The Prophet of Panamindorah, Book One Fauns and Filinians (19 page)

“Water gates,” answered Syrill. “If Danda-lay
is ever attacked. The river is their ultimate protection. They can
open the sluice gates to this channel and another on the opposite
side of the Tiber-wan.” He pointed to the paddles. “These are
designed to catch the pull of the river and open. They connect to
underground portions of the Tiber-wan and would supplement the
initial burst, making it very difficult for a would-be attacker to
damn the river from above. Danda-lay is designed to withstand
almost endless siege.”

The passage had begun to wind and slope
steeply downward. Corry began to hear, and also to feel, a dull
rumble through the stone. The sound grew louder, until Syrill had
to shout to be heard. Finally Corry saw a speck of daylight ahead.
The row of lanterns ended. A fresh breeze mingled with a fine spray
of water hit Corry in the face as he reached the threshold of the
tunnel.

Huge stone steps fell away at their feet,
curving left. The sluice itself went on into an enormous pool.
Above their heads, the waterfall plummeted into this reservoir,
sending up a constant spray and thunder. Looking out towards the
cliff’s edge, Corry saw the tallest buildings he’d yet encountered
in Panamindorah—heaps of elaborately ordered masonry, homes built
upon homes and carved from other homes, all agleam with polished
rock and precious stones. To his right, stood what must be the
palace—a series of even more elaborate buildings carved into the
cliff face and curving in a half circle around the waterfall’s
pool. A wide radius of smooth rock around the pool separated it and
the palace area from the city and reminded Corry of a much grander
version of Laven-lay’s parade ground.

Syrill was shouting in his ear. “Danda-lay
was originally built on a natural shelf of the cliff,” be bawled,
“but as you can see, it’s outgrown itself. Some of it is inside the
cliff now, and other parts have just piled up.”

Corry nodded. Statues of fauns, cliff sheep,
deer, cats, centaurs, and unrecognizable creatures crouched or
reared from the walls and parapets. Gemstones glittered in their
eyes. Everywhere he looked, Corry saw the purple flag of Danda-lay
with its white flower. As they descended the steps, he noticed
something else in the wide plaza between the pool and the entrance
to the main street: a Monument. As they drew closer, Corry couldn’t
help but stare at it. The enormous pair of wings gleamed golden,
beaded with moisture from the falls.
They can’t light it, of
course, in the spray
, but as he drew nearer, he saw that the
wings shielded a flame on the city side, apparently fed by a supply
of oil from the base of the statue.

Syrill stopped beside the monument. The wings
towered fully thrice the height of Blix’s antlers. “It’s huge,”
Corry said, now far enough from the falls to speak in a normal
voice.

“Largest in Panamindorah,” said Syrill. “Very
old, too. The scholars claim that it predates the Wizard Wars, but
it still has a part in the festival.”

“Oh?”

“They douse it with oil and light it on the
final day,” said Syrill. “Very pretty. They say in ancient times,
the Prophet used to light the fire. Now the king does it.”

“Prophet?” asked Corry. He’d never read about
this.

“Yes, the Prophet of Panamindorah. In the
time of Gabalon, they say the Prophet went bad, and we haven’t had
one since.”

“So this ceremony predates Gabalon?” Corry
was more attentive now.

“Oh, yes,” said Syrill. “Very ancient,
Lupricasia.”

He glanced at Corry’s doe, who was fidgeting
and rolling her eyes. “Forest-bred deer don’t like this city much.
Perhaps we should put them in the palace gardens before going
out.”

“Our deer have quarters in the palace?” asked
Corry in surprise.

“As do we,” chuckled Syrill. “Where did you
expect I’d stay? Shadock provides accommodations for all the royal
officials.”

The palace at Danda-lay made Laven-lay’s
castle look like a glorified hill-fort. After they had left the
deer in a small but beautiful garden, a servant led them through a
maze of halls, chambers, and courtyards. The palace had been built
up and built upon and enlarged and enhanced until it was
practically a city unto itself. Washers, cooks, tailors, smiths,
butlers, and maids came and went in a steady stream, carrying
supplies and messages and talking loudly to each other with a
general air of festivity. Corry was dazzled by one carved ceiling
after another, some of them overlaid with gold and silver and
mother of pearl. Plush draperies and intricately woven tapestries
adorned room after room and hall after hall. Fine wool and
goat-hair rugs covered the dressed stone floors. Statues lined many
of the courtyards and council rooms. Some of them made Corry blush.
Syrill noticed this and amused himself with a running
commentary.

“And this statue depicts the fabled hero,
Clarion the centaur, who took an enchantress to wife. She made love
to him in the form of a—”
“Syrill, I can
see
,” snapped Corry.

“Not if you keep looking at the floor. I
thought you were a shelt for the arts, Corellian.”

“I’d rather visit the library,” he
mumbled.

Finally they left the busiest part of the
castle and started up a tower stair. The servant stopped at a door
on one landing. Corry caught the faint odors of sandalwood and
cedar. “Your room, sir,” he said to Syrill. “We’ve supplied two
beds as you requested. We’d house your guest separately, but
accommodations are tight during the festival.”

“I’m sure this will do,” said Syrill with a
wave of his hand. The apartment was not nearly so flashy or large
as that in the Unsoos, but Corry suspected the pictures on the
walls were priceless antiques, and the gold edging on the wash
basin was probably not paint. A glance out a window told Corry that
they were high in the air, a little to one side of the waterfall,
allowing them a view over the roofs of the city to the far away
desert.

The servant cleared his voice. “Sir is wanted
in Council this morning. King Meuril asked me to remind you.”

“Oh.” Syrill frowned.

“That’s alright.” Corry was still looking out
the window. “Just point me towards the library.”

“It’s confusing. You’ll need a guide.” Syrill
tossed the servant a coin. “I’m not in yet.”

The servant tossed it back. “King Meuril begs
me to remind sir that he will have sir’s ears if he is not at the
meeting.”

Syrill rolled his eyes. “Another thing about
Danda-lay,” he said to Corry. “They call everyone by the same name
here. You can’t hardly figure out who they’re speaking to.”

The servant sighed. “He saw you come in,
Syrill
.”

Syrill ground his teeth. “Alright, I’m
coming. Corry, I’ll be in the meeting hall almost directly below
this room. We came through on the way here. You can’t miss it: long
wood table, tapestries include the love affair of the nymph and the
dragon prince.”

Corry gave Syrill a twisted smile. “You never
quit, do you?”

“I bet you remember the room now.”

“I remember it.”

For several minutes after he left, Corry
stood at the window, listening to the throb of the waterfall. He
could see shelts and animals coming and going in the courtyard. He
saw soil in some of the carts and surmised that it had to be
imported.
I’ll bet none of the sewage goes to waste here,
either.
It was not a pleasant thought before dinner. Traffic
picked up as the sun rose towards noon. Corry spotted several
centaurs strolling around the pool. He had not been wearing his
sword, but now he got it out and put it on. He’d seen other shelts
armed wearing dress swords. Surely no one would look twice at
his.

Noon came and went, but still Syrill did not
return. Corry’s stomach growled. He wondered why the meeting was
taking so long. Late afternoon shadows had begun to stretch across
the plaza when he heard voices on the stairs.
That doesn’t sound
like Syrill.
Suddenly the door flew open, and Corry saw two
tiger cubs—youngsters whose heads came only to his waist.

Their chattering voices stopped abruptly. The
cub in front was white with black stripes and blue eyes. The other
was a more traditional orange and black with green eyes. “I told
you I saw someone come up!” hissed the orange cub. He turned and
fled.

“Tolomy!” the white cub called after him. She
glanced at Corry, then bounded from the room.

“Wait!” called Corry. “Who are you?” He
trotted down the steps in pursuit of the cubs. After several
flights, he stopped hearing their voices, and by the time he
reached the hall where the servant had brought him up, he was
forced to admit he had lost them.

Corry sat down on the cool stone step to
recover his breath. He was lightheaded, having eaten nothing since
breakfast. Along the hallway to his left, he could see massive
wooden doors—the entrance to the room of questionable tapestries.
He could smell food somewhere nearby.
Will they never finish
that meeting?

At that moment, the doors opened.

Chapter 9. A Meeting of the
Inner Council

We’ve introduced the players each

Although it’s yet to be seen

Which will prove to be the pawns

And which will be the kings

—faun nursery rhyme

Her eyes were slitted, like his sister’s.
Slitted eyes had grown rare among the slaves, and Char liked to
watch them grow round when she was excited. She had been a house
slave and lacked the calluses and dead expressions of those from
the mines.

Being with her reminded Char of the time
before—of his first family. He couldn’t remember his mother, but he
could remember his littermates. They’d been four—two male and two
female—playing in the sun by day, sleeping all in a heap at night.
Then the fauns had taken away the smallest, and they had been
three. Soon after, the largest of the litter had been taken as
well. Char was sure he’d gone to the quarry, and the thought still
made him shuddered. The biggest quarry slaves turned the heavy
windlass that ground the stone used in the construction of the
great houses. They grew so strong and dangerous that the fauns
blinded them and kept them chained to their poles day and night.
They did not live long. Char hoped that his brother had not grown
big enough to turn the windlass.

He felt fortunate to have been chosen for the
gem mines—hard work, but not crushing. More importantly, the slaves
were both male and female, and he and his remaining sister were
kept together. Last fall, some of the males had tried to breed her,
but she had fought, and he had fought with her. Once the cycle
started, she would be forced to bare two to three litters per year
until her body collapsed. Breeding females didn’t live much longer
than the windlass slaves.

Daren’s choice of mates for him was
different, though. She was considerably older than he and yet had
born no litters, which Char thought remarkable. In the dark, when
her eyes were round and bright, she would whisper to him things
that made his heart race. She talked of shelts other than swamp
fauns and other than slaves. She had seen one once, though her
mistress had beaten her for it. She had watched at the door while
the stranger stood in the library and talked to her lord. “The
stranger’s leg-fur was the color of cream and very curly. His hair
was golden and his skin fair.”

There were other shelts too, she said. Once
she’d seen huge hoof prints in the dirt yard—a solid hoof like a
burrow, but many times bigger. “I heard their deep voices, but we
were locked in our kennels, so I couldn’t see. I know this: they
were not swamp fauns. They were
other
, and they were free.
We are
other,
too, Char. What the fauns do to us is
wrong.”

Char had never considered whether his
condition was
wrong
. Today was better than yesterday, or it
was worse. But the duties of house slaves had not been so
backbreaking, had included more talk, had given her time to think.
She was called Crimson, for the deep red of her hair and the
red-gold of her fur.

Gradually Char stopped wondering who was
listening at the door, stopped leaping up at every sound. Their
jailers came and went at predictable times. They were even provided
with good food and a few simple games—cards and a board with
pieces. Crimson knew the games and taught him how to play.

Char had heard of a wedding and vaguely
recalled that it had something to do with a union of swamp faun
houses and generally meant that the gem mines would be inspected
and a great many slaves beaten. Crimson had a different idea about
weddings. She’d seen more of the details in a house where her lord
and lady took no more notice of her than of a dog. Except, of
course, when she was alone with the lord. “He taught me things I
did not think I wanted to learn,” she told Char, “but it was not so
bad. At least I did not grow old in my fourteenth year with bearing
litters. My lord even made me happy sometimes, when it pleased
him.”

She made him stand with her and braided their
tails together with a piece of ribbon and made a great show of
drinking from the same cup of water that she said was their wedding
wine. But once he’d decided to take her, Char cared nothing about
swamp faun ceremonies. He made the show to please her and then
became so nervous that he tangled the ribbon in their tails.
Crimson giggled while he tried to unravel the mess. That calmed him
a little. Then she pounced, sent them tumbling across the floor,
and he forgot about the ribbon.

When she began to grow round with young, Char
felt a surge of pride and protectiveness. At times he thought he
could almost forgive Daren for murdering his sister.
He was
right. She would not have survived the summer. And he gave me
Crimson.