Robert Hughes - The Power and the Prophet

“Then you are a human?” Chim asked quietly.

“Yes—no! No, ah, no, no. Not me. No. Not at all.”

Chimolitha was greatly chagrined. “Then how do I know?”

“Know what?”

“What persons I can eat,” she whined. She added apologetically, “I’m hungry too.”

Sheer terror danced across Pezi’s broad features. Pezi wasn’t smart. He wasn’t even clever. But Pezi was a survivor, and could be very creative under pressure. He suddenly had an idea, one that pleased him so much that he giggled aloud. “Their robes,” he cackled gleefully. “You can tell by the color of their robes. They always wear blue!”

They trudged along in silence as Chimolitha gave this some thought. The other tugoliths had all already turned their small minds to other things. To them, this conversation might have been about higher math.

“Man,” said Chim, “what’s blue?”

Pezi thought quickly. “The sky. Blue’s the color of the sky.”

Chimolitha stopped moving, which brought the line behind her to a halt as well. She turned her huge head backward to look solemnly at the sky. Then she lowered it once more to gaze down at the road.

“I’ll remember.” She nodded, then she plodded ahead once more.

“I’m still hungry,” Thuganlitha groused, and Pezi’s anxiety level soared once more. Suddenly he got a whiff of something that made him rejoice—for more reasons than one.

“Onions!” he shouted. “I’m saved! I mean, ah, we’re saved. There’s an onion patch nearby. I’ve just remembered it. Wonderful. We’ll eat onions for lunch!” His excitement was contagious, and the tugoliths in the rear began to crowd up around Chimolitha’s flanks. She, however, seemed lost in thought.

“Is something troubling you?” Pezi asked her gently.

Chimolitha nodded. “Man?” she asked. “Are onions a type of persons?”

Pelmen came to his senses in a terrifying position. He was looking straight down a cliff, and someone was beating on his back.

“Are you all right?” a voice shouted in his ears. Pelmen was seized by the shoulders and jerked upright, and he yelped with pain, for his skin was blistered and raw.

Then he laughed aloud, and shouted. “Rosha!”

The young man released a long sigh and relaxed. “Good. I was afraid you were dead!”

“Why aren’t I? And where are we?” Pelmen added quickly, glancing around at this water-filled cavern.

“We’re still on top of the plateau,” Rosha answered soberly. “This is a part of the lake connected to the rest by underwater channels. Flayh and his people don’t seem to know it’s here.”

“How did I get here? The last thing I remember was a fireball that blew me out of the tower.”

“You hit the water right after me. The lake doused your flames, and I pulled you through the tunnel into here.”

Pelmen looked Rosha in the eye. “Then we’re even,” he said solemnly. “I saved your life, and you saved mine. We can talk later of the wisdom of this enterprise.”

Rosha grunted and smiled sadly. “I’d not have saved yours if your cloaking hadn’t been so effective. The slavers filled the lake with arrows. We’d both have been skewered if you hadn’t covered us.”

Pelmen’s eyebrow drooped in a sharp frown. “I didn’t cover us!”

“What? You must have! They sure couldn’t see us!”

“But I didn’t.”

“Are you sure you didn’t cast it while you were falling? Just before passing out? I know you can maintain a cloak in your sleep—”

“I tell you I didn’t do it!” Pelmen snapped, and Rosha was surprised at his intensity. “But if indeed someone did—and that seems the only explanation for our survival—then who? And why?”

“I cloaked you, Dragonsbane,” said the waif-faced woman who stood suddenly behind them.

“Mar-Yilot,” Pelmen whispered as he splashed around to face her. Rosha grabbed for his sword. His scabbard was empty. It was Pelmen who’d had his robes burned off, but Rosha felt the more naked.

Pelmen paid no heed to his lack of apparel. He faced the woman squarely. “How long have you been there?”

“I just flew in. That’s the advantage of a butterfly-shape. People see you, but don’t notice.”

“Then you’re no longer cloaking the reservoir.”

“Should I be?” she asked pointedly. “The two of you are safe here for the moment. I thought I’d better join you to plan our way down.”

“Our way?” Pelmen asked suspiciously.

“Pelmen, dear, you need help. You’ve been badly blistered and half-drowned. That, on top of a ferocious shaper battle at very close quarters that I’d wager has rendered you all but powerless for days.

Of course,” she added with a sardonic smile, “your friend the Power could possibly make up for the damage and energy loss. But that really isn’t necessary.”

“Do you know the Power?” Pelmen asked. He still did not smile.

“Not personally,” the Autumn Lady said coldly,"but if he happens along, why don’t you introduce us.”

“You’ve not yet answered my foremost question.”

“Which was?”

“Why, Mar-Yilot? Why did you save us just now?”

The woman brushed her auburn hair out of her eyes and gazed out the cavern mouth toward the horizon.

The Furrowmar was yellow and brown with dying plants and crumbling leaves. It seemed for just a moment her golden eyes misted over. Then they cleared. “For the present, let’s say I owed it to you.

Both of you. There won’t be time for fuller explanations unless we get down off this rock.”

Pelmen didn’t speak. Rosha didn’t either. His eyes were fixed on his mentor, awaiting the powershaper’s next move. After a long pause, Pelmen finally whispered, “Why should we trust you?”

Mar-Yilot, who had been waiting for that, cocked her eyebrow and propped her hands on her slim hips. “Right. Why should you trust the witch who just saved your hide? What’s left of it.”

Reminded of his burns, Pelmen turned his head away from her and looked at his scalded shoulder.

“It’s rather pink,” Mar-Yilot went on. “In fact, all of you I can see is rather pink. And,” she added with a droll smile, “I can see all of you.”

“I’ll need some clothes,” Pelmen mumbled.

“You’d do well to have a good salve on that first. Now to business. How do we get down? I can fly, but I wouldn’t trust your feathers if I were you. And Rosha—” Here she looked at the young warrior directly for the first time, and her mocking tone seemed distinctly softer when she went on. “That is right, isn’t it?

Rosha?” He nodded firmly, face grim. “Well. It’s a long climb down that pipe. Too long.” Her voice was almost motherly. It made Rosha feel very strange.

“What do you suggest?” Pelmen asked wearily. His body was feeling the shock now. Much as he hated the arrangement, he knew the woman was right. They would be obliged to depend upon her.

“When I left our friends out there, they were sending swimmers into the lake. Thanks to that noisy castle, Flayh knows there was another shaper inside, but he doesn’t know who, and he doesn’t know for certain that the lake was cloaked. They’re going to hunt for bodies, and they’ll find two—which I’ve conveniently placed there already. These slavers!” She sighed. “They don’t know each other and they don’t care. They don’t even know how many there are of them. It’s child’s play confusing such a company of fools.”

“What they lack in organization they make up for in cruelty. Go on,” Pelmen urged, leaning back against a wall of the cave. He was feeling very dizzy.

“I’ll go get some rope, tie it on the rocks above, and drop it down. Then I’ll fly back inside. Rosha, you’ll climb up— I’ll cloak you, of course—then you’ll drop the rope down and I’ll tie it around Pelmen, and you’ll haul him out. Drop it down again and pull me up. I’d fly up but I can’t take my altershape and keep the cloaking spell in place. Then we walk around the lake and into the city. That may be tricky. Flayh’s surely not going to leave the perimeter of his fortress unpenetrated, and if he should guess rightly, he could nullify my spell. Pelmen, husband your strength. As we walk around the lake, add whatever coverage you can provide to mine. With luck, he could penetrate mine and catch us. Depleted though you may be, I’ll wager my life he can’t penetrate us both.”