“Because you think you’re like Demitri?”
Tolomy didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
Corry thought for a moment. “Leesha didn’t see, you know. She was strangling when you killed those fauns.”
Tolomy felt himself relax a little and hated that it showed. “Leesha hated Demitri and for a good reason.”
“You think she’d hate you, too, if she knew you took after him?”
“I know it.”
“I don’t think Leesha’s as weak as you imagine.”
Tolomy huffed. “I don’t think you understand me, iteration. If father changed his mind today about the succession, if he decided to go back to the old way and put Leesha and I on the Field of Bones next year to fight to the death, I don’t think she would kill me. Not that she couldn’t—although that’s probably true as well—but that she wouldn’t. But I could kill her. I would feel dreadful afterwards, but while I was fighting, while I was killing her, I would enjoy it.” He felt some satisfaction at Corellian’s wince. “So don’t tell me I should be myself.”
There was a long, heavy silence. “Strange,” said Corellian. “Leesha is afraid of the same thing—that she would kill you in the old succession.”
Tolomy growled. “She doesn’t know me. Or...she knows a part of me. Leesha wants...needs something to protect.”
“And so you give it to her,” murmured Corellian. “Interesting.”
“I’m not interesting,” said Tolomy. “Crossbows are interesting. I’m very simple—like a claw.”
“On the contrary, I think you’re one of the most complicated people I’ve ever met.”
Tolomy was staring at the river again. “Leesha likes to jump at me from behind corners. She thinks it’s funny. I’ve asked her to stop. I tell her she frightens me, but she doesn’t understand. What I mean is, I’m terrified that one day she’ll startle me, and before I can think, I’ll do to her what I did to those swamp fauns.”
He glanced at Corry. “But I don’t know what business it is of yours. You come along and stick your nose in the middle of my family’s concerns and behave as though we’re supposed to thank you.”
“I understand,” said Corry looking at the sky.
“You do not unders—!”
“Archemais is my father.”
In the silence that followed, a fish splashed in the stream. Somewhere in the distance, a dog howled. At last, Tolomy said, “Your what?”
“I turned up in Laven-lay unable to remember how I got there. It’s a long story. Just now I broke into his room, and there are pictures—of me when I was younger and of my mother, I think. I suppose she’s dead. And of my uncle. At least, I think that’s who he is.”
Tolomy stared at him. “Your uncle?”
“Gabalon.”
Another long silence. “Oh.”
Corry laughed. Tolomy thought he sounded half mad. “So you see, I do understand about having skeletons in the family closet.”
“Skeletons in the closet,” repeated Tolomy, trying out the phrase and rather liking it.
“Earth expression. Never mind. I thought my other shape was a dragon, but apparently, it’s only a snake.”
Tolomy thought for a moment. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, up there on the cliff—whatever you were, you did fly.”
* * * *
Sharon-zool stared at her officers’ latest report. It had not been a good night. Unfortunately, the fire was only the beginning. She cursed herself again for not remembering the cats. But even if I had remembered them, would I have expected Shadock to use them? She wondered, not for the first time, whether Shadock was dead and one of his generals was making the decisions. This does not have his stamp at all. There’s another mind here—a devious one.
The sewage and the glass—that had been a stroke worthy of Daren. The fire had been the barricade’s intended defense, but the sewage and glass were meant to finish what came after. Already her healers were bringing her dire reports. Scratches and burns that might normally be treated were expected to fester. Swamp fauns frenzied with battle had rushed unfeeling through pools of ground glass and filth. Others had slipped in their retreat from the cats through the flooded plaza and fallen in the muck with scratches and bite wounds. The healers were asking her whether they should remove limbs in order to save lives for the long-term or whether they should leave the limbs intact in order to save fighters for the short-term.
He has, in effect, poisoned us. All he needs to do is hide and wait for us to sicken.
The horrible burns were something else. The sight of shelts, moaning and screaming on the floors of the designated hospital building had caused such a blow to morale that she had ordered that the dying be sped quietly on their way.
Sharon-zool paced her chamber. Who am I fighting? There’s got to be a cliff faun left in there somewhere. I refuse to believe that cats would defend Danda-lay of their own accord.
Whoever was orchestrating them, the cats certainly had saved the palace. She had been ready to enter it herself when the fighting started. Sharon-zool felt the cold breath of disaster but-too-nearly averted. A city at night was just the sort of place in which cats loved to fight, with potential ambush points on every corner. They had chased her soldiers all the way out of the palace and into Danda-lay, where, for a short time, it was feared they would retake the city. However, as her archers found their way to rooftops, and with the coming of daylight, the advantage began to shift in favor of those with arrows and spears. The cats retreated back into the palace, and the exhausted swamp fauns assessed their losses.
I’ll never take the palace by storm, Sharon realized. Not when it’s infested with cats and my soldiers grow weaker by the day. I need fresh troops from Port Ory. Somehow I must force my way far enough inside the palace to shut off the water. In order to do that I must find a weakness in my enemy.
She could think of one. It might not move Shadock, but then she was clearly not fighting Shadock. Sharon-zool made up her mind. She thought for a moment more and decided on a messenger. So they have cats. Well, we have something large and dangerous, too. Aloud, she said to her aid, “Go and get Danthra Michweer.” He and his lizard riders have had more than enough leisure to pillage corpses. Time they put in another day’s work.
Chapter 2. Thunderbolt
Fox shelts: a race of canids small in stature and in number. They have never sought to organize a delegation to the Canisarian government, but exist mainly as wandering entertainers, merchants, furriers, and hired labor. They are somewhat more common in the far south and occasionally interbreed with the more populous wolf shelts, producing a taller hybrid.
—Anson’s Political Encyclopedia of Panamindorah
Sham glared at the wood faun healers. He felt that black was a singularly ill-chosen color for healers’ robes, but there they stood—like carrion crows, he thought—looking at him as though he were a rabid dog who had unaccountably been submitted for their care.
Sham drew in a breath between clenched teeth. “If I wake up again with this poison smeared over me, I will hunt down whoever did it and shove every appalling handful down his throat.” He watched them whispering to each other. As if I could even get out of bed unaided, but they look almost as though they believe me. Sham spoke again, “And don’t imagine I can’t figure out who did it. Every one of you has a signature scent.” The abilities of a wolfling’s nose were legend. What was not such common knowledge was the effect upon it of the aromatic concoction the fauns had been smearing in his wounds. I couldn’t follow a blood trail just now.
The healers glanced at him uneasily, then went back into their huddle. Sham heard most of their whispers, as their drug had done nothing to his ears: “Can’t just let him die!” “But he refuses treatment.” “He can’t refuse treatment.” “I say we tie him down.”
Sham groaned. “I was treating arrow wounds before I could use a bow. Just give me an assistant, a p
ot, a fire, some bandages, some water, some salt, perhaps some tincture of silver. I will do very well. But if anyone recovers from your ministrations, all I can say, is that shelt has a powerful constitution.”
As he spoke, he noticed one of the healer’s assistants—Sham couldn’t imagine what he assisted with, unless the fauns had a steady stream of dislocated centaur femurs—sidling around behind the bed. At the same time, one of the healers extracted a bolus of some chalky material from his robe. Sham knew at once what they meant to do. Tie me and drug me.
“No, look, this isn’t necessary.” He hunched down under his blankets. “There’s no need to—” Sham sprang from the bed. The room reeled as he hit the floor, but he didn’t fall. The healers scattered like frightened hens, but the big assistant came lumbering after him. Sham staggered into the hall and ran straight into Chance, coming from the opposite direction.
Chance took a step back. “What’s going on here?”
Sham sagged against the wall. “They’re trying to kill me, but they’re doing a poor job of it. Perhaps you could show them how it’s done?”
Chance ignored him, speaking to the assistant. “Can you not even handle one half dead wolfling? Get him back in bed.”
The big faun muttered something and picked Sham up, not unkindly. The healer’s voices buzzed like angry wasps as Sham regained his bed. In his dizzy state, he thought they must have multiplied. “He won’t keep the bandages or the ointment on.”
“Has he asked for anything else?” came Chance’s voice.
“Yes. Boiled linen. Boiled water. Boiled salt. His wolfling assistant—surprisingly uncooked. Next he’ll want boiled ointment.”
“That’s the only way your ointment would be safe,” snapped Sham.
“It is not poison!”
Sham fairly howled, “It has mercury in it!”
“Mercury has mystical properties that—”
“If you call madness a mystical property, then, yes, I suppose it does.”
Chance held up his hands. “Enough! Master healer, your disapproval is noted. Now bring him what he asks for—minus the assistant; I’ll see to that.”
Sham slumped back in the bed as the healers huffed out of the room. “Thank you.”
Chance waited until they were gone. “The rest of the Raiders are alive,” he said, answering Sham’s question before he could ask. “So is your wolf, although several others are dead. They are confined to a complex of rooms in the castle, but not to the dungeons, and they are not in chains.”
Sham looked impressed. “We are faun prisoners—?”
“My prisoners.”
“Yes, and he all but leveled a bow on Meuril to keep him from executing you.” They looked up to see Laylan standing in the doorway.
Chance spoke before he could say anything else. “Sham disapproves of the healer’s ointments and wishes to make his own dressings. He’s asked for Talis. You are authorized in the wolfling area; would you go and get her?”
Laylan nodded. “Fenrah’s been asking to see him.”
Chance frowned. “She tried to cut a guard earlier.”
“I believe he was trying to take her weapon,” said Laylan.
“They’re not supposed to have weapons.”
“Yes, well...”
“The wood fauns are jumping at shadows. Just bring Talis for now.”
Laylan inclined his head and went. Chance looked as though he intended to follow. Sham stared after them. Please stay until Talis comes. Don’t leave me alone with these fauns. “What happened,” he blurted, “on the bridge?”
Chance hesitated. Sham’s vertigo had eased, and he thought the faun looked haggard. “The bridge is hollow,” he said.
Sham waited, but there seemed to be no more explanation forthcoming.
Chance turned to go, but Sham spoke again, “They’ve not been smearing that ointment of theirs on your neck, have they? Because if they have, you really should take it off.”
Chance looked at him for a moment, then came slowly and sat down on the stool beside the bed. He unwrapped the scarf he’d wound around his throat. Sham was pleased to see that, although the skin was an extravagant array of bruised colors, little swelling remained. Chance proffered the scarf and Sham took it, sniffing delicately. There was ointment, but not the stuff they’d been smearing on his wounds. “Lacking in medical properties,” he pronounced, “but otherwise harmless.” He handed the scarf back. “Something cold would be better.”
“Mmm.” Chance did not seem to be attending. He rewound the scarf, then leaned forward and rubbed hard at his eyes with the heels of his hands. He remained with his head in his hands for so long that Sham wondered whether he’d fallen asleep. Then he said, “He ran away.”
“Who?”
“My fa— Shadock. He left Danda-lay to the swamp fauns and lizard riders.”
Sham sat very still. I should have let him leave when he wanted to. “I suppose the city was already lost?”
“Perhaps, but the palace guard stayed. He left them with orders to...” Chance drew a breath that shook—whether from anger or sorrow, Sham could not tell— “to defend the city. His city! And they stayed.”
Jubal. Sham felt ill.
Chance’s head snapped up and he said almost savagely, “You wouldn’t have left your city.”
Sham’s gaze dropped to the blankets. “I fled a city once.”
“That was different. You were a child. You weren’t the king. They weren’t your soldiers trapped and dying, not your citizens you’d sworn to defend.” Almost in a whisper, he said, “I’m glad he’s not my father.”
Sham groaned inwardly. I am not the right shelt for this. In his mind, he heard the echo of Fenrah’s words in the cave, “He is the way he is because of us, because of what others have sacrificed for us!”
“And yet,” said Sham, choosing his words with care, “he is.”
Chance took a moment to react. “What did you say?”
“I said: Shadock is your father. At least, insofar as... I mean, I have no reason to believe he’s not,” Sham finished lamely.
Chance’s glare could have melted steel plate. “What would you know about it?”
“I don’t think that’s my place to tell.”
Chance shot to his feet so fast he knocked the stool over. “If you know something about my...my parents,” he bellowed, “you will—!”
Sham had unconsciously turned his head to the side and shut his eyes—a placating gesture among wolves and wolflings. Chance had read enough to understand. “I’m sorry.”
Sham risked a glance and saw that Chance had gone from dangerously unstable to merely unstable. He gestured at Sham. “I’m sorry about that, too.”
Sham glanced down at the vaguely hoof-shaped bruise on his chest, visible in the open V of his hospital robes. “I’m not. Probably kept me from doing something I would have regretted.”
Chance folded his hands behind his back. “I’m certain I would have regretted it more.”
It was a ghastly joke, but it was a joke. Sham smiled. “Talk to your mother. Tell her I sent you.”
Chance shook his head. “I don’t know my mother. I haven’t truly spoken to her since I understood what the word ‘bastard’ meant. I know you better than I know her.” He forced his voice to a normal pitch. “This is not an interrogation, but please tell me what you know.”
Sham thought for a moment. “Tell Fenrah what I said. If she thinks it’s alright, I’ll tell you.”
* * * *
“Sham’s awake and doing well,” said Laylan, “but you can’t see him yet.”
Fenrah was crouching beside one of the wounded wolves in the little courtyard where they’d been confined. “Why?” she asked without looking up.
Laylan shrugged. “The fauns are nervous. Sham has requested assistance from Talis, and I have permission to bring her.”
“Talis is treating some of the others who were hurt. Sham should be brought here.”
Laylan held up
his hands as if to say, I don’t make the rules, but what he actually said was, “There’s a lot of conferencing going on. I think someone may want to speak with a wolfling presently. May I say that you speak for them—all of them, not just the Raider pack?”
Fenrah stood up and wiped her hands on a towel. Then her black eyes turned on Laylan. He was surprised at the anger he saw there and took a step back. “You are of royal blood,” he said. “They all say so, although I’ve heard different versions of the details.”
Fenrah shook her head. Her eyes darted briefly back and forth. Lyli was working on a wolf on the far side of the courtyard, Hualien a few paces away. Curious faun guards peered down constantly from the wall above.
Laylan understood. She doesn’t want to talk about it here.
Fenrah walked past him through the door and into the first of two small rooms where the wolflings had been quartered. There were no windows, and all the rooms were on ground level. Fenrah went through the first room where Danzel and Sevn were resting and Talis was dressing a wound on Xerous’s arm. Laylan could feel their eyes follow him. The second room was empty, and Fenrah shut the door. A single lamp burned low in the corner, and she went to turn it up. Laylan remained uneasily by the door. If Fenrah had decided he needed to die now, not even the presence of armed fauns in the corridor would stop her.
“You know Malic?” Fenrah’s slim form was silhouetted against the lamplight—her eyes only bright glints in the gloom.
“The last wolfling king? What about him?”
Fenrah’s tail twitched.
She’s nervous, thought Laylan. Why?
The Prophet of Panamindorah - Complete Trilogy Page 37
