Robert Hughes - The Power and the Prophet

“Dorlyth and Ferlyth are in the glade of mod Carl.”

Syth’s eyes widened and he smiled appreciatively. “Good! Then we know we can travel south without fear of—”

“You know nothing!” she repeated, more forcefully this time. “You’re guessing, and guessing is for fools!”

Syth deflected her scolding with a confident smile. She’d been chiding him since they were children, and he was used to it. “It is, at least, an educated guess, reinforced by my personal surveillance of the Nethermar Road.”

“You were lucky.”

“Aren’t I always?” he asked, grinning at her. She didn’t smile.

“As I said, while I did find Dorlyth, I did not locate Pelmen. He could have tracked you here!”

“Possible, but I don’t think so. I don’t think the falcon is anywhere near.” He ignored her sigh of exasperation. “I attribute all this manipulation of the powers to Flayh, and not to—”

“Why! Why do you keep insisting on that!”

“Because I, my dear, listen to the rumors that are muttered in the alleyways. While you’re fluttering around on your butterfly wings, I’m dodging the mud holes and talking to people!”

It was an old argument, one they reopened each time they faced a battle and disagreed on how to fight it. She shook her head. “I won’t believe it until I see it.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of! You’ll be so intent on finding Pelmen you won’t see the new danger until it’s too late!”

“The real danger is Pelmen,” Mar-Yilot said with a deadly drone. “I nearly conquered him the last time we battled. This time I’ll not fail.”

“I don’t know what excites you more—fighting Pelmen or loving me!” Syth said it half-jokingly.

Mar-Yilot would not dignify the comment with a reply. “Listen,” he pleaded, “none of these acts bear Pelmen’s seal. All of you shapers have a certain style, and this talk of red-eyed demons and a resurrected Vicia-Heinox doesn’t sound like Pelmen at all!”

“They sound like an upstart merchant?” she asked flatly.

“They do. Like this merchant. And what I think I learned on the road is significant…”

“What you guessed,” the shimmery figure corrected.

“All right, what I guessed. And this is it: I think Flayh didn’t attack me because he’s as worried about Pelmen as you are and he’s looking elsewhere!”

She refused to be moved by his dramatic pronouncement. “So?”

“So tomorrow I’m leading our army south. I want to do battle with King Pahd before Flayh realizes Pelmen’s not a threat—and sends his black dogs after us.”

Her golden eyes revealed no anger, no fear, nor in fact any emotion. She regarded him calmly, inscrutable as a cat. “And what do you expect of me?”

“You could cover us, maybe.” He smiled sardonically. “That might be nice.” She gazed at him, unblinking. “Or you could get ready to toss a gale at the foot of the Ngandib Plateau, minor Flayh’s terror spell back at him, or whatever else you choose. You’re the shaper. I’ll leave that up to you.”

“Will you?” she said cuttingly. Then she began to fade away.

“Mar-Yilot, come on down now, will you?”

She stopped her disappearance long enough to answer, “Maybe later.” Then she was gone—or rather, that projected part of herself had rejoined her body in the tower that soared above.

“Witch,” Syth muttered. He said it with deep affection.

The dogs came in after dusk, their long red tongues lolling lazily over glistening fangs. They slunk through the alleyways of the city of Lamath, moving in slowly like a horrible black mist. Those who chanced to see them ran shrieking homeward, locking their doors behind them, for these were no ordinary dogs.

Their black coats had no glossy sheen, but rather seemed to suck light in and swallow it. Nor did their eyes reflect that nearly human sensibility cherished by dog lovers. Instead they glowed with red-orange evil, as if these canine heads were merely skull masks with eye-slits, revealing fires burning within in the place of brains. Then the howling began.

If the look of these beast-clad demons was horrid, the empty sound of their baying was even more so.

Lamathians all around the vast perimeter of the city reacted in panic, hiding in basements or under beds.

Others left their houses, fleeing the deathly howls and racing away from the circling packs toward the center of the city. Flayh had made his move.

Pezi had been at the table since midday and had eaten all the way through the afternoon into suppertime.

He had paused to look up only once, when a woman he thought he recognized had come into the hall and gone to the head table to talk with the little prophet fellow. She was a petite brunette, and Pezi thought she looked like one of the cute merchant wives from the castle of Uda in Ngandib-Mar. He’d decided it couldn’t be, however. She was wearing one of the light blue robes that seemed to be the rage in this very religious land. He’d forgotten her completely when they brought out the evening mutton.

He was working on a steaming slab of it when the panic began. At first there was only an annoying baying and some distant screams. These puzzled him, but he didn’t become alarmed until he heard the clatter of hoofbeats outside the meeting hall’s doors. Suddenly the room filled with initiates from every sector of the city, all waving their arms and shouting wildly as they raced to Erri’s table. Pezi watched as Erri calmed them and appointed one to tell the story. “Dogs!” the man shouted. “The city is ringed by slavering dogs with huge teeth and fires for eyes! Great mobs are pouring into the city square outside!

Listen, Prophet!” The messenger hushed, and the horrified screams from outside were clearly audible throughout the room.

“It’s Flayh, obviously,” Erri said. “He and the royal family have chosen to make this the night. And if Pelmen had only…” The prophet trailed off.

Pezi wrinkled his nose in concern. Any mention of Pelmen

made him feel very uncomfortable.

Erri was shouting. “Don’t just stand there!” he said to his initiates. “Start bothering the Power with petitions!”

Eating interested Pezi. Praying didn’t. And since he knew these dogs were indeed from Flayh, and that they were surely heading for this very hall, he did the only sensible thing—he kicked over his bench and dashed for the double doors.

The streets were filled with screaming people, and Pezi soon joined them, also screaming at the top of his lungs. A pack of the black hounds rounded the comer a hundred yards away, and he bolted for safety.

He ran shrieking down an alleyway, certain a dog would leap from every darkened corner to tear out his throat. None did. In fact, for all their howling, Pezi had yet to see one of the beasts actually spring at anyone. But he reasoned that if he were a hungry dog, he’d pick somebody fat and slow to pounce on. Since he fitted that description so perfectly, Pezi could not allow himself to rest. He waddled breathlessly onward.

Despite his panic, there was a pattern to his flight. He picked his alleys well, seeking those that would lead him closer to the prize that had lured him to Lamath in the first place. He made his way to the tugolith pits. He was planning to kidnap some monsters.

It was, on the face of it, a ludicrous idea. But given Pezi’s present circumstances and the childlike nature of the beasts he planned to steal, it all made perverse sense. Pezi was out of favor with his uncle Flayh—a dangerous state to remain in for very long. He needed to pull off some coup to restore himself to Flayh’s good graces, and the gift of a herd of gigantic beasties seemed to be just the thing.

The trouble was, Pezi knew nothing of his uncle’s plans. He’d expected some activity in Lamath, but nothing in this scale! Flayh was going all out to topple the prophet, evidently planning to replace him with that dolt of a princeling from the royal family. The dogs were to panic the populace—a very effective ruse, Pezi noted with a shiver. He noticed fires had been started—by the royalist supporters, no doubt.