F. Wilson - The Tery

Half-dressed, his eyes puffy from sleep, the captain arrived and the tery felt an involuntary growl escape his throat. His body crouched to spring. He knew this man. This was the officer who had ordered his men to slice but not to kill…this was the parent-slayer!

One of the troopers who was watching him more closely than the others heard the growl and recognized the tery's stance. He raised his crossbow.

"Watch him!"

The tery forced himself to relax as the troopers pointed their bows and pikes at him, ready to kill at the slightest move. He would never reach the captain.

The officer glanced at the tery without the slightest hint of recognition in his expression, then turned to his men.

"This had better be important enough to wake me — I'm to leave on a mission for Kitru before the first light."

The burly trooper with the pike stepped forward and pointed to Dennel. "This whelp says Kitru will have my head if we kill the tery."

The captain turned to Dennel. "Oh, so it's you. Since when do you speak for the lord of the keep?"

"Because I know this beast," Dennel replied. "It's the girl's pet and she's very attached to it."

"I care nothing about the Finder's pet," he snarled and turned away, throwing a command over his shoulder. "Kill the ugly thing and burn its filthy carcass in the pit."

"You'd better care about the Finder's pet!" Dennel shouted.

The captain whirled, rage blazing in his eyes. "You watch your tongue or I'll have it removed!"

"I–I'm sorry, sir," Dennel said quickly. "But I'm only trying to be helpful. The Finder is immensely important to Kitru. He can try the drugs first, but if they fail, he'll need a lever to get cooperation from the girl. This beast might just be that lever."

Drugs? the tery thought. What are drugs?

But the question washed away in the rush of anger that followed as he realized Dennel had been a party to Adriel's abduction — had planned it, perhaps.

The captain was pondering Dennel's remarks. The tery silently urged him to find some advantage in keeping him alive. For the tery now had two scores to settle.

"If the drugs work on the Finder, you can burn the tery at dawn or whenever you wish," Dennel said to the captain in a low voice. "But if the drugs fail — and I understand they are not too reliable — the tery might prove useful to Lord Kitru, and then you will be glad he is still alive. Then you can take full credit for his capture."

"Perhaps you are right," he said with sudden mildness. He turned to the troopers. "Take the creature below and throw it in with the crazy one. I think they'll make excellent company for each other."

This brought a laugh from all the men and broke the tension. Dennel turned and departed.

"By Mekk's beard, who was that?" one of the pikemen muttered as they watched him go.

"A coward and a traitor to his own kind," Ghentren replied in a low voice. "He thinks he's got Kitru's ear, but the lord himself told me that as soon as he has no further use of the whelp, I can do what I wish with him."

The tery saw the captain's smile and knew from experience what kind of torment it could spell.

A pikeman gave him a poke with the sharp end of his staff and he was prodded toward a sunken stairway that led under a building adjacent to the main tower.

"Below" consisted of a small underground chamber broken up into three tiny cells. Apparently they little need for incarceration facilities at the keep. Executions were far more economical and certainly less time consuming. Sharp, jabbing pike tips herded him into the middle cell and the lone guard locked the door behind him.

Amid harsh barks of laughter someone yelled, "Company for you, Rab!"

The laughter faded as the tery watched the troopers file out. The guard reseated himself by the door and tried to doze. The tery rattled the door and tried to figure out why it wouldn't open. He had heard of locks, but had never seen one. He was peering through the keyhole, trying to see the inner works, when a gentle voice startled him.

"You're a man, aren't you." It was not a question.

The tery whirled to see a filthy, bearded, bedraggled man standing behind him, watching him.

"I can tell by the way you examine that lock that you're more than just an intelligent animal."

He looked old at first, but as he moved forward and came into the faint light from the hall, he appeared to be somewhere between youth and middle age.

"Can you speak?" he asked.

The question was so casual, it took the tery by surprise. The man's attitude reminded him of Tlad. He hesitated a moment, then realized that there was little point in hiding his ability from his cellmate.

"I can speak," the tery said in a slow, harsh, grating voice. "But I'm not a man."

So odd, speaking to this human. He had never really spoken to anyone but his mother and father in his entire life. He had repeated words and sentences to make Adriel happy, but that was hardly speech.

"Oh, you're a man, all right," the dirty one said, looking the tery over. "It's just that nobody ever told you so. My name's Rab, by the way."

"The troopers called you ‘crazy,’ " the tery said pointedly. "Twice."

"And I must look the part, too," Rab laughed. "But anyone who's been locked up in a hole for months without a bath, clean clothes, or decent food will start to look a little crazy" — his voice lowered briefly, almost as if speaking the next phrase to himself — "and perhaps even feel a little crazy at times" — then rose again — "but I assure you I'm not. And I also assure you that you're quite as human as I."

The tery snorted. "Do not play with me. I may not be human but neither am I a fool."

"But you are human."

"I know what I am: I'm a tery, a product of the Great Sickness."

"And I'm a doomed heretic for knowing that you're not!" Rab shouted angrily.

The tery turned back to the lock. The soldiers were right. This man was insane.

Rab eased his tone. "Sit down and let me tell you what I've learned. You'll find it hard to believe because it goes against everything you've been taught since birth. But I can prove it — at least I could when I had my books. Sit. We've got plenty of time."

The tery was not so sure of that. Yet, what else could he do? He had tried the door and knew it was proof against even his strength. The conversation he had overheard between Dennel and the captain had eased his fears about Adriel being in any immediate danger…and perhaps this deranged human could help him if humored.

"Please?" Rab said. " Please? "

No human had ever said that word to him. Reluctantly, he eased himself down onto the damp, straw-littered floor.

"Good," Rab said, squatting opposite him, rubbing his filthy hands together. "First off, I've suspected since my early youth that the tery is not the mutated beast tradition tells us he is. In fact, I more than suspected it — I knew it."

"How could you ‘know’ it?"

"Never mind how. That's not important now. Let it be enough for the moment that I did."

"Everybody knows that teries were a product of the Great Sickness after it swept across the world."

"No-no! That's not true. Listen. You'll see. I was raised a scholar in Overlord Mekk's court and had the training and time to search into the past. I found old manuscripts from as far back as the time of the Great Sickness. Our language has changed much since then but I did manage to decipher them and found many references to a group of people called ‘the Shapers,’ and ‘the Teratols.’ Just who they were and what they did was never explained. It seemed to be taken for granted that the reader knew.

"All this whetted my appetite for more, so I searched deep into the caves and ruins that surround Mekk's fortress. In one I chanced across some old — very old — volumes. They were lovely things, different from all the others, in perfect condition, printed on incredibly thin sheets of metal…five volumes… you've never seen anything like them…"