the Chief Spy in his office, and she went alone, telling no one of her errand. It used to be a little-used storeroom in a remote corner of the sprawling government edifice that was now the royal palace. For all most people in the palace knew, it still was.

  “How may I serve you?” Gallgoid asked. He didn’t say “Your Majesty.” But he did go to his door, peer up and down the hall before shutting it, and move a chair into position for her. Nor did he go back behind his desk until she was seated.

  “I want to ask you to do something,” she said. “It’s for the good of the kingdom; but for the time being, no one else must know about it.”

  “I try always to act for the good of the kingdom,” Gallgoid said. Gurun knew he’d once committed treason, but that was in the past and it couldn’t concern her now.

  “I want you to arrest a man named Vallach Vair and all his household,” Gurun said. “He has been plotting against the king.”

  Gallgoid nodded. “I’ve heard this,” he said.

  “There is a slave woman in his house named Dakl. She must not be harmed in any way, but brought to me instead—secretly, if possible.”

  “I think it would be best if she were taken with the rest of the household and separated later,” Gallgoid said. “Also, Vallach Vair has a wife, a son who is a young man but still lives in his father’s house, and a daughter who is still a child. There are eight slaves in the household, including Dakl.”

  “You do know something about this!” said Gurun.

  “It’s my business to know. You know something, too; but I won’t ask you how you came to know it. I’ll arrest them all this evening, when they’re home for supper.”

&
nbsp; “I don’t like the idea of arresting the man’s children.”

  “I won’t hurt them,” Gallgoid said.

  “The chiefs complain that you know everything before they know it,” Gurun said.

  “That’s my penance,” Gallgoid said.

  Vallach Vair was having jellied eels for supper. He liked rich foods, and it showed. But this was a supper that was never finished.

  With no forewarning from his doorkeeper, eight men armed with short swords burst into his dining room. He very nearly choked.

  “What’s this!” he growled. The intruders wore no uniforms, no badges, and he took them right away for strong-arm robbers. “You’re making a big mistake, whoever you are!” But he fell silent when he found a sword’s point at his throat.

  “Come with us, Vallach Vair. All of you, come. Don’t struggle or try to escape, or you’ll get hurt.”

  They forced him up from his seat. He had only time to see them doing the same to his wife and children before someone pulled a felt hood down over his head and tightened it around his neck; and then he could see nothing at all.

  Gallgoid only entered the room after all the family had hoods over their faces and their wrists fettered.

  “Those two in the first coach,” he said, “the son and daughter in the second. Don’t question them until I say so.”

  Outside on the street, a cart was already pulling away with Vallach’s slaves huddled in it, cowed by two unsmiling men with swords. Fnaa’s mother, Dakl, was in that cart.

  Gallgoid had the family taken off in closed coaches, then made his own way back to the palace. His agents had heard things about Vallach Vair, but he wondered how Gurun could have heard them. He deemed it best, for the time being, to pretend he’d acted on his own initiative. He would keep Gurun out of it, if he could. It would be safer for her. Having served as an assassin for Lord Reesh, and his confederate in treason, Gallgoid understood the subtleties of such a situation.

  When he got back to the palace, a surprise was waiting for him.

  “They’re dead, sir—both of them, man and wife,” one of his agents told him. “They were dead when we opened the coach to take them out. They must have had poison hidden on their persons.”

  “I didn’t expect that.” Gallgoid shook his head, blaming himself. “Don’t tell the son and daughter, or the slaves. Find a maid to keep the little girl company. I’ll question the son myself.

  “I want the slaves separated for now. They’ll be questioned later. Don’t hurt them or scare them any worse than they’re scared already. But the woman named Dakl, bring her to my office and privately inform Queen Gurun—and no one else.”

  Gurun was in Gallgoid’s office when one of his men brought Dakl there. Gallgoid dismissed him.

  “You are Dakl, the slave?” he said. She nodded. He gestured to Gurun. “Do you know who this is?”

  “My lady, the queen,” said Dakl, and curtseyed. Fnaa looked like her, Gurun thought.

  “Queen Gurun has asked for you to be her personal attendant,” Gallgoid said. “I have not asked her why. But I will ask you something.

  “We believe your master, Vallach Vair, planned treason against the king. We are sure he had partners in his scheme. Can you tell me their names and anything else about them? Take your time, and don’t be afraid. The queen is your protector here, and no harm will come to you.”

  Dakl took a moment to think. Gurun admired her coolness. If she was afraid, it didn’t show.

  “My lord,” she said at last, “there were men who came to my master’s house to see him, and they talked about how they might remove the king and bring back the Oligarchy. I never heard how they meant to do it. They were careful not to be overheard, even by us slaves. But there were two men who once were oligarchs, named Lord Blamor and Lord Gower, and also Prester Gweyr, and a rich man, a merchant, Folo Oych. They were the ones who came most often. There were others who came once or twice, whose names I never knew. That’s all I know, my lord.”

  Gallgoid took some notes, then looked up and nodded at her.

  “You’re free to go now, Dakl—with Queen Gurun. You’d be wise to serve her faithfully.”

  “I will, my lord.”

  When they were gone, Gallgoid sat and reviewed a longer list he’d already made. The names Dakl had given him were on it.

  She hadn’t told him everything she knew: he was sure of that. Gurun was hiding something, too, and had a reason for protecting her. What that reason might be, Gallgoid didn’t know; nor did he want to know. Safer for Gurun if he didn’t know, he thought. He could always find it out later, if he had to.

  Meanwhile, he mused, Obann City was rotten with treason. It was only to be expected. The former oligarchs wanted to be oligarchs again. Many presters and lesser clergy wanted to rebuild the Temple.

  All of this lay just below the surface of life in the city. Deeper down, Gallgoid knew, was worse—much worse. Lord Reesh was dead, and there was no new First Prester; but the evil that he’d hatched lived on after him, and grew. No one knew that better than Gallgoid, who’d served Reesh almost to the end. Vallach Vair and his confederates were insects to be stepped on. Gallgoid would take care of them. But the deeper treason, Lord Reesh’s legacy, now being fed and fostered by the new Thunder King far away in Kara Karram—

  Gallgoid shook his head.

  Gurun took Dakl first to her room, and when they were alone, told her, “Your son, Fnaa, is alive and well, and he has done what he set out to do.”

  Dakl had a firm mastery over herself. Even so, Gurun thought she saw every muscle in Dakl’s body relax when she heard that news.

  “My lady, I’m glad we’ve been of service!” she said.

  “Don’t be too glad, yet. More service has been asked of you.” And Gurun told her that her son was even now living in the palace, impersonating the king—because the king had disappeared and no one knew what to do. “You will pretend to be his new handmaid; that way you can be with him. And you will both be safe, here in the palace.”

  Dakl dropped suddenly to one knee, seized Gurun’s hand, and kissed it.

  “Please don’t!” Gurun said. “They call me a queen, but I’m not one. Not unless King Ryons marries me when he grows up—if we ever see him again. You are a slave no more, Dakl, and I am not your mistress. I’m a plain girl from Fogo Island, which is so far from Obann, it might as well be an island in a dream. So you and I must help one another.”

  “We shall!” said Dakl. Her face lit up when she was happy, and it stopped being a slave face. “But noble is as noble does, as people say in Obann—my lady!”

  “Come now and see your son. He has missed you.”

  Gurun didn’t like to stand there, intruding, as mother and son rejoiced in one another in the king’s bedchamber. She let herself out and did duty as a guard outside the door, sending the Ghol bodyguard away on some unnecessary errand.

  “Well, that’s that,” she thought. “Gallgoid will catch all the villains, and the throne is saved—and no king to sit on it! All-Father,” she prayed silently, “protect King Ryons and restore him to us, who love him. But for as long as it must be, let Fnaa be a convincing substitute.”

  Chapter 14

  How Jack Showed Bold Again

  With Gurun spending every possible minute with Fnaa, teaching him how to imitate King Ryons and keeping him away from the chiefs, who knew their king so well, Ellayne and Jack found themselves neglected.

  “We might as well go home—not that anyone would notice if we did,” Ellayne said. It was the morning after they’d told Obst all of Fnaa’s secret. Obst hadn’t been back to see them since; they had no idea of what he might be doing. “Anyone would think we were just ordinary stupid kids,” she grumbled.

  Jack pretended that that didn’t bother him. It didn’t irk him as much as it irked Ellayne, but it did get under his skin; and it troubled him more than it had irked him yesterday.

  “I have a better idea than going home,” he said. “As long as
no one’s paying any attention to us, why don’t we go out and find the king? Wytt might be able to follow his trail.”

  That was about the boldest thing Ellayne had heard Jack say in quite some time, and she hardly knew how to answer him. She’d been afraid he was getting stodgy. Normally he would object that if God hadn’t called them to do something—in a dream, say, or by the word of a prophet—then they were better off not doing it.