Robert Hughes - The Power and the Prophet

“Correct,” Pelmen agreed, his eyes carefully watching the road. They were in danger. Mar-Yilot’s confession had made her inattentive. He wordlessly took up her task until she could return to it.

The sorceress laughed, this time derisively. “I had heard you’d become a holy man, Pelmen, but this I find difficult to believe. By your logic, we’ve no right to kill Flayh!”

Pelmen nodded. “I don’t think killing is ever a right. Unfortunately, it appears sometimes to be a responsibility.”

“Responsibility to whom?” the Autumn Lady challenged. “If he’s responsible at all to his father’s ghost, he’ll gut me here and now!”

“Did you see him die?” Rosha asked. The two shapers both turned to look at him, startled by his calm.

“Did either of you see him die?” he repeated.

Pelmen and Mar-Yilot exchanged glances. “I didn’t,” Mar-Yilot muttered.

“Nor did I.” Pelmen sighed. “He told me he preferred that I didn’t watch.”

“Where did this take place?”

“On the edge of a precipice not far from the glade of mod Carl. We were searching for you.”

Rosha nodded thoughtfully. “There was a weird woman in

the forest that morning, to whom I confided all of my thoughts…” He looked inquiringly at Mar-Yilot.

“That was me,” she admitted.

Rosha shifted position in his saddle. “Then if anyone is to blame, it must be me. For had I not been fool enough to attack Flayh’s castle on my own, my father would never have fallen into your trap. And if I hadn’t warned you he was coming, there’d have been no trap in the first place.”

Mar-Yilot gazed at the warrior, her golden eyes softening with a new respect. “It’s a rare young man who can accept his father’s death with such equanimity.”

“I wouldn’t, if I really thought he was dead,” Rosha said bluntly, and he hurried on to explain. “I think I would know if something like that were true. I’d feel it, somehow. I just can’t believe he’d die like that.”

The two shapers were stunned. Mar-Yilot withdrew from the conversation. She was no physician of minds, but she knew enough about denial to let the boy alone. Pelmen did not feel that freedom.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to eventually—” he began. Rosha cut him off. “Did you see the body?”

“No, but the fire—”

“Show me the body. Then I’ll believe it.” Rosha set his jaw, and turned his eyes to stare fiercely down the road. There was no more discussion. They rode steadily to the northwest— and every hoofbeat brought them closer to Flayh’s net.

The two powershapers and the warrior were not the only travelers on the road that day. It so happened that on this same afternoon, Pezi and his tugoliths reached Dragonsgate.

They had survived the Tellera Desert. Of course, they’d demolished a caravan of foodstuffs that had been intended for the new king’s coronation banquet, but that hadn’t been Pezi’s fault. And he’d offered the trading captain good money for the wagon Thuganlitha had sat on. Could he help it if the terrified merchant had already sprinted out of earshot by then? What had irritated him most about that particular adventure was that he’d gotten almost nothing out of it. By the time the hungry tugs finished gorging themselves, all he could salvage were a couple of squashed oranges and a clump of grapes. His belly had been vocally expressing its frustration ever since. Pezi would have loved to stop at the family castle at the foot of the pass to stock up on provisions, but he didn’t dare. He was already on the bad side of most of his cousins. He wasn’t about to destroy what was left of his reputation by taking Thuganlitha home with him.

Thuganlitha! That creature had become the bane of his existence. Pezi hated Thug, and Thug, of course, was only too willing to return the sentiment. It all could have been so easy without Thuganlitha along! To entertain himself as they’d traveled, Pezi had thought up a hundred ways of disposing of the beast. The trouble was. he lacked the nerve to put any of his plans into action. He kept hoping one of the other tugs would do it for him. None obliged. All except Chimolitha were as terrified of Thug as he was. And Chimolitha wouldn’t because she was too fair-minded. She wouldn’t harm anything unless she was convinced that it was right and necessary to do so. Thus far, Thug just hadn’t quite stepped over her line.

It made for a most unmanageable situation. Occasionally Pezi remembered that he’d intended to turn this herd into a fearsome battle unit. He usually tried to put that back out of his mind as quickly as he thought of it. The idea now gave him gas.

Pezi always got gas when he was nervous and he felt particularly gaseous today. He clung to his perch behind Chimolitha’s horn and gazed upward with bulging eyes, waiting for some sight of the dragon.

He’d seen the twi-beast in the sky three times since they’d left the capital, and that had given him heart.

He’d hoped that perhaps they could go through the pass while the dragon was off terrorizing Lamathian villages. But that dream was dying. He’d last sighted the dragon the day before, and it was then returning to its ancient lair. He greatly feared they were about to find Vicia-Heinox home. And what would a dragon do with a line of tugoliths and one corpulent merchant? He hoped the rejuvenated beast had eaten recently. Pezi had traveled this road a hundred times and he knew every turn. When they got within a few hundred feet of the last bend into the pass, he whispered to Chimolitha to stop. She did, and there followed a series of thuds that issued in a chorus of angry comments, as inattentive tugoliths rammed into the hindquarters of those in front of them. “Would you tell them all to shut up!” Pezi whispered in Chimolitha’s funnel-shaped ear, and she obligingly bellowed, “Shut up!” at the bickering herd behind her.

“Not so loud!” Pezi groaned, holding his throbbing forehead.

Chimolitha rolled her eyes up to regard him a bit resentfully. “Man, why are you never pleased?”

“What?” Pezi blurted, startled. “Why, but—but I am pleased, I’m often pleased! Ah, ah, yes, very often!”

The animal swung her head sadly from side to side—a gesture that nearly dislodged Pezi completely.

“You don’t say so,” she murmured.

The fat merchant clamped his legs and arms around the huge horn and hung on for his life. “But I do! I mean, I just did!”

The huge beast continued to shake her head in denial. “You yell a lot,” she said mournfully.

“I don’t either yell!” Pezi yelled. “I mean, I don’t do it very often…”

“Dolna doesn’t yell.” Chimolitha sighed.

Pezi didn’t like the direction this conversation was taking. He was also distracted by the din he heard going on behind him. When he craned his head around to listen more closely, he found to his chagrin that the other tugoliths were now arguing about what the words “shut up” meant. “Please don’t talk!” he shouted, and the herd hushed. Evidently he’d picked words they could understand, and he sighed with relief. For the twentieth time he reminded himself to keep it simple.

“You yell a lot,” Chimolitha repeated stolidly.

“Listen, Chimolitha, could we talk about this at a later time?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Fine. What we need to do now is—”

“What later time?”

“I don’t know!” Pezi exploded without intending to. Immediately he wished he hadn’t and he hurriedly explained, “I’m just very busy right now, you understand? I’m under an enormous amount of pressure!

I’m hungry, I’m—I’m tired, my nerves are in terrible shape! I mean, just look at me!”

Chimolitha rolled her huge eyes back and stared at him obediently.