Norton, Andre - Anthology (2 page)

 
          
 
Dampness on either side and dripping from
overhead signaled their whereabouts—under the moat.

 
          
 
Chith swore in Cat. Peri picked him up. He
curled around her shoulders making it impossible for her to stand erect. She
tried unsuccessfully to move him into a more comfortable position. Sloshing
into darkness, she found he had again kept her from harm. The tunnel became
lower, smaller, and filled above her ankles with seepage. She splashed on,
going as quickly as she could. If she were very lucky, the ceiling would hold,
and the tunnel would remain open long enough.

 
          
 
Several eternities later, passing through a
tube no adult could have used if not crouched or crawling, Perielle emerged
into a large space. Chith jumped down. He seemed to understand that Peri could
not go on just yet, and purred loudly. She leaned against the rock at the side
of the tunnel and breathed for a moment or two. Tears kept running down her
face. She blew her nose. Chith wrapped himself around her legs—wet be
damned—and purred even louder. If he had said, "I understand, and it's all
right to cry, and I'm proud of you," he could not have made his meaning
clearer. Peri sat down, pulled him onto her lap, and petted him.

 
          
 
On and on, darkness forever and ever. But this
darkness seemed to be natural and certainly was far larger. Often, she had no
sense of walls on either side. Chith never hesitated, but continued as if in
daylight on a path he took daily. She fell several times. She pulled Chith's
tail more than once, and apologized profusely. They rested two more times, once
beside a pool of water from which Chith drank, so Peri drank, too.

 
          
 
The candle in the lantern guttered out.
Perielle started shaking and could not stop. They walked on. If her candle had
still burned, she probably would not have seen the light ahead for several more
minutes. She was too tired to run, but she hurried, hoping. Soon she would be
out of this endless darkness. Soon she could lie down and sleep knowing that
when she woke, light would greet her. Soon she might be warm again, and
unafraid.

 
          
 
Chithit pulled his own tail trying to go
faster. Peri thought she would die, but she let go. Perhaps he ran ahead to
check that she would be safe.

 
          
 
The earliest hints of dawn drew her to the
opening of a small, dry cave. She looked out across the river. Chithit was
already asleep on a pile of blankets, Perielle burrowed into the pile and was
asleep in moments.

 
          
 
She slept until Chith woke her. He pulled at
the pouch she'd stolen from the sleeping guard, and they shared the food and
well-watered wine. Peri would have tried to sleep again, but Chith meowed
angrily. He ignored her demands to wait until daylight, and led her down to the
water. The way he chose seemed impossible, but she would have thrown herself
over into the river rather than be left behind. She succeeded in sliding where
she could not step, trusting blindly and following the sound of Chith's purr
when there was nothing else.

 
          
 
He clawed something at the water's edge. She
reached over to find out what it was. Her fingers found cloth, and a cover came
loose as she pulled. Beneath was a small boat with a strong rope tied into a
ring at the bow. Chith leaped in; Peri wadded up the cover and followed. She
released the line mooring the boat to a ring in the rock wall. They wrapped up
in the cover and lay in the bottom of the boat, he in the circle of her arms.

 
          
 
The boat slid out into the current, then
slowly, almost as if by happenstance, moved closer and closer to the other
shore as it traveled downriver. Someone on the shoreline at the bend ahead
pulled the rope to which their boat was attached.

 
          
 
They came ashore in darkness, where people
were waiting, and she could smell horses. She still held Chith, and only his
request could have made her give him up. Someone retrieved the boat cover,
wrapped them both in a warm robe, and handed the bundle up to a mounted man.
Peri ate and slept again, this time held in someone's arms as he rode through
the night.

 
          
 
In the morning, Perielle came to her senses.

 
          
 
"Who are you?" she demanded of her
rescuer—the human one.

 
          
 
"No one you know," he replied.
"Who do you think I am?"

 
          
 
One tutor had trained Peri in the intricacies
of the Question and Answer Game, in which, though stating only truth, you could
keep the other participant from discovering what you did not want him to know.
Careful, she thought. He asks the right kind of questions.

 
          
 
"I don't know," she answered. If he
really asked the right kind of questions, he wouldn't accept her answer.

 
          
 
He shook his head and smiled.

 
          
 
Well, that wouldn't work.

 
          
 
She thought furiously for several minutes,
then cleared her mind. The man said nothing. He continued to eat his travel
bread and leftover rabbit. Peri ate, too, and snagged a whole front leg for
Chith.

 
          
 
She kept pushing one idea away, refusing to
let it develop into a full thought. What else? Something about the sword and
the crown. And the cat.

 
          
 
Start with something simple, she told herself.
"I think you are a friend," Peri ventured.

 
          
 
"True. To rescue you was not easy."

 
          
 
An interesting answer. The two parts of it
didn't go together. See what more she could find out. 'That means you are an
enemy of the butchers in the castle now."

 
          
 
"True."

 
          
 
Chith wiggled to get his head out, and she
felt he was trying to distract her. A different tack seemed sensible. She knew
nothing useful about the sword and the crown. But the cat? No matter how
intelligent and helpful, cats did not make plans and dig tunnels and arrange
boats. While he could be a-wizard transformed, it seemed much more likely that
he was a familiar, sent by the wizard to rescue her. No sorcerer would do dirty
physical work he could make someone else do for him.

 
          
 
"You or someone you work with is a
magician, and Chith is a familiar," she said quickly.

 
          
 
The man stopped eating, looked at her keenly
with a slight smile on his face, and commented, "Excellent. Which is
it?"

 
          
 
"You're not a magician. Chith led me to
you, but he's not your cat."

 
          
 
"My cat?" he inquired.

 
          
 
Oh. what he hadn't said. She mustn't let on
she understood that lack of answer could mean agreement. "Not that a
familiar belongs to anyone, even the magician he works with,” Peri went on,
fast. "But that's the easiest way to say it." If he thought her
stupid or foolish, he might be less careful.

 
          
 
The man nodded. His smile broadened. "And
that means?"

 
          
 
Peri didn't answer. She couldn't without
scaring herself to death. The little band packed up and prepared to leave.
Chith took Peri to a place she could use for a privy and waited until she was
done. He led her to where they'd tied the horses. She kept on thinking.

 
          
 
This time, she rode pillion behind the young
man who seemed to be in charge. Chith had a lidded basket on the other side of
the horse from her seat. Someone's plans had included transportation both for
her and for the cat.

 
          
 
Igot to say something, she thought. It's
taking me too long. "That means," she said at last, "that you're
probably a son of a loyal noble family. You're alive because you're studying to
be a magician, so you weren't in the battles."

 
          
 
"Well done," he said.

 
          
 
That answer didn't help one bit. It only said
she had reasoned well, not correctly. She snorted.

 
          
 
Chith whopped the top of his basket up and put
his head out. Peri squirmed around as far as she could. Cats cannot change
their facial expressions much, but Chith looked annoyed. He hissed silently.

 
          
 
Peri could not understand why Chith wanted her
to stop this line of questioning. She trusted the cat as she did not trust
anyone else, so she subsided. Later, perhaps, she would find out more.

 
          
 
"Are you taking me to a magician?"
was as close as she could come to the terrifying idea looming in the back edges
of her mind. Where else could she be taken? It was hard to see Chithit. almost
directly behind her back, but she caught a motion out of the side of her eye. A
nod?

 
          
 
The man didn't answer, which Peri took for
another confirmation.

 
          
 
The fear took words and pushed out of her
mouth. 'To Alfesian?"

 
          
 
He nodded.

 
          
 
In a moment, Peri discovered she could
breathe. There, I've said it, and I didn't faint or shiver myself off the
horse, she thought. Such little reassurance was necessary. The magician had
eliminated Father. She was the last of the line. She would be in his grasp.
What awful things would he do to her? Stop it! she shouted at herself. Think
nothing!

 
          
 
Filling her mind with gray sometimes helped.
She concentrated on breathing. A memory of Mother's voice seeped into her mind.
"Alfesian is not cruel because he enjoys cruelty. He harms others only if
he believes he will benefit. He thinks only of himself, of the most direct way
to get what he wants. His one great weakness is that he is unable to understand
how others react to what he does. His is the only way." The voice paused,
then went on very softly. "I do not know how he would act if someone kept
him from getting what he wanted." Peri could only hope she would not find
out.

 
          
 
She couldn't help worrying and questioning.
Why would Alfesian want her?

 
          
 
Oh! Yes! Alfesian would enjoy making her a
puppet ruler, with him pulling the strings. Well, that would be better than
being dead.

 
          
 
Her answer felt wrong. Alfesian would not care
that he had no legitimate claim to the throne—though he wouldn't leave any
loose ends. He wanted the rule, he took it, and that was right.

 
          
 
Why wasn't she already dead?

 
          
 
The Royal Relics kept pushing into her mind.
Father had them when he and the wizard disappeared. Alfesian knew where he had
sent the king, so he knew where the Relics were. Had he hidden them? Why? That
idea made no sense at all.

 
          
 
No, no, no. She didn't know what she didn't
know. Wait.

 
          
 
Hmm. Adults didn't think children had the
brains of rabbits. Let these people think it wouldn't occur to her that they
were enemies. If they really were friends, she'd find out soon enough. At least
she was warned.

 
          
 
Chith began to purr, warming Peri's insides
like a hearth fire. She found herself wondering. If he was a familiar, could he
read her mind? Did he approve of what she'd decided? She sensed approval. But
perhaps that was just because he was proud of her for having faced her fear.
Anyway, she decided, he certainly wouldn't be purring if he were a magician who
wanted to use me to take over the rule of the kingdom.