For a moment Leesha was speechless. Then she started to sputter.
Corry cut her off. “I’m telling you this because you will probably rule Filinia one day. You may rule it now, but that makes you a target. Your survival and perhaps mine, too, depends on your being smart. Tolomy is valuable. You need to stop competing with him and use him.”
Leesha’s wet fur stood out at every possible angle. Her tail was lashing furiously. “I am not the queen of Filinia! My father is not dead!”
He opened his mouth to say he hoped she was right, but she didn’t give him time. “And I do not pick on Tolomy! Don’t you know that ordinarily the alpha cubs fight to the death? Tolomy would have been in a vulture’s belly long ago if I didn’t love him, didn’t protect him!”
“I didn’t say you wanted to kill him,” said Corry, but Leesha had already stormed out of the room.
Corry finished his bath and dried himself. He paused at seeing a set of clothes laid out for him. The clothes were a little small, but they fit. They’d definitely be too small for our host. Where could they have come from? This led to unpleasant reflections about those who might have seen this clearing, but never “lived to tell.” Corry left by the passage Leesha had taken. After a short tunnel, he emerged into the night air. Lavender crunched under his feet and released its satiny odor. All three moons were up, even blue Wanderer, peaking over the hedge of thorns.
Corry cast about until he noticed a pale object by the stream. She was deeply shrouded in the low branches of a tree. Corry had to crawl to get to her. Leesha made no attempt to move away, only stared at Runner’s fragmented face in the water. Corry sat down beside her and propped his elbows on his knees. For a moment they were silent, then, “This is the tree the bug juice comes from,” said Leesha. “I can smell it.”
Corry nodded. After a while, he said, “You’re a terrible color for camouflage.”
“I wear coal dust when I’m hunting.” Her ears drooped. She spoke softly. “I never meant to hurt him.”
Corry chuckled. “I hardly think you hurt him. This isn’t about Tolomy. It’s about you, the future queen of Filinia, who will soon be too large to grab by the ear.” On an impulse, he reached out and pulled her into his lap. She was much too big, perhaps thirty-five or forty pounds, but for one moment, she relaxed completely and he was able to cradle her head against his chest. He stroked her head as a mother cat might lick a cub.
“Father’s not dead,” she whispered.
“Perhaps not, but you’re still the one who’s free. The future of Filinia rests with you.”
Her ears flattened. “You don’t understand. If father were dead, the first thing that would happen is the lions would try to take the throne. They’ve never forgotten they used to rule, and they’re far more numerous than we tigers.”
Corry frowned. “Would the other cats let the lions kill you?”
“I don’t know. They would be afraid. Most of the ones who tried to help us wouldn’t really be our friends. They’d be doing it because they aren’t strong enough to rule on their own and would think they could rule through us.” She hesitated. “We could use that—their greed. I suppose it’s what my grandfather would have done.” Her voice had turned bitter.
Corry was surprised. A moment’s reflection told him that he shouldn’t have been. “Demitri.”
“Yes. He was a monster, but he was good at getting things done. Father doesn’t rule that way. He doesn’t treat us the way Demitri treated him.”
Corry thought he’d heard the whole gamete of emotions from Leesha in the last two days, but this acid bitterness was new. “What do you mean?”
“Father won’t make me kill Tolomy. He wants everyone to live peacefully. He even saved the lives of a couple of wolflings during the sack of Sardor-de-lor when he was only a cub. He told me once. And he stopped the war. He didn’t even want to keep killing fauns.”
“I thought Syrill stopped the war,” said Corry carefully, “or Meuril making a deal with your father.”
Leesha tossed her head. “Never would have happened if father hadn’t let it happen. He planned it because he wanted peace and didn’t know any other way to make the cats stop fighting. Demitri started the war, but father stopped it.”
Chapter 7. In the Dungeon Pit
Why did Targon leave Lexis alone with Syrill? Several answers have been offered, varying from the preparations of war to complete disinterest. The scholars give Targon too little credit. He was a keen student of character. He left only because he knew Lexis would never perform for an audience.
—Archemais, A Wizard’s History of Panamindorah
The air in the dungeon pit had grown so still that Syrill could hear the crackle of the torches above. Lexis stood no more than five paces from him. Syrill could see the individual whiskers around the moist, black nose and the fine contours of the muscles. He could also see crimson stains in the white fur, and Lexis’s first steps had betrayed a limp.
But he’s not crippled, thought Syrill, and he could kill me even if he was. Syrill glanced at Targon’s whip, still in his hand. He had never used such a weapon, and even if he had known how, the centaur lash was far too long and heavy for a faun. Nevertheless, Syrill knew it was his only hope. He should think of some way to use it, some way to— No. He dropped the whip.
A rumble, and Lexis’ muzzle crinkled. “Don’t you dare!” He lunged.
Syrill stumbled backwards. He was expecting claws, but Lexis only flung him back into the center of the pit. “Stand and fight, you claw-less leaf-eater! Not going to give up now, are you? You never have before, you rat-chasing mongrel. Get up!”
Syrill lay on his back, dazed. Lexis’s paw had lifted him well into the air. Is this his way of playing? Lexis’s jaws closed on his arm. Syrill jerked up, but when he realized he couldn’t pull away, he stopped struggling. Lexis’s eyes, now uncomfortably close, bored into his. Syrill looked away. He’ll pull my arm off now. It’ll hurt horribly, but I’ll bleed to death in no time.
Lexis released him. “So. You really have quit.” He sounded disgusted.
“How long are you going to drag this out?”
“I’m not Targon’s pet griffin to dispose of prisoners. He can kill you himself.”
Syrill rose unsteadily and backed away.
“She’s here,” rasped Lexis, “somewhere. I heard her screaming not two watches ago.”
Syrill didn’t have to ask whom Lexis meant. He licked his dry lips. The consequences of what he had done were worming their way into his brain. Blix. Corellian. Capricia.
“She’s as good as dead,” continued Lexis. “When he finds she can’t give him what he wants, he’ll kill her. And you, when he gets around to it. And me; of course, me. That was the point, after all. Was it worth the price, general?”
Syrill trembled. The word traitor kept running through his mind with exactly that heavy sneer in which Targon had said it. “Danda-lay will be ours within the hour.” Syrill staggered back against the wall and slipped to the ground. He drew his knees up and buried his face in his arms as his shoulders began to shake.
When Syrill mastered the spasm, he raised his head and saw that Lexis had gone to the far side of the pit and lain down. “Why did you do it? Did you really hate me so much?”
“It wasn’t supposed to be this way.”
“It never is.”
“Capricia was never to be hurt,” whispered Syrill, “nor even to leave Port Ory. Just sleep for a time, and—” His face sank back into his arms.
When Syrill raised his head the second time, Lexis was sitting up looking at him. Syrill made as though to lower his head again, then sprang to his feet and took a drunken bound towards Lexis. He had no clear idea what he intended to do, only that he could no longer endure his own thoughts. If he had had a sword, he would have fallen on it, but he had only the tiger.
Lexis jumped lightly over Syrill, knocked his feet from under him, and pinned him to the ground on his belly. Syrill fought this time.
He landed a solid kick to Lexis’s leg before the tiger managed to move away from his hooves. Lexis grunted, but kept his weight on Syrill’s back.
“You were going to frame me for her kidnapping?” Lexis asked, as though their conversation had never lagged.
“Yes!” snarled Syrill. Reaching behind, he found a handful of fur and ripped it out.
“And the centaurs and the swamp fauns were to help for...what? A bit of Canisaria?”
“Right again,” panted Syrill. The weight of Lexis’s paw was making it difficult to breath.
Lexis seemed to consider. Syrill was beginning to see spots. “Syrill, where does this unremitting hatred of yours come from? You won the war. What more did you want?”
“Don’t...trust...you,” managed Syrill.
“I’ve noticed.”
“Went...over my...head.”
“Went over your head,” sneered Lexis. “Tell me truly, Syrill, would you have listened to me if I had come into your camp and asked for a parley? Would you even have let me get past the sentries without shooting me? You certainly wouldn’t have let me leave under any conditions but a full and humiliating surrender, and you would not have seen the good in an alliance, but it has done good. Meuril saw that, but you never...” His voice was getting fainter. Syrill felt himself slipping and let go.
He hadn’t been gone long before he came swimming back up out of the blackness. Something wet and painfully rough seemed to be taking the skin off his face. Syrill batted at it feebly. He opened his eyes.
Lexis examined him narrowly. “You should have told me you couldn’t breathe.”
Syrill sat up. Exhaustion, shock, and pain finally overcame him, and he wretched violently. “You,” he said between gasps, “were always...cruel.”
“I? For not killing you? What would I gain from that?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Syrill wiped his raw mouth on his sleeve. “Revenge, satisfaction, a meal?”
“I am hungry.”
Syrill frowned. “I was going to say something back there: You can’t tell me I trapped you against the river, you gave up and we all went home, the end. You knew about at least part of that trap. I don’t trust you because I know you lost on purpose.” I’ve never said it so clearly, he thought. Not to Meuril, not to my officers, not to Capricia.
Lexis stared at him. Finally, he said, “I wish you had told me that before.”
“I couldn’t,” whispered Syrill. I couldn’t even tell myself.
“You think I patronized you.”
“Yes.”
“Let you win and thought you were too stupid to see it.”
“Yes.”
“And you couldn’t tell Meuril, because it would mean admitting that you didn’t win the war at all, and—”
“I’m too much of an arrogant jackass to do that, yes.”
Lexis flexed his claws thoughtfully. “Well, you’re right.”
Syrill laughed—an odd, broken sound in the dungeon.
“I meant,” said Lexis with something like a smile, “about letting you win. But it wasn’t to patronize you. It was—it is a long story. Would you permit me to tell it another time?”
Syrill looked surprised. “I don’t think I’ll have another time.”
“Oh, I think you will.” Lexis padded over to Targon’s whip. He tossed the long end to Syrill, who followed Lexis’s gaze upwards to the grating. It was designed to trap creatures of Lexis’s size, not small, nimble wood fauns. Syrill tested the weight of the coil a couple of times, then threw it. The whip fell short, but the length looked promising. Syrill tried again, this time curling the lash around a bar, but when he pulled, it tumbled back down.
“The other end,” sighed Lexis.
Syrill’s eyes lit on the long, iron handle. He started to throw it, then stopped. “You had this all worked out, didn’t you? From the moment he threw me in here.”
“Not all of it.”
“Enough of it.” Syrill toyed with the handle. “What if I leave and don’t let you out?”
“Then I’ll probably die.”
“If I do let you out, how do I know you won’t kill me as soon as you’re free?”
Lexis half smiled. “You don’t. But I won’t.”
Syrill crossed his arms and tapped a hoof. “What if I tell you that I won’t let you out?”
Lexis cocked his head. “Is this a guessing game, Syrill, because I don’t see the point?”
“I won’t.” Syrill threw the whip handle first, and it lodged between two bars. He tugged on it, then jumped up and dangled. It held. “I won’t let you out,” he repeated.
Lexis lay down with his chin on his paws. “You might let Capricia out, though. I think she’s in the cells opposite this pit. Go on, Syrill; you’re wasting time.”
Chapter 8. Unpleasant surprises
Griffin: a quadropedavian indigenous to the far northern isles. They have four paws and a tufted tail. Their faces are beaked and eagle-like, with tufted ears. They are partially feathered, with fur covering most of their bodies. Griffins have a round pupil, and their shelts, called grishnards, closely resemble the extinct lion shelt. Griffins and grishnards have been migrating south into shavier/ pegasus territory over the last twenty years, and hostilities between the two groups blossomed into war five years ago. The council of Middle Panamindorah gives its unofficial support to the pegasus and their shelts. Captured griffins may occasionally be purchased from shavier merchants in Iron Mountain, where they are prized for the fighting pits.
—Capricia Sor, A Concise History of Panamindorah
Jubal sat straight up in bed. He took a couple of quick breaths, then relaxed a little. The star called the Unicorn’s Eye had not yet risen above his windowsill. Only the first watch of the night. Jubal pulled his knees up to his chin and rubbed his head. Something was wrong. What?
His window overlooked the pool in the central courtyard. He rose and walked to it, rubbing his sleep-sluggish eyes. For a moment he admired the face of Blue Moon on the water. It wasn’t this clear earlier. Jubal stiffened. Because my room overlooks a flood tunnel! When he’d gone to bed, he could hear it separate from the falls—a dull throbbing. And now—silence.
Jubal reached his door in one bound, flung it open, and raced down the stairs. “WAKE UP! WAKE UP! THE TUNNELS ARE DRAINED!”
On second thought, he ran back up and scrambled into his clothes, pulling his sword belt on so roughly he tore the fabric of his tunic. Already he could hear shouts of alarm from the ground floors. A sick feeling swept over him as he listened to the rising tide—the screams of unwary, half asleep cliff fauns. High in one of the towers, an alarm bell began to clang. The sound was like a death knell.
* * * *
Syrill climbed to the top of the whip, expecting all the while to feel claws dragging him down. When he reached the bars, he got hold of one and pulled himself high enough to see there were no centaurs in the room. Syrill pulled himself out and clambered over the bars to the edge of the pit. He glanced down. Lexis hadn’t stirred. He looked almost small in the shadows below. Syrill felt a tightness in his throat. “I lied.”
Lexis sat up and stretched. “I know. Hurry before the guards come back.”
To Syrill’s relief, the windlass did not require the strength of a centaur. Nevertheless, it took him several minutes, grunting and straining, to raise the grating enough for Lexis to jump out. “I just had to make sure you weren’t—” began Syrill.
Lexis was already starting away. “I know, I know.”
“How long has it been since you had water?”
“A while.”
“How long have you been in the—”
“I don’t know, Syrill; there’s no day and night down here. There are guards, and I can’t think why they haven’t found us yet.”
The reason became apparent as soon as they came around back of the main amphitheater, where the inhabitants of the cages were tended. It wasn’t clear which bit of the guard they had gotten hold of, but th
e essential bits must have come off quickly. What remained lay slumped against the bars, with the hungry griffins tearing at him. They stopped when they saw Lexis and Syrill, their long necks stretching outward. They began to trill.
Lexis hesitated, then started towards them.
Syrill grabbed his tail. “Don’t be a fool; can’t you see what they’ve done to—”
Lexis turned so sharply that Syrill nearly fell over backwards. “Don’t,” growled Lexis, “ever do that again.”
“Tail?” Syrill managed.
“Yes.” Lexis turned back to the griffins. “I think they want us to let them out.”
“Of course they do! Then they’ll have even more to eat.”
Lexis rumbled at them. He cocked his head and listened to their clucking, chirping, growling, and trilling. “I think,” he said slowly, “they’re proposing to create a distraction for us.”
“Why would they do that?”
“They want to get out of the mountain. That’s the distraction.”
“How can you understand them?”
“Their language is...similar...to Filinian.”
“Doesn’t sound similar.”
Lexis watched them closely. Then he walked up to the bars. Syrill flinched as the first griffin thrust his beak into Lexis’s fur, but the griffin only butted his shoulder, making a noise almost like a purr. Next moment, their heads were all around Lexis, plucking at him, muttering in their strange tongue. Several began digging wildly at the stone floor. One grew so excited that he flapped his wings, bounced into the air, and struck his head against the roof. He landed awkwardly, shook feathers everywhere, and screamed at Syrill.
“Alright, alright.” Syrill came forward, still wary of their beaks. He found a ring of keys on the dead guard, as well as a dagger that he tucked in his belt. He looked once more at Lexis, then unlocked the cage door, and threw it open.
A mad rush, a flurry of gold and white and speckled feathers, and the air rang with exultant shrieks. Syrill counted at least a dozen griffins. They circled the high-ceilinged room before dropping down to vanish along the passage through which Syrill had first come.
The Prophet of Panamindorah - Complete Trilogy Page 29
