The Prophet of Panamindorah, Book One Fauns and Filinians (4 page)

Capricia seemed unimpressed. “Then why did I
find you in the other place?”

“I don’t know. I was found by…people in that
world, and they took care of me for…a year, perhaps. I’ve lost my
memory. Can you understand that? It was taken from me somehow. Your
language, the names of places, the fauns—it all seems familiar. I
even remembered the names of the moons last night. The little
yellow moon is called the Runner or sometimes the Wolf’s Eye, and
the red moon is the Dragon.”

“Yes,” said Capricia. “Dragon Moon, Demon
Moon—full last night. The superstitious would consider that an
omen. The soldiers probably mentioned it to you on your way
here.”

Corry shook his head. “No one told me.”

“Then perhaps you can tell me the name and
color of the
other
moon, the one that was not up last
night.”

Corry put a hand to his head.
Yes, there
is another.
After a pause, he shook his head. “I can’t
remember.”

Capricia did not seem surprised. “How did you
get here?”

“I was in the grove where you found me, and I
fell asleep. I had been trying to play the music that I heard
before I saw you. When I woke up and started walking towards the
house, I was nearly knocked down by a group of fauns on deer-back
and some big cats chasing them. I followed their tracks into
Panamindorah.”

“Regrettable,” said Capricia. “The music
seems to work both ways. Perhaps it has bewitched you. You
think
you belong here, but you don’t, and you must go
back.”

“No.”

Capricia laughed. “You can’t say ‘no’ to me.
I am the crown princess and civil regent. I can have you
imprisoned. I can decide that Syrill was right.”

“Yes, but you can’t send me back.” He watched
her for a moment. “No one else knows, do they? It’s your secret. If
you try to make me do something, I can show your guards the flute,
as much as it can be shown. They’ll have to believe me.”

Capricia turned pale—mostly, Corry thought,
with anger. “You can’t blackmail me!” But she truly did not know
how to answer him.

While she simmered, he let his eyes stray to
the desk. He was standing almost against it, and a battered volume
lay open beside him, partially burned, with the ancient, blackened
pages crumbling around the edges
. The city had a double outer
wall, so that archers might harry any enemy who gained access to
the first ring. Watch towers were set at—

“What are you doing?” snapped Capricia.

Corry glanced up. He’d unconsciously run a
finger along the words. “This book looks old. Is this about the
flute?”

Capricia’s lip curled. “You can’t read
that.”

He read it to her. After half a page, she
interrupted him. “The meaning of that writing has been lost for a
hundred years. You
cannot
read it.”

Corry cocked an eyebrow. “Do you really think
I’m making it up—all that business about walls and towers? I can’t
explain it to you, but I can read this. What city is it talking
about?”

“Selbis.”

“Where is that?”

Capricia said nothing.

After a moment, Corry asked, “Why did you try
to get rid of the flute?”

When it became clear that she would not
answer, Corry glanced down at the book. “I could help you translate
it.”

“No.” Capricia crossed the small room in two
strides and shut the old book. Her bright, brown eyes bored into
his. “Corry—”

“My name is Corellian.”

He thought he saw her flinch. “Corellian, if
you have any honor or compassion or reason, listen to me: the flute
is evil. Its music has bewitched you. Take the flute back to your
own world where you belong and it can do no harm.”

Corry felt sorry for her, but he would not
agree. “These feelings and memories and ideas were in my head
before I ever touched the flute. I won’t go back.”

Capricia’s eyes flashed. Corry could tell she
was used to being obeyed and certainly was
not
used to
making an entreaty and being refused. “Very well. Stay. Someone
will kill you within a year without my protection. Shelts here do
not love iterations.”

“What
is
an iteration?”

“The misbegotten offspring of wizards and
shelts.” Capricia was thinking. “Corry, I
can
have you
killed by those who will not give you time for conversation. I
can
take the flute and make a better disposal. Your choice
is simple. Go back or die.”

“Tonight?” Corry indicated the late afternoon
shadows.

“In the morning. You may stay the night.”

“If I can’t change your mind by tomorrow I’ll
go…if you will tell me some things about your world.”

Capricia looked wary, but nodded.

“What is a shelt?”

“Anything in Panamindorah that has a face
like ours and walks on two legs is either a shelt, a wizard, or an
iteration. But wizards and iterations are rare or extinct.”

“But if iterations are extinct, why did
Syrill think that I was one? And how is a shelt different from a
faun?”

Capricia opened her mouth, then closed it.
“On second thought, there’s no reason for me to tell you these
things. I think I have been more than generous in allowing you to
stay the night, and now I must explain you to my father. We will
leave as soon as possible in the morning.”

* * * *

“King Meuril will see you now,” said a
sentry.

Corry and Capricia stood in a circular
antechamber. Slanting windows curved around the domed ceiling,
letting in cascades of sunlight. Two grand staircases ran up the
walls on either side of the room, and a balcony overhung the
center. As they stepped into the throne room proper, Corry was
dazzled by the variety of plants and the play of sunlight skipping
off green-veined marble. The throne itself was a massive wood seat
with carved antlers spreading above it.

The king was not sitting on the throne, but
pacing the room with several other fauns. Corry caught sight of
Syrill and wondered whether they were discussing his upcoming
interrogation. A moment later, he knew the idea was sheer vanity.
Syrill was a general and must have more important things to discuss
with his king.

As they drew nearer, Capricia took the lead.
“A moment of your time, my lord.”

The king moved away from his councilors.
Syrill’s eyes flicked over Corry and away, and Corry knew that he’d
been dismissed as an item of little importance. Close-to, Meuril
looked frail in his rich green robes. He was bald, but had a thick
froth of gray hair around his temples and small, keen eyes of the
same color. “Capricia, what is this business about an
iteration?”

“Father, allow me to introduce Corellian, an
orphan from a village in the far west. On our last journey to those
provinces I spoke with him and promised him refuge here because of
the ill treatment he received from the fauns on account of his
iteration blood. Recently wolflings attacked and burned his
settlement. Corry alone escaped. He has journeyed far to reach us,
trying to enter faun villages, but they reject him because he does
not look like a shelt.”

The king studied Corry, and his face
softened. “I, of all shelts, ought to appreciate such a loss. My
realm extends its condolences. How old are you, Corellian?”

Corry thought a moment.
I suppose it won’t
do to say I don’t know.
“Fourteen, Sire.”

Meuril smiled. “An excellent age to become an
apprentice and adopt a trade.” He paused. “You are strangely
dressed, friend. Is it so different where you come from?”

“Very different.”

Meuril nodded. “You may stay here as a guest
of the princess until you find other lodging. If you have
difficulties with my citizens, we will help you in what ways we
can.”

A servant appeared at Meuril’s summons, but
Capricia stepped forward. “Father, I will show him to a room.”

* * * *

“I don’t like lying to your father,” said
Corry as Capricia opened the door to a guestroom.

“It was necessary.”

Corry glanced at her. “Who are you afraid of?
What would it matter if everyone in Panamindorah knew about the
flute?”

“Hush! I told you, the hall is not the place
to discuss this. And until tomorrow, I’ll take that.” She stepped
forward suddenly, reached into his pocket, and took the flute. Then
she shut the door, and Corry heard the click of a lock.

Chapter
5. An
Introduction to Wolflings

In view of the rapacious nature of the
wolfling pack known as the Raiders, I, Meuril Sor, declare the
usual bounty of three white cowries tripled for any wolf known to
belong to a Raider, and the usual bounty of five white cowries
increased to twenty speckled cowries for the capture or proven
death of Fenrah Ausla. The bounty will be fifteen speckled cowries
for the wolflings Sham Ausla, Sevn of Ivernees, Xerous of Palamine,
Lyli of Palamine, Talis of Ivernees, Danzel, Hualien, or any
additional members of the Raider pack.

—Book of Bounty Laws, edict by Meuril Sor,
Summer 1697

Corry woke to birdsong and a cascade of
sunlight streaming through his window.
Capricia!
He had been
angry the night before—as much at himself for reaching into his
pocket earlier, as at Capricia for taking the flute—but now he felt
only a vague panic. In the morning light, he could see that his
window opened several stories above a landscaped courtyard. Corry
gauged the distance to the ground, but decided that a jump would
hurt him.

Fauns had brought him supper and a bath the
night before, and he saw that they’d left him breakfast this
morning. Corry dressed quickly, helping himself to the tray of
fruit and bowl of deer’s milk. Without much hope, he tried the
door…and the handle turned.
Whoever brought my breakfast must
have forgotten to lock it.

Corry opened the door and stepped into the
empty hall. He made his way through the airy, sunlit passages,
trying to remember the route Capricia had taken. He met an
occasional faun, but no one stopped him. A few songbirds were
beginning to flit playfully in and out of the rooms when he found a
row of tapestries that he remembered.
I’m near the throne
room.

Corry hurried on, having some vague idea that
he would talk to the king and tell him the truth. He soon came out
of a passage and saw the silver banister and the staircase
descending into the huge antechamber. As he started down, a faun
holding a drawn sword burst through one of the doors below and
bounded up the stairs.

The stranger was wearing a white tunic and
purple cape. He was much paler than the other fauns Corry had seen.
His curling, golden hair fell to his shoulders, and as he swept
past, Corry caught a glint of blue eyes. Upon reaching the top of
the stairs, he raced to the first window, put his hoof on the sill,
and stretched out as far out as he could reach. Corry saw that he
had curly white fur. “The roof! Hurry!”

A dozen other pale, blond fauns charged up
the stairs. Corry pressed himself against the banister as they
whisked past to follow the first, who had already disappeared. A
memory stirred.
They’re a different kind of faun.
It annoyed
him that he could not identify them.

Corry started walking more quickly and
reached the foot of the stairs. As he moved across the antechamber
towards the throne room, he caught faint sounds from outside—shouts
and the ringing of bells.
This is very odd.

Then a shadow appeared in a patch of sunlight
at his feet. He glanced up and was slapped in the face by the
descending end of a rope. As he watched, someone dropped out of one
of the windows around the dome and began to shimmy down. The sun
was in his eyes, and he could not see the climber clearly. About
three fourths of the way down, the shelt let go and jumped, rolling
away from Corry with a clatter of steel. Corry blinked at the
sword.

The newcomer was two-legged and had tufted
ears, but she was certainly no faun. She had large paws rather than
hooves. Silver gray hairs flecked the cinnamon brown fur of her
legs, and a thick, bushy tail bristled behind her. Her breath came
quick and hard.

Something clicked in Corry’s mind. He
remembered how Capricia had explained him to her father.
She
said that wolflings burned my village. This is a wolfling, a wolf
shelt. Capricia is a deer shelt. That fellow in the purple cape is
a sheep shelt. I remember!

Corry held out his hands. “I’m unarmed,” he
said.

“Stay still,” she rasped. She wore a
sleeveless brown tunic, and a thin sword belt. Corry thought she
looked no older than he and perhaps younger. Her eyes might have
been golden, but now they were almost black, the pupils dilated
with fear.

BANG!
Doors flew open. Fauns poured
down both staircases, while archers drew their weapons along the
balcony. Fauns with swords and bows swarmed around the perimeter of
the room. Corry caught sight of the faun with the purple cape.

The wolfling’s eyes darted in one direction
and then another.

Someone on the balcony shouted, “Don’t
shoot!” It was Capricia. She was glaring at Corry, but she
continued. “You’ll kill my guest!”

“Then tell him to get out of the way...”
murmured Purple Cape.

Suddenly the wolfling bolted toward the only
remaining exit—the main door of the castle. Fauns charged along the
perimeter of the wall like giant pincers closing. Corry let out a
long breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. A few arrows sang
over his head and clattered along the floor, but none struck the
fleeing wolfling.

For a moment Corry thought she would escape,
but just as she reached the main doors they flew open. The wolfling
was running too fast to stop, and she all but collided with the
first faun through the door. Their swords were singing before
anyone could intervene.