* * * *
They traveled all morning. If not for his predicament, Corry might have enjoyed the ride. The deer were larger than Earth deer, flying over the forest floor like shadows.
About noon, they stepped from the trees into a clearing in front of iron-banded gates in a white stone wall. The gates were closed and guarded, but they opened at Syrill’s hail.
Beyond the wall, Corry saw grassy turf, dotted by clumps of trees and tiny pools fed by twinkling brooks. Deer grazed everywhere, and the faun soldiers turned their own mounts loose to join the others. Syrill took charge of Corry as they started up the road on foot. “Welcome to Laven-lay. Enjoy the sunlight while you can.”
Corry wondered again how to explain himself in a way that made sense. The more he thought, the more panicky he felt. The grassy deer park gave way to dirt streets. The houses were predominantly wood with stone trimming. A canopy of trees, vines, and flowering plants covered everything. Fauns moved around him. Often they wore only shirts or vests. Their naked skin ended at their waists, and even though they wore no pants, their dense fur seemed to clothe them. Many of the fauns bowed to Syrill or touched their hats and made way for him. Youngsters playing in the streets stopped to stare at Corry.
At last his escort reached the city center. They crossed a paved drill yard and stopped before the steps of a sprawling castle. Syrill turned around, and Corry saw that all but three of the soldiers had peeled off. “Take him to the dungeons. I’ll be there shortly.”
The fauns took Corry inside and along several corridors as fast as he could trot. Then his guards halted briefly while one fumbled with the keys for another door. Whereas the previous passages had been dingy, they were now standing on white marble in a hallway bright with sunlight. The air wafting from the windows smelled of flowers. The guard finally found the right key, and the door swung back with a leaden groan to reveal a windowless passage, leading downward. One of the soldiers took a torch from a bracket in the wall and lit it. Another took Corry’s arm and propelled him forward.
If I let this go any further, I’m lost. “I’m not a spy!” Corry braced his feet. “I’m a guest in your kingdom! I refuse to be imprisoned without speaking to your king.”
The fauns seemed surprised. From the forest until now, he had come unresisting. “You may speak to General Syrill about that,” said one. “His orders—”
All three fauns let go of Corry so abruptly that he fell backwards out of the doorway and landed on his rump. A faun said something quickly that Corry did not understand. Then one of the fauns said, “Your highness, we are sorry, but the passage to the dungeons requires that we enter the castle at some point—”
“Who is the prisoner?”
Corry was still facing the mouth of the passage, but he went taut at the voice.
“An iteration of diluted blood, your highness. Syrill caught him in the wood and suspects him of spying for the Filinian army. Syrill intends to—”
“Turn him around.”
“Of course, your highness.” The soldier pulled Corry to his feet, spun him around, and pushed his head into an awkward bow. “Give proper respect to the regent and Princess, Capricia Sor.”
It was the fauness! Corry felt weak with relief. She was dressed differently—a coat of pale blue over frilly, white silk, snug around her slender waist. Corry could see why the sight of her had startled the guards. She looked ready to devour someone. With a visible effort at control, she said to the guards, “I know this person. Release him.”
“But, your highness, Syrill said—”
“Syrill was misinformed. Release the prisoner to me, and go about your business.” With a scowl at Corry, the guards cut the rope from his hands and withdrew.
The fauness rounded on him. “Where is it?” she hissed.
“What do you mean?” Corry had been on the verge of thanking her.
“The thing I threw into the lake in your world!”
“Oh, the flute?” Corry reached into his pocket, but Capricia waved her hands.
“Put it away! You— You—! Why—? How—?” Her face turned a shade of lavender that did not match her dress. She seemed to be choking on something.
“Are you alright?” asked Corry.
“No!” she exploded. “You dare—? You had no right to take it!”
“You did throw it away,” said Corry. “You nearly brained me with it.”
She was still speaking. “How did you leave your world?”
“The same way you left it, I suppose. And anyway, it’s not my world. Didn’t you say yourself that I spoke your language? I came from this world, only...I seem to have lost my memory.” He watched her jaw working. “What’s so important about the flute?”
“Silence!” Capricia drew a deep breath. “The hall is no place to speak of this.” She took his arm as though she meant to have it off at the elbow and led him at an uncomfortable speed along a maze of corridors.
At last they started up the winding steps of a tower. Corry was panting by the time they reached the top. He saw a little room, lined on three sides with bookshelves. In the remaining wall, a large window gave an open-air view of the city. Before the window stood a desk, piled with books and serviced with a comfortable looking chair.
“Whose library is this?” asked Corry.
“Mine.” Capricia closed the door behind her and clicked the bolt into place. “Now tell me everything!”
Chapter 4. A Conflict of Interests
Of all the shocks in my life, only one could match that of finding Corry in Laven-lay. The second jolt was yet to come, so I believed I had experienced the worst.
—Capricia Sor, Prelude to War
“There’s not much to tell.” Corry stopped. “There’s not much I can explain,” he corrected.
“Begin to try,” growled Capricia. Her tufted ears were flat back against her head. They looked to Corry like little horns.
“I didn’t belong where you found me,” said Corry. “I belong here, in this world—Panamindorah.” He had not known the word when he started, but it came to him as he spoke.
Capricia seemed unimpressed. “Then why did I find you in the other place?”
“I don’t know. I was found by...people in that world, and they took care of me for...a year, perhaps. I’ve lost my memory. Can you understand that? It was taken from me somehow. Your language, the names of places, the fauns—it all seems familiar. I even remembered the names of the moons last night. The little yellow moon is called the Runner or sometimes the Wolf’s Eye, and the red moon is the Dragon.”
“Yes,” said Capricia. “Dragon Moon, Demon Moon—full last night. The superstitious would consider that an omen. The soldiers probably mentioned it to you on your way here.”
Corry shook his head. “No one told me.”
“Then perhaps you can tell me the name and color of the other moon, the one that was not up last night.”
Corry put a hand to his head. Yes, there is another. After a pause, he shook his head. “I can’t remember.”
Capricia did not seem surprised. “How did you get here?”
“I was in the grove where you found me, and I fell asleep. I had been trying to play the music that I heard before I saw you. When I woke up and started walking towards the house, I was nearly knocked down by a group of fauns on deer-back and some big cats chasing them. I followed their tracks into Panamindorah.”
“Regrettable,” said Capricia. “The music seems to work both ways. Perhaps it has bewitched you. You think you belong here, but you don’t, and you must go back.”
“No.”
Capricia laughed. “You can’t say ‘no’ to me. I am the crown princess and civil regent. I can have you imprisoned. I can decide that Syrill was right.”
“Yes, but you can’t send me back.” He watched her for a moment. “No one else knows, do they? It’s your secret. If you try to make me do something, I can show your guards the flute, as much as it can be shown. They’ll have to believe me.”
Capricia turned pale—mostly, Corry thought, with anger. “You can’t blackmail me!” But she truly did not know how to answer him.
While she simmered, he let his eyes stray to the desk. He was standing almost against it, and a battered volume lay open beside him, partially burned, with the ancient, blackened pages crumbling around the edges. The city had a double outer wall, so that archers might harry any enemy who gained access to the first ring. Watch towers were set at—
“What are you doing?” snapped Capricia.
Corry glanced up. He’d unconsciously run a finger along the words. “This book looks old. Is this about the flute?”
Capricia’s lip curled. “You can’t read that.”
He read it to her. After half a page, she interrupted him. “The meaning of that writing has been lost for a hundred years. You cannot read it.”
Corry cocked an eyebrow. “Do you really think I’m making it up—all that business about walls and towers? I can’t explain it to you, but I can read this. What city is it talking about?”
“Selbis.”
“Where is that?”
Capricia said nothing.
After a moment, Corry asked, “Why did you try to get rid of the flute?”
When it became clear that she would not answer, Corry glanced down at the book. “I could help you translate it.”
“No.” Capricia crossed the small room in two strides and shut the old book. Her bright, brown eyes bored into his. “Corry—”
“My name is Corellian.”
He thought he saw her flinch. “Corellian, if you have any honor or compassion or reason, listen to me: the flute is evil. Its music has bewitched you. Take the flute back to your own world where you belong and it can do no harm.”
Corry felt sorry for her, but he would not agree. “These feelings and memories and ideas were in my head before I ever touched the flute. I won’t go back.”
Capricia’s eyes flashed. Corry could tell she was used to being obeyed and certainly was not used to making an entreaty and being refused. “Very well. Stay. Someone will kill you within a year without my protection. Shelts here do not love iterations.”
“What is an iteration?”
“The misbegotten offspring of wizards and shelts.” Capricia was thinking. “Corry, I can have you killed by those who will not give you time for conversation. I can take the flute and make a better disposal. Your choice is simple. Go back or die.”
“Tonight?” Corry indicated the late afternoon shadows.
“In the morning. You may stay the night.”
“If I can’t change your mind by tomorrow, I’ll go...if you will tell me some things about your world.”
Capricia looked wary, but nodded.
“What is a shelt?”
“Anything in Panamindorah that has a face like ours and walks on two legs is either a shelt, a wizard, or an iteration. But wizards and iterations are rare or extinct.”
“But if iterations are extinct, why did Syrill think that I was one? And how is a shelt different from a faun?”
Capricia opened her mouth, then closed it. “On second thought, there’s no reason for me to tell you these things. I think I have been more than generous in allowing you to stay the night, and now I must explain you to my father. We will leave as soon as possible in the morning.”
* * * *
“King Meuril will see you now,” said a sentry.
Corry and Capricia stood in a circular antechamber. Slanting windows curved around the domed ceiling, letting in cascades of sunlight. Two grand staircases ran up the walls on either side of the room, and a balcony overhung the center. As they stepped into the throne room proper, Corry was dazzled by the variety of plants and the play of sunlight skipping off green-veined marble. The throne itself was a massive wooden seat with carved antlers spreading above it.
The king was not sitting on the throne, but pacing the room with several other fauns. Corry caught sight of Syrill and wondered whether they were discussing his upcoming interrogation. A moment later, he knew the idea was sheer vanity. Syrill was a general and must have more important things to discuss with his king.
As they drew nearer, Capricia took the lead. “A moment of your time, my lord.”
The king moved away from his councilors. Syrill’s eyes flicked over Corry and away, and Corry knew that he’d been dismissed as an item of little importance. Close-to, Meuril looked frail in his rich green robes. He was bald, but had a thick froth of gray hair around his temples and small, keen eyes of the same color. “Capricia, what is this business about an iteration?”
“Father, allow me to introduce Corellian, an orphan from a village in the far west. On our last journey to those provinces I spoke with him and promised him refuge here because of the ill treatment he received from the fauns on account of his iteration blood. Recently wolflings attacked and burned his settlement. Corry alone escaped. He has journeyed far to reach us, trying to enter faun villages, but they rejected him because he does not look like a shelt.”
The king studied Corry, and his face softened. “I, of all shelts, ought to appreciate such a loss. My realm extends its condolences. How old are you, Corellian?”
Corry thought a moment. I suppose it won’t do to say I don’t know. “Fourteen, Sire.”
Meuril smiled. “An excellent age to become an apprentice and adopt a trade.” He paused. “You are strangely dressed, friend. Is it so different where you come from?”
“Very different.”
Meuril nodded. “You may stay here as a guest of the princess until you find other lodging. If you have difficulties with my citizens, we will help you in what ways we can.”
A servant appeared at Meuril’s summons, but Capricia stepped forward. “Father, I will show him to a room.”
* * * *
“I don’t like lying to your father,” said Corry as Capricia opened the door to a guestroom.
“It was necessary.”
Corry glanced at her. “Who are you afraid of? What would it matter if everyone in Panamindorah knew about the flute?”
“Hush! I told you, the hall is not the place to discuss this. And until tomorrow, I’ll take that.” She stepped forward suddenly, reached into his pocket, and took the flute. Then she shut the door, and Corry heard the click of a lock.
Chapter 5. An Introduction to Wolflings
In view of the rapacious nature of the wolfling pack known as the Raiders, I, Meuril Sor, declare the usual bounty of three white cowries tripled for any wolf known to belong to a Raider, and the usual bounty of five white cowries increased to twenty speckled cowries for the capture or proven death of Fenrah Ausla. The bounty will be fifteen speckled cowries for the wolflings Sham Ausla, Sevn of Ivernees, Xerous of Palamine, Lyli of Palamine, Talis of Ivernees, Danzel, Hualien, or any additional members of the Raider pack.
—Book of Bounty Laws, edict by Meuril Sor, Summer 1697
Corry woke to birdsong and a cascade of sunlight streaming through his window. Capricia! He had been angry the night before—as much at himself for reaching into his pocket earlier as at Capricia for taking the flute—but now he felt only a vague panic. In the morning light, he could see that his window opened several stories above a landscaped courtyard. Corry gauged the distance to the ground, but decided that a jump would hurt him.
Fauns had brought him supper and a bath the night before, and he saw that they’d left him breakfast this morning. Corry dressed quickly, helping himself to the tray of fruit and bowl of deer’s milk. Without much hope, he tried the door...and the handle turned. Whoever brought my breakfast must have forgotten to lock it.
Corry opened the door and stepped into the empty hall. He made his way through the airy, sunlit passages, trying to remember the route Capricia had taken. He met an occasional faun, but no one stopped him. A few songbirds were beginning to flit playfully in and out of the rooms when he found a row of tapestries that he remembered. I’m near the throne room.
Corry hurried on, having some vague idea that he would talk to the king and tell him the truth. He soon came out of a passage and saw the silver banister and the staircase descending into the huge antechamber. As he started down, a faun holding a drawn sword burst through one of the doors below and bounded up the stairs.
The stranger was wearing a white tunic and purple cape. He was much paler than the other fauns Corry had seen. His curling, golden hair fell to his shoulders, and as he swept past, Corry caught a glint of blue eyes. Upon reaching the top of the stairs, he raced to the first window, put his hoof on the sill, and stretched out as far out as he could reach. Corry saw that he had curly white fur. “The roof! Hurry!”
A dozen other pale, blond fauns charged up the stairs. Corry pressed himself against the banister as they whisked past to follow the first, who had already disappeared. A memory stirred. They’re a different kind of faun. It annoyed him that he could not identify them.
Corry started walking more quickly and reached the foot of the stairs. As he moved across the antechamber towards the throne room, he caught faint sounds from outside—shouts and the ringing of bells. This is very odd.
Then a shadow appeared in a patch of sunlight at his feet. He glanced up and was slapped in the face by the descending end of a rope. As he watched, someone dropped out of one of the windows around the dome and began to shimmy down. The sun was in his eyes, and he could not see the climber clearly. About three-fourths of the way down, the shelt let go and jumped, rolling away from Corry with a clatter of steel. Corry blinked at the sword.
The newcomer was two-legged and had tufted ears, but she was certainly no faun. She had large paws rather than hooves. Silver gray hairs flecked the cinnamon brown fur of her legs, and a thick, bushy tail bristled behind her. Her breath came quick and hard.
Something clicked in Corry’s mind. He remembered how Capricia had explained him to her father. She said that wolflings burned my village. This is a wolfling, a wolf shelt. Capricia is a deer shelt. That fellow in the purple cape is a sheep shelt. I remember!
The Prophet of Panamindorah - Complete Trilogy Page 3
