Corry rolled over and sat up. The glowing clock on the table read 6:30. Faint sunlight filtered through the blinds. The lump under the covers in the other bed was still rising and falling rhythmically. Corry could hear pleasant sizzling and clinking coming from the kitchen, along with warm smells of biscuits and coffee and eggs.
He rose and dressed, then tiptoed into the hall, through a door into the garage, and then outside. A five-foot chain-link fence ran along the back of the property, bordering an orange grove. Corry inhaled deeply, drinking in the scent of orange blossoms and the blue of the Florida sky.
He stepped onto the cool concrete sidewalk. Corry could not remember seeing orange groves until the drive yesterday from Orlando. The trees crowded close together in staggered rows, their deep green leaves contrasting with the pale gray sugar sand between. Corry found the grove appealing. It reminded him of the cowry in a way he could not explain. He made his way along the sidewalk until he reached a gate.
At that moment one of the Tembril’s cats came strolling through the back garden to have a dust bath on the sidewalk at Corry’s feet. He smiled and crouched to pet her. Bent close to the ground, Corry could look beneath the first row of trees. To his surprise, he saw a pair of dainty hooves and slender legs. They looked quite small, and Corry wondered if it might be a baby deer.
Slowly he stood up. Although he could not see the hooves from this angle, he fancied he saw a trace of brown fur between the leaves. Corry maneuvered the gate open and stepped onto the sugar sand.
“Corry!”
He turned toward the voice. At the same instant, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a shape bolt from behind the tree and away through the grove.
The voice was Patrick’s, one of the other foster kids. “What are you doing?”
Corry said nothing.
Patrick eyed him with a frown. “Mrs. Tembril says to come in and help with breakfast.”
Corry gave the grove another long stare before moving away. He was almost certain the shape had fled on two legs.
* * * *
“Mrs. Tembril, who lives in the grove?”
“I don’t think anyone lives out there.” She glanced at her husband.
He shook his head. “A juice company owns it. Pickers harvest the oranges, but they’re gone now. I don’t want you wandering around in the grove, Corry.”
Corry kept his expression neutral. “I thought I saw a deer out there this morning.”
Martin, who’d stayed in the house several summers, spoke up. “You’ll see plenty more if you keep your eyes open—raccoons, rabbits, armadillos, foxes. This area has a lot of wildlife.”
Corry nodded. “Wildlife. Yeah.”
* * * *
The Tembrils said Corry needed to earn his room and board, and they had an endless list of small maintenance items for their foster kids to complete. Patrick called it slave labor, but it was still better than summer at the children’s home, so nobody complained very loudly.
An hour or two before sundown, everyone was usually permitted free time. Patrick and Martin liked to watch TV, but Corry wanted time alone. He went for long walks, explored palmetto and scrub oak thickets, examined gopher tortoises, startled armadillos, and chased the occasional snake through the long grass.
Every day Corry carried the cowry shell in his pocket, and he did not know why.
* * * *
One evening Corry wandered to the lake east of the house. It was an attractive spot, smelling of pine and leaf mold. In one direction a trail ran to the edge of the orange grove, where a break in the palmetto hedge gave a glimpse of the orange trees.
As Corry walked, he thought he heard faint music, like a flute or recorder. He thought it might be coming from the direction of the grove, although it was so faint he could not be sure. Soon after he reached the lake, the music ceased.
Corry paused on the shore, watching the minnows dart. As he squatted, his eyes strayed upward, and he froze. Above his own reflection, he saw a girl’s face.
“Thul tulsa?” he whispered. Corry did not know what the words meant.
This girl was older than he and had a wildness about her that was at once charming and intimidating. Her ears appeared to be pointed, though it was difficult to tell because they were also tufted with long, soft fur around the upper rim. A few locks of her thick hair cascaded over one shoulder, and she wore a delicate chain around her neck that dangled in a sharp V.
After a few seconds Corry reached out to touch the face in the water. Instantly it vanished. He scrambled to his feet, only to find she was already about ten yards away towards the grove.
The girl wasn’t human. Her legs were covered in thick cinnamon fur and ended in split hooves. She wore a long tunic of brown cloth, belted at the waist. Corry was so interested in her hooves that he hardly noticed the rest of her. They were, in fact, deer hooves, as her legs were deer legs. Her skin was about the same color as her fur. For an instant, she remained as still as some delightful painting, one hand gripping the end of the chain about her neck.
At last Corry stepped forward.
The girl whirled with the fluid grace of a wild animal and bounded toward the grove. As she turned, Corry caught a brief glimpse of a six-inch deer tail beneath the flying skirt, snowy underside turned up in alarm. Before he could run four steps, she was beside the break in the palmetto hedge. She hesitated, watching Corry as he raced towards her. Then she turned without a sound and vanished among the trees.
* * * *
The creature was called a faun. Corry found pictures of the mythical beast online. He lay on his bed for a long time that evening, still fully clothed, thinking. Patrick came in and got ready for bed. The lights had been out for five minutes when Corry terrified his roommate by leaping suddenly to his feet. “It means fauness!”
Patrick sat up grumbling, but Corry had already gone into the bathroom and begun getting undressed. “For just a moment,” he muttered, “I was thinking in that other language. Tulsa means lady...or something like it. And thul means fauness.”
Chapter 2. Music in the Dark
They say it was a trinket in the Temple of the Creator for a thousand thousand years before it came into Panamindorah. They say he commissioned a shelt to bear it in his service. They say I lost it, which is not quite true. Gabalon stole it from me, but only because I was careless.
—Archemais, A Wizard’s History of Panamindorah
From that day on, Corry spent every evening beside the lake. On the fifth day, he was trudging home near dark when he heard soft music. Moving furtively, he started back towards the opening in the palmetto hedge. Corry poked his head around a tree to have a look at the grove and something hit him between the eyes. Corry crumpled over. Through his pain, he was dimly aware that the projectile had glanced off him to land with a plop in the lake.
“No, no.”
Corry squinted up at the voice. Through doubled vision, he saw a deer—bone white, like a ghost in the gathering gloom. Atop her back sat the fauness. As Corry watched, she hopped down. The fauness walked around him, scanning the sand. She took no more notice of Corry than she might of a toad.
His vision was beginning to steady. He tried to stand up. “What are you doing?”
The fauness stiffened and turned slowly. “What did you say?” She did not speak English. Her words seemed to Corry like the face of an old friend, half-forgotten and somewhat aged.
“I said, ‘What are you doing?’ What did you just throw at me?”
She looked as though she’d been hit with something herself. “How do you speak my language?”
“I don’t know.”
She smiled. “You speak strangely—in the old way. Perhaps it is a property of the music.”
“What music?”
She shook her head. “What happened to the thing that hit you?”
“I think it fell in the lake.”
She straightened up. “Oh. Good.” She turned, took a running leap, and mounted her deer.
Another moment, and it would be too dark to even contemplate a search. Corry stripped off his shoes and stepped into the water. He reached the spot while still only thigh deep, bent, and plunged his arm to the shoulder in the murk. His head throbbed. His fingers trailed along the slimy bottom. Don’t think of alligators, don’t think of alligators.
His fingers touched metal, a thin chain. Corry grabbed it and headed for the shore. He could tell without looking that the chain was a necklace, and it had something hanging on it. He slogged up the bank and sat down beside his shoes, shivering. Then he raised his prize. To his amazement, he could see no object, although the chain hung down in a sharp V. Corry grasped at the point of the V and felt a solid weight. He blinked hard in the deepening twilight. He could see...something, traced in water droplets. He closed both his hands around the object. Amazing! He was definitely holding something, and he even thought he recognized the shape.
* * * *
In his bathroom at the Tembril’s, Corry shut the door and turned on the sink. He placed his hand under the stream and watched as the water traced a shape out of the air above his palm. Corry reached into his other pocket, took out his cowry, and put it beside the sink. I was right!
The invisible object was shaped like a cowry. It had three holes either side of midline and a hole at one end. Corry remembered the music he had heard before seeing the fauness. It’s a little flute. On one side of the flute, he found a loop, all of a piece with the instrument, threaded by the chain. She was wearing it around her neck the first time I saw her.
* * * *
The Tembrils did not require housework on Sundays. Lately, Corry had been packing a lunch and leaving for most of the day. One Sunday as he grabbed his backpack and books, Mrs. Tembril surprised him by saying, “Corry I wish you wouldn’t spend all day outside, especially after dark. We’re playing card games this evening. I think you should join us.”
“Alright.”
Mrs. Tembril kept looking at him. “What do you do all day outside, Corry?”
He met her eyes. “I walk.”
“I saw you walking in the orange grove the other day. We told you to stay out of there.”
“I forgot.”
“Perhaps you need a day indoors to help you remember.”
Corry hated to beg, but he hated missing an opportunity even more. “Mrs. Tembril, I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m sorry I disobeyed you. Please let me go out.” He tried to hit the right note of contrition, but the lie stuck in his throat.
“Be back by three. If not, you’ll be grounded for a week. Do you understand, Corry?”
Corry nodded and was out the door before she could say more. He went to the lake, because that was the best way to get into the grove without being seen from the house. A stiff wind was whipping off the water, blowing his hair into a dark tangle as he entered the trees. Three o’clock. He’d wanted the whole day. He felt angry and sad and frustrated.
Corry tramped some distance into the trees, then crawled beneath an old, gnarled canopy of branches and made himself comfortable. The sugar sand drank sound as rapaciously as it drank water. The deep silence calmed him. He read for a while and ate his lunch, then played a bit on the flute. He thought he had the song almost right, but nothing interesting happened.
Corry opened his book again. The day was hot, and his meal began to make him sleepy. He never quite knew when he dropped the book on his knees and nodded off.
* * * *
Corry’s eyes snapped open. How long have I been asleep? The light had weakened, and long shadows stretched beneath the tree. Corry looked at his watch. Four thirty?
He nearly panicked. Mrs. Tembril will never let me out the door again. She might even send me back to the orphanage!
Formulating excuses furiously, Corry hefted his pack, clambered from under the tree, and started towards the house at a run. Sloshing through the sand, Corry counted the rows. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven... How far did I go? He stopped. This can't be right. I should have reached the house by now.
T-thump. T-thump. With only the briefest of warnings, three deer raced out of the trees, all brown, all bearing riders. Corry stumbled back as they jumped over him. The riders were fauns. The foremost wore a wide-brimmed hat with a long, green plume bobbing over the back.
Heart thumping, Corry stared after them. Then he heard another sound. Corry turned. Not five feet in front of him crouched an enormous gray spotted cat.
It was, of all things, a snow leopard. The cat didn’t seem to see Corry, who jumped out of its path just in time as it bounded after the deer. Corry hardly had a chance to feel relief before a number of black leopards charged out of the trees after the snow leopard.
Corry didn’t hesitate. He turned to follow them.
Chapter 3. Laven-lay
Walking the streets of Laven-lay, one finds it difficult to imagine that this city has been embroiled in so many wars. It is a national capital that looks more like a garden, sleeping in the sunshine, asking only to be left alone.
—Lasa, Tour the Endless Wood
Corry had not been following the smeared footprints for five minutes before he noticed something odd happening to the grove. The rows were becoming more crooked, the trees wilder. Corry rubbed his eyes. The world felt cluttered, overlapping. His ears rang with a sound on the edge of hearing, like wind in a door. He thought he saw things out of the corners of his eyes—taller trees, ferns and rocks, a whole forest. But when he turned, they were gone.
He knew he was coming to a wood. He knew it long before the rows vanished, before the sand became soil, before the last of the wild orange trees disappeared among taller, darker firs. Around dusk he lost the trail of the cats and deer, but he kept moving. Unfamiliar birds sang in the twilight. The noise in his ears had ebbed away. He caught the scent of the warm earth, perfused occasionally with the delicate scent of flowers.
Darkness fell and a mist rose. Corry found it difficult to see any distance. He thought uneasily of leopards. His shoes were full of sand, and he took them off to empty them. He sat still, letting the sweat dry on his body and listening to the strange birds and insects.
The moon was rising above the trees. Corry stared at it. The disc was blood red and about three times the size that the moon should have been. On the opposite side of the sky he saw another moon. This one was yellow and smaller than Earth’s. It shone in a golden sickle above the trees. Something deep inside Corry stirred. “Runner,” he said aloud. He did not say it in English. He looked at the full red moon for a while and finally said, “The Dragon.”
* * * *
“Rise slowly. No sudden movements.”
Corry opened his eyes. Early morning sunlight dazzled off a cluster of swords pointed in his general direction. Front and center stood the faun with the green-plumed hat. The faun was shorter than Corry, slim and dressed in a dark green tunic and black belt. He had a scar across his right cheek and several more running up his left arm.
“Who are you and where do you come from? Be quick.”
Corry sat up, wincing at stiff muscles. The faun with the hat poked him. “Answer me.”
Corry scowled. He didn’t trust his command of the language and wasn’t sure what to say in any case. “My name is Corry.”
One of the fauns behind him snickered. He heard someone whisper, “Half-wit.”
The lead faun spoke again, slowly, as if to a small child. “What kind of shelt are you? Why are you here?”
“Perhaps he’s drunk,” offered someone, but the lead faun only snorted.
Still speaki
ng to Corry, he said, “Why do you wear shoes and such outlandish clothing? Are you a wolfling? Where is your sword...or are you a female?”
Corry’s head was throbbing with fragmented memories, brought suddenly to life by the fauns and the language they spoke. He wanted to tell them to be quiet and let him think.
The lead faun poked him again with his sword. “Come, little filly, tell us whose mother sent you to the market, and perhaps we’ll let you go.”
This time Corry’s hand flew to the sword and closed around it. Blood welled between his fingers. “Beware you touch me again!”
The faun jumped back as though at a snake.
Corry blinked and looked down at his own blood.
The faun darted forward, caught one of Corry’s shoes, and wrenched it free.
Gasps of horror. “It’s a wizard!” whispered someone.
But their leader shook his head. “A weak-blooded iteration, spying for the cats. If it had powers, it would have used them by now. Its threats are empty. Tie it.”
Fauns swarmed forward and bound Corry, who did not resist. He felt stupid and sluggish. Why did I provoke them? Why do they care about my feet?
“Shall we hang him here, Syrill?”
Corry looked up sharply. Too late, he realized exactly how much trouble he was in.
Syrill shook his head.
“We take him back to Laven-lay. He will tell us what he knows, even if we have to torture it from him.”
The Prophet of Panamindorah - Complete Trilogy Page 2
