The Power and the Prophet, page 18
"No!" she shouted at the incoming clawsps and she threw up her hand to stop them. From her palm issued a golden globe of flame.
Kherda fainted. The clawsps fried. And Bronwynn knew, now, she was a shaper. Any minute she expected to discover her altershape and she looked forward to that revelation with a fierce excitement. That didn't deflect her from her task, however. She raced to the door, threw it open—and burned a hundred-thousand insects from the hallway. The second ball of flame was much larger than the first.
Terril felt it. Although he wasn't in the hallway, nor even in that section of the castle, he felt it—another shaper. The moment he did, he fled for the hole in the roof and just missed being cremated by the third ball of fire, which was the largest of all. This exploded in the midst of the castle's garden, scorching every leaf and withering each blade of grass. But it also crushed the clawsp attack. A million burned insects covered the garden floor like violet snow. The rest were gone.
CHAPTER TEN
Sythia Isle
"We'd better go," Mar-Yilot interrupted, more harshly than necessary.
Kam and Rosha stopped laughing and looked at the woman in surprise. Then Kam gave his young friend a wry smile and shrugged. "She's right, of course." He twisted around to face the sorceress in order to explain, "It's just that I've not seen the lad since this time last year, and we still have some catching up to do. Ah, Rosha. There's never enough time."
"There's a remedy for that," Mar-Yilot snorted. "And you know what it is."
Kam grinned, and ran his fingers through his tight yellow curls. "Can't do it, dear lady. Much as I'd like to visit that fabled island of yours and pocket a few diamonds for myself, I need to stay here." He shoved an empty breakfast platter away and called toward the kitchen for someone to come and get it.
Mar-Yilot frowned. "It's only a matter of time before Flayh sends his thugs down the road to crush you—"
"Crush me!" Kam barked. "Mar-Yilot, you are a dear friend and a marvelous shaper, but you certainly do exaggerate. The House of Kam has sat here at the foot of the High Plateau for centuries and witnessed a score of armies descending the cliff to make war against it. Why, to ease their boredom in times of peace, the kings of Ngandib used to lay siege to this castle just for practice! But never has it fallen. Not once have they even breached a single wall! No, my Lady, you hurry on, if you feel you must. But don't fret about us. Kam can care for itself."
Rosha appreciated Kam's bravado, but he was watching the man's eyes and saw something false there. Mar-Yilot must have seen it too, but she didn't comment. That puzzled Rosha. He'd always heard that Mar-Yilot spoke before she thought. Since he'd been around her, however, he'd had the sensation that she was hiding something.
"So, Rosha," Kam said grandly, "we'll have to finish this up the next time you stop by."
"We'd like that." Rosha nodded.
"We?" Kam muttered.
"My father and I," Rosha explained. Kam's embarrassed response confused him.
"What—Oh yes! Right. Ah.. .listen, Mar-Yilot, I've got my best horses waiting for you. You really think Pelmen's well enough to ride?"
Frowning, Rosha flicked his gaze to Mar-Yilot just in time to catch her eyes studying him worriedly. She immediately looked at Kam, and answered with too much intensity, "I feel certain that he is."
"Good." Kam nodded. When there was an awkward pause, the blond warrior got to his feet. "Ah—just let me check to see if the horses are ready." He quickly left the hall. Mar-Yilot shifted in her seat and found a bite of biscuit to nibble.
"What's going on?" Rosha asked suspiciously.
"What?" the sorceress snapped, looking annoyed. "Nothing's going on, but we certainly need to be, so grab that precious bundle and let's move, shall we?"
Rosha persisted. "You're hiding something. What is it?"
"I'm hiding nothing!" Mar-Yilot snarled. "I'm just tired, that's all, and I'm not looking forward to a day of playing magical tag."
"Why haven't you told me what happened to your husband?" Rosha demanded, his face expressionless.
Mar-Yilot feigned surprise. "My husband? What about my husband?"
Rosha stared at her, his eyes hard. "You're not going to tell me, are you?"
The powershaper met his gaze. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Kam stepped back into the hall and said, "Everything's ready. Pelmen's already mounted and is waiting for you. Seems he's in a hurry."
"Very good." Mar-Yilot nodded and picked up the heavy cloak Kam had provided for her, wrapping it around her shoulders. "Coming?" she asked Rosha cuttingly.
The warrior's only reply was to stand slowly and stalk out of the hall. He fetched his own cloak and the bundled-up pyramid and went to join Pelmen in the stable. His friend greeted him, but Rosha said nothing.
Kam bade them all good-bye with a cheerful smile, but his eyes were filled with worry. His cockiness fooled no one. His danger was real. And if there was any true hope for the survival of his house, it rested upon the alliance of these two power-shapers. "Be careful," he warned them.
Mar-Yilot fixed him with a sobering look. "You could have your people ready to ride by midmorning. I could Cover all of us, and you'd be out from under Flayh's shadow."
Kam hesitated a moment, then shook his head. "Not now. The dog is chasing you, not me. We'd slow you down too much, perhaps even cause your capture. What safety is there for my household in that? No," he added, glancing around at the stable walls, "I'll stay here. And if that dog of a shaper should happen by, perhaps Kam can be a thorn in his paw." He smiled again, waved, and the three riders galloped out of his gates.
They rode northward three abreast; Pelmen was in the middle, Rosha and Mar-Yilot flanking him should he fall. There seemed little danger of that at the moment. He seemed fit, and sat well in the saddle. The only evidence of his weariness was his detachment from them. He obviously thought of other things. Still, he concentrated enough to add his own coverage to the magic cloak Mar-Yilot wrapped around them. That protection enabled them to avoid a half dozen earnest patrols of slavers.
Mar-Yilot and Pelmen talked a bit at first, but Rosha said nothing. He'd not opened his mouth since he'd left the breakfast table. It was his manner of showing rage—an old habit, bom in his stuttering childhood—and he felt certain Pelmen, at least, sensed his anger. The other two let their conversation die. When they avoided asking him what the problem was, he knew for certain they'd conspired against him. He savored his fury in silence.
After several hours they rounded the northern face of the plateau and hit the straight stretch of road that led westward to the Garnabel Bridge. Suddenly his rage spilled over; with volcanic violence, the words spewed from his lips. "Foul friends, the both of you! I'll travel no farther, not a pace, until you tell me what you've hidden!" He reined his horse about and jerked it to a stop, staring at his companions with glittering eyes.
His outburst startled them both, but Mar-Yilot quickly recovered. "I'm trying to cloak us!" she shot back at Rosha. "Just what are you trying to do?"
Rosha ignored her words, turning his hot gaze on Pelmen.
"What are you not telling me?" he asked, half in demand, half in plea. It was the pleading that broke the powershaper, and Pelmen's posture, which had been so erect since their departure, wilted into a slump. He sagged in his saddle, and his eyes dropped from the road ahead to the tangles in his horse's mane.
When he finally spoke it was to the woman, and his voice was as thin and weak as Rosha had ever heard it. "Who should tell him?"
Mar-Yilot's lips—already pencil thin—seemed to disappear altogether into a tight line. Rosha twisted in his saddle so that his shoulders faced her squarely and scowled expectantly. Mar-Yilot squinted toward the sun, then turned her gaze toward him. Rosha saw only a sliver of her golden eyes, as those auburn eyebrows pinced together in a frown. "I killed your father," she announced. Then she looked back at the road. Pelmen's strength returned, and he sat back up straight. "Tell him why," Pelmen ordered, and Mar-Yilot turned back to look at him, a bit surprised by the authority in his voice. Her eyes flicked back to Rosha's, who was clenching his teeth and fighting the urge to cry out.
"I was blind. I was fooled. Flayh tricked me into believing that Dorlyth had ambushed my husband and that Pelmen had bound him with dread. I wanted vengeance, so I trapped your father and Pelmen in a ring of fire. I knew Pelmen could escape, of course. But I also knew he couldn't save your father." "And that was your vengeance on me" Pelmen whispered
hoarsely.
"In part." The woman shrugged. "I did intend to kill you, too, eventually, but I recognized that would take much more planning. Still, 1 knew you would suffer, as I had, the futility of having power and not being able to use it." Mar-Yilot spoke frankly, in all honesty, without rancour or bitterness.
To Rosha it sounded almost casual, as if she recited the
details of her breakfast instead of his father's murder. For a moment, as the blood rushed into his head and his tongue thickened beyond all possibility of usefulness, he calculated the time it would take to unsheath his borrowed blade, leap over Pelmen, and halve the woman in her saddle.
"Don't, Rosha," Pelmen murmured, and the quiet wisdom in his statement stilled the warrior's hand.
"Oh, go ahead," Mar-Yilot growled, and for the first time her voice betrayed the depth of her remorse. Rosha looked at her sharply and saw a tear glisten on her wan cheek before the woman could brush it away in irritation. "You have the right." Staring at her, Rosha was surprised at how very frail she looked.
"He had as much right to kill you as you did his father," Pelmen said evenly. Then he looked at her. "That is, none at all."
Mar-Yilot snorted a mirthless laugh. "If he doesn't, then no one has the right to kill anyone."
"Correct," Pelmen agreed, his eyes carefully watching the road. They were in danger. Mar-Yilot's confession had made her inattentive. He wordlessly took up her task until she could return to it.
The sorceress laughed, this time derisively. "I had heard you'd become a holy man, Pelmen, but this I find difficult to believe. By your logic, we've no right to kill Flayh!"
Pelmen nodded. "I don't think killing is ever a right. Unfortunately, it appears sometimes to be a responsibility."
"Responsibility to whom?" the Autumn Lady challenged. "If he's responsible at all to his father's ghost, he'll gut me here and now!"
"Did you see him die?" Rosha asked. The two shapers both turned to look at him, startled by his calm. "Did either of you see him die?" he repeated.
Pelmen and Mar-Yilot exchanged glances. "I didn't," Mar-Yilot muttered.
"Nor did I." Pelmen sighed. "He told me he preferred that
I didn't watch."
"Where did this take place?"
"On the edge of a precipice not far from the glade of mod Carl. We were searching for you."
Rosha nodded thoughtfully. "There was a weird woman in
the forest that morning, to whom I confided all of my thoughts..." He looked inquiringly at Mar-Yilot. "That was me," she admitted.
Rosha shifted position in his saddle. "Then if anyone is to blame, it must be me. For had 1 not been fool enough to attack Flayh's castle on my own, my father would never have fallen into your trap. And if I hadn't warned you he was coming, there'd have been no trap in the first place."
Mar-Yilot gazed at the warrior, her golden eyes softening with a new respect. "It's a rare young man who can accept his father's death with such equanimity."
"I wouldn't, if I really thought he was dead," Rosha said bluntly, and he hurried on to explain. "I think I would know if something like that were true. I'd feel it, somehow. I just can't believe he'd die like that."
The two shapers were stunned. Mar-Yilot withdrew from the conversation. She was no physician of minds, but she knew enough about denial to let the boy alone. Pelmen did not feel that freedom.
"I'm afraid you'll have to eventually—" he began. Rosha cut him off. "Did you see the body?" "No, but the fire—"
"Show me the body. Then I'll believe it." Rosha set his jaw, and turned his eyes to stare fiercely down the road. There was no more discussion. They rode steadily to the northwest— and every hoofbeat brought them closer to Flayh's net.
The two powershapers and the warrior were not the only travelers on the road that day. It so happened that on this same afternoon, Pezi and his tugoliths reached Dragonsgate.
They had survived the Tellera Desert. Of course, they'd demolished a caravan of foodstuffs that had been intended for the new king's coronation banquet, but that hadn't been Pezi's fault. And he'd offered the trading captain good money for the wagon Thuganlitha had sat on. Could he help it if the terrified merchant had already sprinted out of earshot by then? What had irritated him most about that particular adventure was that he'd gotten almost nothing out of it. By the time the hungry tugs finished gorging themselves, all he could salvage were a couple of squashed oranges and a clump of grapes. His belly had been vocally expressing its frustration ever since. Pezi would have loved to stop at the family castle at the foot of the pass to stock up on provisions, but he didn't dare. He was already on the bad side of most of his cousins. He wasn't about to destroy what was left of his reputation by taking Thuganlitha home with him.
Thuganlitha! That creature had become the bane of his existence. Pezi hated Thug, and Thug, of course, was only too willing to return the sentiment. It all could have been so easy without Thuganlitha along! To entertain himself as they'd traveled, Pezi had thought up a hundred ways of disposing of the beast. The trouble was. he lacked the nerve to put any of his plans into action. He kept hoping one of the other tugs would do it for him. None obliged. All except Chimolitha were as terrified of Thug as he was. And Chimolitha wouldn't because she was too fair-minded. She wouldn't harm anything unless she was convinced that it was right and necessary to do so. Thus far, Thug just hadn't quite stepped over her line. It made for a most unmanageable situation. Occasionally Pezi remembered that he'd intended to turn this herd into a fearsome battle unit. He usually tried to put that back out of his mind as quickly as he thought of it. The idea now gave him gas.
Pezi always got gas when he was nervous and he felt particularly gaseous today. He clung to his perch behind Chi-molitha's horn and gazed upward with bulging eyes, waiting for some sight of the dragon. He'd seen the twi-beast in the sky three times since they'd left the capital, and that had given him heart. He'd hoped that perhaps they could go through the pass while the dragon was off terrorizing Lamathian villages. But that dream was dying. He'd last sighted the dragon the day before, and it was then returning to its ancient lair. He greatly feared they were about to find Vicia-Heinox home. And what would a dragon do with a line of tugoliths and one corpulent merchant? He hoped the rejuvenated beast had eaten recently. Pezi had traveled this road a hundred times and he knew every turn. When they got within a few hundred feet of the last bend into the pass, he whispered to Chimolitha to stop. She did, and there followed a series of thuds that issued in a chorus of angry comments, as inattentive tugoliths rammed into the hindquarters of those in front of them. "Would you tell them all to shut up!" Pezi whispered in Chimolitha's funnel-
shaped ear, and she obligingly bellowed, "Shut up!" at the bickering herd behind her.
"Not so loud!" Pezi groaned, holding his throbbing forehead.
Chimolitha rolled her eyes up to regard him a bit resentfully. "Man, why are you never pleased?"
"What?" Pezi blurted, startled. "Why, but—but I am pleased, I'm often pleased! Ah, ah, yes, very often!"
The animal swung her head sadly from side to side—a gesture that nearly dislodged Pezi completely. "You don't say so," she murmured.
The fat merchant clamped his legs and arms around the huge horn and hung on for his life. "But I do! 1 mean, I just did!"
The huge beast continued to shake her head in denial. "You yell a lot," she said mournfully.
"I don't either yell!" Pezi yelled. "I mean, I don't do it very often..."
"Dolna doesn't yell." Chimolitha sighed.
Pezi didn't like the direction this conversation was taking. He was also distracted by the din he heard going on behind him. When he craned his head around to listen more closely, he found to his chagrin that the other tugoliths were now arguing about what the words "shut up" meant. "Please don't talk!" he shouted, and the herd hushed. Evidently he'd picked words they could understand, and he sighed with relief. For the twentieth time he reminded himself to keep it simple.
"You yell a lot," Chimolitha repeated stolidly.
"Listen, Chimolitha, could we talk about this at a later time?"
She nodded. "Yes."
"Fine. What we need to do now is—"
"What later time?"
"I don't know!" Pezi exploded without intending to. Immediately he wished he hadn't and he hurriedly explained, "I'm just very busy right now, you understand? I'm under an enormous amount of pressure! I'm hungry, I'm—I'm tired, my nerves are in terrible shape! I mean, just look at me!"
Chimolitha rolled her huge eyes back and stared at him obediently.
"Not like that," Pezi quickly corrected, and he gestured down at the road. "Ah, look down there somewhere."
Chimolitha sighed and looked at the road.
"I'm sorry, Chimolitha, but I'm—I'm very nervous right now! Do you have any idea what's around that corner?"
The tugolith frowned in concentration, but she wasn't good at guessing games. Soon she gave up. "No," she admitted.
"There's a dragon!" Pezi announced.
The tugolith thought about that for a minute, then she nodded. "Oh," she said.
"And we've got to get passed it!" The beast filtered that through her brain, nodded, and then started moving again. "What are you doing?" Pezi demanded.
"Getting passed the dragon," she answered.
"But—!" There was no time for any protest, for Chimolitha was huge, and it didn't take her many steps to carry the horrified merchant around the last bend.
